Cover

Title Page

Koyal Dark,

Mango Sweet

Kashmira Sheth

Dedication

For my daughters, Neha and Rupa

My heartfelt thanks to the following people for their help:

Members of my writing groups:

Write On and Tuesdays with Story.

The team at Hyperion.

And especially, Donna Bray, Vita Dani, Shilpa Dave,

Arianne Lewin, Marjorie Melby, Corey Meyer, Chris Paskus,

Vinitha Pittala, Charlotte Sheedy, Neha Sheth, Rajan Sheth,

Samir Sheth, Amit Trivedi, Bharatiben Trivedi, Joey Valdez,

and Rupa Valdez.

one

MUMMY KNOCKED on the door. “Jeeta, enough thaga-thiya. If you don’t come out this minute you’ll have to stay in there for two hours.”

Every time a prospective groom came to see my twenty-one-year-old sister, Nimita, Mummy asked my other sister, Mohini, and me to disappear into the streets of Mumbai. Mummy told us it was because Nimita and the boy needed time to be alone. Sure—as alone as bees are in their hives. The boy usually came with three or four relatives, so what difference did it make if Mohini and I were there or not? Maybe it was because Mohini was nineteen and I was sixteen, and the poor boy would get confused between us all.

Mummy knocked again. “JEETA!”

“Will you really make me stay in here for two hours? What if someone needs to use the bathroom?” I said as I came out.

Mummy strode to the door of our apartment and held it open. Mohini was waiting outside at the top of the staircase.

“Go, go, hurry, the guests will be here any minute.” Mummy motioned with her arm as if to sweep me out.

“I can’t go barefoot. Let me at least slip on my sandals.”

“Stay out for a while.”

“We will,” Mohini said as we went down the stairs.

Mummy shut the door.

“You escaped before Mummy got mad,” Mohini said.

“Yup! Did you see the way Mummy flicked me out of the house as if I were a bedbug? I wiggled away before she stomped and squashed me, though. I’m quick.”

“Not always. What took you so long to get ready?”

“Why does it matter? We’re out of the house, aren’t we? I don’t enjoy being kicked out. I hope this boy is the caboose. You know, the last one of a long train,” I said.

“Poor Nimita! I wonder how she has managed to go through this seventeen times?”

For the past two years, Mummy and Pappa’s sister—my foi—had been searching for a suitable husband for Nimita. Now Mummy was desperate. Even though Nimita had gone to SNDT Women’s College and had a degree in home science, she couldn’t see very well out of her gray-green eyes, and she was almost blind if the light was dim. There was a name for her eye condition, but I couldn’t remember what it was called. What mattered most was that the doctor had told us that as time went by Nimita’s vision could get worse, and eventually she could go blind. There was no cure for it. Not yet.

Today, the boy who was coming to meet Nimita had not finished college, but he owned his own business, a bangle shop in Bhuleshwar.

“If I were Nimita I would tell Pappa to stop the parade of potential grooms,” I said.

“You would, but she is not you. I don’t know what I’d do if I were in her place. It would be nice if I liked the first or the second person I met, and he liked me.”

“For you,” I said, snapping my fingers, “it’ll be chut mangani, putt shadi—quick engagement, instant wedding.”

“You think so?” Mohini said.

“Besides being smart, you’re pretty and you have light skin. You have nothing to worry about.”

“But you do?”

“Of course I do. All the boys want a pretty wife with a perfect set of teeth, who is about three inches shorter and three years younger than him and comes from a rich family. And has a whitish, or at least a wheatish, complexion.”

“That’s not true.”

“Really? Find me one boy that doesn’t want a perfect girl. Remember Rita living in the next building? Three boys rejected her because she has a slightly crooked smile.”

“Jeeta, do you really believe that?”

“I do. And don’t tell me you don’t.”

Mohini smiled. “You can charm any boy.”

“I suppose I could, but he would have to be extra special not to care about my cinnamon-colored skin.”

I wondered why the girl always had to be perfect. A boy could be dark and handsome, so why couldn’t a girl be dark and beautiful?

“Let’s catch a bus and go to the Chowpatty Beach before sunset,” Mohini suggested.

I nodded absently. I was so wrapped up in my thoughts that I didn’t hear what else she said. Before I realized what was happening, I’d tripped on a handcart and scraped my elbow. Blood oozed out of me.

“You need to wash your elbow and put some medicine on it. Let’s go home,” Mohini said.

“We’ve only been gone for ten minutes. If we go back, Mummy will be upset.”

Mohini wrapped her arm around my waist. “I’m taking you home.”

We returned to a full house. Mummy, Pappa, Nimita, Foi, and the three guests were in the living room.

