Marriage at Sixty

MARRIAGE AT SIXTY
(Short story)

PURASU BALAKRISHNAN
(Translated by the author from the original Tamil)

I

Mrityunjaya Sastrigal had spent the greater part of his life serving in the monastery of S- in the district of T- till I he attained the age of sixty. Dedicated to his work, he had increased the assets of the monastery from half a lakh to two lakhs of rupees, traveling from Rameswaram to Kasi, from Puri to Dakshineswar, collecting funds and investing them profitably. Himself an excellent Sanskrit scholar, he had appointed two Sanskrit Pundits in the school of the monastery for imparting religious literature. He was poorly paid, one hundred and fifty rupees a month, and he never asked for more.

It was the eve of his sixty-first birthday. Nearly forty years ago he had tied the gold symbol of wedlock–the necklace with the pendant, the “tali”–round the neck of his wife, before the sacrificial fire as witness. Tomorrow he would be tying a fresh “tali” round her neck–at sixty–marrying her again at sixty with due rites. Both his son Sivaraman and his brother Duraiswami had been urging him to submit himself to this ceremony. Duraiswami was, as it were, another son of his. After the death of their father, Sastrigal had brought up his young brother from his early teens. Duraiswami was now manager in a bank. Sivaraman, after having passed the Audit Service Examination, held a lucrative post under the Government. Both of them were stationed in Madras.

Sastrigal, having finished his midday prayer, walked to the central courtyard of the house. The courtyard, built in the traditional style, was open to the sky except in the periphery where it was roofed. A Swing, consisting of a bare plank, hung by four iron chains from the roof of the covered part of the courtyard adjoining the kitchen. Sastrigal had just sat down on the swing when the postman called.

“From Sivaraman and Duraiswami,” Sastrigal told his wife, glancing at the two letters delivered by the postman. Returning to the courtyard, Sastrigal seated himself on the swing and started reading the letters.

“We are happy you gave us permission,” his brother and his son had both written in the same vein. “Yes, the day after tomorrow we shall be celebrating your completing sixty years. We shall be arriving there tomorrow evening.” From Sivaraman there was the additional news that he had got the “tali”–the symbolic pendant–from the goldsmith.

“Sivaraman, Meenakshi, Duraiswami and Alamelu will be coming this evening,” said Mrityunjaya Sastrigal to his wife, handing the letters to her.

Mangalammal’s face beamed. Sivaraman was her only child. She read the letters, said nothing, and walked to the kitchen.

Soon her voice reached Sastrigal from the kitchen: “Please come in for dinner.”

Sastrigal went and sat down on the mat spread on the floor before the plantain leaf. On the leaf had been served vegetable curry, steamed red gram, pickle, salt and appalam.Mangalammal placed a plantain fruit on the leaf. “Today also I shall eat four share,” she said, pointing to the mango on the serving-plate, and not serving him the mango. Sastrigal had given up eating mangoes for about thirty years. At Kasi, when he had gone there about thirty years ago, he had taken a vow to give up, among fruits, the mango–which he liked best–among pulses, country beans which too he liked much, and among leaves the banyan leaf. The last was only a symbolic inclusion since the banyan leaf was not an article of diet and it served only, sewn together, as a plate for food. In this way he had started schooling himself in self-control as Kasi *expects people to do. He had not failed in his vow all these years. Mangalammal had a weakness for mangoes. She had secret qualms in eating them when her husband would not partake of them. By way of allaying these qualms she would say, whenever she helped herself to mangoes, “I shall eat your share also.” She was somehow thrown into a little flutter by the letters just received, and following her habit she said, when she served him a plantain instead of a mango, “I shall eat your share also.”

“Please do,” said Sastrigal with a smile.

In an access of tenderness Mangalammal said, “It is thirsty years since you tasted a mango.”

“Yes,” replied Sastrigal.

She was about to say, “Why not take one now?” But she checked herself. She had said these words once fifteen years ago. At that time he had said banteringly, “Let me finish sixty, and then I shall take it.” She had stared at him in amazement. Noticing it, he had explained, “In any case, after sixty, one has to live on fruits and roots only.” After a whilehe had added,
“If one doesn't go as far as that, I suppose one must at least cut out rice.” Immediately however he had qualified himself again, saying, “At least, I think, one must cut down rice, if one doesn’t give it up completely.” The age of sixty that he had stipulated was now drawing to a close.

