Tell A Thousand Lies (2 page)

“Please, do go,” the old man said, reaching for his letter. “This can wait.” He went over to squat in the line awaiting the postmaster’s attention.

I ran back to the house, trying not to trip over my half-sari. “They’re coming, they’re coming!”
 

Ammamma didn’t even scold me for my unladylike haste. She hurried to the gate with Lakshmi
garu,
just as Lakshmi
garu
’s two sons drove up in their shiny new tractor. An older man, most likely the groom’s father, sat in the front, a child in his arms. A couple of men stood on the sideboards, clinging wherever they could get a hold. The rest of the groom’s party was squashed up on the rug laid on the floor of the trailer. The tractor belched fumes of diesel and shuddered to a halt.

Across the road, all activity stopped. People turned to inspect the commotion. I puffed with pride.

Murty
garu
greeted our honoured guests, palms of his hands joined together. “
Namaskaram!
I hope your travel was comfortable.”

“The train was late,” the groom’s mother said, as Murty
garu
helped her down. Being the mother of the groom, this was her chance to complain, and she did. “On top of it, we couldn’t get seats in Second Class. So we had to travel like some low class people, no reservation, no nothing. Had to sit up all night on a suitcase. Now my back is paining me and my leg is swollen.” Her voice quavered. “My head is pounding so hard, I might have to cancel today’s bride viewing.”

Ammamma clapped her mouth in dismay. “Please, I beg you, don’t even
think
such a thing. What will people say if the bride viewing party turns back? They’ll blame my Malli’s bad fate, is what they will do. Who will marry her, then?”

“I’m at your command,” Murty
garu
said. “Anything to help.”

“Can you arrange for medicine?” the groom’s father said.

“Right away.” Murty garu flicked a finger at his younger son, who took off at a run in the direction of the
xerox
-cum-medical shop.

“These trains,” the groom’s father said, “they should have a lot more compartments. So many people travelling, no? The Railway Minister should do more for the interior villages. We travelled all night, no rest, no place to sit. General Compartment. Just imagine!” He nodded at the child in his arms. “And with my grandson, too.”

“
So much headache merely to view the bride?” Murty
garu
shook his head in tandem with his raised hand, a what-is-this-world-coming-to look on his face.

The next to alight had to be the groom. In his early twenties, he seemed an agreeable fellow, of medium height and complexion, though on the skinny side. He bent at the waist to touch Ammamma’s feet, then touched his fingers to his eyes in respect.

Well brought up, too. I hoped things worked out today. Malli
and he would make a cute couple.

Kondal Rao
garu
, husband of Ammamma’s friend
Suseela
garu
, and honoured guest, was due anytime now, so our party of twenty waited by the courtyard gate. Murty
garu
’s son, back from the medical shop, handed the medicine and a glass of water to the groom’s mother. She drank the water, and dropped the medicine in her purse.

Since the groom’s family was from Kondal Rao
garu’s
village, my grandmother had sought him out to make inquiries about the family. Before we could allow our Malli to be married into their family, we had to ensure that the groom was of good character, and his clan respectable, hadn’t we? We were lucky that Kondal Rao
garu
had personally vouched for the groom’s family.

Weren’t we?

I felt a frisson of fear. What if
Jhampaiah
, the day labourer, were right? What then?

That day, from two months ago, was still clear in my mind.

When the marriage broker brought news about this alliance,
Jhampaiah
was perched high up on the coconut tree in our courtyard.

“Welcome,” Ammamma said, smiling. The marriage broker was a most favoured visitor. “Please freshen up. So hot, isn’t it?”

To me, Ammamma said, “Pullamma, pour out some buttermilk.”

The marriage broker, a skinny woman with bulging eyes and sloped chin, slipped out of her footwear and walked over to the three-foot cemented square in one corner of the courtyard. Pumping the hand-pump till water gushed out, she washed her face first, then her feet. Wiping her face with the free end of her sari, she settled on the straw mat. “I have just the alliance for you,” she said.

I handed her a glass of buttermilk.

“Who is the family?”

“You won’t believe it.” The broker’s tone held reverence.

“Who?”

“The father of the groom is the right hand man of Kondal Rao
garu
himself.”

“My Malli is favoured, indeed!” Ammamma raised her joined palms above her head, eyes shining. “Kondal Rao
garu
’s wife is my childhood friend. We couldn’t get a better alliance if we tried.”

Crash!
A semi-circular knife buried itself at the base of the coconut tree.

Ammamma jerked her head up at
Jhampaiah
, balanced high up our tree, legs wrapped around the skinny trunk.

He looked down at the fallen knife in dismay.

Ammamma shook a fist at him. “What if someone had been standing below?”

Jhampiah
shimmied down the tree and shuffled up to Ammamma, head hanging.

“What is done, is done,” Ammamma said. “Just be more careful the next time.”

He nodded vigorously.

“Did you pluck the coconuts?”

Jhampiah
nodded again and started to shove the coconuts into a gunny bag. He had been hired to strip the tree of the coconuts. He’d sell them for Ammamma and take a commission for himself. After the coconuts were put away, he squatted next to the gunny bag, focussing his unblinking gaze on Ammamma.

