Independence

by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni

“Abdullah-ji, it was fine for you to take those risks. You had no family. But your friend had three little girls. Priya was barely two years old when he quit his job without consulting me. I begged him not to go, but it was like water poured over a rock. Can you even imagine how terrified I was, left alone with the children? Every day I was sure I would receive the news of his death.

When men go off to be heroes, do they even realize what it does to the women they leave behind?

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

Hard to believe that the two servants had betrayed Deepa like that. Perhaps they considered it not betrayal but duty. Jamini knows it is easy to confuse such things.

People approve of Deepa because she is quiet and useful and does the tedious jobs. She keeps her burkha on—even the veil—with charming small-town modesty. Best of all she expresses no opinions, and who does not like that in a woman?

Can a man—even Raza, whom she loves with all her heart—make up for the loss of culture, family, community, generations of tradition woven into her blood?

How could Deepa believe such a precarious scheme would work? How could the levelheaded Raza go along with her? Does love derange you like that? Priya hopes she will never need to find out.

Somnath had sighed. He told her she was too idealistic, like her baba. He warned her that the world was not kind to people who place principles before practicality.

Can you cut up a country as though it were a cake?

They tried to introduce her to men from neighboring colleges so she could go on group dates. But Priya declined. She knows she has gained a reputation for being stern and bookish. No one sees that she is lonely and homesick and sometimes afraid.

But when was anger ever corralled by logic?

Humankind would be better off, she thinks, if there were no religions.

She had not thought people could take so much pleasure in another’s pain.

The events of the night of the fire—including her assault—seem like scenes from a film, something that happened to someone else. While changing clothes, Jamini examines her body without embarrassment or sorrow. In the beginning she was ashamed of how it had been touched against her will. Now she sees that it was not her fault—just like her limp. She no longer feels the need to be apologetic about either of them.

For the first time she understands Priya’s obsession with medicine. There is a godlike satisfaction in reducing pain, in banishing fevers, in helping a body stand up and walk again.

Death, even if it touches us in passing, transforms. Jamini feels it has led her to accept that Amit does not love her. Angry though he might be with Priya, his heart will always be hers. Despite that, Jamini loves him because she does not know how to stop.

The days speed up as the new semester starts; the evenings refuse to pass. Priya’s studies grow easier, leaving her more time to worry.

Now I see that meaning well counts for nothing. Only what happens in the end matters.

She is angry with everyone, then with no one, then with herself. Then for thinking that this was her own fault for wanting too much. No matter how her story ends, she refuses to believe that a woman cannot have the joys of home and also a place in the world.

Deepa fears she will explode with anger disgust hate, but she thinks of Sameera upstairs in her cradle, Sameera who does not know that her father is gone and only her mother left standing between her and chaos.

Priya stares at Shefali. So many secrets nested inside us all, even the people to whom we give little thought. Now she understands the housekeeper’s antipathy toward Raza.

Thank God for the resilience of the young. She looks at Priya as though to say, Soon you will feel better, too. Or does she mean See how lucky you are.

Priya has a life to lead: oceans to cross, examinations to pass, a good man waiting for her, his uncomplicated heart filled with trust and tenderness.

So much love on one side, Deepa thinks, so much undeserved generosity. And on the other, wrenching hands, devouring eyes, the whine of bullets boring into chests like poisonous metal bees. How to teach Sameera to live in a world that holds such contradictions?

Men may be persuaded, he knows, but nature is implacable.

How adamantly Priya had stood in the way of her own happiness—and Amit’s as well. If she had another chance, she thinks, she would do it differently. But chance is a slippery customer, and she can feel Amit’s hands growing cold.

Priya, you are better than this. I don’t want to be better, Baba. I am tired of it. What has being better ever availed me? What did it ever avail you? Clearer than in months, his face rises in her mind, its sad nobility. Life is not only about availing, daughter.

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?

Perhaps she wants to understand why such calamities occur, perhaps to see if what Nabakumar used to tell her is true: out of evil, good emerges.

A thousand years later, his light will be seen in this country, and the world will see it and it will give solace to innumerable hearts. Just an old man in a loincloth—yet when he died, humanity wept. Let us be worthy of him.

Vaishnava jana to tene kahiyeje piḍa paraayī jaaṇe re. Only those who feel the pain of others may be called truly good. Sarojini sees her listening and says, “A doctor is like that, no?”

The world is full of good people, too, living their quiet workaday lives.

You are a daughter of independence, the country’s future. Women like you are the ones for whom we fought and died, the ones who will transform India. You must carry the flag forward. You may fall from time to time. We all did. What is important is to get up again.

You have done well, O Pitiless One, In scorching my heart. Until incense is burned, it does not pour out its fragrance, Until a lamp is lit on fire, it does not give out its light.