‘I want to know, did you keep the baby?’ he manages, obliquely voicing his query, not wanting to jump to conclusions and blame his mother just yet, giving her, finally, the benefit of the doubt.
And she tells him.
PUJA—CHASM
YELLOW STRIPED MARROWS
Puja is hanging clothes out to dry on the line that stretches from the coconut tree to the tamarind when the news comes.
The sun reigns strong, lording it over moisture-starved, baking earth, plastering her clothes to her body, and the monsoons show no signs of heeding the prayers being sent up to them by despairing farmers. Every day, the sun rises up in a sky the clear, unruffled blue of a pure conscience, and the hopeful hearts of the villagers sink down to their toes. Wearily they visit the temple yet again, with offerings that wither rapidly in the unyielding golden sunshine.
As Puja pauses to wipe her perspiration soaked face, she spies her aunt’s friend, Gangamma, trudging up the hill, her sprightly tread belying her age, her nimble feet deftly finding purchase on the pebble littered path.
Nilamma’s hut is housed at the top of the hill on the outskirts of this new village Puja has been banished to. The hill, red mud dotted here and there with brown rocks and green moss, looks like a giant’s fist; the weed-infested, tumble down brick wall, is the giant’s knuckle; Nilamma’s hut—the squat outcrop wedged within—the giant’s finger.
There are no neighbours. Puja surmises that this is why her father sent her here, far away from prying eyes and vilifying mouths, with only an old woman, a cow and a few chickens for company.
The location also deters any visitors. Puja wonders why Gangamma is here now, and what news she brings that cannot wait. For one hopeful, heart-lifting moment, she thinks, Perhaps she’s come with the offer of reconciliation from Da and Ma and Sharda.
The thought hovers, then Puja pushes it away. Why would they want to see her now, after all this time? She will not allow herself the indulgence of hope, only to be disappointed, and for the hurt she has managed to tamp down to flare up all over again.
‘This hut suited my nature-loving, loner of a husband just fine,’ Nilamma had said when Puja first arrived. ‘Since he has passed, I have toyed with the idea of moving closer to the village but haven’t had the energy or gumption to do so. And this place holds all of his memories. It is alive with his presence. If I move, I might not feel him beside me anymore.’
Oh great, Puja had thought, just my luck to be housed with a mad woman who lives with ghosts.
The truth is she has come to love Nilamma. The old lady lets her be, gives her space. She is quiet, never intrusive, a blessed relief after the nosy meddling of the matrons in the village Puja grew up in.
‘I will not ask you what happened, why you are here,’ Nilamma said, that first day. ‘It is not my place to judge. But your da asked me to keep an eye on you, so if you are going somewhere, tell me where and why.’
And she has stayed true to her word.
Now that her pregnancy is advancing, Puja is especially appreciative of Nilamma’s incurious nature, grateful for the fact that they live up here, secluded from snooping meddlers. Her aunt, as far as Puja is aware, knows nothing of her pregnancy. Puja has been letting down the seams on her churidars, Sharda’s hand-me-downs which were wider to begin with, and which her mother had folded in to fit Puja’s slimmer frame. It is another thing Puja is grateful for, although at the time she had whinged and sniped that she never got any new clothes.
In the end her mother had given in, taking Puja to Dhoompur and asking her to choose fabric from which to stitch a churidar exclusively for her. Puja had bitten back tears when she found fragments of that churidar when she had packed to come here. It had been shredded to bits, as if someone had taken a scythe to it. Another loss on top of all the others.
She recalls the spangled turquoise fabric threaded through with silver that she had picked out with Ma from the shop in Dhoompur; getting measured at the tailor for her very first new churidar after having endured years of Sharda’s dowdy hand-me-downs; the joy of choosing a pattern from the huge book the tailor showed her, and then wearing the churidar, that was wholly and only hers, and breathing in the unfamiliar, heady scent of new fabric and feeling transformed. She feels another stab of loss. Oh well, no use for it now anyway.
