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Amma’s Daughters: 6 Battlegrounds

Amma’s Daughters
6 Battlegrounds
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“6 Battlegrounds” in “Amma’s Daughters”

6

Battlegrounds

ALLAHABAD, 1961

Life in Jaipur continued on its course for another year, before the next time we were suddenly reminded of our parents’ scattered families. One day, a letter arrived unexpectedly from an ashram not far from Poona. As soon as Amma opened it, she and Babu retreated to her room, while Didi and I sat in the drawing room, hoping to overhear what was going on. From fragments of conversation, we gathered that Amma had been informed of someone’s death—a young man, by the sounds of it. He had been staying at the ashram, and, after he died, Amma’s address had been found among his belongings. Now the head of the ashram wanted to know whether she could send someone to collect his belongings.

Amma was weeping, and Babu was evidently trying to help her decide what to do. At one point, he said something about a family friend in Poona who might be willing to help. Amma struggled to speak between sobs. “What good are the material possessions of a dead person?”

A little while later, we heard him try again. “It might mend your heart to see the last place your brother lived.”

Occasionally, Amma’s voice would rise in volume. “They abandoned me,” she said. And then, “This is not on me.”

Only later were we able to find out the whole story. The letter concerned Amma’s nephew, who had died at the ashram not too long after his father, who had lived there for some time. Her nephew had come upon her address as he was sorting through his late father’s things and had written her a long letter expressing his regret that they had never met and explaining that his father had always claimed not to know her whereabouts. He said that he would like to visit her but mentioned that his health was poor and he wasn’t currently able to make such a long trip. Amma had not answered his letter, which had arrived just a few weeks before this latest letter from the ashram, bringing news of his death.

Babu tried hard to persuade Amma to go to Poona herself. But she steadfastly refused. Instead, she announced that she would take Didi and me to Bhagalpur for our summer break, and this time the trip was to include a stopover in Allahabad on the way back.

Now it was Babu’s turn to refuse. When we left for Bhagalpur, he remained behind. Despite his concerns about Amma’s rift with her family, nothing could stir his interest in a visit to his own. I remember wishing that they would both stop being so stubborn.

After two weeks of loving indulgence from aunts, uncles, and cousins in Bhagalpur, we found ourselves on a train bound for Allahabad. Amma had been vague about the purpose of the trip, merely reminding us that the city of her birth was very ancient, dating back to the Vedic period. Now she fidgeted constantly, straightening the pleats of her sari or rotating the gold bangle on her wrist. I wasn’t sure just why she seemed so anxious, but I knew it would be pointless to ask.

It was not long before the reason became apparent. Upon our arrival, a tonga took us to the home of the family with whom we’d be staying. The family lived in Daraganj, an old neighbourhood on the banks of the Ganga not far from its confluence with the Yamuna.

At the house, Amma was given a warm greeting by Bhuvan mausi, whom she introduced to us as a dear friend. But we had barely arrived when we left again, to walk the short distance to a small house in a shabby compound. Its crumbling walls were overgrown with the lush vegetation that blesses the banks of the Ganga. Amma turned to us before opening the rusted metal gate of the compound. She adjusted the length of my scarf, tucked in an errant curl for Didi, and reminded us of our manners, explaining that we were about to meet a great poet, a pioneer of the Chhayavaad movement in Hindi literature—Suryakant Tripathi Nirala. Didi, who adored Niralaji’s poetry, was too amazed to respond.

Niralaji had been very ill, we were told, and Amma wanted to see him before it was too late. The short metal gate creaked painfully on its worn hinges. When Amma knocked on the door of the house, we heard a feeble voice say, “The door is open.”

Inside, we found a man with a bushy beard and long silver hair, propped up by several pillows on a humble charpai cot, the angles of his wiry body poking through ill-fitting clothes. We folded our hands and bowed our heads in greeting. His piercing gaze fixed on Amma. “It’s you!” His gaunt face was all smiles as he pointed to the jute stools scattered around the room, the only pieces of furniture aside from the bed.

Niralaji chided Amma affectionately. “You are visiting after so long. Have you stopped coming to Allahabad?”

Amma seemed embarrassed. “No, I still visit the city, but rarely.”

He chuckled. “So visiting me must be even less than rare.”

They spent the next several minutes talking about people they had known, whose names Didi and I recognized—the poets and patriots Ramdhari Singh Dinkar, Sumitranandan Pant, Mahadevi Verma, and Subhadra Kumari Chauhan. Didi was soaking up every word. After several minutes of reminiscing, Niralaji turned to Didi and me to ask whether we had any interest in literature. Amma said we did and proudly told him about Didi’s plans to do a master’s degree in Hindi. Niralaji looked pleased to hear this but politely declined when Didi asked his permission to take his picture with us. “First, do something good with your lives,” he said.

I was stunned by the difference between the man on the bed and the photographs I had seen: a round-faced young man, with mesmerizing eyes and soft, curving lips, now reduced to these bony remains. He was obviously very sick, but the bright, burning light in his eyes and his straight spine, now supported by lumpy cushions, made me lower my gaze.

Soon his attendant arrived with a physician, signalling the end of our visit. As we left the house, Amma turned around to cast one more look through the open door at the dying man. “End of another chapter,” she said quietly, as if to herself.

From there we walked along the streets of Daraganj, with Amma commenting on the bewildering density of new buildings in the area. After stopping to orient herself in a lane full of houses still under construction, she looked around in dismay. “This jungle of bricks and cement was an orchard as far as the eye could see,” she told us. We walked by a few more hastily built houses and down more jagged, narrow streets, eventually arriving at the ancient temple of Nag Vasuki, the serpent god, on the banks of the Ganga.

Amma walked the length and breadth of the temple’s sprawling compound, with Didi and me hanging behind, investigating the carved arches and pillars of this ancient mossy edifice, from which a long flight of stone steps led right into the wide river. Amma climbed down a few steps of the ghat to sit above the green waters. Didi and I climbed down as well, to sit on either side of her. Even in the scorching heat of June, there was a deliciously cool wind blowing from the north, caressing the vast river flowing peacefully below us. This was the last ghat before the Ganga met its sister river. We sat there in silence, not talking, not thinking, just feeling the despair of an eight-year-old girl long ago.

The river stretched before us in the quiet of the midafternoon heat. Only a few brave birds flew overhead; curious fish gathered around our shadow in the water, and a few deer rested in a cool grove at some distance. After a few minutes, Amma walked down the remaining steps of the ghat. She stopped before her feet could touch the murky water, but she dipped her hands into it and then touched the water to her eyes and forehead as a mark of respect. Then, folding her hands, she recited the Mahamrtyunjaya Mantra. We listened in silence to the ancient prayer:

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We worship the three-eyed Lord

Who is fragrant and who nourishes all beings.

