‘Here she is, Kulasheshtra,’ the obstetrician placed the new-born in my arms, wrapped in a pale green cloth, her tiny eyes clamped shut. Nothing had prepared me for the overflow of emotion I had felt as I cradled my child for the first time. I could barely take my eyes off this tiny, perfectly formed human being, at how she clasped my finger. I thought of Baba as I kissed her forehead tenderly. I missed him then; in a way I hadn't ever missed him before.
Maya opened a flood in me. I had never felt love like this ever before. It gushed out from my heart like fresh blood from an open wound. I held her close to my heart, thinking I could never let her go.
But the gods had willed otherwise.
For fifteen years of our marriage, Sarlu didn’t conceive and then, miraculously, she was pregnant. I’d never known her to be happier. She wrote to me: ‘I know this comes at a difficult time, but I have saved enough for the expenses this will naturally bring…I want this child, Amitabh, I want us to have our own child…something we created together…something as joyous as a new arrival…something hopeful…to look forward to again. To dream a new dream…the way we once did.’
I remember reading the last line, again and again, trying to imagine the changes in Sarlu’s body, as the months passed; I imagined her battling morning sickness, the way I grew up seeing the women in Ganesh Circus throw up into the open drains that ran past our tents, their faces contorted, their bellies bloated. I wondered whether Sarlu would experience hunger pangs at night; crave ripe mangoes and sour pickles…
I wrote back:
‘Dear Sarlu, can you believe we have completed a decade of being man and wife? Is time a traitor, Sarlu…or a teacher? Is time on our side, Sarlu? I have asked myself many times in these years. I couldn’t be happier, at the news you shared…though I am selfishly plagued with thoughts of how I shall fare as a father. If I am worthy of the unconditional affection a child is known to bestow? If I have it in me, to wipe away my past…if I can, in loving my child back, forgive myself for being an unworthy son? I shall be back, soon. Look after yourself…I want this child, Sarlu, I want us to have our own child. To dream a new dream.’
After wrapping up my last production in Nagpur, I took the night train to Pune, buying pink roses for Sarlu on the way and a brand-new Narayanpeth sari. It was the first time I was buying anything for her, without telling her beforehand or calculating the expense. The shopkeeper made me buy matching glass bangles, as well. They reminded me of Ammi. My mother. My exquisite, educated, Muslim mother, who had taught me to read and write. Who always dreamt of better. Sarlu slipped on the bangles before lunch, rotating her wrists in a semi-circular fashion, as she served hot vegetarian food in a brand new steel thali.
‘Our daughter is to be named Maya,’ I said, when she stood beside me, to remove my plate.
Sarla mused, ‘Maya...Yes I like that, but what if it’s a boy?’
‘It’ll be a girl, Sarlu, I know it will.’
Sarlu ran her hands over her stomach. The afternoon light casting an incandescent glow to her face that looked fuller, happier, younger…Like the Sarla of old, the impulsive girl who had risked bringing in a rank newcomer in her father’s towering presence, hurriedly feeding me a vada pao, the first time we met. Forging an uncanny camaraderie.
I had almost forgotten who Sarlu really was.
‘Would you like to visit your mother? Spend these next few months in her care? Go back home?’ I caught her wrist as she moved away from my side, turning to go towards the kitchen.
Sarlu’s eyes moistened. ‘I would have, if Dada Saheb were still alive…now there is no point…’ she pursed her lips.
I ran my fingers tenderly over her waist. ‘I’m sorry,’ I said in a low voice, ‘I should have taken you to visit them when we got news of his illness, you should have been with him when he died…by his side.’
Sarla nodded. Then before I could say anything, she pressed herself against me, ‘I am scared, Amitabh. This feels so strange, so surreal, at some level. I know we have never spoken about a child before, or even tried particularly hard for one, but when I found out I was pregnant I felt as if a giant emptiness in my life had been filled…I feel complete…the way I have never felt about myself…selfishly guarding my own happiness…it’s why I didn’t write to you, sooner…or my mother, for that matter…what if it doesn’t last…what if this is all a lie…this unborn child…’
Tears clouded her eyes.
