Child Bride 1916 - Part Three

Back in her corner in the slow moving train, Jeevani sniffled.  Holding back tears, she realized that Amma and Bauji will not be with her for guidance.  She will have to quench her thirst for knowledge from someone else.  Jeevani aspired to understand the local culture and was intrigued by the tribal people.  She later came to realize that she was not alone in this fascination.  It was the arrival of these tribes from enigmatic lands that made the city dwellers endure anything Mother Nature had in store.  The imminent scorching temperatures, the icy chills of the winter or even major disasters like strong earthquakes were forgotten in spring.  The season was a time to welcome the visitors, the blooms, the delicacies, and other items from lands beyond the boundaries.  It was a festive time.

Jeevani for now was less cheerful than the season and was unable to appreciate the beauty outside.  She tried to absorb her new land through the long veil of her red silk chunni laden with gold zari border.  The gold jewelry adorned her person with a thick, collar necklace and a long kundan set hanging down to her chest.  Thick gold bangles covered her wrists, silver anklets and toe rings shone from her feet, and a small gold and ruby tikka hung down her forehead matching the dot on her nose ring.  She felt the burden, the gold weighing her down as much as the heaviness she felt in her heart.  She had left the only home and family she had ever known.  She missed her parents.

Jeevani recalled the countless shopping trips to the bazaar over the three years of her engagement.  They were not as much fun since she could not play with her friends anymore and Amma made her try on countless outfits.  Her parents’ room shone with all the gold, clothes laden with zari or sequins laid out for the grooms’ family for viewing before the wedding.

Over the waiting years the two families met often as her new family lived only a few mohallas down.  During their visits Jeevani was sent indoors but she tried to peek through the small window of her parents’ room.  It was usually the two women – the mother, Ameerni Devi and the sister in the white garb, the other Jeevani.  Amma filled them on their future daughter-in-law’s progress plugging the gaps with exaggerations.  Little Jeevani hoped the groom would visit too, but he never did.  She did, however, hear the women talk about him sometimes.  She learned that he had left Khushab to study in Rawalpindi. In another meeting she heard that he was planning to move to Quetta to join his cousin in the construction business and the whole family was moving with him.

Jeevani, in her lonely corner of the train, recalled seeing this groom only once.  It was the previous day at the wedding ceremony, and that too with his face covered in garlands and hers veiled by the chunni.  He was a tall boy and when she heard him speak to his parents, he sounded like a man.

To be continued