by Baby Halder
At home, various neighbors came to see the new baby. One of them looked at the child and said, “My God, look at the size of him! He looks as if he’s already six months old!” I was really upset. I thought, These people say all kinds of things about me, now they’re going to start saying them about my child. So, to ward off the evil eye, I took the little finger of my baby’s left hand, sunk my teeth into it, and then spat on his body, saying “Thoo, thoo.” Despite this, things kept happening to him all the time. Often I would call in a neighbor named Sitaram. He was like a brother to me, and he knew a lot about spirit possession and different kinds of witchcraft. He’d do all his tricks, dusting the baby, trying to remove evil spirits, and I would then think everything would be all right, but it never was. The child remained sick, and sometimes he got worse. If I told his father, he paid no attention. In the end, it was always I who had to find medicines, pay for them, manage everything. What choice did I have? My parents had tied me to this man. Perhaps the only good thing I can say about him is that he never stinted in his love for the children, and never so much as raised a hand to them. All his violence and aggression were reserved for me.
With two children to feed, our financial situation became tight. I began to think that if I could do something and earn a little bit, that would make things easier and would ensure that there was money to educate my boy. So I thought about it and then asked the neighbors—I thought that if I asked people to send their children to me in the house, I would teach them a bit, and my boy could study alongside as well. That way, I would earn a bit, and also save money on his extra tuition. Little by little people began to send their children to me. Someone paid ten rupees for the month, someone paid twenty, and in this way, I managed to piece together some two or three hundred rupees at the end of the month. Predictably, when my husband saw that I had some money in my hands, he reduced the amount he gave me for household expenses. Nevertheless, I enjoyed teaching, and the children were fond of me. Some of them called me Boudi, the others called me Kaki-ma or Didi, and I decided that even if I earned nothing from them, I would not give up teaching them.
YEARS PASSED. MY ELDER SON WAS NOW IN THE FOURTH or fifth grade. My cousins sometimes came to visit me. One day they brought a man with them who had never been to our house before. “Look, we’ve brought Dulal with us,” they said.
“Who?” I asked.
“Why, don’t you remember Dulal? He used to be your neighbor when you lived in that house you rented from the Manis. You used to play so much together.”
“Oh yes! I remember! The same boy who had no buttons, or belts, or zips or anything in his trousers? He always held his trousers up with just a thread! And the Manis used to call him Jaamai, Jaamai! That one?” Suddenly it all came back to me! How much fun we used to have, how we used to play together! No sooner had Baba left for work than I’d be out like a shot to play with him. Occasionally, we’d worry that Baba would come back and find us playing and would yell at us. He didn’t like me playing at all and if he saw me playing with a boy, that was the end! And that silly Dulal, he only liked to play with girls!
Dulal lived close by, with his brother and mother. At first he used to drop by with my cousins, but then gradually he began to come on his own. I was happy to see him, and often made him a cup of tea or something to eat. He loved the children and they loved him, and the day he did not come, they’d kick up a ruckus pestering me and wanting to know where he was. I knew how they felt. I’d felt the same, I remembered, years ago when we used to play together and sometimes, while playing hide-and-seek, I’d be waiting to be found by him and he’d forget me altogether and go off home to his mother. Now, sometimes when he missed a day, I recognized the same feeling in myself. But of course my husband did not like his coming to our house. Not that he ever said anything, but it was very clear how he felt. Every little action of his spoke volumes. Dalal knew this, too, and one day he told me that he thought one of the reasons my husband treated me so badly was because he did not like him coming to our home. I tried to explain that that was not the case. But I don’t think he understood and some days later, he once again said the same thing to me. “Look,” he said, “I don’t want to become a cause of trouble between the two of you.” This time, I lost my temper and turned on him: “That’s enough! I don’t care about all these things now. Nothing’s going to happen because of your coming here. And even if it does, so what? I don’t care. Can’t I spend time with my childhood friend? What will he do? You think he’ll beat me? So what? He’s done that plenty of times already. I don’t care anymore!”
