Surangi, The Child Bride

Part 68

Dear Surangi,

Considering I have always called you by that name I have no hesitation in addressing you thus. All is well here and everyone has conveyed their best wishes to you. And yes, Vidya Tai has asked me to remind you that you promised to write to her too, separately. 

It was heartening to read about your experiences on board the SS Ranchi. Gaju was very excited when I read out your description of the vessel. He declared that he wants to travel the seven seas when he grows up, whether as a passenger or as a seafarer, he does not know yet. 

I must confess that I was worried about how you may cope with your circumstances. When we were to marry Aai convinced me that I had to become, for your sake, the mother you had just lost and the sibling you never had. My eleven year old self accepted the challenge to take care of you and even today you remain my priority. I am so glad to hear that you are managing well. I hope you continue to nurture both the body as well as the mind, enriching the latter with the myriad experiences that lie ahead. 

My duties at the hospital take up most of my time, but I have also waited each day to see if there was any mail from you. And finally when I did get your letter it was frustrating to have to wait all day to be able to read it without anything else needing my attention.

My dear girl, you have always been the more romantic of us, and your love sickness is quite characteristic of that quality. When I left our village to come to Bombay, hoping to become a doctor, I gave up the chance to see you blossom from a school girl in your pigtails into a self-aware and confident young woman. Maybe it was better that I missed the metamorphosis. The new Surangi that I am writing to knows very well what she wants in life and has no inhibitions about expressing her desires. Had you been around me all the time I would have been too distracted to have made it to medical school! Does that make me sound conceited? Perhaps it does.

I wish I could describe my own ardor with  intensity but it would probably come across as insincere. I can only say that I have unfolded and reread your letter over a dozen times. Each time I do so our childhood years run through my memories like a bolt of pure satin unfolding itself. 

The first time I set my eyes on you I could hardly believe I was marrying the little girl who looked like she had been bundled into her first ever saree. Both of us avoided looking at each other meticulously, merely following instructions given by the elders. You continued to ignore me even when I made a sincere attempt to bond, and my ego was so bruised I yelled at you in the cart on our way back, your tears causing your kohl to smudge. 

I am sure you hated me for being so controlling, always breathing down your neck, forcing you to do your math when you wanted to play with your dolls instead. By the way, your sandalwood doll, the one you forgot about when father bought you new toys, still lies in the bottom of my trunk, wrapped in your old brocade blouse. The fragrance still lingers, compensating for your absence and filling my senses with affection for you.

I remember almost everything. Once you stuffed your nose inside a Damascus rose and got stung by a bee. You made such a ruckus when I tried removing the sting that I had to pin you down to stop you from moving. We applied honey on your nose to dull the pain and you tried to stick out your tongue to see if you could reach it.

In another instance, you cried for days when the stray dog we had befriended lost all the puppies of her first litter to sickness. You were convinced that you were somehow responsible for them. And you tried to feed the dog garden cress seeds  hoping to prevent any further pregnancies. When the dog followed her natural reproductive urge to mate with other strays you branded her characterless and lectured her on her faltering morals, only forgiving her after she bore healthy puppies. Waman and I found it rather amusing, but you were a kid, how could you have known that animals do not mimic human sexual mores and that garden cress seeds are useless as a canine contraceptive!