The Sari Shop

by Bajwa, Rupa

  Then Chander started to cry, and fell to the ground with his hands folded. He wept, he called aloud to the gods, asking them why they had ruined his life by marrying him off to a black-tongued witch. He slobbered. Saliva covered his folded hands. He was completely drunk.

  Kamla continued to stare without saying a word. Her tears dried up. Then she absently got a tumbler of water for him. She watched him drink it up in one go, watched his throat contract and expand as the water went in, waited till he had drained the glass. Then she took the empty tumbler from him. She laid it aside without washing it and went to lie down on the string cot. She was asleep in an instant, utterly exhausted.

  The next morning, Chander was cold and silent. Kamla didn’t get up to make tea or cook anything. She just sat on the bed, sunk in silence. Chander didn’t ask for food either.

  But before leaving, just as he was about to go out of the door, he turned to her and said savagely, ‘Your child was dead. Your husband was dying. But you slept like a queen all night.’

  Kamla said nothing.

  *

  Chander often kept a bottle of cheap rum at home. Though he usually drank sitting outside small liquor shops with some of his friends from the factory, he thought it was a good idea to keep a bottle at hand, tucked under the charpai or standing in a corner with the broom. Occasionally he would get up at night and take a few gulps from the bottle.

  Kamla started by taking swigs from this bottle. She would drink just a little bit, and to make up for it, she would fill the bottle up with water, making sure she dried the outside of the bottle and the cork with one end of her sari pallu.

  Then she started to take a few coins from the pocket of Chander’s shirt when he hung it up before going to sleep. She’d wait till he was snoring and then creep up silently to the hook where his shirt hung. She would fumble in his pocket and take the smallest coins, so he wouldn’t miss them. If he grunted or turned in his sleep, she would go still as a statue, and wait till she heard his snores again.

  When she had collected enough, she would go and buy a bottle of country liquor from a local liquor maker. Chander would spend all his days away from home, looking for work. It didn’t occur to Kamla that she could also look for the kind of work she had done before her marriage. She spent all her energies on planning how to procure the next bottle.

  She developed a cunning that she never knew existed, hidden tucked away inside her somewhere. She managed to supply herself with country liquor even while their finances dwindled alarmingly and they came down to having just one meal a day.

  Chander would return home frustrated each night, usually drunk, and he would fight with her, slapping her face and throwing her against the wall before flinging himself on his bed. He didn’t notice the drunk state Kamla was usually in, he didn’t notice her secret smile when her head struck the wall hard – a smile that would have scared a normal, sane man. This happened day after day, till her forehead got hardened with bumps.

  The news that Chander had got another job at some sari shop hardly registered in her stupefied, drunk mind. Chander accused her of not being happy for him. She just looked back at him unblinkingly. Chander couldn’t guess where the pretty, cheerful girl he had married had disappeared to, and who this stony-eyed monster was.

  One day Chander came back early from the shop. The months of stress, drinking and missed meals had taken their toll. He had felt dizzy and had almost fallen headlong down the steps. After taking a look at his ashen, weak face, Mahajan had told him to go home early.

  Chander came back to see the door of his house swinging open on its hinges. He entered his house and discovered Kamla sitting on the floor with the bottle in her hand. Chander was speechless. She looked up at him and then went back to her bottle. Genuinely shocked that a wife of his should be actually drinking, Chander beat her up more harshly than usual. Then he went to sit at the Hanuman temple, trying to keep his tears from flowing on to his cheeks.

  After that Kamla had begun to drink openly. She became bleary eyed and foul mouthed. She stopped cleaning the house, she stopped praying to the small clay Shiva idol in the corner – the one to which she had once so lovingly offered flowers every morning, she stopped taking baths. Her saris became filthy, the house stank and Chander’s face took on a haunted look. She soon had dark circles under her eyes, her face became pale and worn and her hair started to fall in thick lumps. And she wept and drank, and Chander beat her every day, usually breaking down himself later.

