Nine Yard Sarees, page 17
“Eh vayadi, can’t you keep your big mouth shut?” Amma’s eyes bulged as she spooned out fresh white rice onto our plates. Seated across from me, Bharathan and Kannan stifled their laughter, mimicking Amma’s shrill “vayadi” between themselves. “If you really want to be dirty too, then go ahead! I will treat you like your Akka! Do you want that?”
I fell quiet, terrified of missing out on my favourite avial. It was a delicious coconutty stew that Amma only made once in a while because of how expensive it was to cook with that many vegetables at once. So, I ate the special dish without uttering another word. Still, I could not help stealing frequent glances at the storeroom. Eventually, it was Appa who took pity on Kamala. He rode his motorcycle to a restaurant a few streets down to buy a few vegetable curries. After delivering the food to the storeroom, he loudly declared to the family that he loathed seeing his daughter eat food made by those people and that it was bizarre how much garlic they used in their cooking: “You can smell that from a mile away!” Despite what appeared to be Appa and Amma’s newfound revulsion towards their second-born, they hurriedly went to visit every other Brahmin family in the district to share the good news on the following day. Their daughter was all grown up now.
At the age of 9, my first daughter Padma is starting to develop breasts. Not enough to warrant the wearing of a singlet underneath her clothes, but just enough to be noticed by the older, hawk-eyed women around her. There is a slight, soft protrusion from her chest that once ran flat against her ribcage; it is pushing against her cotton top, asking to be seen. Mama and I have not talked about it. But I dread the day the entire village comes to our home to celebrate her becoming a woman. What is worse is that it will have to be done twice, since our second daughter Prema, just two years younger than Padma, will follow suit in no time. Of course, it is an important rite of passage that they must undergo. But it is with age that I have learned that while traditions may be traditions, they are sometimes made at the expense of the woman, often without even her realising it.
When the fourth day of Kamala’s theetu came around, I was awakened by the loud cling clang of pots from the kitchen. The culprits had been Amma, Gomathi, who had only been four years older than Kamala then, and Jayanthi Mami, the elderly Brahmin woman who lived opposite us. They were stirring large pots containing rice, sambar and rasam respectively while cooking other dishes on the side. After a terrible shower using leftover pails of cold water because I was too terrified of my mother to disturb her for some hot water, I too was roped in as their Assistant Stirrer while the three women went about more difficult tasks.
At the crack of dawn, just when a faraway rooster began its morning call, Kamala emerged from the room, eyes bright with excitement. Upon spotting her, Amma immediately rushed to the back of the kitchen in order to boil a pail of hot water. Once that was ready, Kamala was hurried to the well just outside, our usual bathing spot, where she bathed in the semi privacy of the still starry blue-black sky, body wrapped securely in an old saree, pouring cold water drawn directly from the well into the steaming pail before funnelling the lukewarm mixture over herself.
I was ecstatic, because a morning shower meant Kamala was going to be one of us once again. Renewed, rejuvenated, and most importantly, clean. And in the same manner as her classmates Bhavani and Sharada who had hit puberty in the previous year, she seemed to have grown excited at the thought of being turned into the temporary heroine of her very own coming-of-age celebration. A dignified Tamil starlet.
“Raji kutti, come watch Amma do my alangaram.” She fondly called out to me as Amma took her away after her shower into the makeshift dressing room upstairs to begin the preparations for the special day.
Pleased to be included in the festivities, I ran after them, up the spiralling staircase, and snuck into the room right before Amma shut the door. Then, coming to sit on the ground with my legs folded under my buttocks and palms pressing over the top of my knees, I held my breath as Kamala transformed.
First, she was made to wear a dark maroon pavadai chattai dhavani, a torso-covering blouse and a half saree made of three metres of pattu silk specially tailored by Amma’s older sister Periyamma. She was a talented seamstress who had insisted on making her niece a bespoke outfit for the auspicious day. Amma braided Kamala’s long dark hair into two thick well-oiled plaits and pinned a short fragrant garland of jasmine flowers onto the top of each braid. Her face was then powdered, her eyelids blackened with kanmai and a long narrow teardrop shaped pottu was drawn right between her eyebrows. Lastly, her wrists and neck were covered in the glitteriest of gold and her forehead was embellished with a ruby-stoned nethi chutti that was pinned along the centre parting of her hair.
To officially commence the celebration, Kamala was beckoned into the living room where she was instructed to sit on a chair noticeably placed in the centre. Trailing behind in my own pavadai that was in a much drabber muddy orange shade, I observed in awe that my sister looked exactly like Gomathi Amman, the same benevolent-looking deity who had her own sanctum in the Pandiyan-built Sathya Vageeswarar temple just a few streets down. Except, Kamala’s gaze was even softer and more tender, the reason why so many took to her in an instant. Around the room stood the guests who had been personally invited by Amma and Appa. The men, in their white veshti and multi-coloured collared shirts, placed themselves in the corners of the room since they were only there to be passive witnesses, though some of their eyes seemed to glint with ill-concealed interest. In fact, even among the men in our family, only Appa was present; Ganesan had gone to work and Bharathan and Kannan had been permitted by Appa to attend school as usual since this was a “women’s affair”.
