Читать книгу Red Indian Sun - Zhanna Chalabayeva - Страница 3

On the way from the airport, I fell asleep again. Finally, we arrived and stopped at a two-story house with beautiful wooden carvings on the facade. There were still mirrors on the doors and all kinds of whorls of wood. My future father-in-law talentedly made them with his own gifted hands.

On the outer wall of the house, I saw a swastika. Then I noticed that swastikas were also painted on the neighboring houses.

Then I read that a swastika is a Sanskrit word that means well-being. He embraces the idea of the four cardinal directions and the four seasons, the fusion of the male and female. The swastika is a symbol of the sun.

There is an important little detail – the position of the swastika. The vertical swastika is a sign of good, sun, and well-being. But the swastika, located at an angle of 45°, is a symbol of evil, striking out and destroy. The Nazis used just such a swastika.

Houses in an Indian village are not at all the same as in Russia. In general, the principle of building a village is different. Houses in Indian village are two-storeyed, connected by a common wall with neighboring houses, there is an open sky inside the house between the rooms, you can put a chaise lounge in the corridor and look at the stars, as well as at curious neighbors, and they can look at you. It often happens that there is a hole in the wall to transfer food to each other. In each house there are wicker beds charpai, they are hard to use. But in the heat it is very good that the base of the bed is wicker: the air circulates. We went inside. It was a carpenter’s house. Everything in the house was done by his hands, even wooden sofas and beds.

When we arrived from the airport, it was early morning, they carefully brought me tea, after tea, I lay down to take a nap, the flies would not let me rest, and I covered myself with a blanket right on top of my head. I heard some people come and the room was filled with people. Some woman pulled the blanket off my head and looked into my sleepy face, looked at me and covered again with the blanket.

I had the feeling of unreality of what was happening, some kind of magic, the kindness of nature towards me.

Then I woke up, took a shower and had lunch.

In the evening a young man, my future husband, was glowing with happiness.

– I am very glad that you came. And my dad is happy, – he said with tenderness in his voice.

– I’m glad too, honey.

– Tell me, did you like me? – He asked looking into my eyes.

– Yes, and you?

– Yes, my dear, I like you very much, – he said and kissed me for the first time.

During our dialogue, I noticed that he did not say a word about my mother.

“Probably, his mother is against me,” I thought, and fell asleep carelessly.

The next morning I sat on the bed, and a lot of people entered the room. These were the villagers. I was sleepy and felt shy. They were local women, grandmothers, and children, all of them, except for children and girls, were wearing Punjabi suites and dupatta, they had numerous bracelets on their hands, and good-quality Indian gold glittered in their ears, neck, and fingers.

They lined up against the wall so that everyone had enough space in the room, and looked at me in silence, not smiling and not blinking, as it seemed to me, some people looked at me. I was so shy and didn’t know where to hide from such attention. I looked away in confusion. They stood silently and did not move. Then I smiled at them, and they smiled back at me. Their visit ended, they turned around and left the room. When they came the next time, on the advice of my future mother-in-law, I touched the oldest women’s legs as a sign of respect. In response, they touched my head as a sign of blessing.

Then I, the young man, his brother, his sister, and her daughter went to Tohana to shop and bought me beautiful Indian clothes – I chose shalwar-kameez in marine blue and a shawl over my head – dupatta. On the way back, his sister, a pleasant girl, got off the bus, and we drove on to the village. From now on, I wore an Indian national dress. In the village, none of the married women wore European clothes.

Previously, I was not interested in Indian culture. Therefore, I did not know that a saree is not the only traditional outfit. In Haryana, women are rarely seen in a saree on a weekday. Rather, it is festive clothing. In everyday life, I saw only women in salvar-kameez and dupatta. Salvar-kameez means “pants and shirt”. In fact, a kameez shirt is most often a beautiful dress just above the knee, with different types of necklines and sleeve length, decorated with embroidery and gold threads. It is worn with salwar, which are often the same color as the top, but there are also different colors, there are form-fitting, it all depends on the design. In stores, shalwar-kameez are sold in one set with a dupatta color in harmony with the outfit.

The most magical detail in Indian women’s clothing is dupatta. It creates a mysterious image of a woman, hides her face, protects from annoying glances and from the sun.

Dupatta is a long scarf of the finest fabric. Married women cover their heads with a dupatta, and unmarried girls fashionably oblige a scarf around their neck and chest.

I noticed that when a married woman sees a man older than her, she covers her face with a dupatta. In particular, my mother-in-law covered her face as soon as some grandfathers entered the house. At such moments she looked very feminine.

