‘I had come here imagining that I would get the paperwork made for the boy and the girl and take it with me. But I see now that it will be impossible. I have seen many homes that couldn’t stay together despite having papers. Now I know how immature my faith was, and how it has let me down. Chhori, I knew your mother’s heart, and I can understand your worry. Don’t you cry! I understand how much meaning and importance the prospect of spending your life with your husband holds for you right now. You are crying because you are also afraid. And it seems you have also started feeling love for jwain. Earlier, I saw you and jwain talking in your room. It is possible that somebody else in the house dislikes you, that they have heard something bad about you, and maybe even your husband cannot defy that person’s wishes. And perhaps there really is something bad about you—maybe I’m the only one who doesn’t know it.
‘My heart told me to take the two of you to your aunt and uncle’s place. The two of you immediately agreed. And I saw that you had come before me in a newly bought sari. Jwain was also wearing a new green suit. But I don’t know what jwain’s mother told him inside, because I don’t see him anywhere anymore. And now you stand here, in your new sari, crying alone by my side.
‘All I had wanted was for the two of you to go and meet your aunt and uncle. I had hoped to talk to jwain in the meanwhile, explain a few things to him. My jwain, who is more educated than I am and who earns more than I do—there was no way I could turn him against his family and bring him over to my side in just one day. “Her father is here, after all. We can meet the other relatives later,” jwain’s mother said earlier. My heart is brimming with suspicion, but there is nothing I dare to speak out aloud.
‘It doesn’t suit me to come here and sit like this in your home for hours on end. But I can’t leave this daughter of mine in limbo like this either. Please, let us have you tell me if I should take this girl back. Chhori, don’t cry now! Or, all of you tell me what you have decided. All I want is for you to give me an answer.
‘Earlier, jwain’s mother came to me and said, “We brought our daughter-in-law home, and we aren’t asking for her to leave. Let her stay in this house for as long as she wants. We won’t tell her not to.”
‘And, that is all well said, but still, I don’t know why, from deep inside, my heart just can’t accept this…’
We Separated Them
Yesterday evening, I had gone to the panchayat as a supporter from the husband’s side. Although I do not know Bhaktiman very well, I hadn’t been able to refuse him when he came in the morning to say, ‘You’ll have to come with me in the evening, okay?’
She arrived when called forth after everybody had settled down at the panchayat—her four-year-old son walking before her, head covered with the short end of a pale sari—and sat on the opposite bench. The son must have spotted Bhaktiman as he walked in front of his mother because, before the mother could do anything about it, he came running to his father, shouting, ‘Baba! Baba!’ Bhaktiman picked his son up and put him on his lap. ‘Why haven’t you come home, Baba? Where had you gone, Baba?’ The child began asking, loudly enough for everybody in the hall to hear. I can never watch such a scene; my heart soured with sadness. I looked at Bhaktiman’s wife—apparently, I had never seen her before. She was perhaps twenty-three or twenty-four, thin, bright of face, even pretty. Even now she wore sindoor in the parting of her hair. It became visible because the sari had slipped from her head and fallen to her shoulder. She covered her head once more with the end of her sari. She glanced at Bhaktiman once, then turned to look at us and smiled.
‘What sort of a woman is this!’ I elbowed Bal Bahadur and said, ‘Look how she smiles at us!’
Bal Bahadur replied, ‘Slut! She’s a slut!’
I didn’t look in her direction again.
‘We must begin the panchayat now,’ the sarpanch, revered among the villagers, said. ‘You, the panchas, know very well that the panchayat met a week ago, right here at the school hall, to discuss the complaints brought by Bhaktiman against his wife Laxmi. He showed many reasons and brought forth accusations against his wife so that he may separate from her. The panchayat couldn’t deliver a sound decision on that day. Because it was necessary for us to carefully deliberate over various issues. Our secretary will read out all of this to you now.’
