Minah knew Sidu, short for Siddharta, ever since they were children. Playmates for over fifteen years, both reached puberty not realizing how fast time had passed, but as each day went by their bonding grew stronger; they became the best of friends. Their favorite haunt was the mango grove by the village pond where they hung out everyday. O, what did they not do here? Laughed, skipped around, climbed up trees, larked about and danced insanely with the accompaniment of the flute when one was available. They sealed this relationship with the vow that they would always be there for each other, not knowing however, that in the cosmic scheme they have already been set apart for their inherent beliefs; also, for being a boy and a girl. While Minah’s Muslim family had great wealth, Sidu’s were orthodox Brahmins of the highest caste and in those days of carefree joy any misgivings was like feather in a storm swept away by the winds of innocence.
And then, one day Minah came a little late as Sidu waited for her anxiously at the rendezvous. By now, Minah had turned eighteen and Sidu twenty. When she finally showed up, Sidu scrutinized her from head to toe, something was wrong, he thought.
“About time! You took for ever, didn’t you?” he asked her. “And why are you dressed like that? You look, hmm, somewhat different.”
“Why? Because people came to see me today!”
She sat down on a grassy spot under the tree with Sidu following closely.
“Who? Who came to see you?”
“People!”
“What people?”
“How would I know? I guess I am to be married soon.”
“And when did you buy that sari? You never told me!”
“No, amma bought it for the occasion, what do you think of the color?” Minah asked him.
“It’s nice, just that—that—I am not used to seeing you in a sari. By the way, that red? It really suits you. When’s the occasion?”
“I don’t know, silly!” she blushed.
“You look pretty! Like a grown woman.”
Minah stood up and pulled him by the hand.
“Come, let’s do something.”
“You could wear this for the Durga Puja though, couldn’t you? I could buy you matching bangles. Do you think you might be married off by then?”
He rambled on as they walked the mango grove holding hands, unaware of the time that was soon going to be out of joint. Suddenly, something dropped from the trees above and landed with a thud on the dirt road before their feet.
“It’s a bird egg! We need to put it back,” Sidu said.
A couple of cuckoo birds nested in one of the mango trees. He picked it up, but the nest being too high he needed Minah’s help.
“I’ll put it back. I am sure I’d be able to reach the branch if I stood on your shoulders,” she said.
It seemed like a good plan. So Minah took the little egg from his hand and put one foot on Sidu’s shoulder as he bent down for her to get on. With both feet firmly placed, she stood up shakily holding a thick branch of the tree with one hand while she set the egg gently back into the nest with the other. Her sari buffered Sidu’s head between her legs as he looked up. But no sooner was the job done she lost balance and they both tumbled down.
Incidentally, the highly respected school pundit, Mr Mukherjee who was passing by saw them fall. Being out of school since graduation, it had slipped Sidu’s mind that it was lunch time and dad would come home for the break. He was also Minah’s teacher, one of her favorite. Mr. Mukherjee looked at them quizzically through his old-fashioned rimless round glasses as they stood up awkwardly arranging their disheveled clothes. Minah’s sari was all the way up to her knees which she was desperately pulling down to her ankles. The pundit expressed concern as he ran down the dirt path to the low land of the pond to give them a hand.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“We are fine!” Sidu said.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing serious just fell down.”
“O, I can see that!”
After he found out what had happened, he could not hold his laughter.
“You’re going to be married soon, my dear! It’s not good to be seen with him anymore,” he said.
“So what?” Minah hissed.
The pundit was taken aback at her retort. Raising an eyebrow, he invited them to join him for lunch.
Sidu lived with his mum, dad and a younger sister in a small two-bedroom brick house close to the mango grove. They ate in the front verandah on the floor which was also their kitchen. As they approached, Sidu’s mum Monjushree rolled out a paati on the floor as though she was expecting them while a vaporous pot of hot rice boiled on kerosene stove. She had just finished stirring the rice with a wooden spoon when they stepped onto the verandah. She put the lid back on the pot and the spoon away.
“Hello Minah, how are you, love?” she asked. “Why? How lucky are we today? Our guest is a bride-to-be,” she smiled.
“Um! What have you been cookin` mashima?”
“A blushing bride already,eh? All your favorites: fried Hilsa, Daal, and fried potatoes in tomato sauce.”
“Yummy!” Minah chuckled.
“Sidu, help Minah wash her hands. Lunch is nearly ready.”
Mrs Mukherjee laid down five copper plates and glasses on the mat while Sidu poured a mug full of water down her hands from a bucket placed on the edge of the open verandah. Her interlocked hands rubbed slightly with his as he did so; it made them both a little self-conscious. On the mat afterwards, Sidu sat in yoga position between Minah and his sister Moushumi, while Mr and Mrs Mukherjee opposite to them.
Minah’s frequent visits to this house have always been looked upon favorably. Her own was just next door—the two storied, old fashioned rendered brick house. It had a big paved front and a back yard and a large round balcony which glowed every evening when hurricane lanterns were lit. These lanterns hung from curved iron dowels positioned on a horizontal pole fixed with two bolts across a couple of narrow supporting walls. In fact, it was Minah who lit them one by one, every evening.
Her dad, as one of the village’s wealthiest rice farmers, owned a lot of fertile land. He sold the rice to the superstores and village markets around the country and this gave him a powerful station in the hierarchical social order.
Mr Mukherjee served Minah spoonfuls of rice. Minah laughed and said that she could not eat anymore but that did not deter him.
“We would have to get you something nice for the wedding! Don’t we?” Mrs Mukherjee said.
She turned her gaze away from Minah to scan Mr Mukherjee’s placid face. The pundit smiled at her ruefully. It did not escape their eyes that whenever the “w” word was spoken, Sidu moved his fingers either too fast through the rice or gulped water so hurriedly that he once nearly choked.
“Go easy on the fish! Don’t forget it is Hilsa, those razor-sharp bones could cause havoc, if they were to get caught up in your throat, Sidu,” the pundit cautioned.
“Yes! If we could change the subject!” Sidu said chewing a mouthful of rice. “I don’t think Minah wants to talk about her wedding plans right now.”
He gave her a cursory glance to which she lowered her head even further.
“I haven’t seen your amma lately,” said Mrs Mukherjee.
