Independence

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

Jamini has always known her shortcomings. She does not possess Deepa’s shimmering beauty, Priya’s focused intelligence. That is why, early in life, she chose goodness.

Baba’s altruism has a price, Jamini thinks, and we are the ones paying for it.

A wish rises in her, a crazy wind. Let something change. Let something break. I don’t care what. I don’t care how.

She focuses on his face. She must hold it inside her always.

the days grow rainless and brittle.

Their entire lives arrowing toward this moment—how had she not seen it before?

The hours pass like a single breath.

In this world, she has learned, goodness is not enough.

Perhaps they considered it not betrayal but duty. Jamini knows it is easy to confuse such things.

Deepa never existed. She watched Raza’s mouth shaping the words and felt a bit of herself dying.

The year is 1947. It is the best of times, it is the worst of times.

O how she loves him. Why then this churning, this pain as though she is being pulled in two?

But when was anger ever corralled by logic?

when the soul of a nation, long suppressed, finds utterance . . .

The leaves whisper in the dark August wind, a secret, an invitation.

Except it is not a letter, she is not sure what it is, poem or confession, rulebook, catalog of loss.

How the sky glowers against a village in flames. We

Deepa: gone. Priya: gone. Absurd hopes of love: gone. Gone also: belief in human intelligence, benevolence of the universe, India’s shining future. Count only upon yourself. Be ashamed of nothing anyone can do to you.

He wants to imagine their life together, but she only wants this moment, her head on his shoulder, his lips in her hair, an old song looping through her mind, Amaar poran jaha chay, tumi tai, tumi tai go. My heart’s desire, it is you, it is you.

Like many longed-for events it has arrived differently clothed, carrying complexities she never imagined.

But another voice rose up, older darker louder. I did not ask for this marriage. It came to me. Now it is my right. I will not give it up.

Ah, the cost of independence.

death and manages to cover household expenses. More important: as long as people continue to love her songs, as long as they send in hundreds of requests and letters and gifts each week, she cannot be disappeared, not without inquiry.

down. But it is not the truth, it is only the prejudice she has been subjected to, again and again.

But chance is a slippery customer, and she can feel Amit’s hands growing cold.

Only between themselves can they speak of Amit the way he was, stubborn hotheaded tender exasperating. Everyone else has turned him into a saint.

The sisters embrace in silence, bypassing the futility of recrimination and apology and lament.

Birth and death, serpents swallowing each other’s tails. A father dies to make space in the world for the child who is coming. When a nation is born, how many must then die?

This time for certain, Priya promises herself. Let the world end, still I will be there.