Someone Else's Garden

by Dipika Rai

  ‘A girl?’

  ‘When you went to my old house . . .’ She shudders at the word house; more like my dungeon, she thinks. ‘You know, when you went to find him, and . . . found him dead –’ She is startled by the word, dead. She repeats: ‘– dead, when you found him dead, did you get news of a girl? She would be almost as old as Sneha by now.’

  ‘I didn’t have to go to your old home. There was a woman who knew all about you, just four fields from the bus stop.’

  ‘By the big mango tree?’

  ‘Yes, that’s the one.’

  ‘That would be Geeta, I sometimes met her at the well.’ ‘Said he became very ill and died and then his land got taken over by his creditors.’

  ‘And the girl?’

  ‘Oh yes, she did say something about a girl. She ran away too. I wish I had gone to find him sooner. You didn’t have to wait this long to get married after all. Oh, how fate torments us!’ She cracks her knuckles against her temples and runs them along Mamta’s aura. ‘Live long, my daughter, live long and well.’

  She ran away too . . . To what? Where could she be now? Mamta is with her stepdaughter, and it is a while before she notices that the Red Ruins have changed. There are holes appearing in them where the stones have been stolen for the new road.

  It is perhaps for the loss of the girl, or for leaving her behind, or just that she has come far enough to be concerned with preserving her personal heritage that the holes in the Red Ruins affect her deeply. ‘Oh no, not the Red Ruins. Not our ruins.’

  ‘Yes, that’s the price of progress. You have to pay one way or the other, but on balance I think it is a good thing. I’ll take the holes any day if that means a new road.’

  Mamta doesn’t have the energy to challenge her mother’s practicality. Why did she leave her stepdaughter behind? She changes the subject, but the pathos of the ruins resounds in her words. ‘Amma, see, there are hardly any offerings here now.’ Her voice seems to be coming from a lost place, from inside a cave. Why did I leave her behind?

  ‘Now the girls make their offerings at the place where your man jailed Daku Manmohan. People will make gods of anything and anyone. That tells you just what state this country is in,’ Lata Bai drones on, as confident as an untrained voice in a singalong.

  Perhaps that’s why my man is dying. Because I left her behind. He has taken my karma on to his own head. A life paid with a life. It is my turn to be lonely now, just as she must have been all these years. Mamta’s heart is shuddering, suddenly she has to squat.

  ‘Are you all right?’ Lata Bai attributes it to nerves. The mother smiles, she finds Mamta’s nervousness like a shy new bride very endearing.

  The marriage ceremony is just that, a ceremony; conducted to paralyse wagging tongues. No one was invited, but they’ve all turned up. This time Lata Bai has more to offer them than weevils: Asmara Didi’s famous samosas and Kamla’s halwa. Nirmala Devi personally dances for them and blesses the couple from her position as the region’s model mayor and leading eunuch. Her clan dances with her, and all those present remark on how graceful and refined their moves seem. Rajiv of the Times of India jokingly says he’ll put their pictures in the paper, which has Lokend embarrassed and Mamta excited.

  This is Gopalpur’s first widow remarriage. Mamta’s marriage will change things in the village just slightly. For a while widows won’t have to shave their heads quite so close. After a while, the people of Gopalpur will realise how different their traditions are from neigh-bouring villages, and they will say it is because a great love was born here.

  Chapter 20

  TODAY SHE IS DRESSING TO MEET her mother at the Mahila Sangat. Now the journey takes only forty minutes and costs six rupees.

  Lokend has organised the motor rickshaw. She can see the smoke curling out of the plastic window. Satya, the driver, is smoking a bidi. He was the first one to get a motor rickshaw. They all said he was making a mistake; after all, where was there to go to in Gopalpur? But no, he could see the future quite clearly, and he’d got his loan and his rickshaw, and for six months all of Gopalpur’s travel business.

  ‘Mamta. Ready?’ she can hear the sound of domestic words. They thrill her each time. She gets Manno ready to meet his nani, combing his fine hair, parting it just right. Looking at the swirl of hair on the back of her son’s head, she realises that her life has vanished into the little things she hopes to give her child: kites in the sky, the sourest mangoes, light on a butterfly’s wing, long stories making short nights.

