Every meal at my husband’s Rajasthan mansion had o...

Part One: The Haveli in Bikaner

I am Nisha Rathore, twenty-seven years old, from Jodhpur, MA in History, and till last year I thought I knew what a joint family meant.

My marriage to Aditya was fixed in that proper Rajput way — biodata, horoscope, one meeting at Kamat’s restaurant where he spoke mostly about his posting in the Railways and I spoke mostly about my dissertation on Marwar paintings. His family had a haveli in Bikaner’s old city, near Rampuria. Not a hotel haveli for tourists, but a real one, where three generations still lived, where the sandstone was still hot in the afternoon and cold in the morning, where there were jharokhas that nobody opened because pigeons had made homes inside.

When I came after wedding, the haveli welcomed me like it welcomes all new bahus — with too many rituals and too many eyes. My saas, Kamla Kanwar, is a woman who can run a house of eleven people without raising her voice. My sasur, Bhanwar Singh ji, retired from PWD, sits on a gaddi whole day and says, “Hukum karo.” Aditya’s chacha-chachi, their two sons, and the old bua who comes and goes.

The haveli is beautiful, no doubt. Red sandstone, with a big aangan in the centre, and a wooden staircase going up to the first floor which is always half dark, because the windows there are never opened. The ground floor is where everyone lives. The first floor, saas told me on first day itself, is closed. “Only store rooms and Bade Hukam’s kamra,” she said.

Bade Hukam. I heard that name four times on first day itself.

“Bade Hukam ko subah chai chahiye.”
“Bade Hukam ka khana upar de aana.”
“Bade Hukam ke kapde dhoop me mat dalna.”

I asked Aditya that night, “Who is Bade Hukam? Your grandfather?”

He was removing his watch. He said, “Eldest in the house. Dada’s elder brother. He stays upstairs only. He never comes down. You don’t need to meet him. Saas will tell you.”

In Rajput houses, there are many things you don’t need to meet.

Part Two: The Extra Thali

The kitchen in our haveli is not a kitchen, it is a small factory. Two cooks, one for daily and one for festivals, and saas supervising everything. We eat together on the floor in the badi rasoi — steel thalis, katori, bajra roti, ker sangri, dal, chaach.

From my second day, I noticed that every time food was served, there were six thalis for people sitting, and one extra thali set a little away, near the tulsi corner. Nobody sat there. But saas would serve in it with same care — one full roti with ghee, little bit of every sabzi, dal, chawal, even a small piece of gur. And while we ate, she would look at that thali and say, “Bade Hukam ka hai, thanda mat hone dena.”

At first I thought it was for some devta, like bhojan for ancestors. In Jodhpur also we keep a small portion for bhoot-pret. But here it was a full thali, like for a living person.

On third day, I asked chachi, “Is that for pitra ji?”

Chachi became quiet and said, “Nahi, Bade Hukam ke liye hai. He still lives on upper floor. He never comes down.”

“Why never comes down?”

“His vow,” she said quickly. “Since forty years.”

After lunch, saas called me. She gave me a big steel tray with that extra thali, plus water lota, plus a small katori of curd.

“Your duty from today, Nisha bahu,” she said. “Every lunch and dinner, you will carry tray up. Keep outside his door, knock twice, and come down. Never open that door. He does not like anyone seeing him. He will take inside himself.”

I said, “Ji, saas.”

I carried the tray up that first time. The wooden stairs creaked. The first floor was colder, even in Bikaner heat, because sun never comes there. There were three doors. Two were locked with big old locks, dust on them. The third, at the far end, had a small brass plate — “Bade Hukam” — and a curtain inside.

I knocked twice as told, kept tray on floor, and ran down. From downstairs, I heard no sound of door opening. But after ten minutes when I went up again to take empty tray — as saas told — the tray was empty, washed clean, kept neatly outside.

This continued for ten days. Morning chai, lunch thali, evening chai, dinner thali. Four times up, four times down. No face, no voice, only empty washed thali returned.

The family behaved as if it was most normal thing in world. Aditya said, “Saas has done this for twenty years. Before that, his wife used to do.”

“What happened to his wife?”

“Expired.”

No more answer.

On the eleventh day, during dinner, I was serving rotis. Saas was serving Bade Hukam’s thali. She put an extra spoon of ghee and said softly, almost to herself, “Aaj unki pasand ka gatte ka saag hai, khush honge.” As if someone was eating right there with us.

