Ranjana

WHY DON’T YOU ASK YOUR friends to visit? It isn’t difficult to travel from Bombay to Jaipur, there are many good trains and we are just an hour by road from Jaipur station. During the wedding they kept taunting me that I am a villager and am lucky to marry a Bombay girl, let them see who is lucky now! Who is living in a big bungalow like a queen! Did you send them the photos of our anniversary?’ He closed one eye, ‘the selfie I took of us kissing?’

‘Ahnh.’ Ranjana murmured. He had caught her by surprise, had gripped her face with one hand and squashed his mouth onto hers. She had not shared that picture or any of the others—his arm draped around her, laughing with his mouth open and a bit of cake visible on his flattened tongue, holding the gifts he got for her—sarees packed in shiny plastic and a box of chocolates—up for the camera. She picked up the shirt and trousers he had discarded. A smell of sweat rose from them. On the inside of the shirt’s collar was a dark line formed by dust and sweat.

‘They can stay here with us.’ He followed her as she carried his clothes to the bathroom. ‘We have enough rooms, not like the matchbox your parents live in in Bombay. They can spend some time here and we can take them to Jaipur in the car to see the sights there.’

Ranjana said nothing. She pushed the bucket in place with her bare foot, its sole grey with dust, and turned on the tap. The day-long heat had made the water trickling from the tap hot enough to turn her fingers painfully red. He leaned against the bathroom door, its wood eaten away by damp and the bottom half reinforced with a shiny metal sheet. ‘Invite that one, the one who wore a blue sari and cried the most. What’s her name?’

‘Naina.’ Ranjana answered dropping the clothes into the bucket, ‘We were together from kindergarten to college. She used to say we’ll run away to Goa and live together.’

‘I knew immediately that she was a bold type of girl, even before she sneaked my shoes and thrust her hand into Bhai’s pocket for money! Bhai got so nervous, he gave her whatever she asked for. If she had tried something like that with me, I’d have shown her what a real man does!’ He came closer and ran his hand over Ranjana’s back and buttocks as she bent over the bucket to soak the dirty clothes.

‘Anyone trying anything with Naina would have learnt a lesson for a life-time.’ Ranjana’s face flushed from bending over the bucket. ‘She once caught a purse snatcher on the train and held him by the collar till the train stopped at Bandra and the policemen came to take her away. And the purse he had snatched wasn’t even her own.’ She dropped scoops of detergent powder in the water, whipping up a lather.

‘That’s too much detergent,’ he commented, ‘you are using way too much detergent. Soaking in so much detergent wears off the clothes. Till this day my mother uses a bar of soap and the wooden paddle to wash clothes.’

‘Even after soaking the clothes all night, it takes a lot of rubbing to get the grime off.’ Ranjana washed her soapy hands under the tap and stepped out of the small bathroom. It was her least favourite place in the whole house even though it was the coolest. It had one tiny window set so high up in the wall that the sun barely entered even though the house was west-facing and awash in sunlight from late afternoon onwards. There were dim corners in which centipedes lurked and twice she had almost stepped on a scorpion.

‘What’s the hurry?’ He caught hold of her arm and kissed her roughly, pressing down hard on her mouth, catching her lips between his teeth. He smelt of disinfectant and sweat and something else that Ranjana could not name. Bristles chafed her cheeks as he pressed his face against hers. She winced. ‘Manly, hunh?’ he grinned putting his arm around her neck. He never shaved his underarms and she felt the stale smell seeping into her neck and shoulder.

‘You need to take a bath, you smell like the hospital.’

He let her go. ‘Yaar, you always spoil my mood, you are completely unromantic.’

THE BUNGALOW STOOD IN THE DUSTY compound of the government hospital. It was built during colonial time and had a large, open veranda running along the front that allowed the mid-day sun to beat its way inside the house and a courtyard with mud-floor at the back where the hot Loo wind raised small swirls of sand in the afternoon. Originally the bungalow had housed some petty official or other, with a bevy of local servants to manage it. Ranjana struggled to keep it clean and orderly on her own with only Nanki, the young wife of one of the ward-boys at the hospital, to help her. Nanki was dark-skinned and sturdy in a way that reminded Ranjana of the thorny acacia and khejad trees she had seen in the open desert. She wore a silver borla on her forehead, her braided hair was dust-brown and she had tattoos—three green dots like water droplets pooled at the cor­ners of her eyes, on her chin, at the base of her neck. A barefoot goat-girl, Raunaq had said rolling his eyes, she is lucky that Bhanwar married her, he has a government job, she no longer needs to chase after the herd all day.

