Day 83 of Covid-19 quarantine. The sun gleams on my glassy back, the small dark garnet of my eye in its silver socket twitches as I flit from house to house. Slowly swinging myself on a whisker, I balance my little body on the ledge of a window as I peer inside.
* * * * *
Meena rolls down the window of her Camry and breathes in the fresh sun-warmed summer air. She closes her eyes briefly and remembers how she’d once breathed in all the strange thrilling scents of this new country: lavender bubblebath, fresh-cut grass, a cloud of masculine cologne in an elevator.
Once I believed America was a great country, with liberty and justice for all. The wretched thought crawls into her brain like a fat worm after rain.
It is Monday morning, and Meena is driving to a medical appointment. She switches on the radio to distract herself from thoughts that stir in her like dead leaves.
“This is the Bob Sullivan show,” says the radio host. “The world paused for Covid-19 so that when the wrong man took the life of the right man, we’d all be ready to march in solidarity. The time is now.” Noted activist and philanthropist Dr. Bob Sullivan pauses, then continues stridently, his voice rising to a battle pitch. “2020 will be the year we change black history. Will you join the anti-racist revolution?” Bob’s voice is high and nasal, bouncing off the windows like an echo in a canyon.
Meena drums her fingers on the steering wheel, her face stony and cynical. Nothing is going to change, when does it ever? Meena draws out a long, dispirited sigh. She swats irritably at the radio button and changes to a music station to drown out the fever-pitch rhetoric.
Without warning the memories come rushing to run through Meena’s mind like a reel of color film, and transport her thirty years back to the person she’d once been. She is seventeen and in the mother superior’s office, where the shutters are closed—never a good sign and six people are already in the office, making it feel cramped once she hears the click of the door behind her.
The mother superior, an almost unflappable woman looks unusually troubled. Sister Gina always looks troubled, but today there is a slump in her shoulders, a horrid paleness in her face that makes it look white as a sheet. Meena’s heart slams in her chest at the sight of three police officers. Hai Bhagwan, please. One of them smirks at her as she comes in. Her skin crawls and it makes her shrink inside herself. Ramu just stands there, next to the police officers, all of whom are bigger than he, his fists hanging like dead weights from his arms, his expression flinty. Except his eyes glitter with fear.
One of the policemen, chubbier than the other two and with a different insignia—Head Constable—on his arm, produces a flyer. Meena’s heart hammers in her throat. An icy, bottomless feeling settles inside her. Any small hopes she was still harboring leave.
* * * *
“Kanshi Ram?” she asks, looking at the flyer Ramu has pulled from his pants pocket and hastily placed in her hand after looking around nervously, with narrowed eyes, even though, as always, it is just the two of them having lunch on their bench in the courtyard. Today’s lunch was smaller than usual, and they have both been making their meager portions of rice last.
“He’s a Dalit intellectual,” Ramu replies, waving his index finger excitedly, “an activist.”
“Uh-huh,” Meena replies. She gives a small shrug.
Ramu flashes her a brilliant smile. “He speaks about equality for Dalits; about bringing the ways they have in the big cities, like Delhi, down here. And more.”
“He’s coming here?” she asks, one eyebrow raised curiously, as she reads the flyer. She looks up at Ramu; his eyes are sparkling.
“We should go!” he exclaims, his smile curling further, like spreading oil.
* * * *
“Come in,” the mother superior calls out. A knock resounds through the room as they stand staring silently at each other, Meena’s heart in her throat.
“Ah,” the chubby policeman says as a girl walks in, her step easy and jaunty. “Roopa, is it?”
Roopa keeps her face turned from Meena, refusing to meet her eyes.
“Yes, sir,” Roopa replies. “I’m . . . I’m Roopa.” There are spots of bright red on Roopa’s cheeks.
“Don’t be shy, girl,” the chubby policeman says cheerfully to Roopa, gently patting her arm. “you have nothing to fear here.” The last rays of the afternoon sun filter through a broken shutter and glint on the worn brown linoleum.
