“Are you going all the way to Malda, sir?” He asked me.

“No,” I replied. “Only till Lucknow.”

“Oh. I’m going to Kanpur.”

He remained silent till after the ticket checker had gone; then he remarked, “The coach seems pretty empty.”

“People get on along the way,” I replied. “It happens in long distance trains.”

He nodded abstractedly. “I hope so. I—I hate empty coaches at night.”

Most people would have welcomed an uncrowded coach. He must have noticed my astonishment, because he said, “That surprises you? Actually—but no; I’m boring you.”

I could see he had a tale to tell, and I was willing to listen. “No,” I assured him. “Go ahead.”

He spoke, in a flat voice, after a minute or so.

“I’ve been in Delhi five years, and I go home to Kanpur a couple of times a year,” he said.”I invariably take this train—it’s very convenient.”

I nodded. I’d found the Farakka Express convenient too.

“Three years ago, I was going home for Diwali,” he continued. “And, like tonight, the coach was fairly empty. I was at one end, all by myself. But it didn’t bother me, so I lay down.”

His face tensed.

“I woke with a start, just past midnight. I checked my watch- you know how it is on a night train. You’re always scared of missing your station. A sound had woken me. It was the clanking of a bucket—that aluminium bucket hawkers carry on trains, filled with Coke bottles. I’d heard that—and someone’s footsteps.”

He paused. “It was dark—only one light, outside the toilets, was on. But there was enough light for me to see that I was alone… And I could hear the bucket clanking—right there, in front of me. Where nobody was standing.”

I stared, my arms suddenly covered with gooseflesh. “That’s—that’s impossible!”

He began to unfold his blanket. “I don’t know. I got up and went to investigate. The clanking and the footsteps moved on, down the empty corridor. That’s when I turned, and ran to the other end of the coach, where some berths were occupied. I sat down there, just relieved to be among people. I stayed there till we reached Kanpur, where I told the TC.”

He untied his shoelaces. “He said there’d been an accident ten years back. A hawker in the general compartment dozed off next to the open door, and fell off—straight into the path of a passing train. He was crushed, but his bucket remained where it was. On the train.”

I tried to say something, but the words would not come.

He lay down and took off his spectacles, placing them beside the pillow. “That’s why I don’t like empty compartments.” Then he added, “If you’re up early, and Kanpur arrives—could you wake me, sir, please?”

I nodded, and he closed his eyes.

Though the train was clanging and puffing, an unearthly silence seemed to descend. I could not hear anybody talking, laughing, or even snoring. The Farakka Express was probably three-quarters full, but other than this young man, there was, to all appearances, nobody around. Nobody except—what?

I could have lain down; but I kept sitting at the window. Since the coach was airconditioned, it wasn’t a window, really: I couldn’t look out. But I could imagine the countryside. Dark, dense groves and pitch-black forests, inhabited by God knows what. Moonlit cropland, grey and dim, each field with its own scarecrow. Dead villages and towns, deep in a slumber from which some may never awake. I almost wished I could push down the window and look out, reassure myself that the world was still alive, still sane.

Someone turned off the light in the corridor. A weak blue nightlight lit our compartment: it wasn’t dark, but it was dark enough for me to suddenly want to reach out and wake up the young man.

Firozabad came, just past 1.30. And Firozabad went, two minutes later. I could not even rush to the door and get to savour the sight of a living place. I sat listening to the sounds drifting in: the faraway hoot of a train; a distorted announcement; a shouting coolie. And then we moved on.

The night inched its agonising way towards an unreachable dawn. I sat still, my aching spine glued to the backrest, unable to sleep.

Stations came and went: Shikohabad, at some unearthly hour past 2; Etawah an hour—or an eternity?—later. At both, I listened at the window, trying eagerly to catch some sound of life from the platform outside. But Shikohabad and Etawah merit only two minutes each, and the train continued all too soon.

I do not know whether I stayed awake, or dozed off after all. The footsteps that passed sometime during the night may have been those of the TC. The distant clang may have been a loose shutter, or the toilet door. The shadows and the oppressing silence that hung over the noise of the train may have been a nightmare—or a reality so grim that I almost sobbed with relief at the first glimmerings of grey snaking through the cracks in the window. Dawn was here.

And with dawn came Kanpur. The train pulled into the station at 5.30 and I nudged my companion awake.

“Thank you, sir.” He sat up, tied his shoelaces and rose. “Goodbye—and happy journey.”

He picked up his backpack, and turned to me.

“I hate alarm clocks,” he said. “Such a nuisance. It’s so much easier to have a fellow passenger who’s wide awake and looking out for all the stations.”

He winked. “It’s never failed.”

And then he was gone, whistling cheerfully.

(First published on www.sulekha.com)

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi, despite the fact that he was a mere two years older than his twenty-year old bride, had few qualms about correcting her. His superior education and his wider experience of the world, such as it was, made him (at least in his own eyes) a being far superior to his submissive wife. He had decided opinions about everything from religion to ancient mathematics to politics, and he was not by any means shy about expressing his opinions. His acquaintances, relatives, friends and neighbours were treated, willy-nilly, to long monologues. They were told that Hinduism preached a doubtful theology and could be much enriched by borrowing from Buddhism, Theosophy, and the Brahmo Samaj. They were informed that the only sure cure for a cough was a mixture of ginger, honey and peppercorns; that painting could never be replaced by photography; and that the Treaty of Versailles had been unduly harsh on Germany. Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi waxed eloquent on the many ills of venturing out without first drinking a glass of milk boiled with turmeric; he praised Dadasaheb Phalke’s Raja Harishchandra to the skies; and he insisted that there was no monument in India as exquisite as the Zeenat-ul-Masajid in Delhi.
He propounded theories that seemed either utterly ancient or completely avant-garde to a society that never quite knew what to expect of him.

