Red Indian Sun

My sister-in-law brought me two boxes with multi-colored disposable bindies. There was a whole color palette of nature. In the first box, the bindi was simply circles of three millimeters in diameter; in the second box, the bindi was gilded, in the shape of a flower.

If I woke up in a good mood, then I put a green bindi on my forehead. If I woke up in a bad mood, then I put the red color – the color of the traffic light. Before visiting some house, I put an elegant bindi with gold leaf.

I also now wore five to six bracelets on each arm. They were imbued with gold, although they were made of plastic.

My husband did not give me gold jewelry. Although in India huge sums are spent on gold jewelry for wives. Despite the poverty of her husband, my mother-in-law walked all in gold from head to toe, as did the sister-in-law. For me, they bought everything from plastic and simple iron.

A couple of words about Indian gold should be mentioned. It is much higher quality than all other types of gold in the world. It is almost no impurities, it is yellow and it is high-carat gold. It is said that Indian women daily wear on themselves 10% of world gold reserves.

– We will buy gold for you when you start working and give us your salary, – said my husband.

– Will you buy me that gold on my money? – I asked laughing.

– You don’t even have a dowry. In India, a dowry is a pledge of happiness for newlyweds. And we do not demand anything from you. Therefore, we do not give anything. Just work in the office and give us the money you earn. Fifty-seventy thousand rupees a month is enough. We are honest people.

Then I told my mother-in-law that I had a dowry. If it is so important to them, then they will receive it. But my mother-in-law said that not things would do for them, but only cash.

– Ah, what a nice, kind family! Only seventy thousands per month! – I replied through laughter.

I sincerely wanted to be an obedient daughter-in-law and decided to start cleaning the house, but I did not find any rags, no buckets, no gloves, or a vacuum cleaner. At this time of the day, there was no one in the house except for me and my grandmother. She was sitting on the second floor. I went up to her and gestured to ask about cleaning equipment. She did not understand me and, waving her hand, asked me to make tea for us and go to rest after tea. That day we got along perfectly with grandmother Dadi and henceforth began to regularly drink tea together when there was no one in the house except us.

My mother-in-law continued to insist on my participation in running the household. She especially wanted me to pick cotton. Then I asked them to buy me thick gloves. After a while, my father-in-law still bought me crimson-colored rubber gloves, and I began to go with them to pick cotton.

Over time, I, my mother-in-law and grandmother distributed the duties of housekeeping in the house, and disputes no longer arose.

So my day began at ten in the morning. I woke up, took a shower, brushed up. My husband woke up at the same time, often later than me, but every time after waking up, he grabbed his phone and ran off somewhere upstairs, where no one disturbed him.

At that time I opened the windows and doors, cleaned the bed, laid out the scattered things in places, rubbed dust in the room, swept, washed the floors, and then burned scented candles. Then I closed the windows and doors of the room outside and went upstairs to make breakfast.

I mostly did not buy clothes. My sister-in-law or a girl-neighbor sewed fabrics with ready-made collars, it was more money saving.

Meena, my sister-in-law, often came to visit her parents’ house with her little daughter. The girl was a few months old. Pretty and plump, she was the darling of all family members.

My sister-in-law brought a sewing machine to the room, put it on the floor and sew wonderful dresses. My husband and I, his brother, my mother-in-law and someone else sat next to her, distracting the child with toys, so as not to interfere with the mother’s sewing.

In the early days, I was very uncomfortable with the constant presence of many people around me.

In my family, it is not customary to visit someone without an invitation or without a prior call, even to my closest relatives. During a visit to relatives, we never stay too long. I remember how, in childhood, every visit to grandparents, who lived far from us, was a real treat. We were invited a week before arrival so that we did not plan any events for this day. For our arrival, my dear grandmother cooked for us delicious salads, cakes, meatballs, all sorts of delicacies. My brother and sister and I behaved as at a reception, and did not allow ourselves to indulge, ate only with a knife and fork, did not fight with each other, were not noisy. On New Year’s holidays, we also gathered with our grandparents and cousins at the holiday table, which was full of different dishes. On holidays, grandmother took out silver from the cabinet and crystal vases for salads, a large gorgeous dining set brought from Europe many years ago. Then we, the children, had to go out to the guests and recite poems by heart. After a verse or song, every child received a storm of applause, praise, New Year’s greetings, wishes and the most pleasant thing – a New Year’s gift wrapped in sweetie paper. It was the noisiest time for me.

On other days, as a rule, we spent time by ourselves, in our own rooms, in our own house, in silence, doing our own business.

Therefore, being used to such a contrast in the first days of arrival in India, I often felt dizzy from the noise and conversations. I remember how I sat on the bed in the bedroom, my husband’s relatives were sitting around me, talking loudly, laughing, someone tugging at my shoulder. From the noise, my temperature rose and my head ached, in the end, I ran to the second floor, where there was no one. I sat in a chair on the balcony and enjoyed the silence. Several people came after me to the second floor.

