by Anita Nair
‘Oh, it’s you, Janu, you frightened me. Why are you up so early?’
I spoke my first words to a member of the In-Laws, ‘I usually wake up early’ … oh dear, my first words and they’d turned out to be a lie. Getting up early was something I only ever did to get to school on time and when I couldn’t block out my father’s shouts any more with warm blankets.
‘Would you like some coffee? There’s some in that percolator over there. I’d make it for you but my hands are oily.’
I went over to the percolator and contemplated the small steel contraption. Yes, I would like some coffee, please, but I was familiar only with the stuff that came out of bottles in a spoon. My second lie was on its way.
‘No, I don’t drink coffee, thanks.’
There was a busy sound at the door and my new mother-in-law entered the kitchen. She’d been the subject of most of our speculation in all conversations that had taken place about the Maraars back at home. The two families had met on a few occasions to discuss the planned ‘alliance’ and my uncle, amongst others, had developed a strong ‘Janu’s-mother-in-law phobia’. Mini’s father, normally an easygoing sort of individual with a wicked sense of humour, had found his laughs drying up uncharacteristically in the presence of that forbidding figure. On one of his early attempts at breaking the ice, he’d informed the Maraars that my father’s official designation of Director of Signals in the Indian Air Force really only meant that he was the man who stood on the airport tarmac waving cardboard lollipops at taxiing aircraft. This brought the usual round of affectionate sniggers that gradually bubbled away as my family realized, one by one, that they were the only ones laughing. The Maraars appeared to be taking their cue from the matriarch leading their delegation. She had fixed a cold gaze on Kunyachen, clearly signalling that no jokes demeaning The Alliance in any way would be harboured. Her son was marrying the daughter of a Highly Placed Official, and nothing, especially not the buffoonery of lowly uncles, was going to detract from that.
I unfroze myself and tried to sidle along the wall as she approached the percolator.
‘Have you had coffee?’ she asked, without seeming to address anyone in particular. I shot a look at the Ammumma still pouring out her oils and decided the question must be aimed at me. Before I could reply, however, the Ammumma said, ‘Janu doesn’t drink coffee.’
My chances of getting some sustenance seemed to be slipping away. The taste of bath soap still lurked horribly in my mouth.
‘Tea, then?’ Still no eye contact.
I decided to take the plunge. Boldly, I replied, ‘Yes, please.’
‘Look, you’re not in Delhi any more. Like it or not, you now live in Kerala, so I suggest you drop all these fashionable Pleases and Thank Yous. Here we don’t believe in unnecessary style.’ She accompanied this with a short laugh, perhaps attempting to take the edge off it. But the edge was clearly there. It tore a tiny little scratch inside me somewhere, and suddenly the many times that I’d been told off for forgetting a little kindness or gratitude seemed so falsely, so pretentiously Delhi.
Deeply ashamed, I pushed my back as far as it would go into the wall behind me and watched her briskly make the tea. Was her displeasure because I’d spoken in English? I cast about frantically for the Malayalam to use when she gave me the tea she was making, remembering vaguely that there were no equivalent words for a casual Please and Thank You. I couldn’t very well have used the only option I knew, unless I wished to express the deepest, most flowery gratitude more suited to a court than a kitchen. Non-Kerala families like mine tended to mix up English and Malayalam into an easy, casual city-speech that had worked reasonably well on my holidays here. Now that I was here for ever, it looked like that brand of Malayalam was going to be woefully inadequate. Even worse, seen as stylish. Thankfully it didn’t look like I was expected to join the rest of the conversation between the two women. It was about the food that would be cooked for the large extended family staying till the reception, and the old Ammumma appeared to be taking orders from her daughter. ‘You can cut two kilos of beans for the thoran, and six carrots. Make sure you do it yourself, that Thanga will make a complete mess if you leave it to her. Last week the pieces were so big, I could not even chew them. You don’t watch her closely enough, sleeping instead of supervising.’ Nary a please nor a thank you, I noticed, and delivered in a tone of voice that was deeply frowned upon in my family, but we’d evidently got a lot of things wrong. ‘Here’s your tea.’
