ISSUE 42

Many years ago, in a village called Uttarapuram, there was a Brahmin settlement. Houses with red potsherd roofs, common walls, and wide verandahs stretched for about half a kilometre. At one end stood a peepul tree, and at the other a wall, with red and white stripes, enclosing a temple dedicated to Sri Venkateswara Swamy. Dhanalakshmi came here after her marriage to Kutumba Rao. She was sixteen. She had spent most of her childhood skipping stones at the pond and chasing puppies in the coconut plantations. Her education comprised a few poems her mother taught her, and she sang them aloud along the goat trail by the pond, stopping wherever she found a pebble promising enough to trump nine bounces, her unbeaten record.

One day, her father announced that she would marry Kutumba Rao, the Accounts Officer from Uttarapuram, and she didn’t quite understand what it meant. Leaving her mother and her village and moving to Uttarapuram with Kutumba Rao was too much to wrap her head around at once. Her mother-in-law, Ramayamma, was a stout woman, five feet tall, with a large face and probing eyes. She wore a spot of dense vermilion between her thick eyebrows, which Dhanalakshmi found unsettling. Ramayamma had waited a long time for a daughter-in-law; when she got one, she declared that she would relinquish her responsibilities and dedicate the rest of her life to serve her gods: her husband and Sri Venkateswara Swamy.

Dhanalakshmi’s lessons began from her first day at Uttarapuram. Ramayamma expounded the ways of a married woman, both as a daughter-in-law and as a wife. Dhanalakshmi imbibed her new life by degrees. At first, she was silent and contemplative, often staring at objects with a vacant expression that belied the train of thought that chugged on in her head. With time, the clamour subsided. She perfected the routine of waking up before sunrise, fetching two pails of water from the community well, bathing, cooking while her clothes were still damp, and maintaining all the rules she was expected to. She learnt what spices were allowed on what days. She noted how many spoons of sugar her husband and her father-in-law preferred in their coffees. There were precise timings for serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and all were met with impeccable punctuality. She learnt the required propriety when conversing with the men in her family.

‘Never ask men where they are going. It will jinx their purpose.’ Ramayamma told her when she stopped Kutumba Rao at the door one day.

Many mornings, when they sat in front of bronze and silver idols, long lists were committed to memory: what offerings for what gods, which flowers for which goddesses, what rituals for male children, which days to fast on for a husband’s longevity.

But dawn after dawn, the crowing of roosters brought days that felt longer, more tiresome. Chores multiplied and appeared out of nowhere. She began feeling hauled through the hours of the day by an invisible force. As the sun sank below the horizon, a strange weariness descended upon her. Was it exhaustion? Was it her mother-in-law? Was it because she wasn’t able to befriend her neighbours? She didn’t know.

Sometimes, after serving lunch, she would croon, her mother’s poems on her lips, under the cool of the guava tree in the backyard. Sometimes, she spent a while longer at the well and skipped stones, although the well limited the bounces to two. When she missed her mother, she suppressed her tears by grasping, tighter, the handle of the pail, or the wood of the millstone, or the strip of husk she was peeling off the coconut. Some evenings, a mixture of confusion, fear, and gloom stirred her stomach. She was someone else in a place she couldn’t recognise no matter how hard she tried.

One such evening, Ramayamma found her in the backyard, gazing at the horizon, lost in its dim hues. When she turned, Ramayamma saw her misty eyes. She went to her and held her by her shoulders.

‘What is this? Are you crying?’ she asked.

Dhanalakshmi lowered her head and remained silent.

‘You are not your mother’s little girl anymore. Do you know who you are now?’ Ramayamma placed two fingers under Dhanalakshmi’s chin and lifted her face. ‘You are the wife of Kutumba Rao! You are the Accounts Officer’s wife! You understand?’

Ramayamma’s vermilion appeared more menacing from this close. But a hint of a smile that for the first time lingered on the otherwise stern face lightened Dhanalakshmi’s heart.

‘Do you know how many accounts officers are there in this district?’

