Secret Daughter

by Shilpi Somaya Gowda

  Asha knows quite clearly this is not true. Yes, it is the eldest son’s role to preside over his family once the patriarch has passed, but in his absence, other men will also do—uncles, friends, cousins, even neighbors. If there is one thing Asha has learned in India, it is that there is always a long succession of men willing to step into an honored role. She looks into her grandmother’s eyes and sees she is resolute. Dadima has swept Asha into the arms of this clan as if she has always been one of them, she has treated her like she is both precious and strong. Your duty to your family. My family. People Asha had never met and barely spoken to just one year ago, who have fetched her from the airport in the middle of the night, taken her to tourist sites they had no interest in seeing again, taught her how to wear a lengha, fly tissue-paper kites, eat all kinds of new foods. She was not born into this family, she did not grow up with them, but it has made no difference. They have done everything for her.

  And now it is her turn. Asha feels the lump rising in her throat and nods her agreement.

  THE PIGEONS AWAKEN ASHA AS THE LIGHT OF DAWN SEEPS THROUGH the window. She can hear them pecking and cawing on the balcony, scurrying among the bird feed Dadima scatters there every morning, even today. Asha rises, bathes, and dresses, as her grandmother instructed her to.

  In the drawing room, a large framed photo of Dadaji is draped with fresh flowers. Dadima is sitting at the table and gazing out the window, without her regular cup of tea. “Hello, beti. Come, let us get dressed. The pandit will be here soon.” Asha is nervous about entering the back bedroom. Her eyes immediately go to Dadaji’s side of the bed. On the bed lie two saris. Dadima picks up the pale yellow one with a thin embroidered border and holds it up to Asha. “Your dadaji would have liked to see you wear your first sari. Put on the petticoat and blouse and I will show you how to wrap it.”

  The other sari remains on the bed, unadorned and pure white, the traditional color worn by Indian widows for the rest of their lives. The absence of color, jewelry, and makeup signals their mourning. Asha marvels again at her grandmother, who can embrace tradition so fully with one hand and shatter it with the other. Before this trip, she would have found this kind of contradiction maddening, hypocritical in her parents or others. But the experiences of the past year have taught her the world is more complicated than she ever thought. She started out seeking one family and ended up discovering another. She came to India with no knowledge of her birth parents but certainty about the rest of her life, and now the opposite is true.

  Dadima’s sari blouse, tailored to fit a woman whose body has birthed and fed children, is much too big for Asha. When she proposes wearing a fitted T-shirt in its place, Dadima is reluctant but finally relents and even admits it looks good. “I wonder why we don’t all do that,” Dadima mutters to herself as she pins Asha’s sari. When Dadima finishes dressing her, Asha looks at her reflection, and she is stunned. The sari flatters her and is surprisingly comfortable.

  Shortly after they are dressed, the relatives begin to arrive. Priya, Bindu, and the other women gather in the drawing room around Dadaji’s picture, some singing softly, others in quiet prayer. When the pandit arrives, Dadima asks Asha to follow them to the balcony. Asha’s stomach rumbles as she passes the kitchen, but Dadima has already told her they aren’t permitted to eat until after the ceremony.

  Standing outside, the pandit bows his head to Dadima. “Where are your sons, Sarla-ji?” he asks.

  “They will meet us at the ghats,” she says, “but Asha will be the one to assist you with the rituals, in her father’s place.”

  A look of confusion passes over his face, then a small labored smile. “Please, Sarla-ji, you don’t want to compromise your husband’s soul. You should choose a male relative, one of your other sons…”

  Asha looks at her grandmother, sees her tired eyes. “Pandit-ji, with respect, this is a family matter. We have made our decision.”

  THEY ARRIVE TO FIND HUNDREDS OF PEOPLE ALREADY ASSEMBLED FOR the ceremony. There are dozens of hospital staff dressed in medical coats. She sees Nimish and other cousins, her uncles and more relatives she’s met over the summer. Sanjay is standing with his father, his eyes red like hers. She recognizes many neighbors from the building, and even the vegetable merchant who comes to their door every day. Neil and Parag from the newspaper are there. Most of the mourners greet her with head bowed and hands joined in namaste, and several of them bend down to touch Dadima’s feet in the ultimate sign of respect.

