Dowry Dilemma
Mister Cool
The New Girl in Office
A Very Special Mai
Togetherness
DOWRY DILEMMA
Published in Chicken Soup for the Indian Bride’s Soul
As my wedding day drew nearer, I found myself in an ever-deepening quandary: to marry or not to marry! No, I had no issues with my fiancé—in fact, in the three months since our engagement I had grown to really care for him and was looking forward eagerly to being with him for the rest of my life. The issue was Dowry—the ghost that haunts most Indian weddings, especially arranged ones.
And no: there were no demands from my fiancé’s family. Belonging as we do to the north Indian ‘Vaish’ or business community, there was expectation of a certain degree of pomp and grandeur, and insistence on some orthodox ceremonies, but that, as my parents assured me repeatedly, was only to be expected, and well within their means.
The problem lay elsewhere. The practice of Dowry, which has assumed mammoth proportions in all sections of Indian society, is a spectre that haunts almost every daughter on the verge of marriage. And having grown up as the eldest of three sisters (and no brothers), I’d heard my parents being referred to pityingly by relatives since early childhood: ‘They have to marry off three daughters, you know’ … ‘Poor things: no sons to earn for them in their old age, and on top of that they have to save for the dowry of three daughters!’ … And then there were horror stories about husbands and in-laws who did not ask for exorbitant dowry outright, but expected it all the same; or those who kept a low profile at the time of the wedding, but later extorted money from the bride’s parents on various pretexts—sometimes for an entire lifetime! The parents in such cases usually paid up, for fear of social ruin if their daughter’s marriage failed, and its repercussions on the family’s prestige and on the lives of the other children of the family.
So, it was no wonder that I was somewhat paranoid on the subject. However much I liked my future husband, I simply could not risk putting my parents in such a situation! The trouble was, there was simply no way of making sure! Plus, various distant relatives who knew both families had been hinting at expectations of fabulous amounts of cash or bullion from my future in-laws’ side. The atmosphere at home was fraught and I was feeling more and more stifled as the countdown began.
A year ago a close friend had called off her wedding at two weeks’ notice because of last minute demands by the groom’s family. Her fiancé had been disinclined to do anything about it, so, she had taken her courage in her hands and cancelled the wedding. After three months of social ridicule for her family, a software engineer form a much better family had asked for her hand in marriage and she was now living happily with him. I started thinking that if the rumours I was hearing were true, maybe I needed to follow in her footsteps.
My mother, reading some of these thoughts, warned me ‘not to even think about pulling a stunt like that’. ‘Rajesh is a gem, and his family members are good people,’ she reasoned with me. ‘Our experience of life tells us that these rumours are baseless … there are mischief-mongers in every family. You need to just ignore them and think about your joyful future.’
This, however, was something I was unable to do. Whenever I went out on a date with Rajesh, I would try to touch on the topic of dowry so that I could gauge his thoughts about it. His responses were always reassuring, but my anxiety refused to be banished. The preparations for the first wedding in the family were in full swing on all sides, but one part of my mind was always grappling with this dread, which was less on my own account, and more for what my parents might be heading for.
And so, the day of my wedding arrived. The pre-wedding ceremonies, the singing and dancing, the mehndi ceremony—everything was a blur as my anxiety erupted into severe stomach cramps! I left for the beauty salon to be decked out as a bride. When I came out, I was told that everything looked perfect, from the colour of my mehndi and my dull pink tissue lehnga with golden dabka embroidery, to my antique jewellery, my water-proof make-up (it was peak summer in Delhi) and the flowers in my elaborate coiffure. I couldn’t have cared less—the most important day of my life was turning into a nightmare, solely because of my anxiety, for which I had no solid grounds!
The wedding ceremonies started. The jaimala (exchange of flower garlands) took place … the guests went to have dinner, and soon only close relatives were left for the ceremony of phere (seven rounds of the sacred fire to the accompaniment of scriptural chants that formally sanctifies Hindu weddings). Soon Rajesh and I were sitting cross-legged in the wedding mandap and the priests were chanting the mantras and explaining the significance of each ritual preceding the actual phere.