“I am Head Constable Chekavar,” he continues, removing his hat to reveal a sweaty, balding pate. He holds the flyer up to Roopa. “You found this flyer, no?” Roopa gives a small, shy nod, and he says loudly, “Speak up, please, Roopa. We all need to hear you.”
“Yes, sir. I found it.” Roopa’s voice rings with a self-righteousness Meena can see rising from her pores like sulfur gas.
Shadows dip and swerve against the bookshelves like frightened bats, and the statue of Jesus dying on the cross frowns down at them. The mother superior stares into the dim air beyond their shoulders, her mouth a thin, pained line. Sister Gina is in silhouette, her head bent as if it’s too heavy for her neck to hold up. “And where, may I ask, did you find the flyer?”
Roopa points to Meena, her voice strong and clear. “In her things!”
* * * *
Once the orphans of Grace Mercy get to a certain age, the nuns begin to encourage them to spend more time away from the home, looking forward to the day when they can hopefully make their way in the world. Although the kindly nuns don’t wish to throw anyone out on the street, they must prioritize the intake of younger orphans over the retention of older ones.
So, it’s not too hard for the both Meena and Ramu to find excuses to be out on the evening of the rally but as it will run later than they are usually out on the streets of Kalanpur, they plan to return separately and each prepare different excuses for their lateness.
Although the market square is busy, it is far from packed— to their disappointment.
Ramu turns to Meena and says, “Hmmm, that’s odd. The venues for Kanshi Ram’s rallies usually over-spill, sometimes with those outside relying on messages passed through the crowd to hear what’s being said.”
Mustachioed policemen with polished bamboo batons and machine-guns in their hands are making their presence quietly known. They fan out with an eerie precision, stationing themselves near exits, appearing to stare through them from behind mirrored glasses. Meena can feel her stomach clenching with fear.
And yet, that small knot of fear doesn’t stop her mounting excitement. Not only is she with Ramu, but for the first time in her life, she’s with a great throng of like-minded people—an icy, hollow feeling settles inside her as she remembers how she and her Aai have been treated in the country of their birth, as garbage, because they’re Untouchable. She swallows back bile that’s trying to rise up into her throat.
Kanshi Ram is not even on the hastily erected wooden stage yet the atmosphere in the marketplace is already electric. Festive white and orange posters displaying Kanshi Ram’s picture adorn a small platform to which a party worker has added a microphone and public address system. A sign behind the stage reads: KALANPUR WELLCOMES BAHUJAN LEADER KANSHI RAM!
* * * *
“But it’s just a flyer,” Meena blurts angrily, panicked at what the policemen might do. “I haven’t broken any law.”
Head Constable Chekavar inches so close she can smell the rankness of his breath and body, like rotten eggs. “The flyers were all over town-”
“-It was me,” Ramu interrupts, wobbling his head solemnly. “I gave her the flyer.”
Chekavar spins towards Ramu, almost as if had anticipated the interruption.
“And where did you get it?” Chekavar asks, his eyes alight. “At the rally?”
Ramu nods, eyes to the floor.
“So, you’re an activist, are you?” Chekavar asks, shaking his index finger like a schoolteacher. “Have you joined Kanshi Ram’s movement?”
Ramu looks up at him. “No, sir,” he stutters, his face shiny with sweat. “I promise. I’m just a student.”
“I’m just a student,” mimics the policeman. “The first refuge of the belligerent. You’re a dirty activist, that’s what you are. A trouble-maker.” He adjusts his belt barely holding in his fat belly, the tummy rolls spilling over his too-tight khaki trousers. “We’ll be having none of that in my city.”
He turns to the mother superior. “Was he out on the night of the rally?” The mother superior looks to Sister Gina, who reluctantly shrugs her affirmation. Then he swings back to Meena. “And her?”
“I told you it was just me,” Ramu says, his voice quivering. He lifts his palms in the air, with his fingers splayed.
The Head Constable is enraged by the interruption. “You shut up, you rotten Chamar!” he spits. “You’re in enough trouble as it is.”
Sister Gina’s eyes are wide and feverish. A small, new muscle jumps in Meena’s jaw.
