by Ratika Kapur
Then there was my father, my father and his lifelong heart problem, his four heart attacks. I did not actually have to look after him. He would have a heart attack, admit himself into the hospital for three or four days’ time, come back home, rest for some time and go back to the shop. He never ever let me go to the hospital to meet him, he never ever let me fuss over him at home. The only thing that mattered to him was that I went to school daily and did my homework daily. Still, I always felt tired with worry. I never had to attend to him, but I always felt tired. Why? Because this sick and quiet man never directly told me what he was feeling, he never directly told me what he needed, and so I tired myself thinking day in and day out about what he could be feeling, what he could need, what I could do. Even when I got married and shifted to Delhi I was still always worried. He did not allow me to come to Meerut to take care of him, and, obviously, he would never come and stay in his daughter’s house, my father would not even agree to one sip of water in his daughter’s house, so from far away in Delhi I just kept worrying about him. Day in and day out I used to think, Is his chest hurting? Is he breathless? Does he need better medicines? Is he dying? For years and years I remained tired, tired from thinking that any minute my father could die. And the truth is that it was only the night after my father died that I actually got my first full night of sleep.
But for how long could that peace last? For how long could my head and heart remain light enough that I could float through my days and sleep peacefully at night? After my father was gone, it was my father-in-law next. And in this case it was diabetes. Even now my father-in-law takes two insulin injections daily, and if he does not eat immediately after his injection, his blood sugar falls, and then he falls down to the floor, thud, just like that. He will not warn you of that sinking feeling, he won’t tell you that he is feeling uncomfortable and needs to eat. No. And so, like with all these men, you have to be alert, you always have to be alert. You have to watch out carefully for signs, signs that don’t come out from the mouth in the form of words, but in the small, little movements of the body, signs that demand your attention day in and day out. And now that he and my mother-in-law live in my house, in my care, it is my duty to understand his needs before he or anybody else does. It is my duty to make sure that he eats his meals on time, that there are always at least four doses of insulin in the fridge, and to keep all sweets and fried foods hidden from him as if he was a child.
And then, obviously, there is my real child, Bobby. But Bobby is fine now. By God’s grace, Bobby is well and truly fine now.
But who will need me next? Who will I have to worry about next? Who else is standing in line waiting for my attention? I sometimes think that the head and heart that God gave me don’t actually belong to me, that even though they live inside me, I don’t actually own them. Sometimes I just want to shout. Give me back my head! I want to say. Give me back my heart! When I talk to my husband about this, he tells me that I have to learn to take a little holiday from all the demands in my life. He says that I worry about everything too much, he says that I worry without reason, and that the sky won’t fall down if I sit down and relax for some time. And then he tells me that stupid story about the house lizards, about how two lizard-friends on the ceiling of a room were talking one day and one of them suggested that they go on a little outing. Absolutely not! the other friend said. Who will hold up the ceiling?
Maybe it is a funny story, maybe it is also a lesson for some people, but it does not apply to my life. Maybe the sky or the ceiling won’t come crashing down, but if I took a little holiday, if I took two or three days off as my husband tells me to, my house would become a garbage dump, and in this dump my son would be starving to death, my father-in-law would be lying on the floor in a diabetic coma and my poor mother-in-law would just be sitting in one corner watching everything around her break down, until, obviously, she called up her son, who would jump on to the first plane back to Delhi, come back home and look at the mess helplessly, and then, when I would come back from my little holiday, he would gently put his hands on my shoulders, and look at me and say, Renu, what have you done?
Still, my husband is probably right. From time to time everybody has to take a little holiday from his life, from all the big and small everyday things. Maybe that is why I enjoyed that evening alone at home when everybody went for the cricket match. Maybe that is why I enjoy meeting Vineet. During those times, all the small, little difficulties of everyday seem far away. When I am with Vineet it seems that I can just forget everything, everybody, just like that.