I pushed back the chair and pulled her onto my lap and placed my hand on her midriff. ‘Maya, born of illusion, my baby daughter…Amitabh and Sarla Kulasheshtra…our first joint production…’ I murmured into her ears.
Sarlu rested her head lightly on my shoulders. She looked frail, all of a sudden. Her face had hardened from the years of struggle. Her thick plait of hair had thinned and yet, in that one moment, she looked so vulnerable.
I rubbed her back gently, where the hooks on her blouse began.
‘When is the next show?’ Sarla moaned, not opening her eyes.
‘I am not going anywhere…I will be here…with you, in this house…I will wait…for Maya,’ I pulled her closer, feeling her heart race, like mine.
The next six months were different. I stayed in, reading a lot, watching Sarlu as she continued diligently with her dance classes, never demanding a day’s rest, even as her feet swelled up and she had trouble walking up the stairs. I broke the only fixed deposit I had, that Sarlu had insisted on us opening, and employed a fulltime house-help. Meena-tai gradually took over the kitchen, washing utensils and clothes, besides mopping the rooms, in the last months of her pregnancy. Being an elderly woman, she substituted the absence of an elder in the family. Often telling Sarlu what she should eat. The spices to avoid. Tying a black thread on her left ankle to evade ‘buri nazar’. It was nice to have someone else in the house…between us…I pitched in, when Sarlu was advised bed-rest in the last two months. As I hung the wet clothes out to dry or lent Meena-tai a hand with the groceries, I marvelled at just how Sarlu had managed to do all of this, by herself, for as long as she had. Never complaining. How I had never asked her if there was sufficient money for groceries or bills. How she had taken it solely upon herself to manage the life we lived.
How I had let her.
Sarlu lay asleep on the hospital bed with her infant child. As I watched them both, my pulse raced. It was the most complete experience of my life, thus far…and, at the same time, the most anxious…as I grappled with the enormousness of the responsibility I would have to henceforth shoulder…how Sarlu could not be alone, any more, how she shouldn’t have to be. Alone.
Ever…
Looking at Sarlu made me visualize my own mother, Ammi, biting the edge of her torn dupatta as I had denounced her in public…Baba, my father, who had lost his sight and never left the circus, whom I had heartlessly abandoned…Dada Saheb, Sarla’s father whose troupe I joined after leaving Ganesh Circus, days after Ammi died…what would I tell Maya about her lineage?
My past…
Who was I, in the end?
A boy who walked out on his blind father? Who called his mother a whore in a fit of rage? A rebel who married the only daughter of a theatre stalwart? Who agreed to a marriage of convenience? Who was hardly ever there, in it?’
Sarlu was worn out after the delivery. The stitches from her C-section were horribly painful, as she tried to get up from bed to go to the bathroom.
‘I had a dream,’ she wheezed.
‘Rest now, it’s been a difficult time,’ I said as I guided her back to bed, my arm around her shoulder.
‘I dreamt we were standing on the bank of a large river, Amitabh. The colour of the water…it was so clear, crystal blue. We looked so young again…like we had nothing to fear, like we could dive into its ripples immediately. You were bare bodied…you, you looked so happy…’ she touched my cheeks.
I caught her hands.
‘I am happy,’ I gestured to the crib beside me.
Sarlu cupped my che
eks.
‘No,’ she interrupted, adding, slowly, ‘that happiness was different. It was the kind of happiness that didn’t weigh you down with obligation…that set you free, in the end.’
I listened to Sarlu.
‘Get some sleep, please…’ I whispered in her ear.
The next morning after I had fetched her some tea, she looked me in the eye. ‘When do you leave?’ She asked, sounding washed out.
I was taken aback at the question.
‘The mill-workers’ agitation in Mumbai…what are you going to do about it? It’s been on your mind these past few months, Amitabh,’ she asked me point-blank.
I had forgotten just how much of an equal Sarlu was to me, always.
