Sari Caste Read online

  Eventually I decided they were spoilt rich children, compared to me anyway, and I was their ayah. I began taking charge by mothering them and indulging their whims no matter how much I detested them. I became bold enough to know when I could speak roughly to them and found they liked that. A number of them began to demand they see only me. Mona thought she kept it from me, that she forced them to pay a lot more than usual for this privilege but those men were not modest. They made sure I knew how much I cost them and what they expected in return. Hopefully I had found a way to make myself necessary and important enough for Mona and Pramath to need me, which gave me some security, though I was equally careful to keep that from Mona. With the other women, I lived isolated from the rest of the world, except for my precious trips to the market. Before one such trip Mona came to see me.

  "Manasa, collect from Biswajit the wedding sari he promised me. I won't pay too much for it. Beat his price down."

  "Someone is getting married?" I stared at her in amazement. A wedding here among unworthy women like us? Who would want that? "Has one of our clients been widowed?"

  "Sati." She handed me far less money than I needed, for she knew I would manage. A self-satisfied grin set across her face as she walked away. Mona's indifference to revealing or elaborating on anything she said, she considered her right.

  Sati was nine years old. She was to marry but remain with us until her first period made it possible for her to take up her responsibilities as a wife. It made sense. After all, as a child she could not to be classed a prostitute. I had not thought about the children's future. Here was Sati only nine living in a brothel yet able to accomplish a respectable future! I was twenty-one and still without any hope of a husband. I admit I was resentful. It was so unfair. I had been made to work extra to help with Kajal's dowry and now I was expected to bargain for this child's wedding sari. And what about my Lipika?

  I made the children stay behind that day. I didn't want them with me, even if it meant two trips to the market to carry back all we needed. I hired myself a rickshaw to get there. I was furious. If this left me without enough money I would be unable to buy the sari. Even so I decided to leave the sari until I had got everything else. God was so unfair. He was always permitting better opportunities to pass to younger girls.

  I moved slowly and idly from one stall to the other not seeing anything clearly. The beautiful colours and aromas wasted on me as I wandered about like drifting smoke lost amid the traffic fumes.

  "Manasa! My fruit and vegetables are not good enough for you to at least stop and look at them!" A woman's fat cheery face beamed at me. It was Bharati. She stood baring my way with her arms akimbo on her wide hips waiting for some kind of explanation. We always chatted and she often handed me some fruit to eat as a way of stopping me to ensure a chat. I liked her outspoken friendly way, but I also knew she loved to draw herself into a circle of gossips, where she could mark herself out as an important source of information and opinions. She was someone to handle carefully.

  "I was daydreaming"

  "Hm! You haven't brought the children today, either. My back's very bad. Now who'll sweep for me? I always let you have goods much reduced, you know."

  I felt irritated with her but had begun to worry a little about money too. "I will sweep for you today but I know someone who would do it every day, as well as any other jobs you need." I took the broom and began to tidy up. She raised an inquisitive eyebrow.

  "That costs. You know I have little to spare, even for myself."

  "You deserve to have some help Bharati. Someone to fetch and carry and keep your beautiful vegetables fresh, so that you will sell them quicker. The hotels would take an interest in you. You could become very wealthy."

  "There would be more work if I sold more but I would have to trust others to help me. No, in the end I'd be worse off."

  "Just think, a husband, wife, and children, all of the same family. They are a good family, reliable. You would have the loyalty and devotion you deserve. Kalidas could run the stall for you sometimes so that you could sleep when your legs hurt. They need only a little money for food. They're honest and trustworthy. I have known them for a long, long time."

  "Huh! Then, when I make more money, he will become dissatisfied. He'll take my stall from me and what could I do against a whole family? I'll lose everything. No. No. I'm better as I am."

  "You need not employ the whole family. Just one or two of them sometimes, if you prefer."

  "This family are your friends?"

  "Very good friends."

  "Hm, people in need are always good friends."

  I decided not to say any more for the moment. She needed me to know she never trusted anyone. She must have the upper hand if she decided to employ them. I knew she was self-centred but no matter how demanding she became, at least they would eat every day. How like Mona she was! I had not noticed that before.

  CHAPTER TEN

  As I continued to sweep, my mind lost in thoughts of how wonderful it would be to have Sharmila nearby, I heard Bharati's voice boom out, "You can have these oranges only. It'll save me throwing them out but don't make a nuisance of yourself."

  Beggars pestering her, no doubt. Then she said. "You must earn them though. Take that broom from Manasa. She's sweeping over there. She has other work to do." Curious, I glanced up. A dirty scrawny woman was staring at me. I stared back in horror. Those doleful eyes were sunk in a thin anxious face, like so many hungry faces on the streets of Calcutta. Yet this one had something familiar about its small neat features. I could not tell her age.

