The Toss of a Lemon

43. Bharati Moves In 1957

A HULLABALOO STARTS UP in the back of the concert hall, and Vairum and Vani’s five-year-old sons, Kartik and Kashyap, jump onto their folding chairs to have a look. As Janaki reaches for them with an angry warning, Sundar and Amarnath clamber up to copy their cousins. When she turns to yell at them, Kartik’s chair folds and he falls through. Janaki pulls the crying child up and sits him on her knee to dust him off, and glances apologetically at Vani, who is onstage tuning her veena, and apparently as oblivious to the commotion in the front row as to that in the back. The other boys have been distracted by the accident, but now Thangajothi is wandering toward the aisle to have a look at who is arriving-some politician or musician they wouldn’t even know, probably-and Janaki orders her back unceremoniously. Celebrities are everywhere through the Madras concert season.

On stage, a man in his twenties, tipped toward a polio-stunted leg, his wavy hair slicked into a kudumi that now looks like a proclamation of adherence to old fashions, squawks through acknowledgements and sycophancies on behalf of the group that sponsors this venue, one of the best attended in the Madras concert season. Eventually, two assistants weighed down by fat floral garlands emerge from stage left. The MC sways and swivels toward Vani and her accompanists to pay them the honours, which they accept and refuse at once-removing the decorations even as these hit their shoulders-in the spirit of this democratic age: “ThankyoupleasenothankyouIamnotworthy.”

Janaki and the children, as special guests of the featured artist, are in the front row. She gets the children settled as the rest of the audience clap, but they get restless again within minutes of Vani beginning the kirthanai, and Janaki rearranges them, so that Kartik is on the other side of Thangajothi, and Kashyap between her and Janaki. Sundar is to Janaki’s right and Amarnath on the other side of him-if Janaki can separate her children from their younger cousins, she can trust them to behave, but Vairum and Vani’s boys are difficult under any circumstances and she is already grimly anticipating that she will miss most of the concert. She would have preferred to leave them at home with the help, but she wanted her own children to come and it was difficult to bring them without pointing up the younger boys’ unmanageability.

She’s made her peace with not paying full attention to Vani’s playing; she has had the equivalent of a private concert each of the last few days as Vani has practised at home, and she will stay with Vani and Vairum ten days longer. It’s Janaki’s first time attending the Madras concert season. She intends to relish it. She taps Kartik’s and Kashyap’s knees sternly. Thangajothi stares dreamily at the stage. It’s already breaking Janaki’s heart that her daughter is not musical. Amarnath is the only one of her children with real promise in this department. Baskaran got him a first-class mridangam two years ago, and an excellent tutor. Sundar is made to participate in the lessons and makes no pretense of gaining anything from them, but is not jealous of his brother’s talent. Thangajothi attends veena and vocal lessons with two of her school chums at a neighbour’s. Janaki insists on the lessons but never makes Thangajothi practise at home because she can’t bear to listen.

Intermission. Alone, Janaki might have made some attempt to move into the crowd, see if she recognizes anyone, have a glance at the new fashions, but today, she does no more than herd the children around the back of the concert hall to relieve themselves. Thangajothi refuses, feeling herself too old, at ten, for public urination.

When they are seated again, Vairum arrives, clearing a path through the noise to join Janaki in the front row, creating more noise in his wake as people realize who he is. She’s relieved to be able to turn his sons over to him. He sits one on each knee and whispers to them through the second half. By the end, Kartik is asleep on his shoulder and Kashyap appears to be paying attention to the music. Who could have guessed Vairum, with his passionate tempers and dogmas, would make such a patient and attentive father?

Afterward, they go backstage, a large lean-to with a thatched roof like that over the concert hall. On one of the mats, Vani reclines against a bolster and accepts a tumbler of hot lemon water. Her children bound toward her and Kartik steps in the ill-tempered ghatam player’s coffee. By the time Vairum has finished apologizing, the mat is aswarm with ants attracted to the sugar. Vairum offers the artists lifts home, but other patrons are in wait to pay similar favours and the children have great and inadvertent powers of dissuasion. At home, they alight into that urban dusk Janaki loves, its glow intensified by layers of dust and pollution.

