Five Past Midnight in Bhopal - Dominique Lapierre [99]
“This little gold cross was given to me by my mother when I consecrated my life to God,” she said, fastening the chain around Padmini’s neck. “It has protected me. Now I’m giving it to you so that it may protect you.”
“Thank you, big sister, I shall wear it always in remembrance of you,” whispered Padmini, her eyes bright with emotion.
Then began the long ritual of an Adivasi marriage, punctuated with mantras in Sanskrit, the language of the sacred texts. Mukkadam had learned them by heart for the occasion, although neither he nor anyone else there understood them. He began by asking the couple to plunge their right hands into a baked clay jar filled with a paste made of sandalwood and tuber. In it two rings were hidden. The first to find a ring had the right to extract a forfeit from the other. After this preamble came the panigrahan. For the Adivasis as for Hindus, this was an essential part of the marriage rite. The officiant took from the pocket of his punjabi a small piece of mauve cord and, taking hold of the couple’s right hands, tied them together as he repeated their names aloud. The culminating moment had arrived. The band and the congregation fell silent. Now Mukkadam invited the married couple to officially make each other’s acquaintance. Slowly, timidly, each parted the other’s veil with their free hand. Dilip’s delighted face appeared before Padmini’s big, slanting eyes. Her heart was pounding. Her mother, father and brother watched her with barely contained emotion. Dalima, for her part, could no longer hold back tears. Already Mukkadam was asking the pair to complete the last part of the ceremony: with their right hands still bound together by the piece of cord, husband and wife walked seven times around the sacrificial fire.
It was ten o’clock at night and the celebrations were only just beginning. Helped by a group of women, Dalima started laying out plates made out of banana leaves on the sisal mats that had been rolled out near the teahouse. All the guests from Orya Bustee would soon sample the wedding banquet, looking out over the strange towers and pipework of the Carbide factory, lit up with strings of lights like an oceanliner.
While other marriage ceremonies were taking place in all four corners of the city, several hundred people were preparing to pay tribute to the goddess of poetry in Spices Square.
The organizers of that Sunday evening’s mushaira had given their program particular luster by inviting one of the most famous Urdu language poets. Jigar Akbar Khan was a legend in his own lifetime. In Bhopal he had such a following that a taxi driver had once abducted him to force him, at gun point, to give a private recital. Jigar could declaim more than fifty ghazals in a single evening. Whenever he appeared, his audience went into a frenzy. His sublime incantations, his sonorous voice— sometimes caressing, sometimes imploring—were magical. It was common knowledge that the elderly bearded poet enveloped in his shawl, was a hopeless drunkard, but what did that matter? Bhopal was indebted to him for too many nights of exaltation not to forgive him. It was said that one of his disciples had actually left his wife on their wedding night in order to accompany the master poet back to the railway station and put him on his train. Just as the train was pulling away, the waggish Jigar had grabbed hold of his admirer and prevented him from jumping back onto the platform. The newlywed had not returned to Bhopal for a year, a year spent following his idol from festivals to mushairas across India.
With their hands outstretched toward the speaker in a gesture of offering, eyes closed upon some vision of ecstasy, gently shaking their heads in approval, the audience greeted each verse with an enthusiastic “Vah!”, or “Marvelous!” A slight chilly breeze blowing from the north nipped at their flesh, but exaltation warmed bodies as well