by K R Usha
In her last few days, as she drifted in and out of consciousness, Rukmini called her husband close. She had two questions to ask. Why, she asked him, was his coat looking so shabby, he who was always impeccably dressed and why had he stopped wearing his white trousers. He seemed always to be in a dhoti of late. And then she swallowed painfully and closed her eyes and whispered, ‘Is it true, tell me the truth now …’ But she could not bring herself to say it. Or perhaps she was too tired. Was it true, she wanted to ask him, that he had made over their best-yielding paddy lands to Vishwanath Rao? And about the boy? Was it true? Had he known?
Then she called Setu, scrabbled for the collar of his shirt to pull herself up to his ear and whispered, ‘Keep an eye on your sister. Take care of her.’
Twenty
1987
My adamantine friend …
You are a jewel among women—I admire your intelligence, your sensitivity and your skill in argument. Permit me to say that I find your feminine radiance inspiring. I am sure that your energy, if guided correctly, could be used to the right purpose. You would be the ideal helpmate for a certain kind of man—a man of passionate ideals and avowed direction. I cannot measure up to your fictional heroes and I have nothing to offer but my complete devotion. I can never provide a soft and coddling life, the kind that you are used to. Life with me will be khadi, not silk. That would not matter to you, I am sure. Will you wait for me?
Yours …
P.S. Forgive me my lapses in letter writing. This is the first time I have written a letter like this.
I know this letter by heart now, I can rattle it off in my sleep. And still every time I read it it prods me afresh. I am saddened by its cowardice—the letter is not addressed to her nor has he put his name down to it, in case he was asked to make good, I presume. I still flinch at the colour of the ink. The paper is so coarse-grained that the purple ink has mapped its way across in tiny rivulets and blotted several words out; the handwriting is small and cramped, just like its writer, I imagine. It is such a scrap of a letter—it was just by chance that I found it among the soap wrappers in the Finlay’s tea tin. I could easily have missed it. And now the letter lies in four pieces, which I piece together, like the origami game I used to play as a child, when I want to read it. ‘Adamantine’—a flashy word, ungenerous, a double edged sword. A letter full of conditions and disclaimers—ready to take back even before it gave. She was a jewel among women but as hard as a diamond, she could inspire a man he granted but her energy needed his guidance. While he was full of passionate ideals and avowed direction, she would have to stand behind him, the rock-solid helpmate. He sounded pompous and self-important and presumptuous and censorious too. For a man who offered little other than his devotion he asked for too much. Even if I were a queen I wouldn’t care to be told that my life was soft and coddled. A girl as spirited as she had been, deserved better.
But, the letter improved on acquaintance, that I must admit. The last two lines redeemed him for me. Despite his worldly stand, he was an innocent, just like her. Here was an awkward man, but a man undoubtedly smitten, a man a little afraid.
The torn fragment of the picture I found along with the letter—the masked woman with the whip and the white thigh—I have identified as the remains of a film poster, the film is Hunterwali and the actress Fearless Nadia, a circus girl-turned-actress who played the swashbuckling rescuer—Phantom, Zorro and Spiderman rolled into one; newly reclaimed feminist icon for she did her own stunts and was known to have thrown a man across her shoulder and walked the length of a moving train; ironically, the daughter of an English soldier, who was turned into a symbol of the freedom movement by her adoring fans. It pleases me to think that Kaveri thought it worthwhile to save half of her.
Sometimes I sense her so strongly that I can almost see her. I know her well, an intense, imaginative little girl growing up playful, confident and passionate too I should think, for she had induced an unbending kind to blubber. I believe I look a lot like her, the glint in the eye and the chin that lifts a little too high.
For a long time I puzzled over why a girl like this gave up, why she ended up hostage to destiny. I eventually found out what actually happened—my father’s cousin Chamu was only too happy to supply the ‘facts’. But ‘facts’ never add up to the whole. But this I know and cannot forgive; my father had a hand in it. He could have helped his sister from slipping away. But again, for that perhaps he would have had to be a different person.
