Dipika Rai - Someone Else’s Garden

Lata Bai pushes Sneha back. ‘Stay here, don’t you go outside, and look after Shanti. Give her some water if she cries.’ She wants no comparisons made between the two sisters, one young enough to make the other look even older than she is.

Just out of the door, Mamta hears an engine running at full capacity. She feels the dusty breeze on her face and up her nose before the engine stops with an angry cat screech. She stands forgotten, all eyes except hers are on the jeep. Hers stay looking on the ground.

‘Not too late, I hope. Not too late.’

‘Sahib, you are our mother and father, how can you ever be too late. We would repeat the wedding for you. You grace our home with your presence. The gods have smiled on us today,’ there is a cringing awe in her father’s voice.

For Ram Singh, coming or not was a matter of casual choice, but for Seeta Ram and his family, Ram Singh’s appearance is nothing short of a miracle. This is the classic social seesaw that isn’t going anywhere. Ram Singh is so far above Mamta’s family that he has no conscious notion of what impact his attendance at the wedding makes. The stage set is instantly different, the players are totally reshuffled, someone new now has top billing.

Brown sandals alight from the jeep. They are adorned with large decorative shiny brass buckles. The sandals are followed by oversized sturdy black leather shoes, with an air hole for the big toe to breathe. Ram Singh doesn’t go anywhere without Babulal his bodyguard. Mamta can see her father’s blue rubber Hawaii slippers walk up to the brown sandals. The buckles flash decisively in the fading light. The buckled sandals make her nervous. She can see her father’s feet fidget. Just like a new bride, she thinks, and almost giggles.

‘You’ve done well. I can see that you haven’t wasted your loan.’ At the sound of the word loan, her father’s Hawaii slippers do a small dance. Her mother’s bare feet walk to the dancing slippers. The slippers are still.

‘Tea, please.’ Her father’s voice is pleading.

There are four more sets of matching new shoes, the smart polished city kind, with laces. The kind her father loves and will for sure envy. Mamta doesn’t know it, but her dowry has paid for them all. The laced shoes fill her with pride. Her new in-laws have taken the time to dress well. Just like Guru Dutt in Pyaasa, she thinks. The four pairs are in a circle. A cloud of murmured conversation rises like smoke from the huddle.

‘Meet our new in-laws.’

The shoes fan out to form a straight line so the buckled sandals can make the acquaintance of their owners face to face.

‘Namaste.’

‘Namaste.’

‘From where?’

‘Barigaon.’

‘Ah, Barigaon, do you know Rattan Das? He’s a family friend.’

‘Not our zamindar, Rattan Das?’

‘Yes, exactly.’

The buckles have successfully set the stage for conquest. Suddenly the owners of the city shoes realise who Ram Singh is. It’s the turn of the city shoes to dance.

‘Please, sit. Come, come, why are we standing round?’ The shoes squash together on the rope charpoy, jostling to get a place next to the buckles. They sit, leaving a wide gap on either side of them. Mamta can see more of the men now. She can see the hems of the dhotis, hanging limp above the shoes.

‘My daughter, the bride,’ Seeta Ram introduces Mamta from a distance like he might the Red Ruins to a visitor. Mamta’s blouse is wet with sweat. First she was hot, now the wetness has left her cold, a little later, she will be shivering. Her mother stands next to her.

Sneha is still in the house, all decked up with no one to look at her. Her sister almost married, she is dreaming her own dreams. She peeks outside, rocking Shanti violently. She hopes to see one suitable face she can place in her daydream, but all the men seem too old to her. Guru Dutt has raided her thoughts too, and one of Lala Ram’s boys. She let him feel her up behind the temple last week. She thinks Pundit Jasraj might have seen them. She wasn’t careful. The searing hot blood in her veins and liquid feeling between her thighs had made her crazy.

Lata Bai seizes the moment to push Mamta towards the shoes. Mamta knows exactly what she has to do. She goes from sandal to shoe to shoe, bending low to touch each big toe.

The buckles give her their blessing, from the oversized black shoes there’s nothing. Then again from three of the city shoes there are more blessings, each one brushing the top of her bowed clothed head with a hot heavy palm. She presumes the city shoes that didn’t give their blessings belong to her groom, still too shy to touch the top of her head with his palm in the company of strangers. She is both pleased and eased by her deduction. Not to leave her father out, Mamta touches the toes in the Hawaii slippers also.

Lata Bai pulls Mamta towards the charpoy. Three city shoes rearrange themselves to give the bride room to squeeze in next to her future husband. Only the buckles stay where they are, surrounded by a moat of space.

Then the white apparition that is Pundit Jasraj-feeler-up-of-brides-to-be appears, and deposits itself on the floor. Instinctively Mamta pulls her bare toes away, like a cat retracting its claws. The train whistle sounds in the distance. There is only one word on Lata Bai’s mind: Jivkant. She looks up, showing her face to her guests. Mohit and Sneha poke their heads out of the hut as the whistle goes off.

It is up to the priest to create a miniature replica of the cosmic world on the earth between him and the couple. He deftly places a small pot with sacred fire at his feet and surrounds it with geometric symbols.

Pundit Jasraj-feeler-up-of-brides-to-be may not be wholly holy, but he knows the philosophy of enlightenment well and is able to impart it with authority. He starts by propitiating the prodigious pantheon of over three million gods, demi-gods and avatars. His hymn is an ancient secret code revealed to the sages during their deepest meditation in a language long dead. It celebrates the universe in its myriad and infinite forms, thereby proving that the universe must be formless; and acknowledges the multiple opportunities that exist concurrently embodied by cause and effect, thereby proving the connectivity of creation.

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