‘The phone lines must be down. It’s the monsoon season, Devi.’ I hug his assurance close, holding it like a gift. That must be it. That must be why you are not answering the phone. Please, Lord Ganapathy, let her be okay, I pray, as Rohan gathers me in his arms, as he leads me to the bedroom, as he kisses my worry away.
Afterwards, just as sleep is laying its fluttery dreamy claim on me, Rohan says, ‘If she still doesn’t pick up tomorrow, I will ask my parents to check on her.’
I turn and hold him close, and he smiles, his eyes closed, already half asleep.
The next day, I try once again as soon as I wake up. No answer. I come home at lunchtime and dial your familiar number with trembling fingers.
It is one in the afternoon and already shadows are slanting in through the window, dancing on the walls, staining the weak not quite white light the bleak grey of ache and longing.
Please, Ma, I whisper into the sullen quiet of the room, please pick up.
I calculate the time difference in my head. It is twilight in India, that hour just before dusk when you will light the kindling that you have picked during the day and heat the water in the urn. The smell of wood smoke will fragrance the evening breeze, wisps of blue fading into the musky rose sky. The sun will be setting just as you hobble out of the bathroom, and you will pause for a moment on the veranda to admire the giant golden orb, now a mellow brown suspended in a pink-tinged chocolate sky, while Bobby bounds up to you and licks your palms. After, you will sit down to dinner, alone, wishing I was there with you: fat red rice, sardines steeped in a tomato, onion and chilli sauce, mango pickle, thick curd spiced with chilli and ginger, egg curry: the eggs broken into the curry while it is bubbling, gooey white tentacles with yellow eyes laying claim to the thick brown sauce. The phone will ring and you will answer, your smile colouring your voice as you will say, ‘Devi, you called just as I was sitting to eat, and I’ve made all your favourites. You know what they say: the people who call while you are eating are the ones who love you the most.’
The phone rings and rings at the other end. No answer. Ma, what has happened? Where are you? Is the phone line bad? I hang up, try Jalajakka’s number. No answer. What has happened? Tentacles of worry grab me in a stranglehold. I decide to ask Rohan this evening, as soon as he comes home, to phone his parents, check if they have called on you. A haunt of a familiar melody drifts from the flat opposite. The sizzle of chips hitting hot oil, the smell of dough rising.
Something makes me try again, one last time. I dial the familiar number. Wait. Five rings. Seven. And then, a beep. ‘Hello? Deeeviiiii? Your Ma is in hospital. Come home.’
Ma, today you did not move, you did not stir. After I’d finished reading to you, I took your unresponsive hand and placed it on my stomach. I wanted you to feel what I felt, the miracle of my baby calling from the womb. Your hand drooped, it faltered. I held it in place firmly, like you must have held mine once, while I was learning to walk, tottering on unsteady feet, giving me the support I needed. My baby pushed against our conjoined hands, said hello. You said nothing back at all, just lay there, placid, your hand flopping awkwardly.
Ma, I confess I had entertained the fantasy that once you heard my news you would wake up fully cured, joy brimming over in tumultuous waves of laughter, and exclaim, ‘But that’s what I was waiting for, Devi.’
A life grows within me and I watch another slip away from me, imperceptibly, day after day.
Ma, I ran away from you once, carelessly discarding the mantle of your love. Please do not do the same to me.
Yours,
Devi
Chapter 18
Shilpa
Idli and Dosa
Idli and Dosa:
Ingredients:
Urad dal—1 cup
Rice—2 cups
Salt to taste
Method:
Soak the dal and the rice separately in water for a minimum of three hours. Rinse, but do not throw away the water they were soaked in. Grind to a smooth paste, adding the water you saved if necessary. Add salt to taste. Leave in a warm place to ferment for at least twelve hours. The mixture will rise overnight, resembling frothy white foam. Mix well.
Grease a frying pan (I use half an onion dipped in oil for this) and place it on the hearth. When hot, ladle a spoonful on and spread the mixture outwards in concentric circles. This makes for crispy dosas.
For idlis, spoon the mixture into idli cups and steam until cooked.
Serve with coconut chutney and drumstick sambar.
* * *
Dear Diary,
I have paid the price. I have. And, oh, how it hurts, how it torments me, this choice that I have had to make. And yet, even though it was presented as a choice, it wasn’t one really. I always knew what I would do, even in the midst of it all, at the lowest point. It was a given. It was. But why, oh why did it have to be this way? Why did I have to choose at all? Why?