Part IV
Deliverance
Twenty-one
1947
Many a morning Kaveri had lain in her bed watching the creatures that chased across the ceiling, till she realized that they were cobwebs, a whole ceilingful of them, rippling in colourless waves, like a goosebumped shiver down the spine, in the morning breeze. It was only the westerly sun that reached her room, so her mornings were dark and the same morning breeze that sent the cobwebs a-shiver, brought in the smells from the garden, most overpoweringly of the drain outside her window, a narrow mossy channel that ran right up to the servants’ and women’s gate. She knew she ought to get up and close the window but she felt too tired to move—in any case it was pointless. Moreover, the sharp metal edges of the bolts and channels on the window hurt her fingers—the tower bolt on her door was cruel on her knuckles every night. It had rained the previous night, the sky was still a bulging grey, so even if she got past the scummy drain to drink her morning’s coffee in the garden, everything would be wet. Scum and slippery wetness, she saw it and felt it and smelt it everywhere in the house—even the kitchen was full of large open vessels with a thick soft sedimented crust of yellow cream on the sides, from being boiled over and over again—every morning she shuddered when she saw it. What would Rukmini say, was her first thought, or as she corrected herself, what would Rukmini have said, for Rukmini was dead now. The cancer had been insidiously eating away at her insides, when all along she had been accusing Achamma of putting too many Guntur chillies in the food.
She could lie like this behind the closed door the whole day, she knew, and no one would bother her or bother about her. She was expected to do nothing in the house—nothing, except rest and amuse herself; if the servant came to sweep the room she could dismiss her—sometimes, the only thing she recognised of herself was her skill at being sharp with servants. If her daughter cried—this sniffling, restless creature who would wake up soon—one of the women would come in and take her away, which was such a relief. She wondered at the sundry collection of women in the house. Of course they had been there in her house as well, the collection of poor relatives, mostly women, who had stayed with them for years at a stretch, the procession of cousins and aunts in the summer. But they had been gentle creatures and had kept to the periphery of her life, the grey background against which she had shown off her colour—including the mad aunt who had gone berserk one evening and then died in the night, like a star that burns itself out in a spectacular blaze.
Here, of the sharp, watchful women, she had come to recognize two of her father-in-law’s sisters—harpies, shaven widows whose self-appointed task it was to keep a jealous eye on what they imagined to be their brother’s interests, and two younger women of indeterminate status, probably her mother-in-law’s relatives, whom she had offended by presuming they were servants. They thrived on discord and strummed its strings every morning, experimentally, just to keep their hand in. After all, no servant was beyond rebuking. They were afraid of her, Kaveri could tell, for they couldn’t go very far with her, but they believed in testing the waters and if they failed in riling her they could always be hostile. The moment she stepped out of her room they would fix their eyes on her—Why beast, why have you come out of your lair? Earlier, they used to ask her what she wanted, but now they ignored her—No new tricks to show us? She too, in turn, did not speak to them unless she wanted something or had an order to issue, ‘I want the tonga to be brought round at three in the afternoon, I’m going out.’
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She had learnt through her mistakes. She remembered the look on her father-in-law’s face the first morning when she had walked into the verandah and reached out for the newspaper—his newspaper. Later one of the harpies had told her that the English newspaper and the verandah—the only part of the house where the sun came in the mornings—were the preserve of the men of the house. The women had the back of the house with its separate entrance, and the Kannada newspaper, all to themselves. Her insistence that an English newspaper be brought to her at the back of the house had been met with disbelief, till her mother-in-law had granted it with a shrug, as if to say these were tiny, impervious flailing fists against an implacable wall that destiny had erected.
When had she first sensed it? When her mother-in-law had sat down at the banana leaf her father-in-law had got up from, the very same one that he had eaten out of, pushed the pile of leftover curry leaves and red chillies to one side, and begun her meal on it. She had exclaimed involuntarily that she hoped she was not expected to do the same thing and her mother-in-law had paused, hand in mid-air between leaf and mouth, and said no, this they did not expect of her. And she had caught the women exchanging happy glances.
