Difficult Daughters Page 3

  ‘Leave your studies if it is going to make you so bad-tempered with your family. You are forgetting what comes first.’

  ‘Is that what I am saying? When Paro comes to the kotha, and wants to join the other children, I leave everything only to make sure she does not fall or hurt herself.’

  ‘Now you are complaining about your sister.’

  ‘I’m not! Please, Mati, remember how hard Shakuntala Pehnji studied. She did so well her teacher in Lahore asked her to stay and teach when she finished her degree. Her mother understood‚’ said Virmati, not daring to be more direct.

  ‘Now it is you who are eating my head. What good are Shaku’s degrees when she is not settled. Will they look after her when she is old?’ demanded Kasturi irritably. ‘At your age I was already expecting you, not fighting with my mother.’

  Kasturi found the fuss Virmati was making about failing unreasonable. It hardly made a difference to the real business of her life, which was getting married and looking after her own home. There was a good Samaji family making enquiries. The boy was a canal engineer and doing well. His aunt lived in Amritsar and she was getting quite persistent. She was sure Virmati’s grandfather would approve of the boy’s background.

  Virmati was over seventeen by this time. She had a long, fine face with large, widely spaced eyes, eyes with a dazed and distant look. Her nose was thin and straight, her colour pale as the inside of a banana stalk. Her lips were full and a natural red, her chin small and rounded. She was short-sighted, and didn’t notice when people looked admiringly at her.

  VI

  Meanwhile Kasturi continued sickly. The temporary respite in her ill health that the hill sojourn had brought about was soon over. Her father-in-law, Lala Diwan Chand, could see that Kasturi had not benefited as much as he had hoped, and that his son was still anxious about his wife.

  ‘We need to think of another solution,’ he said on one of his frequent visits to the Amritsar kothi. He had had a busy day. The Jewellers’ Association and the Food Grain Merchants’ Association had both had meetings. The Swami he had invited to the evening congregation of the Samaj had given an excellent discourse on the Gita, and after that there had been discussion and conversation with friends and associates. Now he was resting with a glass of milk, while his sister was serving him homemade jalebis, fragrant with saffron, crisp, hot, and sweet.

  ‘Maybe she can come and stay with me in the mill house,’ he continued, thinking out loud. ‘Let her and Viru come.’

  ‘Virmati has already missed too much school‚’ said the great-aunt, as she sat down to eat what was left. ‘And once she finishes, it will be time to get her married. Already people are asking.’

  ‘Don’t I know that?’ retorted her brother. ‘I have been approached, and when the time is right, I will pick a boy from our Samaj, educated and homely. We must be careful, because where the first one leads the others will follow.’

  ‘Marriages are in the hands of God,’ sighed his sister, turning her eyes heavenwards.

  Lala Diwan Chand gave a small smile. His standing in the community was very high, and he had brought up his family by the same strict principles that had governed a life of austerity and charity. There were no indulgences permitted in his household. No festivals were observed, not even Holi and Diwali. No fancy clothes were ever worn. Their lives were plain, simple and high-minded. Whatever his sister might say, he knew his girls would be prized. Had he allowed himself to consider such things, he would have acknowledged that the faces out of which this simplicity shone were beautiful, and that beauty had its function in attracting the right-minded towards his family. Nobody mentioned anybody’s good looks for fear of attracting the evil eye and inflating the child’s head, but the good looks were unarguably there.

  Here Lala Diwan Chand’s thoughts turned to his daughter-in-law. So far, despite the large number of children that Kasturi had produced, and the small number of rooms that his two sons and their families inhabited, there had been no question of moving. But the family vaid had made it clear that Kasturi’s listlessness, pallor and lack of appetite would continue unless she was given more fresh air. Uncongested spaces and long walks were what she needed, on a daily basis. The city with its open drains and dampness was an unhealthy place. He himself lived at the mill house in Tarsikka, and he always felt better there. Though his grandchildren and his daughter-in-law often came to visit, it was clearly not enough. He must talk to his sons. Moving such a large household would mean considerable work and expense. Then the thought of leaving the house that the family had lived in for so many years was painful.

