by Bapsi Sidhwa
“Thakur Nirender went against the wishes of his entire family and brought me up as a son! I was the true Queen Bee. I had a kind heart then. I asked my father for money and never spent it on myself; I gave it all to the beggars and widows.
“When the family forced him to get me married, he gave me a dowry like I was a king’s daughter! Where is the king’s daughter now? In this dung-heap!”
Gulabi, massaging Madhumati’s head through the bars, made appropriate clucking sounds of sympathy. When Madhumati was in this mood, it was best to let her have her say. She would wind down, and once she’d had her fix she would be better company.
“My heart has become hard,” Madhumati said, thumping the top of her chest like a hollow drum. “Feel it.” She reached back to grab Gulabi’s hand and hauled it to the vicinity of her bosom. “See? Feel it. See how hard it is?”
Taken aback, Gulabi felt her arm wrenched against the bars and her hand sink through the spongy flesh to Madhumati’s hard ribs. She shrieked, “Didi, you’re tearing my arm off!”
Madhumati let go of her hand. “My husband, the old bastard, was so horny. The minute he climbed on me, instead of coming, he went! Straight to heaven! Bastard! Pleasuring himself in heaven . . . And me, stuck in this hell!”
Massaging her sore armpit, Gulabi tut-tutted. Then she leaned closer to Madhumati and huskily whispered, “Poor man!”
Madhumati, vaguely aware she had just been insulted, turned to glare at Gulabi. “Poor who?”
Gulabi slickly placated her. “Poor you, I mean.”
“Yes,” said Madhumati, allowing her head to rest back. “Poor me. I was brought up to give orders and command all my life. That is why I could stand up to that haram zadi mother-in-law of mine when I became a widow! I boldly asked for part of my dowry and some ancestral property to live off of. The bitch foamed at the mouth and threw a fit. I fought back, demanding what was mine! ‘Take care of this brazen hussy!’ she told her sons. They took care of me, all right! The two bastards raped me for a week. I was shorn and beaten and taken twenty miles into the wilderness and discarded!” Madhumati began to cry. “I don’t know what would have happened to me if you hadn’t found me.”
“We were fated to meet, so I found you,” said Gulabi.
This didn’t appear to please Madhumati. “Whether we were fated to meet or not, I was fated to live,” she corrected.
Gulabi had been foraging for firewood with two other eunuchs when they spotted the shorn creature, covered in blood and half-dead from starvation, lying in a ditch on the edge of the forest. They could tell from the patches of dried blood and her torn clothes that the girl had been raped. They had brought her to the ashram in Dharma Ghat. This was almost forty years ago. Madhumati, like Gulabi, was barely fourteen at the time.
The elderly widow who headed the ashram had helped Madhumati abort the fetus resulting from rape. She had allowed the girl’s hair to grow and had nourished her back to health. At the end of two months, she asked an older eunuch to take the girl to a “client.”
Madhumati took charge of the ashram when the widow became sick and, through a shrewd combination of charm and gumption, established herself as the ruler of the house when the widow died. The other widows deferred to her and accepted her leadership even though she was only twenty-four years old at the time. What is more, Madhumati had persuaded an influential “client” to bring pressure to bear on her husband’s family, and they had been forced to relinquish a part of her inheritance as a donation to the ashram temple.
Gulabi decided to change the subject. She was dying to impart the latest bit of information the eunuch grapevine had brought her. Clasping the bars, she rammed as much of her garishly made-up face as she could between them to share the latest gossip.
“Didi, have you heard?” Gulabi asked in her deep, affected voice.
“What?”
“About that Mohandas?” she said.
“Mohandas who? Is he a new client?”
“No, Mohandas Gandhi! He’s from the jungles of Africa. He doesn’t sleep, he doesn’t drink.”
“Why? Doesn’t he feel sleepy?”
“Nooo! He doesn’t sleep with women. He lies besides them, but he doesn’t sleep with them. Self-discipline, he says.”
“No!” exclaimed a disbelieving Madhumati. Jolted into relative alertness by this startling news, she suddenly realized that Gulabi had been idling far too long. She barked, “Why are you still here? Take her to Seth Dwarkanath. It’s already late. Standing here gossiping with me—” With a change in tone she said, “Hand it over.”
