Ek Din

Her world has always been small, yet her dreams have always been larger, and this time, she's had enough of suffocating them

It was only supposed to be a comfort call. The morning had been a terrible one for Shweta, the culprit being the letter she had received in the post, the envelope suited up in the official seals and stamps of the Government of India and the Union Public Service Commission.

To Smt. Kushwah, it read, this is to inform you that your MAINS examinations result for the Union Public Service Commission is a FAIL.

The result of her MAINS had snapped her into the reality of her situation – alone in the big city of Delhi, working odd jobs to earn barely enough to keep her alive, and with no certainty of security whatsoever. Who can guarantee that she would pass the second time around? She wanted to abandon her books and instead continue to work, earning enough money to whisk Maii away from her devil of a father.

But she couldn’t, not when she had promised Maii she would see this through, and if she was going to rescue her mother, she would do it in the wardi of an IAS. So, when she dialled the number to her landline in Bihar, Shweta was barely holding herself back from a breakdown and each ring of the dial tone spurred her frustration on until the cuticles of her left ring finger were bitten through. The phone kept ringing until Shweta’s impatience morphed into an unsettling anxiousness. Glances at the clock reassured her that she had called at 11, the usual time when Baba would leave for the farm, but then why did she not pick up?

And then finally the receiver clicked, and Shweta greeted her with a relieved exclamation of Maii.

“Kaunsi Maii?” came a gruff voice.

Shweta froze, her eyes widening. Why did Baba pick up? Where was Maii? A thousand possibilities zoomed through her mind and none of them were good ones.

“Baba, I…” Shweta didn’t know what to say. She hated the way she always clammed up when all she wanted to do was fight back against that tyrant.

“You killed her. Not me.” He had accused.

Shweta felt nauseous, her nerve-ends tingling and her throat dry. Out of all the scenarios that had rushed in when Baba picked up, there was one that she had desperately prayed would not be true.

“If you hadn’t run away, your Maii would still be alive, and I would still have my land. You are as troublesome as your mom was, testing my patience again and again. If you want, I will courier your precious Maii to you. Don’t call here again.” The dial tone blared into Shweta’s ear.

It was like someone had drowned her in acid and as Baba’s words echoed in her mind, her skin prickled and itched, she tore at her hair, and she punched the table with all her might. Shweta had clawed at the letter that was clutched tightly in her grasp, tearing it to bits and pieces. Animalistic screams of sorrow had ripped from her throat, leaving it hoarse and scratchy. She faintly remembered the tight grip of Sanjana memsaab as she carried her to the room, thrashing in her hold as Shweta bawled repeatedly for her mother – Maii, Maii, MAII.

They say that the more you love someone the stronger the grief consumes you. They say that grief teaches you the value of life and of relationships. They say that grief moulds you into a stronger person. What they don’t tell you about grief is that it there is nothing as painful as being trapped in its vicious claws. Shweta’s grief wracked through her, as if all her bones were shattering, over and over again. Shweta writhed in her bed, which was nothing more than a mattress laid on the tiled floor, moaning and groaning as shocks of pain tore through her. She beat her chest as hard as she could to try to stop crying, to try to make the agony seep away, to try to bring her back – her Maii.

Shweta didn’t eat for a week. Each bite that Sanjana memsaab forced her to take, Shweta would regurgitate. Soon, Shweta refused to touch even a morsel and lay in her bed day through night, too exhausted to even cry.
And sleep? Shweta was terrified of closing her eyes because all she ever saw in the darkness of her closed eyelids were images of her Maii. Did she leave with a full stomach? Did she have those bruises on her arms when they carried her to the crematorium? Or did Baba cover them up again? What about the burn on her neck? Did she put Burnol on it or did she let Baba open the healing wound again? Did she think of Shweta when she closed her eyes for the final time? Did it hurt? God, Shweta hoped it didn’t hurt, hoped her death brought Maii peace when her life had been so agonising.

