Uh-oh! Aunt Mini won’t be pleased, I think. Aunt Mini came to stay three days ago, four bags in tow, lugged by the rickshaw driver who wouldn’t budge until you paid him thirty rupees from the wedding fund. ‘Her luggage punctured the tyres,’ he had yelled, shooting dirty looks in Aunt Mini’s general direction. Aunt Mini had arrived early, ostensibly to help with the wedding. In actual fact, she camps in the kitchen offering advice on how everything is done, ordering food to be made especially for her as per her stringent requirements and getting on everyone’s nerves.
‘Stop daydreaming about that useless Magesh and do at least one thing properly,’ Jalaja yells at Rathi, taking out all the bottled-up frustration she feels at being ordered around by Aunt Mini on the poor girl.
Magesh, the village postman, is Rathi’s betrothed. At Jalajakka’s admonishment, Rathi bursts into tears. Jalajakka storms out of the bathroom and into the kitchen from where loud shouts ensue, rapidly escalating to enraged shrieks. I recognise Aunt Mini’s high-pitched whine and of course Jalajakka’s booming bass.
This is what the stress of organising a wedding does to a household, I think. I look up at the sky. The stars are out in their millions, winking down at me. And I think, these very same stars will be in England too.
My wedding day. When I wake and see you next to me on the lumpy mattress, your housecoat bunched around your knees, your mouth slightly open and little snores escaping it, Brrr…. Brrr… sounding like the bore well pump that we use to get our water when the well dries up in the height of summer, I know it’s early. You are normally up by five, when the deep grey outside is stained cerise by dawn’s flush, and these last few days you have been waking up even earlier, preparing for the wedding.
A mild breeze floats in through the open window, fragranced with night jasmine and aboli, and it dawns on me gradually that this is my last morning at home, waking up next to you, Ma, feeling your familiar warmth next to mine. Now that I know what I know, I can see that that was the last time everything was normal in my world, everything as it should be. You and I at loggerheads, bound by a love that brought out the worst in both of us. Now that I know what I know, I want to preserve that moment, to reach back in time and whisper in the ears of the girl that I was, ‘Go slow. Don’t wish it all away. Savour this moment, do.’
As if I have heard the caution from my older, wiser self, I bend down, plant a feather-soft kiss on your forehead. You twitch and continue to snore. Your bindi’s gone awry, curling at the edges, the gum peeling off, and I gently push it back into the centre of your forehead and press it down. I love you best when you’re asleep, Ma, when I don’t have to see the naked love in your pleading eyes, when your mouth is not working overtime administering endearments and admonishments in equal measure.
What irony, that now I have my wish and you are asleep all the time, I want you to wake up, to yell, to rant, do anything at all except lie there, unresponsive, lost to me…
My eyes slowly get used to the dark and I make out the many bodies squeezed into the room. The chairs have been pushed to the corners and cane mats have been placed haphazardly wherever there’s an inch of space, and all the relatives who have arrived early for the wedding snore happily side by side even though when they are awake none of them get along. The air hangs heavy in the centre of the room—a dense, humid cloud, weighted down by a night’s accumulation of sweat and dreams. Gingerly stepping over the bodies, I make my way to the loo.
Afterwards I go to the kitchen. Rathi is already awake, her mat rolled into a cylinder and tucked away in the hollow space between the rotting beams chomped on by woodlice and the roof, which also houses coconut husks, mats woven from coconut tree fronds and other sundries. She squats on the floor, grating coconuts. The paste of rice and lentils she ground the previous day has already risen and bubbles out over the muslin cloth tied to the top of the pot—effervescent white foam licking the sides of the mud-coloured earthen urn sitting on the soot-stained hearth, looking for all the world like a wizard’s cauldron.
Jalaja arrives, shushing Bobby’s low growl, bringing the smell of night and the bluster of dawn breeze with her. She squats on the floor and starts pounding rice into the paste required to fry koilolis for breakfast, rubbing sleep out of her eyes with the pallu of her sari, the squishy roll of flesh visible between her sari blouse and skirt jiggling in time to the beat.
