WITH THE LONG, DARK YEAR OF MOURNING finally ended, Janaki becomes eligible for marriage. Horoscopes begin arriving, but Vairum insists that Sivakami disregard them. Every marriage begets another, as the saying goes, and it takes only one such function for Vairum to target a family he considers suitable: relatives of Vani’s who live in her hometown, Pandiyoor, a market town close to the city of Madurai, some seventy miles south and inland from Cholapatti.
Closely related to Vani, and distantly to Gayatri, they are a grand and wealthy family. The eligible son is the youngest of three boys; there are also three daughters, all married and well-off. Vairum has a long-standing casual acquaintance with the father.
Sivakami does not see how this is going to work. It’s well and good for Vairum to say he has no truck with astrology-he has always had strange notions and she has never been able to influence him-but, she asks him timidly, what sort of a family would marry their child off without the advice of the ancient science?
“It’s not a science.” Vairum is as brusque with Sivakami as she is gentle with him, as dismissive as she is credulous. “It’s inexact and manipulative. I won’t consider any family who can’t recognize that.”
Sivakami withdraws, suitably cowed. Astrology has brought her misery her whole life-she’s not going to argue further for it. She has no doubt it will be operative, no matter what Vairum does, but maybe, for once, she would rather not know the future.
Vairum doesn’t bother explaining that he doesn’t yet know if this family is as willing as he to undertake a modern marriage. One of his reasons for targeting prospects above the middle class is that the upper echelons tend to be more sophisticated in such matters. The family’s elder sons work as lawyers-they employ reason and logic, even in highly emotional circumstances. This detail, he thinks, bodes well.
But how to handle protocol when the usual formalities are so pointedly not to be observed? Vairum is a man of forethought and has considered this. The matching of horoscopes is the primary method his community uses to arrange marriage, but the Laws of Manu describe others: kidnapping, for instance, trickery, sorcery. Vairum opts for enticement, targeting the boy’s mother, a formidable aesthete and lover of the intellectual arts, a woman who Vairum guessed might appreciate those virtues Janaki has so consistently cultivated. He need only find or create the means to display her in all her eminent suitability
He suspects an opportunity will arise before long. The daughters of the Pandiyoor household are gadabouts and use any excuse to travel for functions. In November, he hears from Vani that they will come to Cholapatti to celebrate Gayatri’s granddaughter’s first birthday, and he hastens from Madras to brief his mother and Gayatri.
“Concocting such a womanish scheme,” Gayatri marvels to Sivakami in a rare pause for breath amidst her preparations for the function. “Who would have suspected him capable?”
Sivakami doesn’t respond, and Gayatri reassures her.
“I think it’s wonderful, Sivakami Akka. I have met this boy, Baskaran. He is a nice boy, very devoted to his parents.”
“Hm.” Sivakami feels she needs more information. “Is he a college graduate?”
Gayatri raises her eyebrows. “I suppose not.” She purses her lips and continues. “What I have heard is that Baskaran completed his second year at American College in Madurai. He is an intelligent boy. But then his grandfather died, and his father became sad, it’s understandable. He was having difficulty managing at home, and so on. The father, Dhoraisamy, had inherited the responsibility for a charitable foundation his uncle…?” Gayatri pauses, frowning. “Maybe his father? Someone established this charity-I don’t remember. But there is a paadasaalai and a chattram, and Dhoraisamy now is the in-charge of managing them. The elder sons work as lawyers, perhaps they are too busy or not so interested in family affairs. So Baskaran stayed home and helped. He is very devoted to his parents.”
Sivakami is not in a mood to discuss her reservations, and Gayatri leaves soon afterward, clearly hoping she has not said anything to contravene the match.
Sivakami broods. So many Brahmin families have lost their properties in the last thirty years, including many on their own Brahmin quarter, including Goli’s family, because they failed to keep up with the times, thinking their wealth would continue to perpetuate itself. Perhaps this Baskaran is canny, a man, such as Vairum, able to recognize that Brahmins’ old wealth must be transformed into new money, given new life through new methods of management. Her observations suggest, though, that Vairum is exceptional. She would feel so much better if Baskaran earned a wage.
