HALF MOON
CHAPTER- 2
Sitting there on the steps of the cremation ground, Mehar was looking at the burning pyre and listening t o the Ragis sin ging Shabad, celebrating the love of Almighty and His omnipresence everywhere
– “those who believe in Him do not get affected by the mundane activities like death and birth.”
Their voices on rhythmic beats brought back memories of similar singing at her wedding ceremony. Her marriage was arranged by her parents to a doctor from their community. Although Mehar was aware of her identity as the daughter of her land owner father, she was overtly conscious of other identity she so staunchly associated herself with – being the daughter of an administrator mother, Surjit Kaur. She had traversed almost all of Rajasthan with her mother and had had schooling at different places.
Right from her childhood she did well in academics, too k par tin almost all extracurricular activities s and was a darling of the teachers. This, along with the advantages she had, attracted jealousy of her classmates to the extent that she could no t find a friend in many. Now as she looked back, she could remember few childhood friends. All the people she befriended were either from her social contacts or her work place.
She remembered once while she was going through the legal hassles of divorce from her first husband (Ranjit’sfather), her school classmate Madan had commented, “Look, a woman like you can either be destroyed or can see unseen heights in a marriage. It all depends on the person your husband is. It is your fate that you did not find the right person. You two were just not right for each other.”
Mehar was awestruck by his observation. She did not say anything but contemplated upon his remark for many days thereafter.
She remembered her courtship days, which were rather few, since it was an arranged match. He seemed to her a soft-spoken person who would not mind her perusing her life the way she wanted. He even gave her some presents, which she cherished for quite some time after marriage, until she discovered that these objects were given to him by his patients to be presented to her, and not bought by him. The very next day she purposely dropped that pearl necklace while getting into the car after a wedding party and declared later that she had lost it.
He was furious and exclaimed, “You stupid woman, you cannot take care of your own belongings! How can you take care of my house?”
She did not like his words, the house they lived in was gifted by her father and was in her name. She however remained quiet. .Later she realized that this remark was triggered by a flattering comment of his boss ,Dr . Mehta, who during the party had praised Mehar for her looks and brains. Mehar had thanked him with grace and had not shied away as he had wanted.
Dr. Rajinder Singh was a handsome man from a humble background. A self made man supported by his elder brother, he now wanted to lend a helping hand to his extended family of eight brothers and their children in every possible way. Mehar had no problem with the idea but she was had had a kind of upbringing in a nuclear family, where personal comforts were always considered upmost. Though she too liked to help his family but when the question of sacrificing her personal space and comforts arose, she had other views. Rajinder, however, wanted her to carry the burden.
She remembered the day she entered her matrimonial home after their wedding. It was an indiscreet village in the heartland of Northern rural Rajasthan, surrounded by lush green fields. The month was March. Winter had already receded. Summers were not far away.
It was a hired ambassador car that took them almost four hours to reach her home The journey left her exhausted and she was sweating profusely in her heavily embroidered silk dress and equally heavy jewelry. Throughout the journey Rajinder had not spoken a single word to her, although her two brothers-in-law sitting in the front seat had been constantly trying to keep the atmosphere jovial
with their banter. This in any case was difficult for her to understand because of their thick accent.
The moment their car stopped in front of the large wooden gate with a small window, characteristic of any Punjabi village house, they got off saying, “Here comes your sasural, Bhabhiji, cover your face.”
Mehar saw a crowd of women, garbed in bright suites, many of them with covered faces. They reached the car singing in wail-like voices. She was able to identify some of the words as their pace was slow,“veer aayaa daaj liyaayaa” which meant,“our dear brother has arrived with dowry.”
That was the first cultural shock she received. More were to follow, though she hardly had any clue by then. She did not know whether they mentioned the bride in their songs or not, since she was tired beyond caring.
They took her inside the courtyard, women and children falling all over her and two women trying to help keep her balance. Once inside the inner courtyard she was made to sit on a charpoy in the front veranda.
