Bharti

Bharti sat in class helpless as though surrounded by landmines.

“Bitch! You were snoring away with all those guys watching and not a stitch on you,” Sarosh had yelled at her on the phone.

She had tried to tell him what happened but the words wouldn’t come out, “Anees and Mukesh…”

“Man-crazy! The whole fucking family is man-crazy. They couldn’t have done anything if you hadn’t allowed them to! What the hell are you weeping for now?”

The Chemistry teacher had filled the board with figures and letters in strange and abstruse relationship with each other. But nothing much was connecting. Her body felt listless. After the orgy Anita had given her pills. Four pills to be taken thrice at eight-hour intervals. Bharti had thrown up all night. They were birth control pills and this was to ensure that if she had conceived it would come off.

“What do you use normally?” Anita had asked.

“Sarosh uses the condom,” she had whispered back.

“That’s silly. You must also use something. You’re the one who is at risk, not he.”

Bharti had thrown away the packet after vomiting so much. Since that day she had also been experiencing pain whenever she passed urine. Bharti feared she had contracted an incurable disease.

How could it be otherwise? Her sins had compounded so much that her existence was a shame.

She wondered whether the fault lay in genes. Reena had abandoned one husband and was on to an affair and she had experienced not one but two men before marriage - or was it three?

She looked at the girls sitting at their twin desks - luckily her own partner was absent that day - and her mind began to wander. All these were bright students; all were doing Science Biology. At least four or five out of the thirty-five would get through the Medical Entrance. St Mary’s was well known for grooming potential doctors. None of her classmates were leading her kind of life. Science section girls hardly ever got into trouble; they didn’t have the time. Only the best from Class Ten were selected for the Science section of Class Eleven. Reena didi was one of the few who could have opted for Science but had chosen to do Humanities. “I didn’t want to spend hours in the smelly labs, Bharti,” she had explained when Bharti became old enough to question her. “And most science students need to wear glasses. I would hate to damage my eyes….”

Bharti had always felt that their father should have been firmer with his older daughter. Science gave so many more career options. He should have insisted that Reena put her lazy brain to work. It was ironical that she, who had always over worked her brain, was following the same trajectory as her sister. Her career as a doctor, so solidly in front of her all through her childhood, was collapsing like a house of cards in her seventeenth year. She would never make it to Medical College. “Bharti Arora - the Vice Captain of the red house - believe it or not, she lost her mind and failed Class Twelve” the girls would say of her in the years to come. Nisha, her nemesis - the SDM’s daughter and the darling of the school - had already joined coaching classes for the Medical Entrance exam.

The teacher was asking her a question. Bharti could barely hear her.

“I don’t know, Miss.”

“Where have you been for the last thirty minutes?”

“I’m sorry Miss. I haven’t been able to follow. I am not well.”

“You’re not well or were you dreaming?”

“I think I have a fever again Miss.”

“You look fine. Come here,” said Miss Mathur. Miss Mathur was tall and sour. With one bony hand she took Bharti’s wrist. “You are all right,” she proclaimed. “I think Bharti has other matters occupying her mind these days,” she said to the class. “Most of you must be studying night and day for the board exams. However, some, like Bharti, are over-confident. Bharti no doubt feels that as she got good marks in class eleven, class twelve will be a cake walk.”

“No Miss I-”

“Besides, I am told you have developed extra-curricular interests.”

The class tittered.

“I’m not doing anything I shouldn’t, Miss,” Bharti heard herself say.

“Indian girls are not seen all over town with...with questionable characters. This is not a part of our culture.”

“Whatever I do is with full knowledge of my parents,” said Bharti.

Miss Mathur looked ready to explode, “Do your parents know that two months before the board exams when I am explaining the Mole concept you are lost in some private world? Is this within their knowledge?

“I’m not well...”

“You’re lying,” Miss Mathur screeched. “You are fine and healthy. Get out of my class. I don’t want girls who are rude and cheeky. Get out,” she repeated when Bharti did not move.

