The Monsoons Are Almost Here by Shrutidhora P Mohor
Photo by Pixabay for Pexels
TW: Domestic abuse
I think I can still remember the day when I had flowed out of my little home.
It was the day my husband had come home for the fifth time in two weeks with a basket full of mud and sand.
When he had flung the basket on the courtyard the semi-dried sticky mud had fallen on the ground like tadpoles. The sand had spread far, right under the row of the half-broken plastic buckets lined up one side.
That had also been the day, I think, when Babita chaachi next door had given birth to her seventh child, a daughter in the hope of a second son.
Two days from then the Maha Sankraanti puja would begin in the village. The idol had been completed.
I had wriggled out of the tiny door, slithering down the steps and zigzagging the courtyard through the series of scattered tadpoles, by now as stiff as a week-old cow dung. I had carefully made my way through those, keeping myself suitably slim and unseen. The only thing that had noticed me had been the calf, some weeks old then. Its pink ears had tweaked in through the bamboo fencing and it had taken a step back as it had seen me silently trickle out of the gate, pause for a moment, decide the direction of my journey, and flow further on.
As I had moved ahead I had let myself grow in size. Swelling like my husband’s big toe when it had been bitten by poisonous red ants one day soon after our marriage, I had pushed my sides to make more space for myself and surged on. A few of our neighbours had sighted me but had not exactly noticed me or my growing size. They must have mistaken me for a stray mark, the kind that spills out of over-filled pitchers, remains visible for some time before being sucked in by the scorching heat of this gravelled soil.
I writhe in discomfort. I stretch myself to tear apart the seams of the concrete ribcage installed upon me. I shake, I roll, I tumble in places but the binding is unmovable. It does not budge one bit. I remain tightly held. The pipal tree next to my waistline bends down at times when there is a sudden gush of a wind and catches a partial glimpse of its face on my rippling body. Occasionally one of its brown leaves, dry and rough, falls on me and stays afloat. I caress it with my moist fingers. A blob of water settles on its protruding veins. I attempt to pull it towards me, closer…closer…come…it floats away, in unconscious disregard.
—————
“Come closer, will you?” My husband’s sore fingers ran down my belly. “Why are you so stiff?”
“My back hurts. It’s a long walk every day. If only we had a well close by, or the river flowed closer to the village…”
“I sail a long distance too every day. The oars are heavy.”
“So are the buckets of water.”
“That’s what all the women of the surrounding villages do. You do what everyone else does.”
So do you. You aren’t the only fisherman here.
I said without moving my lips. There was a lot that I said every day without opening my mouth. I don’t think he heard me.
The next morning several of us stepped out of our houses with as many buckets and pitchers and tumblers tucked under our arms and piled on our heads as we had learned to carry. It was a slow and long walk to the river. It was a slower and longer walk back to the village, the filled vessels chaining our feet.
“At least we get some time off from the kitchen!” said Ruhi.
“Hardly a relief! It means more work waits for us,” scowled Shaila.
I wiped my face with the end of my red saree. It became wet with my sweat. My shadow walked before me when we walked to the river. I liked seeing myself ahead of me. She can go where I cannot, I smiled to myself. She treads the path ahead of me, she leads, I follow. I grinned. Chukki chaachi nudged me. “Hey! Smiling all by yourself again! Don’t your folks tell you not to smile without a reason?”
“They do.” I grinned wider.
Chaachi shook her head in disapproval.
Some way ahead as we approached the river, we saw a group of men with equipment of various sorts in their hands. All of them were carrying bags and holding phones in their hands. One had a platform fixed on wheels. He was attending to a camera fitted on a structure kept on the platform. There were two dusty jeeps parked behind them. Some of the men were white skinned. The sun rays were making their arms look silvery. At Pilu’s wedding I had seen such white colour ornaments. My mother-in-law had said, “It’s silver, real silver. They are rich.”
“Let’s move away. These are outsiders.” One of us stopped and cautioned us.
“How can we? How shall we get water then?”
Kamla moved forward. She signalled at us to follow her. We looked scared and hesitated to join her.
She looked at us impatiently and whispered, “Come on! The Pradhan is here. The Gram Panchayat Pradhan. He will do us no harm. These must be his guests.”
