‘Guess what,’ Rohan says, waving a piece of paper in front of me, his eyes shining. ‘I have won a place at King’s College, London! To work towards a doctorate in biochemistry. They have also offered me a small stipend!’
I stare at him, blank. This is the first I’ve heard of it. The air smells fresh, spiced, of last night’s rain and of the tamarind rice and sambar cooking in the little shop across the road. It caresses my face, soft as your best Kanjeevaram silk sari, Ma, the one you claim you wore at your wedding reception. A mynah bird sings from the bowels of the banyan tree above and my classmates chatter happily around me while my world turns upside down once more.
‘I told you I was applying.’ His face is glowing; he can’t seem to stop smiling.
I don’t need to ask the question that hovers on my lips. I already know the answer. I cannot rely on anybody, I think. Everyone betrays me. You, Ma, claim to love me more than life itself and then you hit me mercilessly for something I didn’t even do. And now Rohan, whom I love, perhaps the first boy I have properly loved, is leaving. I should have let him do what he wanted, what I wanted that day at the lake, claimed him for a brief while. I got whipped for it, regardless. Was it only two evenings ago? It seems so far away now. Tears threaten. Lack of sleep is making me uncharacteristically maudlin. I blink them away, will a smile to grace my face. ‘Good on you, Rohan,’ I say and my voice sounds cheery, thank goodness. ‘I wish I was going abroad, far away from here. This stupid place with its constraints on women.’ That man squeezing my breasts, the feeling of being trapped, violated. ‘Where men can do what they like but if a woman does, she’s branded a whore.’
Rohan smiles down at me, his eyes soft, ‘Society is changing, Devi.’
‘In the cities perhaps. Not here. Not yet.’
‘So do you want to come with me then, my feisty firecracker, to a country where you can do what you like, when you like without fear of being branded anything?’
Have I heard right? Was that a proposal couched as a joke? I stare up at him. ‘You are joking, right?’
He grins at me, grabs my hand, ‘Come with me.’ And in the next instant, the smile is gone, his face serious, his gaze intense, eyes the honey gold of sugar syrup, boring into me. ‘I cannot live without you, Devi.’
What is it you like to say, Ma? ‘Beware. They will have their way with you and discard you like a used cloth.’
What is Rohan asking exactly?
‘Marry me.’
Oh Lord Ganapathy. I sway on my feet. Too little sleep. I am dreaming. Aren’t I? His face, grinning like the monkeys that invade the temple by the sea and snatch laddoos from unsuspecting devotees’ hands, and even, oftentimes, their mouths.
‘I am serious. That is why I wasn’t in yesterday. Was trying to sort it out with my parents. They are still not okay with it, with me marrying a non-Catholic, but I will work on them.’ And, his eyes lighting up as an idea takes root, ‘Come home with me this evening, Devi. When they see you, see how much we love each other, they will have to agree.’ And then, the grin disappearing, looking suddenly worried, ‘You do want to marry me, don’t you?’
* * *
I stand in the stuffy phone booth opposite the college, which reeks of cow dung and Bru coffee wafting from the little hut doing brisk business next door. ‘I love Sneha,’ ‘Raghu is a bastard,’ ‘Go to Hell,’ and other obscenities are scrawled in a jumble of Kannada and English in rickety letters on the thin cardboard wall opposite where I stand, cramped in the too small space. Sweat travels down my head, and I can feel my hair getting sticky, the coconut oil used to work it into submission collecting in clumps. My salwar kameez reeks of last night, of railway station, of that man’s smoky sour breath. I long to have a wash in the poky bathroom at home, the walls stained dingy black with soot from years of heating the water in the big aluminium urn, coconut fronds and twigs haphazardly adorning one wall, stored there to avoid getting drenched in the rain. The thought of pouring the scalding water smelling of earth and coconut husk from the cracked aluminium mug onto my head, my body, washing away the travails of the previous night, the blessed relief of it, is inviting, beguiling. Instead I stand here perspiring, the blisters weeping and itchy inside my kameez, dialling the number of the phone at home with moist fingers. It hardly ever rings. You will have just got home from work, cleaning other people’s houses, and you will be putting the rice on to boil. You will be startled by the ring of the phone. You will worry.