It’s both too early and perhaps too late for her to object. Perhaps Baskaran’s family will not be taken in; perhaps they will demand a horoscope and it will be unsuitable; perhaps some other obstacle will arise.
But if Vairum has decided on this match, she says later to Muchami, as they go over grocery lists, it’s probably too late for her to do anything about it. Muchami tells her she’s right.
“If Vairum decides on it, though,” she says, “he will do everything to make sure it does turn out for the best. His pride will never let a match he makes go wrong.” She shrugs and sighs. “At least I have that insurance.”
On the morning of the birthday party, Janaki, Kamalam, Radhai, Krishnan and Raghavan walk down the Brahmin quarter to Minister’s house. Radhai is under specific instructions, which Janaki and Kamalam are charged with enforcing, to behave in a ladylike manner. Radhai, ten, is never deliberately disobedient, but the force of her personality is such that she is easily distracted. At the height of Kamalam’s coming-of-age ceremony three weeks earlier, for instance, Radhai burst into the courtyard covered in mud, a frog in each hand, clamouring for a pot to put them in. Raghavan, at three, worships her.
The girls are welcomed by Gayatri’s youngest daughter, Akila. While Raghavan and Krishnan run to the back to play with the other little boys, Akila invites Radhai to help her greet guests, offering them rock sugar, sprinkling them with rosewater. Akila is a placid girl, and Kamalam and Janaki encourage Radhai to spend time with her, while they seat themselves against a wall and examine, with disguised curiosity, the family Vairum has targeted. They whisper to one another: the family looks familiar, they must have seen them sometime; they may even have seen the groom-oh! They used the word! Now it can’t be taken back! Janaki hits her sister unconvincingly and frowns, holding her braid in front of her mouth and trying to keep out of the sightlines of her potential in-laws.
Only the matron and her daughters have come. The daughters’ saris are of a rich silk, with heavily embroidered pallus that slimmer bodies would not support. Fortunately the sisters are unvaryingly large, one plump and squishy, another bustling and broad, another solidly stout as though a slap to her thighs would ring like a brass pot. They all carry additional weight in the form of large gold ornaments and hairpieces. Their mother trumps them, though. She might be the largest person Janaki has ever seen, sitting in soft mounds that roll and break with each of her movements, though she moves rarely and slowly. Her eyes are small and sharp between rising cheeks and drooping forehead.
Watching them, Janaki feels skinny and unadorned. She is barely ninety pounds, wrapped in a conservative sari of serviceable silk, wearing a complete but understated set of earrings, nose rings, chains and bangles. Her thick braid, which she fingers as she watches them, is probably the weightiest of her ornaments, its end hitting just above her knees.
That afternoon, Janaki goes back to Gayatri’s house, this time with only Kamalam as an escort. It is the hour when she normally practises veena. Vairum, on his trips through Cholapatti for overseeing purposes, will often sit in the hall and listen. Her playing has none of Vani’s unsettling genius, Janaki is far too sane and conventional for that, but it is very good. She has a light, fresh touch, the quality of mornings in the cool seasons after the rains, pleasing and restorative.
Gayatri presents Janaki to Baskaran’s mother, whom everyone calls Senior Mami. She lies on her side on a bamboo mat. Akila’s veena, the one on which Janaki and Sita learned to play all those years before, has been set up. Baskaran’s sisters, also gathered around, compliment Janaki’s slenderness and her hair, while the great woman’s eyes glint blades of taste and discernment.
Janaki sits at the veena and tunes it. She has thought for days about what she will play, and decided to start with “Sami Varnam,” a reliable favourite. She is aware, as she plays the varnam, that she is using it to demonstrate her level of command: she is not a concert artist, but she has some deserved confidence. As she concludes it and prepares to play “Sakala Kala Vani,” she senses that she has won her audience’s interest.
She has been practising “Sakala Kala Vani” hard for some months and begins with an aalapanai, not so ambitious or lengthy a one as a concert performer, but one that she knows demonstrates a degree of erudition. She plays, even to her own ear, very well. She has never really played for an audience and is surprised at how it heightens the emotional charge of the music-perhaps because she feels she has a message she must communicate-and makes her less conscious of those technical points she knows she has mastered yet still obsesses on. As she concludes the finale, an improvisational charanam, she begins sweating and blushing, the moisture on her fingers threatening her playing. She manages to finish, wipes her hands and doesn’t look up.
