When She Was Queen (23 page)

August 17, 1947

We heard Pandit Nehru’s speech on the radio. The reception was bad and he spoke in English, but people said it was a most stirring speech. And they have been echoing his words, “The hour of midnight….” We are now, apparently, in independent Hindustan. The English no longer lord over us. But what does the future hold? In spite of the celebrations in the streets and people handing out sweets, there are still reports of violence, and sometimes it feels like a short interlude in the midst of a thunderstorm.

Are you on the other side, Khati—in
Pakistan?
There is no chitthi from you, which must mean that either you are dead, or you are angry with me. But what could I have done, my dearest friend, except grieve, which I have done night and day? Are you my enemy, pyari, because others tell you you are? Must we become what we are told to, my darling, I cannot bear the thought of my heart turning cold toward you, or yours toward mine. Must it all end, Khatija … this freedom of our country has quite destroyed me.

March 20, 1948

He is a most tender man.

And I see your face among the shadows by the door, next to the almirah, tilted just so, as it always did with mischief, with that puckered smile on your lips, the dimples on your cheeks … the stud on your nose aglint in the
dawn’s first light…. At least put that dupatta over your head, in a man’s presence!

Are you married, now?…

He is not a prince, a nawab, or a raja, and he’s not a dashing actor, not a handsome army officer. He’s a government babu in the office for resettlement of refugees. The family is from Jullundur, father a teacher; not rich, but his job is good. His name—But I dare not utter it! Let us say the first sound is the same as that of Sita’s husband, and it ends in
sh
. That should do, you know that for me he must always be “he.” He is not very tall, two finger-widths more than me, but he’s very fair, and he has a wide face with pointed chin, large nose, and big ears—a little like an elephant! Go on, laugh all you will at Madhu’s choice! Yes, his name does rhyme with Ganesh.

How did the proposal arrive? He came strolling into our alley one day and stopped by at the shop to chat with Bau-ji. He had just been to your mosque, which is now a temporary shelter for refugees, and he asked about the mukhi’s house—none other than yours. He had just sat down to eat with Bau-ji and Raj when I returned from college. I was told to fetch water, which I did. I knew I was being watched. Our guest asked Bau-ji what I studied and Bau-ji told me to speak. The guest asked me something in English, which I answered in my broken way! There was one more visit, two weeks later, and then he brought his proposal himself!

They are not rich but are from the high-and-mighty ones. I expect to hear no end from my mother-in-law about this caste difference. Thank God we will not be
staying with my in-laws. We have been given a flat opposite the cricket grounds.

Did I tell you he is very educated—he must be, to work as an inspector for the government. He holds a degree from Lahore College and recites Urdu poetry. A man for your own heart! But he’s mine.

I would have wanted you to put mehndi with me and sing me those sweet-silly, oh happy! songs of marriage and whisper things in my ear to make me blush. I would have wanted you to be among my family and friends as I went round the fire knotted to him, the pandits reciting the holy shlokas; and as I bade farewell to our alley and all my family and friends, we would have embraced and wept with sorrow and joy; and before I took my first steps away toward my new life, instructed by my father never to look back or come back without my husband by my side, I would have turned and given you one more look and the tightest embrace. I would have liked someone from my old life to share my secrets with, my troubles and joys as a man’s wife, ignorant and alone in a new home. Who else but you?

I do not know what the future holds, who knows? On this my first night with him, my lord sleeps peacefully beside me, having satisfied himself as a man does upon his bride. He was tender and loving and not a wild beast. I pray you be as fortunate.

Jullundur, Punjab

April 1949

Today I grieve for my dead child … how the gods tempt us with gifts and then snatch them away; they tease us. I fed him laddoos and butter and fresh milk and halwa, even when I knew he no longer lived inside me. I knew it was a boy from the shape of my belly. My husband’s joy knew no bounds. He couldn’t wait.

It happened at my in-laws’, where I came to give birth. Ganesh-face must have guessed what had befallen, but that witch his mother knew for certain, threw evil eyes and taunts at me, made me cook and toil even in my condition. I truly think she wished me to die with my infant. When I brought him out I insisted on having a look at him, even when they told me that would bring bad luck. My first-born, dead. Strangled himself in the womb. Will I have others, healthy and living? Sometimes I think of that Anasuya and her little Pintu—what lot, a poor mother’s. Are these thoughts about you that are evil, has my love for you brought down the Goddess’s wrath upon me? No, no. Pray for me Khati that I have one son at least.