Dhanalakshmi shook her head. A faint ‘No’ slipped past her quivering lips.

‘Only one! And that one is your husband!’

‘Now, say it aloud…. I am the Accounts Officer’s wife!’

Dhanalakshmi hesitated.

‘Come on!’

‘I am the Accounts Officer’s wife,’ she said, trembling.

‘Louder now!’

‘I am the Accounts Officer’s wife!’ she said, still faint.

‘That’s right. Now go. No more crying like a little girl.’

These words calmed her. Like in one of the poems she recited, she imagined her soul take the form of a warm flame and travel across the sky to fuse into a luminous image of her husband, Kutumba Rao. In her poem, it was a luminous image of Sri Ram. Albeit inchoate, a determination took root in her, and she refused to be a young girl in a strange place. She accepted, at that moment, that she belonged to a different family and welcomed with newfound confidence her responsibility to this family.

Kutumba Rao was kind to Dhanalakshmi, and like many women in Uttarapuram, she too was struck by his handsomeness. With perfectly combed hair, thick-rimmed spectacles, a golden pen in the front pocket of his crisply starched shirt, his stark white dhoti, he exuded an officer’s dignity and grandeur. Every day, after returning from his office, he asked Dhanalakshmi about her day and whether she had lunch. Although that was almost the extent of his conversation with her, we must note that a certain aloofness and reserve in husbands were common those days and often was what was expected of them.

For a while, Dhanalakshmi felt better. The turbulence of disquietude that once churned her evenings dwindled to occasional nostalgic eddies. But soon, a new concern distressed her. It was the end of the first year of her marriage, and she was still without child. Her visits to the temple along with Ramayamma increased in number and duration. She could discern the disappointment in Ramayamma. She felt stifled, shunned. Wives and grandmothers whispered in her ears and gave her powders. She stacked their little bottles in her trunk. Some of these could have been useful, but her problem was different, and she couldn’t tell anyone about it.

The act itself was, to her, painful. Kutumba Rao was gentle, still, she couldn’t help but protest against those pangs that felt like her skin was at once being burnt and lacerated. Some nights, when he gave up, she was relieved. Other nights, when he persisted, the subsequent mornings were so painful that she wished she could go back in time. She often wondered how other women felt, how her mother felt, if something was wrong with her. These questions remained unasked. With each of these nights, she built endurance, but it didn’t help enough.

As she despaired, a letter from her mother arrived, bringing relief. It requested Kutumba Rao to send Dhanalakshmi to her village. It was her father’s sixtieth birthday. Kutumba Rao and his parents agreed, and Dhanalakshmi packed her trunk with much excitement. A bullock-cart ride to the nearby bus station and a three-hour journey in a government bus took her to her village.

After the celebrations were over, she spent time with her mother in the kitchen. Alongside flaunting her newly-honed culinary skills, she managed a few whispered conversations. With a pleasant smile and tender words, her mother assured her that nothing was wrong with her and that everything would get better with time. Vague and heavy guilt lifted off her bosom. Her gait took on the cheerful bounce that was once hers. A day before her scheduled departure, a smooth flat pebble bounced nine times and fell on the other side of the pond. After all these months, she was still the same girl she used to be. She smiled a childish smile, but immediately replaced it with a collected expression befitting an accounts officer’s wife.

That evening, when she returned from the pond, a telegram arrived from Kutumba Rao’s father. It assured the good health of everyone, yet urged Dhanalakshmi’s father to visit Uttarapuram at once. It said nothing about Dhanalakshmi.

The next day, Dhanalakshmi and her father journeyed to Uttarapuram. As they entered the house, Ramayamma asked Dhanalakshmi to go into the kitchen and wait till called. Dhanalakshmi obliged, although her eyes questioned the silence that engulfed the hall and the presence of strange persons there. Kutumba Rao stood straight, with his hands crossed. An old man with a freckled face and two other elderly men stood opposite him. Beckoned by Kutumba Rao‘s father, the elders sat in their chairs.

