Shueli's Star

Novel
Anna Sujatha Mathai

Previous Chapters

CHAPTER 19
Queen Victoria and the Syrian Christians
 
We become our stories. Our stories become us, thought Shueli. Lying on the bed that warm March afternoon, she reflected upon some of life’s mysteries. Do we write the script for our lives ourselves? What about the dialogue with other people? Or, is there a great Script Writer or Director, who hands us a script, and commands us to act it out as well as we can, or interpret it so that its meaning becomes clear.
  Shueli and Gaya had a plate of mangoes on a towel, between them. Shueli was sucking the stone, licking the juice off the sides of her mouth, when Gaya suddenly burst out “Maybe He just hands you a mango, and tells you to suck right through, till you reach the stone!” Which had both of them spluttering with laughter and mango juice, and ended Shueli’s reflective mood.
 
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After Shueli arrived back in Delhi, Ammy and all their friends were full of questions about “life over there” –  (as if it’s the moon, thought Shueli.)  - and about how  the Baigs, Azeezes, Ahmeds and others lived. Ammy and Papa wanted all the news about Rahel Aunty and her husband and child. With so much talk it was possible for Shueli to conceal how hurt she was, even from Ammy’s eagle eye. “On Easter day, there’s a party at the Thomas’ place. You know for whom? The Kuruvillas.” She looked around triumphantly, but it didn’t seem to strike the slightest chord of interest in anyone, so she hastened to explain.  “He was Chief Secretary in the U.P., and is now coming to Delhi in a most important position in the Centre.  He’s in the I.C.S. you know. They could be very proud, but it seems they’re not. Everyone is talking about them, and how friendly and warm hearted they are. It’ll be good to meet them. They have two sons and a daughter. The older son, and the daughter are married, but there’s a younger son, who’s said to be very brilliant, and doing his Medical Internship at Vellore. They plan to send him abroad soon, for higher study.”
“Who’s interested?”  Shueli asked indifferently. “We don’t even know them.”
 
“Well, you should at least meet some of our own boys. He’s not here now. But at least the Kuruvillas will see you. Sara’s and Kochu’s mothers are also trying hard for their daughters.”
“Oh, Ammy. Please ! I’m not interested.” Shueli felt too weary to be angry. She had been crying in her room, and her eyes were swollen, but Ammy, full of the Kuruvillas, did not notice. So Shueli was able to keep to herself the sorrow she still felt for her recently shattered dream. Ammy announced that they would all go to the Easter Service at the Cathedral. “Then I’m making a special lunch. Baby and Elsie may come in the morning. (Ammy always invited all the working women, or those without homes, to spend the day, or for lunch, on Sundays or holidays.) Gaya and you could both come for the Tea.” Shueli was too dispirited to put up further resistance, or continue the argument, so she just gave in.
  Easter was always beautiful, reflected Shueli. Delhi was just wavering between the pleasant coolness of Winter, and the scorching heat of a cruel summer which would soon make a relentless invasion of the plains of North India. In the Cathedral, the altar glowed with silver candlesticks, exquisite Easter lilies, and other fragrant flowers. Shueli almost forgot her mood of deep sadness, and sense of hopelessness which threatened to overpower her. She felt soothed by the organ music, so celestial, soaring above the petty sorrows of small human beings. “Christ is risen! Hallelujah!” seemed to lift the weight of pain, which lay like a corpse on Shueli’s unhealed heart.. Yet, no one seemed to take a young girl’s sorrow seriously. Only the other day, in an argument, Papa had claimed “Only the mature can know what love really means. Very young people falling in love? Oh, that’s just puppy love.”  Gaya always joked back, but Shueli would get really worked up.. She knew only too well how acute this pain was. The young weren’t really free, were they? Bound, hand and foot by families and countries, and – oh, everything. Maybe one could forget it all on Easter day. She felt as if her pain became one with the pain of all the other human beings there. She was not alone in that sorrow, that sense of loss. Everyone seemed to have some secret hidden pain, some need for solace. Every one there was trying to reach out to a greater strength, a redeeming love.