“Haven’t you? She did mention you last night; said she’d drop in soon, if not today, then tomorrow perhaps?” she said.
“Yeah, she probably would.”
“Minah, are you going to move out once you are married?” Moushumi asked.
“Most likely,” said the pundit.
There was no getting away from this topic, Sidu thought regrettably. He cleaned his hand and got up, leaving his plate right there on the paati avoiding everybody’s uneasy gaze.
Lunch was over soon after that. Mrs Mukherjee collected the plates and took them out at the well in the front yard to do the dishes. While she scraped Sidu’s plate for the tired, malnourished dog at their doorstep, Sidu took Minah home. Minah said good-bye to everyone and squeezed Moushumi’s chubby cheeks before she departed. Not participating in the good-bye ceremony, the pundit slowly stepped inside for he gauged some kind of disaster looming about; life’s complexities lurked unexpectedly.
Sidu and Minah were at the gate of her big house. When he saw Mrs Ruby Rahman looking at them from the balcony upstairs, he joined hands to greet her nomoskar. She reciprocated by nodding with a smile. As Sidu left her there, Minah went in through the gate and ran upstairs to her room.
Mrs Rahman sat down erectly in an easy chair made out of cane. She leant forward to pick up the knitting from the basket when Minah came around and stood by the railing on the balcony.
“I’ve already had lunch at mashima’s.”
“Yeah, I figured that! What have you had?”
“O, the usual, but it was tasty.”
“How is she? Haven’t seen her in a while!”
“She’s good, wanted to know how you were,” Minah said.
“Yeah, well now that you are about to be getting married, you need to stay home. The Jeweler will come this after-noon to take orders. I want you to be here with me, don’t take off.”
The lady of the house, Mrs Ruby Rahman, was a woman of few words but she was usually clear on what she wanted to say. Despite all her wealth, she was a plain looking character who seldom interfered into other people’s affairs.
“The match maker was here a little while ago, a wedding date has been fixed.” She said it with such a note of finality that it seemed as though it were carved in stone but Minah’s mind was racing; who was he? What did he do for a living? Where would they live? But she was too afraid to ask! It was too daunting. Thus, she continued to look ahead at the rice fields while her heart madly pounded away. A maid beckoned Mrs Rahman inside as the fish seller had come to collect his money.
Minah stared blankly at the tall green grass that swayed in the late autumnal winds. She visualized a future that seemed uncertain, bleak. Her thin determined lips looked sallow without lipstick on an expressionless fair, small face while her untidy, long, curly hair brushed gently against her cheeks in the afternoon breeze. She did not realize that the sun had slowly dipped into the blushing western sky— a blush that matched hers. It was time to light the lanterns.
Slowly she bent down to pick up the match box stashed in the corner of one of those pillars. She pushed the glass cover off the bracket of the lantern at an angle to get to the wick underneath. All of a sudden she became aware that she had audience that evening. She began to light them one after another, and when she came to the last one, turned instinctively around to look at her neighbor’s house. Her eyes were locked into Sidu’s. She smiled wanly then went inside.
The wedding preparations were well under way. Minah heard people come and go downstairs every day. More maids and page boys were employed. Relatives came from far and wide to stay with them until it was over. As soon as the jewelers left, tailors came in to take measurement. There were endless supply of Sweets, Shingaras and Pithas. Lunches and dinners were served in several oodles. The spread consisted of many items of fish, meat and vegetables. Men mostly ate downstairs and women upstairs. The house smelled of curry for days on. Minah saw Mrs Mukherjee one day but was not sure if Sidu came. She did not go out anymore but saw his dark eager eyes under the narrow forehead as he looked at her from the other side of the fence at lantern lighting times. And that was all.
A few days before the wedding, however, Minah heard noises coming from Sidu’s house as she waited to see him that evening. There was a cry and Sidu stalked out of the house followed by Mrs Mukherjee’s frantic appeal to stop him. And that evening when her parents chatted as usual in the main bedroom, Minah quietly slipped out of the house after dinner.
“Why does Akeel need to stay in the village when he could easily move to town, I don’t understand! His work starts at 8. How would he get there on time?”
Presumably, that was the name of the groom and the discussion was about his work, she thought. The conversation gradually faded as she ran down the stairs across the hall into the yard and out of the gate. Moushumi sat dourly on the verandah steps as Minah pushed herself through their cane fence-door; she came running to her.
“Moushumi! What has happened here?” she asked.
Moushumi hesitated for a moment. Minah looked at her in silent query.
“It’s Sidu,” Moushumi said.
“Well?”
“He asked baba, if he could marry you.”
“What! And then?”
“Baba said no, something to do with our faith.”
Neither of them realized that Sidu’s parents appeared on the scene and overheard them whisper. The pundit asked Minah to come into the lounge room as he ushered her inside; the uncanny silence was unbearable.
The room was not that large. They faced each other as they sat on short bamboo stools while Mrs Mukherjee and Moushumi stood in the doorway.
“And we love you very much,” he was saying. “But I am bound by the tenets of our religion; I can’t permit Sidu to marry you. Please for give me, we would become ostracized, no one would marry Moushumi … can’t beat the odds, the stakes’ too high. I wish we were born in another world, another era.”
Through the dim obscurity rendered by the lantern, Minah saw the dark scowl and the stress marks on his narrow forehead as his voice trailed off. She looked at the piled up fat books on the corner table of the room, felt dejected that there was no place for her and Sidu in them.
“I must go then, mustn’t I?” she asked.
“Yes, you must,” he paused. “I’ll pray for your happiness, always. I wish you only the best. May Bhagwan bless you my child.”
She muttered adieu somehow as she flitted out of the room and entered into her house the same way she came out, nobody noticed.
Moments passed, but Minah could not sleep that night. She lay awake listening to the creaky noises in the wooden window shutters as it slammed in the hollow winds. She kept her ears open and craned her neck to see if Sidu was in! But no, apart from the murmur of the dry leaves, there was nothing! Nothing besides to console her fretful soul! Not even a shadow under the brightly burning moon of the night.
The last few days she seemed to care for Sidu more than ever. Her days were filled with tremors and quivers as she craved for his company, for his touch. They gazed at each other over the fence while their unspoken words burned in the kindled fire within.