From the panchayat’s register a college-going young man read out all the decisions from the previous meeting of the panchayat: Laxmi to stay for a week with a friend; Bhaktiman to provide her with seven rupees to cover the cost of her upkeep for the week; in the interim, the secretary to write to Laxmi’s parents at Nine Mile in Kalimpong and summon them; and, in the meanwhile, the president of the committee to go to Bhaktiman’s neighbourhood and make necessary inquiries.
From the secretary we heard that Laxmi’s father had received the letter, but he had neither replied, nor had he deigned to appear in person.
‘You tell us first, Bhaktiman,’ the sarpanch said. ‘Why do you ask to be separated? Why don’t you ask to live with your wife, share the good and the ill, make a home and live with love? And, your son’s future—do you two wish to, you know, to ruin it?’
After asking these questions the elder looked at all of us.
Bhaktiman stood up, sat his son where he had been sitting, and faced the panchas to speak.
‘Sanad! Come here!’ Laxmi scolded her son.
‘Why don’t you come here?’ the son teased.
‘Brat!’ she said and laughed.
Even the people sitting behind us commented, ‘This woman must have a screw loose in her head. Look at how she laughs!’
Bhaktiman said, ‘Earlier, I had employed Laxmi to cook and clean for me. Before that, she used to work at somebody else’s home. When she was with me for about a year and half, I observed her ways, her habits and behaviour, how she did her chores. I inquired about her parents, about her home. This girl comes from a very poor family. One day, I said to her, “It seems you have been through a lot of hardship. I have nobody to call my own either. Let us live as husband and wife. You’ll have a bit more comfort, and my life will find a purpose.” I had thought—this girl has grown up in destitution; if she gets even just a bit more of comfort, it will be enough. Laxmi said, “I’ll have to ask my father.” I said, “Very well. Ask him.” When the letter reached them, both the father and the mother came. Then, we invited a handful of people from the neighbourhood, served them tea and puris, sweets. Call it the wedding or the wedding feast, that was all that ever happened.
‘Then, this son was born. Everything was going smoothly. If she set her heart on something, I did whatever it took to find the money to buy what she wanted. I continued to work at the book shop—I still do. But, her heart was going astray…’
It seemed Bhaktiman was having trouble speaking anymore. I stared at the floor, lost in my thoughts. ‘Go on, tell us everything. You must tell the panchas everything clearly,’ the sarpanch said.
‘I spend all of my days at the shop. It seems all sorts or strangers were frequenting my home. When I heard this from my neighbours, I died of shame. Even I chanced upon a few young men, sitting in my home. One of them I know very well—he is a thief who has been to the jail many times. When I asked, she said—They are people I met here and there, a long time ago. I talked to her, I scolded her, I tried everything. But she attacked me instead. Not a day goes by without a fight anymore. Our neighbours have grown tired of listening to us fight. I don’t get to drink tea in the morning; when I get home in the evening, she and the son will have already eaten and gone to bed. There is nothing left out for me. God is my witness—I have gone to bed on an empty stomach for four straight nights…’
‘Did you sleep hungry, or did my son and I sleep hungry? Liar!’ Laxmi shouted fierily to interrupt.
‘No, no! You may not scream like this at the panchayat. Speak only when we ask you to,’ one of the panchas scolded her.
‘But, how can he tell lies?’ Laxmi shouted again. ‘Lying bully!’
‘Listen, Nani,’ the sarpanch said. ‘You are as a daughter to us, but the manner in which you are speaking to your husband—that is not good. If this is how you behave towards your husband here, before so many respected people, how must you treat him when you are alone! That is what we have heard from your neighbours, too. Tell me—didn’t the neighbours come to your home five or six months ago and hold a panchayat there to reconcile the two of you?’
‘I have already explained my plight before the panchas. Please, just think—how can I live with her after all of this?’ Bhaktiman sat down.
‘Leave out the small stuff, but explain your case clearly before the panchas,’ the sarpanch ordered Laxmi. ‘Has your husband given you trouble, or has he gone astray with other women? What is it? Tell the panchas everything clearly. You can speak from where you are standing.’
