Cracking India (20 page)

“Oof!” says Ayah suddenly, her comb caught painfully in her tangled hair.

The periphery of my world extends to Mozang and Temple Road. Every Sunday we accompany the Shankars to the Daulatrams' two-story brick house for an evening of classical Indian music. The singers all make faces and strange noises but Israr Ahmed is my favorite singing boy. We sit on carpets and the singers on white sheets facing us. The accompanists—a harmonium player and a tabla-drum player—wiggle their toes and chew betel nut.

Israr Ahmed, a nondescript, unassuming, middle-aged clerk, is transformed into a dervish when he takes his turn on the white sheet. He flings his arms about, opens wide his mouth, displays
paan
-stained molars and makes noises that would turn the zoo animals green with envy. He gargles up and down the scale! He roars! He dislocates his jaw and hoists his mouth to one side—and then to the other.

Adi, Cousin and I cannot contain ourselves. In our fervor to acquire classical culture we copy his movements, contort our faces, twist our necks and are slapped and shushed for our pains.

Processions are becoming a part of the street scene. A youth holds aloft a stick with a green rag, bellows a slogan, and a group of rowdy urchins rally to the cry.

Adi and I slip past the attention of our vigilants and join the tiny tinpot processions that are spawned on Warris Road. We shout ourselves hoarse crying,
“Jai Hind! Jai Hind!”
or
“Pakistan Zindabad!”
depending on the whim or the allegiance of the principal crier. Within half an hour the processions disintegrate. The ragged flag holders, their trousers gray with washing, their singlets peppered with holes and grease spots, make a few desultory attempts to rally
the stragglers. Then, lowering the banner, which reverts to becoming a lowly rag on a twig, the rabble-rouser usually climbs a mulberry tree for its fruit and we sneak back unnoticed.

We are gradually withdrawing from the shadow cast by the Queen's statue in the park. As the British prepare to leave, we meet less and less at the park and more often at the wrestler's restaurant.

Adi and I climb the rickety wooden steps behind Ayah and pick our way between the empty tables to our crowd. It is still a bit early for the regular diners. Our friends are sitting at the back, on either side of two narrow tables joined together. They are arguing. Everybody appears to be quarreling these days.

The wrestler shouts to Chotay, a skinny twelve-year-old in a skimpy lungi, to place wooden stools at either end of the tables. Adi and I sit on the stools, at the head and tail of the table, and Ayah sits down next to Masseur on the bench opposite the butcher.

Chotay hangs around, waiting for our order, and Ayah, with princessly authority and indulgence, orders three plates of vegetable biryani. “See that it's hot,” she says, adopting Mother's tone with servants, “or I'll see to you!”

Like all urchins apprenticed to such establishments Chotay is bullied, teased and slapped around.

Continuing the conversation—and the feeding—our arrival has interrupted, Masseur says: “If the Punjab is divided, Lahore is bound to go to Pakistan. There is a Muslim majority here...”

“Lahore will stay in India!” says the Government House gardener, cutting him short. He is sitting next to the butcher. “There is too much Hindu money here,” he says in his quiet, seasoned way. “They own most of the property and business in the city and...”

“But there are too many Mussulmans!” insists Masseur.

“So what? People don't matter... Money does!”

We look his way, startled by the unexpected cynicism, as he tucks a gob of rice into his mouth.

“It won't be hard to put the fear of God up the rich Hindus' dhoties—money or no money,” says the butcher in a coarse, harsh voice.

“It just might be the other way round,” murmurs the gardener.

In the tense silence that follows this exchange, only Adi and I look at them. The rest avert their eyes and appear to be preoccupied with their food.

Chotay appears with our plates, holding all three in one hand, and places them before us with a noisy clatter.

The butcher raps his plate on the table to indicate he wants another helping. The boy picks up the empty plate and the butcher, turning sharply, slaps his shaven head. It is a tempting target.

“Oye! You gone stupid?” says the butcher belligerently. “D'you know what I want?”

“The same?” Chotay says, wincing. His bared, narrow chest makes him look frighteningly vulnerable.

The butcher spanks his head again. “Did I ask for the same?”

Chotay stares at him foolishly.

“Bring me chops!” says Butcher as if he's just taught Chotay an invaluable lesson.

“You heard him, oye!” says the wrestler, also lightly spanking the boy's head. “What're you staring at our faces for? Hurry, or I'll break your bottom!” He exchanges a concurring glance with the butcher, showing his appreciation of the pains his friend has taken to smarten up the boy.

Chotay, ducking out of range of their hands, scampers away, dutifully saying, “Be right back,
janab!”

“What d'you mean, put the fear of God up the rich Hindus' dhoties?” says Ice-candy-man, turning his suspiciously innocent, olive-oil eyes on the butcher.

“You know what I mean,
yaar
,” says the butcher impassively.

I close my eyes. I can't bear to open them: they will open on a suddenly changed world. I try to shut out the voices.

All at once the Sikh zoo attendant shouts, “And what about us?” so loudly that my eyes pop open. “The Sikhs hold more farm land in the Punjab than the Hindus and Muslims put together!”