Sulakshana bore, in a large part, the brunt of her husband’s admonitions and advice. “You should not let Birju cook the spinach in mustard oil,” he would say. “It is certain to cause flatulence.” Or, while inspecting a pile of neatly folded clothes brought in by the washerwoman: “Surely you will not accept this? She has been beating the clothes—see, these threads are fraying—”. Or, when he came home early one day and found Sulakshana sitting by herself and reading Devaki Nandan Khatri’s Chandrakanta: “Must you be filling your mind with such trash? If you cannot find a more uplifting book to read, tell me. I’ll get some for you.” And the very next day, Sulakshana had been brought half a dozen books from the local library. They ranged from Premchand and Bhartendu Harishchandra—which Sulakshana enjoyed—to translations of Goethe and Darwin, which put her to sleep.

The young woman bore the restrictions on her reading and her management of the household stoically enough. What irked her, however, was her husband’s never-ending counsel on her dress and deportment. “I do not see why you should be wearing such an expensive sari at home, Sulakshana,” he remarked one day. He had just returned from the shop and was sitting in the courtyard sipping a cup of tea. Sulakshana was sitting before him, waving a palm-leaf fan to keep him cool.

“It’s hardly expensive,” Sulakshana murmured in a moment of defiance. “It is cotton, after all.”

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi put down his cup and stared at his wife, horror writ all over his thin clean-shaven face. “It is a jamdani,” he said. “A Dhaka muslin. It may be cotton, but it is expensive. You cannot hope to fool me.”

Sulakshana, flushed with annoyance, looked down at the offending sari. It was a beautiful piece of work, a phulwar, with floral motifs woven into an elegant blue-black ground. It had been a gift from an old aunt, and Sulakshana knew well enough that her husband probably knew—to the nearest anna—how much it cost. He, after all, did not own a sari shop for nothing.

She did not say anything, and her husband picked up his cup again. “From now on, let me not find you wearing expensive clothes at home,” he said. “You of all people should know how things are. The poverty, the oppression, the turmoil in this country—the mind boggles.” He shook his head unhappily. “The Great War has not been over two years, and here you are, behaving in this extravagant fashion. Next we know, you’ll be dressing up in a banarasi to go to the temple.”

The arrival of a chance visitor had put an end to the conversation; but from that day on, Sulakshana was allowed to only wear dull cotton saris at home. If she had to go out, she was permitted to drape herself in something slightly expensive, such as a jamdani. Her richly embroidered kanthas, her jamawars and paithanis and tanchois, were put by and unearthed only at Diwali, or on the rare occasion of a wedding.

That day, Sulakshana was wearing a rather battered old tangail, an offwhite sari woven with a pretty border of black and red. It had seen better days; the hem was frayed, and there were a few spots of turmeric that even good strong sunlight had not been able to banish. Sulakshana was sitting cross-legged on the charpai, a well-polished brass paandaan cradled in her lap. She was busy cracking the supari when the washerwoman walked over, squeezing the water out of the end of her sari as she did so.

“There was quite a commotion at the ghat this morning,” the washerwoman said, apropos of nothing. She loved a bit of gossip, and Sulakshana, who had nothing better to do, had no objections to hearing it. She put aside the supari cracker and wiped her hands on her sari.

“Why? What had happened?”

“Some students from the English College had gathered at the ghat and were shouting slogans against the British. The police came and arrested all of them, each and every one. And you know, bibiji, those students didn’t utter a squeak about being dragged off to the police station. That was what really surprised me, the way they happily let themselves be taken away—”

Sulakshana was more in the know than the washerwoman. “Ah,” she said, going back to her task, “That’s because of the Non-Cooperation Movement, Lajwanti. Gandhiji has called for everybody to boycott the British, you know. He has said people should not touch anything that is even vaguely British: so students should leave schools and colleges that are sponsored by the British; government servants should leave their jobs; people should not use public transport. Things like that.”

Lajwanti looked at Sulakshana in wonder, as if Sulakshana herself were exhorting her to all these heroic—and unusual—feats of protest.

“The country will come to a standstill, bibiji,” she said, in an awed voice. “How will we manage?”

“The way we managed before the British arrived,” replied her mistress, with a faint smile.

“But where is the sense in deliberately getting arrested? The students could have easily escaped, bibiji; but I saw them letting themselves be arrested. That’s sheer stupidity; why would anybody want to do that?”

Sulakshana shrugged. “I have no idea,” she said quietly. “But Gandhiji has said that it will help the Freedom Movement, so I suppose he must be right.”

Lajwanti had to be satisfied with this answer; but Sulakshana herself came to know much more about the Non-Cooperation Movement, Civil Disobedience, Satyagraha, and nonviolent resistance that very evening. Her husband, who had also heard news of the arrests, took it upon himself to educate her.

“Gandhiji used satyagraha as a successful way to protest when he was in South Africa,” he told her as they sat on the verandah after dinner. Sulakshana was mending a tear in one of her saris, and Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi was chewing a paan and gazing pensively out onto the moonlit garden.

“And not just in South Africa, but also in Champaran and Kheda. Everywhere, even the poorest of people have come together in an organised way to protest—peacefully, mind you—against oppression. It has worked in the past; it should work now. Gandhiji has a lot of foresight, Sulakshana. You mark my words; if there is one man who can win freedom for this country, it is he. He alone can show us the way.”

Sulakshana did not say anything. She did not need to; her husband was quite happy listening to his own voice.

