Saree

by Su Dharmapala

‘They are students at the mill and they are my concern,’ Guru Raju said. ‘Let them go.’

  The man cocked his gun, but before he could pull the trigger, Guru Raju fired, taking aim at the coconut tree just beyond. The bullet grazed the thug lightly above the left eye. ‘Next time I won’t miss,’ Raju warned. ‘I will kill you and the police will thank me for it!’

  Maybe it was the talk of police that made the thug stand down, or maybe it was the light trickle of blood that dripped down his face past the corner of his mouth. But he did lower his gun. Just enough. Guru Raju jerked his head at the students, indicating that they should leave. As he followed them, he tossed a handful of notes in the muddy laneway. ‘This should cover his debts and then some!’

  Panadura, Moratuwa, Ratmalana, Mount Lavinia, Dehiwala . . . Nila counted each of the stations on the train line back home with a heavy heart each Friday night. Each station meant she was closer to home, but there would be no welcoming smile or cheery cup of tea to greet her. Home she went nevertheless, carrying in her bag little treats for Rupani, consoling herself with the thought that her return to the mill was only two short days away.

  Even so, Nila was completely taken back by the greeting she received on this particular Friday evening. Her mother barely acknowledged her as she came through the front door, saying only that she should go straight through. Piyasili Ranasinghe – the usurper of her room – would be dining with them, along with her playboy planter brother, Sunil, who came down each weekend in his shiny Ford to pick up and drop off his sister. The whole family were already seated at the dinning table with a large spread of rice and curry before them.

  Rupani had been steadily flirting with Sunil, batting her doe eyes and sighing winsomely at everything he said. ‘Oh, Sunil,’ she would giggle, ‘tell me all about tea planting. I have such an interest in horticulture! I tend all the plants here in our garden.’ To Nila’s dismay their mother would not call her lie or point out that Rupani would sooner walk on hot coals than tend the garden for fear of spiders and insects.

  After changing out of her travelling saree and washing off the grime of the road at the well, Nila waited for her mother to call her to join their guests for dinner. Having been dismissed so summarily, Nila did not dare risk her mother’s temper by presuming she would be welcome to dine with them. As she waited, she heard snatches of conversation.

  ‘Shah, putta, I am so glad to hear you showed that Tamil bugger a thing or two,’ Mervan said when Sunil told them how he’d caught out a thieving employee.

  Manoj obsequiously offered to refill Sunil’s empty arrack glass with more liquor: ‘It’s a local brew but superb.’

  ‘Anay, putta, please have more paripu. You have such a long drive ahead of you. Rupani cooked it for you especially,’ Vera lied, ladling another helping of lentil curry onto Sunil’s plate.

  It sounded as if the family was settling in for a long night of conversation when Mervan started reminiscing about his days as a young postal officer during the war. ‘I rode from Colombo to Trincomalee carrying telegrams for the admiralty that Easter Sunday when the raid happened . . .’

  So, following a habit of a lifetime, Nila slipped into Mrs Vasha’s house in search of sustenance.

  ‘I suspected I’d see you soon,’ the old lady told her, pushing Nila to the dining table. She set a plate down in front her and filled it with creamy pol kiri hodi and some crusty bread.

  ‘Do you know what is going on over there?’ Nila asked, jerking her head in the direction of her own house before taking her first mouthful of the spicy coconut curry.

  ‘Sunil Ranasinghe brought Anoja some milk toffees last week and this week he brings her an invitation to visit with them on the estate for the Uva Planters’ Ball. Your parents are discussing the trip with Sunil and Piyasili.’

  ‘Does Sunil like Rupani then?’

  ‘I doubt that Sunil likes your sister any more than he likes the cows he keeps for milk,’ Mrs Vasha said sceptically.

  ‘But an invitation is serious . . . maybe he is in love.’

  ‘Or maybe Piyasili likes to have someone silly to laugh at with her rich friends.’

  ‘But surely Piyasili would not be so cruel, or toy with Rupani’s affections like that.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put anything past Piyasili – a slyer girl I have yet to meet. And the Ranasinghes are known to be shrewd people. As the eldest son, Sunil knows better than to marry a girl with no dowry.’

  ‘But an invitation like this . . . for a whole weekend. Why would anyone suggest such a thing if they did not have honest intentions?’ Nila asked between mouthfuls of curry.

