Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  ‘I’ve heard they spread disease.’

  ‘Not that you’d know. Only a frog would sleep with you!’ she’d snapped.

  No one had uttered a word of protest when she and Kalpana had been insulted, but now there was a hiss of outrage from the other guests. ‘The cheek of the whore! Insulting a man from the Indian Army! Low caste slut!’

  Mamaji had been right, all those years ago – it was a devadasi’s fate to be both adored and reviled.

  For Aunty Pimmi’s sake, Sarojini spent the rest of the evening making polite conversation, smiling and laughing as though nothing were wrong, but she was furious. She was careful to stay far away from Rakesh, not trusting herself to keep her temper. She stayed away from Mrs Vinaygam too, just to be sure.

  Kalpana was quiet on their journey home that night in the old taxi that had been ordered for them. Sarojini thought she was going to apologise for the way Abhay’s guest had treated her, but Kalpana had something else on her mind altogether.

  ‘Abhay has been posted here to the barracks in Karnataka,’ she said. ‘He wants me to live with him in his quarters.’

  ‘While he is posted here?’

  ‘No . . . forever. He’s been made lieutenant, so he says he has the money for us to start a family instead of having to depend on his parents. Have a home of our own.’

  ‘What about his family? His sister? They will not be happy.’

  ‘That is their problem, as Abhay said.’

  ‘But what about your dancing? You are one of the best dancers in Mysore!’ Sarojini protested weakly.

  ‘I would have to give up dancing after the babies come anyway,’ Kalpana whispered, turning to Sarojini with stars in her eyes. ‘Oh, Saro, he wants to be with me. He wants to have children with me. He doesn’t care that I may have had ten men or even a hundred men!’

  ‘So, you will cut your beads, then?’

  ‘Oh no! I will never cut my beads. We’ll just live together as husband and wife without being married. The army does not ask for a marriage certificate to prove these things.’

  ‘Kalpana, I am so happy for you,’ Sarojini told her friend, but she couldn’t help worrying. When Kalpana moved in with Abhay, Sarojini could not imagine being able to pay her rent. Her family in the country would suffer too. The money from her pattam had long ago been spent on food and farming equipment.

  So when Mamaji broached the subject of an introduction, Sarojini knew she was in no position to refuse – particularly when Mamaji made it clear that this would be the last man she’d formally introduce her to. Several people had contacted her after the Pillay family’s Deepavali celebration to express their displeasure at Sarojini’s behaviour, and Mamaji’s patience was not unlimited.

  ‘I am not going to say that he is wealthy. He is not. He is a Sri Lankan Saliya and he works as one too. Weaving for a living,’ Mamaji said. ‘I am not even going to say that he’ll be an attentive lover, Sarojini. He works in Kanchipuram most of the time, but he’ll spend two weeks at a time here in Mysore. He has some friends here. And it is far away enough from both Sri Lanka and Tamil Nadu that he can be himself here.’

  ‘What do you mean? Why can’t he be himself around his own home?’

  Mamaji looked uncomfortable. ‘Sarojini, I could have introduced him to several girls. Aradhana is at a loose end as much as you are. But I thought of you. Not because you are more experienced than she is, but because you are a dancer. And a singer. You understand . . .’

  ‘Understand what, Mamaji?’ Sarojini asked.

  ‘That there may be more to a person than meets the eye.’ Mamaji reached forward for the little bell by the tea tray and rang it decisively.

  There was a rustle by the stairs and Sarojini turned to look. No matter how desperate her circumstances, no matter what her situation, she could not help but feel a deep revulsion at the sight of the dwarf who limped towards her.

  Sarojini usually said that she came from Gokak if anyone asked where she hailed from. But that was not strictly correct. Gokak was the nearest city of any repute to the hamlet where she was born. The hamlet itself was another ten miles or so from Hulloli, which was a bus ride north of Gokak. Sarojini wasn’t even sure that the peasants had got around to giving it a name. She described it as the collection of huts near the grove of stunted coconut trees to the tuktuk drivers she collared in Hulloli to get her home.