I have told Rohan it is not a good idea, that I don’t look my best, but he is adamant that we visit his parents today, convinced that once they see me, see how much he loves me, how much we love each other, they will give permission for the wedding.
‘You are so naïve, Rohan,’ I say. ‘Just because you like me doesn’t mean they will. In fact, I am sure they won’t. I am not meek, submissive, good daughter-in-law material, you know.’
‘Aargh, I don’t know why they are so rigid,’ he grumbles angrily. ‘I don’t know why they cannot say yes. I love you; want to marry you, not some Catholic girl they have chosen for me.’ His words, the vehemence with which he says them, melt my heart—and it doesn’t melt easily, you of all people know that, Ma. His words wipe away the intense tiredness that is making me sway on my feet.
‘What if I lose it with them? You know what a short fuse I’ve got. I might just blow it.’
‘We’ll cross that hurdle when we come to it. Come with me. I want them to see the girl I am going to marry,’ his eyes shining as he says those last few words.
How can I refuse?
And so, I am here, and the phone is ringing and ringing. Come on, Ma, I think. Pick up.
Boys cluster in twos and threes round the little hut outside sipping coffee and eyeing the girls emerging from college or waiting for the bus, catcalling and wolf-whistling, making it impossible to hear anything. The coffee hut is run by the same man who owns the booth—he came up with the brilliant idea of adding a cardboard box beside his shop, installing a phone inside and charging students the exorbitant sum of ten rupees for a local phone call. ‘Free coffee,’ the man said to me, eyes flashing, mouth stained scarlet with paan. ‘Go on,’ Rohan said, pressing the money into the man’s palm, ‘quick. I will wait here.’ I look at Rohan silhouetted against the cloudy, graffiti-encrusted glass. He is kicking the dust in front of his feet, something he does when he is thinking deeply, when he is worried or nervous. Is he having second thoughts? Stray cows mill close by and the barking of dogs reverberates in the smoky yellow, dust-stained air.
‘Hello,’ I hear, as if from a distance. Your voice, laced with panic.
‘Ma, it’s me,’ I shout, trying to be heard above the noise, the cacophony of a bad connection.
‘Devi,’ my name an entreaty on your lips. ‘What’s happened?’
‘Nothing’s happened,’ I say. Rohan is signalling something to me from outside the window. I can hear Bobby barking, you yelling at him to shush. ‘I will be a bit late coming home today, that’s all.’
There is a pause, punctuated by Bobby’s barks. And then, I hear you sniffing in that telltale way that signals tears, lots of them. ‘I am sorry for what I did, Devi, I was worried about you, so worried. See, it is my job to protect you—my only child. You are so pretty, you are prey for all the bad people out there…’
I bristle. ‘I was with Rohan. He is not a bad person.’ And he’s just asked me to marry him.
A pause, ‘I thought… I thought…’
‘The worst of me.’ Hurt makes my voice sharper than I intend for it to be.
‘Please come home,’ you sob.
‘I will,’ I say, shortly, ‘I have to do something first.’
‘Wait,’ you plead. ‘What time will you be home?’
‘Before dark,’ I say and plonk the phone back in the receiver before you can say any more.
* * *
Rohan’s house is on the downward slope of a little hillock, next to the unlicensed arrack shop, where a long
line of men mill, sucking on beedis, scratching their crotches. They enter furtively via the back door and emerge carrying hazy glass bottles filled to the brim with snot-coloured liquid. The front of the shop displays peanuts in dirty glass jars and ten-paisa sweets: fingernail-sized balls of sugar wrapped in plastic, chikkis: yellow peanuts encased in golden sugar syrup, and chakulis: prickly rounds of yellow dough. Plastic bags of tubular buttery snacks and bananas dangle from the beams of the ceiling. There is no queue at all in the front of the shop, except for the couple of children playing hopscotch right outside, so covered in dust that only the whites of their eyes are visible, spookily milky against the orange of their bodies. Even their eyelashes are stained red. They ogle the sweets cannily, hoping to nick some when no one’s looking.
