The young bride’s eyes are closed, her head rests on her husband’s shoulder, and his on her head.
How lucky she is.
Damini gazes through her parents at the reclining torso of the Shivalik Hills. They seem to loom larger than five years ago.
Does her father know beauty now? The flowers he sold to templegoers were just names and prices for him when he was in the physical world. When she was a little girl, if she found a single date or coconut she’d place it on her father’s hammock chair. Never did he mention her gifts.
Oh, she knows—he didn’t want to feel affection for a daughter who would be leaving him as soon as marriage turned her into a woman. Loving a daughter, he used to say, was like watering your neighbour’s garden. Unlike other fathers, he never beat her—maybe because she never did anything that might bring shame to his name. Instead he allowed her go to school till she was fourteen, almost to the week before her wedding. Without the gift of that schooling she couldn’t have written messages in Hindi and Punjabi for Mem-saab, and Sardar-saab wouldn’t have hired her.
Now her father’s second wife is a widow. And without even one son for her old age. Can she read and write in any language? Mem-saab used to say a woman who can read and write can always do and learn enough to feed herself. And one who can act and tell stories may find new work. But still—her father’s widow is only twenty, as Damini was when Piara Singh died.
At twenty, Damini could have become a living ghost.
Dayan! whispered villagers, calling her a witch for bringing her husband terrible luck.
And when Damini claimed a share of the land from her brothers-in-law for Suresh, they were outraged. Haq-lene-wali! they called her, for asserting her rights.
At first they said Damini could live with her in-laws. But then they said an astrologer had foretold that if even one square metre of land was given to Suresh, it would be lost to the family forever. Astrologers! Who believes them? And then they warned that Damini was unlucky. They said more accidents could happen. So Damini’s mother-in-law, Ramkali Bai, said, “Damini, better that you leave us.”
So it was that she left her children in Gurkot and made her home with Mem-saab in the city. For that opportunity, she will always be grateful to Sardar-saab—a Qutb Minar towering above other men—who gave a widow a second chance.
Her father looks up—words have arrived. You should have planned for this, knowing Aman, knowing Timcu. You should have …
Planning is for saab-log, she tells her father. Can I predict my life as they can? And why didn’t you come and tell me what was going to happen, ji? Can my third eye see everything? If you can’t even come in a dream and tell me something will happen, how can I plan?
Damini had imagined riots, floods, famine, sickness and drought, but not this. But now that she is on this train of events, she must go where it is going.
“Kalka! Kalka Station!” A railway employee appears at the door between carriages.
Damini has arrived at the end of the line, in a city baking in the shade of the foothills. From the window she sees porters—gunny-sack pads over their kurta-clad backs—besieging first- and second-class carriages. One has grabbed a suitcase before its owner can fix a price and is arguing to shame the passenger into payment.
Her father, her mother? Their spirit-energy has faded.
The bridegroom rises and collects the couple’s luggage.
“May you be the mother of a hundred sons,” Damini says to the bride as she passes. The centuries-old blessing is powerful enough to serve this shy, smiling girl-woman as well.
The woman in the magenta sari gathers her brood, smiling farewell as she transfers a sleeping boy to her waiting husband’s arms. The woman in the green and mustard print kameez covers her head with her dupatta, draping a corner over her infant’s face to fend off mosquitoes, then steps onto the platform. The muggy warmth of the platform in the midday sun envelopes Damini.
The man who resembled Damini’s father helps his karma by carrying Damini’s bedroll and shoulder bag from the train. He even guards her luggage amid the jostling sweaty crowd while she uses the station restroom—Damini sends his mother mental energy as blessing for raising him well, and brings her palms together to thank him.
The cloth-bundle of parathas and mutton curry Khansama provided as his parting gift should be saved for her Leela and her family—they can so rarely afford meat. She can’t arrive empty-handed. In fact, she should arrive bearing gifts.
She browses the stalls. A peacock-feather hand-fan for Leela.
