Water: A Novel (Bapsi Sidwha) Read online

  Chuyia, unaware of the significance of what she had let slip, continued treading on Madhumati’s back.

  “Whose wedding?” asked Madhumati in a childishly sweet voice that matched Chuyia’s.

  “Kalyani’s wedding,” Chuyia replied innocently.

  “And when is her wedding?” asked Madhumati, a dangerous edge creeping into her sweetness.

  “Don’t know,” Chuyia replied simply, shrugging her shoulders.

  Madhumati and Gulabi exchanged a look.

  Madhumati snorted, “She’ll get married over my dead body! Widows don’t get married.”

  “But she will. I know she will,” Chuyia insisted.

  “No! She won’t! Now get off,” ordered Madhumati.

  Chuyia grew rigid with anger, and her face flushed a dusky red. Who was Madhumati to deny her friend her marriage, her chance at happiness? Chuyia had invested a lot of hope in Kalyani’s newfound circumstances. Embroiled in Kalyani’s dreams, she had allowed herself to dream again. If Kalyani could escape her circumstances and remarry, then Chuyia might some day manage to do so also and break away from the ashram. Now she saw their combined hopes dashed by Madhumati’s ugly denial. She began stomping on Madhumati’s back, harder and faster and shouting, “She will! She will! SHE WILL! Go drown yourself! Liar!”

  Gulabi stared through the bars, astonished.

  Madhumati raised her head and bellowed, “Kalyani! Come at once!”

  Hearing Kalyani so harshly summoned, and realizing what might lie in store for her, Chuyia lost control and in hysterical frenzy began jumping up and down as hard as she could on Madhumati’s hapless body, screaming at the top of her lungs, over and over, “Madhu Fatty! Liar Fatty! Bitchy Fatty!”

  Traumatized by shock, and in pain from the pounding she was being subjected to by Chuyia’s stomping feet, Madhumati screamed in alarm. She waved her massive arms behind her back like unwieldy fly swatters, trying to dislodge Chuyia. Gulabi, unable to reach Chuyia through the bars of the window, added her own ineffective screeches to those of Madhumati, “Get off the old bitch! She’ll die!”

  “Get this devil off me!” Madhumati howled.

  Kunti came running in to see what was causing all the commotion. She froze, horrified, as she took in the scene.

  “Don’t just stand there, bitch, do something!” bawled Madhumati, and galvanized by Madhumati’s agonized holler, Kunti scooted off to fetch Shakuntala. Kunti knew she was the only one to control Chuyia.

  Madhumati, trapped beneath Chuyia’s punishing feet as she hopped all over her stranded girth, groaned and tried in vain to grab hold of Chuyia’s ankles. Reaching through the bars and bellowing, Gulabi ineffectually flayed her stubby, muscular arms.

  Shakuntala came running in and, wresting Chuyia’s grasp loose from the balance bar above the bed, pulled Chuyia off of Madhumati. She carried her, purple-faced and screaming, into the courtyard, which was by now filled with excitedly chattering widows. Chuyia wrapped her arms around Shakuntala’s neck, but the strength of her cursing and the gush of tears coursing down her wet cheeks did not diminish.

  Shakuntala carried the hysterical girl over to the well, set her down and dumped a full bucket of cold water over Chuyia’s head, saying, “Chuyia, that’s enough . . . Chuyia, stop . . .”

  The cold shower had no effect on Chuyia and Shakuntala doused her with another bucketful of water. Chuyia kept screaming hysterically, “Madhu Fatty! Liar Fatty! Bitchy Fatty!” and pumped her fists in vehement accompaniment to her curses.

  Shakuntala grabbed Chuyia by the sides of her face and shouted, “Chuyia, ENOUGH!”

  Chuyia’s eyes were wild, but she quieted and stood there, panting painfully, and looking like a drowned rat as she gazed beseechingly at Shakuntala. They were both distracted just then by the spectacle of Madhumati laboriously climbing the steps to Kalyani’s terrace. The other widows also turned to stare, as Madhumati determinedly negotiated the steps one at a time, a woman on a mission.

  Madhumati reached the terrace, sweating and breathing hard. She stepped through the door of the staircase and called for Kalyani.

  Kalyani, trembling in fear, came to her door and faced Madhumati. Her dark hair hung in wet strands down her back.