The lump of anxiety in my chest was growing every minute … all too soon the formal dahej or dowry ceremony was taking place. My father was asked to give me a token sum of money as the ritual dowry. He passed me a hundred rupee note. The panditji (priest), prompted by his sense of humour, asked me to do with it as I saw fit. In obedience to an eye signal from my mom, I dutifully passed the money to Rajesh. Panditji then asked Rajesh to do with it what he thought right … and Rajesh (instead of passing it on to his parents, as per tradition) passed it right back to me!!
Everyone around us broke into laughter, but tears were streaming down my face as the weight I had been carrying on my heart for the last few months lifted in that instant, leaving me limp with relief! I felt like singing aloud; soaring like a carefree bird—my parents had been right, and God was surely good to me!
In the past thirteen years, our marriage has had its normal share of ups and downs, as well as its misunderstandings and patch-ups, but I was able to sail through the initial insecurities and teething troubles of an arranged marriage with a heart as light as air, armed with the certainty that I was, indeed, married to ‘a gem of a person’!
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Mister Cool
(Chicken Soup for the Indian Entrepreneur’s Soul)
“Get ready for some competition, Sunil,” laughed old Mr. Sharma from house number sixty four. “Big Apple is opening an outlet right next to your provision store. You’ll have to open shop seven days a week if you want to retain your customers!”
Sunil Yadav, the owner of the colony’s provision store, to whom this sage advice was addressed, merely smiled. “Que Sera Sera,” his smile seemed to say.
“Actually, Uncle,” he said after a pause, “I will be relieved when it opens up here. Their outlets usually open shop quite early and stay open quite late. So, the colony people will have a back-up for any emergencies, and I can take it easy: maybe open up a little later and close a little earlier. Life will be good!”
“You’re joking, right?” said Mr. Sharma flabbergasted at this unprecedented point of view. “These big retail chains have an enormous advantage in terms of the variety of things they offer and the prices at which they procure them directly at the source. Aren’t you afraid you’ll lose your customers to their superior marketing and variety?”
“India is a very populous country, Uncle,” replied Sunil with a grin. “There are plenty of customers for everybody. I firmly believe no one can take away from me what is really mine. And the ones that go weren’t really mine to begin with, so why regret them?”
Sunil must be in his mid-thirties, and one of the most grounded people I’ve ever come across. He started the colony’s only provision store at the young age of about twenty, just a year before I got married and came to this colony, and I have seen his enterprise grow by leaps and bounds. In the last fifteen years, not only has he trebled the size of his store, buying up the adjoining shops in the colony’s market complex, but is said to have financed the start-up of similar stores in at least six other colonies for his two brothers and sundry cousins.
In fact, one of the daily newspapers once wanted to do a piece on him as a budding entrepreneur—maybe even a Kishore Binani in the making—but he declined. “I don’t want the madness that goes with scaling up and expanding. I just want to live life peacefully and on my own terms,” he explained to his incredulous customers-cum-friends.
Apart from the quality of merchandise, meticulous record-keeping and prompt service at his store, the man has acquired a reputation for personal integrity and smiling service. No one can remember having ever been short-changed or disobliged at his store. And what is even more remarkable, Sunil claims that he has a negligible rate of pilferage and defaulted payments despite having no CCTV cameras around a large section of merchandise that lies out in the open, for anyone to pick up and walk off. “If anyone takes something away, it was probably meant for them in the first place,” he is often heard to say philosophically.
So, his response to Mr. Sharma’s warning was, in fact, quite in character.
“Are you really as unconcerned as you show?” I couldn’t resist asking, once Mr. Sharma had left, shaking his head at what he saw as Sunil’s short-sightedness and folly.
“Well,” he admitted ruefully, “I can’t deny that some customers are bound to defect initially.”
“You seem pretty cool about it,” I remarked.
“Well, ma’am, it’s like this,” he explained with a grin, “if dancing about frantically or getting apoplectic would help, I might consider doing it. I think it’s best to take things as they come and make the best of them.”
“Besides,” he added, “The big retail chains have many advantages, but also some disadvantages, which might become advantages for me.”
I admired his sang froid, but couldn’t help thinking that a good part of it had to be bravado … well, time would tell!
The Big Apple outlet opened in a month’s time and the next few months saw more and more people flocking to it, but strangely enough, the crowds at Sunil’s store were, if anything, even larger than before—or was it simply that I always went there at a busy time?
