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102 pages

English

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To be a lesbian is to be different. It’s to be like the green rose amongst the red. Growing in the posh confines of south Delhi, the beautiful and accomplished Charu is a coveted match. However, all the matchmaking seems to fail when no dream marriage with a ‘foreign-posted’ groom seems to materialize—much to the amazement of speculating, fat Punjabi aunties of her neighbourhood and of her middle-class Bengali parents. Only Charu knows the reason. A reason which till now she’s hidden from everyone, even herself—that she’s a lesbian.But one lesson in love from the lady in the neighbourhood, and Charu knows there is no turning back on the truth. Not even when she wishes things were different, for her parents’ sake. A story of unmet desires and passion, The Green Rose explores the pains of coming out of the closet gay experience.

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Humanities

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Publié par	Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd
Date de parution	01 décembre 2012
Nombre de lectures	0
EAN13	9788184757590
Langue	English

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SHARMILA MUKHERJEE
The Green Rose

PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
THE GREEN ROSE
Sharmila Mukherjee was born and raised in Kolkata, India. She migrated to the United States in her twenties and, after much internal migration within the country, she has settled in yet another prototype of Kolkata-New York City. She teaches undergraduate writing and literature.
This book is dedicated to the women of India who are courageous enough to live the lives they want to and not the lives society expects of them. It is also dedicated to women who suffer indignities because they belong to a sexual minority.
1
At a glance, she appeared normal like the other beautiful, marriageable girls of New Delhi. Like a typical Delhi girl, she was slim and petite and carried herself well. She wore the choicest (read Branded) of clothes selected from the most expensive of malls and colour-coordinated them well with the right accessories from Dubai and Singapore-so it was an accepted fact that there was nothing wrong with the girl. Her life, apparently, was like the other girls from good families.
She was guided by her mother the same way her mother had been guided by hers-to be the wife of a qualified and, as a common Delhiite would put it, a well-settled man. So when Charu hit twenty-five, her parents launched a serious search for a suitable bridegroom for their very eligible daughter. Marriage, after all, was a destination towards which all parents like Charu s parents and all daughters like Charu journeyed inevitably. And just like the heroine s parents in Dilwale Dulhania le Jayenge , her parents had a dream for her marriage as soon as she was born.
No matter how high, how low or how middling the stature of the social orbit into which they are born, the fact of her marriage, taking place ideally by the age of twenty-five, becomes registered on the subconscious of both parent and child as an imminence-something that s a priority and as universal as the biological fact of the human body.
So, even though the Guhas were a liberated lot-sparing no opportunity to scoff at traditional Hindu customs that looked and sounded redundant-the thought of disembarking from the bandwagon of marriage never crossed their mind.
In Charu s case, however, the journey got derailed no sooner than it had begun; severe crinkles appeared on her roadmap to marriage thereafter. And as far as the Guhas were concerned, on the head of no other girl and on the heads of no other parents of girls known to them had such a calamity fallen. The Guhas suffered silently.
With other families it was a routine thing. America-residing young men with expensive degrees and highly paid jobs came to New Delhi for the customary fifteen days. They would check out the girls their mothers and fathers had reserved for their sighting and assessment; engagement parties duly took place to announce the joining of families in matrimonial accord. Wedding bonds were forged with style and glitter. It was as if an entire Bollywood film had come alive-the glittering designer clothes, the low-cut blouses, the dresses, decorations etc.
For the Guhas, on the other hand, the whole business of marriage for Charu became a struggle. It wasn t as if men with an all-round impressive status and khandaans didn t visit the Guhas house in Greater Kailash 1. But the fact that at some point of time they all seemed to come out disappointed or utterly displeased and quite a few, barring the very brave, wanted to return for a second or a third visit. Whatever transpired within the four walls of the Guha home, nobody came to know, not even the fat aunties taking an evening walk in their faux cr pe suits and Nike shoes. Whatever was happening inside, it was surprising to all of them that not one proposal that came their daughter s way materialized into an engagement announcement.
Wonder why this new proposal from America was turned down? was the question foremost in the neighbours minds, though none spoke up.
Rejections after rejections hung in the air of the Guha residence like heavy forebodings.
