The Forgotten Daughter

by Renita D'Silva

  We’ve come full circle, haven’t we, Ma? Back to where it all began. Back to it being just you and me.

  I look at you, lying unconscious, strapped to machines that breathe for you, and I struggle to discern the woman who conjures up in me a burden of emotions—guilt plaited with hurt and anger and, struggling under there somewhere, trying to swim out from beneath this avalanche, love.

  I want to reach across and shake you, want to say, ‘Wake up, Ma, wake up. I have news that will make you happy. Wake up so I can tell you, so I can see your tired face that folds itself into lines of worry relax in a smile.’ But you lie there, eyes closed, lost to the world, lost to me.

  I try telling you my news, Ma, but I cannot. Everything that has happened between us comes in the way: recriminations and regrets and deflated hopes, like the sagging bellies of middle-aged women. And guilt arrives, familiar as a childhood friend, one I’ve grown up with, casually slinging his heavy arm around me, weighing me down. And with the guilt comes a dark anger that makes me want to reach out and jolt you awake. How can you not be there for me now, when I need you the most?

  The anger engulfs me, it takes me over. It is hot, it is real and it is liberating. ‘My girl loves being angry. I don’t know how the feisty little thing came out of my belly,’ I overheard you say to a relative once and there was a hint of pride in your voice. True. The emotion that I evoke the most, that makes me feel the most alive, is anger. Remember the time I talked back to the teacher when she made the boys line up ahead of us? I refused to line up behind them and you had to be called in. ‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why can’t the girls line up first?’ It chafed me, the injustice that occurred casually on a daily basis, which was accepted without contest—a way of life. I ached to change it, I refused to accept it. I was always fighting for my rights. A feminist even before I understood the concept of feminism.

  Remember that time in Rao’s shop; I must have been what, nine? We waited and waited to be served, me hopping from one foot to another. I was barefoot, had ignored your admonishments to wear chappals and the sun-baked ground was beginning to cook the soles of my feet. I skipped to avoid laying my feet on the hot earth for more than a few seconds at a time, holding on to you, the vinegary smell of oil and raw rice and asafoetida assaulting my nostrils and making me sneeze, particles of flour swirling white in the sunlight dancing a tango with the fuchsia-tinged dust motes. At long last it was our turn, but just as Rao spun towards us, Lalu from down the road walked up, saying, ‘Give me a bushel of rice and a litre of oil,’ and Rao turned to serve him instead.

  I erupted. ‘Hey!’ I yelled. ‘We were here first.’

  Rao looked at me over the tops of his spectacles, the round, rimless frames and the shiny bald head crowning a wiry body making him look like how I imagined Gandhi to be. ‘Did you say something, girl?’ His voice was harsh, his eyes flinty.

  Your hand was covering my mouth, ‘Shush, Devi,’ but I pushed you away, stood up straight on both legs, even though the scorched earth seared the naked undersides of my feet, and stared right back. ‘I said,’ I enunciated clearly, ‘that we were here first and we have been waiting patiently for a very long time while you have been serving everyone else. Now it is our turn. He can’t just barge in and you cannot serve him.’ I pointed an angry finger right in Lalu’s face. It hovered somewhere in the region of his nose.

  Lalu perused me, his hands on his hips, a smile playing on his lips.

  You said, ‘Shush, Devi,’ once more, your face flushed with embarrassment. People milling around the market gossiping stopped what they were doing to look. Women hefting shopping baskets on their hips lowered them onto the sweltering ground, wiped their sweaty faces with their pallus and watched the show. Men nattering by the sugarcane stall, their mouths ringed with foamy froth, hitched up their lungis and inched closer.

  ‘This is my shop. I will serve whomever I want,’ Rao said.

  I mustered all the disdain I could and injected it into my voice, ‘I always thought you looked like Gandhi, Raoanna, but you are nothing like him. Nothing at all.’ My voice, so steady all this while, shook as I uttered the last sentence. ‘Come, Ma, let’s go.’

  You did not know what to say, where to look, your skin dark as blood rushed to your face. ‘We need the rice, Devi,’ you murmured, fiddling with the pallu of your sari, staring at the ground as if the pebbles scattered by your feet were of the greatest interest.

