Red Chilli Pickle & Moonlit Terraces: The Making of Indian Woman Hood, #1

By Shweta Singh

This novel is told in stories. It is filled with so many beautiful women and men living in small town in North India. Shagun, Pingla, Laali bring out the generational expressions of girlhood and womanhood. Right from the first chapter opening in a temple of Shiva and an incomplete prayer – the magic and the marriage and the educational voyage of Pingala, is like a one-way ticket to India with food, and smells, and sounds. While in one story, women are sitting and gossiping in a colony lane, in the other Gauri is chasing goons down, and still another, mean girls are picking on nerds and then nerds are excluding the pretty ones. It is a roller coaster of diversity and drama with love and romance and anxiety of young people.

You don't want to miss out on this unique tale. There are no prescriptions, it follows no popular norms of how people should live or behave or fit in… It kicks the stereotypes with one funny tale after another and merges ghosts and ghastly and liberal and loud in the realistic insides of a India that sits on a charpoy by a chauraha over a cup of Masala chai. 

This is Book One in the Series, The Making of Indian Woman Hood

• Language: English
• Publisher: Think Women Company
• Release date: Oct 5, 2020
• ISBN: 9781953428035

Shweta Singh

Shweta Singh works as an Associate Professor in the school of Social Work and Women and Gender Studies Program at Loyola University Chicago. She is the founder of Think Women Company located in Chicago. She is also a coach and hosts a podcast – working like women. She brings the ethos of the Indian Subcontinent, post-structural feminism, Hindu spirituality, and poverty consciousness, and innate dignity and cheer of women and practice of womanhood to all her fictional characters. 'Identities of women' is her award-winning theory that informs all her writing, research, advocacy, entrepreneurship, and media work.

Book preview

Prologue

Thin as a reed, walking swiftly in heavy rain, at three in the night, Nani was coming to check if all of us - her daughter’s family- were okay...

Bua, her mouth set in a straight line, like her iron will - unwavering and dependable - helping raise four children while still being one...

Mother, charming and competent - running up and down the stairs, keeping up with her two families - making time to chat with everyone she met along the way...

Walia aunty, kind and pragmatic, a scientist who wrapped the perfect silk sari and once in a while cheerfully rode the same cycle to her botany lab...

Amrita Mausi - ambitious and stylish... excitedly seeking a happening life on stilettoes and form-fitting jeans...

Kaali - tiny, brilliant, unpredictable, unapologetic and yet insecure... seeking excitement and an identity

Rati - pretty, hesitant, conscientious... always trying to fit-in one world, and hoping to escape another

Rani - sweet, gullible, vast reserves of patience and fortitude as she faced her challenges and her aspirations

Men somehow are easy to describe, women are so much trickier, like life. Women hide layers of survival in fear and in fun like flames of an oil Diya while men brazen and bright like light bulbs are easy to switch on and off.

Nana – uncaring, cool impudence of the rich... born into sahibdom, embracing his luck of the devil

Father - ambitious, grumbling, with the swagger of the self-made, shoving his way into a higher class.

Manan Mama – cheerful, charming, neglected and indulged like a paradox of boundless energy and few aims.

Dinoo Chacha – prototype of rural and sarkari babudom, fooled into believing ‘it’ happened for everyone, just like for his Bhaiya.

Little Ved – princely, brilliant and unmotivated – prototype of urban, liberal youth – product of an education that teaches about the world without preparing you to succeed and survive it ... blurring his self into the cultivated angst of his times.

The women were flag posts of our middle-class. Their joys simple, their freedoms complex. In our world; we leaned on women. The men were a source of our griefs, worries and constraints – they did not stand a chance - their flaws apparent even without comparisons to women...

Our men - struggling with a focus on their own ambitions, failures, and choice of commitments. In our world, only the women could be leaned on...

In pleated hair and skirted splendor, we ran around the red buildings that were Brown School.  The tall grass in the playground hid us in the monsoons and all winter the churan wallah and the bhelpuri wallah called to us from outside the school gate with instant rhyming. Jo Bhelpuri khaayega exam mein pass ho jayega.  Geetanjali's pranks, Nushina's glamour, Nuns' servitude, and Ms. This and Ms. That's cotton and silk sarees were the teachers' carting fifty notebook copies, marked generously in red ink, their own smiles marked in pink lipsticks – on their way to classrooms to happily scratch the Black Board with a small piece of chalk - hour after tedious hour. Brown, though was lost on me.

