Family Short Story – Happy New Year
Photo credit: jlite from morguefile.com
It is really cold today, this cold wind invading my body through the numerous wholes on my cloth. I keep on shivering. My fingers are becoming numb now, slowly. Seeing this state of mine, my mother pulls her seven year old child to her, under the only blanket that we have, well, it was a blanket seven years back, gifted to my mother, by her mother-in-law, on the news of my birth, but now, it is nothing but the only piece of long cloth that we have got, long enough to cover the two of us. Obviously, it is not thick and strong anymore so as to prevent the wind, really a feeble army, in front of a huge battalion!
But still, I don’t know why, it always makes me warm, the very feeling of being underneath this blanket, cuddling in my mother’s lap, I feel at peace, the very smell of it makes me feel a surge of bliss in my heart.
We are two human beings, who love and treasure each other like nothing else in this world. Nobody in the world needs us, so we have made each other our world. I peek out at the virtual world from my world underneath the blanket. So many lights, so many people, all happy and laughing. I don’t understand, why, in all this very cold weather, people are still so happy. I have asked my mother numerous times, “Mother, why are everyone so happy always?”
“They are only apparently happy. They all have their own problems and dwellings.”
“But then how can they be laughing if they have problems riddling their lives?” my little brain still searching for a reasonable answer.
“We will also laugh and be happy one day”, that is all she can say.
Well, I must admit, that this answer did little in removing my confusion, but I would not disturb her more, not because I was angry on her for not giving me any satisfactory answer, but because I saw tears in her eyes.
We were not this non-laughing people, as my mother use to tell me, we had a very good life. We used to live in a village, we does not include me. No, I was not abandoned, I was not born at the that time. My grandfather had a land, where he used to cultivate crops, and every year, there would be surplus. We had a nice house. My mother was the sixth child in the house. At that time in villages, girls were not allowed to go to school, but her father did teach her to count and read, so that in future she could at least sit in a grocery shop.
But there were many evil practices in vogue at that time in that village, dowry being one of them. My mother was the fifth girl, and therefore, by the time of her marriage, her father had already lost more than half of his property in dowry. She even tells me, a few months after her marriage, there was a plague in the village, which lead to deaths of many. Her father also got affected in the plague. She had pledged to her in-laws, even her husband to help her father, but all she got in return was getting beaten. Being scared of the plague, or of the possibility of others knocking their door for help, her in-laws packed up their bags, and left the village for the city.
The amazing fact is my grandfather did survive the plague, the only person in the entire village to be able to live through the plague. My grandmother, did succeed in getting the money. Whenever I ask how, my mother just tells me that a drunken ba**ard gave her the money for some favors she did to him. That day, my grandmother did thank a drunk man.
In the city, my father did manage to get a job, or many jobs, since he used to get thrown out of the job due to his bad habit of getting bribed, and he was such a fool, that he did it openly!
Then I was born. The most precious day in my mother’s life, but one of the worse days in my father and his parents’ day. I am a girl.
My family decided to sell me away, but my mother did not let them do that, and as a prize of her bravery she got thrown out of the house, with nothing more than a few rupees which she kept to herself in secret, and a blanket, in which slept a new born baby girl. We were reduced to beggars on the streets of this city of joy, where joy was confined to only some people.
This is a sad story that my mother tells me sometimes. But the story that I like the most is the story of my birth. I still pester my mother to tell me that story, although I have heard of it a hundred times before, yet, I don’t know why, this story never fails to surprise and feel me with thrill.
“It was very cold that day”, my mother started, “Like today.”
“So cold?” I intervened.
“Even colder than today, but I was warm.”
“Wow. Was this for this blanket?”
“No it was because of your mischievous tiny feet.”
“Huh?” I expressed my disbelief.
“Yes, you were constantly kicking my tummy with your feet.”
“Really?” I asked amazed.
“And with what force, my God, such a tiny figure but what power”, and she tickled me. I laughed and hugged her. She kissed me.
“Then what happened?” I asked, full of thrill.
“Then the doctor lead me to a big room. I was lying in the bed, and around me stood many other doctors. They told me to lie still and gave me an injection.”
“Injection?” I was scared.
“Yes”, my mother said with big eyes, “And after that injection, my pain almost vanished, and I felt dizzy, I kind of dozed off.”
“So you were sleeping while my birth?” I got angry.
“No, no. I kept my senses.”
“Okay, then?”
“I could feel nothing going on in my body then. I don’t remember anything as such, everything was happening in a trance.”
“No, mother, please, try to remember, I want to know what happened next.”
“I remember a clock.”
“A clock?” I was confused again.