As the ripened cucumber is freed from its bondage,

May he liberate us from death to immortality.

When she had finished, Didi and I followed her to the edge of the water, where we paid our respects to the mighty river by touching the water and bowing.

Only a couple of hundred yards away from the river’s banks was our next stop: the ruins of a mansion, where a tall arch stood like a gap-toothed ancient sentinel, protecting crumbling walls. Only one of the panels of the bulky door, laden with brass latticework and wooden studs, remained. Through this gateway we entered an enormous courtyard, where we walked along beside the high wall that had blocked our view of the courtyard from the outside. The inside of the mansion was in even worse condition than the exterior: chunks of stone, wood, and bricks from its ancient walls had been removed, and violently, not by the ponderously slow hands of the elements.

Amma walked without speaking through the nooks and crannies of what survived of the interior. With her, we toured the remains of alcoves and stared as imposing door frames without doors, windows no longer protected by ornate bars and curtains, rooms without roofs, and crumbling walls that glimmered in the glow of the lustrous moss that grew on every surface. We watched as Amma caressed the mutilated walls, the wounded vestiges of what was—we now realized—her lost childhood home.

The screeching of a flock of parakeets filled the sky above the courtyard, reminding us of the approaching dusk and snapping Amma out of her trance. “The cowshed used to be in the back,” she said.

We followed her out of the house through another passageway, which opened into a backyard, now overgrown with unruly bushes and wise old trees. There was indeed a neat row of three walled stone-and-mud enclosures that looked like unused animal sheds. Where this row ended, a narrow hut stood forlornly, its door closed, a faint light escaping through its uneven wooden slits. Amma knocked on the wooden door just once and stepped away quickly, as though the door knocker were a live snake. A thin old woman with a bent back, a hurricane lantern in one hand, opened the door. “Who are you?” came her rasping voice. “What do you want?”

Amma could barely say the words. “I used to live in this house, many years ago . . .” She pointed helplessly toward the ruins as her voice trailed off.

The old woman came closer, raising her lantern to Amma’s face, screwing her eyes up for a long moment. “Parvati?”

Amma nodded. Her sobs and tears flowed freely as the old woman hugged her, trembling, exclaiming, crying. Amma wailed, her mouth turned to the darkening sky. “Ha, re!” Didi and I rushed to her side when we saw Amma’s legs buckle under her.

Helplessly, we watched our mother wailing and sobbing, seated on the bare earth, mourning with her whole being, without restraint. Amma’s tears mixed with the water in the steel mug that the old lady produced and was forcing her to sip from, while holding her hand and rubbing her back.

Through her own sobs, the old woman kept repeating, “It’s all gone! Everyone! Everything!” Bit by bit, the story emerged in her feeble, scratchy voice: Amma’s parents died. Her brother left and never returned. The servants were all gone. This elderly woman was cursed to live out her days looking on helplessly as looters took away furniture, fixtures, bricks, stones, and even trees from the orchard.

As the strong current of aching emotions subsided, Amma noticed Didi and me, as though for the first time, leaning close to each other against the rough stone wall of the hut. Amma wiped her tears and summoned us closer. “Abha, Rekha—many generations of this woman’s family served this household.”

Didi and I folded our hands and bowed our heads to accept the blessings of this feeble link of a broken chain, who showered us with guttural blessings for long lives, marriages, and many sons.

We left this lost world swathed in the dark night, to return to Bhuvan mausi and her family at the other end of Daraganj. As we made our way back, Amma explained the connection. When her eldest sister drowned, the man to whom she had recently been wed was left a widower. He had later married Bhuvan mausi and had been a political activist himself, although he’d passed away not long ago. Strange though it might seem, Amma told us, this family had been her refuge in more ways than she could count.

Bhuvan mausi treated Amma like a little sister, scolding her for not looking after her health. Amma should get more exercise, she insisted. She asked pointed questions about Babu that no one we knew had ever dared to ask. She also lectured Didi and me about Amma’s past and our future, until we escaped to the kitchen to help her two daughters-in-law, who were always busy taking care of the large household.

I was wide awake just before dawn. I went looking for Amma and found her on the quiet terrace. The rest of the household was still asleep in their snug beds downstairs. I was not sure how long Amma had been there, writing in her diary, which now sat open in her lap, though her pen was still. I picked up the flashlight near her. Its batteries were spent.

I sat on the wicker chair next to her and rested my chin on my knees, listening to the early-morning bird calls, feeling the reverberations of brass bells from faraway temples, savouring the cool breeze and the whiff of the sacred river the breeze brought with it. “Amma, why didn’t you go back to your home?”

She exhaled. “I did.”

Startled, I tried to see Amma’s eyes in the misty light of dawn. “How could they not accept their little girl back? How could they not welcome her with tears of joy?”

Amma looked away from the page she had been writing. “Tears were shed, but not for the lost little girl. They were shed for the scandal that would follow her return. Not for the sullying of childhood innocence, but for the tarnishing of the family name.” She paused. “I could have stayed, reincarnated as a distant relative, given away in marriage with a big dowry, hidden from eyes and minds forever. But it doesn’t matter now, does it? The present, this moment, this very breath, is all that matters.”

With this, the little girl was officially banished once again. But the anguish was not so easily dismissed, silently announcing itself in her averted gaze, her tightly pressed lips, and the slump of her normally squared shoulders.

JAIPUR, 1962

In February, Prime Minister Nehru won the third general election in another landslide victory, a win that earned him much annoyed commentary from Babu. Praja Sandesh expressed disappointment in the system of electoral democracy, in which less than 55 percent of the population had voted. Yet Babu and other contributors to Praja Sandesh also commented hopefully on the ongoing movements for democracy in restive colonies of the Caribbean, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. In other opinion pieces they expressed concerns over East-West polarization since the Bay of Pigs invasion in Cuba and the push and pull of distant forces on Afghanistan and East Pakistan, both now witnessing incursion of the military into civilian politics.

Despite his commitments to the paper and the printing press, however, Babu’s sporadic disappearances continued unabated. Sometimes he reappeared after two days, sometimes after more than a week, never following a recognizable rhythm. We had by then perfected the art of pretending to ourselves and others that this was normal. We had mastered the art of hiding the anxiety it caused us to keep up appearances and the worry we felt over whether he would return this time. When home, Babu retreated more and more into his books. Shafiji took on a wider variety of printing orders to sustain the publication of the newspaper, whose subscription base was declining.

