Difficult Daughters

by Kapur, Manju

  Virmati’s chappals were still warm when they reached the small bridge that spanned the branch stream.

  *

  Kasturi was sitting tensely in the veranda. Her daughters were silently waiting with her. Suraj Prakash and Kailashnath had left for Tarsikka in Lala Diwan Chand’s car, the car he kept to be used for special occasions.

  Soon Lajwanti came to join them.

  ‘Any news yet?’ she asked, as the daughters made way for her.

  The girls shook their heads. Kasturi’s tears began to fall.

  ‘No, no,’ consoled Lajwanti, throwing her heavy arm around Kasturi’s shoulders. ‘God will send her back to us. Everything is in his hands. You must not cry. It is a bad omen.’

  ‘How could she do this? What will happen to us all? To these girls? Where did we go wrong?’

  Kasturi cried on, saying all the things she knew Lajwanti would be thinking, saying them with a heart full of grief and angry shame that she had to be talking like this about her own daughter, and the eldest in the family too. And Bade Baoji, who had championed her cause, what would he think? As for herself, she could never wipe out the stigma of having a child thoughtless enough to contemplate ending her life without consideration for what her family would suffer. Then there was the Professor, how did he know before her own family? She trembled at what she might find out.

  *

  Lala Diwan Chand was surprised when, on coming home from work that day, he was handed a notebook and pencils with ‘Parvati’ scrawled on the package.

  ‘Who brought this?’ he asked.

  ‘The munshi,’ said Ram Lal, the servant, old, faithful and slightly stupid.

  ‘Yes, but why?’ asked Lala Diwan Chand patiently. ‘Didn’t he say anything?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Call the munshi,’ said Lala Diwan Chand, ‘and quickly. From his quarters. Faster!’ he shouted uncharacteristically, at Ram Lal’s slow-moving back.

  The munshi’s arrival a few minutes later produced an explanation that left Lala Diwan Chand seething with exasperation. His eldest granddaughter was here and he hadn’t even known. The munshi’s ‘We thought you knew, Baoji, or would I not be the first to tell you, Baoji?’ left him struggling to control his temper. Where was she? This was no time to be away from home. If some trouble had caused her to come to him at Tarsikka, why didn’t she follow her impulse to its logical conclusion? He got up and hastened towards the gate.

  Virmati was meanwhile walking down the canal bank. Through her burning sense of shame she saw her back as it presented itself to those two men, the hollow in the curve of her spine, the rounded buttocks stretching the wet fabric, the long, swelling thighs, with the material gathered between the legs. Hadn’t she seen her sisters’ wet backs times out of number when they had been swimming in their salwar kameezes? She tried to wrap her dry dupatta around her, but the thin material soon got soaked. Her path was dotted with drops that were quickly absorbed into the soil. Her saviours followed at a respectful distance, also dotting the soil with water that dripped from their clothes. They ignored Virmati’s low, repeated requests to be left alone. She was thankful for their help, she said, she had slipped and was all right now. No, no, they said, what would Baoji say? Virmati had no answer to that, only further blankness at the thought of her grandfather.

  *

  By now the car containing Kailashnath and Suraj Prakash had turned into the mud path bordering the canal. The increased bumping of the car meant an increase in Suraj Prakash’s nausea, a nausea that had risen within him since their departure from Amritsar almost forty-five minutes earlier.

  ‘We are almost there,’ Kailashnath tried to be consoling.

  Suraj Prakash said nothing, only hunched up tighter in his seat.

  ‘Have faith, Pitaji. Everything is in God’s hands.’ Kailashnath was worried by his father’s silence. Suraj Prakash was looking ashen and the son thought suddenly, my father is an old man, and may Virmati be cursed for what she has done today. His hands whitened over the steering wheel, and he pressed the accelerator, making the car bump even more and his father turn even paler. By this time it was almost dark, and they had come within sight of the bridge they would have to cross to reach the mill.

  *

  The Professor’s wife was banging on his door.

