by Sharon Maas
And Ma was a part of this world that defied all reason.
At thirteen, Saroj could hardly remember the time when Ma and she had been almost one entity — a time before thought, when being alive was knowing Ma's presence as a warm, downy nest. Ma, all luminous eyes and a smile that embraced you. A time when she had worshipped Ma, as all children worship their mothers. Doesn't every mother seem like God to her child, all-knowing, all-seeing, all-forgiving? Ma, to whom the butterflies came, who spoke to the roses and brought them to bloom. All powerful. Ma could summon the sunshine and dispel clouds. The four-armed Goddess Parvati on her celestial throne.
But little girls grow up. They learn to think and reason, their horizon expands, their vision changes focus. They go to school, they read books, and newspapers. Their minds bounce free, Mother's halo fades, two of her arms drop off and she shrinks to her true, human and fallible size.
Saroj now saw Ma as what she always had been: an excellent cook, a conscientious housekeeper, a devoted mother, a dutiful wife, a fervent Hindu. A typical Indian housewife, docile, subservient. Loving, good and strong; strong in the sense that all mothers are strong for their children, but nevertheless an impotent spirit in the background, coyed and cringing under Baba's foot. Baba's rule was despotic, his rule was law, and no-one dared disobey, least of all Ma.
Ma, hanging on to the strange archaic customs she'd brought from the land of her ancestors, the silent little woman steeped in tradition, living in a world light-years away from reality, the centre of whose universe was the Purushottama Temple, a museum of dead stone idols.
'If I can talk to her, you can,' Ganesh claimed. 'It's not that difficult. Ma knows more about you than you think. She knows more about me than I thought. Who d'you think told me not to worry about the Narain girl? To go to university, get on with my life, and let the whole thing fade out of thought?'
'Ma? Ma told you that? You're kidding!'
But Ganesh nodded and there was laughter in his eyes. 'I couldn't believe it myself.'
'But I thought Ma was the driving power behind the whole thing!'
'Naw, that was Baba. Ma played along with Baba as long as I made no objections. Then I talked to her and she swung around completely and said don't worry, it'll all work out for the best.'
'Why didn't you tell me this before?'
'Big brothers don't discuss everything with little sisters, you know. But you're a big girl now, thirteen, and you get to know grown-up secrets. There's more to Ma than meets the eye. She's on my side and she'll be on yours and help you if you trust her. Ma's pretty devious, you know. She knows how to get her own way.'
Saroj had to digest this information. The Ghosh boy vanished from her thoughts, which all turned to Ma. She bit into another samosa, closed her eyes and opened her senses, to get the feeling of Ma hidden within the subtlety of taste, and considered in silence. Ganesh's information surprised her, but, after all, Ganesh was a boy, an only beloved son. Of course Ma would take his side, support him in all his plans; that exactly proved the point! Gan's imagination was running away with him — as usual.
No. Ganesh was wrong. Ma could not, would not, help. Saroj was a girl, and that made all the difference. Childhood was over; it was growing-up time, becoming-a-lady time, and Ma was in league with Baba. And Baba had his own plans for her.
All her life Baba had been shaping Saroj to fit into the Hindu world, to make of her the tame and biddable daughter their culture demanded, a carbon copy of Ma. He had done it with Indrani, successfully. Indrani was all lined up to marry a boy of Baba's choice, and Saroj was next in line. Up to now Saroj had nurtured hostility within, cultivated acquiescence without. It was a question of survival.
But now she thought of the Ghosh boy with his protuberant teeth and from her deepest depths the cry rose up, the cry of defiance that marked the precise moment of her coming-of-age, No! I won't!
No more nodding on the outside and gnashing of teeth on the inside. She knew with a certainty that filled her entire being and charged her with a joyous jubilant strength that she would not, not, NOT bow to a destiny chosen for her by Baba.
Character is destiny. She said it out loud.
'What?' asked Ganesh.
