The Fourth Day

The Fourth Day

By the time Shubha reached the agraharam, her grandmother’s house was crowded with relatives. Voices rose and fell, and the courtyard smelled of rain, jasmine and incense.

Paati lay upstairs beneath a white sheet, framed by brass lamps and marigolds. Then Shubha felt the familiar ache in her lower stomach.

By evening, she knew. She had got her period.

Her aunt Kamala took one look at her face and understood. Within minutes, invisible lines appeared around Shubha. Her mother gave her a bedsheet and quietly told her to sleep in the back room for three days.

“Four,” an elderly aunt corrected.

A separate steel tumbler appeared near the sink. Her plate was placed apart at dinner. She was told not to enter the kitchen, touch the pickle jars, water the tulsi plant or enter the puja room.

Shubha had known these rules as a child. Back then, being sent away during her period had almost seemed exciting. Now it felt like humiliation.

The next morning, while looking for safety pins, she found a bundle of old cotton cloths. The rust-coloured stains had survived years of washing.

“Your grandmother used to wash them herself before sunrise,” Kamala said.

Shubha stared at the bundle. She imagined Paati young, hiding bloodstained cloth.

That night, in the backyard, Shubha asked her mother about it.

“When I first came here, your grandmother made me sit separately too,” her mother said.

“You never told me.”

“There are many things women don’t tell their daughters.”

“Then why did you continue it with me?”

Her mother was silent.

“Because that was how things were done.”

“That’s not an answer.”

Her mother looked at her. “When I got my first period, they made me sit alone for nine days. Your grandmother argued with them and reduced the rituals.”

Shubha was startled. Paati had always seemed part of the system.

“Then why keep doing this?”

Her mother gave a tired smile. “Maybe because nobody teaches women how to stop.”

On the third day, most relatives left. Shubha went upstairs to Paati’s room and found a small household notebook. Between grocery lists and temple expenses were dates marked in red.

Stayed downstairs.

Heavy pain today.

Could not enter puja.

Fainted during cooking.

At the back was one final sentence, written in shakier handwriting: "Who decided women become unclean for bleeding?"

That evening the family left for the temple. Shubha remained behind. The house was suddenly quiet. She stood outside the puja room. As a child, she had feared entering it during her period. She had imagined the gods would punish her.

Now she stepped inside.

Nothing happened.

She lit a wick in the brass lamp.

Outside, temple bells rang across the agraharam.

The flame rose steadily beside the others.

When the family returned, nobody noticed.

Shubha sat in the hall, drinking coffee from the separate tumbler.

Tomorrow, perhaps, they would wash it and put it back near the sink for the next woman.

Or perhaps they would forget.