But how can I meet Vineet again? What would I tell him? Will I tell him that my son, Mrs Renuka Sharma’s son, got drunk on some cheap country liquor with his friends and he became so sick that he was in hospital for one full week? Is this what I will tell him because this is what actually happened? It was not food poisoning. It was alcohol poisoning. Yes, alcohol. My sweet Bobby did not eat bad momos on the roadside. That boy drank alcohol. Alcohol. So, what will I say to Vineet? Will I say, Oh, did you know, Vineetji, that I have a son called Bobby? Oh, and let me tell you about something a little bit odd that happened ten days ago. Is that how I am supposed to start? See, Vineet, my son went out with some friends one Wednesday afternoon, then he came back home around seven o’clock in the evening and sat at the computer for some time, and then just like that he went to sleep quietly. And it was not even nine o’clock. He refused to have dinner, he did not even have a glass of milk. He just went to sleep. Then what would I say? Maybe I could tell Vineet how at ten thirty Bobby suddenly woke up screaming in pain. He was suddenly screaming in pain, vomiting, running to the bathroom. First I thought that it was some type of food poisoning, something bad that he ate when he had gone out to the market with his friends. But when I saw blood in his vomit I became very scared. I quickly called up Rosie. She told me what medicines to give him so I ran to the chemist and bought all the tablets and gave them to Bobby, but then and there he vomited all of them out. He could not even keep one drop of water in him. Yes, I could tell Vineet about the buckets of vomit. And the pain. How my son kept screaming in pain, how he kept pulling my arm and screaming, Ma, do something! He was twisting around on the floor like somebody who is possessed, and screaming and crying, Ma, do something! I had never ever seen my Bobby like that. I did not know what to do. Then I finally called up Doctor Sahib. I told him what was happening and he told me to take Bobby to the emergency room at Safdarjang Hospital immediately.
My Bobby was in hospital for one week. One full week. One full week of stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhoea, blood. What can I say? It was horrible. All around there was blood. All around there was vomit. And for the first two or three days the pain was so bad, so bad, that my Bobby could not lie down quietly even for one minute. He would sit up for half a minute, then stand up, then he would crawl around the hospital bed like a mad dog, like a mad dog mad with pain. So, am I supposed to tell Vineet all of this? Am I supposed to tell Vineet how the other two boys that Bobby was drinking with almost died, and how the doctors said that it was only by God’s grace that my son did not have to suffer as much as they did? Bobby was drinking alcohol. Is this what I will tell Vineet?
Nobody in our family, not even my uncle who gambled, nobody has ever, ever touched alcohol. Not one drop. Am I going to tell Vineet about how my fifteen-year-old son drank cheap liquor like some cheap labourer? I could not tell my own husband, and, obviously, I could not tell Papaji or Mummyji. So how can I tell some man that I met on the Metro just because his stupid friend told me that he is worried about me?
I beat Bobby. I waited until he was fine, and I waited until Papaji and Mummyji went out for their evening walk yesterday, and then I beat him. I beat him with a man’s hands. I beat him with his father’s hands and his grandfathers’ hands. It seemed that my hands had received their strength from all these men, it seemed that I was beating him on behalf of these men who were not here themselves to do the beating. Bobby said nothing. As I beat him,
as I beat my words into him, he sat on the bed with his head down, and not one sound came out of his mouth. Not one sound. But Bobby understood. That boy understood in his bones that what he had done was horrible, horrible and shameful, that nobody in the family, not from his mother’s side or his father’s side, has ever touched alcohol, and that even though he was saved this time, if he ever went anywhere near that poison again his mother would break his legs. He also understood, he understood once and for all, that he could never ever speak about this horrible and shameful act to anybody, especially not to his father or his grandparents. And when I finished, Bobby quietly got up and left the room.
