A Life Less Ordinary (8 page)

Three days after this, my pains started. That morning Baba had sent my brother to the market and had told him to look in on me on the way back. When he came and found me lying down he asked what the matter was. I told him I wasn't feeling well. My husband was also there at the time. He told my brother, “Your mother was quick to take her away, but she wasn't able to keep her there for long.”

“Didi was right to come away,” my brother said. “That place is not good for her. I'm also going to leave soon.”

“But where will you go?” I asked him.

“Do you think anyone can live there?” he said. “Why did your mother take her away then?” my husband interrupted. “Just to show how much she loves her, right?”

I could feel the pain getting worse. My brother must have told Baba about my state, for that very day he and Ma came to see me. Baba told my husband that he thought I should be taken to the hospital straightaway. Shankar rounded on him: “So when you took her away saying you would see what happened, why did you not keep her there? Why have you sent her back?”

“Her place is here, this is her lot…” was all Baba said in reply, and then he and Ma left.

During this time, Sandhya-di often came to see me. One day she said to my husband, “Shankar, she's been in pain for two days now, and nothing is happening. Why don't you go and call the midwife?” He didn't say yes or no but when Sandhya-di insisted, he finally went and called the
dai
. The moment she arrived, she sent everyone out of the room, and then she examined me just as the hospital doctor had done some time ago. Then she massaged my stomach and said, “There's still two or three days before the child is ready to come, but you need to rest till then. You can get up, though.” I began to tremble with fear. She set my clothes right and then told me that if I had made a knot in any of my clothes or in a rope, I should undo it. Then she made me open the lids of all the spice boxes, and then she put them back on herself. I began to weep.
What on earth have I let myself in for?
I thought. The
dai
sat with me for a while, and then she called Sandhya-di in and left.

Five days later I was still in pain and nothing had happened. The pain was intermittent but when it came, I had no idea what to do. When it eased off, I wanted to get up, to go out for a walk,
or to go and talk to everyone. During the day, Sandhya-di looked after me and offered me all sorts of things to eat. She forced me to drink hot milk, hot tea, and hot water in the belief that if I did not eat anything, the child would have difficulty being born. At night I slept alone and when the pain swept over me, I would sometimes scream in agony, but it made not a jot of difference to my husband, who slept through it all. On the sixth day, the
dai-ma
came again and gave me a massage. She examined me again, and said I still had to give it more time. My pain was increasing slowly and along with that, my tears and screams were also more frequent. That day, the
dai-ma
spent the whole day with me. I had not eaten or slept properly for the last six days and I was sure I was going to die.

When six days had passed and nothing had happened, Sandhya-di began to worry. She called my husband and said, “Shankar, what is this you are doing? This has been going on so long, and yet you have made no arrangements at all. Go, take her to the hospital.” That night, around nine, Sandhya-di and her husband got ready to come with me, my husband, and the
dai-ma
to the hospital. When Sandhya-di put out her hand to support me, I began to cry. I felt so weak I could hardly walk. But everyone persuaded me that I would have to manage somehow, and then they helped me into a truck that was standing there. We all climbed in and set off for the hospital. Once I was admitted, they all got back into the truck and left.

 

IN THE HOSPITAL I—A CHILD, NOT EVEN FOURTEEN YEARS
old—I, Baby, lay there alone crying and screaming. When the other patients began complaining, Baby was moved to another room, where she was put on a table and her arms and legs were tied. An
ayah
and a nurse came now and again to look at her.
When she began to scream louder, the
ayah
called a doctor. The doctor put her on a saline drip and pronounced that she was in a bad state. “Don't leave her alone,” the nurse was told. Around ten at night, Baby felt that something had come out of her. She asked the
ayah
if the baby had been born. The
ayah
and nurse burst out laughing. Then, suddenly, she got such a huge cramp that she became mad with pain. Had her hands and feet been free, she would have picked up whatever she could find and shattered it to pieces. The
ayah
said, “Poor thing, she is in such pain but nothing is happening.” Then she told Baby, “Turn your mind to God, or to Maha Kali, and everything will be all right.” Baby did as she was told. “Oh, God,
jai Ma Kali,
” she cried out, “your Baby can take no more! Please, either cure her or take her away, but don't leave her to suffer like this.” Along with the prayer came another spasm of pain so strong that all Baby could do was to shout, “Ma!”