The sisters burst into chatter, full of compliments and questions. Janaki plays divinely! Did Vani teach her? Who is teaching her now? She is too inspired-a real talent! Janaki ducks her head and bites her lip while Kamalam proudly answers the inquiries on her behalf.
Senior Mami says nothing, but looks approving. Gayatri urges Janaki to play one more piece. Janaki is uncertain, but the sisters press her until she gives in and plays “Jaggadhodharana,” explaining it is a tribute to Vani, the first person she heard play it. When Janaki departs, she thinks she sees Senior Mami, faintly, smile.
“The sisters all seem nice. Unpretentious,” Kamalam comments cautiously, as they return home.
“They do, don’t they?” Janaki feels as though she is waiting for exam results, except that she’s not really sure whether she wants to pass or fail. She has sensed that Sivakami might not feel as enthusiastic as Vairum about this potential alliance, though she can’t guess why.
She passed: a letter arrives, written and signed by Baskaran’s father, saying he has a son of marriageable age and understands Sivakami has a granddaughter, a beautiful girl of good reputation, and could they arrange a girl-seeing?
Vairum makes the arrangements and is in Cholapatti to greet Baskaran, who comes with his father, Dhoraisamy, one of the elder sons, a sister, whom Janaki has met before, and two nephews. Vairum ushers the party into the main hall with a tinge of the false heartiness Janaki so strongly associates with her father. Seeing him like this perplexes her. Baskaran, who is fair and chubby, balding a little and wearing round black-framed spectacles, seems quiet and well-behaved. He smiles deferentially at Vairum and, palms together, does a deep obeisance to Sivakami, who lurks at the entrance to the pantry.
In the kitchen, Janaki adjusts her sari, which is lush and appropriate, a maroon silk bordered in teal. She takes the refreshment tray from Sivakami. Her hands and feet have been hennaed for the occasion-the leaves, which Kamalam gathered and crushed, had been so fresh and potent that Janaki’s palms and fingertips are nearly black. As she serves, she tries not to look at Baskaran.
Dhoraisamy, in contrast with his son, is animated and talkative, wiry and long-fingered. His daughters clearly inherited their bubbliness from him, if not their physiques.
“Such a good house-certainly it would be our great fortune to have an alliance,” he assures Vairum, abasing himself. “Gayatri has assured us of how well brought up the children are, as though we didn’t already know. We know! We know!”
Fathers-in-law are supposed to be aloof and difficult to interest, Janaki thinks, trying not to giggle. Doesn’t he know he’s reducing his bargaining power?
She returns to the kitchen and sees Radhai, arms out, walking the perimeter of the courtyard well. Janaki bids her angrily, sotto voce, get down, then returns to the hall entrance and, with Kamalam, peeks around the corner at the visitors. Just then Baskaran looks in their direction and Kamalam yanks Janaki out of sight. Janaki is not able to tell how he’s feeling-curious? amused? He has a pleasant look about him, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he’s having a good time.
And now, as is customary at these things, and since they have reverted to custom as though the early part of this process had not been quite unconventional, Janaki comes to play and sing for them. She goes to the veena, head down, knees rubbing as she walks. Her potential father-in-law is leaning toward her, nodding and smiling. Janaki keeps her eyes fixed on the floor, biting her lip as though she were shy, instead of trying to hold in her giggles at her prospective father-in-law’s manner.
Dhoraisamy is simpering to Vairum, “Tch-we hardly need to hear her play for ourselves. I mean, of course it is an enormous pleasure, but her reputation precedes her. My wife couldn’t stop talking about her.”
Vairum raises his eyebrows above a long, slow smile. He says to the man, while looking at Janaki, “Is that so? Well, let’s hope the real thing is not a disappointment.”
“Ah! No, no!” Dhoraisamy tosses his head back with a hearty laugh. “How could that be? Oh, to have a musician in the family! You are too, too fortunate!”