'Character is destiny,' she repeated, and laughed a crazy, wild laugh that made Ganesh drop his grin and stare. Her family's destiny, till now, had been dictated more by culture than by character. Culture had moulded character to fit its own dictates so that culture, character and destiny were intermingled, intermeshed, interwoven into a preordained, predictable pattern.
Saroj was a single loose thread sticking out. It was her turn to be tucked into the pattern, according to the plan.
But she wouldn't be tucked in.
And that meant shaking off everything she had been brought up to be. She would have to peel from her soul every last trace of India, abandon the culture bequeathed to her by Baba and Ma.
6
Chapter Six
Savitri
Madras, 1921
The Admiral and his wife were too absorbed by their own lives to notice David's absorption with the native girl Savitri. They were happy to have him off their hands and not demanding their attention. The Admiral was wheelchair-bound, having suffered grave spinal, arm and leg injuries when his ship had been torpedoed in the very last throes of the Great War, and had found a new lease of life in writing his war memoirs. All he really needed by way of human company was Joseph, the Christian Indian male nurse, to get him up, dressed and fed in the mornings and to administer the various pills he needed during the day, and Khan, to wheel him to the library, get him adjusted into the special chair he had had made to support his back while writing, and stand to attention, to pull the punkah and bring him the endless cups of tea he needed for inspiration. Every Thursday evening Khan helped him into the car and the driver Pandian drove him to the Club, where he met with Colonel Hurst and spent a pleasant evening reliving the Great War and eating an excellent dinner with a non-vegetarian main course.
His wife did not allow the cooking of meat in her house. She spent her days as pleasantly as her husband. Her life was centred around the Theosophical Society at Adyar, where she went to attend lectures, talks and seminars, or simply to browse in the library, or meet her like-minded friends. She loved to walk through the shaded paths of the magnificent Adyar grounds, to spread a blanket under the banyan tree and read a book, her dear friend Lady Jane Ingram within touching distance. Sometimes the two ladies would lay down their books and pleasantly discuss some inspiring aspect of Theosophy theory which one of their books had thrown up, or they would read to one another, which both found extremely edifying. She had once met and exchanged a few words with Annie Besant, which was the most uplifting thing that had ever happened to her, and gave food for endless conversations. Although she wasn't quite convinced about this Home Rule business. No, never. The Indians were like small children; they needed the benevolently guiding hand of the British. She herself was doing her own little part here in Fairwinds. Where would the servants be without her? Where would India be without the British?
When she was at home she read yet more, sitting in the coolness of the verandah or the rose arbour; or she wrote in her diary, or entertained her friends, who were by no means all Theosophists. She made sure the gardens and house were well maintained, for Mrs Lindsay was proud of both. The house was actually invisible from the garden, buried among the giant bougainvilleas which climbed up trellises and trees to wall in the verandah encircling the house. The house itself had a flat Madras roof, edged with a tiled roof slanting down over the verandah, and on the verandah Mrs Lindsay had arranged groups of wicker chairs and tables where she and her friends could sit in the coolness and enjoy the faint breeze blowing in from the ocean, and chat amiably about servants and children.
It was possible to get lost on the Fairwinds property. It was the most extensive of all the Oleander Gardens properties, the gardens beautifully kept up by Muthu and his ever-changing troop o
f Boys — each one of which, regardless of age, was automatically named Boy. Possibly only Savitri and David knew every nook and cranny, for even Muthu kept to his side of the garden, this side of the gulley. The gulley ran straight through from one side to the other, parallel to Atkinson Avenue and Old Market Street, and during the monsoon was a mighty gushing stream overflowing its banks. The rest of the year it was dry and full of stones and sediment and you could jump over it at some points, where the far bank wasn't overgrown with thorny bushes. Because over there nature ran wild. Muthu did not work it, though he lived there in the servants' quarters that lined Old Market Street. Snakes, scorpions and other dreadful wild things lived there beneath the stones and in the holes in the ground and under bushes. David was cautioned always to wear shoes, whether he was in the back or the front garden, but Savitri ran everywhere barefoot, and had never been bitten or stung.
