Water: A Novel (Bapsi Sidwha) Read online

  Except for an occasional reprimand in the months following the marriage, there was no marked difference in Chuyia’s carefree life. When Bhagya remembered to, she would say, “Cover your head, you’re a married woman now,” or, “You mustn’t go jumping in the pond and wandering off into the forest like this: if your mother-in-law finds out she won’t like it.” Chuyia would do as she was told for a few days and then return to her old ways until her mother remembered to scold her again.

  She continued to play with her brothers, romp around with the other village children, and wander off into the forest at will.

  By the end of two years, Chuyia had almost no memory of her wedding.

  WHEN SOMNATH HAD FIRST come home with the news that Hira Lal was ill, neither Bhagya nor he thought it was anything to worry about. People got sick, and after a while they recovered. And Hira Lal was a strapping fellow, glowing with health.

  However, five days later, Bhagya guessed from the sombre look on Somnath’s face, as he came into the kitchen and sat down on the mat, that things were not going well with Hira Lal: what else would cause him to look so troubled? She covered her head and quietly placed the dishes before him. As she served him, she asked, “How is our son-in-law doing?”

  “He has typhoid. The doctor expected the fever to break today, but the fever hasn’t left him,” Somnath said, sighing.

  “Don’t talk on an empty stomach,” Bhagya said. She held the edge of her sari between her lips so that her face was all but covered. “Eat something first,” she said.

  Somnath put a few morsels of rice and plantain curry into his mouth to please her, but he couldn’t swallow any more. He sat back, despondently laying his head against the wall. “Hira Lal may be dying,” he said. He shut his eyes. “Chuyia’s mother-in-law wishes for her son to die at the banks of the Ganges so he can liberate his soul and attain moksha. Hira Lal’s wife must be at his side. It is the moral thing to do.”

  “Of course,” mumbled Bhagya, sitting stiff, as if she were frozen.

  “I will go with them, of course.”

  Bhagya’s rigid body suddenly sank as if it were not only her head but her whole despondent frame that bowed in acquiescence and defeat before her daughter’s fate. There was nothing they could say or do in the face of her karma.

  “The bullock-cart will be here at dawn,” Somnath said gently. “Get Chuyia ready.”

  Bhagya packed a small tin trunk with Chuyia’s favourite skirts and saris, thinking these might be the last days her daughter could wear the bright colours she loved. She placed two squares of almond-fudge mithai in a small tin box. If her fate so decreed, such treats would be forbidden to Chuyia.

  Later that night, Bhagya allowed her worries and fears to surface. She and Somnath both knew that if Hira Lal managed to recover, Chuyia would be allowed to return home; but if he didn’t recover she would be a widow and she would never return to them. Somnath, though numbed with sorrow, was resigned to fulfilling his and his daughter’s proper duty to the sick man and his family. Bhagya’s thoughts tormented her all night. She knew that in Brahmin culture, once widowed, a woman was deprived of her useful function in society—that of reproducing and fulfilling her duties to her husband. She ceased to exist as a person; she was no longer either daughter or daughter-in-law. There was no place for her in the community, and she was viewed as a threat to society. A woman’s sexuality and fertility, which was so valuable to her husband in his lifetime, was converted upon his death into a potential danger to the morality of the community. Bhagya’s heart was filled with dread.

  Just before Chuyia left, Bhagya lightly slid the kohl applicator between her daughter’s sleepy eyelids. Let her daughter look beautiful—she was not a widow yet.

  ON THE SECOND DAY of their journey by bullock-cart, Somnath awakened Chuyia before dawn. His voice was sombre, gravelly from staying up. “Bitya, change out of your night clothes and roll up your mat.” They needed more room to tend to the sick man in their tiny shelter beneath the awning.

  Chuyia quickly changed into the brightest colours she could pick out from the tin trunk in the dim light of the oil lamp. She cast a furtive glance at Hira Lal but he was obscured by the shadows cast by her mother-in-law, who was fanning him.

