The Accidental Apprentice (10 page)

‘I'm Babli,' she says.

‘Oh, so you are the one getting married?'

She nods.

‘Well, congratulations on your wedding.'

She doesn't reply, but the infinitely sad expression in her eyes conveys more than words.

‘Babli? What are you still doing in your room?' I hear a woman's voice call her from the other side.

‘I know you are going back today. If you could just put this in an envelope, affix a five-rupee stamp and drop it into the nearest letterbox, I will be eternally grateful. I've written the address on the top. Will you do this for me?'

‘With pleasure,' I reply, taking the folded piece of paper from her hennaed hands.

‘Please don't forget to post this,
didi.
It's very important to me,' she says plaintively. Then, like a turtle withdrawing into its shell, she pulls her head back, latching the door shut once again.

I am still trying to absorb the shock of this unexpected encounter, when there is a knock on my door. ‘Are you awake,
beti?
' I hear Kuldip Singh's voice. Outside, his driver is tooting the Innova's horn. It is time for my four o'clock bus to Karnal.

With a last, lingering look at the locked door, as if bidding farewell to a loved one, I put on my coat and walk out of the room. Kuldip Singh is waiting outside with a big box of laddoos, which he thrusts into my hands. ‘Since you cannot stay for the wedding, at least enjoy these sweets.' He grins. I thank him profusely, make my goodbyes and get into the Innova.

As the vehicle speeds away from the house, I cannot stop thinking of Babli. There is something about her that reminds me of Alka. Her sorrowful, resigned look raises troubling questions about this wedding. This much is clear: that an eighteen-year-old girl is being married off to a much older man, probably against her will. But such marriages happen all the time in the country. There is nothing I can do about it. I am simply a passer-by. I have no right to trespass into a family's private affairs.

Almost involuntarily, I insert a hand into my coat pocket and withdraw the piece of paper Babli has given me. It is addressed to someone called Sunil Chaudhary who lives in Vaishali, Sector 4, Ghaziabad, and I cannot resist taking a peek at it. I discover a note penned in a schoolgirl's shaky handwriting on rule-lined paper ripped from a notebook. This is what it says in chaste Hindi:

My dear darling Sunil

They are marrying me off tomorrow.

Marriage is supposed to be about two people loving each other and devoting their lives to each other. But this marriage is about oppression and suppression, because, for my family, prestige is more important than my happiness.

I am being sold to Badan Singh. For Father it is a business transaction. For Mother it is a means to get rid of me. No one in this house has any regard for my feelings. Everybody's heart has turned to stone.

Forgive me for not being able to contact you during the last three months. After they sent you away from here, I have been kept imprisoned in the house, not allowed to step out even for a minute. But tonight I will be free.

I just want you to know that I was always yours and will always remain yours. If not in this life, then surely the next.

Yours

Babli

My hands turn cold as I read the missive. It is not a love letter: it is a suicide note, eerily reminiscent of the note Alka wrote before hanging herself.

I know that Babli is not making empty threats. She will go through with the act. I have seen that look in her eyes, the look of a girl who has lost all hope.
Tonight I will be free.
It sends a shiver down my back.

The bus to Karnal is waiting for its last passengers when we reach the bus stop. ‘We just made it.' The driver wipes his forehead in relief. ‘Hurry, madam.' He scrambles to open the door, but I remain sitting inside the van, my mind a whirlpool of indecision and anxiety.

It would be the easiest thing to board the bus and forget about Babli and this village. I can choose to post her letter or shred it into pieces and discard it on the footpath like a used bus ticket. But something keeps holding me back. I know it is guilt, preying on my mind like a vulture. Suddenly a vision swims before my eyes of a dead body hanging from a ceiling fan with a yellow piece of cloth. When the body swings left, I see that it is Alka. And when it swings right it is Babli. I close my eyes, but the scene keeps repeating again and again, like a demented slide show I cannot look away from. The searing images are overlaid with a silent scream of agony that fills my senses. It echoes like thunder, reverberating from every pore of my body. When it dies, I open my eyes, and immediately feel like throwing up.

‘What's the matter, madam?' The driver looks at me, concerned.

