by Kapur, Manju
At one end of the garden, next to the bridge, Lala Diwan Chand had built an enclosure so that the daughters of the house could swim in privacy, sheltered from any eye that might glance upon their fair bodies in wet and revealing clothes. Their sense of modesty prevented them from following their brothers, who sometimes preferred to go to the big canal outside, where lay vaster, grander spaces of muddy water.
*
The day after the floods and pakoras, Virmati could be seen trying to leave her house in the late afternoon. Just as she thought she had reached the gate unseen, Paro pounced on her.
‘Pehnji! I’m also coming!’
Virmati looked at her grubby sister. Paro had smudges of dirt all over, and her hair was loosened untidily from her plait. Wordlessly she bent down to put her face next to hers for a moment, tightly holding the thin child body, with its small round stomach.
‘Pehnji?’ said Paro, a little surprised.
Virmati’s chest heaved. Paro couldn’t believe that her strong sister might be crying. The very unusualness of it was enough to start her lips quivering.
‘Pehnji?’ she sniffed, wriggling around, trying to catch a glimpse of Virmati’s face. ‘Pehnji, don’t cry. What’s happened?’ and her own tears began to fall.
Virmati set her down by the side of the gate.
‘I’m not feeling well,’ she explained, as she dried Paro’s smooth round cheeks with the end of her dupatta.
‘Oh. I thought because you are getting married, but then it is only afterwards you cry, no?’
Virmati’s mouth twisted a little. ‘Yes, darling. Only afterwards.’
‘Where are you going? I’m also coming!’
‘Not now, darling,’ said Virmati, looking at this youngest of her sisters, almost a daughter, trying to memorize every line of her little face. As Paro started to protest, she added quickly, ‘I’ll bring you a notebook and coloured pencils. All right?’
‘All right,’ said Paro, distracted but doubtful. She was suspicious of such largesse. ‘But tell me, where are you going, and why can’t I …’
Before she could say anything more, Virmati had slipped out of the gate and left. She walked swiftly down Lepel Griffin Road, her head bent, her feet intent on avoiding the big, squishy mud puddles that laced the pathway. The watery overflow of the previous day had left rubbish residues on the road, and it was beginning to stink in the sun. What must it be like in the city, thought Virmati, where even on ordinary days the drains were always clogged and full. Her mind wandered to the thousands of mosquitoes that hovered around the drains and all the fruit and halwai stalls in the market. Then to her father’s shop, the old house, her old school, her new house, her new college, incoherent pictures jumbling about in her unhappy mind.
At the nearest crossing from Lepel Griffin Road, Virmati hailed a tonga. She was afraid she was going to be late for the bus,
but she was looking for signs from God and refused to urge the tonga-wallah to go any faster. If the bus was there at Hall Gate it meant that even God had declared that she was getting too burdensome for her family. Ah, there it was. Dear grand-father, your kindness to your fellows in providing them with this shuttle service between Amritsar and Tarsikka, for a four-anna one-way fare will also take me to my death. And seeing her fate resound prophetically in every step she took, Virmati climbed slowly and heavily into the twenty-seater bus. An old villager sitting next to a vacant seat got up because Virmati’s status entitled her to sit either with her own kind, or alone. As he shuffled to the front and squatted next to the driver’s seat, Virmati gratefully took his place, glad to be out of sight of the other passengers.
‘Bibiji,’ asked the driver who had recognized her, ‘is anyone else coming?’
‘No, no,’ said Virmati, confused, ‘no one is coming.’
The bus started, and Virmati fixed her gaze on the moving world beyond the window. The ride was smooth. Lala Diwan Chand believed in keeping his vehicles well. Virmati’s inert body rocked to and fro as she stared at Paro’s face, planted on the scenery outside. She could see the details of the tear marks she had tried to wipe away, see the big eyes fixed on hers as she promised coloured pencils, a notebook. How would Paro get these things? She would think her sister had forgotten. The scenery blurred as Virmati’s eyes grew hot and began to prickle. She hoped Paro would not think badly of her when she grew up.
