ward off any evil spirits who might be hovering, waiting to ruin Ragini’s future. ‘Stop that! Running your hands through the bucket like a thief through gold! How can I pattern your hands if your whole palm is red?’ says Kamla. But it is too late. It’s good henna. Sneha’s hands are already a strong orange. Kamla laughs and puts them on her cheeks.
‘Yellow hands already, and still so young,’ says Lata Bai with a tear in her voice.
The women sing. Mamta is quiet. Kamla dances, her hips strangely agile for her age and her widowhood. Lata Bai feels very much that she is losing a part of herself, something that should have been cut from her a long time ago. But she has grown so attached to her eldest that she doesn’t know how she’ll survive without her.
‘I am the fruit on your vine, craving water from your hand. Why do I let you go, my innocent one? I am the dove in your cage, cooing for your attention, Why do I let you go, my innocent one? When your palanquin departs there will be emptiness . . .’
Kamla’s feet stir up puffs of dust. Dhhub, dhhub, dhhub . . . she leaves definite footprints in the earth.
‘Enough, Didi, that’s enough. Let’s sing something more cheerful. This song is putting a grinding stone on my chest.’
‘So what’s it to be?’
‘The groom’s song. Let’s do the groom’s song.’
‘Come, come, my beloved I wait here, dyed in love Without you there is no garland, No jasmine, no rose, no queen of the night, no blossom. Without you there is no sense in jewellery, No bangle, no earring, no necklace, no hair braid. Without you there is no pleasure in adornment, No kohl, no rouge, no powder, no henna . . .’
Kamla claps her unpainted hands, while the other three smile at the words of the deeply familiar wedding songs. The songs stir up Mamta’s excitement again; she is eager to accept her new life. She chooses to ignore the example of her mother’s marriage, the story of singed and burned Lalita, and Sharma’s runaway wife. Her fate will be different. She will bring indomitable love to her duty and like a river bursting its dam it will be unstoppable, covering everything in its path, much like the dust of Gopalpur.
The green henna patterns glisten industriously. Lata Bai will wash her hands off ahead of time, in accordance with custom, else her husband will never cook his own food. It was the same for Ragini’s wedding; after painting her hands with henna she’d had to wash them to cook the evening meal. Lucky for her, her hands receive colour willingly.
Mamta is careful with her pattern. Every so often she dabs her hands with lamp oil. A dark pattern means she will be loved by her mother-in-law.
A new life at last. Something to be excited about at last. Marriage at last. What is marriage? Coupling. Sex. Disease. Her mother’s words have unsettled her, but then Nature calls out to her, shouting louder than her unsettled feeling. The whole universe seems to be in harmony with her being, a part of the same crescendo. Everywhere she looks she sees the signs, and in them reads the language of love: long beans entwined passionately on their vine, pumpkin flowers nuzzling each other, doves necking, weaver birds building their nests . . . She sinks luxuriously into her new womanly feeling.
She knows what is expected of her. Still this wedding is a dream. A love dream. She lies on the floor in the cool of her hut, palms up to the ceiling. Her mother lets her be, it might be the last time.
Lata Bai can see Mamta’s chest rise and fall in contented breaths. In spite of her age, her daughter looks tiny, lying stretched out like that. Lata Bai crushes the urge to lie beside her. She remembers the days when she had sung her daughter songs and told her stories, correcting her notions with playful lies and filling her heart with fanciful images of pearly halos on kings’ heads and mysterious forests filled with magical creatures with immense powers. Lata Bai watered the desert of her daughter’s intellect with colours and bubbles, and as she grew up, she’d added an immense amount of practical knowledge, which Mamta remembers more by rote than anything else. What was the true value of her gift? Did she give her daughter mirages to accompany her on her unwary journey, or prosaic knowledge that could rescue her wandering heart from the worst dangers of ignorance and injustice? Did she solidly carve out a place in this world for her or keep her seeking in vain for what could never be found? Did she give her sadness or vision?
Lata Bai feels the anxiety burbling up into her throat. Oh, Devi, make him a good man. Jai ho Devi, Devi jai ho.
‘Amma, what was that you and Kamla were saying about the lemons and babies? Who will I ask about all that when you are not there? Amma, I’m afraid.’
‘Tch, tch, you are getting married, not going to some hell.’ ‘Look what happened to Lalita and her sister.’ ‘Oho, that’s not going to happen to you.’ It is time to put things in perspective, so Mamta can realise that she is better off than the sisters. ‘You won’t be like Lalita. You will be a good wife. You won’t be like her sister either, expecting a baby from God knows whom. You will be a good girl.’ Lata Bai has only words, but she knows there are no guarantees. Lalita, burned for no fault of her own, but only because she became sickly, and her sister, sent to the Red Bazaar soon after her baby was born because she was unfortunate enough to get pregnant with her own father’s child. Lata Bai has seen the boy, no longer a baby, at Saraswati Stores and has to drag her thoughts away from his history. He was accepted by his grandmother as one of her own to redress the deficiency of a womb that produced only girls. Had he been a girl, he wouldn’t be alive today.
Her disquiet temporarily allayed, Mamta rolls on to her stomach, propping her chin up with the backs of her open hands, still careful with her hennaed palms. ‘Tell me about Shakuntala. Just the short version. How she had pearls in her hair and beauty –’
‘No, enough!’ says Lata Bai, slightly annoyed now by her memory. Each time she’d told that story, she’d replaced the main character with her own daughter. But it is now time to acknowledge that Mamta is anything but beautiful. Fantasies are the worst thing a bride can take to her new home.
Mamta lingers all day with her hennaed hands held out to the sun like a beggar asking for alms. It is custom, and custom alone that makes this the women’s day, the day they rest and beautify themselves. Seeta Ram doesn’t approve, but he can’t do anything about it. Today Lata Bai and Sneha will do all the cooking.
‘I am the fruit on your vine, craving water from your hand. Why do I let you go, my innocent one? I am the dove in your cage, cooing for your attention, Why do I let you go, my innocent one? When your palanquin departs there will be emptiness . . .’
It is a while before Lata Bai realises she is humming Kamla’s song. She switches off her internal melody; it brings her no pleasure. Today Mamta will become paraya, the other, and when she needs succour or solace after this day, she may not seek it from her mother because she belongs to another.
Shanti has been quiet most of the day. Lata Bai has fed her twice since the morning, but she didn’t feel like sucking much. She’s blown on her face at least four times for a reaction since the morning to make sure she was still alive. She would have skimmed off some of the daal water for her, but because of the weevils she thinks she might stick to breast milk today.
She looks in on the baby. She is sleeping peacefully, each eye ringed by a cluster of flies thick as smudged kohl. She shoos off the flies, wets the corner of her pallav in some water and bends over her to clean out her eyes. Then she changes her mind. Instead she opens her blouse and squeezes a bit of milk out of her wrinkled right nipple. She cleans the baby’s eyes with breast milk. Shanti whimpers, but stays sleeping. Her forehead feels clammy, but Lata Bai ignores the dampness and goes about her business with gusto. If her daughter has to fall sick at all, she is determined that it will be only when the government doctor-van arrives in Gopalpur, and not a moment before.
‘You know what, they are coming to the wedding. I overheard Ram Singh Sahib and Lokend Sahib talking to each other,’ Prem bursts in, followed by the sweet smell of roses. ‘Look what I’ve brought back. When