Gulabi rummaged in a satin pouch hooked to the waistband of her sari and brought out a small metal pipe packed with marijuana. She struck a match, lit the pipe, stylishly raised it to her mouth and inhaled several puffs to get it going. Then she placed it in the hand Madhumati was impatiently wagging at her. Madhumati held the pipe to her mouth with both hands, closed her eyes and immediately took several deep, long drags. “Long live Lord Shiva!” she said, banishing her gloomy mood with an ecstatic sigh.
Gulabi sidled off down the alley, awkwardly wagging her hips and humming and singing.
NARAYAN SAT ON THE ghat steps, playing the haunting evening raag, Darbari, on a wooden flute. His friend Rabindra reclined on the step below him, drinking from a silver flask and nodding his head appreciatively, as the sweet notes filled the air. He was dressed Western-style with dark slacks, loafers and a shirt-collar left unbuttoned at the top.
Although night had obliterated the river, the ghats were well lit from the ovals of orange that flared intermittently along the walls. Beneath them, two men tended a funeral pyre; the mourners stood to one side, watching quietly. A cow, blurred by the night and looking as if carved from granite, stood above the flight of stairs. A soft chorus of crickets chirruped in the trees, supplying an accompaniment to Narayan’s melody: from far off came the broken drift of a song carried in snatches by the breeze.
A lone light glided slowly down the river. As the small boat, which was the source of both the bobbing light and the song, drew closer, Rabindra said, “There she goes.” Narayan, nearing the dénouement of the raag, ceased playing.
“There goes who?” he asked, dreamily, still in the emotional grip of the melody. The friends conversed in English.
“A whore,” answered Rabindra nonchalantly. “My father is one of her clients.”
Narayan, intrigued, sat up in an attempt to get a closer look at the boat and its occupants. All he could see was the smudge of a white shape against the dark night, and that too was disappearing.
“Does she look like a whore? She’s a widow, you fool,” said Narayan, irritated.
“I know she’s a widow,” replied Rabindra. “The gentry here have an ‘unnatural concern’ for widows.”
GULABI SANG AS SHE ROWED. The muscles on her arms rippled under the short puffed sleeves of her sari blouse. Kalyani was seated on a thinly cushioned bench in front of the boat with her back to Gulabi. She was swaddled in white, and just a sliver of brow and the tip of her nose were visible. The lantern swaying on the prow of the boat illuminated her bowed, sari-covered head. The sweet, plaintive notes of the flute wafted through the night and reached across the river. Gulabi’s humming subsided to a faint buzz, and even that faded as she stilled the oars to listen to the flute. Transported by the distant music, Kalyani turned to Gulabi. With dreamy smiles and swaying heads, she and the eunuch shared the melodious moment. Kalyani slowly turned away when the music faded and stared impassively into the dark.
“Gulabi behen?” she ventured, interrupting Gulabi’s song.
“Hmm?” said the songstress.
“Does Lord Krishna take on human form?”
“Of course he does!” replied Gulabi, in her usual assured and yet unconvincing manner. “Haven’t you seen us perform his life story? He plays himself,” Gulabi comically batted her kohl-lined eyes and simpered, “while I play his adoring milkmaid.”
She tittered at her own jok
e, and the beginnings of a smile animated Kalyani’s face as the irrepressible music-lover broke into song.
But then Kalyani remembered the nature of their nocturnal journey, and her eyes dimmed. Her body stiffened as she prepared herself for the rest of the night—she had learned to retreat to a place deep inside herself where her emotions could not be violated, despite what happened to her body.
“THE FAMILY’S WAITING up for me. We’d better go,” Narayan said, getting up from the steps and offering Rabindra a hand.
They made an incongruous pair as they strolled along the ghats. Narayan, tall and broad-shouldered, dapper in a homespun dhoti and white kurta, and Rabindra, a head shorter, decked out in Western clothes ill-suited to his sloping shoulders and protruding paunch. He had large, undefined features, their outline blurred by fat and short brown hair.
Rabindra took a draught of Scotch from his flask
“My father doesn’t even bother with their names anymore. There’s the old one, the fat one, the new one, the young one . . .”
