The Henna Artist Read online

  Escaping from an arranged and abusive marriage, seventeen-year-old Lakshmi makes her way alone from her 1950s rural village to the vibrant pink city of Jaipur. There she becomes the henna artist—and confidante—most in demand to the wealthy women of the upper class. But trusted with the secrets of the wealthy, she can never reveal her own...

  Known for her original designs and sage advice, Lakshmi must tread carefully to avoid the jealous gossips who could ruin her reputation and her livelihood. As she pursues her dream of an independent life, she is startled one day when she is confronted by her husband, who has tracked her down these many years later with a high-spirited young girl in tow—a sister Lakshmi never knew she had. Suddenly the caution that she has carefully cultivated as protection is threatened. Still she perseveres, applying her talents and lifting up those that surround her as she does.

  Vivid and compelling in its portrait of one woman’s struggle for fulfillment in a society pivoting between the traditional and the modern, The Henna Artist opens a door into a world that is at once lush and fascinating, stark and cruel.

  Praise for

  The Henna Artist

  “Romantic, old-time Rajasthan leaps to life in skilled hands... I can hardly wait for Alka Joshi’s next masterpiece.”

  —Sujata Massey, internationally bestselling author of The Widows of Malabar Hill

  “Alka Joshi’s superb first novel is unforgettable... Read this book slowly and savor it: Every page is rich with intricate pleasures for the mind and the heart.”

  —Anita Amirrezvani, author of The Blood of Flowers and Equal of the Sun

  “Like a brilliant, magical kaleidoscope, bursting with color... Kept me riveted from start to finish.”

  —Lauren Belfer, New York Times bestselling author of And After the Fire

  “A world so vivid, so filled with light and sound, so rich with the intoxicating scents and sights of India, you want to live in its pages.”

  —Janis Cooke Newman, author of A Master Plan for Rescue

  “A delicious, old-fashioned tale about timeless heartaches.... I’m in awe of her storytelling!”

  —Laura McNeal, author of The Practice House

  “There is so much to love here—the characters, the evocative settings, the hard-charging plot. I loved being led through India by someone who knows the way by heart.”

  —Tom McNeal, author of To Be Sung Underwater

  “A lush, gorgeous journey that any reader will be sorry to see end.”

  —Erin McGraw, author of The Good Life

  “A bold, ambitious, beautifully written novel.”

  —Tom Barbash, author of Stay Up With Me

  Alka Joshi is a graduate of Stanford University and received her MFA from the California College of the Arts. She has worked as an advertising copywriter, a marketing consultant and an illustrator. Alka was born in India, in the state of Rajasthan. Her family came to the United States when she was nine, and she now lives on California’s Monterey Peninsula with her husband and two misbehaving pups. The Henna Artist is her first novel.

  TheHennaArtist.com

  The Henna Artist

  Alka Joshi

  For my mother, Sudha Latika Joshi, who championed my independence

  For my father, Ramesh Chandra Joshi, who sang me the sweetest lullaby

  Contents

  EPIGRAPH

  CHARACTERS WHO APPEAR

  PROLOGUE

  PART ONE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  PART TWO

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  PART THREE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PART FOUR

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  EPILOGUE

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  GLOSSARY OF TERMS

  THE STORY OF HENNA

  RADHA’S RECIPE FOR HENNA PASTE

  THE CASTE SYSTEM IN INDIA

  MALIK’S RECIPE FOR BATTI BALLS

  THE PALACE RECIPE FOR ROYAL RABRI

  The traveler has to knock

  at every alien door to come to his own,

  and one has to wander through all the outer worlds

  to reach the innermost shrine at the end.

  —From the poem Journey Home by Rabindranath Tagore

  When the Goddess of Wealth comes to give you her blessing,

  you shouldn’t leave the room to wash your face.