   In the afternoon, just before leaving for the Thomas’ place, she had a long weep, hidden away in the bathroom, so that no one should find her. That – horror of horrors – would lead to interrogation, and her secret would be out. Ammy, especially, would ask endless questions, questions that would utterly destroy her private world.. No. Rather than that, she would bear all the pain with a brave face. She wasn’t an actress for nothing, was she? But it’s always easier to act someone else’s courage than one’s own, just as it was always easier to solve someone else’s problem, but dreadfully hard to deal with one’s own. So, despite her swollen face and red-rimmed eyes, she put on a stoic expression for the ordeal ahead.
  Acchamma Thomas was a small, sharp tongued woman. She was sometimes referred to as a ‘kaandhaari’ – which is a tiny, particularly vicious type of red hot chilly!  If you bite any other chilly, you feel better after a drink of water. But if you bite a ‘kaandhaari’ you’ll be hopping around on one foot, shouting  ‘Aiyo! Aiyo!’ for quite a while after. If you happened to drop in on Mrs. Thomas unexpectedly, there she’d stand on her verandah, with an extra sharp greeting in Malayalam.  It was rarely ‘How nice to see you. Come in.’  Oh no! It was  ‘ So. How is it we’re seeing you here after such a long time? Did you lose your way, or what?’  Ammy explained that it was just another way of saying hello, and they shouldn’t mind so much, but both Shueli and Gaya would squirm uncomfortably. Certainly they had got used to some of this sharp, acidic, sometimes wise language, when they lived with Graany in Tiruvella. Graany had had quite a repertoire of her own. “Don’t look down on anyone” she would say, “or discard them because they’re in a poor situation.. Even the crow might have a bit of gold in its beak.” So whenever Shueli thought ‘I’m through with so and so,’ she would restrain herself from rejecting anyone outright..  Anyway, Mrs. Thomas was unusually pleasant today. Controlling her tongue, because the Kuruvillas are here, thought Shueli. There was a blur of faces and voices, as every one was introduced and tea was served. Mrs. Kuruvilla was a large, but charming lady, with a vivacious manner, and a hearty, uproarious laugh. She had a string of white jasmine in her hair, which made Shueli like her. Though Shueli sat in a daze through that evening, she could remember Mrs. K. looking at her when she said “I think it’s nice for young girls to dress well, put flowers in their hair and look pretty.”  Evidently, the Ks considered themselves very liberated and modern, compared to the rest of the strict, old-fashioned Syrian Christians. Shueli, looking down, found her eyes resting on Mr. K.’s large feet, in leather sandals. The thought flashed through her mind, which would only surface to her conscious mind years later: ‘Those feet could crush me.’
Later, there were many other occasions where the two families met. Ammy and Omana Kuruvilla enjoyed each other’s liveliness and brand of humour, and became good friends, exchanging recipes and gossip regularly, in and out of each other’s houses. The Kuruvillas liked to be known as friendly, and ‘not at all snobbish.’   The Kuruvillas, with their penchant for being ‘the most popular people’ loved giving parties. The sprawling house, with its spreading green lawns, was always filled with people, some of them rather ill-assorted. The young, wild, sophisticated Doon School types with their similar girl friends were smilingly tolerated by the grey haired and liberal  sophisticates of the I.C.S. and other such circles. The lacquered rosewood table seated ten or twenty people for each meal. “Don’t they ever like being on their own?” the Philiposes wondered, always so fond of their own little family circle, the walks together, the reading sessions. “Sometimes you don’t even know who all the people are!” said Ammy, but only to her husband.
“We like to keep Open House. Sometimes the children just bring their friends, and their friends friends! We enjoy having young people around” said Omana.  She mentioned to Amaal that her older son, who was completing his Internship at Vellore, would soon be in Delhi. “He’s a fine sportsman, and will soon be going to England to work for the M.R.C.P. exam (Member of the Royal College of Physicians.) We want him to get married before he goes. You know how it is there, Amaal. Some English girl will get hold of him, and we’ll lose our son. We don’t mind the boys having some fun. But they should marry  only one of our own girls.”  Ammy was a bit taken aback by this rather doubtful attitude, but she was full of all the titillating news, much to Gaya’s and Shueli’s disgust. “I think Omana is very much taken up with Shueli” said Ammy proudly. “I’m sure if we propose it, they’ll accept it. But we must act fast.. That Acchamma and that Leelakutty are also trying, for their Sara and Kochu. We must arrange for them to meet, as soon as he arrives.”
