by Dipika Rai
‘Where?’ ‘Where?’ All the women face Lokend, asking him to solve the problem.
‘My place.’ It is hardly a whisper. ‘My place?’ Another whisper. ‘How about my land?’
‘Arey, Lata Bai, your land. That dry, hard, dust pit, filled with snakes and demons? That bitter piece of land that only gave you tears. That foolish piece of land that never gave you any pleasure. Yes, why not? Why not that scraggy piece of land not fit to grow one vegetable? It will be perfect for us. Just perfect,’ says Kamla without sarcasm. ‘Why not your land? What a wonderful idea.’
‘Thank you, Kamla. Thank you,’ Lata Bai says to her friend for her second chance.
‘Your land, that’s a wonderful idea. We could buy the adjacent plot and then we’d really have something,’ says Lokend, always dreaming big dreams.
Mamta is the only one not convinced. Where was her mother when she needed her? Why is she becoming their saviour now?
‘Let the past be the past, meri jaan.’ He pulls her back to the past, her bedside vigil, lifting her far above all those present, forcing her to acknowledge the greatness in others’ actions and therefore in herself. ‘Mamta and I will personally look at the land tomorrow. After all, no one knows it better than her.’
Things change when you look at them differently. That’s what Mamta finds when she goes back to her mother’s abandoned hut.
It is standing untouched, shunned even by the poorest of the poor who can find no use in its crumbling mud walls, rusting tin door and shredded roof.
They walk up to her former home. It looks unbelievably small to her.
‘I lived here!’ It is surprising how soon human beings get used to a higher standard of living and that too in such a conclusive way that their older, harsher life seems like a dream. However unreal, Mamta doesn’t know it but she walked away with something very tangible from her harsh dream, an energy that is impossible to switch off. Her past has made her into one of those who will forever strive to improve their lot, someone who will always believe in the sacredness of the struggle.
She turns to face him. That’s the part he likes best, to look into her eyes and sometimes discipline a stray strand of hair. His affection will always take her by surprise. ‘Well, this is my home. I mean, was my home.’ Lokend puts his arm around her, trying to protect her from her own emotions. She doesn’t want to think about the future, she doesn’t dare think about the past.
He sits in the shade of the Babul to give her a moment. She walks inside. Disturbed from its long sleep, the rusty door releases a metallic screech. The sound sends her on her journey as avidly as a gunshot might the most seasoned sprinter.
‘That’s where he used to tie me when I did something bad, ate too much, laughed too much, didn’t bring in enough hay. I’m glad he’s dead and I’m glad she’s with us. I can say this to you.’
He holds her confessions safe. ‘He gave me to that man, right there in front of this hut. Amma pushed me out of this door . . .’ She laughs bitterly at her memory game. ‘It’s good that we’ve come back here, so there is no chance to forget. Not just for me, but for all women like me. There were so many of us, at least twenty by our well alone.’
‘I want to give you every chance to forget, Mamta, to live again, unfettered.’
‘I’ll never forget, that would be a sin. Look at what Devi gave me –’ she reaches for him ‘– you. What did I ever do in my life to deserve you? How many didn’t get someone like you? We can all be saved only by a Lokend of our very own.’
He says nothing. Someone else might have been embarrassed by such absolute admiration, but not Lokend. He only feels the bedrock of sincerity in her being, and her pain.
Her husband is the child of a legendary love. Perhaps he carried its intensity in his veins like a genetic seed, which sprouted when nourished in exactly the right way by the perfect person. Intercaste unions are dangerous and illicit in places like Gopalpur. It is always up to the man to wrench his mate to a higher rung where she is to sit until she is accepted by his family, his peers and finally society. There was no such wrenching in Mamta’s and Lokend’s case. They simply came together, mingled into a single stream and flowed on, leaving an eddy of confused, bent and broken rules behind them. It had to be black magic. Plain and marked Mamta must have enticed Lokend with everything in her power to capture his heart. Her punishment for such impudence would have been the purifying ritual of gang rape. Luckily there were no such reprisals against her in Gopalpur. Here they are protected by those who will gladly give their lives for Lokend. They will survive, and in time, their love too will become legendary because it was conceived against such incredible odds.
