The Tree With A Thousand Apples

By Sanchit Gupta

Inspired by true events, this riveting narrative traces the lives of Safeena Malik, Deewan Bhat and Bilal Ahanagar, three childhood friends who grow up in an atmosphere of peace and amity in Srinagar, Kashmir, until the night of 20 January 1990 changes it all. While Deewan is forced to flee from his home, Safeena’s mother becomes ‘collateral damage’ and Bilal has to embrace a wretched life of poverty and fear. The place they called paradise becomes a battleground and their friendship struggles when fate forces them to choose sides against their will.Twenty years later destiny brings them to a crossroads again, when they no longer know what is right and what is wrong. While both compassion and injustice have the power to transform lives, will the three friends now choose to become sinful criminals or pacifist saints? The Tree with a Thousand Apples is a universal story of cultures, belongingness, revenge and atonement. The stylised layered format, fast-paced narration and suspenseful storytelling make for a powerful, gripping read.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Niyogi
• Release date: Jan 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9789385285516

Book preview

Acknowledgments

THE MOLOTOV COCKTAIL

Honeymoon

Safeena knows why she is here, but she can’t tell anybody. She counts the heads; there are more than 50 people around. There are more than a billion all over the country. Within a few hours, she knows, they will all hate her.

‘Driver saab, will you increase the volume of the radio, please?’ shouts the man sitting behind her.

The driver doesn’t seem to pay any attention to the man or his request. He is busy shaking his belly to the songs on the radio. He has synchronised the pedals to the tunes of ‘Sheila ki Jawani’. When the radio plays the slower melodies of the ‘Old is Gold’ slot, the bus crawls at a snail’s pace. When it switches to the latest Bollywood numbers, the bus picks up speed and momentum.

‘Arrey, conductor,’ the man yells out again, ‘increase the radio volume! We can’t hear anything.’ He has a cacophonous voice; it screeches across the rattling windowpanes and over the slouching co-passengers.

Safeena can’t bear the assault on her ears anymore. She is tired and wants to sleep. Should she turn around and confront him? She ponders. Head held down, she steals furtive glances to her left and right. The bus is crowded. She hates crowded places, they make her feel alone. A navy blue dupatta covers her hair and is draped around her neck. She picks up one end and pulls it gently to cover her face. The man continues to yell into her delicate ears. She closes her fists, shuts her eyes and takes a deep breath. Her heart is pumping red liquid into her veins, louder and faster than the rounds of a Kalashnikov. Her fair glowing skin sparkles amid the dark stillness of the bus. Her light-green eyes glitter. ‘It’s a peshkash of the parvardigar, chosen for those who are God’s favourite children,’ the Maulvi had said the day she was born. ‘Your daughter is among a chosen few,’ he had told her mother. And since that day, her mother would always say, ‘No matter where you go, you will carry your glittering green eyes with you. No one can take them away from you. They are your identity, your pehchaan.’

She turns around to face the howler, flashing her identity card in his face. The man has a black mole just below his right eye, a little larger than the size of her iris. His nostrils are reaching for his lips, each one of them vying to win the race. He is grinning broadly. His teeth are red in color, smudged by the sweet paan in his mouth. He holds a tin box in his hands. It has a few more pieces within, preserved for the journey ahead. She recognises the box, similar to the one that she had used to carry her tiffin to school. She can still smell the dum aloo, with the potatoes simmered to the perfect hues of light brown and yellow, and the gravy a concealed deep red. He looks at her and waits for her to speak. She doesn’t. She has the thoughts, but not the words. Yet, he knows she is not dumb. Her eyes talk. They are not threatening him, not scolding either. They request him to keep his voice down. They are tired and need some sleep. He recline sagainst his seat. Her eyelashes flutter, the eyebrows curve dipping deep over her nose. They join ends to form a namaste; they are grateful. She turns around and cushions her head on her folded arms. The eyes close and wait. A few hours more.

The sun is transitioning from a bright yellow to a dull orange. It’s time to go home after another day well spent. It extends its arms to greet the blue earth. ‘Until we meet again, my love. I leave the stars and the sky with you, gatekeepers for the night.’ Clouds are beginning to emerge, dark and ominous, intercepted by the hopeful rays of shimmering moonlight.

