He didn’t want any curses from an old woman.
Aman and Timcu are not planning a trip to Kartarpur where Mem-saab wanted to be strewn on the fields along with her beloved gurus. No. Both are planning to take her ashes to Hardwar and drop her off in the sacred water with everyone else and all the fish.
It isn’t as if Mem-saab had expected or asked them to use sandalwood for her cremation—so couldn’t her sons have honoured that last wish? And Mem-saab often spoke of donating to build a new gurdwara in Gurkot. And for a girls’ school, and a clinic, but …
No one listens to women’s wishes.
Mem-saab might have wanted Aman to give Damini more, for instance, might even have specified her wishes in writing. But even a rich woman can’t keep her promises, should the men in her family decide otherwise.
Mem-saab, may you be a human in your next life.
Damini reaches under the canvas roof of a scooter-rickshaw to shake its sleeping driver by the shoulder. She climbs in to its gold gondola and settles back in the passenger cabin.
The scooter driver stretches, yawns a “Namaste, ji.”
He clambers out to hoist her bedroll into the seat beside her. He hefts her shoulder bag on top of the bedroll. He pours a soothing libation of oil into the tank, and winds a scarf about his neck with a flourish like that new actor Shahrukh Khan. He steadies the eager bounce of the scooter’s green plastic-tasselled handles. “Where do you go, ji?” he shouts over the engine.
Her destination comes to Damini in a flash. “To Rashtrapati Bhavan,” she says. The Presidential Palace, the Secretariat and its surrounding Houses of Parliament lie at the heart of New Delhi. Parliament is where all big decisions are made. That’s where positive and negative energies resolve into intention.
Suresh is her son. She is his responsibility; this is the way.
But Suresh shares a fly-bitten servant’s quarter with five other men—he has no place for her. No, this is not the time to go to Suresh. Not every son is kind to his mother in her old age—and at this moment, does she have the energy to test her own?
The scooter putt-putts around the arch of India Gate. Damini squints at the eternal flame. It’s for an unknown soldier, Mem-saab once explained, “a warrior who may or may not have been of the kshatriya caste. We don’t know. All we know is that he—or she—was there when his country needed him.”
Suresh doesn’t need her. Leela may need her, her grandchildren may need her. Some other woman like Mem-saab may need her. She must be useful.
Wind whips Damini’s cheeks.
“So, today you’re invited to the president’s home?” the scooter-man shouts over his shoulder, as they vroom down the ceremonial boulevard.
“What’s it to you if I am?” Damini retorts. Every man in this city must volunteer his opinion about where a woman is going, where she should be, where she should live … maybe she should go and ask President Shankar Dayal Sharma where can a woman like her live in old age? Maybe he can tell her how to live without an income, without begging, or selling her body.
Leela lives in Damini’s old home. The house she and Piara Singh built stone by stone with their own hands for his parents and themselves. The house Damini no longer owns, that became Leela’s dowry. Damini’s inner ear conjures up Leela’s warm-toned voice, honed on mountain ridges. Her little girl who danced and sang as if blessed by snakes. In all of Gurkot, Leela is one of few women her age who lives alone for long periods. Chunilal plies a truck through the Himalayan passes, rarely going as far south as Delhi. He comes home monthly, for a few days at a time, and leaves Leela his gun to scare away monkeys.
Leela is strong today because I left her in the village with her grandmother. Everyone said she would grow up wild, but I could see no other way.
If she goes to Leela, there will be scornful comments in the village about a woman who takes from a daughter’s family, just as there were hurtful comments fifteen years ago when Chunilal came to live in his wife’s village. “Not our reeti,” said the villagers of Gurkot. Not our way.
They said Chunilal should have taken Leela away to his parents’ home to live with his elder brothers. And Suresh, who was only sixteen at the time, said dowry is illegal and Chunilal shouldn’t have asked for one, and that Chunilal had taken Suresh’s patrimony. But Chunilal just laughed and said a trucker lives anywhere.
