Leaving India: My Family's Journey from Five Villages to Five Continents (43 page)

The government of Fiji considered them legally wed, but for the families it was more like an engagement; only the Hindu ceremony would consecrate the union. Madhukant's sister was also engaged, to a man who was working in Australia, and the family wanted to hold a joint wedding. So they waited.

"Before Married very time I go to their Shop in I brink at her and She Brink at me," Madhukant writes. This courtship lasted five months, until "On 12th May 1977 We got Married." The groom was twenty-one years old, and his bride seventeen and a half. In Madhukant's telling, the wedding is the perfect ending to a fairy-tale romance.

But every fairy tale must have a villain.

The first migrants in our community were women: they traveled from their homes to their husbands' villages upon marriage. Mala's mother and her mother-in-law had both made the journey, as had all their female forebears, and now it was Mala's turn. An ancient tune still sung at weddings acknowledges the path: "Stranger, do not weep as you go to your new home ..." The word for stranger is
pardesi,
literally "from another country"—a term applied now, in the age of globalization, to Indians who live abroad. But the first foreigners, the first to have to make their way in strange environments, were women.

And so, although her new home was only an hour's drive away, Mala knew she was entering a different world. Naturally she was cautious, and somewhat shy. Normally outspoken, she worried about saying the wrong thing. In front of her
saasu,
her mother-in-law, she tried to stay modest and quiet.

For this, to her dismay, her saasu scolded her:—What's wrong with you, can't you talk? So Mala tried to summon up her confident, talkative self. But when she chatted with a neighbor, her mother-in-law complained,—Why talk outside, you have no one to talk with in the house? And despite the family's affluence, Mala's saasu retained a frugal-to-a-fault sensibility. She would send Mala to the market with a few dollars for vegetables, and Mala had to return with change and to-the-penny accounting—then endure a grilling as to why she had bought such expensive onions and potatoes.

Mala found no sisterly bonding with the other two daughters-in-law, as each strove in her own way to shelter herself from the barbs. Within weeks, Mala realized that navigating her mother-in-law's criticisms was to be the major preoccupation of her new life.

Mala's saasu was, to all appearances, living the Indian dream. For a woman of her generation, she had the coveted triple blessing: her husband was still alive, her children had all married within the caste, and all of her sons' families lived with her under the same roof. It was an ideal scenario, not only by tradition but also in practical terms. With three daughters-in-law at home to carry out the daily homemaking tasks, she could enter a state of virtual retirement. Knowing that they were duty-bound to respect and obey her, she could exercise virtually unlimited authority.

The part played in a Western fairy tale by the wicked stepmother is, in much of India, played by the powerful and evil mother-in-law. From traditional folk song to Bollywood film, she is an archetypal character: the bitch-power, the devil woman, the old hag whose tests must be overcome for our heroine to advance into her own power. Whole soap-opera series revolve around the drama of mother-in-law versus daughter-in-law, and it is rare that a family saga unfolds on big or small screen in which the malicious older woman does not make an appearance, an instantly recognizable caricature or cameo. Certain actresses have made a career of playing this walk-on part.

Offscreen, almost every daughter-in-law has horror stories, especially if she has lived with her in-laws for any length of time. Some of these complaints are no doubt exaggerated or manufactured, but in my own family, I have witnessed one aunt complaining to guests at the dinner table,
My daughter-in-law doesn't know how to cook at all,
as the younger woman serves a multicourse meal she has spent all day preparing. Another says to her daughter-in-law, who has just walked in the door from a full day's work and is preparing to make dinner for the family,
Your kids are so spoiled, it's your fault, can't you keep them quiet?
And another rants to anyone who will listen,
That girl has put a spell on my son, he does everything she says, he can't even fart without her permission, they go out to the movies and leave me alone here, what will become of me, they are just waiting till I'm dead!
Certain mothers-in-law have made a career of acting the martyr part.

Married in May, Mala was pregnant by August. One day she felt queasy at the sight of the blackish eggplant curry that her saasu had told the daughters-in-law to prepare for lunch. Mala craved instead a simple fried-potato curry, made the way her mother would have prepared it. Not wanting to bother anyone, Mala stirred it up herself, cooking enough for the other women to share.

—Who said you could make that? her saasu demanded as they sat to eat.—Aren't you ashamed, eating all by yourself?

—Oh, but there's enough for everyone, please have some, Mala said.

But her mother-in-law, fuming, left the table and walked all the way to the store, to complain. Madhukant came home in the middle of the workday to berate Mala: Why was she making trouble? Talking back to her husband was out of the question; his temper was fierce.

When Mala recalls those early years, her voice grows quiet: "I couldn't say anything, I'd shut up and sit and cry and cry. If anything happened I'd just sit and cry. I said nothing."

As Mala's pregnancy wore on, it was a tumultuous time within the family, filled with daily explosions. All three brothers and their father worked together in the clothing store that Madhukant's father, Govind, had opened as a young man. Each of the three sons joined as he came of age, helping Govind to expand to wholesaling and importing goods from Asia. When Madhukant, the youngest, joined, they formed Gosons Enterprises as a partnership with four equal shares and the father as chairman. Madhukant and the middle brother traveled within Fiji to take orders from other shopkeepers; it was during this time that he had met Mala.

But now, Madhukant often found himself separating his brothers when their arguments turned physical at the shop. They accused each other of mismanagement, secrecy, and even theft; when their tempers reached a fever pitch, they would attack each other with fabric scissors, kitchen knives, anything that came to hand. Sometimes neighbors called the police to break up the fights.

