I have two babies, I thought, before slipping into oblivion.
Dear Diary, I have to go; one of my babies has woken up—she needs me. I look at the words written down, ‘she needs me’, and my eyes fill up with tears. I am blessed twice over. I am a mother.
* * *
Goli Baje:
Ingredients:
Maida flour—1 cup
Curds (yogurt) —½ cup
Curry leaves—12
Ginger—thumbnail-sized piece, chopped
Green chillies—2 chopped
Half of a fresh coconut, flesh chopped into bite-sized pieces
Baking powder—¼ tbsp
Salt to taste
Oil for frying
Method:
1) Mix maida flour, yogurt and salt to make a thick batter. Add water if required. Let it sit for three hours.
2) Add the rest of the ingredients to the batter and mix.
3) Heat oil in a frying pan and when it’s hot, scoop a ping-pong-ball-sized helping of dough into the pan. Turn until both sides are a deep golden brown.
4) Scoop out using a porous ladle and serve with coconut chutney and sambar.
* * *
Dear Diary,
My babies are sleeping now, my twin blessings. Right here in front of me. I watch them as I write. To me, they are both beautiful, but not so in the eyes of the village. Word spread like wildfire of course, and as soon as I was discharged from hospital, the matrons paid me a visit, ‘Aiyyo Devare,’ they sighed. ‘What a calamity to befall a girl child,’ they lamented, hitting their foreheads with the palms of their hands.
I bristled but said nothing.
‘Did you eat only white foods, think only good thoughts?’ they asked.
‘Yes,’ I muttered, wishing they would leave, holding the subject of their musings close, marvelling at her skin like milk, those inky black eyes like twin sparks charged with life squinting up at me, while the matrons passed my other daughter, my firstborn, around, oohing and aahing at her fair skin, her rosebud mouth, her blemish-less perfection.
‘Were you guilty of praying only to Lord Ganapathy perhaps? It doesn’t do to single out any one God, you know; the others get angry and cause mischief.’
Outside, the rain that had drummed a continuous lullaby when I got my girls home had stopped and the sun was peeking out from behind the clouds. The fields sparkled gold-green, and muddy brown water overflowed onto the paths. Crows squawked and the air smelled fresh, tangy.
‘I prayed to all the gods equally,’ I lied, hoping any gods listening and catching me out in my lie wouldn’t smite me.
‘Perhaps,’ they said, chewing thoughtfully on the goli bajes I had made (the maida, coconut and all the ingredients in my kitchen supplied kindly, despite my token protests, by Sumitranna and Jalaja), helping themselves to more. My goli bajes, they all agree, are the best in the village. My secret is chopping the coconut instead of grating it, so there’s an unexpected crunch when you bite through the crisp outer layer and expect only soft flesh, and the coconut explodes in honey syrupiness in your mouth, the sweetness offset by the spiciness of the chilli. ‘Perhaps, you are being punished because of some sin you committed in your previous life.’ They eyed me thoughtfully, and I eyed them right back, refusing to give them the satisfaction of knowing how close to home they had struck.
Yes, I was being punished, but not for sins in my previous life. Manoj’s face, his eyes full of pain. ‘Stay,’ he had pleaded. ‘Please stay with me.’
‘Why did the gods not punish me, then? Why my baby?’ I asked, smiling at my beautiful girl. She tried to smile back, she did. All she could produce was a grotesque parody. I hugged her close. ‘You are beautiful,’ I whispered. ‘You are.’
‘Well, dear, the gods operate in strange ways. Perhaps they thought the best way to punish a mother was through her child.’
I had burst into tears then, despising myself for my weakness, and the matrons had descended on me like a pack of vultures on carrion, trying to soothe and console but only managing to scare the baby into ear-rending wails.
