The Elementary School Girl Who Waved Her Hands Like a Hummingbird by Subramani Mani
In 1970s Kerala a young firebrand gets in trouble with the authorities, and in dark times his spirits are lifted by a schoolgirl’s hummingbird dance.
 |
| Image generated with OpenAI |
I was walking towards the main library on campus near the student union building when suddenly, out of nowhere, I saw this young woman, walking a few meters ahead of me, flailing and fluttering her arms and hands like a hummingbird. She started stepping softly on the ground, as if she was practicing some dance moves, exactly like my memory of a little girl during a painful week of darkness from my teen times.
She was wearing a green salwar, and a lemon-yellow kameez signaling her Indian heritage. Making sure I wasn’t just day-dreaming, I walked towards her with brisk steps. When I caught up with her, her Indian connection was reinforced by her facial features. My fuzzy memory of the little girl’s face seemed to be in congruence with her features – her large eyes and long giraffe-like neck were unmistakable, but the puffy cheeks were no longer there. The woman who stood before me had high cheekbones and soft convex facial curves. I have a vague recollection of knowing you from my young days; I just need to gather my thoughts, I said abruptly, with excitement bubbling up inside me. She seemed baffled, bewildered, and lost, hearing my impromptu pronouncement. Relax, please, and if you are not in a big hurry, let us walk to the coffee shop over there, I said. Now walking ahead of her, I was left thinking – your dance just now knocked me off my mental landscape like the eight-year-old-girl in my fourth-grade class in Delhi who pulled me down to the ground with her hockey stick when I tried to advance and score a goal against her team. Wave after wave of memories started gathering in my mind like clouds preceding a thunderstorm.
My friend and I were sitting atop a yellow beach towel on the white sandy shore of Shangumugham beach. A gentle breeze was blowing, easing the mugginess in the air, and the beach was slowly entering the cool-down mode. The dark afternoon clouds had moved away and now the sky looked like an enormous blue canopy with streaks of red and pink colors starting to show up as if a kid with a giant brush was trying out her favorite colors on a huge blue canvas.
Our heads were turned west and tilted downwards, and our gazes were fixed on the horizon, tuned to the large spinning orange-yellow disc now starting to dip down into the quieter sea. The larger waves had given way to small ones and the sea now looked calm, unruffled and blue. I had watched many sunsets earlier in Shangumugham and elsewhere, but today’s setting sun looked the prettiest, and for good reason. Don’t get me wrong; it would appear quite beautiful to any observer. We were not casual visitors to the beach today. We had come to the beach after a rough dark week, literally and otherwise; we were there after being incarcerated for a whole week, and then released abruptly earlier that day.
The Seventies were tumultuous times for many countries of the global south. The 1973 coup in Chile on September eleventh, orchestrated by the United States, installed military strongman Pinochet as head of state after overthrowing the democratically elected president Allende. Argentina entered a military dictatorship with a coup in early 1976, again facilitated by the US, with mass arrests and imprisonment of activists, torture, and disappearances. In India also prime minister Indira Gandhi was taking the country down an authoritarian road. When the high court in her home state ruled against her for election fraud, she declared a state of political emergency in the country pointing to external and internal threats to destabilize the country. Civil and democratic rights were curtailed, press censorship was imposed, democratic institutions were made compliant like service dogs, and scores of opposition leaders and other activists were arrested and put behind bars. A dense fog of fear and panic, like an ugly mix of dust-storm and mist, spread across the country playing havoc with the day-to-day lives of different sections of the populace.
My friend Vivek and I were wide-eyed first-year medical students trying to take in the medical school environs and absorb the outside world as best as we could, keeping our eyes, ears, minds, and brains open. Still teens, we had directly walked over from high school to medical school, as seventeen-year-olds, just a few months earlier. With all the sensory antennae at our disposal we were enjoying our new-found freedoms, debating old and new ideas, and trying to make sense of our inner medicine, and the broader outer world. It was in this atmosphere of newfound freedom, joy of youth, and opportunity for exploration that the Emergency was suddenly imposed. We felt it as a hail of teargas shells suddenly bursting in our midst, fogging and fouling the air, irritating and watering our eyes, and sending our minds and brains into states of dizziness, confusion, and rage.
There was talk of raising our voice, against the declaration of Emergency and the accompanying curtailment of freedom and democratic rights, amongst my friends. We also discussed with two of our professors who we knew were left-leaning, and would be sympathetic to our protest plans. They supported and encouraged us but also had some wise words of caution – we should be mentally prepared for potential consequences, and these were always not very predictable. My friends and I decided to create a few dozen hand-written posters demanding withdrawal of the Emergency and restoration of civil and democratic rights – freedom of the press, freedom of association, and freedom of expression – to speak our minds. And we did exactly that. We wrote one hundred large posters, split up into a few small teams, and started pasting them on our campus buildings, and on the walls of prominent structures in the heart of the city.
