The Accidental Apprentice (11 page)

After a quick, cold bath, I seek out Kuldip Singh. He is sprawled on a charpoy in a corner of the courtyard, getting a massage from a thin-looking masseuse with knobbly fingers.

In the centre of the courtyard, workers are constructing the
mandap,
where the wedding ceremony will be solemnised tonight.

I hang around my room till the massage is complete and Kuldip Singh has put his vest back on. ‘Can I have a word with you?' I ask, puffs of air condensing in front of my face.

‘
Bilkul,
of course,' he says expansively. ‘Come, sit with me here.' He pats the charpoy.

I sit down at the edge and broach the subject gingerly. ‘I learnt yesterday that Babli's groom is Badan Singh-ji…'

‘Yes. Badan Singh is the pride of our community. He even owns a rice mill. Babli will live like a queen.'

‘But don't you think the age difference between them is a bit much?'

‘Who said so, eh?' He suddenly tenses up. ‘Has Babli been speaking to you?'

‘No … no. I was just curious, that's all.'

‘A man's age is not important. As they say in our village, “
Joban lugai ka bees ya tees, ar bael chaley nou saal. Mard aur ghora kadey no ho burha, agar milley khurak.
” A woman remains youthful only till she is twenty or thirty; an ox remains active for nine years; but a man and a horse, if given a good diet, never get old.'

‘I just hope Babli is as happy with this marriage as you are.'

‘Of course she
is,
' he says, stressing ‘is'. ‘You know how girls are. She is sad to be leaving our family. But then a girl is
paraya dhan,
someone else's wealth. One day she has to leave the father's house and go to her husband's. You'll also get married someday. If you want I can suggest some good-looking guys from the village.'

‘No, thanks,' I say, rising from the charpoy.

‘Where are you going now?'

‘I want to visit the Amba Temple.'

‘You can go in the Innova.'

‘I'd rather walk and get some fresh air.'

I saunter out of the house, dressed in the same clothes as yesterday. Once I am some distance away, I take out my cell phone and punch in Karan's number.

‘Where are you?' he wants to know.

‘In Chandangarh village in Haryana.'

‘What are you doing there?'

‘It's a long story. For now, I need you to locate someone for me.'

‘Who? Your twin brother who got lost in the stampede during the Kumbh Mela?'

For Karan everything is a joke. But for me it is a matter of someone's life or death. ‘It is a man called Sunil Chaudhary, who lives in Ghaziabad.' I read out Sunil's address. ‘I want you to give me his cell phone number.'

‘Hold on,' Karan says. A couple of minutes later he tells me, ‘You are lucky. Sunil Chaudhary has an Indus mobile. Note down the number.'

I call up Sunil, only to be confronted with the wall of a prerecorded message. ‘The Indus Mobile number you are trying to reach is currently switched off. Please try after sometime,' says a female voice. I keep calling his number at two-minute intervals, but fail to get through even once.

When you are desperately trying to reach someone, the most frustrating thing in the world is a phone that refuses to perform its primary task. Every time I try Sunil, I encounter the woman's faintly gloating voice, making me want to smack her.

Finally I dial Madan's cell phone number, informing him I won't be able to come to the office today. ‘I'm still stuck in Chandangarh village, with a severe case of diarrhoea.'

‘What did you eat?' he demands.

‘Whatever Kuldip Singh gave me. Oh, my stomach is hurting so bad.' I throw in a throaty groan for effect. ‘You should never have sent me here.'

‘Look, I'm really sorry. It's okay. You get some rest and take
pudin hara.
I'll reimburse its cost.'

I savour the rare pleasure of hearing a guilty undertone in Madan's supercilious voice. Feeling self-righteous and smug, I head for the Amba Temple, which is only a stone's throw away. It stands at the edge of a small pond, and contains an ancient statue of an eight-armed Durga. I bow my head before the goddess, asking for strength to fight the battle on Babli's behalf.

Fortified by Durga Ma's blessings, I set out to seize the day. The men are already heading out to the fields or the nearby mills for work; the women are busy making cow-dung patties for cooking fuel.