There were many things that made the harpies smirk—that she put her mouth to the rim of the tumbler she drank water out of, instead of pouring it from above, that she bit into a banana or a kodbale instead of breaking it off with her fingers, thus contaminating the whole object to be eaten with her spittle before it entered her mouth, but what made them hiss with disapproval was that she would not sit ‘out’ when she had her periods. How were they to tell then, when she got pregnant?
Her daughter sniffled on the bed next to her and flung one thin leg out of the blanket. She averted her eyes from her, this the fruit of her love-making, when her husband still remained a stranger. Other than the three days they had spent together in Mysore after they had just got married, part of the large gaggle of relatives, she could count the number of times he had been with her on her fingers. He would disappear for days together, ‘on tour’ as her mother-in-law tersely explained, and then suddenly appear one evening. Finally, she had fallen back on the ultimate tragic feminine gesture of protest, she had bolted her door on him. In the early days of her marriage, sometimes at night she would hear his voice in the front of the house, talking to her father-in-law, and she would rush to secure her door, the stiff, sharp-edged conical tower bolts notwithstanding. Then she realized that it was not necessary, for he never tried to come in. His gold-rimmed glasses were still grave, the half-moons on his onion-pink nails still promisingly delicate, and she knew in her treacherous heart that all she needed was to hear the knock. She would unbolt the doors immediately, no matter what. But he did not knock, and she came to realize that he was a visitor to the house.
She had confronted her mother-in-law one morning and all the women had come scurrying into the kitchen, their eyes bright with anticipation. But her mother-in-law had led her by the elbow into her room and shut the door behind her.
‘He is busy,’ she said, ‘I told you he tours a lot. His is a very responsible job. Sometimes he stays over in his office.’ And then, catching the look on Kaveri’s face, she stopped. ‘Men, by nature,’ she said, feeling her way about, ‘are very different, not house-bound like us … Is there anything you need? Are you not comfortable? Are we not doing enough for you? Are we stinting on anything?’
But Kaveri was not listening to her. ‘Does he have any … habits,’ she asked, thinking of her uncle Shivaswamy and his hip flask.
‘Of course not!’ Her mother-in-law was shocked at her crudeness. ‘My son neither smokes nor drinks.’
‘Look …’ her mother-in-law said shortly and then searched for the right words, ‘We have only one son and you are our chosen daughter-in-law. You know what our standing in the community is, you couldn’t have even dreamt of better. This house, everything we have is yours … of course, it is up to us to keep our men in hand. You must do your bit … behave …’ she broke off impatiently for she was getting no help from her daughter-in-law. ‘You cannot be so obtuse, so adamant … you must be more amenable … you must understand …’
‘Understand what?’
‘Why can’t you be more … more … womanly? Did nobody teach you? A woman’s lot …’
‘I was not taught that her lot is different from a man’s.’
‘You speak very well, you have an answer for everything, but what’s the use of it? I don’t see how that is going to help you. Rukminiamma always was … well, that’s what comes out of being too refined …’ She stood at the window, her back to Kaveri. And then she turned round and looked keenly at Kaveri.
‘Do you know what our scriptures say about the qualities of an ideal wife, the kula dharmapatni?’ she said. ‘I’m sure you don’t though it is the duty of every mother to tell her daughter this—karyeshu daasi, be his hand maiden … karneshu mantri, a sage minister giving him good advice … rupecha Lakshmi, as beautiful as Lakshmi, the goddess of wealth and well being, with all her graces, of course. We wanted an educated girl from a good family, so we compromised on the colour, but you have very neat features … kshamaya Dharitri, as forgiving as Mother Earth herself … bhojeshu mata, to feed him like a mother…’ She had hesitated before elaborating on the last quality but she came out with it, ‘shayaneshu veshya, to please him … like …’ she couldn’t bring herself to say the word ‘whore’, ‘like the apsara Rambha … you will see, things will be different when you give him a son …’
She broke off for her daughter-in-law had begun to laugh, and laugh hysterically.
‘You mean it’s my fault? You’re asking me to use my feminine wiles on him?’
