A Burning

by Megha Majumdar

“Where will I stand, on your head?”

A hijra called Lovely, who went around blessing children and newlyweds, lived in the Kolabagan slum too, and some evenings I taught her English. It began as a compulsory school program where each student had to teach the alphabet to an illiterate person. But we continued long after the school graded me on it. Lovely believed she would have a better life someday, and so did I. The path began with a b c d. Cat, bat, rat. English is the language of the modern world. Can you move up in life without it? We kept going.

The muri walla mixes mustard oil, chopped tomato and cucumber, spiced lentil sticks, and puffed rice in a tin. He shakes a jar of spices upside down. Then he pours the muri into a bowl made of newsprint.

white chomchom, so sweet your tongue will be begging for salt;

Finally the mother of the bride, who is standing in the doorway, is seeing me admiring the girl’s looks, and she is complaining, “This girl is getting so dark! You tell her, please. She is always riding her bicycle in the hot sun, no umbrella, no nothing.” So I am giving the bride a sideways look and saying, “Why, child? Now you put some yogurt and lemon on that face! Look at me, dark and ugly, do you think anybody wants to marry me?” “Yes!” the girl’s mother is saying. “Are you listening? Listen to her. She is telling you these things from experience. It is for your own good.” So this is how my job is. You can be making fun of me, but tell me, can you be doing this job?

I couldn’t stop thinking that I wanted to be like him. Clean shirt, shined shoes, a smart way of speaking. I hoped the city would make me rich, like him. He wasn’t rich, of course. Later I learned that what he was, was called middle class.

PT Sir, with his balding head ringed by a patch of combed hair, stood in the sun class after class, a whistle ready at his lips. He smiled at me and told me, “Well done!” Once, he asked me if I was interested in going to a cricket camp. I wondered sometimes if he paid attention to me because he felt like an outsider too. He was a father, I imagined, and all the other teachers were mothers. When the principal spoke about morals at the morning assembly, and the microphone began to screech, the ladies looked around for PT Sir. Such was his place in the school, a little apart from everybody else.

Beware of trial by media, says the article. This is a different paper. Where is concrete proof that this young woman had involvement in the attack? Everything the police tells us is circumstantial evidence. The woman is being sacrificed because of her Muslim identity.

JUST WHEN WE ARE THINKING that the electricity supply is really improved, no load shedding in our locality anymore, it is happening. Suddenly one night the tubelight is going dark. Kabhi Khushi Kabhie Gham, Sometimes Happiness Sometimes Sorrow, on the TV is shutting off, leaving some colors playing on the TV screen. It is feeling like something is going wrong with your eyes. But no. It is only load shedding. A few mosquitoes are immediately finding my arms and ears to nibble. Without the noise of fridges and TVs, voices are traveling far in the air.

When I am thinking about it, I am truly feeling that Jivan and I are both no more than insects. We are no more than grasshoppers whose wings are being plucked. We are no more than lizards whose tails are being pulled. Is anybody believing that she was innocent? Is anybody believing that I can be having some talent? If I am wanting to be a film star, no casting man or acting coach will be making it happen for me. So I, myself, Lovely with my belly and no-English and dramatic success only in Mr. Debnath’s living room—I am having to do it myself. Even if I am only a smashed insect under your shoes, I am struggling to live. I am still living.

KILL HIM BECAUSE HE ate beef, that Muslim.

In this world, only one of us can be truly free. Jivan, or me. Every day, I am making my choice, and I am making it today also.