`A passion so intense! Is this love?’ she asked herself. ‘I must! Oh, I must! Meet him, at least once and this will be the last, I promise! I promise.`
The next morning a maid entered her room. She wasn’t there. The maid thought, Minah might have gone out for a walk. But it was a bit too early, wasn’t it? “Minah apu! Minah apu, where are you?” she called out.
But no! She was nowhere in her room; her screams steadily took a nervous pitch which aroused every one in the house to the knowledge that Minah was missing.
Not fully awake yet, Mr Rahman’s half-shut eyes squinted as he yawned. He got out of bed and went on the balcony but saw nothing outside. Servants were sent all around to look for her. This stirred up the entire village including Sidu and his parents. When he heard, Sidu took off in a flash as though he knew exactly where to find her. And he did! Minutes later he carried Minah through the gate of the big house.
As soon as they arrived a clearly distressed Ruby Rahman met them at the entrance.
“Where did you find her?” she asked.
Sidu staggered and then proceeded towards her room in silence. He laid her down gently on the bed. Mr Rahman quickly sent a page boy who scurried along to find a doctor.
“Under the mango tree, by the pond. She’s okay, sleeping,” Sidu gasped.
When the doctor finally arrived, apart from Ruby he asked everyone else to leave the room. He turned Minah over and found a tiny bit of blood clot on the back of her head. There was a fracture there as though someone had tried to thwack her. She woke up disoriented in the midst of it all.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“That’s what we would like to know! How? Why?”
Ruby continued to harangue her while Minah kept quiet against the tirade of attacks. Afterwards when the doctor sat with them on the verandah, he told Mr and Mrs Rahman over a cup of tea that Minah had been sleep-walking. Most likely she injured herself when she flopped on the ground thinking that it was her bed.
“Could she have gone anywhere?” Mr Rahman enquired.
“It’s possible,” the doctor replied.
Mr and Mrs Rahman sat quietly on the two upright chairs thinking how this might impinge on the wedding. In the mean time, one of the page boys burst into the room holding a lantern in his hand.
“What is it?” Mrs Ruby Rahman cried.
“I found this by the pond!”
Ruby looked up and saw the empty spot on the pole that held all the lanterns together.
“Indeed!”
The boy hung it back and left. The doctor left too. But by now the entire village came to know that she had slept under the mango tree and that Sidu brought her home. This gave rise to all kinds of speculation. Maids and housewives gossiped at every corner: in the market, on the street and in their homes. This was hot topic whenever people got together. And for days on, this is all they talked about. Some people said, she was jinxed, others thought she might be possessed and yet some women questioned her honor. They whispered, Sidu and Minah might have actually spent the night together, or else how did he know where to find her?
The wedding being just ten days away, the news traveled all the way to Minah’s would be in–law’s household and three days later the match-maker was at their place. The servant opened the door and led him through the hall into the balcony. Mr Rahman greeted the match-maker by touching his own forehead with the right hand while Ruby quickly draped her head with the loose end of the Anchal and welcomed him in the same manner.
“Asslaam-u-alaikum.”
“O-laikum-us-salaam,” he replied.
“Please have a seat.”
They sat comfortably on high-backed chairs. The match-maker sat down opposite to Mr Rahman as Ruby excused herself to go inside. Soon, refreshments were sent out for the guest carried by a page boy on a tray. They were home made snacks called Bhapa Pitha; tea was also served. Mr Rahman placed one such Pitha on a plate and handed it to the match-maker.
“There have been issues lately,” he said. “It is bothering a lot of people.”
The viscous molasses slowly oozed out of the coconut covering as he took his first bite into the Pitha. He licked it off his upper and the lower lips.
“What do you mean?” Mr Rahman asked.
“Well! They want to break up the wedding over this incidence. They think Minah might be possessed.”
“My God! No, no! She was just sleep-walking.”
“Look, they don’t want to know all that. She needs to be exorcised and that’s that. There are no two ways about it. You would have to put a ritual in place to expel that devil from her head.”
“And then? Then would they rethink?”
“Yes,” he said briefly.
The slick mercenary studied Mr Rahman’s sullen expression pinching his prickly mustache on his non-descript grubby face. And as he observed his eagerness, he thought that he had a potential bargaining position which would open not only a window of opportunity to get his social credentials up as a match-maker with the families of the eligible bachelors in the village, but also more money into his coffers.
“They might, for a price, more gifts for the groom and fifty thousand taka in cash.”
“Fifty thousand taka! But that’s a lot of money, even for me!” Mr Rahman said aloud raising his hands up in the air.
“And I say, take it or leave it. End of discussion,” the match-maker told him.
“Okay, okay! I’ll do it, but I’ll need more time. As soon as I have the money, I’ll let you know.”
“Let me know. Soon.”
No sooner had the match-maker left; he sat mulling over this matter. In the eyes of the society they would forever be stigmatized if this wedding did not take place; no honorable boy would marry his daughter again. For a respectable life in the village he was prepared to do anything. If he had to sell land to raise money! So be it. Get Minah exorcised! So be it. The scandal! Oh the horror! He panicked.
Minah hardly ever came out of her room as she was not allowed to go out with Sidu anymore. By now, she was not only forlorn but beginning to wear this loneliness on her face. Her eyes were increasingly cheerless and vacuous. She grew thinner by the day as her appetite slowly dissipated. She longed for him more than ever and that night she felt a strong desire to meet Sidu under the mango tree, by the pond. When everyone went off to sleep that night, Minah sneaked out in the dark. On her way, she peered in the direction of Sidu’s house, but saw nothing other than the slight glow of the wick lantern. Minah knew Sidu would be there. She chanted his name repeatedly in her mind. And as she approached the meeting place she saw a figure in white waiting for her. She saw Sidu’s Dhoti and the top. Seeing her, Sidu extended his arms so she could run straight into them. Minah was not sleep walking to-night.
Breathing heavily, Sidu held Minah in a tight embrace. She rested her head shyly on his heaving chest as he kissed her hair.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you more.”
They stood motionless locked into each others’ arms for God knows how long when Sidu took Minah’s chin. She opened her eyes to meet his. In the moonlight he tilted it with his index finger and held it close to his lips; they kissed.
