Broken Lid : A Short Story by Dashrath Parmar

There goes Bapa again, hollering, scaring the daylights out of me. Putting rotli on the pan to bake. I jumped up. Drat that pipe! Stumbling against it, I pitched headlong on to the paniyara. Everything has been going topst turvy since last night. I felt a lump in my throat. Mumbling a faint prayer, I gasped for breath. Not a moment of peace here. On top of it, the old man sits in the verandah barking orders all the time. Why can’t he do some work for a change? And that silly, pratting bavaji. No sense of time. No sooner does the day dawn than he sets out to butt in on anybody he can get hold of. The way he hangs around as if he owns the place.

I picked up the vatka from the stand and walked towards the koti. Got a terrible urge to clobber the bavaji on the head with the vatka. But I bit my tongue, pulled at the lid. Damn it! How did it turn so heavy all of a sudden? Heaving with all my might till I turned blue in the face did not help. You won’t budge, you son of a bitch! I’ll show you how to…one last almighty heave…crash! The lid lay on the floor in two pieces. I used to think it looked like the full moon. How it was like a bajri roti broken in two by a child. Confound it! Serves you right for harrying me. Ramli, my girl, what happened? Bapa’s voice sounded like chilies frying in the pan. Leaving the whole mess to tend for itself, I filled the vatka with bajri and turned. Suddenly I stopped. There was blood on my fingers. But did I ever get time to bother about such things? The bavaji seated on the edge of Bapa’s cot was puffing at a hookah as I emptied the bajri into his clothe-bag. As I turned to go, he turned to me and raised his hands: sada suhagi raho! Him and his blessing! I stared at his long beard…taking long puff and blowing out a cloud of smoke, he handed the hookah to Bapa. Here you are, my good man. Without a word Bapa put the tube in his mouth and took a puff. As the bavaji rose to go, the bell tied around his neck jingled. In my mind’s eye, a man woke up, stirred, yawned and sat up. Exactly like this bavaji, you know! The same figure, the same blue eyes…leaving me enchanted… only to break me up like and whey…

At the mela on bhadarvi agyarash, he wore a bush-shirt with checks and grey trousers. Proper cheliah he looked then.we were not even enged then.oh well, they were talking about the alliance. It was my phoyi from Malekpur who brought the proposal. You won’t get another boy like him if you comb the whole countryside. He is in the fourth year at college. As for his parents, they will eat out of your hands. Our Ramli will have the time of her life there. Such a bother. A girl to marry off. It frightens me  even to think of what will happen if Ramli marries into some horrid, cantankerous family. Sounds good to me, Bapa said, I will go down and have a look. From that moment the mere mention of his name made my heart miss a beat.

Then came melo on bhadarvi agyarash. The melo of ramabha. The nine pennants fluttered on the flagpost basking in the glory of the sun. At night they laid the carpet of a hundred and twenty five lemons. Our excitement knew no bounds. We heated a vatka with embers of coal and ironed our saris. But when I asked Bapa to let me go to mela, he was annoyed. What is this nonsense about the mela? You have enough work to do at home. But I was ready for that. Letting streams of tears run down my cheeks, I sobbed. If madi were still alive, you wouldn’t …poor Bapa! The moment he saw my tears his heart melted. I was free to go if Kamala and Mangudi accompanied me, he relented. Opening the money-chest he took out a two rupee note and handed it to me for spending at the mela. I would have leaped with joy.

When day gave way to night, the whole village was in a frenzy of excitement. Bright lights, loudspeakers blaring songs from Santu Rangili. What fun it was! The mela seemed to have drawn people from every village miles around. Mangudi’s mami was such a lovely dear. Pulled out a sparkling, brand new sari from clothes chest and handed it to me. Come on girl, wear it. It will look nice on you. Your father has told me everything.

Gobbling up our supper in two ticks, we set off for the temple. But where in the middle of this milling crowd could one look for him. It was some consolation that Kamli knew him by face. The funny thing was that he himself, accompanied by three of his chums was on the lookout for me. They spotted us first and started following us around like shadows, his mates- blast their nerve- ogling at us all the time. Shameless creatures. Never set their eyes on girls, it seemed. But Kamli was more than a match for them. Lashed out at them with her tongue. Finally they decided the show was over and melted away into the darkness. He was all alone now. Kamli pushed me towards him. I was trembling, my body burning as if I was running a fever. I didn’t know I gathered the courage to look at him from the corner of my eyes. I was startled by a cough. It was an old man passing by. I was so embarrassed I wished the earth would swallow me up.