Soon Kailashnath would finish his game of capturing rival kites on the roof, and give her letter to the Professor. She had composed it with unusual care, trying to make sure there were no grammatical or spelling mistakes in it. She knew those annoyed him.
‘I want you to be perfect,’ the Professor had told her. And she had blushed with pleasure. Nobody else had ever seen her as someone who could be perfect.
Of course, he would grieve at her going, she knew that. But then, there was always his wife for him to turn to. Strange to think they had been friends once.
It was growing dark as the bus turned off from the main road into the dirt path that bordered the side of the Kasoor Branch Lower Canal. The sun was setting, and the sky was a splendid series of serried colours, gold, pink, orange, red, purple, merging one into the other, a perfect monsoon sunset. The trees along the canal stood out, their leaves looking subdued and shadowy against the brilliance of the sky. If Virmati could, she would live with Bade Baoji in Tarsikka, and never go to Amritsar. But the luxury of living how and where one wanted was only for the old. When the responsibilities of life were over and the right to choice earned.
From the bus windows, Virmati could see that the canal was full after the previous day’s rain. In the slanting evening light the swift, muddy waters were faintly tinged with pink. Little frothy waves slapped against the walls. Virmati had times out of number cooled herself in this canal, sat on its banks to eat pakoras, to bite into hot, roasted corn smeared with lemon and spicy masala, to munch peanuts and see the shells swirling about in the water, to suck mangoes and watch the seeds and skins sink. Now its separate life struck her, the waters going strangely and mysteriously on, having a being in which her own would soon be inextricably mingled.
*
The bus, which had been stopping at intervals to let villagers off, finally crossed one of the bridges that spanned the canal leading towards her grandfather’s mill. A few furlongs down, it stopped before the gates, its horn blaring shrilly before the massive shut doors. As Virmati got off, the conductor shouted to the chowkidar, ‘Tell Bade Baoji that Chhoti Bibiji has come.’
‘I’ll tell him myself, Sukhdev,’ said Virmati.
She bought some pencils and a long notebook bound in red cloth. From the munshi sitting in the small front office, she borrowed a scratchy nib pen, and dipped it in the small glass inkwell on his desk. The ink was the pale kind made from a tablet dissolved in water, and she had to go over her letters several times. ‘Parvati’ she wrote on the copy, though it was difficult, the nib kept sputtering and dividing down the middle. The whole compound had seen her by now, but she supposed that was inevitable.
‘Send these things to the kothi,’ she told the chowkidar as she stepped through the small inner door set in the gates.
Briskly she walked up to the canal path, her dupatta fluttering in the pleasant dusk breeze. She turned left at the bridge, away from the direction from which the bus had come. It was more isolated here, and there were fewer chances of anybody seeing her. Now that she was actually going to merge her body with the canal she felt her confusion clearing. Her briskness increased as the chowkidar stepped out from behind the gate to stare thoughtfully at her disappearing figure.
The place where the canal branches off is secluded and shady. The water pours into a small artificial waterfall, down under the pathway which rises a little to become a bridge. If you lean over it on the big canal side, you can see the gates that, lifting and falling, regulate the size of the stream that enters the mill. On the other side you can see the water emerging, whirling around in foaming eddies before st
raightening out for its onward course. As children, Virmati and her sisters loved to first throw things down one side of the bridge and then rush over to the other to see them emerge.
Virmati walked a little beyond this point. She took off her chappals and folded her dupatta on top of them. She stared into the water. She knew that the spot where she was standing was where the water began to feel the strong pull of the small canal. Though a good swimmer, she did not expect to be able to resist the current. She hoped Paro would get the little presents, she hoped the Professor would forget her, she hoped her family would forgive her. With these thoughts she held her nose and jumped.
