Married Woman (15 page)

It was too much to handle as a play. She felt like giving up, but the thought of not having anything to show Aijaz drove her on. She gripped her pen, took a deep breath, and plunged.

She was still plunging when Hemant returned from the Sunday tea spent upstairs with his parents, bonding over business and politics.

‘Back already?’ she asked.

‘It’s been two hours‚’ he replied.

‘Oh, I hadn’t realised. This whole thing is very complicated‚’ said Astha.

‘People make it so‚’ replied the husband. ‘Otherwise what is there in an abandoned mosque? The government is too bloody soft on these Muslims, that is the problem.’

‘Surely that is not the issue. Power seekers – on both sides – use religion quite blatantly. How can beliefs about god be compatible with violence?’

‘You don’t know
their
religion.’

‘As though ours is so much better. Ram would have hated what was going on in his name – a man who sacrificed everything to keep his father’s honour, who left his home, his palace, his kingdom in order to make sure his brother inherited, he would be the last to appreciate the fuss over his birthplace.’

‘Times have changed. We are preserving his honour as it needs to be done now.’

Astha stared at her husband. Was he agreeing that people
should be killed in the name of God? She didn’t want to know what he thought.

‘Wasn’t Aijaz going to write this play‚’ continued Hemant. ‘Didn’t you tell me he was a history teacher? Surely this is his area of expertise, not yours. How have you got so involved?’

‘He wants everybody to participate‚’ said Astha thinking quickly. ‘Besides you forget I am the teacher volunteer.’

‘Volunteer, not donkey.’

‘Translating history into theatre is hardly work a donkey can do.’

‘Nor can you. What is your experience?’

‘I don’t need experience.’ She felt she was being denied something, not understood, throttled, and choked. And yet it was just a play. He was right, she had no experience. Though Aijaz was in a better position to write about masjids and controversies, still she would hold her own, paltry though that own might be. ‘Aijaz doesn’t think experience is necessary‚’ she went on in defence.

‘Oh pardon me‚’ he said, and his wife hated the mockery in his tone, ‘he clearly knows how to get work out of you.’

‘Can I speak to you a moment?’ Astha asked Aijaz on Monday during the fifteen-minute break he allowed the kids.

‘Trouble with the masjid?’ he smiled.

Astha nodded briefly.

‘Shall we go to the canteen?’

In the canteen she opened her bag and took out flurries of photostats. ‘I don’t know where to begin‚’ she started. ‘It’s such a tangled history, and leaving one piece out makes it lopsided. Besides it is used for many different political purposes in the present as well.’ This Astha had only realised yesterday. So far the Babri Masjid had been something mentioned in the news with the irritating air of a problem that wouldn’t go away. ‘I do wish you would write it, or conceive it. I am sure you are far more knowledgeable.’

Aijaz looked at her clutching her photostats. ‘Do you think it is only the so-called experts that should be allowed to deliver opinions? You are looking at it from the outside. Your perspective is fresh, it is invaluable.’

‘But I am very ignorant and I cannot possibly do it justice‚’ she said, quick as a flash putting herself down.

‘It doesn’t matter, Astha‚’ he said. His voice was coming at her, his eyes were looking at her, any second and his teeth would glow at her. She was married, she should not be registering these things. She shifted uneasily on the hard canteen bench, clutching her bag in her lap. ‘The thing is‚’ he went on, ‘we have to create awareness. There may be differences of interpretation, it doesn’t matter. If our players and our audience think for one moment about this issue, we have done our job.’

‘You have already created awareness in one‚’ she mumbled daringly.

‘And you will create it in many.’

‘I don’t know‚’ she replied, ‘I have no experience.’

The smile, the teeth, the hand that lightly touched the phototstats. ‘What is all this?’

‘Material I gathered. I sketched out a few ideas, though I am not sure—’

‘Let’s see‚’ he interrupted, leaning forward. She could smell him, a faint sharp smell. She shifted uneasily again, clutching her bag still more firmly to her stomach, riffling through her papers.

‘I thought of starting in 1528, you know when Mir Baqi decrees that a mosque be built at the highest point in Ayodhya in the name of his most noble ruler Emperor Babur, a brief two-line scene. We could have a boy with a placard announcing dates and locations. Perhaps the same boy could double as the mosque, a mosque that just wants to be left alone thinking each fight will be the last.’

