Chapter 5: The Archives

The Dehradun District Archives were housed in a building that had once been a British administrative office, which meant the building was: solid, handsome, and profoundly indifferent to the comfort of the people inside it.

Stone walls. High ceilings. Windows that admitted light but not: breeze, as if the architects had believed that ventilation was: a colonial luxury to be rationed. The building sat on Chakrata Road, near the Survey of India compound, surrounded by deodar trees that were older than the archives themselves and that looked down on the human enterprise of: record-keeping with the tolerant patience of living things that had: better things to do.

Meri drove. The car was a rented Maruti Swift from a Dehradun agency that charged by the day and whose contract included the: specific fine print that Meri had: not read and that I had: not asked about. Meri's relationship with fine print was: the same as her relationship with traffic rules — acknowledged in theory, ignored in: practice.

The archivist was a man named Tripathi. Suresh Tripathi. Thin, spectacled, the specific thinness of a government employee who had spent thirty years sitting in the same chair in the same room processing the same requests and whose body had adapted to the: chair the way a river adapted to its: banks — by becoming: exactly the shape of the thing that: contained it.

"Municipal performance licences," I said. "Dehradun. 1940 to 1945."

Tripathi looked at me over his spectacles. The look said: this is going to take time, this is going to require: forms, and this is going to cost you: patience.

"British era records are in the: basement," he said. "Section 4-C. Municipal administration. Performance licences would be under: entertainment and public gatherings. Assuming they were: preserved."

"Assuming?"

"Madam, the basement flooded in: 1978. And again in: 1992. And most recently in: 2017, when the monsoon decided that the District Archives should become: the District Aquarium. We lost approximately thirty percent of the pre-Independence records. What remains is: catalogued. Mostly. The cataloguing was done by a team from Doon University in 2019, funded by a grant that was: insufficient and supervised by a professor who was: enthusiastic but: disorganised."

"Professor Qureshi?" Meri asked.

"Professor Qureshi," Tripathi confirmed. "You know him?"

"He's translating our: letters."

"Then you're in: good hands. If anyone knows what survived the floods, it's: the Professor. Unfortunately, the Professor's cataloguing system is: the Professor's cataloguing system. Which is to say: it makes perfect sense to the Professor and: no one else."

He led us to the basement. The stairs were: stone, narrow, the kind of stairs that made you aware of: gravity as a personal enemy. The basement was: cool, the temperature of a place that never saw: sunlight, the temperature of preservation and: neglect. Rows of metal shelving. Boxes — cardboard, steel, some with labels, many without. The specific organised chaos of an archive that had survived three floods and one enthusiastic professor.

"Section 4-C," Tripathi pointed. "I'll be upstairs. Ring the bell if you find: something. Or if you find: a rat. We have: both."

He left. Meri and I stood in the basement of the Dehradun District Archives, surrounded by the: paper residue of a century of: governance, looking for a woman who had been: erased.

*

Two hours. The dust was: relentless. The kind of dust that didn't settle on surfaces but: inhabited them, that had been accumulating since the British filed their last report and left, the dust that was: a hundred years of paper decomposing slowly into the air. My fingers were: grey. Meri's hair — the Delhi-blow-dried hair that she maintained with products whose names sounded like: chemical formulas — was: flat. We had opened: forty-seven boxes. We had found: municipal licences for slaughterhouses, licences for gambling establishments ("gaming houses" in the British phrasing, which sounded: genteel), licences for alcohol sales in the cantonment area, and one licence for a "circus and travelling entertainment" in 1938 that involved: elephants.

No performance licences for theatres.

"They're not: here," Meri said.

"They're here. We just haven't found the right: box."

"There are three hundred: boxes."

"Then we have two hundred and fifty-three: to go."

Meri looked at me. The look of a daughter assessing her mother's: sanity. The look that said: this is a woman who has decided to find a performer from 1942 in a flooded basement on Chakrata Road and she is: not going to stop.

"Fine," Meri said. "But I'm ordering: lunch."

She ordered biryani from a restaurant on Rajpur Road — the biryani delivered by a boy on a motorcycle who looked: fourteen and who navigated the Dehradun traffic with the specific fearlessness of youth and: two-wheelers. We ate in the basement. Among the boxes. The biryani was: good — the rice separate, the meat tender, the raita cool against the: spice. We ate with our dusty fingers, the dust mixing with the: turmeric, and it was: the best meal I had eaten in: weeks, because the meal was: shared, because my daughter was: here, because we were doing: something.

Box 267. Two-thirty in the afternoon. The light from the single bulb in the basement — a naked CFL that Tripathi had apologised for, explaining that the "heritage bulb budget" had been: cut — the light was: insufficient but: enough. Box 267 was steel, smaller than the others, with a label that read: "ENTERTAINMENT — LICENCES — DEHRADUN MUNICIPAL — 1939-1945."

"Meri."

"I see it."

The box contained: files. Manila folders, the kind that the British used, the kind with the string ties that you wound around the circle on the flap. Each folder: a licence application. Theatre performances. Music recitals. "Variety shows" — the category that included: everything the British couldn't classify, which was: most things.

Third folder from the back. A licence application. Typed on a typewriter whose letter 'e' was: crooked, giving the document the appearance of a: wink.

ENTERTAINMENT LICENCE — APPLICATION

Name of Applicant: Farida Khatoon

Nature of Entertainment: Variety Performance (Dance, Song, Dramatic Recitation)

Venue: Odeon Theatre, Rajpur Road, Dehradun

Period: 1st January 1942 to 31st December 1942

Fee Paid: Rs. 15/- (Fifteen Rupees Only)

And below, in a different hand — the hand of the licensing officer, the British bureaucrat who had processed this application eighty-two years ago — a: note.

Licence GRANTED. Applicant warned regarding content of performance — see Inspector Wilkins' report, file 44/D/1942.

"Inspector Wilkins' report," I said.

"What did she do that warranted: a report?"

"I don't know. But whatever it was, it was: documented. And if it's documented, it: exists."

"File 44/D/1942," Meri said, already scanning the shelves. "That's a: police file. Not municipal. Different: section."

"Different: floor?"

"Different: building. Police records from the British era are at the: State Archives. In Lucknow."

"Lucknow?"

"After the formation of Uttarakhand in 2000, the state was supposed to receive all British-era UP records pertaining to the Garhwal and Kumaon divisions. The transfer was: partial. The police files went to the Uttarakhand State Archives in: Dehradun. But the pre-Partition files — the 1940s files — some of them stayed in: Lucknow."

"How do you know this?"

"I dated an archivist in Delhi. He was: boring. But: informative."

I looked at the licence. At Farida Khatoon's name, typed on a crooked typewriter eighty-two years ago. At the: proof that she had existed. That she had applied for a licence, paid fifteen rupees, and been: warned. About what? By whom? And what had Inspector Wilkins found that was worth: documenting?

"We're going to: Lucknow," I said.

"Maa. Lucknow is: eleven hours by train."

"Then we'd better: book tickets."