Scarlet

The first time I saw her face, Alakananda was eight years old. Her collyrium-drawn dark eyes were peeping scared from behind the betel leaves shaped like the spade of cards. She held the aces that day though, I am sure of it. The reluctant twenty-something Rathindra Nath Majumder, inspired by the Swadeshi Movement to make a difference but too scared to oppose his authoritarian father on the topic of marriage, had suddenly felt a knot in his stomach at her haunting stare. My only condition was that the girl had to be poor, someone we could save from a miserable life, without a dowry; something my father flaunted to his last breath. The conch shells echoed and the Ululation of the ladies through the silent winter night, as the priest handed me the red powder, supposed to be used to mark my territories. Man and his primitive needs to mark what is his. My eyes couldn't help but travel to her face, even when the priest forbade me to do so. As a little bit of vermillion dropped on her nose, making her scrunch, the red on her hairline established a truth. She was mine. But was I hers? I stared at the vermillion on the tip of my fingers for a good few minutes. Men, unlike women, had no such symbols of a union. Women didn’t mark their territories. They made homes. The rest of the night seemed to have blurred in my memory. 
I remember an intimidated Alakananda being scrutinised by all my relatives. The boastful Pishi, the keen Mashi, the displeased Jethima, the Kakima who always spoke out of turn, and a line of Boudis. Timid as she was, lost in the sea of women, she perhaps wished she had a mother-in-law, right at that moment when the eight-year-old was left on her own, among the strangers, judging the colour of her skin, her hair and her moles. No, I was not part of the conversation. But this is what sisters are for. They give you every piece of unwanted information, especially when it comes to your new bride. But, perhaps I scared her more. I was foolish enough to keep the bone set needed for my M.B.B.S. hanging from the hook in one corner of my room. The naive village girl who obviously had no idea what I did for a living, happened to catch a glimpse of the skeleton and ran for her life shrieking her lungs out. She bumped into me in the corridor, shuddering in fear. That is when I realised my mistake, and everyone else had a good laugh at the poor creature’s expense as she chose to hide in shame behind me 

Baba always said the house lacked a woman’s touch. After all, all of us were raised by him alone. Many times he was lured into the idea of remarriage by relatives, something men in our days took great pride in, but he refused to let another woman and her children take over what was ours. He doted on us, we three brothers and two sisters practically raised ourselves as he worked day and night to give us the life we deserved. We had by then developed a habit of looking out for each other. I often wondered how this timid soul,  all of eight, with no awareness of the world, could make a house, a home. Father had lofty dreams and expectations while Alakananda had limited knowledge.

She had become “Nanda”, “Bouma” and “Bouthan” quite quickly for the family. But running a household? What head and tail did she make of it?

My busy schedule kept me away for most parts of the day. Most nights I returned home, to food on the table and a half-asleep Nanda dozing off on the living room couch while waiting for me. She wouldn’t eat until I finished like it would be a great sin to the child if she ever felt hungry. I wondered who taught her all that. The girl seemed to have no voice. She nodded, smiled, and she agreed to everything I said. Almost like I was the ultimate law, the almighty, the universal truth of her existence. I often wondered, did she not have questions at all? If she did, was she scared to speak her mind? Perhaps. After all, my father’s booming voice, my absence and my brothers having quite an opinion didn’t help her much. Not to mention the elder ladies who happened to come by every now and then and take over the household chores before they left again.

When I was home, I began to teach her to read and write. That is when  I began to tell her my opinions, on right from wrong. Every night, sitting on the diagonally opposite ends of the four-poster bed, we would exchange lessons, with books scattered between us. She slowly began to ask questions. I didn’t always have the answers. But I tried. Sometimes, we fell asleep in the middle of reading, sometimes we curled up on our preferred corners, or on our back, wide awake, contemplating a conversation or lesson. She was still scared of the skeleton. I had to put it away in the study room.

One summer evening I hastily returned home. I had cut myself carelessly with the scalpel, and the blood refused to stop. I was used to that.  I called our old man servant Kesab to come with the first aid as I held my bleeding finger and pressed my lips in pain. The nupur grabbed my attention as she ran in, with water, cloth and a mix of turmeric paste, her face pale at the sight of blood, her eyes worried. Before I could enquire into the absence of Kesab she had started dressing my wound with her small red Alta-painted hands. Nobody ever dressed my wounds. In fact, my will to become a doctor came from looking after four siblings in their sicknesses.

“It’s okay, it will be fine,” I reassured her as she looked worried at my face.

“You shouldn’t be allowed to go to work ever again.” She blurted, eyes teary, lips pouted. I laughed at her words. I stared at the bandage remembering all the times I had to hide my bruises and cuts and dress them myself as she gathered her things and ran back down the corridor, clearly disappointed at my amusement. But that day, she left a lingering feeling of warmth in her care. Perhaps she made the house my home after all, in her own small yet significant ways. 

In between her Putul Khela, books and occasional moments of bliss in the rain, she made friends with my siblings. It was like she was the missing piece of the puzzle for the house. Her absence would make it impossible to paint the picture of our home. From dawn to dusk, everyone doted on her, depended on her, took her side and listened to her. She cooked everyone’s favourite meals, at least once a week, making sure nobody left the house hungry and keeping everything in place. The nights were ours. To learn about the world, speak our minds, and for her to let go of the inhibitions that she carried on her shoulders through the day, drop the Ghomta carelessly and laugh freely. She knew she could do that around me. Nobody taught her that. We were slowly finding our own definition of marital bliss as months rolled into years quietly.