Dhanalakshmi tarried about in the kitchen, sliding her palm over the steel jars lined up on the shelf. Questions flooded her mind, and the silence unnerved her. Sunlight streamed in through the window and reflected off the jars, blinding her. When she heard her father shout, a shiver traversed down her spine. She never heard her father speak above whispers. Ramayamma appeared across the dining hall and asked Dhanalakshmi to make coffee as if only to distract her from what was transpiring in the hall.

The milk began to boil and the firewood burnt with heavy smoke. She was blowing air through a sooty iron pipe when, from the window, she saw a young woman with someone who looked like her mother. They stood in the backyard behind the guava tree. The mother had covered her head with her sari, and her daughter stood with one hand resting on the lower branch of the tree. She was remarkably fair with a beautiful face, elegant almond-shaped eyes, and a gentle nose that sported a glittering ruby-studded nose ring. Her hair was jet-black and braided into one long plait that hung till below her trim waist. She stood there with apparent breathlessness and a tremble which, though visible, did not betray the grace she seemed to possess. Dhanalakshmi stared at her for more than a minute, wondering if she was indeed as delicate as she looked.

The milk spilt over. Dhanalakshmi took the pot down with her bare hands, and her fingers turned deep pink. As she dipped them in the pail, Ramayamma appeared again and asked her to join her father in the hall. She also called in the mother and her daughter from the backyard. Everyone assembled, and, for a moment, everyone was silent. In the next few minutes, truth, like an executioner’s whip, lashed Dhanalakshmi.

Her husband had slept with the young woman in the backyard, and she was pregnant with Kutumba Rao‘s child. And after all the deliberations that happened without her in the hall, it was agreed by all, including her father, that Kutumba Rao would marry this woman, and they, that is, Kutumba Rao, this woman, and Dhanalakshmi would enter into a bigamous relationship under the blessings and in the footsteps of Sri Venkateswara Swamy, who wedded both goddess Sridevi and goddess Padmavati. It was also announced that the wedding ceremony would take place the coming Thursday in the very same Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple. Dhanalakshmi looked at her father. On hearing nothing from him, she wobbled a bit, regained her balance, and ran out of the house towards the well till she fell off the edge and into the water with a heavy splash.

And that is when, some said, Dhanalakshmi became, a little odd. What went on inside her head is something we, of course, cannot be sure of. It is indeed true that ever since that day, the local doctors visited her house frequently. Then again, the causes behind these visits, to the extent we can adduce, were more to do with the frailty of her body than of her mind, for both the doctors were physicians and not psychiatrists.

Dhanalakshmi slept all day. Her father, who had not yet left, tried to persuade her to eat, but she didn‘t budge. He sat by her side throughout the day and throughout the night. Next morning, before the roosters crowed, when Ramayamma entered the room, Dhanalakshmi wasn’t there. Ramayamma woke Kutumba Rao up. He ran to the well, dived into the cold water, and searched for long, but nothing indicated her having drowned. A search party consisting of Kutumba Rao and a few able men went out with their torch lights. They split into two groups and searched opposite directions, one along the track leading to the bus station by the highway eight kilometres away, and the other along the muddy road that went through Uttarapuram to the adjacent village twelve kilometres away. At noon both parties returned without success despite enquiring with everyone they met on their way.

They assembled in front of Kutumba Rao’s house. Dhanalakshmi’s father grew frantic by the minute. Ramayamma tried a few pacifying words but was quickly silenced by her husband, who stood stiff and straight on the verandah, tapping his knuckles with his fingers. Dhanalakshmi’s disappearance caused much stir in the settlement. It couldn’t be contained, unlike the news of her jumping in the well. Consumed by guilt and standing in the presence of his wife’s father, whom he felt answerable to, Kutumba Rao explained to the men why Dhanalakshmi disappeared. Everyone strived to find her with sincere concern. They were puzzled that no one along either path had seen her pass by. They knew they were missing something simple yet critical. One by one, they asked many questions. Could she have boarded the bus to her village? Are there any morning busses to her village? Did she carry any money on her? Kutumba Rao replied patiently to all. He sat down on the verandah step, with his head against his palms.

