A Sister's Promise (16 page)

But that day, the day of my results, I—squat, chubby, unremarkable—am the rare bird, the repository of fairy dust! That day, I do not wish to be anyone else, not even Puja. For the first time, I am completely happy in my own ordinary skin.

I knew I had done my best but I had no idea I had performed this well. The principal of the college personally handed me my results.

‘Wow!’ he had said, eyes glistening behind his cloudy glasses. ‘What an achievement! The newspapers are coming here, Sharda, to interview you and me.’ He removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was overwhelmed. As am I!

I clutch the piece of paper and run all the way home, gulping in the dense air, heady with the aroma of jasmine and over-ripe cashews.

I am not the fastest girl in the village, Ma, nor the most agile, as you know. I am short and heavy and I do love my food. But that day I have wings.

You glow, Ma, when I have explained my report card to you and Da as both of you never had the opportunity to go to school and thus cannot read or write.

‘You have made me and your Da so proud, Sharda,’ you say, your eyes glimmering with joyous tears.

‘I can stop working soon,’ Da declares, beaming at me the way he does at Puja, and making my whole being shine. ‘Because, you, Sharda are going to earn ten times in one day what I make in a month.’

And Puja wraps her arms tightly around my neck when she arrives home, a luminous butterfly, full of delight, trailing that special something in her wake. She skips around our small courtyard, a lithe danseuse, her sugar-spun curls twirling, screaming, ‘Well done, Sharda, well done.’

That evening, there is a big celebration in the village grounds in my honour. The entire village congregates in the open field, bringing mats with them. Duja, who never misses a trick, circulates the crowd selling bhel puri from a cane tray slung across his neck, dispensing it, 50 paise apiece, in little paper cones fashioned from Udayavani, the daily newspaper—that day’s news is oily and slick with spice, piquant with flecks of chopped red onions. Birakka, who is always in competition with Duja, does the same, but with roasted peanuts and goes one up, by circling the throng with a flask of cardamom and ginger tea.

You, Da and I have pride of place on the makeshift stage erected in a hurry that afternoon, when news of reporters arriving sent the principal into a frenzy. A generator has been borrowed at great cost from the electronic shop in Dhoompur and the fruit-scented gloom of early evening is dispelled by its flickering lights, which attract a plague of flies.

I’m wearing my best salwar, cerise with yellow flowers, the only one I own which isn’t threadbare from use. My hair is in plaits. My eyes are shining. I cannot believe this: standing in the harsh yellow, moth-infested spotlight (courtesy of the grumbling generator) and squinting at the audience of villagers, a whispering hushed mass silhouetted in darkness, all of them submitting to being feasted upon by a buzzing pestilence of mosquitoes just for
me
. The rumble of applause builds up to a roar triggering a warm rush of happiness that permeates my entire being.

Gopi catches my eye, and gives me a thumbs up, and already saturated with well-being, I balloon with pleasure.

Flashes on my face as my photo is taken. Newspaper reporters shouting questions, one after the other, a staccato barrage. I don’t know what I say, but later you tell me, Ma, that I was brilliant. You and Da are proud and tongue-tied by the attention. Like me, you are wearing your best, or to be more accurate, your least shabby clothes.

The principal makes a speech claiming that he always knew I was destined for great things. One of the reporters interviews Puja and she says, pointing at me, ‘Yes, that is my sister,’ and I am touched and overwhelmed because this is the first time I have heard her say it in that particular tone, her voice dripping with pride. Until now, it has always been the other way round, with
me
pointing to
her
, with unabashed pride:
My
sister, Puja.

Dearest Ma,

You are waiting when I return from meeting friends in Dhoompur the evening after the celebration of my PU results, impatiently treading the nineteen steps between the mango tree at one end of our courtyard and the guava copse at the other. (I know it is nineteen because I counted one sweltering afternoon while you were comatose from the heat.)

When you spy me gingerly navigating the stepping stones down the hill, you hold up your sari and run across the field toward me breathless with news. I sprint to meet you half way and you open your arms and fold me into them and I breathe in your smell of sweat and spices and comfort.

You dance me round and round, right there in the middle of the field for all to see, our feet slipping and sinking into the mud.

Duja’s cow stops her placid cud chewing to stare at us, liquid eyes curious, soft brown nose twitching. Our dog barks delightedly, nipping at our dusty heels.

‘What is it, Ma?’ I laugh, when I can gather my breath.

‘The landlord visited us at the market stall today asking for your hand in marriage.’ The words come out in a rush as if you have been bursting with the effort of holding them in.

‘To him?’ I am not impressed.

You laugh, tweak my plaits. ‘No, silly, to his son.’

It takes a moment for the news to percolate, to seep into my already overflowing heart.

Gopi. The boy I have secretly fancied for what seems like forever, always thinking, no,
knowing
, that he could never be mine, that we orbited two different planets. I cannot believe it. How can
all
my dreams come true in the space of just two days?

‘Lost for words?’ You are grinning from ear to ear, Ma, the care lines on your face disappearing so you look like the young woman who coloured my very first memories.

‘Why me?’ I ask when I trust myself to speak. I had always covertly hoped that Gopi reciprocated the feelings I had not dared acknowledge even to myself. Has he spoken to his father, told him how much I mean to him?

You cup my flushed, flabbergasted face in your hands. ‘You deserve him, sweetie,’ you whisper, your voice warm and brimming with all the love you feel for me.

‘There are a hundred girls waiting in the wings to marry him, the richest and most handsome boy in the village. Why me?’ I ask again. I want to know, more than anything, that Gopi cares for me, that I have not been the only one harbouring romantic feelings during those hot, mango-scented afternoons spent teaching him mathematical concepts.

