The Elephant Chaser's Daughter Read online

  The two worlds I lived in had become overwhelmingly irreconcilable. I found myself stuck between them, tossed mercilessly from one to the other. When one set of values and traditions confronted the other, a meeting of the minds was out of the question. The values with which I was being brought up at school—truth, honesty, and a strong sense of right and wrong—were drawing me away from the very people who had the most natural claims on my affections.

  Nothing seemed right. Everyone in my family, including myself, was betraying another, and there was a huge price to pay for it. The nights were the hardest. Thoughts of Amma, Grandmother, and everyone else made it impossible to sleep. I’d lie awake crying softly under the blanket. At times Amuda, the classmate who slept in the bed next to mine, would wake up hearing me cry, and would come over to my bed and be with me.

  Like my mother, I desperately wanted to escape. When she was very depressed, she tried to kill herself. The first time I felt the blade against my own wrist, the pain was quick but sharp. The sight of blood felt real and something in me began to feel real too. I wanted more, but was frightened.

  Many times, I breathlessly climbed the huge rocks on the hill facing the ravine, or the water tower standing several stories high, and wished to jump—to feel what it meant to fly. I imagined wind rushing up under my wings, ripping away my troubles as I sailed over everything beneath me, unshackled. I wanted to touch the sky but my feet were chained to the reality of the ground.

  Just like Amma, I never found the strength to carry out my fantasies. Probably there was still a part of me that hoped for some meaning, some purpose, to my life.

  I just had to find it.

  CHAPTER TWELVE: THE UNEXPECTED

  I recognized it as soon as I saw it on Mrs. Law’s face. Her usual composure was absent, leaving her stiff, as if frozen. Her thoughts seemed to be elsewhere as she stood in silence, waiting for everyone to settle down at the morning assembly.

  It was fear, no doubt. It couldn’t be anything else. I knew that look well by now, having seen it on my father’s face when the landlord arrived to collect his dues, and in my grandmother’s eyes when Grandfather was out of work for days.

  Mrs. Law was fighting whatever was on her mind, struggling to keep her small figure tall in front of us on the stage. ‘Children and staff, I have very bad news,’ she began, straining to hide the distinct quiver in her voice. ‘There is a possibility that Shanti Bhavan will shut down.’

  A collective gasp of disbelief and cries of shock shook the room.

  ‘A few days ago I received news from Dr. George that he has encountered severe financial setbacks back in the U.S. Supporting Shanti Bhavan has become difficult for him,’ she said, ignoring the raised hands that instantly sprouted in the audience. ‘Dr. George has asked that you go home for a longer vacation so the staff can have sufficient time to think over this situation.’

  I tried to break the numbness in my body by shifting my position on the floor. It wasn’t the kind of bad news we had heard on several occasions in the past—like water shortage or prolonged power cuts. We were used to being told whatever affected us; transparency was fundamental, even if it meant making us upset or frightened. But this was different. This felt like the end.

  ‘If, by luck, Shanti Bhavan is able to continue, we may have to cut the eleventh and twelfth grades to save money.’

  I immediately turned around to look at Sheena who was sitting two rows behind me, palm clamped over her mouth. Our eyes met in disbelief and I saw the same fear overtake her too. She was in eleventh grade waiting to continue into twelfth, just as I had been excited to enter the eleventh grade after the holidays. The thought that we could soon be separated was unbearably painful. How could DG do this to us? Would she be given away to another family? Would Rafil control her life again?

  No one had expected anything like this. Aunty Shalini and Mrs. Ruth were openly sobbing, covering their eyes with their sari pallus. Shanti Bhavan had been their home too.

  Mrs. Law waited for the commotion to die down. Taking a deep breath, she explained that Dr. George, upon arriving from America in a few weeks, would be discussing many options with her and other senior staff. We wanted to believe he might have some solution and that, no matter what happened, the school doors would not be slammed shut behind us.