Swirling dust displaced by a bullock cart, a lorry or the occasional rickshaw making its creaking way down the road above, settles on the house, so it has a permanent red haze. The windows are covered by old saris masquerading as curtains, which dance in the occasional dusty breeze, allowing neighbours of houses higher up the hillock tantalising glimpses into all the rooms. Pungent fumes assault my nostrils and one of the men waves at me from across the road, flashing toothless, black gums before turning away and lifting his lungi. A milky trickle falls into the ditch below and the murky yellow tang of urine colours the air.
‘Rohan, is that you?’ his mother calls as she comes out onto the veranda, wiping her hands on her cotton sari, dirty green with creamy flowers which look like splotches of runny egg yolk. ‘I…’ her words die on her lips as she takes me in. I can picture how I must look to her: my hair bedraggled, my blue kameez auburn thanks to the coat of dust painted on during the walk from the bus stop to the house. ‘Why have you brought her here, Rohan?’ Her voice is high-pitched, purple with shock.
Neighbours collect in verandas and gape shamelessly, sipping on tea, eating vadai and partaking of the teatime entertainment obligingly provided by the D’Cunha family. Rohan looks down, kicks up dust. ‘Ma, shall we go in?’
‘You tell me, why, after our discussion yesterday and this morning, is she here now?’ Voice strident.
Silence on the busy street descending like a hawk swooping on an unsuspecting rodent, as sudden as when the drape is pulled up to signal the commencement of a play. The clink of bottles from the arrack shop stops. The line of men turns to face us. Children stop playing and walk down the hill, collect in groups, hopping over each other to get the best possible view. The woman drawing water from the well of the house up the hill stops mid-pull, the pail halfway up the well tilting, dropping water in a silvery trickle and a hollow splash.
‘Ma, please,’ Rohan says, still not looking at his mother.
I feel the heat rise from the base of my stomach, up my throat and suffuse my cheeks. Everywhere there are people staring at me, as if I am a monkey escaped from the zoo, an actor in the Yakashagana performance of Shoorpanakha. The air reeks of humiliation, hot, scarlet. This is the second time in one day that I have been the main character in a drama. Not to my liking, I think; I don’t suppose I will ever take up acting. Why am I thinking such facetious thoughts? What else can I do? I am seeing a different, diffident side to Rohan, the most popular boy in college, the boy all the girls fancy, the boy who wants me. I look at my feet, clad in the open-toed Bata sandals you buy at great cost, while you go barefoot and are forever removing corns from your feet with the kitchen scythe. My feet are stained like sin, with a vermilion coating of dust.
‘My only son, and you want to marry a Hindu. Why? Aren’t there enough Catholic girls around? What does she have’—a trembling hand, plump, nails bitten to the core, pudgy fingers pointing at me—‘that the Fernandes girl doesn’t?’
My eyes sting. My blood roils. Come on, Rohan, say something. Stand up for yourself, you idiot, stand up for me. If you don’t, I will. I cannot take this for much longer.
Rohan’s feet draw busily in the mud. I notice that his second toe is bigger than his first.
A commotion. Rohan’s father elbows his way through the rabble, a lopsided bag slung wearily across his shoulder, coming home from work to find his house the setting of a play being enacted for the benefit of his neighbours and the village drunks. People agog watching his wife screaming, her face slack and yellow with fury. Everyone still, soundless but for the crunch of chuda, the munch, the gulp, the hurried swallow of goli baje, the slurp of tea. Food and drama go hand in hand, don’t they?
‘What’s happening here? What’s the matter?’ And then I feel his eyes on me. One tear breaks free, travels down my face, following the curve of my nose and slipping between my open lips. Salt. Mortification. Rage. You, Ma, whipping me, the barley-scented air tasting of brine, smelling of anger, guilt, hurt: a blue-tinged black smell. ‘Don’t mess with boys. They are not worth the effort.’
But I love him, Ma. He is doing this for me. It takes a certain kind of courage to brave all these people, their probing gazes, their tongues wet and salivating with the itch to spread the gossip unfolding right in front of them.
Although I would prefer it if you stood up to them a bit, Rohan. Come on; I am reining my fury in, waiting for you to speak up.
‘Why is she here?’ Rohan’s father’s voice is accusing, made harsh by weariness. He has not expected to come home, hot and bothered from a long day’s work, looking forward to his cup of cardamom tea and the Maggi noodles his wife makes for him, tangy and spiced with chillies and red onions and cumin powder, to this, I know.
