Honour

HONOUR



It was a bright sunny morning when the cops came running into the platforms at CST. God damn these railway babus, thought Mumtaz. Obviously some railway top dog was coming visiting CST for the cops to unleash their batons at the row of people who slept there and had made it their home. The next baton got Mumtaz right on the leg.

"Chal nikal nikal" the cops were shouting as they liberally swung their batons at the people startled out of their sleeps.

The platform had been unused for several years now and for Mumtaz and hundreds like her, it was home.

It was a special day for another reason as well. It was exactly a year since she had met Sakina. Sakina wasn't to be seen anywhere since morning but Mumtaz knew there wasn't much to fear for if any one could take care of herself, it had to be Sakina.

Soon Mumtaz was packing up her meagre belongings in her old dirty brown bag to 'escape' the police charge. She would have to sleep somewhere outside the railway premises before the cops would let all of them back in once the official inspections were over. In a moment Sakina was there beside her. Gulu, the lord of the platforms, bootlegger, drug addict and peddler, was with her. Even as he talked, from the corner of his eye, he was staring at the white calves Mumtaz had exposed when her sari slightly went up in the melee.

He was talking about how the unused platforms were going to be reconstructed to run more trains. The babus had come just to check on how feasible their plans were.

Gulu usually was spot on at these things because he was in touch with the police. Most of the cops got their cut from him. He in turn used to charge every one sleeping on the ten platforms five rupees a day. It came up to a tidy ten thousand rupees a day. The drugs got a bit more. Gulu ended up keeping just about five hundred rupees a day but the power that he got among the cops compensated for it.



But Gulu also knew that without Sakina, he would be dead meat in these parts soon. Sakina had once rescued the teenaged daughter of the station-incharge Giridhar Mishra from two men, who posing as plainclothes police detectives, had almost bundled her into a train about to leave for Calcutta. They had told her that Mishra was waiting for her at Kalyan from where the family was supposed to leave for Pune. The girl knew the family was leaving for Pune later that night. A moment here and there and she could have been in some brothel in Sonagachi or some high-end prostitution ring. She spoke and dressed well after all.



Sakina recognized the duo as traffickers from the shanties behind Pd'Mello Road and alerted bada sahib as everyone called the station incharge. Priya was rescued, the two had enough cases against them to beget a lifetime of shuttling between jails and courts. And more broken bones than the two could count on the all their fingers and toes. But for Sakina it opened up the best phase of her life. Inspector Giridhar Mishra was now her debtor in a way that the inspector himself acknowledged he couldn't repay. He doted on his only daughter and the thought that she could have ended up living the wretched lives he saw the Sakina's and others living here made him shiver. Whenever he made the rounds of the sprawling terminus at night, he would look at the rows of men and women huddled inside torn bed sheets making love and think that his daughter could have ended up that way.



From then on, Sakina was queen of the platforms just as Gulu was king. She could tip off the officer anytime of the day and in less than half an hour, the cops would raid. However her strength came from the fact that she never used this special gift against anyone but only showed that she could. Gulu knew it and so feared it.



Sakina knew that the pavements below the JJ flyover were best when it came to such times. It was just too vast for any one goon to play lord and master so spending a night was never much of a problem. For Mumtaz, such migrations weren't much of a problem. She had nothing except some three utensils and the silk veil. And except for the silk veil she didn't care much for the other items.



Below the flyover, the fumes building up like black mist as the vehicles whizzed past, Mumtaz took a short nap. Her silk veil was neatly wrapped in the dirty bag that had become her pillow. Sakina was busy flirting with the chap who cleared the dustbins filled with food scraps from the hotels nearby. If she knew Sakina well, the night would be a bit cramped. Because generally Sakina's flirtations would end up with the object of her desire and she, both naked and sweaty, moaning in pleasure and pain about a metre away from where Mumtaz slept.

As the chap and Sakina indulged in a night of passion, Mumtaz counted exactly a year since any man had touched her. A year of guarding her honour. She didn't realize when she fell asleep and when she got transported back to Shahjahanpur, a hamlet close to Lucknow. To a husband who used to say that for a woman her honour is all that she can give her husband. He forgot to mention the slave-like toil for 24 hours every day for the rest of a woman's life as well.