Damini’s scootie passes stacks of dismantled tents, flagpoles and crowd barriers that had been erected for Independence Day celebrations and nears the crossing at the base of Raisina Hill. Leaning out, she can see the massive red stone ramparts and cupula domes of the Presidential Palace. At the centre of the intersection, the Dancing Policeman stands on his traffic island. As Damini’s scootie approaches, he snaps to, both arms extended in perfect Kathak alignment, palms up. Pataka mudra: Stop.
Living with a daughter, taking from a daughter.
She can’t live with Leela.
The Dancing Policeman holds his position, with a brilliant smile, for more than three minutes, though it’s still so early, only 6 a.m., that Damini’s scootie is one of the few vehicles at the intersection. Then one forearm swings up and drops across his chest. His head moves left with a roll of his eyes, then right with an eye roll in that direction. His hands rotate slowly till the very last instant, when his thumbs snap up. Ardhachandra mudra: Go.
Damini can tell people it is only temporary.
The three-wheeler advances across the huge expanse of Victory Square toward the palace.
The Dancing Policeman changes position again. Stop.
The scootie rocks back on its hind wheels like a reined-in pony.
How will she contribute? She must. She must pay for taking from a daughter’s family.
Her widow’s pension is two hundred rupees a month and she has her bonus after so many years’ work. Paying will also save face for Suresh.
The Dancing Policeman changes his pose again. Go.
The scooter advances.
When has she ever had a chance to be with Leela? She has seen Suresh in Delhi over the years, but Chunilal has never brought Leela to the city. Damini saw her grandchildren at birth when she went to help Leela with their deliveries, and on her visits to Gurkot with Mem-saab. Leela’s baby girl, Kamna, is fourteen now, and her boy, Mohan, twelve.
Damini has been among too many walls and too few windows lately; her inner body feels shrunken and withered. Her blood is tied to the depths and heights of the sacred Himalayas. There the devtas and devis—earth gods, gods of the hills—may heal her.
The black and yellow scootie zooms up Raisina Hill like a bee about to sting the mammoth red sandstone face of the Presidential Palace. Damini reaches out and taps the driver on his shoulder.
“To the railway station,” she shouts.
The scooter-man grumbles louder than the engine-din, but veers into a sharp U-turn, and returns downhill. This time, the Dancing Policeman’s hands and arms are in position to guide Damini down Janpath, the People’s Way. Damini braces against her bedroll.
Leela will be surprised to see her.
PART III
Deeds not Words
ST. IGNATIUS OF LOYOLA
August 1994
DAMINI
SINCE NO ONE IN DAMINI’S FAMILY KNOWS SHE IS coming and no one in her almost-family now wants her to return, she has all the time in the world to get a railway ticket. But even at this early hour, to buy an unreserved third class ticket she must queue and push and shove, as about fifty people are doing before a ticket counter in a corner of the station.
Damini shoulders her bag, clutches her ticket money, and uses her bedroll as battering ram through the press and hubbub of sweaty men already in the queue. She must make the 8 a.m. train. An elbow pokes her breast, a shoulder presses against her ear, a bony arm is wedged into her lower back. An hour later, she is no nearer the counter. And now a man returning with his ticket pushes past so hard he swivels her around to face the rest of the crowd.
“Ladies line here,” she s
houts, with sudden inspiration.
The wriggling mass before her stops for an instant as three women slap away pinching fingers, glare at unrepentant men, and extricate themselves. Damini, now first in the ladies line, bangs on the glass of the ticket agent with her fist—“Ladies first!”
The agent doesn’t look up, but two fingertips appear beneath the small plastic arch, and her money disappears. Damini waits, her eye travelling to a large pink poster on the wall. The three women queuing behind her draw closer against the mass of men.
A woman in a sari is sitting on a European-style chair. One bare foot touches the floor, one rests on a footstool. She’s facing a TV, and a couple of pages of a newspaper have fallen on the floor beside her, but there she sits, letting the papers lie on the floor. There’s an empty glass on the floor too, but she’s not reaching to pick it up. There are two plants, but she doesn’t seem to notice how dark and parched they are. Lazy woman.