  Madhumati spoke to her in low, angry tones. “Chuyia says you’re getting married?”

  Kalyani nodded her affirmation.

  “Have you gone mad? Nobody will marry a widow.”

  Kalyani spoke with calm certainty. “He will.”

  Madhumati gave a loud snort of disdain. “Shameless! You’ll sink yourself and us! We’ll be cursed. We must live in purity, to die in purity,” said Madhumati, disregarding the hypocrisy in preaching this to a young woman forced into prostitution against her will.

  Kalyani had lived too long and painfully with this double standard and was ready to confront Madhumati.

  “Then why did you send me across the river?” she asked quietly.

  Madhumati was outraged that Kalyani would call her actions into question.

  “For survival! And how we survive here, no one can question. Not even God!” she raged.

  Before Kalyani knew what was happening, Madhumati grabbed her by her hair, and dragged her to the barsati, the storeroom next to Kalyani’s room. Withdrawing from her sari a pair of scissors, she sawed off a hank of hair in a surprisingly swift movement. Kalyani sank to her knees in shock, too numb to resist. Madhumati proceeded to hack off the rest of her hair until Kalyani was left with only sparse tufts. Kalyani sat immobilized, like a fledgling bird fallen from its nest.

  Her destructive mission completed, Madhumati shut the door on the cowering girl and turned the key in the huge padlock. She tied the key to her sari and turned her attention to the upturned faces of the widows gathered in the courtyard below.

  Madhumati stood at the balustrade looking crazed, the whites of her bloodshot eyes abnormally large. “We would have burned in hell because of her. I’ve saved you all!” she justified her brutality. “Let’s see the whore get married now!”

  The widows gaped at her, speechless. Shakuntala turned to Chuyia. “Is this true?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Chuyia confirmed with some heat. “Kalyani is getting married!”

  Shakuntala shushed her, “Keep your voice down,” and the two of them walked dispiritedly to Shakuntala’s room, leaving the other widows to gawk at Madhumati’s huge frame, lumbering down the steps.

  Chuyia tugged at Shakuntala’s sari. “Didi? You’ll let Kalyani out, won’t you?” she pleaded.

  “To even think of remarriage is a sin,” Shakuntala replied, her thoughts in turmoil—her love for Kalyani at odds with her deeply held religious beliefs.

  “Why?” Chuyia asked innocently.

  “Ask God,” Shakuntala snapped, impatient with herself for doubting what she believed was written in the scriptures.

  Chuyia, deeply hurt, ran off without a word.

  Shakuntala’s shoulders drooped with weariness. She could not summon the energy to call her back, explain that she was not angry at her.

  After a while, she sat at her table, leafing through the religious texts, trying to find passages that mentioned the decrees governing the conduct and status of widows. According to the Manusmriti, the foremost Sanskrit text in the orthodox tradition, a widow’s head is shaved, her ornaments removed, and she is expected to remain in perpetual mourning. She is to observe fasts, give up eating “hot” foods in order to cool her sexual energy, avoid auspicious occasions because she is considered inauspicious (for having caused her husband’s death), and to remain celibate, devout and loyal to her husband’s memory.

  The later Vriddha Hirata was more explicit. She should give up chewing betel nut, wearing perfumes, flowers, ornaments and dyed clothes, taking food from a vessel of bronze, taking two meals a day, applying collyrium to the eyes; she should wear only a white garment, curb her senses and anger, and sleep on the ground.

  Her thoughts in turmoil, Shakuntala stood staring out her
window. The scandalized widows had again grouped around Madhumati. She sat on her takth, her scalp sweating, red-faced from the exertion of climbing up and down the stairs to the barsati. Kunti was bent over her, solicitously wiping the perspiration from her neck and exposed shoulder, and Snehlata was hunkered down on the takth, slowly wielding the palm leaf fan. The monsoon’s strength was waning, but it was still very humid.

  What she had read only affirmed what she knew and accepted—nowhere did she find anything that might redeem Kalyani; remarriage would condemn her husband’s soul to hell and curse the karmas of all his family. Despite her unquestioning acceptance of the Dharma Shastras, that widowhood is the punishment for a sinful existence in the past, Kalyani’s plight shook her belief in the laws.

