I examined my nails. Yes, they were long enough to scratch the dark brown face. It would at least let surface the hatred he refused to bring to his visage. He was the guy at immigrations and was taking an inordinately long time scrutinising my passport, stamped with memories of many countries. All aboveboard. He was punching away and refused to look up at me. I could not utter a word. I kept pinching myself to control the anger rising in me. My fate was being decided by an obscure man with the right name and religion. Mine were wrong as he spat out, “Hmmm….Farjaana Var…Var…shee…” and then he banged the book on the table, a document that declared me the citizen of the Republic of India.

Pandey was driving me from the airport. On the way home, I kept looking for signs; it was too dark to read minds. When we reached the flyover, he said, “Aap jab yahaan nahin the unka log ne Sabarmati Express ko jalaa diya.” Unka log? I opened my mouth to ask what happened after that, but restrained myself. I refused to let him bring the baggage up to the door. Old newspapers were stuck between the house grills. I pulled them out, trying to make sense of the shreds.

“VHP calls Vajpayee a naya Musslaman”.

“VHP asks TV channel not to send Muslim”.

“They let our van pass only after we agreed to chant ‘Jai Sri Ram’…and this in a place close to the CM’s residence”(Rajdeep Sardesai, political editor, STAR News).

“Fearing that he would be perceived as a Muslim, on Saturday a person asked me to shave off his French beard. He had sported that style for years but the recent events had frightened him enough to make him shave it off” (Bhupendrabhai, a barber from Vastrapur).

“I was attacked by a mob of around 25 at Velajpur. It was presumed that I was a Muslim because of the colour of my hair. I, fortunately, could convince them that I am a Hindu and was spared eventually” (Shraban, Rajiv Nagar).

“It seems like paranoia but I felt it is better not to wear green as I was going out” (Meenal Patel).

Here are people afraid of their own. Pamphlets are being distributed with the words, “Desh ane dharam bachao” (save the country and religion). They are calling for an economic boycott of Muslims, their business establishments, eating joints and even films starring them. They are asking them not to purchase anything made by Muslim artisans.

The chief minister, Narendra Modi, had refused to extend the probe to the riots, yet insisted it was a natural backlash. Why was he then confusing the ‘separate issues’? Can we say that the bomb blasts were a natural backlash to the Bombay riots?

The question of compensation reveals the same mindset. A Hindu life is worth Rs. 2 lakh, a Muslim’s one lakh.

“Give me numbers. How many dead?” I am asked. 58. “No, no, not those…the others…” Ah, yes, can’t say…that is the difference. My country has bought my silence. This time I am not talking. Not asking around. At least not the people I know. They will not tell. We are all conspirators. Could it be a thousand? But for me one child with a smashed face, one man groping in the dust looking for a picture of a dead mother, one gutted home is enough. I am traumatised. I had told someone bravely that I had nothing to worry about; my friends do not see my religion. “But it does not take long for friends to turn into enemies,” he had said. I was angry. But the fact is that I am back to the mental state of ten years ago. Last night I heard the sound of firecrackers, a few minutes later a police van’s siren bleated in my lane, again and again. I stiffened. What was happening?

I have roots in Gujarat, spanning from the port town of Jafferabad to Bhuj in Kutch. Only ghosts walk there. If relatives live, I do not know them. Vaddi Maa (my grand-aunt) was our only link for a long while, a short frail woman who cackled like a hyena. She would send postcards and invariably talk about, “Doodh ketlo gaadho chhe aiyyan”(the milk is so thick here) and I would go, yech, thank god I have nothing to do with that place. My cousin had gone on a discovery trip and despite his long hair and diamond stud in ear, he was treated like a king with, yes, huge steel tumblers of milk. Vaddi Maa was dead. When I visited, I had heard that the house was not there anymore. So I skirted that route and looked for traces of myself in other cities where my ancestors may have passed through. I found nothing. I did not feel the pull that I experience whenever I return to Bombay where almost everytime I drive through Marine Drive I have tears in my eyes.

I was coming back from a holiday in a safe place, Malaysia, but did not feel like a Muslim there at all. I was not catching the news, so I did not know about the events. Till I met this family at a very touristy spot in Langkawi. The women were wearing traditional clothes; I was dressed for the beach. The daughter was a wonderful girl who said, “namaste”, but her father was less charitable (incidentally the only Malay Muslim I met who felt this way). He asked me what Vajpayee was doing. I said he was helpless. I felt ridiculous supporting a government I detested; but it is a policy I follow – no foreigner will be allowed to get away with criticising my country.

