The Dowry Bride

by Shobhan Bantwal

  Following the wedding, Megha was shocked to discover that the Ramnaths lived in a small and drab house. Moreover, Suresh’s salary was nowhere close to what she’d been told. So, where was all that grandeur the astrologer had mentioned? Where were all the servants she had expected? What happened to all the sophistication: the appreciation of music, art and literature Amma had bragged about? Other than the daily paper, the usual TV shows, and Shanti’s mound of college textbooks, there was nothing that reflected the intellectual atmosphere Megha had anticipated. Had her parents even bothered to research the facts before marrying her off to Suresh?

  And to top it all, her life with the Ramnaths turned out to be only slightly better than hell. She had to get out of bed at five o’clock each morning to fill the bathwater cauldron, fire up the hearth to heat the water, and then make an elaborate breakfast for the family. This was followed by cooking for lunch, then snacks for teatime, then dinner. These were only part of the work assignments doled out by Amma. The routine continued seven days a week with no break. What good was her college education if this was the kind of work she’d be doing for the rest of her life?

  Tukaram, the man servant, came in daily to wash the floors, clothes and dishes. He was the only bright spot in the tedium of Megha’s life. She enjoyed his presence and his colorful stories picked up from here and there. Middle-aged and balding, he was stocky and muscular from doing hard menial labor for various neighborhood families all his life. He had a weather-beaten face and an upbeat personality. To Megha he was like a breath of fresh air.

  Having left his hometown of Malvan as a young, illiterate orphan, he had made Palgaum his home nearly all his life, washing and cleaning for middle-class people his only vocation. He lived in a small, rented, windowless room in the heart of town. But to hear him one would think he lived the privileged life of a prince. “God give me strong hands and legs and back so I work hard,” he said. “Always God is giving, no?”

  Tukaram addressed Megha as Megha-bai, something that surprised and delighted her because nobody had ever given her the respectful title of bai before. He treated her with deference and warmth and she reciprocated the sentiments. She often offered him a cup of hot tea, which he appreciated.

  Amma had frowned on Megha’s fraternizing with the hired help. “Getting too friendly with servants is not done in our house, Megha,” she had warned. “He is a useless, low-caste fellow, a shudhra, so you treat him like a servant, you hear? Don’t give him any tea or coffee. He can buy his own.”

  Megha had tried to argue mildly once. “But he works hard, Amma, so what’s one small cup of tea…and some conversation? It doesn’t cost anything, does it?”

  “Thoo,” Amma had spat out, “it is not the cost of the tea, you silly girl! Offering him refreshment and conversing with him is like accepting him on our own level, no? Remember, low-caste people are not our equals—they are not even fit for us to spit on.”

  After that little confrontation, Megha had tried to comply with Amma’s orders, but couldn’t help herself when Tukaram had such a genial personality that seemed to draw her in. So while Amma napped after eating a giant lunch, and while Megha chopped and ground and boiled and stirred, and Tukaram washed the dishes and cleaned the floor, the two of them talked. At least, Tukaram did most of the talking, and Megha listened attentively. She managed to slip him a cup of tea every now and then, when she was sure Amma was snoring in the master bedroom.

  A regular gossipmonger, Tukaram had filled Megha’s afternoons with interesting tidbits about the other families he worked for: who got married; who was pregnant; who was cheating on their spouse; whose children were a menace; who was dying; whose son had stolen money from his own father and then run off with the loot; whose daughter was bringing shame upon the family by having a boyfriend. Maybe that’s why Tukaram had remained a bachelor—to avoid the grief of cheating spouses and wayward children.

  Tukaram’s colorful anecdotes managed to shock, enchant, amuse, and sadden Megha. They were like watching the continuing family sagas dramatized on TV. She always looked forward to the time of day when he’d report for duty with his easy grin that showed a chipped front tooth.

  Now that she had run away from the Ramnaths, Megha was sure that by the next morning Tukaram would get busy spreading the news about her own disappearance to the various families he worked for. Tukaram’s verbal reports were more reliable than the local newspaper.