And suddenly, the world around them exploded into millions of atoms as Sidu’s kisses were returned with tenderness beyond comparison. Then they sat down under the tree while Sidu held Minah’s small waist in a gentle grip. Minah inclined back on the stump for Sidu to caress her shoulders, her round taut breasts and then her lips again, and again until they climaxed; she was not afraid. When they finished, they lay contented beside each other while an occasional owl hooted at a distance in the murky night—the mango tree, the lover’s den, witnessed it all.
“When’s the wedding?”
“Don’t know, don’t want to know! Minah said with eyes still closed. “Say something else.”
“We shall meet, no matter what!” Sidu said.
“We are together! You and I, do you understand, Sidu?”
Minah said looking deeply into his dark troubled eyes and saw his them twinkle. They stood before heavens and chose each other as partners—a celestial union which none of the world’s social or religious laws could have altered. They heard the azan gently drifting through the silence of the night proclaiming the Morning Prayer.
“I need to go,” Minah said.
Sidu grabbed her hand as she got up.
“Don’t go! Not just yet. Stay! Stay a bit longer,” he pleaded.
“I’ll come back to-night, same time,” Minah promised.
“Okay.”
He let her go. But how could he? Oh! How could he let her go? He looked haplessly as she pussyfooted down the narrow dirt road disappearing into the semi darkness of the dawn. She darted back into the house, locked the front gate and hung the key beside it on the nail before running up the steps into the safety of her room. Warily, she went into the bathroom to take her sweaty clothes off. She took several mugs of water from a bucket set in the bathroom and poured it over her head. She changed into fresh clothes, dried her wet body with a red gamcha. She saw blood stains on the sari that she just took off, hid it quickly under the bed and thought of washing it later, for she had no more energy left; she went straight to bed.
Mr Rahman was able to sell some land eventually, but Minah did not need to get exorcized as she stopped sleep walking for awhile. A wedding date was fixed again and it was due to happen within seven days once the money was paid. The deal had closed and Minah knew that in this negotiation she was being sold but to preserve the family honor said nothing. On the day of the wedding she was not sure if Sidu was present among the large crowd of people that attended it.
The night before the wedding they met again for the last time. They kissed and made love under the starlit sky and Minah left as usual. But both knew that they were so entwined in spirit and mind that in this oneness they would always communicate, although never really meet again. But they did, in a most peculiar way.
Minah’s in-laws were just another traditional family who lived about five miles away from her village. After the wedding ceremony, the plan was to take the train back and Minah was to be carried to the station on a decorative palki, contrary to the plain ones used by the other women; the men would walk alongside the cavalcade. And as the wedding procession ensued towards the station, Minah saw Sidu through the draped little window, appearing and disappearing over the horizon. When all the palkies were parked at last, she was brought into an empty carriage by the groom who callously put her down on the window seat and left without a word.
He went back to the platform while she sat alone by the carriage window and sobbed quietly as she looked occasionally out. Hours went by, she waited, and she waited, in anticipation not for the man she had just married but for Sidu to emerge in the doorway. She could not, rather would not, say goodbye to him. This is who she desired, this is who she wanted from the bottom of her heart; hence, in desperation she cried out, Sidu!
The train nearly moved, yet no sign of anyone. And then quite unexpectedly, Minah saw a man’s shape in the doorway, a vision so blurred that it was barely recognizable! She found herself being seized by two strong arms and swiftly taken out of the carriage. In one long stride they dismounted from the train, she was put back in the same palki, lifted up by the bearers who in light, hasty pace dashed her out of the station.
In the meantime, the train slugged away. All Minah could see was a number of passing faces who looked on incredulously through the carriage windows, seemingly her in-laws. And then it was magic! The next enchanting few moments; Sidu entered through the small opening of the palki as its bearers put it down in the middle of nowhere.
“O, my love, it was awful! I couldn’t bear to let you go, just couldn’t!” Sidu exclaimed huskily as he kissed her wet cheeks. “You look ravishing, beautiful, out of this world today in that sari and jewelry and you belong to me; I’d go crazy without you.”
Minah stared at him, bemused and gaping, with mouth wide open as he whispered into her ears and kissed her relentlessly. How extraordinary for this to be really happening! Happening to her?
“I bribed the bearers and I told my parents that I had adopted celibacy to go away on a pilgrimage, never to return,” Sidu explained.
“Did they believe you?”
“Yes, they did. They said it was an acceptable proposition.”
“Where would we go now?”
“Don’t know!” he answered.
As he bent his head gently down on her parted lips to kiss her again, one of the bearers knocked on the wobbly little door of the palki saying that they were not from here; they needed to go before dark. Sidu asked him to carry them to the outskirts of the village.
Since that day Minah could not be found anywhere, although the police looked for her everywhere. When the bearers were questioned all they said was that she was last seen with a man. The description of the man fitted that of Sidu’s—tall, dark and slim but they failed to make the connection because Sidu was supposedly on his way to the pilgrimage.
Soon everyone gave up; the gossip, the moaning also ended. The story that spread through the village was that Minah was kidnapped from the train for jewelry and was left alone to die in a distant place. Her mutilated body was so unidentifiable that a proper burial was not possible. It had to be taken to the morgue. The tainted sari was found by Ruby Rahman herself who had entered Minah’s room later to check if her trousseau was all taken. As she looked under her bed, she saw the sari and pulled it out; her bewildered gawk was momentarily fixed on the dry blood stains. She washed it with her own hands and put it away in her closet, a secret she shared with no one.
But, the wise pundit smiled in disbelief when he heard this story; he knew the children only too well. And when Sidu wrote letters to Moushumi from anonymous addresses, he was proven to be right. She too married and lived happily, but never saw them again.
Moushumi buried those letters in their legendary secret garden under the mango tree, by the pond upon Sidu’s request; in her diary nevertheless, she wrote this narrative as it occurred without the characters ever being exposed: once upon a time there lived two lovers in an obscure village is how it began. This, for a fleeting moment, gave Mr and Mrs Rahman some hint as to their daughter’s disappearance when she read it to them one day—a tale most confronting, of love and elopement that left everyone speechless!
Glossary:
And then, one day Minah came a little late as Sidu waited for her anxiously at the rendezvous. By now, Minah had turned eighteen and Sidu twenty. When she finally showed up, Sidu scrutinized her from head to toe, something was wrong, he thought.
