My great-grandfather Rambishun

As my great-grandfather Rambishun recounted to the coaxing of my very persistent mother when she was a child, he was married at a very young age. He guessed he was probably around six and the bride about three from a village quite some distance away from his village of Ishmailpur, between Patna and Gaya in Uttar Pradesh. Contact had been made by a relative who had married into the girl’s village and chose “a good Kurmi girl”. Even though so very young, Rambishun could recollect the girl’s parents visiting his home to perform a “tilak” (engagement) ceremony. Gifts were exchanged, and the promise of marriage made binding. His father and friends later travelled with him as a “bariaat” in bullock carts to perform the marriage ceremony at the girl’s home; one of his young nephews was the “saibala’. He was going to see her now for the very first time and did not even know her name. They were received in a “janwaas” house where the bariaat rested before the wedding was performed by the Brahmin purohit (priest) of the in-laws.
Rambishun returned alone to his home after the wedding ceremony until it was decided years later that he and his “dulahin” were “of age” – that is, the marriage could be consummated. Rambishun was about 15 and the bride 13. A “gauna” ceremony was then performed, and the girl, whose name he finally discovered was Rajdai, was brought to Rambishun’s home to live with his extended family in their compound.
Rambishun recounted that Rajdai was a very good wife who worked with him in the vegetable plot the family owned just outside the village and also in the plots of rice and sugar cane they cultivated some distance away. She was a very good mother, young as she was: one of her brothers had a baby to whom she was very close back in her village. According to Rambishun, she worked as diligently as any of the other women: she was a good Kurmi wife, he said proudly. However, his mother and his bhowgies (sisters-in-law) really mistreated her – she could do nothing right in their eyes. This was particularly true of his mother, to whom he could not say anything, much less reproach.
Within two years Rajdai gave birth to a baby boy. As was his family’s custom, they named him after Sri Ram – Ramsamujh. They made a great fuss over the baby, and his father-in-law brought gifts of gold from his village. But his mother’s and bhowgies’ attitudes towards his wife remained as hostile as ever. While they did not get to spend much time with each other, they were able to discuss the situation when they worked side by side in the fields. As the seventh and youngest son, it was unlikely he would ever get his own plot of land to farm. Rajdai was very unhappy. What to do?
The critical incident that stood out in my mother’s memory of Rambishun’s account was pretty much the straw that evidently broke Rambishun’s back. It was the day that his mother refused to allow Rajdai to eat all day, and she was forced to eat a raw “bhanta bigan” (round eggplant). Rambishun could bear it no longer. He had heard about individuals who had left the village and had gone to work in far-off places and returned to live in style. They were recruited by Arkatis (recruiters) who usually frequented crowded locales on the lookout for likely prospects.
And on a visit to a village fair some distance away, soon after his wife had been so cruelly treated by his mother, Rambishun encountered an Arkati who was recruiting men and women to work in Damru Tapu (Demerara Island). The man described the work in glowing terms, but Rambishun did not need much persuasion. He returned home and spoke to Rajdai. After much discussion he convinced her that he would go abroad alone because it might be dangerous for the baby. And in any case, after five years he would return with enough money to buy some land so that they could live independently by themselves. She would be in charge of her own home. He would then be 24 years old, and they would be able to make a good life with their son.
Unlike many accounts of Arkatis kidnapping recruits for the sugar colonies, this was not the case with Rambishun – or any other ancestor – and is not part of our family lore.