BELA 

Nandini Sen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The procession wound its way into the narrow lanes of Kolkata and the sounds of “Vande Mataram” rent the air. Quietly, unseen by all, a woman stepped onto the terrace. From her aristocratic bearing, she looked every inch the mistress of the house but her actions were guarded and she took every precaution not to be seen. The sari was pulled forward and veiled her face from the outside world. As she stared at the procession with unmasked intensity, her eyes filled with unshed tears. Without her being aware of it Bela’s veil slipped off just once revealing her incredibly beautiful face. Unnoticed by everyone she rushed outside.

 

Kusumbala’s daughters were named after flowers –Champa Rani and Bela Rani. Champa was as fair as a lily with a face that resembled goddess Durga. Bela was darker than her sister and her chiseled face shone with a unique glow. Her hair cascaded down to her waist. The firmness of her body and her dark evocative eyes bestowed her with a certain kind of sensuality. Champa was always the quieter one. She would sit in a corner playing with her earthen dolls. Bela on the contrary had no time for dolls. She would roam around the village climbing trees, plucking fruits and fishing in the pond. She was the undisputed leader of a group of boys who treated her like one of their own. Together they raided every fruit laden tree and fished at all the nearby ponds. Everyday someone or the other would come complaining about Bela and her wayward ways. “Who on earth would marry her?” the neighbourhood women grumbled. Kusum shed quiet tears. She had never known a day’s peace since the birth of Bela. After Champa’s birth Kusum had lost two precious male children during childbirth. When Bela was born, Kusum was sure that she too would leave her. She had been indifferent to this child. But Bela was determined to live. She cried lustily till her mother was forced to feed her. When Bela was barely three months old tragedy struck in the form of her father’s sudden death. At a relatively young age Kusum had been widowed. 

 

The elders in the family dubbed Bela as inauspicious. First she had ‘eaten’ her brothers and now her father. Unaware of all the evil deeds supposedly committed by her, Bela continued to grow like a bamboo reed drenched by the rains. Everything about her was earthy and solid. She was also exceptionally good in studies but what good would that do to her – Kusum wondered. Very soon she would have to be removed from the pathshala and married off. 

Though she would not admit it even to herself Kusum loved Bela deeply. She thought she had been cut out for doing bigger things in life. “Oh! Why had God made her a woman? A woman’s life began and ended in the kitchen.” A tear would roll down her eyes unbidden. 

 

Next morning would find her loudly complaining to her gods that they had cursed her with this changeling of a child. This loud complaint would keep the neighbors and relatives at bay.Champa’s famed beauty was the talk of the town and Kusum was flooded with marriage proposals for her elder daughter. The decision however wasn’t hers to make. Champa’s uncles fixed the marriage and soon the twelve year old Champa bid a teary good bye to all her childhood moorings and became the daughter-in-law of the Dutta household of Kolkata. 

 

The Duttas had been a well to do family at one point of time. Now what remained of the riches was a big and ngainly house desperately needing repairs and a good name in the society which was deemed as more important even than the riches. Clad in a red banarasi sari and a veil Champa barely saw her husband. She was to meet him much later at their fulsajja where the young bride sat on a flower bedecked bed and waited for her husband to join her. 

 

He was tall - bigger than any man she had ever seen. Champa’s heart went cold with some unknown fear. Ratan was a strapping youth of twenty who worked as a landowner’s scribe. His passion was the football ground. Like Champa he too was confused about what he was required to do with this new addition in his life. He knew he had to be dominating because his friends had warned him against being kind to women. “It’s a game of one upmanship. Right from the outset you must show her who is the boss”, they said. He lay on the bed, stretched his legs and asked her to massage them. Sometime late in the night he woke up to find her fast asleep with her head on his feet. His slight movement woke her up and she started massaging his feet again. Ratan drifted back to sleep – a satisfied man. This girl would do his bidding without asking any questions. He did not have much experience with women but her complete servility pleased him immensely. Later they were to become parents of three girls. With every birth Ratan’s anger would burst forth cursing Champa and her inability to give him a male heir. Champa grew thinner and weaker after every childbirth. Finally at a mere age of seventeen she was to breathe her last.

 

Meanwhile Bela had grown out of her frocks and had started to wear saris. She was forced to discontinue school pon reaching puberty. No longer did she run around with the boys. Now she found solace in the books that she read.

 

Kusum knew that it was inauspicious for a girl to read but she was loath to deny her daughter these little pleasures knowing that tough times would follow once she got married. Both Kusum and Bela longed to see Champa but the  Dutta household being strict Champa was rarely allowed to visit her parental home. And then the shocking news of her death reached them. Kusum and Bela were devastated. Soon word reached them that Ratan was looking for another bride. And one day Ratan came to visit them with his daughters. He convinced Kusum that by marrying Bela he would be doing the right thing to his daughters. Bela being their own maternal aunt would love them as her own and would never behave like the proverbial step mother. Bela’s uncles were overjoyed at this offer – they would not have to spend much on this wedding. Kusum shed bitter tears but there was precious little she could do to prevent the marriage. So she steeled herself and watched her little girl being adorned in a red sari and being taken to the Dutta household. Surprisingly Bela had said nothing – not a word of protest. Before leaving her home, she had touched her books one last time and had sobbed her heart out. Later it was a dry eyed Bela who had said her final good bye to her mother. Her in -laws had started gossiping right then – which girl left her home without crying? They were taking a ‘daini’ – a witch back with them.