  *

  Lajwanti had foreseen trouble of this kind years ago, with a heart that became tight and constricted in Kasturi’s presence. Ever since her young brother-in-law, Suraj Prakash, had brought his bride home, she had watched how her in-laws danced attendance on her, fussing over her health, duped by that sweet face, when really she was no better than a dog or a cat in season. No better.

  Before Kasturi’s arrival she had been the only young woman in the house, and everything had been managed peacefully. But within one year of Suraj Prakash’s marriage the first child had come, and after that there was no stopping the woman. She remembered, with a bitterness still fresh and sullen, how delighted her father-in-law had been at Kasturi’s disgusting breeding. ‘Raunaq in the house at last‚’ he exclaimed, completely ignoring the existence of her two children.

  She had tried complaining to him, ‘Baoji, the noise. From morning to night I have a headache. Somnath has been forced to go to the storeroom on the kotha to study, and as for Shaku, how is it possible for her to concentrate on her books with all their hoo-hoo, haa-haa, hee-hee?’

  ‘She should play more with her cousins‚’ commented the grandfather. ‘She is too pale.’

  ‘She is very delicate, Baoji, how can she stand it when I can’t? Poor Shaku has to walk up and down my back and across my head to relieve the pain‚’ whispered the girl’s mother, pressing her temples.

  ‘I will allow no one to be sick in my house‚’ replied the father-in-law. ‘From tomorrow the tonga will drive both of you every morning to the Company Bagh. One hour of brisk walking in the fresh air will benefit you greatly.’

  But how could Lajwanti go? If she were to leave the house every morning, who knew what mischief those children would be up to. They respected nothing, and that woman had no shame. If she wasn’t always on the alert they would slip in to pee in her angan, in her rooms, even shit in the gutter outside her kitchen. She had to be there to shout for Kasturi, carefully inspecting while the latter performed an inadequate swabbing job. They even had the nerve to wet her quilt, and though she forced Kasturi to wash the heavy thing there and then, that woman was incapable of cleanliness. She had to be vigilant not only in her own quarters, but upstairs where the latrines were, as well. Her family used to do their morning business before the sweeper came to carry the night soil away. After that, the toilets remained clean for the rest of the day. Now these children would hop across the terrace to her side and mess up the three cubicles, even the cement blocks, so that no one could decently use the place. It was because of their dirt and filth that she had had to demand a separate kitchen from her father-in-law.

  At first he hadn’t taken her seriously, but when she left the house and refused to return he realized she meant her threats. Gradually she had had to supervise the building of a wall across the angan and then across the common drawing-room in order to protect her space. As for money, that woman was such a bloodsucker, it was but inevitable that her own family would suffer.

  Only her husband had begun to see things in their proper perspective. God had helped her to achieve that.

  ‘I’ve never seen such a thing‚’ he would hear when he came home, tired from sitting in the shop all day. ‘How hard you have to work! And for whom? Those children! Ha!’ A stream of red betel juice would be spat in the gutter.

  ‘Our children, too,’ the children’s tau initiall
y mumbled. He revelled in their chatter, and frequently kept little surprises for them to discover in his pockets.

  ‘Our children! Now it is all very well, but will they ask after us in our old age!’

  ‘What is to be done? The children are here,’ said Chander Prakash.

  ‘Arre, what is here is all right, but they go on coming. Every one or two years. It is like a harvest!’

  ‘It is God’s will. How is it in our hands?’

  ‘Bap re, you are too good-natured. At least we cannot keep watching our money go into their mouths!’

  ‘How can you talk like that? It is common money, after all.’

  ‘And should be divided equally‚’ said Lajwanti.

  ‘Everyone gets a share‚’ reasoned her husband.