What killed Shweta was the fact that she wasn’t there to hold her Maii, and she had left without saying goodbye to Shweta – she’s not allowed to do that. Here in Delhi, over 1,000 kilometres away from 14 Supaul galli, Pipra, Bihar, all Shweta could do was imagine. She imagined her mother hugging her, kissing her forehead, like she did when she left home close to a year ago. Imagined her soft, feeble voice saying I love you, humri chiri. Imagined her mother swiping the kohl from her waterline with her little finger just to press that stained finger under Shweta’s right ear – warding off nazar. Imagined the overwhelming smell of jasmine that Maii exuded when Shweta buried herself in her warm embrace, clutching onto Maii’s saree. Did it smell like jasmine when the smoke rose from the pyre?

A sudden surge of anger shot through Shweta and springing to her feet, unstable from the hours of disuse, stumbled over to her desk which was nestled in the far corner of the room. Her books and notes lay scattered across the surface of the table, illuminated by the moonlight that shone through the open window, reminding her of the reason she was in this state of hysteria, persecuting her. She should’ve have stayed, should’ve argued when Maii pushed her out the door and thrust the suitcases in her hand, should’ve dragged Baba out by the collar and handed him over to the police. But she felt most guilty of failing. As the words of the letter resurfaced in her mind, Shweta cursed at herself – she had disappointed Maii even in her last moments. That’s all she was good for.

Shweta furiously flung the books from the table, trying to shut the voices up. They didn’t stop no matter how hard she threw the books or slapped herself or kicked at the chairs. Regret clawed at her throat, suffocating her. Lightheaded, she slumped onto the floor amidst the mess of the stationery.

A gust of wind blew in and ruffled Shweta’s unkempt hair, the cool air like a refreshing caress on her heated face. She closed her tired and swollen eyes and sucked in a deep, long breath. A sweet, fruity scent wafted through the room, a slight musky undertone lacing the rich aroma.

Jasmine.

“Maii!” Shweta exclaimed breathlessly, a new feeling – hope? – rushing through her.

She scampered up on to the table, knocking over the chair in her haste, to lean out of the window. She is here, Shweta thought to herself, she must be. She scanned the empty alley, and at the far end of the road under the only flickering light of the only lit streetlamp and right at the edge of Shweta’s limited range of sight, she spotted the figure of a woman in a saree. She would swear on her life that it was her mother.

“MAII!” Shweta yelled out, desperate.

She screamed repeatedly, neighbours be damned, her voice breaking under the strain. But the woman never turned. When the figure had completely disappeared from sight, a panic grew in her gut. She had lost her again. As Shweta withdrew her head back into the room, she realized how tired her limbs and throat were, how aggressive the growl in her stomach was, and how heavy her head felt. She resumed her position down on the floor, hugging her knees to her chest, a calmness taking over her. She really was gone, wasn’t she? Still, the same sweet scent filled the room and it comforted Shweta.

And then her eyes landed on a book open next to her, UPSC and U read the cover. A single bud of jasmine, half-bloomed, lay on top of the guidebook. She really thought she would cry again, and in fact, she felt the tell-tale tickle of tears on her waterline. But they never fell, as if a warm hand, Maii’s hand, was swiping them away lovingly, as if chiding her gently, big girls don’t cry. Shweta smiled with her lips quivering and reached to scoop up the bud. She held it to her nose, inhaling the familiar fragrance, and suddenly the room felt cooler, the thundering of her heart slowed down, and her body relaxed. Shweta laid down on her side, head resting on the thick book and the jasmine tucked away in her palm, bringing it closer to her chest. Shweta closed her eyes.

This time she imagined that the puffs of air that ruffled her hair was Maii running her fingers through it, that the jasmine embodied the warmth of her body as she curled up into Maii’s embrace, and the howl of the wind was the voice of her mother, singing her lullabies. This time Shweta didn’t cry and instead let peace wash over her. For the first time in a year, Shweta felt close to Maii and when she finally fell asleep, Shweta dreamt of the day her mother had snuck her out of the house, destination Delhi, making her promise to achieve her longstanding dream of being an IAS officer. She dreamt of making Maii proud, of building a home for just her and Maii. In her slumber, Shweta resolved to protect the promise she had made a year ago, by hook or by crook. She would give her MAINS again so that when she met Maii again, she would be adorned in the wardi of an IAS, the exact look that Maii had dreamed for her.

For the rest of the night and after a tumultuous week, Shweta slept soundly. The last words her mother uttered to her, at the threshold of her home in Pipra, replayed in her subconscious.

