Hindi: Didi Nirdesh Singh
Translation: Varsha Tiwary
Every house has a story. And there is a house in every story. A house with rooms, courtyard, windows, doors, staircases, terrace— all of which also have their own stories, no matter who owns the house. But the houses belonging to the lower castes have fewer rooms. For many, a single room comprises their whole world. Even so, a story exists in every house; because every house has a corner where a woman is scrubbing dishes, washing, cleaning, bathing. And every house also has a noose, with which the woman is tethered to an invisible peg.
This noose is central to my story and its heroine. My heroine has shrunk now. Her skin is desiccating, her eyes, sunken. The cheeks which once felt plump when I kissed them, don’t feel that way anymore, and the scalp is visible through her hair. But despite her advancing age, my heroine Nani thinks nothing of playing tag or kabaddi with me. Unmindful—that even if one of her brittle bones were to go out of joint—she would have to go on groaning hai daiyya.
Anyway. The story begins when I, her daughter’s daughter, was little. Nani would tether her buffalo to a peg and keep hovering around it herself—from morning to evening—laying out hay, mixing the feed, picking up dung, patting dung-cakes out of the heaped dung. Her hands flying like magic as she patted dung cakes. To me, the impression of her fingers on those patties looked as beautiful as any painting. I loved asking her questions.
“Nani how do your hands reach up so high?”
“Why have you come here Lalli? Go away.”
“No Nani, I will also make dung-cakes.”
“Go away! or you’ll get a slap.”
Nani would keep kneading the dung and patting it in shape as she scolded me. But would I stop pestering her. I would tag behind her the whole day. Mostly, I went to her house during summer holidays, staying there for at least a month.
Once Nani fell sick. As soon as my mother came to know, we all rushed to her place. She was admitted in an adjoining hospital. Mother saw her and started crying. Nani said, “Why do you cry when you’ve brought my medicine along? Let Lalli stay with me for a few days. Then I will be fine in two days.”
“Right, ma, but get well first,” my mother said, brushing off tears.
“Nani what happened to you? Please let’s all go home,” I interjected.
Everyone started laughing when I said this. Even Nani. Her laugh remains the same even now. A loud cackle, the mouth wide open. If a child were to hear that sound, she might get scared and cry. One day, I even told her this.
“Nani, you laugh like Ravan.”
Nani scolded me. “Do you even know who Ravan was?”
“Yes, he was a demon who kidnapped Sita and then Ram killed him,” I said.
“No, my Lalli. Brahmins have cooked up this Ram-Ravan fantasy.”
“How so Nani?”
“I will tell you the whole story one day. You sleep now.”
“No. I won’t sleep. Tell me the whole story first.”
Nani then told me that Ravan was a low caste man. Ram and Lakshman cut off Ravan’s sister’s nose and went hiding in the jungle. When Ravan came looking for them, Sita told him they the two were not in the hut. She was lying.
“Then what happened Nani?”
“What else? Ravan thought, if Ram and Lakshman are not here, let me take away Ram’s wife, he will surely come after her. I will teach him a lesson then.”
“But Nani, the book says something else.”
“After all, who writes all these books? The same brahmins. Why would the rascals write that that not only Ram was weaker, but also in fear of Ravan?”
Nani’s stories were like that. Totally unique. Just as she was.
One day Nani was in a rage. She was screaming—”Oh how wonderful are these landholders, These mansion-dwellers! Are we some beggars or thieves that we will steal their crop? Forever that cursed women keeps on browbeating me!”
A voice rose up from the other side as well. “We all know from where you are getting the corn. Have we not seen you. Nothing but a thief you are!”
Hearing this, I came running to Nani. When I asked what had happened, she told me that the Thakur’s wife was abusing her.
“But Nani, tell me what happened?”
“Arre what can happen. I was carrying a haystack for the buffalo, when the cursed one crossed my path. No sooner did she set eye upon me; she began the tirade: that my haystack concealed her corn saplings I had stolen from her fields. I threw the load down and gave it back to her. I would have loved to throw it at her head and make her check both the stack and her fields. When even the red aalta dye never gets a chance to fade off her delicate feet, she has the gall to tell me that I steal saplings from her field!”
“But Nani, this is terrible. Why did she speak like that?”
“Nothing, Banno Rani. This is how caste works. What does the cursed wretch know that I cut my hay from my own field? That we also own full ten kattas of land?”
“Nani all this is because we are of low caste. Is there no way for us to get out of this situation?”
“Time will take care of everything my child. This is happening today. Worse has happened in times gone by. Earlier, this village had the tradition that every low caste bride, before she lit the chulha in her own house, had to go and light the chulha in a brahmin’s house.”
“Meaning?”
“The ritual was: On the fourth day of marriage, the new bride had to cook in a brahmin’s house and feed the brahmin herself.”
“How humiliating, Nani! Didn’t people object to this?”
“Of course we objected. Your great grandmother, meaning my mother-in-law protested. She refused to go to the brahmin’s house. A huge panchayat had to be called. The family was thrown out of the community. But over time, all low castes stopped sending their new brides over. There was much bloodshed as well.”
“Accha! Did these Thakurs too, bully us always?”
“Ha! Who cares about it nowadays. They might as well go and stuff their swagger in some chulha. We earn our own keep now. We are not like their dainty doll idle women who decorate themselves and sit inside the whole day. Is that any life? Without the feel of the sun, or the touch of the wind on the body. Banno, you stop mulling over all this. As you grow up, understanding will come on its own.”
Such is Nani’s style. She has a way of making the most profound of pronouncements casually. The other day Dr. Ambedkar’s statue was being installed in the village and the Thakur boys came armed with guns and weapon. Nani simply picked up a lathi and issued a challenge. “Fight our men later, wretches. First deal with us.”
