Brave Sisters

Brave Sisters

A novel

&

A Study of Ambivalence and Change: Indian Woman-Warrior or Victim?

Meira Chand

MA, Edith Cowan University 2009

This thesis is presented for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy of The University of Western Australia School of Humanities (English and Cultural Studies)

2013

ii ABSTRACT

This thesis is comprised of a novel entitled Brave Sisters and an accompanying essay entitled, A Study of Ambivalence and Change: Indian Woman – Warrior or Victim? Both novel and essay are linked by an exploration of the issues of feminism and the impact of colonialism and the nationalist uprisings against British rule in late colonial India.

Brave Sisters

This is a historical novel set in the late 1930s and 1940s against a backdrop of India and South East Asia. It explores the life of an illiterate Indian woman, Sita, condemned early to the completely disempowered state of child widow. She is rescued from this situation through the intervention of a humanitarian female doctor and enabled to join her brother who has migrated to Singapore. He arranges for Sita’s marriage there to an Indian friend, a scholarly man who has become embroiled in the Indian freedom struggle. Sita’s life is soon overwhelmed by the events of the Second World War and the Japanese occupation of Singapore. During this time she encounters the charismatic revolutionary Indian leader, Subash Chandra Bose, and his struggle for Indian independence from the British. Bose commands the Japanese-backed Indian National Army and Sita joins the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, a women’s fighting force initiated by Bose within the army. There, she learns to fight and handle a gun and participate in military manoeuvres. Inevitably, this transformation in her external circumstances triggers profound psychological changes within her. The novel is concerned to establish that Sita is constantly influenced and strengthened by her access to deeply traditional forces derived from her own religious and cultural background. The novel follows her inner journey to awareness and empowerment, along with her outer journeying

iii with the independence fighters to their final disastrous battle on the border of India and Burma, and their subsequent retreat.

Once the war is over, Sita finds herself widowed for a second time. Her regiment has been disbanded and she must return to the narrow confines of her previous life with its now unbearable traditional Indian constrictions on the female personality, and its inescapable gender discrimination. Sita’s sufferings and endurance have resulted in the creation of a new self; she has recognised her own inheritance as a manifestation of the traditional female power of shakti, and moves to create a fresh life for herself as well as for others whose development has been more impeded than her own.

A Study of Ambivalence and Change: Indian Woman -Warrior or Victim?

The accompanying essay examines the situation of Indian women during the era before Independence from British rule, and indeed antecedent to this period. In some sense this encompasses continuing influences on the situation of contemporary Indian women. The study explores the Indian concept of shakti, dynamic female energy, and the long history in the country’s religious culture of a line of powerful warrior–like women. Gender disparity in India is examined, as is the history and plight of Indian widows and the widow burning culture of sati. Within the rigid social framework sources of empowerment, such as the traditional concept of shakti, is a vital concept that is also discussed.

The political implications of the era with the impact of the Second World War and the struggle for freedom from British rule in India, is also explored. The particular focus here is on the formation in Singapore of the Indian National Army under the command of the Indian freedom fighter, Subash Chandra Bose. With active military support and encouragement

iv from the Japanese, Bose’s goal was the liberation of India from British colonial rule. Within the INA Bose established a women’s military regiment, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, named after a legendary 19th century Indian princess who led an armed struggle against the British. The Indian National Army may be considered by some as a largely ‘forgotten army’ but at the time it was a potent source of hope for freedom both within and outside India. Indeed, its exploits and that of its founder Bose have achieved an iconic status in India’s national history. In spite of such eminence, the history of the women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, have still not been accorded their full importance.

The study also explores the nexus between history and fiction, and the problems of negotiating fiction within a historical context in literature and in the imagination.

v

vi

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

I appreciate deeply the support afforded me by the University of Western Australia, particularly by the School of English and Cultural Studies. Despite some difficulties encountered as an overseas student, these were all handled with great courtesy, care and concern. My sincere thanks are owed to Professor Kieran Dolin for his unfailing kindness and help during some difficult times. Dean Alan Dench’s ready assistance through a particular crisis is also remembered with thanks.

I am grateful to my co-ordinating supervisor, Professor Van Ikin, for his patient advice and expertise in guiding me, particularly through the varied technicalities of the submission of this thesis. Dr Tess Williams’ input and interest is also much appreciated. I must also record my thanks to Professor Glen Phillips of the International Centre for Landscape and Language, for his valuable support at the inception of this project.

No words can adequately describe my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr Cynthia vanden Driesen, without whom this degree may perhaps never have been embarked upon. Her constant encouragement, selfless concern and care have weathered every storm and surmounted every obstacle on a long and fraught path, even through her time of great personal bereavement. My deepest thanks and admiration are forever with her.

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CONTENTS

Abstract………………………………………………………… ii

Declaration ……………………………………………… …..... v

Acknowledgements……………………………………………. vi

Brave Sisters

Chapter One……………………………………………………. 2

Chapter Two…………………………………………………... 15

Chapter Three.………………………………………………… 30

Chapter Four ………………………………………………….. 43

Chapter Five…………………………………………………… 57

Chapter Six……………………………………………………. 72

Chapter Seven…………………………………………………. 88

Chapter Eight………………………………………………….. 101

Chapter Nine…………………………………………………… 116

Chapter Ten……………………………………………… ……. 130

Chapter Eleven…………………………………………………. 143

Chapter Twelve………………………………………………… 154

Chapter Thirteen……………………………………………….. 172

Chapter Fourteen……………………………………………….. 188

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A Study of Ambivalence and Change: Indian Woman - Warrior or Victim?

Exegesis………………………………………………………... 202

Appendix One………………………………………………….. 257

Appendix Two…………………………………………………. 268

Bibliography…………………………………………………… 273

1

BRAVE SISTERS

A Novel

By

MEIRA CHAND

2

BRAVE SISTERS

Chapter One

India 1939 In the main house the bridal bower lay undisturbed in darkness behind a locked door, the bed still decorated with strings of jasmine and marigolds. Instead of a bridal bed, Sita slept that night on a rough pallet on the floor, in an outhouse near the servant’s quarters; a widow not a bride in her husband’s home, her presence now a pollution to all. Outside, servants gossiped around a fire of burning cow dung, the dense smoke sweetening the cool night air. Sita listened to their talk, her shaven head still sore from the rasp of the razor, and knew she was in some way neutered by the loss of her thick dark hair. A bright moon speared the dusty glass of a small window above her. In the dim light Sita held up her hands, gazing at the filigreed pattern of wedding henna drawn earlier in the day on the palms of her hands and feet. The henna had darkened, and she remembered Chachi, her aunt, saying that if the mendhi took well, it was a sign that your mother–in-law would love you. The servant’s voices came to her, discussing the bridegroom’s death, discussing marriage in general. A husband is to be followed, like the body by its shadow, like the moon by moonlight, like thunder by lightning...take care now… do not let that widow’s shadow fall upon you …` Sita shivered as she lay in the hot stuffy shed. Beyond the shame of it all, she recognised also a pang of relief that she would not now have to endure the man’s touch. When he had lifted the sari from her face and she glanced up at him for the first time, all she had been

3 able to think of was that moment when they would be alone and he would move towards her. She closed her eyes and immediately pictured her mother-in-law again, and the horror of the day returned to her.

Sita’s husband had not died slowly or silently, but in a convulsion of sounds and popping eyes, foam bubbling from his mouth. Later, his corpse was laid upon a bench and covered with a sheet. The mound of his belly thrust upwards to the sky, the strings of jasmine hanging from the gold coloured wedding turban escaped the side of the shroud, the flowers fresh and plump, and their perfume filling the air. Sita stared at the still body in confusion. Only moments earlier, as the religious rites ended, her bridegroom had placed the sweet smelling wedding garland upon her, making them man and wife; the prayers were finished, the ceremony complete. She was daubed with the red marks of marriage – the carmine tikka on her forehead and the streak of the sindhur along the parting of her hair. Her slight form had barely reached up to her husband’s chest and the red and gold wedding sari, draped stiffly about her still childish body, appeared to diminish her further. Her husband towered over her, his flesh firm as the bolstered sofa in her aunt’s house. When he lifted her wedding veil and he was revealed to her clearly for the first time, she saw a grey-haired man whose upturned snout of his nose reminded her of the baboons that lived in the glade of swaying bamboo not far from Chachi’s house. Then, as she had stared up at him, he suddenly clutched his chest. His eyes rolled up, the pupils disappearing beneath his brow leaving only the whites in the darkness of his face. He fell to his knees in his bridal splendour, writhing wildly before them all. The gold turban with its curtain of jasmine tumbled from him, his face turned

4 crimson, then blue. Sita drew back in horror. Guests milled about him, shouting, advising, someone sat on his chest and held him down. Now, on her straw pallet Sita turned and sobbed, her future as obscure as the moon through the grimy window above her. Outside, the servants continued to gossip about the fire. ‘A widow witch named Dhapu was hacked to death…rightfully so…she caused the death of…by eating the liver of…the family had every right to …’ Alone in the dark outhouse, Sita shook her head to be free of memories of the day, but even as one slipped away another appeared to replace it.

When it was clear the bridegroom was dead everyone had turned to Sita in that numb minute of shocked silence before the wailing of grief began. And she knew, by the accusation in the family’s eyes, she was blamed for her husband’s death. ‘It has eaten her husband,’ a woman shouted, not giving her the respect of gender now that she was a widow. She backed away as they advanced upon her, her mother-in-law moving swiftly forward before them all, the women of the family crowding behind her. Someone gripped her arms, held them out and smashed the glass wedding bangles upon her thin wrists. The glass shattered, fragments falling about her bare feet, blood ran over her hand. ‘You no longer need that,’ a woman screamed, staring at the gold wedding necklace about Sita’s neck, placed upon her only minutes before by her mother-in-law. ‘Yes, never again any need for ornaments,’ another cried, pulling the heavy earrings from her ears.

5 Sita’s mother-in-law stepped closer, reaching out with dark stringy arms, her skin as soft and finely creased as ancient silk or old tissue paper. Her fingers fumbled with the catch of the necklace beneath Sita’s thick plait of hair. Her breath, thickened with garlic and aniseed, beat upon Sita’s face. In the shadows she glimpsed her father- in -law, silent with shock and grief. As the mangalsutra was lifted free of her neck Sita moved a hand to touch the smooth gold, still carrying the heat of her body. As she watched, the chain was returned to a blue velvet box and locked with a tiny key. She imagined the ornament buried within the suffocating velvet, the heat of her body lingering upon it, leeching slowly and silently away. ‘She is a witch.’ Restrained by a crowd of women, Sita’s mother- in-law cursed and screamed, struggling wildly in their arms. ‘Most sinful of sinful creatures,’ another woman shouted. ‘Now this, take it off.’ Someone advanced again upon her, pulling at the red wedding sari with its gold tinsel border and gota work. ‘This is what you will wear now, until the day you die. A good woman makes sure she dies before her husband.’ A white cotton sari, bought hastily from a nearby shop was thrown onto the floor before her. As Sita watched the ornate red wedding sari was wrapped up in an old cotton sheet and folded away. ‘Aie bagwan! What have we done that such a devil should come into our family?’ The mother-in-law wailed, her eyes blue with approaching cataract, and dark with fury. Once a buxom woman, in old age the flesh hung loosely upon her as she moved painfully about the room on arthritic limbs, the plait of white hair on her back thin and yellowed with age. Across the room Sita’s father-in-law now sat with

6 his head in his hands. Someone took hold of Sita’s arm, and with a rough wet cloth began rubbing at the marks of marriage, the red tikka and sindhur, anointing her brow and the parting of her hair. Her palms were scrubbed and rubbed repeatedly, but the intricate designs of bridal henna were already indelibly part of her and would not be wiped away. ‘Now this.’ Her mother-in-law had broken free of the restraining arms to lift the thick plait of hair off Sita’s neck, thumping the weight of it against the girl’s narrow back. Sita cried out in panic, realising what awaited her. Then, once more, the women surged forward to surround her, pulling Sita into their midst, dragging her with them out of the house, the wedding guests shouting and crowding behind. Pushed and prodded, half-falling, half-walking, she was propelled across rooms and down flights of stairs. The smell of the women, of sweat and attar of roses, and sometimes the faint perfume of mothballs rising off their wedding finery drifted to her. Eventually, she was pushed out of the cool darkness of the house, into the blaze of the sun. Across the small courtyard the barber rose up from where he waited in the shade of a tree, and came towards them. A stool was found, a towel draped about her shoulders, water was brought in an enamel jug as the barber opened his bundle of implements. ‘Careful,’ Sita’s mother-in-law warned as the man’s blade and scissors flashed in the sun. The hair had to be cut in one hank as near Sita’s skull as possible to be of the best value when given in alms to the temple. ‘Chachi,’ Sita screamed, looking for her aunt between forests of arms holding her down. ‘Chachi.’ Chachi was nowhere to be found. In the confusion that followed the bridegroom’s death, Chachi, realising her resulting change in

7 status, from honourable relative to the widow’s next of kin, had picked up her things and run. The wedding was over; Sita was already the property of another household, and could not now be returned to her. What mattered was that the bridegroom had choked and died of an epileptic fit in the moments after the wedding rituals ended, and not in the moments before. Chachi was free of responsibility for Sita, and a hundred witnesses were there to prove it; she had known the right moment to leave. Soon it was done and the long plait of hair lay before Sita in a dented metal bowl, like a dismembered limb. The wedding guests stood in a circle about her, watching silently. Her new father-in-law seemed now to observe her but from a distance, ancient and shrunken, his lips tight as always, saying nothing before his wife’s forceful ordering. On the high wall of the courtyard two monkeys sat picking lice from each other’s fur. Through the open door a mangy dog entered the courtyard from the street, and settled to scratch itself near the water pump. The pungent smell of cooking came from the kitchen as the caterers heated great tureens of food to feed the wedding guests who still swarmed through the house, preparing now not for a wedding but for a funeral. At last, Sita put up a hand and felt the naked dome of her skull, sore and bleeding from the razor’s rasp, and casual nicks of the blade. Pulling the pallu of the cotton sari protectively over her head, she was aware of the roughness of the cloth against her shorn skin. Immediately, her mother-in-law pulled the sari off her head again, so that everyone could see Sita’s shame. Sita bowed her head, knowing she must endure this moment if she was to survive the day and all that now lay beyond it. Closing her eyes, she unexpectedly remembered her grandmother leading her by the hand to the temple on the banks of

8 the river, and how in the dimness of that place, smelling of dank stone and incense, she had reached to touch the bell; she remembered its quick sharp chime and how she had folded her hands before the image of the Devi, as her grandmother pushed her head down in obeisance. Tears filled her eyes at the memory as she focused her thoughts now on the Devi, holding the image in her mind, praying for the strength the Devi gave to those who sought her protection. Before nightfall the bridegroom was cremated at the burning ghats by the river. Two heavy-jawed men, who Sita had been informed earlier were her stepsons, threw oil upon the wooden pyre and the eldest ignited the flames that quickly soared up against the darkening sky. The men stood close to the pyre, the women a good distance away as custom demanded, the smell of incense, burning wood and roasting flesh drifting to them from the smouldering corpses on the riverbank. Sita’s mother-in-law stood to one side, surrounded by the women of the family, sobbing and beating her breast, shouting shrill curses at Sita. ‘Die with him in those flames! I curse you. In your next life may you bear only daughters, and never a son.’ Sita stood alone, apart from the women of the family. The cool breeze lifting off the river was edged with the thick odour of the water, upon which later the ashes would be strewn, beneath her bare feet the stone of the ghats was cold. A brass water vessel stood on a wall beside her, and the distant flames of her husband’s pyre lit its metal surface. Upon it Sita saw suddenly the mirroring of her own face and started. It must be her she realised, for no one else stood there. Without the frame of hair, her eyes appeared enormous dark craters within her thin face, her soft full lips stretched grotesquely across her jaw, the small nose was flattened, and the slight frame of her body

9 trailed away down the curve of the pot, insubstantial as a ghost. Horror flooded through her as she stared at the creature reflected to her, revealed by the distant flickering light of her husband’s pyre. The image still carried the stain of the red tikka and sindhur on its shaven skull, as if her body clung to those marks as it clung to life. A rush of terror surged through her. Eventually the marks would fade, just as the painted swirls of henna on her hands would vanish, and she would be left invisible to the world. She wondered what would happen to her now; she was thirteen years old and a widow. Within the course of one day a husband had not only entered but had also exited her life. His departure had left her an outcast, bound to a state of perpetual mourning, and she still did not know his name.

‘What do I call him, what is his name?’ Sita had asked Chachi anxiously the night before the wedding, crouched down at her aunt’s knee. She pulled distractedly at her thick plait of hair, her fingers bitten down to the quick, the luminous quality of her eyes dulled by agitation. Her aunt drew back in shock. ‘He has no name for you. To you he is, “He”. Out of respect a wife cannot name her husband.’ ‘He is so old,’ Sita whispered. A stolen glimpse through an open door of her future husband, moving, large bodied in the shadows of a room, lingered with her. Her aunt looked at her askance. ‘He is old, but he is rich. His wife died only a year ago and his sons are already grown and married. He is taking you without a dowry in order to have a young wife. You are now thirteen; old enough for marriage,’ Chachi gave an impatient sniff. Sita could not protest; she was dependent upon the charity of her aunt and without voice in the flow of her life. She must be glad Chachi had arranged this marriage

10 for her; she could have remained forever in her aunt’s house, no better than a servant. ‘I have done this for my brother, your father. On his deathbed I promised to get you married when the time came,’ Chachi remarked stiffly, acknowledging the righteousness of her deed, and her magnanimity. Sita was told nothing of the wedding arrangements until the matchmaker finalised things. Her aunt made a visit to the next town to meet the prospective in -laws, and returned full of glee that no dowry was needed. Chachi had constantly moaned about the problem of dowry. An accident while riding in a bicycle rickshaw some years before had left her husband semi-crippled, forcing him to take a low- paying job. She had two daughters of her own to marry; dowries must first be provided for them or they might not find husbands. ‘You husband will give you a new name, you will no longer be Sita,’ Chachi informed her. Panic welled up through Sita as her aunt spoke. She did not want another name, imposing upon her new ownership and a new identity, killing that old self she knew so well. Her father had never been more than a faint memory, but would the memories of her dead mother, and her grandmother also die with the obliteration of her old name, she worried? ‘Does Dev bhaiya know I’m getting married? Have you written him a letter? Will he come to the wedding?’ Sita had asked Chachi when the matchmaker had finalised everything. ‘By the time a letter is reaching your brother in Singapore, and reply is coming back, you will already belong to another house. He will be grateful I am finding you a rich husband.’ Chachi had laughed, her mirth filling Sita with a sense of finality. She knew better than to ask

11 the question again, but at the mention of Dev’s name, painful memories of the past flooded through her.

In the outhouse now, Sita lay back on the hard floor, her head on a roll of old rags for a pillow. Outside the servants had fallen silent, smoking a last bidi before going to sleep. The moon was caught behind a cloud, and darkness enclosed her. As she shut her eyes she remembered Dev again, and clung to the thought of her brother. It shocked her that she could no longer recall his face, just his droopy eyes and wiry outline, his bullet-shaped head and his long thin neck rising out of the open collar of his shirt. After he left the village, he had written the occasional letter from Singapore to Sita and their grandmother through a professional letter writer; Dev had had only three years in the Sagarnagar School, and had not achieved fluency in his writing. Similarly, through the local letter-writer, the illiterate grandmother replied to Dev. Sita remembered the excitement at seeing Dev’s letters in the postman’s hand. Each time their reply was written and posted, she imagined the oceans the note must cross to reach her brother, and how finally he would tear it open and read the few lines, and know they thought of him still. They had both been born in a village named after a rich man, one Sagar Malhotra, who had endowed the place with a small school and two pipe wells. Five kilometres distant on either side, Sagarnagar lay between the holy cities of Mathura and Vridavan where Krishna was said to have spent his youth, played with the gopis and courted the beautiful Radha. Sagarnagar sat on the banks of the great river Jumuna, which was dotted with whitewashed temples and ash- smeared holy men. Sita’s grandmother told her tales of the god Krishna, mischievous as a child and later famous as a lover of the gopis,

12 the beautiful girls who herded the cows, but forgot their animals, leaving them unattended whenever the god was near. When Sita was eight and Dev was twelve, a fever had come to Sagarnagar, killing their mother and a baby brother. The following year their father had died of an infected wound, leaving Dev and Sita orphans, with only their old grandmother to care for them. On his father’s death Dev had sold the dry goods stall their family ran in the village, using the money from the sale to go to the faraway places. Men had come to the village in a bullock cart beating a drum, as if to announce a wedding. They were labour agents from Mathura who offered a handful of silver to anyone who would agree to work in Malaya, in Singapore, Penang or Ipoh. They shouted out the strange names of these places and sang a song about how men had only to reach there for gold to fall into their hands. Dev was excited. The men laughed and said at age twelve he was still too young to work on the rubber and pineapple estates of Malaya. Yet, afterwards, one of the men said it was possible for him to go there by himself, that work of one kind or another could always be found. The man told him how, in Mathura, he could buy a railway ticket to Calcutta, and had even recommended someone in that great place who would help him get a passage on a boat to Singapore. Soon Dev was gone, and Sita was left alone with her grandmother in Sagarnagar. When, a year or so later, Sita’s grandmother died, Chachi had come to get her and take her to a new home in Vridavan. Before she went to live with her aunt, the town of Vridavan lay in Sita’s mind as a place of legend, the legacy of her Grandmother ’s stories. This illusion was quickly destroyed. Her cousins, Chachi’s daughters, had terrorised her with threats that the baboons that lived near the house in a grove of swaying bamboo would come and take her

13 away if she did not do as she was told. She had believed what these elder girls said. Chachi too joined in the fun, telling tales of how the baboons stole into a house at night to find babies to eat, and how they tore these infants to shreds, limb from limb. From the beginning Sita had slept like a servant on a pallet in a corner of the kitchen, while her cousins and Chachi slept on mattresses on string beds. She learned anew how to cook and clean, but not willingly as she had for her grandmother, sharing work with the old lady; in Chachi’s house, she was used like a servant. As she worked, her cousins called for her to knead their nubile flesh as they stretch lazily on their beds. To improve their complexions they used facemasks made of almonds and rice soaked overnight, that Sita had to grind to a paste each morning. Chachi had not wanted her, but had been forced to take her in when Sita’s grandmother died because there was nobody else.

Now, on her straw pallet in a filthy outhouse, married and widowed upon the same day, she remembered the calendar on the wall above her sleeping mat in Chachi’s house, with its image of the Devi. In her old home in Sagarnagar a similar picture of the goddess had hung upon the wall of the family home in a metal frame, and it seemed as if the Devi had followed her to Vridavan, waiting there for her arrival, to give her strength in her new home. Each night before she slept in Chachi’s house, Sita had stared up from her mat at the beatific face of Durga. The goddess rode a tiger, and her many arms held the weapons to destroy evil, a sword, a trident, bow and arrows, a scimitar and a thunderbolt. Through her childhood, if she cut herself or cried at some trivial misfortune, her mother or grandmother had always pointed to the picture. Think of the Devi, they said, her shakti is great; she will protect you. Now, in the impenetrable darkness that had settled upon

14 her, Sita tried to focus her thoughts on the Devi, a still, watching presence in the shadowy wings of her life, silent witness to events.

15 Chapter Two

In the morning the tongawallah came with his horse-drawn trap. The women of the family gripped her arms, pulling her forward. ‘Where are we going?’ Sita demanded, forcing the words out of her dry mouth. ‘To that place,’ her mother-in-law answered, her face twisted grimly. ‘Just as he is dead, you too are now dead to the world, forever. Only in that place you can you hide your shame,’ she elaborated as Sita climbed into the trap, her voice hard with satisfaction. The horse whinnied and stamped, anxious to set off. Sita listened to the sound of the tonga wheels bowling along, the breeze rushing uncomfortably about her naked skull. Her heart beat hard, fluttering like a bird in her throat; no thoughts would form in her head. Her parents-in-law sat silent and grim beside her. Sita bowed her head, powerless to resist the rhythm of the trap rocking through her, taking her where it must. Eventually, the tonga entered the narrow twisting lanes of the old part of the city and stopped at last before the dirty façade of a high wall. Her mother-in-law thumped on a wooden door, shouting for someone to come. They waited, hearing shuffling sounds approaching. A huge, bald-headed woman opened the door a crack and peered out at them. A short hooked beak of nose pushed out of her fleshy face, her eyes were small as currants. Pulling open the door, she nodded for them to follow her into the darkness of the building. The woman moved ponderously ahead of them, her bulk balanced upon tiny feet, swaying from side to side. She wore the white sari of widowhood and her shaven head was shadowed by a growth of grey bristles. Soon, they

16 passed through the building into the sun of a large courtyard and Sita saw they were before a temple. The singing of bhajans drifted to her; hymns that Sita remembered her grandmother had liked to sing. The memory brought a lump to her throat, but also the sudden comfort of connection. ‘The Pujari, is over there, in the bhajanashram.’ The woman gestured towards a building across the courtyard, before turning away. The priest sat behind a table on which rested an open ledger and a large metal cash box. He looked up as they entered, nodding to Sita’s mother-in-law. Then his eyes turned to Sita, assessing her silently. ‘Leave it here,’ he said to Sita’s mother-in-law, denying her gender like everyone else now did. Without a further glance at Sita, her mother-in -law turned quickly away and Sita watched her hurry off across the courtyard, the plaited tail of white hair agleam on her back in the sun, her body bent forwards, intent on leaving the place. Then the blackness of the far building swallowed her up, a square of light flashed in its interior as the door to the street was opened, then darkness again as it was shut. ‘Whatever you have you must give me,’ the Pujari told Sita as she turned back to face him. His lean cheeks were covered by unshaven grey stubble and from beneath shaggy eyebrows his eyes squinted at her from different directions; it was hard to know which eye was looking at her. ‘I have nothing,’ she answered. ‘Nothing?’ Annoyance filled his voice as he peered across the table, trying to see if some coins weighted down the end of her sari, secretly hidden, tied up in the cloth. She put a hand to her breast, conscious of the drawstring pouch pushed down the front of her

17 blouse in which she kept Dev’s letters. The Pujari wiped his nose impatiently on a small yellow towel hanging over one shoulder. ‘Join the other mais in there. Every day now you must sing to eat.’ The Pujari stuck out his chin, gesturing in the direction of a large hall across the corridor before them. He yawned and under the cover of the desk scratched his crotch beneath the folds of his dhoti. Sita found a place just inside the door, up against the wall. Before her in the dim hall rows of women, all dressed like Sita in the white cotton sari of widowhood, heads covered, swayed together as one as they sung. The sweet sound of their voices filled the room and Sita closed her eyes, letting the music flow through her, a lump swelling again in her throat. She remembered her grandmother singing similar devotional songs, and the uplifting power of the words. In contrast, her mother had always sung the old folk songs as she worked at the millstone grinding grain, songs about the wretchedness of a woman’s life. Her grandmother had been a widow, Sita thought, yet she had lived peacefully with her son and his family, loved by them all, even her daughter-in-law. She had a role in their family life, and it was her grandmother who remained in Sita’s mind as the keeper of myths and legend, her stories of the life and loves of so many superhuman deities had put Sita to sleep with each night. Now, in the song filling the room about her, the rapture of bittersweet notes of the bhajan, the soaring elation of the words, and the blissful submission of the singers to their devotion, she heard the sound of her grandmother’s voice again, and was filled by tearful emotion and by a certainty that whatever was happening to her she must submit to and endure as stoically as she could. Then, an unexpected voice beside Sita startled her out of her thoughts.

18 ‘Did the Pujari take anything from you?’ A young woman in the row in front had wriggled back until she was sitting next to Sita. ‘I have nothing,’ Sita replied, her voice breaking in the effort to hold back a sob. ‘Good,’ the woman nodded grimly. She was some years older than Sita with a face of delicately boned features and a soft fuzz of hair that sprouted upon her shorn head. Seeing Sita looking at this growth of new hair, the woman smiled. ‘We shave it off every two weeks,’ she informed Sita before returning to the subject of the Pujari, leaning closer to Sita in a confidential manner. ‘He’s always looking for money, and things to sell. He’s a devil; his family has been in charge of the temple and the bhajanashram for four generations. Stay near me; I’m Billi. If we sing, we get food.’ ‘And if you don’t sing?’ Sita whispered. ‘No food’. Billi shrugged.

At the end of the day Billi found her a sleeping mat and laid it out beside her own on the floor of the dormitory. After the singing was over, the women queued before the Pujari who opened his cash box and handed each widow a few rupees. In the evening, there was a meal of plain dal, plain rice and a small portion of blandly cooked vegetable. With Billi Sita took her meal out into the courtyard of the temple, sitting down to eat amongst the other widows who surveyed her with interest, smiling and calling to her in welcome. There were several young girls a little older than Sita, a large group of middle-aged women and a few elderly widows, old crones who were little more than skin and bone. Billi called to the young girls, introducing Sita to Jaya and Mona and Asha.

19 ‘They are young but not as young as you,’ Billi noted, settling herself and Sita on a low stone seat in a quiet corner of the courtyard, looking down at the plate of food on her lap. ‘This is what we get for eight hours of singing. And then we pay most of the money back to the Pujari for rent.’ Billi complained resignedly, rolling her eyes that were green like a cat’s. ‘Before I was married, my nickname was Billi, just like a cat. And after I married they still called me Billi, because of my light eyes,’ she laughed. ‘What’s your real name?’ Sita asked, hungrily digging into the food. ‘Chandrika,’ Billi replied with a sudden frown, as if she did not care to remember. ‘Eat slowly, this is our only meal in the day.’ ‘Only one meal? It doesn’t even taste good.’ Sita looked up in shock. ‘We can’t eat ‘hot’ spicy foods that stir up our bodies and feelings, no onion or garlic, no root vegetables and many other things. And no sweets.’ Billi replied. ‘A widow is the most sinful of sinful creatures because she has outlived her husband. Our whole life now is a penance.’ One of the old crones who sat nearby paused in her eating and leaned towards Sita with a toothless grin. ‘That is Maneka. She has been here forty years,’ Billi informed her. ‘What can we eat then?’ Sita asked aghast, looking from Billi to Maneka. ‘Food that is ‘cold,’ that will cool our body’s passions. Some rice, milk, a few leafy vegetables, and also some dal. A widow’s body should be weak and dry; dried out of all feelings and a danger to no

20 one.’ Billi sighed while old Maneka nodded and chuckled, mashing up the soft rice and vegetables between her toothless gums. ‘Billi didi, how long have you been here?’ Sita asked later as they lay side by side on their sleeping mats. She had begun to feel better about the place now that she had met Billi. It was a long time since anyone had spoken to her in such a friendly manner; Chachi and her cousins never included or befriended her. The memories she had of life in Sagarnagar, of her parents, her grandmother, her brother Dev, or her friends in the village, seemed so long ago. Now, a close smell of bodies thickened the stifling heat of the dark airless dormitory above the bhajanashram. Worn plaster walls and high barred windows surrounded the rows of sleeping women from whom light snores and sighs escaped. Sita suddenly remembered the image of her own face as it had been mirrored in the water vessel the day before at the burning ghats, and knew in that moment the reality of what had happened. Panic filled her and her heart pounded as she stared up into the darkness above her. A faint light through the windows revealed the dim shapes of wooden crossbeams under the high roof; rats ran freely along these pathways above the sleeping women. In her home in Sagarnagar, Sita remembered, rats also ran each night along similar roof-beams. Her dislike of rodents was forgotten as she stared up at the dark shapes moving nimbly above her; now the sight of their sure- footed prancing filled her with painful nostalgia. She remembered the village; she remembered her mother and her grandmother. Tears filled her eyes, while beside her Billi was whispering again. ‘I’ve been here since I was ten, now I’m seventeen. I was married at six like Roop didi - she was the fat one who let you in – she came here when she was six years old; her husband was forty. He had been the husband of both her older sisters. As each one died he

21 married the next unmarried sister. Finally he married Roop didi, but after a few weeks he died himself and Roop didi was left a six-year-old widow. She has lived here her whole life,’ Billi informed her. ‘What about you, Billi didi, did you like your husband, and what about Jaya and Mona and Asha?’ Sita searched the shrouded shapes of sleeping women for the young girls Billi had introduced her to. ‘They too were widowed when they were very young, like you and me and Roop didi. Most of the others came when they were older,’ Billi replied. ‘Roop didi isn’t sleeping in here?’ Sita could not see the great bulk of Roop anywhere. ‘She has a room of her own because she helps Pujari take care of the ashram. Everyone has to do what she says. She’s just as bad as Pujari. And, secretly, she gets to eat whatever she wants while all of us starve; that’s why she’s as big as an elephant,’ Billi giggled and then continued. ‘Most of the mais here were much older when their husbands died, but for one reason or another their sons could not afford to keep them, or did not want them. Some have no son, or no brother to take care of them. A widow’s plight without a son is pitiful, but even more pitiful is the widow whose son refuses to care for her. A widow takes up space in a son’s house, is an extra mouth to feed, and needs at least one sari a year, and that is too much for some.’ Billi pointed to the sleeping form of the toothless Maneka. ‘ She has a son she hasn’t seen for years but she still hopes he will pay for her funeral. That is what we are all saving for, a decent funeral.’ Billi yawned and soon fell asleep. Beside her Sita lay awake, unable to sleep for the fear and weariness sweeping over her. Life had barely begun and already she must save to ensure her cremation. Her life stretched before her

22 wrapped in an impenetrable fog. Tears filled her eyes again, but she thought suddenly of Dev. ‘I want to write to my brother, Dev.’ Sita sat up in the dark and shook Billi awake. In the years she had lived with Chachi, there had been few letters from Dev and to each Chachi, illiterate like Sita’s grandmother, replied through a male relative, a clerk in a local office. Each letter coming from Dev or returning from Chachi, was no more than a few essential lines. After reading Dev’s letters, Chachi discarded them, tossing them into a metal bucket in the kitchen along with scraps of vegetables and banana skins. Later, secretly, Sita retrieved them, smoothed out the creases and hurried to hide them away. Even now she had them with her, folded up small, the packet pushed down the front of her blouse. She had never thought of writing directly to Dev, but always left it to an elder. Now the novelty of the idea and its possibilities overwhelmed her. ‘The Pujari will not allow it, nor will Roop didi. You belong here now. You must understand, your old life is dead to you. We are just ghosts now, living dead things. All connection to our past is gone,’ Billi replied, sleepy but firm. The next day Sita summoned up courage to ask the mountainous Roop about writing a letter to Dev, to tell him all that had happened to her. ‘If he knows, he will come and get me and take me away,’ she assured Roop, feeling the woman would be glad to hear this news; it would be one less mouth to feed at the ashram. Instead, Roop didi raised her thin eyebrows, and her double chins shook as she laughed. Her skull, which had been freshly shaved the day before, caught the gleam of the sun edging over the portico beneath which they stood.

23 ‘The Pujari will not allow it.’ Roop’s eyes, almost lost under fleshy lids, stared at Sita intently. ‘He will not want to lose his little bird before he has taught her to sing.’ Roop didi began to laugh and Sita drew back in confusion, not understanding what the woman found to laugh at, but knowing it was useless to ask about Dev again. Within a short while Sita became used to the singing, and knew the bhajans by heart. People gave money to the temple to have the mais sing. The day was long and the eight hours of singing went slowly. In between the morning and afternoon sessions, they went out and sat with their begging bowls in the streets about the shrine. Sita walked behind Billi with old Maneka in tow and, like them, covered her shorn head and kept her head low. Billi led them to a busy area near a fruit and vegetable market. There they sat down in the shade of a tree, a distance from the crowd. Across the road, before the heaped piles of colourful produce, a group of musicians beat drums and rattled tambourines, the taut sound of a flute cut through the air. People turned to crowd about the musicians. Sita ran forward, excited at the burst of lively music and the holiday atmosphere it produced, but Billi stepped forward to hold her back. ‘How will we get money so far from the crowd? Those beggars are getting it all.’ Sita pointed to a group of child acrobats who accompanied the musicians, and whose skinny bodies contorted, turning cartwheels, bending themselves in two, twirling tin plates on sticks, juggling bringals and potatoes. Two loud brash men dressed in tattered splendour and crowned with tinselled turbans, pushed their way amongst the crowd demanding recompense for the performance. Sita pulled against Billi’s restraining hand. Before her the drums rattled joyfully in her ears, breaking the darkness of the past days. ‘Let’s go and see them,’ she pleaded.

24 ‘Ssh. We cannot go nearer.’ Old Manaka hobbled forward to place a restraining claw on Sita’s other arm, drawing her back under the shade of the tree. ‘Why can we not go and join them?’ Sita argued, tears of anger smarting in her eyes. ‘Because everyone will run from you if you approach,’ Billi told her briskly. Maneka nodded agreement, chewing her lips over toothless gums. ‘When I was first widowed and until I came here, I was not allowed to go out of my in-laws house. I was not allowed to draw water from the well or to touch the water pitchers in the house, because I would pollute them for others. When they served me food, my bowl was pushed towards me with a stick.’ ‘Why?’ Sita shouted in fury. Across the road two dancers had now joined the acrobats and spun about, their skirts billowing out around them. The sound of a pipe flailed in Sita’s head, rage burst through her as she struggled in Billi’s grasp. ‘If you accidentally touch anyone in that crowd, they will have to go and take a bath and say prayers of purification. Nobody wants you near them. Can you not understand, we are living dead things.’ Billi spoke angrily now. ‘But they give us money to sing,’ Sita shouted. ‘Because we are the living dead, our word reaches God that much quicker,’ Maneka chuckled through her toothless gums. ‘Beti, sit down and be quiet now. Afterwards, people will come and give us money so that they will feel pure. When they come, cover your head and face, lift up your begging bowl and wait. Don’t look up at people, don’t catch their eye. That is very upsetting for them for then they feel polluted by our presence.’

25 It was as Maneka said. After a while when the band and the acrobats moved on and the music died away, there was the sound of coins, dropping into their wooden bowls. Sita saw then that other widows, from other ashrams, waited for alms on almost every street. This part of town was full of the widows who resided near the many small temples that were dotted along the riverbank. The white shrouded shapes of widows were everywhere, moving silently about like pale spectral shadows, invisible to all but their own kind. ‘If we mais sing it brings good luck to people; they earn merit in Heaven by giving money for our singing,’ Billi told her. ‘We sing for Lord Krishna, and for Radha. Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Radhe, Radhe.’ Old Maneka raised her arms and swayed about in worship, eyes closed, her lips bunched loosely over her gums, twisted in a gentle smile. ‘Lord Krishna is my lover and my son. I live for him. He has given me food, shelter, friends in this town. Hare Krishna. Radhe, Radhe. If I close my eyes I can see Lord Krishna dancing, circling round and round with all the beautiful gopis, and then with Radha, playing his pipe as she dances. How she loved him, how he loved her. Aie Yar, it is a beautiful dream. I have left behind samsara and all my earthly cares. Lord Krishna, my lover, takes care of me now.’ ‘At least she is happy.’ Billi sighed, standing up, brushing the dust off her sari, preparing to return to the ashram, counting the coins in her begging bowl. That night Sita woke suddenly in the dark to find Billi was no longer beside her. She resettled and slept and woke again and still Billi was not there. Eventually, Billi returned to her bed as a cock begun crowing, and light lifted the black sky. Sita saw her return through half shut eyes, saw the weariness in her face as she lay down, curling her

26 body into a ball, as if to stifle the very breath within her. Yet, the next day Billi was as usual. ‘In the night you went out for so long. What happened, Billi didi? Where were you?’ Sita asked at last. ‘You were asleep, you could not know how long I was gone,’ Billi teased, dismissing the question. Soon it happened again; Billie got up in the night and was gone. Sita slept and woke and waited for Billie, who again came back at first light. Soon, if she stayed awake, she noticed how often Billie was gone, and that the other young girls, Jaya and Mona and Asha were also often gone in the night or sometimes even in the day. And she noticed that when they left the bhanjanashram, they were escorted to wherever it was they went by the Pujari’s assistant, Motilal, who came for them with a doli. Sita watched from the window as the women climbed into the palanquin, and saw it carried away. A wizened black dwarf of a man, Motilal had an oversized head and bandy legs with corns on the soles of his feet that forced him to walk with a crablike gait. He spoke little but his deep-set eyes continuously flicked about, absorbing every detail. In the end Sita asked the toothless Maneka, as they ate together one lunch when Billi was absent. ‘Aie Bhagwan,’ the old woman sighed and shook her head. ‘God saved me; I was past using when I came here. Sometimes it is good to be old.’ Sita could make nothing of this answer and pressed her query again. ‘Where do they go to? Why are they taken away by Motilal?’ ‘There are rich men in this town. One way or another we mais must earn money for God and the temple,’ Maneka replied resignedly. ‘Soon the Pujari will start to send you off too, and also call for you himself, just as he calls for the others when his need is great. Aie

27 Bhagwan. That service too he expects in return for our care.’ Maneka shook her head even as she smiled her toothless smile, and seemed not to understand the effect her words had upon Sita, who drew a sudden, sharp breath of understanding.

Soon, the illness began, as if that one moment of comprehension at Maneka’s side had immobilized Sita’s body. Fever dried her lips and carried her dreams to high, strange places. Phlegm rattled in her chest, spluttered in her throat, exhaustion pulled her down and down. Her skin turned yellow, her eyes burned. She was left in a corner all day on her mat while the Pujari raged at her uselessness and the cost of keeping her. Motilal and Roop didi prodded her with sandaled feet to test that life remained in her. Billi fed her water from a spoon, drop by drop. Old Maneka massaged her head and pressed a wet towel to her brow. Although it seemed that the Pujari was prepared to let her die, eventually, in the same palanquin in which Billi, Mona, Asha and the others were carried away at night, Sita was hurried to a small, charitable clinic that a doctor visited regularly from a hospital on the other side of town. A queue of poverty-stricken people already awaited the doctor, people beyond the help of the MBBS-Failed, ex- medical student who ran the place between the doctor’s visits. Dr Sen arrived at last at the clinic in a dusty battered rickshaw, wearing a brown homespun khaddi sari marked with the dust of travel between hospital and clinic. Her journey had been punctuated by a visit to the harijan area on the outskirts of the town, a place no one else would go to. There, Dr Sen regularly entered the mean, disintegrating hovels of the Untouchables, to distribute medicine and advice and to tend the sick and dying. Sometimes she arrived at the clinic with a filthy urchin beside her, or an old person who was no more than a bag

28 of bones. These individuals might be sent on in her own rickshaw to the hospital if there was such a need, or brought into the clinic and their ailments addressed there, much to the disgust of the MBBS- Failed, ex-medical student who did not believe in such inter-caste work or association with untouchables. As she entered the clinic, Dr Sen was surprised to see the mountainous woman from the bhajanashram had placed herself at the head of the queue and was waiting impatiently, mouthing complaints to all around her, ordering the beggars and destitute and the itinerant food hawkers to the back of the line where she demanded they keep their distance. At the sight of Dr Sen, Roop levered up her bulk from where she squatted and moved to stand squarely before the doctor who was forced to hover in the open door, unable to enter the surgery. ‘She is dying,’ Roop stated in a loud and impatient voice, pointing to a scrap of a girl who lay in a bamboo litter with the shaven head of a widow, thin and bloodless as a plucked chicken. Dr Sen heard no concern in the woman’s voice for the child, only the depth of her inconvenience. The girl, Dr Sen saw immediately, was clearly ill and she bent at once, examining the emaciated body with her stethoscope, fearing what she might find. In the clinic she occasionally attended to botched abortion attempts from the bhajanashram, and had tried many times to visit the place to check on the health of the women there, all to no avail. Anger mounted in her as she examined the child before her now. She abhorred the age-old practices that so cruelly decided the fate of young widows in the name of tradition and religion. Dr. Sen knew her ministrations were unwanted by the corrupt priests who, in the name of God, ran the ashrams where sometimes practices of sexual abuse, unspoken of but known to all, were openly encouraged. She even

29 knew which rich men in the town availed themselves of these women, but could do nothing. Only in extremis, if at all, was a widow ever brought to Dr Sen. Now, she heard the rattle and rasp of Sita’s lungs, felt the feverish pitch of her temperature and looked up at Roop and Motilal in anger. ‘Why have you waited so long? She must go at once into hospital; I will attend to her myself.’ It was pneumonia, or pleurisy or worse and the girl appeared to be approaching a state from which there might be no return. She could not be more than thirteen or fourteen, a child widow, without hope of choice in her life. She might already have been years in that wretched place of servitude, sent out regularly to elderly men, no better than a prostitute. The only reason they wanted to keep her alive was no doubt to fulfil this task, Dr Sen thought in new fury. She raised her head to stare fiercely at Roop and Motilal, both of whom returned her gaze defiantly.

Chapter Three

At times Dr Sen feared she would lose the child. The fever rose and broke and rose again. She drained the festering lungs with a long needle, ordered ice packs and every available medication, all at her own expense. The hospital offered the destitute thronging its wards and corridors a place to be ill and the occasional glance of a doctor, but so stretched were its resources that its care could not extend to more than the rudimentary. As medical director of the hospital Dr Sen had

30 some modicum of power, even if constantly challenged by the male doctors under her command. Dr Sen was determined that the girl, whose name she had learned was Sita, should find life instead of death under her care. To this end she set up a narrow cot for the child in a corner of the small office she occupied as Medical Director. Since the child was a widow Dr Sen felt it best to keep her away from women in the general wards who, with the usual blind adherence to traditional ways, might possibly call the child a witch and complain about some form of the evil eye and other contagions she would cast upon them. At last Sita woke to the cawing of crows beyond the window. She found she lay on a low bed, a pillow beneath her head, a clean sheet covering her body. She was vaguely aware of someone else in the room but her lids were so heavy she could not open her eyes, and soon slept again. When she next woke she saw a plump middle-aged woman in a beige homespun sari standing over her. ‘Ah! You are better,’ the woman smiled, her round cheeks lifting, tightening the shadow on her upper lip. Fragments of memory returned to Sita, the pain in her head, the pain of breathing, the fury of Pujari’s face and the bamboo litter that took Billi away at night. ‘Where am I?’ she asked. ‘With me,’ the woman replied, and her voice boomed out, deep and firm. ‘You must get strong now,’ Dr Sen ordered the next day, standing over Sita as a tray of food was placed before her. ‘I cannot eat these foods, ‘ Sita announced looking down at the array of small dishes. ‘The food is from my own home, not what they give you here. My mother has cooked it herself for you,’ Dr Sen frowned in surprise.

