Tikkipala

Sara Banerji

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

A Note on the Author

Sangita, Ranee of Bidwar, stood at the edge of the Parwal palace garden holding her little boy by the hand.

She looked up at the mountain peak and realised she was happy again.

Anwar's hand felt soft and warm against her own and the tiny wiggling of his fingers sent a soft stir of pleasure into Sangita's heart. She had got him back. She could hardly believe it, for there had been a time when she had feared she might never be allowed to see her son again. Even now the thought sent a little chill of fear into her heart, making her squeeze his hand tighter.

‘Breathe deeply, darling,' she told the little boy. ‘Like this.' She opened her mouth and took in gulps of air, as though it was something to drink. As though air could quench thirst. As though breathing the cool wind could blow away two years of suffering. ‘There. What can you smell?'

‘Papa said I've always got to breathe through my nose.'

‘But Mama is back and she knows things too,' said Sangita. She tried to smile but her lips felt stiff. ‘Go on. Try it. What can you smell?'

‘Whiskers,' said Anwar.

‘Don't be silly,' laughed Sangita. ‘Tell me really.'

‘Tiger whiskers,' persisted the little boy. ‘Papa said there were tigers up there.'

She sighed.

Above them the great rock bulged out like a too clever forehead, too clever for anything to grow upon, too smooth for anyone to climb.

‘Can you see anything up there?'

‘I can see tiny little trees,' said the child.

‘They are enormous really. They just look little because they are so far away.'

‘Papa said…'

‘Don't keep talking about Papa all the time.'

Anwar started to try to pull his hand away.

Sangita held on and squeezed her eyes to keep the tears in. Swiftly, as though to divert the direction of the child's thoughts she asked, ‘Can you see animals up there, even though it's so far away?' Then, as he began to speak, she added swiftly, ‘Not tigers, Anwar. Don't talk about tigers. I want to know what you really see.'

Anwar squinted into the dazzle of distant shade and light. ‘Well, there's some people sitting on top of the trees.'

‘No darling,' she told him gently. ‘There are no people living up there. It might be the only place in earth which is so high and difficult to get to, that people can't reach it.'

‘I can see them' said Anwar. ‘And Pap…' He stopped himself quickly.

‘That's monkeys,' said Sangita. ‘Huge monkeys live up there.'

‘They've got hats on,' said Anwar.

‘You're being silly.'

‘I'm not. They really do have hats on. Can I have a monkey, Mama?'

She couldn't stop herself constantly looking at him, as though each time she felt unable to believe what she had seen the last time. He had changed so much. When she had last seen him, he had been barely able to walk or talk and now he had become a grave little boy, dignified and slightly remote. She wondered if the long gap had permanently spoiled their relationship.

She wanted to ask him, ‘Do you love me?' but did not dare. Instead she gently stroked the soft skin of his wrist with her finger, revelled in the furry feel of his skin and hoped he would not try to pull his hand away again. She had got him back. That was all that mattered. The past was behind them.

When her husband, the Raja of Bidwar, sent her home to her parents two years before, she has asked him, ‘For how long?' and tried to keep herself from crying.

‘Until I have made up my mind what to do.'

She wanted to throw herself at his feet, to weep, to plead, to swear that that nothing like it would ever happen again, to implore him to forgive her, but she knew from the chill of his expression that she would be humiliating herself for nothing, and instead just asked, ‘How long will you take to make up your mind?'

‘I don't know. Give me time to think about it. When I am ready I will let you know.'

She had entered her parent's home a disgraced woman.

Her parents had been delighted and proud when she became the Raja's bride three years before and now they could not bear to look at her. During meals she sat hunched and ashamed at their table, while they ate in horrified silence. Several times during those awful months that lingered on into years, Sangita tried to explain, but her parent's dismay was so great, they would not listen. Quickly they would change the subject and when Sangita tried to force her father to hear her, he said, ‘Because of your behaviour, your life is ruined and you have only yourself to blame. Now please do not mention the matter to me anymore, for even to hear you speak of it brings a pain into my heart.' He suffered from a heart condition and the family always had to be careful not to do anything to upset him.

After the Raja returned Sangita to him, he lay for two whole days in bed in a darkened room, with the doctor administering to him every hour and the people of the house talking in whispers so as not to make a noise that might startle him and tilt him into death.

‘Walk without shoes on,' Sangita's mother ordered. ‘For if your soles make the smallest clattering you will not only be guilty of betraying your husband, but you will have killed your father also.' Her mother's voice, always deep, took on a new funereal depth, her eyes became hollow and dark ringed and her shoulders bowed after Sangita's disgraced return.

