Anu waited on my bed while I fetched a small package wrapped in cloth, and when I took it from the basket where I’d hidden it several weeks before, her dark eyes went big. She was a seven-year-old miniature of our mother, I realized. “For you,” I said, holding out the package.
She felt the edges of the gift. “A diary?” she guessed. I had taught her to read and write when she turned six. “Like yours?”
“Open it.”
She unwrapped the cloth and took out a book. “It is a diary!”
I shook my head. “Look inside.”
My sister’s eyes grew red and weepy as soon as she did. The pages were filled with every memory I had of our mother. Good ones, bad ones, the times when we sat together in a quiet place and she sang ragas to Lord Shiva. “Thank you, Sita. Thank you!” Anu hugged me as tightly as she could. “But why? It’s your birthday today.”
“Because I know you would make Maa-ji very proud. And I want you to know her.”
“When you pass the trial,” Anu said suddenly, “will you come back here to visit me?”
“Of course. We’ll never be apart for long.” If a trial is ever called, I thought.
“Is that a promise?” She looked up at me with our mother’s eyes.
“Yes. And now it’s time for puja.”
I led her into our puja room and I let her ring the bell, so the gods would know we were there. Then we knelt before the images of Durga and Ganesh and I recited the Durga mantra. We touched the gods’ feet with our right hands, then touched our foreheads with the same fingers. Finally, I lit two sticks of incense and prayed that the day would go smoothly for us, and as always, that a trial would be called for soon.
A few days later, while I was practicing archery with my father, the gods answered my prayer. Shivaji arrived in our courtyard with the unbelievable news. “The rani has retired one of her Durgavasi,” he said. “There’s going to be a trial in twelve months.”
“I’ll be seventeen. I won’t even have to lie!”
Shivaji was about to reply when I heard Anu cry, “Sita!” She came running over to join us. “There’s a bird on the ground and his wing is broken!” We walked over to where she pointed and saw a small bulbul with dark feathers and bright red cheeks nursing a broken wing by keeping it close to its tiny body. Anu reached down and scooped the bird into her hands. “Can it be fixed? Does anyone know how to help him?”
Warring emotions crossed Shivaji’s face—the desire to begin our lesson, and the desire to help. “My youngest son might be able to mend it. He has a gift for healing. Sometimes he visits the animal hospital to be of service.”
While Shivaji returned with his son, I fetched my dupatta and drew it over my head, covering my hair with the light scarf women wear around their necks.
“You remember Ishan?” Shivaji said as an introduction.
The boy next to him smiled shyly. I’d heard he’d recently celebrated his fourteenth birthday, but he was slight for his age, the youngest and smallest of his brothers. He bent to touch Father’s foot with his right hand, then immediately touched his third eye and heart. This is a typical greeting in India, especially if a younger person has not seen an elder in some time.
“Ishan?” Grandmother said from the door. She hurried out into the courtyard and Anu instinctually stepped closer to me. “Just look at him!” Grandmother said, as if she was seeing a wondrous animal for the first time. “Exactly like his father. Tall and handsome.”
In reality, he was none of these, but to watch Grandmother you might actually believe it. Grandmother was like an opal. You could never be sure which colors were really there, and which were just tricks of the light.
“The gods have always blessed you, Shivaji. Three sons, and not a single daughter.”
“Perhaps that’s why I feel so attached to your grandchildren,” he said. “They are the little girls I never had.”
I never felt more grateful to our neighbor than I did in that moment.
But even with Father standing beside her, Grandmother didn’t bother to hide her disgust. “I keep reminding Nihal that sons make up a house’s worth. He must remarry, or he’ll be fated to rot here with only daughters as heirs. Aren’t I right?”
Our neighbor looked deeply uncomfortable. He tugged at his mustache, and his son looked at the ground. Finally, he said, “It’s not for me to say what another man should do. Ishan, why don’t you go take a look at the bird?”
My sister was still cradling the little bulbul in her hands, pressing him against her chest for warmth. Reluctantly, she offered the creature to Shivaji’s son, who took him to a small table below our kitchen window.
Anu stood next to him while he worked. He asked her to hold the bird steady while he wrapped a strip of linen around its body, immobilizing the bird’s broken wing. The two of them worked quietly together. I glanced at Shivaji and saw that he wore a thoughtful expression on his face.
That evening, I went to our puja room. I prayed before the statue of Durga, the goddess of female power and the slayer of demons. I asked for help not just in passing the trial, but also in saving the kind of fortune that would find my sister a respectable husband.
“Someone tender,” I prayed, “who will take care of her when Father has passed and I am away.”
I touched my forehead to the jute mats, then lit a second stick of incense and watched the smoke curl around the goddess’s body. Long before I was born, Father had taken great care to carve each of her ten arms wielding a different weapon; soon, I would be using most of those weapons in a trial that would determine not just my fate, but Anu’s.
A sniffling sound echoed from down the hall. When I rose to investigate, I found Anu on her bed, weeping.
