“Vegetable Girl”

Aradhya Saxena

Art of Creative Unity Award 2022 | Honorable Mention

Vegetable Girl

We did not know what to first make of the people that stared at us. Their skin a sickly white, standing out starkly against the brown of our own. Their ladies dressed in strangling corsets and voluminous gowns, pale and fanning themselves to avoid the summer heat, whereas ours in simple fabric meant not for style but practicality. They held peculiar sticks and devices we distantly recognized as guns (we’d never seen one before) as they marched in with their odd moustaches and incomprehensible dialect.

A boy amidst us remarked how they looked like 'Kashmiris that have been left out in the sun to pickle' and we'd laughed, and then they'd pulled out their guns and fired three clean shots, stunning us into silence as the boy fell. We did not make the mistake of laughing at them again.

We'd heard of the colonizers before, traders, they called themselves, though we knew what traders were, and these foreign men were far from innocent businessmen. We saw them take away our girls and turn slaves of our boys, and we just sat in silence, in fear.

 We hadn't thought they'd come this far, though. Our village a good distance away from their camps. We’d thought, stupidly, that we were safe.

We were weavers, the whole lot of us, the handlooms and endless rolls of fabric our home, we were cherished. Large men with curling moustaches and bright red turbans, thin men with hollowed cheeks and apprehensive natures, and women in bright sarees had been our clients. We were accustomed to living comfortably, and so, when the white folk offered a trade, we accepted. It seems we kept making mistakes, over and over again.

I do not know what got to us first. The torture, bricks on our hands, whips at our backs, broken thumbs and bloody knees, or the hunger, a famine spread all across our nation. My shawls were not enough to warm me, the scarce food we’d cook up barely enough. We’d curl up between our bundles of clothes, weep in the night, clutching our stomachs and cursing fate, and then we’d work during the day, because that was all we knew how to do. We’d pray fervently, clutching our figures and sometimes falling asleep within temples, seeking God, our only solace, over and over again.

The pregnant mothers would curse their luck, the fact that they’d have to bring a child into a world like this, although many were spared that harrowing ordeal, and the children would wail so often we could fall asleep despite the noise. Somewhere around this point, we developed a deep hatred for the white people. Not just the whites who’d hurt us, for all of them. We hungered for revenge, but there isn’t much a starving man can do. 

Some of them liked to come see us with their families, as though we were some spectacle to behold. These are the native Indian plants, dear child, and those fellows over there are the browns we’ve beaten into submission. Wave hello!

All the memories of those days seem to muddle up now, save for one. A child, barely four years in age, black-haired and fair like the rest of them. She was so plump it instantly made us jealous. Imagine having enough food to look like that. 

 There was no adoration, no fondness in the way we looked at white children, just pure, unadulterated rage and jealousy. We wish we were you. Do you know what your mum and dad are doing? How can you smile at us? Children are supposed to be pure, is this purity? Mocking us as we slave on?

She, infuriatingly, grinned, waving as though she was excited. A child wailed out loud from amongst us, and she frowned, trying to get a look, before her parents ushered her away. We’d thought that was the end of the incident, far too focused on ourselves to think of the girl again. The thought hadn’t even crossed our minds until she came back the next day. And the next, and the day after, and every day for ten years. 

Her name, she said, was Marianne. I told her it was an absolutely revolting name. She said thank you. She asked for my name, and I promptly refused to tell her, to which she frowned. It might’ve been cruel, acting that way to a child who spoke broken Hindi, who had no fault in this whole ordeal, who really didn’t deserve our hatred, but anger was running high among us. We had no fault, either, after all. Their children dined on sticky tarts and honey-covered fruit all day whereas ours simply starved. 

She looked at us sadly, and we glared back, sullen. She asked if we were hungry after a long pause, and I replied, words laced with honeyed venom, yes, because your sweet papa is starving us. We expected outrage, maybe a little crying, offended refusal and a threat to never come back, maybe a hit or two for me, and me alone, for running my mouth after she complained. Instead, she nodded sagely, as though the suggestion wasn’t ridiculous to her. It angered us even more. 

I felt a little pity for us. Such hatred and contempt for a child. It was pathetic, honestly, but we’d lost all dignity at that point, treated no better than street dogs. Perhaps we were owed a little anger, we justified our irrational hatred for the child in various ways, although we knew it wasn’t right.

The next day she came to us with European bread. Our bread was light, airy and thin, but theirs was thick and chewy, but it was food, either way, and she’d gotten it for us.

 A whole loaf, dry and burnt, perhaps, but it was more food than we’d seen collectively in a year or so. We didn’t touch it at first, let it lie there, waited until a fly or two had settled on it and made sure they hadn’t died before we attacked it, shovelling fistfuls into our mouths. 

And then we were crying, hot salty tears mixed with the bread, relief at finally having food. And then we cried again, because the bread had been enough for us, which was sad, because a loaf was not supposed to feed a village. We’d rather have gone hungry than be full, feeding on the food the others couldn’t, and we wept because our village had once had a population of over a hundred, and now only fifty or so were left. When we would leave the cold confines of that town, when we’d see what had happened to our country, we’d see that there were millions like us, starved to death. 

She came back again, and we were careful not to startle her, barely keeping ourselves alive as we sat on our cold floors in our crumbling huts. They once used to be comfortable.

The girl smiled at us, like she did every time, and asked if the bread was enough. We said that we might need more, some of us had gone hungry. A blatant lie. She gave us a loaf anyway, and said that she’d try bringing carrots and ‘long green’ (which we later discovered meant cucumbers) tomorrow. 