I guess this must have had some effect, for he continued to come to our home. I knew that he was finding it hard to make ends meet, so I would make sure I gave him something to eat when he came. An uneducated woman, a mother of two…I sometimes wondered why I was so concerned for this poor man that I was even willing to risk my husband’s wrath. Could an uneducated woman understand this? All she knew was that when Dulal affectionately addressed her as “tu,” Baby’s playful, youthful days would come back to her, and her heart would fill with joy. All she knew was that what she felt was something akin to the feeling her friend Bela had had in her heart for the boy named Tarak, to whom she sent love letters that she’d get others to write. Had she been forced to swear on her children’s heads and made to tell the truth, perhaps she, too, would have said that had Dulal known how to read and write, she might have written him similar letters as well.
Whenever Bela heard from her lover, she’d run to me with his letters and I had to read them out to her. I had also read out the first love letter that Tapasi’s mother, who lived in the same neighborhood, had been given by a brother-in-law. She had run to me with it demanding, “Tell me, tell me what’s written in here.” I often watched their faces light up as I read to them, and they’d look at that piece of paper as if their whole life were written upon it. Sometimes I had to write letters for them, too. No matter how much I protested that I hardly knew how to write, I had to write those letters and in the end, I would just do whatever I could.
I also became a sort of confidante and go-between in another relationship between two people in the neighborhood, Vibhuda and Nisha. Vibhuda was married, but he was in love with Nisha. To begin with, his wife and Nisha were friends, but once she realized what was going on, his wife began to hate Nisha, glowering at her all the time and heaping curses on her. I liked them both. Vibhuda’s wife was really pretty—one of her feet was smaller than the other but other than that, she was lovely. She often stepped out of the house with her veil pulled low over her face, and everyone thought she was a young bride. She wore a large sindoor mark on her forehead that made her look very attractive. Fair and with lustrous, black hair, she loved Vibhuda a great deal and when he was home, she tried to win his heart by cooking all kinds of things for him. By contrast, Nisha was dark, but she was also beautiful and black-haired. Whenever Vibhuda went out into the neighborhood his wife used to try and follow him, and would ask everyone if they’d seen him talking to Nisha. She often asked me to watch out for them as well. What she did not know was that they often met in my house. Sometimes I worried that she would find out. Often they’d meet there and then go to the cinema together.
One day, a group of us were at a neighbor’s house watching television. Vibhuda’s wife suddenly arrived and found that both her husband and Nisha were there as well. She did not notice that there were so many others around, she saw only the two of them. She asked Vibhuda to come home but he ignored her. She was furious. It was around eleven or twelve in the morning, and she had just put the rice on to cook at home. She rushed home, and no one knows what she did, but she swallowed something and fell down unconscious. When Vibhuda got home, he found her lying there. A short while later he noticed her trying to take the rice off the fire, but her hands were trembling and she could not get a grip on the vessel. He realized something was wrong and quickly called out to others at home. Between them they rushed her to hospital, but it was no
use: she died that night. At first everyone in the neighborhood was surprised, but then the gossip and whispers began. Someone said, She was all right till that morning; someone else insinuated that she had died because of Nisha…She was a good woman. Whatever the reason for her death, however, it did nothing to change Vibhuda’s feelings for Nisha, and he continued to assiduously woo her and the two of them met frequently. Some months later Vibhuda’s elder brother came and arranged a second marriage for Vibhuda.
I learned that Vibhuda was keen to marry Nisha but she was not willing to marry him. I asked her why, and she told me that she could not marry him because the two of them belonged to different castes and if she did, her father would be ostracized from the caste. Whatever the reason, even when he remarried—and he seemed to have married well—he continued to see Nisha and spend time with her. What did happen, though, was that his dead wife now began to plague his new wife. Her spirit would enter the new wife’s body and cause her endless grief. Often they had to call an ojha, a witch doctor, to rid her of the spirit of Vibhuda’s former wife. The ojha would sprinkle water on Vibhuda’s new wife, then take a flaming torch and try to use its heat to bring the spirit out. Then he’d ask, “Who are you and why are you here?”
