Eating Women, Telling Tales Read online

  The two goats stood side by side, their ears touching and did not shiver when the drums began to roll. The Devta did not accept them and when they were slaughtered in the temple courtyard, their heads rolled down the hillside and Somu had to run after them. The meat was tough though it had been cooked with a lot of pure ghee, ginger, fresh chilli paste and sesame seeds. After the Devta was given a small portion the entire village came to eat the prasad except Somu’s wife who had to stay at home till her forty days were over. They cooked the meat over a huge fire outside the temple and at dusk the vultures came and cleaned the bones out. But before they could finish, a jackal came and carried the carcass away to the forest. Somu had hidden the goats’ heads in the temple storehouse and after smearing red vermilion on their foreheads, he nailed them to the temple doorway as a mark of respect and record of his sacrifice to the Devta. He hoped that Badi and Munnni mami were content now that he had given each one a goat.

  Many full moon nights passed, his children grew up healthy and happy but the women never came into his wife’s dreams again. The fruit crop was normal and rice and wheat grew well but not with the abundance they had done earlier. The village still talked about that strange summer and wondered what had made it happen. Somu knew but did not say anything but he often asked Parvati if the women had appeared again in her dreams. Somu did not know that they had finally crossed the river of death and flown to a higher circle of twilight where the earth did not exist, and husbands and goats did not matter.

  Four

  Savitri sorted the rice, carefully picking out the grains of husk. She thought about the time in London when she had to cook bhog for Shivratri once. She kept sorting the rice though there were no husks to be found. They needed a few for the pooja but though they went through a huge pile of rice they could not find a single husk. “You know it is only in our country that the rice has husk,” she announced in a loud voice. The women who knew that Savitri had once lived in a foreign country pretended they did not know. They hoped she would tell them about her late husband and his affair with a white woman. But Savitri wanted to tell them how she had cooked the best bhog once. Of course there had been the other two women too, whose names she could not remember anymore.

  SAVITRI’S STORY

  Though the priest at the temple, Purohit Baba, had asked her to come on an empty stomach, Gita thought the gods would not mind if she had a cup of tea. “I will not put any sugar, only milk. Mahadev liked milk, he will forgive me,” she thought as she tiptoed around the kitchen. Gita lived alone now after her husband’s death six months ago but she still walked around the house as quiet as a mouse, as she had done earlier when she was always afraid of waking him up. She still thought he was asleep in the upstairs bedroom, his face covered with an old muffler. He would not have liked her going out in the dark alone like this though the temple was only a fifteen minute walk. “A lone woman without a man guarding her is a target for all evil men in this highly civilized country just as she is at home,” he would say.

  Gita gulped her tea down, trying not to notice its bland sugarless taste. She would make herself a real cup of strong sweet tea when she came back home. It had taken her years to call this tiny doll’s house her home though even now she sometimes wondered where she was when she woke up in the morning and heard the police sirens. This tree-shaded, quiet suburb outside London was so different from her huge, noisy, cluttered home in Patna. This entire house would fit into the courtyard at home and there would still be room for poor relatives to sleep and enough space to store the old trunks full of quilts!

  Gita walked a little faster, trying not to look at the dark shadows under the trees. Another two streets and she would be at the temple. It would take about four hours to make the bhog though Purohit Baba had said it might take longer. “Do not count the hours when you are serving the Lord of Destruction. He might look at us with his third eye and reduce us to ashes.”

  Gita shivered with joy when Purohit Baba’s voice filled the hall. It was as if God himself had come down to speak to them. The women at the temple said he worked as a cashier in a bank. Every morning after he had done the puja, he changed into a suit that he brought on a hanger with him. Gita had seen him one morning and this new image of the Purohit, in tinted glasses and polished shoes, confused her so much that she forgot to do pranam. He just smiled and got into his car, waving to someone she could not see. The next day he was back as Purohit Baba, dressed in a silk kurta and dhoti, his noble face lined with sandalwood paste. Gita wiped the other man from her memory and fixed in its place his serene face when he sang hymns to the great Lord of Destruction.

