The Walls of Delhi (23 page)

Shobha took a deep breath.

There are two other important facts about Suryakant. One is that he began sleeping less and less. It may have been that he did what ever he could to put off going to sleep – reading, watching TV – since the headaches and breathing problems were at their worst after he got up. One good thing about the new place was that the TV was in the living room.

The other key fact was that Suri was studying English and learning fast. He began watching English-language channels and reading books and newspapers in English. Sometimes he called me and we had long talks; Rohan Chawla let him use the
phone at Jupiter Networks as much as he wanted. Suri surfed the internet and did a lot of instant messaging.

He called me one day. ‘Uncle, I've got the idea that before Independence, it made more sense to study Hindi. Now it's better to be able to speak English.' He paused to think about what he just said. ‘When the English were here, it was English that made us into slaves. Now that the English are gone, it's Hindi that's turned us into slaves.'

This is how he talked. Another time he told me, ‘Uncle, there's no such thing as the Third World. There are only two worlds, and both of them exist everywhere. In one live those who create injustice, and all the rest, the ones who have to put up with the injustice, live in the other.

Much later I found out that Suryakant had kept a diary. He wrote all sorts of stuff in both Hindi and English. It looks like he wrote down his thoughts in the notebook, or what he was reading. The notebook was pretty thick, and mostly filled up with, it can be surmised, what he read and thought.

He had lovely handwriting, in both English and Hindi. From page twenty-seven of his notebook:

Shobha and Chandrakant didn't really understand the writings of their sick child, Suryakant. The two of them couldn't read and write very well, and didn't know English at all. They only spoke Hindi and Marathi, and lived a very meek existence. Chandrakant once said to me, ‘You've definitely left your mark on Suri. He's always reading your books, and he's always marking up the pages.'

Shobha told me in tears that just about a week ago he said that there was something he had read in one of uncle's books he wanted to come over and ask about.

But I'll never find out what it was in which book of mine he wanted to find out about. He died before he could ask.

It was the death that for the past six years everyone had feared might happen at any moment. Suryakant had fought mightily on his own behalf to stay alive and stave death off.

Every night Suri held back the clock hands of the time bomb in his head, buying himself a day or two more. He was unwavering in his efforts. It was a desire to live shared by tens of millions of others who suffer injustice and live inordinately difficult lives.

But one day Suri decided he was done and gave up.

How? Why? This is what Chandrakant and Shobha told me as we were coming back from Nigambodh Ghat, where Suri's last rites were performed.

The date was 25 December, 2004.

The high temperature in Delhi on that day was sixteen degrees centigrade, and the low was three point four.

Even at nine thirty in the morning, fog was so thick that that there still was no trace of the sun. Cars on the road at eight still had their headlights on, and were crawling along like ants. Visibility was almost zero; you couldn't see more than a few metres ahead.

Chandrakant, after waiting forty-five minutes outside with Amar for the Blue Bells bus that never came, returned home.

Suddenly around ten the fog lifted, and the bright, shining sun revealed itself. Shobha was making channa dhal in the pressure cooker that day. As soon as the sun came out, all the women who lived in the C-block apartment building scurried up to the rooftop. Shobha took her sewing machine and carpet and went to the roof, too – not the same carpet as the magic carpet from Jahangirpuri, but one she bought after they had moved to Ashok Vihar. She was up sewing until two-thirty the night before. She had been wearing glasses for the past five years. She had until three that day to finish sewing fabric for a store called Kalpana Boutique and Design Garments in Deep Market. With the deadline, she was stressed out and in a rush.

She spread out the rug and sat with her sewing machine. She was half listening for the sound of the steam whistle on the pressure cooker with the channa dhal she had put on. It could blow at any moment. She would count how many times the whistle blew, and run down and turn off the stove when it went off for the eighth time.

Suri and Amar were sitting with her on the rug. Suri was writing something in Amar's notebook, and Amar was leaning over, watching quietly. That's when Bimla Sahu, who was sitting just a little distance away, said, ‘Your oldest one has been spitting off the balcony and ripping up paper into little bits and throwing them off like confetti. Tell him to stop. I've also found peanut shells and candy wrappers outside my door a few times.'

Bimla Sahu had announced this deliberately loud enough so that all the other women sitting on the rooftop would hear.

Suri, who had been hunched over Amar's notebook writing something, also listened. He lifted his giant head and said hoarsely, ‘That's not true, Auntie! I've never thrown anything off the balcony. And I've definitely never spat off it. Do you really think I'm that uncouth and stupid?'

That was enough to make Bimla Sahu, who had such a sturdy frame the women of the Janta Flats called her ‘the wrestler' or ‘toughie,' turned several shades darker. Then she let loose.

‘Oh, look who's using his big mouth! Everything I said you do – you know you do! You yellow cowardly little kid!'

Suri's breathing quickened. ‘You're lying, Auntie. And you don't know how to do anything except make drama. When's the last time you had your blood pressure checked?'

No sooner had he said this than Bimla Sahu clanged down the thali from which she was picking out pebbles from the rice.
She screamed and gestured with her hands, ‘Oh, are you gonna check my blood pressure? Why don't you fix that jug of a head of yours first? You probably don't even realize you're drooling off the balcony. If you have to go out on the balcony, stand on the right side. D'you have to stand right over my head?'

Pain was written all over Suri's face. His lips began to tremble and he was having difficulty breathing; all of this frightened Shobha. She hoped this wasn't the start of one of Suri's massive headaches. He was an extremely sensitive boy, and Bimla Sahu had really got to him.

Shobha made sure the other women could hear as she shot back. ‘Hey little miss tough stuff, why do you have to pick fights with little kids? If you need someone to fight with, don't forget
you can count on me!'

