Unlike the maulvi and Bibi Saffiya, Amman Bhaggan did not pursue peace in the five daily prayers. She searched for it in the courtyard of the shrine of Sain Makhianwala, where she returned in times of necessity, in times of sorrow, and in times of joy, which penetrated her life as often as a fly finding its way through the mesh food cover and Bibi Saffiya’s swatter.
That morning, while I combed her hair, she told me of her dreams for her two other sons, which were dependent on Sultan’s success. He worked hard, she reminded me, as the wooden comb scratched a scab behind her ear. She wiped away the drop of blood with her dopatta, not letting it deter her from completing her vision. Sultan would pass his exams and get a job as a teacher or a policeman in the city, and he would take them all with him. We didn’t know anyone who had those jobs, but I joined her imagined life of comfort in the city.
All three lives depended on Sultan’s triumph in school. Maybe Bhaggan knew what I knew: that the struggle in class was a burden for him. That the salt crushed at the millstone had it easier than her son, straining to read and write under the lamplight. She must have thought that voicing her hopes as reality would give them strength to flourish.
Her visits to the shrine filled the void that her dead husband had left. The shrine replaced the one who had promised her a life of comfort and love. She told me of some of her visits, and others I imagined. She told me about the crowds, the aromatic smells of street food, and the communal kitchen, but what fascinated me most was the toys she described: cloth dolls; brightly colored trucks and buses, like the ones on the road; toy horses and cattle; and tiny kitchen utensils. I felt my face relax into a smile as I thought of how much I would enjoy such treats.
“Daughter, do you see any lice?” Bhaggan distracted me from my daydream.
“The itch has been driving me crazy. It might just be prickly heat.” She sighed. I parted her hair to check and told her that it was clear—no lice, no prickly heat spots—but that didn’t pull her out of her despondency.
As I pulled at her hair to braid it, she told me about a time before Maalik, her youngest, was born. Bhaggan went to the shrine of Sain Makhianwala to give an offering of a chicken because Sultan had been scorched with fever for three nights. He complained that he couldn’t eat because his throat was scratchy.
Not knowing what to do, she asked her mother-in-law, whose own five children had died before they could celebrate their first Eid. Bhaggan’s husband, the only surviving child, was taken to the shrine every year to ward off evil. His mother’s efforts to give him a long life included letting a section of his hair grow longer than the rest. She dressed him in girls’ clothes and even got him a silver ankle bracelet. And it worked. He lived longer than the rest.
Bhaggan shared her mother-in-law’s suspicions about why the baby Sultan would not recover.
“It’s an evil eye on my son’s laughing, playing household, I’m telling you. Amman Hajjan, the witch, left small bundles of paper with black magic. She’s done it before, and now she wants my whole family to perish.”
Like her late mother-in-law, Bhaggan was desperate to know the reason for her family’s ill fortune, but she knew it wasn’t the old hag Amman Hajjan, who sold candy, tobacco, and trinkets from the corner of her room outside her son’s home. Why would she try to kill her customers?
Bhaggan chose not to take a chance with her baby, Sultan, and went to the shrine early on a Thursday, a day when prayers became pronounced, more likely to be heard. As with any other problem, Baby Sultan’s fever would be reduced by an offering at the shrine. She told me how she had bought four rupees’ worth of sugar balls and threw them energetically on the shrine and then watched the beggars scramble to pick them up.
She also took a white chicken and had it slaughtered and cooked at the communal kitchen, for more blessings to be bestowed on her sick son. The sugar balls reinforced the strength of the chicken meat and created balance that would stabilize her life. Having accomplished all this in one morning, Bhaggan went home to continue her work in the kitchen.
She had cooked the meal earlier and returned to bake roti in the tandoor. She remembered the event from eleven years ago as if it were yesterday. Her anger toward her mistress was also aroused with the same intensity as she had felt back then.
“Do you know what Saffiya said?” She did not wait for me to respond; Saffiya’s words were engraved in her mind. “She said, ‘Where were you, Bhaggan? I waited for my massage before my bath, but you never came. People usually say when they’re not coming.’”
Bhaggan ranted about how offended she was. About how first her man had been bitten by a snake, and then her baby, Sultan, not even three, shaking with fever and a sore throat, and how her beeji, her dead man’s mother, said she should go to the shrine to pay her respects and present a chicken. And that the only one she could afford was a farm-raised one, instead of a desi one. A desi one, she told Saffiya, would have more power for her poor Sultan. Saffiya should have understood all this. She knew Taaj, her second son, was still being breastfed when another baby had begun to grow inside her. Her name was Bhaggan, the blessed one, but her life was cursed to the core.
Bhaggan’s anger at Saffiya from so long ago had not receded. It boiled over to that morning as I combed her hair.