  She closed the curtain and withdrew from the window. She spread her mat against the wall and lay down; it was something she never did at this time of day. Memories of her life before she became a widow, which she had suppressed over the years as a part of her life that was done with and because it was a sin to remember, edged into her consciousness. She let them flood in.

  Shakuntala’s birth had been something of a surprise to her parents in their late middle-years. They already had four strapping sons, and the daughter was welcomed as Goddess Lakshmi, harbinger of prosperity and happiness. Her family owned a fair amount of land, and her father was a respected figure in their village. Her brothers doted upon her. They involved her in all kinds of activities girls in her village generally weren’t allowed to do. They taught her how to read, and she could recite multiplications up to twenty. She had a sharp mind, and soon she was reading the books they brought home.

  Her parents were determined to make a good match for her in a family that would treat her kindly and permit her the activities she was used to. Shakuntala stayed rather longer with her parents than most families would have thought prudent. Just as her parents were beginning to worry that they wouldn’t find a suitable husband before she reached puberty, they learned of a young widower in a nearby village who was ready to take a new wife. Like all young girls in the village, Shakuntala looked forward to marriage, and by fourteen her head was spinning with romantic fantasies.

  Their horoscopes matched, and the marriage was quickly agreed upon. As was customary, the bride’s family took care of all expenses. Her father presented the groom with a handsome dowry that exceeded his family’s expectations.

  Shakuntala closed her eyes and, like Bua, visualized her wedding feast: huge platters filled with fried, puffed up puris, spicy vegetables, fragrant mounds of saffron rice and all kinds of pickles, fruit juices and fresh palm toddy. Trays of almond and cashew fudge cut up in diamond shapes and steel thalis heaped with glossy laddoos, the top of the mounds covered with silver leaf that evaporated on the tongue. Like Bua, she could taste the laddoos and her mouth filled with saliva. She smiled, sending up a little prayer of thanks that Bua had finally eaten her laddoo before dying.

  What a paltry thing to deny an old woman, Shakuntala thought, and then her mind settled on a clutch of paltry things that were denied to widows in order to preserve their purity.

  God preserve her from their wretched perception of purity, she thought. But for her brothers’ charity, she would have been prostituted like Kalyani was.

  Shakuntala’s thoughts returned to the past. Her husband was young, only thirteen years older than she. Though he had grieved deeply for his first wife, when a year had passed, he found that his heart had not been hardened by his loss, and he was ready to open himself to Shakuntala.

  The first year they were together, her husband took things slowly with her, and she blossomed from a girl into a beautiful young woman. Over the course of the next few years, they fell deeply in love. Her mother-in-law, hopeful that Shakuntala would be the instrument by which her son would fulfill his debt to their forefathers by reproducing sons, treated her graciously and lovingly. However, as the years passed, Shakuntala’s mother-in-law began to blame Shakuntala for her failure to produce any children. She became increasingly hateful toward her barren daughter-in-law. Though the love between Shakuntala and her husband was full of passion, each month Shakuntala was disappointed to see the depressing evidence of her failed fertility. She desperately longed for a child.

  Shakuntala had just turned thirty when her husband began to spit blood. He wasted before her eyes. Toward the end, neither Shakuntala nor his mother left his side. In brief periods of lucidity between stretches of delirium, her husband held her hand and pressed it to his face: his eyes pleaded with his mother to look after her when he was gone. His mother’s face turned stonier and stonier.

  The good fortune that had marked Shakuntala’s life like some charmed talisman came to an end with her husband’s death. She was forced to stay with her husband’s family, with her embittered and spiteful mother-in-law, and for the year that she remained with them, she lived in an earthly hell.

  At first, Shakuntala had thought she might die from grief and did not know how she would live without the love and protection of her husband. Her grief was compounded by her ill treatment at the hands of her in-laws. She had gone from being adored to being reviled, looked upon as something filthy. Her head was shaved to remove the sin and pollution residing in her hair, and to mark her as the asexual being a widow had to be. She could still see the fury in her mother-in-law’s eyes as she broke the glass bangles and ripped off the mangal-sutra from her neck in the first rites marking her passage into widowhood. She was stripped of all her jewellery and possessions and could cover her body with only a piece of white cloth; she was essentially slowly starved, as she was limited to one meal a day—and a meagre one of unseasoned rice and daal at that—to cleanse her body of lust. She had to sleep on the ground. Her only useful role, that of wife and producer of sons, was gone forever. She was not only viewed as responsible for her husband’s death, but also as a threat to her husband’s family and, most of all, to that of her dead husband’s spirit, simply because of her vital womanhood and potential sexuality. She felt all eyes were constantly watching her, waiting for her to commit some sin that would bring curses on them and consign her husband to hell.