I
never once saw her writing in it;
I never even knew she had it. Fifty years. All I’d seen her write were notes to school when Mohan or I had stayed away due to illness, and shopping lists for Bau-ji. When did she find the time, in her busy life, to pour her heart out into
a book? There was no end to a woman’s work; and not much has changed, though we are all educated and modern and know the right words. In the morning she and Bau-ji were up at the crack of dawn, he to shave and do stuff, she to prepare breakfast. She made the parantha herself, the maid relegated to the curry—if that was on the menu—and tea. During lunch, though she sat with us, she was always on edge, one eye turned toward the kitchen, in case she was needed or had to get up to get the maid to bustle up with the chappatis. Bau-ji hated to wait once he was at the table. After school Mother helped us with our lessons. And at night she attended to the needs of Bau-ji. His head, his feet, his frustrations in the bureaucratic workplace.

And yet she herself has no complaint to make, in her private book. Her husband and her family were her duty and joy, so we all like to believe of our mothers. Now I am old enough to know that a woman is more than that; even a traditional woman. Didn’t she want to confide something about her marriage to her pyari Khati? Perhaps it was too risky. Perhaps that was why, too, she didn’t write as frequently in her book. Bau-ji rarely became angry at home or shouted at her, but once I saw him truly furious. I don’t know what happened, but he was suddenly shouting at her, and when I went to look, they were outside their bedroom, and he gave her a slap. I think she had said something about his mother and sisters. A husband’s rage is a wife’s burden. I have never been able to shake that incident out of my head.

After that last entry of 1949, her letters, or thoughts, to Khatija become occasional. She attempts to fill the pages
with household accounts (apparently she tried to save money from her grocery allowance), but not for long. Bau-ji went on official tours for his government department, and she wrote down his itinerary. And there are attempts to write to Khatija that for some reason were aborted; perhaps the children came home from school, or Bau-ji arrived home from work, tired and hungry. Housework always beckoned.

Amritsar, Punjab

April 1958

I have two, how many have you?

Tell me why I remember you in the first place, when you have not bothered all these eleven years. Only, I was walking by the Darbar Sahab yesterday and I saw a woman enter and I swore it was you. I thought you must have returned, at least for a visit, now that it is safe.

My Mohan is five and Lakshmi three. Yesterday was Mohan’s birthday. I have never been so happy, in so many ages…. It is true I have tried to forget you. After that stillborn, for three years I could not hold a child in my womb. The doctors told me my blood was too bitter to nourish a child within me. It is said that bitterness kills bitterness. So I ate karela and grapefruit in quantities, even chewed quinine and Aspirin in secret. I removed your three photos from my album and I put away your green dupatta with the gold spots and your notebook.
(Good thing I did not burn them.) You see, at the temple I vowed to sacrifice my love for you for the blessing of children. What excuse do
you
have for forgetting me? Ganesh-face says that you can’t be in Hindustan or you would have contacted me, you must have found yourself in Pakistan. Wherever you are, I hope you are as blessed as I am. When I look at Lakshmi sometimes playing with her dolls, I smile, she reminds me so much of you. You see, even though I vowed to forget you, thoughts of you would steal into my mind like robbers in the night…. Mohan was born weak and we constantly worried about him. He would eat little, he could not digest ghee, and put on very little weight. Now he is much better….

But what is this?—I think of me only, what about you, what’s happened, where
are you?
Are you, by any chance—married? How many children?

My mother died and Bau-ji retired. The shop is now in the hands of Raj Bhaiya. Kishore has a travel agency at the location where the old Munshi—who was killed during Partition—had his bookstore. He is doing well but we don’t meet much. The house next to yours is demolished. Your house has never found a steady occupant, it’s always been one family then another, and no one with small children. It always looks forlorn and neglected. Bau-ji says its fate too is demolition. We were by your old mosque the other day, when Ganesh-face and I went with the children to that Victoria Restaurant—since changed to Anand Restaurant. Anand was your father’s name, wasn’t it? The mosque is now a clothing warehouse. I saw some boys coming down with bales of cotton and my heart broke.

I remembered your brother Kassam, who was so handsome.

No one noticed.

When Mohan and I were little
, sometimes at bedtime when we worked up a fit of the giggles or started fighting with each other instead of closing our eyes and going to sleep—we shared a room then—Mother would scare us by saying, “If you don’t behave, the Pakistani jawans will take you away! Shall I call them? Subedar Khan—over here!” We would get frightened, hide under the bedclothes, trembling but comforted by the knowledge that she was in the room, and finally fall asleep. I don’t think I got over those frights. Now I wonder what must have gone through her mind when she said those things. Why say them when they made the sleeping process so terrible. Pakistan was never a threatening spectre for us, except for a week or so during the ’65 war: we heard fighter planes in the distance; the flutter of a blackout curtain made the heart leap; every sharp sound could be a bullet. Was she trying to convince herself of her own loyalty, when she made the Pakistanis seem so threatening? Or was it for the benefit of Bau-ji? Or perhaps an old fear lingered from the Partition days when killers ruled the streets, the highways, and the railways?