Nimita was sitting up straight, as if she were afraid to breathe. It reminded me of the time when an inspector came to our school and I tried to look attentive and smart. Mummy, Pappa, and Foi were like the teachers trying to impress the inspector.

“What happened?” Mummy asked, but her eyes were saying, you’d better have a deathly good excuse for showing up here.

“Jeeta got hurt; I’ll take care of her.”

Mummy motioned with her hand for us to leave, and Mohini and I hurried through the room.

Silently, Mohini washed my elbow, put antibacterial cream on the wound, and bandaged it.

Then we waited in the bedroom for the boy and his family to leave.

They stayed for another hour. That was a good sign, I thought.

Not so.

The next day the boy’s mother sent a message telling Mummy and Pappa they were interested in Mohini, not Nimita.

“But Nimita was the one who talked to him,” I said to Mummy.

“Does it matter who talked?”

Nimita sat on a divan across from me, but I couldn’t tell what she thought about all this. Nimita and Mohini were best friends and they talked all the time, goos-poos, goos-poos. Sure, they told me things that were safe to announce to the whole world, but nothing special, secret, or scandalous. “Did he seem nice? Did you like him?” I asked Nimita.

“What difference does it make?” Mummy said.

“If Nimita didn’t like him, then—” I started to say.

“Choop ker, stay quiet! You’re the one who dragged Mohini home.”

“It was my idea to bring Jeeta home,” Mohini said.

“Yes, but who banged into a handcart?”

“It wasn’t planned,” I said.

“I’ve never seen a girl as heavy-headed and long-tongued as you are,” Mummy said.

Later, when Mummy was not around, I asked Nimita, “Aren’t you tired of seeing these boys? Don’t you get mad?”

Nimita was sitting on a stool facing the dressing table. She didn’t answer. Her lips were tightly pressed as she gave Mohini a glance in the mirror.

“Why don’t you talk to Pappa? Tell him to find out more about the boy before you meet another flaky fellow.”

“I can’t.”

“Why not? Doesn’t it hurt to keep things all tightly knotted up inside of you? Doesn’t it suffocate you?”

“You learn to live with a knot inside yourself, and after a while it doesn’t bother you,” she said, and then covered her face with her hands.

“Jeeta, that’s enough,” Mohini said as she walked over to us. She stood behind Nimita and began unbraiding her hair.

I ignored Mohini. “I waste my arguments on unimportant matters. I’m not asking you to be like me, but what if something really bothers you—”

Before I could finish, Mohini said, “You know what really bothers me? Your blabbering.”

“Why can’t I talk to Nimita? The two of you talk and laugh all day, but when I walk in you stop. When I’m around, you both whisper as if I’m going to steal your voices. It is always the two of you, Nimita and Mohini, Mohini and Nimita, as if you were a set of tabla, drums. Until last year you even walked to college and back together.”

“You know Mummy doesn’t want Nimita to go out alone,” Mohini said.

“Yes, but I’m your sister, too. Why don’t you include me?”

She didn’t say anything. I stood there wanting to do something, anything, but all I could do was watch as Mohini moved a comb through Nimita’s hair over and over again. “If you want, I’ll braid your hair next,” Mohini said to me.

A few days later when I came home from school, Mummy and Foi were sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor drinking tea next to a big plastic bucket full of wheat.

“Where are Nimita and Mohini?” I asked Mummy.

“They went to Crawford Market.”

“I wanted to go with them.”

“What for?”

So I don’t have to help clean the wheat, I thought.

“You need to go shopping as much as a monkey needs a ladder,” Mummy said.

“Is there something you want?” Foi asked.

I shook my head. I wanted to shop with my sisters or a friend, not with Foi.

“Chiraj and Vivek have been out for two hours. Are they still in the courtyard?” Mummy asked.

“Yes.”

“Still playing cricket?”

“What else?” My younger brothers, eleven-year-old Chiraj and nine-year-old Vivek, had each other and played cricket and marbles or ran around the courtyard with a dozen other boys all the time. As usual, I was left alone in the middle.

I wished I could invite my friends Yamini or Janki over sometimes, but because of Nimita’s eye problem, Mummy had always been afraid of sending her to anyone’s house and Nimita had never asked anyone to come to ours. Since she was the oldest, she set a pattern for all of us. None of us invited friends home.

“How are you doing in math?” Foi asked as she handed me her empty cup. I took Mummy’s cup, too.

“So-so.”

“I’m here all day. If you need help, let me know.”

“Yes, get help now while Foi is here,” Mummy said. “You can’t afford to fail a subject and ruin your year.”

“I’m not going to fail math or anything else,” I said as I put the cups in the sink.

“Listen to the one with a rapid mouth.”

