Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  The women separated into their own rooms in the little hallway that led from the little sitting room all the way through the tiny kitchenette. Although their living arrangement was a relationship of convenience that had started some years previously it had developed into something of a haphazard friendship. And when they returned to the hallway almost twenty minutes later, they were as equally elegantly turned out.

  ‘Should we tell Mrs Teacherji when we’ll be back?’ Sarojini enquired as they walked out into the bright sun of the day.

  ‘She does not care,’ Kalpana muttered, casting a derisive look over to the verandah where the widow sat reading her morning paper. ‘Low caste cow.’

  Sarojini wished to disagree yet she could not help but accept the truth of Kalpana’s words. Mrs Teacherji at best tolerated them but the retired schoolteacher’s annexed home was a godsend. Situated in one of the respectable parts of Mysore and backing onto a narrow canal that had another dead end street backing onto it on the other side, the location alone enabled them to ply their trade with little harassment.

  ‘Just go past the cinemas to the TK Water tank road. Go to the very end. You can take a large step over the canal and you will be at the girls’ house,’ Mamaji would tell the clients she sent the girls’ way. ‘It is all very respectable.’

  Sarojini and Kalpana did not take the short cut across the canal that morning; instead walking the long way to Maruthi Temple Road to catch the bus across to Fort Mohalla.

  Yet even among the midmorning human crush in Mysore, they somehow stood out. Or even apart. Young women chose not to stand too close to them on the bus. A young mother took her school-aged son to sit as far away as possible, pointing out various billboards along the highway, determined to distract him. Men could not help but let their eyes stray lecherously towards them.

  Perhaps it was the glamour of their sarees that set them apart. Few women would wear such costly sarees on a bus. Or it could have been the snatches of their conversation that fellow travellers could hear if they strained hard over the din of the traffic.

  ‘I’ve never heard a man call for his mother before, when he’s about to . . . you know. You really don’t think that’s strange?’ Sarojini asked her friend.

  ‘I once had a man demand I make love to him while he wore his wife’s saree,’ Kalpana told her.

  ‘What about making love on temple grounds? That is strange, is it not?’

  ‘No stranger than a man insisting he watch you pee in front of him,’ Kalpana said. ‘Or taking a man’s member in your mouth while his pet dog looks on . . .’

  Sarojini bowed her head in acquiescence. That was strange.

  They alighted at their stop and made their way through the older part of town, where palatial houses with large lush gardens soaked up the interminable summer heat.

  ‘I still think it is strange that he called for his mother,’ Sarojini insisted as they opened the gate to the most run-down of the old places.

  In her heyday Moona Mahal had been a grand lady, her white balconies garlanded with bright lanterns and the constant hum of music from the sitar and tabla players who had been permanent residents here at the time. It was rumoured that even Nalvadi Krishna Raja Wadiyar, the last great maharajah of Mysore, had been a regular visitor, bringing sahibs to watch the nightly dance and music shows.

  ‘No stranger than a man wanting to suckle at your breast like a baby while he fucks you,’ Kalpana pointed out. ‘Surely the one thing you should know by now is that there is no right or wrong when it comes to sex,’ she said, then waved as she spotted a friend. ‘Rekha!’ she called. ‘Sarojini is complaining about an arari who called out for his mother while he was doing it!’

  Rekha covered her eyes in frustration. ‘Aiii! Don’t get me started! Last week I had to deal with a man who wanted to do it outside. In the middle of the day. In this heat. Just look, will you! Just look at the sunburn on my back,’ she cried, turning around and lifting her blouse to show them. ‘This is after three days and my ayah applying papaya three times a day.’

  Sarojini and Kalpana made sympathetic noises as they went around the side of the house to the verandah out the back, where they joined a large group of women similarly dressed in bright colours and beautiful fabrics. This was the ritual gathering every Monday of the devadasi in Mysore. These were not prostitutes one might find on a street corner, but handmaidens of the gods.

  ‘You say it was his mother’s name he called?’ Rekha asked Sarojini. ‘That’s not so strange. Not like Kumar Ramachandran.’ Ramachandran was a rich Mysorese businessman and cricket fan who would call out for the great batsman Sunil Gavaskar in his moment of ecstasy. All the devadasi in Mysore knew him.

