Vasu's commanding officer held a meeting with her. He wanted to know the truth and seemed to believe Vasu when she unwaveringly explained a matter so personal to a veritable stranger. But there was still a flicker of doubt. If Ramakant was abusive, how would five-year-old Saroj not see it? Because Saroj continued to claim her father was a nice man who brought her candy and dolls whenever he returned from out of town, no one ever completely believed Vasu.
But Saroj was just five years old, and Vasu was convinced that in a few years she'd forget about her father. That didn't happen. The rift that started when he died slowly got larger and deeper. Vasu sometimes was surprised that they even spoke to each other after all these years. Part of the reason they still continued to see each other was Avi, who kept the family together, especially after his parents died in a car accident in Delhi.
“You're the only grandparent Devi and Shobha have,” he always said to Vasu when she worried about staying three months a year in his house. “You're welcome to stay forever.”
It warmed Vasu that Avi said so, though she never took him up on the offer. It was one thing to visit, but to live in the United States? No, that just wouldn't do. She had friends back home in India. She had a home in India. Here, everything was too foreign, almost un-livable at times.
Maybe she should take Devi away with her for a while, just until she got better. A few months by the beach in Visakhapatnam would do the girl some good. They could even take a trip to Goa or go see the Ajanta-Ellora caves, the temples in Mahabalipuram.
Vasu dozed off as she started planning her Indian adventure with Devi.
Devi's eyes flickered open, her hands moved noisily against the sheets, and Vasu sprang out of her drowsiness. “Devi, beta, how are you feeling?”
Her eyes were like deep wells, filled with something intangible, and Vasu couldn't see past the brownness of her eyeballs. Devi could swallow herself whole into that vacuum, Vasu realized, and felt the pinch of fear that she may have lost her granddaughter even though she was physically alive.
Devi didn't say anything, didn't even look at Vasu, just turned her head away.
“Come on, Devi, you have to say something, anything,” Vasu persisted when there was no response.
But Devi didn't nod or even move, just closed her eyes and drifted into oblivion again. Vasu wanted to shake her awake, kiss her noisily, jerk her out of this silent madness, but she did nothing, she sat down beside her granddaughter and held her hand as she had for the past hours.
“When will she wake up, Mummy?” Saroj asked later, perilously close to tears.
Vasu shrugged irritably. Saroj had the disgusting habit of crying every time there was any kind of stress. She probably even believed that crying could solve problems. How could she have given birth to a girl who was such a water tap?
Vasu never claimed to be a great mother. She knew her shortcomings, and maternal, she was not. She realized now that she was one of those women who should never have had children. But now her child was grown and she even had grandchildren. Lives took their own course and she couldn't regret the part she played in creating her own little world. If she'd never had a child, wouldn't she have been lonely now? There would be no Devi, no Shobha, no Avi, no trips to the United States every summer. Life would be barren.
“Why did she do this?” Saroj asked, sniffling, tears rolling down her cheeks.
Vasu wanted to lay into Saroj and bring out every instance when Saroj had made Devi feel useless, but it was a pointless exercise. Saroj was convinced that she was the perfect mother, the perfect wife, and the perfect daughter. Saroj couldn't imagine being anything else. If her relationships with her daughters, her husband, and her mother were not working out, it was because something was wrong with them, not her.
“We'll know when she wakes up,” Vasu said quietly but couldn't find it in her heart to take her daughter into her arms and offer comfort. It was so easy for Vasu to hug Devi, cajole her friends, be playful with others. With everyone she was easygoing, but with Saroj, she was serious, unbending, critical.
“Avi thinks it's my fault,” Saroj said bitterly.
“Did he say so?” Vasu asked.
Saroj shook her head. “But I can feel it. I can feel him accusing me every time he looks at me, even when he doesn't look at me. I saved her, Mummy, and he doesn't even mention it.”
Vasu wanted to say something about guilty conscience but Saroj was doing such a good job of beating herself up, it didn't seem right to kick her some more when she was down.