  ‘Open, open,’ he could hear her shouting. Her voice seemed to come from far away, too faint and tiny for him to pay any attention.

  And then, ‘Your food is ready. It’s getting cold.’

  The woman is mad with her obsession about food, thought the Professor wearily.

  Shrilly, it came. ‘Something has happened.’ Shrieks and shouts. ‘He’s gone and done something inside! He is ill, he is sick, he has fainted. Hoi re, hai re!’

  Footsteps receded at a run and immediately came back compounded. This time multiple bangs on the door, and a crescendo of wailing.

  Finally the Professor surfaced. His eyes were dazed and red, his usually carefully done hair wild and dishevelled. ‘What is it?’ he demanded cantankerously. ‘I was sleeping.’

  His authority in the house meant that nobody openly questioned this statement.

  *

  Virmati was not the first to see her grandfather almost running towards her. Her head was too bent. Instead, ‘Baoji!’ exclaimed Pyare Lal.

  ‘Baoji!’ echoed Mahan Singh.

  No sooner did he reach them than they overwhelmed him with their choric accounts. Sukhdev had said, they had hurried, they had seen, they had jumped and they had, by the grace of God, been able to rescue, a little later and … Here they broke off to invoke the name of God again.

  Lala Diwan Chand praised them. Their presence of mind had averted an untimely accident. The canals were not safe in the monsoon, and they themselves must be careful when walking along them. People could slip. The men agreed. And now they should go home, went on Lala Diwan Chand, it was late enough.

  As he talked, his hands were unwrapping the chaddor from around himself and transferring it to Virmati’s shoulders. He did this without giving her more than a cursory glance. His gaze was fixed on the men, as theirs was on him. Since Lala Diwan Chand’s arrival, Virmati had become invisible, and, burning from gazes, imagined or real, she was grateful.

  They walked back in the dark, together. Lala Diwan Chand could feel the girl’s agitation, and in their solitude he felt no need to press her for any explanation. That could come later. It was probably pre-marriage nerves that accounted for her strange behaviour. He hoped her parents were treating her with gentleness and understanding. Maybe he should have visited Amritsar more often, she might have opened her heart to him.

  Tears gathered in Virmati’s eyes as she felt her grandfather’s love float around her. And then fear. What would he feel when he really knew. Meanwhile as Lala Diwan Chand put his arm around her, he could sense that she was crying, and he caressed her damp head. This affectionate gesture was more than Virmati could bear. ‘Baoji … forgive me,’ broke from her, but then at the sight of Sukhdev, up near the bridge with a lantern, she fell silent.

  ‘Go, beti, go inside,’ said Lala Diwan Chand gently, nudging his granddaughter away. ‘I’ll just have a word with him.’

  Head bent and covered, Virmati scurried down the rise into the small door of the gate. Once inside the house, she snatched a lantern and searched the dressing-table drawer for her mother’s cupboard keys. She needed to change, she could not face the world wet a second longer.

  Inside the cupboard were a few simple sets of salwar kameezes. Virmati had just put one on and hung her own clothes to dry on the line in the veranda, when she heard the sound of a car entering the outer compound. Her hands shook. That was for her, she knew, but she hadn’t thought they would come so soon.

  *

  Darkness fell over the house on Lepel Griffin Road. Virmati’s family was still on the veranda, waiting for the car to come back. Till then, no one could bear the thought of doing anything. Lajwanti had her arm around her siste
r-in-law, the girls were clustered around the two older women. Kasturi’s eyes were closed. Her fingers were moving along her rosary and nobody wanted to disturb her by saying anything.

  *

  Virmati was in the back seat of the car, watching the heads of her father and brother in front. She longed to say she was sorry, to have her father make some gesture towards her as her grandfather had done, but through the long ride back their backs were a stiff wall to her, cold and unrelenting. To block them out, she stared at the scenery, and dug up the image of the Professor.

  Only a few hours ago she had left with such brave thoughts of renunciation. Now she was being brought back with her selfless impulses counting for nothing. How had they found out so quickly? Maybe Kailash had opened the letter meant for the Professor, and that was why they were so silent. They knew.

