Free The House of Blue Mangoes by David Davidar

slowly.
    ‘Yes, I’ll go and see him soon.’
    They sat a while longer in silence, and then Solomon said unexpectedly, ‘You don’t wear jasmine in your hair any longer.’
    Charity looked away, her eyes shining.
    For the past two years, ever since he had built the new front room, he had slept alone, while she had shared a room with their daughters. She couldn’t even remember the last time they had talked at night.
    ‘Are you sure you have everything you need? I must go and serve food to the others.’
    Solomon said nothing but as he watched her leave his worries seemed to lift away.
    Later, when Charity had finished her work in the kitchen, she slipped out into the backyard. By the wall stood a few jasmine bushes, the fragrance of their flowers infiltrating the cool air. Deftly, she plucked the little white malligai orbs and began threading them into a garland for her hair.

12
    Two days after the attack, Valli hanged herself from a tree at the edge of the Andavar quarter. The women in the village grieved. For a brief moment, each one of them experienced afresh the deep sadness of being born a woman. They were sorry that the girl had taken her life and they prayed that in her next birth she would be born with a luckier alignment of planets. But their sorrow was tempered by the hope that her passing would ease tensions a little, make all their lives a bit easier. In a land where everyday realities were harsh, what did the death of a tenant farmer’s daughter signify anyhow? As it turned out, quite a lot, much to everyone’s surprise.
    Happening as it did in an anxious time, in an idle time before the fields could be prepared, in a desperate time when the entire land simmered with frustration and hate, her death transformed her from an insignificant girl without affiliation (not quite married, on the point of leaving her natal home) into a weapon that would deepen the division and rancour within the village.
    When news of the suicide reached him, Solomon abandoned any idea he might have had of going to see Muthu Vedhar. He went to see the deputy tahsildar instead, and persuaded him to post a couple of policemen in the village, armed with the long Snider carbines that were brought out only in emergencies. One was stationed in the Andavar quarter and the second near the Vedhar houses. This brought an immediate and furious response from Muthu Vedhar, still smarting under the insult he had received at the meeting. ‘Either you control that man or I will,’ he roared at his kinsman, the deputy tahsildar.
    Dipty Vedhar did not flinch. ‘I have my instructions, Muthu-aiyah,’ he said courteously. ‘Law and order is the top priority at the moment and I cannot allow any disturbance in the village.’
    ‘So you believe I was responsible for the attack?’
    ‘Not at all,’ Dipty Vedhar replied smoothly. ‘And to show my good faith I’m removing the policeman posted near your house. Why should I fear any trouble when I have a powerful leader such as you to keep the peace?’ This piece of flattery, which fooled neither man, nevertheless had the effect of mollifying Muthu, and he returned to the village, bad-tempered as before, but not inclined to violence and destruction.
    His temper did not improve that night when his wife passed on some gossip picked up during the day. Saraswati Vedhar had heard versions of the episode at the various points of her morning round – the tank where she and a couple of high-ranking Vedhar women bathed, the backyard where her servants and relatives gossiped and fought. Apparently, a close ally (as always unspecified) of the thalaivar had said that Solomon himself had hired the four loafers to molest the girl and to write the slogan on the rock in order to provoke Muthu to action so he would have cause to have him arrested, or maybe even banished from the village. Muthu, who would normally have rejected this fantastical scheme out of hand, spent some time mulling over it. Gradually, he