Tryst with Destiny

By Ikbal Singh

"It's a new India," Charu's grandfather told her on their walks past the hospital. "Women can be doctors now."

It's the end of World War II in Guna, India, and as a small child, Charu vows to become a doctor, as doing good deeds is the path to salvation in her Hindu faith. On the bus to med school in Gwalior, Charu meets the vivacious Shyla, another med student who inspires Charu to take new risks. Just as Charu is set to graduate, her father arranges a marriage for her with Jashar, the son of a political affiliate, but Jashar is not what he seems. Charu flees the marriage to focus on her work as a doctor, spreading the message of birth control across the country to improve living conditions for the children of India with Shyla by her side. But birth control is highly controversial in Indian culture, and Charu faces vicious resistance as she is accused of playing God.

Can Charu bring change for India's future generations, or will her message be silenced?

• Language: English
• Publisher: Kay Press
• Release date: Jun 11, 2021
• ISBN: 9798201843588

Book preview

Chapter One

Land of Kings

When Charu was born in 1938, Hitler had just moved into Austria and arsenals were being stocked with armaments as Indian soldiers prepared to help the British fight the Führer. But the sleepy town of Guna lay quiet on the edge of the red desert of Rajastan. It was not Guna’s war.

Charu was raised on top of her family’s shop in the bazaar. Every shop had a flat on top and a roof patio separated by a low partition wall, and the children would race back and forth from one end to the other — a dangerous game. Charu’s father, Ramu, was always on and off work, and her mother, Shifa, was always in and out of pregnancies. After Charu came Charu’s brother, Ashok, and then another brother the next year, who died just months after he was born. 

Charu’s father threw a plate across the room. My boy is dead.

He always blamed her mother when things went wrong and her mother never fought back. Charu was afraid of him.

The war in Europe eventually calmed to a simmer as the British Indian army switched gears to fight in Northern Africa against the Axis. Some Indian revolutionaries refused to fight and joined the Axis to go against Britain. Charu’s grandfather said the war would cause famine in parts of India, and it soon did. There was usually food to eat in Charu’s home, but not always good food, and sometimes, her father would neglect to provide their mother with the weekly stipend, leaving Ashok to forage from the market bins.

By the time Charu was seven years old, the war had ended. Charu’s family sold their shop and moved into a new house by Gopal Mandir Temple, surrounded by tall eucalyptus trees. In the back there was a small fenced garden where Charu’s grandfather helped her plant roses and marigolds, as well as pomegranate and lime trees.

As Charu grew, Guna grew with her. The town’s population doubled, and a year later, tripled. The once sleepy town was awake and humming, and business booming.

Where do all the people come from? Charu wondered to her grandfather.

From God. The more the merrier in Guna. Our economy needs growth. But the cities are growing too quickly, Charu’s grandfather worried.

Why, Grandfather? Charu asked.

There are too many children being born. And when too many are born, too many die.

But they are from God, said Charu, confused.

God has mysterious ways, was all her grandfather could offer.

Charu’s window overlooked Gopal Road. She liked to sit at the window and watch patients walk to the hospital for their treatments. She often spent time alone as she had no friends in school, usually engulfed by her own complex thoughts. When at home, apart from helping her mother in the kitchen, Charu would sit by the window reading. The eucalyptus trees grew taller towards the sky and she wondered if she would also grow taller and smarter. From her grandfather, Charu learned to rise early in the morning, wash and brush her hair, and sit in meditation to perform puja. He would wake up at dawn and descend the ladder from his bed in the loft, then sit in silence as the water for the tea came to a boil. After breakfast, they would meditate.

When there is peace in the belly, there is peace in the mind, he told her.

Charu liked to keep a Shiva lingam because Shiva was the god of life. She also liked to read the Ramayan for the beauty of its poetry about rebirth and goodness. 

Why are all the gods men? Charu asked her grandfather, at the age of eight. 

Because men once ruled the world, he told her.  

Charu saw how her father treated her mother. Did the gods condone his cruelty? Perhaps Charu’s father was battling devils from a past life. Her father and grandfather would often sit listening to the radio. One day, they rose to cheer.

The new India is born! Ramu said, swinging Charu into the air.  

It’s a free India now, her grandfather explained to her.

In the new India, Guna remained the same. Charu was happy, she did not want it ever to change. Charu’s grandfather would take her on long walks along the riverbed to the hospital, a large white building with copper stains around the windows from the heavy rains. She felt sorry for the patients in the windows. One day she would be a doctor and not let her patients wait and worry in their hospital rooms alone. 

Why are we born again and again? Charu asked her grandfather as they walked back home from the hospital.

To make us perfect. We must try harder and harder to do good deeds in God’s purpose. What good deeds will you do? he asked her.