About half past noon, Dhanalakshmi appeared, coming out of the Sri Venkateswara Swamy temple merely yards away. After the initial shriek from a young man who first spotted her, everyone remained silent and stared at her as she neared, carrying a baby turtle from the temple tank in her hand. It had never occurred to any of them to search the temple. Regular temple goers couldn’t have spotted her, for the pillars limited their view. Only a thorough search could have revealed someone sheltering there, but no one, even once, suggested searching for her in the temple. And when they saw her walk out of the gate, they gaped in silence. Some said, as she came out, she was talking to the turtle with much animation. Some claimed that she was sweating profusely and that her countenance showed wild excitement interspersed with ghastly frowns. Both could have been right. But, what everyone remembered clearly was the answer she gave her father near the porch.

As she approached, she appeared utterly oblivious to everything around her. Kutumba Rao was relieved. He kept looking at her, hoping for some sort of acknowledgement. His parents stared at her like the rest of the crowd. Her appearance appeased her father’s pounding heart and dissolved the stone that was stuck in his parched throat. Paternal anger surged, but he knew not how to rebuke her. She walked forward, neither looking nor pausing anywhere. He took a few steps, and with wide eyes and arms outstretched, asked,

‘WHAT were you doing in the temple since daybreak?’

‘Oh,’ she replied, ‘I was sleeping with the pandit.’

Dhanalakshmi went into her room and slept. Kutumba remained at the door and didn’t step in as if thwarted by an invisible line that would burst into flames were he to cross it. For a long while, he watched her sleep. Later, he returned to his room and tallied his accounts. Her father sat by her side, like the previous day, in an armchair. As his fatigued nerves relaxed, he descended into a deep slumber. Ramayamma went into the room the following morning, and again, Dhanalakshmi wasn’t there.

Ramayamma was furious. The sympathy she had for her daughter-in-law was no more. She decided that she wouldn’t care anymore. It was better her son slept. There was no point searching for this woman in the chilly morning. It was her karma; there was nothing one could do about it. Half an hour later, Dhanalakshmi’s father woke up. He stormed out of the room, saw Ramayamma sweeping the backyard, and inquired about Dhanalakshmi. At her reply, he slapped his forehead, rushed to Kutumba Rao’s room, and woke him up.

Kutumba Rao went to the well first. He walked with a consistent pace and was more methodical and less agitated than the day before. From the well, he went to the temple and searched behind every pillar and enquired with the pandits. She was not there. Walking back to his house, he wondered if the neighbours would be willing to assist him again. Choosing not to take their help, he walked eight kilometres to the bus station, making enquiries along the way. He returned in vain at about quarter past seven in the morning. His mother served breakfast. He was hungry, but when Dhanalakshmi’s father refused, he followed suit. This enraged Ramayamma further. Muttering inaudibly, she took both plates back into the kitchen.

Kutumba Rao stepped out to search in the other direction when, at the end of the street, below the peepul tree, he saw Dhanalakshmi. She was holding a stray puppy and was swaying sideways as if drunk. The street dogs were barking, jumping, and howling. They were so riotous that everyone rushed out to see what was happening. Kutumba Rao stood on the porch steps as motionless as the day before.

Ramayamma was thoroughly scandalised. She dropped a copper bowl, and it tumbled down the porch steps. Her face contorted. Cursing loudly, she went back into the house with heavy, resounding steps.

Dhanalakshmi’s father looked resignedly at his daughter. This time, it was clear that she was talking to the puppy. She staggered, stumbled, and zigzagged close to the porch. The stench of palm toddy was pungent, and everyone took a step back involuntarily. She almost fell when, with a swift manoeuvre, she regained balance and stood, puppy in arms, in front of her father, smiling a broad smile. Neighbours stood in their verandahs, their mouths betraying their inner excitement. The dogs followed her, barking incessantly. Ramayamma paced about in the kitchen, vexed by the intolerable growls that now echoed from the hall. She threw a steel plate from the kitchen into the hall, expecting it to silence the dogs. The dogs didn’t stop.

