A Life Less Ordinary

by Baby Halder

  A few minutes later I saw Shashti and a few others rushing to my home, shouting loudly. They were angry. She screamed at my husband: “You can do what you like with your wife, I know it’s no business of mine, but you can’t come to my house and disrupt things. You disturbed our puja and in front of everyone. How dare you? You’ve not only insulted me, you have also ruined the puja.” Then she turned to me and said, although for his benefit, “And what did you do anyway that he caught hold of you like this by your hair and dragged you away? Was it that you attended the puja? There were so many other girls there! Does that mean they are all bad? None of their husbands complained.” Then she added, “Only you can survive with this man. I don’t know how you can take all this without complaining. Had it been me I would have taught him a thing or two…” And shouting and screaming like this, she left.

  I was now worried that he would take all his anger out on me, so I went toward the door and stood in the shadows, hoping he would not see me on his way out. A little while later I saw him going off to work. I knew he’d be furious when he came back, so I quickly fed the children and put them to sleep. When Dulal came in the evening, I told him everything and he also gave me a talking-to. “Why do you go there when you know he doesn’t like it?” he asked me. I thought to myself: It’s not as though I went there on my own, there were so many other people there, and even if I had been alone, what was wrong with that?

  I began to think that I would have to do something about my life: things just could not go on like this. My elder son had finished at one school and now needed to move to another, and my younger son had just started school. Money was always needed for little things for them. My husband was reluctant to give money to me, and never without my having to ask at least ten times. I decided that it was time that I looked for work. I started to ask around the neighborhood. I told everyone that I was looking for work. But many just laughed at me. They did not take me seriously. “Why do you need to work?” they asked. “Surely your husband earns enough for all of you?” Someone else said, “You won’t be able to work, just forget it.” I thought, If he earns so much, why is there never any money to run the household?

  AND SO LIFE CONTINUED, AND EVERY DAY THERE WAS tension in the home over these things. But I was determined: I had decided that come what may, I would make sure that my children had a good education. I did not want them to be illiterate like their father. I got really furious when my husband asked my elder son to come with him to help push the handcart. The boy would go off with him because his father gave him a little spending money and he could then buy things to eat. And this, too, became a bone of contention. I did not like him giving money to the boy at all. He was getting increasingly spoiled. He’d often skip school and spend the whole day wandering about, and if I said anything to him, his father would tell him to keep quiet and would refuse to speak himself. If, by chance, I raised my hand against the boy, I knew that I would suffer for it at his father’s hands. Sometimes the boy would disappear for days on end and then I’d go from place to place hunting for him. At such times my husband put all the blame on me! He was not the least concerned that the boy did not attend school properly, or study. All that was my responsibility. All he did was to give us a little money now and again. I was really at my wits’ end. I did not know what to do. My elder son was now in the sixth grade, and we needed money for extra tuition for both him and his younger brother. Their father sometimes gave a little money to the elder boy but he was not at all interested in the younger one. And I was always fearful that their teacher would refuse to teach them.

  After years of living with all this, fighting for dignity, for a life for my children, one day I told Shashti’s mother that I couldn’t take it anymore. She said to me gently, “Child, do you think you can manage to do the kind of work I do?” Would I be able to work in people’s houses, to wash their clothes and clean their dishes? I wasn’t sure. And what if Baba found out or his friends saw me, what would they say? That Halder’s daughter has been reduced to doing this kind of work? When I told Shashti’s mother this she said, “If all you are worried about is your father’s dignity, then you had better be prepared to suffer and starve.” She’s right, I thought. Why am I so concerned about what Baba will think when he does not seem to be bothered about me at all and hardly ever comes to see me?

  Shashti’s mother and I were standing by the side of the road talking when an old man, about my father’s age, walked up to her and said, “Didi, can you help me to find someone to work in my house?”

  “All right, I’ll look.” Then she looked at me and then back at him and asked him to wait for a minute. She beckoned me to follow her into her house. “Tell me, are you willing to work in his house?”

  “Yes, I am,” I replied, “but let’s at least ask him what kind of work it is.”

  So we went back to the man and Shashti’s mother told him I would work. We went together to his son’s house, where I found out that the job entailed doing everything: the cleaning, sweeping, swabbing of the house, washing the clothes, cooking, chopping vegetables, grinding spices…I agreed to take it on. That was my first job. I also agreed to the salary his son, Ashish, offered me, as I had no idea what kind of pay to expect.

  They seemed to like my work. The family was Brahmin and they held all the customary practices of purity and pollution. But they were quite prepared to let me do everything for them because, after all, they could not do without domestic help. Ashish’s wife was somewhat different, wanting to check everything I did, but I did not give her much opportunity because I came to work leaving my small children at home and I was anxious to finish everything quickly and get back to them. Now everyone began talking about what a good worker I was, and suddenly I was in demand. Of course, I could not take on too much. I think perhaps what people liked was that I did not fuss about doing this or that—most girls who were hired preferred to do only specific jobs and weren’t prepared to take on everything. Not me. If someone asked me to do something extra, I thought, where’s the harm, and I did it. And for this reason I soon found work in several houses and was no longer treated as a servant. My employers became like uncles and aunts to me and their children fondly called me Didi or Pishi.