  The wooden pyre stands nearly as tall as Asha, with Dadaji’s body wrapped in white cloth resting on top of it. Asha stands next to the pandit and watches attentively as he begins to sing and chant. He dips his fingers into vessels of holy water, rice grains, and flower petals, sprinkles them over the pyre, and gestures for her to do the same. Before long, the continuous rhythm of the pandit’s chanting soothes her, and she becomes less conscious of the people surrounding them.

  The pandit gestures to Asha’s uncles, and they come forward. He speaks quietly, and into their upturned palms he places puffed rice, sticks of incense, a pot of ghee. Her uncles walk around the pyre and make their offerings to Dadaji’s body. They finish circling the pyre and return to stand by Dadima’s side.

  Finally, the pandit speaks a few words of Gujarati to Asha and points to the flame burning in the oil lamp. Asha looks at Dadima’s lined face, into her moist eyes, and then takes a step forward. She picks up the bound branches from the oil lamp. As directed by the pandit, she circles the pyre three times, then touches the flame to the end of the pyre. Her hands trembling, she holds it in place until small flames lick up the edge of the wooden branches.

  Asha steps back next to Dadima and watches as the flames slowly engulf the wooden pyre and finally, the white sheet-covered figure of her grandfather. Through the flickering flames, she sees the faces of her cousins and uncles. My family. Only her father is missing, but she knows her presence here is what he would want. At some point, the family you create is more important than the one you’re born into, he told her. Asha reaches for Dadima’s gnarled hand and holds it firmly in her own as the tears roll down her face.

  54

  UNCOMMONLY PLACID

  Dahanu, India—2005

  KAVITA

  “DID YOU KNOW THESE WERE HERE?” ASKS KAVITA, HOLDING up a dog-eared issue of Stardust magazine from 1987.

  “No. What was Ba doing with that? She couldn’t even read!”

  “I don’t know. Maybe she liked the pictures?” Kavita flips through the tattered film magazine. “Arre!

  “Look at these outfits, so old-fashioned. Oh, my.”

  Rupa walks over to Kavita, stands on her tiptoes, and peers into the metal cupboard Kavita has been going through. “Bhagwan! There must be a hundred of these in here!” She laughs, pulling out a stack of magazines bound together with string.

  “I can’t believe she would spend money on magazines, and Bollywood magazines at that. Our frugal mother, who saved every grain of sugar. I wonder why she was keeping all of these?” Kavita says.

  “Who knew Ba was such a film fan?” Rupa stacks the magazines next to her mother’s saris on the bed.

  “Oh, it feels good to laugh. I feel like I’ve been doing nothing but crying since I got here.” Kavita gives her sister a weak smile, feeling guilty again.

  “Hahn. It was hard this morning, wasn’t it? Seeing Bapu there?” Rupa is referring to the cremation ceremony held in the village center. Their father fell to his knees and wept as soon as he saw their mother’s body on the pyre. His frail body shook violently with hollow cries. He could not be consoled by any of them. The sight of his raw grief, his utter despair, was more than Kavita could handle. She didn’t know which sight was more heartbreaking—the draped figure of her mother’s body, or her distraught father at its side. Kavita was thankful to have Jasu beside her, his strong arms bracing her as she wept like a child. Normally women mourned at home instead of attending the cremation, but the sisters could not let Bapu
go alone. For some indiscernible period of time that followed, they all stood and watched the fire until the last of the embers died out. The ashes were gathered by the pandit with a small shovel and given to them in a clay urn. Their father had not spoken or eaten since they came home. Afterward, in the words and embraces she exchanged with guests, Kavita found herself explaining Vijay’s absence as briefly as possible, though she wanted to scream. No, my son is not here, but his money is—in those marigold garlands, in this food you will eat.

