Married Woman (10 page)

She found this soothing, and later scolded herself for being so demanding. Hemant was busy, Hemant was building their future, she had to be adjusting, that was what marriage was all about.

When Anuradha was four, Papaji retired. The tenants left, the family moved into their Vasant Vihar house, and Astha conceived again.

‘God willing it will be a boy‚’ said her mother. ‘I have asked swamiji’s advice as to what offerings to make.’

‘Nonsense, Ma‚’ retorted Astha uneasily. ‘These people are not like that.’

‘You are still such an innocent. What people say and what they do are two different things. Besides why is Hemant working so hard? For whom, if not his son?’

‘It doesn’t matter to Hemant‚’ said Astha valiantly.

‘I hope for your sake you are right.’

A few nights later. Hemant laughing, ‘Mummy is so sweet.’

Hemant often found the things his mother said or did sweet, so Astha paid not much attention. ‘She is hiring a pundit to come every day and do some special pujas.’

‘Why?’

‘To ensure a grandson.’

‘But puja may not make a difference, it may still be another granddaughter‚’ objected Astha in alarm.

‘Don’t worry, sweetheart, then we will try again, it’s perfectly all right. Why do you get so tense for nothing?’

‘But Hem, I do not wish to go on trying and trying until we get a son. It’s very difficult with the teaching as it is.’

‘Oh-ho, what is there in teaching? Hardly a serious job, you just go, talk to some children about poems and stories, organise a few clubs, and come back. If you do feel it is important, all the more reason not to mind if Mummy does some puja. Who knows it may yield good results?’

But Astha did get worked up, she couldn’t help it. She tried to stay calm for the baby’s sake, she took to meditation, she concentrated on peaceful thoughts. But she was not allowed to forget that everybody, her colleagues, her in-laws, her husband’s friends’ wives, her mother, the cook, the gardener and the part-time help all had an opinion about her baby’s gender, and that almost universal opinion was that it would be a son and heir.

‘Baby, it’s you they want to be a boy‚’ Astha would whisper sometimes, ‘are you a boy or a girl? I’ll love you no matter what‚’ and she soothed the foetus she imagined so troubled with her troubled hands.

When Astha’s son was finally born she felt a gratitude as profound as it was shamed.

‘The family is complete at last‚’ said Astha’s mother piously, feeling her own contribution.

Hemant’s mother agreed, too happy in the birth of her grandson, carrier of the line, the seed, the name, to respond with her usual reserve to someone she increasingly felt was her social inferior.

The naming ceremony of the boy was carried out on a much grander scale than that of Anuradha’s. Caterers were called, and they came early in the morning, setting up their fires in the narrow driveway. The priests arrived for an elaborate puja and havan. The letter taken out for the baby’s name was ‘h’. An auspicious sign, same letter as his father said everybody, and he was christened Himanshu.

Astha was given gold jewellery and a new sari. Anuradha and the child’s aunts were given gold necklaces. The newborn was given gold guineas.

Astha was officially declared the mother of a son. Her status rose, and she pushed from her mind thoughts of what might have happened had she been unable to do her duty.

Himanshu was two months old when he raised his wobbly head from his mother’s chest to smile at her, wet pink lips stretched over little toothless gums. Astha thought, he recognises me, and she smiled back, silently, across her chest, this human being and her connected. The baby, trying out the strength of his neck, began to laugh, which made Astha laugh too. Happiness flowed through her like a river, lapping at her mind. She never forgot this first exchange, it lived on in her memory, a link between a male and her that was joyous, simple, and unproblematic. So what if it was with her two-month son.

Astha often looked at her family, husband, daughter, son. She had them all. She was fulfilled. Her in-laws frequently commented, ‘Woman is earth‚’ and it is true she felt bounteous, her life one of giving and receiving, surrounded by plenty. Visitors to the house would say, ‘A mother’s love’ and then trail off, words collapsing into significant silence, which in turn washed over Astha and made her feel that she had partaken of the archetypal experiences marked out for the female race.

Between Anuradha’s birth and Himanshu’s, Hemant changed from being an all-American father to being an all-Indian one.

After he came home the last thing he wished to bother about was taking care of a child.

‘It’s your job‚’ he said.

‘That’s not what you thought when we had Anu‚’ replied his wife. ‘I can’t do everything myself. It’s tiring.’

It was also boring, though this was not acknowledged.

‘It’s woman’s work‚’ said Hemant firmly. ‘Hire somebody to help you, or quit your job.’

‘This is our son, the one you wanted so much. It’s nice if we look after him together.’

‘Send him up to Mummy if you can’t manage.’

Astha was struck dumb. Were Mummy and he interchangeable?

‘And‚’ continued Hemant, ‘my son is going to be very lucky for us.’

‘Oh Hemant, how?’ asked Astha with an effort that wasn’t noticed.

‘Wait and see.’

