The Dowry Bride

by Shobhan Bantwal

  Haridas had been in this business for many years and served enough greedy women and men like this one to know exactly what Mrs. Ramnath was here for. He had met women who wanted him to perform satanic rituals to force their daughters-in-law and daughters to abort a perfectly healthy fetus solely because it was a female child. He had met men who wanted to have their business partners eliminated by less than honest means. He had seen young people who wanted him to help them steal examinations. He had come across couples in love that wanted him to assist them to elope. He had even crossed paths with men who thought it was all right to kill someone for their own selfish purposes. There was precious little Haridas and these four walls hadn’t heard or seen.

  This woman was as greedy and ruthless as they came—maybe more so. Well, for three hundred rupees he would tell her what she wanted to hear. He feared to ask her the details of her plans. Despite his questionable profession and his rather unconventional means of making a customer pay for his services, he had a conscience, and he refused to get drawn into things he felt would ruin his own chances of a better life in his next incarnation. His knowledge of astrology and the scriptures was deep enough for him to know there was a thin line between dishonest and sinful.

  She shifted uncomfortably in her chair. “You see, Suresh’s father-in-law lied to us.”

  “Aha, I see.” This appeared to be a dowry matter, if his instincts were correct.

  “He told us that he will pay the dowry within one year after the marriage. Now it is more than one year and there is no dowry.”

  “You are tired of waiting, then?”

  “Yes. And my son’s wife is not even expecting. I suspect that she is barren, no? What am I to do? You tell me.”

  A peek at the small wall clock located behind the fat woman told Haridas that he was about twenty minutes into his consultation. He had twenty-five minutes left. He went back to studying the horoscope, this time with a pencil in hand, letting his almost non-existent brows form a sharp V over his nose, pretending to look entirely immersed in the horoscope. He got the feeling the fat woman wanted her son to divorce his present wife. She wanted another daughter-in-law, a rich one.

  Several awkward minutes later, after listening to the woman squirm and cough and throw other little hints of impatience at him, Haridas gazed at her once again. “I think there is a chance that Suresh will have opportunity for another marriage.”

  At once alert, the woman leaned forward. “He will?”

  “You can get dowry also. But I will have to perform rituals and cast a special spell. It will cost two hundred rupees extra.”

  Eyes lighting up, the Ramnath woman sucked in her breath. “Really? There will be no bad effects on Suresh? On our family?”

  Haridas shook his head gravely. “If there is no pregnancy then there can be divorce with very little bad effects. Everything will be okay.” Then, to kill more time, he told the woman a bit more about Suresh’s career and gave her some information on how his horoscope affected the rest of the family. Naturally, all the rituals and spells to make things go in the right direction would cost extra money.

  “So, you are saying getting rid of Suresh’s present wife will not be a problem?”

  “Uh…no.”

  “She will disappear and it will not bring any kashta for us, problems and regrets?”

  Haridas nodded, a knowing smile playing over his face. He was indeed good at astrology, wasn’t he? He made plenty of money by doing these readings. His rituals and predictions were fairly accurate. He had a knack for casting spells. How else could he get business repeatedly and good referrals? He charged extremely high fees to tell people what they wanted to hear. He coated the truth with a little sugar, and his clients fell all over themselves, ecstatic at being able to do whatever it was they had planned to do in the first place. All they needed was a push from him and a spell here and there, and in return his pockets got fuller.

  The only reason Haridas lived in this squalid tenement was to fool the income tax people. He didn’t pay a single rupee in taxes since his was a cash-only business. They would never dream of seeking someone in the middle of one of the poorest neighborhoods of Palgaum. For all practical purposes he was a destitute astrologer with virtually no clients to speak of. His customers were all like this woman, people who did not want to be known as his clients. He grinned inwardly as he thought of the amount of money he had stuffed inside his mattress—also inside a few pillows and in a few kitchen containers. It was enough to last him a lifetime.