Fabrics in India are always of good quality. The production of fabrics there has been calculated for thousands of years, cotton has been used since the third millennium BC. In ancient times, people living in the territory of modern India discovered the special properties of plants that give different colors to fabrics. Since then, the paint has been used in the manufacture of fabrics. Thus, India became the first country on the planet where multicolored fabrics appeared. It is also known that in India men painted their beards in the most unexpected colors.

Salwar-kameez, or Punjabi Suite, which I bought on the second day of arrival in India, I chose myself. It was aquamarine, satin, chiffon and with gilded patterns sewn onto the fabric. Dupatta was the same color of chiffon.

In the village, men of different ages wear a white ensemble of a long shirt and pants.

In the cold weather in India, I saw a lot of men who walked wrapped in a blanket.

Urban youth most often dress in the same way as in the West.

The shops in Tohana sell all kinds of clothes: national outfits and fashionable dresses, tops and jeans. Compared to other countries, clothing in India is cheap, but the quality is at its best.

Footwear in India is also national and ordinary. In the village, people walk in shales, wear national shoes or European shoes embroidered with stones and rhinestones to celebrations.

My future husband in the heat and in the cold, at the wedding and the police wore tight sports sneakers, put on thick socks. When I offered to buy other shoes, he bought himself new sports sneakers, which differed from the previous ones only in the color of the laces. His friends who came to us were shod in good-quality men’s sandals and fashionable shoes.

Together with salwar-kameez, I bought gorgeous ballet shoes in the national Indian style, embroidered with gold rhinestones, through which colored threads were intertwined with snakes.

On the streets, you can see men with a beautiful turban on head.

I walked through the market and looked at the passers-by. I could not believe that I was in the real world. It seemed to me that I was in an oriental tale or on the set of a film.

I noticed that Indian people have rare beauty, delicate features, large eyes with infinitely long doll eyelashes.

In the village of Samain, I saw the stunning beauty of a woman of about fifty. She had huge emerald eyes framed by two-centimeter velvet eyelashes, olive skin color, and all facial features harmoniously combined with each other as if painted by a talented artist. On her head she carried a metal basin, not holding it with one hand. It was evident that she was engaged in physical labor, but even her tired look did not hide her natural beauty, but, on the contrary, emphasized.

Often I looked at my Dadi and admired her. A thin, toned face with large blue eyes and a straight nose. Grandma was already ninety years old. But the sculpture of her face has not changed since her youth. There were deep wrinkles on her face. And in the bottomless eyes, the naughty light of former youth played. Still, only the body is aging, and the soul remains forever at the age when the person loved the last time.

* * *

Before bed, I tactfully asked me to bring a sheet and a duvet cover. But Tenardieu said that they did not use sheets and duvet covers in the house.

He slept on a synthetic bedspread and covered himself with a thick blanket. All the guests visiting the house were lying on the same bedspread during the day or sitting with their feet.

The next day, the young man’s mother smiling brought me a beautiful sheet of yellow satin fabric with blue flowers and a golden pattern. But she said that they were not sleeping on this, but, on the contrary, they sometimes covered the bed for beauty during the daytime.

How did I suffer in my soul when guests came to the house and lay down on our pillows with head, and someone did not hesitate to fold unwashed feet. The fact is that there was no spare pillowcase either, and instead of a pillowcase, I laid out one of the new hand towels that I brought with me. But it was still unpleasant, and it seemed to me that then the pillow smelled of someone’s feet.

For many years, I did not wash by hand and did not wash the dishes with my hands, as I had a dishwasher and an automatic washing machine. In the house of my future husband, almost everything was done manually. Small things were washed right on the granite floor, soaping and beating on the floor.

The washing machine was semi-automatic and assumed a constant presence to drain and pour water into the tank, and then shift it to the centrifuge.

There was also no trash can in the house. After peeling vegetables, the peel was dumped in a corner of the kitchen, cigarette butts were thrown right there on the floor next to them. Then when cleaning the room it was all swept away in a heap, shifted to the basin. Basin put on his head and carried to the dump. The dump was spontaneously located. That is, at the end of our small street, one needs to go out onto a large road, cross it, and rubbish was thrown onto the side of the road. There were already piled mountains of garbage, and no one took them out for recycling. We did the house-keeping with my mother-in-law and grandmother-in-law every day, so it was clean. I often saw the old grandmother in some kind of homework, such as cleaning vegetables or sweeping the floor.

In India, you will rarely find garbage bins. The local population throws small rubbish everywhere, but not near their home. Large waste is carried to an arbitrary landfill, which, as a rule, is located every 500 meters. But in Indian houses, cleanliness is impeccable, even the poor wives have dusty clay floors in dugouts for days on end.

