Dhakai

It was morning like any other. Popai had been playing around in his uncles’ clothing store and he was prying open one of the older cabinets stashed away in one of the nooks of the shop looking for a hiding place for his loot of trinkets. In so doing Popai chances upon a beautiful Dhakai silk sari. It had a beautiful off white color and an oddity that it should end up here. Quite naturally Popai picks up the old folded saree and shoots to the house behind to his most beloved, his Grand Mother.

Thakuma, Thakuma look what I have for you?

In the middle of her cooking.

What is it?

Look I have got a saree for you?

She reluctantly turns around with the fish just released into hot oil and little did she expect this deep emotion well up within her looking at her Dhakai so long forgotten.

Oh Popai, where did you find it?

In the shop, I brought it for you?

The Dhakai had been gifted to her by her husband, widower who already had three sons from his earlier marriage. She was 14 then and he was much older probably closing on his 40s. However despite the relentless struggle life was post partition Bengal he still had some sensitivity left in him to express. He had gifted her a beautiful Dhakai muslin quite precious to the means available to him and she blushed. So much so it had her in knot of shame- “What would people say?” Everyday she would look at the sari imagine her self to be in it, touch it and would quickly close the drawer spiriting away the little joy that her young self could manage in this tough household where the pecuniary discipline was ensured by her husbands’ iron grip.

There is little food, no job, insecurity and people still managed to hold on to the pettiness of “culture”, “propriety” of behavior. Thakurda a homoeopathic doctor by profession had to use all his guile to live. Practice suffered as people couldn’t pay and neither would he turn them away. Little favors he would gather here and there were the only currency that would sustain his family of a wife and his five boys, 3 from an earlier marriage and 2 from his then wife. The little intimacies he would share, the little smile with his young wife seem to keep him going and how much he longed to see her in the Dhakai. But on the outside the tough man knew the ins and going ons of his neighborhood and about human nature. Those little intimacies were precious and now on Thakuma’s lap, the Dhakai, had been his only give away of a sensitive man’s heart in the stifling world of poverty, para-porshi their ninda and chorcha.

Thakurda died just about managing to see 3 of the boys manage to cross the threshold to being young men but not yet men and one couldn’t tell whether he had forgotten about the Dhakai. She never did and perhaps the guilt of it, the helplessness of her self and the memory of his love is all that made here life bearable, more than that, surplus strength to manage the household. Years pass the Dhakai remains in the un-open drawer until her third step son asks for some saris to display in his new store with little other means to contribute towards the auspiciousness of his enterprise. She had that one exquisite sari and she gave it away. Years pass sons become fathers and now it is on her lap. All the emotions dug deep within this old body rush out into a silence, perhaps to still hide them away from prying eyes, to a place sacred, personal.

The fish is brought out of the hot oil as usual, just when it should be, and she dims the flame thinking

Perhaps with death I would meet you wearing your Dhakai.

Dhakai – Muslin silk saree from Bangladesh

Thakuma – Grand Mother (Father’s side)

Thakurda – Grand Father (Father’s side)

Para-Porshi – Neighborhood

Ninda – Slander

Chorcha – Discusions (read criticisms)