“Why are you crying?” I asked.
She buried her face into her pillow.
“Anu?”
She turned and faced the wall. I sat on her bed and waited for her to speak.
“Nobody wants me,” she said at last.
“Who told you that?”
“You did. You’re going away.”
“Anu . . . I’m going away to try to give you a better life. Don’t you want to marry and have children?”
“I want to be with you.”
“But if I pass this trial, I’ll be living in the city as a soldier. I will never marry. I will never have children. Don’t you want more for yourself?”
“You’re going to leave me here with Dadi-ji.”
“And Pita-ji. Remember that.”
“He’s always busy.”
“Yes, but never too busy to read to you.”
She smiled a little. Then the fear came back into her face and she whispered, “Please don’t leave me here with her.”
“Anu, I’m not leaving forever. This will always be my home.”
And you should know that these were not empty words. I really did believe what I was saying.
Chapter Six
1851
Once, when I was five or six, one of the maharaja’s envoys passed through Barwa Sagar on his way to a much bigger city. When he crossed through our village, everyone came out to see his incredible procession. He arrived in a caravan of carts drawn by satin-draped camels and bullocks, and behind him swayed a long line of pony-traps whose riders were shielded from the midday sun by large silver umbrellas. The women of our village stood huddled together behind the latticed screens of our largest temple, watching in awe as the men in their heavily jeweled saddles rode by. Even Mother, who was not impressed by luxuries or gold, had wide eyes that day. “This is something you will never see again,” she told me.
Now I wondered what she would think if she knew that in a few days, an even larger procession from the city of Jhansi would arrive in Barwa Sagar for the sole purpose of deciding whether I had the skills to become the tenth member of the queen’s Durga Dal.
For the next two days, whenever I wasn’t training with Shivaji I was readying my weapons—polishing my father’s dagger to a sheen, restringing my bow. Of all the women who were vying for this position, I wouldn’t have the fanciest weaponry, but I knew I would have the skills. If my nerves didn’t get the best of me, I wasn’t going to fail that part of the trial.
At one point, as Grandmother watched me shoot arrows into a target Shivaji had set up beneath our tree, I heard her remark to Avani, “So she can shoot an arrow. Who’s taught her to be entertaining and charming?”
I knew I shouldn’t pay attention to anything Grandmother said. She wanted me to fail; was actively trying to make me doubt myself. Still, the next morning, as the orange blush of dawn crept over the courtyard, I asked Shivaji if Grandmother was right, if I needed to be charming.
“Yes. The queen’s women are not just chosen for their skills,” he said, sitting crossed-legged under our peepal tree with Father. “Durgavasis are also chosen for their ability to keep the queen company and entertain her. That means they have to be beautiful and clever as well.”
I had trained for the last eight years. I could outshoot Shivaji with a bow and arrow. But no one had ever said anything about being beautiful or clever. “And how am I supposed to do that?”
“There’s nothing you have to do, Sita. You are all of those things already.”
I glanced at Father, who seemed to understand what Shivaji was saying, because he smiled.
“I think we should work on being charming today,” I said.
Shivaji laughed. “Charming is something a woman learns when she realizes how beautiful she is. Not enough people have told you how beautiful you are, Sita.”
I touched my hair self-consciously.
“Not just here.” Shivaji indicated my face. “Here.” He placed his hand on his heart. “You are charming because you are educated and you are honest. Those may be refreshing traits in the palace. Instead, let’s work today on what you will say when the Dewan arrives.”
So for the next three days, Father and Shivaji spent our usual training time preparing me for the Dewan’s interview. We rehearsed answers to the questions the Dewan might ask, even surprising ones, such as, “What is your favorite food?”
On the last day, Shivaji said, “There are hundreds of girls across this kingdom who’ve also been preparing for years for the Dewan’s visit. For nearly every job in the palace, bribes are expected.”
I’d heard this, and my heart sank at the idea.
“But no one has ever bribed their way into the queen’s Durga Dal. The final choice rests with the Dewan; when he believes he’s found the right girl, the search is called off.”
I was silent. What if they found the right girl today before I had a chance to prove myself?
“When it’s time for the interview,” Shivaji continued, “the Dewan will try to trick you. He will ask you about imaginary situations involving the rani, and in every case, there is only one right answer: the rani herself. If he asks who the ultimate authority is in the palace, for you it is Rani Lakshmi. If he wants to know to whom you owe your allegiance, it is Rani Lakshmi. The Durga Dal are her personal guards, not the maharaja’s. They are there to protect and entertain her, no one else.”
Father took up his pen and wrote in his book, “A list of your skills was sent to the Dewan three months ago. He may choose to challenge any one of them.”
“Which skills were listed?” I wrote back.
“Only what you do flawlessly. Archery, swordsmanship, shooting, riding, lathi, malkhamba.”
Lathi, if you don’t know, is a type of exercise performed with a stick. Malkhamba is a form of gymnastics.
