“Do you think you could be on television?” Doctor Swati asked her.
Asha shook her head. “I don’t think so,” she said. “What if someone sees me? No, no.”
“They will hide your face,” Doctor Swati said. “They will make sure no one will recognize you.”
“But they can recognize my voice,” Asha said. There was no way she was doing this. There was, of course, the fear that someone she knew might recognize her, but beyond that, how could she tell the lies she’d have to? No, no, it was better not to be asked the questions in the first place.
Doctor Swati sighed as if disappointed in Asha.
“This is a big opportunity for Happy Mothers. And not just for the clinic but also for all the women who want to have babies like this, for women like you who want to give this gift and better your life,” Doctor Swati said. “The more couples that come to Happy Mothers, the more we can help women like you. And this program will be shown in England, not here, so there will be no way anyone you know will watch it.”
As much as Asha didn’t want to get involved, she also felt an obligation to help Doctor Swati and Happy Mothers because of all that they had done for her family.
“What if I say the wrong thing?” Asha asked.
“Don’t worry,” Doctor Swati said, now smiling as she laid a hand on Asha’s. “We will go through the possible questions with you beforehand and make sure you say the right thing. In any case, just be honest and tell them the truth.”
“I will ask Pratap this evening,” Asha said.
“Yes, yes, of course,” Doctor Swati said. “Ask Pratap. I’m sure he’ll be fine with it. I’ll talk to him as well.”
Asha nodded and got up.
“And Asha, I looked into that school for Manoj. It’s a very good school, just outside Srirampuram. Very expensive if Manoj lives there, but if he lives at home and goes to school every day, it shouldn’t be that bad. You’ll be able to afford it with the money you get,” Doctor Swati said.
Asha’s face lit up. “Really? That’s such good news. Thanks, Doctor Swati.”
“Of course, it’s very hard to get into the school, you know. It’s where all the smart children go,” Doctor Swati said, then paused before going on. “You’ll need some top recommendations to get Manoj in.”
Asha stared at Doctor Swati. Recommendations? From whom?
“But you shouldn’t worry about that. I can give Manoj a good recommendation. I know the local MP very well. Mr. Rajnish Reddy. And I’m sure Rajnish-garu will give a recommendation as well,” she continued. “We’ll take care of you and your son.”
Asha felt her breath catch in her lungs.
“You just think about whether you want to be part of the program,” Doctor Swati said with a broad smile. “Even though they’ll talk to you for half an hour or so, you’ll be on the program for just one or two minutes, not much. And think about it; you’ll be on television and everyone wants that, right?”
Asha touched her swollen belly as she walked out of the computer room, feeling like something heavy had slammed into her and taken her breath away.
She felt disgust rise within her, for Doctor Swati, the parents, herself, the baby . . . everyone.
Chitra was right. This was a bazaar, a marketplace. First she had to sell her womb to get money. Now she had to sell her honesty to get Manoj into a good school.
Asha talked to Pratap about the television show when he came to see her that evening. Mohini sat in her lap on the swing on the veranda, falling asleep because she had missed her afternoon nap. Manoj was reading an English comic book, laughing to himself as he flipped the pages and read what most children his age were unable to read, what she herself was unable to read.
“I know,” Pratap said. “Doctor Swati told me about the program. Do you want to do it?”
Usually, as soon as Pratap and the children came, someone let Asha know. But this time Asha had come looking because it had been twenty minutes past four and no one had said anything. Doctor Swati had been talking to Pratap.
Asha shrugged. “Not really. But I feel that after all they have done for us, we should do this for them. I mean, Kaveri has a flat now. And we will be able to send Manoj to a good school.”
“As long as they hide your face,” Pratap said. “If people find out, our reputation won’t be worth anything. We’ll lose face and we have a daughter to marry off. We have to remember that.”
Asha kissed the sleeping Mohini’s cheek and couldn’t really imagine Mohini as a grown woman, ready to get married.