On a low table beside the woman is a cup. It must be full of tea. The woman’s chin is raised. She’s smiling as if enjoying herself. Saablog. English-speaking woman.
No, there’s a book in her hand, and she’s reading in Hindi because Damini can just make out Devanagari script. And her cast off shoes are sandals, not high heels. The women behind her follow her gaze, and two of them begin to giggle.
“A woman with nothing to do but drink chai, put her feet up, and read books and magazines—khee, khee! This cannot be,” says the one in the magenta sari.
“Look,” says the other in the green and mustard print salwar-ka-meez. “Must be having two-three children by now. Still she’s laughing—how embarrassing for her husband.”
The third woman looks too tired to care.
The fingertips appear again, this time pushing a third class ticket out to Damini. She snatches it and uses her bedroll again to fight her way out of the crowd.
Why carry her own bedroll and shoulder bag to the train when there are strong young men around? She spots a good-natured-looking man about Suresh’s age, who doesn’t look as if he speaks English or is a saab. She calls him son and asks for help. He seems amused or bemused by his sudden adoption, and from respect for an elder, carries both all the way past the air-conditioned first- and second-class sleeper and chair cars to general class. He even hoists her luggage inside, leaving with only her heartfelt blessings as payment.
Inside the carriage, Damini slides her shoulder bag under the wooden bench. She settles herself with the bedroll at her back, drawing her knees up, encircling them with her arms so as not to take up too much space—so many are crowding their way in.
Opposite her, a bride examines her henna-curlicued hands. Then she twirls red and ivory plastic bangles about her wrists. Her groom has a droopy moustache, and sits beside her dressed in shirt and tie.
Damini congratulates the bride, who appears too shy to respond. The groom informs her they are going to Shimla for a honeymoon.
Young couples need to go somewhere the moon is sweet. For us, everywhere the moon shone was sweet.
A South Indian man closer to Damini’s age opens a chai Thermos wedged between his knees and unwraps a packet of Parle biscuits. Four hardy-looking men a few years older than Suresh are arguing in Maithili. They must be going north looking for work.
Three little boys surround the woman in the magenta sari from the ladies line; she lets everyone know she is on her way to meet her husband. The woman in the green and mustard print salwar-ka-meez has spread her bedroll on the floor between two benches. She lies down and begins patting her infant to sleep. A grey-bearded man wearing a round Himachali hat and carrying a pilgrim’s staff has closed his eyes in the hubbub to meditate himself into peace-filled detachment.
At the compartment door, a beggar cocks his head at the passengers and raises milk-white sockets; he is cataract-blind. Damini’s rupee coin passes from passenger to passenger, into his outstretched bowl. Next come three hijras, giving passengers a second opportunity to improve their karmas. The transvestites wheedle and cajole, and make lewd gestures and movements at those who ignore them. If she hadn’t been born purely woman in this life, she might have been given into their keeping and joined them in begging. That might be more humiliating than going to live with a daughter. Not as humiliating as selling your body.
Damini donates a five-rupee coin.
The air is vibrating with heat at eight o’clock when the train moves reluctantly from the station. Soon it’s chugging and swaying past the outskirts of Delhi, then north, its movement wicking sweat from Damini’s skin. A ticket inspector seals the third class carriage off from the rest of the train.
Outside the window, men and women carrying litre-size mugs and pots are emerging from a sprawl of tarpaulin-covered huts, on their way to relieve themselves along with dogs and cats behind rubbish heaps, and in fields. Damini will have to re-accustom herself to that. And she may have to give up her toothbrush for a datun-twig and her bra for a choli in case women in Gurkot think she’s putting on airs.
Washermen slap sheets and saris against stone. Vendors are mounting bicycles, filling tricycle-carts, loading handcarts and honing their penetrating cries. Two serious-looking boys in crisp tericot uniforms stand at a bus stop.
A group of girls in navy salwar-kameezes, white dupattas draped across their necks, file into a government school. A couple of boys run barefoot, chasing bicycle wheels so close alongside the train she can see their teeth flash as they laugh. Two boys in shorts—about six years old—are helping men unload a truck. They balance shiny machine parts on their heads, and become specks as the train races forwards.