  After a year, Shakuntala knew she had to leave. Her brothers made arrangements for her to go to the ashram in Rawalpur, and she would receive a small stipend every few months. Her parents had died, and Shakuntala blessed her brothers in her prayers. The money she received, and the fact that she could read and write with facility, gave her an independent position in the ashram. Her husband’s family was happy to be rid of her, and she had had no contact with them in twelve years. Shakuntala had found a home in the ashram she would be loath to leave.

  Chapter Sixteen

  After a meagre dinner of rice and watery daal, Chuyia stole up the stairs to the barsati. She peered at the courtyard through the balcony railing to see if anyone was watching. Assured that no one had seen her, she crouched in front of Kalyani’s locked door and looked through an opening where a panel had been removed.

  The uneven tufts of dark hair framing her face, Kalyani sat, leaning against a wall. Her shorn head gave her beauty a fragile quality that stirred Chuyia’s compassion. She spoke mournfully through the opening, “How will you get married now? You’ve become bald!”

  Kalyani’s lips twitched; she couldn’t help smiling at this observation. “Don’t worry. I’ll get married,” she assured Chuyia.

  Chuyia, heartbroken at the cruel way Madhumati had treated her lovely friend, spat out, “I hope that fat Madhumati drowns!”

  Later that afternoon, Chuyia slipped past Madhumati as she sat on her takth, waving her arms and haranguing the scandalized widows. “The Mahabharata says, ‘Just as birds flock to a piece of flesh left on the ground, so all men try to seduce a widow.’ Let’s see how she gets married now! Shameless whore! If the child hadn’t spoken, we’d all be contaminated by lustful sin.”

  Chuyia stealthily slipped into Madhumati’s room. There was no one there except Mitthu. For a while, sh
e stood there looking around, not sure what she could do to hurt the monstrous woman. She wanted to inflict a hurt as cruel as the one Madhumati had inflicted on Kalyani, as final as the way she had smashed Chuyia’s own hopes. There was nothing of any worth she could destroy in the room. For a moment, she thought she would tear up her sheets, smash the hurricane lamp, overturn the small table and sweep everything on the shelves to the floor. But that wouldn’t hurt the old devil enough. On an impulse, Chuyia moved quickly across the room and opened Mitthu’s cage. The bird flapped a wing and began to squawk. As if in the grip of a nightmare she couldn’t get out of, Chuyia plunged her hands in and grabbed the bird. Holding its wings still, she wrenched Mitthu out of the cage, and with a swift twist, wrung his neck.

  Chuyia slowly became aware of the lifeless bird in her hands. Horrified at what she had done, she released Mitthu and he fell with a thud at her feet. She began to wretch and heave and threw up the little she had eaten that day.

  Holding her hands out gingerly, as if they didn’t belong to her and were mere appendages she was conveying elsewhere, Chuyia went straight to the well. She stood rubbing her hands with the rock-hard lump of soap that was there and poured water on them. She repeated the action several times. Not satisfied, she scraped up some dirt with her fingers and began scouring her hands with the mud.

  Shakuntala, standing at her window, wondered what was taking Chuyia so long at the well. Her concern for the child made her sensitive to Chuyia’s moods, and, feeling something was wrong, she went to her. “What are you doing!” she exclaimed taking Chuyia’s raw hands in hers. She quickly rinsed them and pressed them in the folds of her sari to dry. Then, taking her little hands in hers, she led the child to her room.

  KALYANI PROSTRATED HERSELF on the dusty floor of the small barsati as she would before Krishna’s statue. She swept her hand lightly over the dust and, getting up, touched her hands to her face. She shut her eyes tight, as was her wont, and prayed to Lord Krishna. She couldn’t sleep. She went to the single barred window in the storeroom and looked out, realizing she was imprisoned as much by culture and tradition as by the bars and locks on her room. She recognized the astonishing change that had taken place in her thinking since she had met Narayan, and the ways in which he had influenced her views. She wondered what he would do if he knew she was locked up, if he discovered how Madhumati had treated her.