Strength to Say No (10 page)

At the market one of Baba's friends called to him and held out a newspaper.

‘This is your daughter, isn't it?'

‘Yes, that's Rekha. What's she doing in the paper?'

‘How should I know? But look, she's also in this paper and in this one, too.'

‘What's it all about?' Baba asked.

‘I haven't the least idea. Just because I sell papers doesn't mean I read them!' says the merchant with a smile of complicity to his neighbour, standing between a mound of garlic and another one of red peppers.

‘But you know how to read, don't you? Can you tell me what is written in this article under the photo?'

‘Give me five rupees first. If all my customers were like you, I'd spend my time reciting the information from these newspapers and go home in the evening without a penny in my pocket.' He replied with the same mischievous tone, but turning this time to his neighbour on the left who feigned a friendly smile.

‘Here you are,' my father said, giving him the money. ‘Tell me what's in the paper now!'

The merchant took a pair of half-moon glasses out of his shirt pocket after throwing the coins into a box on the floor near a plastic sheet where magazines were displayed. He murmured for a few seconds while Baba fidgeted impatiently.

‘They say that this girl set off thunderous applause at the museum in Purulia when she made a speech that was incredible for her age …'

‘What did she say?'

‘Wait, I'm reading the rest of it,' said the merchant as he continued to murmur to himself. ‘She says that her sister had several miscarriages because she was too young to have a child when she fell pregnant … It also says that her parents want to marry her off without her consent before next winter. She tries
to refuse, her parents insist on the wedding taking place, mainly because they don't want to feed her any more … Who does she think she is, this kid, talking about this kind of thing in public? If I were her father I would have given her a good thrashing long before this! That's quite right, don't you agree?'

Baba grabbed the paper out of his hands and rushed home. On his way, several people stopped him and asked if it was really his daughter they had seen yesterday on television. Baba couldn't believe his eyes or his ears. Rekha had gone around talking about everything that happened in the family circle to the news papers and on television channels. In no time they will be the laughing stock of the whole village, the whole region and perhaps even of all of Bengal. Ma was going to be furious.

Kitchen utensils fly in my direction. Insults rain down. I get a ladle, some spoons and even the cooking pot. I try to protect myself by curling up into a ball, but my mother takes me by the hair and knocks me down. I yell, I cry, I beg her to stop hitting me. Baba holds her back, and my brother Dipak helps me up. He orders me to hide out at my uncle's and not to move from there before he comes to get me. In the courtyard I spot a newspaper with a big picture of me. I realize that my words at the museum in Purulia have brought on my mother's wrath.

I hear her yell at my father, ‘You see what your daughter is capable of? She's humiliating us in front of the whole village, that little hussy!'

Baba tries to calm her down by saying that the damage is done, that now they have to think about what to do and say in
their defence, especially as the authorities, the school and the
panchayat
might interfere. This is bound to be only the beginning of their problems.

It got too dangerous to listen to the rest of the conversation at the door. My mother was capable of wringing my neck in a fit of anger. I reassured my brothers and sisters, who were disturbed by the violence of the scene and the behaviour of our mother. She seemed to be possessed by demons. I took refuge, as my brother suggested, with my father's family. On the terrace I spelled out the newspaper article. It mentioned everything: the miscarriages, the proposals of marriage, the conditions of life at home and so on. I understood why Ma flew off the handle. The journalists didn't spare any detail. My older brother confirmed my fears.

‘Why did you do that, Rekha? It's insane. Ma is beside herself. She's furious with you.'

‘I just told the truth, nothing more.'

‘In the newspapers. On the telly. On the radio. You realize that everybody is going to know all this stuff? What are people going to think of us?'

‘I don't care!'

‘You can't say that. The whole family is going to be – and already is – the laughing stock of everybody. The situation can spin out of control very quickly, to say nothing of the problems this can cause.'

‘I said, and repeated several times, to our parents that I didn't want to be married, but they didn't even try to listen to me. They spent their time introducing me to suitors. However much I refuse them they just keep banging on about it. They threatened me for weeks. You see how they are. You, too, you
were right about it, you know very well how it happened, don't you?'

