The Peacemakers

(Based on true events.)

One afternoon in August 1975, Lakshmi and Subbiah stood on a platform at Vijayawada station, waving goodbye to their newly married daughter. She and her husband were on their way to Jamshedpur from their honeymoon in Ooty. Her parents had arrived that morning from Hyderabad, so that there could be a brief reunion at the station, before she went to those distant parts where people spoke an alien language and ate unknown food.

As the train went out of sight, Lakshmi and Subbiah turned away, momentarily appearing older than they were. Their eyes were damp, bodies weary, minds filled with trepidation about sending their daughter, who had never set foot outside the southern states, to what could have been another country. Lakshmi had been at a loss for words as they parted; what could she have said to a daughter who was finally making that journey that they all agreed was unfair, but tradition deemed necessary? A new home, a new family and its intrigues, more people to please. If only Subbiah had listened to her entreaties and waited till they could find a match closer home; in the next street, if possible. “Unfeeling, that is what these men are,” she thought, not taking his name even in her thoughts, but addressing a vague, shapeless form in her head. He walked to the ticket counter, leaving her to dither or to follow. She followed.

They bought tickets for the next train to Hyderabad, which was scheduled to leave at night. Several hours to kill, but there were thoughts enough for a lifetime in her head.

The station was quiet. A few stragglers dotted the platform, curling up on hard wooden benches or riffling through dog-eared magazines at the lone bookstore, intention not to buy writ large on their faces, even as the man at the counter cast resigned glances of disapproval at them. There were no jingles blaring from speakers and no loud television news. Lakshmi, who usually enjoyed crowds and colour, was thankful for the calm today. She sank down on a chair, watching Subbiah pace the platform, and as she continued looking at him, she saw how low his grey head sank. His favourite daughter. Her oldest daughter.

Her anger flooded back. Why could he have not said no? What was the hurry?

This was not the first time she was bemoaning his poor decisions. She had been at the receiving end of what she called his eccentricities quite often. There was that time when he decided to rear peacocks at home, and their screeching drove her up the wall until they actually flew away (and for all practical purposes, you were told that peacocks couldn’t fly). Or those months when he reared cows, until keeping them became too expensive, and they had to be driven away just as the children (and secretly, she) were getting so attached to them. Or the constant moving to new houses every few months, in pursuit of the “perfect” home, till he finally decided that he had to build his own — and when the money ran out, they moved into a house which didn’t even have the doors put in yet.

But Subbiah was a generous man. When Lakshmi’s widowed mother and later her sister moved to Hyderabad, followed by an assortment of cousins, he welcomed them all. The doors — now installed — were forever open. Friends came and went, and he bestowed a nickname upon each, usually affectionate. The children flocked to him because he was the “fun parent” — he told stories and barely asked them about school, for the latter was Lakshmi’s job. Now, he wasn’t even shedding a tear as their child was trundling away into the unknown.

“You shouldn’t have said yes,” she said to him in Tamil.

Subbiah turned. “Again? Haven’t we gone over this a few times already?”

They had, starting immediately after the engagement ceremony. They usually didn’t quarrel or bicker — where was the time, with eight children to raise? — but any disagreements were conveyed through silence and gestures. The few words they exchanged in this matter of the wedding were also few and far between, restricted to when they found respite from the preparations and the worry over money, and the exhilaration of marrying off their first daughter to complete societal obligations wore off briefly.

Subbiah narrowed his eyes and flicked his head slightly in the direction of the ticket examiner, who was walking towards them. With little action on the platform, this was perhaps the most exciting prospect of entertainment for the thin, uniformed man who strode towards them with purpose.

Subbiah’s expression caught Lakshmi’s attention. The impact of what was trying to be a stern expression was marred by pain, let down by a sadness that he didn’t usually allow himself to demonstrate. As he subscribed to the stereotype of the man who showed no emotions, the effort was rather obvious.

Subbiah was losing his favourite companion. Their younger daughter was still in school and lived in her head, unlike her sister, whose voice rang through the house day and night, seeking attention. The brood of boys of different ages wouldn’t sing Carnatic kritis or weave their arm through their father’s, as they played with his hair. They were all either too old or too quiet or too fond of their own company. For the first time in a long while, Lakshmi pitied Subbiah.