  Now, after upsetting Grandmother, I didn’t even know if I would be welcome in my own home. Even worse, the idea of living permanently with my family was simply frightening. I wasn’t familiar with rural life, nor was I fit to marry anyone from the village. I didn’t know how to cook, wash, or serve a man. I had been taught to read, write, distinguish right from wrong, and form my own opinions—skills not valued in village life and unheard of in girls. There was no future to dream of. I felt cheated.

  And what would happen to my classmates? After Sheena, my next thoughts went to Keerthi who competed with me when it came to writing English essays. I was secretly resentful of her writing skills and confidence in public speaking classes. But now, I would sacrifice anything to keep her in my life. I had seen her mother several times when she came to take Keerthi home for the holidays. She had worked in a quarry since she was young, cracking granite stones with a heavy hammer. Difficult circumstances had ground her down to a frail, gaunt figure. She had long been waiting for the day when her daughter would pull her out of her misery.

  ‘Children, we are doing our best to find a solution,’ said Mrs. Law, stemming my rush of concerns. Her assurance comforted me a little. The younger children seemed perfectly calm. Their chatter was all eagerness and enthusiasm, just as it would be on any other day. They hadn’t understood anything except that they were going home for a longer holiday. The older ones filed out of the assembly hall wearing cloaks of silence, walking up the concrete stairs with eyes fixed dead ahead.

  Until that moment, Shanti Bhavan had provided an oasis for us. We had taken it for granted; it was our place, our home, and our life. Now, without warning, our perfect world seemed set to shatter. I felt lost in what I couldn’t comprehend.

  The night before we left for home, Sheena and I sat outside our dorm on the cement rim of the pool. We didn’t say very much to each other; I really didn’t know what to say, and I sensed that Sheena didn’t either. When it was time for us to go to sleep, I turned to her and forced a smile, ‘Have fun in Kerala. Take care of yourself.’

  Sheena turned and gave a brief nod, saying nothing. As she had nowhere else to go, it had been decided by Mrs. Law and the staff that Sheena would spend the vacation with Ms. Beena, the vice principal, at her home in Kerala.

  ‘Do you think we’ll come back?’ I asked, twirling a long strand of hair that had come loose.

  ‘I don’t know,’ she answered softly, refusing to meet my eyes.

  ‘Will we see each other again?’

  ‘I don’t know.’

  The next morning, we parted in tears. The children hugged each other and cried in an endless stream of goodbyes. All of us had shared our lives together from the age of four and, despite our silly quarrels, our bonds were very close. The thought that we might not see each other again was unbearable. We were afraid the holidays would bring news none of us wanted to hear.

  My father came to pick me up, something he hadn’t done in many years. He was in a somber mood and chose not to speak to me nor any of the other parents, all of whom had been briefed on Shanti Bhavan’s financial crisis. He stood for a moment by my side, not meeting my eyes, stretching out the silence until it was vast enough to swallow the campus. Then we turned towards the gate.

  The bus ride was painfully long. Appa didn’t ask me any questions, as though somehow I were at fault for what was happening. All I could think about was what I would be doing in the village if I couldn’t return to school.

  As I got off the bus and walked home, the familiar sights and smells of my village—women carrying large pots of water on their hips, cooking smells and smoke escaping through the narrow windows of huts, and much more—did no
t bring the happy flutter it used to. I had not been home since my feud with Grandmother, and the thought of having to face her didn’t do my nerves much good either. Appa simply left me outside my grandmother’s house and walked away. He didn’t even bother to talk to them or tell them the news about Shanti Bhavan. With Amma still away, I had no choice but to stay with Grandmother again. Living with Appa was not an option. I stood at the doorstep to her hut waiting for the next thing to happen.

  Grandmother stood in the doorway, almost blocking it with her broad figure. ‘I never want you to step foot in this house again. I was the one who brought you up and you did this to me?’

  I tried not to cry, but tears ran down my cheeks.

  I reached forward to hold her hand in mine in a gesture of reconciliation, but she pushed it away. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  I knew I was expected to display remorse, but couldn’t force myself to say I was wrong. I stood facing her silently for a while, then leaned forward to try again to take her hand.

  She drew back instantly, her hand in the air. ‘I want to slap you!’

