Tell A Thousand Lies (16 page)

“And?”

“I’d like to have two children. Hopefully they will be closer than my sisters and I were. I want them to grow up with a mother and a father. I want them never to doubt our love for them.”

I’d name them the nicest possible names, I added silently, so they’d never face the kind of teasing I’d suffered.

Srikar smiled. “You don’t have to do only one or the other. Why don’t we go with both our plans? Get your college degree, then we can have as many children as you want.”

I wasn’t convinced, so he said, “Don’t dismiss the college option completely. Keep an open mind. If you really don’t want to do it, we’ll reconsider.”

I nodded reluctantly. I felt disloyal even thinking this, but Srikar’s whole plan seemed to be against the natural order of things.

If God had meant for women to study, he wouldn’t have made dowry, would he?

Chapter 19

Life in
Madhuban
Apartments

S
rikar and I spent our Sundays in the city. My favourite destination was the historic
Charminar
area, built some four hundred years ago by
Quli
Qutub
Shah, and past it, the
Laad
Bazaar – known the country over as the Mecca for bangles and other artificial jewellery. The main bazaar consisted of one narrow lane lined with at least a hundred shops, each crammed with stone and “
lac
” bangles, stone-studded necklaces, elaborately designed sari-belts, earrings, bags, purses, mirror studded earthen jewellery boxes, adornments to put in the parting of hair, embroidered clothes, the list was endless. As we walked past the shops, the wares dazzled us with their brilliance. So many frivolous things. How Ammamma would shake her head.

Srikar would point to one set of jewellery or the other, saying, “When we have our own company, we’ll drive down here in an Ambassador, and I will buy you that. Head-to-toe you’ll be in shiny jewellery. Or, you know what? I’ll buy you your own shop.” I’d shake my head and walk on. We peered into each shop, smilingly ignoring the blandishments of the bangle sellers, enjoying the incredible beauty of their glittery creations.

Most things were beyond our budget, but Srikar did buy me a globe – a papier
mâché
sphere, the surface of which was decorated with small hexagons of mirrored glass. When I held it up by its thread, it spun around, catching sunlight on each individual piece of mirror, casting its brilliance as far as the rays reached.

“What is this for?” I asked.

“To remind you of me.”
 

I giggled from embarrassment. The only person I knew who talked like this was the Telugu superstar
Chiranjeevi
, and that was onscreen.

When Srikar was at work I spent most of my time with Geeta. She hovered by her door till he left, then streaked in, shutting the door behind her. Geeta was a talker; she talked with her hands, her mouth, her eyes. Once she tucked the free end of her sari at her waist, and did an impromptu Goddess
Durga
dance. With the huge red
kumkum
bottu
on her forehead, her eyes lined with kohl, and a dozen glass bangles encircling each perfectly rounded arm, she even looked the part.
Sandhya
, a skinny girl with protruding front teeth, applauded. She came over frequently, but not as often as Geeta. There were no in-laws she needed to get away from.

Most days Geeta grabbed a pillow, propped it on the floor against a wall and settled down for a few hours of gossip, till her mother-in-law came in search of her, screaming, “Oh, where did that useless girl go and die?”

“Anything to escape that house,” Geeta said with a sigh and got up to go cook.

Chapter 20

Call to Ammamma

I
t was almost three months of idyllic existence, with occasional bursts of loneliness because I missed Ammamma and Chinni, before I felt safe enough to telephone my grandmother.

Srikar cautioned me against revealing too much information, for both my grandmother’s safety, and our own.

Hoping desperately that my grandmother hadn’t had any visits from Srikar’s squat-necked grandfather, I dialled Lakshmi
garu
’s number. At this time of the evening, Ammamma was almost always at Lakshmi
garu
’s house.

“’
allo
?”

“Are you well, Lakshmi
garu
? This is Pullamma.” A sharp longing for the village, for Ammamma, for Chinni, for Malli, for Lata, even for Lakshmi
garu
, welled up. It didn’t matter that Lakshmi
garu
had looked down on me due to the colour of my skin. It didn’t matter she’d bossed over Ammamma. She’d stood by Ammamma’s side in her time of need, and in the end that’s what mattered.

What does that make Chinni?
I had an unbidden memory of my best friend, five years old, sitting by our cow and tying a bright red ribbon to its tail.

“Pullamma!” Lakshmi
garu
said. “Oh my God! Wait, let me get your grandmother.”

It was Lakshmi
garu
’s dowry of the telephone connection that was allowing me to talk with my beloved grandmother. Because of Lakshmi
garu
, Ammamma didn’t have to line up at the village
kirana
shop like every other villager, waiting to use the phone. Talk in the village was that too much money in her mother’s home had caused Lakshmi
garu
’s disrespect for Murty
garu
. I could only be grateful – for Lakshmi
garu
’s support of Ammamma; not her disrespect of Murty
garu
– never that.

“Child, is that you?” Ammamma’s voice sounded choked.

I started to cry, too. “Ammamma, I miss you so much.”

“I miss you, too, Child. How are you? Are you happy? Is my son-in-law treating you well?”

“Very well, Ammamma. I didn’t know it was possible to be this happy,” I said softly.