  The ancient pusari sounded the chimes indicating that the pooja was about to start and an elderly gharwali mamaji floated to the central dais holding a large statue of the goddess Yellamma.

  Sarojini pulled a face at Kalpana, unhappy at being so teased.

  ‘Well, what do you want to hear when men are making love to you?’ Kalpana whispered. ‘Words of love?’

  ‘We trade in love, Sarojini, but we do not love,’ Rekha seconded softly.

  ‘I didn’t say I wanted to hear words of love!’ Sarojini protested in a hot undertone.

  ‘What then? What do you want to hear? That you are beautiful!’ Kalpana replied. ‘Oh! And the name of that mind disease! I remember it! It is called Oedipus complex!’

  By now the pooja had begun in earnest so Sarojini and her friends were subjected to disapproving glares from more than just Mamaji. Some of the older devadasi turned huffily and stared down their noses.

  ‘Well? What did you want to hear?’ Kalpana whispered.

  ‘My name,’ Sarojini said softly, closing her eyes in prayer. ‘Even if it is just once in my life, I would like one of my lovers to call me by my name when he comes inside me.’

  ‘If I had as much sex as Mrs Vinaygam thinks I do, I would hardly be able to stand, nah!’ Kalpana stomped into their little kitchen carrying a steel pail full of milk and slammed it onto the bench for effect.

  ‘Achaa . . . what did she say now?’ Sarojini asked. She was making chai in the little kitchenette in her housecoat.

  ‘Oh . . . nothing much . . . that her back was sore from doing all the housework and carrying home all her papers from school to mark. Made a snide comment that it was easy for some because all they ever did was lie on their back to earn a living.’

  ‘Ignore her. You know she has been in a foul mood since her husband went abroad to work.’

  ‘But why is she carrying on like a banderi on heat? So irritable and nasty?’

  Sarojini shrugged. She thought it was Kalpana acting like a monkey on heat, hissing and spitting. Perhaps she wasn’t feeling well. So Sarojini made her friend a strong cup of chai. One well laced with ashwagandha to calm the mind and heat the body.

  Dawn had not even lit the morning sky when the two women made their way across to the Maruti temple to do abishekam. They brought fresh milk for Lord Hanuman – the reason Kalpana had risked the markets so early in the morning.

  When they got to the temple, they did not waste any time, darting into the little anteroom adjoining the main shrine to change with the three other girls already there. Experienced and talented, it only took them an hour to do their make-up and drape their elaborate red and gold sarees.

  The make-up was dramatic – heavy lines on the eyes and bright colours on the lips and cheeks. The paints were iridescent against Sarojini’s pale skin, so uncommon in Karnataka. She then oiled her long black hair using a mixture of ginger lily and neem oil to give it shine before plaiting it into a thick rope. Next she hid tiny silver weights at the end of her plait, so it would swing sinuously as she danced, and threaded garlands of jasmine across her crown and along the length of her braid.

  Draping a saree for dance was very different to draping a saree for wear. A woman needed to have her legs free so that she could do the squats and hold the classical kara
nas as required by Bharatanatyam. To preserve her modesty, Sarojini wore tight leggings instead of an underskirt and used heavy gold chains to hold the elaborate crests of pleats in place on her waist before pulling on the heavy ankle bells.

  The drummers were already tuning their instruments in the courtyard beyond when Sarojini saw that Kalpana was still visibly shaking. ‘Breathe, calm your mind,’ she counselled quietly. ‘Om nam Shivaye . . .’ She reached forward to give her friend’s hand a quick reassuring squeeze, only to find it cold and clammy. ‘Are you unwell, Kalpana? I’m sure the pusari wouldn’t mind if you were to sit out.’

  ‘Don’t be silly, Saro. How can I not dance after all that ashwagandha you put in my chai. I feel like I am on fire!’

  ‘As you should be, Kalpana. Bharatanatyam is the fire dance,’ Sarojini said softly as they moved into Alarippu, the first movement, invoking the gods and thanking the audience for their participation.