I squat down on the cement floor of the kitchen, sipping the hot, sweet tea flavoured with elaichi and ginger that Rathi has just placed in my hands, watching her and Jalaja grind and slice and pound and squeeze, watching the smoke rising from the hearth to add another coat of soot to the beams of the ceiling and the blackened walls. At last, I think, a thrill caressing my spine. I am escaping these walls, this poky cramped house, you. And almost immediately, guilt lashes out: What is wrong with you, Devi? Shouldn’t you be sad, upset at leaving home, this house that has been your security all your life, your mother who has loved you more than life, as she is fond of saying? Shame on you.
I deliberately cast the heavy mantle of guilt aside and think instead of England. A cold country with limited sunshine, I’ve heard. I cannot imagine not having sun. Even now at the crack of dawn, the rising sun’s mellow rays snake in to where I sit by the doorway to the kitchen, deliciously warm on my bare arms. ‘Posh Mrs. Josephine’s daughter lives in London; you make sure to meet her after you’ve settled in, okay?’ you have said. I will run a million miles before contacting anyone who has even the remotest connection to this village. I do not want my escapades fed back via the gossip network. I want to be free, free to find myself without constraints, without frequent reminders of what I should be doing and how I have failed to meet expectations.
I sip the tea and eat the hot idlis, soft as buttermilk, dipped in steaming sambar that is not too sweet nor too spicy, dotted with cumin and dry red chillies, mint and coriander chutney on the side, tangy with tamarind. You enter the kitchen just as I am finishing breakfast, your hair awry, your eyes bloodshot with dark shadows under them. ‘Oh, Lord Ganapathy, help me, I overslept, today of all days,’ you say. Your eyes soften when you see me, ‘Good, you’ve eaten. Now come, have a shower and then you should start getting ready. We need to be at the church in a little over two hours.’ Your eyes dart this way and that as you speak, no doubt making a list in your head of all that needs to be done. ‘Now, what time did Shami say she was delivering the flowers?’
After that, it is rush, rush, no time to think. The beautician arrives just as I finish my shower, the water that Rathi has spent the previous hour heating to boiling point scalding my flesh pink. I change into my white sari and don the matching silver jewellery, fawning sunlight pouring through the windows like honey, dancing on the sari, illuminating me, so it looks as if I am glowing. ‘Lord Ganapathy is showing he’s pleased by singling you out,’ Jalajakka says fondly, her eyes shining as everyone (Aunt Mini included) oohs over how exquisite I look.
There is a queue for the bathroom as all the relatives rush to wash the night off their bodies, to beautify themselves and don their best clothes. Aunt Mini complains that the water is not hot enough and orders Rathi to heat the urn again. Rathi grumbles that she has quite enough to do thank you very much. Aunt Mini carps about the cheek of the girl and moans that you give your servants too much leeway, Ma. You say quite sharply that Rathi and Jalaja have kindly offered to help and are not servants. Jalaja takes Rathi’s side for once and says that if Aunt Mini had not complained about the idlis being too soft and the chutney being too bitter and the sambar being too sweet and asked for upma instead, Rathi would be free now to heat the water instead of rushing around washing all the extra dishes soiled because of making a whole other breakfast today of all days.
Aunt Emmi asks if there are any safety pins in this house, and you insist that you bought ten packs, you knew they would be needed to pin up all the saris. Where are they? A mad hunt ensues and the safety pins are found underneath the sari Aunt Mini is going to wear to the
wedding neatly folded and waiting while she has her shower. ‘What are they doing here?’ Aunt Emmi asks and Rathi smirks knowingly. ‘Has anyone seen the hair pins?’ asks the beautician. ‘I need them for Devi’s hairstyle and for the flowers to loop over her bun —a garland of jasmine and another of aboli, is that right, Shilpakka?’ You nod, your mouth full of safety pins, your hands busy working the pleats of Aunt Emmi’s emerald sari. ‘Have you looked under Aunt Mini’s sari blouse?’ Jalaja asks and they all check that Aunt Mini is still in the bathroom having a shower in the ‘lukewarm water’ before they burst out laughing, shushing each other conspiratorially—you laughing so hard (and a tad hysterically) that the safety pins burst out of your mouth in a silver shower. ‘Thank the Lord Ganapathy that they were not open; they could have pricked someone and I would be mopping up blood right now—not a good omen on a wedding day,’ Rathi says, squatting to pick them up. ‘Don’t speak about bad omens, girl,’ Aunt Emmi chides and I am reminded with a pang of the bees, the picture of you swelling like a blow-up doll floating before my eyes. ‘Ow, you stepped on my hand,’ Rathi complains of Jalaja. ‘Well, you shouldn’t be scrabbling under my feet then, should you,’ Jalaja retorts, serenely plaiting Aunt Kushala’s hair.
