by Baby Halder
Now I began to cook and work downstairs and I did everything. No one had to tell me what to do: I just worked. Sometimes Tatush would say to me, “Baby, how can you do so much work? You’re working all the time. Come and sit and talk to me sometimes.” And then I’d sit down and talk to him and he would ask, “Have your children eaten yet? Have you given them lunch? Go upstairs and feed them, and then come down and have your own meal. Take a bit of milk from here for them.” After coming to Tatush’s house, my children began to get a half-liter of milk every day.
One day Tatush said to me, “You know, Baby, there have been other women who have worked in this house, but I have not found a girl like you. You must never think you are in this house only as a domestic worker. Think of this house as your own. I have no daughter, so I think of you as my daughter.” I thought: What a nice thing to say! Only I knew how happy I was after I came into this home. Tatush took so much care of me, and if ever I felt unwell, he would come and help out with the work and would be very concerned for my health. He would force me to go to the doctor, then get the prescribed medicines for me and ensure that I took them. If I demurred, he would force me to take them, insisting that I had to listen to him. If one of my children was ill, he would do the same. I had never met anyone who treated their home workers so well. I lacked for nothing in that home—soap, food, clothes, medicines, everything was there for me. I thought, I have worked in so many homes, but never have I been in a place where everyone is so kind to me. It was as if I was everything in that house.
I had everything I needed here, but even so, every now and again I felt sad. It was two months since I had seen my elder son. Perhaps Tatush understood my sorrow, for one day he asked me, “Baby, where does your elder son stay? Why don’t you go to see him sometime?” He asked me once, twice, three times, and I had no answer to give him. Then, without looking him in the eye, I told him that I did not even know where my son was. “What?” he exclaimed, “You don’t know where he is? How can that be?”
So I told him how the people who had taken him away had lived close to where I was and they had told me roughly where he was but I had no idea of the house number, the correct address, or anything like that. I’d gone to each of the houses whose numbers they gave me, not once but several times, but everywhere I drew a blank. The only thing I knew was that his employer had a medicine shop close by—but I had not been able to trace that, either. Tatush was concerned—there were many medicine shops in that neighborhood—but he did not say anything at that time.
The next morning he called me in and told me that when they were taking my son away with them, I should have actually spoken to him and explained our circumstances so that he’d not feel abandoned, and I should have also checked on where they were taking him. That way, I could’ve at least kept in touch with him. “You know,” he said, “anything could have happened and you would not have known.” I had nothing to say. After that he left the house without saying anything to me and came back some three hours later. The moment he returned, he got on the phone. I heard him talking to someone and then he called out to me, “Baby, Baby! Come here.” I went in and he continued to talk on the phone while I waited, then he handed the phone to me and said, “Here. Talk.”
I asked, “Who is it? Who should I talk to?”
He said, “Just talk.”
I took the phone. Someone was saying, “Hello? Hello?” but I couldn’t make out who it was, so I held the phone a little away from my ear and asked Tatush who it was. He said, “Don’t you know your own son?” I was really taken aback. My son! I put the phone to my ear again and said “Beta, Beta, it’s your mother.”
He said, “Ma? Is that you?”
I said, “Yes, son, yes, it’s me, Baby. How are you, my son?”
“I’m fine, Ma,” he said, “absolutely fine. I am well here, don’t worry about me.”
I thought, My boy has grown up now, his voice has changed so much! How he has changed in such a short while! I wanted very much to see him. Tatush understood this, and he asked me if that was what I wanted to do. I said, “Yes, that would be wonderful!” So he said, “When do you want to go?”
“Whenever you say,” I replied.
When a few days later I went to see my son, I found him watering plants outside the house where he worked. I don’t know why, but I did not feel he was happy. But there was nothing I could do. He came up to me and was so happy to see his little brother and sister. When we were about to leave, he looked really sad. I resolved then that I would somehow bring him to live with me. I’m sure Tatush understood all this because every now and again he would insist I call my son to ask after him. But whenever I did, my son wanted to know my address to find out where I lived and I always gave him insufficient information because I did not want him turn up at Tatush’s house unannounced. What would I do then? Tatush would sometimes say he had not seen a boy like him and I wondered what he meant—perhaps he did not feel he could trust him. Why did he never ask me to bring my boy over sometime, even for a short while? But I did not say anything to him.
And then one day Tatush said, “Baby, why don’t you bring your son here for a few days for Kali Puja?” I was so happy. Then he said, “You know, you should also look for work for him somewhere here so that he can also study alongside. Do you know, Baby, that it is illegal for children to work?” I thought I would like nothing better than to have him live with us, but how could I manage in the same house with three children? So I said to Tatush, “You had said I should find extra work in the neighborhood for an hour or two. Perhaps I should do that?”
“What’s the use of that, Baby? You’ll work in one place and then come and work here and you will make yourself ill. You have to take care of your health.”