“What?” Ammamma said.

Jhampiah
shook his head.

The marriage broker laughed. “Must be waiting for me to leave so he can discuss his petty little issues with you.” She pointed her sloped chin at
Jhampaiah
, the hairs on it glistening. “
Peetha
kashtalu
peethavi
,
” she quoted in our native Telugu, reducing his concerns to those of a mere crab.

The broker drained her glass, walked to the cemented square which also served as a wash area, and put the buttermilk glass down. “I will set up the bride viewing, then.”

Ammamma joined her palms together in farewell. “That would be good.”

The marriage broker let herself out of the courtyard.

As soon as the woman closed the gate behind her,
Jhampaiah
joined the palms of his hands in entreaty. “Please don’t take offence. I am talking out of turn.” Sweat beaded his upper lip.

“Speak freely.”

“Don’t go with the alliance.”

I was startled. “But why?”

Ignoring me, he leaned forward, the cords in his neck straining. “There is lot of talk about Kondal Rao
garu
. Bad talk.”

“
Bah!
” Ammamma reached for a coconut frond broom. “For this you made so much drama? Go to the market and sell your coconuts. Leave the thinking to me.”

He got to his feet and slung the gunny bag over his shoulder. At the gate, he turned. “Amma
garu
, I beg you, don’t dismiss this so casually.”

Ammamma waved him away.

He scurried out, a frightened look on his face.

“These people,” Ammamma said, sweeping the debris from the coconuts. “They have no education, no understanding. With my fifth class education, I’ll need him to tell me right from wrong? I’ll be scared of my own friend’s husband, or what?”

Chapter 2

What’s In a Name?

A
lmost everything in my past foretold my ordinariness in a family of extraordinary beauties – my unspectacular horoscope, the positioning of the stars at the time of my birth, even the inauspicious start to my life.

“How could a child so… ordinary-looking possibly be mine?” my father is said to have exclaimed moments after my birth, a frown marring his extraordinarily handsome face.

“Donkey’s egg,” Ammamma said with uncharacteristic rudeness towards a son-in-law of the family. “Whoever heard of a newborn being beautiful?”

But this was exactly the excuse he was looking for. Our mother had died in childbirth minutes after delivering us twin girls. This, after she’d already burdened our father with an older daughter. Had any of us been born the right gender, with the consequent ability to take care of our father in his old age, this question of paternity would have never come up. With no son and no wife, he felt justified in discarding us and taking on a new life.

Ammamma stepped in after the abandonment, not that she had much of a choice; my father had no family. Who else would take on the headache of raising, and marrying off, three girls? Other than a grandmother, that is.

My twin and I remained nameless for almost a year after our birth, a period of intense agonizing for my grandmother. She finally settled on Pullamma – twig girl – for me, the older twin. To bestow a fancier name would be to risk the wrath of the Gods, the current misfortunes being more than she could bear. She debated on
Pichamma
– mad girl – for my twin; the Gods must have been smiling on my sister because they intervened in the form of Ammamma’s mother-in-law. The old lady decreed that it was only proper that such a fair and pretty child be named after her. So my twin ended up being named Lata.

Fair-skinned Lata was as delicate as the creeper she was named for, while our older sister Malli, with her pinkish-white complexion, couldn’t be more flower-like if she tried.

All through childhood, I was teased mercilessly for my name. I was more a branch than a twig; a stump really, and the other children never let me forget it. They called me
Nalla
Pulla
– black twig – for the colour of my skin. I swore when I had children of my own, I would give them the most beautiful names possible.

Many years later, when I did have my child, that choice would not be mine to make.

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My grandmother was an elegant lady. Not very tall, but of fair skin. In her youth, she’d been as slender as Lata, though over the years gravity had caused her body to settle mainly around her hips. So renowned were her dowry, and her beauty, that her hand in marriage was sought far and wide. After great consideration, Ammamma’s father settled on an alliance with my grandfather.

“The only bad decision my father ever made in his life,” Ammamma said with a shake of the head. “Such a good man my father was, with complexion like fresh fruit, and on top of it – honourable like anything.”

Everything my grandfather wasn’t. Post-wedding, he gave up his prestigious
tahsildar
job; none of that tax collection business for him. Instead, he efficiently worked his way through Ammamma’s not insubstantial dowry, along with most of his own inheritance before he passed on from drinking country liquor. Ammamma was forced to sell off much of her jewellery to marry off her four daughters, and would have been living on some Brahmin’s charity, but for the fact my grandfather hadn’t been able to sell his ancestral home from under her before he joined his ancestors in the heavens above. Then our mother died, and our father departed to find God in the Himalayas.

Losing her daughter to childbirth, and her son-in-law to irresponsibility, Ammamma had tough decisions to make.

A few years after she inherited us, the village elders stepped in to counsel. “Your oldest and youngest granddaughters are pleasing to the eye,” they told Ammamma. “It will be easy enough to find good matches for them, even considering your limited dowry giving ability.”

“What about my Pullamma?” Ammamma asked, distressed.

“You need to be practical, Seetamma,” the elders said. “She has neither the looks, nor the dowry. Keep her at home. After all, you will need someone to tend to you in your old age.”