Asma and Aruna

They would meet everyday as they hung upside down on the jungle Jim in one of the vast playgrounds of St Mary’s Convent School, Poona Camp. Asma Syed and Aruna Pandit – two shy ten year olds, thin as a reed, with tight plaits and scrubby knees. They drew closer thereafter since both were the ‘single friend’ type while all other pals remained on the periphery of this nucleus.

A bunch of giggly girls, wheeling their bicycles, walks past the Bishop School for Boys that is next to St Mary’s. On the compound wall sit a group of adolescent boys who talk extra loud and become more boisterous as the girls pass by. Those were the times when that’s as far as it went. These were five minutes of high adventure for the girls and the routine was repeated almost as a ritual every weekday at 3.30 when school concluded for the day. Then, as the girls turned left and then right again and the boys ran off to their football, the girls lapsed into their chatter again. As each ones home approached or her way parted, she mounted her bicycle and rode away eventually to leave just the two of them as they summarized the events of the day and plans for tomorrow. Finally, Asma went down Sachapir Street and Aruna cycled the remaining distance home. In their respective houses their routines were almost identical – a change of clothes, a hearty meal and after some frugal homework they were on the phone to each other chatting nineteen to a dozen.

As childhood took tentative steps towards youth this budding friendship revealed the wonders of a relationship beyond the family. They stood together in the line at the tuck shop and shared rat sweets and striped sugar candy and walked hand in hand round the playfield as they sucked on orange ice sticks that coloured their tongues. If Miss Pavri screamed at Aruna for not learning her French conjugations and when Sister Mary Anslem went red in the face, took Asma by the shoulders to give her a shaking for not getting a simple spelling right, then they would soothe each other by silent glances that said “hold on, never mind, this too shall pass and we will laugh again.”

During holidays they were regularly in each others houses. Mayaram, the cook in Aruna’s home would feed them aloo subzi and hot rotis off the tava when they finished playing with the dogs in the garden and then they would go up and listen to her sole earthly treasure – a Beatles LP – on her grandfather’s gramophone.

Asma’s mother was small and frail and a very loving soul. Her father was very tall and, on Sundays, he would cook the most delicious meat and fish that got polished off in no time and the bones went to Gapid, the dog. Oblivious to the blazing sun, Aruna and Asma would thereafter roam about and chat in the courtyard along with her elder sister with their much younger siblings Rukhsana and Bhai Saab in tow. Aruna’s two brothers were in a boarding school and in Asma’s home she found the pleasure and security that a ‘full house’ affords.

It was an age of innocence when no eyebrows were raised in either house on learning the names of their daughter’s friends. When Aruna was as welcome into the orthodox Bohri house as Asma was into the strict Brahmin one. When the two friends made a world of their own which they thought would more or less last their lifetime.

It was mid term IXth standard when Aruna’s father was transferred out of Poona and after many heart wrenching goodbyes and cross my heart promises to write a letter a week, the two friends parted.

Aruna got busy adjusting to a new city, new home, school, teachers and friends but she looked forward to the coloured envelopes that came with a Poona postmark and that contained pages and pages of a familiar even hand detailing all the events of the week – shenanigans of our common pals, walks down Main Street, aunts arriving from Surat, cousins getting engaged/married, kid sis down with measles, the sun, the rain, summer, winter, and everything else in between. Aruna replied with equal fervour.

Somewhere in the course of the next five years as they both passed out of school and entered college – Asma to graduate in Home Science and Aruna in Political Science – their ways parted. No, they both didn’t pull away. Asma remained the same sweet girl she always had been. She faithfully and regularly wrote, often complaining, sometimes even sharply, that Aruna did not reply. It was Aruna who grew impatient with small talk about aunts and cousins, brothers and sisters.

It was the season for rebellion, family ties were to be scoffed at as restrictive conventions. The two girls were growing in different directions. Aruna could not write to Asma about what she was reading, thinking, hearing, feeling. She met teachers inside and outside college who opened a whole new world of exciting possibilities and interpretations. The world needed to be changed, they could change it, and if they could, they would. Revolution was just round the corner, this corrupt order was about to collapse and if all that was needed was a push – then they were ready to leave aside everything else and push.

“She has wheels under her feet,” said Aruna’s grandmother, “she comes in from one place and is off to the next.” Meetings and campaigns, wallpapers and posters, street plays and protest marches – in all this to and fro-ing, where was the time to write to an old friend who was not now a comrade in the battle?

So the years went furiously by. College, university, friends, job, love, commitment, marriage, child – like a circle in a spiral spinning us away from our pasts and hurtling us ever onwards to our destinies.

In the month of March this year Aruna went with husband and son for a short trip to Poona. The boy had just finished his board exams and this trip was just a wee window of a holiday before they would again be immersed in a two year grind of preparation for his medical entrance exams.

Aruna dragged the two of them to the cantonment where she had grown up and as they passed Sachapir Street, she could not resist the urge to get off at Ibadat Manzil. The cottage had long since been pulled down and a multistoried building stood in its place. She inquired with the watchman about the Syed family. He said they lived on the top floor.

“There was a girl, Asma?”
“She is there right now.” he said
Aruna was excited as she went up the lift. The door was opened by a small sweet young woman and Aruna asked for Asma.
“Who are you?” she asked.
“I’m Aruna, an old school friend.” Aruna replied.
She said nothing.
“Is Asma not at home?”
“Yes, she is. Come in.” said she.
Aruna sat down and asked for Asma again.
“She’s inside,” said the young girl who was the wife of Asma’s little brother.
“Is she not well? Can I go and meet her inside?”
“She’s in mourning,” said the young woman, “she lost her husband two months ago and she is in mourning.”

Then Asma came out and without a word they embraced. When the words came they came unbidden. Like most things in Aruna’s life this meeting too had not been planned. She kept talking as the thoughts came into her mind sometimes coherent sometimes not. She said she was sorry again and again. She said she had wanted to apologize for having treated her wrong, for having thrown away something so precious, a pure and innocent friendship sacrificed at the altar of sophistry. Asma said that maybe it was God’s will that he had sent her to comfort her today.

Aruna sat before her, holding her hands tightly and with tired eyes they briefly caught up with each others lives. Asma had married late and settled comfortably in Manila. There were no children. When the end came her elder sister rushed to her aid and helped her put together her life again. Now she was here. She would be in isolation for some months more. She had not thought about what she would do thereafter. They exchanged phone numbers and addresses. Aruna saw a spark in her eyes when she asked Asma to call and said that they would have long chats. Then Aruna left.

Aruna has called several times since. She spoke with Asma’s younger sister and her sister in law. Asma couldn’t come to the phone, she was praying – there were other women around and she couldn’t be seen chatting. Yes, Aruna understood. She will keep trying to speak. There is so much to say, so much to listen to. There is still too much unsaid.

Over the past thirty years and through successive clearing out of drawers, Aruna has still not discarded those coloured envelopes with a Poona postmark. Whenever she rewrites her telephone book she always begins with Asma’s phone number -26879- although Poona does not have five digit numbers any more and this number will no longer connect to Asma.

For a person who staunchly asserts that she regrets nothing in life, there is this one thing Aruna regrets and regrets bitterly – When there were tears in your eyes and I was needed to to say, “hold on, this too shall pass and we may smile again,” I was not there to say it.