A Life Less Ordinary (4 page)

 

WE SPENT A DAY AT MY UNCLE'S HOME. HE SEEMED QUITE
worried about Didi, and said to my Baba, “You've sent her off to another home, but you have not bothered to keep track of whether she is happy or not. That poor girl, she must think she has no one at all: no mother, and a father who does not even seem to care about her anymore. At least go and see her once.” Baba said he had just been to see her. At this, Uncle was quiet, then he pointed to me and said, “Don't make the same mistake with her. Make sure you check out the people you will marry her to.” Baba looked at him, but I don't think he really heard what Uncle was saying.

That night, Uncle's elder daughter, my cousin, insisted that Baba tell us a story. Baba was a real storehouse of stories, so he began one for us, and before we knew it, half the night had gone. While we were listening, I kept thinking how lucky Uncle's daughters were! Five daughters, born one after the other as their parents each time tried for a boy, and yet Uncle had given them so much love. And he loved us the same way. I also liked my uncle very much. My grandfather had died while I was still a child, but I had heard people say that my uncle was tall and fair like him—just like my cousin, the long-awaited boy, who came after his five sisters.

When we said good-bye to Uncle, he seemed well and healthy, but just a few days later we heard that he had been take ill. Baba and Ma went to see him, and when they returned they brought him back with them. One night Baba and Ma were talking and we heard them say that when they had gone to see Uncle, they had found him asleep. To Baba, he looked just like our grandfather at that moment and Baba began to cry when he saw him. Uncle woke up and said, “Don't cry, it's good you have come. I don't think I'm going to last much longer now. Somehow I have managed to marry off my one daughter but these little ones will now be your responsibility.” Baba said, “Nothing is going to happen to you. I have come to take you home with me.”

Baba brought Uncle back to Durgapur with him and took him to the company hospital to have him looked at. When he was a little better, Uncle's son, Shiv, came to our home to see his father. Uncle told him that he was feeling better but there was no guaranteeing how things would be in the future. Shiv then asked him to come back home, but Baba refused, saying that he would not let him go until he was satisfied that Uncle was fully recovered. Uncle would also have preferred that, but Shiv whispered something to him that seemed to change his mind. Uncle told Baba that since Shiv was insisting, it would be better for him to go. “Come on, son,” he said to Shiv, “let's go.”

Baba said, “Brother, since you are being treated here, wouldn't it be better to wait until your treatment is complete?” But Uncle was not willing to listen. Had it been anyone but Uncle, they, too, would not have wanted to stay with us, for it did not remain a secret for long that Ma was very upset over all the expense of Uncle's illness: she had talked about it loudly in the kitchen one day when Shiv was sitting outside and could hear everything.

Uncle left. One night, some days after this, I got up from bed to go to the bathroom. On my way out of the house, I saw Baba
standing by himself in the dark. I asked him softly, “What's wrong, Baba?” He started to say something and then stopped. “Nothing. Nothing at all,” he said, and he drew me gently toward him. I could see that there were tears in his eyes. Perhaps it was the dark that hid his tears from my stepmother, but she could not have mistaken who was standing with Baba outside. I couldn't understand why she did not come out, but just watched us through a crack in the door. After that night, Baba and Ma had many fights about me—so many that the whole house became full of tension, and I heard them say that the sooner I was married off, the better. Because of the tense atmosphere at home, Baba began to keep his distance from me, and I likewise avoided him. Did my stepmother really think that I, a twelve-year-old child, could have such an abnormal relationship with her father that his wife needed to be worried about it? To me, this was unimaginable, but that was precisely what my stepmother thought and that made things extremely difficult for me. I was so embarrassed by the whole thing that I found it difficult even to talk to the neighbors.