  “Mmm.” Kavita nods. “Very hard. I’m glad he’s sleeping now. Perhaps it’s a blessing his memory is going. Maybe he won’t remember it all when he wakes up.”

  “Unfortunately, it seems to be the only part of his memory that is working, the part that remembers her. It’s sweet, really,” Rupa says. “Think about it, when they got married, Ba was sixteen and he was eighteen. They spent half a century together. He probably can’t even remember life before her.”

  Kavita nods her agreement. She cannot form the words to answer her sister, because once again, her throat is tight with tears.

  THE WATER IS UNCOMMONLY PLACID THIS MORNING. DELICATE ripples on the surface of the water dance coyly with the morning’s early rays. Strands of bright sunlight sit in contrast atop the dark water underneath, like gold thread woven into a dark sari. As Kavita digs her toes into the smooth cool clay of the sea bank, she tries to imagine what it would feel like to drift to the depths of this water. To be completely unencumbered, free of the worries and responsibilities of life, free to just float, float…float…and then disappear.

  She knows her mother’s soul is no longer in the ashes that fill the clay urn beside her, but she wants to believe some part of her is here today. Her mother would appreciate how peaceful this morning feels. Kavita picks up the urn and wraps her hands around the wide base. “Ba,” she says softly, and then smiles, realizing it must be her mother’s spirit bringing this calm to the morning. Only years after Kavita became a mother herself did she discover how much of a hand her own mother had in everything—working quietly, purposefully, behind the stage of all of their lives. And, Kavita thinks as she holds the urn in her lap, her mother’s impact lives on still. If the mother falls, the whole family falls.

  “Bena?” Rupa appears beside her, with her sari draped respectfully over her head. “He is ready for us now.” She inclines her head slightly, indicating the boatman standing alongside his raft floating in the water.

  “Hahn. Let us go.” Kavita stands up slowly so as not to disturb the urn. They walk down toward the waiting boatman, who resembles an amphibious creature himself. His body, bare except for a loincloth wrapped over his hips and thighs, is leathery from the sun. He stands in the water up to his waist, equally comfortable on land and at sea. His limbs are lean but muscular, well suited for running through the water before casting himself atop the raft. Kavita and Rupa sit on either end of the raft facing each other, while the boatman stands in the center between them. He steers with deliberate movements of the long bamboo pole he pushes along the bottom. Kavita imagines other ashes down there, the remains of all the other loved ones scattered in these waters—fathers, mothers, sisters, children. Finally, they are far enough from the shore, and the boatman drives his bamboo pole like a spear into the sand below. The sun is now fully visible on the horizon, its orange glow warming their faces and necks.

  They could have asked the pandit to come out here, to chant slokas as they scatter their mother’s ashes. But both sisters wanted to perform this final act honoring their mother alone. Even their father, they agreed, would be best served by his absence today. Two days after the cremation ceremony last month, he went back to asking after his wife’s whereabouts. Whether it was his ailing mind playing tricks on him or wisely sparing him the pain of truth, they could not be sure. In any case, they finally decided to tell him their mother had gone to visit her sister in a neighboring village and would return the following day. This aunt had, in actuality, died some years earlier, but this fact did not present a problem for their father. Rather, the explanation served to keep him calm for the duration of the day. The following morning, when he asked again, they simply repeated the lie. Each day, the lie became easier to tell. The days passed, and their father slowly returned to his former routine of simply grumbling about the weakness of his ceiling fan or the tepidness of his morning tea. After a few days, Jasu returned to Mumbai, while Kavita decided to stay awhile longer to perform these last rituals.

  Kavita slides the lid from the clay urn and tilts it toward Rupa. Although there is little hierarchy to observe in their family of only daughters, she is showing respect for Rupa’s role as the elder. Rupa dips her hand into the narrow mouth of the urn and takes out a small handful of gray ash. As she slowly opens her fingers, some of it instantly disappears off the edges of her palm with the light breeze. She holds her hand out over the water and tilts it sideways until the ash falls to the surface of the water. It floats there for a moment, and then is no longer visible, mixing with the sea and all that it holds.

