MY STORY SERIES - 9

Conjugal Vignette   

Sarojini Sahoo

(The original story was written in 90’s and is included in author’s Odia anthology Deshantari (ISBN: 81-7412-147-0) under the title ‘Dampatya’ and so far has not been translated in to any other language. The story may provide a self-assessment test to help readers to determine psyche of a woman after her menopause.)

Mrs. Chowdhury reminded me of my mother. It was not that her face had the resemblance of my mother’s but it was her wild uncombed hair, the loose knot, the smeared sindoor, the vermilion spot which gave the colour of the sunseton the forehead, and the saree which she had on for the whole night. All these things reminded me of my mother. This is all about her appearance. Actually, I am not really focusing on the outside appearance. I want to talk about those things which stirred my delicate sentiments as soon as I saw her.

When I looked at her, she appeared as if she had been weeded-out like an unwanted plant of the garden or perhaps like a waste paper shredded into pieces and thrown away.She appeared as if she would be blown away or swept away if no one held her hands tightly. I had seen my mother like this about twelve to fourteen years back. My mother, like her, also would have been around fifty years old at that time.

I had never seen her before. We had only known each other over the phone. She used to call me at home to enquire about her husband. Her husband had gotten transferred but sadly, she was stuck at the old place because her son was in his final year of school in the science stream and her daughter had paid a donation to get into a management course. But she often worried about her husband. Was he getting his bed tea in the morning? Was he boiling his drinking water? Would he suffer from chest pain if he became too stressed? All these things worried her and she would talk about them when she would call. I tried to console her over the phone.

She would call up and would let me know when her daughter had fever, or when her son was bitten by a dog, or when her neighbour fought with her, or when the car was sent to the garage to be repaired. If her husband did not call her for a long time or did not go home on holiday, she used to cry and complain to me over the phone. Once or twice, she would even ask me, “What is the attraction there that Mr.Chowdhury does not come home?” Sometimes I would take her husband’s side and argue, “Maybe he is busy with work. Why do you worry so much? All right, I will let him know that you were worried.”

I was not very close to her husband; on the other hand, being a colleague there was a feeling of intolerance between us. He was not my nearest neighbour. His living quarters werefour or maybe five quarters away from me. Everyone had the inter connected phone given by the company but no one else had taken the line for an outside connection except for me. So people from the seven to eight quarters surrounding my quarters had expectedto use my telephone to keep in touch with the outside world.Mrs. Ram Murthi was an extrovert so no one went to her house. And Mrs. Ansari was so proud of her status that no one dared to enterher gates either.

The newlywed Binay Panda’sfather-in-law, employed with the police department, called up every other day to enquire about his daughter’s well being. He used to send messages asking whether the washing machine was working or the microwave oven would be sent within a few days. Sometimes he would call up to consult with his son-in-law aboutbuying something or getting him transferred. He would say, “I have urgent business. Could you please call him?”

I had to attend to these phone calls because I used to be at home. I would send my maid to people’s houses to inform them their phone call would come after ten minutes. As mobile phones were not commonly used at that time, I would let them know by calling them on the company phone.Sometimes, someone or the other had to wait for the phone in the drawing room. Samiran, my husband, would ask me to tell those calling, “No, I can’t inform them” or just tell them there is no one at home or their house was locked. Even though I was fed up attending to the neighbours’ phone calls, I could not betray their trust or lie to them.

Within the last one-and-half years, there must have been at least more than two hundred phone calls for Mr.Chowdhury. And every time, Mrs.Chowdhury, the caller, would express her apologies for troubling us. She maintained the formality of asking about my children’s well being and about my visits to my parents’ place. Over time, we had gotten to know each other probably better than other callers. Moreover, Mr.Chowdhury was also treated to a cup of tea or coffee while waiting for the phone calls from his wife. Perhaps to mitigate our irritation, he used to bring chocolates or toffees for the children. Samiran kept the conversation with Mr. Chowdhury to a minimum. I only sat and chatted with Mr. Chowdhury out of courtesy. I tried to imagine his wife by listening to his conversations.But perhaps that imaginary person had no resemblance with the real Mrs.Chowdhury.

As I had never seen her before, I would have never guessed she was the real Mrs. Chowdhury and that she too was in a distressed state.Even though I never asked her, she must have seen the amazement and the questioning look on my face, so she introduced herself. “I am Mrs.Chowdhury.” After introducing herself, she nervously looked behind her and said, “He must be following me.” And before I could understand and say anything else, she said, “Please tell me, what I should do.”

“About what?” I asked, even though I knew a bit about the possible answers. During these few months there had beengossip about her husband. Even I had to come to know about an affair between her husband and Mrs.Gomej. Maybe she wanted to ask me,“All these things happened and yet you never informed it to me, even though I called you so many times over the phone?” I had decided to tell her it is better to think twice before commenting on anyone’s character.

I looked at her face. I felt as if my mother was sitting in front of me and asking “Can you tell me my dear daughter, will your father really be able to leave her?” 

Mrs. Chowdhury showed me both her hands and said “Can you see how he has hit me?” The skin had been cut by the glass from broken bangles and some places had stains of blood. “See, he was pressing my neck to kill me.” She showed me her neck. There were marks of fingers on top of the necklace mangalsutra.Once he brought cold water from the refrigerator and poured it into my ears.” As she was describing her physical agony, she was trembling with fear like a scared deer. She would get up in between her monologue and look around, checking to see if Mr. Chowdhury was coming there. She said, “He has no decency. Who knows, he may come here and create trouble.”

“He will not come here. You can be sure of that,” I consoled her. I ordered my maid to get some water and a cup of tea for her and told her, “In the meantime, Mr.Chowdhury and my husband Samiran have had a big fight in the office. Their relation is so bitter that even in the club they had thrown glasses at each other over an argument. So don’t worry, Mr.Chowdhury will not come to our place.”

After she felt a bit more at ease, she opened up to me. “What should I do? He is saying that he will divorce me and marry her. Our daughter is twenty-two years old. Instead of thinking of getting her married, he is thinking about his own marriage. He is not giving a single penny to the household. I heard that he was riding around with Mrs. Gomej in his car. He has even givenhera saree worth 1,600 rupees. And Mrs. Das saw them both in a jewelry shop. And you know what is most pathetic of all? The other day he took me to hotel called ‘The Dream Bar’ just to placate me. But really, the love is not there anymore. You know when he had gone out for a few minutes, the hotel boy came up to me and asked me about my relationship with him. I enquired why he was asking me and I told him that I was his wife. He replied that another lady came regularly with him. Does that mean he has two wives?I immediately asked Mr. Chowdhury about this when he came back. After that, he created so much trouble in the hotel. He almost thrashed that boy.” After a pause, she continued. “Tell me the truth, haven’t you seen them together?”

I did not know how to answer this direct question from her so I said, “See? I have not seen anything; I have only heard about it.”

“You are trying to cover up for him”, she smiled and said, “Many incidents have happened in the office. Your husband did not tell you anything?”