  Though no one in the audience noticed, Kalpana wasn’t in form. She didn’t quite hold her poses, the karanas, for as long as she should have, and her hastas, the expressive hand movements, lacked their normal grace and crispness as the dancers proceeded into the main shrine.

  ‘What is going on, Kalpana?’ Sarojini whispered in the few moments before they launched into the dances of the Kautuvam.

  ‘She said she’ll be here,’ Kalpana whispered back.

  ‘Who? Mrs Vinaygam? Why are you letting her upset you so much?’

  But before Kalpana could respond, the cymbals started and they had to move into the karanas for the Kautuvam. It was strange that Kalpana was so shaken by a neighbourhood gossip. Being a devadasi required a certain thickness of skin, for the public adored and reviled them in equal parts.

  ‘They need us,’ Mamaji would explain to the young girls she selected at the Yellamma dedication ceremony. ‘We are the servants of God. But do not expect them to like us.’

  ‘Why, Mamaji?’ a shy young Sarojini had asked.

  ‘We, the devadasi, were once great. Kings and rich temples paid handsomely to protect us. They cherished us. We were the guardians of literature, poetry, music and dance. But then the ferenges came. They called it “civilising” the heathens. Our people, devout Hindus, wanting to be more chaste and pure than Christians, called us sluts and threw us out of our temples. They made us into whores!’ Mamaji’s soft brown eyes had clouded.

  Sarojini didn’t have much time to think as the Jatiswaram started. The complex footwork and hastas required concentration. They were supposed to be telling the story of the god Hanuman, not worry about some silly woman and her opinions.

  The great Lord Hanuman was an incarnation of the Lord Shiva. Their dance described his youth and lifetime, his strength, and the boon granted to him by Brahma, his mighty feats of war and the peace he brought the land. They would stop just short of the epic battle of the Ramayana. That story would be left for the joyful celebration of Deepavali, just around the corner, when Hanuman defeated the evil king Ravana and brought light to the world.

  But things started to unravel far sooner than that for the temple dancers. As soon as the girls had started to dance the celebration of the birth of Hanuman, Kalpana completely lost concentration. She forgot her footwork and only made the most cursory effort at holding karanas. So much so that by tacit agreement with the other dancers, Sarojini took the lead, holding her karana for a fraction of a second longer than required, allowing Kalpana to move to the back. She felt the great Lord Hanuman’s power shift within her, bringing forth blessings to everyone attending, but she was annoyed. It was not easy to take the lead halfway through a performance. To act as a conduit for the gods required preparation and concentration, and she did not wish to disappoint them.

  ‘What was that all about?’ Sarojini demanded as soon as they got into the change room.

  ‘She thinks after all that I have energy for sex!’ Kalpana complained. ‘My feet hurt. My back hurts. This awful make-up makes my skin break out and all she can think about is that my job is easy!’

  Sarojini wanted to give Kalpana a piece of her mind, but the tears already in her friend’s eyes stayed her tongue. She helped her housemate pack her heavy costume bag and guided her to the door.

  But just as the girls stepped into the muggy light of the overcast day, she saw him. Well rather, they both saw him. Abhay Promod. Mrs Vinaygam’s much younger brother. A captain in the Indian Armed Forces. Resplendent in his green uniform, his chest covered with decorations from his time subduing the troubled border with Pakistan. Tall. Straight. And very handsome.

  ‘Did you know?’

  ‘Yes, she mentioned that her brother was in Mysore. And that she’d arranged a marriage for him with a respectable girl with a large dowry,’ Kalpana said, her voice catching on the last word.

  ‘We cannot trade in love and not feel love ourselves,’ Sarojini said gently as they made their way through the back of the temple, leaving the front clear for Abhay and his family. His mother and father were beaming and there were tears and smiles all round; clearly it was not appropriate for whores to intrude just at that time. No matter that Kalpana and Abhay had grown up together.

  Sarojini was finding it hard to make ends meet. She sat on her bed counting notes and scribbling in a small brown notebook; her outgoings just about tallied with her expenditure and she wasn’t saving anything. With Deepavali coming up, she just could not see how the meagre sum in her possession could be stretched to do all it was supposed to. She’d gone to the temple bursar to collect her payment for dancing that week and found the money he gave her a little lacking.

