Passage Across the Mersey

by Robert Bhatia

  You know I love you but somehow I feel hesitant to accept such a sacrifice. In this life we have not much right to accept sacrifice from anyone and yet someone has to suffer because Kashi, with a child, is much more helpless than you are. On the other hand, you have suffered quite a lot in the past and I have not the heart to ask you for more.

  Under such circumstances, I am leaving the decision to you. If you think that you will be able to withdraw from me, even at this last stage, without too much pain to yourself and others around you, please do so. For the moment such an action will hurt our hearts terribly but probably this will bring more happiness to all of us ultimately. If you decide to do so, I will naturally pay you all the expenses incurred by you until now in this connection, as soon as I learn your decision, as father will be only too glad to give me the money needed for it.

  However, if you feel that you must join me, you can trust me that you will be most welcome because, after all, I do love you. Only sometimes I wonder whether one can be really happy after accepting such sacrifices. However, this is for you to decide; you have a much clearer brain than I have and I shall accept your decision. You must also think of minor inconveniences like heat and changing your outdoor life to a more or less ‘secret stay at home life’. If you decide to come, come by sea, as per passage booked, as the Parliament has not yet fixed a date for second reading for the Hindu Code Bill. Even when it comes it will take probably several weeks before it is passed.

  By the time this letter reaches you, there will not be enough time left to consult me, so take your decision and act accordingly. You will find my support whichever way you act. Do not think that I do not love you or that I am in any way letting you down. Only consider the matter once again in view of what I have written above. I am sorry to have put you into this muddle at the last moment and probably you had expected something like this after I visited Bulandshahr.

  My father had been naïve in failing to anticipate the pain his family would feel. His parents’ initial reaction sounds moderate and considerate in the circumstances. Their son was forsaking the daughter of a friend of theirs, a woman with whom he had a child he had only just met for the first time, in favour of an English woman they had never met. Any parents would be alarmed, even without the cultural and religious implications of a broken marriage in India.

  Avadh believed that he and Kashi had been so unhappy before he left India, compounded by their further estrangement during his two years overseas, that she would not be surprised or upset by his announcement. He had written to her expressing grave concerns about the future of their marriage and there’s no doubt she knew how miserable he was. Surely, he thought, the dissolution of their marriage would be relatively straightforward? Instead, it had become a nightmare. He felt he had betrayed his family and let down Kashi and his young son, Vijay, whom he had only just met. He was torn down the middle between his family obligations and his love for Helen.

  My father was trying to be scrupulously honourable, although, admittedly, he was also shifting responsibility for a decision to Helen. If she decided to pull out of their engagement, at least he need not feel as guilty about letting her down. In this letter, his anguish at being torn between his love for, and commitment to, my mother, and hope for future happiness on one hand, and his feeling of duty to Kashi and his parents on the other is palpable. I can imagine his utter loneliness as he sat on a train in the middle of the night travelling away from the people he had hurt. It was a dark night of the soul for him.

  The next morning he regretted the letter but had already sent it. He quickly cabled Helen telling her to book another sea passage and not to worry about the letter, but it was easier said than done. She must have been greatly alarmed and upset by his parents’ and Kashi’s reaction and his suggestion that she might pull out of their engagement. However, my mother was not about to do any such thing. She replied, on 5 January, with a clear-headed rebuttal of his suggestion and a gentle yet firm reminder to Avadh of his responsibilities towards her:

  I had yesterday your cable and this morning your letter, and I must say that the letter grieved me very much, although I understand the feelings which prompted you to write it.

  First I would say that I shall come to you in India and shall land in Bombay about 3rd February. I have taken this decision because I feel that if I give you up and stay at home it will not make either Kashi, Vijay or yourself much happier. Vijay would then grow up in a house which would be divided, the husband against the wife, the wife against the husband. Having been brought up in such a house I know what a bitter cost the child pays in such an atmosphere. He would be better to have his mother only – at any rate his loyalties would not be divided.

  I was deeply moved by your father’s and Kashi’s attitude to me. You are to tell Kashi as gently as you can that she is to give nothing up to me. Even if it means that I must earn my living in India in order that she may have an adequate allowance and that Vijay may have plenty, she is not to give anything up. I do not feel that in marrying you I am taking you away from her. When I first found you she had thrown you away as unwanted – had I not loved you and cared for you, you would not now be in India – you would be dead or near it [since he had been so depressed]. Once the spirit dies, the body follows soon.

  To your father say a very deep thank you that he will accept me as a daughter-in-law. It is something I had hardly hoped for and I can understand something of the sadness this must have caused him. I will do my very best to be a daughter he can be proud of, by accepting your customs and your ways of living, and in this you must help me, because although I am well read I have never actually seen India and must, therefore, learn from the beginning.