Janaki seats herself gingerly at her instrument, barely able to move her head for trying not to laugh, and commences “Sami Varnam.” She is a little distracted at first, trying to imagine this man’s wife, who did not say one word in her presence, going on and on to her husband. Probably she said something like, “She plays veena,” and sent the entire house into an uproar over her unusual loquaciousness.
She sinks into her playing and feels the party float slightly away from her. Dhoraisamy exaggeratedly beats time, flipping his palm up and down and touching each finger to his thumb with extravagant waves of his wrist, crying, “Vah, vah!” and “Sabash!” as though this is a Mughal court. Janaki tries not to let it distract her. She can just imagine what her grandmother thinks of him, though it is nice to be so spectacularly appreciated.
Sivakami watches from her spot, remembering herself at ten, singing for Hanumarathnam, her eyes screwed shut as though to demonstrate how little she cared what he thought. She actually thought she didn’t care. Janaki is evidently concerned with playing well, but to what end? Is she destined to find contentment with this family? Could this Dhoraisamy be sincere, with all his exclaiming and arm-waving? He will be lucky to get one of my granddaughters, she thinks, in a rare moment of arrogance. They are exceptionally well brought up girls. She happens at that moment to glance back out at the courtyard, but doesn’t see Radhai, just out of sight, now balancing on a brass pot, one foot on either side of the lip.
When Janaki finishes playing, there is a strong feeling in the room that those present are merely performing the final scenes of a drama whose conclusion has been thoroughly foreshadowed. There will be no final twists in this plot. The guests part with friendly, matter-of-fact assurances that they will contact one another shortly. As they go out the door, Baskaran looks back at Janaki. She covers her grin with her braid. And he smiles at her, sweetly.
Vairum folds his arms and leans victoriously against the closed door. He points at Janaki and says, “I always knew you were the smart one. You did it. You deserve to marry this family, Janaki. You got them, just like I knew you would, given a chance. Ha-haaa!” He claps his hands just once and holds them together as though shaking his own hand. “Oh, my girl, you are going to have a good life. Just the life your mother would have wanted for you.”
Janaki smiles warily at him. Kamalam turns and goes upstairs. Janaki leaves her uncle and grandmother to talk to each other. This is none of her business. She goes and changes out of her sari, smoothes its folds a last time and uses a stick in the corner to hang it tidily on the sari rod above her head. She goes to find Kamalam on the roof.
Kamalam is looking off the roof at the street and doesn’t look when Janaki joins her. Her voice sounds funny when she asks, “So when do you think it’s going to happen?”
“What, the wedding?” Janaki frowns.
“What else?”
“I don’t know,” Janaki shrugs.
“You’re so lucky,” Kamalam murmurs. “You’re so lucky.”
“Why? Because they’re rich?”
“Everything, Janaki Akka.”
Janaki doesn’t say anything. She feels apprehensive, despite liking Baskaran. Being rich doesn’t seem like a guarantee of anything. Minister’s mother went mad; the people three doors down had to sell their grand house and move into a flat in Thiruchi where they share a bathroom with three other families; she even thinks her paternal grandparents once were rich. Where is her father in all this? Shouldn’t he be making these arrangements?
Downstairs, Sivakami has screwed up her courage to the point of recklessness.
“This boy.” She clears her throat. “He is not even a graduate. Rich boys have less motivation to work than boys from the middle class.”
“His elder brothers are working.” Vairum looks up from where he lies on a bamboo mat. This is exceptional-he never rests-so the morning’s triumph must have worn him out, or maybe he is scheming further.
“We don’t know under what circumstances.” Sivakami gathers momentum. “So many families are losing their lands these days. Not everyone has done as well as we have. We have done well because of your efforts and your uncles’. What if they lose their wealth, like so many have?”
“Like the family of my dear brother-in-law?” Vairum is not about to permit his mood to be spoiled. “This is not such a family. Much of their wealth, I believe, is tied up in this charitable trust they have the responsibility for running. They are good Brahmins, Amma.” He smiles at her, and she looks away from a wicked glint in his gaze. “Surely you appreciate that I have ensured that for your sake.”
Sivakami has said all she is capable of saying. Vairum will do what he wants. Marriages, she thinks, are made in heaven.