  Somnath gave her a long piece of sugar cane, and, delighted by the treat, Chuyia groped her way past the diffused hump of Hira Lal’s legs to her narrow perch at the rear of the cart and dangled her feet over the edge. The dawn breeze stirred in her hair and spread it about her in a dark tangle as she dug her teeth into the juicy flesh of the sugar cane. Hira Lal’s foot stuck out from under a dirty blue coverlet, and the husk she spat out landed on the arch of his foot and slid down to his ankle. Her head lolling with the movement of the cart, Chuyia drowsily watched the husk cling to the sick man’s skin. After a while, she reached over and flicked it off the inert foot. For want of anything better to do, she followed the slow progression of their journey on the deserted road by the trail of white, chewed-out husks she was now careful to spit out as far as she could.

  The sun was beginning to rise and already its rays inflamed an oval patch of forest in the distance, while the rest of the forest retained its dark silhouette. As Chuyia swung her feet back and forth, the silver bells encircling her tiny ankles jingled to the rhythm of the cart and she was scarcely aware of Hira Lal’s feet as they knocked against her thigh with every dip and turn of the cart.

  The dirt road they travelled was slightly elevated, and, between the jungle thickets and the open country, the undergrowth was covered with a trellis of creepers and pierced here and there with coconut trees and banana groves. They overtook a stocky villager with brass pots balanced from a pole slung across his shoulder. Struck by the vibrant colours of Chuyia’s red blouse and peacock-blue skirt, the man smiled at the comely apparition the girl made so early in the morning. He noticed the red glass bangles circling her wrists and the smudged mark on her forehead, and concluded that the girl was on her way to her bridegroom’s village.

  Chuyia, welcoming a diversion, returned his smile and, leaning forward, asked, “What do you have in those pots?”

  “Milk,” answered the man. “Do you want some?”

  Chuyia shook her head, “No,” and held out the sugar cane. “You can have it,” she offered.

  The man laughed, touched by her gesture. “No, child. It’s yours. You eat it,” he said. His eyes moved from the girl to the murky figures beneath the awning, and he called out a cheerful greeting. But the passengers, hidden by their own long shadows, remained silent.

  Turning on his perch behind the bullocks, the young driver returned the villager’s greeting and explained, “The travellers are nursing a very sick man, bhaiya.” His swarthy skin was black from the sun, and he wore a white sleeveless vest open at the chest. “They barely talk—his mother is already grieving. That’s his wife.” He jerked his head back to indicate Chuyia.

  The villager stopped in his tracks. A curious composite of horror and compassion veiled his eyes, as he turned them again to the girl.

  “May Bhagwan show them mercy,” he said and mumbled a prayer after the receding cart.

  As the bullock-cart plodded along the dirt road, Chuyia absently followed the deep ruts its wheels left in the red earth. She had little idea of what she was doing or where she was going. She knew the man they called her husband was sick, and that she was on a journey with him and her dour mother-in-law. So long as baba was there to look after her, she felt secure.

  Chuyia’s attention shifted from the road to the occupants of the bullock cart, and she now became aware of Hira Lal’s feet flopping against her. She grew irritated and tried to move away from the contact, but the wooden post at her end of the cart did not allow her the space. Almost hypnotized, she gazed at them: they were large, longer even than Somnath’s, and the way the big toes stuck out amused her. But the soles were pale, and not as rough and cracked as her father’s. Her husband’s feet were accustomed to wearing shoes, she thought
, with an unfamiliar touch of pride, and unexpectedly she wanted to claim her husband, to draw the attention of this man who slept all the time and did not play with her. Chuyia quietly lifted the blue sheet and ran a finger down Hira Lal’s leg and ankle, and tickled the sole of his foot. Hira Lal’s foot twitched slightly. She repeated the action, and so absorbed was she in the game that she didn’t notice her father clear his throat in warning.

  As if to coax Hira Lal awake, Chuyia, suddenly impatient, rubbed the stick of sugar cane hard against the sole of his foot, and when his leg jumped up reflexively she burst into giggles.

  Almost at once a sharp blow struck her head. She turned around, startled. Angered by her inappropriate conduct, Hira Lal’s mother had whacked her head with her fan. Chuyia looked at her mother-in-law out of the corner of her eyes, which held the same mildly mocking expression that so infuriated Bhagya. Ignoring the sour old woman, who reminded her of their spiteful neighbour with the fruit orchards, Chuyia calmly bit into her sugar cane as if she didn’t have a care in the world.

  Chuyia leaned forward to see what lay ahead. There was a bend in the road, and all at once a luxuriant growth of large-leaved water lilies billowed to one side of her like the waves of a green ocean. Here and there, little orange buds thrust up their heads to the sky. Chuyia’s senses, attuned to the hues and wonders of nature, quickened to the startling green of the sun-drenched water lilies.