  Kavita reaches into the urn and sprinkles the ash back and forth in the water, a motion she has used many times to spread flour for rolling rotli. They watch until it disappears, then Rupa reaches inside once more. They continue like this, each alternating a handful, until the urn is nearly empty. Then, without needing to speak, together they hold the clay urn up over the water and tilt it until the last few ashes are emptied. The silence that follows is broken by Rupa. Hers are small cries at first, and grow louder until her whole body is shaking with them. Kavita wraps one arm around her sister, then another, holding her while she weeps. They watch together until the last remnants of their mother’s body have vanished below the surface.

  55

  THAT’S FAMILY

  Mumbai, India—2005

  ASHA

  “THE MULLIGATAWNY’S REALLY GOOD HERE.” SANJAY SITS ON the other side of the booth, his hands carefully folded on the table, his eyes penetrating hers.

  At Dadima’s insistence, Asha agreed to have lunch with him today. He is leaving soon for London, but she’s been reluctant to leave her grandmother’s side since the cremation ceremony. So here she sits, with no makeup, her unwashed hair in a ponytail, in a fine hotel restaurant with the closest thing she’s had to a boyfriend. Asha closes the laminated menu. “Okay, I’ll have that,” she says. “Sanjay, what does Usha mean?”

  He looks up from his menu. “Usha? It means…dawn. Why?”

  “Dawn,” she repeats, looking out the window. “That’s the name they gave me. My birth parents only had me for three days before the orphanage, but they named me Usha.”

  He puts down the menu and leans forward. “You found them?”

  Asha nods. She hasn’t told anybody yet. And once she speaks the words out loud about the truths she now knows, they will become an irrefutable part of her. “I found them. I didn’t meet them face-to-face, but I found them.”

  The waiter approaches the table. Sanjay orders for them both and sends him away.

  “Their names are Kavita and Jasu Merchant,” she continues. “They live in an apartment building in Sion.” She pauses. “And they have a son. Vijay. He’s a year or two younger than me.” She looks for a reaction from Sanjay, who nods her on. “They had a son after giving me away. They kept him because he was a boy, and—”

  “You don’t know that was the reason.”

  Asha shoots him a look of exasperation. “Come on, I wasn’t born yesterday.”

  “There could be lots of explanations. Maybe they couldn’t afford to feed a child at the time. Maybe they were living someplace unsafe. Or maybe they regretted losing you and decided they wanted a child after all. You can’t know what’s in another person’s heart, Asha.”

  She nods, turning the silver bangle around on her wrist. “She came from some village north of here, a few hours away. She traveled all the way to the city just to…” She trails off, feeling a lump grow in her throat.

  “�
�to take you to that orphanage?” Sanjay finishes for her.

  Asha nods. “And she gave me this.” She slides the bangle back on her wrist.

  “They gave you everything they had to give,” Sanjay says. He reaches across the table for her hand. “So how do you feel, now that you know?”

  Asha gazes out the window. “I used to write these letters, when I was a little girl,” she says. “Letters to my mother, telling her what I was learning in school, who my friends were, the books I liked. I must have been about seven when I wrote the first one. I asked my dad to mail it, and I remember he got a really sad look in his eyes and he said, ‘I’m sorry, Asha, I don’t know where she is.’” She turns back to face Sanjay. “Then, as I got older, the letters changed. Instead of telling her about my life, I started asking all these questions. Was her hair curly? Did she like crossword puzzles? Why didn’t she keep me?” Asha shakes her head. “So many questions.

  “And now, I know,” she continues. “I know where I came from, and I know I was loved. I know I’m a hell of a lot better off now than I would have been otherwise.” She shrugs. “And that’s enough for me. Some answers, I’ll just have to figure out on my own.” She takes a deep breath. “You know, I have her eyes.” Asha smiles, hers glistening now. She rests the back of her head on the booth. “I wish there was some way to let them know I’m okay, without…intruding on their life.”