Gopi catches my eye, and gives me a thumbs up, and already saturated with well-being, I balloon with pleasure.
Flashes on my face as my photo is taken. Newspaper reporters shouting questions, one after the other, a staccato barrage. I don’t know what I say, but later you tell me, Ma, that I was brilliant. You and Da are proud and tongue-tied by the attention. Like me, you are wearing your best, or to be more accurate, your least shabby clothes.
The principal makes a speech claiming that he always knew I was destined for great things. One of the reporters interviews Puja and she says, pointing at me, ‘Yes, that is my sister,’ and I am touched and overwhelmed because this is the first time I have heard her say it in that particular tone, her voice dripping with pride. Until now, it has always been the other way round, with me pointing to her, with unabashed pride: My sister, Puja.
Dearest Ma,
You are waiting when I return from meeting friends in Dhoompur the evening after the celebration of my PU results, impatiently treading the nineteen steps between the mango tree at one end of our courtyard and the guava copse at the other. (I know it is nineteen because I counted one sweltering afternoon while you were comatose from the heat.)
When you spy me gingerly navigating the stepping stones down the hill, you hold up your sari and run across the field toward me breathless with news. I sprint to meet you half way and you open your arms and fold me into them and I breathe in your smell of sweat and spices and comfort.
You dance me round and round, right there in the middle of the field for all to see, our feet slipping and sinking into the mud.
Duja’s cow stops her placid cud chewing to stare at us, liquid eyes curious, soft brown nose twitching. Our dog barks delightedly, nipping at our dusty heels.
‘What is it, Ma?’ I laugh, when I can gather my breath.
‘The landlord visited us at the market stall today asking for your hand in marriage.’ The words come out in a rush as if you have been bursting with the effort of holding them in.
‘To him?’ I am not impressed.
You laugh, tweak my plaits. ‘No, silly, to his son.’
It takes a moment for the news to percolate, to seep into my already overflowing heart.
Gopi. The boy I have secretly fancied for what seems like forever, always thinking, no, knowing, that he could never be mine, that we orbited two different planets. I cannot believe it. How can all my dreams come true in the space of just two days?
‘Lost for words?’ You are grinning from ear to ear, Ma, the care lines on your face disappearing so you look like the young woman who coloured my very first memories.
‘Why me?’ I ask when I trust myself to speak. I had always covertly hoped that Gopi reciprocated the feelings I had not dared acknowledge even to myself. Has he spoken to his father, told him how much I mean to him?
You cup my flushed, flabbergasted face in your hands. ‘You deserve him, sweetie,’ you whisper, your voice warm and brimming with all the love you feel for me.
‘There are a hundred girls waiting in the wings to marry him, the richest and most handsome boy in the village. Why me?’ I ask again. I want to know, more than anything, that Gopi cares for me, that I have not been the only one harbouring romantic feelings during those hot, mango-scented afternoons spent teaching him mathematical concepts.
‘Ah, you see all the other landlords in neighbouring villages have mostly sons, the few daughters are already betrothed. Also the daughters of city landlords do not want to marry someone from the village. Thus, the landlord has no option but to choose a local girl and you . . . you have brought such fame to the village.’
You are grinning at me, love and pride shining out of your eyes. ‘We told the landlord that you want to continue your studies. He wants that for you too. An educated wife, a doctor at that, will be the jewel in his son’s crown, you see. All the town landlords look down on our landlord, call him a village hick. So if he has an educated girl for a daughter-in-law, a rising star as everyone says the papers have taken to calling you, no-one dare snub him anymore.’
It all sounds so mercenary, so business-like. But the awe-struck elation that has overcome me will not be swayed.
See, Puja, studying has its uses. I might be boring, but I have got everything I want by being so. I have won our parents’ approval and the hand of the boy I have secretly liked in marriage.
‘How do you know all this?’ I ask.
‘I have my sources,’ you say, tapping your nose and laughing that light-hearted laugh that I haven’t heard in a while.
