by Meira Chand
Sita nodded, remembering the other marriage, the gifts, the sweetmeats and the loud trumpeting of the wedding band. This marriage was different. Her hands were bare of the decoration of henna, and her brother did not seem to think this important. It was a wedding arranged by two bachelors without a need to prove wealth or social status, and without any women to question its form. There were no elders, no musicians, no feasting or dancing. The unadorned shape of day loomed starkly ahead, its weight already pressing upon her.
‘Will he change my name?’ Sita asked, her voice little more than a whisper.
‘He has said nothing of this to me,’ Dev replied, his attention focussed on the imminent appearance of his friend.
Sita fingered the red sari Dev had bought her, remembering the stiff weight of that other wedding sari, the plait of hair in a metal bowl, the smoke of the funeral pyre. She took a deep breath, pushing those dark pictures from her mind. This time she had a name for her husband, and what was more, he was named after the great god Shiva, transformer and protector of the universe, and she must take comfort in this thought.
Soon there were footsteps, and Sita heard Dev welcoming the bridegroom into the room. Adjusting the sari over her head, Sita clasped her hands together in her lap, knowing the men observed her as they stood together in the doorway. Although her heart beat fast, all the thoughts in her head seemed frozen. As convention forbade her to lift her eyes, she focussed her gaze upon her bridegroom’s bare feet in worn leather sandals as he stepped towards her, observing the clumps of dark hair sprouting from his wide toes, and his neatly clipped nails. They did not appear to be the feet of an old man, and this reassured her. Then she became aware of her brother speaking.
‘Raise your head and look at him. He wishes you to do this, he does not think in the old ways. There is nothing to fear. He is my friend.’
In spite of her brother’s encouragement, Sita hesitated, pulling the sari further over her face so that her bridegroom could see nothing of her. Dev sighed loudly, clearing his throat in embarrassment.
‘Let us go,’ Shiva announced at last, and Sita was sure she heard a note of impatience in his voice.
Dev picked up the garlands and the box of sweetmeats that would be used as an offering at the ceremony. Bending to take Sita’s arm, he guided his sister out of the cubicle, down the stairs and into the hot sun of Serangoon Road. As Sita stepped forward into the road, a herd of bleating goats on their way to the nearby slaughterhouse milled about her. Their owner, an emaciated old man, at once began shouting and struck out at the animals with a stick. Dev gripped her arm, drawing her to the side of the road until the goats had passed. Although the sari still covered her head, Sita raised her eyes in that moment of confusion, hoping for a glimpse of her bridegroom, and was rewarded with the sight of a tall man, straight as a bamboo cane, striding ahead up the road determinedly. His long thick hair was pushed back behind his ears and curled at the end, but as yet she could see nothing of his face.
At last they reached the temple, and Sita fell back apprehensively, trailing behind her brother. Brightly painted sculptures of the deities crowded the temple’s pagoda, and beneath it a pair of heavy silver doors stood open. Sensing her hesitation, Dev placed a hand upon his sister’s shoulder and guided her firmly inside. A bare-chested priest received them and Sita was led to where Shiva waited for her, and settled herself on the cool stone floor beside her bridegroom. Soon the priest began his incantations, the sound building rhythmically as Sita and Shiva began the rituals that would make them man and wife.
As the chanting of prayers began, Sita knew her bridegroom observed her. Although she tried to make sense of what was happening, she seemed to move in a dream, and the heady perfume of jasmine filling her head appeared the only reality. She seemed to be reliving that first wedding, but when she lifted her head she saw before her a different man, and knew she was entering a new life. She wished Billi could see her now, and she tried to imagine her sitting nearby, whispering encouragement, as she did so often in the ashram.
Sita did not remember how long it was before she realised Billi sometimes went out at night, returning to the ashram as first light filtered through the dark sky. Soon, if she stayed awake, Sita noticed how often Billi was gone, and that other young girls in the dormitory were also mysteriously absent some nights. If she got up quietly and pressed her face to the bars of the window, she could see them leave the bhajanashram, passing out through the door in the high wall. Once she saw the great bulk of Roop didi hastening them forward, and then shutting the door upon them. In the silent street a curtained palanquin waited, and the women climbed obediently into it. Wherever it was they went each night they were escorted by pujari’s assistant, the black-skinned dwarf, Motilal. Billi dismissed all Sita’s queries with amusement.
