Zhanna Chalabayeva - Red Indian Sun

If India loves the person, then it gives him a sacred knowledge. A person is endowed with a special gift. Many Indians have innate abilities for hypnosis and magic, are able to predict the future, they see prophetic dreams.

Once I noticed after myself that for some time after arriving in India I began to have dreams that came true in three to five days. There was nothing terrible in these dreams; I just saw in a dream some situations that in a few days came true.

The Indian people have their little secrets. So, my mother-in-law, before eating sweets for some reason, pinched a small piece from them and threw it somewhere to the side. Only then she began to eat treats. I don’t know why she did it; I didn’t see dogs and cats next to her.

In India there is polytheism. Most of all I like the story of the god Ganesh. Ganesh is the son of the gods Shiva and Parvathi, who was born with a human body and head. The god Shani looked at the boy, and the child’s head burned. Then the god Shiva added to the baby the head of an elephant – the first animal encountered by the servants.

He is also called Shri Ganesh. Sri is a respectful prefix.

God Ganesh, kind and just, helps travelers and those who love to gain knowledge. Thus, this god is closer to me than all the other Indian gods.

The god Ganesh, who has the head of an elephant and the body of a man, pray as follows: “Om gam ganapataye namaha”. This mantra removes obstacles to a person. The first sound of the mantra “Om” – is the sound that first appeared in the newly created Universe.

* * *

Since we got married, I was supposed to wear Indian clothes, not European ones. Now I had to cover my head with a dupatta and draw a point on my forehead. In the morning I applied a red strip on the central hair part and draw a point on my forehead – bindi. The point in the forehead reminded me of the sunset of red Indian sun. How beautiful it looks on the forehead of a married woman in India! It seems to illuminate the house and family with its warmth, love, and wisdom.

The mother-in-law said that I now could not wear European clothes and that I could not walk alone now when I want to, that if I go somewhere, and then only accompanied. She also, through her son, told me that I had to wash the floors and do the cleaning every day in the whole house, as well as walk on the field and pick cotton by hands.

I also bought a special pencil and bottle with a red composition and tassel. It is exactly the same capacity as nail polish, but the consistency of the contents is different.

In India, there are many bindi options in various colors and sizes that stick to the skin and last until evening.

My sister-in-law brought me two boxes with multi-colored disposable bindies. There was a whole color palette of nature. In the first box, the bindi was simply circles of three millimeters in diameter; in the second box, the bindi was gilded, in the shape of a flower.

If I woke up in a good mood, then I put a green bindi on my forehead. If I woke up in a bad mood, then I put the red color – the color of the traffic light. Before visiting some house, I put an elegant bindi with gold leaf.

I also now wore five to six bracelets on each arm. They were imbued with gold, although they were made of plastic.

My husband did not give me gold jewelry. Although in India huge sums are spent on gold jewelry for wives. Despite the poverty of her husband, my mother-in-law walked all in gold from head to toe, as did the sister-in-law. For me, they bought everything from plastic and simple iron.

A couple of words about Indian gold should be mentioned. It is much higher quality than all other types of gold in the world. It is almost no impurities, it is yellow and it is high-carat gold. It is said that Indian women daily wear on themselves 10% of world gold reserves.

– We will buy gold for you when you start working and give us your salary, – said my husband.

– Will you buy me that gold on my money? – I asked laughing.

– You don’t even have a dowry. In India, a dowry is a pledge of happiness for newlyweds. And we do not demand anything from you. Therefore, we do not give anything. Just work in the office and give us the money you earn. Fifty-seventy thousand rupees a month is enough. We are honest people.

Then I told my mother-in-law that I had a dowry. If it is so important to them, then they will receive it. But my mother-in-law said that not things would do for them, but only cash.

– Ah, what a nice, kind family! Only seventy thousands per month! – I replied through laughter.

I sincerely wanted to be an obedient daughter-in-law and decided to start cleaning the house, but I did not find any rags, no buckets, no gloves, or a vacuum cleaner. At this time of the day, there was no one in the house except for me and my grandmother. She was sitting on the second floor. I went up to her and gestured to ask about cleaning equipment. She did not understand me and, waving her hand, asked me to make tea for us and go to rest after tea. That day we got along perfectly with grandmother Dadi and henceforth began to regularly drink tea together when there was no one in the house except us.

My mother-in-law continued to insist on my participation in running the household. She especially wanted me to pick cotton. Then I asked them to buy me thick gloves. After a while, my father-in-law still bought me crimson-colored rubber gloves, and I began to go with them to pick cotton.

Over time, I, my mother-in-law and grandmother distributed the duties of housekeeping in the house, and disputes no longer arose.

So my day began at ten in the morning. I woke up, took a shower, brushed up. My husband woke up at the same time, often later than me, but every time after waking up, he grabbed his phone and ran off somewhere upstairs, where no one disturbed him.

At that time I opened the windows and doors, cleaned the bed, laid out the scattered things in places, rubbed dust in the room, swept, washed the floors, and then burned scented candles. Then I closed the windows and doors of the room outside and went upstairs to make breakfast.