Avi came inside the small white room with a beautifully arranged basket of white lilies, Devi's favorite flowers. Seeing the flower basket, Saroj burst into tears again and Vasu felt the desire to smack the woman across her face.
“She woke up once,” Vasu informed Avi, not even stopping to think that she hadn't bothered to tell Saroj about Devi waking up. “But she drifted right back.”
Avinash nodded and then sighed when he saw his wife sobbing. “Stop it, Saroj,” he said as gently as he could, but the bite of irritation was there. “She can probably hear us, and do you want her to listen to this, to you crying? She's just sleeping. She isn't in a coma, she isn't dead.”
“Did you talk to the doctor?” Vasu asked quickly before Saroj could say anything to Avi. She didn't want Devi to witness a marital scene while she lay in a hospital bed, forced there by demons no one knew about.
Avi nodded, ignoring Saroj. Her dramatics when overdone became too fantastic to pay any real attention to, and Avi had started ignoring his wife's meltdowns years ago.
“He says everything is fine, just that she might be tired. She should wake up soon enough,” Avi said as he walked up to his daughter. He placed the lilies by Devi's bedside and stroked her hair. “He said a psychiatrist will talk to her and then, if they're convinced she isn't suicidal anymore, they'll release her to us.”
“What?” Saroj said, biting her lip as a new wave of salty tears threatened to claim her. “Why won't they just let us take her home?
We are her parents. We can take her anytime we want, right? We don't need some mental doctor to tell us how she is. What do they know anyway?”
Vasu sighed loudly, but didn't bother to explain that even after Devi came home, she would continue to need medical help. She would need to speak with a psychiatrist, figure out why she broke down like this, and ensure it didn't happen again. This was an illness, and just like you'd go to the doctor if your head hurt too much, you sometimes had to go when your heart hurt as well.
Avi leaned closer to his daughter, kissed her cool soft cheek, and whispered, “You have to wake up, beta, time to go home. Devi, beta, are you awake?” Avi asked when he saw Devi's eyelids flutter open. ‘Are you feeling okay?” he asked.
Devi nodded.
“Ready to go home?”
Devi shook her head.
Saroj rose shakily and stood by Devi's feet, peering at her face. She wanted to say something nice, something comforting. “Why did you do such a stupid thing? Do you know what a scare you gave us?” she demanded, love and concern turned rancid, spewing out of her as anger.
Avi hissed and Vasu made a clicking sound.
Devi turned her head away from her mother and closed her eyes again.
“Oh, I am sorry,” Saroj said immediately, guiltily. “I love you so much, Devi. The next time she wakes up, Avi, I will tell her how much I love her, how much I … the next time she wakes up … I promise …”
It is tiresome to see the ceiling at all times when your eyes are open. Even when you're alive, it makes you feel like maybe, you are not. But you know that you are alive and that the feeling of lifelessness is just a farce and that's when the tiresome part comes in.
Devi was tired of staring at the white crisp ceiling, the white crisp walls, the white-white-white everything of the hospital room.
She wanted to get up and around. Pop by and see who was in the room next door. Was anyone else here who attempted what she had? And how did that person feel? Guilty che
ated, desperate, angry?
As if lying there and having to put up with every member of her family was not bad enough, it really bothered her to have to talk to a psychiatrist. It was for her own good, her father told her as he explained why she needed to see a shrink. She wasn't exactly stupid and had watched enough ER to know that they wouldn't just release her into the general population before ensuring she was of sound mind and body.
It didn't make her resentment for the psychiatrist any less. She didn't want to be psychoanalyzed and she didn't want to give anyone any explanations.
“How are you feeling?” Dr. Mara Berkley began after she introduced herself.
Devi shrugged. How did she think she felt? Her wrists were sore, her head hurt, and her mother had not left her side for almost three days.
“Devi, I understand that as a child, you used to stop speaking during difficult times,” said the doctor and waited to see Devi's expression.
