Three years after the riots, ‘Aaj Tak’ spoke to these women for the bare truth. The truth which was lost among the stories of rioters and riot-victims. We spoke to them so that we can also feel the flame of that truth, the faces of the women scorching in it and the heat and pain of tribulations.
In the first part of the series, read about the mother whose son is in jail for nine murders.
A week ago, the 8-year-old granddaughter had asked for chhole-bhature. Every day at the time of eating, she used to stare at the plate and look for bhature, but in vain. There are three small kids. One wants milk, another a toy. “The doctor told me to eat pomegranate, without knowing that I can’t even afford potatoes,” says the granny, a cancer patient herself.
If sadness had a face, it is sitting in front of me right now, withered by the ravages of time. A drop of tear froze on her wrinkled cheeks, as if sorrow had turned her into ice, her voice almost dying from fatigue and waiting.
On a biting cold morning this February, I am talking to a mother. A mother whose son has been in jail for three years, on the charge of those nine murders that were committed on the road, when — according to the mother – he was at home. The young daughter-in-law died during these years. And with it, ended all those hopes. This woman neither wants justice nor happiness. She only needs ‘roti’ so that she can feed her grandchildren.
The morning I left for Delhi’s Bhagwati Vihar. The city had been soaked by overnight rain. Green leaves looked as if they had freshened up after getting drenched. The car speeding on the wide roads came to a screeching halt as soon as it reached the north-eastern area, where the riots took place. Roads peeped in between the water-filled potholes. Instead of the trees on the banks, either hawkers were seen, or small and big piles of garbage.
Instead of bright colours on the walls, old leaflets were pasted. Of the past elections, in which there was a promise of hope in exchange for votes. Posters of sought-after dream jobs. Posters for treatment of piles and occult diseases. And posters of Baba-Fakirs who alone can bring back unfaithful or unrequited love. Amid these half-torn posters were hidden the gasping houses.
Lata has a house among these. When we arrived, she was making envelopes. Newspaper clippings and a bottle of cheap glue were placed on the bed covered with a red sheet.
Lata signals to us to sit. I stand in a corner. When I pick up an envelope and start looking, a voice says – keep it, the glue is still raw. Hesitatingly, I put the envelope back.
One morning in March 2020, the policemen came and took away her son for questioning. He did not return after that.
Lata recounts, “That afternoon, my daughter-in-law and I had rotis, made fresh rotis at night but he did not return. The same happened the next day. Now, three years have passed. Neither the hope nor the rotis are fresh now.”
Lata puts her hands on her knees. The ring on the finger of the wrinkled left hand is about to fall loose. At an age when women bask in the sun after rubbing raw oil on their knees, this cancer patient is taking care of children in a damp house.
What happened
on February 24?
Lata turns mute at the straight question. The question hanging in the air returns again – where were you all when the riots were raging, and your son?
“He was returning from his work at Chandni Chowk. When I started calling again and again in panic, he broke down. ‘Amma, how do I come home, all roads are blocked? If I leave, they will shoot me.’ My 6-foot child was sobbing on the phone. When he returned around 12.30 in the night, we raised the latch of the door and it opened only after two days.”
Meanwhile, there was constant noise in the street. “Sometimes, there was a sound of gunfire, sometimes, clamour of slogans. Our door is weak. We pushed the bed — on which you are sitting — in front of the door.
Due to fear, not a single morsel could be rammed down the throat.” The TV lights were switched off. Somehow, the days passed. Then, everything returned to normal, as before. The son started going back to work, until the police caught him.
Where did
he work?
“In a saree shop at Chandni Chowk. He was into sales, showed clothes to customers. He had such an impressive voice that whoever came, would return only after buying sarees.” The owner of the shop also reposed faith in him. Sometimes, he would also send him to Surat along with money. He even knew how to put on a saree on a woman. “Sometimes, he used to do so for my daughter-in-law as well. Everyone laughed, but my son didn’t care much. He used to love being witty a lot. He was eaten up by the curse of the jealous ones.”
The mother has lived in Delhi for four decades. A small child enters the room after sliding the curtain in the middle of our discussion.
It’s her 6-year-old granddaughter. She stares at us. When I ask her name, she blushes and puts her face in her grandmother’s lap. Grandma’s voice turns teary.
“How do I tell them what has happened? How will the child bear so much shock!”
I stop the recording. Now the baby girl is with me. Some lines are drawn with a pencil on the wall. I ask her. “Did you do this drawing?”
The eyes of the child begin to shine.
What is your name?
Parul! A humming answer comes.
What do you like? Chocolate!
Holding her in my lap, I go to the nearby shop. Taking the chocolate, I think of my daughter. I want to get one for her too, but I stop. ‘Chocolate will spoil your teeth!’ But this is not an excuse for Parul.
I return home with the girl and a packet. Grandma is busy making envelopes again.
What do you
do with them?
“I sell them. The shopkeepers sell ‘chana’ in it. Earlier, people would give newspapers for free. Then, they started asking for money. Now, I bring scrap paper from Mustafabad. I also go there and sell these envelopes.”
How much are
they sold for?
“Rs 18 for three bundles. A bundle contains 50 envelopes. Sometimes, it has to be sold even for Rs 10. A few days back, I fainted in the market due to weakness. After this, the elder granddaughter always says ‘Amma, don’t go, you will fall again. She is an 8-year-old girl. How can I let her go alone in such a big market?”
Grandma’s voice is dry. It has turned coarse, almost void.
Clearing her throat, she says after a while: “Earlier, I had good vision, so would do zari-gota. When the son returned home, the daughter-in-law would say – ‘Ammi ji, hide the clothes, otherwise your son Raja would be angry. Now, my eyes are gone. I have cataract, in both of them.”
Daughter-in-law?
What happened to her?
“Thinking ate into her. She used to worry. First about her husband and then when I was detected with cancer, she used to cry night after night. ‘Amma, will you also leave us and go away?’ Once, she had a fever and within 10 days, she passed away. The son had come from jail to light her pyre. He had become almost insane. He would scream and shout – ‘I had left my gold-shining wife with you. You turned her into mitti (clay, soil)’. What could I say? She had already become mitti, while worrying and thinking”.
“He started running carrying her on his shoulder. Somehow, people caught him. He kept rolling back his eyes while being taken back to jail.”
An hour into the conversation, Lata bursts into tears. She cried inconsolably over the death of her daughter-in-law, son’s displeasure, hunger of children, her illness. And most of all, on her being alive. While howling, she says “I can’t even wish for death, until my son returns.”
As I was leaving the house, she says, “How many came and went in three years. Will it help if you write?”
It’s a question that stares with many eyes. After going inside the room and kissing the children, I leave, without answering.
It’s a question that stares with many eyes. After going inside the room and kissing the children, I leave, without answering.
Lata’s is just a page in a book of countless stories, which flutters amid words like riots and murders, not to be closed in fear, but to study and for living, so that while throwing away half a plate of chhole-tikki, we remember that house in Bhagwati Vihar, where small children yearn for roti. Our next story features a widow, who lost her husband only after 10 days of their marriage.
Identities have been hidden to protect privacy
