And when Ambalika was born, two rains later, following the birth and death of a baby boy, my grandmother was dead too, and it was only my mother who lay there with her, and my mother thought of her own mother, whom she hadn’t seen in so long and whispered, ‘Ambalika’. For sensitive mother, the mother my mother longed for, the one my grandmother hadn’t been.
‘They’re coming! They’re coming!’
Ambalika claps her hands together and can barely sit still. I don’t blame her, I can’t be still myself. From our chambers, we have been able to hear the steady wheels of horse drawn chariots, the laughter of the men as they get out and greet my father and his envoys, the drums, the trumpets, the excitement. Even the little boys who serve the whole palace are excited, they can barely do their duties, and Lalita has raised her voice and shouted at a couple of them for not watering the path on which we must walk so the dust doesn’t rise.
‘Do be calm, Highness,’ she pleads with Ambika, who has moved over to the window to look out, a train of her dressers following her, all trying to make her ready. And ‘Highness, your cloth will loosen from its tucks if you jump around like that,’ to Ambalika, who is skipping around the room. Lalita looks to me for help and I snort a laugh.
‘Sisters!’ I say, ‘Remember that you will be queens and queens don’t prance about like trained monkeys.’
‘Or untrained ones,’ I add, as Ambalika’s cloth does come free of its tucks as predicted and she tumbles in a heap, squealing.
I am pleased to be able to say this as I sit very still for the women to rim my eyes with kohl, but inside my vatkala, my heart is beating as loudly as the drums outside. Salva. Husband. Salva. Husband. Salvahusbandsalvahusband.
I haven’t seen him in the last two days, when I caught him with the concubines, and he hasn’t made an attempt to meet me, or even send me a little message of love as he sometimes does when we are apart for longer than a day. I wonder if he feels remorse, if he’s ashamed to meet my eyes. I plan to be forgiving – no marriage should be begun with a grudge – but also make it clear to him that I will not accept any more of that sort of behaviour. I am determined to not be the sort of wife my mother is, limp and uncaring, but instead carry the spirit of my grandmother, after whom I was named. She would not just sit idly by while her husband did whatever he liked. From the stories I have heard of her, she was a canny woman who managed to do exactly what she pleased through her long life. I am not sure I have inherited that quality, I can never seem to make a manipulation work, but wives need that sort of thing, marriage is a game, and only the strongest player wins.
I consider Salva as they place jewels in my hair – really consider him, as I haven’t before, too blinded by love. Somehow, seeing him in that situation has removed some of my respect for him, and I suppose that loss of respect has blunted some of my love. I still want to marry him; this I say to myself fiercely, of course, I still want to marry him, but since my mother will not speak of these things to me, the only person I can depend on is myself.
So: Salva. He is weak-willed, can’t stand up for himself. That is true. He is prone to impulsive decisions, that is also true. He desperately wants the approval of those that do not approve of him – my father’s good word would mean more to him than any of my loving caresses. I love him, that is as true as all the other things, and I want to make him a good wife. But how? How?
I look around the room to see if anyone has noticed the painful thoughts that are going through my head. But they are all too busy, my sisters occupied in their own worlds, the maids occupied with my sisters, only Lalita looks up sensing I am in need, and she asks me a question with her face and I smile and shake my head. The braid they have wound around my head is growing unbearably heavy and the jewels seem to be poking into my scalp. Lalita is at my side, even though I haven’t asked her to be, unfastening the jewels and loosening my hair so that it feels less cumbersome.
‘More comfortable now, Highness?’ she asks, and I am so pleased to have her there, so pleased that we both chose to defy Abhita so that she can be my one shining beam of comfort in this room, on this important day.
