by Dipika Rai
Jivkant was her husband’s from the start. She took no credit for the baby, it was an obligation fulfilled, a duty completed.
A distant train whistle makes the air quiver. Husband and wife look up. The wife runs to the door. It is a train whistle that’ll bring her son home. She has forgotten the disquiet she feels. She is anxious to have her progeny close.
‘I’m sure he can write now. The first in the family,’ she says.
‘What for would he learn to write?’ The father cannot see a life beyond the farm for himself or his children.
‘Perhaps Prem will get a chance to learn. And then Mohit.’
‘From whom, the Big House?’ he mocks her.
‘I know the Big House gives nothing away.’ She is more perspicacious than him. ‘But Prem could learn from one of Lala Ram’s twins after he gets home from work.’ She is also more optimistic than him.
‘Leave it,’ he says. ‘Reading and writing is not for us.’
‘I wish Jivkant would come,’ she says. ‘The widow Kamla has arranged Mamta’s henna ceremony.’
It is the women’s time before the wedding; laughing, talking openly about their men and completely comfortable in each other’s company.
Lata Bai undresses Mamta. Kamla helps her, pulling her clothes off her eagerly. ‘Arey, Kamla, be gentle. I am not in a hurry to send my daughter off.’ The mother looks into her daughter’s eyes and cracks her knuckles against her temples. ‘Be happy, my daughter, be happy.’
Mamta’s heart is gripped by love. A stone of tears lodges in her gullet. She swallows painfully, but doesn’t let the tears fall. She hugs her mother. Lata Bai doesn’t undo her arms this time. ‘Now remember, there will be no running home to me over the slightest problem. You will have to learn to sort things out for yourself in your husband’s house.’ Practical advice, the best salve for a sentimental heart, sounds just right for a young bride but not for someone well past her prime.
‘Oho, Lata Bai, of course she will. She’s not a child, you know. Look at her. She’s a grown woman. Surely you know all this. Right, Mamta? Right?’ Kamla will not stop till she has extracted the embarrassment to the surface on the bride-to-be’s face, just as she has the pigment from the henna leaves. Lata Bai looks away from her unfortunate daughter. Kamla gives the henna another determined stir. She has mixed the powder herself, equal parts leaf dust and okra mucus. She tests the consistency delicately on the back of her hand like she might unproved rice custard. The henna feels as slimy as an oiled snake. Perfect. She quickly rubs the paste off.
‘Don’t want to get my hands yellow like a bride’s again, now, do I?’
Kamla guffaws at her own joke. Lata Bai abandons her uneasiness and joins in the laughter, encouraging Mamta to do the same. It is unthinkable that the widow Kamla’s hands will ever be decorated again. She isn’t entitled to any kind of adornment, having shamefully outlived her husband. Now she stays dressed in one of her two white saris, next to the outhouse on her son’s farm. She makes sure her head is closely shaved and sometimes one can see her bald grey-green scalp peek out from under her sari pallav. It is because she is the only skilled midwife in these parts that she has a home at all. Cursed and thought to bring bad luck, the last three widows were chased out of town. Two went to beg at strangers’ doors, one preferred to stay, and lies very still on the temple steps. She lets her hair grow and fall down her back, but no one cares. In the old days she would have flung herself on her husband’s funeral pyre.
‘No thank you. No more husbands for me,’ Kamla says, as if she has a choice in the matter. She has let loose words that could only be said at a henna ceremony. For this one day, men are fair game. ‘But for those who still need them, it’s lucky we have Asmara Didi to cure the impotent ones,’ she guffaws. ‘Remember how she cured Lala Ram?’ She directs her story at Mamta: ‘Lala Ram tried his hand with Nathu’s daughter. Now you know Nathu’s daughter, she would have given herself to a pig if it brought her a new bangle or pair of sandals, but even she rejected Lala Ram, though he had the shop and land . . . the everything. He brought her four silk saris. No response. Hai, did she tease him good . . . walked blouse-less up and down the street right under his nose, her boobs jiggling like horse bells, and him salivating after her like a dog. He tried, but couldn’t get her to accompany him for even a minute behind the well. Finally he went to Asmara Didi for help. That concoction she whipped up really did something for him: Lala Ram couldn’t get his dhoti to behave after that, stuck out in front like a raised flag. He was so proud when someone asked if he had a pound of flour under his dhoti. They tell me the village boys applied the same concoction to the stray dog that used to feed in the rubbish tip. Had him humping all the bitches in no time!’ Kam la hoots with laughter, ‘that was something. Hump, hump, hump, up and down the street all day long, till he burst!’