“There are other leaders who’re very sceptical, of course—Bal Gangadhar Tilak and Jinnah, plus some others, including Annie Besant—but that is to be expected. You can’t hope to please everybody. What matters is that the younger generation are all for it. The Congress Party is supporting it completely, and already hundreds of people are leaving cushy jobs with the government in order to enlist with the Congress.”

He droned on, recounting to a bored Sulakshana all the events of the past few weeks that seemed to indicate the increasing antagonism of the people to British rule. He extolled the right-mindedness of leaders like Maulana Azad and Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, who supported the Non-Cooperation Movement. He rattled off, as if he had learnt them all by rote (and Sulakshana wondered privately if he had actually done so), all the major incidents of Civil Disobedience in the past week. Sulakshana was told, in painstaking and tedious detail, of each arrest in the city; of each case of refusing to salute the Union Jack; of each episode that smacked even faintly of resistance to British rule. Sulakshana was yawning surreptitiously by the time he finally sat back in his chair and said, “It’s time we were asleep. Don’t want to be late getting up tomorrow morning, do we?”

Sulakshana’s interactions with the outside world were limited to the small-time traders and hawkers who came by with their wares; the servants; and a small circle of friends and relatives whom she occasionally visited, along with her husband. From these people, and from the newspapers that her husband insisted she read—“For heavens’ sake, you’re not illiterate! Use your education, Sulakshana. Read, read!”—she managed to remain somewhat abreast of what was happening. But it was, ultimately, her husband who directed her.

About a week after the mass arrest at the ghat, Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi came home to announce to his wife that their household was going to be joining the Non-Cooperation Movement.

Sulakshana, who was sitting on the bed and sewing buttons on to her husband’s kurta, looked up in surprise. “Joining the movement?” she said faintly. “But why? I mean—how? As it is, we do nothing to support the British.”

Her husband took off his neat black achkan and hung it up before turning back to her. “You may not think so, Sulakshana,” he explained patiently. “But unwittingly, we- and I don’t mean just the two of us, but also the servants- may be doing a lot of things that help support this colonial government. It’s wrong, absolutely and utterly and completely wrong. We’re killing our own motherland, Sulakshana; have you no patriotism in you?”

Sulakshana did not respond to this melodramatic piece of rhetoric, and her husband continued. “For instance: when you go to the market, or to visit your old school friend, you use public transport. Now that is support of the British government.”

“But I go in Manohar’s ikka,” said Sulakshana plaintively, a protest that drew a scowl from her husband.

“But do the servants do the same? No, they don’t—”

“They walk,” Sulakshana interrupted gently.

“All right, all right—maybe not as far as public transport goes, but there are other ways. We should stop using anything that is manufactured abroad. Be Indian, buy Indian. So no more of these fancy things you keep filling the house with. We are not here to help support the British economy. We have to look to our interests first, the interests of our nation—”

Sulakshana cut in again, this time not quite so gently. “Your hair oil is English,” she pointed out. “And your shoes. And the tailor who made those smart jackets of yours was also British, I think.”

“Certainly not! He was not British, he was a Goan gentleman. Part Portuguese, maybe, but very definitely not British. You cannot be expecting me to be burning up my jackets just because the man who made them is Goan. That would be silly. But yes, the hair oil must be thrown out. Get Birju to buy me some coconut oil when he goes to the market tomorrow.”

He paused a while, chewing his upper lip thoughtfully. “There is so much that can be done,” he said. “So much. We must do our bit, Sulakshana. It would be a shame if we didn’t.”

His wife nodded, and for a change (considering her recent volubility) did not say anything. Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi frowned to himself, and then, unable to think of anything else to say, went off to the room he liked to call his study.

Her husband may not have said anything further on the topic; but Sulakshana’s sister-in-law, who came visiting the next morning, had much to say. Devaki was a stout, richly dressed woman with a deceptively jovial exterior that hid an iron will. She was a good twelve years older than her brother, and was one of the very few people who paid no heed whatsoever to Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi’s many strictures. Fortunately for Sulakshana, this formidable lady had developed, almost from the day Sulakshana was married, a soft corner for her brother’s timid young bride.

Devaki bustled into the house shortly after ten in the morning, accompanied by two children and a servant carrying a large basket of mangoes. The servant was sent off towards the kitchen, the children were handed into the care of a maid with clear instructions not to let them wander near the well; and the lady herself turned to Sulakshana.

“Come along, child,” Devaki commanded, her bangles jangling as she caught Sulakshana’s arm and steered her towards the charpai under the neem tree. “I have something to say to you—here, Birju—” she broke off to yell—“some tea, and bring the sugar separately!”

The charpai creaked as Devaki lowered herself on to it. Sulakshana sat down, her hand automatically picking up the palm leaf fan. Devaki talked of this and that—her children, her husband, an excellent recipe for lime pickle—until Birju brought the tea. When he had returned to the kitchen and the two women were alone, she said, “What have you done to yourself?”

Sulakshana reddened, but she did not look at Devaki. She stared down into the milky brown depths of the cup she was holding, and said, “I don’t know what you mean. I am perfectly well, Didi.”

“You are well, I can see that,” Devaki snapped. “I am not commenting about your health, anyway. And well you know it!” She put her cup down and reached across to caress Sulakshana’s head in a distinctly maternal way. “Why are you looking so neglected, child? Is that fool to blame for this?”

Sulakshana shook her head vigorously. “There is nothing wrong with me, Didi,” she persisted. “Nothing at all.”

“Then why, pray, are you dressed like a beggar woman?” retorted Devaki acidly. “Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi’s wife, a rich young lady if I ever saw one, wearing little better than rags!”