“Make me proud, humar chiri,” murmured Maii, “Iss pinjre se nikal ke khule aasman mein udh auri kisi din Maii ko bhi apna sathey leke chal.*”

The first thing Shweta did when she awoke the next morning was clean herself. She had only just realized the neglect she had inflicted on herself – her hair was in all sorts of knots and tangles, her clothes were stale with the stench of sweat, and her face was grimy with the remnants of tears that had dried on her cheeks. The hot water felt invigorating on her skin, the steady stream drumming on her sore muscles, massaging the tension from them. Digging through her closet, Shweta pulled out a mustard salwar. Maii said it was her favourite colour, said it reminded her of the sarson ka kheth in their farmland where she truly felt liberated from the suffocation of Baba while tending to the stalks. Shweta straightened out her room – Maii couldn’t stand a disorganized environment – before heading down the stairs to the shop.

When Shweta had first come to Delhi, she had wandered the dizzying streets of Sarojini Nagar, lugging her luggage around with her, looking for a part-time job as a means to secure funds for her books and navigated
through the throngs of Delhites to find a place to rent. That’s when she had found Sanjana’s Beauty Parlour, a small corner shop embellished with all things pink and white, with its windows wallpapered with images of foreign women with flawless hair and even more flawless skin. Inside this shop, she met the stout Sanjana memsaab whose lips were stained so red that Shweta couldn’t tell if it was lipstick or the paan she was chewing incessantly. All she knew was that when her cold black eyes met Shweta’s nervous ones, there were chills that shot down her spine. Shweta quickly learned that appearances are often deceptive because those same blood-red stained lips had offered Shweta a job at the parlour and the quaint 10-by-10 room for rent right above the shop and the same kohl-lined eyes had gazed upon her with as much love as a sister would have.

Now, she stood at the foot of the stairs fiddling with the dhaaga on her wrist, guilt weighing on her and making it hard to look at Sanjana memsaab. She hadn’t come to work the past week, had smacked plates of food from memsaab’s hands, and God knows what other pains she had put her through while she was dealing with her grief.

“Look at me, pillu,” coaxed memsaab gently.

Slowly, Shweta looked up, fearing the worst, only to be met with eyes brimming with tears and overwhelming concern. Before Shweta could say anything, memsaab had dashed over to her, engulfing her in the tightest hug. Shweta was stunned to say the least, but her heart warmed at memsaab’s gesture, and she hugged her back, allowing herself to relax in her embrace. After a while, memsaab sniffed and pulled back, the kohl smudged and messy. Uncaring, she reached over to pat Shweta’s head adoringly.

“I was so worried, you know,” memsaab gave Shweta a once over, followed with an appreciative nod and a light chuckle, “But here you are, looking as lovely as ever.”

Shweta smiled. She had had this thought several times before this, but Shweta was eternally grateful to the heavens above for sending memsaab into her life. She had persisted in this unfamiliar city, so far away from home, because memsaab had protected her, encouraged her, and loved her through thick and thin. If Shweta was going to keep her Maii’s final wish, then she needed memsaab’s help.

So, when Shweta told memsaab that she wanted to retake the MAINS in the next 3 months, memsaab was over the moon, bursting into tears for the second time. Memsaab suggested Shweta take a break from work and focus instead on revision, but Shweta refused immediately. While the prelim examination had been surprisingly simple, Shweta knew the MAINS would be anything but, if her previous failure was anything to go by. She needed money to buy more guidebooks if she was to crack MAINS. Plus, if Shweta was being honest, work gave her a certain respite from all the rote memorising, note-making, and academic reading.
Soon, she found herself falling into a routine, a rhythm if you will. She would wake up at 4 a.m., take a cold shower since it was too early for Sanjana memsaab to turn the geyser on, and sit down at the table to study till 8 a.m. which is when memsaab would come in with food. They would breakfast together, often paired with memsaab quizzing her on random topics from the textbooks. By 10 a.m. she would go down to the salon.

Shweta had become popular among the ladies who visited the salon, her polite manner of talking and gentle yet precise nature of work pleased the customers and some of them had asked for her to take on the role of daily house help at their residences. Shweta had eagerly agreed, much to memsaab’s disapproval, insisting that it would not hamper her study. From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., Shweta bounced from house to house, cleaning, and cooking for the rich wives of Delhi. On Sundays, she was excused from the housework, and she spent the day revising. She would be home by 8, dinner waiting for her on her table which she wolfed down while taking notes. Then, she would study late into the night, often falling asleep on the table with her head buried in the books, waking only when memsaab awoke her with breakfast.

