Mitali Chakravarty
The first time I met Isa and Lisa was when I woke up from a dream at midnight. I could not see Isa much… She faded away from my vision, a wispy, silvery-white haired child with strange light eyes. But Lisa grew vivid. She was a dark girl sitting on my bed with her braided hair looped on the sides of her head and tied with bright orange ribbons. The ribbons were made into florets. She solidified into a dark young girl of about six, wearing a bright orange cotton blouse and a stiff white and rust skirt with big floral prints. She had tawny eyes and they were tear-filled as she vehemently cried to be sent home.
Home was Lahore.
She had been there more than seventy years ago. She should have been an old woman by now. But, no, absurdly, she was a child who insisted on being a part of the story I was trying to write. I could not see her fit in, but she cried — one, to return home and, two, to be allowed into my novel.
I asked her to tell me her story. Like a spoilt child, she shook her head and refused to cooperate. I offered her a candy. She took it but did not tell me her story. Then I struck upon an idea and told her that I would help her get to Lahore if she told me a little about herself and also gave me some details of her life. Finally, I think I managed to convince her.
Lisa stopped crying. She had a small bag with her. She took out a slate and a chalk from her bag, wiped the slate and drew a picture, the picture of a two-storey house. ‘Is that your home?’
She nodded vehemently.
‘So, that is your home. How do we get there if you don’t have the address?’ I asked.
Lisa took my hand and made me touch the door of the house.
We stood in front of the house in the picture, Lisa holding my hand and smiling as she took me inside.
‘Jasleen Lisa, where have you been?’ called out a woman’s voice in Punjabi sternly. Jasleen Lisa was the long name given to the little lady I discovered — the Lisa having been added on to make it easier for her to survive in a world of anglophiles.
‘Outside,’ she answered in Punjabi.
‘Drink your milk,’ the voice called out, emerging from a room that was probably the kitchen.
I think the woman could not see me. Lisa could.
‘Your English teacher will be coming soon,’ she said to Lisa. ‘Hurry up.’
Lisa started sipping from the glass the woman put on the table. A tall fair man in western clothes walked in.
‘Oh! You are back early!’ said the woman.
Lisa paused, looked at the man and smiled. The man patted her head and said in English, ‘Yes dear. We have to leave tonight for India. We must pack our essentials and leave as soon as possible.’
‘But what about our home? The maid? The driver? And her school? Her English teacher will be here in fifteen minutes…’ said the woman in a pique.
‘Speak only in English. We do not want the maid to understand. The violence has started. The police chief, Mr Adams, came to visit my boss this morning. Mr Adams was kind enough to stop by my room and warn me,’ the man responded. ‘Our lives before anything else. Do not let the maid or the driver know anything. They are Muslims. They will be fine. If they know nothing, they can say nothing. I have sent the driver home. You send the maid out on an errand, and we leave after Lisa’s English lesson in the car with only money, jewelry and some essential clothes.’
‘What about all our things?’ The woman switched to English.
‘We don’t have time.’ Impatience lined the edges of his voice. He turned to Lisa and said in softly Punjabi so that the maid would not hear, ‘We are going for a little drive, my darling, after your English lesson.’ He kissed her on the forehead. Lisa nodded. ‘Can I take Scheherazade with me?’ Scheherazade was her favourite doll.
‘Yes. But only Scheherazade and we are going for a drive, remember?’ he repeated. Lisa was no fool. She knew something was afoot. Her father and mother had been having discussions in hushed fierce tones for a number of days. There had been frequent calls to their family home in Delhi. She had heard the names Nehru, Gandhi and Jinnah discussed with fervour and had seen her father often glued to the radio set, listening to speeches.
They had an altar with the statue of Krishna. Her mother wanted to take the statue with them, but her father did not. ‘Everything in the house should look normal when the maid gets home… as if we have just gone on a drive at the spur of the moment… she should suspect nothing till much later. We will leave wearing the clothes we wear to the park in the evenings. I will stow the luggage in the boot of the car while the maid is out, and Lisa is having her English lesson.’ Her father normally spoke in Punjabi but now he spoke in English. That way Salma the maid would not understand anything. Her mother also responded in English. He only addressed Lisa in Punjabi. They did not know Lisa had enough English to follow their conversation closely… only the English tutor, Mrs Brown, and her daughter, who was Lisa’s playmate, knew that.
