That evening, Ari talked with his mother, letting out the thoughts that had surrounded him for the past few days and the bleakness he felt for his future.
‘Well, at least now you’re speaking to me from your heart and not that hard head of yours,’ Samina said, trying to comfort him. ‘I’d wondered all this time where my son had gone, and if he would ever return to me. So this is a good beginning. You have learned a very important lesson, Ari; that contentment comes from many different things and not just one alone. Money and success can never make you happy if your heart is closed.’
‘Anahita said much the same thing to me when I last saw her,’ Ari mused. ‘And she said that one day I would realise it.’
‘Your great-grandmother was a very wise woman.’
‘Yes, and I feel ashamed I wasn’t there to say goodbye to her.’
‘Well, if you believe, as she did, in the spirits, I’m sure she is here with us, accepting your apology. Now –’ she yawned – ‘I’m tired after my journey and need some sleep.’
‘Of course,’ Ari replied, and led her downstairs to one of the beautifully furnished bedrooms.
‘So much space, just for you,’ Samina said as Ari put her overnight bag down. ‘And a whole night without your father snoring in my ear. I may never want to leave!’
‘Stay as long as you want to, Ma,’ said Ari, surprised that he actually meant it and ashamed that he had never invited her to his home before. ‘And thank you for coming,’ he added as he kissed her goodnight.
‘You are my son, I was worried for you. No matter how big your apartment, or how rich you are, you are still my beloved firstborn.’ Samina stroked her son’s cheek affectionately.
As Ari climbed into bed half an hour later, he felt bizarrely comforted that his mother was sleeping only metres away from him. He was humbled by her lack of recriminations for his past behaviour and the fact that she had flown immediately to his side the minute she had heard he was in trouble. He then thought of Anahita, and the way she’d refused to believe her own firstborn was dead for all those years.
Was there an innate sixth sense for a mother when it came to her child?
Ari’s eyes were drawn to the chest of drawers. Inside it lay his great-grandmother’s story, untouched for eleven years. Even though he was alone, Ari felt a blush rise to his cheeks, just as it had when he had last been in his great-grandmother’s presence.
If she were with him now, he hoped she would hear how sorry he was for ignoring what she had entrusted to him. Climbing out of bed, he opened the drawer and took out the yellowing pages. Looking at the immaculate handwriting, he saw that it was scripted in small, neat English.
Ari could feel his eyelids were heavy. Now was not the time to try to decipher the words, but he promised himself that he would begin reading it tomorrow.
The following day, Ari took his mother out for breakfast before she began the long journey home.
‘Will you be returning to work tomorrow?’ Samina asked him. ‘You really should, it will help take your mind off everything, rather than mooning around in that soulless apartment of yours by yourself.’
‘Honestly, Ma,’ Ari said, chuckling, ‘one minute you’re at me for working too hard, the next, you’re pushing me back to the office!’
‘There should always be a balance in life, and you must try to find that in yours. Then you might find the happiness you seek. Oh, before I forget –’ Samina dug inside her handbag and brought out a tattered copy of Rudyard Kipling’s book of poems Rewards and Fairies and handed it to Ari –‘your father sent this for you. He said you were to read the poem “If”, and to tell you that it’s one of his favourites.’
‘Yes.’ Ari smiled. ‘I know it, but I haven’t read it since school.’
Once his mother had left, having secured from Ari a promise to visit the family the moment he arrived back from his travels, he drove to the office.
Calling Dhiren in to see him, Ari told him that he was entrusting the business to him whilst he was in London and that he might be away for longer than he had previously thought.
Twenty-four hours later, he boarded the night flight to Heathrow. Ignoring the film selections, Ari reread the poem by Rudyard Kipling that his father had sent him and smiled ironically. He understood its message. Then, ordering a glass of wine, he took his great-grandmother’s pile of yellowing pages from his briefcase.
Jaipur, India, 1911
6
Anahita
My child, I remember. In the still of the night, the merest hint of a breeze was a blessed relief from the interminable dry heat of Jaipur. Often, the other ladies and children of the zenana and I would climb up to the rooftops of the Moon Palace, where we would make our beds.
The city of Jaipur lies on a plain, surrounded by brown desert hills. As a child, I used to think that I must live in the most beautiful place on earth, for the city itself had a fairytale quality. The buildings were painted the prettiest pink imaginable. Domed houses with exquisitely carved latticework and elegantly pillared verandas laced the wide streets. And, of course, the Moon Palace itself occupied the best location – it was a town in itself, surrounded by lush gardens. The inside was a labyrinth, the scalloped arches leading to inner courtyards, which would in turn reveal their own secrets.
And the Jaipur residents themselves were colourful; the men wore vivid turbans of yellow, magenta and ruby-red. I used to gaze down on them sometimes from one of the high terraces which overlooked the city from the palace, and think how they reminded me of hundreds of bright ants, going ceaselessly about their business.
In my palace at the centre of the magical city, living amongst the highest in the land, it was easy to feel as though I was a princess, just like many of my playmates were.
But, of course, I was not.
Up until the age of nine, I had lived amongst the people in the streets below me.