The shopkeeper proffers a tray of goldthread bracelets for the Rakhi festival tomorrow. Damini shakes her head, “I have no brothers.” No brothers on whom she can tie a rakhi. No brothers to whom she can give milk sweets. No brothers to whom she can turn instead of going to a son or daughter. Damini’s misfortune, and her mother’s failure. She moves to the next stall to avoid his look of pity.
Something for Chunilal, but what?
A spider-limbed man squats amid stacks of books and magazines and urges her to purchase his bestseller in Hindi. A gora with a vertical bar of a moustache gazes from its cover, under an untranslated title, Mein Kampf—the bookseller says it may mean “my trembling.”
Trembling is not a good sign in a man, unless a god is vibrating him. This one looks angry and powerful. Asuras could be vibrating through him—a demon-man.
Damini buys a carved metal rod that Chunilal can use to thread cords through his pyjama waistbands. And for thirty rupees, a cassette with songs from the hit movie Hum Aapke Hain Koun for him to play in his truck.
For Kamna, who adores the khun-khun sound of glass bangles, she buys a maroon pair studded with paste diamonds—they sparkle enough to pass for real in a dowry. For Mohan, a bamboo flute in honour of Lord Krishna. Maybe he can learn to play.
Chai and a suntra orange cost five whole rupees at the chai-stall.
“Only chai,” she calls to the man simmering tea leaves. Anyway, it’s best not to eat before a bus ride through the Himalayas. She checks her bedroll, to make sure she has her water bottle.
Two women who also seem to be travelling without relatives to accompany or greet them are standing a few feet away, waiting in an imaginary queue for tea. Damini recalls seeing them emerge from a second-class carriage. A red-shirted porter lifts their two suitcases from his head to the platform, and wipes his brow with the dangling end of his turban.
The older one is a gora, as ghost-pale as the Embassy-man. She must be a Christian from abroad. Her sashed grey frock only covers half her legs, as if she is still a girl. The younger one is Indian, but isn’t dark enough to be an Indian Christian—most Indian Christians Damini has ever seen are southerners. She turns, and Damini sees the leaf-shaped reddish-brown scar that spreads across one cheek, from eye to chin.
It’s the unlucky woman she saw at the lady-lawyer’s office, just four weeks ago, the one with the bruises. No wonder her almond eyes dart left and right. No wonder she glances over her shoulder at the stationary train as if a demon might jump from it. She’s tall—definitely Punjabi. She’s talking with the older woman in English, answering “ya-ya” and “no-no” as little Loveleen does.
She must have been very beautiful, once—definitely saab-log. She must have had an amma who pressed and pleated her frock for private school and whitened her tennis shoes with chuna every night. She probably wore a checked wool skirt in winter, the kind with the large diaper pin. She probably went to an English-medium college.
But she’s wearing an unprinted grey salwar-kameez and white muslin dupatta—colours more appropriate for someone twice her age. A plain steel watch on one wrist. No bangles on the other. No henna designs, no tattoos. No nose ring, though her nose is pierced. No earrings, though her ears are pierced.
Like a widow. Like me.
No mangalsutra necklace or marriage collar, not even a wedding ring—did her husband cast her out?
The tea leaves come to a rolling boil. The tea-seller
adds milk and returns the pan to the burner.
She’s a Jesus-sister. Both are sisters. But they’re dressed differently—old and young. No husbands, poor things.
The chai comes to second boil, the pan is removed from heat.
They don’t seem unhappy, though. In fact the younger one seems excited, despite her fear.
The tea-seller pours three tan streams from his pan to the tiny glasses before him. Damini reaches for the same glass as the Indian nun, and stops. The nun stops too, gives a hesitant puff of a laugh, and reaches for the next glass in line. For a moment, guileless brown eyes gaze into Damini’s. Kind, questioning eyes.
As they sip their chai, the gora nun asks—in Hindi!—where Damini is going.
“Gurkot.”
“I was there a few years ago,” says the gora nun, still in Hindi. “Our priest held an education camp and a few medical camps there, and our sisters served there for a few days.”
