Difficult Daughters (19 page)

Only with Swarna could she be comfortable. Swarna who knew what she was, and didn’t condemn.

*

‘What will he say?’ Swarna once asked curiously.

‘He? Oh, he’ll be very sorry.’

‘I hope they won’t mind about the bangles.’

Virmati’s face clouded for a moment. She regretted the bangles. She had known that her father had given her those exquisitely crafted pieces with care and love.

‘I’ll have to say that when everybody was giving, I also had to. Our brave British soldiers need support from the Nazi menace.’

Swarna snorted. ‘It’s an imperialist war,’ she said.

‘I do not think that will be their response,’ said Virmati.

*

It wasn’t. ‘Next you will rob your father’s entire shop for the war. How is it any concern of yours? Have you seen?’ Shrill, angry tones echoed across the angan. The father disturbed and withdrawn. ‘Tell her, ji. She thinks she can dispose of what is given to her, when and where she likes. One can’t trust her with anything.’

Virmati was stung. Silently she swore she would never take another gold article from her family as long as she lived. When Indu was married, she had been covered with jewellery. But as for her, they grudged her everything. Nothing was hers, not her body, her future, not even a pair of paltry, insignificant gold bangles.

She turned towards her father. He sat there slumped in his chair in the angan, looking tired as usual. Normally her mother, so concerned about his health, tried to keep domestic worries from him, but the loss of something gold could not be regarded as a mere household matter. This was business. The children were quiet, stilled by the shouting and the anger.

So Virmati’s year at Lahore ended much as it had begun, with the displeasure of her elders gathered thick about her head. This time, though, she found it harder to accept their disapproval without question.

‘She’s become so independent‚’ she heard her mother complain to her aunt when they were sitting together preparing for the evening meal.

Virmati refused to acknowledge this. She went on picking the little nuggets of dirt from the rice, tossing it into the air without looking at the older women. Yes, she was independent. Her body had gone through knives and abortion, what could happen to her now that she could not bear?

‘Why didn’t you at least inform me?’

Virmati was not in Harish’s arms. She was instead standing stiffly by her cycle near the bushes on the road parallel to his house. Harish was standing near her, twisting her handlebars in agitation and whispering, though it was evening and a casual passer-by would have had to strain even to make out who they were.

‘How could I?’ said Virmati as normally as she could. ‘Where were you for me to tell?’

‘Oh, if only I had known! If only I had dreamt!’

‘But you were away so long. And didn’t even leave me your address.’

‘But you said you didn’t want to be disturbed during your exams. And that meant a whole month. I was determined that your wishes should be honoured.’

‘And you honoured them well,’ said Virmati with uncharacteristic irony. ‘Without even telling me!’

‘I did write to you, Viru!’

‘By then it was too late.’

‘Darling, what could I do? My mother insisted the baby’s mundan be done in the village, nobody there has seen him, you know, and I thought it was a good opportunity to go, since you had decided I should leave you alone. Now you are being unfair!’

‘Then to be away so long!’

‘It was only a month … how can you blame me for that? And then you know that I try and please them in little things, since in the large …’

‘Meantime I go through this! You once promised this would never happen!’

‘I can’t help it if something happened. I was always so careful.’

Obviously not enough, rose to Virmati’s lips, but she swallowed the words. What good would blaming do? Would it change anything? Bring back the baby? Undo that act on the charpai in the spare room of Miss Datta’s house?

A great depression settled over her. She felt more alone than ever.

‘I must go, or they will miss me‚’ she said.

The Professor pressed a letter into her hand as she left. She could feel him watching her as she slowly started to ride home. She tucked those pages of love inside the front of her kameez, and thought that now he hardly needed letters to attach her to him. She was his for life, whether he ever married her or not. Her body was marked by him, she could never look elsewhere, never entertain another choice.

In the hill state of Sirmaur lived a forward-looking queen, Pratibha. She was educated, and her mind itched for matter to engage itself on. She heard Gandhiji’s call, and cast spinning-wheels amongst the people. She laid her ear to the ground, and heard the rumble of change vibrating through the earth. Her people too must march with the times, and for girls who might find it difficult to march, a school must be provided. It was started in the palace precincts. Teachers were found among the educated locals, women who were widowed or childless; their salary, ten rupees a month. The queen’s patronage – the stick of her displeasure, the carrot of her pleasure – was often the only inducement for families to send their daughters away for such wasteful, time-consuming activities.

Five years after its inception the school had expanded enough to move outside the palace walls. A double-storeyed clinic nearby was vacated. The large lower room became the school hall, the smaller rooms on top were converted into classrooms. There was a yard in front, a spreading banyan tree in one corner, with a brick platform around it, and steep businesslike steps leading down from the path above. A heavy gate was added and a board put up, proclaiming this to be the Pratibha Kanya Vidyalaya.