  Somnath coughed and cleared his throat, reminding Chuyia of the people behind her. She looked back. The sloping afternoon sunlight filled the cramped space beneath the awning, showing up every detail of the sickroom. Mindful of Hira Lal, she swung her legs clear over him and leaned back against the wooden post to observe what was going on.

  Covered by the blue sheet, Hira Lal lay motionless, his eyes closed, his head and shoulders cradled in the folds of Somnath’s body. His hair stood up in a brittle tangle, and the oil that had earlier groomed it appeared to have evaporated.

  Sitting cross-legged beside him, Hira Lal’s mother was applying a wet cloth to his forehead. The stout glass bangles on her wrists tinkled. Every short while she gently raised his head and held a small bowl of water to his lips. Hira Lal could barely sip it. She tenderly wiped the sheen of sweat off his face; her sari had slipped from her head and lay unheeded like a cowl around her neck.

  Somnath’s crumpled dhoti and shirt, and the stubble on his cheeks, made her usually tidy father look like a scruffy labourer. As he wiped his face with the red-checkered scarf around his neck, Chuyia noticed for the first time that his mustache and the hair on his temples had turned grey. For most of the time Somnath’s eyes remained closed in prayer. There were deep new lines on his forehead, and it was almost as if the muscles of his face were sagging with the weight of his worries.

  The varied forest greens intensified, and, as the sun set, the birds began to twitter. Chuyia watched the day wane. And as the fields, forest and river were muted by the glow of twilight, the bullock-cart arrived at the bank of the Ganges River. The blue-grey waters, dappled by the shadows from overhanging trees, lapped at the shore in tiny ripples. A boatman was waiting for them. The men awkwardly lifted Hira Lal and placed him in a shallow, flat-bottomed boat moored to the shore.

  “My trunk,” Chuyia cried, looking at her father in alarm.

  “Where can we put it, bitya?” Somnath said. The boat was filled to capacity. “The cart-driver will take it home,” he comforted her.

  The boatman pushed his small craft into the river before climbing in, and they all shared the crowded space with Hira Lal’s dying body.

  There was no room for Hira Lal to stretch out, and he lay propped up on his mother’s body, his knees folded to one side. She held on to the boat, and with her free hand steadied her son’s head lolling on her chest. The boatman rowed his craft gently, with a single oar, lifting it from one side of the boat to the other to paddle it past eddies and steer it into the central flow of the water.

  Chuyia stared across the river as she journeyed into the unknown. She was excited by the unaccustomed sights and, with a child’s boundless curiosity, eager to find out what new adventure lay ahead. The beginnings of a town emerged on the other side of the river, and Hira Lal’s mother looked at Somnath.

  Somnath nodded. “It’s Rawalpur: we’re almost there.”

  As the boat picked up speed midstream, small temples with unadorned steeples and domes came into view. The rays of the setting sun burnished the water with gold and ignited the domes. An elongated structure with a paved terrace in front stretched between two temples. Almost at once another came into view, then another, and another, in quick succession. Row upon row of stone steps came all the way down the terraces to the river. Fires shaped like enormous candle flames dotted the terraces at irregular intervals.

  “Baba, look at the fires,” Chuyia exclaimed excitedly.

  “Those are the ghats,” Somnath explained, “where the husks of our earthly bodies are burnt and our souls are consigned to rebirth.”

  The river turned into a wide ribbon of indigo as dusk faded into night. The fires were blinking and glowing through the trees like large fireflies. The shallow craft seemed to drift across the tranquil waters, and, as Hira Lal’s fever-racked heart finally gave out, the boat slowly approached the steps to the ghats.

  Night enveloped the ghats and brought an eerie beauty to the simple rhythm of its configurations. The glistening steps rose from the river to make a border for the earth-platforms, and the adobe walls behind the platforms maintained the symmetry. The numerous ghats, self-contained and yet contiguous, were bathed in a reddish glow from the fires and the earth tones of the natural materials infused the red with gold.

  Chuyia was almost carelessly disposed of to one side on the top stairs, and quickly forgotten, as the adults made the arrangements for Hira Lal’s funeral. Just before leaving, Somnath gave Chuyia his scarf. Exhausted from her journey, confused and frightened at finding herself alone in these strange surroundings, she tucked the scarf under her cheek and almost instantly escaped into sleep on the cold stone steps.