  ‘Who knows why rich people do anything?’ Mrs Vasha said. ‘There is more news, though, my dear. Piyasili’s parents have found her a suitable boy to marry and she will leave soon.’

  ‘I hope Amma won’t insist I stop boarding!’

  ‘Don’t worry about that. She’s asked me to find another boarder for her. She has got used to the money. But enough of the Ranasinghes for now – tell me about your week.’

  Nila recounted tales from her week at the mill, careful to avoid mentioning the trip to the fair but describing for Mrs Vasha the foibles of her classmates and the commissions they were working on.

  ‘But we stopped working on Thursday. We spent much of yesterday and today cleaning the mill and readying the shrine.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘It’s Navaratri next week and we have a special dedication to the goddess Saraswati, so we clean everything and make sure our looms and cotton are all tidy before the festivities begin.’

  ‘Hindus, I suppose,’ Mrs Mendis observed, but was cut off by a sharp rap at the open door. ‘Why it’s Mrs Gamage and young Albert! How are you? When did you arrive, young man?’ Mrs Vasha greeted them enthusiastically, kissing young Albert full on the cheeks not just once but three times.

  ‘This morning on the flight from Bombay. I left London four days ago!’

  ‘But I didn’t know you had someone here,’ Mrs Gamage said, peering around to see Nila.

  ‘Oh, it’s only me,’ Nila said with a smile, waving them off as she went to wash her hands and put the heating coil in the jug for tea.

  ‘Nila is like a daughter to me . . .’ she heard Mrs Vasha explain to the Gamages as they sat down and made themselves comfortable.

  ‘We were going to visit with your family but we saw that they already had some visitors,’ Mrs Gamage told Nila when she returned with the tea.

  ‘Yes, that was the boarder my mother has stay during the week, and her brother.’

  ‘Why, Nila? Why does your mother have a boarder?’ Albert asked. A studious, serious young man several years older than Nila, he had a gentle manner and kind heart.

  ‘Didn’t I write you about it?’ Mrs Gamage said.

  ‘No, Mother.’

  ‘Amma . . .’ Mrs Gamage corrected, patting her son’s arm with a smile. ‘Yes, Mrs Mendis has a boarder now that Nila is a girl with a job!’

  ‘Where, Nila? And what do you do?’

  ‘She works at a saree mill in Panadura – she is a saree maker,’ Mrs Vasha said, beaming with pride.

  ‘I say! Well done, Nila, well done! What is the name of the company?’

  ‘Nair & Sons Sarees.’

  ‘Tamils?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘You have to be careful with Tamils,’ Mrs Gamage started, only to be cut off by Albert.

  ‘But Panadura is a little far, nay?’

  ‘That is why I board during the week, Albert. I come home every Friday night.’

  ‘I always did say you were a girl with talent, never mind what you looked like,’ Mrs Gamage said.

  ‘Amma!’

  ‘Well it is the truth, nay? Nobody thinks Nila is pretty. Mrs Weerasinghe from down by the canal, may her soul rest in peace though she was quite a nasty woman, used to say that Nila was positively ugly. She often wondered whether Nila had been switched at birth!’

  There was a moment of stunned silence b
efore Albert stuttered, ‘Amma! You can’t say that . . .’ just as Nila started to laugh. Hard. So hard that tears coursed down her cheeks.

  ‘It’s quite all right, Albert. Really,’ Nila said, giving Albert’s arm a reassuring pat. ‘Mrs Weerasinghe used to say it to me all the time. Once she even went as far as to enquire after the hospital I had been born at, only to find out that my mother had me at home!’

  ‘And I always used to say to Mrs Weerasinghe that you were the kindest, gentlest girl in all of Kotahena, no matter what you looked like,’ Mrs Gamage insisted. ‘Though I must say you are looking very well indeed. Your skin is much improved – are you using that kohomba kolla and lime mixture?’

  ‘No . . .’

  ‘So you are using Fair & Lovely then? Oh, my niece uses that and she is at least three shades lighter now. My sister married a Tamil, you know, and they are darker than us. I even told your mother to buy your sister a jar of Fair & Lovely—’

  ‘I don’t think Anoja needs any Fair & Lovely,’ Albert protested. ‘She is just perfect as she is!’

  ‘That is very sweet of you, Albert, to say that about my sister,’ Nila replied with a smile.

