by Ratika Kapur
What do you think? is the first thing my husband said to me.
About what? I said, even though I knew what he was talking about.
About me, he said.
You are not as tall as I thought you would be, I said.
He was quiet for some time, and then he said, I can be as tall as you want me to be.
And when he said that I knew that this was the boy I was going to marry.
It is as clear as a photo, it seems that I am holding the photo in my hands just now, a photo of my husband and me sitting in my father’s veranda. I am wearing my mother’s red and gold Benarsi silk sari, and he is sitting next to me, in his yellow shirt and blue pants, and with his knees together he is leaning just a little bit to his left, into me. It is quite a nice photo, actually. It almost looks like a poster from some romantic film.
But let me not speak any more about my handsome husband and other foolish things. So, yes, now I have to buy my Bobby a suit. This weekend I will go to buy my Bobby a smart two-piece suit, because three-piece suits are well and truly out of fashion now, and I will buy it readymade from one of the showrooms on the ground floor of Select Citywalk. I know it will be much costlier than getting it tailored here in Malviya Nagar, but it does not matter. My husband works in Dubai. From time to time things like this have to be allowed.
10
Saturday, 18 June 2011
Vineet and I were at the mall looking at computers because I had thought that before I tell Doctor Sahib which model I want I should actually see and touch some real machines rather than just look at photos on the Internet, so we were at this huge electronics showroom, Vineet and I, when suddenly, just like that, Vineet said, How is your brother?
For five or six seconds I just stood there, staring at him. I could not understand what he was trying to ask me.
Don’t worry, he said. I know that your brother was sick.
I remained quiet.
I also know that you don’t want to tell me about it, he said. But I just want you to know that I know and that I can help you if you want me to help you.
I tried to steady myself, then I tried to laugh, and then I said, You did not tell me that you were also a doctor, Mr F&B.
What else could I say? While standing there in the middle of a showroom in the mall I could not have burst into tears and said, Sorry, Vineetji, for lying to you for such a long time, but that boy, that boy you saw is not my brother, he is my son. I could not have said, Vineetji, I have a son and he was not just sick, but he was poisoned, poisoned by some cheap country liquor, and now that you know that I have a son, you now also know that I have a husband, and while my husband works like a donkey in Dubai, I loiter around at a mall with you. You, some man I met on the Metro. I could not have said this, and why should I have said this anyway? Vineet is nobody to me, and I am nobody to him. We are two people who met each other on the Metro by chance, and from time to time we talk on the train or go out together, and that is all. He knows nothing about me, he has never ever bothered to ask, and so I don’t have to tell him anything.
But I did ask him how he knew that I had a brother, and when I did he turned his head away, to his left shoulder, then he muttered something.
I can’t hear you, I said.
I saw you at the station, he said quietly.
What? I said
I had just got off the train, he said. This was around two weeks ago, in the evening, and I was walking to the escalator when I saw you and your brother get off the other train.
So? I said. So what? I was so angry that I was almost shouting.
You were carrying a big envelope, which had Safdarjang Hospital printed in big letters, and you were holding your brother’s hand. You did not see me.
Congratulations, Inspector Sahib, I said.
Your brother looked so weak, he said.
How does it matter to you? I said.
I wanted to come up to you, he said. You looked so tired and I wanted to help you, but I did not want to embarrass you.
When he said this something inside me melted. In some place between my chest and my stomach some hard thing inside me melted. And I think that if anybody at all had seen his eyes, small and so kind, I swear on God that they were very much like the eyes of Shirdi Sai Baba, if anybody at all had seen his eyes as he talked to me, something inside that person would also have surely melted. So then I told Vineet to forget about all this and I suggested to him that we look for a suit for my brother. It will cheer him up, I said. I said, After all that my brother has suffered, I think that a nice two-piece suit will cheer him up.
There were one or two minutes at the showroom, while Vineet and I were talking about my so-called brother, when I had, I don’t know how, stepped out of this small, little drama between us and I was standing on one side, just watching two people, a young man in a red collared t-shirt and blue jeans, a good looking man, I can’t lie, and hardly one foot in front of him an older woman, a thirty-seven-year-old woman in an orange chanderi sari, her long hair in a loose bun, quite pretty but a little bit plump, but then what type of man wants a woman who has bones sticking out from every place? From outside this small, little drama it was a nice photo of a handsome couple, and I think that anybody who saw us would have thought the same.
Still, that is not how it is from inside. Maybe we are handsome together, Vineet and I, but we are not a couple. I am very clear about that and I thought that he was also clear about it, until this afternoon. Now I wonder. If he thinks that I have a teenage brother, then how old does he actually think that I am? Twenty? And if he thinks that I am so young, then how does he actually see me? Does he actually think that the two of us together make a pair? How does he feel?