The more important guests were the women. All of them were modestly voluptuous in their colourful sarees that they, like Amma, had tied in the madisar style. The fatter the women were, the tighter the sarees looked since the cloth had to be coiled around and between their legs like makeshift pants. Jayanthi Mami’s saree barely even covered her ankles because too much of the material had to be used to cover her large behind. Then there were lanky women like Amma who had too much excess cloth that had to be tucked by the waist in an unsightly manner. Yet together, these differences did not matter. Standing side by side, singing religious songs in unison with their Carnatic vocals, they felt a lot like family.
As the oldest woman present, Jayanthi Mami was given the honour to begin the ceremony, which she did unofficially with a generous pinch to her favourite Kamala’s cheeks. Behind her, the women quickly lined up, eager to bless my sister with their well wishes. They each sprinkled holy rose water over the crown of her head, smeared sandalwood paste down her neck and forearms, rubbed a dash of kungumam, vermillion, between her brows, fed her a piece of rock sugar, circled a lit lamp in front of her to remove any evil eye, threw atchadai, yellow rice, over her head, and gave her hearty words of congratulations along with money that had been rolled up into little scrolls. For becoming a true woman, they all said, though whatever that truly meant, I could not understand then.
After Kamala’s arms and forehead was completely covered in sandalwood and kungumam, she was told to rise from the chair, which was then cleared. Following which, piles of thala vazhai elai, plantain leaves, were brought out from the kitchen and placed in rows across the living room floor. The guests, who had been jittery with excitement, rushed to take a seat behind the leaves, each to their own.
Just when the ground outside had become a fire pit from the harsh sun, the feast came to an end. The guests thanked Amma and Appa and congratulated them once again on their daughter’s successful promotion into womanhood. Then, they scuttled out barefoot onto the burning gravel road, hands clutching overfed tummies, before disappearing into their respective homes and most likely, their bathrooms.
Despite the rather public and grand celebrations, Appa was soon filled with trepidation, the tremendous burden of having a young fertile daughter weighing on his crooked shoulders.
“You should have given birth to sons, not daughters,” he said to Amma that same night as we rolled out the straw mats on the ground of the living room, fluffed our pillows, and lay side by side. Kamala, me, Amma, Appa, Kannan (who had already fallen asleep) and Bharathan, in that order. “Daughters are born to wring us dry like rag cloths and then leave us.”
“What should we do now?” Amma whispered back, facing Appa under whose disgruntled gaze she shrivelled slightly. “Should we take her out of school?”
Did becoming a woman mean one no longer had to go to school? If that were the case, I too wanted to become a woman as soon as possible. The quicker, the better! Being in second standard was even worse than being Amma’s personal servant. At least a sleeping mat and a pillow were within reach at home. In school, all I got for dozing off was a painful kottu on my head from a stern rotund teacher named Madam Nirmala.
Appa grunted, shaking his head. “Not yet. She’s still young.”
Bharathan got up with a start, presumably because of nature’s call. When he brought the sole hurricane light with him to the back of the house, night fell over us. Appa and Amma went quiet in an instant, always having preferred not to converse in the dark. I felt close to surrendering to the alluring embrace of sleep, exhausted from the hectic day. But just as my eyelids fluttered shut, I heard a soft sigh from my left. I looked over. Kamala was still. Perhaps, it had been my imagination. I sniffed and shifted. A mosquito landed on my right foot. I kicked about before pulling my feet under the blanket and tucking the cloth under my heels for protection. The drowsiness I felt earlier was gone. A while after, Bharathan’s footsteps neared and the light slowly returned, casting flickering shadows across the tall walls in the room. I looked again, still curious about what I had heard earlier. Kamala’s face, now half-lit, appeared to be glistening under the eyes. But she remained still.
Sometimes, I think back to that night and wonder what was on her mind. Had she been scared because she was aware that life as she knew it would change? You see, everyone in the village adored her—milky skinned with the roundest cheeks and a sweet voice to boot. She had been excellent at school too, particularly at languages, and had even been awarded book prizes at year-end ceremonies. She must have known marriage was bound to take that away from her. Or had it in fact been the opposite, that as a young girl who revelled in the idea of romance, she was eager to be married to a good man she believed she would grow to love, and hence, having to wait made little sense to her? I still do not know. But I wish I had thought to embrace her then.
A year after her coming-of-age ceremony, Kamala was taken out of school.
At home, she was made to wait. To pass the stifling abundance of free time she now had, she kept herself constantly busy. She read literature, particularly the poetry of the great Bharathiyar that she sometimes recited to me, even though they made little sense to a 7-year-old, aside from the famous refrain “Accham illai, accham illai, accham yenbathillaye.” I have no fear, I have no fear, I have no such thing as fear. She browsed through Amma’s collection of weekly magazines, though never letting me read along, which I later learned was because the magazines sometimes published short pieces of fiction that were too saucy for a child. She listened to the radio, singing along with her sweet voice when she felt like it. She followed Amma and me to the temple on the mornings she was clean and was told to pray for a good husband each time. She was taught how to ferment the batter for thosai and idli, grind various chutneys, and cook the “three most important broths for your future husband” according to Amma—sambar, thakkaali rasam, and vathal kuzhambu. On top of that, she was visited by different far-flung relatives who travelled down to Kalakad in the hopes of securing her as a bride for their own sons or sons of those they knew. But Appa was adamant on choosing the most financially reliable husband for Kamala, and Amma was displeased by the selection of men being presented to them, deeming them too unattractive for their daughter. Hence, months passed to no avail on the marriage front.