  Though the temple was just an empty hall in a school with chairs, dumbbells, and basketballs lined up against the wall, when Purohit Baba sang and his voice rose high, it filled with a divine light, transporting Gita to Shiva’s abode in the mountains. She felt so proud when he asked her to help this year with the making of the bhog prasad with wheat flour, almonds and fruit which they would serve after the fasting period was over, though not many people kept the fast here. They were all working, especially the young people and how could you work on an empty stomach? The English people would not understand. She was so surprised when Purohit walked up to her last week. “Ma, you make good shinni I have heard. You may serve the lord this Shivratri,” he had said in that wonderful voice of his. As soon as she got home, she had rung up her son in L.A, but in her excitement she forgot to calculate the time difference and he had sounded very irritated. “Mom, it is five o’clock on a Saturday morning! I have had such a rough week, back-to-back meetings. I’ll call you later. Take care,” he had said before she could give him the news about the Shivratri bhog. The phone crackled in her hand and she tried to bring her son back but he had floated away over miles of ocean.

  Just one more street to cross. Gita walked closer to the wall along the pavement, taking care not to go too close to the gates of the houses she passed. English people did not like strangers coming into their garden or even looking into their gates, she had been told by her husband. The streetlamps were still on and a faded grey-gold sun was beginning to rise above the trees. She could hear sparrows preparing their day and hugged her coat closer. Her son had sent her this velvet coat last year and though she did not like its pale blue colour she still wore it when she went out. It felt good to be able to say, “My son sent me this fancy coat from America. He is an accountant there in big firm. So busy all day, god knows what he eats or drinks without me to take care of him. Just work, work, all day.” Gita could see the school building ahead of her and felt happy. Soon she would be at the temple. She had once more walked here alone and been absolutely fine. Each time she managed to do something on her own she felt she had grown taller and could not stop smiling to herself. “You are a silly woman,” she said and hurried. The shops were closed and their windows covered with a white curtain. She knew most of the shopkeepers who called her Mrs Soon instead of Sen. When her husband was alive she would come regularly to buy fish and vegetables, take her time selecting the fish but now she only shopped once a week. She slowed down when she saw a man curled up under the street lamp, right outside the school building. She was afraid if she walked too fast he would wake up and say something to her. But the man continued to sleep, his head resting on his stomach. “Hope he is not dead, poor creature. Not a good sign for me to see first thing in the morning,” thought Gita. No, he could not be dead. In this country no one died on the streets, not even a stray dog. If some cat or dog was run over, the police came at once, wrapped the body in a plastic sheet and took it away. Not like home where the dead bodies of animals were left for the vultures and kites to clean up. This man must be drunk. As soon as the shops opened they would remove him. This was a clean area her husband always said – no blacks and no peasant Indians from Punjab, just decent, highly educated families. Her hair was still wet from the bath and she wished she had not worn this coat. It was quite chilly and what if she fell ill? Who would take care of her?
Her son would not like it if he had to take leave and come here. Maybe he would take her to America. There! She had said it. She must not say or even think of it. He had not mentioned it and her husband had told her not to ask.

  “You must never beg the children for anything.”

  If she had worn her old black shawl she could have covered her head with it. Hope the Purohit would not mind that she was not wearing white. The two other women who were going to work with her cooking the bhog would certainly wear white since they were widows. Or maybe they might wear light blue or pale grey – those colours were allowed. Of course in this country some widows even wore pink but she would never do that. Her late husband would be horrified and she did not want to hurt him wherever he was, may the gods rest him in peace. That is what they wrote here on tombstones: “Rest in peace.”