Sulakshana bit her lip unhappily.

“Well?”

“It—it’s not good to be wearing expensive saris at home,” she whimpered.

“Hah! Parroting what that dolt of a husband of yours has told you, if I’m not mistaken.” Devaki’s eyes glittered. “Is that it? Did he tell you to stop wearing decent clothes at home?”

“He said it would not do for me to be extravagant. The war is barely over, and people are poor and oppressed…” her voice trailed off, betraying a serious lack of conviction.

Devaki tut-tutted. “And you listened to him. Pray how will your wearing rags help the poor and oppressed?” She waited for an answer, but since Sulakshana did not oblige her with one, she continued. “He may be my brother, Sulakshana, but I am under no delusions. He is a fool, and you’re a greater fool if you let him dictate such things to you. Let him concern himself with trade and politics and other such matters. Where the household is concerned—and most importantly, where you are concerned—he cannot tell you what you should do and what you shouldn’t. You’re the woman of the house, child—show a little spirit!”

She sipped noisily from the cup of tea and then added, somewhat as an afterthought, “And if I see you wearing those tatters the next time I come, I will personally dress you up in something more suitable.”

The conversation wandered on to other topics, and Devaki did not touch upon Sulakshana’s sartorial inadequacies any more. By the time she finally left—which was after a long and leisurely lunch—she seemed to have forgotten all about it. She hugged Sulakshana briefly, assured her that a jar of lime pickle would be sent the following day, and extended an invitation to dinner whenever Sulakshana and her husband should find it convenient.
Sulakshana stood at the gate for a few minutes after the ikka had disappeared in a cloud of dust down the lane. She looked lost in thought, and when she eventually turned and went back into the house, she had much on her mind.

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi entered his house that evening to find his wife draped in a stunning gossamer-light chanderi sari. It was a delicate apple green in colour, with a thin border and butis of deep red, embellished with gold thread. It had been, if his memory served him right, gifted to Sulakshana by Devaki. Bought at his own shop, too. An expensive sari—and she was wearing it at home.

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi stood at the door of the room and gaped. “You- you’re wearing a chanderi,” he gasped unnecessarily.

Sulakshana turned to him and smiled blithely. “Yes. Devaki Didi had given it to me, don’t you remember?”

“Yes—yes, of course I remember,” he replied, halfway between angry and astonished at this unexpected rebellion.

Devaki put down the vase in which she had been arranging flowers, and, with a look of quiet joy on her face, glanced down at the billowing pleats of the sari. “Isn’t it beautiful?”

“And expensive,” her husband snapped. “I think I’d told you not to wear your good saris at home.”

“Of course,” Sulakshana replied, looking up at him with limpid eyes. “But you told me that I should do my bit for the Freedom Movement, you know.”

Her husband stared at her in consternation. “What does the Freedom Movement have to do with your saris?”

“Lajwanti told me yesterday that they’re also burning cloth. Cotton cloth. There was a huge bonfire near the vegetable market, so I took Lajwanti along, and gave away all my cotton saris. Gandhiji would approve, wouldn’t he?”

Vibhushan Lal Chaturvedi sank back against the richly carved teak cupboard behind him. Perspiration had broken out on his forehead, and for almost a minute, he felt as if the room was whirling around him in a mad, gleeful dance of malice. He closed his eyes and swallowed hard, trying desperately to control the rising panic.

When he opened his eyes, Sulakshana was looking at him anxiously.

“You burnt your saris,” her husband croaked. “But your saris were Indian, completely and absolutely Indian. They’re only burning British cloth. Why did you burn your saris?”

Her face fell. “I didn’t know that,” she said. “I thought all cotton clothes had to be burnt. I’m sorry—but I haven’t given any of your clothes, I didn’t know if you’d want that. So that’s all right, isn’t it?” she added brightly. And her husband, for once at a loss for words, could do nothing but nod.
Sulakshana smiled to herself as she went off towards the kitchen. Devaki Didi would approve of her improved wardrobe.

And Lajwanti, much enriched by the windfall of a dozen cotton saris, would not think herself too poor any more.

(Winner of the e-author version 4.0 competition, www.oxfordbookstore.com and Reader’s Digest, 2006)

And that day, for the first time in what was to be a long and literally fruitful association, Maya stepped down into the dusty road, to stand beside the papaya man’s bicycle and examine the fruit he sold. Easily, unhurriedly, she smelt and felt each papaya, aware at the same time of the man who stood by, watching her. A quiet young man, who silently appraised her; admired the curve of her chin, the sleek golden slimness of her waist, and the thick silken plait which snaked its way down—

“This one,” Maya said, and glanced up to find him looking at her. He looked away hurriedly, and Maya, to her chagrin, flushed as she handed him the money, and wrapping up the papaya in the end of her sari, walked quickly away into the house. The man stood for a while, all by himself in the road, looking down at the crumpled money in his palm; then he continued down the road, not bothering to stop in front of any of the other houses.

And so it continued; for days, for weeks, for months. Long after papayas were not really in season any more—the papaya man would come, even if he only had one or two papayas to bring. Wheeling his cycle along, a quiet figure walking through rain and sunshine, dust and gale, stopping always at just this one house in the street. And Maya would watch for him, with a barely concealed tenseness, an eagerness she herself did not acknowledge. Even when the papayas were bitter and unripe; even when they were no good to anybody but Maya- she would buy them. To cut in thin slices and sprinkle with salt and red chilli; to eat, even if not to savour.

Until the day he said, in his characteristic quiet manner, “I won’t be coming from tomorrow.”

Maya gasped, her world suddenly tumbling to her feet. “Why?!”