Kamala mausi’s frequent visits provided respite for a grateful Amma. On her visits, Kamala mausi effortlessly took charge of the household, skillfully managing the menagerie of small animals, the streams of visitors, and the eclectic collection of domestic helpers. She was the only one who ever harassed Babu for sticking so stubbornly to his clockwork schedule of yoga, meditation, reading, writing, and singing, punctuated by breakfast, lunch, and evening snack, which did not match with the routine of anyone else in the household.

She also liked to loudly debate national and international politics with Viyogiji, one of the regular editorial contributors to Praja Sandesh. Viyogiji was a freelance journalist and writer in his mid-forties who went by only his pen name, which meant “bereaved.” He wore an eternally bereft look on his oblong face, and his thinning hair and saggy skin were always shiny from overly lavish applications of oil. His disappointment with the world was as genuine as Babu’s, but the world had not turned its back on Viyogiji. His ancestors had been minor officials in the royal court, and on this basis he had been given a small land grant in what was now a highly sought-after area outside the walled city. He lived with his wife and four children in a large old house in the centre of a very posh colony.

Kamala mausi considered both Babu and Viyogiji to be delusional. She often read her new poems to us, and she encouraged Didi and me to keep writing. Recently she had also begun compiling the stories of women freedom fighters in the province. This project led to a heated argument between her and Babu, who questioned the cult of personality that, in his opinion, these individual stories would promote. A bristling Kamala mausi planted herself squarely in front of Babu’s desk, stiffer than her starched white sari, now wilting somewhat in the summer heat. “Aren’t we a culture of ‘cult of personality’? Isn’t this why millions of gods thrive in our pantheon? Or are you objecting to these stories of mine because they do not include goddesses and princesses?”

I enjoyed watching Babu try to sidestep these duels. Since he couldn’t avoid this one, he tried to appease her by listing the number of books that had already been published on the Indian freedom movement. Her stare only grew steelier. “You mean the volumes on the heroism of prominent men that mention no women other than the few who had famous fathers and husbands?”

From there she launched into a lecture on the futility of celebrating the fifteenth anniversary of independence when the real heroes and heroines of the struggle for independence had already been forgotten—the ordinary people who paid high personal prices for their defiance and whose lives had changed little since independence. These are the people who need to be remembered, she argued, not the handful of leaders whose goal had been to gain political power and who were now busy creating their own legacies.

I knew that Babu agreed with much of what Kamala mausi was saying, yet he looked annoyed. He tried a different tack. “Independence is not just a moment in history. There are no clean little beginnings and neat little endings. It is an ongoing struggle toward justice for all. Hero worship in any form is individualistic and undemocratic.”

Undeterred, her left eyebrow and right hand rose in a dance mudra to emphasize her point. “Accha? Is that why you sing the bhajans of social rebels every evening?”

“The bhakti poets were more than just social rebels,” Babu protested. “Their lives and writings are compelling stories that reveal new meanings every time we return to them.”

Kamala mausi looked at him triumphantly. “Aha! But what is more democratic than believing that everyone’s story is compelling?”

Babu closed his eyes, but his slight smile acknowledged that her point had struck home. Yet he pushed her further: “If a story is compelling, it will find a way to be known. It doesn’t need your help or mine.”

“In a perfect world that may be true. But in a man’s world, women have no opportunity to tell their stories.” She argued at length about the need to collect and preserve these stories, to show that history is more a complex patchwork tapestry than a neat series of actions. Ordinary men and women needed constant reminders of their stake in political change to prevent the privileged from gaining absolute control. Entrusting power entirely to the ruling elite made it easy to go the way of neighbouring Pakistan, where the tug-of-war among powerful elites had allowed a fragile democracy to fall into the grip of military rule.

Kamala mausi had taken me along on some of her expeditions to pore over accounts of the freedom movement in the region, to compile names of women activists, and to try to locate them within the closed confines of busy households. She had faced genuine surprise, hostile questions, and sometimes outright refusal to help her document the experiences of women activists. Now I was holding a bulky file containing notes from her library research and from interviews with the few women who had agreed to talk to her—reluctant testimony given under the watchful gaze of a stern patriarch, a bitter rant from a dark forgotten corner of a decrepit house, a self-effacing account interrupted by an all-knowing spouse, all these memories now bound together with loosely spun jute twine. I was certain I knew how the debate with Babu would end. I shuffled my feet to keep them from going numb and waited patiently.

Kamala mausi had compiled her research into the notebook she was holding, which she now pushed toward Babu. She continued speaking passionately as she handed it to him, reminding him of the limited social and public space that existed in India for women from less-privileged backgrounds. Despite Gandhiji’s campaign, she lamented, the keepers of these stories were mostly men who needed convincing to preserve and share these women’s experiences. She pressed Babu to help her edit and publish her manuscript, which she had titled Azadi ki mahila sipahi—Women Who Fought for Freedom.

To my amazement, Babu agreed.

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Throughout the summer, we had been hearing sporadic reports of skirmishes in the distant Himalayas, along the northeastern section of the border between China and India. Nehruji seemed confident that the situation was under control, as did the army’s chief of staff, but Babu was skeptical. In his opinion, not only were the country’s leaders underestimating the impact of India’s decision to grant political asylum to the Dalai Lama three years earlier, during the rebellion in Tibet, but they also failed to understand that the Chinese viewed Nehru’s Forward Policy as an expansionist threat.

On 20 October, the Chinese proved him right, launching attacks in two widely separated areas—along the northeastern frontier as well as far further west, in Aksai Chin, a remote area in Ladakh where the location of the border was also a matter of dispute. India was caught off guard. As the fighting escalated in the frozen Himalayan heights, reports of heavy losses filled the news. Amma and Babu worked virtually night and day, trying to raise funds to help the families of the dead or wounded, addressing local meetings, printing pamphlets to quell rumours of imminent state collapse, and organizing rallies in an effort to dispel the fear hanging over the city. In a fundraising effort, Amma had stayed up nights writing two inspirational plays—Ma ki pukar (A Mother’s Cry for Help) and Aavahan (Summons). Babu and Viyogiji printed up copies of both and also churned out regular editorials in Praja Sandesh on India’s foreign policy.

Only a month after its initial attacks, China unilaterally declared a ceasefire and retreated from most of the Indian territory it had occupied. India had suffered a humiliating defeat, losing thousands of soldiers—some killed, some dead from exposure. As the nation struggled to come to terms with this tragedy, Amma embarked on a third writing project: her autobiography. Again, her intention was that proceeds from the sale of the book would go to benefit the families of those killed or severely wounded in the war. She titled her story Smriti ki shrinkhalayen (A Chain of Memories).