Nanki arrived early every morning, her long, flowered lehenga swaying around her, the odhana tucked firmly at the waist. She plied the broom carefully around the house, raising clouds of dust that settled back in new places and swabbed the floor while Ranjana rushed about handing a tongue scraper, a bar of soap, a towel to Raunaq as he shouted his demands from the bathroom. Raunaq left after his breakfast of hot parathas or poori-aloo, his thermos full of black tea with lemon and ginger slung over his shoulder, his lab coat with the stethoscope thrust in its pocket, on his arm. After he left, Ranjana made tea the way she liked—milky and with a spoonful of sugar. When the tea was ready, she carried two cups and a plate of sweet biscuits to the living room and called Nanki. They had their tea in the silent house. Nanaki squatted on the floor, her lehenga tightly wound around her hips and drawn up between her thighs. She poured her tea in the saucer and blew on the steaming liquid with bunched lips. Sometimes Ranjana told her about Bombay—the trains that ran all day and all night, the food stalls behind her college which sold the best vada pav in the city, Marine Drive where the sea breeze snatched away the paper cone of spicy chana out of your hands, by-lanes of Colaba where you could always find pretty clothes, bags and earrings that fit your budget. And the rains. ‘Water pouring down as if someone is throwing bucketful after bucketful and sea rising to meet the falling rain… You can’t imagine the rains in Bombay unless you see them. Sometimes it rains so hard there that the trains stop and you have to walk home and the waves at Haji Ali splash you with foaming salt water even on the far side of the road. It isn’t possible to describe those rains… ’ Nanki listened attentively, her eyes shining through her lashes, saucer balanced on her palm, the tea cooling rapidly as her mouth hovered over it. At the beginning, Ranjana and Nanki ate lunch together too. It was nicer to sit on the cool floor and share their food, rather than eat alone. Ranjana enjoyed the spicy, smoky flavours of the food that Nanki brought—garlic-chilli chutney, dried beans roasted on a coal fire, thick bajra rotis fragrant of the clay oven or fresh-made buttermilk. But it did not last, Raunaq found out when he came home unexpectedly one afternoon and was liv­id. He spoke to the ward-boy and after that Nanki never ate with Ranjana nor took a nap curled up on the living room floor, her breathing like a soothing whisper in the heat-exhausted silence of late afternoon. Instead, she ate in the courtyard under a scraggly old Neem tree and lay down on the string cot on which they sometimes dried red chilies or sunned the lentils to protect them from pests. Raunaq told his mother too when they visited his parents and his mother scolded Ranjana for being so familiar with servants. You are not used to having servants or a position like you have now, she said, her hoarse voice rising, what would everyone say if they know that goat-girl is on such familiar terms with the doctor’s wife that they eat food together? Despite all the anger and displeasure, as if by a tacit agreement, Ranjana and Nanki continued to have tea together in the morning. The objection was to eating together, tea was nothing, it was like having a drink of water, Ranjana rationalized it to herself. She was not sure what Nanki thought about it.

Every day Nanki’s husband, the ward-boy, came in the afternoon to fetch lunch for Raunaq. Nanki went out into the burning veranda to hand him the steel tiffin carrier filled with rotis, two types of vegetables, dal and curds Ranjana spent most of the afternoon preparing. Ranjana watched from the window as the ward-boy tried to pull Nanki close. Looking around furtively, he held her by her waist and tugged at her odhana, slipped his hand down her chest. Nanki responded with a violent push or a sharp jab of her elbow or a resounding slap on the wrist which startled the cat dozing in a corner under the old straw curtains. She returned, slightly flushed but otherwise untroubled and unconcerned. It was Ranjana who turned away and found an excuse to step out of the room.