Two months later I asked him how things were. He grinned from ear to ear: “Better than ever, Ma’am; would you believe it? I’ve had to hire another boy for home deliveries!”
“How on earth?” I marveled. “You have to have lost some customers to Big Apple: the place is always jumping. And they do home deliveries too.”
“Well, Ma’am,” he said, twinkling. “The Big Apple outlet here is attracting people from all the nearby localities to our market, and a good part of the increased influx of customers comes to my store as well.”
Seeing my mystified expression he explained: “See, my old customers initially went over to explore the options Big Apple had to offer them. They found many things like crockery, fancy knick-knacks and fresh produce, which I do not stock, and they were very happy to do their shopping there. However, they soon realized that as far as their daily provisions are concerned, I give them better rates because I don’t have to incur expenses on air conditioning, electronic doors and scales, trolleys, fancy freezers, spycams etc. I stick to my core strength, that is, daily provisions. Plus,” he added conspiratorially, “I have taken note of the brands in daily provisions that attracted people to Big Apple, and I have started stocking them. And like I said, I can give them better rates. So, Big Apple is no competition for me at all—in fact, it is actually increasing my customer base!”
“Wow!” I said. “I wonder how many people would see it that way!”
Sunil smiled his characteristic serene smile. “I always believe that things work out for the best once you decide to make the best of them.”
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The New Girl in Office
Operating on ‘auto’ mode, I was not in much of a position to notice anyone or anything much in those days. The familiar cycle of home, family, office, work and back home did not require conscious effort and my mind was free to detach itself from the whispers all around, and try to heal in solitude, while my body continued its daily tasks in the midst of the surmises about me rife in office.
And so, I was surprised when my mind registered a new colleague, Jaya. Perhaps it was the fact that she was impossible to overlook, with a self-assurance bordering on brashness, and a high and mighty manner that was an inadequate disguise for her robust common sense. Or maybe, it was my destiny guiding me towards exactly what I needed to shake me out of my maudlin frame of mind and put some sense into my confused head.
Her workstation was at the opposite end of the office from mine, and for a few weeks I only saw her in passing, or when we happened to share the elevator. And then one day, as I discussed an article with another colleague, I used the word ‘repertoire’, speaking it the way Indians do—almost phonetically, for the benefit of my audience on whom a French—or for that matter, an English or American—diction would have been lost.
And out of the blue, the new girl in office stood in front of me (she’d been talking to another colleague at the adjacent workstation), the embodiment of righteous indignation, heaping scorn on me for mangling the word. I don’t know why, but her scorn managed to penetrate my fog of apathy and press some trigger. With a resurgence of my old spirit, I found myself telling her, glacially, that I was quite aware of having mispronounced the word (‘mangled’ she corrected irrepressibly), adding for good measure that I was quite capable of saying it the French way, but that being understood by my audience was a higher priority for me than demonstrating the superiority of my diction.
Totally unabashed, she grinned impishly, plonked herself down in an adjacent chair, and before I knew it, we were discussing diction and languages, chattering nineteen to the dozen as if we had known each other for years!
And from that moment onwards, Jaya, a little younger than my twenty five years, took me under her wing. The ice around my heart began to thaw in the sunshine of her ebullient personality. Her large heart and impish sense of humour was slowly bringing me around to my old, joyful self.
It did not take her long to glean the rumours about me from the office grapevine. My blind infatuation for a colleague who got his kicks out of my belated adolescent crush had been grist for the gossip mill for the past six months. Looking back, it hadn’t been a big deal, but the fact that an aggressive female colleague had been interested in the same direction had added spice to the scenario. No one had been interested in knowing that the guy had been humane enough to let me down without taking advantage of my stupidity, and the sordid and malicious remarks aimed at me by the ‘other lady’s’ cronies made me cringe. Besides, I had been really badly smitten and needed time and space to get myself together, which I was not getting. As a result, my mind had gone numb and I had simply cut myself off from all human contact, except professionally.
From this desert of my own creating, I had been unexpectedly rescued by Jaya. Her workstation became my refuge—a haven of comfort, laughter and friendship. We would finish our work quickly and discuss everything under the sun. The instant mental connect that we had found with each other helped me out of the emotional quagmire I had fallen into.
