The Dowry Bride

by Shobhan Bantwal

  He was vaguely aware that Chandramma’s coconut-sized breasts were clearly visible through the thin fabric of her white blouse, and the bright orange sari had hiked up to expose her thick calves. But his eyes remained on his own image in the mirror while his bony fingers moved up and down his scalp rhythmically.

  He continued to ignore his wife even when he heard her sharp, dramatic intake of breath. Vinayak had given up looking at his wife with anything but mild disgust for some time now. That episode a while ago when she had spurned him came to mind. Not only had he married an ugly shrew, he was stuck now with an enormous ugly shrew, whose sex drive was all but non-existent. Always a plump woman, she had started to gain more weight immediately upon giving birth to Shanti and hadn’t stopped gaining since. Her passion for food had replaced her passion for her husband.

  Well, he wasn’t exactly a handsome man, and then there had been that terrible and near-fatal illness during his childhood that had more or less sealed his fate. The best he could hope for in a wife in those days was someone like Chandramma. In fact, even Chandramma was a blessing then, considering the predicament he had been in. She even came with a substantial dowry, which had made it possible for him to buy this house all that many years ago. Additionally, she gave him two children, one of them being a son to carry on the Ramnath name. The son had turned out to be a major disappointment, but Suresh was his child, nonetheless.

  Vinayak felt he really had no right to complain about his lot. His mind went back to his teenage years. He shuddered like he always did when he recalled that miserable period in his life. It had all started with that scratchy cough. At first his parents thought he had a simple cold. His mother coddled him with vile concoctions made of ginger, lemon grass and every kind of medicinal herb and spice she could think of.

  When his problem continued she put poultices on his back until his very sweat reeked of onions and spices. The doctors prescribed shark liver oil, nutritional compounds, and ayurvedic elixirs. Nothing helped. His cough became persistent; he often coughed up blood and his already thin shoulders and chest began to hollow out and sag. He took to his bed for months after that, too weak and exhausted to go to school. After a while, even getting to his feet became a trial.

  When his breathing became shallow, everyone decided he was at death’s door. His mother became frantic. “Oh Lord, why are you doing this to us? Have we done so many bad things that we have to be punished so much?” she often cried as she pleaded with her mute gods and goddesses. They sat on her altar and offered no answers to her pitiful questions.

  Vinayak’s parents had already lost a son in infancy and a daughter to typhoid when she was barely five years old. They could not afford to lose this son as well, their only living child. They even named him after Vinayak, another name for Ganesh, the elephant-headed god, the remover of obstacles, so the child’s path would be clear and allow him a full and healthy life.

  When Vinayak reached the age of seventeen and very nearly died, a bright young physician, Alphonso D’Souza, diagnosed Vinayak’s illness as the dreaded disease, the ominous T word: Tuberculosis.

  Vinayak was promptly dispatched to a sanitarium for intensive treatment. He spent three precious years of his life in that prison-like brick building in a remote rural area forty miles from Palgaum. Life was miserable at that dreadful place, if it could even be called life in the first place. It was more like living death.

  The stern, humorless nurses poked and prodded him all the time; the food tasted like crushed blotting paper; and he was never allowed any visitors, not even his parents. “We cannot allow the dangerous germs to spread to others,” they told him when he demanded to see his family. The only pleasure he was permitted was to sit in the sunshine on the small area of grass in the afternoons and read his mother’s letters.

  Her notes to him carried more or less the same optimistic sentiments every week. My dearest son: You are getting better each day. I miss you so much. I pray for you daily. The Lord will hear my prayers and you will come home. You will look handsome again, my little boy. Keep your faith in God and do what the doctors tell you to do.

  He read and reread such words and he cried each day—for his lost youth, for his mother’s voice, even his father’s iron fist. He had taken all those things for granted while growing up. If God would make him well he would never again take his life for granted, he resolved. He would never question his father’s authority or his mother’s smothering love.

