THE MAGICAL PALACE (18 page)

The letter was blotted with tearstains and blue ink had streaked all over the page. Rani and I were quiet.

‘Poor Mallika Didi,’ Rani finally said. ‘You will never let something like this happen to me, will you, Rahul?’

‘I will never be like our parents or Mallika Didi’s parents. They are so cruel.’ I was feeling as vulnerable as her.

When Saturday dawned, we were nervous all day and offered to clean the table after lunch, surprising Ma. We just wanted her and Baba to settle down for their siesta so that we could get out of there as quickly as possible and return before they woke up.

But then the phone rang and I cursed because we would have to wait now. ‘Four-six-five-three-zero,’ my mother answered. As the person on the other end replied, she said,
‘Anjali Didi, how are you?’ When Anjali Mashi said something in response, she nodded. ‘No, later. I cannot talk right now,’

She paused for a second when Anjali Mashi said something again. ‘Oh, you want us to meet the boy?’ she asked. Cupping her hand over the receiver, she asked my father, ‘Ogo, shunchho? Anjali Didi wants us to go to meet the boy and his parents.’

Like all Bengalis, my parents never called each other by name. Occasionally, my father called my mother by her nickname Supriya. But my mother never called my father by his first name. It was always ‘Ogo, shunchho?’ which meant, ‘Are you listening?’ An oddly intimate greeting.

‘When?’ my father called out from the sitting room.

‘Tomorrow night,’ Ma said.

‘Achha. We will go.’

‘Anjali Didi, we will be there.’ She listened to Anjali Mashi’s response and said, ‘Of course! You know we are part of your family. How can it be any trouble?’

My mother soon joined my father. I tiptoed into the sitting room and listened carefully. My father’s gentle snores and my mother’s deep breathing assured me that they were asleep.

I looked at the clock on the wall. It said two o’clock. Only two hours to get there and back.

‘Did you bring the letter with you?’ I asked Rani.

‘Yes, I did.’

The second exit from the palace was across the street from the India Government Mint and in the rear. We made our way to it after a circuitous route around the palace to avoid detection. I slid open the metal bolt and slowly opened the small door, praying that it would not creak. The sentries were in their kiosks, slouched over their rifles,
napping in the afternoon heat. I knew they were trained to jump to attention at the smallest sound, so we crept out as quietly as we could.

This was the first time that Rani and I had been outside the palace on our own. Knowing that we could be grounded for the rest of or our lives for doing this made it scary but also empowering. It was our way of rebelling against our parents and, in some way, Mallika’s parents too. Bicyclists, motorists, rickshaw drivers, cows and goats flowed by in a continuous stream of life. The ringing of bicycle bells blended with the impatient toots of car horns. Slow-moving rickshaws and lazy cows grazing on newspapers meandered through the streets. With Rani at my side, we crept away from the palace gates.

I hailed a cycle rickshaw. ‘Lakdi ka Pul jaana hai? Kitna?’ I asked the driver the fare to Salim’s neighbourhood.

The rickshaw driver was an old man, aged by the sun and the streets of Hyderabad. He was dressed in a salwar kameez and wore a cap on his head.

‘Address?’ he asked in heavily accented English.

‘Three-hundred Akbar Road,’ I said.

‘Achha, Sahib, aap Mullah Habib ke ghar ja rahe hain?’ he asked. He knew the house well—it was the home of Mullah Habib. Shyamala had been right when she’d told us that Salim’s uncle was a mullah.

‘How much?’ I asked.

‘Sahib, roundtrip six rupees,’ he said, holding up six gnarled fingers, the nails cracked and soiled with grease. I looked at the rickshaw doubtfully.

It was covered like all others, with a top that could be either put up or down. The sides of the top were like an accordion fan, the canvas soiled and tattered between the
metal ribs that held the sides together. The body of the rickshaw was graced on one side by the face of Raj Kapoor and a painting of the holy black stone of Kaaba surrounded by inscriptions in Urdu on the other.

The rickshaw puller saw me hesitate and smiled, showing a few missing teeth.

‘Let us take this rickshaw,’ I said in hushed tones, anxious to get going.

‘Yes, he seems like a nice person. I think it will be safe to have him take us there and back,’ Rani replied.

‘Sahib, okay, roundtrip five rupees,’ the man said, holding up just one hand this time.