The daughter of an eminent psychiatrist, one of the first things she did for me was to persuade me to consult her father. A couple of sessions of counseling and a month-long course of mild anxiolitics, supplemented with Jaya’s special brand of support, camaraderie and unconditional acceptance, tempered with astringent common sense, and I was a new person.
Gradually, she coaxed and bullied me into going for little outings—lunches, movies, shopping, making me buy brighter clothes and cosmetics, getting me to pamper myself with beauty treatments, making her sister, who was something of a make-up expert, give me a makeover, and generally helping me regain my lost self-esteem.
And to this day, she is there for me like a rock. Even though we are both married—she in Europe and I in India—we remain deeply connected on an emotional plane. I honestly don’t know what, if anything, I have been able t o do for her, but my life has been immeasurably enriched ever since Jaya became a part of it.
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A Very Special Mai
‘Amazing’ is the word that comes to my mind when I think of Omwati. Her life as a woman estranged from her husband and bringing up three children in a highly judgemental society has been anything but easy, but her dignified handling of harrowing, often sordid, and always difficult circumstances has been exceptional, to say the least. She has been working at my parental home for the past twenty two years as domestic help or ‘mai’. Her home, a bedsit on the outskirts of Delhi, shelters her married son, his wife and two children as well as her younger, unmarried son, and a year ago she managed to get her daughter married to an ‘educated’ industrial labourer.
Dark-skinned and reed-thin, Omwati carries herself with an air of aloofness and dignity, even in her cheap, well-worn sarees and handed-down rubber slippers. The wife of an impoverished agricultural labourer from Eastern UP, Omwati migrated to Delhi twenty two years ago, with her husband, their two sons aged four and two, and their newborn daughter. She started working as domestic help in a few houses in our colony and her husband became an itinerant vegetable vendor. Like all other mais of that time, she lived in a jhuggi in Madipur village; like all of them, she had the bulk of her earnings snatched and gambled away by her husband; and like all of them, she was beaten black and blue almost every night when her husband returned home drunk, the welts showing clearly, even on her dark skin. However, unlike most mais, her spirit remained undaunted by the sordid reality of life on the fringes of a big city, and her eyes remained firmly fixed on her ‘immigrant dream’ of a better future, if not for herself, then at least for her children.
Extremely quick to imbibe progressive thought, Omwati was struck by the common sense behind birth control, in an era when the concept of family planning was struggling against the ‘cultural mores’, even amongst the educated classes in India. When her husband refused to cooperate with her wish to have no more children, she had an overiectomy at the nearby public health centre and stoically bore the odium from her family and peers for taking such a step.
She saw education as the path to her children’s progress and enrolled them in MCD schools. She would skimp and save to buy sweets for them, as incentive for regular attendance and good performance. However, when she proudly brought her ‘class topper’ eldest son to my mother, she discovered that he had not even acquired basic literacy, in the best ‘sarkari school’ tradition of that time! My mother appreciated her spirit and taught her children to read and write. However, Omwati needed to save for her children’s secondary education so that they would be able to become industrial labourers at the very least. For this she needed to keep her earnings away from her husband’s clutches. On my mother’s advice she opened a bank account, operating it with Ma’s help, depositing the bulk of her earnings in it every month and keeping her passbook secure at our place.
She was made to suffer for her ‘progressive attitude’, not only by her peers and neighbours (who virtually excommunicated her), but also by a number of women she worked for. How could they tolerate a mai getting so much above herself as to have a bank account of her own – something even most of them didn’t have in the early 1990s?
At home, her husband decided to ‘teach her a lesson’ and brought home a woman from a brothel. The two of them made it a daily practice to heap verbal as well as physical abuse on Omwati and her children. Omwati had expected retaliation from her husband’s thwarted ego and was initially determined to weather out the situation, hoping that things would revert to normal, sooner or later. However, things just went from bad to worse over the year that followed, and she saw her children bearing the brunt of their father’s and his mistress’s frustration at their inability to beat her into submission.
Finally, recognizing a lost cause, she made enquiries and got a ration card in her name, rented a room in another locality and moved there with her children. When her husband tried to force himself upon them, she made it clear to him that he would have to give up his mistress and lead a decent, self-supporting life as a responsible householder. He, however, refused to accept her effort to ‘wear the pants’ and left her, probably trusting in the Indian society’s chastising attitude towards ‘left’ women to bring her to her knees. He was to learn his mistake, as she bore all the brickbats aimed at her from all sides, and with her eyes firmly fixed on her dream for her children, continued to work and save tirelessly.