  ‘A very gracious girl indeed, and so kind-hearted! I remember her always playing with kittens and puppies,’ Albert reminisced, while Nila said a silent prayer for the souls of the dogs and cats who were drowned in the river by Manoj as soon as their adorable youth had passed.

  ‘And such a sweet disposition, too,’ Mrs Gamage said, looking indulgently at her son.

  ‘Then are you going to try your luck with Anoja?’ the shrewd Mrs Vasha asked.

  ‘Mrs Vasha . . . it is not appropriate!’ Mrs Gamage protested.

  ‘No, no. Let the boy answer honestly. We might as well have it all out in the open. What are your plans, Albert? Have you come home to find a bride, now that you have graduated?’

  Albert hesitated, glancing at Nila. ‘I have been offered a job as a hydro-electric engineer in New South Wales . . .’ he said.

  ‘Wales? In the UK?’ the old woman asked.

  ‘New South Wales is in Australia, Mrs Vasha.’

  ‘But Australia . . . that is very far away, nay?’

  ‘Yes, twenty hours by plane. I leave in six weeks. And I hope to take Anoja away with me as my bride,’ the young man declared, his Adam’s apple bobbing in his throat.

  An uneasy sensation stirred in the pit of Nila’s stomach.

  ‘Well then, you’ll just have to put your best foot forward,’ Mrs Vasha said. ‘She could not wish for a better husband than you.’

  ‘And what is this talk of husbands?’ Vera Mendis declared as she marched into the house with Rupani in tow. Though she started when she spotted Albert and his mother in the living room. ‘A very good evening to you. I didn’t know you were back in the country,’ she said coolly.

  ‘I just arrived this morning. From Bomb—’ Albert replied before being rudely cut off by Vera speaking to Nila.

  ‘Nila you are needed at home at once!’

  ‘You’ll never guess, but Piyasili Ranasinghe has just invited me for the weekend up in her parent’s tea estate and I will need sarees. Nice cotton sarees for the day, at least two chiffon sarees for the evening and a grand silk saree for the Uva Planter’s Ball!’ Rupani squealed.

  ‘In my day, young women weren’t allowed to wear silk sarees until they were married!’ Mrs Vasha grumbled.

  ‘You should be able to borrow some sarees from the mill,’ Vera commanded. ‘But you’d better come home now and teach Rupani how to drape a saree. You got paid today, nay? We’ll go into town tomorrow and get a few blouses stitched. Lord knows she’s never worn saree before!’

  With that, Vera and Rupani marched out, expecting Nila to follow them. Nila hesitated for a moment, feeling their rudeness keenly. They could have had Mrs Vasha stitch the saree blouses for a fraction of the cost of using the tailors in town but had chosen to arrogantly slight their good friend.

  But follow them she did, pausing to kiss Mrs Vasha’s wrinkly cheek and quietly slip a twenty rupee note into her hand for her heart medication. Nila was sure that Rupani’s desire for new things would not be curbed by something as trivial as buying Mrs Vasha’s medicines.

  The air was heavy with incense and the sweet, sticky smell of jasmine and marigold. The shrine room was packed with the hundred and fifty or so mill workers and would have been insufferably stuffy, but for the uplifting fragrance of lotus, trucked in from the northern city of Anuradhapura, its blossoms covering every surface.

  ‘The dinner went well. I thought the idali was a touch too hard, but the sambar was delicious, if a little too tangy,’ Guru Lakshmi proclaimed in the sacred area behind the main altar. She was in the company of the four other gurus, all dressed in crisp new white sarees and sarongs. ‘The vadais were not up to scratch either. Who were the cooks this year, Raju? Or are we cutting back on catering costs as well?’ she added.

  ‘Oh, Raju has better things to do than worry about the catering. How is that white girlfriend of yours? Does your father-in-law to be know that little white bunny?’ Guru Hirantha asked.

  ‘Oh, leave Raju alone – you all know it is Gauri who organises the catering. And it’s the same people who were here last year,’ Guru Sakunthala told her.

  ‘All the same, if you keep carrying on with these white girls, Raju, the owner of Kanchi Silks will not want you for a son-in-law and what will happen then?’

  The inscrutable Raju ignored the chattering, his eyes focused on the pusari organising all the implements for the pooja – the vibuthi, the camphor, the incense and the milk fresh from the udders of a new mother cow, who was tied to a coconut tree out the back of the kitchens.

  ‘That is none of our business,’ the Guru Sindhu growled.