  One of the women came forward, ‘The child is right, you know. Shame on you,’ she spat at the ground in disgust. ‘I watched them wait there for the last fifteen minutes. Look, she is barefoot, her feet are blistering. Can’t you give them their groceries first?’

  ‘Yes,’ other women joined in, ‘go on.’

  ‘I can wait,’ said Lalu, smiling down at me as if he was doing us a great favour, Ma, ‘Serve them first.’

  I looked away from him, refusing to smile back, even though you nudged the small of my back to stop me being so rude.

  Afterwards, after the money and rice and oil exchanged hands, you thanking Lalu and Rao effusively, me deigning not to look at either of them, we walked back through the fields, me sucking on that frozen badam-milk-filled tube that I so adored, and you said, between puffs—those bags were heavy—‘You should have said thank you, Devi.’

  I snorted and ran off, to get away from you of course, but also to soak my burning legs in the stream up ahead, ‘You should be the one to thank me,’ I yelled. I turned back from a safe distance to look at you. You were smiling, that rare carefree grin that lit up your whole face, the grin I so loved.

  Did I ever tell you that, Ma? No, I don’t think so. But I am telling you now. I do. I love your smile. Smile for me, Ma, go on. Just the one.

  The doctors say you are not in a coma per se, just unconscious, but that if the unconsciousness continues—and they assure me that they will do all they can to ensure it won’t—it will morph into a coma. They say I should talk to you, that there is a possibility that you might hear me. But I sit, Ma, in the room that houses you: a slight figure lost in a vast bed under a scaffolding of discordant machines, in that room infused with the bitter medicine smell of fear and disease and death, and words fail me. I sit there in a silence punctuated by the delirious shouts, the pain-filled screams drifting in from other rooms, watching your chest rising and falling with each rasping, aided breath. I look at those hands that held me, that oiled and massaged my hair, that fed me, and words fail me. They fail me completely.

  How, Ma, how did it get like this, that you lie there unable to speak, and yet I cannot find the words to break the ice, to bridge the gulf that separates us?

  I have decided that I am going to write to you, write out all the emotion that is clogging up my throat, robbing my tongue of words, rendering me mute when I am with you. I write sitting in the house in the dark as the crickets chirp and dusk envelops me in a soothing curtain, as the mosquitoes bite and the candle flickers and wax stings my hand, Bobby beside me, a comforting warmth, twitching every so often in his sleep. I write so I will be able to read this to you tomorrow, when words betray me. I write so I will have something to say, so I can fill the thick, ailment-infused air between us with words, not regrets. I write hoping that it is not too late. I write hoping it will be enough.

  Remember you loved to ask me, ‘Devi, what are you thinking? What is going on in that pretty head of yours?’ And it would irritate me, this affectation of yours, this wanting to know every last thing about me so I had no privacy even in my thoughts. Your trying-to-please voice annoyed me; so did that face, tender, all mushy when you looked at me. ‘Nothing,’ I would say shortly and your face would fall and you would turn away, busy yourself with cooking, and that would rile me as well. There you were slogging after your ungrateful daughter who refused to grace your simple question with an honest answer—that’s what your slumped shoulders suggested didn’t they, Ma?

  So, now that you are not able to interrupt, now that your facial expressions g
ive nothing away, the many grooves that crisscross your face, that narrate their own story, ironed out in repose, now I can tell you. I will read them to you tomorrow, my thoughts, and you will not interject; you will not say, ‘That is not what happened—this is.’ You will not sigh in that maddening way you have, exasperating me, and I will not drop what I have written, a sheaf of paper, my words carpeting the dirty yellow tiles of your depressing hospital room, and leave in a huff.

  I have thought long and hard about everything that’s happened and I think I can now pinpoint just when it all started to change. Like a wave building, gentle at first, then gradually gathering force. For me, I think, it all started the day I went swimming…

  This is my version of events, Ma.