*
The Professor was on his last cup of tea that evening. He was sitting in the angan looking at the sky. His wife, watching him from the kitchen, could tell from his face how absorbed he was in the beauty of the sunset. His glasses, raised upwards, reflected the brilliant colours he was contemplating. In all her life she had never known anybody as crazy about beauty as her husband. He could talk about it at great length and in such detail that listeners would go away feeling that till the Professor had spoken, they had never really seen anything. She had heard him enough times to be able to predict the feelings of all involved. When the woman saw Kailashnath come to see the Professor, she thought, ‘Now they will discuss the sunset, and then he will tell him about colours, paintings, and whatnot.’
She was about to turn her attention back to the cooking when she saw Kailashnath hand the Professor something. Her lips tightened, and the movement of her hands grew mechanical and listless in the dough she was kneading in the thali between her feet. She was suspicious, but what could she do with her suspicions? Even such a trivial thing as Virmati’s brother handing something to her husband was enough to unsettle her for the evening. She made up her mind to visit Kasturi the next day and make inquiries about Virmati’s wedding, and could she do anything to help?
The Professor was by now getting up and making for his room. The woman finished kneading the dough, and got up to take his tea tray inside. All the breakable china on it she would wash and dry herself. Wash, so that the servant boy wouldn’t get a chance to crack or chip anything; dry, so that there wouldn’t be the water stains he hated on the crockery. Sometimes she would pass her fingers gently over the rim of the cup, thinking that his lips had rested there. She did this now. Suddenly she heard his tread, hasty, rapid coming towards the kitchen. She blushed and quickly put the cup down. The Professor lurched in and the woman stammered, ‘What … what’s the matter? Are you all right?’
‘Vir – Virmati,’ the Professor trembled over the name.
The woman moved the tea things about on the tray.
‘Vir –’ he tried again.
She put the tray down with a bang.
‘Tell them … Hurry, go tell her mother …’ Here the Professor choked, and looked terrible in his wife’s eyes.
‘What is she telling you that her mother doesn’t already know?’ asked the woman as snappishly as she dared. ‘You lie down. I will make you some desi tea.’
She started to peel the potatoes. She would do the tea things later. Dinner had to be served, her family had to be fed, no matter what Virmati had done.
The sight of her peeling shook the Professor into articulation. ‘I’m telling you to go, and you sit here cooking!’ he cried.
‘To say what?’ she asked, still not looking at him.
‘Tell them she’s gone to Tarsikka – perhaps to drown herself in the canal. They must move fast to save her!’ The Professor’s voice broke and wordlessly he pushed his wife out towards the other house.
He watched her out of sight, then shut the door of his room and let his head fall heavily against its smooth wooden surface. His foremost feeling was impotence. He had only a cycle. Why had she gone so far? Tarsikka was sixteen miles away. He had to rely on them – what else could he do? He was … he was nothing now … not a rescuer, not a lover, nothing in this matter of life and death. Why had she decided on this awful step? Didn’t she trust him? Didn’t she know how much she meant to him? He had told her of his love a thousand times. Now it could no longer be a secret, he had to tell his wife so she could tell that family. Well, let everybody know. With Viru not there, nothing mattered. With no strength to remain standing, he gradually slipped onto the floor, where he remained a long time, his head cradled on his arms.
*
The first thing that flashed into the woman’s head was ‘Good.’ And then, ‘But she’ll make sure we are never free of her.’ She had made certain of this with her letter, clinging to her husband even in death, making them all suffer.
And then fear took over. Here she was wishing evil of others. Surely this would rebound on her, just as Kekayi’s evil wishes had in the end destroyed her in the Ramayan. A person’s life or death was in God’s hands, and in an effort to collect herself and avoid her thoughts she hurried to Kasturi’s house. The woman knew she would find Kasturi with her older daughters in the kitchen across the courtyard, preparing the evening meal. She walked towards the back entrance, dread mixed with righteous triumph at this opportunity, wondering what phrases to use. Hadn’t her husband himself sent her? If there was any irregularity here, it was not her fault.
In the kitchen, Paro was bothering her mother. ‘When is Pehnji coming, Mati, when? She promised to bring me something.’
‘How do I know where your sister has gone and died?’ asked Kasturi irritably, wiping the smoke tears from her eyes.