There were charpoys all over the place filled with women of all ages and children of all sizes, all of them literally falling over each other. Almost everybody was whispering into each other's ears. It seemed to her as if they were expecting some kind of an exotic animal to be the Doctor's bride, as Rajinder was called, because so far there had been no other doctor in that particular area.
Suddenly an uproar began. One charpoy had too many people on it and it collapsed taking with it about seven or eight hefty elderly women and almost the same number of children. Mehar was amused to see the women's bewildered faces. Children were wailing and were quickly retrieved by the young boys of the family. These six or seven odd young men, dressed in almost similar looking ,tight fitting synthetic trousers and colorful shirts were loitering in that area trying to show that they were running errands but in fact simply wanting to be there to see the action. Soon a new charpoy was brought in, the broken one removed and the earlier disorderly order was restored .Mehar could hear those loud whispers again.
This time the real action started. She was introduced to her three sisters-in-law and their six children. Though Mehar was fond
of children, somehow at that particular moment she felt no urge to express her emotions. Then came the other women of the family, one by one, introducing themselves with their first names and stating their relationship to her. There were far too many to successfully register in her limited capacity.
After the ritual of introductions was over someone called out aloud, “Arrey, your new daughter-in-law must be hungry. Come, feed her.”
The call was for her mother-in-law, who came in with a thali in her hand. The woman sitting next to Mehar made place for her on the charpoy and she crashed down on it. Mehar was terribly exhausted. Never in her lifetime had she sat on a charpoy for so long. She had always considered beds to be the objects for lying down. She had acquired that particular sophistication (it was the word her mother Surjit used for her father's ways) from her father Janab Singh, who would rush to use the toilet the first thing after his daily round of the farms.
Surjit would invariably comment on this habit if she were around, “People in the village go to fields and you come home to pee!
Most of the time ,however, Surjit would not be around and Janab Singh would be left in peace to use the toilet after his farm trip. Janab Singh had many more such traits which were strange to his surroundings. For instance he would spend the whole day sitting on his arm chair reading newspaper and other material which included books of poetry in Urdu and Persian and sometimes even law. Mehar had never seen him sitting on a charpoy unlike her mother Surjit, who,despite coming from an urban background loved to sit cross-legged in the middle of a charpoy during her leisure time, which she had plenty when she was at home, as she had a battery of servants around her.
Sitting here on this charpoy with her back slouched for so long had become torturous for Mehar by that time. She darted her gaze around for a chair, but did not see any. She was about to ask her sister-in-law for it when her mother-in-law put some roti soaked in ghee laden daal in her mouth. She realized that she was a new bride and was not expected to demand anything. Odor of ghee and the smell of her mother-in-law's unwashed hands nauseated her. With
great effort she swallowed that morsel and was immediately rescued by the announcement of her father-in-law's arrival.
He seemed to her an elderly man who had lost all interest in action packed life around him, content with his three simple meals and an occasional “kanch kee galasee of country rum”. Today being the wedding day of his son he was rewarded with one and was high. He simply blessed Mehar with a hundred rupee note and left without a word. Moreover he was confused about his own position in this new situation as this new daughter-in-law did look very different with her face open and looking straight at him, instead of the earlier ones who would stretch their pallu over their faces the moment they felt his presence around.
Mehar was still waiting for some comfort from her aching back when some women came and took her for dinner. It was arranged away from the prying eyes of onlookers inside a long corridor like room, which she found to be quite distasteful. The walls were lined with sacks of grains, jaggery and sugar. These were some of the smells she could recognize. There were two charpoys one on which her sister-in-law sat down and asked her to do the same. Much to her chagrin,she did not find any possibility of finding a chair.
Then came the dinner in large thalis. Daal and sabzee laden profusely with ghee and thick rotees each cut in half. Mehar had been to a village before, in fact her own grandfather lived in a Haryana village, but meals there were different from these. She tried to eat but the stench of ghee would not allow her to. So she asked for some daal and roti without ghee which she was served. Later however, she came to know that this act of her was enough to trigger a gossip trail about her being prudish, which during her later years as the daughter-in-law of that family she could never really get rid off, irrespective of what she did.