31 ‘In the ashram such rich food is not allowed. It will heat up my body, and also only one meal a day is given us,’ Sita whispered, inhaling the aromatic smell drifting up from the tray, staring down at the root vegetables she had not seen for months, the film of oil covering the dal, the spices and garlic, the round, sweet ladoo; the sweet, round, utterly forbidden ladoo. Dr Sen gave such a snort of anger that Sita looked up in fear. ‘Eat what you feel like, eat what you can.’ Dr Sen ordered sternly, standing over her until the dishes were empty and Sita lay back on the pillows, replete. In the days that followed Sita ate and slept and watched the chirping birds in the tree outside the window. Nurses, mostly Anglo- Indian girls, came in and out to look briefly at her, to take a pulse or a temperature but said little. Only the jamadar woman, an Untouchable, who came to sweep and clean the room, liked to gossip and told her something of Dr Sen. ‘She is unmarried, living with her widowed mother and looking after her, just as a son would look after a mother. She is a lady who is like a man. No, she is much more than any man, she is a devi. They say she lived near the Mahatmaji, cleaned his spinning wheel, writing down his letters, watching over him when he fasted to get the British out of our country. Just like Mahatmaji does, the deviji doctor also visits our harijan huts, cares for our children. In this hospital nobody speaks to me except those who are of my own caste. Upper caste people cannot look at me, but our deviji doctor is different.’ The woman gossiped as she moved on her haunches over the floor, swishing a rag of wet newspaper industriously about beneath a broom of thin twigs. Dr Sen spent a few minutes with Sita in the morning when she arrived at the hospital, and in the afternoons sat at the small desk in

32 the room filling in forms and writing reports. Then Sita was happy to lie back in bed and stare at the woman, absorbing her powerful profile with its thrusting, well-padded chin and short straight rod of a nose. A thick roll of oiled hair lay in a heavy bun on her neck, like a coiled muscle waiting to spring. Instinctively, Sita put a hand to her own skull and in surprise felt the soft sprouting of hair and realised how long she must have been in the hospital. While she sat at her desk a constant procession of men, doctors and orderlies and business managers, came to Dr Sen for instructions. Forced to recognise her authority in a position they clearly thought should be filled by a man, they expressed their displeasure in their demeanour, a clenched jaw, a stiff shoulder, the lack of a smile. Dr Sen dispensed orders in a loud firm voice and Sita noticed no one refused her command. ‘When will I go back to the ashram?’ Sita whispered at last. She was beginning to feel stronger, and had found the courage to ask Dr Sen the question that had now begun to trouble her, although she feared to hear the answer. ‘We will see,’ Dr Sen replied easily without looking up from the papers on her desk. This was the very question Dr Sen had been considering herself, but had resisted facing as yet. The black gnome from the ashram, Motilal, came regularly to ask when Sita might be collected, and she feared she could not put off the moment much longer. She had spoken to certain people at the municipal level about Sita, but she found most men were loath to discuss the matter, feeling in their hearts that things were just as they should be; the child widow was in an ashram as tradition demanded, and where else could she be expected to be? Dr Sen also knew that as a woman, and an unmarried woman at that, she was seen to have no right to question men of rank

33 about age-old structures and beliefs. When she brought up the name of the Mahatma who, even if not so wholehearted regarding the remarriage of adult widows did advocate remarriage for child widows, there had been an awkward silence before they argued that things could not change overnight. The idea of adopting the girl also passed through her mind. She no longer entertained thoughts of marriage for herself; that time in her life was well past. Thoughts of adopting a harijan orphan had come to her earlier, but she saw now this girl was in urgent need. ‘Were you born in this town?’ Sita asked shyly, her eyes still on Dr Sen, whose pen flew across paper with a graceful leaping speed that was mesmerising. In Sagarnagar the professional letter writer in the village formed his strokes laboriously, the pink tip of his tongue clamped with the effort between his lips. What must it feel like, Sita wondered, to have the power to read and to write? She could not imagine how the world might appear in the fluent light of such knowledge. Sometimes, she had secretly followed Dev to school and watched him through the window of the mud walled school hut, sitting with his slate. She stood outside, listening to the hypnotic chant of rote learning as if she listened to a magic mantra, wanting to know the things he was taught. Her mind was always full of such stubborn thoughts, things women should not think about. She questioned things, and one of her faint memories of her father recalled that he did not like it. ‘You are only a girl; there is no need for education. Who will marry you if get education?’ he asked. ‘Educated women open themselves to the devil. Everyone knows a husband who gets an educated wife dies early.’

34 Dev knew of her desire for education, and although he too shared their father’s view of its irrelevance for women, took pity on her enough to secretly impart the shape of basic syllables or the mounting sum of a string of numbers. She clung to this knowledge and practiced it silently, absorbing it so quickly that Dev grew sulky at her ability and refused to teach her further, locking his learning away again in its rightful male preserve. Dr Sen paused to look up from her reports to answer Sita’s question, glad the girl had spoken, showing the initiative of curiosity. ‘I was not born here, but even before I came to work in this town I had passed through it with Mahatmaji. At that time I was part of the group about him. We moved across the country showing people that India can be self-sufficient, showing people how we can spin our own cloth and manage our own country without the British. Everywhere we went we spun our khaddi. We told people how, just by making our hearts and actions pure, we can expel the British from India without guns, without violence. That is Mahatmaji’s way, to fight a non-violent war without weapons.’ Sita nodded, she knew the name of Mahatma Gandhi because her brother Dev had once gone in a bullock cart with some friends to hear Gandhiji speak in Mathura. When he returned he told her how the crowd had shouted, Mahatma Gandhi Ki Jai and how the Mahatma had told them they were all soldiers of peace and how in a non-violent war they would free India from the chains that bound her. “Gandhiji is a saint,” Dev had told her. ‘Gandhiji wants to see child widows remarry. Girls like you should not spend their lives in places like the bhajanashram. The Mahatma does not like to see religion imposing an unbearable yoke upon young girls, defiling religion with secret vice.’ Dr Sen spoke so

35 fiercely, Sita looked at her in alarm. Even if she could, she did not think she ever wanted to marry again; she could not imagine a life outside the bhajanashram now. She wondered if Dr Sen required an answer, but already the woman was speaking again. ‘Bapuji, that is what those of us close to Mahatmaji called him, came to this very town and I was with him, as of course were a great many others. We looked after Bapuji, and ran the camp, took dictation of his letters. I was a doctor, so he took me with him when he visited the harijan’s huts for always medical attention is needed there. How can India be free even if the British go, he said, if these harijan people cannot be raised up and be seen like everyone else as the children of God.’ Sita watched the passion in Dr Sen’s face as she talked and knew by the far away look in her eyes that she spoke to herself more than she spoke to Sita. ‘Then Bapuji was arrested and imprisoned.’ Dr Sen paused as she saw the consternation in Sita’s face at this development in her story. ‘Those of us in the camp were told by Bapuji to also peacefully give ourselves up to the police for imprisonment. But he called me to him and he told me, “Beti, you can do no good for India in jail. You have a special skill; you can give life to the dying. You must return to the town we have just visited, and continue our work while I am away.” So I came here to live and also brought my old mother, who has been cooking you this food, with me.’ Seeing the confusion on the child’s face, Dr Sen sighed. If she had not had access to education, if she did not have her medical skill and qualifications, she might be no better off than this child. As much as widowhood, the position of spinsterhood left her also without a husband, and without a husband no woman had access to a life of any

36 consequence. Education with its resulting enlightenment was all that separated her from a fate similar to that of the child. Long ago she had been passed over by several prospective bridegrooms, rejected for a more attractive younger sister who had then married before her in a upturning of traditional protocol; elder children always married before the younger ones. After the marriage, this rejection had gathered about Dr Sen in a cloud of vicious gossip. She was branded unsuitable for matrimony and matchmakers were hesitant to take her on, or they demanded an outrageous dowry from her parents to compensate for whatever impediment it was Dr Sen was supposed to carry. Eventually, Dr Sen turned her back upon it all, and decided to study medicine. Sita listened to the scratch of Dr Sen’s pen, and found it too much to bear. ‘Will you write to Dev for me?’ Sita felt she could ask the woman this question and her response would not be dismissive like that of Billi didi or Roop didi. ‘Tell me who is this Dev, and what must I write. ?’ Dr Sen nodded agreeably, looking up from her papers. Sita felt her heart lurch and tears smart in her eyes. Instinctively, she put a hand to her breast, searching for the cotton pouch of Dev’s letters, and remembered in alarm how long she had been ill. ‘Your things are here,’ Dr Sen said seeing her consternation, opening a cupboard beside the bed. Sita grasped the pouch in relief; not only could she not read Dev’s letters herself, but without the address inscribed upon them, Dev was lost to her forever. Now, she thrust the creased notes into Dr Sen’s hand.

When at last a reply returned from Dev, his shock at events was palpable and his thanks to Dr Sen effusive. ‘Respected Madame Doctor,

37 send my sister here to me in Singapore. Ticket money I will borrow from employer or moneylender and transfer to you through some reputable way. I was not knowing any of this. My relatives were not informing me of my sister’s marriage or her husband’s untimely death. Too much pity for my sister.’ Dr Sen was pleased with this reply. ‘It shows your brother cares for you, and does not have the old-fashioned attitudes that hold this country back. He sounds a fine young man. Whatever awaits you, you will have a new life; it will be better than this. Soon the Mahatma will see that girls like you are allowed to remarry. Slowly things will change.’ ‘I do not want to remarry,’ Sita said, decided upon this now.

From then on all was movement, as if a wind were at her back, blowing Sita forward towards her brother. Dr Sen showed her a map of the world, placing a stubby finger on the great coloured landmass of India, its craggy mountain ranges and huge barren plains, and the many-tongued mouth of the Ganges. From Calcutta, Dr Sen said, Sita would set sail to Singapore. Her finger left the solid body of India, tracing a line down over the blue emptiness of the ocean, to a tail of land and a single dot that she said was the island of Singapore. ‘Very small,’ Sita whispered, appalled at the endless expanse of sea between India, its hard packed earth still solidly beneath her feet, and the faraway speck of land at the bottom of the page. ‘Very small,’ Dr Sen agreed as together they looked silently down at the map. ‘But, your brother is there,’ Dr Sen reminded Sita at last. ‘My brother is there,’ Sita repeated, happiness flooding through her.

38 Dr Sen arranged everything, booking the train to Calcutta and then Sita’s passage on the boat to Singapore. She found an acquaintance also travelling to Calcutta who would look after Sita on the long train journey, and then put her safely on the ship. Everything was happening so fast, like a ball of twine unravelling about her. One moment Dr Sen was embracing her tightly at the railway station, the next Sita was released into a strange and unknown world. Mrs Gupta, Dr Sen’s friend, a thickset woman, pushed her way forward determinedly through the crowded train carriage, ordering porters to store her baggage, securing their seats, bargaining with food hawkers for hot chai, settling the nervous Sita in a window seat where she could wave to Dr Sen who stood anxiously on the platform. Dr Sen had bought Sita two soft coloured saris with attractive borders, and one of these Sita now wore, pulling the pallu well over her head to hide her short but fast growing hair. Nobody in the carriage seemed either to notice or to care about her hair, or the polluting influence she might present. Sita realised the things that had happened to her were known only to her; to others the shortness of her hair might be something other than widowhood, an infestation of lice or a religious penance. Slowly, as the locomotive lurched heavily into action, she began to relax and, head covered, still clutching the ends of the sari tightly together beneath her chin, waved to Dr Sen as the train drew out of the station, the blast of its whistle shrieking through her ears. Dr Sen grew more and more distant and then at last was gone, leaving Sita with only the memory of her stout and comforting shape. Eventually the long train journey ended, and Mrs Gupta accompanied Sita to the docks and saw her aboard the ship upon which she would continue her travels. Then, for the first time in her life, Sita saw the immensity of the sea, swelling and rolling before her,

39 and was filled with terror and wonderment. Dr Sen had paid extra to secure Sita a berth in the dark and suffocating bowels of the ship, in a cabin with six other women and their children; male passengers slept on the open deck. By day Sita too must take her place above, pitched about upon the swell, salt breezes encrusting her lips, stiffening the short tufts of her hair, Tamil labourers crowded the deck, their leering gaze fastening silently upon her. All passengers, men and women, sat crushed together, sleeping, defecating and eating their food in a makeshift manner, exposed to the unrelenting sun, and the endless, sickening roll of the ocean. Sita kept near the few other women and children who were travelling to join their husbands in Penang. Worst of all was when she must queue for the one toilet. The women took turns in guarding the door for each other, as if locked in an act of survival. The rough labourers crowding the deck had been, like the women’s husbands, recruited in India to work on the rubber plantations of Malaya. At night Sita lay on a hard narrow bunk in the fetid darkness below deck. The ship heaved and ploughed its way forward, creaking as if its very sides would split. In the hot and airless space of the cabin she listened to the seasick moans of the women, breathing in the sour odours. Along with the smell of oil and brine, the rank stench of bodies enclosed her. In the dormitory of the bajanashram, the same thick tang of bodies had filled her nostrils each night, and now the same familiar scent brought her strange comfort in the depths of the ship. The vessel made one stop at a port in the south before turning to face the open sea. Here, more indentured labourers were taken aboard. The ship stayed out in deep water and the labourers were rowed out to it in small boats. Sita stood with others on the deck, leaning over the rail to watch the embarkations. The sea was choppy

40 and the boats rode up high upon the waves. Sita listened to the terrified screams of the few women and children aboard as the boats were tossed dangerously about, passengers drenched with spray. A rope ladder was thrown over the side of the ship as the boats approached, bobbing perilously about. The men in the boat went first, one by one grasping the ladder, ascending with difficulty, struggling for each foothold on the swaying rope. Soon, except for the craft’s two crewmembers, only the few women and children were left in the boat, all sobbing in terror as they looked up at the ship looming above. The boatmen shouted impatiently, pushing them roughly towards the dangling rope. Looking down over the side of the ship Sita saw a woman, a baby strapped to her breast, a fat bundle of belongings tied on her back, attempting to scale the ladder. Her husband, who was already safely aboard, looked down from above shouting encouragement. The woman moaned and pleaded as the ladder swung about with the swell of the ocean, hanging on as best she could. Daring for a moment to lift her arm from the baby strapped to her body, she pulled herself up a further step before she came to a sudden halt. Sita saw then that the straps securing the child to her had loosened; the woman dare not let go of her child. Paralysed with fear, she leaned against the rope, suspended between life and death, her husband shouting frantically at her from above. For some moments the woman refused to move, sobbing and shrieking and calling for help. Eventually, her husband climbed over the side of the ship and descended again down the rope. Reaching a point just above her, he bent down towards her. The woman took her arm from around the baby and reached out for her husband’s hand. In that moment the tying cloth slipped, releasing the child who plunged

41 into the sea. With a scream the woman jumped after it, flailing desperately about in the water, the cloth bundle of belongings still tied to her back, a great white egg she carried upon her. Still thrashing around, the woman sank beneath the water, the sodden bundle quickly pulling her down. Then, gasping and spluttering, her head broke the surface of the water again. Clinging to the rope ladder, the woman’s husband shouted desperate instructions. For a moment he seemed about to jump into the water after his wife, but then appeared to change his mind. For a moment the baby was briefly seen again and the woman struggled to reach it. Battling against the weight of the bundle on her back, she was dragged under the water again. In that last desperate moment her face twisted up towards her husband high above but he, seeing all hope was lost, was already scrambling back up the rope to the safety of the ship. Almost immediately the woman sank from sight, the sea closing quickly upon her. Beneath the water the faint outline of the child could be seen as it sank lower and lower, until at last its small body was lost to those watching from above. There was nothing now to be seen but the smooth and empty expanse of the ocean. In the sudden silence the sea could be heard, slapping gently against the side of the ship, the gunmetal grey of its surface reflecting a coming storm. The deck vibrated suddenly beneath Sita’s feet as the engines started and the ship prepared to move again. A distance away the new widower sat in stunned silence. ‘It is God’s will,’ a man near Sita shrugged. ‘Many young unmarried girls are on the rubber estates. In no time he will find another wife and child,’ a passing deckhand replied with a grin.

42 The ship began to move forward and already it was impossible to know where, beneath the empty expanse of sea, the woman and child might now be. Sita turned to stare at the churning wake of the ship, a trail of crumbled watery quartz, and drew a breath. Her heart pounded and she sank down in a corner of the deck. She wanted to shout but no sound came, she wanted to cry but her eyes were dry. In her mind she saw the woman again, her loosened hair spread out upon the surface of the water like a dark mass of weeds. In her last moment the woman had looked up to her husband, but he had already turned his back upon her, leaving her to her fate.

Chapter Four

Singapore 1940 Sita’s first sight of Singapore was a dirty bustling wharf of half- naked coolies loading and unloading a mass of small boats. All she could see was a tangle of ropes, carts and rickshaws, boxes, baskets and animals. Smells of brine and tar and rotting fish steamed about her as she prepared to set foot on the island. Strange sights were all about her, as were the alien features of the Chinese coolies crowding the dock, and she drew back in apprehension, listening to the babble of incomprehensible language. Peering over the edge of the boat, into the passage of dark oily water caught between craft and land, she breathed in the briny odour of the sea and panic overcame her. She wished she might stay like this forever,

43 frozen between past and future, removed from whatever awaited her. Then, someone gripped her by the shoulder and pushed her forward. She was forced to jump down into the noise and the crowd, solid land was at last beneath her feet. Her mind whirled with the noisy clamour, the strange faces and the knowledge of how far she was from where she belonged. What would she do if her brother were not there? Standing on one side of the wharf, her belongings tied up in a cloth bundle beside her, Sita anxiously scanned the crowded quay. After so many years she might not recognise her brother, and he might not know her. She waited but saw no sign of Dev; nobody came hurrying towards her. Slowly the crowd about the newly docked boat thinned, and she saw a man dressed in a loose kurta and worn dhoti standing alone some distance away, looking anxiously about. As she stared at the man her brother slowly reassembled himself; the droopy eyes and wiry outline of his body, the long thin neck rising out of the collar of his shirt to support a bullet-shaped head. Sita gave a cry of relief and stumbled towards him. Through the days of journeying on train and ship, through the stress of embracing the unfamiliar hour after hour, the image of Dev had become embedded in Sita’s mind not only as a brother but as a destination, a place of refuge. Now, as they bowled along, sqashed together in a rickshaw, she wondered for the first time where and how he lived, and how her life would shape itself under his protection. Crushed against the perspiring warmth of his body in the lurching flimsy contraption, she realised she did not even know the exact nature of his work. Below them she glimpsed the naked back of the rickshaw runner as he pulled them along, just as oxen pulled a cart, muscles straining, the blue veins of his calves thick as knotted rope. She shrank back against Dev, overwhelmed by the strangeness of her new surroundings. Her mind whirled with the pungent smells and putrid

44 odours, the Chinese faces and incomprehensible cries of hawkers and merchants, the constant ringing of bicycle bells. Soon, they passed along broad streets beside huge stone buildings, motorcars trundled by and the loud tooting of horns was heard. Everywhere she looked people were hurrying along, shouting, gesticulating, demanding. The chaotic pulse of the city and its powerful energy frightened her. As they moved along Dev chatted, describing the town and its different areas, his voice strong, excited that she was there, undeterred by her silence. Now she noticed that the faces filling the street were predominantly those of Indians, and knew they had entered yet another part of the town. ‘Serangoon Road is where we Indians live. Most people here are Tamil, and from South India; many came here originally to work on the rubber plantations. Not many people are from the North, like us; no one else from Sagarnagar,’ Dev grinned, examining his sister’s face as he spoke. Sita stared at the busy dusty street that was lined with dilapidated shophouses and attap-roofed huts. Cows stood by the wayside chewing the cud; a herd of bleating goats trotted past on their way to the slaughterhouse; it was almost as if she were back in India. ‘I have a good job at Krishnaswami and Sons; our shop is selling all things we Indians here need. Just now I have been promoted to Chief Assistant. Before I had to sleep behind the counter, but now because of my promotion I can afford a place in a cubicle near the shop. I am paying rent.’ Dev spoke proudly. At last they stopped and Dev helped her out of the rickshaw. Sita followed him towards a narrow shophouse and into the dim interior of the place, momentarily blinded by the dark after the sunlit road. Ahead of her, Dev began to climb a ladder-like stair that rose up almost perpendicular in front of Sita. A cacophony of sounds

45 surrounded her in the semi darkness as her eyes tried to adjust after the sunlit road; the clank of metal pots, the cries of a baby, the whir of a sewing machine. The chanting of prayers mixed with the smell of incense, the stench of drains and old fermenting rice were stewed together in the hot and airless house. Sita felt faint with exhaustion. Then, from above, Dev turned on the stair to reach out a hand, pulling her up into a dark narrow corridor. Through a shuttered window filtered light revealed rows of tiny cubicles, a curtain hooked up before most gave some privacy, but Sita glimpsed the small spaces behind crammed with people and belongings. ‘This is my home,’ Dev smiled proudly, lifting a flimsy curtain to usher her into a cubicle at the end of the corridor. ‘I am sharing this room with another man from the shop, but he has moved out today to make room for you.’ Spreading a frayed checked cloth on a sleeping shelf, Dev made Sita sit down while he went out to get a meal for them from one of the many food stalls in the road below. Left on her own, the weariness of the day washed powerfully through her. The sari dropped from her head about her shoulders and, putting up a hand, Sita examined the short spikes of hair, measuring how long they had grown since she left India. Soon Dev returned with rice and a tasty vegetable parcelled up in banana leaves. She watched him as he ate, shooting brief glances at him and then quickly lowering her eyes, keeping her head covered as was proper in the presence of a male relative, especially an elder brother. Sita ate little, from habit leaving most of her food for Dev; during their growing up she was always fed less than Dev. ‘Your elder brother is eating, fetch a jug and plate and serve him his meal. You’ll eat when he’s finished, then wash his dishes.’ Her mother’s voice came

46 back to her; her mother always ate less than anyone in the house, so that there would be more for the men. Dev took the food Sita handed him now without comment, shovelling it quickly into his mouth. She looked at him curiously, over the years he had become a man, everything about him had solidified. Later, after they finished eating, Dev showed her about the tenement, the many corridors of mean cubicles, the communal kitchen, bathroom and toilet, the tap in the air-well where they could wash clothes. Tomorrow, Sita decided, she would launder Dev’s shirts and dhoti. Now that she would be living with him, she must also learn where to buy vegetables so that she could cook proper food for him. Although Dev had not yet explained what form her life with him would follow, there was no doubt that, as a sister, she would look after him. This comforting thought was an anchor in the midst of so much that was strange. Later, Dev lit a candle and stuck it into the neck of a bottle, turning to her with a wide smile. His eyes were moist and inquiring in the flickering light as he leaned forward to speak to her. ‘I have good news. Tomorrow you will be married.’ Sita started in confusion. The sari fell from her head, revealing her close-cropped hair and the alarm in her eyes. She wanted to speak but no words came to her. Dev took her silence as a positive response and nodded agreeably as he continued. ‘My friend Shiva will marry you. He is an educated man, a teacher at the Ramakrishna Mission School and my good friend. He is from Delhi, from the Punjabi community like us, so he is eating same food and having same customs.’ Dev smiled, revealing his fine white teeth before continuing.

47 ‘In India Shiva was a follower of Gandhiji; he believes in the Mahatma’s idea of no dowry, education for women and the remarriage of child widows. Because of these beliefs and ideals, he is prepared to marry you.’ Dev informed her, his smile broadening, oblivious of how she shrank back against the wall as he continued to speak. ‘When I first arrived in Singapore I went for evening classes to the Ramakrishna Mission School, to learn better how to read and write. Shiva was my teacher. He became like an elder brother, always advising and encouraging me. He is a brave man; he was a freedom fighter in India but was forced to run away to Singapore to escape the police who were after him for his anti-British activities,’ Dev told her. ‘Why can’t I stay with you?’ At last Sita forced the words out of her. The pride and pleasure in her brother’s face was immediately replaced by a perplexed frown. ‘How can you stay here in Singapore unless you are married? How will I keep you?’ he asked impatiently. ‘I cannot afford to send you back to India, and I cannot afford to keep you here. I was able to call you here only because Shiva Bhai agreed to marry you. Even though your first husband died after the marriage ceremony was completed, he had still not touched you as a wife. This is the only good thing to come from that marriage, and it made the decision to marry you easier for Shiva Bhai; you are still pure in your body.’ Sita stared down at her hands in her lap. She remembered again how her husband had died, writhing before her on the floor. She remembered the smashing of her glass bangles, and the marks of marriage that would not be washed away.

The following day Sita waited for her bridegroom, the stiff new sari that Dev had bought her, pulled decorously over her face, the

48 hanging pearl on the gold hoop of her nose ring trembled as she breathed. Her hands twisted nervously in her lap. Wedding garlands of fresh jasmine and roses were heaped beside her; the heady scent of the flowers filled the cubicle. ‘Shiva Bhai has no family here; he lives on his own; you will not have to adapt to any in-laws. He is also an only child. In India his parents are dead, and the relatives who brought him up are also dead. Everyone dead means no problem for you,’ Dev reassured her with a broad smile. ‘Because of his principles Shiva Bhai does not believe in wasting money on weddings; that is also Mahatmaji’s belief. Everything must be simple’ ‘Will he change my name?’ Sita asked in a low voice. Suddenly, above everything, this seemed important. ‘He has said nothing of this to me,’ Dev replied in a preoccupied voice looking into the corridor beyond the cubicle, waiting impatiently for Shiva to appear. Sita nodded but could not keep her mind from slipping back to the other marriage, with its crowds of relatives, the ritual ceremonies, gifts and sweetmeats, the loud trumpeting of the wedding band and the accompanying dancing. Now, this new marriage was a hurried affair with no time for the ritual mendhi; her hands had no filigreed designs of bridal henna, and her brother did not seem to think this important. Against the advice of an astrologer it appeared the wedding date had been picked for no better reason than its convenience; Shiva was a schoolteacher and could not miss a day of work and nor could Dev; both had managed with difficulty to arrange a half day’s absence from their duties. It was a wedding arranged by two bachelors without a need to prove wealth or social status, and without any women to question its form. As Shiva, in accordance with the Mahatma’s teachings, insisted

49 traditional Indian weddings were a criminal waste of hard-earned cash, there were no elders, no musicians, no feasting or dancing, no gifts of sweetmeats to distribute. The unadorned shape of day loomed starkly ahead, and filled Sita with foreboding. Soon they heard footsteps approaching and Dev jumped up to welcome the bridegroom, pushing aside the curtain over the doorway, ushering him into the room. Sita sat with bowed head, hands clasped tightly in her lap, her sari pulled well forward over her head and face. Convention forbad her to look at her bridegroom; her view, confined to the floor, rested upon his bare feet in worn leather sandals. She observed the clumps of dark hair sprouting from her bridegroom’s wide toes, and saw that his nails were neatly clipped. All she could determine was that these were not the feet of an old man, and this thought reassured her. The new dhoti Dev had bought Shiva as a wedding gift, stood out stiffly around his ankles. Her heart beat fast; all thought in her head had frozen. Although the sari was pulled over her face she could see the outline of her bridegroom through the thin silk. He however could as yet see nothing of her, and this gave a sense of protection. All she could determine through the thin silk was that Shiva was not an old man. Dev picked up the garlands and a box of sweetmeats he had bought earlier as an offering at the ceremony. ‘Let us go,’ he announced. Bending to take his sister’s arm, he guided her firmly down the stairs and out of the building into Serangoon Road. As she stepped forward onto the street, a herd of bleating goats on their way to the nearby slaughterhouse, milled about her. Sita’s thin shoulders hunched in tension as Dev gripped her arm, drawing her to the side of the road until the animals passed. Although the sari still covered her head, Sita raised her eyes hoping for a first secret glimpse of her bridegroom.

50 Shiva was already a distance ahead, striding forward with brisk determination, without a backward glance. She had only a view of his back and saw a tall man, straight as a bamboo cane. Unlike Dev, he wore his hair longer, pushed back behind his ears. Since her arrival the day before, she had not left Dev’s room except to bathe hastily and visit the latrine. Once in the night she woke in panic and got up and went out into the long dark corridor, carrying her bundle of belongings, filled with the urge to flee. In the darkness she could see nothing, not even the top of the stairwell. There was the scamper of rats, the cry of a baby, a tubercular cough, the groaning of an old man. For some moments she stood, clutching the bundle to her breast, and then returned to the room, for where should she go, what could she do? As she lifted the red sari Dev had bought her, and walked along beside him, she remembered the stiff weight of that other wedding sari, remembered the plait of hair in a metal bowl, the smoke of a funeral pyre. This time at least she had a name for her husband. Shiva was named after a god. And there was more to give her hope. Dr Sen and Shiva were both followers of Mahatma Gandhi. Dr Sen had told her that any person who believed in the ideals of the Mahatma could not be entirely bad; it was proof of a person’s character that they held such high ideals. At last they reached the temple and Sita fell back apprehensively. The heavy silver doors of the temple stood open, the perfume of incense drifted out. Above her the brightly painted sculptures of deities crowding the temple’s pagoda, looked down upon her. Dev gripped his sister’s arm and guided her firmly inside. In the distance the bleat of the goats came to her again, and she knew herself of no more significance than those helpless creatures, handed from one

51 man to another. The lines of an old song came into her mind that her mother used to sing as she ground flour on the millstone. The father gave away his daughter…becoming a merchant… A stranger put five beads around her neck and became her owner. The father says: My child is a kid goat I have raised I’m going to the market place to sell you…. The grief stricken mother says: In the crowded market place, My daughter’s father, that man… Didn’t place the slightest value on my daughter… The words were bitter, but the music, she remembered, had a rollicking tune and as a child she had sung the song lustily whilst skipping over a rope, without interest in the words. Now their real meaning hit her so forcefully that her body trembled and she thought her legs might buckle beneath her. Each word, sung silently in her head repeated through her again and again. Beside her Dev and Shiva, were exchanging pleasantries, heads close. She stood alone, a distance behind, as if forgotten before they turned, beckoning to her impatiently. Slowly, head bowed, Sita took a step forward. A bare-chested priest received them and Sita was led to where Shiva waited. Soon the priest lit incense and began his incantations, the sounds humming through his nose building rhythmically about them. Cross-legged before him Sita and Shiva began the rituals that would make them man and wife. Once again her wrists were covered with the glass bangles, a red carmine tikka anointed her brow and the bright smear of the sindhur ran along the parting of her short hair, marking her once again as a married woman. Shiva sat opposite his bride and Sita knew he observed her unashamedly. Once or twice she accidentally caught his eye when her sari slipped, and at once pulled the cloth back

52 over her head and face in confusion. Numbness filled her and at times she thought her eyes might close in sleep as the chanting droned on interminably. Then again, it seemed she was dreaming, reliving that first wedding but when she lifted her head she saw another man, another life that second by second she was entering irretrievably. The scent of jasmine from the wedding garland settled about her, as Shiva lowered it over her head. As she felt the cool touch of the flowers against her bare neck she waited instinctively for Shiva to gasp as the other man had done, to clutch his chest and drop to his knees and begin the violent act of dying. Instead, to her surprise, the ceremony was over and she knew she could no longer hide her face from the man who was now her husband. Shiva lifted the veil of her sari and she raised her eyes to him for the first time, examining his face. His expression was kindly, and although she saw he was not as young as she had hoped, he was also not old, and his features were regular and firmly shaped. She saw a straight nose, generous lips and deep-set eyes in a slim face. Reassured by this first sight of her husband, Sita bowed her head again in relief. Shiva was a teacher of English in a school run by the Ramakrishna Mission in Norris Road, and lived only a short distance from his work, in a lane behind the mission. After the marriage ceremony was over, he led his bride to her new home. Walking slightly ahead of Sita and Dev, he pointed out to them the mission’s new building, uniquely topped by a dome and a minaret, and explained how the mission sought to embrace in its architectural style a universal brotherhood and religion. Then he turned into a narrow alley, bordered on one side by the back doors of the shophouses that faced into the adjacent street. A small piece of open land that served as a playground for the Ramamkrishna Mission School ran along the other side of the lane. At last Shiva stopped before a narrow door, and

53 opening it led Sita and Dev into a small courtyard that ran off the back of a shophouse. In one corner a spiral metal staircase led to the upper floor where Shiva had his room. At the top of the stairs a small balcony overlooked the courtyard, leafy plants grew in tin drums beside Shiva’s door. Sita entered her new home and hesitantly surveyed the small room, the compressed heat inside overwhelming her with a smell of drains, old newspapers and mouldering brick, the red tiled floor was warm from the sun beneath Sita’s feet. Shiva hurried to throw open the shutters at the window, and Sita observed the sparse furnishings, a tin trunk covered with a pink checked cloth, a low Indian-style desk with a cushion before it, a couple of shallow backed stools. Newspapers and other printed matter were piled up on the floor against the walls; books were stacked wherever she looked. She saw a rolled up sleeping mat in one corner. ‘This room is separate from the rest of the house. It belongs to a supporter of the Ramakrishna Mission, and he lets it to me for almost nothing. It has a tap inside and running water because the owner originally built it for a family member and wanted every convenience. No need to bring water up from downstairs.’ Shiva proudly informed them. Sita listened and remembered how, before the tube well was dug near their house in Sargarnagar, allowing a bucket of water to be quickly fetched, they must bring water each day from the old well a distance away. Men never helped to carry the water, and as Sita was too small and her grandmother too old, it all fell to her mother. Over time the friction of the heavy load of water her mother carried each day on her head, wore her hair thin. Later, after the tube well was dug, her mother’s hair grew in again, although never as thick as before. Her

54 mother said the tube well was a blessing from the Devi, who knew how women felt about their hair. Eventually, as she knew he must, Dev left her with her husband. Sita watched the door shut behind him, and Shiva bolt it tight for the night. Outside the sky was dark. The bark of a dog, the clank of women washing pots in the courtyard below came to her, bullfrogs and crickets took over the night. Shiva unrolled his bedding on the floor, a streetlight in the road beyond sent a weak light into the dark room. Sita crouched in a corner, her back up against the wall, heart beating, her hands cold in the heat, not knowing what would happen, what she should do. Her experience of her body was shrouded in silence. She knew little of its needs or workings, and had only been taught that there was nothing to be proud of in a woman’s body, nothing but shame and pollution. ‘Come and rest here. See, I will not look at you,’ her husband promised, turning so that his back was towards to her, giving a yawn, as if to reassure her of his disinterest. Weariness was so heavy within her all she wanted was to stretch out on the floor where she was and sleep. Making her way hesitantly towards him, her wedding sari stiff and uncomfortable about her, Sita curled gratefully up on the mat beside him, not daring to loosen the drawstring of her petticoat in case, during the night, her sari rode up immodestly, to show her legs above the knee. She willed herself not to move as she slept, but the desire to lay her head down now overwhelmed every other emotion. She was almost asleep when she heard him turn, and felt his hand on her arm. Then the weight of him settled upon her, so heavy she could not breath, intent on cruelly ripping her apart, as if knifing her body in two. Even though it was quickly over, when at last it was

55 done, the shock and shame of it filled her. She was sore and wet between her legs; tears stained her cheeks. ‘You are now my wife,’ Shiva stated and turning abruptly away, he slept. In the dark room Sita bit her lips to stifle a sob, listening to the sound of his breathing and the strange noises of the street outside; the wail of a cat, the cry of a baby, the loud quarrelling of men in a language she did not understand. Through the window she could see a narrow slice of black sky dotted thickly with stars. This was her second night in Singapore, and already life reclaimed her. She turned to stare at the sleeping face of the man who was now her husband, and was relieved that he had made no mention of changing her name. Whatever had happened to her, whatever now would happen, she was still the same person, she still owned her past.

56

Chapter Five

Sita soon learned that Shiva’s desk was the most important piece of furniture in their room, the centre of his life. It was a low, folding contraption with a thin drawer in which he stored important papers, and before which he sat cross-legged writing industriously through every free moment. He wrote articles for Singapore’s Indian language newspapers, and also inflammatory pamphlets that were printed and distributed to young Indians in Singapore, urging the need to agitate for Home Rule in India. Most of the time he spent at home Shiva was employed in this manner, and took little notice of his wife other than to demand the cup of tea that Sita served him in a tall thick glass, or to ask for the food she cooked. While he ate, she waited silently, only taking her own food after he had left the room, or eating furtively in a corner if

57 he was busy at his desk. As custom demanded, she always kept her head covered but sometimes, she caught him frowning at her as if she had displeased him, and a shock of fear ran though her. Only in the darkness, when he turned to her for that act of the night that no wife might refuse, did she show him her face in the dim room as his hands explored her body. She lay passively as he took what he wanted of her, turning as he finished to pull the sari tightly about her again in a protective cocoon, her knees drawn up, her backbone curved around the soft flesh of her body.

‘Were you born mute? Have you no voice?’ he asked one evening without lifting his head as he wrote at his desk. The words were clipped and brutal in tone. ‘Speak!’ he ordered, looking up suddenly, anger sputtering through the command. ‘Ask me a question, ask me anything; just speak. Show me you have a voice.’ He continued to sit at the desk, but had put down his pen and was watching her intently. Now he would hit her, she thought, just as she had seen her father hit her mother. She waited, but he did not move, still watching her from his desk as she crouched in a corner, sari as always pulled over her head. ‘Try!’ Shiva ordered again, his voice kinder but still determined. Obediently, thinking desperately of what she could ask him she moved her lips but no sound appeared, and she dropped her head in defeat, pulling nervously at her sari, wrapping it closer about her as if for protection. Everyday she lived in constant fear of embarrassment, that she would loose control of her sari, that it

58 would slip from her head or worse, ride up at night immodestly to reveal her legs. ‘Are you a follower of the Mahatma?’ She managed a whisper at last, so embarrassed she wished she could disappear, yet also pleased she had been able to do as he wished. Dev had told her that Shiva, like Dr Sen, admired Mahatma Gandhi. ‘Louder,’ he demanded, a frown puckering his forehead. She repeated the question with more confidence, and knew some part of her wished to be free of the restraint she had been trained through her life to show. It was clear her husband was not a man who set great store upon traditional virtues. Her mind was filled suddenly by thoughts of Dr Sen and she longed for the comfort of that solid woman. ‘The Mahatma? My wife has a voice! And also extraordinary thoughts!’ Shiva laughed in disbelief. He had expected her to ask what food he wanted, or if she should make him some tea. ‘What are you knowing about the Mahatma?’ He looked at her in amazement, but as usual could see nothing of her face behind the hanging purdah of her sari. Lost behind her draperies, she sometimes appeared to him as no more than a bundle of cloth. ‘It is because of Dr Sen; she was a follower of the Mahatma, Bapuji, she called him. She wrote down his letters and cleaned his spinning wheel and gave medicine to harijan children. Please write me a letter to Dr Sen.’ Sita lifted up her head to meet her husband’s eye, hope illuminated her face; she was surprised to find she could say so much. The sari fell from her head to settle about her shoulders before she quickly pulled it back into place. Shiva was silent, observing her curiously, as if seeing her for the first time.

59 ‘Who is this Dr Sen?’ he asked at last, staring at her crouched and shrouded form, waiting mutely for his pleasure in a manner that deeply annoyed him. Already, he regretted his impetuous and idealistic decision to rescue this child by marrying her. He had always imagined his future wife would be more his age, and a teacher like himself; an educated woman. ‘You should write this letter yourself. I will teach you how to read and write.’ Shiva saw his wife start, saw the frightened twisting of her hands begin. ‘I will teach you,’ he repeated more kindly, the idea taking root in his mind even as he spoke. He rose from his desk and came to sit cross-legged before her. ‘Take that sari from your head,’ he demanded, but she drew back, gripping it all the more firmly beneath her chin. ‘Keep it over your head then, but lift it free of your face so that I can see you,’ he ordered, trying to speak gently, reaching out to push the sari back over her short curly hair. ‘Please understand, I do not like the old forms of respect; we live in modern times. There is no need to cover your head before me or anyone else. How will India move forward if such old ways are kept and women have no belief in themselves?’ Her face was now nakedly exposed and she had nowhere to hide. Shiva was taken again by the unusual luminosity of her large eyes and the roundness of her mouth, the upper lip slightly fuller than the lower. He realized again how young she was; he had married a child and at thirty he must appear an old man to her. He found himself moved by this thought, and put out a hand to touch her cheek but was shocked to see her cringe from him, like a frightened animal.

60 ‘I will not hurt you,’ he reassured her. ‘You are my wife. You have left your old life behind. A new life demands that you learn new things, become a new person. I will be your teacher; you will be my pupil.’ ‘How old are you?’ he asked as she stared at him mutely. ‘Maybe now fourteen, I think,’ she answered, and he nodded. ‘Your hair is growing well. Soon it will be long again.’ He sought some way to reassure her and standing up went to fetch his shaving mirror, pushing it into her hands. ‘What do you see in the mirror?’ he asked, and watched her examine her reflection with its halo of new curly hair. He saw her expression waken, pleasure passing through her like a ripple of water. She resembled a fragile, small-boned animal that must be persuaded to trust, he thought. He knew she was pleased by the growth of her hair, the new fullness in her cheeks, and the reassurance that she was once again a woman.

There were things she needed for the kitchen. As a bachelor Shiva had previously bought all his meals, even his tea, from the food stalls or hawkers on the roads near his home; he knew nothing about the things needed to cook a meal at home. When Dev came to visit his sister and was told of the dearth of basic household necessities, he announced Sita would find everything she needed in Krishnaswami and Sons, and that he would take her there. The next morning she followed Dev into the dim interior of the store. Baskets and brooms and metal buckets hung on long strings from high rafters in the cavernous place. Polished bass pans and lota of all sizes packed the shelves along with brass images of gods and various religious implements, dusters and mosquito nets,

61 spoons and knives and mousetraps. Dev put a young peon in her charge to help her and carry the things Sita needed. Soon she had acquired a large pile of items, and the boy ran backwards and forwards carrying each piece to the wrapping table. Near the accounts table, she passed a wall hung with pictures of gods and goddesses, Ganesh, Shiva, Krishna, Lakshmi. She knew what she was looking for. Her eyes ran over the framed pictures of the deities until she saw the Devi. The goddess was before her again, riding upon her handsome tiger, face radiant, her many arms holding the weapons of war, everything suffused by the light of her shakti. ‘I will take that also,’ Sita’s announced, her voice low with sudden emotion.

At night now Shiva liked to light a cigarette and talk, stretched out beside her on their sleeping mat, his long arms folded behind his head. Sita no longer hid her face, but had learned to lift her eyes to her husband, to examine his features and follow his constant change of his expression, in order to know his mood. ‘In the beginning I was a devout follower of Gandhiji, just like your Dr Sen, but his constant spinning of cloth is no more than a symbol of freedom; how can our homespun khaddi be a weapon? The British laugh at his ways, and call him a half-naked fakir; they only fear Subhas Chandra Bose, for they know he will use real weapons against them.’ In the dark Sita stared at her husband’s profile. Shiva’s words opened windows onto a complex world that she struggled to comprehend. ‘Who is this man, Bose?’ she asked apprehensively.

62 ‘He too, like the Mahatma, is working for India’s freedom.’ Shiva raised himself on an elbow and turned to look down at his wife. ‘I came under Subhas Babu’s spell as a young man; I heard him speak at a rally. He is a man to follow to the ends of the earth; that is his magic.’ Shiva’s voice had a sudden faraway note as he continued. ‘I learnt a way of anti-British protest far from the Mahatma’s peaceful spinning wheel. Subhas Babu understands blood must be shed to bring India freedom; there is no other way.’ He paused before he spoke again and Sita waited for what he would say, his body warm beside her. The male odour of his hair oil and tobacco mixed with the perfume of the jasmine she had placed on a shelf before the new picture of Durga. Sita dared to reach out and touch her husband’s warm flesh in a gesture of sympathy as he spoke. ‘I learned to make bombs and to handle a gun. I learned how to blow up Englishmen. And I saw, just as Subhas Babu said, the British government was frightened by these things.’ Shiva’s voice rose in certainty. ‘And then?’ she asked as he paused again. ‘Then some Englishmen were killed by my bombs. Suddenly the police were hunting for me. My parents died when I was small and my uncle brought me up. He got me onto a ship coming to Singapore, and gave me also an introduction to the Ramakrishna Mission here and because they knew my uncle, they gave me a job in their school. So you see, all this I have done for Subhas Babu, and for the freedom of India,’ Shiva sighed and lay back on the pillow. ‘Your parents…?’ she asked, wanting to know how they had died, wanting to know now everything about him. ‘I do not remember them; I was very small when they died. They were murdered; shot.’

63 ‘Murdered?’ she tensed beside him in horror. ‘They were killed at Jallianwala Bagh.’ Shiva drew on his cigarette, and for a moment the stub glowed as fiercely as a firefly in the night. His voice was even, but in the dark she watched the glowing end of his cigarette and knew from the sudden flare of intensity that he drew on it hard in emotion.

The next day her lessons started. Shiva came home with a slate and chalk from the school, and made her form the first strange symbols of the Hindi script, just like the children in the classroom. ‘Am - Kam, Is - Kis, Ka - Kha, Ga - Gha, Ta -Tha…’ He pressed the chalk to the slate and the characters formed quickly and gracefully in his hands before he passed the chalk to her. Each time she tried she pressed too hard in her nervousness and the chalk broke, crumbling to dust in her lap, on the slate the character was squashed or truncated. Eventually, she managed to form a meandering figure and she waited for his praise. Before he left for the schoolroom each morning Shiva set her work to be shown him at night. Her language practice must be written in chalk on the slate, and then a fair draft was to be done in pencil in a lined exercise book. Slowly, the symbols began to form with more ease. Then Shiva began to show her how the marks could be linked to form words. She imagined each character as a dancer, the stem of the body erect, arms akimbo or flung out, legs bent or curled or pointed straight. Thought of like this, the dancers soon began to assemble each day before her in familiar poses. Soon she recognised a symbol or word in the newspapers and books Shiva brought home, and this achievement filled her with inordinate pleasure. Her quick progress surprised

64 Shiva, and Sita was grateful for the spattering of knowledge Dev had imparted to her so long ago, and that helped her build up her ability quickly now. And each night when they lay upon their mattress, she waited for her husband’s stories in the dark room. The night enclosed them, and beyond the coupling of their bodies, became a further classroom from the stories he spun for her. ‘What is this Jallianwala Bagh?’ she asked, remembering the mystery of the murdered parents. ‘It is a place where terrible things happened,’ he told her harshly. There was a long pause before he spoke again. ‘It was a time of agitation. Gandhi was calling for the nation to protest and there was a great response. It was April, the day of the religious festival, Baisakhi. Five thousand people had gathered in the gardens of Jallianwala Bagh, at Amritsar, to hear speeches; it was a peaceful meeting, not only men, but also women and even children were there. The gardens have only one entrance, at the top of a long narrow ally. Fifty soldiers with their commander, General Dyer, fired on the crowd for fifteen minutes, until all ammunition was finished. People tried to climb the walls of the garden to get away and were picked off with guns like sitting ducks; women and children jumped down a well. Five hundred died that day, thousands more were injured. My parents were amongst the dead.’ Once again Shiva pulled hard on his cigarette and Sita watched the tip ignite then fade, and ignite angrily again as he continued. ‘If I have to die to avenge my parent’s death, I will do so.’ Shiva’s quick intake of breath, the passion in his voice frightened her. He paused to draw again on his cigarette, and the thick perfume of tobacco filled her nose. As she listened to Shiva’s impassioned voice, the rightness of the Indian struggle swelled within her, as she knew it

65 swelled within Shiva, and the blood pulsed wildly through her in an unfamiliar way. ‘Already Europe is at war. There is news that Subhas Babu has escaped house arrest in Calcutta and has fled India for Europe. They say he is in Germany and meeting Hitler right now, to ask for support to free India. Japan is also marching through China and will advance through Asia just as Hitler is marching through Europe. These countries are our friends; they will help us when the time is right.’ She sensed Shiva enjoyed these nightly recitals and that before she came into his life he had been lonely in this room. Now, even though she lay silently beside him and often did not fully comprehend the things he confided, she knew it was enough that she was there. Soon there was the light sound of his snore.

