Her husband, Mahadevan, on the other hand was a linguist. He could read and write in five languages. He learned Tamil and English early in life, and when he graduated from Presidency College in Madras, his command over the English language was perfected. It was here he developed a love for English poetry and could quote eloquently from Shakespeare and Byron. In his free time, he read voraciously and mastered all the Greek and English classics. It was essential to have complete mastery over English, the language of the rulers, especially since he planned to join the Indian Civil Service. Even more admirable, as a child he studied the Vedas and could chant passages from both the Rig and the Sama Vedas. This initial training sharpened his ability to read and memorize. After spending a year in Cambridge, on passing his Civil Service exams, he was assigned to the Bengal cadre. In a short period of time, he became fluent in both Hindi and Bengali. Exceptional intelligence combined with a natural flair made languages come easily to him.
Mahadevan was certainly a scholar with a gift of memory, a complete contrast to Dharmu, who was uneducated except for a few years of private tutoring before marriage. She was the antithesis of whatever he stood for. Her knowledge of written Tamil was rudimentary, just enough to write letters to her family. She was definitely not ready to be presented to his British peersand certainly not to his superiors. Mahadevan had decided he would have to train her to speak in Hindi, to at least be able to communicate with the servants and run the household. Now that her Hindi was better, she was learning English.
Poor Dharmu. She could just not roll her tongue around those alien words. Every time a new phrase came up, she wrote it down in Tamil and practiced phonetically all day.
“Meera paani laao.” “Bring the water.”
“Khaana garam karo.” “Heat the food.”
Just when she had built a reasonable repertoire of Hindi phrases, Mahadevan got transferred to Rangpur in East Bengal as the Assistant Collector. Now she had to deal with Bengali. She could not help thinking it would have been so much nicer if she had married someone with a comfortable job as a clerk in her native south, where she could speak Tamil. Life was not fair. You never got what you wanted, just what you deserved, which was not always what you needed.
Dharmu was in fact blessed. Very few Indians had the opportunities she did, or the lifestyle. She lived in a huge house with a battalion of servants, where she did not even have to lift a spoon; someone always offered to do it for her. Most women would give anything to be in her place but for Dharmu this lifestyle was totally alien. She was brought up in a conservative Brahmin home and her formal education consisted of rudimentary reading and writing skills. Other than that, all she knew were basic household chores, skills redundant here in her new home, where there were servants who did it all. She married Mahadevan at the age of twelve and continued to live with her parents until she matured. In the meantime, Mahadevan went to England, absorbed in the grand task of preparing for the Civil Service exams.
When Dharmu got her first menstrual period, her parents took her to Nagarcoil, where the nuptials were arranged on Mahadevan’s return from the U.K. Almost immediately after Mahadevan’s return, she became pregnant. She delivered her first daughter, Vani, when she was only fifteen years old and her whole life then centered on raising her daughter. She was taught from infancy that she should spend her life devoted to her husband; his word was law and his wish her command. When she spoke to him it was only in monosyllables and the thought of crossing or challenging him never entered her mind. She was totally in awe of him. Though he was short and a little on the plump side, he exuded an air of confidence without ever being arrogant. His requests, though at times seemingly unreasonable, were made after careful consideration and always purposeful and directed, with a higher intent in mind. Dharmu was scared of him in some ways, and for the first few years of their marriage, never raised her eyes to meet his. It helped in the initial stage of her marriage; she was either with her in-laws or at her parents’ for her confinement, limiting her interaction with him. Only after the birth of her second daughter Rukmini, did she move from Nagarcoil to live with Mahadevan in Bengal.
As instructed, Meera walked in moments later with the dhuno. She had just given Kandu a bath and left him in the care of the bearer while she heated coals on the stove. Meera brought the red-hot coals in an ornate brass container and sprinkled powdered incense over it, allowing fragrant smoke to emerge, filling the air with the pungent smell of sulphur. Every morning and evening it was Meera’s job to prepare the dhuno and allow the smoke to fill the rooms. The sulphur in the incense acted as a disinfectant and its strong smell prevented mosquitoes from taking over the house. Rangpur was overrun with mosquitoes. At dusk, they rose from the stagnant marshes in droves, to feed on the helpless flesh of unsuspecting victims, at times, resulting in huge and fatal outbreaks of malaria. The dhuno was the only way to keep the mosquitoes at bay.