Over time, I got used to the noise and the constant presence of relatives and neighbors. Also used to spicy food, so much so that without chili pepper, the food seemed tasteless.

People get used to everything over time.

* * *

My mother-in-law was smiling to my face, but behind me she was my enemy.

She was a good person, who just had other expectations about her daughter-in-law. Therefore, she, as she could, tried to adjust me to her standards.

I understood everything perfectly: what does she expect from me, what should I do to make her like me. But selfish mother-in-law is never satisfied with daughters-in-law. Therefore, one should not try hard, it is still useless.

I know that her plans were to find for her son an Indian girl from the village, obedient and silent, who would take over the whole life of themselves, who would bring a rich dowry to their home. At the same time, the choice of a son did not matter, because the mother-in-law chose a servant for herself, and not a son’s wife. And then her son brought me, a person after years of military service and after human rights activities.

I guess she did not know that her son always wanted to marry a foreigner and dreamed of living abroad.

I knew how to cook well and therefore began cooking. Mainly because I could not eat what my mother-in-law was cooking. Her food seemed to be tasteless, hastily cooked, without inspiration and without a soul, gruel for cattle. My husband told that she could cook only some temporary food.

Therefore, I announced that from now on I will cook for the whole family. I cooked sabji (different vegetables, stewed together), vegetable stew, spaghetti with sauce and pea soup dal, eggplant caviar. In India people cook in a pressure cooker on gas. First, oil is poured into the pressure cooker, spices are put, then the main ingredients of the preparing dish, then after a short roasting, the vegetables are poured over with water and tightly covered with a lid.

I missed my traditional food, sandwiches with sausage, toasts with jam and coffee, Russian salad, red borscht, mantas, Kazakh beshbarmak, my favorite Uzbek pilaf. At night, I saw them in my dreams. Sometimes I fried pies with potatoes and then treated everyone in the house.

Bread in India is not eaten every day, instead, they bake flatbread. Bread is made from traditional white bread in India, which translates as bread, but it is not just bread, but bread fried with vegetables, something like our bread fried with eggs.

In the first two months of life in India, I lost almost twenty kilograms. So if you want to lose weight, it is good to live in India.

We ate on the floor of small metal cups with small spoons. In other homes it is different. In general, it all depends on the wealth of the family. I brought with me a fork from Moscow and put it in a common dish with spoons and knives, but all the time my fork turned out to be under the cupboard, behind the bed, behind the refrigerator. I have no idea how it got there.

I did not use it in order not to offend others and not to differ from other family members. I sat on the floor with everyone and ate the same as they did. The only thing I could not do was eat roti flatbreads the way they did. Out of habit, I ate with a spoon, holding it in my right hand, and ate roti instead of bread, holding it in my left hand. They don’t do that in India, in India they tear off a small piece of roti and scoop food from it, eating at the same time. But since it was impossible for me not to mess my fingers with food, I preferred a spoon. For roti, there are special pans-thermos. After the roti is ready, put it in this thermos and close the lid. Thus roti does not wither and does not cool for a long time.

I cooked the food myself, cut the salad myself and laid everything out on plates and also took it to each family member myself. Then I poured all the lassi into cups and sat down to eat with the others. At this time my husband decorously, as if the king on the throne sat on the floor and waited for me to bring him food. I felt myself uncomfortable when doing all alone. As in my family husbands help their wives.

I remember how we had dinner all together on the floor in a room with a balcony, and my father-in-law looked at us all and smiled happily:

– Today we have a real family dinner.

We drank tea separately from the main meal. About two hours after eating.

In my homeland, it is customary to drink tea before meals or after meals and in large quantities. Various sweets and treats are served for tea, a whole table is served, and we sit for a long time at the table and talk or watch TV.

The word "chai", which means "tea" came to us from India. In Hindi, tea sounds like “chai” in Hindi same like in Russian “chai”. But Indian tea is prepared in India in a different way. In India, tea is prepared in a wide metal ladle. First, water is poured into the middle of the bucket. Two or three teaspoons of tea are thrown there, and then sugar, milk, and spices added. When the tea boils, the ladle is removed from the stove, and its contents are poured into cups. Cups are small, like piles. They are put on a tray, there is also a plate with cookies, and carried to the living room. Wife first gives tea to her father-in-law, then to grandmother, grandfather, mother-in-law, and her husband, and in the end, she takes a cup for herself.

When no one saw, we and Granny Dadi winked and drank plenty of tea and tea with milk and cookies, secretly from everyone.

In the first days after my arrival, due to politeness, I tolerated new traditions – I drank tea in one fifty-gram cup with a pair of cookies.

