Water: A Novel (Bapsi Sidwha)

by Bapsi Sidhwa

Bled the lumpy old louse.

  They sat companionably close; the one all angular and withered with age, the other in the bloom of robust childhood. Shakuntala was struck by how appropriate they looked together—similar in their innocence and in their vulnerability, they completed a circle. The very young and the very old belonged together. She let the yellow curtain fall.

  Intrigued by the gummy cavern of Patirajji’s mouth and impressed by the ditty, Chuyia smiled shyly. “What’s your name?” she asked.

  “My husband embraced eternity and left behind poor Patirajji. Call me Bua, Auntie.” Then, mischievously, conspiratorially, holding together the tips of her thumb and forefinger and turning her wrist in a dainty dance movement, she added, “You really made that fat cow dance, didn’t you!”

  Chuyia, who had not expected kudos for her bad behaviour, smiled bashfully.

  “Her family made a donation to a temple in the city: that’s why ‘Fatty’ is the head of the ashram,” said Bua.

  Chuyia absorbed this information. She wondered if Shakuntala-Didi’s family had also made a donation. That might explain the authority she had exercised in befriending her.

  All at once, with the whimsy lonely old people are apt to cultivate, Patirajji leaned forward on the palms of her hands to gape at Chuyia. “Do you have a laddoo?” she whispered hopefully.

  Chuyia shook her head, “no.”

  “Awake or asleep, even in my dreams, all I see are sweets,” Bua sighed wistfully.

  Chuyia nodded politely. Moved as much by the long, pointy chin and the dipping nose as by her confession, Chuyia felt a surge of affection and pity for the old woman.

  Bua got up laboriously with the help of her staff, and, painfully bent, hobbled off to find a warm patch of sun where she could squat and fall asleep.

  Since there were no widows about and it was quiet, Chuyia decided to explore her surroundings. She slipped through an open door, and her eyes were immediately drawn to a picture hanging on the opposite wall. It was an oval portrait of a pink-cheeked English girl, clasping a bouquet of flowers in her white hands. She had luxuriant chestnut-brown hair, crowned by a flaming red cap. Even though this strange goddess did not inspire confidence, Chuyia touched the shabby frame and prayed to the image to take her home.

  She entered a dingy room and looked about her in the faint light, which leaked in from the courtyard. The plaster was leprous with huge patches of mould. Rickety metal shelves nailed to one side were covered with an assortment of vials. A spigot jutted from another wall, barely visible behind the saris and towels hanging from a string. A few pots were scattered beneath the spigot. She wondered which widow occupied the room.

  Chuyia ran lightly across the courtyard. Standing outside a door, she heard snores coming through. She opened the door and peered in.

  Stretched out like a beached whale, Madhumati lay flat on an iron bedstead, the bedclothes crumpled in a heap at her feet. A small hookah lay by her side, and some of its contents had spilled on the cotton mattress. A strange odour, mixed with that of tobacco, hung in the fetid air. A window above the head of her bed opened on the alley; it was protected by iron bars. The small room was plastered with pictures of the Hindu pantheon in all its glory. A few white saris were flung on the floor. Hanging in a cage behind Madhumati’s bed was Mitthu, her beloved parrot, silently rocking on his perch.

  Emboldened by Madhumati’s sonorous breathing, and sensing she wouldn’t be easily awoken, Chuyia tiptoed to Mitthu’s cage and tried to talk to him. Mitthu was a common variety of parrot, his feathers disarrayed from being caged. The parrot’s beak dipped like Bua’s nose. Chuyia had seen sleek flocks streak greenly between the mango trees in her village, and she felt sorry for this pathetic specimen. “Mitthu, Mitthu, you want a chili pepper?” she crooned. The bird turned a beady eye on her and became still. Chuyia stood on her toes to poke her finger into his fat belly, and Mitthu gave a surprised squawk. The girl glanced at Madhumati, but the woman did not stir. Chuyia tiptoed quietly past her and went back into the courtyard.

  Coming to the entrance door, Chuyia gave it a halfhearted tug, expecting it to be locked, but to her surprise it opened. She ran out without shutting it. Almost at once, around a bend, she found herself on a noisy street, teeming with life. A leprous beggar sitting cross-legged on a platform on the busy sidewalk calmly wiped his partially collapsed face with a cloth. The cement plaster on the walls that lined the street was covered with advertisements, displaying medicine vials and posters with Hindi lettering. Large patches of cement had fallen off the walls, and the exposed brick beneath was white from the brackish damp that seemed to afflict the old buildings.

