Karma (21 page)

Maya!

(Say yes, Sandeep!)

Akbar unwinds his turban.

He ties the sari to one end.

Grab it!
Akbar shouts.

Tie it around your wrist!

(Please say yes!)

He took off my sari.

To give his brother a rope.

December 10, 1984

Jiva!

I open the door to stop the frantic rapping.

Sandeep's face pours sweat. Damp hair hangs over his left eye. Clings to his forehead.

Is it blood?

He cradles his left side. A broken rib too? But he's smiling. His white teeth still intact.

He steps aside.

The hallway is lit by a tube-shaped moon flickering and humming.

A man stands under.

A shrunken man with bowed shoulders.

(Not tall like my father.)

The hair is cut short.

(Not long like my father's used to be.)

A fresh scar runs down his cheek. Thick. Deep.

A branch a stick a knife dragged across soft flesh.

(
Blood for blood!)

The face is etched with pain and sorrow.

But the eyes.

The eyes.

Sunken.

Rimmed with shadows.

The eyes. Are on fire.

No

This is him?

This is the shell of my father?

Sandeep stands behind.

His hand on the man's back as if he's holding him up.

He leans over.

His mouth near his ear repeating the word a name I've almost forgotten.

Jiva. Jiva. This is Jiva, your daughter.

Then he straightens up.

He's so tall. Sandeep is so tall.

He must have grown since we first met.

Why didn't I see it before?

This is really her,
Sandeep says.
Your Jiva.

He gives the man a small push.

The man stands between us like a shield.

Sandeep watches my face.

This is Maya,
his eyes say.
The girl I love.

The girl you're going to take away from me.

No,
I cry. The first word out.

Sandeep steps back. His eyes still talking.

What did you think was going to happen, Maya?

What did I think?

What did I think?

Not this! Never this!

I watch the tears pour down Sandeep's face.

A torrent of despair. A pain so sharp I fear his eyes will cry blood.

I thought you would always be with me, Sandeep.

THIS IS WHAT I THOUGHT.

This is what the foolish girl believed!

She didn't think she'd have to choose.

But we're too young,
meri jaan.

We're just too young.

My love

He retreats into the hallway. Ducking under the fluorescent lights. Backing his body into the shadows of the green painted walls.

Don't go, Sandeep. Please!

The man steps forward.

Filling the doorframe.

Closing the space between us.

Please wait,
I cry.

Wait just another moment, Bapu.

Because the boy I love is fading.

Falling down a tunnel.

Disappearing from my sight.

And my skin is on fire!

But my father cannot wait.

His heaving chest the dampened cheeks the familiar hands quivering reaching for me.

Wait.

His arms circle me.

Clutching like a drowning man.

Wait.

My arm wriggles free from his embrace.

Reaches into the sickly shadows.

Wait, Sandeep!

Bapu puts his hand on my head and pulls me into his chest and all I can see is the white cotton shirt and all I can smell is the sweat of fear and relief and all I can feel is the pounding of two hearts. Breaking.

We have dreamed of this moment.

This unlikely reunion.

A father's tears falling across his daughter's back.

A daughter weeping into her father's chest.

This is love. It is true.

But it is not whole.

It is not enough, anymore.

When my father loosens his grip Sandeep is gone.

My joy and my sorrow!

I have loved. And lost.

Let him go, Jiva. I'm here now.

Alive

Bapu holds my face in his hands.

He turns my head.

Looks at my hair.

God has brought us together, daughter.

Praise God. Praise God that you are alive.

God had nothing to do with it, Bapu.

It was Sandeep.

But God brought us the boy? Yes?

Perhaps that was his destiny.

No, Bapu. Perhaps he is ours.

Changes

We are not the same people any longer.

It's true, Jiva. We have no hair.
He laughs nervously. Grips my hands in his.
Perhaps we don't know each other any more.

This could be true. He's not the same frantic man who left me alone in a hotel room six weeks ago. He talks slowly now and only in Punjabi. Weighing each word like a grocer.

I didn't think I'd see you again. I prayed you were with your mother.

You prayed I was dead?

I prayed you weren't suffering. A young girl with no one to protect her. I know what they do to girls in India.

But better dead than violated?

I'm your father, Jiva. Don't judge me too harshly.

He tells me his story

How he ran from the hotel. Staying in shadow. Avoiding the gangs carrying car tires over their heads. He hid in stalls and under tarps. He followed the river and found other Sikhs. Ran from them too. Unable to bear the sight of their cowardice. And how they looked at him with similar eyes.

They witnessed each other's terror. Condemned the hastily shaved beards. Cropped hair. The false denials of their god. They vomited on each other's feet.

How had such warriors fallen to this place?

He hated himself. Even more than he hated himself after Leela died. Self-revulsion was just another weapon the Hindus used against them.

When he stumbled into Kiran's house the sun was breaking the horizon. Slivers of light splintered like shards of glass. The sky was red and angry.

Kiran hid him in the shrine room behind a bamboo curtain. Ganesh, the elephant god, kept him company.

When Kiran went back into the city he learned that the Rama Hotel was attacked. But the girl named Jiva was nowhere to be found.

Amar practiced more self-loathing. He had abandoned his daughter to her fate. He had failed in all the ways men can.

He did not eat. Or bathe. He wandered the streets calling out
Jiva!
From sunup to sundown. Kiran walked with him. To the Canadian consulate. The British consulate. The French consulate. No one knew anything.