He paused—perhaps for effect, perhaps because he was nervous—then he said, “I’ve got myself a job, in a printing press—”

She stared, perplexed. “But why? What’s wrong with selling fruit?”

“Doesn’t pay much,” he muttered, and then, gathering up all his courage, he looked her straight in the eye and added, “I’m thinking of getting married.”

That was all the proposal Maya could get out of him; but, a month later, when she stepped into her new home and looked in awe at the grove of papaya trees next door, she could not help but turn and look at her husband in wonder.

Her husband grinned shyly. “My neighbour’s papayas,” he murmured. “I really don’t think he’s missed any.”

(Highly commended winner in the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s Short Story Competition, 2002)

Mother protested, saying that I would get bored and be a nuisance. But she was overruled, and one sultry June day, Father put my suitcase in our old blue Fiat and drove me to Grandmother’s. The road, tarred and clean, cut through rich red earth, past lush green fields of rice and groves of coconut trees. Grey clouds, swollen with monsoon rain, threw into sharp relief the bright white spires of a roadside church and the terracotta roofs of the village houses that clustered by the roadside.

Grandmother’s house too had terracotta tiles on the roof. There was a narrow, dingy verandah with an old colonial balcony of wrought iron. A set of windows with wooden shutters, also colonial. A shrine, smothered with old wax and wilting marigolds, in the front yard. Grandmother, wrinkled and crabby, but very fond of me.

And there was Ruby.

Ruby was Grandmother’s housekeeper. I had never met her before, but it was not long before I made friends with her. Ruby was eighteen, a slender girl with clear golden-brown skin and long black hair that swung about her waist in two thick plaits. Her dresses were well stitched (I later discovered that she made them herself), and the chain on which she wore a small crucifix was pure gold. Most surprisingly, Ruby could read and write—and that too not just in Konkani, but in English. “Our family wasn’t always poor,” she said once, lifting her narrow shoulders in an unconscious gesture of pride. “My great-grandfather was of the Portuguese aristocracy.” I did not know whether to believe her or not, but I did not say anything.

When I would wake in the morning—at the leisurely `summer vacation’ hour of eight o’clock—I would invariably hear Ruby singing as she went about her work. She swept, mopped, scrubbed, and cleaned the utensils. She washed the clothes, weeded the miniscule kitchen garden, cooked the food, and ran errands for Grandmother. And rarely was she quiet. She would hum, whistle, sing—or simply chatter. “That fisherman took you for a ride, Grandma!” she’d yell gleefully, her slim fingers swiftly gutting the pomfret. “I could’ve got you this fish for less than half what you paid.” Or, looking over her shoulder as she hung dripping clothes on the line stretched between two coconut trees in the backyard: “This petticoat’s more holes than cloth. Donate it to that fisherman friend of yours. He could use it for a net!”

She would go on and on, teasing and needling, till Grandmother would yell, in her shrill voice: “Ruby! Keep quiet and get on with your work!”

The exact opposite of Ruby was her elder sister, Rose. She was fifteen years older than Ruby, and unmarried. A shapely woman, her curves more pronounced than Ruby’s girlish figure; her face less animated, her eyes less lively. She spoke only when she needed to, and it seemed to me that she was unhappy. It may simply have stemmed from the fact that she the quietest person in the neighbourhood; but it may have been that I, young as I was, could nevertheless sense desperation when it was around me.

For Rose breathed desperation and anguish and an unfulfilled hunger from every pore. Sometime in all the years since she herself had been Ruby’s age, Rose had seen her own youth start slowly slipping by. By urban standards, she may have been considered in her prime. By the stricter standards of the village, Rose was clearly marked as an old maid. The very women who chatted gaily with Ruby about dresses and movies and shopping trips, changed the topic—almost certainly without any deliberate attempt—to colicky babies and drunken husbands and the price of vegetables if Rose happened to come by. Rose attracted the matronly sort; they identified with her.

And it did not take me long to realise that Rose resented it. Resented her age, her depleting beauty, and the fact that everybody around had given up on her chances of ever getting married.

During the first week, I only met Rose when she came to Grandmother’s, on some errand or the other. She would come, silent as the dawn, walking so quietly down the path that none of us knew she was there until she spoke up. “Mrs Alva,” she would say—she was always very formal—“Could you spare me a cup of sugar, please? I’ve run out of it, and the Professor will be home soon”—or some such request. Grandmother and Ruby, both of whom loved to chatter, would try to involve Rose in gossip, and all the time she would be getting more and more restive. I, watching from the small cane stool on which I habitually sat, would see her hands clench and fidget, her smooth, immobile face become etched with lines of distress. Finally, she would burst out, “I have to go—he’ll be coming. Could I, please—?”

The sugar—or the salt, vinegar, whatever it happened to be—would be brought out. Rose would clutch it eagerly, and with a barely audible mutter of gratitude, would go rushing down the hibiscus-fringed lane, back to the house she kept for Professor Gomes.

It was a tiny villa, beautiful and old-fashioned in the way only a typical Portuguese-style Goan villa can be. I often passed by it on my walks, and one day Ruby, who was with me, suggested we go pay Rose a visit.

“Won’t the Professor mind?” I asked, scared of intruding.

“Don’t be silly,” Ruby scolded good-naturedly, gently nudging me through the wooden gate and pulling it shut behind her. “He won’t be home just now.”

She was right, of course—Ruby usually was. Rose was busy dusting, and all she said when she saw us was “Hello. Why don’t you sit; I’ve work to do, but you can talk.”