“My husband belongs to another section. He has not seen anything either. The real truth is no one has seen anything. We have just heard things. However, my husband had seen them once going out in the car together. Everyone also knows about the photos he took during the picnic. Everyone talks about their disappearance during the moonlit night picnic.”

She started crying when she heard these things from me. I was repenting like a criminal. I hated myself for it. I should not have said them. But the fact was she confronted me and I could not help myself. Perhaps it would have been better to avoid this by resorting to a little lie.

It was fifteen days since she had come to this place and sinceshe had come to my house and narrated her own sad story and took out all information from me. When she arrived there was a lot of gossip going on about her husband but who dared to inform her about her husband?

As if she could read my mind, she wiped her tears and said, “He said, ‘the womenfolk here are really bad. They are instigating me.’ But I could imagine that something like this must have happened here.”

“When he came home during the holidays as soon as he put his bags down, he started talking to his daughter praising the woman.  And then later, my daughter came up and excitedly told me, ‘Mama, thataunty is really nice. She has good looks as well as a very good nature. She has sent this orange cake for you. You cannot forget the taste of her Chilli chicken and Gobi kebab.’

“And he used to tell me, ‘She has saved my life. But for her, I would have lost my life during that heart attack.’ Then he would ask our daughter, ‘My dear, please write a letter to Aunty.’ He even forced our daughter to write a letter.”

“One time, when he stayed with us for a month, I got hold of a letter from that woman. She had written a love letter saying she was missing him. As if the whole department was going to collapse without Mr. Chowdhury, as soon as he got the letter, he left, even though our son’s final examinations were coming up. What magic she has! What has she got in her flesh that I don’t have?”

“Your children are grown up. Why don’t they talk to their father?” I tried to reason.

“What will they say? She responded.“If they say anything, he gets angry and attempts to hit them. He tells them, ‘I will just feed you like I feed the dog.’And that’s it.”

She was perturbed when she heard our gate opening. I immediately got up and saw that the milkman had come. I came back with two packets of milk. She regained her calm after she saw me return with the milk. Gradually she became comfortable with me. She got up from the sofa and came over to me and held my hands and said “You are like my younger sister; that’s why I am telling you all this. Please, can you advise me on what I need to do?” Sheappeared as if she had found some hope even though her face still looked pale and helpless. In fact, I could not understand what kind of help she was expecting from me.

Her helplessness took me back to a time when I was about nineteen or twenty years old. The fights between my parents had been increasing then. I was in my final year of my B.A. degree and there was the pressure of the honours syllabus. There had been a similar incident between my parents over domestic help. Initially, I was very cross with my mother. Sometimes they would fight over dinner; sometimes there would be fights in the middle of the night and my father would leave the house. These things had become a regular occurrence. As the eldest in the family, I had to take care of my younger siblings. Two of my youngest siblings could not understand what was going on and would look at me with shock. ‘Extramarital affair’ did not exist in their vocabularies. I could understand but never believed; I never wanted to believe. My mother had become anemic after giving birth to six children. Her veins appeared like blues rivers and canals under her bright fair skin. She had gone through menopause.

I had come to know about menopause from a book. This event happens after forty-five to fifty years old in the lives of women and it makes them feel worthless for their husbands and they suffered from a complex. So I used to think that my mother was just being suspicious of my father without any reason.

My mother didn’t want the maid servant working for us anymore. But we were not ready to get rid of her. In fact, we all had become so dependent on her we thought we could not manage without her. There was no pump in the well and the cooking was done by burning wood. The maid would cook and fill up about fifty buckets of water in the tanks in the bathroom, kitchen, and even for the dishwashing. She would wash the clothes and the dishes, fry rice, and even comb our hair. She would massage our bodies with mustard oil. She would stitch buttons and quilts. She would water the plants in the garden. She would sometimes cut wood into small pieces to be burnt for cooking. She was like a machine ready to work as soon as you switched it on.  Yet my mother didn’t see her in that light.

My mother knew the reason behind our desire not to throw her out. She knew her children would not agree with her. Sometimes, she would fight with our father and leave the house and go to her sister’s who lived in the other corner of the town. She would stay at her sister’s place for the whole morning or sometimes the whole afternoon and then her sister and her husband, my uncle and aunt, would console her and bring her back to our house. Once she locked herself in a room. My father was so angry that he punched the door hard enough for the nails to come out and half of the door was hanging out. I was not at home when that incident happened but my younger brother, who was in seventh grade during that time,who could not ride a bicycle properly, pedaled it to my college that day. He waited for a full forty minutes until my class finished. I was scared to see him because my mother was always threatening she would take poison. My younger brother told me about my mother’s brooding and my father breaking the door. I immediately took a rickshaw and came home. When I came home, my mother was eating her wet rice in a corner and my father was reading the newspaper on his bed.

After that, many unpleasant incidents took place. Once I was awoken by the sound of glass bangles. At three in the morning my mother was filling up the tanks in the bathroom and the tank for dishwashing with the water from the well.

“What are you doing?” I had asked her.  “Why are you filling up the tanks at three in the morning? Are you mad? Who wants you to do this?” I took away the bucket and the jug from her hand. She would not give them to me. She did not lose her temper; neither did she cry. On the other hand, she told me, “None of you really listens to me because you have to fill up the tanks, wash the dishes, and mop the house.”There was a strange wetness in her voice; more than the tears in her eyes. I sat down with my hands on my head. I could not understand what had to be done.

My mother would talk about her misery to all our neighbours just like Mrs.Chowdhury did. She could never understand she should not be talking about her private life in public. She could not understand everyone was laughing at her.

Once, she was shouting at my father at the top of her voice. I could not tolerate anymore and tried to put my hand in front of her mouth and stop her. She pushed my hand from her mouth and saidto my father, “Go ahead. You can hit me.” My father’s image was slowly and steadily getting tarnished and we could not do anything about it.

One day, I realized why should there be so much fuss over a maid. Someone else can be employed in her place. I called the maid and told her to go back to her village. We would pay you all that we owed her and on top of that, we would give hera hundred rupees more.

“Aunty is just creating a mountain out of a mole hill,” she said and started crying out loud.

“No one wants you to worry about that,” I said.

It was my final year before Igraduated from graduate school. My younger sister was doing her undergraduate workand my younger brother was doing his secondary school finals.I asked myself then, why do such strange incidents take place? Why does a smooth simple life suddenly become complicated? Why does it all get changed in a span of a few seconds? Why does trust,built over years, suddenly dissolve? Why does a person who was so dear suddenlybecomes a stranger? These questions came back tohaunt me when I thought of my mother and saw Mrs.Chowdhury in front of me.

I freed my hands from Mrs.Chowdhury’s grip and said, “I am connecting you to the General Manager. You tell him everything. He is your husband’s superior so he can drive some sense into your husband.”

She agreed to my proposal. It appeared as if she had become impatient to share her children’s problems over the dinner table; to enjoy the timeless pleasures of bed like the autumn rain; or maybe to live again the conjugal life that had started some twenty-five years back.

