Difficult Daughters (15 page)

Winter in Lahore, and conferences take place fast and furious in the city. Important people arrive, inaugurate them, make speeches, have their photographs printed in the newspapers, along with an account of what they said, and then move on. In one month alone there is the Anti-Pakistan Conference, the Arya Bhasha Sammelan Conference, the Urdu Conference, the India History Conference, the Punjab Azad Christian Conference, the All India Sikh League. The atmosphere is charged, and voices reverberate with self-awareness.

On a very cold Saturday in January, 1941, the weatherman forecast rain and fog during the day, accompanied by strong surface winds. By afternoon, the girls in RBSL College Hostel were able to admire the accuracy of his predictions.

‘It’s raining, Swarna,’ stated Virmati tentatively.

‘I know,’ replied Swarna noncommittally.

Virmati wriggled further into her quilt till it was over her shoulders. Her shawl was wrapped around her head. Her ringers and toes were freezing, and her nose was running. It was just her luck, she thought, that the Punjab Women’s Student Conference was being held on the coldest day of the year, and that she was committed to going. She had been excited about it, but on days like this she preferred to stay in bed. Of course Swarna wouldn’t object if she didn’t come, but what would she think? She looked at her a little apprehensively now, as if her thoughts were transparent.

‘Don’t come if you don’t want to,’ said Swarna, at precisely that moment.

Virmati jumped slightly. ‘No, no,’ she said.

‘It is a terrible day,’ went on Swarna. ‘There are sure to be others – not coming because of the rain.’

‘Perhaps, then … um … you?’ Virmati suggested tentatively.

‘I? Good heavens, no. I don’t let the weather decide for me.’

‘Will your Mohini Datta be there?’

‘Of course. Auntie is speaking, and I too am making a little speech.’

Virmati was torn between hurt and admiration. Swarna Lata was going to make a speech, and hadn’t even mentioned it to her. She was used to Harish’s attitude to speechmaking – preparation, rehearsal, studied approach, subsequent assessment – and she considered public appearances a specialized activity, to be preceded by a lot of fanfare.

‘Aren’t you nervous?’ she asked.

Swarna Lata smiled. ‘I am – a little,’ she admitted. ‘But I consider the message more important than the person, you know. I’ll repeat it for you back here, if you like.’

‘What’s a little rain?’ declared Virmati.

‘Well, hurry then. Tongas will be difficult in this weather.’

Clenching her teeth, Virmati bravely left the warmth of her bed. She pulled on her morning socks, still a little damp, groped for her shoes under the bed, dragged on the thick sweater Indu had knitted for her, and struggled into the tight sleeves of her coat.

‘Better take your umbrella also,’ said Swarna Lata, gesturing outside.

*

The girls hurried across the SL quadrangle, holding their coats, clutching umbrellas, the wind driving the rain sideways onto them.

‘There are some girls from my class singing for this function,’ volunteered Virmati, her breath emerging whitely in the air as she spoke.

‘I hope the rain won’t stop them,’ smiled Swarna Lata.

Not everybody is like you, Swarna, thought Virmati. I’m not, though I wish I were. But when Harish is here, I stop thinking of other things. And when he is not here, all I do is wait for him to come. How long do we have to be secret man and wife, hidden from the eyes of the world. I hate it, but what can I do?

Virmati wished she could discuss all this with Swarna, but she felt too shy. It was not as though Swarna was unaware of her relationship with Harish, but she was too afraid of Swarna’s contempt to go into the myriad instances of where she felt she had been weak or wronged. In a dim, obscure way, Virmati longed for that open-hearted conversation between friends that relieved the mind, and strengthened faith in oneself, but she had always found it difficult to articulate her feelings.

By this time a miserable-looking tonga had appeared, with its miserable, shivering horse. The driver agreed to take them at three times the usual price.

‘Beggars can’t be choosers,’ said Swarna as they jumped onto the back seat.

How true, thought Virmati.

The tonga slowly creaked from side to side, with spurts of speed as the driver thrust his hand between the horse’s hind legs and twisted its genitals. Although the rain had stopped, the sky was heavily clouded, and it was dark for three-thirty in the afternoon. In the slushy, muddy portico of Lajpat Rai Hall, Virmati started to sneeze, her feet damp in spite of socks and closed shoes. Swarna looked at her speculatively but was soon swept inside by eager cries, and ‘Why are you late? She’s already here.’