Something amazing happened another day.
Nani created a big ruckus in the house. “Am I a mother only for my sons? I have five daughters as well. The daughters must also be treated fairly. No cutting corners for them.”
Nana said, “Don’t you realize that daughters are paraya dhan? They are not ours; they are a fortune belonging to someone else.”
“Oh really! If daughters are someone else’s fortune, tell me which one of your sons and daughters-in-law looked after you when you fell sick last year? Still, you go on with son this and son that.” Nani replied, setting out a fresh batch of dung-cakes to dry in the sun.
“So, you want to give a share of property to the girls? Then where will the sons go? Won’t all clan and family traditions be in shambles?”
Nani kept up her tirade. “If the sons are of my womb, have the daughters come out a hollow in the mango trunk? One, you did not educate any of the girls, two you pushed them out of home by marrying them off somehow. I have never said a word. But not anymore. Now you must give my daughters a share of the property. I don’t want to hear anything.”
“O mad woman, have you ever heard a woman owning property? In this Kaliyug you are bent upon making me commit a terrible sin. And you know what? The sons are going to kick us out of their homes. Then where will we go at our age?” Nana’s eyes clearly mirrored his helplessness.
“Which sin? Let me also hear? Which Shastra says that land must belong to the sons alone? It is high time you understood that times have changed. This is not your time anymore. See what all the daughters are doing these days. They are going to schools and colleges. They are wearing trousers. Not like us who spent an entire lifetime in a set of four clothes. Now that everything is changing, you too must change.” Nani tried to persuade him.
“Whatever you may say, I am not going to commit this sin as long as I am alive. What will the village and community say? They gave land to the daughter and son-I n-law while the sons looked on. Hear this, I will not commit this ungodly act.” Nana announced and stepped out of the house.
All this happened before my eyes. Nani went on muttering. God knows whom it was directed at. Maybe at the walls. As if they had ears and the walls would tell this story to the dwellers one day.
“Nani, why are you so insistent? Ma has already said that she has no interest in property. Why are you fighting with Nana?” I pleaded, handing a cup of tea to her.
“The issue is not whether your mother wants a share in the property or not. I have been thinking that I too need to have a share in the property for myself. Even if it is only two fistfuls of land, I want that land in my name. For me to use whichever way I want. To sow whatever I feel like.”
“So, will you plough the fields at your age Nani?”
“Yes. Why not? I want to have a field full of fruit trees. Mango, Guava, Jamun. Even after I go, your children can come and enjoy the fruits.”
“What Nani, you start with something and then go all over the place. I don’t even want to marry. Not right now for sure.”
“No marriage? Are you planning to spend the whole life by yourself?”
“Why not? I have you. And I have mother. I am not leaving you both to go elsewhere.”
“O.K. then, don’t go elsewhere. Just go and check outside. Is your Nana still sulking? Tell him, the tea is going cold.”
Early next morning, Nani had a long face. I had a feeling that this was about yesterday’s issue. My Chotte Mama was trying to persuade her.
“Mother, go ahead, give all the sisters a share. When have I stopped you?”
“How can she give it to them just like that? What about us?” Chotti Mami yelled from the kitchen.
“When the mother and son are talking, how did you land in between?” Chotte Mama said sharply.
“Oh ho! Afterall, in this house, can I claim anything as my own? Everything belongs to you alone.” Chotti Mami took a sotto-voice swipe at him.
“It is not that way Bahu. This house is as much yours as it is mine. You too are like my daughter. I only wish that the land should be in name of the daughters.”
“You mean to say that all of us men should turn landless?” Nana butted in, coughing from the adjacent room. Covering her head, Chotti Mami hurried to give him a cup of tea. Nana went on speaking. “If we give the land to our daughters what will become of our daughters-in-law?”
Both Nana and Chotti Mami looked happy at having teamed up.
“I am saying the same thing. What will become of our daughters-in-law? Our elder one drinks every day, and daily squanders everything at the liquor vend. He shows no concern for anyone. And look at this one. Since morning, he has been pestering me that he wants to buy a taxi.” Nani said.
“Ma, I want to buy a taxi, so that I can earn a living.” Chotte Mama said.
“I know everything. Why you want a taxi. Because you don’t have the stamina to do farming. You should have studied, that you never did. Now, if you want to do something, do it on your own. Dare you suggest selling even an inch of the land. As it is, we have just these one and a half acres. Every two years you all have been at it, selling off land for one thing or another. At this rate, very soon we will be landless.”
“But ma, even when the land gets written in name of the sisters, it will be the same thing. There will be nothing in our share.”
“Why? You are a man. Can’t you earn? Work hard. The land we own today was not inherited by your father. We both had to work like bullocks to make this land ours.”
“That may be correct. But what should we do now? What will be gained by bickering about all this? Chotte, go on your duty.” Nana declared a ceasefire.
This is the way Nani is. Fire, one moment; cool water, the next. Even her rage is special. But after this incident, Nani started looking very dejected. When I asked her why, she said, “We are like this buffalo, tied to a peg with a tether. When I was little, the noose around my neck tied me to the peg in my father and brothers’ house. After marriage, the same noose holds me fast to the peg in my husband’s house. The only reality of women’s lives is this noose. Sometimes I feel that this peg has been driven like a knife into our very chests; so incapacitated are we, that we cannot even take it out.”
I came back from a visit to Nani’s a short while ago. She repeated the thing about being tethered to the peg with a noose. I too, find myself tethered to the same peg. The peg that pierces my chest through. Is the peg really that mighty?
***
Translator Bio:
Varsha Tiwary is a Delhi based writer, translator and literature lover. Apart from translation she is working on her fiction project. Her translation of Rakesh Kayasth’s political bestseller Rambhakt Rangbaz has been recently published as 1990, Aramganj.
