Chapter 7: Jungle Mein (In the Forest)

The Satpura hideout was not a hideout. The Satpura hideout was a life.

Lata understood this on the third week — the third week of the staying, the week when the staying stopped being the temporary-staying (the staying that was waiting for something, the staying that had an end) and became the permanent-staying (the staying that was the thing itself, the staying that had no end because the staying was the life and the life did not end, the life continued, the continuing being the thing that the staying required her to accept).

The acceptance was — not instant. The acceptance was the work of weeks. The work that looked like: learning where the water ran cleanest (upstream, past the rock that looked like a sleeping cow, the rock that Keshav had named "Gaumata" and that the naming had made into a landmark). Learning which wood burned hottest (teak, the teak that the Satpura forest provided in abundance and that Keshav split with the axe in the mornings, the splitting being the sound that woke the camp: thwack, thwack, the percussion of a man who understood that the day's first task was fuel). Learning where the wild turmeric grew (the haldi that Bharati used for cooking and for medicine and for the particular Maharashtrian practice of applying haldi to cuts and bruises, the haldi being the antiseptic that India had used for three thousand years before the British arrived with Dettol). Learning which paths led where (the forest had paths, but the paths were not the straight-line paths of cities; the paths were the winding paths of animals and tribals, the paths that followed the logic of terrain rather than the logic of destination, the paths that said: the shortest distance between two points is not a line, the shortest distance is the path that avoids the steep places and the thorny places and the snake-places).

Keshav taught her the forest. Not as a lesson — as a life. The teaching that happened by doing: Keshav walked, Lata followed. Keshav pointed, Lata looked. Keshav named, Lata remembered. The particular pedagogy of a military man who did not believe in classrooms and who believed in terrain, the terrain being the only teacher that did not lie, the terrain saying: this is the ground, this is the slope, this is the water, this is the danger, the saying being true because the terrain could not be false.

"Yeh samajh le," Keshav said, on the fourth week. At the stream. The morning chai finished, the teak wood stacked, the camp's routines completed. "Jungle mein teen cheezein zaroori hain: paani, aag, aur dikhna nahi." Understand this. In the forest, three things matter: water, fire, and not being seen.

"Dikhna nahi?" Not being seen?

"Haan. Hum log chhupe hain. Yahan koi nahi jaanta ki hum hain. Agar koi jaane — police, ya Tushar ke log, ya koi bhi — toh sab khatam. Isliye: dikhna nahi." Yes. We are hidden. Nobody knows we're here. If anyone finds out — police, or Tushar's people, or anyone — it's over. So: not being seen.

Not being seen. The skill that Lata learned the way she learned the harmonium — by practice, by repetition, by the particular discipline that survival required. The not-being-seen was: walk without breaking branches (the branch-break being a sound that carried in the forest's silence and that said: something human is here). Build fires with dry wood only (the dry wood producing flame without smoke, the smoke being the visible signal that said: something human is here). Wash clothes in the stream but dry them under the canopy (the canopy hiding the clothes from any aerial view — not that helicopters were likely, but Keshav's military training prepared for the unlikely and the preparing was the habit that kept you alive). Speak quietly after dark (the dark amplifying sound, the sound travelling further at night than at day because the night's coolness created the atmospheric conditions that carried sound the way telephone wires carried voices).

Lata became good at not being seen. The goodness that was — the goodness was surprising. Lata was twelve and city-raised and Nagpur-bred and the forest should have been foreign, the foreignness being the expected response of a child removed from brick-and-mortar and placed in tree-and-stream. But the foreignness did not arrive. The forest felt — not foreign. The forest felt like an extension of the backyard on Sitapur Gali, the backyard where the coriander grew and the mint grew and the Nagpuri mirchi grew, the backyard being the small-scale version of what the forest was at full scale: the growing, the living, the cycle of soil and water and sun that produced life.

Lata understood the forest because Lata understood growing things. The understanding that Vandana had planted — not literally (Vandana had not taught forest survival) but fundamentally: the attention to living things that Vandana practiced in the kitchen (the pohe's timing, the dal's tempering, the particular respect for ingredients that was Vandana's cooking philosophy) was the same attention that the forest required. The forest required: notice. Notice the soil (is it wet? is it dry? the wet meaning: water is near, the dry meaning: water is not near). Notice the trees (are the leaves green? are they yellow? the green meaning: the season is favourable, the yellow meaning: the season is changing). Notice the animals (are the birds singing? are they silent? the singing meaning: nothing is wrong, the silence meaning: something is wrong, the something being a predator or a human and the distinction being, for Lata's purposes, irrelevant).

*

The training began on the fifth week. Not the forest-training — the other training. The training that Bharati called "kaam" — work — and that was, Lata would later understand, the training that turned a twelve-year-old child into a member of the network, the member who would eventually become the network's most effective operative, the operative who would be known not as Lata but as Leela.

The training was: observation. Bharati's first lesson — the lesson that was the foundation, the lesson on which all other lessons were built.

"Dekho," Bharati said. At the camp. In the morning. The two of them sitting under the banyan, the banyan that was Bharati's office and that provided the shade that made thinking possible in the Satpura heat. "Keshav ko dekho. Kya kar raha hai?" Watch Keshav. What is he doing?

Lata watched. "Lakdi kaat raha hai." Cutting wood.

"Aur?" And?

"Aur — aur kuch nahi. Lakdi kaat raha hai." And — nothing else. He's cutting wood.

"Phir se dekh. Dhyan se." Look again. Carefully.

Lata looked again. Keshav was splitting teak. The axe rose and fell. The wood split. Keshav stacked the split wood. The routine that Lata had seen every morning for five weeks.

