Mai Bedekar was distraught. Her only daughter was getting married to a man she did not approve of and there was nothing she could do about it. In small town Kolhapur of post Independent India all she could really do was hide her head in shame – shame because her daughter was marrying out of caste and shame because she was not broad minded or modern enough to accept the changes in society. At least that is what Tai Borker told her.
“Come on Mai, be a bit more progressive. After all isn’t that what we Brahmins are known for? Our modern outlook ? How can you still be bound in the past? ”
But Mai was not convinced. Her daughter Lata was her pride and joy . The darling of the family . Her brothers doted on her as did her late father . She was smart and beautiful, an MA in English and was much sought after within the community. But Lata was struck by Cupid’s arrow and had lost her heart to her college sweetheart . Gopal Gupte who undoubtedly looked breathtakingly handsome in his Air Force uniform was known to be a darling of a boy. But he was not a Brahmin boy and not worthy of her daughter’s love. Why couldn’t Lata be the dutiful daughter and listen to what her mother said?
Unfortunately all Mai’s pleading fell on deaf ears especially since Lata had the backing of her neighbour Tai Borker. And Tai Borker was a woman to reckon with. No one messed with her. Tai was the eldest daughter of the town’s most successful lawyer and the widow of another equally successful lawyer. In spite of the fact that she was “uneducated” she was well read and well respected. And generally when Tai decreed something it was accepted as the gospel truth.
And Tai had decreed that she, a Brahmin widow, would not only support Lata and Gopal but would also perform the religious ceremonies celebrating a Hindu wedding including the “Kanyadaan” , a task traditionally undertaken by the bride’s father.
So Mai Bedekar sat alone in her darkened prayer room, and begged to God to right the wrong, to heal the wound inside her, she prayed for justice , however long in the future while Lata and Gopal went around the sacred fire. The tiny lamp in the devghar flickered and Mai counted her prayer beads but still she couldn’t quieten her racing heart.
One by one Tai Borker’s children got married. Each one of them unhappily so.
Twenty years later the first of Tai Borker’s grand-children got married. It was an arranged match but a wrong match. The marriage was stormy and both parties were unhappy. They stayed together only because of the child they had and also because divorce was still an ugly word.
Two years later, Tai’s first grandson got married. His too was an arranged match that was terribly mismatched and terribly unhappy. The grandson threw out his wife and fought a bitter divorce battle for ten years.
The second grandson got married and was unhappy for the next fifty years.
The third grandson refused to get married as did a grand daughter.
The third, fourth and fifth grand daughters were unhappily married. Two of them divorced their spouses, while one waited it out.
But the spirit of Mai Bedekar was still not appeased…….
Tai Borker was by now long since dead yet one of her great-grand-son’s died mysteriously when he was just twenty years old.
And Tai’s great-grand-daughter married against her parents’ wishes encouraged by others including family, those who clapped and cheered while the mother’s heart broke into a thousand pieces.
Mai Bedekar’s soul was now at peace. What goes round comes round. And another cycle began to turn.
