Difficult Daughters

by Kapur, Manju

  ‘It is unusual to have a daughter so highly qualified‚’ he complimented carefully. ‘BA, with a BT from Lahore. Very few of our girls are allowed to go in for higher studies. You should see the poor teachers of our school. Some fifth pass, some eighth, at the most matric pass. What can we do? You are an example for others to follow.’

  ‘Bhai Sahib, you know how times are changing. With the boys becoming educated, and often opting for professional careers, there is the need for girls to keep up with them. Otherwise, where is the compatibility?’ said Suraj Prakash.

  Kasturi thought how disastrously educating Virmati had misfired, and said nothing.

  ‘Exactly. I knew Lala Diwan Chand’s family would be able to understand this‚’ said their visitor. ‘So when the Rani Sahiba asked me to recommend someone for principal, I naturally thought of your eldest daughter. Ours is a small state and we need the help of people like you to aid us on the path to progress.’

  ‘Bhai Sahib! We did not educate her to send her away to work. She is still so simple and inexperienced.’

  ‘Bhaiji‚’ said the Diwan, ‘today the young must also take part in leadership. These are difficult times. What with the war and our struggle, can we afford not to use every capable hand we have. Virmati is qualified and from an impeccable background! Can I think of anybody better? You tell me.’

  ‘Lahore was near, but now, so far away from home – who knows what might happen?’

  ‘She will be like my own daughter, and Nahan like her own home‚’ said the Diwan Sahib. ‘The Maharani is interested in fostering education for girls, and the principal of her school will have a lot of status. People will treat her like Sita.’

  The Diwan Sahib repeated all the arguments he had used to persuade, in variation, to make the idea familiar and palatable. Then with murmurs about the pleasure the Maharani and he would have at meeting them in Nahan, he left.

  *

  Later. Kasturi and Suraj Prakash between themselves.

  ‘How can we let her go?’ demanded Kasturi, frightened at this further, unlooked-for development in her daughter’s educational career.

  ‘What is the harm? You heard Bhai Sahib‚’ replied Suraj Prakash placatingly, trusting in the word of a Samaj member.

  ‘She is so young.’ Kasturi had no doubt as to what her daughter should be doing. She should stay at home until she had sense enough to get married.

  ‘If she is not going to get married, she might as well do something.’

  That was true enough. Ever since Virmati had come home from Lahore, looking wan and pale, there had been this problem. All that studying was not good for her health, but the girl was past listening to anyone. What to do with her? The topic of marriage had come up again, only to be met with violent hysteria on Virmati’s part. After the Tarsikka episode, the family were too wary to force anything against her will.

  ‘What kind of kismet is ours that our eldest daughter remain unmarried like this? After Indu, it is now Gunvati’s turn, but still that girl sits there, stubborn as a rock, never mind the disgrace or what the whole world is thinking, or what her future will be‚’ said Kasturi miserably.

  ‘Let her go‚’ said Suraj Prakash cleverly. ‘Here she is still too near him. We can never be sure. Such an influence he had, and may still have –’

  Kasturi retorted sharply. ‘He cast an evil eye on her. With simple people such as us, he could do anything! Even with a baby son he is not settled. Such a depraved being I would not wish on my worst enemy!’

  ‘All the more reason to send her away, then.’

  Kasturi grunted. ‘We always end up discussing that man whenever we talk about Viru. My ears have grown thick and hard hearing his name.’

  *

  The Diwan Sahib wanted an answer before he left Amritsar, and the question of Virmati’s future had to be discussed with all the elders of the family. Much time was spent in talking, and finally even Virmati’s opinion was sought.

  She considered the matter dispassionately. Leaving her home meant leaving reproaches and her mother’s silent disapproval. Leaving discussions of Gunvati’s marriage, discussions tinged with sadness, and she the reprobate.

  As for the Professor, it was difficult to meet. On the road, hurried words, the fear that someone might see, the shadow of what had happened hanging heavy and gloomy between them.

  Her BT had left her restless and dissatisfied, hungry to work, and anxious to broaden her horizons. She had had a taste of freedom in Lahore, it was hard to come back to the old life when she was not the old person any more.

  She told her family she would be very glad to serve the cause of the nation’s literacy.

  This resolved, Suraj Prakash returned the Diwan Sahib’s visit. It was decided that Virmati would return to Nahan with him. Kailash would also go along, look things over, settle her in.

  And that is how Virmati found herself in the train leaving Amritsar, her feet on her bedroll, her metal box pushed behind it, its lock faintly clinking with the motion of the train.

  Nahan, clean and prosperous, was ruled by an enlightened royal couple. Their foundry was the biggest in Northern India, and provided plenty of jobs. It was a place where the pathways were cobbled, the drains all covered, where a mashal followed the sweeper twice a day with a water bag to wash the dirt off the streets. Where leaves were not allowed to drift.

  I am firm on the tracks of my mother, and I am talking to a lawyer who assures me he knows all there is to know, because he and his have lived in Nahan since time immemorial. At the leaves I raise my eyebrows slightly.

  ‘Not even a leaf?’