Twice a week, on Tuesdays and Fridays, Dharmu washed her hair using imported Yardley shampoo and Meera dried it and combed it into place. This was quite a job because Dharmu was blessed with an abundant head of hair. Without oil to flatten it down, her wavy tresses would swell outward reaching alarming proportions, rising to float almost parallel to the ground. Meera gently wiped her hair with the towel, squeezing out all the excess water. Covering the brass container with a coir basket, she helped Dharmu lie down, allowing the fumes to permeate her thick curtain of curls. Dharmu sighed and relaxed her tense shoulders, luxuriating in the heat emanating from the coals and the fragrance of incense.
Taking advantage of Dharmu’s good mood, Meera began, “Memsahib? Can I bring my daughter, Kamala, to stay here for ten days?”
“Why? Isn’t your mother-in-law there?”
“No, Memsahib, she has gone on a pilgrimage. Kamala is only sixteen and I don’t like her to be all by herself.”
“What about your husband. Can’t he take care of her?”
“No, Memsahib; he is away and Kamala has to be alone. Many men hover around with bad intentions. I don’t want anything to happen to her.” Dharmu coughed as the fumes became thick and Meera was quick to disperse the smoke with a palm hand fan. Dharmu was in a benevolent mood.
“Okay, go next week and bring her back. But make sure the cook’s wife comes and helps when you are gone.”
“Thank you, Memsahib. Kamala won’t be any trouble. She is a good girl. She’ll sleep with me and play with Kandu baba. Thank you, Memsahib.”
Meera felt much lighter knowing that her daughter was going to be with her soon and she waved the fan energetically. In a few minutes, Dharmu’s hair was bone dry and Meera took the brass container of incense to all the rooms, filling the air with its smoldering scent.
Dharmu went to her closet, her wooden almirah, to choose her sari. Her almirah was organization personified. Saris arranged in neat piles, each folded edge to edge in even rectangles, sorted by color, texture and design, and it was sacrilege to keep the blues with the reds. On the top shelf were Kanjeevaram saris with heavy gold embroidery, one pile for weddings and another with slightly less ornate work for less important occasions. On the next shelf were silk saris with checks and gold work. Next was the shelf for crepe saris, which had recently become very fashionable. Then, those for daily wear in plain colored silk with simple gold borders. Another shelf had satin petticoats in every conceivable color next to which were jackets arranged in two neat piles: velvet jackets for evening wear and white ones in fine cotton for daily wear. On the lowest shelf were shoes lined in order: slippers for the house, slippers for the bathroom, closed pointed satin topped shoes for evening wear, some with stone buckles, others ornately embroidered in gold and colored silken thread. Covered in muslin at the back of this massive almirah were colorful evening bags, each opulently decorated with colored stones and beads.
Since Dharmu was going to be in the house for the rest of the day, she chose a simple peacock blue sari with a magenta border. By the time Meera returned to make her hair, she h
ad draped the sari in the more contemporary six-yard style, with the pleats in front and the thalapu or free end draped over the left shoulder. She had a few traditional nine-yard saris for religious occasions, preferring the convenience of the six-yard style for everyday wear.
Meera walked in just as Dharmu put a huge kumkumam pottu on her large forehead. Taming Dharmu’s unruly hair was a complicated task. First she oiled it with fragrant, jasmine-scented coconut oil, pouring out just the right amount from the bottle. Carefully wiping it with a piece of paper, she placed the bottle back in its spot on the upper right hand corner of the dressing table. Next, she took out the comb from a box which had six hairpins, one hairnet and one round ring, each in individually wrapped muslin bundles. Combing was the most difficult task because the shampoo created tangles in her already wild head of hair. It had to be done in sections, with each lock of hair wrapped around her fingers so it would not pull on the scalp.
“Memsahib, the maali says that two men were attacked in his village. There’s a tiger that has got the taste for humans. Maali says it is an old animal that has lost some of its teeth.”
