by Dipika Rai
‘Poor Lalita, her husband gave her the disease and then denied her the medicine. And finally, he burned her to death so he could have a cleaner, healthier wife,’ says Kamla. ‘Yes, you better listen sharp to your mother. No one will be able to interfere or help you if you get in trouble. But enough now, Lata Bai, we have shared enough secrets. Let’s talk about something else. Tell me, what about that Ragini of yours? Lucky girl.’
‘Yes, she is blessed,’ says Lata Bai, her words heavy with pride. Lata Bai never worried about Ragini. Golden Ragini, blessed with beauty so unassailable that it was impossible not to be awed by it. Mamta took care of Ragini like her very own child, and at fifteen Ragini was married and gone before her elder sister got even one offer of marriage.
The groom’s family had approached her. He was a gentle soul, with no ambition. One look into his face and Lata Bai knew his type instantly. He would be ruled by Ragini. Seeta Ram sold the family cow for the wedding. He’d insisted on a grand wedding because Ragini’s in-laws seemed so rich and refined. For years Lata Bai dreaded seeing her daughter returned to her scarred and burned because she didn’t bring in enough dowry.
But Lata Bai doesn’t have to worry any more. Her daughter’s position in her new home is secure with the birth of her children: two sets of male twins, little darling children, with large dancing eyes like rabbits, all bright and black with kohl. Of course she would have produced only boys. Golden Ragini.
‘Even the mother-in-law, who thinks she’s spoilt, can’t touch one hair on her head.’ Lata Bai laughs silently inside. ‘Bless you, Ragini,’ she says, ‘bless you. Live, my child, like I never did. No, I don’t worry about her at all. She is loved by all those who know her.’
‘I’ve heard that. She is loved by too many, in fact. She should be careful. Thoo, thoo, thoo, thoo,’ Kamla spits into the four directions to ward off any evil spirits who might be hovering, waiting to ruin Ragini’s future. ‘Stop that! Running your hands through the bucket like a thief through gold! How can I pattern your hands if your whole palm is red?’ says Kamla. But it is too late. It’s good henna. Sneha’s hands are already a strong orange. Kamla laughs and puts them on her cheeks.
‘Yellow hands already, and still so young,’ says Lata Bai with a tear in her voice.
The women sing. Mamta is quiet. Kamla dances, her hips strangely agile for her age and her widowhood. Lata Bai feels very much that she is losing a part of herself, something that should have been cut from her a long time ago. But she has grown so attached to her eldest that she doesn’t know how she’ll survive without her.
‘I am the fruit on your vine, craving water from your hand.
Why do I let you go, my innocent one?
I am the dove in your cage, cooing for your attention,
Why do I let you go, my innocent one?
When your palanquin departs there will be emptiness . . .’
Kamla’s feet stir up puffs of dust. Dhhub, dhhub, dhhub . . . she leaves definite footprints in the earth.
‘Enough, Didi, that’s enough. Let’s sing something more cheerful. This song is putting a grinding stone on my chest.’
‘So what’s it to be?’
‘The groom’s song. Let’s do the groom’s song.’
‘Come, come, my beloved
I wait here, dyed in love
Without you there is no garland,
No jasmine, no rose, no queen of the night, no blossom.
Without you there is no sense in jewellery,
No bangle, no earring, no necklace, no hair braid.
Without you there is no pleasure in adornment,
No kohl, no rouge, no powder, no henna . . .’
Kamla claps her unpainted hands, while the other three smile at the words of the deeply familiar wedding songs. The songs stir up Mamta’s excitement again; she is eager to accept her new life. She chooses to ignore the example of her mother’s marriage, the story of singed and burned Lalita, and Sharma’s runaway wife. Her fate will be different. She will bring indomitable love to her duty and like a river bursting its dam it will be unstoppable, covering everything in its path, much like the dust of Gopalpur.
The green henna patterns glisten industriously. Lata Bai will wash her hands off ahead of time, in accordance with custom, else her husband will never cook his own food. It was the same for Ragini’s wedding; after painting her hands with henna she’d had to wash them to cook the evening meal. Lucky for her, her hands receive colour willingly.