The book, which consisted of a loosely linked selection of episodes and events drawn from Amma’s diaries, was something of a whirlwind effort, in which everyone participated. Amma wrote, and, when she had finished a section, the typesetters composed the pages, and Shafiji printed a set of proofs. Didi, Kamala mausi, and I divided the first round of proofreading among ourselves, and then Babu proofread a second time. Amma also read the proofs, making various amendments, before the corrected proofs were sent back to the compositors. In the meanwhile, Amma would be working on another section, and the cycle would be repeated. It was supposed to work like a tightly organized relay race, but, what with power cuts and other interruptions, the various stages of the cycle kept running into each other, causing much confusion and sometimes more work. Finally, though, the book was in print.

I could hear Amma’s voice speaking on every page, but I was hoping that she would divulge more about her early life. She opened the book with a vivid description of her visit the previous year to her ancestral home in Allahabad, but she said almost nothing about the family of her birth—she didn’t even mention the family name. She made a few tantalizing references to a man she called simply “bhai,” who had lived first in Jaipur and later in Ajmer, and she also referred briefly to a bhai, also unnamed, who worked for the forest department in Nagpur. But Amma had only one biological brother, and I wasn’t sure whether he was either of the two mentioned. Our own family was also conspicuously absent. Babu barely appeared in the book at all: he was mentioned by name only twice. Didi and I appeared in only three places in the book, mostly as children accompanying Amma to visit famous authors and leaders. That didn’t bother me all that much, but I was really disappointed that she had chosen to say nothing about her time with the revolutionaries after leaving her childhood home. Yet when I questioned her about these omissions from her story, Amma answered only, “The time has not yet come.” When I persisted in my efforts to pry answers loose from her, she put an end to my questions with a smiling challenge: “Perhaps the time will be right once you’re writing your own books.”

In her book, Amma mentioned that she had been writing daily diary entries since she was about eight years old, and I knew this was true: dozens of notebooks of various sizes now lined the topmost shelves of the library on the terrace. Amma had never expressly forbidden me from reading them, but I couldn’t bring myself to do more than take a quick peek at one of them before, feeling like a guilty trespasser, I closed it and returned it to its place on the shelf. I knew, though, that many of the answers to my questions were waiting to be discovered inside those cloth-and-cardboard-bound diaries. One day, I promised myself, I would take them down from their high perch on the bookshelf and organize them, so that Amma could write the full story of her life, a life I knew was in many ways remarkable.

JAIPUR, 1963

Didi and I were both very busy with school. I was in the final year of my undergraduate degree at Maharani College, and my social life was suffering under the demands of music practice, painting projects, and library work for my history courses. Didi, meanwhile, was finishing a master’s degree in Hindi literature at the rapidly growing University of Rajasthan. Maharaja Man Singh II had made a generous land grant to the university—more than three hundred acres, about two miles from the city centre. At the time, though, the campus was still under construction, and much of the site was little more than a vast sandy expanse dominated by thorny trees, bordered on the east by the scraggy Jhalana Hills, with the hilltop fort of Moti Dungri lying to the north.

For her final-year thesis, Didi had chosen as her topic the early-twentieth-century nationalist poet Maithili Sharan Gupt. Still alive at the time, and currently one of the nominated members of Parliament’s upper house, the Rajya Sabha, Maithili Sharanji was a well-known freedom fighter from western Uttar Pradesh who, beginning in the early decades of the century, used poetry as a vehicle for social and political commentary. Although Braj Bhasa had long been the preferred language of literature in northwestern areas of India, with Awadhi holding sway further east, Sharanji chose to write in Khari Boli, a vernacular dialect of Hindustani spoken around Delhi and in the region between the Yamuna and Ganga rivers—the dialect on which the standardized form of Hindi was later based. Sharanji also preferred the fluidity of non-rhyming couplets, and, at a time when writers typically drew on male mythical and historical figures for inspiration, he had dared to compose poems that centred instead on female figures.

Didi was especially fascinated by one of Sharanji’s most famous poems, Saket, which focuses on Urmila, the wife of Lakshman, Rama’s younger brother. Rather than celebrating the fraternal loyalty of Lakshman, who chose to follow his older brother into exile, Sharanji describes the sorrows of the devoted Urmila, who awaited her husband’s return for fourteen years. Similarly, in Yashodhara, Sharanji declines simply to retell the familiar story of Prince Siddhartha, the Buddha, who rejected material bonds in search of spiritual enlightenment, and instead explores the anguish of Yashodhara, Siddhartha’s wife, whom he left one night as she slept, their young son at her side. Sharanji’s examination of the female perspective became the focus of Didi’s research and analysis.

In whatever time we could spare from our studies, Didi and I continued to hunt for reading materials in the room Amma had had built on the terrace, but we did not spend much time in it. The asbestos roof had proven no match for the desert heat in the summer or the bone-chilling cold in the wintertime, which made it impossible to convert the space into a functional library. Amma had long since given up on her grand design of wall-to-wall shelves; instead, Babu’s plank/stone/metal contraptions, of uneven although sturdy construction, lined every inch of the library’s walls. Babu had also recently started creating an island shelf for the middle of the room, to house his regular new acquisitions on philosophy and music. Didi and I would pause periodically during our forays into the library to clean off some of the layers of dust and cobwebs that were always gathering, but that was the extent of our attempts to impose order.

Other matters seemed so much more important. The swelling in Amma’s ankles was no longer responding to hot oil massages. Kamala mausi took it upon herself to badger Amma to see Dr. Vohra, pointing to her shortness of breath and to the recurring pain in her neck, arms, and back; in response, Amma invoked her usual philosophical arguments about the nature of the human body—sharir dharma, she would say. She adhered to Gandhian objections to modern medicine: she believed it good for superficial ailments, infections and injuries, but not for systemic imbalances. Finally, however, and only after many heated debates, Kamala mausi used one of Amma’s own arguments against her stubborn refusal: “Yes, your body is doing its own dharma. But you are responsible for its well-being. That is your dharma. It is not self-indulgent to expect your feet to carry you and your spine to support you.”