‘Nothing,' I reply, as the cobwebs of uncertainty begin clearing from my mind. ‘Take me back to the house.'

‘Back to the house?' The driver does a double-take.

‘Yes. I am not going to Karnal. I am going back to Kuldip Singh's house. I think I will attend the wedding after all.'

‘Yes, madam,' the driver says with an exaggerated roll of his eyes, and begins reversing the vehicle.

Fifteen minutes later I am back in the house. Kuldip Singh greets me with surprised delight. ‘
Yeh hui na bat.
I'm so glad you decided to come back. Tonight you will see what a Haryana wedding celebration really looks like.'

I am desperate to communicate with Babli, but the ladies of the house insist that I join their
sangeet
ceremony. So I sit in the front row and pretend to enjoy the songs and dances being performed in the courtyard to the rhythmic beat of a dholak and spoon. The bride is supposed to be present during the ladies'
sangeet,
but even after three hours there is no sign of Babli. I make a polite enquiry with Kuldip Singh's wife, a plump and stern-looking woman.

‘Babli has gone to the beauty parlour,' she tells me.

‘Your village even has a beauty parlour?'

‘What did you think?' she smirks, eyes alight with a triumphant glow. ‘We are not as backward as you city people think.'

It is almost 7.30 p.m. by the time Babli returns, escorted by three older women. As she is crossing the courtyard, our eyes meet for an instant. I can see that she is startled to see me, and a look of fear passes over her face. I smile reassuringly at her, trying to convey that her secret is safe with me. I sense an answer in her glance, as though we have just made a silent pact.

The beauty parlour has done a good enough job on her. The puffiness around her eyes is gone and the bruise on her cheek has been expertly covered up with makeup. Her hair has been swept into an elaborate bun and her skin shines with a faux glimmer. Dressed in a magenta salvar kameez and matching chunni, she looks like a glowing bride rather than the distraught teenager of the afternoon. It is only the wistful sadness in her eyes that tells me this is all an act.

After a communal dinner featuring such mouthwatering delights as mooli ke paranthe, kadhi pakoras, jeera chawal and besan pinni, I am ready for bed. Kuldip Singh offers to put me up in a deluxe room in an adjoining house, but I tell him I prefer the guestroom in which I had stayed earlier.

Once I am inside the room, with the door securely locked, I tiptoe to the other door and put my ear against it, trying to listen in. I can hear muffled sobs coming from within, and a couple of women talking. Babli is obviously not alone.

I return to bed, turn off the light and wait patiently for Babli's chaperones to doze off. But a wedding house is like a hospital's emergency ward, plagued by constant interruptions. Someone is always coming in or going out. Add to that creaking floorboards, mooing cows, howling dogs, clanking chains, clanging pans and a running tap, and it is enough to turn me into a cranky nervous wreck.

I remain lying in bed, staring at the dark ceiling, trying to get used to the unfamiliar surroundings. At 2 a.m., I get up and peek through the curtains. A deep silence hangs over the courtyard. Not a soul stirs in the compound. The house has finally gone to sleep.

I tiptoe back to Babli's door. I know she will still be awake, her mind wound tight like mine. ‘Babli! Babli!' I whisper urgently. ‘I want to talk to you.'

Nothing happens for a couple of minutes. Just when I am about to give up, I hear a little scraping sound. It is the latch being carefully pulled down. Then the door opens a few inches, and Babli eases into my room, wearing a silk night suit. In the pale moonlight she looks like a fragile porcelain doll. She shivers momentarily, as a cold breeze blows in from my open window. I hastily draw back the curtains, plunging the room into darkness.

The air between us is awkward at first, heavy with our unsaid thoughts. I am ready to listen, but Babli is not yet ready to share. She is silent, guarded.

‘I had a sister called Alka,' I disclose. ‘She committed suicide when she was just fifteen.'

‘Why?' Babli asks.

‘She was in love with a boy who was a drug addict. We tried to make her break off from him.'

‘Is that why you came back? To make me break off from Sunil?'

‘No. I came back to tell you that life is very precious. And that we have no right to take life, whether it is someone else's or our own.'

‘Tell that to my father and mother, who have taken away my life.'