Mamta is careful with her pattern. Every so often she dabs her hands with lamp oil. A dark pattern means she will be loved by her mother-in-law.
A new life at last. Something to be excited about at last. Marriage at last. What is marriage? Coupling. Sex. Disease. Her mother’s words have unsettled her, but then Nature calls out to her, shouting louder than her unsettled feeling. The whole universe seems to be in harmony with her being, a part of the same crescendo. Everywhere she looks she sees the signs, and in them reads the language of love: long beans entwined passionately on their vine, pumpkin flowers nuzzling each other, doves necking, weaver birds building their nests . . . She sinks luxuriously into her new womanly feeling.
She knows what is expected of her. Still this wedding is a dream. A love dream. She lies on the floor in the cool of her hut, palms up to the ceiling. Her mother lets her be, it might be the last time.
Lata Bai can see Mamta’s chest rise and fall in contented breaths. In spite of her age, her daughter looks tiny, lying stretched out like that. Lata Bai crushes the urge to lie beside her. She remembers the days when she had sung her daughter songs and told her stories, correcting her notions with playful lies and filling her heart with fanciful images of pearly halos on kings’ heads and mysterious forests filled with magical creatures with immense powers. Lata Bai watered the desert of her daughter’s intellect with colours and bubbles, and as she grew up, she’d added an immense amount of practical knowledge, which Mamta remembers more by rote than anything else. What was the true value of her gift? Did she give her daughter mirages to accompany her on her unwary journey, or prosaic knowledge that could rescue her wandering heart from the worst dangers of ignorance and injustice? Did she solidly carve out a place in this world for her or keep her seeking in vain for what could never be found? Did she give her sadness or vision?
Lata Bai feels the anxiety burbling up into her throat. Oh, Devi, make him a good man. Jai ho Devi, Devi jai ho.
‘Amma, what was that you and Kamla were saying about the lemons and babies? Who will I ask about all that when you are not there? Amma, I’m afraid.’
‘Tch, tch, you are getting married, not going to some hell.’ ‘Look what happened to Lalita and her sister.’ ‘Oho, that’s not going to happen to you.’ It is time to put things in perspective, so Mamta can realise that she is better off than the sisters. ‘You won’t be like Lalita. You will be a good wife. You won’t be like her sister either, expecting a baby from God knows whom. You will be a good girl.’ Lata Bai has only words, but she knows there are no guarantees. Lalita, burned for no fault of her own, but only because she became sickly, and her sister, sent to the Red Bazaar soon after her baby was born because she was unfortunate enough to get pregnant with her own father’s child. Lata Bai has seen the boy, no longer a baby, at Saraswati Stores and has to drag her thoughts away from his history. He was accepted by his grandmother as one of her own to redress the deficiency of a womb that produced only girls. Had he been a girl, he wouldn’t be alive today.
Her disquiet temporarily allayed, Mamta rolls on to her stomach, propping her chin up with the backs of her open hands, still careful with her hennaed palms. ‘Tell me about Shakuntala. Just the short version. How she had pearls in her hair and beauty –’
‘No, enough!’ says Lata Bai, slightly annoyed now by her memory. Each time she’d told that story, she’d replaced the main character with her own daughter. But it is now time to acknowledge that Mamta is anything but beautiful. Fantasies are the worst thi
ng a bride can take to her new home.
Mamta lingers all day with her hennaed hands held out to the sun like a beggar asking for alms. It is custom, and custom alone that makes this the women’s day, the day they rest and beautify themselves. Seeta Ram doesn’t approve, but he can’t do anything about it. Today Lata Bai and Sneha will do all the cooking.
‘I am the fruit on your vine, craving water from your hand.
Why do I let you go, my innocent one?
I am the dove in your cage, cooing for your attention,
Why do I let you go, my innocent one?
When your palanquin departs there will be emptiness . . .’
It is a while before Lata Bai realises she is humming Kamla’s song. She switches off her internal melody; it brings her no pleasure. Today Mamta will become paraya, the other, and when she needs succour or solace after this day, she may not seek it from her mother because she belongs to another.