PCD found me again with its tall gates, funny boys and my grown-up airs. Ravi's naughty jokes, Rahul's gratifying crush, Mohan Sir’s splendor, Mr. Patnaik’s creepiness... and especially Dhawan's coolness – the first awkward heart falling. All of this would spin me along on my early morning and late afternoon tempo rides back and forth to PCD. The pace was different - of Brown and PCD - like that of a Cycle Rickshaw and Motor Rickshaw or Tempo with the earsplitting romantic Bollywood-songs.  And the boys driving the tempos as old as me who should have been in school themselves, but were instead playing the breadwinner roles in their homes.

Even before that time were the floating July clouds where I stood looking up, stuck to the windows between the two almirahs... listening to – doodhwala, paperwallah, sabjiwallah, the jolly working-class men; followed by women, also working-class who were running late, ready with excuses and complaints - bartanwali, presswali, jhaduwali. Inside the house, the frizzing eggs in nonstick pans, fluffy parathas on iron tavas, the buzz of flies, dry leaves on the blue-gray road, swaying curry plant, flapping banana leaves in the garden, temperatures running into forties accompanied with suffocating humidity.

Down below, the blackish slimy water of the Nullah stood stagnant, its stink floating up to our room –it’s absurd and noticeable garbage of cow dung, the trash, the home-made sanitary napkins, escorted by the sight of men, openly, sometimes slyly, peeing in the nullah. Afternoon sounds of returning rickshaws, shouting children, the thela covered with some fresh and some stale cauliflowers, round fleshy tomatoes, large stacks of green vegetables and delicious summer snacks. The maids sitting on their haunches on the ground, at the corner of our lane, lighting up beedis, exchanging gossips. The neem tree close to my window, swaying softly, as the prayers for relief from the suffocating heat were answered by darkening skies, loud thunder, lightning streaks, and then the rains– the water spray drumming through the grimy mesh, embedded in the dark-green window frames, felt like joy.

A pair of hands had picked me up, carried me over to the living room and put me on someone’s lap; smell of the open drain replaced by sweaty armpits and farts. The sounds of pressure-cooker whistles signaled the start of dinner preparation. Late afternoons filled with conversations. The busyness of life in a large family manifested in the heart of North Indian city of Lucknow- the archetype small town of 1950’s India that thrived cramped in a one-bedroom City Development Colony Flat.

The colony lane bustling with delights and festivals and foods and fights... always within reach... just down the stairs, a step or two away from aunties and uncles and relatives...

But a story always begins in the story of those who came before us.

Pingala’s World

In a veranda, facing a large courtyard, a frail woman was supervising a few men, who were carrying stuffed sacks out from a small room that seemed to be a storage room. A tall and large woman was sifting through the pile of yellowish wheat grain in the middle of the same courtyard. She was sitting on a wooden charpoy, set in the middle of the courtyard; heaped piles of wheat lay on one side of her feet and wheat-chaff on the other. In another corner of the courtyard, a short and stout woman was slowly going up a staircase. A girl of about thirteen in a pretty, pink frock came running down from another set of stairs from the opposite edge of the open courtyard. She jumped right on top of the frail-looking woman, who was sitting on the cot. The woman caught the little girl and snuggled. Another girl in a slightly worn green frock, came down slowly, she shyly stood near the cot.

Just then another younger looking woman slightly bent from the waist emerged from the inner edge of the courtyard. She hurriedly walked into the Courtyard as the pots on her head moved gracefully. She was calling out, Maharajin, Ooo Maharajin and from the smoke-filled corner, a big woman also hurried out to help get the pots down from her head. He then lined them up besides the many pots already sitting there.

The woman sitting next to the mound of wheat spoke to the woman who had carried over the pots of water, Budhiya, you will need to make at least three more trips today. There will be many people coming today...even from other towns to meet Manjhle babu. She paused and ruffled the hair of the little girl in her lap, Are you excited to see your father Pingala? She then called out again after a pause, Maharajin give Budhiya some laddus.  She put the little girl back on the cot and then went back to sifting the wheat in front of her.

Majharajin had come out again and this time with a plate holding four laddus that she put in front of Budhiya, Here! Eat, you need strength today. 

Budhiya spoke, I am glad to rest my hurting back. These are good. As she munched on the sweets, the little girl near Pingala stood smiling and Budhiya was looking sideways at her.  Then she spoke, Yes, I see, food is being prepared in the copper-rimmed vessels...smells glorious and delicious. Spoke to the little girls, How are you Pingala dear, is Paru behaving?  

Pingala spoke warmly, – We have played all afternoon, but Kaki you eat. Paru ate, so don’t worry...right na Badki Aaji? She was looking at the woman sitting next to her on the cot.

