Married Woman (12 page)

When the mother came back after her month in Rishikesh, she made it a point to have her stay over often. The mother prowled around, pointing out the wasteful habits of the servants, the dirt in various corners of the house, the children’s thinness and bad eating habits, and Astha’s neglect of her in-laws.

Reduced to a nervous wreck, Astha took her anger out on the children. ‘Don’t scold them‚’ her mother’s soft voice filtered unctuously through her shouts, making the children behave worse than ever. ‘They are only children.’

How come, thought Astha resentfully, this thought never occurred when she was young?

‘Swamiji has taught me a great deal‚’ continued Astha’s mother, reading into her daughter’s silence. ‘In the old days I was ignorant. Now I know better. If I made mistakes with you, I do not want you to make them with your children. All too soon this time will go. Let them enjoy their childhood.’

Astha felt hunted. Nothing she could do was right.

Her mother introduced her to Mrs Reddy, short, plump, grey hair pulled back, widowed colleague and original introducer to Swamiji. ‘Tell her‚’ she ordered, ‘how much going to the classes will help her.’

‘Behen, it is all right. When the time is right for her, she will come herself‚’ said Mrs Reddy.

‘Tell her‚’ insisted the mother, concerned about her daughter’s happiness.

‘The Hindu religion‚’ opined Mrs Reddy, ‘is wide, is deep, capable of endless interpretation. Anybody can get anything they want from it, ritual, stories, thoughts that sustain. But first you have to realise your need.’

‘She is always so tense and angry‚’ complained the mother.

‘I don’t need religion, whatever I am‚’ said Astha firmly, while the two older women looked sorrowful.

The time came for Astha’s mother to retire.

‘I must leave this flat, beti‚’ said the mother. ‘It is too expensive for me.’

‘Of course you will come and live with us, Ma‚’ said Astha.

Tradition reared its obdurate head. ‘What’ll his mother think?’

‘What’ll she think? Nothing. She lives upstairs. It is not as though you are taking away her space. Besides Hemant is doing well enough for one mother-in-law not to be considered a drain on his resources.’

‘It doesn’t look nice.’

‘To whom? To whom doesn’t it look nice?’

‘To me.’

‘I wish you wouldn’t be so stick in the mud, Ma. Why didn’t you have a son to look after you when you were old, if you cannot take anything from a daughter? Why did you stop with me?’

‘I have talked to Swamiji‚’ responded the mother. ‘He also thinks one must be independent.’

‘What does Swamiji know? Parents belong to their children.’ By now Astha was grinding her teeth with impatience. When had this swami become so important that all Astha was saying meant nothing.

‘I am thinking of moving to Rishikesh.’

‘Rishikesh? You are going to live there all your life?’ Astha was appalled.

‘Arre, who knows how long one is going to live? The atmosphere should be pure, one should lead a life of virtue and truth, where and how does not matter.’

‘What if you fall ill? Who will look after you? Swamiji?’

‘One cannot live in fear‚’ said the mother severely.

‘Nor in isolation. You will be lonely.’

The mother was silent. So was Astha, what could one say about loneliness?

‘Swamiji is insisting that I take my time and think about it‚’ said the mother finally, ‘he is not agreeing for right now.’

‘And a good thing too‚’ said Astha baffled. She felt that in some way she had been tested and found wanting. She envied Hemant his relatively straightforward relationship with his parents. They demanded from him material care – which he gave, grandchildren – which he gave, emotional concern and physical presence – which he gave. Duties, responsibilities, obligations, all seemed clear.

A few weeks later Astha’s mother gave up the lease of her flat, and got rid of most of her belongings. ‘Material possessions are a burden‚’ she informed her daughter.

Her daughter did not feel the same way. She loved the pretty things that decorated her home, her books, her lamps, her carpets, her cutlery, tableware, linen, furniture, everything that Hemant and she had bought together. Now she wanted to add the twelve boxes of books that had formed the beds and the divan at her parents’ place.