"Always wear the veil. Shuja Sheikh's begum is not for the menfolk in the markets to fantasize about. She has an honour to uphold.". Mumtaz then was Mumtaz Begum, wife of Shuja Sheikh who hailed from the same family as the nawabs of Lucknow. It would have been tough for most to get the family tree right as the branches included sons from concubines, from incest, from adoptions and from plain boasting. Mumtaz didn't know from which of these associations was Shuja Sheikh a member of the tree. But his hawked nose, severe cheek bones and wide forehead made her believe it must have been from some association worth talking about.



Shuja bought her the silk veil the day after they got married. It was ten years ago and Mumtaz was twenty then. For the accountant in the village grocers shop, there wasn't a bigger joy that the great grand nephew of the last nawab of Lucknow was marrying his daughter. It didn't matter if Mumtaz would be wife number three. Sheikh turned out to be a nice man. He didn't drink though tobacco was a weakness. Anger was also not something he exhibited though his tales of nawabi valour of his ancestors did have liberal doses of it.

But as Mumtaz soon realized, Sheikh had one major problem. He was somewhere trapped in the regalia of his ancestors that no longer existed, and no longer cut any ice with the harsh world around. So a nice job as an accountant with a local oil factory went out when the owner's son- a paan-chewing lout- called him an idiot for accidentally adding a zero to the sales figures.

Job after job was soon deserting Sheikh and or was it the other way round you could never say. Not for him sitting and accepting orders, he would tell Mumtaz when he returned home after walking out of yet another job. And invariably on such nights the attention would turn towards Mumtaz. The other two wives had long settled into cooking and washing and cleaning and sweeping and looking after the four girls Sheikh had given both of them. As Sheikh started sleeping almost exclusively with Mumtaz, it wasn't long before she was pregnant.

Unfortunately, her joy was stillborn. In four years, similar pain would visit her another three times. She felt somewhere that Sheikh was getting tired of her. He dearly wanted a son and here his begum was just throwing out dead dolls from her womb.

The money was also drying up. It had been over a year since Sheikh had been unemployed. A plot of land, near the petrol pump on the highway, sold a year earlier was what was feeding them so far. But Sheikh was down to his last thousands and the medicines for the eldest wife was also hitting hard at his balances.

Something told Mumtaz that somewhere in the whole scheme of coincidences and fate called life, something was about to give.

That evening, Sheikh brought home a visitor- Pir Anjum Ali. Like most mortals, when the going got tough due to one's own mistakes, Sheikh planned to blame it on the configurations of luck, stars, time and fate. Pir Ali sat on the sofa with torn upholstery, and his kohl-lined eyes gave the toughest of glares to Mumtaz when she brought him a glass of sharbat. Sheikh was talking about the run of ill-luck that was plaguing him for some time now. His wives were falling ill more often, the four children were turning out to be bad with their school work an generally dull and the youngest wife had yet to give birth to a kid who moved. Allah was really getting tough with him.

Pir Ali promised that he would look into it- looking into such things was what made him the richest man in the village now after all- and called Sheikh to his house two days later. His diagnosis was simple. It was Mumtaz, Pir Ali told Sheikh. The woman had been a messenger of Satan sent to visit his household. Sheikh was just beginning to feel that Pir Ali was being harsh on Mumtaz when he started telling him the dates. And it didn't take much time for Sheikh to realize that his run of joblessness, the wives getting ill, the kids getting nowhere at school all started with the lady coming into the house. The clincher- a jug that his forefathers used to store water brought from Mecca broke the day she had come in.

Mumtaz had never expected the love to go out so soon. From someone who couldn't stop jumping into bed with her the moment he came home, he now despised her. The beatings started soon. When the salt in the dal was a bit on the higher side, Sheikh's palms fell full and heavy on the bridge of Mumtaz's nose. A trickle of blood fell near Sheikh's plate. He kicked the plate across the room- the dal spilling across in a circular motion- and walked out. Another time he simply kicked her in the groin. Mumtaz hit her head against the wooden stool kept in one corner of the room and fell unconscious. The other women helped her into her room- now relegated to the tiny one where the old rugs and carpets were stored- every time Sheikh hit her.