  By some miracle he began to improve. Something was working. Perhaps it was the medical treatment, or it could have been his own will to recover and leave the place he had come to detest. He gained a little weight and could keep the food down. He stopped coughing and gagging. Slightly more than three years later he was discharged from the sanitarium. They said he was cured.

  He could go home and start a new life. His mother and father performed a puja to Lord Balaji to mark the special day and to offer thanks to the Lord. All the relatives and neighbors came to rejoice and offer their blessings.

  Vinayak was convinced that most of them came to see for themselves whether he was truly cured and what he looked like after spending three years in that much-feared place called a sanitarium. To them, it was most likely a case of someone who had died and gone to hell, and come back to tell his story.

  After the excitement died down he finished high school and then went on to college to get a degree in accounting. A bit older than his classmates and introverted by nature, he felt like an outcast, but he had promised himself that he was going to make the most of what destiny had given him as a rare gift. Every hour of every day was something to be cherished and he intended to do exactly that.

  He managed to find a clerical job with the State Bank of India immediately upon graduation. However, when all his contemporaries got married and settled down with a wife and children, he remained single. But not out of choice. He longed to have a family of his own. Alas, once a tuberculosis patient, always a tuberculosis patient. He found that out soon enough.

  Nobody wanted to have anything to do with a former “TB patient,” as one was referred to even after one was cured. The stigma never left him. Prospective brides and their respective families shunned Vinayak. His emaciated looks didn’t help matters either.

  His sweet and devoted mother would often try to soothe his wounded feelings. “Why you look so sad, putta? There is a nice girl somewhere just for you, no? You wait and see.”

  So he waited. But the girl never materialized. God hadn’t made one “just for him.”

  His father was a more practical man. “Vinayak, do something with your life, son. Work hard and become a bank manager, maybe even the general manager. It does not look like marriage is in your stars. At times God just overlooks some people. What to do? It is your fate—that is all I can say.”

  His father’s words had made sense. But philosophical thoughts did little to alleviate the deep need for love and sex and companionship. With no one to confide in, he became lonely and depressed.

  Then one day, a surprise envelope arrived from Bangalore. A man called Mr. Rao had written to his father and sent him his daughter’s horoscope to be matched with Vinayak’s. Vinayak was stunned when his father told him about Chandramma and her parents and their interest in him as a prospective son-in-law. “Are you sure they have the right name and address?” he had asked his father, sure that his luck couldn’t have changed quite like that—overnight. “It could be some silly mistake.”

  “It is definitely for you, son,” assured his father. “There is no mistake.”

  A rare smile broke out over Vinayak’s face. Here was a girl with a college education, the daughter of a successful businessman from Bangalore, interested in marrying him. Her parents were even offering a generous dowry. There had been no photograph of the girl or any indication of what she looked like. But Vinayak and his parents were so relieved and thrilled that someone at last wanted to marry him, they at once agreed to the match. They didn’t even bother
to have the horoscope read by the astrologer.

  On the day of the official engagement, the Rao family from Bangalore arrived in a big white Ambassador car. They wore expensive clothes and had a chauffeur. Even the way Mr. and Mrs. Rao greeted them and conversed was more polished and sophisticated than anything Vinayak and his parents had ever heard or seen. However, what emerged from the car behind them was a rude surprise for the Ramnaths. The girl was chubby, with bulging eyes, dark, rutted skin, and a sullen expression. But then the Raos appeared equally taken aback at seeing Vinayak. The boy was skeletal, had scanty hair and yellow teeth, and was quiet as a ghost. And he was smaller than the girl.

  Both parties probably came to the conclusion that this was the best they could do under the circumstances. The wedding took place a few weeks later. Chandra, or Chandramma as she was affectionately called, turned out to be a woman with a mean streak and an iron will. Vinayak, already a timid man, withdrew into his shell even further.

