The Walls of Delhi by Uday Prakash Read Free Book Online Page A

dying eyes of a fish thrown from an ocean or a river, onto a sandy bank or shore? That’s the colour.
    The most talented actor, no matter how hard he tries, can’t quite make the whites of his eyes or his pupils imitate the colour you see in the face of a living, breathing man who is scared clear out of his wits. Like a man going home after a hard day’s work, exhausted, satchel in hand, penny candy and cheap toys for his kids in the bag, along with a few pills for his wife’s cough. The man turns the corner into a deserted alley to find himself caught in the middle of a riot – and, unfortunately for him, he’s the wrong religion or race as far as the gang or mob that’s surrounding him is concerned.
    The look in the doomed man’s eyes, on his face, the posture of his body right at that moment, just a second or two before his murder – that’s the colour I’m talking about, and that was the colour of Mohandas’ face that day.
    I’m sure you’ve seen films like Schindler’s List or others that show German trains being sent somewhere far away. You remember the faces of the Jewish women, children, and the old men, pressed up against the insides of the railway cars, peering out. Or, more recently, the faces of those looking out from windows and rooftops in the cities and towns of Gujarat.
    That’s the colour.
    â€˜Is there any way you can get me out of this, uncle, please!’ Mohandas stood in front of me pleading in a weak, wavering voice. ‘I’m begging you, think of my kids, my father’s dying of TB, just give the word and I’m ready to go to court right away and sign a sworn statement that I am not Mohandas. I don’t know anyone by that name. Just help get me out of this!’
    The first thing you’ll feel when you look at Mohandas is pity, but soon you’ll also feel fear. It’s a frightening time, and people are getting more and more fearful every day.
    I’ve known Mohandas for a long time, along with several generations of his family. That’s how it is in little villages like ours. You wouldn’t guess by looking at him that he was a graduate of our government M.G. Degree College, located right here in the Anuppur district, or that he graduated at the very top of his class; ten years ago, his name was number two on the list of the University’s ‘toppers’. The way he looked now gave no indication whatsoever of his past. He wore a torn, patched-up, washed-out pair of denim pants that had once been blue, and a cheap poly blend shirt with a frayed right sleeve. The faintest trace of a checked pattern remained on the shirt, but the lines had long since vanished. His cheap rubber shoes had been so ravaged by mud, dirt, misery, time, water, and sun that theysometimes looked as if they were made from clay, other times from skin.
    Mohandas is probably around forty-five, but he looks as if he’s at least my age or older.
    I found him discombobulated, in the grip of terror. I had never seen him idling in the village, shooting the breeze, playing cards, or sitting around watching TV. He was driven by a kind of harrowing restlessness that wouldn’t let him sit still for a second. People said he always found something to keep him busy, some job or chore. He needed to dig a new well every day for his water, and plant a new crop of wheat every day for his bread. And it wasn’t just one member of his family he had to provide food for – there were five, five mouths and five stomachs. Mohandas’s father was Kabadas, who’d been suffering from TB for eight years. His mother Putlibai had gone blind after a cataract operation she’d had at a free eye clinic, and now saw nothing but darkness. His wife Kasturibai was a mirror image of her husband: she helped Mohandas with his work, and kept the stove warm at home. The people in the village claimed the two had never been seen fighting or