  The more Chander shouted at her, the more she smirked at him. The more he beat her, the more she drank. She fell quiet and he rarely heard her speak of her own accord.

  She had the destiny of many others like her, yet for no known reason (she wasn’t even educated), she had trouble accepting it. She was beginning to realize that there were other things, apart from turmeric stains, that did not go away no matter how hard you scrubbed. She was full of bitter poison. And when this poison mixed with alcohol, rage and recklessness filled her.

  Then, with the alcohol-laced anger coursing like fire through her blood, she would sally forth into the world with red, angry eyes, abusing and swearing at everybody. A resigned beating at night from Chander would fail to dilute this poison and soon made her even more of a savage animal.

  She snarled at cars on the road if they didn’t slow down long enough for her to cross. She snapped at those men on the streets who, taking advantage of her drunken state, tried to paw her.

  Once she even shouted at the pundit in the nearby temple who touched both his ears whenever he saw her, apparently praying for mankind’s salvation despite the existence of women such as her. She shouted out what she thought of him and his little ways. She yelled that he was getting fatter on the coconuts and rice that devotees offered at the temple. Though the pundit always reacted with self-righteous indignation, he was also scared of her wild tongue that uttered such embarrassing things for the whole street to hear. She’d also pretend to be picking up a stone to throw at him, which would scare him and make the watching children laugh. Kamla became a disgrace to the whole neighbourhood.

  Chander was relieved when he had got a job at Sevak Sari House, but he refused to tell Kamla where he worked, in case she decided to come and have a brawl with Mahajan.

  Chander shuddered at the thought.

  He had cut down on his own drinking now, though he couldn’t help the occasional relapses. He was happy to have got this job and meant to keep it.

  Soon Chander began to ignore Kamla completely. He left her alone, in whatever state she was in, and went about living his own life, buying most of his meals at dhabas and food stalls.

  He and Kamla hardly spoke to each other any more.

  *

  Today, Kamla had had more to drink than usual. She sat alone on the floor of her dirty house, completely drunk, weeping and hiccuping.

  The floor was littered with unwashed clothes. Dirty utensils in a corner had started to give off a rancid odour. Kamla hadn’t taken a bath for the past three days and she smelt rancid too. There were rashes on her skin because of the heat, her hair was dishevelled and her eyes were wild.

  Random thoughts ran around in her head. And out of these random thoughts, one coherent thought was emerging.

  Yes, she knew whose fault it all was.

  She wouldn’t let them live in peace. The familiar anger coursed through her body and she struggled to get to her feet.

  3

  In Mrs Gupta’s house, Shilpa, married happily for five months now, had just found out that she was pregnant.

  When Shilpa had entered the household five months back, she had done so with all the usual apprehensions of a new bride. Her husband Tarun would be okay, he had a big factory and was tall, healthy and good looking. And anyway he and her father-in-law would be away at work all day.

  It all boiled down to her mother-in-law, Mrs Gupta. Would there be the usual problems – the bullying, the power tussle, the kitchen politics?

  And even i
f there weren’t, how was she going to measure up to Mrs Gupta? For the lady had the local reputation of being wise, witty and a woman of the world.

  And Shilpa had few illusions about herself. She had scraped her way through school and one year of college uninterestedly, awaiting the wonderful marriage that her parents would arrange for her as soon as possible. Not that school and college mattered – hardly any of the girls from the high up business families were interested in studying, but Shilpa knew she fell short on other counts. She didn’t have the sharp wit or the talents of some of her cousins. She wasn’t stunningly beautiful. Her hair was slightly thin, and worst of all, her English wasn’t good. The biggest thing in her favour was that her father was a well-known, rich businessman. She had known they would find a brilliant match for her.

  And they had, indeed! They had fixed up her marriage with Tarun Gupta. He was the elder son of the Gupta family and she knew that she couldn’t have got a better deal. They were a well-known family and her cousins had said, after taking a look at him, that he looked a little like Salman Khan. She had met him once when he had come to visit her with his mother. They had talked desultorily for about five minutes, and both had then complacently and officially accepted each other.