The bus meanders through a gorge, tugging along the curves of the Sahyadari ranges, somewhere in the Western Ghats. Every time it takes a sharp turn, Safeena catches hold of the window bars. They may be cold and rusty, but they feel safe. The bus glides off the highway and stops next to a cluster of dilapidated huts and crowded shops. Small bylanes emerge from all directions. The driver parks the vehicle and announces: ‘The bus will stop for 15 minutes. Come back in time. If you are late, we will not wait.’ Several passengers step down and merge into the crowd. Safeena lunges towards the window searching for a signboard. ‘Which town is this?’ she wonders. There is a butcher’s shop nearby. She can smell the lamb being chopped and the mutton being sliced. Her eyes glance over the board hanging above the entrance of the shop. It reads:

Matru Meat Maja

Lohagad Village, District Pune, Maharashtra.

Below the name and address is a caption:

Matru meat maja aali, aata maajhi satakali¹

She looks at her watch. The bus has reached on time. She pulls out her bag from below her seat, slings it on her shoulder and steps down on the dry, cracked road. The deep blue dupatta shields her timid green eyes as she reads Bilal’s message again: ‘Sampat Tea and Snacks, Off Bus stand road, Lohagad. 6 pm’. It is time; he must be coming soon.

Bilal wears a sharp cut beneath his bottom lip. He had shaved in the morning today; he couldn’t remember the last time he had gone through the ordeal. He was out of practice. People used to say he was blessed with a gift: God created 10 bald men and then created Bilal. Today, however, the thick beard, the dense moustache, the long flowing tresses, all of them are gone. He honks through the bustling streets of Lohagad, maneuvering his way through cattle, pigs and people. The car is a battered black Ambassador from a garage in Pune. Its owner in the second-hand market was a happy man when he saw Bilal in the morning. He expected a bargain sale as the vehicle rumbled through the potholes for a test drive. It never returned.

Bilal’s rugged, dirty shoes blow a puff of dust as they land on the ground. His clothes are covered with an overcoat, stretching all the way down to his ankles. His tall, lean frame adorns the landscape of the village. Unencumbered today by the colossal waves of hair they would usually sport, his chiseled face and broad jawline gleam in the setting sun. A black bandana is wrapped around his forehead. A large rucksack hangs on his left shoulder. Women gaze at him with desire, men with envy. Yesterday was his 33rd birthday, the 20th of January, 2012. He recalls a similar night 22 years ago, a night he could never forget, year after year. Today, he feels reborn.

‘You look just like him,’ says Safeena, visibly stunned, ‘what happened to your beard?’

‘There were too many lice,’ he replies. ‘The water here doesn’t suit me I think. You could experiment making a new dish with the millions I flushed down the toilet.’

Safeena rises from her chair and extends her arms to hug him. His sense of humour remains as pathetic as ever, yet he won’t stop trying to make her laugh. He had succeeded in making her cry, though; she still wishes it was not him. Her hair smells of cinnamon and saffron; he takes a deep breath and absorbs the fragrance. The silken touch of her ruddy cheeks lingers in his heart, the delicate embrace of her soft breasts implores him to live. Her eyes are moist, filled with diamonds and emeralds. He cups her face in his hands and wipes her tears away. Her eyes are angry, quiet, brave and vacant.

‘Come, let’s sit inside.’ Safeena leads Bilal past the ramshackle benches placed outside, past Sampat leaning on the dirty counter, and into the inner room of the teashop. She sees a rickety wooden table with a bench on either side and sits on one of them, placing the bag beside her. The last rays of sunshine streaming in from the small window offer more light than the dim bulb hanging precariously on a bare wire above the table.

Bilal rests his rucksack on the floor and sits on the unoccupied bench, next to the table.

‘I must say I am a coward, a bastard, a kameena…’ he says. ‘I am sorry about Malik Chacha. I couldn’t do anything. I didn’t know what was coming, what would happen. I couldn’t face you. I am sorry, Safeena.’

She stares at him and slaps him hard with her right hand. Her fingers leave a red imprint on his pale left cheek, still raw from the morning’s shave.

‘Don’t say anything that will make me want to kill you now. Was Didi not my sister? I know about General Choudhary. God has taken a lot from me. At least you have given me back a part of it. You’re here now, and that’s what matters.’

Sampat walks in to take their order. He stares curiously at Bilal’s left cheek with the red imprint of fingers still clearly visible on it.

‘Two cold drinks,’ says Bilal, ‘one Coke and one Fanta.’

Safeena waits for Sampat to leave and then asks Bilal, ‘Are you sure they will be on time?’

‘We will wait for as long as we can. Have you brought the things I had asked you to?’ he queries.