But one day, when my mother-in-law ordered to make tea for everyone, I made a whole pot of tea. Mother-in-law swore. But I still drank a liter of tea, while watching a movie, like at home.

I was cooking, and my mother-in-law was washing dishes. For dishwashing, she used a piece of special blue dish soap and a metal brush. One day, Dadi asked me how I washed dishes at home. I replied that the dishwasher washes the dishes: you press the button and it washes everything, you just have to put a special tablet and load the dishes.

Every day, when my father-in-law was at work, I cooked lunch for him, put it in containers and gave him to my husband. My husband passed the food to his younger brother, who took the bag with the container to the bus stop and handed over to the bus drivers who were traveling from the village to the bus station in Tohana. There they met my father-in-law and passed him his lunch.

Since I began to talk about my Dadi, I must say that this person was the only one who was sincerely kind to me. I think because my mother-in-law hated us both – me and Dadi.

Dadi was over ninety years old, but she was pretty quick: she worked a little less than my mother-in-law at home, sometimes she liked to drink a glass of wine after a meal, and somehow I saw her smoking a pipe. Dadi had a special hairstyle. There was no hair on the hairline in the middle of the forehead, but there was a bald spot. Immediately behind the bald head, there was a braid and a bunch of collected hair. I could not see this strange hairstyle, because grandmothers always cover their heads with a dupatta. Sometimes I made for her foot massage; sometimes she hugged me and sang songs in Hindi, chanting my name. It was so warm and soulful. We sat together with her in a room on the second floor and watched TV. Dadi quietly looked around if there was a nearby my mother-in-law and said “sabji”. I brought her subji with roti, she quickly ate, then at a speed threw the plate away under the bed and quickly went to bed until my mother-in-law caught her. She was very afraid of her daughter-in-law.

We spoke a little with her in Hindi.

Many words in Russian are similar to words from the Indians’ lexicon. For example, the word “tarbuz” is the same as “arbuz”, which means watermelon. And the name Shveta means “light”, as we say Sveta. It was surprising to find out that a huge number of words in the ancient Sanskrit language coincide with words from the Russian language in terms of sound and meaning. It was not difficult for me to remember many words in Hindi. For example, drink water – “Pani Pei.” Pei means to drink, which is the same in Russian pei. And the question “Did you drink water?” Google translator translates as “Kya mistane Pani Peya?” which sounds similar to Russian verb pila.

My mother-in-law was Dadi’s daughter-in-law, and they were constantly in conflict. In India, there is a problem of daughters-in-law and mothers-in-law. There is even a special prison exclusively for mothers-in-law. The fact is that, according to tradition, a wish of mother-in-law for Indian daughter-in-law should be the law, and mother-in-law misuses it. And in India, the bride pays the bride-money.

I do not know which of them started the war first Dadi or my mother-in-law, but I felt sorry for the old grandmother, with whom my mother-in-law was always rude and tactless. I was sorry to see how my mother-in-law treats her roughly. My grandmother often had a stomach ache, but the operation at that age was dangerous, it was dangerous to overeat, so she was given little food. As soon as it became unbearable, she called a doctor for an injection.

My dear Dadi, I remember her with warmth and a smile, like fellow soldiers remember each other after the war. After all, we, along with her, suffered the attacks of my mother-in-law. I would sit with Dadi together on the same bed, and hugged her and sang songs for her in Russian.

I sang different songs like “The lights are so much gold on the streets of Saratov”. Although, of course, she did not understand the meaning of the words, but spoke in Hindi “sahi, sahi” – which means you sing well.

If earlier my husband was on my side, then after a while he took the side of his mother, who was against me. Every time she entered the room and looked at us sitting together, he seemed to read her eyes and his facial expression changed. My husband gradually became rude to me.

* * *

In the house directly opposite our house, across the road, lived the cousin of my husband. He and his wife were the same age as Tenardieu. My husband scoffed at that woman, behind her back telling that she stole some cream from his house. Then I reminded him that, as a teenager, he was engaged in petty theft, secretly climbing into other people’s homes in his village and not just once, but repeatedly. After my reminder, Tenardieu smiled slyly and said that he could do anything.

My spouse spoke of that woman as a brawler with a clear mental disorder. So I stayed away from her. Little by little she began to come into our house with a child in her arms and just looked at me, smiling. Most often I saw her cleaning or cooking or hung with babies who were born one after another. Sometimes, when I was sitting on the balcony reading a book, she would hang clothes on the roof of the house and greet her affably.

Once I saw her scream at her husband. My husband snorted contemptuously at her. Then I asked what was wrong with her, why she was screaming. My husband replied that she screamed without reason, she was just mental. Nothing much happened, she just jealous, outraged by the free behavior of her husband, as he that day again cheated on her. For my husband, it was not a problem at all.