I look back to what I wrote not in my last entry but the one previous, the wise woman’s last prediction. ‘Your greatest test is yet to come. One to keep, one to lose.’ Now it is perfectly clear what she meant by it. This is why I write everything down, so I can refer back, join the dots, make sense of what is happening. So, I have to lose one. Which one? And how can I? Why should I? This is the question I asked of the wise woman when I went to visit…
The doctors came back to work the day after my babies were delivered safely to me by the wise woman, well rested after their break thanks to the Chief Minister’s timely demise. As soon as my babies and I were discharged, I took off along the well-worn path between the fields, my twin blessings wrapped in swaddling snug in my arms, fresh goli bajes that I had cooked slung in a basket at my side. Birds gossiped, the ears of paddy chattered, revelling in the sugarcane-scented haze of late summer, and my heart overflowed. In the dappled shadow cast by the peepal tree branches, I lay my babies down. The sun’s rays filtered through the canopy of leaves, casting a burnished glow on the worn cane mat where my girls squirmed.
The wise woman’s face softened when she touched the babies, one after the other, and she looked so much younger. She was the only one who could look at my poor wounded baby without flinching, apart from me. Even Jalaja winced, avoided looking at her, though she tried to hide it.
‘Why?’ I asked. ‘Why did Lord Ganapathy punish my girl for what I did?’
And the wise woman looked at me and her eyes were soft, full of an emotion I later identified as affection, love even. Towards me. I am not worthy of love. I hurt those who love me, I leave them to die.
‘Why do you think it is a punishment? Why can’t it be a blessing?’
‘That?’ I asked, ‘A disfigured face, for a girl. A blessing? How will I get her married? What prospects does she have in life?’
The wise woman smiled. ‘You might be surprised,’ was all she said.
‘You said in your prophesy that I would have to lose one.’ My heart in my throat.
The woman sighed deeply. ‘You were not supposed to have children. You tricked fate. It wants repayment.’
‘I have already repaid many times over.’
‘Not yet,’ she sighed. ‘Not completely.’
‘Destiny. Fate. Who says it’s all decided for us? Who? Aren’t we meant to create our own destiny?’
She didn’t reply. She didn’t have to. Just looked at me with those grey eyes full of love. She was the proof, right there in front of me, that our fate is decided for us. It’s written in the stars long before we are born. We are given choices along the way, of a sort. This woman had known what I would choose. Pregnancy: my girls over my husband.
‘You told me to protect them. And now you want me to stand by and lose one of them because fate decreed so? How is that possible?’ I ranted, unmindful of the hot tears coursing down my cheeks. ‘Why do I have to? I love them both. How can I bear to lose one of them now they are here?’ I would not ask if by lose she meant one would die. I would not contemplate that possibility.
The wise woman said nothing, just patted my hand. My girls didn’t cry, just wiggled their arms as the late afternoon light played hide and seek on their downy, fair skin and tinted it gold.
‘Children. They are given to you for such a short while. You have to make the most of it. And they are never yours to keep, not really.’ The wise woman sighed, a world of pain in her voice. ‘I had a little boy once.’
I stared at my friend, tears collecting in my open mouth.
‘Long ago. In another life. He died. Snake bite.’ It was my turn to squeeze my friend’s hand.
‘The goat screamed. I went to tend to it. My husband was a drunkard. The goat was our livelihood. I used to sell its milk and feed the boy from the proceeds. So I tended to the goat and meanwhile the snake had free rein on my boy. The goat lived. My boy died. ’
The bus gave a loud mournful horn as it trundled past. Someone giggled, the sound harsh. A mother yelled at her daughter as she dragged her along the road.
‘My husband took up with another woman, kicked me out. For a while I was genuinely mad.’ My friend took a deep, gasping breath. ‘You’ve asked me many times why I pretend to be mad. It suits me to do so. It affords me freedom. I can do anything I want and nobody questions it, just chalks it down to my madness. After what happened, I lost myself, forgot who I was. I ended up at the temple at the confluence of the river and the sea, where your girls were conceived. I ranted and railed at Lord Ganapathy. I said, “Why, Lord, why didn’t you let me see into the future?” And then one evening just as the sun was dipping into the sea—the sky was a warm orangey red, I remember—He appeared before me. “I am giving you the gift,” he said, “of being able to see into the future.” I laughed. “Too late now, Lord,” I said. But He was gone. The sky was black. The sun was nowhere to be seen…’
She stopped, spent. I put my arm around her. This friend of mine who had suffered so. At least my daughters were alive. My daughters were safe, wiggling their arms, resting peacefully right here in front of me.
