by Veena Rao
Her grandparents did not ever argue or reason with Uncle Anand when he had a god complex. That only aggravated him. And they had nowhere to escape an angry god, not even Tara’s sanctuary upstairs. Life had been unkind to her grandparents, but even more brutal to Uncle Anand.
She wondered now how he had coped with being shunned at weddings and engagements and naming ceremonies. How had he faced the madman label that preceded his arrival even during his brief periods of sanity? What was it like to be isolated inside the prison of his mind, to be overpowered by a voice that commanded him to do its bidding? How had he faced this powerlessness? Was that the reason he had tried to end his life three times, twice by jumping into the swollen well in the middle of the monsoon season, and once by trying to set fire to the clothes he was wearing? Was it to have some control over his life, his idea of a permanent healing?
Was there symbolism in Pinky’s return, in the return of a childhood memory? She thought of the fear inside her belly, coiled like a cobra, its venom coursing deep in her veins since the time Amma had left her behind at Shanti Nilaya to join Daddy in Dubai. The fear that connected the major crises of her life: of being unwanted, rejected, ostracized. If she could only tackle the cobra’s raised hood and darting forked tongue, to fling it afar into nothingness.
She shut her eyes. Her lips quivered. It was from the weight of wanting something more than life.
“Facing is healing,” she whispered. Uncle Anand’s words now made sense to her. The tears found a way out of her closed eyes. She pulled Pinky into her chest, holding her tightly, her fingers tangled in matted golden hair. She let the doll’s plastic ear reverberate the beat of her full heart.
An idea came to her that night, upstairs in her childhood sanctuary, after she had spent a couple of hours sweeping, mopping, and dusting it clean. She sat on a rickety teakwood chair, peering at the rows of books. A solitary incandescent light bulb lit the room, and a lizard kept watch over her from a cracked beam on the old tiled ceiling. She was not mindful of the tiny reptile; she had overcome that fear a long time ago, when a dragon in psychosis had prowled downstairs spouting fiery doctrine.
When the idea hit her, she rushed down to get a pen from her purse, climbing two steps at a time during her return upstairs. She pulled Anna Karenina from the bottom shelf, a random choice, and started writing in the blank margins around its yellowing pages.
My first acts of self-determination at the age of thirty-six made me a pariah. My crime? I had walked out of a loveless, abusive marriage, she began. She wrote past midnight with the passion of an artist—shoulders hunched over the book, unaware of the stiffness in her back—even though it wasn’t art she was creating. When she was done, she felt like she had rewritten her future.
In the morning, she dressed calmly in black pants and a lilac blouse, taking care to tame her hair with gel. Her purse sagged with the weight of Daddy’s copy of a Russian classic. Her feet, clad in black ballerina shoes, were firm as she walked up the new asphalted road to the rickshaw stand past the Pentecostal church. She engaged a rickshaw, telling the khaki clad driver to take her to the offices of the Morning Herald. She had contemplated going to an Internet café instead and emailing her opinion piece to Sharat, her former colleague, but she didn’t know if he still used his Hotmail, or if he still worked at the Morning Herald, or if he’d forward the essay to the editor for consideration.
This was far too important to leave to chance.
Chapter 29
The day before her mehndi ceremony, Nina arrived in a rickshaw, glowing in her dressy fuchsia and orange silk salwar suit. She came to the point as soon as she had kicked off her six-inch stilettoes and settled on the sofa. “Come to the wedding,” she said, heavily mascaraed eyes dramatically earnest.
“You are sweet, Nina.” Tara cupped her cousin’s chin. “But you know I cannot. They don’t want me there.”
“I do. My fiancé, Rajeev, does.”
“You told your fiancé?”
“Yes. He admires you. We both do. You had the courage to follow your heart.”
“Elders think differently, Nina.”
Nina flapped her hands in exasperation, the orange and fuchsia bangles jingling furiously on her wrists. Tara reached out to grasp Nina’s hands, to calm their agitation. “Tell me about Rajeev. Is he strong enough to withstand pressure from his family, if it comes to that?”
