‘There’s no need to laugh,’ Genu said severely. ‘I have a very good brain – let me tell you. Ponmoshai used to say, “Genu is the cleverest…”’
‘Ponditmoshai!’ Satyendra was surprised. ‘Did you go to a pathshala?’
‘Baba had one set up just outside the house,’ Genu prattled away. Having once begun to talk she found it difficult to stop. ‘Once he asked our family preceptor, “What is the greatest gift that a man can give to his fellow men?” “The gift of knowledge,” Guru Thakur replied. So Baba set up a pathshala. Lots of boys used to come to study. I was the only girl.’
‘Didn’t that cause trouble in the village?’
‘No. Baba took Guru Thakur’s permission.’ Then, remembering something, she broke into a fit of giggles.
‘What is it?’ her husband asked.
‘Ponmoshai used to punish the boys if they came late or couldn’t do their lessons. Hee hee… hee hee.’
‘What’s that to laugh about?’
‘They were such funny punishments. Ponmoshai would make a bad boy open his mouth as wide as he could. Then he would stick a piece of bamboo between his teeth so tight his mouth became a big circle. The boys looked so funny… hee hee.’
‘That’s horrible!’ Satyendra exclaimed, shocked.
‘The other punishments were even funnier. Bichhuti leaves were spread on the ground. “Genu,” Ponmoshai would say to me, “get a ghoti of water and pour it over the leaves so that they sting really hard.” Then the naughty boys were made to roll on them. Once, a fat boy started shrieking, “Save me, Ponmoshai! Save me!” “Why that’s a talking pumpkin!” Ponmoshai cried and made him roll so hard, his skin broke into big red bumps. How he screamed and scratched himself! Hee… ee… ee! And once, he hung a boy from a tree and whipped his behind with a bamboo switch and…’
‘Genu,’ Satyendra rebuked her gently, ‘you mustn’t laugh at other people’s sufferings. What if such a thing had happened to you?’
‘Why should it happen to me?’ Genu pursed her little mouth. ‘I could do all my lessons. And it was my father’s pathshala.’
‘Anyway…’ Satyendra waved a hand dismissing the matter. ‘It’s good that you know your letters and can do sums. But you have a lot more to learn. You must start studying again.’
That evening, after the lamps were lit and the mats unrolled, a tiny figure, bowed low beneath her ghumta, was led into the school room, where a dozen children were assembled already, and took her allotted place on the mat.
The exchange, though it broke the ice between the newlyweds, didn’t really bring them any closer or make Genu open up to her husband.
That happened a few days later in a novel way. Genu was eating a bowl of muri and roasted gram when her second incisor slipped out of her gum and got mixed with the food in her mouth. She chewed on it for a few seconds, thinking it was a particularly hard gram, then spat it out in her hand. It lay on her palm – a little pearl covered with yellow paste.
Now Genu had a problem. In the village, there were many mouse holes. There were some in their own yard next to the paddy bins. All she had to do was find one, drop her tooth in it, and chant thrice, Little mouse, little mouse, I drop my tooth into your house, keep it safe and send me another, stronger and whiter than your mother’s.
She had to find a mouse hole. If she didn’t, she wouldn’t get another tooth. But where in this house would she find a mouse hole? The floors here were made of hard stone. Big, shining slabs of black and white, like the chessboard in her eldest brother-in-law’s apartment. Setting her bowl of muri on the floor, she went from room to room looking for a hole. After nearly an hour, hot and tired and on the brink of tears, she bumped into her brother-in-law Jyoti.
‘Why! What are you doing roaming about alone?’ he exclaimed. ‘With that long ghumta too! Careful, careful. You’ll fall and hurt yourself,’
Jyotirindranath was his father’s fifth son. He was about Genu’s age but a head and a half taller. He was very handsome, the best-looking boy of the Tagore clan. Genu knew who he was. He had come as the neet bar, the little bridegroom, at her wedding. And he attended Hemendra’s study circle. But she had never spoken to him before.
‘My tooth fell out,’ she said, opening her palm and showing it, ‘and I’m looking for a mouse hole. But I’ve looked and looked and I can’t find one,’ she ended plaintively.
‘Why a mouse hole?’