  Not that she had to haggle over fares that day. Her little money purse tucked carefully into her saree blouse was full to bursting with rupees. Mamaji had said that the arari wasn’t wealthy, but he certainly was generous with what he had. In fact, Sarojini could hardly heft her battered old suitcase from the bus and the tuktuk driver had groaned audibly as he tucked it under her feet and revved the four-stroke engine. ‘Your family will have a good Deepavali,’ he’d muttered enviously.

  And indeed they would. Sarojini had a new saree or lungi for each member of her family. She even had a kilo each of burfi, laddoo, kaai kani halwa and tins of gulab jamun. She had to hang onto the parcels for dear life as the three-wheel driver careered around the narrow rural roads, miraculously avoiding ditches, cows and goats with expertise. Her nieces and nephews would enjoy the celebrations that evening, their little fingers greedily stuffing food into their mouths until their bellies stuck out like balloons against their stick-thin frames, hunger sated for at least one night of the year.

  Yet even the joy of seeing her brothers and mother so well looked after could not stem the squirmy feeling in the pit of Sarojini’s stomach at the thought of being with Karuna again. It wasn’t as if she’d never been with ugly or old men before, it was just . . . he was a dwarf. Once he took off his sandals, he barely reached her bust, his stubby arms and legs at odds with his stocky chest and large head.

  ‘Please don’t call me Sindhu,’ he’d begged that afternoon. ‘That’s what my students call me.’

  ‘But I thought you were a weaver, a Saliya saree maker, not a teacher,’ she’d quizzed him, turning around to start unpinning her saree so she didn’t have to look at him.

  ‘I am, but I spend most of my time teaching these days,’ Karuna whispered, coming close. ‘Please, let me undress you,’ he’d asked. It had taken all of Sarojini’s willpower to not push the man and run away.

  Yet what happened next surprised Sarojini into silence. He took her by the hand and led her to her bed, pushing her to sit down so that they were the same height before he kissed her. On the lips. Sarojini hadn’t been kissed since the first time Harindra had taken her. And certainly not with such a desire to taste, to savour and even to understand.

  He undressed her slowly, easing her skin-tight saree blouse from her arms, kissing the nipples of her breasts. ‘It has been so long . . . so long . . .’ he kept saying over and over again.

  Perhaps for the first time, Sarojini met a man who looked to her pleasure before seeing to his own. His gnarled, callused hands were tender and soft as they caressed her breasts and touched her between her legs, massaging, teasing and arousing until he was rewarded with the wetness that had been his quest.

  But as he entered her, she could not help but open her eyes and look at him, albeit briefly, and whatever arousal she’d felt disappeared instantly. He was a singularly unattractive man, his large head and prominent jaw so at odds with his small body. So Sarojini closed her eyes to think of a more attractive man, her mind riffling through a list of Hindi film stars – Amitabh Bachchan, Anil Kapoor and even Jeetendra – yet none would stay, their handsome faces and muscular bodies fleeting through her mind. It had never happened to her before, and she started to worry. Without this man, she would end up on the streets working as a common prostitute. She would have to feign pleasure to keep him interested.

  Karuna paused a moment, as if to ask what was wrong. She lent forward to kiss him, only to have the image of Rakesh flood into her mind. Thinking about the boorish army Major sent an electric thrill through her, and she kissed the dwarf again, anger tingeing her arousal.
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br />   When it was all over and done, Karuna hadn’t raced out of her narrow hard bed, as most araris did. He held her close, kissing her hair, stroking her back. Yet as she lay in his arms, or rather as he lay cuddled up in her arms like a puppy, she could not think of the man she was with but rather the man she’d never consent to be with no matter what!

  She was still thinking of Rakesh now when the tuktuk driver pulled up by the grove of stunted coconut trees. It was well past the midday meal and everyone was still out working the fields. Sugar cane was the mainstay her brothers produced, along with jowar and betel leaves. In the distance she thought she could see her diminutive sisters-in-law with their children helping fertilise and tend to the crops. She went into the little mud hut, just three rooms with a communal eating space, and breathed in deeply the smells of home – the fragrance of the wood fire from the lean-to kitchen and the sickly sweet fragrance of the decaying bunch of bananas hanging on the verandah.