The escalating tension at home almost made me forget that not so long ago I had been a young girl who loved going to school. There were times when I felt that, like my own mother, I should also leave home and go away. But then, I would ask myself, where would I go? I had no place to call my own. I was consumed by such thoughts as the days somehow passed. Baba's attitude to me began to change visibly. I was no longer the apple of his eye, but more like a thorn in his flesh. The smallest things would irritate him, and somehow this just destroyed my confidence. I began to wonder and worry whether others too found me irritating.

I had stopped listening to the never-ending squabbles between Baba and Ma, but the lingering tension in the home affected me deeply. Every time I heard them complain about me, or about how they could get rid of me, I would go out of the house
and cry. Then one day, when I could bear it no longer, I told Baba that I wanted to go to Aunt's house again. “You've only just been there,” he said, “how can you go again? What will they think?” Baba and Ma joined forces against me, but I insisted. I wasn't going to give up that easily. I just dug in my heels, and in the end they had to agree. Perhaps Baba thought that this was the only way to ease the tension. I must have been right, because Baba then told me to go and tell Aunt everything about myself. “Perhaps she can do something for you,” he said.

 

THE VERY NEXT DAY BABA BOUGHT ME A TICKET AND PUT
me on the bus to my aunt's house. A few hours later I got off the bus and went straight to her son's shop, which was just by the bus stand. When I got there, I said to him, “Dada, I'm very hungry. Please give me something to eat.” He looked a little worried when he saw me and said, “What's going on? Why are you here alone? Is everything all right at home?” He sounded really anxious. “Let me eat first,” I said, “and then I'll tell you. I am really hungry.” So he took me to a sweet shop where he sat me down on a bench and I ate my fill.

After that he took me home, and there I learned that the cousin to whom I had recounted the story of the jackal and the farmer, and who was to have been married, was still single. As she and I were talking, Aunt came in and she was shocked to see me. When she asked what I was doing there, I poured out the whole story about the constant bickering between Baba and my stepmother and the tension at home. She listened and her eyes filled with tears. “You did right to come,” she told me, “and now you must stay here. In a couple of days some people are coming to see your Didi with a view to marriage, and your sister-in-law will have to cook for them. You can stay and help her.”

That night my Didi and I talked long into the night. When I told her that the boy she was marrying was very good, she said, “How do you know?” I said that I'd overheard Aunt and Sandhya's mother talking and they were saying what a lovely pair they would make. At this, Didi blushed and said, “Okay, that's enough! Now go to sleep, it's late.”

Now, if you go to bed late, you wake up late. But who was going to explain this to Aunt? She was in the habit of waking early and roasting the flat rice we call
mudi
, and it was our job to put together everything she needed for this. She would call us to wake up but we'd continue to sleep; then after several attempts, we'd get up, do her work, and go right back to bed. But she'd keep calling out to us while roasting the
mudi
, just to make sure that we didn't go back to sleep. If we didn't answer, she'd get angry and shout at us, saying, “These good-for-nothing girls have gone back to sleep again!” Then we'd quickly jump out of bed and go and do her bidding!

But even if she managed to wake us up, Aunt never told us what we were expected to do all day long. Didi was used to this, but I had spent a few years in school and I found it very difficult to hang around doing nothing. Visitors to Aunt's house would ask her about me if they saw me hanging around, and when she told them I was my father's daughter they found it difficult to believe that someone so young could have grown up so much. “Oh, Ma!” they'd cry, “that little girl? She's really grown up! She used to be such a child.” I liked to hear them talk, particularly those who were from Murshidabad, because their way of speaking was very nice.

The people who came to see Didi were also from Murshidabad and had the same sweet way of speaking, and perhaps because of that we were very hospitable to them. I helped to look after them. Aunt's daughter-in-law cooked for them, and it was
my job to serve them tea and food. This I did enthusiastically, running around here and there in my dress, and I heard some people ask who this young and energetic girl was who was working so hard. Aunt immediately understood what lay behind that seemingly innocent question, and she told them that I was the daughter of a man who had a good job and it wasn't likely that he would give his daughter away to any old fellow.