  —Hindu Proverb

  CHARACTERS WHO APPEAR

  Lakshmi Shastri: 30-year-old henna artist, living in the city of Jaipur

  Radha: Lakshmi’s 13-year-old sister, born after Lakshmi left her village

  Malik: Lakshmi’s servant boy, 7 or 8 years old (he does not know which), lives in the crowded inner city with his Muslim auntie and cousins

  Parvati Singh: 35-year-old society matron, wife of Samir Singh, mother of Ravi and Govind Singh, distant cousin of the Jaipur royal family

  Samir Singh: renowned architect from a high-caste Rajput family, husband of Parvati Singh and father of Ravi and Govind Singh

  Ravi Singh: 17-year-old son of Parvati and Samir Singh, in boarding school at Mayo College (a few hours from Jaipur)

  Lala: long-serving spinster servant in the Singh household

  Sheela Sharma: 15-year-old daughter of Mr. and Mrs. V. M. Sharma, a wealthy Brahmin couple of humble origins

  Mr. V. M. Sharma: official building contractor of the Jaipur royal family, husband of Mrs. Sharma, father of four, including his youngest daughter Sheela Sharma

  Jay Kumar: bachelor school chum of Samir Singh from

  Oxford days, practicing physician in Shimla (at the foothills of the Himalayas, an 11-hour drive from Jaipur)

  Mrs. Iyengar: Lakshmi’s landlady in Jaipur

  Mr. Pandey: Lakshmi’s neighbor and another tenant of Mrs. Iyengar, Sheela Sharma’s music tutor

  Hari Shastri: Lakshmi’s estranged husband

  Saas: means “mother-in-law” in Hindi; when Lakshmi refers to her saas, she is referring to Hari’s mother, and when addressing a mother-in-law directly, a woman would call her by the respectful “Saasuji”

  Mrs. Joyce Harris: young Englishwoman, wife of a British army officer who is part of the transition team in Jaipur for the handover of the British Raj

  Mrs. Jeremy Harris: Joyce Harris’s mother-in-law

  Pitaji: means “father” in Hindi

  Maa: means “mother” in Hindi

  Munchi: old man from Lakshmi’s village who taught her how to draw and taught Radha how to mix paints

  Kanta Agarwal: 26-year-old wife of Manu Agarwal, educated in England, originally from a literary Calcutta family

  Manu Agarwal: Director of Facilities for the Jaipur royal family, husband of Kanta, educated in England, related to the Sharma family

  Baju: an old family servant of Kanta and Manu Agarwal

  Maharaja of Jaipur: a figurehead post-independence, the highest ranking royal in the city, wealthy in land and money, possessing multiple palaces in Jaipur

&nb
sp; Naraya: the builder of Lakshmi’s new house in Jaipur

  Maharani Indira: the maharaja’s stepmother, married to the late Maharaja of Jaipur, childless, also referred to as the dowager queen

  Maharani Latika: the current maharaja’s wife, 31 years old, educated in Switzerland

  Madho Singh: Maharani Indira’s parakeet

  Geeta: widow, Samir Singh’s current mistress

  Mrs. Patel: one of Lakshmi’s loyal henna clients, proprietress of a hotel

  A glossary of Hindi, French & English terms is listed in the back.

  PROLOGUE

  Ajar, State of Uttar Pradesh, India

  September 1955

  Her feet step lightly on the hard earth, calloused soles insensible to the tiny pebbles and caked mud along the riverbank. On her head she balances a mutki, the same earthenware jug she uses to carry water from the well every day. Today, instead of water, the girl is carrying everything she owns: a second petticoat and blouse, her mother’s wedding sari, The Tales of Krishna her father used to read to her—the pages fabric-soft from years of handling—and the letter that arrived from Jaipur earlier this morning.

  When she hears the voices of the village women in the distance, the girl hesitates. The gossip-eaters are chatting, telling stories, laughing, as they wash saris, vests, petticoats and dhotis. But when they spot her, she knows they will stop to stare or spit at the ground, imploring God to protect them from the Bad Luck Girl. She reminds herself of the letter, safe inside the mutki, and thinks, Let them. It will be the last time.