  The car turned and lit up the shut gates of the house. As Kailashnath jumped out, Gopinath dragged them open from inside, his round face blinking in the glare. Running to the side of the car, he peered in, and ‘She’s back, she’s back!’ he shouted, rushing to the veranda. ‘Sssh,’ they cautioned. Did he want to publish their shame to the whole world?

  *

  The family was together again. There was no need for any more silence. Words broke forth in great torrents as the sequence of events was pieced together. United, the family talked. United, they raged and grieved, united they questioned.

  Why? Why had she done this thing? Why run away? And worst of all, why tell a total stranger of her intention, and leave them to find out from an outsider what she was doing? And what about her relatives that-were-going-to-be? Didn’t she owe them a moment’s worth of consideration? Was this all her education had taught her? To put herself before others, and damn the rest? How would Bade Baoji bear it? How could anyone in their right senses bear the humiliation?

  Kasturi said she would be grateful if her daughter could enlighten her as to the cause of all this tamasha, or were strangers going to perform that kind office once more?

  ‘I want to study.’ How weak and fragile that statement sounded, even to Virmati, as it left her hesitant lips, and fell on the sceptical ears of the family.

  Kasturi hit her. Across her face, from cheek to cheek. ‘For this, I let you go to college. So that you are ruined permanently? Are you mad?’

  Lajwanti interrupted, her own daughter in mind. ‘Pabiji, there is something else going on. Who has been influencing her? She has been taught by somebody – that much is clear. Otherwise Viru is hardly the academic type.’

  ‘She’s very good at learning other things, I can see,’ Kasturi shouted, implicitly accepting Lajwanti’s evaluation. ‘Or how would she learn to run away, as though there were something wrong with her home and with us, to throw herself in a canal to be pulled out by servants?’

  ‘Achcha, achcha,’ Suraj Prakash made neutral noises. ‘Maybe she was in great difficulty, but she should have come to us, that was her mistake. Why did you do this? Tell us, beti, whatever is in your heart?’

  ‘Study,’ mumbled Virmati like a mantra. She swallowed. ‘Study …’

  ‘For such a little thing?’ said her father. ‘You did this for such a little thing?’

  ‘And not marry.’ Virmati’s face twisted. ‘I don’t want to marry.’

  ‘But why? You know every girl has to go to her own home. This is your right, and our duty. As it is, we have taken our time, not wishing to hurry you. We have let you study, as much as any girl has studied in Amritsar.’

  ‘I know, Pitaji.’ Oh, why was he so good to her? Why did he speak so gently? She preferred the way the others spoke.

  ‘Then, what is it? The boy, too, is good.’

  She had to say something. ‘The boy,’ she said. ‘I do not like the boy.’

  Kasturi sprang forward to hit her again. Lajwanti held her back. ‘Were you dreaming till now?’ screamed the angry mother. ‘The barat is coming, and she says she doesn’t like the boy!’

  ‘She is hiding something,’ repeated Lajwanti.

  ‘This girl will throw mud on our whole family, make us fall so low we will have no name left,’ moaned Kasturi.

  Virmati hung her head. Her silence though was not one of acquiescence, but refusal. She would not marry.

  Finally they locked Virmati in the godown and arranged for Indu to marry Inderjit.

  XIV

  I can write to you because Paro got me paper, pen and ink tablet. I asked her for my study books and something to practise writing with. Please, otherwise I would go mad, alone in this place. I think Paro still has some feeling for me because she agreed. Maybe one day I will be able to show you what I have written, though my scribbles are so silly it doesn’t matter if they are read or not.

  The first time Paro crept up to my window, she asked me why I was locked up, what had I done that was so bad? What could I say? I could only cry, which made her cry too. Now she doesn’t ask.

  Time stands still in this large, dark room where they have put me. When it rains, I sit next to the small window, usually on a bin of rice. Sometimes the breeze blows a few welcome drops on my face. Long ago I used to dance and run in the rain when nobody was looking. Now I pine for drops.