At this, Amma agreed to go with her to see the holistic vaidya near Sanganeri gate, who practiced Muslim Unani medicine combined with Ayurvedic treatments. They returned from the visit with a bag full of elixirs and powders, and Kamala mausi gave detailed instructions to Mangi bai about Amma’s new salt-free and oil-free food regimen. She banned the nuts, fried in ghee and seasoned with salt, that Amma had relied on for so long to get through a busy day without a meal break. At first, Mangi bai grumbled at the unfairness of putting the hard-working Amma on such a tasteless diet, but she was silenced when Kamala mausi threatened to hold her personally responsible if anything were to happen to Amma’s health. Amma was supposed to get more rest, too, but she refused to make such a promise.

In the meanwhile, another marriage proposal arrived for Didi, this time delivered via Babu. Babu had always liked the pleasant young clerk at the local khadi distribution shop. When the young man’s uncle recommended him as a suitable match for Didi, Babu was pleased, and he brought the offer home to discuss. He reasoned that this was a healthy young man from a decent family who made a meagre but steady income. Since Didi was about to finish her degree, he thought, she could eventually get a job as a teacher to help support them both.

However, Amma reminded Babu that they had been rejecting far more appropriate matrimonial matches for Didi since she was in high school. She then revealed that she had been approached by their old acquaintance Ramkrishnaji, who had been contacted by a wealthy zamindar family in Dhar about a possible match with Didi. Ramkrishnaji was from one of Rajputana’s many erstwhile royal families. Although he was an active volunteer in the grassroots wing of the Congress, the Seva Dal, his other life kept him connected to exclusive clubs in different parts of the country, and this was how he had come to know the zamindar family. He vouched for the gentlemanly dispositions of Thakur Nihal Chand and his only son, Hamir Chand Choudhary, who had a degree in agricultural engineering, and said that caste would not pose a problem. Neither Amma nor Babu was remotely concerned about caste, but those who arrived with proposals of marriage generally did not share their indifference. And so, like this one, most of the offers came from families whose caste matched our own.

Ramkrishnaji had said that he would be very happy to act as go-between in this alliance, and he had assured Amma that Thakur saheb knew all about Amma and her family and was very keen to have someone just like Didi as his daughter-in-law. Babu was unimpressed and scolded Amma for conveniently forgetting the role of the feudal system in the enslavement of the masses by foreign invaders and local oppressors alike.

Rather than argue the point, Amma tried to steer the conversation back to the issue at hand, namely, the young clerk. Didi and I pretended to be deep in our books while our ears strained to hear every word of the conversation in Babu’s room next door. Amma was worried that Didi had shown no interest in teaching or any other career. She had few friends, and, aside from her classes, her books, her sitar, and her meals, she showed little interest in anything. Amma wondered whether this introversion was some sort of quiet rebellion against the assertive, outgoing personalities of the rest of the family. But Babu seemed barely to be listening to what she said. Instead, he launched into another lecture on the regression of hard-fought social values and the preponderance of elitism in our lives.

Amma let him finish his rant. “You and I came from the same kind of families, but we managed to break free from the feudal mindset. What makes you think that others cannot do the same?” She declared that she intended to find out more about this zamindar family before writing off the marriage proposal; she would meet the family of the khadi store clerk, she promised, but only after making a trip to Dhar. True to form, Babu refused to take any part in this fact-finding mission, so Amma announced that she would enlist me as her second-in-command.

Amma then headed toward our room, armed with a picture of the young man. It became very hard for us to keep up our pretence of disinterest at this point. Didi had cast only a brief glance at the picture before I snatched it out of her hands. The handsome face wore a stern expression. “That boy looks a bit old,” I teased. “He’s probably grumpy, too.” Amma’s eyes searched Didi’s face, while Didi simply ignored my taunts and remained silent. She kept her eyes downcast too, but we could see that she was trying to hide a small smile. This was enough for Amma, who promised to investigate the marriage proposal further.

After Amma had informed Thakur saheb of our visit, she and I made our way to the heart of the country, travelling some three hundred miles south to Ratlam by train, where Thakur saheb’s son was to pick us up in his car so that we could cover the remaining sixty miles to their home in Dhar. We freshened up after the long train ride in the waiting room of Ratlam station, while, with characteristic small-town simplicity, the station agent asked us questions about where we were coming from and where we were going. When Amma mentioned Thakur saheb of Dhar, he was very impressed and began telling us stories about the family’s wealth, but the more his enthusiastic monologue gathered steam the more restless Amma grew. Finally she interrupted him to inquire about the next train back to Jaipur. I was relieved to learn that it wasn’t due until the next day, and our return reservation was for the day after that. I was tired and extremely curious, so I pleaded with Amma to continue on, now that we were there.

Reluctantly she agreed to emerge from the station and head toward the only car, a Volkswagen, parked directly outside. A dashing young man, nearly six feet tall, wearing a Gatsby hat, a tweed waistcoat over a white T-shirt, and pleated slacks, was leaning against it. A narrow, immaculately trimmed mustache completed the effect. He looked like a model from the cover of a film magazine. Amma stood stiffly at first, but she allowed herslf to smile when he rushed forward to take our suitcase, making polite inquiries about our train ride.

As we drove past picturesque countryside, Amma asked Hamir Chandji about his childhood. An only son born after four daughters, he had barely lived at home. At the age of eight, he had been sent off to Daly College, an elite boarding school in Indore, which, for close to a century, had been educating the sons of India’s aristocracy. After finishing there, he had gone to Poona to study agricultural engineering. His return home had coincided with the death of his loving mother after a brief illness. His sisters were much older than he was, and all four of them were already married with children.

Since his return home a few years ago, he had spent his time helping his father manage the estate, taking long drives across the country, visiting his numerous friends from school, and playing tennis. He described his father as a well-travelled man and a voracious collector of books, but someone who was most comfortable in the old world that he inhabited. In his late twenties now, Hamir Chandji was currently making plans to start an industrial plant in Dhar that would manufacture heavy agricultural equipment such as tractors.

From the back seat, I could not make out from Amma’s profile whether she liked what she was hearing. After a while the biographical details ceased, and they carried on an uncomplicated conversation about the farmland and the clusters of forests we were passing through. I chimed in with questions every now and then, flaterred at being called “Rekhaji” by our gracious guide.

The string of forests and farms, some of these home to hunter tribes known for their archery skills (and sometimes employed to rob highway travellers), eventually gave way to the picturesque town of Dhar. As we entered, Hamir Chandji pointed to the remains of an ancient earthen rampart that once had marked the boundary of a circular city surrounded by a series of water tanks and moats. The city had existed since the sixth century BC, surviving many invasions, lootings, burnings, and annexations to remain a wealthy centre of culture and learning. It had emerged as the capital of the region of Malwa during the rule of the Delhi Sultanate, but then the many wars during the period of Mughal-Maratha rivalry in the region had diminished the city’s fortunes. By the time it came under the British rule in 1818, Dhar had become a nominally sovereign princely state under the Pawar dynasty. Hamir Chandji was born into one of the twenty-two noble zamindar families in the region, all of them holders of large estates.