‘I…umm…I will have to travel…I wish to start a series of street plays that showcase the horrific working conditions all over India, Ballav Salve has been doing a lot. I have expressed my interest in the movement, my solidarity with the agitation…I have been writing on those lines,’ I answered.
Sarlu was wide awake.
‘Go on,’ she urged.
When Maya was eight months old, I had left Pune accompanied by my newly recruited team of actors and technicians.
Looking back, those months I spent with my daughter were the most beautiful months of my life. Helping out with Maya, bathing her, changing her, warming her milk bottle, singing her odd lullabies at night, waking next to her at dawn, checking on her. Rocking her through the night trying to put her back to sleep. Sitting beside Sarlu, as she breastfed our child.
As I boarded the night train, I imagined Maya sleeping soundly beside Sarlu. It was the safest I had ever felt.
Like standing on the banks of a great, big river.
Sarlu’s river of dreams…
Unafraid to drown.
I closed the file, my insides trembling. My anger spent. Why had Amitabh and I had never once brought up Maya’s death? Why had I let all these years pass…thinking I was the only one who had suffered when clearly Amitabh had been aching too? In the months after Maya passed, there was always my mother or Meena-tai present between us. And I had been determined never to let Amitabh see me break down, either. Somehow, I told myself, I couldn’t show him my weaker side. Maybe being angry at Amitabh, blaming him for Maya’s death, was easier than dealing with my deep sense of loss.
I had hated on Amitabh all over again, for asking me to wait till he returned from Mumbai to show Maya to a specialist; I held him squarely responsible for the deterioration in Maya’s condition. Directing my anger at him instead of sharing the loss we had both suffered, helped me cope with the raging current of grief that threatened to literally sweep me away. I was incapable of engaging with anyone, or anything. All the resentment I had harboured for Amitabh slowly solidifying into a cold, unmoving detachment.
It was easy to keep him away from me, as I had preferred in the past – holding out my heart, in a rehearsed, unrelenting silence.
After Maya’s death, I asked myself the same questions, repeatedly. The same way I blamed myself for my cowardice in confronting Dada Saheb at the time of my marriage. Why had I not insisted on taking Maya to the hospital?
Why did I not read the signs that Maya was gravely sick? What scared me? Why had I not trusted my gut instincts? I lay awake, night after night, watching the gnawing shadows on the walls.
Had I expected Maya to fix me?
My marriage?
Had she failed?
I picked up the book again, searching for answers.
BLINDSIDE
After Maya’s death, I was distraught. I envied Sarlu, to be honest. How she had managed to get her life back in perfect order; how she had carefully cultivated this world she inhabited, like an oasis of calm. A life so opposed to the one I had. The chaos, the causes, the crowded places that camouflaged my own cuts…
How everything in Sarlu’s world seemed seamless, untouched in a sense, like it was before: a respectable dance academy; a modest, one-storied house with a decently-sized front porch, a small, but well-manicured garden strewn with clusters of roses; a perfectly-run kitchen, a well-managed, well-stocked household; Sarlu’s little puja corner devoted to the gods. I hated the way the house smelt, like a temple, all the time. Incense burning everywhere…
A strong odour of jasmine oil permeated the interiors, similar to the one she used in her hair, parting her tresses carefully, segregating the silver strands with her fingers.
From time to time, she’d rotate her ankles, stiffened after years of rigorous dance practice, balancing herself on her toes. Her kohl-lined eyes, strangely calm, her hips jutting out. Her purple, silk sari starched. Faux zari dripping down its pallu. Pleated in a neat, rectangular fashion, as she squatted on the hard, cold mosaic floor, clapping her hands and clicking her tongue.
The clamour of children’s voices, hushed whispers running down the elongated corridor, the banging of doors, the constant sound of ghungroos, amidst the backdrop of thickly-accented South Indian songs, the drone of dialogue.
Hands folded, breasts upright, covered from head to toe, pious, Like someone who could do no wrong. Who seldom retaliated, whose strength lay in her studied silences.
Except for that terrible night when Maya had been declared dead in the emergency room of a local hospital where we had rushed her – when Sarla had howled like a wild animal bereft with grief, mourning for her dead in the most primal way – I had never seen Sarla cry openly. We never really grieved Maya’s loss as a couple. We weren’t really trained for those sorts of rituals, in any case.
