Bhairavi Read online

  Rajeshwari had already partly divined the reason for Rukmini’s visit, and the rest was explained by the straight-talking lady herself. Her younger son had liked the girl at first sight.

  ‘We have girls in Delhi, one prettier and better educated than the other.’ Then, she looked troubled and said, ‘Please don’t think that I am trying to impress you. But by god’s grace Sonia’s father’s business is running well. It is partly god’s mercy and partly his own dedication. My older son is working in Burma Shell. The younger one, Vikram, who had come to your house fifteen days ago now wants to be your son-in-law.’ The charming lady didn’t forget to pause at the right places for emphasis.

  ‘He is earning a huge salary at Mahindra and Mahindra. I was surprised that such a picky boy who had never approved of any girl till now was enchanted by a girl in one night. But now that I have seen her with my own eyes, I’m not surprised or worried.’

  Rajeshwari couldn’t decide what she should do in such a strange situation. Her own experience of a quick engagement and wedding wasn’t particularly good.

  It would be foolish to take an important decision over a match without consulting with her elders. She didn’t know anything about this faraway family or about their son. A groom cannot be selected merely on the basis of a good salary and a handsome face. The praise she was hearing came from a mother’s mouth after all. Which mother in this world would not praise her own son? Even a monkey thinks that her child is god’s most glorious creation. The mistake of her youth had hurt her soul and mind in such a way that she weighed every word she spoke like a jeweller weighing gold. Her silence was baffling for Rukmini who believed in quick action and quicker decisions. The more she tried to unwrap the layers of the expressionless face in front of her, the more she found the onion-like layers defeating her.

  Rajeshwari opened her mouth almost after a yuga—it was as if the Sphinx had broken its silence— and smiled and said, ‘I am grateful to you but I will only be able to give you an answer after consulting my Mama. Please understand, we barely know anything about each other.’ She feared she had been too abrupt and struggled to explain herself.

  The wise Rukmini, who could tell what cards her opponent was holding without seeing them, sensed the hand that Rajeshwari was hiding in her rough way. After all, she had lived in Delhi her whole life. She realized that this gate could be felled with light fire.

  ‘Uffoh!’ She shrugged her shoulders and held out her hands, ‘Why are you saying such childish things, behen! Have you not been able to understand women’s nature till now even though you’re one yourself? You tell me, in this world are there even two sisters who know everything about each other? We will get to know each other when we become relatives? Which elder of yours do you want to consult? Please call him! He can ask us whatever he wants,’ she added in a challenging tone.

  Now, Rajeshwari felt more trapped. Who was left of her relatives? There was only Pitambar Mama whom she could ask anything. The residents of Kumaon, known for giving everyone nicknames, had given him the nickname ‘Gadget’, for his unmatched knowledge. The tradition in Kumaon was still the same: a person might not be known by his name but would be recognized immediately by their nickname. Gadget Mama would probably be able to satiate her curiosity and give her the right advice. But calling him was a difficult task. She would reach his house after a steep two-mile uphill climb and even then she was not sure which company of idle old men he might be keeping at that time.

  ‘Please don’t worry, such decisions should not be made in haste. I will check with him and inform you soon.’

  ‘But I had decided before leaving home that I wouldn’t leave without your blessings.’ Then, with great familiarity, she reclined on Rajeshwari’s soft Tibetan carpet with a smile on her face.

  ‘Please rest.’ Rajeshwari laughed and went inside. Sonia came and lay down next to her mother after a short while.

  ‘Where did your friend go?’ Rukmini asked.

  ‘Her mother called her. So Mummy, any progress?’

  ‘None whatsoever.’ Taking her arm out of the shoulder strap of her handbag, Rukmini started running her fingers through her hair. ‘She is inscrutable. For the first time, I don’t know where I stand!’ Saying the last bit in English she shrugged her shoulders; this had probably become her favourite gesture. Sonia was just about to stop her mother, she had recognized the gesture. This was the famous pose of Leena Dutt in a play in Delhi where she had essayed the role of Desdemona. But Mummy kept forgetting that the shoulders whose shrugging made the halls ring with applause belonged to an eighteenyear-old; Mummy was exercising her forty-five-yearold shoulders for no reason whatsoever.