Damini listens carefully, amused by the gora nun’s accent and attracted by her effort.
“Now, praise be to god, a politician finally gave a permit for a paved road, and there are plans to open a permanent school and clinic there soon.”
“Do you live in Gurkot?” asks the younger one.
Damini shakes her head no, then wobbles it—yes. Then again, no. A film is rising before her eyes; she looks away quickly. She doesn’t know yet if she lives in Gurkot. The Indian nun doesn’t press for an answer, but her large-eyed gaze seems to plunge to the core of Damini’s being. She takes another sip, then turns to the tea-seller and requests three oranges. He pops them in a newspaper-bag and hands them to her. She presses one into Damini’s hand.
Damini’s cheeks warm—the nun must have overheard her asking how much it cost. She searches the young woman’s face for any hint of condescension, but senses only the kindness most people reserve for blood relatives. Perhaps the nun’s wound opened her to those of others. Maybe she too remembers Damini from the lady-lawyer’s office. Damini’s heart is too full to ask.
“Dhanvaad,” Damini thanks her in Punjabi. She wedges the orange into the side of her bedroll and follows them through an archway.
A cream-coloured jeep is waiting for the nuns in the golden afternoon light. The driver, a Muslim, judging from his karakuli cap, stands beside it. A dignified man of about sixty with a salt and pepper goatee, he wears navy blue pants and a matching jacket with epaulets. He makes a quick namaste and loads their bags.
Damini narrows her eyes and looks around, a little unsure.
The older nun glances at Damini and then turns to her driver.
“Shafiq Sheikh, inko bus par charda do.” She sounds accustomed to giving orders. She nods farewell to Damini and gets in the jeep. The driver approaches Damini, and reaches for her shoulder bag. He slings Damini’s bedroll over his shoulder, as if he was ten years younger than her, and beckons for her to follow.
Surprised, Damini rushes after him down the street to the elephantine horde of trucks and buses gathered at a crescent-shaped motor stand. Then she stops and turns to give the nuns a parting wave and smile.
The Shimla-bound bus is not scheduled to leave for an hour, but it’s already half-filled with passengers and if she doesn’t take her seat now, she might have to stand all the way. While she buys a ticket, Shafiq Sheikh brings himself merit by climbing the ladder to the roof of the bus and tying her luggage to it. She nods farewell and he trots off down the street, back to the nuns’ jeep. A few minutes later, the jeep passes by. The younger nun looks up and smiles as if Damini is no longer a stranger.
Christians are good-hearted people.
Grey clouds arrive, collide and pucker. Rain patters on the roof. Damini reaches the corner of her dupatta through the window, wetting it to wipe her cheeks and forehead. Then her cupped hand for a little rain to drink.
The cooling shower is a blessing from the gods.
The bus fills up with people and belongings, then takes on more. Two hours later, a singer who perfectly imitates Lata Mangeshkar strikes up a song on the bus speakers. “Which movie, which movie?” Damini asks, igniting energetic debate among the passengers.
Phir Teri Kahani Yaad Aayee. Again I remember your story. The driver settles it. The bus lumbers forward with its aluminium sides vibrating and begins to wind its way uphill.
En route to Shimla
August 1994
ANU
THE WOMAN WITH THE HENNA-ORANGE HAIR AND LONELY look in her eyes seemed familiar, but Anu, sitting in the back seat of the convent jeep beside Sister Imaculata, can’t place her. She breathes a prayer for the woman to find her way safely to Gurkot.
The jeep heads north as if aligned with Anu’s inner compass. Pure cool mountain air spreads like a benediction in her lungs. Healing is in these mountains, waiting to be found in contemplation, meditation, silence and service to others. She shouldn’t read as the jeep loops its way through the hills, but the letter is from Rano. Dot-matrix text jumps and blurs on preprinted flowered paper.
I’ve enrolled Chetna in a summer camp for children of landed immigrants, and the local Sikh school in September. Not that Jatin and his family are very observant Sikhs—remember he married Hindu me—but following Sikh tenets, this school doesn’t allow smoking. I can swallow a little religion so that our little girl remains drug-free.