The first time she was angry with me, over something so trivial that I can’t even remember it now, I was at my wit’s end. What was I supposed to do? No amount of coaxing with the glass bangles, toys and new books could make her talk. My siblings were amused, I was helpless. It took a little frog to make her reconcile. Well, if you call running into my arms, hoping to be protected from the jumping creature in the corner of the room, that. That was also the first time I held her. My arms wrapped around her instinctively in a protective gesture as she closed her eyes, trembling and complaining about the frog. I gathered it in a shoe box and let it go. It eased us out some more to each other’s presence in the room.

Within a matter of a few years, I had seen her turn into a lady from the child that she was. Her innocence was snatched by puberty and the pain of her first periods, and for the first time in my life, I stood up in front of my father, demanding to end the age-old traditions related to isolating a menstruating woman. Whether it was because of my profession, or because I spoke for my wife, he agreed. I had spent five days nursing her, while she looked scared and clueless about the process. Nobody had ever told her anything about it. Neither her mother nor her sisters. I reminded myself I was a professional, I took the oath to care for patients. But was she a patient? Her pain moved me. 

I gathered my thoughts on the third day and approached her gently. The last thing I wanted was for her to be misinformed or scared of it. I knew the maids made her feel like it was a curse. A sin upon the body of women. I explained the true purpose of such a phenomenon. Motherhood. A gift only women had, to create life within them. She was intrigued. She clearly had questions, answering which were not easy for me. I handed her a book instead. Something she could read, and understand by now. It suddenly made us warier of each other’s presence. Or perhaps the role nature had dedicated to us, to play in each other’s life. She was conscious, distant and shy. I was confused, awkward and clueless. I couldn’t tell what she thought of me anymore, now that she knew our relationship was meant for something more than being playmates and studying about the universe.

By the time the next summer approached, Alakananda had abandoned her dolls, her wooden animals and her Putuler Biye and traded them for novels. She would often sneak around the study in the afternoon looking up books and reading some of them. Sometimes, conscious of my judgemental look at her favourite romance novels, she would wrap them up, in newspapers, and hide them within her study books. I was too busy as a young practitioner to teach her anymore. My old headmaster volunteered. She quickly became his favourite student. They spend most of the study time talking about my childhood, much to my annoyance. She didn’t need to know that side of me. What if she lost respect for the dignified serious doctor she was intimidated by and called her husband?

My brother’s wedding was her chance to show the relatives who once judged her, that she was worthy of being the daughter-in-law of the house. She was by now aware that her poor family was “grateful” to me for choosing their dowerless girl. Whether she thought the same or not, she never said anything. Instead, she was busy impressing everyone around the house, except me; like I was invisible to her sight, left with a group of middle-aged uncles, busy discussing politics. 

She says she remembers the wedding because it gave her a sister in Mahasweta, my brother’s chosen bride. I remember the wedding because it made me realise that I was captivated by my wife. She had chosen to wear the same red Benarasi saree from our wedding. Almost like a thunderbolt hit me, I stared at her, my gaze making her laugh a little nervously as she placed the ghomta over her bunned hair. For the first time, looking at her, decked up similarly, yet very different from seven years ago, I realised she was a woman. My woman. 

And what kind of a man would I be if I didn’t let my woman know that I saw her differently? She had blushed to my touch, shuddered at our union, whispering to me that she was waiting to be accepted, as a lone tear trickled down her eye. Silly woman, had she underestimated her value in my life so much? I never knew. If I did, I would borrow words from the greatest bards and poets, and weave to her, praises, like the ones she read about, to reveal to her my deepest emotions. I just didn’t know after years of knowing each other’s every breath and beat, I needed words to reassure her.

Here I am today, thousands of miles away, her picture in my hand, as I make a voyage back to the shores of my motherland. A picture ten years younger, perhaps different. My career, my will to serve people, and my degree brought me here, on the shores of a foreign land, on the other side of the globe, away from family, friends and her. I yearn to see her again, six years later, hoping to find a home in the familiar smile, concern and touch. Her letters lay neatly between my clothes in the trunk, very few exchanged due to postage issues and cost. Yet every letter, every word, curved in ink, blotted on paper, precious as she poured out her soul in them. 

Perhaps she is older and wiser, running the home, and taking care of things, a little different than the timid scared Nanda I left behind, or perhaps she is still the same. I know I have changed. The uncertainties of war and turbulent times made me realise I should speak my mind more often, get to know people, and perhaps even learn from their differences. I have learnt to value life, home and family. I have realised how badly I could miss her.   As I lie on my bunk, on the swaying ship in the middle of the ocean, I picture her in my mind’s eyes waiting at the threshold, teary-eyed yet with a  smile on her lips, for me. Perhaps we would start over again, with awkward glances, conscious touches, shy hugs and stolen moments. Perhaps we would fall in love once again, with different versions of ourselves and each other, discovering each other’s peeves and nuances all over again. My hand traces her filled hairline in the picture as I smile at the sunset. I had marked her mine with vermillion. But she had marked me hers, in every beat of the heart, and every drop of blood I live with. 

I can’t wait to see her again.

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