‘Your gift. It helped me. You helped me,’ I said softly. And then, ‘Aren’t you going to ask me what I am going to name them?’ The woman’s intense gaze met mine. ‘My firstborn is called Devi—named after the Goddess who eased her into this world.’
The woman’s gaze did not falter, just became cloudy. I watched as one by one the tears brimmed over and traversed down the lined face. That was the only time I ever saw the wise woman—Devi—cry, that sun-kissed afternoon when she blessed my newborn baby girls.
‘And this one,’ holding the one whose face would mark her, the one I loved even more, if that was possible, close, ‘I am going to call Nisha—the Goddess of Night.’ My friend had said that I would be surprised, when I asked her what prospects this daughter would have. I hugged that assurance close.
Before I left, I asked one question: ‘Which one? Please tell me which one, so I can prepare myself.’
‘How?’ the wise woman’s eyes were soft. ‘By loving her less or loving her more? Enjoy them, Shilpa. Enjoy them both for as long as you can.’
And I am. I am enjoying every moment.
Yesterday, I pulled the last of Manoj’s savings out from under the mattress, the thought of him an arrow in the region of my left breast, swaddled my babies in my sari, tucked it around their tender heads so the sun wouldn’t cause havoc on their delicate skin, and took the bus into town. My babies rested one on either side of my heart, snug, and in that moment, as they slept swaying to the rhythm of the bus struggling over potholes, secure in the warmth of my body, I was content. I went to Shankar’s photo studio which nestles between the electronics shop and the sari emporium, huffing and out of breath by the time I had climbed the dark stairs smelling of mould and stale curry to the top. I laid my precious bundles down on the sheet and asked Shankar to take a picture, pressing the last of my money into his palm. He turned to them, smiling and I watched his smile freeze in place, be replaced by revulsion as he took my Nisha in.
I stood up very straight, looked right at him. ‘I want a picture of the two of them.’
He hugged his camera close. ‘She might put a curse on it,’ he said, pointing at my innocent little girl, whose little fisted hands waved at me, and I was glad she wasn’t old enough to understand a word of the exchange.
‘She is just a baby. Don’t you have children?’ I asked.
I watched a flush darken his sooty skin. He lifted his camera, took a picture. Devi smiled, delighted at the flash. Nisha tried to. She did.
Once upon a time, I wished for a family, a husband, a bevy of children. I neglected to be specific. I did not ask that they all be with me at the same time. I got a husband, I lost him. I got two children—a miracle—and I will lose one. But for now, I watch them, I love them, hold them close, breathe them in, enjoy them. Some people do not even get this much. The privilege, the honour of calling themselves wife, mother. I have been given both. I thank you, Lord Ganapathy, many times over.
Chapter 22
Nisha
Yellow-Winged Rickshaws
The church is smaller than Nisha remembers, the ceiling not as high. And yet, everything else is the same as in her memories. The aroma of votive, incense, prayer. She feels peace settle inside her like a blessing. She looks at the pews, the dank wood smell, and wonders how she ever squeezed in under there. She lays her head down and looks up and, yes, she can see dust motes swirling, she can imagine why a four-year-old might think those were prayers swirling upwards towards God via chinks in the orange Mangalore tiles, which from down here look haloed and bright red, painted as they are with dappled light that dances from above. She walks up to the altar, and she can picture it: a little child hefted in the arms of the priest, the procession of nuns, a flock of white habits, following. She squats in front of the altar. The stone tiles are cool under her palms. She looks up. The statue of Jesus on the cross, his head haloed by the crown of thorns, his bloodied benevolent face looking down at her. Underneath that a gold curtain, which she knows if parted will reveal a tiny arched gold door which houses the consecrated Eucharist. To the left, a statue of the Holy Family. A boy Jesus flanked by his parents. Mary in her blue-and-white smock, Joseph in his brown one holding a cane, sporting a beard. And to her right, the Mother Mary of Miracles. A statue. The lips are closed, painted on. The eyes open and looking at her. She is neither smiling nor frowning. She looks peaceful. Nisha lies down on the cool floor where she assumes they must have laid her child self. A dove coos up in the rafters, a black shadow silhouetted against the orange speckled light. She looks towards the altar. Everything is as it was before, except for the Mother Mary of Miracles.