Some of us were still uncertain. “Kamla, step back. Let’s go from the other side.”
“What? That’s another two kilometres extra!”
At this time the men noticed us. Two of them walked towards us. All of us draped our sarees even more closely to our faces. They could not see us anymore. Our shadows looked like skeletons with a saree wrapped around a black hole above each of our necks.
“Mr Dixon! These are our women from the village. Our own women! They are the lifeline of villages in India! They walk for miles every day without a single complaint on their lips to fetch water for the households.”
“Namaste!” The man raised his folded hands at all of the black holes, looking indefinitely into the void hidden inside the sarees.
We slid behind one another in confusion and unknown fear.
The men exchanged a few words among themselves. Then one of them, holding an umbrella over the Pradhan’s head, said loudly, “Here! You all stand in a line properly and pull back the saree a bit. Sir will take your photographs. There, you! Don’t hide! He is coming from far. Let him click!”
We shuffled our feet and adjusted our empty containers without showing our faces.
The Pradhan now called out.
“Hey, you women! If he can’t click your pictures how will the world know about you? If the world doesn’t come to know your struggles, how shall we get the money to bring water to your doorsteps? Come on, come on! Pose well for him.” He moved his hands to motivate us.
“Water?” My saree slipped back and fell on my shoulders showing my face to the world. I saw chaachi looking at me with her burning charcoal eyes. I ignored her. It’s water they just referred to. I couldn’t stand calm.
“Water at our doorsteps!” I clasped my hands in excitement.
“Bahu! Chup kar!” Chaachi hissed.
“Chaachi, it’s water! It’s water for all of us, they are saying!”
“Pull up the saree and stop talking to them!”
“When shall we get water at our homes?” I attempted to lift the end of my saree but it escaped my fingers.
At my query the men stopped their discussions and all of them looked at me with disbelief and amusement.
Scared, I now pulled my saree up on my head. They could see my eyes but the rest of the face was hidden.
“When will you get water at your home?” They repeated my query, distorting their voices to mimic me, and held their sides as they buckled in laughter.
I bit my lips in nervousness.
Their laughter unpacked in installments the same way as the rains come to the villages on this side of the river. We would sit in front of our courtyards in the afternoons during the monsoon and watch the trail of showers rise like a sheet of arrows from the riverbed and drive forward, shedding sacks of rain on the villages one by one. First it is the Block Office-waala gaaon, then it is the gaaon from where three teenage girls had eloped one night, next is the fasal-waala gaaon, and then finally it is ours, the fishermen’s gaaon. Babita chaachi had taught me this. “Bahu, when it starts raining there, you still have some time here to get the cattle and the clothes in. Keep a watch on the sky there.” Her index finger had pointed at the path of the showers.
I did not understand why the men were laughing. I looked at the other women. I could not see their faces. Finally one of the men explained.
“Arre bewaqoof! The Sirs have come from abroad to sanction money for the construction of a dam. The river is untamed now. It goes all over the place when the water increases. Can’t you see how much water is wasted? When there will be a dam, you will all have just as much water as you need and the rest will be utilised for industries. Samjhi?”
Too many new words, too many new ideas…
That evening while making chapaatis I cleared my throat loudly and looked around. My husband picked up the lantern and came out of the room towards the chulha. The pregnant cow had fallen asleep with her mouth inside the grain box.
He stood next to me and raised his eyebrows.
“There are men from outside. They have come to the village to build a dam on the river.” I flipped a chapaati on the kiln.
“Hmm, I know.”
“You know?”
“Shh, don’t talk so loudly! Ghar ki bahu ho, why do you yell?”
“You didn’t tell me!”
“What’s there to tell you?”
“They said they will bring water for all of us right here!”
He put the lantern down on the ground with a thud. “Water, water, water! Why do you make it such an issue? If getting water for the household is such a big deal, why don’t you make a river here yourself?” He stretched his hands angrily on the courtyard in front.
“The river water is our life. I bring you life every day!” I declared ceremoniously; my sporting spirit still high.
