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For now, his only comment was, ‘Will the shopkeeper attend to her school work?’

‘You know he doesn’t do things like that. Besides, he doesn’t have the time.’

‘I suppose I have nothing but time. What about the case?’

‘Which we are winning, thanks to you,’ said Rupa hastily. ‘Didn’t you say he hardly ever comes to the hearings now? It’s been nineteen years, how long can one fight?’

Prem Nath brooded over the injustice in the world. ‘They could have waited till her eleventh class exams were over,’ he said at last. ‘It is an important year.’

Rupa had heard ‘It is an important year’ from Class I on. First the basics had to be got right, then confidence had to be built, then maintained, then prowess proved beyond a doubt. Then in middle and high school this cycle was repeated all over again.

Well, it was in Nisha’s stars, rather than Raju’s, to benefit from her husband’s attention and perform well in exams. God knew what use an education would be to a girl from a trader family, one who was only going to marry and produce children.

After eleven years Nisha returned home to assume her place as daughter of the house, to learn the difference between weekend visits and full-time stay. Now there was less interest in her school, no pampering, and long hours expected in the kitchen.

Her mother discovered to her horror that, at sixteen, Nisha’s cooking skills were negligible. Nisha discovered to her horror that her mother’s idea of a daughter was one who helped her every time anybody ate.

‘What can Rupa have been thinking of? I assumed she was teaching you everything she knew,’ Sona grumbled. ‘You take half an hour to peel ten potatoes. How will you manage in your future home?’

‘Masi said there is always time to learn cooking, but only one time to study.’ Nisha tried defending herself, her aunt, and her upbringing.

‘That Masi of yours has ruined your head. What does a girl need with studying? Cooking will be useful her entire life.’

‘Masarji agreed.’

‘Of course he will agree. Works as a clerk in some government office, and uses his wife’s money to pay his lawyers. Now quickly cut this ginger. Fine-fine. Like matchsticks.’

Ginger is difficult to cut. To hand a novice a knobbly piece and expect matchsticks is hardly fair. Badly scraped pencils rather than finely pared matchsticks fell from Nisha’s knife.

The mother’s anger rose. What was wrong with her sister, she couldn’t understand. No children had produced an excess of love, and a girl who was good for nothing. ‘Spoilt you, do you hear? Useless – even ginger I have to do myself. Now quickly cut up cucumbers for the salad – here, do it like this, rub the top, take out the bitter, then wash, then peel, then slice, do the same with onions, tomatoes, and green chillies.’

Nisha said nothing. Black feelings raged in her heart. Her aunt had always said when she offered to assist, ‘What is there to help with when there are just three people?’ (The father-in-law had died along the way.) ‘Go, sit with your uncle.’

And her uncle? If her studies were really important, why had he allowed her to be sent back to her parents’ place? Here nobody looked through her school diary, notebooks, or test papers. They didn’t care if she failed, they only cared if she cut ginger. There was Asha always in the kitchen with her mother, laughing behind her back, cutting ginger as fine as could be.

She knew it mattered if food was not cooked properly. Her father’s sense of taste was very acute. Her mother watched anxiously as he took the first bite of any dish. He was capable of frowning, saying too much asafoetida, too little turmeric, the cumin has been over-roasted. Sona would look unhappy, she hated criticism of any kind.

Her aunt and uncle visited every weekend, but Nisha said little to them. Prem Nath tried to engage her: ‘How is school? The exams are coming.’

Her mother replied instead, ‘After all these years of studying, the girl has learned enough to do an MA.’

Rupa knew how much her husband would make of this remark once they were home.

‘Her teachers think highly of her,’ said Prem Nath mildly.

‘She doesn’t even know how to cook,’ flashed Sona angrily.

Rupa looked uneasy. ‘She is a smart girl, Didi. We have cooked all our lives, where has it got us?’

‘Roop, I would never have imagined you, of all people, filling the girl’s head with rubbish. This is the life of a woman: to look after her home, her husband, her children, and give them food she has cooked with her own hands. Next you will be saying she should hire a servant.’

‘I didn’t mean that,’ explained Rupa quickly.

‘She is useless, absolutely useless!’ Sona raised her voice. Really, her sister had no sense. She had made the supreme sacrifice of sending away her own blood for eleven years, and the woman returned a sub-standard female.

