The Wedding Drums

by Marilyn Rodwell

  ‘Sumati, you’re alright?’ her friend asked anxiously. ‘You want me to get a cup of water for you?’

  ‘No. I’m fasting till after the Saptapadi. It’s just the kicking again. Amina, you won’t tell anybody about this, especially Dulcie, will you?’ she pleaded.

  ‘No, of course not. You’ll have to wrap your sari loosely. I’ll go home and get dressed then come back to help you.’

  ‘There are plenty here to help, but I rather they didn’t, so come back soon. Hey, is Rajnath coming to the wedding?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  ‘I hope he does comes. I really like him. He has been a true friend when no one else wanted anything to do with me.’

  ‘Yes, I know,’ Amina said.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  Amina climbed on a stool and got the case down from the top of the wardrobe. She opened it and pulled out some of her wedding trousseau outfits. The blue silk sari and matching choli were beautiful. Really, she should keep them. But this day was important too. She decided to try on the choli and found it fitted surprisingly well, even though it was made with growing room. She pleated the sari into the waist of the petticoat and continued wrapping it round and round, before throwing the long piece over her right shoulder. The mirror reflected a better image than she had ever seen of herself: she looked taller, and more mature. She got out the brown paper bag containing the new pairs of champals and chose the turquoise and gold pair.

  Amina decided on the nicest jewellery – a pair of three-layered earrings, spliced with scores of thin, diamond-shaped gold pieces that glinted in the light as they swung. With them, she wore the three-tiered gold necklace, a pair of bracelets and an orchid ring. Everyone wore their best clothes and finest gold jewellery for such a special occasion. She wasn’t going to ask her mother’s permission, the girl decided. Her father had spoilt her with his own creations, and the jewellery belonged to her. She sneaked out before Devinia could catch her to tell her she would surely bring bad luck upon herself if she wore those items before her own wedding. Amina had long since given up believing in luck, for the gods of good fortune seemed to be the bringer of more pain than joy.

  Tassa drums were pounding the air for miles, and streams of people were arriving at the wedding house. Sumati had said she wanted a small do, but the whole village had become involved, ignoring the cujart placed on the family.

  Amina went into the house half-expecting Dulcie to send her away. It would be the last day she would see Sumati as a single girl, and she was determined not to be put off by the woman. As she pushed her way through the tent towards the back of the house, she heard an imperious voice.

  ‘Hey, you!’ the voice called. ‘Where do you think you’re going?’

  Amina turned and spotted Dulcie through the scores of school-friends, parents and neighbours, gathered at the back door chatting and laughing. Ignoring her, Amina headed into the house to Sumati’s room and shut the door behind her, with a sense of relief.

  The bride in the mirror was a beauty. Her face was already painted with kohl around her eyes, white powder over her eyelids, and blue and silver dots over her brows. The red and gold sari lifted her complexion, which was pale of late. And her lips were luscious red.

  Sumati was dressed more elaborately than Amina had expected. She sat in front of the mirror while two or three women helpers fussed about her hair, pinning it up off her face, and laughing. But Sumati’s choli seemed tight, flattening her breasts.

  She gasped with delight when Amina entered. ‘You got in.’ She rolled her eyes. ‘I think my father tried talking some sense into Tantie Dulcie. But I’m surprised that stopped her.’

  ‘I brought something for you,’ Amina said, edging closer.

  ‘You look so pretty,’ Sumati said. ‘Is that a new sari?’

  ‘My mother bought it for my trousseau.’ Amina opened the brown bag she had with her, and poured out the contents into Sumati’s lap.

  ‘What’s this for?’

  ‘It’s for you. Take it. It’s my present to you – for luck.’

  Sumati’s eyes welled up. ‘I can’t believe it. These are the ones you said your father made for your wedding.’

  ‘Ssssh,’ Amina said. ‘Just take them. I’ll not be needing them anyway.’

  ‘Don’t say that, Amina! You will need them soon enough. Your parents picked out a rich, educated businessman for you. You’re lucky.’

  ‘I disagree. It’s unlucky for a girl who wants to remain in education. Sumati, I want you to have them. They won’t fix anything, but I hope they make you feel special.’

