A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

They were not afraid of making jokes. Whether it was about the police or the ministers, they had their fun, and wasn’t that freedom? I hoped that after a few more salary slips, after I rose to be a senior sales clerk of Pantaloons, I would be free in that way too.

Did you even watch the video? I replied. The words of the heartless woman drifted in my mind. I was irritated by her, but there was excitement too. This was not the frustration of no water in the municipal pump or power cut on the hottest night. Wasn’t this a kind of leisure dressed up as agitation?

Her husband threw acid on her but, somehow, she is the one in jail. These things happen when you are a woman.

Now I watch TV, openmouthed like the others. More than the show, it is the world I watch. A traffic light, an umbrella, rain on a windowsill. The simple freedom of crossing a street.

The truth is always modest.

Even the meaning of “prison” is different for rich people. Can you blame me for wanting, so much, to be—not even rich, just middle class?

“The system doesn’t always work for us. But you see that, now and then, you can make good things happen for yourself.” And I thought, only now and then? I thought I would have a better life than that.

Americandi’s eyes follow me from task to task, waiting for my breakdown. But it doesn’t come. From my mother’s immense strength, I have borrowed a little.

What are they clapping for? He doesn’t know, but he is used to it. The people clamoring to see him, to hear his words, the grandmothers holding his hands, the garlands and praise, the prayers, all directed to him, as if he is a god. Who wouldn’t find something electric in it?

He has laid his ear to the ground, and heard the unmediated voice of the public. There is no greater currency in this room at the moment.