I'm afraid to write; what can anyone write today? When lives hang in the balance, I am at a seminar which discusses the reconciliation of multiplicity of meanings in the Postmodern condition, the versions of the truth, what is real and what is not.
I go downstairs, my arms and legs shaking because in the notebook in which I was taking notes, someone wrote, "There's been another blast at Trident".
I call F in Bombay, she's stuck at somebody's house. Andheri hasn't been hit.
Hit?
Yes, it's a War.
Against whom?
Tomorrow is voting day in New Delhi.
All in a day's work.
Changing Hands
It was a book that he had given me,
Old, but intact, filled with the anxieties of reading it for the first time.
It was beautiful, poetry or prose, it was all music to me,
I wanted to share it,
Tell the world such beauty exists.
What is the point of knowledge if you hoard it away in secret?
So I gave it to my friend, who gave it to another
Changing hands, the book aquired new character,
It began to tell a story not within its pages.
Every time it would come back injured,
Pages loose, cover scored,
Coffee rings
Drops of midnight oil;
It would be taped,
Restored,
welcomed back and then released again into the world.
After many years of travel
Across the globe, as it were,
The volume returned to me
Tired.
It seems it had managed to find its way to the one who had set it in motion
Even before I had.
Coming to me from where it had before
I instantly recognized marks
Marks of memories, soiled
of longing.
Old, but intact, filled with the anxieties of reading it for the first time.
It was beautiful, poetry or prose, it was all music to me,
I wanted to share it,
Tell the world such beauty exists.
What is the point of knowledge if you hoard it away in secret?
So I gave it to my friend, who gave it to another
Changing hands, the book aquired new character,
It began to tell a story not within its pages.
Every time it would come back injured,
Pages loose, cover scored,
Coffee rings
Drops of midnight oil;
It would be taped,
Restored,
welcomed back and then released again into the world.
After many years of travel
Across the globe, as it were,
The volume returned to me
Tired.
It seems it had managed to find its way to the one who had set it in motion
Even before I had.
Coming to me from where it had before
I instantly recognized marks
Marks of memories, soiled
of longing.
Strings
Tears have been shed,
It’s too late now,
You cannot bring back the salty warmth,
The truth.
Locked away in the confines of your mind,
There is the version of the truth that you liked best,
The one with the least potential to injure.
The old world is coming
A few years staggered, to meet the new world,
younger, more life
than it remembers.
The language has changed,
The old cannot understand the nuances of the new.
They grow themselves, like cobwebs;
Strings, attaching secretly
Into the old world haven,
isolated, oblivious,
Entered like chillies grown from seeds sent
over hill, plain and river.
A foreign plant, invasive.
Always in flower,
Always fruit, biting.
Biting them will burn, but honey
will cool your tongue,
a sweet forgetfulness.
It’s too late now,
You cannot bring back the salty warmth,
The truth.
Locked away in the confines of your mind,
There is the version of the truth that you liked best,
The one with the least potential to injure.
The old world is coming
A few years staggered, to meet the new world,
younger, more life
than it remembers.
The language has changed,
The old cannot understand the nuances of the new.
They grow themselves, like cobwebs;
Strings, attaching secretly
Into the old world haven,
isolated, oblivious,
Entered like chillies grown from seeds sent
over hill, plain and river.
A foreign plant, invasive.
Always in flower,
Always fruit, biting.
Biting them will burn, but honey
will cool your tongue,
a sweet forgetfulness.
From Thoughtcrime to Goodthinking
From Thoughtcrime to Goodthinking
Simulating Socrates: An exercise in rigorous logic
Abstract:
This project attempts to simulate a hypothetical dialogue in the manner of the Socratic dialogues. The subject matter of the dialogue is George Orwell’s novel Nineteen Eighty Four, and the State of Oceania being secure against subversion by the Brotherhood, since no subversion can exist within a State controlled by the Principles of Ingsoc.