“About time! You took for ever, didn’t you?” he asked her. “And why are you dressed like that? You look, hmm, somewhat different.”
“Why? Because people came to see me today!”
She sat down on a grassy spot under the tree with Sidu following closely.
“Who? Who came to see you?”
“People!”
“What people?”
“How would I know? I guess I am to be married soon.”
“And when did you buy that sari? You never told me!”
“No, amma bought it for the occasion, what do you think of the color?” Minah asked him.
“It’s nice, just that—that—I am not used to seeing you in a sari. By the way, that red? It really suits you. When’s the occasion?”
“I don’t know, silly!” she blushed.
“You look pretty! Like a grown woman.”
Minah stood up and pulled him by the hand.
“Come, let’s do something.”
“You could wear this for the Durga Puja though, couldn’t you? I could buy you matching bangles. Do you think you might be married off by then?”
He rambled on as they walked the mango grove holding hands, unaware of the time that was soon going to be out of joint. Suddenly, something dropped from the trees above and landed with a thud on the dirt road before their feet.
“It’s a bird egg! We need to put it back,” Sidu said.
A couple of cuckoo birds nested in one of the mango trees. He picked it up, but the nest being too high he needed Minah’s help.
“I’ll put it back. I am sure I’d be able to reach the branch if I stood on your shoulders,” she said.
It seemed like a good plan. So Minah took the little egg from his hand and put one foot on Sidu’s shoulder as he bent down for her to get on. With both feet firmly placed, she stood up shakily holding a thick branch of the tree with one hand while she set the egg gently back into the nest with the other. Her sari buffered Sidu’s head between her legs as he looked up. But no sooner was the job done she lost balance and they both tumbled down.
Incidentally, the highly respected school pundit, Mr Mukherjee who was passing by saw them fall. Being out of school since graduation, it had slipped Sidu’s mind that it was lunch time and dad would come home for the break. He was also Minah’s teacher, one of her favorite. Mr. Mukherjee looked at them quizzically through his old-fashioned rimless round glasses as they stood up awkwardly arranging their disheveled clothes. Minah’s sari was all the way up to her knees which she was desperately pulling down to her ankles. The pundit expressed concern as he ran down the dirt path to the low land of the pond to give them a hand.
“Are you hurt?” he asked.
“We are fine!” Sidu said.
“What’s up?”
“Nothing serious just fell down.”
“O, I can see that!”
After he found out what had happened, he could not hold his laughter.
“You’re going to be married soon, my dear! It’s not good to be seen with him anymore,” he said.
“So what?” Minah hissed.
The pundit was taken aback at her retort. Raising an eyebrow, he invited them to join him for lunch.
Sidu lived with his mum, dad and a younger sister in a small two-bedroom brick house close to the mango grove. They ate in the front verandah on the floor which was also their kitchen. As they approached, Sidu’s mum Monjushree rolled out a paati on the floor as though she was expecting them while a vaporous pot of hot rice boiled on kerosene stove. She had just finished stirring the rice with a wooden spoon when they stepped onto the verandah. She put the lid back on the pot and the spoon away.
“Hello Minah, how are you, love?” she asked. “Why? How lucky are we today? Our guest is a bride-to-be,” she smiled.
“Um! What have you been cookin` mashima?”
“A blushing bride already,eh? All your favorites: fried Hilsa, Daal, and fried potatoes in tomato sauce.”
“Yummy!” Minah chuckled.
“Sidu, help Minah wash her hands. Lunch is nearly ready.”
Mrs Mukherjee laid down five copper plates and glasses on the mat while Sidu poured a mug full of water down her hands from a bucket placed on the edge of the open verandah. Her interlocked hands rubbed slightly with his as he did so; it made them both a little self-conscious. On the mat afterwards, Sidu sat in yoga position between Minah and his sister Moushumi, while Mr and Mrs Mukherjee opposite to them.
Minah’s frequent visits to this house have always been looked upon favorably. Her own was just next door—the two storied, old fashioned rendered brick house. It had a big paved front and a back yard and a large round balcony which glowed every evening when hurricane lanterns were lit. These lanterns hung from curved iron dowels positioned on a horizontal pole fixed with two bolts across a couple of narrow supporting walls. In fact, it was Minah who lit them one by one, every evening.
Her dad, as one of the village’s wealthiest rice farmers, owned a lot of fertile land. He sold the rice to the superstores and village markets around the country and this gave him a powerful station in the hierarchical social order.
Mr Mukherjee served Minah spoonfuls of rice. Minah laughed and said that she could not eat anymore but that did not deter him.
“We would have to get you something nice for the wedding! Don’t we?” Mrs Mukherjee said.
She turned her gaze away from Minah to scan Mr Mukherjee’s placid face. The pundit smiled at her ruefully. It did not escape their eyes that whenever the “w” word was spoken, Sidu moved his fingers either too fast through the rice or gulped water so hurriedly that he once nearly choked.
“Go easy on the fish! Don’t forget it is Hilsa, those razor-sharp bones could cause havoc, if they were to get caught up in your throat, Sidu,” the pundit cautioned.
“Yes! If we could change the subject!” Sidu said chewing a mouthful of rice. “I don’t think Minah wants to talk about her wedding plans right now.”
He gave her a cursory glance to which she lowered her head even further.
“I haven’t seen your amma lately,” said Mrs Mukherjee.
“Haven’t you? She did mention you last night; said she’d drop in soon, if not today, then tomorrow perhaps?” she said.
“Yeah, she probably would.”
“Minah, are you going to move out once you are married?” Moushumi asked.
“Most likely,” said the pundit.
There was no getting away from this topic, Sidu thought regrettably. He cleaned his hand and got up, leaving his plate right there on the paati avoiding everybody’s uneasy gaze.
Lunch was over soon after that. Mrs Mukherjee collected the plates and took them out at the well in the front yard to do the dishes. While she scraped Sidu’s plate for the tired, malnourished dog at their doorstep, Sidu took Minah home. Minah said good-bye to everyone and squeezed Moushumi’s chubby cheeks before she departed. Not participating in the good-bye ceremony, the pundit slowly stepped inside for he gauged some kind of disaster looming about; life’s complexities lurked unexpectedly.