I walked to the kitchen counter to pick it up, ‘Thank …’ I remembered just in time to swallow my unbidden English gratitude with a hot gulp of tea.
As I was sipping my sugary tea, different members of the clan started to drift in. First Sathi (the older sister-in-law I had already met when I was first seen by the Maraars) followed by her brood of cheeping chicks (Vinnu, Annu and Joji), then Latha (the Kerala-brought-up-daughter-in-law … washed, bathed and not in a nightie), followed by various other aunts and cousins. The men were probably congregating elsewhere, in some distant and privileged verandah or living room, to which large trays of tea were being regularly despatched.
Perhaps out of kindness, I was not spoken to very much, which was a relief. It didn’t sound as if anyone in this family had grown up outside Kerala, the Malayalam flying around me was fast, fluent and elegant. My years of growing up in Delhi and having to struggle with Hindi in school, had relegated Malayalam to a very low priority. It was getting clearer by the minute that my holiday-Malayalam, so comical it sometimes even made my grandparents giggle, was unlikely to endear me to this family. I hoped I could get away with looking sufficiently interested in everything going on around me without having to make verbal contributions. Don’t appear overly agog though, I warned myself, that might be misconstrued as well … as being idiocy or something.
As the morning outside brightened, I noticed that the younger set had started to drift around and were getting ready to play some board games in the dining room next door. Most of them looked about my age, and I hoped I would be asked to join them when I saw Gauri, my new younger sister-in-law, carry out a large carrom board. She had not been a part of the Maraar group that had first come to see me, but had not shown any interest so far in getting to know me. She was Mother-in-Law’s pet we’d been told, still a schoolgirl and the one that I had marked out to befriend in this household. She had looked busy all morning, chatting and giggling with the cousins who were visiting, now organizing them efficiently into teams to play carroms. That looked like much more fun than the kitchen activities and conversation that was all about people and relatives I did not know yet. I continued to play with my teacup, listening enviously to the gales of laughter emanating from the room next door. I don’t suppose it would have done for me to be included in that happy set. They were the daughters of the family, and unmarried. It was okay for them to be unwashed at ten o’clock and wearing nighties, unlike me. I missed home dreadfully and hoped that the expression on my face did not give it away. A small frock-clad battalion of new nieces had assembled itself in front of me and was now observing my every movement with eyes that moved in perfect military unison.
‘Hello,’ I ventured softly. Annu, about four, slid hastily behind her mother. Two-year-old Joji showed me a furry bear and then hid it behind her back. Vinnu, who was probably about the same age as Mini, maintained an unbroken gaze. Occasionally her eyes would wander up and down my person, carefully examining an ear-ring or a toe. I wondered what to make of this careful inspection. She was looking at the chain around my neck when she suddenly piped up, ‘Is it gold?’
No one else appeared to have noticed I was attempting my first full-fledged (Malayalam) conversation with a Maraar. ‘It is,’ I replied.
‘Is that gold?’ She was now looking at my ear-rings. I nodded.
Her gaze wandered to my hands, she wasn’t going to give up easily. ‘Diamond?’ She looked like a suspicious jeweller.
I shook my head. It was only an ordinary Rangoon
white stone that Ammumma had set in gold for me on my last holiday in Kerala. The little girl nodded in satisfaction, she’d finally caught me out. I thought our conversation had petered out, but a few minutes later she startled me by reaching out a small finger to stroke the yellow nylon of my sari. ‘Imported?’ she asked.
I didn’t see my new husband until it was time for breakfast. The wizened old Ammumma, who had not stopped to rest once, had warmed two dosa griddles and was now turning out crisp, golden dosas at great speed. The Maraar clan seemed enormous and the meal-time routine seemed to be men first in the dining room, children alongside at the kitchen table, then the women, the drivers and servants and finally, after she’d fed everybody else, the old Ammumma. I thought of the fuss my grandmother would have made if anyone had ever attempted to relegate her to that position in our house.