  With regard to what would happen to me if I were to give you up, I suppose that a little more grief added to so much would appear to be merely adding water to the sea, and it is true that by suffering one purchases a certain degree of immunity from further suffering, but I think to lose you would be more than I can bear. Even forgetting what I might suffer inside me, my entire life would have to be altered. It is quite a serious thing to break an engagement with an Englishman; to have been engaged to someone of another nationality and break the engagement would finish me socially in this city, probably, as far as marriage is concerned, in this country. It would mean making a completely new start at a time when I should not care whether I lived or died and without my family to help me. I know that I must start afresh in India, but I will have you by my side to guide and help me and a reason for living.

  Darling, in your chosen career you will have many setbacks and disappointments and it is then that a loving wife can be of help to you. I feel that together we can face many things. Single sticks can be easily broken, but tie them into a bundle and they cannot be broken.

  If I can help Kashi and Vijay over the stony ways of life at all, I will do so, and I hope that they will not feel too bitterly against me.

  Whether the decision I have made is the right one, only time can tell, but I do not feel that I am making any more damage by deciding this way than by deciding not to come. One cannot avoid troubles in life whatever one does, but one can try to balance the unhappiness with a certain amount of happiness and I think we stand a good chance of some happiness in the way I have decided.

  You may show this letter to your father if you wish, although the English is far from perfect, but you will know that I am a little distressed at having to decide the futures of four people at such short notice and have had to think very hard. Life has not been very kind to me up to now – Kashi may be suffering now, but she does not know to what depths of misery life can take one, and I feel that any small happiness God may give me from my marriage to you has been amply paid for already and that I should not be asked to pay again.

  With this letter comes all my love and the hope that you will not think I am being unduly selfish. Also, I send my thanks to your father for being kind to you.

  Helen’s response has a confident and loving tone
that suggests she had thought hard about what she would write and she wrote it with great conviction. Had Dad not sent the cable after posting his letter, I don’t know what my mother would have done. Had she made a different decision and not come to India, I believe that my dad’s life would have tumbled downhill very quickly and I firmly believe that my mother would have taken her own life. After years of hardship and heartbreak, another loss, of a true soul mate, exacerbated by the social shame she refers to in her letter, would have broken her.

  Chapter Nine

  Sometimes I have such a longing to see you again that I can hardly bear it and lying in bed this morning, I could think of nothing else, but I am so afraid of spoiling our future with hasty action that you need not fear that I shall do anything stupid.

  Helen was greatly alarmed about Avadh’s family’s reaction to their engagement, but at the same time she must have been relieved to learn that Avadh had finally told them about her. There were no secrets. The choice of whether to come to India or not had been left in her hands and she had taken it, decisively. Her luggage would have been packed and ready for departure when on Sunday 8 January she received a cable, which read:

  UNFORESEEN CIRCUMSTANCES CANCEL BOAT DEPARTURE WILL CALL LATER LETTER FOLLOWS TRUST ME

  It was just days before the Jal-Azad was due to sail and she must have been devastated. Had he decided she should not come after all?

  She had to wait two days for another cable, in which he explained:

  DO NOT WORRY LOVE ONLY THIS DEPARTURE NOT SUITABLE

  You can imagine Helen’s consternation and alarm at these communications. On the 8th Avadh wrote a letter of explanation, but it would be about five days before she received it: five days in limbo, unsure what was going on. His letter of the 8th told her that as Kashi dwelled on the imminent end of her marriage, she had become increasingly upset about it. Although she had originally consented, she now felt differently and her despair was such that Avadh’s family worried the situation was at risk of spiraling out of control. It was for this reason he asked Helen to delay her departure.

  I have this day given you a real SOS and I hope you will act accordingly. It is unfortunate and I cannot express in words how I am feeling about the whole thing. Here are the facts.

  I had to fly from Ahmedabad [to see Kashi]. Since this morning we are trying to arrive at some decision. Unfortunately I have not met a more adamant person. I feel that probably she will agree to some better course later on. You will agree with me that unless she changes her attitude, one does not know what trouble she can land us into. It is for this reason that I have asked you to cancel the boat passage. My [Doctor] brother has kindly offered that as soon as the matters are decided and if Kashi could be persuaded, he will give us the money to call [bring] you by air, if necessary. He has been so good to me.

  Avadh’s second-oldest brother, who lived in Delhi, was a physician. My parents always referred to him as ‘Doctor Brother’. In India first names are used less than in the West and, indeed, in South India many people traditionally had only one name. In our family, a habit had developed of referring to people using a combination of nicknames and descriptors like ‘Doctor Brother’.

  On the 9th, Avadh wrote:

  I am extremely sorry that I had to put you to so great an inconvenience, but the circumstances were such that you will understand that that was the only course. Because of Kashi’s adamant attitude, my father has said that he will help you and me financially if we stand in need of it. But you should not come before Kashi has been persuaded by her parents or they have been informed of all this. From now on my Doctor Brother has said that you have been accepted by all of us and, even in our marriage, my brothers will participate.