  Sumati picked up the elaborate necklace. It was exquisite. Tears rolled down her cheeks and dripped onto the jewellery in her hands. ‘Look what I’m doing,’ she said, wiping it.

  Amina took the necklace, put it around Sumati’s neck and fastened it at the back. She inserted the long droplet earrings into her ears, and took two of the bracelets from her own wrists and put them onto Sumati.

  ‘These are yours,’ Sumati objected. ‘You’re wearing them.’

  ‘I love you as a sister,’ her friend said tenderly. ‘Remember the pact we made? We joined our blood. We are sisters. Take these, and always wear them, with my love.’

  Sumati stood up and pulled Amina to her chest. ‘No one has ever been this kind to me.’

  Amina rearranged the sari, making it hang more loosely around her friend’s waist. She got a pin to fix it in place over the tight choli that Sumati was almost bursting out of, and placed a gold sirbandhi around Sumati’s head with the heart-shaped bindi directly in the centre of her forehead.

  Pryia and Ramona stood behind them, sobbing.

  ‘Oh gosh,’ Sumati said shakily. ‘You all will make me cry. I wasn’t going to cry at all.’

  ‘Ah yes, but you will be crying for all the right reasons,’ Ramona said. ‘Because you’re happy, not because you’re sad to leave home.’

  ‘What is that?’ Sumati asked.

  There was a sudden hush in the bedroom and they all rushed to the window to see what was happening at the front of the house.

  ‘There’re loads of them!’ a chorus of voices chattered. Everyone was peering out of the window.

  ‘It’s him!’ Pryia cried. ‘The bridegroom! He’s here.’

  Sumati’s face went pale. ‘What’s he like?’

  ‘Is he good-looking?’ Amina asked, pushing to see.

  ‘I don’t know! I can’t see!’

  ‘He’s up in that . . . urm . . . thing! They’re carrying him up high.’

  ‘Sumati, are you all right?’ Amina asked.

  ‘I don’t know.’ Sumati looked up at her friend as if pleading for something. ‘I’m not sure. Hold my hand.’

  Dulcie came rushing into the house, followed by a trail of her women helpers. They burst into the bedroom.

  ‘Quick! The doolaha is here,’ she said. ‘Get yourself ready. Why didn’t you put on the yellow sari like I told you?’ she scolded. ‘You don’t do anything you’re told. I should never have left you with this lot. The red one is for later! Come now, it’s too late. They’re here. I have to go and do my part.’

  Everyone stared at Dulcie issuing orders and scolding all in the same breath. Sumati was panicking, but Dulcie just turned and hurried out of the door on the same breeze that blew her in. From the window, the girls could hear her striding through the crowds making her way to the front yard. Roopchand was already there, moving slowly towards the bridegroom and his entourage. The bridegroom had no father, but an uncle in his place. He took the brass cup of water from Roopchand. Pundit Lall took the coins from the bottom of the lotah – the brass cup, and divided them between the two older men from both sides. When this purification ceremony was done, Dulcie did the ritual blessing – the Arti, that Sumati’s mother would have done, before the groom was helped down from his chariot, while Dulcie’s married helpers showered flowers and scattered rice over him. He was to be treated as king of the day, and Dulcie was set to do her very be
st to keep the Indian traditions under the circumstances. She and the women escorted the groom to the mandap.

  Both Roopchand and the groom’s uncle now had to perform their part of the ceremony before the bride arrived. They put leaves, money, rice and flowers on the wooden bench and showered each other with flowers. Then they both rocked the bench containing the rest of the rice, flowers and money so that it all fell towards the decorated bench where the couple would be sitting for the ceremony.

  Roopchand did the three-mango-leaf ritual, dripping water on the feet of Baljit, his son-in-law-to-be, as if to wash them. He then offered Baljit a small bite of the bitter mango leaf dipped in honey so that he could taste the bitter-sweet nature of marriage. Both men participated in more rituals, before the handover of the leaves to the pundit of the bride and that of the groom.

  When Dulcie returned to the bedroom she noticed the jewellery Sumati was wearing. ‘Where did you get this?’ she demanded suspiciously.