As the days passed Sita marvelled at the life that now settled about her. In the struggle to learn she had taken to secretly poring over the newspapers and books Shiva left in the room, trying to decipher the dense puzzle of darkly hatched typescript, thrilled that she could now make out words, as if holes were punched through a thick curtain, revealing the light beyond. She knew her vowels and consonants, the numerals and extras, and Shiva was pleased with her progress. Although Shiva took credit for her learning, what this sudden gift did to the deepest part of his wife he dismissed too easily; he had never been without the knowledge that came to her so powerfully now. When, in time, Sita found she could read something of Shiva’s newspapers without too much difficulty and nothing was barred to her now, it seemed as if she had passed through an invisible membrane into a different world. Something basic within her was changed and set free within her to grow.

66 And all the while, as her mind grew and changed, so too did her body, for she knew now a child was growing within her. Each day she placed her hands over her belly and thought of the beating heart within her, struggling to live. She had not yet told Shiva, still wanting to hold the secret close to her, to share it with no one; she had never had anything belong so wholly to her before. The changes in her body and its cycle had not alerted her immediately to what was happening; the knowledge had come upon her unexpectedly through the woman, Usha, at the school. Sometimes now, she accompanied Shiva to the Ramakrishna Mission School. Five orphaned and destitute boys had come under the care of the school, there was now some thought of starting a Boys Home for them and other such unfortunate children. The Ramakrishna Mission had yet to integrate these illiterates into its school and Shiva had suggested to Swami Satyananda, the Indian monk who ran the mission that, as only the very basics were needed, Sita might pass on her own recent learning to the children. For an hour then every day, Sita drew Hindi characters and the children were immediately entangled in the same difficulties with the script from which she had so recently struggled free. She knew just how to help them. Throughout the lesson Usha, who took care of the boys, crouched in a corner of the room staring at Sita from small eyes in a deeply pouched face. Every time Sita looked up she met the woman’s scrutiny. It was said Usha had strange powers, and knew the art of black magic and prophecy. As Sita finally dismissed the boys at the end of their third lesson, Usha turned slyly to her. ‘Already you are three months gone?’ she queried, assessing Sita shrewdly. ‘Eat salty food to get a boy; no oranges, also no milk, no dhai. Later, come to me, I will tell you if it is a boy or girl. If it is a girl, I

67 can help you be rid of her before you have to curse the gods for your misfortune.’ The woman gave Sita a knowing smirk, and limped off behind the children. Sita stared after her in shock. It was true, she knew it now; the woman had seen what she had not yet acknowledged. A boy. Usha had known it was essential that she make a boy not a girl, eat the right foods, say the right prayers; she must focus all her thoughts on denying room in herself to a girl. A wave of terror washed through her at the thought that she might give life to a girl. Within days of realising that she was carrying a child, the war that Shiva spoke about edged its way nearer towards Singapore. Each evening Shiva listened to the radio, to broadcasts from Radio Delhi, Radio Saigon, Radio Tokyo, the BBC, whatever he could tune into. The room was filled with the crackle of static and the voice of the news announcer, sometimes loud and clear, sometimes fading into the ether from which it had emerged. ‘They are saying Singapore is a fortress, and the British will quickly defeat the Japanese if they try to attack.’ Shiva announced, his ear held near the radio, occasionally remembering to translate the disembodied voice of the English broadcaster for Sita. She could not focus on the things he said. Her mind kept slipping away, forming the same thought over and over again, like a mantra. Make a boy, make a boy, she willed her body. Sudden waves of panic spilt through her, bringing memories of her mother, forcing her to remember things from long before. After so many years Sita could not clearly recall her mother’s face, but she saw again in her mind the gentle swell of her mother’s pregnant body against the light as she stood in the door of their home. The long gap of years between Sita and Dev was because no other sibling had lived very long. After Sita there had been a

68 number of small brothers who, she remembered, had run briefly through the house before they too died of one infection or another. She could not now clearly remember a single one of these children; they all seemed to merge into one. Yet, even after all these years, she could still recall the tiny, squashed face of her sister in those few brief moments she had glimpsed her. Sita had been four or maybe five years old. She remembered walking with her mother beside the river gathering brushwood for kindling. Sagarnagar stood on the bank of the great Yumuna river whose mood turned by the hour, sometimes calm as murky glass, the dark reflections of clouds passing smoothly over its surface, sometimes restless with an inner energy that moved sinuously in swift currents. Upon its banks were the white, stuccoed domes of small temples, ash-smeared holy men meditated above the fast flowing water, children jumped into the water and swam, women gossiped as they washed clothes, old men bathed as the wing of a kingfisher flashed above them in the sun. Fishermen in small boats hauled in their nets of thrashing silver bounty, turtles rested in the mud of the shore. To all things the river gave life and nurture. Sita’s grandmother told her the old tales of the river where Lord Krishna himself swam as a child. The river goddess, Yami, was the sister of Yama, God of Death, and bathing in these sacred waters freed a person from the torments of death, Sita’s grandmother said. That day, Sita remembered now, as she ran about on the riverbank, her mother had stopped and begun to groan, squatting down low in the long grass. Still moaning she had pulled up her skirts, as all the women did when overcome with the urge to urinate. Then, Sita saw her mother reach down and lift up a bloodied mass from between her legs. Sita gave a cry of terror. Her mother’s insides

69 appeared to be coming away, pushing out unstoppably from her body in a mess of slime and skin. ‘Maa!’ she cried, and ran towards her. The bloody mess in her mother’s hands moved and twisted and begin to scream. Her mother pulled off a handful of the long grass that thrust up around her, and wiped the mucus from the child. Lifting a small knife she carried on her, she hacked at the cord that tied the baby to her. Then, Sita remembered, her mother stood up and holding the child in the crook of her arm, walked towards the river. ‘Where are you going?’ Sita shouted, filled by growing fear. ‘I must wash her clean,’ her mother replied, wading out knee deep into the water, bending to lower the child into the soft lapping swell, holding her there, caressing her tenderly all the while with her free hand. One moment Sita saw the child in her mother’s arms, the next she was gone, as the tide lifted her free. Sita watched her float away, held briefly upon the oily rippled skin of the river before she slowly sank from sight, giving not even a cry of protest. ‘Maa!’ Sita had screamed. Her mother continued to stand in the water, her back towards Sita, unmoving. At last she turned, and Sita would afterwards always remember her body, slack and flat beneath the old sari, emptied of its burden. The sun was sinking and the sky was streaked with fire above her. For a moment her mother looked up at the heavens, and Sita saw the weight in her face. ‘Maa! Maa!’ Sita cried again, unable to understand what was happening. Then her mother was beside her, taking her hand, pulling her homewards. ‘It is all right. She was just a girl,’ her mother spoke softly, her voice moving from resignation to relief as they walked back to the village.

70 ‘The current is strong. It lifted her from my arms, I could not save her,’ her mother explained, emotionless. Then, dropping Sita’s hand she walked ahead, not once looking back at the river. Above the village the sky had cracked open upon the dying sun, gold and crimson and purple. Sita remembered the black silhouettes of the trees against the burning sky, like gnarled hands pushing up from the earth. Then, forever after, when she went to the river, she saw a different place. Staring into the water, she imagined the wild goddess, Yami. Swift flowing currents washed through her limbs, and her hair flowed free in the waves. Beneath the river Sita imagined another secret river, a river beneath the river, a world between worlds, a place where her sister now lived with the goddess. When Sita bathed in the river, she now made it a habit to plunge down amongst the dark swaying weeds, navigating the dark and watery world, searching for that invisible space where she knew she would eventually find her sister. It was only much later, after her mother and father died, after her grandmother died and Dev went to the faraway places and she was already living with Chachi, that it suddenly occurred to Sita that her mother had murdered her sister. And if she had murdered that girl child, how many more had she felt obliged to silence at birth? The knowledge floated up, unasked, like debris loosened from the bottom of a pond. Her mother had murdered her sister, held her down beneath the water until she was still, freeing her of the hate loaded against her because she was a girl. Her mother had known a girl was always better off dead. It was a swift flowing river with a treacherous current, a river used by those too poor to afford the oil for

71 cremation to dispose of their dead. Everyone knew the fish in the river were large and plump from an excess of pickings. Now, as Sita felt her own child turn within her, she thought of her mother again and knew at last the pain that must have choked her as she held the small body beneath the water. Yet, why had her mother not also murdered Sita at her birth? Had the river not wanted her, had she struggled and clung too savagely to life, refusing to die, Sita wondered? For what reason had she escaped the death that appeared to claim all her newly born sisters? Perhaps her mother had wanted a daughter, another feminine presence to share with and lighten, through love, the cursed lot of their female life.

Chapter Six

Singapore 1941 The drone of aircraft sounded overhead. Japanese planes flew constantly over Singapore now, and air raid practices were held most days. In the beginning Sita pinned a thick blackout cloth up over the window as law demanded, but now she did not always bother. As they had no electricity, only an oil lamp, she did not know what it was they were supposed to black out. Who could see their one small light from so high above? Apparently, Shiva said, the planes flew over just to see what Singapore was doing. ‘Reconnaissance flights,’ he called them. He sat before his radio constantly twiddling the knobs, always hoping for news of Subhas Chandra Bose.

72 ‘If he is in Germany, he will broadcast to us.’ He said the same thing each day with the same certainty. Every night the crackle of static filled the room, a constant background irritant to Sita’s anxious thoughts. Every night she was on the verge of telling Shiva the news of her pregnancy, and every night she retreated from that moment. Once she was sure she carried a boy, she would tell him. A sudden thumping on the door and the familiar shout of Dev’s voice brought Sita back to herself. Outside rain tipped out of the sky in a sudden torrent. Dev ducked inside, shaking the rain from his head, the shirt on his shoulders dark and wet. From across the room, his ear still cocked to the radio, Shiva beckoned him forward in welcome. ‘All reservists in Singapore have now been called up for duty…’ The announcer’s voice began to fade and Shiva played again with the knobs of the radio. Sita found a towel for Dev to dry himself. ‘Nothing will happen. Japanese pilots are half-blind, they wear thick spectacles and cannot see targets,’ Dev announced cheerily, towelling his hair dry as he sat down cross-legged on the floor beside Shiva. ‘And British people still all dancing and happy in their clubs,’ he added, handing the towel back to his sister. He visited most days and the sight of his growing potbelly, his long neck and small square head, his expansive smile, rough humour and blunt advice, was the support Sita needed. Some days later in the early morning they were awoken by Dev, thumping again on their door. As Shiva opened the door he burst excitedly into the room with his news.

73 ‘Japanese have attacked Singapore. Last night they also bombed Hong Kong, and even America. Now America also is at war with the Japanese.’ A ripple of fear ran through Sita and she put a hand to her belly, feeling the beating of her heart pulsing as one with the heart of the child. As Dev and Shiva turned on the radio to try and hear some news, Sita filled a pan of water from the earthenware pitcher, to boil up some tea for them all. The room was filled by sun, and Sita listened to Mynah birds quarrelling in a tree in the yard as she coiled her hair up into a neat knot. Bending to light the kerosene stove, her head spun suddenly and a wave of nausea rushed through her. She had managed so far to hide the sickness of these early months from Shiva. ‘If the British surrender the Japanese will occupy Singapore… What is the matter?’ Shiva broke off in alarm as across the room he saw Sita stagger, and he and Dev hurried towards her. She wanted to tell Shiva about the baby, but the words dried on her lips and all she could say was that she felt unwell. Soon, ordering Sita to rest, both men prepared to leave the room for work, Dev for the shop and Shiva for school. After they had gone she sat down with her tea, feeling better, and stared up at the picture of the goddess, where it sat on a shelf a distance away from Shiva’s shaving mug and mirror. Each day she put an offering of a fresh flower before the Devi, lit a new stick of incense, bowed her head and prayed. In her metal frame Durga sat as always, perched benignly on her tiger. The morning sun filling the room, gave the tiger new depths. His tawny stripes flamed and his amber eyes, glaring at Sita out of a lowered head, blazed with fire. She had always thought of the tiger as separate from Durga, but now she realised the creature’s smouldering eyes and barely contained energy was but an extension of the goddess; the

74 essence of her shakti. At any threat the force of this female power would materialise, raw and boundless, to do battle for the goddess. As Sita met the tiger’s eyes one thought rose persistently in her. A boy. A boy, she prayed, willing the goddess to hear her. In their home her grandmother, the keeper of stories, had told her tales of the gods each night. Sita had waited for them, much as now she waited for Shiva’s stories, and the magic windows they opened into strange worlds. Of all her grandmother tales Sita had liked the story of Durga. She heard again the ebb and flow of her grandmother’s voice, and a lump rose in her throat as she remembered the old woman. At a time long ago in the universe, the male gods had been locked in unending battle with a ferocious demon, Mahisha, whose evil was destroying the world. The male gods tried hard but could not defeat the devil. In the end they were forced to pray for help to the Great Source from which they were all derived. They prayed so hard that eventually Grace descended, in the radiant form of the Devi, the goddess Durga, suffused with a halo of light, and riding on a tiger. She wore a red robe and a sparkling diadem, and a garland of lotus round her neck. Her eighteen arms carried all the weapons of battle, including a shield, a sword, and a scimitar. Her war cry reverberated through space and shook the world as she went into battle. The war raged on and on. Mahisha was wily, changing from one shape into another each time Durga appeared to have killed him. At this point in the story, Sita remembered, her grandmother’s voice always rose with an edge of excitement. The goddess, incensed with fury at Mahisha’s cunning wiles, summoned up the full force of her power and at that moment her alter ego, Kali, sprang forth from her brow. Embodying everything that was uncontrolled in her bottomless

75 energy, Kali was the wildest elements of Durga’s shakti. Hair dishevelled, eyes red and fierce, she sported white fangs and a long lolling tongue thrust between blood-smeared lips. Gaunt and naked but for a necklace of human skulls, a girdle of severed arms and earrings of infant corpses, four armed Kali held a bloodied cleaver in one of her hands and a freshly-cut human head in another. Heart beating, Sita had listened in the darkness to her grandmother’s voice, waiting for the moment Durga and Kali slayed the demon, finally cutting off his head, ridding the world of his evil. Immediately then the male gods had burst into grateful prayer, ‘now at last we can carry on the functions of Creation, Protection, and Dissolution undisturbed. You are all pervasive, and every part of creation is in you,’ her grandmother said in the powerful voice of a male god. At the end of this tale, she always wagged a finger at Sita and said, ‘See the power of a woman’s shakti. And see also how those male gods could not slay the demon. They had to create a goddess, not another male god to fight their battle. Sita still heard the long ago note of triumph in her grandmother’s voice as the story ended. Now, so many years later, Sita sighed, and pressed her palms together before the Devi, remembering her first acknowledgement of the goddess’s power. ‘A boy,’ she prayed. ‘A boy.’

At first the troubles escalated slowly. Before 1941 ended, two important warships sent from Britain to defend Singapore, were sunk while patrolling the sea near Thailand. One after another, towns fell on the Malayan peninsula as the Japanese marched towards Singapore. During these weeks the Japanese rained incendiaries down upon the city, sporadically at first and then with growing intensity as the year of 1942 began. The Indian area of Serangoon Road did not at

76 first experience the rage of the bombs and this was put down not to luck but to empathy, to the fact that India, like Japan, wanted to see an end to colonial rule in Asia. Sita stared up each night from her bed at the wheeling searchlights seen through the window, roaming the great space of the sky. They thrust open the darkness with needles of light and filled her with increasing unease. Sometimes now she could feel the child turn, a faint flutter against her heart. Each week she resolved to go to Usha to determine, by whatever dark art the woman practised, whether she carried a boy or a girl. Each night she prepared to tell Shiva the news the following day; each day passed into the next and the weeks went on. Japanese planes now roared endlessly over the island in perfect formation, like a flock of migrating birds. Shiva watched in fascination as bombs were detached from the underbellies of the Japanese fighters to fall earthwards like streamers taking flight in the wind. In the distance there was always the crack of anti aircraft shells and then the thud of the bursting bombs. Shiva seemed to feel no fear. Yet the pall of sulphurous smoke and the odour of death that now scented the air, made Sita hug her secret even closer in new fear. Even to voice the existence of the child seemed to expose it to danger. Her slight frame hardly showed the presence of the baby, hidden beneath the drape of her sari. Only old Usha at school scrutinised her roundly on those days she went in to instruct the five urchins. Each time the class ended the woman hung back, her expression knowing behind a smile. ‘Now you are big enough, now I will tell you. If it is a girl, remember I can help you get rid of her,’ the woman reminded Sita in her raw thick voice.

77 The days slid terrifyingly one into another as the blitz continued. The Ramakrishna Mission School suspended lessons. Europeans evacuated the island and those local families who could, ran to rural areas; only the five orphans remained at the mission with old Usha to take care of them. Sita continued to teach the boys, although the schoolrooms lay silent and empty around them. That day she left the school after her hour with the five children feeling exceptionally tired, summoning up strength for the short walk home. As she turned out of Norris Road into the alley towards her own home, a pain ripped through her with such violence that she stopped and gasped aloud. When the pain lessened she struggled on, but as she neared the house a further convulsion doubled her up. Even as it seared through her the air raid siren began wailing, and almost immediately there was the thunder of approaching bombers above. Her head reeled and a wave of nausea swam through her; the planes droned low over the roof of her home as she pushed the door open and stepped into the courtyard. Struggling up the spiral stair another pain gripped her and, looking down, she saw blood running over her feet. Curled up on the floor, she willed the child to stay within her, but already she knew it was leaking from her cell by cell, the very parchment of its life, porous and thin, seeping away. The secret she had held so close to her, the words she had not been able to say, spilt from her now in anguish. As she cried out in the empty room she was conscious again of the siren’s shriek. Then, suddenly, the earth shuddered beneath her with the shattering blast of a bomb. Through the window she glimpsed the top of the slender Jacaranda tree in the courtyard below buckle and bend, its feathery branches blown wildly about by the blast, before it cracked and fell. The earth shook again

78 and she heard the screams of animals in the nearby slaughterhouse, and then the screams of men. She could not move for the blood flowed from her now unstoppably. Shiva burst through the door with a cry and ran to where Sita lay. He had heard the bomb drop as he left the school, and knew his wife had gone home before him. The missile had hit the slaughterhouse, tearing the limbs off cows and goats, loosening roof tiles and blowing out doors in the nearby buildings of Serangoon Road. Shiva saw the fallen Jacaranda outside his house and feared for Sita as he ran. Old Usha, who had seen Sita leave the school, hurried behind him, shouting incomprehensibly. As Shiva entered the room he saw Sita curled up on the floor in a pool of blood. Behind him in the doorway Usha quickly assessed the situation and, pushing Shiva out of the way, bent to Sita. ‘She is not dead. Only baby is gone,’ she told Shiva, seeing he thought his wife the victim of a bomb, and then ordered him out of the room. In the midst of her pain Sita was aware of Usha’s presence, and knew by the firmness of her hands that she had assisted in such things before. Usha leaned over her, pressing down upon her, and Sita felt her body respond with violent spasms of pain until all the life it had held was gone. The woman pulled the wet, bloodied sari off her, and brought a bowl of water to sponge her clean before covering her with a sheet. On the floor a distance away, Sita saw a sodden mass of bloody newspaper, and knew it contained the raw membrane of her child. Usha’s eyes followed her glance. ‘It is still early. No soul had yet entered into it. Before the seventh month no ceremonies are required,’ the old woman replied,

79 scooping up the mess, tipping it into a metal bowl that she pushed to one side. Then Usha was gone and immediately Shiva was in the room again, standing over her, his face distorted by anger. ‘You did this,’ he shouted. ‘Why could you not tell me?’ She was confused and could not answer as he continued, his voice rising on each word. ‘That old witch is known for these things. Many women go secretly to her to rid themselves of a child. Why have you done this? Why have you killed my son?’

Whatever she said he refused to believe, but persisted in the conviction that she had deliberately got rid of the child. At night he no longer told her stories that opened windows in her mind. He no longer encouraged her with her writing and reading, no longer asked about the progress of the urchins at the school. He ate silently whatever she served, slept with his back resolutely towards her, absenting himself from her life. About them the sirens and explosions accelerated, the air was thick with smoke. Dev came regularly to eat with them most nights, and she did not tell him how it was between herself and Shiva, said nothing about the miscarriage to him. As always, Dev chatted mostly with Shiva about the Japanese advance. The Japanese were drawing nearer Singapore and the Subhas Chandra Bose was now broadcasting incognito from Germany. ‘Of course it is Subhas Babu. Everyone knows he is in Germany, everyone knows his voice, even if he will not yet use his real name to us.’ Shiva was ecstatic. He had managed to pick up Azad Hind, the new Free India radio station that, with support from the Third Reich, was now broadcasting from Germany under the direction of Subhas Chandra Bose.

80 ‘The Japanese are just across the water, across the Causeway. It is said Singapore is about to surrender.’ The tremble in Dev’s voice betrayed his anxiety. Sita listened to the conversation between the men without interest, her eyes always resting on Shiva, hoping he would look up and that at last his glance would include her. Instead, he continued to avoid her. At night, she lay beside him in the dim room, staring at the shadowy line of his neck and the curl of his hair, breathed in the musky male odour of him, and was filled by despair. The thoughts that went on in his head were complex and clever; he could grasp any concept tossed before him, while it seemed she had no real thoughts in her head. She was but the receptacle of other people’s needs and desires, a blank sheet that awaited an imprint. The concept of choice had never been a part of her life. All the old thoughts came back to her now, of her uselessness, of her female pollution, of the past sins that had resulted in her being born a woman, thoughts instilled within her since childhood but that her husband said she must change to be part of a modern world. At her birth, Sita had been told, her mother’s shame at producing a girl was so great and her father’s disappointment so deep, that no celebratory sweets were distributed in the village as they had been at the birth of Dev and those other male siblings. Her father’s anger persisted, and even if he loved her, he held his emotions in check. ‘A girl is just a passing traveller in her father’s house. Eventually she will go to another house, be owned by another family. Women are nothing in this world, good only to breed sons,’ her father always shouted terrible things at her when drunk on country liquor, hitting out at her as she skipped about him, as if he swatted flies. He

81 was warming up, getting ready as he did most nights, to beat her mother for all her female inadequacies. Even as Sita ducked away, she knew her father spoke the truth. Only men were important in the world, and women were born to serve them. She could see it in her mother’s constant pregnancy, the way she hurried back from the well in the dark of early morning carrying heavy pots, so that water should be in the house before sunrise for her husband. She saw it in the powerful stance of men as they confidently thrashed a bullock to move faster before the plough, as they sat to gossip in the shade of the trees, drawing on pipes or strong smelling bedi. She saw it in the way her mother shrank back against the wall, preparing to silently absorb yet another of her husband’s meaningless poundings, the butt of his disappointment that life had not yielded him more. She remembered the smooth mud walls of her old home, its small shuttered windows and low, thatched roof alive with the rustle of insects. She remembered the work she did each day with her mother and her grandmother within the cool dim interior of the house, helping them to sweep, carry water, grind flour, churn butter, pound spices, always mending, sewing, cooking. When she began to menstruate at the age of ten, her mother gave her own water jug and tali tray, so that she would not pollute the family utensils. During the days she bled, she must remain apart from the inner house, barred from worship and the kitchen with its cooked food and water, alone in a distant corner until she was clean again. Then, in the muted light of the house, even more than usual, the open threshold of the house with its blazing door of light danced before her, a stark division between the life she lived within the house, and the life her brother lived beyond it. Each morning the men of the house passed through that door and over the threshold into the light of a

82 many-faceted world of male transaction; her father went to his dry goods shop and a world of commerce, Dev went to school, to the learning that would enable him to negotiate his way in that outer world. Sita was left to the narrow life of the house, going out only to fetch water from the pipe well or cakes of dried dung to burn, to buy vegetables, or to wash clothes in the river. Women needed a reason to pass over the threshold of the house, and then they never strayed far, tied always to its requirements; men needed no reason but a desire to go to roam freely wherever they wished. It was only since her marriage, with her husband’s encouragement, that Sita began to understand a woman might hold some thoughts of her own.

As the Japanese approached, tensions in Singapore heightened. Yet, worst of all for Sita, as Shiva continued to ignore her, was the nightly wailing of mating cats in the yard, which bothered her now as it had not before. She knew Shiva heard it too and that the creature’s calls, so like the cries of disconsolate babies, awoke in them both an anguish that neither could voice. Shiva was out all day now working with the Indian Passive Defence Service League. The wounded and homeless of all races crowded the tents on the nearby Farrar Park field. With a couple of volunteers Shiva went to far parts of the city, tracking down food supplies and also bringing the aged and wounded of all races and communities to the medical facilities in the camp. Homelessness caused by the destructive bombing was now a major problem, and the empty buildings of the Ramakrishna Mission School were turned into emergency accommodation for the destitute. As the air raids intensified, casualties mounted and Shiva was eventually forced to speak to Sita again.

83 ‘We need more help, more volunteers. You can assist the nurses at the first aid station as a dresser, or help in the canteen; we need every one to help.’ Shiva spoke stiffly but the plea in his voice was clear, and tears of relief welled into her eyes. The next day she accompanied Shiva to the large first-aid tent on Race Course Road, glad to get out of her home, to forget about the lost baby, to be busy. Shiva ducked beneath the flap of the tent and she followed, and immediately drew a sharp breath. The tent was vast and of the kind usually set up in Farrar Park for Indian marriages. Inside, she was unprepared for the sight of row upon row of wounded people lying on makeshift beds, or sitting listlessly on the ground; men, women and children, Indian, Chinese and Malay, all crowded into the tent together. She was unprepared for the metallic stench of human blood trapped by the thick and hot air in the tent, or for the buzz of chaotic activity as a few doctors and nurses tried to attend to constant calls for attention from those in distress. Each day then Sita made her way to the first aid tent, returning home late like Shiva, leaving again early in the morning. Every day she faced a long itinerary of wounds and learned quickly the art of swabbing and dressing. People milled about her, confused and frightened and in their midst, slowly, she found herself taking control of situations, giving directions, feeling her own fear ebb away, her voice projecting from her with new strength. People turned to her for help and she was forced to assert herself. At times she was surprised to find she barely recognised herself. The bombs and the shelling stopped abruptly in early 1942 as Singapore finally was forced to surrender to the Japanese on 15th February. The unexpected silence was unsettling. Shiva listened to the radio, seeking the usual news conveyed by velvet voices and British

84 accents, but all he now heard was heavily accented Japanese announcers telling him Singapore had been liberated from British rule. This victory for the Axis powers had an immediate effect upon Azad Hind broadcasts from Germany. On the day of Singapore’s surrender, Subash Chandra Bose threw off his disguise and announced what everyone had known all along, that it was he who had been speaking to the world from Germany. ‘We do not know what will happen now,’ Shiva told Sita and Dev, who had come from the shop, repeating the things people were saying in the neighbourhood. ‘Everyone has been told to stay inside. They say if Japanese soldiers stop us, we should say we are ‘Indo,’ he Japanese word for Indian. The Japanese have not mistreated Indians in those towns they have captured on the mainland.’ ‘They also say all Japanese soldiers know of Mahatma Gandhi because he is fighting against the British, like the Japanese.’ Dev nodded in agreement. Through the night they waited. The silence that now hung over the town was more unnerving than the constant explosions they had grown used to. At times they heard shouts, gunfire, or the sound of marching feet in the distance. As morning broke Shiva could stand the tension no more. Looking out of the window he found everything seemed as usual. ‘We must go and see what is happening,’ he said to Dev, who stood beside him at the window. Sita looked up in alarm. ’Just stay inside; don’t go near the window. We will not be long,’ Shiva told her. Alone in the room, the stories she had heard of Japanese soldiers returned to her, of their cruelty and disregard for life, of their rape of women, and callous beheadings. She was aware of her breath

85 rising and falling tensely through her. Outside the silence was broken by the calls of a koel, and she was suddenly conscious of how hungry she was, and that she needed to use the latrine the other end of the courtyard. Finally, against her husband’s orders, she stood up and made her way to the window. Over the wall below she could see the alley leading to Norris Road was deserted, as was the courtyard of the building; everyone was hiding indoors. Sounds came suddenly from the opposite direction and turning her head she saw a group of Japanese soldiers, wandering up the alley, approaching the house. She drew back from the window, heart pounding. Crouching down in fear below the window, she listened to the rough guttural sound of their voices, as they threw open the door to the courtyard and entered the place. Soon she heard the ring of feet on the spiral metal stair and listened as the footsteps drew near and then stopped at her door. Drawing her knees up under her chin, she closed her eyes and covered her head with her arm. She heard shouts as they knocked on other doors in the building. Then, the door burst open and the men surrounded her. One of them grabbed her roughly, pulling her arms away from her head, pushing her back against the wall, pinioning her there with a bayonet. The blade pricked her flesh through the thin cloth of her blouse and she stared up wildly at the men, at their wide flat faces and heavy lidded narrow eyes, and saw the moist gleam of their lips. The men’s uniforms were filthy and ragged, their faces unshaven; they had a rough desperate look about them. They were laughing, lips drawn back upon wide teeth, and she remembered the fangs of a cornered rat she had once seen, imprisoned in a trap. She remembered then what Shiva had said.

86 ‘Indo.’ Her voice was no more than a whisper. Then louder, ‘Indo,’ she yelled out the word. For a moment she saw surprise on their faces, they looked at each other in hesitation. ‘Indo. Gandhi. Gandhi. Gandhi. Gandhi.’ She repeated the word, like a prayer, raising her eyes to the picture of Durga, fixing her gaze upon her. ‘Gaandhhi?’ The man with the weapon bent towards her, repeating the word in a tone of surprise, withdrawing the bayonet. The soldiers exchanged glances again and frowned and shook their heads. ‘Inndoo. Gaandhhi.’ Tossed about in their thick rough voices, the words were almost unrecognisable. The man with the bayonet stepped back and stood with the others for a moment as if perplexed, looking down at her with a thunderous frown. Then, with grunts of frustration, the men turned suddenly away from her, pushing out through the door. Their footsteps clattered down the metal stair, their voices soon fading away. With a groan of relief, Sita sank to the floor, too chilled by fear to move.

87

Chapter Seven

Singapore was now “Syonan, Light of the South.” Living conditions in the city were chaotic. There was so little food available and it was rumoured people were eating grass. Decomposing bodies on the roadside were a common sight. Slowly however, the situation improved and within three months of the surrender, it was possible to go out again in a more normal manner. As best they could, everyone tried to stay out of the way of the Japanese military. Because of his journalistic abilities, Shiva was assigned to the propaganda department of the Indian Independence League. The League, a nationalist organisation founded years before to bring Indian expatriates together, had been seized upon and reorganised by the

88 Japanese as a convenient vehicle to further anti-British sentiment. Shiva’s work was to write pamphlets setting out the new government’s policies and doctrine, and penning articles for the League’s community newsletter, which was distributed to all Indian households. Everything Shiva wrote had to be submitted to a Japanese bureau that always asked for numerous rewritings. ‘Japanese ideas for the Indian Independence League are different from our Indian ideas for these organisations,’ Shiva continually grumbled. Yet, as the year moved on Shiva found it more and more difficult to feel pride or purpose in his work because of the constant revisions ordered. Apart from the League the Japanese had also quickly formed an auxiliary military force from the large numbers of Indian POW’s handed over to them from the British. The Indian National Army was being trained and armed by the Japanese, but was commanded by a Captain Mohan Singh, an Indian officer originally with the British Army who had surrendered himself to the Japanese. Eventually, with Japanese help, it was intended that this army would invade and liberate India, and extend Japanese influence in Asia. The monsoon came and rain poured down, splattering noisily on the spiral metal stair outside the room, turning the courtyard below to mud. Shiva continued to work, but his frustration at the Japanese grew. ‘They have not printed one thing as I wrote it. In the end it is all changed and turned into Japanese propaganda!’ Shiva threw a sheaf of paper back on his desk. ‘Indians here need to know we are not puppets of the Japanese, and that even if the Japanese are helping to arm us to free India, the Indian National Army is our own movement

89 for our own purpose, its ranks filled by our own Indian men. All the Japanese are interested in is Japan.’ Shiva spat out the words in disgust. ‘Drink your tea,’ Sita urged, placing a fresh cup on his desk. Shiva seemed not to hear her, still brooding on his disillusionment. ‘Indian POW’s who will not join the Indian National Army are being sent to Burma to build a railway. And those of us civilians here who will not join the Indian Independence League are being put in prison.’ Shiva shook his head grimly. Shiva had not only his propaganda-writing, but had been put in charge at the Indian Independence League’s recruiting of volunteers to repair the bombed and ramshackle British military camps that were now needed by the Indian National Army. There was no transport to these places, and some days Shiva walked from Waterloo Road to the Seletar camp, to check on the volunteers and the progress of work on broken fences, roofs and barracks. Sita still spent her day in the first- aid tent and Ramakrishna Mission, hurrying home as early as she could to cook whatever vegetables she was able to scrounge, or bringing small portions of cooked food back from the mission. Things were not good for Dev either. He returned each day to his sister’s home in a state of exhaustion and dishevelment. His job as supervisor in Krishnaswami and Sons was gone; as the Japanese had not yet issued it a trading licence, the shop was closed. He could no longer afford his tenement room and moved in with Shiva and his sister. He had a job now with a Japanese building contractor and was gone for long hours each day to far parts of the island, returning exhausted and covered in dust and dirt. ‘The Indian National Army may soon recruit civilians. If it does, I will join,’ Shiva announced unexpectedly one day as Sita served

90 him his food. Sita looked up with a start, dal from the ladle in her hand slopping over the side of the pot. ‘I will at least be doing what I believe in, not writing propaganda for the Japanese.’ Shiva spoke bitterly. ‘What will I do, how will I live here alone?’ Sita whispered, already cold with apprehension. Shiva did not reply, eating hungrily, his mind on other things.

Within a few weeks the call Shiva had waited for came and he wasted no time, enrolling immediately in the army. He was not a common recruit but an educated man, and so was sent to the Officer’s Training school at Newton Circus as a cadet trainee. When he left, Shiva had told his wife that he would be home in two months, once his training was finished. He had also assured Sita that from nearby Newton Circus and the Officer’s Training School, he would find some way to return regularly to see her. Instead, the weeks wore on and he did not appear and she understood slowly that he was gone into another world. Once or twice Dev, who had declined the opportunity to join the Indian National Army like Shiva, went to the Newton Circus camp and managed to meet him briefly. He brought news home to Sita that Shiva was now a Second Lieutenant, but instead of being posted to another unit, he was to remain at the Officer’s Training School, to help train further batches of new officers. Dev did not tell Sita how elated Shiva was at this posting, and that he appeared happier living at the INA Officer’s Training School at Newton Circus, than at home with his wife. For many weeks Sita saw nothing of her husband, and went on with her life as best she could, grateful for the structure offered by the First Aid post and the Ramakrishna Mission. Then, without warning

91 Shiva returned unexpectedly one evening with an armful of mangoes and some biscuits given to him by a Japanese officer. He had a few days leave before starting his new assignment. As he entered the room he brought with him the strangeness of the world he now inhabited, like an unfamiliar breeze blowing in through the door, making the room unrecognisable. His eyes brimmed with the energy of his new life. She stared at him as she would at a stranger, hardly knowing him in the smart khaki uniform, the narrow cap, the brass buttons on his belted jacket. She remembered a lungi and singlet vest, worn leather sandals, an unshaven face; even the smell of him was different. She turned towards the kitchen to make him some tea, knowing this was what was expected of her. Within moments of Shiva arriving, Dev also returned home, and it was then that Shiva told them his news. ‘Mohan Singh has been arrested by the Japanese. He was so unhappy with Japanese he tried to dissolve the army.’ Shiva sat down to digest the news he had heard in the camp only that morning. ‘Everything will fall apart without Mohan Singh,’ Dev turned in astonishment and disbelief. Shiva shook his head. ‘They will not let it collapse. Already there is talk that Subhas Babu should take over. I pray to God that will happen.’ Shiva’s eyes were bright with the thought.

The dull ache in her belly grew worse through the day; she had not bled the month before, and hoped she was pregnant again after Shiva’s last visit. When by the evening blood began to flow from her, she knew she was miscarrying again. It was so early in the pregnancy that the matter was easily expelled and she was relieved Shiva was not at home. The bleeding was heavy and the rags she

92 used each month at this time had to be frequently changed and washed. Yet, the next morning, she pushed herself to walk the short distance to the new first aid post that had now been opened at the Ramakrishna Mission. There, each day, she also helped with the many homeless war orphans that now crowded the place and were housed in the mission. Within a few minutes of setting off she reached the coconut stall at the end of the alley. The proprietor greeted her affably as she turned the corner into Norris Road. The Mission was before her, its architecture neither Moslem nor Hindu but an amalgamation of styles, its ornate cupolas and minarets rising above the humdrum shophouses. The building had recently been undergoing some repairs, and part of its front was still shrouded in bamboo scaffolding. Half-naked Tamil labourers clambered up and down the flimsy cane structure; the metallic scrape of spades was heard as they mixed up cement below. Since the main Singapore workforce of Chinese coolies had fled town in fear before the Japanese arrived, Tamil labourers now monopolised many jobs. They climbed the bamboo trellis, agile as primates, metal bowls of cement balanced on their heads. As Sita turned towards the building, the sound of shouting and Japanese voices brought her to a halt. ‘Keep away, Sister,’ the man at the coconut stall shouted to her, seeing that soldiers were in Norris Road. Sita moved quickly back into the alley, peering around the side of the building. Japanese soldiers stood outside the Mission, ordering labours down off the scaffolding, herding them savagely into a group, using the butts of their rifles freely upon those who showed any hesitation. The road was deserted for, with the arrival of

93 the soldiers, people had hurried away to safety behind closed doors. The Tamil labourers, naked except for filthy loincloths and ragged turbans, huddled together in dread. Their dark bodies gleamed with sweat as, mute with fear, they watched protesting colleagues being beaten until they bled. Further orders were shouted and the soldiers began pushing and prodding the labourers until they reluctantly began to shuffle forward, stumbling over each other in confusion and terror. Moving slowly in the direction of Serangoon Road, they passed the top of the alley so close to Sita that she could see the sheen of sweat burnishing their naked torsos, the ragged texture of the cloth wrapped around heads and hips, the white dust of cement on their arms. Bending continuously under a rain of blows, the men were as trapped as the herds of goats driven regularly along this very road on the way to the slaughterhouse. Eventually, the men turned the corner onto Serangoon Road with its trundling traffic of carts, rickshaw and bicycles, and were lost from sight. Once the soldiers had gone, a shocked populace emerged again into the road, looking up at the empty lattice of scaffolding and down at the half mixed pile of cement. The coconut vendor came out from behind his stall and crossed the lane to stand beside Sita, shaking his head in distress. ‘They are taking low-caste Tamil workers from everywhere they can. The Chinese coolies are gone and it is said they need labourers to work on a great railway they are building from Burma and Siam.’ The man lit a bidi to steady himself, puffing in concentration. Sita’s head spun and the sun was hot on her shoulders. At her feet a lizard darted out of a clump of weeds to scuttle across the

94 dusty lane. From an open drain the stench of rotting detritus mounted unbearably in her head. She turned and ran back up the lane until she reached her home. It was some weeks before Shiva burst unexpectedly again through the door, his face aflame with excitement. She struggled to sit up, hurrying to knot her loosened hair, conscious of her dishevelled appearance. ‘Get up and come with me,’ he ordered, reaching down to pull her to her feet. ‘Netaji has arrived in Singapore. That is what they now call Subhas Babu, Netaji, Great Leader. In Germany they have their Fuerer, now in India we have our Netaji. I want you to see him. He has taken over command of the INA just as I hoped. He is going to speak at the Padang.’ Excitement effervesced through him. Sita stared at her husband, tall and unrecognisable in his smart INA uniform, a fanatical stranger. ‘I must get back to the Padang; my regiment is waiting there. I came here only to get you.’ Shiva urged her to hurry, pulling her up from the bed. There was no way to refuse him, and she rearranged her sari, gathered up her hair, combing it with her fingers, twisting it again into a tight knot. All the while Shiva paced about, talking excitedly. ‘General Tojo, the Japanese Prime Minister who is visiting Singapore, will also be there. I heard Netaji speak yesterday at the Cathay Building after he arrived. Thousands were there. Those of us who had tickets were inside the building, but hundreds stood outside. Netaji has accepted the Presidency of the Indian National Army.’ The words tumbled excitedly from him.

95 They began the walk to Beach Road and the Padang where Subhas Chandra Bose was to speak, Sita trailing wearily behind her husband. People from Selegie Road and Dhoby Ghaut and everywhere else nearby were all streaming in the same direction, and it surprised Sita to see such a great number of Indians on the streets. Her curiosity was aroused, and in spite of herself her mood began to lighten. The same word was on everyone’s lips, ‘Netaji’. When they finally reached the Padang they found the ground already packed with people. A raised platform decorated in red and white bunting had been erected on the steps of City Hall, facing the green expanse of the field. Large Indian and Japanese flags covered the walls of buildings. Shiva pushed his way through the crowd to where Dev, who had arrived earlier, waited for them near the front. Leaving Sita with her brother Shiva hurried off to join his regiment, preparing to march before Netaji as he took the salute. Sita stared over her shoulder at the crowd stretching away behind her in an endless blur of faces. The INA army, well drilled, guns to their shoulders, chins thrust proudly to the sky stood waiting for their new leader. Sita craned her neck, trying to pick out her husband from the crowd of identical khaki-clad soldiers. ‘Netaji was in Germany, but went to Tokyo by submarine,’ Dev explained to her. ‘The journey took him four months and all that while he was buried in that ship, deep beneath the waves. Halfway to Japan, in the middle of the ocean, the ship surfaced and he left the German submarine and transferred to a Japanese one.’ Sita looked at him wide-eyed, seeing the impossible feat in her mind, the man walking on water like an immortal from one dripping vessel to another. Immediately, her mind was full of pictures of the Tamil woman and her baby who had plunged to their deaths on the

96 journey to Singapore, the grey sea closing quickly upon them, drawing them down into its depths. She thought again of her own infant sister, swallowed by the murky river, sucked down by Yami to a place where all souls swim as one. Netaji too had lived four months in a watery universe, and then surfaced into a new life. She imagined Netaji rising from the ocean like a god, on the back of a sea monster, water rolling from gold armour, the sun a halo behind him. Soon there was a stir through the crowd. A long open-topped car approached, the bright pennants of Japan and Free India flying like coloured fins behind its head, a loud purring breath escaping the engine as it drew to a halt before City Hall. From one side a small, insignificant looking Japanese man with a short moustache climbed out, and from the other the powerfully built Bengali emerged. Balding and bespectacled, erect in his bearing, Sita immediately sensed the authority and energy pulsing from him. Before he arrived the sky had been cloudy, but now the sun appeared to free itself and shone briefly over the Padang. He wore a commander’s uniform, his high polished boots gleamed, and in the sudden sun the brass buttons on his khaki jacket turned to points of fire. His life, as she knew it from Shiva’s tales, overflowed with ingenuity and bravado. In spite of herself, her pulse quickened at the thought of him. ‘That is the Prime Minister of Japan, General Tojo, with Netaji.’ Dev shouted to Sita above the cheering that erupted with the arrival of Subhas Chandra Bose. As the two men climbed the steps of the dais, the thunder of cheering grew. ‘Netaji! Netaji!’ The word reverberated around the Padang. Sita looked at the faces about her, at the emotions suddenly released in people who had sat passively waiting only minutes before. ‘Netaji! Netaji!’ Women were shouting his name; eyes alight,

97 unrestrained. The sound rose about Sita like a rolling wave, filling her ears, beating in her chest until it broke down all resistance and she too began to shout, ‘Netaji! Netaji!’ His name echoed through her, a great wash of emotion filling her as she cried out his name again and again. The Japanese Premier, small and circumspect, came forward to speak through an interpreter. Sita caught only a few words through the interpreter’s thick accent. ‘…the rising tide for India’s emancipation…the peoples of Greater East Asia … the glorious day of independence…to India.’ During this speech people sat silent, waiting patiently for the moment when Netaji would return to the stage. Eventually, the Japanese premier sat down and, with a small bow of acknowledgement to General Tojo, Subhas Chandra Bose stepped briskly forward to another eruption of cheering. A tall thickset man of military bearing, his dark skin appeared as soft as chamois leather, agleam now with perspiration. He began to speak in a firm well-modulated voice, words projecting powerfully from him with growing passion, his face lit by his voice as he spoke. Sita sat forward. There were no gestures, no theatricals, just his voice flowing over her, into her, through her; speaking as if to her alone. For a moment he paused and reached to adjust the microphone, and in that space a leap of energy rushed into her. Then, his deep, smooth voice rolled on, pulling her in, shutting out all else. ‘…This must be a truly revolutionary army… I am appealing to all the civilian youths to come forward to join the army. I am appealing also to women…half the population of our country …women…women must also be prepared to fight for their freedom, to fight for independence…along with independence they will get

98 their own emancipation…Give me your blood and I will give you freedom.’ As he finished speaking women rushed forward breaking through the barriers, some with babies in their arms shouting, ‘we will fight, we will fight for the freedom of India.’ Before she knew it Sita found she too was on her feet, pushing through the crowd, following the others. Emotion swelled through her and it seemed her heart would burst with the pain of it. She was conscious of Dev pulling on her hand, trying to hold her back. Flinging him away, she ran towards Netaji. He stood high above her on the dais, looking down upon the crowd of women moving towards him, his face exultant, head thrown back. The torrent of passion now released, he was calm and in control of himself once again. We will fight; we will fight… The words echoed through her and she shouted them out in response. She wanted to touch him, to tell him she would do whatever he bid. She wanted to fight for India; she wanted to fight for him. Instead, she felt the cold touch of steel; rough hands grabbed her as Japanese soldiers with rifles stood suddenly before the women. Above her Netaji smiled, his gaze focussed distantly upon the crowd, his hand raised as if in blessing. She was near enough to see the soft crease of the boot about his ankle, the stout metal buckle around his waist, the sweat gleaming on his broad cheeks, his full sensuous lips. Japanese soldiers fenced her in, the cold pressure of a rifle pushed against her. She stood her ground, resisting even as the soldiers drove her back, feeling nothing now but the fire burning through her. Then, a bugle sounded and the spell was broken. Netaji turned his head, drew himself up and saluted his new army. The massed regiments of the INA began to move forward, marching smartly before their leader. ‘Netaji! Netaji!’ The shouts went on and

99 on, the noise thundered in Sita’s head. A burning sense of the rightness of the struggle throbbed through her as never before. As Netaji began to speak again the dark sky opened with a crack of thunder, and a light rain spat down upon them. ‘Comrades! Let the battle cry be: Chalo Delhi. How many of us will individually survive this war of freedom, I do not know. But I know this, that we shall ultimately win…I will be with you in darkness and sunshine, in sorrow and in joy, in suffering and in victory. For the present I can offer you nothing but hunger, thirst, suffering, forced marches and death. It does not matter who amongst us will live to see India free. It is enough that India shall be free and that we shall give our all to her.’ On the green expanse of the Padang there was no shelter, the crowd stirred, wedged tightly together. Netaji continued speaking, taking no notice of the elements. People looked up at the sky, rain splattered over them, umbrellas were opened. A murmur rippled across the Padang as people began to move off the field, but Netaji’s stern voice held them back. ‘Do not get up or leave. Rain cannot frighten us.’ Netaji paused in mid-speech. People turned guiltily, obedient to his word, no longer bracing against the rain, but giving themselves up to it as through it all Netaji calmly continued to speak, not once looking up at the sky. Afterwards, she could not clearly recall his features or even the things he had said. There remained only the burning shower of him. He was a golden man, a leaping tiger, a springing lion, a glowing creature who had entered her at a thrust. Give me your blood and I will give you freedom. The words flowed through her veins and were part of her now.

