But only if you have the money
To sit by my side and to put your hand boldly into my sari: that will cost ten thousand. And seventy thousand will get you a touch of my full round breasts.
But only if you have the money
Three crores to bring your mouth close to mine, touch my lips and kiss.
To hug me tight, to touch my place of love, and get to total union, listen well, you must bathe me in a shower of gold.
But only if you have the money
The priest stared at her for a moment, and his mouth opened and shut, as if he had lost the words he’d meant to say. “Does her father know this?”
“Not yet. But it’s the sensible thing to do with two girls and no heir.”
The priest looked at her in a way that would be of great comfort later on when I was able to think back on these events with a clearer mind. I wasn’t the only one who recognized Grandmother’s cruelty.
Late that afternoon, Father found me in the garden, twisting the wildflowers into a crown the way Mother had taught me. He sat on the grass and waited for me to offer him my hand, but I had nothing to say. Finally, he took my hand in his.
“Someday,” he wrote on the flat on my palm, “when Dadi-ji and I are both gone, you will be the only one who is be able to tell Anuja what her mother was like.”
Tears obscured my vision, but I could sense that this wasn’t the time to cry.
“Do you still have empty pages in the diary I gave you?”
I nodded.
“Perhaps you can list all of the wonderful things you remember about your mother. Before you forget.”
I was still writing that list when he left with our neighbor, Shivaji, to arrange for Mother’s cremation. I watched from my bedroom window as they crossed the rice paddies together; anyone who saw them would have thought they were still soldiers. It was something in the way that they walked; tall, muscular men with shoulders like oxen. Aunt said there was nothing bigger in Barwa Sagar than Shivaji. I didn’t know if this was true, but I could certainly believe it of his wide mustache, which he waxed and curled at both ends. With his long dark hair, Shivaji reminded me of a character in The Book of One Thousand and One Nights.
“Get dressed,” Grandmother said from the door, although I hadn’t heard her approach. “We’re leaving.”
Before Mother’s death, the excitement of leaving our house would have prompted me to ask where we were going, but now I simply rose and put on my sandals. There was no question of whether or not to change into a colorful sari.
I met Grandmother at the door; a palanquin had been arranged and she waited for me to climb inside it, then followed behind me and yanked the curtain shut. I have never enjoyed dark, enclosed spaces, but there was no other way of traveling. Women were to be neither seen nor heard, and so we lived like shadows outside of our homes.
If I had been riding with anyone else, I would have peeked out from behind the curtain to see what was happening as we moved along the streets. Instead, I sat huddled against the wooden boards, wondering where we were going.
“Sit straight, and don’t speak when we arrive.”
When I didn’t reply, Grandmother became irritated.
“You may think my son loves you, but don’t confuse love with duty.”
I thought she should take her own advice, since I felt certain that Father couldn’t possibly love anyone as cruel as Grandmother, but I continued to keep my silence, which irritated Dadi-ji even more.
“I hope you’re listening to me, beti, because what I’m about to say I’m not going to repeat. There is nothing special or different about you. You’re going to live, and cry, and suffer the same way that every woman suffers. And where we’re going,” she warned, “the mind won’t be very useful.”
She didn’t say anything more, and I didn’t try to puzzle out what she meant. I was too young to have understood anyway, even if she had explained it to me.
When I heard the deep bellowing of conch shells, I knew where we were. There is nothing else like the sound of a temple; the trumpeting shells, the trickling fountain water, the ringing bells.