The Book

It was on a cold February morning when the sky was a brilliant blue and sunshine dazzled the eyes that Anand Ahluwalia stepped off the train that brought him to Delhi. He was home after eighteen months. He was only twenty six, but he looked older. The light had gone out of his eyes. A stubble covered his hollow cheeks and his smile was as stiff as the peaked cap he wore.

He had fought in the Eastern Front, in Dinajpur, where they said the fighting had been the heaviest. He had been commissioned only the previous year and as it was his first war, he had no memories of other wars to make a comparison. It was true though, that half his men had been killed and, many others had been injured. Miraculously he had escaped without a scratch. This fact had made him secretly ashamed. It did not seen quite fair.

Then they were all around him, Laughing, weeping, exclaiming. Pappaji enveloped him in a bear hug. Mummyji applied a tilak on his forehead. Mohan, his brother shook hands. Bhabi put a garland of marigolds round his neck. Suddenly, after a signal from Pappaji, a group of red-coated white trousered men, (the band party) began to play. Flutes, cymbals and drums started a great cacophony. Passengers leaned out of the train windows to see what the commotion was about. Urchins gathered around them and Mummyji handed them coins. Anand was acutely embarrassed. He felt he was in the middle of a particularly ghastly Hindi film.

As the Mercedes sped onwards to their New Friends Colony home, Anand found himself bombarded with questions. Mummyji and Bhabi were puzzled as to why he had lost so much weight. They had always thought the Army was fed well. Pappaji talked about the business. Would he now take charge of the shoe factory in Ghaziabad? Mohan talked about Indira Gandhi and what a spunky lady she was, and Bhabi said Mujibur Rahman looked like an uncle who lived in Kanpur . Anand watched the smooth streams of traffic and the stately buildings, the people thronging the pavements, the glass fronted shops. In his minds eye of rose a vision of a deserted village and a child stuck on a bayonet in front of every hut. Gooseflesh prickled his arms and he forced himselfto forget.

All the servants were lined up on the driveway-the mali, the cook, the maids. He made polite enquiries about their health and entered the house like a stranger. There was something obscene about the luxuriousness of the house, the black marble floors, the teak furniture, the expensive draperies, the crystal and the antiques. Manjit Bawas sleek white cows cavorted in a green meadow, their eyes full of liquid gentleness. He had seen starving cows~lie down and die. Hunger was an enemy that came again and again and he had not met a man, woman or child who had not been hungry.

It transformed one to an animal. After the cease fire he had manned a relief station. He had watched a sea of brown faces, eyes glazed, muttering, waiting for food. No sooner was the khichdi served on their tin plates when it was licked clean. After that they waited for the next meal. And the next.

He went up to his room. It had been dusted and cleaned and made ready for his arrival. There was even a bowl of white roses on his study table. He prodded the mattress. It yielded to his touch. The sheets and pillow covers were snow white. He prowled around the room as if searching for himself, the person he had been before the war. His ghost hovered in the Neil Diamond posters, the glass fronted cases of pinned butterflies, his cricket bat and dumbells, the Nick Carter paperbacks on the shelves, the half bottle of Aramis on the dressing table. He opened the closet and touched his bell bottom trousers and flower pat ­terned shirts. He crossed over to the other end of the room and swjtched on the music system. Kishore Kumar's resonant voice filled the room. 

It was that hit song from Aradhana. "Mere sapno ki rani kab ayegi tu "He thought of Sagar Talkies, the air-conditioned coolness, the pop com crunching Fanta swilling darkness and Sheetal's ripe breast cupped in his hand, her peppermint breath on his face and Rajesh Khanna's stylish mannerisms on the jeep that travelled alongside the toy-train in which Sharmila Tagore sat pretending to read a book. ............

Suddenly their was a commotion in the garden - there were shouts and loud staccato explosions. He raced down the stairs and burst into the drawing room. Pappaji, Mummyji and Bhabi looked up in surprise.

"What was that? he asked in a hoarse voice. Bhabi let out a peal of laughter.

"Oh, that!" she gestured towards the window, "The mali's kids are lighting crackers to welcome you home."