‘Tell me, na,’ said Paro insistently, dragging her mother’s palla off her.
Kasturi turned to take a tired, half-hearted swipe at her youngest daughter. ‘Didn’t you hear? Just wait till she does come. She should be here at this time instead of out of the house. She is old enough to know better. Really, I give my daughters too much freedom. And this is the result!’
‘Come here, Paro,’ said Indu, as Paro prepared to sulk. ‘Here, help me knead this dough.’ She tore off a piece and gave it to her.
Paro sat down, and absently started to pinch and pull the damp dough between her fingers. ‘Oh, there’s that Pabi from the other house,’ she remarked, half to herself, half to the others.
As the woman came in, Indu nudged Paro to give her a wooden patla. Kasturi felt a little surprised. This was not the time for neighbourly visits.
The woman meantime was wondering how she was going to break her news, among the sisters and everybody? The bearer of messages from her husband about their daughter? It wasn’t fair she should be put in a situation like this, she should also be at home cooking. That was her right, to be able to cook for her family, to be left in peace to fuss over their eating habits, to cater to their likes and dislikes, to do just what Kasturi was doing with her daughters. As a preliminary she let tears gather in her eyes.
‘Arre, arre,’ exclaimed Kasturi, putting down her ladle, and cleaning her hands by flicking some water on them from the glass next to the dough. The sisters stared at her.
The woman threw her palla over her face and rocked back and forth, moaning.
‘Bas, bas,’ said Kasturi, rubbing her on the back.
‘Oh Bhenji! It is my unlucky kismet that has brought me here. Everybody’s curses will be upon my head!’
‘No, no,’ said Kasturi soothingly, one eye on the cooking vegetables.
‘Bhenji, I am so ashamed. I am so unlucky! What will you think?’
‘I think? Why? Indu, just stir the sabzi, and add a little water,’ said Kasturi.
‘He told me … told me …’ The woman stumbled over the words amid sobs.
‘Yes? He told you what?’ asked Kasturi in the same even tone.
The woman’s purpose was to convey news. Her words came rushing out. ‘He told me to tell you that maybe Virmati has gone to Tarsikka … That maybe she has done something to herself. Oh, Bhenji, please forgive me!’ As she gave her news, her sobs subsided. She no longer had the greater right to cry.
Kasturi’s hand slipped from the
woman’s shoulder. She turned to stare at the fire under the cooking. In the silence, Paro could be heard shouting, ‘It’s not true. She was going to bring me something from the city! Mati, it’s not true! Indu Pehnji, it’s not true!’
‘Ssh, Paro,’ Indu tried to keep her quiet. ‘You can’t talk like that to Pabiji!’
‘But she’s saying things about Pehnji,’ whispered Paro hoarsely. ‘I saw her in the evening before she went and she promised me –’
‘All right, all right. Now shush,’ whispered Indu back.
Kasturi got up heavily. She did not want to expose her daughters to more. It was bad enough, this information coming from outside the home. ‘We must go and see her father,’ she said, her voice lacking all expression. ‘Please come.’ And with none of her usual politeness she left the woman to follow her out of the kitchen. At the doorway she turned back once to say, ‘Indu, just see the sabzi doesn’t burn, put the dal on afterwards. Start making the rotis. Use the fresh butter in the doli, the old one is for ghee.’
‘Han,’ said Indu, stopping Paro from following her mother.
*
The bus driver and the conductor of Lala Diwan Chand’s twenty-seater both belonged to the same village. By the time they had locked the bus and deposited the keys at the big house, the bright colours of the sky had faded to dull purple and grey and the trees had begun to absorb the darkness of the night. They had to hurry if they were to get home while there was still light to see. As they stepped through the small door of the big gate, the chowkidar exclaimed, ‘Pyare Lal and Mahan Singh! Chhoti Pibiji came alone in the bus, and has gone up to the canal by herself. On your way home, just make sure –’
There was no need to say more. The men started quickly up the high embankment that bordered the big canal.