She would be lying if she said she didn’t cry anymore, that she had completely conquered the grief of losing her mother. No, Shweta’s heart still hurt, the weight of regret still sat heavy in her gut, and often she would let go of her inhibitions and cry out for Maii. But she didn’t let it get in the way. It kept her sane, kept her focused on her goal. This was Shweta’s life for three months until the MAINS knocked on her door.
She wore the same mustard salwar on the day and on the way to the examination centre, she stopped the rickshaw to pick up gajra from a street vendor she spotted by chance. She was wrapped up in Maii, so much so that she could feel her presence all around her as she walked into the examination hall. Just like the first time, Shweta was stiff with anxiety, and she worried her dhaaga until they placed the exam paper in front of her. Yet, this time she felt sure of herself and of her preparation. Her hands flew across the paper, steady and confident, and Shweta would insist that she felt Maii’s hand wrap around hers, guiding her as she filled out the answer sheet.

All week after the exam, Shweta was restless. She would steal glances at the door while in the parlour, waiting twitchily for the idiosyncratic rattle of the post van’s engine. Despite all of this, the letter only came in when Shweta was away on her house-help duty in the next neighbourhood over. Upon her return, she found memsaab pacing the length of the parlour and as soon as she set sight on Shweta, she rushed forward to thrust the letter into her hand. Her throat was dry when she ripped open the envelope, her stomach knotting as she unfolded the paper.

To Smt. Kushwah… yada yada yada… your result is…

PASS.

Shweta slumped forward, her entire body drooping with relief. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw memsaab leaping and dancing all over the place, and Shweta huffed out soft chuckles at her joy. It wasn’t that she wasn’t happy, she was overjoyed, but there was a strange guilt that restrained her from leaping around along with memsaab. She tilted her head up to the ceiling.

“Hum pass ho gaye, Maii,” Shweta muttered, hoping her voice would deliver to wherever her mother was. “Tu humra paas thi na isiliye hum pass ho gayni.*”

Shweta closed her eyes and pictured Maii kissing her forehead, telling her how proud she makes her, flushing brightly as she boasted to her neighbours, and showering her with affection that Shweta longed for. So deep in her fantasy was she that she almost missed memsaab’s words.

“…interview in two weeks.” said memsaab and Shweta snapped back into reality.

The interview! It had completely slipped her mind that there was one final hurdle before Shweta would make it the finish line. A sense of doom took over the bubbling joy in Shweta and she buried her face in her hands, the heel of her palms digging into her eyes. Memsaab hummed in confusion, unaware of why Shweta was experiencing such internal turmoil.

“Pillu, it’s only an interview,” she reassured the anxious girl, “You did so well in the written, I am sure you will ace this too.”

Shweta muttered something; her voice too muffled for memsaab to hear. She leaned forward and prompted her to repeat her utterance.

“It’s in English.”

Shweta was hopeless in spoken English – her knowledge of the language only extended to reciting answers that she had memorized from textbooks. She could manage to patch together a working sentence, but she was far, far away from being fluent. Her chances of passing this interview had already diminished before she could even think of preparing. Still, the ever-optimistic memsaab reassured her that they would spare no avenue in levelling up Shweta’s English proficiency. Shweta was grateful, she really was, but she wasn’t too sure that it would work out the way she hoped. But it wouldn’t hurt to try, right? After all, she wasn’t going to let her promise to Maii fall through just because she didn’t try hard enough.

The very next day, Shweta visited Daryaganj, Delhi’s oldest and biggest new-and-used book market, where she purchased English Learning guides and a bunch of CDs and cassettes of English-taught lectures which she would play on memsaab’s ancient DVD player. Memsaab also aided Shweta’s struggle to learn English by switching out the usual Bollywood playlist that played over the speakers in the parlour to English songs so Shweta could decipher the lyrics by ear. More often than not, when Shweta was successful at figuring out the lyrics, she would flush bright red, taken aback by the brazen and bold style of English artists. Shweta even tried to converse in English with the patrons at the salon and the houses she cleaned in, and they indulged her with a fond smile.