  Just then a rush of cold wind blew through the room, extinguishing the candles and creating havoc with saris and clothes flying around. Everyone froze. Sumati was the only one who remained calm. When the gust died down, she stood up smiling, towering over her aunt who was still reeling in fright.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ Sumati said. ‘Chulloh,’ and she burst into Indian song.

  ‘Come with me to meet my groom,

  To meet the one that waits for me

  To enter this bitter-sweet union,

  I hide my countenance till he binds the knot, . . . ’

  They all looked at her in surprise. A new song she’d made up, singing, standing tall in all her bridal glory, her womanly curves more pronounced below the layers of silk. ‘Chulloh my sisters. Come. Take me to my destiny.’

  Dulcie picked up the edge of her own sari, as if she were the mother of the bride, and placed it on the head of her niece, covering her face, while offering Sumati five mango leaves dipped in honey, once again symbolising the bitter-sweet state of marriage. Sumati opened her hand and Dulcie placed the leaves in her cupped palms. One of the women gave a ball of dough to Dulcie.

  ‘You won’t leave this house empty-handed,’ Dulcie said. A tear fell from Sumati’s eye.

  As they reached outside, the groom’s family showered Sumati with gifts – five gold pieces, jewellery and clothes – but Baljit’s family were not very well off. Sumati scanned the crowd to see who might be his children, but there were so many that she soon became distracted with the rest of the proceedings, and began concentrating on finding her way to the mandap where her future husband was already seated.

  Dulcie escorted Sumati to the canopy and sat her down on the bench opposite the groom, who was dressed in bright pink and maroon, with a cream and gold turban on his head, decorated with sequins and tiny mirrors. On top of the turban was a gold-coloured crown. Sumati couldn’t help but raise her bowed head to look at the man she was about to marry and who she had never properly seen before. Although he had been to the house once, she had not really taken any notice as she was not interested. She remembered him as being just too old, and may as well be wrinkled and ugly as molten lava.

  But he was not. And she was wrong. Surprised at what she saw, she raised her head even higher to be sure she was right, but Dulcie pushed it back down, and placed the ball of dough with silver coins and gold jewellery embedded into it, into Sumati’s right hand. Then she put Sumati’s left hand into the hand of the groom. Amina strained her neck to see his face, thinking he must have been a very young man when he first married. Then she spotted Rajnath standing not far from the ceremony, and wanted to speak to him. She scanned the surroundings to see if her parents were around before beckoning to him. While the pundits were conducting the ceremony, the two of them melted away, unseen.

  ‘Well,’ Rajnath said. ‘It’s happening. Farouk is missing out, that’s for sure.’

  ‘It’s for the best . . . she wanted this.’

  ‘Is that why she ran away with Farouk?’

  ‘That was then,’ Amina replied. ‘She has no choice now.’

  ‘She had a choice to just be happy, instead of chasing happiness. And what has she got? An old man. Now she will have to learn the truth about happiness.’

  Amina blinked twice and looked up at Rajnath. ‘Which is what?’

  ‘Patience. Contentment. She could have had anybody,’ he said roughly. ‘Most men would give away their grandmother to be with somebody like her, just once.’

  ‘Most men including you?’ Amina looked at him, surprised.

  Rajnath looked embarrassed. ‘No! I meant men in general.’

  ‘Now I understand.’ Amina sighed. ‘Well you missed your chance.’

  ‘I didn’t want one,’ Rajnath said. And he stalked off looking angry, leaving Amina on her own outside.

  The girl walked back into the wedding tent, listening to the pundits chanting various mantras. She saw Dulcie move her hand away from Sumati’s, allowing it to fall into Baljit’s hand. Noises and voices were building up from the edge of the wedding tent, sounding like a commotion. Then Amina heard another disturbance coming from the opposite direction. She didn’t know which way to turn. But when she looked around to see what was going on inside the wedding canopy, she couldn’t believe what she saw.

  THIRTY-SIX

  Sumati had collapsed to the ground. Roopchand was lurching forward to reach her, and the pundits were both hovering. Dulcie herself was striding towards Roopchand. People around the wedding bower were looking perturbed. Amina then spun towards the commotion at the other side of the tent to see Rajnath arguing with someone. By the time she reached him, Rajnath had the man backed up against a cashew tree about ten yards from the corner of the tent.