Vivek and I were in one team. We were sticking these posters on the outer wall of the district court in the city. A police control room vehicle patrolling the city appeared out of nowhere flashing its lights, and stopped near us. With the engine idling, the passenger door opened and a police officer stepped out. What are you two doing here in the middle of the night? he asked. Vivek seemed cool; I could feel my heart racing and sweat droplets forming on my skin.
Vivek: We’re simply demanding the withdrawal of the recent Emergency declaration and restoration of the freedoms taken away from us.
Officer: No, you cannot do that, and definitely not on the walls of the court premises.
I was shaking but I managed a feeble Why not? The court is supposed to guarantee these freedoms. The officer responded, because it is the Emergency. We realized the argument had become circular. There was no point in repeating our position.
Officer: We can talk more at the police control room office.
Vivek: Are we under arrest?
Officer: Not exactly. I am taking you to my office. We’ll sort everything out there.
After a few minutes’ ride we arrived at the cantonment police station behind the Secretariat building, the seat of the state government. We were ushered into a bleak empty room with two long sturdy-looking, but pockmarked wooden benches. There were only two other inanimate things in the room – a fluorescent light emanating a cold blue light, and a primitive video camera attached to the wall close to the ceiling staring at us like an owl from the tree-top at night. The brick walls were painted a dirty gray, completing the picture of a lifeless, cold, and soulless place.
A suffocating space to break down wills and convictions, and to wipe clean any resistance of the mind, I thought. Another officer dropped in and told us that senior officers from the special and crime branches of the police establishment would soon visit us. After what seemed like a couple of hours, an orderly brought in four chairs, one by one. Four senior officers who appeared to be in their forties and fifties, accompanied by the junior cop who had come earlier, walked in. Two officers were dressed casually in white, who we assumed were from the special branch, and the two others were in full khaki uniform with badges and stars reflecting their senior rank. The senior officers sat down in the chairs while the junior cop stood near them a few feet away on one side with a stenographer’s notebook and a pencil. We felt like two little lambs standing in front of four hungry wolves. The junior cop jotted down our full name, father’s name and our temporary and permanent home addresses. And then the barrage of questions started. It had the feeling of the start of a severe thunderstorm.
Crime Branch Officer-1: Why don’t you like the Emergency and its discipline?
He was almost barking at us. Vivek and I looked at each other.
Vivek: We felt we lost our freedoms.
Special Branch Officer-1: You’ve girls, you’ve college sports. What more do you want? Just have fun, and stay away from trouble.
The officers looked at one another and laughed heartily.
I: We’re not happy with the press censorship. We like to know what is happening in the country.
SBO-2: Extremist forces on the right and on the left of the political spectrum were creating mayhem in the country. The government had to clamp down. Do you understand?
We remained silent. Didn’t want to enter into an argument with the senior cops.
CBO-1: Are you both affiliated with the Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist)?
Vivek: No
CBO-1: Any of the CPI(ML) groups – Ashim Chatterjee, Kanu Sanyal, Nagi Reddy, Kondapalli Seetharamiah?
Vivek and I (in unison): No
The authorities have in their arsenal different tools of intimidation. Many to one interrogation is one such offensive tactic. I was escorted to another small bleaker room, and made to stand there while the officers continued to question Vivek. I couldn’t hear anything. After an hour or so Vivek was brought in. I looked into his face; didn’t notice any new signs of distress; nothing had changed. Now it was my turn to face the firing squad.
SBO-1: How come you two became close friends in such a short period of time?
I: (Looking up at the ceiling and alternately focusing on the faces of each one of the senior cops) Our names start with the same letter; we were in the same group for different classes, labs, and so on.
SBO-2: He is from a different city, and stays in the hostel. You are from this town, and go to college from home.
I: That is correct.
CBO-1: So, an extremist political group brought you two together.
I: No, we are not members of any political faction. We just got a little worked up by the Emergency declaration.
From the line of their questioning, it became clear that they were trying to trace out any extremist connections we could be harboring. Later on, I came to know that they had asked the same set of questions to Vivek, and he had also responded along similar lines.
The senior officers, Vivek, and I were all in the same interrogation room. A cop rolled in a cart filled with books and papers. Some of the books seemed vaguely familiar to me. I read off a few titles in my mind – Gray’s Anatomy, Biochemistry by West & Todd, Tolstoy’s War and Peace, Lenin’s State and Revolution, Thakazhi’s Chemmeen, and Flaubert’s Madame Bovary. I turned to look at Vivek. I could read the distress on his face. Another cart was sitting outside the room, filled with books and papers. The cops had raided Vivek’s hostel room, and my study in my home after bringing us in.
Picking up War and Peace with some effort from the cart, CBO-2 turned towards Vivek – So you are learning to make war in the country during peaceful times, is that so?
Vivek: It is a literary classic, a novel by Tolstoy.
