Songs For Sighing

By H. Ronken Lynton

jennifer and purnima were as different as eggs and quiche. one was an orphan villager who lost her entire family in a mudslide that destroyed her village. threatened with honor killing for marrying a man from her village, the couple flee to a major city and blend in there. purnima had never stepped inside a schoolroom but, learning from the children in her care, she made herself literate. the other was an american college graduate whose husband's job took them to India. they had more in common than either of them ever understood, and they bonded quickly. the time during which their lives entwined was marked by births, life-threatening illness, adoption of an Indian child by americans, the added burden of grumpy old women. When the time came that their lives took different paths, jennifer went through a kidnapping, ransom demands, and unexpected kindnesses. purnima braved the hardship of wresting a living from a few unpromising acres. each went forward made stronger by what she had learned from talking with the other and observing her. each adapted those lessons, more or less consciously, to her ongoing life. "the dove croons country tunes, the nightingale serenades."

• Language: English
• Publisher: H. Ronken Lynton
• Release date: Nov 15, 2013
• ISBN: 9781310357060

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SONGS FOR SIGHING

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H. RONKEN LYNTON

Smashwords edition, copyright 2013

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"The dove croons country tunes, the nightingale serenades."

Sufis of the Deccan, 1501-1750

by M.Z.A. Shakeb

Chapter 1

Karuna

Silimet Hamlet, South India

June 1940

It’s a blessing, it’s a blessing, this rain is a blessing, ten year old Karuna repeated to herself over and over, timing her steps to its rhythm in the effort to keep going. She paused a moment to rest her legs. I wish it would go bless someplace else for a while. Although the rain pounded holes in the banana leaf she was holding over her head with both hands, she clung to the shreds, as much for the courage to go on as for any protection they could still deliver.

It’s a blessing, she repeated, but I wish it would stop. Seems like it means to rain forever. She had been relieved when the pre-monsoon showers broke the intense heat. The first drops splashing in the dust always brought a heady scent that promised good for everyone. She had danced in the street, along with all the others in her village, celebrating the first real monsoon rain. But now it had gone on for nearly three weeks without any let-up of the incessant pounding. The noise of the storm on the tin roof that marked their house as one of the most prosperous in the village meant they had to shout to be heard and so attempted to speak only about the most important matters. The walls became musty, clothes felt damp, the flour crawled with weevils, the rice smelled bad, food from the garden in their tiny compound grew moldy almost before it could be cooked. Not a single glimpse of the sky for more than fifteen days.

Stop complaining, her father ordered. You should be thankful for this water. A good monsoon means a good harvest, and that means we’ll eat this winter.

Yes, sir. That’s good, very nice.

You might as well be useful, girl. Go to the bazaar and collect our government ration. The government had established a system of rationed rice at subsidized prices to protect the poor from extortion during periods of shortages. Each household was allotted one ration card for a definite amount. If we’re not there when it comes in, her father continued, someone will make off with it and we’ll go hungry.

There would have been no question of father going, since he had lost part of one foot, which made him limp. He had been known as the best man to climb a coconut tree, the fastest up and with the longest reach to cut off ripe fruit. But one day he had just reached the ground again after grueling hours up and down, all through their village. A less skilled man who had been in the next tree decided to make the descent easy for himself and dropped his knife without looking down to be sure the way was clear. It landed on her father’s foot, neatly amputating the front third of it. Infection had prolonged the healing, and when he could stand again, he hobbled with a foot that no longer bent.

Climbing trees was out of the question. Fortunately, he was respected in the village and was elected sarpanch at the next election. The sarpanch, head of the village panchayat (local governing body), was an important person, everyone knew that. Hearing all the yes, sirs and Quite right, your honors with which they spoke to her father, Karuna sometimes entertained a secret thought that a little help in their field, especially at planting time, would be more respectful.

If their mother had been alive, she would have gone to collect the ration. That was not usually women’s work, but Father could no longer walk that far. Since Karuna was the oldest child in the family, it fell to her to collect the rice ration and whatever else the kitchen needed that they did not grow at home. Fortunately, before his accident father had earned enough to buy local bricks and build them a solid home with a tin roof. That too was solid, except for the pinhole which let in sunshine that looked like a golden five rupee coin lying on the floor. The only gold they would ever see. But it was days since there had been enough sunshine to give them that coin.