I had carried Maya in my arms to the crematorium, watching as the saffron flames leapt up, as Sarlu refused to accompany me on the final march, listening to her mother, who insisted that women should not go to the shamshaan ghat. That it was ordained so in the shastras.
Sarlu accepted her fate resiliently, for the second time, not overtly blaming anyone; never holding me directly responsible for the life I had given her, never asking why I was the absent parent, the one who left her, travelling overseas to Paris, in the months that followed Maya’s death to direct the most ostentatious project of my career.
Our letters to each other were curt, customary details of the household and the seasonal changes in Pune; we never pined for each other or craved each other’s company or made promises to return by a certain time. How I longed to tell Sarlu everything about Marie, how what I felt was not pain. But hurt…
‘I’m going to the Arya Samaj, there is going to be a reading from the Upanishads. Swami Gurumurthy will be reciting sacred shlokas,’ she said, one day, her eyes bloodshot, a month after I returned.
Was it from lack of sleep? I had wondered. Did Sarlu too, have dreams? Like me? Nightmares? Like last night, again? Did she too, hear a child cry, endlessly?
‘Tell me what you want for dinner so I can tell Meena-tai…
‘I want a simple fish curry…steamed rice. Just, plain, steamed rice,’ I spoke, after a few seconds.
‘You can’t, not today, Amitabh,’ she cut me short, crossing her hands staunchly over her heart.
‘Why? You just asked me what I’d like to eat!’ I snarled.
‘How can you…’ her lips quivered, slightly.
‘How can I?’
‘How can you eat non-vegetarian food? Today is 16th September…the day she died…Maya…’ Sarlu looked at me.
‘September…16…5.50 pm…’ I muttered, glancing at the wall clock.
The corners of Sarla’s eyes were red-rimmed.
I should have reached out to her.
Said something. Wept in her arms. Held her close. Made love. Made a promise…
‘Fine, then the usual dal will do…’ I shrugged.
‘You like the amti dal she makes, right?’ Sarlu called out just as I turned my back, wiping her eyes.
‘It'll have to do,’ I raised an eyebrow, swallowing my own tears.
And just like that, we became strangers again.
Invisible to each other.
I pushed the book away. My thoughts travelled back to Amitabh, the day he told me about the Parisian project over lunch, a month or so after Maya’s death. It was raining heavily. I listened, barely touching my food. My mother was staying with us.
‘How can you leave her after such a tragedy?’ She had hissed at him.
Amitabh had stared at my face. ‘Would you like to come, Sarlu?’ He had asked softly.
I looked at him through dulled eyes. ‘No, I plan to resume the dance classes, Amitabh, I’m going to call up my old students…’ I pushed a bowl of rice in his direction.
My mother frowned. ‘Why don’t you just go with him, like he’s telling you to, the change may be good for your mind and body,’ she butted in, adding sarcastically, ‘You should listen to your man.’
‘Sarlu will do as she pleases, she is no longer in her father’s house and has to do no one’s bidding,’ Amitabh had interrupted her, brusquely.
I pushed back my chair, excusing myself.
A part of me wished Amitabh would force me to accompany him, like any other husband. The kind of man who is scared to leave behind a woman he loves. Another part seethed with pent-up anger at Dada Saheb and Rakesh…at all the men in my life who had always placed their own wishes before mine.
‘It is going to be a long trip, maybe a year…maybe even more,’ Amitabh added, as soon as my back was turned.
I stood still, for a few seconds.
‘Maybe, that’s what we need,’ I had responded, clearing away the plates and storing the leftover food in a second-hand refrigerator.
‘Need for what?’ I heard my mother holler agitatedly.
‘Maybe, we are both better off healing, alone,’ Amitabh had retaliated in a raised voice, speaking on my behalf. Coming to my defence. Protecting me, strangely, even when we were the farthest apart.
Or maybe, it was the only time we were close.
So close that we failed to see we were broken…in exactly the same places.
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