I stood in the corner invisible it seemed, watching the scene. Had Lisa ceased to notice me? Had she too become an actor in the drama that was about to take place, and did I continue an invisible observer?
Lisa’s mother was telling the maid in Punjabi to get milk and yoghurt from the dairy and bread from the western bakery a couple of kilometers from the house. She gave the maid money from her purse and Salma left.
‘I will take the leftover parathas and sabzi from lunch. I was going to give them to Salma Now, I will pack those with some pickle for our dinner,’ said Lisa’s mother.
Lisa’s father said, ‘Good. Let’s start packing after the teacher comes.’ He was still speaking in English. Lisa was wondering why he talked of packing all the time. After all, they were only going for a drive and why did her mother want to pack dinner? She would have preferred the fresh bread and milk to stale parathas for dinner. Before she could voice her concerns, the doorbell rang.
An Englishwoman with a translucent pallid complexion walked in. She wore her hazel hair in a neat bun under a straw hat with a ribbon that matched the green of her eyes. Dressed in a long purple skirt and a cream silk shirt, she bustled in with an air of disturbance and said, ‘Hello Mr Chand, Mrs Chand. Good to see you all safe. We were really worried because madness seems to be the tone of the day.’
Lisa’s mother smiled in greeting.
‘Hello, Mrs Brown,’ said Lisa’s father. ‘We are fine. Do not worry for us. Have you encountered something on the roads?’
Mrs Brown said, ‘Not as yet. But Mr Brown has heard reports of a train with dead bodies and Muslim repercussions. He has asked Mr Ali to come in so that he can gauge the accuracy of the news. Our maid brought in the rumours from the market. Mr Brown wanted me to warn you.’
Mr Chand said, ‘We will be careful. Do not worry.’
Lisa had been listening. She wondered, ‘What does dead mean? I have not been taught that…’
Mrs Brown hesitated to say more, noticing Lisa’s curious eyes.
‘Come Lisa. Let us go to the study,’ she said. Lisa got up and walked towards her and held her hand.
I followed Lisa and Mrs Brown down the corridor into a room with a sturdy green desk. I think Lisa had ceased to see me and the others could not see me at all. I had faded out of Lisa’s consciousness. She looked through me as if I were invisible and had faded out of her memory.
Lisa had a smaller white desk and chair that were built for her. The green desk occupied the centre of the room. On the walls were shelves filled with books. A calendar of the year 1947 hung on the wall, next to a bookshelf. A grandfather clock stood in one corner of the room; its hands showed 5.05pm.
The floor was bare and deep red in colour. The curtains were bottle green. The white desk stood at a window looking onto a green lawn and seemed to be a later addition to the room. Mrs Brown sat in the armchair placed near the small white desk and chair.
I stood near the bookshelf and gazed at the titles as the lesson dragged on. There were some Sanskrit books as well as some in Urdu. I could not read the titles of the Urdu book. The ones in the Devnagari script included a copy of the Gita. Then I saw leather-bound copies of Ivanhoe and Les Miserables. There was a copy of Rudyard Kipling’s Just So Stories bound with blue. The lettering was in gold.
Suddenly, I felt the tug of a soft small hand on mine. I turned around and saw Isa! She could see me. She was hiding behind a shelf. How had she suddenly reappeared here? She seemed more solid. She wore a white pinafore on top of a checkered dress of maroon and yellow. Her pale hair was tied back with a broad brown velvet ribbon. Had she come in behind Mrs Brown or did she just materialize out of thin air?
Who was Isa? She was Mrs Brown’s daughter who was not supposed to be around. Her father was a pastor. As Isa whisked me out of the house, I could see Mr and Mrs Chand hurriedly throwing clothes into a bag. Isa put a finger to her mouth and whispered, ‘Shhh…’
We crept out of the house without getting caught.