I looked at the two SBOs. They were smiling. I thought they realized the stupidity of the CBO’s question. SBO-1 then plucked out the slim State and Revolution, and asked Vivek – You are trying to organize a revolution here, aren’t you? Your focus is not on studying to become a doctor.
Vivek: My parents are college teachers. They have always encouraged me to read widely.
SBO-2: At this rate I don’t see a path through medical college for you. What do your parents think?
Vivek stayed quiet. It seemed to me that he didn’t want the war of words to get out of hand.
Next it was the turn of my cart of books to come under their scrutiny and to be put under the microscope. I noticed two titles at the top of the pile – Cunningham’s Anatomy Dissection Guide, and How to Study, a book my uncle had gifted me when I turned eight.
An absurd drama was being enacted. The officers seemed to be enjoying the scenes; they relished the power that came with their jobs and position. I wondered what type of a dad, brother, husband, or a friend they would make in their families, and the society at large. Like a mosquito sucking blood gleefully from an infant’s puffy cheek, the officers were basking in their catch, feeding on our vulnerabilities. We felt like butterflies pinned live inside display cabinets, with the cabinet door ajar, and our wings still quivering.
SBO-1 held up the anatomy dissection manual saying, this would make a nice gift for the officers undergoing training with the Scotland Yard specialist officer. They have got to get the Naxalites to talk. The word Naxalite or the stemmed version Naxal was a derogatory term used by the authorities and sometimes by the press to refer to CPI(ML) activists and leaders. I felt a radiating pain like lightning going all the way from the back of my head to my feet. I turned to look at Vivek. His face remained unperturbed.
Now it was the turn of SBO-2. Looking at How to Study, and reading the title loud in a sarcastic voice, he remarked – You are still learning how to study. When are you going to learn medicine and become a doc? Don’t count on me ever becoming your patient. Your place is still high school. Saying this he let out a self-satisfying laugh. The other three officers joined in the merry-making. I remained mum.
Results of our first anatomy mid-term test were out; more than half the students of our class had flunked the test. Vivek had passed but I hadn’t, and my answer sheet with the failed grade was also lying there on the cart. The SBO’s gaze turned towards my test sheet. With an expression of glee and smirk on his face he picked up the answer sheet as though he had discovered a major incriminating document amongst the pile of books and papers. Holding the sheet up for his colleagues to see, he remarked triumphantly – These guys have no time to study; all they do is protest. Then turning to both of us he said emphatically – Your parents have sent you to medical school to become doctors, not to waste your time dabbling in politics, protesting this and that. He said this as though it was his decisive winning statement in a college debate. Vivek and I turned to meet his gaze at the same time, but we did not utter a single word. The senior officers then dispersed and the junior cop wheeled out the carts one by one.
After what seemed like hours, a constable brought us some tea. Then late in the afternoon we were put in a van and taken to a police station near the district court. The posters we had pasted earlier were all gone now. We saw office-goers heading back home after work. We also noticed many college students disembarking from buses at various stops and walking to their homes nearby. We had a gut feeling we were going to be locked up for the night, possibly even many nights.
A century-old single-story sunken building with a tile roof surrounded by many mature trees set on the side of a busy road stood before us. The late afternoon sun illuminated the roof tiles – some of which were cracked, some looked new, most appeared graying and moldy – and the leaves and branches of mahogany, jackfruit, tamarind, and other big trees, and the front façade of the brick-red building. It had an eerie feel to it and looked more like a haunted house than a police station, though it faced the main road. I thought whatever happened inside that building would not escape out but would linger, liquefy, solidify, and eventually fossilize there leaving a strange record of sorts. And I wondered where the lock-up room would be in such a setting.
We entered through the front entrance down a few steps, and set inside, looking dark and grim with iron bars, was the lock-up. The vertical bars were reinforced by two diagonal rods running corner to corner. It faced the main road which ran north-south letting some daylight seep in at this time of the day. Vivek and I were quickly processed―searched, and our meager belongings documented. We were allowed to keep the small amounts of cash we had; we would soon know why.
The lock-up was about twelve feet by ten feet with a small grimy open toilet in one corner. A dirty bucket half-filled with water, and holding a dull stainless-steel mug, was beside the toilet. The stench of urine pervaded the still air. The space had been designed to hold one or two people temporarily before being moved to the jail or let go, but there were already three people inside. One was shirtless, looked to be in his teens, and had a frightened look on his face. We came to know later that he had been arrested for shoplifting. The two others who I assumed were in their early twenties were wearing full pants and shirts, and had a defiant but worried look on their faces. The cop who brought us in announced to nobody in particular – Space is tight; adjust, don’t fight, and keep peace. It will be good for everybody. Saying this, he locked the heavy iron gate of the lockup and left.
Vishal stood head and shoulders above us all, about five feet and ten or eleven inches, I guessed. We were all about five feet and six inches, give or take an inch. Even in that dim lighting his face looked expressive, sculpted, with sharp facial features, and large hemispherical eyes with a penetrating gaze. It seemed as though he had walked out of a giant oil painting displayed in a prestigious art museum; wrong type of face to encounter in a lockup, I thought. He reminded me of Satyajit Ray, the movie director, whose face I had seen in a film magazine recently.