She unpicks Ma’s wayward stitches and wears Sharda’s churidars and they hide her bump. As she unpicks the stitches, she imagines her ma sewing them, her hand right here where Puja’s is now, and it soothes her to know that she is, in an oblique way, touching her ma as she tracks the path of her stitches.
She shakes her head trying to blink away the yearnings and memories that have been flooding her lately, of a life in the bosom of a loving family that she took for granted, a life she hungers for, a life she wishes she could give this little one who grows secretly within her.
At night, after her aunt is asleep and she cannot get comfortable, or when the dreams of her past life plague her, she talks to the baby, stroking the gentle mound of her stomach, the soft press of it upward and outward the only visible indication of the miracle taking place inside. She narrates stories that Sharda had told her, pushing down the craving for her sister’s arms. The baby jumps in her womb, responding to her touch and Puja does not feel so alone anymore.
She’s lost her family and she’s lost Gopi. But now, she has this baby. A part of her. Something no-one can take away.
On days when her chores are done, Puja sits on a rock at the very top of the hill, and looks down at the huts dotting the fields—once green, now cracked and dry—of her aunt’s village. The river, no longer a glinting, silvery blue, is now a mere sliver of muddy red, and beyond that, is her village, her hut nestling somewhere within. She feels the nostalgia-scented breeze stroking her face, whispering solace, and fancies she can see Sharda and her ma and da going about their business.
Are they thinking of her? She is overcome by loss and longing and then, her baby kicks and tumbles in her womb and the sadness is replaced by gratitude that her child thrives without needing anything more of her than to exist. To just be. That it doesn’t judge her and condemn her. That it has chosen her for its mother.
She loosens her churidar trousers and pats her bump. Her child leaps and cavorts under her touch and she talks to it, sings softly to it. Loves it.
‘I will let you do anything you want. I will not clip your wings,’ she promises her child. ‘We will go far away where your future is not contaminated by the slur of my past. Where people are broad-minded and will not look down on me or you. Where you and I will be free.’
The wind pats and soothes; it whistles and wheezes, and she fancies it carries messages from her ma and Sharda and even her da, and also from her unborn child.
She does not allow herself to think of Gopi.
This far out, the mud road is deserted, and Puja can see Gangamma struggling to walk the last few steps up the hill. The air smells sweet, of honeyed cashews and happy memories, but carries a hint of smoke and Puja imagines she can see speckles of black interspersed amongst the tamarind hued dust swirling in the breeze.
She is tired. She has been feeling out of sorts all day. Sharp points of pain. A periodical gasp-inducing tightening of her stomach, as if someone is clasping it in a pincer squeeze. It can’t be the baby surely. It’s too soon.
She fancies she can see a flash of red, instantly obscured by a dark curling cloud, in the hazy, auburn blurred distance. She squints, and it is gone. She shakes her head to clear it.
Stop imagining things.
Then Gangamma is upon her, clutching her wrist in her bony clasp, ‘Where is your aunt?’ her breath coming in puffing pants.
‘She’s just having a nap. Come sit, I’ll make you tea,’ Puja says.
Puja could do with a sit down as well. Jobs which were easy before are not anymore. She just doesn’t have the energy, as her baby grows inside her.
Sometimes, she is attacked by fear, a shock of pan
ic. She hears the landlord’s derogatory words, his sneering snarl. ‘How will you survive? You failed your PUC exams.’
How will she look after the baby?
Those times she fingers the secret she carries around with her everywhere, close to her heart, alongside the secret of her burgeoning stomach. The gold bangles her ma slipped into her hand when Puja was forced to leave; bangles that were part of her ma’s dowry when she married her da. ‘To tide you over until you come back,’ her ma had mouthed in her ear.
She will sell the bangles and use the money to go far away. She is just biding her time until the baby is born, so she is close to the wise woman, who has agreed to help with the birth.
But before that she will try one more time. She will visit her family. She will see if they will accept her and her child. If not (and this hurts, but she has to consider the possibility), she has made up her mind to leave, give her child a fresh start.
