Difficult Daughters

by Kapur, Manju

  God was speaking. He was punishing her for the first time. Maybe she could never have children. She had robbed her own womb three years earlier, just as she had robbed another woman of her husband. Ganga’s face, swollen with hate and fear, had followed her everywhere, the venom concentrated in the gaze of her evil eye. Maybe that was why Kishori Devi had taken all those precautions.

  That brief first time she had been in perfect health, but, preoccupied with shame, she had violated her body. The time for a child lay in the future. Now she felt she was left with nothing. Her job could not sustain her, and flaunting Harish seemed a pathetic gesture, signifying her emotional poverty.

  *

  Summer came, and this time no poetic distraction to enliven the company. Harish was at his wits’ end. It had been over a year since their marriage and all that had made Virmati so dear to him seemed to have vanished completely. In her place was a block of wood, whose only response to the world was the passive oozing of tears. Even his most ardent caresses could not arouse her.

  ‘Why not, darling, why not?’ Harish started being more insistent.

  ‘It hurts.’

  ‘I’ll be gentle. It won’t hurt you, I promise.’ Then, when she said nothing, ‘Don’t you love me any more?’

  Eventually she submitted to his caresses, but that was all it was, a submission, and he was too sensitive not to mind.

  *

  Ganga’s tread grew lighter in the house, her stares less malevolent, the scolding of her children less strident. Her husband had married the girl he had run after for five years – the witch – and much good it had brought him. The sindhoor in her parting shone brighter, her bindi sparkled on her clear white forehead.

  Virmati silent and withdrawn, paled in comparison.

  How stubborn she is, thought Harish. After her father and grandfather, she has not been the same. Further study will improve her. It was not like this when she was studying in Lahore. There she had a proper respect for our relationship.

  Thus was born the idea of sending Virmati off to Lahore to do an MA. Harish chose philosophy for her subject. It would be a civilizing influence and induce a larger perspective on life. Part of his extensive library was devoted to European, British and Hindu thought, and Virmati could use those very books. They would read together, like they had done long ago, before things had become messy and complicated. Virmati and he had been at their happiest when he had been teaching, and she learning.

  Virmati acquiesced. That is, she said nothing when Harish suggested the idea to her.

  Ganga rejoiced. He was sending her away. True, she was going to study, and was not being returned to her mother’s, which would have been a clearer statement, but still, the house would be all hers. Just like it used to be. Poor Virmati. What woman would want to exchange a home for a classroom?

  XXV

  It is now 1944. On the war front, the Allies are slowly winning. India continues to feed this effort, with money, goods and manpower.

  On the national front, after the 1942 agitations, most of the Congress leaders are still in jail.

  Gandhiji is released unconditionally on 5 May, 1944 at 8.00 a.m., after twenty-one months in prison, for medical reasons. Reports of his health absorb the nation. His blood vessels are rigid, the pressure fluctuates, his heart is enlarged, his condition anaemic.

  Segregation rears its ugly head. In Rani ka Bagh, a new locality proposed in Amritsar, ownership is going to be restricted to Hindus and Sikhs. In Sind, Hindus are not going to be allowed to buy property. In Lahore, two educated gentlemen refuse to continue eating the food they had ordered, or even pay for it, when they discover the bearer, as well as the caterer, are Muslims.

  The word Pakistan appears more and more often in the newspapers. The Sikhs are agitated. They will resist it to the death.

  Any form of assault on women is still a serious matter. In Lahore, three college students are tried and found guilty of outraging female dignity. The goonda element in the city is deplored.

  Wheat continues to be in short supply. People who can afford to are told to eat meat and vegetables, leaving the grain for the poor. The language of crisis is used about food.

  The Japanese invasion is a threat. In Kohima the devastation that the Japanese caused is used to fan fear of the outsider, to associate our interests even more firmly with those of Britain. This strategy is not always successful, but the enemy is still the foreigner, and not the neighbour turned stranger overnight.

