As twilight enveloped the city and shadows of darkness cast spooky patterns on the floor of the tiled courtyard, everyone dispersed and headed to their quarters. Believing it would be a magical night as my older sisters-in-law had insinuated, I shyly followed Mohandas to his small room on the first floor of the house with my heart beating wildly. Mohandas bolted the door behind me.
The room was strewn with rose petals and a sweet aroma had diffused in the air around. An oil lantern that stood on a stool near the window was burning brightly. A tiny earthen lamp laden with layers of black soot flickered faintly in one corner. The bed was covered with a vegetable-dye counterpane that had tribal motifs patched on it. Mohandas sat down on the bed. I stood beside him with my head bent, not knowing what I was expected to do. He leaned back on the pillow and turned around to face me. He looked bewildered and I could sense his nervousness. He fumbled, unsure of himself. I stood there in silence waiting for him to speak. After what seemed like an eternity, he smiled.
“Come here, Kastur,” he said as he pulled me gently, and locked his arms around me in a tight embrace. I closed my eyes and yielded coyly unto him.
As we lay on the bed holding each other, he took my fingers and continued to caress my hands, cheeks, neck and chin till he stopped on the gauzy fabric that covered my throat. He tugged at it and it fell away. I blushed and instinctively covered my face with one end of my sari. Then I pulled the bed cover over me, right up to my chin. He drew me closer, but I shrank away awkwardly.
Mohandas rose to snuff out the lantern. The room plunged into darkness. Only a faint glimmer of the earthen lamp in the corner and the silver rays of a full moon filtered through the stained glass window, bathing our bodies in an ethereal blue light. He rolled me over into the crook of his arm.
I quivered. My entire body was seized by lightness, a feeling that was both euphoric and new. This was my lord and master and my mother had told me that he had a right on me, to do as he pleased.
All kinds of stirrings surged through my mind and body. A warm glow diffused slowly within me and I could feel a rapid throbbing. I slackened every nerve and gave myself unto him as if it was an offering to the gods, a complete and open surrender.
My marriage was consummated, seventy-two hours after we were wed. I had finally joined the exalted ranks of my sisters-in- law Ganga and Harkunwer.
The sight of four crescent-shaped scratch marks of my nails on his back aroused me. The feeling that Mohandas and I had embarked on a novel journey of passion, into a world of self-discovery and erotica was thrilling.
It was the morning after that the sight of blood on the bedsheet made me recoil in horror. I stared at the despicable stain in panic, not knowing what to do. I felt betrayed. No one had told me there would be blood. Nor had anyone said that sex was painful. Surely Ba would find out what we had been up to and punish us. I held on to Mohandas and wept. He took me gently in his arms stroking the back of my head.
“It’s ok, Kastur. We haven’t done anything wrong. Ba won’t be angry. Nothing will happen. It’s ok. Don’t cry, my beloved. I’m here with you. Don’t be afraid.”
His tender, soothing words comforted me and I tiptoed down the stairs into the courtyard where Putli Ba’s day had long begun. I prayed to god that the guilt on my face would not give me away. The heady feeling of intimacy, the secret trysts I shared with Mohandas, the excitement of being touched, disrobed, loved, and caressed by him lingered on. The fear of being punished for those vile bloodstains on my bed faded away.
My unripe breasts and premature body were unprepared to face the brunt of sex and its natural outcome, childbirth. But my mind had been tuned differently. As the days rolled by, I sensed Mohandas’ increasing passion and I daresay I began to crave for his touch on my naked skin. He was the one I adored, my singular playmate on whom I had a primary lien. The mere touch of his fingers could send ripples of pleasure deep inside me. I loved him dearly and he was mine to possess. I would stop at nothing to please him. Much like the raw odorous musk that oozes from the entrails of a wild deer, my pheromones too were beginning to peak.
Our sexual union, the mortal embodiment of Shiva and his divine consort, the final amalgamation of yin and yang was indeed a cosmic explosion. I would soon get accustomed to the appearance of normalcy, the feigned amnesia of couples who behind closed doors, naked in each others’ arms, regularly engaged in passionate sexual exchanges and appreciate the quintessential but accepted duplicity of the flawed human race. As for Mohandas, he had acquired a toy; a living organism that could talk back, laugh, play, copulate and then return to being his bonded slave. For him I was a mere plaything that was not permitted to either think or protest.
Life changed for me as it did for Mohandas. He was sent back to school and I got entangled in the household affairs as a fledgling appendage in the long chain of serving Gandhi women, whom it had became my duty to serve.
The Dewan of Rajkot had an endless stream of visitors everyday, who had to be entertained and fed. Unlike my parental home where there was a retinue of servants to wait on us, here we had to do everything ourselves. My routine kept me busy all day. The household tasks, which I performed willingly for all the older women, were no longer tedious. Putli Ba was wise and kind. Unlike most dictatorial women of her ilk, she played no favourites. She instructed by example and not by authority and I grew to love her like my own mother. It made the chores easy and the hours fly fast.
But all day long, I hungered for the private moments in my bedroom. That was my impetus, my addiction, my personal sanctuary and my life.
I could not exhibit any physical proximity or overt contact with my husband in the presence of family elders. That would be a dreadful breach of conduct, but behind the closed doors of our own little room, we turned into a pair of wild deer, frolicking in the wilderness, driven by sheer animal passion, to indulge in a compelling, carnal, steamy erotic union, as much as to redeem our duty towards procreation.
And the tiny terracotta lamp, laden with thick layers of black soot, flickering in the corner of our room never burned out.
Excerpted with permission from The Secret Diary of Kasturba, Neelima Dalmia Adhar, Tranquebar Press.