  ‘Yes, one minute,’ she shouts, giving Manno’s hair one last brush. She has the bloated feeling of pregnancy. Her second. She rushes to the bathroom, lifts her sari to squat. Her pee tinkles into the drain. She dries her hands on her pallav. ‘Ready,’ she says, taking the cup and saucer out of his hand and placing it in the kitchen sink, raised above the floor just like Mrs D’Souza’s.

  ‘Here, take this to Satya –’ She tucks a sweetened betel-leaf wrapped in newspaper into her son’s hand. ‘Go, run along, we’ll be right behind you.’ She waits for her son to disappear down the stairwell before she leads Lokend to the stairs, shutting the front door carefully behind her. He has difficulty with the stairs. He has difficulty with most things, but she doesn’t think about that. The stairwell smells of ammonia. She mopped it herself this morning. She is proud of it. No writing on these walls, clean as blue-white, they are.

  ‘Will you tell . . .’ he breathes in, holding his side; she ignores his pain, that’s how he wants it ‘. . . Amma today?’

  ‘Maybe,’ she says slowly, giving him time to be distracted. ‘What do you think? I am four months past now. Why, when Amma used to get pregnant she never told Bapu, he’d just notice one day that she was big. I don’t think Amma even remembers the year of our births. Only their colours.’

  ‘Colours?’ ‘Did I never tell you? All our births were colourful. Mine was green, could have been new mustard or young wheat; and my baby sister who died, she was yellow, definitely mustard flower. And the others . . . the others . . . I don’t remember.’

  Satya is already chewing his betel-leaf when they get into his rickshaw. She grabs Manno by the arm and sets his bottom down firmly between her and Lokend. The motor rickshaw still frightens her with its wide open sides and gaping hole in the back.

  ‘One more month, Lokend Bhai, that’s all. They said I would never be able to do it.’

  ‘Yes, better than the loans of the zamindars.’ She looks sharply at her husband, but relaxes with the crinkles round his eyes. They all laugh.

  ‘Yes, much better, Lokend Bhai, much better. My wife has taken one too. Bibiji, she is going to join your amma.’ They drive away from Saraswati Stores, the new centre of Gopalpur, along the river and past a tall straight single row of electric poles, connecting to the very spot that Mamta reached the night she ran away. The road smells of fresh tar and looks wet enough to masquerade as water reflecting a shaky heat. The newly prosperous Gopalpur has begun attracting its own labour force from villages further away than the last electric pole. There are men and women working on the road that Mamta doesn’t recognise. The women are dressed in the backless blouses of gypsies. Their mirrorwork skirts reflect diamonds of light, competing with the quiet river making its placid way behind them, shattering into a million suns in each gentle ripple. The women break the rocks, cruelly torn from the hillocks round the Red Ruins, into tiny pieces, their fingers wrapped in protective rags like lepers. Mamta turns away. She has reached that point in her life where the destitution of others sends a pinching current through her being. In Begumpet there were hundreds of such unfortunates, the ditchside latrine people, the tin and cardboard people, but she never once felt empathy for them, because she was one of them. This concern for others is a new feeling, a privilege she can at last afford.

  ‘Where are they from?’ ‘Out there –’ Satya points with his finger to the west. Satya can still comfortably ignore them, he doesn’t feel drawn into or connected with their life cycle
. ‘Bibiji, you know what they say, the ghost is back at the ruins again. I know we need a road, but we must respect the home of the dead also.’

  ‘Where do they live?’ She can’t leave them alone. That is her penance for this life of luxury with a man who loves her. This mad caring, even guilt, for anyone less fortunate.

  ‘By the gambling tents.’ ‘The women and children too?’ ‘Yes, they will sell themselves for less than nothing, Bibiji. Our little Gopalpur is becoming quite the place for . . .’ He gives his head a you-know-what flick. Never before would anyone have been this coy with her, but Satya considers her respectable, pure even, much too respectable to be told about the rapidly growing prostitution. Other peoples’ attitudes towards her, an officially married woman, are the biggest surprise. ‘These gypsy people . . .’ says Satya, shaking his head, putting his kind ahead of the rock-breakers with his judgement.

