Enlightened - My entry for Amish TOI Write India Initiative

Sometime in July i read about the Write India initiative undertaken by Times of India along with 11 prominent authors. In essence, its a short story writing competition running for a duration of 11 months, featuring a new author every month. The winner of the month gets selected by the ongoing author of the month with a promise to have the winning entries published in a book. So i decided to take part.And so i did. I didnt win though, however i would like to put it up as part of my blog. The reason: i dont want to lose the story, i would rather it stays in the internet for posturity.

Enlightened

Close to the city of Paithan, in a small village called Sauviragram, which lay along the banks of the great river Godavari, lived a woman named Ilaa. Being cotton farmers, her family was well to do, but not among the richest in their area. It was the harvest season, and cotton had to be picked from the plants. The wholesalers and traders from Paithan would be arriving in just a few weeks, carrying gold and goods for barter. They would exchange what they carried for the cotton that the farmers grew. The bales of cotton had to be ready in time! Work was at its peak!

But Ilaa was not to be found in the fields. She wasn't working. Instead, she was sitting by the banks of the great river Godavari.

'I am sick of this!' she grunted loudly.

She wiped the tears off her face and took a long deep breath. She had won, she wasn’t the one supposed to be crying. She didn’t even want to race in the first place. The boys had egged her on. They had ridiculed her and challenged her to a race. And if so, how is it fair that they get to be annoyed and how is it fair that her victory didn’t bring her elation.

 ‘Look, look there is Ilaa. Ilaa come race with us.’

‘Why can’t she? She is a boy! I mean look at her. She is darker than you Bhushan and she shouts louder than me. She is even taller than most of us here. I tell you, she is a boy. ‘

‘Look, look even her nostrils flare up like ours. Ilaa, Ilaa come race with us. Show us you are a boy.’

Normally Ilaa would ignore them; she knew they are being mean just because they can be mean. But today was different, today she was already annoyed. Today she didn’t feel like walking away. She decided she would race with the boys.

The race would start from the point where the water canals entered the fields of Samarth’s family and along the canals till it entered fields of Bhushan’s family. It was to be a 3 part race, the fastest three would move on to the next race, from where the fastest two would compete in the last. Ilaa knew the boys, she knew in order to win she had to defeat Bhushan.  And so it was, the last race was between Ilaa and Bhushan. He had been the fastest runner in the last two races. The boy had long legs, a straight sinewy body and the stamina of a horse. Even after the last two races, he wasn’t out of breath. Ilaa was drenched in her own sweat and close to gasping. At the starting line, they both stood with tensed muscles ready to pounce in action. She wiped the sweat of her brow and looked at Bhushan. He winked at her and said – ‘If you win, you get to pee standing up like us. Or maybe you already do!’

Ilaa doesn’t remember the details of the next 10 minutes. She remembers gasping loudly for air at regular intervals, she remembers screaming to fight the intense burn in her legs, she remembers hearing the other boys running after them, she remembers the rhythmic sound of feet on dry ground and she remembers when she reached the finish line she had to look back to see how far behind was Bhushan. Too tired to celebrate, she grasped her belly and doubled over taking long, hurtful breaths of air.

‘Ha ha! Bhushan, you lost to a girl, you lost to Ilaa. ’

‘May be Bhushan is a girl, Bhushan go wear a saree.’

‘Girl Bhushan, lady Bhushan, girl Bhushan!’

Ilaa was dumbstruck. She didn’t know Bhushan would lose, she didn’t know loss to a girl was worse. She saw Bhushan almost shaking in anger, his eyes getting misty before he ran away. The other boys started chasing him, hurling abuses at him. Why was Bhushan running away, why was he crying? Ilaa was the one insulted, her success wasn’t one of joy, it was an offence. Ilaa should be running away, she should be crying.