“I refuse to have an arranged meeting like that, with every one looking on. And what if we don’t like each other? Suppose I just can’t stand him?  I know it’s only the boy who’s supposed to approve the girl, but suppose the girl finds the boy simply repulsive? And, if the boy disapproves of the girl, what a bad thing it is for the girl. Practically ruins her life. No, I’m not agreeing to any such fake meetings, thank you.”
  It was just a few months away to the M.A. exam, and Shueli had to be in the Hostel for a while, to enable her to study. It was quite a relief to get away from all the machinations of mothers, and from unwanted bridegrooms. She could forget it all during the week, and get caught up with Webster and F.R. Leavis, and Eliot.. But every weekend there would be another assault on her independence, and she would be forced to confront the ‘real world’. She was exhorted to “be sensible. Think of your future. Don’t let your headstrong ways spoil your chances of a good marriage.” Wearily, she wondered how long she could hold out. She didn’t have any clear alternatives to offer. Arif was lost to her, she realised. Hadn’t he, too, acted in deference to his family’s wishes, put custom and good sense before love and passion? Her reflections were disturbed by Asha Sachdev, a History Honours student.. “Hey, Shu,” she said excitedly, “ Guess what? Pritam’s coming. You know his parents were good friends of the Kuruvillas, as both their fathers were in the I.C.S. in the same place. Used to go for tiger shoots, and all sorts of things. Both put their sons into Doon School, and that’s how Paul and Pritam are such good friends. Pritam just called me. And asked me out on Saturday. I believe Paul is here. How about making it a foursome?” Shueli knew that Asha was practically engaged to Pritam. She thought, quite coolly, that if she did get to meet this Paul, in this open, not at all loaded way, it might not be such a bind, - it might even be fun!
Everyone in College , - at least those who were let into the secret, - had advice to give, about what she should wear, where they should go, and even what she should say, or avoid saying! One would think the entire College was on the verge of getting engaged!
In fact, it was a bit of a shared joke or prank. Paul and Pritam arrived, full of youthful anticipation, to pick up their ‘girl-friends.’ Paul had a red rose in his button-hole, which made him look a bit ridiculous in Shueli’s aloof and detached eyes. But he was tall, and quite good looking, in a heavy sort of way. “Not really my type” thought Shueli. She felt quite remote throughout the evening, as there didn’t seem anything shared, to talk about. He kept trying to persuade her to have a ‘Bloody Mary’, and she kept refusing. Before taking them back to the Hostel, he said his mother was expecting them for a “quick bite of supper.” Omana K. served them a delicious supper in their elegant drawing room. Shueli was shocked, and most put out, when Paul’s mother came straight to the point. She hadn’t the slightest interest in Shueli’s scholastic achievements, or her talents, and certainly not in any of her dreams. She enquired which year Shueli was in at College these days. “Just a few months to my final M.A. exam.”
“What’s the point of doing your M.A.  if you’re getting married?” Mrs. K. asked, in the matter of fact voice of one who already knew the answer. Shueli had the nightmare feeling that she was already tied up, bought, sold and quartered. She began to feel as if she were speeding down a rapid, and there was nothing for her to hold onto, to break the fall. Who knew what discussions had already been held between the Ks and Ammy and Papa? Like a sleepwalker caught in a bad dream, she heard herself say “Yes, maybe. Not much point…”  She had lost Arif. In her very youthful point of view, the possibility that she might ever love again, seemed a rank impossibility. What did it matter who she married now, if she could never be with Arif?  Her parents, too, reinforced the whole argument for her marrying Paulose Kuruvilla. Shueli got caught up in endless arguments. She drifted dangerously between rebellion and indifference. Paul also added to the onslaught, and, perhaps, tipped the balance in his own favour. He claimed that a relative had sent him a photograph of Shueli while he was at Vellore. “I fell in love at first sight, even though you did look like a missionary, dressed all in white!” he teased.
 Shueli thought to herself : Life closed for me when I parted from Arif. If I can’t ever be with him, I might as well try and fit into a traditional marriage. At least it will make Ammy, Papa and the rest of the family happy. I’ll try and be a ‘good wife.’