  ‘And their share is never ending! We are few, our needs are simple. For whom are you working so hard?’

  And this conversation with variations to suit the time and place became almost a daily feature in the elder brother’s life. What was he to do? His wife was a good woman, she kept his comforts in mind. Eventually he decided to retire. His father was puzzled.

  ‘Not work? What does that mean? We are traders, we are growing.’ Chander looked unhappy. ‘Are there problems with your brother?’ he asked.

  ‘No, no, Baoji.’

  ‘Then?’

  ‘My health‚’ said Chander.

  ‘Your health?’ The father looked amazed. ‘What’s wrong with your health?’

  Chander whimpered something about not wanting to worry his father, which just irritated the old man further.

  ‘Worry, worry! What do you mean? Now my son will decide for me what I should think, is that it?’

  ‘No, Baoji, of course not.’

  ‘I’m still working, looking after the mill in Tarsikka, coming here to the city at least twice a week, and you are talking of sitting back and doing nothing! How will that look in the eyes of the world?’ his father said, his temper rising.

  ‘Why should anyone say anything, Baoji? I only said my health was bad. It has been going on for some time now. Maybe a little rest.’ By now Chander believed that rest was what he needed, and what he deserved. His responsibilities were not many. He only had one daughter and his son wanted to break away from the Amritsar Lala tradition and enter law or public administration. If his father gave him a monthly pension out of his portion of the family income, he could manage on his own and regain his strength.

  Lala Diwan Chand was vehemently opposed to any kind of division in the family. As long as he was alive, everybody would be provided for. But with each new child Kasturi produced, the murmurs of discontent became louder and more persistent.

  Finally, worn out by his elder daughter-in-law’s increasing quarrelsomeness in the home, and gently supported by his widowed sister, Lala Diwan Chand agreed to pension off his older son with a substantial monthly stipend. His property he refused to divide. He had worked all his life to make it grow, and he was not about to halve and quarter it now. What he thought was a final solution, however, turned out to be the beginning of a long chain of partitions.

  *

  The family owned large orchards on the outskirts of Amritsar, on Lepel Griffin Road. It was eventually decided to add to the three rooms already there in order to accommodate the two brothers. Suraj Prakash was pleased at the prospect of shifting. He had been worried about Kasturi, and was relieved to have his father share that concern. Furthermore, his older children were approaching marriageable age, and the openness of the orchard house would make wedding arrangements more convenient. Once the boys married, there would also be ample space to build bedrooms for the new couples.

  Lajwanti saw this as a golden opportunity to detach herself, once and for all, from her sister-in-law. Why should the shift to Lepel Griffin Road not be extended to include separate living quarters as well? When Somnath married, there would be plenty of space for him and his wife in a new house, whereas if both the brothers still lived together, there would be no room for anybody. She started to work on her husband.

  *

  The next week as Lala Diwan Chand sat with his sons in the small angan of the city house it was obvious that Chander was agitated. Normally quiet and withdrawn, he insisted on speaking before his father had even finished his milk.

  ‘Baoji, the house. We have to think of Shakuntala and Somnath too. Another one should be built side by side. When they get married …’

  ‘What is this?’ Lala Diwan Chand began to grow angry. ‘Let them first get married. Then you will see what I shall do for them. Further separation of the family is impossible! Your brother’s children are like your own. One blood flows in them.’

  Next weekend, the same agitation, the same hurry to get the words out. ‘Baoji, they are eleven, and we are two. How will everything be equal-equal? With two houses …’ He hesitated and stopped.

  ‘Beta, since when have everybody’s needs not been met equally?’ demanded his father. ‘We do not consider what we can get, but what we need. Have you or your family ever wanted for anything under my roof?’ Lala Diwan Chand raised his voice so that the message would reach any ears that were listening.

  ‘But after you, Baoji …’ persisted Chander Prakash.

