A few people had been running around desperately since morning. Going first to the local police station and next to Howrah General Hospital. And then to the Howrah police station. After having collected the necessary papers from there, they were now in the morgue in Mullick Fatak. That’s where Suman Nath’s body was lying. The post-mortem had just begun. Raju Dom had drunk a whole lot of liquor and then lain on his back in front of the morgue. Even he found the thought of a three-day-old, decomposed corpse distasteful. But once he was enticed with the offer of some extra money, his drunken stupor seemed to vanish. The police had informed the family after finding Suman’s address in the wallet in his pocket. He had been missing for three days, and his body was found in a clump of shrubs beside the railway line. Abhijit, Montu, Santanu, Suraj, as well as some local leaders had arrived to collect the body. Only the Creator knew when, at which precise moment, a person would be assigned value. Even though this terrible news had reached Sadnahati via Suman’s wife’s folks, no one felt perturbed. But the sense of smell of political leaders exceeded that of even dogs. They could divine the flow of events in advance. The Hindu voters of the Jogipara hamlet in Sadnahati had always come to play a decisive role in determining the electoral outcome.

And so, people from both the political parties had devoted themselves to the task of collecting the dead body. The party that could take back Suman’s body would garner sympathy votes. After all, the Panchayat elections were imminent.

It was the light of late afternoon outside the morgue. There was a bunch of youths there. Not a trace of any grief on their faces.

On an elevated platform at a little distance sat two silent souls, in an unkempt state, in each other’s embrace. They were mother and daughter. The daughter was about nine years old. Further away was a paan-and-cigarette shop. That’s where a few boys from Jogipara were gossiping, puffing on beedis and blowing out lungfuls of smoke. Their attention was on the woman. Realizing that, she turned her face away.

‘Whatever you say, Montu, Kaka netted a real maal, her fucking fire’s still burning.’

‘It’ll stop burning now. It’ll be snuffed out as soon as the fire on Suman’s pyre dies. Oof! So much happened because of this girl.’

A boy who was younger than them asked curiously, ‘What was the incident, Dada? I remember something had happened when I was small, but I don’t remember what it was.’

‘You don’t need to know about that, boy!’ The man averted the query. He began soliloquizing: ‘Eesh! What’s going to happen to the woman now! Where will she go with this little child? How will she stand on her own feet?’

The post-mortem report was ready by now. The body would be released in a little while. Yes, Suman had committed suicide. There was a suicide note too. When the report was held out to Suman’s wife, she gave it to Santanu. Heaving a deep sigh, she tried to convey that it was they who would have to do all that needed to be done. Santanu was a friend of Suman’s brother, Abhijit. After that, no sooner had Suman’s wife turned around, holding her little girl’s hand, than someone called out, ‘Riziya! They’ll bring the dead body. You come along in our car.’

To her astonishment, it was Abid Sheikh. Iqbal Ostagar was standing beside him. She hadn’t recognized him because he had grown a beard. At a distance, Rafiq Ali was talking to Santanu and Abhijit. Rafiq belonged to a family of Sheikhs and was a very big leader of the area. Everyone called him Rafiq Ali. When Riziya was a child, she used to call him Rafiq Mama. She felt a surge of terror in her heart.

Riziya, aka Reena Nath, was a bit surprised to see Abid Sheikh and Rafiq Ali together. The two of them belonged to opposite poles of the political spectrum. Once her sense of surprise had abated, she heard her name being called out once again. It seemed Abid Sheikh was calling her. The moment someone called her by her original name – after almost ten years – the woman who was benumbed with grief seemed to be stricken by confusion regarding her own identity. Who was she now? Reena, or Riziya? She was overwhelmed by this crisis of identity for a little while. She was unable to think clearly. As soon as she returned to her senses, she tightened her grip on her daughter’s hand, followed Abid Sheikh and got into his car.

She kept guessing where she was headed now. Was the car’s destination Sadnahati, where she had spent her childhood and adolescence? The village which she had remembered almost every day for the last ten years. And every time she remembered the village, it was the tallest green minaret of the big mosque at Sadnahati that she visualized. The minaret which was visible from the roof of her house in Sadnahati, at which she gazed as she composed her dreams.

As she sat in the car, it occurred to Riziya that Suman had really gone! Hugging her daughter to her breast, she began to weep silently. In a tearful voice, she blurted out inarticulately, ‘Mama, will it be all right for me to go there?’

Abid Sheikh was sitting beside the driver. He turned his head around and said, ‘Don’t worry about anything. It’s not like that any more! Besides, aren’t we all there with you? Nothing will happen to you.’

Riziya could have smiled at these words. A contemptuous and hard-hearted smile. A woman who had just been widowed was not supposed to smile. Of course, she wanted to trust this man to an extent. After all, she had no other option besides that. Whether out of courtesy or because of the exigency, Riziya enquired, ‘Are my uncles still alive? How are they?’