He snorted. “Why do you always have something to say? Do you see any other wife in the village arguing with their husbands and in-laws?” He paused and then added, “They should make a…what do they call it…a dam on you, to get you to shut up!”
I laughed out. Putting the fire out I looked at him and asked, “What if the river remains untamed all the same? What will happen to the dam then?” My eyes twinkled in usual mischief.
He looked at me without understanding. “Rubbish!”
I touched the handkerchief cover inside which the hot chapaatis were kept. The cloth was hot and wet. The smell of roasted wheat flour tickled my nose. But my dinner was a long time away. It’s them first. The men, the elders, the children. By the time I pulled out mine the cloth cover was limp and cold. Always.
This was the second time in three days that my husband had returned home at midday without a single catch. He had nothing to sell at the haat.
I looked inside the drums. There was rice and there were pulses worth a few more days of meals. The salt jar was nearly empty.
The cow was about to deliver any day now. We needed more haystacks soon.
“The fish have all gone away downstream, that’s what my father was saying. The construction work is ruining the water,” Kamla had always been the bravest and the most knowledgeable among us.
I looked at her worried.
“Can’t we talk to them?”
“About what? My father said, it’s no use. They do this everywhere.”
We needed more time these days to fetch water. The water was muddy, brown, with particles floating in it. Not all of us could fill up all our vessels either. There was just not enough for us. The longer detour also made us tired. The straight path was closed for us. Lines of machines thronged the earlier route.
“Bahu, you are quiet these days? Had a fight?” Chukki chaachi was curious.
I smiled slightly and nodded, saying no. “It’s best not to talk too much.” In my mind I was making calculations. There was a just-born calf. My mother-in-law had managed a packet of puffed rice. There were a few green chillies. The kitchen store was empty otherwise.
Chaachi looked vindicated. “There! You have finally got some sense! As wives we should not express ourselves all the time. God made the humans that way. The men will talk and work outside, the women will keep quiet and work inside. They talk because they know things!”
I started on my everyday journey to the river alone a few days from then and earlier than our usual schedule. None of the others were with me. My husband was asleep. He had a little too many drinks last night. They say liquor satiates a hungry stomach. I had a sleepless night. My hungry liquor-less stomach was singing restless tunes last night. He was smelling like a termite-infested cardboard, repulsive, soggy, silently shaking from the impact of a thousand insects gnawing away.
I arrived where the jeeps and lorries were. The landscape had changed in a few months. I could not recognise it anymore.
I looked around to spot a familiar face. The men were all busy and had no time to notice me. I walked up to a plump man and stood right in front of him. My head was uncovered. Dust particles from the construction site were flying into my hair. I scratched my nose and asked timidly, “Can I talk to the manager?”
He received a phone call and walked away.
I took some steps ahead.
“Sir, where is the manager?”
This time a thin man with a moustache heard me. “Manager?”
“Yes,” I looked at him expectedly. “Are you the manager?”
“Why do you want to see the manager?”
“What does she want?”
“Who is this?”
“She is a villager.”
“What is she doing here?”
“What do you want, you woman?” A security man marched towards me.
I stepped back.
“I want to ask him a few things.”
“Ask who?”
“The manager.”
“The manager!”
“Listen woman, the manager is a busy man. He has no time for you.”
I drew my lips inside and took a deep breath. “But he has enough time for this work which is changing our lives!”
The machines stopped. The men fell silent. Someone’s phone made a noise. The man did not receive the call though.
Seconds passed.
“You have something to say, it seems?” A tall and burly man walked towards me.
“Are you the manager?”
“Never mind who I am. What do you think you have to say?”
My liquor-less hungry stomach was singing a strange tune. I ran my hands over my belly.
“What’s the good that will come from this dam?”
He looked at me with piercing eyes. Someone gave him a chair to sit. He sat down and put up one leg over the other knee. “You seem to know a lot about dams?”
“I don’t know what a dam is. I have never seen one. But I know what good the river was before you all came in here.”
There was a horse with a stormy mane inside my stomach. I could feel it brushing against my flesh.
The horse was stamping its hooves.