  They say men are not to be trusted. That I am giving up my life for nothing. That because I am stupid and foolish, they have to lock me up to save me from myself and you.

  Indu is going to marry Inderjit. You must have heard that already. She will be happy, I know. Inderjit is a good boy, his family is good. Do you remember how jealous you used to be of him? See, it has all come to nothing.

  I don’t think they will let me attend the wedding, nor do I want to. What face will I show all those people who were almost my own? I feel safer here.

  The evening is coming. The light in the angan grows dimmer and more mellow. You have taught me to notice such things. Before, I saw without any eyes. With my food will come a lantern, and then shadows will cover the walls. I go to sleep early, and get up with the sun. The first thing I do is my sandhya, slowly, and with great concentration.

  It is the next day. Alone, my thoughts flow vacantly about in my head. This godown reminds me of my grandfather’s in Sultanpur. It was always dim and mysterious, the only source of light was criss-crossed with bars, from the opening in the angan floor upstairs. I thought it the biggest, most wonderful room in the whole world, unlike this one, a place of imprisonment, with nothing but potatoes, onions, dal, rice, wheat, and winter quilts.

  That one was full of – oh, all kinds of things. My grandfather dealt in spices, dry fruit, pickles, and morabbas, all of which we weren’t supposed to touch. That’s what he said, but sitting in his little office that opened on to one side of the godown, do you think my grandfather didn’t know we were helping ourselves from the sacks and jars, and running into the outer courtyard to eat what we had stolen?

  What has happened to that girl? Her family used to love her, how has she lost it all?

  V.

  Tuesday, 5 September, 1939

  Precious love,

  That little girl is the one I love, running wild and free through her grandfather’s godown, and straight into my heart, where I hope to keep her forever!

  Dearest, how could you? What I went through! Next time you contemplate such a thing, take me with you because it is now abundantly clear that I cannot, cannot live without you. Not in this world, or in the next.

  I don’t care how melodramatic that sounds. The threat of losing you makes all priorities clear. God, what hell have I been through. To be forced to put on a mask and pretend normalcy, when my deepest instincts were to scream and dash my head against the wall.

  My darling, I feel I am responsible for driving you to this desperate measure. You must have felt so alone in those last few hours, a tragic irony when you are what I hold most dear on earth, when your face is the constant shadow in my mind. Those few, dreadful hours when I thought I had lost you are moments I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.

  First the f
ears, then the assurance that you were all right, then the fears again as to what was happening to you, and now this certainty, that you, my brave one, are locked in the godown while I roam at leisure – a free man ostensibly, but actually with every fibre of my being, next to you, by your side.

  Oh, I knew what was happening to you. I have a wife who is a very good neighbour in times of trouble, and who doesn’t hesitate to share the news she has been able to gather. Yes, I have a wife, very generous with her information, and therefore I knew you were locked up, that you refused to marry Inderjit, that Indu is going to preserve the family integrity. Bit by bit these nuggets fall, while she is feeding me, for we hardly meet otherwise. Bit by bit, while she looks closely at my face, where not a muscle twitches. Everybody is very upset, and your grandfather avoids coming to Amrit-sar, he is so ashamed. You have disgraced the family. Your sisters’ chances of marriage are ruined. Indu is getting married, true, she says (though I don’t say a word – she provides her own arguments), but that was settled before, and what about all the others? She doesn’t dare say too much, but she doesn’t leave the topic alone either.

  I thank God there is some way of communicating with you. Your angel of a sister came. ‘Pehnji has sent some work for you to correct,’ she said, chewing her plait and standing on one leg. Then she added, ‘You can send it back corrected, if you have the time.’ I think God at least looks after lovers, no matter how the world treats them.

  Enough, I can hear them coming back from a film, Tulsidas. One rupee was well spent to get the house to myself, to pour out my heart to you undisturbed, to let you know that I am ever, ever yours.