by Bajwa, Rupa
Ramchand sat dreaming and gaping. He saw Rina’s large alert eyes dart around the shop quickly, and stop when they spotted him. She headed straight towards him without hesitation. Ramchand panicked for a moment. She had kept quiet on her wedding day, maybe she had come to complain about it today. She would denounce him to everybody. She would tell Mahajan that he, Ramchand, had dared to turn up at her wedding uninvited. She would insist that he be sacked right now.
These thoughts made Ramchand’s palms sweat. Meanwhile, she came and stood opposite to him, quietly, looking straight at his face.
‘Namaste,’ Ramchand stuttered.
‘Namaste,’ she said in a low voice, with the same amused look on her face that he had seen last time.
‘Saris, memsahib?’
She smiled again, enigmatically. ‘Okay, show me some saris,’ she said, sounding as if she was giving in to a request of his.
Suddenly, Mahajan appeared at the top of the stairs and rushed towards her energetically. ‘Madam, I saw your car and driver down below. Please sit down. Why did you bother to come all the way? You should have just called up and we would have gladly sent anything you needed. Ay Hari, get some Coca-Cola for Madam. With a straw. Make sure the glass is clean. Sit down, I’ll show you saris myself. Ay Gokul…’
Rina held up a haughty hand. It immediately stopped the stream of words gushing out of Mahajan’s mouth. He looked at her respectfully, his face silent and enquiring.
She pointed to Ramchand. ‘What is his name?’ she asked.
‘Ramchand, madam,’ answered Mahajan.
‘Let him show me the saris. In peace,’ she said pointedly. Mahajan took the hint and went away, looking puzzled.
Ramchand was completely confused. She had come alone, she had been married only three days, people didn’t buy more saris after just three days of their wedding, she smiled without any reason, she looked as though she knew something about him, a secret about him, that he did not know himself.
Ramchand turned to the shelves and then remembered he hadn’t asked her what kind of saris she wanted.
‘What sort of saris, memsahib?’ he asked her.
She threw her head back and laughed, a throaty laugh that went well with her voice.
‘Silk saris,’ she said, after composing herself.
Ramchand took out the saris and showed them to her. Rina hardly looked at the saris, just throwing quick, perfunctory glances at them. Instead, she talked to Ramchand. She asked him questions about himself, where he lived, how much he earned, was he married, etc. Ramchand answered politely. But then she started asking him other things, his opinions on different issues, his tastes, his emotions. Ramchand quickly grew uncomfortable. It was the first time that a woman was asking him such personal things, and that too such a magnificent woman, and it flustered him completely. He went red, he grew awkward and garrulous, he said things he didn’t mean, he left sentences incomplete midway, hoping she’d understand what he meant.
She continued to look amused. Hari came up with a tray, bearing a clean glass of Coca-Cola and a straw in it. She accepted the glass and put it down on the floor by her, but left it untouched. She seemed to listen intently to him. This bothered Ramchand because he knew he was blithering away, speaking utter rubbish.
In the end, she thanked him graciously, picked up a blue and black silk sari randomly, gave him an intimate, amused smile again, paid for the sari and left in the long sleek grey car.
Mahajan came up to Ramchand when she had left. Ramchand expected him to be annoyed because Rina had sent him away, but he was beaming all over his face.
‘Very good, boy, very good. You must have made a good impression on them when you went to their place. That’s the way to keep customers coming back. Very good, very good.’
He spotted the untouched glass of the cold drink.
‘Didn’t she have that?’ he asked Ramchand, pointing towards the glass.
‘No, Bauji, she did not even have a sip.’
‘Then you finish it up, Ramchand. Finish it up,’ Mahajan said, still looking happy. ‘You deserve it.’
Ramchand smiled, and Mahajan went downstairs, rubbing his hands together gleefully.
No one was watching. Ramchand took up the glass that she had held with her beautiful white hands, put his mouth to the straw, and drank it all up, blushing furiously.
PART TWO
1
Spring had come and gone quickly, as spring often does. The balmy, fresh air scented with the spring flowers had given way to the dry, dusty heat of May.