Further up on the hill a cottage was built for the principal. It had two rooms with a small garden overlooking the valley below. It was sufficiently off the winding path to be totally private, and to guarantee complete solitude in the contemplation of the beauties of nature.

Getting somebody suitably qualified to fill the post of principal proved more complicated.

The Maharani was particular. ‘Find a woman with teacher’s training, and some experience‚’ she demanded. Her prime minister, whose profession included the task of being perpetually obliging, thought of all the people he knew. Among them was a fellow Samajist, Lala Diwan Chand in Amritsar. His granddaughter had gone in for teacher training. As far as he knew, the girl was not married. Some scandal about it – hence her unusual circumstances. If nothing materialized for Pratibha’s school by his next visit to Amritsar, he would make discreet enquiries.

*

The prime minister of Sirmaur State sat in the drawing-room of Lala Diwan Chand’s home, exchanging courtesies with the family as he slowly sipped his sherbet.

How does one persuade people to do things they have never done? From the inception of the school he had been doing just that, with families of students, families of teachers, and now with Virmati’s family. He looked around him. The large, long, high-ceilinged drawing-room of the bungalow at Lepel Griffin Road was not the kind of room that invited departure. Nor were the vast stretches of orchard that he could catch a glimpse of through the windows. He started.

‘It is unusual to have a daughter so highly qualified‚’ he complimented carefully. ‘BA, with a BT from Lahore. Very few of our girls are allowed to go in for higher studies. You should see the poor teachers of our school. Some fifth pass, some eighth, at the most matric pass. What can we do? You are an example for others to follow.’

‘Bhai Sahib, you know how times are changing. With the boys becoming educated, and often opting for professional careers, there is the need for girls to keep up with them. Otherwise, where is the compatibility?’ said Suraj Prakash.

Kasturi thought how disastrously educating Virmati had misfired, and said nothing.

‘Exactly. I knew Lala Diwan Chand’s family would be able to understand this‚’ said their visitor. ‘So when the Rani Sahiba asked me to recommend someone for principal, I naturally thought of your eldest daughter. Ours is a small state and we need the help of people like you to aid us on the path to progress.’

‘Bhai Sahib! We did not educate her to send her away to work. She is still so simple and inexperienced.’

‘Bhaiji‚’ said the Diwan, ‘today the young must also take part in leadership. These are difficult times. What with the war and our struggle, can we afford not to use every capable hand we have. Virmati is qualified and from an impeccable background! Can I think of anybody better? You tell me.’

‘Lahore was near, but now, so far away from home – who knows what might happen?’

‘She will be like my own daughter, and Nahan like her own home‚’ said the Diwan Sahib. ‘The Maharani is interested in fostering education for girls, and the principal of her school will have a lot of status. People will treat her like Sita.’

The Diwan Sahib repeated all the arguments he had used to persuade, in variation, to make the idea familiar and palatable. Then with murmurs about the pleasure the Maharani and he would have at meeting them in Nahan, he left.

*

Later. Kasturi and Suraj Prakash between themselves.

‘How can we let her go?’ demanded Kasturi, frightened at this further, unlooked-for development in her daughter’s educational career.

‘What is the harm? You heard Bhai Sahib‚’ replied Suraj Prakash placatingly, trusting in the word of a Samaj member.

‘She is so young.’ Kasturi had no doubt as to what her daughter should be doing. She should stay at home until she had sense enough to get married.

‘If she is not going to get married, she might as well do something.’

That was true enough. Ever since Virmati had come home from Lahore, looking wan and pale, there had been this problem. All that studying was not good for her health, but the girl was past listening to anyone. What to do with her? The topic of marriage had come up again, only to be met with violent hysteria on Virmati’s part. After the Tarsikka episode, the family were too wary to force anything against her will.

‘What kind of
kismet
is ours that our eldest daughter remain unmarried like this? After Indu, it is now Gunvati’s turn, but still that girl sits there, stubborn as a rock, never mind the disgrace or what the whole world is thinking, or what her future will be‚’ said Kasturi miserably.

‘Let her go‚’ said Suraj Prakash cleverly. ‘Here she is still too near him. We can never be sure. Such an influence he had, and may still have –’

Kasturi retorted sharply. ‘He cast an evil eye on her. With simple people such as us, he could do anything! Even with a baby son he is not settled. Such a depraved being I would not wish on my worst enemy!’

‘All the more reason to send her away, then.’

Kasturi grunted. ‘We always end up discussing that man whenever we talk about Viru. My ears have grown thick and hard hearing his name.’

*

The Diwan Sahib wanted an answer before he left Amritsar, and the question of Virmati’s future had to be discussed with all the elders of the family. Much time was spent in talking, and finally even Virmati’s opinion was sought.