‘Ah, you see all the other landlords in neighbouring villages have mostly sons, the few daughters are already betrothed. Also the daughters of city landlords do not want to marry someone from the village. Thus, the landlord has no option but to choose a local girl and you . . . you have brought such fame to the village.’

You are grinning at me, love and pride shining out of your eyes. ‘We told the landlord that you want to continue your studies. He wants that for you too. An educated wife, a doctor at that, will be the jewel in his son’s crown, you see. All the town landlords look down on our landlord, call him a village hick. So if he has an educated girl for a daughter-in-law, a
rising star
as everyone says the papers have taken to calling you, no-one dare snub him anymore.’

It all sounds so mercenary, so business-like. But the awe-struck elation that has overcome me will not be swayed.

See, Puja, studying has its uses. I might be boring, but I have got everything I want by being so. I have won our parents’ approval and the hand of the boy I have secretly liked in marriage.

‘How do you know all this?’ I ask.

‘I have my sources,’ you say, tapping your nose and laughing that light-hearted laugh that I haven’t heard in a while.

In the fields, Duja’s cow moos mournfully, tugging at the rope that tethers her to the post. The banana flavoured breeze ruffles the ears of paddy and they nod hello. It smells of paradise, it is the yellow of maturing pineapples tinged red with dust.

‘Look, Sharda,’ you say jovially, linking your arm in mine, lifting your sari skirt with the other so it won’t be muddied as you skip, like a carefree little girl, down the narrow path towards home, ‘there is no hurry. The landlord and his son are coming to see you formally in a couple of years. We’ve agreed that the wedding will only take place after you’ve obtained your degree. But the landlord came to talk to us today just to make sure we would not promise you to anyone else.’ Your eyes sparkle like a bride’s jewels, Ma. ‘We wanted to give you girls an education, despite the cost of books and sundries, so you would do better than us. And you have exceeded our dreams!’

If Puja had been with us, she would have said, indignantly, ‘Marrying the landlord’s son does not really equate to doing better for yourself, Sharda.’

But for me, it does.

All I have ever wanted is to make you and Da happy and proud of me and now I have done so. In a clandestine corner of my heart, I have also wished for the boy who is this village’s sweetheart, to be mine. And soon, he will be.

Puja might be Da’s favourite. She might flaunt the rules, scoff at tradition, but by following the rules, by being dutiful, I have got what I’ve always wanted. The jubilation that is pulsing in my veins, coursing through my body is testament to the fact.

‘The matrons urged us to take you out of school after seventh standard, and get you to work with us or as a servant somewhere so you could contribute towards your dowry. We are so glad we didn’t heed them. Now we must find a suitable groom for Puja, once she’s a bit older . . .’ Your voice is the starry silver of bliss. ‘We will set a date for the landlord and his son to visit nearer the time. No need to tell Puja until then. You know how she is; discretion is not part of her vocabulary. I don’t want her telling the whole village when nothing is set in stone as yet.’

And this last is the best part, Ma. It is the syrup that gives crispy jalebis their irresistible sweetness, the saffron that lifts the humble biryani to epic heights, making it food worthy of kings. At last, a secret between us. Just you and me and Da. Like in the days before Puja came along and everything changed.

RAJ

JEWELLERY OF TEARS

‘That village,’ Raj says, ‘Wow. Why were they all so hell bent upon reforming you?’

You?
He still cannot quite relate that girl he’s been hearing about to this woman next to him. His mother.

She smiles softly at him. He clocks the smile in wonder. When was the last time she smiled at him like that? Has she ever?

‘That is the way it used to be, Raj,’ she says. ‘Girls were not allowed minds of their own. Hopefully it has changed now, or is changing. Fingers crossed.’

This tale of his mother’s is making Raj see things in a new light. He has been lucky, he thinks, to have grown up in England. He’s always had the freedom to do what he’s wanted. He has sometimes taken it too far, he knows, and has often made the wrong choices. His addiction to nicotine, for instance, although he must say he hasn’t had a craving for a smoke since his mum started narrating her amazing story. And isn’t making mistakes how you learn? At least he’s been given the choice . . .

Now he understands why his mum was so short with him when he complained that she was always working, never there. He’s always had money, he’s never had to think about it, or deny himself anything he’s badly wanted. He has never known what it is to be poor, to do without . . .

What did his mum have to endure to give him this freedom of choice, this comfortable life? What did she have to go through to gain her independence, to come to the UK? Was losing her sister the price she paid?

He looks at his mother, severe, unyielding, her hair pulled back in a rigid bun, her face subjugated by its armour of makeup, which is now starting to crease a bit at the corners of her eyes. A wispy feather or two of hair dares to escape the stiff restraints of the bun. Hard to reconcile this inflexible woman with the zesty, spirited girl he is hearing about, so full of life, and chafing at the restrictions imposed upon her. And falling in love? This woman, who recoils from the merest touch . . .

‘Did that nun really give you a lecture about the “dangers” of touching boys, and having lustful thoughts about them?’

She giggles, an unguarded chuckle, and in that brief moment he gets a tiny glimpse of the girl she once was. Skipping school, daringly spending the day with a boy, something that, obviously, was just not done in that antiquated village of her childhood . . .

‘Why? Why were you not allowed to consort with boys? What silly rules!’

‘Yes, silly and suffocating,’ she sighs, the smile freezing on her face, hardening, like spilling wax from a candle, into a grimace.

He cannot envisage his mother, who balks at the slightest hint of sentiment, (although that has changed a bit since yesterday), daringly touching a boy in a café in a town Raj cannot even begin to picture. A vision of Ellie gesturing to him from the bus, telling him she likes him, looms before his eyes. Love, he thinks, is the one emotion that doesn’t change, transcending generations and time and distance. He has been gathering up the courage to talk to Ellie forever and
still
hasn’t properly managed it.