A Light was Lit

(A Story)

GAIETY was in the air. It came riding on the steeds of the sun and burst like a smile on the eastern horizon. A smile that spread smooth like milk and changed colours, by the moment, accepting the homage of the opening flowers. Gaiety was in the air.

It was the day of the Kartikai Deepam, and betimes the household was astir. Little noises emerged from every nook and corner,–from the yard, store-room, kitchen; feet pattered, pots tinkled, broom rasped across floors; and little voices laughed–female voices pitched high and low, ordered one another, and were punctuated with sudden silences.

The hours waxed. In the parlour of the house, on a long wooden plank set close against the wall, stood four or five deep, lamps of different shapes and sizes: of copper and brass and bronze burnished to their brightest with tamarind pulp and ash of wood or cowdung cake; big lamps, small lamps; lamps with slender stems–planed, fluted, and spiraled; lamps like the pipal leaf, of burnt clay and steatite–all in perfect order. It was the day of the Kartikai Deepam.

Mathu, a boy of five, sat in the kitchen, in a coign of vantage, out of the way. Perched on a low-legged stool, near the oven, Grandmother was stirring the vessel in which balls of jaggery lay melting. And as she stirred, her chin moved up and down, up and down, to the munch of her toothless mouth; Muthu watched it and watched also the wart with its clump of short hair on the chin move as she stirred the vessel.

Aunt Alamu squatted by. Before her was a large round platter made of bamboo strips, holding a generous heap of puffed rice. Grandmother dipped the ladle in the vessel, churning it briskly, and addressing Alamu to draw out a flaming faggot or two to diminish the heat. A delicious smell of molten jaggery floated across the room and Muthu licked his lips.

Grandmother lifted the ladle and wetting her right hand with water, felt the liquid jaggery, her fingers quivering, and tried to roll a little of it. It rolled into a neat pellet.

“Good, it’s the right temper. Now pour in the puffed rice,” she said, turning to Alamu.

Her knot of hair had slipped loosened and Alamu was screwing it in position.

“Quick! Before it condenses,” cried Grandmother, and Aunt Alamu tilted the platter neatly into the steaming vessel. Having done this she began to busy herself with the making of the sweet cakes, but not before smiling an affectionate smile at Muthu and observing, “How quiet he is, the darling! Where is all his mischief gone?”

“Hm,” grunted Grandmother. “You don’t know him. You are new to him. See after a few days.”

In came a girl aged about sixteen. She was Jaya, daughter of Alamu. Along with her mother she was on a visit to her grandmother’s; a circumstance far stronger than her flowering womanhood caused the extra sprightliness in her; she was just married and in another month or two was to join her husband. She stood for a moment in the doorway, then entered, and catching sight of Muthu seated like a miniature Buddha in a corner of the kitchen, laughed. She ran up to him and bending over him put her arm round his neck and pressed a kiss on his cheek.

“Come,” she said to the boy, “I’m taking you round to your mother. She wants you. You must be smartened up before going to the temple. You shall have your hair nicely combed, you shall have a fine silk shirt and silk shorts. Come.”

Jaya waited, holding out her arms. It was much more pleasant to be in the kitchen, in his coign of vantage, and watch Grandmother and Aunt at work. Muthu sat, shaking his head. Jaya put on a coaxing expression. She rubbed her cheek in his curly top, and he allowed himself to be led out, unwillingly.

‘Hm,” grunted the old woman, gazing after the departing pair.

Alamu, her daughter, looked up inquiringly.

“The same as ever. Wears a long face, particularly on festive days,” said the old woman. The reference was to Parvati, her daughter-in-law and Muthu’s mother.

Alamu remained non-committal.