But she has to see if this baby will bond their broken family or tear them apart even further. A baby that has no right to exist, a baby pilfered from circumstance, created in one magical moment stolen from time. A baby she already loves more than life itself.
They will go where the breeze of rumour cannot follow, to a town untouched by the air of gossip, unscathed by the wind of calamity. A big town where they can disappear, where no one will have their nose in her business, where they will accept the story she has prepared, that she is a young widow whose husband succumbed to dengue fever.
‘Wake your aunt now, child,’ Gangamma says, her voice urgent, panic gushing through it.
Without warning, Puja’s stomach clenches and she is swamped by a river of agony. It is a concentrated, undulating upsurge of undiluted pain.
When it passes, she looks at Gangamma properly for the first time, and notices the distress in her eyes, widened navy-black with anguish.
‘What has happened? Tell me please?’
A clap of thunder.
‘Nandihalli market is on fire.’
A sudden breeze brings the smell of smoke and broken dreams.
‘No,’ Puja yells, ‘No, no, no.’
That market stall where she spent so many afternoons, sifting mangoes and bananas from one basket to another, where Sharda taught her to count using vegetables for counters, the smell of fish and ripe fruit, the excited crackling of newly minted gossip and the clink of old coins, the taste of laughter and egg puffs, the soft, comforting feel of her mother’s worn cotton sari and yielding lap—the market stall that is the hub of some of her happiest childhood memories.
Please God, keep my ma and da and Sharda safe.
She feels a vicelike grip at her waist, as if something is clamping down. The pain is excruciating. A swell of pure agony. The baby wants out, she realises, fear a sickly olive taste in her mouth, even as she tries to assimilate what Gangamma is saying.
It is too early.
Please God, my baby. Please, I will not be able to survive more loss. Please.
Is she bargaining with God? Trading her baby’s life for her family? Is that what it has come to? Is that what He wants?
A shadow looms over the hill, the sky darkening, wears a scowl of clouds, and emits another warning snarl of thunder.
Her aunt comes running out, bare feet, hair dishevelled, housecoat awry. ‘What happened?’
The first drops fall, fat plops that pigment the dust dark cranberry. The smell of wet dirt perfumes the shimmering, rain-freckled air. The clothes that she has just set out to dry are getting wet but nobody cares.
Another contraction. She waits it out, leaning against the nearest tree, breathing in the sharp tang of tamarind, trying not to let her torment colour her face. The baby is coming. She cannot go to the market, to make peace with her parents and sister. If they are . . . If . . .
Please God.
She opens her mouth dry with dread and regret.
‘I’ll stay here, you go,’ she says to her aunt, a whisper is all she can manage.
She has made her choice. She has chosen her baby.
Keep it safe, God. It is innocent. I made the mistakes. Please. Don’t punish my baby.
Does this mean God will take her family?
She cannot think for the pain. She does not know what her role is in this game God is playing with her. She only wants this child, who has tided her through these dark months, who has been her hope, her courage, to be safe and well.
Please.
Her aunt, still in her housecoat, trudges down the hill with Gangamma, each step weighted down with apprehension.
Once they’re weaving dots wavering in the distance, Puja clutches her stomach and stumbles in the other direction, and makes her arduous way to the wise woman’s hut, praying and pleading and making pacts with a punishing God above the grumble and shiver and splatter and drip of this unforeseen downpour. She opens her mouth in between contractions and tastes the salty pangs of loss, smells the charred remains of her hopes of reuniting with her family. And she knows without a doubt that this is God’s way of saying to her—a God as vengeful as her father and the landlord—How could you, a sinner, a fallen woman, dare imagine a happily ever after?
Grotesquely pregnant, yellow-striped marrows hanging from the ceiling by coconut frond strips looped around their middle grin at her, then fade into oblivion.
‘Push,’ she hears from far away, ‘push, girl, push.’.
A flash of silver. Wild hair. Gleaming eyes probing. The wise woman.
Her belly heaves, kicks, has a mind of its own. She cannot think for the pain. It is a separate entity claiming her, owning her. She is tired, so tired. Her eyelids feel as if they are weighted down with rocks.