“I know. Sahib says there have been many attacks. He has asked for help from the government. They will send someone to take care of it. Don’t worry, nothing will happen.”
“I am not worried, Memsahib. The maali’s village is ten kilometers away from mine. His village is surrounded by thick jungle. Last year, the maali’s son was attacked by a tiger while he was grazing cattle. He tried to shoo the tiger away with a stick to save the cows. Imagine that! Very brave boy. The tiger bit him on his leg and he got a very high fever. They had to cut off his leg to stop the fever. Be thankful, at least he is alive, I told maali.”
“I hope the tiger doesn’t come near this house Meera. Make sure baba doesn’t step outside the compound walls.”
Kandu came prancing in just in time to overhear the last bit of the conversation.
“What tiger? Is there a tiger here? Can I see it?”
“No Kandu, no tiger here and no, you cannot see it.”
When Meera inadvertently pulled a hair on Dharmu’s scalp, she cried out angrily. “Be careful, Meera. You know how I hate it when you do that.”
“Sorry, Memsahib,” said a contrite Meera, not wanting to spoil Dharmu’s mood.
Dharmu was not terribly patient and if by chance she felt the sharp pain from the comb pulling at the tangle, she would not hesitate to lash out at Meera, both verbally and physically. Once the knots were removed, Meera passed the hair through the round coil and twisted it in sections, pinning it in place with exactly six hairpins. She washed the comb with soap and water, wiping it thoroughly. Then she wrapped it in muslin and placed it in the same spot inside the box. After six months of scolding and training, Meera had perfected the routine and the whole process was completed without any untoward incident. She took the home slippers from the coat stand and placed them on the floor helping Dharmu to ease her feet into them.
The ‘Queen of Rangpur’ was now dressed and ready.
CHAPTER 6 – DHARMU
SOMETIME LATER
Dharmu walked out onto the verandah where breakfast was served. The verandah ran all around the house; every room had access to it. The breakfast table was in the front of the house, from where one could see the rising sun and admire the brilliant green foliage of the nearby forest.
She sat down on the cushioned, white wicker chair and surveyed the spread. There was oatmeal porridge, toast with yellow butter and marmalade and plenty of fruits – melon, golden yellow papaya, apples and grapes. Everything had been laid out perfectly: the porcelain plates and side plates, crystal glasses and pitchers and silverware. How life had changed. She was no longer the village bumpkin squatting on the floor eating off a banana leaf with her fingers and licking the back of her hands. No, now she had almost become a British Memsahib.
As she spooned the warm porridge into her mouth, Dharmu smiled, thinking of the first time she had used a fork and knife, clamping her hands around them like a fist, trying to attack the food, flinging it in the general direction of her mouth. She didn’t get to eat much back then because Mahadevan’s instructions were she could only eat the food that went into her mouth using the fork. How strange these foreign implements were! Wouldn’t it be easier simply to use your fingers and put the food directly into your mouth than to try and juggle these strange tools, which were thoroughly useless to begin with? You could only stick the fork into a small morsel of food and by the time you got that fork to travel the distance to your mouth, the chunk would fall off. It was frustrating! Initially, she kept her face about an inch away from the plate, shoveling the meal into her waiting mouth to make sure the maximum amount entered her open and hungry orifice, but now she had learned to sit upright like a true English Mem and slide in delicate morsels through partly open lips. What an achievement! Finally, she could get up from the breakfast table with a full stomach.
She sat and watched Kandu play in the garden. He had put on a tiger mask made of real tiger skin, which Meera had brought for him from her village. There he was, prancing around on all fours, growling and purring, pretending to be a tiger, much to the excitement of their dog, Raja, who was yelping, barking and cavorting around Kandu. Dharmu smiled, marveling at Kandu’s ability to amuse himself. She sighed and took a deep breath, taking a moment to admire her home.
The house sat on the outskirts of town close to the forest. It was situated within a huge compound enclosed by a high wall, with glass shards embedded on top to prevent thieves from climbing over. In the front was a small room where the chowkidars sat, as they guarded the house. There were always two of them at any time, changing shifts every eight hours, all Kandu’s playmates. With no neighbors nearby, Kandu had no friends his age, so he was forced to make the battalion of servants at home his friends. He loved playing ‘soldier,’ his favorite game, with the chowkidars, although it peeved him that they would never lend him their guns. Kandu never stopped asking for it in case one of them relented under pressure.
