December 1957 Gowri felt restless when she heard happy voices and noises coming from her uncle’s house. She wished she could go over and join in their merriment, but she had to finish her housework first. Almost all the women in the family circle were already there. Some were working, others were not, but all sounded full of joy because her cousin – Mailupody’s eldest daughter – had reached puberty that day. Mailupody, the elder brother of Gowri’s father Nadesan, had a naturally powerful voice, accustomed to commanding others. It was a mark of how special the occasion was to him that his voice was a little louder than usual. It seemed as though he was trying to tell the whole world the good news, as well as bossing everyone in the house around. ‘No wonder he’s happy,’ Gowri thought. Saratha, according to tradition, had become a woman. Gowri had woken up in the morning to the whooping, repeated thrice, through which the women were signalling the happy event to the village. The message was, ‘Listen, all of you, our daughter Saratha is no longer a little girl’. The news had created a jolly atmosphere. To a Hindu family like theirs, a young girl reaching puberty was a special occasion, to be celebrated with friends and relations. Uncle Mailar (as Mailupody was usually known) had already planned that his 10 daughter’s womanhood would be celebrated more magnificently than that of anyone else in the village, since he was the village head. Mailupody owned more land than anyone else in the village. He was always looking for a chance to display his wealth and status. How could he throw away this opportunity? ‘Today, Auntie Sathya will be very happy, too,’ Gowri thought. Uncle Mailar’s wife Sathya was a beautiful woman from another village. She always did what her husband told her. Her uncle and aunt had always been proud of Saratha’s elegance and beauty. She was the best-looking girl in the village. There were five stages in the life of a woman, Gowri had learnt from her Grandma. The first stage is infancy, lasting only until the age of five. Her cousin Saratha had now left the second stage, girlhood, behind. Gowri’s parents had left for the paddy field very early that morning, before Saratha’s news was announced. Her grandmother had gone to Uncle Mailar’s house at once. She had not yet returned. Almost all the housework was left to Gowri, and she had plenty to do. Grinding chillies, husking rice, chopping firewood – all had to be finished before she could join the celebration at her cousin’s house. The sky had been dull since dawn; there had been no sunshine. It was December. The monsoon was approaching. When Gowri looked upwards, she could tell from the way the clouds moved that the rains were coming soon. Sometimes they would continue for days. River Thillai would break its barriers and start to flow towards the village, causing damage. Mud huts would be destroyed, paddy fields swamped with mud. 11 She could see the river from her house. It seemed swollen. Debris from the hills and jungle, tea estates and distant villages floated past. Flowers of many colours, branches from trees lay stranded on the banks. Any day now, the river could break from its course, flood the fields and cut off communication with neighbouring villages. This frightened the villagers, most of whom had only a few days’ food stored. Grandma hated the heavy rains. She would often talk about how the Gal Oya dam, the biggest in Ceylon, according to her, would overflow and destroy the villages around it. ‘These modern men are trying to hold everything in check by building barriers and dams, but when Nature’s on the rampage nothing can stop it. What will happen when the heavy rains come and the river flows over the top of the dam or it falls down?’ She would answer her own questions; she might be confused about many things but not about that. ‘Hey, Gowri, have you husked the rice yet?’ Grandma called from Saratha’s house. Gowri hurried to finish the work. She placed the sack on the earthen floor, to prevent the grains from getting mixed up with the sand, and pounded the rice. Because there was no sun to dry the rice, it was moist; breaking the husks off the grains seemed almost impossible. If Gowri did not husk the rice thoroughly, she would have to listen to one of her grandmother’s complaints. Grandma would keep up a never-ending flow of words; even in her sleep she would mumble about something. Gowri stopped pounding for a while when she saw her cousin Ragu, Saratha’s brother, and some other young men approaching along the narrow lane. Perhaps they were looking for a healthy, young areca nut tree to cut a branch for 12 Saratha’s ceremony. Gowri turned when she heard the cackle of an old man next to her. It was Grandma’s brother Palipody, who had only a few stained teeth left and numerous wrinkles on his face. His laughter sounded like empty tins being rattled by a child. She knew that he might crack a joke. The old man was outrageous. After a few cups of pungent liquor bought from the town or brewed in illicit stills, he would tell vulgar jokes. If anyone tried to reprove him, he would become even cruder. The old man sat on the broken trunk of a coconut tree, laughing for no apparent reason. His verti, a large rectangle of cloth wrapped several times around his waist, was bunched up; he wore nothing underneath to conceal his private parts. Ragu arrived with his friends. ‘Hey, what are you all doing?’ old Palipody asked one of the young men who arrived with Ragu. ‘Trying to pluck some good unspoiled branches for your girlfriends, eh?’ The young men did not reply, but stopped near the well, where sturdy areca nut trees grew plentifully. Some of the youths gazed in dismay at the slippery bark, wet from the rain which had fallen the previous day. If they had been from the caste whose task it was to tend palms, they would have had little difficulty in clambering up nimbly. But who could ascend with speed and grace? The old man began to sing: People can hear the happy song, ringing out from far away, for a man’s been waiting for a girl who’s become a woman today. 