My mother, Tira, was from a long line of baidh, the Indian term for a wise woman and healer. From a young age, she would have me sit with her as people from the town came to consult her for help with their problems. Out in our small back garden she grew many sweet-smelling herbs with which to mix her Ayurvedic potions, and I often watched her grinding the guggulu, manjishtha or gokhru on her shil noda to prepare a remedy. The customer would seem pacified and go away feeling happier in their heart that their true love would love them back, or that their bad tumour would disappear, or that they would conceive a child within the month.
Sometimes, when a female customer came to the house, my mother would tell our maid to take me out walking for a few hours. I began to notice that, when she asked this, the woman would be sitting on the cushions in our back room, her face drawn and terrified.
Of course, I didn’t know then how my mother helped these women, but I do now. She helped them take care of unwanted babies.
My child, you may think that such a deed is a sin against the gods. It was usually because a woman already had half a dozen children or more – there were no forms of stopping babies from arriving in those days in India – and the family was so poor, they simply couldn’t afford another mouth to feed. Conversely, she would help mothers when a child wished to come into the world too. And as I grew up, she started to take me along to assist her. When I first saw a baby being born, I admit to shielding my eyes, but, as with anything, especially when it’s nature, one becomes used to the sight and starts to view it as the miracle it is.
Sometimes, my mother and I would ride out on the pony that my father kept stabled outside the city, and visit the villages outside Jaipur. And that was when I began to understand that everyone did not exist in a pink, fairytale city with loving parents and food on the table every night. I saw terrible things on those visits: poverty, disease, starvation and the agony that human beings can suffer. I learned when I was very young that life was not fair. It was a lesson I was to remember for the rest of my days.
My mother, like all Hindus, was highly superstitious, although my
father used to tease her that she took it to new levels. Once, when I was six years old, we were preparing to journey to see relatives two hundred miles away for Holi, a joyous festival when each of us throws as much coloured dust as they can at the others. By the end of the day, everyone is covered from head to toe in every hue of the rainbow.
That day, we left our house and began to walk along the road to the railway station to embark on the first part of our journey. Suddenly, a white owl flew right in front of us and my mother came to a sudden halt, her expression aghast.
‘We cannot go,’ she said to my father and me. ‘We must turn back.’
My father, used to my mother’s superstitions and wanting to visit his relatives for Holi, smiled and shook his head. ‘No, my pyari, it was simply a beautiful creature flying past us. It means nothing.’
But my mother had already turned tail and was walking back in the direction of our home. Despite my father’s remonstrations, she refused point-blank to change her mind. So, that weekend, we sat, the three of us, my father and I sulking as we thought of all our cousins, uncles and aunts having Holi fun together hundreds of miles away.
A day later, however, we heard that there had been floods in the region. And the very train which we were due to board had crossed a bridge which had collapsed under the weight of it. The train and its occupants had crashed into the swirling, muddy-red waters. One hundred souls from our city did not return home.
After that, even my father began to take my mother’s instincts more seriously. As I grew older, my mother began to teach me simple remedies for coughs, colds and broken hearts. I was instructed to watch and learn the lunar calendar – there were times every month when mixing the remedies would make them more potent than at others. She told me that the moon gave women our feminine power. And how nature, which the gods had created for humans to provide all we needed, was the most powerful force on the planet.
‘One day, Anni, you will hear the spirits singing to you,’ she told me as she tucked me up in bed. ‘Then we will know for certain the gift has been passed down to you.’
At the time, I didn’t understand what she was saying, but I nodded in agreement anyway. ‘Yes, Maaji,’ I said as she kissed me goodnight.
I knew that it was thought in my maternal family that she had married beneath her. My mother was born into a high caste. She was a second cousin of the Maharani of Jaipur, although, in truth, it always seemed to me that everyone I knew in India was a cousin of ours or someone we knew. She had been betrothed from the age of two to a wealthy cousin in Bengal, who had inconveniently caught malaria at sixteen and subsequently died. While my mother’s parents searched for another suitable match, she met my father at the Navratri festival, and they began a secret relationship composed entirely of smuggled letters.
When my grandparents announced to her that they had found a high-born but older husband of fifty who wished for my mother to become his third wife, she threatened to run away unless they allowed her to marry my young and handsome father. I’m not sure what lengths my parents went to in order to see each other – the stories had become a part of their own folklore by the time I was born – but eventually, my grandparents reluctantly agreed to the match.
‘I told your grandparents that I could not give their daughter rubies, pearls and a palace to live in, but I could house her in love always,’ my father had told me. ‘And, my beti, you too must remember that to love and be loved is worth all the treasure in a maharaja’s kingdom.’
My father, Kamalesh, was the polar opposite to my mother. A philosopher, poet and writer, who took his ideology from Rabindranath Tagore, the famous Brahmin poet and activist. He earned a pittance of a living, producing a monthly pamphlet on his radical thoughts, especially where the British occupation of India was concerned. He had taught himself excellent English and, ironically, given his political views, subsidised his writings by tutoring high-born Indians who wished to learn the language in order to converse with their British counterparts.