  The atmosphere of these years is heavy with expectations.When the war is over …, when shortages are over …, when prices are back to normal …, when the Congress leaders are out of jail …, when the Unionists finally show the League what’s what …, when the British go …, when India belongs to Indians.

  *

  Virmati and Harish are on their way to Lahore. Virmati is still young enough to feel that the unhappiness of the past could vanish from her life, like the thick black smoke dispersed from the train into the damp monsoon air.

  The resolution concerning Virmati’s further learning has been preceded by bitterness, because family money was limited, and why should it be wasted unnecessarily on the higher education of a married woman? Ganga, who couldn’t wait for Virmati to leave, resented her studying the most. She couldn’t read, and Virmati was to do an MA! If that much attention had been given to her, she would not be in the position she was in today. She had taken her duties as a wife seriously, looked after the house, children, in-laws, and husband’s salary, but she had got no recognition for her hard work and years of sacrifice.

  The night before Virmati and Harish left, Ganga looked at herself in the mirror. She traced her features with her fingers, watching the lines they made in her smooth skin. She had good eyes, a small nose with a winking diamond pin, a fair skin, the pores a little large but the colour clear. Her lips were stained orange with paan, and her lower teeth had a gap dating from her pregnancy, but still there was nothing very repulsive about her appearance.

  Now that the witchcraft had worn off maybe her chance would come. Perhaps at night – after all, how long could a man remain alone? Maybe now he would see the uselessness of an educated wife. She smiled at the short while Virmati had lasted in the house. She herself would never clear the field for anyone.

  *

  Virmati’s stay in Lahore was going to be done cheaply. A sister of a friend of Harish’s, whose husband was away in the INA, had a small house in Krishna Nagar, not very far from Government College. A paying-guest arrangement would provide security and be economical.

  As Virmati sat in the house in Krishna Nagar, and let her eyes wander over the slightly shabby furniture, over Leela, the sister, friendly but not very educated, she felt that this is what she might have been had the Professor not entered her life. Married in a slightly shabby house, with no books or music, no paintings on the wall, no air of culture, no sense of worlds beyond the here and now. Although the lady looked happy enough, she knew there were higher things in life.

  *

  Virmati’s life in Lahore was isolated. She was married with a husband, a co-wife and two stepchildren. She had had one abortion and one miscarriage. These barriers divided her from her fellows. She read, she studied, she spent time in the quiet hush of the library with its gallery running round, surrounded by books in wooden cupboards that stretched to the ceiling. At lunch-time she ate her solitary meal of paranthas, sabzi and achar sitting on the lawns and watching the traffic swirl around the district courts below. Sometimes the other girls strolled over to Anarkalli to shop or eat, but Virmati, acutely conscious of the need for frugality, seldom joined them.

  *

  Virmati’s friend in Lahore, what about her? What about Swarna Lata? They met. They exchanged news about each other, the easy part of this reunion.

  ‘Marriage. MA, Philosophy.’

  ‘A baby boy. Rationing centres opened. Price control offenders and penal servitude.’

  Virmati’s negligible words became
drowned in what Swarna Lata had done, ending with, ‘Come and demonstrate with us against the Draft Hindu Code Bill next Saturday outside the railway station. Men don’t want family wealth to be divided among women. Say their sisters get dowry, that’s their share, and the family structure will be threatened, because sisters and wives will be seen as rivals, instead of dependents who have to be nurtured and protected. As a result women will lose their moral position in society! Imagine!’

  As Swarna talked, Virmati’s old feeling of being left out grew. Swarna hadn’t changed. Obviously her activities did not threaten her family structure. The Draft Hindu Code Bill. What did removing inequalities mean? Would a new Hindu Code remove the inequalities between two wives? From Ganga’s point of view, she was the one with too many rights, the one with monopoly. Their husband’s semen should be shared. Virmati began to giggle hysterically to herself. Swarna Lata stared.