  ‘Not even a leaf,’ came the categorical reply. Never mind that now the streets are filthy and grimy balloons of yellow, blue and grey plastic bags swirl around piles of garbage at every bend and turn of the city.

  ‘Spitting was a crime.’

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Really.’ The eyes misted over, and the voice became soft, laden with memories of a mythic time when public cleanliness existed.

  ‘It was never too hot. In summer, as soon as the temperature rose above thirty-two degrees, it rained; in winter the forest cover kept us warm. The water we had was real mineral water, piped straight from the springs, none of these suspect underground sources for us. You can see for yourself what a miracle our plumbing was when you consider that the water supply laid for 6,000 people is serving 35,000 people today!’

  I nod vigorously and take notes of everything he says. Even now, it is clear that underneath the dirt and congestion Nahan was indeed picturesque.

  The principal’s house, which I got the school chowkidar to open for me, was an abandoned little two-room cottage, the doors rotten white with damp and falling off their hinges. There is a strong, mouldy smell inside, and bat and lizard droppings dot the dirt-crusted floor. The view was of gentle, rolling hills covered in haze. ‘But from October on, when the air is clear, you can see the snow-covered peaks‚’ explained the wizened old chowkidar to me.

  ‘Why doesn’t anybody use this?’ I ask.

  ‘It is too small to house a family. Long ago someone lived here alone, but all sorts of people used to visit her at all hours. They never hired a single woman after that.’

  Into this model of civic amenities and progressive rule came Virmati, excited about independence, still not knowing that for her love and autonomy could never co-exist.

  Virmati was charmed by Nahan. She heard the sounds of the foundry floating up at all hours, and felt herself at one with the working people of the world. She stood in her tiny garden and looked across the valley, turned her head and looked towards the school of which she was headmistress, and sensed her singleness and her power. She was twenty-three and the youngest amongst her staff. Her qualifications, BA and BT from Lahore, were so impressive that the Maharani had dispensed with the usual interview prior to the appointment.

  Later on, when she did see her, she felt she had made a mistake. The girl was too pretty. Aloud she complai
ned about Virmati’s youth and single status to her prime minister.

  ‘I know the family‚’ he replied. ‘The girl is good.’

  ‘I do not wish for trouble, Mantri Sahib. It will be very bad for the school. We will take months trying to salvage what has been built so carefully.’

  ‘I am responsible for that‚’ replied the prime minister. ‘Meanwhile if the Rani Sahiba does not approve, we can look for someone else‚’ he added carefully, to protect himself.

  ‘No, let it be‚’ said the Maharani after some thought. ‘We will try her and see. But the first hint of anything, she goes.’

  ‘Of course‚’ said the Mantri.

  *

  There were about two hundred and fifty girls in the Pratibha Kanya Vidyalaya. They came from the homes of traders, shopkeepers, bankers, teachers, and the state employees of Sirmaur. Virmati found the school surprisingly easy to administer. After all, she had grown up shouldering responsibility and she discovered that those talents did equally well for larger things. She supervised the accounts, gave appointments to parents, held weekly meetings with the teachers, monthly meetings with the prime minister, and very occasional meetings with the Maharani Pratibha. In the evenings, when she was briskly walking around the hillside, she would think of what she had done in the day and feel the satisfaction of achievement.

  Virmati’s other major duty in the school was teaching. She taught English Literature and Household to classes IX and X. Household was hygiene, nutrition, domestic management, health care, and enough applied maths to balance a budget. The prime minister, keen to implement the maharanee’s ideas, publicized the soundness of female education through Household, a traditional subject taught in a scientific way by the principal herself.

  *

  So Virmati ran her school, ran her home, and passed the days busy and happy. From time to time she felt a sharp pang of longing for the Professor. But she had lived with this for so long she would have felt uncomfortable without it. His letters were particularly ardent. Her description of the place had fired his imagination more than hers, and he talked much of romance and beauty. He came to be the spectre that lay between her and her life as principal, so that she too began to look upon her stay there as a period of waiting rather than the beginning of a career.

  He wrote every day. The very sight of her name in his distinctive hand, centred so neatly on the pale blue envelopes, was enough to set her face on fire, which she did her best to downplay by briskly ordering the peon about.

  *

  Of course, the lover cannot be content with words alone. He must come, he must see, he must feel.

  ‘I’m coming‚’ he wrote.

  ‘No‚’ she wrote back.

  ‘I must. You have no idea how drab and monotonous my days and nights are. Nothing can relieve them – nothing except the hope of meeting you.’

  ‘What about your family?’ she replied.

  ‘I live and die for you,’ he said, evading the issue as usual.

  He came travelling up to Ambala by train, and caught the Nahan bus from there. At the Jamuna the waters were too high for the vehicle to cross. All the passengers descended and waded through, the river swirling around their legs. Behind them came two coolies, who moved back and forth with the heavy luggage till it was all transported. Waiting beyond was the bus that had unloaded in a similar fashion some hours ago. This they boarded while those passengers took theirs. Leaving British India for the Punjab Hill States, on to bad roads, with potholes abounding like scars in a pock-marked face, the Professor thought how much Viru was worth this journey, and how she would look when she saw him.