After the dinner was over and left over food removed, some rolled up beds were brought to be spread out on the charpoys. As the girls were making beds in the same room she asked her sister-in-law to take her to the washroom. She needed her luggage to take her towel out but somehow it went missing. They gave her a brand new hand towel which was powdered with starch and stank. Precarious journey towards the only bathroom of large household was treacherous, dimly lit, dusty and uneven. When she reached there, she had another shock.
She remembered when she was asked to meet Rajinder and she had inquired about him, her mother had assured her that they had bathrooms in their village house. Anyway, she was not supposed to stay there for long.
Earlier when she was asked about this match she had argued about getting married so early (she had just completed eighteen years) her mother had asked her if she had any boyfriend. If she had any, they would not mind marrying her off to him, but since she did not have one she would have to marry a boy of their choice. Surjit told her that offers for her were pouring in and they could not keep saying no to everyone. Both her parents had liked this match and she was asked to meet Rajinder. She met him, did not find anything wrong and the match was fixed.
Now she was here, her footwear as well as her feet full of dust, her silk dress clinging to her body, though the night had cooled her but the smell of the sweat had become unbearable by then. She did not have anything to change into, her toothbrush and towels were missing. She felt like crying.
Trying to keep a brave front she entered that dimly lit room to find two buckets full of turbid water with one aluminium lotaa. Apparently somebody had washed the bathroom with water and broom just before she came but the stench of urine lingered there. She used the toilet, tried to wash her face and hands and came out. She felt uncouth and dirtier than ever before.
When she was taken back to that corridor like room, some relief was there in the form of her personal luggage. She took out a cotton shalwar suit, her mother had the good sense of packing a few as she knew any other kind of nightwear would not be appropriate for that household. This was the first time that questions about the wisdom of her parents in getting her married into this family arose in her mind. They, however, disappeared quickly. There was too much to pay attention to.
She asked her sister-in-law where she could brush her teeth and wash or better take a bath and change.
She looked bewildered, “But, Bhabhiji, it is just a matter of a night! All you have to do is sleep.”
Mehar insisted. She just could not go on like this. She had begun to hate herself for all the dirt and smell that was emanating from
her clothes. Her teeth felt rough. Finally one jug full of same turbid water and a bucket was brought to the same room and she managed to brush her teeth, clean her face with a cleanser and wash her feet. All this while the three sisters-in-law kept staring at her, taking stock of each and every act of hers. Then she wanted to change her clothes. She asked for some privacy and they turned their backs towards her. She contemplated this situation for some time, changed and asked them to face her.
All three had been talking in low tones among themselves, Mehar did not care to know. Now the eldest of them Dilbir said, “Bhabhiji, your bed is made, you can sleep here. Do you need anything else?”
By now Mehar had understood her situation. She knew she could not go on asking for things they could not provide. She disliked the idea of sleeping right there in that room stuffed with sacks, rolled up beds, large steel trunks and an old wooden almirah which she later came to know, belonged to her mother-in-law. That was the only nice item in the otherwise gloomy room.
She silently lay down on one of the charpoys and tried to sleep. Sleep did come to her eventually and did not know how much time had passed when suddenly she woke up with a shudder. She felt a creepy feeling, somebody was caressing her face. She was about to scream when she suddenly realized where she was and tried to get up. It was Rajinder. He pushed her back on to the charpoy whispering something which she could not understand.
She was astonished but chose to remain quiet. She did not think that this was her wedding night. No, definitely not in these surroundings- an oblong room, full of sacks of grain, jaggery, flour, huge steel trunks, dusty floor and stale air. But she did not get to think much. Soon she saw him sitting by the side of the charpoy she was sleeping on. She did not know how to react. Then he asked her to move further but she was in the middle of the charpoy and it sagged inwards. There was no way she could move while still lying down. She could not make much of his intentions and tried to get up. Rajinder again asked her in a whisper and kept sitting on the side of the charpoy.
