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daughter.
The marriage took place, the demands continued after the wedding parties
returned to their homes, but by vast good fortune (and a vast number of
expensivepujas at the temple) the bride quickly became pregnant, and to the
joy of everyone except perhaps the groom's mother (who had had her eye on a
video player), she gave birth to a son.
Demands ceased, Barot took a deep breath at last and looked at his
fourteen-year-old Pramilla.
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There was simply no money for her to get married. If Barot managed to raise
it, he and his noble young son would starve. She was a pretty little thing, to
be sure, and as bright and as helpful to her menfolk as a father could ask,
but there was still no money.
There were offers, yes. A neighbor with an unfortunate facial deformity that
made his speech nearly impossible to comprehend was willing to take the girl
with only a small dowry. And a farmer in the next village was looking for a
pretty young wife, but he was of a lower caste, and besides, Barot had heard
talk about the man, and was too fond of his third daughter to feel easy about
handing her over to a man who had not only gone through three wives already
(all of whom had died of unfortunate accidents) but was older than Barot
himself.
So Barot went to see his cousin and the cousin's wife, who between them
seemed to know everything and everyone between Jaipur and Delhi. It was the
wife who came up with the idea of the advertisement in the DelhiPost. When
Barot saw the sorts of advertisements the marriage column offered, he
despaired, as it was full of girls with university degrees and professional
training, but his cousin pointed out that he had little choice, and it was
worth the investment as a gamble. The three of them together decided on the
wording.
Pretty young light-skinned village girl, hardworking, traditional, and
respectful, no dowry but ideal for the right man.
Barot could see that even his cousin's wife had grave doubts about the
chances of a response, but she had to admit that the advert was honest, and
that in a market bristling with nursing certificates and BA hon degrees, it
had the advantage of its own simplicity. And Pramilla did have skin as light
as a farmer's daughter could hope for. Maybe, just maybe, there was a rich man
out there (or another schoolteacher with radical ideas) who valued a cowlike,
hardworking girl of a respectable caste over an educated potential
troublemaker with her own money.
There was.
To everyone's astonishment, three weeks later a letter came, on a piece of
paper with a letterhead engraved on it, bearing a stamp from the United States
of America.
They read it at the house of Barot's cousin. The cousin's wife read it to
them, stumbling over the more unfamiliar English words and translating
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tentatively as she went.
The letter in its magnificent crisp typescript was from a man who called
himself Peter Mehta. He was the Chief Executive Officer (a vastly impressive
phrase) of a company with branches in Bombay, Los Angeles, and San Francisco
(magic names all) whose business was not specified but was quite patently
successful.
Mehta had seen Barot's advertisement in the Marriages Offered section of the
DelhiPost that was flown in to his office in San Francisco several days a
week. He was looking for a bride for his younger brother, Laxman, acting as
the family representative since their parents were both dead. Laxman was a boy
of simple tastes, according to the letter, and both brothers preferred a
traditional arranged marriage to the haphazard dangers of the American system.
If the girl's family was willing to have their daughter emigrate to America,
would they please send a photograph, details of the girl's life and
accomplishments, and a signed letter from the village health worker to the
effect that she was healthy and capable of bearing children.
The letter was couched in terms both more flowery and less direct than that,
but all parties involved knew what was meant. She needed to be certified a
virgin, she had to be shown to have the normal complement of eyes, ears, and
teeth in a more or less pleasing arrangement, and they wanted something in
writing that said who she was. Normally, a marriage broker or convenient uncle
would take care of this, but the family seemed to have no relatives in the
area, and they wanted assurance that their investment would reach them in an
acceptable manner. Otherwise they would have to ship her home again, and the
"no dowry" phrase had already established that Barot would be unable to
reimburse them for the transportation costs.
Barot held the pristine white sheet of paper in his trembling, work-roughened
fingers, examining the bold signature of the Chief Executive Officer as if it
were the stamp of a god. Salvation was at hand; Pramilla was saved from the
clutches of a freak or a wife-beater; he and his son would not starve. And
America unbelievable! The land of golden opportunity had opened up, reaching
out to a dusty village in Rajasthan, for surely this would mean that when
Pramilla's brother was grown to be a man, her husband, this godlike Laxman
Mehta who was younger brother to an American Chief Executive Officer named
Peter, would reach out again to bring the boy into the fold of his extended
family.
It was only the cousin's wife who had doubts. Barot was from a good caste,
granted, but the Mehtas were much higher. What did they want with a girl like
Pramilla, when they could have someone both higher and with a degree? And San
Francisco was so very far away, and Pramilla so young. Who knew this family of
Mehtas? Was there no one here to speak for them?
But her protests, admittedly mild, went unheard, for Barot and his cousin and
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the entire village were filled with joy and excitement. Even Pramilla herself
was speechless with the thrill of it (for she had known of the two other
suitors hovering in the wings of her father's vision, and had shuddered at
both of them).
The photographer was summoned from the next town, arriving with his heavy
ancient camera and a choice of three grubby saris for the occasion. Pramilla
yearned for the white sari heavy with silver thread, but the cousin's wife
disapproved, saying it would make her look as if she could afford a dowry
after all, and besides, the white would make her skin look much too dark even
with rice powder. So she chose the sari with small sprigs of blue flowers on
it, and dusted Pramilla's face and arms with the powder, and pronounced
herself satisfied with the result.
Pramilla was fourteen and a half years old, and looked twelve in the picture
that landed on Peter Mehta's desk two weeks later. He grunted, felt a brief
regret that he was not himself in need of a luscious young bride, and passed
it over to Laxman for approval unnecessary, perhaps, but this was America
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| Cytat |
Dobre pomysły nie mają przeszłości, mają tylko przyszłość. Robert Mallet
De minimis - o najmniejszych rzeczach.
Dobroć jest ważniejsza niż mądrość, a uznanie tej prawdy to pierwszy krok do mądrości. Theodore Isaac Rubin
Dobro to tylko to, co szlachetne, zło to tylko to, co haniebne.
Dla człowieka nie tylko świat otaczający jest zagadką; jest on nią sam dla siebie. I z obu tajemnic bardziej dręczącą wydaje się ta druga. Antoni Kępiński (1918-1972)
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