Someone Else's Garden

by Dipika Rai

  ‘You walk so slowly!’ Lokend grabs her by the waist from behind, surprising her. ‘You didn’t stay for dinner then?’ She is delighted by his choice.

  ‘No, I said my hellos and just as quickly my goodbyes. Ram Bhaia is running the Big House even more efficiently than Bapu. Look, I got us all a parcel of food. I still have my friends in the kitchen. They gave me these too, for Asmara Didi.’ He hands her a bouquet of pink roses, after picking one to place gently in her hair. ‘Manmohan planted them for her.’ The boy, hearing his name, lifts his head. ‘Yes, you are named after a great friend of mine, Manno.’ He kneels to hug his son.

  ‘They must have really wanted her to have these roses for them to cut them after sundown. Now, Manno, you must never pick flowers after sunset. That’s when they sleep.’ How often do mothers drop innocuous bits of information that collectively form the blueprint of their child’s life?

  She hasn’t ventured out since her rejection at the Big House’s front door, and she is surprised her mother hasn’t come to see her. It has been two weeks. She has planned to tell Lata Bai everything. Better her mother hear the details of her life from her lips than through village gossip.

  But Nathu’s daughter has got to Lata Bai first.

  Finally, duty drags Mamta back to her mother’s hut. ‘Amma?’ Lata Bai winces, sending more creases through her upper lip, hers isn’t the voice her mother wishes to hear.

  ‘So you’ve come back to see me. My, my, how did you find the time?’

  ‘I tried to come back several times before, but I had so much to do at home.’ Mamta bites down on the word home, but too late.

  ‘Yes . . .’ Lata Bai plans to ensnare her with her affirmations. A net of yeses, all of them disapproving. ‘You must have had a lot to do at home.’

  ‘So how is it with you, Amma?’ Mamta piles the sticks between the hearth stones as she talks.

  ‘Leave it. There hasn’t been tea in this house for at least a year.’ ‘Not any more, I brought some with me.’

  The mother looks into her daughter’s eyes. You’ll not take the joy out of my unhappiness. ‘I’ve heard.’

  ‘It’s no secret.’ ‘It’s no secret . . . did you think of me, of your family?’

  No! No I didn’t. For the first time, I thought only of me. ‘I’ll not let anyone tell me how to live again,’ she says, more in Lokend’s words than her own.

  ‘What has he done to you?’ ‘Why do you say “he”? Can’t it be because of me, because I have finally found my life and am trying to live it? Can’t you see, for the first time I am happy. I have dignity.’

  ‘Dignity?’

  Mamta turns away, not wanting to hear the word from her own mother’s lips. Rakhale. She moves towards the door, still rickety on its hinges. A gentle wind rocks it back and forth adding a kind of annoying creaky music to their conversation.

  Her first meeting had given her a false sense of security. But Lata Bai is the quintessential rural woman. As an individual she may be able to stand behind her daughter, but as a member of her ilk she can’t. She finds she cannot bend the ilk’s rules, for then her own existence would become a waste, a sham, worse than death.

  ‘Why do you care? Why does anyone care?’ Lata Bai turns her back to her, visibly unlistening like the rest of the village. Rakhale. That’s what she is to her mother: a kept woman, an unclean thing.

  ‘You’ve been away too long. I have to live in this village,’ says Lata Bai. The under-the-banyan-tree rules have made a solid home for themselves in her hut.

  Her mouth is so bitter she has a longing to spit. Mamta never imagined it would be so judgemental. She’d provided her reasons to the world at large and had come to Gopalpur, her last place of refuge, to be accepted as the pure and laughing Mamta of her childhood, a girl who had done well for herself. But now, now she is being chastised for her love. Not for the fact of it, but that it is requited. Her mother would have had nothing to say to her had she been a lovesick married woman hankering after a man who had shown her some respect, but as a married woman with a lover, her mother has the rule book to beat against her head. ‘You wouldn’t think this if you knew what he did to me.’

  ‘Who? What? Who did what to you?’ Her mother attacks her for thinking herself vainly deserving of self-pity. ‘Whatever your reasons, I can’t listen. You were married in front of Devi. There is no way out for you.’