The haphazard network of ancient streets lined with dignified old houses led to a huge compound in the middle of the city. A tall archway led to a narrow, curving driveway that must have been a quarter mile long. The driveway ended at a metal gate through which we entered a rectangular clearing nearly as big as a cricket pitch, bordered by a lush green orchard to the east and a three-storey mansion on the west. At last the car stopped under a high porch supported by Greek-style pillars.

“Welcome to Bada Rawla!” We were greeted as soon as we stepped out of the car by an an older man who had just come down the wide staircase that led to the first floor. Thakur saheb was nearly as tall as his son. His bald ivory head blended seamlessly with his ivory silk kurta and its glinting gold buttons. The tight churidar slacks revealed slightly bandy legs. “From my excessive love of riding,” he offered with a chuckle, noticing my stare.

I was deeply embarrassed and tried not to gawk at anything else as the elders exchanged greetings and introductions. My resolve was put to a sudden test, however, when I saw a young woman descending the staircase. She looked as though she were made of spotless marble, a lovely combination of fine features, statuesque figure, and poise in a sari. Thakur saheb introduced her to us as his eldest daughter, Jayanti ben. “My horse-riding, boar-hunting daughter has recently had her third child. She is now recuperating in her father’s house,” he said with paternal pride. Jayanti ben greeted us sweetly, but despite her warm welcome I glanced nervously at Amma, knowing that the hunting reference could not have been well received by this lover of all creatures big and small. To me she appeared to be struggling to reserve judgment.

Nevertheless, the pleasantries continued, and we followed Thakur saheb and his two children upstairs while two servants scurried to unload our small suitcase from the car. I noticed that Amma was climbing the stairs a bit stiffly, so I moved closer to offer her the support of my arm. This also gave me the opportunity to whisper excitedly, “Amma, his daughter is so beautiful!” But her sharp pinch on my arm said, “Not now.”

The staircase led us to an opulent drawing room, furnished with a magnificent sofa with a silver frame, side tables whose marble tops were inlaid with semi-precious stones, and an intricately carved mahogany two-seater in the shape of two peacocks, their interlocked plumage unfurled in all its majesty. A row of photographs and paintings of the past few generations of Thakur saheb’s family looked down at us from the upper reaches of the wall, and an enormous oil painting of Thakur saheb in a three-piece suit sat importantly atop a mantel fitted with numerous shelves. These shelves were filled with delicate porcelain figurines and gold and silver knickknacks of all kinds. The collection, as we were later told, had been gathered from all over the world, including Europe and the Far East.

From the high wood-panelled ceiling hung a number of chandeliers that swung gently in the breeze that entered through four open doors, one in each corner of the enormous room. There were eight more doors, all closed. A vast Persian carpet lay across much of the polished sandstone floor, and along one of the walls ran a broad divan covered in gold brocade and a neat arrangement of oversized bolsters. The divan would have seemed very inviting were it not for the large tiger skin draped over its centre.

Thakur saheb politely asked us to sit and make ourselves comfortable after the long journey. Amma chose the sofa closest to an entrance, as though preparing to leave any minute. Thakur saheb took my hand and led me toward the lap of the peacocks across the room, where he sat down beside me, while his son and daughter sat next to Amma.

Soon silver trays laden with freshly made sweets, savoury snacks, and cool sherbet arrived, which Jayanti ben stood up to serve. As we savoured these treats, Thakur saheb asked one of the servants who had carried in the trays to check whether the guest room was ready and our bags unpacked, but Amma protested that we were used to doing such work ourselves. Thakur saheb smiled courteously in response to her abrupt interjection and asked Jayanti ben if she would escort Amma to the guest room so that she could freshen up after we had finished our refreshments.

He then turned to ask with a mischievous smile, “Are you also tired, young lady? Or do you have the energy to see the house? Let’s leave your mother here for a chance to snack and talk to the family.” Of course I wanted to see this amazing place that looked like a living museum. Amma nodded her permission, but her countenance remained clouded.

Under a wide overhang, a long balcony ran the outside length of the drawing room, connecting to a large enclosed hall with decorative metal grilles encased in a fine wire mesh. “So that the women can see what is happening in the yard below without being seen from outside,” Thakur saheb explained. I raised an eyebrow at this, but said nothing. The airy hall held a stocky dining table for ten, with ornate high-backed chairs. Glass-fronted wooden display cases lined one wall; they housed a haughty-looking collection of fine bone china, which came from Britain and Belgium. A mesh-encased door opened onto a square open terrace, directly above the carport.

The western wall of the dining room was lined with heavy wooden doors, but I saw no sign of a kitchen. Three of these doors opened onto the billiards room. Above the custom-made billiards table hung the largest chandelier that I had ever seen outside of a museum. The three doors on the other end of the billiards room opened onto another square terrace and a balcony, this time overlooking the inner courtyard of the mansion.

Next we went to Thakur saheb’s library, wedged between the drawing room and the billiards room. Babu and Amma’s could have competed with it in the number of titles it contained, but nothing else. Neat rows of wooden bookshelves with glass doors lined the walls. An antique writing desk and chair sat invitingly in a corner near one of the six doors. All the books were hard-backed, many in leather covers, and nowhere did I see any of them stacked in multiple rows or packed horizontally on top of book standing vertically in rows.

Next we tracked back to the dining hall and into a short passage connected to another staircase, which led us to a new area of the house that Thakur saheb said has just been added on, intended for his son and his future bride. The new section had large connected halls, each one with numerous doors and windows fitted with stained glass from Italy, the walls accented by porcelain tiles from Britain. Only one of the rooms in this section was furnished, and this had been chosen as the guest room for Amma and me. And all this was just in the east wing of the first floor.

The south wing of the building held the working areas of the house, something like what I remembered from the house in Bhagalpur, but on a totally different scale. Different activities involved in cooking and food preparation were divided into different rooms—grain storage halls, potato and root storage halls, rooms where the grain was stone-ground, rooms with only large cooking pots, one room for cleaning the variety of vessels, a room for storing water in variously sized earthen and metal containers, and finally a large kitchen that held everything necessary for cooking, whether with wood, dung patties, or gas fire, and where, as I was told, the fire never died.