  Yesterday, the women were haranguing the headman: Why is the Bad Luck Girl still living in the schoolteacher’s hut when we need it for the new schoolmaster? Afraid to make a sound for fear they would come inside and pull her out by her hair, the girl had remained perfectly still within the four mud walls. There was no one to protect her now. Last week, her mother’s body had been burned along with the bones of other dead animals, the funeral pyre of the poor. Her father, the former schoolteacher, had abandoned them six months ago, and shortly after, he drowned in a shallow pool of water along the riverbank, so drunk he likely hadn’t felt the sting of death.

  Every day for the past week, the girl had lain in wait on the outskirts of the village for the postman, who cycled in sporadically from the neighboring village. This morning, as soon as she spotted him, she darted out from her hiding place, startling him, and asked if there were any letters for her family. He had frowned and bit his cheek, his rheumy eyes considering her through his thick glasses. She could tell he felt sorry for her, but he was also peeved—she was asking for something only the headman should receive. But she held his gaze without blinking. When he finally handed over the thick onionskin envelope addressed to her parents, he did so hastily, avoiding her eyes and pedaling away as quickly as he could.

  Now, standing tall, her shoulders back, she strolls past the women at the riverbank. They glare at her. She can feel her heart flutter wildly in her breast, but she passes, straight as sugarcane, mutki on her head, as if she is going to the farmers well, two miles farther from the village, the only well she is allowed to use.

  The gossip-eaters no longer whisper but shout to one another: There goes the Bad Luck Girl! The year she was born, locusts ate the wheat! Her older sister deserted her husband, never to be seen again! Shameless! That same year her mother went blind! And her father turned to drink! Disgraceful! Even the girl’s coloring is suspect. Only Angreji-walli have blue eyes. Does she even belong to us? To this village?

  The girl has often wondered about this older sister they talk about. The one whose face she sees only as a shadow in her dreams, whose existence her parents have never acknowledged. The gossip-eaters say she left the village thirteen years ago. Why? Where did she go? How did she escape a place where the gossip-eaters watch your every move? Did she leave in the dead of night when the cows and goats were asleep? They say she stole money, but no one in the village has any money. How did she feed herself? Some say she dressed as a man so she wouldn’t be stopped on the road. Others say she ran off with a circus boy and was living as a nautch girl, dancing in the Pleasure District miles away in Agra.

  Three days ago, old man Munchi with the game leg—her only friend in the village—warned her that if she didn’t vacate her hut, the headman would insist she marry a widowed farmer or demand she leave the village.

  “There is nothing here for you now,” Munchi-ji had said. But how could she leave—a thirteen-year-old orphan girl with no family or money?

  Munchi-ji said, “Have courage, bheti.” He told her where to find her brother-in-law, the husband her older sister had abandoned all those years ago, in a nearby village. Perhaps he could help her find her sister.

  “Why can’t I stay with you?” she had asked.

  “It would not be proper,” the old man replied gently. He made his living painting images on the skeletons of peepal leaves. To console her, he’d given her a painting. Angry, she’d almost thrown it back at him until she saw that the image was of Lord Krishna, feeding a mango to his consort, Radha, her namesake. It was the most beautiful gift she had ever received.

  Radha slows as she approaches the village threshing ground. Four yoked bulls walk in circles around a large flat stone, grinding wheat. Prem, who cares for the bulls, is sitting with his back against the hut, asleep. Quietly, she hurries past him to the narrow path that leads to Ganesh-ji’s temple. The shrine has a slender opening and, inside, a statue of Lord Ganesh. Gifts are arranged around the Elephant God’s feet: a young coconut, marigolds, a small pot of ghee, slices of mango. A cone of sandalwood incense releases a languid curl of smoke.