  Once she accepted the proposal both parents were, indeed, happy, and there was a flurry of activity. There were only two months left for the wedding, and soon after, they would be leaving for England.
Paul (or Kuri, as he was called by friends) took her for a drive one evening, soon after they were formally engaged . The old ruins of the Hauz Khazis lay bathed in an eerie moonlight. A sudden memory of the school picnics they used to have here,  flitted through Shueli’s  mind’s eye. The yellow mustard fields, the music, the flasks of coffee, packets of sandwiches and paraathaas, she and Shalini whispering together. Arif looking at them with a mischievous smile.  She put that firmly out of her mind, and heard Kuri say “You know I have to work very hard for the M.R.C.P. exam, Maybe I should go on ahead, alone. You could stay with my parents. You could join me later. What do you think?” Did a shadow cross the moon, or had it just become suddenly darker? It seemed such a very cold bit of planning. This was such a romantic setting. Yet why did she feel a chill shudder go through her? No. It was just her over active imagination. She replied in a very clear, firm voice “Of course not. I want to come with you. What would be the point of our getting married if I stay on alone here, and you all alone there, trying to study and pass exams and all that?  We need to be together, don’t we?” He agreed, rather desultorily, she thought. But it was easy to ignore any warning signs, as most of the time he was full of fun. Indeed, the whole family was full of high spirits, there was a lot of laughter and teasing, and Shueli began to think how lucky she was going into such a happy, warm-hearted family. Old Fatima,the ayah, who looked about a hundred years old, and had tended each of the children as infants, came and stared at the new daughter-in-law to be, with hooded eyes. Again., Shueli felt uneasy, but Fatima was soon told off, and retreated into her room. If one were  looking for omens, there were quite a few, and they weren’t too good. For one thing, Shueli found it hard to appreciate the rather scatological and pornographic kind of humour that the Ks and their friends seemed to delight in. She was most put off, when she found a ‘book of dirty jokes’ copied by Paul and his brother into a notebook. “How on earth could you, who are going to be a doctor, waste your time on this sort of thing?”  she asked Paul, who only laughed it off.. “Oh, that was only when I came home from the school holidays. It’s nothing really.”  Paul was really great fun, so it was hardly worth dwelling on small things like that, thought Shueli.
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After his birthday party, he offered to take Shueli for a moonlight drive. The moon was full, and the light which fell on the perfect dome of Humayun’s Tomb, gave it anotherwordly look. They parked in front of the Tomb. Paul put his arm around Shueli, and had just drawn her close, when she whispered “I think a shadow just fell across the dome.”  Paul exclaimed that he felt something evil here, and started the car very fast, taking a wide circle, so that Shueli was almost thrown across.
“What – what is it?” Shueli screamed. In the sinister shadows surrounding the Tomb, four men had been creeping towards the car on all fours. In another couple of minutes they would have reached the car and cut the tyres.  “They would have robbed us, may have raped you, and would have killed us both” said Paul, holding a shaking Shueli.
Delhi, in the eight or nine years after Partition, had become a dangerous place, as many displaced and jobless people turned to crime to make a living.
  Shueli was still in the College Hostel, as her M.A. exam was coming up, and she hadn’t yet decided what she would do about that..  One day when she didn’t have too many classes, she was really pleased to see Paul drive up in the old Ford which he loved to take for long drives. “Let’s get out somewhere, for a picnic.”
“Where shall we go to?” Shueli felt very grown-up now. Didn’t have to bother about Ammy and Papa’s excessive caution and frequent admonitions to ‘be careful.’