I was so touched by Tatush’s words. I thought that even my father had not advised me like this and shown such concern for me. Tatush must have been my father in my previous life, otherwise why would he worry so much about what was good for me and what was not? After a little while he said, “I’d given you some writing work and some reading to do. Have you made any progress with that? It would be better for you to focus on that: the time will be well spent. One day this will come in useful. You don’t need to do anything else, Baby: just focus on your reading and writing. There’s no need to run around so much. For the moment, leave things as they are. And then, just think how much pleasure your writing gives to my friends who’ve been reading your work. They’re always encouraging you to write and if they find out that instead of writing you are running around looking for work, they will blame me!”
A few days later, Tatush asked me to bring my son to the house. “I don’t like his working like this at all. If he continues to work in other people’s houses at this age, what will become of him? His life will be destroyed. I am a teacher, Baby, and I cannot stand to see a young person’s life ruined. Go over today and bring him here.”
I went and fetched my son the same day. Tatush now began to look for a good place where he could work and where he would have time to study as well. It wasn’t easy to find such a place, of course. Now I had all three children with me—but I was still not happy. I thought, Tatush is already doing so much for us, how much more could I expect him to do? I did not want to feel I was exploiting him, so I decided that until such time as my son was with me, I would be a little thrifty and I would not, for example, cook any extra quantities of food.
Tatush understood that I was concerned about food. He began to insist that I eat with him, and sometimes he even went so far as to put food on a plate for me and insist that I eat. This family gave me so much happiness. I had worked in so many houses, but nowhere had I found people like this. Previous to this, the houses in which I had worked had paid me the monthly wage, but here there was nothing like that. Tatush had said to me, “Baby, don’t think that I am paying you a salary. Just look on this money as your pocket money!”
One day Tatush suggested I go to the park for a while in the evenings and tak
e the children with me. I did as he suggested and started to go to the park every day. There were many Bengali women who came to the park with the children they had charge of. And some began to ask me questions: Are you Bengali? Are you married? Where is your husband? and so on. There were also some young boys and often they tried to talk to me, or to be nice to my children so that they could then open up a conversation. I did not talk much to these people—although if someone came up to you and started talking it was difficult to not reply—and I would not tell them anything about myself. I understood their motives well enough. Tatush had also advised me not to talk to people I did not know. He was right, because often such people would ask questions in order to wheedle out information that you did not want to give them, and they would ask them in such a roundabout way that you wouldn’t even realize until it was too late. This was one reason that I was not so keen to go out.
One day in the park I saw a young girl with a child. I’d seen her around for a few days. She did not talk to anyone in the park and was always alone. But there were some young boys who passed all sorts of remarks about her. She must have been around twenty or twenty-two and it was clear that she was not married. I felt very sorry for her. I wondered how her parents could have sent her so far away to work. I spoke to her one day and she was so happy to respond. I asked if she was Bengali and she said yes and told me her name: Suniti. We became good friends. We’d meet in the park every day and if we did not manage to meet one day, we really missed each other. Suniti had lost both her parents early—her mother died in childbirth when Suniti was born and she had been brought up by her grandmother and her uncle. I felt very sorry for her. I knew what it was like to grow up without a mother. I met Suniti the day before she left for home and we did not know that she would be gone the next day. She had told me she would give me her address but that did not happen. Suddenly one day she did not come to the park anymore—I had taken my address along but I had no idea at all that she had already gone. After that day I did not see her again and a couple of days later I saw that the child she used to bring to the park was with someone else. That was when I realized she was gone. I thought she probably was not able to find time to meet me, and after all, what could she do? She was at the mercy of the people she worked for.
After Suniti left I stopped going to the park and used my time to read and write. When I had written a fair amount, Tatush took my papers, had them photocopied, and sent them to a friend in Kolkata. Then one day he said to me, “Baby, there’s a letter for you.” I was surprised. A letter! Who could be writing to me? Tatush then told me that it was from his friend in Kolkata, so I asked him to read it out to me.
“Dear Baby,” it said, “I cannot tell you how happy I was to read your manuscript. How did you learn to write so well? Your writing is excellent and your Tatush has really found a jewel in you. I’m only sorry I can’t write to you in Bengali. I can read Bengali but I can’t write it. I am a year older than your Tatush. I would like to be able to learn Bengali but now there is no time. Please continue to read and write in Bangla. Many of my friends wanted to read your story and I have shown it to them. One of my friends would like to have your story published in a paper but first you must bring it to some sort of conclusion. And I want to tell you that you must never stop writing. Remember that God has placed you on this earth to write. My blessings are with you.”
I was really dumbstruck. What had I written to merit this kind of response? I wondered. My writing was a bit crude, but they still liked it. I asked Tatush why they liked my writing so much and he said, “You won’t understand.” And this was true! I really did not understand. I think God did not give me the power to understand, but I still wanted to. Then Tatush told me not to bother about all this, just keep doing your work, do your reading and writing and the understanding will come one day by itself.