  ‘But sir, I took the lead in the dance the other day and that pays seventy-five rupees more,’ she’d protested.

  ‘No, Kalpana Pillay did the lead,’ the bursar insisted.

  ‘No, I did. She stepped back a third of the way through!’

  ‘But she is from a Brahmin family,’ the man said and firmly closed the window to the office.

  Then her landlady had confronted her as she came home. ‘Achaa . . . the bills keep going up and up and there’s always talk of them cutting the pension,’ she said angrily, waving a bony finger all bent and misshapen from arthritis. ‘And you know . . . they aren’t happy that I keep you girls here. The neighbours. Mrs Chelvam is a good, virtuous woman, never mind that she is Christian. She worries, you know . . .’

  Sarojini only sighed, but Kalpana was offended. ‘She worries? About what? That being a devadasi is catching? That her daughter can catch it by passing us on the street?’ she growled irritably. But Kalpana didn’t have the same worries Sarojini did.

  Kalpana had been dedicated to the god Hanuman by her highborn Brahmin parents as a vow. Her father had been in a serious car accident and had been in coma when her mother had visited a jogti at the temple. ‘Tell me,’ Kalpana’s mother had pleaded. ‘Will my husband survive? I have four children. What will become of us?’

  ‘A blood sacrifice must be made . . .’ the jogti had said, spittle frothing from her mouth, her eyes rolling back into her head. But it had been the stench emanating from the woman’s matted hair that had made Kalpana feel ill as she peeked out from behind her mother’s saree. She had wanted to run out of the temple.

  ‘I knew,’ Kalpana reminisced. ‘My heart fell to my feet and I felt faint.’

  ‘That girl! Hanuman must have that girl!’ the jogti had declared.

  ‘And I have never understood that. God Hanuman was celibate all his life, according to the Puranas!’ Kalpana said, scratching her head. ‘But that was that. My devarige biduvadu happened the very next day. It was a Friday and a full moon during the month of November. I stood there in the middle of the jogati-patta as they lit the four fires around me and I wanted to scream – which was when I saw Abhay. He’d found out somehow and came running into the temple . . . it took four pusaris to stop him from getting to me.’

  ‘But you could have said no – nothing is set in stone until the priest ties the beads,’ Sarojini insist
ed.

  ‘How could I not do it, Saro? My father woke up that morning and his first words were Tai Hanuman Udho Udho . . . he gave praise to the Lord Hanuman who saved him,’ Kalpana said, fingering the brand of Hanuman on her left breast.

  Kalpana’s parents were still wracked with guilt at what they had done to their only daughter, so they happily covered her costs of living and provided her with an allowance. Her mother had been near hysterical at her pattam and had to be sedated at the feast afterward as the wealthy businessman led her young daughter away.

  ‘Calm, anujate, calm,’ Mamaji had said, holding the heartbroken mother in her arms. ‘She is the same age as you when you got married! It will be no different!’

  Unlike most gharwalis, Mamaji would not let girls under her care undertake their pattam until they were at least seventeen. ‘A child of twelve or thirteen is not capable of handling a man’s passion! What nonsense is this!’ Mamaji would roar at the araris if they spied a young girl at her house and asked for her. ‘I give out no children. If you wish to mate with a child, then mate with a frog. You may get more pleasure from that!’

  Like all pattam ceremonies held under Mamaji’s auspices, Sarojini’s own had been a grand affair. Sponsored, of course, by Harindra, the man who’d found her as a young child playing in her uncle’s garden in the rural village some five hundred miles from Mysore. For the second time in her life, Sarojini had been dressed as bride, the first having been at the devarige biduvadu that Harindra had also sponsored.

  She’d come out bedecked in a bright yellow saree, a saree he’d chosen for her. He’d even chosen the heavy jewellery that covered her neck, arms and ears. In front of the feast laid out on a long table, she’d actually felt like a bride, though there had been no sacred flames or any wedding guests. Just her mother and her uncle, who spent the whole time looking at the trays of money, rolls of hundred rupee notes bound with rubber bands, more money than they had seen in a lifetime. Money that they would share with Mamaji.