  The wedding had been a lavish one. All the big industrialists of Amritsar had been invited, including Ravinder Kapoor, who had told the Guptas that his own daughter, Rina, was getting married in three weeks’ time. He wasn’t very pleased about it, because it was a Love Marriage, and his daughter had chosen to marry a Captain in the Indian Army. Ravinder Kapoor still couldn’t believe it, but he had tried not to let his disappointment show. As he told everyone, he had enough money for two families, even for six families. What mattered was that his daughter should be happy. She was a brilliant girl, you couldn’t expect her to be the wife of a businessman and sit at home all day, he said proudly. Shilpa’s parents winced at this but no one dared to contradict him. He said he’d make sure Rina maintained the lifestyle she was accustomed to, even after she got married.

  At the wedding party, many deals had been finalized and many business contacts had been made by the guests. So, all in all, it was quite a success.

  Shilpa’s parents had given Tarun a white Opel Astra, and had got an interior decorator to do up the couple’s bedroom at their own expense. The decorator had done it up in the latest fashion, copied from a magazine, in cream and pale pistachio green. The bedspread and the curtains were also in the same colours. Wall-to-wall carpeting, a luxurious sofa with the cream and green coloured cushions and a wrought iron table with a glass top completed the décor.

  Shilpa’s parents then also had a new air conditioner installed in the room. It sucked all the heat out of the room, leaving it neat and cold.

  And all this – the room, the furniture, the air conditioner and the car, were in addition to all the cash, jewellery and clothes they had given to Shilpa, and all the gifts of clothes and jewellery they had given to her in-laws and to her husband. Yes, she had no reason not to be able to hold up her head in her new family.

  But still, when it came to a mother-in-law, one never knew…

  But Shilpa needn’t have feared anything. Mrs Gupta was too shrewd to start an unnecessary feud with her daughter-in-law. She had seen too many bickering households where constant disharmony took its toll on all the family members.

  Instead, she treated Shilpa, as she often told her friends at kitty parties, like a daughter.

  She instructed Shilpa in everything – clothes, make-up, behaviour, recipes. She was kind and sweet to her, at the same time keeping a sharp eye and an iron control over how Shilpa looked, dressed and behaved. Shilpa recognized this, but accepted it. It was better than many other things that she had known to happen between mother-in-law and daughter-in-law.

  Besides, Shilpa knew that sooner or later, the elder Mrs Gupta would grow old, and then the factory, the house, all the property – it would all be hers.

  So the two settled into a fragile relationship in which the equation had to be balanced constantly, with a touch here, a gentle nudge there, a small disagreement here, and a gratified smile there. They began to understand each other, and though the wariness remained, and was indeed, to always remain, they spent their days together amiably enough. Once the husbands had been sent off to work, maids had come and left and meals had been cooked, they’d settle down to watch the reruns of the soaps on Star Plus. In the commercial breaks, they would make cups of tea and gossip.

  Mrs Gupta had a competitive streak in her. She liked to be the best. In her circle of friends and relatives, she liked to have the best complexion, the cleanest house, the nicest clothes. And she passed on this competitiveness to the previously inert Shilpa, galvanizing her into a new life of self-improvement.

  The duo had to outdo every other woman they knew. They tried new recipes, and then sent around food in little steel tiffin boxes to neighbours as a ‘good gesture’, accepting the compliments graciously. They tried out new combinations of homemade face packs while they watched Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi. Mrs Sandhu had a glossy skin and they wondered what she used on it. They went for long walks together to keep their stomachs flat, eventually landing up at sales of Chinese goods, where they bought pretty Chinese lampshades to make their drawing room look exotic.

  *

  This morning, Shilpa had cooked pasta for breakfast. She had taken Mrs Singh’s Continental Cooking Classes for four months before her marriage. She had been anxious to impress the Gupta family with her pasta.

  Everyone had loved it.

  Then she had cleared up the breakfast table while her mother-in-law supervised the maid who came in to clean every day.