The eldest wife soon fell ill again. She pulled in ten thousand rupees worth of medicines before letting out her last breath in an anguished moan.

The Pir just told Sheikh there was more to come as long as Mumtaz had her shadow falling on the household.

Exactly after the evening prayers, Sheikh walked in and in the presence of his second wife and the four kids pronounced talaq three times on Mumtaz and catching her by the hair dragged her out to a waiting rickshaw. As the crowd gathered around the house to watch the fun, the words witch and satan were liberally thrown about.

The Mahanagri Express was to leave for Mumbai in half an hour's time and now Mumtaz was going to find herself on it.

She was dumped near the toilet of one of the general compartments where she soon fell asleep. When she woke and got off the train, she was standing in a building fifty times bigger than the village mosque which was the biggest building she had ever seen, more crowded than even the Basant mela in the village nearby. She was standing at the gates of the city of dreams, the grand Chattrapati Shivaji Terminus.



Day one at the huge terminus was tough. Mumtaz soon learnt that even at the public taps fitted at several places there, the water had to be fought for. At night she realized even the space to sleep didn't come without a fight either. From the goons who charged for allowing the homeless to be there and from the cops who amidst bouts of dutifulness thrashed and chased anyone they saw in their sights, everyone put up a fight in this world. And only those who gave it back got something in return.



On day two, Mumtaz met Sakina at the tap where she had gone to fill her bottle with water. A youngster had just tried to steal it before getting the full force of a slap from Sakina. Don't steal water at least bastards. Sakina took a look at her and realized that she had been very abruptly dropped into this world. Others had got enough boots from life to be in perfect shape for this harsh bad world. She quite liked the innocent face of Sakina. The friendship was instant. Sakina felt good at being able to play mother hen to Mumtaz and Mumtaz in turn kept the space around clean when Sakina came at night to call it a day. And moreover, Gulu, the local lord, didn't eye her ever since he got to know that Sakina protected her. And it didn't matter if he couldn't get Mumtaz, because for Gulu the good end to a hard day's work was the pleasures he took off Sakina. At forty Sakina still tired him out before demanding more.



For Mumtaz, the four miscarriages had diminished her beauty by a considerable margin but that didn't still make her get away from the hordes of men who also lived there. The latest pack of wolves out on the hunt was the yard gang. And they were as bad as they came. A gang of men who stole from the trains parked in yards and after selling the loot indulged in a night of drinking that would be remembered in that bar for months to come. And when they returned to the platforms to sleep, they found it necessary that they have somebody to sleep with. The flowergirls were their favourite target because when the gang had money, a dress with sequins or a nice necklace of rolled gold didn't fall outside their powers of gifting. And the girls didn't mind such gifts even if they came at a price of a rather bruising night of sex with men stinking of sweat and liquor. The girls would exchange gossip about the bruises on their arms and thighs and the gifts they got.



Their latest quest was Mumtaz because as the nights progressed, the gang leader's sleeping position was getting closer to her. When she went out in the mornings to get water, he openly eyed her. When she went for her morning ablutions, he would also come and take up position in a way that everything was there to see for both. She had mentioned it once to Sakina but that night Sakina was too high on the cheap liquor that Gulu had bought her for the talk to make any sense. "I'll cut off their balls" is all she uttered before slumping into an ungainly position to sleep. Mumtaz set her clothes right for her and fell asleep beside her.



It was a month after they had met when Sakina brought Mumtaz her first proposal. Raju seth- the man who employed the boys to clear the express trains of bottles and footwear when it arrived into the terminus- wanted to know her better. In Raju's favour was a small house near the terminus, a wife who had left him many years ago and no children that Mumtaz would have to foster. Mumtaz refused.



