Chapter 18: Raju Bolta Hai (Raju Speaks)

2010

Raju spoke on a Tuesday in March. The Tuesday that was — the Tuesday was not special. The Tuesday was ordinary: the Panchgani morning, the fog in the valley, the kitchen where Leela was making pohe (the real pohe, the physical pohe, the pohe that she had been making every morning for five years since the bungalow became her home). The Tuesday that became extraordinary because on this Tuesday, after thirty-two years of silence, Raju opened his mouth and words came out.

The words were: "Pohe mein namak kam hai."

The pohe needs more salt.

The sentence that was — the sentence was the most ordinary sentence in the world. The sentence that was the kind of sentence that people said in kitchens every morning across India, the sentence that was domestic and unremarkable and that contained, in its ordinariness, the extraordinary: a man who had not spoken since he was eight years old was speaking. A man who had chosen silence for thirty-two years was choosing words. A man whose mouth had been the wound was now using the mouth as the tool, the tool that mouths were designed to be, the tool that said: I have an opinion about the salt.

Leela dropped the ladle. The dropping that was — the dropping was involuntary, the hands responding to the shock before the mind could process the shock, the shock being: Raju spoke. The two words that the mind processed and that the processing produced: tears. Not the grief-tears. The other tears. The tears that came when the thing you had stopped expecting happened, the tears that were the body's response to the impossible becoming possible.

"Kya bola tu?" Leela whispered. What did you say?

"Namak. Kam hai." Salt. It's less. The sentence repeated — but not the same. The repeated sentence was different because the repeated sentence was confident, the confidence being: I said it once and the saying did not produce punishment, the not-punishment being the evidence that the saying was safe, the safe being the thing that thirty-two years of silence had been waiting for: the confirmation that the mouth could be used without the mouth being punished.

Leela stared at Raju. Raju who was — Raju was thirty-two. Thirty-two and tall (the tallness that had come late, the growth-spurt at sixteen that had taken the small, malnourished boy and stretched him upward, the stretching producing a man who was lean and tall and whose body carried, in its leanness, the evidence of the early deprivation). Raju whose face was — Raju's face was calm. The calm that was not the absence of emotion but the management of emotion, the management that thirty-two years of silence had perfected, the perfecting being: the face that showed what the face chose to show and that hid what the face chose to hide.

"Raju." Leela's voice. The voice that was — the voice was the older-sister voice. Not the biological-sister voice (Leela was not Raju's sister; Leela was Raju's — what? The what that the network produced and that the network's relationships defied the standard categories: not sister, not mother, not friend. The between that was the particular category that found-families created). The voice that said: I hear you. I have been waiting to hear you. The waiting has been twenty-four years (the twenty-four years since Leela arrived at the camp and met an eight-year-old boy who did not speak).

"Bees saal se pohe bana rahi hai," Raju said. "Kabhi namak sahi nahi hota." You've been making pohe for twenty years. The salt is never right.

The sentence that was — the sentence was a joke. The joke that was: Raju's first communication in thirty-two years was a complaint about seasoning. The joke that produced: laughter. Leela's laughter, which was the laughter that was also crying, the crying-laughing that was the particular response to the absurd-beautiful, the absurd being: thirty-two years of silence broken by a salt complaint, the beautiful being: thirty-two years of silence broken.

"Tu — tu bol sakta hai?" You — you can talk?

"Haan. Bol sakta hoon. Bohot pehle se bol sakta hoon. Bolta nahi tha." Yes. I can talk. I've been able to talk for a long time. I chose not to.

"Kyun?" Why?

Raju looked at Leela. The looking that was — the looking was the look that Raju had been giving for thirty-two years, the look that said everything, the look that was the communication-system that Raju had built in the absence of words. The looking that now, for the first time, was accompanied by words.