  Mother and daughter were whispering to each other when Rajeshwari brought them tea. She was followed by Chandan who balanced two trays in her hands as dexterously as a waiter. The trays were laden with sweets, piping hot pooris, spiced potatoes and yellow raita.

  Nostrils that were used to food cooked by cooks or a dinner of sausages and bread flared up.

  ‘What is this? When did you cook all this? Arre Sonia, our lunch basket is also in the car. Go, get the lunch basket and the camera. Behen, could you please send your servant with her?’

  ‘Servant?’ Rajeshwari laughed as she put the trays of food down. ‘I don’t keep servants, sister!’

  Rukmini felt like she had fallen from the sky. What was Rajeshwari saying, she didn’t keep a servant? She rejoiced at the thought that this girl had another speciality. If the mother didn’t keep a servant, the daughter must be lending her a helping hand. She had such amazing skills: painting, sweeping and mopping, cooking and to top it such unmatched beauty!

  ‘Chandan,’ Rajeshwari said to her daughter, ‘go outside and help Sonia bring everything.’

  Sonia and Chandan came back weighed down and Rukmini put the colourful boxes of egg sandwiches, roasted cashews and sohan halwa along with the lunch basket on the table.

  ‘I got these four boxes for you. Please have a bite.’ She tore out a piece and stuffed it in Rajeshwari’s mouth, which the latter chewed with disinterest. The sohan halwa felt as if it were stuck in her throat like an unwelcome guest. She had neither the experience nor interest in eating such rich, ghee-laden sweets.

  ‘What is this? You have been standing, won’t you eat with us?’ Rukmini started wiping the plates with the clean napkins she had brought with herself.

  Rajeshwari couldn’t say anything at first out of shyness; then softly, with folded hands, she started saying, ‘Please eat, Chandan will give you company. I don’t eat without praying. I ate the sweet because you offered it with such love…’ Leaving the sentence incomplete and without saying another word, she looked at the egg sandwiches meaningfully and turned her eyes downwards.

  Rukmini realised her folly. ‘Oh, I am so foolish.’ She added apologetically, ‘I dumped even the eggs here! I was actually very hungry and when I smelt all the food you had made, I couldn’t stop myself.’ In fact, she had forgotten all her manners and courtesy and was salivating hungrily. The hot pooris were glistening with vanaspati ghee! The pure pahadi ghee, grainy sweet-tasting curd and with that Rajeshwari had brought some Chyakti made from the naturally sweet and cold local water. ‘Please drink this. You’ll sleep really well after.’ And the tongue that had tasted food from many countries was satiated in just one gulp. When Rajeshwari prepared to go to bed after making arrangements for the guests in the drawing room itself, Rukmini requested to have Chandan sleep with them.

  Rajeshwari was lost in her thoughts the whole night, alone in her room. It was possible that this proposal was really as good as Rukmini had made it out to be, but then it was also possible that all that glitters is not gold.

  Her guests were sleeping so soundly in the morning that there was no possibility that they would be awake before eight. She could seek her Mama’s advice in the meantime and be back before they woke up. Soft-footed, she left by the backdoor.

  When she got back with her Mama, mother and daughter we
re still fast asleep. Chandan was the only one awake since god knows when and sitting on the bed like a bundle.

  ‘Haye Amma, where are you coming back from at this early hour? Arre, Gadget Nanaji, you!’ She got up immediately to make tea but her mother stopped her.

  ‘Look Chandan, don’t make any noise. Get two glasses of tea here. Don’t wake up the mother and daughter yet, understood?’ Rajeshwari had consulted with her uncle the whole way, and Gadget Mama had started his research. One by one, like a priest, he recited the names of the members of Rukmini’s father’s family and her in-laws and even her grandfather’s nephews and nieces and surprised everyone. Rukmini passed the Viva exam conducted by Gadget Mama with flying colours.

  ‘Get your daughter married with your eyes closed, niece!’ Pitambarji patted his niece’s back when they were alone and said, ‘Do not tarry. In spite of being a society of simple people, we know how to nab a niece, remember that.’ Not just that, before returning to his village, Gadget Mama took the hand of his niece’s beautiful daughter and sat her next to Rukmini. Then with folded hands, he said, ‘My niece is lucky to have found a family and groom like yours. Our daughter is also like the mountain goddess Gauri; whenever you so desire, we will send her to serve at your feet.’

