One Hundred Shades of White

by Preethi Nair

  The Kathis had two boys, Raul and Gobi. Both were much older than me and I barely saw them when I was growing up due to the fact they both boarded at the school in the main town. Their father made sure they went to college and got respectable jobs. Gobi, the younger of the two, visited town often on leave and I had seen him a few times but never spoken with him. One day, I was delivering trays and pots to his home, balancing one on my head and carrying the others. He startled me, coming from nowhere, and asked if I was going to his house and if I needed help. ‘No,’ I replied, meaning I didn’t want any help.

  It took me half an hour to cross the fields, the sun that day was painfully hot, and I arrived at their kitchen door, sweating. The maid started shouting at me, saying that Thampurati was getting impatient with her and it was my fault. She went on and on and all I could think of was how hot and thirsty I was and I needed a glass of water. She was furious and continued banging pots and pans so that the noise brought down several members of the household.

  Gobi walked past the kitchen and stopped when he saw me. ‘You said you weren’t coming here.’

  ‘I was, but,’ I hesitated, desperate for some water.

  ‘But,’ he continued.

  ‘I need some …’ I fainted.

  I remember waking up in the most luxurious room. Cool, tiled floors, beautiful alcove ceilings, and the noise of a water fountain. ‘Who is she?’ I heard a voice say.

  ‘She’s Nalini, the daughter of one of the cooks,’ Gobi replied.

  I opened my eyes and there he was. Deep almond eyes looking down at me, full, defined lips, jet-black hair, very tall and sturdy. ‘Get her some water,’ the man said to Gobi.

  He touched my forehead which pulsated and took hold of my hand. It fell into his voluntarily.

  ‘Will she be okay, Raul?’ Gobi asked, as he handed him the glass.

  ‘Heat,’ he replied, as he put the glass to my lips and poured the water gently into my mouth.

  All of a sudden there was a shout. ‘Monu, Monu, what’s happening? What are you doing? Why are you giving the servant girl something to drink and in one of our best glasses, we won’t be able to use that again.’ Raul stared at his mother who had just walked in. He ignored her, turned to me and said, ‘Nalini, drink.’

  ‘They are silly girls, no sense, walk in the full sun, what do you expect and then, then they land up here and give us problems,’ Thampurati continued.

  ‘I feel better,’ I whispered, getting up uneasily. ‘I have to go home.’ There was a pause and he, Raul said, ‘I will take you.’

  Another loud shrill broke the silence. ‘But, Monu, you can’t be seen out walking with a servant girl. Tell him, Gobi.’

  At first Gobi said nothing and then his mother glared at him. Gobi suggested that perhaps the maid take me home.

  Raul got up, took my arm, and walked with me past his mother. As we walked together across the fields, he held up an umbrella to protect me from the sun. The workers in the fields stared at us, women turned their heads, shyly pretending not to notice him when he passed. We said nothing to each other, the silence between us said more than was necessary. Some of the older women, like Kochuammayi, stood with their mouths open. She had a mouth like a buffalo and I was sure that after her work was done she would run to tell her husband in the toddi shop. ‘Come home, I have something important to tell you,’ she would shout, attempting to entice him away from his drink, but he would ignore her. She would then run over to the temple and sit outside on the bench and add a little more to the story, sharing it to those who were ready to listen.

  I didn’t want Raul to see where we lived, because just for those moments, I wasn’t the cook’s daughter, I was somebody important, somebody who he wanted to be with. Almost sensing this, he stopped at the tree on the path that led to our dwelling and said with certainty, ‘I have to go but will come back to visit for Onam.’ I wanted to say, ‘Wait, there are so many things I haven’t told you.’ But I could not say or do anything.

  My head was full of so many ideas as I opened the front door. ‘Ma, I have found him. It’s him,’ I wanted to scream.

  ‘What took you so long?’ asked my mother.

  ‘Nothing,’ I replied.

  Nine weeks. Nine weeks until Onam and then I could see him again. Every detail of that afternoon was etched on my mind and played over and over again; the way he smelt, the strength of his hands, the confidence in his stride, the tenderness in his eyes. My mother rushed back in, interrupting my thoughts. ‘Nali, you didn’t tell me you fainted and Raul Kathi brought you home.’

  ‘It wasn’t important, Ma.’

  The month of Shravan seemed to take forever to arrive. Onam was the biggest festival of the year where every household celebrated the harvest just after the end of the rainy season. The main celebration was held on the tenth day at the patron’s house and they would invite all their employees and give food and gifts to them as a way of saying thank you. This was the busiest time for my mother and I and preparations began many months in advance.

  Before the rains began, we collected banana leaves to serve the food upon, we prepared dried palm leaves and saved empty coconut shells to burn as fuel, and jackfruit was preserved to be used for payasam. We pickled tender mango, ‘to let dreams ferment for an abundant harvest,’ my mother said, as she packed the finished bottles away in anticipation. In this period, we also cooked and served food to all our neighbours who were helping each other build new roofs with sugar cane leaves in time for the monsoon. Then the rains fell hard and people prayed for an abundant harvest and the whole village waited to celebrate Onam.

