The Masala Box Is A Short Story Collection, An Excerpt From The Crested Shawl

The Masala Box is a short story collection co-authored by Sireesha Kadiyala, Vidhi Kheria, Rachna Kheria and Sarin Mathur. Below is an excerpt from a short story The Crested Shawl:

The air was changing in Lahore. It was August of 1947, and a new country had been formed. Babaji had asked us to stay home as much as possible. Model Town, the neighborhood we lived in, was surprisingly untouched by any unrest.

Gulzara Singh, our driver, would narrate stories of violence and riots in parts of the city. But we did know he had a penchant for exaggerating events he may or may not have witnessed!

Ammaji had heard the rumors too.

“Listen, let’s move Eastwards—I have a chachaji in Ludhiana. I could write to him.”

“Yes, Gurmeet! I too have talked to a colleague at Allahabad University. They are interested in my work,” said Babaji.

“We shouldn’t wait much longer. Gulzara told me about a mob that beat up Hindus and Sikhs in the bazaar.”

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“Gurmeet, don’t believe everything you hear,” is what Babaji left it at.

He knew the truth. Tensions were rising, and we would have to move on a moment’s notice.

The Indian National Airways had introduced regular flights from Lahore, but to get a seat on them was a snowball’s chance in hell. Babaji had a close friend in the Railways, who had arranged four seats for us. Babaji was too kind to leave Gulzara behind.

The station was a scene of mayhem. Ammaji and Babaji linked arms with me and pushed through the crowd to the third bogey from the engine. Gulzara followed behind us with two small bags that held everything we now owned. Our voices drowned in the cumulative cacophony, and our bodies betrayed us by flowing with the crowd. My feet cursed every shoe that stepped on them but stopped after the first 10 minutes because there was nothing that could be done about it.

A woman was being pushed in through the window. Ammaji stared, horrified, commenting about how the world had changed and strange men were touching women they did not know.

Two armed guards at the entrance of the bogey asked for our identification—a code word.

This was a special bogey. It was utterly stuffed, with barely any space to sit, but it was a luxury compared to the rest of the train, where people had resorted to climbing on the top of the wagons.

We had been on the train for about an hour when it suddenly came to a stop. Screams were getting louder and closer to us, like a flame moving down a matchstick.

I clung to Ammaji with more force than I ever remembered. My blood curdled as my heart thumped so loudly that it felt like it would break out of my rib cage. Suddenly, a whole mob of men entered the bogey. Shots were fired, and the guards gave some resistance—no match for the venomous ferocity of the mob. People started to push back, but to where? Suddenly, someone grabbed my arm and tugged me away.

“Ammaji, help!!” I screamed as I was pushed out of the bogey.

I hit my head against cold metal.

Blood.

And then everything went blank.

I woke up. It was dark, and there was a throbbing headache enveloping my skull.

Buried under lifeless limbs, stinking of death and destruction.

I slowly got up to move.

Everything hurt.

It was just the end of September, but my body was freezing—trembling in a delirious haze. I grabbed the first shawl I saw.

I wandered aimlessly—climbing over soft fleshy bodies gone cold. I searched for something familiar in their faces, hoping I didn’t find it—for that would mean...

“Ammaji!”

“Babaji!”

“Gulzara Singh!”

No response.

A sudden shock gripped me like a cobra. I couldn’t breathe. The air was thick, and my tongue tasted ferric. I plonked down on a mattress of bodies.

********

“Let go of me!” I screamed. I was tired, and I could not fight off the two burly men carrying me to a car.

“Satnamji, we will not hurt you,” they said.

“I am Heer Kaur,” I said, kicking as hard as I could.

Grief, confusion, and exhaustion hit me at once like a sock full of half anna coins.

I acquiesced, giving in like a tide on a dark moonless night.

I woke up in a room with its shades drawn—sunlight struggling to get past its labyrinthine fabric web. A strong smell of rose ittar suffocated my lungs. The same smell which I will come to associate with love. It was hard to breathe, and perhaps I did not want to try much.

There was a static blankness ringing in my ears as my eyes were trying to focus on a soft face coming closer to me.

“Have this; it will make you feel better,” said the woman.

My mind was numb, but my body tried to resist the glass of hot almond milk. The smell brought me to tears as memories of winter days with Ammaji flooded into my head.

I sipped slowly, my saline tears trickling into the sweet milk.

(Excerpted with permission from The Crested Shawl by Rachna Kheria. Read this story and many more in The Masala Box)

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