Fragrance

I was probably seven or eight when it happened. A little too young for a brush with reality. But then this chancy, chancy, chancy world does not care what your age is to hand its life lessons.

It was an evening and I was walking back from my village school feeling very, very thirsty. It might have been because it was my first day of school after a week of flu. Or, because the last hour was Physical Education. Whatever the reason, I was extremely thirsty. All thru the narrow streets of the village I was looking for a good house to knock at, for water.

When I neared the corner of the Panchayat Street the fragrance of flowers hit my nose. There was nothing unusual about it. There was a medium-sized house, with a small garden in front and a lot of flowers in it. They were plucked every evening. I had never stopped there before. But, this time, my thirst, along with the fragrance drew me to the house. I rattled the gate.

A pleasant looking lady in her late thirties or early forties came thru the door and the gate. Her face reminded me of the cherubic South Indian actress Savithri. Only her face. Her physique was far superior. Tall, a few notches more than thin, wheatish-complexioned and beautifully proportioned. I had seen her from a distance before. But this was the first time I had a close encounter.

I asked her, “Sister, can you give me a glass of water?” All were sisters, even if they looked aunty-like.

She called me in and gave me a glass of pot water. The water was so soothing that I gulped three glasses of it.

She asked me kindly, “Enough?”

I said yes and flew out. I saw our milkman on his bicycle as I got out of the house. I waved my hands at him.

When I reached home I was surprised to find my mother waiting for me at the street corner with her hands on her hips. She was furious.

That night, my grand-father beat me up for the first and last time. My mother and father also had their shares. Yes, for the first and last time. Very uncharacteristic behavior from such lovely folks. I could not understand why. All thru the beating there was only one question that was repeatedly asked.

“Will you go there again?”

I gave them the obvious answer. No. They did not tell me why I should not go there. And the severity of the beating did not encourage me to ask probing questions. I could sense that there was something wrong in what I had done but could not exactly figure out what that was. Finally, my grandmother came to my rescue.

“Leave her! Why do you beat the child that has just had the flu?”

Later that night all my family members were by my side, hugging, kissing and cajoling me. They got me toys, sweets and bangles. That settled the whole thing.

After that incident, I still saw her on some evenings, sitting on the patio making garlands. The scent of the flowers would make my head turn unintentionally towards the house. On some of those occasions, she would ask me with a mischievous smile.

“Would you like some water?”

I would shake my head vigorously and increase the pace of my steps towards home.

I never went there again.

A few years went by. I grew up and was in my early teens. I was busy with my studies, sports, inter-school debates, general reading, tailoring, typing, shorthand and other extra-curricular activities. Twenty four hours never seemed to be enough. I woke up at four in the morning to go to TVTC, my maths tuition center. During exam times it used to be three in the morning. I loved coasting in my brand new olive green BSA bicycle.

I had to cross this fragrant house to reach my Tuition Center. When I did every day, I noticed some of the men I knew coming out of the house. They all pretended not to notice me. They mounted their bicycles and literally flew away.

Sometimes I saw totally new faces. Some other very early times, I saw just bicycles parked outside her house.

My feminine instinct and heightened senses made what was going on very clear to me. I didn’t have to discuss this with anyone. It was not a subject worth a discussion in my circle.

After that, I stopped turning my head in that direction, despite the fragrance.

Slowly and slowly she faded out of my life. I studied well, moved from the village to the town, from the town to the city and from the country to another country. In this long process, my marriage took place and my child was born. The demands of family life left me with little time to think about my village.

Days were on a fast track and one day the inevitable message came. My grandfather expired peacefully in his sleep. We went to the village to mourn his death. My parents wanted me to stay there for a few weeks.

The evenings in the village were spent in the yard outside the house. I did not watch TV for I could not bear the serials. I also did not want my son to watch the hysterical movies. So the evenings where spent outside the house underneath the street tube-light and a sixty watts bulb above the front door of the house. Occasional strolls around the village filled the rest of the free time.