I have never lied to him. I have never ever tried to make him see me as anybody other than the person that I am, and if there are some things that he does not know about me, it is only because he has never bothered to ask me or he has shut my mouth up if I have tried to tell him. What did he tell me that day at his stupid hotel? I don’t want to know anything. Isn’t that what he said? I don’t need to know anything about you, a person is not supposed to ask for more than what is given to him, and what not. Has he forgotten all that? Whatever it is, whatever it is that he thinks and wants, Vineet better understand fast, he better understand once and for all, that I am a good woman, a respectable woman, and my mind is clear, and also my heart, and they are in the right places, with my family and my home, and I am not interested in anything but friendship, the type of friendship shared between two women. The truth is that he could have just been a Vineeta to me. Man or woman, it would not make any difference, and that is the truth.
So, let Vineet think what he wants to think, let him want what he wants. But I am not going to waste any more time on such foolish things. I know myself, I am clear about what I feel, and just now I have more important things to do. My in-laws are leaving on Friday. There is a lot of shopping to be done and I also have to help them pack, and then after they are gone, I have to do the most important thing of all. I have to fix Bobby. My in-laws are good people, they are good people and try their level best to be as helpful as they can, but from time to time they interfere. It is already so difficult trying to discipline a fifteen-year-old boy, and, actually, he will be sixteen years of age in less than four months, but with grandparents around, it makes it much, much more difficult. Oh ho, you are so strict with Bobby, they say to me. Or, Poor Bobby, he is only a child. And what not. But they will be gone in less than one week, and they will be gone for more than three months, and Vineetji, I can’t keep wasting my time loitering around with you at malls. I am a mother. I have much more important things to do. I have to use this time to bring up my son properly, as a mother has to do, as a mother only can.
11
Monday, 27 June 2011
There is nothing in the whole world as nice as riding in an auto in the rain. The air is cool, the sky is the colour of grey pearls, the trees are clean, clean and green, and nothin
g, not one bad thought, not even the auto’s side flap, can keep the happiness of the pre-monsoon away. What a nice time we had yesterday, my Bobby and I. Even though it was Sunday, it was so nice. It was probably the best Sunday in the nineteen months since my husband left us. The morning, obviously, was spent at home. Bobby completed his holiday homework, because his school opens in just two weeks, and I cleaned the prayer room and opened out the hems of Bobby’s school pants. And because my in-laws have left for Canada, I also put away their folding cots. But afterwards, my Bobby and I went for an outing.
The truth is that I wanted to see my son smile. I wanted to see his eyebrows jump halfway up his forehead and his eyes shine as he smiled. And so I suggested to him that we dress up nicely and go to the mall to watch a film and eat dinner in a restaurant. Bobby shaved, and he wore a smart collared t-shirt and clean jeans. I think that Bobby also likes to make his mother smile.
The film we watched was just some mindless comedy about four stupid robbers, but the seats in the hall were covered in some type of soft, beautiful red velvet and the air-conditioning was so good that I just rested my head on Bobby’s shoulder and had the most peaceful sleep of my life.
After the film we went to the food court for dinner. We actually don’t go out to eat these days because my in-laws think that restaurant food is too oily and costly, and that most of it can be made at home anyway, but I think, and I don’t want to disrespect my in-laws, but I think that from time to time everybody needs to have a change, everybody needs to have a little bit of fun. And my husband also always thought that. When he was here we would go out to eat each and every weekend without fail.
The food court is something to be seen. I have come to this mall many times, but I have never actually eaten at the food court. And what a nice place it is! Even though there were hundreds and hundreds of people, it was all so properly organised, everybody standing in lines at the food counters, everybody waiting so patiently for their orders. And to have so many different types of food in one place! There was Chinese and South Indian and Italian, and there was American, obviously, and then tandoori items and parathas, and what not. All in one place. It actually took us almost half an hour to decide what we wanted to eat.
We talked a lot, my Bobby and I. Obviously we first talked about the dishes we were eating, because that is what Bobby likes to talk about. So, we talked about all the whole masalas and powdered spices that would have been used in them, the types of utensils that they were cooked in, whether they were cooked on high or low flame, and what not. Then we talked about my husband. I told Bobby about what a good father my husband is, what a good husband he is to me, because from time to time I think that it is important to say such things to one’s children, and I told him how I am sure that one day Bobby himself will also be like that. I also told him, and I asked him to listen to me very carefully while I talked, that we will never ever be a burden on him, that we will never ever ask him for even one rupee, and that that is one of the main reasons why his father is away from us in Dubai. Then I told him about my future business plans, about how I plan to start a training institute or academy for office management, where youngsters will learn to use the latest word-processing and spreadsheet software on the latest computers, where they will learn Business English and how to conduct themselves in job interviews. I said that I plan to open the business after eight or ten years, after my husband comes back from Dubai, and that I plan to rent a place for it in Begumpur, since Malviya Nagar and Shivalik have become too costly.
I asked Bobby what he thought of all this. He was quiet for some time, his eyes were fixed on his plate, so I asked him again.