  As we collected and washed the food for the feast, my mother would tell me again and again its significance. ‘It’s to welcome the spirit of King Mahabali.’

  ‘I won’t forget, Ma,’ I reassured her as she began again. ‘The Asura King was worried that the kind, wise king Mahabali was becoming too powerful, so he enlisted the help of Vishnu to curb Mahabali’s power. Vishnu disguised himself and took the form of a dwarf called Vamana and went begging to the king. The kind king asked him what he wanted and Vamana asked for three steps of land where he could sit and pray and the king agreed. Soon the dwarf expanded and became a giant. His first step covered the sky, the second step covered the heavens, and the third was about to engulf the earth when Mahabali offered his head as the last step so the earth wouldn’t be crushed. The Gods were pacified by his sacrifice and his spirit was allowed to return once a year to visit his kingdom and celebrate with his people.’

  ‘Sacrifice is important, Mol,’ she concluded. ‘Spirit will live forever.’

  The evening before Onam, every veranda was decorated with intricate patterns of flower petals and in the centre was a four-sided pyramid of Mahabali. I went to collect the final petals to finish off and as I looked beneath my tree, I saw a package: somebody had left a parcel with my name on it. I tore off the wrapping and inside was a bright blue hand-embroidered sari which would have taken us three years to buy. I looked inside again but there was no note. Raul, I thought, he has bought this for me, he is back.

  I went back home and begged my mother if I could serve instead of staying behind in the kitchen. ‘You don’t know the order of food,’ she said. ‘Not this year, Mol, next year, then I will have plenty of time to teach you.’

  ‘Please, Ma,’ I begged, ‘this year, tell me now.’

  She relented and the two of us sat up late as she took out a banana leaf and explained how to serve on it. ‘The narrow part of the leaf must always be on the left, serving begins at the bottom left corner, and first you place a small banana, next to this come the banana chips coated with jaggery, then popadom. From the top left hand of the leaf, mango pickle, injipuli, thoran, olan, khichidi, aviyal. Only after this is placed can the guest begin eating. Wait for them to begin and then at the bottom centre you serve the rice, then pour the sambar on top of the rice. When they have finished, serve the payasam and after dessert, pour the rasam into their cuppe
d hands and then wait, wait to see if they would like more.’

  She went over it three or four times until I felt completely sure. Then we fell asleep.

  The next morning I woke up very early and headed for the lake to bathe. Frogs were dancing on the lotus leaves, croaking loudly as I washed my hair, scrubbing it with chickpea flour so it shone. Running coconut oil through it, I tied it up with a fresh garland and unwrapped the sari. I would tell Ma it was a gift from the Kathis for all our help, that I had taken it back to Thampurati, insisting I was not worthy of such a gift, but she would not accept it back and asked not to mention it again for that would embarrass her further. I began to get dressed and let all the confidence and power I had seep into every tuck and fold of my new outfit and then I headed towards the Kathi’s house so I could serve.

  Stepping into their courtyard, my glass bangles jangled and people turned around to stare. They stopped and looked again. The temple drums were beating softly in the background, calling everyone from the village. When they were all assembled, I began serving. Gobi was first. ‘A beautiful colour that suits you,’ he said. I smiled and continued serving. The drums began beating faster and faster and then I reached him. I could feel Raul’s presence without even looking. I nervously poured the aviyal onto the leaf and as I finished, I looked up and held his gaze. Something exchanged between the two of us. It said a thousand things between us and yet it said nothing to those around us.

  My mother was annoyed at me, saying that I should not have accepted such gifts and that I should have tried harder to give the sari back to Thampurati. She said that I looked too good and asked if I had protected myself against the evil eye. I laughed at her and she got very angry and mumbled that she would not look after me if I caught a fever in the night. Then, just before we went to bed, she burnt some red chillies and muttered that it was just as she had thought: ‘too many eyes.’ We went to sleep, protected from watchful green envy who was responsible for so much misfortune.

  The next day, my mother came running into the area where I was sleeping and told me that we would be very busy over the coming months. Raul was getting married. Married! No, he wouldn’t, he couldn’t, I loved him. I felt a loathing, a sense of unworthiness. Was it all in my head? Had I misinterpreted the signs? All I could do was cook. I spent the day cooking and when my mother went out to run her errands, I hit the pots and pans so hard that they left marks on the floor. I garnished the dishes with an excess of hot chillies so that at lunchtime, for the first time ever, those who ate became sick. I went for a long walk.

  Contradictory thoughts battled in my head. How stupid to think that I, a cook, could marry into such a family? But then the astrologer always said that a call that goes out never returns unanswered. ‘No matter how strange the request may seem, someone is always listening,’ he maintained. I waded through paddy fields, my feet drenched in water as they splashed angrily. Undoing my hair, I ran through the clearing and then sat under a palm tree and cried. I cried until I fell asleep and awoke to darkness. Then I sensed him and laughed at the fact that the mind still played such cruel tricks. I turned my head and he was there. I ran my fingers through my hair and adjusted my pavada.