13 The young men laughed. One of them, Rajah, tucked the cotton kilt-like lungi about his thighs. He began to climb the tree to cut off a branch laden with areca-nuts for today’s ceremony. It was the tradition that it was a girl’s future husband who fetched the branch that would be placed over the brass water-pot as a good omen in her house on the day she reached puberty; her family had usually selected her prospective bridegroom before she became an adolescent. Gowri remembered that, every time someone had teased the local girls about their future partners, Rajah’s name had been linked with her own. ‘Wait and see, Saratha, I’ll tell you who cut off the branch for you today,’ Gowri promised herself silently. Another of Gowri’s cousins, Buvana, had reached puberty the previous month. She had been the butt of jokes by Saratha and others, who had hinted broadly that Ragu was connected with Buvana in villagers’ gossip. Gowri was almost old as Saratha and Buvana. Soon she, too, would have her first period. What would happen to her then? According to local custom, young women were not allowed to go to school after they reach their puberty. A few, who were progressive and had money, stayed at the boarding school in the town to continue their studies. But Gowri’s family, though forward-thinking, was not prosperous enough to send their adolescent daughter to this school. She had dreamed of growing up to be like her teacher, Punitha, but their family clung to the old ways, especially Grandma, who was against education for girls. Saratha, Gowri and Buvana were her granddaughters. Last month she 14 had stopped Buvana from going to school. Now she would tell Uncle Mailar to stop Saratha from going. Then what would happen to Gowri? The prospect of a future without education, without any chance of emulating Punitha, saddened Gowri. Her misery, and the fine red dust which flew from the chillies she was grinding, made her cough and cry. If her dreams had to stop when she reached puberty, she would rather not become a woman. She became a little annoyed at Saratha’s timing. Why could she not have waited until the first term of the new year to start her periods? It would have been more difficult for Grandma to stop them then. It was now December. Gowri felt as if her cousin had let her down. Gowri poured the chilli powder from the wooden mortar. The voices and sounds near the well told her that the young men were not succeeding in getting the branch they wanted. When she raised her head, she saw the local clothes-washer, dhobi Nagan, taking bright silk sarees from his pile of clean clothes to festoon the house where the happy event was taking place. She reminded herself that she had to hurry. Firewood had to be chopped before she went to Uncle Mailar’s house. ‘Be careful with the rice, don’t break it into pieces!’ Grandma yelled. Gowri could see Grandma was approaching and smiling at Palipody. ‘Well, now we’ve only got to wait for Gowri’s big day,’ the old man said to his sister. ‘Then, all three of your granddaughters will have to stay safe indoors until you find 15 some young men for them to get hitched up with.’ He made his usual tin-like noise as he giggled. ‘What are you laughing at? What’s so funny?’ Gowri did not hide her distaste for his remarks. He would grin for no reason, laugh at anything. She could not remember the last time she saw him sober. Somehow, he would find something to drink to keep him happy. Arrack was distilled from the fermented milk of the coconuts which grew abundantly nearby. Perhaps Uncle Mailar had given Palipody some and it had gone to his head, so that he could not keep his nearly toothless mouth shut. ‘What is the matter with you?’ Grandma demanded. ‘Why are you so cross? All he said is that girls have to stay at home when they become women.’ Gowri wished she did not have to listen to or look at them. She stated firmly, ‘We are going to carry on going to school.’ Grandma and her brother Palipody laughed loudly, derisively. Underneath that dull, drizzling sky the loud laughter seemed out of place. Gowri knew that Grandma had no respect for women who studied or went out to work. The world in which she had grown up had been strict and limited. None of her friends had sought fulfilment beyond their own fences after they reached puberty. Young women of her generation had to wait until they were married for the freedom to venture out of their homes. This was the tradition which she had been brought up to accept unquestioningly, and which Grandma had imposed on Buvana when she reached puberty. Now, Grandma was concerned with seeking the advice of astrologers on the girls’ future and their prospective 16 husbands. How could she understand Gowri’s ambition of going to college and aspiring to a different kind of life? No wonder she guffawed! The old man and Grandma resumed their conversation, but it was interrupted by the noisy banter of the young men. Gowri noticed their cousin Shiva was among them, his face flushed. She knew the reason but could tell nobody. However, it was not easy to keep a secret in the village. How long would it be, she wondered, before people noticed Shiva’s bicycle passing back and forth along the lane near Saratha’s house with no obvious purpose? Almost all the parents in the village were worried to distraction about finding ‘proper’ husbands for their daughters; reputable young men from respectable family backgrounds who had good jobs. Who had time to be bothered about young women’s education? ‘You are cleaning that rice carefully, aren’t you, Gowri?’ She looked up. Shiva stood by her, a bright smile on his face. His handsome looks would go well with Saratha’s beauty. Although he lived a few lanes away, he studied in Batticaloa town, returning to the village only at weekends and holidays. She felt too awkward to look at him or talk to him. ‘Hey, you!’ Old Palipody gripped Shiva’s shirt and told him, ‘It’s up to you to cut the branch for your cousin’s ceremony. You’re the right one to marry her.’ The young man was dragged towards the tree by the old man and other young men. Shiva gazed up at the towering trunk, and around it at the onlookers watching expectantly. ‘Oh, no, it’s too slippery,’ he said, clearly reluctant to make the attempt. 17 The old man laughed, then changed his expression to one of severity. ‘Look here, my lad,’ he barked, ‘this is our tradition, if you want to marry the girl, it has to be you who provides the branch of areca-nuts for the ceremony.’ ‘Well...’ Shiva mused, but did not finish his sentence. ‘Young man,’ Palipody said, ‘if you aren’t capable of doing your duty, then strangers may start coming from outside our village to take our women away.’ The others laughed at Shiva. Suddenly, he tucked up his lungi and began to climb. It was funny to watch though Gowri pretended not to notice. Ragu joined in the crowd’s merriment at the efforts of Shiva, who kept struggling up and then slipping down. ‘Think about the young woman who is going to be happy to hear that you cut the branch for the ceremony,’ the old man advised; ‘then you will have the strength to do it.’ Maybe he was right. Shiva reached the top and lopped off a fresh, healthy branch. Pleased, Grandma took it, congratulating Shiva on his courage in climbing the slippery areca palm.