Beyond the Sea

by Shweta Radhakrishnan

As the storm clouds gather over the hills of Garhwal, Maagi Devi remembers her first trip with her husband, to the distant coastal town of Calicut and the excitement they shared as they began their journey together as husband and wife. As life took an unexpected turn, Maagi remembers a promise that lies beyond the sea. Shweta tells the story.

It had been raining continuously with no respite for the past two days. Maagi Devi sat near the door of her crumbling house and looked outside at the frenzied clouds swirling over the valley. Convinced that the rain would not let up any time soon, she put on the yellow plastic raincoat – a gift from her grandson. Smoothening the raincoat over her crumpled saree, she slowly made her way to the cowshed to replenish their fodder. She reminded herself to ask Birchana if she would get some fresh ghaas for her cows when she went into the forest next. As she trudged up the uneven cobbled path to her house, she felt like the rain had somehow seeped into her body through the raincoat. She jiggled her right arm slightly and chuckled, imagining the water swishing and swashing around in her seventy-year-old bones.

As she entered her house, she remembered she needed to look for her torch. The power had gone the previous evening, as was the case when the monsoons began in these hills. Once the power went out, it was difficult to tell when it would grace their lives again, and she knew she would need to locate her torch now. Though it was only noon, it was already dark outside, and she would need to find it before she ran out of this meagre light. Keeping her door open, she began to hunt for it in her small room. Maagi lived in one room of an old, decrepit three-bedroom house. Ever since her in-laws had passed away and her daughter had gotten married, Maagi had closed the remaining two rooms, keeping only her bedroom and her kitchen functional. She hunted for the torch in her chest of drawers and in her iron almirah, with no luck. She then moved on to the tin trunk she kept in one corner of the room, a treasure trove of her most cherished items. The torch, like the raincoat, had been a gift from her grandson, and she preserved most of his gifts in her trunk. She was right. Nestled on top of a bunch of other memories, she found the torch wrapped up in a torn, white cotton saree. While unwrapping the torch, a weatherworn, black, plastic pair of sunglasses fell out of it. Maagi Devi brought them closer to the door trying to get a better look at it. Aah, these were the sunglasses from her trip to Kerala, her sole incursion into a world outside these familiar hills. Maagi remembered that trip vividly. It had been right after her wedding to her late husband. What did her grandson call it? Honeymoon?

She had been married at sixteen to a young, dashing Ram Singh Bisht. An Army Husband was a prestigious acquisition for Maagi’s family and they had hastily married her off, with a small signing bonus thrown in for their army son-in-law. Both families came from similar backgrounds, with their villages just the right distance from each other to prevent any unnecessary talk. As a young soldier who had just been inducted into the Garhwal Rifles, Ram Singh was quite the catch. Maagi, a spirited young girl, was well known in the neighbouring villages for her voice, a deep bass voice with which she enthralled her neighbours during temple festivals. The usual networks carried the other’s curriculum vitae to their respective families and before either one of them could fully comprehend the twists and turns their lives were taking, they were married to each other. Ram Singh, whose interaction with women up until his marriage had been limited to his mother and his aunts, was enamoured of this young woman who had stumbled into his life. But before he could get to really even know her, Ram Singh had to report back for duty. As the only son, it had fallen on Ram Singh’s shoulders to bring home a wife who could be tasked with the duty of taking care of his parents.