Nanki usually left in the late afternoon, a bundle of washed clothes under her arm that she dropped off at the dhobi’s for ironing. Ranjana spent the rest of the afternoon listlessly tidying cupboards or going through her wedding album. She dusted the things she had bought at a village fair and with which she had decorated the living room—an old hookah, the wooden wheel of an ox-cart, a pair of chairs with woven seats of colourful jute strings. Raunaq’s mother commented on them everytime when she visited. Only people from a big city like Bombay are clever enough to see beauty in this junk, she said her mouth twisting in a taunting smile, for ordinary folk like us it is just crude things villagers make. Sometimes Ranjana dozed off and dreamt of sand striking against the walls of the house, wearing them down, slithering into the rooms and rising all around her in waves, like the sea in monsoon, higher and higher. Once she mentioned her dream to Raunaq who scoffed at her. Dreams are just brain chemicals misfiring, they have no meaning, he had said, you have too much free time, why don’t you make pickles and things like my mother does? Occasionally, Ranjana logged into her Facebook account to see what her friends were up to. The network signal wasn’t strong inside the house and it took long for the website to load. She rarely commented on her friends’ posts and never posted anything herself. There didn’t seem to be much to say to anyone, even to Naina.

RANJANA STEPPED INTO THE KITCHEN and switched on the light. The kitchen was gloomy and large, so large that the new gas stove and stainless-steel utensil holder that Ranjana’s parents had given as part of her dowry, were lost in it and so gloomy that geckos cackled in its dark corners even in the middle of the day. It had a new tin-roof, the original clay-tiles had cracked from dry heat and age, and there weren’t any new ones to replace them with, the village potters who used to make them were plying rickshaws in Jaipur. As a result, the kitchen was always hot, even late in the evening, from the day’s accumulated heat. Ranjana turned the gas on and warmed the food. She set out two steel plates and bowls on the small coffee table in the living room. Her parents had also given them a dining table, besides a double bed, an almirah and a refrigerator, but it was used only when Raunaq’s parents and other family members drove down from Jaipur. Ranjana’s own family hadn’t visited them yet. A trip from Bombay meant an eighteen-hour train-journey one-way.

‘What did you cook today? Gourd again?’ Raunaq settled on the sofa, its blue upholstery faded in patches from the relentless sun. ‘You should learn from my mother. We never had the same dish two days in a row. She cooks such delicious food. You remember the halwa she made when we were there last?’

‘You can’t get much here, just one or two vegetables and potatoes and onions. Nanki got some raw mangoes today so I made this chutney.’ Ranjana served him chutney made of roasted raw mangoes, chilies and coriander.

‘She is teaching you how to cook village food,’ he said but took a second helping of the chutney.

After dinner Ranjana washed the utensils. Raunaq lingered in the doorway and talked about the number of patients he saw that day. ‘Two hundred, it is all recorded in the register. It was OPD day today so everyone within 50 kms who had a cough or an insect-bite saw fit to come over and queue up to get examined. It is such a wastage of time, these OPDs. Most of these people are not really sick, nothing much wrong with them, just pains and aches or a UTI or some seasonal fever – can’t sleep at night, Dagdar Saheb, can’t eat bajari, can’t walk two miles without panting,’ he mimicked the villagers’ gruff dialect, ‘those who are really sick need to be referred to the big hospital in Jaipur in any case.’ He shrugged, ‘I am just going to keep my head down for another year, then I will get a seat in the postgraduate course of my choice under the quota. That’s the only reason I agreed to work in the sticks. Maybe I’ll get a seat in Jaipur itself, then we’d live at home with mummy. Even if I get a seat in another city, you can stay in Jaipur and I can come and visit.’ He came into the kitchen and taking the cloth with which Ranjana was wiping the wet plates, tossed it aside ‘Often, I’ll come often. I don’t think I can do without our love-time for long. I am too much of a man,’ He gave her a meaningful smile and rubbed her arm with his open palm. Ranjana felt her body go rigid. Her arms fell to her sides. ‘What if I go astray when I am away? There are always women around senior Residents, nurses, junior doctors. What if one of them comes on to me?’ He draped his arms around her, clutching her butto0cks with his hands, pressing her body to him. ‘I might not be able to resist them,’ He rubbed his cheek along hers and bit her ear. A small involuntary cry escaped her. ‘Imagine, your husband with another woman, kissing her, touching her.’ He crushed her mouth with his and yanked at the zip of her kurta. ‘You must please me so that I don’t wander, you Bombay girl.’ His voice turned hoarse, he steered Ranjana towards the bedroom.