‘You were asleep, you must have been dreaming,’ she laughed.
In the end Sita asked the toothless Maneka as they ate lunch together when Billi was absent one morning.
‘Aie Bhagwan,’ the old woman sighed and shook her head. ‘God saved me; I was past using when I came here. Sometimes it is good to be old.’ Sita could make nothing of this answer and questioned further.
‘Where do they go at night? Why are they taken away by Motilal?’
‘There are many rich men in this town. One way or another we mais must earn money for God and the temple,’ Maneka replied, her eyes resting on Sita with new empathy as she continued.
‘Soon pujari will start to send you off too, and also call for you himself, just as he calls for the others when his need is great. Aie Bhagwan! That service too he expects in return for caring for us.’ Maneka shook her head, smiling her toothless smile, unaware of the effect of her words upon Sita, who drew a sudden, sharp breath of understanding.
Within days the illness began, as if that one moment of comprehension at Maneka’s side had penetrated Sita’s body. Fever dried her lips and carried her dreams to high, strange places. Phlegm rattled in her chest, spluttered in her throat, exhaustion pulled her down deeper and deeper. Her skin turned yellow, her eyes burned, her head thumped. Pujari raged at her uselessness and the cost of keeping her, as she lay on her mat. At intervals Motilal or Roop prodded her with a sandaled foot to test if life remained. Billi fed her water and honey drop by drop, old Maneka massaged her head and held a wet towel to her brow.
Although it seemed that pujari was prepared to let her die, eventually, in the same palanquin in which Billi and the other young girls were carried away at night, Sita was hurried to a small clinic run by a charitable trust dispensing free medicine to the destitute. A lady doctor from a hospital on the other side of town visited the clinic regularly, and a queue of poverty-stricken people beyond the help of the MBBS failed ex-medical student who ran the clinic, waited for her.
At last Dr. Sen arrived in a battered rickshaw, wearing a brown homespun cotton sari marked with the dust of travel between the hospital and the clinic. As she stepped out of the rickshaw she recognised the obese bald widow from one of the bhajanashrams standing at the head of the queue.
‘She is dying.’ Roop pointed impatiently to Sita who lay in a bamboo litter, bloodless as a plucked chicken.
Dr. Sen bent to examine Sita’s emaciated body, listening to the rattle and rasp of her lungs, feeling the feverish pitch of her temperature, and looked up angrily at Roop.
‘Why have you waited so long? She must go at once into hospital; I will attend to her myself.’
Later, when they knew each other better, Dr. Sen told Sita how she had more than once, from this same ashram, as well as others in the town, been brought young widows with botched abortions, who were bleeding to death. She had tried many times to visit the women in the ashrams, to check on their health and living conditions, all to no avail. Only in extremis, if at all, Dr. Sen told Sita, was a widow ever brought to her. In the bhajanashrams secret practices of sexual abuse, never spoken of but known to all, were openly encouraged. Dr. Sen knew which rich men in the
town availed themselves of these unfortunate women, but could do nothing to stop them.
The perfume of jasmine filled her head and, with a start, Sita returned to the present. The wedding ceremony was almost over and Dev was taking her arm and helping her to her feet. Her bridegroom now stepped towards her, placing the wedding garland upon her. She raised her head to observe him, and noticed his long fingered hands and his nose, flattened slightly at the end, as if someone had pressed it with a thumb. He was neither young nor old, and the warmth in his eyes reassured her. Her wrists were once again covered with glass wedding bangles; once again the marks of marriage anointed her, the red carmine bindi upon her brow and the bright smear of the sindhoor along the parting of her short hair. Observing these marks upon herself once more, Sita held her breath, instinctively waiting for her husband to drop to his knees, gasping and choking. Instead, the man at her side continued to stand before her.