It seemed idiotic to sit in the drawing room while Rose went about her work, so Ruby and I followed her about. Ruby asked questions, volunteered information, talked nineteen to the dozen. Rose, taciturn as always, did the dusting. And I watched Rose.

She moved in a strange way through the house—her pace never hurried, her steps never swifter than a controlled walk. Yet she accomplished a lot, going about her work with a single-minded concentration. Where Ruby would have been jabbering, Rose was silent; where Ruby would have gone back and forth to do a dozen tasks, Rose efficiently managed it all in one single circuit around a room. She dusted the furniture, fluffed up the cushions, and straightened the framed photographs, the little ceramic curios, the rows of books lining the shelves.
And all the while, the only expression I saw on her face was one of—what was it? Resignation? Abstraction? Ennui? I was too young to be able to gauge emotions just by watching her face, but this much I could tell: Rose’s mind was elsewhere. She was standing in front of us, doing her work, ostensibly listening to Ruby’s chatter and nodding now and then. But she wasn’t really there.

Not, that is, until she stepped into a spacious whitewashed room towards the back of the house. The room had large windows overlooking a balcony crowded with flowerpots; beyond was the backyard and a hedge. In the room was a heavy wooden bed, its four posters carved in intricate spirals. A painstakingly worked crochet coverlet, snowy white in colour, stretched all over it down to the floor. There was an old almirah; a dressing table with a swinging oval mirror; a planter’s chair; and a bookshelf.

Rose crossed the threshold and paused, the way people do to offer up a little word of prayer when they’re stepping into church. Or at least that was how it seemed to me. I was looking up at her as we entered the room, and her expression surprised me. She did not actually smile, but just for a moment, I saw a brief flicker of what may have been a dimple in her right cheek. And then she was moving about again, doing her work.

“The Professor must read a lot,” remarked Ruby. “So many books.” She let a finger trail along a row of hardbound tomes.

Rose glanced at her. “Don’t touch those.”

Ruby giggled. “Why on earth not? I’m not doing any damage.”

“Just don’t do it.”

Without looking again to see if Ruby had obeyed her or not, Rose went to the dressing table, and very carefully, very gently, began dusting everything that lay on it. I watched her, fascinated, as she lifted up, one by one, the items on the polished wood. A sleek black comb; a bottle of aftershave; an alarm clock; a pile of letters; a gunmetal penstand stuffed with blunt pencils. She lingered over each thing, cleaning it meticulously, as if it had acquired God knows how much dirt in the twenty-four hours since she had last touched it.

She did not attempt to hide the softness that came into her face when she picked up the last thing she had to dust in the room. It sat on the bedside table, a studio photograph framed in a rich-grained dark wood. A young man, perhaps in his late twenties, handsome and cheerful, smiling at the camera. Smiling, right then, into Rose’s face as she gently wiped the glass, the frame- even the back of the photograph.

I did not realise the significance of what I was seeing. I did not realise it when Ruby said, “Wake up, Rose! We’re still around.” And I did not even realise it when Rose, as if emerging from a stupor, put down the photograph and left the room. We followed her, Ruby grinning mischievously, and I wondering why Rose was so different from Ruby.

But over the days to come, I did realise. Our trips to the Professor’s house grew more frequent—we even ran into him a couple of times, and he proved to be as handsome as his photograph. A quiet, pleasant man, who smiled at us and asked Rose to make us lemonade or tea.

Seeing Rose when Professor Gomes was around was a revelation. She was not, in the strict sense of the word, a changed woman—but she was different. Much, in fact, like the suddenly tender creature I had glimpsed the first day I watched her dusting his room.
Professor Gomes would say something completely prosaic—that he would be late coming home, so she should leave his dinner in the fridge—and the effect on Rose would be, at least to my eyes, strange. She would not be looking at him directly (she rarely did); but I could tell that every nerve was aware of him, of what he said and what he did. Her hands, busy cooking or washing or whatever, would continue with their work, but there would be the faintest of aimless wanderings. As if just the sound of the man’s voice had shaken the careful control of her fingers.
Her face would remain as passive as ever, but there would be a sudden brightness in her eyes, a look of keen concentration- and that concentration, I could see, was not on whatever work she happened to be doing, but on the presence of the Professor.

I was old enough to realise that Rose felt more than a mere friendliness towards her employer. I was also young enough to be shocked by what appeared to me such obvious stupidity on the part of Rose. She was, after all, a servant. Not too literate. And—this seemed worst to me—she was older than him.

But that didn’t appear to bother Rose. It did not even appear to bother her that the Professor treated her with a polite indifference, very appropriate to the harmless relationship between a bachelor and his housekeeper.

What bothered Rose—and bothered her very much indeed—was the coming of Melissa.

Melissa was all that Rose was not. She was a city girl, her hair charmingly cut, her lipstick a delicate shade of coral that complemented her peaches-and-cream complexion. Her dresses, pretty floral cottons and elegant chiffons, were tailored to her slim figure, and her bag always matched her shoes. She was genteel, lovely, softspoken—a glorious example of femininity. Her aunt, with whom she had come to stay, adored her. The women in the neighbourhood envied her. And the most eligible bachelor of the neighbourhood, Professor Gomes himself, fell head over heels in love with her.

His opinion of Melissa was such that within a fortnight of her arrival, people were gossiping about how the Professor was spending less time in his own house and more at Melissa’s aunt’s. His evening walks along the beach—with Melissa stepping daintily by his side—became a standard feature of village life.
They stopped over at Grandmother’s house one day, and even though Melissa’s hair was windblown and she had sand sticking to her sandals, she looked stunning. The Professor, gazing at her with frank rapture, was obviously smitten.