I wish that I were twelve years of age again, when worry was just a word that you heard around you, not something that you suffered like a sickness. It was such a nice time then. I was only a reason for worry, and even then not very much because I hardly gave my parents any trouble. But I never ever had to feel any worry. My mother was still quite healthy then, when I was twelve years of age. She was still strong enough to press my school uniform, oil my hair and make my plaits, and cook, and sing to me. She was still strong enough to be a mother. And in those days my father was also a happy man. He used to walk me to school each and every morning, giving me mental maths problems along the way, and in the evenings he switched on the radio and helped me with my studies. A lot of people grow up, but they still don’t stop being children. I stopped being a child at thirteen years of age, when my mother fell sick. I stopped being a child when I was still a child. But until I was twelve years of age, I lived without worry. And at that time I had only ten toenails to cut.
7
Monday, 6 June 2011
Everybody at the clinic was kinder to me than normal when I went back to work this morning after eleven days’ leave, and this was because I had lied to them, as I had lied to everybody else, as I had even tried to lie to myself. I gave them the same sad little story about how Bobby had got a very serious case of food poisoning. If I had told them the truth, nobody would have spoken to me. Maybe I would have even lost my job. Doctor Sahib was very, very kind to me and called me into his room. I sat down on one of the patient’s chairs opposite him, because he asked me to, and he ordered tea for me, which came in a white and pink teacup with very pretty flowers on it. Doctor Sahib actually looked very worried. He asked me all types of questions about Bobby, his diet, his stools, the colour of his skin, and what not, and he said that he could get me an appointment with the top gastroenterologist in Delhi if I wanted a second opinion. He even told me that I could take more leave if I needed it. It was very, very kind of him. I felt very happy. But then suddenly, just like that, he asked me if I needed money. He got up from his chair, walked around the table, sat down on the chair next to me and actually asked me if I needed money. Financial help, those were the words he used. Financial help, as if they would sound less like charity, as if they would sound less like an insult.
But I did not give Doctor Sahib a tight slap across his face because I knew that he did not purposely want to insult me. I did not leave the room and my job because I have seen, I have seen for some time now, that there are many things that Doctor Sahib and his type of people just don’t understand. And I did not spit on him. I just said, Forgive me, Doctor Sahib, but I don’t need any financial help, and then I started talking about one of the lab assistant’s leave applications.
I left the clinic half an hour early to meet Vineet for a cup of tea at his hotel. It must have been forty-five degrees outside, on TV yesterday they said that there would be a heat wave this week, and there was a burning wind that was blowing outside, a wind that was like fire, but behind the clean glass walls of the Amaryllis Hotel it was like a February morning. Actually, it was so cold inside Vineet’s hotel that I had to wrap the pallu of my sari around my shoulders.
We sat in the restaurant, which, except for one bearer, was empty. I told Vineet that I was sorry for not calling him up. I told him that I had been sick, and that was hardly a lie. A child’s illness is also his mother’s. As I talked about strong medicines, hospitals and doctors, Vineet listened to me quietly, his eyes small and serious and wet, as if I was speaking about death. As if I was speaking the truth. I felt bad, I felt very bad. In these three months that we have known each other, today was the first time that I actually lied to him. If he does not know that I am married, that I am thirty-seven years of age, that I have a child, it is only because he has never bothered to ask me. And I will never talk about things without reason, I will never talk about things without being asked about them. In all this time, he has never ever asked me about my family, and so I have not said anything. That is my only crime. Still, I felt bad. He is a good person, and as I talked I saw kindness in those small and serious eyes. So then I thought that I should tell him a little bit more about myself. What did I have to hide? But I had just started to talk, I was just going to say in a cool, calm way, with a bit of a laugh, because a laugh normally makes these types of situations a little bit less difficult, so I had just started to say, Oh, but you know nothing about me, when he said, Stop. He fixed his eyes on my eyes and said, Stop, I don’t need to know anything more about you than what you want to tell me.