100

Chapter Eight

Bras Basah Camp, Singapore 1943

It started to rain as they set off from the house on the walk to the Bras Basah camp. A sudden downpour emptied upon them, lightning flashed and thunder cracked. Water sluiced off the protective canopy of the umbrella Shiva held over them. Sita leaned close to her husband as the rain splashed about them, the drenched hem of her sari flapped wetly around her ankles. Her few belongings, tied up in a bundle and carried by Shiva, were already soaked. Even now, as they walked towards the camp at Bras Basah, Shiva’s continuing resentment at her decision to enlist in the army soured any exchange between

101 them. Netaji had formed a women’s regiment, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, named after a legendary warrior princess, and women were being encouraged to recruit. ‘Why are you not pleased?’ Sita asked him quietly. Her heart was in her mouth as she spoke, knowing the enormity of what she was doing in disobeying her husband. Once, she remembered, her father had beaten her mother so badly that blood ran. Terrified, Sita had appealed to her grandmother, afraid her father would kill her mother. The old woman looked silently in the direction of her son. She was not a bad mother-in-law, and affectionate towards her daughter-in-law, yet it was not her place to control her son who was head of the household, and on whom she depended in her widowhood. ‘He is her malak, her owner’, the old woman shrugged. ‘If her chores are not completed, if he doesn’t like his food, if today she went beyond the doorstep and spoke to other men, there is nothing I can do. In my time a husband was a god, a wife lived only to serve her husband. In my time no wife thought of disobeying a husband.’ What would her grandmother say if she could see Sita now, going further beyond the threshold than the old woman could ever imagine, and yet she was determined to take this step? Something hard and unyielding within her seemed to push her on. Netaji had given his permission to women like herself to recruit, opening the door into a man’s world, encouraging women to step beyond the confining threshold of the home, opposing the authority of parents and husbands for the larger cause. Yet still, she trembled before the extant of the challenge she was taking on, and knew Shiva was aware of this. ‘Most girls joining this regiment are unmarried and not having family obligations,’ he insisted as they walked along, making no effort to hide his disapproval. He could not openly say he disapproved of

102 Netaji’s idea to form a women’s regiment and she was surprised; she had expected Shiva to support her. ‘I too want to fight like you to free India. I can’t forget how your parents died. Many women in Singapore are joining up, you know it is not just me,’ she dared to whisper her defiance, and he glared down upon her. ‘Soon, I will be forced to salute my own wife,’ Shiva grumbled. ‘Probably Subhas Babu wants you women in the regiment as nurses, to look after wounded soldiers. That is a woman’s job,’ Shiva remarked. Sita bowed her head, moving closer to him beneath the umbrella as the rain lashed down upon them, and said nothing. Some days earlier Netaji had addressed a meeting of Indian women and unbeknown to Shiva, who was back in camp with his unit, Sita went with a group of nurses from the first aid tent. When Netaji arrived, women rushed forward to smother him in garlands until they piled up to cover his ears. Netaji laughed and lifting the flowers from his neck began to speak, his voice soft and intimate, almost caressing, as if he was speaking to each of them privately. ‘Sisters. You all know the part our women have played in the Freedom Movement in India… Indian women have gladly and bravely shared, along with our men, the burden of our national struggle…facing imprisonment and persecution, insult and humiliation.... Our brave sisters have played a prominent part in the secret revolutionary movement…when need arise they can, like their brothers, shoot very well. I know what our women are capable of, and therefore I say without exaggeration, that there is no suffering which our sisters are not capable of enduring.’ Cheering broke out in the hall and Netaji lifted a hand in acknowledgement.

103 The meeting left Sita throbbing with energy, strange thoughts and emotions surged through her. Her excitement knew no bounds. And always, the face of Netaji was before her, the sound of his voice in her ears. She would be one of those brave sisters Netaji spoke of; she would lay down her life to be the kind of woman he esteemed. His words filled her head and would not be silenced. ‘If there is anyone who thinks it is an unwomanly act to shoulder a rifle, I ask them to turn to our history, and the brave women of our past. What did the legendary Rani of Jhansi do in the Revolution of 1857? It was this queen, a widow, who with drawn sword on horseback led her men into battle to defend her state from being annexed by the British. Through ill luck she was killed... But we must complete her work…we want not one Rani of Jhansi but thousands and thousands. It is not the number of rifles you carry or the shots you fire that is important…but the moral effect of your brave example.’

As soon as she could, afraid to tell Shiva about the step she was taking, Sita signed up as a recruit in the new Rani of Jhansi Regiment. ‘The Japanese are not in favour of a women’s regiment; they laugh, to them a woman’s place is at home,’ Shiva continued coldly as they walked along in the rain towards the Bras Basah camp. She did not reply, knowing his disapproval sprang from her stubborn flouting of what he considered her role as his wife. She knew his resentment had also to do with her body’s refusal to bear him a son, a further rejection of the old tradition. Without warning an image of her mother flashed before her, and a wave of anger washed though her, at what she did not quite know.

104 Now, as they turned into Waterloo Street beside the domed edifice of St Josephs Institution, the rain stopped. Shiva collapsed the umbrella as they passed the school and approached the camp that lay behind it. At the gate a young female guard dressed in khaki uniform stopped them. Shiva explained that his wife was a new recruit but Sita hung back nervously, hiding behind her husband. ‘Step forward if you’re the recruit. He must leave you here at the gate,’ the girl called Sita forward. Shiva stepped back and, nodding an unemotional farewell walked off to return to his own camp. ‘Hurry up’, the guard held the gate open impatiently. Sita was shocked to see the girl was dressed in shorts like a man, and stared at her stout bare legs in growing uneasiness. As the gate shut behind Sita, another uniformed girl hurried up, introducing herself as Sub Officer Preeti Mehra. Sita followed her, trying to avoid the puddles on the muddy expanse of the parade ground, the sodden hem of her sari dragging along the ground behind her, the damp bundle of belongings bumping against her thigh. Like the guard at the gate, Preeti wore shorts that ended just above her knees, stout boots covered her feet, and a soft brimless cap sat smartly upon her short hair. Once again Sita stared at the girl’s bare legs, realising with growing trepidation that she too would now have to wear these same clothes; she too would look like a man. ‘First I have to take you to Lieutenant Bhatia.’ Sita followed her, taking in the large parade ground, the newly built lines of barracks, and the larger building they now walked towards. All the time her eyes kept returning to Preeti’s legs, slim and straight and unashamed as she marched a few paces ahead of Sita. Soon they reached a small office and Preeti knocked on the half open

105 door. Lieutenant Bhatia looked up as they entered and Preeti saluted smartly. Beneath the welcoming smile Sita was acutely aware of the Lieutenant’s inquiring eyes, of her own wet and dirty sari, and the damp plait of hair trailing down her back. Lieutenant Bhatia did not wear shorts but smart jodhpurs, a shirt neatly belted at the waist, short hair curling up beneath her cap around a broad boned face. Everything about her was bright and sure. When she smiled, her eyes crinkled deep into her cheeks. ‘You’re a Rani now. Be proud of yourself and what you represent. Stand up straight; don’t bow your head like that. Did you ever see a soldier who did not stand up straight? Sub Officer, get her out of this sari and into uniform quickly,’ she ordered, and then turned back to Sita. ‘This time next week I will not recognise you,’ she assured Sita with a smile before she left the room. ‘Her name is Reva. We call her Revadidi.’ Preeti said turning into a room with walls of shelves stacked with khaki uniform. She began pulling out item after item, quickly measuring things up against Sita. ‘We wear shorts and shirt for everyday; Jodhpur breeches and bush jacket for marches. Netaji designed these uniforms for us during his submarine journey from Germany.’ Dimples pricked Preeti’s cheeks when she smiled. Her eyes moved expressively in her long narrow face and she had a habit of raising her eyebrows questioningly. Her manner was assured and her glance direct, and Sita observed her admiringly, judging her to be no more than two or three years older than her.

106 ‘Knapsack, rifle and other equipment you’ll get tomorrow. Now your barracks,’ Preeti announced, piling the uniform into Sita arms. Preeti strode out of the building and onto the wet parade ground, Sita hurrying after her again. Stopping before one of the wooden huts, she threw open the door. Sita saw a long narrow room filled on one side by a row of bunk beds, each with a mosquito net, facing a wall of wooden lockers. The heat was intense, ripening the odour of newly sawn wood and fresh paint in the wooden hut. ‘This one’s not taken,’ Preeti said, pointing to a vacant bunk. ‘Sorry, it’s a lower one. Most people like an upper bunk because it’s cooler. Get changed quickly and join them outside. Major Pandy does not like latecomers.’ She pointed through a window to a line of girls drilling some distance away on the wet parade ground. Sita put the pile of clothes down on the bunk, fingering the thick cotton garments, wondering in sudden panic how she could wear clothes that revealed her body so blatantly. She had never shown anyone her legs before, not even her husband had seen so much of her naked. Whatever she did with him was in the dark, and even then she kept herself decorously covered. It seemed best to pull the shorts up beneath her sari, and then unwind the cloth with its wet border only after the garment was secure about her waist. Once that was done she unhooked her sari blouse, quickly pulling on the loose khaki shirt to hide her breasts before removing it. There was no mirror in which to see her refection, but looking down nervously at her exposed body, her eyes went first to her bare knees and embarrassment curled through her; her heart beat in her throat. Although she was dressed she felt naked. Finally, she pushed her feet into the socks and heavy walking shoes and settled the narrow cap on her head. Her hair had now

107 grown long enough to form two thick short plaits, and these she pulled forward over each shoulder. Soon she stood dressed and, not knowing what to do with the wet sari, folded it up and left it on top of the lockers. Through the window she stared nervously at the group of marching girls, the loud boom of Major Pandey’s voice clear even at a distance. Sita forced herself to walk towards the door; the heavy shoes weighed down her feet, her heels knocked against her toes and she feared she might trip herself up. The soft foldable cap with INA badge would not fit properly over her thick hair. It was bad enough that her breasts had no camouflage of veiling, but worst of all was the shame of her bare legs, sticking out of the wide legged shorts. ‘Late!’ Major Pandey yelled as Sita approached the group. ‘Fall into line. Chin up. Shoulders back. How will you hold a rifle? How will you face the enemy? I have two months to make soldiers of you. Two months!’ Major Pandey’s raw, throaty voice pressed about them, interspersed with sharp blasts blown repeatedly into the whistle around her neck. ‘March. Chin up. Legs straight.’ They marched in twos around the parade ground and there was no avoiding the puddles now. Cold muddy water splashed up Sita’s calves, wetting her socks. ‘Chin up. March.’ Sita threw her legs out one after the other, the breath quickening in her chest, arms threshing the air, her limbs moving with automatic momentum. There were about twenty girls, and all, like Sita appeared awkward and self-conscious. Many were of Tamil origin, but they did not look like the more prosperous Tamil women she saw on Serangoon Road, or in the Ramakrishna Mission. She thought they

108 might be from the labourer’s community, the daughters or wives of men such as those on the scaffolding at the Ramakrishna Mission, who had been rounded up by the Japanese. The girl marching in front of her was so thin her uniform appeared several sizes too big, her legs no more than dark sticks emerging from her shorts. The two long plaits of hair swinging back and forth upon her back as she marched appeared thicker than her limbs. ‘Right leg. Left leg. One two. One two,’ Major Pandey yelled, strutting smartly ahead of them. Whatever leg Major Pandey called for, the thin girl in front of Sita always lifted the wrong one, as if she did not know right from left. Many other girls in the group appeared equally ignorant. As a result the platoon was disorganised, however determinedly they tried to march. It began to rain lightly again and the girls slowed down, looking up at the sky and then at Major Pandey, expecting to stop and seek cover. ‘Will the enemy wait for the rain to stop? March. About turn. Shoulders back.’ Major Pandey blew savagely on her whistle. Later, when the drilling was over, Major Pandey appeared unexpectedly in the barracks, striding up and down the aisle between the bunk beds, occasionally rapping a metal frame with the end of her baton. ‘You girls are lucky; you have beds. The first batch of Ranis had only blankets and lived in tents. Thunder, lightening, rain, snakes; all these things they slept with in their tents on the Bras Basah green, and they were not afraid. We had not as yet any cooks at that time, and the girls were also cooking food for everyone.’ Mrs Pandey’s deep voice boomed as she surveyed the new recruits.

109 ‘Is this my right hand or my left hand?’ Major Pandey raised a hand while prodding her baton into the chest of the girl who had marched in front of Sita. What is your name?’ ‘Muniamma,’ the girl looked down at her feet. ‘Well? Answer the question.’ ‘What is right? What is left?’ the girl whispered. ‘Ah! You do not know. Those of you who are illiterate will get an education here on Netaji’s order. All Ranis should be able to read and write.’ ‘Which side is right?’ Major Pandey pointed her baton at another girl, who looked silently down at her feet. ‘What is your name?’ Major Pandey demanded. ‘Muniamma,’ the girl replied. ‘Another Muniamma?’ Preeti who was accompanying the major stepped forward. ‘These girls are from the rubber estates. Plantation managers are European and cannot remember Indian names. To them they are all workers, so no need for them to have a name. Muniamma; it just means girl. Only at home do they have names, Muniamma this or that,’ Preeti explained. For once Major Pandey dropped her fierceness and her frown now turned to one of perplexity. ‘We cannot have such things here. How will we know who they are?’ Major Pandey shook her head and her voice softened. ‘Here, we will call you by the name they gave you in your family. Understand, here each one of you is a person; you are not cattle. Netaji regards each of you as his sister, and each one of you he values.’ ‘You.’ Major Pandey moved on and waved her baton at Sita.

110 ‘Right hand. Left hand,’ Sita replied when Major Pandey asked, raising each hand in turn thankful that, through her husband’s help, she now had some education. Major Pandey nodded approval but then frowned, looking up and down the row of women. ‘That hair will not go under a cap. No time here for combing and oiling long hair. No time for vanity when you get to the front line and the enemy is waiting. It must be cut.’ Major Pandey stepped forward poking her baton beneath Sita’s chin, forcing her to look up into the major’s heavy face with its high fleshy nose. The skin beneath Major Pandey’s eyes was more darkly pigmented that the rest of her face, giving her an owlish look. ‘Cut. Cut.’ Major Pandey pointed her baton at the other longhaired recruits before finally, with an exasperated shake of her head, she marched from the hut, indicating they should follow her. They trailed out of the barracks behind her to cross the parade ground to the main building. Major Pandey walked with a swagger; her broad buttocks beneath the pull of the khaki drill trousers moved up and down like pistons. They were lined up on chairs and were given sheets to drape about their shoulders. Sita sat down, shivering now with emotion. Soon Preeti and another couple of girls entered the room holding long-bladed scissors, brooms and pans. Then the door opened and Lieutenant Bhatia strode in to address them. ‘Netaji gives us all a choice; he does not insist you cut your hair, but we who are your sisters are telling you it is better you do so. We are being given the same training as the INA men; we wear similar uniforms to the men. We cannot think of ourselves as women now. We are first and foremost, soldiers. When we go to the front and face the enemy there will be no time to plait or care for long hair; there will be no time to think of ourselves now as women. Everything we do now

111 we do for the freedom of India. Jai Hind. Netaji has placed his trust in us. Will you let him down?’ Sita was now trembling so visibly that Preeti, who came to stand behind Sita’s chair, looked at her curiously. Sita fingered her newly grown plaits, unable to explain the sudden grip of the past upon her, the living death of her widowhood, the shaven head,, her degradation. As memories gripped her, her whole life seemed to swing up before her, and she gave a small gasp of distress. ‘It is just a haircut. Later it will grow again whenever you want,’ Preeti whispered in Sita’s ear, leaning forward to pat her shoulder. Sita nodded, pressing her lips together in an effort to control the overwhelming dread that flooded her as the scissors flashed. Then, strand after strand, each cut accompanied by the cold clip of metal, her hair fell about her, slithering down her shrouded body. From one corner of the room the breeze from a standing fan swept intermittently over her, blowing wisps of shorn hair about the floor. Sita closed her eyes tight and thought of the Devi, and the golden eyes of the tiger. Almost immediately the realisation came to her, that this time was different from that previous cruel tonsure. Perhaps this severing of her female identity was not a death but a rebirth into something positive. With this thought new strength flooded through her. ‘Careful,’ Preeti warned. ‘Hold still. I am nearly finished. There!’ She stood back to survey her work, and reached for a mirror that was being passed around, handing it to Sita. Lieutenant Bhatia, who had returned to room, came to stand by Sita. ‘See how nice you look now.’ She smiled a warm crinkly smile. For a moment Sita did not recognise herself. Her hair swirled about her head like a thick dark cap, swinging about her ears. A dart of excitement ran through her as she touched the bare nape of her neck,

112 not now in shame but with a thrill of exhilaration. She leaned back in the chair and stretched out her bare legs, staring anew at the shameless view of her knees, her heart beating now with all that might lie ahead. Later Sita listened to Preeti describing Captain Lakshmi, the commander of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Fingers covered with bootblack, Sita was learning how to brush the heavy ugly boots. ‘Captain Lakshmi is a doctor and the only woman in Netaji’s cabinet in the provisional government. She is in Burma just now, recruiting girls there for the regiment. You will see her when you get to Burma. I will be accompanying your group to the camp in Burma once you finish your basic training,’ Preeti explained. She was fit from weeks of tough training, the muscles of her slim body hard and compact. Something set her apart, and after only a few hours in the camp the new recruits already looked to her for leadership. After the haircutting session all the girls from the rubber plantations had been asked for their actual names, and these had been inserted in the registration forms. There was only one girl, an orphan from the plantation who said she had no other name; the family who took care of her never bothered to give her a proper name. Major Pandey allowed this one girl to be called Muniamma. The girl refused to cut her hair and now sat silently beside Sita. She was the same girl with the thick plaits and thin limbs who had marched in front of Sita earlier. Muniamma kept her head down, concentrating on her polishing, clearly miserable. Everyone else seemed visibly relieved and brighter after the haircut, as if a first rite of passage had been completed. ‘Why won’t you cut it?’ Sita whispered, feeling suddenly sorry for the girl. Every one had heard why she had to remain Muniamma,

113 while the other girls were now listed as Shivani, Valli, Ambika, Rashmi, Vidhya and more, expanding suddenly into individual identities. The girl just bit her lips and shook her head, pulling on the thick plait that still hung over her shoulder. ‘I had my head shaved once,’ Sita confided in a low voice, not knowing why she was sharing her secret with this sullen girl, shocked to hear her own voice stating the facts. ‘I was a widow. But now I am married again,’ she whispered. Muniamma gave a gasp, her eyes widened. Sita looked away, appalled at herself, as if she had allowed a stranger to see her naked. Even worse, Preeti had been listening to their whispering. ‘Just remember, the real Rani of Jhansi who fought the British and died for her cause, was also a widow.’ Preeti gave Sita a reassuring pat on the shoulder, but Sita was filled with anguish at speaking out so spontaneously. ‘Cut it.’ Muniamma spoke up suddenly, her eyes still fixed upon Sita. Preeti laughed in surprise, and Muniamma turned to give Sita a hesitant smile. ‘You have given her courage,’ Preeti laughed. ‘Come with me now, before you change your mind,’ she ordered. Muniamma followed Preeti towards the door, but paused to look over her shoulder at Sita, gesturing for her to follow them. All the time Preeti was cutting her hair, Muniamma sat with her eyes tightly closed, clasping Sita’s hand, her thin dark face clenched in silent anguish. When it was done she opened her eyes and drew a breath, staring down first at the heap of greasy strands piled up on the floor about her chair, before she looked in the mirror.

114 ‘Good, it’s gone.’ The fierceness of Muniamma’s tone made Sita look at her anew, and wonder at the experiences that swung away behind her. ‘Its all right’, Sita told her. ‘Now we are new people, ready for a new life. Everything bad in the past is gone with our hair.’ Instinctively she felt this was what she must say to Muniamma, although she knew nothing about her. The girl nodded and Sita was filled with a rush of emotion, for herself and for the girl, who already she felt was a friend and perhaps in need of protection. Looking at Muni she saw herself as she had been before Shiva came into her life. Now, in her narrow metal bed, Sita thought about Shiva and wondered if he too lay in a similar bed in his camp at Newton Circus. The wire mesh of the bunk above in which Muniamma slept sagged slightly with the girl’s weight. After the hair cutting, Muniamma kept close to Sita, insisting she sleep in the upper bunk to be near her. The bones stuck out all over her, and her waist was so small an extra hole had been punched in her belt to hold up her shorts. A dark scar ran down one cheek and another patterned her arm. She kept touching her short hair that suddenly, relieved of its weight, curled wildly about her ears. ‘Sitadidi, the only good thing I ever had was my hair,’ Muniamma whispered to Sita, before they climbed into bed, sounding bereft. Sita remembered her mother’s distress when her hair wore thin beneath the weight and the rub of the water pots. I’ll grow my hair long as a falling river. When I die that is all I will take with me. The words of an old song came into her head, leaving Sita sad and angry at the same time. ‘Well now it is gone. You are a new person; you should have a new name. I’ll call you Muni.’ Sita could not suppress her emotions,

115 and knew she sounded angry. Tears smarted in her eyes. No one had ever called her didi before, or thought of her as an elder sister. She was not sure if she was actually older than Muni but the knowledge that Muni thought of her in this way, filled her with painful warmth. Above the human smells of the crowded hut, Sita sometimes caught the light scent of freshly sawn wood and new paint that still lingered in the recently constructed barracks. To her surprise, this scent ignited in her a thrill of excitement. The astringency filled her head, the very essence of its newness underlining the sense of adventure filling her now. She was on the verge of new experience; everything around and within her was changing. By the side of her pillow, she had propped up a tiny picture of the Devi she had bought to keep near her in the camp. In the faint light she could just make out the goddess suffused by a halo of light, and the lowered neck of the tiger, his dark stripes and burning eyes, focussed directly upon her.

Chapter Nine

The months of basic military training past quickly, and in late 1944, Sita and the other girls in her batch of recruits, left for Burma. For the first part of the journey their transport was old cattle trucks. A strong smell of the animals lingered in the vehicles; the remains of cow dung encrusted the metal floor and in the heat gave off a strong musty

116 odour. None of this deterred them. The long journey through the green world of the jungle and rubber estates past easily, they sang and laughed. Whenever the sound of enemy aircraft was heard overhead, the trucks drew to the side of the road under the camouflage of trees. In the truck, Muni sat close to Sita. Since the day of the hair cutting, Muni had been Sita’s constant appendage, following her everywhere, eyes fixed upon her for guidance. The silent intensity in her thin face made Sita wonder about her life, but through the two months of training in the Singapore camp, Muni said nothing, and Sita asked no questions. It was an unspoken agreement between them that Sita always stood a little in front of Muni, as if her body must protect her, or answered for Muni if she fell silent, watched that she ate enough, shook her awake in the mornings. She was not sure how or why this balance settled between them. There were many girls from the rubber estates; they made up most of the regiment, spoke the same language, sang the same songs, and understood the essence of each other’s experiences. Even from these girls Muni stood apart, causing them to grimace in exasperation and turn to Sita saying, ‘you’re the only one who understands her.’ Over the weeks of training, Sita saw herself changing in the camp, her confidence growing with her independence and, slowly Muni also changed. Physically she filled out and began to smile, speaking up when before she might have waited for Sita to speak for her, but still always positioning herself close to Sita who now cared deeply for her welfare. Her mute resignation to her fate echoed to Sita that of her own infant sister so long before. Sitadidi, just the way Muni called after her gave Sita a warm satisfaction. Something in her expanded, she had never had anyone to care for her in this way before, no one dependent upon her.

117 When they reached Ipoh, they left the vehicles and made their way to the railway station, to continue the journey by train. They strode forward, shoulders back, arms swinging free, marching smartly in spite of the heavy backpacks of kit, rifles over their shoulders, filled with anticipation and excitement. Even the most inhibited of them now affected a swagger and sat like a man, legs apart or with an ankle crossed over a knee. As they crowded onto the platform the Indian station master, a wizened old man with a luxurious moustache, saluted and shouted enthusiastically, ‘Chalo Delhi.’ Every Indian knew who they were, that they were the army to liberate India. ‘Chalo Delhi!’ they shouted back as one, punching the air. ‘Chalo Delhi!’ This was the cry that accompanied every activity in the camp, and they roared it out loudly to the stationmaster, resolve flowing anew through them all. As they marched further down the platform they saw Japanese guards observing them sullenly. By now they all knew how the misogynist Japanese military had opposed the recruitment of women into the Indian National Army, and how resentful it was of their presence. They gathered together while Reva, as their commanding officer, walked over to the ticket office to inquire about the train, and returned grim-faced. ‘That is our train,’ she said, nodding towards the rusty shuttered wagons of a stationary goods train. The Indian stationmaster, who had followed them anxiously down the platform, shook his head in concern. ‘Devijis, do not ride in that death trap. These wagons are used for taking supplies and prisoners to the Japanese camps, to work on the railway. No one comes back alive from there. Go home if you can,’ the man spoke in a low voice, casting a wary glance at the Japanese guards on the platform.

118 ‘We cannot turn back. We are soldiers.’ Reva told him. Alerted by the ticket office, the Japanese guards strode forward and began pulling back the heavy sliding doors on two of the wagons, indicating curtly that the women should climb in. ‘Hyaku shite. Hite kudasai. Hyaku.’ One by one the girls climbed into the wagons. The doors were slammed shut upon them, leaving them in semi darkness. A barred space at the top of the wagon let in some air and light. Now that the door was shut they became aware of the heat radiating from the metal walls of the carriage. The train had waited in the sun all day, and was hot as a branding iron. Huddled sweating together on the floor, they pushed their rifles and kits into whatever space could be found. Beside Sita, Muni fanned herself with a handkerchief, the girls were pushed uncomfortably up against each other in the stifling heat; they waited but the train showed no sign of moving. Eventually, Reva stood up and with some help pulled back the heavy door. At once Japanese troops rushed forward to slam it shut again. Soon water and toilets facilities were needed. When in desperation they pulled back the door once again, a rusty bucket was given them, and another of water with a metal scoop. Finally, with a tremor and a grating of iron couplings, the train jerked suddenly into life, easing forward to settle into a slow trundling gait. Their own feminine odour was now a powerful smell in the wagon, from the bucket they were forced to use came the stench of urine and excrement. Occasionally, the sound of the engine’s whistle floated to them. The wagon rocked dangerously, throwing them to the right and left, slopping the stinking contents of the bucket onto the floor. Nobody spoke, concentrating on enduring the journey, hoping by nightfall they would reach a destination.

119 ‘Open the door, let’s empty the bucket,’ Preeti suggested, but when they tried the doors they found them locked. Eventually, after what seemed like hours, the train stopped, the doors were opened and the girls tumbled out into fresh air. They found they were at a transit stop, a Malay village of atap-roofed huts. Japanese troops were everywhere. The most pressing need was for a toilet, and clean water to drink. A sergeant appeared and led them to a large hut built on stilts, and showed them also a primitive latrine with rush walls that gave some privacy. In the hut they rested, stretching out cramped limbs. Village women served them a meal of millet and rice, spicy vegetables and fish and they ate hungrily, aware all the while that they were objects of curiosity both for the villagers and the Japanese troops, neither of whom had ever seen women in uniform carrying guns. Eventually, they were ordered to climb back into the train. The wagon was cooler now that the sun was gone, but their sleep was fitful, pressed tightly up against each other. As the train puffed along, they tried the doors again and finding now that they had not been locked, pulled them open. Cool air blew in upon them and the relief was intense. Outside, nothing could be seen but darkness, the vast black net of the sky above alive with stars. In the early morning they stopped once again at a transit point, rested, and were fed as before. Now they saw large palm fronds and the leafy tree branches being tied to the top of the train as camouflage, and soon they were herded back into the wagons. Sita shut her eyes, listening to the rhythmic clank of the wheels of the train on the track and dozed. Muni also slept slumped beside Sita, head on her shoulder. Eventually, Sita woke with a start as the train slowed, and morning light filled the wagon. As they all began

120 to stir the thin bleating of an air raid siren was heard far away. With a tearing of breaks the train stopped abruptly, throwing them all forward. ‘Out. Out. Hayaku.’ A Japanese soldier appeared, frantically motioning for them to vacate the carriage. ‘Air raid,’ he flung his arm in the direction of the jungle. ‘Bomb. Run, run,’ he ordered. Grabbing their kit they tumbled out of the wagon and, sliding down the embankment into the scrub below, ran into the hot tangled web of leaf and vine, tearing at the resisting branches, pushing into the jungle as far as they could. Crouched down, they heard the roar of approaching planes, flying low above them. Grabbing Muni by the hand, Sita plunged further into the dense vegetation, pulling the girl down beside her. Face down in the undergrowth, head cushioned on her arms, the rich, rotting odours of the earthy jungle filled Sita’s nose. About her the silence was broken by the buzz of insects, the cries of birds and the occasional yelp of monkeys high in the trees, mosquito swarmed about her. Although she had given Shiva little consideration in the last weeks, her mind flooded with thoughts of him now. Would he know if she died? Where was he now? Shiva’s regiment had left for Burma some days before Sita, going first to Meiktila and then Mandalay, and eventually perhaps further north to Kohjima and Imphal. ‘Imphal is where Netaji will cross over into India.’ Shiva had told her, his voice was full of nervous energy. A sudden, intense ache for her husband welled through her. She remembered again that last day together. She wished she could tell him she was sorry, for she might die, and so might he. Before leaving for the front, they had been allowed to spend a day together.

121 They returned home, but the time did not gone well. Back in the old atmosphere of their home, Shiva seemed to expect her to be as before, yet everything about her was changed. Shut up for weeks, unaired, the room seemed smaller. A wall of stale baked air surrounded them as they pushed open the door. Everything was familiar, yet somehow strange; she did not fit the place as before. Shiva immediately sat down at his desk and called for tea. Setting the water to boil, she remembered the first time she tried to make tea for him, a new bride brought back to this room. Wherever she looked she saw her own ghost; a ghost she no longer fitted. She never thought now to cover her head before him, and although he too did not expect this, she knew the old balance had changed between them, and this was not to his liking. To please him she put on a sari again, and it was strange not to have the freedom of her limbs. She gave him all the old deference, but something about her upset him and he became sullen. When he demanded his conjugal rights and she laid out the sleeping mat, he declared he was doing no more than claiming a husband’s rights and why was she angry. She was not aware that she was angry. ‘You have become arrogant,’ he shouted, and she was shocked. ‘I am doing everything I did before,’ she protested. ‘You have changed. You are doing the same things, but not in the same way,’ he answered bitterly. She said nothing, but anger spilt hotly through her and raising her eyes to his she had stared him down, glad it was only one night they had been given together. Such a spontaneous display of her true feelings shocked her as much as it shocked Shiva. Neither moved, both acutely aware of the ball of Sita’s rage between them, and finally it was Shiva who turned coldly away. Later, as she lay beside Shiva, she

122 wondered at herself, and also puzzled over her mother’s life, wondering how she had silently absorbed the pummelling her husband meted out to her so regularly. How she had silently smothered the life in her newly born daughters? Although she had lived in fear and credulity and did not protest her fate, yet she had found within herself some innate strength to endure her life. For the first time, Sita wondered at this strength, locked deep within her mother. In the morning Shiva spoke stiffly to her. ‘I am going to the front. I may not return. You may be a widow once again.’ He held up his hand to silence her as she began an angry protest, thinking he sought to frighten her, to bring her back to heel with this threat. ‘This is a reality we must face. You are my wife, and I do not want you to face undue hardship. If anything happens to me I want you to know, I have already paid many months rent in advance for this room. Our landlord is a good man, he promised me you will not be without a home. And the Ramakrishna Mission will always help you.’ He stared at her fixedly, as if he already saw the future. Now, in the jungle the terrifying roar of aircraft was above her, filling her ears; she closed her eyes, heart pounding and waited. The explosion broke the world apart. At that moment the earth trembled sickeningly beneath her, clods of soil rained upon her as shrapnel and debris crashed through the canopy of the jungle. The high-pitched screams of monkeys was suddenly around them, clouds of frantically twittering birds soared up in terror from the trees. Sita covered her head with her hands. Eventually, the noise of aircraft became distant; silence settled upon them again and at last the all-clear siren was heard. Japanese guards appeared again, calling them back to the train. As they climbed up the incline to the track they saw the train was untouched, but behind it the length of rail they had just travelled

123 over had collapsed into a gaping hole gorged out of the flat-topped embankment. As they paused to gaze at this sight, one of the girls began screaming and pulling at her clothes, and Sita saw then that she too had leeches stuck to her limbs, one on her arm and another at the base of her neck, moist black slugs, expanding by the minute. Nothing would dislodge them. ‘Like this,’ Muni appeared beside Sita and laughed. Sliding her thumbnail beneath one end of the creature she levered up its suckers, first at one end and then at the other, expertly flicking the leech away. ‘On the plantation leeches are everywhere,’ Muni said, looking at Sita in amusement as they climbed nervously back into the train. ‘This is your first real test as soldiers. We must stay calm,’ Reva said when they had all reassembled, but it was clear even as an officer she was battling with physical discomfort and her own terror. ‘But we are all together,’ Muni spoke up suddenly. ‘If we die, we die together. We are all sisters now,’ Muni’s face reflected the pride she felt in being able to speak as an equal to a superior, offering her the comfort she found in their sense of togetherness. In the carriage the girls nodded their agreement with Muni. The weeks of training in Singapore had fostered oneness amongst them, as had the gruelling route marches. In the beginning they could do no more than six miles at a stretch, carrying their rifles and back-packs, singing marching songs as they strode forward in their heavy boots, but later their stamina strengthen and twenty miles or more passed easily. Other things had also brought them together. At mealtimes whether Hindu, Muslim or Christian they must all sit together to eat the same vegetarian food, undivided by caste, class, religion, customs or language. Military training filled each morning, and afternoons passed with lessons in Romanised Hindustani and lectures in geography and

124 the political history of India and its exploitation under British Rule. After dinner when they relaxed together there was already a sense of community amongst them. In the weeks at the camp they were forced to move through experience together, to cross the boundaries of caste, class, education and community, sharing intimacies of flesh and mind, nurturing each other. Almost imperceptibly, solidarity built between them that only now, on this journey, they were beginning to recognise and depend upon. When the train stopped next, it was at a sprawling encampment, a village that was now a labour camp. Once again they climbed out of the train and lined up, marching behind the Japanese soldiers to the huts where they would rest. The light was fading and groups of prisoners were returning to the camp for the night from work sites along the railway. They were Europeans, tall skeletal men, naked but for a ragged loincloth such as common labourers wore. Sita stared at them in shock. These men were the enemy she was fighting against, yet their wretchedness now in the shadow of death was hard to equate with Netaji’s ringing words of battle. For a moment she stopped, confused by the human misery before her, a misery that made no division for race or creed. These men were no more than frail ghosts, living dead things, as invisible to the world as she had once been. Prisoners were now crowding into the camp from all sides, whipped along like animals by the short legged, wide-jawed Japanese guards, prodded mercilessly with bayonets. Most of these new groups of men, Sita saw now, were Asians, Chinese or also many dark skinned Tamils. The huts they were herded into were crude open-sided shacks exposed to the elements, snakes and wild animals. Sita wondered if amongst these Indian prisoners were the men she had seen pulled off

125 the bamboo scaffolding outside the Ramakrishna Mission. On the way back from the latrine, she noticed that in one corner of their rough accommodation, the workers had erected a small shrine, a makeshift effigy to worship. Some leaves and an coconut shell were balanced on the neck of an empty tin, garlanded with a plaited rope of grass and strewn with offerings of petals and jungle berries; these things were enough as a repository of hope. In her rucksack Sita carried the small picture of Durga, and knew how that unseen presence gave her strength. As she passed the men eyed her curiously, and she turned away in embarrassment. Unlike the prisoner’s huts, the Ranis’ accommodation was raised up on stilts for safety and later, as the girls sat on the narrow veranda in the early evening, a group of the Tamil men hesitantly approached, looking fearfully about all the while for Japanese guards. Finally, safe from open view, they crowded below the veranda, faces upturned towards the girls. They were men of small stature, reduced now by starvation, naked and wasted, sores and wounds patterning their bodies. The oil lamp cast long shadows and lit up their faces so that their eyes, white against their dark faces, took on the luminous quality. One of the men began to speak in a low voice while others kept watch for the guards. The men could speak only Tamil and Muni interpreted as best she could, in a mixture of broken Malay and Hindustani. ‘We come to thank you, Devijis. We know you fight for us, and to free India. It does our eyes good to see you. Whether we live or die here matters not; we know you fight for us, for our children’s future, for India. If India is not free we will forever be imprisoned in our own land by some foreign power, be it British or these Japanese. We know

126 now, white or yellow, all these powers are the same. Fight Devijis, fight for us, fight for our children’s sake.’ As they spoke Sita heard Netaji’s words again in her head. It matters little if we live or die; what matters is that India is free. In this camp, where the misery of death made all men wretchedly equal, she saw more clearly than anywhere else what Netaji fought for, and the imperative of the battle ahead, how crucial the victory, how vital the commitment instilled into them during training. The men crowding below the hut had risked their lives to tell them this. In the early morning when they awoke, the camp was empty of its population of prisoners, already herded back to work. Towards the end of the afternoon the Ranis boarded their train once again, to journey through the relative safety of night. Sita stared out through the open door at the fast flowing ochre-coloured river far below, winding its way beside the track. She settled down for the long journey ahead, Muni as always beside her. The words of the Indian prisoners repeated in her mind. She thought of the narrow world of her early life, where she had questioned nothing, accepting the things that happened, observing the working of events upon her much as she observed patterns artlessly woven into a piece of fabric, giving no thought of how they came into being. For the first time now she was beginning to understand she had the power to weave the cloth of her life to her own design, that she was the weaver, whatever the events. The fight for herself, and the fight for Netaji were now welded together in Sita’s mind into the fight for India. The very word, freedom, bandied about so easily by everyone had held little real meaning for her until this moment. Now, when she silently spoke that word, the faces of the Indian prisoners filled her mind, and everything else fell away. She understood now as never before all that Netaji fought for,

127 all that Shiva fought for. Leaning back she closed her eyes and heard Netaji’s words again: I will be with you in darkness and sunshine, in sorrow and in joy, in suffering and in victory…’ She heard his voice, distant as the wind soughing through the trees, following her wherever she went. Pressed against her, Muni gave a yawn, her head still resting on Sita’s shoulder, their sweat mingling as one where their bare arms touched. Muni stirred and pulling a handkerchief from her pocket wiped the perspiration from her bare neck, pushing her hair out of her eyes. ‘Although it is good my hair is cut, I cannot get used to being without it. It was the best thing I had,’ Muni said sadly, touching her shorn head. ‘When I washed my hair I used to dry it in the sun, and it was so thick it was about my shoulders everyone remarked on it. But I had to be careful no white sahibs or the Indian manager sahibs were near if my hair was loose like that. If I saw a sahib of any kind, I ran and hid.’ ‘Why?’ Sita asked, wondering if Muni had perhaps taken time off work to wash her hair. ‘Because, if they saw me like that, they might call for me,’ Muni replied in a low voice. Sita frowned, unable to understand what Muni meant, and the girl was forced to explain. ‘You cannot refuse to go to the English Manager Sahib, or the other Sahibs who work for him, and even our own Indian men, the Supervisor Sahibs. If any of them is wanting you, you must go.’ Muni’s voice was almost inaudible, her head lowered in shame. At first Sita did not understand what the girl was trying to tell her, or the line she crossed with these admissions. ‘My parents died, I do not remember them. The neighbour’s family took me in, but they did not like me. Always, from a small age, I

128 was doing work in their house, and then when I was a little older I began weeding work on the estate. That is children’s work, but it is hard; your back hurts so much. Then, when I was still older, one of the Sahibs called for my family’s oldest daughter. Her father owed the Sahib money and could not pay. They did not want her to go; they forced me to go instead. I was so young, I had yet to begin my bleeding.’ Muni spoke in a rush, as if the words would get stuck inside her if she stopped. Sita put an arm about her and pulled her close. Had she remained in the bhajanashram her fate would have been little different from Muni’s. She would have been sent out like Billi and the others to whoever would pay Pujari. Muni’s breath seemed to knot in her chest, and at last Sita understood something she had puzzled over before. In the camp during training, bayonets had been fixed to the end of their rifles. The weapon must be held exceptionally tightly to do its work. During practice they must run at a hanging straw dummy, stabbing the bayonet blade deep within. Muni, whose bayonet appeared disproportionate in size to her slight frame, charged forward each time with an aggressive yell, her face set in determination, eyes upon the target. The blade disappeared deep into the straw as if her life depended on it. Nobody stabbed like Muni; the strange relief this seemed to bring her filled her face with an expression close to exaltation. Now at last Sita understood.

129

Chapter Ten

Maymyo, Burma 1944

The journey took two weeks, and at the end of December 1944 they finally reached Burma as the monsoon was breaking. The long journey ended abruptly at a small dusty station over the Burmese border. Trucks were waiting to take them to INA headquarters in Rangoon, and then on to Meiktila, Mandalay, and at last the military camp at Maymyo, six hundred kilometres north of the capital. As they travelled the monsoon rained upon them, the Burma downpours

130 eclipsing even those of Singapore. Enemy aircraft continued to be a constant danger. The terrain turned hilly, the road carrying them up ever higher into the Shan Highlands, the air becoming steadily cooler. At last they reached the scenic hill station of Maymyo. Previously, the place had been the summer capital of the British and a military outpost. It had also been known as a centre of education, but now its many deserted schools provided bases and billets for the Japanese military, and also the Indian National Army soldiers who swarmed into the town. The large military hospital was full of the wounded, brought back each day from the front line at Imphal and Kohima 200 kilometres away on the India-Burma border. The Ranis’ camp, like the men’s camp, was in a deserted school. When Sita and the other new recruits arrived, trenches were being dug around a large drill area that had once served as the school playground. The new recruits were shown to the dormitories lined with mosquito netted rattan beds, mattresses and pillows stuffed with soft kapok. Just as the new recruits arrived in the camp, news came through that a regiment of Indian National Army guerrillas had finally crossed the Burmese border at Kohima to stand at last upon Indian soil; this news bubbled through the Maymyo camp. The sudden immediacy of the war, with the front no more than a few hundred kilometres away, made Sita restive in a new way, the blood coursing through her body at the thought of the danger ahead, pulling everything taut within her. And there was the added knowledge that Netaji was nearby and regularly visited the Ranis’ camp. In the morning at breakfast there was more excitement; Captain Lakshmi, commander of the regiment, had arrived from Rangoon and had asked to meet the new recruits from Singapore. As they finished breakfast, sitting at long trestle tables, Lakshmi entered,

131 walking forward to meet them, smart in freshly starched jodhpurs, the shoulder epaulettes of her shirt slashed by the three dark blue stripes of her rank. Her hat sat at a slightly rakish angle on her head, she seemed already to know who everyone was. ‘You must be Preeti? Are you Asha? Is this Pratima? And Sita? We are happy to see you here.’ ‘You’ve had some basic medical training,’ she said, beckoning Sita forward later. Slim and upright she spoke in a quick decisive manner, energy sparking off her. ‘Casualties at the front are heavy and nurses are in short supply.’ Lakshmi’s penetrating eyes were eagle bright beneath the thick eyebrows that dominated her face. Inclining her head to one side, she appeared to be waiting for an answer to a question not yet asked. The long nose and full lower lip gave her face a soulfulness that was hard to resist. ‘I want to fight,’ Sita clarified. Lakshmi nodded sympathetically. ‘I know. But if casualties keep arriving at this rate we will need more nurses, and I will have to call on you. There is such a shortage of doctors that I too am now working at the hospital, as well as seeing to all my other military responsibilities at the camp. Care of our men must be our first duty,’ Lakshmi responded firmly. Later, in the dormitory, Sita struggled up through deep layers of sleep to the hysterical wail of the air raid siren. Muni was already throwing off her sheet in the next bed and scrambling to her feet, reaching out to clutch at Sita in fear. Someone ran into the dormitory shouting, ‘Go to the trenches,’ waving their arms about. The sound of deafening blasts shook the wooden building as if it were a paltry

132 matchbox. Sudden flares of light from explosions illuminated the dark interior of the long room. ‘Quick. Run.’ The narrow stairwell was crowded with terrified women, jostling against each other as they descended and finally fled through the open door and out into the night. Immediately, the faint perfume of night flowers lifting off the bushes along a nearby wall came to them. ‘Over there,’ someone shouted, and they saw Captain Lakshmi running towards them, gesturing in the direction of a dark mass of the trees at the far end of the drill ground. ‘Get in the trenches.’ From behind someone pushed Sita hard, forcing her over the edge of the pit into a grave of wet soil. Even before they were safely hidden, British bombers were swooping low over the buildings to let loose their bombs again, blasting the structure apart. With each explosion great fountains of soil were thrown up, and fell back into the trenches upon them, filling their mouths, the neck of their shirts, their hair. At last it was over, the bombers disappeared, the All Clear sounded. Soon, in the silence, the sawing of crickets was heard again. The women’s voices as they clambered out of the trench carried strangely in the quiet. From what they could see in the torchlight, the school buildings were all destroyed. As Lakshmi and her officers discussed what should be done, there was the distant sound of engines coming steadily nearer. Before long several trucks entered the compound, jolting to an abrupt stop. The headlights of the vehicles cut open the darkness blinding them all. Then Lakshmi ran forward and with a start Sita recognised Netaji’s tall powerful figure walking toward her.