Nisha blinks, sits up. Must have been my imagination making a reappearance after a hiatus of twenty years, she thinks. I can see why people think miracles happen. It is easily done. This place, the soothing aura of peace, the words of the nun at the fore of her mind… That’s all, she thinks, as she walks out into the blinding sunshine. That must be why I could have sworn the statue smiled at me.
* * *
‘I was a miracle child,’ she says into the phone, which mercifully has managed to locate a weak signal. The sun beats down on her scalp, hot, insistent. Beads of perspiration stream down her face and collect around her lips depositing salty kisses.
‘I knew that from the first moment I met you,’ Matt says and she laughs, for the first time since she set foot in this strange country and embarked on a ride that feels headier than being on the highest rollercoaster.
Hot tears squeeze out from between closed, sun-baked lids as she tells him the story of her miraculous recovery. ‘I think when they laid me down on the cool floor, my fever broke. I think that explains it. I was swaddled in garments, overheated. So when they laid me down…’ The Mother Mary of Miracles’ tranquil face, exuding contentment, the painted lips that she had imagined for a moment had lifted in a smile…
His voice is soft, very gentle as he says, ‘I believe them totally. There is something special about you. I have always known.’
She tries on a laugh, the sound hollow. ‘You are joking, right, Matt?’
‘No, I am not. You don’t have to find an explanation for everything, Nisha. Let go. Believe. There are some things out there greater than you and I…’
‘But, Matt, you are a mathematician…’
‘There are so many things science cannot explain. Open up your mind, Nisha. You might be surprised.’
‘You will be surprised,’ the nun had said… And the thought of the nun brings back the images of Sister Priya, beloved Sister Priya. ‘I… I met Sister Priya. She recognised me, instantly, despite the years, despite the fact that when she last saw me I was a child. How could I have forgotten her, Matt, wiped out memories of her out so completely? I loved her. I love her so.’
�
�You were four, Nisha.’ His voice is soft. ‘Just a child. Lost and lonely. Torn between two different countries, straddling two lives—not wanting to be disloyal to the two strangers you were told were your new mum and dad. Your mind shut down, unable to cope. Trauma does that to a person. Try not to be too hard on yourself.’
How does he know her better than she knows herself?
Birds twitter among the branches of the banyan tree across the road. An auto filled to bursting with schoolchildren packed like Twiglets on top of each other, a few of them overflowing into the front sharing the seat meant for one person with the driver, creaks past, the chatter of excited conversations, the music of children’s voices floating up to her. ‘But…’
‘You’ve found her now,’ Matt says softly.
‘She’s dying.’ One of the boys milling outside the building down the road whistles—a plaintive sound.
‘You met her. She recognised you.’ A burst of static. ‘She knows you care, Nisha.’
When Sister Priya had smiled, her cataract-dimmed eyes shining bright and clear, Nisha had seen in the papery face crinkled like a mouldy onion the ghost of the woman she had been once, the woman who had populated her dreams. ‘Yes. She does.’
A pause, then…‘Matt.’ She wants him here, with her, this man who understands her so, who makes her feel complete. She closes her eyes, pictures him. His sandy hair, the way the lock at his crown refuses to do his bidding no matter how much gel he uses, those twinkling aquamarine eyes that only have to look at her a certain way to turn her insides to liquid, the blond fuzz on his face in the mornings, the lemony musk smell of him, the way his arms can envelop her and make her feel she has come home. The depth of her feeling for him terrifies her because it leaves her without control, vulnerable, open to hurt. It is love. She knows this, has always known but has shied away from it, been afraid to accept it, because she cannot prove it, will never be able to prove it. But, she realises as she leans against the gates of the church, the smell of rust and iron with an undertone of something spicy making her want to gag, some things have to be taken on faith.
The Forgotten Daughter Page 24