Bharti stood as if turned to stone. Nothing like this had ever happened to her before. She had been considered a good student in every class. She was always the example given out for hard work. No teacher had ever scolded her; leave alone throw her out of class.

Miss Mathur, by now trembling with rage, gripped her by the arm, “Are you deaf?” she hissed. “Twice I’ve told you to get out. I don’t want girls like you around.” She propelled Bharti out of the room.

Bharti had the sense of horrified faces looking on as she stumbled out.

She stood outside the class with tears streaming down her face. What if younger girls found out that the Vice Captain had been punished? It wasn’t fair. Miss Mathur was treating her as though she’s some cheap trollop. She had actually pushed her out.

This kind of thing happened to other girls - Vinita, for instance, in class nine. Girls said she had an abortion. The teachers used to reserve their sharpest sarcasm and most biting insults for her. She got married and left before the tenth class board exams.

Did her classmates feel that Bharti too deserves this kind of treatment? Girls whispered behind her back rather a lot these days. Did they know! Bharti’s mind tripped. Wasn’t it true that she had a boyfriend while none of the others did? Everybody knew about Sarosh. What they did not know and probably couldn’t even imagine was the extent of her promiscuity. They still giggled at the mention of sex but Bharti had gone all the way - not with one but with two men, or was it three? She was a whore and it showed on her face. Miss Mathur had looked at her with scorn. She was worse than Vinita who had an abortion. That girl might have done it just once, but Bharti was doing it again and again.

Miss Mathur stalked out of the class. Bharti stood mute. She couldn’t bring herself to apologise. Miss Mathur too deliberately avoided looking at her. Bharti went back into the class tentatively. There was a hush as soon as she entered. Girls talking excitedly to each other stopped and looked sideways at her. She went to her desk and sat down. At last Nisha broke the silence.

“Bharti, I think you should complain to Sister Rita.”

Bharti was taken aback.

“Miss Mathur had no business insulting you.”

“Yes,” piped in another girl. “It’s one thing to scold another to suggest all sorts of things.”

“And if your parents allow you to go out with boys who is she to interfere?” Nisha continued.

“Your parents know, don’t they Bharti?” asked the girl.

Bharti nodded.

“Did you tell them or did they find out?” asked another inquisitive voice.

“There’s nothing to find out. I’ve told them that Sarosh and Anees are my friends. They come home.”

“How lucky you are. My parents are so narrow-minded,” the girl said with a sigh.

“I’m glad my parents are conventional. I wouldn’t like people saying nasty things about me,” someone else countered.

“Bharti, Reena didi has been in Ajmer for quite some time, hasn’t she?” an inquisitive voice piped up.

“Yes, so what?” replied Bharti aggressively.

“You know how people talk in Ajmer. Isn’t your brother-in-law coming to fetch her?”

“No,” defied Bharti.

“I think these are personal matters,” said Nisha with the air of delivering a judgement. “It isn’t anybody’s business and none of Miss Mathur’s business what Bharti does after school.”

Luckily the Biology teacher came in and called the class to order. As Mrs. Kapoor droned on about the innards of the human body Bharti escaped again to her private hell: the burning between her legs and the eruptions in her mind. Her mother always blamed past ‘karma’ for any misfortune that might befall. It seemed to Bharti that someone in her family too had committed unpardonable sins in a previous life. They must have killed people - good people. In that case the suffering she was undergoing was unavoidable. How long did it take to atone for murder? Many murders? There was no way of finding out how long and severely she would have to suffer. Theirs was a cruel religion.

But Christians did not believe in past lives. For them there was only this life and all rewards and punishment were safely kept for a notional life after death. Perhaps she should go to Sister Rita. Sister had been delighted with Bharti’s promise that she would work very hard if allowed to take the Science stream. She had said in the general assembly that students like Bharti could bring glory to her school, family, city, and country. Surely Sister Rita wouldn’t approve of Miss Mathur torturing one of her favourite pupils. She, like Nisha, would say that private lives were none of the school’s business. Bharti resolved to see her after class that very day.

