And the World Changed (37 page)

Dina Lal, my friend, I've entrusted you with my house and, grand as it is, it will require a bit of work to maintain. We've gone over the specifics and I needn't, I'm certain, trouble you with them again.

But even more than this house, I hold dear my model of the Empire. (If you look closely, you will see Murree, the dot painted in red near the upper right. No lines lead to it as the Railways—which in my opinion was our largest failing—could never figure out a way to reach the quaint town we both love at the bottom of the sky.) I had hoped to donate the model to a museum, but the chaps at Lahore Museum couldn't find the time to look at it. I will continue to pursue finding a permanent home for it from England, but until then I ask you to care for it. (If it develops a slight crack, you can mend it with the gypsum powder I've left in the bag below. Dab it with a bit of water and rub the powder into it, that ought to solve the problem.) Should you be interested, the various colors of lines denote different routes: The green one shows the places I visited during my years in British India. I request you to leave the model in the front parlor of 5, Queen's Road. It will be safe there, and when I find a place where it can be properly exhibited, it will be easy to move through the front door.

I do hope you enjoy this house as much as I have. One day (if things ever return to normal), I might visit. We'll be in touch, and may God bless you.

Dina Lal was ready to dismiss the letter as a poorly conceived
(filthy, even) joke until he read the last line. Had Smithson no respect? As if it were the Englishman's goddamned God who watched over 5, Queen's Road and not the abundance of other ones whom Janoo had already made a mantel for, that heard his prayers and blessed him instead. Idiot, Dina Lal thought as he crumpled the letter and dropped it on the floor for Yunis to sweep the following morning.

It was only the first of a stream of letters. But already then, the onion parchment on the floor crumpled into a wad smaller than his fist, Dina Lal suspected greater powers at play. In the years ahead, he often wondered if the gods on his side of the lines had made it their mission to keep ill will flowing into the house he'd bought from the Englishman. His city in shambles, it was hard to imagine that he'd once enjoyed Smithson's need. As if exploiting it could have set anything right. With more land and houses than he knew how to use, he'd bought 5, Queen's Road—because he could. Still, if only his father could have seen him in those early days! He'd stood on the roof surrounded by row upon row of planters spilling with endlessly blooming flowers he never learned to name. From above, the city spread out like a map, he'd pretended that his life, already full, was only beginning. Like the country, land of the pure, just born.

SOOT

Sehba Sarwar

Sehba Sarwar (1964– ) is a novelist, essayist, and poet, and her work has been published in anthologies and magazines in Pakistan, India, and the United States. She was born and raised in Pakistan and earned degrees in the United States from Mount Holyoke College and the University of Texas at Austin.

Her first novel,
Black Wings
, was published in 2004 (Alhamra). Presently based in Houston, Texas, she
is working on numerous writing projects, including a second novel. She also serves as the director of a Houston-based arts organization, Voices Breaking Boundaries, and returns regularly to Pakistan to write and spend time with family.

“Soot” looks at a younger generation in India and Pakistan who have been separated from each other since Partition, with the gulf widening with each subsequent conflict. Curiosity and then the discovery of common interests and the similar problems that South Asian countries share, draws them to each other. Running through the narrative is the echo of East Pakistan, the majority province that became Bangladesh following a civil war, and which, the protagonist realizes, has been virtually erased from public discourse in Pakistan.

• • •

“You must eat our milky
rasmalai
,” the taxi driver said in perfect English, shaking his head continuously, as if in full agreement with himself. “It is the best dessert in all of India.”

Tired from a day of travel, Zahra leaned into the back seat, barely acknowledging the driver's comments with her nods.

“There is much to see here: the Marble Palace, Nakhoda Mosque, Eden Garden, and all our temples.” Intrigued to learn that Zahra was from Pakistan via Chicago, he had travel advice for her. “My recommendation to you, do not talk about the '71 war. People are passionate about Bangladesh, so it will be a difficult topic for you. If you stay away from talk of wars between our countries, you should feel very welcome.”

Karachi to Kolkata was not far, but delayed flight, late connections, and airport security checks had made Zahra's travel excruciatingly long. Exhausted, she had little energy for the driver's running commentary. As they entered the city, she stared out at the yellowed buildings, which looked older than the ones she knew in Karachi. The streets, packed with moving bodies, were different too, filled with cars of all shapes and sizes, buses, and two-wheeled rickshaws pulled by thin, muscled men.

After scribbling down his mobile number for her, the driver dropped her at the youth hostel off Ballygunge Circle. “Yes, if you need tours of our city of joy, please telephone me and I will show you around.” He winked and drove away.

Tucking her hair behind her ears, Zahra made a mental note to toss the paper as soon as the taxi turned the corner. She rang the bell and the door clicked open. She clutched her heavy canvas suitcase with both hands and clambered up the dark stairwell. In the hallway upstairs, Raj and Shoma, a husband and wife team who managed the hostel, greeted her with smiles. Shoma patted Zahra's hand, then disappeared through a doorway; Raj silently ushered Zahra to her room. It didn't take long for Zahra to figure out that he spoke mostly Bengali. He didn't understand much Hindi, which she could speak since it was so close to the Urdu used in Pakistan.

