The Girl with the Golden Parasol

SEVEN

The emergency session took place at nine o’clock p.m., after dinner, on the field below Tagore Hostel. Nearly all of the boys from Maharshi Arvind, CV Raman, and Bhulabhai Desai hostels came out. There were also two other hostels: MLB (Maharani Laxmibai) and Sarojini Naidu Girls’ Hostel. Parvez and Kannan had sent the word over to them, and soon enough forty-five girls showed up.

“Death to Vice-Chancellor Agnihotri!”

“Shame on Chaturvedi!”

“Warden Upadhyay: come out, come out, wherever you are!”

“Comrades! Today we have come together as one to sort out some very serious business. If we don’t rise up today, we’re finished. This university’s become a haven for goondas and antisocial criminal elements. They do whatever they feel like and right out in the open. Your fellow students who stand among you now will tell you what the goondas did to them. I’ll start with the resident of Tagore Hostel, Room 212, Sapam Tomba, who came here to study from Manipur and is in his first-year MSc.”

Sapam made his way to the dais and in broken Hindi and English began to tell the story of the calamity that befell him. In the middle, he choked up and began to weep right on stage. Maybe it was the sight of so many students, or his state of raw emotion, or his anxiety — but it was the first time he’d told the story to anyone. He’d even kept it hidden from the university administration.

In the middle of his jerky sobs, as Sapam described the excesses he suffered at the hands of the goondas, he stopped for an instant, eyes seeming to stray off into space and fix on nothing in particular, and then, covering his eyes, he let it all out in one big breath. “Before forcing me to piss on the electric heater, they tried to sodomize me.” This was too much; he utterly fell apart. A new flood of tears breached his hands and drenched his face.

It was as if a majestic bird, flapping its wounded wings, had fallen suddenly into the middle of the crowd. A frightful silence spread, and everyone stood still. The faces of the students gathered on the field below Tagore Hostel were covered with the grit of sorrow, disgust, defeat, and shame. An unbearable, soul-raking silence filled the ears of everyone present. And from the stage came Sapam Tomba’s sobbing voice.

“I am not a gay,” he said in English. “Tell me, how can I go on? Why should I even try?” Sapam’s crying was now like a typhoon, once held back, now let loose. His delicate, lovely body trembled like a frail plant in a swiftly moving storm. Only a few days ago his brother, a primary school teacher, had been gunned down in Manipur, while here, Sapam had endured this.

“Every day I think about suicide. And. . I’ll definitely do it! Mark my words. If not today, then tomorrow. Why go on living? My brother sent me money so I could study. Now who will pay the bills? Tell me. Tell me!”

Everyone’s eyes were moist with tears. You could hear the sound of girls’ sobbing.

Rahul went up to Sapam and placed a hand on his shoulder. He himself was having a hard time holding it together. With great difficulty, he cleared his throat and said, “Come, come. Come down here, Sapam. It’s enough. You can hold it together.” Sapam’s red, swollen eyes glanced at Rahul, and, slowly balancing himself on him for support, Sapam began to descend the steps of the platform.

The meeting lasted until midnight. It was concluded that either the security arrangements at the university were insufficient or, because of the presence of certain locals, no steps had been taken to fight the criminals. The administration acted this way maybe out of fear, or maybe an ulterior motive lurked behind. Who could say? Aside from Sapam, a few others came forward to speak — Madhusudan, Praveen, Niketan, and Masood — who’d also been beaten and had money and belongings stolen this term at the hands of the goondas. Pratap Parihar, whose uncle was a police officer, said these goondas had secured protection from police, university officials, and politicians. Last year, a senior named Jay Prakash Bhuiyan filed a complaint with the police against the goondas, naming them by name. A few months later, as he was waiting at the train station to go back home to his village, the goondas caught up with him on the platform and beat him up in front of the railway police, breaking both his hands. Afterward, he was forced to drop out of school.

It was decided that all the students living in the hostels would unite to take on the goondas.

“Don’t assume they’ve locked up support from all of the local students. We’ve talked with the ‘day scholars,’ and they’re with us. Sure, they come from the same place and know all the same people, so, okay, they might not support us openly. But they’ll find some other ways to help us.”

“Believe me when I tell you that these goondas are few in number. Their strength and boldness have shot up only because of their weapons and political connections. If we let them know what we’re made of, loud and clear, they’ll think twice before breaking into our hostels again.”

Pratap Parihar’s and Kartikeya’s speeches were powerful.

It was also decided that the next time such an incident happened, the students would shut down the whole university.

Strike! Strike! Long live student unity!

The meeting was forceful and a complete success. Rahul felt as if the blood in his veins had suddenly picked up speed and was being licked by flames. He gazed at his biceps. The trips to the gym looked like they were paying off. I belong to a martial race. I will fight for a just cause till I breathe my last.

He slowly began to hum. “I shall live and die for you, O Motherland. . I gave you my heart and I shall give you my life, O Motherland. .” He gently squeezed Sapam’s shoulder and gave him a smile.

But Sapam didn’t return his smile. His eyes wandered off, lost in empty space. What was there? Was it his dead brother, who could only watch Sapam with his sad, helpless, lifeless eyes, and do nothing? He’d been shot. Blood still flowed from his temple. Sapam saw him right there, sitting quietly in the corner of the field below Tagore Hostel, looking at Sapam with his dead eyes.

Every morning, he’d hoist his younger brother Sapam onto the bicycle, take the net, and go catch fish. At home ducks ran everywhere. Behind their house was dense forest, and mountains, whose color changed all day because of the sun’s and clouds’ continual play of light and shade. Mountains that appeared blue in morning would look gray or brown as afternoon crept along; then, a sudden shadow from a cloud falling on the mountain, and it transformed completely, green. It was a wonderful sight to watch the mountains disappear right before your very eyes, totally, without a trace. Only the fog of the clouds, suspended to the side of the mountain, was left to see. His brother used to tell him, “That’s how plane crashes happen, Sapam. The pilot thinks it’s just fog when really there’s a big mountain ahead.”

In the summer heat, the thick, wet bamboo stands in the forest became dry, and when the evening wind blew swiftly through the stalks, they droned as if a thousand bansuris played. Father said that when Krishna fell in love with Rukmini, the sound from his flute floated through this same bamboo forest. Rukmini was from right here, the Northeast. These bamboo learned how to play the bansuri from Krishna. Even today, Rukmini comes to the jungle to meet Krishna, secretly disguised as the wind.

Sapam’s father drummed on the dholak during the devotional kirtan songs. He played very well, and so totally submerged himself in the singing and drumming that people said the spirit of Chaitanya had entered into him. Chaitanya, the great master!

Sapam had turned into a stone statue.

It gave Rahul a shudder. Then he found his friend and roommate, O.P., six foot three, himself a bamboo stick, with a neck as long and delicate as a swan or heron’s, bobbing at every step, standing straight up in the middle of the crowd. His thin, oval face was burning with rage.

Rahul came up quietly to O.P. and hugged him from behind. “Hey, Guinness book contender, why aren’t you looking around for your petite girl? There must be one here somewhere in this crowd. Forget about fighting the goondas. And if by chance your girl did show up, your great house of bones would break in ten places.”

“Shut up! This is no time for jokes,” O.P. fumed. But as Rahul tightened his grip and twisted harder O.P. began to laugh amid his wincing. “Uncle! Uncle! Okay, you win!”