Gauri

The room was dark and sooty. It had always been so, but Gauri was used to this. Years of cooking using wood and cobs had left thick layers of soot, which had embedded itself so deeply into the mud walls that the walls had lost their original colour and had taken on a greyish blackish hue. No amount of application of cow-dung mixed with liquid earth would restore the original colour. That the only ventilation that the room had was through a tiny window high up on the wall did not help.

Gauri wanted to finish the cooking as fast as she could because of a pleasant change in her daily routine that had been planned for today.

She was stirring the “Dal”, washing the rice and slicing the vegetables simultaneously - an expertise acquired through years of practice. She had started helping her mother in the kitchen when she was six or seven and it was over a decade now that she had been cooking independently.

Her mother had taught her the basics of cooking when she was seven or eight and that education had stood her in good stead because her mother had taken ill shortly afterwards. It was an illness, from which she never recovered. Her passing left Gauri in charge of the household chores. She had to grow up in a hurry and acquire skills normally associated with grown up women even before she reached puberty.

Her father apparently had no skills except trying to look intelligent (without much success!) and spent his time apparently making plans, which were neither shared with anyone nor ever saw the light of the day.

Her Grandfather was a man who showered his love on her because there was nothing else he could offer and was lost in his world in a "bhaang" induced haze.

Her brothers were still trying to get what passed for an education in the village and would help her to the extent of taking care of chores which involved going out of the house.

It was not that the family was very badly off since they owned quite a bit of agricultural land which was quite fertile, but the tendency to outsource agriculture activities (her father considered agriculture below his lofty standards!) meant that only a small portion of the income trickled in. It was not as bad as it was for some of the villagers.

Gauri managed the household like an expert. The toil and grind of this busy life did not take away from her the sparkling smile, which always reached her eyes. She was quite a beautiful girl, reasonably tall, strong of built but lithe, dark.

The complexion enhanced her beauty, long shining black tresses usually tightly collected in a braid - but the striking thing about her was her easy laughter and a charming smile which lit up her eyes.

She owned only a pair of saris, which were ragged from use but she wore them with dignity. The color had faded but she had tried to keep them clean.

Her day started early with sweeping her house, getting the water from the well, preparing the midday meal, washing the utensils, taking a bath and washing the clothes and repeating most of the activities again after a short nap. It was a hard life but she bore it with equanimity.

The one thing that she looked forward to was the visit of her cousin from Calcutta. She was more a friend than her cousin and the afternoons spent chatting on the terrace of her friend's place were very enjoyable. Gauri would fill her in with the village gossip and her friend would talk endlessly about films and life in the city.

Gauri would take it all in and would be filled with wonder at the romance of it all. She would imagine herself involved in the tales in a manner which was possibly quite different from how her friend picturized them. For she had never so much as visited a small town, let alone a city like Calcutta. She had never seen a film and could only imagine what it would be like.

 

Her appetite for these trite stories was insatiable and it took her to a world far removed from her own. Dressing up in fine clothes, travelling in cars, having a film star showering his affections on her, living in a large house with staircases rising out of the large sitting room to the beautifully decorated bedrooms on the first floor - all these played out in her imagination. The thought of a hero singing to her, wooing her, taking her on long rides in the hills - all this seemed so real!

She would absorb all this and lie awake in the night playing out the situations on the celluloid of her mind. She would live with these thoughts long after her friend had left and they would sustain her until the next visit.

She could only hope against hope that all this would come to pass. Often when she was alone in the afternoon, she would enact these scenes - playfully laughing at the hero's advances, putting a bindi on her forehead, looking back coyly over her shoulder - but she dare not have her family catch her at it. The world of films became her secret world.

With all this there were changes taking place in her. The desires that she was not aware of were gradually rising and she was becoming aware of the changes in her thoughts and body.

The need to fulfill the desires was becoming strong, as was the perceived necessity to escape from her dreary life. Over the next few years, the pressure to escape made her rash and the risks involved were becoming hazier.