But where was the time to read and write? At home there were not only Arjun-da, Sukhdeep-da, and Raman-da but their friends Rajat-da, Rahul-da, and Sumit-da, who came and went. They were all really kind to me: how could I not give them dinner and lunch and just go off and write? One day I got so absorbed in talking to Tatush about my reading and writing that a funny thing happened. Normally I would put the food on the table for Sukhdeep-da and Raman-da, and leave the plate upturned to keep off any flies. Raman-da came back from work and he was starving so he went straight to the table and without noticing that the plate was upside-down, served himself. Naturally, the vegetables and the dal started sliding off the plate onto the tablecloth. Suddenly he noticed what he was doing and started laughing loudly. Tatush and I were wondering who he was talking to, since there was no one else in the house. Then I went in to see and found him laughing hysterically at what he had done. At first I could not understand, and then, when I did, I could not help laughing either. Tatush joined us and very soon he, too, was in splits. Then Tatush said to me, “Baby, you have not yet replied to the letter my friend wrote you, and it’s been so many days.”
“Letter?” I said. “But I don’t know how to write letters!”
“Why not?” Tatush said. “Just write however you want to, it will come right in the end.”
I thought about it. I had never written to anyone. How would I do it? What would I write? And I make mistakes—I was also worried about this. I asked Tatush, how should I address him? He said: however you like. So I thought I would call him Jethu and I wrote to him. I don’t know what kind of letter I wrote, but I got a reply:
“Dear Baby,” it said, “I got your letter a few days ago and was very happy and have been wondering what to write. Some days ago I went to the book market here. There, they sell books like they sell fish. I wanted to buy up the whole market and send all those books to you. I’m very pleased to know that the second part of your story is now complete. You are quite right to say that your Tatush and I have been worried about your writing and the reason for our worry is that we want your work to be published and we have been wondering how this can be done. Your Tatush must have told you about Ashapurna Devi, the writer who used to finish all her housework and then write in secret. She only spoke Bengali and she never stepped outside her house. Your Tatush and I, who do not have even an inch of writing in us, know a little about this world of writing and our hope is that you will be the new Ashapurna Devi. How far have you got with the third part? Your Jethu.”
This was how Jethu encouraged me. And he was not alone in this. In Delhi, Tatush had another friend, Ramesh Babu. One day he said to me on the phone, “Baby, a friend of mine liked what you have written very much. He said it was like Anne Frank’s diary.”
“Who is this Anne Frank?” I asked.
Tatush told me about her and brought me a newspaper that had some sections of her diary in it. These he read out to me and I felt a great sense of compassion for the young girl.
In Kolkata, Jethu had a friend, Sharmila-di, a teacher who was from the same area as I was. She was also a great friend of mine and used to write to me often. Reading her letters, I often wanted to talk to her, play with her, and jump about because I felt very close to her in spirit.
One day, while cleaning an almirah upstairs, I came across a photo album. I opened it to look inside and found many pictures there of Arjun-da and his friends. In one picture I saw Jethu, with Sharmila-di on one side and Arjun-da on the other. In another was Jethu with Sharmila-di and Sukhdeep-da. So far I had not met Jethu or Sharmila-di in person: these photos were the only time I had seen them. Whenever Sharmila-di wrote to me, she included all sorts of notepaper cut in different shapes in her letter for my reply. We talked of so many things in our letters, and sometimes I wondered if we would have as much to talk about if we met. Jethu had a Bengali friend, Anand, and he also wrote to me. He said, “I liked your writing very much. This kind of writing is very difficult to do. Not everyone has the skill to be able to delve into so many diverse memories and render them so simply, so movingly. Do not ever stop doing this. If you continue to work like this, one day you m
ay also be able to touch on many other issues—women’s oppression, their difficulties…you have begun to do this so well. My blessings are with you.”
Anand Babu also sent me something he had written. I read it with great interest. I can’t say I understood all of it, and Tatush also patiently explained some things to me. But whatever I understood, I liked. Tatush also sent my writing to some of his other friends. But despite all the encouragement and kind words I received from all these people, I was still unsure of myself: Would I be able to write? Would I live up to their expectations?
ONE DAY, OUT OF THE BLUE, MY FATHER CAME TO SEE US. I was cooking when I looked out of the kitchen window and saw someone come up to the house on a cycle. I did not recognize him. He rang the bell and it took me some time to go out and open the door. When I went out, he said, “How are you, child?”
“Baba!” I screamed. “What have you done to yourself? Why are you so thin?”
“Nothing’s happened to me, Beta. I am perfectly all right. How are the children?”
“They’re well. Everything is all right, the children are at school right now.”
I ran in and told Tatush that my father had come and he asked me to call him in, make him sit down, offer him something to eat. I brought him to my room and asked if he wanted a cup of tea. “No,” he said, “it’s too hot.”
So I quickly made a glass of sherbet and offered that to him. He took it and asked, “What about you? Why don’t you drink some?”
“I’ve just had a cup of tea,” I told him. I asked him how Ma was. “She is all right,” he said. “She remembers you often.” And I thought, Yes, it’s been a long time, two years. But I also thought, If I go there for a couple of days, all the old battles will begin again. I was not prepared to go through that again. One thing that had become clear to me by this time was that man or woman, everyone was basically concerned about themselves and about having enough to eat. Had I understood this wisdom earlier, I would not have had to suffer so much.