As soon as the phone rang on the other side, I handed her the receiver. She narrated her misery from beginning to end. When she put the receiver back, her face appeared clear like the sky without a single cloud. I asked her, “What did the General Manager say?” She stood up intending to leave. “He told me that he will talk to Mr.Chowdhury today.” I consoled her not to worry and everything would be all right.

Later on, we realized it did not benefit Mrs.Chowdhuryby asking for the General Manager’s help. That evening, she came to meet me secretly. She told me talking to the GM over the phone did not serve any purpose. On the other hand, he called me up in the internal line and explained to me, “Don’t irritate your husband. Don’t fight with him all the time. It is not good to suspect your husband. He may have lost his temper and said something. In real life, how can one divorce one’s wife?” She appeared very tired and helpless. She asked me, “Could you please tell me, is it possible, that the GM does not know about his affairs? Everyone knows yet why doesn’t anyone want to admit it? Why is everyone taking it so casually? Don’t they find it indecent?”

“I got paid back by complaining to the GM. ‘How will I describe his atrocities?’ He questioned me. ‘You have gone to the GM and complained about me, isn’t it? I will marry her. I will see what you will do. If you want to stay here, just keep quiet and live. Otherwise leave this place.’”

“Tell me, is it possible to remove this woman from this place?” she asked me.

I replied, “MrsGomej has been here for a long time. Her father was an old hand in this company. She was born here. Not only Mr. Chowdhurybut many people pine for her even today,” I smiled.

She spread her lips and said, “She indulges in style; we don’t otherwise...”

I replied, “No, it’s not really that. Her genes have made her different from us. Her golden hair, blue eyes, and bright complexion do not belong to this place.”

“She can be transferred. Tell me, who should I ask?”

I tried to make her understand. “Everyone has a boss. Why are you so worried?”I could not help her much that day. I could only promise her I would give her the necessary telephone numbers.

This was my first experience in fighting for someone. Let alone fighting, I did not even participate in the college strike because my father had a very bad temper. Whenever there was a strike in the college, Iwould stay at home and enjoy my meals. I did not get to see the effigy being burnt nor did I see the buses set on fire. I just heard about the stories of black flags on top of the court buildings. Again, when the schools and college came back to normal, I would listen to the stories of bravery and their stories of food in jail. I felt as if they had participated in the struggle for independence. From that point of view, my life was really colourless.

The next day also she came to our place without the knowledge of her husband. As soon as she came, she was eager to go back. “He knows that I’m visiting you. Did you get the director’s number?”

I had written the number on a small piece of paper. After looking around for a while, I found it and gave it to her. She was nervous to phone the director; in fact, I was a bit nervous as well. She asked me to connect and I did so. As soon as there was the ring from the other side I quickly gave the phone to her. She asked me, “What should I say?” In the meantime she had to talk to the director. She was repeatedly narrating her misery to him. She had exhausted herself painting herself as helpless as she could. She asked whether Mrs.Gomej could be transferred and when she put the receiver down she was almost in the verge of crying.

Like a person who has lost confidence, she had lost her capability to gather herself and said “Nothingelse can be done.”

“What do you mean?” I asked.

“He told me, ‘Why are you washing dirty linen in public? Try to explain everything to your husband and help him get back to track.’”

“What did he say about the transfer?”

“He said, ‘a transfer is not as easy as you think. It cannot be done according to your whims and fancies. Try to adjust to your family.’”

“What does he mean by ‘adjust?’” I inquired.

“I don’t really understand what he meant by ‘adjust’ either. He asked me what evidence did I haveabout my husband’s relations with her. Is this a movie or a detective novel? Is it a court that I will have to provide evidence? I have seen lipstick marks on his chest, arms and thighs. These marks don’t stay for long time where I could show them? But they were there; I’ve seen them.”

“Don’t lose your confidence. Have faith in God. He is the mightiest of all,” I said.

In fact, I had lost my own confidence. I had never been addicted to sports. During my school days, I used to sit in one corner of the school field offering one excuse after another. I was never affected by winning or losing a game. But now, this was the first time I experienced the pain of losing.

As soon as she heard God’s name, she took out atabeez , a talismanic locket she had been wearing under her blouse. “Someone has given this tome. If I put on this one, I will get him back.” I tried to remember if my mother had also put on some kind of magical tabeez to get back my father.

Suddenly she asked me, “Do you know who his enemies are?”

“Enemies?” I asked with surprise.

“I will ask help from his enemies,” she said.

Even though I did not approve of her plan, I couldn’t help but appreciate her intelligence.

Then she asked me, “Who is Avidutt? Did he ever have a fight with Avidutt?”

I was surprised to hear Avidutt’s name.I knew Avidutt but he never comes to our place. I had never spoken to him.

I explained, “He had had a fight with MrChowdhury a long time back. He is from a famous mafia gang. At that time, he had threatened to defame Mr.Chowdhury and Mrs.Gomej by writing their names on the walls.”

Hearing this information, she was very pleased and asked me, “Do you have his phone number?”

“I can look in the directory.”

 “Please can you find it and keep it for me, I will come by tomorrow.” And with that she left.

For sometime there had not been a normal routine in my house. The first day when Mrs. Chowdhury came to my house and shared her sorrows with me, I could not give my children breakfast; seeing the stranger in the house they quietly took their chairs to the garden and sat there. By the time she left, it was time for school. Most of the days she would arrive around the time the children would be coming from school. I could not help the children in taking off their school uniforms. I could not put jam on their toasts or give them their afternoon milk. They took their food as they could. I could not water the plants in the garden nor could I finish my novel. All my chores were getting delayed as well, yet I could not say no to her.

The next day, she came back to plead with Avidutt about her misery. Avidutt was not at home. I was thinking there was still time to keep her out of that. But she started talking about Mrs.Gomej and the discussion took another turn. She said, “I am insulting her in streets wherever I encounter her. I shouted at her in the club by calling her a whore.”

“And Mrs. Gomej did not say anything back to you?” I asked. “When did you say that? Where was I?” I felt as if she was just imagining saying it. Can anyone really say such things to a woman’s face? Has she started fighting and shouting in her imagination?The next day, she came to phone Avidutt.

“Is Mr.Chowdhury not at home? How could you come?” I asked politely.

She replied, “The old man was going out for a walk. I thought he was going to her place and followed him for sometime.Half way through, I realized he was going towards the stadium so I returned. I will make the call and leave quickly.”

After her conversation with Avidutt that day, I saw her smile for the first time. She was very happy and commented, “We call these people hooligans but when it comes to helping someone, these people will give their lives.”

Somehow I felt whatever she was saying could be true. The well-placed people are very selfish. Really, she had narrated her misery to everyone but no one had come forward to help her thus far.

After speaking to Avidutt, she did not come to our place for a few days. I thought maybe the man threatened someone and set things straight. But I was wrong. She came again to me and said, “I am really troubling you.”

“Not really”, I said trying to conceal my feelings.

“Do you know what MrChowdhury is up to? He has been taking that wicked Avidutt to drink for the last three days. He is coming home at midnight. I was thinking he had been going to Mrs.Gomej’s place. Gradually I came to know the truth during our quarreling. The other day he hit me and said, ‘You have employed hooligans to come after me. The hooligan whom you had approached is drinking with me for the last three days.’”