It was about honour, she had told Sakina. Sakina though Mumtaz was out of her mind. Raju seth was a good man- albeit his drinking was on the heavier side- and his job kept him on the safe side of the law. Railway officials themselves paid him to keep the trains clean. And he was clearly impotent. So no problems of getting stuck with kids when the man walked away into the arm of some bitch. His two other wives didn't have any so neither would she. Mumtaz still refused and could soon feel a rage creeping into Sakina's already harsh voice. And as the night wore off and the rain poured, two women in a harsh world were talking about what honour meant to them in the world's they saw before them.



"In this world, you need the man so that the others don't keep eyeing you. I keep Gulu so that I don't have to bear the eyes of the others who salivate for me."



And in that deal, your honour is to keep your man the way you want to. If you can keep Raju seth tied to your apron, my girl, this place will look just as good as any of the flats we see in that highrise.



For Mumtaz, honour was the struggles to keep her body from being violated by anyone save for whom the Gods have destined. Her mother never slept with anyone but her husband, her sisters had not been seen naked by anyone but their husbands. She had yet to be touched by anybody but Sheikh.



That is another world. A world in which men use women and when the need is over, they simply throw them away. Was it your fault that your kids came out dead from your womb? Your fault that the other wives were falling ill or were turning out girls from their wombs?



Except for silence Mumtaz didn't have much to add in the conversation. But her mind was made. She would wait in this world she still didn't consider hers for the man the Gods would send for her.



In this world God didn't exist and all men were wolves. You just had to choose your pack carefully and stay on guard to ensure that you don't get hunted when you're running with them. And when the wolves hunt you every night, make sure you get the spoils as well.





Later that night that Sakina heard muffled sobs coming from Mumtaz's direction. She was sleeping at some distance from her usual spot.



Sakina moved up to her. Mumtaz's eyes were red from all the crying. Probably for the first time, she had prayed that she go back to Sheikh. That nasty world seemed better than this now.



Sakina placed her hands on Mumtaz's head. She stroked her hair gently. And probably for the first time in many years, there were tears in Sakina's eyes. She didn't cry herself and hated women who did. But at this moment she just wanted to enjoy the pleasure of being frail and weak. For a moment she felt like a woman rather than the hunter and hunted, spoil and share-holder in a world of wolves and lambs. If she would have cried when Gulu had once beaten her into pulp for sleeping with another man, she would have felt angry. If she had cried when she was made to drink urine by the women constables who had picked her up for child-running, she would have felt angry. She hadn't shed a tear both those times. Today she was crying from an emotion she never knew still existed in her- that of a motherhood she never experienced and a sisterhood lost in trying to be a man in a man's world.



Mumtaz I don't know how tough I am against this harsh world. I don't know how lucky you will be against this ruthless world. I don't for how long you can be a stranger in this world where for men, women are to be had and for women men are to be used. But for as long as I am there and can help it, your honour is your honour and saving it would be my fight. I never had kids, barren bitch as Gulu calls me, but from today like a mother fighting to ensure her daughter doesn't get violated, I'll fight.



For the first time since arriving there, both slept peacefully. Mumtaz because she had found a new mentor, Sakina because she had re-found old emotions.



It was probably the blaring horns of a truck that woke up Mumtaz. She was still under the JJ flyover and Sakina was still flirting with that chap who cleared the hotel kitchens.

The traffic was just as dense.



That night they made their way back to the same old spot at the terminus. The chap followed them. And over a month the love story between Sakina and this fellow- Mumtaz later came to know his name was Munna- played out away from the prying eyes of Gulu. Munna would have been far worse for it if Gulu got to know that his woman was being shared by another man as well. It seemed that soon the world would simply continue this way. Mumtaz would keep the place clean, Sakina would come back with some money, sometimes food, the cops would once in a while come and march them all into the nearest lock-up and release them the next day.





One night Sakina didn't return. It had never happened that way. The men might have been different but every night Sakina would invariably land up at the spot for a good night's sleep. When she came in the morning, she couldn't recollect where she had been all night. Then came the fever. As she lay in the torn rug that for years was her bedspread, Sakina vomited blood every time she coughed.