133 ‘I knew the blast was from this direction. I came immediately the All-Clear went. Are any of the girls hurt?’ Netaji asked anxiously, visibly relieved when Lakshmi assured him there were no casualties. ‘I should have foreseen this, the ground is too open here.’ Netaji said taking the torch from Lakshmi and swinging the beam over the smashed building, surveying the damage, shaking his head. Turning to the clusters of shocked women, he walked forward to speak to each group, addressing each individual Rani as they crowded around him. ‘Beti, are you hurt, are you wounded?’ Netaji leaned forward, speaking now to Sita. Behind him the headlights of the trucks gouged out a huge hole of light in the dark. The brightness drained Netaji’s face of depth and reflected on his heavy spectacles so that Sita could not see his eyes but only a tiny reflection of herself. A film of perspiration covered his fleshy cheeks and mixed with his male odour she caught the faint scent of sandalwood soap. If she reached out she could have touched him. In the torchlight the course cotton weave of his shirt was clear, metal buttons glinted on his chest, and she saw he was in need of a shave, a shadow of stubble defining his jaw. ‘Your families have sent you to me, and they have faith that I will return you to them safely. And this I will do.’ Netaji’s voice rose, as if to challenge fate. Then turning back to Sita he laid a hand on her shoulder in a fatherly manner. There was a hard-packed corpulence about him, unlike the bony frame of her husband. The warmth of his hand pressed through the thin cloth of her shirt, his breath touched her face, and she began to tremble. ‘Beti, you and your sisters have escaped harm. This means God intends you to serve your motherland for a longer time. Have courage in what we are doing. Tomorrow I will move you to a safer

134 place.’ His full moist lips lifted in a smile. The shock of the bombing welled through her suddenly then. Tears poured uncontrollably down her cheeks as Netaji turned away to speak to the next girl, just as he had spoken to her. She gazed after him, aware of and ashamed at the physicality of her feelings. Once they settled into their new accommodation, the unvarying military pattern of life settled about them again, the gruelling pace accelerated, their training tougher now than anything in Singapore. Since the attack on their previous barracks had destroyed all their possessions, including spare uniforms, men’s uniforms from the INA store were quickly altered to fit them all. The stylish jodhpurs and long-sleeved blouses were gone; they dressed now in long straight pants or shorts and shirts, identical to the men. Each girl must now keep a backpack with her at all times, with extra clothes and personal possessions that she must take with her to the shelters during a raid. Sirens blared all day and all night, the bombing unrelenting. In the Maymyo camp all emphasis was now on training for guerrilla warfare. Each day was spent slithering forward on their stomach, guns at the ready, perfecting ambush and sabotage techniques. Route marches were endless, accompanied night or day by the ever-present fear of wild animals. The talk was all of when they would be sent to the front to fight alongside the men. Rumours were that the battle was intensifying, that the British were fighting back hard and winning. Already, disappointing news had arrived that those Indian National Army units that had crossed the front line onto Indian soil had been driven back again into Burma. Within a few days Netaji visited them again. The monsoon rain emptied down at his arrival, mud splashing his high polished boots as he climbed from an armoured car. Rain cascaded off the

135 umbrella held over him by an attending officer whose shorter height forced Netaji to hunch his shoulders and bend low beneath its shelter. Captain Lakshmi was at the entrance to welcome Netaji and, within the building the Ranis formed two long lines, standing to attention, saluting smartly as he stepped inside. ‘Jai Hind.’ Netaji’s cap had been knocked from his head as he ducked beneath the umbrella, and he held it now in his hand. His receding hairline revealed an arch of polished bare head. He stepped briskly towards the waiting Ranis, his face creased in a wide smile. Behind heavy framed spectacles his eyes were alert, taking in every detail of the scene around him, taking in each girl as if assessing her individual fortitude. Then, with a further smile he gestured for them to break ranks and come forward about him. ‘Be at ease, my sisters. I have come to see how you have settled into your new camp. There are many trees here; it will give you better camouflage, and keep you safe. You faced the enemy boldly through that last attack. I am proud of you, India is proud of you. The spirit of our Rani of Jhansi is present in you all. You are truly her daughters.’ They stood around him, faces tipped towards him, hardly daring to breathe or take their eyes from him. His voice was detached yet gentle, so close to each of them that he seemed to address them individually, as a father might speak to a daughter, or a lover to his beloved. ‘Remember, I will be with you in darkness and sunshine; we will fight together. India will be free.’ The words resonated so deeply within each of them that Muni reached out and grasped Sita’s hand to steady her emotions. Outside the open door rain fell from the eaves in a curtain, hammering on the roof, sliding off the sodden trees. Netaji

136 turned and a smell of damp uniform lifted off him, perfumed by boot polish and pomade. Rain splashed his spectacles and he took them off to wipe them dry with a handkerchief he pulled from his pocket, warming the glass first with his breath before polishing them. Without the spectacles his face appeared for a moment boyish, unknown and strangely vulnerable. Then he replaced the glasses again on his nose, and Netaji was before them. ‘Already, as you will have heard, we have been forced to withdraw back to Imphal. This setback is temporary. God is with us; soon we will march again on Indian soil. Freedom is near. Many of our men are paying the ultimate sacrifice; many more are wounded. As the battle increases so do our casualties. At the front, without nurses to care for them, many men are dying in field hospitals far from here. Those that can be sent here to Maymyo have our nursing Ranis to care for them. As you know, casualties are increasing and our nurses are too few. Your wounded brothers need your help, so some hours of your day must now be given to nursing them. Your military training will continue, but your work in the hospital is now of equal importance.’ Netaji’s voice flowed over them, like water hollowing out the hardest rock. A stir of shock greeted this announcement, although nobody dared to voice any opposition. ‘All these months we have been training to fight, to go to the front and fight with the men.’ At last, Preeti protested weakly for them all. ‘We want to fight,’ Muni spoke up, and an approving ripple of concurrence was heard. Netaji nodded patiently, turning to speak to her directly. ‘Beti, you know, before I slipped out of India in disguise and went to Germany, it took me three months of meditation and prayer to

137 decide if I had strength enough to face death in fulfilling my duty, if I could sacrifice myself for a bigger cause. If I could do this and if so many of your brothers have sacrificed themselves for our Motherland, then, difficult as it is, this is the sacrifice I now ask of you. Remember, your training will also continue. Your wounded brothers are only asking for a short part of your day.’

That night Sita dreamed of the bhajanashram. At the door Roopdidi and the black dwarf, Motilal, waited for her with the palanquin ready to ferry her to an unknown destiny. Then Billididi appeared, pushing her aside, stepping into the litter instead of Sita. ‘Go quickly to Old Maneka before they see it is me in here instead of you,’ Billi said. Sita ran to find the old woman, and found her at last sitting on the riverbank. ‘Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Radhe, Radhe.’ Old Maneka’s cracked voice rose in worship. She swayed gently, eyes closed, lips bunched loosely over her toothless gums in a gentle smile of devotion. ‘Lord Krishna is my lover and my son. See, see there he is.’ Maneka opened her eyes and pointed across the river. In the distance on the opposite bank Sita saw the handsome god, tall and muscular and blue skinned, playing his pipe, surrounded by a crowd of beautiful gopis. The cowgirls had left their herds of cattle, to sport and dance with the god. They swirled around him, bodies bending gracefully, leaning towards him, eyes fixed upon him full of longing. Sita knew the old tale well, it had been told to her so often by her grandmother. Sita remembered how, of all the beautiful and adoring cowgirls, Krishna wanted only Rahdha, whose deep and unconditional love outlasted the god’s many thousands of other romantic dalliances, always waiting for

138 his pleasure. Then, from over the river, Sita heard her mother’s voice, singing a song she sang at the millstone, grinding the wheat for flour. A Woman’s life! If I’d known, I wouldn’t have been born. I’d have become a sacred basil plant and lived at God’s door. Sita saw her mother walking towards the river, a newly born child in her arms. Her shakti is great. Now it was her grandmother’s disembodied voice that floated to her. Sita stared across the silver surface of the river, searching desperately for her mother and her grandmother, but saw only the slender yearning bodies of the dancing gopis. In their midst now stood not the god but Netaji, brass buttons and high polished boots agleam, broad belt buckled over his uniform, inclining his head with a bespectacled smile towards the yearning women. Sita woke with a start to the dark narrow room, sweat pooling in the hollow of her neck, her heart pounding in her ears. In the bed beside her Muni breathed calmly. Sita lay back, waiting for her racing heart to settle. And knew in that moment, just as her mother had released each small daughter into the safe embrace of the river, her grandmother too must have done the same, as had her mother too before her. Sita saw a line of small corpses and murderous mothers stretching back into the past, unending. And the eternal river, always there, welcomed into its black oblivion generation upon generation of missing women. ‘Maa,’ she whispered, remembering her mother, remembering her grandmother, remembering herself, her heart breaking for them all.

From then on the day was divided, the larger part spent at the military hospital. Because of her past first-aid experience, Sita was put

139 in charge of teaching others the methods of bandaging and cleaning wounds, of turning a sick patient, of taking a pulse and gauging fevers. Many of the men in the hospital were suffering from endemic diseases and when better would return to the front. Each night, Sita and the other girls in the dormitory discussed the situation. There were eight of them, Amrita and Kaamla were both from Bengal and had basic education, while Valli, Chellam, Sarla, Muni and Parvati were Tamil girls from the rubber plantations. ‘We should be fighting there with the men,’ Sita said, thinking of Shiva, and all he must be enduring. The daily sight of shrapnel wounds and frequent death left her with a great fear for him. ‘They say Netaji wants to protect us from death. That he will never let us go to the front,’ Valli told them. Her short-legs and wide hipbones had been difficult to fit into uniform, but her good-natured face with its flat cheeks and narrow eyes laughed off most problems. ‘We are not afraid to die for India.’ Muni reiterated for them all. They sat cross-legged in a circle before the beds. It was the end of the day and a candle burned beside them on the floor, casting long shadows on the dark walls. ‘The men in the regiment have a jan baz, a suicide squad, who are ready to die in battle whenever there is a need,’ Chellam reminded them. She was a distant cousin of Valli’s and had been born on the same rubber estate. ‘Why did Netaji name us after the Rani if we are not allowed to fight like her?’ Parvati queried sullenly. ‘He is treating us like women, when he has trained us like men.’ Muni decided.

140 ‘We must write him a letter…tell him the Rani of Jhansi regiment must also have a jan baz,’ Sita decided, immediately excited by this idea of a suicide squad. ‘It must be a proper serious letter,’ Valli cautioned. ‘We can sign it in our own blood?’ Muni clapped her hands in childish excitement. They crouched together on the floor by the light of the candle and a torch. Sita found a razor andgave it to Muni. Then, one by one they extended their hands and Muni gave each a quick cut on the pad of a finger, squeezing the blood into a small container. Sita closed her eyes and held her breath as the sharp nick of the razor sliced open her finger. The blood, jewelled in the torchlight, dripped steadily into the bowl as she watched. With each drop she felt some part of her life trickle from her, a memory, a feeling, a moment of the past. And she knew an old self was finally being discarded. Just as a snake wriggled out of an obsolete skin in order to grow, with each drop of blood that fell from her, she was willing an old self away. Whatever the future might bring she was ready now. Paper and pen were found. As Amrita and Kaamla were educated and had a good written hand they were chosen to write the letter. Amrita took up the pen and began to write, everyone deliberating together before each phrase was written. ‘Our training has met all requirements and is complete, yet we are now denied access to the front line. We are reduced to being nurses. This is hard to understand. Why are we being treated like this? You gave us the name of the brave Rani of Jhansi. When the first training camp in Singapore was opened we were assured that we could go and fight in the thick of battle like the Rani of Jhansi. We beg you to give immediate orders to send us to the front. We have signed this petition in our blood,

141 in order to prove to you our determination to give our lives in the cause of freedom of our Motherland. Test us, Netaji, you will never find us wanting in the true spirit of the Rani of Jhansi.

At last Netaji summoned them. He looked up from behind a large desk piled with files as an aide ushered them in. They crowded before him, unsure if they should affect defiance or apology. Netaji laid aside his pen and leaned back in his chair, observing them silently. Then he sat forward and shook his head, sadly, lovingly, as if they were small children, and sighed deeply. ‘You are true daughters of India. Because I know the same feeling courses through your blood as it did through the real Rani of Jhansi, I cannot forbid you to follow your destiny. Be aware however of what you go to. There is scarcity of food, clothes, medicine and ammunition. You must live like the men, without any concession to your sex. Above all, if you die you will die, but if the enemy capture you they will not treat you well. Then, I fear, you will not be treated as men, but as women. I do not have to tell you what you might face. It is not yet too late to decide to remain in Maymyo.’

142

Chapter Eleven

Maymyo Burma 1945

There were ten of them in the new jan baz; two more girls joined them before Netaji put his foot down and joked that soon no nurses would be left to tend the wounded men returning from the front. They left Maymyo quietly, at 4am in the cool darkness before dawn. The new year of 1945 had already drawn them into its web. It was the middle of January and Netaji insisted their expedition was to be kept a secret, otherwise he feared everyone would want to join them, and he had no mind to let others follow. The monsoon was slow to pick up force and the rain was slight. Netaji advised they proceed quickly before the rain became a power to reckon with.

143 Once out of Maymyo they kept close to the great Irrawaddy River, driving along beside it as dawn began to break. Captain Bahadur, from Netaji’s own corps of officers, was with them and two jawans, Tamils who had previously worked as tappers on rubber plantations. Reva, as their commanding officer was also going with them on Netaji’s order, to see them safely to their destination. In places the muddy river was as wide as a sea and the opposite bank appeared a far country. The strong smell of the water came to them in the early morning. Fishermen were returning with their catch, and the magical breaking light on the still ochre surface of the river seemed as unreal as their journey. In the truck Muni clasped Sita’s hand tightly; they sat in silence, their faces held to the cool breeze blowing upon them as they sped along. Once the river was forded they turned north, driving up into rough and hilly terrain. Bombing had damaged the road, slowing their progress. At last the truck drew to a sudden halt and the driver announced the engine had heated up. ‘Camp very near. Can walk in one hour,’ he told them. In spite of the cloudy monsoon sky, the sun was hot when it broke free. As they pushed up into the Chin Hills, they did not sing the loud marching songs learned in Singapore, instead Captain Bahadur ordered silence, aware of the guerrilla fighters all about them. When they stopped by a stream for a meal of dried biscuits, and some local fruit they had picked earlier from a tree, he admitted the danger of ambush. ‘The tribes in these hills, the Chin, have units trained by the British. They are fighting also under British commando officers. But we are striking hard at them.’ There had been no rain for a couple of days and the muddy tracks of boot and tyre marks of previous military units had dried in the sun, and stood out like a plaster relief. In places they stumbled

144 upon the remnants of campsites, and once the ground of a skirmish where the land was scorched, the charred remains of trees standing bare and black against the sky. In places magnificent views appeared before them with the silver ribbon of the river caught far below in the neck of green valleys. The stillness and silence as they walked was broken only by the movement of their feet through the low scrub, the breaking of a branch underfoot, the call of a bird, the buzzing of an insect, the hard rasp of their breath. The image of Shiva was always before Sita now. Was he somewhere here, in these same hills, laying in wait for Chin guerrillas? Had he been in the skirmish on that piece of bullet-strewn ground? They kept close together, Captain Bahadur leading the way, the two jawans behind them at the rear of their column. These men were happy to converse in their common language with the Tamil girls. ‘Why are you doing this, Sister?’ the man called Ramanan, asked Muni. ‘We are here to protect you and to fight for you; there is no need for women to go to war. This is not women’s work.’ ‘This is not what women do.’ Thileepan, the other man nodded agreement. ‘Help us if we are wounded and pray we do not die. That is what we ask of women.’ Muni translated what he was saying to Sita, who could not control the sudden leap of anger. ‘Before they think of us as soldiers, they think we are women, even though we may be called upon to give our lives around the next corner,’ Sita burst out, her breath pumping hard as she climbed, the men’s dismissal rankling in her. The terrain was littered now by small steep hillocks and as they approached the top of a slope Bahadur slowed his pace, gesturing suddenly for them to crouch down. At once they froze, pressing themselves against the ground, loaded guns thrust before them. Ahead

145 there was movement, and then the sound of voices. Bahadur stood up with a laugh of relief. ‘They are our own men,’ he told them. It was a small platoon and they were welcomed into the camp. ‘There are two hundred of us but we are split up into small groups in this area. We are all around in these hills and have been camped out here for two days. We were ambushed in a skirmish.’ Captain Govind Singh, the commander told them, his eyes resting on the group of Ranis. ‘Our supplies and ammunition are low. These hills are dangerous; Chin irregulars are working with detachments of Gurkhas and British in the area. This is not a place for women. Go back to Maymyo,’ Captain Singh frowned, clearly as disapproving as the jawans of their female presence. Later, in the darkness they sat around a fire, and a brew of hot tea was served them. ‘This hill is technically no-man’s land. At the bottom the British are behind the Chin guerrillas and can supply reinforcements, while up here we are now cut off. We are planning another attack. This time we will push them back.’ ‘We will fight with you,’ Reva told him, and the Ranis nodded agreement. ‘You are women,’ Captain Singh voice was again filled with censure. ‘We are women trained to fight,’ Reva reminded him quietly. They slept in the open alongside the men while a guard kept watch. Sita thought she could not sleep, so great was her excitement and tension. Instead, when she opened her eyes the dark sky above was already streaked with pink and her limbs were stiff and cramped.

146 One by one they went to wash in a nearby stream and ready themselves for the day, keeping their rifles and knapsacks near. Broad-leafed trees forested the surrounding slopes, draped richly with lianas. Epiphytes clung profusely to branches and tall massed clumps of flowering rhododendron splashed the area with colour. Wild orchids were everywhere, and Nuthatch and Laughingthrush sang in the trees. It was too beautiful to be a battle site, Sita thought, touched by the peace and perfection of the place. There was a good view of the surrounding hills where Captain Singh said groups of INA men were camped and waiting. She wondered if Shiva was near in these hills; she closed her eyes and willed her spirit to find him. In the shade of a boulder she took the small picture of the Devi from her knapsack, and said the prayer she said each morning, picked a wild orchid in offering. The picture had survived bombings and trauma, and she kept it close to her always. From where she sat a view down the steeper side of the hill opened up, and beyond it the green-blue folds of the mountain range, hazy already with rising heat. In Sita’s hand the goddess smiled up benignly. Poised like Sita upon a high mountain, ready for battle, the landscape behind the Devi, Sita noticed now, resembled these hills. The tiger’s glowing amber eyes, wild and predatory, waited to pounce upon those who threatened the goddess. Sometimes her grandmother used to sing her to sleep with an old song about a tiger. My father’s a tiger, so I’m sprung from a tiger! But what can I say? I was born a mere woman. I wanted to work with all the speed of a tiger, But what can I say? A woman’s life is my lot.

147 She could not remember more of the old song, but she remembered asking her grandmother, why can’t a woman be like a tiger? ‘Ai Yaar!’ Her grandmother sighed. ‘A woman’s life is worthless, controlled by others, but our tiger-power lies deep inside us and carries us through the lot.’ At that time Sita was confused. Now, as she stared at the picture of the goddess, she knew the deity was but the sum of this female strength her grandmother spoke of. For the first time then Sita saw the goddess for the woman she was, reflecting her own female strength, not the remote deity of myth. The goddess was within her and she within the goddess; warrior women in the battle of life. A spurt of joy filled her at this realisation. Then, as the thought settled within her, she heard a shouted order from the camp and the sudden spurt of gunfire. ‘Ambush. Attack. Fire.’ Chin guerrillas had moved up silently from the base of the hill and surrounded the camp. She saw Muni, Sarla and Valli had run from the stream, slipping into the narrow spaces amongst the outcrop of boulders, separate but not quite hidden from each other, able to signal and communicate. Then, everything they had trained for took over. They fired, recharged and fired again. ‘Charge.’ Again the order came and they saw the INA men leave their wooded cover and run forward at the command toward the oncoming Chin guerrillas. ‘Jai Hind!’ They were all shouting and running. The slope dipped steeply down before her. Sita raced wildly forward, rifle in hand. She fired and fired again. The breeze rushed into her face as she ran, her cap toppled from her head. Jai Hind, the shout left her lips as she run. Jai Hind, she heard Muni beside her call out, her voice floating

148 hoarsely in the air behind Sita. They were all running; she glimpsed Valli, Sarla, Kaamla, Parvati out of the corner of her eye, their expressions fierce and warrior-like, teeth bared, eyes bulging. Lower down the slope she saw their own INA men clash in hand to hand combat with the Chin guerrillas, small fierce tribal men. She saw the flash and thrust of bayonets, the crack of guns. Jai Hind, the INA men called out. Already bodies littered the hill. She ran on, the breeze rushing about her ears, drying the sweat on her neck. From other slopes and from the encroaching jungle the cries of Jai Hind were now answered by calls of Inquilab Zindabad, and Azad Hind Zindabad, and Sita knew their own Indian National Army men were all around. More shots rang out. A deep boom sounded and then the high-pitched whirr of an approaching shell. Earth spurted up all around her. Beside her Muni fell as they ran, rolling ahead of her down the slope, blood pouring from her arm. Sita gasped and turned but could not stop to help her, treading on Muni’s outstretched hand, not even feeling the crushed flesh beneath her boot. The din of blasting shells thundered around her. Then, unexpectedly, the slope was rising up toward her face, pulling her into blackness.

She woke to a swaying motion and fond she was being carried on a canvas stretcher. ‘Keep still,’ a voice said as she tried to open her eyes. Looking up she saw the face of the jawan Ramanan, who had accompanied them from Maymyo. ‘Muni?’ Images flooded back into her head. ‘We have already taken her back to the camp. The Chin had mortars; we had only rifles. They’ve taken the hill. We have been forced to move back.’

149 When they reached the camp Captain Bahadur was waiting, and Reva rushed forward in relief at the sight of Sita . ‘Muni is all right although a bullet passed through her shoulder, but some of the men in the camp are dead,’ Reva replied to Sita’s urgent inquiries, beckoning forward a medical orderly. ‘A fragment of shell must have grazed you, but the wound is superficial,’ the orderly confirmed. Once her wound was dressed Sita went to find Muni in an adjoining tent, stretched out on a blanket with her arm heavily bandaged. ‘I thought you were dead.’ Muni tried to sit up when she saw Sita, tears running down her cheeks. She reached out with her good arm to grasp Sita’s hand. Outside the tent Sita could hear Captain Bahadur speaking earnestly with Reva. ‘We are being pushed back on all fronts. Take these girls back to Maymyo. We have no choice but to remain here, but in these circumstances Netaji would want them to return.’ The man spoke impatiently, and Reva nodded agreement. ‘If our truck can move, we will leave tomorrow, and will take your wounded men back with us as well,’ Reva decided. Beyond the open flap of the tent, Sita could see jawans already digging graves, burying the dead. Netaji was not in Maymyo to welcome them when they returned from the skirmish in the hills; he had left for Rangoon, Imphal, and Kohima, travelling the country, assessing the situation, giving strength and impetus to his troops. It was some days before Muni was well enough to sit up and take a bowl of soup. Meanwhile the monsoon had suddenly picked up force, emptying down upon them. Rain drenched everything. Sita slept at Muni’s side, returning to

150 the barracks to shower and change. Through the day she worked as needed in the hospital, looking in frequently on Muni. In the weeks ahead, although they kept up some hours of military drill and weapons practice, all pretence of their potential as soldiers was forgotten. Casualties were coming into Maymyo from the front at such a rate that they were needed as carers, not warriors and, reluctantly, they settled down to a life as nurses. The sight of these battalions of wounded men brought before them more sharply than anything the reality of war and the fact that men were no more than fodder for battle. Sita, tried to keep this fact from her mind when she remembered Shiva, sick at the thought of where he might be, and if he was dead or alive. Weeks went by shrouded by the interminable dampness of the monsoon, pillows and cushions stank; mould grew on leather and walls and in the grouting of bathroom tiles. In the hospital those men who survived the front told stories of untenable conditions, lack of food and supplies, soldiers dying of wounds, exhaustion, starvation or disease, of the bodies that could not be burned or buried and were left to rot in a bog of mud. Air raids sirens blared all day, the bombing on Maymyo intensified. Eventually, an order came from Netaji in Mandalay. They assembled before Captain Lakshmi who told them the news. ‘The Japanese army is retreating. Things are very bad. You will be leaving Maymyo for Rangoon.’ She read out the message Netaji had sent to the assembled girls. ‘Though the Japanese Army has given up the operation, we will continue it. Increase in casualties, cessation of supplies and famine are not reasons enough to stop marching. Even if the whole army becomes only spirit we will not stop advancing toward our homeland. This is the

151 spirit of our revolutionary army.’ After reading this Captain Lakshmi put down the typed paper and turned to the shocked girls. ‘Of course, you can understand, without Japanese support it is not possible for us to push forward alone, however firm our spirit. However, although you must leave for Rangoon, Netaji is determined that this will only be a temporary retreat,’ Lakshmi told them. As preparations began to leave Maymyo, Sita was filled by desperation. As the town was a military centre, there was always hope that news of Shiva would surface. Wounded men came and went all the time in the hospital, and whole platoons passed through the town on their way to the front. Each day she scoured the lists of new casualties hoping to see the names of men from his regiment. Each day she secretly hoped to see Shiva carried in on a stretcher. Whatever his condition, if he made it to the hospital he would be alive, and she would nurse him back to health. Eventually, a few men from his regiment did arrive, but they knew nothing of Shiva. ‘The regiments are large, and we men are scattered around. We are fighting, we have no time to see who is there or who is not there beyond our immediate squad,’ one man told her, speaking grimly through the pain of a leg lost to shrapnel. ‘Sister, we are dying there like flies,’ another told her. ‘We are lucky to reach this hospital alive. Most of us die in the rain and the mud. Everywhere there is mud. The monsoon has washed away dirt roads; landslides make the one good road impassable. Supply routes are cut. All vehicles and mounted guns are stuck in mud. There’s no transport, no food, no medicines.’ The man had suffered a bullet through his ear and half his head was swaddled in bandages; he stared at Sita through his one free eye.

152 ‘Not even animals should die as we are dying at the front,’ the amputee put in. ‘Then, you do not know my husband?’ Sita whispered again. ‘We do not know him, Sister,’ the man with the bandaged head confirmed, his voice full of sympathy. Eventually, they left Maymyo and when at last they reached Rangoon the Japanese were already withdrawing, preparing to surrender the city to the advancing British. In the centre of town columns of smoke rose from the compounds of government buildings as papers were burned and essentials packed up. Panic was everywhere. Netaji was already in the town and on his instructions the Ranis of the Jhansi Regiment were to be temporarily disbanded. From Rangoon the girls who had joined the regiment from Burma and Thailand were to be sent back to their homes under escort. With great difficulty the reluctant Japanese were persuaded to supply vehicles for this purpose. Of the remaining Ranis, only the girls from Malaya were now left in Rangoon and they were to depart on their homeward journey in the company of Netaji and INA troops, as part of a general retreat. Anxiety was mounting hourly for everyone; tension was everywhere. There was also the fear that if Netaji were found in Rangoon when the British entered the city, he would be taken prisoner.

153

Chapter Twelve

Rangoon and Bangkok 1945 The monsoon rain continued to lash down as they prepared to leave Rangoon in a convoy of cars and trucks. The vehicles were filled not only with the remaining women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, but with Netaji’s personal entourage, members of his cabinet, and an assortment of military personnel. Everyone was leaving. Retreating INA troops from the battlefronts of Kohima and Imphal that had already arrived in Rangoon, would follow the convoy on foot. There were more than one hundred and fifty girls. Sita and Muni were amongst the first to clamber into a truck. Rain thrummed down on the tarpaulin roof and splashed into the gutter beside the line

154 of vehicles. Through the curtain of rain Netaji could be seen at intervals, hurrying up and down the length of the convoy under an umbrella, intent on personally checking important details for the journey ahead. His two aid de camps, Colonel Sharma, an exceptionally tall man with a thin moustache that curled flamboyantly at the ends and Major Ahmed, a quiet, dour personality, hurried along beside him. As the shallow back-flap of the truck was slammed into place, Netaji appeared suddenly through the curtain of rain, peering into the vehicle, his bespectacled face assessing the girls anxiously from under his umbrella. ‘It will be a long ride. Do you have enough water?’ Behind his rain streaked spectacles Netaji’s eyes were bloodshot with fatigue, but he exuded the usual energy, hastening off to meet a Japanese military official who had just arrived at the scene. At last the convoy was ready, a revving of engines, a grinding of gears and they were on their way. The Rani’s trucks were the first in the convoy, directly behind the military cars in which Netaji and his entourage sat. Looking back Sita saw through the rain the thick body of men and vehicles, horses, pack mules and carts, swaying away behind them. Marching with them were the sodden ranks of infantry, the hundreds of exhausted men who had retreated through the Chin Hills into Rangoon. Starved and weary, they marched automatically, rain streaming off their waterproof capes and metal helmets. These men were not from Shiva’s regiment but their physical condition could be no different from any INA unit, Sita thought, anxiously scanning the column. Other regiments were retreating by alternative routes to Bangkok and she prayed Shiva was amongst them. For a while they tried to doze, but the truck, swaying and bumping over rough roads, the constant lashing of rain through the

155 open sides of the vehicle and the spray of mud and water from the road, made this impossible. Then, without warning an air raid began. They tumbled out into the rain, running for shelter wherever they could in muddy trenches or beneath dripping foliage. Every two or three hours this exercise was repeated until they were all soaked and exhausted, but no one was killed and no trucks were blown up. To everyone’s relief the aircraft took only a half-hearted interest in the convoy. The rain eased at last as they made camp in an area of secondary jungle where flooded paddy fields reflected the leaden sky like a giant mirror. After the cool air of Maymyo, these lowlands were hot and steamy. Netaji sat slightly apart with his aides. A jawan approached with his shaving things, setting them out before him on a folding table. Hanging a small mirror on a tree, Netaji began to shave. The branch upon which the mirror hung was lower than his height and he stooped slightly to get a view of his chin, lathering up a thick white beard. One cheek was already clean when the bombers returned, three planes circling and droning overhead. Everyone ran for cover, but Netaji made no move, continuing calmly with his shaving. Sita, with Muni and Valli, ran beneath a cluster of trees, looking anxiously back at Netaji who still peered unconcernedly into the mirror. Even when Reva hurried forward, begging him to take cover, Netaji waved her away. ‘I am like a cat with nine lives. Nothing will happen to me. You girls take cover immediately,’ he ordered, his eyes fixed on the mirror, pulling the blade through the white foam, clearing a furrow on his cheek. Soon the planes went away and, his shave finished, Netaji relaxed with a cigarette, poring now over a map spread out on the table before him.

156 At dusk the order came to move, and they climbed back into their vehicles to journey on in the relative safety of darkness. At last, at 2am, they reached the river and set up camp. In the blackness of night it was not possible to cross the water, just as the clear visibility of day left them like sitting ducks to the enemy. The grey light of the breaking day was the only slim corridor of time in which it was safe to ford the river. Once the sun was up enemy bombers would begin their first sorties again. Eventually, the first finger of dawn light revealed a riverbank alive with activity. In the darkness it had been impossible to see the number of men waiting to cross the river. Now Sita saw that beside their own Indian National Army men there were also thousands of sick and starving Japanese troops who had trekked down from the Chin Hills with commanders and officers, tanks and jeeps, weaponry and horses, to reach the river. Everyone must cross in the short span of dawn, or wait in hiding again for the following day. Men were already plunging into the water, swimming across the river, horses and pack mules amongst them. Netaji’s tent was being packed away and he came to stand near the waiting Ranis, all crowded apprehensively on the riverbank. ‘Revadidi, how will we cross? I cannot swim,’ Muni whispered, trying not to show her fear. ‘There are supposed to be rafts to ferry us across,’ Reva answered, her eyes strained on the river in the half-light, trying to locate these promised rafts. The thick odour of the water came to them. ‘What about the crocodiles,’ Muni whispered, daring to voice everyone’s dread. The strafing of bombers seemed little compared to the snapping jaws of the crocodiles that it was rumoured filled the river.

157 ‘You will be safe on the ferry,’ Reva replied. A Japanese general who was attached to Netaji’s staff approached. ‘It is best you cross first,’ he told Netaji firmly. ‘It is my duty to see you across.’ ‘What about these women?’ Netaji’s mouth pursed grimly as he gestured to the waiting Ranis. ‘They will follow with the rest of the troops,’ the general replied as curtly as he dared. ‘Go to Hell, I will not cross over until all the girls have gone over first.’ Netaji’s anger took the general by surprise. Stepping back affronted, forced to swallow the words of a superior, he glared at the women with open hostility. ‘Where are the ferries? The girls need a ferry,’ Netaji demanded impatiently as the Japanese general stormed off. Light now edged the darkness and Netaji looked up anxiously at the growing luminosity of the sky then hurried off to remonstrate with the Japanese officers. Colonel Sharma and Major Ahmed conferred together and then approached the waiting women. ‘There is a place further up where the water is shallow. You can cross more easily there; everyone is doing it. The ferry may never come; the Japanese have commandeered them all for their own use. We have already strung ropes across the water, we will help you,’ Sharma said, as Ahmed hurried over to tell Netaji the plan. ‘There are crocodiles in the water,’ Muni shouted out in terror, drawing back. Colonel Ahmed shook his head and turned to reassure them. ‘The river is shallow but fast flowing in this place. Crocodiles like slow moving water. It is the current you must worry about, it can sweep you away.’

158 ‘Hurry. There is no time.’ Reva led the way towards the shallow neck of the river to join the crowd of men and animals, all splashing and shouting as they waded into the water, everyone moving frantically forward as fast as they could. Then the slippery riverbank was beneath their feet, the mud already churned to a sticky mire by hundreds of feet. The cold water sank quickly into their clothes as one by one they dropped into the river. The straps of the heavy backpacks cut into their shoulders, the cumbersome rifles and kit weighed them down, their feet were blistered in their stout boots. ‘Careful,’ Sita turned to help Muni, who stumbled behind her as she entered the river, unable to balance under the heavy pack on her back, almost pushing Sita over. ‘Grab the rope and pull yourself forward,’ Colonel Sharma instructed. Their backpacks weighed up to thirty-five pounds when filled with kit. Their rifles, a further weight, were slung horizontally across their shoulders, their sodden clothes and heavy boots held them down. Although the water was relatively shallow, as the middle of the river was approached they were suddenly out of their depth. Clinging to the guide rope, the girls propelled themselves forward. When those, like Muni, who could not swim cried out in fear, Colonel Sharma and Major Ahmed splashed quickly into the water to help them. A short distance away in deeper water Sita saw horses swimming across, and mounted guns and lorries lashed to flat bamboo rafts. The river was alive with men and animals and hardware, all moving forward as quickly as possible under the breaking day. Eventually, gasping and dripping, they struggled up onto the opposite bank. Now the sheer force of their numbers encouraged them as they prepared to march again. Indian and Japanese, the long tail of

159 retreating men went on as far as the eye could see, but it was necessary to wait through the day, until the safety of night to continue the retreat. As they rested for the day in a deserted village, waiting for night to move on again, Netaji’s shaving things were once more laid out on a folding table. Every day his batman polished the brass buttons and buckles of Netaji’s uniform, but the splashes of mud that now weathered his clothes, as it did everyone’s, could not so easily be cleaned. Day after day they went on in the same soiled and sweaty uniforms. The crossing of the river was the only bath they had had in days, and no one mentioned the rank smell now lifting from them all. Whenever they camped, the first thing many girls did was to find a secluded place to wash out the cloths they wore through their menstruation. Many were now forced to supplement these with soft leaves and grass. Before his small mirror Netaji shaved as usual, but seemed in discomfort, moving his weight from one foot to another, his high boots dull with dust and flaked by mud. ‘It is his feet. He must rest them,’ Reva said as, from a distance, the Ranis watched Netaji anxiously. Walking up to him boldly as he finished shaving, Reva urged him to take off his boots to ease the pain of his blistered feet. As they watched, Netaji gave a resigned chuckle and reluctantly, shyly, gave in to Reva’s request, sitting down to pull of his boots and socks, revealing raw blistered feet. Muni disappeared and soon returned with some wide flat leaves, running up to Netaji. ‘Wrap these round the sores; they will help. We use these on the plantation if we cut ourselves, ’ she said, bruising the leaves between her palms before giving them to Netaji.

160 ‘You must use your car now,’ Preeti pleaded. The car followed Netaji everywhere, but he preferred to march amongst his troops. He chuckled and wagged a finger at Reva. ‘Do you think I am a naughty child? Tonight I will be fine; we are already near Moulmein. From there the train will take you girls to Bangkok. You will soon be safe,’ Netaji answered firmly. Yet, for as long as he could through the day, he sat obediently with his feet wrapped up in Muni’s medicinal leaves. “They have helped,’ he told her, seeking her out to thank her before he left for Moulmein in his car, at the insistence of some Japanese officers who thought it unseemly that Netaji refused to make use of the perks of authority. As Netaji promised, a train waited for them in Moulmein, and Colonels Sharma and Ahmed were ordered to accompany them part of the way. As always they travelled at night when darkness blanketed the carriages. They had been travelling less than an hour when the train lurched to a stop. ‘A bridge up ahead has been bombed. It is sixteen miles to the next station; we will have to walk. Get your things together.’ Colonel Sharma said, after the extent of the problem was clear. Reluctantly, hoisting their packs up again onto their shoulders, the girls fell into line behind their commanding officers. The thick leather straps now cut so deep into Sita’s shoulders that she felt a permanent groove must be carved upon her. Each night the raw rubbed skin of her shoulders, like her blistered feet, throbbed painfully. Eventually, as morning broke, they marched into the next station. The day was already upon them and with it the sky began its usual humming, as enemy aircraft droned overhead like swarms of predatory insects. As always they took shelter through the day,

161 seeking cover in the station as best they could until nightfall. The station was a sizable one, and appeared to serve several lines. Colonel Sharma pointed out the strange sight of passenger carriages and goods wagons scattered haphazardly about the tracks, as if a wind had blown them loose from their couplings. ‘They have disengaged carriages from engines, and pushed them separately about the lines. From the air it will look as if the trains have already been bombed, and the blast has scattered the wagons about. The engine is hidden over there, under that bamboo tunnel they had constructed, and camouflaged with leaves. A clever ruse, the enemy won’t bother to bomb here. You will be safe here.’ Colonel Sharma and Colonel Ahmed were returning by jeep to Moulmein, and to Netaji, but a small unit of Japanese soldiers who were at the station, had been ordered to keep an eye of the Ranis. Reva and Preeti as commanding officers would lead the girls back to Bangkok the following night on another train. An Indian stationmaster strutted about advising the Ranis where to camp in the station. A cool breeze blew over the open tracks, and many of the girls chose to stretch out on the platform. At intervals the Japanese soldiers appeared to check on them while bands of curious Burmese urchins from a nearby village gathered to stare silently at the uniformed women. A small girl of five or six attached herself to Sita, Muni and Valli. Her bony shoulders protruded above a dirty green sarong tied under her armpits, her matted hair was filthy, and her face was painted like all Burmese girls, with pale yellow patches of cooling thanakha. ‘We too are starving; go away,’ Muni told the child in annoyance, and began to cough. The state of constant dampness, from rain and mud and the fording of rivers, had brought many of them

162 down with infections. The stress of the journey had taken a great toll on Muni and her cough sounded worse by the day. They were all weakened by the effect of uncertainty, the continuous marching and a constant lack of food; a meagre meal once a day was usually scrounged, but on occasions they ate only every other day. Glancing anxiously at Muni, Sita called to the child to distract her. She lowered her bag and from its depths pulled out a single soft centred sweet wrapped in waxed paper that someone had given her in Rangoon, and presented it to the child. The breeze on the platform would not be good for Muni and Sita searched for a more protected location in which they could bed down for the day and looked across the abandoned carriages. Slipping down onto the tracks she led Muni and Valli over to one of the uncoupled carriages. The wooden seats inside made a convenient bed, and they stretched out in relief. Other girls followed and soon the carriage was full, rifles and bags of kit stacked everywhere. As they settled themselves, Sita turned to see the child had also followed them, and was touching the barrel of her rifle. ‘No!’ she snatched up the weapon, laying it carefully beneath the seat. The child backed away but did not leave, wandering curiously about, peering in awe at the uniformed women. On a seat opposite Muni and Sita, Valli peeled a shrunken orange given to her by an old woman as they marched through a village, and prepared to share it with the others. In the seat across the aisle Sarla, who had picked branches of wild longan near the station, co-opted the child into making herself useful, running up and down the carriage distributing the hard shelled berries, eyes aglow in her dirty face. The sight of the fruit cheered everyone, for they were all hungry. The urchin had taken a particular liking to Valli, sitting close to her, eating the bits of fruit Valli fed her. Soon Preeti appeared, crossing the

163 tracks between the platform and the carriage, bringing with her a few bananas that the stationmaster had given her. The day wore on, and one by one they fell asleep, the urchin curled up on the floor beside Valli’s bench. Outside, the last dark clouds of the monsoon continued to collect, but the rain still held off. In the carriage, the sound of Muni’s rasping cough was constant. They woke to the high-pitched voice of the child, who had scrambled up from the floor and was running about flailing her arms, shouting something incomprehensible. As they roused themselves, stiff and sticky with sweat, surfacing through layers of hot afternoon sleep, they saw the child jump down from the carriage and run off across the tracks still shouting. ‘Come back,’ Valli called through the open window, jumping up to scramble out of the carriage after the child. Chased by Valli, the child ran back along the track towards the station. As Sita leaned out of the window to determine what was happening, a shot rang out, and then another. Valli crumpled up as she ran, the child falling with her. Sita screamed and in a moment the carriage stirred to life, everyone jumping up, reaching for their rifles. ‘Get down. Don’t fire. Must be Chin snipers,’ Reva ordered. More shots were heard, nearer now; there was the sharp ring of metal bouncing off the carriage. Everyone crouched down but after a while when no further shots came, Reva stood up. ‘They are gone,’ she announced at last. Immediately then they all scrambled down from the carriage and ran across the railway lines to where Valli lay in a pool of blood. Beside her the child was stirring, beginning to cry. Muni dropped to her knees, her cough rasping through her sobs.

164 ‘It is too late,’ Reva said quietly, as Sita stared down at Valli in disbelief. Eyes open, her expression frozen in surprise, sweat still moistened Valli’s cheek. Sita waited for Valli to blink, as if freeing herself from a nightmare, and get up. Between her half open lips the edge of her wide front teeth with its familiar gap could be seen. The faint smell of the orange she had peeled for them earlier lifted off Valli’s dead fingers. ‘As she fell she must have pushed the child under her, to protect her,’ Preeti whispered. They stood around Valli in silent disbelief, trying to absorb what had happened, the urchin’s terrified howling filling the air. The child was covered with blood, but it was soon discovered the blood was Valli’s, and the girl was without a scratch. With an effort Preeti turned her attention to the child, but even before she could clean her up, the urchin twisted free as the stationmaster hurried up, and ran off in the direction of the village. ‘Let her go,’ he advised shaking his head as he looked down at Valli. Japanese soldiers, guns at the ready also hurried across the tracks to join them. They looked down at the dead girl impatiently. ‘Must bury quickly. Rain coming soon.’ One of the Japanese spoke some English and pointed to the brooding sky, darkening with not only approaching night, but also the coming rain. A distant crack of thunder sounded and as it passed, a scream was heard and they turned to see the girls who had returned to the carriage for their kit, jumping down and running back towards them. ‘Sarla too is dead.’ Their voices echoed across the track. In the carriage they found Sarla sitting upright on her seat, her head leaning on the window frame, eyes closed, as if she was asleep. On the bench beside her was a remaining stick of logan, a few

165 ochre globes of fruit still clinging to the branch. Sita remembered the second burst of gunfire that had sounded, the metallic ring of bullets bouncing off the carriage. One must have hit Sarla, and no one had noticed. A trickle of blood oozed from the dead girl’s temple, ran down her cheek and over her jaw. Muni, was crying, shocked and frightened, many others stifled sobs. Although they were trained for battle, nothing had readied them for death. In all the long months together, these were the first deaths in their regiment. The sound of thunder drew nearer and flashes of distant lightening now lit the sky. Night would soon be upon them and they must journey on. Already, the Japanese soldiers had ordered men from the village to dig the two graves a distance behind the station. The stationmaster stood over them supervising the work, anxious that at such close proximity to his place of employment, the job should be properly done. ‘If you are not digging deep enough animals are getting to the bodies, or bodies are rising up to surface in the wet mud. I have seen this happen before.’ The stationmaster hovered around the diggers, explaining his worry to Reva. Eventually, the burials were done and they gathered about the freshly turned earth one last time, their prayers and wan patriotic songs interspersed by Muni’s hacking cough. Jai Hind, they called out, saluting the graves, trying not to think of the bodies beneath, wrapped in not even a shroud, the wet earth shovelled directly upon them, packed heavy and damp about them. At last, tearful and dazed, they climbed aboard the train to continue on to Bangkok. The journey proceeded as it had begun, interspersed by bombs that constantly blew up the track, forcing them more than once to march yet again between stations and wait for a

166 fresh train to be put into service for them. Muni was now running a high fever, and a hammock-like stretcher was made for her from a sarong they begged in a village. In this manner Muni reached Bangkok as they staggered into the city after more than a week on the move. Netaji had arrived a few days before and had seen that an abundance of provisions awaited them, good beds in a airy dormitory, fruit, milk, rations of all kinds, and new uniforms. Muni was taken straight to a hospital where her condition was cause for anxiety. Sita sat with her through the first night, refusing to leave her side, willing her own breath into Muni’s slight body. One by one, units of INA men were arriving in Bangkok from different and distant locations. Some of these units had been in retreat and on the march since January, and it was now early May. At last, unexpectedly, the remnants of Shiva’s unit arrived, bedraggled, half starved and in a terrible condition. They had come across high mountains and thick forests, via Papun and then Moulmein, and not even Netaji had expected that they had survived. All the regiment were admitted into hospital but Shiva was not amongst them. ‘So many died of their wounds, of starvation and disease, we have lost count of who they were. Our own struggle to survive is all we remember,’ one man told Sita, repeating the same horror she had heard again and again. Sita was now helping in the hospital and most of the men she nursed were malaria patients. One, a stick of a man with a greying beard of stubble and wild eyes heard her asking the man in the next bed about Shiva, and beckoned her to him. ‘I knew him. If Shiva had food, he always shared it with others who he thought had less. His parents were killed in Jalianwalla Bagh; all he wanted was to set foot on Indian soil. One day he was

167 there with us, and the next he was missing. We were all sick; the enemy was pounding us every day. If a man went missing, we could not go back to search for him, we had to continue on without him. But we were pushed back a few miles and then I saw his body, half buried in mud. There was nothing I could do. Many lay like that without a grave, fodder for wild animals.’ The shock of it hit her like a physical blow. She left the sick man and sank down on a chair, emotion frozen within her. Spurning the grotesque tales of war, she had lived with the surety that Shiva would return to her, that they would pick up their life together. In her mind she had given fate room for no other option, willing him to return to her. Eventually, slowly, she stood up, took a step forward, then another, continuing with her work; telling no one, holding the knowledge inside her. Netaji left Bangkok in early June for Malaya and a tour of inspection. Before leaving he called the remaining Ranis of the Jhansi Regiment to him. He stood before them, tall and upright and as jovial as always, but he adjusted his spectacles every few minutes, as if they were no longer comfortable. A ceiling-fan whirred above him and in the breeze a tuft of Netaji’s hair lifted, his high boots were once again polished and gleaming, his uniform immaculate. His powerful voice flowed as always, revitalising them, reinforcing their sense of mission. ‘This is just a temporary disbanding, and you must remain ready. Until you are called upon again to fight you will go back to Singapore, to your homes and families.’ He was with them only a few moments. A car waited outside to take him on to a new destination; the impatient revving of the engine heard by all. At the door Netaji turned back and smiled again, wagging a finger at them.

