Shivarani asked, ‘Do you want me to tell you?’ wondering how to phrase it if Koonty said yes.
‘No,’ said the girl. ‘I do know. You needn’t tell me.’
As the day of the wedding approached the activity of Hatipur reached fever pitch. From every side came the sound of hammering, as decorations were erected, the pandal completed, the ovens for cooking the feast erected. Meena had to take to her bed twice in the course of that last week, overcome by nervous exhaustion. Every man and woman and child in the village was occupied in some way with the preparations for the ceremony itself or purchasing or manufacturing gifts and overseeing the stitching of their own new outfits. The wedding was to last two weeks, and the richer people of the village planned to wear different clothes on every day. Goats, chickens and sheep were being fattened for slaughter and the flour for ten thousand chupatties purchased, for two thousand people would have been fed by the time this wedding was over.
These days every conversation in the village would sooner or later come to the subject of the wedding gifts. People tended to panic on hearing what someone else was giving, and would rush away and exchange what they had already bought for something more expensive. The widows were sewing a pair of three-foot-high dolls, dressed in UK bridal outfits, for their gift. Laxshmi was giving the bridal couple her best mother hen, who, when broody, had not left her eggs during the loudest fireworks of Diwali and had fought off a water buffalo that had come too near her chicks.
The misti wallah was creating a vast shandesh fish, big enough for five hundred people, and decorated with leaf of gold and pearls from Hyderabad. The rickshaw wallah, whose rickshaw had been painted gold, was going to transport guests free of charge.
A special tent was erected for the viewing of the bride and groom and on the day row upon row of guests poured into it, their eyes fixed on the two empty thrones which were soon to be occupied by the bridal couple. As they waited silver trays of sandal paste were circulated for the guests to ornament their foreheads, some Europeans among them eating this, mistaking it for a ritual snack.
There came gasps of delight when, at last, the bridegroom arrived. He had ridden from the Hatibari on a white Marwari horse, and had to be led to his chair, because the strings of jasmine flowers hanging from his pith helmet obscured his sight. Now all eyes were on the entrance for a first sight of the bride.
But she did not come. She could not be found. Though she had been kept inside her room and constantly surrounded by female relatives, when the moment arrived for her to be taken to the pandal in the golden rickshaw, she was not there. ‘I left her for a moment to get a glass of water,’ said an aunt. ‘She was there two minutes ago. I dashed off to get a safety pin, in case she pulled out the sari folds,’ said a cousin. The family wasted precious time beating on the locked door of Koonty’s room and begging her to let them in.
The guests waited and wondered what was happening.
Eventually a carpenter was called, and managed to break the door lock. The room was empty. Koonty’s wedding outfit that had taken such hours to arrange, was flung over the floor and the window was open.
Meena began to wail and accuse her husband, saying, ‘I told you we should have bars put on her window. My friends from the Calcutta Club will be filled with malicious pleasure when they discover.’
They must find her quickly, the family knew, before the guests discovered that the bride, moments before her wedding, had ripped off all her clothes, climbed out of the window and run away.
The guests were growing restless and the bridegroom kept looking towards the pandal entrance like someone waiting for a bus. The Calcutta Club ladies began to whisper delightedly to each other, suspecting and hoping for a scandal. Meena, overwhelmed with self-pity, shame and fury, wanted to go to bed and lie in the dark with an iced sponge over her forehead but instead ran this way and that like a hen who had lost her chicks.
It was Shivarani who finally found Koonty. The girl, wearing only her petticoat and blouse, was sitting on the river bank, staring into the water as though she had lost something. Shivarani sat down beside her and putting an arm round her, said, ‘Tell me what the matter is.’
Koonty stared into the water and was silent for ages. Then she said, ‘Didi, if someone put a newborn baby onto a floating goddess’ hand, how long do you think it would stay alive?’
‘That’s silly. Come back. All the guests are waiting, and Pandu is feeling very sad.’
‘And do you think that if someone saw a hand of Durga floating by, with a little newborn baby lying in it, that they would rescue the baby? Do you think that, Didi?’
Shivarani sat silent, as something totally impossible and terrible began to seem possible. ‘Tell me what happened,’ she whispered, though she did not want to hear.
When Koonty had finished Shivarani tried to speak but words would not come.
‘It was very dark and I do not know if it was a boy or a girl even though I held it in my arms for so long,’ Koonty whispered at last. ‘But I feel sure, from its gentle little movements, that it was a girl.’
‘I see,’ said Shivarani, and her mouth felt dry as though she had a fever.
‘It is because of this I cannot face these wedding guests.’
‘Why not?’ asked Shivarani.
‘Can’t you see, can’t you see?’ cried Koonty. ‘There are all those children coming to the feast and one of them might be mine, rescued from the hand of Durga. Suppose I saw my child, what should I do?’
‘If anyone had found that floating baby, the whole village would have talked about it by now,’ said Shivarani and thought to herself that the baby was surely dead.
‘But anyway, I cannot marry Pandu,’ said Koonty.
‘Why can’t you?’
‘As soon as I have told him he will not want me,’ said Koonty.
‘Then don’t tell him.’
‘But how can I not? And even if I say nothing, he will find out tonight. My body will let him know.’
‘Our young Indian men are so innocent that I think he will not know and you must never tell him,’ said Shivarani.
Half an hour later Meena, nearly weeping with relief and fury, saw Shivarani returning with Koonty, who was walking stiffly as though she was ill. Shivarani’s face was grim.
The wedding went smoothly after that. Koonty was put on display at last and sat silent and wilting under the weight of silk, gold and jewels. The villagers who thronged to see her were most impressed with the way this previously undignified girl had been rendered quiet and pale by the honour being done to her by the family of the zamindar.
Among the wedding guests were two Hatipur lads who, having returned from university, were unable to find jobs. Dressed in their best starched outfits they sat cross-legged on the ground to eat the splendid feast and said to all who would listen, ‘Why should these zamindars have so much, when we have so little? At our weddings will we have a thousand guests? In fact will we have any wedding at all, for we may never find a job, and no parents will allow their daughter to marry a man who is unemployed. And if we did manage to marry, would we receive so many wedding gifts that they had to be brought in a bullock cart? We would be lucky to even receive some pots and pans and two saris for the bride. Is this Pandu any cleverer or better-looking than we are? It is by no effort of his that he is sitting up there, well fed and dressed in jewels. We would look just as good if we had the money.’
The older men and women shook their heads. ‘Your problems are the consequence of your karma. Next time, if you do enough puja to Durga you will be zamindars yourselves and villagers will cook your food, plough your fields and clean your houses.’ As they mopped up mango chutney with their fingers they told the youths, ‘If you perform your dharma with regard to the zamindars, next time round it will be you who are living in a palace