It was late evening. The sun had set, and darkness was seeping in, like smoke from chimneys filling up the air space in the vicinity. There was only one guard for the whole police station, and the five of us lodged inside. He appeared to be in his late forties or early fifties with an all-knowing but sympathetic look on his face. He might have children close to our ages, I thought.
The guard walked over to the iron gate, peered through the bars and looking at Vivek and I asked – Do you have money on you for dinner? There is no state funding to feed people who get locked up here.
Vivek and I looked at each other but stayed silent.
I have a son who is your age. I’ll get you some tea and snacks from the small restaurant across the street.
What about the others, I asked.
When they got here a few days ago I got them some food. Turning towards the shirtless guy the cop continued – he had a visit from a relative recently and got some cash. The other two had some money on them when they came in. But no one showed up here enquiring about them.
I glanced at them. They were looking down towards the floor. It was clear they had no money on them. I pulled out the two rupees I had and said to the guard – money for their food. The guard moved closer, took the cash from me, and told me in a hushed voice – Behind bars it is each one for himself or herself, but it helps to be supportive. It is the survival of the meanest here. Pointing to the shirtless guy he added – That person will be moved to the jail tomorrow. What is going to happen to the other two, I do not know. I thought What about us? But I didn’t ask him. Saying this he turned away from us; it seemed like an ominous statement.
The robbery undertrial was transferred to the jail early morning the next day. The other two inmates – Vishal and Varghese, remained with us for two more days. Vishal had passed out of the College of Engineering, Trivandrum, a few years ago with a degree in electronics and tele-communications and was working for the electronics company Keltron. He was part of a small team that had designed and developed a remarkable closed-circuit TV system for remote monitoring which was being put to nefarious use by the authorities. Varghese had completed an MA in English literature from the Institute of English, affiliated with the University of Kerala, and had applied to various colleges for lecturer positions. He also wanted to be a writer. Both were associated with the CPI(ML), an extreme leftist organization which had been banned as part of the declaration of Emergency. They had somehow come to know that members and activists of their political movement were being subjected to enhanced interrogation measures and torture. They were a worried lot.
The night before they were led away Vishal passed me a small piece of paper when the guard was not watching. A phone number and an address were scribbled on it. Vishal told me that the number was his home phone, his parents and sister lived there in a house on the outskirts of the city. The address is that of Varghese’s parents; they live in the heart of the city, in the Kowdiar subdivision, he said. He sat silent for a minute, and a sad foggy expression came over his face. Staring deep into my eyes he went on – My sister is getting married in a few weeks. That is nice. But Varghese’s mom is not doing well. She was recently diagnosed with breast cancer and is undergoing chemotherapy.
I looked at Varghese. His eyes were moist. He was still very young, only a few years older than Vivek and I. Activism comes with a huge price tag. Being locked up even for a few days is no fun. It is a hard place; it gives you dark feelings. Occasionally, it also gives you some insight, shedding a beam of light into your inner life and perceptions. And sitting inside a dark room watching through bars the world outside, the unlocked life moving frame by frame, gives an eerie feeling. It is as though you are sitting in a dark movie theater watching a story unfold on the screen, scene by scene. But there is a clear difference; the movie will come to an end and you will walk out of the theater. In a jail, in a lockup, you’re not sure when you will be let out, whether you will even see daylight and open skies at all―there is all this uncertainty smothering and suffocating you.
Vivek and I now had the whole lockup to ourselves which meant more space, but I was sad to see Vishal and Varghese led away since it wasn’t clear where they were headed. That night we had heavy rains and when I woke up in the morning, I noticed a puddle of water collected in one corner. I pointed it out to the guard – Oh, it happens frequently, a few roof tiles are cracked. Then looking at our improvised newspaper bed he added, just make sure your newspaper bed doesn’t get soaked. Saying this, he laughed.
I was reminded of our classroom at the Central High School in the city. Our building had a thatched roof which leaked all the time even with small downpours. Small and large puddles would form on the floor during lectures. Sometimes we would make paper boats and quietly launch them into the puddles. It would make some teachers mad, some would just ignore it, and a few seemed to appreciate it, remembering their childhood or their own children. When it rained heavily the paper boats would start traveling, as the puddles coalesced to form rivulets and streams, flowing from one end to the other, and then circling around creating ripples and swirls. I tore a square sheet of paper from our newspaper mat, made a boat, and placed it on top of the puddle inside our lockup. Soon it got soaked, almost dissolved in that dirty puddle of rainwater, and sank.
