by Kiran Desai
In the end, as it happened, he said nothing at all.
‘What are you doing up there?’ shouted Mr Chawla. ‘Get down at once.’
Sampath looked sturdily into the leafy world about him, trying to steady his wildly fluttering heart. He concentrated on the way the breeze ran over the foliage, like a hand runs over an animal’s dark fur to expose a silvery underside.
Pinky felt a sudden surge of embarrassment for her brother. ‘Get out of the tree – the whole family is being shamed,’ she said bitterly.
‘Oh, come down, Sampath, please,’ his grandmother exclaimed. ‘You are going to fall sick up there. Look at your thin yellow face! We had better take you to the doctor straight away.’
Still, he was silent.
Looking at her son, Kulfi felt the past come rushing back to her, engulfing her in the memory of a time when she was young, when her mind was full of dark corners, when her thoughts grew deep and underground and could not be easily uttered aloud. She remembered the light of a far star in her eyes, an unrecognizable look that had made her a stranger to herself when she stared into the mirror. She remembered the desperation she had sometimes felt, that rose about her as if she were being surrounded and enclosed by an enormous wall. She looked at her son sitting up in the tree and felt her emotions shift, like a vast movement of the spheres, and then she said: ‘Let him be.’
‘Let him be!’ said Mr Chawla. ‘Do families allow their sons to climb up trees? You are the number one most strange mother in the world. Your son climbs up a tree and leaves home and you say: “Let him be.” With you as his mother, no wonder he has turned out like this. How can I keep normality within this family? I take it as a full-time job and yet it defies possibility. We must formulate a plan. Only monkeys climb up trees.’
Sampath clutched the branch he was sitting on and held it tight.
Monkeys climbed up trees. Beetles lived in trees. Ants crawled up and down them. Birds sat in them. People used them for fruit and firewood, and underneath them they made each other’s acquaintance in the few months between the time they got married and the babies arrived. But for someone to travel a long distance just to sit in a tree was preposterous. For that person to be sitting there a few days later was more preposterous still.
In desperation, the family called upon Dr Banerjee from the clinic in the bazaar, and, an energetic man, he arrived as quickly as he could to view his patient. He had a moustache and round glasses and a degree from the medical school in Ranchi. ‘Come down,’ he shouted good-humouredly. ‘How do you expect me to examine you while you’re sitting up in a tree?’
But, oh no, Sampath would take no risks. He was not a fool. He would not climb down to be caught and – who knows? – put into a cage and driven off to the insane asylum on Alipur Road, like the madman who had interrupted the ladies’ home economics class at the university and been lured and trapped by a single sweet. So, at the family’s pleading, Dr Banerjee, who prided himself on being a good sport, hoisted himself into the tree, stethoscope and blood-pressure pump about his neck. He climbed all the way up to Sampath so he could look into his eyes and ears, check his tongue, listen to his heart, take his blood pressure and hit his knee with an expertly aimed karate-like move of his hand. Then he climbed down and got back into the scooter rickshaw he had arrived in. ‘He is a crazy person,’ he said, beaming, the mirth of the entire situation too much for him. ‘Nobody except God can do anything about that.’ And he disappeared back into town.
The family went on to see the doctor of Tibetan medicine who had been recommended by their neighbour, Lakshmiji. ‘A variety of cures may be prescribed,’ he said. ‘For example, medicines derived from the scorpion, the sea scorpion, the sea dragon and the sea mouse.’
‘What sea mouse?’ shouted Mr Chawla. ‘There is no such thing as a sea mouse,’ and he dragged the family from the dark little clinic, despite their interest in the sea mouse. They went on to the homoeopathic and Ayurvedic doctors, and to the naturopath who lived all the way in Kajuwala.
‘Unless he faints from hunger, a diet of millet and sprouts is not going to make Sampath descend from the tree,’ said Kulfi firmly, and they decided not to pursue the recommendation made by the nature doctor. After all, they did not want to starve Sampath. However, dutifully they pounded pellets into powders, brewed teas and once, twice, sometimes ten times a day they counted out the homoeopathic pills that looked and smelled promising but wrought none of the miraculous changes they had been assured of. Finally, they visited the holy man who lived outside the tea stall near the deer park.