“I am his dead wife.”
“Why have you entered her body?”
“I will not let my husband get close to anyone. I will not let the child in her womb be born.”
Then the witch doctor would frighten her again and she’d agree to leave.
“You promise not to return?”
“Yes.”
“And where will you leave from?”
“I’ll go out the back way.”
Then Vibhuda’s wife would run out the back, and collapse in a heap on the ground. This happened to her many times, even though she soon gave birth to a baby daughter. This little girl was the apple of everyone’s eye in the family, and she was Vibhuda’s particular favorite.
Whatever happened in that neighborhood, one thing was certain: everyone had at least three or four children. If this was the local custom, I seemed to be following it. I would soon be a mother of three. I had decided I did not want any more children after this, and so I was keen to have a daughter. I was determined to have myself operated upon and had told myself that I would not come back from the hospital without having this done. Only Shashti and Dulal knew about my decision. Even Baba did not know, because even though he was aware of my condition, he had made no effort to come and see me. I did not want our family to grow any bigger. My husband barely gave me any money for running the house and my earnings from the tuitions were also very variable—some months people would pay, others they would not.
Whatever the case, the most urgent thing at that time was to organize things for getting to the hospital. This time I was more prepared. Because I wanted to have the operation I wanted to get there a bit early, so I’d packed my clothes and kept them ready in a bundle. I’d asked Dulal if he would keep coming and would look after my children. Two days before I was to go to hospital, the pain began. At first it did not seem so bad, so I kept it to myself, but when things began to get worse, I asked my elder son to go and call Sitaram-da while Dulal stayed with me. I asked my husband if he would fetch my mother-in-law so that there would be someone to look after the children, and he did so. Then the three of them, Sitaram-da, Dulal, and my husband, took me to the hospital. In a short while I was moved from one room into another. This led to some confusion, for the next morning, when Dulal phoned to ask after me, he was told that I was not there. He told everyone in the neighborhood that I had disappeared, and everyone thought I had run away! As a result, no one came to see me at all for two whole days.
On the afternoon of the third day—Vishwakarma Puja—I gave birth to a baby daughter. The next day Dulal again tried to find out about me and this time he found me with my baby in my arms. I said, “What happened? Why didn’t anyone come to see me? You all just left me here!” He told me he’d come but had not been able to find me, and then I told him how, when no one came, the doctors had assumed there was no one else in my family. Anyway, then he left, and told everyone in the neighborhood the news: I had had a baby girl.
A couple of days later, I asked the doctor if he would operate on me and close up my tubes. He said he would prefer to wait till someone, more specifically my husband, came from my home, so that he could get his permission and his signature on the form. I told him there was no need to wait, that I could sign the form myself. So he agreed and told me to be ready with an empty stomach the next morning. My only worry was who would look after the baby for the three or four days that I needed to recuperate, but fortunately, I had managed to hide away some money, so I was able to get an ayah for the child for those few days.
There were seven of us waiting for the operation. I was the first to regain consciousness and the first to recover. Even so, it was fifteen days before I was able to leave the hospital. During this time my husband brought food for me every day, and Dulal also came to see me. When I finally got home, everyone came to see me and they had all sorts of questions. “Where did you disappear to?” they asked. “We heard you were not to be found in the hospital…” I had to explain everything to them all over again. I told them I’d been moved to a different room, which is why they hadn’t found me when they’d gone there. Several of them also said I was fortunate to have had a daughter after two sons and I thought, Only I know how fortunate I am! Whatever my fate, though, everyone loved my daughter. Dulal was especially fond of her and would rush her to the doctor for even the slightest scratch! I was happy, for I could now leave the care of the girl to Dulal and do whatever running around was needed to get my younger son admitted to school. And predictably, soon things came to such a pass that my daughter would refuse to leave Dulal’s house and come home.