‘Whatever I say, I’ll speak the truth,’ Laxmi began. ‘He has the terrible habit of envious eyes. He has already accused me with everyone in the neighbourhood. If you keep house, people will visit. But whenever anybody comes for a visit, he says, “That is your lover! Get lost with him!” He makes a scene. He has made it impossible for me to keep face in the village. The sacrifices I have made to make this house into a home, not buying the food my heart wanted, not going to the cinema—if he weren’t totally blind, he would have seen it. He gives ten rupees for the entire week. With that I have to buy food, and then clothes and utensils for the house…’
‘I’ve been buying her extra clothes,’ Bhaktiman stood to speak.
‘You won’t speak now,’ a pancha stopped him.
‘Don’t speak, not now,’ I also said.
‘During the wedding, he had promised that he would look after my parents. Maybe he gave them ten rupees once, but after that he hasn’t given them anything. I bought and gathered everything there is in the house now. He doesn’t even give me money to run the household anymore. What does he expect me to cook for him then? When he is at the shop, he orders tea and snacks and eats it with his friends there. Fine, I was at home, going to bed hungry. But when this little boy also had to go to bed hungry, I went to the shop one day to ask for money. He attacked me at the shop, tried to beat me, and said, “Why have you come to the shop?” I shouted at him then, out of anger. It was that night that four of five of these people held a panchayat.’
‘Are you talking about something old, or something that happened recently?’ one of the panchas asked.
‘After the panchayat reconciled us, things were good for a few days, but became the same after that,’ she said.
Members of the panchayat had begun their cross-questioning and interrogation. Ambar, Bal Bahadur and I went outside to smoke cigarettes.
‘Where is this girl from?’ I asked Ambar after lighting my cigarette and using the same match to light his.
‘Kalimpong,’ Ambar inhaled deeply, then exhaled three times. ‘I know this poor girl from a while ago.’
This is what I gathered from what Ambar told:
The father was poor as a wild-bee; the air, the rain, the sun, the wind, all had free passage into the house. Poverty had opened the eyes of Laxmi’s heart and mind early. When she was eleven, Laxmi left her home to work at Dhan Bahadur Mandal’s. There she saw Mandal’s home, filled with a thousand treasures of bowls and cauldrons, pots and vases, lamps and boxes and beds. Laxmi would happily stay there, even without pay, to sit and walk and work among all the splendour. She would wish—If only our home were like this! When Mandal’s wife ordered the servants about from the upper floor, giving them a thousand tasks, Laxmi would stand enrapt in a corner and watch.
When she grew up and started carding wool at the godown under Homes, her co-worker women, young and middle-aged alike, would talk racily, tease and laugh. But Laxmi would only listen quietly. She never thought of whether her husband ought to be of this sort or that sort. Rather, she dreamed of having a house, full to the brim with stuff and more goods of all sorts. Day and night Laxmi dreamed of a yard alive with hens and ducks, children frolicking before the house, the house filled with clothes and quilts and blankets, the kitchen adazzle with wine glasses and polished brass plates, an endless throng of visitors calling and taking their leave.
Perhaps many of the wishes in Laxmi’s heart were fulfilled while she lived as Bhaktiman’s wife. Compared to her parents’ house, this house was a thousand times better appointed. And, even if she had to eat cheap, Laxmi was desperate to gather goods for her home. In her heart, there was the pride and joy and pleasure of possessing things that she had never imagined of owning in many lives to come. Well, let the world see her possessions, too! Whenever she ran into somebody from her old life in the bazaar, she insisted upon inviting them home. And she invited many more people besides. And, so many simply jumped at any excuse to visit.
When we went inside again, a pancha was asking Laxmi, ‘Are you willing to be separated, or no?’
‘If he is ready to separate, I am also ready to separate.’
‘Don’t say, “If he is ready,”’ the pancha said. ‘Speak for yourself. Do you, in your heart, wish to separate, or no?’
