Rains have taken over the land again. A subtlety might have ended in my eyes, but the earth needed this downpour. I never liked the rains. Even though my idol, Mr.Disney, his famous mouse and I considered rains as unnecessary water coming from the skies and related it as a sign of sadness divine, but everyone else seems to be too happy with this beautiful phenomenon.
It did rain heavily when I saw her. I wouldn't say it wasn't sad. Perhaps I dwelled too much into what I saw and observation is a curse with a price tag. Ignorance can show you a bliss which had never existed but I believe the ones who observe, are left bare to soak it all and are charged with sleepless nights.
I was in a cab, driving back on a gloomy night from one of those pretentious book recitals. I lived in Dilshad garden at that time which is at the east end of the capital. East Delhi can be a very peculiar place in terms of its location and infrastructure, the description of which is beyond my capability, but just to keep this as simple as it can be, I stopped at one of the major red lights en route to my place and that brought me to the far end of this story.
I looked out on the pavement and saw a trail of drenched rats escaping into nothingness. A few kids were following these creatures, laughing and getting wet in the evening downpour with balloons in their hands, not caring less and playing in the dirty water which had stagnated. I was wondering what could possibly make them happy from this insignificance and my naivety made me observe that pleasures can come from even rats running into drain pipes.
Then arose a shadow, caressing her wet lehenga and eyes wandering like a lunatic. Out of the depths of the city's underbelly, a beautiful girl emerged and put one hand on the car’s window. She was holding a bunch of balloons which occasionally reflected the light which emanated from the clouds. The thunder was perhaps reflected in me. She asked me to buy one of her balloons. "Saab 20 ka ek?“
Although the rain camouflaged her inability to convey the truth behind her, the lightening and the thunder revealed a rather humane and unpleasant scenario of her existence, the likes of which I wasn't ready to comprehend. As her choli flew away from her head and glistened towards her thighs, I saw the swollen abdomen and feet and in that moment when nature gave me an opportunity to observe the worst of her, I saw that she was at least twenty-four weeks pregnant.
But she felt embarrassed. Unexpectedly she tried an attempt to conceal this and carefully scanned the traffic signal to check if anyone had seen her misfortune. She then turned towards my car and in about six years in this city, she was perhaps the third person to look at me like that. A subtle ecstatic wrinkle emerged on her forehead, lips dried, yet camouflaged by the rain. She looked at me with fear and anticipation, with yearn and dread, with expectations and misfortune. I took out a ₹100 note and gave it to her.
She was perplexed. As she took her choli upward to hide her abomination and her glistening bosom and a tensed forehead, she offered me all the balloons she had. But I said "keep it".
I wasn't expecting her to even say thank you for what I had offered, but then she did something unexpected. She put the note in her cleavage, again scanned the entire area as if she just stole it from me and ran away, without even saying anything, not even her name.
I looked blankly as she ran towards the other side of the road. She turn towards me and just kept staring at my cab. My eyes were fixed at her and at this rather unconventional gratitude or the fear of it. The cab driver told me about bonded labor and that all her earnings were usually sent to a pile from which she was given a meagre ‘salary’ of sorts on a daily basis. She ran because she was scared for herself and her baby and as the lights turn green and she disappeared in the dark of this city, I decided that perhaps she needs to see light.
🌸🌹🌸
In the midst of a dirt calloused room, Zeenat used to live among the rats. Trying to cook what it seemed like haldi chawal. Thats all she could afford. She wore a blue sari and a green petticoat which was old and ragged and torn and sewed and torn again. A constant lull surrounded that dingy room, with her sitting at its one end looking towards the moon in the sky and the yellow rice bubbling slowly over a fire lit by twigs and newspapers. Anything she felt was futile in her mind, because she knew neither her mother had a life, neither did she and nor will her unborn child.
Zeenat was married to Aleem, who was a band-wala in the local band who used to perform in weddings and events. Bereft of talent, he was one of those extras who had no rhythm but were hired to carry the weight of the talented ones-their clothes, their equipments, the lights, and sometimes was even subjected to a lot of horse shit henceforth. Aleem never used to like this part of his work. A spent childhood and a troubled first marriage had made him silent on his tribulations. His internal conflict on affection and the loss of the desire to love, reflected badly on his work. The money from his job and the savings from his wife's bonded labour were spent in his weird desires of having sex outside the home or getting himself beaten up in gambling. He didn't know when Zeenat got pregnant. So she had to earn and work and eat double under her circumstances while Aleem brought no money and stole her savings for himself.
On a pleasant November afternoon, she decided to not to go to the traffic signal and instead stay at home and rest. It was the end of her second trimester and a lot of problems were already visible on her face-the dire poverty, the insatiable hunger, the abuse from Aleem. This was when I met her again. I had used some of my contacts in the local police to yield out the details of the beggars at the same traffic light where I saw her and a kind Inspector finally helped me find her whereabouts. My schedule was busy and I had to go to see her after nine in the night. I obliged Inspector Singh to go with me as Nandnagri was not speculated to be a place for the day dwellers. It was famed to be inhabited by the creatures of the night. It was a slum neighbourhood and I was advised not to go there in the dark by almost everyone whom I had told about my encounter. But stubborn and foolish and creature of the night myself, I went anyway.