“I told her, and, like a nervous cat, she scratched at a pole. You know what she said?” Bhaggan continued, and, again, I didn’t have to answer. “She said I should have told her. She would have sent me to the hakim in the city. She told me to give her her meal and have some faith in the higher powers. She would send me to the hakim who was her father’s friend— may his soul rest in peace, and may he be sent to the highest levels of heaven. There was no one else like him around here. I don’t know how he had such a daughter like Saffiya. Despite being such a great landlord, he went out of his way to help all the poor people in the village.”
I don’t know if Amman Bhaggan told me about this, but I could imagine Bibi Saffiya grunting as she reached under her pillow for her green cloth wallet.
“Here, take ten rupees and take the baby in the tonga tomorrow morning. My father’s friend the hakim will give you some powerful medication to cure the baby immediately. Just go after my massage, because you know I can’t really do anything all day if I miss it.”
Saffiya would have then lain back on the charpoy that she rarely left, and Bhaggan would have automatically started to massage Saffiya before her mistress began to complain about her aches and pains.
“My back is killing me, and my digestion is also terrible. The gas has gone into my muscles and is causing me great pain. I’ll go to the hakim, too, but once the car has been serviced. I still need to find some time to go.”
Bhaggan would have taken the ten-rupee note and tied it in the corner of her dopatta. But before she could leave, Saffiya would have reminded her to prepare the next meal. “And, Bhaggan, bring some tea for me at five o’clock. Warm the milk on gas, not on the dung fire.”
Bhaggan’s anger toward Saffiya didn’t last long. Her devotion to Saffiya mystified me. She never questioned their relationship long enough to leave her.
But that was all so long ago. Before I came, or maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it was my imagination.
For her firstborn, Sultan, the one I had tried to entice with a chameli garland that morning, Amman Bhaggan had many dreams. The dream of the moment was to see him pass his eighth-grade exams. And she would do everything in her means to accomplish this, even if it meant feeding the beggars at the shrine of Sain Makhianwala.
The morning after Maria and I returned from Jannat’s house to help Stella to her usual embroidery spot in the rooms inside, after I had combed her hair, Amman Bhaggan reminded me.
“My daughter, Tara. I’m going to the shrine this afternoon,” she told me. “Can you finish your work and not get into trouble?”
“Me?”
“I see the garland on your wrist. I’m just surprised that she didn’t.” For all that Bhaggan noticed, I couldn’t understand why she chose to ignore what was sometimes so pronounced, like Sultan’s incompetence, Taaj’s nastiness, Maalik’s stupidity, and, most of all, Saffiya’s meanness.
“Everyone is always after me. What have I ever done?” I responded.
“Nothing. You never do anything. It’s just your attitude.”
“What about my attitude?”
“Swallow your anger. Finish all your work, and I’ll get you the doll I promised. When I go to the shrine.”
I didn’t think I wanted a doll anymore, maybe some earrings instead, but if I changed my mind, Bhaggan would act suspicious. “Why earrings and not a doll?” she’d ask, and I wouldn’t have an answer.
“And for me, too!” Maria called from outside.
I wanted to go to the shrine with Bhaggan to look at the glass bangles and beaded necklaces I had seen when I had gone. Then, Maria and I had wanted the dolls that were now ragged, and if I went, Maria would want to go too.
I knew Amman Bhaggan would not take both of us. She took Sultan instead. He had to carry the deg of biryani on his head. It had cooled down a bit before he asked his brother to place it on the rolled cloth stabilizer perched on his skull.
“Come, Taaj, help your brother carry the deg on his head,” Bhaggan called.
“He’s the eldest and the strongest. Why can’t he do it himself?” Taaj whined.
“Son of a dog. Why do you make me curse my dead husband? Come, and don’t make me waste my breath.”
I decided I would show how mature I had become, so I stood in front of Sultan, with the deg between us, and looked intensely at him, willing him to make eye contact. Taaj came and stood next to me, brushing against me.
I stared at Sultan and bent over. I realized that my neckline was now visible, since I had pulled my dopatta tightly around my neck, so it no longer covered the area that it was supposed to protect.
I looked up at Sultan and knew he had been staring at my breasts. I pretended to pull my dopatta closer, but as I did, I elbowed Taaj.
“It’s nearly time for the afternoon prayers.” Amman Bhaggan beckoned as she slipped on her slippers and left the kitchen.
When she left, Taaj moved closer and brushed his arm against my breast. I nearly dropped my side of the deg. Sultan kept it balanced and saved it from slipping, we heaved the pot onto his head, and he followed his mother to the bus stand.
No longer feeling as mature as I had felt earlier, I kicked Taaj as he followed his brother.
Maalik and Taaj would walk up to the cane fields. They would both break themselves off a piece of cane to chew. They would stand near the canal close to the house and spit out the chewed-up sugarcane, devoid of all the sugar they would have sucked out. They would then see how far downstream the chewed cane husks would flow before disintegrating.
Neither Maria nor I was allowed to go that far, so I shouted as they left, “Bring me a cane, too, brothers.”