Paul had brought heaps of food.  “Mum has packed kaathi kababs and parathas, and lots of other delicious stuff  - (the Ks were all great gourmets)  flasks of coffee and cold lime juice. I’ve even brought my turn-table and some lovely records. So we’ll have a great day. Let’s go to the Coronation Memorial Park.” The Coronation Memorial Park was now a deserted place, and only the wind in the trees remembered that this was where the Emperor of India, George V, had once held his grand Durbar there… Memories of childhood picnics at the Coronation Memorial came back. The Principal’s picnics, - the large barthans of food, carried by the college retainers, the incongruous songs, the ghostly presences. But this was a fine, sunny day.. The wind in the old pine trees which had been silent witnesses of such splendour and history made a sonorous, rustling sound. Bees and bright birds swooped around, There wasn’t a sign of any human presence. Paul had even brought a dhurrie to spread on the ground. They carried everything up to a slight ridge, above the ground level, where Paul parked the car. Shueli poured out something to drink, and Paul fiddled around with the player, saying “Which record would you like to hear?” just then, there was a movement in the bushes, and two ruffian looking fellows jumped out at them.. Even Paul was startled. Shueli’s heart was hammering wildly.
“What are you two doing here?” they asked, with a dirty leer
“Nothing. We’re just here to enjoy the fresh air.”
The answer was menacing. “Why don’t you stay at  home, if you want to enjoy yourselves?”
Paul got up, shaking off leaves in a casual manner, hiding his uneasiness. “Well, we were just thinking of leaving.”
Shueli also jumped up. “Yes. We’re going home.”
One of the men grabbed Shueli’s shoulder. “You’re not going anywhere. Just sit down.”
Paul was six feet tall, and strong, but he wondered if the two had knives, which they might suddenly produce. In Malayalam, which the two wouldn’t understand, he told Shueli, who had been pushed down onto the dhurrie. “I’ll try and tackle them on my own. Just make a dash for the car.”  Shueli thought quickly. Surely these men were human beings, and had feelings, like every one else? They couldn’t be all bad. She had to appeal to any decent feelings they had. She took off her wrist watch, and a fine gold chain around her neck, holding it out to them, looking at them directly. She said “This is all I have. You may have them. I’m sure you have a mother or a sister, and if you hurt me, you’ll be hurting them too.”  The men looked uneasily at each other, shifted from foot to foot, hesitating over their next move… That hesitation gave Shueli and Paul a little valuable extra time. Just then, they heard a rustling sound in the bushes. Looking up, they found themselves surrounded by a bunch of ragged children. In their midst was a very old man, who came forward. In the quiet voice of one taking charge, he told the ruffians “You had  better go.”
To  Shueli and Paul he whispered “Leave at once. I will handle them.”  He took aside the two young goondas. Shueli and Paul jumped up, clutching whatever they could of their possessions, and ran down the hill towards the safe haven of their car. They clung to each other like two lost children. “Quick Let’s get out of here.”  Paul’s hand was shaking as he got the car started. He had only recently decided to give up smoking. Now, he lit a cigarette with trembling fingers.
  Full of the confidence of youth, they never noticed there was menace in the clouds gathering over them. Bad omens? That was for others, less fortunate beings. Not for them, who were loved by the gods! Besides, didn’t Shueli’s faithful star still shine overhead?
With all these rambles and other diversions, Shueli just couldn’t concentrate on Webster, Marlowe,  Spenser or Shakespeare. There were so many visits to be made, so many visitors to receive. So much shopping to be fitted in, - saris, jewellery, cards to be printed, - the time just flew. Her exam became a fearful question mark. Somehow it all seemed pointless now. No one really valued her education, or any of the things she’d dreamed about. Let it all go. Miss Dolly Muthanna called her into her room for a special talk. “Child, I hope you’re going to do your M.A. examination somehow or the other.”
“But, Miss Muthanna, there’s very little time left, and I haven’t had any time at all the past few months. If I do the papers without any reading, I’ll end up with a Third or something.”
“Oh, I’m sure you wont. You should do well. You can’t just let it go, and that too when you’re so close to getting it..” 
But Shueli did drop it, and told herself that it didn’t really matter any more. Perhaps she would be able to study in England. “I’m dropping Literature anyway” she thought rebelliously. It was many years before she realised what a mistake she’d made, and that she had hurt herself far more than anyone else. Years after she returned from England, she returned to University, and completed the degree she had so thoughtlessly dropped as a young girl..