‘Are you mad? We don’t have the room‚’ declared Hemant.

‘We do, we can build shelves.’

‘Come on, Az, donate them to a library. We can’t clutter up our house with a lot of old books. And you know you don’t read them.’

‘That’s not the point.’

‘What is the point? Books are meant to be read, and in a library they will be of use. Better looked after too.’

‘Please, Hemu, my father’s books.’

‘Don’t be so sentimental, Az. I will talk to Ma, you will see she will agree.’

Astha’s mother agreed to such an extent that the books were donated to a library before Astha even knew about it.

Astha was devastated. ‘Why did you do that?’ she screamed at her mother. ‘They were mine as well. I loved them.’

‘But you never showed any great interest in them when you were growing up‚’ protested the mother.

‘That was then. This is now. Don’t you care about Papa’s memory? How could you do this to him, to me?’

‘People do not live in their things, beti. Besides‚’ added the mother, ‘it is Hemant’s house, and he said there was no room.’

‘Then who am I? The tenant? We could have found room, we could have built bookshelves, done something, we could at least have discussed it.’

‘You know how much work they were. Every year take them out, dust them, and then they get infested by silverfish, accumulate dust and space. In a library at least they will be read.’

‘You sound like him. At the very least I would have kept a few, or do you think I too should not be weighed down by material possessions?’

The mother sniffed, looked martyred and misunderstood. What was the use of saying anything, thought the daughter, the books had gone, and all the screaming in the world was not going to bring them back. But together her husband and her mother had deprived her of the dearest part of her father, and continued before her eyes to be oblivious of their crimes.

Astha’s mother was now free to leave for Rishikesh.

‘When will you be back?’ asked Astha anxiously, as she dropped her mother at the station.

‘I don’t know beti, let me see how it goes.’

‘I wish you hadn’t turned to religion, Ma‚’ said Astha feeling as though her mother had cheated on her, manifesting a strange turn of mind that her daughter could neither follow nor understand.

‘We are all looking for peace of mind‚’ said her mother. ‘Swamiji will guide me.’

The train came and she left. Astha stood on the platform and watched her mother leave the city where she had spent all her working and married life. Now with just a bedroll and a trunk she was embarking on a pilgrimage, searching for a community she could call her own, with no possessions to weigh her down.

The months passed. Astha’s mother showed no signs of returning. Her letters, about love, peace, renunciation and knowledge, revealed nothing.

Once or twice Astha asked Hemant, ‘Won’t you go and see her, convince her that her place is with us?’ but Hemant was clearly not concerned enough for action. Astha’s suspicions hardened, maybe her mother was right, it would not be so good for her to live with her daughter. She wished she had a house that was more clearly hers.

‘I need to go and see my mother‚’ she finally said to her husband. ‘She might end up staying in Rishikesh. She probably feels neglected.’

‘That’s absurd‚’ said Hemant, ‘why should she feel neglected? Old people turn to religion. It is natural.’

‘It is not‚’ said Astha indignantly, ‘only when they have no other choices.’

Hemant looked at her. ‘Religion is a choice as much as any other thing‚’ he said. ‘If she decides to stay in Rishikesh, it must be because she is happy there. Besides I have told you I will talk to her.’

‘Like when?’

‘When she comes.’

Astha paused. She felt her mother’s condition was partly Hemant’s fault. Had he shown more concern … Tersely she pointed out, ‘I know you had no time, but this cannot be left any longer, I need to see if she is all right.’

Hemant took umbrage. ‘If that was the way you felt, you should have gone before‚’ he said. ‘I have enough things on my plate.’

‘And so I will. As soon as the children’s exams are over.’

