The Bangles of Womanhood
A story of a woman’s struggle to identify her position in a household in the early 90s.
Aneesh: “Okay, listen, make sure the entire house is clean by tonight. Everything should be neat and orderly, my reputation must not suffer.”
Harini: “Aneesh, you have no right to boss me around!”
Aneesh: “Oh come on, you’re not that late in the pregnancy. Moving is good for the baby and your health.”
Harini: “Why don’t you invite a cleaning lady to help you?”
Aneesh: “We don’t need one, you’re here and you should do the work.”
Harini: “You’re such an arse, that can’t understand the plight of a woman!”
Aneesh as he clasped the hard door: “well then you expect me to use my sole earnings for cleaning! Of course, no respect for my work! Who feeds you two meals with rotis?”
Harini flocked onto the sofa. Her sore muscles increased the agony of her married life. She wanted street food, her mother’s achaar, puris, to satisfy her cravings and depression. The smell of pickled mangos and grounded spice reminded her of her existence and why it could be beautiful. Aneesh never cared about what goes on in her mind.
She lifted the mop and vacuumed. Her limbs, out of despair, tried to exert a force upon the mop.
Harini yells: Stubborn bull-headed husband, doesn’t know how I feel! Why doesn’t he die a stray dog’s life! She screamed and threw down the equipment. Her heart beat faster and faster until Harini was close to vomiting. Her head swirled from nausea. She laid back flailing her arms out with sweat gliding down the side of her face. It took her an hour until she felt calm and normal.
Harini’s tears fell onto the floor.
Harini thinks: Oh Lord, why did I have to come here? Wasn’t my life in India enough? I can’t carry the load that Aneesh expects me to take as a servant. Bhai treated me better than this man. Bhai* knew how to live life in its ups and downs. He cared that I was a woman with dreams.
Harini couldn’t get up to pick up the equipment. The weight she carried would stop her from cooking. She remembered the smell of her mother grinding cardamom. She yearned for Amma’s aloo puri with chutney — — the longing of seeing her mother fry each puri one by one — -giving in the time and effort it took to provide her proper respect. Whenever she wanted something fried, Aneesh would stop her tracks and dictate to her what she should have instead.
She plucked out the box of yellow daal, and steamed it with water, remembering the comfort of the home she grew up in. She then took the heavy knit bag of basmati rice, cut it open, and let the whistle blow from pressure. The sweat from her forehead drips after a long day of work.
Why can’t Aneesh do this? She exhaled her breath from the fuming heat.
While cooking, the landline beside the couch rang.
Harini: Hallo?
Aneesh’s sister yelled into the phone.
Sister: Haan, Harini? How are you?
Harini: I’m not too well, is everyone alright?
Sister: Oh ho, Harini, you are not sick. This is normal in pregnancy. Make sure not to eat fried or anything harmful to the baby.
Harini: I know.
Sister: Okay, listen. Aneesh is asking for the house to be proper. His client is very important. After all, what you are doing at home?
Harini: I know.
Sister: Okay, I’ll call later.
Harini: Bye.
Harini kept the phone down.
Evening came, and Harini continued to rest on the couch with a plate of daal and rice. She ate three servings in starvation. While watching a British comedy, she heard the doorbell ring.
Following the ring, a knock, two knocks, and loud thrashing continued.
Arrey, I’m coming, wait.
She said, holding the bottom of the baby bump while slipping on her run-down Bata sandals.
Harini stood in front of ten men in suits. They smirked at Harini’s run-down, casual attire.
Aneesh: Listen, is the house clean? Is there food set out?
Harini yawned: Aneesh, do you consider me a servant? What am I to you?
Aneesh: Look, we can’t discuss this here. He glanced at his colleagues.
Harini: I haven’t prepared anything and neither is the house cleaned. My muscles are sore and my stomach is extensively heavy.
Colleague: One of his colleagues suggested, why don’t we just go out somewhere, Aneesh?
Aneesh impudently: No, Harini is solving it. You are solving it, right?
Harini: Yes, I have solved it. Your colleagues are right. Go out with them. Can’t you be a gentleman and care for a pregnant woman?
The group of men walked down the stairs in synchrony. They were all broad-shouldered, with black coats, white shirts, and golden ties.
It was midnight and Aneesh didn’t return. Harini was asleep but awoke when the door clasped shut.
Aneesh’s eyes fumed with rage and his ears turned red. He instantly grabbed Harini’s wrist, clanking her bangles together.
Harini: What happened? Can’t you close the door slowly? Harini awoke with groggy eyes.
Aneesh slapped the bill in her hand.
Aneesh: Look at this bill. Can you read the number here? Haan Ji**, it’s a $500 bill. Do you know where that money went? Towards food and drinks. The same amount of money I wanted to invest in something else. Now everything is down the drain due to my useless wife!