“And all of your intellectual skills,” Father continued. “Your talent at chess, and your ability to speak Hindi, Marathi, and most important, English.”
I didn’t need to ask why English was most important. It was the only skill that might separate me from the hundreds of other girls hoping for this chance, since anyone could call the Dewan to their home for a trial. In 1803, the Raja of Jhansi signed a friendship treaty with the British East India Company. Thirteen years later, another treaty was signed in which the British agreed to allow the current ruler to carry his line forward without their interference. In just a few years, the treaty had turned from one of mutual protection to one in which Jhansi had to seek British approval for the right to its own throne. The camel’s nose was not just in the tent. The entire camel had entered. By the time our raja, Gangadhar Rao, took the throne, it was only because the British had chosen him. Now English was spoken at court as often as Hindi.
But Shivaji warned, “The Dewan will be able to speak English. If there’s a word you’re unsure of, don’t use it to impress him.” He took Father’s red book and added, “If she passes tomorrow, she will need new clothes. At least two angarkhas for travel and another for court. Plus slippers.”
We didn’t have the money for new clothes, let alone another pair of slippers.
“Can’t I wear what I have?” I asked.
Shivaji was firm. “Not in Jhansi.”
“If she passes,” Father wrote, “I will get whatever is needed by afternoon.”
But I couldn’t think that far ahead. My thoughts were with the Dewan, who even now was traveling east to see me.
The following morning, Anu trailed behind me while I took my bath. She kneeled with me in the puja room, praying as I did for the strength to impress the Dewan. Then she sat beside me while Avani lined my eyes with black kohl and rouged my lips. But when I reached out to take her hand as Avani braided my hair, she withdrew hers. I understood why she was upset.
“Do you remember when we read the Bhagavad Gita together?” I said.
She didn’t reply.
“How Lord Krishna convinced Arjuna to fight a war against his own brothers even though his heart wasn’t in it? Why did he fight that battle?”
Anu remained silent while Avani slipped green bangles onto my wrists. She wasn’t going to answer, so I did it for her.
“Because it was the right thing to do. The death of his brothers would save thousands of innocent lives in the future. Sometimes, Anu, we have to take actions that make us sad because it’s the right thing to do for the future.”
She watched while Avani fetched Mother’s gold earrings and thin gold necklace from the locked chest. When Avani was about to put them on me, my sister said suddenly, “Can I do it?”
Avani stepped aside. I felt Anu’s small hands at the back of my neck and fought the urge to cry. I was doing this for her as well, I reminded myself. I’d watched for several weeks while she had nursed the tiny bulbul back to health; her tears of joy when it finally flew away. Sometimes birds are injured and they die. But then they are reborn into healthy bodies. That is samsara. But Anu was too gentle and tender to rationalize these things. Loss, pain, separation . . . these were things I needed to protect her from.
“Look in the mirror,” Anu said wonderingly. “You’re a princess.”
She was right. I didn’t recognize the girl with her long neck ringed in gold and her full lips bright against her pale face. This was someone who belonged to a wealthy family, with a good marriage and at least two children and a long life of family duties ahead. None of that had happened for me, and standing there in front of Mother’s mirror, I was determined to make it happen for Anu.
Everyone assembled in our courtyard—Father, the priest, Shivaji and his three sons, plus countless neig
hbors pretending to be there for Father’s sake but truly there for a glimpse of the Dewan. Even Aunt had traveled across Barwa Sagar with her husband and children to witness my trial. Our house had not had so many visitors since the day of Mother’s funeral.
The women in our neighborhood gathered in the kitchen, where Avani and Grandmother had prepared trays of food. There were terra-cotta bowls filled with sweet milk, fresh slices of fruit, fried milk balls dripping with syrup, and sherbet garnished with rose petals. But I wasn’t hungry. I sat alone in my room and waited for the sound of the procession. I was not to exit the house until the Dewan’s arrival; it would be the first time our neighbors had ever witnessed a woman in Barwa Sagar breaking purdah.
“There is no shame in it,” Shivaji said. “In Jhansi, none of the women are in purdah,” he reminded me. “They ride as freely through the streets as men.”
“Is that the same for every great city?”
“No. Only Jhansi. But there, no one thinks twice about it.”
He made it sound simple, but when Father came and wrote on my palm that the Dewan’s procession had been seen entering our village, my heart began to beat wildly in my chest.
“There’s nothing to fear,” he added. “Pass or fail.” He reached into his kurta and placed a long leather necklace in my hand. At the center dangled a single charm—a peacock carved from bamboo. “Today, you must be all-seeing,” he wrote, “like a peacock with a hundred eyes. But you must also be like bamboo. When a storm comes, bamboo bends. It doesn’t break.”
Music began to echo through the courtyard. The Dewan’s procession had arrived. The people in the courtyard immediately stopped talking, and Anu’s small feet slapped down the hall to fetch me.
Father’s hand closed over mine. “Shubhkamnaye, little peacock,” he mouthed. Good luck.
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