by Meira Chand
‘Nowadays, women don’t sit around resetting their jewellery. They work. They have careers,’ Rani persisted.
‘I do not know any girls of good family who do such things,’ Mrs Murjani replied.
‘I want to do something with my life, not just marry,’ Rani yelled. She had run from the room, slamming the door behind her. Mrs Murjani pursed her lips thoughtfully now, remembering the incident. The ayah already squatted before the diamond setters. Mrs Murjani walked across the living room to the lunch table where Rani, her sons Vinod and Sunil, and her daughter-in-law Asha sat. Mr Murjani was out for lunch, discussing with a delegation from Russia the export of a consignment of pressure cookers from his factory to the Soviet Union.
She waited until they were well into the meal before she raised the question with Rani of Mrs Watumal’s information. Her daughter-in-law was a sensible girl and would talk to Rani. She sat back in her chair and announced what Mrs Watumal had told her.
‘I want to know from your own lips if this is true,’ Mrs Murjani demanded. Rani took another chapati from a plate the servant offered. It was so hot she burned her fingers tearing it in two and gave a shriek. She did not look at her mother. Mrs Murjani’s gaze became severe.
‘So, I am to learn about my daughter’s life from people like Mrs Watumal? In Sukkur they were shopkeepers. Once, Mr Watumal came to sell English bone china to my father and father-in-law. It took him three days to ride across their two estates. And now, I must hear things like this from them.’ Mrs Murjani gritted her teeth. ‘They think now we are shopkeepers too, and do not give respect. See how things change. Now we must receive their insults.’
‘I did nothing wrong.’ Rani looked for support to her brothers at the other end of the lunch table. Vinod appeared deaf, leaning over his food, shovelling up large mouthfuls as quickly as he could. His wife Asha was instructing the ayah about putting the baby down to rest. Only Sunil, Rani’s younger, unmarried brother, gave an encouraging grin.
‘You were seen drinking coffee with boys in the Taj, and behaving loudly. Someone has told Mrs Watumal, and Mrs Watumal will tell many people,’ Mrs Murjani said.
‘What harm is there in drinking coffee? I was not drinking beer,’ Rani protested.
‘You know how easily a girl’s life can be ruined. From nothing there can be a reputation, and then what will you do? Who will marry you?’ Mrs Murjani persisted.
‘I was not alone, I was with Pinky.’ Rani looked at Sunil but he, like Vinod, was now engrossed in eating and gave her no help. She watched some gravy dribble down his hand.
‘Pinky is not a good girl. I have heard many things about her. Her parents live a very fast life; only drinking and dancing and parties. Many things have been said about her mother too. What will the daughter learn when the mother does not know how to behave?’ Mrs Murjani said.
‘But everyone mixes together and drinks coffee,’ Rani argued. ‘It is a mixed college. We are students.’
‘This was a mistake, a mixed college. I too am an educated woman. I am an M.A. and your father is only a B.A. I believe in educating girls, even though your father is against college. He would have had you married when you finished school, if I had not spoken up for you. And this is the thanks I get.’ Mrs Murjani drew a quivering breath.
‘All I did was have coffee with some friends. Pinky is my friend. She is fun and she is not bad,’ Rani retorted.
‘I’m going.’ Vinod stood up, washing his hands in the finger bowl a servant laid out. ‘I’m already late. I must get back to the factory. The Russians are coming with Papa to inspect us.’
‘Your father is not here, so you should speak to her about this matter,’ Mrs Murjani reprimanded.
‘Change her to an all-girls’ college,’ Vinod shrugged and disappeared. Asha ran after him to give him his sunglasses, forgotten on the table.
‘It’s too late now for that,’ Mrs Murjani decided. ‘Who are these boys? What are their names?’
‘Iqbal Shah and Girish Jain. We are only friends,’ Rani stormed.
‘What do we know of these boys? They are not of our community. We do not know their families,’ Mrs Murjani insisted.
‘Iqbal is Trojan Toothbrushes, and Girish is Enjay Iron and Engineering,’ Rani replied, and Mrs Murjani hesitated before the names of these well-known concerns.