There outside on the street we could see this little girl, not so little but growing up, and yet not grown up, illuminated by the morning sun, likely in late elementary school, craning her neck into adolescence like a bird stretching its neck to feed. I knew there was a Holy Angels Convent elementary school nearby, just beyond the district court premises. When she came into full view, into my frame through the bars, she started moving her bent elbows up and down in quick succession as though she was a bird in flight. Her erect posture and walk changed the instant she started flailing her arms. She was tiptoeing not just with her toes and the front of her feet but with her whole feet touching the ground and softly cupping it as though she was walking on loose flowery cotton, a bed of flowers, or a few inches of freshly fallen feathery snow. The synchronized ballet-like movements of her arms, upper body and legs felt like a well-choreographed bird-in-flight dance performance. The wavy flutter and the dance moves continued for a few seconds and stopped. She was almost out of view by that time. She reminded me of a hummingbird in flight, fluttering its wings, as I had seen only in pictures. The friend who walked beside her looked younger and smaller, and she wasn’t into any bird-flight simulation.
The first time this happened was on Monday morning a little after nine. I knew the school timings were from nine-thirty am to three-thirty pm, Monday through Friday. From three-thirty onwards I was glued to the bars looking out. Vivek was also beside me. Vishal and Varghese had been moved out by noon. We still had no clue where they were headed. My current worry was not about them. I was wondering if the hummingbird-girl would walk back on this side of the street in front of the police station or across the street on the other side. Being from town I knew the locality relatively well. On the other side of the road the sidewalk was broken. There was a long drain running along the far side which was covered by concrete slabs but there were gaps and most people avoided walking on that side. Nobody wants to take the chance of falling into a stinking drain filled with muck. And suddenly there she was again, flailing and fluttering her elbows and spread-out-hands, in bird-flight motion. The afternoon sun, filtered through the trees by the side, fell on her face – a broad forehead, large eyes, puffed cheeks, a sharp nose; two short pigtails, made flowery at the dangling ends by pink silk ribbons, swayed like pendulums hitting the sides of her puffed cheeks like soft gong mallets. I was reminded of the centuries-old humanoid Methan Mani clock face near the East Fort – the two rams perched on the sides would wake up and strike the face of an ogling Methan, sporting a beard and a moustache, who would open his mouth to announce the hour. She is a plumed hummingbird, I thought. She was wearing a white collared top, and a blue skirt with a bulging backpack stretching her back. We watched the hummingbird-girl all the way till she disappeared completely from our frame of vision.
In lockup, time stretches and thins out like a large balloon which can take in more and more air and keeps expanding. We were always hungry – we had very little money left on us. It almost ran out in the first couple of days. The guards would occasionally buy us lunch which was plain white rice and a little soup, or dinner, which would be three small dosas, the size of our inner palms, and some watery chutney to go with it. Vivek had coined a name for it – the three amigos soaking in a puddle dinner. But Vivek and I had all the time in our closed world to chat about different things. The one thing nagging, always at the back of our minds, was when we would be let out, when we could walk on the street again like all the rest of the humanity we saw through the bars, including the hummingbird-girl. Sometimes the old sympathetic guard would join us for conversation, particularly on those days he was kind enough to buy us dinner. Just the three of us would be there, and we would keep talking for a long time late into the night. He asked us about our families, and also told us about his son and daughter who were in college – the son was in the University college majoring in Chemistry and the daughter in the Women’s college, studying literature. They are not very good students, straight-A students; it is so hard to get good jobs even when you’re the best, he would lament.
We read the newspapers, page to page, column by column, word by word, including the advertisements, and personals, and then the pages became our mattress separating our young thin bodies from the grimy concrete floor. The newspaper mat grew thicker as the days went by, and we accumulated more sheets of paper. And then we had to deal with mosquitoes, spiders, geckos, mice, and roaches which were part of the lockup ecosystem and enhanced its biodiversity. We thought about the incarcerated historic personalities, past and present – Bhagat Singh, Julius Fučik, Nelson Mandela, Pramoedya Ananta Toer – and wondered how they sustained themselves in much worse conditions over longer periods of time. Like hospitalized patients who would ask the doc daily when they would be able to go home, we would ask our evening guard when we would be let out. And he would always say he would try to get some info the following day.
There were lots of trees and green shrubbery around the courthouse and the police station. Some of the trees had been cut for road widening around there but many trees still survived and lined the road. We were in for a big surprise one morning when we woke up on our newspaper bed inside our cell and looked through the bars. A butterfly flew in through the porch fluttering its large yellow wings. It was in front of us, outside the bars, greeting us, and waving to us from the veranda of the police station. The wings had red stripes and intricate blue dot patterns, some smudged but mostly discrete. What a strange, beautiful guest appearance, I thought. It flew around for a few seconds and vanished through the porch into the free air outside.
