Chapter 8: The Other Way

The other way was: Amma.

Not Amma's memory — Amma's memory of Grandfather and Farida was: secondhand, filtered through sixty years of marriage and the specific distortions that time applied to: stories. The other way was Amma's: network.

Amma knew: everyone. Not in the casual way that people in cities "knew" people — the LinkedIn-connection, the business-card-exchange, the "we should get coffee" that meant: we will never get coffee. Amma knew people in the Doiwala way, which was: deeply, historically, genealogically. Amma knew who had married whom in 1967. She knew whose grandfather had owed whose grandfather money in: 1953. She knew the specific, granular, generation-spanning web of connections that constituted: a small town's memory.

And in that web, there was: someone who might know about Farida.

"Bilqis Begum," Amma said, on the train back from Lucknow. We were in the same berths — Amma lower, me middle, Meri upper, the configuration that had become: our formation, the way a military unit had: a formation, the three-woman investigation team arranged by: seniority and: preference.

"Bilqis Begum," I repeated. "The Bilqis Begum who lives in: Rajpur?"

"The same. She's ninety-four. She was — before she retired, before the cataracts, before the hip — she was a: singer. Classical. Thumri, dadra, ghazal. She performed at the Odeon Theatre in the 1950s. After: Farida's time, but she would have known the: circuit. The Dehradun performance circuit. The theatres, the clubs, the: people."

"She might know: who Farida was."

"She might know: where Farida went."

*

Bilqis Begum lived in a house on Rajpur Road that was: a time capsule. Not preserved deliberately — not the heritage-homestay curation that Meri was planning, the Instagram-ready "vintage aesthetic" — but preserved by: neglect and: love, which were sometimes: the same thing. The house had not been: updated because Bilqis Begum saw no reason to: update. The walls were the colour they had been in 1965. The furniture was the furniture that her husband — a civil servant, dead since 1998 — had purchased on their wedding day. The harmonium in the drawing room was the harmonium she had learned on, the bellows patched with tape, the keys: yellowed like old: teeth.

She received us in the drawing room. Small — smaller than I expected, because reputation made people: large and age made them: small, and Bilqis Begum's reputation had been: enormous. She wore white — the white that widows wore, that Bilqis Begum had worn since 1998 and that she wore not as mourning but as: identity, the white that said: I have loved, I have lost, and I continue.

"Farida Khatoon," she said. Not a question. A: recognition.

"You know her?"

"I know: of her. Everyone who performed in Dehradun in the forties and fifties knew: of Farida. She was — she was: legendary. Not famous-legendary, not the kind of legendary that appears in: history books. The other kind. The kind that performers know. The: whispered legendary. The name that was spoken in dressing rooms and rehearsal halls, the name that older performers mentioned when they wanted to say: this is what the art was, before it became: safe."

"Before it became: safe?"

"After Independence, the performance circuit: changed. The British clubs closed. The Odeon became a cinema hall — only films, no live performance. The performers who had been: the circuit — the dancers, the singers, the variety artistes — they either: adapted or: disappeared. Most adapted. They joined the film industry, or the radio, or the: wedding circuit. They found: new stages."

"And Farida?"

"Farida: disappeared. Before Independence. During the War. I was a girl — thirteen, fourteen — when I first heard her name. The older performers spoke of her with: reverence. And: fear."

"Fear?"

"Because Farida did what the rest of them were: afraid to do. She used the: stage. Not for entertainment — for: resistance. She sang songs that the British had: banned. She performed dances that contained: coded messages. The audience understood. The British: eventually understood. And when the British understood, they: acted."

"Inspector Wilkins," I said.

"Wilkins. Yes. The man who watched: everyone. He attended every show, every performance, sitting in the back row with a: notebook. Writing. Always writing. The performers knew he was there. They: adjusted. They softened their material. They became: safe."

"But not: Farida."

"Not Farida." Bilqis Begum's hands — the hands that had played the harmonium, that had kept the taal, that had been the: instruments of her art — Bilqis Begum's hands: trembled. Not from weakness. From: emotion. "Farida would not: soften. She said — this is what I was told, by women who knew her, who performed with her — she said: 'The stage is: the only place I am free. I will not give them that: too.'"

The sentence. In the drawing room. In the house on Rajpur Road with the 1965 walls and the patched harmonium. The sentence of a woman who had used her: body and her: voice as: weapons, in a war that was fought not with guns but with: art.

"Do you know where she: went?" I asked.

"Bombay. Everyone said: Bombay. She was going to try the films. But—" Bilqis Begum paused. The pause of a person: choosing. Choosing whether to: say. "There was another: story. A story that the older performers told: quietly. That Farida didn't go to Bombay for: films. She went because someone: sent her. Someone in the: movement. The nationalist movement. She was: recruited."

"Recruited for: what?"

"To do in Bombay what she had done in Dehradun. To: perform. To: resist. To use the stage as: a weapon. But in Bombay, the stakes were: higher. The audience was: larger. And the British were: watching more closely."

"And then she: vanished."

"And then she vanished. In 1944. The last anyone heard, she was performing at a club on Grant Road — a small club, not the grand theatres. And then: nothing. As if the stage lights went off and she: walked into the dark."

Meri was: recording. The phone held: discreetly, the digital capturing: the analogue, the twenty-first century preserving: the twentieth. Amma was: still. The stillness of a woman hearing: the full story of a person her husband had: known, loved, protected — the story that expanded: the version she had been given, the version that was: friendship, into something: larger, something: dangerous, something: brave.

"One more thing," Bilqis Begum said. "The name R."

The room: stopped.

"You know: R?" I asked.

"Everyone in the circuit knew: R. R was: Riyaz. Riyaz Ahmed. A musician. A tabla player. He accompanied Farida at the Odeon. He was — he was her: partner. On stage and: off."

"Riyaz Ahmed," Meri said, typing. "Tabla player. Dehradun. 1940s."

"He followed her to Bombay. He wrote to her — the letters, the love letters that musicians write, which are: the most beautiful letters in the world because musicians understand: rhythm, and rhythm is: the soul of language."

R. Riyaz Ahmed. Tabla player. Lover. Protector. The man who had written: "You carry the light with you, Farida."

"Where is he now?" I asked.

"Dead," Bilqis Begum said. "He died in 1971. In Bombay. I know because his nephew — his nephew was a musician in Lucknow, a sitar player, and he told me when I performed there in 1975. Riyaz died alone. In a flat on: Lamington Road."

Lamington Road. The address from R's: letters. The flat where he had written the: last letter, the letter that said: destroy everything, the letter that Farida had: kept.

"And Farida?" I asked. "Did Riyaz ever: find her?"

"I don't know," Bilqis Begum said. "Nobody: knows. That's the: mystery. That's why they still: whisper her name."