  At the last moment, just before leaving for the factory, Mr Gupta said he felt a little ill. ‘Maybe I am coming down with something,’ he said uncertainly. ‘Maybe it is the flu that is going around. I don’t think I’ll go to the factory today.’

  His wife hadn’t looked too pleased. In fact, she had looked slightly disbelieving, but he had avoided making eye contact with her.

  Mrs Gupta had sighed. His presence would hamper their usual routine, she knew, but nothing could be done about it.

  Then the woman who came in to cook lunch and dinner, wash the dishes and do other chores in the kitchen, arrived. Mrs Gupta accompanied her to the kitchen.

  Shilpa, meanwhile, made beds and dusted the delicate crystal and china ornaments in the house that no maid was allowed to touch.

  After this, and after taking some tea for her father-in-law to his bedroom, Shilpa had retired to her own bedroom. She had tidied it up and then she sat down on the bed with a pile of her husband’s clothes in front of her, and began to fold them, one by one. She loved to spend as much time in this room as she could. It was so comfortable. Her parents had spared no expense in doing it up.

  *

  It was while she had been sitting there sorting through Tarun’s Arrow shirts that the doctor had called her mother-in-law to tell her the result of the tests. Mrs Gupta had rushed up to her daughter-in-law to tell her, beaming all over her face.

  Shilpa was surprised, even though she had been half-expecting it. She smiled back at her mother-in-law and the two women hugged each other.

  ‘I’ll go and tell your Papaji now,’ Mrs Gupta told her. ‘We’ll have to have a long talk about this later, Shilpa,’ she said, patting her shoulder, giving her a fond smile.

  ‘Yes, Mummyji,’ Shilpa said, her shy smile accompanied by a blush. She was mildly glad at having achieved the next state expected of her.

  Shilpa fervently hoped it would be a boy. That would forever consolidate her position in the family.

  *

  When Mrs Gupta went back downstairs to tell her husband, who was now sleepily watching a show on Zee TV, Shilpa went into a reverie. How did one behave when expecting a child? What would she be expected to do? A special diet of course, and a woman to come in and massage her legs gently every day. She had enough female cousins t
o know that. But what else? In her parents’ family, they had the Godbharai ceremony. She wondered if they would have it here. If they did, then she’d get new clothes, a couple of jewellery sets… it had to be a boy… that would make things a lot easier for her… she didn’t want a daughter…

  She kept thinking with pursed lips, her hands deftly moving over the pile of her husband’s clothes, till she heard a shout from below. It sounded as if it came from somewhere near the front gate. Shilpa got up, walked to the window, pushed away the green curtain with cream tassels at the border, and looked down.

  An uncouth-looking woman with dishevelled hair, obviously belonging to a lower class, stood at the front gate. She wore a cheap purple nylon sari with big, white flowers on it. She was glaring up at the windows of the house with red, baleful eyes, looking a little like a rabid dog.

  ‘You are responsible for all this. You are responsible for our misery,’ she shouted loudly, very loudly, her ugly face contorted with anger. ‘You think you can live in peace now?’

  Shilpa felt bewildered. Who was this woman? Shilpa made sure she peered from a crack in the curtain, without letting herself be seen.

  Then the woman standing below abruptly started swearing, shouting out every word that Shilpa had either never heard before, or that had been mentioned in hushed voices by the older women in her family as an example of the words that were very bad. Words that good girls never spoke. And here was this woman, shouting them out for all the neighbours to hear, shouting them at her in-laws’ front gate.

  Shilpa hurried downstairs anxiously to where her in-laws Mrs and Mr Gupta stood, looking agitated and uncertain. The driver was out. The servant had gone to the market to buy vegetables. The shouts outside rose even higher. The woman was even jangling their gate. Then there was a pause and a fresh stream of abuse.

  ‘Guptas, hunh? Big Name, hunh? Just beggars you are. You are like the jackals that feed off the carcasses of dead animals. You are worse than us.’