“There is another way,” I offered.

“What, are you referring to? The union? The old fellow has also got them all on his side” she said with a sense of hopelessness in her voice.

I replied, “No, I know a journalist. We will talk to him. You will see he will be back on track.”

“Strange”, she said. “Everyone knows they have a close relationship. Yet how could everyone pretend as if there is nothing going on?Everyone is blaming me that I am suspicious; that I am trying to defame him. What kind of wife will defame her husband unless she feels insecure?Am I mad? Don’t I have a daughter to give in marriage? Don’t I love my family? No one is coming forward to solve the problem. On the other hand, everyone is arguing that there can be no breakdown in such a strong household. Is anyone able to understand why I am having sleepless nights?”

As I pondered the situation, I then realized my mother must not have gotten up at three in the morning too, as I had thought. She must not have been sleeping at all at night. It is not easy for one person to seal the cracks in any household.

Mrs. Chowdhury left our house very unhappy that day but I tried to put my ideas into action. I spoke by phone with the journalist whom I knew. I asked him what could be done about such cases. The journalist listened with great attention to everything very sympathetically. He also did not fail to condemn Mr. Chowdhury.

Then he asked “Do you have any proof? Any letters or pictures? We cannot publish anything without proof. A defamation suit could be filed against us.”

I promised the journalist I will discuss these things with Mrs. Chowdhury and inform him at another time, even though I knew it was not possible to get those things.

Mrs. Chowdhury never came back to our house after that day when she had left our house so very unhappy. In the meantime, a week had passed. One day I was sitting on a chair outside when I saw her going past our house avoiding looking towards the house. I had this desire to run and ask her, “Do you have any letters or pictures?” The next moment it occurred to me, she had walked past our house smiling; she had not even bothered to look towards our house.

As days passed, I started getting more and more interested in her. Yet I never went to her place to find out what was going on. How could this person who came to my house everyday suddenly become so quiet and ignore me? I had helped her without any motive. Isn’t it proper on her part to at least let me know what happened?

I asked her nieghbours about her just out of curiosity. I heard these days she was going out with her husband. She was going out from evening until midnight all decked out with kajaal in her eyes, big earrings, lipstick, sleeveless blouses, and dark nail polish. Still people did hear her shouting from their respective quarters at night.

I was trying to remember what had happened in my house, how had peace come back.I could not remember anything clearly now. For a few days, the maid had sat down as if she had lost her sense. Our maid had blamed my mother. We were fed up with all that was happening and had lost interest. How the maid got out of our lives we did not even realize.  One day, she just wasn’t there anymore, either physically or in our minds.

Somehow I came to realize that life does not end like a fiction story where the culprit gets punishment and the innocent goes to heaven. Perhaps life is always like this. I was assured, after all, everything would become all right in time.But would it be?

(Translated by Gopa Naik

Edited by Paul McKenna)

MY STORY SERIES - 8

Hide & Seek

Sarojini Sahoo

(This is one of my fresh stories and has not been included in any of my collections.

It’s a story about a hypothetical relationship developed between a mother and her young son. Mother is a careerist and her son is an introverted alien soul. Son has a sense of being a right soul in a wrong body, but he can’t open his feelings to mother.

The total story is based on an online chat between mother and her son. Their relationship, the lack of warmth in feelings, and their confinement to their own world, all appear through their conversation. They always feel they were moving on two parallel linear paths and it was not possible to traverse each other. Still, whenever they felt their hearts heavy with any saddened moment, they used to call each other.)

“Dear, please listen to this song,” she wrote to her son. It was a song in English about the feelings of an eight-year-old boy who lost his parents in a plane crash. She attached the file and sent it, and waited in anticipation.

The text of the message said, “This was written and composed by one of my friends.”

“Well, let me listen to it first,” he wrote back to his mother.

The son started melting slowly as if a pain had been igniting in his heart and all his sorrows started to melt.  The image of melted candle wax flowing down over the candle holder described what happened inside him. Whoever the singer was he did not know but the tone was sufficient to make him refrain from comment.

In that song, the little boy was searching for his parents within the clouds; searching over the mountains; through the forest; beyond the waves on the beach. He was searching for his parents behind the smoke rising from burning leaves; among rushing springs; in a framed photograph; in the starry sky and from the dark night. The little boy was searching for his parents in every room of the house in which he lived.  He was even searching for them in the snow which fell from the sky.  He was searching everywhere.

Her son was getting sentimental. Unmindfully he typed, “Uf!”

“Tell me dear, I’m waiting. Did you listen?” she wrote back.

In the song, the little boy sang: “Come to me from the clouds, from herbs; come down to me in the snow. Come to my binocular. I’m waiting for you near my windows. We will go to beach if you come; we will play on the plateau.”

The chat screen remained open with half-written messages. Five minutes had passed. It seemed to her, her son had left his seat on other side but he had not signed out or turned off his computer. The song was only of three minutes duration yet five minutes had passed. What was her son doing there? Mother could not guess what was going on other side. Her patience was breaking down and after ten minutes of waiting, she chatted, “Are you there?”

He chatted back, “Yes mom! I’m still here. But I've got to go. I’ll catch you later.”

“But you haven’t told me about the song.  Did you like it?  It’s composed by...” At that point, she noticed he had signed out.

Her questions remained unreachable to her son. She got upset. Had her son become sad?  Was it proper for her to send a sad song to a boy who was living alone thousands of miles away from his parents? Why did he sign out so suddenly? Both mother and son had not met each other for one-and-a-half years. Since their separation, the mother couldn't reach him after several attempts. Her research (as part of her fellowship) still remained incomplete and she was unable to be closer to him.

She was feeling quite restless to continue her research coping with the unknown and uncomfortable customs, culture, and environment of the Western world. She wanted to complete her three-year course in only two years. She didn’t have any leisure or rest days. It was all work and no play. She wanted to be home.

Every day, when she arose from her bed and submitted to her daily busy routine life, she would remember her son. She missed her son, her home, and her family. But she couldn’t adjust her times to interact with any of them. Her time didn’t match her son’s. She was at Oxford and her son was in Bangalore. It was impossible to find one another at any common time during the day. But was the distance of thousands of kilometers the only thing keeping them so far and so away?

Mother was happy her son was self-sufficient. But still, she could not imagine him beyond a child of eight years old and she couldn’t convey her concerns for him any day. She was incapable of building a bridge between them.

Many times, she would receive her son’s phone calls when she was in a classroom or with her professors or in a library or in reading room, and she couldn't talk freely with him. He might be angry with her so when she would call her son, he didn't pick up his phone or avoided her saying “I’m busy” or “We’ll talk later.” But he wouldn't call back again and she would also fail to contact him later. 

In past days, when her son was a child, he would often be in bad temper. She would try to calm him down but would often fail. So when she was feeling helpless, her son refused to listen to her and would remark, “I’m used to this, mom. The loneliness is not new for me. I can cope with it. Now when I find myself in a crowd, I’m uncomfortable. I can’t get by the situations. I feel comfortable with my loneliness.”