  * * *

  It is no longer an impersonal land. Mamta can predict exactly how close they are to Mahila Sangat by the newly dyed chunnis left drying by the side of the road, some indigo, others red. Now that water has come to the village, all of Gopalpur is on the move, at any time of day. Even as the motor rickshaw bumps its way along the dusty road, having left the tarred section behind, women wave to them carrying pots on their heads in the middle of the day! When was that ever the case? Her son sees nothing extraordinary in the afternoon’s waterline.

  Thanks to the water, the women have time on their hands, with which they have set a new standard for decoration of their homes. There are stamps of ownership everywhere, in the mud houses studded with shrines, wall niches for oil lamps and paintings as elaborate on the outside as the inside; and vines, not just those belonging to vegetables, but flower vines as well, scampering up the walls.

  At Mahila Sangat the writing starts at the far end of the retaining wall, slightly obscured by flowering bougainvillea, and repeats itself all the way to the gate: Mahila Sangat, Mahila Sangat, Mahila Sangat . . . The motor rickshaw stops with a lurch.

  ‘Shall I wait?’ ‘Yes, Satya, if you can.’ Lokend always says ‘if you can’, as if Satya has customers lining up to drive off in his rickshaw. ‘Go. Go on,’ he says to Manno, urging his son to run free.

  Manno’s eyes seek her approval and she feels her heart bump. He doesn’t like to be hugged by her. Even at this young age, he has become such a little man, a miniature version of Lokend, whom he adores and from whom he sometimes tolerates a hug, which makes her both jealous and proud.

  She has relived Manno’s birth so many times: Eyebrows and Lokend urging her to push only at the right time, saying, ‘One more push and you’ll have a baby.’ He had lingered while Eyebrows cleaned the baby and cut the cord. He’d had that precious time with her baby, his son, their creation, and he couldn’t have loved him more. Washed with a father’s tears, what better way to come into the world?

  Manno jumps out of the rickshaw and across the ditch, landing with both feet on the other side, seeking a precarious balance. She finds herself reaching out to him, she knows if he falls he can get no help from her at this distance. She worries excessively, her concern isn’t commensurate with the depth of the ditch. Lokend is nonchalant. He gives Manno the space to explore his limits, letting his son trust in himself.

  The Mahila Sangat smells of new rain as the women water the verandas every day to keep the dust down, just like in the Big House. She takes a deep breath. The warm wet air cocoons her in its arms like a mother’s love. She is only just discovering that this is the true smell of her life: wet, productive earth.

  She feels pregnancy tears rise in her eyes and her husband’s hand on her shoulder. He says, ‘Go on,’ and her husband and son are off, scattering like flies before a swat, loping in graceful strides towards the flower garden, trailing laughter like a bright ribbon. He keeps his energy for this time, to run with his son. Each step costs him, she knows, but he does it, making it into a game. He has collapsed kneeling, pretending a hurt, but it isn’t a pretence. She knows she won’t have Lokend with her for long.

  Her son looks back, laughs at his father’s antics and runs even faster. She follows, also running as fast as she can. Soft buttery clouds fill the sky, their burned-sugar centres look more solid than the ground under her feet. She catches up with Manno and takes her son’s hand as she runs without a care in the world, believing that if she misses her footing, she will land on a place as reliable as earth and soft as cotton wool.

  She can see Asmara Didi beckoning to her from the roof of the building with a kitchen towel as if she has been waiting impatiently for her. The white cloth floats in the sky in slow motion, perhaps because the breeze is soft or because her thoughts run slowly, almost lazily, keeping pace with the stillness of Mahila Sangat. She stops running, and waves back.

  When the two women meet, they hug big and deep. ‘How are you?’ she asks, slightly straightening Asmara Didi. Asmara Didi is one of those women who will never grow older slowly or visibly. She will stay white-haired and unwrinkled as she has done for the past decade and then suddenly die. Anyone who saw her in the time of the zamindar is amazed by how time literally seems to have stood still for her.

  ‘Good, good. We had some new ones come in this morning. Your amma is with them now.’ Asmara Didi turns, offering Mahila Sangat’s expansive veranda for observation. Mamta remembers the day when she marked out the buildings around the courtyard with a horse-shaped stick. The hut in which she lived as a child is now the open pickling room with a steadfast wood-fired stove in the middle. The girls have grown useful plants, henna, indigo, tulsi, sisal . . . in every inch of soil. The industry of Mahila Sangat is astounding.