From the temple, they began the short walk to Shiva’s home in a lane off Norris Road, behind the Ramakrishna Mission School where he taught Hindi, and also some English classes in the mission’s Afternoon English School. Dev strode ahead with Shiva while Sita hurried a few paces behind the men, one hand clutching the skirt of her sari, holding it clear of the dusty road, the other hand gripping the silk together beneath her chin so that the sari would not slip from her head. She could think of nothing but that she was a married woman again and the enormity of this fact filled her, leaving room for little else. As she walked, other thoughts began to press in upon her. Where did her new husband live, what would her life be like, what was he like? As she increased her pace in an effort to draw nearer the men her husband stopped, and to her surprise, turned back towards her.
‘This is the school where I teach,’ Shiva announced, pointing out to Sita a building crowned ornately on its roof by two dome shaped pavilions.
Sita glanced up at the structure, then hurried after Shiva as he turned into a lane beside the building. A stall selling coconuts stood on the corner, and the owner, a dark-skinned, pot-bellied man, stared curiously at Sita while greeting Shiva.
‘That is Viswanathan. Every day he sells me a coconut.’ Shiva said as he hailed the man. Sita stored away the information, already preparing to buy a coconut for her husband each day.
The alley they entered was narrow, but a strip of open land running behind the Ramakrishna Mission bordered one side of it, and gave a sense of space. The other side of the lane was lined with the tall back gates of a row of shophouses that faced into Serangoon Road. Shiva stopped at a gate before a jacaranda tree. Its purple blossoms were sprinkled over the road, and Sita stepped carefully around them as Shiva led them through the gate into the small stone-flagged courtyard of a dilapidated house.
‘Here is my home.’ Shiva pointed proudly to a spiral metal stair that led up to a narrow balcony and a door on the first floor.
Sita’s heart beat fast as she climbed the twisting stair behind the two men. A straggly plant grew in a blue oil drum beside the door, and beyond the wall the jacaranda rose up, its purple crown overhanging the courtyard, almost brushing the spiral stair. A faint sweet perfume drifted to her, and if she reached out an arm she was sure she could touch the flowers.
‘This room is separate from the rest of the house. It can only be entered by these stairs,’ Shiva explained as he unlocked a bulky padlock and pushed the door open.
The compressed heat inside the small room engulfed them as they stepped inside, and the red tiled floor burned beneath their feet. Shiva hurried to throw open the window shutters. As light flooded the room the first thing Sita noticed were the stacks of books and newspapers piled up against each wall, pervading everything with the mouldy smell of old paper. A tin trunk covered with a brightly printed green cloth, a low Indian-style desk with a cushion before it and a couple of shallow backed stools were the only furniture in the room; a rolled up sleeping mat stood in one corner. A small space at the back of the room, little more than an alcove, appeared to provide a makeshift kitchen. Sita glimpsed an earthen water jar, kerosene stove and a shelf with a few glass jars, cups and plates.
‘Usually I buy meals from the food stalls on the road,’ Shiva explained, following Sita’s gaze.
From under the silk veil of her sari, Sita looked hesitantly about and saw that her bundle of belongings had already been delivered, and stood in a corner.
‘Make us some tea,’ Dev ordered suddenly, taking command of the situation, as if Sita must immediately prove her worth.
As the men sat down, Sita made her way to the kitchen area, looking hesitantly about. Picking up a small pan from the shelf, she turned the key in the earthen jar, and drew some water. Then, crouching down before the kerosene stove she tried to light the apparatus with a match she had found, waiting for the blue flame to spring to life, but nothing happened. A couple of metal tumblers sat on a shelf, beside glass jars holding sugar and tea leaves and another with cinnamon and cardamom, but there was no milk to be seen. Behind her the men’s voices rose and fell in conversation as they waited for their tea. Weariness overwhelmed her in a sudden pressing weight; all she wanted to do was lie down on the floor and sleep. Although once again she had the status of wife, she seemed incapable of fulfilling the simplest of demands. For some moments she stood hesitantly in the tiny kitchen, then turned to where the men sat chatting, waiting for them to notice her. At last Dev looked up.
‘Where is our tea?’ he demanded with a frown.