Most of our friends are Sikhs so they mostly have the last name Singh. She keeps asking Singh what? She wants their caste names. Some have them, most don’t. I explained that Sikhs don’t have castes. Or are not supposed to.
She actually cried when I explained she must flush the toilet after using it, since we always have enough water for each flush. And when I explained she has to clean the shower after using it since we don’t have sweepers, she said, “Rano Aunty, you should get a sweeper!” And then our clever puss says, “If Jatin Papa doesn’t mind, let him clean it!”
Were we as young when we began to worry about getting polluted or falling to the level of sweepers? I didn’t know how privileged I was by my religion, caste and class until I came to Canada.
Chetna is going through the same status shock. She came home from camp asking, “Rano mummy, is India older or younger than Canada?” In India, people get respect for being one or two months older than each other, so why not countries. I said, “Older in some ways, younger in others.” She shot me her explain-how-the-world-got-this-way look.
I told her that if you believe a country is born on the date of its flag—India is older because its flag first flew in 1947, almost twenty years before the Canadian flag. And if a country is as old as its constitution, then India had one thirty years before Canada. But if a country is as old as its earliest inhabitants, India might be only five thousand years old and Canada ten thousand. And if a country is born from the wishes of its people, then India is only forty-seven and Canada is about three hundred years old. So, I said, “It’s hard to say if India is older or younger than Canada.” She didn’t find this satisfactory—forgive me if she’s scarred for life!
When Chetna questions me, I wonder if Mahatma Gandhi had agreed to dominion status for India in 1942, would there still be a statue of a queen at India Gate and would Indians be as Anglophilic as Canadians? Would we still be a dominion as Canada is? We’d all be Christianized by now.
Chetna has been taught about Laura Secord at her camp, and today we’re taking her to the chocolate factory of that name. She’s been making new friends by telling them that her Jatin Papa works there.
Yesterday she gave us quite a scare—we couldn’t find her for three whole hours! I was beside myself till we found her hiding in a closet. She heard Jatin shouting while watching a game and thought he was angry. I can only imagine what she must have gone through with you. She misses you. I remind her that you and Bobby lived with us while you were growing up. I tell her she’s lucky to have so many people who love her. Even my in-laws are delighted with her. It helps that she speaks Punjabi, of course. My father-in-law has promised her a
prize if she learns the Japji prayer by heart. I think he would like to offer me the same, but you know me—I had trouble memorizing the few words of the Gayatri Mantra.
I feel you did the hard work of birthing this child, and we are enjoying her. I can’t thank you enough, though I know how difficult it must be for you. Don’t write to her too often. I’m worried it will only confuse her and delay her adjustment to us and Canada. Okay?
The letter is signed Second Mother.
It is difficult. Very difficult. Repeat the mantra, It’s for Chetna’s sake.
The jeep passes through the foothill town of Barog and begins the climb to Shimla. A truck crammed with bundled goods looms, spewing black smoke. The driver swears under his breath as he swings the steering wheel. He leans out, yells in Urdu, “The car going uphill has right of way!” The trucker keeps coming. A horn-blast fills the jeep like Vikas’s shouting. Imaculata holds her cross to her lips, but seems otherwise quite prepared to die.
Has Anu suffered and come all this way only to be killed on the road before beginning god’s work?
The jeep skids to the verge and stops. The truck thunders by. Imaculata kisses her cross again.
“If we had crashed,” Anu says carefully, “would that be god’s will?”
“I certainly hope not,” says Imaculata. “Ask him when you get to the pearly gates, dear. And thank your guardian angel. I say give the devil credit for mishaps and let the bishops worry their heads cogitating such things.” She soon nods off, missing several more near-accidents.
She must have made this journey many times.
Anu has only made it once, with Dadu and Mumma, and was too filled with the horror of Bobby’s injury, coma and untimely death at the time, to feel the power of these precipices and waterfalls, these soaring blue pines.
The Selector of Souls Page 15