The
ayah
and the nurse were standing at the foot of the table. The nurse said to the
ayah,
“I can see the head, but the baby is not coming out.” And so saying, she ran to fetch the doctor. By this time, Baby had taken leave of her senses. The doctor came and tied Baby's stomach with a belt and then he felt the stomach and said the child had turned. The nurse fetched another doctor. Baby's hands and feet were jerking with the pain, and she was straining so much that her bonds broke. Quickly, four people came and tied her up again. She continued to scream for her mother, “Ma, oh, Ma! I'm dying, Ma! Save me, Ma! Where are you?”

The doctor caught hold of the baby and pulled it out. Suddenly Baby's screams and wails died down and she became still. The passage had ruptured and had to be stitched up, and the nurse brought what seemed like frightening-looking scissors and knives to the doctor. Fearfully, Baby asked the
ayah,
“What is he going to do with all that? I am perfectly all right now.”

“It's nothing. Just lie still like a good girl.” Baby lay there, listening to the child's whimpers. “Your son has been born on a good day,” the
ayah
said. “It's ten minutes after ten on the night of Janamashtami, and his weight is not too bad, either: three kilos and ten grams.” And talking away like this, she kept Baby distracted while the doctor did his work. Once he was finished, he told the
ayah
that she could clean up. Oh God, there was so much blood—buckets full of it! Can one still have any strength after losing so much blood? “Clean her up properly,” the doctor said, and left.

After the doctor had left, they took Baby off the table and tried to stand her up, but she fainted and fell to the floor. The
ayah
ran to call the doctor. The moment he came back, he said he was afraid something like this would happen. Then they picked Baby up and put her on a stretcher and took her to a bed. All Baby was aware of was faint voices in her ears, but she could not speak or even see anything. They tried to put her on a drip, but they could not find a vein in her hand. Another doctor then came along and said, “Here, let me do it.” He turned her hand this way and that and found a place and pushed the needle in. He then told the nurse that when one bottle finished, she should put a second one on. The nurse did that with first one, then another and then a third bottle and then she went away, telling the other patients that even if Baby asked for water, she should not be given it. In the dead of night, when Baby awoke, she felt fine but when she tried to get up she couldn't. Her body felt as if there were nothing in it: she felt light and thin and as if she were glued to the bed. And she was very thirsty. She asked for water, but no one would give her any—they had been told not to. Just then, Baby noticed a bottle on a table nearby. She was beginning to feel that if she did not drink water she would die. She managed to stretch her arm out and grab the bottle, and drank all the water down in one go. In the
morning when she woke up, she saw that her eyes and face were terribly swollen. When the doctor saw her he shouted at her: “Do you want to die? Why did you drink that water?” Baby could only weep. She had no answer.

A little while later, the
ayah
brought Baby's child and handed him to her, and then she demanded money to buy sweets. “Your first child has been born on such a good day: a Wednesday, and the birthday of the god Krishna. When will his father come? We have worked so hard, we've been awake all night, and you had such a difficult time as well.”

Baby said, “Sister, I am terribly hungry.” The
ayah
went away and brought her some tea and bread and gave it to her, saying, “It's time to feed the child.” Baby ate the bread and drank the tea, but she was still hungry.

“Yes, and so you will be,” the
ayah
said, “after all, everything's gone out of your body.” Then she changed the subject and asked again, “Isn't anyone coming from your home?” She had barely said this when Baby's husband arrived. The moment he appeared, the
ayah
said to him: “Look, Baba, we've stayed awake all night for her. Now give us our due.”