‘Himanshu would be good for the part. He is the youngest.’

Her own thoughts exactly. She looked up and smiled, he smiled back, she quickly looked down, he must think she
found her paunch fascinating, she looked at it so much. ‘Do go on‚’ he said after a moment’s silence.

‘Then a short scene set in 1855. The Muslims think the Ayodhya ruler is showing favours to the Hindus. They claim that the temple at Hanuman Garhi is built on a mosque, they march towards it, the Hindus retaliate by saying the Babri Masjid is built on a temple and they march upon it—’ she paused. ‘Actually there was more but I have pared it down to the essentials, everybody thinking they have been done in, and asserting their power through temples and mosques.’ She looked at Aijaz anxiously. ‘I hope I have got it right?’

‘Absolutely. Then?’

‘A lot of people were killed during this time, Hindus as well as Muslims, and the whole thing became openly political. There was an enquiry committee consisting of Hindus and Muslims, presided over by the British Resident. But after 1857 power equations changed, and two years later, the British declared that access to the Babri Masjid would be bifurcated. The Hindus were to enter from the east, and the Muslims from the north.’

‘Then?’

‘This state continues till the British leave. Then in 1949, some idols appear. The Hindus claim this is a miracle, while the constable on duty states that about fifty to sixty people broke into the masjid on the night of December 22. The next day the District Magistrate declared the area disturbed and locks are put on the masjid. At this point I stopped.’

‘You haven’t written more?’ Aijaz sounded disappointed.

‘Well last February the district court ordered the locks open. Rajiv Gandhi is probably involved, but I don’t know how far to go in showing the masjid as a tool in modern political equations‚’ said Astha, pleased at his tone.

‘We’ll work something out.’

Aijaz took out his wallet, while Astha groped around for change. ‘If you don’t let me pay for one sweet and overcooked cup of tea I’ll be very upset‚’ said Aijaz as they rose to go.

The appreciation that Aijaz had shown moved Astha so much she couldn’t help talking about it at dinner.

‘Aijaz liked the script‚’ she started.

‘He told us it was a wonderful script‚’ put in Himanshu ‘but we could change it any way we wanted because we are to bring our own – own – what, Mama?’

‘Interpretations.’

‘Yes that – to our parts. And I’m to be the mosque and carry placards. I have to keep crying and getting hit. Everybody wants me.’

His parents looked at him indulgently. ‘Really beta?’ said Hemant. ‘I must come and see you.’

‘Yes, Papa. We are going to do it the last day of the holidays. All our families and friends should come, Aijaz said.’

‘Aijaz Uncle‚’ corrected the father. ‘He is older than you.’

‘No Papa, Aijaz does not believe in hi – hi—’ He looked at his mother again.

‘Hierarchy.’

‘The girls in Mama’s school don’t call him anything‚’ said Anuradha. ‘They are so shy, can you imagine? It is a very good thing that Himanshu and I go, otherwise poor Aijaz would have a hard time with them.’

‘Anu‚’ reproved Astha, ‘they are not that bad.’

‘Oh, Mama, you don’t know.’

Only later did Astha realise that Hemant had not actually said anything about her script. Well, it didn’t matter, he would see the play performed, and recognise his wife’s hidden talents. At night, lying in bed, she drifted off to sleep with thoughts of Aijaz and the days ahead.

Astha loved looking at Aijaz on stage, allowing herself frequent covert glances. He was of mediun height, his body compact. His face was the clear delicate luminous brown of freshly rained-on earth. His lips were a darker brown than his skin, and his eyes were black and narrow. While working he rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, allowing Astha to view at
her leisure his round strong arms, hairless, smooth and muscular. He had prematurely grey hair, which, thick and springy, fell about his face and neck in ways that suggested a good barber. He must be vain of his hair, thought Astha, knowing how attractive the grey made a young face look.

Through those fifteen days, Astha saw the little thing she had penned transformed, and her admiration for him grew. Song, dance, mime, action, improvisation, actor involvement, he fused all these elements effortlessly into a fast-moving, absorbing piece.