The fever just refused to go.



For three days now, both hadn't eaten anything. Munna came one night but soon left. Gulu did the same. She didn't understand why Gulu was playing doctor and looking into every inch of Sakina's body. When he had finished playing doctor, he simply spat in disgust and walked off. Mumtaz lay motionless looking woefully into Gulu's eyes. Mumtaz had never seen her so docile, so lost, so resigned. It was Sakina who told her what it was- it was the bimari. The local ayas and dais who used to come to counsel the young women sleeping on the platforms called it HIV/AIDS. In this harsh world it was the bimari and those who had it could soon expect the world to cave in on them. Sakina, for long queen, knew now new heads would soon turn up for the tiara.



Over the next two days, many things had changed. Gulu started eyeing her again and Munna stopped coming altogether.



Sakina barely got the strength to speak as the days passed. She knew why Gulu still came there every night. It was no longer for her. It was for Mumtaz.



In the bad untidy world that they lived in, Mumtaz had managed to keep her honour intact. When she went out to beg at the streets near the port, she wore her silk veil. She didn't talk to the porters who came to make small talk. However that could all change. Because Gulu was getting closer. Sakina could no longer shout him down. One of these days Gulu would have her. For someone who barely thought of her own body as anything more than a tool, Sakina felt a pain when she thought of Mumtaz's honour falling. Of all the few bonds she had, this was the strongest. And even as she got weaker, her will to protect it just got stronger.



The rains hadn't eased one bit since it started a couple of hours ago. The floors across the terminus had got caked with wet mud from the lakhs of feet that passed over them.

It was cold as well. Through the drone of the rain falling on the roof of the terminus, she could hear Gulu's drunken song as he approached. When she looked at Mumtaz, the fear in her eyes was like that of a prey all tired, slouched in front of a fresh lion. A fear that everything was about to end. It tore Sakina's heart in shreds to see that fear in Mumtaz's eyes. For long queen, here she didn't want her favourite subject to be turned out of the kingdom as yet.



Gulu would be here any moment. There wasn't much else she could have done then. She moved closer to Mumtaz. Mumtaz couldn't understand what had gotten into Sakina. The rage in Sakina's eyes was not something she had ever seen. She pressed closer to Mumtaz. Just lay there still, she kept telling Mumtaz.

Her arms, now twig like from the disease, pulled up Mumtaz's sari. A anguished wail left Mumtaz's mouth. The Sakina she trusted more than anything else against the pack was turning wolf. Sakina had dropped her clothes by her side. She was roughly tugging at Mumtaz's now. Gulu's song was getting louder. Sakina just lay motionless on Mumtaz, her legs pinning down Mumtaz's. Sakina lay like that for the moment to arrive.



The cold feeling of phlegm and spit on her bare back and a grunt of disgust from Gulu's mouth told Sakina that the moment had arrived. Next was a volley of abuses. Gulu just looked at the two. Sakina, as if she didn't realize the arrival of Gulu amidst all the pleasure, simply kept running her hands across Mumtaz's breast. Mumtaz, still and silent, lay there dead in the shock. Gulu walked off. Spread the fucking disease bitch, he shouted as he walked towards where the flower girls used to sleep.



Sakina got up, dressed, pulled Mumtaz's clothes in place and just sat there silently for what seemed like eternity. Gulu would never touch Mumtaz anymore. No one else would. That battle was won.



Now live your life. Allah will call me today or tomorrow. I have to go. Keep your silk veil with you. Now this world is yours. Go to bada sahib if you need help. I've told him.



Two days later, Mumtaz woke up to Sakina looking glass-eyed into the high ceiling of the terminus. Allah had called her.



Gulu was sitting at the other end of the platform. He had been informed. Inspector Mishra sent the municipality hearse ambulance for Sakina. As the body was being taken away, Mumtaz could see that of all the wolves there, no one had any stomach for a hunt.



Now well and truly this world was hers. Inspector Mishra had called for her. The jail lock-up had to be cleaned every day and he would pay Rs 50.



It was a job with honour. Sakina would have told her to take it. So she took it.



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