She considered the matter dispassionately. Leaving her home meant leaving reproaches and her mother’s silent disapproval. Leaving discussions of Gunvati’s marriage, discussions tinged with sadness, and she the reprobate.

As for the Professor, it was difficult to meet. On the road, hurried words, the fear that someone might see, the shadow of what had happened hanging heavy and gloomy between them.

Her BT had left her restless and dissatisfied, hungry to work, and anxious to broaden her horizons. She had had a taste of freedom in Lahore, it was hard to come back to the old life when she was not the old person any more.

She told her family she would be very glad to serve the cause of the nation’s literacy.

This resolved, Suraj Prakash returned the Diwan Sahib’s visit. It was decided that Virmati would return to Nahan with him. Kailash would also go along, look things over, settle her in.

And that is how Virmati found herself in the train leaving Amritsar, her feet on her bedroll, her metal box pushed behind it, its lock faintly clinking with the motion of the train.

 

Nahan, clean and prosperous, was ruled by an enlightened royal couple. Their foundry was the biggest in Northern India, and provided plenty of jobs. It was a place where the pathways were cobbled, the drains all covered, where a mashal followed the sweeper twice a day with a water bag to wash the dirt off the streets. Where leaves were not allowed to drift.

I am firm on the tracks of my mother, and I am talking to a lawyer who assures me he knows all there is to know, because he and his have lived in Nahan since time immemorial. At the leaves I raise my eyebrows slightly.

‘Not even a leaf?’

‘Not even a leaf,’ came the categorical reply. Never mind that now the streets are filthy and grimy balloons of yellow, blue and grey plastic bags swirl around piles of garbage at every bend and turn of the city.

‘Spitting was a crime.’

‘Really?’

‘Really.’ The eyes misted over, and the voice became soft, laden with memories of a mythic time when public cleanliness existed.

‘It was never too hot. In summer, as soon as the temperature rose above thirty-two degrees, it rained; in winter the forest cover kept us warm. The water we had was real mineral water, piped straight from the springs, none of these suspect underground sources for us. You can see for yourself what a miracle our plumbing was when you consider that the water supply laid for 6,000 people is serving 35,000 people today!’

I nod vigorously and take notes of everything he says. Even now, it is clear that underneath the dirt and congestion Nahan was indeed picturesque.

The principal’s house, which I got the school chowkidar to open for me, was an abandoned little two-room cottage, the doors rotten white with damp and falling off their hinges. There is a strong, mouldy smell inside, and bat and lizard droppings dot the dirt-crusted floor. The view was of gentle, rolling hills covered in haze. ‘But from October on, when the air is clear, you can see the snow-covered peaks‚’ explained the wizened old chowkidar to me.

‘Why doesn’t anybody use this?’ I ask.

‘It is too small to house a family. Long ago someone lived here alone, but all sorts of people used to visit her at all hours. They never hired a single woman after that.’

 

Into this model of civic amenities and progressive rule came Virmati, excited about independence, still not knowing that for her love and autonomy could never co-exist.

Virmati was charmed by Nahan. She heard the sounds of the foundry floating up at all hours, and felt herself at one with the working people of the world. She stood in her tiny garden and looked across the valley, turned her head and looked towards the school of which she was headmistress, and sensed her singleness and her power. She was twenty-three and the youngest amongst her staff. Her qualifications, BA and BT from Lahore, were so impressive that the Maharani had dispensed with the usual interview prior to the appointment.

Later on, when she did see her, she felt she had made a mistake. The girl was too pretty. Aloud she complained about Virmati’s youth and single status to her prime minister.

‘I know the family‚’ he replied. ‘The girl is good.’

‘I do not wish for trouble, Mantri Sahib. It will be very bad for the school. We will take months trying to salvage what has been built so carefully.’

‘I am responsible for that‚’ replied the prime minister. ‘Meanwhile if the Rani Sahiba does not approve, we can look for someone else‚’ he added carefully, to protect himself.

‘No, let it be‚’ said the Maharani after some thought. ‘We will try her and see. But the first hint of anything, she goes.’

‘Of course‚’ said the Mantri.

*

There were about two hundred and fifty girls in the Pratibha Kanya Vidyalaya. They came from the homes of traders, shopkeepers, bankers, teachers, and the state employees of Sirmaur. Virmati found the school surprisingly easy to administer. After all, she had grown up shouldering responsibility and she discovered that those talents did equally well for larger things. She supervised the accounts, gave appointments to parents, held weekly meetings with the teachers, monthly meetings with the prime minister, and very occasional meetings with the Maharani Pratibha. In the evenings, when she was briskly walking around the hillside, she would think of what she had done in the day and feel the satisfaction of achievement.