Mamta looks up with a sharp jerk of her head and disbelief in her eyes, not for the story, but for the indelicacy of it, while Lata Bai shakes her head with bemused resignation from side to side. Kamla nudges Lata Bai in the ribs: ‘Your husband has taken a loan from the Big House. He is entitled to ask for her services, you know . . . if need be . . .’ The two older women are tangled in a dance of words and companionship, of shared fortunes, and experiences of plain and simple womanhood.
‘No need for Asmara Didi’s concoction in my home . . . but really, sometimes I wish mine was impotent.’ Lata Bai’s hands flitter to her mouth like butterflies to cover the embarrassing words that just left her lips. She looks up and catches sight of her daughter, brows knitted in the middle of her forehead, a question forming in her inexperienced mind. ‘Forget it . . . let’s be serious now,’ says her mother quickly.
‘Did you hear the news?’ Kamla asks earnestly.
‘Yes, about Daku Manmohan. Mamta’s father said –’
‘No, not that old news, this other thing . . . they found Sharma’s wife.’
‘You mean the one who ran away after the last big wind?’
‘Yes, what a fool, but quite a beauty, no?’
‘I guess her mother should have tattooed the “ugly” dot to spoil her perfection on her face instead of the back of her ear. I heard she ran away with the circus.’
‘Circus? No circus – with another man.’
‘Oho, what is the world coming to?’
‘It would have been better if she had run away with the circus, they never would have found her, but they did. Stripped her naked under the banyan, shaved her hair, four of Sharma’s brothers raped her and then they rubbed shit on her body.’
‘Hai, poor thing,’ says Mamta.
‘Poor thing nothing, she got what she deserved. Imagine if all the wives started running away, simply because they were unhappy,’ says Lata Bai.
‘Amma, how can you say that?’
‘Leave it, Mamta, you won’t understand. You have to be married as long as me to understand.’ Lata Bai turns to Kamla. ‘Why are you telling this story now, on this auspicious day?’ she whispers fiercely enough for Mamta to hear.
‘Okay, okay, let’s leave it, but let me tell you just one more thing . . . the poor girl has to still live with Sharma, in the cowshed. Her head stays shaved, he has already taken another wife. That’s it, no more talk about Sharma’s wife.’ She clamps a hand over her mouth. ‘Okay, so who’s doing the ceremony? Not that thief, Pundit Jasraj.’
‘Yes. He was the cheapest,’ says Lata Bai, defending her choice.
‘I believe he tried to feel up the last two brides,’ Kamla says, arresting her giggles.
‘Really? I hadn’t heard,’ lies Lata Bai. ‘Well, it won’t be a problem this time,’ she says, trying to set her daughter’s mind at rest.
‘Why not? Do you think me that ugly?’ Mamta touches her forehead. She’s heard of new brides being bathed in milk, but for her, a teaspoon of turmeric paste is what the widow Kamla prepared. Mamta rubs the turmeric off; underneath, her birthmark is a bilious caricature of its former self.
&nbs
p; ‘Oh no, Mamta. That’s not what I meant.’ It’s too late to paint over her slight, so Lata Bai changes the subject. ‘I wish Jivkant would come.’
‘Maybe he will come just as we sit down with the priest.’ What Mamta really means to say is, why would he bother? He was the cruellest of all to her. Fat little Jivkant. The love of his father’s life. From the day that he emerged, soiling Mamta’s blanket, he became the thief of his sister’s future.
The first thing to go was Mamta’s thali, her dented tin plate into the back of which her mother had impressed the symbol Ohm in tiny dots by hammering a nail in a pattern. It was given to Jivkant and Mamta began to share her mother’s thali and food. Whereas before Seeta Ram had never objected to Lata Bai preparing a thali especially for her daughter, now he wouldn’t hear of it. ‘Let her eat the leftovers,’ he said. ‘Why should I water someone else’s garden?’