During that same year of eternal waiting, Kamala came up with a secret ritual for just the two of us. Every Saturday afternoon, during Amma’s trip to the market and the boys’ trip to Appa’s plantations on the other side of the village, she would take my hand in hers and bring me down to the river a short distance from our home. To get there, we would have to leave our house through the back, circle around the small shed where our family cow Nandini and her drove of calves rested, sneak past our private garden of lemon and mango trees and out the back gate, turn right onto the street where the masjid was located, before turning left a short distance after and making our way down a grassy stone path to the river bank. Towards the rightmost of the bank was a large rock with a flat top, wide enough to accommodate two or at most three people. It belonged to us. Or at least, that was what Kamala said when she, during our first visit, carved our initials ‘க’ and ‘ரா’ with a sharp edge of a broken piece of stone onto the rock’s underside.
“Look, Raji kutti.” She boasted about her handiwork. “Once you write your name on something, it belongs to you. So, from now, this is ours.”
Each time we visited the river, we would sit upon our rock, as if it were our throne, lift the hems of our pavadai skirts, and dip our tippy toes just along the surface of the tepid running waters that still felt much cooler than the Tirunelveli heat that engulfed us all year round. We would gaze across the river at the grassy mountains in a distance, making a little game out of spotting a wild monkey or a goat that had strayed too far from its shepherd. Sometimes, Kamala would even bring an empty book along to sketch the scenery and teach me how to do the same, even though I was never as good as her; the first sketch we made together was of Kamala’s favourite bird, a purple-rumped sunbird that was perched upon a flower to suck its nectar.
During our short afternoon rendezvous, I would question Kamala about superficial adult matters that intrigued me, like where she had gotten the colourful bangles she was sporting or whether she would let me borrow her burgeoning collection of dhavani when I became older. I had always wanted to wear her gorgeous half sarees and tailored blouses. At those guileless questions she would laugh, the melodic cadence of her giggles echoing down the river, clearly endeared by my childish curiosity. And I would laugh too without understanding why, against her lap where I always chose to lie, head cushioned by her fleshy saree-clad thighs.
In turn, Kamala would ask me about school. “How are the lessons? Can you understand them? How about your teachers? Are they treating you well? Is Girija still your best friend? Or is it now that pretty Nadar girl Mary Mythili?”
She was the only one who cared to ask and for that I loved her. Appa and Amma were not terribly concerned about my performance at school at all. It was likely to have been because I was their fifth child and their interest in parenting had come undone by the time I was born. Many years later, when Padma was born, Amma confessed over a tumbler of steaming masala tea that I had been an accident, that she had tried to get rid of me through the most questionable of methods, that she was sorry, and that maybe that was why karma had to run its twisted course. I cradled a gurgling Padma against my chest and said nothing in return.
It was in the month of Chithirai, 1952, right after the Tamil New Year, that Appa and Amma’s woes were finally put to an end. A letter had arrived from Latha Mami, Amma’s oldest family friend who had moved out of our agraharam in Kalakad to a flat in Tirunelveli City five years before. She had once hoped for Kamala to be her daughter-in-law, Amma hoping the very same, but her son’s horoscope and Kamala’s had been a terrible match; according to her astrologer, they would bear no children. Out of genuine affection for my mother whom she had grown up with, she sent Appa and Amma another horoscope of a man named Shridar, who would become Kamala’s husband six months later.
“This jathagam belongs to my neighbour’s son. TK Jeweller’s only grandson. Pity the boy’s father died in a lorry accident two years ago. But he takes very good care of his mother. They are Iyers like us. Maybe he will be a good match,” Latha Mami’s letter had read.
Ten years older than Kamala, Shridar’s profile read like one that belonged to an ideal son-in-law. He had a full-time job at a secondary school in Tirunelveli as a biology teacher. More importantly, he had inherited a large sum of money from his late grandfather TK Ramanathan, who had been a successful jeweller known especially for his intricately studded kundalam creations that young women in the region loved to adorn their ears with. I fished out the small black-and-white photograph of Shridar that sat at the bottom of the large brown envelope, curious to see what the grandson of someone so established looked like. At first glance, he was strikingly fair, the same way Kamala was, face easily catching the natural sunlight without falling into uneven shadows like mine often did when photographed. He was rather handsome, large-eyed with a delicate smile that sat above a strong jaw. I raised the photograph against Kamala’s left cheek and giggled, giddy with excitement. Their faces were delightfully compatible. They could easily have been the hero and heroine of a Tamil romance film I had seen pictures of in newspapers. That afternoon, our family astrologer vouched the same, praising their match as one that was predestined by the deities, and I was convinced I had a bright future as a fortune-teller.