Dhanalakshmi fell forward and her father caught her in time. She stood erect again and pushed the puppy towards him. He took the puppy with a downcast face and was about to put it down, but it looked like the dogs would tear it apart. Confounded by everything around him, he went to place the puppy on the verandah when she stopped him, saying,

‘No, Appa … take him to the backyard. I am marrying him tomorrow in the temple.’

Kutumba Rao’s father postponed his son’s second marriage by a month. Did he expect Dhanalakshmi to get normal by then? Dhanalakshmi left every day before dawn and no one could do anything to stop her. Her father wrote to his wife asking her to come immediately. However, she was sick and took two weeks to visit Uttarapuram. Meanwhile, Kutumba Rao resumed office work, the two old men read newspapers in their armchairs, and Ramayamma … she grew more and more furious by the day.

One day, Dhanalakshmi prepared a variety of delicacies: spiced dal with spinach, tender purple brinjals incised with precision and stuffed with a paste of fenugreek seeds, rasam, fried pumpkin crisps, thick curd, rice steamed to perfection, and a payasam made of rice, lentils, jaggery, cardamom, cashews, and thin wedges of copra. She made these the way Ramayamma taught her, but at three in the morning. She feasted all alone and left for the toddy stalls, having exhausted quite a share of the monthly rations, and leaving behind many used utensils.

Another day, she returned with a stiff roll of tobacco sticking out of the corner of her mouth and seemed to have mastered the art of smoking tobacco the rustic way. Another morning, she took away both the water pails and brought them back filled with toddy. Ramayamma hurled abuses, but to no effect.

After two weeks, when her mother arrived, Dhanalakshmi wasn’t at home. Ramayamma complained at length about all the atrocities she had to witness. Her mother listened silently, nodding at intervals. That day too, both the pails were missing. Dhanalakshmi returned after an hour, swaying more than usual, holding the toddy-filled buckets and puffing at her tobacco roll. She looked at her mother and paused. Her mother surveyed her with wide eyes and, for a moment, smiled – a gentle, cautious expansion of cheeks, a soft inhale, an indiscernible parting of lips, a shine of subdued amazement, and a dimple of tempered surprise. Dhanalakshmi stood still, blinking.

A brief silence ensued, and then the frenzied voice of Ramayamma: ‘Look at her! This is her routine. What a disgrace! This is unacceptable, madam, no matter the cause. Unacceptable by any standard! She must be thrown out of the house, but my son won’t allow it! God help us with this abomination! Knock some sense into her. You are her mother; it’s your…’

Dhanalakshmi dropped the pails. They fell with a heavy thud, shook, and lay still on the floor. Toddy splashed on Kutumba Rao’s father’s newspaper and on his clean-shaven face. He folded the soiled paper and went into the backyard, wiping his face. Dhanalakshmi stepped ahead, stood in front of Ramayamma, peeped into her face, and blew a wisp of smoke at her.

‘What effrontery! Nasty woman!’ Ramayamma screamed.

Dhanalakshmi’s mother stood up to diffuse the situation, but before she could take one step, Dhanalakshmi, with violent and loud retching, vomited all over Ramayamma and collapsed.

Kutumba Rao came home with the local doctor. Dhanalakshmi was on the bed, and her parents sat by her side. Her father-in-law was in the armchair, troubled by the smell of toddy that persisted despite his meticulous washing. Ramayamma was still bathing. Kutumba Rao stood by the doctor who was checking Dhanalakshmi’s pulse. His mother-in-law’s presence renewed his sense of guilt. The doctor unplugged the stethoscope from his ears and replaced it in his briefcase.

‘Nothing to worry … is she your wife?’

‘Yes.’

‘Congratulations! She is pregnant.’