The room smells of talcum powder and sandalwood perfume, as the ladies get dressed, giggling as they affix the silk saris firmly to skirts with safety pins so they will be able to dance at the wedding without fear of the saris tumbling in a silky heap around them. Once in a while a rumble of deep-throated laughter floats in from the kitchen where the men are getting ready and the women yell at them to stop laughing and get on with it. ‘What’s this?’ they yell back. ‘You take longest. We will be waiting for you for hours after we have finished.’
I listen to all this banter, the business of a house preparing for a wedding, as the beautician works my face, her hands gentle as they slap sweet-smelling lotions on my cheeks, massage my eyebrows, knead my chin. I will miss this, I muse. I will, much as I long to escape. I try not to think—just feel, hear, take it all in. I will store this away in a corner of my heart, this memory of my last few hours at home to take out and cherish later. I am not a monster after all, I think, relieved. I have feelings, though they are so mixed so much of the time.
Afterwards we pack into the three cars that you have hired to take us to the church. ‘Our first Catholic wedding, eh?’ the relatives laugh, a tad nervously. The women walk gingerly up the mud path between the fields to the cars waiting on the dusty road, lifting their saris high so the ends don’t get muddy, trying not to get their new shoes grimy and dirt-stained. Sumitranna and two of my uncles hoist me up and carry me through the fields, to the accompaniment of loud cheers. Aunt Mini pushes everyone aside and tries to get into the car, but Jalaja yells, ‘Let the bride go first.’
I get in, followed by you, Ma and Aunt Mini who has somehow nudged into the bridal car. You tip my face up with one finger and look at me, eyes shimmering like the silk of your sari, ‘I wish your father could have been here to see you now.’ Your voice is wobbly. ‘But he is watching along with Lord Ganapathy from up there.’ For once, I don’t pull away. My eyes sting and in that moment, I miss desperately the father I have never known. You wipe your eyes with the new handkerchief that Rathi pressed into your hands as you were setting out, bought especially for the occasion—‘You cannot afford to dirty the pallu of your sari; the mother of the bride has to look her best.’
Once the cars fill up, the remaining relatives take the autos that are waiting in a patient line behind the cars, the drivers lounging by the ramshackle bridge which mans the stream beside the road, sharing beedis and gossiping as they wait, curls of grey smoke sullying the cloudless azure expanse of sky.
The church is on the banks of the river Ganvi, and I watch the water glitter and swirl as I climb up the steps to the doorway where the priest and my betrothed wait. Rohan smiles at me and the mixed emotions I have been feeling, the pang at leaving you, ma and our house—the only house I’ve known all my life—disappear, to be replaced by the excitement, the sense of exhilaration I have felt ever since Rohan asked me to marry him. The ceremony starts, Rohan chants prayers that are alien to me, the altar looks remote, a bleeding Jesus on the cross stern and a tad scary, and it is as if I am far away, removed from this situation, an outsider observing it. Saris rustle behind me, whispers are shushed, babies quieted. A little boy’s voice, petulant, ‘I want…’ the rest of the sentence drowned as the mother leaves the church.
And then, the priest asks if I, Devi, will take Rohan as my lawfully wedded husband. And I look up at Rohan, at the familiar contours of his face and I say, ‘Yes, I do.’ From the corner of my eyes, I see you wiping the tears streaming down your face with your pallu, disregarding the handkerchief, and then the priest is asking Rohan if he will take me as his wife and Rohan is saying yes and we are wedded.