“We could get clean blue water from the river here, right here, in front of me,” I indicated close to me with my fingers. “My husband and all other fishermen could get good catches from deep inside there,” I pointed towards the middle of the river. “Now we go hungry. There are no fish, no pure water, and we have to walk two kilometres more for reaching the river bank. Now you tell me, what good is the dam doing to us?”
The men shot me down with their eyes. I could feel a million bullets sprayed on me.
One of them was about to say something. The seated man stopped him by a show of his hand.
“Don’t you think you talk too much?”
“No! Where’s the question of talking too much? This is the first time I have come to meet you and only because your work is disturbing our lives. I don’t need your permission to express myself!”
The man’s eyes had a cruel colour.
“How does your husband tolerate you? Do you have one or has he left you because of your argumentative ways?”
“You didn’t answer my question. What will solve our problems? And the dam…the dam is a solution to whose problems? Clearly not ours!”
The man stood up and kicked the chair back. “Sanoj!”
“Yes Sir?”
He lowered his voice and spoke to Sanoj. All of them looked at me suspiciously. I overheard their last few words. “Let this not grow in strength. One never knows, she might be one such in disguise. Look at the way she is talking!”
“Sir,” I felt obliged to clarify. “I am only an ordinary village woman.”
“That’s what they all say at first.”
“I came to tell you about our problems. I was hoping for a solution.”
“Our? You are the only one.”
I took a moment to reply. “Even if I am the only one, my difficulties are valid all the same.”
He looked at Sanoj. “What did I say? Listen to her arguments and expressions!”
Turning towards me he said, “You know what should be done with stubborn argumentative women like you? You should be caged and nailed, strapped and handcuffed. Just like your damned river. Useless, untamed, unusable!”
I retreated a few steps. The men looked dangerous. The horse was punching the sides of my belly. I picked up the pitchers and buckets and quietly moved away.
“What took you so long?”
I arranged for a cloth to work like a sieve as I poured the water from a pitcher into a large bowl. Hopefully some of the dirt would not pass through.
“What happened? Can’t you hear me?” My husband screamed.
“I had gone to meet the men.”
“The men?”
“The dam builders, the factory builders.”
“What? There is no food at home, hungry little children, endless number of chores lying here, a hungry husband and you went to enjoy yourself with those men?”
“I went to ask them what good will the dam do to us.”
“Shut up! That’s a lie. You went to have fun.”
I moved towards the centre of the courtyard where he was standing. “Do you think getting buckets of water every day from five kilometres away is fun? Huh?”
“Bahu, chup kar! Don’t argue.” Babita chaachi was leaning over the fence and begging me. She was heavily pregnant. They were expecting a son.
“Again! Water, water, water! Have you ever heard any other wife complain?”
“I didn’t complain either. I only said that this is a work which…”
I think my head hit against a pole while I was in the middle of my sentence. I don’t exactly know how. Chaachi made a shrieking sound. Our calf hid behind its tired mother.
There was a lump on one side of my head. My husband had fallen asleep hugging a bottle of liquor. I brought my ear to his termite-eaten lips. He was mumbling something.
I sat and circled the lump with my fingers. After some time I felt a motion inside my body. I heard things inside. I looked at my limbs. They were turning crystal clear. I could feel the pressure of water circulating through my blood vessels. My body was twisting itself like a current of water. At daybreak the next morning I saw I have grown a layer of moss deep inside. There were weeds and microscopic marine life breathing inside me.
My family was still asleep. I waited for them to wake up. There was so much that I wanted to tell my husband. I must meet him once before I leave, I said to myself.
Later in the morning they were all awake but they could not see me. I suppose that is because I am too transparent, too clear to be spotted. Once in fact my husband treaded on me without realising it. I screeched but he did not hear me. I smiled secretly. This is good! I am, but they are not aware that I am. That way they could not do anything to me. They could not stop me from being me. I could express myself however I wanted.
I tried telling my husband as he passed by. “See, you told me to make a river right here to avoid hearing my complaints about bringing water, didn’t you? I have done it! Now you can fish in here…you will get good catches, fresh, alive, tasty, from deep inside…Come on, hurry up, my husband! This river is all yours though…Row, row, row the boat, gently…my husband…gently up and down the stream…”
He did not hear me.
—————
Many years later I think I can still recall that day when I had become a river.