168 ‘Promise not to go back and hide in the kitchen. Bring up your children to be strong and brave and fight for freedom. Keep the fire of freedom burning, pass it on.’ Then he was gone; there was the slam of a car door, the roar of an engine and he was gone from their lives. Later, in the dormitory Sita found Muni curled up on her bed, silent and tearful. She had been told she would be taken back to her home the following day. ‘I cannot go back to the plantation,’ Muni whispered. ‘When I return to the estate the family I live with will marry me off, probably to some old rubber tapper whose first wife has died. I want to stay in the army.’ ‘They are saying the Japanese military will soon surrender, and then the war will be over. There will be no army.’ Sita stared at Muni, collapsed in despair, emotions clenched tightly inside her. Sita leaned forward, saying at last the words she had refused to acknowledge. ‘I am alone now. Shiva is dead. I am a widow once again. You can return with me to Singapore. Later, we will think about what we can do.’ Even as she said the words, Sita was surprised at her fearlessness, how thought was following thought, opening up a future. There was no one now to shave her head or throw before her the white cloth of widowhood. Her life was her own, she was sure of that. Even as she spoke, she saw Muni’s expression strengthen and change, hope filling her eyes. This plan was soon dampened by the reality of protocol. ‘The Indian National Army is responsible for returning all the girls to their families. We must have written permission from a family to send you to a different destination. Go back to your family first, and

169 then maybe you can join Sita in Singapore,’ Reva said when Sita put their idea to her. When the time came to leave, Muni had to be forcibly parted from Sita. Sobs shuddering through her slight body, she was guided to a waiting truck that would take her, and other girls, back to the rubber estates they had come from. Sita stood in the road, tears smarting in her eyes, until the vehicle turned a corner and was gone. As she turned away a sense of aloneness swept through her, so powerful she caught her breath. In that moment she glimpsed her future and it was as if she peered over the edge of a rock and saw the nothingness into which she must negotiate a fall. The dormitory was already half-emptied of girls. Beside Sita’s bed Muni’s mattress had already been stripped and revealed a patterning of brown stains, testament to past occupants. It was difficult to imagine where Muni was now or the life that waited to claim her, it was equally difficult for Sita to imagine the life that awaited her in Singapore. Nothing but mists enclosed her. Since the moment she knew Shiva would not return, Sita had not been able to look at the Devi, turning her back as never before on that powerful image. Yet, that night, for the first time in days she lit a stick of incense, and lowered her head in prayer before the picture, propped up now on the stool beside her bed. She needed to think, to see the shape of her thoughts or something that would indicate the future, and saw nothing. In Singapore she knew she was assured of work at the Ramakrishna Mission, she had a home of her own, secured for her by her husband; she had no need for dependence on her brother. A flicker of excitement sparked within her. She raised her eyes to the Devi again, searching for direction. Atop her tiger Durga sat, radiant as always, the powerful beast obedient to her will.

170 Supreme in her feminine stillness she was one-unto-herself, belonging- to-no man, alone in her firmament. That was how she must be, Sita thought. Dr Sen came into her mind, and she knew that was how the doctor was, one unto herself, obedient only to her own will, guided by her own intuition. The next morning Sita was to travel on to Singapore by train and she set about gathering up her few belonging, loading her knapsack to capacity. There were other girls also travelling back to Singapore, and they reached the station well before time. As they marched down the platform, searching for their carriage, the INA officer who would be travelling with them came running towards them, waving his arms, shouting words Sita could not at first understand. As he ran soldiers on the platform, already boarding the train, turned towards him with expressions of disbelief. Then, at last, as he drew near Sita, the man’s words came to her clearly. ‘Netaji is dead. Killed in a plane crash in Taiwan.’ The man ran wildly about, his voice collapsing then rising again. Suddenly chaos erupted about Sita. Those already on the train got off again, porters with bags and cases stacked on their heads and shoulders, put down their loads, stray dogs began to bark at the commotion; no one believed the news. ‘Netaji is dead. Netaji is dead.’ The man continued to shout.

171

Chapter Thirteen

Singapore 1945

Dev was at the station to greet her. Once the war had ended Dev made regular enquires at the camp about which trains Sita might possibly be returning upon, and went to the station to meet each one. As the crowd of INA soldiers cleared from the platform Sita saw him standing anxiously at one end, craning his neck for sight of her. She waved and ran towards him, remembering how he had waited for her at the dock that day long ago when she first arrived in Singapore. In the two years she had been in the army, war made communication impossible and she had no idea of the course Dev’s life had taken. INA transport was waiting at the station, and took her to the Bras Basah camp. The British military administration was now in charge of the camp, and there had to be an interview with a British

172 officer before she could be released. The news of Netaji’s death, hung heavy on all the returning girls; no one as yet believed it. It was thought that with the surrender of the Japanese Netaji had once again donned a disguise and melted into hiding. When the time was right, Netaji would suddenly be heard of in Russia or China. ‘I heard someone ask him once how he wished to die’, Reva remembered as they sat in the canteen, drinking tea. ‘He said, “I should be flying high and I must suddenly crash to earth and die. That would be wonderful.” And he laughed.’ ‘No. He will suddenly turn up in Singapore,’ other girls protested. Such thoughts kept them all buoyant. Sita was shocked to learn that many INA officers who had previously been in the British Army, and taken as POWs by the Japanese, had been arrested as traitors and sent back to India for trial. Men from the INA’s civilian ranks, like Shiva, were able to discard their uniforms and melt unobtrusively back into ordinary life, but not the enlisted men. The women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment were being released after a simple interview with a British officer, and were dismissed as misguided creatures whose vulnerable feminine psyche had been preyed upon by patriotic zealots. Sita wore her uniform for the interview, and entered the room to stand before the British officer, an elderly man, with a narrow pinched face and weary expression. ‘Jai Hind! Netaji Zindabad!’ Sita shouted, clicking her heels together, punching her fist in the air. ‘All right. Be at ease,’ the man said with a sigh. ‘You all seem to have joined the Indian National Army for patriotic reasons, we are satisfied no one coerced you to volunteer. Go home, young woman, to where you belong, and look after your family,’ the officer said, clearing up papers on his desk, as if anxious to be rid of her.

173 Soon she was discharged and allowed to go home with Dev. Although so much had happened to her since they last met, Dev’s life had also changed. When at last Krishnaswami & Sons had reopened under Japanese licence, Dev returned to work there, promoted to the post of assistant manager. Sita gathered that he had had considerable dealings with the black market, buying and selling to his advantage. One of the senior managers at Krishnaswami who had a daughter of marriageable age approached him, anxious to find a husband for her. ‘My prospects were good at the store. Japanese soldiers had a bad reputation, so many marriages were quickly arranged to keep girls safe,’ Dev explained, as they climbed into a rickshaw for the ride to his new home. Dev had a good-sized room in a tenement house near Krishnaswami & Sons. The place seemed to reflect his elevated prospects for it had light and air and looked out over the crowded street below. His wife, Rohini, waited for them, a buxom, determined young woman who Sita, in spite of good intentions, immediately disliked. Although she was younger than Sita, her sharp eyes and firm expression was that of someone nearer middle age. She assessed Sita with open curiosity, taking in the straight drill trousers Sita still wore, that revealed the shape of her buttocks and legs, greeting her respectfully but with a briskness that barely hid her disapproval. Instinctively, Sita knew that once again, to other people, the status of widow coloured her every movement. Beyond this, as Rohini’s expression made clear, the outlandish freedom she had known as a soldier rendered her womanhood doubly untenable. As a widow Sita was now a family burden, dependant upon her brother’s charity. Already, as she bustled about, making tea, laying out sweetmeats to welcome Sita home, Rohini silently laid down the rules for their future

174 lifelong relationship. Dev would now have to make choices, Sita thought, and whether he liked it or not, his wife’s opinion would inform his decisions, and it was not for Sita to question this. ‘You will sleep here,’ Rohini said when the time came, pegging up an old sari across the room, to give each of them privacy. ‘I will stay only tonight. I have my own house,’ Sita reminded them firmly. Rohini frowned, pausing in the work of pegging up the sari. ‘You are my sister. I will look after you now,’ Dev hurried to assure her, his face creased in concern. ‘Now you are a widow, how will you live alone? What will people say?’ Rohini interrupted sharply, eyes on her husband. ‘Tomorrow I will go home,’ Sita repeated, her voice clear with decision. ‘It is not right. If no husband is there, a brother’s duty is to take care of a sister,’ Dev insisted. ‘What will people say,’ Rohini repeated. ‘We are not living in India,’ Sita reminded them. The following day, accompanied by Dev and Rohini, Sita turned the key in the heavy padlock on her front door, filled with the knowledge as she lifted it off, that it was Shiva who had last secured it. As she stepped inside hot stale air, edged with the scent of mildew and rat droppings, surrounded her and she hurried to open the window shutters. She imagined she detected the scuttle of insects or rodents fleeing as she entered. A familiar view of the courtyard was below and at the top of the lane the Ramakrishna Mission was before her, its domes and minarets unchanged. Everything was as she left it on that last day before she and Shiva departed for Burma; nothing had changed but herself. The cramped dimensions of the room pressed

175 about her in a way she had never noticed before, and she knew this was but a sense of her own inner growth. Dev and Rohini, following behind her, assuming the air of adults pleasing a fractious child. Rohini picked up the cushions and rug and shook them vigorously on the stairs outside, exclaiming at the clouds of dust released. ‘It is not right that you live alone. People will talk,’ Rohini repeated tersely yet again. ‘A brother should look after his sister,’ Dev repeatedly worried. ‘Being a soldier has made her like a man,’ Rohini nodded in agreement. Anger flared hotly through Sita. She wanted to say, I have faced death and I have had the power to kill, but I am not like a man. I am wholly a woman. These last words she would have shouted, had she felt she could speak. ‘You will soon see this is not the way,’ Dev said heavily as later, having seen Sita settled in, he and Rohini turned towards the door. Sita listened in relief to the metallic ring of their footsteps fading away down the spiral stairs. At the news of Shiva’s death she had found herself dry-eyed, tears refused to come, everything locked away inside her. Now, unexpectedly, a wave of emotion flooded through her and she gave a cry of pain. She stared at the objects about her, Shiva’s desk, the bolsters and bright cotton durrie on the floor, the low backed stools, the bedding roll, the shelf with Shiva’s old shaving mug, the brush still holding the dried flakes of soap from his last shave in the room. Whenever Shiva sat at his desk, she remembered, the light from the window fell directly on the top of his head, revealing the shiny patch of skin beneath his thinning hair. Above all she recalled Shiva’s

176 displeasure with her on that last day together. When they finally left the room she remembered the lingering scent of his shaving soap lifting off him as he locked the door, before they climbed down the stairs. That was the last time she saw him, for they parted there, going separate ways to their separate camps. Now, she made herself some tea and as she sipped it in the empty room his voice came back to her. If anything happens to me…I have paid in advance for this room. You will not be without a home. Had he had a premonition of what was ahead to so dutifully make provision for her? She buried her head in her hands. On that last day together before they left for Burma, she had worn a sari again to please him, gave him all the traditional deference a husband expected from a wife. Yet he had called her arrogant, changed, she remembered. Now, head in hands, she sobbed at her truculence, taking Shiva’s old shaving mug in her hands, the soft hairs of the brush still carrying the scent of the soap that had last touched his cheek. Yet, even in the midst of pain, aware of the extremity of her loss, she was shocked to find something within her refused to apologise for that glimmer of true self she had dared to show him. The next day she made her way to the Ramakrishna Mission in nearby Norris Road. Through much of the war the mission premises had been requisitioned by the Japanese and turned into a Japanese language school. The mission had been forced to disband its school and concentrate on their first aid post and whatever charitable work they could. Instead, the problem of the many destitute children of dead Indian labourers forcibly recruited to work on the Burma Siam railway had come to the notice of the mission. It had been decided to start a boys’ orphanage on a plot of land the mission had acquired at Bartley Road, while orphaned girls were accommodated in the girl’s

177 school at the Norris Road premises. With the end of the war Swami Vamadevananda had arrived from India to take back charge of the mission. He was a lanky man with little flesh on his bones beneath his saffron robe. He knew of Shiva’s long association with the mission and the work Sita had done before joining the INA, and met her enthusiastically. ‘We need all the help we can get; there is so much to rebuild and reorganise. We will be glad of your help, although we cannot pay much,’ he was clearly pleased by Sita’s wish for a role in the life of the mission, and full of respect for her status as a Rani of the Jhansi Regiment. ‘Of course, you do not have the education of your husband, so you cannot teach the adult classes. But our very young children need a teacher for basic lessons. Also, we have had some enquires from supporters of the mission here in Singapore for extra tutoring for girls in reading and writing, and this also you can certainly do. Because of the war there have been many disruptions in everyone’s education,’ Swamiji said. Her relief at his suggestion made her feel weak. It gave her the assurance that she would not have to put out a hand to Dev or Rohini. Swamiji seemed to see endless possibilities for her and saw some use also now for her military training. ‘We are moving the Girls Home to the Ramakrishna Mission in Penang; they have bigger premises there. It would be good if you could volunteer to help in escorting the children there. As an ex- soldier, everyone would feel very safe with you beside them on the journey,’ Swami Vamadevananda chuckled. Soon Sita found her life settled into a pattern not dissimilar to what it had been before she joined the INA. The mission was once more full of children; the coconut vendor had returned to the corner of

178 her lane and in Norris Road, the tea stall and cigarette kiosk had also reopened. Even though food was not plentiful, hawkers proliferated again, selling whatever they could. The black market still played a role in everyone’s lives and rationing continued. It took some months before the Girl’s Home was ready for the move up country. There were fifty two girl orphans to be escorted to Penang, some were in their teens and a few were still toddlers, but the majority were aged from about eight to twelve, and many of them Sita already knew from her work at the Mission. Three volunteers had been found to accompany her, the wives of local merchants. The journey, by train and by bus, retraced part of the route Sita had travelled with the army on the way to Burma. Finally they reached Penang, and took the ferry to the island, depositing the children at the mission without mishap and much to everyone’s relief. On the return journey it was arranged the four women who had escorted the children would again break their journey in Kuala Lumpur and Malacca. From the beginning the idea of visiting Muni had taken root in Sita’s mind and she could think of little else. She knew that the rubber estate that was Muni’s home was not far from Malacca. As soon as they arrived at the hostel where they were to stay the night, she made enquiries. ‘It is perhaps less than two hours from here; a bus goes regularly past that estate,’ they told her at the hostel. Her companions for the mission had agreed to wait for her to return before they continued the journey to Singapore. In the early morning Sita boarded the first bus headed towards Muni’s estate, and was eventually deposited, hot and dusty, at the side of the road beside some rusty metal gates. A narrow track led to the estate gatehouse a

179 short distance away, and Sita made her way to the low building. Inside, she found two turbaned Sikh watchmen who directed her to their Tamil supervisor. ‘No casual visitor is allowed into the estate,’ the man told her, looking up from his desk with a frown as she explained the purpose of her visit. ‘I have come so far,’ Sita replied wearily, refusing to be put off. ‘Her name?’ the man asked impatiently. ‘Muni…Muniamma…’Sita answered, realising for the first time she had no other name with which to identify her friend. ‘Here we call all women Muniamma.’ The supervisor’s frown darkened as, assessing Sita dismissively, he lowered his head to his work again and took no further notice of her. ‘We were in the INA together, in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment,’ Sita added in desperation. The supervisor raised his head, his impatience now changed to amazement. ‘You were with Netaji, you fought for India?’ With a loud scraping of his chair, the man stood up in awkward apology, suddenly full of respect. ‘Do you know my friend?’ Sita asked again. This time the man nodded affirmatively. ‘She is Muniamma Ramaiah, the wife of the kangani rubber tapper, Ramaiah. This is a small estate and she is the only one here who was in the Rani of Jhansi regiment. There were others but they all went back to India at the end of the war,’ the man told her. ‘Can you take me to her?’ Sita asked. ‘I am Gopal,’ the man introduced himself, suddenly now full of respect for her. Sita followed him out of the guardhouse to an old jeep

180 and climbed in as he held the door open for her. With a grate of gears the man started the car and began to move forward. ‘Netaji was my hero. I do not believe he is dead. Soon we will hear from him again. If he could not lead India to independence this time, then he will return to do so again.’ Gopal speculated as he drove, and then added a word of caution, turning to her as he drove. ‘I should warn you, the British have now returned to Malaya, and to estates like this one. They are not happy with people who fought against them, or sided with the Japanese. So, do not tell anyone you were with Netaji; it is safer nowadays to remain quiet, especially here on the estate. It has not been easy for Muniamma Ramaiah because of this.’ As they drove deep into the estate, the jeep bouncing over the uneven tracks, Sita’s apprehension increased. The rubber trees, planted closely together, enclosed them in an orderly green world. In places the sun shone through the locked canopy of branches, dappling the ground beneath. A strange stench pervaded the place, and grew stronger the deeper they drove into the estate. ‘It’s from the latex, but we are used to it. In the factory they steam it and we can smell it everywhere,’ Gopal told her, seeing Sita wrinkle her nose. The smell of the latex repulsed her, and she had a growing feeling she should not have come here. She had no idea of Muni’s circumstances, or whether she would even want to see her. It was her own need that brought her here, and already she regretted it. ‘Muniamma Ramaiah should be working in this area,’ Gopal announced, slowing the jeep, and Sita sat forward expectantly, looking about her through the long rows of trees.

181 In places groups of small children and women squatted, weeding the ground between the trees. Tappers, some men but mostly women could be seen tending the trees, checking the buckets that hung from each trunk to collect the dripping white sap. Sita scanned each woman carefully, but could not see Muni. ‘Muniamma Ramaiah. Muniamma Ramaiah,’ Gopal stopped the jeep and jumped down to call out the name loudly. The women weeding stopped in their work to look up at Gopal. Slowly, a figure emerged through the trees, walking towards them, stepping carefully. She wore a white blouse and a deep pink sari tied high about her ankles in a workman like way, and as she drew near Sita saw Muni was pregnant. Drawing a breath, Sita took a quick step towards her, ready with words of enquiry and affection, but they died on her lips for Muni stood silent and awkward before her. Refusing to meet Sita’s eye she hung her head, shy and awkward again. Her hair had grown and was plaited in two short braids settled over each shoulder. ‘I will come back for you later, in a couple of hours. There is a bus at midday,’ Gopal told her. Sita thanked him and turned to Muni, who stood silent and unmoving. ‘I have work to finish,’ Muni said in a low voice as Gopal drove off, darting quick glances at Sita. Taking no notice of the trace of resentment in Muni’s voice, Sita followed her silently into the green gloom of the regimented lines of trees, all patterned identically by thin incisions angled diagonally up the trunks. Below these hung a large cup to catch the dripping rubber sap. The shadowy world beneath the spreading canopy of the trees was alive with the shrill whirring of crickets and cicada, the loud squawking calls of birds was heard. Still Muni said nothing, turning to

182 lift a collecting cup off the tree, expertly pouring the thick sticky latex into a large metal bucket before walking forward to the next tree. ‘Why did you come?’ Muni finally asked, the resentment clear in her voice. ‘I wanted to see you,’ Sita told her. She wanted to say, you are like my sister, my younger sister who I lost but found in you, but knew such a confession was too heavy for Muni to absorb. Muni began to speak busily. ‘The sun is already high. I must collect the latex. The trees only give sap until noon; we cut them early in the morning for that is when they will bleed. Only the men are allowed to do that work. We women collect the latex and do weeding work,’ Muni explained, turning away to work at a tree. ‘When did you marry?’ Sita tried to force the old sense of communication. ‘He will not like that you are here,’ Muni said, her back still to Sita, continuing industriously with her work, walking quickly forward to the next tree. Putting down the heavy cylindrical bucket, she lifted the bowl of liquid rubber off the tree and poured it into the pail. Sita stared at Muni’s thin back, the familiar bony nodules of her spine beneath the white blouse, the long thin neck and slight, sloping shoulders. All these recognisable features were suddenly now made unrecognisable by the gentle swell of her body. The pregnancy was quite advanced; the child must be kicking inside her now, Sita thought, observing Muni in shock, unprepared for the painful longing that swept through her and left her feeling bereft. She struggled to hold her own envy in place as she followed Muni. She would never now have a child of her own as Muni

183 would. Muni walked forward speaking in a low voice, looking furtively around to see that no one was near or listening. ‘I do not want this baby. My family forced me to marry him. I told you this will happen; that I would be married off. I am his third wife. He is a Kangani; they are powerful man on the estate. You cannot refuse a Kangani,’ Muni whispered under her breath, and Sita strained to hear the words. ‘Where do you live?’ Sita asked. ‘Over there, beside the ‘lines.’ Muni pointed through the trees. A distance away at the edge of the plantation Sita saw a long line of dilapidated plank huts with attap roofs, raised up upon stilts. ‘Soon we break for lunch. I will take you there. He will not return until much later, when he is full of toddy.’ Muni spoke bitterly, turning back to her work. As they walked forward the groups of weeding women eyed Sita curiously, and called out loud greetings to Muni. ‘Are they friends?’ Sita asked as they walked towards the line of wooden huts and Muni’s home. Muni shook her head. ‘They are only speaking to me now to find out who you are. They laugh at me, make fun of me. “Oh you ran away to join the army! Thought a woman could be like a man! Went to bring us independence, but could you do it? No!” My husband also says the same things. Everyone laughs. It a small estate and the other girls who were Ranis have not returned here, but gone to India.’ Muni spoke in a sudden rush, her voice breaking with emotion, and then fell silent again. At last, they climbed the steps to Muni’s house. A smell of old wood, stale food and creosol filled the dark hot place. At first Sita was

184 blinded after the brightness outside, but as her eyes grew accustomed to the dim interior she made out a small bare room, a string bed in one corner, two chairs and a table in another. Muni walked forward to open a shutter, pulling closed a rough screen window. ‘The screen has holes and the mosquitoes come through,’ she complained. ‘The estate manager gives us quinine to take, but often the supply runs out.’ ‘Is your husband good to you?’ Sita was determined to know. ‘His one wife died of malaria, the other in childbirth, and both babies died; they were girls,’ Muni looked down apprehensively at the swell of her body. In respect of old traditions Muni would not say her husband’s name. He has no name but He to you. The echo of Chachi’s voice returned to Sita now. Muni poured out two glasses of water, and on a small stove heated the simple food she had cooked in the early morning. After they had eaten Sita leaned forward, unprepared for the degree of misery she saw in Muni’s face. ‘If your husband is a kangani then he should be a rich man.’ Sita knew the kanganis controlled all the labour on the estates, recruiting workers in India and bringing them to Malaya. The kangani were feared and took most of an indentured worker’s salary. Muni shook her head. ‘He is not a head kangani, he is not even a kangani with many men working under him, he controls only a small number of men. He too was once a worker on this estate himself. Now he drinks and makes everyone terrified of him. When he has had too much toddy he beats me. Otherwise he is …all right to me.’ Muni stumbled over the words.

185 ‘Come back with me,’ Sita urged recklessly, a powerful sense of responsibility rushing the words from her mouth. Muni looked up, for a moment a wild light filled her eyes and Sita thought she would agree. Then Muni hung her head again. ‘I cannot leave my husband…not now…’ Muni put a hand upon the gentle swell of her belly. A sense of loss seeped into Sita as Muni’s words settled within her. The old persistent image thrust its way again into her head - the river, the child, the sister never known, drawn down to her watery grave. She shook her head as if to free herself of the memory, listening as Muni began to speak. ‘He wants a boy from me,’ she said, breathing out the dreaded words, fear rounding out her voice. ‘And if it’s a girl?’ Sita asked in a low voice, a familiar darkness washing through her. Muni looked down at her hands and said nothing. Her face was closed, just like it had been when Sita first saw her. All the while as they spoke Muni darted quick glances at the door, as if listening for her husband’s return. Her old world had risen up, animal-like, to claim her again and Muni had not the strength to resist but had retreated into that world from which, briefly, she had emerged to fly free for a few short months. There was nothing she could do, Sita realised in despair. The mean dim house with its rotting smells had closed inescapably about Muni, dragging her down to a place from which she would never again struggle free. The open window glowed with the luminous sun-splattered world outside, the calls of birds and the whir of cicadas came to them in the airless gloom. Sita knew she had crossed the ancient threshold and travelled too far and too freely to return as Muni had, into an age-old position. Muni had retreated, the

186 old world already closed upon her, pulling her down into its depth, taking possession of her again. ‘You must go,’ Muni said with some urgency now, looking nervously again towards the door. Within a short while Gopal returned and Sita saw the look of panic, but also the relief on Muni’s face as they heard the jeep draw up outside. Suddenly all Sita wanted was to get away, and even as she embraced Muni and said her goodbye, she was ashamed at the need to flee. If she stayed longer she was afraid this dim world, whose shadows she recognised so acutely, would begin also to tug at her. She had a little money with her, and this she pressed now into Muni’s hand. ‘Use it for the baby,’ she told her as she climbed into Gopal’s jeep. She did not look back as the vehicle bounced away over the uneven ground. ‘Do not worry. She will be all right. Ramiah gets drunk but he is not a bad man, he is much better than many. If she has a boy he will be very happy with her. He has no other children,’ Gopal told her as they drove. ‘And if she has a girl,’ Sita asked. Gopal shrugged and did not reply.

187

Chapter Fourteen

Although in the past Sita had lived alone while Shiva was in the Newton Circus camp, every hour had been coloured by his unseen presence, the knowledge that he was near. Now, slowly, as the months passed, Shiva seemed to seep away, like a shadow dwindling as the light increased, until Sita understood there was nothing in her life but herself. Even Shiva’s shaving brush, which she had left untouched in its mug on the shelf before the small mirror, seemed to lose the last of its soapy perfume, the mirror now showing nothing but the reflection of her own face. At times she was horrified to realise she could not clearly see her husband’s face in her mind; she saw him feature by feature but not as a whole. Everywhere she turned she came up against herself. In the room the shadows lengthened and lightened, turning each day seamlessly into the next. As the months went by she withdrew into herself, content to be with the children she taught at the Ramakrishna Mission, and the

188 pleasure that gave her. The days that had been so spare and angular now rounded out to a more expansive shape. In the schoolroom the smell of chalk, the shrill chirp of children’s voices and the hummed repetition of rote learning floating from classrooms, and pushed her repetitiously through each day so that she need do no more than meet each hour, and to her surprise she discovered she was content. Although the Ramakrishna mission relayed heavily on its volunteers Swamiji, aware of her circumstances, insisted Sita be paid a minimum salary for her teaching duties. This, with the extra she earned from extra-curricular tuitions gave her a basic independence if she was frugal. She had never been encouraged to find worth in herself, but now the knowledge that she would be able to pay her rent and keep herself was a source of enduring pride. Dev was ever anxious to do his brotherly duty, and in respect to his need to fulfil his role, Sita went regularly to his home to eat a meal or spend time with him, prepared for his sake to endure Rohini’s unspoken condemnation. Something about her must appear a threat to her sister-in-law. The thought surprised her for, widowed for a second time, what did she have in her life but the sum of bitter experience? ‘Being a soldier has made you become like a man.’ Rohini constantly repeated the phrase until Sita dreaded to see the narrowing of her sister-in-law’s eyes, the condemning pause that preceded the words. ‘Do not tell people what you did in the war,’ Rohini always warned, her face crimped by a weight of judgement. ‘Even though you learned to shoot like a man, could you bring us independence? No.’ ‘There is to be a big trial at the Red Fort in Delhi. The British want to hang INA men as traitors,’ Dev informed her as they sat down

189 to eat one evening. Sita said nothing, afraid before Rohini to appear too knowledgeable of events, too aware of the greater world about her. She knew from listening to Shiva’s radio that all of India was ablaze at the impending trial, that Jawaharlal Nehru himself was to defend the prisoners, and the British were cowed by thoughts of the potential revolt this might inspire. She leaned forward with a comment to Dev, but then thought better of it and fell silent. The opinions that frothed up unasked within her, she forced herself to swallow down for fear of upsetting Rohini. Throughout this time, thoughts of Muni continued to fill her mind. The time for the baby must be near. Muni’s face kept coming before her, thin and closed and fearful again, just as it was when Sita first met her. If she was to be free of a rising anxiety for Muni, she knew she must return to the rubber estate. The coming weekend there was a holiday that freed her from the classroom. Telling no one, she took an early morning bus, packing refreshment for the journey, and tying up some biscuits and clothes for Muni in a carrying cloth, along with a cotton shawl she had bought for the baby. The bus was half empty, and wove through the emerald world of the jungle and rubber estates, vegetation stretching endlessly away either side of the road. A breeze blew in at the window, birdcalls came to her and the heat of the day seeped through the metal roof of the bus as it lurched along. Sita could not suppress her excitement. Already she imagined Muni filled by new confidence, replenished by motherhood, the baby held lovingly her breast. She had a deep and certain feeling that the child was a boy; Muni’s body had obeyed her husband’s command. As her son grew Muni would wake him in the morning with a glass of milk, she would serve him food with her husband and eat only their leftovers, he would be the kuladeepak, the

190 bright lamp of his family line. He would bring her the joy no daughter could. Sita leaned back, sleepy suddenly with the monotony of the journey. The seat beside her was empty and she stretched out and soon dozed. Each sway and bump shook her further into the layers of sleep. In her dream she journeyed back into the far past of memory until she stood again beside the river, saw the muddy flow ripple past her, and imagined the river beneath the river where the tiny body of her sister lay, waiting for her still after so many years. Sita stepped into the water, and plunging an arm beneath the liquid surface, grasped at last the hand that waited for her there. Leaning back on her heel to better balance the weight that now dragged on her hand, she pulled and pulled and felt the load lighten, breaking free of its anchor on the riverbed. At last, in a great surge and shower of water the body she clasped by the hand broke the surface. Yet, instead of her sister’s face, it was Muni who surfaced, laughing, shining, dripping, and her baby in her arms. Sita woke up with a start as the bus changed gear, careering dangerously round a bend. The dream stayed with her, filling her so powerfully that she felt frightened. Something beyond her control seemed now to enclose her, pushing her on. Eventually, she stood again before the rusted gates of the rubber estate, but at the gatehouse Gopal was not to be seen. The Sikh guards were asleep after their lunch at the back of the room and reluctant to be roused. ‘He is off sick, back tomorrow,’ the man in charge announced sleepily, anxious to be rid of her. ‘You came before. You were in the Indian National Army with Ramaiah’s wife,’ the man remembered, pleasanter now, taking her to

191 the door, pointing her in the direction of Muni’s house which he said was a mile or so down the track. Sita set off through the orderly rows of trees, the dark green world swallowing her again in shadows impregnated with the stench of coagulating latex. At every angle rows of trees radiated out identically about her, so that unless she was careful it was easy to be confused about direction. At times the sun was almost obscured, spearing the canopy of foliage with difficulty to dapple the cleared undergrowth. Where the trees were thinner the sun spilt through illuminating everything in a pale green light. Once again the constant whirring din of cicada and the shrill cries of birds came to her. Sita walked on, and eventually saw the row of houses ahead, atap roofed and perched upon stilts, chickens picking beneath, tall broad-leafed plants sprouting from tin drums. A group of women sat chatting and peeling vegetables below. Sita nodded a greeting and ignoring their curious glances, climbed the stair to Muni’s house, knowing the women silently followed her progress. The door stood ajar and she pushed it open apprehensively, wondering in what condition she would find Muni, hoping her husband, Ramaiah, would be absent. Once again as she stepped out of the sunlight into the dim interior, she was momentarily blinded. Searching the shadowy space for Muni, trying to adjust to the sudden transition of light, she saw a figure rise from a chair in a corner. ‘Muni.’ She took a step forward in relief. ‘You are late. Already one hour I am waiting here for you.’ Ramaiah spoke impatiently, moving towards her. His thin muscular body had the energy of a coiled spring and Sita stepped back in alarm, aware of the man’s eyes glowering at her from beneath thick brows.

192 ‘Everything you need is there,’ he gestured to the back of the room. ‘I have work to do; I cannot wait here any longer, like a woman.’ He wore a stained vest beneath which his belly bulged slightly over a green checked sarong; his cheeks were covered by grey stubble. He pushed roughly past her, and she caught the strong smell of alcohol. Flinging the door open, he called to the women as he descended the steps. ‘See she does her job and gets out of here quickly,’ he yelled. The door swung shut behind him. ‘Muni?’ Sita looked about in confusion, hoping to see Muni’s slight form materialise from some dark corner of the room. ‘Muni,’ she called again, but no answer came. Instead, from behind her she heard a whimper, and turning saw on the floor, pushed up against a wall, a cardboard box within which something writhed and turned. A cold fear washed through Sita as the child in the box now gave another cry. Stepping cautiously forward, Sita bent to pull back a sheet heaped up in the box. Immediately, a small face was visible, filled with the dark hole of an open mouth. Lips pulled back over toothless gums, the creature now began to scream. For something so small, the noise it made was deafening. As Sita bent nearer a fetid odour rose up and she almost retched as she turned away. The baby lay naked in its own filth, excrement encrusted its small buttocks, and its delicate female parts were already sore and inflamed. ‘Muni,’ Sita looked about the room again, still hoping to see a bundle of rags in a dark corner come suddenly to life. As she stared down at the screaming child, unsure of what she was supposed to do, the door opened and the group of women she had seen outside came trooping into the room. A plump elderly matron stepped forward.

193 ‘Take her quickly. Ramaiah is angry, and when he is angry nobody knows what he will do. First that no good Muni gives him a girl, and then she dies on him as well.’ The woman looked at each other and shook their heads sorrowfully. Already Sita could see the enraged man in her mind, ready to turn the child’s face into the mud, leave her in the jungle for snakes or wild animals, or drown her in a bucket of water. Instinctively, Sita knew that if the baby were a boy Ramaiah would not be so angry, he would keep a boy with him, a son. ‘Muni?’ Sita asked, bracing herself for what she would hear. A younger woman with a scar through her eyebrow spoke up. ‘We tried to help her but nothing could save her. They burned her yesterday. So many hours she was in labour. The child tore her apart to get out. The White Manager Sahib has told Ramaiah to put the baby in the local orphanage. They are looking for a wet nurse, but no one wants to nurse a She-Devil that killed its mother! No one will give their milk to her for fear she will kill them too.’ The elderly woman elaborated further. ‘Another woman from your orphanage came yesterday, she left milk powder and bottles and fed the child too before she left. Since then no one has fed her and she is hungry again. We are happy to help, but Ramaiah does not want it.’ They stood in a circle around Sita, looking down at the screaming child. ‘We’ll feed her before you take her away to the orphanage? We can help you,’ another woman offered. All the time the women talked, the baby continued to scream and Sita wondered how so much distress could be voiced with so much energy from something so small. ‘Poor thing, it is just that she is so hungry. Ramaiah does not care; he refuses to feed her. Let her starve to death, he shouted at us when we offered to help,’ the woman with the scarred eyebrow told

194 Sita. Another of the women set down a bowl of water and, picking up the baby, began to clean her. Yet another appeared with some oil to soothe her inflamed buttocks. The child, held against the warmth of a body, hushed and petted, now quietened, sobs still choking through her small frame. ‘That Muni was strange. She went to war to fight for India, like a man. Thought she was so clever, but what did she get, the British back here and Ramaiah for a husband? Now she is dead, not in war for her fine ideals, but in childbirth like any other woman.’ The plump woman gave a half-hearted laugh. ‘Who can escape her fate as a woman?’ another sighed. ‘We’ll get the child ready, and make up the milk. That mudka of water is boiled and ready. Muni always kept clean water ready. She’s gone, but the water she boiled is still there for her daughter.’ The plump woman announced. Sita stood straight and still, swallowing each shock the women unbeknown threw at her. She knew soon she must tell them she was not the woman from the orphanage but something held her back. Instead, she moved to the where the earthenware water jar sat on a stool in a shadowy corner of the dim room. When she worked in the first aid tent at Farrar Park, there had been plenty of babies who had needed feeding, and she knew what to do, measuring the powder out into the glass bottle. As she turned the tap on the water jar, filling up the bottles she was acutely aware that it was Muni who had poured in the water she now drew, that the screaming child behind her had grown from Muni’s own flesh and blood. As she straightened up she caught sight of a pile of folded clothes in a corner and saw the edge of the pink sari Muni had worn when she had seen her last.

195 ‘This is what you want,’ the plump woman laughed kindly, picking up the child, pushing the bottle into the ravenous baby’s mouth. The child quietened immediately, sucking as if her life depended upon it. Standing beside the woman, looking down at the child’s tiny face, Sita observed how its jaws clenched tight around the yellow teat of the bottle. She searched for Muni in the small face, but saw only the squashed red features of a newly born child. She put out a hand, and immediately the tiny fingers curled around her own with a determination that surprised her. At last, Sita took the child in her arms, wrapping her in the cotton shawl she had brought with her. The child slumped against her shoulder, replete, its slight weight sitting in the palm of her hand as she held it against her. The women were packing extra bottles of milk for the journey to the orphanage, and squares of cloth to wrap about the child’s tiny hips. ‘I am not from the orphanage,’ she knew she must tell them now, but the words would not move from her throat. Against her neck she felt the child’s small wet mouth. On the stairs outside there was now the sound of steps then the shout of Ramaiah’s voice. ‘She is not from the orphanage,’ Ramaiah flung open the screen door and burst into the room, coming to stand before Sita, bristling in accusation. ‘Take the child from her,’ he ordered, and the plump matron hurried forward, her face filled with confusion, to snatch the child from Sita. ‘Get out,’ Ramaiah ordered, his voice roaring in Sita’s ears. ‘Why are you here? Come to steal my child away? Get out.’ He advanced upon her, the women clustering helplessly now to one side of the room. The baby began to whimper, the noise quickly rising to a cry.

196 ‘Out, out. I know who you are. They told me at the guardhouse. You’re that INA friend, who helped fill her head with no- good ideas. An army is for men.’ Sita backed out of the door, stumbling down the steps. Ramaiah stood above her before the open door, still shouting, throwing gifts and food she had brought for Muni, still wrapped up in the carrying cloth, after her down the steps. ‘I told her to give me a boy. What use is a girl, a rope round your neck waiting to hang you? I told her, if it’s a girl, see that she dies at birth.’ In her haste Sita tripped on the bottom step, and would have sprawled on the grass if she had not clung to the rail. Above her Ramaiah continued to shout, behind him the baby screamed. ‘Stop it, stop it screaming,’ he yelled at the women, turning back into the house, slamming the screen door behind him. Sita scooped up her belongings and hurried away, her eyes blinded by tears, unable to control the sobs that rose up, the carrying cloth with its food and gifts bumping against her knees. Through her tears she saw the child carried away to an orphanage, to the life all unwanted women must expect, harsh and uncertain in its shape. When Sita’s mother had lifted her hand from her sister, giving the baby a slight push so that she floated into the arms of the river, the child’s eyes had opened beneath the glaze of the water, fastening upon Sita as if in plea. ‘Maa!’ she had cried but her mother took no notice of her, determined, knowing what was best for a girl who should never have been born. ‘Ma!’ she whispered now, feeling again Muni’s child in her arms, imagining her lips against the small body, the furry head, and

197 fragile bone. She walked on in a daze, passing the guardhouse, then the rusty gates. For a long time she waited at the bus stop, not knowing nor caring now when the next bus would arrive. ‘Wait.’ Sita heard a voice behind her and tensed. ‘Come back to the house.’ Ramaiah stood before her in his green lungi, the sweat glistening on his muscular arms, streaming off his neck from his hurried pursuit of her. He was panting hard but appeared calmer now as stood before her, his anger dissipated. She sensed the urgency in his demeanour and edged away, apprehensive now of his need. Then with a nod she turned and followed him, walking back to the house beside him in silence. He led her up the steps to the house and held the door open for her. In the room the baby lay quietly, sleeping now in her box. He motioned Sita to a chair. ‘Whatever I could I did for her,’ he pushed out his lower lip defensively, and lowered his eyes. ‘You beat her,’ Sita reminded him, listening to the whimper now beginning again in the box in the corner. ‘What man does not beat his wife? I told her to make a boy,’ he flared, and she heard the anger rising through him again. ‘God makes children,’ Sita replied, trying to appear calm above the rage sweeping freely through her. He stepped forward, as if about to lunge at her, to hit her, but Sita stood her ground. Then his anger seemed suddenly to evaporate and he sat down abruptly on the remaining chair, looking down at his bare feet, silent. He was not a bad man; she saw sadness beneath the anger, and her own rage died in a confusion of emotions.

198 ‘The child took too long to come. She was not strong.’ He spoke now in a low voice, his head bowed, his gaze fixed unmoving upon his feet. ‘Did she see the baby? Did she know it was a girl?’ Sita whispered, and he nodded, his face flooded by emotion. ‘I am not such a bad man.’ The words barely rose above his breath. ‘Sometimes, I am a violent man, but it is only when I am full of toddy.’ They sat for some time in silence, before he spoke again. All the while Sita twisted her hands in her lap, not knowing what was expected of her, acutely aware of the child stirring restlessly in her box. ‘She spoke about you,’ Ramaiah lifted his head, raising his eyes now to stare curiously at her. ‘She knew I could not manage a child without her. She knew I would put an end to it, or send it to the orphanage. If I die, give her to Sita, she told me. So, I give her to you. Bring her up with your family, your own children.’ ‘I have no children. I am a widow.’ Sita told him stiffly, meeting his gaze, her heart beating hard now in her throat. ‘I have some money. Keep her for me. I will pay you.’ His voice was flat and heavy, as if he was tired, as if he wanted the matter settled now. ‘I do not need money.’ He shrugged and stood up, nodding acceptance, speaking quietly now. ‘It is all right. The orphanage woman will come soon. They will take care of her.’ ‘If I take her, I will adopt her. She will be my child, to bring up as I wish.’ Sita stood up to face him, sure of the words that left her mouth although, until that moment, she had not known she would say them. He stood silently before her, his dark face already shadowed by

199 relief. This sour episode could soon be behind him, and he would be free. She took his silence as confirmation. ‘Go quickly then, before that orphanage woman arrives,’ he agreed. Carefully, Sita negotiated the steps, the child cradled in her arm, holding her close to her body. She walked as quickly as she dared, afraid of falling with the child on the uneven ground, surprised at the weight and solidity of the small bony bundle. All the time she walked as if in a dream, unable to understand what she was doing, what she was precipitating. Fate had pounced voraciously upon her, sweeping her up in such a way that she was powerless to resist. She tightened her grip on the child, holding it now against her shoulder, feeling the light rise and fall of its breath under her hand. Holding it tight. Hurrying forward, watching each step, she passed the gatehouse at last. Through the open window she glimpsed a stout woman in a navy sari whose stance was full of officialdom, and knew this was the woman from the orphanage being directed to Ramaiah’s house. Sita slipped through the rusty gates of the estate, walking as quickly as she dared into the road beyond. As she waited at the bus stop she rocked the baby gently on her shoulder. Above her the sky, compelling in its emptiness, arched over the green mesh of the jungle. A group of kestrels wheeled there, soaring up, higher and higher, gliding seamlessly on a wing. Then the faint rumble of an engine broke the stillness. Already in the distance Sita saw the outline of the bus coming up the road, moment by moment drawing nearer, becoming clearer as its image was freed from the hot emerald haze of the surrounding jungle. Soon Sita would sit upon it, and the child would continue to sleep on her shoulder, unknowing of the journey they took together, away from the ancient grief of the past.

200 The future waited, as yet insubstantial, but Sita knew it would be a future of their own making, shaped gently but surely by female hands, a place of nurture and of growth. She would call the child Amita, for it meant without limit, and would set her firmly upon the path she must follow if she were to fashion her own special universe. At last, in the bus Sita leaned back in the seat and drew a deep breath. Beyond the window a flock of green parrots rose from the trees as the bus passed, soaring up into the empty sky, forging patterns of mystery in the deepening light of the afternoon. Upon her shoulder the child slept contentedly.

201

EXEGESIS

A Study of Ambivalence and Change: Indian Woman - Warrior or Victim?

Introduction A novelist can often stumble upon that elusive literary ingredient, inspiration, in unexpected places. For me, it was the glimpse of a single, old, black and white photograph taken in 1943 which I came across in a book (Bose and Sinha, 1979, 175), and which stands as the initiating

202 impulse of my novel, Brave Sisters. An Indian woman of obviously humble origins, a new recruit to the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, an all-female unit of the Indian National Army, not as yet in uniform but still wearing her traditional sari, her hair in a long plait, is self-consciously taking a salute for her regiment. Her left arm is lowered, hand out of sight, but I feel it grasps a rifle. Behind her other women stand to attention, each holding the unfamiliar weight of a weapon.

The expression on the face of the saluting woman is a mixture of pride and hesitancy as she seems poised to step outside her prescribed life role as meek and obedient female, to assert agency and voice against an inflexible patriarchal tradition. From that picture my novel Brave Sisters took shape, flowing into the invented fictional experiences that allowed my main character to journey through the most testing circumstances of a nationalist war in the 1940s when, in an effort to free India from British rule, overseas Indians banded together under the leadership of the freedom fighter Subhas Chandra Bose. The perspective allowed me to explore how the challenge and the opportunity to accept such a situation could function as a means of achieving major psychological and social change and development within a community of subaltern women.

In Brave Sisters I examine the life of a fictional character, Sita, an illiterate woman who makes the decision to reject traditional ways and become a female soldier in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (See Appendix 1). I choose to make my protagonist a woman of the subaltern class, beginning the earliest stages of her life in what is traditionally regarded as perhaps the most disempowered of female situations in Indian society, that of child widow. I selected this disadvantaged starting point for my character in order to demonstrate the extreme negativity of the life space many Indian women of that class are forced to occupy. The location I choose for my

203 character allows me to examine how such women’s lives are largely the construct of a society constricted by tradition and patriarchal conventions. I could then explore how, through participation in such historically documented acts of resistance as the involvement of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment in the campaign of the Indian National army, such women could be given opportunities for agency and resistance, contrary to Spivak’s famous claim that ‘the subaltern has no voice ’(qtd in Ashcroft et al. 1995, 25). In these situations the complexity and diversity of female life is revealed and the capacity for innate feminine strength and the development of the bonding of sisterhood is illuminated.

In Brave Sisters I transfer Sita from the closed situation of her childhood ordeals, and bring her to the new and culturally alien world of Singapore, into a space where she is exposed to further traumatic events that will reshape her life. Forced to look within, she discovers the tools of growth that will fuel her strength to meet new challenges in a positive manner, some of these drawn from vital forces she has become aware of even in her former life. The different fictional spaces in which I place Sita form a staircase of obstacles that, one by one, she must transcend, seeking the tools to overcome adversity. Sita acquires new knowledge and strategies even as she reinvests in the spiritual power of religion and myth, traditional Indian concepts embedded in her since birth which expand her capacity of endurance, encouraging further personal growth and spiritual insight. It is my intention that Sita’s difficult life should reflect the many powerful socio-cultural economic issues that Indian women face in their society even today, but more especially during the timeframe in which my novel is set. I was interested to see if a subaltern woman, as represented by my character Sita, beginning life without material advantage or social privilege, and suffering the extreme tragic female fate of disempowerment as a child

204 widow, would be able to find the inner resources to conquer the extreme negativity of her early life and the complex demands of her later fate.