“And smart brain,” I said.

“And sparkling eyes,” Foi said.

I gave Foi a smile as wide as a mango slice.

“Jeeta, you have such bright eyes and long lashes that even with your dark skin we’ll find a good match for you,” Foi added.

“Yes,” I mumbled, biting my lower lip and turning away.

I liked Foi. Most of the time she was kind and sensible, but like other people I knew, she thought that light skin was the most important attribute for a girl, especially a girl of marrying age.

“Jeeta, is your mouth full of mung beans? Does it pain you to show a little more respect to your elders?” Mummy snapped.

“I’m sorry, Foi.”

Gratitude or respect, I didn’t feel an ounce of either. All I felt was fire—a rage in my heart that flamed through my eyes. I wanted to smash those cups against the window. I was tired of receiving such compliments. It was as if she had plucked a thousand feathers of happiness, and handed me only one.

I was convinced that Pappa had married Mummy because she had light, fawn-colored skin. But for me, it was as if God had used the special dark shade of the koyal bird. Lord Krishna’s skin was rain-cloud dark and praised for its beauty in Sanskrit prayers, devotional songs, and popular movie tunes, but no one praised my skin—least of all, Mummy.

Two gray-blue pigeons landed outside on the windowsill. I’m not a pigeon, I told myself. I’m a dark, mysterious koyal bird, whose sweet songs inspire poets and writers. I had never seen a koyal in Mumbai, but I knew they were somewhere in the city, sitting on mango trees, singing in the morning.

When I came back to the kitchen after changing out of my school uniform, I heard Mummy say, “Pray for Nimita. If finding a husband for a daughter is as tough as swallowing metal pills, finding a husband for a daughter with a handicap is like chewing metal.”

For the last several days, Mummy had been repeating that sentence over and over. The softness in her sigh had disappeared as quickly as the last prospective groom.

“Have faith and all will work out. It always does,” Foi said.

“I worry about all my children; but for Nimita and Vivek . . .”

My youngest brother, Vivek, had the same eye condition as Nimita.

“Sure, Vivek has an eye problem,” Foi said, “but it isn’t as bad for him as it is for poor Nimita. In life, we womenfolk have more to lose and more to suffer than men.”

“Isn’t that the truth,” Mummy replied, with a catch in her throat.

“Let me tell you about this new boy for Nimita,” Foi said.

“Yes, yes, tell me all about him. What’s his name? Who are his parents?” Mummy said, wiping the round, stainless steel thali with the edge of her yellow cotton sari and piling one side of it with wheat.

“His name is Girish Mehta, and he’s an orphan.”

“An orphan?” Mummy’s mouth opened wide. Her hands clutched the edge of the thali.

Foi scrunched her eyebrows. A ridge rose instantly between them.

Mummy looked down.

“Listen to me before you say no, Purnima. Girish is from our caste and was raised in the Sheth Tejpal’s orphanage right here in Mumbai. You know how careful they are to only take Modh Bania children in that orphanage.”

Most of the time I found out about a new marriage prospect only after Nimita and Mohini did. Today, I was the first one to hear. I poured a glass of milk and dumped a spoonful of milk masala in it. I stirred as slowly and quietly as I could.

“I’m sure he is from our caste. But an orphan! Nimita won’t have any family,” Mummy said to Foi.

“We’re not dead. And the fewer in-laws the better.”

“Still . . .”

“Would you rather he had strings of brothers and sisters to be educated and married? You don’t want Nimita to end up working like a donkey,” Foi said, picking a tiny stone out of her wheat. Her blue sari had slipped from her chest, revealing a saggy breast through her thin blouse.

Foi never wore a bra. She always complained that the elastic band suffocated her. On the other hand, Mummy would never dream of going without one. Even after having so many children, Mummy still had what she called a “single body,” and she was proud of it. She and our neighbor, Hema Auntie, categorized some people as “single-bodied” and other people as “double-bodied,” as if those double-bodied people had stolen someone else’s body and stuck it to their own. And then there were the people that they didn’t know how to classify, and so they argued whether so-and-so had a single body, or a double body. I guess those people had a body and a half.

As soon as I had turned twelve Mummy handed me my first cotton bra. Every evening when she went to the temple, I would run to the bathroom and peel it off as fast as I could. At that time my chest was as flat as my forehead, and I wondered why she insisted that I wear a bra. But Mummy had reasons for her rules. I didn’t always agree, but when I argued she got upset. It was best to leave the snake pit of her anger undisturbed.

“Without the family, how would we know what kind of a person Girish Mehta is?” Mummy asked.

“I’ve heard good things about him from many people at the orphanage. Just two weeks ago one of the younger students fell and broke his elbow. Girish took the boy to the doctor and stayed with him all afternoon.”