As Maagi settled in to her new family and her new responsibilities, learning how to bring ghaas for the cows at five in the morning along with firewood from the jungle, preparing a cup of milky tea for her mother-in-law, and a cup of watery tea for her father-in-law, among other things, her husband settled into his regiment, making friends and learning more about the art of warfare. Along with sharpening his skills in combat, he wrote his young bride many letters from his training centre, without knowing that she couldn’t read at all. She in turn, lovingly collected all his letters, waiting for him to read it to her once he returned. He returned a year later, fully trained and with exciting news for his young bride. He had befriended a K.Ravindran in the administrative section, who turned out be from Kerala. Over cups of hot tea and chilled rum, he had invited Ram Singh and Maagi Devi to his house in the coastal town of Calicut. Ram Singh had managed to save a little money from his salary every month and had booked the tickets before he headed home. Maagi was thrilled with the news. She had never been beyond these hills, not even to the plains that hugged the foothills of the Himalayas. She packed her bags with her finest sarees and the sparkly sandals her family had bought for her wedding. They boarded the bus from the nearest village to Dehradun. Maagi couldn’t take her eyes off the road. She stared in awe as the road winded through the hills, and watched in reverence as the Mandakini morphed into the Ganga at Devprayag. Ram Singh who had travelled on this road a few times before, was touched by his wife’s amazement and quietly promised to travel with her every year.

From Dehradun, they boarded their first train to Delhi and after spending half a day in the waiting room, they boarded another train to Calicut. The afternoon was winding down when they reached Calicut after two nights in the train and Maagi was disoriented. Four days of constantly being in motion had left her feeling slightly unravelled. She draped her saree, soaking now in the tropical humidity of the town, zealously over her head, in an effort to bind herself together. Ram Singh assured her that the house was just a short walk from the station and the two of them began walking. Walking through the city, the sun’s glare in her eye, Maagi tried to take in this alien landscape. The trees looked different here. There weren’t many people out on the street but the ones she could see looked and dressed differently from the people she was used to seeing back home. There was also an unfamiliar smell in the air, something she couldn’t understand. She kept sniffing curiously, prompting her zealous husband to worry that she had fallen ill.

As they walked, they came upon a vast expanse of blue. The sea stretched out languorously under the hot sun, with no end in sight. Maagi stared in awe. This was the first time she had seen the sea. ‘What is this?’ Ram Singh explained the sea, trying to recall all that he had learnt in school. ‘What happens beyond the sea? What comes after the water?’ ‘More water,’ he replied fondly. ‘One day, the two of us will go together and see what lies beyond.’ Maagi squinted up at him and smiled and held his hand, excited about the adventures they would embark upon together. Ram Singh would have happily built a boat then and there to show his wife the world but resources were meagre and such plans would have to wait for another day. Instead he bought her a pair of sunglasses from a small shop near the beach, so she wouldn’t have to squint in the sun. ‘Do I look like an actress?’ she asked, excited. ‘Far, far prettier than any I’ve seen.’ Happily, the two of them sat and stared at the sea for a long time and watched the sun retreat into the cold comfort of the water.

Over the next six days, along with seashells, Maagi collected many firsts with her husband. Ravindran and his wife, Kamala, became Maagi’s first friends outside her village. Maagi had her first ice-cream, a mango ice-candy, which turned her tongue yellow. Egged on by her husband and her new friends, Maagi even tried beef. She took her first bite hesitantly, anxiously imagining how her parents and her numerous aunts and uncles would react if he ever found out. But the fear of breaking the rules was quickly overpowered by the joy of transgression, of a newfound sense of abandon and freedom – a feeling that limitless possibilities stretched out before her.

Once they returned from Kerala, Ram Singh received a letter asking him to cut his leave short and report back. He, along with others in his regiment, were sent to Nuranang in Arunachal Pradesh. The air was thick with the impending certainty of war, and Maagi bid her husband a tearful and fearful goodbye. ‘Don’t worry,’ he assured her. ‘I’ll come back soon and we’ll travel even further than Calicut this time. Maybe on a ship.’

She had never ventured beyond the hills after that. She had seen fifty-six summers and fifty-six monsoons in these hills. All that remained of that trip was her daughter, born eight months after she came back from Calicut, an old weatherworn pair of sunglasses, and an unfulfilled promise that lay beyond the sea.

Picture credit: https://www.flickr.com/photos/birdsey7/

Shweta Radhakrishnan is a film-maker, researcher and development sector professional, interested in exploring diverse forms of storytelling. She has worked on bringing stories usually relegated to the margins by mainstream media to the fore through her documentary film work. She has also worked with community radio station Mandakini ki Aawaz in Uttarakhand.

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