A Burning(11)

JIVAN


IN THE DAYS-OLD PAPERS that make it to the prison, they write versions of my life. They report that I grew up in Sealdah, Salpur, Chhobigram. My father, they share, has polio, cancer, an amputated limb. He used to cook food in a hotel; no, he used to be a municipal clerk; no, in truth he used to be a meter reader for the electricity supply company. They have not found out about my mother’s breakfast business, because they write that she is a housewife, when they mention her at all.

“Look,” I say to Americandi, who is my cellmate because, I learned, she demanded to be housed with the famous terrorist. “Desher Potrika says I used to work at a call center, and they have pictures of somebody! Somebody else on the back of a motorcycle with a man. I have never even been on a motorcycle.”

It is midday, after bath time, and my cellmate has hiked up her sari to her thighs and is giving herself a massage, running her fingers up and down calves. Her veins are crooked, like flooding rivers.

    “Reporters write anything,” she says. “Take my case, where I said—”

But I don’t want to hear about her.

“They hear something in the street,” I say. “Then they write it down.”

“They work on deadlines,” she says. “If they miss their deadlines, they are fired. Who has time to ask questions?”

“And it says here, listen,” I continue, “?‘An Internet cafe operator in the neighborhood said Jivan would often make calls to Pakistan numbers.’ Why are they lying about me?”

Americandi looks at me. “You know, many people don’t believe you. Myself, I heard everything. There was kerosene in your home. You were at the train station. You were friends with the recruiter. Did you do it?” She sighs. “But somehow, I don’t see you as a bad person.”

A sob rises thick in my throat.

“Listen,” she says. “I am not supposed to tell you, but you know reporters are beating down the gates trying to get an interview with you?”

I wipe my eyes and blow my nose. “Which paper?” I say.

“The Times of India! Hindustan Times! The Statesman!” she says. “Name any paper. All are offering money, so much money, just for one interview with you. That’s what I heard. But Uma madam is forced to say no to all of them. There is pressure from above.”

“It is my right to talk to them!” I shout.

    Americandi makes as if to slap me. “Keep your voice down!” she hisses. “This is why I shouldn’t be nice to anyone in this rotten place.”

She picks a sari from the stack of four that I have washed and folded for her. She winds the sari about herself. She tucks in the top of the pleats. “You have the right?” she says, kicking a leg under the fabric to order the pleats. Under a smile, she buries all else she meant to say.

“I want to talk to them,” I say softly. “What is Gobind doing for me anyway? I have not seen him in days. Not once has he called me.”

If only I could speak to a newspaper reporter, a TV camera, wouldn’t they understand? Every day I bear this dark corridor with its rustle of insects’ wings, the drip of a leak which conveys news of the rains, the plaster on the ceiling swelling like a cloud. Days have turned into weeks, and still I kneel by the gutter in the back, washing Americandi’s nighties by hand, the smell of iron rising where we all wash our monthly cloths. I have been a fool to wait for Gobind’s plan, I see. He may be my court-appointed lawyer, but he is no advocate of mine.

This is why, I think, we are all here. Take Americandi. She pushed a man who was trying to snatch her necklace on the street. The man fell, and struck his head on the pavement. He went into a coma. The court charged Americandi, and here she is, a decade or more into confinement that never ends. If she had received a chance to tell her story, how might her life have been?



* * *



*

THE NEXT MORNING, Americandi gathers her thin towel, rough as a pumice stone, and a bottle of perfumed liquid soap she guards with her life. She is off to take a bath.

“Listen,” I say, while the day is new and Americandi’s mood unspoiled, “will you do one thing for me?”

I hold up the newspaper I have been looking at.

“Will you send word to this reporter?” I unfold the newspaper, Daily Beacon, and look at the name Purnendu Sarkar. “Ask this Purnendu Sarkar to come? My mother said he visited her. He was helpful.”

Americandi looks about for her shower slippers.

“Good plan!” she says, mocking. “Why should I be bothered?”

She waits, and turns to me. I have one moment of her attention, no more.

“The money,” I tell her. “What they offer for an interview. You just said, they are offering a lot? You can take it all. What can the courts do if the media does not—”

“You really love lecturing,” says Americandi. “Did you say all the money?”

“Every rupee.”

“When did you become such a rich person?” she says.





PT SIR


NOTHING GOOD COMES OF contacting the police. Everybody knows that. If you catch a thief, you are better off beating the man and, having struck fear in his heart, letting him go.

But this is no ordinary thief. This is a woman who attacked a train full of people. She killed, directly or indirectly, more than a hundred people. Now, the TV channels are reporting, she is silent in prison. She has granted no interviews. She has offered no details, and other than a confession, which she insists she was forced to sign, she has shared no information. She is protesting that she is innocent.