That seemed to satisfy Mummy. “Where does he live?”

“At the orphanage. He does some work for them, and they give him a place to stay. The trustee said they will miss his singing when he leaves. He has a mountainous voice, deep and rich.”

“If they decided to get married, where would they stay?”

“That’s something we’d have to help them out with.”

That evening I wanted to tell Nimita about Girish Mehta, but I never got a chance to be alone with her. Mummy must have told her after I went to bed that night, because in the morning she and Mohini went up to the terrace to dry saris. I followed them up and found them engrossed in talk. How I wished they’d make room for me to huddle up next to them so that our faces would touch and our breaths and whispers would mingle!

I sighed, turned, and came down the steps.

two

WHEN GIRISH MEHTA came to see Nimita, Mohini and I caught a glimpse of him as he entered the courtyard of our apartment building. Unlike the other suitors, he couldn’t come with his mother and father, and he didn’t bring an uncle, a friend, or even the director of the orphanage. He was a brave man.

I had always imagined that a groom would ride in on a white horse, wearing a long, silk sherwani, Jodhpuri pants, and a red turban. Girish would have looked good in those clothes riding a horse, I thought, but I doubted he knew how to ride.

Mummy, Pappa, Foi, and Fua, my uncle, were in the living room. After the last fiasco, Mummy asked us to stay in the bedroom. We sat on Chiraj’s bed and played cards. Our L-shaped apartment made it possible for us to see what was going on in the living room from the bedroom window. It had always been our secret lookout.

We watched as Nimita brought tea and spicy, thin noodles on a tray from the kitchen. After Nimita served the tea I couldn’t see her from the window, but I knew she was sitting right across from Girish.

“He’s handsome,” I said.

“Yeah, and that’s not good,” Mohini said, shaking her head.

“You think he’ll refuse?”

“Probably.”

But the next evening, Girish took Nimita out for two hours, and when they came back, he talked to Pappa and Mummy for a long time. Then we all met him. I noticed he had a pointy chin and large open eyes that made him look as though he were searching for something.

Before Girish left, Mummy brought out some brown sugar, and we all ate a bit of it. It meant that everything was decided. Pappa and Mummy were going to announce the engagement the next day, and have a small ceremony. To show Girish respect, Mummy began to call him Girishji, and so did we.

That night I lay awake thinking about marriage. It was so different from all the Hindi movies we’d watched. In the movies, young people fell in love, sang songs, danced; and at the end of the story, no matter what, the hero and heroine got married. Where would the love be in Nimita’s marriage? Maybe there was no love in everyday life. Maybe love only whispered in the hearts of poets, actors, and musicians.

And then I had a dreadful thought. What if Girishji never came to love Nimita? Would her soul stay as empty and lost as her eyes? Would she ever experience a flicker of his affection, or would her heart fumble like her hands did?

Now that they were engaged, Girishji took Nimita out every Sunday around five-thirty, and brought her home at eleven.

May first was set for the wedding date. Mommy and Foi made all the arrangements for the ceremony, the hall, and the reception. Pappa and Mummy paid for it all, as was the custom.

Nimita also needed saris and jewelry, so Mummy took her shopping every day. Mohini’s exams were finished, so she went with them. I couldn’t go because I still had to study for final exams. I was relieved, though. It was good to be out of Mummy’s way when she was as tense as a stretched rubber band.

For the garba, a folk dance party two days before the wedding, I wore a satin skirt that stopped just above my ankles and a short blouse and a matching odhani, half sari. The skirt, the sleeves of the blouse, and the odhani were all embroidered with real silver threads. I draped the odhani over my right shoulder, pinning it to my blouse so it wouldn’t slide off, and tucked the two free ends of it into my skirt. I wore a silver necklace, silver hoops, thin silver bangles, and silver anklets that Pappa had given me on my last birthday. I kept admiring the mehndi design that was painted on my hands. Mummy had organized a party the night before, and all the women of the family had had their hands painted with mehndi in intricate designs of flowers, fruits, vines, birds, the sun, and the moon.

With every turn, my skirt flared, my half-sari sparkled, and the tiny bells on my anklets sang. We danced in a big circle and clapped until we were dizzy and our hands were red and itchy. Then someone brought in a box of sticks, and the boys and girls and men and women paired up to do another folk dance called dandia raas.

A boy my age stood next to me. He wore a cream-colored kurta-pajama with a saffron-colored scarf tied around his waist. I didn’t know him and wondered if he were from the orphanage. Before I could decide if I wanted to dance with him, someone began playing dholak, dhamak, dhum, dhum, dhamak, dhum.

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