  The wedding was to be on Easter Monday, the day after Easter, and Shueli was glad that the Easter lilies would be in bloom then. It was supposed to be unlucky for the bride and groom to see each other the day before the wedding. As it was, Ammy was getting very apprehensive about any gossip that might crop up “if you’re always seen going around together.”  But they did manage to get a little time together a couple of days before the wedding. Shueli had confided in Paul about her child-like love for Arif, and the grief she had felt in losing him. She wanted nothing hidden .  Their lives should be like an open book.  Paul had mentioned that  there had been a fellow medical student in the district town where they had lived. His parents had opposed any idea of marriage, and he ‘had given up the idea. “Poor Charu. She was terribly upset. Someone told me she tried to kill herself…” Shueli was both shocked and grieved for the unknown Charu. Shouldn’t Paul have held out more firmly? Our families still rule us, she thought, and wondered when things would change. But she wasn’t prepared for the time they met, just before the wedding. He mentioned another woman now, someone older. “I got carried away by her, in fact she took me away from Charu. I feel really bad I had to leave her without even a goodbye. But here’s the letter she just wrote me. Thought I’d show it to you.” He handed her a crumpled letter. Shueli felt a chill run down her spine. This was deep and dangerous ground. The letter was very passionate. It ended “Tell Shueli you are mine, and mine alone. You belong to me, and she can never have you.”  Shueli looked at the piece of paper blindly. It was beyond her depth. And yet, hadn’t she always read novels about human passion and deceit? Should she, a student of Literature, be so struck dumb by this? After all, Paul was a young man. These were some of the mistakes of youth. She tried to understand, and even comfort Paul. She decided this would be an awful time to tell Ammy, or even Gaya, about any of this. Best to try and forget it. Paul would surely write to the woman, and set things straight. But the uneasy feeling remained. Paul was really an unknown quantity, a stranger, to her. Strangely, she felt no jealousy, convinced that Paul was now hers – in the strongest bond, that of marriage.
 The wedding was very grand. About a thousand people were invited to the wedding reception, which was in the spacious gardens of the Kuruvilla home. The marriage service was in the Cathedral of the Redemption, the very same one in whose grounds she had attended her Tent School! As she entered the Cathedral, organ music playing, on Papa’s arm, she remembered how she and Shalini used to have those delightful run away sessions in the Belfry!
 Throughout the service, which was a blend of Anglican ritual, and some of the ancient Syriac  practises, Shueli had a strange feeling that she wasn’t there at all. It was happening to someone else. She was merely an observer. Now it was time for the priest to bless the Minnu, or tiny cross on a grain of rice (in gold). This was to be strung on a thread, the mangal sutra, or sacred thread, of Brahmin origin, and tied by the groom around the bride’s neck. But, as the priest passed the thread with the minnu on it to Paul, and just as he was about to tie it around Shueli’s neck, it fell from his hands. A shocked murmur went through the gathering of guests. Shueli saw the tiny gold piece glinting on the carpet beneath her. Again, like someone in a dream, she bent down and retrieved the sacred thread with the minnu on it. She handed it back to Paul, as the flustered priest stood mumbling something. She had saved the day. The rest of the ceremony went by in a haze.
    
CHAPTER 20
The Suez Canal and the Little Mermaid
 
Hadn’t Shueli always loved the sea, with all its moods and changes, storms and secrets? Wasn’t her favourite story the one about the little mermaid who lived beneath the sea which was ‘as blue as the bluest cornflower’? The little mermaid who had walked in pain, just so as to realise her love for someone who belonged to another element? Wasn’t this the story that Kartik would reject, long after, pleading, “No sad stories, Ma. Tell me only happy stories.”?