Soon he was leaning over her and she got up with a start. She sat upright in the cot. There was no way she could get off the charpoy and move away. He pushed her back and said in an audible
whisper, “You are married to me now, hope you know the meaning of marriage.”
She had been an avid reader and at nineteen years, she had a fair idea of the physiological aspects of a marriage and had many romantic notions associated with it.
Though she did not have much female company at her home, her mother Surjit too had quite an unobtrusive approach towards her growing up ways, she had managed to garner enough information about what being married meant to a girl. She had certain dreams of her own which she was certain would be fulfilled but what she was experiencing right now was contrary to her expectations.
He came heavily on her side and pushed her towards the other side of the cot. She was shocked. There was no way she could resist his clumsy attempts to caress her face and before she could understand much he tried to kiss her on lips but sensing no response, he cursed under his breath and got up.
She was relieved and felt this to be end of the ordeal but that was not to be. In dim yellow gloomy light of a bulb she saw him taking off his pajamas. She was horrified but before she could react he was back in the charpoy beside her and the force with which he took off her clothes forcing himself on her made her completely numb with shock and terror. The pain she felt came to her later when she regained her consciousness. He had worked his way onto her and gone.
There she lay on crushed and spoilt sheet with a bruised body and a traumatized soul, too shocked even to cry. That night became a clock ticking away every second with a dry silent horror. Her throat was burning with thirst, eyes kept waiting for tears which came late, too late to provide her any comfort. There was no water in the room and no soul around whom she could ask.
She spent the gloomy night feeling her body's revolt against the smell of her sweat mingled with dust and other odors in the gloomy room and the semen he left on her. Giggling of her sisters- in-law, while collecting her spoilt sheet next morning felt like glass shreds to her.
The following three days were another ordeal she bore with patience she did not know she possessed. Every time she needed to
use the toilet she would ask a maid to accompany her and waited outside as she washed it. Her feet were constantly powdered with dust as the compound of that house was raw mud. Crackling sound of this mud constantly stayed in her brain and she felt her teeth jitters each time she listened to it.
There were hordes and hordes of women coming in to see her. They would bless her with their rough working hands pressed hard on her head and she would constantly worry about her hair. One relief she did manage to achieve was that she insisted and succeeded in sleeping among other women of the household each night for those remaining three days of her stay there.
She later came to know about the reason for that assault by Rajinder and it was so silly, she did not know how to react or give vent to her feelings. Rajinder said he wanted to prove to his Bhabhis that he was man enough to take his bride the very first time. She found that to be so completely out of her domain that she more or less decided to forgive him for that. In any case she knew she didn't have any choice,her fate was sealed within that marriage.
Later when finally they did settle down to a near normal married life she wondered many times why he was always in a hurry. They were married and had all the convenience any marriage provides with: a bedroom, plenty of time and space. She always found him to be in a hurry. His concern would be to begin the job and get it over with or without any foreplay or emotions involved. Many years later she discovered the reason. But by then sex had become a mundane chore for her and any romantic notions she had earlier were dusted away with time and other trivialities of life.
Now as she reflected upon it, it did not seem important to her.
Life in any case was never up to it, as long as she lived with him.
Trying... Always trying... Hard and even harder but whenever things seemed to be going in the right direction, someone or the other would come and derail the hard earned harmony.
During those eight years of a shaky marriage with Rajinder, Mehar could never find her own footing. She asked him many times, “Will you please, take a stand on one issue and I will adjust myself accordingly. Don't keep changing it at every step, it makes me lose my balance. I cannot keep on staggering for the rest of my life. I need stability.”
To this he would invariably reply in haste,“Life keeps changing and so do I and if you cannot keep pace it is your fault. Listen to others and mend your ways.”
But Mehar did not know whom to listen to.