Hemant had invested in the future with his TV project, and was now about to witness the fruits of his foresight. Three months before the Asiad of 1982, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting declared that India would go colour: we have a certain dignity to uphold, an image to project. The games will be beamed internationally, conveying the pomp and splendour, hopes and aspirations of a developing nation. How can all this
be done in black and white, when colour technology is prevalent worldwide? It is a question of marching with the times.

The Left protested: such a priority is elitist, false and a waste of precious foreign exchange. When the nation is still poor and backward, when electricity, water, roads, education and basic health care have yet to reach hundreds of villages, why should we develop a totally useless technology that will neither feed nor clothe?

But whether the technology was useless or not, whether it would help the nation or not, it was there to stay. Hemant now needed to travel to South East Asia; the indigenous black and white TV was possible to piece together locally but colour expertise was still not available in India. He resigned from the bank and security, to devote himself full-time to risk and money.

Hemant placed his first order in South Korea, for twenty thousand colour TV kits. Along with the order came a manager to train the workers. Local contribution involved the assembly of the TVs, the wooden cabinet, testing, selling and service. The final product was advertised as manufactured under foreign supervision, long after the initial foreigner had left.

Four times a year Hemant travelled. The glamour of international references entered the house, as he flew to South Korea and Japan looking for the best deals. He always went alone, always made sure his trips included at least two weekends, which he claimed he needed in order to establish personal contacts. He invariably came back in great good humour, with generous presents for everyone: perfume, chocolate, sweaters, jeans, toys, Japanese dolls, games for the children, underwear for Astha, toiletries, soaps, creams, shampoo, kitchen and electronic equipment. Gradually their house acquired the gloss of a house with money.

Astha was now virtually a single mother. Beleaguered by job, small children and house, she sometimes toyed with the idea of resigning from school, but between her marriage and the
birth of her children, she too had changed from being a woman who only wanted love, to a woman who valued independence. Besides there was the pleasure of interacting with minds instead of needs.

At school she had grown to be her principal’s right-hand woman, appreciated and valued for one tenth the work she did at home, and paid for it too. Her salary meant she didn’t have to ask Hemant for every little rupee she spent. With two children, family obligations, entertainment and holiday costs, the travelling involved in a new business, the uncertainty of business itself, rising prices, she knew Hemant would prefer her to bear her small expenses herself. As it was he spent enough on her clothes and jewellery that she always looked well turned out.

And so the once looked-down-upon job had become dear. She couldn’t leave it. Nor could she go on relying too much on her mother-in-law for help with the children, it led to remarks from mother-in-law to Hemant to Astha which left her seething with anger and resentment.

Thus began the search for a maid. A succession of women filed through their flat, but they either came with large families, or they had insufficient references, or they stole, or they were lazy.

Hemant felt Astha was guilty of mismanagement, it could surely not be that no ayah was right? After all he managed a factory with four hundred workers.

‘Why can’t you train these servants properly?’ he demanded.

‘I do try‚’ she said, not liking to acknowledge how inadequate she felt with all of them. ‘I was all right with Bahadur, (their cook) and the two part-timers.’ (To wash clothes, clean the dishes, swab the floor, and dust the rooms.)

‘Then don’t hire one.’

‘I need someone to help me‚’ said Astha bitterly, wondering how much her husband really knew of her life.

‘Have all the help you want‚’ went on Hemant carelessly, ‘only learn how to manage it.’

The search continued till Bahadur, their cook, went home to Nepal on annual leave, and brought back a widow.

‘My sister‚’ he said, introducing her laconically. ‘See if you like her.’

Astha looked at the woman. She had a broad flat face, slitted eyes and a wooden expression.

‘Have you done domestic work before?’ asked Astha, beginning with the standard questions, while wondering whether this woman was Bahadur’s blood sister, cousin sister or village sister, and whether they were sleeping together.

‘Mala knows everything‚’ said Bahadur interrupting. ‘Try her.’ There was something about the woman’s straight gaze that appealed, and she was employed. Mala’s appeal grew when Astha discovered how quick and capable she was. She was fast, she was clean, she needed to be told nothing twice. When Astha and Hemant went out she made sure the children had their meals on time, and that they were in bed by nine. She even made sure Anuradha finished her homework, and this while being illiterate.

Mala had some bad qualities. She stole food and clothes, she answered back, she took her time coming from her quarter upstairs, she became deaf when it suited her, and on Bahadur’s days off she tended to develop illnesses from which she did not fully recover till he came back.

Unfortunately for Astha this usually happened on weekends, when Hemant was around.

‘I am going to fire that bloody woman‚’ ranted Hemant the last time Mala had fever.

‘She can’t help it‚’ defended Astha.

‘She is shamming.’

‘How can we prove that?’

‘She is like this because you encourage her.’

‘How do I encourage her?’

‘I saw her going out with Bahadur.’

