Difficult Daughters (27 page)

I play with the idea that she must have refused. That she could have said, I’m my own mistress. I will relate to you with dignity or not at all. None of this hiding and whispering and keeping my voice down and struggle over who is going to wash your underwear and who is going to clean your shoes. None of this for me.

She was, after all, a woman who had defied her own family for many years.

Perhaps the words were at the back of her mind, teasing her tongue with their shadowy sounds. She looked for an opening, but she looked timidly, for though she had escaped the marital home, an essential part of it, the marital bed she carried inside her head, and its burden was heavy. Its rumpled sheets, and tell-tale stains did much to ensure that her voice remained soft when she spoke.

In the end, my mother couldn’t have mentioned that she had more of a home with Leela than she did with him.

She couldn’t have, because her eyes looked confused and her face went blank whenever her daughter demanded a story about her Lahore days.

She couldn’t have, because when I grew up I was very careful to tailor my needs to what I knew I could get. That is my female inheritance. That is what she tried to give me. Adjust, compromise, adapt.

Assertion, though difficult to establish, is easy to remember. The mind goes soft and pulpy with repeated complying.

 

‘
Jeeti
raho,
beti,’ said her mother-in-law coldly as she bent to touch her feet. ‘May you be the mother of a son,’ she added as Virmati straightened, her travel dust still upon her, the brightness of the fabled city in her cheeks.

Ganga and she slid glances past each other.

Giridhar and Chhotti came reluctantly to touch their Mummy’s feet.

Virmati found the dressing-room the best place in the house after all.

*

Harish tried to make sure she spent her time profitably. He didn’t want her to fret over the family situation. He wanted to see her as happy as she had been in Lahore.

‘Here, do this while I’m away.’ He waved marked portions of her textbooks at her, before he left for college on his bicycle. ‘We’ll discuss them when I come home.’

Virmati took the books with a sigh. ‘I know these bits,’ she said, flipping through the pages uninterestedly.

Seeing her lack of enthusiasm, Harish added, ‘It refreshes the knowledge in my own mind when I read these books with you. I could never do something like this with
her.
’

Virmati flushed with pleasure, and turned to her book with a glint in her eye.

She then spent the morning diligently copying the main points of the text in her notebook. She tried to memorize what she had copied, but it was hard work. She didn’t see the point of what she was learning.

She hated philosophy, although Harish called it a noble subject. It was dull, abstract and meaningless, but studying it was her only means of escape. She wished Harish had thought another subject suitable for her. She also wished it was not such an uphill task, being worthy of him.

When it was time to go back to Lahore after the summer holidays, Virmati was secretly relieved.

Harish looked downcast parting from her.

‘It is so lonely without you,’ he said sadly, sitting on the unmade bed, watching as she bustled about, packing her suitcases.

‘Our meetings in Lahore are much nicer,’ she said, caressing him with more fervour than she had during her entire visit.

He smiled at her, but was silent during the trip to the station.

*

Monday, 5 November 1945. The INA courts martial open at Red Fort, Delhi. Pandit Jawaharlal Nehru is the lawyer for the defence.

Leela’s family is deeply involved in the whole issue. Leela is distraught, her husband is in the INA, his reputation and future are at stake. Patriot or traitor? Why should these things always be left to the people in power to decide? Kiran and Kaka feel their reputation is at stake too. What can they do to help their absent father?

12 November is INA day. When Kiran reached school, assembly was going on. The principal was making rousing speeches. She talked about the INA, about the protests that were sweeping the country, about how the issue should be kept alive until the accused were released without a stain upon their honour. She then declared the school shut in order to commemorate INA day.

Kiran conferred with her friends. ‘We must do something‚’ she said slowly. In the Lahore of the 1940s, it was not hard to decide what to do.

‘We must have a procession‚’ they decided. ‘Go from college to college and make everybody join us.’

Yes, yes, they must.

And the schoolgirls marched, marched through the streets of the fabled city, shouting

Lal
Quila
tor
do

Azad
Fauj
chhor
do,

ending with ‘Subhash Zindabad’, though he had vanished, and nobody knew whether he was dead or alive.

The spirit of the girls flowed out in aggregate voices, shouting to the students from Sanatan Dharam College for Women, Khalsa College for Girls, and Dayal Singh College to come and join them, and the procession grew and grew, until imperialism decided it was threatened.

‘Who are your leaders?’ asked the Punjab Police, as they bore down upon them.

‘Nobody. We ourselves.’

Obviously, this was not to be believed. The insurgents were now using children to foment disturbance, thinking that their sex and age would protect them. They must be taught a lesson. They must be charged.

‘Shame, shame!’ cried the girls.

‘Toadies of the British!’ shouted Kiran.

A policeman advanced upon her. She turned to run, and got the blow on her arm and shoulder. Shock and injury brought tears to her eyes. ‘Murdabad,’ she yelled, ‘Murdabad!’

‘Punjab Police Murdabad!’ the girls around her cried.

‘Punjab Police,
hai,
hai
!’

‘Punjab Police Murdabad!’

‘Subhash Bose Zindabad!’

The lathi charges increased, there was screaming, and a stampede. Brickbats began to fly. Blood was flowing down Kiran’s arm. The hurt made her think of her father, and forced her to go on.

Meanwhile, Mr C. B. Clark, Commissioner, Punjab Police, had arranged for the principals of the three colleges to come and manage their students. All three of them understood the gravity of the situation. It would do no one any good if their students were injured in lathi charges. They realized that law and order had to be maintained at all costs. Even though our brave soldiers are facing a trial, this, my dear friends, will not help them. You have made your point.

They saw that they had no option. They dispersed. Kiran was in no state to ride her cycle home, her friends took her back in a tonga.