Socrates has been assumed to have a pre-conceived agenda in the Republic. He uses the device of elenchus in order to systematically negate every point his interlocutors may advance. In an elenchus, which is the Socratic method of (cross-) questioning, he would attempt to show that their beliefs are contradictory, and to thus prove that they do not have knowledge of something they thought they had knowledge of.
Considering O’Brien as the equivalent of Socrates, and Winston Smith, the protagonist, as the interlocutor, Orwell’s standpoint becomes Plato’s, i.e. that of a scribe recording the dialogue, flavoured with his own personal leanings.
In following the dialogic form and then explaining, in the second part, to Winston himself how he has been re-indoctrinated into goodthink, this is also an exercise in mise en abyme, a self-referential framework (a dialogue within a dialogue, to put it loosely).
The Scene:
The scene is O’Brien’s study. Winston Smith has just come to his house in order to bring up the subject of the brotherhood.
The speakers from here on are referred to as WS and OB for convenience. Julia has been discounted, since she has only a secondary role to play in this particular scene of the novel.
The portions in double quotes are verbatim quotes from the Republic (1955) as translated by Desmond Lee, and from George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty Four (1949); in order to preserve authenticity of form.
Part I
WS: Look, O’Brien, now that we have come this far you might as well tell me what this Brotherhood is all about. Julia and I believe there is some kind of secret organisation working against the Party. We want to join it and work for it.
OB: What do you think it is? For you would not have brought this up unless you had some idea of the Brotherhood and wished to confirm whether or not it was accurate.
WS: You are right, the picture we have in our minds (or at least I in mine) is of meeting in “the place where there is no darkness”.
OB: My dear Winston, if there were to be a conspiracy against Oceania, it could not be in such a place at least, for man will surely be blinded there.
WS: Now don’t joke, tell me, what is this place of no darkness? Do not try to evade the question.
OB: For this you must know what the place of darkness is.
“Imagine an underground chamber like a cave, with a long entrance open to the daylight and as wide as the cave”. In it are men, prisoners from birth or at least childhood, bound and unable to turn their heads to look anywhere except straight ahead. Higher up and behind is a fire. Above the prisoners, between them and the fire runs a road with a curtain wall before it. Would they not “regard nothing else as true but the shadows” of passers-by on this road?
WS: Yes, inevitably.
OB: Now if a prisoner were loosed and forced to look at the fire, he would be dazzled and would “retreat to the things which he could see properly, which he would think really clearer than the things been shown to him”.
WS: Yes.
OB: If he were forcibly dragged up the rugged ascent into the sunlight, he would not “be able to see a single one of the things he was now told were real”.
WS: “Certainly not at first”.
OB: He would come gradually to the conclusion that the sun is “responsible for everything that he and his fellow prisoners used to see”.
WS: “That is the conclusion which he would obviously reach”.
OB: “Then what do you think would happen if he went back to sit in his old seat in the cave? Wouldn’t his eyes be blinded?”
WS: “Certainly”.
OB: And the other prisoners “would say that his visit to the upper world had ruined his sight”, and would kill him if he “tried to release them and lead them up”.
WS: “They certainly would”.
OB: Now “this simile must be connected throughout with what preceded it”. The cave corresponds to Oceania, the prisoners represent the citizens of Oceania, kept in check by the Thought Police.
WS: Granted.
OB: The Thought Police is governed by the Principles of Ingsoc, one of the cornerstones of which is doublethink.
WS: Of course.
OB: They will not allow the existence of “the place where there is no darkness”. Through the process of doublethink, the prisoners can be told anything of the world of no darkness only to react thus.
WS: You put it reasonably.
OB: Now the Brotherhood by definition is a body which shall release the prisoners of Oceania from the cave of darkness. “You have imagined, probably, a huge underworld of conspirators meeting secretly in cellars, recognizing each other by code words…nothing of this kind exists”, because the Thought Police is efficiency personified.
WS: I see.
