Saree

by Su Dharmapala

There had been no vows, no promises of devotion for seven lifetimes as required by the Vedic texts. The priest only reminded her of her duties. ‘Remember that you cannot claim the right to be the wife of any man. You must fast on Tuesdays and Fridays. If you are hungry, you may not ask for food. If anybody abuses you, you may not retaliate. And chant Udho Yellamma as many times a day as you can!’

  Sarojini and Harindra had then retired into the little bungalow behind Mamaji’s mansion. Though she could recall little about the events of that night, she remembered feeling as if she was on fire and Harindra’s middle-aged poolu deep inside her young body the only cure. Only later she found out that Mamaji had laced her chai for days before with extracts of shatavari, ashwagandha, gokshura and bala – enough aphrodisiacs to send a corpse into a passionate frenzy.

  In the months that followed, Harindra – Sir, as he’d insisted she call him – had been the most attentive lover. He’d set her up in a little annexed house, complete with an ayah to do the cooking and cleaning. He’d come during his lunchbreak from his senior government job and Sarojini would wait for him bathed and dressed. ‘Dress in yellow, my sweet little sunflower, dress in yellow,’ he would insist. It took a while for Sarojini to notice that he’d started to visit her only every second day. He was a busy public servant, after all, the deputy head of the Karnataka agriculture department. He toured the state regularly looking at its farms, which was how he’d spotted her in the first place. Sarojini was as heartbroken as any young woman could be when her landlord informed her that her rent had only been paid for another month and she would have to find alternative accommodation.

  She had shared with the sharp-tongued girl from Calcutta for a while, another of Mamaji’s devadasi. But the Bengali girl was not only a slattern but highly strung as well. She had a regular and exceedingly wealthy client and never thought of tidying up unless he was about to visit, mouldy underwear strewn everywhere and filthy teacups. And when he was with her, she’d fight with him. Loudly and using obscene language! Sarojini’s middle-class patrons found it very off-putting.

  She then spent several months flitting from one household to another. It was difficult for a devadasi to find regular accommodation, and the only places she could find were smelly unhygienic rooms down by the slums.

  ‘I can’t do it! I can’t do it with little children looking at me through the window!’ one of her lovers had roared, completely distracted by the string of spellbound young urchins peeking through Sarojini’s grimy window, and rose from her bed to chase them away. Needless to say, she never saw him again.

  Now she lived with Kalpana, renting a little annexe tacked onto a retired schoolteacher’s home. Yet she was never too sure from one month to the next that they’d be allowed to stay – or that she’d be able to afford the rent.

  So she was desperately looking for a protector. Someone who would foot the bills for her while providing a bit more to help her support her desperately poor family. The problem was that rich men didn’t want to support a devadasi anymore. It did not have the high social status it used to have, when it was seen as a sign of affluence and influence. They preferred cars now.

  Sarojini stretched out on her bed, facedown, and pummelled her fists with frustration.

  ‘Come now, Saro,’ Kalpana said, coming into the room and perching on the bed. ‘You’ll find someone.’

  ‘Is Abhay here?’

  ‘Yes. He’s in the living room. He says that he’ll never consent to the marriage his sister has arranged.’ Kalpana and Abhay had grown up together. Had it not been for Kalpana’s dedication, they would be married by now. ‘Come, Saro. Let’s go out for some dinner. The bazaar is on in town tonight.’

  ‘No, Kalpana, no, I am not in the mood!’

  ‘Don’t be silly! Please come.’

  ‘I have a headache,’ Sarojini lied.

  ‘Please, Saro . . . it is just that Abhay has brought a friend home for Deepavali, and I don’t want them talking about the army all night,’ Kalpana pleaded. ‘I want some time to talk to Abhay for myself.’

  Which is why Sarojini went out that night, not knowing that it would be the night her whole world would change forever. Years later she would wonder what her life would have been like had she stayed on that bed and cried instead.

  Mysore was a busy city at the best of times, but it became a madhouse near Deepavali. Abhay and his friend Rakesh had fetched the two girls and now they wended their way through the bazaar together, dodging the crowds. ‘You’d think they’d never heard of Deepavali before!’ Abhay commented. ‘It comes every year!’ he called out to a little lady who almost bowled him over as she hurried along, carrying a large bag of shopping.