‘Do you mean Kalu Chacha? It’s been about three years since he passed away. Salaam Miya is still around. He’s been bedridden for a long time. I heard that he’s unable to speak either.’

‘Oh.’

Abid Sheikh was not surprised to hear the ‘oh’ that lacked any warmth. It seemed he knew he would receive such a response, even though the orphaned Riziya had grown up under the care of Kalu Miya and Salaam Miya. He remained silent. He thought about many things. Suddenly, he turned his head around once again and said, ‘Riziya, forgive me, my precious. Forgive us. After all these years, I want to ask you something, will you answer me? Why did you write such terrible things on the outer wall of the mosque? Why do you

have such rage against Muslims?’

Riziya, aka Reena Nath, was at an utter loss at this sudden query. She had no idea what Abid Mama was talking about. For the first time, she began sobbing and wailing in grief. It burst out in spasms. Her child, too, was now weeping with her. She couldn’t provide any answer to Abid Sheikh’s question. Perhaps, she didn’t want to either. Why should she?

She wondered whether the people of Sadnahati would recognize her. But after all, how long was ten years! She was gripped by a sense of terror. Abid Sheikh could understand her state of mind. In a reassuring tone, he said, ‘There’s no need to talk much to anyone, Rizi. Just be quiet. After all, the one who’s gone isn’t going to come back. But can you tell me why Suman committed suicide?’

Not getting a reply to this question either, he wanted to change the subject. He asked, ‘Who will cremate Suman, my dear?’

This time, the little girl cried out loudly, ‘Baba had asked not to be cremated, please don’t cremate my Baba! Bury him. Baba often told me he didn’t want to burn in fire. He was afraid.’

Faced with the difficult reality, Abid Sheikh retorted in fierce reprimand, ‘What else will they do with him if not cremate him? Whose burial ground will you bury him in, tell me? After all, your Baba didn’t become a Muslim!’

Riziya felt somewhat humiliated at this. She said, ‘Mama, it’s correct that Suman didn’t become a Muslim, but he could never be a Hindu either. Perhaps I, too, couldn’t become a Muslim like you all, although I was born in a Muslim household. Even when my daughter was born, someone had affectionately given her the name Sompreeti. We call her Preeti.’

Abid Sheikh did not say anything more. He kept thinking about the Riziya of ten years ago. Her personality was just the same. She was just as stubborn. The same defiant stance.

The car entered Sadnahati. A confounding tremble seemed to course down Riziya’s body. She looked out of the window at the streets and sights of Sadnahati, at the people of Sadnahati. She nudged her daughter gently to let her know that they had arrived. It was the houses that had undergone the most transformation in these ten years. Huge houses had come up. There were a large number of shops by the side of the road leading to the cemetery. They passed the majar of Haji Saheb. Festoons of paper in various colours had been put up all along the road. Was it some festival?

As they went a little further, seeing a house, Riziya couldn’t contain her curiosity. She asked, ‘Whose house is this, Mama?’

‘It’s Maruf Sheikh’s house. They are the wealthiest now; it’s Maruf who’s the mosque secretary now. He has called all the people of the village to a meeting because he wants to organize some event. Doctor, Farid, everyone’s there. He asked me to be there too.’

‘Which Maruf? Do you mean Nasir Sheikh’s son, Maruf Bhai?’

There was a look of astonishment once again in Riziya’s eyes. In these ten years, only once had she met someone from this village. And that was Maruf. They were wealthy even in those days. He was the elder brother of Riziya’s friend, Amina. And more significantly, he was Suman’s friend. How many books she used to get from their house. And now the same Maruf was the wealthiest person in Sadnahati! It was he who was the mosque secretary now!

two

‘That scorched girl’s returned to the fire, got that, Bubu!’ Tanzila’s Ma declared loudly and fretfully as soon as she arrived at the pond-bank. There were many other women. Perhaps their tummies hadn’t relished such juicy gossip in a long time. Another woman then joined in with pungency, ‘You said it, dear. When you abandoned your religion and faith and married a man from another faith, didn’t you think of Sadnahati?’ ‘The fiend’s come to devour! Suman wasn’t enough for her, just you see, she’s going to seduce someone again and set up home for another ten years!’ And thus did they regale themselves with jest and banter.

Salek’s wife was known as ‘Anandabazar Patrika’. She was the first one when it came to gathering news. She would reach the place in question all of a sudden. She had done so just last night. She went on in a coddling tone, ‘Just go and have a look, the whore’s got a strapping girl. She’s really pretty, my dear! She’s prettier than the whore!’

‘Yeah, the whore was beautiful, and educated as well. She used her beauty to do all her misdeeds. Do Muslims have any honour and dignity left after what she did?’