Shanti has been quiet most of the day. Lata Bai has fed her twice since the morning, but she didn’t feel like sucking much. She’s blown on her face at least four times for a reaction since the morning to make sure she was still alive. She would have skimmed off some of the daal water for her, but because of the weevils she thinks she might stick to breast milk today.
She looks in on the baby. She is sleeping peacefully, each eye ringed by a cluster of flies thick as smudged kohl. She shoos off the flies, wets the corner of her pallav in some water and bends over her to clean out her eyes. Then she changes her mind. Instead she opens her blouse and squeezes a bit of milk out of her wrinkled right nipple. She cleans the baby’s eyes with breast milk. Shanti whimpers, but stays sleeping. Her forehead feels clammy, but Lata Bai ignores the dampness and goes about her business with gusto. If her daughter has to fall sick at all, she is determined that it will be only when the government doctor-van arrives in Gopalpur, and not a moment before.
‘You know what, they are coming to the wedding. I overheard Ram Singh Sahib and Lokend Sahib talking to each other,’ Prem bursts in, followed by the sweet smell of roses. ‘Look what I’ve brought back. When I told Asmara Didi my sister was getting married today she cut all her roses and gave them to me. “Go, decorate your house like a king,” she said to me.’
‘I wish she’d given us something to feed the guests instead,’ says Lata Bai. ‘Did you get any butter? Any milk?’
‘Yes, yes . . .’ He pulls out a parcel of ficus leaves from his kurta pocket and a pot of milk. The leaves glisten from the grease. The smell of stale milk mingles with the roses.
‘She’ll part with fresh roses, but not fresh butter.’
Prem looks at his mother, at the unfamiliar sound of bitterness in her voice. ‘Look, I got this too –’ He places a lump of jaggery in her hand, the size of a grapefruit, and looks at her, his eyes saying Happy?
She looks away. Yes, she should be happy . . . one daughter producing only sons, one son with a good job in the railway, Prem working at the Big House and bringing back pats of butter and, after Mamta’s wedding, one less female mouth to feed. What more can she ask for? What more could her heart possibly want?
‘Sneha, get to work!’
‘Amma, there’s time yet.’ Sneha wants to leave the henna on her hands a little longer.
‘Sneha,’ she warns, ‘chapattis.’
‘Yes, Amma.’ She washes her hands in a cup of water. ‘What about Jivkant Bhaia?’
‘And what about your brother? A fancy job and not one rupee sent back to his family in all this time.’ She speaks in the third person to disassociate herself from her offspring.
Prem says nothing, but his eyes give him away. Jivkant is who Prem aspires to be, except for the not-one-rupee-sent-back-to-his-family part. Perhaps one day he too will leave to find his place on a train going somewhere. He can hear the faintest whistle blow across the fields, and when it does, he lifts his head suddenly like a watchdog and looks over to see if there is any smoke, proof that the whistle isn’t just a fibrillation of his desire. He doesn’t know what Jivkant has made of his life, but he’s meant to be coming back for Mamta’s wedding. That much he knows. Prem had taken his brother’s letter to the Big House to be read, and it said that Jivkant was coming back. Prem had wondered if Jivkant had written the letter himself and for a moment he’d felt the high fever of jealousy ride up under his skin and bring a flush to his face.
‘Even Lucky Sister sent us something. She didn’t just fritter the money away on herself, and she had more reason to . . . the way we all shunned her,’ says Lata Bai. In spite of her anger she can see that comparing her son’s railway job to her sister’s prostitution is unfair. ‘Still, there’s time. Perhaps he will show up for the wedding tonight, after all. Well, you might as well put the roses out. Keep a few nice ones for your sisters’ hair,’ she says, softening.
Lata Bai pulls the sari tight round her daughter’s waist. At her age, Mamta still can’t get the pleats right. Sneha is more accomplished at tying a sari.