  She did not know the other two women well but had seen them often during the pooja and various functions at the temple. At first she had thought Purohit Baba had only asked her to cook the bhog but then she heard that there were these other two who would be cooking along with her. She could have managed quite well on her own and god knows what kind of bhog these two would cook. She would make the prasad and they could make the rice. Some women had such a heavy hand when it came to seasoning. They just threw the salt or chillies in while talking or thinking of other things. You had to keep your mind quiet, hold your heart still when you added salt to a dish. That was the most important part of cooking. You could chop the vegetables as fine as petals, grind all kinds of spices till they could pass through muslin but if you added too much or too little salt, everything was ruined forever. She hoped Purohit Baba would not blame her if anything went wrong. Maybe she should make it clear right from the start. Gita felt a nervous tremble in her stomach. No, why create an unpleasant situation on such a holy day? Mahadev would make everything go right. She said this loudly and walked up the steps. On the pavment the drunk man gave a low groan.

  Savitri’s hands trembled as she combed her hair. There was not much left to comb she thought, looking at herself in the mirror. At the time of her marriage, her hair hung well below her waist. Her late husband often asked her to wrap it around his neck and then he would bury his face in the dark coils and go to sleep. But that was a long time ago, when she had just arrived in this country – and before he left her for the Mem. They said she had golden hair that was as short as a boy’s. “Finally he’s got the son he longed for,” her brother had joked, but Savitri did not laugh. He was still her husband and she had to respect him. No one could make fun of him in front of her. What if he came back one day and said to her, “Savitri. I have made a mistake. I want to live here with you once more”? Then she would have nothing to feel bad about. She would not feel guilty about making fun of him or saying cruel things about his little adventure abroad. Everyone knew these things happened when men lived abroad. These white women were as beautiful as apsaras who could tempt even the saints. Though this mem was very ugly despite her golden hair. Savitri had seen her photograph in her sister-in-law’s house. “This is the one,” she said, and then folded the envelope quickly in case she had offended her but Savitri did not feel bad. Later, when she was alone in the room, she looked at the photograph again with a detached curiosity as if it was some stranger who had nothing to do with her or her husband. He had not lived long to enjoy this woman with short hair. God bless his soul wherever he is.

  On this auspicious morning she did not wish to think bad thoughts though everyone said he deserved the horrible death he got, falling out of the window like that. They said it was the tenth floor of some hotel in London. She saw his picture in the papers. Nothing seemed to be broken but he was dead. They had spelt his name wrong and said he came from Bangladesh instead of West Bengal. How he would have hated that! The boy-mem was not with him otherwise people would have talked. They still talked in the community saying he was drunk when he slipped and fell out of the window, that he had killed himself but Savitri ignored the wagging tongues. She was soon going home to live with her brother and no one in India would know how he died. Heart attack she would say. No accident or anything. And they would accept that and not accuse her of anything because when a man commits suicide the blame always falls on his wife even if he has left her.

  Now that Purohit Baba had asked her to cook bhog, she knew she was safe. He would not have asked if her husband’s unnatural death was casting a shadow over her. She would cook such an excellent bhog that people would talk about it for years to come. When she left, they would forget all the cruel things they said about her, her late husband and the poor boy-mem who was now neither a widow nor a wife. These people who gossiped about her would from now on only remember her as the best bhog cook who had worked at the temple. Lord Shiva, who saw everything with his three eyes, would clear her name and then she could go home.