In the fields, Duja’s cow moos mournfully, tugging at the rope that tethers her to the post. The banana flavoured breeze ruffles the ears of paddy and they nod hello. It smells of paradise, it is the yellow of maturing pineapples tinged red with dust.
‘Look, Sharda,’ you say jovially, linking your arm in mine, lifting your sari skirt with the other so it won’t be muddied as you skip, like a carefree little girl, down the narrow path towards home, ‘there is no hurry. The landlord and his son are coming to see you formally in a couple of years. We’ve agreed that the wedding will only take place after you’ve obtained your degree. But the landlord came to talk to us today just to make sure we would not promise you to anyone else.’ Your eyes sparkle like a bride’s jewels, Ma. ‘We wanted to give you girls an education, despite the cost of books and sundries, so you would do better than us. And you have exceeded our dreams!’
If Puja had been with us, she would have said, indignantly, ‘Marrying the landlord’s son does not really equate to doing better for yourself, Sharda.’
But for me, it does.
All I have ever wanted is to make you and Da happy and proud of me and now I have done so. In a clandestine corner of my heart, I have also wished for the boy who is this village’s sweetheart, to be mine. And soon, he will be.
Puja might be Da’s favourite. She might flaunt the rules, scoff at tradition, but by following the rules, by being dutiful, I have got what I’ve always wanted. The jubilation that is pulsing in my veins, coursing through my body is testament to the fact.
‘The matrons urged us to take you out of school after seventh standard, and get you to work with us or as a servant somewhere so you could contribute towards your dowry. We are so glad we didn’t heed them. Now we must find a suitable groom for Puja, once she’s a bit older . . .’ Your voice is the starry silver of bliss. ‘We will set a date for the landlord and his son to visit nearer the time. No need to tell Puja until then. You know how she is; discretion is not part of her vocabulary. I don’t want her telling the whole village when nothing is set in stone as yet.’
And this last is the best part, Ma. It is the syrup that gives crispy jalebis their irresistible sweetness, the saffron that lifts the humble biryani to epic heights, making it food worthy of kings. At last, a secret between us. Just you and me and Da. Like in the days before Puja came along and everything changed.
RAJ
JEWELLERY OF TEARS
‘That village,’ Raj says, ‘Wow. Why were they all so hell bent upon reforming you?’
You? He still cannot quite relate that girl he’s been hearing about to this woman next to him. His mother.
She smiles softly at him. He clocks the smile in wonder. When was the last time she smiled at him like that? Has she ever?
‘That is the way it used to be, Raj,’ she says. ‘Girls were not allowed minds of their own. Hopefully it has changed now, or is changing. Fingers crossed.’
This tale of his mother’s is making Raj see things in a new light. He has been lucky, he thinks, to have grown up in England. He’s always had the freedom to do what he’s wanted. He has sometimes taken it too far, he knows, and has often made the wrong choices. His addiction to nicotine, for instance, although he must say he hasn’t had a craving for a smoke since his mum started narrating her amazing story. And isn’t making mistakes how you learn? At least he’s been given the choice . . .
Now he understands why hi
s mum was so short with him when he complained that she was always working, never there. He’s always had money, he’s never had to think about it, or deny himself anything he’s badly wanted. He has never known what it is to be poor, to do without . . .
What did his mum have to endure to give him this freedom of choice, this comfortable life? What did she have to go through to gain her independence, to come to the UK? Was losing her sister the price she paid?
He looks at his mother, severe, unyielding, her hair pulled back in a rigid bun, her face subjugated by its armour of makeup, which is now starting to crease a bit at the corners of her eyes. A wispy feather or two of hair dares to escape the stiff restraints of the bun. Hard to reconcile this inflexible woman with the zesty, spirited girl he is hearing about, so full of life, and chafing at the restrictions imposed upon her. And falling in love? This woman, who recoils from the merest touch . . .
