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The road is narrow and turns this way and that. It is long enough that my insides have managed to mirror its twists and turns. The first time I beheld it, my mind was blank. They had stopped the car opposite the temple, and I had to walk to the gate with my new husband. The road was lined with red soil, and half-walls made of mud rose on both sides. The gate lay to the left, and once through it, we had to walk across the courtyard where my mother-in-law stood smiling with a lit lamp. Some young relative poured water over my feet using a ‘kindi’. No one from my family, except a few aunts and uncles, was in attendance as per tradition, but I didn’t even notice them as I approached the entrance. My heart was in my mouth. Unfamiliar faces and sounds surrounded me. No one had prepared me for what to expect. It was as if I had to absorb my cues from the environment. Like I was on stage with no rehearsals and no one to remind me of my lines.
I took the lamp and placed my right foot over the threshold as I entered the house. More rituals followed. I was propelled mechanically through dark rooms that seemed too small for the crowd of people who had assembled to catch a glimpse of the bride. My rigorously built-in obedience battled with the tightness in my chest. The air I breathed in seemed uncommonly thick and syrupy. I felt like I was watching myself as I hovered above the scenes. The first day ended eventually, as all days do.
I cannot remember any moment of my wedding day that can bring a smile to my face now. It is mostly just blank.
Initially, the house, like my in-laws', just felt strange and new. It had been renovated in time for the wedding. A floor had been added. The new floor was all light and space, unlike the dark and forbidding ground floor. In between was a staircase that had been forced into a convoluted shape with each riser of varying width set at an angle more suited to a mountain goat than a human being. But such is the case with forced change – it leaves you in no man’s land – more than you were before, but far less than what you could have been.
Over time, it became clear that no matter what I did, I would not fit in. I was different. I was not like their daughter, who knew without being told how to behave. I corrupted their precious son irrevocably. Every moment I spent in that house ended up earning me more permanent red marks in their ever-present book of reckoning. I was told I was a mistake – one that they should never have chosen to welcome into their house. No one spoke on my behalf. The ache in my heart intensified. I broke again and again. I was never enough.
Many years of visits followed. I carried my firstborn in my arms. I cradled a tiny baby as her elder brother clutched his father’s hand. The house remained a black hole. It stifled their laughter. Innocent faces looked at me in incomprehension as all the joy was sucked out of their little souls. On good days, my in-laws would chat with us over tea or a meal. On bad days, my mother-in-law wrapped the space in suffocating silence while my father-in-law left any room I stepped into. The taste of rejection burned my tongue. Anxiety shivered in my limbs. This house. This house never liked me. My children learnt to hate it as much as I did.
Today, I am at this house. A new house. I take in the sight. The old house, which stood grim and disapproving of life and gaiety, is no more. It was torn out at the roots to make way for this bright and shiny home. The house is new, but the road to the house is the same. A semblance of tar has now replaced the red soil. No one awaits disapprovingly in the house.
I am not struck with headaches and nausea as I wade through the weighted silence of a house that hates me. Instead, there is bright sunshine. It is quiet. I can hear the birds and squirrels. The tightness unravels slowly till it becomes bearable. I take a breath.
I walk in, and an overabundance of large portraits of my in-laws stare at me. Everything inside is new, but I can still see the shimmering edges of laser lines of forced conformities that fill the space. No dust is allowed. All surfaces must be cleaned. A daughter-in-law who cannot sweep and mop to perfection is useless. Straighten the covers. Don’t let the children spill anything. Wait till you are told you can eat. Leave nothing on the counter. Use a different broom to sweep rice grains. Don’t leave anything on the plate. Twist the wicks in the lamp just so. Sit this way. Walk this way. Talk this way. And just like that, the tightness returns, and I cannot breathe.