I had hoped that once I came home from hospital I would be able to get a little rest. But on the contrary, the work only increased. I was also beginning to get this yearning to go away somewhere for a while. Fortunately, my chance came when my younger brother-in-law arrived from Dhanbad and asked me to return with him. “There’s a big mela on there—why don’t you come and visit?” I did not stop to think. I quickly packed a few things, took my children, and headed off to Dhanbad, where I spent a week. We went to the mela every day. We wandered around and generally had a good time.
I came back a few days later, happy and relaxed, but shortly afterward our little neighborhood was rocked by a terrible tragedy. A man named Panna had set fire to his wife and burned her to death. She was a beautiful doll-like woman, with dusky skin, curly hair…and he just burned her to death! It was a Sunday and she was at a neighbor’s house watching television. Panna was drunk—he was often drunk and violent toward his wife. When he found his wife watching television, he was enraged and he caught hold of her and dragged her home. There they must have fought, for suddenly he poured acid on her and searched around for a light to set her on fire. Defiant, his wife picked up a matchbox herself and slapped it into his hand, saying, “If it makes you feel better to kill me, here, go ahead and do it!” Panna was drunk. He took the matchbox, lit a match, and threw it on her. She burst into flames, her clothes burning off her skin, her skin becoming pale…she was naked…she was still alive when Lata, a neighbor, saw her slumped against the wall in their house and heard her whimpering in pain. She shouted out, calling for help, and lots of people came rushing to their house. We also went there. I saw that she was half-standing against the wall and her skin was blistered with burns…she was unlucky enough to still be alive…
Panna tried to run away, but the neighbors caught hold of him and locked him up inside the house. The police were called and some people quickly took Panna’s wife to the hospital. The police came a couple of hours later and made some inquiries and took Panna away. His wife never came home again. But when questioned in the hospital by the doctors and the police, she refused to blame Panna and said he was in no way responsible for her
condition. Till her dying breath, she blamed herself for what had happened!
When they brought her home for the last rites, I went there to see her. Her face was still pale, her bindi in place as always. But her eyes were open, as if she was watching us, and I kept thinking she would speak any moment! I remembered how alive she always looked, how she used to take her two children, a boy of ten and a girl of seven, to school every morning, holding each by the hand. Sometimes if I was outside our house, she would stop by to chat. I wondered what the children would do now, who would look after them. Panna was let out after only three months, but whether he was back at home or not made no difference to anyone. Finally Panna’s father-in-law came and took the children away.
Panna went back to work in the gas factory where he had been earlier. He was erratic: some days he went to work, others he just skipped. The house they had lived in was sold, and Panna frittered away whatever he earned on drink. One day we were talking about his wife when Shashti told me that she often dreamed of her, and was frightened because she felt that Panna’s wife was standing behind her, looking at her with those eyes that refused to close even in death…I got up to leave when Shashti reminded me that there was a puja in her home the next day and I had promised to come. I told her I would be there—I thought that I would pray for Panna’s little children at the puja. Shashti’s house had an idol of Ma Mansa there and it was to her that I planned to pray, but I determined that I would also keep a fast that day for the goddess. So I did not eat anything all day, and in the evening, as many people collected to fetch water from the pond for the puja, I also got ready to go, but my husband dragged me back home, raining curses upon me. When I asked him why he was behaving like this, he began to beat me. I had fasted the whole day, and I’d bought fruit from the market as an offering, but I wasn’t able to do this and that made me really sad. So the next morning I plucked a few flowers and went to Shashti’s house to offer them. There were many other girls from the neighborhood there as well. I stood among them, and joined my hands to pray. Suddenly I felt a tug at my hair. I ignored it and continued to pray. But then suddenly someone caught hold of my hair and pulled it so hard that I fell to the ground…I turned and saw that it was my husband. He shouted at me, “Come on, you bitch! Get yourself back home!” Like everyone else, I knew that if I went back with him now, he would beat me up thoroughly. So I just continued to pray, and after everything was over, I went home. But even then, I did not go inside, I just stood at the door.