II

After dinner two priests from the monastery called on Sastrigal and told him that they would come early next day to officiate in the ceremony. Mangalammal informed them that Sivaraman and Duraiswami would be arriving in the evening. The priests then said that they would call again after dark, and left.

Sastrigal stretched himself on a mat and fell into a siesta over the pages of “Yaksha Yajna” in the Mahabharata.

When he got up there were two scholars from the monastery waiting to have some point in dialectics clarified by him. It was close upon four o’clock in the afternoon when they left. Sastrigal drank a tumbler of coffee and proceeded to the temple. On reaching it, however, he walked past it to the river-bank, and he continued to walk, cogitating.

He looked upon his life. It had not been without room for satisfaction. He was pleased that he had kept the small vow of self-denial that he had taken thirty years ago on visiting Kasi. For thirty years the observance of this vow had, by imperceptible degrees, strengthened him. He had been tested times past counting–when others were eating mangoes in his presence, at home, at weddings, at festivals–when friends, acquaintances and relatives had tried to make themselves affable by expressing their solicitude for his tasting mangoes occasionally. It is said that ceaseless licking by ants imprints even the rock, and the long observance of this minor self-denial had worked on his mind and fortified it.

Sastrigal continued to reflect as he walked along the river. For forty years now he had trodden the path of the “house-holder” according to the Shastras, observing the moral, ethical and social codes of married life as enunciated in them. That was also a matter for satisfaction. He and his wife had been companions for forty years. Thinking of her, he felt a tenderness for her. Their journey together had not always been smooth. Often it had been over gravel. Forty years ago he had tied the “tali” round her neck. Now he would be doing that a second time –at sixty. Then his father had performed his marriage. It was his son doing that office now. At that time he had been a passionate young man, panting for the warmth of a girlish body. Now he was old, schooled hard by life, and withered. She was old, schooled not so hard, and withered too. He was going to be married again to her. At that time he had received the blessings of others. Now he would be blessing others. What did this marriage mean? One could understand the first marriage. But this? Society had forged the first in order to bind the couple to their common duties in life so that they might not break away after the taste of pleasure. It bound them to the obligations which arose from that–the obligation to each other, to their offspring and to society. What now? Was it to bind him again to her and to the world? Then it was a spiritual consummation of the flesh. Was this to be a spiritual consummation of the spirit? Was it only a seal of appreciation over the seal forged by time? Or was it a seal necessitated again by distrust of man’s errant and truant nature which seeks freedom or pursues a distant gleam? Or he might seek renunciation. Whatever that might be, this marriage was a lengthening of the chain.

And how about woman? She might seek renunciation too. Or just freedom. He remembered the story in the Mahabharataof the congenitally blind but learned sage Dirgatamas, narrated by Bhishma to his step-mother Satyavati. The sage’s wife, Pardvesi having borne him children, got tired of supporting him when he developed gross perversions late in life. She had him tied to a raft and thrown adrift on the Ganges, her sons acting as her accomplices. Was it to meet crises like this towards the last oflife that society had instituted the custom of the long-married couple marrying each other again late in life? The marriage being performed by their sons, the children were also drawn in to form a well-knit family.

III

It was dark when Sastrigal returned home. Sivaraman and Duraiswami had arrived from Madras with their wives.

“Father,” said Sivaraman, “Look at the ‘tali’ that I’ve brought.” Giving the gold chain to Sastrigal, Sivaraman said,I’ve shown it to mother.”

“It is lovely,” said Sastrigal, handling it carefully. Then he extended the “tali” to Sivaraman.

“No, give it to mother,” said Sivaraman. Sastrigal gave the chain to Mangalammal who was standing by.

“I’ve bought a present for you, brother,” said Duraiswami. “I haven’t shown it to manni.** I wanted to show it to you first.” He opened his trunk, and getting out a bronze image from it said, “An image of Lord Balasubrahmanya.”

Mangalammal stared at it, as if stunned. “It is the image of Lord Baladandayudham!” she gasped.

Mrityunjaya Sastrigal’s eyes kept scanning the image while Duraiswami looked on sheepishly. It was a grave mistake that Duraiswami had committed. He had, while buying the image, failed to distinguish between the images of Balasubrahmanya and Baladandayudham. They were both represented as children, and were so closely similar as to look alike to inexpert eyes. Baladandayudham, was an older child, and he carried a staff–little features that made all the difference in the significance of the two gods. Child Subrahmanya betokened prosperity and attainment of desires. Child Dandayudham pointed to life’s final pathway of ashes, the cremation ground.