Ever since they were toddlers, she had encouraged her children to work for what they wanted, do chores for people to earn spending money, and save part of it to buy ‘something big’. It was a tribute to her exemplary upbringing that by the time he was ten, her elder son had saved two thousand rupees to buy a second hand black-and-white television!
Over the years, Omwati has managed to acquire the trappings of a ‘basic, decent’ lifestyle: beds for everyone, a fan, an air cooler, a gas connection and even a small ice-box. Both her sons, having passed higher secondary school, are working in factories. Her daughter-in-law stays at home because ‘her son is earning enough to support his family’ and no more women from her family need go into the domestic labour market. Grandma Omwati, however, continues to work, as always, determined to be self-supporting to the very end, and a source of inspiration to all who come in contact with her!
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TOGETHERNESS
Everybody loves a love story, especially a real life one. But, while stories of people who had the courage to break the bounds of convention hold universal appeal, there also exist real life stories of deep and abiding love between people who live out their lives within the shackles of convention, in soul-destroying conditions, and yet, find the strength, through their love, to create a special world of their own that nothing can impinge upon. This is one such real life story. The names, however, have been changed … after all, the protagonists have put their duty towards their family foremost all their lives and have agreed to let this story see the light of day only under condition of anonymity.
It is quite on the cards that a number of readers might find this story either improbable, or even exasperating. To me personally, it is reminiscent of people’s reactions to the movie ‘Patiala House’. While preferring to hold my peace about the filmmaking and technical aspect of the movie, I was quite interested to note that while most positive, go-ahead people panned the movie in unequivocal terms, the story of the depressive, defeated, dutiful son struck a chord with a number of people who are themselves unable to break free of similar situations due to a (maybe misplaced) sense of filial duty …
‘Alone at last!’ thought Sadhana, as Sumit came in and she shut the door of their bedroom. It was their first night after marriage—the traditional suhaag raat—the culmination of five years of waiting; of long-distance courtship. Three years her senior, Sumit had declared his wish to marry Sadhana as soon as he’d joined his family business. And from then on, with Sadhana still studying and Sumit under his father’s watchful eye all the time, meeting each other anywhere else during the week had been out of the question. ‘But now all that patient waiting has borne fruit,’ thought Sadhana exultantly, gazing adoringly at her husband.
Suddenly—an urgent banging on the door. Sadhana had just started to unfasten the huge safety pins that had firmly anchored her heavy dupatta to her elaborate coiffure. Sumit froze in the act of undoing his tie and then unlocked the door and peered out. His sister Kusum stood outside, glaring.
‘What happened Kusum? Is anything the matter?’
‘No! What could be the matter?’ she retorted furiously, ‘Don’t the two of you have any shame?’
‘Wha…? Will you tell me clearly what the problem is?’ asked Sumit flabbergasted.
‘PROBLEM?’ screeched Kusum hysterically. ‘You and your new ‘wife’ shut the door of your room when there are other people in the house—mummy, daddy … ME, your unmarried young sister! Don’t you care how we all feel when you start behaving like a joru ka ghulam (henpecked husband/ literally: slave of your wife) within hours of your marriage?’
Sumit’s father, happening to overhear all this, asked his daughter to shut up, and literally dragged her away, kicking and screaming. Sadhana was stunned! Sumit turned to her apologetically: ‘She … she has a tendency to go overboard in her reactions … and she’s very possessive …’
‘Overboard?’ thought Sadhana in disbelief! ‘Possessive? Boy! That’s called understatement! She sounded like a psycho!’ She kept quiet, however, not wanting to start any unpleasantness on her wedding night. But the damage was done. Both of them changed and lay down on the opposite edges of the bed, subdued, trying for some sleep—or rather, oblivion.
As Sadhana lay staring into the darkness, she thought back to the past five years. She’d met Kusum only on a few occasions, and had thought that her future sister-in-law seemed a little stiff. However, she had merely assumed that the girl was shy, or reserved, and would open up in time. This outburst, though, seemed to put a totally different complexion on things. But thankfully, she was to be married herself within a month—things would be all right after that!