  ‘It is a bit late to be out,’ Raul said.

  ‘I was sent to get some provisions,’ I replied, looking at my empty hands.

  ‘Come, I’ll walk you home,’ he gestured, helping me to my feet.

  Why? I wanted to scream. Why are you getting married? Why did you make me fall in love with you when all along you knew I couldn’t have you? All I could say, though, was, ‘Congratulations, I hear you are getting married.’

  ‘It’s not how it appears, Nalini. I had to see you once again,’ he continued.

  I looked up. His smile came beaming back at me, melting any doubts or resentment that I held. As we walked back, he told me he had been able to think of little else but me. The marriage, he said, was arranged by his mother to someone he barely knew. He took my hand.

  Raul Kathi, I thought, Why are you doing this to me?

  The hour passed quickly as he walked me to the tree, our tree, and squeezing my hand, he told me he would come back for me.

  He returned the next day and the day after that and somewhere I chose to forget that he would be getting married and I allowed myself to completely love him.

  Our house became suffused with uncertainty and my mother and I began to argue as we never had. Food rotted after just a day. She sensed that Raul had something to do with it and warned me to stay away. She pleaded, saying that love was fleeting and that the constants in life came from the sense of self and not from another. Nearly every cell in my body begged me to stay away. I knew that this person would take me away from who I was and I did try to keep away from him but the more I attempted to avoid Raul, the more intense the longing became and the more persistent he became. I just wanted him, to touch him, to hold him, to be with him.

  Two weeks before his wedding, Raul came to me and asked me to go away with him. I agonised over the scandal and the anguish that this would cause my mother. I did not want to leave her and she would not want to leave her home, but I desperately wanted to be with Raul and if I had told her, she would not have let me go. So the next evening, with an overwhelming sense of grief, I packed a few things and left with him. We married and then we went to the station.

  The train arrived at Mumbai. The platform was crowded with people: coolies with red turbans, competing for custom; sellers with fruit on their head bombarding descending commuters; tea boys shouting ‘chia’; contortionists making their way over to families and blowing up balloons which they bent like their bodies. Some of the children cried, afraid, others cried because they wanted to buy the balloons and their parents hastily dragged them away. I stood in amazement. Raul held my hand as we walked through the chaos to find the driver.

  As we drove through busy streets, I gazed in wonderment at all the women wearing brightly-coloured clothes, some of whom wore make-up and had handbags. Fast-moving cars sped randomly in front of us and rickshaws, bullock carts and bicycles followed far behind. People urinated on street corners or squatted by food stalls. Colourful buses passed them, covering the food with a thick, black smoke. A policeman stood on a box and was trying to manage the traffic with his whistle but nobody took any notice. Even dust seemed to have a life of its own and participated, flying with the noise of engines and following people who were shouting and running or waiting, wearing their best clothes, in long cinema queues. I felt a strange sense of excitement, I wanted to participate, to learn Hindi properly so I could understand it all. The noise, traffic, people and animals eventually subsided and were replaced by lime and mango trees, fields of them. We arrived at Anajaba, sixty kilometres from Mumbai.

  The car pulled up to two wrought-iron gates and as the driver pressed the horn, a guard dressed in khaki opened the gates. He saluted us. Raul nodded. There were acres of lawn and then we approached the veranda. A woman with gapped teeth ran out to meet us and she bowed before me, touching my feet. Another man ran out of the house to take the luggage.

  ‘Mem Sahib,’ he said to me as he bowed. We approached the house, a large colonial-style, white building with tall ceilings, and the cook came out with a tray bearing water and food.

  ‘Welcome home,’ said Raul.

  This was home? Everywhere was covered in an opulent red, there was even an imported red leather sofa to match, upon which yellow silk hand-embroidered cushions rested. I couldn’t have dreamt of such splendour. Everything looked untouched, from the white freshness of the walls and the polished wood furniture, to the shine of the floor.

  Even if we just had each other, it would have been enough, because in those first few months of marriage Raul was all that I could have hoped for. Attentive and caring, he made me feel like the centre of everything. I never believed I was worthy of such a man. He would rush back from work at five o’clock just to spend time with me and would take me out of the enclave so I could experience n
ew things.

  We went to restaurants in the town and he showed me how to use cutlery, or took me to sari shops and talked me through the latest fashions. He would then instruct the seller to dress me in one of the most expensive fabrics and then would get the driver to take us around town so I could experience the evening bustle. Sometimes we walked through the crowds, Raul holding my hand firmly. I enjoyed the noise and the activity with the safety of him beside me. Then I fell pregnant and it changed.

  ‘Raul, I’m pregnant,’ I said, throwing my arms around him.

  He looked at me, horrified.

  ‘Is there something wrong? Aren’t you happy? What is it?’

  ‘Of course I’m happy, just a little shocked. Maybe it could have come later, I wanted you to myself for a little while longer, but yes, yes, I am happy,’ he said, stroking my hair.

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Of course,’ he replied.