  But despite Tukaram’s help with the washing, Megha had rarely gone to bed before ten o’clock every night, after which she had to pleasure her husband and fulfill his needs before she could get some sleep. She had felt like an unpaid, unappreciated maid in her own house.

  And yet, her father had firmly believed that he was placing her in a sound and happy home. He had been positive that a stable and mature man would take care of her and rid her of what he called “Megha’s giddy-headed fantasies.”

  Ironically, that mature man had turned out to be Suresh. His level of maturity was only a few degrees above that of Kuppu the cat. Although, on certain occasions, Suresh could be quite calculating and sly, as when playing card games, for example. He could easily beat all of them at cards. He was outstanding at haggling. He could defeat a fast-talking entrepreneur any day and come home with a bargain, his eyes ablaze with triumphant jubilation. He was more frugal than a starving squirrel staring at a dwindling stash of nuts. The subject of money put a smile on Suresh’s scrawny face on the worst of days. Perhaps that was the reason he worked for a bank.

  There was never any meaningful conversation between Suresh and Megha beyond family talk at the dinner table each night. He never discussed his job or his coworkers with her. He didn’t seem to have any friends. He never touched her other than in the privacy of their bedroom at night. She might as well have married a monkey for all the emotional and intellectual connection she felt to him.

  In other ways, too, Suresh was a rather weird man. Although his clothes looked dreary and dull, his chappals had to gleam. He had a fetish about footwear. He polished them to a dazzling shine each night, sitting cross-legged on the drawing room floor with the tip of his tongue held firmly between his yellowed teeth in deep concentration as his slight hands passed over the leather. If the squeak wasn’t audible, the chappals weren’t shiny enough.

  With some perseverance Megha had somehow trained herself to care for Suresh and develop a mild fondness for him over the last several months. It was her duty to love and obey her husband. If not love, maybe a little affection was in order. Love, to her, had to be special, an all-encompassing tidal wave of sweaty palms, racing pulse and missed heartbeats—just like in the movies and romance novels she enjoyed so much. What she felt for Suresh was far from that breathless, heady feeling, so it had to be affection—on a very mild scale, too.

  Her father-in-law, Appaji, was a reasonable man. He didn’t have much to say in any matter around the house though, despite being the chief breadwinner. A slight man with a hunch and a perpetual cough, he kept to himself. He was rather secretive in some ways. He watched people closely and the guarded expression in his eyes rarely changed. Megha could never tell what was going on in his mind and always suspected that his chronic cough was a result of nervousness rather than any physical condition.

  He was an officer at the State Bank of India’s Palgaum branch. He spent his evenings and weekends at home reading the scriptures or the daily paper, dressed in a thin white lungi—a sarong-like piece of fabric wrapped around the waist that reached down to the ankles, paired with a sleeveless undershirt. His arms hung like scarecrow limbs and his long neck became more obvious with the V-shaped neckline of his shirt. The lungi was made of a translucent material and his blue striped underwear was clearly visible through it.

  Megha was a bit embarrassed at first to see her father-in-law dressed like that. A man’s underwear so obviously on display was a bit vulgar, but she learned to accept it. She was in no position to make comments about the lord and master of the house
—albeit a gutless lord and master who shook with anxiety in that very same underwear at the sight of his wife.

  Every morning around ten o’clock, Appaji came out of the bathroom wrapped in a brown towel. He combed lots of castor oil through his thinning salt-and-pepper hair. Then he systematically applied copious amounts of talcum powder to his hollow, hairless armpits.

  The ritual of putting on his clothes, too, was exactly the same each day. He put on his trademark mouse-gray pants sitting on the edge of the bed while he raised each leg so high that everybody in the room was subjected to more than they wanted to see. The first time Megha got a glimpse she had rushed out of the room, shocked to the core. He always got dressed with the bedroom door wide open. Didn’t the old man have any sense of decency? After a while she’d realized that to him it was the only way to dress—he didn’t know any better—probably didn’t even realize that his young daughter-in-law was in the room.