OB: “You understand that you will always be in the dark”. Under such circumstances, this ‘Brotherhood’ you speak of can only be held together by an idea.
WS: Yes.
OB: So the Brotherhood is not an organisation, and has no achievable agenda.
WS: Agreed, it follows.
OB: In that case, the definition itself is inconsistent. How can it exist if this is so? Is it unreasonable to state therefore, that the Brotherhood does not exist?
WS: No, I cannot see any objection to this.
Part II
OB: Now you see, Winston, that you have been brought to the conclusion that you have no appropriate definition for the topic under consideration. You are in a state of helplessness, aporia, which now cripples any arguments you might have had. In fact, doublethink is similar to this, in that it also stems from contradictions in definition or evidence.
WS: Speaking of evidence, what of the photograph of Jones, Aaronson and Rutherford?
OB: You do know they are unpersons?
WS: Yes.
OB: And yet you continue to ask this.
WS: This is because I held the piece of evidence in my hand.
OB: My dear Winston, if no such persons exist, it is a matter of simple reason that a photograph of them does not exist. Can you see now how this elenchus can prove that your ‘knowledge’ is not knowledge at all, but mere doxa, opinion.
WS: Yes, You are right, all you say is logical. It must be true.
Conclusion:
This dialogue has been an illustration of how by means of skilful conversation one can absolutely negate the motivations to revolt against perceived injustices. In the absence of a support structure (since the Brotherhood has been unpersons-ed by this dialogue and Winston has been convinced it does not and can not exist) for Winston to now indulge in sedition will involve too great a leap of doublethink for him. Thus a potential threat to the State has been so nipped in the bud.
There is now no need for as crude and obvious a device as Room 101, since the objective has been achieved by other, more subtle means. No refutation can present itself, since even the very machinery of conversion back to goodthink has been laid bare.
Bibliography:
Plato; The Republic translated by Desmond Lee, Penguin Classics 2003 edition.
Orwell, George; Nineteen Eighty Four, Penguin Modern Classics 1974 edition.
Irwin, Terence; Plato’s Ethics, Oxford University Press 1995.
Roberts, Gwyneth; Introduction in Nineteen Eighty Four, Longman Group 1983 edition.
Scholer, J. Lawrence; “Four Millenia of Literary Utopia: From Plato to Orwell” in Dartmouth Literary Review, November 12, 2001.
Crystal, David; “Playing With Linguistic Problems: From Orwell to Plato and Back Again” in Linuistics, Language Acquisition, and Language by James E. Alatis.
Deatherage, Scott; “From Plato to Orwell: Utopian Rhetoric in a Dystopian World” presented at the Annual Meeting of the Speech Communication Association, November 5-8, 1987.
Kreis, Steven; www.historyguide.org 2001.
Home Pregnancy Test
She felt out of place at the Chemist's. Buying a home pregnancy test. For somebody else.
So this is how it's going to be, she thought. Well at least I'm spared the agony, the deceit. If I can't do what I want in the open, why attempt to do it in secret? I want to be ready to face up to my parents if the condom broke and one little bugger got through and I did get pregnant. Well at least I know all there is to know. I wouldn't do stupid things like relying on the morning after pill. Who knows what it does, or worse, what it doesn't do. How are other girls so stupid, she thought. How come I know so many, many, many girls who have got pregnant? Or at least sent me off to buy the test while they hyperventilated at home.
Anyway I have a really cool boyfriend. He doesn't ask for it like the other guys. He's cool, he'll wait. We'll wait till we're ready.
She stepped into the house, wiping her feet on the mat as the folks left; they're late for dinner anyway, why bother rushing?
The phone rang,
Hello? she asked.
"So they've left, huh?"
"Hmm. Just."
"Cool. I'll be two minutes."
"Hmm."
"You cool with it, right?"
"Ya. Sure. Aa jaao."
"Got the stuff?"
She craned her neck to peek into the living room.
"Ya, Daddy's got extra Red Label this time, it's cool."