‘We all get upset with our parents from time to time. But they always have our best interests at heart.'

‘Are you married?' she asks me.

‘No,' I reply.

‘Then how will you understand my pain? Tomorrow is not my wedding: it is my funeral.'

‘I know you don't want to marry Badan Singh. Then why don't you tell this to your father?'

‘He's the one who has got me into this situation. I love Sunil. If I am not able to marry him, I am going to die. Tonight.'

‘What are you going to do?'

‘Consume a whole bottle of pesticide spray. And when I go up I'm going to ask God, Why can't we girls live our lives like we want to? Why can't I marry the man who loves me, the man I love?'

‘Did Sunil speak to your parents about wanting to marry you?'

‘Of course he did. And my father turned him down. We were going to elope but Bao-ji found out and reported the matter to the
khap. Bas,
the sky fell upon us. The
khap
decreed that because Sunil's
gotra
is related to my subcaste, marriage between us would be like a marriage between a brother and a sister. From that day I was confined to the house. And Sunil was hounded out of the village, with the threat that if he ever comes back he will be killed. Tell me,
didi,
did we commit any crime? Why are we made to feel like criminals?'

‘Who is this Badan Singh?'

‘He is a dirty old man who has always lusted after me. I am convinced he had bribed the head of the
khap panchayat
to give a verdict against Sunil.'

‘Do you have Sunil's number?'

‘No. And I don't even have a cell phone. The
khap
has banned cell phones for unmarried girls in our village. I live in a prison, not a house,
didi.
'

I nod with a sympathetic grimace. Alka had said the same thing.

‘At times I feel that the biggest curse is to be born a girl,' she continues. ‘The struggle begins even before we are born, and continues till our death. My only wish is to be born a boy in my next life.'

‘Don't be so pessimistic. What if I were to somehow stop this wedding?'

‘How will you do that?'

‘I can't tell you right now. But I swear to you on my dead sister's memory I will not allow this travesty of a marriage to take place.'

‘Even God cannot stop this wedding now. Only my death will.'

Her voice has begun to acquire a definite note of hysteria. I catch her hand and hold it. ‘Promise me, Babli, that you won't do anything rash tonight. In fact, I want you to bring me that bottle of pesticide.'

Babli does not speak for a long time, as though she is churning that thought over and over in her head, wrestling with her destiny. Then she ducks under my bed and withdraws a plastic bottle bristling with warning labels: ‘
DANGEROUS POISON
', ‘
KEEP OUT OF REACH OF CHILDREN
', ‘
CAN KILL IF SWALLOWED
'. I had no idea my bedroom was serving as her secret storage facility.

‘My life is now in your hands,
didi.
' She hands me the bottle with a pleading, plaintive expression. Then, as silently as she entered my room, she returns to her own.

As I hold the bottle of pesticide in my hands, I am overcome with a powerful feeling of
déjà vu.
I have been down this trail so many times before, in my mind, in my dreams. What if? That question has dogged me since Alka's suicide. What if I had not tattled about Alka to Papa? I could not save Alka, but perhaps I can save Babli. This is a moment of grace, a chance at redemption. I won't be doing this for Babli. I will be doing it for myself.

There is only one problem. I have made her a promise but I have no clue how I am going to fulfil it. It is one thing to try to right an old wrong, but how do I conjure up a happy ending from a situation that has all the makings of a tragedy?

I can only hope that tomorrow will bring the answer.

*   *   *

Chandangarh is a village of early risers. Even before the sun has pushed its way past the horizon, the villagers are out and about, drawing water from the well, milking cows or going for their daily ablutions, like me.

The concept of
en suite
bathroom does not exist in Kuldip Singh's house. The communal toilets are located at the western end of the compound, and they are all Indian style. I also have to carry an overflowing
lota,
since the toilet tap generates air, not water. This is what I detest about village life. The poor sanitation. Every winter Papa used to take us to Hardoi, his ancestral town, where grandfather had a sprawling house with a mango grove. But my only memory of that house is of the hole in the ground that used to be the squat latrine. And I used to have nightmares of a disembodied hand rising from that orifice, grabbing me and taking me down to the pile of shit.