Sidu and Minah were at the gate of her big house. When he saw Mrs Ruby Rahman looking at them from the balcony upstairs, he joined hands to greet her nomoskar. She reciprocated by nodding with a smile. As Sidu left her there, Minah went in through the gate and ran upstairs to her room.
Mrs Rahman sat down erectly in an easy chair made out of cane. She leant forward to pick up the knitting from the basket when Minah came around and stood by the railing on the balcony.
“I’ve already had lunch at mashima’s.”
“Yeah, I figured that! What have you had?”
“O, the usual, but it was tasty.”
“How is she? Haven’t seen her in a while!”
“She’s good, wanted to know how you were,” Minah said.
“Yeah, well now that you are about to be getting married, you need to stay home. The Jeweler will come this after-noon to take orders. I want you to be here with me, don’t take off.”
The lady of the house, Mrs Ruby Rahman, was a woman of few words but she was usually clear on what she wanted to say. Despite all her wealth, she was a plain looking character who seldom interfered into other people’s affairs.
“The match maker was here a little while ago, a wedding date has been fixed.” She said it with such a note of finality that it seemed as though it were carved in stone but Minah’s mind was racing; who was he? What did he do for a living? Where would they live? But she was too afraid to ask! It was too daunting. Thus, she continued to look ahead at the rice fields while her heart madly pounded away. A maid beckoned Mrs Rahman inside as the fish seller had come to collect his money.
Minah stared blankly at the tall green grass that swayed in the late autumnal winds. She visualized a future that seemed uncertain, bleak. Her thin determined lips looked sallow without lipstick on an expressionless fair, small face while her untidy, long, curly hair brushed gently against her cheeks in the afternoon breeze. She did not realize that the sun had slowly dipped into the blushing western sky— a blush that matched hers. It was time to light the lanterns.
Slowly she bent down to pick up the match box stashed in the corner of one of those pillars. She pushed the glass cover off the bracket of the lantern at an angle to get to the wick underneath. All of a sudden she became aware that she had audience that evening. She began to light them one after another, and when she came to the last one, turned instinctively around to look at her neighbor’s house. Her eyes were locked into Sidu’s. She smiled wanly then went inside.
The wedding preparations were well under way. Minah heard people come and go downstairs every day. More maids and page boys were employed. Relatives came from far and wide to stay with them until it was over. As soon as the jewelers left, tailors came in to take measurement. There were endless supply of Sweets, Shingaras and Pithas. Lunches and dinners were served in several oodles. The spread consisted of many items of fish, meat and vegetables. Men mostly ate downstairs and women upstairs. The house smelled of curry for days on. Minah saw Mrs Mukherjee one day but was not sure if Sidu came. She did not go out anymore but saw his dark eager eyes under the narrow forehead as he looked at her from the other side of the fence at lantern lighting times. And that was all.
A few days before the wedding, however, Minah heard noises coming from Sidu’s house as she waited to see him that evening. There was a cry and Sidu stalked out of the house followed by Mrs Mukherjee’s frantic appeal to stop him. And that evening when her parents chatted as usual in the main bedroom, Minah quietly slipped out of the house after dinner.
“Why does Akeel need to stay in the village when he could easily move to town, I don’t understand! His work starts at 8. How would he get there on time?”
Presumably, that was the name of the groom and the discussion was about his work, she thought. The conversation gradually faded as she ran down the stairs across the hall into the yard and out of the gate. Moushumi sat dourly on the verandah steps as Minah pushed herself through their cane fence-door; she came running to her.
“Moushumi! What has happened here?” she asked.
Moushumi hesitated for a moment. Minah looked at her in silent query.
“It’s Sidu,” Moushumi said.
“Well?”
“He asked baba, if he could marry you.”
“What! And then?”
“Baba said no, something to do with our faith.”
Neither of them realized that Sidu’s parents appeared on the scene and overheard them whisper. The pundit asked Minah to come into the lounge room as he ushered her inside; the uncanny silence was unbearable.
The room was not that large. They faced each other as they sat on short bamboo stools while Mrs Mukherjee and Moushumi stood in the doorway.
“And we love you very much,” he was saying. “But I am bound by the tenets of our religion; I can’t permit Sidu to marry you. Please for give me, we would become ostracized, no one would marry Moushumi … can’t beat the odds, the stakes’ too high. I wish we were born in another world, another era.”
Through the dim obscurity rendered by the lantern, Minah saw the dark scowl and the stress marks on his narrow forehead as his voice trailed off. She looked at the piled up fat books on the corner table of the room, felt dejected that there was no place for her and Sidu in them.
“I must go then, mustn’t I?” she asked.
“Yes, you must,” he paused. “I’ll pray for your happiness, always. I wish you only the best. May Bhagwan bless you my child.”
She muttered adieu somehow as she flitted out of the room and entered into her house the same way she came out, nobody noticed.
Moments passed, but Minah could not sleep that night. She lay awake listening to the creaky noises in the wooden window shutters as it slammed in the hollow winds. She kept her ears open and craned her neck to see if Sidu was in! But no, apart from the murmur of the dry leaves, there was nothing! Nothing besides to console her fretful soul! Not even a shadow under the brightly burning moon of the night.
The last few days she seemed to care for Sidu more than ever. Her days were filled with tremors and quivers as she craved for his company, for his touch. They gazed at each other over the fence while their unspoken words burned in the kindled fire within.
`A passion so intense! Is this love?’ she asked herself. ‘I must! Oh, I must! Meet him, at least once and this will be the last, I promise! I promise.`
The next morning a maid entered her room. She wasn’t there. The maid thought, Minah might have gone out for a walk. But it was a bit too early, wasn’t it? “Minah apu! Minah apu, where are you?” she called out.
But no! She was nowhere in her room; her screams steadily took a nervous pitch which aroused every one in the house to the knowledge that Minah was missing.
Not fully awake yet, Mr Rahman’s half-shut eyes squinted as he yawned. He got out of bed and went on the balcony but saw nothing outside. Servants were sent all around to look for her. This stirred up the entire village including Sidu and his parents. When he heard, Sidu took off in a flash as though he knew exactly where to find her. And he did! Minutes later he carried Minah through the gate of the big house.
As soon as they arrived a clearly distressed Ruby Rahman met them at the entrance.