Before she could finish, Tanzila’s Ma provided a fresh piece of news. ‘I’ve heard they’re going to put up a room in Suman’s father’s place in Jogipara. She’ll live as a Hindu there. Where else can a widow go?’

‘Where else can that shameless whore go! And I’d like to ask Abid as well, why did you go to fetch the wretch?’

‘Hey, didn’t my Rashid’s father protest her arrival? They silenced him by threatening to set the police on him.’

It was Tanzila’s Ma who was the chief patron of this women’s assembly that was taking place at the pond-bank. She carried on gravely, ‘Who knows what the menfolk think! Why all this sympathy for the woman who brought disgrace to her religion and became a kaffir, the one on whose forehead the red sindoor is still glowing?’

This women’s conference at the pond-bank proved that perhaps no one had forgiven Riziya. Was holding Suman’s hand and going off her biggest crime? Or was she guilty of an even bigger crime? Riziya had apparently wounded the religion. She had slandered the imam. That slander was akin to slandering the religion. The imam was their leader, he was the most respected person in the community. Hurling criticism at him was unacceptable. Muslims could tolerate everything, but they could never tolerate attacks on their faith and beliefs. That’s why the youths of Sadnahati, reeling from the humiliation, had thought of cutting Riziya into pieces. And that absconding woman had returned to Sadnahati today. Naturally, there was a lurking sense of unrest.

Another historic incident was about to take place in Sadnahati. In just three days, the conference of the mosque committee was to begin. Maruf wanted to introduce another dimension to the event. This conference was going to play a major role with regard to plans for the future of Sadnahati and its development. The youths of the community were preoccupied with preparations for the event. That is why there hadn’t yet been any flutter surrounding either Suman’s corpse, which had been severed by the wheels of a train, or the return of Sadnahati’s rebellious daughter, Riziya.

three

By dawn, the youths of Jogipara were ready to cremate the body. Even at this unearthly hour, when crows start cawing, a small crowd had formed. Suman had been laid on the pyre. Arrangements had also been made for some garlands to be laid on it.

Tired and exhausted, Riziya gazed indifferently in that direction. Once the cremation was over, the sindoor on her forehead would be wiped away by other widows. That was the custom, Riziya knew that. She wasn’t distressed about that. The belief and faith in, and reverence for what the sindoor symbolized, one that was nurtured in a Hindu girl from the time she was born – Reena aka Riziya didn’t possess that. She didn’t really know how heartbreaking and agonizing wiping the sindoor away forever from the forehead could be. The red sindoor in the glade of Riziya’s thick, curly black hair appeared to be merely a part of her facial make-up. She used it sometimes, primarily to please Suman. Towards the end, Suman had started becoming a bit more ardent about following Hindu customs, and Riziya had swallowed that too. One day, she had pointed to a fair-skinned young, married woman adorned with sindoor and exclaimed to Suman, ‘See how pretty she looks!’

Suman had then said to her, ‘Oh, it’s nothing, just the glow of the sindoor. Otherwise, you’re even prettier than her.’

In the beginning, Suman had not insisted on Riziya applying sindoor. But she had regularly applied sindoor in the last few years, entirely out of compulsion, for fear of the landlady of the flat they lived in, as well as Suman’s obstinacy. Because they couldn’t have found another place for such a low rent! There had also been talk in the housing estate about Riziya’s identity. Besides, the landlady didn’t give her flat out on rent to any Muslims. That’s why Riziya had to apply sindoor routinely. Suman was taking this sindoor along with him today.

‘Bolo Hori, Hori bol! Bolo Hori, Hori bol!’

Riziya returned to her senses at the sound of the funerary chant. The azan from the mosque in Sadnahati for the Fajr prayer sounded just then. Maulana Tahirul’s face flashed through her mind. Was he still around in that mosque? Wouldn’t he come and stand by? Wouldn’t he witness the cruel joke played by fate whereby Riziya lacked any place to stand today as well? Wouldn’t he see for himself how, using fine acting skills, she had managed to survive as she traversed through hostile circumstances?

She had been thinking about that as she sat quietly in Abhijit’s veranda. Suman’s body had been taken away. Her little daughter, Preeti, burst out crying, ‘Baba! Baba!’ But Riziya was impassive, she wasn’t able to weep. There were quite a few familiar faces in front of her. But there wasn’t the slightest bit of empathy in anyone’s eyes. Was it a sin even to look at a person who had become a kaffir? Had she really become a non-believing kaffir? Were all the Muslims in Sadnahati impeccable believers? What had changed for them in these ten years? Nothing whatsoever. And people’s minds, least of all! The mind that was like an ancient, foetid pond.

What was Riziya’s wrongdoing? Wanting to find her soul’s mate? Forming a set of beliefs in her own way? But Suman was not such a soulmate. He was the man she loved, a person she trusted. And yet when Riziya discovered that Suman’s love wasn’t unalloyed, she had felt terribly affronted. Had she, herself, been able to give love either?