The garden side of Fairwinds was kept constantly free of weeds, red sand spread everywhere between the flowerbeds to ensure an atmosphere of cool, clean gentility, snakes and scorpions banished. It made Mrs Lindsay feel very majestic, to stroll around Fairwinds making sure that the garden was flourishing, or to stand on the verandah and clap for a Boy, or lean over the little piles of clothes laid out by the dhobi, counting to make sure he had stolen nothing.
She always made an exact list of what dirty laundry had gone out and what dean laundry came in, and though in all the years she had never lost so much as a hanky, still she knew this was only because she was so vigilant, because Kannan was not only annoyingly vague but illiterate, so it was impossible to give him lists to check. He kept track of his business in his head.
'I gave you three pieces lady vests on Monday,' she now said, consulting her list. 'But you've only brought two back.'
'Three pieces you giving ma'am?' Kannan looked genuinely puzzled, scratched his forehead, did some mental calculations, and then his whole face lit up and he replied with joy, 'Yes ma'am, my washing, naligi bringing!'
'No, no naligi bringing! You going, coming, today bringing!' Mrs Lindsay said sternly, reverting to pidgin for clarity, and Kannan plucked his beard, adjusted his turban, shook his head from side to side in agreement and said, 'Serree, ma'am, my today bringing. Evening time.' Mrs Lindsay puckered her forehead in annoyance. When would her servants ever learn that shaking one's head means no, and not yes? She opened her mouth to remind Kannan. But he had disappeared.
He wasn't seen for the rest of the day. But the next day the vest, Mrs Lindsay knew from long experience, would be among that day's laundry, pristine white, ironed and folded, and Kannan, eyes shining with pride, would say, 'My one piece lady vest bringing, ma'am!'
Of all the servants Joseph was the only one who spoke English, which was annoying. But at least the Iyers' daughter was fluent. When Mrs Lindsay discussed the week's menu, or made up the shopping list with Iyer and there was some point he didn't understand, Iyer would stick two fingers between his lips and give a shrill sharp whistle, and within three seconds Savitri would appear from behind some bush, hair dishevelled, skirt awry, buttons missing from her blouse, cheeks smudged with dirt, and curtsy. Such a sweet, bright, polite child! Mrs Lindsay never failed to feel a sharp prick of pride whenever she dealt with Savitri. The girl was somehow special, if a little wild and scruffy. But she was so courteous, Mrs Lindsay's heart went out to her. She was particularly proud of her excellent English, her impeccable accent, for she knew this was all due to herself.
It was not every English wife who allowed her children to hob-nob with the servants' children. But Mrs Lindsay was a Theosophist, and theosophists knew that all humans were born equal, in spite of outer differences of colour and social standing, and Mrs Lindsay thought it was a good thing to uplift her servants — or at least a few of them. And besides, Savitri's upliftment was obviously ordained from Above. It was destiny. Right from the beginning.
Nirmala had given birth to Savitri just a few weeks after David's birth, when Mrs Lindsay's milk was drying out. That was the first Sign. Mrs Lindsay had given her David to wet-nurse, which was a great blessing for she herself found breast-feeding rather disgusting anyway — and it made your breasts sag. Of course, she could not let David grow up in the Iyer household. So she had ordered Savitri's mother to move into the nursery with the two babies, and they had grown up like twins, one white and one brown, and both bi-lingual, since Nirmala spoke hardly a word of English. As a result David called Nirmala 'Amma' and learned fluent Tamil, while Savitri, mixing freely with all the family household, learned English — the best, upper-class English. So in fact there were two child interpreters living on the Fairwinds property, although Mrs Lindsay never let David interpret — she found it somehow demeaning to hear her son speaking with servants and not be able to understand.
Nirmala was much more than an ayah. Mrs Lindsay had occasionally felt a twinge of jealousy, seeing how attached her son was to Savitri's mother. But her lady friends had told her time and again that Nirmala was a pearl, and so she had counted her blessings, and David had never been a problem.