  His astrological calculations from this particular horoscope told him that the young man in question, Suresh Ramnath, was feeble and not very bright. It also showed that he had made an excellent marriage with his present wife, with or without dowry. His current spouse would bring him good fortune in the future. Her stars were beneficial to whomever she married. But if he divorced her, his chances would vanish. Suresh would likely stay in his present job for the rest of his life. Even if he married a second time, and that, too, seemed remote, the probability of getting a better wife than this one was slim to zero. His physical health showed rapid deterioration after the age of forty.

  The Ramnaths were obviously too stupid to recognize their luck in having a good daughter-in-law. Too bad, Haridas concluded. If this domineering woman was going to force her son to divorce such a promising wife and go looking for another one, who was he to dissuade her from her goal? He would collect his fee and let the she-buffalo hang herself.

  While she reached for her handbag to pull out the money and carefully count it, Haridas noticed the woman looking smug. This was working out quite well for her. She was probably pleased that she could go home and follow through with her plans. “Three hundred for the reading and four hundred for the two spells—for Suresh’s promotion and remarriage,” she said and handed seven crisp bills to Haridas. “Everything had better be like you said, otherwise you will be hearing from me and also from Mrs. Rajan,” she warned him.

  “Never doubt my reading, Mrs. Ramnath,” he said with an equally intimidating ring in his voice and pocketed the money. He had done this too many times to be scared away by a witch who was desperate and willing to sell her soul. He had a feeling she would be back within a few months. Most of them did. His mattress looked quite fat lately.

  Chandramma wished the little man a quick Namaste with her palms joined and then departed in haste. She had to get out of there quickly. Haridas made her hair stand on end. There was something curiously disturbing about him. And it wasn’t just his strange physical appearance. It was as if he could read her mind, every little thought that flashed through it. It was unsettling. The man had stared at her in an odd way, his nearly colorless gray eyes seemingly sizing her up. His little brown teeth reminded her of rodent teeth—she could imagine them gnawing on something, even human skin. She didn’t appreciate losing her self-confidence the way she had with him. And the stench in his house was enough to make her stomach go into convulsions.

  Very few things in life made Chandramma feel uncomfortable or intimidated. Haridas made her feel both. And she didn’t like the feeling.

  Even if she had found what she had come to seek, this was not a safe neighborhood for her to be roaming around. A few curious faces stared at her from the windows of the neighboring flats as she made her way down the long corridor and then the rickety staircase. Sensing those eyes following her, she clutched her bag more tightly to her chest.

  It took her several minutes to find her way out of the maze of alleys and back to the safety of the more familiar streets. In the process she had to shoo away two beggars, one stray dog and even a hungry goat trying to tug on her sari in its quest for food. Fortunately, the gang of thugs was nowhere in sight. She had been afraid they would be lying in wait for her at the corner, expecting her to return the same way she had gone in. She quickly hailed a rickshaw the moment she saw one and headed home.

  She settled back against the vinyl seat and took deep breaths of blessed relief. Despite the
awkwardness with Haridas, a large burden had been lifted from her shoulders. He had informed her that her plans could go forward. She had it all worked out in her mind some time ago but needed to be sure she was doing the right thing.

  But despite Haridas’s reading, she would still talk to the family astrologer once again. She would force him to give her some definite answers, just to be reassured that she was going in the proper direction and that Haridas’s predictions were accurate. She never took chances and didn’t like getting herself in trouble. She was alone in this venture. Both her sisters-in-law, Devayani and Kamala, in spite of being her confidantes, had no idea how extensive and complicated her plans were. Devayani was like a puppy, eager to please, but Kamala, with her snobbish ways, was likely to look at Chandramma’s plans with contempt. To reveal her ideas to the two women would be disastrous.

  Chandramma was definitely alone in this.