Badki Aaji said, Yes, yes...why don’t you eat Budhiya and then rush to get the water. Paru press my feet a little. It is paining so much. She got her feet up and lay down on the cot as Pingala scuttled down to her feet.

Pingala spoke quickly, Why should Paru get to press your feet? I will press it Badki Aaji.

Paru and Pingala sat on the cot and pressed one leg each as Budhiya watched smiling at them and waited for the Maharajan to call her for food. Pingala was humming a song and Paru pulled her braid.

The woman near the storage room was walking over. The two men holding loosely knotted sacks were trailing behind her. Some wheat and sugar were spilled as they walked from the storage rooms to the courtyard. Soon they were running out the door into the mango groves behind the house. Manjhli Amma looked annoyed and looked up at Badki Aaji and then at Paru’s Amma.

One of them spoke, Manjhli Bahu, we will go then?

Manjhli Bahu said, Yes, take these out and mind you distribute in the field workers only... the field workers, not the Bhole’s cronies. Okay? I will send one of the servants to watch you all. Okay?

Badki Aaji scowled, Why bother, you know that Chote will find a way to give half to that crony Bhole...

The short and stout women had sneaked down into the courtyard at some point and now coughed loudly.

Badki Aaji shouted, What are you sniffling for Choti bahu? Because he is your husband? Is it not true? You have no sense and you mark my words, your children will turn out like you too.

Manjhli Amma said, Oh ho... let it be Badki Aaji, Choti Bahu please go and supervise the rooms for the visitors today. I think Sahab is bringing a larger than usual contingent of his friends today.

Choti Bahu sighed loudly and got up. She moved slowly though she was not that heavy, but she made it a point to move sluggishly unless it was an errand for her children.

Badki Aaji spoke again, Arre Budhiya, take food for Paru’s father from the Maharajan, okay? And eat the night meal today with your husband. You have been working late, last few days. Take some care of your man as well. Take a couple of new saris from me tomorrow. Okay. I have seen your orange one become brown, Budhiya...

Budhiya said, What to do... I save the ones you and Manjhli Bahu give me... for my Paru, her marriage... 

Budhiya trailed off as Maharajan called out to her for more water. She got up from the floor, her body slouching, bent from the waist; she looked older than her thirty-odd years. Her sari and face both the color of the brown mud that lined the dusty path outside the really large and old home of the rich Zamindar family of the village- the Thakur Haveli.  She walked swiftly to the kitchen area.

Badki Aaji was cutting the Supari with the Sarota, and Manjhli Amma sat next to her, pressing her feet.

Manjhli Amma looked up, her face grim and her eyes sad as she said softly, Why bother? There was no need to ask Paru’s mother to leave early. Does Sahab not know the way to Paru’s house? Sahab can find Tigers walking in the night-jungle... unafraid.

Then she spoke even more softly, No one here in this village would ever dare to stop Sahab - the tiger finding all the fair fawns scattered in these woods.

Let it go, Sakun... rest a little. Learn from Choti, she is plonking in each one of the beds, as a way of testing if they are set. Badki Aaji snorted in laughter. Majhlee Amma shook her head and smiled in response.

After a while Badki Aaji spoke again, You also make some effort na... men are like that, what can we do.

Manjhli Amma went back to the storeroom. Badki Aaji lay back down on the cot and yelled out for Choti Amma to come down to press her feet. A woman came out from the kitchen to wave the Pankha as she her snored gathered strength.

The afternoon buzzed - with flies, the easterlies, tinkling bells of silver anklets on the women’s feet scurrying around, and boisterous men awaiting their hero - Bhanu Raj – Mewri’s Sahab, Pingla’s father, Manjhli Amma’s husband, the illustrious second son of the most powerful zamindar family of the village.

The house bustled. The cook running in and out with preparations for the large quantities of goat meat and chicken, the Puas dripping with cow’s ghee and smelling like sugar, people flowing in... lining up in the courtyard, ready to pay their respects and welcome their Sahab.

Nankau’s World

The smell of mutton gravy was filling the courtyard. Next to it sat another vessel, slightly smaller in which the rice was gurgling in spurts and starts. The children watched from afar, huddled near the front door, one of the little boys was taller than the rest, Nankau had a book open in front of him, Suresh had a larger potbelly and he was focused on the chulha, the rather stout and short one was Uma, he was throwing little pebbles at the woman mopping the courtyard. The fourth child who lay quietly, sucking on a slice of dried mango leather, was Dinoo. The children impatiently jostled each other; sporadically the woman sitting on the cot in the courtyard, wearing a worn-out white sari, no blouse, face covered in wrinkles, spat out the tobacco in her spittoon and yelling at the younger woman, in the