On the day of the interview, Shweta was dazed. She hadn’t slept a wink, trading it in to sit in front of the mirror and practice her speech all night. But now, as she sat in the waiting hall of the Union Public Service Commission Headquarters, she wasn’t too sure it would be affective. The environment was buzzing with hushed activity, all the candidates mumbling under their as they read newspapers, or swiped across their phones, reading up on the latest news and their handmade notes. Shweta had made her own set of handwritten notes, but her eyes were glazing over from her lack of sleep, rendering the bundle of lined paper essentially useless.

Instead, Shweta allowed her eyes to sweep the room, taking in all the details of the other contenders. The men wore immaculately ironed suits and polished pointy-toed shoes, and the women click-clack down the foyer in astonishingly high heels garbed in vests, blazers, and mini-skirts, much to a blushing Shweta’s dismay. Shweta glanced down at herself, at her pastel blue cotton saree that memsaab had bought for her the day before. Her heart sank, suddenly conscious of the eyes of the rich that passed by her. She didn’t belong here. As they prattled on with their accented English and proper speech etiquette, Shweta’s desolation set in deeper. She screwed her eyes shut, visualizing Maii, seeking confidence.

“You can do it, chiri,” encouraged Maii’s voice. “Go in, Shweta Kushwah.”

Huh? Maii never called her by her name like that.

“Shweta Kushwah?”

Shweta’s eyes popped open, zoning into her current situation. The clerk at the far end of the hall scanned the room, calling her name again, brows furrowed in impatience. Shweta shot up. Great, already off to a terrible start. She hurried over to the clerk’s desk, introducing herself, and he clicked his tongue before assigning a peon to guide her down to the interview room.

The hallways seemed endless and winding, the marble tiles shining under the dazzling illuminance of the extravagant chandeliers that hung from the mile-high ceilings. Shweta gaped around her in awe, eyes flitting here and there to take in the grandiosity of the place. Even the wooden door they stopped in front of was looming, carved intricately, and its handles glistened like gold. Shweta was much too intimidated, more than she would like to admit, but it was too late – the peon had swung the heavy doors open to reveal a larger-than-life room, at the centre of which stood an expansive half-moon table and behind it sat 5 distinguished men and women – the scholars of India chosen to be assessors and, in other words, the deciders of Shweta’s fate as a prospective IAS officer.

Gulping down her anxiety, Shweta bowed to the peon, hands folded in namaskar¬, who seemed stunned at the gesture. Unaware, Shweta walked into the room, feeling small under the intensity of their judgmental eyes. Shweta bowed again to greet the interviewers before taking her seat in front of them.
There was a long silence, each second of it agonizing Shweta, until a woman to Shweta’s right cleared her throat and smiled at a quivering Shweta.

“Let’s begin, shall we?”

The first question they asked her was about her opinion on the current state of economy in India. Shweta felt her hopes rise slightly; she had prepared for this question. Shweta began speaking, starting off in Hindi in her nervousness. An interviewer cut her off, asking her to proceed in English. Shweta shook her head and started again, halting through her sentences. When she had finished, she noticed the interviewers sharing sceptical glances with each other. Shweta felt a chill. This was not going well at all.

They kept asking her questions about the economy, physics, trivia, and every topic under the sun and each time, Shweta would stutter out an answer in broken English, chiding herself when the disappointed look on the interviewers’ faces grew. All of a sudden, one of the interviewers seated directly opposite Shweta slammed her file shut, startling Shweta who was now on the verge of tears.

“This is ridiculous!” she scoffed, “She can’t even form a proper sentence in English and she’s dreaming of being an IAS. Talk about a hopeless ambition.”

Shweta hung her head as the lady continued to berate her, the other interviewers unsure of whether to join her or stop her. Shweta clenched her fist, nails digging into her skin and sending jolts of pain coursing through her. She would not let all of her efforts, all of memsaab’s efforts, and all of Maii’s efforts go to waste this way. She timidly raised her hand, working up the courage to look at the assessors. The lady to her right acknowledged her, signalling her to go on. Shweta took a deep breath.