‘I must drop it in a mouse hole. If I don’t, I won’t get another one.’
‘Come to the garden. We’ll find a mouse hole.’
‘The garden!’ Genu exclaimed delighted. ‘Do you have a garden?’
‘Of course. Didn’t you know? Push that silly ghumta away. How can you walk with your eyes all covered up?’
Taking her hand, he ran out of the house pulling her behind him, into the wild tangled garden at the back. Genu felt the sun on her face and the wind in her hair for the first time since she had come to Kolkata. ‘Such a big pond!’ she exclaimed, ‘and so many trees! Look, look! The mango trees are bending over with blossom. We’ll get lots and lots of mangoes this summer. I l-o-o-v-e mangoes! I can eat hundreds.’
‘I can eat hundreds too,’ Jyoti replied.
Hand in hand the two children ran in and out of the trees. Thorns pierced Genu’s bare feet and thistles caught at her clothes. Once, she heard her sari tear apart with a ripping sound. But she cared nothing. They danced about, plucking kul berries and custard apples, and she stuffed them into her sari, turning it into a jhola. Then, shinning up the banyan tree that grew by the pond, she beckoned to Jyoti to follow her. Soon they were sitting, side by side, on a low swinging branch, biting into half-ripened fruits and spitting out the pips with as much force as they could muster.
They were caught by Tripura Sundari who came, every day at this hour, for her mid-morning bath. Passing the tree on her way to the pond she felt something fall on her foot with a plop. It was a large kul stone. She looked up in surprise to see two pairs of legs dangling above her head – one brown and skinny with anklets at the end, the other plump and fair with dimpled calves.
‘Who’s there?’ she called but all she got in response was a disembodied giggle. Suddenly, she caught a flash of magenta among the green leaves. Wasn’t the new bride wearing a magenta jamdani this morning? ‘Mejo Bouma!’ she called. ‘What are you doing up there? Come down at once.’ And now a face appeared between the leaves. A wild, laughing, gap-toothed face, ghumta gone, curly hair blowing in the wind. It gave Tripura such a turn that, as she confided later to Sarada Sundari, she nearly fainted. Jyoti, frightened by the severity in his aunt’s voice, leaped to the ground and ran as fast as his legs could carry him. The suddenness of his descent set the bough waving so wildly that Genu lost her balance and tumbled out of the tree right into Tripura Sundari’s arms. The maid who was carrying Tripura’s oil, gamchha and rooptaan felt a shower of half-eaten fruits rain on her head and screamed fearfully, ‘Ram… Ram! What’s this, Chhoto Ma? What’s this? A bhoot! A bhoot!’
As was to be expected, Genu was brought before her mother-in-law. Her husband was sent for and her trial began. Satyendra walked into Sarada’s room and was somewhat annoyed to see all the women of the house assembled there. ‘What a big fuss over something so small!’ he thought angrily glancing at the culprit who stood in a corner cowering beneath her ghumta.
‘What sort of girl have you brought into the house?’ Sarada demanded of her son as soon as she saw him. As though Satyendra had had any choice in the matter. As though his ‘bringing her’ was anything other than symbolic. Then, turning to her daughter-in-law, she repeated the string of questions she had been asking, ad nauseum, ever since Tripura Sundari had walked into the room dragging the girl after her. ‘Have your parents taught you nothing, Mejo Bouma? Don’t you know girls from good families don’t run wild but stay quietly in the women’s wing where they belong? What were you doing in the garden? And why was Jyoti with you?’
Genu had been lis
tening quietly all this while. Now, at the sight of her husband, something snapped within her. She threw off her ghumta and faced Sarada Sundari. ‘What else could I do?’ she cried vehemently, her eyes flashing with anger and unshed tears. ‘My tooth fell out and I was looking for a mouse hole. Is there any such thing as a mouse hole in this house?’ Lifting a tiny forefinger she wagged it belligerently at her mother-in-law. ‘Tell me. Tell me. Is there any such thing as a mouse hole?’