"Cool, see you."
Click.
Anyway I have a really cool boyfriend. He doesn't ask for it like the other guys. He's cool, he'll wait. We'll wait till we're ready.
She stepped into the house, wiping her feet on the mat as the folks left; they're late for dinner anyway, why bother rushing?
The phone rang,
Hello? she asked.
"So they've left, huh?"
"Hmm. Just."
"Cool. I'll be two minutes."
"Hmm."
"You cool with it, right?"
"Ya. Sure. Aa jaao."
"Got the stuff?"
She craned her neck to peek into the living room.
"Ya, Daddy's got extra Red Label this time, it's cool."
"Cool, see you."
Click.
Of late, he had caught himself, only too often, asking her the same questions he had asked and been asked once, long ago. What perfume are you wearing? Where do you go when you want to disappear?
He felt the need to keep notes. Compare them. Place her reactions and the reactions of someone else, long ago, side by side and see how similar, how different they were from each other. There was no way to stop, he knew. Do you realise what high standards we are setting for anybody else?
She had taught him how to love, it was a life skill as far as he was concerned. He wondered sometimes if she had only meant to teach him to love her, what she would think if she heard her own words being used, misused.
It was not guilt that he felt, not really. More a niggling sense of plagiarism. He copied her ways, having known no other. After a point every woman looked the same, faceless, no personality. And yet she was so fallible. It never did appeal to his ordered mind, this capacity for human error. She filled his life, even as he forgot her, with old habits. It was not love, not even its dregs, but the ghost feeling that one has after taking off a watch worn for years together.
The ditty came back to him. Doggerel. Where do words like this come from? So unaesthetic to even an unpretentitous ear.
He had to stop reading, mid sentence, put his book down. He blinked. The feeling went away. He went back to reading. It struck him that the feeling assailed him when his brain was clear. He read away, with more concentration.
He felt the need to keep notes. Compare them. Place her reactions and the reactions of someone else, long ago, side by side and see how similar, how different they were from each other. There was no way to stop, he knew. Do you realise what high standards we are setting for anybody else?
She had taught him how to love, it was a life skill as far as he was concerned. He wondered sometimes if she had only meant to teach him to love her, what she would think if she heard her own words being used, misused.
It was not guilt that he felt, not really. More a niggling sense of plagiarism. He copied her ways, having known no other. After a point every woman looked the same, faceless, no personality. And yet she was so fallible. It never did appeal to his ordered mind, this capacity for human error. She filled his life, even as he forgot her, with old habits. It was not love, not even its dregs, but the ghost feeling that one has after taking off a watch worn for years together.
The ditty came back to him. Doggerel. Where do words like this come from? So unaesthetic to even an unpretentitous ear.
He had to stop reading, mid sentence, put his book down. He blinked. The feeling went away. He went back to reading. It struck him that the feeling assailed him when his brain was clear. He read away, with more concentration.
Memoirs: Another short story from the archives
I have resisted the strong urge to edit some very awkward sentence construction in this story, and a few terms (esp. “leftists”) which I seem to have used without knowing what they meant! I think the word can be replaced by “extremists”.
I wrote this around 2004, when I was 15 or 16, it’s interesting to go back to old writing and see how, hopefully, you evolve!
Déjà vu
Things have changed. A lot. Who would have thought Kashmir would become independent? It is still hard to believe that now there is no POK or IOK.
Twenty years after Kargil, when the UN Media wing picked me to cover the Kashmir story, I had mixed feelings. I did feel a little apprehensive at first. People like me grew up listening to stories of terrorist attacks and bomb blasts in Kashmir. Once in a while, I would get to hear my parents or some other elderly couple from the N.Y. Tamil Brahmin Society heave a sigh, and wistfully describe their Kulu-Manali honeymoon; how they had never been to The North before: how they hunted for handmade sweaters smuggled from Tibet, because they had none of their own.
