Saree

by Su Dharmapala

  She came back and handed him his chai.

  ‘Why would you do that?’ Rakesh grumped, taking a deep sip. ‘Too much sugar,’ he said, pushing it back into Sarojini’s hand. ‘I used to live on a kilo of sugar for six months!’

  ‘What do you mean, why? I want you to be protected by the Lord Hanuman, that’s why!’

  ‘Little girl, why do I need Lord Hanuman when I have my machine gun?’

  ‘But don’t all the other wives do poojas? The army wives in Mysore certainly did.’

  ‘Not all. Only silly superstitious ones! You need to seek out the educated ones. The ones who have been to college. Make friends with them. They certainly don’t go to temple and do poojas for every little thing. And you making friends with the right wives is very important to me. They can help me along in my career.’

  ‘Of course, darling,’ Sarojini agreed. ‘That is why I have been going to the afternoon teas and lunches.’

  ‘If you didn’t do the teas and lunches, you’d have nothing else to do anyway,’ Rakesh said.

  ‘Actually, Rakesh, I have been thinking about that . . . would you mind terribly if I wanted to do something more productive with my time?’

  ‘Like what? You aren’t educated. Your gharwali didn’t send you to school, did she?’

  ‘No, but she ensured we all were taught to read and write, and that we were well educated in mathematics and science, geography, history and politics.’

  ‘So you are an educated woman now, are you?’ Rakesh mocked.

  ‘Rakesh, that is not what I said and you know it,’ Sarojini protested. ‘But I was thinking I would like to teach.’

  ‘Teach what, exactly? Do you want to teach the middle-class army wives how to be a devadasi?’

  Sarojini looked away to hide her irritation. Rakesh wasn’t the most sensitive of men. Especially not after a long patrol.

  ‘Come here,’ he said softly. ‘I know what you can teach. You can teach me how to fuck you like the other day. I could not stop thinking about it. The whole time I was out trying to catch rebels, all I could think about was fucking you.’

  She could not deny him. Within minutes, her saree had come off and before long Rakesh was ramming her against the hard cement walls, his hand over her mouth to muffle her groans of pleasure, her legs wrapped around his lean waist and hips.

  ‘I never understood why some men desire virgins,’ he said in her ear. ‘Women like you are much better. You know how to pleasure a man. You know how it is done.’

  Afterwards, they lay on the bed, slightly apart. Rakesh insisted on lying flat on his back to work out some of the kinks in his spine after days on patrol. Not that Sarojini really minded – he hadn’t had time to have a proper shower yet.

  ‘Rakesh, I was thinking that I could teach some of the children – the girls – how to sing and dance,’ Sarojini said softly.

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Because it’ll give me something to do while you are out on patrol.’

  ‘Have you thought of how you’d answer if someone wanted to know how you learned to dance? Everybody knows that the best dancers are devadasi. No. It is best if you do nothing,’ Rakesh insisted.

  Sarojini had to blink away tears. ‘So what would you like me to do?’ she asked.

  ‘Do as the other wives do. Go to each other’s house and have tea! Aren’t you girls supposed to be organising this ball at the moment?’

  Lucknow was a very different city to Mysore. The lush, open tropical gardens so prevalent in Karnataka were not at all like the more formal Moghul-styled parks of Uttar Pradesh. Even the Hindu temples were more sedate than their southern counterparts – there were no towering pyramids of statuettes, nor did the ceremonies have the same high drama – but the difference could not have been more pronounced than in the saree bazaars, Sarojini thought, as she was ushered into a large showroom with the other army wives.

  In the south, the bazaars were a riotous melee of colours, smells and sounds, as women jostled to find the best sarees, fighting for the attention of the harangued sales people and haggling for the best price. It was nothing at all like this stiff and very formal ceremony. Here they were asked to sit down on large woven mats and offered cups of tea and biscuits before an array of sarees was paraded in front of them and then spread on the floor for inspection. There was no pushing, no shoving and certainly no fighting.

  Mindful of Rakesh’s instructions, Sarojini did not put herself forward, sitting in the corner and observing it all from a distance. She was terrified of speaking at all. ‘One wrong move and we are both done for,’ Rakesh had said. ‘Imagine if they found out what you did?’