  Hearing a clamour of bells and some voices rising in unison, Chuyia turned into a street to investigate the source and discovered a temple hall where a daily service provided by the widows was taking place. She spotted the ashram women here and there in the thicket of widows dancing in the centre. Frequently, a seated widow would get up to dance, and an exhausted dancer would flop down among the squatters. No wonder the ashram was quiet and she’d had the run of the place. Where had all the other widows sprung from? There must have been at least a thousand widows and they must have come from other ashrams in the town. The anemic-looking widows were clapping as they pleased, singing and swaying clumsily without any effort to keep time. The entire performance was so joyless that it was frightening. The widows’ discordant voices mingled with ringing temple bells, and, suddenly, Chuyia’s senses were overwhelmed by the sadness emanating from the croaking voices. She ran back to the relative sanctuary of the ashram.

  Some days later, Chuyia learned that she was living in a singing ashram-temple. The widows sang Lord Krishna’s and Radha’s names to bless their benefactors and grant the requests of supplicants to cure a sick person, or get a job, or to benefit their business. They paid the temple priests, and the widows were given a cup of rice and a fistful of lentils for every eight-hour session of singing and dancing. For many widows, this was their only means of sustenance. On those days when a widow was too sick to perform, she starved.

  Chapter Five

  Shakuntala was drawing a battered bucket of water from a well in the ashram courtyard. She stood where the brick parapet surrounding the well had come undone and the wall was low, allowing easier access to the water.

  “So you’re back?” said Shakuntala, indifferent and at the same time knowing.

  Chuyia was humiliated. Shakuntala guessed that she had run off and then returned of her own volition. She did not reply.

  Shakuntala offered her a drink of water, but Chuyia sullenly refused. Shakuntala shrugged her shoulders as if to say, “As you wish,” and returned to her room. Only then did Chuyia go to the well and, pouring the water from a pot into her cupped hand, drank thirstily. She was washing her face when she felt something drop on her head. She ignored it, but when a second pebble hit the brick beside her, her attention was drawn and she looked up. At the top of a narrow stairway she had not noticed before, there stood a stunningly beautiful young woman, motioning to Chuyia to join her. Her head, Chuyia immediately noticed, was not shorn. Chuyia looked about her, wondering what to do. There was no one to instruct her.

  The young woman, who couldn’t be more than nineteen or twenty, nodded encouragingly as Chuyia, awestruck, slowly made her way up the stairs. A coil of dark hair knotted at the back framed the bright oval of her face, and a tail from the knot fell to her waist. When Chuyia neared the top of the stairs, Kalyani held out her hand and pulled her onto a balcony. Her eyes, wide beneath the thick arches of her brows, were friendly and kind. They were the shape and colour of almonds. To Chuyia, she seemed like an angel.

  They were on the flat terrace of the ashram above Madhumati’s room. A decaying wooden balustrade ran along the balcony. Kalyani led Chuyia to her room. It was a small storeroom that Madhumati had had cleaned out and allotted to her a few months after she had arrived at the ashram. A barred window offered a view of the Holy City below, with its cr
owded jostle of temples, old buildings, minarets and mosques. Kalyani led Chuyia over to a corner of the room and told her to sit down on a mat. She fetched a deep wicker basket and, settling down cross-legged, raised the lid slightly. With an air of mystery, as if she was a conjurer, she put her hands in the basket, and told Chuyia, “Close your eyes.”

  Chuyia blinked, confused.

  “Close them tight!” Kalyani said, squeezing her own eyes shut to show her how.

  Chuyia followed Kalyani’s example.

  Smiling in anticipation of the joy she would bring the child, Kalyani pulled a small mongrel puppy from the basket and deposited him on Chuyia’s lap. “His name is Kaalu,” she told her.

  The puppy licked Chuyia’s face. He had short black fur with patches of white on his chest and paws. His ears were soft and floppy. Totally captivated, Chuyia cradled the puppy close to her face, kissing him and murmuring into his soft fur, “Kaalu, Kaalu.” She was swamped by the same feelings of happiness and tenderness that had welled up in her when she had found Tun-tun in the forest, and holding his softness to her flesh, carried him home. For the first time since she had left home, Chuyia found something that brought her joy.