Vairum, in a rare conciliatory mood, unintentionally echoes Sivakami’s thoughts. “It’s in God’s hands, Amma. Let’s settle it like we did my marriage. First reason, then religion. This is how to make marriages in the new world. Pay attention.”
On an auspicious day shortly after, Janaki undertakes a visit to the Rathnagirishwarar hill temple with Vairum and Sivakami. Just as in Vairum’s case those many years ago, they have taken a plate full of offerings and two small paper packages of roughly equal size. One contains a white flower, which would signify a bad choice; the other has a red flower, a positive sign. Vairum insisted on organizing the offerings just as he has everything else. Sivakami makes a surreptitious survey of the plate. He doesn’t seem to have forgotten anything.
The priest, completing the puja, holds the plate out to them, admirably unconcerned with his words and actions, apart from an appraising look flicked at the girl whose fate clearly hangs in the offerings’ balance. Vairum reaches out to choose a flower, but Sivakami clucks, and he pulls back his hand with an evanescent pout as she nods at Janaki. Janaki’s hand hovers over the plate a moment as she glances at her uncle and then chooses one of the two packets. The priest hands the plate back to Sivakami. Janaki awaits further instructions.
“Open the packet, Janaki!” Vairum says, awfully jolly. “It’s in God’s hands now!”
Janaki unwraps the packet she has chosen and a red mass of petals unfurls in her palm, covering exactly the dot of henna, now faded to a deep orange, which Kamalam had patted onto her hand for the girl-seeing.
God must be on Vairum’s side. He snatches up the other packet and sets it alight on the nearest oil lamp. Left hand on right wrist, he respectfully offers the flaming packet to the altar, giving it back to God. None but God will ever know its contents.
Janaki, her fate decided, begins picturing herself with Baskaran. His height matches hers well. She can’t remember his eyes but she thinks they were kind. He spoke five or six words. Each one is burned in her mind-even though she was of two minds that day. He wore scent.
Kamalam awaits her on the roof and they go over every detail without restraint, Kamalam swallowing her sadness in deference to Janaki’s hoped-for happiness, even giggling guiltily at Dhoraisamy’s manner and the mother-in-law’s girth. By the time they get to the topic of the groom, they are a little giddy with anxiety and confidences.
“His skin is very fair,” Kamalam judges.
Janaki says slowly, “Yes, he’s very fair.”
This is suddenly, illogically, very funny. “He’s fair!” they say. “He’s so fair! Oh, he’s so fair,” laughing until they are heaving and gasping on the floor, holding their cramping guts, resting their forehead on the shadowed strip along the roof’s western edge.
Janaki sits up and leans against the parapet.
“Well, he is,” she sniffs.
It’s too soon. They’re off again, choking tears, aching guts, and the big hot sun gone down.
SOME SIX WEEKS LATER, Sivakami receives her invitation, just like everyone else on the Brahmin quarter-and elsewhere in the presidency, and possibly beyond. Vairum has associates everywhere now. He’s putting Cholapatti on the map, as empire builders have always done for their hometowns, even if he seems to be doing it more to spite his origins than to commemorate them.
Printed in Madras on pumpkin-coloured paper so thick and soft one could sew clothes from it, in royal purple ink with a stylized Ganesha stamped in gilt, the invitation includes both a Tamil and an English version, confirming that there must be foreigners on the guest list. Anyone would be pleased to receive it, and indeed, almost every family that does receive one saves it. What it says is this:
C. H. Vairum has the pleasure of inviting you to the wedding of
Sowbhagyavati N. Janaki,
daughter of
Sri I. M. Nagarajan, called Goli
(Indian Revenue Service, Indrapuram) and
(late) Srimathi N. Thangam
with
Chiranjeevi P.D. Baskaran
son of
Sri P.P. Dhoraisamy (Landholder, Pandiyoor. and
Srimathi N. Kalpagam
Sivakami is disappointed though unsurprised that Vairum has issued the invitations in his name instead of Goli’s. They have heard from Goli only once since Thangam’s death, when he came to Sivakami’s house for an hour and made noise about how it was time for Laddu to come and work for him. Goli did not look well. He had lost weight, so that his eyes and jaw seemed overly prominent and his clothes, old and expensive, were a bit big to flatter him the way they did when he was younger. It was midday and Laddu was out at the oil processing plant. He grew impatient and left. Sivakami never told Laddu and Goli never returned. Laddu has done well at the plant, against all expectations. Vairum has promoted him to overseer and Laddu would have been very ill-advised to leave.