  ‘You home,’ her mother observed crisply coming through the back door. ‘I no think you come till evening.’

  ‘I was lucky, Amman,’ Sarojini replied. It’d been a year since she’d last seen her mother, but the woman looked as if she’d aged another decade. ‘I caught the first train at four am, and there was a bus to Hulloli just as I got off.’

  ‘Hmmm . . .’ her mother said as she bustled about helping Sarojini unpack, putting the food out and covering the plates with banana leaves. ‘You help me cut betel leaves. I give betel leaves, he give me oil for tonight.’

  ‘Why, Amman? Doesn’t Uncle Uday buy oil for all of us?’

  ‘Not this year,’ her mother grunted in a voice that brooked no further discussion.

  So Sarojini went to the well to wash away the dirt and grime of the road before changing into a simple village saree. Silks and brocades were of no use here. Simple sturdy cotton sarees that did not much show dirt were needed. As the sun set, Sarojini and her mother made their way to the general store some three miles away, two large baskets of betel leaves balanced on their heads.

  ‘You come back, have you?’ the shopkeeper asked Sarojini irritably, pointedly placing the oil for the lamps in a bottle on the ground. Sarojini gritted her teeth and ignored him. There was no need for that kind of behaviour. Her family were Shudras, not Dalits. He would not be obliged to undergo any ritual ablutions for having touched her or her mother. Notwithstanding, he’d been one of the many men who’d lined up to offer for her after her first pattam, only to be turned away by Mamaji. ‘The devadasi are the property of the village,’ the surly shopkeeper had complained. ‘There are enough whores in Mysore already. Why take village girls?’

  The two women then walked home at dusk, a magical time for Sarojini as she breathed in the clean, fresh country air, but the peace lasted only until they arrived home.

  ‘Eh! You use all de eggplant! All of dem?’ Sarojini’s mother shouted at her youngest daughter-in-law, a girl who was only seventeen but already a mother of three. ‘Why you do dat? You waste so much! Your dowry all gone and still you waste money!’ Then she scolded Sarojini’s older sister-in-law. She’d dressed her two children a bit too early and they’d managed to smear dirt on themselves. ‘Filthy children. Like deir mother!’

  Sarojini’s mother bustled about, getting everything ready for the Deepavali celebration, haranguing them all and barking orders. ‘Too much batter for dosai! Not crisp enough! No, no, no! Don’t use salt in the sambar. It be bad luck!’

  She stopped only when the youngest sister-in-law’s brother, a prosperous labourer who worked at the cement factory, rode up and gave her a few rupees to celebrate the festival. ‘Here, anujate,’ the earnest young man yet without a family said. ‘Spend it on the children.’ As soon as he’d left, Sarojini’s mother took it. ‘What you need money for? Your children no go to school!’

  ‘What do you mean, the children aren’t going to school?’ Sarojini demanded. ‘I send money for their books and uniforms!’

  ‘They be needed out in the fields,’ her brother said, not looking at her.

  ‘But the government says that all children must go to school! It is the law!’

  ‘Why?’ her brother growled back. ‘They make children go to school for what? So they work fields! Dey no need schools for dat!’

  ‘No, but with an education they have a future! Maybe your boy will get a job in Gokak,’ Sarojini pointed out. ‘Look at Aravind!’ she said. Aravind was their only cousin who was educated. ‘He even went to college!’

  There was silence.

  ‘Aravind he die six months ago,’ her sister-in-law said gently, speaking for the first time. ‘He drink fertiliser and he die.’

  ‘He gets education but no one give him job. Dey say if Shudras work in shop or office dey spend more time cleaning it!’ her brother cried.

  Sleep did not come easy to Sarojini that night despite her exhaustion. Aravind had been her childhood friend, playing with grasshoppers and crickets with her in the long grass. As she finally fell asleep to the snores of her brothers and their families, she could not be but thankful for her good fortune. Her life was not easy, but as a devadasi she had been freed from the daily oppressions of being a village wife and escaped the brutal stigmatisation of her caste.

  ‘Who’s there?’ Sarojini asked in a terrified voice. ‘I have a cricket bat,’ she said, groping in the dark for the willow-wood bat Karuna had left by the entrance.

