Journey 4
There was still some time before the bus would start. She had already demolished a paper packet of peanuts, following it with a ginger murabha, just to aid the digestion. Still no sign of the driver. Next to her, a pregnant woman, on a seat meant for three passengers. She looked as if she were five or six months gone. Wrists covered in bangles: red, yellow, green, and dark blue. Around her neck, chains, tali, mango-patterned necklace, etc. The middle-aged woman beside her — possibly her mother — kept blotting the sweat off her forehead, shoulders, and neck with a small towel. She touched the younger woman as gently as she would a bird. “How it’s pouring off you! At least when the bus starts there will be a bit of a breeze,” she said, fanning the girl with the newspaper she held in her hand. The pregnant girl accepted all her mother’s attentions with quiet pride. At the same time, she was mindful of the young man who stood outside, beneath the window. He, for his part, continued to hand her, one after the other, a tender coconut, gram sweets, murukku, bananas, and so on.
“Come back soon. Don’t stay on there,” he said, standing solidly there. Firmly moulded arms and legs. A body like a rock.
“I’ve told Bakkiyam-anni to send you your meals. Eat properly. And don’t go about in the heat, ayya. It’s not good for you,” she told him, again and again.
The same conversation might have been repeated ten times over, without change of tone. Yet it seemed to contain different meanings each time. The expressions on the speakers’ faces kept changing too, showing in turn elation, fond reproof, playfulness, laughter, tenderness, yearning, and sadness at parting.
Now and then the mother intervened to say, “Why don’t you let Thambi go home? He shouldn’t have to stand there in the sun.”
The driver jumped in and sat down. Noises preparatory to starting the journey ensued. All at once, the man standing beneath the window began to cry.
“Go and return safely. I’ll be yearning for you,” he said, sobbing hugely, and crying aloud.
The girl was shaken. Greatly anxious, she said, “Don’t cry. I’ll be back. I’ll be back very soon.” He wept the more. Broken words came from him, “The house, so lonely…”
The girl rose to her feet. “Ayya, should I just stay here? Will you go on your own?” she asked piteously, wiping her tears.
“No, no. It’s a wedding in your relative’s house. You must go. But come back quickly,” he said.
The bus began to move slowly. The girl leaned forward and stretched out her hands to reach him. He touched her fingers, then laid his hands against his cheeks. “Go safely, Kamalam,” he said, breaking down yet again.
The bus began to pick up speed. The words “careful,” “heat,” and “food” mingled with the wind and were lost. As the bus left the station and turned into the main street, when they looked back, they could see him standing in exactly the same place; his whole self shaken, his shoulders rising and falling soundlessly. The girl must have caught sight of him.
“He’s still crying,” she announced. “He’s like an innocent child. He won’t even realize when he’s hungry,” she said.
“Oh, really. It’s not a year since you married. Did he stay hungry before that? He’s his father’s only son. After the woman of the house died, his father brought him up, didn’t he? What are you talking about?” The mother snapped at her.
“You don’t know anything, ayya. Within four months of arranging his son’s marriage, my father-in-law went off on his countrywide pilgrimage. No, he’ll be all alone at home. Only a wife knows what goes on inside a house.” The girl’s eyes filled with tears.
“As if he’s the most fantastic husband around town! I’ve borne four children, remember? Are you trying to teach me?”
“Let’s say he is a fantastic man. He’s certainly better than the bridegroom you wanted to tie me to — the one who demanded another half sovereign’s worth of gold and a motorcycle before he would put a tali on me.”
“Why do you want to rake up that old story now? You just go to sleep,” the mother consoled her, laying the girl’s head against her shoulder.
The girl laid her head on her mother’s shoulder and went to sleep, her handloom sari of green with yellow checks tucked conveniently at her waist, her stomach slightly raised, her bangles jingling each time she moved.
When the bus stopped at Nagercoil, several people had arrived to meet mother and daughter. A small girl in a rose-coloured paavaadai, who wore butterfly-shaped slides studded with brightly coloured stones in her hair, hugged the young woman, calling her “Athe.” A young boy who looked as if he had just begun to wear long trousers came and stood next to her. Love, sympathy, and contentment on all their faces.