Rangpur weather converted the garden into a verdant Shangri-La, with plenty of fruit and flowering trees. Of course, having a head maali with four assistant gardeners certainly helped. There were lime and tamarind trees, mango and pineapple trees, tropical frangipani, hibiscus and colorful bougainvillea, roses in every color imaginable and about fifteen varieties of jasmine. In one corner of the garden, vegetables grew seasonally: tomatoes and basil, curry leaves, snake gourd and all kinds of squash. The green, evenly mowed lawn was large enough to play golf on, though the family used it to play croquet. The maalis worked very hard; they understood and loved the garden, nurturing every plant as they transitioned from seed to flower. The rains made the colors even more vibrant but often it rained too much and then as the rivers broke their banks, the gushing waters would destroy the garden, reducing it to a soggy marshland. Then, when the waters receded, the maalis would begin afresh with renewed vigor, never despairing but instead simply working with nature, accepting her bounty and her wrath.
For this very reason, the main house stood on a raised platform. A flight of stairs went up along the front and the back of the house. The house was painted white, with green windows and doors. White wicker sofas and easy chairs, as well as wicker breakfast table and chairs, lined the front of the verandah. A spacious living room greeted guests as they entered through the front door. The red granite floor was covered in Kashmir silk carpets on which were placed European style, heavy, rosewood furniture. Dharmu had no real decorating sense, so the room remained simple with very little adornment. Leading out of the living room, the dining room held a magnificent teak table for twelve. One end of the room near the kitchen contained a pantry that the bearer used as he brought food from the kitchen to serve the family.
At the other end was a large powder room, with two doors for easy access from the living area as well. It had a washstand with a porcelain jug and basin as well as a thunder box. There was no running water i
n the house and the bearer made sure that the jug was filled periodically and ready for use.
Three large bedrooms occupied the right side of the house, all equipped with mahogany four-poster beds and mosquito netting. Each bedroom had its own bath area with a door to the verandah for the cleaners to access it without entering the main house. On the left of the house was Mahadevan’s study with his large collection of books and a sturdy mahogany desk. Sometimes, when it rained too much, government work would be conducted from here. Since all the rooms had access to the verandah, the coming and going of people didn’t disturb the family. Another bedroom for guests and a capacious storeroom flanked the study. The dark, cool storeroom contained several large meat safes — wooden cupboards with netting in front, perfect for storing meat, food grains and perishables. Dharmu did not go in here very often but she unlocked the room once a day so the cook could take out supplies. On bazaar day, she sat outside the room on a chair, keeping a close watch on everything that was taken in or out. Nothing could get past her eagle eyes. One couldn’t be too careful. These servants were thieves.
The house lacked a pooja room, a prayer room, common in every Indian household. Nevertheless, in spite of being extremely westernized, Mahadevan was a devout Hindu. In his study he had a small altar with a silver lamp and vibuthi. He never failed to pray each day after his bath.
Kandu walked into the verandah wailing, “Mummyyyy… Rukku pinched me.” He held out his arm, red and swollen where his sister Rukmini, or Rukku, as she was called at home, had pinched him. Dharmu lifted Kandu onto her lap and kissed his wound. Just a moment ago he was a brave tiger and now he was reduced to tears because Rukku had pinched him.
“What did you do?”
“Nothing. By mistake I tore her homework,” he said, staring up at her with large tear-filled eyes. Dharmu smiled.
She knew there was no mistake here. Kandu was mischievous and always took advantage of Mummy and Daddy’s adoration. He got away with anything he did, even if it was ‘by mistake.’ She thought of the many mistakes she had forgiven. By ‘mistake’ I punched her stomach, by ‘mistake’ I put a cockroach in her food and by ‘mistake’ I cut up her favorite dress. All was forgiven but then, Kandu was special. He was a male child, born to do great things like his father. The girls … well, they just needed to be cared for until suitable husbands were chosen for them.
When the Lotus Blooms Page 4