Like an Angel

Kamala Rani shifted her body with great care on the diwan in the courtyard. Around 100 kilos of overflowing flesh was difficult to manage. The September night was cool, considering the overbearing humidity of the day. As the huge farm house was surrounded by green crops and orchards, it became much better by nightfall.

Her grandson shifted restlessly on the footstool near the diwan. He was waiting for the ritual story telling session and today grandmother was making him wait unnecessarily. “Daadi, are you going to tell me the story or should I go and watch Cartoon network?” he pouted. Sighing and clucking indulgently at the tiny chit of a boy, she asked, “So what do you want to hear about? Dragons or monsters?  Or Princes or warriors? ”. “No. Those are made up stories. I want to hear a true story about heroes like Fauji Chacha who saved Nonu from the bore well. “Her grandson beamed.

Bemused Kamala looked at him. Now where would she find real life heroes? And then a thought struck her and she started to narrate, “Long time ago...”. “How long ago”?  Piped in the little brat. “Around 25 years ago”, she patiently gathered her grandson on her lap and started again. “In a village similar to this one, there lived a big zamindaar. A zamindaar is a man with lots of land, before you ask me. He had lands extending right from the railway tracks to the river Beas on the other side of the village.” As she spoke her eyes brightened and her grandson drew closer in wonder to see his grandmother so animated. And so Kamala continued.

The zamindaar had a beautiful wife, who came from a poor but educated family. What she lacked in her dowry, she made up in helping the zamindaar in making excellent business decisions and managing his labor. She maintained his accounts, hired impoverished Bihari migrants at cheap rates, for the farms the moment they landed on the platform near Beas. Grateful to find shelter and earnings the moment they landed in Punjab, the migrants toiled quietly on the fields. Over the years, the zamindaar’s lands and riches grew. His wife was beautiful even after long years of marriage and helped his business grow, even while his household ran like a well-oiled thresher. His children were taken care of by a devoted nanny and went to a good English school in the city.

The only thorn on his side was that he did not have a son. He loved his two beautiful daughters but felt all the time that a son would have made his happiness complete. His daughters would marry and leave his huge property and one day he would have to leave it to his sons-in-law. Still, he was content with his lot. He was past 40 now and his goal in life was to marry his daughters abroad – US or Canada preferably. He had seen how his daughters looked greedily at their friends from abroad and lapped up their anecdotes on how their husbands drove huge trucks called trawlers, the culture where you could wear anything and nobody would care, supermarkets filled with packed fruits, Toyota cars in every household, snow almost all year round.

As his daughters were aged only a year apart, he started looking for prospective grooms for both. Preparations were done accordingly. The Farm house was expanded and remodeled to match the opulent city houses. Interior decorators from Mumbai were called in to do the interiors. The girls were given English elocution classes and even their nanny, who was more like their friend, was also forced to attend so that she could also speak with the girls in English only. They would troop to Amritsar on weekends to see latest fashions in western wear and how the city girls wore them.

Soon, prospective families started coming in from abroad. Affluent families from Amritsar and Delhi were not discouraged if they seemed to have any connections in “foreign” countries. As the excitement mounted, the girls’ keenness to live in a foreign country changed to obsession. The elder one was more beautiful and outgoing and had high hopes of landing a groom in US or Canada. The younger one was shy and pretty in an unassuming manner but was better in her grades and would have been happy to land a groom in Middle East also.

The mother and nanny, would often sit together over household accounts and the mother would open her heart to her confidante of over fifteen years,”Kammo, Heaven forbid, if these girls do not find the grooms that they dream about. Their hearts would break. They are so delicate.” And Kammo would smile indulgently as she knew that the girls were anything but. They were strong individuals, each capable of getting what they desired. The elder one was having an affair with the village Casanova on the side, while looking for a groom. The younger one was secretly applying for a long distance university course in US, to secure her future.

Of course, Kammo did not open her mouth. She was a servant, after all even if loved by all. And then one day, all hell broke loose. A handsome NRI from Canada, came to see the younger one for marriage, but literally bumped into the elder one on his way in, while she was on her way out to meet her paramour. Immediately smitten by her charms, he refused to even see the younger daughter and offered for the elder daughter.

The younger one was humiliated beyond words but soon resigned herself to her fate. The elder one was ecstatic. The groom was handsome, had a supermarket in Canada and apparently rolled in money. But she did not reveal anything to her lover and kept on meeting him secretly. One misty December morning, she stole out of the house to meet him at the sheds near the railway platform and decided to end her relation with him. After all only a fortnight was left before she got married and flew off to Canada. She told Kammo she would be back in a couple of hours. 