"Kyunki — kyunki bolna dangerous tha. Mere ghar mein — jab main bolta tha, maara jaata tha. Bolna matlab — bolna matlab danger. Toh maine band kar diya. Aur jab band kiya — band kiya itne time ke liye ki — kholna mushkil ho gaya. Band karna easy tha. Kholna — kholna time laga." Because — because speaking was dangerous. In my home — when I spoke, I was hit. Speaking meant danger. So I stopped. And when I stopped — I stopped for so long that — opening was difficult. Stopping was easy. Opening — opening took time.

"Aur ab?" And now?

"Ab — ab safe hai. Bahut saal se safe hai. Lekin — safe hone ka pata chalna — woh alag cheez hai. Safe hona aur safe feel karna — dono alag hain. Main safe tha Satpura mein. Safe tha Panchgani mein. Lekin safe feel karna — woh aaj hua." Now — now it's safe. It's been safe for many years. But — knowing you're safe — that's different. Being safe and feeling safe — they're different. I was safe in Satpura. Safe in Panchgani. But feeling safe — that happened today.

Being safe and feeling safe — they're different. The sentence that was — the sentence was the sentence that contained the network's truth, the truth that Bharati had been working toward for thirty-two years: safety was not a condition, safety was a feeling. The condition could be created (the taking, the hiding, the protecting). The feeling could not be created. The feeling had to arrive. The feeling arrived when it arrived — not when the protector decided it should arrive, not when the years accumulated enough, not when the logic said "you should feel safe now." The feeling arrived when the person's interior clock — the clock that counted not years but trust, not time but evidence — when that clock reached the threshold. And the threshold was different for every person. And the threshold was: unknowable in advance.

Raju's threshold was: thirty-two years. Thirty-two years of being safe. Thirty-two years of Keshav's chai and Chinmay's harmonium and Bharati's honesty and Leela's pohe. Thirty-two years of evidence accumulating on the interior clock, the evidence being: nobody hit me. Nobody punished my voice. Nobody punished my presence. The nobody being the evidence and the evidence being the trust and the trust reaching, today, on a Tuesday in March, in a kitchen in Panchgani, the threshold.

"Raju." Leela put the ladle down. Properly this time — not the dropping but the placing, the placing being deliberate. She walked to Raju. She stood in front of him. She did not hug him (the hugging being the instinct but the instinct being wrong — Raju's body-space was Raju's and the entering of the body-space was the thing that had to be invited, not assumed). She stood and she looked and the looking was the communication that they had shared for twenty-four years and that was now, with the words available, supplemented but not replaced.

"Namak zyada daal deti hoon," Leela said. I'll add more salt. The sentence that was the response — not the therapeutic response ("I'm so proud of you," "this is a breakthrough," the sentences that adults used when children achieved milestones and that reduced the achievement to the adult's assessment). The response that was: your first sentence was about salt. My response is about salt. The salt being the ordinary and the ordinary being the respect — the respect that said: you are not a patient. You are not a case study. You are a person who commented on the seasoning and the seasoning will be adjusted.

Raju smiled. The smile that Leela had seen thousands of times — the not-quite-smile, the cautious smile, the smile of a person who was not yet sure that the smiling was allowed. But this smile was — wider. The wider being the word-effect, the words having opened the face the way they had opened the mouth, the opening producing the smile that was not cautious but actual, the actual-smile that said: I am here. I have arrived. The arriving took thirty-two years and the arriving is now.

*

Leela called Bharati. In Pune — Bharati was in Pune, with Kaveri, with Chinmay. The dispersal having held for five years, the five years during which the network operated as a distributed organization and the distributing having worked: Samaira had not found them, Rao's people had not found them, the police had not found them. The distributing was the safety.

"Raju bola." Leela's words on the phone. The two words that were — the two words that produced, on the other end of the phone, silence. Bharati's silence. The silence that was not Raju's silence (Raju's silence was the wound; Bharati's silence was the overwhelm, the overwhelm of a woman who had been carrying the weight of thirty-two years of a boy's silence and who was, in two words, told that the weight had been lifted).

