Jamuna at the Village Folk Festival
(From Grand Mother Stories)
This was a folktale narrated by our grand mother.
It was the village of Pallalamma in the Godavari region.
Whenever the breeze from the Godavari touched the trees, it seemed as though a festival had come upon them. That year, the Pallalamma village festival was being celebrated with extraordinary splendour. Every street glittered with festoons of mango leaves. Streaks of turmeric and vermilion adorned the temple tower. There was the thunder of drums, the colour of stick dances, stalls filled with dolls, the tinkling of glass bangles, the aroma of jalebis, and the joyous cries of children.
All at once, amid the bustle of the festival, every eye came to rest upon a streak of lightning.
Her mother walked on one side, her father on the other, and between them was a young maiden.
She was sixteen years old. Her face had the softness of a tender leaf. In her eyes lay the stillness of the Godavari waters. There was an unconscious grace in her walk. She was so beautiful that one could not tell whether she wore the sari or whether the sari had wrapped itself around her.
The young men who saw her could not turn their eyes away. It seemed as though all the colours of the festival had suddenly gathered around her.
“Whose daughter is she?” someone whispered.
“Where have they come from?” asked another.
No one knew her name. Yet her arrival made it seem as though a new lamp had been lit at the festival.
Just then, the local zamindar arrived.
He was still a young man—a man in whom wealth, authority, pride, and an appreciation of beauty were all combined. He already had two wives. The customs of a great household, the splendour of landed power, and the male privilege of that age all seemed to walk in step with him.
The zamindar’s gaze fell upon the young woman.
For a moment, he stopped.
It was no ordinary attraction. To him, it felt like a vision of a goddess at the festival. In the end of her sari, in her long braid, and in the modest way she lowered her head, he imagined an invitation.
He went directly to her parents.
“What is your daughter’s name?” he asked.
The father folded his hands respectfully.
“Jamuna, my lord.”
“Jamuna…” the zamindar repeated softly. “A name that sounds as though it was born beside the Godavari.”
The mother lowered her head. Jamuna merely drew the end of her sari a little farther over herself.
The zamindar did not hesitate.
“I shall marry your daughter,” he declared.
Everyone who heard him fell silent. The mother was alarmed. Jamuna lowered her head. But the father’s face suddenly went pale.
He took the zamindar aside.
“My lord,” he said gently, “Jamuna is not our daughter, as you believe.”
The zamindar raised his eyebrows.
“What do you mean?”
“Jamuna is our son.”
For a moment, the zamindar stood motionless.
The father continued.
“When the child was born, astrologers studied the horoscope. They told us that the child had to be raised as a girl until the age of sixteen. Otherwise, they warned us, there would be danger to the child’s life and a curse upon the family line.
“They said, ‘On the day the child turns sixteen, something strange will happen. If the child passes through that event, he will enter the world and live as a man. Otherwise, he will remain Jamuna forever.’”
The zamindar listened in silence.
“Today, Jamuna has completed sixteen years. After returning from this festival, we intended to remove the women’s clothing and begin life anew, raising the child as a man. But now you…”
The father’s voice trailed off.
The zamindar looked towards the festivalground.
Jamuna stood there beside her mother. Even amid the crowd, she seemed to shine alone.
To some men, beauty is merely a form. To others, it is something to be possessed. The zamindar had both impulses within him. But at that moment, another feeling arose in him as well—a determination that the form he had seen must never disappear.
“Then,” he said slowly, “this must be the strange event foretold by the astrologers.” (To Be Continued)
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