He turned to go "What do you think it was, Beta?" Pappaji's tone was indulgent "Gunfire in Dilli?"

Pappaji had great faith in Delhi. His family had been forced to leave behind land and property in Rawalpindi and escape to India in the terrible months after the partition. Sheer guts, hard work and perseverance had turned the tide and he now had two garment stores at Karol Bagh an ice-cream parlour at Connaught Place and a shoe factory at Ghaziabad. Mohan was helping him in the business and Anand had been expected to pitch in after his graduation from Hans Raj College. But Sheetal had come into his life and changed everything.

Three years ago at Mohan's wedding reception at the Taj, Anand had set eyes on Sheetal, a singer who had looked ravishing in a white off the shoulder chiffon dress embroidered with gold thread. She swayed gently to the music her voice husky, her face shining with animation. Anands eyes followed her around the room, hypnotized. When the party split up he insisted on driving her home but she refused, smil ­ing politely. In the next few weeks he could not keep his mind free of thoughts about Sheetal. His friends rallied around and finally someone informed him that she was a singer at Omar Khayyam.

He frequented the bar cum restaurant every night, sent her notes and finally she al­lowed him to take her to her room a-barsati in a three storeyed tene­ment near Sagar Talkies. In that tiny room filled with the drone ofthe projector and the claps and whistles of the audience at the next door movie hall, he lost his virginity. He had been naive and confused desire with love. That was why when Pappaji and Mohan confronted him with angry accusations he foolhardily declared he would marry Sheetal.Pappaji was apoplectic with rage and threatened to disinherit him. Anand had walked out of the house in a huff and gone to Sheetal's room, quite determined to wage war with the whole world for the love of his life. He was in for a rude shock. Sheetal blew him a kiss and said she was not in love with him. Yes, she was fond of him and was train­ing him to be a man of the world. That was all. No thank you, she did not want him to make an honest woman of her.

Crushed with disappointment, he had got thoroughly drunk and drove around endlessly in his Hero Honda. It was then at a quiet intersection, that his gaze had alighted on a giant billboard. A soldier ruddy complexioned and moustachiod was saluting the Indian flag. Your country needs you. Join the army today. Something snapped within him and he came to a decision. He was not a patriotic man. But here was a way to get away from an enraged father and the embarrassment of an unrequited love. He thought he would be wounded, missing in action, even killed. Something terrible would happen to him that would make them repent for the rest of their lives .

Nothing of the sort happened. He was back. Two days later a shamiana sprang up in the spacious lawns of Anand Niwas. Strings of small multicoloured bulbs were strung on the Ashoktrees. Three long tables were loaded with kababs, biryani, salads, sweets and ice-cream. As friends of the family arrived, Anand clad in a merino wool suit

shook hands and smiled shyly. There were businessmen, bureaucrats, two MPs, a social worker, an artist. A young man with long sideburns sipped his scotch and exclaimed India had been a midwife in the birth of Bangladesh. Someone else was very keen to define genocide. He said it was important to define it, to put it in proper perspective. They talked about the war and Anand listened. They talked of the things they had read in newspapers and magazines. They mentioned mortars and bazookas and someone even knew the exact number of Indian tanks that had been deployed.

Then Pappaji, his voice a little high due to all the scotch he had consumed, announced that Anand had been awarded the Vir Chakra. There were cheers and clinking of glasses and they all asked him about it. Clearing his throat Anand spoke. He had been told to take an outpost. After" some heavy firing he had ordered a direct assault. He did not have much choice because time was running out. Beyond the outpost was a road where a convoy had to be ambushed. They had taken the enemy by surprise. He shrugged his shoulders. That was it.

He did not tell them about the field strewn with skeletons, the small boy holding his stomach while blood flowed between his fingers. He did not talk about the pungent odours of death and the vacant eyes of the refugees, or the fear that prickled between the shoulder blades and made one vomit.

He saw the guests elegantly hold their plates and manoeuvre the food with their spoons. He felt sick at the sight of the food on the long tables. Here were men, women and children gorging themselves because he had killed others and come back alive. Dark shapes danced before his eyes and his palms grew moist.