“Yes a clock, which appeared to be a ghost, with three black, thin hands. Two of the hands were almost still, and they were together, while the other one was constantly circling. It reminded me of us.”
“Us?”
“Yes, me, your father, and you.”
“How?”
“I don’t know. But it seemed as if the two still hands were me and your father, and you were the moving one.
“And as we got closer and closer, me, your father, and you, I could hear a loud shouting, it was a happy shout, of many people together, as if a count down, and as the count down reached ‘one’, and all three hands of the clock were completely aligned, as if joining hands to greet the arrival of a new life, my little doll came out of me, into the world.”
“Wow.” This story never fails to thrill me.
I looked at the near empty aluminum bowl in front us, only a few coins lied there, close together, as if protecting themselves from the cold. I didn’t need to worry, because my mother has never kept me hungry a single day. Still, I feel sad, I feel guilty. My lips are all white and hard. It feels great to stroke the hardened parts and play with the dead skin of my lip, but it really pained when blood came out!
I don’t know when my fingers went up to my lips and started playing over there, but I regained my senses when my mother shoved off my fingers off my lips, “Stop ruining your lips”, she scolded me, “What will people think of you when they see this bloodied lips of your?”
I look at the cars plying by, seeing nothing in particular. I feel sad. Am I a mere waif? Am I the reason behind my mother’s sorrows? As my mother says, everyone has their own problems, am I the core of all the problems my mother has to face. Why am I alive? Why didn’t they kill me, then my mother would not have to face these days, she would be happy at her home with her family.
I want to do something for my mother, like she does for me, but what? What can I do? I will work. I will earn money, I will build her a nice home, we will have nice blankets, then we won’t have to worry about the winter anymore.
“Put your hands away”, I received a rebuke from my mother, who shoved my fingers off my lips.
“What do you want the most in life?” I asked her.
“Right now, I want a bit more of the blanket”, I noticed I had taken almost the whole of the blanket, leaving my mother almost exposed to the cold winds.
We again shared the blanket, and I cuddled up beside her. I tried to figure out what gives her the most happiness in the world. And after much debate with my invisible namesake, I came to the conclusion that it is none other than me. After all, according to me too there is no one like her in this entire world. In all this world, of so many people, all others except are like dead people to me, but it is always my mother who has chosen the hard way of life only to stay with me, only for me. The rational world will not understand this love, poets will define it in warmth, and coziness, but believe me, it is neither warm, nor cozy, it is cool, and uncomfortable, but all I want is this only, yes this, because perhaps I have grown accustomed to be like this. The idea of a big and nice house might seem tempting, but somewhere deep inside my heart, I feel I won’t be happy there. I might sound very weird, but there must be some magic here, which is very attractive, and I don’t want to leave it. Our world here might be monotonic, but I have grown to love this symphony only.
Slap.
My lips were bleeding now, “I warned you, still you won’t listen, idiot.”
I went underneath the blanket, and amidst the warmth of my mother’s perfume, I dozed off. I saw a clock, a big black clock with its long black hands stagnant at a point, and there was no third hand, and from somewhere far away, I could hear a noise, a voice, coming from somewhere far away, an unstable voice, and also a countdown, ten nine eight…one, and from somewhere a third hand from the clock came towards me… Scared, I woke my from my slumber, I found myself lying on my mother’s lap. I felt at peace at once. “Happy new year”, she wished me. I smiled. “And a very happy eighth birthday to my doll”, I cuddled up on her lap.
Suddenly, from somewhere an unstable voice disturbed the whole surrounding, I peeked from underneath the blanket. There was a drunk man, coming towards us, with unmeasured steps, and in a half conscious way, he came and stood in front of us. Frightened, I went a bit more inside the blanket, my mother holding me tight. Then, turning towards some other people standing some distance away, he said, “See now, I think about the poor”, saying this, he threw a few thousand rupee notes into the bowl in front of us.
After they went away, my mother quickly counted the money, and hid them in her secret bag. Then she joined her hands and thanked God, no not God, she thanked that drunk man. How history repeats itself see, my grandmother thanked a drunk man to save her husband, and today my mother thanked another drunk man to save her child’s life.
She looked at me, her eyes weren’t sad, they were smiling with joy. “What do you want for your birthday, sweetheart?” she asked me, she was going to give me my first ever birthday gift. I got just so excited that I could not control my emotions and hugged her, she laughed seeing my reactions.
“Tell me, what do you want?”
I thought a lot, it will be my first birthday present, so it has to be something special surely. I thought of the most important and expensive thing I could think of.
“A new blanket”, I replied.