  Virmati quickly looked at her friend, her mouth slackening into wistfulness. She had to think of her husband’s good name, how he would appear to others, how his absent ears would react to any confidences she might reveal.

  Lamely she said, ‘I wish I could come, Swarna, but I’m married.’

  ‘So? I’m not asking you to commit adultery. We have plenty of married women working with us. I’m married, aren’t I?’

  Virmati looked at her hands. In Leela’s house she helped with the cooking. An old burn scar, long and brown, lingered on her right thumb. A ring that Harish had given her, a ruby set in a round of small pearls, had grease stuck in the crevices. Hands like hers, should they be raised in sloganeering? Would Harish like it?

  ‘It’s important that our voice be heard, Viru,’ pressed Swarna Lata. ‘Some men are planning to demonstrate against it. Won’t you add your strength to ours?’

  ‘If you think I can make a difference,’ said Virmati politely.

  She didn’t go, though. And Swarna dropped out of her life.

  *

  At weekends, Virmati sometimes amused herself by taking out Leela’s offspring, Kiran and Kaka. She preferred to do this rather than make the hour’s journey to Amritsar. There was a lot to see in Lahore, and by now she was adept at locating beauty. At the mosque of Wazir Khan, she directed Kiran and Kaka’s gaze to the repetitive patterns on the four minarets. She admired the extensive inlay work in hushed whispers. She pointed out how the roof, the walls, and the pillars, every inch coloured intricately in vegetable dyes, reflected the earth and the sky in ochre, yellow, white and pale blue.

  On the way home she bought the children kites, and helped to fly them on their terrace.

  Another time she took them to Shalimar, built by Shah Jahan in 1652. They wandered around the gardens, admiring the pools of water, and the wavering single-spiral fountains, arising out of red stone flowers.

  In the central pavilion they stared at the wooden ceilings, covered with meena work, dulled over the years, and at the mirror reflecting their images. And down below there were the marble niches where diyas used to burn behind a curtain of falling water.

  She grew especially close to Kiran. Some of her most intimate moments in Lahore were spent with the girl. She was reminded of Shakuntala and herself in Dalhousie. Kiran too followed her eagerly about the house, asking her about her college, waiting to grow up so she could do all the things Virmati did, and acquire the gloss and patina Virmati had achieved through Harish, education, work, marriage and suffering.

  *

  Harish did not like Virmati frittering away her energy, seeing the monuments of Lahore with Kiran and Kaka. They were bright children, he conceded, but she was mother to two children in Amritsar, and sister-in-law to someone who was practically her daughter. So why was she wasting her weekends in Lahore, when she could be showering her family with the sunshine of her presence?

  For the time being, however, Harish only made his displeasure known, he did not insist on any action. The charm in travelling to meet Virmati in another city lent romance and freshness to their relationship. As though they were lovers once again, with the unhappy time wiped out.

  They would often go to visit Syed Hussain. In all those furtive visits to the guest room, Virmati had never seen the inside of his house. Now that she was legitimate, she could enjoy its atmosphere of privilege. Everything in it spoke of taste and refinement, the English books, the stack of 78 rpms, Bach, Mozart, Beethoven, Schumann, Chopin, Tchaikovsky, in faded blue-and-cream dust jackets, the shinning silverware around the plates at mealtimes, and the two large, sleek dogs (Faustus and Marlowe) that padded elegantly around the place.

  Virmati sat on the margin, heard Harish and Syed talk, and marvelled at their flow of words, she who had no words at all.

  *

  With his friends, or with Virmati alone, the war dominated Harish’s conversation.

  ‘Their days are numbered, Viru, their days are numbered.’

  ‘The Allies are nearing Berlin. They definitely can’t last for more than a few days now. After so many years! I can’t believe it.’

  ‘Hitler is hiding in the forest caves, they say. Coward. Didn’t think twice about sending his own army to its death on the Russian front. Thank God our leaders are not like that.’

  Why does he care so much? thought Virmati. It’s not our war. God knows the amount of money, arms, ammunition, not to mention soldiers, we have pumped into it, but, still, how can it be our cause when they imprison us here?