  So the shopping expedition started very slowly. No one wanted to hazard an opinion or make a suggestion. Fresh out of college or school, none of them had had the time to develop their taste and had relied on their mothers or aunts to buy their sarees for them.

  ‘What do you think?’ Mrs Meena Singh asked finally, holding up a saree of a particularly heavy weave that would make her look like a chicken trussed up to go into a tandoor oven. ‘Do you think this suits me?’

  ‘What about this?’ Babitha asked, pointing out a saree so gossamer it would be the scandal of the evening.

  ‘I think I’ll get this,’ Nagina said, holding up a tasselled orange saree more suited to a grandmother than a young woman.

  Sarojini could no longer hold her tongue. She turned to Meena Singh and smiled. ‘Don’t you think a lighter brocade would be more suitable?’ she asked, careful to keep her tone light.

  ‘Why do you say that?’ Meena demanded.

  ‘Because it would suit your frame better. A light brocade will still hold you in while not bulking you out,’ Sarojini explained. She’d been taught to dress by some of the most elegantly turned-out women in India. Women who took pride in their attractiveness and knew how to be beautiful.

  ‘And I think this blue saree best suits you, Babitha,’ she said, whisking the sheer gossamer away and pulling out a Benares silk instead. ‘The deep blue will bring your eyes out. And Nagina, it’s best you steer clear of orange. The only women who can wear orange well are those who’ve just been cured of TB!’

  ‘Oh, you know so much about sarees!’ Babitha cried. ‘It must be wonderful to be married so late. At least you’ve had time to figure out what you like and don’t like!’

  Sarojini could not help but smile. Yes, at twenty-four, she was the oldest of the new army wives. That smile burst a little dam within Sarojini, and she decided to take charge. ‘Come now, girls, let’s try these sarees. It’s pointless seeing them on the floor if you don’t know how they’ll drape on your body.’

  ‘Here?’ Babitha squeaked.

  ‘Yes, here. Nothing immodest. Just stand up and we’ll see how the sarees will drape on you. Just over what you are wearing now.’

  Then Sarojini got to work.

  ‘Drape your saree like this,’ she instructed more than one lady. ‘A saree is supposed to shape you and hold you. You make your saree – not the other way around!’

  ‘You are not old enough to wear that purple saree. Twenty years from now, yes. But not now!’ she commanded another.

  Sarojini had the confidence that came from wearing sarees from a very young age. She hadn’t had to wait till she had married or finished college to shift from dress to saree.

  ‘Now for you, Mrs Sunila – let’s find a saree for you,’ Sarojini said. Sunila was a quiet girl from Calcutta, and like many people from the east of India, she had a complexion and facial features that were almost oriental. Sharp eyes and a golden hue to her skin. She was also tall and willowy, with the frame and build of the Moghuls who’d invaded India many centuries previously – which made it very difficult to find the right saree for her.

  ‘What about this one?’ the nawab suggested, coming forward. He’d really enjoyed having the army wives in his store and the young lady from Karnataka had style and flair. He held out a saree made of chiffon, deep red at the top and fading away
to a pale pink at the hem. Its beauty came not from any embellishment, but from this subtle gradation of colour alone. It was unusual and dramatic, the perfect foil for the girl from Calcutta.

  ‘Oh, it is perfect! Perfect!’ Sarojini cried, leaning forward to look at it, but as she did so something even more interesting caught her eye. ‘What is that?’ she asked, pointing to a saree on a model in the shop window that had been pushed aside to make way for the latest fashions.

  ‘Oh that!’ the nawab said. ‘I bought that saree from a young pregnant woman some years ago. She needed money to enter an ashram somewhere in Dehradun. I don’t know what came over me, but I gave her 75,000 rupees for it.’

  There was gasp of horror. No one had heard of anyone paying that much for a single saree!

  The nawab brought the saree out eagerly and unfolded it on the floor for his awestruck audience. He’d long since relinquished the dream of ever selling it – no one could afford it. But he still enjoyed showing the saree to his customers. ‘It is a bride’s saree. But it is neither gold nor white. The silk is so pure I have never seen anything like it. See, those are real sapphires along the hem, and gold thread makes up the peacock’s feathers!’

