Someone Else's Garden Read Online Free PDF

lunch is ready,’ she shouts at noon, and then again, ‘Arey-oh, Mamta’s father, dinner.’ Every day it’s Mamta’s father this and Mamta’s father that. Each time his wife calls him Mamta’s father, Seeta Ram thinks she is deliberately punishing him for Mamta’s sake; he never blames custom that ordains the link between the father’s name and his first-born’s.
    That evening the hijras came. They saw the baby was a girl and blessed it for free. They hadn’t the heart to ask the new mother of a daughter for money. ‘Devi has blessed you,’ said the eunuchs, looking back at Lata Bai, sharing in her sorrow as only other women could. ‘She will be lucky. She has the mark.’ Of course the mark had to be a blessing, just like accidental bird droppings on one’s finest clothes. Yes, Lata Bai had seen it too, a red birthmark tucked away in her daughter’s hair.
    ‘At least we can be thankful that the hijras won’t come today. They know we have nothing,’ says the mother.
    ‘Yes, and probably they won’t show up at my wedding either,’ says Mamta ruefully. ‘At last Bapu can be glad, he won’t have to look at my ugly face much longer,’ she adds.
    ‘Uffo,’ Lata Bai replies in half-agreement. Ugly-face-talk before the wedding is fitting, because any kind of praise is inauspicious. There is always someone listening, people willing to spoil your plans. She places a dot of lampblack behind Mamta’s ear to take the ‘perfect’ out of her beauty, more as a courtesy to her daughter than anything else. They both know Mamta’s beauty isn’t perfect, the red birthmark dangles above her eyebrow like a sign of disapproval from God.
    ‘I shall put the henna leaves to dry as soon as the rain stops,’ says Mamta. ‘Just imagine, beautiful red henna patterns all the way to my shoulders and up to my knees . . . hai,’ she sighs.
    Her mother shakes her head, but says nothing. She is going to be married after all. Another six days and she’ll be gone. Thank you, Devi. That should put an end to the village sniggers: ‘Arey, Lata Bai, how is it that you got your younger daughter married before your elder one?’ . . . ‘Arey, Lata Bai, have you had an offer for Mamta yet?’ Even those guised as concern: ‘Arey, Lata Bai, what can a mother do but love her daughter, good, bad, beautiful or ugly?’ And the pitying, this-is-destiny ones: ‘Don’t worry, someone will come for her. You just wait and see. After all, girls are someone else’s gardens. We mothers only borrow them for a time.’
    Lata Bai has woken Mamta and Sneha early and ushered them out of the hut. They must be quick today, bringing the water from the well, cooking two days’ food that won’t spoil with keeping, repairing the roof and collecting the dung pats. At last, mid-morning she packs some dried chapattis and spicy baked potato skins in some ficus leaves for their journey. They will travel light, the only thing of value they carry is a bottle of homemade chilli pickle for her father.
    ‘Okay, we are ready,’ says Lata Bai to Seeta Ram when he comes home for lunch. ‘I am taking Mamta and Shanti,’ she adds, quickly placing his tray at his feet. Her husband winces, the name Shanti is too new, too disappointing, too female.
    ‘So what about Sneha?’ he says, pulling Prem and Mohit to one side of the hut, separating the females from the males as if in some fiercely competitive game. ‘Take the girls, the boys are staying with me.’
    Lata Bai cradles Shanti and leaves without looking back at the house. The women walk towards the tonga stand under a flowing ficus tree, an hour away. She hides the baby deeper inside her pallav to spare her the sunlight that can crisp skin faster than an open flame. It beats down on them like a pounding stick, knocking all the energy out of their stride. The Red Ruins glimmer in the distance. Two girls are praying at the shrine. Lata Bai walks faster, lifting her hand in acknowledgement, but not her