I returned home last week, after the graduation ceremony in my college, to find that the antique, 200 year old mirror that my family had owned for three generations, and that I had kept in my room for the last six years, had been broken. It was a fine, solid, old thing, made of teak and mahogany with brass handles, with solid, two inch thick glass. An heirloom; which had stood the test of time.
But that was not why I grieved for it. No, I grieved because that mirror had been the last trace of a friend I had made five years ago, the last chance I had of hearing the end of a story that I had heard one dark night, a story which has haunted me ever since
I still remember that night, I was fifteen, and it was my first night sleeping in my new room, alone. I wasn't scared. A fifteen year old generally isn't. But it was a little creepy sleeping in a room full of old, imposing furniture. Relics of a bygone era I was a sound sleeper, and it hadn't taken me long to fall asleep in the 150 year old bed. But then I woke, suddenly. I hadn't heard anything; nothing had disturbed me, but by a queer impulse I found myself getting up from the bed and hurrying to the window. There was nothing there. So I returned to bed. But I felt restless, and got up again, to go to the wardrobe and fetch a blanket. Maybe the cold was making me restless. Then I caught my reflection in the mirror. At first glance it was nothing special. The same room, the same furniture, the same time. But was it? The clock on the wall, the old grandfather clock, which had stopped working fifty years ago, was working! And on the bed, neatly folded, lay a plain white saree. I stepped closer to get a better view. And then I noticed my own refection. It was also wearing a simple printed saree. And its hair was longer, much longer than mine, tied plainly with black ribbons. I opened my mouth in wonder; the reflection smiled.
'Aapni to puro amar moto dekhte!' [You look just like me!], the reflected girl said, in Bengali. 'Aapni key?' [Who are you?] And then we, me and my reflection girl had the most amazing conversation I ever had. It was completely in Bengali, the girl knew no other language. But I will translate it here.
'My name is Anwesha. Are- are you a ghost?' I asked her.
'A ghost?' she laughed merrily. 'Of course not! Do I look like one?'
'Well no.' I admitted. 'But then what are you doing in my mirror?'
'Your mirror!' she exclaimed. 'But this is mine. And you are inside it. Are you a spirit? A witch?'
'No. I'm just a regular teenager.'
'But you must be a spirit! You wear such strange clothes, like a memsahib. And your hair is short. Like a boy's hair. Are you a boy?' she looked at me incredulously.
When I told her I was neither a boy, nor a spirit, she decided that I was a demon. And I never managed to convince her that I was anything else. She didn't mind my being a demon. She was very superstitious. She told me about lots of different super natural creatures she had seen, 'with her own eyes'. For her, the world was just a big vision where humans, ghosts, spirits, goblins, etc. existed side by side. And she told me that her name was Asha.
Asha was the youngest daughter in law of a big joint family, the Mukherjees. Her husband was a clerk in a government office. He was ten years older than her and she worshipped him. She was my age. By the time she had told me all this, I had stopped wondering about how she had come into the mirror in the first place. I had stopped wondering whether I had been dreaming or whether I was awake. I was caught in the charm of her chatter.
'My husband wants to free India.' Asha told me eventually. 'He has heard Gandhi speak, and he wants to join his army of nonviolence.'
This piece of news helped me figure out her time period. She had lived, more that 80 years ago, in the pre-independence era.
Asha herself was not interested in the freedom struggle. When I tried to tell her that India would be independent, in the year 1947, she simply wasn't interested. The home was her domain and her husband was her life. She told me lots of things, like the fact that she wore khadi saris because her husband was a supporter of bapuji. She herself preferred benarasi silk, but she obeyed her husband. She showed me her jewels and gold, and complained to me about her mother in law and sisters in law. She knew how to read and write, but she was not interested in books. She struck me as very childish, and even though I thought her a vision and she thought me a demon, we became friends. This did not happen on that night itself. She appeared to me several times in the next few months, always chattering, always cheerful.
Then one day, when I had just gone to bed, I heard her sobbing. I went to the mirror, and saw her, her hair open, her body bent down in grief. When I asked her what had happened, she sobbed out a single sentence
'He is dead.'
She did not even say his name. And I understood. Her husband had died.
I tried to comfort her, but what can a 21st century girl explain to a twentieth century
Widow? She told me what had happened.
'He had gone to Bombay, to join a Swaraj rally. He was gunned down by the police.'
For the next few months, Asha did not appear clearly in the mirror. Sometimes I caught a glimpse of her, dressed in a plain white khadi saree. Then one night I heard her call me,
'Anwesha?'
I woke up, to see her dressed in a bright red saree, crimson sindoor on her forehead.
'What are you doing?' I asked her, surprised to see her dressed like a bride.
'I am leaving, didi' she said.
'Where?' I asked, frightened by her expression.
'My grandmother, when my grandfather died, dressed like a bride and committed sati' she said.
'You mean that you are going to sacrifice yourself? You are going to be a sati?'
'Oh no, didi. I am not going to kill myself. I am going to fight for independence, like my husband. I will sacrifice myself to the nation.'
And she smiled, a slow sad smile, and disappeared.
I waited, for many years, to hear about what she had done. About how she was. But I never heard from her. And now that the mirror is broken, I never shall.