However, matters went from bad to worse. Kusum was openly hostile towards both Sumit and Sadhana. Sumit’s parents, with the prospect of their daughter getting married and going away shortly, pandered to her tantrums and told Sumit and Sadhana to keep away from each other till Kusum’s wedding. A few times she even tried to sleep in their bedroom.
Kusum got married and went away to her husband’s home, which, unfortunately, was not too far from their own. Within a week of her marriage she resigned her job and became a permanent daytime fixture at their place, continuing to raise Cain whenever she saw Sumit and Sadhana together. Her husband’s touring job meant that she stayed over at their place for about twenty days of the month. And then, Sumit and Sadhana would find themselves with ‘company’, even for after-dinner strolls on the terrace!
Going out anywhere as a couple was, of course, out of the question. Any dinners or movies, or even shopping for the monthly rations, were group expeditions. Sadhana felt herself being slowly stifled by Kusum’s overt malevolence and her in-laws’ implicit support of it. Inevitably, misunderstandings began to erupt between her and Sumit, with increasing frequency. Sumit, helpless as the only ‘son and hope’ of his parents, increasingly guilty about what Sadhana was being put through, and more and more frustrated on his own account, found his escape in workaholism —leaving early in the morning and returning around midnight, to grab a bite and crash out. Sadhana was left adrift in an ocean of hostility, trying to keep afloat, and increasingly thinking about breaking free.
In the meantime, after the trauma of a stillborn child, they miraculously managed to have a son, within a few months of Kusum’s first born —also a son. By this time Kusum’s husband had accepted a posting in the Middle East and had taken off, dumping his neurotic wife and son on her parents, and making no bones about the fact that he found her impossible to live with. The situation for Sumit and Sadhana was now fraught past remedy, as their son was added to the list of Kusum’s ‘targets’. Sumit’s sense of duty towards his parents wouldn’t let him leave them in this situation, nor could he see any solution to his and Sadhana’s domestic quagmire.
Little though he knew it, Sumit had fallen prey to clinical depression, thanks to the situation at home. He had hypnotized himself into believing that Sadhana was soon going to leave him, and that she would be justified in doing so. She would probably give their son a better upbringing than he would get in this house of conflict. He would not stand in their way. Unconsciously, he started repulsing Sadhana, and even cut himself off from their son, pushing them away from what he saw as the shadows of his own misfortune.
More hurt and battered by Sumit’s behaviour than by their home situation, Sadhana started feeling that maybe it would be best to make a clean break and start life again with her infant son. Loath to bring social odium on to her parents in their orthodox community, she enlisted the help of a few friends to search for a job and accommodation in another city. The Mumbai office of one of her friends’ employers was hiring at that time. She managed to secure the job, which paid enough to enable her to make ends meet for the time being and was conveniently located near a working women’s hostel and a crèche.
However, just as she was all set to walk out of her hopeless marriage, she came up bang against the realization that life without Sumit had simply no meaning for her: that whatever she had to put up with, she would much rather live in that hell at Sumit’s side than be free of it all and without him.
In her desperation to cope and finding no concrete means to do so, Sadhana turned to the realm of the supernatural for moral support. She enrolled for courses in occult sciences and alternative healing. She was fortunate enough to find an excellent teacher and was gradually drawn into myriad avenues of spiritualism and the mysteries of the human psyche. This gave her deep insights into why Sumit had been behaving the way he had lately and started to wean him away from his negativity by spiritual means.
Having grown up regarding spiritualism as so much bunkum, Sumit resisted initially, but ultimately started responding in the face of her persistence. Gradually his feelings of unresolved guilt melted away as Sadhana was able to make him understand that his love and his presence in her life was the most important thing in her life—much more important than outings and gifts. As they came to terms with the family situation and decided to distance themselves from it mentally and emotionally, they learned to block out the actions of others.
Today they live in the same situation, but what a difference! They remain immune to the people around them, and they are able to find little joys in each other and in their son, even amidst chaos. Finding their answers in spiritualism, they are managing to raise their son as a remarkably centered child. They value each other and their small moments of happiness all the more because these have been snatched from the jaws of despair … they have found true togetherness, which no one and nothing can take away!
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