I had bottled up all my human-ness and had mutated into a river. I had been convinced that I would have a far more fulfilling life as a river when I had observed that my words sounded more like waves and ripples. I had known for sure that what I had not been able to express as a human I would be able to communicate as a flowing body of water. One lashing wave would sum up my arguments. One forcible hit against the bank would compel others to listen to me. They would not be able to shut a river up, no, never.
Babita chaachi’s new-born had been wailing. My husband had been abusing his catch-less fishing day. My children had been tugging at their grandma’s legs, asking her to prepare a meal for them. I had roared, in low volume at first, and then loudly. They had thought it was the sky. They had looked far to see if there were black clouds in the distant sky.
“Bahu kahaan hai?” My mother-in-law had asked, irritated.
“God knows. Must have gone to seduce the men there!”
I had let one of my strong current waves bark at him in protest. No husband, that’s a wrong thing to say. An utter lie.
And then I had flowed out.
First a thread, then a trickle, next a flow, and finally a bulge.
I had travelled all the way down to the side of the river that used to flow at the far end of the village.
Handcuffed, strapped, caged it had greeted me with a faint whimper.
“Oh my poor mother river! What have they done to you!”
I had inched closer.
“Don’t! Don’t come closer. They will trap you too.”
“No way! I’ll add might to you, give you teeth and a voice. Wait.”
“Don’t. They have powerful machines.”
“More powerful than our voice?”
“Yes.”
“Impossible.”
I had risen up and emptied myself with great gusto on to the shallow river water standing still. A column of water had collapsed all together. Loud ripples had arisen in an instant.
“There you go! You are mighty again! And free! Now give the gates a push, come on!”
I writhe in discomfort. I stretch myself to tear apart the seams of the concrete rib-cage installed upon me. I shake, I roll, I tumble in places but the binding is unmovable. It does not budge one bit. I remain tightly held. The pipal tree next to my waistline bends down at times when there is a sudden gush of a wind and catches a partial glimpse of its face on my rippling body. Occasionally one of its brown leaves, dry and rough, falls on me and stays afloat. I caress it with my trapped, moist fingers.
They have handcuffed me as of now and silenced me considerably. I twist and turn. I raise my voice as much as I can. I try to break free of all shackles. I beat against the river bed producing small whirlpools. Engineers, project managers, masons, gatemen, supervisors come from time to time to measure their success in taming me. I keep still, in pain, in agony, in protest.
The monsoons are not far off though…
The showers will come in installments, unloading themselves from black clouds on one village at a time. They will embrace me and my mother river too. Their incessant pitter-patter will deafen all humans in the nearby villages. I feel restless. I move my elbows. I shake my wrists. My knees are weak from being tied up for too long. But there is always hope. I exert pressure at the sides. Even a single crack will allow me to trickle out. And that is how we all regain our voices.
And once I can leap out and express my free will won’t there be a delightful deluge?
The monsoons are only a few weeks away, mother.
Come on, mother river! One more time! Give it a push!
_______________
Glossary
Chaachi: literally, aunt; a respectful address for an older woman
Maha Sankraanti puja: a major auspicious occasion for Hindus
Pipal tree: a large tree with big fat leaves
Pradhan: Head
Gram Panchayat: village council, the most basic level of rural local government in India
Namaste: a traditional form of greeting with folded hands in India
Chup kar: shut up/be quiet (a command)
Saree: a traditional dress for adult women in India
Gaaon: village
Fasal: crops
Bewaqoof: fool (abusive)
Ghar ki bahu ho: you are a wife (indicating her position of subordination)
Haat: local village market
Bahu kahaan hai: where is the wife/daughter-in-law?
Chulha: open oven/kiln
Chapaati: flat round bread made of whole wheat
Shrutidhora P Mohor
Shrutidhora P Mohor (she/her), author from India, writes literary fiction in English. Words found in National Flash Fiction Day Flash Flood journal, Ayaskala and Fiery Scribe Review Magazine. Listed by Bath Flash Fiction Award, Retreat West.
Mohor, Faculty, Department of Political Science, St Xavier's College, Calcutta, India has a PhD in political theory and pursues intersectional feminist theory academically.