“Perhaps,” Sivakami speculates aloud, to Muchami, showing him the invitation, “perhaps Vairum didn’t even know how to contact Goli?”
“Not likely, Amma.” Muchami shakes his head. “Vairum could probably find anyone in the presidency. Didn’t you say the invitation says your son-in-law is now in Indrapuram?” Muchami pauses, either to decide how plainly he should speak or to let his words sink in. “In fact, I’m sure Vairum might even have sent Goli an invitation, if only to provoke him. He didn’t make the invitation in Goli’s name because this is his show.”
“People in our Brahmin quarter are going to think Vairum is trying to slap Goli in the face,” Sivakami says, rueful.
“He is, but I think that’s only a side benefit.”
Sivakami looks at him.
“I don’t mean to make a bad joke.” He holds his hands up, conciliatory. “Amma, Vairum is doing something good for Thangam’s daughter. Accept this. He is doing as much for Janaki as if she were his own daughter.”
Sivakami wishes she could not see the wisdom in what he says, but he is right: Vairum is doing more for Thangam’s children than her own brothers ever did for him and Thangam. He is a better man, she thinks.
“Amma,” Muchami goes on slowly, “I have a concern.” He has never talked to her in much detail about Goli’s deal-making and is nervous to do so now, but feels he must. “I suspect that, as soon as Goli receives the invitation, he will be in Pandiyoor, trying to raise support for some investments. I’m sure Janaki’s future in-laws are cautious people. But they may feel shy to say no, and then…” He has speeded up and pauses. “There’s nothing like money matters to cause familial discord. I would hate for them to take a financial loss out on the girl. They think very highly of her, as highly as she deserves.”
Sivakami is flummoxed. She never would have thought of this. She feels slow and he waits, giving her time to think through what he has said. “I absolutely do not want them to think that investing with him is a condition of the marriage,” she says after some minutes.
“Yes, that’s exactly one of my fears,” Muchami responds.
“Vairum is so explosive when it comes to his brother-in-law,” she continues. “I would rather we not go to him about this.”
“Okay. Perhaps it won’t be necessary.” Muchami scratches his chin and his scalp. “What about this? Can we somehow inform the son-in-law that while Janaki’s future family appears well-off, we have just learned that they are in fact in a very bad position financially? That they may well say they want to invest with him, but that he should beware, because they are wily-lawyers, after all-and will take him for all he is worth? That they are going down and he should be careful not to be dragged down with them?”
“We cannot say that ourselves,” Sivakami objects. “He will ask why we are marrying his daughter to these people.”
“Good, quite right-so who would he believe?” Muchami asks, like a schoolteacher, as if he knows the answer. He gives a hint. “Who would be only too happy to believe and pass on such a story, but be unlikely to pass it on to anyone else?” He pauses to give Sivakami a chance to respond, but she is silent. “Your brothers, Amma.”
Sivakami frowns, impressed, as he goes on.
“Send them a letter in confidence, saying Vairum heard this from a reliable source after the arrangements had been made, but decided to go through with the wedding, because it’s a good family otherwise, and that he pledged that he will not permit anything bad to happen to his niece. You don’t need to say what they will recognize, that this is exactly what they did for Thangam. But say you are worried about Goli, and want them to talk to him, because it would not be appropriate for you or Vairum to do so. They will be only too glad to have this authority, and even if they spread rumours, those won’t amount to anything more than all the usual rumours that are always in the air about rich families.”
Sivakami has to admit it is an excellent scheme, and as it turns out, Sivakami’s brothers are happy to do their sister this favour. She and Muchami are satisfied that they have done something to ensure harmony for Janaki in her marital home.