Moved by his generous offer, I climbed onto the rickshaw and the raised seat, followed by Rani. The cracks in the lumpy seat were old and the fibres escaping from it were black with age. We had not taken too many rickshaw rides before, so we were both excited and a little scared. We sat in the centre of the seat, trying not to fall over the side as the rickshaw puller expertly mounted it and started pedalling away, ringing his bell.

Within minutes, we were past the palace walls. Rani gripped my hand hard. We were travelling on a familiar road, the road to Khairatabad Market. The boundary of the market expanded and shrank with the size of it, located as it was on either side of the road. It was criss-crossed with tiny lanes and the kitchenware, vegetable, fruit, fish, meat and poultry sections were each in their own areas. As we entered the market, it was a world of chaos and cacophony. Vendors hawked their wares loudly as Hindi film songs blared from transistors. There were pictures of film stars plastered on the sides of the stalls. The smell of incense mingled with the smell of flowers and raw vegetables. As we passed the fish market,
the odour of fish mingled with that of the open sewers that bordered one side of the market. The paan shop was abuzz with activity as always, the paanwallahs liberally applying chuna, kathha and supari. A piece of slowly burning rope hung from a nail outside the paan shop so that the cigarette and bidi smokers could light up.

Just past the market, we could see a small crowd outside the Khairatabad mosque and the temple. In one group, there were men in lungis and beards, carrying banners that read ‘Build the Mosque’ in English and also other slogans in Hindi and Urdu. Facing them was another group of men with the Vaishnavite symbol painted on their foreheads in vermillion and rice paint. A small group of sadhus in orange robes shook trishuls threateningly at their opponents.

My stomach tightened as I heard a row rumble of slogans and chants. ‘
Allah ho Akbar!
’ and ‘
Jai Vishnu! Har Har Mahadev!
’ shouted the crowds at each other in the age-old battle cries. A dozen policemen with lathis formed a cordon that separated the two groups.

As our rickshaw passed the demonstration, it slowed down to a crawl as market-goers, fear written on their faces, started to surge away from the scene of commotion. A stone flew through the air and hit a young woman in front of us. She fell to the ground, bleeding from a cut to her head as angry family members screamed at the crowd milling around to make room for her. Someone in the crowd pushed one of the people shouting at him and he pushed back—a sea of disturbance erupted as the protestors’ slogans grew louder and more heated.

‘Oh, God! Did you see that?’ I clutched Rani’s arm.

She nodded, looking pale, ‘They are fighting about the expansion of the mosque.’

‘If that stone had hit us, Baba would have been so angry,’ I whispered, my voice shaking. ‘Jaldi chaliye, Miyan,’ I said to the rickshaw puller. I craned my neck, trying to see if a fight had broken out around the injured woman, but the scene disappeared from view as the rickshaw puller turned into a narrow lane between the slums.

‘Mmhh …’ I said, covering my nose with the sleeve of my shirt, assailed by the stench of open sewers. A group of children in rags, with tangled hair and runny noses, stared at us with frank curiosity. We were suddenly conscious of our clean clothes and neatly brushed hair, realizing with a pang that this world was very different from ours.

After a few minutes, the traffic thinned out and we reached a filthy canal spanned by a wooden bridge. Large sows and piglets lay in the putrid black slush.

The neighbourhood looked and felt different from anything we had come across before. Instead of the dhoti or kurta–pajama worn by Hindus, almost all the men were dressed in salwar–kameez. The loose-fitting clothes were distinctively embroidered. Other men wore lungis. Most of the men had no moustache but full beards. Their heads were covered with small embroidered skullcaps almost without exception. The few women we saw were dressed in black burqas, covered from head to toe, with a mesh in the front of the veil that allowed them to see. The ubiquitous roadside temples of Hindu neighbourhoods were absent and a large old peepal tree stood forlornly without the vermilion coated rocks that Hindus ringed such trees with and worshipped. Instead of signs written in Telugu or Hindi, all around us were signs written in Urdu, which I could not read. There were stores for bicycle repair, fruits, vegetables and women’s jewellery as well as ramshackle tea houses. Other shops
looked secretive, their doorways covered by old, tattered curtains. Very soon, the buildings thinned out and we were in a modest and clean residential area. This was certainly not Banjara Hills with its spacious landscaped homes and chowkidars guarding the gates. Mallika and Salim’s lives, we could see, were worlds apart. We stopped in front of a light blue house with a small garden in front. Dismounting, the rickshaw wallah pointed to the house. We had reached our destination.

I looked at Rani. She looked blank. I felt a sudden rush of confidence.