As I am leaving the temple precincts, I come across a jeep with a red beacon and a golden inscription on the number plate stating ‘B
LOCK
D
EVELOPMENT
O
FFICER
'.

The BDO, I know, is an important functionary responsible for formulation and implementation of various government schemes. My eyes light up at this unexpected good fortune. If there is one entity that can get Babli out of this unholy mess, it is the government.

The BDO turns out to be a middle-aged, turbaned Sikh called Inderjit Singh, sporting an unkempt beard flecked with grey. I tell him about Babli's plight and seek to enlist his help in resolving the situation.

He listens to me sympathetically. ‘Look, I don't know about Babli and Sunil, but there have been several instances of the local
khap
creating trouble for couples who go against the diktats of the community. In one instance they had the boy forced to drink urine; in another they had him paraded naked through the village.'

‘Then shouldn't you be doing something to stop these inhuman acts?'

He shakes his head slowly. ‘I cannot do anything in the matter. No one can fight the
khap.
'

‘Even when you know what they are doing is criminal and wrong?'

‘Yes. I know some of their pronouncements are anti-poor and anti-women in character,' he says candidly. ‘But to meddle with the local social hierarchy is to invite trouble.'

‘If you won't help me, who will?'

‘Try and understand this is a village, not India Gate, where you can hold protest marches and candlelight vigils. There are no social activists here who can challenge the
khap.
The men are indifferent, the women cowed down.'

‘I'm not cowed down. I'll challenge the
khap.
Who is the head of the
khap panchayat?
'

‘It is Sultan Singh. And that is his house.' He points out a redbrick house in the distance. ‘But, if you think you can reason with him, you are being foolhardy.'

‘Perhaps I am. But, as a famous Hindi proverb says, now that I have decided to put my head into the mortar, why fear the pounder?'

‘Well, then, good luck to you,' the BDO says, and drives off in his jeep.

It takes me a fifteen-minute walk to reach my next destination. Sultan Singh is a wizened old man with the impressively patrician air of an old zamindar. He meets me on the porch of his decaying
haveli,
wearing a black waistcoat and carrying a cane in his gnarled hands. ‘Yes, what do you want?' he says gruffly, gazing at me with the suspicious eye of a girls' hostel warden.

‘You are the venerable head of the
khap panchayat,
and the flag bearer of its principles. So I thought I would meet you directly to seek justice for Babli.'

‘Babli? Who is Babli?'

‘Kuldip Singh's daughter.'

‘Ah, that
chhori,
' he says, with a portentous pause. ‘
Wa to aafat ki pudiya sai.
She is nothing but trouble.'

‘You know she loves Sunil. Then why are you condemning her to this loveless marriage with Badan Singh?'

‘Don't you know that Babli is from Jorwal
gotra
and Sunil from Jaipal
gotra?
In our village, people from these two subcastes have had a relationship of brotherhood for centuries. So a marriage between these two
gotras
cannot be sanctioned.'

‘Who cares about
gotras
in this day and age? I don't even
know
my
gotra.
'

‘I pity your parents. They didn't teach you anything about our glorious heritage and traditions.'

‘There was a time when
sati
was also supposed to be part of Hindu tradition. Widows used to be burnt alive on their husbands' funeral pyres. Hounding people who are in love and killing them is no less reprehensible.'

‘Who says we kill people?' he says heatedly, almost poking me in the face with his cane. ‘This is a canard spread by the lower castes. Our
khap
has played a positive role in banning dowry and liquor consumption in the village.'

‘But you have banned Sunil from entering the village. And now Babli is threatening to commit suicide.'

‘Then let her die. No one will shed any tears for her. A dishonourable girl is a blot on a family,' he says unapologetically.

‘So love has no value for you?'

‘These modern whims of the heart have no place in tradition.
Khap
is an institution, a very honourable one. Don't interfere with our traditions. Go and tell Babli that what cannot be changed must be endured.'

‘Tell me, Sultan Singh-ji, how many women are members of your
khap panchayat?
'

‘None.'