‘Yes, they are in my bag.’ She is about to pick up her bag when Sampat brings their drinks and opens the glass bottles, placing one each on either side of the table.

‘Chacha,’ says Bilal, ‘can we get two more of the same?’

Sampat looks at him with quizzical eyes. ‘Too many soft drinks can harm your body,’ he keeps telling his son. Two of them in succession can harm you even more, he had concluded. He can’t complain though; this stranger is a profitable customer. Perhaps these two are a honeymooning couple who’ve been quarrelling, he thinks, and goes out to fetch two more bottles.

‘Any difficulty during the journey?’ Bilal asks Safeena. ‘I heard checking and nakas have increased here of late. It must feel like home.’

‘Sure, it does,’ she chuckles. ‘They did stop us once near the state border check post. Searched bags, frisked us, but found nothing suspicious.’

‘What have you done with the other stuff?’

‘After I heard from you, I threw them away as you had said. If it has an end, I want to end this now. I can’t lose him again.’

Sampat comes back with two more cold drink bottles in his hands.

‘Sahab,’ he says to Bilal, ‘you don’t seem to belong to this part of the country. Where are you from?’

I come from a land that has no identity, Bilal wants to say. ‘North India,’ he replies.

‘Okay, tourist! Recent marriage? Honeymoon, you two? You must have come to visit the Lohagad Fort then, isn’t it?’

‘Where is that, Chacha?’ asks Safeena. The thought of a honeymoon catches her attention. There was a time when people would come to her land to celebrate their honeymoons, she had known. Where would she go?

‘The fort? Look up there,’ Sampat points through the window to a range of mountains on the horizon, and the corrugated walls of a fort sprawling over them. ‘That is the Lohagad Fort. Pride of Maharashtra. The great Chhatrapati Shivaji ruled from there.’

‘Why would he make a fort over the hills?’ she asks keenly. After a long time, someone is having an honest conversation with her.

‘For defence and security, what else? He fought the British, don’t you know? One of the greatest guerrilla fighters of all time.’

‘And what did he fight for, Chacha?’

Sampat is taken aback by her question. There is innocence in her eyes and ignorance in her words.

‘Azadi!’ he proclaims proudly. ‘What else? Freedom!’

Safeena goes quiet. Her lips turn dry, her hands stiff; the chair feels cold; the feeble sun burns her skin. ‘Hum kya chahte? Azadi!’² The words still rang in her ears, as they had for 23 long years. She lowers her eyes demurely and fidgets with the ends of her dupatta.

Sampat is befuddled by the sudden change in behaviour. He doesn’t want a tourist and a guest to be offended. He is proud of Shivaji and his battle for freedom. Why is she not aware of his heroics?

‘Chacha,’ intervenes Bilal, ‘can we have some straws with these, please? We can’t drink without straws.’

Bilal gets up and walks out towards his car. He takes a large empty plastic bottle from the car and siphons petrol from inside the tank. The dirty yellow liquid gurgles and climbs up, fighting its way out of the enclosed metal walls and the stifling cylindrical hose. It wants to be free, unaware of the impending slavery and death ordained by its next ruler. Its destiny is to burn for its conqueror.

He places the bottle on the table and reaches out to his rucksack. He takes out a pair of matchboxes, a few steel paper clips, tissue paper and some rubber bands.

‘Okay, Ms Safeena Malik,’ he says, ‘the honeymoon is over. Will you help me in the kitchen now, please? If you haven’t noticed, we have less than an hour to prepare the dinner.’

Safeena lifts her bag and hands it over to him. Bilal shoves his hand in to find a pair of kitchen knives, a plastic bottle with dark-brown transparent liquid and a small cylindrical container filled with a light-brownish, highly viscous paste. He takes them out and spreads them on the table. He scrutinises the assortment and uses one of the kitchen knives to check the paste. A calm, crooked smile adorns his lips. The density is fine; it would work well.

Safeena opens a matchbox and spreads the matchsticks on the surface of the table. The ground is not even and the table wobbles when a weight is placed on it. She picks up a pebble and wedges it below one of the legs. She can’t afford to let the dark-brown liquid spill over.