While playing or walking around with my son on these evenings, I noticed a very strange thing. The beggars who wandered about my small village were mostly ignored by all households, mine included. All the housewives were very busy shedding tears for Chiththi or Aunty or Mother-in-law or some such relationship on TV. And all the men were glued to the lone Panchayat TV watching the news. The beggars’ pleas for mercy were heard by just one house. The one at the far corner of the Panchayat Street. I frequently observed from a formidable distance the silhouette of a woman coming out more than a few times every evening, without fail, to provide something to the beggars. Since this kept happening day after day, it aroused my curiosity. How come a woman in a not-so-respectable profession was more generous than the normal ones!

For the first time, I started enquiring about her. Many of my acquaintances did not know much about her other than her name and her previous profession. Someone said, “She has retired!” with sarcasm. Another said, “Unqualified to continue after age caught up with her!” Beyond such one-liners nobody knew anything useful about her. Obviously, my information bureau in the village had been brought up in the same protective environment as mine.

My unstoppable inquisitions led me finally to a right source. Our servant maid. She knew her from a very young age. They both belonged to the same community and in a way distantly related.

“That is because she is very religious!” said my maid.

“Religious…? Is she some kind of a lady-Robinhood or what…?”

She did not understand my question.

“She was born in a very good family, my dear child. Her father had a hundred acres of land and she was the only daughter. He was one of the trustees of our temple.”

“Then, why?”

“What to say, child! Fate…! What else can I say? Her only sin was love..”

“Love was her sin…? Tell me in detail!”

She told me in detail. Distilled, it boils down to a cinematic story.

She was born in a very wealthy family, given the standards of the village. She was sixteen or seventeen when her mother passed away. Her schooling was stopped for household work and for the maintenance of the huge farm. She used to take food for her father to the paddy field daily. That was where and how she met a low-caste boy, a worker in the field, and fell in love with him. In the circumstances of those days and given the aggressive nature of her community they could not hope to get married in the village. So they ran away to Thirupathi. He tied the knot.

They stayed there for three days and two nights.

In the meanwhile, her father and his relatives ransacked the dalit colony, found out where they were, went there and dragged them over to the village. The nuptial thread was snatched and thrown into the gutter. She was separated from him and locked up. She refused to take food and fell unconscious. They took her to the town hospital.

He was tied to a tree and brutally beaten up without food. After three days of incessant beatings he died. His body was thrown into the river. It was recovered at the dam after five days, completely decomposed and deformed. The killers got away scot-free.

After she returned home from the hospital, she attempted suicide thrice and was saved every time.

Her father tried to get her married into his community in vain. No one from the community came forward to marry her, even for a hundred acres. She was termed, ‘the tasted fruit’. Worse, tasted by a low-caste man. So, none of the high-caste farmer boys came forward. Her father died shortly, partly out of guilt and partly out of the pain of seeing his daughter’s plight and hearing the village.

After his death, her paternal cousins took away most of her land and gave her a nominal two acres. She was a disgrace to the family, caste and the village.

Shivers went down my spine. My maid continued.

“She struggled for food for some time. Managing the meager land was difficult for her. You can’t manage anything with a bad reputation. A helpless woman provides men with absolute opportunity. Those who did not want to marry the ‘tasted fruit’ had no problem tasting it. The men in her community exploited her situation. So, she passed from one patron to another. Very slowly at first and within a few years it was a fast routine and…..”

“And….”

“…Community did not matter!”

I sighed, “Well, she could have settled with a single person.…”

My maid laughed, “How could she? Would the wives allow the relationship to go on…? Men were not proud of her either to stay with her”

I could understand the situation that existed about forty-five years back. I was very much disturbed and could not sleep well that night.

The next morning I went by her home. She was inside the gate, plucking flowers. The fragrance outside was not what it used to be.

I smiled at her. She was totally surprised and a second later, smiled back.

After that I did not know what to say. We both were looking at each other.

I cleared my throat before saying, “Sister, can you give me a glass of water?”

Her eyes swelled with tears. She wiped them fast and giggled, “Why….Is it because you have none to beat you these days?”

“I am strong enough to take some, now!” I smiled.

“It is a blessing to have someone by your side, even to beat you, you know?”

I nodded my head.

I gave the glass back to her.

“Your house used to be very fragrant. The aroma seems to have lessened a bit…. of late.”