What I did not realise was that he had been reading the papers and knew what was happening in India. An SMS message saying, “Take care of yourself and hope your family back home is well” made me even more confused. Which is when I called up a politician friend in Delhi. I might add he is not a Muslim. “Things are bad, real bad,” he said. I began to feel guilty and wanted to rush back home. Soon. Unsafe or whatever, I had to be here. Where I belong.

This is also where I have my most potent nightmare. I remember waking up in the middle of the night screaming, “I don’t want to be burnt, I want to be buried.” Everytime I try to exorcise those demons, something new happens.

Am I afraid of riots? Yes, because of memories. I had made the grave error of walking through ashes at that time. I had watched the orange tongue of fire leap out and claim its victim without even knowing the meaning of its devastating journey.

YESTERDAY…

I cannot go to Ahmedabad or Mehsana, but let me take you to the scene of a riot where I had met people from those places. This was central Mumbai. Pankaj Rathod of the Hussain Bhaibandh Mandal held fort. The building that was once his house had flaky reminders on the floor. The pungent smell of masala assailed the nostrils. It was a valiant attempt to keep business going. These were Gujarati traders, a group that holds on to middle class values while striving for the best that money can buy. “We don’t do politics, so why did we get dragged?” All the hard work was now rubble. The kitchen cabinet mocked him with empty shelves; there was a bed, a part of it blackened. And most pathetic of all, plastic toys left untouched.

Hiteshbhai’s was the best little house on the block. “It is difficult for us because we have to maintain our image.” That day he was wearing a grey safari suit with no creases; a gold pocket chain glittered. He probably knew it would be easier for him.

One realised how precarious life can be when upon climbing the stairs and passing through the dark corridors I came bang at the chipped off concrete facing the raw bricks, the beams unhinged, standing on shifting sand and stones and balancing under overhanging cable wires.

Just across the street they had friends from the other community. Had they met since that dark day? “No.” A woman standing nearby shrugged, “Who has had the time?” I was in a strange predicament. A few steps ahead or behind and I was left wondering whether I was dressed right, did I speak with the correct inflections, what if I mixed up the niceties? I felt like a devious actress afraid of muffing up her lines, the moll twirling the villain’s chain.

The villain was the cinderbox of suspicion. Girish Vyas asked me my name. I didn’t have the presence of mind to lie. Slowly, words tumbled out of him with frightening clarity. “This area is like the Pakistan border. One side is Hindu, the other side is Muslim. Bhendi Bazaar is a mini Pakistan. We do business with each other, but at times like this….”

‘They’ lived across the street. A parrot was quiet in a cage. Were they scared? Kauser’s mother did not understand, “What fear can there be when we came so close to being turned to dust?” The children studied in English-medium schools but had stopped attending classes. They watched the wasteland from their window and realised they would have to put back the pieces together. These were little people who were aware that you couldn’t isolate the outside stimulus or the virus in the mind. You have to gather your wits about you and get back on your feet.

In shanties the police had climbed roofs and started shooting. I was shown the bullets in the walls, holes in bodies stinking of clotted blood because they were afraid to go to the doctors. The women had come out in the streets and fallen at the feet of the cops.

It was difficult to remain dry-eyed. An old woman held my hand and ran her finger across my cheek and said, “Beti, if our talk has affected you, can you imagine what our state must be?”

Every dark room had at least one bed-ridden member. Bismillah Walli heaved a sigh of relief as she watched her son, a luxury not many others could afford, But she empathised, and had pulled handcarts and rushed the wounded to hospitals. “Our men were not safe, so we took the responsibility.” But not all women were safe. One got shot in the stomach, another in the neck. Mumtaz was kicked in the groin. A lot of them were called randis. The scars have been internalised.

A darzi showed me charred trousers and shirts. He ran his hands over the rough surface. His world was this small. He could not shed tears for his clients who were burnt to death.

Nasreen worked for community development. “We did not have milk to feed our children, so we gave them rice water and here the cops who were to provide us security were complaining that they had not shaved for two days. On the third day they wanted a black and white TV set, on the fourth day a colour one. How could we cater to their demands when we could not even light a stove in our kitchens? We have to garner resources. We cannot sit and count the dead.”

Death had lost its sting, life its bite. No one cared about shit floating in gutters, mosquitoes breeding there, the sweat, the grime, the having to force oneself into a tiny space to live there, cook there, sleep there, and dream hopeless dreams for the next generation as a woman went into labour pains.

