Garur Dal

I.

On the last day of Ashwin, you and your twin sister ask your father for some Garur Dal.

          “Whatever for?” he asks, watching the YouTube video his twin daughters show him on his tablet.

          “To make a wish,” you say. You’re the taller twin with bobbed hair and barrettes.

          “What kind of wish?”

          “Anything!” your sister says, the smaller twin with waist-long braids and ribbons.

          Your father googles Garur Dal, a dish made on only one day a year, the last day of the Bengali month of Ashwin, to be eaten the next day, the first day of Karthik. It requires eight seasonal vegetables paired with eight different lentils and legumes. As the saying goes:

          “Cooked in Ashwin, eaten in Karthik

          All your wishes come true real quick.”

          Your father looks out the window. A panoramic view of the valley welcomes him. He’s finally gotten some much needed vacation. He’s been neglecting you and your sister, his motherless seven-year-olds. So, he brought you to his family’s ancestral home, where he grew up, met and lost his one true love, then got married and widowed, both twice in a row. Since then, he and your grandmother raised you. With his mother gone now, the duty falls solely on his shoulders and. He. Is. A. Mess.

          “All right,” he concedes.

          You all make a plan. Two hours until sunset. Plenty of time to forage the vegetables. Yes, forage. Your family owns the largest vegetable garden in town. You have everything. Why buy when your backyard has the gold?

         You decide to split up. You and your sister will collect the pumpkin and the bottle gourds. Your father gives you two knives.

          “Be careful,” he tells you.

         You two run for the trellises, stooped from the weights of pumpkins and bottle gourds. With a garden fork, your father goes to dig up the potatoes.

          “Let’s split up,” your sister suggests.

          “Baba told us to stay together.”

          “It’ll be too late.”

          “What do you wanna do?”

       Your sister smirks. “Get the lily rhizomes from the pond. I’m the better swimmer between us.”

          You pout but agree. Underwater, your sister is as agile as an eel. So, you decide to go your separate ways; you’ll fetch the pumpkin and the bottle gourd, your sister will dig up the garu from the bottom of the pond.

II.

          You, with your knife in hand, pass under the mango trees. One moment, you’re selecting the best pumpkin from the trellises. The next moment, you’re on someone’s lap on a tree branch, almost eight feet off the ground, no longer holding your knife. The person, a woman, wears a pair of white Shakha made of conch shell, a pair of red Pola made of coral, and one gold-plated Noa made of iron (only on her left hand), bangles that married Hindu women wear. Bony fingers caress your barrettes.

          “Pretty, so pretty,” croons the woman.

          You turn around and gasp. The woman’s eyes almost bulge out of their sockets. When she sees the terror in your eyes, she turns you around.

          “Sorry, dearie. This is how I met my end,” she says.

          A shiver scuttles down your spine. “What are you?” you ask, because she’s anything but human.

          “A Shakchunni.”

          “What?”

          “A married female ghost.”

          “How did you die?”

          “Well, somebody hung me from this branch that we sit upon the day after my wedding.” She side-eyes the tree to your left.

          You squint. There, from the mango tree, another woman dangles from a branch, upside down, her long hair almost kissing the ground. “Serves you right. You poisoned me and stole my groom.” When her eyes meet yours, she grins with teeth as pointy as a porcupine’s quills.

          You shut your eyes. The woman cradling you hisses at her. “You scared my poor child.”

          “And you kidnapped the poor child,” the upside-down woman quips. “When will you stop stealing what’s not yours?”

          “Are you also a Shakchunni?” you ask the upside-down ghost after you open your eyes.

          “No, I’m a Petni. Didn’t your mother tell you bedtime stories about us?” When you shake your head, the Petni continues, “Well, I’m a maiden ghost. I was about to be married to a rich man when that one,” she points at the Shakchunni behind you, “poisoned me and took my place at the altar.”

          The ghost behind you tuts. “You started it. I sent you to offer him my hand in marriage. You offered yourself up instead.”

          You raise your hand. “Can I go home now? My father will look for me.”

          “He already has another daughter. Besides, you can’t leave your poor Maa.”

          “You’re not my Maa.”

          “I did become your mother for one day before my death.”

          “What?”

          The two ghosts laugh. “Your Baba was the man we fought over, dearie,” the Petni says.

          “One of us was supposed to be your mother,” the Shakchunni says.

          “And now, we get to keep you.”

          You deflate. There’s no way you can get out of the Shakchunni’s iron hold. Even if you flee from one of them, the other will come after you. Resigned to your fate, you try one last time. “Can I at least go home for tonight? We wanted to make Garur Dal.”

          The two ghosts sigh, nostalgic. “It’s been years since we had that stew,” the Petni says.

          “Ooh, we can make a wish if we eat it tomorrow,” the Shakchunni says.