‘Do you remember when I made him drink kerosene? That was something!’ Her mother looks at her with disappointed eyes. ‘Oh, come, Amma, don’t be that way. He probably has a big city job now.’
Lata Bai knew all along that Jivkant would leave; hadn’t he always believed he deserved better? She can’t remember a day when he was still inside his skin, yet Seeta Ram was surprised when his son took off, full of as much live powder as a late-firing cracker, following a train whistle to his destiny. He wanted to be an engine driver just like Lucky Sister’s husband, the one who put his wife out to work as a prostitute.
‘Perhaps he can’t get leave.’
Lata Bai’s eyes cloud over for a second. Yes, gone to a good city job over a year now and not one rupee sent back to your family. What did you say before you left? ‘Amma, look for your money order at Lala Ram’s shop every month.’ ‘Maybe he can’t get leave, but what stops him from sending us money? He had one of Lala Ram’s twins write down the address for him, not once, but twice, one for his pocket and a back-up for his satchel. The day he left, I put a red tilak on his brow and fanned the flames of the oil lamp towards his bowed head. Your father had tears in his eyes and Prem ran behind him all the way to the waiting tonga. But he left without looking back at us, twirling his moustache. He was so eager to go. I went to Lala Ram’s shop every month for a whole year, sometimes twice, sometimes thrice a month.’
At first Lala Ram would give her some brown sugar – for the children – he’d say. Then later, when he saw her approaching, he would go into the back, reluctant to deal with her expectation and disappointment. Finally, he started shooing her away from a distance, saying, ‘Go away, he maybe lost . . . dead . . . the city swallows them up.’
I know my son isn’t dead or lost. If anyone could make it in the city, it would be Jivkant. So where are those promised money orders?
Her husband has prepared his verbal offence carefully. He will let loose his tirade upon his son as soon as he sees him. There will be no ‘When will you help us? After we are dead?’ or ‘Look at your mother, her eyes swollen from crying every night.’ No, he will appeal to his intellect, because he knows, sure as the red birthmark on Mamta’s forehead, that his son has learned the most useless skill of all – to read and write – and is now an educated man.
‘Even if he does show up at the last minute, he won’t bring any money with him. Of that I’m sure,’ says the mother, still hoping she is wrong, but armouring herself against disappointment by pointing out the worst.
‘Leave it. It may be a man’s country, Lata Bai, but you will get joy only from the girls,’ counters Kamla. ‘Why, even the men see the dependability in our sex. Just see how they organise their lives so that they can be looked after by a woman. Have you seen one in our village that isn’t married? Have you seen one widowed father who hasn’t got a daughter or a daughter-in-law looking after him? I tell you, we were better off when our country was looked after by a woman Prime Minister. Poor thing, murdered like that, and her sons too. Just look at us now, under this big man Atal Bihari Vajpayee, bandits running wild as weeds. I might have to shave my head as a concession to the men, but it is only because our sex has the true power.’ Kamla’s features have long acquired that androgynous look of so many women who are forbidden from celebrating their femaleness.
‘What power, Didi? They keep us pregnant from year to year. I say to Mamta’s father, the country is moving into a new era. Our children aren’t dying like they used to because of the government’s survival drops. I tell you, those things have magic in them. There hasn’t been one curled leg in Gopalpur since the drought. Remember how bad it used to be? The legs of girls, and even boys, used to just wither and die at the slightest sign of unseasonable rain. Remember?’ Sickness in the family was the most debilitating thing of all. With each waking minute accounted for, there was never any time to look after the sick, especially when it required collecting special herbs and plants and supplicating the gods. Who had the time to make poultice after poultice or check on a fever? None but the old and the discarded, who more often than not perished together with their patients. But things have changed with the city mobile clinics making sporadic forays into the villages, bringing medicines, cures and vaccinations. ‘You’ve seen the change? Whenever those doctor-vans come from the city, I go to the Big House for my dose. To tell you the truth, I have more faith in them than in Asmara Didi, though Mamta’s father will say that is blasphemy. I can tell it to you straight, their medicines work better than hers. Why can’t we use those things that stop the babies from coming?’