‘No, my dear girl, what I meant was you’ll have to be as patient and as forgiving as Dharitri herself, to be a true kula dharmapatni. The future of this household is in your hands. I will not be around forever …’
‘I don’t want to be a kula dharmapatni! I want to go home, right now!’
Her mother-in-law had let her cry her heart out, there on the bed, her face to the wall. And then Kaveri had felt her gentle touch upon her shoulder and heard the infinite pity in her voice. ‘Of course you can go. I’ll order the tonga round right now if you like and send for your train ticket. You will even have a servant to escort you. But how long will you stay? This is your home now. You will be cared for. You may not believe it but I am your friend, I wish you well … Be patient … all will work out for the best.’
Cry as bitterly as she may, there was no denying the truth of it—this was her home now. She had no money. Her mother was dead. She would have to ask them for her ticket and the tonga to go back home, to go anywhere at all. Besides, her father would not countenance a married daughter returning home except on specific occasions and that too with the full formal panoply of clothes and gifts and an entourage to drop her home and pick her up.
Her father visited—with tired newspaper bags of fruit, his turban limp, his black coat bulging open at the stomach where a button was missing, his eyes elsewhere. She joined in her mother-in-law’s show of hospitality, urging him to stay for lunch, reaching out for this jar of pickle and frying that special sandige and when it was time for him to leave and he turned to ask her how she was, she said, ‘Fine, I’m fine. All is well.’
There were certain things that her mother-in-law was particular about, that they appear at weddings and family occasions together, where he came in his gold-edged silk kurta—that false friend from the photograph (as for the dog, there was no sign of it)—and she wore a selection of her now vast jewellery. But that too was fast becoming rare. She remembered their last outing together, to her home, to visit her mother when she was dying, where with all piety he had touched Rukmini’s feet, reaffirming in gesture that he would cherish her daughter. Kaveri had been big, enormous actually, with child then and her mother had been happy to see her. ‘Good, a child will bind the two of you together,’ she had said and Kaveri had just smiled.<
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At her mother’s suggestion she had visited her old friend Kalyani, who now taught at the Mahila Vikas Samsthan, a girls’ school of repute. The school was part of the samsthan’s larger social rehabilitation activities and Rukmini was keen that Kaveri should be part of the samsthan. Kalyani was assistant head mistress of the school and warden of the hostel, despite her young age, she was just twenty-two. But in that sparse room with its grid-iron windows and bare board of a table, Kaveri had confronted a woman to whom all approaches were closed. She could not strike a match on their remembered childhood and watch the sulphur-head of memories flare; even the fatigue of relentless experience had not weakened the hinges, Kaveri could not get her foot in the door. She had met a stranger, her hair pulled back, her forehead and neck and wrists bare, her sari pinned on the outside to her blouse with a large, uncompromising safety pin; twice widowed but still childless—relieved once of a young husband on the day she had got married and the second time of a middle-aged man with grown children. Education, Kalyani’s demeanour seemed to suggest, was for women who could not do better.
And as she sat there on the hard visitor’s chair, she had seen herself as Kalyani must have seen her, with her eight-diamond earrings and her sixteen tola gold necklace, the vermilion brand of marriage ablaze upon her forehead. She had felt the silken folds of her sari carelessly between her fingers a willing accomplice in her self-deception, and realized how clever her mother-in-law was. She had not said, don’t go to the Mahila Vikas Samsthan, that splendid organization, refuge of abandoned and unfortunate women, you who are married into one of the richest families in the community, you who carry the mark of your male protector on your forehead and round your neck, despite your raw bitten lips. Kaveri’s mother-in-law had got the measure of her daughter-in-law, to know not to forbid her from anything, for then Kaveri would surely do it; she only had to wait for Kaveri’s initial flail of protest and then for her sensibilities to recognize the truth of the situation. And so they faced each other, the two of them, Kaveri and Kalyani, old friends, newly striated and differently lacerated, the protective moult of their childhood buried behind them. There was nothing for her here, Kaveri had realized; like elsewhere she would become an object of curiosity.