She breaks off the matchstick heads using her knife, powdering the reddish brown material into tiny pieces. She draws a straw from a cold drink bottle, wipes it dry and cuts it into two equal halves. With steady hands, she inserts the powder from the matchstick heads into the straw and secures one end with a piece of tissue. She takes a few more matches and tapes them around the straw, their heads facing upwards. She untangles a paper clip and bends it neatly to form a ring around the matches and central straw, twisting the ends of the wire to hold together firmly. She peels off the striking surfaces of the matchbox and sticks them around the wire ring, with the checkered side out, fortifying the complete structure with tape and rubber bands. This is the fuse.

Now comes the tough part. She shakes her hands, cracks her knuckles and rubs her shoulders. She picks up the cylindrical box with the viscous light-brown paste. It has a small hole carved out in the centre. With delicate hands, she needs to insert the taped fuse inside the hole in the paste. A little friction could lead to a burn. She can’t go too deep or it will explode in her hand, she can’t keep it loose or else it will not hold together. She looks at Bilal, who is measuring the exact quantities of the dark-brown and the dirty yellow liquids required. She takes a deep breath and holds the two parts in her hands, the mixture and the fuse, parallel to her eyes. Carefully, she slides the fuse into the cylinder, one millimetre at a time. It holds. She wipes the sweat from her forehead and secures the fuse firmly with more tape.

‘It is ready,’ says Bilal, holding the piece in his hands. ‘You have learnt well and fast.’ He smiles. ‘But I will use it, not you. When the fuse is detached, it can be dangerous. You will use the cocktails. We need three more of these.’

Bilal has emptied the four cold drink bottles and half-fills each of them with the dirty yellow liquid. He must ensure his measurements are exact; a mistake with the ratios could be lethal. He has a trained eye. His fingers move with precision. He lifts the dark-brown liquid and measures out one-fourth of the bottle’s volume. Cautiously, he mixes the two fluids together leaving the remaining one-fourth of each bottle empty, filled with air. He hunts inside his rucksack again and pulls out two cloth belts sewn into many pouches. Each pounch contains either a cube of a white foam-like substance or what looks like a miniature greenish soap bar. Carefully pulling out a foam-like cube and a green bar, he shreds them both into small pieces and sprinkles a little into each of the bottles. He puts the cloth belts back in his backpack. He takes a thick, coarse rag, tears it into four pieces and dips them into the yellow liquid. Gently, he ties them around the neck of each of the bottles. The cocktails are ready. He picks up one of them and hands it over to Safeena, smiling rakishly.

‘Cheers!’

7:30 pm. The night is dark and silent. Clouds hover in the sky, shielding the stars and the moon. The wind blows gaily, caressing the trees, the huts and the poles that come in its way. A narrow road meanders through the hills, apparently without a beginning and an end. Just past the Lohagad bridge, there is a sharp turn that curves into the steep ascent of the Western Ghats. The black ambassador is parked in a desolate corner near the turn. Bilal sits behind the wheel, holding a lit cigarette in his hand. He takes a puff and passes it to Safeena.

‘You know why a honeymoon is called a honeymoon?’ she asks him.

‘Where do you keep reading such things?’ he wonders. He is perplexed, but not surprised.

‘Because a new marriage is as sweet as honey, and while like a moon it’s expected to last forever, it changes itself every night, no sooner full than it begins to wane.’

He ponders over her definition. ‘What if I don’t like honey? I think jaggery is sweeter and better than honey.’

‘What do you mean better?’ she enquires. She used to keep two jars of honey at home all the time, one for daily use and the other for emergencies. An insult to shehed is an insult to her.

‘I know you are a better cook than I am, but honey, well, that is an overrated ingredient.’ He takes the cigarette back from her. ‘A viscous liquid that leaves your hands sticky, how do you eat it? It goes with bread, but what else? It doesn’t work properly with any other food item, and becomes a dinner invitation to the ants. It’s a messy substance. Jaggery, on the other hand, has character.’

‘And honey has none of it?’

‘A little maybe, but not what is required. Form is important. That makes character. It’s cleaner. It stores more easily. It travels better. Have you ever heard of travel bags ruined by loose corks of jaggery boxes?’

‘I haven’t heard of honey having done so either,’ she defends.

‘Yes, but you see, there is potential. There is probability. Life is a game of probability. Now, what if I leave you with a little bottle of honey in your bag and put you on a roller coaster. Would you like that? Or maybe, just maybe, would you prefer some sweet little cubes of jaggery?’

‘Why would I need anything sweet on a roller coaster?’

‘Maybe you do. I once climbed on one of those things when I was a kid. I was terrified. I needed something sweet. I eat sweets when I am terrified.’