‘Did that nun really give you a lecture about the “dangers” of touching boys, and having lustful thoughts about them?’
She giggles, an unguarded chuckle, and in that brief moment he gets a tiny glimpse of the girl she once was. Skipping school, daringly spending the day with a boy, something that, obviously, was just not done in that antiquated village of her childhood . . .
‘Why? Why were you not allowed to consort with boys? What silly rules!’
‘Yes, silly and suffocating,’ she sighs, the smile freezing on her face, hardening, like spilling wax from a candle, into a grimace.
He cannot envisage his mother, who balks at the slightest hint of sentiment, (although that has changed a bit since yesterday), daringly touching a boy in a café in a town Raj cannot even begin to picture. A vision of Ellie gesturing to him from the bus, telling him she likes him, looms before his eyes. Love, he thinks, is the one emotion that doesn’t change, transcending generations and time and distance. He has been gathering up the courage to talk to Ellie forever and still hasn’t properly managed it.
Love, he thinks. It transforms you, and it also binds you in chains . . .
‘You yearned to escape. To be free. Have you? Are you?’
The colour leaves his mother’s face like light leaving the sky during a rainstorm, ‘Son, I. . .’ She gulps, a tremor passing through her.
‘I’m sorry, mum,’ Raj blurts, surprising himself. Much as he’s resented the remote mother he’s known all his life, Raj is waking up to the realization that he doesn’t like seeing his mother like this either, undone, open to hurt. Hearing her story has gone some way in making Raj feel more forgiving towards her. The heated anger that a mere word from her could trigger is not so quick to flare anymore. What he feels instead, as he looks at the woman beside him—a woman who’s always been a vexing enigma but who is now gradually revealing herself to be a person he thinks he might be able to relate to—is sadness that circumstances have forced the precocious, fun-loving girl he’s been hearing about, to become this remote woman.
His mother gathers herself together. ‘Don’t be sorry,’ she says. ‘You’ve made me think. You’re very astute, son.’
He swells from the unexpected compliment, and turns away to look out the window to hide the flush that is taking his face captive.
‘This talking to you, telling you about the past is helping me to see myself clearly, scrutinise the girl I was from a distance. I wish I could pluck her out of the past, shake some sense into her and then insert her back in again.’ A pause, then, ‘You have your whole life ahead of you, son, waiting to be moulded into shape. Mine has settled into the groove of the mistakes I’ve made, the holes I mindlessly dug and fell into . . . ’
Raj turns away from his perusal through the window of the candyfloss clouds stretched as far as the eye can see, disappearing into a cerise gilded horizon and looks at his mother. Her eyes sparkle and glitter with their jewellery of tears.
His distant mother finally doing him the honour of treating him like an adult. This more than makes up for the slap, he thinks.
‘You asked if I am free, Raj. Ah . . . I’m beginning to realize that I’ve bound myself in chains tighter than any the villagers could have conceived, and locked myself in a prison of my own making.’ She swallows and anxiety settles over her features—a shadow of pain, as sinister as a masked intruder poised to strike, ‘I’m hoping . . . I’m hoping that by seeing my sister again, and meeting Kushi, I will finally be free . . . ’
Why am I not enough? Why wasn’t I the one who set you free? Raj thinks going back to the window, his earlier good mood dissipating faster than the clouds shifting beneath their plane as his mother continues with her story.
PUJA—CUSP
GOSSIP ANTENNAE
Second PUC (Pre-University Course) Exam Results for Puja Ramesh, Age 18
Kannada 45/100
English 65/100
Maths 33/100 F
Physics 26/100 F
Chemistry 32/100 F
Biology 30/100 F
We regret to inform you that Puja Ramesh has failed the second year Pre-University Course examination. If she wishes to continue her studies and apply for a place at college, she needs to retake her exams.
Puja barely glances at her report card as she rushes down to the shops where he waits for her, the leader of the motorcycle gang, and the handsomest man in the entire town of Dhoompur.