  Suraj Prakash gasped. His brother was indeed far gone, if he could talk of his father’s dying in such an inauspicious manner, and to his face. Lala Diwan Chand’s face took on a rigid look as Chander continued, ‘It may not be always so. Why create quarrels among our children’s children?’

  ‘We are teaching them to do that now,’ said Lala Diwan Chand firmly, his eyebrows bristling. ‘If we cannot live together, how can we expect the younger ones to do so?’ Turning to his younger son, he stated, ‘I cannot countenance two different units.’

  Suraj Prakash looked mute and non-questioning, Lala Diwan Chand looked angry, while Chander Prakash looked stubborn and childish.

  Every weekend Lala Diwan Chand was faced by his elder son’s persistent harping on this theme. This house thing was beginning to be a nightmare. And yet the pressures to move were great. The needs of his daughter-in-law and his grandchildren demanded it. His fury grew. I have made them, fed them, clothed them, and now they behave like this, he thought. At such a time with the drain on expenses and manpower, to be forced into further construction, further breakup! He was deeply mortified at being manœuvred into this position. He thought of asking his sister to talk to Lajwanti, but dismissed it. Lajwanti was clever, his sister was simple. In the end it would make little difference.

  Ultimately he gave in. He could not bear to see Chander work himself into such agonized states. If separation was inevitable, better to do it while he was alive than to have his sons bicker over his property after he was dead. Bitterly he said to his son, ‘You realize your house will only be built after the first one has been completed.’ And Lajwanti, who had been listening as usual, knew she had won.

  *

  The next six months saw construction work being carried out at Lepel Griffin Road. The existing row of three rooms in the orchard had served as a place to eat and have the children nap in when the family had come on day excursions. Now an angan, kitchen, milk-room, dining-room and storerooms were being added behind the main section. The stables, garage and cowshed were connected to the main building by a long, dark passageway. In one corner of the angan, a well was dug with a hand-pump to enclose into a dark and slippery bathing place, lit by a lantern. At a hygienic distance from the house were three sheds with commodes beneath cement platforms.

  Every night Suraj Prakash would inform Kasturi about progress on the building. ‘The children won’t be able to get into mischief there‚’ she frequently remarked after he finished. Expenditures were always more acceptable if children were involved.

  Lajwanti overheard and burned. How like Kasturi to take advantage of her situation even in this. She herself had never used her children as means to any end. But her day would come, and then, after almost twenty years, she would be able
to draw her breath in peace.

  *

  Knowing that the pattern of their communal life was going to change soon, the three women took care to preserve the norms of peace that had existed in the early days of their joint-family household. The great-aunt was the saddest to leave the old house. She had been living with her brother since he had taken her away from her in-laws’ house after she had become a widow at the age of fourteen. He had educated her, entrusted her with his charitable works, and introduced her to the concepts of Dayanand Saraswatiji. One of the rooms in the new house was to be kept exclusively for her. Lala Diwan Chand’s only stipulation to his younger son had been that his sister stay with him, where she would receive the dignity and respect that was her due.

  Suraj Prakash, Kasturi, their eleven children, and the great-aunt shifted within a year of the doctor’s recommendation. Lajwanti refused to go with them. She didn’t want to deprive her sister-in-law of any space, she would wait till her own humble dwelling was ready. Of course, she missed her nieces and nephews terribly, but Fate was always so cruel to her, what could she do? That is why she took the tonga out every evening and went over to visit them in Lepel Griffin Road. Before leaving, she would take a tour of the house going up next door. She questioned the workmen extensively, and complained about everything to Suraj Prakash. It was just to help him, she said. She knew how busy he was, how little time he had, and how unfortunate it was that her own husband’s ill health did not allow him to contribute more. Her helpfulness grew so great that Suraj Prakash wrote to Somnath in Lahore to take a more active hand in the building. What with running the business, looking after the construction, and trying to meet Lajwanti’s expectations, he began to feel that some of the responsibility should go to the eldest male of the next generation. He was tired and could do no more.