  To manage all the work I now had, each morning, before anyone was awake, I would head off to work and I would finish as much as I could and then return. Then I’d bully and cajole the children to study and start cooking. Then I would send the boys off to school, take my daughter with me, and go off to work again, to return around noon or one. The boys sometimes came home during the break to eat, or else I would take food across to them. Their school finished at four and by the time they came home, I’d have finished everything and would be bathed and dressed. I’d then feed the kids and send them out to play and, while they were playing, cook the evening meal. I’d then send the boys to their tutor, and if sometimes he came to the house instead, I’d make him tea. After all of this was done, I would go out to work again, taking my daughter with me, and in some households they helped to look after her. One young girl would sit my daughter down in her lap and they’d watch television together. I don’t think Ashish’s wife liked this because she made a barbed comment about it one day: “Amazing,” she said, “I’ve never seen her take my little boy into her lap but to show such love for your child…” I thought, Just because we are poor doesn’t mean we can’t be touched.

  My husband never told me clearly that he did not like me working in other people’s homes, so I thought he did not mind. Initially, I even felt a little sorry for him, thinking that perhaps he really was not earning enough to give us money for the household, but then when I looked in his pockets while he was away I found so much money that I got really angry. Then I thought, Well, it’s okay that he has money: after all, it’s for the good of the children. But no sooner had that thought made its presence felt than another followed, and this time I felt resentful, thinking that the least he could have done was to give us enough for our living exp
enses.

  All my earnings went into the house and I did not keep even a single paisa for myself. Then I decided to try to save little bits and pieces and I began to put aside one rupee, two rupees. One day I bought myself a little money box from the market and began to put the money into it. When it filled up, I told Dulal, “Let’s break it open!” When we did, we discovered a thousand and fifteen rupees!! I told Dulal I would hide this money away for my daughter. I did not want her father to see it, otherwise he would stop giving even what little he did. I kept it aside and even when times were very hard, I did not touch it. But when it seemed as if I would have to delve into it, because there was a real shortage of money in the home, I gave it to Dulal, saying, “Take it away and do what you like with it.” He used the money to purchase gold earrings for my daughter.

  I was happy at this, of course, but I wondered when, if ever, my little girl would get the chance to wear the earrings. From the beginning she had been a sickly child, falling ill every now and again, and so she was quite weak. I wanted nothing more than that she should be healthy. I remembered that after I’d come home from hospital with her, I had had to work very hard fetching and carrying water for the house. One day, while feeding at my breast, she caught a terrible chill, and she was so sick that she could hardly breathe. I was really frightened. It was quite late—after nine o’clock on the night of Kali Puja—and her father was not at home. So I picked her up and started to walk out of the house myself. I saw Shashti and her mother standing near their home and talking.

  “Where are you taking your little girl at this hour?” Shashti asked.

  “Look at her,” I said, “she’s so sick and I have to take her to a doctor. Her father knows she’s ill but he can’t be bothered, so what can I do? I have to go alone.”

  “And where is Dulal?”

  “He hasn’t come today either.”

  “Wait a minute and I’ll come with you.”

  There was a doctor near Dulal’s house, so I suggested to Shashti that we go there, but by the time we got there the clinic was shut and he had gone. “What shall we do now?” I asked Shashti. Then I suggested we go to Dulal’s house and ask his advice. We went there to find he was busy with a puja. He saw us standing there with the girl in my arms, but he paid us no attention. I was really surprised at this and I couldn’t say anything. Shashti went up to him and whispered that the child was unwell but even so, he did not seem to be bothered. He just busied himself with whatever he was doing. Finally, I said to Shashti, “Let’s go. We’ll take her to Dr. Swapan.” We walked for about half a mile and finally arrived at his place. By then, it was around ten at night. Dr. Swapan knew my father a little. He took out his stethoscope and listened to the little girl’s breathing and then he turned around and scolded me, “Why have you brought her to me when she is already half dead? What am I supposed to do? I will not take a risk. I’ll write you a letter and you take her to Dr. Karmakar.” The doctor’s words filled me with fear. “What will happen to my child, Shashti?” I asked her tearfully.

  “Nothing will happen. Just pray to God,” she said, “and everything will be all right.”

  Dr. Swapan pulled out some money and gave it to me. Then he called us a rickshaw and said, “Go on, go to the doctor and make sure you come to see me before you go home.”