All through the evening, Vani receives gifts with notes from admirers who were present and those who could not attend: boxes from The Grand Sweets, garlands that putrefy in the puja room, statuettes of goddess Saraswati. There are visitors-international businessmen, political petitioners, fawning philanthropists-all of whom are received with efficient grace.

The next morning, the gifts resume. Servants transport them to the appropriate corners of the house even as Janaki listens to Vani’s daily practice and readies herself for a 1 p.m. concert. She will leave the children at home today, and frets over this, though the children are pleased. Thangajothi has books, the boys have each other, meals and snacks appear exactly when they should and none of them can get out-Janaki repeats all this to herself as she rattles in a cycle rickshaw toward the Music Academy, not far at all, she tells herself. A servant can run and fetch her in twenty minutes if anything… nothing will happen, she tells herself until, with relief, she returns home at four. The children have hardly noticed her absence, and she resolves on relaxing when she attends the festival in subsequent days.

She has finished her bath and is combing her hair when she hears yet another visitor arrive. Vairum is not home from work yet; Vani doesn’t entertain. And it is her practice hour, so this person will be snubbed. Janaki has seen this here before-for a visitor in the know, it’s a mark of inclusion not to take offence. She strains with curiosity to hear what will happen, as, her plait coiled at her nape, she hurriedly drags the comb from her part to her ears, once on each side. She dabs vermilion onto her forehead and freezes, her finger in her part, as the visitor’s voice resolves out of the household hum.

It’s not a voice Janaki would have recognized any longer had it not been restored to her through film, given as a gift to all Tamils. She is a provincial treasure, now that there is a Tamil province, that face, that grace, those now-beloved gestures.

Vani begins her evening session. The music’s effect is as familiar as its form is unfamiliar, and Janaki hesitates, but can’t wait long before entering the main hall to join the audience of one. Bharati, arrayed on the white divan, stands and nods a greeting, more composed than Janaki, as always. But how has she come to be so coolly sitting in Vairum’s salon? Is Janaki’s appearance, for her, a surprise? They sit in silence, giving Vani their full and companionate attention-a familiar and unforgotten state, though Janaki is soon distracted by her own thoughts.

She has changed out of the heavy-bordered maroon silk she wore to the concert, but makes a point, in Vairum’s house, of always wearing a sari suitable for receiving guests of standing. She’s glad she’s not embarrassed by her own appearance, though she is awed and mildly dismayed by Bharati’s. In contrast with Janaki’s matronly nine-yard windowpanecheck sari, Bharati is splendid in the latest thing, a five-yard “sugar silk,” a fine silk spun roughly so that, woven, it gives a crystalline effect, in her signature colours, which are now all the rage: baby mango green with a marigold border. Janaki thinks the sari is a bit young for Bharati-not for her public age, true, but for her real one. But Bharati is, in the modern sense, unmarried, and-as far as Janaki knows, she thinks with a retrospective wince-childless, not to mention that she’s part of the world of showbiz, all of which makes such display less inappropriate than it might be were her situation comparable to Janaki’s own.

She steals looks at Bharati, whose beauty has been sharpened by age and experience, though the camera doesn’t show the faint lines evident now to Janaki. On screen, Bharati looks like a sheltered innocent miraculously graced with the best effects of age-poise, wisdom, temperance. She appears to combine, Janaki admits, the best qualities of her half-sisters-Visalam’s light humour, Janaki’s creative spirit, Kamalam’s inviting warmth-and none of the worst: not Sita’s bile or Saradha’s stodginess.

Janaki tries to keep face forward and listen to the music-she’s only here for twelve days, she doesn’t want to miss anything. Once, she looks at Bharati inadvertently and finds Bharati looking at her. Bharati raises her eyebrows slightly and smiles; Janaki smiles, too, briefly and with strain, and looks back at Vani.

When Vani’s session ends, they sigh in concert, by then unconsciously and wholly absorbed in the music and regretting its close.

And now, they must talk.

“I suppose you’re in town for the concert season,” Bharati begins without awkwardness.

“Uh, yes, yes, that’s right.” Janaki wishes she could sound more natural. “I brought the children.”