Sita’s arrival in Singapore marks the first crossing of an important boundary for her. Childhood, with its traumas and the plight of widowhood are behind her and the future, with a second chance at life, lies ahead. The first stepping-stone in this process concerns her unexpected re- marriage to her brother’s friend, Shiva, a high-minded Indian freedom fighter. This marriage, arranged by her brother, breaks a social taboo in India that widows should not remarry. Although Sita faces difficulties in adapting to this relationship and to her new and alien environment, Shiva’s effort to educate her awakens her to powerful new possibilities within herself. Later, she finds the courage to join Subhas Chandra Bose’s Rani of Jhansi Regiment in the Japanese-backed Indian National Army, even against her husband’s wishes.

As a female soldier, the harsh physical and mental regime of military training forces her to change her traditional attitudes towards the age-old customs of female modesty and reticence so ingrained within her. Faced with the brutal experiences of war she is pushed further along the path of change until finally, with Japan’s defeat and the death of her husband, Shiva, while fighting with the Indian National Army in Burma, she is faced again with the situation of widowhood. At the end of the war the Rani of Jhansi Regiment is dissolved and Sita finds herself back in Singapore. However, Sita is now able to transcend her earlier self; she is able to implement new and bold strategies to re-shape her life that demonstrate she has achieved a new integration of self. To better understand the nature of Sita’s achievement, it is necessary to examine the traditional context from within which her life has taken shape.

205 The position of the female child in the Indian family. The shadow of the past still lingers on modern Indian society, especially with regard to the female:

A woman in India is made to feel morally obliged to bear a son…While this desire for a male child has been found in virtually all known cultures…its obsessive presence in contemporary India is part-historical and partly socio-cultural … (Nabar, 1995, 52).

A son stays with his parents’ forever, a worker beside his father and his parent’s protector in old age. Through his marriage he brings wealth into the home by way of his wife’s dowry, and contributes to preserving his lineage and household. To this end he must:

… acquire and integrate a breeder within his household. He will regard her as his ‘creature’ and required ‘merchandise’ for breeding offspring … (Poitevin and Rairkar, 1993, 93).

The birth of a boy calls for rejoicing and the distribution of sweetmeats and religious rituals. A boy child is the kuladeepak – the bright lamp of his family line. In contrast, no celebratory songs are sung at the birth of a girl, the event may hardly be mentioned, or it will be referred to in derogatory terms such as, ‘What use is a girl?’ and even, ‘If it’s a girl let her die at birth’ (Poitevin and Rairkar, 1993, 94). Such notions are also voiced in a number of Hindu proverbs: “Without a daughter, without a daughter’s husband, one enjoys what one earns” (Harlan and Courtright, 1995, 27). Discrimination against women begins at birth, “a girl-child’s caste, stamped while she is still unborn, brands her for life” (Nabar, 1995, 95).

Sita’s childhood in a small village in the north of India is circumscribed by this traditional gender discrimination, and the value placed upon the male child. Her brother Dev, as the only surviving son, is treated with care, fed

206 better than Sita and allowed to attend the local school. Sita’s gender renders education unnecessary: it is seen as the prerogative of the male. Sita looks enviously after her brother as he goes off to school, and once even follows him:

She watched him through the window of the mud walled school hut, sitting with his slate…listening to the hypnotic chant of rote learning as if she listened to a magic mantra ... (Brave Sisters, 28).

In their case study of over forty Indian villages, where women articulated their experiences of being oppressed, Poitevin and Rairkar (1993) found that three guiding principles appeared to direct most women’s lives:

The first…limits a girl’s movements to a restricted area…the second requires these movements to be safeguarded…the third ascribes the household hearth as the specific place for girls…known as the ‘indoor world’… (Poitevin and Rairkar, 1993, 116).

When Sita enters puberty, these restrictions become even tighter: During the days she bled, she had to remain apart from the inner house, barred from worship and alone in a corner far from the kitchen with its cooked food and water, until she was clean again. (Brave Sisters, 73)

Such taboos of impurity serve to segregate women from men, “but more significantly, away from society that must belong exclusively to men” (Poitevin and Rairkar, 1993, 122). As a girl child Sita’s life is spent largely within the home, employed in a round of domestic chores from an early age. In the cool dimness of the house the women work through the day, cooking and cleaning, fetching water, churning butter, grinding flour. The sun-filled open doorway of the house is a symbolic threshold, the boundary between male and female worlds:

207

… Then, in the muted light of the house…the open threshold…with its blazing door of light danced before her, a stark division between the life she lived, and the life her brother lived beyond it, a part of the world of men …(Brave Sisters, 73).

In Laws of the Threshold, Malashri Lal, uses this image of the domestic threshold to symbolically delineate the space that men and women are permitted to fill:

Men have, traditionally, passed over the threshold unchallenged and partaken of both worlds; the one ‘within’ and the other ‘without.’ Women…inhabit only the one world …of home. For women to step over the bar is an act of transgression … (Lal, 1995, 12).

The Law of the Threshold, says Lal, allows multiple existences for men, but only a single existence for women (Lal, 2000, 12). This is clear to Sita later when, after the death of their parents, her brother sells his father’s business, goes abroad to Singapore and gets a job there, while she, as a female, becomes dependent on relatives; she has no choices in her life. However, later, when he becomes aware of Sita’s situation, her brother Dev is instrumental in rescuing his sister from her plight. Although with marriage a woman must cut all ties with her natal kin, the bond with a brother remains important. As parents are unable to accept the hospitality of a married daughter’s home, a woman’s brother becomes her main link with her natal community. It is he who, once a year will come to take her back to visit her parents (Harlan and Courtright, 1995, 97). A daughter is regarded as only a transitory being in her parents’ home. According to feminist writer Vrinda Nabar, the girl child lives in an “isthmus of a middle state,” (1995, 64), where her natal home is but a place of holding, before marriage takes her to her real home in her husband’s house.

208

The ancient Indian sacred text, the Manusmrti or Laws of Manu, written as long ago as 200BC, describe a girl child as ‘the supreme object of pity.’ She is to be denied inheritance rights, education, knowledge of the scriptures and should also be kept in purdah. Discussing what giving birth to a girl child meant to them, peasant women in modern India reveal unchanging attitudes through their phraseology, “She is going to leave for someone else’s house…they will impose upon her the name of her ‘owner’… she is the merchandise of someone else ” (Poitevin and Rairkar, 1993, 89).

To many women the delivery of a girl child meant they had committed a bad deed in a previous birth that they must now pay for in their present life. Within Hindu concepts of karma and reincarnation a woman in some communities is seen as, “a product of sin and a polluting hazard” (Potevin and Rairkar, 1993, 100-101).

This terrible truth is shockingly revealed to Sita when she unexpectedly learns of her mother’s use of female infanticide as a means of ridding herself of an unwanted daughter, inadvertently witnessing the murder of one such new-born sister. Her mother squats down in the fields to give birth to the child and afterwards, as Sita watches, goes to the river on the excuse of washing the new baby:

… One moment Sita saw the child in her mother’s arms, the next she was gone … ‘Maa. Maa!’ Sita screamed. Her mother continued to stand in the water, her back towards Sita, unmoving. ‘It is all right. She was just a girl,’ her mother said softly, turning away. (Brave Sisters, 61).

209 This experience marks Sita for life, changing her perception of many things, even if at the time she is too young to consciously absorb the full implications of what she has seen. Yet Sita, like all Indian women, would have had the deep spiritual images of shakti, handed down from one generation of women to another to draw upon at such times in her life.

Later in the story Sita’s parents die and, as she enters adolescence, her grandmother with whom she has been living also dies. As her brother is now working far away in Singapore, an aunt takes Sita in and she is thrust into a life of domestic drudgery; servitude to her aunt and to her two female cousins. The cousins are of marriageable age and the aunt’s prime concern is to gather together the dowry to marry them well. She plans to be free of Sita by marrying her off as quickly as she can. However, without a dowry Sita’s fate on the marriage market is precarious. Failure to raise a good dowry more often than not results in a prospective bride being rejected, remaining unmarried, or suffering the inconceivable shame of having a marriage called off at the last minute. Greed for money can even result in a ‘dowry death’ when rapacious in-laws murder a young bride. Often old men or widowers, looking to re-marry much younger women, are willing to consider vulnerable girls such as Sita who are without dowry. It is with just such a widower that Sita’s aunt negotiates her marriage:

‘He is old, but he is rich…he is taking you without a dowry in order to have a young wife. You are thirteen, old enough for marriage…’(Brave Sisters, 8).

Marriage In accordance with traditional conventions, Sita is not consulted about either of the two marriages she consecutively makes; one is arranged by her aunt, which quickly leaves her a widow, and the other by her brother on her arrival in Singapore. Traditionally, the Hindu marriage structure does not

210 regard the bride’s consent as relevant to the marriage arrangement. Eminent Indian judge and reformer, Gooroo Dass Banerjee, writing in 1879, noted:

… a woman is not regarded in Hindu law as an active party in marriage…marriage is viewed as a gift of the bride by her father or other guardian to the bridegroom… (Chandra, 1998, 10).

Marriage, with its transfer of a woman to another family and household, is the central life experience awaiting all Indian women, and it is no different for Sita. The concept of women as property works to instil in a wife a sense of dutiful service to her husband that will remain dominant for the rest of her life: “The married woman is to be all decency… is to breed sons without cease, and to worship her husband as the human embodiment of all gods… Her service to him is her religion” (Zimmer, 1974, 153). Speaking of that ‘other’ house a girl-child waits to enter on marriage, Nabar comments that, “she is also taught to sense that the other place is a hostile one where happiness is chancy, perhaps never to be found” (1995, 64). This holds true for Sita.

As society decrees, on both her first marriage in India and the second marriage she makes in Singapore, Sita does not see either of her bridegrooms before the wedding ceremony takes place. When she asks her aunt by what name she should call her future husband, her aunt is shocked: “To you he has no name but ‘He’. Out of respect a wife cannot speak the name of her husband” (Brave Sisters, 8). Even in modern India, it still remains a common custom after marriage for the bridegroom’s family to change a bride’s first name. In passing feudal ownership of a woman from father to husband, this act of re-naming is the final obliteration of a woman’s past. Her identity is symbolically eradicated and with it her past

211 life, and a new identity of her husband’s choosing is given to her (Nabar, 1995, 121):

Sita was filled with panic. She did not want another name, imposing upon her new ownership, a new identity, killing that old self … would even her memories remain in her? (Brave Sisters, 8).

Although my protagonist’s identity is closely bound up in her name, ‘Sita’ is paradoxically a name that places her at the very centre of the traditional concept of a devoted wife that she inwardly seeks to resist. In Hindu myth Sita is the consort of the God Rama, heroine of Hinduism’s epic story, the Ramayana. The pious Sita is worshipped in India for her saintly dedication to her husband, her self-sacrifice, courage and purity. She sets the standard in wifely and womanly virtue for all Hindu women.

Within the nationalist struggle, Mahatma Gandhi also chose to idealise the chaste and monogamous Sita as the model for Indian womanhood. Gandhi’s bid to reinforce the traditional female image through the model of Sita re-inscribed women within the home as custodians of India’s traditions and inner authenticity:

The recovery of tradition throughout the …nationalist period was always the recovery of the ‘traditional’ woman – her various shapes continuously readapt the ‘eternal’ past to the needs of the contingent present … (Sangari and Vaid, 1999, 10).

Although severely limited in power or influence by her gender, the position of a married woman still carries a degree of prestige within the family. She is also seen as the source of wealth and prosperity for the household, “a grihalakshmi, after the goddess of plenty…the phase “Lakshmi has stepped into our house” is much quoted when referring to a housewife” (Poitevin

212 and Rairkar, 1993, 91). Rural women such as Sita’s mother and grandmother toil in the fields and in the house, their role as breeders of sons all-important. As she witnesses her mother’s desperate act of infanticide, Sita, in spite of her shock and confusion, later acknowledges the strength it takes for a woman to kill the infant she has given birth to. As a grown woman, a soldier in the army, she comes to understand that what her mother has done is not so much an act of cruelty, as one of supreme maternal protection, to shield her daughter from the misery of a woman’s life. Sita also wonders how she has escaped the same fate as her sister, and if perhaps it is her mother’s overwhelming love and need for a daughter that has saved her.

The age-old practice of female infanticide continues in parts of India even today, especially in rural areas. Vrinda Nabar quotes a female doctor who condones female infanticide as saying, “These mothers have suffered so much that they don’t want the pattern repeating in their daughter’s lives…they are not committing murder” (1995, 54). The wifely devotion shown by her namesake is not immediately demanded of thirteen-year old Sita after her first marriage, for her elderly husband dies of an epileptic fit during the wedding ceremony, leaving her a child widow.

Widowhood Indian tradition formulates only two real roles for woman, as daughter, and as wife. A widow, that “most sinful of all sinful creatures” (Harlan and Courtright, 1995, 13), therefore presents ideological and economic challenges to the Hindu system. A woman’s sexuality, properly controlled by a husband, maintains a rightful balance in social order. On the death of a husband, families are faced with the dilemma of controlling the sexuality of the widowed woman, especially if she is still young. There is also the problem of providing support not only for widows with young children, but

213 also for those who are childless. Deepa Mehta’s poignant film of widowhood, Water (2005), attempts to show the neglect the Indian widow suffers, even in modern times, and the sexual exploitation of younger women, especially in some of the religious centres where widows often spend the remainder of their lives.

Her husband’s sudden death throws the child bride Sita into this state of non-being. Abandoned not only by her new in-laws but also her aunt who, having ‘delivered’ the ‘merchandise’ is free of responsibility for her niece, Sita is left alone to face the particularly traumatic rituals surrounding her new situation:

Once it was clear the bridegroom was dead the wedding guests turned upon her. ‘It has eaten her husband,’ a woman shouted, no longer giving Sita the respect of gender now that she was a widow…Someone gripped her arms to smash the glass wedding bangles covering each thin wrist … (Brave Sisters, 2).

As was customary, Sita’s head is shaved; she is stripped of jewellery, and dressed in a rough white cotton sari. Since a woman is regarded primarily as a vessel of reproduction, a widow’s tonsure is a symbolic mark of castration, a loss of power and a sexual death: “Abundant hair is a sign of vigorous sexual energy…indicative also of wantonness…a symbol of life power” (Chen, 1998, 76 -77). As Sita struggles against her destiny a new sense of self-preservation is awakened in her:

… Sita put up a hand and felt the naked dome of her head, sore and bleeding from the razor’s rasp… [she] bowed her head, knowing she must endure …if she was to survive this day and more. (Brave Sisters, 6).

214 Sita suffers the fate of many unwanted widows, child or adult, when she is incarcerated in an ashram, a religious centre known also as a bhajanashram, because of the devotional hymns sung by the widows who live there. Martha Alter Chen, in her account of the Indian widow, casts her as an ascetic woman who accepts the penance that must be endured for not dying before her husband; her body, dress and behaviour properly controlled all reflect society’s success in upholding its moral fabric (2000, 115 and 140). The ideological and economic challenges the widow presents to society are dealt with by incarceration in a religious centre such as the bhajanashram. Within the ashram the rules that permanently bind a widow’s life are abruptly thrust upon Sita, even to her deprivation of hot and spicy foods. To earn a pittance from which to pay for their rent, the widows must sing religious hymns in the ashram for eight hours a day. People donate money to have the widows sing on their behalf because, as one old widow humorously tells Sita, “we are the living dead, our word reaches God that much quicker.”

Sita, who is still a child, has no idea of the severity of her plight or how to behave in accordance with it when she first enters the ashram. The issues of pollution that have circumscribed her life since puberty return to haunt her anew. Begging for alms in the street with other widows, she sees a passing troupe of acrobats and, filled by excitement, wants to run off to enjoy the scene. Instead, she is brusquely reprimanded by an older widow, who enlightens her about the aberration she has become through her inadvertent association with death:

‘If you accidentally touch anyone in that crowd, they will be polluted... Nobody wants you near them. Can you not understand? We are living dead things’ (Brave Sisters, 20).

215 Sita’s first mentor, Dr Sen, rescues her from the ashram and, loath to return her to the certain sexual exploitation that awaits her there, speaks of her plight to influential men in the city. She quickly comes up against ingrained male fear that unchaste widows will destroy society’s moral order (Chen, 2000, 116). This attitude fuels patriarchal resistance to any alteration in a widow’s status. In spite of the changing ideas about women’s rights taking root at this time, Dr Sen finds that male reformers when openly challenged, refuse to defy the old structures.

Nowadays child marriage is comparatively rare, but until recently it was a widespread practice and the remarriage of widows, whether child or adult, in almost all communities was taboo. Chen maintains that even today a widow’s remarriage is frowned upon in some communities and that, at the time of her research in 2000, there were some thirty thousand widows below fifteen years of age in India (2000, 78). Although early social reformers campaigned for the remarriage of widows, and eventually the law was changed to allow this, it would appear from the number of widows still found in modern Indian in towns such as Vrindavan, known particularly for its huge community of widows living in the many ashrams there, that old customs die hard. Despite their disempowered condition, widowhood is not devoid of compensation.

Although the traditional Indian woman’s plight on the death of a husband is exacerbated if she is childless, or has no son to care for her, many elderly widows in India are cared for and respected by their families, as indeed is Sita’s own grandmother, and even retain a measure of authority within the family. Apart from the dangers of abuse or exploitation in ashrams of the kind Sita enters, such places can also offer a strong sense of community to many widows. Chen observes that life in Vrindavan amongst so many others who share the same plight, offers women a sisterhood, an identity

216 outside the dire situation of widowhood (Chen, 2000, 149). In Vrindavan many women are also sustained by religious devotion to the legendary Krishna, the divine Cosmic Lover of Hindu mythology, symbolically regarded by many widows as a surrogate lover or son. Krishna is famously shown as surrounded by dairymaids, gopis who, in religious myth, were tending their herds of cows and sported joyfully with the young god. Krishna is depicted as:

…the husband of all souls and every soul aspires to join with him…As a result, the enactment of love games between Krishna and the cow-girls becomes a holy rite of great significance (Brent, 1972, 171).

Vrindavan’s widows worship not only Krishna, but also his most devoted lover, Radha. Within the space of religious devotion the widows find a further dimension of identity beyond their plight:

…as mothers by adopting Krishna as a surrogate son, as sisters…with other widows, as women in their identification with Radha… as religious devotees in their worship… (Chen, 2000, p149).

Through their response to the notion of divine power and the concept of shakti, the widows in Vrindavan find a key within their own tradition with which to empower themselves (Leslie, 1992, 3).

A drastic alternative to the “dreary life of hunger, scorn, and domestic servitude” was historically offered the Hindu widow in the practice of sati, the fiery immolation of a wife on her dead husband’s funeral pyre (Chen, 2000, 54). Even after horrified British colonial officials banned sati in 1829, it continued to be practised, if with growing infrequency. Although nowadays the custom is a very rare occurrence, it is still heard of occasionally in modern times. The most famous modern sati is that of

217 Roop Kanwar, which is discussed in the following section. However despite the law and public disapproval, the practice still goes on. As recently as 1999, Indian newspapers actively reported the sati in Uttar Pradesh of Charan Shah, a fifty-five year old widow. More often attempts at sati are now foiled by family or police (Narasimhan,1998, 239).

Sati Sati derives from the Sanskrit term sat, truth, and the word sati means a ‘good’ or ‘virtuous’ woman (Chen, 2000, 43). More commonly the word is used both to “refer to the action or event whereby a woman is immolated on her husband’s pyre, [and] to the woman who is at the centre of the spectacle” (Hawley, 1994, 11). To differentiate between the act and the subject I use the word sati for the practice, and the British use of the word suttee for the woman involved. However, both words are virtually interchangeable. Although Sita lives at a time when sati is no longer practised nevertheless, standing before the burning pyre at her husband’s cremation, Sita’s distraught mother-in-law’s curse invokes the old ideological concept:

…‘Die with him in those flames! I curse you. In your next life may you bear only daughters, and never a son’ (Brave Sisters, 7).

In A Critique of Postcolonial Reason, Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak, ,explores this widow-burning custom, a sanctioned exercise within the Hindu patriarchal discourse (1999). The Hindu male is seen as traversing his life through four ascending stages, student, householder, religious seeker and ascetic, as he moves towards an end of worldly renunciation. Woman as wife is indispensable to a man’s status during the phase he is a householder. In respect of her essential usefulness to him, a woman is allowed to accompany her husband into isolation, to care for him as he embarks upon the final two stages of progressive renunciation in his later

218 life. However, as a woman, a wife has no access herself to the final stage of asceticism or the process of renunciation in preparation for death and entry into Heaven:

The woman as widow…must regress to an anteriority transformed into stasis … The self-immolation of the widow thereby becomes the extreme case of the general law rather than exception to it… (Spivak, 1999, 298-299).

Spivak implies that it is contemplation of this state extreme stasis as a widow that drives a woman into the only action open to her, the act of self- immolation. Trapped in the misfortune of her female body, a woman is denied entry to Heaven, which remains the sole prerogative of men. Colonial rulers, horrified by the practice of sati, attempted to outlaw it by passing laws that lessened, but did not eradicate the ritual. Spivak describes this first opposition to sati as “White men are saving brown women from brown men” (1999, 284). Julie Leslie in Roles and Rituals for Hindu Women cites the radical feminist Mary Daly, who denounces the practice of sati as a “sado-ritual,” evidence of patriarchal atrocities against women. The sutee widow is the ultimate victim: “often pushed and poked in [to the fire] with long stakes after having been bathed and ritually attired and drugged out of her mind” (1992, 179). Daly also condemns the “deceptive legitimations” of sati by self-styled male authorities on the subject who speak of widows as “adopting the practice.” Noting Daly’s observations, Leslie comments:

…she condemns …using the active voice when describing the burning of a widow...who ‘adopted the practice’…’ The use of the active voice here suggests that the widows actively sought out, enforced and accepted this “practice” … ‘the victims, through grammatical sleight of hand, are made to appear as agents of

219 their own destruction…’ (Leslie, 1992, 179- 180).

In her novel, Rich Like Us, Nayantara Sahgal, whose own great- grandmother had been a suttee, describes the horror of a young son who has been sent on an errand by his widowed mother, returning home to an empty house. Some premonition drives him to the riverbank where he sees a blazing pyre and realizes that, in his absence, his mother has been forced by her in-laws to become a suttee. He sees his mother “fling her arms wildly in the air, then wrap them about her breasts before she subsided like a wax doll into the flames” (Sahgal, 1985, 134).

Despite the horror associated particularly in the Western mind with regard to this practice, in the traditional view it can function as a source of female empowerment. The practice of sati is still occasionally reported in modern times. In one famous case in 1987, in the village of Deorala in Rajesthan, an 18 year-old woman, Roop Kanwar, married only 8 months, committed sati on the death of her husband. Thousands were present at her fiery death that received much publicity in India, including politicians, VIPs and four members of the legislative assembly. Public outcry about the case pitted traditional ideology against modern Indian thinking. The girl herself became an object of public veneration, was called a sati mata, or pure mother; a shrine has been built over the place of her funeral pyre, and much money continues to be made by the town through her legend. The true circumstances surrounding her death are not properly known and filled with conflicting reports. It is possible that Roop Kanwar’s choice to become a suttee was a voluntary one of self-deification. If this is so, Roop Kanwar’s attempt at empowerment through sati can be seen as a strategy for dignity in a demeaning world: “The tragedy is that Roop Kanwar could find no other. For in such a world, for most women choice is fiction” (Leslie, 1992, 190). Through the practice of sati a heavenly reward is

220 thought to be attainable; in the fiery sacrifice of her life a widow hopes to join her husband and live with him beside the gods:

…the sanctioned suicide peculiar to women draws its ideological strength by identifying individual agency with supraindividual: kill yourself on your husband’s pyre now and you may kill your female body in the entire cycle of birth… (Spivak, 1999, 299).

According to Leslie practices that are seen as oppressive by outsiders can at times be empowering for some women:

It is important to realise that such choices … are being made by women who, given the cultural restraints within which they are working, see themselves not as victims of their culture but as active agents in the creation of their own identity and that of their daughters (1992, 3).

Indian women need not always be seen as the passive victims of an oppressed ideology but rather as active in their own betterment in their own way. Any exploration of the empowerment of women in India today must be seen within the context of the ancient but still living Laws of Manu. In her essay, Under Western Eyes, Chandra Talpade Mohanty points out that Western feminist discourse is in danger of constructing a composite Other when considering Third World women. She argues that third world women are “real, material subjects of their collective histories” (Ashcroft et al. 1995, 259).

Although Sita’s situation as a child-widow does not condemn her to the horrific practice of sati, she is subjected to several other privations. She suffers the abuse and deprivation routinely suffered by widows as they are rendered invisible to society; a sexual non-being whatever her age once the

221 role of wife is over. Simultaneously, I also wished to explore the strength Hindu women show when faced with the intolerable, and to examine the springs of this constant source of resistance and renewal within the female psyche. Indian tradition reveals one such overpowering source in the concept of shakti, the innate female principle of creative power.

Shakti Knowledge of female strength, of the transformative inner power of a woman’s shakti, is implanted in Sita early in her life by the women of her own family, her mother and her grandmother. The epic tales of the pantheon of Indian gods and goddesses have been handed down to Sita by her grandmother, and she understands the special strength to be found in worship of the Devi. It is to the protective embrace of the goddess that Sita has turned since childhood in her faith and worship, and to whom she continues to turn for sustenance through each new experience. Her worship of the goddess Durga is pivotal to Sita’s life and her ability to endure and reinvent herself:

If she cried at some trivial misfortune, her mother or grandmother had always pointed to the picture of the goddess. Think of the Devi, they said, her shakti is great; she will protect you…Sita had stared up…at the beatific face of Durga…a protective presence in the dark wings of her life, silent witness to events… (Brave Sisters, 11).

In their examination of this concept of female power, Harish and Harishankar describe the complex meaning of shakti:

…derived from the Sanskrit verb root “shak,” meaning, “to be able”… shakti can be translated as meaning “power” or “energy.” Shakti, implying power is both static/latent and

222 kinetic. In psychoanalytic terms shakti is best described by Jung’s notion of the feminine anima as against the masculine animus, which results in individuation or self actualisation… (2003, 18).

The concept of shakti is deeply embedded within the metaphysical framework of Hinduism and is seen as the power responsible for the movement of all things:

…the planets revolve around the sun as a result of Shakti… winds blow…oceans churn…she is … the heat of fire, the brilliance of the sun (Morales, 1998).

In Hinduism this “primal creative principle underlying the cosmos” is also seen as the “energizing force of all divinity…the Supreme Reality” (Mookerjee, 2008, 11). In Hindu religious mythology shakti is not only the power that keeps the gods in position in the firmament, but it is recognized as primarily a female force synonymous with the Devi, the Divine Mother, the Great Goddess Durga, upon which the spiritual tradition of Shaktism focuses. Durga first “manifested” herself at the fervent behest of the male gods, in order to vanquish demonic forces troubling the world:

The gods sent forth their energies as streams of fire and from these energies emerged the Great Goddess Durga... [She came into being because the male gods] could not change their situation themselves and had to create a goddess, not another god to do it for them. In a deadlocked situation, the woman is the only moving element (Mookerjee, 2008, p8).

Durga appeared, riding a tiger, to slay the demon with the help of her ferocious black-skinned avatar, Kali. Throughout her childhood and in her later years the image of the goddess comes into Sita’s mind, particularly in moments of distress; it signifies her own openness to the resources of her

223 traditional faith. In his account of the birth of the Devi, R.K. Narayan recounts the story of her coming to rid the world of the fearsome demon, Mahisha. The male gods, even by uniting their combined powers were unable to slay this devil and fled in humiliation, praying all the while to the Highest Source for help. Their prayers manifested the supreme power in the form of the goddess Durga, the collected energies of all the gods. Riding a tiger, her face radiating light, her eighteen arms each grasping a different weapon in preparation for the battle ahead, Durga’s war cry reverberated through space and shook the world. Summoning up all the ferocious essence of her nature, Kali sprang forth from her brow to help her in battle. When Durga/Kali finally slew the demon, the male gods praised her, “You are all pervasive, and every part of creation is in you” (Narayan, 1986, 62). Since this mythological event at the birth of the universe female energy, shakti, has been considered the most powerful force in the Hindu religion and is the reason why Durga, as the supreme Devi, is more feared than any of the other gods. Durga is the protector of all things in the battle of good over evil. She is worshipped in her dual aspects, as the radiant maternal image of Durga, and as her alter ego, the ferocious Kali. Durga, in Sanskrit, means “a fort” or “a place beyond reach” which Mookerjee describes as “an echo of the warrior woman’s fierce virginal autonomy” (Mookerjee, 2008, 8).

In Hindu belief the dark goddess Kali, born from Durga’s brow at the height of battle, protects human life from evil and also alleviates misery. She was created at a moment when Durga’s shakti was aroused to a full force of uncontrolled passion. As such Kali embodies the goddess’s alter ego, the state of her deepest fury, “appearing when Durga loses control”. In this way Kali’s wild appearance and frightful behaviour suggests the darker aspects of the power of shakti.

224 The ambivalences in the Hindu tradition in regard to the position of women need careful negotiation:

While “The Laws of Manu”… appear to encode the inferior and dependent status of women within the Hindu tradition, the worship of the goddess Kali is as an important oppositional influence. She counters male aggression with overwhelming female potency…As destroyer of the male principle the appeal of Kali as an enabling power for women is manifest (vanden Driesen, 1995, 123).

In an interview some years ago with the Indian novelist, R.K. Narayan, vanden Driesen found his views of the importance of the female in Hindu tradition encapsulated in his insistence that:

…it is very wrong to think of women as inferior. Woman is the feminine manifestation of God. She is given the name Shakti, which means strength. The roles of mothers and grandmothers are very important in Hindu culture” (vanden Driesen, 1993).

Traditional male writers before Narayan have also emphasised the innate strength of the female psyche. The South Indian poet Bharathi (1882- 1921) spoke out boldly on women’s oppression. He dared imagine the legendary Draupadi, wife of the five Pandavas of the epic tale of the Mahabharata, not in her traditional self-controlled image but as the “strong-willed, passionate, revengeful, polyandrous wife of the five brothers.” In one of his poems, “Kummi of Women’s Freedom”, the verses explode with recognition of female strength. “Gone are they who said to woman: Thou shalt not open the Book of Knowledge” (Jayawardene, 1994, 86). Likewise, Kumaran Asan’s (1882-1921) controversial poem, “The Brooding Sita’, also invokes the raw essence of shakti as he re-constructs

225 the famous legend of Rama and Sita revolting against her traditional image as chaste obedient female:

Sita, instead of submitting obediently to tests of fire to prove her chastity, strongly protests… ‘Do you think I am a mere doll? My mind and soul revolt at the thought’ (Jayawardena, 1994, 87).

Indian Warrior Women in History and Literature. Women have demonstrated from ancient times in India a formidable strength of resolution such as is found in Sita’s mother when, through the deed of infanticide, she commits the ultimate act of maternal protection. Such indomitable strength is the essence of shakti, and is repeatedly depicted in legend through images of the Warrior Women. The ultimate dichotomy between the oppressed and passive female image of the patriarchal tradition and the warrior woman of Hindu mythology is exhibited in the Devi, the Great Goddess, Durga and her ferocious alter ego, Kali.

The image can be regarded perhaps as manifesting itself even in modern times in figures such as India’s first female Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi, and the subaltern bandit queen, Phoolan Devi. Such women appear to recognize the power of shakti within themselves, and to grasp the opportunities presented them to step outside their traditional roles, crossing the domestic boundary and all that entails, into the larger male-dominated world of public life.

In relation to Brave Sisters it is particularly important to mention the historic episode of the Rani of Jhansi and her struggle against the British; she is the ‘warrior woman’ after whom, almost a century later, Subhas Chandra Bose named his regiment of female soldiers in the Indian National

226 Army. The spirit and valour of the original Rani Lakshmibai of Jhansi has transcended history and passed into legend. Against the backdrop of the 1857 mutiny, the young widowed Rani, who had taken over the rule of her husband’s state of Jhansi on his death, rode into battle with her troops against the British when they attempted to annex the state. Legend has it that her son, still a baby, was tied to her back as she fought. General Hugh Rose, who led British troops against the Rani’s insurgent army, describes the final fatal charge:

the Rani of Jhansi, the Indian Joan of Arc, was killed…dressed in a red jacket, red trousers and white puggery [turban]; she wore the celebrated pearl necklace of Scindia…and heavy gold anklets…the whole rebel army mourned her…she was the best and bravest of rebel leaders (Chapman Lebra, 1986, 113-114).

Even before the exploits that made her a legend, she was an exceptional female figure. Her unusual childhood gave her unheard of skills for a woman of that time: she learned to read and write, was an expert horsewoman, could use a sword and a gun and generally lived a life far from all conventional feminine expectation (Chapman Lebra, 2008, 2). Her martyr’s death assured her lasting remembrance and even today her exploits are immortalised in folklore. Sita is inspired when Subhas Chandra Bose, while speaking to the newly recruited female soldiers, cites the real life Rani after whom their regiment is named as an example to follow:

If there is anyone who thinks it is an unwomanly act to shoulder a rifle, I ask them to turn to our history, and the brave women of our past (Brave Sisters, 92).

In nineteenth-century India, Western missionaries encouraged the feminist struggles of their many female converts to Christianity. Amongst these

227 converts the female crusader, Pandita Ramabai, championed reform and fiercely challenged Hindu patriarchy as early as the 1890s (Jayawardena, 1995, 54). Also with the backing of American missionaries, Ramabai, a young widow, went to America to study medicine and later established schools in India for child widows and orphans and worked to raise feminist consciousness. Ahead of her time, her work is an example of early ‘global sisterhood’, but led to serious conflict with the emerging Hindu nationalist movements, including the reformist Bramho Samaj (Jayawardena, 1995, 53). Another early reformist, Rukhmabai, dared to assert her rights over her own person as a woman, and as a result was dragged through the courts for years by her husband in his effort to consummate their marriage and have her live under his control (Forbes, 2004, 69-70).

We find such evidence of female power startlingly celebrated in Indian literature, especially in the works of women poets and writers that have survived the centuries. Writing between 100 and 250 BC the Sangam poets are “the oldest and most distinguished body of secular poetry extant in India …a total of 154 of the 2,381 poems carry women’s signatures ” (Tharu and Lalitha, 1991, 70). One poignant poem by Kakkaipatiniyar Naccellaiyar describes a mother’s anguish as she searches a battleground for her son, a soldier she fears may have deserted in cowardice and thereby shamed both himself and also her as his mother. The same ultimate strength of sacrifice that Sita’s mother has shown at the river is also demanded of this mother as she searches the battlefield for her son’s corpse:

“If he has run away in the thick of battle, I will cut off these breasts from which he has sucked.” And, sword in hand, she turned over the fallen corpses, groping her way on the red field. Then she saw her son lying there in pieces

228 And rejoiced more than the day she bore him (Tharu and Lalitha, 1991, 72-73).

The legendary fifteenth-century poet Mirabhai, who was a devotee of Lord Krishna, is known for her devotional poetry to the god. Her spiritual love for him inspired a life of chastity and resulted in her flagrant transgression of traditional duties, as both a wife and widow (Harlan and, Courtright, 1995, 205). While Mirabhai explored female spiritual agency, the work of the eighteenth-century Telugu poet, Muddupalani, expresses the pure essence of female sexual agency. When her work was reprinted in 1910 she was dismissed as an adulteress by shocked male reformer Kandukuri Veereshalingam.

“Many parts of her book are such that they should never be heard by a woman, let alone emerge from a woman’s mouth…she …does not have the modesty natural to women” (Tharu and Lalita, 1991, 3).

Modern feminist writers have done much to regain and redefine the essential force of the feminine in India in their work. The poet Kamala Das’s autobiography, My Story (Das, 1978), caused a stir when first published for its frank description of her life as a modern Indian woman, her marriage and her love affairs. The strong female characters in Mahasweta Devi’s fiction about India’s indigenous tribal people, not only strive to have authority over their own lives but are prepared to take on the world, reflecting the fierce insistence of Devi’s crusading fiction. In the story, ‘Douloti the Bountiful’, Douloti, the daughter of a bonded labourer is forced into prostitution to pay her debts. Eventually, her body destroyed by disease, the dying Douloti chooses to lie down to die on a map of India, constructed to celebrate India’s Independence Day. In this powerful image Mahasweta Devi makes clear her anger at the choices forced by an upper class patriarchal society upon the hapless, low-caste Douloti:

229

Filling the entire Indian peninsula, from the oceans to the Himalayas, here lies bonded labour, spread-eagled, kamiya-whore Douloti Nagesia’s tormented corpse, putrefied with venereal disease, having vomited up all the blood in its desiccated lungs. Today, on the fifteenth of August, Douloti has left no room at all in India …for planting the standard of the independence flag…Douloti is all over India (Devi, 1995, 93).

In Brave Sisters, Sita’s first mentor, the spinster Dr Sen, who rescues her from the widow’s ashram, is cast in the mould of a modern warrior woman, as she stands squarely at odds with traditional female expectations and demands and provides Sita with the inspiration and the practical means whereby she can escape the constrictions of her life situation.

For the traditional Indian woman, religious worship would have been one area of female life where she would face fewer restrictive boundaries. The myths of the gods and goddesses and their attributes was familiar territory to Sita, and had given her strength through life. In this way an exploration of the negative sites my character must occupy in the novel also allows me to throw into relief the positive elements of Sita’s inheritance and afford a mode of explanation of her power to survive.

Change in the traditional Indian concept It must be acknowledged that the courageous stance of crusading Indian women from the mid 1800s onwards was possible because British colonial domination progressively brought new ideas and cultural institutions to India or even revived older traditions and beliefs. In Bengal in the early part of the twentieth century Indians were rediscovering their past,

230 cementing together borrowed and inherited ideas to reform indigenous culture. The dynamic impact of imported ideas on what was called, the Bengal Renaissance, cannot be underestimated:

The ideology that emerged to redefine gender relations was an amalgam of new foreign ideas, indigenous concepts, and the response of Indian men and women to the foreign presence in their midst (Forbes, 1999, 14).

With the introduction of new ideas and modern education in the early part of this century, India quickly became a hotbed of agitation for change, especially in the area of female emancipation. The Bramho Samaj movement, which sprang from the earlier Bengal Renaissance, sought religious and social reform in India including the abolition of the caste system, the dowry system, and the emancipation and education of women. Influential figures such as Swami Vivikananda, social reformer and Bramho Samaj member, reiterated that the awakening of India lay in the education of women. In his essay, Signs Taken for Wonders, Homi Bhabha points out that the civilizing mission, both evangelical and educational, that British colonialists attempted to impose upon India began a process of hybridization, a “doubling” akin to mimicry that “produce new forms of knowledge, new modes of differentiation, new sites of power” (2008, 171). These influences brought revolutionary ideas into segments of Indian society, changing it forever.

In the history of the Reform Movement in India, men were in a stronger position to argue for female emancipation than women themselves. Some enlightened men took up the issue on women’s behalf, including Rammohan Roy, a founder member of the Brahmo Samaj, who questioned the interpretation of Vedic texts and challenged “all forms of obscurantism and ritual, as well as female oppression associated with orthodox beliefs”

231 (Jayawardena, 1994, 82). From this movement came the agitation that led to the Act of 1856 that legally permitted widows to remarry, and the Marriage Act of 1872 that set an age limit of 14 for the marriage of girls, and 18 for men. However “social custom was difficult to change by legislation…and it was only the very daring who defied tradition” (Jayawardena, 1994, 82).

Struggle against the British It was the struggle for independence from British rule that, more than any other event, encouraged women from all strata of society to take greater control of their lives. The Nationalist struggle actively encouraged women to participate in a life outside the home in new and sanctioned ways, to cross the forbidden threshold into the world of men and work together with them there for the freedom of the motherland. The Congress party was central to the nationalist movement, with its insistence on Home Rule and its constant call to the British to ‘Quit India’. Within the party the legendary figure of Mahatma Gandhi straddled the Indian freedom movement. Gandhi’s female followers, just like Dr Sen in Brave Sisters, obeyed his call for them to come out of their homes and be part of a wider community. Congress leaders saw the advantage of empowering women to join them in the nationalist struggle. Gandhi stressed that women were ‘arbiters of their own destiny’ (Tharu and Lalitha, 1991, 180). He also saw that “woman has been suppressed under custom and law for which man was responsible and in the shaping of which she has no hand” (Jayawardena, 1994, 95). Indian women of all ranks associated with the Congress party in picketing shops selling foreign goods, and burning all foreign cloth in the khadi campaigns. The feisty independence of subaltern women of the rural classes, formerly only compelled to drudgery in the field and the home, was well known even to Gandhi who commented that, “they hold their own with their men folk and in some respects even rule

232 over them” (Jayawardena, 1994, 95). These lower-class women were also not immune to the fever of female emancipation now sweeping India:

…peasant women took more risky initiatives…hundreds of women lay down on the road and successfully barred the exit of distrained goods from the village for three whole days (Tharu and Lalitha, 1991, 179).

In villages where their men were arrested or had to go underground, peasant women moved into positions of leadership and continued to fight. The iconic Salt March of 1930, led by Gandhi, was a further spur for mass movements in which women were much in evidence. Militant activist Kamala Chattopadhyaya was one of the first, along with Gandhi, to break the salt law. Of the 80,000 people arrested during the march, 17,000 were women. Chattopadhyaya summons the image of the woman warrior when she later recalls the occasion:

Thousands of women strode down to the sea like proud warriors…How had they broken their age old shell of social seclusion and burst into this fierce light of open warfare? (Jayawaradena, 1994, 99).

Subhas Chandra Bose Although perhaps less well-known outside of India than the iconic Mahatma Gandhi, no discussion of India’s struggle for freedom can be complete without acknowledging the part played in the movement by Subhas Chandra Bose. Gandhi and Bose spearheaded and led the agitation for freedom from colonial rule in diametrically different ways. Gandhi remained firmly on Indian soil, advocating a strategy of passive resistance; Bose fled India to agitate abroad and canvassed foreign military support. “Bose did not believe in Gandhian non-violence. To him it was no more than a technique useful in certain circumstances; violence could also have

233 its uses” (Bose, M. 1982, 48). The physical presence of Subhas Chandra Bose first in Germany and then in Japan and Malaya and his eventual command of the Indian National Army in Singapore, soon expanded the fight for freedom to overseas Indian communities, and allowed for a new strategy in the struggle against colonial rule; the idea that India might be liberated by an outside force. Those who followed the militant Bose believed freedom could not come without bloodshed, and must take the course of an armed invasion of the motherland by an army of liberation (Bose, S. 2011, 239).

Born in Calcutta in 1897, Bose grew up in a highly educated family of iconoclastic political and social views. His father was a follower of the Brahmo Samaj movement, and the reformist atmosphere in Bengal at that time influenced the young Bose deeply. His more orthodox mother was a religious devotee of the goddess Durga and her avatar, black -skinned Kali (Gordon, 1990, 32). The teenage Bose developed an all-consuming goal of personal salvation through service to humanity and became preoccupied with the ideals of renunciation. The teachings of two great religious teachers, Vivekananda and Ramakrishna, who stressed the female aspects of Hinduism, influenced Bose deeply. At this time Bose spoke of spurning ‘lust and gold’, renouncing both worldly gain and sexual satisfaction. Becoming a lifelong rebel, he took pleasure in defiance of some social conventions and in helping others in his own society (Gordon, 1990, 343).

Gandhi and Bose both actively promoted female emancipation while holding diametrically different visions of how that goal was to be achieved. As already stated, Gandhi’s vision of women’s roles fitted that of the femininely dutiful goddess Sita, most ideal of wives. It is argued that the propagation of this chaste, domesticated and obedient image reflected the patriarchal nationalist strategy to promote a contained vision of the nation

234 as nurturing mother (Mehta, 2010, 23). In contrast Bose saw Indian women in the warrior woman image of the divine female, in the role of the Mother goddess Durga/Kali. The goddess was worshipped in his home and throughout Bengal above all other deities. Bose went further than Gandhi is encouraging female emancipation, envisaging and giving women opportunities for equality with males. The rich overlay of religion and mythology in Indian society that fashioned the conjoined but opposing view of woman as both Mother Goddess (Durga) and Warrior Woman (Kali) was one deeply familiar to Bose. He was “consciously aware that Bengalis ran together notions of the Mother Goddess, the Motherland, and ordinary mothers” (Gordon, 1990, 135). As a young woman of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment states in a letter:

the spiritual quest of Bengal has always been voiced through the cult of the Mother. Be it God or be it motherland - whatever we have worshipped we have done so in the image of the Mother (Chapman Lebra, 2008, 35).

Hills and Silverman agree that Bose viewed all women in the context of the divine Mother image:

his deeply felt conception of women’s mission is spelled out unequivocally…[in one of his early letters]. “If you read the history of India you will see that many mothers have lived for the sake of Mother India and have, when need arose, sacrificed their lives for her.”(1993, 751).

Individual incentives were accentuated by Bose’s ability to tap into the collective Indian feminine psyche. His “call to save the Motherland was not a call to women to join the political movement but rather a linking of idealized womanhood with nationalism” (Forbes, 2004, 122). However, whether the chaste mother-image of Sita or the unchaste mother,

235 Durga/Kali, it can be debated the appropriation of divine motherhood in the nationalist cause brought a new focus to the ways in which mythology and ideology impacted upon women’s lives:

This appropriation led to a ‘lost identity’ for women because they were completely subsumed under the monolith of motherhood…by glorifying motherhood to express national selfhood, an abstract ideal of motherhood was produced which served to disempower real women and instead provide a metaphor for the strength of the nation by mythologizing women’s strength and power (Macdonald, 2008, 3).

Bose’s powerful charisma, felt by both men and women, is well documented. To demonstrate the effect Bose had upon people, especially the young women recruited to the Indian National Army, I constructed a scene where Sita is reluctantly persuaded by Shiva to go with him to a rally to hear Bose speak. Her initial reluctance to share her husband’s enthusiasm makes Bose’s charisma seem even more forceful when she finally encounters him and succumbs to his powerful attraction.

The strongest impetus for nationalistic feeling in India had begun earlier in the century, with the Jallianwalla Bagh massacre in Amritsar, in 1919. In an effort to curb the growing freedom movements with their accelerating acts of aggression, the British Raj passed into law the Rowlett Acts that enforced strongly repressive action against nationalist protests. The Jallianwalla Bagh incident was the result of a ban on public meetings:

It defines a moment in time and explains a whole range of historical events. Before Jallianwalla Indian collaborators could live in peace with their consciences; after Jallianwalla Bagh there could be no compromise on basic issues (Bose, M. 1982, 25).