  Please take your delay in departure in good spirits. I don’t know what you say to all the persons around you [none of her Liverpool friends knew that Avadh was married] because I can’t think of a suitable excuse. But you have as good a mind as I have and I am confident that, trusting me, you will act in a way that is best for both of us.

  Just at present I cannot tell you how long it will take to get matters decided. The difficulty is as follows. Kashi’s parents live in Kashmir – the railroad is closed due to snow. Kashi is adamant that she will not go to them and does not want to listen to their advice. But my father has written to Kashmir explaining the situation and it will be cleared up soon.

  I love you as I have never done before and if everything fails, I will come to England and stay with you if you will still love me after I have given you a most anxious and hectic time.

  On 10 January, Avadh wrote telling Helen more of the reason why he had asked her to defer coming to India – and even to reconsider coming at all. He had met with Kashi and offered her a generous allowance but this was rejected outright. Moreover, Avadh believed that if Helen came at that point, there was the risk of a ‘disaster’, which he implied might include physical violence, since feelings were running so high. Added to Kashi’s distress at the ending of her marriage, there was the vestigial resentment of the English in those post-Partition years and a disapproval of marrying anyone foreign, which meant the atmosphere could be highly charged.

  Avadh’s family also recognized their responsibility towards Vijay and were trying to determine the best home for him within the extended family. Under Hindu law at the time the father was the natural guardian of a legitimate child unless he was unfit. For Kashi to bring up the boy on her own was not seen as a particularly desirable option – perhaps for the same reason that Helen’s grandmother had been persuaded to send Helen’s father to boarding school. The belief that boys needed a male influence was widespread. Avadh sounds understandably nervous about what could happen if Helen arrived before the situation was resolved.

  He met with Doctor Brother and his sister-in-law in Delhi, and wrote that:

  It did not take more than a minute so far as my brother was concerned – [to say] that if I can support Kashi separately, I should make myself happy by marrying a second time. However, my decision of marrying you (a foreign lady) was not met with so easy an approval. But after 3 or 4 hours of talk and thinking he agreed and now after I agreed to delay your departure and you having agreed to it – they will even participate in our marriage and help you to come by air if need be.

  So you should not worry, my love. So long as I am alive I will not say no to you. If Kashi and her parents become adamant and unreasonable and if in that case you will be willing to stay with me in England, I will come to you.

  Now also I have to start work. My inaugural lecture is next week and with all the things in my mind, it is appearing to be a great bugbear. But I am determined to try my level best for it and my other work so that no damage is done to the honour of my work.

  I am very anxious to hear from you and know that you have been able to do your best with the situation that I suddenly created before you.

  It is apparent that my Indian grandfather had already given my Doctor Uncle quite a lot of authority to find a solution to this family mess. While their father would retain the final say, my uncle, who had been partly educated in England, had considerable influence and he was steadfast in his view that Avadh and Kashi could never be happy together. Another of Avadh’s brothers, Kailash, the lawyer – who was also referred to as ‘Lucknow Brother’ – wrote to Avadh trying to dissuade him from marrying an Englishwoman, but he finished his letter by saying that whatever happened they would always remain brothers and friends.

  In the next letter I have, dated 17 January, Helen wrote of her delayed departure, playing down her disappointment while gently reminding Avadh of quite how difficult it has been for her.

  The days drag by and it grieves me to think that had all been well I should have sailed tomorrow. Having no special work to do, but just helping in the office where I can, gives me no outlet for my thoughts and they go round and round in my head like flies round a sugar bowl. Mr Wilkinson [her boss at Metal Box] is very good to continue employing me, beca
use it is a terrible inconvenience to him not to have from me a definite date of departure, and I shall be boundlessly thankful when I get a date of departure from you – however far ahead, so that I can make some plan of action and so can he.

  Has any move been made at all over Kashi? Is there any reply whatever from Kashmir? Any news you have would be welcomed.

  The weather here is now getting very cold – I wish I could pack some up and send it to you in exchange for some more heat. At this time of year one never manages to get really warm – the wind is bitter, but there is no rain and the sky is a beautiful duck-egg blue all day long. I always move quickly, as you know, but the last few days I have literally run around to keep warm. We shall have some snow I think in the next fortnight. It would be lovely up in the Lakes now, despite the cold. The snow would be on top of every hill and catch the evening light. Didn’t we have a lovely time up there? This last year has been the happiest in my life despite all the worry and I pray that we may soon be able to add to that happiness.

  In response, Avadh commented drily that, ‘There is very little hope that the cold of England could be imported here because though it would be welcome to the people, the Government has strict restrictions on all kinds of imports.’

  On Wednesday 18 January, Helen wrote a little more about her feelings about the delay. It put her in a very difficult position.

  I cannot put into a letter all my fears at the present time, but you will know your own feelings and can, therefore, guess at mine. I am very lucky that up to now I have been able to earn my living and in consequence I eat and sleep in comfort, but once I get past the 1st February [when she was due to leave work] I do not know what will happen to me and I do hope your father will be able to give me word to come before then.