Devi felt betrayed by her family. They'd told this woman, a stranger, about her life; it seemed like a violation. She didn't know if any of her emotions flickered on her face but the doctor continued even more soothingly, “Devi, it's important you let me know what happened so that I can help you. If you're uncomfortable speaking, would you write me a note?”
She spoke slowly, in a soft voice, and Devi felt ridiculous lying down, unable to respond. Write a note? Why? Devi wondered. It wasn't like she'd lost the ability to use her vocal cords, she just didn't have anything to say. How would a note change that? Would writing a note somehow give her the words it would take to tell the truth?
Devi shook her head, frustration welling in her eyes.
“So, you don't want to write a note?” Dr. Berkley asked again and when Devi shook her head again, she nodded. “And that's all right. You don't have to if you don't want to.”
Her tone, her expression, took away some of the pressure Devi felt was being put on her.
“I understand if you don't want to say anything to me, but I strongly suggest that you keep a journal from now on. Maybe that will help you sort through your feelings,” the doctor recommended with a broad smile.
Devi nodded and then shook her head and then shrugged. Keeping a journal sounded too hokey and she didn't want to sort through her feelings, she just wanted to close her eyes and go to sleep.
“We have prescribed you an antidepressant, Celexa. It's new in the market, but very effective. It should take effect within the week and make you feel better.” Dr. Berkley spoke softly. “In rare cases there is nausea in the first couple weeks of use, are you having any?”
Devi shook her head again. She couldn't believe she was on some Prozac-type drug. An antidepressant! Good God, she shouldn't have to go through this, and she wouldn't if she had been able to stick to the plan and died. Anger bubbled within her again and she wanted to scream, she could feel the scream, the threads of it wind against her vocal cords demanding release. But she ground her teeth together, smothered the scream. For now, she didn't think she could stand to hear her own voice.
“Your parents want to take you home,” Dr. Berkley continued. “Do you want to go home with them?”
Now, that was a tough question. On one hand Devi didn't want to deal with her family; on the other, she had nowhere else to go. The town house seemed too bleak right now, and she was too ashamed to turn to any of her friends.
Because she couldn't truthfully answer Dr. Berkley's question, she shrugged, but it came out more as a nod.
“Are you still depressed?”
Devi bit her lower lip and then shook her head. There was anger within her, loads and loads of it, disappointment and resentment at being alive, but she when she looked within she didn't feel the same bone-numbing and soul-tearing sadness she'd felt just two days ago. It was unsettling for her to realize that a weight had been lifted.
She felt lighter than before and beneath the anger at being alive was also some relief that she wasn't dealing with death and whatever lay waiting beyond it.
“Do you still want to end your life?”
Devi stared at the doctor as the question sank in. She had no idea if she still wanted to die. She was coming to terms with living, how was she to deal with the idea of failing at death?
She shook her head.
“So, you want to live?”
Devi stared at the doctor again. The questions she was asking seemed reasonable but each one evoked a sense of helplessness within her, because there were no clear answers to these simple, reasonable questions. It should be easy for her to say, Yes, when someone asked her if she wanted to live, but something had happened, something terrible. She'd tried to kill herself and after that, the question of life was a difficult one to deal with.
“Do you?” the doctor prodded.
Devi nodded, unsure as to why she thought she wanted to live when all she wanted was to go back in time so she could lie in the bathtub again feeling the life seep out of her.
Dr. Berkley smiled.
“We'll meet tomorrow morning to discuss your discharge. The nurse will explain your charge plan to you. We can't release you on your own recognizance. That means you have to be with your parents. They will be responsible for you. I need to see you next week, so we will make that appointment as well. Do you agree to these conditions?”
Devi felt like she was listening to a judge speak in a courtroom scene of a movie. The words recognizance and conditions zipped around in her mind and she felt like a prisoner being allowed out on parole, if and only if she agreed to all the rules.
Devi nodded, putting some vigor into her nod. Just like a prisoner who desperately wanted parole, she needed to get out of this white hospital room.