But then we would go home to the Indian e-newspages, and scrolling down them, spot another familiar-looking headline with a number next to it, to tell some distant and unconcerned NRIs how many died in the Valley that day.
But I was never really involved with Kashmir otherwise. Not until I met Alok. Even though after the 2017 Autonomy Act terrorist activities were not quite so rampant, the UN Security Council decided it was necessary to send a segment of the Pre-Emptive Forces Volunteers to Kashmir.
And so we met in Jammu. Alok was a volunteer, of course. And I was just the in-house Press. It is funny how our differences never kept us from mailing each other every day, and talking for hours on the phone every night when we got back to the States after our year-long stay in Jammu. He was an immigrant Kashmiri who had moved to D.C. only because his parents didn’t want him to stay on in Kashmir, fearing for his life. I was a second-generation American with my roots in some vague village in Tamil Nadu whose name I didn’t remember. And somewhere along the line, the daily mailing became weekly visits. We were forever hopping flights between New York and D.C.
I have a photograph I always keep in my handbag. A picture of us at the registration office, the marriage certificate in our hands and moony grins on our faces. And on the back, Alok’s scrawled words: “Best Day Ever – 21st September, 2018.”
When I was with him, Kashmir didn’t even feel dangerous. We managed to stay apart till November, and arrange a trip to Kashmir in December, giving the Personnel Wing the excuse that we wanted to record the people’s condition two years after Partition. I was too thrilled to speak when he led me up some old cobbled steps to a cottage in the heart of Jammu, and whispered that we would live there someday. His grandmother had left it to him, knowing that his parents wanted nothing more to do with Kashmir.
March came to the Valley, and brought spring with it, and we were still there, painting the walls ourselves, picking burnt shells out of the weeds in the tiny garden. But at the fag end of March, the natives began to complain of no development in the country; and somewhere in the midst of the brewing confusion, leftists started saying it was the Pandits’ fault – that they did not want for Kashmir to be identified with the Muslims, and so suppressed their interests. But it didn’t even end there. By May, the Islamic fundamentalists were all for declaring Kashmir an Islamic state.
We were stuck in the middle of all this. Alok, impulsive as he was, joined in the Hindu protests, much to my dismay. One Sunday morning he was, for a change, free from the rallies for a while. He was sitting, as I clearly remember, on the bed, clipping his toenails, with an old newspaper under his feet to catch the clippings. It was just then that the call came from HQ, N.Y. The PEF was on its way. Within the hour, the chartered Concorde landed; and we, even myself, a mere reporter, were supplied with bullet-proof vests and ammo. But the crash course in firearm handling did nothing to make me feel less insecure or afraid.
Before I knew it, the Team actually had to go out and physically stop the leftists from killing every Hindu in sight. I took the red sticker-bindi; which my mother insisted I should wear; off my forehead, and removed from the bookshelf the Bhagwad Gita which I used to recite from, uselessly; trying as NRIs say, to “preserve our culture”. But now I had our lives to preserve. I burnt the book, and along with it all other signs of our being Hindus. I would have to just leave everything else as it was and join Volunteeers. But in the meantime, I found, another segment had been flown in from Geneva; and I, inexperienced as I was, was designated as “Reserve”. I would only be sent out when ten or more had been lost. Alok had been with the PEF for six years. He was told to lead.
Two days later, we cheered when we heard that the first segment had been successful, and the leftists were calming down, preparing for negotiation. But we all fell silent, because their success was not the only news. Four men had been lost. Shot through the head, killed instantly. And as I listened to their names, I had a feeling of growing dread. It was announced then: “Our friend and partner of six years. A native. Alok Kaul.”
I remember telling the others I needed to be alone for a while, and walking back to the house. I unlocked the door and stepped in, my eyes bloodshot and my head throbbing. By the door, I found his shoes. Those ridiculous soccer shoes with spikes on them, And next to them the old toothbrush he used to clean them with. I walked to the small round table where we did everything from cutting vegetables to planning fantastic and impossible holidays. There was a large white handkerchief on it. Folded and ironed, He hadn’t taken it with him when he rushed out. I picked it up, only to find that silly picture of me in a baseball cap, warped by having been in his wallet so long. And on the bed was an old newspaper, and on it the toenails Alok had clipped. I cried all evening.
