The Woman My Grandmother Loved.

Chapter Twenty

India, 1974

3rd January 1974: The strike between the students of LD Engineering colleges resulted in clashes between the students and the police.

7th January 1974: An indefinite strike was declared in educational institutes. The increasing food prices also caused the middle class and factory workers to join the protests. This resulted in the looting of several ration shops.

10th January 1974: The resignation of Chimanbhai Patel was demanded. Violence ensued in the cities of Ahmedabad and Vadodara.

25th January 1974: Clashes between the police and protestors. Curfew imposed. On 28th January, the army was called in to restore order.

9th February: Chimanbhai Patel resigns. President's rule is imposed on the state of Gujurat.

March 1974: Headed by the freedom fighter JP Narain and inspired by the protests in Gujurat, a student-led movement is born in Bihar. This movement was also against the growing corruption and incompetence of the Congress government and demanded the removal of Congress from Bihar.

9th April 1974 The three nations of India, Pakistan and Bangladesh reach an agreement to release the prisoners of the 1971 war.

18th May 1974: India successfully conducted the Smiling Buddha Operation in the Thar desert. This made India the sixth nation in the world to successfully detonate a nuclear weapon. The world's first nuclear powers: USSR, Great Britain, France, China and USA had signed the Non-Proliferation Treaty which stated that they would not transfer their knowledge to other nations. This resulted in India feeling insecure in her ability to stand among the world powers. The Smiling Buddha operation would go down as one of the proudest moments in the modern history of Indian Science and Technology.

8th May-27th May: The 20-day railway strike led by socialist leader George Fernandes. This halted the transport of various goods and services for three weeks. Thousands of railway employees were arrested and the Gandhi government was not easy on the protestors.

Anita,

Your last letter made me cry. I cried for a long time and it felt as though I have finally been absolved of a burden I had been carrying since Jeremy had kissed me two years ago under the Greek summer skies. I do regret the hasty nature in which I wrote to you; as if by brushing it off I could somehow reduce the guilt I felt. There is always going to be this guilt; of having deceived Jeremy but life is certainly a sea of moral greys. This is a societal flaw and the nature of my problems would've been different had we not existed in a world that only chooses to see life as a constant. When in reality, nothing could be more variable in nature than the fragility of existence.

I have thought long and hard about your ability to let me go with such grace and I have to say that I do not possess the same. But for your sake, I will try. My love shall not be jealous because darling, I have loved you and there is nothing in my life that I am more certain of. If this is what my life must be like, then I shall be so without envy. I don't wish to be envious of people for the older I grow, the more I realise that I will never understand the world. It is funny, isn't it? How as children we believed that adults are surer of the world than we are; believing that their steeliness and resolve comes from their confidence about what they know. But now I realise, that it is the uncertainty of life that man must learn to be at ease with.

Perhaps, this is the way I'm so at ease with Jeremy. I am confident that he needn't know about my past. So, many things in life are better left unsaid because the world we live in is not equipped to deal with the truth. It does put the value of honesty into perspective for me- does it even matter? Amidst much debating inside my own head, I have come to the conclusion that it does indeed matter. For, the nature of truth is such that without it everything else ceases to matter.