  She was furious at the Shastrys about the dowry. She considered herself a patient woman, but there was a limit to her patience. She was not a fool and didn’t like to be treated like one. To her, an agreement was a firm obligation, and not to be taken lightly. She didn’t care how Shastry managed to acquire the dowry. She wanted her money. Now! To aggravate her further, one year had passed by and that good-for-nothing Megha hadn’t even managed to become pregnant.

  Chandramma was willing to wait a bit longer for the dowry if there was at least a grandson in the near future, but without even that small reward, what good was a daughter-in-law?

  Chandramma was loath to admit that Megha was beautiful. That was why she had bribed the astrologer to lie to Megha’s parents about Suresh’s horoscope and his earnings as well as their own financial status. Megha’s beauty had seemed like an asset at first, but no longer. In fact, each time she looked at Megha’s flawless complexion, her large eyes and perfect nose, Chandramma shuddered within. Everything about that girl made Chandramma feel less like a woman and more like a hulking, misshapen object.

  Hearing remarks like, “Oh, what a lovely daughter-in-law you have,” or “She looks like a movie star—where did you find her?” made Chandramma sick.

  She hadn’t wanted to be seen alongside Megha anymore—people just seemed to notice the contrast. Although they were too polite to say it, she could see it in their eyes while they mentally seemed to appraise the two women. She felt like she had gone back to her childhood and teenage days—those hurtful, horrible days when the boys had spurned her and the girls had looked at her with pity-filled eyes. Every girl that had approached her with an offer of friendship had done it out of pity. In turn, Chandramma had shooed them away. She had never wanted that kind of mercy friendship. She would manage on her own.

  She had assumed that those days of scorn and pity were well behind her, but Megha’s presence in the house had brought back these dark memories. The wound had been reopened and the pain and flow of blood were worse than before. And Megha was responsible for it.

  Following the wedding last year, Chandramma had taken her new daughter-in-law to her regular religious meetings and socials to show her off as a prize acquisition. She would surely be the envy of her friends, Chandramma had calculated. They would congratulate her on her good luck and fine taste. They would likely be jealous of her and her son because of Megha’s beauty. Instead, Chandramma had only received their pity for her own shortcomings. Outright hostility she could endure, but not pity.

  A few whispered offensive comments made behind her back had reached her ears: Poor Chandramma! She and her daughter-in-law look like Beauty and the Beast. How did a girl like that end up with that puny Ramnath boy? Oh dear, but the girl looks like a lotus growing in a swamp. Couldn’t the girl’s father find someone more suitable than the Ramnaths?

  Chandramma had immediately stopped asking Megha to accompany her to her social gatherings. Humiliation and the long-dormant feelings of rage had stirred up inside her. How could God be so cruel and unjust? Hadn’t she been a chaste and devout Brahmin woman and prayed and performed her duties like she was supposed to? So why had God punished her with this face and body? When her parents had been good-looking people and her two brothers were handsome men, why was she condemned to such an unsightly appearance? Why were the Meghas of the world given the looks of parees? Angels.

  There had been times during the past few months when she was tempted to slap Megha’s smug face just to see an ugly blue bruise appear on its perfect surface, or feed her kilos of pure butter and watch her slender body turn fat and round. She wanted to see that girl waddle about like an overweight cow. Maybe pregnancy would have done that to her, but that hadn’t even come into question. Her flat stomach and slender limbs were still the same.

  Tukaram, their stupid servant, was so devoted to Megha he seemed nearly ready to kiss the girl’s feet. He had never shown even mild respect towards Chandramma in the twelve years he had worked for them, let alone such devotion.

  To make matters worse, Chandramma’s husband, Vinayak, was like a ball of soft wheat dough around Megha—in his eyes the girl could do no wrong. He was always polite and generous to Megha, and smiled at her a lot. A man who rarely smiled had suddenly begun to do it often. How nonsensical was that? He even thanked Megha for serving him a simple cup of coffee. It was sickening to watch her husband tripping over his own skinny feet to please the useless little excuse for a daughter-in-law. A grown man acting like a teenager around a young woman was contemptible.