Baby's husband was delighted at the news that a son had been born to him. The nurse came and saw him and said, “Aha, look at the smile on the face of the father! Is there no one at home who could have spent the night with her here? If she had died yesterday, then who would have been there to eat this food that you have brought? You're lucky that she survived because we had no hope that she would. What kind of man are you that you left her to suffer so much, and for so long, and without even bothering to show your face?” Baby's husband listened to all this without a word. Baby said to him, “Show me what have you brought. I don't know whether I will be able to eat anything or not.”

The
ayah
said, “You need to give her support, she is still very
weak. Feed her some good things. It's not enough to give your attention to the child. The child's mother also needs to be looked after.” A woman lying in a nearby bed, who was still in the hospital after delivering her child, repeated the same thing. Baby's husband had brought some rice and dal from home and some fish curry from a restaurant. The child started to cry. Baby put him to her breast, but she had no milk. “First you should eat your fill and then the milk will begin to flow,” the
ayah
told her. “Until then, you should give him water with sugar in it. I'll bring you some warm water.” Baby's milk began to flow after two days.

She was feeding the child when the doctor came. Startled, Baby put the child down. The doctor said, “Are you all right? You have had to suffer a lot. And look at your age, too! Why did you choose to have a child so young?” She did not answer. She kept looking around, unable even to say the child was crying and she needed to feed him. The
ayah
picked up the crying baby and gave him to her, saying, “Look at this, the child is crying. What kind of girl are you? You should be feeding him. I see that you know nothing at all! Tell me, how on earth will you bring this child up?” Then, her voice softened, “I think they will let you go home today. Make sure you give us our due before you go. Even if I am not here, you can pay whoever is on duty at the time. Don't run away without paying, okay? Remember, we are the ones who have to clean up after you and there's no way that can be paid back, but at least leave something for us.”

The next day the doctor came around eleven o'clock. “And how are you feeling today?” he asked Baby gently. “We're going to release you in the evening. You can leave with someone from your home. I'll write you a prescription for medicines you need to take: just remember to take them at the right time and don't work too much, all right?”

Around noon, Baby's parents came. When they did not find
her in the delivery room, they went outside. She was lying on a corner bed. When she saw them she called out to her stepmother, “Ma, I'm here.”

“I've been looking for you everywhere,” she said. “Your Baba is waiting outside.”

“Who is this?” asked another patient.

“My mother,” Baby said.

Surprised, she said, “My God, I find that hard to believe.”

“It's a boy, isn't it?” Ma said, “You remember I told you it would be a boy? Go and show him to your father.” As Baby got up to go, another patient asked her, “Who has come? Is that your mother?” Then she turned to her mother and said, “So,
Didi,
aren't you happy with your little
nati,
your grandson? Is he good enough for you to marry, do you think?'

And Ma smiled and said, “He certainly is.”

As Baby went out with the child, she saw her father, who cried out, “Don't bring him here! Don't!” As she continued to walk toward him, again he said, “Look at this girl! I told you: don't bring him here. I will look at him at home.” Shortly after Ma and Baba left, Baby's husband showed up. Baby told him that the hospital had released her. “Then let's go home,” he said. “Wait, I will get a rickshaw. In the meanwhile, put your things together.” He walked off and then came back and told her to eat the rice that was there in the tiffin box. When Baby's parents had come they had brought with them a cousin of Baby's, Sadhna, the daughter of Baby's aunt. They had asked Sadhna to go with Baby to help with the child, so when the rickshaw came, they all got into it and went back to Baby's home.

 

THE RICKSHAW STOPPED OUTSIDE THE HOUSE AND AS
usual, when I saw what a state the house was in, I didn't want to go
in. Sadhna told me to wait outside while she cleaned up, so I sat outside with the child. Sandhya-di came when she saw me. Smiling, she asked me, “How are you? How does your body feel?”