  The rickshaw took us around and around but we couldn’t find a doctor’s clinic open or find Dr. Karmakar. Finally, he took us to the home of a doctor he knew. It was almost eleven by then. He begged the doctor to examine the child. “Do you have enough money?” the doctor asked. “She needs to be hospitalized.”

  “Can you not treat her in your home, Doctor?” Shashti asked.

  “I’ll try,” he said, and took her inside.

  He had all the facilities in his home, and once inside, he handed the little girl to a nurse and asked her to lay her down on the bed. Then he inserted some kind of tube in her nose. I was watching this fearfully from just outside: I was so scared. I don’t know what the doctor put up her nose, or what he pulled out, but the girl started screaming with pain. I could not bear to see her like this and I was clutching Shashti. At that moment, she was the only support I had. Finally, the doctor said I could take her home. He did not charge me too much—perhaps he saw my condition and knew I could not afford it. Even the rickshaw-wallah who was so kind, and took so much trouble, charged me much less than he should have. We were not able to stop by at Dr. Swapan’s on the way home because by that time his clinic was closed. The rickshaw-wallah took us all the way home.

  When I went in, I found my husband sitting and eating, his face swollen with anger. But the moment he saw the child and the medicines in my hand, his aspect changed. He became really concerned—he must have thought I was out and about with Dulal, which is why he was so angry. The next day Dulal also came in the morning, and I let fly at him unsparingly. He was truly sorry, he took it all, and when I had finished, he accepted that it was his mistake. Then, despite my trying to stop him, he took the girl in his arms and after that day, her care became more or less his sole responsibility.

  Once I’d begun to go out to work, it was inevitable that people would stop when they saw me on the road, just for a chat. Someone would ask about my work, someone about home, and we just passed the time talking of this and that. My husband did not like this one bit. Whenever he saw me with someone, he’d wait till I got home and then start abusing me and beating me. If I protested or tried to explain, he’d pick up a large stone and threaten to hurl it at me. He didn’t say much about my working outside the house, even though he didn’t like it, but if I so much as talked to another man, he would go wild. There was tension if I didn’t work and tension if I did—what was I to do? But one day all these worries flew out of my head—albeit for a short while—the day I learned that my mother, my real mother, had come back.

  That day I had barely lit the fire to begin cooking after work when my brother’s elder daughter, Soma, suddenly came running, jumping from house to house, shouting, “Aunt, Aunt, come quickly! Grandma has come!”

  Your grandma has come? So what’s so exciting about that? I thought she came over yesterday?”

  “Not that grandma!”

  “Then which one?”

  “My grandma! Come on! Baba has been all over searching for her, and he’s finally found out where she’s been! Come quick!”

  I was stunned. Was it possible? Could it really be my mother? I remembered her face so well. “Let’s go,” I said to Soma, “let’s go and see.”

  We ran all the way. When we got there, I found my brother sitting in the veranda of the house. “Go in,” he said, “see who I have found. All these years Baba hasn’t been able to find her, but I’ve got her for you.”

  A crowd had collected at the door. Someone said, “Look, your mother has come.” Another said, “She looks just like you!” A third said, “Go, run and tell your father.” I went in, and the moment I saw her my head started spinning and I fainted to the ground. My sister-in-law sprinkled oil and water on my forehead and sat me up. I began to howl and say to my brother, “Why did you bring her? We were all right without her. We had told everyone our mother was dead. Where was the need to bring her into our lives again?”

  She was very different now. She did not even seem to recognize me. A woman from the neighborhood said to her, “Look, here’s your daughter….”

  “My daughter? Who? Baby?” she asked. “My elder daughter has left us all and gone.” I looked at her. I did not think she would stay with us. The people around said to her that now that her elder son had brought her to his home, she should stay with him. She said, “No, I’ll stay with my younger son. He lives apart from everyone, I’ll be all right with him. Why create a confusion again? I’ve only come here for a few days, I’ll go back there.”

  My brother asked, “Don’t you want to go back to Baba?”

  “He has another Ma now, why should I create problems for him?”

  Anger, sadness, happi
ness: didn’t she feel any of these at seeing her children after so many years? I didn’t see any of these things in Ma. And I think in my heart of hearts, I felt the same. Sometimes there is an expectation, a joy, a soaring, elating feeling in someone’s coming home. Nothing like that happened to me. If I felt happiness at all, it was no different from what one feels at meeting a chance acquaintance. Memories came flooding back: some happy, some sad. I wondered again how she could have left such small children and gone away, and in that condition. Did she even remember that she had managed to rid herself of her little girl, Baby, by bribing her with ten paise on the day she left home? Did she remember that she hadn’t turned around once to look back? How then could she have known that Baby stood there and watched her until she became a mere speck on the horizon, until the eyes could not see her anymore? Had she turned once and seen her daughter standing there, would she not have come back to embrace her, to take her in her arms and love her…? Perhaps Ma did not even know that that child was now a mother of three.