“Our older students are often out in the evening,” the mother superior says, her voice uneven as if she’s climbed a long hill. “They aren’t our prisoners.”
“Well,” Head Constable Chekavar says, “this might be the problem. If you kept better control of your students, maybe they wouldn’t attend illegal gatherings.” he shakes the leaflet in the air, “or keep this filthy literature.” He wags his finger at the mother superior warningly. “We shall be paying more regular visits to Grace Mercy in the future.” Meena sees one of the other policemen flash a brief, hungry grin.
Head Constable Chekavar stands with his legs apart, his cheeks ballooned in rage as he looks menacingly at Meena. She tries to hold his gaze in defiance, but his mostly calm and reasonable-sounding manner that hints at something terribly dangerous beneath the surface terrifies her.
Once her gaze hits the floor, Head Constable Chekavar turns back to Ramu, letting the leaflet fall to the floor. He unbuckles his belt with a sigh. “Let’s get this over with.”
“No, Nahi!” Meena cries, starting towards Ramu, “you can’t!” One of the other policemen, a bald man with a thin scar running from the corner of his left eye to the corner of his mouth grabs her and twists her hands behind her back. “This isn’t fair, we did nothing wrong!”
Meena catches a sharp look from Ramu. She can feel his fear in the salt taste in her own mouth. But, it’s clear that Ramu has been the Head Constable’s target all along, even though the flyer was her’s. She feels like she is in a dark twisting tunnel, which presses in on her. Its walls, musty-smelling like old socks gag her until her chest is about to burst open.
* * * *
“I won’t tell you how we are all born to be equal, or about how an oppressive society, an archaic system, has been breaking our county’s laws for over half a century.”
Kanshi Ram is a powerfully built man of less than medium height, with thick straight white hair almost to his shoulders. He wears a white kurta pajama and when he walks to the microphone, Meena can see that he is wearing white sandals, the front of the sandals narrowing down to thin strips which curve up like the ends of a proud warrior’s mustache.
He holds up his hands to the crowd and says with a smile like a caress, “If you are here, you already know this.”
The market square had filled up late, a flood of people pouring in during the minutes preceding Kanshi Ram’s arrival on stage. There had been one group, burly-looking goondas in heavy, black coats with lathis in their hands who had obviously come to cause trouble, likely non-Dalits hoping to make a scene—by heckling the speaker—so that the police might intervene and break up the rally before it could even begin. They are ejected from the square by vigilant party workers to a chorus of cheering from the rest of the crowd. Ramu and Meena had joined in with the cheers—and now the mood of the crowd shifts, it is jubilantly giddy.
“No, I am here to tell you ‘how.’ How all of you, by positive action and the sheer force of numbers will help to make the change that must come.” He pauses dramatically to make sure the attention of the crowd is focused on him.
It is hard to see Kanshi Saheb now, as they are caught in the press, other bodies closing all around them. The sun is high in a sky of molten silver. The mud-brown walls of the houses surrounding the square throw back the heat, and the smell of dung and buttermilk cling to the heavy, humid air.
Ramu cranes his neck to see the stage, but Meena has no chance. It does not matter, because Ramu’s hand is in her hand, his chest pressing against her back, hot and solid, and Kanshi Ram’s words seem distant as heat blooms in her cheeks. Her wide-open heart drums in her chest.
“The Hindu traditions are our enemy, but they are not our worst enemy,” Kanshi Ram continues, his voice gaining strength. The crowd leans forward, rapt. The silent shadows of two circling kite hawks slide down the walls of the whitewashed houses and skitter over the assembled crowd.
“The thing that keeps the Dalit man in his place is inaction. We are abused, we are discriminated against, and yet only the abused and the abuser knows of it.” An appreciative murmur swells through the throng. Since the start of the speech, the palpable tension in the crowd, the excitement, has only grown.
More people are arriving and space in their little section of the crowd is becoming scarcer. Ram glances at Meena anxiously, a pulse beating erratically in his throat as men are pushed closer and closer to her. He leans towards her until she can smell the clean fragrance of Cinthol soap on his skin. He eyes her warily, then wraps his arm around her and holds her close as if to shield her.