We walked through the streets of Lahore. It was an upper middle-class colony. As we turned the corner to a more populated area, we found the shops had their shutter down. A few more lanes brought us to two corpses, their bodies bore deep gashes of red, and a stream of deep red blood seemed to link the two of them. There were flies sitting on the bodies I remember. Isa turned away, whimpered and clung tighter to my hand. I held her hand tightly and walked quickly out of the area in the direction she was pointing. There were shops that had been gutted and homes with broken windows. All the streets seemed deserted. We could hear cries of ‘Allah-hu-akbar’ drawing close as we left the abandoned street. Soon, we neared a church.
Isa’s home was attached to the church. As we crossed the park adjoining the church, a mob of men, drunk with anger and hatred stormed past us. Isa had the presence of mind to hide in the tall bushes bordering the entrance to her home from the church. I stood gaping! Luckily, I was not visible to them either. They were the actors, and I was the audience. Most of the mob wore long kameezes on top of loose pyajamas and caps and seemed to be seething with fury, rage, and passion.
As we stealthily entered Isa’s home from the French windows that opened out to the lawn, we did not interrupt the two men conversing in the study. Isa hid behind a curtain. I saw and heard them, but they continued oblivious of my existence. Isa’s father, Mr Brown, was talking to a sophisticated Indian/ Pakistani in a beige suit. It was difficult to figure out to which side the man belonged – after all, Pakistanis and Indians look alike. On his head, the man wore a red fez with a golden tassel. His shoes were reddish brown.
Mr Brown wore an ordinary white shirt open at the collar with cream trousers. He wore glasses and had a little moustache. In his hands, he held a smouldering pipe. He was pale blond like his daughter and had blue grey eyes that looked surprisingly young behind his wire framed glasses.
He was saying, ‘Mr Ali, you have to be reasonable and explain to the mobs. All Hindus are not bad. They don’t hate the Muslims just as all Muslims do not hate the Hindus.’
‘Mr Brown, what you ask for is impossible! Amjad had a sister in Jullunder. When the train arrived, it came with dead bodies. His sister’s head was found rolling away from the body. He saw it as he went to receive her at the station. He is not the only one. Now they are all enraged! Many had relatives on that train. They can seek nothing except revenge for the loss of their dear ones. The whole train was laden with corpses. Not one passenger was alive. Now the enraged Muslim mobs are killing the Hindus. They have no anger against the British or the Christians. How can I stop them? I will become their target too if I speak for Hindus. I would advise you to keep quiet too and also you must not let Mrs Brown go to Hindu homes to teach their children English any more… This is for your own security.’
Mr Brown said in a raised voice, ‘This is horrible. I cannot believe this is happening in Lahore. I asked you to come over to discuss rationally what could be done and you are telling me there is no way out!’
‘What can I do, Mr Brown? My hands are tied as much as yours… Nehru and Jinnah have let loose this river of bloodshed and violence with their decisions,’ responded Mr Ali in a tone that was almost placating and helpless.
‘That is not what I want to discuss, Mr Ali. I want to prevent this outbreak. What can we do to staunch the hatred and violence? I am a man of God. I cannot stand by watching this senseless violence. What can we do?’ said Mr Brown.
‘Nothing now, Mr Brown. Just keep quiet and stay safe,’ said Mr Ali.
There was an uncomfortable silence. Mr Brown started pacing his study blowing rings of smoke from his pipe as if deep in thought. Ali rocked on the rocking chair, which he occupied, and played with a glass paperweight, examining the colours and patterns trapped in the glass.
Isa was tugging at my hands again and we rushed back to the home of the Chands. This time we saw a mob at a distance burning a car and shouting. They did not notice us as we were behind them. Isa despite looking scared and clinging to my hand pulled me back towards the abandoned street. At a junction, I had a glimpse of a mob shouting ‘Allah-hu- akbar’ and another shouting ‘Jai Shiv Shankar’. Isa hid behind the trees lining the road and moved swiftly beckoning me so that the mobs would not see her. I was glad that I was not visible to these mobs that were engaged in a vicious fight to the death. There were a few buildings that looked like shops on fire in the downtown area. We saw Mrs Brown walk past us as Isa hid among the trees lining the road again. She was walking past and seemed to be weeping into a handkerchief in her hands. She walked past us in a great hurry so that she could avoid the mobs.