After the visitors left, I realized how tired I was. I went outside the house, leaned against the wall, and sank to the ground with my legs spread in front of me. I liked sitting like that. I thought of all those people who had praised my work—what would they have said if they had known that ever since she was a small child, Baby had known little other than the hard drudgery of household chores?

Poor Baby! What else could one say of her? Imagine a childhood so brief, so ephemeral, that you could sit down and the whole thing would unravel in front of you in barely half an hour! And yet her childhood fascinates Baby. Perhaps everyone is fascinated by the things they've been deprived of, the things they long for. Baby remembers her childhood, she savors every moment of it, she licks it as a cow would her newborn calf, tasting every part. She remembers her Ma and Baba with their stories of Jammu and Kashmir where she was born, and how, when she arrived in the world, her eyes would not open easily because she'd come two months before her time. How, just a day before she was born, her father had left her mother in the hospital and gone to join the war, and there a bullet had hit him. And why would it not? With his wife lying in hospital, waiting to give birth, he could hardly have been expected to concentrate on anything else!

And there wasn't only Kashmir, but Dalhousie, too. Here, Baba would sometimes take the children for a walk in the evenings. The roads were so dark that they could not see a thing. They couldn't even hear the sound of approaching cars, and it
wasn't until they saw their headlights that they were aware that there was a car on those dark roads. They'd walk along and come home frozen, where they would sit down in front of the one heater they had, crowding around it to try and get warm. Ma would tell them to make sure they put some mustard oil on their hands before going to bed, and then she'd do it for them and they'd fall asleep. When they awoke, it would still be dark and cold and it was difficult to know how late it was.

The house was quite high up, and from there they could see the mountains above them. From their house, the mountain roads looked like small and narrow strips and the cars going along them seemed like toy cars. Where would one find such a beautiful place? Baby remembered those days and wondered if Fate would ever allow her to go back there.

I know well what lay in store for Baby. Baba had told her to ask Aunt to make some “arrangement” for her, but after she had left, he must have talked to her stepmother about how difficult it was for them to manage without Baby around and they must have decided to get her to come back. Baby wondered what was so important that she had to be there. After all, there was nothing in the household tasks that someone else could not do. And then she remembered the one thing for which her presence was essential, and it made her smile. Baby's stepmother kept her head covered night and day, and she would never go out into the fields alone to relieve herself. Baba would not let her and it was Baby's job to accompany her into the fields! I'm embarrassed to even talk about it, but whatever it was, they had decided that they wanted to take Baby back and one day, they came to Aunt's house and did just that.

 

I MUST HAVE BEEN BACK FROM AUNT'S PLACE A COUPLE
of months when, one day, my stepmother's brother came to our
house and brought another man with him. My stepmother asked me to make tea for them and then came into the kitchen and asked me to serve the tea. I took the tea in and did as I was told, and my stepmother's brother, my uncle, asked me to sit down. I did so, and the man with him began to ask me questions. “What is your name? What is your father's name? Do you know how to sew? Can you cook? Can you read and write…?” I was so nervous I could barely answer and I kept thinking, naively, that there must be some reason why he was asking me so many questions. At the time I could not have imagined that I would be married off to a man like him. I was a little over twelve years old and he was twenty-six!

After they'd eaten and drunk, Uncle took that man away. I went out to play and a friend of mine joined me. She was laughing and making fun of me. “So,” she said, “they came to see you, didn't they?” I was taken aback. Then I laughed and said, “So what if they did? It will be a good thing to get married! At least I will get to have a feast.” “Is that what you think?” she laughed, “that you yourself will get married and you will have a feast?” So I said, “Why not? Haven't you noticed how well people eat at weddings?” My friend gave me a funny look and burst out laughing. I didn't think this was out of the ordinary. After all, lots of people thought me a bit odd, because, apart from a few, I did not talk to many people and they did not talk to me. So often they used to think I was a bit strange.