“So, we'll talk next week, okay?” said Dr. Berkley, standing up. “Keep taking the Celexa regularly, and if you ever feel like talking, give me a call.” She put her card on the bedside tray and patted Devi's hand where it lay on her stomach.
“Devi, we'll work together to help you stay alive and work through the difficulties that caused you to attempt suicide. You're healthy there's no permanent damage. I know you felt hopeless to change your life, but through therapy, we can help you find the strength to overcome whatever drove you to this,” the doctor said as she stood at the doorway, ready to step out of the white room, Devi's prison.
Devi nodded, though she couldn't imagine how therapy, whatever that meant (they were all quacks anyway, these so-called shrinks) could make it all okay. And what was this about no permanent damage? What about the permanent damage that was already done? Who would, who could, repair that?
When the doctor stepped out, Devi's shoulders slumped and the tension that had been building up in the past few minutes seeped out. She felt as if she'd been through a test and that maybe, just maybe, she passed.
Devi was partially correct. Dr. Mara Berkley was convinced her new patient was not going to attempt suicide again. Not as long as she took the prescribed drugs and met with the doctor regularly.
“She already seems quite alert,” she told Avi, Saroj, and Vasu. “Through her communications with me I feel that she's not at risk anymore. But she still needs to be watched, a relative or friend must be with her at all times for the next few days, until she comes to see me again. Make sure she takes the Celexa.”
“How long will she need to take the medicine?” Saroj asked, baffled to be speaking with a mental doctor. It was bad enough that Devi dragged them through the emergency room, but this, talking to a shrink, this was just nonsense. Her daughter was fine. All she needed was some homemade food and Hindi movies.
“About six to nine months. This is a process, Missus Veturi. We'll keep checking on her progress and based on how she's responding to therapy and the drugs we'll decide what to do next,” the doctor explained.
There was silence in the room and then Dr. Berkley cleared her throat.
“It's not common for a grown woman to stop speaking for days like this. Do you have any idea why she does this?” she asked.
“She does it once in a while,” Vasu said, “and it usually does not last more than a few days. She is just… difficult at times. Does not want to explain her actions and this one, this one will require a lot of explaining. Maybe that's why she has shut us off.”
“You said this started when she was ten years old?” When Avi nodded, the doctor continued, “Did anything happen to her? Anything bad? Was she hospitalized? Was there any previous psychiatric illness?”
“Nothing happened to her and she has never seen your type of doctor before,” Saroj cut in sharply and stood up from the purple sofa she was sitting on. “She stole a girl's money and broke that girl's nose. Instead of saying sorry and telling us why she did it, she stopped talking for a week. She is just spoiled and that is our fault, but nothing bad happened to her. I didn't drop her on her head as a baby or anything.” Anger made Saroj's Indian accent drip through the words, making part of what she said incomprehensible to the doctor.
“Calm down, Saroj,” Avi said and sighed. “We are all upset and tired. It has been a long three days.”
“Of course,” Dr. Berkley said, and then nodded, smiled, and made a gesture with her hand that told them the meeting was over. “So you'll bring her in next Friday at four in the afternoon? I have asked her to try to keep a journal. I think that might help open her up a little.”
Avi nodded and then shook hands with her. “Thank you.”
“What did you thank her for? She didn't do anything,” Saroj snapped at Avi as soon as they were out of Dr. Berkley's office. As he always did, Avi ignored Saroj and then went about getting his daughter out of the hospital.
Shobha grabbed her cell phone on the first ring. She was in an important meeting but as soon as she saw her father's cell number flash, she didn't hesitate. For all her cockiness at the hospital the day before, fear had settled in her belly like heavy mud in water. She couldn't envisage a world without Devi, couldn't imagine a life without her. Even as she went through the motions of the day, in her mind she kept saying to herself that Devi would be okay and soon everything would revert to the way it used to be.
Serving Crazy with Curry Page 5