The brothers' disputes were mirrored at home, amplified by their mother's character. When dinner was to be shrimp, for example, Mala's saasu counted out two shrimp per person before cooking them in spicy tomato broth. At the table, the children of the eldest son, being children, fished for as many shrimp as they could land in their bowls, three or four apiece. The younger sons' children were left with only broth; then the wives argued, and their husbands fought. Once the eldest brother stood and knocked over the whole pot, splashing tomato-red soup everywhere.

Another day the middle brother threatened to move his family out of the house. Mala watched, stunned, as her saasu clutched the heavy kerosene jug they kept in the kitchen.

—I'll drench my body, then light the match! How can you do this to me! the old lady shrieked as the whole family looked on. Her voice punched through the walls, so loud that Mala was sure all of Fiji could hear them. By morning the rumor would have traveled throughout the family networks on the islands.

Mala stood back, out of the action, as the others begged the old woman not to commit suicide by self-immolation. Someone wrestled the kerosene away; someone else snatched up the matches. Another held her until, at last, her flailing turned into sobs and she collapsed into a chair.

Eventually, that night, the house was quiet again, if tense. Like everyone else in the family, Mala was upset and shocked. But there was also a more immediate sensation: relief. For once, she had not been the target of the old lady's rage.

In the end, despite the old woman's tantrum, the middle son did move out. Within a year, so did the eldest brother. They managed to keep the business together, but with their residences separated by a few blocks, Mala was left alone all day with her saasu and her infant daughter.

Mala had never been afraid of hard work; she had shouldered her share of a large family's workload all her life with good cheer and competence. What did frighten her was her saasu's random outbursts and constant, malicious oversight, and the sense that nothing she did could or ever would please this woman. Mala never knew whether she would be chided for starting to cook something without supervision (arrogance) or for failing to start the cooking (laziness); for speaking up (impudence) or keeping quiet (aloofness). Whatever she said or did, wore or ate, all seemed fair targets and subjects for criticism.

One day, for example, the mother-in-law gave her own marriage necklace to Mala, saying,—Here, daughter; wear this and be happy. The
mangal sutra
of black and gold beads is traditional in our community, and is the mark of a married woman, with sentimental value equivalent to that of a wedding ring. The words
sukhi rehje
were a traditional blessing from elders to the young, and Mala accepted the gift. Perhaps it was a peace offering, a sign of a calmer life to come.

But a few days later, as Mala was wearing it, she noticed her saasu glaring at her.—That's mine, give it back! the older woman growled.

The battle raged on, daily.

In the Mahabharata, thought by scholars to be four thousand years old, a virtuous woman is described as follows:

She was always attentive to her husband and whatever he did she did the same ... She did not stand outside the house or hold long conversations with anyone. She got up early, did the household work with her own hands ... and looked after her parents-in-law.

Other wifely virtues included washing her husband's feet, never showing anger, attending to the needs of all family members, and being "the first person to get up in the morning and the last one to go to bed."

This consensus on a woman's role has the deepest of roots, and is woven throughout the sacred literature as well as popular culture. While a Hindu man's life is traditionally divided into four stages, each representing a stage of his spiritual growth, a Hindu woman's is divided into only three. Daughter, wife, widow: each is a relative status, a reference to her role vis-à-vis male kin. And of the three, by far the most important, the one that all of history seems devoted to praising or regulating, is wife.

Within a year Mala bore her second child. The birth of a son, as fulfillment of a prime obligation of a daughter-in-law, should have eased some of the pressure on Mala, but it did not. Instead, her in-laws isolated Mala from her own family even more than custom demanded. If her parents came to visit, it was unpleasant and difficult to talk intimately, since Mala's in-laws would not leave them any privacy and, on the contrary, would pass the time making disparaging remarks about Mala. Tavua was only an hour's taxi ride away, but her saasu placed conditions on each visit that made it difficult to find the time. If Mala wanted to make the trip, she had to rise well before dawn to prepare a full lunch: curry, rice, daal, and the daily portion of two types of flatbread—white flour for Madhukant, whole-wheat flour for her parents-in-law. Then she would have to boil the morning tea, separating a cup without sugar for her diabetic father-in-law; lay out breakfast; do the dishes; and clean the kitchen. Only then could she hurriedly dress and catch a 6:30
A.M.
taxi. After reaching Tavua at 7:30, she might spend a few precious hours with her parents and siblings, but by 11:30
A.M.
she had to be home to serve lunch and start dinner. And her saasu would complain that she had come back so late, and why did she have to go anyway?

Eventually the verbal abuse Mala had to endure before and after each trip dulled the joy, to the point where the few hours' respite hardly seemed worthwhile. Her parents counseled her to visit less and, instead, to focus on getting along with her in-laws.

Mala's children were one and two years old when Gosons bought a piece of land for $100,000 and took out an additional loan of $500,000 to build a nine-unit shopping complex along Lautoka's main strip. Business was booming.

But within the family, the feuding continued. One day the fistfighting between the brothers was so fierce that their father, trying to break them up, got pushed to the floor. Black-and-blue bruises blossomed on his fragile old skin.

At last their older sister, now married and living in Australia, came to intervene. She called a family meeting. If the three brothers could not get along, she said, they should go their separate ways. The store and its assets should be divided, with each brother running his own portion.

After plenty of heated discussion, the men agreed. The sister told Mala and the other two wives,—You will have to help your husbands in their businesses now. Will you support them?

—Of course, said Mala,—why not?

The great cyclone of 1985 was a calamity for the entire town of Lautoka. At Gosons Enterprises, most of the inventory—from clothing to tricycles—was waterlogged and ruined.

But for the dueling family, the storm proved a blessing. Cash from the insurance company was easier to divide up than the goods would have been. The physical space already had three clear divisions, but the brothers quarreled over which storefront was more desirable; in the end their sister had to step in again.