Chapter 6: The Train to Lucknow

The Dehradun-Lucknow Express departed at 11:15 PM from Dehradun Junction, which meant we arrived at the station at 10 PM, which meant Amma arrived at: 9:30 PM, because Amma believed that trains waited for: no one and that arriving early was: not neurosis but: survival.

Amma was: coming. This had not been: planned. Amma had announced her participation at Thursday's kitty party, where — according to Zarina Aunty, who relayed the information with the: delight of a woman who understood that information was: power — Amma had stood up during the card game and declared: "My granddaughter and my daughter are going to Lucknow to find Farida Khatoon, and I am: going with them, because this is my husband's: story, and I will not have it: told without me."

The kitty party had: applauded. Not because they understood the mission — most of them had never heard of Farida Khatoon — but because Amma standing up and making declarations was: entertainment, and the kitty party valued: entertainment above: all other forms of human: expression.

So we were: three. Amma in the lower berth (non-negotiable — Amma did not climb, because climbing was: for goats and children). Meri in the upper berth with her laptop and a portable WiFi device that she called a "hotspot" and that Amma called "the: machine." I was in the middle berth, the berth that existed in Indian trains as a: compromise between comfort and: architecture, the berth that required you to fold your body into a shape that no yoga teacher had: anticipated.

The train left Dehradun. Through Haridwar — the brief stop where chai-wallahs appeared at the windows like: apparitions, their voices competing with the platform announcements in a: symphony of commerce and: logistics. Through Roorkee. Through the flat plains of western UP that stretched beyond the window like: a tablecloth that someone had forgotten to: fold.

Amma slept. Amma could sleep: anywhere — on trains, on buses, on the floor of a temple during Navratri, in the middle of a conversation. Sleeping was Amma's: superpower, the ability to: disengage from the world with the speed of a light switch.

Meri did not sleep. Meri was: researching.

"Inspector Wilkins," she said from the upper berth, the laptop glow making her face: blue in the dark compartment. "I found: something."

"What?"

"Gerald Wilkins. British Indian Police. Posted to Dehradun division, 1940-1944. There's a mention in the Imperial Police Journal — a digitised copy at the British Library, which is: online. He wrote a report in 1942 about 'seditious entertainment' in the Dehradun area."

"Seditious: entertainment?"

"The British classified certain performances as: seditious. Plays, songs, dances that contained: anti-British content. Or content that encouraged: nationalism. Or content that was simply: Indian in a way that made the British: uncomfortable. During the Quit India movement of 1942, the surveillance: intensified. Any performer who included anything that could be interpreted as: patriotic was: flagged."

"Farida was: flagged."

"The licence said 'warned regarding content of performance.' Inspector Wilkins filed a report. File 44/D/1942. If the file still exists, it'll tell us exactly what Farida did on that stage that made the British: nervous."

"She danced," I said. "She sang. In a theatre in Dehradun during the Quit India movement. And whatever she sang, it was: enough."

The train rocked. The specific rocking of Indian Railways — the rhythm that was: not smooth but: constant, the heartbeat of a system that carried thirteen million people a day and that functioned on the: principle of: imperfection sustained by: persistence. The rocking was: hypnotic. The darkness outside was: total — the UP countryside at night, the villages invisible, the stars: the only proof that the world: continued beyond the window.

"Maa," Meri said. "Do you think Grandfather was: involved?"

"Involved in: what?"

"In: Farida. In whatever she was doing that was: seditious. The letters — R's letters — mention 'the people who were asking questions.' If the British were investigating Farida for nationalist content, and Grandfather was: attending her shows every Saturday—"

"He was a sepoy. In the British Indian Army."

"A sepoy who attended a seditious performer's shows. Every week. In the third row. During the Quit India movement. That's not: casual, Maa."

I looked at the darkness. At the: nothing outside the window that was: everything — the fields and the villages and the: country that had, in 1942, been fighting for its: existence. Grandfather had been twenty-two. A sepoy in a colonial army, attending the shows of a woman who danced: rebellion.

"He never told Amma," I said.

"He told Amma he was: a friend."

"Maybe he was: both. A friend and: an accomplice."

"And R? R was writing love letters. R followed her to: Bombay. R told her to: destroy everything. R was: protecting her."

"R was not: Grandfather."

"No. R was: someone else. Someone who: loved her."

The train rocked. Amma snored — the delicate snore that she would have denied producing, because ladies did not: snore, in the same way that ladies did not: climb or: sweat or: admit to being: wrong. I lay in the middle berth, the body folded, the mind: unfolded, thinking about a woman who had danced in a theatre in Dehradun and had made the British: afraid, and about the men who had: watched her — one from the third row, one from: wherever R sat — and about the: silence that had followed, the sixty years of silence that had kept the trunk: closed.