Grandmother, a die-hard romantic, sighed wistfully as she watched them ramble down the lane. “Such a handsome pair,” she murmured. “So beautiful together.”

But Rose did not think so, as Ruby and I were to discover the very next day.

She met us in the lane outside the Professor’s house; she had been out shopping. The weight of the bags—bursting with groceries and vegetables and other mundane items—made the veins stand out on her forearms and her hands, and her face looked drawn.

“You don’t look well, Rose,” I blurted out.

Rose looked at me as if she hadn’t noticed me before. “I’m all right,” she replied flatly. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

Ruby shrugged. “Have it your way. But I agree with the kid. You look terrible. Need a hand with those bags?”

Rose shook her head. “I said I’m okay, I don’t need your help.”

“But—”

“Stop it, damn you!” I had never seen Rose—calm, unemotional Rose—behave like this, and I shrank back. “I told you I don’t need your help, so stop pestering me. Why must you bother me? I don’t poke my nose in your business!”

Her bosom was heaving and her face was flushed. I had never imagined Rose could be so furious.

She lifted an arm, the bag she held obscuring her face as she used her wrist to push back a strand of hair from her forehead. A gleaming streak of perspiration across her knuckles shone in the sunlight as she lowered her arm.

“Leave me alone,” she muttered. “I don’t want anybody.”

Ruby was quick to goad her. “Does that mean you’re not coming home tonight? What will I say when Mother asks about you?”

Her sister did not say anything; she looked long and hard at Ruby, and then she walked away.

Things did not get better over the weeks that followed. They simply went from bad to worse. Professor Gomes, completely oblivious of what was happening to Rose, continued to go out with Melissa. He smiled a lot, even laughed now and then. And viewed the world through rose-tinted glasses in which, alas, Rose did not appear.
Grandmother sent me to his house one morning with a message for Rose, asking if she could come to Grandmother’s to do some cleaning, since Ruby hadn’t turned up. When I stepped into the front yard, I saw Professor Gomes on the verandah, getting ready to leave. His books were lying on a chair and he was busy knotting his tie. Rose was standing on the threshold, staring blankly into space.

I wished them good morning, and passed on Grandmother’s message. “That should be easy for you, Rose,” the Professor remarked. “Since I won’t be home for dinner, you’ll be able to leave early and go over to Mrs Alva’s.” He did not say why he wouldn’t be home for dinner.

Rose nodded. The Professor gathered up his books, said goodbye, and went off; and I, feeling awkward, went home.

It was two days later on a sunny Saturday morning that tragedy struck. I was sitting at the dining table breakfasting off French toast and banana milkshake when pandemonium broke out in the lane outside. A woman was shrieking at the top of her voice; someone was wailing; a man was shouting for a doctor. Something had happened nearby, and Grandmother and I rushed out to see what it was. Ruby, duster in hand, came racing out after us.

“He’s ruined my poor child! Scarred her for life! My pretty angel, my darling! So beautiful, so beautiful—why did he do it? Why? Oh, what will happen? What will I tell her parents—?” Melissa’s aunt, flabby shoulders shaking, was babbling incoherently. A little knot of women clustered around her. One of them was hugging her, while another was holding a glass of water and attempting to make her drink it. Two men, attracted by the outcry, were standing on the fringes of the group. One of them glanced at his watch and said something to the other about the doctor being on his way.

Grandmother made her way forward, intent on discovering what had happened. When she finally emerged, she was looking shaken.

“What is it, Grandmother?” I asked in an awed whisper. “What happened?”

Grandmother shut her eyes briefly, her withered old hand resting on my shoulder. “Let’s not talk about it just now, child,” she replied. “Melissa’s had a bit of an accident. Maybe we should both go in and pray for her. All right?”

I nodded obediently, though I was dying of curiosity. What sort of accident had happened to Melissa? To me, accidents meant cars or buses; and unless Melissa had walked down to the highway, she could hardly have encountered any cars in the area.

I slipped away as soon as I possibly could, to Melissa’s aunt’s house. The crowd had dispersed by then; there was nobody around, not even Melissa or her aunt. I guessed Melissa had been taken to the hospital. I walked further down the lane to the Professor’s house, wondering if he knew what had happened to Melissa. It was a silly thing to do, because even if he knew, I could never have plucked up the courage to ask him.

As I rounded the corner and came in sight of the hedge that surrounded the Professor’s house, I heard the sound of a woman sobbing. “I didn’t,” she cried, the words distorted. “I swear I didn’t. Why should I—”

“Why should you indeed,” cut in the Professor, his voice strained and sarcastic. “You would not want to harm a hair of Melissa’s head, would you? You love her so much, right?”

I sidled up to the hedge, looked swiftly along the lane to see if anybody was around, and reassured that there would be no witnesses to my prying, bent down to peek through a gap in the hedge.

Professor Gomes was standing, shirtsleeves rolled up and hair dishevelled, in the yard. Despair was written all over his face: despair and frustration and rage. At his feet, crumpled onto her knees, sat Rose. But this Rose was a far cry from the composed and quiet Rose I had once known; she was also very different from the pale and unhappy spectre that Rose had become over the past weeks. This Rose, with her long hair streaming out over her shoulders, her fingers clawing at Professor Gomes’ trouser leg, was an emotional wreck.

“I tell you I didn’t do it,” she wailed. “Please believe me, I didn’t.”

“Don’t tell lies,” he snapped. “I saw, with my very own eyes, the note you’d put with the flowers. Melissa may not have recognised the handwriting; she may have thought it was mine- but I knew whose it was, Rose. Just as I know who it was who sent those flowers to Melissa, knowing full well that she was violently allergic to them.”

