When Bharati asked again if Janaki would be coming over for veena lessons, Janaki shook her head. “My grandmother says I’m too old to be going to others’ houses for lessons, that I should just practise at home.”
Bharati tossed her head a little, lifting her chin as though something were flying past it, and said coolly, “Very conservative, your grandmother.”
Janaki felt herself get hot: she had always understood “conservative” to be a compliment-why didn’t it sound that way coming from Bharati? But then Bharati appeared to correct herself. “So’s mine, in her own way,” she told Janaki with a return of the intimate joviality that Janaki now shrank from. “Too bad. It would have been fun.”
In fact, Janaki had never asked her grandmother. She wouldn’t have wanted to admit to having a devadasi as a friend, though she knows that, were it not for their other connection, she would have found a way to attend the special lessons.
And now Bharati is turning toward the rest of her life and Janaki, toward hers. Janaki knows her own near future, but not the far. She will stay home, but will receive a tutor, young Kesavan, who will help her maintain her Sanskrit and other basic academic skills. Next year, her grandmother will start to solicit potential grooms. Beyond that, she cannot see.
Janaki, Radhai and Kamalam, all of whom have come home from school together, wash their hands, face and feet, and change into everyday clothes. Radhai goes to play with Krishnan next door at Rukmini’s house, where he spends every day, the first of Thangam’s pre-school children not to pass his afternoons with Muchami. Though Muchami missed having a child with him, he had no means or desire to override Rukmini’s proffered affection for the little boy.
Kamalam and Janaki take their embroidery and go to sit on the veranda, where they will be met by Ecchemu, a Brahmin girl of about Janaki’s age, with whom Janaki has become friendly. Ecchemu is a dull, silly girl, but, by virtue of caste and age, is an appropriate companion for Janaki. Where Bharati has always made Janaki feel frumpy, Ecchemu causes her to feel her own attributes keenly. She has always known she was smart, but now she may have become pretty She is of average build, unlike Kamalam, who, at five feet and five inches, is by far the tallest of the sisters. Janaki has inherited something of her father’s square jaw and forehead, but her demure, perceptive gaze is hers alone, as are her creative talents, which always exceed available outlets.
Since Sita left for her husband’s house, Janaki has taken over the drawing of the kolam every morning, the rice flour design that ornaments every threshold. Where their house used to display no more than a perfunctory few lines and dots of the required symmetry, it is now daily decorated with a kolam no less than three feet across, often embellished with birds and flowers. Janaki admires her latest-a cobra wriggled across the threshold in perfect diagonals-as she takes her seat on the veranda and smiles condescendingly at Ecchemu, who is just arriving.
As they work together, Ecchemu chatters vapidly about her sister’s recent marriage. Janaki doesn’t listen, but instead reflects on the academic career she has just ended. She performed well-better than any of her sisters did, and likely better than Kamalam or Radhai will. None of them have her desire for knowledge, her determination and application. She knew full well she would have no more than an elementary education, though, and it doesn’t occur to her to be discontent at not going further. Rather, she is grateful to Sivakami for continuing to give her tutoring, more than most girls receive. Now she is looking forward to marriage and to raising a family, as much as she can look forward to events both inevitable and essentially unknown.
SEVERAL MONTHS LATER, Navaratri approaches-festival of dolls. It’s Janaki’s favourite, not surprisingly, since it offers chances for imaginative play, and because it includes several days of tribute to Saraswati, goddess of music and education, the deity Janaki feels most personally inclined to worship. Gayatri, when she comes for her morning coffee, tells Janaki stories, innocent and repetitive, of how the holiday used to be Thangam’s favourite, too.
It feels like a strange coincidence, then, when the day’s mail contains a letter from Thangam, the first Janaki has seen. It is written in pencil, in Thangam’s own hand. In places, the writing is so light that it disappears. In others, Thangam has pressed so hard that the thick, nubbly paper has torn, as though she were leaning on the pencil for strength.
“Amma,” it begins, after the usual “Safe” in the upper right corner, and the date, in the left.
He has been moved again. He has already gone and I must ready the things. I think my baby is due in some three months. Can one ofmy daughters come to help me? Baby Raghavan is very strong, red and chubby. Please send a girl if one of mine can come to help. I know all of my girls are very strong. Do not worry.
It finishes with her name, laboriously inscribed at the bottom.
Janaki is in the middle of her veena practice. Sivakami shows her the letter. “You’ll go, Janaki? Muchami will take you.”
“Yes, Amma,” she responds rapidly. Why is Thangam asking Sivakami not to worry? What does her grandmother have to worry about?
Sivakami smiles, looking wan. “Good girl. Maybe you can be ready to leave day after tomorrow?”
It’s a pleasant nine-hour journey northwest. Janaki has brought a slate, to pass the time, and gives Muchami a few Sanskrit lessons. He is too shy to work aloud in so public a setting, but she writes out lines for him to copy. He has continued to sit in on Janaki’s Sanskrit tutorials, though young Kesavan practically ignores him. Once in a while, though, Janaki, in a didactic mood, will take it upon herself to quiz Muchami on the basics. He has grasped these, though his pronunciation continues to be atrocious and Janaki doesn’t try to hide her impatience as she corrects him.
When they are done with Sanskrit, they watch the landscape shift outside the barred windows of the train. The greens and browns of the Kaveri delta give way to pinkish rocks and sparser settlements as they climb into the hills. It’s the monsoon season, and the air smells of rain. Twice, they ride through cloudbursts.
They chat, but not much. There is a distance between them now, which both feel it proper to observe. Janaki is glad for it, because it indicates the difference in their stations-she is growing up and happily anticipating the small powers that will fall to her as a matron. Muchami, for his part, still feels the weight of the child she was on his hip. If she tends to boss him, if she is short with him over his Sanskrit, he indulges her. She is still his favourite and he is proud of her.
Once in the town, Muchami, carrying her bag, hurries ahead and drops behind, inquiring repeatedly. They find the house. Two-year-old Raghavan gallops out of the house. When they stoop to caress him, he whinnies and ducks and continues past them, into the neighbour’s house. The neighbour emerges carrying him. She is a tall, thin woman with severe looks. Tics in either side of her face pull her mouth down in clownish grimaces. Raghavan seems to think she is making faces to amuse him, and to Janaki’s mortification, imitates her and laughs, clapping his hands.
Thangam leans in the doorway and smiles at them, a smile below which stretch two cords in her neck, like the pillars of a suspension bridge. She is as grey as ash, and as incorporeal.
Muchami says, “Thangam? Are you well?” But Thangam just stands back silently to let Janaki enter the small dwelling. Janaki moves toward her mother to kiss her, but Thangam makes no similar move and her initiative fades. She puts her bag in a corner while Thangam makes coffee for Muchami, who squats at the front stoop.