Deshdrohi

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“Come away, O human child!
To the waters and the wild
With a faery, hand in hand,
For the world’s more full of weeping than you can understand.”

W. B. Yeats



What is it
that makes them them
& makes us us?

1999. A winter afternoon.
A family sitting around the television,
anxious,
ignoring the fetching expanse of sunlight
frolicking on the terrace garden.
Among them, an eleven-year-old,
huddled in the corner of the sofa,
wondering to herself
the meaning of a word she hadn’t heard before.
Deshdrohi.

Prayers were being whispered.
A muttered swearword too.
The grainy feed of Doordarshan
adding to the theatricality of the Hindi commentators
as the drama unfolded in spectacular fashion.
India were playing Pakistan on a square-turner in Chennai
and Tendulkar,
the country’s most beloved son,
almost crippled by back-spasms,
was doing the unthinkable.

Shahid Afridi’s whirlwind century the day before
had stolen her heart,
and now she was praying to all the gods she knew
for a Saqlain triumph, for a victory to Pakistan.
She didn’t know who they were,
she didn’t know it wasn’t just a game –
she wanted her knight to win.
The heart wants what it wants.
Then, with India needing 17 runs to win…
Sachin fell!
And just as a collective gasp went up
from drawing rooms across the city,
she let out a whoop of joy,
clapping her hands in unrestrained delight.
It was then that everyone seemed to notice her presence,
and her mother, face ashen with disappointment,
labeled her with that strange word.
Deshdrohi.



Her gods didn’t mind, it seemed,
as they answered her prayers –
the Indian tail performed a collective vanishing act
and Pakistan pounced on a memorable victory.
They switched off the television then,
but she was having none of it –
turning it back on, she savoured every moment
as a beaming Wasim Akram congratulated his boys.
The word was thrown back at her,
perhaps intended at shaming her into submission.
Deshdrohi.
This time however, the meaning also accompanied it,
an attempt to ensure she understood her crime –
 Traitor.



Why was she a traitor, she wondered…
Hadn’t she been taught that winning & losing were part of the game?
Why was it wrong to support Pakistan?
What was it that made them them
& made us us?

A few months later,
before she turned twelve,
Kargil was upon the world.
Images of war & blood,
snatches of indistinct conversation,
all carried by the same Doordarshan,
occupied the same screen,
followed almost as intently by the same people.

Twelve years hence,
she watched her father & brothers exult
as India beat Pakistan in the World Cup.
She tried to remain indifferent,
but her fist clenched when the last man-in-green was dismissed. 



Conditioned by history,
she now knows what makes them them
& makes us us.
Location: Mumbai, Maharashtra, India

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