Children had put away their kites because the rooftops from where they had exuberantly sent their kites flying into the sky during the spring months now baked inhospitably in the hot summer sun.
The air in the fruit markets became fragrant with the heady smell of ripe mangoes, and housewives set hard to work pickling the raw ones. Huge jars of pickled mangoes discreetly appeared on sunny terraces and courtyards, put out in the sun to process.
Days became longer, and tempers grew shorter. People longed for the rain to come, but there wasn’t a cloud in the blazing, clear sky. Water evaporated from the drains, leaving behind a sludge that stank. The few ponds at the outskirts of Amritsar dried up too, and lethargic buffaloes sunk deeper into the squelchy mud in the ponds, only their eyes showing as the cool mud slithered over their hot, black bodies.
The roads became dusty, and the faces of cyclists and pedestrians took on a permanently weary look. There were frequent power cuts every day. All over Amritsar people grew tired and cross, or sluggish and resigned. Mothers snapped at noisy children, mothers-in-law fought with young daughters-in-law, junior workers in shops, offices and factories got yelled at by their superiors all over the city.
Quiet families slept on dark, still terraces at night during power cuts, their shared memories swirling overhead in the hot air along with the swarms of mosquitoes. Old women sat on charpais, fanning themselves with jute fans and murmuring prayers with rosaries held in perspiring, wrinkled hands. An air of oppression hung over the whole city. Even the wealthy – and there were many in Amritsar – were driven to a frenzy by the brief forays they made out of air-conditioned houses and cars into the hot, dry, baking world outside.
In the afternoons only unhappy, perspiring vendors with ice cream carts, rickshaw pullers slumbering in their rickshaws in the shade of trees and panting stray dogs with their long tongues hanging out could be seen on the deserted roads that smelt of hot tar.
*
Chander’s house had a tin sheet for a roof, and it became as hot as fire after the May sun had beat down on it even for an hour. The sun turned the little house into an airless furnace. It was here that Chander’ wife sat one hot morning, her thin body soaked in sweat.
Her name was Kamla, even though everyone in Sevak Sari House always referred to her as just ‘Chander’s wife’. Once Kamla was a child, with a straggly plait of hair hanging down behind her neck, a thin body and big, inquisitive eyes. She lived in a small house in Jandiala, a tiny, nondescript town, little more than a village, about twenty kilometres from Amritsar, with her mother, father and a brother. Her brother was older than her, he was thirteen when she was only eight. Her father worked in a small factory – a factory that manufactured a local brand of washing powder called Chamki Washing Powder.
After her father left for his factory, and her brother went to the tailor’s shop where he worked as an apprentice, Kamla’s mother went to work in people’s houses, to cook and clean for them. Sometimes Kamla went with her and helped her a bit.
At the age of eight, Kamla owned only two frocks. Both the frocks were old ones outgrown by the children of her mother’s employers. One was a red and blue check, with pockets in the skirt and the other was a bedraggled pink, with some torn white lace at the collar and at the hem.
Kamla was supposed to do all her chores on her own, though her mother washed Kamla’s brother’s clothes, made tea for him and cleaned up after him. But she told Kamla th
at girls must learn all household work, and the sooner they started, the better it was for them. So, in serious imitation of her mother, once a week, the eight-year-old Kamla would squat near the tap and scrub both her frocks, rinse them, wring them dry till they were almost knotted up, and then would hang them out in the sun to dry. She personally liked the red and blue check better, even though the lace of the pink one always made her feel grand, like all those girls who lived in big houses and went out in cars and bought those chocolates in purple wrappers. Still, she did like the red and blue check better. It had pockets you could put things into, it looked newer than the pink one, and it looked much, much brighter and more cheerful. Kamla wore both frocks strictly by turns – one day the pink, the next day the red and blue check.
It was on the day of the red and blue check that Kamla’s mother died. Kamla was alone at home with her mother. It was evening, and they were preparing to cook dinner.