He loves her from the deepest part of his being. She brings meaning to his life.
Mamta of the birthmark, born to love and be loved.
She walks into the hut again. The door does nothing this time, disabled on its broken hinges. She wraps her sari pallav round her hands and pulls at it. The mirror is the first thing to fall off the back of the door. The mirror, still cracked from side to side. She picks it up and blows on its surface. There is no sound from the outside, even the birds are quiet. She can see her face, sliced exactly as before. She cleans the mirror with her sari and sets it just outside the hut.
She pulls at the door again leaning all the way back. Almost falling, she staggers away with the piece of tin in her hands. It is a weapon, a bludgeon of wrath, a club of anger. She smashes it against the walls, pokes at the ceiling with it, tearing down the last walls of her childhood.
She bashes on. Today she will be satisfied. The clay walls have all but crumbled, providing little resistance to her perseverance. By the time Lokend comes to look inside, she has demolished two walls, and kicked the hearth stones out of sight to lie on their blackened sides, denying any responsibility towards the fire that sustained her family for years.
‘I got you this,’ he says, handing her a good stick shaped like a horse. Of course it is just a trick of her imagination, the frolicking of her mind that sees this stick in another time, but in the same place. ‘Let’s mark out our new home.’
Hours later they have their home marked out, a square, built round a courtyard with five rooms to one side and an outside veranda. The latrines are off to one end, and there is the place for the well, their own.
‘What will we call it?’ ‘Let’s leave that to your mother.’
The women gather at Lata Bai’s farm. It is a special time for them, coming together to create something in exactly the image they would like. Never has such abundance of possibility been available to them.
‘Mahila Sangat! That’ll be its new name.’
‘It’s a good name,’ they agree, ‘Mahila Sangat: the place for women. It’s about time we had our own place.’
The building goes up in a babble of banging and hoisting, and lots of laughter. Lata Bai’s field, crowded with bricks and cement, drainpipes and electric cables, usurps the lives, loves and hopes of each of those who will call it home. It is a glorious time, filled with joy and kinship. Nothing can break that rejoicing collective spirit that grows, first filling the field, then the patch between the river and the growing building, continuing to extend all the way out to other fields on either side, spreading across Gopalpur to encompass the Red Ruins, the Big House, the hills beyond, and finally the whole world.
Many new faces join them in their labour: Lala Ram provides free tea, Lucky Sister sends bags of cement, Ragini a truck of bricks, and then there is the most surprising contribution of all: doors and windows from Nirmala Devi, who never forgot Lokend, her former political opponent. Each one has a job, and they follow the rules set out by the building contractor as only women who have had to obey someone or other each day of their lives can, to the finest detail.
The building is nothing short of a miracle, erected by unskilled hands on a hostile terrain. But to them, their hands are strong, and the land yielding, a willing accomplice. Help seems to arrive at the very moment they
need it. Rajiv from the Times of India brings architects from the city. They are twins fresh out of Architecture College who attack the project with gusto, hoping to leave behind a permanent reminder of their mastery. They are assisted by Gope and mute Kanno, who have joined the bandit wives just to be close to Lokend Bhai their saviour.
Brick by brick, the building rises, brick by brick the women have their hopes returned to them.
And their new home is finished two months before the lease on their old one expires.
The whitewash is the always the best part of building. Almost as much goes on the women’s clothes as does on the new walls. When it’s over, lime-burnt palms are painted with henna and the swings are erected in the Babul.
‘I knew there was a reason I didn’t let your father cut down that tree. To see this before I died . . .’ Lata Bai’s eyes are streaming with unabashed tears. Mamta knows just how much her mother needs her now. She moves a step closer, but cannot fold her in her arms.
The women take turns on the swings. Their pallavs fly upwards in the draught to cradle the sun. Coloured patches of light move amongst them like long-lost friends, and many eyes that have witnessed much too much tragedy for tears experience the joy of weeping for the first time.