  ‘Haaye! Why would I get such a Lakshmi to serve at my feet?’ Rukmini leapt and hugged the blushing Chandan and after a long time her eyes were genuinely moist. If this innocent, pretty face could bring her lost child back to her, won’t she, Rukmini, bend to serve her?

  Before leaving, Rukmini took an umpteen number of pictures of her daughter-in-law-to-be in various outfits and poses. One was in her mother’s pahadi wedding lehenga and dupatta, and another in the pink churidaar-dupatta with her hair tied in a turban and a bucket of cement and broom in her hand; she even made her stand on the same ladder as she clicked the camera button. Her excitement even moved Rajeshwari. She had once knitted a stylish outfit which she now ran and dressed her daughter in. When Chandan came out dressed in this unique outfit, the excited Sonia whistled like a boy. ‘Mummy, here is a real glamour girl!’ For a moment, even Rukmini left the camera hanging around her neck and stood admiring the unique beauty, capturing her with her eyes.

  The magic of the stylish outfit and to top it, the magical persona of the one wearing it! A deep maroon Chyung with vertical stripes and loose half sleeves that looked like the kurta of a fakir, tied together on top with the unnecessary pleats of the kurta, a Rakalcha or waistcoat, underneath a knee-length deep blue nun-like skirt the diagonal stripes and blue colour of which contrasted with the stripes and colour of the upper garment. Ornamented with the handiwork and knitting designs of the uneducated Bhotiya women, this unique garment would have sold for a lot in markets abroad where only Benaras Silks or Lucknow Chikan were famous.

  Rukmini had forgotten to click the camera for a minute. On Chandan’s feet were Bokch rolled up to the knees and embroidered like Tibetan shoes, good enough to defeat the handiwork of any Hungarian artist. On the head was a strange, burqa-like twelve-knotted cloth with the German print Chukti, the whiteness of its Daura making her look like a Dutch beauty. Around her neck were her mother’s Karela and a two-string Moong necklace.

  ‘Listen, can you get a similar dress made for me as well? Please…’ Sonia said.

  ‘The girls in our drama society in Delhi will go wild when they see it.’

  ‘But this is not available for sale, Beti.’ Rajeshwari said. ‘The women here knit this over four to five months. Even I took five months to make it.’

  ‘So, can you knit carpets and rugs?’ Rukmini couldn’t help but ask.

  ‘I have been born and raised in Dharchula.’ Rajeshwari laughed and said. ‘Girls who can’t knit or make carpets and rugs are considered untalented here.’

  There was no artifice or vulgarity in the way she said it.

  After taking the pictures, Rukmini took both of Rajeshwari’s hands and shook them. Then, she bent down double in gratitude, ‘I can’t tell you how joyous these two days and the happy stay in your home have been. God willing, we will be here again next month itself on our second visit. All we want is your talented daughter. Just put haldi on your daughter’s hands and send her to us.’ Laughing, she drove away, leaving her samdhin covered in a cloud of dust and surprise.

  Will her innocent lamb-like daughter be able to adjust in the strange environment with a fluent English-speaking, car-driving modern motherin-law? The lamb couldn’t even eat in front of unknown guests, leave alone know how to use knife and fork.

  Rukmini had said many times that all she wanted was the girl and that they had no need for material things. But Rajeshwari had the means and she was the daughter’s mother after all! Which mother could send her daughter off with just haldi on her hands? If nothing else, she would have to send her with a tola of gold.

  Her samdhin’s assurances were not in vain. She wrote a long letter soon after she reached home saying that the date for the wedding was falling on the fifteenth and there were no auspicious dates after that. She added that Rajeshwari need not worry about anything. She had found a bungalow for her to give her daughter away in. She would get everything ready by the time she reached. Rajeshwari should just arrive with the bride and her relatives. The proud Rajeshwari did not agree with this proposal. She gave her daughter away from her home. The familiar, smiling faces of the eleven members of the mountain-bound group were once again in her house. Her respectable samdhi did not let the weight of any expense fall on her shoulders; in fact, he brought a dozen cooks, servants and utensils in two cars to feed the wedding guests.