          You offer to take them home tonight. “Then tomorrow, you can take me with you.”

          The two ghosts agree.

III.

          At your home, your sister waits alone. Well, not alone. A woman in a mossy green saree stands beside her. Like your sister, she too is dripping wet from head to toe. Her long hair curtains her face, a hand clamped over your sister’s shoulder. Instantly, you sense that the woman is trouble.

          “Oh great, the Sheekol Buri is here too,” the Shakchunni mutters. Her hold on you tightens.

          “Who’s that?” you ask.

          “A ghost who either drowned herself or someone drowned her,” the Petni explains. “Don’t you recognize her?” When you shake your head, the two ghosts exchange a glance. Before one of them can reply, the Sheekol Buri speaks to you.

          “My child, come to me.” Her long fingers beckon you.

          Your sister also asks you to come over.

          “But she’s a ghost!” you say.

          “She’s also our Maa.”

          “WHAT?”

          Your sister narrates what happened.

          “I was a little late when I reached the pond. It was getting dark but you can’t make Garur Dal without any Garu, so I went into the water. I didn’t know it'd be so dark at the bottom. I couldn’t see anything and my legs got tangled with the lily stalks. I was almost out of breath when Maa found me. Her hair coiled around my ankles and she whipped me out of the water and threw me on the shore. When she followed me out of the pond, in her hands, she held the slimy rhizomes, freshly dug from under the water.” She pointed at a basket full of the dark brown, round Garu beside her.

          “But how do you know it’s her?” you ask.

          “Why, she crooned our favorite lullaby!”

          The Sheekol Buri steps forward. “Give me back my daughter.”

          The Shakchunni pouts. “You already have one. Let us have her.”

          The Petni agrees. “Yeah, we were going to be her mother anyway.”

          The Sheekol Buri screeches. You and your sister cover your ears. The scream resembles the roaring waves of a sea, though you’re nowhere near one. “She’s mine!” your ghost mother screams. “I’m her mother! She’s my daughter!”

          “Okay, okay, fine! Jeez, you’re no fun.” The Shakchunni hands you over to your dead mother.

          “Yeah, it’s not like we can keep her anyway. Not alive at least. I mean, what will we feed her?” The Petni shuts up as soon as the Sheekol Buri wraps her cold, wet fingers around the latter’s neck.

          “I remember you. Leering at my husband even when he was married to me,” the Sheekol Buri says. “You and you,” she turns to the Shakchunni, who shrinks back. Putting you down to your feet, the Sheekol Buri throttles the Shakchunni as well. She lifts the two ghosts, two women who vied for her position as the wife of the most eligible bachelor in town. Now, all three women are dead, while the man responsible is roaming the earth alive.

          “Please, put them down,” you plead.

          Your sister runs over to you and your mother. “Yeah, they’re already dead, Maa.”

          “Plus, they came here to eat Garur Dal with us.”

          At your words, your mother, the Sheekol Buri, releases the two ghosts. They slump over the grass, gagging and heaving. Your mother kneels before you, her daughters. “I used to cook them every year, on the last day of Ashwin.”

          “Baba didn’t mention that,” you say.

          The Sheekol Buri, for the first time tonight, sighs sorrowfully. “As expected. He never remembered anything I did for him, for you, for us.”

          “Is that why you left?” your sister asks.

          Your mother nods. “Your father never loved me.”

          “But he does,” you say. “He’s always sad.”

          The Sheekol Buri hugs you two. “It’s not me he’s sad about, my darlings. He loved another woman throughout our marriage, someone he lost before he married me.”

          The Petni nods. “He never loved any of us.”

          The Shakchunni rubs her neck. “We’re all fools to go after him. A broken man never heals until and unless he fixes his own self.”

          That’s when you hear the scream. Just as the clouds bathed in the sunset orange are beginning to turn dark.

          “That’s Baba!” you say.

          “He’s in trouble!” your sister adds.

          “He’s in pain,” your mother concludes. At once, she’s gone, her daughters and the two other ghosts left behind. The Petni and the Shakchunni gather each of you in their arms and rush after the Sheekol Buri.

IV.

          You land in the potato field not far from the fences of your family’s property. The garden fork lies uselessly beside a mound of dirt-covered spuds. Your father thrashes not far from it. A woman in a red saree straddles him, her fingers wrapped around his neck.

          “If you won’t kill yourself like you made me, then I’ll kill you myself!” she seethes, her voice raspy. Clotted blood stains both her wrists. Your father struggles to remove her hands from his throat, his legs thrashing under her.

          At once, the Sheekol Buri untangles the fourth ghost from your father. You and your sister rush to his side. He coughs and tries to catch his breath. The Petni and the Shakchunni guard you and your family, while your mother and the fourth ghost wrestle for the upper hand.