Mother said, “You are a mad. Loneliness is only a state of mind. There are billions of people, uncountable different species of animals, birds, and insects; so many rivers, mountains, and forests. And there are also sounds, lights and air. How can anyone feel alone?”

“You don’t understand, mom.”

“Why can’t I understand?”

“You go outside to share your loneliness and I go home to share my loneliness.”

“Oh my son!” She seemed to be more worried.

She now returned from her memories and found herself lying on her bed waiting for her son’s appearance on the chat application. She didn’t know why but her heart told that it was not proper to send the audio file to him. In her son’s childhood, he had a strange habit of drawing moustaches and beards under the nose of every picture of a female -- from models to Bollywood heroines. First she was thinking this attempt to make all females males by pen was his stupidity. Sometime she even rebuked him, “Do you think you’re doing justice to those photos? Don’t you think you’re making them vulgar and ruining them?”

“They deserved it. That was their fate,” he replied.

Mother was astonished. Had he become a misogynist? But why? She had always tried to present herself as softer, kinder, more sincere, and more motherly to her son.

But where did she have time? She had to manage both the inner and outer world of her family. She had a busy schedule and though everything day-to-day was running smoothly, there remained the usual challenges on both fronts.

One day the son told her, “I’ll create a mutant.”

“A mutant? What does that mean?”

“Don’t you know what mutant is? He is a super creature and has super energy. He can do everything which an animal can’t. I’ll create a mutant human.”

Since then, it was known to mother that God was the only super power. This was the first time she came to know a mutant is also a super power. But what does this mutant look like?

Once her son showed a mutant from a  movie in their TV.  He was fighting with Arnold, a Hollywood hero. The character neither looked human nor robotic. But no matter what it looked like, it was difficult to kill it. When its wings got separated from its body, new wings started to grow again. Its walking styles, its steps, and even its activities seemed very strange. It seemed to her that the mutant might have no heart. So she asked to her son, “Do you think these mutants have any hearts?”

“What are humans doing with their hearts? Their hearts are the weakest part of them,” he argued.

Mother was saddened with his words. Her conscience said you can’t measure all the wealth of the world with a heart. But her son would say these things knowing full well it would hurt her.

For her, it was his childish activities. He would change with age; these adolescence acts would vanish with time. But she couldn’t forget that mutant. So, when she got an opportunity, she argued God is the only super power. To her, human or Satan, mutants or aliens – all seem powerless in comparison to Him.

She wanted to her son to get rid of these thoughts of mutants from his head. And time passed.  Both were involved succeeding in their respective paths; he, with his education and she, with her career.

Her son got admitted to I.I.T, one of most prestigious engineering colleges of the country. Mother was so busy with her promotions and transfers in her job and with her refresher courses that she couldn’t have any time to make herself available to her son.  But was she alone with this?  Was she the only career woman who had the same issues? But still she felt her son resided in her heart.

It seemed both mother and son were going on two parallel paths which would never meet. Still, whenever they felt their heart heavy with any saddened moment, they would call each other. They would extend their hands to touch each other whenever they found themselves in trouble.

One day, he called his mother and said, “I need three lakhs rupees.”

“Three lakhs? What will you do with so much money?” His request came during the last year in engineering college.

“Mom, I want to help a needy person.”

“To help? Are you crazy?”

No response.

“So much of money?”

No response.

“Who are you going to help? What’s his name? Why does he need so much money?  What’s he going to use it for? Has he none to help him?” Mother could feel her words were becoming irritable to her son.

“Tell me straight if you could help me or not. I’m not forcing it on you. I will have a job after few months and I can return back all the money you lend to me,” he said in an irritated and impatient tone of voice.

Mother could not say anything for a while. He was telling her he could repay her in a few months as he would have a job. Up until now, all her efforts were meant for her son.

But it was unknown to her from which date he was starting to think himself as more of a daughter than a son to his mother. He found no words to be able to express it.  But did his mother really know?  Would she want to know?  Was it better to make up reasons for the money he so desperately wanted to make himself right?  These were all questions he would ask himself rather than his mother asking them.  She just had no way of knowing.  She would keep thinking it was another woman; another person whom he was trying to help.

Her son always showed apathy for her. He could have told her, “Mom, there is no need of your job when I could arrange some one for me. You can resign from your job. I’ll look after you.” As much as she would have liked this to happen, she ever dreamed of it or even gave it more than just a passing thought. But over time, they had developed a distance between them, much more than a geographical distance. There were so many gaps between them that now after trying, they couldn’t even touch themselves. For a whole night, mother was thinking about the person for whom her son was so soft? Was her son in love with anyone? If he had a lover, would she use him for only money and break his heart?

And for a long time after that, they didn't have any contact. During the first few days, mother thought perhaps someone was trying to deceive her son for his simplicity and good-natured and childish heart. Again such thoughts also entered in her mind her son might be involved in some anti-social faction. But still, she continued her depositing money in his bank account and waited to see when he would return back to her, forgetting his old anguish. But with passing times, she was breaking down into pieces. The two leaves of hope budding out from seeds might look fresh, but does the tree look so fresh when it grows towards the sky with raising its branches?

In the meantime, her son completed his studies and arranged a job for himself. Before joining, he came to his mother but didn’t ask for those three lakhs of rupees and his mother also didn’t raise the matter either. He stayed with her for only 24 hours.  Mother had arranged cakes and pastries for him which he never took with him. Mother could mark her son was looking more serious than earlier and was remaining unmindful most of the time, as if he had a hidden world -- his own world -- where no one outside of him could enter. She tried to open his heart but failed, and the son returned back after only 24 hours, leaving mother in dismay.

After that, they tried to reside as if they were walking along two sides of a canal which had no connecting bridge. Still she was proud of her son for his genius character, which helped him to get a job just after completing his graduation in engineering. She expected her son should also feel proud for his mother but that was never forthcoming.

One day, she told him, “My son, I’ve been awarded with a fellowship from Oxford University and have to leave within a few weeks.”

“Okay,” he replied, without adding any extra warmth in his response.

“Are you not happy?” asked mother. She asked and braced herself for another harsh reply. What would she answer, if her son would ask, “Fellowship? How many days you will continue such study avoiding to your role as a mother? Is there any meaning of such study?”

She was afraid her son would blame her for running after a career and overlooking the needs of her family, though she knew she was working for the wellbeing of her family. She was afraid her son would challenge her and ask, “What have you done for me since my childhood? I agree you have spent a lot of money on me. Every parent outlays such money on their children. Does that favour everything for a child?  Remember those days when you were out of home for your job, leaving me with a crèche nurse? Did you imagine any day how that nurse would feed me? What pain I got in swallowing those dried breads with jam or jelly? When I did vomit, I searched for a hand on my back, a hand of solace, a hand of love and concern, a hand of mother. Did you give that hand to me? Have you imagined, how I would have digested those abusive languages which that nurse was chucking to me every time? You were never any day with me. How would you expect me to feel proud of you now?”