  It broke Vinayak’s heart to see Chandramma mistreat his aging parents, but his timidity prevented him from intervening most of the time. Whether it was Chandramma’s abuse or something else, Vinayak couldn’t say for sure, but both his parents died within a few years of the wedding, within a year of each other, too. In some ways Vinayak considered it a blessing. His parents didn’t have to put up with their evil daughter-in-law for too long.

  But like many arranged marriages of convenience, this one had managed to work. With Chandramma’s constant nagging that he better himself, Vinayak went from bank clerk to loan officer; the dowry money was sufficient to buy a modest house; and two children were born to them. They were born twelve years apart, but that was okay—to Vinayak they were still two small miracles in his pathetic life. Even if he wasn’t blessed with a good wife, God had seen fit to give him the priceless gift of fatherhood.

  Every time he felt rueful about the choice he had made in a marriage partner, he reminded himself that technically he’d had no choice. Chandramma was the only woman brought to his attention. If he hadn’t married her he probably would have lived a bachelor’s life. At least now he had a family to call his own. He had a lot more than many other men had—especially men who had TB—men who languished in a wretched sanitarium till the day they died.

  And yet, despite the philosophizing, a few misgivings had started to enter Vinayak’s mind, especially lately. He was beginning to feel very restless.

  He glanced at his wife through the mirror. Her lips were curved in a satisfied smirk. She had been looking smug like that all evening. Something had gone well for her. She had also been a bit excited most of the day, like a little girl who had accidentally discovered her Diwali present before its time, but didn’t want her parents to know that she had.

  Vinayak knew his wife well. Too well. The suppressed excitement meant only one thing: she was planning something important. And again, knowing her, she was up to something questionable. Good deeds were not something Chandramma casually indulged in, at least not unless there was something in it for her. Since her attempt to do away with Megha, Vinayak’s contempt for his wife had doubled.

  Although he preferred to keep his counsel to himself, curiosity got the better of him. His wife looked a bit too complacent for his liking. Most often that look translated into problems for him. He was not in a mood for more problems. His boss had become quite unreasonable lately and demanded a ridiculous amount of attention to details. “Customer service, Vinayak, remember customer service above all else,” Eric Gonsalves reminded him frequently in his hoity-toity American-accented English.

  His boss had the cheek to call him Vinayak, too—not even the courtesy of addressing him as Mr. Ramnath. After all, he was Gonsalves’s elder and deserved at least that much respect. Hah, that American influence again, addressing everyone by their first name! What kind of nonsense was that? Vinayak preferred the conservative British way of conducting business.

  He admitted to himself that he was bored with his job, tired of his boss and becoming dissatisfied with his life in general. The last thing he needed was for his bossy wife to start something that would cause him more problems. “Chandramma, you look very pleased. Your errand must have been successful. What was that important errand you had this afternoon?” he asked cautiously.

  The smirk vanished from her face. “Nothing for you to worry about.”

  Vinayak frowned in disapproval but his voice remained passive. “I know you are making trips to the astrologer lately and it is not to match our Shanti’s horoscope with that of a suitable boy. What are you planning now, Chandramma?”

  “I am not planning anything, Ree. I already told you that.”

  He finished his oil massage ritual and carefully wiped his hands on a small towel. “Then why are you going so many times to the astrologer?”

  Chandramma turned to face him, defensive as ever. “How did you know I went to see the astrologer?”

  “He came to the bank this afternoon to deposit the cash you paid him to do a special reading. He told me about your recent visits. He seemed to assume that I knew.”

  “So the old bastard couldn’t wait to run to you about my consultations!” Chandramma’s brows descended over her nose in annoyed contempt.