          “Let me go!” the fourth ghost screams.

          “Only if you stay away from my husband!” the Sheekol Buri counters.

          “I have to kill him! That’s the only way I can find salvation!”

          The Petni and the Shakchunni step up. “I know you. I know you very well. You’re the girl he still pines over,” one of them says.

          “You’re a Prapti,” says the other.

          “What’s that?” your sister asks.

          “A female ghost who killed herself because she could not choose between her lovers. She loved both men equally,” the Petni explains.

          The Prapti sobs. “He made me do it! He forced me to choose between him and another I loved.”

          Your mother crosses her arms. “Oh boo hoo, you killed yourself because you couldn’t choose between TWO people who loved you. No one ever loved me like that! Not even my own husband! I’m not running around killing people!”

          The Prapti weeps, defeated. “You’re his wife, I see.”

          “And you’re the other woman.”

          “So are we.” The Shakchunni points to herself and her murderous best friend.

          The four ghosts turn to the man behind their ruination, your father, the man they all loved one way or another. Your Baba pulls you and your sister close. He looks at each ghost, terrified and worried. He takes in the four women he wronged, their grotesque appearances. The Petni’s white eyes, the Shakchunni’s bulging eyeballs, the Sheekol Buri’s face covered with her wet hair, and the Prapti’s empty sockets. Four women whose lives he had ruined. “I’m sorry,” he whispers to them in turn. “I was a bad lover, a bad husband, a bad groom.” He looks at you and your sister, and hugs you close. “I’m also a bad father.”

          “That you are,” the Prapti says. “Who the hell gives knives to his seven-year-old daughters?”

          “You’re as irresponsible as I remember you,” your mother, his dead wife, says. “Playing with lives you don’t love.”

          “No, I did love you,” your father claims.

          “So much that you decided to replace me with these two not even a year after I died?” your mother says, pointing at the Petni and the Shakchunni. “You never mourned me properly.”

          He hangs his head, his chin dipped in his chest. “I was a new father. I didn’t know how to parent two girls by myself.”

          “So? You learn. Nobody comes out of their mother’s womb knowing how to do something. You learn as you age,” the Petni says.

          “Nobody knows how to be a parent since birth,” the Shakchunni adds.

          “You pushed me to kill myself,” the Prapti, his lost love, says. “You’re a horrible man. You never loved me truly. Or else you wouldn’t force me to choose you. I killed myself for you.”

          “As you pushed me to kill myself,” says the Sheekol Buri, his dead wife and your mother. “You never loved me. You married me out of rebound. You couldn’t cope with the loss of your lover, so you married me, only to push me to death.”

          “And you made us to kill each other,” the Petni and the Shakchunni speak at the same time. “We got blinded by your beauty, your charm, and we forgot our friendship.”

          “You’re a terrible lover,” the Prapti declares.

          “A horrible husband.”

          “An irresponsible father.”

          “An awful man.”

          You had enough. You and your sister step up protectively before your father. “Please, stop. Don’t hurt him. We just wanted to eat some Garur Dal.”

          Your sister nods. “Please, forgive our Baba. We will have nobody left if you hurt him.”

          The four ghosts exchange glances. Something passes between them, an unheard conversation. When it ends, the Prapti smiles for the first time. “We won’t hurt him. A child needs their father.”

          Your sister smiles hopefully. “You won’t?”

          “On one condition.”

          “Two, actually.”

          One by one, the four ghosts lay down their demands.

          “We’ll all cook Garur Dal.”

          “And eat it tomorrow for our wishes.”

          “For our salvation,” they announce together.

          “Your father’s atonement will be to raise you two. All. By. Himself.”

          “Should he try to remarry again, we’ll punish him.”

          “But.” You tilt your head. “Won’t you leave this plane if you get salvation?”

          The Petni winks. “We have friends on this earth, dearie.”

          The Shakchunni grins. “If your good-for-nothing father fails to raise both of you properly, or tries to remarry just to hand over his duties as a parent, our friends will haunt him all his life. He shall never know peace until his atonement is complete.”

          “No more slip-ups,” your mother says, knelt before her family. “Never again will you fail our daughters. Promise us, husband.”

          “I promise,” your father replies.

V.

          The four ghosts accompany you and your father to your home, where they help him cook the stew that brought you all together. Your father leaves the pot of stew outside, to catch the autumn dew and be blessed. The next evening, the four ghosts have their fills of Garur Dal, as do you and your father. Before their wishes are granted, the ghosts say their farewell to you and your sister.

          After the first day of Karthik, you and your sister get your wishes fulfilled: to have a father who has time for you on his hands, love for you in his heart, and a proper childhood for you by trials and errors. He keeps his promise to the four ghosts, to all the women in his life, till the end of his time.