‘I know them. They are of good family,’ Sunil put in. ‘Papa has bought steel through Enjay.’
‘I am not asking your opinion,’ his mother said. ‘Even if they are of good family, we do not know their characters.’
‘But Papa knows them,’ Sunil replied, getting up from the table. He grinned at Rani and left the room.
Mrs Murjani indicated to a servant to clear the table, and wished her husband was there to help, instead of lunching with Russians in the Oberoi Sheraton Hotel. It was always her he blamed when things went wrong.
‘This afternoon I am going out. You must study. What will you do if you fail your exams?’ Mrs Murjani warned.
Rani scowled. ‘What’s a degree for if I cannot use it?’
‘Of course you will use it,’ scolded her mother.
‘On the marriage market,’ Rani gave an angry sob.
‘What nonsense you talk,’ Mrs Murjani retorted. ‘Ayah will watch the diamond men, but you must keep an eye on them too. Do not let them think they are alone only with a servant. Asha is taking Baby for her innoculations, there is only you at home,’ Mrs Murjani instructed.
‘Sorry, Mummyji, but Baby must go to the doctor today,’ Asha apologized, as she returned to the table. Rani observed her sister-in-law resentfully. ‘Before I married Vinod, I felt like you. There were lots of things I wanted to do. I also wanted to go abroad and study, I wanted to be a doctor.’ Asha laughed and swung her long hair back over her shoulders. ‘All my friends felt the same. But we all got married and thought no more about those ideas. You’ll see, it’ll be the same for you.’ Asha adjusted her bangles and smiled.
‘Why should I see?’ Rani replied, anger flaring up in her again at Asha’s superiority. Asha was young and had once felt the same. She should argue for her, instead of siding with her mother. ‘Why should I be like everyone else? Pinky is going to Oxford. She is going to be a lawyer like her mother and father. Her parents are progressive.’
‘I do not want to discuss that girl or her parents. Everyone talks about the way they behave.’ Mrs Murjani looked at Asha who nodded in compliance. ‘We are all modern people nowadays. But being too modern brings only gossip, nothing more.’ Mrs Murjani stood up to end the conversation.
‘Even the rates of the dowry go down if you’ve worked,’ Rani said through her teeth. ‘That should please Papa; he’s a businessman. I’ll get myself a job.’
Mrs Murjani sat down again in fury. ‘Face reality. Who will marry you if you’ve worked?’ She felt like slapping Rani.
‘The rates go down because you cannot get a good boy once you’ve worked. You have to take second best. Everyone thinks you’ve been in contact with bad influences. You know these things, Rani. Don’t be childish,’ Asha rebuked her.
‘You’re unbearable, both of you,’ Rani shouted, and pushing her chair back ran from the room.
‘I will talk to her, Mummyji,’ Asha said. ‘It is a phase; it will pass. I remember my own time.’
‘I was happy only to get married. I never felt such things,’ Mrs Murjani announced. ‘She is a strong-willed girl, just like her father. I’m afraid she will do something foolish. How are we to control her? Who will marry her if she continues like this? We must arrange for her quickly, that is best,’ Mrs Murjani decided.
*
Standing at the open window of her bedroom, Rani watched her mother and Asha emerge far below from the entrance of Sadhbela, and climb into separate cars, as drivers shut doors respectfully upon them. One behind the other the cars turned out of the gates, each with a blast of its horn to clear away the urchins from the nearby hutments, and disappeared in the direction of Na
pean Sea Road.
No one could make her marry. She would not study, she would fail her exams; it would be more difficult to marry her off without a qualifying B.A. She would stay out in the sun and blacken her skin, until her colour was reprehensible. She would make it a point to be seen with boys. There was a lot she could do on her own behalf. When she was beyond redemption and no one would marry her, they would allow her to study abroad like Pinky. Maybe even to go to Oxford. But then, to do that, she might need to pass her exams. She cursed in frustration.
Pinky had none of these troubles. Her mother and father were lawyers. Both had been to Oxford, where they had met; their marriage had not been arranged. Pinky’s mother had short hair and often wore cotton handloom saris, no jewellery, and silver toe-rings like the ayahs. They did not believe in the dowry, and encouraged Pinky to work. They had told her to find her own husband. Her mother smoked and knew how to dance.
