Somraj is the name of Nisha’s dad, Pandit Somraj Tryambak Punekar. Unlike his daughter he’s tall, twists my neck to look up at him, he has the same zapaat nose as hers, long and pointy, his fingers also are long, but the most important thing about him is that he used to be a singer, and not just a singer but a famous one. His name was known throughout India, so many awards and honours he won, they called him Aawaaz-e-Khaufpur, the Voice of Khaufpur. Nisha told me that in his younger days her dad was always singing on the radio plus he gave concerts and the like, until that night took away his wife and baby son and fucked up his lungs. Nisha never knew her mother or brother, she says that when the Kampani stole away her father’s breath it also stole his life, because breath is the life of a singer. From that night on he would listen to other people’s records, but never his own. He became a solemn and private man. Later he started teaching music, his students won prizes, to them he was like a god but he seemed to get no pleasure from it since hardly ever would you see him smile.
Like every Khaufpuri, Somraj hated the Kampani, he ran a poison-relief committee which did what it could for the locals who were still coughing their lungs up so many years after that night. The people he helped were among the poorest in the city, which is why no politician gave a shit about them and hardly a lawyer would take up their claims for compensation. Through this work he had met Zafar, through him Zafar met Nisha. I used to wonder how Somraj felt about those two. His daughter, a Hindu girl not yet twenty, with a Muslim man twice her age, but whatever Somraj thought about it he kept to himself, he approved of her work with Zafar, where he and she differed was on the question of how the battle should be fought. The case against the Kampani had been dragging on endless years. It stood accused of causing the deaths of thousands on that night, plus it ran away from Khaufpur without cleaning its factory, over the years the poisons it left behind have found their way into the wells, everyone you meet seems to be sick. The Khaufpuris were demanding that the Kampani must pay proper compensation to those whose loved ones it killed, whose health it ruined, plus it should clean the factory and compensate the people who had been drinking its poisons. Trouble was that the Kampani bosses were far away in Amrika, they refused to come to the Khaufpuri court and no one could make them. So long had the case been running it had become part of our Khaufpuri speech such as if I blagged six rupees from Faqri he’d say, “Be sure to pay me back before the case ends.” Or someone says something unbelievable like Chunaram is serving free kebabs, others will pipe, “Oh sure, and the Kampani’s come to court.”
One day I came as usual for lunch and found Nisha and her dad having an argument. “Every accused must have the chance to defend himself,” Somraj was saying. “Even the Kampani. In the end the law will reward us.”
Nisha was standing looking upset with her hands covered in white paint and her hair dishevelled. “Papa, the Kampani has never even turned up to the court, so how can the law reward us?”
“It may take years, but its attempts to escape will not succeed.”
“What attempts? It has no need to escape, it got away scot free.”
“Justice is on our side.”
“Darling Papa,” said Nisha with a small sigh, “you are a kind and a fair man, everyone knows it and praises you for it, but you’re either being naive or you have not noticed how the world has changed. Maybe you remember such a thing as justice, but in my lifetime there’s been no sign of it. If we want justice, we’ll have to fight for it in the streets.”
“Violence isn’t the way.”
“Who said anything about violence? It’s just a march.”
“Stone-throwing? Like last time?”
“Zafar did his best to stop it, but how long must people suffer in silence?”
“To that, alas, I have no answer,” said her father, and left the room.
“What are you doing?” I’ve asked Nisha. She shows me this big banner she has made for the juloos, the demo, painted on the black cloth are large white letters.
“What do you think? Is it strong? Does it have power?”
“How should I know? I can’t read.”
She gives a big sigh and says, “This very day we will start your lessons.”
It was hard at first, reading. Take two letters like 
and 
, they look almost the same, but the sounds they make, ka and la, are different. Slowly the letters began to make sense. 
, a shape like a begging hand, was ja. 
, a shape that reminded me of an elephant’s head with trunk and tusks, like Ganesh on the front of a beedi packet, this was ha for haathi, elephant. Signs in the street gradually came to life. 
, I already knew it meant Coca-Cola, which I had never tasted. I learned to spell my own name, 
, Jaanvar, meaning Animal. Nisha said that it was my name and I should be proud of it. Jaan means “life.” Jaanvar means “one who lives.”
“Life? You’re full of it,” she said, casting her eye over a page of scrawled jaanvars. “I’ve never known anyone with so much jaan as you.” Then spoilt it by adding, “Except Zafar.”
When I could read and write Hindi, Nisha set me a new task. There was a group of kids to whom she was teaching Inglis. I should join them. I hadn’t been to school since the orphanage, where all of us children sat together in one room and chanted our lessons. The nuns were strict, get something wrong it was a ruler cut, edge down, to the palm. Ma Franci was kind, but she did not have to teach because no one including me could understand a word she said, and she could not understand us.
“Will you beat me?” I asked Nisha, she laughed. Such a patient teacher was she, hard it’s to remember she was at that time not yet nineteen. Never did she complain as we struggled to wrap our tongues round the uncouth Inglis words, mayngo, pawmgront, cushdhappel, gwaav, bunaan, which were the names of fruit trees in her garden. In truth I didn’t find Inglis very difficult. Like I’ve told you, Eyes, I’ve always caught the meanings of speech even when I could not understand a word, I had not just an ear but an eye for meanings. I could read expressions and gestures, the way someone sat or stood, but being taught by Nisha really brought out my gift for tongues. Like water flooding into a field, the new language just came. Cat sat on the mat house burns down people rally to the banner, thus my Inglis progressed. Zafar too would sit and listen to me, both would praise me and marvel at my quickness to learn.
One day comes Zafar with a small book he has printed. “It’s about that night,” says he all proud, “it shows what was wrong in the factory that caused the poison to leak. There are pictures so children can read and understand.”
Nisha hands me the book and asks me to read from it. I’ve given it a flick through, in it are drawings of the different buildings inside the factory, I know every one of them, but in the book they are shown as they must have been before that night, not rotting like now. Arrows show where things went wrong, here, there, there, there, all over.
“I won’t read this,” says I.
“Why not?” she asks.
“I am not a child.”
“So, big man,” asks Zafar, “what will you prefer to read instead?” He’s laughing but secretly I think he is hurt that I don’t want to read his book.
“I am not a man. Give me that other one that you are carrying.” Zafar used to read a great deal, never was he without a book.