‘Shhh . . . It’ll be fine. Don’t you worry,’ the wise woman soothes.
Sweat dribbles down Puja’s face, in between the mounds of her breasts, and navigates the hillock of her belly. She feels a wet cloth on her face, smelling of vinegar—the wise woman kindly trying to help, but she only ends up spreading the sweat unevenly all over Puja’s face.
The room is rent with screams—hers, she realises, when she tries to garner saliva from her fuzzy, spent throat.
The torpid air is thick with scents—with rust, pain, sweat, anxiety, and bone-deep weariness—a musty, throbbing aroma that she will forever associate with this . . . afternoon? evening? night?
Dappled shadows hold court on the dank, peeling wall opposite. Pinky red, lengthening to black. Dusk. The smell of warm hay and fresh cow dung. Conjee burbling on the hearth in the far corner. The fraying mat she is lying on soaked through with perspiration and agony. Rotting beams overhead. Marrows dangling.
‘Push. Push. Push.’ The wise woman’s gravelly voice.
I can’t, she thinks, but she cannot say it out loud. She doesn’t have the strength. She wants to sleep. Out of nowhere, behind heavy eyelids, Gopi’s face teasing, tantalising.
No, don’t think about him. He is the reason you are here.
Then, her father’s face intruding into her thoughts. Beloved. Pale. Fear-embellished. Hovering.
‘Push, Puja.’
‘Have you forgiven me, Da?’
‘Don’t call me Da. You are not my daughter.’ His face distorted with anger, his love turning to hate in the time it takes for a heart to beat, for a life to be created, his eyes muddy with the shame she has wrought upon them.
‘Push Puja, Please.’ Her mother’s anguished face. Morphing into Sharda’s.
‘How could you do it, Puja? Steal my betrothed?’
‘I am sorry Sharda. So sorry.’
‘Shame on you.’ All three of them, beloved, turning away. ‘You will not see us again.’
No, No, No. I will be good. A dutiful daughter like Sharda. I promise. Please come back. Please.
‘Come on, almost there now. One last big push.’ The wise woman’s voice bringing her back to this blood-splattered, anguish-swathed, fear-cramped room.
Almost there.
She pushes. And pushes.
Then . . . a squelch. A scream. A bellow. A wail. A mewling.
‘Oh Puja!’ The wise woman’s voice—overwhelmed, awed, festive as glass bangles clinking on a bride’s hand—‘A perfect, healthy baby.’
Marrows dance, sunny yellow, joyful.
When she comes to, the wise woman is fondling a wispy haired bundle and looking at Puja with eyes that radiate kindness. She holds the bundle out to Puja.
A small, perfect face framed by tufts of coiled black hair. Tiny hands curled into fists. A flawless little body shaped like a question mark. Minuscule legs wiggling, drawing semi circles in the air.
Puja is consumed by the need to hold her baby close and not let go. She doesn’t reach for her child.
‘My parents . . . ’
The wise woman’s eyes cloud over. ‘I am sorry.’
‘Both of them?’
The wise woman nods.
It is my fault, Puj thinks. Everything, my fault.
‘Sharda?’
‘She was spared,’ the wise woman whispers.
The tart tang of blood and fluids and decay and drains. The briny, raw taste of loss.
I dared to dream of a happy ending, a new beginning. I hoped this baby could seal us together, mend the fracture in our family unit caused by my waywardness. I sat at the top of that hill and spun fairy tales. I pictured Da’s forgiving smile, Ma’s welcoming arms. And all the while God was planning his revenge, his punishment for my sins.
‘I could not make my peace,’ Puja whispers.
‘They loved you, child.’
‘Did they?’
‘Until the last.’
Why can’t she believe the wise woman? Why does her sore heart tell her otherwise?
‘Your child needs you. Here.’ Once more, the wise woman holds Puja’s child out to her.
Once more, Puja breathes in her baby, the perfection she has created in her imperfect body, her tainted person bringing forth this unblemished child.
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