Autumn 1984

The date, I don't quite remember. I guess that doesn't matter. But the year,I shall never forget. It's almost a cliche now even to think a...

The date, I don’t quite remember. I guess that doesn’t matter. But the year,I shall never forget. It’s almost a cliche now even to think about it.1984. When everything changed. For many the same had happened in 1947.

We didn’t see it happening then. We were too young and cut off from themainstream living in Meerut in a guarded little colony for families ofArmy officers posted in the field. Ours was a world where neighbours weremore than neighbours. They were an extended family. On our left lived theSharmas. The Goels were on the right. Chakraborty aunty lived in the

blockfacing ours. Her kids had a turtle as a pet. It disappeared precisely a weekafter they got it. And the closest we got to solving the tale of thatmissing turtle was when we hit upon a theory that the family had roasted thepoor thing and eaten it up.

Then there were the Bhandaris, the Johars, the Thakurs, the Pundits… andKhara aunty, who lived with her two daughters. Her husband, Major Khara,was, like all other uncles, out posted to a non-family station.

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Life was the way it is for any other 11-year-old. School, games, somepranks, some spanking, a rationed dose of TV. We were happy. God was inheaven and all was well with the world, but for the times when the grownupslost their mind over trivial things and we fell in their line of fire.

Like any average 11-year-old, I liked to believe that we were God-fearing.But God and religion didn’t quite form the centre of our being. And as faras I can recollect, it was the same with the grownups we lived with. In anutshell, our world was contained in an ordinary colony of ordinary peopleliving routine lives. Until one day.

We got news that Khara uncle had come on leave, and he was not well. He hadmet with an accident, or so they told us. Mummy, being the colony doctor,rushed to their place. I tagged along. Yes, he was hurt. His head wasbandaged, one of his arms was in a sling and there was an ugly bruise on hischeek. And it was not at all pretty, not the way Enid Blyton would havedescribed it.

He looked different too. He was still in uniform. It looked tired and so didhe. But that wasn’t all. His eyes were kind of wide… confused? Yes. Butthere was more. A disturbing embarrassment. It didn’t go with his uniform. Ifelt uncomfortable. He wouldn’t look us in the eye. Even his voice was low.Like he had lost the grip over something substantial.

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Mummy washed his wound, bandaged it up afresh and we came back home. Ididn’t ask any questions. I just looked up at her once or twice as we walkedback. She kept looking straight ahead.

The next day, I heard it all at school. Maj Khara had been dragged out ofthe train by a mob driven crazy by the assassination of the country’s primeminister. He was on his way home from Manipur when the PM was shot. Hehadn’t heard. All he heard was someone shout: “Here’s another one.” Andthen they beat him up. His plea of “what have I done?” drowned in cries of“Get him. Kill him.” He was in uniform. That didn’t matter. He also worean olive green turban. That mattered.

The next time I looked at Khara uncle, I saw his turban for the first timeconscious that it stood for something I, and many of my friends, had beenuntil now unaware of.

For the first time, I did not dismiss it as part of his being Khara uncle.It had suddenly become a symbol. And we could not ignore it. To ignore it,we had to first acknowledge it. And we had already been forced to do so by afew people who had shaken our lives without bothering to know the people wewere. It would never be the same again.