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Indian Writings in Literature

Notes and provocative statements’ made by Pakistani leaders and the Pakistani press. A few days later
the External Affairs Ministry was informed of the Pakistani government’s view that the communal
incidents in East Pakistan were being played up by the Indian Press in order to ‘divert the people’s
attention from the serious happenings in Kashmir’. But even more curiously, within a few days an
almost congratulatory note entered into the exchanges between the ministries as they reviewed
their respective successes in quelling the disturbances. For a while the Presidents of the two
countries even seriously considered assuring a joint appeal for communal harmony. But soon
enough, that plan went the way of all good intentions in the subcontinent, and the memory of the
riots vanished into the usual cloud of rhetorical exchanges.
They have no use for memories of riots.
By the end of January 1964 the riots had faded away from the pages of the newspapers, disappeared
from the collective imagination of ‘responsible opinion’, vanished, without leaving a trace in the
histories and bookshelves. They had dropped out of memory into the crater of a volcano of silence.
The narrator’s tryst with the redemptive mystery takes place in London a day before he has to
leave it after almost a year. He has to fly back to India and goes to meet May. She spared the
narrator of the courage and the tedious task of asking her the manner of Tridib’s death. She
narrated the whole sequence of events from the place they left the old man’s house. There was
already disturbance in the air and when they were on their way home, their car was stopped by
a mob. They broke the windscreen and injured the driver. When the security man fired a shot at
them, they fell back for a moment but then they spotted the old man coming on the rickshaw with
Khalil driving it. The mob fell on them. Tha’mma forgetting about the old man shouted at the
driver to drive away but May Price shouted back at her. In that moment of death and devastation,
the old woman appeared to her as a cowardly and impotent creature. She threw open the door of
the car and ran after them. Tridib shouted her name and lost no time to run after her and soon
caught up with her and pushed her. May thought that he had come to pull her back but he instead
moved and done to death with the other two. Soon the crowd melted away into the narrow lanes.
When May Price reached the spot she found three bodies. They had cut Khalil’s stomach open.
The old’s man head was chopped off and Tridib’s throat was cut from ear to ear.
After narrating the tale, there was a pause and she and the narrator finished the ice cream and he
thanked her for the nice dinner. He rose to go. When he finally took her leave she was in the
kitchen. There was a note in her voice that made him wonder. He stepped into the kitchen and
touched her arm. Her face was wet with tears.
‘Don’t go’, she said. ‘Please; I don’t want to be along I am afraid.’
The narrator grasped her shoulder then, and she learnt her head against his chest so that he could
feel her face wet against his shirt. He stroked her hair, once, twice, and then afraid of frightening
her as he’d done once before. He tried to step back. She held him for an instant and then she let go
and straightened up.
‘Do you think I killed him?’ She said. Then she continued, ‘I used to think so too, I thought I’d
killed him. I used to think: perhaps he wouldn’t have got out of that car if I hadn’t made him. If
I’d understood what I was doing. I was safe you see I could have gone right into the mob, and they
wouldn’t have touched me, an English Memshaib, but he, he must have known he was going to
die. For years I was arrogant enough to think I owed him his life. But I know now I didn’t kill him;
I couldn’t have, if I’d wanted. He gave himself up. It was a sacrifice. I know I can’t understand it,
I know I mustn’t try, for any real sacrifice is a mystery.’
After that, the narrator stays at her place and they ley in each other’s arm quietly in the night. He
was happy and grateful for she had given him the final redemptive mystery.
Self-Assessment
1. Choose the correct options:
(i) Who wanted to see the border between India and East Pakistan?
(a) Tha’mma (b) Tridib
(c) May (d) None of these

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