The Unforeseen Consequence

Everyone in Govind Nagar knew Sharmaji. He was the secret sauce of the mohalla.

Every child knew the tap tap of his cane as he came walking up their gravel paths, and no lady of the house was amiss at whispering hasty instructions into her cook’s ears to lay out the best of hospitality at his disposal. Along with the prayers that went up to Lord Ganesh before embarking on a new job or a marriage proposal, a tranche of blessing-seeking was sent his way as well. In fact, he was divine representative cum career counsellor cum family court all rolled into one. Parents would come seek his advice before sending their children away for higher education. He was given pride of place in every wedding, every function and if he ever fell ill, the good housewives of Govind Nagar would care their hearts out. He also helped the usually-amicable residents sort out their differences, and he was a talent at that, they all went away feeling like their suit had won.

Such was their devotion to him, that a group of them was proposing renaming their local park in his honor.

It had not always been so. He had appeared out of nowhere around twenty-three years ago. Nobody knew much about his past life or relations - damned odd in these parts, where people’s identities are tapestries interwoven with threads of family history and ancestral legends. Nobody knew what Sharmaji’s coordinates had been before arriving here, and at first he was viewed with a sense of unease.

Things had continued in a similar vein till the day things had completely changed.

It was the early 90s and the country had taken on strange hues. For a couple of decades post India gaining its independence, it had been widely believed that a country of such size and with such inherent diversity would fail at the gigantic experiment of democracy it had undertaken. But India had made it work. It was chaotic, in fact it was like an acrobatic act performed by clowns, a disorganized and heterogeneous mix of clowns at that, and you laughed to see them try out complicated manoeuvres like hand-standing, grand-standing, fire-ball juggling and the rest; you laughed till you realized that they had made it work, albeit with some oddly landed flips and near drops, but largely made it work creating an unprecedented display of balance & beauty.

But it was the 90s and the country had taken on strange hues. The political landscape was dotted with opportunists intent on using the Almighty himself as a means of securing power. While every effort was made to sanctify the birthplace of a revered Hindu God, if at all such a being existed, he had probably decided to disown his own creation and left for vanvas, not for the first time in his immortalized story.   

Into such turbulent times, had Sharmaji arrived in Govind Nagar. The residents had heard through various dubious sources that the long vacant ‘Kamla Nivas’ had been sold by the grandsons of late Barrister Ravi Shankar Prasad to a person of unknown repute. The Barrister had been a much respected member of society, and it was widely hoped that his equally successful lawyer grandsons would return, tiring of the lucre of foreign lands, moral compass pointing due home, towards the city of their birth. But none of that came to pass. Instead the good citizens of Govind Nagar awoke one morning to see heavy activity in the vicinity of Kamla Nivas, and stood by as an entire morning was spent regurgitating the old but still sturdy furniture of the ancient house, while a host of modern looking pieces found their way in.

Sharmaji had some very peculiar habits that didn’t do much to endear the local populace. While in his early 50s, as some nosy kids had found out, he was not one to surrender to the geriatric pleasure of gathering rust. Instead, he was often spotted in white vest and running shorts, doing laps around Moti Jheel park. People might have forgiven him this defiance of the laws of nature, had he not insulted the principal sport of Govind Nagar - Rummy. Upon being invited for a game in the early days of his arrival, he was rumoured to have said that card games were for the lazy. Govind Nagar bristled as one and unanimously agreed that this strange Sharma was best left alone.

As these events took place at home, events of another nature unfolded elsewhere. It was the fag end of 1992, and every draught of wind brought alarming news; especially pertinent to Govind Nagar as its demographic was a mix of religions, a Hindu majority but with a significant population of Muslims, most of them old families accepted as an integral part of the social fabric. But in the years leading up to that fateful month of December, one could see a loosening up of that beautiful fabric, threads once so intricately woven were now in danger of unravelling at the slightest provocation.