Every meal in my in-laws’ haveli had one extra thali set a little away from us near the tulsi corner. Nobody ever sat there, yet my saas kept serving in it with full attention as if someone was actually eating — hot roti with ghee, each sabzi, dal, even gur. When I asked, they said it was the place of “the eldest in the house,” Bade Hukam, who still lived on the upper floor and never came down, not even for festivals. And from that day my permanent duty was fixed — to carry the full tray up to his door, knock twice, and never, ever open that door.

Part Three: The Tray That Came Back Heavy

After that day, I could not stop thinking about that door. A person who lives on upper floor for forty years and never comes down — what does he do whole day? Does he not get sick? Does he not want sun?

One afternoon, when everyone was sleeping — Bikaner afternoons are for sleeping — I went up without a tray. I stood before that door. I heard something. Not coughing of old man. I heard bangles. Very faint, like steel bangles hitting each other. And a chair moving.

I knocked. No answer.

I ran down. My heart was beating like dhol.

That night, when I carried dinner tray up, I deliberately kept it a little tilted, so that dal would spill a little on the floor if someone picked it up carelessly. I wanted to see footprints.

When I went to collect after fifteen minutes, the thali was empty and washed, as usual. But on the floor, where dal had spilled, there was no footprint of a man’s big shoe. There was a small wet mark, like a small bare foot, and next to it, a small white flower — a mogra — fresh.

Mogra does not grow in our haveli. But my saas wears mogra in her juda every evening.

I kept the mogra in my pallu and went down. Saas was in kitchen, making tomorrow’s list. I saw her juda. No mogra today.

Next morning, I woke up early, at five, before anyone. I went up again. The door was slightly open this time — maybe one inch. Inside, I saw a corner of a room that was not a store room at all. It was a clean room, with a cot, with a small mirror with lights like heroines have, with many books — English novels — and on the wall, a big photo of a young woman in graduation dress.

I could not see more because I heard saas’s voice from downstairs, “Nisha bahu, chai!”

I ran.

That day, at lunch, I asked Aditya very directly, “Bade Hukam is a woman?”

He choked on water. He said, “What nonsense? Who told you?”

“I heard bangles.”

He said, “You are imagining because you read too many novels. Don’t go upstairs except for tray. That is house rule.”

But his face was red.

After lunch, saas came to my room. She closed door. She did not scold. She sat beside me and held my hand. Her hand was cold.

She said, “You opened the door, no?”

I said, “No, saas, only one inch open, I did not—”

She said, “It is okay. Forty years I have been carrying tray. Now you are carrying. So you should know.”

And then she told me the second twist, which broke every story I had made in my head.

Part Four: Bade Hukam

Bade Hukam was not Aditya’s great-uncle. Bade Hukam was his bua.

Her real name was Uma Kanwar. Born in 1972. Eldest child of my sasur’s elder brother, who died in 1980. She was very bright — first girl in family to go to college in Bikaner, wanted to become lecturer. In 1990, when she was eighteen, the family fixed her marriage to a family in Jodhpur. She said no. She had fallen in love with a Muslim boy who taught her English — Iqbal.

In Bikaner in 1990, that was not just a no, that was a war.

The family did not beat her, because Rajputs don’t beat eldest daughters in that way. They did something worse. They declared her dead for outside world. They performed a symbolic “shradh” in the village. And they locked her in the upper floor of haveli. “For her safety,” sasur’s brother said. “Otherwise villagers will kill her and us.”

Iqbal was sent away, threatened. Uma was told if she ever comes down, they will kill him.

For first five years, her mother — my saas’s jethani — used to carry food up. When she died of cancer in 1995, my saas took over. My saas, who was new bahu then, only twenty-five herself, was told, “This is your duty now. You will keep a thali for eldest in house downstairs also, so that family remembers that someone lives upstairs, but no outsider will know who.”

So for thirty years, Uma Kanwar lived upstairs. She never came down. She had books, she had radio, later a small TV, but no phone, no outside contact. The family told everyone outside that eldest daughter died in 1990. Only people inside haveli knew — and even the younger children were told it is “Bade Hukam, old man who does tapasya.”

Saas said, “She is not old, bahu. She is fifty-three now. Same age as me. But we call her Bade Hukam because if we call her Uma, someone outside may ask questions.”

I asked, “Why extra thali downstairs? Why not just give upstairs?”

Saas smiled, and her eyes became wet for first time since I came.