‘He said he was taking her to the doctor. Do you want me to take her to the doctor instead?’

‘She thinks she can get away with anything.’

‘I’m sure shell be all right soon.’

‘Where’s Mala?’ whined Himanshu, who was listening.

‘See? You make the children too dependent on her.’

‘She helps look after them, it’s natural they should like her.’

‘You treat her as though she was one of the family. You have to know how to handle servants.’

‘I can’t behave in any other way.’

‘She’s shamming‚’ Himanshu piped up insistently, wanting to be heard.

‘She’s sick darling, don’t you get sick sometimes?’ said Astha.

It was in this two children, husband, servants, job scenario that Astha started to have headaches. Years after she would remember the first time it happened, thinking that as a herald of what was to come, it might have announced its arrival in her life a little more gently, allowing her time to get used to this pain in her forehead, this throbbing at her temples, this stretching of the skin around her eyes.

She had laid the table for dinner, and they had all sat down to eat when she discovered she had forgotten the water. She rose from her chair, and in that moment, between getting up and standing, in the moment that hung between a bent body and a straightened back, it appeared. Just above her nose, at the inner corner of her eyebrow. She pressed the spot, and the pain promptly shot off in neat lines across her eye socket. It will disappear as suddenly as it came, she thought, carefully pouring the water into everybody’s glasses.

The heaviness in her head increased as she ate. If she didn’t lie down soon, she might fall headlong into her plate, banging herself against the table, startling the family.

‘I’m going to lie down‚’ she managed.

‘Are you ill?’ asked the husband, looking at his wife’s wrinkled eyebrows and drawn face.

‘I’ll be all right. Just a little headache.’

How the children were put to bed, when Hemant came to the room, Astha did not know. Through the night the pain grew worse. Nausea came upon her, she could no longer stay lying. She got up and sat outside, maybe the cooler air would help. It didn’t.

As she bent to retch in the toilet, she hoped that now she would feel better. But though the queasy feeling gradually subsided, the throbbing was still there. Her limbs were shaking, she had to lie down again. Sometimes it seemed, if she lay on the hurting side, that felt better, sometimes she felt that no, the other side was better, and she kept gingerly turning her head trying to pin the point of meagre comfort.

Gradually towards morning, when the sky lightened, and the pain began to recede, she fell asleep.

The next day, the whole world seemed new. She was still in one piece, that terrible thing had gone. Her head felt delicate, it had gone through some bad times and needed to be treated gently.

‘Are you all right now?’ asked Hemant, looking concerned.

‘Yes, I’m better‚’ she replied.

‘What happened to you?’

‘I don’t know.’

She took leave from school and sat around the whole day, not using her eyes to read, not using her mind to think. She dusted and tidied, mindless labour that soothed and kept her busy. She hoped that what had happened to her the night before was a one time thing.

Soon it became clear that her headaches had arrived to stay. Stress made them worse, going out in the sun made them worse, sleeping too little, too late made them worse, eating the wrong kinds of food made them worse. Slowly her life changed to accommodate her headaches. She learned to dread each small twinge, was it going to be bad or medium? Maybe she was tired, should she lie down and rest? Or maybe it was
anxiety, should she meditate, shut her eyes, ignore the throbbing, clear her mind of images, and focus on a spot of light between her eyebrows? The last was the most difficult, but her GP had said there was nothing physiologically wrong with her, it was all in her mind. He prescribed some painkillers, but they only gave momentary relief, making her dull and drowsy, with greater chances of having a headache the next day.

Her mother took her to a homeopath in her neighbourhood in Jangpura. ‘My daughter is not well, doctor, she suffers from tension. Little things upset her, and she gets a headache.’

The homeopath, a well-known one in that area, looked concerned. ‘Tension‚’ he stated, ‘the disease of modern life. The secret of health is a balanced mind.’

‘I try and be calm‚’ said Astha earnestly, ‘but still I have headaches, and the pain lasts quite long.’

‘Right side or left?’

‘Usually right.’

‘Front or back of the head?’

‘Eyebrows. One or the other, never both.’

‘Morning or evening?’

‘Any time. Occasionally I wake up with a headache, at other times it comes in the afternoon or evening.’

‘Which season?’

‘All.’

‘Hot or cold suits you?’

‘Cold.’

‘Sun or shade?’

‘Shade.’

Etc. etc. etc.

Astha left the homeopath clutching Sanguinaria and Belladonna, 30X. Four times a day, alternately. Come after two weeks.

She dutifully took the Sanguinaria and Belladonna four times a day alternately. She kept a diary of her headaches. Once to twice a week. Hemant felt homeopathy was mumbo-jumbo, and took her to an ENT specialist. The specialist
looked up Astha’s nose and informed her husband that with such a deviated septum, it was a wonder that Astha could breathe properly, in fact if you notice, her mouth is open.