“Doctor Swati looked into the school for Manoj. She says it’s affordable if he stays with us at home. You should talk to her more and find out how much it will cost exactly,” Asha said. “But Manoj needs recommendations to get in. Doctor Swati said she will give one and also get one from the local MP. But she said I shouldn’t worry about that; I should just think about the TV thing.”
“I see,” Pratap said.
Asha hugged Mohini closer, tighter. “She seems like a nice woman, doesn’t she?”
“Who? Doctor Swati?” Pratap asked, and when Asha nodded, he sighed. “No one is nice without a reason, Asha. I say to hell with the school. Let’s buy a flat . . .”
“Pratap, please, we’ve discussed this,” Asha said.
“OK, OK,” Pratap said. “So school is more important than a place to live. Fine, do the TV thing. Just make sure your face is hidden. And maybe you can hold your nose when you speak? So people won’t recognize your voice.”
Asha frowned. “You want me to hold my nose?”
Pratap grinned, pinched his nose, and said in a nasal tone, “It was a joke, dear wife.”
Asha laughed. Manoj looked up from his comic. “Why are you laughing, Amma?”
“Your father is being silly,” Asha said.
Manoj put down his comic book and came up to his mother. He kissed her on the cheek. “I like to see you laugh. You should do it more.”
Asha’s smile froze as she realized what Manoj was saying to her, that she seldom laughed. Her heart sank. Was she always sad? Was she never laughing or smiling? Asha had always been serious. Careful. Somber. She didn’t laugh much, not loudly. She didn’t express herself. She was the quiet one.
“Well, then, I’ll laugh all the time,” Asha said, hiding her dismay.
“Good,” Manoj said as his father pulled him onto his lap.
“What about me? Do I look nice when I laugh?” Pratap asked.
Manoj shrugged. “Laughing doesn’t make you look bad,” he said, and Asha knew that she would do a hundred television shows, she would do them even if they didn’t cover her face, just to give her boy a chance.
Divya, Doctor Swati’s niece, was helping the three women chosen to participate in the TV program. They would be interviewed by a British person in English. A translator would accompany the interviewer.
Asha’s roommate, Gangamma, was also chosen to participate in the TV program, as was Vinita, a woman who had just become pregnant. She had moved into the surrogate house as soon as she got pregnant because she lived far away from Srirampuram and couldn’t come for regular checkups.
Asha couldn’t help but notice that all three women were the quiet type, not vocal like Keertana or Chitra. They had been chosen, she thought, to say the right things. Doctor Swati didn’t want anyone to say anything that would reflect poorly on her practice.
“Each of you will be interviewed in the TV room,” Divya said. “And tomorrow we will have someone come and paint the room so that all those cracks are gone. They will also walk around the house so they can see that this is a clean building, as is the clinic.”
Nursamma, who had joined them, was very enthusiastic about the British TV crew. “I saw this program about a house like this in Mumbai, was it? Old, dirty building. They didn’t even have a kitchen. The women got food from some hotel or something in a big tiffin box.”
“In that place, they had thirty women,” Divya said. “We would also like Happy
Mothers to grow. We have room for at least thirty women in this house, and with this program I think we’ll have more couples coming here.”
Asha didn’t think they could fit thirty women in the house. What, would they put beds in one of the halls?
“So, I’m going to ask you a question as if I am the interviewer, and then you can each answer it,” Divya said. “Ready? OK. Gangamma, you start first. How do you like being at Happy Mothers?”
Gangamma looked at Asha and Vinita, a little confused, and when they nodded with encouragement, she said, “It’s nice.”
Divya then looked at Asha, who mumbled it was nice, as did Vinita.
They went through twenty probable questions. For each question, Divya made them repeat the answer several times until she was satisfied.
“We’re practicing to make sure that you’re very clear in what you say,” Divya said. Asha and the other mothers knew they were practicing to make sure they didn’t say anything Doctor Swati didn’t want them to say.