Virmati made her own way more slowly. Despite the cold and rain, the hall was packed with girls seated on the floor almost up to the stage. More were standing against the walls. She edged her way towards a space at the back, hoping she would be able to hear Swarna from where she was.

The girls around her seemed to know what was going on. ‘Look, there’s Leela Mehta. She’s sick and still she’s come. That’s why she’s got that heavy scarf around her neck.’

‘Naturally. She’s the guiding spirit of the women’s conference. Half of the girls have come to hear her.’

‘Despite the weather.’

‘All the rain in the world could not have kept me away today. See.’ The girl held up her foot with the wet, muddy paoncha of her salwar showing.

‘What’s so special about muddy salwars that you should show me yours?’ said the first girl, pushing her friend’s foot down. ‘Almost everybody is damp and dirty. I must say we are a committed lot.’ And the first girl gazed around the hall with some satisfaction.

‘That we are. My poor parents rue the day they sent me to Lahore to study,’ said the second girl, laughing.

‘Look, there’s Sita Rallia, and there’s Noor Ahmed, and there’s Mary Singh, and there’s Mohini Datta, sitting right next to Swarna Lata Anand, and you can only think of your Mrs Mehta. And there’s Pheroz Shroff.’

At Mohini Datta’s name, Virmati peered at the women sitting on the stage. The woman beside Swarna was short and bulky with a dark, heavy-set face. Even silent, she gave out strength and confidence, an older more definite version of all the things that coalesced in Swarna. What was she? A nationalist, leftist, or Communist? She had forgotten, though Swarna had enthused about Mohini Datta more than once. Virmati sighed. They all seemed so remote from her.

The Inquilab Zindabad was sung, and Virmati looked up, tears in her eyes. The song was so moving. The students’ flag, representing freedom, peace and progress, was unfurled. There was a hush in the hall and it was clear most of the girls identified with it. Now Mohini Datta was explaining the meaning of the flag, how freedom was necessary for the development of the human spirit, how war especially affected women, how progress was their object so that freedom could be enjoyed by all classes of people, even the lowest of the low.

Am I free, thought Virmati. I came here to be free, but I am not like these women. They are using their minds, organizing, participating in conferences, politically active, while my time is spent being in love. Wasting it. Well, not wasting time, no, of course not, but then how come I never have a moment for anything else? Swarna does. And she even has a ‘friend’, who lives in the city. Thank God Hari lives in Amritsar. Otherwise I would be completely engulfed. But isn’t that what I want? What’ll happen when we marry?

Now there was Mrs Leela Mehta speaking, the woman her neighbour had come to hear – and according to her, half the girls in the hall. She got up, a commanding presence, looking taller for the scarf wrapped around her head, her voice husky and carrying. She was to inaugurate the conference.

‘I am a student like you, engaged in studying the book of life in the university of the world‚’ she started. Loud cheers, as Virmati’s eyes glazed over in thinking of her own lessons in the university of the world. She saw instead of the crowded hall, images of herself and the Professor embracing, kissing, his tongue pushing its way into her mouth in a way she had initially found very strange, and then liked, enough even to reciprocate. He always started this way, before undoing her kameez, or sliding his hands against her breasts. Making her so dizzy with kissing, she could no longer think.

Leela Mehta’s short speech was concluding. Virmati tried to concentrate. ‘And lastly‚’ she thundered, ‘we want not only degrees but constructive work. We demand the right, the privilege of doing something for our country. Friends, comrades …’ and here her voice dropped dramatically. ‘That is the real Inquilab. Not slogan shouting. Not posturing, and empty speechmaking. If you, the hope of the future generation, can achieve some difference in the lives of your fellow men, then indeed you are the true wealth of your nation.’ The hall broke out into thunderous applause as she sat down.

Virmati’s hands clapped too, as loud and as long as the others. Then Miss Saubhagya Sehgal, chairman of the reception committee, gave the welcome address. I didn’t know we were still at the welcome stage, thought Virmati. Miss Sehgal regretted that the leaders of India were keeping back progressive forces and doing their utmost, though in vain, to come to a compromise with British imperialism. She praised the students’ involvement in the satyagraha movement, as a result of which 360 students in Bengal were already in jail.