  ‘Say it – just like Sharma’s wife . . . raped . . . shit-smeared – say it.’ She can recall the sensation of her mother’s fingers rubbing oil into her hair. Then why tell me all those stories of pearly halos round women’s heads and great and glorious females breaking out of social limbo, becoming one with something higher than themselves, living in history, when you believe this. This? This!

  ‘You ruined Sneha’s life too. Did you think someone would marry her after her elder sister showed her exactly how to behave as a dutiful wife?’ Her mother’s voice is nasal with meanness.

  ‘She is doing wonderfully well in the city; she has a job, she has a home, perhaps she will even find herself a husband. She has a life. Better to have love from strangers than nothing from one’s own,’ she is shouting her defence.

  ‘Love from strangers, is it? Look at my daughters. Fit only for the Red Bazaar.’

  ‘That’s where Bapu would have sent her, had Prem not brought her to me.’ She squats. ‘Oh, Amma, stop it, please, stop it.’ How has it come to this? This intransigence. She wants to say, Do you remember the story you told me about . . . But she won’t pursue it, won’t let her mother spoil it. ‘I have to go.’

  ‘To him?’ ‘To my home.’ ‘Where did you get the money for this fancy home of yours?’ ‘I told you before, I am with the bandit wives.’ ‘Other thieving women,’ says Lata Bai with an air of satisfaction. ‘You can come too, you know. You don’t have to stay here with the darkness. It’s just on the other side of town. It’s a small place . . .’ But full of love, she thinks spitefully.

  ‘I thought you would have moved into the Big House by now.’ ‘Amma, don’t,’ she says without a fight. ‘Don’t you think I would get married if I could?’

  ‘Who would have thought you would have more than one offer of marriage in this life.’ Her mother’s words cut far more sharply than her father’s ever could.

  ‘I have to go. Come with me . . .’ Now she is pleading. Lata Bai turns her back on her daughter and the door.

  She runs from her mother’s hut, tripping as she struggles to get away. The winds failed this year. Such an odd thing to say: failed. The winds only brought disaster, but they were a dependable clock hand, heralding the changing seasons. The seasons have changed all right, just without the destruction. Only Mamta sees the miracle in the absence of the winds. She’s back in Gopalpur with the man she loves. No winds. Devi approves, so why can’t her mother? She runs, gathering speed. Her feet, in sturdy sandals, eat away at the dust as they did once before.

  ‘Amma, Amma,’ her voice cries out to the arid land dragged along upon the unsteady notes of an inexperienced flute. It creeps under the soil, and bounces off the Red Ruins. Her childhood is blowing round her like searing chaff. She thought her mother would grasp her with arms of steel, support her with an indomitable will that would require nothing of her own bones. There is safety in imagining, reality is a big risk. Shall she live in her imagination forever?

  What has she been taught? Never laugh too much, never cry too much, never feel too much. Never let your emotions set the price of your existence.

  The flute begins catching steadier notes.

  Mamta has gone through all the stages – disbelief, hurt, anger – and has eventually steeped herself in scripture so she can regain her equilibrium. But even the Bhagvat Gita is no guarantee of peace. She sees duplicity in every sacred word: Surrender all actions to me, with your thoughts residing in the supreme self, from hope and egoism freed. Hope and egoism . . . are these the driving forces of her pain?

  Master first the senses . . . it is sa
id that the senses are great, but greater than the senses is the mind; and greater than the mind is reason; but what is greater than reason is the Higher Self. Where is this Higher Self?

  Lokend, Mamta and Manno sit together in prayer. They recite the Gayatri Mantra: ‘Ohm Bhoor Bhuwah Swaha, Tat Savitur Varenyum, Bhargo Dewas Dhimahi, Dhiyo Yo Naha Prachodaya,’ and Lokend explains its significance: ‘The Gayatri Manta inspires wisdom, it is a prayer to the Higher Self to bless us with enlightenment. The rhythm of the words will melt in your soul and cure you of your heartache, just like one of those fancy city antibiotics.’ He smiles as he says this. And thus, Mamta eventually learns the meanings of all those esoteric words she has recited with her family through her life, at every birth, at every death, at every festival.

  Perhaps the Higher Self has heard her plea, or is pleased with her devotion, for Mamta’s situation is about to change.

  ‘Arey-oh, Lata Bai, still eating once a week, are you?’ Only Kamla can be rude to her without stinging. The two women know each other in a deep and final way, bound by the secret of Seeta Ram’s final resting place downriver.

