It took several moments for me to comprehend what she was saying. When I did, I shook my head. “I’m sorry. That was a different life.” I took Raashi’s arm and we started walking toward the train. “I was from a different India then.”
“Which is why I’ve come.” When she saw I wasn’t interested, she began to speak faster. “My grandfather is a publisher and he’s interested in memoirs set in the colonies. He wants to tell your story. I know you have a train—”
I stopped walking to explain to her there were things in my past I never wished to revisit, but she didn’t even have the decency to look shocked.
“We’ve all done things we’d rather keep in the dark. It’s only by shedding light on them that our demons can disappear.”
Miss Pennywell was no more than twenty-two. What did she know about darkness and demons? “Miss Pennywell, I just don’t see the purpose of such a book.”
“Don’t you regret how the British have changed your country?”
“Some of it has been for the good,” I said, hoping to end our conversation. “This train station, for instance. Without the British, it could not have been built.”
“But think of all the temples that have been destroyed.”
I kept my expression neutral. I didn’t want her to know how often I thought of this.
“Please, just consider it,” she said, then pressed a calling card into my hand. “What if your story convinces the British that Indian traditions are important? What if the King of England himself were to read it and decide that your rani was right? That she wasn’t a Rebel Queen, as they’ve been calling her in England, but a true queen, willing to take up a sword to defend her people against empire builders. Just as you did, Mrs. Rathod.”
Now she was baiting me. I knew it. But I took her card, and after two months of persistent letters, she has finally changed my mind.
Raashi thinks I am brave to write about my past. But my guess is that she really means foolish. After all, memoirs are not open doors into another person’s house. They are more like broken windows, with the owner trying to explain away all of the damage. And I’m not blinded to the truth. I am writing this as much for myself as I am for India.
The sweet scents of garam masala and coriander fill the house, and I know that Raashi is cooking. I should probably begin before this cool morning thaws into a scorching afternoon when nothing but sleeping can be done. But I continue to look at my friends, their worn leather covers as creased and familiar as the backs of my hands. When this memoir is finished, I will not save my diaries. I will take them to the Ganges during Vasant Navratri, when everyone is floating their old calendars down the water, and I will let the goddess of the river determine if the things I did were right; if what happened to my sister, and to India’s bravest queen, should still weigh so heavily on an old woman’s heart.
Chapter One
1840
Imagine I took you down a long dirt road to the edge of a field, and we entered a farmer’s house built from mud brick and thatch. Now imagine I told you, “This is where I stood with the Rani of Jhansi during our escape from the British. And that corner, there, is where we changed into peasant’s clothes so she could reach the Fortress of Kalpi.” I suppose you would look from me, in my respectable sari and fine gold jewels, to the dirt floor of that one-room home and laugh. Only my eyes would remain serious, and slowly, the realization would dawn on you that all of the stories you heard must be true. The Rani of Jhansi—or Queen Lakshmi, as the British persisted in calling her—really did elude the powerful British army by dressing like a common farmer’s wife.