It was Vivah Panchami and Janakpur was out upon its streets, dressed for the occasion in florescent sarees and shirts, loud in praise of Ram and Sita, semi-drunk with marriage celebrations, hardly able to keep a straight path and hardly coherent at all, despite all the shouts of Jai SitaRam Jai SitaRam.
I had never seen the celebration before and I was amused and cautious as I zigzagged my way through thousands of people, some of them on trucks, their skins coated with abir as though it were holi and some painted blue like the Lord himself, complete with crown and dhoti. The little girls dressed as Sita tried so hard to remain somber I had to laugh.
There was no way I would be able to show my husband – I had been married a month at the time – the Janaki Mandir. The roads were jammed and people swung from the gates of the Mandir, hundreds of them, from the gates, from the pagodas, from the roof, cheering and singing, while I and my husband (who had still not gotten over the Janakpur airport – how in god’s name does a plane even land there? he kept asking) got pushed around and found ourselves in unexpected places : stalls selling ribbons, handkerchiefs, toys, pins, parandas, and bras, all hanging from nails banged into the cart’s frames; the hind of a cow chewing contently; a couple – little Ram and Sita having a conversation about homework; a group of dhoti clad pundits reading Ramayan to a crowd; and then a row of stoves doing hot business . My mouth watered at the sight of sizzling kachries and immediately I was pulling money out my purse and screaming to be heard.
All across the bazaar there were tall bamboos dug into the ground. These acted as poles for the twenty or so funnel shaped loudspeakers tied to them from which blared cries and pleas of children and wives who were lost in this throng of cacophony and dissonance. “Mohan, Mohan, please come to Ram Puri puree bhandar. Your wife is waiting for you.” “Giridhari of Mahendar Bazaar, Giridhari of Mahendar Bazaar, where are you Giridhari of Mahendar Bazaar?”
Beside the kachri stove where I had stationed myself sat a man, perhaps in his early thirties, thin and squirrel like, shoving as much rice puff and as many onion fritters as he could into his mouth and chuckling through it all. One of the loudspeakers was calling out for Raju ke pappa. The man promptly covered his mouth and giggled. “She thinks it’s like a telephone!” he giggled and heartily munched the rice-puffs.
Meanwhile the woman in the loudspeaker sang another tremulous and tentative “hello” and went on, “Raju ke pappa,” she sang, “I am sitting here lost and crying and you are not even coming to look for me.” The man, who, I was sure by then was Raju ke pappa, looked mischievously at the fritter-woman but she was clearly not impressed. There was such a swarm of customers before her that she had no time for such monkeying around .
The wife continued to sing. “Raju ke pappa, should I jump into the ocean now? I swear on my mother I will jump into the ocean and die if you don’t find me immediately.” This threw Raju ke pappa into hysterics.
“She will have to travel at least three days in a train going the right direction before she touches the ocean,” he said and even my husband laughed at this.
Relieved by this co-operative geography Raju ke pappa ordered four more fritters – two potatoes and two onions – and giggled till the fritter woman shooed him away. He tottered off good naturedly and sat a little away with a club of fritter eaters under a tree. He was surely giddy with the confusion of balloons, flags, bangles, scarves, all around him.
The loudspeaker began to sing again. “Okay then Raju Ke pappa (here Raju ke pappa clapped his thighs and chuckled till he coughed) I am now going to beat Raju. See!” and a sudden smacking sound followed by a slow whimpering cry drawled out of the speaker. There was then another singing slap and the whimper turned into a loud bellow. The fritter-eating club stopped eating, my kachri was mid-air, my husband stared at the bamboos and the speakers. Raju’s father stopped eating and stared too, his eyes big with disbelief, his potato filled mouth open. Then there was another rigorous spanking and a riotous wail assailed the crowd. “See, Raju ke pappa, I will beat Raju till you come find us,” sang the sweet voice.
So Raju ke pappa spat out the potatoes, threw down the rice-puffs, and angrily wiped his oily hands on his dhoti.
“What a bad mother,” he said, scrambling to his feet and almost falling in his hurry.
Raju was still howling when Raju ke pappa shot into the fair to look for his missing wife and son.
All around us the crowd cheered. My husband cheered loudest, laughing and saying “cool”. He’d learnt his first lesson. You don’t misbehave with a girl from the Mithila.