  I am drowning, gasping for breath, my sari bunched around my face, the weight of water pulling me down. As if from a distance, I hear a voice, ‘Kick, Devi, kick. Use your legs.’ I try, but the water is too strong and it pulls me down however hard I push against it. Strong arms around me, supporting me, hoisting me up. I break the surface and breathe in air in huge strangled gulps. He laughs. I catch a brief glimpse of my reflection in the water: Hair bunched in clumps around my face, having escaped the bun; my yellow sari now dirty brown and dripping water. I am trembling, unable to stop. ‘You will learn to swim yet,’ he says, diving in gracefully and swimming across, neatly splitting the emerald water in two, his honey-gold muscles rippling, sun-kissed droplets gleaming on coffee-coloured skin like foil on chocolate.

  I sprawl by the side of the lake in the shade of the banyan tree, heaving great big swigs of air, trying desperately to get my breath back, velvet moss soft as a quilted bedspread beneath me. I will the sun to dry my sari and watch Rohan, his strong hands parting the water effortlessly, his head bobbing up and down. The air smells green, of grass and budding life and of the lake, slimy and wet. Never again, I think, and especially not wearing a sari. It almost strangled me, and if not for Rohan’s arms pulling me up, where would I be now? And then what would you do, Ma?

  Thoughts of you bring with them waves of guilt at what I am doing. And the familiar anger, settling bitter in my throat, like that cod liver oil you make sure I drink every morning, your voice weighted with martyrdom, ‘Do you know how much this costs? Drink it up, it’s good for you.’ Like I am a baby still. Sometimes, I keep the cod liver oil in my mouth, despite the fishy taste making me nauseous, and then spit it outside amongst the hibiscus bushes, rushing to the bathroom and gargling furiously, rinsing my mouth after and chewing on a neem leaf to get rid of the fishy tang. As I spit, knowing you work so hard to get me the medicine, knowing how much it costs, knowing it is good for me, guilt stabs, searing like the first bite of raw chilli. And yet… there’s the part of me that has to do it: I breathe easier after, Ma, savouring the hint of neem, hugging close the secret of not having followed your will.

  You think I am with Sharda revising. I shouldn’t be here, in Dainagar, at the lake, learning to swim with a boy. This is going a step too far—even for me, the girl who consorts with boys.

  ‘No one will see you,’ Rohan had said earnestly that morning when he was persuading me to join him at the lake. ‘None of the people from your village come to Dainagar anyway. And in the afternoon, the lake and its vicinity are completely deserted.’

  And he is right. Not a soul has passed by on the path above the slope which leads down to the lake.

  If we are caught, my reputation, which is already substantially tarnished, will be well and truly ruined. ‘So what?’ I think, a thrilled shiver running up my spine.

  Ma, I don’t give two hoots about my reputation. But you do. Sometimes I think you care more about my reputation than you do about me. If word of this got out, you would be devastated. So I have taken care to hide under the banyan tree. No passer-by can see me here. You see, I am protecting you, Ma.

  On my first day at college, Rohan came up to me in the canteen at lunch and asked, ‘Is the seat next to you taken?’

  I took one look at this tall, handsome boy and fell head over heels in love. All your decrees—‘Don’t talk to boys; remember, for a girl, reputation is of paramount importance’—forgotten. Not that I had been planning to heed them anyway. I sidled up and he sat next to me, so close I could feel his warm, spiced breath on my face, spy the black hairs curling invitingly on his fair hands. We shared upma and chattambades and cardamom tea. Afterwards, he said, ‘So, care to be my friend, Ms Devi?’

  ‘Depends,’ I replied, wondering as I did so if I was ruining my chances with this man. Well, tough, I thought, at least I’ll get his measure sooner rather than later.

  He looked at me, eyebrows creased, lips curling upwards in an amused grin. ‘On what?’

  ‘On what you want from a friend. If you want demure, a “yes woman”, you can pass me by. I am not demure.’ I replied.

  He had thrown back his head and laughed. All the bodies in the canteen had swivelled our way. There goes my reputation.

  He had bent close, his breath tickling my ear. ‘Just so you know, demure bores me.’

  And from then on, we were inseparable.

  Lying there in the shade of the trees, I revel in the music of the water. The breeze drifting from the lake, smelling of promise, whispers endearments in my ears, tickling my wet skin.