In New Delhi, there were young women who were, in principle, against the idea of marriage. They saw marriage as a mere tool of patriarchy used to domesticate and subordinate women to their husbands and their in-laws. They were working and independent, had their own places and circles of friends and could not therefore understand why they had to be married to feel complete.
But Charu was not one among them. She was educated, with a Masters degree to boot, and she loved the whole idea of marriage and quite artlessly worshipped the institution in her mind. With her own eyes she had witnessed the marital bliss that her parents shared. Her mother, though a housewife, was forever content and smiling and nothing made her happier than to be a perfect housewife to a decent status-conscious man like Mr Guha.
Charu felt that society would come to naught were the institution of marriage made a free choice instead of a necessity. In her mind, she pitied the feminists in Delhi. She conjectured that their lives were or would be empty and companionless when they turned old.
She didn t see what was wrong with patriarchy if by patriarchy one meant the rule of decent men. By definition, her father was a grand patriarch but he was also a wonderful provider for her and her mother. In his regime nobody suffered from any material want whatsoever. Being a highly placed government official, Mr Guha had all the accoutrements of a good life-the travels abroad, the servants, the access to the corridors of power, the house and the prepaid energy bills-lavished at the feet of his wife and his daughter. It was on account of him that Charu and her mother were able to avail of the American-style quality of life right in the very heart of South Delhi.
Her exquisitely pedicured, sandalled feet rarely had to touch the concrete pavements of the city for there was always that government-furnished car with a government-furnished chauffeur-a telling symbol of her status in South Delhi-to drive her around-to college, to malls, to upscale restaurants. In exchange for the plenty he gave her, her father merely expected Charu to be a good daughter, for in Mr Guha s eyes daughters and wives bore that special responsibility of not compromising the izzat of a family in any way. The family s good name mattered to him very much.
And Charu was an obedient, izzat -conscious daughter. Despite her flaming beauty, which aroused wicked desires in men, and despite all the temptations to transgress the boundaries of izzat in a newly globalizing and resplendent New Delhi, she barely dated men and never wore clothes that showed cleavage (though she possessed a sumptuous amount of the same). She never mingled with the crass and the down market , a nom de plume given by Mr Guha to those who didn t value the finer aspects of life, like respect for women, etiquette, table manners, Mozart, Bach, Beethoven, proper English, and a belief that everybody has his or her own assigned place in the social hierarchy.
He abhorred feminism and Dalit politics.
All those years of growing up in the strict moral ambience of the Guha household had transformed Charu into an ultra-desirable bride-to-be. So wherein lay the problem, relatives and friends knowing the Guhas (but not necessarily intimate with their secrets) began to ask behind their backs as time flew by and Charu still stayed unmarried.
The Guhas, in all their modern Bengali wisdom, a wisdom that was suavely attuned to meet the needs of these complex and challenging global times, were flummoxed by this phenomenon. They didn t know what earthly, secular turn of the screw could un-jinx their exceptionally pretty daughter s marital prospects, so they turned to the time-tested anodyne of deity worship.
It was as though the goddess Mahalaxmi had decided to single out Charu and her parents for unfair punishment in this crucial aspect of their rite of passage through life. The goddess must have perversely twisted and turned things around for the poor Guhas just for sport. So she had to be appeased.
At the age of twenty-five, ripe and ready to be offered to the care-taking of the most eligible of men in the exclusive social pale within which the Guhas circle, Charu discovered that as her mother s carefully curated artefact, she looked forward to a married, settled life. There was no doubt in her mind that marriage was the most natural thing to happen to her. To live a life alone would be living alone and bereft.
Fearing such an outcome for herself, Charu was in single-minded pursuit of the right partner. But here she was different. As she cast her longing eyes on several potential candidates, she saw Tanusree. Tanusree was the most beautiful of all of Charu s classmates at the college she had just graduated from. She came into Charu s dreams often, swirling her svelte shapely hips like a Bollywood actress, dressed in a chiffon sari, her rich black waist-length hair falling in cascades over her slender shoulder. In Charu s mind a gentle, fragrant wind always seemed to blow wherever Tanusree went.
Charu knew that in Tanusree s case she faced brute competition-men wanted her as their wife. While she bristled at the thought of the unfair advantage men had over her in the business of wooing women like Tanu, somehow she believed that she would prevail-for she would know how to win women like Tanusree s heart, colonize their dreams. One day Charu hoped to beat the competition by alluring Tanu with the prospect of marriage and a sweet, settled way of a cultured feminine life.
It s true that the world deemed men to be the natural companions of women; but Charu begged to differ on