  ‘Sure, it is our business. More and more women prefer factory-spun sarees these days, and we’ll lose our jobs if we don’t embrace new technologies,’ Guru Hirantha snapped. ‘And partnering with Kanchi Silks is our best means of surviving. They can mass-produce sarees while we do the high-end designer work.’

  ‘But that would mean shutting down a significant part of our work here in Sri Lanka,’ Guru Sakunthala fretted.

  ‘We might have to do that anyway,’ Guru Lakshmi said sharply, ‘since the new generation of management seems more interested in chasing skirts than running the business.’

  It was only Raju’s rolling eyes that betrayed the fact he’d heard the whole conversation.

  ‘Whatever may come, we need to decide who we are going to offer places to . . .’ Guru Hirantha said with a sigh.

  ‘Why? So we can let them go them later, when we are forced to close the mill? That is cruel!’ Guru Sakunthala said.

  ‘We have more than enough work for four more people here at the mill for the next two years,’ Raju said, speaking for the first time. ‘And if the exhibition in Kanchipuram goes well, we’ll have enough work for ten more for another three years.’

  ‘And then there won’t be a need for Raju to marry the daughter of Kanchi Silks,’ Guru Sindhu pointed out wryly.

  ‘Who are your nominees, Sindhu? I love the creativity that Renuka brings! What talent! What modesty! What decorum!’ Guru Lakshmi said.

  ‘I would rather choose a caged, starved viper!’ Guru Sakunthala cried in horror. ‘She is always goading the other students and trying to start trouble!’

  ‘My picks are Rangana, Devika, Seevan and Renuka,’ Guru Hirantha said.

  ‘Yes,’ Guru Lakshmi said, ‘Rangana has improved enormously over the last few weeks. I gave him such a rapping with my fan a few weeks ago that it’s finally knocked some sense into him!’ She gripped her fan tightly to her bosom, glaring at Guru Sakunthala.

  Raju smiled. He had told no one of the incident down in the shanties or the long conversation he’d had with Rangana the following day, man to man.

  ‘I agree with you on Rangana, Devika and Seevan – but surely you must consider Nila,’ Guru Sindhu said, with Guru Saku
nthala nodding to second his nomination.

  ‘That ugly frump?’ Guru Lakshmi huffed. ‘Did you see what she was wearing today? A grey voile saree. A voile saree! It made her look like a dumpy oil cake. Only a slender debutante can carry off a voile! That girl has no understanding of beauty!’

  ‘How can you say that? That girl has a better intrinsic understanding of design, flow, colour and fabric than anyone I have ever met,’ Guru Sakunthala said hotly. ‘And Guru Sindhu says her weaving is second to none.’

  ‘Lakshmi, I thought you said you loved her design work and that she had an exquisite eye for detail,’ Guru Sindhu said.

  ‘Don’t get me wrong – I think Nila is an exceptionally talented young lady. She can design as well as the best student I have ever met, but she doesn’t know how to bring it all together. Look at her now!’ Guru Lakshmi said, ducking her head around the main shrine to spot Nila in the crowd. ‘Look at her saree draping. It is truly atrocious. Why, I can see her underskirt peeping out the whole way!’

  ‘But Raju says she does a superlative job draping sarees on other girls,’ Guru Sakunthala said, only to be interrupted by Guru Hirantha.

  ‘I agree with Lakshmi. As much as I like Nila’s work – and her dyeing skills are second only to Devika in this group – she just can’t put it all together. Imagine taking someone like that to an exhibition! Nair & Sons would become the laughing stock of the entire island!’ he said.

  ‘I think Rangana, Devika, Seevan and Nila should be offered roles,’ Guru Sindhu said again. Guru Sakunthala inclined her head delicately, indicating her assent.

  The decision was at a deadlock, splitting the faculty along ethnic lines, for while Gurus Sindhu and Sakunthala were Sinhalese, Gurus Lakshmi and Hirantha were Tamil.

  ‘Well, that is decided then. We’ll offer places to Rangana, Devika, Seevan and Renuka,’ Guru Lakshmi crowed triumphantly. ‘You agree with us, don’t you? What do you say?’ she demanded of the Tamil Raju.

  Raju waited till the sadhu lighted the sacred flame before he replied.

  ‘It is too early to make a decision. We need to see the pieces they produce for the exhibition to make the final choices.’