The city gives way to mud villages, and fields turning a lush green in the monsoon. Damini turns away from the window.
A man seated on the next bench, wearing a white pyjama kurta, looks ordinary yet somehow familiar—she realizes he resembles her father. The thought brings her father’s spirit, and a moment later, he’s sitting cross-legged before her, picking at paan-stained teeth, his chin cupped on the heel of one hand, the other forearm resting across his knee. Seventy years old, and still no son. He tried valiantly to the end, though, dying in the arms of a twenty-year-old wife bought from a smaller village—Damini never met her. His spirit is restless because his pyre was lit by his brother. It reveals itself whenever she asks, and even sometimes when she doesn’t.
Whoever heard of a woman living with her daughter, says his spirit. Did your mother teach you this? Because I didn’t.
True. When he died last year her father had never visited her or her sisters’ homes for more than a few hours. When he did, he would only take water.
It is only for a while, she tells him.
Ha! You could become comfortable and forget you are a guest. Then what will people say?
They will say I wanted to see my daughter.
No, they will say, this is a family who takes from their daughters.
He’s still the family guardian; it’s his job to warn her. As always, he wants his fears to become hers. Respect for an elder compels her to listen. He carried out his duty, paying for four daughters’ weddings on the erratic income of a small-town wholesale flower-seller.
Always, he knew everything—or pretended he did.
And now her mother is sitting at the other end of the bench, in that indigo-sprigged sari she wore to her self-cremation. Her covered head is turned away. Is she ashamed? Weeping? Angry? Who can tell? Her mother’s spirit is younger, and will never ascend beyond the prêt-lok, so it is often visible. She should advise Damini but she is as silent as she was when she had a body, that body that bore so many daughters and walked so many miles each day for water.
You were always willful, says her father. Because you were the youngest.
And Damini explains why she needs, why she wants, telling them what has happened.
Yehi to baat hai. Damini’s father wags his forefinger before Damini’s closed eyes. Always you want, just like your sisters.
What did I want? she cha
llenges. Chai, dal and roti, a place to sleep, a kind word, a beedi once in a while. Safety in my old age.
Too-too much you want, says her father.
Didn’t you want such things when you were alive? Why shouldn’t I have such wishes too? And where else can I go—your village? It’s no longer mine. It was not mine from the day you told me not to become too fond of it because I would be leaving as soon as you could arrange my marriage. It’s no longer mine since you broke the twig at my wedding and gave me to my husband.
Your uncle is there, maybe he can …
I have not seen my uncle in years. When you died, he never gave me or my sisters one paisa—said there was no police or power to make him give us anything.
Her mother seems to be gazing at the distant mountains. She always wanted to be elsewhere.
Where are you, now, mata-ji?
But of course, her mother’s spirit doesn’t reply—can’t reply—to such questions. And Damini has more. The same she will ask Mem-saab’s spirit when it reveals itself.
Was it an accident, or was it your wish? Did you do what you felt everyone wanted? Why was there only one way? Could you not find any other way?
But she does not want to know the answers right now. Maybe someday.
Some Krishna-inspired musician is playing the flute in the next bogey—how amazingly beautiful is each note. Nothing like filum songs that are sung by boys and girls who are smitten with love even before they’re married.
I command you to listen to me, her father’s spirit interrupts. Return to our village; your uncle will do his duty.
If I went grovelling to him, I would just become his servant, Damini tells him. I’ve been a servant for thirty years. I will find something better, with your blessings or without. Her father subsides into hurt silence. But whether she closes her eyes or opens them he doesn’t go away; he still has something left to tell her.
Steel giants stride past the tracks, carrying their load of current downhill to cities hungry for power. Piara Singh used to know each pylon, from below and above. An electrician, he was climbing one of those ladders to the sky, providing a connection for those without connections, trying to bring a little light to a tiny village, when the gods struck him down for his temerity. Damini has the khaki envelope they found in his pocket. She has never spent the three hundred rupees he was bribed. His spirit will come too, sometime. He knows her intentions, knows her so well.
The Selector of Souls Page 14