Drainage was also absent. In front of our house, the pavement was dismantled, and the car was pumping waste from the pit. At such moments, you begin to appreciate what you have not noticed around you before – the livability and comfort of modern apartments.

In the kitchen, huge cockroaches constantly crawled out of the pipe into the sink. I have never seen such big ones before. Each cockroach was four centimeters. There were also ordinary small cockroaches.

The first time I saw them was when I brewed tea in an aluminum scoop on the stove. My future husband was standing nearby. Then he suddenly said:

– Next to you crawling cockroach.

For fear, I screamed so loudly that people could hear me in the next village. I jumped onto the back of the young man and hung on it, continuing to scream with fear.

His father entered the kitchen, frowned and asked:

– What happened?

– She saw a cockroach.

He looked at me, laughed, and left.

Much to my surprise, I learned that my future husband was not at all afraid of cockroaches. Not even the slightest hostility to them.

– So what if cockroaches. They are also living beings. As a child, we even played with them, planted them in our palms, he said good-naturedly and smiled, as if recalling his childhood friends.

* * *

In the evening, I asked the young man and his family to come down. I said that I prepared something interesting for them.

Then they came into the room and sat around the table. I laid out a gift for a gift, brought from Moscow, and presented them to each family member.

When I gave my mother-in-law bracelets, contempt flashed in her huge tarry-black eyes. On the face of my future husband was a painful disappointment.

Immediately after the parents left the room, the young man arrogantly stated that the Italian dress, which I brought to his niece, he can buy from a flea market for a hundred rupees, but not for many thousands, and all the other gifts are cheap.

Then, squinting, he told me:

– You don’t seem to have money for a study in the USA. On what money were you going to go to America?

– What do you mean? Why are you talking about this now?

– Well, once you told me about the plan to study in the West. I thought there would be such a rich woman.

I said nothing and did not answer him.

The only person who showed respect was his father. He thanked me and proudly wore watches on his hand for several days; I was very pleased to see it. After all, the watches were good.

* * *

In those days I met my husband’s second cousin named Kamlesh. It was an educated thirty-year-old married woman. She came to her native village to her parents from another city, where she lived with a rich husband and children. She was happy in her marriage. She and her husband had two children – a boy and a girl. Among all the relatives of my future husband, Kamlesh was the most conscious.

She did not communicate with relatives of my husband and himself. In a large family of my father-in-law, many relatives did not speak among themselves for many years. But in those days she broke this rule.

A few years ago, a relative of my husband committed a misdeed connected with a girl. After that, the whole family became an outcast in their own society.

Once we sat with Kamlesh on the couch and chatted nicely. Then she told me:

– Now everything depends on him. If he wants, he will make a big wedding in a restaurant.

But the young man did not want to do anything. He only said that he had no money. And besides, he said I did not bring a dowry to their house, and this was important for him.

I actually had a dowry. But did it really matter, if everything turned out this way? So I said nothing.

And the next day I, my future husband, his father, sister and child got into the car of his friend Mandip – an intelligent young man and went to the regional center – Tohana.

Right at the bus stop in Tohana, there was a small, cute Hindu temple of white marble. We got out of the car and headed towards the temple.

Bus stops in India are equipped with comfortable, wide benches, some with backs, some without backs. Nearby you can find a public restroom. Not far from the benches there are trade shops, where right in the open air in large cauldrons they fry delicious dough products, for example, samosa. Other products are also tasty, but I do not know their names. Directly behind the shop, there is a small room with tables and benches, there is also a refrigerator with drinks. Travelers sit in the cool at the tables and eat the delicacies they just bought from disposable plates, seasoning them with ketchup.

* * *

The Hindu temple is a separate world, an amazingly beautiful architectural ensemble of marble, granite, limestone, and stone. Even the smallest temple in some lost Indian village is built as a small copy of its grandiose original with the repetition of all the necessary elements of style, with statues of Krishna, Vishnu, Shiva, Ganesh, Kali. In a different way, the statues of the Indian gods are called murti, that is, the “material form of God”, otherwise it can be expressed by the word “idol”. During the installation of the statue, the clergy from the highest caste of the Indian society, the Brahmans, conduct a special pran-pratistha ceremony, during which they ask God to incarnate in this statue. Every detail of the statue, every attribute of it has a specific meaning. For example, the crescent moon in the hair of Lord Shiva is a vessel with the nectar of immortality, it symbolizes control over the mind.