236

Sita’s own awareness of the independence struggle comes to her through her husband, Shiva, a political activist and his intimate knowledge of this incident, in which his parents were murdered. The massacre turned Shiva into a full-blown revolutionary, and his aggressive exploits in India forced him to flee the country for the safety of Singapore. Once an admirer of Gandhi he loses patience with the slow pace of non-violent agitation, and becomes instead a fervent follower of Subhas Chandra Bose. Through Shiva, Sita also hears for the first time about Bose and his aggressive, militant ideals. Shiva’s stories unlock windows in Sita’s mind that allow her to glimpse new worlds of thought and experience that will start her on her own journey of self-discovery. She begins also to understand and be affected, like her husband, by India’s historic battle for freedom:

As she listened to Shiva’s impassioned voice, the rightness of the Indian struggle swelled within her, as she knew it swelled within Shiva, and the blood pulsed wildly through her in an unfamiliar way. She was filled by a rage of excitement (Brave Sisters, 57).

The establishment of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment Although the Indian National Army was the creation of the Japanese, the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was the brainchild of Subhas Chandra Bose. It was essentially a socially idealistic vision that Bose was determined to realise against intense Japanese disapproval. Under Bose’s leadership Indian women from Burma and Malaya, of varied caste, religious and social backgrounds were recruited to fight for India’s freedom. Although a small number of the women in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment were educated (mostly those women who formed its officer class) a large number of the group was made up of subaltern women from the rubber estates of Malaya, the young daughters or wives of labourers whose disempowered lives were

237 subject to abuse and exploitation (Hills and Silverman, 1993, 741). By some estimates these subaltern women formed 80%, of the regiment, and many were teenage girls, one, as young as 13 years of age (Chapman Lebra, 2008, 60 and 65). The power of the nationalistic feeling sweeping through Indian communities in South East Asia at this time cannot be disregarded. Yet, it is exceptional that Indian women, some barely out of childhood, many uneducated and all mindful of their traditional female role in society, should be prepared to leave husbands and families to lay down their lives for India’s freedom. Many of these young women were second or third generation Indians actually born in Malaya who had never set foot in their Motherland. The Ranis whose recorded testimonies I have examined in detail, all remember their time in the regiment, whatever the dangers and privations they endured, as the best time of their lives.

The surrender of Singapore to the Japanese in 1942, left the rubber estates in disarray and, in the atmosphere of fear and uncertainty at the time, the Indian National Army offered a safe haven for young women from the plantations. In Brave Sisters, Sita’s friend, Muni, has experienced the sexual exploitation that was reportedly common practice on such estates (Pillai, 2007, 59). On the train journey to Burma, Muni tells Sita of the life she was forced to live:

‘You cannot also refuse to go to the English Manager Sahib, or to the other Sahibs who work for him, and even our own men, the Supervisors. If any of them is wanting you, you must go.’ Muni whispered …her voice almost inaudible, her head lowered…(Brave Sisters, 115).

For the women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, political change opened up a way of expressing their strength as women. They crossed the threshold of the domestic space not only into a larger world but also into the extreme

238 empowerment of military life; handling guns and guerrilla warfare, taking upon themselves roles that equated them with men. The throwing-off of traditional ways was not always easy: the wearing of military uniform and the cutting of their hair, stood as a rite of passage for many of the Ranis. Sita’s friend Muni refuses to cut her hair, but Sita plucks up the courage and once the act is done finds in it a strange liberation. To Sita, this is a particularly traumatic act, demanding special strength of resolve as it conjures up all the horror of her past, her shaved head and her previous living/dead status as a widow:

… Sita’s long plait unravelled…the cool touch of scissors pressed against her bare neck… Strand after strand …her hair slithered down her shrouded body… A dart of excitement ran through her... She leaned back in the chair and stretched out her bare legs; her heartbeat with trepidation for all that lay ahead (Brave Sisters, 100).

I sought a way to show how deeply an ‘imagined’ community of women might have fostered links of solidarity and support within the Rani of Jhansi Regiment and how it might have helped empower subaltern women such as Sita and Muni:

During the weeks at the training camp they had been forced to …cross the boundaries of caste, class, education and community, sharing intimacies of flesh and mind, nurturing each other. Almost imperceptibly, solidarity built between them that only now… they were beginning to recognise and depend upon (Brave Sisters, 111).

An imaginary scene of a long train journey to Burma, fraught with fear, seemed a good place to demonstrate this sense of support through community. In this scene the stationary train is waiting to depart. Japanese

239 guards have locked a group of Ranis in a goods wagon where they are forced to remain for hours, without food or water, while all the while enemy bombers fly overhead:

‘This is your first real test as soldiers. We must stay calm,’ Reva said, but it was clear even as an officer she was battling with discomfort and her own terror. ‘But we are all together,’ Muni spoke up suddenly. ‘If we die, we die together. We are all sisters now,’ Muni’s face reflected the pride she felt in being able to speak as an equal to a superior, offering her the comfort she found in this sense of togetherness (Brave Sisters, 111)

In caste and class-ridden India, where Hindu will not eat with Muslim, where the superior Brahmin will not mix with the low-caste labourer, where the Untouchable is anathema to all and a Northerner cannot speak the language of a Southerner, the fostering of a sense of oneness is a difficult task. Bose ordered that all the women must eat and live together as one whatever their differences and that all, including the illiterate, must learn Hindustani, which was to be written in the Roman script for easier assimilation and in preparation for a later learning of English. Those Ranis whose testimony has been recorded all bear witness to how quickly feelings of difference fell away, and also how the tight-knit bonds of being a community of women motivated by a powerful cause, overrode all else. The undeniable commitment to their nationalistic cause and devotion to Subhas Chandra Bose bonded the Ranis together as a group.

Mohanty offers a possible explanation when she speaks of imagining third world women as a ‘political category’, an imagined community, to explore links amongst women’s histories and struggles against racism, sexism, colonialism, imperialism and monopoly capitalism:

240 ‘imagined’ not because it is not ‘real’ but because it suggests potential alliances and collaborations across diverse boundaries, and community because in spite of internal hierarchies… it nevertheless suggests a …deep commitment to …horizontal comradeship (Mohanty, Russo and Torres, 1991, 4).

The idea of an imagined community is useful as it leads away from stereotyped notions of third world feminist struggle and allows a truer examination of such struggle by suggesting political rather than biological or cultural grounds for alliance. In other words, it is not gender, colour or class that constructs the ground for feminist struggle, but rather the way we think about race, class and gender and the links we choose to make. Benita Parry, argues that Spivak’s discourse on the subaltern woman conceives her too narrowly as a “homogeneous and coherent category”; a wider view is needed:

Since the native woman is constructed within multiple social relationships and positioned as the product of different class, caste and cultural specifics, it should be possible to locate traces and testimony of women’s voices on those sites where women inscribe themselves …and by this modify Spivak’s model of the silent subaltern (2004, 19).

Historical Documentation In delving into the history of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment I have found a frustrating scarcity of research material in regard to the women who so devotedly followed Bose. Most of the information available comes from the writings of a very few articulate women of the officer class, and the public nature of their activities in their later lives. The best known of these accounts is Lakshmi Sahgal’s, A Revolutionary Life. Sahgal was a doctor practising in Singapore when she heard Bose speak and later received a mandate from him to set up the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, becoming

241 Minister for Women’s Affairs in the Cabinet of the Provisional government of Free India that Bose instituted (Sahgal, 1997, 61-62). She was known by the title, Captain Lakshmi, and traces in her memoir the emergence of the regiment, the training of recruits, their journey to Burma near the war front, and life in the camp there. Sahgal’s own terrible journey of retreat through the jungle with a wounded male soldier and her experience when discovered there by the Japanese army, gives some insight into the courage demanded by the women who entered the Rani of Jhansi Regiment (Sahgal, 1997, 95-99).

There is also A. Gopinath’s biography of Rasammah Bhupalam, Footprints on the Sands of Time: Rasammah Bhupalam: A Life of Purpose, which devotes a limited section to Bhupalam’s time in the regiment. Rohini Gawankar’s, The women’s regiment and Capt. Lakshmi of INA: An untold episode of NRI women’s contribution to Indian freedom struggle, gives some further details about military life. However, the above accounts were all written some time after the experiences of war, and lack the fresh detail of texture and insights a novelist looks for when researching. Some excerpts from a diary that was purportedly kept by Janaki Devar are quoted in a number of references, including Gwanakar’s book, and these passages burst with emotion and visual detail. However, according to Devar’s family, this diary appears now to be lost. It is interesting to note that another diary published as the war ended in 1945, Jai Hind: The diary of a rebel daughter of India with the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, caused a great stir at the time of its publication, but was later found to be faked and written by a male journalist, A. D. Shenth.

Further insights into the history of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment are found in Chapman Lebra’s book, Women Against the Raj. However, the general scarcity of resource material in regard to the Rani of Jhansi Regiment is

242 particularly disappointing for the researcher. Moreover, with regard to the material available it must be stated that some writings of the former Ranis are overlaid with stereotyped nationalistic jargon with little critical analysis, or inquiry into psychological motives, a fact also noted by Hills and Silverman:

To one interested in assessing the extent of feminist and nationalist inclinations present in the women, even the self-reports of the veterans offer limited help. Their recollections are couched almost entirely in the language of nationalism rather than personal philosophies, experiences and reflections of women soldiers (1993, 757).

Not only nationalism but also the compelling influence of Bose’s personal charisma overlays many texts and transcripts available for study. To some extent this is also partly true of those researching the history of the male contingents of the Indian National Army. However, in contrast to records concerning the Ranis, a great collection of diverse material and documentation is available here.

Despite the published writing of their personal experiences by some of the Ranis, which vouch for their historical existence, there is no official mention of them in British archival material. In my recent research into British accounts of Bose, I encountered no mention of this innovative strategy he adopted in his military campaign (See Appendix). In a contrary valuation, besides the biographical accounts of Bose that mention this setting up of a special regiment of women, Indian archival records contain relevant references to their existence. I have also personally sighted sections of archival material held in Singapore, and these documents have now been officially transferred to New Delhi in 2011.

243 Although in the larger context of INA military action the Rani of Jhansi Regiment may have played a relatively small role, that the regiment should have been established at all in that day and age is in itself of tremendous importance; a ‘giant step for womankind.’ The creation of the regiment was an extraordinary act of vision on the part of Bose. For the subaltern women who joined it, it provided an entry into a scenario where the patriarchal code was at its most inflexible and represented an embodiment of female agency and resistance. In her introduction to Lakshmi Saghal’s memoir, A Revolutionary Life, Geraldine Forbes points out that in male- authored accounts of the Indian National Army proper reference is seldom given to the Rani of Jhansi Regiment:

This omission of women’s role in the INA, especially in the work of historians committed to writing more inclusive history, is troubling at the end of the twentieth century (Sahgal, 1997, xiv).

History has never dealt squarely with these brave women; they remain a forgotten regiment in a largely forgotten army. Their gender prevented many outside the Indian National Army from taking the Rani of Jhansi Regiment seriously:

In the end they were neither women warriors, worthy of attention because they behaved like men, nor “true women” fighting to the death to save their children (Sahgal, 1997, xxix).

Although for educated recruits the Rani of Jhansi Regiment presented an opportunity to assert anew their identity as women and as patriotic Indians, for the illiterate it was a chance to gain self-respect for the first time, to escape the abuse and contempt in which they had lived for generations on the plantations:

244 They were being made to feel like human beings. Before that they were …treated like cattle…attractive women all had to go and please the estate owners...It was the first time somebody thought of them as individuals with value… of use to the nation. That had a tremendous psychological effect (Sahgal, 1997, 168/169).

When the Indian National Army was dissolved at the end of the war, the plight of many of the uneducated women of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment was critical. Most were still very young when the war ended, with their lives still ahead of them. As the war drew to a close Bose told the Ranis, “Promise not to go back and hide in the kitchen. Bring up your children to be strong and brave and fight for freedom” (Chapman Lebra, 2008, 65). Once the army disbanded, the lives of the veterans diverged into two distinct patterns: those of the well-educated officer class found “exceptional careers of service” (Forbes, 1996, 214). However, the majority of women had little option but to return to the same traditional and disempowered situations that they had come from, where they were expected to marry and raise large families. Many were also repatriated to India, a country they had either left as infants or did not know, and died there in poverty and obscurity (Chapman Lebra, 2008).

In spite of the paucity of documentation I would argue that the history of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment is a site where the subaltern woman’s voice is not only located and inscribed, but also coherently traced by the testimony of their deeds. In Brave Sisters, it is my intention to show that a subaltern woman, if given opportunity and personal insight, can proceed on the path of empowerment, finding the tools of growth within her own psyche.

After the empowerment experienced in the army, Sita is able to turn her second widowhood into a means of personal reinvention. She finds work

245 to support herself, searching to shape her life anew. However, in contrast, her friend Muni’s situation is representative of the many other women whose traditional family situation overwhelmed them on their return to civilian life. Back once again on a rubber estate in Malaya, Muni is married off to an abusive man by whom she is soon pregnant. Sita recognises Muni’s powerlessness before this age-old situation and is able to draw on her own renewed strength to come fearlessly to her aid; Muni’s infant daughter whom she is able to adopt will be assured of a meaningful life; this time she can intervene to save a female child from possible destruction.

The nexus of history and fiction There is continuing debate about the nexus of history and fiction, especially concerning the historical novel. The gulf between these two diverse areas would seem to be unbridgeable, but on examination there is not only common ground between both disciplines, but also a strong element showing the inter-relationship between the two. Historical fiction, the imaginative act of invention based upon recorded fact, has a unique ability to open up the past to the present. In creating a distinct structure of time and place and a unique hypothesis of what might have been, historical fiction offers a way through fictional narrative of accessing past memory. In Is History Fiction? Cuthoys and Docker state that, “literary forms and genres… help explain what the historian in the present takes to be the meaning of past events and occurrences” (2005, 11). For instance, with regard to the Rani of Jhansi Regiment, the scarcity of research material makes the serious study of this historical episode a source of frustration to academics examining this area of history and the Indian National Army. However, for historical novelists like myself it is this very space that is valuable, since it can be entered to recreate the subaltern woman’s experience and make her voice heard to a different time and place, retrieving lost memory through the creative encounter. Curthoys and

246 Docker argue that the creative space the novelist uses to such advantage is found through history’s essential “doubleness”:

The space between history as rigorous scrutiny of sources and history as part of the world of literary forms - gives ample room for uncertainty, disagreement and creativity. And perhaps this doubleness is the secret of history’s cunning as a continuous practice, an inventive, self-transforming discipline (2005, p11).

The history written through the historical novel may be in the vein of unofficial history and its value often inadequately acknowledged by formal historians, but its place as a transformative vehicle to understanding the past is undeniable. Historical truth, as far as we can understand it, rests not only upon recorded fact but also upon the imaginative extension of our understanding of those facts. In this way the no-man’s land between fact and fantasy becomes productive territory, a fertile space into which the novelist slips, to seed characters and to conjure up for them individual lives and experiences. Through the episodes in the characters’ lives, insights can be offered into a wide range of emotions that reveal, against a factual historical backdrop, the journey of a human life.

I used Sita’s first moments as a military recruit to give the reader a sense of the struggle that a woman from her background would face: on arrival at the training camp. Sita goes straight out to drill, replacing her traditional sari with khaki military shorts; the strange new clothes leave her feeling naked after her customary drapery. It is a fact that many of the illiterate young Ranis did not know the difference between their right and left sides.

In Brave Sisters, the shame of this common ignorance binds them together, a starting point on the long process of transformation. For Sita the

247 embarrassment also forms the beginning of her friendship with Muni, the timid girl marching before her.

Whatever leg Major Pandey called for, the thin girl in front of Sita always lifted the wrong one. …. ‘Is this my right hand or my left?’ Major Pandey raised a hand while prodding her baton into the girl’s chest. ‘What is right? What is left?’ the girl whispered cowering back against the wall (Brave Sisters, 97).

Such a scene, as described above, offers the novelist an entry point into that no-man’s land between fact and fiction, a place to explore and understand anew the relationship between public history and private lives. Historical fiction gives the modern reader a way to identify with the past and the universal unchanging emotions engendered when individual lives are swept up in the great events of history.

Both the historian and the historical novelist make use of the common material history provides. This sharing of territory has occasionally produced friction as in the case of a recent debate between Australian historian Inga Clendinnen and novelist Kate Grenville. In a recent article examining this contentious area, Clendinnen deplores the free use of factual history by novelists, while Grenville freely admits, as most historical novelists will, that she regards history as a story bank to pillage, a place to do a “smash and grab raid on history…run off with it and turn it into something else” (2006, 17).

Yet there is no need to “accuse” the writer of “misuse”. Grenville gives a frank description of the novelist’s project but the terminology of accusation needs to be exorcised; no blame should adhere to it. Grenville’s rewriting

248 of history in her fiction, as in her novel The Secret River, is a legitimate exercise that imaginatively recreates the life and choices of early Australian settlers, and to state otherwise is to misunderstand the fundamental nature of the historical novel.

I believe academic inquiry and historical fiction need not necessarily compete or disagree; both can be seen as enriching, not competing, ways of viewing the past. Fiction offers a way through narrative of accessing past memory and, according to Rose Tremain, of ‘mirroring’ our present day selves and understanding the unchanging plight of humanity across time (Dedukhina, 2006). Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison regards historical fiction as a form of literary archaeology. She describes the work as journeying to a site “to see what remains were left behind and to reconstruct the world that these remains imply” (Zinsser, 1998, 192). The writer uses images found in these literary sites but re-moulds them to yield a ‘new’ picture of the past in order to understand it anew and possibly change our relation to and our interpretation of it.

Historical fiction also raises the further question, what is history? “Is it possible to see the past in its own terms? …Are histories shaped by narrative conventions, so that their meaning derives from their form rather than the past itself? ”(Curthoys and Docker, 2005, 3). In an interview he gave in Greece in 1999, the historian Hayden White asserts that historians are structuralists and do not want to write narratives. Yet, he argues, a historical account of anything has to feature narrative or it does not qualify as history (Koufou and Miliori, 2000, 2). According to White, historians create histories from the perspective of their own time and place, and inevitably histories of the same events are thus rewritten over and over again until the truth becomes debatable. White suggests history remakes itself in a fictive manner:

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it cannot escape literature as it cannot escape itself; history presents the results of its enquiries… as narrative, and so necessarily enters into and partakes of the world of literary forms (Curthoys and Docker, 2005, p11).

To White, the historian is ultimately forced to the device of emplotment and the task is to “discover the ‘real’ story…that lies within the welter of ‘facts’ and to retell it as truthfully and completely as documentary record permits” (2010, 282).

While White believes the world and our history can only be spoken about in a narrative way, that “the story is in the events,” he expands the theme of historical narrative by citing French philosopher Paul Ricoeur, who believed cultural encodation leads people to make sense of their lives by trying to live them as if they were stories (Koufou and Miliori, 2000, 3). Amongst other things, Ricoeur was deeply concerned with our fictive and historical experience of time, and also with the issue of historical memory and forgetting. History, according to Ricoeur, “reinscribes the time of narrative within the time of the universe” (1985, 181). Ricoeur’s work indicates that the processes of history can help human beings reiterate their belonging to a common humanity:

reciprocally, the succession of generations provides the chain of interpretations and reinterpretations with a basis in life, as well as in the continuity of living (Ricoeur, 1985, p229).

To both White and Ricoeur the events and facts of history are without meaning until the work of emplotment and making stories is begun. Speaking of Ricoeur’s work, White says:

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Ricoeur regards memory as more fundamental for the understanding of the human condition than historical inquiry…History seeks to discipline memory by setting up standards of what should be remembered and in what manner and what form. Thus, history is memory cultivated in the interest of a “collective” past on the basis of which a collective identity can be forged (2010, 320).

This interest in a collective past and identity usually leads historians chronicling the rise of Indian nationalism to begin that history with mention of the first nationalist protests in different parts of India, through to the formation of the Congress Party, then the advent of Gandhi and the flow of events to eventual independence. However, Ricoeur’s suggestion that the processes of history helps us reinterpret humanity, with its emphases on the individual life rather than the collective identity, is something that is the special area of the historical novelist.

It is this sense of ‘belonging to the same humanity’ and her struggle to find her place in the spiritual scheme that underlies Sita’s journey and the displacements of her life. Her journey is also a vehicle through which is reflected the influence of the whole colonialist impact on an individual life, and in this respect I use the character of Sita to examine and dismantle stereotypes. Sita’s experience is the avenue through which I explore the dislocation British colonialism brings to Asia, and its effect on an individual female of lowly status who becomes caught up in the historical events of the Indian struggle for freedom. There is in addition within this novel the impact also of the ambitious and brutal Japanese colonialism, rampant in the Asia of that era, and an added dimension within which this story is compressed.

251 The historical novel tells the story or stories of the ‘little people’ whose lives are impacted on by history, while historical accounts of the past report the arc of larger events and their effect upon society. In an explanation of the Indian struggle for freedom from colonial rule, the historian may focus perhaps on Gandhi or Bose, the leaders of that struggle. However, it is only within the construct of the historical novel that the individual human psyche can be entered into, insight into the emotions be given, and the process of individual spiritual transformation be examined. This is particularly so of those characters drawn from that larger mass of humanity whose stories will not be the focus of the study of the historian.

For this reason the novelist’s unique ability to create characters is vitally important, both as a vehicle of convincing storytelling and a receptacle for realizing the influence of history upon individual lives. Through the fictionally created character the novelist projects a view of life and a record of human experience. In this way the character of Sita serves to show the experience of a subaltern woman in an era in India when society was still traditionally and inflexibly structured.

Against the backdrop of the social displacement British colonisation brought to India, Sita is doubly disempowered both by her gender and social disadvantage. She faces also the cultural displacement of further multiple identities, as unwanted daughter, child widow, wife, soldier and freedom fighter. Yet she is a complex woman, full of inner strength and untried potential. It is this inner resource and strength, so well recognized within the traditional Indian religious/mythological construct of shakti, that I show predominating in Sita’s character. I illuminate by turn her negative and positive complexities, her compassion, heroism, sensuality and spirituality, and also a force of self-interest that springs from a basic urgency to liberate and empower herself, a force that sees her through each

252 situation. Sita constantly draws on resources which seem to have been intuitive and, if theorised, can only be attributed to her socio-historical background and particularly the religious and cultural background from which she derives.

When recreating characters in historical novels, there are two paths the novelist can take. Some writers, according to Rose Tremain:

look for gaps in what is known about real historical figures and then fill them in with inventions and reimaginings, thus risking…“biographical unease,” but revelling in the novelist’s freedom to narrate the thoughts of real characters (2012).

In Brave Sisters, I take an alternative path:

by inserting an invented person into a known historical time… and embarking on a timeless human drama, that of the individual struggling to understand her place in the world (Tremain, 2012).

Whichever path the historical novelist chooses, history must be taken hold of and used through the invention of character to examine the lives of ordinary people living through great events.

Yet there are also complexities to be considered when engaging the voice of those that are silent, as I attempt to do in Brave Sisters. Through the process of imaginative interpretation I have given voice to a subaltern woman of the Rani of Jhansi regiment allowing her to speak through documented actions, thus revealing to a different time and place the historical struggle of a group of extraordinary women. In describing such a relationship between author and such a subject, bell hooks says:

253 No need to hear your voice when I can talk about you better than you can speak about yourself…Only tell me your pain…your story. And then I will tell it back to you in a new way…in such a way that it has become mine…Rewriting you as I write myself anew. I am still author, authority…and you are now the centre of my talk (1990, 241-243).

The historical novel enters the perspective of time and place to recreate a unique hypothesis of what might have been. Within this imaginary space the novel establishes an alternative interpretation of a past that may have been distorted or silenced, exploring in multiple and complex contexts sites of possibility and potential. It is inevitable that over the expanse of time and silence, the writer will rewrite the subject, and that what was margin will now become centre, reflecting the image of the writer to some extent. In her essay, Can the Subaltern Speak? Spivak chides the historian, and also no doubt the historical novelist, for “transforming ‘insurgency’ into ‘text for knowledge,’” and warns that the subaltern subject can, “freeze into an ‘object of investigation’ or worse yet, a model for imitation” (Ashcroft et al. 1995, 28). It can be said that a novelist’s work, besides the distant hope of some poetry, is an act of pure ventriloquism, approximation and the imitation that Spivak so deplores and warns against. Yet, in my opinion, whatever the dangers inherent in a precarious situation, that the mute voice should at least be heard, is one of the prime inspirations and responsibilities of a novelist.

For the novelist a historical character or event may become a textural site that can offer new perspectives on history. To bring to life a mute voice, such as Sita of the Rani of Jhansi regiment, means that the provisional reality created in the historical novel can be seen as a kind of virtual witnessing. Such ‘witnessing’ produces an immediate explanatory power not found in our ordinary experience where cause and effect and meaning

254 are sometimes never understood. If history is the quarry of incident for the novel, then texture in a narrative is the transformative element that transposes the reader into a past time to bear witness in this special way. For example in Brave Sisters, Sita is involved is a clash with a Burmese guerrilla unit:

She was racing wildly, rifle in hand... She fired and fired again. The breeze rushed into her face as she ran, her cap toppled from her head… They were all running…their expressions fierce and warrior-like, teeth barred, eyes bulging…She saw the flash of bayonets, heard the crack of guns (Brave Sisters, 134).

To conjure up the plausibility required for a reader to enter into the act of “virtual witnessing,” invented incidents must contain the vital ingredient of verisimilitude (Bender, 1997, 2). Through the use of texture, with its depiction of sensation, emotion, thoughts and sights, smells, touch, visual details and the sound of things in the chosen historical place, the reader experiences this “verisimilitude,” and through it the life that surrounds the characters in the far country of the past, and actively enters into it. Texture then is the device by which I recreate the traumatic reality of the moment when Sita must cast off her traditional sari and wear the revealing army uniform of shorts and shirt:

She had never shown anyone her legs before, not even her husband had seen so much of her naked… her eyes went first to her bare knees and embarrassment curled through her…Although she was dressed she felt naked (Brave Sisters, 96).

Texture is also the means by which the reader is transported into the physical reality surrounding the characters, the details that approximate

255 actuality and bring to life an imaginary world. According to Butterfield, the hardships and experiences endured by a character are:

The means by which the age manifests its character, and in them history is speaking…. we …become contemporary with the past…having an inside knowledge of it (2011, 45/50).

On its terrible retreat from Imphal at the end of the war, British bombers strafe the Indian National Army. Subhas Chandra Bose refuses to show fear of the enemy:

Netaji hung his shaving mirror on the tree and, standing before it, began to shave…lathering up a beard of soap. One cheek was already clean when the bombers returned…Everyone ran for cover, but Netaji made no move, continuing calmly with his shaving (Brave Sisters, 138).

This incident is based on a fragment of a diary that has survived, purportedly written by Janaki Devar, one of the Ranis of the Jhansi Regiment. In this way the inside knowledge of a past era that Butterfield speaks of requires the historical novel to act as a literary archive, a repository of cultural memory, a place of recording, witnessing and testifying to humanity’s past experience. Institutional archives are memorials to the collective memory of society, constituting the ‘safe house of the national narrative” (Cavalho, 2009, 2). The historical novel can be seen as a place of recording, witnessing and testifying to humanity’s past experience; a uniquely creative fusion of art and archive.

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APPENDIX 1

The Political Background – Subhas Chandra Bose and the Indian National Army.

Although he did not achieve his ambitions to release India from British rule, today the name of Subhas Chandra Bose has attained a legendary status. His unique strategy of the formation of the Rani of Jhansi Regiment has provided one of the key elements in the plot of my novel. In his own time, Bose was a controversial and divisive figure inspiring passionate fervour and adulation from his followers, and aversion in his opponents, especially amongst prominent disciples of Mahatma Gandhi. The conventional British views of Gandhi at the time bordered on ridicule even amusement; their most virulent descriptions were reserved for Bose. This suggests that he was perceived as a more real

257 danger to the might of the British Raj; he had even succeeded in securing the aid of a powerful foreign ally in the Japanese.

To the British, Bose was the ‘ultimate pariah’. He was seen as exhibiting, ‘the dangers of a narrow mind, of dedicating life to one obsessive hatred, of the blindness induced by fanaticism and irrational self-confidence’ (Bose, M.1982, 25). A series of official military reports stemming from official investigations into the death of Bose are illuminating as to the extent to which he had succeeded in securing Japanese support for his plans, particularly his relationship with the Japanese military high command. In an official report submitted in 1946 by Lt-Col Figges of the United Kingdom Liaison Mission in Japan, Bose is described as promoting “a colourful one-man propaganda”:

From all accounts Subhas Chandra Bose is a remarkable man since, despite his lack of plans and the hare-brained nature of his schemes, his listeners could not fail to be influenced by him …senior [Japanese] officers did not escape his influence, even if it was only to the extent of being bamboozled into wishful thinking…(1946, 4).

Figges was an officer tasked with interrogating members of the defeated Japanese High Command after the Japanese surrender. His mission was to determine whether the Japanese had serious intentions of invading India. The interrogation of Colonel Katakura, Senior Staff Officer (Operations) of the Burma Area Army confirms Bose’s insistence on Indian National Army troops being the first to cross the Indian frontier. Katakura confirms that the orders received from his High Command call for clearing Burma of the British and repelling their attempts to enter Burma. He states that Japanese commanding

258 officers on the ground ‘entertained serious doubts as to the feasibility of the operation with the forces available. General Ayabe, Commanding Burma Area Army, went to Tokyo to urge reconsideration of the plan.’ However, in his interrogation report Figges goes on to state:

General Ayabe’s pleas fell on deaf ears and he was told to carry on with the operation. One cannot help feeling that this almost brutal rejection of a reasoned argument by a respected commander in the field, the higher authorities in Tokyo must have been influenced by some outside source. The explanation would seem to be Subhas Chandra Bose’s colourful one-man propaganda (1946).

Whatever the clash of ideas between Bose and the Japanese officers in the Burma theatre of war, Bose clearly had the support of Japanese military command in Tokyo which had gone to great trouble, originally, to place him in command of the Indian National Army and support his aspirations for India.

Unlike the megalomania of Hitler or Mussolini (both of whom Bose openly admired), Bose’s own overwhelming ambition stemmed from the depth of his patriotism. It was the purity of this sense of mission and the depth of his selflessness in confronting it that influenced so many to follow him, including those women who were recruits in the Rani of Jhansi Regiment. Unlike Hitler or Mussolini Bose displayed a personal concern for his troops as is revealed in the letters he wrote to Colonel Kiani, one of his commanders in the field, discussing the mundane details of the front-line needs:

259 It is hardly necessary for me to say to you – and all those who are with you in the front – are always in my thoughts…Whatever is possible to get will be procured. Since our stock of blankets had run short we made a house-to-house collection and got quite a good number. Now we are trying to make a house-to-house collection of Tinned Milk. My only regret is that transport is the prime need today, and in that we can do little (Bose, S. C. 1943).

Such attention to detail and concern for the men in the field, are apparent in all the letters Bose wrote to Kiani and other INA commanders. It could give some further explanation, besides the widely acknowledged personal charisma, why he might have inspired such devotion in those who followed him. To the many who followed him however, he was almost a god-like figure, fearless, larger-than-life and possessed of immense charm. Beside their own personal feelings of strong patriotism, many of the women who entered the Rani of Jhansi regiment attest the importance of Bose’s personality as being a powerful element in their decision to recruit.

As early as 1928, when the youthful Bose was emerging as dynamic leader of Indian student and youth organisations and a potential future power in the Congress Party, his views on how the future of India should evolve foreshadowed some of the strategies he would later implement in the organisation of the Indian National Army. Most innovative was its inclusion of a women’s regiment. He had articulated this principle of the importance of the recognition of female potential earlier:

We must build up a political democracy…privileges based on birth, cast

260 or creed should go and equal opportunities should be thrown open to all…The status of women should also be raised, and women should be trained to take a larger and more intelligent interest in public affairs … (2011, 73).

In January 1941 while the war in Europe was at its height, Subhas Chandra Bose made a daring escape from house arrest at his home in Calcutta. He fled India in disguise and eventually arrived in Germany where he assumed, for his own safety, the persona of an Italian diplomat, ‘Orlando Mazzotta’. In Germany he hoped to petition the Axis powers for help for Indian independence from British rule. He proposed that a, ‘Free India Government’ be set up in Berlin, recognised by Germany, and be financially backed by a German loan which the new government would use to carry out its operations” (Gordon, 1990, 444). Amongst these operations was to be extensive propaganda for the Indian cause through a Free India Centre, and the organisation of an Indian military force of 50,000 at the head of which Bose intended, with German help, to invade and liberate India. Bose hoped to raise this force from Indian POWs and from the more extreme anti-British Indians in the Indian Army. By the end of 1941 the Free India Centre was formally opened and began broadcasting to India over Azad Hind Radio. In Brave Sisters, this is the station Sita listens to with Shiva and for the first time hears the voice of Bose (Brave Sisters, 77).

With the agreement of Germany and Italy, Bose began recruiting civilian Indians and Indian POWs in Europe to his new military force, the Indian Legion. The force was trained by Germans and was to be considered a part of the Germany army. German uniforms with the

261 swastika and eagle were worn, and troops swore allegiance first to Hitler and then to Subhas Chandra Bose and the fight for the freedom of India (Gordon, 1990, 459). It was at this time that he acquired the title, Netaji, leader. The term did not echo the fear of such titles as ‘Fuehrer’ or ‘Duce,’ but rather evoked Indian resonances of respect.

In the undeniably freer atmosphere of Germany, where he did not need to be concerned about the gossipmongers of Calcutta, Bose had met and secretly married a German woman, Emilie Schenkle on an early visit to Europe in 1937. This is his only recorded romantic relationship with a woman. Bose’s great- nephew, Sugata Bose, notes that in his autobiography, An Indian Pilgrim, written in 1937 during ten days in Austria, Bose is candid in describing the inner struggles of his youth and how he had tried to suppress or transcend the sexual urge that he felt had undergone a transformation:

He had come to see his sexual instincts not as an enemy, but as a normal aspect of life that did not have to be completely suppressed (2011,128).

When Bose later escaped to Germany in 1941, Emilie met him in Berlin and in 1942 she bore him a daughter. With his iconic status as an anti- colonialist, Bose’s marriage to a European would not have gone down well in India. Bose’s marriage was only revealed to his family after his death from the letter he left for this purpose with Emilie, before he departed for the long submarine journey to Japan, and then Singapore to take over the Indian National Army.

There is no doubt that Bose felt deeply paternalistic toward the young women of his regiment. He openly acknowledged the ‘grave

262 responsibility’ of persuading them to leave their homes and take up arms:

I have been endeavouring to look after and nurse this new Regiment in such a manner that every father, every mother and every guardian may feel that his or her girl is safe in our hands (Hills and Silverman, 1993, 748).

Subhas Chandra Bose and Mahatma Gandhi

In 1921, Subhas Chandra Bose returned to India having completed a degree in philosophy at Cambridge University, and then his Civil Service Examinations in London. On his return to India he is said to have rushed straight from the Mumbai dock where he disembarked his ship, to see Gandhi who was visiting the city, full of eager questions about the non-violent movement that the Mahatma had spearheaded from the previous year. However, in spite of admiration for Gandhi, differences grew between the men, both ideological and political, which eventually forced Bose to resign his presidency of the National Congress. Gandhi preferred to negotiate with the British while advocating a strategy of passive resistance: Bose took the more aggressive approach that only organized and violent retaliation could dislodge the British from India:

But, for all the apparent humility with which …[Gandhi’s]…ideas were propounded, there was a strong element of totalitarian force, as in any movement based on myths. Gandhi wanted complete, unquestioning obedience to his creed. That, he said, was essential if Swaraj [independence] was to be obtained; and Gandhiji’s Swaraj seemed

263 rigidly ascetic, intolerably puritanical and quite opposed to the sensual, culturally more liberal Bengali version that was part of Bose’s heritage (Bose, 1982, 31).

There is no doubt that Bose respected Gandhi. Their aim, India’s freedom from colonial rule, was the same, but he did not revere him as so many others did, seeing in Gandhi’s campaigns of non-violence “a deplorable lack of clarity.” Gandhi was India’s first mass leader, breaking through regional, linguistic and caste barriers, advocating a return to a Utopian “Hindu Eden: a land of peace and prosperity and primitive agricultural bliss where there were no modern inventions and no worries about equality” (Bose, M. 1982, 28-30). Gandhi’s swaraj was a broad but vague vision of self-rule where those with wealth and property would be the trustees of it for the good of the whole society (Gordon, 1989, 79). Bose was a proud Bengali intellectual with a vision for Bengal that had its roots in the Bengal Renaissance. “Bengal had created Indian nationalism and taught it to the rest of India…what Bengal thinks to day, India thinks tomorrow” (Bose, M. 1982, 30-31).

Mahatma Gandhi’s intellectual takeover of nationalism was not appreciated in Bengal, and this emotion was an added thread of contention in Bose’s differences with Gandhi. Rather than negotiate with the British as Gandhi did, Bose later turned to other colonialist- minded nations, first fascist Germany and then militaristic Japan for aid and support, hoping to raise an army to invade India to achieve the country’s liberation through force. Mussolini, on meeting Bose in Italy, asked him if he advocated reformist or revolutionary methods of achieving Indian Independence. When Bose answered that he chose revolutionary methods, Mussolini replied that then indeed he stood a

264 chance of reaching his goal. Bose admired the efficiency of fascism. He felt it had “transformed a languid society into a dynamic one. The focus was on means and the role of the forceful leader” (Gordon, 1990, 278-279). Before Bose’s life entwined him closely with Japan, he spent several years in Fascist Germany. Brief mention of this time is interesting for the manner in which it foreshadows the later period in Japan with the Indian National Army and the structures Bose imposed on it.

According to Edward Said, for idealists like Gandhi and Bose, whatever their differences, the total opposition to colonial rule in India was:

rooted in the vision of a radical regeneration of national culture…To restore the nation in such a situation is basically to dream a romantically utopian ideal, which is undercut by political reality (Said, 1994, 217).

Gandhi’s opposition to modern civilization, Said says, was just such a romantically utopian ideal. Yet, Bose with a love of ritual and the trappings of military life and uniforms, his attention to form and detail, his passionate rhetoric and oratory as recorded in numerous documents, dreamed an equally utopian ideal.

As the war drew to a close, Bose died in a mysterious plane crash in Taiwan, in an effort to reach Russia and gain new support for his cause. He was badly burned and later died of his injuries, although his travelling companion, Colonel Habibur Rahman escaped with only superficial injuries. Bose was supposedly quickly cremated and his ashes taken to Tokyo by Rahman and interned at the Renkoji temple there. The absence of a body, and the generally mysterious

265 circumstances of Bose’s death have generated many conspiracy theories:

Was the death of Netaji faked so that he could escape possible execution by the British as a traitor…[had] the Japanese announced his “death” in an air crash while he was actually hiding in Japan to escape the British (Purcell, 2010).

Some further theories have Bose returning to India and living out his life as a religious hermit, a sadhu. There have been supposed sightings of him in this guise just as there have been sighting of him in Siberian labour camps. An article as recently as 2010 referred to in a reputed journal, carried an account of the death of a reclusive holy man in India who many believed might well have been Bose who had been living his life in exile (Purcell, 2010). While researching for my novel, A Choice of Evils, in which the character of Subhas Chandra Bose has a brief entry, I interviewed an ex- Indian National Army man in Tokyo,; A P Nair; he was convinced that Bose had been murdered by the Japanese who found him a liability as the war collapsed about them. Whatever the truth about Bose’s death nothing further can be known until “the British government declassify Bose documents only after 2021 and if the Indian government so desires” (Purcell, 2010).

Japanese colonialism Unlike the Spanish and Portuguese, British colonisation was never overtly evangelical. British Imperialism from its earliest beginnings was always a pragmatic enterprise dedicated to monopolistic trade, and the later acquisition of territory was seen as a further consolidation and enrichment of that trade. Through deliberately

266 isolationist policies, Japan escaped Western colonisation. When it finally emerged from its isolation in the mid-nineteenth century, it determined to “catch up with advanced Western nations by joining them in the competition for Asian colonies” (Bix, 2000, 8). Japan’s consequent rise from a weak, feudal and agrarian country into a modern industrial power, economically and militarily capable of resisting foreign domination, was remarkable.

Unlike British colonisation, densely populated and resource-poor Japan’s aggressive push for new territories was fuelled by the need not so much for trade but the imperative to find natural resources, to solve the dire problems of self-sufficiency. However, like the Christian missions of the Spanish and Portuguese, Japanese colonial aspirations were underpinned by a spiritual drive, the powerfully nationalistic kodo, or ‘imperial way’ that “encouraged notions of Japan’s ‘civilizing mission’ “ in the rest of Asia (Behr, 1989, 27). The term embodied a plan of active ideological warfare where a ‘holy’ war of ideas, would be waged against Western political doctrines to purify Asia of the polluting influences of Anglo-American culture (Bix, 2000, 11). The Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere was established in the effort to create a self-sufficient bloc of Asian nations, led by Japan and free of Western domination. If this concept was originally an idealistic one, the nationalistic elements in Japan soon saw it as a way to gain resources and power through colonisation.

First Indian National Army When Singapore surrendered to the Japanese in 1942, Indian POWs captured from the British Army were formed into a force and encouraged to fight for India’s freedom under Japanese protection. It

267 was planned that this force would fight alongside the Japanese in their attempt to invade India at a future date. An Indian force would add the legitimacy of liberation by Indians of their country, while the Japanese would ride in on their back to spread their dominions. However, in contrast to Japan’s growing colonialist stance, to most Indians the struggle throughout Asia was for independence from any colonial rule, be it British or Japanese. This disagreement in aims soon threatened to dissolve the original INA, then under the command of Captain Mohan Singh, and a new leader was sought to reinvigorate and reorganise it. Subhas Chandra Bose was the natural candidate, perfectly poised both in time and in personality for his role in India’s struggle for freedom from colonial rule.

APPENDIX 2

Indian Women’s Lives on Malayan Rubber Plantations

On the British-owned rubber estates of Malaya, indentured Tamil workers lived a degraded life apart from other indigenous communities. This separateness may have permitted their Indian identity to remain intact but their position was at the very bottom of the plantation hierarchy; and their lives were marked by poverty and exploitation.

In Women against the Raj, Joyce Chapman Lebra has noted that although harsh conditions on the rubber estates kept them submissive, the separate and insular manner in which the Tamil labourer communities lived upon the plantations allowed their Indian identity to remain in tact. Some had been separated from India for two or three

268 generations but they still spoke their native tongue and wore Indian dress. In humbly constructed Hindu shrines upon the estates they celebrated religious festivals and practices. Hindu myth and folklore was handed down in the home through verbal storytelling. These estate workers felt “completely Indian” (2008, 61).

Furthermore, against the embedded denigration of self-image in Malaya, the recollection of the motherland became a consoling image - an India of the imagination - created out of the vestiges of an ancestral memory that was constantly kept alive (Pillai and Subramaniam, 2009, 139). There was also an awareness of the growing movement for independence from the British in India. Tamil newspapers and radio carried stories from India, pictures of Gandhi hung in many places. If this insularity as a community and the powerful tie to their Indian heritage is explored, it is easier to understand why second-; third - generation Indians, who had never lived in India, were stirred by the nationalistic feelings of the time, and willing to lay down their lives for the patriotic cause. Subhas Chandra Bose tapped into not only emotions of latent nationalism, but also into anti-colonial notions of shame and honour:

European planters considered South Indians ideal workers…docile, submissive, not highly educated or motivated…Tamil schools on the estates were designed and kept ineffective with the goal in mind of keeping workers tied to plantations (Chapman Lebra, 2008, 61).

In The Location of Culture, Homi Bhabha explores this state of psychological bondage:

269 There is a negotiation between gender and class, where each formation encounters the displaced, differentiated boundaries of its group representation and enunciative sites in which the limits and limitations of social power are encountered in an agonistic relation (2008, 40).

For the indentured labourers brought from India to Malaya in the early part of the twentieth century, hoping to better their lives, the misery of the rubber plantations led them into a subculture of further poverty. In his novel In a Far Country, Malaysian novelist K.S. Maniam not only describes the life of Indian labourers on the rubber estates but the conditions on the ships carrying workers from India to Malaysia:

The ship we came in was crowded and foul… from the taps there was only the taste of rust. And the human dung all over the place...The door too rusted to be closed. The women with just the saris over their thighs, to hide their shame (1993, 5).

Lakshmi Sahgal in her memoir, A Revolutionary Life, also describes her shock on her own voyage to Singapore, at seeing the treatment meted out to labourers shipped overseas to work on the rubber plantations of Malaya:

The voyage was a nightmare for these unfortunate deck passengers, They were packed like sardines with no proper ventilation or toilet fascilities … many were more dead than alive when they finally disembarked (1997, 12).

In a statistical survey, the Institute Analisa Social of Malaysia (Insan), notes that, once they arrived, labourers were forced to live in cramped

270 and filthy labour lines without the amenity of clean water or proper facilities for bathing or cooking. Living on subsistence wages, they were often unable to afford the basic staple of rice, and were “reduced to eating…rubbish…unripe fruit, …garbage and offal of all description” (1989, 27). Under the rigidly hierarchical kangani system of labour agents and overseers, workers lived in fear of brutal corporal punishment if a line of stratification was crossed:

While there is no evidence the kangani could shoot people as some…asserted…sometimes the wounds caused by excessive beating with a cane became septic [so that]..the victim…later died” (1989, 28).

Indian indentured labourers on the Malayan rubber estates were commonly known as Sucked Oranges, a term that aptly described their dehumanised lives and bodies, sucked dry of life and dignity.

The poor economic conditions on the estates affected women harshly. Women were employed at even lower wages than men, doing the menial and laborious work of weeding, and also attending to their household work. Many fed their husbands and children most of the meagre food they prepared, and starved themselves. In addition male aggression on the estates was unleashed upon its women. Indian women plantation workers in Malaya reported that, besides the routine domestic violence expected of their gender, physical abuse and rape by other male workers and supervisory staff was not uncommon (Insan, 1989, 66).

On the rubber plantations the situations of abuse many women lived in can be clearly detected from the narratives written by English planters

271 in the first part of the century. These often reveal “evidence of an imperial deception as the indenture system is masked to belie its fundamentally feudal features “(Pillai, 2007, 23). Pillai comments on a European planter’s description of witnessing domestic violence and making no effort to intervene:

Where he dominates, so too does his subordinate labourer achieve a similar status when he steps into the private space of his home…[his] depiction of the woman’s pain ...[focuses on] dehumanising her… and subsequently her pain is portrayed in erotic terms, as her ‘soft skin’ is the focus of his attention (2007, 24).

Planters and managers learned the labourers’ language through what was called, ‘sleeping dictionaries,’ and of casual seduction of vulnerable female Indian labourers. Pillai quotes from a letter by a British doctor, who actually condones the sexual exploitation of young women labourers:

Think of the young assistant, standing all day over Asiatic labour, many working with breasts and bodies exposed to the sun, surrounded by women to whom a few dollars are a fortune (2007, 58).

272

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