Two more months and I was back in N.Y. On the flight back from Delhi an American stewardess looked at me, smiled, and politely asked, “How many months?” I was startled. It took me a few seconds to understand what she had just asked me. The fact that I was pregnant was probably the last thing on my mind then. I absently replied that she was due in September.
Things had changed. A lot. Who ever thought last December that a year from then, I would be back in Jammu. Without Alok. I took the Concorde from Delhi, and spent an entire two days in Jammu only because there was a flight only alternate days. I had done my homework. In N.Y. itself, I had found someone interested in buying the house, especially since the riots seemed to have died down again. All I had to do was sign on a few dotted lines. The estate agent did the rest. I stepped up those old cobbled steps and ran my hand over the walls we painted, the window-panes we polished – and I took off my shoes and felt, for the last time, the cold mosaic.
On the flight back from Delhi, an American stewardess looked at me, remembered, and smiled. She asked me how my baby girl was doing. I smiled back. There was no point, really, in telling this enthusiastic kid the baby had been stillborn. She was curious to know what I had named her. “Kashmir”, I said. She smiled her plastic smile and said, “That’s a really pretty name. Kind of gives you a déjà vu.”
And when I got off that plane, I was sad. And I knew Alok would have been too. Because finally, that is what Kashmir is now. A pretty name and a déjà vu.
Déjà vu
Things have changed. A lot. Who would have thought Kashmir would become independent? It is still hard to believe that now there is no POK or IOK.
Twenty years after Kargil, when the UN Media wing picked me to cover the Kashmir story, I had mixed feelings. I did feel a little apprehensive at first. People like me grew up listening to stories of terrorist attacks and bomb blasts in Kashmir. Once in a while, I would get to hear my parents or some other elderly couple from the N.Y. Tamil Brahmin Society heave a sigh, and wistfully describe their Kulu-Manali honeymoon; how they had never been to The North before: how they hunted for handmade sweaters smuggled from Tibet, because they had none of their own.
But then we would go home to the Indian e-newspages, and scrolling down them, spot another familiar-looking headline with a number next to it, to tell some distant and unconcerned NRIs how many died in the Valley that day.
But I was never really involved with Kashmir otherwise. Not until I met Alok. Even though after the 2017 Autonomy Act terrorist activities were not quite so rampant, the UN Security Council decided it was necessary to send a segment of the Pre-Emptive Forces Volunteers to Kashmir.
And so we met in Jammu. Alok was a volunteer, of course. And I was just the in-house Press. It is funny how our differences never kept us from mailing each other every day, and talking for hours on the phone every night when we got back to the States after our year-long stay in Jammu. He was an immigrant Kashmiri who had moved to D.C. only because his parents didn’t want him to stay on in Kashmir, fearing for his life. I was a second-generation American with my roots in some vague village in Tamil Nadu whose name I didn’t remember. And somewhere along the line, the daily mailing became weekly visits. We were forever hopping flights between New York and D.C.
I have a photograph I always keep in my handbag. A picture of us at the registration office, the marriage certificate in our hands and moony grins on our faces. And on the back, Alok’s scrawled words: “Best Day Ever – 21st September, 2018.”
When I was with him, Kashmir didn’t even feel dangerous. We managed to stay apart till November, and arrange a trip to Kashmir in December, giving the Personnel Wing the excuse that we wanted to record the people’s condition two years after Partition. I was too thrilled to speak when he led me up some old cobbled steps to a cottage in the heart of Jammu, and whispered that we would live there someday. His grandmother had left it to him, knowing that his parents wanted nothing more to do with Kashmir.