Rani watched Bhai Sahib’s grandchildren, playing in the courtyard of Sadhbela amongst potholes, parked cars and a crumbling wall. The neighbouring buildings and bungalows were all well maintained; greenery and trees of banana, mango, or flaming gul-mohr surrounded them. Only Sadhbela had rejected this husbandry. On top of its wall several smashed cement plant troughs indicated an interest never developed. What was left of the troughs was filled now with dry, yellowing weeds. Rani wished they lived in a more fashionable building, but her father would not move. ‘My luck returned here after Partition. I will not move, I am attached to the place,’ he said.
‘But the building is so dirty,’ Rani and her brothers argued. ‘We are ashamed before our friends.’
‘I cannot maintain it single-handed,’ Mr Murjani reasoned. ‘Inside, our home is like a palace. Why should we worry about the outside?’ This was the attitude of most residents of Sadhbela, many of whom could ill afford the service rates, and so refused to pay.
Pinky lived in a fashionable apartment block, with polished beige marble and automatic lifts. All the residents were of the same affluence, and servants had their own quarters at the back of each flat. In Sadhbela no thought had ever been given to this population. They kept their few possessions in jute shopping bags, or a cardboard box, in the corner of a kitchen cupboard. The trustworthy slept on living-room floors, and the dubious in corridors beyond front doors. A tap, two urinals and toilets served them on the ground floor. Some servants of long standing who were valued, were allowed accommodation with their families in the garages that comprised the ground floor; few people had cars in Sadhbela. But often such liberality and roomage went to the head, and the lucrative premises of the garages were sublet to bootleggers or furniture makers, unbeknown to the residents above.
Why could they not live in a more presentable place, Rani fumed. Her father was even planning to build a penthouse on the roof of Sadhbela, if permission was granted and the building could take the weight. Although the Murjanis had the entire front of the seventh floor, space was already cramped. Vinod was married with a child, and was already agitating for extension of his living space within the apartment. Sunil too would marry in a few years, and must be accommodated with his wife and future children in the joint family home. Only she, thought Rani, would leave to go to another house. A piece of property, passed from one family to another. She would go like a prestigious, unflawed object to the highest bidder. Except that it seemed, upon reflection, that she was both the object and the bidder; with a dowry her parents were literally buying her a husband. It was archaic. It had been banned as a system years ago and nobody took any notice. Except enlightened people like Pinky’s parents.
Below her upon the sheer perpendicular of the building, Mrs Hathiramani’s head protruded from a window above Mrs Bhagwandas as they chatted. Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs Bhagwandas had not even seen their husbands before their weddings. Mrs Bhagwandas had been betrothed to her husband even before her birth, by a pregnant mother and mother-in-law. She had been married at seven and had seen her child groom once at the ceremony, before returning to her home. At thirteen, she had gone as a woman to his house to take her place as his wife. Mrs Hathiramani had married later. Her husband had been allowed to view her from a distance upon a single occasion. At this time she had not been allowed to raise her eyes and so knew nothing of him, until her wedding night. Rani looked down at the two heads, protruding like carbuncles upon the smooth drop beneath her, in a new degree of wonder.
She noticed Mrs Hathiramani and Mrs Bhagwandas had angled their gaze downwards. Sham Pumnani was crossing the compound of the building. The voices of the two women floated up to Rani. She heard Sham had asked Mr Bhagwandas for a job. Thief, the women repeated. He was not that, she was sure. He was accused by illiterate, ignorant women, just as Mrs Watumal, without real knowledge, had condemned Rani for talking to boys. She was learning how easy it was to acquire a reputation.
She felt a sudden sympathy for Sham. Thank God, thought Rani, that whoever gossiped to Mrs Watumal had not recognized him. It would have made things worse for him and for her, had his name been mentioned. It was as if already something bound them together. No one knew of her secret meetings with him on the terrace. Seeing him approach the building, her heart began to race.