At her father’s words, Karuna had glanced out the open doorway at the wall of water, so dense that if someone were passing in the street she might not see them, then back at the pans set around to catch the drips that had just today started through their roof. New leaks could be expected during monsoon, but not usually at her house. Perhaps the pounding had shifted the tin sheets enough to admit the drops. When her father spoke, she had been busy emptying those pans. Yes, father. You’re saying I must go now?

Now. You want to eat, don’t you? Here’s the rupees for that. Mind you don’t lose any of them; tie them into your dupatta. You’ll drop some if you carry them in your hand. It wouldn’t hurt if you could bring yourself to haggle a bit for our ration.

Doesn’t the government decide how much the rationed rice should cost?

It does, and you make sure that rascal doesn’t charge you a paise (small coin, though it sometimes appeared in fractions: a pai was the smallest coin) more for it. Just remember I’ll be doing the figuring when you get back. Then, seeing her face, he softened. Here. Take this knife and go cut yourself a leaf off the banana plant to protect you. Bring the knife back in before you go.

Karuna had set out, knowing that a shawl would be useless after the first minute’s soaking. She was grateful for the banana leaf, though it took both hands to hold it over her head. Shoulders scrunched up to get as much of her as possible within that protection, she plodded on, aware of the increasing amount of energy it took to pull her feet out of the mud that sucked them down at each step. Arriving at the creek, normally not much more than a trickle, she hesitated for a moment, surveying the broad river it had become, before wading in. It was not yet above her knees. For that at least she could thank Ganesh, her favorite deity, whom she trusted to guide her to success on this important errand. If the water was any deeper on the walk home, she would balance the rice on her head to keep it dry. She could do that; it was the way of villagers.

With relief she gained the further bank and clambered out of the rapidly moving water. Not much further now to the shop. A crowd of people had pushed into its shelter. Karuna, accustomed to notice smell only when it was the fragrance of blossoms in her garden or fragrance from her cooking pots that told whether the contents were fully cooked, felt smacked in the face at the very entrance by the odor of wet and musty clothes worn by sweating people.

She took a deep breath before pushing in and trying to establish a space among all those others who were also hoping to get rationed rice. Taking advantage of her small size, she was occasionally able to squeeze under the gesticulating arm of the man who had crowded her out and resume her place. The cacophony of voices almost drowned out the noise of the rain on the tin roof, grumbling, angry, complaining voices, relating bits of news about the rain or the transport bringing the expected allotments that often contradicted the news another voice had just uttered with confidence.

Finally, as Karuna began to wonder how much longer her legs would hold her up, a man appeared at the front of the shop and shouted for silence. A runner has just arrived, he said, not wasting any breath on niceties, with the news the truck carrying the rice has broken down. No hope it will arrive for at least another day.

Anything more he added to that stark announcement was drowned out by the chorus of angry protests, wails of disappointment, hunger, and fatigue. As relieved at the chance to get home now as she was fearful of what her father would say when she returned empty-handed, Karuna slipped through the crush of bodies surging forward as though to attack the messenger or to deny the news. It’s not true, someone shouted to murmurs of agreement spreading through the crowd. "It has to come. Government promised. The banias just want to trick us to go home so they can grab the whole shipment." Bania was a sub-caste consisting mostly of money lenders famed for extracting interest that would make certain the borrower could never pay off his loan. Defaulting debtors became bonded (unpaid) laborers to work off their debts. A trickle of fear ran down Karuna’s spine at the accusation. Young as she was, she had heard of riots and killings in the village when one caste set upon another.

At the entrance, Karuna hesitated for a moment before once more plunging into the downpour. A man whose dripping clothes showed that he had just arrived spoke to her in a kindly voice. Where you off to, daughter?

Home. No use waiting here any longer.

And where may home be?

Silimet hamlet.

Are you daft, girl? You can’t get there now. Didn’t you hear the dam at Nanguda gave way? The creek’s a proper river now. Not even a strong man could cross it, the way it’s running.

Karuna crumpled. What can I do?

Stay here the night. There’ll be plenty of company here. See those women over there with the children? You better go join them.

In fact it was two days, two long hungry days of unceasing downpour, before any of them who lived on the other side of the creek could think of risking it. Several times men ventured out; some of those who lived on this side of the creek so they didn’t have to try to cross apparently succeeded in getting away, for they did not return. Others gave up and rejoined the waiting crowd. Karuna spoke little with the others; at first she tried to help by playing with the smaller children, but they were fussy from the gnawing in their stomachs. By the second day she felt too weak to try.