Monday through Friday, morning and afternoon, the school girl was a delightful fixture in our life during the whole week we were locked up there. After nine in the morning and a little after three-thirty in the afternoon, she would wade across our cinematic viewscreen of the world outside, her arms and hands fluttering and flailing like a hummingbird’s wings in flight. Our hearts normally beat about seventy times per minute. Children’s heart beats faster. But a hummingbird’s wings beat more or less that many times per second, or a few thousand times per minute. If our hearts started beating at those rates the blood pressure would drop to dangerously low levels, leading to shock and death, I recalled, ruminating on my physiology classes. The uncertainty of our locked-up days, the starvation, the dirty cracked hard floors, smudged paint-peeling walls, the pathetic and painful newspaper bed, the mosquitoes, the pervasive stink and foul air, the lack of sleep – this state of miserable existence was lightened and alleviated by the school girl’s dance of the hummingbird. We knew we could not get through the day, and survive the daily ordeal without her charm and grace, her darshan, her dance, her delightful flutter, her bird ballet, and more so, the anticipation of her appearance – we waited for her like a little kid looking forward to her mom returning home from work.
On Saturday evening our guard told us that we could be released Sunday morning; he had overheard senior officers discussing our status. It seemed that after much deliberation and an extensive investigation they had come to the conclusion that we were political upstarts and novices and did not pose any significant threat to the government’s authority. We were thrilled, and started making plans to celebrate our freedom on Sunday. We didn’t sleep much that night, we were too excited. Following our release, we went home, quickly showered, and then headed to the Azad restaurant in town famous for its biriyani selections. After what was arguably one of the best meals of our lives, we proceeded to the Shangumugham beach to watch people, to take in the sights of the shore, sand, sea, sun, and sky, and clear our minds with no bars separating us from the surroundings. Sitting on beach sand, munching fresh-roasted spicy peanuts we watched the setting sun and the people walking by. We thought about Vishal and Varghese, and it dampened our spirits; it was a form of survivor’s guilt which felt like the pungent smell of leaked ammonia from a nearby chemical plant. But the cheery and fresh image of the hummingbird-girl was etched in our memory forever. After sunset we headed to the Sreekumar movie theater where Roman Holiday was playing. Our week-long lockup, and the breakout protocol-free-sojourn, and adventure of the princess, made a good contrast.
The following week we visited the parents of Vishal and Varghese and filled them in about meeting their sons under strange circumstances. They knew as much – their presence in the Vanchiyoor lockup and the move from there, but were clueless about the current whereabouts of both.
The Emergency lasted barely two years. New elections were held in 1977. Indira Gandhi and her Congress party lost power, and a new government was sworn in. Some semblance of democracy was restored in the country. Over the next few years Vivek and I completed medical school. After graduation Vivek chose to stay in the city and practice medicine. I decided to go abroad to the US for further training and graduate studies. After finishing my PhD, I started teaching at Washington University in St. Louis.
The dark days of the Emergency and a week spent locked up in a dingy room were distant memories. But whenever I saw a hummingbird, I was reminded of the elementary school girl and her choreographed dance movements like a hummingbird in flight. It had brought us cheer, made the lockup brighter, and let us feel lighter and optimistic, and we had eagerly awaited her dance performance. But there always remained a mystery – was there a signal, a message in that choreographed dance-like gesture, or she was just sending some joy and hope to the inmates languishing there.
Sipping my extra-hot latte slowly and carefully, I introduced myself. I am a faculty here in the Department of Biochemistry. She was sitting across from me with a cup of black tea steamed in with milk, foamy at the top, a fresh hot chai latte. I was looking at her face, her large brown eyes, her cheeks, her long neck, her arms and hands, her hair clipped short, trying to map them all to the fuzzy memory of a nine-year-old girl’s face from a quarter of a century ago, in another part of the world, in my hometown, in a totally different setting, and visualized through a thick rusting iron door with bars. She had grown up and changed a lot; she looked to be in her early thirties. My gaze rested on her face for a few seconds trying to piece together her face and map it to my old memory like a kid putting together a jigsaw puzzle. Her large eyes, an elegant nose with a well-formed nasal bridge, and a full mouth with bow-shaped lips looking like two long curved petals pressing against each other, rendered her face vivacious, and attractive. How quickly time wanders, like a child, coursing through new terrain, discovering, mapping and marking new things, erasing a lot while retaining some sketches from the past – doodles, caricatures, portraits both well-formed and fuzzy. I had rediscovered her after a quarter century had slipped away, sometimes slowly and at times suddenly, like melting glaciers. She sat there with a cheery demeanor, and a puzzled quizzical look on her face not knowing what to expect.
She could be that girl, wait a minute, she may not be. It is going to be embarrassing, I thought, explaining myself, and telling my strange story from another place, a different setting, and an old dark era. It felt like a multiple-choice question where one option stood out with a vague familiarity. The stakes seemed to be rising. Looking into her eyes I blurted out – I think I know you from my teen days.
It was obvious I was about a decade older, if not more. Her gaze was focused on me. I am trying to understand – you lived in my old neighborhood, you knew my parents, our families know each other, or what? Do you know my name, or nickname? I don’t remember seeing you.