She opened the front door at the sound of the lift, holding back in case Gopal saw her. But he slammed the bars shut upon Sham’s back and hastened away down the shaft. Rani stepped forward, Sham looked at her in surprise. She pushed the front door open, sunlight from the massive windows of the apartment flooded out into the dim corridor.
‘I can’t come in,’ he said. The light enclosed him in a pool.
‘Why not?’ she asked, amazed at her own daring.
‘What would your parents say? It was your father who found me the job.’ Beyond the door he observed the brilliance of the chandeliers. ‘Meeting on the terrace is one thing. Meeting in your home is another,’ he said.
‘There is no one here, only me,’ she said.
‘They might return,’ he argued weakly. The wish to enter the place rose unreasonably in him.
‘No one will be back before five,’ she said. He took a step forward; she laughed and walked ahead of him up the hallway.
He had been in here last when Mr Murjani had discussed the job in Japan. Then it had been night and the chandeliers were ablaze, refracting light on all the foreign-made crystal ornaments, a huge china dalmatian dog seated in a corner and a collection of shepherds and shepherdesses in a glass cabinet. Sham had sat upon a seat carved in the shape of a peacock’s tail. The Maharajah’s crystal chairs stood upon a raised dais and appeared reserved for regal guests. Now, he was surprised to find the room somnolent in the mid-afternoon, its curtains half-drawn against the sun, airless and oppressive. Without the fire of artificial light its ornamentation appeared an encumbrance. Carpets and curtains held the heat and pinned him beneath their weight. The cuckoo clock ticked upon a wall, the dalmatian sat bleakly beneath it. The crystal frames of the Maharajah’s chairs looked deceptively like cheap perspex. For a moment he was disconcerted.
She observed him looking about. ‘It’s an awful room. It’s just to show people how much money we have. If you have money and everyone knows it, why do you have to show it?’ she said.
He was shocked by such bluntness. ‘You should not say such things,’ he answered.
She shrugged, seating herself on one of the peacock chairs. ‘Sit down,’ she ordered. He hesitated but saw no way of escape. He noticed a light rhythmic tapping coming from a corner of the room.
‘Mummy is having her diamonds reset, she does it once a year. She told me to keep checking the men while she’s out, so that they don’t steal a stone.’ Rani looked at him hard, judging his reaction to this information.
He thought of his mother’s diamond nose stud, sold to help pay for the wedding of one of his sisters. It had been her last piece of disposable jewellery. She was left with two thin bangles to cover her wrists and the gold chain at her neck. She was not yet a widow to do without these.
‘And she’s having diamond necklaces made for me. She wants me to get married,’ Rani pouted. He had a sudden glutted feeling, as if he had eaten too much of an unsavoury meal. He wanted to leave the room and this strange talk, so far from known reality. He felt suddenly angry with Rani.
‘You’re a lucky girl,’ he said quietly. ‘Now I must go. It’s not right that I’m here.’
‘Don’t go yet. What’s lucky? It’s horrible. I want to study. I want to do something with my life,’ she protested.
‘Well, do something then. What is the problem?’ he said, suddenly annoyed by the repetition of woes.
‘But they won’t let me,’ Rani grumbled. ‘They want to marry me off. I’m just like a piece of property to them. It’s so old-fashioned. Pinky is going to university in England and then she’ll work. I want to do the same. What’s wrong with working?’
‘My sisters all worked before they got married. Meena was a cashier in a bank. Leela taught chemistry and mathematics, Anu typed in a lawyer’s office. If they had not worked we could not have lived. Each month some of their salary was put aside for their dowry. My father had little money to marry them. Now of course he’s ill.’ He said the last words under his breath; she did not hear.
‘So you do not think it wrong to work?’ she demanded. ‘You have seen the world. You know how it is outside India.’
‘Without work there is no self-respect,’ he said, thinking of himself.
‘Exactly.’ She sat forward. ‘I knew you would understand.’ He felt suddenly nervous, he did not know what she wanted of him. How could a girl like Rani ever work?
‘I must go,’ he repeated and stood up. As soon as he was outside he relaxed. She held the door open, looking at him with the intense expression that always made him uneasy.
When he had gone she went back and sat down before the diamond setters to give the ayah a rest. She needed to think.