When we reached Lisa’s house, they were getting into the car. Isa waved at Lisa. Her friend waved back. Lisa’s parents were too preoccupied with the preparations for leaving — arranging their luggage in the boot, which already held quite a few cans of petrol that Mr Chand had been hoarding against a rainy day and putting food and water in the car — to notice a tiny mite like Isa slip in and out of the scene. I slipped into the car next to Lisa and Isa seemed to fade away just as she had done in my room at night. She just seemed to disappear as mysteriously as she had appeared… in and out of the thin air. I sat in the backseat with Lisa and Scheherazade who occupied the seat in the middle. Lisa could not see me. Perhaps, because she was a player in the drama. I, as the onlooker, had ceased to matter. But what of Isa? What happened to her?
We drove out of the gate and headed for the main streets. Her father avoided the abandoned street with corpses and turned to the main road.
The muezzin was calling out for the prayers at sunset. The streets looked deceptively empty as we sped out of Lahore. I had never been to Lahore before; its elegant Islamic architecture caught my eye; the gardens with their floral borders looked lovely against the setting sun.
‘Where are we going?’ Lisa asked as we sped down the streets.
‘To Delhi,’ Mr Chand responded.
‘But you said we are going for a drive,’ persisted an agitated Lisa. ‘I never said good-bye to Isa and Mrs Brown properly. Isa was there. I just waved to her.’
‘Where was Isa?’ asked her mother, adding in a placating tone, ‘There will be time when we return…’
‘She was just here and then I waved and did not see her again,’ said Lisa.
Her mother responded, ‘You are imagining things, my dear.’
Lisa persisted, ‘I did. I did see too…’
Mr Chand noticed a huge mob at a distance. His voice took on an urgent note. ‘Let us stop arguing. Can you both duck down so that the mob does not notice you?’ Mrs Chand and Isa bent almost double. As Isa straightened, Mr Chand said, ‘Keep yourselves hidden.’
Isa slid to the floor of the car ultimately.
Suddenly there was a shout as we drove past some shops. A group with sticks and stones came menacingly towards the car. Mr Chand was clever. He slowed down. As the group drew around our car to force us out of doors, Mr Chand suddenly gathered speed and drove off. I think some of the mob clinging to the sides of the car might have fallen as the car sped off into the setting darkness.
The main roads looked deserted. Mr Chand avoided the residential areas as he drove into a jungle, an uninhabited area for safety. On the way to the jungle, they saw some more mobs at a distance and gutted shops. The whole town had taken on an eerie look.
Lisa was scared. She was whimpering with fear and crouching on the floor clinging to Scheherazade as if trying to find comfort in the solidity of her doll. ‘Don’t cry…’ her mother tried to soothe her as she straightened up with the car flitting through the foliage of the wood. ‘Nothing will happen. We have left in time and will reach Delhi safe.’
‘What will happen to Isa?’ Lisa asked between sobs.
‘She will be fine. They are Christians. They will be left untouched!’ responded Mr Chand. ‘Now lie down and get some rest.’
Lisa stretched out on the backseat and fell asleep still clutching Scheherazade for comfort. I sat squeezed in a corner. Mr Chand drove on. He drove in grim silence. After a few hours, he stopped the car. Petrol was running low. Mr Chand had a couple of cans of extra petrol and water for the car.
‘Let me refuel the car and let the engine rest while we have dinner.’
His wife took out the parathas, pickle and vegetables. They woke up Lisa and they all ate. I could have done with some food too, but I could not grasp anything. It was as if I was a spirit in their realm. Lisa started crying for her bed and home. She was still a little stunned by the earlier attack and had fallen asleep.
Slowly they calmed her down and promised her a bed the next night in Delhi, where she could even play with her cousins. Mr Chand and Mrs Chand’s families were in Delhi. Mr Chand had moved to Lahore only five years ago. His job had taken him there. He just wanted his family to be safe and he would get a new job. He had not told any of his colleagues that he was leaving.
After about an hour, they were back in the car, driving towards what would be Nehru’s broken India soon. They would cross over to the Hindu majority area that night. They had driven from Lahore to Delhi the year before with their driver after they had acquired the car. Now, Mr Chand was glad he had picked up driving as they could leave safely. Buses and trains were being burnt and passengers killed by rioters. Madness seemed to have broken loose. Occasionally, one saw abandoned buses on the highway, some half-burnt and some laden with stray corpses. One time, we encountered four men shot with guns. They lay in their own pool of blood outside a burnt car. I wondered how the mob had come to the highway, by truck or bus or cars? We were lucky not to encounter another such mob on the highway.