She snatched at the grass around her and threw it at the direction of the river. She got up, dusted her saree and turned around to head to the fields. She saw Bhushan standing there. His eyes were red. There were scratch marks on his neck and chest. Slight spots of blood were smeared across his upper lip and his hair was covered in dirt. She saw he had been fighting. He came up to her and before she could say anything he slapped her hard.

‘You whore! You wait, just you wait. I will destroy you and I will destroy your family!’

He slapped her again and walked away.

Ilaa stood there - the pain was throbbing, the insult was burning and the impunity was baffling.

The three days of trading in Sauviragram was important for every household. Sellers from other regions in Paithan were also encouraged to attend. Every year the crowd was different, the only regulars were the buyers from Paithan and Surat. The previous year there was a lot of excitement when buyers had come from Cassimbazar and Lucknow. Some years before there were buyers coming from Bombay, Golconda and even as far as Calicut. There are also urban legends of buyers coming from across the seas, all white skin, coloured hair and beard to trade with their copper, swords, lead and bullion. However recent changes by the Shah have enabled safer and shorter trading routes. The distant cities would trade with their closest nodal trading marts, and they in turn will trade with their closest till a swift, systematic network was formed. But, there were still buyers who liked to visit far flung places, be it with the intention of adventure or better deals. Sauviragram sold medium staple cotton bales, plain and painted calicoes and chintz. The items would be bartered for raw silk, taffetas from Bengal, lead/copper/gold bullion, food grains, indigo, wood and in very rare cases diamonds and pearls from Golconda.  This year, the overseers have promised the farmers of buyers from Punjab, Ahmedabad, Mysore and Bengal and may be even Persia or Dutch. The Rana family of Paithan would start sending overseers weeks before the actual trading- to monitor progress, to dictate ceiling of bales to trade, to fix prices and mostly to tally profit for each Sauviragram household after deduction of taxes and debt accrued. The overseers were also charged with performing the actual buying and selling, they would also decide the barter depending upon the needs of the Rana family. Each year the farmer anticipates the amount of silk, aromatic roots, musk and other luxury required by the Rana and farm accordingly. Not every other item bought is given to the farmers sometimes their equivalent price is paid in coins. Food grains and wood though, are given as is.

Like last year, Ilaa accompanied her father. Her father was anticipating better returns as the length, uniformity and strength of the fibre was satisfactory. It was essential to get better profits, the debt in their family was rising and last year was a disaster for them. They left early morning with their wagons of cotton and sustenance for the road. It was important for them to meet with the overseer as early as possible since each overseer took turns to trade for many sellers. At the mart, Ilaa found Bhushan setting up shop right beside them. Being the eldest in his family, he was considered to be capable of being alone. His father was visiting the Rana for some serious consultation. She found Bhushan to be cheerful, boisterous and completely dismissive of her. She still remembers the insult from a few weeks back even though it seemed that he had forgotten. However as the day progressed it became very clear to Ilaa that he, indeed, had not.

Bhushan and his overseer were snatching away the sellers from their counter with loud claims of the superiority of their product. They were ensuring faster sales by quoting low prices and lying about the ginning count. Ilaa’s father was helpless and his attempts at quoting low prices were swiftly quelled by their overseer. Each buyer snatched from them would mean a sneer from Bhushan directed at Ilaa. The entire day, Bhushan, in cahoots with their foul mouthed overseer targeted them and by day end Ilaa’s father had managed to sell only a meagre percentage. Before they closed, Ilaa’s father heard dire warnings from their overseer. That night Ilaa did not sleep well. That night, Ilaa’s father did not sleep at all.

The next morning, they purposefully set up their wares at a different location. The day started well and they were able to sell some more of their products at a good price. Things turned foul when Bhushan showed up. Like the day before, he set up right beside them. Like the day before, his unfair policies hurt. Complaints and threats from her father were suppressed after a quiet negotiation between Bhushan with his overseer and theirs. By day end, Ilaa was fuming and her father was completely beaten down. She knew the only thing holding back his tears was her presence. She decided something had to be done. Tomorrow was going to be different.

Her grandmother, Gauthami, had named her Ilaa.