  ‘So what’s it to you?’ Lata Bai has been in bad humour since Mamta’s last visit.

  ‘I have terrible news for you. I too am moving in with your married/unmarried daughter.’ Kamla cocks her head to one side, the coquettish gesture looks obscene on the old, balding woman. Her words put Lata Bai in worse humour.

  ‘Why does the world come to my door? What could I possibly want with it?’ In truth it is a great disappointment to her that she lacks the courage to go to Mamta, and she doesn’t need to be reminded of that by Kamla.

  ‘Start living your life like you promised you would after that bloody Seeta Ram left you in peace. Why do you insist on eating alum every day? Tell me, do you really begrudge her her life? How can you? I thought you of all people would understand. You were the only one who managed to accept Lucky Sister, so why not your own daughter?’ asks Kamla, knowing full well that it’s often easier to accept dissension in other people than it is in one’s nearest and dearest. ‘Doesn’t she deserve better? Go to her, Lata Bai, and see for yourself how she has bloomed. It is enough to crumble the oldest custom, the toughest social mores, the hardest heart.’ She places the greatest emphasis on the hardest heart, leaving no room for doubt to whom that belongs.

  ‘Tch, tch. I see you have been watching too many Hindi movies.’ Yes, that’s right, a TV set has come to Gopalpur, where else but at Lala Ram’s doorstep. Kamla is a regular on Wednesdays when Chitrahaar is on. ‘For once in your life leave the theatrics alone and let me be.’

  ‘Let you be! Since you changed out of your coloured sari into this widow’s cloth you have lost your senses. Let you be, indeed! To what? Your cough and bent back? At least before you had hate to keep you going, now it’s not even that, it’s . . . it’s . . . What is it for? For God’s sake, no one else in the village cares as much as you.’

  ‘What about the vows they took in the name of Devi? And now she has a child. What’s its name, by the way?’

  ‘Oh no you don’t. If you want to know its name you will have to ask her. I am not doing you any favours.’

  ‘A marriage is a marriage, whatever you say,’ says Lata Bai, as immovable as the Red Ruins.

  ‘A marriage is a marriage! Maybe for my enemies!’ ‘Kamla, you were born with words in your mouth, it’s a wonder you have room for any teeth.’

  ‘So what should she do? Go back to that husband of hers?’ Kamla is shouting now. ‘Where was Devi when he cut out her side and sold it like a piece of meat?’ Yes, Kamla knows all about that through none other than Asmara Didi, that wise old woman, who gave away only as much information as would be vital to better Mamta’s future. Kamla visibly bites her tongue. She’d promised Asmara Didi her discretion, but there is discretion and then there is downright justice, she rationalises. ‘You should know that part too,’ she says smugly, setting her secret free in the name of justice.

  ‘What are you talking about?’ ‘You know nothing! Because you bore the cruelty, the beatings, you expect her to do the same. It is your arrogance that keeps you from accepting her. By rejecting her you think you can pay him back for all the things he did to you. You want to crush him . . . for his freedom and your bondage . . . for his power and your weakness . . . for his apathy and your anxiety . . . for his voice and your silence. The only way you know how is to tolerate without accepting. You judge everyone through your life, confusing it with fate. If you give up this fate business, what will you do with yourself? Isn’t that what you are thinking? You are thinking: then my life will have no meaning. All this, after I helped you push that man into the river. How dare you judge her? The only thing dependable in her life has been that goddamned birthmark. Go to her, Lata Bai, while there is still time. It is beyond time for fairytales and nursery rhymes, beyond time for childish toys. Now is the time to give her something tangible – your approval.’

  Lata Bai looks desperately round her, but there is nowhere to escape. She grips her ears, and falls to the floor. A piece of her daughter’s flesh, was she to die like an animal then? ‘It is a terrible curse to live in a time and place where you don’t have any dreams for your children. I couldn’t even give her a respectable birth . . .’ For the first time, Lata Bai acknowledges to another that Mamta could be illegitimate. ‘She was always someone else’s garden. I served weevils on her wedding. Oh, Kamla, what have I done?’

  ‘Nothing yet, my sister, nothing is ruined yet. Come, let’s go.’ She takes her friend’s hand, forgiving her just as quickly as she had censured her only moments ago.