  After that Megha made it a point to stay away from the master bedroom when Appaji put on his trousers. It wasn’t easy, since that room was also where the bulk foods were stored in the corner cupboard (Amma wanted to keep an eye on them because she was convinced Tukaram would pilfer) and where everybody’s washed clothes were hung to dry on clotheslines that ran overhead from one end of the long room to the other.

  Appaji always wore a bush coat, the one with the permanent grease ring around the collar caused by the castor oil dripping over it. He put on his thick glasses and ate an unhurried lunch at precisely quarter past ten before he left for work. He then thrust his feet in his chappals and bid his wife goodbye. “Chandramma, I’m leaving now. Should I pick up any provisions on the way home?”

  Despite his lack of a backbone, Megha had become genuinely fond of Appaji. He was a kind man. Quiet and undemanding, he was the only person in the house who showed her any respect. He never complained about her cooking or the temperature of the water she drew for his bath every day. He would ask her to sit down and rest if he noticed she had been on her feet in the kitchen for long hours, but made sure to say it only when Amma wasn’t within earshot.

  On one occasion, Appaji had found his voice to contradict Amma when she was particularly vicious in her comments about Megha’s chapatis, the flat, unleavened bread made of whole wheat flour that was a regular part of their daily diet. “Chandramma,” he argued, “the chapatis don’t at all feel like shoe leather. Don’t condemn the poor girl so.”

  Just for that show of support Megha would be eternally grateful to Appaji—not that it helped much. Amma became furious and more vindictive towards Megha after that incident. But it was a question of principle—Appaji had tried his best to defend Megha and she appreciated that. She’d eventually come to love him like she did her own father.

  Amma, on the other hand, was a different matter. An involuntary shiver went through Megha at the thought of her mother-in-law. An intelligent and pious woman otherwise, how could she be so evil when it came to her daughter-in-law? The puzzling thing was, in the beginning, Amma had actually seemed to be proud of Megha. Amma had behaved like a little girl with a new doll to be flaunted and paraded to garner everyone’s envy. She took Megha everywhere with her, to her religious hymns-and-chanting sessions known as satsangs, her tea parties, the temple, the movies, the relatives’ homes and all sorts of social occasions like weddings, thread ceremonies and birthdays.

  Amma had even shared her precious bottle of Charlie perfume with Megha once or twice, much to Megha’s delight, and to everyone’s surprise. To be given a dab of Charlie from Amma was indeed an honor. The perfume was a generous gift from Amma’s best friend, whose son sent her a few bottles of it from America every year. The Charlie was put away with Amma’s other prized items in a locked steel trunk that sat under the master bed, chained to the window grill for added safety. Nobody really knew what was in that trunk besides her jewelry, some silver dishes and her priceless Charlie.

  Amma always opened the trunk behind closed doors. Anyone who dared to enter her bedroom when she had her head in the treasure trove opened themselves to a major rebuke. “Trunk-time,” as the family referred to it, was next only to puja or worship time, and neither were to be disturbed at any cost.

  Each morning, after a long bath, Amma put on loads of Fair & Fabulous skin cream, then covered it with a thick layer of face powder. The fairness cream had done precious little to help her dark and rutted complexion, but she continued to use it generously. Then she prayed devoutly before the altar in the kitchen, with its rows of silver idols and pictures of Hindu gods and goddesses and saints. Megha had always admired Amma’s devotion and her capacity to recite by memory so many Sanskrit verses from the scriptures. Too bad the piousness didn’t extend to other areas of Amma’s life.

  About four months after Megha came to live with the Ramnaths her outings with Amma came to an abrupt stop. Amma turned against Megha with unexpected vengeance. To this day, Megha hadn’t figured out what it was she had done wrong. Amma was loving and affectionate with her brothers and their respective families, fawned over them even. With her husband and children she could be a bit stern and unyielding. But with Megha her attitude was bitter contempt combined with angry reserve.

  There was only one occasion Megha recalled when she had disobeyed Amma, and that was when she’d gone to the neighbor, Sharifa Hamid’s, house to help out when Sharifa had suffered an acute appendicitis attack. Amma had never forgiven Megha for setting foot in a Muslim household and then returning to taint their pure Hindu home. The already fragile relationship between the two women had crumbled completely then and Megha’s position had been downgraded from contemptible daughter-in-law to domestic servant.