It strikes me as I stand up on the dresser’s bidding and walk across the room so she can examine me fully. The way to be a good wife to Salva is to make him think for himself. Too many courtiers will want to take advantage of his nature – even if I, his loving wife and sweetheart, took so long to come to the conclusions I have, I’m sure that those more skilled than I have made this assessment in an instant. I will have to be by his side and help him defy influences so he can become his own man. If Lalita and I can stand up to Abhita, then there is no telling what Salva and I could do. We will be famous for our partnership, bards will sing about our perfect marriage, he will be what the vows say he must: a helpmeet, a companion, a best friend. My heart is lighter already. I turn and flash a brilliant smile at my sisters, who are taken aback but smile as well.
‘Are you pleased as well, Sister?’ asks Ambalika, and I say, ‘Yes! Yes I am. How could I not be pleased on such an auspicious day?’
There is a slight commotion at the door and then the crowd of maids and eunuchs part and I hear my father’s concubines before I see them. My father is a man of habit, and Gaurprabha, the oldest of his concubines has been with him since a little after he was married. She has even given birth to two of his sons, fine young lads who have been given good positions and land and will be found dutiful, beautiful brides. Apart from Gaurprabha, there are also young concubines, brought in every year, and I see the smallest of them doesn’t even have the beginnings of breasts on her chest, and wonder briefly before I shudder and push the thought away if my father enjoys taking them so young. But he is a king, and she was likely the daughter of a poor family who sold her to pay their debts.
Not that Gaurprabha needs replacing. Like my mother, she was a great beauty when she was young, but unlike my mother, she has held on to her looks, fighting tooth and nail against time and age, so even though the corners of her eyes are wrinkled, and her long hair is dappled with silver, she still manages to outshine most of the women in the room. There’s just something about her mouth, the way it lifts in the corners, the way her eyes never quite stay on your face, but you want them to so you end up staring at her in the hope that she will lift her gaze to you again. She is not slender like my mother, but not large either, she looks as though her breasts would be comfortable to lean on, the fold of skin at her waist a nice place to slip your fingers. And even I acknowledge all this, even though, unlike some women in the quarters, I have never turned to another member of my sex for comfort or kisses.
Gaurprabha walks over to me and bows, hands folded.
‘Rise, Gaurprabha,’ I tell her. ‘Have you come to give us your blessings?’
The girls behind her giggle, and Gaurprabha silences them all by lifting her hand. ‘Blessings, yes,’ she says. ‘And the blessings of a happy woman count for much with the gods.’
‘I thought it was the blessings of a happy wife,’ says Ambika, who has appeared by my shoulder. She has never forgiven Gaurprabha for being a concubine and yet being my father’s favourite, and I think in some ways, she has never forgiven her for giving birth to sons, a son that she could have been if the Lord Brahma had moved just a little bit to the right the night Ambika was conceived.
‘A happy woman will do just as well if there is no happy wife to take her place,’ says Gaurprabha, and she looks as pleasant as ever, except her eyes are locked with Ambika’s, and my sister is the first to look away.
‘But I have also come here for another reason, Highness,’ Gaurprabha reaches out and takes my hands into her own. Her palms are soft and dry, and the big ring that my father gave her for the birth of her first son is cold against my fingers. ‘Your father asked that I should,’ she coughs delicately, ‘tell Your Highnesses about what goes on between a husband and a wife.’
I blush deeply and look down at my toes, there’s a shocked silence and then I can hear Ambalika g
iggle nervously behind me.
‘Don’t be shy, Highness,’ says Gaurprabha kindly. ‘Your father simply thought that maybe no one had spoken to you yet, and maybe you would appreciate some wisdom from someone who has seen many beddings.’
My father thought – hah! – if anything, I imagine Gaurprabha would have suggested it to him, diplomatically, lightly, because she is kind and because she knows our mother is ill equipped to deal with such things.
It is true that my mother hasn’t mentioned any of that side of marriage. I have long since guessed at what goes on between man and woman, and my fumblings with Salva have opened a need deep within me that was not there when I was a child. It’s as if a little mouth has opened somewhere within the depths of my stomach and it yawns and craves, waiting for something. This is where I am unsure. What is this something? I am fairly certain that if I were to be faced with whatever it is the little maw desires, I would know immediately, instinctively that this was right.