Vinita pulled Asha aside into the room she shared with another newly pregnant woman, Ratna. Vinita closed the door of her room and looked Asha in the eye.
“My husband will kill me if anyone finds out what I’m doing,” she said. “Ratna told me that these TV people lie and that they will show our faces anyway. My husband’s family will not stand for it.”
Asha didn’t know what to say. This was her fear as well.
“You can just cover your face with the pallu of your sari,” Asha suggested. It was what she was planning to do. Pratap had been very clear: If anyone found out, it would bring shame to their family, and their lives would be made miserable.
Vinita sat down on her bed and looked at Ratna’s empty bed. “They asked Ratna, but she just refused. She said she can’t take that risk. Her family lives in Hyderabad. She comes from a good family. Not like mine. We live in a slum outside of Hyderabad. We have no money.”
“No one here comes from a good family,” Asha said. “We all come from nothing. Ratna can say what she wants, just like Narthaki. If they had any money, they wouldn’t do this.”
Vinita had tears in her eyes. “I have two daughters. My in-laws are so angry with me for not having a son. Then they heard about this, and they said that this was the least I could do to make sure my girls get married. It’s my fault. If I had one boy, then we could take the dowry from marrying him as dowry for our daughter.”
Asha knew how that felt. She had been relieved when her first child was a boy. Pratap was a good man, but if Asha had had two daughters, he would’ve been disappointed, too. That was the way it was. Kaveri had two boys, and she always talked about how she didn’t have to worry about marrying off daughters. Boys were easy to marry. They brought home a dowry; they didn’t take money away.
“I don’t want to be part of this TV thing,” Vinita said. “But I’m scared to say anything to Doctor Swati. Can you talk to her for me?”
Asha smiled. “If I could talk to Doctor Swati, I would’ve told her that I didn’t want to do this.”
“You don’t?”
Asha shook her head. “My husband said it was OK as long as my face was covered.”
Vinita nodded. “I’m not telling my husband or my in-laws. They’ll kill me.”
The mother talked about the television show as well the next time she called.
“Doctor Swati said that you volunteered,” the mother said. “We think it’s perfectly all right.”
“Will the TV people talk to you, also?” Asha asked.
The mother was silent for a moment, then said, “I don’t think so. The show is British, so they’ll probably talk to a couple living there.”
“Will they show this on TV in India?” Asha asked.
“No, I don’t think so,” the mother said. “But I don’t know for sure. Are you worried . . . are you . . . I’m sorry, let me put my husband on the phone. My Telugu is not so good.”
Asha heard the mother speak to the father in English, and then the father spoke.
“Hello, how are you feeling?” the father began. And after they exchanged the usual words, he asked, “If you don’t feel comfortable being on TV, just tell us. We’ll tell Doctor Swati not to have you as part of the program.”
Asha thought about it for only a moment. She wanted Manoj to go to the good school, and Doctor Swati had pretty much told her that the price of a recommendation was her participation in the TV program.
“No, no, it’s OK,” Asha said. “My husband said it was OK, too.”
“Do this only if you’re sure,” the father said. “Just because you’re carrying our baby doesn’t mean you have to talk to anyone you don’t want to about it.”
Asha almost told him then how she felt, but she held back. These people were not her family. They were no one. The only reason they called her was because she carried their baby.
“It will only be for a few minutes, they say. I don’t think it will be a problem,” Asha said.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Her hands shook as she dialed Madhu from the car. Just do it, she told herself.
“I got laid off,” Priya blurted out as soon as she heard his hello.
“Oh,” Madhu said, and was then silent.
“Oh? Oh? I got laid off, Madhu,” Priya said as she felt the panic rise. Her throat was already raspy, and hot tears were filling her eyes.
“I’m sorry,” Madhu said, and he sounded genuinely sad. “Are you on your way home? Why don’t you come to my office; we’ll go for lunch.”
Priya wiped the tears falling on her cheeks. “It’s humiliating.”
“No, it’s humiliating to get fired. Getting laid off . . . that’s just business,” Madhu said.