“We can do it,” Ramu breathes into Meena’s ear and she gasps. Fire blazes across her skin and down her belly. “There’s an Internet café right here in New Market. We can make an account and keep a record of things, make posts when we have enough money to buy some time in the café.”
Meena pulls away slightly, looks at that sparkle in his eyes. She has never felt this way before, every fiber of her being alive, and . . . belonging. Excitement buzzes like an electric current inside her.
* * * *
This is all my fault.
Meena’s chest is heaving. She is overcome with guilt for getting Ramu into trouble, worse even than the repulsive feeling of the bald policeman with the scar, as he manhandles her from the room. He shoves his crotch against her backside as he pushes her towards the door. It presses into her and she makes a small, shocked noise. As they pass from the office, his free hand comes up and grabs her breast, fingers twisting her nipple painfully.
“Stay there,” he says, pushing Meena down onto a bench outside the mother superior’s office. “If you move, then you’ll get the same as him. Stay there and listen to what happens to Chamars who get ideas above their station.” He grins wickedly and walks away from her to disappear into the shuttered office. She pants as if she’s run a mile.
The door opens again and Roopa appears outside in the hallway, escorted from the office by the same policeman who had groped her moments before. For Roopa, he is all nods and courtesy. The door closes behind her, and Meena watches woodenly as the Brahmin orphan starts to walk off, her head down as it had been in the office. Anger turns inside her like a broken spear tip.
“Why?” Meena shouts as Roopa turns and looks at her fiercely. “We do nothing to you. I thought . . . I thought we were okay.”
Roopa’s nostrils quiver like an overwrought buffalo’s. A smile like a crack in old plaster slowly finds its way onto her face. Broader and broader it becomes, then she cups a hand to her ear and strains her neck in the direction of the mother superior’s office. The first crack of the Head Constable’s belt sounds in the still air, followed by Ramu’s cry. Roopa keeps looking at Meena, her hand raised to her mouth in mock surprise.
“Okay?” she says at last. “You’re a fucking Chamar.”
She laughs, a mocking, hysterical laugh and walks away as the belt sounds out a second time, Ramu’s answering cry a knife through Meena’s heart.
* * * *
It is a hot summer’s day in Fremont, California, and Meena’s skin beads with sweat. She navigates her car into a parking space at her dentist’s office. Her fingers struggle to unzip her jacket and her necklace tangles in her hair. Meena reaches up to grab hold of the small rusty charm: the image of the warrior goddess Durga riding a lion and her six arms holding weapons. She unclasps the charm and slips off the necklace, tucking it into her handbag.
Meena climbs out of the car, snapping on a blue mask with impatient fingers as she strides through a walkway leading to the dental office. Goddamn, she’s a few minutes late now.
A young woman with dark brown hair held back with a thin cream band and seven gold hoops piercing the rim of her ear is standing on the sidewalk, holding a bundle of flyers.
“Protest tonight at City Hall,” she says hoarsely, thrusting a flyer under Meena’s nose. Meena accepts it hurriedly, continuing to march into the building.
Five minutes later, she is ensconced in a gray waiting room chair, six feet apart from the other solitary patient. She unfolds the flyer still clutched in her hand, and scans it.
“A new MSNBC report shows that one in a 1000 black men or boys are likely to be killed by a white cop. That risk is 2.5 times higher than for white men.”
Yes, she will go to the protest tonight, she decides determinedly as she folds the flyer and puts it away in her purse. Her fingers encounter something jagged and coarse and she fishes out the gold necklace, the sun-baked charm glistening dully in the light streaming through the open window.
She and Ramu never did light up social media with accounts of their treatment; the Head Constable had killed their desire to become activists, but now, here, with Gerge Floyd’s brutal senseless murder, she has a chance to do something. #AllLivesMatter.
As the receptionist calls out her name, she turns the charm over, reading the small, roughly carved inscription:
Yours, Ramu.