She had finished her graduation and when she received a call for an admission interview for her post graduation, he was furious.
“How dare you apply for admission? Did you seek my permission?”
She did not know what to say.
“But I thought you knew. My friend sent the form and after having filled it up, I posted it. Now I stand in the merit list and they have called me for the interview,” She said.
“I do not allow you to study further. In our family women do not study.”
“But my parents had already told you that I will study further.
This had already been discussed between our parents.”
“I don't know of any such arrangement. I do not like women who argue. You are always trying to put forward an argument on everything and if you study further you will make my life hell.”
“But I have to study further. What will I do otherwise?” was all she could muster after such a remark.
“Absolutely not, if you put one foot out of this house to do any such thing I will break your legs and I mean it.”
She was scared, worried and at a loss. She tried to reason it out with him. He refused to listen. Then she spoke with her mother-in- law, an uneducated woman herself but Mehar thought she would understand. She did a little but all she could assure her was that she would speak to her son but women in their family did not study.
She called her own parents on phone. They packed their bags and drove down to her house the very same day.
Surjit was furious, “How can he do this to you? When we fixed the match it was clear from day one that you will continue with your studies and will pursue a career later.”
Janab Singh tried to calm her down. He had been consoling her all the way from their home to Mehar's home. They lived about two
hundred and fifty kilometers apart in two major town of western Rajasthan. Mehar, in the desert town of Bikaner and Janab Singh in Sri Ganga Nagar.
He tried to reason,“Let him come back from the hospital. We do not know what has happened.”
Surjit was boiling,“What do you mean!What our daughter says is not true?How can you not believe your own daughter?”
Janab Singh was calm and placid, “This is not what I am saying. We must listen to him too. May be Mehar did not understand him properly. You see, she is young,only nineteen .He is a mature man of twenty eight years. He must have said something else. And she probably misunderstood.”
“Do you think our daughter is a fool? She may be only nineteen but I know her, she is wiser beyond her years.”
“I did not mean this, dear, but maybe there is some misunderstanding between the husband and the wife. Let us not over play it and wait for him to return home.”
Surjit did not seem convinced and seething with anger she demanded her tea.
Mehar asked Tarabai for tea and sat with her parents wondering what Rajinder would say to all this. Tea was served but Surjit did not like it. Tarabai had to make it again and her unhappiness was written large on her face. Mehar was worried. She started biting her nails. This was an old habit, which would resurface in such situations.
When Rajinder came back in the evening, he saw his parents-in- law and got a whiff of the whole situation. He tried to look unaffected but his discomfort was obvious. When Surjit confronted him he was adamant.
He said, “Mummy ji, I married your daughter to have a home and a comfortable life. If she goes out and study and then work outside the house, who will take care of me?”
This was shocking for both Surjit and Janab Singh. Both of them were stunned. They could not respond immediately. There was deafening silence for some time. Janab Singh sat heavily in an arm chair.
He always liked to sit in one. About six months ago, after Mehar settled down in this house with her newly wedded husband Rajinder, he had visited her along with Surjit and discovered that the furniture which they had bought was not to his liking. So he bought a few armchairs and now he was sitting in one of them.
Mehar was red with humiliation and embarrassment; both feelings were new to her. The kind of life she had led so far had been very carefree. Surjit was staring at Rajinder in disbelief.
Janab Singh had his farm at Sri Ganga Nagar, a town in the western Rajasthan, close to the border of Pakistan. The closest to Rajasthan district headquarters Sri Ganga Nagar is Bikaner, almost three hundred kilometers from it. Another nearest town was Abohar of Punjab, which was barely seventy five kilometers from the heart of SriGangaNagar. So technically this border town was in Rajasthan but for all practical reasons the first impression it offered to any outsider who happened to visit this place was of being a mini Punjab.