  Once they leave the hut behind, things are back to normal. ‘Shall we stop by the bank to get ourselves a loan? They won’t say no if you tell them you are Mamta’s mother. She’s a good risk. Brought more than five thousand rupees with her from the city, said she’d saved it through the Post Office Deposit Plan. That Lokend of hers opened the account for her at the bank. So what do you say? A loan first?’

  Lata Bai can’t share in her friend’s joke, in her laughter rising, unexpected, unwanted. She gulps down her guilt. ‘This is no time for jokes, Kamla, let’s get to the bandit wives as soon as possible. I have wasted enough time on foolishness.’

  Then and there, Lata Bai resolves never to look back over her shoulder at her old life again.

  Mamta sends Manno to greet his grandmother, she has to, to spare Lata Bai the humiliation of a formal reconciliation. The toddler, newly walking, wandering like a blind thing, finally blunders into his grandmother’s arms as she moves from side to side like a goalie waiting to grab the ball, suddenly agile for her age.

  The little creature, innocent as fluffed cotton, used to having a hundred hands help him up, isn’t shy of strangers and grabs her dirt-encrusted sari.

  She clings to the tiny body as if he is the only branch in a flood. The past recedes. ‘My boy,’ she whispers, visibly shrinking into herself like cheesecloth left to dry in the sun, ‘my poor boy, with no grandma to look after you. But now I am here. I am here, you see –’ she offers her arms as proof ‘– I am here.’

  ‘Amma.’

  It is a whispered meeting between mother and daughter but with all the energy of a dam holding back a deluge.

  ‘Amma!’ The man holds out his arms. Though his hair is shock white, Lata Bai knows who he is. There is no precedence for an intercaste union in her life. She is afraid of the man who is approaching her swiftly. How did her daughter muster the courage for a relationship with him? A zamindar’s son, no less. Suddenly she is afraid to cross the caste and status sea. He does it for her and touches her feet. It isn’t the zamindar’s son’s hands she feels on her toes, but her son-in-law’s. ‘Amma, come. I’m so glad you’ve come home at last,’ he says.

  Mamta is still struggling with the whys, streaming towards her like bats at sunset: Why did she reject her, why didn’t she see her, why did she put the whole village before her?

  ‘Aren’t you g
lad, Manno, that your grandma has come to live with us?’ she says, giving her son’s name away as accidentally as possible. She has learned a lot from her husband.

  Thankfully at last, there is nowhere for Lata Bai to go.

  ‘How are you?’ the mother makes it a point to ask her daughter each day.

  ‘I am well, Amma,’ replies Mamta, still on the defensive, unforgiving. But more often there are days when she watches her son and mother come closer out of the corner of her eye. She smiles, her mother’s presence has brought her more satisfaction, something she mistakes for peace, than all Lokend’s scripture could.

  ‘Here you are. You two, talking mother–daughter things,’ says Kamla, still the lubricant between them. ‘Not disturbing, am I?’ Her eyebrows dance above the bridge of her nose. Both Mamta and Lata Bai know the signs of Kamla’s face well.

  ‘Is everything all right?’ they ask together. The daughter uses the exact same intonation as her mother, feeling immediately betrayed.

  ‘No, nothing is all right. We have to move,’ says Kamla without preamble.

  ‘Oho, Kamla, stop scaring the girls, will you,’ Lokend shouts from the edge of the garden. ‘I said we’d find some place to go.’ Her husband’s face has changed considerably from living in constant pain. His side never did heal properly.

  ‘How is it possible?’

  ‘Temporary lease, Amma –’ from the day she arrived, he has referred to Lata Bai as Amma ‘– a temporary lease, and we’ve been here four years already.’

  ‘Yes, four years to the day. My husband would have been out tomorrow,’ says Daku Manmohan’s widow, starting to crumble, a sandcastle succumbing to rain. Her son looks on with detachment.

  ‘Come, come, my daughter, what’s past is past.’ Lata Bai places her arms round the collapsing woman. Mamta feels a twinge of envy.

  ‘Yes, what’s past is past,’ says Mamta, dragging her mother’s conscience over the gravel of guilt.

  ‘We must look for a new place quickly.’ Kamla was always the practical one.