  I flinched. A hurricane was in the making, with dark clouds all around, but somehow it didn’t break over my head. At last she sighed and dropped her hand to her side. Knowing there was no other choice, Grandmother gave in, and I stepped into her house.

  Neighbors dropped by on their way to graze their cattle or work in the fields to find out if the rumors were true. The news had already spread among the villagers, and they wanted to know about the school’s fate. Some comforted my father saying, ‘God will not desert good people who are serving the poor.’

  But others reiterated the foolishness of sending me away in the care of strangers. ‘Didn’t we tell you from the beginning this was a bad decision?’

  I wanted to talk to Kavya, but she was too busy playing or stitching clothes for her plastic dolls. And even if I had, she would more than likely have laughed it off, happy I would no longer be the family’s pride. There was no one else I felt comfortable confiding in.

  As the days passed, my relationship with Grandmother thawed gradually. But there wasn’t the same warmth as before. When Uncle Naresh was home, she treated me as if I were a nuisance and a traitor. Her son’s presence constantly reminded her of the humiliation I had put her through.

  Once when my uncle returned home drunk, Grandmother snapped angrily, ‘This is your fault. He began to drink because of you.’

  I was stunned. I wanted to shout back, but couldn’t find my voice. My body tensed and a heavy guilt quickly overtook my anger.

  ‘If you hadn’t turned him away, he would have never gone to that ugly, dark Prema,’ she continued, referring to a girl my uncle had taken a liking to, despite my grandmother’s disapproval. Grandfather, on the other hand, was not bothered. Prema’s family had cows and land and was prepared to give a small dowry.

  ‘She is as black as that dog,’ Grandmother spat, pointing at a stray that often roamed in front of the house. I hated the thought that someone could be ridiculed for a dark complexion. I had been taught at school never to treat anyone differently because of the color of their skin.

  As it turned out, Prema’s family soon heard about Naresh’s drinking and disapproved the marriage. But that didn’t help my situation with Grandmother. She constantly reminded me of the shame I had brought to her at Shanti Bhavan. ‘You went running to them and where are they now?’

  I remained silent, powerless to counter the bitter truth.

  I kept my distance from Uncle Naresh and refused to be concerned about his feelings towards me. When he tried to create any intimacy, I ignored him, just as Sheena had advised me to.

  As the threat of closure became more vivid, my chances of completing high school and going on to college were shrinking. Appa was terribly disheartened knowing he didn’t have the means to educate me elsewhere. He rarely came looking for me or brought fruit from the woods, and stopped sending my brother to ask if I wanted anything. I sensed he was trying to avoid me.

  ‘What will we do with her?’ I overhead Appa saying to Grandfather, ‘She doesn’t even know enough Kannada to join the school here.’

  Grandfather assured him they could talk to the priest and get me a job in the local school as an English teacher. ‘She knows such good English,’ he said, comforting Appa.

  A few days into the vacation, I went to Appa before he left home to ask something that had been weighing on my mind for days, ‘What will I do if they come for me?’ I was referring to Muniappa’s men who had threatened to take me away if Appa failed to repay the debt soon.

  Since at this point I doubted whether Appa cared what happened to me, I wasn’t sure he would even reply. He surprised me by responding with a confident smile, ‘Do you think I would let them?’

  I wasn’t as confident as he sounded. ‘Did you give them the money?’ I asked.

  He looked triumphant. ‘Yes! The entire loan is repaid.’ The debt had multiplied now to three times what Appa had borrowed nearly a year ago. I knew the interest was high but didn’t realize how much debt had accumulated.

  When I told Grandmother the good news, instead of being happy or at least relieved, she turned furious. ‘Do you think he would give anything to save you?’ she asked in disgust. ‘I spoke to your mother, and she sent us the money. Your grandfather went with Appa to Gunna’s house and repaid the debt.’