Nina nodded vigorously. “Of course. He is open-minded and forward. He will stand up for what is right.”
“Let me think about it, Nina.”
“At least come to the mehndi. Rajeev’s family won’t be there.”
“But the rest of the community will congregate. Word gets around quickly.”
“We’ll show them we don’t give a shit.”
Tara laughed. “I wish I’d had your spirit at your age, Nina.”
She’d go, she decided. She’d face a hostile community for Nina, but mostly, she’d do it for herself. It was as if the universe was conspiring to lay out an agnipariksha, a trial by fire, for her to walk through. If she didn’t do it now, she probably never would.
Nina threw her arms around Tara, kissing her on both cheeks, leaving dark lipstick stains on her moist skin. “Oh, and there is another reason why you must be there tomorrow.” Her eyes danced with excitement. “Cyrus said he would call.”
Tara’s chest expanded at the mention of his name, a burst of adrenalin that forced her mouth open to breathe. “Cyrus said he’d call? Has he called before?”
“Several times. I happened to answer his call today. I told him you had holed up at Shanti Nilaya because everyone was mean to you.”
“What did he say to that?”
“Cyrus seemed to be in a hurry, and frustrated. He was at a play, and the curtains were going up in a minute. I told him I’d make sure you’d be home on mehndi night, and to be sure to call on my mobile.”
The play. Tara had woken up that morning feeling drained, the guilt racking her insides for abandoning Cyrus on his important day. Now, her heart swung wildly—lifting one minute because he had wanted to speak to her just before his performance, and sinking because she had made no effort to offer him her good wishes.
After Nina left, as the sun turned the deep blue of dusk, she felt a desperate need to be connected to Cyrus, to be in his space. Her feet bounded eastward, to the road that began at the Hanuman shrine, and ended at Second Bridge, where the Saldanha homes lay. She came to the tall iron gates of Saldanha Villa. The driveway was lit up, and the house looked freshly painted, but thankfully, not much had changed in a quarter century by way of renovation. The lawns and flowering shrubs were in darkness, but she could tell that the house’s ochre façade remained the same. She tamed her hair, pressing it back with her fingers, an old habit. She looked through the white bars, almost expecting to see them all, like old times—James, Annette, Angela, Michelle, and Cyrus. The open verandah was faintly lit but empty. She slipped down to her haunches, her curled fingers sliding down the bars. She rested her forehead against the cool iron of the gate and closed her eyes.
She smiled when his sixteen-year-old version dramatically cleared his throat, threw his head back, closed his eyes, and sang, his arms stretched like in prayer, swaying from side to side:
Star light, star bright,
The first stargoddess I see tonight;
I wish I may, I wish I might,
Have the wish I wish tonight.
She laughed. It was as if she were standing at the gates of her own heart, peering inside. A mild evening breeze cooled her face, but a stronger thought washed over her. How magical it was that they had met again half the world away as adults, their pull for each other undiminished after a quarter of a century—as if by a metaphysical hand that had led them to each other, bound them for eternity. How ungrateful she was being to the forces that had conspired for them, succumbing to little worldly insecurities and hurts.
She felt ready for the heavy lifting—to bare her soul to Cyr
us, to work through her fears, their issues. She stayed on her haunches until Saldanha Villa was only a gray silhouette in the early darkness. She felt love; it threatened to spill over as if it were an overflowing well in the monsoon season. She would return after the mehndi to visit James and his family. She would visit Dadda in the next villa and ask him to take her to see the children who called her Amma. She would embrace the world she had married into, envelop her little foster children in a river of love. She was conscious of the shift in her mood, the spiraling energy that stemmed from an impulsive act which was making its way through the editorial pipeline at the Morning Herald.
There was a wedding at Raj Bungalow; even the neighbor furthest down the road could tell. A bright red, yellow, and green shamiana, a gigantic awning, draped with valances of marigold garlands, sheltered the front yard. At the far end of the lawns, by the compound wall, was a raised platform covered in red carpet with an intricate floral backdrop. The front door had been left open, a warm invitation for guests to walk in on the auspicious days of the wedding. A string of fresh mango leaves was stretched across the top frame of the front door to stop negative energy from entering the house.