The men’s voices cut through her rumination. Subbiah was talking to the ticket examiner in Tamil. Mopping her eyes, she strained her ears to hear their conversation — for, at all times, Lakshmi was a fairly curious woman. (Ask her children and they will tell you how, to this day, her interrogation would put our investigation agencies to shame.)

“No trouble, Sir. I have just got off duty and am going home,” Narasimhan, the ticket examiner, was saying, waving a hand at Subbiah. “Please come with me. I live just five minutes away. You can eat at my house and take some rest.”

“But-”

“Please, Sir. You should not make Madam wait in the heat like this,” said Narasimhan, shaking his head sagely.

Subbiah turned to Lakshmi. Her eyes watched him keenly. Do the right thing for once, they seemed to say.

“Thank you. We will come with you.”

They walked to Narasimhan’s house. Privacy and appointments were unheard of then; people walked in and out of one another’s houses, strangers and friends. Lakshmi and Subbiah maintained one such house of their own, after all. Lakshmi and her sister fried bajji in batches every evening for the variety of guests who trooped in: Subbiah’s colleagues, neighbours, the children’s friends, relatives, their friends. They might struggle to pay for clothes or school, but no one ever went hungry for want of fried food.

Narasimhan’s house was small and simply furnished. His wife, Ambika, welcomed them warmly and served coffee immediately — there was always some decoction in her large brass filter. Her movements were practised, as if this were a daily affair. Following a brief consultation with Narasimhan, she went into her tiny kitchen, waving away Lakshmi’s offers of help. A little later, she brought in some ghee-laden kesari.

“Oh, what is the need for this?” exclaimed Lakshmi and Subbiah, making a customary demurral, before they tucked in. Ambika sat by, talking to them softly of the weather and the town. Soothed by female company, fortified by coffee and sugar, Lakshmi was beginning to feel better.

The hours flew by. Narasimhan and Ambika had three married daughters in different parts of the country and expressed the right amount of sympathy for Lakshmi and Subbiah, while hinting at the promise of annual visits from grandchildren. They spoke glowingly of their sons-in-law and the careful attention with which they were escorted on trips to Kashi and Somnath. By dinner, as they sat eating idli and coconut chutney, Lakshmi could barely wait for her younger daughter to be married into one of those glorious lands.

Loath to leave, but already looking forward to letters and visits, Lakshmi parted from Ambika as they set off for the station. They exchanged addresses and promises of visits when either of them was in the other’s city. Lakshmi’s mood had lifted considerably and she was prepared to forgive Subbiah all his mistakes.

“I think she’ll be okay,” she whispered to her husband, as they settled into the train.

Subbiah nodded, a slow smile crinkling his eyes, pleased that she was coming around.

“Also, let’s come back to Vijayawada next year! Ambika has promised to take us to the Kanaka Durga temple. And then we can come back in a few years for the Krishna Pushkaram.”

Subbiah was about to reply, when a ticket examiner approached them.

“Tickets, Sir?”

“Lakshmi?”

Her eyes widened. “I don’t have them!”

“But I gave them to you in the morning!”

“No, you didn’t!”

“Tch, Lakshmi, you always do this. Look in your bag, I gave them to you.”

Frowning, Lakshmi searched her yellow cloth bag. Nothing.

“Have you checked your pockets?” Nothing.

The ticket examiner waited patiently as Subbiah looked through the small brown bag he was carrying. “Sorry, Sir! I did buy the tickets this morning.”

“It’s okay, Sir, please look carefully.” Ticket examiners at Vijayawada were surprisingly forbearing.

Another frantic search in the same places revealed nothing. Then the ticket examiner had a brainwave.

“Madam, did you check the corner of your saree? Women have a habit of tying things up in their sarees and forgetting,” he exclaimed, half-jovial, half-restless, now that he had to move along.

Lakshmi pulled out the edge of her saree from her waist, where it had been tucked in since morning. It was knotted. She unravelled it, and two pieces of cardboard lay within.

“I am so sorry! I didn’t realise…” she smiled sheepishly, even as the ticket examiner nodded and went on his way. A giggle rose in her throat. Her shoulders felt lighter.

“Now we’re quits!” said Subbiah, and before Lakshmi could say a word, climbed up to the top berth.