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May 26, 2002
EXCERPTS: No identity crisis, there
Sujata S. Sabnis weaves a tale of mystery and romance round two young people with different religious beliefs who fall in love and find themselves under immense social pressure
This is a novel centred in an imaginary world of undivided India. In 1947, Nehru is given a startling piece of information which prompts him to reject the Mountbatten plan and refuse partition.
The second part of the novel is set in 2001. India is a powerful huge subcontinent. But now an extremist group is seeking separatism. With that in mind it has planned a spate of violent actions culminating in a shocking assassination. Will it succeed and would the country be partitioned in 2001?
August 22, 2001
A stark Delhi morning shrouded the city with grey. The sombre cast of the day seemed to creep into Reshma’s bedroom as she lay passively under the coverlet. She had been released from hospital nearly three days earlier, where she had undergone a relatively minor operation on her upper arm. Though the physical wound had been taken care of, the mind had yet to heal. Wrapped in the silence of misery, buffeted by inner storms, Reshma huddled within herself, desperately putting a distance between the world of the living and herself. The anaesthesia had worn off, but not the shock. And depression seemed to have trapped her in the deepest craters of black torment. She had slipped away to some remote corner of mental existence where nothing living could touch her.
The pain was too recent, remorse too intense. Reshma remained a mere shadow of her vibrant self. And the ghost of Anees Bakhtiar hovered around her.
Ruthlessly Rukshana Bi pulled the curtains, opening the window to let in the cool spray. She went towards her lethargic charge and gently shook her awake.
“Come on, Nyani, this won’t do,” she said urgently. “Get hold of yourself, beti, how long will you continue this way.” “Amma, please, just let me be, will you?”
“Beg saheb wants to come up and meet you. Why don’t you get dressed so that I can call him?”
She was barely presentable by the time Parvez Ali Beg and Zahera, tiptoed in. Supported by fluffed-up pillows, hair combed, dupatta in place, Reshma was wan and white, but at least she was back in the world of the living. It was with a relieved smile that they enquired about her health, and she lied with serenity. It was her guilt. Her cross. She would not let anyone else in that penance.
“Reshma, I need to tell you this. Yesterday, Anees Bakhtiar was buried with complete military honours.”
Pain flooded her. Swamped her senses. Anees Bakhtiar’s passion, his hunger for life. Now cold. Rejected. Relegated to the ground.
She took a deep breath, and stumbled on, “Military honours? How is that possible?”
Beg explained quietly, “On no account can there be any connection between a military officer and an assassin of the Quom-i-Majlis. You understand — that is not good for army morale.”
“And so?”
“Major Sukhbir Bindra has informed his platoon that Captain Anees Bakhtiar had been sent to a troubled area on special duty to control insurgency.”
After a pause he continued, “He died four days ago in a bomb blast. His mother was informed accordingly and his closed coffin was send to Rawalpindi.”
Not just cold but shrouded in deceit. Oh my love ...
“I must request you to maintain this story when you go back, Reshma.”
She mutely nodded and then whispered, softly, “So it’s all over.”
“Yes, but there is one thing I don’t understand,” Parvez stated quietly. “I thought maybe you could explain.”
“What is it?”
“He had a backup car ready and waiting quite close to the van. After the assassination attempt failed, he could have easily made his escape. Instead he came out in the open, towards certain death. Why?”
“Because of me,” she said bitterly. “He thought I was dead, killed with his bullet. So he came running towards me. And was hit. Perforated. Everywhere.”
“He must have loved you very much indeed,” said Parvez with compassion.
Reshma nodded silently.
Zahera bent forward, and patted her cheek gently, “May I ask you something? It is obvious that you were both deeply in love. What went wrong?”
“It wouldn’t have worked,” she said starkly. “I was scared.”
“Scared of what for God’s sake?”
“Social stigma. Family ties. He was a Muslim, you see, and I was a coward. I could not risk breaking up my world for the sake of love.”
“So you broke up the relationship?”
“It was inevitable.”
“Why?”
“I haven’t made this society. Or its rules. I just live in it. To break traditions, to go against the tide needs courage. I didn’t have it. Not enough.”
“And so you decided to dump him?”
“It was not as cold-blooded as it sounds, Zahera Maasi. Nor so simple. It broke me apart. It hurt, but I had to do it.”
She shrugged and smiled bitterly.
“I thought I could condition myself to love someone more acceptable,” she said harshly. “Like Pavlov’s dog.”
“And then?”
“I told him. He went berserk. He just couldn’t, wouldn’t, accept the fact that I was rejecting him on grounds of religion.”
“That’s when he turned dissident?”
“That must have been the beginning, yes.”
“What was the end?”
“You think there was one?”
Parvez quietly said, “I think there must have been. The change in him was too drastic.”
Zahera softly warned, “Give her time, Parvez, she doesn’t need any pressure right now.”
“No, I want to. For too long I’ve kept it inside me.” She took a deep breath and said in a voice shivering with memory. “This happened one month after our break-up. I discovered I was pregnant. With a three-month old foetus.”
“Oh God! What did he say?”
“Nothing, I didn’t tell him about the pregnancy.”
“He didn’t know about it?”
“He did later on. When it was much too late.”
“You mean...”
“I aborted the foetus. I killed my baby. Our baby.”
The only sound in that room was the soft sobbing of Rukshana Bi with her hand clamped on her mouth.
Reshma shuddered, “I was very sick after the abortion. Amma was with me — she was the only one whom I had told. She was scared and phoned Anees. That was when he came to know about the baby and the abortion.”
“What did he say?”
“Nothing. He just stared. So much hatred, so much bitterness! He could have killed me at that moment.” Reshma shrugged, “Anyway, it does not matter any more, does it? Anees is dead. As for me, I’m living. Not alive. But living.”
Zahera said sharply, “Don’t be maudlin, Reshma!”
She smiled bitterly, “Oh, don’t worry, Zahera Maasi. I can’t be like the Reshma of folklore, who died for love. A modern girl like me has to be sensible. You can’t call it betrayal, you give it the fancy name of pragmatism.”
“What will you do?” Zahera probed gently.
“Go back to Rawalpindi. Get married to a man my family approves of. Don’t create waves, don’t upset the status quo. The good daughter. The acceptable wife. And my children will thank me for not plunging them into an identity crisis because of my youthful blunder.”
“But will you forget?”
“That I killed the man I loved? And the baby who should have been born? No, but I can always push it to some safe corner of my mind where its existence will be known only to me. I can act out a charade. For I am an Indian girl. And we are happy cowards, ace survivors. I too will survive.”
Excerpts from
A twist in destiny
By Sujata Sabnis
Roli Books, M-75, Greater Kailash II Market, New Delhi-110048.Tel: 091-11-646 7185
Email: roli@vsnl.com Website:
www.rolibooks.com
ISBN 81-7436-204-5
335pp.
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