The stillborn

Somesh returned home dejected that evening. It was not that he returned home from office in a jolly mood other evenings, but that evening was different.

He was not mad with rage at the ghastly behavior of his boss in the office. He did not holler at his girlfriend, a daily ritual for the last two years. She was accustomed to his verbal abuses; he was habitual of her sobs.  They would patch up in the morning on the promise of meeting in an ice cream parlour near his office. They would quarrel again in the night. The vicious circle of love had subsumed the love they used to have for each other.  What was left between them was a tedious routine of fighting and patching up.

He unlocked his flat, threw his bag on the floor, and dropped on the bed. The light was proving too bright for him. He switched the lights off, only to switch them on again. His flat was a depressing place. The darkness was aggravating the inherent gloom of the two rooms, where he pretended to live, while he only returned to sleep and brood. He dug his face in the pillow, while keeping his lights on.

His phone buzzed with his girlfriend’s name flashing on the screen. He had this huge urge to insult her. He resisted the temptation. He did not take her call.

He tried to avoid giving in to the thoughts that were troubling him for the last two days. But his loneliness pressed him to burrow deep in disturbing memories.

He reminisced what he cherished the most in his life just a few years ago. Money was not the priority. Girls were not on the list. Every day he would come home after a grueling session of cricket, and order food like a prince to his lovely mother. He was the apple of her eyes.

He was the only child of his parents, and he had all the privileges of being the only child.

He recalled how his father would make him sit on the fuel tank of his ‘Yezdi’ bike and made rounds of the lanes and by-lanes of the mohalla.  He remembered the rebuke he had when he had pulled the clutch of the bike, while his father had been kicking to start it. For a full week, his father had limped around on a swollen foot. Mother had wanted to smack him for the lack of commonsense. His father had saved him from her wrath with the argument that an eight-year-old would not know what pulling a clutch would do to a motorcycle.  Had she herself known what it would do? He smiled at the thought.

He also had a patchy memory of the games his mother had devised to administer milk to him. Every sip from a glass of milk would be rewarded with a ridiculous face she would make.  His reluctance to drink milk had been pretence. He would not have milk just to have his mother make those faces.

He was not born to see the turmoil his mother had gone through when she had delivered a stillborn girl.  His sister would have been two years his senior if god had chosen to breathe life in her.

He pressed to revive the memory of how he had come to know about his stillborn sister. The earliest memory he had of the subject was his aunt telling him that mother had cried when he was born. His aunt had told him that his grandfather was particularly happy at his birth. He had handed out doles to the destitute, distributed sweets among the neighbours and was introducing him to the world as someone who would carry family’s name.  His aunt had told him about the absence of smile on his parents’ faces.

“They don’t love you Somu,” his cousins had teased him.

His aunt’s story had confounded him. He had started crying.  He had tried to throw punches at his cousin. But to no avail. They had landed in thin air. He was a tiny boy, then.

That night, when he had been lying on a ‘charpai’ with her mother on the terrace, memorizing mathematical tables, he had stunned her with his question.

“2 ones are?”

“2”

“2 twos are?”

” 4″

“three ones are?”

“three”

“Three twos are”

“six”

“Three threes are?”

“Mum do you love me?”

“You don’t know the answer of what three multiplied by three is?” she had suspected. She knew him just two well.

“Tell me mum, do you love me?”

“Yes sweetheart. I love you a lot. Why are you asking this question?”

“Aunt was saying that you don’t love me.”

“She must be joking sweetheart.”

“She said you cried at my birth.”

The question had silenced her completely. He could not remember what answer she had given him.  She might have had cried.  But there was no way of telling this for sure.

He just knew that he had a sister before him who could not survive the toil of taking birth. Nobody told him anything. He had just known it.

A look of his childhood photos was enough to know how much his parents missed their daughter.  He had sported a long ponytail till the age of five, when he was tonsured. Until the age of three, the only pictures he had were those in which he had worn frocks. They were funny pictures, essentially the photos that make an album worth going through. But those pictures also exposed the dent his still born sister had made on the minds of his parents.

These were tough things to think about. The misgivings of his past were bare open now, and were coming true. His own mind was peeling the layers one by one of things that had had a telling effect on his psyche.  Why he never had a close friendship with boys? Why he was always more comfortable around girls than boys?  Why he knew all the household works, while other boys just knew how to eat and play? The answer was there. He was raised like a girl born in a lower middle class house.