“Because if we don’t keep a place for her downstairs, we will forget she is one of us. Downstairs thali is not for her to eat. It is for us to remember. I serve it with love so that my hand remembers to serve upstairs also with love. If I serve only upstairs like giving food to prisoner, then I will become jailer. If I serve downstairs as if she is eating with us, then I remain sister.”

I could not speak.

Saas said, “Now you know. So what will you do? Will you tell Aditya’s friends? Will you go to police? If you do, our family name will be finished, and Uma will have nowhere. She has no Aadhaar, no paper. Officially she is dead.”

I went up that evening without tray. I knocked properly this time.

A voice — not old man’s voice — said, “Come inside.”

Inside, the room was clean. And on the cot sat a woman, not old, hair tied, wearing a simple cotton saree, not Rajasthani poshak, but like a college lecturer’s saree. No bindi, but eyes with kajal. She looked like someone who has waited for forty years for someone to open door properly.

She said, “You are Nisha? Kamla told me you saw mogra. I put it there. I wanted to see if new bahu will notice.”

I asked, “Why did you not run away?”

She said, “Where? First ten years I tried. I shouted from window, but this window faces inside aangan, no outside wall. I wrote letters, but saas’s jethani burnt them. After that, I got tired. Then Kamla came. She gave me books. She told me, you live here, but live as you want inside this room. So I started reading. I have read four thousand books in this room, Nisha. I know more history than your MA syllabus.”

She showed me her notebooks — she had written translations of Manto, of Ismat Chughtai, in Hindi and Marwari.

Then she said, “I have one more secret. Kamla is not just my bhabhi. She was my only friend. She could not save me fully, but she saved me like this — by keeping a thali for me downstairs. Do you know how big that is? In a house where a woman is declared dead, someone still keeps a thali for her every day for thirty years.”

That night, I did not carry tray up and keep outside. I took Uma didi downstairs for dinner.

Part Five: The Thali That Was Finally Occupied

You can imagine what happened when I held Uma didi’s hand and brought her down the wooden stairs.

Chachi screamed. Sasur stood up from gaddi. Aditya’s face became white.

Saas did not scream. She stood near that extra thali, and she started crying loudly, for first time in thirty years.

Uma didi was scared also. She had not come down for thirty-four years. She had not seen the aangan from this angle. She touched the tulsi.

Sasur said, “What is this, Nisha bahu? Who told you to open that door? This is against house rule!”

I said, “There is no Bade Hukam, Baba. There is Badi Bua. And her thali is getting cold every day.”

For ten minutes, there was shouting. Then bua — Uma didi — spoke. She spoke in that pure Marwari mixed Hindi that old Bikaner people speak.

She said, “Baba, I am fifty-three. I was eighteen when you locked me. Now I am not eighteen. Iqbal is married in Hyderabad, I know. I don’t want to go anywhere. I just want to eat one time downstairs, where my thali is kept every day. Just one time. If you don’t want, I will go back up. But let me sit once where you keep my thali.”

No one could say no after that.

That night, we ate with seven thalis, not six plus one empty. For first time, the extra thali was occupied. Uma didi sat where her thali was always kept, near tulsi. She ate slowly, because she had not eaten with people for long.

Aditya, after dinner, came to me and said, “You broke house rule.”

I said, “House rule broke a woman for thirty-four years.”

He did not speak for two days. Then on third day, he brought a new Aadhaar form. He said, “Baba said we will make paper again. We will say she was in Haridwar ashram for tapasya, now returned. That is story for outside people.”

Last month, we celebrated Uma didi’s fifty-fourth birthday. Not upstairs, but downstairs. We made seven cakes, same size, because saas said if we make one big and six small, fight will happen. Uma didi cut cake with saas’s hand.

Now my duty has changed. Saas still keeps extra thali, but not empty. It is for Uma didi. And my new duty is to teach Uma didi how to use smartphone, so she can order books herself. She is teaching me how to translate Manto.

People in lane still think Bade Hukam lives upstairs and does tapasya. We have not told them. Some stories need time to come downstairs.

Yesterday, saas told me, “Nisha bahu, now you are eldest bahu in real sense. Because you brought eldest down.”

I told her, “No, saas, eldest was always here. Only her thali was empty. Now it is full.”

And every night, when I keep thalis for dinner, I still keep one extra, a little away, near tulsi. Old habit. But now I know why — in this haveli, we keep a thali for those who are not allowed to sit with us, so that one day, they will.