  The girl lays Munchi-ji’s painting of Krishna in front of Ganesh-ji, the Remover of All Obstacles, and begs him to remove the curse of the Bad Luck Girl.

  By the time she reaches her brother-in-law’s village ten miles to the west, it is late afternoon and the sun has moved closer to the horizon. She is sweating through her cotton blouse. Her feet and ankles are dusty, her mouth dry.

  She is cautious, entering the village. She crouches in shrubs and hides behind trees. She knows an alone girl will not be treated kindly. She searches for a man who looks like the one Munchi-ji described.

  She sees him. There. Squatting under the banyan tree, facing her. Her brother-in-law.

  He has thick, oily, coal-black hair. A long, bumpy scar snakes from his bottom lip to his chin. He is not young but neither is he old. His bush-shirt is spotted with curry and his dhoti is stained with dust.

  Then she notices the woman squatting in the dirt in front of the man. She is supporting her elbow with one hand, her forearm dangling at an unnatural angle. Her head is completely covered with her pallu, and she is talking to the man in a quiet whisper. Radha watches, wondering if her brother-in-law has taken another wife.

  She picks up a small stone and throws it at him. She misses. The second time, she hits him in the thigh, but he merely flicks his hand, as if swatting away an insect. He is listening intently to the woman. Radha throws more pebbles, managing to hit him several times. At last, he lifts his head and looks around him.

  Radha steps into the clearing so he can see her.

  His eyes widen, as if he is looking at a ghost. He says, “Lakshmi?”

  PART ONE

  ONE

  Jaipur, State of Rajasthan, India

  November 15, 1955

  Independence changed everything. Independence changed nothing. Eight years after the British left, we now had free government schools, running water and paved roads. But Jaipur still felt the same to me as it had ten years ago, the first time I stepped foot on its dusty soil. On the way to our first appointment of the morning, Malik and I nearly collided with a man carrying cement bags on his head when a bicycle cut between us. The cyclist, hugging a six-foot ladder under his arm, caused a horse carriage to sideswipe a pig, who ran squealing into a
narrow alley. At one point, we stepped aside and waited for a raucous band of hijras to pass. The sari-clad, lipstick-wearing men were singing and dancing in front of a house to bless the birth of a baby boy. So accustomed were we to the odors of the city—cow dung, cooking fires, coconut hair oil, sandalwood incense and urine—that we barely noticed them.

  What independence had changed was our people. You could see it in the way they stood, chests puffed, as if they could finally allow themselves to breathe. You saw it in the way they walked—purposefully, pridefully—to their temples. The way they haggled—more boldly than before—with the vendors in the bazaar.

  Malik whistled for a tonga. He was a small boy, thin as a reed. His whistle, loud enough to be heard as far away as Bombay, always took me by surprise. He lifted our heavy tiffins into the horse carriage, and the tonga-walla begrudgingly took us the short five blocks to the Singh estate. The gateman watched as we stepped off the tonga.

  Before independence, most Jaipur families lived in cramped family compounds inside the old Pink City. But generations of Singhs had always lived on an expansive estate outside the city walls. They were from the ruling class—rajas and minor princes, commissioned army officers—long used to privilege before, during and even after British rule. The Singh estate was on a wide boulevard lined with peepal trees. Eight-foot-high walls spiked with glass shards protected the two-story mansion from view. A marble veranda, overhung with bougainvillea and jasmine vines, extended along the front and sides of each story, and cooled the house in summer, when Jaipur could get as hot as a tandoori oven.

  After the Singhs’ chowkidar had witnessed our arrival by tonga, we unloaded our cargo. Malik stayed behind to gossip with the gateman while I walked down the paved stone path flanked by a wide manicured lawn and up the stone steps to Parvati Singh’s veranda.

  On this November afternoon, the air was crisp but humid. Lala, Parvati Singh’s longest-serving help and nanny to her sons, greeted me at the door. She pulled her sari over her hair as a sign of respect.