  Her favorite nephew, Kiran, had a habit of staring at Megha with adoration, too. That little slut had probably done something to him as well. Those big, innocent eyes were nothing short of dangerous. What was it about her that prompted such reverence—especially from men?

  Well, no more! Chandramma was going to make sure that Megha would be banished from their lives. The worthless chit could take her fancy English words and stuff them in her throat. Just because she had attended some upper-class convent school and had a college degree she liked to pretend that her English skills were superior to everybody else’s and that she could write well. Hah, little Shanti had attended the same school, and she could read and write just as well, maybe better!

  Megha and her deceitful parents would be taught a lesson very soon. Chandramma would find a rich young lady for her son—someone with a respectable dowry—someone who would show her mother-in-law the respect due to her.

  But first Chandramma had to find out where that good-for-nothing Megha was. How had she managed to slip out of their fingers? Had she overheard something and made her own escape plans while Chandramma was cooking up hers? Or, worse, had she seen and heard Suresh and Chandramma in the shed that night? Oh God, that spelled trouble.

  Well, Megha might be clever, but not clever enough to hide forever and certainly not clever enough to outwit her mother-in-law. Chandramma would hunt the girl down, sooner or later.

  She had a few theories about Megha’s disappearance, and an idea had been forming in her mind for the past day or two. To put it in motion she needed to find someone reliable but inexpensive to keep an eye on a certain house.

  That was the big problem. Whom could she recruit for the job? The police would never cooperate, and hiring someone was likely to be expensive. Was there a way to find anything like private detectives in a small town like Palgaum? And if yes, how did one approach them? What exactly did they do as detectives? She had seen them in movies and on television, but she knew nothing about them in real life.

  As the driver maneuvered the rickshaw through a busy intersection not far from the house Chandramma had been speculating about, her eyes accidentally fell on someone standing on the footpath.

  A slow smile lit up her face. Haridas’s so-called spells were already beginning to work or what? The ugly dwarf was good. Damn good! She grunted in satisfaction.

  She had found the perfect spy!

  Chapter 15

  The dark automobile rolled to a stop at the end of the residential street, Devi Galli. A few shops and small restaurants flanked
the commercial street which intersected with it, Hanuman Galli. The late evening light had faded a while back, but the street lamps, fitted with yellow vapor bulbs, provided dull illumination for the footpaths. The mosquitoes and moths were out, buzzing around the lamps.

  It was just before dinnertime and people were returning home from work, most walking briskly, some on bicycles. Aromas of curry, frying oil, and fresh fruit mingled with the smell of automobile exhaust on the streets. Palgaum’s nightly fog was already making its way from the river to settle over the town, its dampness apparent in the way the car’s windows were slowly misting up.

  In the passenger seat of the car Megha sat stiffly, her hands tightly clasped in her lap. Kiran turned off the ignition and glanced at her. “We’re here.”

  She continued to stare at her hands. “I’m not sure I want to go.”

  “After coming all this way?” He sighed and drummed his fingers on the steering wheel for a moment. He should have known she’d panic at the last minute. In fact, he was having one or two second thoughts himself. “Shall we go back home then?”

  “No…yes…no. Wait.” She shook her head and frowned. “I don’t know.”

  “Make up your mind, will you please? The longer we sit here the more suspicious it looks. We’re in a no-parking zone.”

  “All right, I—I’ll go.” Megha glanced about her, carefully searching for familiar faces amongst the men and women walking and talking on the street corner. “I don’t see anyone I know.” She turned a dubious face to Kiran. “Do you think it’s safe?”

  He wasn’t sure but he nodded. “If you keep to the shadowed side of the street you should be all right.” Kiran had decided that this rather dark and unobtrusive corner, about a block from Megha’s best friend, Harini’s house, and the busy shopping area, would be the best place for him to drop Megha off and later pick her up. One or two of Harini’s neighbors knew Megha by sight, and if they saw her arriving in a car at Harini’s doorstep, they were sure to get curious.