Zahreel Khan’s secretary does not seem pleased to see her. “The minister is rather busy. It’s not possible to see him today.”
From inside Zahreel Khan’s office she can hear a murmur of voices.
“But he’s expecting me. I rang to say I was coming.”
“Nevertheless.”
“Then when can I see him?”
“Tomorrow he has a cabinet meeting, then he is gone to Delhi for three days. After this…”
“It can’t wait that long,” Elli says. “There are sick people who need my help, they’re being stopped from coming to my clinic. Some might die.”
The official points at the heaped up files. “Madam, we are dealing with claims that go back twenty years, what difference will a few days make?”
“I am sure the minister must have a few minutes free soon. I will wait here until he is able to see me.”
“Madam, you are wasting your time.”
“I’ll be the judge of that,” says she. “What are all these files?”
“Each one is the claim of a person who was injured on that night. What you see here is just a few. We also have a godown full of dossiers, we have processed more than half a million.”
“May I look at one or two?”
“They are confidential.”
“They are public health records, I am a doctor, your minister personally assured me I’d have access to whatever information I wanted.”
“Madam, go ahead,” says the harassed secretary. Fed up he’s with this pushy foreigner, but dares not be rude for his minister had opened her clinic. An hour passes. Elli is deep in the depressing records of Khaufpur’s tragedy, when from behind Zahreel Khan’s door comes a loud yell, plus a kind of a roar. It then strikes Elli that for quite some time she’s been hearing strange tok tok sounds. In a flash she’s up and at the door.
“Wait!” shouts the secretary, “you can’t go in!”
Too late, she’s in. First thing she sees is a tele screen on which are white figures of celebrating cricketers. A guy with some kind of bat, says Elli, who knows nothing of cricket, is walking off the field. Zahreel Khan is dozing in an armchair, a newspaper is spread on his lap. He wakes to find Elli smiling down at him.
“So sorry to disturb your meeting, minister,” says she. “I need a quick word.” Before he can protest, she’s pouring out her problem.
“Arré, why are you still there?” says Zahreel Khan to his secretary, who’s wringing his hands in the doorway. “Can’t you see I have a guest? Send tea plus cake for two. At once.”
Then Zahreel Khan tells Elli she should not worry, in Khaufpur things move slowly, people are cautious, they stick to what they know. “Give it time and they will come crowding, you’ll see.”
“It’s not caution,” says Elli. “People have been told to stay away. The only reason I can get is that they are afraid I have come from the Kampani. You know that’s not true. Can’t you tell them not to worry?”
At this the minister looks miserable and even as she asks, Elli realises it is pointless. No one will believe a word he says.
“The people behind this so-called boycott, who are they?”
Hearing Somraj’s name he scowls. “That bunch, they are troublemakers. Professional activists. Dear lady you should realise that they have an interest in promoting Khaufpur as a tragedy. Ask yourself, if the problems are solved, what will happen to their funding? It will dry up because there is no further need for it. For this reason, they are bound to oppose any and all efforts to improve the situation.”
“And my clinic is one of those efforts?”
“What else?” says he. “Why else are you here?”
Tea comes on a tray of silver, brought by a bearer in a fancy uniform. Elli who does not like tea with milk in, watches as Zahreel Khan sips his tea and eats cake. He has dainty fingers, for so large a man.
“Mr. Khan, why am I here?”
“My dear, who should know better than you?” Zahreel Khan’s eyes have by now zigzagged their way to her blos.
“How was it that I wrote so many letters, for months I had no reply, then suddenly it was all go?”
“Permission in such cases takes time to arrange, obviously,” says he sounding aggrieved. “After all, it’s a virtually unheard of thing, a foreign woman coming on her own, in a strange country.”
“What about Mother Teresa?”
“Idealism doesn’t work in Khaufpur,” he says. “I think you are beginning to find this out.”
Elli tells me she could see his mind calculating how long it would take before she’s worn down and broken by the heat, dirt and despair of Khaufpur.
“So are you saying there’s nothing you can do?”
“I’ve already done all I was asked,” says Zahreel Khan, looking at his watch.
“Animal, I just don’t know what he meant by this,” Elli says.
But listening to her words, I’ve felt a strong alarm, because again in her mind there’s that uneasy darkness.
Elli’s finished her tale of Zahreel Khan, now from across the road comes the sound of someone singing, it’s Dil Hi To Hai Na Sang-o-Khisht, a ghazal of Ghalib’s, I’m hoping Elli won’t start pounding her piano and spoil it.
“Animal, the piano. Would you like to play?”
Okay, Ghalib I can hear any time, when will I ever again get a chance to play a piano?
“Come and sit here, on this stool.”
So I’ve climbed and faced the piano. “Now spread out your hands like this and place them on the notes. Play, one at a time, like this, do re mi fa so la ti do. That’s what the notes are called.”
“This is the same as our sa re ga. So this one is sa,” I’ve pressed a key.
“Your sa is our do,” she says.
“And this is re.” Ding goes the next key.
“Your re is our re. Same name, same note, they’re exactly the same in both our musics.”
“Now listen.” Elli takes over and plays wonderful clusters of notes, different from anything I have heard before. Somraj will play one note after another, very fast and graceful, but these notes combine to chime, they sing together, sometimes three, four, even five of them, each with a different voice, the effect is very beautiful.
“Okay, now you know the notes, let’s make a tune.”
“How?”
“Just use one finger, like this.” She plays one or two notes, but then two together. So I’ve done the same.
“Think of some words we can fit to your tune.”
So I’ve thought of some words, and she’s helped me make a song of them.
I am an animal fierce and free
in all the world is none like me
crooked I’m, a nightmare child
fed on hunger, running wild
no love and cuddles for this boy
live without hope, laugh without joy
but if you dare to pity me
i’ll shit in your shoe and piss in your tea
“That is so sad,” says she, laughing.
“If it is sad, why are you laughing?”
“I don’t know,” she says, wiping at her eyes. “Maybe because otherwise I would cry. The idea of living without hope, it’s terrifying.”