Aneesh’s eyes fumed with rage and his ears turned red. He grabbed Harini’s wrist, tightened it, and left it to dangle.
Harini was mute. She needed to save herself but ended up with no ideas. Harini called her mother using the landline.
Harini: Ma, are you sleeping?
Mother: Haan beta, I was, is everything okay? The mother said.
Harini was speechless.
Mother: Beta, is everything ok? ***Kuch toh bolo.
She mumbled and broke into tears.
Not good ma, Aneesh doesn’t treat me well. He doesn’t care if I’m pregnant.
She sobbed with profound sadness, her lungs heavy from the pain she carried.
Mother: Beta, I don’t think Aneesh can do that. I can’t believe what you’re saying. This is why we arranged your marriage with him.
Harini: Ma, you don’t know him. I want to come back to India. I want to hug you, papa, and Bhai.
Mother: Beta, progress your life there. Your father and I can’t afford so many plane tickets back and forth. You are a dutiful wife and must support Aneesh.
Harini smashed the phone down out of disappointment.
She thinks to herself: Maybe Ma is right. I can’t get out of this mess without supporting Aneesh for some time. I fear for the health of my child. Oh Lord, how will I manage everything?
Her tears slowly cascaded down her face while frowning her eyebrows.
Five months later, Harini bends down holding her stomach from the pain. She tremors from what’s about to become.
Harini yells: Aneesh! Ah! Aneesh! My water broke, come quickly!
Aneesh: Get up Harini, it’s okay.
Harini: Arrey, Aneesh call an ambulance!
Aneesh: Give me a minute, Harini.
Aneesh frantically searches the room for the phone. Harini screams her life’s worth of her lungs. Her face streams with sweat. She remembers her mother telling her to calm down. Soon, the blazing sound of the ambulance volumes near the house.
The paramedic reassures: Calm down, ma’am, everything’s gonna be alright. Breathe…breathe.
Harini breathed in and out, the pain intensifying each moment.
She continues saying: We’re almost there, ma’am….breathe.
The paramedic became tenser as the ambulance blazed through the streets. She compressed Harini’s head with a washcloth.
Congratulations, it’s a girl
Harini felt a warmth unlike no other in so long.
Her emotions flowed down her face in prosperity, holding her pride and joy.
Aneesh calls his sisters while stepping into the room.
One of the sisters asked, Aneesh if it was a boy or a girl.
Aneesh says, “I had to see this day, where it’s not a boy.”
Harini’s eyes gained shame and disappointment.
The sister impudently asks: what is the name that you will keep?
Aneesh declares without hesitation, “only I will declare her name as Sukhwini. She’s only brought misery”
Harini exclaimed in fury, “Aneesh! She has brought wealth and you have no right to blame my child. You didn’t even ask me about her name.”
“Why didn’t you bother to ask me? You have the audacity to override my consent without realizing I’ve given birth to her?!”
Aneesh authoritatively procedures to abide by his rules. He left the room mumbling to his side of the family.
Harini caressed her daughter. Stroking the small hairs on her little head, she recounted it was possible to be a powerful woman.
With an innocent sparkle in her eye, “no matter what, I will always call you Radha.”
Aneesh swindles the door open with a thrust while ending the conversation with his mother.
He questions: “are you insane, Harini?”
Harini confused asks: “what are you saying?”
Aneesh interrogates: Is this how you talk to my sisters? Have your parents taught you no shame? They simply dumped you in my house.
Harini exhausted and infuriated, fights back saying: “don’t involve my parents Aneesh. I still can’t believe you kept the name without my consent.”
Aneesh says: “Who cares about your consent? You’re here to give birth and that’s it.”
Harini was mute again. Two days later, she was discharged from the hospital.
Harini in fatigue says: “Aneesh, I’m feeling weak. Can you not buy food from somewhere?”
Aneesh was disinterested, “Oh nothing’s happening to you. I’m not going to even spend two dollars. How long does it take to make rice porridge? I bet you’ll make it by the time I finish my walk outside.”
Harini picked up the bag of rice, with the pain of weakness running up her legs. The heat swelters on her face from the gas stove. Aneesh walks in from the door with a cup of coffee from the café he visits often. Harini lifted her eyebrows when she saw his coffee. She yearned to be fed with care. She screamed from sheer despair, feeling as if no one listened to her. She threw all the china plates down onto the floor. Aneesh runs to the kitchen.
Aneesh yells: “What the hell is happening?”
Harini’s feet soaked in red: “You’re the worst thing to happen in my life!”
Harini threw everything to the floor that was breakable and in near proximity. Her anger continued to rage. She wanted to break a barrier in her life. She hated the control of her husband and her in-laws. She can’t speak up about anything. She’s nailed to the ground, a bird in a steel cage.
Only Radha can save her.
*Bhai is brother in Hindi
**haan ji, is a way of saying yes respectfully
***kuch toh bolo, means at least say something