I am tired of waiting for Rohan to do something. I have had enough.
‘Stop talking about me in the third person; I am right here.’ I look right at the both of them, his parents.
A ripple rocks the crowd, a collective, ‘Ooh, Aah, Aiyyo Devare.’ A child cries—a plaintive sound like the whine of a distressed siren.
‘I love Rohan, he loves me and we are going to marry each other.’ His parents stare at me open-mouthed.
The crowd: ‘Aiyyo, did you hear what she said? How dare she? Too bold she is, this one.’
Finally, his mother finds her voice, ‘Rohan? Putha?’
Rohan looks up at last from his perusal of the circles he is drawing in the mud. His hand finds mine and squeezes hard. ‘I love Devi, Ma. I want to marry her.’
I am mad at Rohan for bringing me here, subjecting me to this, for taking so long to stand up to his parents, and I have a good mind to push his hand away. But I see his mother’s gaze riveted on our linked hands and so, I let it be.
The crowd: ‘She is a minx; she has him under her thumb. What else would you expect from Hindu girls?’
I want to lash out at the crowd, but what is the point? It will not achieve anything. I wait for the message that Rohan is not going to back down, give in, sink into his parents’ minds. I am aware of everyone’s gaze fixed on our entwined hands.
What would you make of this display, Ma? You who have tried so hard, so against my own will, to protect my reputation.
‘I am going to marry Devi, either with your approval…’ A louder murmur from the crowd, sounding like an impending thunderstorm. ‘…or without.’
‘No!’ his mother screams. ‘Have you gone mad? What is it about her you like—her beauty? Why, there are so many prettier, fairer Catholic girls! Why this one, putha? You are innocent, baba, but she is not. I have heard that she has had so many boyfriends. Her name is bandied about, always in association with boys.’
The heat in my body explodes onto my face. A crow cackles and a sudden gust of breeze carrying the fruity whiff of guava and cashew lashes my face. I reclaim my hand from Rohan’s grip and walk up to his mother who is standing on her front step. She recoils. The crowd emits a collective, ‘Aiyyo, what is she doing?’
‘I have had friends who are boys, yes,’ I say loudly and clearly. ‘Your son knows that, don’t you, Rohan?’
He nods, his face flooding with colour. ‘And Rohan also has girls who are his friends. So, what is the difference, tell me?’
His mother opens and closes her mouth like a drowning man gasping for breath. Rohan’s father says shortly, ‘He is a boy. He does not have to explain himself.’
‘And I do? Why? He can strut around town with a bevy of girls doing his every bidding, but when I have friends who are boys; I am a bad girl, is it? I cannot marry him.’
‘Yes,’ Rohan’s mother says, having retrieved her voice from wherever she had misplaced it. ‘That’s right, yes.’
A collective hush, a fascinated sigh.
‘Well, tough. I am marrying your son, whether you want me to or not.’
The crowd erupts, chattering noisily. ‘Did you hear what she said? Did you?’
And then, his mother is in front of me, too close, hands joined as if in prayer, ‘Please, don’t take my only son away from me.’
Murmurs from the crowd, their faces frozen in exaggerated expressions of shock, mouths open, eyes wide: ‘The bitch, making Mabel Bai plead!’ ‘I wouldn’t let my son…’ ‘These Hindus, no shame, any of them!’
Rohan’s mother prostrates herself on the ground in front of me, displacing a mini avalanche of red dust, unmindful of the pebbles digging into her thighs, her green sari collecting a brown gloss of mud. She holds my feet with both hands in a surprisingly strong grasp, trapping me. ‘I am begging you.’
I should be home, squatting beside you, Ma, on the kitchen veranda, eating red rice and dry fish chutney, throwing Bobby the scraps. Why am I here, subjecting myself to this?
So much time has passed and yet I feel the humiliation as if it was yesterday. If you were awake, Ma, you would cringe as I read you this. You would cup your ears in your palms and ask me to stop. ‘Please don’t continue, Devi, I don’t want to hear,’ you would say. Will you stir when I read this to you tomorrow, Ma? Will this account shock you out of your unconscious state? If so, then some good would have come of the shame I endured, at long last…
The Forgotten Daughter Page 8