Parvati was in the parlour, engaged in filling the lamps with oil and laying the wicks which were twisted threads or strips of cloth rolled into bits. Viewed in profile, as she was, filling the lamps with oil, she looked quite a girl; fronting, she presented the appearance of a full-fledged woman, with a curious sadness in the cast of her countenance; but either way she was lovely, with a pensive loveliness which gave her an air of aloofness. She was an affectionate creature, capable of infinite warmth; but in the house of her husband, among the in-laws men and women, with their little idiosyncrasies, suppressions, and frustrations, no chance had presented itself for her to show that warmth and it had remained stifled within her. At seventeen she was a mother, Muthu being her first-born; five years after she had another boy, now an infant barely six months old in the cradle; and her beauty, in her renewed motherhood, shone subdued, like the beauty of the old moon in the new moon’s arms. In her opinion, her mother-in-law was a good sort; as a mother-in-law, in the correct tradition, she had the right to be hostile to her; but beyond misconstruing her sadness for sulk the old woman had no reason whatsoever to be antagonistic to her. Her husband being the only son of the family and the last to be born after five daughters was still tied to the apron-strings of his mother but he loved her-his Paru–in an odd, abrupt way and was considerate to her. He needed awakening. Time and her own tenderness she hoped, would do it sooner or later. Life had its day and night, light and darkness; it wasn’t perpetually the one or the other.

Evening drew on. Parvati grew sadder. Jaya came out, appareled in her best, like a bride, the newly-wed that she was. Muthu shone–a real pearl. Jaya had taken great pains to make him look smart; his curly hair parted on one side and combed and brushed to sleekness was pretty as a wig; there was a black beauty dot between his brows and collyrium in his eyes–an extension of Jaya’s own toilette achieved through much carneying–for as a male he resented all feminine embellishments; in his white silk shirt and navy blue silk shorts he was the comeliest kid that any mother could be proud of. Grandmother and Aunt Alamu were dressed in a manner proper to their age to which the attributes ‘old’ and ‘middle’ could be applied without contradiction. Parvati’s clothes were in perfect harmony with her quiet maintien; even in an ordinary cotton sari and blouse she would have looked charming. She never felt herself inferior to anybody, nor was she self-conscious.

Twilight was thickening into dusk when they set out for the temple, not far from the house. The bells had begun to chime. Aunt Alamu carried an unlit lantern in her hand, Dusk, this evening, failed to darken to its satisfaction; it was too intensely alive to the rise of the full
moon and the myraid lamps that would dazzle anon.

Before the temple of Vishnu, outside the entrance gates, stood a mound of combustibles of parpatakam and nanal grass, of fuel flinders and coconut fibres–the sokka panai waiting to be lit. When they had finished their worship, the women came out of the temple, and the pile then was a cheerful blaze, a crackling, swirling cluster of flames, here separating as tongues, there radiating into fans. Alamu lit a splinter from the bonfire and with it lit the lantern she had brought.

Down the street they returned, and little lamps, in well-laid rows, had already begun to shine in front of houses. They turned the corner and a second street stretched out with its wealth of lights. Another five minutes’ walk. The ether shimmered with the dawning moon and they hurried on; Muthu kept a continual chatter with Jaya, asking her about this and that; why so many lamps were lighted that evening: why not so every evening; why boys played marbles; why girls played hopscotch; and so forth. Another corner was turned and home at last!

And then the lamps were brought out, little lamps like the pipal leaf, of brass and bronze and burnt clay and steatite, and laid in lines everywhere–in the courtyard, in the veranda, in the rooms, up the staircase, round the tulasi bower, along the parapet walls. The first lamp was lit from the lantern that was kindled from the bonfire before the temple; and as Aunt Alamu, Jaya, and Parvati passed bending before the rows, lamp after lamp leaped into glory, little terrestrial stars dancing their delight, Constellations and Milky Ways come for a short sojourn on the earth.

Inside the house, in the parlour, a big kolam was drawn–a fine floral design; in the middle of it on a small oblong bed of paddy, the grains golden-seeming in their husk, stood four tall lamps, spotless, with oil and wicks, waiting to be lit. Hard by a tiny lamp nodded its flame. One of the tall lamps was of a different fashion; it was mounted on a small bronze elephant movable on wee-little wheels, and the lamp itself was cast in the uplifted hands of a graceful figurine, that of a goddess. The lamp was a gift to Parvati from her parents, among other household utensils, given to her at the first Kartikai Deepam after her marriage. That was five years ago.