  There is a loud splash and I watch as Rohan walks out of the water, his shorts clinging to his legs. My arm is slung across my eyes to shield them from the sun but from beneath it I can see everything. I know I look pretty lying there, among the moss and the reeds, under the canopy of banyan tree branches, in my yellow sari which clings to my curves as it dries.

  Rohan walks up to me saying, ‘Aren’t you going to try one more time then?’ I don’t reply, pretending to be asleep. I watch as he comes to a stop near my feet, as his gaze travels up my body, as it comes to rest on my breasts. I feel hot everywhere, a heat that has nothing to do with the sun that is beating down on my head, and I feel something warm and liquid stir deep inside. I want something I cannot name. I want.

  I watch his expression change, his eyes darken. He squats beside me and moves in close, so close that I can feel his warm breath smelling of lake on my face. ‘Devi?’ I don’t move, don’t respond. My heart thuds loud, hard. What is he going to do? He bends over, so his lips brush my cheek and the liquid feeling spreads everywhere from that secret part of me. I want to pull him down on top of me, want him to caress my body like my wet sari is doing. I stir, sigh.

  His hand is on my arm, the touch igniting something. He has touched me so many times before, but it has never felt like this. ‘Devi.’ His voice thick.

  I pull my arm away from my eyes and squint up at him, his face in shadow, wet hair haloed by sunlight, hoping my expression gives nothing away. ‘What?’ I ask faking a yawn.

  His hand travels down my arm, his fingertips barely touching sun-caressed skin, raising goosebumps. I want him to hold me close so I can feel his heart beating beneath mine. I want him to kiss me. This is wrong, one part, the sensible part of me, thinks while the other asks, impertinently, Why is it wrong? I sit up, abruptly, hoping that will chase the liquid feeling away. It lingers, pulsing, wanting, aching.

  ‘Devi,’ Rohan says again.

  My name on his lips, soft, a poem of longing.

  ‘Yes?’ My voice is shaking, I cannot think straight, talk straight. He looks up, directly at me then, and in his narrowed eyes, in the way his mouth is open just slightly, I recognise the desire I feel. And then he is moving closer, his face so close I can see the tiny mole under his left eye, I can feel his warm breath stroke my face.

  There is a harsh clang from somewhere behind us, vulgarly loud, shattering the heady quiet of the drowsy afternoon, and we jerk apart. Someone swears. A bullock cart trundles past on the road above, laden with stainless-steel pots and pans, the bullocks looking peaceful, their blue bodies smeared brown with dried mud, their horns curving gracefully, the bells that hang from their necks tinkling in tune to their
marching feet, the man screaming obscenities as he urges them to go faster.

  I pull my sari close and slink backward, folding into the trunk of the banyan tree. ‘We shouldn’t be here,’ I say, not looking at him.

  The bullock cart turns the corner and is gone. My heart thuds loudly in my chest. As if on cue, I hear your voice in my head: ‘Lucky escape. If you were caught, what would happen then? Devi, you are a girl, you have a reputation to uphold. Remember the boy always goes scot-free. Remember that.’ You win, I think bitterly, you always win. I cannot do anything I want without feeling guilty, without your voice echoing in my head.

  I look at Rohan’s bent head and have a sudden urge to stroke that profusion of hair that is always a bit too long, encroaching on his face, obscuring his twinkling eyes. I love him, I think. I love him. So then, why is what we are doing so wrong? ‘You are not married.’ Your voice again, from where it has taken permanent residence in my brain. Other people have a conscience. I have your voice. ‘And he is Catholic. Do you want to marry him? Perhaps. Will he marry you? He might want to. Will his parents let him? You can bet one lakh rupees they won’t. You are a Hindu, a Kshatriya at that—not even a Brahmin—plus, a poor girl. You know how proud Catholics are.’ News of my escapades always reaches you via the village gossip network, travelling faster than the hurricanes besieging the Arabian Sea. This was part of your latest lecture, part of your quest to dissuade me from ‘cavorting’, as you put it, with Rohan. I hadn’t realised how deeply your words, the very words I pooh-poohed, had embedded themselves in my psyche.