Kamla had just learnt to peel potatoes. She was sitting on the floor peeling them with a blunt knife, because her mother still didn’t trust her with the sharp one, and talking to her mother at the top of her voice. Kamla’s mother had climbed up on a stool to get a jar of pickle from the top of a cupboard.
‘And then, Ma, Ganga said Mina always cheated. She said the stone was at the edge of the chalk line, but Mina moved it with her foot. But, Ma, I saw her. She didn’t. Do you think Ganga could be lying? I don’t think so. Ganga never lies, but maybe she was mistaken. She is always so sure of herself. Ma, I think…’
Her mother stood on tiptoe on the stool, trying to reach the jar. She kept nodding, Kamla kept chattering on, without bothering to wait for her mother’s replies.
‘Ganga’s sister, who got married, came back and gave her a silver bangle, Ma. A real silver bangle. It is so pretty, it has got tiny ghungroos on it, they tinkle when she moves. And Ganga keeps moving her arm about on purpose while talking, just to show off to us…’
Then Kamla’s mother finally managed to get her fingers around the jar. She grasped it gingerly and pulled it towards her, saying, ‘Here it is. Now, I think, for dinner, along with the potatoes and chillies, we can…’
Here, she tottered on the stool, her face a little startled, her eyebrows raised, still clutching the glass jar tightly. Then she suddenly slipped, the stool fell over on its side with a thud, there was a loud crack, and Kamla’s mother fell silent. A pool of blood formed slowly under her head. The glass jar of pickles had broken too. A film of mustard oil began to spread towards the blood. The two mingled. Pieces of pickled lime and carrots were strewn around in the blood-oil puddle like pebbles. Kamla sat there quietly, her mouth slightly open, frozen, staring at her mother, with a half-peeled potato in her left hand, the blunt knife in the right and curly potato peels on the floor.
Her brother found her sitting there in the same position when he came home two hours later. He took in the sight, the shock making the bile rise in his throat. He took the knife out of her hand, and sent her to call their aunt, his father’s sister, who lived close by.
At first Kamla wouldn’t move, then, with his voice choking with tears, her brother gave her a gentle shove, ‘Go, Kamla, go. Go and fetch Bua. Tell her what has happened. She will come here. Then I’ll go to the factory and fetch Pitaji.’
Kamla went by the familiar route to her Bua’s place almost in a daze. After she got there, she kept repeating that the pickle jar broke. Finally, she started crying. Bua shook her shoulders and asked her what had happened. ‘The pickle jar fell down,’ Kamla repeated, ‘and Ma with it.’
Bua came back to Kamla’s place with her. The next few days passed in a daze for Kamla. Her father and brother seemed distant, busy making arrangements for the cremation and the puja. Meanwhile Bua was very busy too, seeing to the meals and beds of the relatives who had come to mourn. Kamla had to help her all day, cutting vegetables and folding bedclothes while her eyes and heart ached every moment. Her Bua told her, ‘Now, after your mother, you’ll have to look after the house. You’ll have to take care of your father and brother, okay? Behave like a big girl now.’
Kamla nodded.
She began to go to work in place of her mother. Like Kamla’s mother, Bua also earned a living by cooking and cleaning at big houses. Now she took Kamla under her wing and took her to the places she herself worked in. Kamla was quick to learn – she was nimble while sweeping the floors, she reached with the broom under beds, almost lying down on the floor to reach the far off corners, she cleaned behind sofas and under carpets. She cleaned kitchen shelves well, rubbing at oil and gravy stains with wet rags till they disappeared. She cleaned out kitchen sinks, carefully removing bits of food crumbs and salad leaves that blocked the jali over the sink drain. She chopped onions, ginger and tomatoes and left them in neat piles, covered with steel plates, for the housewife to use when she cooked lunch. Her employers were pleased with her and soon she began to bring in a hundred rupees a month. She also did all the cooking single-handedly for her own household.
She continued to alternate her two frocks strictly, till she outgrew them and graduated to wearing salwaar kameez.
When she turned fourteen, her brother married, and his wife, anxious to secure her position in the house, took over the kitchen, relegating Kamla to the status of an assistant.