Grandmother was the first to light her lamp, and the five wicks round the disc glowed like five little diamonds. Followed Aunt Alamu. It was the turn of Parvati next. Her heart was heavy within her, she stooped to kindle her lamp and as she lighted the first wick, a drop of tear which had swelled unaware in her eye fell on the flame extinguishing it with a hiss. She shuddered and strove to hide what had happened, to her so ominous; but her mother-in-law was quick to notice it, and she felt the old woman scowling on her and heard her sour words suppressed in a murmur. Her hand trembled, her eyes were misted, and as in a dream, she lit the wicks of the lamp–one, two, three, four, five–with a desperate courage; thank God; it was over at last! and retired hastily to her room.

She was alone with her sorrow. Voices talked in the veranda: an excited young voice and a matter-of-fact dull voice. She couldn’t help listening. But were they sympathetic who knew the magnitude of her grief? Perhaps, to them it was a trifle. She listened…..

“What’s the matter with Parvati mami?” –this from Jaya.
“Matter? Nothing’s the matter,” –answer from Alamu.
(A sigh of pain from Parvati.)
“Is Grandmother cross with her?”
“No”
“Then?”
“She’s thinking things.”
“What things?”
“Of which she shouldn’t think.”
“Tell me, mother. Don’t talk in riddles.”
“You are a child. It’s bad to be inquisitive”.
“Then I shall ask Grandmother.”
“Wait. Do you know why women light lamps on the Kartikai day, once a year?”
“Because that has been done. That’s the tradition, I suppose.”
“Good. But there’s more than tradition. It’s the day when women light lamps and pray as they do for the well-being and long life of their brothers. It’s an occasion exclusive to brothers and sisters.”
“I understand. But why this digression? I wanted to know why  Parvati mami–”
“ Silly. Let not your skull crack with impatience. Do you know Parvati had a brother?
“Had? Not now?”
“God alone knows”
(A deeper sigh of pain from Parvati.)
“And then–”
“A younger brother. He was disgraced at school for he stole something of somebody something very valuable…it was even talked of that he was sent to jail.
(It’s a lie, it’s a lie–Parvati wanted to rush out and scream at the top of her voice. He failed in his examination and father scolded him and being a sensitive lad he took it to heart and ran away…he never came and father was almost demented with grief….)
“Jail!”
“Yes. For Muthu’s darling uncle. By the by, Jaya, do you know that we once thought of him as a prospective son-in-law–marrying you to him?”
(By God, how they stab my heart! I am a sister and haven’t they brothers too?)

Aunt Alamu laughed a hollow laugh; Jaya was silent, and Muthu who was with them understood with an uncanniness peculiar to children that there was something derogatory to him in their talk. He felt suddenly uneasy in their company and ran out calling, “Mother, where are you?”

In a manner so characteristic of grown-ups to be uncharitable to young ones when they are piqued, Alamu remarked about Muthu: -

“Look at its rebellion! It seems to have got the strange notion that we are its enemies.”

Jaya was thinking of Parvati. She so very much wished to go and console her but the restraining hand of her mother fell on her arm.

Every year for five years now Parvati had lighted the Kartikai lamp, hoping and praying that her brother would return. During the five days of her marriage, he had been the cynosure of every eye; everybody who had a daughter had betrothed her to him. It all looked such a long time ago. He would be twenty now and at College. How proud she had been of him! Every year for five years now Parvati had lighted the Kartikai lamp hoping he would return. Would he come next year? Would he?

Gaiety was in the air, in the endless procession of lamps outside; in the merry explosion of crackers let off by boys and girls, in the coloured matches they kindled. Will gaiety detach itself from these for a moment and turn to dispel the gloom of one sad, lone heart?