In my last entry, I said blithely that I would pay, that it wouldn’t matter. Then it was clear. It was black and white. I had no idea, no inkling.
It haunts me every single day, every waking moment. And it will for the rest of my life. The choice I made. It is my cross to bear.
The wise woman, whom most call mad, she did warn me: ‘You are stealing from fate. It will cost you dearly. Are you willing to pay the price?’ she asked, and I said ‘Yes,’ without hesitation. I cannot go back even if I want to. I cannot lose my baby. If I went back to that moment knowing what I know now, what would I say? The baby jumps in the warmth, the haven of my womb. There’s the answer. Yes. Yes. Yes. Despite the pain. The guilt. Yes.
After all that’s happened, the matrons and elders of the village, Jalaja, even Sumitranna, all ask me why, why do I believe in that madwoman so? Why do I take her words so much to heart? I touch my growing belly, which is now so big that it is difficult to do even the smallest thing, and tell them that this is proof. And that she is a wise woman, she is not mad. ‘You would have got pregnant anyway,’ they say. Even Jalaja doesn’t understand. I had hoped she would.
So… I take refuge in you as usual, dear Diary. At least I can still write.
This is what I want to say to them, what I’ve tried saying to them: Take, for example, the idli/dosa mix. It bubbles and froths and looks possessed, like an evil potion with a mind of its own. But it produces the finest idlis, the crispiest dosas. The wise woman, she is like that. She looks mad, and yet she divines the future, she is a saint in a madwoman’s guise. And she is just a conduit. She cannot change my fate. It was written in my stars long before her, before anyone, when the Lord Ganapathy decided to create me. I think her arrival in the village just before she predicted my pregnancy was not a coincidence. She was an answer to my prayers, sent by Lord Ganapathy to warn me and bless me. She is His messenger, that’s all. You don’t know what happened that day, any of you. You weren’t there.
Dear Diary, I think reading the future is like cooking: discordant ingredients are mixed together to form a murky mixture which gradually clears to become something absolutely, breathtakingly delicious. This must be how it is for the wise woman. She looks at me and she sees my past, my present, my future, all haphazardly jumbled together. She has to sort through it, see what’s coming and divine what it is that the Lord Ganapathy wants me to know.
I am sitting in the front room, my back bolstered by the wall, my bump supporting you, dear Diary. The baby prances about happily in my stomach, unaware. Every once in a while a sliver of the rain that is leading the trees in a wild dance and is inciting the mud to rebellion blows in on a gust of wind, tasting of sorrow, laden with memories, images I’d rather not see.
A hot airless afternoon. Everything still. Waiting. I am six months pregnant. Picking kindling for the hearth in Sumitranna’s orchard with Manoj. It looks like rain. Clouds collect in clumps, hanging low, dense and pregnant like my swollen belly. Threatening. The stray dogs and cows are slumped indolent amongst parched fields, tongues hanging out. Flies buzz, the air sh
immers, dust motes suspended in the lethargic haze. I pick as quickly as I can, which isn’t fast, my belly getting in the way. The baby somersaults within, oblivious. Manoj had suggested we go without a wash that day as it looked like rain, but hot tumultuous pails of water cascading down my head, over my engorged belly are a luxury I look forward to, so I persuaded the poor man, just back from a laborious day in the fields, to come with me. ‘With your help, we’ll finish before the rain comes,’ I pleaded.
A flash seeping the world of colour, drawing energy onto itself, heralding the arrival of rain. Manoj’s eyes meet mine, worry in them. He picks up the basket, gives me his arm. What foolhardiness possessed me to come out in this, I curse, as thunder announces the advent of the storm like drums before a Yakshagana performance. There is nobody else about. Sumitranna and Jalaja have taken their little boy to visit with grandparents. And then it is here, the rain. Heavy drops hitting my body with a fury the monsoons cannot contain.
We run as fast as we can towards the stream which leads to the hill beyond which is our house. I yearn to squat on my mat in the shelter of the veranda, watching the rain vent its rage, to fan my face and say, ‘Phew, that was scary.’ I want to stroke my bump and talk softly to my child as I have taken to doing lately. I want to be anywhere but here, my sari wet and hugging my body, the rain roiling the mud into slush, making it slippery so my legs sink in and I cannot find my footing, afraid I will fall despite Manoj’s arm holding me up, unable to take the next step.