  Megha was still Amma’s enemy number one. And Megha didn’t even know why. Granted, her father hadn’t paid the dowry money yet, and she had failed to produce a grandchild as expected, but both the problems weren’t entirely her fault, were they? Surely nothing she had done was so severe a crime that it had to be punished by death?

  After stewing for a while over all the injustices she’d suffered, rebellious thoughts slipped into Megha’s mind. Why had she put up with the Ramnaths’ despicable treatment of her all these months? Why had she let Amma look upon her as her personal doormat? Why had she allowed Suresh to use her body nearly every night and then ignore her the rest of the time?

  Well, she wouldn’t tolerate it anymore! She was no weakling. She was capable of not only fighting back but giving in equal measure. She had a perfectly good brain, didn’t she? She’d teach those mean, ugly bastards a lesson. Not today, perhaps not tomorrow, nor even next year. One day in the future she’d deliver her own brand of justice and watch the surprise leap into their eyes. At the moment she had no idea how she’d do it, but given time, she’d know what to do.

  Never having hated anyone with such passion, Megha didn’t quite recognize the strong tide of feeling rising within her. But it was potent, bitter. It took her a few moments to realize what the emotion was: Revenge. Two, or rather, three could play the game of wreaking misery on somebody else.

  Finally, overcome by exhaustion and with the pain pills easing the throbbing in her foot, she fell asleep, but not before making a resolution to get even with Suresh and Amma Ramnath.

  Chapter 8

  Megha woke up with a sore feeling, like the bone-deep aching that comes with the flu. Gritty-eyed, she squinted at the bedside clock then sat up in alarm. 9:37 AM! What was she still doing in bed? Why hadn’t Amma woken her? She looked at the empty space beside her on the bed. Where was Suresh? And why were the street noises so subdued this morning as compared with the daily din of automobiles, bicycle bells, rickshaws, the clanging of the doodhwalla’s milk cans and people’s incessant chatter?

  Her sleep-addled brain took a while to remember she was in a strange bed. Then, as the faint scent of Kiran’s aftershave met her sensitive nostrils and she felt the soft, luxurious sheets beneath her legs, it all came back to her. And along with it came the sense of panic once
again.

  Telling herself to calm down, she stretched, then stood up, and winced when her body tightened in pain, especially when her bandaged foot hit the floor. The pain shot all the way up to her upper thigh. Carefully examining the sheets, she found two ugly blood stains, dried to a rusty shade of brown. She’d have to wash the sheets thoroughly before leaving the flat. A closer look at the floor showed the stains there were gone. When had Kiran come in and cleaned up that mess? Poor man, he was probably disgusted with having her as a guest in his home. Well, hopefully she’d be gone within the next hour or two.

  Megha studied the room with curiosity. What she’d failed to notice the previous night in her dazed state of mind, she noted now. The slate blue curtains on the window were closed, but there was a narrow gap where the two panels came together and the bright morning sun threw enough light into the room to illuminate it.

  The bedroom furniture was made of rich, dark rosewood, with the headboard, the bedside table, the dresser and matching mirror all coordinated. Megha ran her fingers over the headboard’s rim, admiring its smooth curves and glossy finish. Nice. Next to the window a computer sat on a rosewood desk with a crammed bookcase beside it. Most of the books were about engineering, computer systems and software design. There were a few novels—John Grisham, Tom Clancy, Stephen King, and James Patterson—typical male tastes in fiction.

  Two extra wide almirahs or armoires, also made of rosewood, sat against one wall. It was a utilitarian and simple room—a man’s bedroom, but again, decorated in excellent taste. Kamala Rao’s hand was unmistakable.

  Megha glanced at herself in the mirror and nearly sprang back in shock. The scratch on her chin was a red diagonal scab. Her hair was sticking out in various directions. The scratches on her arms and legs matched the one on her chin. The T-shirt and shorts looked crushed now. All of the previous night’s events came flooding back into her mind, once again bringing with them grief, hopelessness, and fear.