Things had come to this state so gradually that no one could quite put a finger on its genesis. As with most things in life it started out small enough - a missed invitation, a door slammed too quickly, the quickening of footsteps while passing through a certain street, not letting children go over to play and there it was, the seeds of dissent sown. Before one even realized what had led to it, one was right in the middle of it, living it. The elders of the mohalla who would once gather all together to discuss everything from the tyranny of their wives to the liberalization of their country, were suddenly meeting in smaller sub-groups; the common terraces that stretched across the street and had once served as a focal point for the women to catch up on neighbourhood gossip, seemed ominous now, almost lethal, in their silence; even the children smelled trouble and where earlier you could see a rowdy gang of multi-hued mischief-makers running circles around their indulgent parents, now you saw them dissipated, discouraged, dispassionate, on edge as if waiting for disaster to strike.

Disaster did strike. An episode, that would define a political party for better or for worse and continue to send out powerful shock ripples into space & time rearing its ugly head once every few years, occurred in the first week of December. It resulted in outbreaks of violence across the country. Waves of hatred travelled outward from the epicentre, finding release wherever they sensed a weakness, wreaking havoc across the length & breadth of what was for the first time post-independence, definitely not Nehru’s India.

And how did all this affect Govind Nagar, you might ask. Already having fallen prey to segregation in their everyday lives, the day that brought news of the calamitous occurrence at the purported divine birthplace was a dark day in its history. While there had been much confusion & lack of accurate information, everyone knew something irreparable had happened, and there was a whole smorgasbord of responses to be seen: the Pandey youths, who had disappeared over a week ago, re-appeared, changed, much emboldened and with a gang of boys in tow, they seemed to be in the throes of a strong emotion, visibly controlling their selves; the local maulana and his family were nowhere to be found, people said they had crept away in the dark of the night and were headed to Mumbai; his apprentice was seen walking to the Mosque for Azan in the middle of the morning, dressed entirely in black, the color of mourning; most other families had shut themselves inside their houses, with  entrances barricaded, windows locked, money and jewellery hidden away. All of these responses told of the mistrust that had taken root deep into this mohalla. Tension covered everything like a thick blanket blocking out hope and happiness.

But what of Sharmaji? Well, the residents or at least those who had happened to sight him were of the opinion that he had finally taken leave of his senses. There were strange apocryphal accounts of him being spotted out on the streets, in his white vest & running shorts. Mrs Zoya Ansari, who’d happened to be looking out of her window when she’d seen him pass, immediately reported to her husband his strange demeanour. “There was somehow a different look to him, some sort of determination, like a madman’s”, she’d observed to him.

Later in the evening, around 5.30, during the time of the evening Azan, the inhabitants of Govind Nagar and especially those who lived close to the Mosque heard what sounded like a brawl – some screaming, followed by a couple of shots and sounds of struggle. It was a briefly lived skirmish, and soon silence restored itself. But this silence was more threatening, every moment pregnant with the possibility of violence.

The next two days passed pretty much in the same fashion. News channels started reporting the events of D-day in more detail, along with the aftermath - the brutal repercussions, some incidents also being reported in their town. However their mohalla remained silent, still watchful, but silent.

Finally on the fourth day, some people gathered the courage to come up for air. All it took was for one to venture out, before several others followed suit. While theoretical wisdom might have recommended indefinite confinement under such circumstances, the human spirit was far too curious to pay heed.

So out came the denizens of Govind Nagar, seeking information like it was sustenance. And they weren’t disappointed - there was some astonishing news awaiting them. The missing-maulana’s apprentice, Adnan Haris, initially skittish but turning expansive upon realizing that none of the people in the immediate vicinity had any intent to take up arms against him, told everyone a fantastical tale. He alternated between temerity and timidity, one instant shooting accusatory daggers at his audience for having ensconced themselves in safety and the other, apologizing on their behalf, believing and forgiving them in that moment for not having had any other choice. By and by the story was extricated in the whole - it turned out that the Pandey brothers had come back with instructions from their extremist clique to create trouble in Govind Nagar, one more stab among the series of assaults, arranged in cold-blood to wound, rather, cripple the nation. On that first day, they, along with their band of hoodlums, had marched over to the Mosque and entered the premises, daggers out, fangs bared - mouthing obscenities. There were only a handful of people inside, mostly beggar women, and Adnan. The brothers had seemed a little disappointed to see such few people, and as per Adnan would have ensured they got their glory if not in numbers then in brutality. But they didn’t get any further with their nefarious designs, because Sharmaji arrived just then.