In Hinduism, the spiritual principle is called Brahman. Brahman is the absolute beginning of everything existing in the universe, it is neither good nor bad, it is impassive, infinite and unchanging. It is nirgunam or qualityless. Brahman consists of three gods – Brahma-forces, which creates, Vishnu-forces, which protects, Shiva-forces, which destroys.

You enter the Hindu temple and walk on cool, white, pure marble, walk towards a smiling Indian god and smile at him too, the sweet aroma of Indian incense hangs in the air. The atmosphere of goodness, love envelops like a cloud, and your heart thaws, everything that is outside of the temple is forgotten. Then comes the understanding that you are alone with this Earth with God, that you come into this light alone and live alone, and around you only him, God, exposed in the bodies of people, phenomena and events. It takes the form of different people and circumstances, and each time it asks you its own questions.

According to Indian philosophy, the soul is ignorant. It will be reborn again and again, participating in the cycle of life and death, which is called the “wheel of the Sansara”, until it knows the truth. One soul in every life is born in different bodies – it can be a microbe, an insect, an animal, a man, at the end of rebirth a pure soul becomes a part of Brahma. In the process of circulation, the soul goes to purgatory, where it is to redeem sins for the acts committed, or, on the contrary, it finds peace for good deeds in life.

* * *

So, we went to the temple. My future husband’s sister and I stayed inside, and he and his father left after talking with the temple attendant. I and his sister and her child sat for a long time on a clean white marble floor.

What we did and why we sat there, I did not understand, there was no one to ask, his sister did not know English, except for some well-known words, and I did not know Hindi to ask her. From time to time we smiled sweetly at each other and looked at each other sympathetically, complaining about the incredible heat. A fan was driving hot air. They brought me a glass of fresh juice, which I drank with pleasure. A cool stream of cold drink was most welcome.

In India, they make juice right in front of a client. There is a small shop on the street with ladles and a juicer like a meat grinder, near the shop there are a lot of fruits. The shop assistant immediately prepares a juice from any fruit you like.

Two hours passed, and then a young man came with his father. I was asked to go to the altar. The priest hung us on the neck in a flower garland and said something in Hindi. Then each of us put a spot on the forehead with red paint. I thought it was some kind of preliminary proceedings before the wedding, because in weddings usually there are many guests in fancy dresses. But we were alone.

We moved away from the altar, and Tenardieu with disgust wiped off the red spot on his forehead, fearing that anyone could see him.

– Now everyone thinks you forced me to marry you, wipe off the paint from your forehead too, – he hissed viciously.

– What?

– I just got married to you. – He answered rudely, turned around and left the temple.

When we left the temple and got into the car, a friend of my husband, Mandip, congratulated us and said that now we were a couple.

In the evening, my newly-made husband bought a bottle of cheap wine and samosa. Samosa is like our modified samsa, just not flat, and instead of meat, there are vegetables inside.

My mother-in-law, who was radically opposed to our marriage, never for a second left us alone, and my husband’s attitude towards me always changed to a sharply negative one at her presence.

I will make a short digression and describe my mother-in-law. My mother-in-law, according to my calculations, was eight to nine years older than me, and my father-in-law was exactly ten years older than me. My husband was ten years younger than me. Mother-in-law was about forty two years old, but she looked like fifty. She did not study anywhere except in several classes of school.

Her face which used to be fresh and pretty years ago, her huge, shiny, sapphire-like eyes framed by long, terry, fan-shaped eyelashes was wrinkled, and once the lacquer-black thick hair was almost all sparse and gray. When she was angry, she was distinguished by almost bestial rudeness in behavior and forced loud laughter. She wore salvar-kameez and she covered her head with a translucent dupatta fabric, as befits all married women. Her right shoulder was always noticeable below the left because of hard work. She almost always wore the same clothes as it is normal in villages all over the world. On a thin, wrinkled neck, she wore a gold pendant on a black rope; in her ears, she wore small gold hoop earrings. As for the point on the forehead, my dear mother-in-law drew it to herself only when she went to the city to the bazaar. She had one trait that gave her charm: when she was in my presence quarreling with someone and screaming, making scary eyes, at the same time she laughed with a coquettish, unnatural laugh.

So she never left us alone. And on our wedding day, it was the same. The three of us sat in the bedroom on our bed – me, Tenardieu and his mother. It was late, but she did not leave. They talked about something in Hindi, it even seemed to me that they were cursing, trying not to show it.

We did not celebrate this event in the restaurant. There was nothing festive – neither guests, nor a beautiful sari, nor gold jewelry, nor a honeymoon. I got married in the marine blue Punjabi suite I bought when I came to India. And instead of the restaurant, Tenardieu bought cheap wine with samosa, and so we were going to celebrate together. And even this mother-in-law did not allow us to do.