‘Milk…’ she whispered, and at once her husband gave a self-conscious laugh.
‘I forgot, no milk. And also no kerosene,’ Shiva remembered.
Standing up, unfolding his long legs, he strode out of the door. Leaning over the balcony rail, he called to a servant boy in the courtyard below who immediately bounded up the stairs. Giving him a few coins, Shiva told him to bring tea from a stall in the street.
‘Afterwards, I will show you where everything is,’ he promised Sita.
The boy soon returned, carrying three tall glasses of milky tea on a metal tray. Sita served the two men and then crouched down in a corner and drank gratefully, the hot liquid coursing through her. It was the first thing, apart from a drink of water earlier, that had passed her lips all day. She had been too apprehensive to swallow the breakfast Dev had offered, and too ill at ease to eat after the wedding, when they had visited a roadside place. The light was fading, and beyond the window Sita glimpsed a patch of fiery orange sky. Shadows settled in the purple blossoms of the jacaranda tree beyond the window, the colour darkening, the light perfume drifting to her again as she sipped the tea.
Eventually, as Sita knew he must, Dev left, and she was alone with her husband. She listened to her brother’s footsteps clatter down the metal stair and the thump of the gate shutting behind him, as he let himself out of the courtyard and into the alley. Shiva bolted the door for the night and unrolled his thin mattress on the floor, smoothing out a sheet upon it. Then, as she watched, he unrolled Sita’s new mattress beside his own. Crouched in a corner, back up against the wall, head covered, heart beating, Sita wondered what would happen now, what was expected of her. A gecko clucked loudly above her on the wall. Shiva said nothing, ignoring her as he stretched out on the sleeping mat, turning down the oil lamp on the floor beside it, and yawning in an exaggerated manner. The wall pressed against Sita’s spine, panic tightened her chest. In the darkness of the silent room she heard the scuttle of a rat.
‘Are you going to sit all night in that corner?’ Shiva asked at last, and the sound of his voice rattled through her.
The faint light of a streetlamp in the road outside eased the darkness in the room. Shiva stirred and then propped himself up upon an elbow, staring at her silently, as if unsure of how to approach her. In the weak light she made a careful inventory of him, observing the silhouette of his head, the large ears and square jaw.
‘Come and rest here. We are both tired. I will not look at you.’ He turned his back towards her, yawning
again, as if to reassure her of his disinterest.
Her exhaustion was so great it robbed her of all will power. The need to lie down and close her eyes overwhelmed everything else. Making her way towards Shiva, she curled gratefully up on the mat beside him. She was almost asleep when he turned to her, and she felt his hand on her arm.
When at last it was done, the shock and shame of it filled her, even though it was over quickly. Sita stared at her husband, already asleep beside her on the mat, light snores escaping him. The scent of his hair oil, and the smell of his flesh filled her head. Her body echoed with shock, of the weight and force of him pressing down upon her, splitting her open. She had cried out in pain but he did not hear. At last, when it was over, he looked down at her, gently pushing the hair off her brow. She was sore and wet between her legs.
‘You are now my wife,’ he told her before he turned and slept.
In the dark room, she listened to the sound of his breathing and the strange noises of the street outside; the wail of a cat or a baby, the loud quarrelling of men in a language she did not understand. Through the window she could see a narrow slice of black sky dotted thickly with stars. This was her second night in the town, and already life had reclaimed her. Beside her Shiva turned and in the faint light, she stared at his sleeping face. He had made no mention of changing her name. Whatever had happened to her, whatever might await her, she was still the same person.
7
SINGAPORE, 1939
Standing on four truncated legs and with a heavy lid, Shiva’s desk was the most important piece of furniture in the room. Thin lines of inset brass patterned the steeply angled lid, and gleamed dully in the sun. The desk was crammed so full of pamphlets and Shiva’s writings that the lid rested upon a soft pad of loose papers. Shiva sat cross-legged on a cushion before it, writing industriously each day after he returned from the Ramakrishna Mission School. Shoulders hunched, his long nose just inches above his work, fingertips permanently stained with ink, he seemed to hear and see nothing once immersed in his writing.