Sivakami has insisted that all the basic costs of the wedding be paid for from her money, the manjakkani, which has grown substantially owing to Vairum’s efforts. He agreed but has insisted on paying for extras himself-this is to be a sumptuous celebration, far showier than Sivakami thinks advisable.
The wedding will be not only ostentatious by Sivakami’s lights, but also, paradoxically, short. Efficiency is the hallmark of the new age, even in matters nuptial. A celebration that would have lasted a week in Janaki’s mother’s time will now be completed in three days. People have jobs.
Cholapatti is done up in style. An enormous canopy is erected, covering the entire length of the Brahmin quarter, which will be closed to traffic, from the witch’s house to the temple. All Cholapatti’s Brahmins are invited, as well as a number of wealthy non-Brahmins. They will be sufficiently deferential not to take cooked food in Sivakami’s presence, but the Brahmins are abuzz at Vairum’s urban bad manners nonetheless. Relatives of both sides will descend from all over the Madras Presidency, as well as a number of Vairum’s associates from Madras, including foreigners with whom he does business. Vani will play a recital on the second evening, reprising the program, a little old-fashioned but still charming, of the concert where Vairum first saw her.
Baskaran’s family, as has become the custom in certain circles, has not asked for a dowry, and Vairum has not offered one. Still, Baskaran’s siblings and his parents will receive gifts of clothes and jewellery and Janaki will go to her in-laws with a substantial trousseau of high-quality pots, gold and silver jewellery, silk and blended saris, and other items modern and traditional, representing considerable expense. Sivakami is not sure how she feels about this advance on the old system. On the one hand, she recognizes their lack of demands as a sign of their graciousness. On the other, traditions offer protection. A girl is an asset to her in-laws-a cosmetic, material and moral asset-and a dowry is one way of assuring she is seen as such. If the bride’s side keeps up its end of the bargain, so must the groom’s. Sivakami fears that the loosening of certain controls may lead to the loosening of others, that families who don’t receive dowries may not protect girls as they have been obliged to do in the past.
When she raised this question with Vairum, though, he told her that her knowledge of history and human nature is flawed and incomplete, and that people who take dowries these days are opportunists and not to be trusted. And, as Sivakami observes Baskaran and his family, she finds herself, a little grudgingly, coming to believe that the family is honourable and the match a good one.
Which makes her feel all the odder when Vairum confronts her, late in the afternoon of the third day. The main hall is full of relatives and guests, napping and gossiping, passing the time between meals and major ceremonies. She herself is lying down, in the pantry, her head on her wooden pillow. She hasn’t the energy she once had, and the effort of making the sweets, which she insisted on, has tired her, as has the stream of people coming to pay their respects, and the instructions she has sent out with Janaki, Kamalam and Gayatri, each time the bride has come in to change her clothes and eat.
She feels she has just closed her eyes, when she senses a presence, breathing above her. Her mind flashes briefly-is it a dream?-to the semi-opaque figure she used to see by the river. The last time she saw it was the day she got the news of Thangam’s illness. Then she opens her eyes: Vairum stands over her, black-diamond eyes snapping, nostrils flared. His hair fans like a dark halo around his mottled face, as much white now as brown.
He thunders softly at her, “You asked your brothers to warn Goli off from Dhoraisamy’s family? You are spreading rumours about this family?”
Sivakami sits up, feeling frail and uncertain. She had felt so competent when she wrote the letter.
“You will go to any lengths to protect that man, won’t you?” Vairum is in a fury.
Sivakami opens her mouth to respond-she wasn’t protecting Goli, she was protecting Janaki. “What if Dhoraisamy broke it off, when they learned…”
“You think I didn’t know Goli would try to milk them? I briefed them as soon as they agreed. They contracted with you and me, who are beyond reproach as far as they are concerned. They would never hold Janaki’s father against her. And you spread rumours. About them. Which reflects badly on me. You can’t just tell the truth about him, can you? That would be a blow to your pride.” He looks ugly. “If only your pride extended to me.” He thumps his chest with what sounds like a sob, and runs, so like a little boy, upstairs.