 

The name stuck. Bela was indeed a ‘daini’. She had bewitched Ratan. It was already a year since the marriage but Ratan’s eyes followed her everywhere. Bela had not given Ratan the much desired male child. In fact she had not conceived at all. She was still her tall sparing self and the only change visible in her was the bright red vermillion which she wore in the parting of her hair. She had taken excellent care of her nieces and even her worst enemy 

could not find fault with her devotion towards them. And yet her mother was worried. Bela had changed. She had completely withdrawn into herself. She did all the work like an automaton. Only the flashing eyes would be reminiscent of her erstwhile self but she kept her eyes averted and her face covered with her sari. There was no knowing what was going on in Years rolled by. Bela had fulfilled the promise made to her sister. The girls had been married off in prosperous households. Bela still looked the same only now she had taken to wearing white saris in deference to her having become a mother in law. Ratan had tried to protest.

 

_ “You are not even their real mother.” Bela had smiled.

 

_“Didi would have done the same. It’s either her or me. How does it matter?”

 

 Ratan did not like to hear Champa’s name being mentioned in the house. She was someone he had never cared for. Bela, on the contrary had won his heart completely. He tried very hard to please her. But the more he tried, the further she seemed to drift away. He had even gone against his mother’s diktat and had started to buy her books. She devoured them hungrily but she would never ask him to get anything for her. How he longed for her to ask him for something –anything. Even the jewellery that he had gifted her, she had passed them to her nieces as dowry.

 

Looking at her one would think that she was undergoing a severe penance. Her saris were crisp cotton, white in colour with the mandatory red border. Apart from a thin neck piece and a pair of bangles, she wore no jewellery.  She did her duty towards everyone but continued to remain aloof and distant. So much so that Ratan had started to feel 

scared of her taciturn ways. He loved her to distraction. She did not thwart his advances nor did she crave for them. She was indifferent to all his ministrations. Ratan had changed completely. Gone was his arrogance and brusqueness. His physical appearance too had undergone a change. He was now a pot- bellied balding middle aged man incurably in love with the still very beautiful Bela. The popular gossip in the neighbourhood about Bela was that she had deliberately not had a child as she wanted to retain her figure. And it is with her maidenly body and her long lustrous locks that she continued to bewitch her husband. “She has done some magic”, they whispered nodding their heads though inwardly they marveled at the luck of this childless woman.

 

Even as Bela was metamorphosing from a girl to a woman, the country was going through a major political upheaval. The freedom movement was being fought. While the Dutta household tried its best to insulate itself from the world outside, it wasn’t easy to keep this wave totally at bay. Young men were seen marching on the streets with banners. One day a young lad was at the door seeking alms for the struggle. Without a moment’s thought Bela gave him every piece of ornament that she was wearing. He stared at her with surprise, 

 

_“These must be very expensive Ma. Are you sure you want to part with all of them?”

 

_ “Yes, keep them all.” Bela’s voice trembled with the force of her emotions.

 

 _“Aren’t there any women in your group? Don’t the women participate in the struggle?”

 

_“They do Ma. Our leader wants women to lead from the front. He says a one legged person can’t win a race!” 

 

From that day onwards Ratan noticed a change in his wife. She seemed to have suddenly come back to life. She devoured the newspapers hungrily as if willing them to perform some miracle. There was a feverish excitement about her. She was almost becoming the woman he had fallen in love with many years back. She waited for him to come back from work and wanted him to talk about the freedom movement. Ratan was bewildered. He wasn’t touched by things around him. For the best part he relegated the struggle as bunkum and a space for uninhabited licentiousness. Who had ever heard of girls from good families coming out on to the streets and protesting? His mother prophesied that the dreaded Kaliyug had arrived and the world would soon come to an end. But Ratan tried to be patient with his wife. He feared the mad streak in her. What if she lapses back into her old withdrawn self? He humoured her though at times he failed to check his irritation. Why could his wife not be like the other women around him?

 

One day the freedom procession wound its way through the narrow lanes of Bela’s house. She ran up to the terrace for a better view. Yes the boy had been right. There were women right in the front holding banners. Tears streamed down Bela’s eyes. Quietly unnoticed by all she stepped out of the main door… Bela’s story is told even today in the old houses which seem to lean on each other in the bye lanes of Kolkata. She is the woman who had it all but lost everything due to her madness. Her madness stemmed from her education and her obsession with the world outside. Who would have thought that a happily married woman from a respectable family would leave all comforts of home for the strange call of the world outside? Bela had indeed shamed her people and her community. Young girls were cautioned against emulating her. She was a In the deep confines of her room, the old and frail Kusum shed tears of joy. Maybe at last her Bela was free....