After school, Bharti sat in the pew of the school chapel for a good half-hour. She tried to pray but the words did not come, not even the ‘Our father’ they recited every morning at the school assembly. Her eyes kept straying to the gash in Christ’s body. It bothered her that he wore no clothes. She felt revulsion for the pale body.

Christ was a man - so were Rama, Krishna and Shiva. How obscene that the lingam that was the penis should be worshipped. Shiva, Rama and Krishna had wives. Did gods too indulge in the sex act? Nuns were virgins. Nisha had told them a joke some days ago: the good nun says “Amen” and the bad nun says “Ah Men!” Reena didi was out of her marriage but she was ‘into a relationship’. She wanted Suhas to call her back to Bombay. Didn’t Reenadi hurt and burn like Bharti? It was all such a muddle.

At last it was time for Sister Rita to return to her office after tea. Bharti knocked and entered.

Sister Rita seemed to look at her sharply, “Sit, Bharti. It’s good that you have come to see me. I was going to call you myself.”

Bharti’s heart skipped a beat, “Why Sister?”

“You must first tell me the purpose of your visit.”

“Sister, Miss Mathur insulted me today.”

“Insulted you?”

“As though I’m some cheap person.”

“How did she do that?”

“She...she sent me out of the class.”

“Did she say you’re cheap?”

“No, but she said that Indian girls are not seen all over the place with questionable characters.”

Sister Rita sighed. “Bharti, that’s not calling you cheap, is it? But why did she send you out of the class?”

“I couldn’t answer the question she asked me.”

“Bharti, Miss Mathur expects you to get 100% marks. She’s not going to like it if you can’t answer a question three months before the exams.”

“But Sister, I’m not well.”

“Yes my dear,” Sister sighed again. “You look pale and anxious.”

There was silence between them. Bharti shuffled and fidgeted.

Sister Rita suddenly swivelled her chair and pointed at the wall to the right of her. “Do you know who she is?” she asked.

“Mother Mary,” Bharti replied in a small voice.

“We worship her because she gave birth to Jesus Christ. But also because she is pure.”

Bharti was quiet.

“Look at her face - it is calm, gentle, compassionate.”

Bharti wondered where the conversation was going.

“I want her to be a model for all the students of St. Mary’s. People should recognise St. Mary’s girls by their purity and innocence. We try to inculcate these values in all our students, whether they are Hindu, Muslim or Christian. Is there anything you need to tell me Bharti?”

Bharti was tempted to break into tears and sob out her story. “Sister,” she began. She choked.

“If you have sinned you must confess,” Sister pressed.

What could she say? How would Sister Rita interpret the fact of her defilement by not one but two men? She would insist on calling her father to school. She might even expel her.

She shook her head.

Sister sighed yet again. She looked disillusioned and sad. She already felt that Bharti had let the school down.

“Bharti, women have a big responsibility to fulfil,” she was saying. “They are wives and mothers. They can make or break a family, a nation, or a society.”

“Yes sister,” said Bharti.

“I hope you as a St. Marian are doing everything that a woman should, and nothing that she shouldn’t.”

Bharti nodded.

“Very good,” said Sister Rita gravely. “You must also remember we must atone for our sins by confession and prayer. I wish you luck in the forthcoming exams as well as in life.”

“Thank you, Sister,” said Bharti.

The meeting was over.

Bharti walked home all alone. Her companions had left long back. When she reached the Post Office her heart thumped hard. But there was no one there that day.

Purity, innocence, repeated her mind dumbly. She bought a bottle of antiseptic from the chemist. Washing with Dettol might put out the fire between her legs. But the fire should spread and kill her. That would be atonement. That would prove to Sister that she was pure and innocent.

Bharti had tears in her eyes as she turned into her narrow lane.

This is an extract from Anuradha Marwah’s novel Dirty Picture, published by INDIALOG.

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