“You should get your father to join Gandhi!” Narayan took firm hold of his friend’s hand and, holding it aloft, wickedly announced, “‘Seth Bhupindernath and Gandhi, hand in hand, will liberate the widows of India from their plight!’”
Some people loitering along the steps looked their way, but they couldn’t follow the English words and lost interest in the drunken behaviour of the two men.
Rabindra stifled a laugh. “Does your father ‘concern’ himself with widows?” he asked
“No,” Narayan replied quickly. “Absolutely not. He would never do such a thing.”
“Well, perhaps he should think about becoming a philanthropist,” Rabindra said.
Narayan was quiet for a moment. “Doesn’t it bother you?”
“What? My father’s involvement with the widows? Not at all.” He spoke lightly, but something in his tone warned Narayan to back off.
Rabindra tugged roughly at the brown cloth-satchel hanging from Narayan’s shoulder. “You’ve gone totally ‘native,’ man: khaddar-clothes, jhola-bags, playing raags on bansaris.”
Narayan remained silent, tapping his flute absent-mindedly.
“What’s on your mind?” Rabindra asked.
“Have you ever thought about joining the Congress?”
“Are you crazy? I happen to like English ways: their cricket, their whiskey—and what poets they have! ‘She walks like a beauty in the night . . .,’” he recited, extending an arm and almost stumbling as he tried to swirl.
Narayan held out a steadying hand and corrected: “‘She walks in beauty, like the night.’ If Gandhi can free India, think how Byron will sound when you recite him as a free man.”
They sought out a tree-lined path that led along the ghats.
“You haven’t become a Nationalist, have you?” Rabindra asked, probing his friend’s face in the red and orange light that radiated around them. Dots of red light twinkled through the trees.
Narayan shrugged. “Passive Resistance!” he said. “Think about it. How long can the British fight someone who refuses to fight? Gandhi is a modern-day prophet! A prophet for our times!”
“Forget it,” Rabindra advised. “Romantics like you make terrible nationalists.” He raised his flask to Narayan. “Here’s to Byron and a concern for gorgeous widows.”
He took a swig and offered the flask to his friend.
“Here’s to Passive Resistance and bansaris!” Narayan raised the flask and took a long, thirsty draught.
“Forget about politics. Enjoy life,” Rabindra advised, putting an arm around his friend, as they took a path that led away from the river and the ghats.
Chapter Eight
Shakuntala stood knee-deep in the water, head bowed, arms extended, offering dawn prayers to the Holy River. Bells in hundreds of temples rang throughout the city to awaken the populace and recall them to worship. A muezzin’s cry, fragmented by the breeze, summoned the faithful to prayer. Chuyia hung around, bored, splashing her hands lightly in the water. She was fed up with Shakuntala’s constant prayers. Her mother had also worshipped the statues of her favourite gods and goddesses, but she did not instruct her to pray with her each time. Besides, her ma didn’t pray so much: she had a family to take care of!
The river, chill and steely grey-green at this hour, was already dotted with people busily washing their clothes and bathing. Leached of colour by the dawn light, everything appeared white. On a white stone wall stood a pristine white statue of a miniature cow with garlands around its neck; as Chuyia idly cast her eyes on it, a real cow sauntered up and placidly stood by it, chewing on its cud. Nearby, a woman soaped her dark skin with white suds. Scraps of grey-white smoke from the ghat drifted over them.
“O sacred river, radiant like the moon . . .” Shakuntala sang in a trained, husky voice.
Chuyia clasped her palms beneath her chin, and chanted, “Radiant like the autumn moon . . .”
“Home of the Eminent . . .,” continued Shakuntala.
“Re . . .,” Chuyia stopped mid-word and, letting her arms drop to her sides, interrupted Shakuntala. “When do we stop praying?”
Shakuntala silenced Chuyia with a stern look. She splashed water backwards with both hands to complete the interrupted ritual.
They finished bathing, and Chuyia walked behind Shakuntala, wringing out her soaked sari. Shakuntala glanced over her shoulder and noticed Chuyia’s drenched clothes.
“Don’t you have a dry sari?” she asked.
“It’s in your house,” replied Chuyia, emphasizing the word “your” to let Shakuntala know she still considered herself a temporary guest of the ashram, not a permanent resident.