‘O ma! O ma! O ma!’ Sarada muttered helplessly, staring at her daughter-in-law. A stunned silence followed. A roomful of women had turned into statues. Satyendra was dying to laugh. The diminutive figure in a torn, stained sari, legs coated with dust and mouth smeared with custard apple pulp provided such a comic contrast to the fire-raining eyes and threatening forefinger. Equally comic was the expression on his mother’s face. Controlling himself with difficulty, he shook his head at his wife. ‘You mustn’t talk to Ma like that,’ he said, adding gently, ‘but tell me, why were you looking for a mouse hole?’
Genu’s fire went out of her in an instant and she burst into tears. ‘Because if I don’t drop my tooth into a mouse hole, I’ll never get it back again. What’ll I do then?’
Satyendra turned to his mother. ‘Let it be, Ma. Why do you make such a fuss over nothing? All she did was go out and play in the garden with Jyoti. Is that a crime? After all she’s only seven.’
‘Only seven!’ Sarada, who had got back her breath, exclaimed disgustedly. ‘I was six when I came to this house. And I’ve never left the abarodh since, except in a covered palki. And why does she have to play with Jyoti? Are there no girls of her age in the house?’
But Satyendranath’s intervention had the desired effect. The case was dismissed and the offender released. ‘Take her away, Kal Dai,’ Sarada commanded the nursemaid who had brought up her children. ‘Give her a good oil massage and bath and something to eat.’
That night, exhausted by the events of the day, Genu fell asleep before her husband came into the room. He saw the frail little form curled up in one corner of the huge bed and felt his heart fill with tenderness. Placing his hand on her head, he called gently, ‘Genu.’
‘Oonh?’
‘My little Genu… my sweet little Genu moni…’ he murmured, stroking her cheeks and chin. Suddenly, the figure stirred and he felt a pair of thin arms wrap themselves around his neck.
IV
Genu’s mother-in-law was pregnant again. As the time of the confinement drew near, she felt torn with anxiety. What would it be this time? She desperately wanted another boy. She had been so proud of her ‘golden womb’ which had borne so many sons! The older women of the house had eulogized her and held her up as an example to other young women. For, she was not only exceedingly fertile, her children were all strong and healthy. Barring the first one, of course, who was born premature and had died within a few days. But that hadn’t gone against Sarada. She had been no more than a child herself at the time, only twelve, and the newborn was, after all, a girl. If people blamed anybody it was her mother-in-law for not taking better care of her. Anyway, Sarada had more than redeemed herself by producing six sturdy sons, discreetly interspersed with two lovely daughters, in the quickest possible time.
Then her luck had changed. Three girls followed, one after another, and her youngest son, Punyendra, drowned in the pond while playing with his cousins. She still had her five fine boys. Her daughters were all very pretty and their father doted on them. But Sarada felt vexed and cheated. She was petrified at the thought that the same women who had lauded her ‘golden womb’ would now brand her ‘begetter of girl children’ – a fate which, to her, was worse than death. Girls tended to bring others in their wake. She had to break the cycle before it got too late. She hung dozens of charms and amulets on her neck and arms and sent offerings, in secret, to the deities in Kalighat and Tarakeshwar. Her husband hadn’t foisted his religion on her, but he might be hurt if he knew she was openly worshipping idols.
The birth was difficult, they were getting increasingly difficult, but her prayers were answered. ‘Look, Saro,’ Subhankari held out the newborn, ‘it’s a boy. A boy as fair as the moon.’
Sarada smiled at the angry, puckered little face and said, ‘Tell his father I wish to name him Somendra.’ Her eyelids, blue-veined and shadowy with exhaustion, slipped over aching eyes and she sank into a state of blissful oblivion.
Sarada’s theory, twelve years ago, that her father-in-law had come back to them in the form of the child in her womb, had misfired sadly. Soudamini had come instead. But this child, Sarada noted, looked a lot like his grandfather. He would have his big, sturdy body and strong features. But the newborn’s head was somewhat larger than ordinary and so was his appetite. The wet nurse complained that he cried out incessantly to be fed and would not give her a moment’s rest. And while suckling, he clamped his gums so hard on her nipples, they hurt. Pushing away her sari from her breasts she showed them to her mistress. There were bruises around the nipples, a deep, purplish black. Sarada, of course, would have none of this nonsense and scolded her heartily, ‘Why do you think you’re here? To eat, sleep and feed your own brat? You’re here to suckle my son and that’s what you’ll do. Another word from you and out you go – you and that mewling kitten of yours.’