When Dipak was about ten years old and Josna was already married my parents tried to find him a wife. He systematically refused them all. He always found something to hold against them: one was too dark skinned, another wasn't pretty enough, another was illiterate, still another was taller than he was and so on. Our parents finally threw in the towel, and tough luck if the dowry would be less than they had expected. Why don't they treat me the same way? Is it because I am a girl and a potential risk to the family honour? And even though they want to free themselves from their responsibilities, why not wait until I finish school?

My brother Dipak is very understanding. He always supported me when the chance of going to school came up. When I don't study enough or my marks are a little less good he orders me to work harder, to do my homework more seriously. He advises me to read and to have a look at the lessons of the curriculum before the information is brought up by my teachers. He himself is sorry not to have continued at school for longer. He gave it up around the age of twelve to begin – like all of us – to earn money. However, I can see that he is unhappy with his job because he is not cut out for physical work; on the other hand he is blessed with a very quick mind. Some years later he regrets what he did. The tea stall brings in a little to help the family, but not enough to start a family of his own. It's thanks to him that we have been able to put electricity in the house. He pays the bills so that my parents can devote their income to buying food.

That evening he advises me to stay with our uncle. There's
no point starting the conflict up again by going back home, since my mother is probably still furious. I agree with him. He promises to bring me my school things early the next morning.

It is after eight o'clock, and I've been up for nearly two hours. Dipak is late in coming, and I'm going to be late to school. I go to the house hoping that Ma will be away. I see her in the courtyard weaving bamboo baskets. She sees me and looks daggers at me. Her dark, piercing eyes are fierce, her lips pursed. Dipak takes me by the hand and tells me that my mother no longer wants me to go to school. Her decision is final, and neither he nor Baba has succeeded in making her change her mind. She will not tell me directly because she has sworn not to speak to me again.

All right then. I go back into the room, grab the tobacco basket and go plonk myself down at the other end of the courtyard near Budhimuni's house. In one morning I make more than five hundred cigarettes. I have so much experience that I can work with my eyes closed. If I keep on at this rate, in no time I'll beat my father's production figure of a thousand bidis a day. There is also a high probability that my back will be wrecked and my fingers bent before I'm married. And it's not impossible that my mother and I will never speak to each other again.

I hear the children chattering in the street, and I recognize the voices of Budhimuni, Ashok, Pinky and the others. Atul asked them to find out why I haven't been to school. I reply briefly that I had to drop everything and help my parents. The conversation very quickly turns to the newspaper articles that
all the parents in the village are talking about. I really underestimated the impact of my speech. I am under no illusion now that the whole country knows about my talk. Budhimuni is the only one who understands the extent of the damage. She advises me to talk about it with the teachers at the school. For the time being I don't want to make the situation worse, even though she is undoubtedly basically right – but I have no idea how to get out of this mess I've created. I ask her to lie to Atul and Arjun and tell them that I had to go to my sister's in Sampur. I don't want to get them mixed up in this business. I have already hurt my family enough by giving them so much bad publicity.

Baba dismisses the children who are clustered around me. He is livid. He confirms what Dipak told me before with regard to the school. From now on my main activity will consist of either making bidis or else going to the brick factory where my sister works. I reply calmly that I prefer to follow his line of work because I don't feel like learning a new trade.

‘Tomorrow we will go to the dealer to get double the amount of tobacco and eucalyptus leaves,' he says with finality.

Several days went by, but my mother didn't get over the shockwave that I caused in the press. She spent a lot of time squatting in the courtyard brooding over the shame that I had brought on our family. She didn't open her mouth except to insult me. She told me that from now on she would no longer feed me, that she was going to make my life so difficult and unbearable that I was soon going to look back longingly at the time now gone by when she loved me with all her heart. So that she would be
certain not to come face to face with me she wove her baskets in the neighbouring courtyard with the other women.

I took advantage of the fact that she wasn't watching me to go for a walk down the main street. I couldn't take a step in the village without hearing remarks or being asked questions about my speech. I brushed off those remarks and claimed that it was nothing to do with me, that there had been a mistake. Most of the people had only a very vague idea of what had been said. Nobody had really read the newspapers. I found it strange that my neighbours were interested more in my marriage than in me myself.