He went indoors and sat near the telephone. Eighteen months and

he still remembered Sheetal's number. He dialled and waited.

"Hello?"

"Sheetal, its me, Anand. I got back three days ago."

"Anand .... .its wonderful to have you back ....... "

"Look, " he said urgently. Can I meet you now?"

"Anand" .... her tone was guarded. "I'm expecting someone in a few minutes."

"I only want to talk to you" he said wearily, "Meet me in front of

India Gate ......... in an hours time."

"Alright" "Bye"

He put down the phone, Bhabi was on the doorway, looking speculatively at him.

"You haven't got over her, have you?" She asked softly.

"Love has nothing to do with it" he said "Its not what you think."

The stars glittered in the violet sky as he walked towards India Gate.

The monument stood stoic in calm stone dignity. It had been erected in the memory of 90.000 soldiers of the Indian Army who died in action during World War I. He stared at the inverted rifle with a helmet on the butt and the eternal flame flickering next to it. He had lived all his life in Delhi and had passed this monument countless times. But tonight he stared at it is ifhe was seeing it for the first time.

Sheetal was sitting on the grass a little distance away. When she saw him she waved and got up. Their hands touched briefly. She had put on weight and cut her hair.

They sat down on the grass and he fumbled in his pocket for his pack of cigarettes. She snapped her bag open, took out a pack of Marlboro, pulled out one, held it between her lips and lighted it with a gold lighter. She offered him the lighted cigarette.

"We could have met in my room ..... " She said a little uncertainly; "Why did you call me here?"

He gestured towards India Gate. "Don't you think its appropriate?"

There was a note of sarcasm h his voice. "Home coming soldier re ­turns to monument honouring war victims?"

She leaned forward. There was an amused smile on her face. "What are you getting uptight about, Anand?" she asked. " Didn't we win the war?"

His fingers trembled as he held the cigarette.

"Lets go to my room." She said. "You have been without a woman too long, haven't you?

He was silent for some time. In the darkness she could not see the haunted look on his face.

"There's something wrong with me Sheetal... .... " he said in a low voice. "Sex for me has become a dirty bestial act. Nothing arouses me any more."

"You'll get over it." She said cheerfully. "You've been under a lot

of stress .

"Its this incident I can't get out of my mind ......... "

"What incident?" ......... She asked curiously.

He stubbed out his cigarette and began hesitantly.

"One dark night we had left the trenches and were advancing to a nearby village. Some Mukti Bahini men from the village, we had been informed, were planning to blow up a bridge further ahead and I was ordered to contact them to delay the operation as our convoy was scheduled to cross the bridge later that night. I was accompanied by a Subedar and ten Jawans. When we neared the village an eerie silence greeted us. We stumbled over corpses in the darkness. The Paki bastards had massacred the entire village. Then we heard a baby cry in one ofthe houses. I went up to the house and pushed the door open. I shone my torch. A pitiable sight met our eyes. A woman, about eight months pregnant cowered in a comer trying to quieten the baby in her lap. There as an older child, a thin scrawny girl of about eleven. The woman was terrified. She began to utter some gibberish as if she was out of her mind. The Subedar and I watched as the little girl hugged her mother. Then before we could even say anything that girl came forward and lay down on the string cot in the middle of the room. She

lifted her raggedfrock and parted her legs "

He broke off with a strangled sob and covered his face with his hands "Don't you see, they had done that to her so often that she thought all men wanted that."

"Go on ......... " Sheetal said interestedly. "What happened, who

took her, the Subedar or you?"

With a muttered oath he swung his arm and gave her a stinging slap. Her mouth twisted in an ugly grimace and she struggled to her feet, furious,

" Go home, soldier." She told him viciously" And don't forget to see a shrink,"

Then she walked away.

He went back home to the party. The following week there was a felicitation programme for Vir Chakra awardees. Anand could not make it. The previous night he was cleaning his father's revolver and it went off. However, the bullet only grazed his temple. He was recovering at a posh private nursing home. His friends brought him flowers. No one suspected the truth. His family knew how to hush up matters. The day he took up the responsibility of running the family's shoe factory, there was another party.