by Shruti Swamy
Then she was in despair, returning to the house filthy and knotted like an animal, and like an animal, loping, alone. The Mother was sitting with the aunties preparing dinner, but all alone slicing doodhi against a curved black blade. It was sad to see her next to but still apart from all the aunties, her eyes narrowed to her task, shutting out all possibility for conversation as the aunties laughed and gossiped. In the presence of the aunties, the Mother looked shrunken down and incorrect. The Brother sat near her, holding fascinated in his hands three red coins of carrot.
“Vidya?” said the Mother, so astonished by her daughter’s appearance that for a moment she didn’t seem angry. In fact there was something else on her face, an almost-smile that quivered her lips for a second before it vanished. “You see,” said Aunt-Not-Mother, “what I had to put up with? That girl is running wild.”
The knife clattered from the Mother’s grip, she lifted Vidya and spread her quick across her lap and smacked her hard, five times, all the mothers watching with their lips pursed in disgust, and before Vidya could make a sound the Brother did, letting out a wide wail, and the Mother stopped before her hand smacked the bottom for a sixth time, or, a seventh, or an eighth, as it seemed to want, growing as the blows were in intensity and speed. Unlike the Brother, Vidya knew better than to cry, her eyes looked for Grandma, who had not been cooking but directing and gossiping, and whose eyes now met hers with a gaze neither compassionate nor even tender but still seeing Vidya in her wretched state. But to glance back at the Mother, which Vidya did, quickly, was to see a red-eyed and confused creature, not a vengeful one.
“Vidya,” Grandma said, still not tender, in a voice almost stern—the girl glanced back at the Mother again kneeling alone, oh, she was sorry—Grandma smelled strongly of coconut hair oil as she led her to the area of the courtyard where the women bathed. “Get some water,” said Grandma, and Vidya drew up bathwater from the shallow well and heaved the bucket over to the old woman. Under Grandma’s hands she knew herself to be a miracle. Naked now, bent beneath the cool stream of water, the dirt and sweat and black tears eased from her skin and she was clean. Grandma did sing when occupied in other tasks, a song came from her lips as unconsciously as breath. “Oh Grandma!” she said. “Why am I like this?”
“You have your mother’s blood—too hot,” Grandma said calmly.
“But what can I do?”
“I don’t know, little one. Sometimes god puts a soul in the wrong body. You should have been a boy, with your nature.”
“What is my nature?”
“You are restless, you are unsatisfied. You cannot reconcile yourself. A boy could find an outlet for all his restlessness. Not you.”
“Why not?”
“Because you will get married, little one, and you will live in your mother-in-law’s home. And you will have to do as she says.”
“No, no. I won’t get married.”
“No,” said Grandma, taking the girl’s cheeks in her hands. Now a breeze licked against Vidya’s wet skin and she shivered. “You wild thing. I don’t know what’s going to become of you.”
Later she woke violently to her Mother’s voice in the dark. The Mother began to cry loudly, waking some of the other sleepers, the Mother saying, in the dim room, that Shanta-Kaki was a jackal. They were all jackals: she said it in English, jackals, jackals. She said a pox on both your houses. She was crying and someone lit a lamp so from the doorway Vidya could see the scene suddenly wild with light, the Mother with her long hair outspread, and her hands outspread, and her eyes red, her gray sari damp and rumpled, screaming at Shanta-Kaki who seemed to look around the room with a kind of vindication, an exaggerated shock. “She spat on me,” said Shanta-Kaki, one of the prettiest, meanest aunts, “we were just talking—”
“None of this trouble if he’d married my sister,” muttered the wife of Father Sir’s eldest brother. Vidya was a mouse in the dark, unseen, unknown. Something had shattered, cracked open, things spilling outside of the Mother that should remain in. The wildness of the Mother’s eyes imprinted on her. Could no one else see it, how afraid she was? She went to her. The Mother was kneeling down, and Vidya put a hand on either side of the Mother’s hot face. Her eyes and the Mother’s eyes looked at each other. A long sour exhale came through the Mother’s lips. After that the Mother was calm, and let herself be led out of the room.
Early morning they left, waiting at the train station until afternoon. It was her fault, Vidya realized obliquely, though nobody had thought to scold her. If she could simply control herself, if she could behave better, more correctly—if she could love her mother-work, and cool her blood, and want to get married—all of it—things would not be this way. The Mother sat oddly on the bench with her hands clutching her suitcase, her head at a high tilt and her eyes hard and very angry. No one spoke to her, not Father Sir, not the children, as though they had all agreed without conference that any small slip could set the Mother off again into her wildness. They had not said goodbye. No one looked at them except Grandma. Grandma took the girl’s chin in her hand and squeezed it, with love and warning. Vidya took the Brother, now fussing, to the candy-wallah to look at the chips and sweets. He chose, hypothetically, chocolate, she a fat samosa, both of which Father Sir bought for them after some time and which they both ate very quickly but somehow without relish. She leaned against the slim core of hunger to keep her from feeling bored and sorry. No, but she was sorry.