  Kalpana shushed him. ‘She probably has six children, twenty in-laws and forty more relatives to cook for. Remember how my mother started preparing for Deepavali months ahead of time? The unending cleaning?’

  ‘How could I forget? Aunty Pimmi always called me when she needed someone to clean the cobwebs. Just because I was the tallest boy in the neighbourhood!’ Abhay mimicked Kalpana’s mother’s high-pitched squeal. ‘You stupid boy! Come here! Come here now! Do you think God does not know? Do you think he’d never find out that your house is not clean? Shame on you!’ Kalpana doubled over with laughter. ‘She couldn’t twist my ear, remember?’ Abhay said. ‘I was too tall for her. So she hit me with the broom instead. But your mother does make the best gulab jamun south of Delhi.’

  ‘She was from New Delhi. She grew up just outside Dera Mandi.’

  ‘Which explains your skin, Kalpana,’ Abhay said softly, caressing her upper arm under the guise of helping her across a drain as they crossed the street to the restaurant. ‘So fair. So soft. So beautiful. Like the snow-tipped mountains of Kashmir.’

  Only their moment of tenderness was interrupted by the harsh glare of neon as they entered the restaurant. The waiters greeted them by the door, bustled them speedily into their stall, slapped down stainless steel plates covered with banana leaves and filled their glasses with lassi before they could even blink.

  ‘We’ll have the standard meal,’ Abhay declared. ‘Rice with curry and paayasam.’ A waiter started filling little bowls with sickly sweet porridge to start the meal and Abhay sighed happily. ‘I miss home,’ he said. ‘They only eat sweets at the end of a meal in the north. And I never have any space left.’

  ‘Achaa . . . I never knew that,’ Kalpana said. ‘They eat their sweets after a meal? How strange!’

  ‘Yes, muddu,’ Abhay smiled indulgently. Kalpana was glowing, a sweet little smile twisting her lips, her eyes bright with joy.

  Sarojini and Rakesh were not quite so pleased with each other’s company.

  It had all started wonderfully. Rakesh had been very friendly, eager almost, when Sarojini had come out of her room to meet them.

  ‘You’re Sarojini? Kalpana’s housemate?’

  ‘Yes, I am? How do you know?’ Sarojini had asked, confused.

  ‘He has seen a photo of you with Kalpana at her brother’s wedding,’ Abhay confessed, shamefaced.

  ‘Which one?’ Kalpana asked.

  ‘The one of you both tying beads to your sister-in-law’s thali.’

  ‘How did you get it?’

  ‘I stole it when your parents brought the album over to show my parents during the wedding visit.’

  ‘And you are a dancer, Sarojini? Like Kalpana?’ Rakesh had asked.

  ‘Yes, we studied under the same master. We do most of our performances together.’

  ‘Kalpana is the lead dancer, though – she does most of the complex parts and stories,’ Abhay had interjected proudly, beaming at Kalpana.

  ‘But Sarojini is more talented,’ Kalpana insisted. ‘Why, just on Tuesday she took over from me when I wasn’t feeling well!’

  ‘So do you train for long? I know dancers train from when they are children for Odissi,’ Rakesh said.

  ‘You are from Orissa?’ Sarojini had asked in stilted Hindi. Mamajee insisted that all
her girls learn the lingua franca of the land.

  ‘Can’t you tell? I have been told my Oriya accent makes my Hindi almost incomprehensible.’

  ‘Well, we are in the same boat then! I have heard the same about my Kannada accent!’ Sarojini had laughed before she attempted to make small talk, discussing some light federal politics and the antics of film stars. That was another one of Mamajee’s edicts – that they had to stay abreast of world issues.

  And Rakesh responded like any man who’d been without female company for four months and confined in the harsh environment of the Hindu Kush. With enthusiasm and sheer pleasure. For about a quarter of an hour, their conversation tripped along. They discovered that they both adored Madhuri Dixit and could only barely tolerate the Bharatiya Janata Party. ‘India must be for all Indians. Not just Hindus! What is this Hindus first nonsense?’ Rakesh had declared, at which Sarojini nodded.

  They had stepped out as soon as Abhay pointed out that they would be stuck in the interminable traffic if they didn’t make a move. And that was the moment when things changed.

  ‘Sarojini,’ Mrs Teacherji called out, irritable from the verandah. ‘I hope you are not going out!’

  ‘I am indeed,’ Sarojini called out in a pleasant voice.