  "Give me that broom." snapped the young woman pushing me aside.

  "Kajal? Kajal!"

  She turned away without a word and began sweeping.

  "But how can you be here?"

  "You can see that I am here. That's all." She did not turn round to look at me but continued to sweep the soggy ground.

  "Who is this, Manasa?" Bharati wanted to know.

  "I thought I knew her but I am mistaken." I hurriedly bought a few vegetables; told her I would bring the children the next day, and walked away confused. I began to doubt myself. If it had been Kajal, why did she not acknowledge me properly? That didn't matter. It was her. Even though her shrunken frame shocked me, I could not have mistaken her voice. She looked desolate. She was surely furious with me for what had happened with Patap. She hated me. Why was she here in Calcutta? To show me she had disowned me?

  It didn't make sense. I decided to watch and wait for an opportunity to speak to her. Farther down the row of stalls I stopped by some children who played in the gutter. From there, I was able to watch Kajal without any notice being taken of me. Finally, as she shuffled past I gently laid my hand on her arm. "Kajal. It is me, Manasa, your sister. You must not turn away from me. What has happened to you?"

  She looked round at me calmly. "You took Patap's love and his baby, and left me with nothing."

  As if in the grip of a seizure I froze. We stood in silence face to face with the awful reality of our lives. I wanted to deny it but it was too late for that to work. Her suffering paraded before me wounded more than any beating she could have inflicted. I took a deep breath, "Who told you where to find me? Who told you I have Patap's baby?"

  "Mummy told me you were here. You wouldn't leave all alone unless you had to. I made her tell me all."

  "And father?"

  She looked at the ground and said nothing.

  "Patap doesn't want you or your child. Why did you do this wicked thing to us?" Her eyes blazed. She curled her hands into fists pointing upwards but drawing herself in hard, moaned as I'd seen people do when a loved one dies. I clutched her arm to steady her. She pulled free. Her other hand slammed into my cheek catching my left ear. I staggered back pressing my hand against the ringing in my ear.

  "I am very, very sorry, Kajal. He had said he would marry me long before your wedding arrangements were begun. I have hurt you but I truly had not intended to. I was too upset to explain
before I had to leave and anyway I hoped you would never have to know about it. Go back to Patap. I will never return to cause you to remember my terrible mistake."

  "My marriage was cancelled. Not enough dowry."

  I was lost for a reply since that was also my fault. Without my extra work for her dowry, my father had been unable to fulfil the demands of Patap's family. Had Patap's assurance that his family would not demand a dowry been a deliberate lie or, had all his betrayals been the result of selfish youthful blunderings? I would never know and it made no difference to the outcome. I could feel the tears pricking my eyes and longing to fall but I was afraid she might think they were only for me.

  "I must follow in my sister's footsteps," she said coldly.

  "Go back home. That would be the best thing for you. This is a terrible place."

  "Too late. Like my sister I gave birth to Patap's child. A son."

  "A Son?" My eyes and ears opened wide to force my mind to digest this news. Kajal had given birth to Patap's son! "Then you must go back quickly. Quickly, they will forgive you. Go back right away. Even father will be glad to have you. Your son needs you too. Patap will have to marry you now."

  "No I can't go back. Our son died." She paused as unmoved as wood. "There is nothing left for me there." Her words, like rocks thrown into a well, sunk into my heart. Though I had not meant to, I had spoilt everything for her. I had been so upset for myself I had not considered how terrible life might turn out for her, once I had left. She told me that father had been delighted to have a boy in the family, even though his grandson had been born before the wedding but the child had died quite suddenly, only a few days old. He had not yet been given a name. Once the child had died, Patap's family had begun demanding more dowry. When it was not forthcoming they had cancelled the wedding leaving Kajal distraught. She left home and spent weeks roaming aimlessly. I didn't know how to speak to her, what to say. I had received such a shock but there was so little time to think what to do. I remembered the wedding sari and asked her to collect it with me. She didn't question me about myself but trailed along passively.

  "I have to return home with all the shopping, Kajal." I was struggling with the dilemma of how to ask her back to the brothel. I could not leave her all alone but how would my offer lessen her misery or make reparation to the ravages in her life, I had been the cause of? Alone I knew she would not survive much longer.

  "You live with people here. You have a home?"

  "Yes. Will you come home with me?"

  "Do you want me in your home, Manasa?"

  My heart melted at her simple request. "It is not a usual home but I think you could stay if you agreed to work." She did not demand an explanation, as she would once have done. She looked even more desperate than I had been when I first arrived in the city.

  "A brothel." Two quiet words: this was all her big sister had to give her. Even less than before I had taken her husband's affection. I could not look at her.

  "You will teach me."

  I felt very, very sick. "I will take the best care I can of you, Kajal."

  "Yes."