  “You can play with him any time you want,” Kalyani offered. She untied the knot at the corner of her white sari and took out a dried chapati. She gave it to Chuyia, saying, “You feed him.”

  Chuyia tore the chapati into small bits and fed the eager little dog, while Kalyani looked at both of them affectionately.

  “He has fleas,” Kalyani admitted. “I should bathe him.”

  “Downstairs? By the well?” Chuyia asked.

  Kalyani, laughing, said, “No! They think dogs are a bad omen. Don’t tell anyone I have Kaalu up here. It’s our secret.”

  Chuyia nodded her solemn concurrence. Kaalu, having eaten the chapati, climbed out of Chuyia’s arms. They followed his antics, laughing. Suddenly Kaalu rolled over on his back and, with his little white-tipped paws suspended in the air, fell fast asleep.

  “This is just what Tun-tun used to do,” cried Chuyia, hugely excited.

  “Tun-tun was your puppy?” Kalyani asked, as she placed Kaalu back in the straw-lined basket.

  “He is big now,” Chuyia said.

  “You miss him?” Kalyani asked.

  Chuyia nodded.

  “When you think of Tun-tun, come upstairs. We’ll both play with Kaalu.”

  “But I’m not staying here,” Chuyia told Kalyani, speaking in all seriousness. “My mother’s coming to get me.”

  Kalyani did not reply.

  “If not today, tomorrow for sure,” added Chuyia defiantly.

  Kalyani walked across the room and drew back a limp saffron curtain to reveal a tiny shrine to Lord Krishna and his consort, Radha. Two brass trays sat on a chipped stone shelf. One tray held a clay incense holder with half-burned sticks of incense jutting out of the perforations, a small pot with ash and other religious artifacts. The other tray, with a tiny brass Krishna attached to its rim, also supported a larger statue of Krishna playing his flute and fresh marigold flowers. He wore a pink shawl, and his head was framed by a pink halo. A bright green feather extended from the halo. Greenery peeped in through the window behind the shrine, and sunlight drenched the lemony marigold flowers at Krishna’s feet. A blue cloth bundle hung from a nail on the wall nearby, and Chuyia wondered what was in it.

  Kalyani pressed her hands together and addressed the statue. “Krishna, this is my friend . . .” She turned to Chuyia and asked, “What’s your name?”

  “Chuyia,” replied the little girl. Then, in awe, she asked, “Can he hear you?”

  “Of course—he hears everything!”

  Kalyani bowed down and prostrated herself before the shrine. She swept her hands on the floor and lightly rubbed the dust on her face. She clasped her hands in front of her and shut her eyes. Almost at once, she appeared to be immersed in deep meditation. After a while, Kalyani bowed her head to salute the god and opened her eyes. She smiled and turned to Chuyia.

  “What did he say?” Chuyia asked uncertainly.

  “He says you won’t be here long.”

  “I told you so,” Chuyia replied confidently.

  “You must do japa. Chant Jai Shree Krishna 108 times a day, and soon you’ll fly away home,” Kalyani advised.

  Worried, Chuyia said, “But I can only count to ten.”

  Kalyani gave Chuyia a string of beads and said, “This has 108 beads. Why don’t you start the japa now?”

  Chuyia began to chant in earnest, “Jai Shree Krishna . . . Jai Shree Krishna . . .”

  MOONLIGHT STREAMED IN from the open door and silvered the white outlines of the widows lying on the floors of two haphazardly connected rooms. They lay on their mats, chanting, coughing, snoring, moaning and filling the night with troubled sounds. Chuyia lay wide-eyed on her mat, muttering “Jai Shree Krishna, Jai Shree Krishna,” as much to drown out the scary noises the women made as to work the magic of the mantra that would fly her home. Suddenly, a figure crouched down by her mat, startling her, and Chuyia sat up. It was Shakuntala. She told her to roll up her mat and follow her.