The roving eyes of the village youngsters did not miss all this but the fear of her family kept advances at bay. That she hardly moved far away from her home made any communication even more difficult. However, she caught the eye of a man who was quite a bit older than she was, married and had a string of romances in his past. Quite a Romeo, he had quite a reputation for passing flings. That he often came to her house because he tilled some of the family land made it easier for him to approach her.

The romance, though short lived, caused quite a scandal and almost led to a caste feud. Gauri was trashed soundly by her father and brothers and only the intervention of her grandfather saved her from serious injury or maybe even death.

That the man involved belonged to a lower caste made matters worse. There was quite a tension-filled atmosphere in the village and it would have taken only a small spark to start a full fledged riot. However, the wisdom and restraint of the village elders prevailed and their advise to get Gauri married off at the earliest was considered to be the best course of action.

The lack of money for a substantial dowry and the urgency were both constraints to a great match but considering the circumstances a reasonably good marriage was arranged shortly afterward.

The groom lived in Calcutta and had a steady job in one of the jute mills. A bit older than Gauri the match was considered good owing to the steady employment, distance from the village and the readiness of the groom to settle for a small dowry.

Gauri however looked forward to the marriage and the move to Calcutta. Though her fantasies had taken a hit because of the trashing and loss of face, she was sure that her dreams were about to take flight. The marriage was a subdued affair and the villagers heaved a sigh of relief when it was over. The sordid affair would be soon forgotten, and peace could prevail again.

For Gauri the move to Calcutta was an opportunity and she was playing out in her mind the plans for a wonderful life all through the train journey. The first sight of the bustling Howrah Station, of the Bridge, the taxis, the trams, the buses - all brought the description of the tales closer to her. She absorbed the sights, sounds, and smells and felt on top of the world.

The arrival at her husband's place dampened her spirits somewhat because he lived in one of the numerous tiny, dingy quarters in the labour lines. Not as different from her house, at least it was build with brick and mortar unlike her home in the village. The surroundings were filthy and congested unlike her village home. However, she decided that she would transform the place with hard work and counseling.

 

As she was soon to find out, it was not an easy task. The dinginess, politics, and hopelessness had been ingrained so deeply into the psyche of her neighbours, that the transformation that she had planned never took place. Though she fought hard, the same characteristics that she despised were taking over her persona too.

The birth of her son was an event that brought some cheer into the household and the next few years were reasonably happy as the child grew up. Gone were her dreams of a fantasy life and the small mercies were all she looked forward to.

However, the son found the attractions of the area more powerful than the teachings of his mother who had turned her attentions to ensuring that at least her son had a good education so that he would have a better life.

The realities of the struggle for survival had firmly settled in. She crushed the occasional sparks of fantasy with a ruthlessness that one could not imagine she was capable of. She, however, had no idea of what "good" education comprised and in this, her husband was not of much help since his education was also limited.

The friends of her son took him along predictable lines - some pick pocketing, some fraud, some minor trespasses but fortunately, he steered clear of drugs. He joined some course in Astrology and at least could eke out a reasonable income from this "skill" whenever he decided to work - which was not often.

The sudden death of her husband was a passing hurt for she had never been attached to him. His dreams were too small for her to appreciate and her dreams were impossible foolishness for him. They lived in a sort of mutual compromise and at least were blessed in that there were no major disagreements or fights. They simply did not care enough!

However, the death of her husband caused a change in the attitude of her son! He had always cared for his mother and with his limited skills, he set about working seriously. The income was steady though not spectacular and they managed with the small savings and the compensation money that they had received from her husband's employers.

The last time her relatives saw Gauri was at one of the marriages of her nephews that she attended. This was a rare event, for she usually did not attend family functions. As expected, she looked old, the beauty was gone, and the toll that life had taken on her was obvious.

The one thing that struck everyone was -the smile did not reach her eyes!