Fatehabad

The Fatehabad court refused to register our marriage. The judge who reviewed our case was young and, in fear of making a mistake, he did not dare to give approval. Therefore, my husband had to hire a lawyer in Tohana. After unsuccessful attempts to solve this problem in the usual ways, the lawyer suggested contacting the media and drawing public attention. I was not aware of their plans to involve public and media, otherwise, I would refuse.

Reporters came to us and filmed reports about me, about how we live, how I run a household in an Indian village after working in a noisy Moscow office. I put on my new chiffon dress bought by my mother-in-law.

My husband and I were shown on television throughout India and Kazakhstan. Later, I found out that Tenardieu spoke in Hindi to all reporters that I came to India without his invitation, he said that I myself proposed him to marry, although it was a lie. I remember how immediately after my arrival he took my phone and deleted all his messages with declarations of his love to me and proposals to get married, which were sent to me in moments when I tried to separate with him. Thus, as it turned out later, he removed compromising evidence against himself.

At the same time in my country, all the newspapers and TV programs doubled the Indian news about me. In my country, it was everywhere written: “She proposed him and came for him in India from Moscow”, “Kazakh woman proposed Indian man”. It was his lie, but I had no idea how to refute those allegations. It was such a huge shame so that I did not know how to deal with it. People in my country were furious. Many of them wrote angry comments on social media. People divided into two groups: those who wished me all the best and abused my husband and those who abused me and my husband. They did not believe that I could propose him, so they felt insulted by him and commented negatively.

My husband knew it all, as I showed him zillions of negative comments in my country news portals, but he never explained to me the reason why he lied to reporters. And I was so much shocked with his meanness so that I never asked why he did so. So we never discussed it.

– What do you think about the legal system of India? – Reporters asked me.

It was expected that I would criticize the poor young judge who tormented us with his hesitant character. But instead, I said something completely different.

– India has its own laws and rules. They are needed to protect all of us from tyranny. This is correct, and it is a guarantee of our safety. I respect the laws of India and will respect any decision of the judge.

All day, Tenardieu and I sat in the courthouse or followed a lawyer who ran through our cases in different rooms.

I felt bad in hot weather. I grew up in Siberia. For me, the best air temperature is not higher than twenty-four degrees Centigrade. When it gets warmer, I start to melt like a Snow Maiden by the fire.

Same it was in those days. I barely endured, plus thirty-five degrees Centigrade. Above, at the insistence of my mother-in-law, a translucent synthetic dupatta was hung up on me, which, in addition to the heat, blocked the access to oxygen. Also, I doubted every second and shared with my husband doubts about our union. I just wanted to leave, go back to my old life, to my work, to my friends, to my sweet life in Moscow. But Tenardieu always replied “wait”. Probably he was still hoping to go with me abroad. He told me to apply for study abroad as soon as possible.

I put up with all my strength and tried not to show it. Tenardieu said:

– Smile, honey. Otherwise, they will think that you do not want to marry me. They actually think that I force you.

– But it’s true.

I smiled, but it turned out theatrics.

Reporters took pictures of us, and my face was sad in all the pictures.

In the evenings, when my husband was returning home, we locked in the bedroom and made facial masks from turmeric. Tenardieu was mixing turmeric with some butter, and this mixture was spread on the skin. After half an hour we washed off the mask. Skin became soft, with a beautiful tint.

Every time before going to bed, my husband applied a bleaching cream to his face. India produces very good bleaching cosmetics. In India, my husband said, this type of cream is very popular.

My mother-in-law had neither a hobby nor a job in her life; she lay on her bed all day and got up on the necessary daily matters. I think because of boredom, she gave us no peace. I knew that she was doing everything to turn her son against me.

Gradually, she inclined my husband to her side. My husband once told me half asleep:

– Mom said that we do not need to marry in court. She will find me another girl.

– I agree with her. We are not right for each other. I need another person. You need another person.

* * *

In those days, my husband and I were invited to the wedding. A guy from our village married a girl from another village. We got up early because it was necessary to leave at six in the morning.

The night before I put my phone to charge and went to bed. In the morning I woke up when heard that my husband shouted at me.

– Why you didn’t charge your phone? – He allowed himself rude expressions and screamed at me. Then he pushed me into the shoulder.

– I put the phone on charge before going to bed, – I said.

– I took your charger. What, do not you see something? Are you blind?

– Then why are you telling me that I did not charge my mobile? Who allowed you to disconnect charger?

– Get ready and do not lose time!

I was hurt. It was disgusting.

Then we went to the next street. There was a car at the groom’s house. Everyone got into it and drove off. There were about ten people in the car, and everyone was happy.

My good mood disappeared. My husband sat and pushed me on the shoulder.

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