Read Online As Sweet as Honey by Indira Ganesan - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Indira Ganesan
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arm, chatting and laughing, and children shrieking. The sea! The sea! Everything happened at the sea.
There was the Gandhi statue, just like in Madras, garlanded with fresh roses and chrysanthemums. Across the Pacific, on a beach in California, it was a Hawaiian surfer so garlanded, and farther on, in Rio, Gandhi again, only not at the beach. Elsewhere, on beaches around the world, there are statues of Madonnas, some who weep real tears, and Imanjas, gods and goddesses to herald the power of the earth and water. But on Pi, at Madhupur Beach, Gandhi’s eyeglasses merely glinted as the sun sank into the water, and all around, children cried out in joy at being at the beach.
But there was another kind of beach on Pi as well, the private beach, where only the privileged could wander, where wealth or status opened the barred gates, where miles of smooth softsand folded toward the sea line. Once a beach pass was in hand, pure bliss awaited the lucky who walked on its sand.
Oh! The sea! The sea as it shines on the horizon, the sea as it leaps toward the shore, the sea as it sucks back, all foam and spray and salt and wind.
And here is Meterling at the shore, piling small pebbles into a circle. Sometimes she takes twigs and sticks them straight upright near the stones on the sand. She is building prayer circles, she is building miniature Stonehenges, she is creating rock gardens, tiny, small, temporary memorials to Archer. Little shrines to her large, overpowering loss. Her hands work ceaselessly, blue-green pebbles and glittery rocks shaped into circles and left on the sand.
Rasi and I like to build castles. We like to pile sand into soft mounds and dig under them to form tunnels, so that our hands can meet and shake hello. The wet sand sometimes fills with water and we shout with glee.
But Meterling makes circles to track her tears, makes small sculptures to declare her loss.
13
M eterling was twenty-eight when she lost everything she could lose in losing Archer. And yet at twenty-eight, she had everything she could hope for as well. Three short months, that was the entirety of their courtship, their desire, their hope. Twenty-one, that shiny age, had passed her, then twenty-three. By twenty-five, she was treated tenderly, assumed to a life of spinsterhood. At twenty-five,Meterling became a warning for marriageable daughters as well. It happens, the elders mused. If, as the gossips say, a daughter can only be so dark, or so poor, she certainly could only be so tall as well. That golden promise of a perfect bride required golden skin, golden height, and the golden means of proportions. And Meterling had nothing—her skin was dark, like amber gone opaque, and she was so tall. Meterling was a beauty in a school all her own, and that’s why we flocked to her. She was not film-star material, our Meterling, she was no universal beauty. But she was our standard.
I told her I did not plan to marry, ever. I would be a famous scientist who had no time for cooking and husbands. I would live alone with lots of animals, including a horse, like in the storybooks where children rode on horses and lived with cats and big shaggy sheepdogs. “Beti,” Meterling would say, using Hindi, because sometimes in Hindi, the tenderness required to cut through an excess of emotion with a perfectly pitched honesty was available— beti , which means “child”— “beti,” she’d say, “don’t worry. All is possible; all is good in this world.” And Meterling would smile. She who had lost her love, her joy, at twenty-eight. She’d smile with tenderness, hoping to ease our pain, even as her back ached.
When someone dies, everything dies as well. At least it seems like that. It seems like the gods are punishing you, and no matter what treasure you might have amassed, it all becomes rot, becomes meaningless. Death changes everything. It changes everybody.
Meterling changed, becoming clouded, becoming worn, withdrawn. A light was quenched in
There was the Gandhi statue, just like in Madras, garlanded with fresh roses and chrysanthemums. Across the Pacific, on a beach in California, it was a Hawaiian surfer so garlanded, and farther on, in Rio, Gandhi again, only not at the beach. Elsewhere, on beaches around the world, there are statues of Madonnas, some who weep real tears, and Imanjas, gods and goddesses to herald the power of the earth and water. But on Pi, at Madhupur Beach, Gandhi’s eyeglasses merely glinted as the sun sank into the water, and all around, children cried out in joy at being at the beach.
But there was another kind of beach on Pi as well, the private beach, where only the privileged could wander, where wealth or status opened the barred gates, where miles of smooth softsand folded toward the sea line. Once a beach pass was in hand, pure bliss awaited the lucky who walked on its sand.
Oh! The sea! The sea as it shines on the horizon, the sea as it leaps toward the shore, the sea as it sucks back, all foam and spray and salt and wind.
And here is Meterling at the shore, piling small pebbles into a circle. Sometimes she takes twigs and sticks them straight upright near the stones on the sand. She is building prayer circles, she is building miniature Stonehenges, she is creating rock gardens, tiny, small, temporary memorials to Archer. Little shrines to her large, overpowering loss. Her hands work ceaselessly, blue-green pebbles and glittery rocks shaped into circles and left on the sand.
Rasi and I like to build castles. We like to pile sand into soft mounds and dig under them to form tunnels, so that our hands can meet and shake hello. The wet sand sometimes fills with water and we shout with glee.
But Meterling makes circles to track her tears, makes small sculptures to declare her loss.
13
M eterling was twenty-eight when she lost everything she could lose in losing Archer. And yet at twenty-eight, she had everything she could hope for as well. Three short months, that was the entirety of their courtship, their desire, their hope. Twenty-one, that shiny age, had passed her, then twenty-three. By twenty-five, she was treated tenderly, assumed to a life of spinsterhood. At twenty-five,Meterling became a warning for marriageable daughters as well. It happens, the elders mused. If, as the gossips say, a daughter can only be so dark, or so poor, she certainly could only be so tall as well. That golden promise of a perfect bride required golden skin, golden height, and the golden means of proportions. And Meterling had nothing—her skin was dark, like amber gone opaque, and she was so tall. Meterling was a beauty in a school all her own, and that’s why we flocked to her. She was not film-star material, our Meterling, she was no universal beauty. But she was our standard.
I told her I did not plan to marry, ever. I would be a famous scientist who had no time for cooking and husbands. I would live alone with lots of animals, including a horse, like in the storybooks where children rode on horses and lived with cats and big shaggy sheepdogs. “Beti,” Meterling would say, using Hindi, because sometimes in Hindi, the tenderness required to cut through an excess of emotion with a perfectly pitched honesty was available— beti , which means “child”— “beti,” she’d say, “don’t worry. All is possible; all is good in this world.” And Meterling would smile. She who had lost her love, her joy, at twenty-eight. She’d smile with tenderness, hoping to ease our pain, even as her back ached.
When someone dies, everything dies as well. At least it seems like that. It seems like the gods are punishing you, and no matter what treasure you might have amassed, it all becomes rot, becomes meaningless. Death changes everything. It changes everybody.
Meterling changed, becoming clouded, becoming worn, withdrawn. A light was quenched in
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