People who roam the streets converse in Punjabi. The market is owned predominantly by migrants from Multan and Bahawalpur towns of undivided India, who owned small businesses there and came in search of peace and livelihood before and after partition. They ended up opening corner shops. Till as late as early eighties one could still see weather beaten shaved faces in white tailed turban with golden skull caps fixed within. This population is mingled with Sardars from the rural areas, who generally have one home in town and one at the farm,which is called dhani.
Dhani consists of a large o pen area surrounded by l ow walls, one corner fitted with water outle t, a small enclosure wit h out roof to have a bath in private, especially for women, because men in any case just sit under the tap, rub themselves with soap and are done .A few rooms at the back are mainly used for storage purpose for all the material the family requires including clothes, food, fertilizers and even pesticides for the farm. During the harvest period even the yield from the farm is sometimes kept inside these large rooms, so that it can be sold in markets after procurement rates set by the government are high enough to increase the profit.
These farmers' family homes in the town have all the facilities the town offers. These homes are generally used for schooling of the family's children. The families that came here after partition had
realized that if they had to succeed in this new world, their children would have to be educated and just not literate. They keep one of the elderly ladies of the house with some domestic help and all eligible children of the extended family would be put in this family hostel of sorts.
Initially during forties and early fifties major population of the town spoke Punjabi tinged with various hues. But as time passed one unique style of spoken Punjabi became trade mark of this town, which is easy to identify for any person who has lived here long enough. They even have a saying in town that “Ganganagriye” can be identified in any crowd when they speak. So much so that few Bagarhi (Bagharh is another desert rural slot of the same region and it’s language and culture is very close to Marvarhees of Bikaner and Churu region) families too that have been living in this town for long, speak fluent Punjabi. Even the odd rickshaw puller who a decade ago hailed from UP and now comes from Bihar manages to pick this dialect within a few days of arrival.
Compared to other towns of Rajasthan and Punjab, Ganga Nagar is younger; established by the erstwhile ruler of Bikaner, Ganga Singh, before the partition of India. He streamed in Gang canal from Satlaj river at Beas for the benefit of his desert city of Bikaner and this canal ran through Sri GangaNagar.
Although his dream remained on paper only, this canal could not be directed towards Bikaner but it nourished this town and made it an oasis in the Thar desert. He planted many trees along the sides of this canal and established fruit plantations on the outskirts of this new township, which later became prize possessions of those few who were lucky enough to have bought these at throw away price before the partition was announced. Janab Singh's father was one of them.
Janab Singh's father was a retired army man who had fought battles in Europe during Second World War. He had seen all aspects of life and his view of life was broader than his brothers. He was a very hard working man who toiled all his life , saved and bought fertile lands whenever opportunity came his way.
As Janab Singh was his youngest child he spared him from hard work at the farms and sent him to study in Amritsar's Khalsa College. There he spent more time in leisure and hospitality of his newly acquired friends and less in studies. On weekends he would
often visit Lahore where Surjit's father was a school headmaster. Being from the same community both families were well acquainted with each other. And it was here that Janab Singh developed a fancy for Surjit, the eldest daughter of Sunder Singh.
Surjit was eighteen when she completed her graduation along with a teachers training degree and was hired in a private school at Lahore. Janab Singh was already betrothed to a girl from his extended family, but he insisted on this match. His father, being a farsighted man, saw the benefits of this alliance and asked for Surjit's hand for his son. This match brought many changes into Janab Singh's family.
Women who initially envied Surjit for the special treatment given to her, especially by her father-in-law soon recognized their own worth too. They began to have more say in family matters and gradually the whole atmosphere of Janab Singh's family acquired a new ambiance.
After spending a few months in this joint family Surjit and Janab Singh were sent to the farm in Sri Ganga Nagar. Soon Surjit joined the newly opened government girls school as a teacher and they set up a home in the town. Janab Singh was wise enough to invest in land for the purpose.
Many years later it was to this couple that Mehar was born. She was the youngest child of Surjit who, at that time was in her late thirties and her growing years were spent in relative luxury as Surjit had gradually climbed up the ladder of success. She had become an administrator.