On the train she sat beside the Mother, her head growing heavy as sleep took it, and she willfully let her head rest against the Mother’s shoulder. Up close the Mother smelled bleak, almost like blood: she hadn’t bathed. She smelled bleak, of headache and anger and illness. But this was hers: the Mother’s true smell. Vidya, half dozing, felt herself wanting to press in closer, to the source of the smell, to return to the smell, which was so achingly familiar she understood herself to be born from it. In a small red room she had waited, she felt herself remembering it now, seeing red all around instead of the black that closed eyes make, rocking back and forth in a regular rhythm as the train rocked the sleepers in the regular rhythm, her body driving deeper and deeper into its sleep.
Home again. The Brother was sweet in the damp evening. Milk plumped his cheeks and made his skin soft: sometimes Vidya stroked his face with curiosity and he allowed it, stoically. She whispered words into his ear but he didn’t appear to notice—just random words, tree, bell, stupid-idiot. So deep was his silence it infected her, and the words felt soft and inert in her mouth. The words dropped into his ears and stayed there, like stones into silk. So calm, she wanted to rough him sometimes, she wanted to put the heavy weight of him down, the weight that made her arms ache. It was Saturday. The Mother was working on a small pile of papers Father Sir had left her.
“Don’t pinch,” said the Mother, without looking up.
But she hadn’t done anything, she had only held each of his elbows to test the bend, and he still hadn’t made a sound. “I only—”
“Do your schoolwork.”
“I did it already.”
“All of it?”
“Yes, all.”
“Come here.” The Mother put down the pen to slap the girl. Vidya lifted her hand to the hot cheek, her right: the Mother always slapped with her left hand. “This is what liars get.”
But she was told, wasn’t she, to love her Brother? She rubbed her cheek. She had done all her schoolwork except for her English, and she hated it the most, so had saved it for last. It was not English’s fault: the teacher was the meanest. They sat in rows and recited nonsensical syllables, He-lo-tich-er-howyare-oo? The smartest girls got their hands rapped with rulers with absolutely no provocation, for they had all quickly learned not to ask questions. No such thing as a smart girl, her English teacher had said, but of course Vidya didn’t believe her, and had said so, and had been punished. Stubborn girl, the same as a bad girl, but she had not changed her mind.
“What is it, English?”
&nbs
p; Vidya said yes.
“What are you writing?”
She brought the slate over to the Mother, and the textbook she copied the words from. “What is this?”
She shrugged. It was about Jane, Jane who was invited to a party—that is, something for English children, and wanted to bring a—cake—everyone wanted to eat, but it looked frilly and pretty, like a thing you would only look at—but on the way to the party, the cake—
“Bapre, what garbage. This is what they’re teaching you?”
Garbage? Didn’t the Mother love English? Was it a test, she wondered, and looked up at the Mother silently.
“Listen,” said the Mother, closing her eyes. As she spoke, Vidya strained to listen, knowing it was English, wanting to find in the lush jungle of sound some trees or even branches she could grasp, but found nothing: not cake, not Jane, not tich-er. Why didn’t the Mother sing like this, loose and soft and graceful? Why did she not move through the world like this, a lion?
“You see?”
Vidya nodded: she didn’t.
“You know what that was?”
“No.”
“Ask your teacher about Tennyson.”
She nodded: wouldn’t, but. “Mother?”
“What.”
“What work do you do in the mornings, before everyone is awake?”
“Work?” the Mother said.
“Yes, with your notebook.”
“I’m practicing my music.”
“But you don’t sing.”
“I don’t want to sing. I wanted to learn tabla but they won’t let me.”
“Why not?”
“Women can’t play tabla.”
“Why not?”
“Oh, don’t ask why not why not—you’ll always be unhappy.”
“I want to learn dancing,” said Vidya. Blurted—it could no longer be held in. Want and want and want, the condition of living: sweets, dolls, milk, toys—dance. “Like they do at your school.”
“Dancing,” the Mother said very sharply, a strange look passing over her face, “dancing, why dancing?”
“I saw a girl—I saw them dancing—when you were at your lesson.”
“Is that all, you want to be like the other girls you saw?”
“No.”
“Then—”
“I don’t know why. I want to.”
The strange look on the Mother’s face—was pleasure. Her mouth stayed stern but her eyes were smiling. “You do, don’t you. You know I named you after a kathak dancer. I saw her picture in the newspaper. I never thought . . . she looked like she—understood something.”
The Mother’s voice, dreamy? Her arms relaxed against her knees. She brushed her fingers against her daughter’s cheek. “If you want to learn, you have to be serious about it. It’s not playing. You have to have discipline and practice.”
“I will.”
“Do you promise?”
“Yes.”
“If you make a promise, you must obey it. Do you know the story of Eklavya?”
“No.”
The Mother said: “Once there was a Nishada boy named Eklavya. Eklavya was a gifted archer, and he sought out Drona, the greatest teacher of archery, to train him. Drona was already employed to teach the king’s sons, so he turned Eklavya away. Not deterred, Eklavya made a clay idol of Drona and took him as his guru, and practiced before the idol until his skill was as fine as the sharpest arrow.