I should have felt relieved. My body, which felt as if somebody was holding it from top and bottom, and twisting it into a tight coil like a dupatta, my body should have loosened, but as long as his eyes remained on my eyes, every muscle in me remained tense.
It is like this, he said, looking inside his teacup. A person should never demand more than he is given. Supposing somebody gives you an envelope with fifty-one rupees in it on your birthday. You don’t say, Uncleji, can I have a little bit more, please? Do you?
I was quiet. The truth is that I liked what he said. But then it is so easy to say deep and pretty things. The question is whether he can actually live by all this poetry. I will wait and see. I will wait and see how long it takes for Vineet to finally break, to finally break and hit his fist down on the table and demand from me all the facts of my life. But until that happens I will not allow myself to be carried away by his poetry.
So, I remained quiet and he also did, until Neha entered, floating into the restaurant like a heroine from a hit film. She came up to us, hugged me like I was her sister and sat down at our table.
A crow trying to walk like a swan, that is what I think when I see her. Everything about her is imitation. The way those lipsticky lips move, the way those hands move when she is saying something, when she is saying anything at all. And those imitation diamond studs in her ears. All of it is fake, and I suspect that all of it is for Vineet.
After she sat down, Neha looked at Vineet, then at me, then at Vineet again, and then she squeezed my hand and said, Thank God you have come. You don’t know how worried this poor Vineet has been. Actually, she did not say this. Actually, she sang this. I have seen that Neha does not speak. She does not speak properly like you and I speak. Her words come out like songs, cheap love songs.
Vineet turned his face to the window.
I am telling you, Neha said, I have known this boy for almost two years but I have never seen him behave like this before. He was behaving like some love-struck teenager!
Like some love-struck teenager. These words came out of Neha’s mouth with giggles.
I wanted to give her a tight slap across her face. Nobody, nobody in the world, dares show such disrespect for me. I wanted her to know this, and I wanted to make sure that she would never ever do such a thing again. But Vineet interrupted me. I let him. Neha is a stupid woman, he said, looking straight into her eyes. Don’t pay any attention to her. She watches too many films.
In one second that woman came crashing down to the ground. In my ears I heard the thud, and the truth is that I enjoyed hearing that sound. I should say here that I don’t need another person, and I don’t need a man, to fight my fights. I don’t have parents, remember, and my husband is far away. Still, just like Vineet must have felt good fighting for me, I also fel
t good. The only problem now was that I looked at him in a different way. Now he was not just some sweet person who was always dressed in a nicely pressed shirt and pants. Now he was a man. Underneath those nice clothes there was a man’s body.
But how do such small, little foolish thoughts matter? How does Vineet matter? What matters is that just now I cannot get sleep. I am frightened to close my eyes.
It is late at night now, that time in the night when the sky above is screaming with planes that bring people to their families, or sometimes take them away. The house is quiet, my son and my in-laws are sleeping peacefully, and I can’t close my eyes. I can’t close my eyes because as soon as they close my drunken son appears, howling, growling on his hands and knees, a mad dog vomiting and crawling around the bodies of two almost dying boys lying on the roadside. Each and every time I close my eyes I see Bobby crawling around his dying friends, a mad animal sniffing and scratching at their dirty, drunken bodies. And I don’t know what to do.
Not such a long time ago, when my eyes closed for the night, a smart young man would be standing in front of me, a smart young man in a navy-blue suit that was stitched at the tailoring shop that Doctor Sahib goes to, the one in Connaught Place with an English name, Something & Sons, and this young man, my son Bobby, who looked like a young man in an advertisement for Raymond suits, was carrying not a briefcase but a slim laptop bag, in real leather, and his hair was cut short, and he was shaved and smart and clean, and standing straight, standing in front of me, his mother, and was saying bye-bye to me before he left for the office, which was located in one of those very modern new buildings in Gurgaon. This was what I would see night after night. This was the picture that would bring me peace and allow me three or four hours of sleep.