“Where did you find her?” she asked.
Sidu staggered and then proceeded towards her room in silence. He laid her down gently on the bed. Mr Rahman quickly sent a page boy who scurried along to find a doctor.
“Under the mango tree, by the pond. She’s okay, sleeping,” Sidu gasped.
When the doctor finally arrived, apart from Ruby he asked everyone else to leave the room. He turned Minah over and found a tiny bit of blood clot on the back of her head. There was a fracture there as though someone had tried to thwack her. She woke up disoriented in the midst of it all.
“What’s wrong?” she asked.
“That’s what we would like to know! How? Why?”
Ruby continued to harangue her while Minah kept quiet against the tirade of attacks. Afterwards when the doctor sat with them on the verandah, he told Mr and Mrs Rahman over a cup of tea that Minah had been sleep-walking. Most likely she injured herself when she flopped on the ground thinking that it was her bed.
“Could she have gone anywhere?” Mr Rahman enquired.
“It’s possible,” the doctor replied.
Mr and Mrs Rahman sat quietly on the two upright chairs thinking how this might impinge on the wedding. In the mean time, one of the page boys burst into the room holding a lantern in his hand.
“What is it?” Mrs Ruby Rahman cried.
“I found this by the pond!”
Ruby looked up and saw the empty spot on the pole that held all the lanterns together.
“Indeed!”
The boy hung it back and left. The doctor left too. But by now the entire village came to know that she had slept under the mango tree and that Sidu brought her home. This gave rise to all kinds of speculation. Maids and housewives gossiped at every corner: in the market, on the street and in their homes. This was hot topic whenever people got together. And for days on, this is all they talked about. Some people said, she was jinxed, others thought she might be possessed and yet some women questioned her honor. They whispered, Sidu and Minah might have actually spent the night together, or else how did he know where to find her?
The wedding being just ten days away, the news traveled all the way to Minah’s would be in–law’s household and three days later the match-maker was at their place. The servant opened the door and led him through the hall into the balcony. Mr Rahman greeted the match-maker by touching his own forehead with the right hand while Ruby quickly draped her head with the loose end of the Anchal and welcomed him in the same manner.
“Asslaam-u-alaikum.”
“O-laikum-us-salaam,” he replied.
“Please have a seat.”
They sat comfortably on high-backed chairs. The match-maker sat down opposite to Mr Rahman as Ruby excused herself to go inside. Soon, refreshments were sent out for the guest carried by a page boy on a tray. They were home made snacks called Bhapa Pitha; tea was also served. Mr Rahman placed one such Pitha on a plate and handed it to the match-maker.
“There have been issues lately,” he said. “It is bothering a lot of people.”
The viscous molasses slowly oozed out of the coconut covering as he took his first bite into the Pitha. He licked it off his upper and the lower lips.
“What do you mean?” Mr Rahman asked.
“Well! They want to break up the wedding over this incidence. They think Minah might be possessed.”
“My God! No, no! She was just sleep-walking.”
“Look, they don’t want to know all that. She needs to be exorcised and that’s that. There are no two ways about it. You would have to put a ritual in place to expel that devil from her head.”
“And then? Then would they rethink?”
“Yes,” he said briefly.
The slick mercenary studied Mr Rahman’s sullen expression pinching his prickly mustache on his non-descript grubby face. And as he observed his eagerness, he thought that he had a potential bargaining position which would open not only a window of opportunity to get his social credentials up as a match-maker with the families of the eligible bachelors in the village, but also more money into his coffers.
“They might, for a price, more gifts for the groom and fifty thousand taka in cash.”
“Fifty thousand taka! But that’s a lot of money, even for me!” Mr Rahman said aloud raising his hands up in the air.
“And I say, take it or leave it. End of discussion,” the match-maker told him.
“Okay, okay! I’ll do it, but I’ll need more time. As soon as I have the money, I’ll let you know.”
“Let me know. Soon.”
No sooner had the match-maker left; he sat mulling over this matter. In the eyes of the society they would forever be stigmatized if this wedding did not take place; no honorable boy would marry his daughter again. For a respectable life in the village he was prepared to do anything. If he had to sell land to raise money! So be it. Get Minah exorcised! So be it. The scandal! Oh the horror! He panicked.
Minah hardly ever came out of her room as she was not allowed to go out with Sidu anymore. By now, she was not only forlorn but beginning to wear this loneliness on her face. Her eyes were increasingly cheerless and vacuous. She grew thinner by the day as her appetite slowly dissipated. She longed for him more than ever and that night she felt a strong desire to meet Sidu under the mango tree, by the pond. When everyone went off to sleep that night, Minah sneaked out in the dark. On her way, she peered in the direction of Sidu’s house, but saw nothing other than the slight glow of the wick lantern. Minah knew Sidu would be there. She chanted his name repeatedly in her mind. And as she approached the meeting place she saw a figure in white waiting for her. She saw Sidu’s Dhoti and the top. Seeing her, Sidu extended his arms so she could run straight into them. Minah was not sleep walking to-night.
Breathing heavily, Sidu held Minah in a tight embrace. She rested her head shyly on his heaving chest as he kissed her hair.
“I missed you,” he said.
“I missed you more.”
They stood motionless locked into each others’ arms for God knows how long when Sidu took Minah’s chin. She opened her eyes to meet his. In the moonlight he tilted it with his index finger and held it close to his lips; they kissed.
And suddenly, the world around them exploded into millions of atoms as Sidu’s kisses were returned with tenderness beyond comparison. Then they sat down under the tree while Sidu held Minah’s small waist in a gentle grip. Minah inclined back on the stump for Sidu to caress her shoulders, her round taut breasts and then her lips again, and again until they climaxed; she was not afraid. When they finished, they lay contented beside each other while an occasional owl hooted at a distance in the murky night—the mango tree, the lover’s den, witnessed it all.
“When’s the wedding?”
“Don’t know, don’t want to know! Minah said with eyes still closed. “Say something else.”
“We shall meet, no matter what!” Sidu said.
“We are together! You and I, do you understand, Sidu?”
Minah said looking deeply into his dark troubled eyes and saw his them twinkle. They stood before heavens and chose each other as partners—a celestial union which none of the world’s social or religious laws could have altered. They heard the azan gently drifting through the silence of the night proclaiming the Morning Prayer.