No, the son never did vomit such poison. He neither showed any interest nor responded; he even did not meet her personally. She came to Oxford with the consolation she could meet her son on webcam.  But it was not possible for her to catch him. Sometimes, their available times did not match; sometimes, the net connection was not available; sometimes, their webcams wouldn’t work.

Mother’s friend Paul once sent her an audio file. It was a song sung in English. Paul had composed its music. She got impressed with the music and the lyric was also so heartening and comforting. So she sent the audio file to her son but would he listen to it and like it? To know her son’s response, mother asked him, “You haven’t told me about the audio file I have sent. Did you like it?”

He didn’t respond, even though the chat screen showed he was still signed on and had received the message. Perhaps he had left the chat without signing out. But mother waited and waited and after a long time, suddenly he sent a welcoming chat: “Hi!”

“Hi!!” She chatted back, “I will buy a new headphone to hear your voice. I want to hear you.”

Instead of replying to her eagerness, he wrote, “Listen to this song from this link.”

It was a link to YouTube. When she clicked the link, a favourite Bollywood movie song appeared. It was a song in Hindi “Lukachhipi bahut hui” ... “we had so much of a hide and seek game”... the singer sang so there. It was a song of a child in that Hindi movie, who sang it for his mother.

Her eyes filled with tears. The song had a pathetic, sad tone. It was about a mother who was searching for her son. She was searching in lanes, by-lanes, parks, and roadsides, as if her eyes were turned to stone in waiting. “Son, where are you? Your mother is searching for you.”

But mother found her son in a coffin. There was a pyre; there was smoke. She could hear her son’s voice, “How can I say where I am? How can I?”

The movie song ended in YouTube and just then, her son chatted her, “Mummy!”

Mother’s eyes were now more full of tears. She wished to hug her son. It’s too hard for her to imagine. Her son’s pyre? No, never. Whatever misunderstandings might have been existed between them, her son was the air she breathed, the reason for her existence. He was her soul.

A chat appeared in her son’s pane. She wiped her tears so she could see clearly.  It read: “I want to kill myself.”

As if she was falling down from heights way above her, she typed with trembling fingers, “Why you are talking like this, my son?”

He didn’t answer his mother’s question but wrote, “I had been trying to hide it from you Mom, but I couldn’t bear it anymore. I’m tired of hiding this truth. I couldn’t play this hide and seek game anymore. Mummy, I don’t like my body.”

“Are you mad? Are you conscious about what you are saying?  What happened to you? Anything wrong with you? Do you think death is the only solution for all these things?”

He wrote, “I swear, Mummy, I’ve kept everything near my laptop which will bring me to death.”

“I want to see you. Please switch on your webcam.  And watch me. I’m sure, you will get relieved. Wipe out such thoughts from your mind, my son!  Please let me see you.”

“Don’t call me as your son.” He wrote in anguish.

He had switched his mobile off. She never reached him after numerous dialing. Finally, he wrote in the chat box wall, “Your words would have no impact on me.”

Though her camera was ready, he didn’t accept her request. She tried again to send a webcam request but it was ignored. They sat in front of their computers silently, each in their own place. She felt as if her sky was dried of air. Her life was losing it luster. Why had her son written so?

After some agonizing moments, the son chatted, “The body of your son is a wrong body, mummy. Have you marked the soft heart which has been hidden in this masculine six foot body? Yes, the heart is soft.”

He continued, “Not everyone’s like you, mummy. My colleagues have no such soft heart as I have. They are strong and masculine and carefree. They are not emotional. But I can’t resist my heart from emotions. Every time I feel myself insecure, I find myself in a depressed mood every time.”

“You are that type of boy from your childhood,” the mother chatted back.

“Yes Mom, I am that type. Then, is it not a right soul in a wrong body? Tell me, how can I cope with a soul and body which aren’t matched up? I can’t kill my soul, Mummy, so I have to kill my body instead. It will only take five minutes....”

She was speechless. Her mind had gone blank. She was a student of English; she was a teacher of English yet she still couldn’t understand a single word her son was chatting. She wrote, “I can’t understand you my son.”

“Why don’t you try to understand me, Mom? Don’t you have `any idea `about gender?”

“Yes, I have.”

“Can you remember, once I asked for three lakhs rupees? Do you know, why I asked for it? So I could get a body I liked and felt comfortable in.”

“What you are telling me?”

“That it is possible.”

“No dear. You are very much perfect. Don’t go in for any crazy fashion.”

“You hadn’t any time to look at me any day.  Why should you care now?”

She remained silent.  It seemed as though a sharp object had penetrated right through her heart. Though she had not spent that much time as a mother, hadn’t she at least marked her son? Now she recalled her son from childhood to youth. No, she didn’t recollect any change. It’s false...false. It might have a false conception for her son. Why was he hypnotized with such ideas? How could she return her son back from this wrong conception and belief? She wrote: “Dear.”

Though he was online, he didn’t respond.

She typed, “My dear. Are you there?”

Her son didn’t reply. Mother could remember the song: “Lukachhipi bahut hui” ... “we had so much of hide and seek game.” She could feel she was tired of it. How had she never detected her son was melting from inside? Melting very slowly. And now, he is totally empty, empty as if there remains nothing inside him beneath the frame of his outer body -- as if the body would crash if she would touch him, like dust. Poof.  He’s gone. She kept seeing a vision of a pyre, some smoke, and a coffin.  This made her weep in despair and guilt. She couldn’t think any more.  The image was too strong.  It was taking over her very existence. She typed:

“Dear!”  And continued...

“My child!”

“My son!”

“You have played a lot. Look, your mother is tired. Please come to your mother’s arm. I want to hug you.”

“Babu!”

“Bubani.”

“Where are you, my Kuna?”

“My Lulu!”

“kuknu!”

“Butu, my Butu!”

“Are you there, Beta!”

“My Darling!”

“My Son!”

“My Sunu!”

“My Lunu!”

"Where are you, my Pupuli. Write once."

“My old guy!”

“Tiki, my Tiki!”

“Micky!”

“My dear, why are not you typing? Write something. Write my dear. Write something for me. Write for your mother, for your Dear.......”

(Edited by Paul McKenna)

MY STORY SERIES - 7

Volcano

Sarojini Sahoo

(The original story was written in 90’s and is included in author’s Odia anthology Deshantari (ISBN: 81-7412-147-0) under the title ‘Agneya Giri’ and English version of this story was first published in August 2010 issue of ‘New Fiction Journal’ (ISSN: 0976-6863). Arita Bhowmik has translated it into Bengali and it has been included in author’s short stories collection Dukha Aparimit (ISBN 978 984 404 243-8), published from Bangladesh by Anupam Prakashani, Dhaka. For Western readers, this story may torch light on the Eastern milieu of socialization for girls in society.)

There was not much of a difference between us. She was only five years older than me. We were brought up in the same environment. As children, we used to fight at times. I used to pull her long-braided hair and as soon as she tried to hit me back, I used to run and stand in the middle of the road. The road was always crowded with people and all kinds of vehicles. I knew she would never come outside the gate.