  ‘What’s on the boil today?’ Mamta points to the smoke. A girl stirs the mixture with a big stick.

  ‘Sticky toffee. She’s new, came to us with a small piece and gave it to your amma, saying it was her mother’s recipe. Taste it. It’s good,’ says Asmara Didi, handing her a square in a professionally printed wrapper.

  Tiny, intricately patterned hennaed palms, the emblem of Mahila Sangat, offer themselves up for scrutiny. ‘Asmara Didi, did you ever think we would be selling sticky toffee in the stores of New Delhi?’ she asks, opening the wrapper. The paper crackles noisily.

  ‘Come, come, there is someone very special here to see you,’ says the old woman, pulling Mamta towards the building.

  ‘Mamta!’

  She knows the voice instantly. She turns sharply, not to waste a moment, towards her past. ‘Didi! . . . And Prem! Arey-oh, Manno’s father, see who has come to visit from the city. See, Asmara Didi, you did the right thing by sweetening my mouth! This is such an auspicious day!’ She presses bits of sticky toffee into Eyebrows, Prem and Asmara Didi’s mouths, popping a final piece into her own.

  Eyebrows takes Mamta in her arms. The strength of her embrace squeezes the breath out of her friend’s lungs. ‘It was never the same after you left,’ she says, fighting the wetness in her eyes. ‘I forced him to come,’ says Eyebrows, looking to Prem. ‘I told him, stay a few days. He works so hard, never comes to see me. He’s a machinist now, with a good job.’ Prem basks in her praise like a cat in sunlight.

  ‘Yes, Didi, I work two jobs. You should see my room, and my new bicycle. Here, Didi –’ he hands her an elaborate silver toe ring. News of her marriage must have reached him. ‘Amma sent word,’ he says, closely regarding his sister’s new countenance, trying to unlock the secrets of her heart. He hugs her.

  ‘Oh but, Mamta, I want to stay. Do you need a dispensary here? A school? Anything? I’ve already made arrangements for the city dispensary.’ Eyebrows knew she wouldn’t go back. She’s left the dispensary in the hands of four wives who had once been her patients, all cured and stronger for it, not just in health, but in the core of themselves. The women will do a good job, having at one point been there themselves; they know what is at stake.

  ‘You don’t need a reason to stay, Didi, and yes, we need all those things here and more. And what about
you, Prem? We need a machinist here too, you know. Are you and Raja staying too?’

  ‘No, we came just to see you,’ says Prem in a grown man’s voice, but with a boy’s impish smile on his face.

  ‘Oh, look at my little brother,’ says Mamta with happiness. ‘Just look at him, what a man he’s become!’ They walk towards Lokend, sparing him the effort of catching up with them.

  Prem touches Lokend’s feet. Raja scampers from his shoulder up the older man’s arm. ‘I have a good job in the city, Lokend Bhai. Sneha is well. She might get married soon. The way they are, so much in love,’ he says, letting Lokend know that he and his sister have done well for themselves.

  ‘Here’s our machinist,’ says Asmara Didi, taking Prem by the arm. ‘Get him to fix all those broken-down contraptions in the back shed.’

  ‘I’ll fix all your broken machines in no time. Lead on,’ Prem waves to his sister, ‘lead on.’ The boy walks slowly, keeping pace with his brother-in-law; Raja bounces comfortably on his shoulder.

  ‘Now, about that school. You can put it right there, under the Babul,’ says Mamta to her friend. ‘And as for your dispensary, you have to discuss that with Asmara Didi. What do you think, Asmara Didi? Are you up for some competition?’

  Asmara Didi laughs. ‘Oho, look at me, I have one foot in the grave now. Of course we need a youngster like your friend.’ She looks at Eyebrows and adds, ‘I’ll help you, if you want. This hair wasn’t bleached by the sun, you know –’ she holds the tip of her plait at arm’s length ‘– it’s wisdom that’s sucked the black out of it.’

  ‘I want you to meet my amma,’ says Mamta.

  Four girls are squatting outside, waiting to see Lata Bai. ‘Namaste,’ says Eyebrows cheerfully to them. They just stare at her with big eyes, the whites nearly yellow with jaundice. ‘Where have you all come from?’