March came to the Valley, and brought spring with it, and we were still there, painting the walls ourselves, picking burnt shells out of the weeds in the tiny garden. But at the fag end of March, the natives began to complain of no development in the country; and somewhere in the midst of the brewing confusion, leftists started saying it was the Pandits’ fault – that they did not want for Kashmir to be identified with the Muslims, and so suppressed their interests. But it didn’t even end there. By May, the Islamic fundamentalists were all for declaring Kashmir an Islamic state.
We were stuck in the middle of all this. Alok, impulsive as he was, joined in the Hindu protests, much to my dismay. One Sunday morning he was, for a change, free from the rallies for a while. He was sitting, as I clearly remember, on the bed, clipping his toenails, with an old newspaper under his feet to catch the clippings. It was just then that the call came from HQ, N.Y. The PEF was on its way. Within the hour, the chartered Concorde landed; and we, even myself, a mere reporter, were supplied with bullet-proof vests and ammo. But the crash course in firearm handling did nothing to make me feel less insecure or afraid.
Before I knew it, the Team actually had to go out and physically stop the leftists from killing every Hindu in sight. I took the red sticker-bindi; which my mother insisted I should wear; off my forehead, and removed from the bookshelf the Bhagwad Gita which I used to recite from, uselessly; trying as NRIs say, to “preserve our culture”. But now I had our lives to preserve. I burnt the book, and along with it all other signs of our being Hindus. I would have to just leave everything else as it was and join Volunteeers. But in the meantime, I found, another segment had been flown in from Geneva; and I, inexperienced as I was, was designated as “Reserve”. I would only be sent out when ten or more had been lost. Alok had been with the PEF for six years. He was told to lead.
Two days later, we cheered when we heard that the first segment had been successful, and the leftists were calming down, preparing for negotiation. But we all fell silent, because their success was not the only news. Four men had been lost. Shot through the head, killed instantly. And as I listened to their names, I had a feeling of growing dread. It was announced then: “Our friend and partner of six years. A native. Alok Kaul.”
I remember telling the others I needed to be alone for a while, and walking back to the house. I unlocked the door and stepped in, my eyes bloodshot and my head throbbing. By the door, I found his shoes. Those ridiculous soccer shoes with spikes on them, And next to them the old toothbrush he used to clean them with. I walked to the small round table where we did everything from cutting vegetables to planning fantastic and impossible holidays. There was a large white handkerchief on it. Folded and ironed, He hadn’t taken it with him when he rushed out. I picked it up, only to find that silly picture of me in a baseball cap, warped by having been in his wallet so long. And on the bed was an old newspaper, and on it the toenails Alok had clipped. I cried all evening.
Two more months and I was back in N.Y. On the flight back from Delhi an American stewardess looked at me, smiled, and politely asked, “How many months?” I was startled. It took me a few seconds to understand what she had just asked me. The fact that I was pregnant was probably the last thing on my mind then. I absently replied that she was due in September.
Things had changed. A lot. Who ever thought last December that a year from then, I would be back in Jammu. Without Alok. I took the Concorde from Delhi, and spent an entire two days in Jammu only because there was a flight only alternate days. I had done my homework. In N.Y. itself, I had found someone interested in buying the house, especially since the riots seemed to have died down again. All I had to do was sign on a few dotted lines. The estate agent did the rest. I stepped up those old cobbled steps and ran my hand over the walls we painted, the window-panes we polished – and I took off my shoes and felt, for the last time, the cold mosaic.
On the flight back from Delhi, an American stewardess looked at me, remembered, and smiled. She asked me how my baby girl was doing. I smiled back. There was no point, really, in telling this enthusiastic kid the baby had been stillborn. She was curious to know what I had named her. “Kashmir”, I said. She smiled her plastic smile and said, “That’s a really pretty name. Kind of gives you a déjà vu.”
And when I got off that plane, I was sad. And I knew Alok would have been too. Because finally, that is what Kashmir is now. A pretty name and a déjà vu.
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