No, I didn’t know your name or your parents. All I remember is that you went to the Holy Angels’ Convent in the mid-Seventies, walking in front of the police station on the court-side of the road, on your way to school and back. And you would put up a performance like that of a hummingbird in flight, flailing and fluttering your arms and hands, your short pigtails knotted at the ends with bright ribbons swinging sideways, and your school-pack hanging on your back.
I took a few quick breaths and continued.
You brought cheer to us in those dark days and we looked forward to your flight. It meant a lot of things during the Emergency – freedom, flight, fight for rights, a carefree life, joy, strength, and confidence. All these, which you normally take for granted, are magnified when you are confined, constrained, and restrained, or in just two scary words, locked up. You didn’t know we were locked up inside; you didn’t know us; we hadn’t met. Why did you gesture like that? And, belatedly, what is your name, my old little school girl, who illuminated my soul, lighted a candle in my darkness and despair, and unburdened my heart a quarter of a century ago?
I knew my emotions were flying high. But strangely, by that time, I was one hundred percent confident it was the hummingbird girl who was now sitting across from me with a quizzical but unmasked, and relaxed expression on her face. My name is Vismaya. As you know it means magical, and it does make me feel a little mysterious, she said with a shy expression on her face. And my nickname was kuruvi, a lark; some of my old friends still call me kuruvi, she added. I had to agree that her name, nickname, and her persona evoked an element of mystery around her like an invisible fragrance emanating from a flower, and bestowed her with an aura of attractiveness.
My dad actually wanted to name me Natasha, Baikal, or Olga. He leans left and breathes Marxism. He is a worker and trade union organizer in Keltron. My mom is an art teacher; she still teaches at Holy Angels, my alma mater, and she came up with the name Vismaya. We knew Vishal and my dad got wind of his arrest. Through his sources he found out that Vishal was locked up in that station. She narrated all this in one breath.
I: Did anyone visit him there?
Vis: It was too risky. The visitor would have been detained too, on that pretext. Dad realized that Vishal would be glued to the outside world and came up with this idea to greet and cheer him up. Interestingly, my mom choreographed this bird-in-flight dance movement. And I enjoyed doing that, even though, sometimes, people looked at me in a strange way and thought I was crazy. Even after growing up, I sometimes do that, for fun, as you saw me performing it yesterday.
I: We were at the right place at the same time for the opportunity, the chance to witness your bird dance. Chance has a magical way of navigating people’s lives introducing new forks, trails, stop signs, red, and green lights. They are not easily predictable but sometimes you can look for them when nature gives some cues – when the sun starts shining following a drizzle, you wait for the rainbow to appear, form, take shape and crystallize in the sky. Chance happenings, like small caring gestures, can change a life’s direction and create a palette of novel colors mixing old ones in new ways. I will always be grateful to you for that. I met with Vishal’s and Varghese’s families after I got out. But I always wondered what happened to both of them. They were affiliated with a party that was banned during the Emergency. I am curious to know when they were released and how the whole ordeal shaped them.
Vis: Dad came to know that they were moved from there only after you had spoken with their families. For a long time, he couldn’t figure out where they were taken. Then one day he said the news was not very good. He had come to know about political prisoners being tortured in special camps in and around the city. Dad was very upset when he heard about these goings on.
I looked at her with concern. Old memories came flooding back in, like small rivulets of water coalescing and forming a pool or puddle after a thunderstorm. When were they finally released? I asked.
Vis: They were released after Indira Gandhi lost power, and the Emergency was withdrawn. But they were just silhouettes, and blurred images of their former selves, like reflected images you see in a pond or lake with ripples. They were administered special treatment and subjected to enhanced interrogation procedures. They came out broken.
She was looking down at the floor when she said this. She raised her head to meet my eyes. Her eyes were wet. Do you know what I am trying to convey? I sat looking at her silently for some time. What could I say? She calmed down and then continued.
Vis: My memories of Vishal uncle go back to the times when I was three or four years old. I think he had just joined Keltron after finishing his engineering degree. He used to play a lot with me and got me chocolates and ice cream. And he told me lots of stories – Panchatantra, Tenali Raman, and other Indian folk tales. Over the years he taught me to ride the bike. Every year on my birthday he would bring a big cake, toys, and story books as gifts. He became my favorite uncle.
She seemed overwhelmed by her recollections of Vishal. Taking a few sips from her cup, composing, and straightening her posture, she continued.