Sharmaji, who’d apparently spent every moment of that day patrolling the neighbourhood and especially high risk areas, also armed, had arrived in the nick of time to confront the brothers. Sharmaji was one to the five or six crazed youths of which the Pandeys were the leaders, but what he lacked in number, he made up in strength, strategy and ironically, weaponry. While the Pandey team was armed to pierce, tear and puncture with a naked and merciless arsenal of swords, choppers and knives, Sharmaji had gunpower on his side. Armed with a firearm, and his ferocity, he had managed to take the brothers out. As soon as he'd disabled them with a couple of non-fatal but strategically aimed shots, the others of that craven crew had taken tail and fled.

The inhabitants of Govind Nagar listened to this account, hardly able to believe such dramatic tale telling. However there was no doubting the authenticity, as Adnan was known to be veracious, and it turned out, Sharmaji’s current residency was in the local hospital. He was nursing a wound that had found its way to his shin. The brothers had been rounded up by the police for intent to incite communal violence.

A few people rushed over to the hospital, which fortunately was in their side of town, as travel too far out was still not judicious. They found Sharmaji in a leg brace, which would remain for some time; however there was to be no lasting damage.

On the whole, Sharmaji escaped this incident with little more than a limp, the only other lasting souvenir being the love & respect of Govind Nagar for all eternity.

The mohalla returned to normalcy with time, though in the rare case of Govind Nagar, this meant that it returned in a large part to its erstwhile communal bonhomie. Having come so close to losing everything, and seeing in sharp contrast other less fortunate towns and even parts of their own that had been devastated, they decided via unspoken agreement to make an attempt to embrace ‘the other’.

Though as can be expected, tragedy had not left them entirely un-singed; a few people lost relations or had friends who had not been as fortunate as themselves; Mr Mehra’s son, Jiten, a journalist, had been severely beaten up and was hanging on for dear life in Bombay; shops, hospitals, entire neighbourhoods in other parts of their town had been set to fire, lives and livelihoods shattered; it was the nadir of humanity, underlining the fragility of human resolve, the enormity of its ego.

As for Sharmaji, he still dreamed about the riot. He still dreamed about the day they had come for his neighbours, his own son being one of the sword-carrying hooligans, chanting a holy name and swaying as if under the influence of a narcotic. He still dreamed about how he had seen them, him, ransack homes, slashing indiscriminately at man, woman, child. He still dreamed about his own impotence, his shock, his stillness - his inability to stop his son from taking the lives of people he had sworn to protect as part of his vocation. He dreamed about the million times in the past he had let his son have his way, choosing to repose faith in a God he had believed was just. 

He still dreamed about that one time he had not let his son have his way, the look on his son’s face changing from one of triumph, gloating amidst the remains of a make-believe battle-field, to that of incredulity as he'd perceived the bullet from his father's beloved Colt Automatic pierce his heart, this vision always the one to jolt Sharmaji awake, every night.

Tragedy doesn’t do solitary visits. It befouls the source of the stream, it poisons the soil that nourishes the forest, it lays maggot-eggs inside brains, and generations thereafter harvest its deathly crop. But sometimes, a flower blooms, which though sustained by the stench of a thousand corpses still spreads sweet fragrance and hope. 

Disclaimer: Although rooted in true events, this is entirely a fictionalized account born of the author's obsession with backstories, cause & effect and yes, India in 1992.