Asha sat next to them, silent and expectant. Maybe they were going to fight over Nisha. Of course Sona Maji was right. Every woman had to know how to cook. Nisha was too big for her boots; her husband had maintained this all along. She was a spoilt princess, and poor Sona Maji had to teach her everything from A to Z. Bumbling, awkward, as though her looks could make up for ineptness in the kitchen. When it came to marriage that was what counted.

‘Bhenji,’ interrupted Prem Nath, ‘you knew how we were bringing her up. If you did not like what we were doing, I wish you had let us know earlier.’

Sona simmered down. ‘It’s all right, Bhai Sahib. You did your best, I know.’

Rupa guided the talk into other channels.

On their way home the couple didn’t say much. ‘What has happened to Sonu Didi?’ Rupa tried once, but Prem Nath made a face and refused to answer. She knew he was suffering seeing Nisha so withdrawn. She wished she had resisted more when her sister took her, but she had not felt the right. Despair seemed the only option as she sat behind her husband on his scooter, her arm around a thin waist that reflected his ulcer.

‘Maybe I should persuade her to send Nisha back,’ tried Rupa over dinner.

‘And listen to how we have not taught her cooking. No, thank you.’

‘I can ask them to leave her with us till she finishes her schooling. She needs your help.’

‘That’s for her parents to realise.’

‘That old woman must be troubling Didi. All the time complaining about her health, finding fault.’

‘And Nisha is supposed to handle what your sister can’t? Please, let us have no more to do with them.’

He was not serious. It was just his way. How can you have nothing to do with a sister’s family? Might as well emigrate to America. But he had a point. How was Nisha going to handle all that? Perhaps they had been too protective.

Nisha was actually handling nothing.

Certainly not her grandmother. At night she was forced to sleep next to her, inhaling the all-pervasive urine smell; in the day her emphatic farts and loud, lingering burps repulsed her. Her mother persistently pointed out her presence to the old woman, she has come home to be with you, neglecting her studies, leaving her aunt and uncle, they miss her so so much, but still she is here.

The old woman, rheumy-eyed, thick-spectacled, slack-jawed, would pat Nisha on the head with trembling hands. ‘Live for ever, bloom, be fruitful, have sons and grandsons,’ she quavered, before turning her attention to her beads and the miseries of this existence.

‘Your father thinks she needs to be cajoled back to life,’ muttered Sona to her daughter. ‘Now you are here, he must realise how hopeless that is.’

From time to time Nisha fantasised about returning to her aunt’s place. They repeatedly told her this was where she was needed, this was her home, but it didn’t feel comfortable. The moment she opened her books, she missed her uncle, when she sat down to eat she missed her aunt’s food, when she slept she missed the quietness, when she came home from school she missed the fuss, when she worked she missed the encouragement. Her hands, altered from spotless white to nicked and burnt, reflected the change in her situation. Worst of all, no one imagined there was any lack in her life that needed to be filled.

Along with attention to her culinary skills, her mother took special care to include her daughter in all her pujas. Had she done them with her aunt? Nisha always answered yes. She was tired of her mother asking her whether she had done this or that with her aunt. It led to endless fulmination, complaint, and comparisons between her present self and some ideal daughter.

Sona was making up for negligent upbringing. Nisha needed to be grounded in the tradition that would make her a wife worth having. The art of service and domesticity should shine in her daughter so brightly that she would overcome her negative karma to be a beacon in her married home.

In the month of jesht, in the middle of summer, under a banyan tree – that is, a branch of a banyan tree stuck into a pot by Sona – the women of the family gather for puja. It is hot, the stand fan a few feet away moves the air about indifferently, the branch of the banyan tree wilts and will die in a few hours.

The gods are first bathed, fed, and prayed to. Sona, as oldest daughter-in-law, is the one who performs these rituals. Asha, Sushila, and Nisha sit around her. The grandmother watches avidly from the veranda bed.

Now for the story. Listen and like Savitri be a beacon in your married home, starts Sona, reading from the book of legends.

The Vat Savitri Katha

There was a king, Ashupati, whose childless life was bleak and sorrowful. Fervently he prayed, meticulously he fasted. A son, he implored the Devi Savitri.