“They didn’t lay Angela off,” Priya said.
“Angela gets paid about half what you do,” Madhu said. “It happens. The economy is tough.”
“What will we do, Madhu?” Priya asked.
“We’ll be fine,” Madhu said.
“Are you sure?” she asked.
“Of course,” he said.
The good thing about Madhu was that he kept his cool, no matter the situation. The bad thing about Madhu was that he stayed so calm that he forgot to do anything to fix the bad situation.
Priya started to mentally calculate their bank balance and future expenses against, now, just Madhu’s salary. Her boss had actually been quite generous, giving her four weeks’ severance pay, while the others had received only a two-week package. But what happened after four weeks?
“Sorry to hear about your job, Priya. Madhu just told me,” Calvin, Madhu’s boss, said to her as she walked into the reception area of Madhu’s office.
“Well, you know, it is what it is,” Priya said, smiling. Worse than feeling like a loser after you lost your job was to let someone else see that you felt like a loser.
“Look at it positively: now you’ll have time to get the house ready for the baby,” Calvin said. He and his wife, Sandy, had three children. Sandy was a stay-at-home mom. She drove her kids everywhere and attended every parent-teacher thing, baked cookies, the whole nine yards. She was Supermom.
Of course, Priya fantasized about being a stay-at-home mom. But it had never been on the books as a thing she would ever actually do, baby or not. Now the choice might not be hers to make.
Madhu and Priya went for lunch at a small Indian place down the street that did the typical North Indian lunch buffet where all the curries tasted the same.
“I don’t have a job. I don’t want to spend too much money on going out,” she told Madhu when he suggested another nearby restaurant instead of the Indian place he disliked.
“Do we have to eat total crap because you lost your job?” Madhu asked as they sat down with their food on wooden chairs upholstered in dark-purple fabric. It was an unwritten rule—almost all Indian restaurants used the same dark purple on chairs, curtains, tablecloths, and napkins.
“This isn’t crap,” Priya said as she broke off a piece of roti.<
br />
“This is complete crap,” Madhu said. “The chicken tastes like the lamb, which tastes like the potatoes. And there is lard in everything. I guess now that you’re jobless, it’s OK if we get clogged arteries.”
“Well, unless you start making twice as much as you do now, you’d better start liking this complete crap. Or maybe we can cook at home more often,” Priya said, and shoved the roti into her mouth.
She had to keep perspective here. So, she’d lost her job. But she had a good husband and a baby on the way. As long as Madhu didn’t lose his job (please, God, Madhu can’t lose his job), it would be fine. They wouldn’t be able to afford a vacation, but they would be able to take care of their baby.
“Worse comes to worst, we’ll just move to India,” Madhu said, half-jokingly.
“Why not just move in with my parents instead?” Priya retorted sarcastically.
Madhu bit into a piece of chicken and grimaced. He put his fork down. “So, what’re your plans now?”
“Update my résumé and start looking for a job,” Priya said.
“Or . . . you could take a break,” Madhu suggested. “You’ve always worked. You got a job right out of school. You’ve never taken time off, not even a month here or there. Maybe you can see how it feels not to work.”
“Can we afford that?” Priya asked.
Madhu nodded. “Within reason. We can’t afford any big purchases, but for day-to-day expenses we should be fine.”
“And the baby?”
“It’s already in the budget,” Madhu said.
“What if I can’t get a job after the break?” Priya wondered.
“Why not see how it feels not to work? You were going to take maternity leave; think of this as an extended maternity leave, like they do in Scandinavia, where women get a year off,” Madhu said.
“And what about my career?” Priya asked.
“You can go back to it.”
“That’s what a lot of women tell themselves, and they end up never going back to work,” Priya said. “I don’t know if I want to be that woman. Look at Nina.”
“Being a mommy might be so much fun that you might not want to work again,” Madhu said. “And if you do, we’ll make that happen, too.”
A House for Happy Mothers: A Novel Page 15