Vis: I think it was my seventh birthday. Vishal uncle came with a big gift box. It was not very heavy to lift up, and I was feeling giddy to open it up and see what was inside. He asked me to guess and I said, a soft pup. Shaking his head towards one side and then the other, he said, no, and asked me to open it right away, seeing my eagerness and curiosity. When I tore up the wrapper and pulled open the box lid, I saw a cute pink penguin with a red beak. I pulled it out of the box and placed it on the floor in front of me. It stretched up to my neck. I was so excited, I started jumping up and down. And then I saw the big bar of Cadbury’s milk chocolate which he then handed to me. As you might recall, in those days a bar of chocolate was a big luxury. I unwrapped it hurriedly and started eating it one square at a time. There would have been ten or twelve squares in total. I would have eaten five or six squares when Vishal uncle suddenly asked, Can I have one piece? I don’t know what came over me. In one quick hand motion I stuffed all the remaining pieces into my mouth. Vishal uncle never stopped teasing me about that afterwards. Thinking about it now, I feel really sad that I didn’t have the heart or the grace to give him even one small piece. But I still have the soft penguin in my room back home.
She took a deep breath and quickly latched back to her memories of Vishal. She had bonded deeply with him, I thought.
Vis: Vishal uncle and dad would engage in lots of political discussions. Sometimes I would listen in, I was allowed to do that, but I didn’t understand a lot of what they were talking about. I only remember some keywords – fundamental change, revolution, Marx, Lenin, Mao. And when the Emergency was declared, the discussions became more involved; sometimes they would lower their voices and talk in whispers. But I had never met Varghese, and saw him only much later, after he was released.
I: Your dad did not try to meet with Vishal and Varghese while they were locked up. How does he feel about it now? Did you ask him?
She wasn’t expecting me to ask such a direct question. She seemed to get agitated; I could hear her heart beating loudly, see her breathing quicken, and her chest heaving. She took some time to calm down; I sensed her agitation slowly drifting away, and sadness creeping over her face. I immediately knew I had pinched a raw nerve; I felt like I had fingered an open wound in her heart.
Vis: (Turning her sad eyes towards my face to meet my gaze) Yes, after the first time I met with Vishal. Dad didn’t let me see him immediately after he was released; I saw him after a few months. Dad felt he would have been arrested if he had gone to check on them when they were in lockup, and then we would have been left to fend for ourselves during those difficult days.
I expected Vishal uncle to cheer up seeing me. I had become an adolescent. I was a tween, almost a teen, a shy young woman. But he just kept staring at me with a vacant look as if he hadn’t really known me that well. I was naturally disappointed and it hurt.
She took a few more quick sips from her cup and continued.
Vis: Dad leaned left, and read Marx and Lenin. But he didn’t sympathize with the extreme left interpretation of CPI(ML) which Vishal uncle was following. They had political differences but were very good friends. He had to make a choice and he decided to protect us; he didn’t go. But he was also deeply hurt. He got very upset by my question; he himself felt very bad and hadn’t gotten over it. Well, I also miss my old Vishal uncle; he was so cheerful, full of life and fun in those days when I was growing up.
When did you last meet them? I asked.
Vis: I think it was four or five years ago. Varghese was teaching in a school. Vishal uncle never got his job back. Dad tells me both are still under therapy and suffer from the consequences of what they had to undergo during their detention.
I: That is really sad. Vivek and I were lucky that we were released after a week or so. And we had your bird-dance to cheer us up. You became a butterfly and hummingbird all at once. You gave us hope in those dark days and nourished our spirits. That image of you has remained with me, like a prized painting, full of life, anchored at eye-level in the living room of my mind; I see it every time I open the front door.
Vis: I was recently in Florence looking at Dante’s face. What a handsome face – sharp features, penetrating gaze. The face seemed so familiar while I was intensely looking at it, and suddenly I was reminded of Vishal uncle. There was a stunning resemblance between them. I did that dance move for Vishal uncle. He was my sweet uncle. He was so handsome, you see, I even had a crush on him. Many days I had felt a strong urge to rush in to see him. One day I almost did. And a cop warned me – If you go in you may never come out; it is no place for kids. Those days I did that dance to let him know we love him and the outer world cares about him. These days I sometimes do an impromptu dance when I am reminded of Vishal uncle or Varghese, or just like that, for no reason. It is simply to cheer myself up. A man can kill a man, woman, or even a child; it may be out of anger, frustration, grievance, or revenge. A soldier or a cop can kill another human in offense or defense. I get all that. But a human being torturing a fellow human being? Even animals don’t do that. Torture and disappearances of those days – all that only emerged later. That is what makes me sad and throws my mind off balance.
I did not know what to say in response to her predicament. Thank you for being a hummingbird, and a butterfly for a week. You kept me sane, sensitive, and hopeful. Maybe, we will meet again on campus. I managed this much. Let us keep in touch, she said. The past is not just the past, it finds a way to intersect with the present, like a winding circular trail, providing opportunities to carve out new paths, she added with a jumbled mix of sadness and delight.
Simple caring gestures will always go some distance, occasionally long distances, and maybe even all the way to their destinations for some people. But they may not be enough to take everyone to the top of tall mountains, and summits of peaks. Nevertheless, they are beautiful, and I felt, will always be remembered and cherished. As for me, I carry with me the hummingbird dance images from another era of the nine-year-old Vismaya, the lark, wherever I go, all the time.