  Late in the night, Somnath came looking for her and sat down next to his sleeping daughter, exhausted. He gazed at her as if he wanted to fix her form forever in his memory. Every line in his weary face reflected his grief at her untimely widowhood and the parting that loomed ahead of them like a curse. Finally, giving way to the pain that seemed to have squeezed his heart into something wrung-out and dry, he lay his head on the stone and began to weep, releasing his anguish in half-stifled sobs that racked his body.

  After a while, Somnath wiped his face and, composing himself, placed a hand on Chuyia’s shoulder. Shaking it gently, bending over her, he said, “Bitya, bitya,” to rouse the slumbering child.

  Chuyia slowly awakened and, pleased to have her father close to her, smiled contentedly. She sat up and rubbed her eyes, smudging the kohl that still lined them. The soot left hollow shadows that gave her an unbearably forlorn look.

  Somnath didn’t know how to begin. Groping for words, his voice infinitely kind, he asked, “Bitya, do you remember getting married?”

  The question was of no great moment to the child, and Chuyia shook her head from side to side. “No,” she said in her clear voice.

  “Your husband is dead,” said Somnath. “You are a widow now.”

  “For how long, Baba?” Chuyia asked.

  Somnath looked away, unable to meet her gaze. He could not answer her.

  Chuyia was untroubled by her father’s pronouncement, having no concept of the impact of those words on her life; so long as he was with her, talking to her so gently, her world was secure.

  Hira Lal’s mother, Somnath and Chuyia made their way toward the cremation grounds. Hira Lal’s body had been prepared for the last rites in one of the warren of rooms behind the adobe façade of the ghat. Pallbearers were chanting “Ram Naam Satya Hai,” “Lord Ram thy name is truth,” in the still of the night. Funeral pyres lined the top of the ghat platfor
ms, their fires making sinister shapes on the walls. Ash-smeared sadhus sat in groups, taking deep drags from their clay ganja-pipes. Funeral attendants, the doms, busily fetched firewood from the storage rooms behind the walls and piled it for the cremations, while near the pyres grieving relatives anointed their dead with holy water from the river.

  Chuyia watched as two men entered the ghat, carrying Hira Lal’s body on a bier. His body was wrapped in a white cloth, but his face was exposed. With a child’s curiosity, she studied her dead husband. His eyes were closed, and lit by the fires his face appeared to have acquired a ruddy glow; in a sudden flash of memory Chuyia saw him decked out as a groom, and thought, That was my wedding day.

  The funeral pyre was built on a stone platform with steps leading up to it. The bier was first placed diagonally with Hira Lal’s head on the platform and his feet touching the ground below. Then his body was hoisted atop the wooden funeral pyre.

  Suddenly, her mother-in-law loomed over Chuyia, and, before Chuyia had time to react, she jerked the mangal-sutra off her neck and the beads scattered on the ground. She grasped Chuyia’s hand and, using a brick, violently smashed the red glass bangles that hung from her wrist. Then, methodically, with no more concern for the girl than if she were an inanimate object, she took the other hand and with the brick smashed the bangles on her other wrist. Chuyia, struck speechless, looked at her shattered bangles in dismay. She searched her mother-in-law’s face with astonished, questioning eyes. But her task accomplished, the aggrieved woman trudged off without a word of explanation or a backward glance. Chuyia realized with a stab of shock that she had ceased to matter to this woman.

  The smashing of the bangles was the first of many rituals designed to mark Chuyia’s descent into widowhood. One of the hired women attending to their party led Chuyia through an arch in the wall and into a damp little room. Before Chuyia could protest, the woman pulled down her skirt and pulled her blouse up over her neck and, saying, “You can’t wear colours or stitched clothes,” threw them in a heap to one side. She hunkered down and in swift, sleight-of-hand motions removed the girl’s silver anklets and secreted them on her person. Chuyia stood naked as the day she was born, staring at the vibrant little red-and-blue heap her clothes made. The woman steered her beneath a spigot, and with her rough hands bathed her quickly and dried her with her discarded clothes. Chuyia’s skin erupted in goosebumps. Vulnerable and embarrassed, she stared at the woman in mute appeal.