At her first attempt to pronounce her grandmothers name, she could only manage the last syllable. It sounded so endearing that her grandmother taught her to address her as Meemai. For Ilaa Meemai was many things; she was her refuge when she got in trouble, she was her sole audience when she would sing or dance, she was her guru for all her myriad questions on life and she was her idol. Whenever Ilaa would get disciplined for her mischief or her disobedience she did only one thing. She would put on a sullen face, go to her Meemai and lay down on her lap. She never had to tell Meemai what had happened, she never had to explain her feeling. Meemai always knew. Meemai would gently caress her hair and proceed to tell Ilaa a story. Sometimes there were stories from her life, sometimes there were stories of divinity and mythology and sometimes there were simple flights of fantasies. Ilaa took more than comfort from all she heard cocooned within Meemai’s touch and her warm embracing thighs. She learnt, she deduced, she rebelled, she empathized and she grew. It was on one such day, Ilaa would come to know how she was named.

King Ila was renowned as a benevolent king, a great warrior, a nifty administrator and an admirer of the sport of hunting. During one such hunt, he chased a deer to the revered forested lands where Kartikeya was born. Legends say every living being on entering the sacred lands morphed into female form and so did King Ila. On hearing the plight of the good King, goddess Parvati reduced the curse. King Ila would be in his male form for a month, and morph into his female form the next.

Ilaa found the story fascinating, more so when she was told Meemai had fought with many to name her Ilaa. Meemai had told her wistfully that she had wanted her granddaughter to avail of all the benefits of being born a man, if only in her namesake. If only in theory.

And so Ilaa decided, the next day she would take her male form.

The next day Ilaa’s father did not turn up at the market. Instead, few noticed the sudden appearance of a quiet boy, dark skinned and tall with his face hidden in a pheta. Bhushan noticed him when he set up shop right beside him. He ignored the new party and kept looking for Ilaa. The day’s trading started. Bhushan was not able to focus. Intermittently he would leave his wares with his overseer and go in search of Ilaa and her father. The thought of her hiding from him was satisfying however the fear that they might have found a better place at the market was making him restless. The trading went normal and he did not need to quote low prices. The boy beside him was making steady sales in his absence and Bhushan tried to catch up. However, his insistence at getting the correct price that day and lack of enthusiasm hurt his sales. By the end of the day he found that he had sold less than the any of the previous two days and his counterpart next to him had sold quite a good percentage at some very nifty price.

As Bhushan was packing up, his father returned. After a short discussion with their overseer Bhushan’s father was enraged. The boy beside him peeked from under his pheta to watch Bhushan getting a sound beating from his father for disturbingly low sales and that too at no particular gain. The boy smiled just a little bit. He wanted to smile more, however he knew today’s sales was not enough for them to counter for the losses of the last two days.

That night, Ilaa was restless in her bed. She kept thinking of the past three days. She kept thinking of the race, she kept thinking of that slap and she kept thinking of Bhushan. She should have some comfort in the knowledge that Bhushan had been hurt in his attempts to wreck their income. She should have some satisfaction that she had been able to thwart him, some joy in his comeuppance. She did not feel joy, she did not feel vindicated. She felt condemned. Ilaa knew she could never share this story with anyone. She knew people would misunderstand and conclude it as evidence that in order to be good at something you need to be a man. She felt guilty that she had felt the need to dress up as a man to fight with another, and she vowed to never do that again. Ilaa was only 13 years old. She would be married off the next but she was still a child. Even her tender experience told her that in her supposed victory lay her actual failure. The long tedious night gave way to a cool, shiny dawn. Ilaa was still awake. Only now, she was smiling. She knew what she had to do.

She would share this story only with her daughter. She would instruct her to share the same story with her daughter. She hoped that her story would be told through generations till finally one girl no longer found it relevant. Till one day, when the limitations of a girl was only hers and not her genders. Till one day, when the achievements of a girl was only hers, and not her genders.