“One day, Drona was walking in the forest and came across a sight that intrigued him. There was a dog whose mouth was muzzled with arrows—muzzled shut—but the arrows had been so skillfully deployed that the skin was not even pierced. Drona followed the dog through the forest: the dog led him to Eklavya. Eklavya was delighted to see his teacher. He explained that the dog had disturbed his daily practice by barking, so he had peacefully silenced him. Drona, stunned by the skill of this archer, asked for his identity. Eklavya pointed to the statue and said that he was his, Drona’s, student. ‘If I am your guru, you must give me dakshina.’ Eklavya said he would give Drona anything he wished. Drona asked for the boy’s right thumb, so that he would never be a better archer than his beloved student, Arjun. Eklavya took a knife out of his pocket and sliced off his thumb.”
“But why did Drona ask for something so cruel?”
“It was his dharma to ask, and for Eklavya to give it. See, no matter what the promise is, you must not break it.”
“But why—”
There was a crash. The Brother, unobserved, had been climbing in the kitchen, up the shelves, and jumped. He lay on the floor, unharmed but squalling in a scatter of pots. At the sound of him, the face of the Mother seemed to remember itself, like the pain catching up to a burned finger; it seemed to look out of its own eyes again at the small, dim flat, at the pile of papers before her, and her child, her children, each a gruesome weight, and her face began to close, swiftly, like wings drawing shut against the back. “Do your English,” she said, and went to scoop up the crying child and rock him in her arms.
Before she can even move like the other girls she must stand at the back of the class, just stand, with her back very straight, her neck fully extended, her shoulders relaxed, her arms raised in front of her, hands clasping each other like small hooks, only standing, because she can’t quite get the body right, the shoulders too high, the hurting arms sagging, the chin distracted by the dancing girls, whose movements are a rebuke to her stillness, even if they are clumsy, or bad. But Teacherji barely looks at her, beginner, after issuing stern instructions to the Mother in Hindi, which the Mother translates to their mother tongue: still for the first day, just standing with the spine straight, and watching the others moving until she understands what is expected of her body, watching Teacherji, who is no less beautiful today in the dim, rainy light coming through the windows, looking magnificent as she speaks the bols and the dancing girls’ feet answer and answer.
If she moves suddenly Teacherji’s quick eyes move to her and she barks a command that doesn’t need to be translated by the Mother, who nonetheless adds on her own, punishing embellishments in Gujarati. Slowly Vidya gets restless, then hungry, then angry, holding the stupid pose, her body becoming stiff and boring. She is smallest in the room, and she feels her mistake piercingly, and feels alone in her small foolish body that is occupied in the stupidest of tasks, of trying to become nothing. What had she wanted? She can’t even remember. It is only fear that keeps her still: Mother, Teacherji, with their whipping eyes.
But she will go back: she will go back. She had made a terrible promise. Shame sends her back. In the second class she is allowed only to move her feet very slowly in one two three four one two three four, the four a tak marked by the heel instead of the ball of the foot and the second count of four arcing back in the other direction, a loop of four and four forever and boring but so difficult to keep a steady rhythm like the soft breathing of a sleeping person, a person in deep sleep breathing a pattern of soft regular breaths without any effort, it should be like this: without any effort, and the body must be kept still but for the moving feet, the torso and shoulders should not betray the movement of the feet, not go galumphing from side to side like her body does as it shifts its weight. Teacherji becomes aware of her only to correct this error again and again, mocking her with her shoulders huffing from side to side, pointing to the star-girl and saying look, like her, are you even looking? But after this the eyes and face should be kept still fixed at a point straight ahead and not looking! At the end of this lesson she feels the rocking movement of her feet and body for hours after. She twitches her feet in the arc of fours as she falls asleep and in the morning, knowing that practice is expected by the Mother, she adopts the pose and forces the rhythm into her feet again like tight shoes.
The third lesson she is again mocked by Teacherji, who calls her a monkey. Close your mouth! the Mother snaps. This time the humiliation makes her hot and angry and she forces her body straighter, leaning against her anger, sinking all h
er focus and energy down into her stubborn feet. The feet drive hard again and again into the earth as she promised. At first, anger drives the feet: still, no matter her motives, in the mornings space is cleared for practice. They cannot hire a tabla player, so as the girl dances the Mother calls the bols, marking the taal against her thigh. It is the dreaming Mother who says the bols, the early-morning Mother. The voice that leads the feet is steady and full of its own music.
He was four; she was seven. She walked with him to school, taking, when they crossed the street, his hand—she still waited for a nearby adult to cross as well, not trusting her smallness and his to survive alone against the snarling traffic. Still, his presence protected her in other ways: men felt ashamed and gave her berth until she was joined by her schoolfriends. Also, she liked the silent, watchful way he was with her, as trusting, wordless, as an animal. In two years, he had become lush, beautiful and golden. And his small voice, when he spoke, was measured and serious, so small, but he thought before he spoke, a fact she alone seemed to find, with her own kind of pride, remarkable.
