Book Excerpts

Puja Changoiwala Gives Voice to the Voiceless | Homebound EXTRACT

As Covid-19 cases in the Mumbai slum soar, young Meher and her family realize they have no choice but to leave for their village in Rajasthan. With the ban on public movement, it becomes clear that they would have to walk the 900 kilometres, facing barbaric police officers, searing heat, wild beasts and indifferent deities.

A deeply moving story about family, survival and relentless hope, Homebound brings to the page the stark realities of those who have remained too long without a voice. Read an excerpt:

 

19 April 2020

I was wondering, Ms Farah…

Have you ever felt little? Perhaps, like a sugar ant. No, exactly like a sugar ant. I mean, it does not matter that you’re harmless, that you’d never sting, or that even if you bit to defend yourself, it wouldn’t hurt. It’s insignificant that you’d never leave your home in the heaths and the forests, had you not been desperate for food. It’s nugatory that the worker ants of your family toil, sweat and slave, foraging for food, protecting it from predators, and building nests. It’s of zero consequence, whether you’re a queen ant or a larva, a good ant or bad. What matters is that you’re little, and you can be crushed. In some cultures, you must be crushed.

When police officials doused our bodies with those chemicals, ma’am, I felt like a sugar ant. It was irrelevant that I was a good student, a decent daughter, and that I hoped to be a diligent journalist someday. It was worthless, the honesty that my parents thrive by. Trifling, their obedience for every manmade institution of terror—government, god, karma, hell and superstition. Trivial, their non-violence, the fact that they would never hurt anyone, not even an ant. What mattered was the depth of Baba’s pockets, and the lack of it, somehow, coloured us fit for oppression. We could be crushed, no problem.

After the cops apprehended us near the Maharashtra-Gujarat interstate border, they escorted us to a ground, a twenty-minute, unlit walk from the highway. I cannot recall the exact route as it was too dark, but I know we had entered a village. I’d seen the nude, yellow bulbs illuminating the little porches of little huts, and I’d heard the tetchy fans inside concrete ones. Soon, the lights and sounds had disappeared, and under the veil of that black, silent night, we walked, as if blind, as if deaf.

Dawn found our seventy-nine bodies asleep, supervised by four police officials. Our bags were at work as our pillows, our spare clothes made for our mattresses, and the blanket, the blanket was a knitting of fear. The Bull and the Ram, the leaders of the police party, had left as soon we reached the ground, while their subordinates—the lambs—stayed, noting our names, addresses, phone numbers and identity-card details wherever available. As we dictated our particulars, our fears erupted into questions, fogged the air, but the sheep refused to clear the haze. The cloud of doubt stayed through the night, got denser by daybreak: ‘Let us go, sahib’. ‘Our parents are waiting for us, sahib’. ‘I haven’t seen my children in two years, sahib’. ‘We would have died in the city, sahib’. ‘No, please don’t beat us, sahib’.

The cops, however, stuck to their sticks, and every query found an answer in the colonial weapon for crowd control. Soon, a labourer fell to the ground while escaping the lathi, hit his forehead on a rock, and bled. He stood up within moments, rubbed some mud in his wound, and returned to his questions. Innocent blood, says history, creates either patriots or tyrants, poets or prophets, warriors or scoundrels. In our case, it did nothing. It was not real, the migrant’s blood. It was cheap, red sweat.

Once the Bull and Ram returned, the chaos paused. Dressed in fresh uniforms, their hair was still moist from their showers, and both had a pair of black, aviator sunglasses shielding their eyes, as if cops pulled out of a Bollywood reel. They jumped off their motorbike, and the Bull took to a megaphone, instructing us to queue up. He had food for us, he proclaimed. We’d be home soon, he promised. We obeyed, and a lamb went about us, noting our body temperatures with a contactless, pistol-shaped thermometer. Happy, who was asleep in Baba’s arms, was startled when the cop pointed the device at him. My little brother mistook it for a firearm, and father had to calm him, apologise for his warranted fright.

After we collected our packets of puffed rice, the Bull informed us that it would be a few hours before buses arrived to drive us home. “We need clearances from the Gujarat and Rajasthan state governments, so you can cross the border without trouble,” he explained over the megaphone. “It’s nine a.m. now, and everything should be in order by two in the afternoon. Until then, do not bore us with questions. The food packets have been sponsored by a huge-hearted, very noble politician, and he’ll be here soon to click pictures with you.”

It was not generous, the food, but it was hot. We mixed the rice with our last batch of cooked potatoes and guzzled our meal. I wanted to use the washroom, but I knew that as earlier, I’d have to walk to the woods that fringed the ground. I decided against it and lay on the mud for some rest. Surrounded by trees, the circular space had enough shade for all of us. A few huts stood nearby, and curious villagers often lurked around, observing our affairs. Most left in minutes, disappointed with the lack of entertainment.

The humoured bellies lulled a few migrants to sleep. Eyes rested also because the Bull had seemed genuine in his last address, even his promise of delivering us home. He could not stand the weight of his conscience, we assumed, perhaps because of the barrage of news reports in the past few weeks. They told stories of millions like us, who had set out on foot for their villages—mowed down by tempos, killed by fatigue, massacred by heat, and murdered by hunger. ‘Indian migrants are dying to get home,’ informed a news headline. ‘India is walking home’, stated another.

 

To read more, order your copy of Homebound today!

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