Begum Saba Malik, in the presidential chair, felt that the traditional view of women was changing as girls continued the freedom struggle. But, she went on to say, communalism had unfortunately been strengthened by the Congress accepting ministries and creating jealousies in people like Mr Jinnah and Mr Savarkar. Miss Noor Ahmed said the masses ought to be organized on the basis of their economic position, rather than on religious grounds.

One after another, voices spoke into the microphone, voices from Foreman Christian College, Kinnaird College, Lahore College for Women, Rawalpindi College, Fateh Chand College for Women. All the women had such strong opinions. Virmati was amazed at how large an area of life these women wanted to appropriate for themselves. Strikes, academic freedom, the war, peace, rural upliftment, mass consciousness, high prices due to the war, the medium of instruction, the Congress Committee, the Muslim League, anti-imperialism, Independence Day movement, rally, speeches. Virmati’s head was swimming. They were talking a language she had yet to learn. She began to feel stifled. Her legs had gone to sleep. She shifted uncomfortably on her haunches, the cold from her feet seeping into her despite the heat of the bodies around her. She felt out of place, an outcaste amongst all these women. She thought of Harish who loved her. She must be satisfied with that.

These larger spaces were not for her. She felt an impostor sitting in the hall. Again, scenes from her private life came unbidden before her eyes. She could feel the pressure of the Professor’s thighs against her own. At such moments the meaning of her life seemed perfectly plain. She just had to follow that memory upwards, to feel him thrusting inside her, strong and large, as she moaned and arched with pleasure.

Oh, there was Swarna getting up. She was walking to the lectern, damp and bedraggled, looking directly at the girls.

‘We are at the moment engaged in an effort that is purely symbolic‚’ she said. ‘The leaders of the Congress Party are daily being tried under the Defence of India Act, an act that forces one to realize the very divergent interpretations attached to the word “country”. The outcome predetermined, they are forced into the confines of narrow prison cells. Hundreds of students share their fate, hundreds more will no doubt join them before their time is over.

‘And yet, friends, how representative is this movement? Where are the masses that should be part of it? The cruel divisions that arise from economic differences make their effect felt in this arena as well.

‘As women, it is our duty, no, not duty, that word has unpleasant connotations. It is our privilege to be able to give ourselves to the unity of our country. Not only to the unity between rich and poor, but between Muslim and Hindu, between Sikh and Christian. Artificial barriers have been created amongst us to gain power over insecure and fearful minds. Let the politics of religion not blind us to this fact.

‘We know what it is like to have our freedom threatened. The ban on strikes, particularly in Kinnaird and Khalsa Colleges is an attempt to muzzle the student movement, to stifle our voices. We know their efforts will be in vain. Our united front will prove that. But we must not falter, or be cowed down.’

Heavy applause broke out as Swarna finished speaking. As the final resolutions were being formulated, Virmati wondered about her friend. She had known she was well known, but had not realized the extent of her reputation. Her heart felt dull and heavy within her. The whole afternoon had been interminable. She wondered whether she would ever get out, ever see the sky again.

At last the final resolution was moved, seconded, and adopted. The crowd around her began to heave and rise. Some of the girls left, but many moved towards the stage. They haven’t had enough, thought Virmati resentfully. She could see a group of people clustered around Swarna, could then see Swarna and her cluster join the bigger one around Leela Mehta and Mohini Datta. Should she wait or go? She hung about irresolutely for a few minutes and then made her way slowly out of the hall. Once outside, she gulped in the cold, fresh, rain dampness, her lungs getting rid of the moistness produced by the myriad breathers inside. She carefully made her way down the slippery steps, and decided to walk to the hostel.

*

On her arrival back at her room Virmati immediately dived for her bed, the rumpled quilt waiting as she had left it, the sheets now clammy. She lay there, her limbs too heavy for movement, drifting uneasily in and out of a dazed sleep, when at nine the door swung open with a bang, and Swarna came in, humming, with all the brightness of a woman who has come from a fruitful engagement with the world.