“They don't!” says the butcher flatly.

“Are you calling me a liar?” Sher Singh's voice cracks with excitement and his agitated fingers disperse bits of rice in his beard.

“The only way to keep your holdings, Sardarjee, is to arrive at a settlement with the Muslim League,” intervenes Masseur, smoothing the quarrel with his voice. He dusts the rice from Sher Singh's beard. “If you don't, the Punjab will be divided... That will mean trouble for us all.”

“Big trouble,” concurs Sher Singh portentously: as if he has secret knowledge he could disclose.

“You're what? Only four million or so?” asks Masseur. “And if half of you are in Pakistan, and the other half in India, you won't have much clout in either place.”

“You don't worry about our clout!” says Sher Singh offensively. “We can look out for ourselves... You'll feel our clout all right when the time comes!”

“The British have advised Jinnah to keep clear of you bastards!” says the butcher just as offensively. “The
Angrez
call you a ‘bloody nuisance'!”

“We don't want to have anything to do with you bastards either,” roars the puny Sikh, sounding more and more like the tiger in his name.

“History will repeat itself,” says the restaurant-owning wrestler phlegmatically. He slowly lowers his arm, and stretches it across the table. “Once the line of division is drawn in the Punjab, all Muslims to the east of it will have their balls cut off!”

His quietly spoken words have the impact of an explosion. And, as in the aftermath of a blast, the silence excludes all extraneous sound... The shrill voices of the children in the gully, the noise of traffic from the Chungi. Only Ice-candy-man's voice as if from a distance, saying: “Oye! You gone crazy? you son-of-an-owl!”

And the wrestler, quietly saying, “My cousin's a constable in Amritsar District... he says the Sikhs are preparing to drive the Muslims out of East Punjab—to the other side of the Ravi.”

“But those are Muslim majority districts,” says Masseur.

“The Sikhs are the fighting arm of the Hindus and they're prepared to use it...like when they butchered every single Mussulman from Ambala to Amritsar a century ago, during the Mogul empire's breakup.”

“Behold! The savage arm of the murderous Sikh!” says Masseur, holding aloft and dangling Sher Singh's puny arm; his fingertips showering curried rice. Masseur places his arm around the Sikh and hugs him affectionately.

“It's fit only for bangles now!” says the butcher contemptuously. He tosses the gnawed skeleton of a lamb chop over his shoulder. “The Sikhs have become soft living off the fat of the land!”

“Don't fool yourself... They have a tradition of violence,” says the wrestler. “Haven't you seen the portraits of the gurus holding the dripping heads of butchered enemies?”

“Shut up,
yaar,”
says Masseur, his face unusually dark with a rush of blood. “It's all
buckwas!
The holy Koran lies next to the Granth Sahib in the Golden Temple. The shift Guru Nanaik wore carried inscriptions from the Koran... In fact, the Sikh faith came about to create Hindu-Muslim harmony!” He looks around the table to see how we are taking his impassioned plea for reason. “In any case,” he continues more mildly, “there are no differences among friends... We will stand by each other.”

“Of course,
yaar,”
agrees the off-duty sepoy. (I can't tell what faith he belongs to.) “Who are we to quarrel? Let the big shots fight it out!”

“You're right, brother,” says the Government House gardener. “The politicians will say anything in times like these to suit their purpose... But the English
Sarkar
won't let anything like that happen... You saw how they clamped down on the Independence movement.”

There is an instant hum of agreement and disagreement.

“The English are not to be relied on,
yaar,”
interposes Ice-candy-man, pushing his empty plate away to show he's done with eating. “They're too busy packing off with their loot to care what
happens... But that Nehru, he's a sly one... He's got Mountbatten eating out of his one hand and the English's wife out of his other what-not... He's the one to watch!”

He should know. He's working in the Government House as a
chaprassi
these days. And given his inquisitive nature and wily ways—

“Don't underestimate Jinnah,” says the off-duty sepoy. “He will stick within his rights, no matter whom Nehru feeds! He's a first-rate lawyer and he knows how to attack the British with their own laws!”

“Jinnah or no Jinnah! Sikh or no Sikh! Right law, wrong law, Nehru will walk off with the lion's share... And what's more, come out of it smelling like the Queen-of-the-
Kotha
!” Ice-candy-man speaks with an assurance that is prophetic.

 

They go on and on. I don't want to hear them. I slip into Ayah's lap and, closing my eyes, hide my face between her breasts. I try not to inhale, but I must; the charged air about our table distills poisonous insights. Blue envy: green avidity: the gray and black stirrings of predators and the incipient distillation of fear in their prey. A slimy gray-green balloon forms behind my shut lids. There is something so dangerous about the tangible colors the passions around me have assumed that I blink open my eyes and sit up.

Some instinct makes me count us. We are thirteen.

I am not too young to know it is an uneasy number. I count us again, using my fingers like Mother does. There is Ice-candy-man, Masseur, Government House Gardener, Butcher, Sher Singh, the sepoy from the barracks, the wrestler, Yousaf and Hari who've been listening quietly, the Faletti's Hotel cook, me, Adi and Ayah.