Bhabhi decided now what was to be cooked, she kept an eye over the provisions and cooked things her own way. Kamla went back to chopping, cutting, cleaning and doing the odd jobs that Bhabhi asked her to do.
*
At sixteen, when she married Chander, Kamla had been a pretty girl with lively eyes, cheerful most of the time, but given to occasional strange sulks that her family never understood. She had moods when she wouldn’t talk to anybody. Then she’d just hum to herself or embroider flowers on plain leftover poplin that her brother sometimes got from the factory of ready-made garments that employed him as cutter and tailor. When she was in one of these moods, she wouldn’t answer any questions, not even with a nod or a gesture. It annoyed her family very much, but it was pretty harmless, so they let it pass most of the time, putting it down to the instability of adolescent girls. She’d be all right after she got married, they reasoned.
Kamla could cook very well by now, and went to three different houses to work, cooking daals and vegetables, boiling rice and cleaning utensils efficiently every day.
Now she earned four hundred rupees a month. Apart from this, she got cast-off clothes occasionally, one meal a day at the big house painted white and one cup of tea at the pretty house with magenta bougainvillea climbing its gate. From each of the houses she would also get an extra twenty rupees every Diwali, and a few sweets. Sometimes she’d even bring home a couple of left-over chapatis with two pieces of oily dark-green mango pickle wrapped in them.
One day when she was sweeping the floor of one of the big houses, Kamla spotted a pretty red glass bead on the floor. It shone and had two holes at its opposite ends to string a thread through. Kamla’s right hand that held the broom went still. With her left hand she picked up the bead, still squatting. She held it up to the sunlight streaming in from the window. It glinted. Kamla smiled.
Her employer, a good-natured woman who spent most of her time watching the films played on the local cable channel, looked up from the television and asked her, ‘Ay, Kamla, what are you smiling about?’
‘This bead, Bibiji, it is very beautiful. Too beautiful.’
The woman smiled. ‘Oh, that? That is just a cheap thing. My daughter bought a boxful of them to make necklaces for her dolls. She has finished now. The silly things she does. Never studies. I don’t know what will become of her. These days even to get married you need a BA degree.’ Then, coming back to the bead, she asked Kamla. ‘The rest of them are still lying around. They’ll just clutter up the place for years now. Do you want to take them home with you?’
Kamla nodded. The woman got up slowly, went to a cupboard and brought back a cardboard box. She gave it to Kamla.
&nb
sp; Kamla opened the box. A mass of luminous red beads filled the box, their glass surfaces smooth and shiny.
‘Thank you, Bibiji,’ Kamla said happily, clasping the box to her chest, her eyes shining.
‘Happy?’
‘Yes.’
‘Then mind you scrub the clothes well today. The white shirt wasn’t cleaned well yesterday.’
‘That was a turmeric stain, Bibiji. They never go out, no matter how hard you scrub.’
*
That evening, Kamla was stringing the red beads together with a needle and thread when her father returned home from the soap factory. Usually he came back tired and quiet and rarely spoke to anyone till his daughter or his daughter-in-law had made him a cup of tea. But today he put down the three-storied steel tiffin box that Kamla packed for him every day, and called the whole family together. Her brother had just got back a few minutes before. He came to his father anxiously, hoping it was no financial crisis, followed by his wife who was now cradling a baby in her arms. Kamla sat where she was, with the needle, thread and the beads still in her lap. Then Kamla’s father told his assembled family that today he had fixed up Kamla’s marriage with the son of a man who worked with him. Kamla’s brother smiled, her Bhabhi came and hugged her and everyone looked happy. Kamla smiled indifferently. She had been expecting this to happen any day now. It didn’t affect her one way or the other. Every girl was brought up to know that marriage had to happen one day, and Kamla was quite prepared for it.
Then her father and brother began to discuss the arrangements for the wedding while Kamla and her Bhabhi retreated to the kitchen to make tea. Kamla was silent, as it was only proper to be silent, and her Bhabhi gushed on about many things that Kamla barely listened to.