“I need to go,” Minah said.
Sidu grabbed her hand as she got up.
“Don’t go! Not just yet. Stay! Stay a bit longer,” he pleaded.
“I’ll come back to-night, same time,” Minah promised.
“Okay.”
He let her go. But how could he? Oh! How could he let her go? He looked haplessly as she pussyfooted down the narrow dirt road disappearing into the semi darkness of the dawn. She darted back into the house, locked the front gate and hung the key beside it on the nail before running up the steps into the safety of her room. Warily, she went into the bathroom to take her sweaty clothes off. She took several mugs of water from a bucket set in the bathroom and poured it over her head. She changed into fresh clothes, dried her wet body with a red gamcha. She saw blood stains on the sari that she just took off, hid it quickly under the bed and thought of washing it later, for she had no more energy left; she went straight to bed.
Mr Rahman was able to sell some land eventually, but Minah did not need to get exorcized as she stopped sleep walking for awhile. A wedding date was fixed again and it was due to happen within seven days once the money was paid. The deal had closed and Minah knew that in this negotiation she was being sold but to preserve the family honor said nothing. On the day of the wedding she was not sure if Sidu was present among the large crowd of people that attended it.
The night before the wedding they met again for the last time. They kissed and made love under the starlit sky and Minah left as usual. But both knew that they were so entwined in spirit and mind that in this oneness they would always communicate, although never really meet again. But they did, in a most peculiar way.
Minah’s in-laws were just another traditional family who lived about five miles away from her village. After the wedding ceremony, the plan was to take the train back and Minah was to be carried to the station on a decorative palki, contrary to the plain ones used by the other women; the men would walk alongside the cavalcade. And as the wedding procession ensued towards the station, Minah saw Sidu through the draped little window, appearing and disappearing over the horizon. When all the palkies were parked at last, she was brought into an empty carriage by the groom who callously put her down on the window seat and left without a word.
He went back to the platform while she sat alone by the carriage window and sobbed quietly as she looked occasionally out. Hours went by, she waited, and she waited, in anticipation not for the man she had just married but for Sidu to emerge in the doorway. She could not, rather would not, say goodbye to him. This is who she desired, this is who she wanted from the bottom of her heart; hence, in desperation she cried out, Sidu!
The train nearly moved, yet no sign of anyone. And then quite unexpectedly, Minah saw a man’s shape in the doorway, a vision so blurred that it was barely recognizable! She found herself being seized by two strong arms and swiftly taken out of the carriage. In one long stride they dismounted from the train, she was put back in the same palki, lifted up by the bearers who in light, hasty pace dashed her out of the station.
In the meantime, the train slugged away. All Minah could see was a number of passing faces who looked on incredulously through the carriage windows, seemingly her in-laws. And then it was magic! The next enchanting few moments; Sidu entered through the small opening of the palki as its bearers put it down in the middle of nowhere.
“O, my love, it was awful! I couldn’t bear to let you go, just couldn’t!” Sidu exclaimed huskily as he kissed her wet cheeks. “You look ravishing, beautiful, out of this world today in that sari and jewelry and you belong to me; I’d go crazy without you.”
Minah stared at him, bemused and gaping, with mouth wide open as he whispered into her ears and kissed her relentlessly. How extraordinary for this to be really happening! Happening to her?
“I bribed the bearers and I told my parents that I had adopted celibacy to go away on a pilgrimage, never to return,” Sidu explained.
“Did they believe you?”
“Yes, they did. They said it was an acceptable proposition.”
“Where would we go now?”
“Don’t know!” he answered.
As he bent his head gently down on her parted lips to kiss her again, one of the bearers knocked on the wobbly little door of the palki saying that they were not from here; they needed to go before dark. Sidu asked him to carry them to the outskirts of the village.
Since that day Minah could not be found anywhere, although the police looked for her everywhere. When the bearers were questioned all they said was that she was last seen with a man. The description of the man fitted that of Sidu’s—tall, dark and slim but they failed to make the connection because Sidu was supposedly on his way to the pilgrimage.
Soon everyone gave up; the gossip, the moaning also ended. The story that spread through the village was that Minah was kidnapped from the train for jewelry and was left alone to die in a distant place. Her mutilated body was so unidentifiable that a proper burial was not possible. It had to be taken to the morgue. The tainted sari was found by Ruby Rahman herself who had entered Minah’s room later to check if her trousseau was all taken. As she looked under her bed, she saw the sari and pulled it out; her bewildered gawk was momentarily fixed on the dry blood stains. She washed it with her own hands and put it away in her closet, a secret she shared with no one.
But, the wise pundit smiled in disbelief when he heard this story; he knew the children only too well. And when Sidu wrote letters to Moushumi from anonymous addresses, he was proven to be right. She too married and lived happily, but never saw them again.
Moushumi buried those letters in their legendary secret garden under the mango tree, by the pond upon Sidu’s request; in her diary nevertheless, she wrote this narrative as it occurred without the characters ever being exposed: once upon a time there lived two lovers in an obscure village is how it began. This, for a fleeting moment, gave Mr and Mrs Rahman some hint as to their daughter’s disappearance when she read it to them one day—a tale most confronting, of love and elopement that left everyone speechless!
Glossary:
- amma: mother
- anchal: the loose end of the sari that flows down a woman’s shoulder
- apu: sister
- Assalaam-u-alaikum: Muslim greetings meaning peace be upon you or salaam
- azan: announcement of prayer times
- baba: dad
- bhagwan: Hindu terminology for god
- bhapa pitha: Bangladeshi snack made of coconut and molasses stuffing
- daal: lentils
- dhoti: the bottom part of clothing worn by Hindu men only, especially in Calcutta
- gamcha: a thin cotton towel
- Durga Puja: A Hindu festival
- hilsa: a popular fish with big bones
- mashima: aunty in Hindu terminology
- nomoskar: Hindu greetings
- paati: eating mat
- palki: palanquin
- Shingara: A deep fried triangular shaped flour pod stuffed with potatoes mainly
- sari: An unstitched piece of cloth ranging from four to nine meters in length that drapes over a women’s body when it is worn
- O-laikum-us-salaam: response to Assalaam-u-alaikum