The mobile clinics not only bring polio drops for the children but birth control pills and IUDs for the women. Though the women know not to couple in the middle of their cycle, because that is the most blessed time, no one understands the nature of pills. To take one every night to stop a baby from happening sounds too much like magic. IUDs they accept, but it is a brave woman who has an IUD inserted without the knowledge of her husband. Recently the van brought Nirodh condoms. Nirodh, the sheath to a happy life, that’s what the advertisement says, that is what Lata Bai believes.
‘My husband refuses. He says . . .’ she lowers her voice and cups her hand to her mouth, pouring her words directly into the older, more experienced, woman’s ears, ‘he says it isn’t natural that there should be something between a man and woman when they are, they are . . . you know what. It’s not satisfying, like smelling the smoke from another’s hookah.’ She raises her voice back up again: ‘He has a third ear that hears those thoughts before I have them. Look at me, a new baby only weeks old, and I am marrying off my first daughter. My second daughter has children older than mine. Now what’s the sense in that? Weren’t six children enough? I think it’s because we have no other form of entertainment, but to, to . . .’
‘Is it that? Or is it because our religion demands it?’
‘When it suits us, we follow the letter of our religion. We all aspire to emulate the myths, should we all have a hundred sons, just like the Kaurav clan then?’
‘I agree with you, Lata Bai, but someone has to think about such things to want to change them. I was lucky I only had sons, three sons, and then my husband died. That Seeta Ram of yours sees his friends having one child after another. He thinks, more children . . . more hands to work the fields . . . a better crop, he doesn’t see them as mouths to feed. What do you expect from that husband of yours, then?’
‘Nothing, I suppose,’ says Lata Bai, suddenly realising that her husband is a weak man, whose inaction will continue to cost her dearly, just as it did when she first married him and was repeatedly raped by his father. But in fact Lata Bai is wrong, Seeta Ram is not just a weak man, he is a cruel man; a cruel man whose brutality isn’t deliberate, but stems from something as innocuous as an unquestioning nature. And therefore it is the worst kind of cruelty, that can’t be shut off at will. Where the wind blows, Seeta Ram will follow. He will never be one to change anything.
‘Still, Lata Bai, if you really look at it, seven children in twenty years is nothing. You have to consider yourself lucky that you aren’t lik
e your Seeta Ram’s cousin’s wife, married fifteen years with fourteen children to show for it, five of them already dead, one stupid in the head and one not able to walk. At least yours are healthy.’
‘Yes, I suppose they are healthy, for the most part. Though Mamta’s hair has been getting more orange these last few months, and Sneha’s getting that big belly on her matchstick legs.’
‘Oho, come now, now’s not the time to talk of this,’ says Kamla, putting an arm around her friend’s despondent shoulders.
But Lata Bai is a train, off and running. ‘No, she should know how to protect herself.’ She shakes with humourless laughter. ‘What protection can there be against a man who wants to couple? Eh, daughter, if after sex you start itching down there, make sure you wash with lemon juice and neem tea. But if you start making pimples and fainting, then you have to find some government doctor man to help you – that’s if your husband will allow you to go to one. The pimpling disease has no cure, though you can try Asmara Didi’s prescription – drinking your own piss.’
Mamta listens intently while pretending not to, gelled solid by equal parts embarrassment and fear.
‘Lata Bai! Does she have to know all this?’
‘Yes! Yes, she does. I am her only defence. You know how it was with poor Lalita.’ All the women of Gopalpur are familiar with Lalita’s story, though the men hardly discuss it at all. ‘Now you listen to me, Mamta: it’s our place to accept, and accept . . . be demure. Don’t say anything till addressed, don’t make a sound, don’t do anything to make him beat you, because you’ll only have yourself to blame for it. If you displease him, he will beat you. And if you do something really bad, then he might hold you over the stove and start by singeing the hair from your eyebrows, and after that, it’s burning to death and a hasty burial. You remember how Lalita turned up at the well, looking like a boiled egg.’ Even now the memory of that day makes the two older women shudder. An impertinent wind had blown Lalita’s pallav off her burned dome, and they had put their hands to their lips and laughed out loud. Lata Bai and Kamla couldn’t stop even when the poor creature was far away, a tiny speck chased by laughter. She had left her pots behind, and they never thought to return them.