"Kya bola?" Bharati's voice. The voice that was — Leela could hear it — the voice that was crying. Bharati crying. Bharati who did not cry. Bharati who had made the hard decisions without crying, who had built the network without crying, who had watched two children die without crying (not publicly — privately, in the dark, in the Satpura nights, the crying that Bharati did where nobody could see because the leader could not cry in front of the people the leader led). Bharati was crying on the phone because a thirty-two-year-old man had said: the pohe needs more salt.

"Namak kam hai." The salt is less. Leela repeated Raju's words. And laughed. And cried. And the laughing-crying was the same as before: the absurd-beautiful, the beautiful-absurd.

"Namak kam hai," Bharati repeated. And laughed. And the laughing was — the laughing was the sound of a woman who had been doing this work for thirty-two years and who had, in this moment, received the evidence that the work was worth it. Not the logical evidence (the logical evidence was: forty-seven children saved, twenty-nine living independently, the numbers that justified the network on paper). The emotional evidence. The evidence that arrived when a man who had not spoken for thirty-two years said: the pohe needs more salt. The evidence that said: this person is safe. Not safe-by-condition. Safe-by-feeling. The feeling that could not be created, that had to arrive, and that had, on a Tuesday in March, arrived.

*

Raju spoke more. Not immediately — the speaking was not a flood. The speaking was a trickle, the trickle that became a stream, the stream being the particular metaphor that Satpura provided and that Raju's speaking matched: slow, steady, the water finding its path not by force but by persistence.

Raju spoke to Keshav on the phone. "Bhai, aapki chai ki bohot yaad aati hai." Brother, I miss your chai a lot. The sentence that produced, on the other end, a sound that Leela (listening, of course listening — Leela always listened) identified as: Keshav clearing his throat. The throat-clearing that was the military man's equivalent of crying, the crying that the military training did not allow and that the throat-clearing replaced, the replacing being: the emotions are here, the emotions are being expressed through the acceptable channel, the acceptable channel being: throat-clearing.

Raju spoke to Chinmay. "Bhai, ek gaana baja do. Phone pe. Kuch bhi." Brother, play a song. On the phone. Anything. And Chinmay played. Through the phone's speaker. The harmonium sound that was compressed and tinny and that was, through the compression, more beautiful than the live sound because the compressed sound was the sound of distance and the distance was the thing that the family was enduring and the enduring was the love and the love was the music.

Raju spoke to the children. The children who were currently in the network's care — three children, ages eight, ten, and twelve, the three who were in the Panchgani bungalow's rotating room. Raju spoke to them the way Chinmay had spoken to Lata thirty-two years ago: with patience, with the particular understanding of a person who had been the child and who knew what the child needed, the knowing being: the child needed to see an adult who had survived. The child needed to see: the damage does not win. The silence can be broken. The speaking can return.

"Main bhi tumhare jaisa tha," Raju said to the children. At dinner. In the kitchen. The kitchen where the pohe had the right amount of salt now because Raju's feedback loop was operational and the operational-feedback-loop was the particular gift of speech: the ability to say "more salt" and the saying producing the adjustment. "Main bhi nahi bolta tha. Bahut saal tak. Lekin — ab bolta hoon. Aur tum bhi bologe. Jab ready ho. Koi jaldi nahi." I was like you too. I didn't speak either. For many years. But — now I speak. And you will too. When you're ready. No rush.

The eight-year-old looked at Raju. The looking that was — the looking was the looking that Raju recognised. The looking that was: is this real? Is this person real? Is the speaking real? The looking that Raju had given to Keshav, thirty-two years ago, when Keshav had offered chai and the offering was the first-safe-thing.

"Chai piyo," Raju said to the eight-year-old. Drink chai. The sentence that was — the sentence was the inheritance. The inheritance of Keshav's single word ("Chai?") passed from Keshav to Raju and from Raju to the next child, the passing being the network's tradition, the tradition being: the first-safe-thing is offered, the offered-thing is chai, the chai is the trust, the trust is the beginning.