The feast begins in the hall adjacent to the church—the eating and drinking, the dancing and merriment, the ogling and flirting, the arranging of marriages for the next lot of eligible girls, the comparing—who’s sporting the most gold, the costliest sari, the heaviest makeup, and the note-taking—is a Catholic wedding better than a Hindu wedding, is the hall decorated grandly enough, is the food tasty enough, is the crowd big enough, is the venue posh enough, is the wedding as impressive as the Mangalore Shetty extravaganza, the Kemmannu D’Souza Dhamakha?
Afterwards, we stand on the steps leading up to the church and one by one, the guests wish us a long and happy married life, many strapping children. And then, it is done and everyone is leaving but you. You cling to me and you sob. ‘Oh, Devi,’ you say, ‘what will I do? Oh, what will I do?’ And I feel the familiar irritation bubble up as you won’t let go, as we stand on the steps, you sobbing, me biting my lips to hold in the hurtful words that ache to smash out of me, my sari slowly getting soaked with your tears, as the twilight air caresses my face, briny with an undertone of rose incense wafting from the church, as the setting sun stains the beige sky a glossy pink and the river red, like blood. We stand there, as the blackout blinds of night kiss the scarlet water and shut out the russet curtain of sky. And the moment that I have been waiting for, my first evening as a married woman, is ruined, coloured by my irritation, my barely suppressed anger, flooded by your tears.
After what feels like an age, I push you away, not too gently. ‘I have to go now,’ I bite out.
And yet you hold on. You have to be peeled off me, and my joy in being married is marred by the sight of you, lying in a crumpled, broken heap in Jalajakka’s arms, a sorry picture which forever tints memories of my wedding day.
And as I leave with Rohan to the hotel he has booked for us to celebrate our wedding night, as the car speeds up, taking me away from you, Ma, I finally breathe freely without worrying about you hovering, wanting to spend every remaining minute with me, your face the picture of misery.
It is done. It is over. A chapter ends. A new one begins.
Ma, if I could turn back time, relive those days before my marriage again, I would be kinder, I like to think, more patient. I was selfish, Ma, I realise now. I wanted so much and I felt so inhibited, so bogged down. I wanted to fly but I was lucky if I was allowed to limp. With the brash disregard of youth, I did not put myself in your shoes, in anyone’s shoes but mine—and they didn’t fit, they were much too small for me. I was a caterpillar who knew she would be a beautiful butterfly if only she could escape, the ugly duckling who would be a swan if she left, the snake who could only grow if she shrugged off her mother like an unwanted skin. I am sorry. Forgive me, Ma.
Ma, this afternoon you thrashed about and lashed out once more, dislodging the drip, setting the machines to beeping frantically. You gripped my hand with a wiry strength I did not know you possessed. ‘Jalaja,’ you whispered. ‘Jalaja.’
‘Shh, Ma, I am here. Devi,’ I said, hurt blossoming in my chest, manifesting in a lump in my throat. It hurt that you called upon Jalaja and the madwoman before th
at but not me. Why? While I was deliberating whether to call the nurses, you opened your eyes for the first time and looked right at me. There was a glazed, wild look in them. You were far away, looking at me but right through me, fixated by something only you could see.
‘Jalaja,’ you called. ‘Twins,’ you whispered. And then you closed your eyes and retreated into that strange world you inhabit, wherein you look so peaceful and yet when you claw your way out of it, you are disturbed, you are fighting something, you are not at peace. Is that world that much better than this one, Ma? Are you scared to come back? What is it here that upsets you so? What are you struggling against—because you certainly give that impression?
Ma, did Jalaja have twins? If so, what happened to them? Where are they? Did you have something to do with their disappearance? Is that what is plaguing you? And what about the madwoman’s baby that you mentioned?
Why are children so much on your mind? I know you ached for children once, but that was ages ago… Is that where your mind is now? In the past? With all those babies you lost? But I am here, Ma, the baby you didn’t lose… I am here. I have come back to you.
Look at me, Ma. Talk to me.
I miss you. I even miss our fights. What I wouldn’t give to have a nice fiery fight with you!
Love,
Devi
Chapter 15
Shilpa
Curd Rice
Curd Rice:
Ingredients:
2 cups cooked rice
3 cups curd (yogurt)
1 tbsp coconut oil
The Forgotten Daughter Page 15