I was seven then and she was twelve. She had already reached puberty and I had not. Then, I did not know the mystery behind a mature and an immature girl. My mother was very sad and hugged her and cried when she reached her puberty so early. But she knew that she could not come out of the gate. When I was giggling away showing my teeth outside the gate, she was standing helplessly waiting for me to go inside so that she can hit me. If she tried to step outside the gate, I would threaten her, “Wait, I will tell mother, you went outside the gate.” She had no choice then but to go back. That was my victory and her failure.

Mother had a tribal belief that the horse turns mad when it becomes aware of a menstruating woman and eats her up. That’s why she was so scared for her for two to three days a month and why she couldn’t go outside the gate. She used to wait for her to come back from school in those days.

Proposals for marriage began to arrive when she was just in the eighth grade. Once when my mother had been to the temple, people came in a jeep to see her as a proposed bride with the intention of marriage. Half of the people in the jeep were women. Before we could decide what we could do or not to do, they had opened her hair and started exploring whether her hair was natural or artificial. They had lifted her salwar and were inspecting her legs. I was standing quietly because I did not know how to treat the guests. They were harassing her with all sorts of questions. Then they went back before mother was back from the temple. Afterwards, they sent the message that the girl was very thin.

We were both brought up in the same environment. I had wings and she didn’t. I roamed around in all nooks and crannies of the town but she used to know only the way from home to the girls’ school and back again.  I imagined when I grew up, I would buy a white car and roam everywhere; she had no interest in that.

She knew a lot of things. She knew how to make rice and chapattis, wash the house, arrange the shelves, and wash clothes. She used to get up at three in the morning, along with mother, and participate in the Thursday rituals. She used to feed us and look after us; she used to do everything. I never heeded to any request to do any errands. Maybe she was always there to take the responsibility so I did not have to do anything. Instead, I used to read crime stories lying on the easy chair.

You must be thinking I am really inhumane or maybe my mother indulged in preferential treatment. But I have told you earlier I was different from her. She silently obeyed everyone; I never listened to anyone. When I was a young girl, if mother sent me to get salt from the shop, I used to spend the money on getting a haircut at the hair salon. I got beaten for that but I was never really scared of beatings.

After I reached puberty, I was supposed to undergo the same kind of rules and regulations but I never did. Of course, there were a few attempts, as well, for good measure. Like once I was woken up early in the morning and was locked up in a dormant. I don’t remember clearly mother and other ladies of our joint family touched me with a branch from the drumstick tree and some mustard seeds. They told me to stay inside and to call when I needed to go to the toilet. I was also advised to shut the door from the inside and to stay in, and that I would be sent food. I used to feel terrible. I could hear the noise from the games of carom from outside of the room. I felt like taking a piece of iron and making a hole in the wall and go to the other side. During one’s menstruation, a woman is not supposed to look at any man’s face. The man is not to be blamed but it is believed the girl would be an unchaste one in her future life if she was looked at by a man during her period. Instead of thinking all about the stresses of menstruation, I was thinking instead America is just on the opposite side of India and that maybe I could reach America by digging a hole through the earth.

One afternoon when there was no more noise on the other side of the wall, I slowly opened the door and crept out and sat on the verandah outside. I had felt suffocated inside the dark room. Just at that time, my maternal uncle arrived. “Where is your mother?” he asked. “Maybe she is sleeping,” I replied and went back inside the room and shut the door. I was not afraid of being blamed; I was not even afraid of being rebuked. I rushed inside fearing he would know everything about my condition.

My sister wanted to take revenge on me. When I stepped out of the gate, she used to threaten me “Wait, I will tell mother everything.”But  I was not at all scared of her and did not enjoy running and playing around anymore. I started giving more and more thought and importance to fashion. I started visiting the homes of my friends from school in the afternoons and during holidays. More and more, I would spend time in front of the mirror and would take notice of my full lips and my fleeting and deep eyebrows. I would also take notice of my womanly shape. I used to wear skirts above the knee. I was healthy and full of life. Unlike me, my sister never bothered to dress up. She had to put on salwar kameez all the time.  She was also alarmingly thin.

A very sad incident happened to her when I was doing my matriculation. Mother used to get angry with my sister if she put on kajal in her eyes and kumkum on her forehead even though mother herself put Afghan Snow, a branded face cream on her face. I used to get that face cream for mother from the market. Once mother also scolded me saying I was always putting on kajal and kumkum like a prostitute. I wept that day but never give up using them.

Once, my sister’s friends tied her hair into a nice bun with a ring inside and decorated it with coloured hairpins. She was looking very pretty, draped in a saree with kajal on her eyes, kumkum on her forehead and bangles on her wrists. But as soon as she reached home, she had to face mother’s ferocious wrath. Mother just burst out all of a sudden. She dragged my sister and pulled out the ball and the hairpins from my sister’s hair and threw them away. She hit her so hard that all the bangles broke into pieces. My sister’s kumkum got smudged. I felt very bad. I could not say anything when I saw mother shouting with such rage. You must be thinking my mother is a real sadist. But my mother thought these things would lead to more disastrous consequences for her unmarried daughters. She was just being our mother.

But I would dress myself up just as usual. I used to put on jeans with tops and shirts; everything. My sister used to get scared when she saw my dresses. She used to ask me why I got all those types of things. Mother would be very angry if she saw them. I used to wear those dresses with great courage. If there were any dirty comments from passerby on the road, I used to brush them aside like dirt. Once mother was so angry she burnt one of my dresses in the kitchen fire. A short time later, I got another dress in exactly the same design during next Dasserah festival.

When I was making pen friends from magazines, sister was drilling her theories of economics and waiting to get married. As it was, she was tall and thin and she never wore any fashions which suited her. She would look dull, just like gold which has not yet been burnt in fire. My parents were worried because they had problems arranging a marriage for her. On the other hand, during that period, I was getting letters everyday from people without any secrecy. The letters bore the senders’ names written clearly on top. I would put the pictures my friends gave or sent to me in my album. Some of my friends even came to my home as well. I did not care if my mother showed her anger with the banging of the utensils, her irritated face; I did not care about my father’s seriousness. They would never face my friends.

I moved away from these things when I was admitted into the science stream in college and slowly, I went in a different direction. Then, I had an intense desire to become an architect, even though by this time, my mind had already seen the birth and death of many career choices which involved becoming a private detective, lawyer, and astronaut. No, I never wanted to become a physician or a teacher even though I had gotten an excellent result in my final exam.  And because of this, everyone at home wanted me to study medicine but I insisted on studying engineering instead.

When I was studying science, some man who had come to see her wanted to marry me instead. I had made it very clear that I wasn’t interested in marrying him but still, he kept in touch with me through letters for two years. Maybe he thought one day, I would agree to his proposal for marriage. He was stupid enough and didn’t seem to know I was only flirting with him.

I used to show my sister all the letters he wrote to me. She used to get very sad when she would read them. I should have realized she must be getting hurt every time she read them but why couldn’t her sorrow and helplessness reach me?  Why was I not picking it up? Actually, I never thought from her point of view which may be why I never realized I was hurting her. Instead, I was thinking – let’s see how long I can play around with this man.