“Were you at Vani Mami’s concert yesterday?” Bharati rolls her eyes and shakes her head. “I thought it was just marvellous.”

“Yes, yes, you were there?” Had that been Bharati, creating such a stir in the concert hall? “We, uh, were in the front. With Vani Mami’s children, and mine.”

“Right. The children.”

Is this a sore point? Just then, the children and Vairum arrive, Vairum’s sons borne in his arms, Janaki’s brood clustered behind.

“Hello, hello!” Vairum hails them.

“Hello, Vairum Mama, are you well?” Bharati bounces up, addressing Vairum with a familiarity that surprises Janaki. “Yesterday’s concert was just too good, was it not?”

Vairum gestures to her to sit. Janaki’s children come to stand beside her, but as soon as Vairum sets down his boys, they run to Bharati.

“Bharati Mami, we were playing kabbadi.”

They lean competitively onto Bharati’s knees.

“Bharati Mami, I won!”

“I won! I won!”

“Well, you can’t have both won.” Bharati picks up one of each of their small hands in her own. “But fortunately, that’s not the important thing. If you played well, you will always win in the end.”

“I played well!” cries Sundar.

“I played well!” accuses Amarnath.

They all seem very familiar, Janaki can’t help but notice.

“And these are your children?” Bharati asks Janaki.

Thangajothi and her brothers are jostling genteelly on the side of their mother away from the movie star, nearest the wall.

“Yes, Thangajothi, Amarnath, Sundar, say hello to Aunty.”

They do. Janaki prays that Thangajothi will say nothing about how her father teases her mother for seeing all of Bharati’s films. It’s unnecessary: Thangajothi is so shy around strangers that her parents worry for her. She’s not the one who’s going to spill embarrassing details.

Vairum has called for tea. “So you’ve met my niece, Janaki.”

“Yes, it’s funny…”

“Yes, we were…”

They begin once more in concert, Bharati warmly and Janaki wanly, so that it is clear Bharati would have told of a long acquaintance and Janaki might have said no more than that they had been chatting as he showed up. They stop, realizing this. Vairum is looking from one to the other closely.

“Did you ever meet in Cholapatti?”

Bharati wags her head while Janaki is too tense to respond. Vairum turns to her children.

“Bharati lives just across the street-that big white house, did you see it?” he asks.

Janaki’s children nod, silent, awed.

“Oh, well, don’t I always run into someone famous when I come to this house!” Janaki exclaims in a high and brittle pitch.

Bharati blinks.

There is a pause. Vani has put aside her veena and joined them. Vairum follows her with his gaze. “I came too late to hear you play today,” he says wistfully. “I tried to get away.”

“Did you know, children,” Bharati says, “I grew up in your mother’s hometown, and when I was a little girl, I used to sit in a mango tree back of Vairum Mama’s mother’s house and listen to Vani Mami play.”

She doesn’t look at Janaki, and Janaki wonders if she was supposed to have said something about their childhood chumship, so long ago now, improbable, irrelevant. In movie lore, it’s common knowledge that Bharati is from Janaki’s hometown, but still no one has ever thought to ask Janaki if they know each other-what could a girl from Janaki’s family and a girl like Bharati have in common? Many suspect the sort of matters Gayatri confided, and even those who don’t think about such things, even Baskaran, who has long forgotten that brief encounter on the Madurai bazaar, would never make such a connection and so why would Janaki make it for her uncle and aunt? There is no need.

“Yes, and now she comes here, morning and evening, to listen”-Vairum takes a tumbler of tea from a tray held out to him by a maid-“whenever she’s not filming in Kashmir or Kerala or some exotic place!”

Bharati, smiling, also accepts a cup. “I can never get enough of Vani Mami’s music!”

“Yes, I miss it terribly.” Janaki, who doesn’t take tea, refuses the tray. “You’re awfully lucky.”

Bharati doesn’t look at her, but smiles a little at Vairum, who is not paying attention.

“I like your movies,” says Janaki.

“Me too,” Thangajothi squeaks, and Bharati reaches across Janaki to pat her head.

“Well, Vani Mami doesn’t see films,” she responds, “and so has no idea what I’m about to ask her, but I hope she might consider it.”

