Milkweed Editions

... Only one hundred and twenty thousand in the whole world. We have to be extra wary, or we’ll be neither here nor there... ” And then, surmounting his uncharacteristic hesitancy, and in thunderous voice, he declaimed: “We must hunt with the hounds and run with the hare!”
Everybody clapped and gravely said: “Hear! Hear!” as they always do, reflexively, every time anyone airs a British proverb in suitably ringing tones.
“The goddamn English!” I think, infected by Colonel Bharucha’s startling ferocity at this “dastardly” (one of Father’s favorite words, just as “plucky” is Mother’s) instance of British treachery. “They gave us polio!” And notwithstanding the compatible and sanguine nature of my relationship with my disease, I feel it is my first personal involvement with Indian politics: the Quit-India sentiment that has fired the imagination of a subject people and will soon sweep away the Raj!

I shake my head in a firm negative. “She’ll marry—have children—lead a carefree, happy life. No need to strain her with studies and exams,” he advises, thereby sealing my fate.
Mother’s mouth is again working—her eyes again brimming. And driven by unfathomable demons, again her guilt surfaces. “I don’t know where I went wrong,” she says. “It’s my fault... I neglected her—left her to the care of ayahs. None of the other children who went to the same park contracted polio.”
“It’s no one’s fault really,” says Colonel Bharucha, reassuring her as usual. “Lenny is weak. Some child with only the symptoms of a severe cold could have passed the virus.” And then he roars a shocking postscript: “If anyone’s to blame, blame the British! There was no polio in India till they brought it here!”
As far as I’m concerned this is insurgence—an open declaration of war by the two hundred Parsees of Lahore of the British Empire! I am shocked because Colonel Bharucha is the president of our community in Lahore. And, except for a few designated renegades, the Parsees have been careful to adopt a discreet and politically naive profile. At the last community dinner, held on the roof of the YMCA building on the Mall, Colonel Bharucha had cautioned (between the blood-chilling whines of the microphone): “We must tread carefully ... We have served the English faithfully, and earned their trust ... So, we have prospered! But we are the smallest minority in India

We enter the main hall. The chairs have been rearranged. Colonel Bharucha is standing before the mike, testing it with practiced snaps of his fingers. “Hello hello,” he says, and knocks on it with his knuckles. He struggles with both hands to stretch the rod. Mr. Bankwalla, an officer at the Central Bank of India, his slight body crisp and dependable in sweatless white shirt and white trousers, rushes up obligingly. Between them they adjust the mike to suit the colonel’s height.
The banker moves back, fleet and unobtrusive beneath his maroon skullcap, to his seat in the aisle next to his jolly wife. (His wife is so indefatigably jolly that it is said after the initial burst of grief she even wisecracked at her son’s funeral. Later I heard she cracked jokes on her deathbed and prepared to meet Ahura Mazda with jests, and sly winks at the mourners, whose appreciative laughter turned to inconsolable grief when the will was read. She left everything to the Tower of Silence in Karachi.)
By the time Colonel Bharucha clears his throat, and it is an impressive throat-clearing, we are all settled in our chairs.
Colonel Bharucha tells us: “We are gathered here, etc., etc. To thank God Almighty, etc., etc.”
The mike has transformed him from a plain-speaking doctor into a resounding orator. But his rhetoric has a cadence that makes my mind wander.

“Order! Order!” says Mr. Bankwalla. And Colonel Bharucha clears his throat so effectively that the questions, answers and wisecracks subside.
“I’ll tell you a story,” the colonel says, and susceptible to stories the congregation and I sit still in our seats.
“When we were kicked out of Persia by the Arabs thirteen hundred years ago, what did we do? Did we shout and argue? No!” roars the colonel, and hastily provides his own answer before anyone can interrupt. “We got into boats and sailed to India!”
“Why to India?” a totally new wit sitting at the end of my bench enquires. “If they had to go some place, why not Greece? Why not to France? Prettier scenery... ”
“They didn’t kick us hard enough,” says Dr. Mody, with hearty regret. “If only they’d kicked us all the way to California ... Prettier women!”

“Brother,” the Sikh granthi says when the tumult subsides, “our villages come from the same racial stock. Muslim or Sikh, we are basically Jats. We are brothers. How can we fight each other?”

dependent on each other: bound by our toil; by Mandi prices set by the Banyas—they’re our common enemy—those city Hindus. To us villagers, what does it matter if a peasant is a Hindu, or a Muslim, or a Sikh?”

Ayah carries me screaming into the kitchen and proceeds to splash my face at the sink. Imam Din pops a chicken heart into my mouth.

“I’ll take only what I have to,” Mother shouts, locking herself into the bathroom. “I haven’t even paid Lenny’s physiotherapist yet... I’ve to buy the children’s clothes for Christmas and New Year.” (Christmas, Easter, Eid, Divali. We celebrate them all.)

Leaving Rosy to cope with her hurt feelings and bruised flesh, I crouch before them. One by one I lift the fragile jars and remove their tiny crystal stoppers. They gleam, reflecting rainbow hues—insinuating questions ... What is eternity? Why are the stars? Where do cats lay their eggs? And why don’t hospitals have flushing bedpans built into the beds?

There is an eruption of comments and suggestions. The meeting is turning out to be much more lively than I’d anticipated. Godmother’s brother-in-law restores order with his built-in microphone. “Shut up!” he bellows, startling us with the velocity of his voice.
Colonel Bharucha continues as if he’s not been interrupted at all.
“Do you think it was easy to be accepted into a new country? No!” he booms. “Our forefathers were not given permission even to disembark!”
“What about our foremothers?” someone enquires.
“And our foreskins?” an invisible voice pipes up from the back.
“Mind! There are ladies here!” says the colonel sternly.