Hours passed and she did not return. Kammo got very worried and set out to check the railway sheds where she knew the lovers used to meet. She was not there. Kammo then informed the mother about the elder daughter’s absence. Soon the entire household was searching discreetly for the elder daughter. Had the news of her absence slipped out, it would have been a major scandal in the village and the family’s “honor” would have been seriously compromised.

They found her decapitated body on the railway tracks, which ran parallel to the mustard fields. She may have been walking on the periphery of the fields which was built of mud, separating the tracks from the crops, when she would have slipped and fallen. But the younger daughter soon divulged the secret as she feared that her sister’s lover had murdered her out of spite or anger.

The predictable happened - the Casanova disappeared without a trace the next day from the village and was found days later in a ditch. The groom and his family were told a very convenient lie of the bride-to-be dying of a bout of dengue. The younger daughter was offered in marriage and the groom, relented although he was still not very keen on the younger daughter.

After a simple no-frills wedding, the bride and groom flew to Canada. The zamindar’s wife pined away for her daughters – the elder one had been the apple of her eye. The nature of her death and the blow to their family honor had wounded her deeply. With the younger one also gone far away, she sank into depression. She had no interest in the household or the fields any more. Kammo tried to talk her out of her gloom but to no avail. Finally, she approached the zamindar and pleaded with him to take her mistress to a good doctor in the city before she died.

The zamindar pulled himself out of his own grief and started consultations with various doctors in the city. Kammo supported him by efficiently running the household in her mistress’s absence. But all the efforts failed and Kammo’s mistress slowly inched towards her end. The zamindar was overcome by misery. First his daughter and then wife had been so cruelly taken away by Fate. He took to drinking heavily. Kammo’s pleas to pay attention to the lands and business fell on deaf ears. He left practically all such matters to Kammo, who thanks to her years of training with her mistress could handle everything.

The younger daughter arrived from Canada to attend her mother’s funeral. She was heavily pregnant with her first child and despite all warnings by the doctors had come to pay her last respects to her mother. Kammo persuaded her to stay on and deliver her first child in her parents’ home. After all this is what her mother also would have wanted. The city hospital was booked for the delivery and the zamindar prepared for big celebrations, having stayed away from his drinking to welcome his grandson.

The grandson decided to arrive unexpectedly in the middle of the night. Bumping on the village roads, the zamindar drove his daughter and Kammo to the city hospital. But the uneven roads had taken their toll. The daughter delivered a still born boy and hemorrhaged copiously. The doctors were in a tizzy trying to save the only child of such a rich man. Soon delirium set in and the daughter was repeatedly heard saying, “pariyaan waang” – Like an Angel. Nobody could understand what she meant. She died on the hospital bed with these words on her lips.

The zamindar sunk into depression. His happiness had been stolen away forever from him by the jealous Gods and he had nothing to live for. His life became one big drinking binge where Kammo was the only link to sanity. As his condition deteriorated, he leaned emotionally and later physically into Kammo. She was for all matters like his wife. And when Kammo announced one day that she was pregnant with his child, he solemnized his relation with her legally. Sadly, he did not survive to see his son being born. He passed way when Kammo was seven months pregnant.

Kammo continued to be the sole owner of the properties and the business grew further under her guidance. And she had her family then lived happily ever after.

When Kamala finished the story with this line, her grandson stayed quiet for a few minutes and then asked her, “But who is the hero in this story, Grandma?” “Why, it is Kammo, of course, my child “. “How is that, Grandma?” “She kept her mouth shut all the time and kept out of trouble. She knew that the elder daughter was “dishonoring” her family with her affair with the village Romeo, but did not say anything. Had she told anybody, the daughter would have been killed and she would have been thrown out anyways. She had seen the younger daughter follow her sister, on that fateful winter morning, and had followed them both, anticipating trouble. She saw the two sisters skip delightedly along the periphery, swaying the ends of their dupatta like the wings of an angel and thought the sisters were enjoying themselves. She was shocked when she saw the younger daughter push her sister on the path of an incoming train and laugh when her beheaded body lay on the tracks. Still, she did not utter a word and ran back to the house.

The image of the two sisters skipping along the edge of the mustard fields, pretending to be angels, kept on recurring in her dreams but she kept her secrets to herself, even when the poor boy, supposed to be the elder daughter’s lover was murdered for no reason. She knew that the younger daughter was tormented by the same image of angels, when she thrashed in her delirium but did not say anything at all even then.”

“But Grandma, was this the right thing to do? Had she told her mistress how her younger daughter had killed her elder sister, the family would have been saved from ruin.” The young lad asked indignantly. She smiled, “Yes, but if Fate has decided that the family should be ruined, it would happen anyways. And a servant’s place is not to get into the matters of her master’s family. And most important, my darling, if she had told everybody everything, how would have Kammo become Kamala Rani, the richest land owner among the surrounding five villages?”