Raj Bungalow would start filling with people in the evening. Relatives and their relatives and their relatives. They had enough extended family in and around Mangalore to fill Mangala Stadium. Tara thought she had beaten the crowd by arriving mid-morning, but she was wrong. A quick, sweeping glance revealed women in silk saris and thick gold jewelry chitchatting in the living and dining space. She held her head up as she walked in, her bare feet firm on the cool marble floor; a steady, prepared walk. A sturdy hand stopped her in the hallway, taking her by surprise. She turned around to face her brother from California.
“So good to see you, Sis.”
“When did you arrive, Vijay?”
“Last night, via Dubai.”
She allowed Vijay to lead her by the arm to his empty room upstairs. Her brother appeared older; a tiny bit of flab around his girth showed through his Adidas T-shirt and Levi’s jeans. He rested his backside delicately on the edge of the desk. She occupied the desk chair.
“How are you, Tara?”
Even though she had to look up at him, her gaze was steady. “I am fine. I know the elders don’t want me here, but I am attending the mehndi. I have Nina’s invitation.”
“That was one bomb of an article in the Morning Herald.”
She was unprepared for this bit of information; she had built no defenses against it. She gasped involuntarily, a sharp intake of air. “Is it published?”
“Didn’t you know? It appeared in today’s edition and created quite a stir in the house, as you can imagine.” Her brother looked surprised, but she noticed no other expression.
“Oh! I thought it was appearing next week.” She leaned forward, fist over her mouth. The bravado she had adopted walking into the house quickly left her, replaced with the tightening of her chest and the constricting of her throat. She imagined a house full of guests leering at her for her audacity, her shamelessness, her deliberate attempt to wreck Nina’s marriage. It was the last bit that worried her the most. Her eyes closed involuntarily, as if to shut the door on the world.
“Chin up, Tara. Chin up,” she heard Vijay say. She opened her eyes with a start, searched his face. His mellow expression surprised her.
“Don’t take anybody’s shit. Tell them to eff off. Your life is your business.” He put a reassuring hand on her shoulder, squeezed it.
Why the change? her surprised eyes asked him.
“Sorry for being a jackass, Sis,” he replied aloud. “Listen, I am off to Bajpe airport to pick up the Bombay crowd. I owe you a proper apology when I return.”
This was her big day, bigger than she had imagined, walking into the house. Her agnipariksha. She closed her eyes and imagined a humongous pile of firewood being stacked outside, a fire being lit for her trial, as Uncle Anand had done, a long time ago. “Show them your purity, your virtue. A test of fire is what they seek,” the voices in his head had asked of her, before she knew what virtue actually meant.
“I am not Sita, I am Tara,” she had cried out to Uncle Anand. I am Tara, she whispered to the walls of Vijay’s room. She took deep breaths to bring air into her constricted lungs, until the tension in her shoulders eased somewhat. Slowly, as she opened her eyes, she was reminded of the biggest truth of her present moment: she wasn’t the person who had last left this room eight years earlier. She was a different Tara.
As she bumped into Aunty Nanda in the hallway, she noticed her aunt’s face change color, transform from preoccupied to belligerent, reminding Tara of the bhuta kola oracle dancer of her childhood. She was mindful of greeting her wheezing aunt with a nod as she squeezed past her and made her way to her room.
She opened her closet door and settled on her knees, rifling through the shelf where she had left her silk saris behind when she moved to Atlanta. They were all there: Kanjeevarams, Benarasis, Gadhwals. Amma had individually wrapped them in protective semitransparent muslin sheets. She began to pry open each bag, looking for one with the least fancy gold-dipped silver zari work. The clink of gold bangles, the heavy breathing told her that Aunty Nanda had followed her into the room.
“Why are you doing this, Tara?”