"Ab bata: kaunsi taraf se maarta hai? Daayein ya baayein?" Now tell me: which side does he strike from? Right or left?

Lata did not know. She had watched Keshav split wood every morning for five weeks and she did not know which side he struck from because the watching had been the passive watching, the watching that registered the activity without registering the detail, the watching that said: Keshav is splitting wood, and that did not say: Keshav is right-handed, the axe rises over his right shoulder, the strike comes from the right, the wood is positioned accordingly.

"Daayein," Bharati said. "Keshav right-handed hai. Iska matlab: uska left side weak hai. Agar Keshav se ladna padhe — jo nahi padega, lekin agar — toh left side se aao. Yeh observation hai. Yeh kaam hai." Right. Keshav is right-handed. This means: his left side is weaker. If you ever have to fight Keshav — which you won't, but if — come from the left side. This is observation. This is the work.

The work was: seeing. Not looking — seeing. The distinction that Bharati drew with the precision of a woman who had spent eight years in the Women's Welfare Department watching women tell her things that the women's faces contradicted, the watching that had taught Bharati the difference: looking was the eye's activity, seeing was the mind's activity, the two being different the way hearing was different from listening, the way eating was different from tasting.

Lata learned to see. The learning took weeks. Weeks of Bharati pointing and Lata watching and Bharati asking "aur?" and Lata saying "aur kuch nahi" and Bharati saying "phir se dekh" until the "phir se dekh" was internalized, until the seeing became automatic, until Lata could not look at a person without seeing: the dominant hand, the posture (confident or nervous — the spine telling the truth that the face lied about), the shoes (worn or new — the shoes telling the economic story that the clothes tried to hide), the eyes (where the eyes looked — the eyes looking down meaning submission or guilt, the eyes looking away meaning evasion or calculation, the eyes looking directly meaning confidence or confrontation).

"Bahut achi hai tu," Bharati said. On the eighth week. The compliment that was — the first compliment. Bharati did not compliment. Bharati assessed. The assessment being: satisfactory or unsatisfactory, the binary of a woman who did not believe in gradations. The "bahut achi hai tu" was, therefore, not a compliment — it was an assessment that landed above satisfactory, the above being the distinction that Bharati rarely made and that, when she made it, meant: you are better at this than expected.

"Main school mein bhi achi thi," Lata said. I was good at school too. The sentence that was — the sentence was the first time Lata had referenced her old life without the referencing producing grief. The referencing producing, instead, the comparison: the school that had taught her mathematics and English literature and Sister Margaret's personal-affront history was the same school that had developed the cognitive infrastructure that Bharati's training was now using, the infrastructure being: the attention, the memory, the pattern-recognition that school had trained and that the network was repurposing.

*

The other children came. Not all at once — in the way that Bharati's network operated, which was: carefully. The children were not concentrated in one location (the concentration being the risk, the risk that Keshav's military thinking identified and eliminated). The children were distributed — two in the Satpura hideout, two in a location that Bharati called "the farm" (a property in Vidarbha, the dry farming region east of Nagpur, the property that was registered in a name that was not Bharati's name and that was maintained by a woman named Parvati who was the network's Vidarbha operative), and two who had already aged out of the network's protection and who were living independently.

The child in the Satpura hideout was: a boy. Raju. Eight years old. Raju had arrived three months before Lata — Raju had been the sixth extraction, the sixth child taken from a home where the danger was imminent. Raju's story was — Raju's story was not Lata's story. Raju's story was worse. The worse that Lata understood from the not-telling: Raju did not tell his story. Raju did not speak. Not could-not-speak — chose-not-to-speak. The choosing being the particular response of a child whose speaking had been punished and who had learned that the not-speaking was safer and who maintained the not-speaking even in a place where the speaking was allowed, the maintaining being the scar that was invisible and that was deeper than the scars that were visible.

Raju followed Keshav. Everywhere. The following that was — the following of a child who had found the safe-person and who would not let the safe-person out of sight because the out-of-sight was the danger, the danger being: the safe-person might leave, the leaving being the thing that every person in Raju's short life had done.

Keshav allowed the following. Not with words — with the particular non-acknowledgment that was acknowledgment, the not-sending-away that was the welcoming, the space-beside-him that was always available for a silent eight-year-old boy. Keshav split wood, Raju sat beside him. Keshav walked the forest, Raju walked behind him. Keshav made chai, Raju held the steel tumbler with both hands and the holding was the drinking and the drinking was the trust, the trust being: this chai is safe because the man who made it is safe and the safe is the thing.

Lata and Raju did not become friends. The word "friends" required the reciprocity that Raju's silence did not permit. Lata and Raju became — companions. The companionship of two children who had been taken from homes that were dangerous and who were now in a forest that was safe and whose shared experience was the foundation that did not require words, the foundation being: we both know. The knowing was enough.

Lata played harmonium. Raju listened. The listening was — Lata saw it — the listening was Raju's version of speaking. The listening was Raju's engagement with the world, the engagement that did not require the mouth (the mouth being the thing that had been punished) but that required the ears (the ears being the thing that had not been punished and that were, therefore, the safe channel). When Lata played "Lag Jaa Gale," Raju's face changed. The change was — subtle. Not a smile. The not-quite-smile that was the particular expression of a child who was experiencing beauty and who was not yet sure that the beauty was allowed, the not-sureness being the caution that abuse installed, the caution that said: good things might be traps.

"Raju ke liye baja," Bharati said to Lata. Play for Raju. The instruction that was not musical but therapeutic — the harmonium being the medicine, the music being the treatment, the treatment being: a twelve-year-old girl playing songs for an eight-year-old boy who could not speak, the playing and the listening being the healing that the system could not provide because the system did not know about Raju and the not-knowing was the system's failure and the failure was the reason for the forest.