It was five o’clock on a Saturday morning of the following week, when Hemant took his wife and two children to the New Delhi Railway Station. He bought his wife a
Femina
and
Stardust,
for his children chips and chocolate, and sat with them in the compartment till the train left. ‘Bye-bye Papa, bye Papa‚’ said his children. ‘Why aren’t you coming with us, Papa? See you soon, Papa.’ Papa wrapped his arms around them, gave Astha a brief pat and jumped onto the platform.

The children passed the five hours to Haridwar having their breakfast, playing games, fighting, eating rubbish, dozing, and going to the bathroom, while Astha was divided between looking after them, and looking out of the window. The fields on either side had wheat growing in them. Her mother must have looked at this scene and felt alone. If she were not weighed down by children, husband, job, she too might become nothing, no different from the dots of people they were passing, lost on the flat plains of northern India.

At Haridwar they got down, and walked across the road to the depot, from where they were to catch a bus to Rishikesh.

‘Bus to Rishikesh?’ said Information. ‘Half an hour. I will announce.’

Astha and her children settled on one of the benches watching the others sitting, squatting, or sleeping on the floor. The hall was large and spacious. Already the air felt cooler than in Delhi, the breeze less polluted.

They sat and sat and watched bus after bus leave. Finally after twenty-five minutes Astha asked Information, ‘When will you announce the bus that you said was leaving for Rishikesh in half an hour?’

‘It is already leaving‚’ he said languidly pointing to a bus lumbering away.

There was no time to get angry. ‘Quick‚’ shouted Astha, grabbing the one suitcase, and shoving the smaller bags at her children.

They ran towards the slowly moving bus, their feet slamming the dust while the passengers stared at them curiously. Astha banged on its side, ‘Stop, stop,’ and the passengers hands echoed theirs in the banging, and the bus did in fact stop as it turned towards the exit.

Feeling stupid and incompetent – you can’t even catch a bus – Astha pushed her children up the steps and clambered on. Inside she distributed Anuradha and Himanshu where she found space on the hard shiny rexine seats, each packed with
three to four people. The suitcase she manoeuvred in the crowded aisle, the packages she held in her lap, and with her attention wandering between her children, the green trees, the butterflies, the narrow road slowly rising, the mountains beyond, the tightly oiled plaits and shiny magenta nylon ribbons of the little girl in front, she passed the hour to Rishikesh.

They finally stopped in a small and dusty square, which appeared to be the depot. Lugging their baggage to a group of waiting scooters, Astha gave the address of the ashram, and they bumped their way through narrow roads, lined with refuse and running sewers, the scooter wallah blaring away at every pig, cow, mongrel, rickshaw, two-wheeler and pedestrian in his way.

‘What’s that?’ asked Himanshu pointing to some enormous black creatures, rooting in the profuse garbage, ugly as sin.

‘Pigs, darling.’

‘But they are not pink‚’ he objected.

‘That is just in books, stupid‚’ said Anuradha. She herself was seeing a black pig for the first time, but her grasp of the difference between reality and theoretical knowledge was infinitely quicker than her brother’s.

It was late afternoon by the time they reached the ashram doors, set in the middle of high walls. As they stepped into the compound, it seemed another world, clean, green, spacious, its long low buildings hidden by trees and shrubs on either side of a central open space. At the far end they could see benches, more trees and a paved terrace overlooking mountains across the river.

Astha’s mother was waiting with her arms open to receive her children, to show them her place, peaceful, serene, and at its centre a swami who contained the clues to life.

In the ashram Astha could see how her mother had changed. Her movements were confident, her smile less tentative. She had made friends, she spent a lot of time walking around the
terrace, and many hours reading the notes she had taken during Swamiji’s lectures. ‘Look‚’ she said, showing her notebook to Astha:

Sleep, the state of being most pure. In sleep there is no thought, no emotion, no subject, no object. Sleep is the state where there is no ‘I’. The state in itself no different from death, or previous lives in which we are in identical states – we need sleep not only to survive (you can’t be awake if there is no sleep) but in order to understand reality.