  ‘Isn’t tonight Mr Murkesh’s night?’

  ‘He’s gone to Bangalore to visit his sister,’ Sarojini said through gritted teeth at the old busybody.

  But the damage was done. Rakesh had taken in a sharp breath of distaste. His face contorting into a moue, as if he’d stepped on a pile of fresh cow dung. ‘Devadasi,’ he hissed under his breath.

  Not that Kalpana or Abhay noticed. They had already got to Abhay’s old banged up ex-army jeep. But Abhay did comment when they got into the car. ‘Are you okay, Rakesh?’

  Raskesh mumbled something and determinedly looked out the window. But he could not avoid looking at or interacting with Sarojini or the others throughout dinner.

  ‘What would you know of poetry?’ Rakesh smirked derisively.

  ‘Haa . . . who exactly knows poetry then? The Dalits? Or the Kumhas? Certainly not the Brahmins or the Kshatriya! Thousands of years in-breeding means they are stupid!’ Sarojini hissed looking over to Brahmin Kalpana and Abhay, who were both wearing idiot expressions of adoration on their faces.

  ‘Oh, the devadasi then? Really? Whores?’

  ‘Handmaidens of God! Or did you fail bahasa? And Asha Bhosle and Lata Mangeshkar come from devadasi lineage. As does Mogubai Kurdikar!’

  ‘Three has-been singers? That is your proof?’

  Sarojini gritted her teeth, and without forgetting a single word, recited the poem Adikar by Mahadevi Varma. Through her voice, she conveyed the joy, the inspiration and the hope that was inherent in the verses. When Rakesh looked non-plussed Sarojini tried a different tack, reciting the Hindu epic Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva by Rabindranath Tagore, the great nineteenth century Indian poet.

  ‘So, you can memorise a few words – any banderi could do that!’

  Sarojini bit her tongue; there was no talking to this man! And not that she could do anything about it. Kalpana and Abhay were sitting flush against the wall with their heads close together in deep conversation. So it happened that while Kalpana and Abhay had a delightful evening full of conversation, great food and conviviality, Sarojini and Rakesh barely managed to stomach the rich curries in icy hostile silence.

  ‘As always, it was just delightful to take you girls out for a meal,’ Abhay complimented grandiosely as he pulled up in front of Mrs Teacherji’s house. ‘Eh, Captain? Wasn’t it lovely to go out with couple of charming young ladies?’ he continued obliviously. ‘I forgot to tell you cheluvi. Captain here saved my life! Pulled me out of the way of some sniper fire! That is why I invited him to spend Deepavali with my family here in Mysore!’

  ‘Aii! I didn’t know you’d been in danger!’ Kalpana squealed. ‘I must go to the temple tomorrow morning and thank Lord Hanuman for protecting you!’

  ‘What do I have to be worried about when I have the great God’s handmaiden in my heart all the time?’ Abhay asked softly. Which was when Sarojini thought it was time to alight from the vehicle. It should have been Rakesh’s cue to alight, too, to give the couple some privacy, but he didn’t.

  All the same, Kalpana came out a few minutes later humming a cheerful tune. ‘Wasn’t it a wonderful night? Magical?’ she asked Sarojini, grabbing her friend’s hand as they opened the door. ‘I cannot imagine any one I could love more or better than Abhay. He is a man. A real man. So kind, so generous, so thoughtful!’

  And as the girls parted company at the corridor all Sarojini could think of was how much she despised Abhay’s friend Rakesh. How narrow-minded and bigoted he was! How people like him made their already precarious lives even more uncertain.

  One never missed a summons from Mamaji, no matter what. Appointments with araris were rescheduled and alternative arrangements made for other devadasi to take over for performances. Sarojini dressed with care for the meeting, wearing a saree in a bright blue brocade. She had already washed and oiled her hair and now she twisted it into a bun, winding a garland of fresh jasmine around the heavy bundle of tresses. She dusted her face with some coloured talcum as well, using dark kajal to line her eyes.

  ‘Mamaji is in the top room,’ Poornima said. She was a girl of about seven who’d been living with Mamaji for about a month now. She was carrying a plate covered with a banana leaf. She’d been to the dining room to have lessons in dining etiquette. Desperately poor rural girls such as herself and Poornima needed to be taught everything when they arrived in Moona Mahal – from the proper use of lavatories to speaking properly and even how to eat!