The emphasis she put on
you can count on me,
the title of a popular film those days, was so good that the women on the roof top broke into hysterics. The tide of laughter was so powerful that it swept up Amar and Suri, too.

And, finally, tough-stuff-wrestler Bimla Sahu herself wasn't immune to its force. ‘Not bad. If Shah Rukh sees your moves he'll cart you off to elope.' She then returned to picking pebbles out of her rice.

Just then – it must have been five or six minutes after eleven – the shout of the street hawker came from below. The C-block apartment building was five stories tall. All of the apartments' roofs were connected; Amar, along with the other kids, ran over to the railing.

Suri also lumbered over to the edge, with his heavy, misshapen head.

Pickle-pee! Pickle-pee! Pickle-pee!
The street hawker played
his little plastic flute below. A lengthy bamboo stick was tied vertically to the handlebars of his bike; fastened to the stick was a cardboard sheet at least four-feet- by-four-feet. All sorts of fabulous items hung from it: balloons, toys, assorted colours of plastic combs, lighters, scissors, berets, drawstrings for skirts, ribbons of rainbow colours, hair bands, hair brushes, little mirrors, bangles, and all sorts of other merchandise.

But at the very top of the board sat a row of Chinese cap guns. You could get them in any bazaar those days for fifteen rupees, and they were unbelievably popular with the kids of Delhi. Chinese goods were threatening to flood the marketplace – wondrous electronics at startlingly low prices. The Chinese cap gun shot little plastic coloured bullets, and as soon as you pulled the trigger, rat-a-tat, ping! ping! Utterly realistic. And if you aimed right, the plastic bullet would hit the target spot on.

‘I want a Chinese cap gun so I can kill the bad guy!' Amar pleaded.

Shobha had earlier said no. But, number one, just yesterday, she received 2,200 rupees from the Kalpana Boutique Garments Centre, part in advance, the rest on receipt. And, number two, Bimla Sahu and her yelling and screaming had put her and the kids in a really foul mood, and she thought the kids might feel better if they got to play around. Therefore, she decided to purchase a cap gun. She went up to the railing, leaned over, and shouted to the hawker. ‘Hey mister! Don't move, I'm coming right down.'

Shobha was just about to go down the stairs when she heard Suri's cold, hard, machine-like voice.

‘Mummy, I want a cap gun, too. My own.'

Shobha turned around to find Suri pressed against the railing, standing and looking at her with the big head held up by his shoulders.

‘Are you just a little kid who likes to play guns?' she said with a sweet smile.

She reached their flat (C-7/3) on the third floor, unlocked it, went in, took money from the pouch inside the cabinet drawer, and took the stairs down to the ground floor.

When she got there, she bought the Chinese pistol from the hawker for fifteen rupees. She tried and tried to bargain, but he wouldn't even drop the price one rupee. Shobha thought, they're not going to drop the price of these things that are selling like hotcakes. She took the gun, went up the stairs, and, when she got to their flat, found Amar who had come down from the roof. You could see on his face how happy and excited he was. He grabbed the cap gun at once and rushed back upstairs. Shobha shouted after him.

‘Be sure to let your brother play with it, too! Don't play on your own.'

‘It's mine, mine!' Amar shot back while running.

Shobha went into the kitchen. The pressure cooker with the channa dhal sat atop the gas burner. They purchased a gas burner after moving to Ambedkar Nagar from Jahangirpuri, retiring the old coal stove, though there were still plenty of families in the Janta Flats who still cooked with coal or kerosene.

Today for lunch she was planning to serve the channa dhal and ghiya dish that she, Suri, Amar, and Chandu all really liked. She learned the recipe in Jahangirpuri from Natho Chaudhuri, who had left her alcoholic husband in Bijnor and run away with her lover to Delhi. She called the dish ‘luckdala.' Maybe
she got ‘luck' from the vegetable ‘loki' and ‘dala' from ‘dhal,' and combined the two to come up with this cute name. She thought she would wait until the pressure cooker had let off all its steam so she could go back to her sewing on the roof without worrying. There were still ten or so minutes before noon. She turned the gas up on the burner.

One minute later the cooker gave off its first steam whistle – a long, throaty blast. There was probably still plenty of steam bottled up inside. The strong burst of vapor carried spicy, delicious smells throughout the kitchen, smells that made Shobha's mouth water. But still five more whistles to go.

Just as the second whistle was about to blow, she heard a loud commotion outside. Women and children, screaming and shrieking, the sounds of people running downstairs.

Shobha froze. Something terrible had happened. She first thought of Amar and was seized by fear.

She turned off the burner and started fast for the roof. She thought about what Suri said just after she called after the hawker,
Mummy, I want a cap gun, too. My own,
in that cold, hard, machine-like voice, eyes red, head trembling, that look of wildness on his face, just like when he took Amar's tiffin box to eat in the park, and got in a fight with Amar, and if she hadn't broken it up Suri would have strangled his little brother.

And now if Suri had pushed Amar off the roof?

‘Amar! Amar!' she shouted, arriving on the roof in bad shape.

Amar clung to the railing as if he were made of stone, sobbing quietly, holding the Chinese cap gun in one hand.

The women still on the roof leaned over the railing and stared down.

Shobha looked. There was a crowd of people gathered around the spot where just moments earlier the hawker had stood with his bike. More people came running from adjacent apartment buildings.

Bimla Sahu, the one who everyone called ‘toughie' or ‘the wrestler' since she was big and strong and always picking fights came up behind Shobha, put her hand on her shoulder, and she was in tears.

‘He went up to the railing himself and just jumped. It happened so quickly.'