He also taught me, his daughter, not just English but a whole host of subjects, ranging from history to science. Whilst other Indian girls were learning the art of embroidery and the necessary prayers to offer Shiva to find a good and kind husband, I was reading On the Origin of Species by Charles Darwin and studying mathematics. I could also ride bareback by the age of eight, charging across the flat desert plains outside the city, my father urging me to go faster and catch up with him. I adored my father, as all little girls do, and worked as hard as I could to please him.
So, between my father, the radical, who thought of all things logically, and my mother, who once saw a bat in the bedroom she shared with my father and had an ojha come to the house to clear it of evil spirits, I grew up with an uncommonly varied overview of the world. There was much of each of them inside me, but also something that was uniquely myself.
Once, as my father comforted me on his knee after I’d seen a group of young boys beating a half-starved dog in the street, he tipped my chin up to look at him as he wiped my tears away.
‘My sweet Anni, you have a bleeding heart that beats louder than one hundred tabla. Like your father, you abhor injustice and embrace fairness. But be careful, my Anni, for humans are complex, and their souls are often grey, not black and white. Where you believe you will find goodness, perhaps you may find evil, too. And where you can only see evil, maybe there will also be some good.’
When I was nine, my father died suddenly during a typhoid outbreak that was plaguing our city during monsoon season. Even the potions in my mother’s considerable armoury failed to save him.
‘It was his time, pyari, and I knew it was,’ my mother told me.
I struggled to understand her calm acceptance of my father’s death. As I yowled like a banshee over his lifeless body, she sat by him, tearless, peaceful and still.
‘Anni, when it is your time and you are called on, you must go,’ she comforted me. ‘There is nothing to be done.’
Her response didn’t suit me at all. I kicked and screamed and refused to leave my father as his body was lifted onto the funeral pyre. I remember being forcefully dragged away as the swami began to chant and they lit the straw pallet below him. As acrid smoke plumed into the air, I turned and hid in my mother’s skirts.
After my father died, we had little to support us. The Maharani of Jaipur, being a cousin of my mother, offered us a home with her. So we moved, the two of us, from our pretty little house in the city up to the Moon Palace, and into the zenana.
The zenana was where all the ladies of the palace lived together, separated from their male counterparts. Because, of course, back then, from the moment puberty struck, all the ladies adhered to the tradition of purdah. No man, apart from husbands or close male relatives, could gaze upon our faces. Even if one of us was sick, the doctor would have to diagnose our condition through a screen. And if we were out in public, our faces and bodies would be heavily shrouded and veiled. Now, I struggle to believe that this was the way it was, but none of us had ever known anything different and it was simply part of our daily lives.
When I first arrived, the noise and bustle of the zenana took much getting used to. In our own home, we had had a maid and a boy to take care of the garden for us. But after they had left at the end of each day there had only been three of us, with a front door we could shut to keep out the world if we wished. Palace life was very different. We lived, ate and slept communally. Sometimes I yearned for the peace and privacy of my old home, where I could close my bedroom door and lose myself in a book without being disturbed.
However, communal living did have its advantages. I was certainly never short of a playmate, for there were many young girls of my age living in the zenana. There was always someone around to join me in a game of backgammon, or to play the veena, a stringed instrument, as I sang.
My playmates were all polite, well-mannered daughters of local nobility. But the one thing that I missed terribly was my lessons. It was only after en
tering the zenana that I realised just how progressive my father had been by starting to educate me.
It was he who had nicknamed me ‘Anni’; my proper name, Anahita, means ‘full of grace’. I always felt it didn’t suit me. I may have had a scholarly mind (and could outrace any of my contemporaries on a horse) but when it came to girlish ‘graces’, I felt ill-equipped. I would often watch in the zenana as the other women pampered themselves and preened in front of the mirror, spending hours choosing the right coloured bodice to wear with a skirt – traditional-style saris were not worn in the province of Rajasthan.
All of the princesses and many of their noble cousins were already betrothed to a male whom their parents thought suitable. I, however, came from a high-caste but poor family. My father had left little in the way of material possessions and I was aware my mother had no dowry to offer for me. I was not a ‘catch’ for any eligible man, and my mother was still searching the family tree to find someone who would want me. I was not disappointed or worried by this; I simply remembered my father’s words to my mother’s parents when he had asked to marry their daughter.
I wanted to find love.
When I was eleven, and had been in the zenana for over a year, my previous education and skills on horseback began to pay dividends. I was chosen by the Maharani to become companion to her eldest daughter, the Princess Jameera.
Even though being the princess’s companion gave me a new set of privileges and an open door to all sorts of new and exciting activities, such as accompanying her on one of the many game shoots or being allowed access to parts of the palace that up until now had been forbidden to me, I don’t remember it as a happy time.
Jameera was spoilt and difficult. If we played a game and she lost, she would run to her mother in floods of tears, complaining that I had cheated. When I spoke to her in English, as I had been asked to by her mother, she would put her hands over her ears and refuse to listen. And if I ever dared outrun her on our morning horseback ride, she would howl with rage and ignore me for the rest of the day.
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