She knew the mothers would have shared their food if they had any, but they were as unprepared as she for this long enforced wait. They all just sat and cracked their knuckles in their anxiety. No one mentioned their fears for what was happening at home, mud houses melting in the downpour, the flours and grains, precious even though moldy, washing away, small children succumbing to the fever. To speak these fears aloud would make them seem more real and possibly even bring them about. Better to keep silent.

Karuna knew she had no chance of crossing on her own, despite her recurring fears of what her father would do when she arrived without the rice. Since that first announcement, no one had even speculated on when the truck might arrive. Getting back to their village was everyone’s preoccupation now.

On the third day, word spread that the crest had passed and it was now reasonable to attempt a crossing. Frantic to reach home, Karuna was in the forefront of those hurrying toward the river, hoping with desperate hope that the rumor was true. At its banks, however, she paused, gathering courage to venture into what was still fast-moving water, when a group of men surged past her. Quickly, before they could leave her behind, she joined them, aware that if she could stay in the middle of them she would be safe from the current and the flotsam it bore seaward. Several times she slipped on a rock or something unrecognizable under the flood but managed to maintain her balance and her place in the crowd.

Clambering up the other side, the group dispersed with no word to anyone. Only Karuna turned left, sloshing through the water covering what she hoped was the path. Every now and again she grasped the branches of trees that lay across the path to help make her way over or around them; the sodden soil had been unable to hold them and they fell of their own weight. Occasionally a cart lay on its side, its pony or bullock having been set free to wander off. Stones she could not remember being there now blocked her way.

Worst of all, the closer she got to her hamlet the more devastation she found: roofs fallen in, mud houses with one wall melted away so that the thatch leaned at a crazy angle as though trying to become a wall. If anyone still sheltered under that heap, she could not see them. She had not seen a living soul since she parted from the men at the river bank. Despite the fatigue that made her long to lie down in the mud and give up, she pressed on, increasingly anxious about what she might find. A hungry family? Wet, cold, crying little boys? A father impatient with the little ones for whom he could do nothing, or angry with her for not returning with supplies? Occasionally tears mixed with the rain on her face, tears that arrived of their own bidding, for she could neither have explained them nor stopped them.

The whole way, when she was not occupied finding footholds in the mud, she thought of the way her father had admonished her about the rice. He would be angry with her. He had never beaten her or punished her physically, but he had other ways of making her feel guilty and miserable. Please don’t be angry, father. There wasn’t any rice. I had to stay until the river had crested and the water was lower. The rice never arrived. I came as quickly as possible. Truly I did. Please don’t be angry with me. Bits of this future conversation floated through her mind as she walked, unconnected pieces, over and over, like the refrains in the storytellers’ chants.

When she finally found what must be her home compound, the reality that faced her was even worse than the fearful possibility that had driven her. Her house, the strong structure that had defined her world, was not there. Not even the banana plant from which she had cut the leaf that was to be her umbrella. It was the best house in the village. How could it just disappear? What could have happened to it? Oh, Lord Ganesh, where were you when this happened? Tell me you took the house to keep it safe!

Staring wildly around, she spied at some distance down the slope a heap of crude bricks piled around and partly on top of a sheet of corrugated tin that might have been from their roof. Other bricks, even the half-exposed cover of a cooking pot. lay scattered around it, while more heaps of mud and thatch suggested the whole neighborhood lay there. All were partly covered by the mudslide that had moved them, like her house, from their positions.

Transfixed by the horror, she stood trying to understand what had become of the family she had last seen under that tin roof. Then she saw it, saw a foot, a man’s foot, sticking out from under the heap of rubble. A big foot with no toes. It must have been there for at least a day, for the rain had begun to clean the mud from the broken house but had washed it up around the foot until it was nearly covered. Her little brothers had been at home with their father, so they were gone, too. She was alone now. Without warning, the shakes seized her and her body trembled so violently she collapsed onto the muddy slope.

One idea moved into her mind, which was too numb to think, and sat there like a dim lamp. It was a return to the refrain she had chanted on her way home. Now father can’t punish me for not bringing the rice. Involuntarily she raised her hands in a pleading gesture. I was a good girl, Father, she wailed, and the tears came, great gulping sobs that washed down her face, more bitter than the rain. I tried, I tried.