  Sarojini reached out an admiring hand and stroked the silk. She owned many fine sarees, but this silk was softer and more supple than any she had ever known.

  ‘She was with my father for only two years. She thought she had found a wealthier protector and left my father for him,’ Rakesh confessed.

  They were seated on a bench in the little park behind the army barracks where there was a short cut into town. A few officers rushed past, waving cheerily to them, off to get the evening meal or a few groceries.

  ‘When did she get syphilis?’

  ‘When I was about ten. We didn’t have money for medication, so in about a year she became quite unwell. It was horrible, Saro – her face and body were covered with blisters. I had to wash her and clean her for months . . .’

  Sarojini looked away in sadness. What could she say? Sickness and disease were realities for devadasi, just as bullets were for soldiers.

  Several more officers went rushing by into town. It was Friday, and clear that their wives didn’t want to cook the evening meal after a long week. Everybody would be enjoying korma and parathas tonight.

  ‘So what have you been doing with yourself?’ Rakesh asked, stretching back.

  ‘Nothing much – just doing some gardening and keeping the place tidy.’

  ‘Yes, the lieutenant colonel said that he’d noticed the flowers in our front yard. Where did you get those from?’

  ‘I found the plants thrown out in town.’

  ‘You’re scavenging in town now? What if you were seen?’

  ‘No, Rakesh, I wasn’t scavenging in town. I went into town and the flower seller was throwing the old plants out, so I took them, cared for them and now they are healthy plants!’ Sarojini replied crossly.

  ‘Hmmm . . .’Rakesh grunted. ‘Why did you go into town?’

  ‘To buy vegetables and groceries.’

  ‘Why can’t you make do with the vegetables and groceries at the army store?’

  ‘Because it is twice as expensive as what I can find outside.’

  ‘But you know I don’t like you going into town. It’s full of dacoits and you could get hurt.’

  ‘Rakesh, I lived in Mysore all my life. I certainly did not have a chaperone!’

  ‘Then go out with another army wife!’

  ‘But Rakesh!’

  ‘Next time you go into town, do so with one of the senior army wives.’

  They were just standing up to return home when they happened to see Lieutenant Colonel Singh coming back from town.

  ‘Off for a walk with your missus are you, Major Vinod? Good, good. Just went shopping in town myself!’ the lieutenant colonel said, holding up several string bags bulging with groceries. ‘Half the price of groceries in the store!’ he added, settling the bags down for a moment. ‘I must say, Major, you are a lucky man!’

  ‘Why, sir?’ Rakesh asked with a smile.

  ‘Yours must have been the only wife who came back from that shopping trip into town with no saree! Whenever two or more women shop together they waste ten times more money! My Meena came home with six sarees! Can you believe that?’

  Sarojini didn’t say anything. She hadn’t bought anything at the saree bazaar because she had not had any money. She’d asked Rakesh the night before and even the morning of the shopping trip, but he’d forgotten. She’d had to use the little money she had left over from her days in Karnataka when they’d stopped for a soft drink. Rakesh was so frugal with their housekeeping expenses it was just as well that Sarojini knew how to stretch a budget.

  ‘Thank you, sir,’ Rakesh replied, more than a little obsequiously.

  ‘Now, Mrs Vinod, you will be coming to dinner with us next Friday night, won’t you?’

  ‘I thought it was officers only,’ Rakesh said.

  ‘Oh, no, no . . . the brigadier visited me the other day after Meena and Sarojini came home from shopping and he was quite taken with your wife!’

  ‘Why?’ Rakesh demanded.

  ‘Oh, you silly boy! He is a happily married man with grandchildren. It’s just that we all heard your beautiful wife hum a few tunes as she helped Meena with the sarees and we thought maybe she could sing for us at the mess hall! Anyway, I must hurry! Meena is waiting on the onions to make aloo gobhi!’

  ‘You sang?’ Rakesh demanded, turning to Sarojini and grabbing her by the shoulders. ‘I thought I explained to you that if you got caught it would be the end of our lives on the army base!’