“I do not grow many flowers nowadays. My age does not allow me to tend them properly. I am keeping a few flowers in the garden for name sake….I buy garlands….I have sold my land. So, have some money to afford such expenses….”

“Can I come in…?”

She was taken aback.

“Are you sure…?” She was nervous.

I smiled.

“Please, don’t….”

“Why?”

“First, your folks won’t take it lightly. Second, ‘my folks’ will start misbehaving with you”.

“I can handle them both…. Can I come in or not?” I was a little authoritative this time.

She let me in. She walked me thru the little garden and opened the door.

I was amazed. The house was full of fragrance. There were portraits of Lakshmi, Saraswathi, Durga, Subrahmanya, Vinayak, Shiva-Parvathy, Radha-Krishna, Rama-Lakshmana-Sita-Hanuman, Kamadhenu, Venkatachalapathy, Sri Chakra, Shankaracharya, Sai baba and many more I am not able to recall now. Every portrait was properly garlanded. Coconut, banana and incense sticks were kept at them.

The aroma of the incense sticks filled the whole house.

“Why are you looking at them like that…?”

“I….I didn’t expect this….So many Gods…Your house is so very fragrant”

She sighed, “I too didn’t expect this. None of these Gods stood by me…!”

But it was only for a second. She said, “Never mind…! I stand by them!” and immediately changed the topic.

She asked about my husband, our residence, our son, my education, some old folks who were dead, my experiences abroad, what it was like to move with people whose language you did not know and the like. We talked as if we had known each other for years.

She offered to make me a glass of milk. I agreed.

While she was boiling the milk, I browsed thru some of the weeklies on the wooden coffee table.

She came back, handed me the cup and looked at the magazine I was holding in hand.

“Go to the fourteenth page, there is a very good poem…Do you like poetry?”

I said I loved poetry and we moved together to the fourteenth page. There was a poem by a Srilankan Tamil poetess who suffered the consequences of the ethnic strife. The poem was about a Sinhalese army man who ravished her. It was titled ‘Honor’. Translated into English it would read something like,

‘You had me by force.
And when all was over,
You carefully wore your uniform
Adjusting the stars.
You think your honor is in it
Pity, yours was lost a few minutes ago
While mine is very much intact!’

I raised my head and looked at her.

“How true, right?” She asked. There was a subtext in her question. I controlled my tears.

When I left her home, I read, “Anandha Vilas” in Tamil, hidden behind the steps leading to the terrace.

“Is that your father’s name?”

She said, “No” and smiled. She did not say whose name it was.

During the rest of my stay in the village I made it a point to talk to her every day. We talked so much about cooking, farming, growing flowers and village medicines. Not a single word about her past life, though.

I gave her a silk saree I had bought for her from the nearby town. She helped me with local mehandi. There were a few raised eyebrows. But, I did not care. Those were beautiful days. Albeit, a different kind of beauty lay in them.

The parting day eventually came. When I gave her some money, she refused to accept it. So, I gave her my address. I told her that I would write letters to her. When I left she was very sad, but did not cry. May be because the parting was miniscule in size, compared to what she had cried for so far.

“Live to a hundred, child, live to a hundred!” were her parting words.

I did send a letter to her after I joined my husband. But the response did not come. Of course, I could not expect a trans-continental letter from a village woman. There could have been many a slip between the cup and the lip.

Again, I was caught up with the demands of my life and rarely thought about her.

After a couple of years, we came back to India on a vacation. We visited relatives in cities and towns before we went to the village.

As soon as we reached the village I looked for her. She was not to be seen. There was another family in that house.

I asked my maid.

“Child, she is dead… She died within two to three weeks of your leaving the village last time!”

“What…?”

“Yes… But, you know… Nobody knew she was dead. It was one of the beggars who found that out”

Shell-shocked, I asked, “How…?”

“He did not get food from her for two days. The door was not opened. On the third day he persistently called. She still did not come out. He noticed that the windows were also shut. He became suspicious. So, he opened the gate and yanked one of the windows of the hall from outside….”

“He would have seen only portraits of the Gods and smelled the fragrance of the incense sticks…I have been there!” I said with pain.

She looked at me pitifully.

“No, My dear child….. He smelled the stench of rotten flesh….!”

I broke down and cried for a very long time.