  *

  From the station the Professor found out that it was just a fifteen-minute walk to the school. Fifteen minutes to savour the anticipation of their meeting.

  There she was, solitary at evening time in the cottage, sitting on the grassy patch in front, the tea he had taught her to drink in a cup beside her. The low iron gate creaked as he opened it, but she was lost in her thoughts and didn’t look up. He crept forward, and softly laid a hand on her neck, just under her roll of hair. She turned with a start.

  They said nothing then, just looked, drinking the other up with long, deep glances, dead in that moment to everything else.

  *

  Arjun, what did you see when you hit the eye of the bird with the arrow, the eye that all your brothers missed?

  Guruji, I saw nothing, just the black dot in the centre.

  So Harish saw nothing but Virmati.

  A flying arrow aimed at a still bird.

  *

  Slowly they moved inside the cottage to finish the embrace their eyes had started.

  Later, ‘This is such a beautiful place‚’ said the Professor. ‘Complete and self-contained. If I had known, I would have come earlier.’

  ‘No‚’ Virmati replied hastily.

  ‘Why, darling, what do you mean?’

  ‘You can’t stay here.’

  ‘Why not? If I can’t, then who? And here you are so independent.’

  ‘Not so that I can ignore what everybody thinks.’

  ‘No one will know. I’ll be very quiet.’

  ‘There is an eye in every leaf. And why is it that suddenly you do not care what everybody thinks?’

  The answer burned within her, because I am the only one who will be affected. It remained unspoken because she didn’t want a quarrel in which she inevitably ended up conciliating. Instead she grew cross and irritable, while he started to sulk.

  ‘Very well, then. I know where I am not wanted‚’ said the Professor. ‘I am a stranger here, and quite at your mercy.’

  Virmati’s face grew taut at the unfairness of this remark, but suppressing still more unprofitable words, she picked up his small attaché case and strode outside. It was getting late, and respectability required that she make arrangements for her guest before night suggestively presented itself.

  The purple light was shading into blackness as Virmati and the Professor walked silently down the hill towards the vicinity of the palace where the prime minister stayed. Virmati had made up her mind to request him to host Harish. In fact, throughout the passion of their reunion this question had been nagging her. Where was he going to stay?

  As they waited in the angan outside the main living quarters of the prime minister’s house, Virmati stared moodily at the tulsi growing prominently in an urn in the middle. The prime minister was a conservative man, he was not going to like this.

  He came and listened to Virmati’s stammered explanations with courtesy. ‘Unexpected visit? I see.’

  ‘He was passing through,’ Virmati elaborated. The Professor looked as stupid as it was possible for a man with a noble forehead and elegantly brushed hair to look.

  ‘He must stay here of course, beti,’ said the Diwan Sahib.

  ‘Thank you, ji,’ said Virmati.

  ‘I am grateful for your hospitality,’ said the Professor stiffly.

  The Professor stayed one more day and then left. He felt the Diwan Sahib’s eye on him and he didn’t like it. Besides, Virmati was not behaving properly. Let her get more securely established, he thought, and then he would come.

  *

  The rest of the year passed. Virmati cultivated friendships with some of the teachers, visited them in their homes in the winding gullies. All of them wanted to know why she wasn’t married. Young and pretty, and coming from a good family – what could be the problem? It bothered them. They wished her well. Virmati grew glib talking about her career, and the need for dedication when one was teaching.

  ‘That’s all very well, but you can do the same when you are married,’ said one of the teachers she was closest to.

  ‘Everything is in the hands of God,’ said Virmati.

  Meanwhile Swarna’s letters were full of Mrs Asaf Ali, Congress leaders in jail, the Left now in the hands of the Socialists, disturbances everywhere, trains being stopped, hartals paralysing the nation, we are united, they can’t s
top us now. She had also got a job as a teacher in her old college.

  When Virmati read these letters, she wondered why Swarna even bothered with the likes of her. She had so little to offer in exchange. ‘I am fine. Everything is the same here. How are you?’

  And then came Swarna’s note saying she was married. He had accepted all her conditions. She was going to be allowed to continue her other activities, remain treasurer of the Women’s Conference, go on working for the Party. Everything to do with the house they would share as much as possible. She owed it to her parents to marry. They had let her have her way in everything else.

  Miss Datta liked the boy. He would do, she said.

  Virmati grew restless. In class she looked at her students, and looked at the poem in her hand. Why was she teaching them ‘The Daffodils’? She who had never seen a daffodil? This was Harish’s cup of tea, not hers. Swarna asked what it was like in Nahan. Like nothing. Like being suspended in time, in anticipation for her life to start, with the noise of the foundry as background music.

  She wrote to the Professor that she was sick and tired of waiting for him. If he couldn’t make up his mind to marry her, then she might as well devote herself seriously to her career. Nahan was not the place to do it. Either in Lahore or, if her family didn’t agree, Jullunder.

  *

  The Professor came as soon as he was able. This time he arrived at the cottage after dark. He had come prepared with a torch.

  ‘Viru,’ he called sweetly, knocking at the window-panes.