Crash. A roaring in my ears, like the sea reverberating inside a conch shell. A flash. Groaning branches advancing. Brown hands with green fingers waving frantically. The world is black, heaving, upside down. When I come to, I realise, panic descending like an angry hand on an unsuspecting face, that I cannot move, cannot turn. I am horizontal, in the churning mud, the bitter smell of drenched earth and crushed mango leaves overwhelming me, trapped, a weight pinning my legs down. I turn, uncomprehending. Rain lashes my face, whipping my back and arms, claiming my body like an enraged, jealous lover. My husband’s eyes. The pain in them. The pain. He is still holding me, his hand in mine. The basket is overturned beside Manoj’s head. I look down, see a monster where my legs should be. A brown trunk thick as the pillar in that temple in Manil where I conceived barely six months ago this child I am carrying. The bitter smell of crushed mango leaves and smoke mixed with slush and fear. We are trapped underneath the ageing mango tree that lives beside the stream. It must have been struck by lightning and collapsed, tipped over, right onto us. I can hear the stream, normally placid, throbbing as the rain drums it to frenzy. I will not think about what could have happened if the tree had fallen not on my legs but a tad higher. This is not the time to imagine that horror.
I open my mouth to scream, but nothing comes out. Or perhaps it does and is drowned out by the angry boom of the rain. My baby. ‘Protect the precious cargo within,’ the wise woman’s words echo in my ear, suddenly loud. I will not lose my baby. I will not. My hand rushes defensively to my stomach. I stroke my baby and it doesn’t respond. My usually responsive baby who kicks and twirls like a dervish inside the womb is still. No. I need to go to the doctor. I need someone to check on my baby. Tell me it is fine.
My husband’s eyes are closing. ‘Manoj,’ I say, trying not to show the panic I feel in my voice. They flutter open. The tree has fallen on his stomach. If I had been on Manoj’s right instead of on his left… The thought doesn’t bear thinking about. As it is, my baby is not responding. And Manoj needs help. I push my legs, wriggle experimentally. The tree stays put, but there is some give in the mud beneath. ‘Stay with me,’ Manoj whispers. ‘Please.’
‘I will,’ I say, even as I push against the tree with all my might. I can move my legs, I can. Slowly, inch by inch, I wiggle out from under the tree. I should try and free Manoj, but I am afraid to try and pull the tree off. It is too big a task for me to attempt single-handed. And the mud is slippery. I might fall and then I will lose the baby. The baby. It is fine. I cannot bear to think otherwise.
I bend down, kiss my husband. ‘Try and wriggle out from under there, Manoj,’ I urge in his ear. His breath is coming in laboured gasps. ‘Can’t.’ he manages. ‘Hurts.’ His eyes are bruised, red. Bottomless pits of pain. I cannot look. ‘Please, Manoj.’ My face is wet and I do not know if it is the rain or my tears. I can taste the snot, briny, smacking of pain, that is looping around my lips, sneaking into my mouth.
I love this man, so very much. This man who has stood by me, miscarriage after miscarriage, not saying a word even though I knew how badly he wanted children, showing through the set of his face, the flashing of his eyes, his displeasure when people mocked me, called me barren. This man who has always been there for me: a rock-solid presence. When I met the wise woman, he humoured me, took me to the temple in Manil. He’s looked after me in his own way throughout this pregnancy and all those others, getting tender coconut water, the ripest guava, the juiciest mango. He came today to pick kindling at my behest, even though he was tired, having just got home from work, even though it looked like a storm brewing, even though all he wanted to do was to eat the food I had prepared and snooze on the veranda, wallow in a few moments of hard-earned peace.
This man who has loved me completely without ever asking for anything back. ‘Please try, Manoj.’ My voice is desperate.
‘Can’t,’ he gasps. Is it my imagination or are his breaths getting slower, more laboured?
I put my arms around his shoulders; try to pull him out from under the tree. He screams, a high-pitched keen. Oh, Lord Ganapathy. I stop, shuddering sobs escaping my open mouth, tasting of salt and snot and rain and fear. I squat beside him. ‘Manoj, please try and wriggle free. Please.’
‘Stay with me,’ Manoj whispers, his eyes hazy, distant, already somewhere else.
‘I can’t, Manoj,’ I sob. ‘I have to get to the doctor.’
‘Please,’ he begs, this man who has never asked me for anything. ‘Please.’