I look at my sisters – Ambika defiant and sulky, as she always gets when she is nervous and unsure of herself, and Ambalika with her eyes growing rounder as she grasps that today will not just be about pretty costumes and everyone admiring her. I should have maybe said something to them, I feel remiss in my duties as a sister. I should have asked for Gaurprabha myself, not left it to chance and the rare moment when my father actually thinks about us as people, not just three burdens around his neck.
‘I would, I would appreciate it,’ I tell her, and she smiles and claps her hands, and her concubines scatter and soon we are being led to a corner of the room with soft cushions and placed on them like we are fragile and tender and might break. Someone brings forward honeyed water and then the concubines stand around us, not so close that they might hear us, but not so far that they can’t follow orders. They are loosely arranged, but I recognize that they have formed a circle around us, so no one can approach until Gaurprabha – and us are done.
She tells us the facts simply, sometimes using language that makes Ambalika squeal and dive into the pillows, her hands pressed over her ears, so I have to keep unearthing her and saying, ‘Listen. This is important.’ I am proud of Ambika, who is unflinching through it all, even when Gaurprabha mentions how some men have appetites different from others and might require us to do strange things. I see her nostrils flare from the effort of keeping her head straight and still but she is almost impassive through it all. Only once does she shift, and Gaurprabha glances at her and says, ‘Highness, would you like to ask something?’
‘What if I don’t?’ murmurs Ambika, so soft I can barely hear her. Gaurprabha looks at her with compassion.
‘It is something we all have to do, Highness, whether you are a princess or born to a lowly farmer as I was. The men require it. But I’ll tell you a secret,’ she drops her voice and we all lean forward. ‘If it is done right, many women find pleasure in it as well.’
Ambalika squeals and giggles again, and I laugh, but when I look sideways at Ambika, her face is as impassive as ever. Gaurprabha sits back, looking pleased, and for an instant, I wish my father had married her, that she was our real mother instead of the wraith that haunts the queen’s chambers, that I could let her hand stroke my forehead as I told her all my problems. I envy her sons, laughing spirited children I have seen here and there in the palace, ragged as all small boys are but who shine with being loved and cared for. My ... brothers.
We have been made beautiful. We are transformed. We are the ‘once upon a time there were three princesses, each as lovely as the day’. Our feet are dyed red, as are our fingertips. Our hair is heavy with oil and jewels. Small ornaments hang off our bangles, set all the way up to our elbows. Our eyes are so darkened with sandal paste burnt in oil that we can barely see, except through lowered eyelashes. Our gold belts hold our saris to our waists and keep us from breathing in too deeply, so we take short, shallow breaths and feel giddy with more than just excitement.
Every single precious gem that is possible to put on us has been placed – we glint, we shine, we dazzle, and we are so laden we are helped along the corridor by our maids, steady bare arms for us to hold on to as we hobble and shuffle down the path. We hear murmurs of approval from the assembled princes as we approach and we cannot look up because our heads are covered and strings of pearls dangle in front of our eyes. All that we can wear is on us, behind us, three trunks lie open in front of the guards who stand with swords and moustaches bristling over more jewels, three dowries, three princesses, you’ve never seen anything like it before.
The priest is saying his words, blessing this event, and the rulers are pretending to listen to him, but we can feel their eyes on us, like innumerable flies crawling on a carcass. Each one weighing our gold, our looks, the feel of our bodies. Each one wondering which of us will be docile, will bear him sons, will be the envy of all the other kings.
Ambika stands a little to my left, Ambalika behind her. They can barely see her, but we hear the murmur anyway. The little one, the smallest princess, the one standing behind her sisters. The murmurs rise to a susurration, hisses like snakes. Behind us, Ambalika trembles.