They all look at Vani, now covered by her sons. It’s impossible to tell if she’s listening.

“There is a film in the works where I am to play a musical genius,” Bharati continues, now addressing Vairum. “You know I play, but veena is not at all my genius, and it would be such an honour were Vani Mami to consider playing the music for the film. It would be all classical-in fact, she would have full rein to choose whatever she wants to play. The composer and orchestra conductor will adjust. I would make sure she is treated like a maharani, and it would be recorded here in Madras, at Sagittarius Studios, so she would not have to travel at all.”

“I think that sounds like a fine idea, don’t you, kannama?” Vairum says and then notices one of the office workers from downstairs, hovering with obsequious insistence at the door.

Vani smiles vaguely, and Bharati, who clearly can’t tell what Vani is thinking, looks back from her to Vairum.

“Excellent,” Vairum says with finality, rising. He seems to think Vani has concurred, which probably means she has. “Just let us know the schedule. You’ll come, bring the conductor, composer…?”

“Oh, yes. I think it will be some months from now before we start, but yes, plenty of notice, plenty of freedom. Oh, I’m so honoured!” Bharati claps charmingly.

“I’m off-have to meet some Canadians.” Vairum pauses in the doorway. “You’re here for some time?”

“Sadly, no.” Bharati has stood also, and Janaki wonders if she should. “We start filming tomorrow-in Sholavandan, near Madurai. Do you know it?”

“Of course-beautiful country. Get in touch with my office there, in case you need anything.”

“Thank you, Mama, I will, certainly.”

“Sit, stay!” Vairum is gone.

Janaki is by now also standing, and wonders if she looks inhospitable, as though she is trying to usher Bharati out. She is resentful-she feels it now, rising in her like heartburn-that Bharati would have invaded this salon and be entertained here like anyone else, like their equal. This is the sort of thing she hates most in the city, and most of all in Vairum and Vani’s home. None of Baskaran’s relatives would consider such a thing, even those who have lived in Madras for generations; it almost makes her uncomfortable to stay here, to permit the children to eat here. If it bothered Baskaran more, she might find somewhere else to stay, but Vairum’s house is so well situated to attend the music festival, and she gets so few chances now to hear Vani play. She also prefers not to chance alienating her uncle by refusing his hospitality. He still mentions, from time to time, with pride, the role he played in her marriage.

“How is it that you have come to live-” Janaki pauses and gestures toward the street-“so close?”

Bharati’s smile fades. “Yes, isn’t it fortunate? I have known Vairum Mama and Vani Mami for some years now, through mutual friends. They knew I was looking for a house-Vairum Mama made a point of letting me know when that one became available. I love this neighbourhood. And how is your grandmother?”

“She is well. Your mother?”

“She is well. She and her mother, and my brother and sister, they are all living here with me now. I know if ever they need something while I’m away on tour, we can always count on Vairum Mama. You must come some time,” she says, though her smile has not returned.

“Yes, you also.” Janaki looks at Thangajothi, who she fears is a close observer, much like herself. “You must come if ever you are in Pandiyoor.”

“Well, I must get ready to travel,” Bharati says, gathering herself with a briskness that reminds Janaki that she is a working woman. Bharati turns and Janaki smells her perfume and rouge, and her silk, which smells light and crisp, like lemons and new rice, very different from the nutmeggy scent of Janaki’s own, and the Pond’s talc that dusts her face. “Goodbye, Vani Mami,” Bharati calls. “I’ll go and come. You can count on me to pay a call when I return.”

Vani goes and fetches vermilion from the other room. Bharati dots it on her throat. Janaki walks her out to the balcony, Thangajothi’s arm around her waist.

“Go and come.” Janaki uses the formal conjugation.

“Go and come,” Thangajothi echoes her mother, faint and intense.

“I’ll come,” the star rejoins.

A servant has been waiting on the ground floor, and now opens Vairum’s compound door for Bharati, battling one of Vairum’s servants to do so. He scoots across the street ahead of Bharati to open the arched wooden door in the whitewashed wall of her compound. Bharati pauses there and looks up. Thangajothi waves. A few seconds later, Janaki does too. Bharati raises her hand in response and disappears inside her home.