Back at Mangudi’s mama’s house in the small hours of the morning, I felt his eyes were still drinking me in. Not getting a wink of sleep, I tossed and turned making the old, ramshackle cot creak. It was then that Mangudi’s mami asked: what did you see at the mela, my child? I saw a snake charmer, I replied. She giggled and playing along said: I hope he didn’t charm you, did he? I could have spoken something to him. But I didn’t have the guts. Everything was so bewildering. Back home, I felt terribly gloomy. Everything was so dull and boring. How I longed to take another look at him! I prayed fervently that Bapa would fix up everything quickly. And then Rami phoyi came down again. I learned that everything was all right. Money changed hands and the wedding was fixed for the next vaisakh. I couldn’t help feeling I was the luckiest girl in the whole village. He would be the most educated bridegroom any girl here had ever got. And the most handsome too! But he was really naughty, so naughty that even Kanuda wouldn’t be a match for him. the way he pinched me on the inside of my palm when we joined hands! On the third day after the wedding, he took me to the movie in the city. It was bhathiji maharaj.

Poor Kankuba! What a cruel fate she had! Tears started rolling down my cheeks. He placed his hand gently on my cheek. Don’t cry, silly, he whispered. This is what they call a film. Get it? A film. I didn’t believe him, of course. I cried till the show was over. We walked hand in hand and saw everything there was in their city. Narsi Mehta’s ancestral home, the snake park, Hathi Deru, Hatkeshwar Mahadev’s temple, Ramela Talav… it was heaven on earth. When the seven days of the aana were over, I didn’t want to go back home. I couldn’t bear to be separated from him even for a minute. It was my kaka’s son who came to fetch me. He was still a child. But who else would come to fetch a girl who had no brothers of her own? I don’t know what he felt. But I had been praying that nobody may come to fetch me.

Sitting in this bus, I felt tears running down my cheeks. When the bus started , he was still there at the bus stop looking wistfully at me.

But that was the last I saw of  him. It is more than a year now after that.not even a letter from him. His parents never sent for me either. Bapa was terribly upset. He was annoyed with Rami Phoyi too. Look Rami, he told her, I can’t put up with this any longer. They haven’t said yes or no for a year now. I don’t know what they have in mind. It was a blow to phoyi too and she cried bitterly. Wasting no time, she set out to inquire and came back with the news. His parents have nothing against her. But the trouble is with him, the young scoundrel .says he doesn’t want an uneducated girl for a bride.

Mangudi and Kamli were married now. Mangudi would soon be coming home after her aana. I was left all alone to curse my fate.

When the council of sarpanchs met in the city, Bapa took up the matter. He even thought of getting a divorce. But marriages cannot be cast off like that, they told him. It was a sacred bond that carried a man and a woman through seven cycles of births and deaths! How could anything come off when they were so obstinate?

Bavaji had reached the bend inside the house, the small inscription on the verandah, still faintly visible, crashed into my eyes like the horns of a bull:

Chiranjivi Ben Ramila’s auspicious wedding has been fixed for the third of vaishakh vikram samvat 2047…

I picked up the pieces of the lid and tried to fit them on the mouth of the koti. But the smaller piece fell into the koti and larger one remained awkwardly on the mouth.

Broke the lid? Bapa leaned the hookah on the paniyara and turned to me.

I sobbed.

Damn careless, aren’t you? What is the use of turning on the tap now? Throw the pieces away. You can’t  join them anyway.

I went out into the yard and flung the pieces on the garbage heap. Bapa was right. My life was in two pieces, useless. You cross-eyed pig! Why didn’t you say it then if you didn’t want an uneducated woman for a wife? You could have told me the first time we met at the mela. I wouldn’t have even set my eyes on you after that. But what can I do now?

Hey ramli, I think the rotli is burned. Bapa shouted. I ran into kitchen and removed the rotli from the pan. It was charred black like a lump of coal.  The odour of burnt rotli spread in the air. The rotli burnt my fingers as I put it into chhabdi. The scream that I had suppressed in my throat broke free. I saw Bapa wiping his eyes with end of his kurta.

It was somebody in your mother’s family who brought the news yesterday morning. It appears he eloped with a girl he was studying with…

Notes:

Paniyara :	The corner of a room 9 sometimes with an enclosure) where water-pots are kept.
Bavaji( baba) :	A wandering ascetic or mendicant.
Koti:	A large container in which grains are stored.
Vatka :	A small tumbler.
Madi :	( in some dialects) mother
Sada suhagi raho :	A blessing ,”may you always live a happy married life”
Cheliah, Kanuda:	Lord Krishna
Aana :	A brief period of stay for a woman at her in laws immediately after marriage.
Chhabdi:	A small basket made of bamboo.
Carpet of lemons :	Spreading carpets of lemons in various numbers is a ritual associated with melas