I will be a doctor, she told him.  

You were born at the right moment, her grandfather said. It is the time for growth and change. 

Charu’s father was friends with a local surgeon, Dr. Rishab Anmal, who had a son, Jashar, who Charu went to school with. Charu sometimes passed them on her walks to the hospital. 

Boys and girls can be friends now in the new India, Rishab told Charu. Jashar, be a good boy and walk Charu home.

Charu looked to her grandfather, not wanting to leave his side.

Run along child, he said.

Jashar walked Charu home through the dusty streets. Well-to-do shopkeepers owned the shops along the road that ran from the telegraph office to the railway station. At the far end of the road was the Harijan Kasba, but Charu was not allowed to go near the Harijan as they carried disease.

I will be a surgeon one day in Bombay, Jashar announced, kicking his ball as they walked down the street. You can be my nurse. 

I will be a doctor like you, said Charu.  

Jashar laughed as he opened Charu’s garden gate.  

What kind of doctor? he asked. 

Charu did not know what kinds of doctors there were. 

Don’t be silly, Jashar said. Guna is the Land of Kings. Father said so. 

Charu ran inside. 

Goodbye, Charu! Jashar called. 

Why did you not ask him in? asked Charu’s mother. 

He talks too much, said Charu.  

Charu grew to four feet and ten inches tall and weighed only 95 pounds. She had a square face with tight, straight lips that remained shut tight like a purse. Her arms were short and her thumbs were long and straight. She did not talk to anyone except when necessary. The boys were noisy and dirty. Some of the girls were dirty, too. Charu’s father provided no money for clothing, so she wore the same plain but clean clothing and tight braid day after day.

At home she was cheerful with her mother and took on most of the housework. Every morning before school, she swept the kitchen floor and washed the dishes. Her father spent most of his time with his friends, who were loud and boorish. He spent most of his money impressing them, leaving only a small pittance for Charu’s mother. He would not even offer her a kind word, and would override her wishes and impose his own. Her mother lived in misery, cooking, cleaning. Another baby died in childbirth, a boy who they did not name. Charu’s mother wept on the kitchen floor.   

Another son lost, Ramu said. We are cursed.

She hasn’t enough to eat, father. None of us do, Ashok said.

Would I starve my own family? Ramu said to his son in quiet rage.

Charu worried that she would die next.

Charu wrote her high school exams and passed. Only three students passed the exams that year. She was on her way to becoming a doctor and never wavered from this vision. She would wear a white coat and people would come to see her from all over India. 

Ramu wandered from village to village getting ready for elections and his calculated promises resulted in him being elected as an assemblyman. He was in the inner circle now, and made sure everyone knew it.

Now you will have enough money for college, Charu’s father told her. 

What a difference money made, Charu saw from an early age. Existence depended on it. With money coming in and Papa working in the nearby town of Bhopal, there was peace in the home. But things changed when Charu’s mother gave birth to a baby girl who they named Anamika. Charu’s father had wanted a boy.

It’s for God to say, said Charu’s mother. 

Mama can’t control if it’s a boy or a girl. Can she? Ashok asked.

Charu shook her head no, but she was not sure. 

Anamika had a precious smile and a full, fat face. Charu adored her baby sister and loved taking care of her, and eventually, Ramu also came to love her.

She is a true beauty. Ramu held her up for his friends to admire.

The summer of 1954 was hot, and one night, as the rains came pouring down like a waterfall, Charu’s baby sister died. Charu ran outside and sobbed for her sister in the rain.

Anamika is in the cycle of rebirth, her grandfather consoled her. 

But we have food now, so why did she die? Charu cried.

She is with God, he said, simply.

Inside, Ramu blamed Charu’s mother, pacing furiously. How could you let this happen? he yelled.

Do something, Charu said to her grandfather. Make him stop.

We must not judge, said her grandfather. We must only forgive in the name of God.

For the first time, Charu knew her grandfather was wrong. If to forgive was to do nothing, that was something Charu would never do.

College in Gwalior would be Charu’s first trip outside Guna. She had never been away from her mother. Charu worried about leaving her mother at home with her father, with his drinking and his mood swings.

Charu boarded the bus, finding a seat next to a window, and stuffed her suitcase under her seat.

Looks like Papa was right, said Jashar, boarding the bus behind her. We will be friends after all.

Charu ignored him and read her book. The late monsoon rains had drenched the roads, turning them to rivers of mud. Water was coming through the fogged windows, and the ceiling was dripping, drenching her seat.

The bus struggled through pools of mud for two hours before arriving in Shivpuri, the summer spot of the Raja of Gwalior in his day. He had built a palace by the lake named Tiger Park. At its