Suresh came in with his father. Both of them smiled briefly at me as they sat down and were served their dosas with sambar and chutney.
‘Do you eat dosas for breakfast in Delhi?’ Hopefully a kindly, and not sarcastic, inquiry from Father-in-Law.
‘Not often,’ I replied, ‘my mother doesn’t get the time on working days, but we do have them at the weekends sometimes.’
‘Well, you can’t expect any better when women go out to work, can you?’ This was another barbed shaft from Mother-in-Law. It wasn’t taking me long to work out that my choice as bride had not been a universally popular one in this household. Had Suresh defied his parents’ wishes to choose me? Perhaps from among the thousand hopefuls who, we’d been told, had been vying madly to become his wife?
I looked at the back of his head. He seemed to have had a bath as well. I was glad I had remembered to remove my washed underwear from the bathroom after finishing my bath, carefully spreading them out to dry on top of my suitcase. They would be nearly dry now, discreet and untempting on their perch under the bed. I was grateful that he had not forced himself on me last night and now strangely touched at the possibility that he’d perhaps defied his mother’s wishes to marry me. I also knew by now that I was going to need an ally to fend off the many shafts that were undoubtedly going to be heading my way. He was the obvious choice to be that ally.
I couldn’t remember the details of his face from that first awkward meeting, and hadn’t needed to look at it during the marriage ceremonies yesterday. While walking around the flickering vilakku at the temple with my head bowed, I’d had plenty of time to observe his feet as he walked ahead of me. I’d felt a sudden lurching realization that I was getting more time to familiarize myself with the feet of the man I was marrying than his face! They looked about size eight, with slightly blotchy skin, the big toe was shorter than the one next to it, the nails were pale with jagged edges. That was when the shivering had started. I had quickly struck up an inner dialogue with myself to stop the shaking, which seemed to work briefly. ‘Surely you must be able to remember some other details about him from that first meeting?’ ‘Nope, it’s all a complete blur.’ ‘You’re not trying. Remember a largish nose?’ ‘Hmm … maybe …’ ‘Now try again, he’s not very tall?’ ‘Yes, I sort of remember that …’ ‘Good. And there’s lots of other things you know. That he runs a verrry successful motel business, my dear. Developed (from scratch!) by his father. Verrry good family he belongs to also.’ ‘Yes! And now I also know the shape of his feet!’ At that point my thoughts had been completely drowned out by the thumping of the temple drums and lowing of conch shells. The smoke from the oil lamps and the heavy perfume of the joss sticks had been threatening to throw me over in a dead faint. Maybe it was safer, I told myself hastily, not to think too much.
Here in the kitchen, I couldn’t stare for too long, of course, but I could see in brief darting glances that he had a small bald patch developing at the back of his head. His back looked narrow, he was quite slim and wiry. Dark skinned. I knew he was twenty-six and a half years old. A fair bit older than me, but Ma had said that would probably make him protective and kind. Leaning on the kitchen wall, watching him talk to aunts and cousins, I felt weary at the thought of how much I still had to find out.
I was also beginning to get a sense of having a lot of reassuring to do. That hadn’t occurred to me before, that this new family of mine might have developed a pre-conceived notion of me! Somehow I had to let these strangers know that I was kind-hearted and affectionate. That children and animals usually liked me. And that, despite Delhi, I was really not too stylish and had come into their lives very eager to love them. Despite having lost my heart once as a sixteen-year-old, which of course had to be carefully hidden from them. How on earth was I going to convey so much and soon? And in broken Malayalam! It felt like there was an awful lot of catching up to do, as there were obviously certain things about me that had already failed to make the grade. Beginning with an account in debit was not the best way to set out on a new life. Suddenly I was terribly homesick again and very close to tears.