When she had finished her work, her friend told her she must not leave Nagercoil without going to Kanyakumari. At Kanyakumari, waves like shoals of whales. Yet as they touched the feet they were as gentle as a kitten’s tongue. The sun, smeared in liquid orange. When she turned her head to take in the full sweep of the sea, the girl came within her orbit. The pregnant girl on the bus. She was standing by the waves, at a little distance from her relatives. A round vessel with a lid in her hand. There was a tenderness in her expression as she gazed at the sea. Like a mother looking at her child. A softness played on her face, reminiscent of Balasaraswati when she mimed gazing at the Baby Krishna in his cradle, as she danced to the song Jagadhodharana aadisathalu Yasoda, “Yasoda played with the saviour of the universe.” Was she looking at the sea, or at some illusory form? Even as she gazed at her, the young woman turned sharply towards her, returned her look for a second, and recognized her. She came forward, smiling.
“Watching the sea?”
“Yes; I’ve never seen it before. How the waves beat against the shore! I want to watch it forever.”
“Did the wedding go off well?”
“Mm. All of us are here together. We’ll be leaving soon.”
“You’ll go back home soon, won’t you? Your husband was in tears, wasn’t he, poor man!”
She smiled. “Yes, he wept. He’s got a heart as soft as cotton-wool, akka.” She stopped, then repeated, “A heart as soft as cotton-wool.” She looked at the sea.
“My family looked for a different bridegroom for me. That man worked in a government office. He seemed all right. But when we were about to buy the wedding clothes, he cut in, ‘So you are going to spend two thousand rupees on her sari, but only eight hundred on my vetti? In that case I must have two vettis.’ People in our town laughed amongst themselves, ‘What’s this! He’s talking like a child!’ But gradually the whole story changed. Before he would tie the tali, he claimed that the wedding jewellery was short by half a sovereign’s worth, and demanded that it should be made good immediately, besides a promise of a motorbike within the month. It turned into quite a fracas. My sister held my brother-in-law’s chin and pleaded, ‘Let me give her the chain I’m wearing round my neck.’ Something like a frenzy came over me, at that time, akka. I rose to my feet and rushed outside. I said, ‘I don’t want this bridegroom. I will not marry him. If there is a man here who is willing to marry me as I am, then let him come forward.’ My voice was trembling. The base of my throat was hurting. Everyone was stunned. Their party said, ‘How brazen of her to say all this!’ My family worried, ‘She’s gone and thrown it all away by speaking out.’ Our townsfolk meanwhile were wondering, ‘Who will marry her now, when she does this at such a tender age?’ But then, his father came forward, bringing his son, his hand on his shoulder. His face was as innocent as milk. His body well set and sturdy. He was smiling slightly.
“The older man said, ‘This is my son. He is educated. He supervises my lands. There is no woman in our house; I have brought him up myself. He is willing to marry the girl. Ask her what she wishes.’ I stood there in shock. I looked at my father and nodded assent. I bowed to the departing bridegroom’s people and said, ‘Stay and eat before you leave.’
“And that’s how this tali came to me, akka. He has such a good heart. A child-like heart.”
She stopped and looked at the sea. Then she continued, as if she were speaking to the sea. “He dotes on children. All the children in our town come to him if they need anything. To fly kites, play ball, produce a play, to be taken to cricket matches. But a senior doctor has said that he of all people can’t have children. It seems he wasn’t looked after properly when he had mumps as a child, and became infertile as a result. He doesn’t know this. He would die if he knew.”
Because of a short bus journey together, she was willing to take her entire life apart, and to share it. Responding to the glance at her slightly raised stomach, she said, “This belongs to his family, absolutely.”
An image flashed through her mind of an older man on pilgrimage, dipping into and rising from many temple tanks.
“He’s never seen the sea. If I catch the waves in this vessel, will they still be tossing when I show him, akka?”
She imagined a wave rising and falling within the small circular vessel. In the evening light, the pregnant girl who stood by the shore seemed one with the sea.
She could only touch her gently and say, “No, you cannot capture the rise and fall of the sea’s waves.”