  ‘It is difficult to teach these children not to fall on their food after years of starvation but no man likes to see a woman stuff her face like a pig!’ Mamaji would declare.

  Mamaji spent the months of March and April and November and December being driven around Karnataka looking for newly dedicated young girls. She would assess them for charm, beauty, agility and their ability to sing or dance before offering for them.

  ‘I would like to take all the girls . . . but there is only so much I can do,’ she would sigh, looking at her lone gold bangle. Once upon a time, bejewelled bangles and bracelets had adorned her arms from wrist to elbow, but now Moona Mahal was mortgaged to the hilt and there was no one to continue the girls’ education once she was gone, no one to teach them the beautiful rituals of the Hindu tradition.

  Sarojini cautiously climbed the rickety stairs to the topmost room and stood nervously waiting to be noticed. It was a typical Mysorese retreat, a covered rooftop courtyard where the elderly gharwali lay on her divan, fanning herself gently, around her an oasis of potted plants – heliconias, anthuriums and even orchids.

  The elderly lady cracked open an aged eye to look at Sarojini and sighed. She’d had such high hopes for this girl. ‘Come, daughter, come,’ she beckoned.

  Sarojini knelt before her. ‘Mamaji,’ she murmured, bowing to touch the floor with her forehead.

  ‘How are you child? I haven’t spoken to you properly for months now . . . When was the last time? I think it may have been just after you left the rented room in Gayathripuram.’

  ‘Even before that. When I was staying near the school . . .’

  ‘Ahh . . . yes, that little back room you shared with Rekha . . . when was that?’

  ‘Two years ago.’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ the old lady said, sitting up a little higher on her divan. She gestured to the ornate tea things on the side, so Sarojini poured them both a cup. ‘Now, child, surely it is time to find a long-term prospect and settle down. Have a child or two. It is perfectly permissible for us to have children, you know. Are you taking your pippalyadi yoga and japa concoction?’

  ‘Every day, Mamaji. Two cups before breakfast.’

  ‘You must stop. It may take you a month or two to conceive. A family is what you need. You will stop dancing in the next
few years, let the younger girls take over.’

  Sarojini was silent.

  ‘So? Have you found a proper arari? A nice businessman or a wealthy lawyer? Someone who’ll take pleasure in having a beautiful woman like you to bed, and perform for him privately?’

  Sarojini shook her head sadly.

  ‘And neither will you, if you continue to behave like a shrew . . . Oh, Sarojini,’ Mamaji chastised. ‘Did you think I would not hear about it?’

  Sarojini sighed. She’d attended the Deepavali celebration at Kalpana’s parents’ house several days before the new moon. She would soon be leaving for her own home in the rural district of Uddur, where she would join her own family for the festival of lights celebrations during the darkest phase of the moon.

  She had sat down to sing at Aunty Pimmi’s request, after all the oil lamps had been lit in the courtyard. The sitar player and the tabla drummer sat next to her as Sarojini did a few vocal exercises. Rakesh had sauntered in not long after and sat down next to an elderly uncle. ‘Devadasi may sing and dance but they are prostitutes,’ he had muttered, loud enough for Sarojini to hear him. ‘Selling themselves to the highest bidder.’

  Several people shifted uncomfortably.

  ‘Poor girls being forced into it by their ignorant parents,’ Rakesh said. ‘Surely the police should put a stop to it. Lock up the priests! Lock up the gharwalis! Lock up the parents! That’s what I say.’

  There were strained smiles all around. Kalpana’s father stood up and left the courtyard. It was Deepavali, and it would be bad luck to cause a commotion.

  ‘Call themselves singers and dancers! What nonsense!’ Rakesh continued.

  That was when Sarojini opened her mouth and let the music soar over the people gathered. She sang effortlessly, from her heart. She sang of the joy of the celestial couple, Rama and Sita, as they returned to Ayodhya, where the city dwellers had lit simple clay lamps to guide their lord and lady back to their homeland.

  Sarojini did not need to look at the people in the courtyard to know that they were captivated by her voice. Some sat still as stone, while others blinked away tears as she moved smoothly into her second, third, fourth and fifth raga. As she let out the final note into the air and closed her mouth, there was a moment of silence, then thunderous applause – but as the rapturous clapping and cheering died down, she heard Rakesh’s voice again, louder now.