“Our dhaba, which was doing brisk business, was burnt down when the riots happened. After my husband was taken to the police station for questioning, he didn’t return. He got jail for nine-and-a-half months. Prayers, puja of all the gods and goddesses, everything betrayed me. Neighbours watched me with suspicion. A man goes to jail, a woman becomes a criminal,” Saroj, who is about 55 years old, says.

Voice, full of wounds, as if the blood accumulated deep inside is slowly dripping out.

Saroj does not cry or break down even once during our long conversation. Eyes turned bitter, resentful, sad at some of my questions. Many other people before me must have asked the same questions to her. Futile. Many hands must have expressed consolation even before me. Useless. I stop my questions. Camera is off, too. Now in front of us is that woman, whose life was changed by a single date in the calendar.

Just before making its exit, a rain-soaked winter. Trees blackened due to the chill. My car is running on an empty road in the evening, as if it is floating in water. Then comes Shiv Vihar. A local source is waiting for me. Along the way, he shows the shops that were destroyed three years ago. Pointing a finger at a street, he says, everyone is leaving their homes for a safe area. Now the ‘same’ people are buying houses at half the cost.

There is simplicity in this person who talks without any reservations. When I apologise for troubling him early in the morning, he says, “Come on…One can do at least this much for society.” Then as if the man remembers something half-forgotten, he adds, “The ones who caused the riots remain in their shelters, alive. Those who killed also survived. It is people like us who die, the poor of both religions.”

This source of mine has also come back from jail after spending several months there, on charges of murder. I watch carefully. The hands which were so careful even while opening the car door, how can they take someone’s life! How can that person burn houses and shops in whose wrinkled laughter reflects the love of a father! But that’s the allegation. We reach Ghoda Chowk, where Saroj’s house is farther away.

She was downstairs in the shop. When called, she came wiping her hands. A body full of age. Such a face that prompts in you an urge to keep your head in her lap. Seeing her, the desire to meet my mother overpowers me, but I suppress it and get busy with my work.

The couple’s well-run dhaba was burnt in Noor-e-Ilahi. ACs were installed after taking a loan of lakhs of rupees; the mob robbed and took them away. Before she could come out of the shock, her husband was jailed. He was released after nine-and-a-half months.

“Earlier, during festivities, the house would buzz with joy and flurry of activities. People would feast. Now, we have no money for food. I have to ask from married daughters, some neighbours, or from some relatives. Earlier, grains used to be filled and stored in drums. Now, there is hardly anything in the kitchen. Moreover, corona multiplied misery. There was neither any food left nor any desire to eat.”

Saroj speaks short sentences after stretched pauses. We are standing in the kitchen. There are mismatched dishes: somewhere aluminium, somewhere steel. Ceramic cups of different sizes and colours are placed in a corner. Saroj goes about doing her job.

Even though not wanting to, I ask her, “There were so many men, then why did your husband go to jail?”

“Don’t know. I only know he didn’t do anything.
He ran away after saving his life when the dhaba was being burnt down.
There were six staffers. Everyone could somehow reach their homes safely.
The shop was also burnt. On top of that, he was thrown behind bars.
In March, the police had taken him away saying we just will ask a few questions.
But after that, he did not return. Now, he is with us, but a completely changed man,” Saroj says.

“Nine-and-a-half months. When I went to meet him, he kept on crying inconsolably. He had withered like a tree does without water. He was fond of cooking and feeding others. After coming back from his night walk, he would check with everyone and enquire about their health, and only then he would go to sleep. Such a caring man was accused of murder,” she says.

Saroj counted one day at a time, waiting for his return. She also visited many pandits and babas for a solution. “Someone said tie this. Somebody said chant that. Did everything, but time kept on slipping. Now, he is with me but…,” the woman adds.

The feeling of being left to languish is evident on Saroj’s face.

“Yes. Three daughters are married. One daughter and a son are yet to be. Now, I feel concerned about them and fear about their future,” she says.

“Who would want to associate with the children of a father who has gone to jail? When those who have known us for years have turned their backs on us, how can I expect that strangers would trust us? Everyone says that ‘he must have done something, that’s why he went to jail’. Whenever the police hover around the street, people start looking at our house. How can we expect a match in such a situation? Now even the in-laws of married daughters ask ‘what had happened’,” Saroj says.

A dry hiccup shakes her body. This is a mother, whose cry is of a different kind. So deep as if some type of chanting is going on in the mind. Day and night. She rues that even her husband’s return from jail would not be able to undo those days spent in jail. Like a burn mark, it will always stay on the top of the body.

Many knots of sorrow continue to be tied to Saroj’s anchor.

Her husband has returned from jail but could not return to the old days. He has changed. He forgets. Does a lot of things as if he were still in jail. Wakes up in sleep and starts walking.

“Nine-and-a-half months are enough to rattle and scar a normal person. He was scared. We were scared. We opened a grocery shop by taking a loan. I started sitting in it so that the expenses can be met. My husband could not sit in the shop. Sorrow had eaten into him,” Saroj says.

“Better than before.
Has started laughing and talking, too. But what he suffered can’t be undone.
After his return, we stopped visiting that part of Noor-e-Ilahi.
When we chance upon some old faces, a lump of bitterness comes up in the mouth.
These were the people who used to come and eat for free in our dhaba,
and who sent an old man to jail,” Saroj says.

“I heard that many people are leaving after selling their houses in this area. Why don’t you also think about doing so?” I ask her.

“Does anyone leave one’s house? If you run away, no piece of land would be left,” she says.

There was neither sadness nor anger in her voice. Just a feeling of letting everything slip by opening the palms. “Whatever happens now, we will face it,” she says.

Saroj sits like a colourless figure amid the mismatched utensils and does not ask for a taste of joy over a cup of tea. She doesn’t cry, she doesn’t get moved too much. Like the twilight of the evening, her sorrow spreads slowly. This woman, the owner of empty canisters in the kitchen, gets sad when it occurs to her — who will marry the daughter whose father has gone to jail. The shop was burnt once, now she doesn’t want the family to be reduced to ashes.