Now, here she was on that unknown ocean, speeding towards a land she had read so much about, wasn’t that sheer heaven? That was, perhaps, why she was quite dry-eyed and cheerful, even though she was leaving India, Papa, Ammy and Gaya for the very first time in her life. Once they had settled into their cabin, and the ship had set sail, she stood for hours, entranced, watching the rush of the ocean, the wake, as the ship cut through the water. Sunrise, a hymn to the Gods, gave way to brilliant, unbelievable sunsets, divine benedictions.  The scream of seagulls as they approached land. She lay for hours with the port-hole door open, hanging her head out over the wild water. Paul was disgusted. He was suffering from nausea and it irritated him to see Shueli, apparently so much in her own element. Spray hit the decks, they were thrown about when they came into disturbed waters. “Must you be so disgustingly energetic?” Paul moaned miserably, as she insisted on going down to a huge breakfast in an almost empty dining room. She couldn’t help it, if she was enjoying every minute of it! It helped her to shut out some of the unpleasant memories of her wedding night, and the time thereafter. Everything, her reading, the stories she read, the dreams she had, had led her to believe she would experience the greatest ecstasy. Who would ever have thought that she would have such a tough hymen, that all her bride groom’s ardent efforts met only with its stubborn resistance. It did not seem to deter him. The result was a night of deepest misery for both of them. She was in terrible pain the next morning. The nights that followed were equally miserable. Shouldn't he have comforted her, just held her and caressed her, until it became possible? Instead, he told her "Maybe you are just frigid. We can live together as brother and sister for ever!!" Which made her weep even more. She was, after all, too young and inexperienced, to know how to deal with  such an unexpected and hurtful situation, such a desolate landscape for the future. She tried to put on a brave face, but her face gave away the secret. Ammy and Paul’s Ma pounced on her one day, and asked her what was wrong. She burst into sobs, and told the story with difficulty. Shueli and Paul were taken to a Doctor who specialised in this sort of thing. “Nothing wrong with either of you. Both fit as a fiddle.” in a rather booming voice. “In some girls, the hymen is rather thick, and very strong. All that is required is a little surgical incision.” After he had incised it, he gave her a little anaesthetic cream to use. Everyone was very relieved. But, in the days that followed, as Shueli lay anaesthetised, Paul just showed no signs of caring how she felt. “I might as well be a corpse” thought Shueli, trying to suppress the resentment, even repulsion she was beginning to feel. “It’ll soon be better” she reassured herself. And, of course it was, physically, but the relationship had started badly, and no amount of conscious reasoning would undo the damage already done. This didn’t, however, detract from her pleasure in the voyage. They noticed that the door of their cabin was frequently opened, after a little knock, by one of the stewards or waiters, and realised that their newly married status was what lay behind all the curiosity and interest. They couldn’t help laughing together at all the clumsy Excuse mes and sorrys. They were, evidently, the objects of great interest!
    Days and days tossed upon an endless ocean. Nights full of an ancient mystery. Sometimes they felt they were touching the sky. Sometimes, they felt, they were looking into the bottom of the ocean. Sea and sky became one. To watch the sun set in a blaze of colour, lighting up the rushing waters and sky with an unearthly beauty which no skyline built by human hands could ever compete with. And then, to lie on a deck-chair and watch, as night took over. The moon would steal out and gaze at the entire expanse of the sky embroidered by sparkling stars. More thrilling even than the night sky over Delhi, which Shueli had so loved. They were all there. Aldebaran; The Great Hunter; Orion; The Milky Way; Sirius; The Pleiades; - names she had heard when Ammy had told the stories about the Stars. And always, there! – her special star, glowing more brilliantly than ever over that endless stretch of Oceans. Days on end, drifting past places with names that had magical associations. Karachi. Aden. Port Said.  Malta.  Gibraltar. Portugal. 