‘Stand up straight!’ The mother tugs at the five-metre cloth, dragging her daughter with it like a piece of driftwood on a sea of red. ‘Can’t you stand still?’ Mamta goes rigid to obey her mother’s command, but the moment is spoilt.
The widow Kamla left straight after lunch, so there are no outsiders at the house now. Though Prem has been sent home early by Asmara Didi to help with the wedding preparations, he works the fields with his father and brother. Why waste labour? Almost a man, his back is bent over exactly like Seeta Ram’s. He is most like his father physically, but he has his mother’s softness. Mohit never turned out quite as robust. He has the delicate frame of a girl, long wiry legs and a skinny chest with two sunken nipples defiling the even brown terrain.
‘We’re off.’ The mother is dressed in her green sari. The one she wears on every special occasion. It looks new. Her oiled hair makes a huge knot at the nape of her neck. She has no need for pins. The man and boys look up in unison.
They briefly see a flash of green, one of pale orange and another of red. Seeta Ram recognises the red sari as the one he bought for Mamta for her wedding with borrowed money last week. He shakes his head, trying to rid himself of the memory of the incarcerating thumbprint.
The women walk purposefully away, Lata Bai carrying a thali with a bit of jaggery, sindhoor and rose petals. Sneha holds Shanti; and Mamta, the bride-to-be, walks unfettered. The flute plays on.
The evenings here are long and languid, it is well before sunset.
The mother sets the pace, slow, sure, deferential. The flame has gone out of the sunshine. Still the stones cling to their heat and poke the women’s bare feet. At this time of day the land is feminine. It is full of colour, both divine and human.
A waterline meandering home from the well intersects their path. Sneha lifts her hand, filtering the sun through her pallav. There is no pantone for that particular orange, diluted with sunshine, distilled through the muslin, alive, organic, elemental, yet changing as soon as the mind grasps its tone. It is truly a colour created from the earth. Here the women prepare their own dyes from leaves and tubers. It takes three seasons to extract an unyielding indigo blue, and even longer for a hectic yellow that doesn’t fade. But what is time to them? They have learned that degree of patience that favours minute industry, recherché dyeing techniques, intricate patterns, tiny stitches, weaving something out of nothing. And yet, they take their colours for granted and don’t recognise the certain alchemy of the turquoise green as deep as a bountiful pond; or the freedom of the yellow as weighty as a sunflower dial; or the self-indulgence of the saffron as loquacious as a cloudy sunset. The women go quietly about their business, unaware of the psychedelic circus that endures without their attendance.
At this hour, the men can be found under the banyan smoking a hookah and listening to the news on Lala Ram’s transistor radio. The power of this innocuous activity cannot be overstated. Talk, and implicit belief in the common wisdom of the peer group is what unites them. There i
s only one type of man under the banyan in this place of tight traditions and few choices, cut from a die which fashions uncomplicated puzzle shapes that link easily together to form a larger picture. Each time someone wants to break free, he is reminded of Kalu, the untouchable Sudra who dared to bring water from the village well a mile away instead of the river four miles off. He had every bone in his Sudra body broken and his wife had her nose cut off. Such popular justice is the staunchest protector of tradition, and deviation, even the slightest one, is unimaginable.
Seeta Ram hurries to the banyan to catch the tail end of the news on the communal transistor. The news is slow today, so the men twiddle the knobs till they hear the scratchy sound of Hindi movie music. These days they strain to listen for word about the bandit surrender, but it doesn’t come.
The Red Ruins are waiting for the women, pink with anticipation in the buttery light. Mamta clasps her pallav closer. This is the place she did most of her growing up, picking wild spinach and berries. Lata Bai walks to the east-facing wall. Her daughters follow close behind. They pray together. The praying is reserved for females on the bride’s side.
What does Lata Bai really know of Mamta’s husband and his family? Not much. She doesn’t even know that he has two children from a previous marriage. She knows nothing of his nature and yet she is bequeathing her daughter to him in good, bad or indifferent faith. Why? Because Mamta is someone else’s garden, a female burden to be rid of. Even her second daughter, lucky Ragini, had to pickle her lemons right until she produced her male twins.