Leela, flabbergasted, frightened. ‘What possessed you to go marching in this manner? One sacrifice in the family is not enough?’ Proud that the daughter had shown herself to be worthy of the father, but never saying it, no never, because Kiran was a girl, and girls had to be contained, and the earlier this process started, the less painful it would be.

And Virmati. The child shows such courage, while I fret about my petty, domestic matters, at a time when the nation is on trial. I too must take a stand. I have tried adjustment and compromise, now I will try non-cooperation.

*

Through that winter the word ‘co-operate’ beckoned hard at Virmati. Harish informed her he could not go on like this, this was her second year away from him.

It was getting very difficult for him at home. His trips up and down Lahore were silently and continuously resented. If he brought anything home for the children, it was felt he was wasting money. If he didn’t, it increased the feeling that all his time, concern, attention and finances were being swallowed up by that witch who, as it was, prevented him from giving anybody else their due.

Kishori Devi to her son: ‘Beta, all of us have to make sacrifices. The end of the war has not brought prices down. If anything, the situation has become worse. Perhaps I should go home. With me, you have another mouth to feed. The rest of your family is your responsibility, but Guddiya and I can at least spare you that much.’

‘No, no, Amma. What are you saying? I cannot allow anything like that.’

‘Beta, I can see the situation for myself. After all, now you have to go to Lahore frequently. The ticket there and back –’

‘For heaven’s sake, Amma, it is only a few annas!’

‘Every pice counts. Then it is not only the train ticket. Once a man steps out of his house, he begins to spend, no matter what. Besides, you should spend. She is your wife. It is only a pity she feels the need to run away all the time.’

‘She doesn’t feel the need. She was here for a whole year. Then you know what happened. I am the one who sent her to study.’

‘Beta, you are very good. How many husbands encourage their wives to study after their marriages? She has got a diamond – a diamond from heaven! But now with two bahus in the house, I can safely leave you. How many people can you support and look after? It is not fair. I do not wish to be a burden on you. Now you let me go. Things are cheaper in Kanpur. Here, everything is very expensive.’

‘There is no question of letting you go. If you leave, the whole family will have to leave with you‚’ said Harish obliquely, at the thought of living alone with Ganga. ‘It is out of the question. Let things settle down.’

*

‘Viru, you have to come home, darling. I pine and long for you. I need you, I cannot bear this separation any longer. Is this why we married?’

‘I spent all summer with you at home‚’ reminded Virmati. She was disturbed by his manner.

Harish, annoyed by her intransigence, went on. ‘At the end of your exams, thank God all this nonsense will be over. I have gone on keeping two households long enough.’

‘That’s not fair,’ flared Virmati. ‘I didn’t ask you to send me here.’

‘You make it so difficult for yourself there. I think by now you have had enough time to adjust.’

Virmati sat speechless.

‘My wives now know what to expect from each other,’ continued Harish. Virmati looked at him. Normally he never referred to his ‘wives’. She was the wife, Ganga was the pronoun. Was Harish actually equating both of them? What had happened at home while she was away? Did she have to crawl back to that dressing-room to protect her conjugal rights?

‘We are not the same,’ she said, rather incoherently. ‘At least that is what you always led me to believe.’

‘She has her claims, just as you do,’ stated Harish flatly. ‘And she is not the one who is running away.’

They’ve got him, thought Virmati, clenching her lips and staring at her husband with hatred.

‘Have you – and she?’ she stuttered. ‘Like last time? What excuse do you have now?’

Harish did not pretend not to understand. After a moment he slowly said, ‘The situation is clear for all to see.’

‘What situation? If there is a situation, I don’t see it.’

‘How long can I remain alone? Here I am running after you all the time.’

‘Doing an MA was your idea, not mine!’

‘Yes, but look at all the other things you are doing. Getting involved with Swarna Lata, with Leela, with Kiran, with anybody and everybody except your husband.’

Virmati’s head was spinning. Distress enveloped her heart. She tried to think, but it was too painful. Whatever else she did, she would not go back to Amritsar during the holidays. Direct action was needed. She refused to fight Ganga with cunning, guile or seduction. If Harish’s love for her wasn’t strong enough to survive an MA, it certainly wasn’t going to survive a lifetime. She thought of how often he had said he would die for her, and decided men were liars. She didn’t care if she never had a home, children, if she cut off her nose to spite her face. Right now, everything about her was aching so much, to cut off her nose would be a relief. At least the incision would be definite, sharp and localized.

*

Ganga sees her influence growing at home. She secretly exults at her husband’s occasional fits of sadness, though her serious face and devoted, red bindi deny that she could ever harbour a thought that did not directly pertain to his well-being.

When she tentatively presses his legs, he does not object. She takes to doing this every day. She talks of the activities of their children, of the well-being of his mother and sister, of household concerns, and desperately tries to weave a family structure that includes them both.

*

Virmati said she was going to stay in Lahore that summer. She hadn’t done too well in her exams, she might have to repeat the year.

Her husband said nothing. He was determined to teach his wife a lesson.

He could afford to wait. Time, like everything else, was on his side. Besides, he really loved Virmati. For her own happiness, a little harshness might be necessary. Meanwhile, he found himself looking at Ganga’s breasts, squashed against her blouse, as she bent over his feet and legs, pressing them, eyes downcast, bindi and kaajal smudged. He could see the black beads of her mangalsutra coming together, and plunging unseen into the depths and folds of that lush topography. The visual contrast appealed to him: colours, dark and pale; textures, hard and soft; size, large and small. He wondered why she wore her mangalsutra inside her blouse. One day he reached in and pulled it out gently, and was flattered by the look of abject gratitude on Ganga’s face.