  Malti had not slept all night. Her grandson had chicken pox and she kept caressing him with a twig of neem leaves so that he would not scratch himself. “Boys are so naughty,” she said to her son before he left for office. Her daughter-in-law luckily had taken a day off today or else she could not have come to cook bhog. She would have died missing out on such an honour. The gods knew how to look after their devotees and her poor beloved Gugu had got chicken pox. She did not wish this illness on him though they said it was better to get chicken pox in one’s childhood. Anyway it had given her a free day after a long time. Not that she minded looking after the little jewel. But cooking bhog for Shivratri was a rare gift from the great Lord of Destruction himself. How she missed the pooja days at home where she had been such an important figure. Nothing would happen till she arrived to organize everything. “Malti knows how to do it. We must wait till she comes,” Guruji would say to anyone who asked him about the bhog. Single-handed she would cook for a hundred people. She allowed a few young women to do the chopping and cleaning but the main dishes she cooked herself. Measuring out everything carefully with the special silver cup she had and then saying her prayers before adding the last touch of ghee and cinnamon. Pulao for Durga ashtami, khitchree for saptami, paish for navami and then meat for kalipuja. She knew what the goddess liked and when she stirred the huge cauldron the devi’s beautiful eyes would watch over her. Everything was different at home. She herself was a different woman: tall, proud and with flashing eyes. Not a soul dared talk back to her, not even her husband who anyway was a kind soul. May Mahadev protect him in his land of death! If he had not caught pneumonia and died suddenly she would still be living at home watching over her ten acres of wheat fields like a queen. Now in this tiny flat she was a clumsy old woman, crashing into everything like an old dim-witted servant who could not remember anything. Every morning before they left for work her son and daughter-in-law would give her instructions. “Do not fry anything. Keep the front door locked. Do not answer the phone – it is on answer phone. And please Ma do not call the neighbours in for cups of tea. They do not like it. This is not India.”

  That she knew well. This was not her country. Every minute she wished she were at home amongst her own people. As she walked to the temple – there was no point in wasting money on the bus – Malti played a game she often did. This was the street outside her home in Calcutta. She walked here everyday to go to the fish market. Her maidservant, not the old reliable one but her saucy daughter, followed her with a plastic shopping basket and she had to keep an eye on her so that she would not flirt with the urchin boys who ran behind them shouting, “Coolie, coolie”. There was the one-legged coconut hawker shouting in his broken voice, and behind him smoke rose from a cauldron as the shop that sold hot snacks got ready for the day. The blouse shop where you could match any shade of sari, the flower garland maker surrounded by jasmines, mogra, lotus buds and a pile of rose petals, the paan shop, sleepy and quiet at this early hour (later loud music would blare from the radio tucked under the betel leaves) and the sly-eyed ribbons and hairpin man who liked to touch every woman’s hands when they paid him, a
ll of them stood by to let her pass. She smiled and nodded at them. “No, nothing today. I am going to the temple to cook bhog for Bholenath. You have tasted my bhog last pooja. It was good was it not? I will get some back for you… don’t worry,” said Malti with a laugh, holding her shawl tightly around her shoulders so that the crowds jostling down the street, the agitated stray dogs and cows, the beggars still asleep in bundles of rags, would not touch her.

  An old lady with a shopping bag which had wheels on it stood outside her house. It was still too early to go out. Her face held a hesitant smile and when Malti passed by she nodded at her. “Nice day. It will be a nice day…” she said, looking at the dark sky. Malti smiled at her and it was only after she had crossed the road that she realized where she was.

  They got down to work as if they had known each other all their lives. Each woman knew instinctively what was needed of her and did not ask the other. Gita alone churned the wheat and milk paste as the other two women sorted the rice and lentils out. It was after they had chopped the potatoes and carrots into cubes, sliced the beans into fine strips and shelled the peas, that Gita spoke for the first time. “The potatoes here are so clean with such fine skins but they taste a bit bland,” she said, not looking up. Savitri raised her eyes, bright with a look of understanding. “How strange, I was thinking of that too. If only someone would send me a small cauliflower from home. I would eat just one tiny bit every day. My late husband thought it was silly. ‘The cauliflowers here are so nice and white’, he used to say,” said Savitri and thought to herself, like their women. Malti laughed and said, “Yes didi, I would love to have not just vegetables from home but moori and mustard oil, fresh gram, new gur and all kinds of rubbish food we used to eat on the street. My son would kill me if he heard all this. ‘You have the best and most hygenic food in this country, how can you long for that filthy, disease-ridden stuff? Hundreds of germs,’ he will say. And me, I get up at night and cry sometimes for a bit of chilli and turmeric fried brinjal. Just now I wish I could have one of our rough-skinned potatoes with bits of earth still on it. They taste better, no, the skins fried crisp? Oh, what would Purohit Baba say if he heard us, three old women talking like greedy urchins? Mahadev would not mind I’m sure,” she said with a smile.