  ‘What’s going on?’ Amina demanded.

  ‘Talk, Farouk,’ Rajnath hissed. ‘Tell us why are you here, today of all days. Have you come to make sure you’ve got rid of her?’

  ‘No,’ Farouk said. ‘I wanted to see her for the last time.’

  ‘The last time? Like a good riddance kind of last time?’

  ‘I loved that girl. But she left me.’

  ‘You lie!’ Rajnath snarled. ‘It was you who left her!’ He moved closer, his fist in the air. Amina got between them and tried to push them apart.

  ‘If you loved her, why did you treat her so badly, then left her when she needed you?’ Amina asked.

  ‘You’ve got that wrong,’ Farouk said. They both heard a ring of truth in his voice. ‘I never saw her after the first day. Except once. It was on the third day, when I went up to her outside on the bench. She gave me one hard look and said she hated me, and never wanted to see me again. That it was best if I just left her. Then Amrit and Dillip told me that my being there was no good for Sumati. They said they had a job for me down at Bonasse. It seemed like the answer, so I took it.’ He gave a long shuddering sigh.

  ‘You weren’t bothered enough to ask her why?’ Amina asked.

  ‘She had rejected me. I felt hurt. And stupid for taking her there. Then on the boat, Rajnath told me to come back. That she was having a child.’

  ‘So you came back on her wedding day?’ Rajnath exploded. ‘The girl you loved and left with a child? What a man you turned out to be!’

  ‘You want to blame me?’ Farouk asked. ‘Well, go ahead, if that will make you feel better about your family. I told you Dillip is no good!’

  ‘Leave it, Rajnath,’ Amina said, looking at him redden with anger again. ‘There’s no point.’

  ‘Amina, why don’t you go and see if your friend is all right,’ Rajnath said in return. ‘She’s looking unwell, and needs you.’

  Amina looked across at the mandap, and immediately ran off.

  ‘If you really wanted her,’ Rajnath said to Farouk, ‘you’d have done something about it earlier. She’s making your child. Your child . . . you son-of-a-bitch. And she’s going to another unsuspecting man with that child. The fool might even think it is his if she succeeds.’

 
‘My child?’ Farouk asked. ‘That’s the other thing I don’t understand.’

  ‘This is no time for your games. This is your chance. It’s now or never. If you want the girl, go and get her!’

  ‘You want me to interfere with the wedding? Now? When she is making a child?’

  ‘What? You don’t care about your own child? You believe that she and your child will live a good life when that man finds out the truth?’

  ‘My child?’ Farouk asked. ‘But it’s not . . . ’

  Rajnath’s fist came flying through the air and landed on Farouk’s left cheek. ‘What’s wrong with you? You know that one and one makes two, right? Well, sometimes it makes three!’

  Farouk cradled his cheek, looking puzzled.

  Rajnath turned his eyes to the skies. ‘What is the matter with him? Lord Krishna, come to my aid!’

  ‘Oh, I see what you mean.’ Farouk’s eyes suddenly brightened as if Rajnath had struck a match up to his face.

  Over in the mandap, Sumati lay flat on her back. She had fainted. Her eyes were only just rolling open. Roopchand sat her up, took a cup of water from someone and handed it to her.

  ‘Drink this,’ he said. ‘Did you eat something this morning?’

  ‘I gave her food early,’ Dulcie said defensively. ‘She must fast till after everything’s finished – after tying of the knot, after the seven times round the fire and everything . . . ’

  ‘But that will not be for another two hours,’ Roopchand objected, thinking of Sumati’s condition. ‘We are not doing all that,’ he said firmly.

  ‘You want a quick wedding now?’ Pundit Lall asked with concern in his face.

  ‘Well, it’s up to him,’ Dulcie replied sulkily. ‘But he brought me here to do what I think is best. Now he wants a quickie-quickie wedding that mightn’t last.’

  ‘Is all right, Pa,’ Sumati said weakly. ‘I’ll be fine now.’