“Ma’am and Sir, I am from small village in Bihar. Over there, no nice big school, no English tuition, no nothing. My family very poor, only we do farming and…” Shweta hesitated, searching for the right word, “and we dream. I come Delhi to become IAS because I make my village better, safer, for everyone, for women. I want to be IAS in India, here everyone speak Hindi. I cannot speak nice English but I speak first-class Hindi. I try to learn English, but I am not smart for learning language, only learning subjects. But I try. Please understand, please.” Shweta folded her hands again.

The interviewers looked at each other, unsure of how to react. The lady in front of her clicked her tongue and leaned forward on the table.

“How do you expect to get by if you cannot communicate with people in an educated manner?” She had chosen to say this in Hindi, almost as if mocking Shweta’s speech, stressing each syllable.
Shweta thought for a moment.

“Ma’am, I can have paper to write?”

A man on her left side handed her a piece of blank paper and a pen from their desk. Shweta shook her head.

“Pencil, pencil.”

The lady in front of her scoffed again.

“Just get it over with, what does it matter if it’s a pen or a pencil?”

Shweta smiled. This time when she spoke, she spoke in Hindi.

“That is what I am saying. What does it matter what language I speak as long as I mean what I say, and I get my point across.”

The lady leaned back into her chair without a reply. Shweta took it as a cue to continue.

“I grew up in a very poor house, in a very poor town. The school I went to was just a small hut in the middle of a farmland and we had a strength of 26 students. All the kids there couldn’t care less about what was being taught, they knew at the end of the day they would end up on their family farm or, if they were rich, start a ration shop. There is no value of education there and because of that, all the politicians, minsters, loan sharks, and all people of importance find it very easy to take advantage of the people of Pipra. I have seen people getting lynched because they disagreed with someone in a higher position. My own father is like that. My mother wanted me to study, to earn a name for myself, but my father never supported that – to him, all women needed to be married off by 19. But my mother was adamant and so my father hit her. No one stopped him. I reported it to the police, but they told me, ‘If he is hitting his wife, she probably deserved it. What is it to you?’. My mother died a few months ago. They say she succumbed to her injuries.” Shweta’s throat clogged up, but she refused to cry. Instead, she met the eyes of the interviewers. A determination blazing in her pupils.

“I have seen what the ordinary people of India suffer through, seen what they truly need. Sure, learning English and going to a big-name university would have made me more educated, more dignified, just like the other candidates that have sat in this chair before me and will sit after me. But they don’t know the plights of my people. To me, the citizens aren’t just subjects or cases, they are humans with real problems. What threatens them isn’t the economy or the market price. It is the lack of support and help. If you make me an IAS officer, I swear upon my life, my Maii’s honour, and the dignity of the uniform that no other Indian will have to suffer the same fate as my mother, that they will not feel cornered and hopeless.”

Shweta panted, the adrenaline pumping in her veins. Silence filled the room as the interviewers looked at her, stunned. Shweta began to rethink her outburst. What if she had killed all her chances? It’s not like she had a chance in the first place, but what if she had gotten herself blacklisted? Shweta fingered her dhaaga nervously.

“Please wait outside, Miss Kushwah.” The stern lady’s voice shattered the quiet of the room and Shweta jumped.

Shweta sunk her head, tears welling in her eyes. She really had blown it. She knew this was going to happen. Why did she have to open her big mouth like that. Now, they felt insulted. How dare she, a mere servant of the country, point a judgemental finger at the esteemed government?

The sound of Shweta’s chair scraping against the tile as she stood up to leave resonated through the room. She bowed again, unable to meet their eyes, and moved to leave. Just as she turned towards the door, another voice rang out.

“Will you not take your badge with you?”

Shweta’s eyes widened, and she whipped around. There, on the edge of the table, the lady had placed a black metal badge, trimmed in gold, and shining with polish. As Shweta moved closer to the table, a choked sob escaped her.

Right at the centre of the badge were etched the words, IAS Shweta Kushwah.

Shweta stumbled over, sobs wracking through her, as she held the badge in reverence. The interviewers chuckled, each taking turns to pat her head or shoulder.

The familiar sweet aroma of jasmine filled the room, and she knew that Maii was with her, was proud of her. When she walked out of the building, her badge pinned proudly on the pleats of her saree, jasmine buds had bloomed in all the trees of Delhi. And Maii was there in each and every one of them.