Ma, you are always planning, he said, with his head still bent over his plate.
So what is wrong with that? I said.
Nothing, he said quietly.
So then? I said. Everybody plans. Do you know that even a man like Doctor Sahib plans for his retirement? All these people keep coming to meet him from different banks, selling him life insurance policies and ULIPs and SIPs and what not. It is financial planning. Planning. That is why he is so rich.
Now Bobby lifted his head up and rested his eyes on my eyes. Ma, he said, those people have to plan, but people like us don’t have to.
What do you mean? I said.
They have many more years to live than we have.
Stop talking such nonsense, I said.
But now he kept talking. Look at how you work, he said. Day and night, at home, at the clinic. Work, work, work. And Papa also. Double-shifts in the hospital, hardly eating, working, working, working.
Everybody has to work, I said. Your grandfather always used to say that great things can only be achieved with great effort.
What great things, Ma? Bobby said. And are your bodies supposed to pay such a great price for it? You are thirty-seven years of age now, no? And Papa is how old? Forty? Forty-one? After all the work that you both have done, do you actually think that your poor bodies will survive long enough to enjoy these great things?
The truth is that for one second I wanted to cry. Forgetting, just for that one second, that he is only a child and that children always say all types of foolish things, forgetting all this I wanted to run to the washroom to cry. But I did some deep breathing as fast as I could, and then I laughed and I said, You want to kill off your poor parents so quickly?
Now, obviously, I realise, after one long day, that it was foolish of me to talk to Bobby about such things, and it was even more foolish of me to ask him for his thoughts. This is not how you treat your child. You should not allow him entry into your world by talking about grown up topics. And the future is a grown up topic, just like money is a grown up topic. They are complicated ideas. To enter into the world of grown ups, to understand the complicated ideas that make this world, you first have to have the mind of a grown up. If you bring a child into a grown up’s world, you will surely disturb his unprepared mind. What is the future for a child? It is one hour from the present. What is money for a child? The latest phone. This is different from our ideas about the future, our ideas about money. So why talk about such things with our children? Why trouble them? Just like you have to study and take exams to qualify for a job, you have to take some tests and do some training to prepare for the world of grown ups. We should wait for them to be prepared. And we also should not rush them into such preparations. As it is a child has such a short time in his child’s world. Why not let him enjoy that short, trouble-free time?
I will not make such a mistake again.
Another thing happened there at the mall. While we were eating, I suddenly saw Mrs Khanna, Mrs Something Khanna. I have forgotten her name but I have it in my files. She was Doctor Sahib’s patient for many years. Mrs Khanna was there at the food court, sitting just three or four tables away from us, with three ladies, all of them dressed in long blouses and those odd capri pants that seem to be in fashion these days, the ones that stop, just like that, somewhere halfway down the lower legs, as if all the cloth at the factory had got finished. So, she was there with her friends, all skinny ladies with fat bags, all of them with their hair dyed in a foreigner-brown colour, and I have to say that I sometimes wonder how these type of people spend such a lot of money on their hair, on the clothes that they wear, only to look like a photocopy of the person sitting next to them, so, she was sitting there with her photocopies when she also saw me, and then she smiled. Mrs Khanna actually smiled. She raised her hand up a little bit, waved and smiled at me.
She looked so old. She could not have been more than forty-four or forty-five years of age, but if you saw her you would have surely thought that she was sixty years of age. Her face was covered in fancy cosmetics, her hair was dyed in a goldeny-brown colour and her body was as slim as a film star’s, but all that did not matter. Mrs Khanna looked older than my mother-in-law. She looked so bad that I actually felt sad. I smiled back at her.
I remember her case clearly because she came to the clinic for so many years
. The problem was that she could not have a child. Week after week she came, even her husband came, and they did test after test and every type of procedure, and rounds and rounds of IVF, but even a big doctor like Doctor Sahib could not grant her a child. I think that it was for six or seven years that she tried before she finally gave up. And now here she was, a woman ageing without a child.
Before I started working at the clinic I don’t think that I had actually ever met any woman, any grown up woman, without a child. I am sure that they were there in Meerut, but I had not actually ever thought about this idea until I started working at the clinic, this idea of a childless woman. Now, when I see these ladies lining up one after another at the clinic, I wonder sometimes what it means to not be a mother. I wonder how it feels to not have to carry the weight of another life for each and every second that God grants you on this earth. Does it feel good or bad? Do you fly freely without any worry in the world or do you just float around without any purpose at all? Most of the time I feel sorry for such women who will never feel that special type of happiness that only a mother can feel, who will never feel that special type of pride in a child that only a mother can feel, feel deep in the womb that held her child long ago. Still, the truth is, and I don’t want to be ungrateful, and I feel well and truly blessed that I was granted such a beautiful boy, but the truth is that from time to time I also feel jealous. Even if you are just floating here and there without any purpose, at least you are not pulled down by the weight of your child.