The procession makes the journey in all modes of transport – in trucks, on cycles, in bullock carts, on foot – to begin life at the Mahila Sangat, the place for women.
It is a triumph of survival.
Lokend cuts the ribbon. It is an affectation that all those who have visited the city insist upon. The others are simply awed by the ceremony. The Gopalpur band plays the same songs it does at every marriage, and the hijras dance together with the definite sexes.
‘Come,’ Mamta pulls Lokend and Manno into the fray. Gope beats the goatskin drum, faster and faster, a smile carved into his face. Lokend rushes up to Lata Bai and brings her into the circle. It is a perfect day, where each element taken individually may have flowered to its precise potential. He leaves mother and daughter dancing and hugging. This is the real miracle. This change in Mamta and every other woman who has laid even one brick of the building. The act of building has allowed her to cross many barriers, including making a tentative peace with her mother.
For Lata Bai, Mahila Sangat is more than just their collective dream, it is the concrete realisation of her spirit, her atonement for rejecting Mamta, her karmic absolution. Her belief in Devi, the female energy that she felt obliged to pray to for the sake of tradition, for the sake of history, for the sake of that’s-the-only-way-she-knew-to-live is at last alive for itself, without the life-support of the times.
Mamta looks in the mirror. She sees faint wrinkles just like her mother’s appearing at the corners of her eyes. She finds herself twisting her hair back on her hand and knotting it tight at the base of her neck without pins. It is the same style her mother carries.
She’s starting to admit that she may be more like her mother than she knows.
Chapter 19
THE FLAT ROOFS OF MAHILA SANGAT gaze into the distance, attracting many life-weary travellers to its doors. There is a constant ring of women round the building, some who have walked for miles to find shelter here.
Mahila Sangat has changed the fate of so many that Lata Bai knows it is time to do the same for her daughter. She will use every power she can muster to discover the fate of Mamta’s husband, and it will be through a curious, crookedly linked chain that she will find the exact location of the place her daughter moved to after her marriage.
The first name that came to mind was Lucky Sister’s, the most worldly, connected person in her family.
It hasn’t been easy coming to Lucky Sister for help. She’s taken a tonga to her brothel.
Lucky Sister greets her from the top of the stairs with a mixture of ecstatic surprise and gratitude. Lata Bai has never come to meet her at the brothel before. It has always been the other way round, with her making a clandestine trip to Lata Bai’s farm or sending her a gift through one of her customers.
‘You came,’ she says, clasping her hands to her heart. Lata Bai can’t believe that the plump woman with the dimpled hands, bright red hennaed hair and nose ring that dangles halfway down her chin is really her sister.
‘Come, Lata, come. Arey-oh, Revti, we have a guest. Arey-oh, Revti, my younger sister is here.’
A young novice brings a bowl of warm water with floating rose petals into her employer’s graceful presence. She coaxes Lata Bai’s ungainly feet towards the bowl. Lata Bai stretches her toes into the water, concentrating on not tipping its contents on to the tufted carpet, as soft as winter cat fur. The foot-washing complete, the novice hands her a precisely rolled cold towel, signalling to her to wipe her face and hands with it. Lata Bai uses it with trepidation, unwilling to spoil its white wholeness with her facial grime.
‘I came to ask . . .’
Lucky Sister places three scented fingers across her lips as soon as she starts talking, offering her a plate of evenly sliced fruit, sweet-meats and nuts.
‘Later, after you have eaten. All crises can be put off till one has eaten,’ she says, stilling her younger sister’s mounting outburst. Lucky Sister hasn’t come to terms with the prostitution business, giving up all hope of joining the respectable masses, for nothing. She’s earned the right to be well-fed and satisfied.
Though the huge meal and Lucky Sister’s display of largesse leave Lata Bai at a grave disadvantage, she eventually musters the strength to ask her question. ‘It’s Mamta. Well, not really Mamta. It’s her husband. The one she married. Do you have news of him?’