  Relieved of the danger of being taken away, I roamed with my escorts more freely in the evenings. Until now, I had been just a visitor to my village, not having to live through much of what others endured every day. Walking along the muddy road that bore no name, and observing the lives of those who lived in the shabby huts on either side, a sense of my own insignificance overwhelmed me. My parents gave life to me in hardship, and now years later, not much had changed for them. If I were to go back to my roots, to look for anything redeeming, I would find only the painful providence that had engulfed my family from the beginning. Now, without Shanti Bhavan, that was likely to continue for me as well.

  I felt aloof and lonely as the days dragged on. Most of the time I kept to myself in the hut, barely speaking because I didn’t feel close enough to anyone to confide in them and my lack of fluency in Kannada made it a struggle to articulate my thoughts.

  One afternoon when Grandmother had gone out and I was home alone watching television, the two men who had earlier approached me in the market appeared in an auto rickshaw. One of them came rushing into the hut and, without a word, caught hold of my arm and tried to drag me out. I struggled as hard as I could and screamed loudly enough for the neighbors to hear. The midwife who lived across the street heard my cry for help and came out shouting. The man quickly dropped his hold on my arm and fled in the auto rickshaw. Terrified, I collapsed on the ground, my hands trembling uncontrollably. The woman who rescued me helped me back inside and calmed me down, as I tried to explain through my tears what had happened. After she left, I locked the door from inside and sat against it, afraid they might return and try to break it open.

  That evening when I told Appa what happened, he said, ‘I will kill them.’ He headed straight for the shop where the two men were often found.

  I didn’t want Appa to get into a fight. I wanted him to warn them to keep away or file a complaint with the police. I waited anxiously for Appa to return and, when he did, he told me they were hoodlums from the neighboring village and I would no longer see them around because he had scared them to death. ‘I warned them. Remember, if I can chase elephants, I can chase human beings too,’ he said, laughing.

  I felt slightly reassured.

  ‘Always keep the door locked from the inside whenever you are alone,’ he said and left me.

  The weight of a long month of anxious waiting was crushing me, and I began to feel like a groundhog in hibernation. I kept myself busy, helping Grandmother cut vegetables, sweeping the floor and washing vessels. She tried to teach me how to cook rice and ragi, as if I were being trained for a life in the vi
llage. I cleaned the grain on a straw tray, carefully removing tiny stones and black insects from it. But when I stirred the thick ragi paste with a heavy ladle, the pot threatened to overturn. Watching my clumsy housework, Grandmother shook her head and said, ‘What will you do after you marry?’ I was useless as a girl.

  I’d never stayed at home for more than a month at a time, and now found it difficult to adjust to my siblings. I couldn’t bear to see Francis coming home after play and digging his hands straight into his dinner. When I complained to Grandmother that he hadn’t washed his hands, she replied with a passive smile, ‘Let him eat. He is a hungry boy.’

  As if his uncleanliness wasn’t enough, I had to sit next to him at every meal and listen to the awful sounds he made chewing with his mouth wide open. Once, unable to control my temper, I pushed my plate away and stormed off. I am not sure whether it was disgust or arrogance that made me so rude.

  On happier days, Kavya would sit by my side and patiently teach me how to braid my hair into straight plaits or make flower garlands, even though I couldn’t master the art of threading them properly. In the mornings, Kavya and Francis would take me along the mud track between the sugarcane fields as if I were a tourist in their village. While my siblings were quite comfortable walking barefoot, I was afraid of dirtying my sandals by inadvertently stepping on what had been left behind by early risers who had made the most of the unripe dawn.

  I did relish the simplicity around me: bullock carts rumbling along the dusty road, frightened chickens fluttering away to a safer distance, young boys trying to collect honey from beehives using a flaming stick, and all those quiet details I hadn’t fully appreciated. Stray dogs were everywhere, scavenging the litter thrown on the roadside the previous night. I was surprised to see women already at work in the fields, hunched over like four-legged animals, uprooting the weeds and throwing them into heaps. I stopped to listen to the folksongs they sang as they moved from one corner of the field to another, clearing all the weeds in their path. It was the common trait in these women that amazed me—their fierce unity in times of hardship, their relentless fighting spirit, and their humble acceptance of what little life had to offer them. I was discovering my village anew.