A large, bare room with lots of folded mats and small square stools in a corner was described by Thakur saheb as the dining area for the women and children. We skipped the tour of the west and north wings, since they were, apparently, much like the south wing. Periodically, one of his four married daughters would come for an extended stay to deliver a child and recuperate in the paternal house, and the south wing was where they generally stayed.

All four wings of the house were connected through covered passages and staircases descending into the inner courtyard. A high arch in the east side connected the inner courtyard with the outer one. An impressive black-stone entryway, shaded by a pink cassia tree, led to the office of Thakur saheb, who was a lawyer by training. It held a mahogany table with a swivel chair, and the table was surrounded by bookcases that held long rows of law books in leather bindings.

Through the metal-grille front of this office, I could see the building’s third storey with its slanted roof, sitting like a crown on top of the east wing. Thakur saheb saw me looking up at it and promised to show me the army of cupboards on that floor, which, he claimed, contained the most fashionable clothes and fabrics that could be purchased in Europe or America. He then pointed to the humble ground-floor rooms all around the courtyard, explaining that they were either empty or used as storage.

“To store what?” I ask.

“Oh, this and that,” he grinned. “Let me show you something.”

I followed him into another large hall behind his office, this time with a black granite floor and a raised stone platform at one end. This room, he explained, was for the religious festivals that his family observed in elaborate detail. We crossed that hall into yet another room and finally arrived in a small, windowless room. In front of us stood a metal chest as big as a full-sized bed, only higher. When Thakur saheb opened the heavy lid, I saw that the chest was filled to the brim with silver plates and bowls in all sizes and shapes. He suggested I lift out a few plates while he held open the lid.

In obedience I wedged my fingers under the curved corners of a pile of about ten plates, but when I tried to lift them out I groaned at their unexpected weight. Thakur saheb laughed and told me to put them back, then raised his voice in a “Koi hai?”—the nameless way to summon those who serve us. A lean man in a turban materialized noiselessly at the summons and stood with his head bowed while Thakur saheb instructed him to take the plates upstairs and to see if Amma was ready to meet him in his office. The servant picked up four or five of the plates with great effort, then retreated backwards a few steps so as not to show his back to us, in a mark of extreme respect.

Still puzzled, I followed Thakur saheb back into his office, where he asked me if I wanted to sit in the swivel chair. That was when I noticed that there were no chairs facing the desk, and I imagined the ghosts of supplicants past standing there with bowed heads. I had never ever sat in a swivel chair, though, so I guiltily accepted this tempting offer and tried to sit in my most ladylike manner, while he sat on a wooden bench in the far corner near the entrance.

To make some polite conversation, I thanked him for the tour and complimented him on his beautiful house. He looked bemused but thanked me for the compliment. How many people lived in this house, I then asked, and was astonished when he said that he and his son were the only permanent residents. The rest were either visiting members of the extended family or staff.

“Such a big house for just two people!” I exclaimed.

He smiled again as he informed me that there were two hundred rooms in total. Not only that, but there was yet another block of rooms at the back of the mansion, unattached to the main building, where some of the servants lived, and then of course there were also the stables and the grain storage. As I tried to digest all this information, I began to swivel back and forth in the chair without meaning to. Only when I heard him laugh indulgently and ask me to try a full twirl did I realize what I was doing. After one hesitant twirl I twirled again and again, only to stop cold when Amma’s form loomed in the doorway.

I expected at least a look of disapproval, but she was totally focused on Thakur saheb. She accepted his invitation to sit on the bench, but maintained maximum distance between them. She thanked him for his hospitality and told him that her intention had been to meet everyone in person, but she had seen enough and would like to take her leave soon.

Thakur saheb was quiet for a moment and regarded the wall behind me with great interest. He spoke softly, almost apologetically.

“I have an inkling of what you must be thinking. We have not hidden anything from you about our lives. We have heard a lot about you from Ramkrishnaji. I admire the values that you and your family personify, and would be honoured to have your elder daughter as my daughter-in-law.”

Amma focused her frown on the granite floor. “There are just too many differences.”

“Not all differences can be bad,” he protested. “There must be something you liked about us.”

Amma looked up quickly. “I have no doubt that you and your son are extremely nice people.” Then her tone grew stern. “But we live in different realms. In your world, it is like the fight for freedom never happened. It is like the country was not at war just a short while ago.” Her voice rose in volume. “When we were burning imported fabric from Britain to protest the death of textile manufacturing in our country, you were ordering fur coats from Europe. When our soldiers were sacrificing their lives to protect the frigid borders of the country, you were busy protecting your own wealth accumulated through the toil of other people.”

I sank into the swivel chair as low as I could, but Thakur saheb squared his shoulders for battle. While Amma inventoried her accusations, he never flinched. When she was finally done, Thakur saheb spoke respectfully but without apology. He assured Amma that his ancestors had carried out many public projects in the city, and that he and his son intended to continue the tradition. He admitted that their actions and choices may not have been driven by idealistic values like Amma’s. But that was exactly why they needed people like Amma in their lives. He thought Didi as his daughter-in-law would bring new depth to their lives if she has absorbed even some of the lessons of Amma’s life and upbringing.

Thakur saheb’s words totally deflated Amma’s rage. She looked at him in amazement but made no immediate reply. At her hesitation, Thakur saheb repeated his request: “We hope that you will reconsider your plans to return to Jaipur. Please spend at least one full day with my family.”

At that, Amma recovered her voice enough to say firmly, “If you know anything about my life and values, you must also know that I do not believe in the degrading practice of dowry. Neither am I capable of conducting a wedding that will match your opulent standards.” He merely said that it would be an insult to him and to her to have such expectations.

Amma’s arsenal was empty for now. She agreed to spend another twenty-four hours in Dhar. She also warned Thakur saheb that this could not be an alliance decided upon by the family elders. The final decision would rest with the two people who’d be expected to promise their lives to each other.

I noticed that Thakur saheb’s grin had returned by the time he asked Amma’s permission to show us around town.

An hour later, father and son drove us to the ponds and public buildings that bore the names of their ancestors. We visited the picturesque Kalika temple, on top of a hill foregrounded by a lotus pond, and several other ancient temples and mosques, the historic remains of the various ruling dynasties of Dhar.

Finally, we got to the site where Hamir Chandji was planning to build an industrial plant for agricultural machinery. He explained the project in detail. The initial plan was to import the technology and then to manufacture the parts in keeping with local conditions and requirements. Some of his childhood friends were investing in the factory, for which he has recently hired a project manager. Of all things so far, this project was the one thing that hit all the right notes for Amma. She remarked at the signs of decay in this once proud and prosperous historic town, and commended the family for planning to create employment and economic self-sufficiency.