Rahel Aunty and Uncle Salman came with Saleem, to meet them at Karachi . there was not a mention of  Arif, and Shueli would not ask. They got down at Aden, and took a taxi, up a rocky barren hillside, to the shops at the top, mostly owned  by Indian shop-keepers. The heat was becoming unbearable, as  they neared The Red Sea, and approached The Suez Canal. The American lady, in the next cabin, had become quite hysterical. Her feet had swollen up, and she couldn’t endure the ‘goddam heat.’ On either side lay desert lands, the lands of the Pharaohs, Egypt, Arabia, Gaza and The Holy Land, vibrant with the magic of  history and literature. They moved, almost at snail’s pace, through the Canal. Regal palm trees lined the desert on either side. They could see the lights of Port Said, the gateway to the Western world and to the Meditteranean beyond. Shueli approached the New World, her own life to be, with joy. Wasn’t she lucky? Could there be a more auspicious way to celebrate her twenty first birthday? Yes, that was what it was. As they were leaving the Suez Canal, and entering the Harbour at Port Said, there was a great party on the ship’s deck. Fire-works and dance music filled the air and lit up the skies. Strauss Waltzes and Tangoes, with the more usual Fox-Trots.  “You see? It’s just for you. To celebrate the twenty first birthday of this beautiful Indian girl going to the West for the first time!” Paul teased her. He was a good dancer, and twirled a rather shy Shueli onto the dance-floor. Perhaps the Little Mermaid was there, dancing entranced, trying to forget the pain that was killing her, as she sought the Prince she loved more than life itself. The ship rocked and bobbed. It was illuminated with thousands of little electric lights. Paul toasted Shueli with a glass of the fine Meditterranean wine., and Shueli forgot the miserable start to her married life. Surely she was the luckiest girl in the world. They were able to disembark at Port Said the next day. There stood the statue of Lesseps, the European who had opened up the Canal and the entrance to the Meditterranean, upon which stood the city of Port Said. Smart women in Western clothes walked along the broad promenades. They ordered coffee, as Shueli had a head ache. The coffee was Turkish, strong grains of coffee, freshly brewed, and served thick and hot, in tiny cups. Shueli drank it up, and felt her headache disappear almost immediately. Later in the voyage, they had ports of call such as Malta and Gibraltar. Typical tourists, they took a little pony drawn carriage and explored the Spanish coastal area, which had become British garrison towns.
   After three long weeks, they saw the seagulls, swooping and screaming over white chalky cliffs, and the emerald green slopes of an emerging coastline. They rushed to the deck. Shueli
felt a great surge of emotion, as Paul put his arms around her, and said emotionally, " It’s England at last!" Shueli remembered how she used to hear Vera Lynn sing on Date With You:
There’ll be blue birds over
The White Cliffs of Dover
Tomorrow
Just you wait and see.
There’ll be love and laughter
And joy ever after…..

Anna Sujatha Mathai grew up in St. Stephen's College Delhi, where her father was Head of the English Department. It was an idyllic childhood, reading wonderful books, hearing poetry, seeing plays. She and her sister spent many sunny days exploring The Ridge, unimaginable now! Sujatha started writing Short Stories and Essays for The TREASURE CHEST, an All-India Children's Magazine edited by an American Editor, and translated into many Indian languages. At 14 she was chosen by Treasure Chest to be their youngest Special Correspondent! 
 What she loved most was the Theatre. She was selected, at age 14,  by the Shakespeare Society of St. Stephen's College, to be Viola in Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Later, doing her B.A.{Honours} in English Literature at Miranda College, she won the College Drama Prize, and later, the Best Actress Award of the University of Delhi.
  Getting married at age 20, to a young surgeon, changed her life completely. In Edinburgh, she joined the University for a Post Graduate Course in Social Studies. She worked in that field for several years, in York, Sheffield, London. Leaving it all behind, coming back to small-town India, was traumatic for her. She used to write on scraps of paper, and throw them away. Her sister, in Bangalore, sent her a cutting in which American professor, Howard McCord of the Univ. of Seattle asked for poems by "avant-garde young Indian poets" for his Anthology. Her sister wrote "At the most, you'll lose a few stamps!" Prof McCord's warm response to her poems, made her start taking her writing more seriously! Her first poems were published in P. Lal's MODERN INDIAN POETRY IN ENGLISH. She continued to write, and, later, moving to Bangalore her dream of theatre was somewhat realised. She had roles in plays by Shaeffer, Ibsen, Sartre, Pinter, Tennessee Williams, Lorca and others. She was a co-founder,with friend Snehalata Reddy, of THE ABHINAYA POETRY/THEATRE GROUP.
Her poems have been published in The Commonwealth Journal; Indian Literature; The Little Magazine; The Times of India; Dialogue India; Chelsea (New York); The London Magazine; The Poetry Review (London), Two Plus Two (Switzerland.), Contemporary Asian Poetry Ed. Agnes Lam, Hong Kong/Singapore: Post-Independence Poetry in English ed. by Arundhathi Subramaniam She was among 4 poets "show-cased" on the 50th Anniversary of the Sahitya Akademi. She was an Associate Editor of the prestigious Literary Journal, Two Plus Two,based in Lausanne, Switzerland. She has 5 collections of Poetry in English, and her poems have been translated into several Indian and European languages.
She now lives in Delhi. ​​​​​

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