Sivakami can’t follow him-the main hall is full of relatives-and she doesn’t even know how to answer. She must talk to him, as soon as the wedding is done. She couldn’t be prouder of him. Isn’t that obvious? He is what she always wanted him to be. And she is ashamed of Goli-that’s why she took this step. Has she made the mistake she feared others would make, all those many years ago, thinking Vairum too hard to be hurt?
Janaki thought the costume changes were fun, as were the ceremonies, which felt a little like play-acting. She is a bit embarrassed by the grandeur and finery, but also excited: these are harbingers of her new life. And she is mature enough to appreciate her in-laws’ classiness. They didn’t even ask for a dowry, she thinks with pleasure-they were happy to get her and didn’t need a bribe.
As the ceremonies wind to a close on the third night, Janaki sits with Baskaran on the dais at the end of the Brahmin quarter nearest the temple and wonders, not for the first time this weekend, where her father is. She thinks back to the last time she saw him, the only time since her mother’s death. He looked like a wraith, she thought-his hair nearly white, his eyes red, his clothes baggy and ghostlike.
As the sun begins to set, a chaotic figure runs hopping and gliding through the attendees of the wedding, from the other end of the Brahmin quarter-Padmavati, the witch’s sister-in-law. She streaks past the dais, and toward the temple, her clothes creased and bunched, food on her chin, trailing a yeasty smell of confinement in her wake. A moment later, the witch’s husband dashes frantically along the same path. When he reaches the dais, he asks Vairum, “Did you see her? My sister. Which way did she go?”
He points toward the temple, where Padmavati has achieved the top and begun shouting. First children, then other curious parties, crane and creep out to see what is happening. She has begun to tell a familiar story: the Tale of an Anklet, a Tamil classic. At least a third of the wedding’s guests move out to listen to her. Her brother figures out how to get onto the temple roof and tries to apprehend her. She runs to the opposite side, lifts her rumpled sari and starts masturbating for the crowd, shouting at her brother to keep away. He chases her and pushes her hands and sari down, but she slips out of his grasp and shoves him over the edge of the roof. The temple is only about nine feet high, but the wind is knocked out of him and he gives up.
Padmavati returns to her tale:
“I,” she declaims, “am Kannagi, the innocent daughter of a Thiruchi merchant, married to Kovalan, the handsome son of another merchant. At a festival some time back, Kovalan met Madhavi, a fish-eyed courtesan, and forgetting his faithful wife, went to live with her. Then they fought and he returned, but he had spent our entire fortune and I offered up to him my ankle bracelets, the thickest and best of my ornaments. ‘Come,’ I said, ‘let us go to Madurai and make our fortune anew.’ So now we go,” Padmavati grins evilly and marches around the perimeter of the temple. “But when we arrive in Madurai, new misfortunes are afoot. One of the queen’s ankle bracelets has been stolen and my husband, trying to sell one of mine, is accused. He is brought before the inattentive king and killed for a thief. I am waiting,” Padmavati sinks sideways to her knees, batting her lashes caricaturedly. “Where is my husband? I go and follow and hear of my husband’s destiny. I have fought and scratched my way into the king’s court: ‘What did your wife’s anklet contain?’ I challenged him. ‘Pearls,’ the queen tells me. ‘A city ruled by an unjust king is doomed to misery,’ I tell the king, and break mine open, from which gems roll and scatter. The queen faints; the king faints, too. ‘May Madurai burn!’ I scream. ‘My happiness is ended!’ ”
From within her sari, the witch’s sister-in-law withdraws a scythe and a bottle of kerosene. She douses herself while the crowd watches, still confused as to what she intends.
At that point in the story, the legendary Kannagi, that paragon of faith and chastity, cuts off her left breast and the city of Madurai bursts spontaneously into a cleansing flame, but Padmavati strikes a match on her scythe and sets herself on fire instead.
The crowd bursts into shouts and runs, but by the time they have fetched water and medics to the rooftop, the witch’s miserable sister-in-law is dead.
This doesn’t seem like a very good omen for a wedding, but Janaki is determined not to think that way. What has shaken her more than anything was the mention of the seductress who lured away a husband and made him spend on her the money he should have lavished, if judiciously, on his faithful wife. I hate stories like that. She is unable, however, to keep herself from wondering what becomes of the courtesan.