Thakur saheb joked about the legendarily mild-mannered Malwi culture, which had complacently borne invasions and annexations by Turks, Mughals, Marathas, and then the British. The raging fires of the freedom movement had cooled down considerably, he claimed, by the time they reached the higher altitudes of the Malwa plateau. But this was not something Amma felt inclined to joke about. Instead, she disagreed that being mild-mannered should be equated with complacency, citing the examples of the philosopher king Bhoj, from a thousand years before, and the Maratha queen Ahilyabai, from two hundred years before, who had both ruled the Malwa region with great vision and acumen.

Our last stop was a small circular reservoir and a deep well, which marked the eastern end of a large tract of farmland and grazing ground owned by Thakur saheb. The family owned vast stretches of land given to them through royal grants, he told us, but he was worried about the recent land reform laws and new tenancy policies, which would take away land that had been in his family for generations. Amma’s response was a mini-lecture on the country’s feudal agrarian structure.

She was not even looking at Thakur saheb as she instructed me on the plight of the vast majority of cultivators, who did not have any rights as tenants, mostly leasing land for subsistence, paying more than half of their produce to the zamindar as rent. Amma believed that the ongoing land and tenancy reforms would finally end this highly exploitative system. While she talked, Thakur saheb’s poise was looking strained, but even then it did not buckle under pressure.

Instead, at the end of Amma’s speech to me, he also addressed me, saying jovially that a young girl like me must find these issues complicated and boring. Then, changing the subject, he asked if I would like to see the local museum the next day. We then drove back to the mansion for an elaborate feast in the dining hall. Amma was pleased to learn that the family was as strictly vegetarian as she, although their reasons were as far removed from Gandhian values as hers were from religious taboos.

The food was plentiful and beautifully presented, but in some ways I found the meal strange, even disappointing. Jayanti ben’s polite hospitality was in stark contrast to the enthusiastically insistent serving I was used to in Jaipur and Bhagalpur. I also noticed that most of the dishes had a tangy flavour with just a hint of sweetness. Thakur saheb apologized to Amma for the mild flavours that Malwi cuisine shared with neighbouring Maharashtra and asked the server to add some hot pickles and chutneys to the spread; Amma, of course, protested and declared the meal delightful. I was indeed missing the bold heat of Bihari cuisine and the spicy richness of Marwari cuisine, which were part of most of our meals, but Amma’s watchful gaze made me hold my tongue. Didi, I thought, would have a lot to learn.

Our last day in Dhar was a Sunday, when I got to go to the Officers’ Club to watch Hamir Chandji play tennis while Thakur saheb took Amma back to the Kalika temple to meet the priest. The Officers’ Club of Dhar was originally meant for local nobility and British officers posted in Dhar state, now a district, but it had recently opened its doors to the families of the new Indian elite—senior government bureaucrats. Liveried orderlies ran the club with unwavering attention and unchanging old-world manners. I had the option of watching tennis in one of the pavilions or joining the ladies in one of its many lofty halls.

With fashionably coiffed long hair, bright lipstick, and expensive jewellery glinting through their sheer silk saris, a small group of ladies was sitting at a round table, playing a game of cards. Hamir Chandji introduced me to these ladies, most of whom were wives of senior bureaucrats and local nobility. They reminded me of the ladies in Lucknow whose daughters I had gone to school with, but they were graciously curious and invited me to join them at the table.

Among them, however, I felt acutely aware of my outsider status, what with my unfashionable khadi clothing, simple braid, lack of makeup and ignorance of card games. So I politely declined the invitation, choosing instead to sit under the awning to watch the tennis match, where I sipped from a glass of cool rose sherbet while the rules were explained to me.

It did not take me long to learn how to follow the game, and I soon came to admire the dance-like grace of the foot movements that accompanied each powerful shot. Hamir Chandji ended the spectacle triumphantly after winning three matches in a row, thanking his opponent for a good game. The other player, a senior public works official who was somewhat older than Hamir Chandji and slightly out of breath, shook hands with him and complimented him on his elegant game style.

As our time with the intriguing father-son duo came to an end, Amma told Thakur saheb that although she could not predict Didi’s decision, they were welcome to visit our family whenever they happened to be in Jaipur. On the train back to Jaipur, I chirped away excitedly. “Amma, everyone was so nice! . . . Do you remember that time . . . ?” “And did you see when . . . ?” Amma smiled at me distractedly, as usual.

Back in Jaipur, she filled Babu in on the details of our fact-finding mission. After his most recent pangs of fatherly duty, Babu was once again eager to be left undisturbed in the world of his books. Without any sarcasm, he expressed his total confidence in Amma’s ability to make the right decision. I took my job of reporting back to Didi very seriously, delivering with great animation every single detail of what I had seen and heard in Dhar. Amma impatiently interrupted my enthusiastic narration to add that all this great wealth and urbane sophistication were confined within a feudal structure, religious ritual, and purdah.

Didi looked up slowly. “Have you already refused them?”

It was not up to her to accept or refuse, Amma said, but it was her duty to present all the facts to Didi so that she could make an informed choice for the right reasons.

Suddenly, the placid Didi became very emotional. “I know what you want from me. You want me to suffer in life like you do. What did your idealism get you in life except misery and struggle? You and Babu threw away your lives and think it makes you saints. Don’t expect the same from me.”

Didi’s tears flowed furiously now, as she bitterly condemned Babu’s irresponsible behaviour toward his family. Amma tried to calm her down by reminding her that Babu’s mysterious disappearances were nothing new and did not affect the normal functioning of our lives.

This made Didi furious. “What is normal? Your life away from your family was normal? The constant uprooting of our childhood was normal? An absent father and husband is normal? Your quiet tolerance of his verbal abuse is normal? Do you even know anymore what is normal? Does anyone in this family know what normal is?”

The stunned silence enveloping the house was broken only by Didi’s sobs, until she calmed herself finally and folded her hands in front of Amma. “Please, Amma, I am suffocating in this prison. I don’t have the strength for a lifetime of struggle like you.”

Amma sat motionless for several moments as Didi cried and I sat stunned. Finally, Amma caressed Didi’s lowered head. “I hope you know what you want. It is hard for me to put myself in your shoes. I just hope you are not choosing to go from one prison to another.”

Amma sent Didi’s date of birth to Thakur saheb, since their pandit needed to prepare her horoscope to compare with that of his son. The two horoscopes were a good match, and the wedding date was chosen for 13 May of the following year—four days after Didi’s final exam.

  • In Her Own Words: Meenal Shrivastava reads from Amma's Daughters (Chapter Six)

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