Sunday short story

(Excerpted from Saris and Grapefruit, an anthology of short stories by Rukmini Attygalle)

Janaki sat on a long ebony couch dressed in full white. She was in a bedroom — but it was not hers. Nor was it her mother’s. She vaguely wondered whether it was the room that had been booked for her at the hotel to get dressed for the wedding. However, it seemed too much effort to try to puzzle it out — for she was tired. So very, very tired. All she wanted to do was just let her thoughts come and go, without actively thinking, without reasoning. She just desired to ‘be’, to simply ‘exist’ while waiting for her cue — the wedding drum.

Her mother sat beside her holding her hand. Janaki was aware that her mother was crying silently, because she saw from the corner of her eye, her mother wiping her eyes and face from time to time. Her mother had always been a little sentimental and prone to being rather weepy too. Janaki wanted to comfort her for she loved her mother dearly.

“Amma, I know I’ll be leaving home, but it is not as if I will be going to another country! Bambalapitiya is not that far from where you live,” she ventured with difficulty.

A sense of unreality, ambiguity seemed to have invaded her whole being. She tried to get a grip on reality, but her mind kept slipping back. It seemed to have lost its tenacity. She alternated from wanting to understand; and wanting to just relax and close her mind.

Talking seemed such a massive effort. All she really wanted to do was just curl up somewhere and go to sleep. But that of course was out of the question. This was the most important day of her life, and Hiran’s too! They had waited so long for this day. Five long years, to be exact.

After years of waiting, and months of planning and preparation, and all the excitement, this apathy, this lack of energy must surely be some sort of reaction. Perhaps it was pre-wedding ‘nerves’ she had heard so much about!

But she did not feel nervous – not in the normal sense of the word. It was a feeling she could not describe. There seemed to be a kind of pressure inside her head. It was as though there was something in there which needed to come out, and at the same time, this ‘thing’ was somehow being prevented from emerging. She vaguely felt that she knew what it was – like a word that is at the tip of your tongue but keeps escaping you. Anyway, she did not want to think. It was too much trouble. Too tiring. The magul bera would start beating soon.

The room door opened, and her sister walked in with a drink in her hand – closing the door behind her. In that moment between the door opening and closing Janaki noticed a large crowd of people outside. They were talking in hushed tones – almost whispering.

“Drink this, Jani,” said her mother gently, holding the glass of orange juice to her lips.

“You haven’t had anything since last night! You need your strength, Duwa.”

“Amma, I don’t want anything just now. In any case I’ll have to drink the milk which will be offered to me by Padmini Akka and Nihal Aiya as I go out of the room.”

Janaki disliked milk, but she had been told that she must take at least one gulp of milk offered by a happily married couple as she leaves the room. For a split second her memory seemed to be playing tricks, or perhaps it was her imagination? She could almost feel the milk going down her throat; she felt herself grimacing –registering her aversion to milk; Padmini Akka carefully wiping the corner of her mouth, and laughing, tilting her head to one side. Was she imagining this? Well Thaththa always did say that she had a vivid imagination; so did her teachers at school.

“No, Duwa,” her mother said softly “There will be no milk. Just drink even a few sips of this orange juice,” she pleaded. She wanted so much to comfort Janaki. To alleviate her pain. But she did not know how.

Janaki felt too tired to find out why she was not going to be offered milk. It did not seem to matter anymore.

Janaki vaguely noticed that her mother and sister were not yet ready. They were both dressed in plain, ordinary clothes – Amma in a white sari and Nangi in a gray skirt and white blouse. But again, it didn’t seem to matter very much. Nothing seemed to matter. What she waited for, was the drum beat.

Janaki’s father came into the room and said something in a low voice to her mother.

“…almost ready … paansacula … let’s take her.

Thaththa was a brick to get his words mixed up when he got excited, thought Janaki. Paansacula, or last rites instead of Jayamangala Gatha, the wedding blessing. Well really! She must remember to tease him about it later.

Janaki was getting rather confused as she walked out of the room flanked by her mother and father. She did not hear the wedding drums nor were there any dancers! But she vaguely felt that she had already lived through it all – the magul bera, the dancing troupe, she even thought she remembered her sister accidentally stepping on her sari! Did they have some sort of a rehearsal before the wedding? Perhaps it was once again her vivid imagination!

As she came into the hall, the first thing her eyes focused on were the two massive ivory tusks mounted on ebony stands that Hiran’s parents were so proud of. They had been so keen that the tusks be placed on either side of the poruwa. Janaki had not liked the idea at all, but for Hiran’s sake she had agreed.

Janaki did not see the coffin that lay between the ivory tusks, nor did she see her husband’s body that lay in the coffin.

All she saw was Hiran standing next to her on the poruwa between the two tusks, she heard the Jayamangala Gatha, she felt Hiran gently squeeze her hand as they stepped down from the poruwa. She saw him smiling at her as they cut the cake, she saw the hoards of well-wishers that queued up to wish them, the dancing and merry making. Hiran being thrown up and up and up, again higher and higher, and then suddenly – Hiran on the floor. His body still, and lifeless.

Janaki’s mind went blank. She desperately tried to cling on to her parents as she felt her knees buckling under her.