She and her children talked of nothing but the play, the rehearsals, the way everybody was acting, who was good, who was bad, who came late, who not, who had team spirit, who not, and what Aijaz had said. Every day Astha was called upon to add a bit of information, to corroborate some piece of evidence, suddenly she was the Babri Masjid expert, and this she felt was Aijaz’s doing – he who was the history teacher, allowing her to parade her knowledge when surely his own was greater.

He looked at her, he wanted her opinion even when it wasn’t necessary, he smiled when there was no occasion. Perhaps she shouldn’t think of him so much, but soon it would be over, where was the harm, it made her happy, and that in itself was worth something?

Sometimes as Astha sat on the stage she absently sketched the scenes before her, wanting to capture her son as the mosque, her daughter as a rabble rouser, and Aijaz as their teacher. By now she knew by heart his perfect teeth, his full lips, the smoothness of his cheeks, the deep dimple near his mouth, the curl in his hair, the glint in his eyes. She tried to translate these things on paper, but only registered pale copies. Her activities attracted his attention.

‘What are you doing?’ he asked during one break.

‘Nothing much.’

‘No let’s see‚’ and he gently tugged at the papers she had turned face down on her lap. For a moment his curled fist rested on her knee.

Hastily she shoved the drawings at him, repeating the mandatory, ‘It’s nothing much.’

Aijaz turned the papers over. Astha drew fast and there were ten sketches in all. ‘For how long have you been drawing?’ he asked.

‘On and off since I was young. Mostly off.’

‘You should continue. You capture whatever is going on well.’

She found his immediate presence too disturbing for conversation.

‘Why don’t you come to my place sometime, you can have a look at what I do.’

Paralysed silence on her part. After a second he dropped the papers back into her lap and shouted ‘Time’s up’, clapping his hands to get the children’s attention.

What did it mean, did he like her, did he want to have an affair with her, why had she been so startled by his hand on her knee, why hadn’t she responded, but she was a married woman, with two children and those right before her eyes.

‘What was Aijaz saying to you, Mama?’ asked Anuradha, the sharp eyed one, in the scooter back home.

‘Nothing much, beta. He was looking at my drawings, that’s all.’

‘Did he like them?’

‘There is nothing much to like‚’ said Astha, teaching her daughter how to devalue her work, and passing on the tradition from woman to woman.

Anuradha lost interest. Himanshu having just grasped their topic of conversation demanded, ‘What? What? What did Aijaz say to you, Mama?’

‘Nothing much beta.’

‘Then what was Didi saying?’

Anuradha cast him her usual you’re so stupid look.

‘She wanted to know what he said about my drawings, that’s all.’

‘What did he say?’

‘Nothing.’

‘What did he
say
?’

‘He said they weren’t bad, that I should continue, continue to draw‚’ repeated Astha quickly before Himanshu could say what again.

That night, lying awake in bed, Astha went over everything Aijaz had said, she relived that touch on her knee, his head bent over her drawings.

In a few more days the workshop would end. Would he repeat his invitation? Had it been a spur of the moment thing, or was he attracted to her? Why was she so shy? Maybe she should phone him, call him over, but how, with everybody watching, it was so difficult, after this would she ever see him? How could they meet again?

She tossed and turned, trying not to disturb Hemant. If an accidental brush against her knee was so dislocating what would anything else be? And then she felt stupid, had Aijaz asked her to elope with him? No, he had merely asked her over to look at his drawings. What connection did that have with her marriage? She was a fool, a fool, a fool.

One thing was clear though, he liked her drawings, he thought she had something. He was also an artist, he must know what he was talking about. Suddenly she glimpsed possibilities, suddenly her life seemed less constricted.

She sighed, and closed her eyes, willing sleep to come, pressing herself firmly against her husband, hoping for the comfort of habit.

The auditorium was dark. The parents in the hall fidgeted, making allowances for the twenty-minute delay in the rise of the curtain on
Babri
Masjid:
Fact,
Fiction
and
You.

‘It sounds like a bloody political tract‚’ said Hemant.

‘Don’t you like it?’ asked Astha, sitting next to him in the front row. ‘The title was mine. Aijaz thought it was a good one.’