She’d gone from a bane, a mockery of our very existence and all that we could not have, to an angel in the matter of a few minutes. She came every day, and apologized over and over again when she couldn’t, for she had to go to the doctor’s for some minute injury, which we later found out was a terminal illness. A pang of sympathy had spread across our group collectively, because a child, black or white or brown, did not deserve to go through that. Nobody deserved to go through that. Her parents thought she just liked observing us, occasionally feeding us food as though we were pets to be toyed with, and as long as it amused her and held off any outbursts she might have, they were content, keeping us alive, but just barely.

She asked me my name again, three months of bread and vegetables later, along with the occasional tantrums she’d throw when her parents threatened to flog us. I hesitated. My name was sacred, pure, the only scrap of identity I had left, and something this white child could easily corrupt. I didn’t like the way it sounded on their lips, twisted and wrong. 

I muttered it so quietly she could barely hear me, and when she could, she was barely able to pronounce it, her English tongue struggling with the vowels, tripping over the consonants and the prominent ‘r’s of our names. It didn’t sound ugly, though, it sounded sweet, her efforts at trying to get it right when so many had dismissed it. 

I assured myself that this was not trust, that we were merely pitying her because she was ill. We could not fraternize with the enemy, and this child was just our ticket to survival, nothing more. But is it pity to cry yourself to sleep when the child is hit for helping you? Is it pity to call out for her in poorly disguised concern when she trips? We only wanted to make sure you didn’t spill the vegetables, Mari. 

She’d reply unbelievingly, Sure, I’m just the vegetable girl, right? To which we’d agree eagerly, used to this harmless, playful banter, Why else would we tolerate you? You are nothing to us without the vegetables.

We are but skin and bones when she hands us rifles, snuck out of a stash that was meant to be transported that night. They’re heavy, but she tells us we have no choice, that the revolution is afoot, and that we must run. Where there were a hundred, now only twenty or so are left. There are no children among us, our families have been broken time and time again, but this child doesn’t know that. Despite it all, we are not fighters, we are weavers. We don’t know how to hold them, but I wrap my sari securely around myself, and clench the weapon close to my heart anyway.  

Asking her why she’s doing so would be idiocy, and we all know better than to trigger an accidental tantrum. She’s a child, she’s dying, and she’s doing whatever she wants before she does. We thank her profusely, she looks at us with tears in her eyes. 

“I’m leaving tomorrow,” she says plainly, British accent heavy, as though this explains what’s practically treason. Surely, she couldn’t have been so upset at the thought of leaving that she singlehandedly armed a small revolutionary group?

“For how long?” We ask her, hoping she’s back soon. It’s been ages since we’ve stopped fooling ourselves, she’s a child, and we care for her, and irrational hatred, especially one in pretence, for a child so pure is ridiculous. We like her for more than the food now.  

She starts crying then, broken sobs, a gasping mess of snot and tears and we stare at her in shock. The others snap back to action around me, gently guiding her closer to us by the arm, a gentle hand on her back, dabbing at her eyes with a cloth. I stay frozen in place, even when she looks at me (why me?) expectantly. I do not know how to comfort crying white children. 

I awkwardly lend her a hand, and stroke back the hair that’s fallen on her face as I stroke her head in, what I hope, is a reassuring manner. She finally chokes out an answer, “Forever,”

I don’t think I’ve ever seen pure dread go through so many faces so quickly before. There would always be a hint of fear, dread laced with hatred, malice, or rage. Now, we’re just staring at her, suddenly cold despite the unnaturally warm, humid air, heart in our throats and concern in our eyes. 

“It’s getting bad,” she continues, and we know this is all she’ll tell us, because she despises speaking of her illness, “I won’t be here tomorrow, they’re taking me to England, Camelford, small town, funny name,” 

The next few hours go by in a blur. I know I’m there, physically, but the memories are so muddled up, and when we hear the news of India’s independence the next night (maybe that was why Marianne and her family left so abruptly, they knew what was going to happen, the illness was a front? It doesn’t matter), our freedom crystal-clear, shining in the warmth of the night, dirt cleaned by tears and happiness celebrated by trembling hugs and shocked, surreal whispers of ‘it’s over?’ 

My thumbs are broken, bent at odd angles, and I cannot weave without putting myself in excruciating pain. What took me a few hours at most takes me weeks, and although it’s been months since they’ve healed, they haven’t healed correctly. I weave one last shawl before retiring my loom to a shadowed storage room. It’s my finest work yet, made over the course of a month, air-spun cotton, as light as shadows, and golden threading, woven light into the white of the elegant cloth. It’s so unbearably soft, so painfully perfect, I hesitate to part with it for a brief, selfish, moment. And then I gently fold it and pack it in a box, and pay the ridiculously high fee to a friend travelling abroad, making him promise me, tears in my eyes, hands trembling, that the box will reach its owner safely. 

I write the note in Hindi, considering using English, but the words sound so stiff and wrong I give up, sparing only a few words given that I’ve never been eloquent, anyway. The note is signed off with a flourish as I chew on plain, slightly burnt, English bread.

Sweet Marianne, 
 Thank you, and not just for the food. Thank you for proving that all good is not lost.
We always loved you, with or without the vegetables.
 -the weavers

Aradhya Saxena is an Indian writer whose main pass-time is writing on controversial social issues, along with the occasional descriptive prose.