“Bring it tomorrow,” instructed Shakuntala
“Tomorrow, I’ll be in my house,” Chuyia stubbornly insisted.
“Fine,” Shakuntala said, lengthening her stride, and Chuyia scrambled to keep up with her.
They climbed a short flight of steps and arrived at a clearing skirted by a white stone railing. Sadananda sat under a mushroom-shaped umbrella, reading to his congregation. A heavily built man in his mid-fifties with a kindly, creased face, he wore a dhoti, and the sacred thread that lay across his bare chest and bulging belly rose and fell to the calm rhythm of his breathing. The sandalwood paste on his forehead marked him as a priest.
Sadananda had long ago come to terms with the occupational hazards of ministering to his flock of widows. When he had first assumed his duties as a young priest, he had been overwhelmed by the proximity of their bodies, ripe beneath coarse, loosely-spun saris that stretched to accommodate each curve and dent of their desirable flesh and left little to the imagination. He lusted after the young, the middle-aged and, except for the very old, even the elderly. The widows’ saris covered only one shoulder and the hollow in their collarbones made him want to bury his face in their necks. The combination of moral turpitude and innocence with the voluptuous joggle of flesh under the saris gave an unsustainably erotic charge. And the eroticism was heightened by their vulnerability and availability. He had succumbed and occasionally taken advantage of the access his position as their priest and mentor gave him. If the gods lusted and got what they wanted, how was he, a puny mortal, to resist the allure of these women?
Shakuntala and Chuyia took a place in the semicircle of widows squatting around Sadananda in various attitudes of repose and comfort. The white of Chuyia’s scalp shone through the dark hair struggling to grow back. The skin of her back and arms, burnt a dark nutty-brown by the sun, was set off by the white sari. The sari was still wet and clung to her untidily.
Their heads respectfully covered, the wizened, despondent-looking women with grim faces and dimmed eyes nodded in affirmation to the priests’ measured words. They all wore the dual-pronged ash-marks on their foreheads. A woman they had not seen before, who was about the same age as Shakuntala, sat hunched over, her head resting on her hand as if her neck could no longer bear its burden. Shakuntala noticed the troubled look
on Chuyia’s face and whispered, “She is new. She’ll be all right.” Shakuntala didn’t know how to comfort this child.
Sadananda read from the Ramayana in a soothing, sonorous voice. He had noticed Shakuntala’s arrival with Chuyia. His face creased into a welcoming smile, and he bobbed his head to acknowledge their presence. Looking kindly at the little girl, he remarked, “What have we here . . . a new widow.” He cast his eye on Shakuntala. “It’s good you brought her.”
Chuyia felt shy in the face of this attention and buried her head in Shakuntala’s shoulder.
Shakuntala reprimanded her sharply, “Sit up straight.”
Sadananda came to Chuyia’s defence. “Don’t scold her, she’s just a child.”
Kunti, sitting nearby, could not help interjecting. “Child, indeed! She’s turned the house upside down. I still have bruises from her kicks.” Kunti raised her sari to show a bruise on her shin. “Scratch-marks.” She pushed back the sari from her shoulder and pointed to a line of scabs.
Muttering and nodding in agreement with Kunti’s pronouncement, all the other widows joined their raised voices in condemnation of Chuyia. Snehlata exchanged a conspiratorial look with Kunti. Shakuntala wondered what the child could have done to aggravate them so. She did not blame her for fighting the way she had when she first arrived at the ashram. After all, she was a child, and it must have been terrifying for her to be so abruptly separated from family and friends and be plunked in the middle of a bunch of dour old women, all strangers to her.
Sadananda looked around, sizing up the situation. He was accustomed to the widows’ sudden outbursts and emotional displays. He knew how few opportunities they had to vent their frustration and express their rage at the hand their karmas had dealt them. Because of his kindness and understanding, he often attracted the brunt of these cathartic outbursts and comforted them with stories from the scriptures and nuggets of wisdom from the sacred books. Sadananda raised his voice markedly and, using it like a tuning instrument, continued with his soothing sing-song recitation. This had the intended effect on the widows. They grew calm once again. Kunti and Snehlata closed their eyes in meditation, and the others moved their heads in rhythm with Sadananda’s voice.