39. A Jasmine at Dawn 1945

JANAKI HAD THOUGHT SHE MIGHT STAY at her grandmother’s house until the birth, but Baskaran comes to escort her home the week before the annual festival for the goddess Meenakshi of Madurai. Senior Mami has had a dream, in which the goddess appeared as a bride and reproached her for not coming to her wedding. Senior Mami tried to protest: it’s so far away, the family contributes much to the festival through the charitable trust, her daughters-in-law are attending, but she could not utter any of this. It was as though she had been gagged by a wooden ball. The goddess, already at the end of her patience, yelled at her to defend herself but still Senior Mami could not speak. Just as the goddess turned away-to receive, as it happens, the supplications of their immediate next-door neighbours on Double Street -Senior Mami regained her voice. It was too late-Meenakshi was bestowing all her favours on the neighbours.

The next morning, Senior Mami decreed that every member of their family must make an extra effort this year. Senior Mami herself will visit the temple to donate a ruby pendant for the goddess, along with the sari and cash the family gives every year. She will even participate in serving water and buttermilk on the street in front of the chattram. She hasn’t come in person for years.

Sivakami disapproves of Janaki travelling all the way back to Pandiyoor in advanced pregnancy, then courting illness by serving buttermilk in the hot sun, not to mention courting the evil eye by displaying herself, pregnant, to so many. Baskaran appreciates her concerns but cannot find it within him to contradict his mother. He promises Sivakami that Janaki will do no real work and return within a month.

Every family member participates in the serving, however ceremonially. Even Dhoraisamy comes-once-to dip the ladle, fill a cup for some passing wayfarer and offer it with wishes for his refreshment and renewed devotional strength. Senior Mami does nearly a dozen before collapsing in a sweat into the shade of the chattram. Each of the sons serves for several hours, with his wife and children. Baskaran and Janaki serve on the sixth day. They, too, drink the water and the buttermilk-yogourt churned with water, lemon, salt and asafetida-the best antidotes to the year’s hottest season. Janaki serves a few people and then keeps Baskaran company, sitting in the shade on the chattram veranda and fanning herself.

Mid-morning of that day, a covered palanquin passes, carried by two men. The palanquin continues a few yards beyond the chattram, then pauses. With effort, the men reverse their strides and set the litter down in front of the buttermilk-filled cauldron and the brass water drum. A hennaed hand parts the curtains veiling the palanquin, and a pale, hennaed foot slips out from between them.

Everyone’s eyes are on that foot, which is followed by a thick silver anklet, then by the wide red-orange border of a Kanchipuram silk sari, then by the sari’s chartreuse ground-the colours of ripe mangoes in a tree. Bharati emerges as Janaki shrinks. She smiles, requesting cups of the buttermilk for her entourage-the palanquin was followed by two manservants and two maids. As they’re drinking, Bharati asks Janaki, “Sowkyumaa? Are you well?” It’s not an intimate greeting, and Bharati does not sound familiar, nor challenging, though she must have stopped the palanquin because she saw her old school friend. She does sound interested, though, which is more than is expected from a stranger. She glances at Janaki’s belly and her husband.

“I’m well,” Janaki replies.

Baskaran looks at Janaki and then asks Bharati, as his wife should have done, “Are you well?”

“I’m well, yes.” Bharati inclines her head to Baskaran, then turns back to Janaki to inform her, “I am a devotee of Goddess Meenakshi.”

“Of course,” Janaki says mechanically.

How is Bharati living now? She must have done well for herself-the palanquin, servants, jewellery.

“You might recall, Janaki,” Bharati remarks conversationally, “that my grandmother is from Madurai. She brought me back.” Bharati smiles, as though Janaki knows how grandmothers can be.

“How is your mother?” Janaki blurts.

“My mother is well.” Bharati cocks her head slightly as if trying to understand what Janaki is saying.

Baskaran is looking at them as though they’re speaking another language, very like Tamil.

The two women stand looking at each other for a moment, then Bharati refuses the cup of buttermilk held out to her by one of the elder children.

“And how is Vani Mami?” she asks.

“She is well,” Janaki replies, starting to feel a bit scared. Didn’t Bharati used to call Vani “Amma,” the non-Brahmin honorific? “Mami” sounds funny, coming from her.

“You both are friends?” Baskaran smiles broadly. “From Cholapatti?”

The women smile narrowly. “We were at school together,” Janaki tells him.

“We had the same music master,” says Bharati, almost simultaneously.

Janaki doesn’t know what Bharati is doing but thinks there cannot be a bridge between them now. Bharati refuses the cup of buttermilk again.

“I have a ten o’clock puja,” she says crisply.

“Come home some time!” Baskaran tells her, heartily sincere and more than a little puzzled.

“I’ll go and come,” she says, and this time it sounds just as anyone might say it: goodbye.

As she folds herself back into the palanquin, Janaki tamps a surge of affection. She wishes she could have told Bharati she thinks of her every time she plays the veena, that she could have asked her how her own music is coming. But she doesn’t really want to know any of the other details of her half-sister’s life.

“Not Brahmin?” Baskaran confirms.

“No,” Janaki shakes her head.

“She has excellent diction,” he observes with a hint of condescension. “Striking.”

Janaki busies herself with a ladle.

Ten days later, Baskaran escorts her back again to her grandmother’s house. They are embroiled in their first real fight and are silent for much of the journey, except when they argue. Baskaran has insisted to her that he will book a labour and delivery nurse to attend her delivery. “I will feel much safer if you are in the hands of someone with some medical know-how, and not prey to these village superstitions. Your grandmother will still be nearby,” he had told her.

A nurse? Janaki feels indignant at his presumption, but not so much as she would if she had any intention of actually letting a nurse deliver her baby.

Baskaran repeats all his instructions to her when he takes his leave. “Okay, so: you know how you’ll know, right? When it’s time, you’ll feel contractions, a kind of cramping. Send for the nurse immediately. Day or night.”

Could this be the fiftieth time Janaki has heard this speech? How does he keep his phrasing and inflections so consistent? She respectfully refrains from mouthing along with him.

“I’ve paid her handsomely to be on call,” Baskaran remonstrates. “And she knows she’ll get the rest when she has done a good job.”

No good woman contradicts her husband, so Janaki is silent. She knows Baskaran has talked with Muchami and Gayatri about this. He doesn’t want to seem disrespectful, and so has said nothing to Sivakami. But as soon as he leaves, Janaki tells Muchami, “Listen. No nurse. I want Amma’s kai raasi to deliver my child.”

Muchami doesn’t respond. He is embarrassed at being involved in this disagreement: now that Janaki has said “kai raasi,” it would be bad luck to call the nurse.

GAYATRI, WHO STILL COMES DAILY to take her coffee with Sivakami, asks Janaki to come and visit with her at home. Janaki is feeling a little lonely and isolated, despite the company of her siblings, and welcomes the chance to gossip.