Sangita followed her mother from room to room telling her, ‘I couldn't help it. There was nothing I could do,' while her mother put hands over her ears saying, ‘I don't want to hear anything. Things are bad enough already and talking of this will make it worse.'

‘It was my husband who encouraged me to accept the invitations from the Collector,' Sangita told her mother's muffled ears. ‘He said it would improve relationships with the British.'

‘I don't want to hear,' cried the mother.

‘And when the Collector's daughter and I became friends and started playing tennis together, he was pleased. He said I was creating a bridge between our two nations…'

But her mother rushed into another room and slammed the door.

‘You made a noise,' shouted Sangita through the key hole. ‘Now if Papa dies it will be you who killed him and not me.' She was going wild and mad with her desperation because of having no one who would listen to her. She was saying awful things which she instantly regretted, but could not stop herself.

She longed for Daisy, but her friend had returned to England and Sangita knew that whatever happened, even if she, Sangita, was allowed to return to the palace of Bidwar and take up her place as the Raja's wife again, she would probably never see Daisy again.

Sangita was not even given a chance to say goodbye to Daisy and could not write to her for she did not know the address and had no way of finding it.

She got no letters from Daisy either, though she felt sure her friend was writing to her, for several times her mother quickly whisked an English airmail letter from the post before Sangita had time to get there.

Once Sangita tried to snatch the letter from her mother's hand. ‘Give it to me. You must. It is mine. It is stealing to take away my letter.'

But her mother held on grimly, saying, ‘You are mistaken. This is only an official letter for your father.'

‘Let me see it then,' cried Sangita, as her mother began to shove the letter into the blouse of her sari. ‘Show me. Since when did our father get official letters from England?'

‘All the time,' said the mother. ‘You know nothing.' And she strode away, this time too, not walking silently, but letting her slippers slap loudly against the marble floor as though the father was not laying a wall away, nearly dying from a heart attack.

Sangita ached for Daisy almost as much as she longed for her child. Until Daisy came there had never been any young British people living in Bidwar. Sir Knutley Smithers had been the Collector there from the time of Sangita's earliest memories. He was a pompous old man with a red face who breathed snortingly down nostrils that sprouted an amazingly large amount of long hairs and wore a dinner jacket and bow tie in the
evening, no matter how hot the weather. When he was invited for dinner, Sangita's mother always instructed her daughter beforehand, ‘When you meet him, make sure you don't stare at his nose.'

Ayah would dress Sangita in a silk kurta panama weighted with golden zari and pearls, clasp golden bangles round her wrists and a diamond choker round her throat, then bring her down to be presented to the Collector.

‘My daughter, Sangita,' her father would say each time, as though otherwise the English Collector would not know who this small girl was. ‘Come, stand by the chair of Sir Edward and say good evening.'

Reaching out, hardly looking at her, the English Collector would pinch Sangita's cheek with large pink fingers that smelled of tobacco, soap and horse, and say, ‘Have you been a good girl?' then return to his plate without waiting for her answer. His breath always smelled of brandy. She would hastily avert her eyes from the quivering nose hairs as she answered, as she had been instructed, ‘Yes, sir.'

At this point Sangita's father would tell the ayah, ‘You can take her away now,' and Sangita would be returned to her room, the ayah chiding, as they went up the winding stairs, ‘Your Mama told you not to look at the Collector's nose, so why did you disobey her?'

Then one day, when Sangita was grown up and married the Raja of Bidwar, Sir Knutley Smithers retired and in his place came Daisy's father.

‘We will have to go round to the new Collector's house and make ourselves known to him.' grumbled Sangita's husband. ‘Even though he is not even knighted, because he is British it is we who must make the first visit.' He felt insulted but because of a complicated dispute he was involved in regarding land and the British government,
was forced, for the moment, to humiliate himself. ‘Though once this matter is sorted out, these people will be compelled to show me proper respect.'

Her husband would not have allowed Sangita to accompany him at all, if it had not been for the fact that both Raja and Ranee were on the invitation.

This expecting a man to be always partnered by his wife, was, the Raja knew, one of the quirks of the British and in his present delicate situation, he was forced to accommodate them.

He told Sangita, ‘Because of your youth, it is my duty to instruct you in how to deport yourself in front of this foreigner, who, although a person of lower rank, is also the representative of the British government and as you are aware I am being forced to propitiate them in order to retain my legal property. It is important, therefore, that you behave correctly. There have been occasions,' he went on, ‘in which I have felt you have not behaved with the modesty required of the wife of the Raja.'

Sangita, he said, had let him down the time she had taken part in the men's conversation and then there had been that time when she had thrown a ball for the collector's dog, then gone running across the lawn with the animal, allowing her bare ankles to be seen by all. ‘You must keep your palu over your head throughout the visit and also completely covering the shoulders.'