Darshan by Amrit Chima Page B

hardened. “Perhaps he does not deserve it. He is a traitor who conspired with other traitors.”
    “The government deserved it,” Baba Singh said.
    The guard tapped his uniform, a threat. “The government takes care of me,” he replied.
    “You can keep the toy,” Khushwant said hastily. “We don’t need it.”
    The head guard smiled with hostility. “Vakash, the key,” he called over his shoulder as he led them down a corridor to Ranjit’s cell.
    “Baba,” Desa whispered. “You have not seen him. He will not look like himself. He—”
    “He was lucky,” the guard said, overhearing. “We know what he did, but they say he is not a threat. Who are we to argue? We tried our best to get him to talk. We think the elephant made him look innocent. Terrorists do not play with toy elephants, right Vakash?”
    “No, sir,” Vakash grinned, jogging toward them with the key.
    The head guard stopped in front of Ranjit’s cell. “Right baby Ranjit? Ranjit baby?”
    Baba Singh peered into the dark cell, his eyes slowly widening when he found his brother. Ranjit sat cross-legged on the cement floor against the far stone wall. His turban was off, crumpled in the corner. His hair draped down his back in frizzy clumps. He had lost an eye, a patch of scarred skin where the eye once was. His lips were cracked, his body—clothed only in a dhoti—was covered with half-healed scars from whip lacerations, and some of his fingernails were missing. His feet and wrists were chained.
    “He never said a word, only cried like a baby,” the head guard told them as Vakash loosened the chains. He then tossed Avani’s elephant at Ranjit’s feet where it landed with a clatter. “Oi, get out of here, Ranjit baby. Time to go, unless you want to stay for more.”
    Vakash nodded at Baba Singh. “No Bansals here,” he said, following the head guard down the hallway, heels clicking on the cement floor.
    “Baba?” Ranjit said faintly. “Did you come for me?”
    Baba Singh’s knees went weak and he grabbed the cell bars to steady himself. “God,” he whispered, face to face with a fate that should have been his. “Wait,” he cried out to the guards.
    They stopped.
    “The doctor was brought here in the year 1912,” he repeated, his voice loud and panicked. “You might remember. He had a chipped tooth, and his hair was always combed, and he spoke strangely, his mouth was red from too much paan, and his favorite sweets were ladoos.”
    “Don’t recall.” The head guard shrugged and moved on down the corridor.
    “Is this what I have done to him?” Baba Singh choked, turning back to his brother.
    Ranjit picked up the elephant with his bloody fingers as Khushwant and Desa rushed in to help him stand. “No, Baba,” he said, misunderstanding. “These were my choices. You were right. I should have stayed with you.” He started to cough.
    “What did I tell you, Ranjit?” Baba Singh said, standing next to his brother. “You were just running. I did not want you to go.” He slid his hand around Ranjit’s waist, speaking softly, “I am much worse. What I did was so much worse. And all this time I have hated you.”
    Ranjit smiled weakly. “I know, Baba. I have hated myself.”
     
    ~   ~   ~
     
    A son was not the sort of penance Baba Singh had expected for his crime, but when Manmohan was born he fully comprehended the enormity of what he had done. He had ruined his own child with a legacy of violence and brutality, had brought him into a world of greed and cruelty. Over the next two years, Baba Singh handled his son at a distance, watched him grow with an increasing concern that the social and political threats continuing to brew around them would one day turn Manmohan into the enraged and lost man that he had become.
    And he could hardly bear his wife’s discerning eyes, her intuitive understanding that something was wrong, that something had changed despite his obliging smiles. He had also ruined her, had sentenced