“I’m glad.”

“How are you?”

“I have my work, and Lakshmi. Nothing has changed for me, Child. You don’t need to worry on my account.”

Despite what Ammamma said, it couldn’t have been easy dealing with the devotees after I went into hiding.

“How’s Chinni?”

“Married, and settled in Kurnool.”

Her wedding had been delayed when the groom fell sick. I was grateful for this because the wedding took place only after I left for Hyderabad. I don’t think I could have borne it otherwise. “Did you go to the wedding?”

“No.”

I pictured Ammamma, sitting by the phone, tears pooling in her eyes. She had loved Chinni, too. “And Murty
garu
?”

“He’s gone over to the neighbouring village for a bride viewing.”

“Hopefully, no Goddesses will emerge from there.” I laughed nervously.

 
“Don’t come back to the village,” Ammamma said, voice serious. “That man’s goons keep haunting our house to see if I have been in touch with you.”

“Oh, Ammamma! Did he find out…?” That I had married his grandson? I found my throat closing.

Srikar put his ear closer to the phone. I held the phone slightly away so he could hear, too.

“Ammamma,” Srikar said, “I am on the phone with Pullamma.”

“God bless you, Child,” Ammamma said without breaking her flow. “I don’t think he knows. But his Goddess is on the run. As you can imagine, that isn’t making him too happy.”

“Oh.”

“The day after you left, he came with a huge platoon of goons. He screamed and shouted, and threatened all kinds of vile things. He said we had no right to hide his Goddess.”

Three months of wishing the infernal man away had made not one whit of a difference. I started to tremble. Srikar put his arm around me.

“Luckily,” Ammamma was saying, “he still doesn’t know of that other connection.”

“I am very sorry, Ammamma,” Srikar said into the phone.

“Son, you – of all people – shouldn’t have to apologize. May God always watch over you with benevolence for having given my granddaughter a married name.” She started to cry. Srikar moved away from the phone.

“How are Malli and Lata?”

“Malli is with her in-laws –”

“She’s married!”

“Well, yes. The in-laws didn’t want to let go of a good alliance like ours. Even though you were no longer around, the mother-in-law insisted only our Malli would do as their daughter-in-law. She has settled so well in her new house.”

“They... they didn’t ask?”

“About you? No. Kondal Rao must have told them something.”

“Ammamma, I hate to put you to more trouble...”

“What, Child?”

“Will you break five coconuts at Goddess Durga’s altar for me? And circle her altar a hundred and eight times? I promised to do it if Malli’s alliance went through.” I couldn’t afford more trouble with the Goddess.

“Of course!”

Much as I enjoyed the hustle and bustle, this was one wedding I was happy to have missed. Not because of my sister, but because of her in-laws. If I’d been forced to preside over the wedding… I shuddered. Still, my brush with Goddess-hood seemed to have done some good. “I missed Malli’s wedding.”

“And I missed yours. I wish I could see you as a married woman.” Ammamma sighed. “And Lata is going to be married off to Malli’s husband’s cousin.”

“But she always wanted to be a doctor!” I was genuinely shocked. Though Ammamma had forbidden us from studying further, a part of me believed she would relent when it finally came to Lata – hadn’t my twin always gotten away with skipping household chores just because she had schoolwork? I couldn’t see Lata in the role of a housewife, cooking and cleaning, getting up in the middle of the night to fill water.

Ammamma snorted. “I’m an old woman. Haven’t I raised two generations of girls? Don’t I deserve to finish up with my responsibilities? After that, if her husband permits, she can go be a doctor or train ticket collector or lorry driver.”

“Did she agree to the marriage?”

“Do I have to ask for permission to settle my own granddaughter’s wedding?” Ammamma harrumphed. “It is a good alliance. The boy has passed 12
^th
class, too. He is a motorcycle mechanic. What more can one ask for?”

I felt deep sorrow for my twin. For as long as I could remember, being a doctor was all she had talked about.
 
But there would be no changing Ammamma’s mind. So I tried to be supportive. “I’m glad, Ammamma. All your granddaughters settled.”

“All my earthly responsibilities are fulfilled,” Ammamma said. “Now I can concentrate on spiritual matters, and hope to die in peace.”

“Ammamma! No talk about dying. You are healthy. We need you around for many, many years.” Finally I found the courage to ask what I had been avoiding. “What about those devotees?”

“Don’t think badly of them, Child. They are honest people who sincerely believed you had divine powers.”

“What about...”

“Kondal Rao? Oh, he tells the devotees you followed in the footsteps of your father and went off to the Himalayas to meditate.”

“And they believe it?”

“He orchestrated another miracle, Child.” Ammamma sighed. “He put chickpeas under the soil near a tree, and put a faceless idol on it. Because the idol was being prepared for prayers each morning, all that water caused the seeds to germinate and raise the idol slightly. He claimed that the Goddess had risen. He then installed that idol in the
Durga
temple. Now his only problem is exposure. If you stay away, both he and you should be safe.”

Chapter 21

Srikar’s Family

“S
omething smells good.” Srikar hooked his cloth shoulder bag on the peg by the door. He stepped out of his slippers, and sniffed. “
Vankay
?”