  There was not time to be gentle or subtle. I wanted to be sure, this time she knew what would happen to her. At least she would be able to trust me that much. "Kajal, It is better than starving and you will have somewhere to stay with other women like us. You understand though it will mean you must give your body to men and they pay for using it."

  "I have no need of my body. No one will ever want to marry me. They might as well use it."

  I eased her along supporting her elbow as if she were a frail, old aunty. I was, in spite of everything, glad to be with her again but poor mummy was all alone with father and her in-laws. How could she cope? The best I could hope for was, that now all his cumbersome daughters had left, father's rage would lessen and he would be kinder to her. But I doubted it. He would be more likely to grow old and bitter. What would they tell Shreela and Pratibha? Ironically, we were their lost sisters now.

  "Hurry a little." I quickened my step. I was anxious about being late but I did not want to make Kajal nervous. Mona was especially unkind to those she knew were afraid of her.

  There was much to carry between us. I wondered how I would have managed on my own. I decided not attempt the shopping, again, without the children. Kajal looked as bent and dishevelled as a gnarled banyan. A short distance from the brothel I made her stand straight and gathered all her hair neatly together into a long plait for her.

  "Kajal, I think it would be best if we don't tell anyone you are my sister."

  "You don't want me to be your sister?" Her eyes were hooded with pain.

  "I don't intend to live this way all my life, do you?" Slowly she shook her head still puzzled, her eyes fixed on me. "Then, I think we have some advantage by not telling them about us. You are a woman I have met and you need work. We must keep our eyes and ears open to find some way to plan for our future. No one must get the smallest chance to stop us."

  Kajal was obviously too tired to care much about the future. Besides, what could two women and one child manage alone with no means of taking care of themselves?

  "You must not worry. Let me see ... Say that your family died one after the other from hunger, except your husband, who didn't return one day, and whom you have never seen since then."

  "That's horrible! Manasa! They'll despise me."

  "We have to be clever and not care what they think of us. While they believe they have control over us, we will be useful to them and they will shelter us. Now we are together again I feel so much stronger, Kajal. This is the place. Come in with me and meet Mona."

  Mona, who was busy with Sati's forthcoming wedding, neither scolded me for my lateness nor seemed bothered about Kajal. She simply accepted her as if she had always been there. These motherly glimpses of her now and then confused and shamed me. Why was I unable to like or respect her?

  An extra charpoy was squeezed into the room and Kajal became part of my life again. It was not difficult to keep up the deception we had agreed on. She was not the sister I had grown up with. She was much older, subdued and dependent. Everyone was excluded from the inner world she inhabited although she occasionally relaxed, a little, with me. She clung to me with haunted eyes and an invisible thread of need. At least we were together.

  Because we were able to convince Mona that Kajal had not been able to have any children she was not sterilised. I was glad and hoped one day Kajal would be able to marry and have a family. There was little hope of that now but it was too depressing to think otherwise.

  At first, Kajal tried not to notice Lipika. She held her awkwardly sometimes but fast returned her to me as if she thought the little one would ignite. However, I understood. Patap's child brought back much hurt. A constant reminder of what might have been for her. As Lipika grew and began to speak, her sweet and trusting nature became irresistible. She loved Kajal with childish innocence. In spite of everything the three of us began to draw closer. I hoped that gradually, Lipika's trusting innocence might help Kajal to forget the past and regain some peace of mind.

  Ch'en took to Kajal like a disciple. It was as if he sensed they shared a chasm of emptiness. Kajal unable to look for or receive comfort and Ch'en desperate for any warmth or close contact. He hung on to her sari and followed her whenever he could. At first she ignored him but his persistence antagonised her. She was selfish and wanted to be left alone. She snapped at him to let go. If he became too persistent he received a sharp slap. Ch'en was wise in his childish way. At least he was getting some attention for his trouble. Somehow he knew she needed him as much as he needed her.

  For the whole of the first month, after Kajal's arrival, Ch'en slept in the passage outside our room clinging to one of Kajal's plastic flip-flops, like a pet monkey. Nothing would move him. He came back when shooed away and we would always find him at his post in the morning. Gradually, he grew bolder. We would find him either curled up with Lipika or underneath Kajal's bed stretched
out on the floor.

  "Go away!" Kajal screamed at him every morning. Little Ch'en's face puckered and wobbled as the tears slowly fell. He simply stared at her with incomprehension until she shooed him away again. Then a little later he would return with a tray of food for her. She usually snatched it roughly from him and dumped it on her bed where it would stay untouched.

  "Kajal, you are being cruel. He has lost his family too."

  "I don't want to get close to him nor any other male. I hate them!"

  "He is a child."

  "I don't want a child. I don't need him! Leave me alone."

  "That is foolish. He needs you too. Show him some mercy. He is just a baby."