I mostly did not buy clothes. My sister-in-law or a girl-neighbor sewed fabrics with ready-made collars, it was more money saving.

Meena, my sister-in-law, often came to visit her parents’ house with her little daughter. The girl was a few months old. Pretty and plump, she was the darling of all family members.

My sister-in-law brought a sewing machine to the room, put it on the floor and sew wonderful dresses. My husband and I, his brother, my mother-in-law and someone else sat next to her, distracting the child with toys, so as not to interfere with the mother’s sewing.

In the early days, I was very uncomfortable with the constant presence of many people around me.

In my family, it is not customary to visit someone without an invitation or without a prior call, even to my closest relatives. During a visit to relatives, we never stay too long. I remember how, in childhood, every visit to grandparents, who lived far from us, was a real treat. We were invited a week before arrival so that we did not plan any events for this day. For our arrival, my dear grandmother cooked for us delicious salads, cakes, meatballs, all sorts of delicacies. My brother and sister and I behaved as at a reception, and did not allow ourselves to indulge, ate only with a knife and fork, did not fight with each other, were not noisy. On New Year’s holidays, we also gathered with our grandparents and cousins at the holiday table, which was full of different dishes. On holidays, grandmother took out silver from the cabinet and crystal vases for salads, a large gorgeous dining set brought from Europe many years ago. Then we, the children, had to go out to the guests and recite poems by heart. After a verse or song, every child received a storm of applause, praise, New Year’s greetings, wishes and the most pleasant thing – a New Year’s gift wrapped in sweetie paper. It was the noisiest time for me.

On other days, as a rule, we spent time by ourselves, in our own rooms, in our own house, in silence, doing our own business.

Therefore, being used to such a contrast in the first days of arrival in India, I often felt dizzy from the noise and conversations. I remember how I sat on the bed in the bedroom, my husband’s relatives were sitting around me, talking loudly, laughing, someone tugging at my shoulder. From the noise, my temperature rose and my head ached, in the end, I ran to the second floor, where there was no one. I sat in a chair on the balcony and enjoyed the silence. Several people came after me to the second floor.

Over time, I got used to the noise and the constant presence of relatives and neighbors. Also used to spicy food, so much so that without chili pepper, the food seemed tasteless.

People get used to everything over time.

* * *

My mother-in-law was smiling to my face, but behind me she was my enemy.

She was a good person, who just had other expectations about her daughter-in-law. Therefore, she, as she could, tried to adjust me to her standards.

I understood everything perfectly: what does she expect from me, what should I do to make her like me. But selfish mother-in-law is never satisfied with daughters-in-law. Therefore, one should not try hard, it is still useless.

I know that her plans were to find for her son an Indian girl from the village, obedient and silent, who would take over the whole life of themselves, who would bring a rich dowry to their home. At the same time, the choice of a son did not matter, because the mother-in-law chose a servant for herself, and not a son’s wife. And then her son brought me, a person after years of military service and after human rights activities.

I guess she did not know that her son always wanted to marry a foreigner and dreamed of living abroad.

I knew how to cook well and therefore began cooking. Mainly because I could not eat what my mother-in-law was cooking. Her food seemed to be tasteless, hastily cooked, without inspiration and without a soul, gruel for cattle. My husband told that she could cook only some temporary food.

Therefore, I announced that from now on I will cook for the whole family. I cooked sabji (different vegetables, stewed together), vegetable stew, spaghetti with sauce and pea soup dal, eggplant caviar. In India people cook in a pressure cooker on gas. First, oil is poured into the pressure cooker, spices are put, then the main ingredients of the preparing dish, then after a short roasting, the vegetables are poured over with water and tightly covered with a lid.

I missed my traditional food, sandwiches with sausage, toasts with jam and coffee, Russian salad, red borscht, mantas, Kazakh beshbarmak, my favorite Uzbek pilaf. At night, I saw them in my dreams. Sometimes I fried pies with potatoes and then treated everyone in the house.

Bread in India is not eaten every day, instead, they bake flatbread. Bread is made from traditional white bread in India, which translates as bread, but it is not just bread, but bread fried with vegetables, something like our bread fried with eggs.

In the first two months of life in India, I lost almost twenty kilograms. So if you want to lose weight, it is good to live in India.

We ate on the floor of small metal cups with small spoons. In other homes it is different. In general, it all depends on the wealth of the family. I brought with me a fork from Moscow and put it in a common dish with spoons and knives, but all the time my fork turned out to be under the cupboard, behind the bed, behind the refrigerator. I have no idea how it got there.

I did not use it in order not to offend others and not to differ from other family members. I sat on the floor with everyone and ate the same as they did. The only thing I could not do was eat roti flatbreads the way they did. Out of habit, I ate with a spoon, holding it in my right hand, and ate roti instead of bread, holding it in my left hand. They don’t do that in India, in India they tear off a small piece of roti and scoop food from it, eating at the same time. But since it was impossible for me not to mess my fingers with food, I preferred a spoon. For roti, there are special pans-thermos. After the roti is ready, put it in this thermos and close the lid. Thus roti does not wither and does not cool for a long time.