  ‘They are fighting in the streets now.’ At least their fighting is open.

  ‘All Berlin is on fire.’ At least it’s a fire one can see.

  ‘Hitler is dead!’ 1 May, 1945.

  ‘Goebbels has committed suicide!’

  ‘Total Nazi collapse!’

  ‘Five hundred thousand Germans surrender!’ 5 May.

  ‘One million Germans surrender!’ 6 May.

  ‘It’s over, Viru! It’s over. War in Europe is over.’ 8 May. Thank God!

  ‘Now it’s our turn next. Now they will have no excuse. Cripps had given a commitment. At the San Francisco Peace Conference the eyes of the world will be on Britain. There will be pressure put on her to recognize our sovereignty. After all, a fifth of the world’s population is still in chains, groaning under its yoke, condemned to servitude. That is something that can cause the Allies a lot of political embarrassment given their anti-Fascist, anti-imperialist rhetoric during the war. No, Britain is now finished, Viru, finished. They have no power left, even in India. Look at the mess they are making of the food distribution. Shortages everywhere. All man-made.’

  And me, thought Virmati, what about me? The war, or the end of it, rather, seems to have gone to his head. Suddenly he is transformed. He becomes visionary. His eyes are sparkling, his hair is flung about with passion. I feel so utterly left out, so utterly cold. Will there be any change in my life, I wonder?

  *

  In the holidays Harish’s pressure on his wife to come home increased. He had become principal of AS College, and it was increasingly difficult for him to come to Lahore. Virmati was evasive. She had a rival whom she didn’t want to see.

  ‘What has suddenly happened to you? You are getting very fussy. I can’t come here every time, you know.’

  ‘But you like coming here.’

  ‘Not this often. The area is too dirty and congested. Remember the tank last year.’

  ‘I remember many things about last year.’

  ‘I can’t afford to keep you in Lahore this summer. It’s two months’ board and lodging for no reason.’

  ‘I don’t mind going on a holiday with you, but I will not come home.’

  ‘Leela quite agrees with me. She thinks it better if you return.’

  I play with the idea that she must have refused. That she could have said, I’m my own mistress. I will relate to you with dignity or not at all. None of this hiding and whispering and keeping my voice down and struggle over who is going to wash your underwear and who is going to clean your shoes. None of this for me.


  She was, after all, a woman who had defied her own family for many years.

  Perhaps the words were at the back of her mind, teasing her tongue with their shadowy sounds. She looked for an opening, but she looked timidly, for though she had escaped the marital home, an essential part of it, the marital bed she carried inside her head, and its burden was heavy. Its rumpled sheets, and tell-tale stains did much to ensure that her voice remained soft when she spoke.

  In the end, my mother couldn’t have mentioned that she had more of a home with Leela than she did with him.

  She couldn’t have, because her eyes looked confused and her face went blank whenever her daughter demanded a story about her Lahore days.

  She couldn’t have, because when I grew up I was very careful to tailor my needs to what I knew I could get. That is my female inheritance. That is what she tried to give me. Adjust, compromise, adapt.

  Assertion, though difficult to establish, is easy to remember. The mind goes soft and pulpy with repeated complying.

  ‘Jeeti raho, beti,’ said her mother-in-law coldly as she bent to touch her feet. ‘May you be the mother of a son,’ she added as Virmati straightened, her travel dust still upon her, the brightness of the fabled city in her cheeks.

  Ganga and she slid glances past each other.

  Giridhar and Chhotti came reluctantly to touch their Mummy’s feet.

  Virmati found the dressing-room the best place in the house after all.

  *

  Harish tried to make sure she spent her time profitably. He didn’t want her to fret over the family situation. He wanted to see her as happy as she had been in Lahore.

  ‘Here, do this while I’m away.’ He waved marked portions of her textbooks at her, before he left for college on his bicycle. ‘We’ll discuss them when I come home.’