‘Sorry to disturb you. Our son is afflicted.’
‘How is he afflicted?’
‘He is suffering from madness.’
‘How is he suffering? Is he shouting?’
‘No.’
‘Having fits?’
‘No.’
‘Is he tearing his hair out?’
‘No.’
‘Is he biting his neighbours? Biting himself? Is he sleepwalking? Does he stick out his tongue and roll his eyes? Is he rude to strangers?’
‘No. He eats and sleeps and takes good care of his hair. He doesn’t shout and he doesn’t bite himself. He has never been rude to strangers.’
‘Then he does not exhibit any of the sure signs of madness.’
‘But he is sitting up in a tree!’
‘Arrange a marriage for him. Then you can rest in peace. You will have no further problems.’
It is necessary at some point for every family with a son to acquire a daughter-in-law. This girl who is to marry the son of the house must come from a good family. She must have a pleasant personality. Her character must be decent and not shameless and bold. This girl should keep her eyes lowered and, because she is humble and shy, she should keep her head bowed as well. Nobody wants a girl who stares people right in the face with big froggy eyes. She should be fair-complexioned, but if she is dark the dowry should include at least one of the following items: a television set, a refrigerator, a Godrej steel cupboard and maybe even a scooter. This girl must be a good student and show proficiency in a variety of different fields. When she sings her voice must be honey-sweet and bring tears of joy to the eyes. When she dances people should exclaim ‘Wah!’ in astounded pleasure. It should be made clear that she will not dance and sing after marriage and shame the family. This girl should have passed all her examinations in the first division but will listen respectfully when her prospective in-laws lecture her on various subjects they themselves failed in secondary school.
She must not be lame. She must walk a few steps, delicately, feet small beneath her sari. She must not stride or kick up her legs like a horse. She must sit quietly, with knees together. She should talk just a little to show she can, but she should not talk too much. She should say just one word, or maybe two after she has been coaxed and begged several times: ‘Just a few sentences. Just one sentence.’ Her mother should urge: ‘Eat something. Eat a laddoo. My daughter made these with her own hands.’ And these laddoos must not be recognizable as coming from the sweetmeat shop down the road. The embroidery on the cushion covers the prospective in-laws lean against, and the paintings on the walls opposite, should also be the work of her own hands. They should be colour-coordinated, with designs of fruit and flowers.
She should not be fat. She should be pleasantly plump, with large hips and breasts but a small waist. Though generous and good-tempered, this girl should be frugal and not the sort who would squander the family’s wealth. A girl who, though quiet, would be able to shout down the prices of vegetables and haggle with the shopkeepers and spot all their dirty tricks and expose them. Talk of husband and children should so overcome her with shyness and embarrassment that she should hide her face, pink as a rosebud in the fold of her sari.
Then, if she has fulfilled all the requirements for a sound character and impressive accomplishments, if her parents have agreed to meet all the necessary financial contributions, if the fortune tellers have decided t
he stars are lucky and the planets are compatible, everyone can laugh with relief and tilt her face up by the chin and say she is exactly what they have been looking for, that she will be a daughter to their household. This, after all, is the boy’s family. They’re entitled to their sense of pride.
But the family could find only one prospective daughter-in-law. She was scrawny and dark. ‘Like a crow,’ said Kulfi and Ammaji indignantly when the first photograph was shown to them by Lakshmiji, who was acting as marriage broker. ‘You are trying to marry poor Sampath to a crow.’
‘He is lucky to find anyone at all,’ said Mr Chawla, who had given up all hope of motor scooters and wedding parties at the Hans Raj Hotel.
The girl arrived along with her family on the public bus. Apart from her family, the bus was full of singing ladies and gentlemen, pilgrims returning from a trip to the Krishna temple in a neighbouring town. The Chawlas watched as the bus veered off the road like a crazy beetle and moved towards them in a cloud of dust.