  Rajeshwari came back to her room right after seeing Chandan off.

  Chandan was gone, her innocent pretty Chandan, who was untouched by the shadow of the cruel world. She had no inkling of its ruses. Was this her intelligence or foolishness! If the mother-in-law were so modern, would the son be pure as milk?

  She had spotted the empty square bottle in a corner of the house soon after the wedding. With great skill, she had hidden it under her pallu and kept it behind a sack of wheat. Her younger sister-in-law had eyes even on her back. Not just that, when the eleven boys came to bid her farewell, her sharp, untainted nose had caught the smell they had tried to hide under mouthfuls of elaichi and paan.

  Will this unfamiliar groom who was drinking even on his wedding day be able to keep her innocent daughter happy?

  But she forgot everything when she lifted her daughter’s veil during the aarti to apply a tika on her forehead and saw Chandan’s happy, glowing face. Nobody could be unfair to that face surely!

  That was Rajeshwari’s mistake. When Chandan left her mother, her face was indeed glowing, there were no tears in her eyes, and there was no sign of any sadness at being parted from her mother.

  Haaye! How soon daughters become another’s! She would have hiccupped in spite of herself, but her younger sister-in-law said something at that moment that stung her.

  ‘Do girls these days don’t cry like us, Chandan’s mother? Shamelessly they leave for their marital home laughing. I even told her—shameless, shed at least one tear to show the world, but by god, it looked like your Chandan was praying that her car should depart quickly so she could leave her maiden home behind.’ The jealous devrani was exaggerating, but it was true that as she left her home, Chandan had really looked like she was flying.

  SIX

  From the beginning every time she fumbled at any step on the uneven ways of her marital home, Chandan’s happy-go-lucky nanad Sonia would hold her hand and look after her.

  ‘This is Bhabhi, touch her feet, she is your jethani, understood? This is my friend Darshan!’

  The simple Chandan had recognized the searing jealousy in Jethani Sumita and friend Darshan’s eyes at first sight.

  ‘To tell you the truth, Darshan had been madly chasing Dadda for the last four years,’ Unable to keep anything to herself, Sonia had whispered about Darshan in her innocent new bhabhi’s ears earlier. Flicking her short hair
back, Sumita had launched her attack at the ‘at home’ party itself. ‘Haye Devarji!

  You have brought home an infant. We can complain about you to Sharda Trust and get you arrested. Why Devrani, have you lost your milk teeth yet?’ The laughs of the guests made Chandan who was in a red sari turn crimson, which made her look even prettier.

  Her husband who was sitting next to her on the sofa had squeezed his child bride’s hand lightly, away from everyone’s eyes, in assurance as if to say, ‘Don’t feel scared, Chandan, these are dangerous man-eating lionesses. You have no need to be scared when I am next to you.’

  On seeing the wealth in every room of her marital home, Chandan’s innocent eyes had become bigger. Such ornaments, saris of different kinds, so many varieties of diamonds and in the middle of them, the shiniest diamond, her husband.

  Chandan’s shyness was slowly dissipating ten days after the wedding. Ma had written that she should get her husband home to the hills for Dwiragman. This pahadi ritual is performed at the maiden home. But her restless husband made sure that the ritual was completed nearby at the home of some distant relative of her mother.

  ‘Let’s go on a long honeymoon now.’ Vikram had pulled Chandan to his bosom and said.

  Chandan remembered when the maternal nephew of the Chachi in Shahjahanpur had come to India from Pakistan for his honeymoon, that too by air. Amma had scolded her a lot when she had looked at the pictures of the flamboyant couple in front of the Taj Mahal.

  ‘Chhi-Chhi! What was your Chachi thinking when she gave an unmarried girl such pictures?’

  ‘Why Amma, what’s wrong with these pictures?’

  In fact, there was nothing wrong with the pictures; they were only holding each other’s hands.

  ‘These are the honeymoon pictures of Najma’s Bhaijan.’ Amma got angrier when she commented.

  ‘May this honeymoon go to hell! All the pahadi children are going to hell celebrating all these ridiculous things.’