We reached there by half past nine and I saw a dingy room where apparently someone was sitting near the window and boiling some oil in a big pan while sitting in a squat. I asked Inspector Singh to wait outside and I slowly went near the door and knocked to let her know that she had a visitor. I didn't know her name by then, so I let myself in and explained who I was.
“yaha kyun ay ho? Paise wapas chahihye?” she asked why I was there and if I needed the money back. I couldn't reply anything to this question. I didn't know it myself why I was there.
“kabse ho yaha?” I asked about her stay in the slum.
“jabse abba ne bêcha hmei” she told me her father sold her.
“kyu?” I asked why and then she looked into the window at the smoke leaving the house; then she turned towards Inspector Singh and chuckled a bit.
“police se pakadwaogey babu?” she asked me if I was there to arrest her.
“nahi toh? Aisa kyu bola?” I told her no.
“janna hai kyun?” she asked me if I wanted to know.
And I said yes.
She looked at me and a sense of guilt went through my spine like a late night chill. She looked at her chulha and then towards the myriad of cockroaches and rats that surrounded her in that hole. She stood up and went to the window-a shallow piece of space in the wall yielding into nothing but the vast expanse of hopelessness where she used to live. Moonlight struck her tired face, but she didn’t hide it from me. Her swollen belly visible from her sweat-tainted saree and a moment later she turned towards me and smiled as if mocking me and this useless interview born out of my pretentious curiosity.
She went on: “I am from Pilibheet sahib, its a small village in UP. I thought I would study more. It was as if everything around me wanted me to know my misfortune, except me. The flood in our village taught me about forces of nature, the sun about how to dry clothes, the medicines about how they must be working. Sahib my mother was a complicated person. She never wanted me to study. I don't know why. I was their only child. This disappointment and anger from her was very alien to me. As I grew, I decided to forgive her because perhaps I was guilty I would have done the same to a know-it-all daughter; but I was too naive to comprehend. That day sahib when you gave me so much money. I got greedy. Aleem hit me with a belt that day. Babu, my abba was a foolish man. My ammi used to give me money when she needed me to go around the next village in rich men’s houses and spend nights with them. I used to bring thousand or two thousand and this used to contain her anger towards me. But there were days, when she wasn't too happy. One of these days, she took out a knife and threw it towards me but it missed. Then she took the tashla which had boiling oil. She threw it towards my face; but I got away. It burnt me a little on my legs, but by this time I had no idea she would actually try to kill me. She took out her dupatta and started choking me. I had no option left, I ran towards the frying pan and threw it towards her. When she fell, I took her knife and stabbed her as many times as I could. My father saw this. He sold me to a pimp in Delhi and to have me a normal life; married me to this monster.”
All of a sudden I heard some arguments and someone falling on the ground. The door cracked opened. It was Aleem with a blood stained brick in his hand. Behind him on the ground was Inspector Singh writhing on the ground. His drunk eyes pierced through my face and then they went onto Zeenat. Drunk in rage he cursed her and went ahead to grab her face.
“kya bata rhee thee mere bare me isko?’ he asked if she was being a rat. He dropped the brick and turned towards the chulha and took out a knife. He started tearing her blouse with that.
“Hey!Pagal hogye ho?” I asked if he had gone insane.
“Tu police me hai na, tje bhee mar dalunga;’ he threatened to kill me.
“ey, usko jane do Aleem,” I requested him to leave Zeenat.
A loud crack was heard soon after. Zeenat had hit Aleem on the head with a pan. Aleem fell down in exasperation, hands over his head. His eyes started oozing blood and became darker as Zeenat and I saw him losing his consciousness. She looked at me, and I saw that the zeal of a living soul had departed her in this moment. She took the knife from Aleem’s limp hands and stabbed his neck as many times as she possibly could.
Inspector Singh saw all that. He came to stop Zeenat and forced the knife away from her. I was standing there looking at blood stained Inspector Singh cuffing Zeenat and Zeenat had a look of surprise on her face. She looked at me and slyly smiled. As she was taken away, she looked back in that room where I was still standing in awe and screamed, “bachcha azaad hua mera”, she said that her child is now free.
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Inspector Singh called me up after six months of this incident. He told me that Zeenat was let go because of her history of extortion at the hands of Aleem and her reasons for self-defence. She gave birth to a baby girl a month back. I went to see her in the government hospital. There were still a few rats here and there and there were still happy children following them to the next ward. Then there was Zeenat feeding her baby in the open sun. She named her Daisha which meant ‘alive’. But she used to call her little ‘chuhiya’.
And then there was Aleem, who lied paralysed under a dainty roof. Rains seeped into his skin and made it soft and he was found to have his face eaten by the rats.