The bus driver had obligingly offered to drop off the family right at Sampath’s orchard. A bride-to-be should not have to walk and grow dusty and be shown to disadvantage, he said sympathetically. He himself had a daughter to marry. And: ‘Yes, yes, let’s take them directly to the boy,’ chorused the other passengers, pausing to make this decision before resuming their singing. They clapped their hands to keep the song moving along; their hair flew; they swayed from side to side, partly for the sake of rhythm, partly because of the way the bus leapt and shook through potholes and bumps. They closed their eyes and let their voices rise and flutter from the bus to the Chawlas waiting under Sampath’s tree. ‘Ten ways to cook rice,’ they sang, ‘seventeen flowering trees in the forest, twenty hermits at my table. But those who know say you take forms beyond number. O Lord, teach me the way of infinite marvel.’
The air rushed up through the cracks in the bus, up their saris and trousers, so that a pleasant breeze circulated around their legs. Everybody looked very puffed up, wobbling as if some large force inside them were trying to break free.
Despite the driver’s kindness and the attention she had received with the help of a handkerchief, a little spit and a large amount of talcum powder, the girl descended from the bus looking extremely dusty. The pilgrims, curious about what might happen during this unusual encounter between prospective marriage partners, tumbled out of the bus as well, in a messy and chaotic heap. They needed a break for lunch anyway, and a little private time behind some foliage. Holding the prospective bride before them like a gift, the group moved towards the guava tree. Sampath had always had a soft spot for the lady on the label of the coconut hair-oil bottle. He had spent rather a large amount of time in consideration of her mysterious smile upon the bathroom shelf. While squatting upon the mildewed wooden platform taking his bucket baths, he had conducted a series of imagined encounters with her, complete with imagined conversations and imagined quarrels and reconciliations. She would meet him wreathed in the scent of the oil, with a smile as white as the gleaming inside of a coconut. A braid of hair had travelled downwards from the top of the coconut lady’s head and followed the undulations of the bottle. Sampath looked down at the veiled woman standing underneath his tree and felt hot and horrified.
‘Please come down and be introduced. You have sat in the tree long enough,’ said Mr Chawla.
Sampath thought he might faint.
‘Climb up, daughter,’ the girl’s father urged her. ‘Climb up. Come on, one step. Just a step.’
The devotees raised the girl’s rigid, unwilling form into the tree. ‘Up,’ they urged, and slowly she began to climb. She was encased in layers of shiny material, like a large, expensive toffee. The cloth billowed about her, making her look absurdly stout. Her gold slippers slipped with every step. Her sari was pulled over her head and she held the edge of it between her teeth so as to keep as much of her face modestly covered as possible. It seemed an eternity before she neared Sampath. It was clear that this girl would not take well to life in a tree. She paused and looked back down for further directions. Nobody knew quite what to expect, or how she should proceed. Even Mr Chawla was at a loss as to what should happen next.
‘Touch his feet,’ someone finally shouted in a moment of inspiration.
‘Yes, touch his feet,’ the rest of the pilgrims cried, and, extending a single timid finger, like a snail peeping from its shell, she gingerly poked at Sampath’s toe. Her finger was as cold as ice and moist. Sampath leapt up in horror. In an equal state of distress, the girl let out a faint cry. Losing her balance and her gold slippers, she tumbled indecorously towards the ground, accompanied by the more robust cries of the pilgrims and her family, who rushed at her with arms outstretched. But they failed to catch her as she fell and she landed with a dull thump upon the ground.
The signs for marriage were not auspicious.
The devotees propped her up against a tree and fanned her with a leafy branch.
‘What am I to do with this boy?’ Mr Chawla threw his hands up in the air. ‘Tell me what I should do? The best education. A job. A wife. The world served to him on a platter, but, oh no, none of it is good enough for him. Mister here must run and sit in a tree. He is not in the least bit thankful for all that has been done for him.’
The girl began to sneeze in tiny mouse-like squeals.
‘Stop fanning her with that dirty branch,’ someone shouted. ‘All the dust must have gone up her nose.’
‘Dust or no dust, it is yet one more inauspicious sign,’ said another onlooker.