And then, I do it, my greatest sin, my biggest regret. I leave the man who has loved me, who has looked after me, who has accepted me for who I am, who has stood by me during my myriad miscarriages, who wouldn’t have been trapped under the mango tree in the first place if I hadn’t wanted hot water for my bath —I leave him to die on his own, that rain-drenched evening, the mango tree seeping the life force out of him.
I run to the hospital on borrowed breath and energy I did not know I possessed and collapse outside the doors. When I come to, I ask after the baby. Everything is fine, they tell me. Thank you, Lord Ganapathy. I tell them about Manoj. I know what they will find when they get there. I know.
His face haunts me every waking moment, dear Diary. Those eyes overflowing with agony. ‘Stay with me, Shilpa, please stay with me.’ The only thing he ever asked of me.
Afterwards, after the cremation, I went to the madwoman. Sitting under the peepal tree beside her, listening to the cows mooing, Shali the fisherwoman hawking the last of the fish; the bus conductor shooing the cows and dogs, undeterred by the honking of horns and the swear words raining on them, away from the road; the women gossiping, ignoring the bags of rice, dal and oil weighing them down; the men laughing as they smoked beedis outside Master’s shop; college girls giggling and eyeing the boys grouped outside Rao’s grocery coyly from under their lashes; the air smelling of rotten fish, cow dung, deep-fried vadai and spiced cardamom tea from the little hut by the bus stop and the pineapple growing wild in the grass by the auto rickshaw stand where all the auto drivers urinated, I felt my turmoil ease a tiny bit. I closed my eyes, let the sun-kissed breeze tickle my face. His face, those eyes pregnant with pain, loomed. ‘I am sorry, Manoj,’ I whispered. The wise woman’s hand found mine, squeezed.
I am not worthy, I wanted to say. Instead I said, ‘You knew.’
She sighed deeply. ‘Yes.’
What comfort there was in the warmth of her hand!
‘This gift I have, this curse… I tried warning y
ou.’ Her words were earmarked with ache.
‘Yes,’ I said. And then, despite Manoj’s face, his pain-filled eyes, ‘I would have done the same, had I known. I would.’
‘I know,’ she said.
‘I have paid the price,’ I said softly. ‘I have paid.’
The earth gorged on rain, smelling luscious, pregnant with new life. Voluptuous drops clung insidiously to peepal tree leaves, a shimmering sheen on velvet green. The guava and banana trees plump and sated with rainwater, leered: There goes the woman who sacrificed her husband.
‘Not completely,’ she said and my heart stilled. She patted my hand and her sigh was immense. ‘Not yet.’
I stroked my bump. ‘Will my child be okay?’
A flicker in those grey eyes.
I prostrated myself in front of her. ‘Please, please tell me my child will be fine.’
And as I said those words, I lost her. I was holding her, she had been talking to me and suddenly she was somewhere else, her face frozen in a trance, her pupils unmoving.
I chanted her name as if in prayer. ‘Devi, Devi, Devi.’
No response.
A leaf travelled down lazily from the peepal tree and plopped down in front of me, displacing a sliver of dust with a sigh. Come back, I thought, come back to me.
As if she had heard me, the wise woman blinked. ‘Your greatest test is yet to come. One to keep, one to lose,’ she intoned in a monotone voice. A pause and then the wise woman gasped, drawing in strangled breaths of air as if she was drowning. ‘But it is for the best.’
Dear Diary, those were her exact words. I have puzzled over what she meant, but I cannot make them out. I have paid a very great price for this child but, according to the wise woman, I haven’t paid fully yet. My child, this baby inside of me whom I yearn to meet… it has to be fine. It has to.
Chapter 19
Nisha
Heat
The heat. Like a jealous lover who takes hold and doesn’t let go, his slimy hands creeping everywhere. Nisha can feel rivulets of sweat sliding down her back inside the cotton slip of the dress she is wearing, soaked and sticking to her like a clingy child. She realises now, too late, that it has been the wrong thing to wear, aware of scores of eyes boring into her. Men gather in clumps, stopping what they are doing to stare unashamedly right at her breasts, the outline of her bra visible through the turquoise cotton stained aquamarine with sweat. Women in rainbow saris which shimmer in the sunlight look once and avert their eyes, but not before they let their disdain show. Others whisper conspiratorially to their friends, their gaze alighting on her then quickly away like a skittish butterfly.
The Forgotten Daughter Page 19