‘I sneeze when I am. The empty house would shiver. Neighbours used to think I have an allergy, a disease. I was afraid of the dark. During the night when the town would sleep, I would hold the pictures in my hands and wail. And sneeze, one after the other.’

She has not sneezed even once today. It must be a different day. The cigarette switches hands again. She closes her eyes and takes a long, deep drag.

‘What will you do after this?’ she asks him. ‘Marry a beautiful girl? Go on a honeymoon?’

Bilal smiles; she is still so naïve. The curse of the land isn’t strong enough to change certain people. The most venomous of snakes can’t pollute the trees of Chandan, yet the selfless one shall nurture them with its shade, always. He is not worthy of her, he knows. She will be safe with him, though; he can make sure of that.

‘They will come after him,’ he says, ‘and hence after you as well.’

‘Yes, and so, I don’t want to meet you again after today. I don’t want your life to be at risk.’

‘You think I can live knowing your life is at risk? And his?’

‘We will go as far and for as long as we can. This is my mess. I created it and dragged you and him into it. What was his fault that he has to see this day today? That they want to hang him even before Kasab?’

‘It’s not your fault either.’

‘He wanted to play cricket, like Kapil Dev, as he would say—an all-rounder.’

‘Or Imran Khan. Don’t be so hard on yourself, Safeena. I know what you have gone through. The one who has sinned is me. God will punish me for my sins.’

‘It is unfair. God is unfair. His, mine, yours, whosoever’s God exists, wherever he does. He is unfair. What was our fault, Bilal?’ Diamonds and emeralds down her cheeks, ‘What was our fault? What? Why does he want us to lose everything we would ever want? Why does he make us do things we never wanted to do? Why you? Why me? Why him?’

She stretches her arms and holds his hands. His palms are crisscrossed with innumerable scars. The hathon ki lakeerein are missing, or re-created by fellow men. His left hand is adorned with a bracelet of blue pearls. In place of his little finger there is just an an exposed bone, the open flesh wrapped in cotton and cloth. She lifts it up and touches it with her closed eyes. It is cold and numb, like the meat in her freezer used to be. She takes the finger to her lips and kisses it gently.

‘I will miss you, but it is the right thing to do,’ she says. ‘Start a new life, Bilal. New place, new people, new hopes and new dreams. You will always be a part of my prayers.’

8:30 pm. In the cracked rearview mirror, a white jeep approaches the black ambassador. Two miniature Indian flags are affixed to the front corners of the jeep’s bonnet, swaying vigorously in the frenetic wind. A blue minibus follows the jeep onto the bridge. Bilal revs up the engine and turns the wheel. The car hurtles towards the centre of the road, facing the gorge. The bridge is narrow, a mild stream trickles in-between the giant rocks, much milder than the ferocious Jhelum beside his house. The jeep’s driver doesn’t notice the ambassador lounging in the dark corner, blocking its way. A few metres from Bilal, the jeep screeches to a halt. Bilal’s black bandana covers his face and forehead. His eyes stare at the wheels.

The jeep flashes its headlights at the stationary car. The windows are fastened, painted pitch black from the inside. The jeep’s horn blares followed by an ominous silence—the wait is deceptively calm. When no one moves, the jeep’s white door creaks open and a man with pointed, black, shiny shoes steps out onto the bridge. A leather holster strap hangs from his shoulders, a 0.357 Magnum and a 0.45 Colt dangling from the sides. Biceps flex, testing the seams of the khaki shirt. Dark-black shades are folded and tucked into the front of his shirt. Eyes scan the car from left to the right, top to bottom. He points the Colt towards the front window of the ambassador.

‘Who is there inside? Step out,’ he shouts.

The bulky black ambassador remains silent. The frogs are croaking in the gorge below; the nesting birds are awakened by the blaring horn. He fires a shot in the sky. Crows and pigeons rise into the air fluttering their wings. Click. A fuse gets detached. A hand protrudes from the ambassador and a small cylindrical substance is thrown into the air. He looks up and takes aim. A sharp kitchen knife slices through the air and cuts into his chest. Hands drop; the big black shades crash near the pointed, black, shiny shoes.

Murky orange smoke starts diffusing into the air. The vehicles on either side turn invisible. Sounds of footsteps clatter on the bridge. ‘Now!’ shouts Bilal, and Safeena lobs a Molotov cocktail in the air. The jeep burns, along with the khaki uniforms. Men jump off the bridge into the stream. Bilal