He married when I was in the first year of my engineering studies. And my sister also married a better person. I thought to myself thank goodness; at least that chapter was over. Why only a chapter? After all, sister’s life would be wonderful now; she would finally lead her life as she wanted.

But in reality, my sister could not lead her life as she had wanted even though her husband was in a better job. He would stay away from onions, garlic, fish, and meat because he had accepted the teachings of some guruji. He used to get up at three in the morning and chant hymns while clapping. He also wanted her to accompany him and shine under the glory of womanhood just like Sita, Savitri and Lakhmi. He did not approve of borderless sarees or sleeveless blouses which showed her naked arms.

Initially her life seemed bright. But eventually, all the dreams she had once nurtured now seemed lifeless and meaningless; she came to accept that as reality. She lost her voice to complain. When her husband started insulting her as dark and ugly, she stopped thinking about complaining.

Slowly and steadily, her voice changed. Perhaps she had no voice left. For everything, she would say, “He does not like all these things.” She could never say that she didn’t like these things; it was always he.

The reason behind her becoming so spineless was even though she had done her Bachelors of Education, she never had taken up any job and this was another reason for her husband’s dissatisfaction. Her husband thought teaching profession was the only suitable job for women where they could remain chaste and could earn something for their family. But why my sister did not want to take up a job. She believed the real beauty of married life would be spoilt if she took up a job. Her children would be neglected. Maybe she was so disciplined that she wanted to live a peaceful life or maybe she was scared of the outside world. But there was a nice saying which always accompanied her “Lakhmivanti” This was her only pride and treasure.

Maybe that’s why her husband thrust all the household responsibility on her in order to take revenge. Her husband neither came out when the gangsters demanded donations nor when civilized people paid a visit to their drawing room. She was forced to deal with everyone no matter what their lot in life was or what their purpose of visiting was. 

Her husband used to insult her by saying she was ugly and dark, and he used to establish, always in front of others, that he had saved her by their marriage. In spite of everything, she never neglected her duties as the devoted and dedicated wife. Every morning, she used to cook five dishes and iron his shirts and trousers properly. She also would provide him with his medicines starting from digestive pills to the medicines for his heart disease. She accepted him as a lord. You could say she wore him like a crown.

I have not told you much about myself. Even though I have not told you too much, by now, you must be aware that I was studying engineering; therefore, I must have been an engineer. Every year, about ten thousand engineering students graduate in India. One year, I was among them but I was well aware this was not the achievement of a lifetime. But I am not talking about myself as I am a verso to my sister so you can better understand her.

Whatever she had imagined never happened. She thought since she married an Administrative Officer, he would definitely buy a car one day. Her children would definitely go to Doon school, a best school of India. She dreamed, just like every girl dreams of such beautiful things for  their lives after marriage.

 Her husband was honest and perhaps simple and quite outdated for the time in which they lived so her family was always lagging behind. It was ridiculous to dream of Doon school if you were a government servant and did not take any bribes. On the other hand, she could not even send them to any English-medium private school because they were constantly being transferred to different places. I am not saying if they had been admitted to an English-medium school, their lives would have been worthwhile. But I don’t know what went wrong. None of her children were good in studies. She would constantly change their tutors and get upset when doing so.

They had a house but they hadn’t built it. Instead, they had bought the house in installments from the house building society. Within a few years, all the houses around theirs were turned into palatial dwellings whereas their house stood in the midst of the others like a depressed woman condemned to the vagaries of destiny. The house had become filthier with time; it could not even be decorated with mosaic, granite or ornamented balcony.

Her children got upset when they compared their own house with the others and when they compared themselves to the children of other officer colleagues of their father. She tried to make her children understand there is nothing more valuable than honesty. Sometime her children could understand but most times, they thought their father was insufficient.

Her husband’s contemporaries all had gotten promotions and were in senior positions compared to him. It was not that he was not unhappy about it; but he had his answer ready for that. Nowadays, no one gets a promotion through fair means. The usual ways were a briefcase and sex. What was the point in indulging in these things anyway? Would anyone take these things to the grave?

A working wife got more importance everywhere, be it getting a seat on the bus; getting blood tested in the hospital; or buying things from shops in installments. Even if you had countless degrees, if you spend your time cooking in the corner of your house, no one was ready to acknowledge that you were educated. She had come to realize that “mid-twentieth century” belonged to a bygone era. She understood the girl who went to work had to put on a smile on her lips. She was already in a fake world; a world of amazing glamour. Almost everywhere, she used to identify herself as a working woman. Depending on the situation, she used to say that once she was working but now she had given it up. She used to resort to these lies without any hesitation, even in front of all us. And we had accepted her false world as well.  What else was there to do?

Once I had proposed my sister to open a shop with ladies accessories.  I suggested, “It would be nice if you can set up a KG school. You can look after your home and work outside at the same time if you open a milk selling counter or a telephone booth.”

But she had turned a deaf ear to my advice and responded, “I am not keeping well due to asthma. I can’t do those things.” Yes, we had been born with some maladies such as asthma. But I always ignored that pain of asthma in my busy life. When I got an asthma attack, I tried to strive through it. I could never understand why my sister made that excuse.

To avoid the topic, she would say, “Nowadays, people don’t get jobs. I know my son won’t get a job. He can do some business if we build a house here.”

Maybe she could not understand the purpose of my suggestions. I did not want her to earn money; I wanted her to get recognition.

Slowly, her hair was turning grey and her skin becoming loose. She had accepted that she was getting old. Once I had told her, “These days, people start their lives when they are forty.” She got very upset with me when I said that. I don’t know why but she had the belief she would die very soon, that her days were numbered. Of course there was no reason behind her belief of which I knew.

By now, you must be thinking why I have told all this to you. Yes, that day, I had encountered a volcano. Before this, I used to notice only the carpets of green meadows, bushes laden with flowers, wet ground and three charred stones from the picnic, and half-burnt wood. Suddenly, I was scared to see so much lava, hot tears, and the fire of anger burning in her heart.

Now we will return to her again. That day, her son asked me in some context, “Why didn’t you ever become an architect?” 

I replied, “I couldn’t.”

“You can become one if you want to,” he continued.

“I am not young enough anymore to take up studies,” trying my best to make an excuse.

“Why? How old are you? You are only……,” he pressed.

Suddenly she reacted to her son’s words. “Yeah, yeah, tell her that she is very young. She is only five years younger than me.”

“Is it true? It never appears so,” he said.

She got angry when she heard her son say this and burst into tears. I was dumbfounded. She suddenly erupted in anger. “All these people have unanimously spoilt my life. They never let me do anything.  My life has been wasted. I am the dirt of everyone’s feet. They never allowed me to do fashion. They never let me go anywhere. My first enemy was my mother and second...” She was suddenly quiet.

Who does she think is her second enemy? Myself or her husband? Who is it? I felt like saying, “Speak out. Speak out all your agony in this moment. Open yourself up. Let it all out.” But no. Once again, she wiped her tears with the corner of her saree and like a sleeping volcano, became dormant -- completely silent.

(Translated by Gopa Naik

Edited by Paul McKenna)