After freshening up, Zahra walked up to the third floor balcony, where sunshine trickled in through bamboo mats. In the serene space, far removed from the commotion of the streets down below, two American students settled into cane chairs and sipped tea. Through the introductions that followed, Zahra learned that Melanie and James were doing research for anthropology doctorate degrees at their respective institutions in the United States. They too, like the taxi driver, like the hostel managers, and anyone else Zahra met on the journey from Karachi to Kolkata, asked: “What are you doing
here
? You're from Pakistan, you're studying in the States, and
you're
doing an internship in India?”

Zahra tried to find a parallel for them. “Well, it's like Americans doing internships in Cuba.” To bolster her comparison, she pointed out some similarities between being a Pakistani in Kolkata and being an American in Havana. There was a history of war, different languages were spoken, and it was almost as difficult to travel between the United States and Cuba as it was between Pakistan and India. James and Melanie's furrowed their eyebrows; giving up trying to explain her reasons for being
there—which she herself didn't fully understand—Zahra listened to their stories about Kolkata.

“This is an exciting city,” Melanie said. “So much art, and there's always political demonstrations going on at the university. But you know all that, right?”

Zahra nodded, though she didn't. She already recognized that no matter how different she might feel in Kolkata, people would assume she knew more because she looked similar to those around her. Her family was from north India, and all her relatives had been excited when they learned she would be doing a three-month internship in Kolkata. “It is far from our home, but you will learn so much,” her mother had said, getting teary-eyed as she always did when someone discussed travel to India. She had been born in New Delhi three days before Partition and had never returned to her city of birth.

After tea, Zahra wandered through the streets of southern Kolkata. She soaked in the old buildings with latticed hallways, round verandahs, and high walls. She stepped carefully around the broken sidewalks, nearly tripping on banyan tree roots. She had to wind her
dupatta
around her nose to filter the smoke billowing out of trucks, buses, and cars. Over the chaos of horns beeping and people shouting for buses, she tried to use her mobile to call her mother to tell her she had arrived safely, but the street sounds were too loud.

Finally, she ducked into a dusty low-ceilinged Internet café in the Esplanade. She shot emails to her parents, and to Juana and Rathna, her roommates in Chicago. The connection was slow. She waited for images to solidify on the screen and glanced around at the young men dressed in kurtas and jeans who camped out in groups of three or more in front of derelict machines. In the States, where she had done her undergrad and was now enrolled in a master's program, everyone worked on personal laptops. In Karachi, Zahra knew there were similar Internet shops, though she had never needed to visit one. This shop could have been located in the heart of Karachi, but the
sounds around her were different. Bengali was a soft and lyrical language. Listening to the inflections, Zahra was reminded of Roohi who was from what used to be East Pakistan and who worked as a maid at her aunt's house. Roohi's entire family had once been in West Pakistan, but after the civil war of 1971 when East Pakistan broke away and became Bangladesh, they returned to Dhaka. Roohi stayed on but she always talked of feeling alone in Karachi. Now, sitting in the heart of Bengal, on the other side of the border from Dhaka—but close—Zahra could understand why Roohi felt isolated and angry. No one in Pakistan talked about Bangladesh or the atrocities the Pakistani army had committed there.

On her way back to the hostel, Zahra followed Melanie's advice and took the subway, Kolkata's quiet and saner method of transportation. The hostel was silent when she entered. Holding out her hands in the dark hallway, she felt her way to her bathroom. Beneath the naked bulb, she noticed dirt streaked across her cheeks. When she blew her nose, she was surprised to find black sticky soot, city pollution, covering the tissue paper. Finally, exhausted from a day of travel, she lay down on the twin bed, marveling, once again, at how an afternoon conversation with Rathna and Juana had brought her to Kolkata.

“I had so much fun,” Rathna said, rocking back and forth in a rocking chair without arms. Rathna was from India. She was sharing her experiences of interning with a social services nonprofit in Bangkok. “All I had to do was to write and ask for a grant and my trip was funded.”

“Maybe I can do something like that with Shirkat Gah in Karachi?” Zahra wondered out loud. “It's a great women's organization.”

Rathna laughed. “Didn't you come here so you could get away from home? Go somewhere else. There are so many cool cities. Go to Kolkata! There's always a lot going on there—art, culture, politics. And it's not that far from Pakistan. You can always stop off in Karachi. I spent a month in Mumbai with my family.”

“Well, now I need a break from life in the States,” grimaced Zahra. After completing her undergraduate, she had returned to Karachi and worked for two years in women' s development, and then had joined the master's program in Chicago. “This country's different from when I was at Pomona,” she added. “The moment I say where I'm from, they look at me like I'm going to detonate a suicide bomb. And if I don't say anything, they think I'm Mexican and start telling me to go back. I can't finish this program.”