  Climbing onto his side of the bed and sitting cross-legged to do his usual bedtime yoga exercises, Vinayak replied, “He didn’t run to me. He was at the bank today to make a deposit and I noticed him on my way to the café, so I stopped to talk. I asked him about his business and he said it was doing quite well, especially this week. Thanks to your three special readings, he made two hundred rupees per sitting.” Noticing the hooded look in his wife’s eyes, Vinayak continued, “So, what were the special readings about? For six hundred rupees they had to be important, no?”

  Chandramma stuck her double chin out. “Have you forgotten that we have a daughter of marriageable age? A good mother is supposed to go to the astrologer to get horoscopes matched for her grown children. He is the best astrologer in town and he has a computer now, you know. He charges more lately to recover the cost of that computer.”

  “Never mind the cost. I didn’t know we had any boys’ families inquiring about our Shanti. Besides, Shanti has made it quite clear that she is not interested in marriage right now. She is only nineteen.”

  Chandramma was a pathological liar, but Vinayak knew she was not one to let herself get caught lying. “Marriages take a long time to arrange, Ree. Just because I didn’t tell you it does not mean there are no prospective boys for Shanti. Before we know it she will be twenty years old, a college graduate, and ready to marry.” She sent him a defiant glance and waited for his reaction.

  Too tired to argue further, Vinayak dismissed the matter with a shake of his head. He closed his eyes, did his deep-breathing exercises and meditated for five full minutes. Then he turned off the light and pulled the covers over himself. He could never win with Chandramma. She had the mind of a stubborn donkey. Just before he drifted off to sleep he wondered whether it would be wise to keep a closer eye on Chandramma in the next several days.

  He had the uneasy feeling that his wife’s latest activities might have something to do with their daughter-in-law. Was Chandramma still trying to hunt Megha down and kill her? Did Chandramma’s New Year’s resolution include another murder plot?

  Vinayak’s hand trembled in fear. What kind of hell was his wife dragging him into? The thought was frightening.

  Chapter 25

  Despite all her attempts at getting the depression out of her system, Megha failed. Kiran came home from work and seemed to guess at once that she was in a bad mood.

  Tossing his briefcase and suit jacket on the chair, he studied her face across the room. “What’s the matter, Megha?”

  “Nothing,” she replied and went back to her task of setting the table. A man would never understand a woman’s emotions.

  His frown deepened. “You’re not…uh…you’re…how should I say this?”

  She sent him an une
asy glance. “What are you trying to say?” It wasn’t like him to dance around any issue.

  Kiran looked uncomfortable. “You…um…don’t have any morning sickness or anything, do you?”

  So that’s what had him so worried. It wasn’t just she who was troubled about her becoming pregnant from that single night they had slept together. He had obviously been under the same kind of strain. “No, Kiran, I’m not…I’m not having a baby, if that’s what you’re asking. Everything’s okay,” she informed him. She couldn’t help the telltale surge of heat in her neck and face. This was an awkward topic.

  His frown eased a little but his eyes were still watchful. “Are you sure?”

  “I’m positive.”

  “Well, that’s a relief!” he murmured. “I was so damn worried that I might have got you…landed us both in trouble.”

  “You can’t blame yourself for what might have happened, Kiran.” She was too embarrassed to meet his gaze, so she continued to go back and forth between the kitchen and dining areas, bringing the food to the table. “I was an equal and willing participant.”

  “But you’re so young and innocent. I should have known better than to talk you into doing something so entirely foolish.”

  “What!” She couldn’t let him shoulder all the responsibility for this. She wouldn’t. They were two young people in love, with normal, healthy reflexes. It was only a small miracle that had kept them apart for so long in the first place. She’d be damned if she’d let him live with a guilty conscience all alone.

  She left the plates on the table and came to stand before him, so she could look him in the eye. “Look, let’s get this straight: I’m a grown and married woman, not an innocent child, Kiran. And you didn’t talk me into anything; I did it on my own. We both acted impulsively that night, but it’s never going to happen again. We won’t let it happen, so stop worrying. Besides, I’m not pregnant, so let’s not talk about it anymore, okay?”