Our father is about to speak to the crowd, he enjoys this, he makes expansive gestures. He begins with a quip about having three daughters and no sons. He means real sons, not Gaurprabha’s bastards who are somewhere in this crowd, probably driven wild with the excitement of earning tips and being among so many noblemen. Our father speaks of his family, his mother and how she helped him rule. He touches upon his own father, but only briefly, and of his brothers there is no mention at all. The other rulers do not seem to notice; they shuffle their feet and cough. One of them says something and the crowd around him laughs in that loud way men do when they want to show how powerful they are. We wonder if he will mention our mother, who is sitting inside a flower-bedecked palanquin with her maids. We wonder if our mother will emerge from her palanquin to watch us get married. We wonder if our mother even cares that we are marrying today and leaving her.
Our father does mention our mother after all – a great beauty when I won her hand. The audience is respectfully silent. Suddenly, we think to worry about our mother when we will leave her; without us, there is no reason for our father to continue the way he does. We need a mother for respectability, but once we are gone, our father is free to do as he wishes. He is still tender to her, still solicitous of her wishes, but she no longer receives company, not even him, preferring to stay in the dark of her rooms in mourning for something perhaps only she knows the name of. Some of the kings have accompanied their eligible sons, some of those have brought their queens, and they are all being entertained by maids. Our mother should be among them, making talk, finding out about their sons, their kingdoms, but no one expected her to. And now the queens will find out that she is here but not here, present but absent.
We know we will never see our mother again.
Duty, our father booms, it is our sacred duty to marry off our sons and daughters, just as much as it is our duty to be good rulers, good Kshatriyas. He is a good orator, everyone is caught up in his words, the rulers shout and cheer, someone blows a conch shell. It is as though he is declaring war. Even we are caught up in it, we straighten our backs and look as regal as we can manage. It is our duty to get married and bear children who we must get married as well and so on and so forth until the end of time.
He is listing the tasks the brave men who want to win our hands will have to undergo. The physical tasks: an archery contest, a mace-wielding round, and finally a test of horse-riding prowess. The scholarly judged by the priests: reciting the holy verses that call upon Skanda, the god of war, the correct way to pay obeisance to Yama, god of justice, the ability to recite the doings of their own noble ancestors and what lessons they learned from them. Then, the kingly: the correct battle formation for when your enemy has more archers than you do, how to give away your wealth to Brahmans and the poor while still maintaining a healthy treasury, how to divide land bet
ween three parts of a family that are fighting with each other. He is telling them all the tasks in advance so that the rulers can be prepared, each will now sit with their priests, their most trusted and wise ministers, their fathers and their teachers to decide in which of those they will compete the best. Each new son-in-law will have to prove himself in all three categories, but if, say, you were a better archer and king than a scholar, it would not be held against you. My father knows to not make the tasks impossible – we are getting married today, by hook or by crook.
Then the conch shells resound again, and all the royals begin to get up and leave for their tasks, and we are about to be ushered back into our chambers, where we can sit down, have some refreshments, maybe loosen our hair for a little while before we go back out again. I long to watch Salva at his tasks, his bottom lip caught up in his teeth as he concentrates, I want to tell him of my confidence in our new life together, let him catch my eyes so that he knows I am not angry or upset with him. I know my sisters too want to get a glimpse of the princes vying for their attentions, so I’m not surprised when Ambika says loudly and falsely, ‘Oh dear, I think I’ve lost the pearl that was on my nose ring.’
Obediently we all stop, and the maids begin to lift our skirts up and the smallest ones are recruited to check underneath the platform we are standing on. Lalita is by my side, murmuring into my ear that if I want to leave, she will accompany me, she has noticed me shifting from foot to foot because I am growing tired and also need to use the outhouse.
As I turn and lean on her arm, we all hear a chariot approaching at the same time. The horses are so loud, it is almost like thunder, the ground begins to shake beneath us and a few of the younger maids shriek and throw themselves down, curling into a ball. ‘Wait!’ I say. ‘Stay still!’ – but no one is listening to me except for Lalita, who is frozen into a statue next to me.
Girls of the Mahabharata Page 6