Lucky Sister offers Lata Bai a sweet betel-leaf wrapped in edible silver foil. ‘In the old days these paans were wrapped in gold foil. The sweepers would collect the rich shit for all the gold in it.’ Lucky Sister giggles like a little girl, showing two gold canines.
All Lata Bai has brought with her is her respectability. In front of that flood of food and her sister’s grateful pleasure, it seems like a very meagre gift. She swallows. ‘I didn’t ask for his address. They were married and then they left.’ She can still recall the sense of relief she felt at having got Mamta, Mamta of the birthmark, married.
‘She’s the one with the birthmark, no? I liked her best of all your children. I know she’s living with that man now,’ she says, leaning into Lata Bai slyly. ‘I’ve heard. It’s quite the news. It would be. In your village what else is there to talk about anyway?’ She suddenly straightens up and declares loudly into the room, ‘Hypocrites! How many of them use my facility? But let a girl live in peace, n . . . o that’s just too much.’
Lata Bai looks at her toes. ‘I should’ve asked about the family, their ancestors, their village. I knew nothing of him. Nothing. And yet I let her go. And go to what? A hell . . .’ She checks herself, unsure of whether she should give her successful, recently perfumed sister more ammunition to judge her. ‘I need news of him now.’
‘I find it odd how families are willing to lose complete touch with their daughters once they get married to become productive gardens for someone else.’
‘Yes, her father used to say that feeding her was like watering someone else’s garden.’ She drops her defences, judge me if you will. ‘It’s all my fault. I should never have let it happen. I was weak. Give me news, my sister. Please, I beg you.’
‘It’s not your fault.’ Lucky Sister has become partial to phil osophy, and in her position, she is apt to share it. ‘It’s the world, Lata, it’s the world. It extracts its price, weight for weight.’
Lata Bai’s impatience boils over. ‘Do you have news? I must know where to find him.’
‘As a matter of fact, I do know where to find him. Her bastard husband used to love the gambling tents and one particular prostitute. He thought they’d get married one day, he thought he’d make a respectable creature out of her – probably his one and only noble thought – she didn’t want it, but she strung him along all the same. She was one of mine, well trained. So she
drummed him like a tabla, and got many gifts from him, with which she repaid her loan to me. That’s how I got these back,’ Lucky Sister holds out the pair of gold earrings Lata Bai had given Mamta before her wedding. ‘So of course I got to know the whole story. She was so proud, said he had no backbone, she could make him dance! I told her to treat him extra badly and to make him tremble, but I didn’t tell her he was married to my niece. He lives in Barigaon on the farm next to the milkman’s, the one who has thirty cows. You’ll find news of him there. Here, take these –’ She presses the earrings and the remaining betel-leaves, all damp and silvery, into her sister’s reluctant hands. Lata Bai leaves more indebted than ever.
Lucky Sister sends Revti with Lata Bai to the bus stand with enough money for the to and fro journeys. The widow in white draws no attention, but a barrage of catcalls greets the prostitute, who wiggles her hips at prospective customers. Lata Bai hides her head in her pallav, distancing herself from the silent transactions of the prostitute, and gets on the bus unaided.
This time only mother and daughter make their way to the Red Ruins. Neither wants to dwell on that other journey they made to the ruins the day of her first marriage. Mamta declined the ceremonial henna, and her mother understood it was because she wanted to keep the wedding simple.
They leave at sunrise. The women are already out, putting their washing on trees. In her time, the women would have been just returning home from the well. But not any more. Now they use the newly installed tube wells, dotted round the terrain, minutes walk from their homes, constantly gushing water, seven in all. The new wells, dug because of Lokend, her son-in-law, her grandson’s father. She should have been proud, instead . . . ‘Mamta, I am so sorry.’
‘Ssh,’ says the daughter, embarrassed by her mother’s confession even more than by her apology. ‘Amma, don’t . . .’ She looks at the older woman and feels a pang of guilt. All this time I had a mother, while . . . She has to know. ‘Tell me . . .’ she must ask about that one thing that has been a stone on her heart for years ‘. . . tell me, was there any news of a girl?’