Ranjana lay with her eyes tightly shut as he pulled off her salwar, his hands kneaded and pressed her breasts so hard that she had to bite her lip. ‘kiss me, kiss me…’ he panted as he moved above Ranjana, his mouth over hers, his breath, smelling of the food, enveloping her. Ranjana touched his mouth gingerly with her closed lips. ‘You are too shy,’ he bit her on the neck and entered her with force. He came quickly, breathing noisily. “It was good for you, wasn’t it? You never say it but I can tell you liked it!’ he squeezed her waist hard.

Raunaq lay flat on his back snoring, his mouth flapped open with every breath. Ranjana rose quietly. Her face, her neck, her breasts smelled stale. She felt distaste welling up, like nausea. In the bathroom she scrubbed herself down, pouring water over herself slowly to avoid making any sound. Pulling on a cotton nightie she went to the kitchen. There was a heaviness in her body, a futile ripeness. She pressed her thighs together as she poured water into a glass from the earthenware pot. The outside of the pot was damp. Leaning, she placed her cheek against the pot’s swelling curve and inhaled the fragrance of wet mud. She had a wild desire to throw off her clothes and press herself against the cool pot, crush it in her purposeless arms. She pressed her hand to her chest. The weight of her breasts was unbearable, the rising and sinking lines of her body burnt as if the loo winds of midday were blowing on her. A shuddering breath escaped her. The door leading to the courtyard was ajar and the thread of moonlight lay on the floor. Ranjana stepped forward and trampled it under her foot. She pushed open the door. The courtyard was covered in a silver film. There was a sprinkling of tiny fragrant flowers and white spots of moonlight on the string cot under the Neem tree. Ranjana had a momentary illusion that Nanki lay there, the wavering shadows and splashes of moonlight creating the impression of a spreading lehenga here, an outflung arm there. With hollow steps Ranjana approached the cot. The cot sagged and swayed like a swing as she lay down. The nylon strings had become loose with use and were rough against her skin. Her nightie rode up, small green flowers were pressed and crushed under her limbs. A fragrance rose from them, Ranjana opened her mouth to drink it in. Slowly she touched her aching tender breasts, the flat sloping plane of her stomach, the wiry hair covering her sex which felt chafed, bruised, parched. As if in a trance, she began stroking it softly, feeling and patting it like a small unknown creature. Her fingers sank into the folds of skin that opened like petals, growing dewy under her wandering touch. With each touch, small blue jolts of electricity passed inside her, slicing through her like tiny sharp knives. An agonising eagerness made her writhe, the muscles in her belly twitched and jumped. She ground her hips into the rough surface of the cot, her legs trembled as her fingers, guided by instinct, found the raw, throbbing, oozing centre. Then, as if roiled by a wild wave her body trembled and shook with spasms that mounted inside her, again and again. Her eyes opened wide at the almost unbearable wonder of her body as it gushed and flowed, soaking the thin fabric of her nightie.

Ranjana entered the house. Her legs felt shaky, her mouth dry. Her body kept erupting in waves of goosebumps. She threw her arms around herself, hugging her shoulders and her breasts tightly, loving her body, the intense, private celebration it was capable of and of which she knew nothing till tonight.

In the bedroom, the fan whirred, emitting a croak every now and then. Raunaq lay as before, mouth flapping, fast asleep. Ranjana stood looking at his sleeping form for a few moments. Turning away, she opened the almirah and took out the sarees he had given her for their anniversary. The cellophane they were packed in crackled loudly. She walked back to the courtyard through the kitchen, picking up a box of matches from near the gas stove on her way. She stuffed the sarees in the tin pail into which Nanki swept fallen leaves and twigs and tossed burning matches in. The plastic covering rapidly melted and curled and flames found the fabric within. Ranjana watched as the sarees burnt in yellow, orange and blue flames.

NANKI STARED AT THE TIN PAIL. IT WAS charred from inside, coated with sticky, sooty remains of a fire. Knitting her brows, she turned around. Ranjana stood in the doorway. ‘Come inside, it is too hot in the aangan,’ she said, ‘let’s eat lunch.’

fictionFreedom Issue 2024Ranjanastory