Somewhere in the darkness of the night, we had crossed and were in the land designated to Hindus. Mr Chand got off to refuel his tank. As he took a can from the boot and started filling his car, some men walked up to him and started questioning him. They checked their papers and let them go. Mr Chand put the can back and started out again.
They drove through the night. We could see nothing beyond darkness. Suddenly, out of this darkness emerged torchlights. A number of men, some holding battery operated torches and some holding torches of fire, blocked our way. Mr Chand stopped. After all they were all Hindus. The mob wanted to know who they were and why they were out. They could not quite believe Mr Chand’s story. Mr Chand had a tough time convincing them they were Hindus and not Muslims. He was forced to descend from the car. They could see Mrs Chand was a Hindu from the vermilion in her parting, but they said they wanted to be sure that Mr Chand was not a Muslim abducting a Hindu woman, after all his number plate was that of Lahore, a dominion that would soon cease to be part of the Hindu occupied India. They asked him to shed his trousers. Mr Chand’s ears turned red with humiliation. His face looked livid and angry.
The mob said, ‘Har Har Mahadeo! The villain is a Muslim. That is why he will not comply.’ They raised their sticks to beat.
Before the stick could touch him, fear replaced the anger on Mr Chand’s face, and he quickly let down his trousers and underwear.
‘Look he is not circumcised. Let him go,’ said a voice. The mob moved on. Some looked on reluctantly at the scenario. They were out for blood. Their blood lust was not satisfied.
Mr Chand pulled up his underwear and trouser and quickly re-entered the car. One man said, ‘Wait!’ But Mr Chand started the engine as a stick hit the car and drove away. Isa woke up with a jump.
‘Go back to sleep!’ said Mrs Chand.
‘It was nothing… just a branch fell on the car,’ covered up Mr Chand. Lisa settled back to her dreams.
Mr Chand had been looking downcast and upset after the incident. Mrs Chand was weeping silently and held the pallu of her saree to her mouth in fear, humiliation, and disgust.
‘I had no choice,’ whispered her husband in distress and apology. ‘I had to get you and Lisa to safety.’
Mrs Chand stretched her hand and touched his arm and wept. She said, ‘I know.’ Lisa stirred again as her mother spoke in a broken whisper. Her father noticed her movement and said, ‘Pull yourself together. I will make sure this does not happen again. Calm down for the child’s sake.’
On the roads, one could see the same kind of gutted, broken abandoned vehicles as one had seen all along the road from Lahore every now and then. I particularly remember a burnt bus with a dead mutilated arm sticking out.
Mr Chand told his wife that we were more likely to face mobs if he drove through a residential area. After that one incident where he had to take off his pants to convince the mob he was a Hindu, Mr Chand did what he had done in Lahore. There was no difference in the mobs. He slowed down and when the mob closed in on them, he drove fast dispersing them and leaving them behind staggering and trying to retain balance.
They bought a small statue of Krishna from a shop outside a temple in the small hours of the morning in Kurukshetra and put it in their car so that people would not doubt they were Hindus.
Thankfully, Lisa slept through all of it.
I had lost track of time and dosed off in exhaustion after Kurukshetra wondering why a political battle had turned into a mass genocide where 1 to 2 million people died crossing the border…It felt a bit like Alice in Wonderland, except this was more horrific. The angst among the people continues to swelter to this date. I wonder when and how it will all end?
I woke up late in the morning in my bed in Singapore. In a COVID-worn world that did not matter much as night and day sped into each other without a break. The only difference was the sun lighted the day and the night sky lulled us to sleep. Or did it not? I wondered had I really been to Lahore and travelled back to 1947? I stretched my hands lazily before getting up from the bed. And my hand touched something…
Near my pillow nestled Lisa’s slate with the drawing and a bit of chalk. My hand had smudged the drawing. Isa and Lisa had acted out their dramas and disappeared from my life… leaving me with a slate and a story…
[Mitali Chakravarty likes to waft among clouds in quest of a world drenched in love and harmony and in that spirit runs the Borderless Journal.]