Genu heard this exchange and was puzzled by it. Why was Ma being so harsh with Panchi? She was such a thin, frail girl and looked so sad! Pyari Dasi had told her that Panchi’s husband had brought another wife home and the two had driven her out of the house. She had walked all the way from Sonamati village, carrying her newborn daughter in her arms. Where would she go if Ma threw her out?
Genu poured out the whole story to her husband as soon as he came in that night. More and more, she was sharing her troubles with him. Most of the time he sat, silent, thinking his own thoughts, while she prattled away happily. But, today, he took notice.
‘Did you see the marks on her breast?’ he asked, frowning.
Genu nodded. Then, with renewed enthusiasm, she said, ‘Somu is very strong. I took him in my arms one day and tried to cuddle him but he yelled so loudly and clawed my cheeks and hair so badly, I was hurt and frightened.’
‘Hmph!’ Satyendra grunted. He remembered the time his fourth brother, Birendra, was born. He had been very young then, only three years old, but he had heard his aunts whispering together, one afternoon. The child wasn’t quite normal, they said. His head was too large and there was something odd about his eyes. Biru was fourteen now. A good-looking boy with an extraordinary flair for arithmetic. He was quiet and malleable, as a rule, but was prone to sudden bursts of uncontrollable temper, following which he withdrew from everybody. He would lock himself up in a room, for hours, and fill pages and pages of his notebook with sums. His siblings and cousins would bang on the door, calling out to him to come out, but he turned a deaf ear. It was only when he heard his father ordering a servant to break down the door that he emerged with a sheepish grin on his face. Once, when he was ten, he couldn’t find paper and pencil. Picking up a piece of charcoal from a corner, it had probably fallen out of some servant’s hookah, he had covered the wall with sums. Ma refused to admit that there was anything extraordinary in that. But it had worried Babamoshai. He had sent for Dr Price Ridley and asked him to examine the child carefully. But the elderly physician had rubbished the idea of abnormality. Children did such things to attract attention, he said, and to let off steam. Birendra was a fine boy and should be allowed to grow up in his own way. What child didn’t have tempers and tantrums? Some had more; some less. They would reduce as he grew older.
But they hadn’t. If anything, the withdrawal periods were lasting longer. And, when he spoke, much of what he said seemed to be out of sync. Was the little one going to be another Birendra? There was insanity in the Tagore clan. He knew that. Piralis had been intermarrying for centuries and the effects were showing up, sometimes in this bloodline, sometimes in that. He had quite a few eccentric uncles in t
he Pathuriaghata branch. Satyendra shrugged off the thought. Even if something was wrong with his youngest sibling, there was precious little he could do about it. Turning to his wife, he said, ‘There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you. You’ve heard me speak of my friend Monomohan? Monomohan Ghosh? Well, he wants to see you.’
‘See me? But how can he see me? I’m not allowed to leave the women’s wing and Ma will never let you bring him here.’
‘I’ve got a plan. I’ll bring him to our apartment one night after everybody has fallen asleep. What do you say?’
Genu frowned. ‘But why does he want to see me?’
‘He’s my best friend. We’ve studied together for years. And we will be going to England together too. Maharani Victoria has opened the Civil Services to natives. We mean to take the examination and become ICS officers. Once I’m an ICS officer, I’ll have to travel all over the country. I’ll take you with me wherever I go. I don’t want you rotting in the women’s wing of Jorasanko all your life. Will you come with me?’
‘Of course,’ Genu said promptly, adding, ‘But your friend? What does he have to do with me?’
‘I’ve talked a lot about you. How fast you learn your lessons! How well you tell stories and recite poetry! How bold and fearless you are! He seemed very impressed. He said all the girls of our country should be like you. Can I bring him?’
‘Very well.’ Genu tossed her head carelessly. ‘Bring him.’
Satyendra was charmed by the readiness with which she fell in with his plans. Any other girl would have wept and protested and begged to be let off, from fear of being caught and punished. But Genu had a lot of courage. And she trusted him implicitly. His heart swelled with pride. What a fine spirit she had! What a splendid woman she would make!
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