‘So women have no role but to listen to your diktats?'

‘Our dictates are based on reason and logic. A marriage between Babli and Sunil amounts to incest. How can we permit such an abomination?'

‘But the Hindu Marriage Act recognises such unions.'

He laughs. ‘This is my village. Here my writ runs, not the government of India's.'

Listening to him fills me with utter revulsion. Sometimes I feel that there's no country in the world with so much wasted love as ours. Instead of uniting lovers who dare to dream across the barriers of caste and class, the forces of orthodoxy and tradition separate them, hurt them, torture them, starve them, murder them, constantly finding new and horrifying ways of squelching love. I have still to fathom which is the greater existential horror: the lost humanity of fathers who dismember their own sons and daughters out of a perverse shame, or the reckless chivalry of star-crossed lovers who prefer death to separation. All I know is that I will not allow Babli's name to be added to this unfortunate list, come what may.

I take my leave from Sultan Singh and continue walking past the fields and fallows. The scenery looks quite different from the quaint, peaceful haven depicted in Yash Chopra films. Instead of lush, sunny fields of yellow and green, the landscape is uniformly brown. Instead of cheerful villagers, I see only sullen men and women, working their fields. The old-timers sit on their charpoys, smoking hookahs, while toddlers play in the dirt.

This part of the village is considerably less prosperous. The houses here are mostly mud huts with thatched roofs. The women glare at me for no apparent reason and no one offers me as much as a glass of water.

Suddenly I come across Chhotan, the electrician, riding a scooter. ‘What are you doing here?' he asks.

‘Nothing. Just out for a stroll.'

He dismounts from his scooter and begins walking with me. It is from him that I learn that the village is a hotbed of communalism and caste warfare. ‘There are thirteen different castes in Chandangarh,' he tells me. ‘Upper castes, like Kuldip Singh, make up nearly half the village; the rest are Harijans and other lower castes, like mine.'

‘And where is the police station located?'

‘Why? Do you have to report something?'

‘No. I'm just curious.'

‘On the eastern side, at the edge of the village, just before the river.'

‘I would love to see the river.'

‘I am going that side. If you want, I can give you a ride.'

A minute later, I am riding pillion through the dirt tracks of the village. People watch me curiously, as though they have never seen a woman sitting on a scooter before.

The bumpy scooter ride takes me past the village school where students are lazing under a neem tree. ‘The teachers in the school are like gods,' Chhotan says wryly, ‘believed to exist but never seen.' The village market is a conglomeration of a few kirana shops, some hardware stores, roadside shacks selling vegetables, Maggi noodles and boiled eggs, a video parlour stocking the latest Bollywood blockbusters and even an Internet facility. Slowly, but surely, progress seems to be coming to Chandangarh.

Swaying and jolting, I finally reach the rugged riverside. Chhotan drops me near a suspension bridge and takes off. The waters of the Yamuna glimmer silver and brown beneath me. This being the dry winter season, the river has contracted, exposing its sandbars.

It doesn't take me long to locate the police station. It is just a one-room brick house with a gated courtyard. Sub-Inspector Inder Varma, the officer in charge, looks like one of those cops in Hindi films: paan-chewing, potbellied, probably thoroughly corrupt as well. He hears me out and then laughs. ‘Who are you, some kind of social worker?'

‘It's not important who I am. I am reporting to you a forced marriage.'

‘How do I know it is a forced marriage? Where is the girl? Why does she not lodge a complaint personally?'

‘I told you, they have kept her imprisoned in the house.'

‘Then get her out. Bring her here. Let her show me proof that she is above the age of eighteen. And I will take action.'

‘You promise?'

‘Look, madam, my duty is to uphold the law. But the law requires me to verify that the girl is an adult. If you can bring Babli here, I promise to get her justice.'

For the first time a ray of hope enters my heart. The dour figure of SI Inder Varma could turn out to be Babli's unlikely saviour.

As I leave the police station, I try Sunil's number once again. My luck seems to be running at the moment, as I do get through this time. ‘Hello?' a guarded voice responds.