“Nina invited me, Aunty Nanda.” Tara’s voice was even, a sharp contrast to her aunt’s distressed tone.
“Why the article? Why advertise your adventures to the world?”
“Our society needs to change, Aunty Nanda.”
“And you thought today was the right day to change the world?” The sarcasm bounced off her aunt’s words. “Because you were not invited?”
“Oh, but I am invited, Aunty Nanda. Nina came to Shanti Nilaya and convinced me to come.”
“Nina is a child. What does she know?”
Tara smiled. “Why are you getting a child married, Aunty Nanda? Isn’t marriage for grown-ups?”
Aunty Nanda collapsed into the bed, her face close to tears. “You were such a shrinking violet before you went to America. How you have changed.”
“Aunty Nanda, I was once told I am a rare purple lotus.”
Aunty Nanda’s face crumpled with rage and helplessness. Tara quickly turned her attention back to the saris before guilt weakened her. She felt sorry for Aunty Nanda; burdened with tradition, fearful of gossip smearing their pride, threatening the alliance she and her husband had decided was perfect for their daughter. But for once, Tara would stand her ground.
She heard a male voice call out her name; it was Aunty Nanda’s husband, Uncle Satish, who had just walked into the room. He stood by his wife, but his hands were on his hips.
“This drama was quite unnecessary,” he said in English, his voice too loud, too grating for his slight frame. “Word travels fast. Everybody in our community is talking about the article.”
“I had no idea the article would be published today, Uncle. That was not my intention.”
“But pray, what was its purpose? Are we going to forget the conventions and beliefs our forefathers have been following for hundreds of years? Over some American ideas? Westerners don’t have the same values we do. Here, we consider marriage sacred; our vows are meant for seven lifetimes. If every woman puts her own desires above her family and community, that will be the death of society.”
Tara pulled herself up from her kneeling position, squaring her shoulders, remembering that she was a couple of inches taller than her bank manager uncle. “A community that does not accord its women basic human rights has no future either, Uncle Satish. It is already a dead society.”
She had not raised her voice for her first confrontation with an extended family member, even though Uncle Satish’s face was grim, the flaring of his broad nose aggressive.
“What basic rights of yours were violated that you had to beat drums? Were you starved? Imprisoned in your house? Tortured?”
“I don’t owe you or anybody else an explanation for t
aking charge of my life.”
From her peripheral view, she saw Daddy appear in the doorway, arms crossed. For the first time in her life, she felt ready to deal with him.
“You heard me, Daddy. I don’t owe anybody an explanation for taking responsibility for my happiness.”
She curled her forefinger—which had momentarily pointed at Daddy—back into her palm—but he wasn’t looking at her. Though his eyes flashed with anger, and his jaw was rigid, Daddy’s attention was on Uncle Satish.
“Leave Tara alone.” His tone was assertive. “If you cannot be nice to the daughter of this house, you are welcome to take your bridal party elsewhere.”
Uncle Satish and Aunty Nanda fell silent, the conviction on their faces diminishing. The shock choked Tara, a sudden filling of her heart. She caught a vibration, a hint of change in Daddy’s words. She searched his face, and this time, Daddy did not turn his face away from her probing eyes.
Another face appeared behind his—Amma, who brushed past him, a large shopping bag in her hand. Her lips were tightly pursed, as if she were trying hard to stop a tirade. She thrust the bag into Tara’s hands. “I bought these for you at the silk bhandar on Thursday. They are the latest fashion. Try them on.”
With a firm hand on Tara’s elbow, Amma steered her out of the room. At the door, she turned to look at her younger sister and brother-in-law. “Nobody will bother you again, Tara. Your parents are still alive.” Amma’s voice had new vigor.
In the master bedroom, Amma put her focus on pulling a heavy lehenga out of the shopping bag.
“What do you mean, you bought these on Thursday? You didn’t want me at the wedding celebrations.” Tara frowned at the lavishly embroidered, crystal-studded, royal blue velvet bodice and hot pink flared skirt that Amma was unfolding on the bed.