Light of the day

by Sree

“That bitch. Better not talk about her…she is a bad example of what a woman ought to be. Of course, she comes from a dysfunctional family…just look at your father…all from the same family. ” She moved away to wipe the dining table as she finished her outburst and I thought it wise to keep quiet for a while.

Then I dared to ask, “But Ma, why do you blame her if her first marriage did not work out, after all Chhoti Ma did what was best for her under the circumstances. What’s the use of staying in a marriage where there is no love?” My timidity in pronouncing the word ‘love’ stemmed out of my expected response from Maa.

“Baah, what is love-shove? All nonsense they show in movies. Beta, for you I’ll get a beautiful bahu and that’s that. Don’t even think of marrying a firang. I am telling you I’ll throw shoes on you even if you as much as think about marrying outside our caste, creed and religion. Look at Rano, your maasi, she’d run away from home to marry that good-for-nothing baniya and now all she has in her life is miseries. I am much better off than her, I’ve my own flat and own car and my son is in Amrica”

Her pride in her prized possessions could not belittle her threat. It was real, I could say from the way she rolled her eyes and scrubbed the already polished table. As if my brain was the table surface and she was trying to wash away any notion I may have of marrying Christine. But Christine is nice, I thought,better than any Indian girl I’ve known. Marriage is the proverbial dilli ka ladoo I don’t want to eat and Christine is ready for a live-in relationship. In America, nobody cares a hoot about such relationships but my ma would freak out if I told her my ideas, she would surely take out her jooti and rain blows on my head till the Christine bhoot is exorcised.

“Aji sunte ho, don’t you want to go to the market today? Your son has come from Amrica after one whole year and you are sitting in that corner reading your goddamn newspaper…go get some chicken-shicken and nice green spinach…I’ll feed my son all the delicacies, butter chicken and paalak paneer, which he misses in that country of riches where they serve only boiled chicken and boiled spinach…only God knows how they can eat such tasteless food — food for patients in hospitals!” Ma’s loud voice boomeranged off my Pappaji’s newspaper and brought back indifferent silence. I knew what to expect and so I silently slunk out of the hall into my bedroom.

In the room, lying on my bed, looking at the ceiling, I tried to snuff out the screeching noise of my mother and her stream of expletives directed at my father and wondered which was better, love or arranged marriage? Is marriage good at all? My mom and dad had a traditional arranged marriage and the way I see it today, never have the stars brought together a more ill-matched twosome. (Really amazing, how my dad silently gets bossed around while my mom squarely blames all her illnesses on him). Then there is the option of love marriage, at the risk of shoes raining on my head. Choti Ma,the bitch who married twice, once out of compulsion, then out of choice, I think I ought to consult her too before I make a decision. Yes, I’ll go to Dehradun tonight and meet her, try to find out what went wrong with her first marriage and how her second marriage is going… .

Lying on the rexine covered seat of the AC compartment later in the night, I tried to read a book. The bed sheet kept slipping off from under my feet and elbows; I couldn’t be bothered to set it right. My mom was suspicious of my decision to go to Dehradun but what the heck. It is a life-changing decision for me, I convinced her that the trip would be short, I’ve to know whether Choti Maa is happy. I know my mother isn’t, in her arranged marriage of 36/ 36 perfect match of qualities of the bride and bridegroom, though she cannot help claim her happiness in her little riches and according to Ma, maasi isn’t happy either, misery-struck, that’s what my Ma says she is, in her dare to over-ride the rules imposed by her parents and society. Oh, It’s all so confusing - this marriage business, perhaps talking with Choti Ma will solve my confusion. After all, she has seen both sides of the coin.

Breakfast was simple — cornflakes and milk. Choti Ma looked ravishing in her starched cotton sari, the corner of her eyes where crow’s feet were beginning to make its presence crinkled now and then. I thought she smiled too often and mostly through her eyes. After breakfast, she sat down on the leather sofa and dragged on a cigarette blowing elegant smoke rings into the air, as though waiting for me to speak. I knew I had to broach the subject now, soon she would be leaving for her college lectures and the whole day I would be left battling my confusion.

“Choti Ma, how is life?” As soon as I said that, I knew I had made a fool of myself.