Pinky felt terribly scornful of this third-rate woman who had responded to this important moment by sneezing and whimpering. She gave her a good pinch from behind, hoping to see her jump, but the girl continued to squeak and sniffle. Ammaji ran up with a tin can full of water and emptied it over her just in case the sun had become too strong for her to take. The talcum powder ran in a milky river down her face.
‘What can I do?’ Mr Chawla repeated. ‘What am I to do with this boy?’ He was sweating despite the pleasant breeze that wafted about them, laden with the scent of earth and burgeoning vegetation.
He himself had been his son’s age when he was married. Kulfi had been even younger, so alarming her family with her weird ways, they were worried that if her marriage were delayed any longer, she would be left on their hands for ever, her sanity dissipating, the sense scattering from her like seeds from a poppy pod. They had spent night after sleepless night gathered at the window to watch as she wandered up and down in the garden, having taken suddenly, after her twentieth birthday, to sleepwalking.
Her father watched pale in his pyjamas; the aunties shook in their petticoats. The months had gone by with no sign of this behaviour abating. The moon grew big, then delicate – a hair’s strand, then once more to fullness. Kulfi walked serenely by the bottle-brush trees, barefoot, with the gait of a queen; asleep, but eating slices of melon, spitting out seeds that showered like raindrops among the bushes. In the mornings they discovered apple cores and walnut shells under her bed, sticky trails leading from the kitchen pots straight into her room. In her pockets they found bits of cinnamon and asafoetida. In her hair, little twigs and often a crushed night beetle. But she woke refreshed, with no recollection of her nightly rambles, her midnight feasting, insisting she had slept soundly when her family, grey and dizzy from lack of sleep, questioned her over the morning tea. In the garden watermelons grew in a tangle they hacked at in vain.
Clearly she was going mad. Yes, there it was – the eccentricity that had plagued her mother’s side of the family for generations bubbling up yet again, just when they hoped the culprit genes had finally run into some dead end and been laid to rest. Again and again it had surprised them, appearing haphazardly in the most stable of uncles, the newest of babies. There had been a grandfather who loved his chickens so passionately he insisted on sleeping in the coop at night; an aunt who announced she was the last Maharaja of Oudh just when it had been decided that the famil
y seemed sane at last; a child that spoke only its own garbled language …
When it became apparent that Kulfi too had inherited this familial strain of lunacy, her father knew he had not a moment to lose. And before the news of her oddity was carried to the bazaar by the washerman or the bottle and jar man or any visitors who might happen to see or overhear anything suspicious, he learned that widowed Ammaji in the far-off town of Shahkot was looking for a match for her son; and even though they were from a family of a much lower class, he offered them a dowry they could not refuse.
But even so!
‘That crazy family!’ Mr Chawla had exclaimed. ‘Oh no. Absolutely not. I am not going to get married to their daughter. I am staying well away from that sort of thing, thank you very much.’
But Ammaji clucked her tongue. For some reason she had taken a liking to the girl, and who on earth would turn down a big sum of money like the one they had been offered? It would allow them to clear all their generation’s debts and buy a refrigerator. ‘Don’t be so unreasonable,’ she said. ‘She appears normal, even if she is a little bit shy.’
‘With these things, there is no knowing,’ said Mr Chawla. ‘In fact, it is the quiet ones you have to watch out for.’
But although he did not admit it out loud, he too had been smitten by Kulfi’s flower beauty, her slender frame, her impossible delicacy so different from the robustness of the neighbourhood girls with their loud laughter, their round hips, their sly nudging and winking. And in a few months’ time Kulfi moved from her ancestral home, which was big and rambling, even if the roofs leaked and the paint had peeled away, to the Chawlas’ tiny rooms in the tumbledown streets of Shahkot. And over time Mr Chawla had developed a sort of exasperated affection for his wife, even when it became apparent that she was not the normal daughter of a crazy family as Ammaji had conjectured, but the crazy daughter of a crazy family as he himself had surmised. He was almost always right. With a wife like this, and two children to look after and manage, Mr Chawla grew more and more firmly established in his role as head of the family, and as this fitted his own idea of the way he ought to live, it gave him secret satisfaction despite all his complaining.