  ‘I didn’t sing!’ Sarojini protested, trying to wriggle away, but Rakesh tightened his grip.

  ‘Really? So why is it that they want you to sing in front of all of the officers in Lucknow?’

  ‘It’s just singing, Rakesh! I think you are making too much out of this!’

  ‘Singing first! Dancing next, and then what? Returning to being a devadasi!’

  Sarojini stopped trying to break free from his grip and looked him in the eyes. ‘Rakesh, I left that life behind me to start a new one with you. I would not do anything to hurt you or us!’

  ‘I thought I could get my hair put up like this,’ Meena explained to the hairdresser in town, unpinning her tresses and holding them up. She and Sarojini had come into town to have her saree blouse stitched and they’d called in at the hairdresser on their way home so that they could agree on a hair-up before the ball.

  The hairdresser sat her down on a chair, then lifted the heavy tresses and squealed. ‘Oh, madam, there are lice in your hair! All over! Look! One just fell to the floor,’ she screamed, stomping on it with her slippers.

  ‘The children!’ Meena cried. ‘They get them from school and they give them to me! This is the fifth time this year – I can’t get rid of them!’

  ‘Well, madam, I can do it,’ the hairdresser said. ‘But it will take two hours a week for the next three weeks. I can kill these little pests! Leave it to me! We can start right now.’

  Meena looked at Sarojini. ‘You don’t mind, do you? Why don’t you go and have a look at the saree shops? You haven’t got a saree to wear yet for the ball!’ When Sarojini nodded, Meena strode towards the basin and sat down. ‘Kill ’em!’ she told the hairdresser.

  Sarojini smiled and walked out into the autumn sunlight. It wasn’t a particularly warm day, so it was quite pleasant to stroll about town. And it was even lovelier to be out of the army barracks. She was hardly getting out at all now, after Rakesh’s edict.

  As instructed by Meena, she went to look for a saree. Not that she had any money, but it was nice to look. She looked in this shop and that, wrinkling her nose at what was on offer, walking the length and breadth of the saree district until she found herself back at the store where the other army wives had bought their sarees.

  ‘Sir, I don’t know if you remember me,’ Sarojini said, approaching the elderl
y nawab. ‘I came in a few weeks ago with some friends.’

  ‘Of course I remember, my dear,’ the portly gentleman replied, bowing graciously. ‘How could I forget? I sold more sarees that day than I usually do in a week!’

  ‘Do you think I could have a look at that saree?’

  The nawab did not have to ask which saree she wanted to see.

  ‘Why, of course, madam. Though I will confess that you are not the first woman to fall under her spell.’

  ‘Why do you call the saree a her?’

  ‘Madam, this is no ordinary saree,’ the nawab replied, gently unrolling it and draping it on a high cupboard. ‘When I bought this saree my luck changed. Just before I bought it, there had been terrible trouble between the Hindus and Muslims here in Lucknow. Lootings. Riots. Did you hear about Lucknow down south?’

  Sarojini nodded.

  ‘I know we Muslims aren’t supposed to go into Hindu temples, but when my wife and I dropped our son off in New Delhi to catch a flight to Australia, I stopped by a temple and I prayed,’ the nawab said. ‘I prayed for something to keep us safe. And a few days later, this pregnant girl turned up. Ever since I put her saree up in my shop window, not a single thug has darkened my doorstep. Not a one. Shops on both sides have either been burnt or looted but not mine. My wife now does not even like for me to loan it out for weddings. She says it makes her feel unsafe. It’s magic.’

  Looking at the saree, Sarojini could understand. It was fluidity and beauty married into one. And it was delicately finished too. There wasn’t a single thread out of place and every stitch of embroidery was perfect. Quite unconsciously, she recited lines from a favourite poem, describing the great Ganges, and how she transformed India as she flowed from the Himalayas down through the plains and on to the ocean, how she brought grace and knowledge to all of humanity through her life-giving force.

  ‘You know Makhanlal Chaturvedi?’ the nawab asked with surprise.

  Sarojini nodded again. ‘I love his poetry,’ she said. Mamaji had taught her girls not just to read and recite poetry, but to understand it.