When she calmed down, her thoughts turned back to the day her mother died. Only six, she had been sent outside by those women who crowded around her mother’s bed, arguing about what to do for the patient who was too weak to protest. Karuna had sat forlornly on the charpoy her father had just deserted, summoned to come in to his wife. Karuna knew that summons meant that her mother was dying.

She sat frozen with conflicting emotions: grief for the mother she had loved and helped mixed with fear of what this meant for her. Too numb for tears, her body did the grieving for her; she trembled so that the charpoy on which she sat rocked. It seemed like she’d sat there long enough to boil a big pot of rice, but in fact presently two neighbor women detached themselves from the crowd inside. Have you watered the tulsi plant this morning? one of them asked her. When she nodded the woman said, Good. Then go say your prayers to Ganesh.

Because you’re going to need him, the second woman chimed in.

It was not long before she knew why they spoke that way. As soon as she returned from the temple, her father came out. She’s gone, he said simply. Now it’s up to you.

Karuna instinctively joined the keening women in the house, for she had known immediately what the news meant: her childhood was over. No more lolloping across the fields, one of the younger ones bouncing on her hip, shrieking with joy or with excited fear. No more rounding up the goats with Gopal, or beating him at hopscotch on the pattern they scratched in the dirt. Simple joys replaced by unrelenting duties. No good to protest. Nothing but fate to be angry at, and giving in to that would only count against her in her next life.

Too early, she had to assume a woman’s role. Too soon. She could mourn in silence as she went about her tasks, yearn to be out with Gopal when she heard him call to his goats. Even those quiet thoughts had been treacherous, however, for the distraction they constituted could lead her to put an extra handful of flour into the chappatis she was mixing to cook for their next meal and then she would have to add more of everything, a waste. Already she felt guilty when her father criticized the quality of the food she served him.

Now the family she had taken care of was gone. All gone. Four years she had taken care of them, done her best to bring the babies up properly. Four years, all wasted. It would have been better if she had died on the way back from the ration shop, as she had more than once thought was to be her end. All alone. What could she do?

As she sat with her head between her knees, wet hair falling over her face, a ball of pure misery, she felt a touch on her shoulder, and a man’s voice said, Aren’t you the Sarpanch’s girl? Unable to raise her head, Karuna merely nodded. Aargybaargy, and them under the mud! Only you left here. Come along. I saw your uncle Laxman this morning. You better live with his family now.

Dumbly she stood up and, without even trying to smooth out her lunga-jacket or brush off the layers of brown mud, followed him. Karuna, Laxman, her father’s brother, exclaimed on seeing her. You’re alive! It’s really you, isn’t it? It’s a miracle. You must have done good things in your previous life, to escape the mud in this one.

Still too stunned to reply, Karuna could only stand hanging her head, wringing her hands. Her uncle got the message.

Well, that’s the way it is. Come. My good wife will be glad to have an extra hand with the babies. We’ll make you a mattress after the monsoon is over. Meanwhile, we still have some grass mats to sleep on.

That’s good, Chacha. Even in her stunned condition, Karuna remembered to give her uncle his proper title denoting his position in the family.

She lived with them for four years. Chacha never gave any hint that he resented having another mouth to feed, someone not even one of his own children. He was gentle with her, as her crippled father had not been, though she pushed that thought away as though disloyal. Chachi too was kind. She expected Karuna to work alongside her, but that was fair. Karuna learned a lot just by watching her aunt, and when she tried to do something on her own, Chachi would smile and show her how to do it better. Karuna’s father had regularly complained that the chappatis she made were not tender; now Chachi showed her that the problem was not in the way she mixed the dough but in her baking. She learned to produce chapppatis as succulent as Chachi’s own.

Indian women judge whether the rice is properly cooked by the scent it produces. Karuna had known this and made a stab at it from the time she had to take over all responsibilities for feeding her father and young brothers. She knew her timings had improved, but Chachi made her decide at each meal whether the rice was ready; when she pronounced it ready too soon, Chachi told her what quality was missing in the aroma, or snatched the pot from the fire when it threatened to overcook.

Whenever she was not busy at the cooking fires, Karuna listened to the songs Chachi sang to the little ones, and the stories about the gods and goddesses she told those old enough to take them in. I cheated my brothers, Karuna thought to herself.