‘Is this the house?’ I asked the rickshaw puller.

‘Yes, Sahib, correct address this,’ he said in broken English.

I jumped off the rickshaw. ‘Achha, we will be back,’ I said as we entered through the gate and walked towards the house. Rani held on to my arm, clutching the letter in her free hand. It made me feel like I was the elder of the two.

‘I hope Salim opens the door,’ I said.

We rang the doorbell. After what seemed like forever, the door opened. It was Salim. He looked astonished to see us. He was dressed casually, in jeans and a T-shirt that said ‘Woodstock’.

‘Rahul, Rani,’ he said in surprise. ‘How are you? Are you here with Mallika?’ He looked expectantly behind us, towards the waiting rickshaw puller. ‘Khan Sahib, kaise hain aap?’ Salim shouted out to him.

‘Salaam, Salim Baba,’ the rickshaw puller replied. ‘Khuda ki marzi …’

Rani and I were surprised that he knew the rickshaw puller. ‘How do you know him?’ I asked.

Salim laughed, looking more endearing than ever. ‘Khan
Sahib used to take me to school when I was a little boy, much younger than you, Rahul,’ he said. ‘So, have you come with Mallika?’ he asked again.

‘No, Salim. Mallika Didi is getting married. You must help her and take her away,’ Rani blurted out.

Salim looked confused for a second and then smiled mischievously as if he had discovered a joke. ‘What? Oh, I see. Your Mallika Didi is a big practical joker and she has sent you to scare me. It is not going to work. Come inside. It is too hot here,’ he said, opening the door and smiling indulgently at us. He walked ahead, confident and light, a spring to his step. He was clearly delighted to see us. He turned around dramatically on one heel and, pointing a finger at me, said, ‘So? Do you want to tell me the real reason you are here? Your Mallika Didi is playing another of her tricks on me, isn’t she? Anyway, so you were saying?’

Rani looked around the sitting room, frustrated. It was painted a light blue inside. There were a couple of comfortable and slightly worn sofas by the wall, tea tables at each end and a Persian rug on the polished grey slate floor. There were pictures all around the room, black-and-white pictures of a pretty lady and a younger Salim. Her head was covered with a stylishly wrapped dupatta in all the pictures. In some of the older pictures, there was a man who was presumably Salim’s father. I wondered if his mother was home.

Rani turned to me and said with urgency, ‘Rahul, tell him.’

Salim turned to me for confirmation. The look on my face made his smile fade.

‘Salim, Mallika Didi’s parents are marrying her off to another boy. She has been sent away to Assam. Here is her letter for you. She wanted you to read it.’ I spoke quickly.
Salim looked at Rani and me in shock. His face turned ashen. Rani nodded and gently shook the letter in her hand, confirming that I was serious.

‘Wait, wait. What are you saying? When did this happen?’ His voice rose, words tumbling out of his mouth. His eyebrows knotted in a frown as his mouth set in a stubborn, hard line. He stood rigidly, his feet spread slightly apart, his arms crossed across his chest.

‘Munna, who’s there?’ A woman’s voice sounded from the back of the house.

Salim abruptly uncrossed his arms, now looking very vulnerable. ‘Friends of mine, Ammijaan,’ he said in a strained voice.

‘Will you send her a letter too? We will give it to Shyamala to give to Mallika Didi when her parents bring her back from her grandmother’s home,’ Rani said. I was speechless, terrified that she would be interrupted by his mother at any moment.

‘Munna, who’s there?’ The woman’s voice sounded anxious and closer. We heard footsteps. My body tensed. Salim took a deep breath and collected himself, squaring his body as if bracing for a blow.

‘Meet us outside Mint House at the back entrance tomorrow afternoon at three,’ Rani said, giving him the letter, which he stuffed into his pocket.

Salim nodded. The curtains parted as a woman entered the room. Salim turned to the doorway.

The woman who entered was the woman in the photographs, but older. She was dressed in a dark brown salwar kameez, her head covered by a dupatta. She had heavily darkened eyes lined with kohl. She was very beautiful and held herself regally. I looked at her and could
see that Salim had got his eyes from his mother. He had also inherited her chin and lips.

‘Adaab, Aunty,’ Rani said, taking the lead. I echoed her greeting.

‘Adaab,’ she replied, raising her slightly cupped hand to her face, just as we had done. ‘Munna, who are these children?’ The woman searched our faces, a look of distrust in her eyes.