  In Shakuntala’s room there was only Bua, curled up on her mat and fast asleep at the other end of the room beneath the small window with the frayed yellow cloth that served as a curtain. After instructing Chuyia to spread her mat and sleep next to the old woman, Shakuntala settled down on the floor before a religious text that lay open on a low table. She covered her head with a white cloth and, adjusting the oil lamp, began to read. Every short while, she closed her eyes to dwell on the spiritual message contained in the scriptures. Shakuntala had never questioned the belief in the Dharma Shastra that widowhood was the punishment for a sinful existence in the past, and she atoned for it with prayer and the observance of fasts as prescribed. Focusing on studying the scriptures and trying to live as purely as possible, the obligation to pray constantly in penance for her husband’s death brought her solace. It also dulled the pain of the memories of all she had lost and all she had endured.

  About two years earlier, Shakuntala had brought Bua to her room to nurse her through a bout of malaria, and the old woman had slept there ever since. Chuyia lay down next to her. After tossing restlessly for a while, she propped up her head and tried to see if Auntie was awake. Moonlight filtered through the curtain and fell softly on the widow. Bua lay absolutely still, eyes shut, breathing evenly. Her suspicions aroused by the regular breathing, Chuyia remained at her post, vigilant. Her attention must have wandered for a split second, because all at once she noticed that Bua’s eyes were wide open. Chuyia wiggled closer to her and accusingly whispered, “I knew you were awake!”

  Bua sat up, cackling with delight at having played a joke on her new friend. She had the straight-backed posture of a slender young girl. Delighted by the presence of this unexpected night companion she could talk to, Bua soon began reminiscing about her life in her village and the mischief she and her sisters would cook up at the village pond.

  Bua talked about her mother, narrating with relish the gory details of the severe thrashings her sisters and she received when they were caught stealing corn from their neighbour’s fields.

  This Chuyia could relate to; she launched into her own account of her escapades in her sour neighbour’s mango orchard, and the vigorous thrashing she routinely received from her mother. Bua listened with interest, and every now and again responded with a flattering cascade of cackles. Bua told her how she and her younger brother were once lost in the forest for two days and a night. Despite the difference in their ages, and the distance between their villages, Bua’s childhood had been much the same as Chuyia’s.

  Bua began to describe her wedding ceremony, and Shakuntala, sitting at her low desk, looked up from the book. She smiled, knowing where the conversation would lead to, as all conversation with Bua inevitably did. “While the priest was reciting the vows,” Auntie told Chuyia, “I started to laugh. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn�
��t help it. I had a fit of laughter. I pulled my veil forward to hide my face and laughed. Some women thought I was sobbing, and they began to sob. This made me laugh even more. Suddenly, Ma slapped me hard, and then, till the end, not a squeak from me!”

  Bua paused to gauge the effect of her story on the girl. Chuyia, hugely entertained, was grinning from ear to ear.

  “And after the wedding ceremony—” Bua’s mouth seemed to fill with saliva. “Afterwards . . .”

  Here it comes, thought Shakuntala, looking up from the book. But Chuyia interrupted instead. “I know what happened afterward.”

  “What?” asked Bua.

  “The wedding feast!” Chuyia declared.

  “Yes . . . You should have seen the sweets,” Bua said, and launched into the expected spiel.

  “Plump white rasgullas, piping hot gulab jamuns. The saliva drools in my mouth even now when I think of it! Yellow laddoos, fragrant with saffron, dripping with pure butter. Cashew-nut fudge covered with gold leaf . . .” Bua trailed off in ecstasy.

  Chuyia, transported to the past by Bua’s dreamlike description, was silently weeping. Bua edged closer, peering at her through the darkness. “Hush, child hush,” she said softly, and with her weak, claw-like grasp tried to draw Chuyia to her. Wiggling forward on her elbows, Chuyia buried her face in Bua’s ribby bosom. Bua stroked Chuyia’s small, bare shoulder, her back, her cropped hair, until the heaving of the little body next to her subsided to an occasional shudder, and the distressed child drifted off to sleep.

  Bua sighed, and then observed to no one in particular, “Life is so disappointing.”

  Shakuntala, who had been concerned for the child and watched while Bua soothed her, raised an eyebrow and, impervious to Bua’s depressingly truthful observation, continued reading.

  Some time later that night, Chuyia was awakened by Bua’s gasping snorts and snoring. The lamp was out, and she rolled back to her mat. She could just make out the dim outline of the little mound Shakuntala made, as she slept near her reading table. Lying flat on her back, her eyes shut tight, Chuyia began to do the japa. “Jai Shree Krishna . . . Jai Shree Krishna . . .”