– Mom, go to your room, we just got married, let us sit together and celebrate the wedding, said my newly-made husband.

– I’m not going anywhere, – his mother replied and looked at me viciously at me.

– Go, I said, – he insisted, and my mother-in-law eventually left, so we were left alone and sat silently.

My mother-in-law went and the husband poured the wine into glasses. We sat for a while and went to bed.

Night covered the village with a heavy veil. A minute ago, the voices of passers-by were heard on the street, an angry dog barking could be heard from afar, and suddenly everything died down at once.

Initially, Tenardieu quarreled with his mother and her relatives, stood up for me. He even quarreled once on the street with my mother-in-law’s sister and her family, who lived next door, and told me:

– I quarreled today with the whole family. Do not betray me ever.

– I promise.

But over time, he went over to the side of his own mother, who hated me and began to resemble a tyrant feudal, who had only me in submission. He slandered me at any suitable moment when I was not around. He came to the bedroom and tormented me with his sullen silence.

I understood that his mother was discussing me with him. What he said to me after talking with her was disgusting.

“You have the face of a person one can’t trust. I will not go with you alone for the honeymoon. I’m afraid of you. You look like a Chinese woman. Mom is afraid to let me go with you. What if you are an agent from China?”

I laughed in response. I was invited to a man, and he himself was scared. I thought it was a bad joke. The young man kept saying the same thing.

– I do not trust you. Mom says I’m too young, I’m younger than you and married being a virgin to you.

– Is it you a virgin? You tell this fairytale to your mom. And I already know all the stories about you. You yourself told me everything. That’s it, tomorrow I’m leaving. Stay with your mom.

– Leave. Take a suitcase and go on foot, if you know where to go. I will not give you a car.

– You know perfectly well that I cannot leave without your help. Take me to the airport, please.

– But it is you who wants to leave. Why should I help you?

Then he dissuaded me from leaving. As it later turned out, he was afraid that the neighbors would laugh at him.

* * *

India is a country, only one-third of which is visible to the ordinary human eye. The rest of the country is invisible. However, the indigenous population is aware of its existence. Hence, many rituals, prayers, mantras, temples, priests. There are a lot of different strange events happening on Indian soil – I don’t know what kind of power is behind these events. The priests say that India comes into the life of a certain person for one mystical reason known to her. Also, the priests add that if India does not come to a person, means the person is not ready for this yet.

If India loves the person, then it gives him a sacred knowledge. A person is endowed with a special gift. Many Indians have innate abilities for hypnosis and magic, are able to predict the future, they see prophetic dreams.

Once I noticed after myself that for some time after arriving in India I began to have dreams that came true in three to five days. There was nothing terrible in these dreams; I just saw in a dream some situations that in a few days came true.

The Indian people have their little secrets. So, my mother-in-law, before eating sweets for some reason, pinched a small piece from them and threw it somewhere to the side. Only then she began to eat treats. I don’t know why she did it; I didn’t see dogs and cats next to her.

In India there is polytheism. Most of all I like the story of the god Ganesh. Ganesh is the son of the gods Shiva and Parvathi, who was born with a human body and head. The god Shani looked at the boy, and the child’s head burned. Then the god Shiva added to the baby the head of an elephant – the first animal encountered by the servants.

He is also called Shri Ganesh. Sri is a respectful prefix.

God Ganesh, kind and just, helps travelers and those who love to gain knowledge. Thus, this god is closer to me than all the other Indian gods.

The god Ganesh, who has the head of an elephant and the body of a man, pray as follows: “Om gam ganapataye namaha”. This mantra removes obstacles to a person. The first sound of the mantra “Om” – is the sound that first appeared in the newly created Universe.

* * *

Since we got married, I was supposed to wear Indian clothes, not European ones. Now I had to cover my head with a dupatta and draw a point on my forehead. In the morning I applied a red strip on the central hair part and draw a point on my forehead – bindi. The point in the forehead reminded me of the sunset of red Indian sun. How beautiful it looks on the forehead of a married woman in India! It seems to illuminate the house and family with its warmth, love, and wisdom.

The mother-in-law said that I now could not wear European clothes and that I could not walk alone now when I want to, that if I go somewhere, and then only accompanied. She also, through her son, told me that I had to wash the floors and do the cleaning every day in the whole house, as well as walk on the field and pick cotton by hands.

I also bought a special pencil and bottle with a red composition and tassel. It is exactly the same capacity as nail polish, but the consistency of the contents is different.

In India, there are many bindi options in various colors and sizes that stick to the skin and last until evening.

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.