  ‘But I can’t bowl a cricket ball,’ came the dry response from deep inside the narrow home.

  ‘Oh, it’s you!’ Sarojini said, sagging beside the wall in relief. ‘I thought you were coming tomorrow.’

  ‘No, I was able to leave Kanchipuram early,’ Karuna said, coming out of the little sitting room they’d fashioned out of Kalpana’s old bedroom. ‘Oh my dear girl!’ he said, dragging her by the hand back into the sitting area and taking her heavy bags from her shoulders, ‘you look exhausted!’

  ‘Yes, ten performances in eight days,’ Sarojini sighed as she collapsed on the little divan. It was festival season in Mysore and she’d been touring the countryside dancing and singing.

  But now she had a home to come back to. A real home. Something she’d never really had since the age of eight. Karuna had taken over the lease to her annex completely once Kalpana had left and insisted on decorating it with coloured curtains, comfortable furniture and pot plants.

  ‘You don’t have to work so hard, you know,’ he said that evening, gently slipping her sandals off her feet. ‘I can quite happily support you.’

  ‘But I love to dance, Karuna. And sing. It gives me something to do while you are . . . you know . . . not here.’ It had been three months since the start of their liaison and things were going very well. ‘And how’s everything in Kanchipuram? Will you start teaching there as well?’

  ‘Ah no, my dear, no. My home is in Sri Lanka. You must come with me one day. I only come here to help Raju with his business,’ Karuna said, limping away to the kitchen.

  ‘And what about his son? Little Laksman? Is he well?’

  ‘A cheeky little monkey! You know what he said to me? He asked me how can I be a grown-up, when I am so small. Treats me like I am one of his friends because I am not much bigger than him,’ Karuna replied with a laugh as he came back into the room with a cup of tea for her.

  ‘When did you come in?’

  ‘A little after midday. Your landlady let me in.’

  ‘She likes you,’ Sarojini teased him. ‘She is always asking me when you are coming back. She was muttering about getting a new saree the other day. Maybe you can take her shopping again!’

  ‘No, my dear, I don’t think so. I haven’t quite recovered from our last outing. When she asked me to accompany her to the train station, I had no idea that she wanted to have dinner with me, nor did I need her to tell me she had three lakhs in savings! She said it should be sufficient dowry for a man like me to take a widow like her.’

  ‘She is in love with you.’

&nb
sp; ‘But you are all the woman I need,’ he replied.

  Sarojini looked away. She was not quite sure how she felt about Karuna, despite his many kindnesses. After Kalpana had left, Karuna provided her not only with money to cover her rent but enough of an allowance for her to regularly send money back to her family in Gokak. Which she did, with a stern missive informing her family that her continued financial support was contingent on them sending her nieces and nephews to school.

  ‘Come now,’ Karuna said, interrupting her thoughts. ‘You are tired. Let’s go to bed.’

  They did not sleep immediately, but lay in bed talking by the glow of a single dim light globe. Sarojini found Karuna’s life in Sri Lanka fascinating and was always asking questions about it.

  ‘So you are still living in Panadura? Despite the fact that the Sinhalese burnt the factory down? Don’t you hate them?’

  ‘I am Sinhalese. The actions of a few idiots don’t represent the many.’

  ‘But why did they burn the factory?’

  ‘Anger, I suppose. Raju had run foul of some thugs nearby and they took their revenge. The old chettie died six months before the troubles in eighty-three and Gauri fled to England.’

  ‘Did they ever find the men who burnt Raju?’

  Sindhu looked at Sarojini and gave a sad, cynical smile. ‘No. Justice is very selective in Sri Lanka. As it is here, in India. You need to be the right person at the right place and time. The thug who did it, Manoj Mendis, has become respectable now. He worked for a politician as a standover man for a while and then he took over a Tamil floor wax business after the riots. The owners ran for their lives and Manoj walked in and took over.’

  ‘But Raju is happily married now to Shanthi in Kanchipuram,’ Sarojini sighed. It all seemed like a fairytale to her – a tragic story, but with a beautiful and satisfying ending.