“How am I supposed to know she’s allergic to bottlebrush? Please, Professor: please listen to me—”

“The entire village knows she’s allergic to them.”

Professor Gomes bent, grabbed Rose by the shoulders and very firmly thrust her away. “I don’t need you any more,” he said. “Go away, please, and don’t come here ever again.”

He strode away into the house, and Rose sank to the ground, sobbing as if her heart had broken. I slunk away back to Grandmother’s, not quite sure what had happened, but feeling very uncomfortable about it.

The next day, Father came to take me back home. As we drove past Melissa’s aunt’s house, I saw Melissa getting into a white car, a nurse holding one elbow. Melissa’s aunt hovered solicitously in the background, and further back stood the tall figure of the Professor. I caught a glimpse of Melissa’s face as she looked towards him. Her face was red, blotchy with rash, tears were streaming from her eyes—and her expression was one of sheer hatred.

* * *

I did not return to Grandmother’s house for a long time. Life was hectic, and after Father’s company transferred him to Delhi, it became difficult to go all the way to visit Grandmother. She came to stay with us once a year or so—usually around Christmas—and that was all.

I had grown up, finished with studies, and taken up a job as a travel writer of sorts when a trip down south brought me less than 100 kilometres from Grandmother’s village. I took the plunge and hired a cab to take me there.

The first person I saw when I reached the village was Ruby. An older, more mature Ruby, but Ruby nevertheless. Her hair was pulled into a neat bun, and her figure, firm as ever, was clad in a blue dress. She was standing in front of a general goods store, clutching a handbag that looked pure leather. I waved madly at her from the cab window, and although her face didn’t show any sign of recognition, she smiled, as if willing to make the acquaintance.

I paid off the driver and stumbled out of the cab.

“Ruby! Ruby, it’s been ages! How are you? Surely you haven’t forgotten me? Remember what fun we had when I stayed with Grandmother?”

Her eyes shone with sudden recollection. “Of course, how can I forget,” she smiled. “I rarely see Mrs Alva now, but I heard you were doing well for yourself. Here to see her?”

There was something different about her. It wasn’t just that the bubbly teenager had matured into a poised woman; there was more to it. I started to speak, but was interrupted by a woman who emerged from the shop behind Ruby. She was holding a scrap of paper, which she held out to Ruby.

“You left your shopping list behind, Mrs Gomes,” she said. “First I didn’t know whose it was, but then I guessed it must be yours, the handwriting is so exactly like poor Rose’s. I knew her quite well, you know. Such a shame about her, I would never have thought she was the type to lose her balance like that—”

I stood there in the dusty street, staring wild-eyed at Ruby.

And Ruby just smiled serenely back at me.

(Winner of the e-author version 4.0 competition, www.oxfordbookstore.com and Reader’s Digest, 2006)

Imam Miyan’s hefty fist clouted Rashid half-affectionately. “Eat up, you swine! Do you want to be late? Better get there before the fog lifts and people start arriving.”

Rashid nodded, his thin shoulder hurting with the blow. Not that he would ever protest; Imam Miyan was the only adult who was even remotely kind to him; and when you were just eight years old and an orphan, kindness mattered a hell of a lot. Rashid summoned up a watery smile, but kept quiet. As far back as he could remember, he had been having breakfast—a crumbly rusk and a cup of tea—at Imam Miyan’s stall. Whether his parents had been friends of Imam Miyan’s he neither knew nor cared; all that mattered was that Imam Miyan was good—sometimes.

Rashid finished the rusk and dug out a coin to pay, but he was lucky today—Imam Miyan refused the rupee.

Bihari, three years older than Rashid, was waiting at the corner, his scabby knees knocking together with the cold. They walked together to the riverside, and Bihari muttered, “Do you want to go in today? It’ll be like ice.”

Rashid nodded vigorously, trying to push away the thought of the chill water, the itching rash on his body and the stench that awaited him. They had reached the stone steps leading down to the water, and he stripped hurriedly, handing his clothes over to Bihari. The river was a swirling mass of sewage, carrying with it plastic bags, wilted marigolds and garbage. A sacred river, they called it- sacred enough for the ashes of the dead, from the cremation ground upriver, to be ceremonially immersed in it. Ashes, with bits of charred bone sometimes, wrapped in red cloth… all of it whirling downriver, somewhere to an unseen nirvana.

Rashid dived.

It was cold. Cold and opaque, wrapping its foul, grasping fingers about his thin little body, numbing his senses with its rotting presence, encasing him in an insidious envelope of slime. Rashid plunged, deep and swift, down to the riverbed. It was murky and horrible, but he swam around, in widening circles, till his lungs felt as if they would burst, and then he rose, gasping, to the surface.

A few gulps of cold air, and then he was diving down again, into the depths of the Yamuna. Six dives it took before he hauled himself out, shivering and retching. Bihari was sitting on his haunches, sifting hurriedly through a pile of slime, but he rose to help Rashid up the steps, dripping and exhausted. Rashid shrugged on his ragged clothes, watching Bihari through a putrid, shivering daze. After a moment, he said, “Come along. People have started coming; it wouldn’t do to get caught.”

Bihari stood up, and with their sodden, stinking burden, the two boys began walking back to the slums, Rashid still wet. He glanced back once over his shoulder, and saw men, wrapped in white, already beginning to go down the steps to the river. Chanting, breathing prayers, bringing with them flowers and fruit, incense and coins—all to be thrown into this sacred, smelly river. New coins, bright and shining—offerings to the Yamuna, propitiation for past sins—and Rashid’s daily earnings.

(Winner of the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association’s Short Story Competition, 2003)