About then, I stood to say, ‘I have a humble request before the learned gentlemen of the panchayat. The priority of the panchayat ought to be to create reconciliation, something a court is incapable of doing. Only if such efforts come to nothing should it resort to the unwelcome task of separation. In my humble opinion, my friend and his wife should be given one more opportunity through the panchayat to reconcile and steer forth the raft that is family. Instead of asking whether they are prepared to separate, perhaps we should ask them—“Are you ready to reconcile?”’
Laxmi had been watching my face, and finding hope and courage, she continued to look the others in their faces. I continued to speak, ‘If separating them is the goal, the courts would do a more certain job of it. The courts are incapable of bringing about reconciliation, but the panchayat can do that. If, today, from this place, we could send this pair of husband and wife away in reconciliation…’
‘No! That can’t be! I don’t agree to this at all!’ Bhaktiman glowered at me in anger and shouted. ‘My home and my name have been ruined because of this woman. This much is certain: if I have to keep living with her, she will either murder me, or I’ll have to cut my own throat. Don’t you have the duty of preserving my life? I demand to be separated!’
‘I too demand to be separated!’ Laxmi also added.
For a moment, the panchayat was drowned in the babble of every voice talking over each other.
The sarpanch shouted to ask Bhaktiman, ‘So then, do you have any wish for reconciliation at all?’
‘I don’t wish to reconcile.’
Laxmi was also asked, ‘And you, do you wish for reconciliation, or no?’
‘If he doesn’t ask to be reconciled, I don’t want to either.’
The panchas were perplexed.
They deliberated among themselves, asked the opinion of other people present there. Ultimately, the decision was made to grant a separation. The secretary prepared to write down the proceeds in the register.
The first question was—who would the son live with?
‘My son will live with me,’ Bhaktiman said. ‘I can train him, give him an education. If he lives with the mother, she might elope. He will be left a destitute.’
‘My son will live with me,’ Laxmi said. ‘He has to pay the son’s expenses. I’ll work to give him as much education as I can. He will bring another wife—yes, he is doing all of this just to bring home another wife. The stepmother will starve my boy, kill him through toil. Gentlemen of the panchayat—have mercy and think what the life of a motherless child is like. What does he want now, after taking away the roof over my head, after maligning my name, and now trying to snatch my son away—what it is that you want? For me to go off to live alone in a cold stone hut?’
It was decided that the son would live with Laxmi until the age of sixteen, after which he could choose wh
ether to live with his mother or with his father.
I looked at Laxmi’s face then. She was smiling with joy. I felt like smiling too, to give her company.
On the other side, Sanad was picking biscuits from his father’s pocket and munching on them, swinging his legs. The father was smoothing the crumpled collar of his son’s shirt.
‘Now, the bits and bobs,’ the sarpanch announced, making everybody laugh.
‘Let her take all of her clothes,’ Bhaktiman said. After a moment, he added, ‘But, please, send someone from the committee. Don’t let her come on her own.’
‘That is appropriate,’ the secretary said. ‘Don’t go on your own. Tell us—what do you have of your own?’
‘I have eight saris.’
‘How many new, and how many old?’
‘Five new, three old, cotton ones.’
‘She is wearing one right now,’ Bhaktiman pointed out.
‘There are eight more at the house.’
The secretary asked, ‘What else is there?’
‘Sandals, two pairs. Slippers. Two shawls. Five blouses. Two petticoats. Then there are Sanad’s clothes. A ladies’ coat. Umbrella, a scarf…’
‘The scarf is mine, sir,’ Bhaktiman said to the pancha.
‘Let it be! Let her have it,’ I said to Bhaktiman.
He agreed. ‘All right, write it to her; the scarf too.’
‘There is a suitcase, of leather…’
The secretary had already entered the suitcase into the list but Bhaktiman raised his objection, ‘Not the leather suitcase, sir, but a black tin trunk. The leather suitcase isn’t mine, and she knows that too.’
Long Night of Storm Page 10