The Devi appeared. ‘A son is not in your fate,’ she said. ‘But your coming daughter will be the salvation of your family, as well as the family she marries into. You will name her after me.’

In course of time this child was born. Her eyes were long and large like shut lotuses, her skin was gold.

Savitri grew like the moon in the night sky. Words cannot describe her; it is enough to talk of her father’s fear. Where would he find a bridegroom worthy of this girl?

When she attained marriageable age, he said, ‘Child, people are too intimidated to ask for your hand in marriage. Go forth and find a husband.’

He sent her with beautiful clothes, jewels, and his trusted ministers into the world, where somewhere there was a husband waiting for her.

Meanwhile the sage, Narad Muni, passed by. The king greeted him reverently. Narad Muni said, ‘Oh king, you have a daughter as yet unmarried. You are not doing your duty.’

Said the king, ‘As there was no one to equal her, I have sent her to choose her own husband.’

They waited. The daughter returned.

‘Whom have you chosen?’

‘Satyavan, who lives in the jungle.’

Narad Muni: ‘Oh king, what has your daughter done? Satyavan is truthful, handsome, and full of virtues, but one year from now he will be dead.’

Ashupati said, ‘She will have to choose another.’

Savitri objected, ‘In my mind I already consider Satyavan my husband, for better or worse. How can I now change because he will only live a year? If such is the case, I wish in fact to be married quickly.’
Seeing Savitri’s determination, the king, armed with costly gifts, set out for the jungle with his daughter. There under a tree he found the blind Dyumatsen. Touching his feet, he said, ‘I wish to give my daughter, Savitri, in marriage to your son, Satyavan.’

Dyumatsen demurred. ‘We live in the jungle. We have nothing to offer a princess who has been brought up in the lap of luxury.’

Ashupati insisted. ‘She considers Satyavan her husband. They have to get married.’

The two were married, and Ashupati returned to his palace.

Savitri counted each day left of Satyavan’s life, and trembled.

She focused on purifying her entire being through prayer and fasts. Once a month she dedicated herself to the Devi Savitri.

Three days before the year was up, she started praying. On the morning of the third day, she said to her husband, ‘Do not go to the jungle.’

‘I have to bring back wood, fruits, and berries.’

‘Then take me with you.’

Satyavan, good son as well as husband, said, ‘I am not my own master. Ask my parents.’

Savitri went to her father-in-law and, touching his feet, asked permission to accompany Satyavan to the forest.

‘Beti,’ said Dyumatsen, ‘you have been fasting. You are weak. Go some other time.’

‘I will not eat until nightfall and I am very anxious to go with my husband today.’

Savitri could not ask and be refused. She was given permission.

Savitri and Satyavan went to the forest. Savitri sat under a tree while Satyavan cut wood. As he was binding the pieces together, he suddenly said, ‘Oh beautiful one, let me lie on your lap. My head is paining as though pricked by a thousand needles.’

Savitri went cold. She knew his time had come. She looked up and through her inner strength saw Yamraj, Lord of the Underworld, standing before her.

‘I have come to take your husband, Savitri,’ he said. ‘Let him go.’

‘I thought Yamraj would have many messengers to do his work,’ managed Savitri. ‘How is it the Lord himself has come?’

‘Satyavan is no ordinary person,’ replied Yamraj. ‘That is why I am here to take him myself.’ With his finger he drew out Satyavan’s soul. Savitri looked down and saw her husband’s body lifeless in her lap.

Yamraj left and, gently placing her husband’s head on a grassy knoll, Savitri got up to follow. They travelled many miles. Finally Yamraj said, ‘Because you are so pure you have been able to come such a long way with me, but now you must go back.’

Savitri said, ‘Which way is long when I am with my husband?’

Yamraj: ‘Besides Satyavan’s life, ask me for any favour.’

Savitri: ‘My father-in-law is blind. Grant him his eyesight, strength, vigour, and a hundred sons.’

‘Granted. Now go.’

But Savitri kept following him.

Yamraj: ‘Now what do you want? With the exception of Satyavan’s life, ask me anything.’

Savitri: ‘Give my father-in-law’s kingdom back to him, and make sure that he leads a pure, dutiful, religious life.’

Yamraj: ‘Granted.’