But that evening, he is not there, revving his bike as he usually does.
She gives up the pretence they have maintained of not being aware of each other until the street empties of gossipy students, busybody doyennes and bored, out-of-work men with nothing better to do than to create trouble by spreading malicious rumours, and approaches his friends.
‘Where is he? Is he ill?’ Puja grills his friends but they are evasive, their faces going red as carrot halwa when she interrogates them. They mumble something incoherent while furiously concentrating on drawing circles in the mud with their feet and she finally gives up, stomping off in a huff.
The trek home seems to take forever. Puja is annoyed with herself for caring so much, for not being able to get rid of the salty bulge of disappointment lodged in her throat. She hates not knowing where he is and with whom.
Am I that easy to give up?
Then there is the added disappointment of the report card. She was expecting it, of course, but how to show it to her parents, especially in light of Sharda’s prodigious achievement? Sharda, who is well on her way to becoming a doctor, and almost three quarters of the way through her medical degree.
Puja has been expecting their parents, especially their ma, to be getting a little anxious by now about marrying Sharda off, but curiously, there has been no mention of marriage. With their ma being so traditional, Puja is surprised that the subject of Sharda’s marriage and Puja’s in due course, has not been raised.
At times, Puja wonders if Ma and Sharda are keeping something from her. But she cannot be bothered to push to find out. If it is important, they’ll tell her. Sharda has said something obscure about ‘fortune favouring the hardworking’, she and Ma have lectured Puja about her reputation every so often as usual, but there has been nothing else. At least this means the pressure is off Puja. Ma cannot nag her about marriage until Sharda has been married off. And Puja is grateful for this reprieve. It gives her time to plan her future, to run away with him, as he has suggested so many times, although they haven’t planned anything concrete yet.
But where is he this evening?
As Puja nears home, she sees a flash of metal, glinting silvery gold in the sunshine. Is that what she thinks it is? Her heart beating a loud tattoo in her chest, she quickens her steps, until she is almost running, and then comes to a panting stop beside the machine parked by the fields leading down to her hut. She glides her hands down the shining chassis, the one that only she has been allowed to ride; the one he keeps so spotless, making sure that one of the many servants in his house wipe it clean of dust every morning, or so he has told her.
‘I make them polish it
until I can see my face in every part of it,’ he has said, proudly.
Gopi, Puja whispers his name, hoarding it in her mouth like a delicious treat. She looks in the wing mirror and tidies her hair, pushing stray wisps behind her ears, catching a lingering whiff of him, motor oil and lemon, as she bends down to check her reflection.
How come he is here?
Puja skips down the fields to her house, her mood suddenly very much improved, breathing in the fragranced early evening air, tasting guavas and hope. Has he decided to tell her parents about his feelings for her, ask for her hand in marriage? But he’s never spoken of marriage, only of running away from the village. And why tell her parents before discussing it with her?
Did he gather up the courage to confess his feelings for Puja to his father and perhaps his father made him come here, talk to her parents? She knows how afraid Gopi is of his father, the landlord. He has been so careful about keeping their relationship under wraps, even more so than her. He is worried about being found out—his father is very strict, he says, and will confiscate his bike if he gets wind of any mischief.
So why is Gopi here now, blatantly advertising their friendship to the whole world, if she is right in assuming that Gopi has come to visit her? And if he hasn’t come to see her, then why has he come?
There is nothing here but fields. The little hut she shares with her parents and sister is slap bang in the middle of nowhere, unlike his huge mansion by the beach . . . oh well, she’ll find out soon enough.
She is past the clump of guava trees, and almost upon the hut. She hears loud voices, and laughter. Da is home and so also, it appears, from the booming, sonorous tones, is the landlord, Gopi’s father. She’s met the landlord at their school feast days; he is always invited to distribute the prizes. She pictures the big, surly man with his bald head and his impressive moustache. Did he sit pillion on Gopi’s bike, in her place? Why is he here?
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