They tried washing the blood-splattered walls, but the marks wouldn’t go. “Yaad dilate rahega yeh,” said a woman with sad eyes. I wanted to ask her who she had lost, but refrained. It was important that she was out there helping her people. They had no time for peace marches, nor were they registered as do-gooders; their donations were not exempt from tax. But they were there -- an eye to keep watch over someone dying in the silence of the night, a hand to hold, a mouth to soothe with words. The fragile straw had become a supporting pillar.

TODAY…

Kalimullah sits outside a mosque in the suburbs. Unlettered, he only knows that times are bad, so he seeks security near the masjid, but does not enter it to pray. He says, “Yeh mazhab nahin, yakeen ki baat hai.” It was faith that made him stay back after Partition. He has not heard about a place called Godhra.

Ismail Attarwalla, a resident of Byculla, a predominantly Muslim locality, said, “Even in all this mess people are worried about the country. It is not the issue of just Muslims. What is happening is an insult to the nation. People are not fools. They realise that politicians are to be blamed. But there are laws. No one can catch hold of our necks and make us leave. The only place I can think of going to is Kabrastan.”

Maulana Azimullah tells me, “It is the work of jaahils. But we cannot be made to leave. Not now, not a hundred years later.”

But why are they thinking along these lines? How many Muslims have been traitors to the country? Haven’t riots put them back by a few years? Have they progressed economically? What have they gained? Have they really tainted the purity of the ancient civilisation? Has there been no contribution at all from the community?

Article 370 for Kashmir and the Muslim Personal Law are sore points. While the former was formulated as an administrative necessity, the latter, though undesirable, seems to be causing problems only for the Brahmin-Rajput sections, minorities themselves. (The rath yatra as a response to Mandal makes its own ironic statement.)

I decided to ask someone from another minority group how she viewed the situation. Maninder Singh believes, “A uniform civil code should have been thought of in 1947, not now. If the state has to exist, it must ensure the safety of everyone’s limbs. You cannot say Muslims don’t belong only because of stray incidents. If the authorities sow the seeds of disintegration, how can they expect honey in return? No one likes to be a fanatic because you lose equally.”

When Mr. Modi says, “Godhra was not an incident befitting civil society”, he is indeed right. But why does he not apply the same standards to his party’s behaviour? Why is the fact of Muslims wearing black bands as a sign of protest wrong and the RJN celebrating the conquest of Ayodhya as ‘swabhimaan divas’ (day of self-respect) acceptable? The attack on the train seems pre-planned, but were the subsequent riots completely an emotional outburst? Why was there no rioting on the same day? Why did they wait for the VHP call for a bandh and then go around torching houses and people? Is there a place for this in civilised society?

Balbir Punj wrote in the Pioneer that those on the train were only chanting “Jai Sri Ram and Jai Bajrang Bali” and such ‘socio-religious slogans’. “But none can contend the VHP’s right to demonstrate for a cause it considers right, regardless of what others might think. Democracy also allows one to raise slogans in support of one’s cause so long as it does not hurt anyone else.” But this was meant to hurt and destroy. Following September 11, when Muslims in some pockets displayed Osama’s pictures, why was there a hue and cry? How did it hurt the Hindus? Are they Americans?

How can those going to Ayodhya be called pilgrims when they had a specific agenda? Do people go on Haj carrying weapons? This year Haj pilgrims were in fact put through extensive search, with US and French experts stationed at Jeddah airport doing digital eye scanning and finger printing. Why did an Islamic country permit such Western intrusion? Only to prove to the world that its hands were clean?

Why do the Hindutva forces feel no such compulsions? The reason is clear. It is not an international movement, so there are no global ramifications and responsibilities. The world is not going to give a call for dealing with Hindu terrorism. Beneath the glove of a soft velvet state lies an iron resolve. Perhaps after years of being ruled by others, the Indian system only knows to play a ‘meethi chhuree’ game. After it threw away the British yoke, it found solace in another outside power – the USSR. With its see-sawing stand towards China, it has the trump card of Tibet. And to show Pakistan what it was made of, it helped create Bangladesh. And seeing that the North-South divide was creating fissures, it worked its charms through the LTTE. One would think no one lives in glass houses anymore.

As the controversy stands today every dead person is a martyr, even if they merely come in the line of a bullet fired in the name of god. I can only dedicate this piece to those who did not die. For they live with the fear that they will anyday soon be consumed by flames. Trust burns away. The phoenix of hatred hovers around haunting the future.

TOMORROW?