She laughed, a full-throated laugh. Then she looked into my eyes with her coal-black eyes and asked, “What’s troubling you, boy? Out with it, I thought you are used to cornflakes and milk in the States but you have hardly had two spoons of it. If you miss your mom’s alu-paranthas, you wouldn’t be here. So tell me, why are you here?”

Women! How they smell out those rats hidden in the closet of our minds. “Well, Choti Ma, I am here just to visit you, been a long time...how are you?”

“Never better. I know your mom wouldn’t send you over to ask how I am. But let me tell you that I have never been better.”

She did look lovely. Lovelier than the last time I’d seen her. I remember her as the harried looking lecturer wife of a doctor husband from her first marriage. Always quiet though shrewdly observant. As if her intelligence wanted to peek out of the cloud it was hiding behind and to shine brightly. Now she was a professor and also a vice-principal and she was married to the love of her life, so I imagined.

“Choti Ma, I am sorry we didn’t attend your wedding or come to visit you after that. You know how Ma is. But tell me, what’s the difference? Are you happy now?”

Again the laugh. Then she quietly smoked her cigarette for a while and said, “Ranveer, are you getting married?”

Rats, these women! They are too perceptive and nosy.

“Well Ma insists I get married to a girl of her choice and I don’t feel ready…”

“Do you have a girlfriend?” She interrupted, looking straight into my eyes again. Those eyes, smoldering just like the tip of the cigarette in her hand, intimidated me.

“Yes, and I want to know whether love marriage or arranged marriage is better. Actually I am confused about the very need to get married.”

She crushed the tip of the cigarette in the transparent glass ashtray and almost sighed. I thought it was a sigh but it was barely audible.

“You have, therefore, come to me seeking wisdom…of experience. I can lecture you on the dos and don’ts of marriage, you think…?”

“Choti Ma, I am really confused. I love a girl, an American but I don’t want to marry her yet and Ma is hell bent on marrying me to a girl of her choice, stalling the marriage decision is becoming kinda impossible.”

“Hmmm,I know your Ma, she can empty your thoughts by trying to fill it with a lot of trash and then all you can do is shut your mind and meditate, just like your father does. But what can I tell you? Well, marriage is like books, sometimes someone recommends it to you and you read it to the end trying to like it; sometimes you do, sometimes you don’t. Instead you may pick and choose a book to read because you find it interesting…the blurb excites you, the cover attracts you and you drool over the prospect of reading it, falling in love with it at first sight.”

I realized she was staring and smiling at me. I closed my lower jaw that hung in puzzlement of her words and gathered my thoughts.

“But, Choti Ma, which is better? To read a recommended book or to read the one you fall in love with?”

“If you are a book reader, you’ll know that there are many books you’ll abandon half-way because it doesn’t interest you anymore but some, you’ll read to the end because it had just the right ingredients to hook you for life. It could be a recommended book or a chosen one but my advice would be that if you have found a book that you have started reading and feel like chewing it thoroughly, digesting it and assimilating it into your system, go for it. It could be worth several reads and every re-read might throw up more mystery for you to solve.” She got up and said, “Chalo, I’ll make a move or I’ll be late for college. What is your plan for today?”

“I think I’ll go for a walk and catch the night train back home. One last question, if I may Choti Ma, are you reading your all-time favourite book now?”

“Now, now, aren’t you curious? Let’s put it this way—I am reading my current favourite”

She swept up her saree pallu and swish-swashed her way out of the house and I was left inhaling the subtle perfume she wore even as her words hung delicately in the air.

After a while, I walked to the door and stepped out into the blinding light of the day. Walking along the hilly terrain, I tried to peek at the sun in the sky but just after a few moments its brilliance forced me to lower my gaze. I was struck by the thought that truth is in fact a lot like the sun, it throws light on various aspects and makes a lot of things clear for us, but enlightenment is possible only if we can stare at the sun’s face and prepare to be burned.

As I looked over the hilly terrain into a valley, suddenly my choices floated up in separate bubbles before my eyes—one had the face of my Ma, another of my maasi and yet another that of my Choti Ma. I knew it was time for me to make my choice and prepare to get burned by the real truth. Bite into the proverbial dilli ka ladoo.

A GP by profession and a writer by compulsion of the muse that invades her being on and off. Married with two kids, an easy, comfortable life. She dreams of chaos, though.

Image Attribution: http://www.flickr.com/photos/jamesjordan/2656854501/sizes/m/in/photostream/