IV

The remarriage at sixty was duly performed the next day. Mangalammal’s mind was somehow vaguely perturbed. She talked breezily, she performed the chores with dispatch, she was livelier than usual, even vivacious, hardly aware of the inner core of perturbation which was masquerading under the mask of hyper-activity. She wanted particularly to please her husband.

At dinner, with the last serving, she placed a mango on his leaf, looking enquiringly at him, with her hand still on the mango.

“Do take it. Today is your wedding day, and you must celebrate it,” said Sivaraman.

“The newly-wedded wife is serving you. You must not say ‘no’ to her,” said Duraiswami.

Sastrigal remained silent, smiling hesitatingly.

“You said you would take it after sixty,” said Magalammal. There was, in spite of herself, a touch of tenderness in her voice.

“Oh, ho!” applauded Sivaraman and Duraiswami.

“In that case, you have to take it today. Just today. Just one day,” said Sivaraman.

“One mustn’t go against the wish of a newly-wed girl. Please her,” said Duraiswami.

“We want to see you both happy, taking things easy here-after.” said Sivaraman to his father, looking at his mother at the same time.

Sastrigal also looked at his wife. He thought how eagerly he had tried to please her in the early days of their marriage, trying to fulfil every desire of hers, however trivial.

“Yes, I shall take it,” he said. “Anyway I shall be living on fruits and roots hereafter,” he added.

He took the mango from the leaf and ate it. Three pairs of eves converged on him as if watching a wonder.

V

In the evening Mrityunjaya Sastrigal walked to the riverbank. His mind was simmering. In a moment of weakness he had eaten the mango and broken the vow that he had kept for thirty years. This thought was recurring to him obstinately. Yes, he was being drawn to life again. Indeed, as it had occurred to him yesterday during the walk on the riverbank, the purpose of this marriage at sixty, setting its seal on the marriage of youth, was precisely that. He was trying to walk out of the house, and the old familiar affinities were calling to him again. His wife, forty years ago, had cast her apparently slender spell on him and caught him in the meshes of human bondage. Her spell was still continuing.

Turning from the river, he walked across the fields blindly. It grew dark. He eat down on a boulder under a banyan tree and sank into thought. For the passing satisfaction of an appetite–or for the sake of pleasing others–he had lost the lasting satisfaction which contemplation of successful self-denial gives…What was done was done...but he would mend what was undone. He would exercise, by way of atonement for the lapse, greater denial on himself. He would achieve a greater thing than the one which had been undone. Yes, it certainly lay with him to do that.

He turned home. He walked with steps which quickened increasingly as he neared home. On his arrival he found nobody in the house. Some children, playing outside in the street, told him that they had gone to the temple.

He proceeded to his room. He took a piece of paper and pencil, and wrote hurriedly:

My blessings to Mangalam, Sivaraman and Duraiswami. To please you I went through the ceremony today. But my mind has other longings. Mangalam, you will, I think, permit me to follow them. Sivaraman, I desire you to take your mother with you to Madras. I am sure you and your wife will pay due attention and honour to her, and tend her in her age. I know some devotees who will help me for a start. A student of mine is attached to Sringeri Monastery. I shall be going there in the first instance. After that God will show me the way. Duraiswami, I bless you. You will be the eldest member in the family after I leave. I have no doubt that you will be a source of strength to the family. I have entered on the path of renunciation. I am seeking God. Leave me to Him, and don’t try to trace me or follow me, please don’t. To each his own dharma. God will take care of you all.

MRITYUNJAYA SASTRI

After writing this, Sastrigal came to the courtyard of the house and sat on the swing, and pondered. Mangalammal and others had not yet returned from the temple. He could have walked out of the house, but he did not. He folded the letter and tucked it in his dhoti. A spare dhoti, a cotton shawl, a water-can and a few other necessities he put into a travelling-bag and placed it by the mat where he was to sleep.

After his wife and the two young couples returned from the temple, they had a frugal supper. Mangalammal did not serve him mango. After supper he chatted with them for a while, as was his wont.

He got up in the middle of the night. He took the tucked letter from his dhoti and placed it on the table underneath the image of Lord Baladandayudham. He slipped the travelling-bag over his shoulder and walked out of the house through the door, and soon disappeared into the night.

* It is the customary injunction that on visiting Kasi, one should give up a fruit, a pulse and a leaf.
** Term for elder ‘brother’s wife.’