He never discussed the issue of his sister with mother. His mother had tried to talk to him regarding her in a casual chit-chat when he was 19 year old. She had shared with him that she wanted a daughter. She had always wanted a daughter. The first time, and when he was born.

At that time, he was too busy to get hurt.  He had to hang out with the roughest boys of the neighbourhood, had fistfights in school, and went after girls. Despite mother’s best efforts, he had grown up to be a boy. At 26, these things mattered to him.

It was awkward to think about her. She would have been all grown up. Going by his looks, she would have been a beautiful woman. The kinds of woman boys swoon on. He would have been a busy brother. He would not have allowed creepy fellows to disturb his elder sister’s peace. No, his sister would not have wanted protection from him. On the contrary, he thought, his sister would have been a fighter. She would have dealt her matters herself.

She would have been 28, he thought. Parents would have been very busy finding a groom for her. No, she would have found a guy for herself. He would have supported her and tried to convince parents about the guy. She would have kept parents busy. They would have been happy dealing with her marital affairs. She would have kept him busy.

She would have been his link to parents. Theirs would have been a happy family. Mirth, pranks would have been a part of their lives. But destiny had other plans. She was stillborn. Dead! Mother bore her for 9 months. But, she turned out to be dead. Dead but alive! He would have been a happy man if she had died then. But she lingered on. In her mother’s mind, she had survived.

He wondered why he never tried to talk to mother about her. What were her aspirations when she had first expected? What she had wanted her daughter to be? She might have had things in her mind for her unborn daughter.

In his 26 years of life, he never came close to the woman his mother was. She was always the mother. Mother who fed him. Mother who cleaned him. Mother who was there when he needed a shoulder to cry. Mother who lend her lap for a sound sleep. Mother who ceased to be a woman to be good mother. Mother who lost her daughter during birth and still carried her in mind. And where was he all this time. He had been busy living his life to the fullest, for he had a loving mother who never expected anything from him. But that was not true. She had had nursed great expectations from him. Only she expressed them now.

Pa was ill. A minor influenza, nothing to be worried about. Nobody would have thought he would die of such a minor ailment. Somesh’s office was hot on business those days. He couldn’t have come to see his father who had not any serious malady. It was important for his career. His boss needed him. The yearly appraisal was due next month. Pa was not seriously ill. And, then he didn’t shy away from paying the fat hospital bill. Where else it would have come from if he was not good at his work. He died suddenly. Doctor said it was a heart stroke. A day before, he had called Somesh, almost pleading to come and visit him. He had promised to visit him on weekend. That weekend never came.

When he had reached his home, mother was unusually calm. She was a strong woman. She cried, but not until they lifted him to be taken to the cremation ground. Somesh was distraught for not able to meet his father for the last time. He was heartbroken. But also he was proud of his mother. He was relieved that she was not shattered, just shaken. He was guilty of being worried about her mother’s fate. Sooner than later he would have to take her along with him.

The next 13 days passed in a jiffy as he performed his father’s last rites. Except for casual chit-chats, he and mother never really had a long conversation. On the 15^th day of his father’s death, he had to return to work. While parting, he promised he would take mother along very soon.

6 months had passed. He couldn’t return to his hometown. He loved his father more than anyone in the world. But it was strange that he didn’t miss his absence. He had a sense that whenever he would go to his hometown, his father would be there to greet him with his smile. He was guilty of not being able to miss his father. He wanted to, but he just couldn’t.

“ I wish I had a daughter,” mother told him abruptly between a phone call two days back. He couldn’t continue the conversation for a few minutes, and mother herself didn’t try to break the uncomfortable silence with her rumbling about the happenings of the neighbourhood. He hung up the phone, unable to bear the screams of the silence that was all left between him and his mother.

He couldn’t sleep the entire night. He couldn’t work in the office. He never expected this of his mother. Mother had exacted a revenge for his ignorance of her feeling. She had punished him for not being there for his father. He was not with him when he lived, he was not with him when he died, he was not with him after his death. Mother was what was left of his father. He was not with his mother. He sent her money every month. He was fulfilling his duties well. But a lot more was expected from him than duties. A daughter he couldn’t be, a good son he was not. He started missing his father. He started missing his stillborn sister. For the first time in years, he cried.

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