THE HEAD OR THE HEART?

Family Short Story – THE HEAD OR THE HEART?
Photo credit: Alvimann from morguefile.com

The doorbell rang. Usher in the newspaper boy and the milkman. Beginning of a new day. Newspapers donot have much to say or reveal these days, which haven’t been broadcasted over the digital media the day before. The thrill of newsprint is fast waning. Yet they reveal stories which, if one goes through them carefully, has information in stark black and white which has a lasting impression on the readers’ minds . All the dailies of the nation had flashed the news. Though not in their front page. Nevertheless, the news report and the follow-ups created ripples across our country. Overshadowing the leading political stories of the day.

Dhritiman and Deepika were at their Sony laptops and were conversing to their colleagues through Skype. Yes, at that early morning hour. Both of them are IT professionals working in the same company in the, needless to say , private sector. Their hectic daily schedule can easily put the  schedules of the cabin crew of an airliner to shame. When night slowly merges into dawn, the difference between a.m and p.m. become amorphous, the husband-wife duo hardly seem to realize. Not that they are very young. Dhritiman is older than his wife, Deepika, by four years and he is forty-two.

“How’s Mishti?”

Came the early morning greeting from Deepika’s sister-in-law, Aparajita, from New Delhi. In the winters, Kolkata can hardly compete with its northern counterpart in terms of the intensity of the cold winds blowing.

“ Mishti is o.k. Would just have to prepare her for school now”, replied Deepika.

Dhritiman was tweeting over his laptop.

“ Yesterday was a gala evening , courtesy our alumni Old Boys’ association” @ Dhritiman speaketh.

He was furiously typing, since this was a Monday and there was to be a project presentation at his office. He was working in this company for the past seven years and maintains an impeccable track record. It was here that he met his future wife, when she had joined there as a trainee apprentice.

That was when the newspaper boy rung the doorbell and dropped the paper of the day. Deepika had just put tea leaves in to the kettle to boil and thus prepare two cups of their first shot of invigorating teas. Both Dhritiman and Deepika can be called connoisseurs in this field. Because they insist on buying , preparing and laying out the best variety of Darjeeling tea ( arguably one of the best variety available in the world today), both for themselves as well as their guests. As the kettle hissed, Deepika opened the pages of The Times Of India . Nothing much on the political front , she monologued. A brand new Chief Minister for a state which was in dire need of ‘change’.

That was when the small news item caught her eye. Aamir Khan, the numero uno Khan of Bollywood, and his wife of Kolkata origins, Kiran Rao , decide to disclose their secret of surrogate parenthood. Deepika stood shaken for some time , after reading this. Both her husband and herself had decided not to dwell or delve into past memories. Memories, caught in a time warp, can be recollected at any moment. It’s just like turning over the pages of an old family album.

“I cannot take any chances with you”,

the doctor had advised the husband-wife duo , when the couple had approached him for consultation. Dhritiman and Deepika had both married late unto their lives. Work pressure and a hectic life style ( not that they hadn’t enjoyed life, they did) had prevented them from contemplating the conception of a child. Yet Deepika was mad to get pregnant and become a mother. That was when Dr. Shinde , the reproductive endocrinologist , attached to a reputed clinic of the city, advised her from getting so.

After consulting with Dr. Shinde, both Dhritiman and Deepika had taken a mammoth decision. A decision which was relegated to the point of being socially ostracized , at that point of time. Yet they had no other option. Modern inventions in the field of medicine has made the process of in-vitro fertilization quite simple, not to speak of it being a boon to such couples as Deepika and Dhritiman.

The latter said, “ Doesn’t it sound like a too desperate measure?”.

But ultimately , he too had to stoop to his wife’s insistence.

Every year on Mishti’s birthday , i.e. the tenth of August , a box of Cadbury chocolates arrive addressed to Miss. Mrittika Sen. Deepika at first used to wonder as to who might send these gifts to her daughter. But when on Mishti’s seventh birthday, the Cadbury’s were accompanied by a letter addressed to herself, she had understood. They had rented the womb of a woman who had taken a lump sum amount of eight lac rupees for giving birth to a child who would rightly and legally be their own ( Dhritiman and Deepika’s). The lady had signed a legal document that after handing over the baby, she would in no way try to establish any communication with either the child or the family.

Now after so many years, she has written to Deepika establishing her right over the their daughter. Even though she is a surrogate mother, yet she could well biologically claim the child to be her own, the argument in her letter revealed.  Deepika, at first, was speechless and left flabbergasted by the letter. Yes, she cannot argue the fact that she is not Mishti’s biological mother. But can the recipient of her husband’s sperm know what it was like to lie awake for countless hours just to make her baby sleep? Or the wonder of watching her child take her first yet unsteady step in this world of narrow, domestic walls?

Deepika decided to end the argument by arranging a tete-a –tete meet with this lady, let’s suppose her name is XYZ. She contacted XYZ over her mobile ( the latter had provided the contact number in her enclosed letter) , one day, after Dhritiman had left for his work and she herself could, just about spare some time.

“ Maybe she is asking for more money?” thought Deepika.

She called up XYZ on a Saturday morning.

“ We had agreed to put an end to your part of the deal, the day you handed over my baby”, said Deepika.

“ Your baby? It was I who carried her for nine months. I am her rightful mother”, argued XYZ.

“ Let’s come to a square decision. One that would be beneficial on your part as well as from my point of view. Why don’t we meet at ——?”

Deepika named a delicatessen-café in a suburban locale which wouldn’t be in any way near the area where she herself resided. These are matters which are termed as ‘delicate’ both socially as well as personally.

Meeting this woman who had made  her a mother and had given and endowed all the joys of motherhood which, normally, she was deprived of by society and also by anomalies in her physical constitution, Deepika was wary as well as emotional on the fixed day.

Wary because she knew that the latter could cause trouble in their lives in the future, and emotional because somewhere at the back of her mind, she expected to see the mirror image of what Mishti might look like , years from now. At the same time, Deepika was desperate to put an absolute stop to the latter’s ways of establishing communication with their only daughter , the apple and cynosure of all eyes in the family.    At the appointed and fixed date ( the date being fixed over the mobile phone), the two met face to face with each other.

When no attempts on Deepika’s part cold coax her into submission or to reason, the socially accepted other of Mishti, resorted to a step for which she had come prepared .

“ Two cups of coffee , with a plate of chicken sandwiches, please”,

Deepika gave the order to the hovering waiter at the café. XYZ had come in a tattered saree and her hair, being unwashed for days , was hanging in bunches over her shoulders.

“ Would you like to go to the toilet  and freshen yourself?” Deepika, in an easy tone, asked the woman. When the latter had disappeared into the washroom, Deepika took out from her bag a packet of powdered Valium tablets . Luckily for her, the coffees arrived before XYZ could return to her place. Deepika quite deftly and without further ado, dropped the entire packet into the latter’s cup of coffee. She quickly finished her own cup and seeing the latter return, she made an excuse to leave the place. Did the lady who had named herself as XYZ drink from the fatal cup? What happened next? Deepika had not stayed to witness the catastrophe. The letters and the chocolates stopped arriving after that year.

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