They went to the bus station. The train station. The airport. But he had no photograph, he realized too late. He went to the morgue. To the Hindu temples. He went to Chandigarh, where his family pleaded with him to stay. He even went to G. B. Road where the child prostitutes look down from the balconies.

He telephoned Elsinore. He spoke to my teachers. The principal. He talked to Helen too. Had Jiva called her? Helen cried. She asked if she could fly to Delhi. Bapu politely declined.

And then he stopped looking. And started praying.

He imagined the worst. Rape. Murder. His daughter's body defiled, mutilated. Left to decay with no proper funeral rites. The body not washed nor wrapped in cotton. No hymns for the sleeping soul.

His anger grew absolute.

Life

It's not easy to die, Bapu.

My father stands.

Palms pressed together.

Gori Sukhmani

In the desert I thought I wanted death to find me. But life is an enormous force. It doesn't let go easily.

Ik Onkar

I've also learned that our lives are not just our own. Everyone and everything is connected. Like a wide net of fine thread.

Nam japat aagint aanaykay

Kinay Ram Nam Ik Aakhir

I don't think I know God any more, Bapu. But I know something of humanity. The kindness of strangers. Their cruelty too.

Jis Nay Nam Tomarrow Khaha

And I know the land's power. A sunrise. Miraculous even though it happens every day. The birds. Wild animals crossing the desert. All of us witnessing the golden rays. Breathing the same air. Does that sound primitive?

Aagia Kari Keeni Maya

There was a man on the train, Bapu. They burned him alive. And he cried for longer than I could have imagined. It was his suffering that taught me it's not easy to steal the will from a life!

Ram Nam Jap Hirday Mahain

Are you even listening to me?

God will not

God will not let the murderers get away with it, Jiva.

But he already has.

We shall see.
Sat Sri Akal.

Victory belongs to God.

The scar

He runs his fingertips along the groove crossing his cheek. His hand shakes. A new nervous gesture to define him.

It was a knife held by a teenager, Jiva. An angry young man swept up in the moment. Swinging the blade this way and that. Trying to frighten me. He held me down with a foot on my chest and the silver in my face. Where is your mercy? Where is your humanity?

I asked. He said he was keeping me for the others. I dared him to finish me off. A quick push through the heart would do it. But he was a coward. A boy afraid of his manhood. He thought too much. And I told him so.

Just do it, boy. Be done, I said. There are many more Sikhs getting away as you waste time waiting for your friends. Or is that why you wait? You want them to see your courage? The murder of an innocent man? You think there is strength in numbers? There is cowardice in numbers too.

The boy waffled. His eyes shifting. When I started to move, pushing at his foot, he became frightened.

Called for his friends louder and louder. Even though he was the one holding the knife.

What are you afraid of? I taunted. A shaved Sikh?

Unarmed? You're a coward.

That's when he swung his arm and missed. Except for my cheek. The ribbon of blood sent him running. He dropped the knife. This knife, Jiva. So now I have a scar. And a new
kirpan
. Not ceremonial. The real thing. If a mere Hindu boy can carry it and wield such power, so can I. So I don't mind the scar anymore. It's who I am now. A hunted man. Beware the wounded victim you leave alive.

Kirpan

You're frightening me, Bapu.

Put the knife down.

Hard

So. The boy, Jiva?

His voice becomes colder.

Edged like a blade.

How well do we know the boy?

What do I say? What does a shared heart mean to a father? Do I dare speak the truth?

I tell him how we met. Parvati. My silence. The women in the alley. Bahrinda. Moomal. The golden desert where Mata roused me. Sandeep's brother and sister. His pain and guilt.

And then I take a deep breath and explain what it all means:
I have learned what love is.

His answer:
You are not allowed to love whomever you please.

Why not? You did.

Proof

Jiva, I didn't suffer so you could fall in love with a goatherd raised by Hindus!

And I didn't suffer to let others control my life!

You're my daughter! And you must do what I say!

I will not! I have proved that I am more than just a daughter in this world. What have you proved?

You abandoned me!

He gets up and walks toward the door.

He opens it, then slams it shut without leaving.

Well, you're stuck with me now.

The boy

The boy has

some instincts

and he might be brave

but he's reckless too

entering the temple without

covering his head

announcing to everyone

he was a Hindu making amends

and he was so smooth

in his fluent HIndustani

arrogant

naive

causing quite a scene

with his dramatic

shouting

pleading

crying out

Amar Singh!

over and over

and then

Jiva!

Leela!

Kiran!

the private details of our life

Elsinore!

Helen!

Neil Armstrong!

and finally

I'm in love with the girl called Maya!

The boy is a fool. He could have been killed.

I eventually stopped the men from beating him more.

But do not confuse this with compassion, Jiva.

You will not see him ever again.

I want to hurt him

Tell him things a father never wants to hear. Recount the argument with Sandeep.

(Was it only yesterday?)

I'm not property. I'm not my father's honour. And I am not his disgrace.

I know I shouldn't speak but I'm tired of silence. I'm tired of lies. And I'm tired of hiding my heart.

This is my life, Bapu. And I didn't choose any of it. Not your exile to Canada. Or Mata's suicide. Mrs. Gandhi's murder. Or the terrible riots. I didn't even choose to stop speaking. But I chose Sandeep. I chose him to love. And I will not feel guilty or ashamed.

I look at Bapu. His hands are trembling. Searching the cleft of flesh on his face. Was Sandeep right? Is it all too much? Is there nothing good or pure left in the world for my father?

I'm not sorry for my feelings, Bapu. But you need to know something. That foolish boy who risked his life to find you didn't touch me. He refused what I wanted to offer!