Over the first few days with the Maraars, I progressed into little more than monosyllabic replies. This, I was sure would be considered a good thing, as brides were expected to be bashful. And a bashful bride from Delhi (who could have turned out to be God-only-knows-what) would, I thought, endear me to them greatly. It certainly wasn’t coming very naturally to me as there were times when I longed to break out into animated chatter, joining in the general conversation. But speaking in English would be misconstrued as attempting to be stylish and speaking in Malayalam had on occasion been greeted with sarcastic laughter. I was better off pretending to be a bashful bride.
I now knew where the rice was kept, at what time lunch was served, what everyone’s names and relationships were. I had even been taken by my mother-in-law to Dr Gomathy’s clinic to have a ‘Copper-T’ fitted. The thing that was going to prevent inconvenient babies from arriving and interfering with the BA my parents had been promised I’d complete. It nestled snugly now deep inside me somewhere, having been pushed in by Dr Gomathy’s efficient rubber-gloved hand, after which she patted my bare bottom announcing sagely that I was now ‘ready’ … Ready for Lurve, I thought anxiously.
The reprieve I had been granted on my wedding night hadn’t lasted, of course. It seemed to be quite late at night that people began to retire to their separate rooms in the Maraar household and I’d hung around the following night until I was actually told to go to bed. Suresh was already in the room, stretched out on the bed, reading a magazine. Hoping that minimal eye-contact would somehow have him fail to notice that I was in the room too, I tip-toed about getting ready for bed. When I could put it off no longer, I finally perched myself delicately on the edge of the bed, swinging my legs demurely over, quickly tucking them under the sheet. I could hear sounds of a magazine being put away and of an arm reaching out for me and knew I couldn’t put it off any more. When it finally came, with an ungraceful conjoining of arms and legs, and clothes and sheets, with buttons and hooks adding to the chaos, I greeted it with the stoic sense of one of those things that had to be done. Like a visit to the dentist, where things went on in intimate parts of you that you could neither see nor control. Love didn’t seem to play much of a part. And laughter, that might have been more comforting under the circumstances, didn’t come into it at all. It felt awkward to be kissed by a mouth that had not had very much to say to me up to that point. I tried to quell the feeling of revulsion that rose in my chest. And decided I was no nearer either to feeling loved or to wanting to love. Even my few tentative explorations with Arjun had not prepared me for this sudden invasion. Later, looking up at the ceiling fan, feeling sore, mentally and physically, I wondered why Leena had advocated chasing after this thing with such fervent enthusiasm? Perhaps it was one of those things that would grow on me, I hoped, watching my figure whirling slowly around in the steel cap of the fan above. Next to me, the eerie night-call had started up … coo-wee … coo-wee …
But there was at least a kind of rationale to the nights that my days in the Maraar household still seeme
d completely devoid of. It was getting clearer that it was the Maraars I had married, not Suresh. He had not been unkind, but had not seemed to want to spend much time alone with me. The couple of hours before breakfast he spent discussing business with his father on the verandah. After breakfast, they would leave for one of the motels. I, left with the women folk, attempted to look useful, which wasn’t very easy because between school and Arjun, I’d never found the time to learn to cook. In the evenings, if Suresh was not touring and did get back early enough, we sometimes went for a drive or to the cinema where rats as big as small cats ran down the aisles. Gauri, my schoolgirl sister-in-law always accompanied us because, as Suresh’s mother said, she only had her brother to take her out, poor thing.
‘Suresh chettan had promised me he would only marry someone who would agree to my being taken everywhere too,’ Gauri informed me archly one evening as we waited for Suresh to pick us up for the six o’clock show of padayottam.
‘I don’t mind,’ I said quickly, not very sure of whether I ought to mind or not. At fourteen, Gauri was closer in age to me than Suresh was, and there seemed to be potential to make a friend. She had already shown me how to stamp my feet every three minutes in the cinema to prevent the rats from coming scampering over our feet, reducing us to hysterical titters. ‘I really do like it when you come as well,’ I said with more conviction.
‘You realize, of course, how lucky you are,’ she continued, ‘to have in-laws like my parents. My older sister, Sathi chechi, really has a hard time with hers. Always interfering with everything, useless people.’