Savitri kept David occupied, which was a blessing. All too well Mrs Lindsay knew what a plague children could be. The children of some of her lady friends were veritable pests, spoiled silly, and though they all had their own ayahs or nannies they never left their mothers alone. Fiona, Mrs Lindsay's daughter, had had an English nanny, a girl from Birmingham who had come to India to find a husband, and who in her failure to do so had grown more and more bad-tempered over the years. It had been a pleasure to replace her after David's birth.
Mrs Lindsay had been fortunate with both her children. Fiona was such a quiet, bookish girl; she had never been underfoot like some people's daughters, and now she was twelve she would be going off to Yorkshire to stay with Aunt Jemima, Mrs Lindsay's sister, where she could attend an excellent girls' boarding school. Next week they'd be going off to hill station Ooty for the summer, and immediately after that Fiona would be leaving from Bombay with the Carter family, who were going Home on Long Leave, and in September she'd start at Queen Ethelberga's. Hopefully Aunt Jemima would do her best to make the right connections, and Fiona in time would find a nicely situated husband in England and need never come back to India, except on holiday to show off her own children. Hopefully, they'd be as decorous as Fiona herself.
Of course, this child Savitri was anything but decorous; such a tomboy! Not a bit like most Indian girls, but as such she made a good playmate for David, which was a good thing. David for some reason didn't get along with any of the other English children in Oleander Gardens, and without Savitri he would have been completely alone and demanding attention.
Dear little Savitri! Whenever Mrs Lindsay thought of her she had a good warm feeling around her heart. Mrs Lindsay often had 'feelings' about people, particularly Indians, particularly servants. Most often these were negative feelings, but not in Savitri's case. Savitri, she felt, was a good spirit in Fairwinds. The way she would flit noiselessly between the bougainvilleas, just like a butterfly; you almost expected her to take off and fly, flapping her skirts and shawls, and such fantastic colours, too!
The Indians had no sense of colour. Savitri would wear a shocking pink skirt with a lime green choli and a tangerine shawl, all together: yes, like a butterfly. And always with flowers in her hair, placed there by her mother early in the morning at the hair-combing session. Goodness knows how these Indian mothers always found time not only to plait their daughters' hair, but also to weave little flower-garlands to decorate them with, and that apart from all their other early morning duties.
Once Mrs Lindsay had seen Savitri dancing all alone, believing herself unwatched, in the sandy open space beyond the rose arbour, and as she watched she felt the hair on the back of her neck rising. For Savitri was not of this world as she danced. It was as if she was being danced, as if the dance had taken possession of her and moved her limbs according to its own commands. Mrs Lindsay at once recognised the gestures: Savitri was dancing the B
harata Natyam, the classical dance of Shiva in the form of Nataraj. Her fingers formed mudras, her knees bent, her waist swayed as she took on the attitude of Shiva with his head adorned by the crescent moon, receiving the river Ganga in his hair. The bells on her ankles jingled in rhythm as she tapped the ground with her heels in the skilful play of the sacred dance, and her arms and hands moved in measured nuance to tell an ancient story. Savitri, lost in the transport of her dance, seemed enveloped in stillness, as if the whole world and all of nature beheld her in awe and only she, its centre, moved. She is Shakti itself, Mrs Lindsay thought, and even her breath stood still.
When Savitri brought the milk at seven each morning she would be a picture of Indian feminine beauty, grace and docility — freshly bathed and groomed, flowers in her hair, clothes clean with the obligatory shawl decorously arranged over her shoulders. On her forehead she wore the typical heathen marks in ashes and red powder (Mrs Lindsay did not forbid the servants their heathen practices; as a theosophist she was tolerant of all religions, but still these signs were, somehow, uncanny). She wore bangles on her wrists and around her ankles silver anklets, from which little charms dangled and tinkled as she walked. And during the mornings, when she came to help Iyer in the kitchen on the days she didn't go to school, she'd be hardworking and diligent. But as soon as David was released from the schoolroom off she'd run with him — shawl, anklets and bangles discarded, skirts flying, flowers slipping down her shiny black hair — to their hundred games and thousand secret places, lost to the adults.
