It was the final day of the term before I went on vacation. I had taught for just 3 weeks which means I had only 9 classes, in other words, 18 hours with the class, with minimal scope of personal interaction. She waited at one corner of the classroom till everyone else left for the day, with laconic parting words.
As usual she looked elegant and vibrant. Light red lips, nails painted with a subtle pink, an understated but sophisticated suit and a flashy white pair of slippers; her straightened hair neatly combed and eyes intense.
I smiled at her, “Yes, how can I help you?”
“I brought this for you”, and she handed me a bar of dark chocolate (my all-time favorite, but how on earth did she know about it?) and a card.
“Oh thank you so much! But my name is spelt incorrectly. It’s DebarAti, not DebarOti!”
With a withdrawn smile, she said, “My son had told me but I didn’t listen.”
“Really? I thought your son is young, I mean 3-4 years old”, she didn’t come across as a mother of a grown up boy!
“No, he is eighteen”, she said as a matter-of-factly.
“Oh my god! Are you serious? How old are you then?” I asked with staggered eyes.
“How old are you?”
“I am 26”, I never faced troubles revealing my age to people, unlike many of my contemporaries.
“I am ten years elder than you.”
“Okk.” I tried to calculate if that was an age old enough to mother an 18 year old boy. After my mathematical brain solved the equation, I reverted, “You became a mother at the age of 18 then?”
She smiled and said, “I got married when I was 17 and within a year I became a mother.”
I couldn’t hold on to my probing mind. “At such an early age? I mean… you know… Was it a love marriage?”
She shook her head.
“Was there any… any kind of… ?”
“Financial problem?” she cut me short.
“Well… err.. yes!” I felt guilty of hinting at something which might have coerced into some un-trodden territory.
“No, not really”, she smiled.
“Then?” I was inquisitive.
“ Even though I got married at 17, my maturity was of a 12 year old girl. I was very happy the day I got married; all decked out like a fairy. I danced all day in front of the mirror. After the reception, when it was time for all of my family members to leave, I joined them to head home, thinking that the party was over and ‘twas time to get back home, when my mom clarified that my house has changed address and I was supposed to stay with those new set of people from then.” She went on, “My husband was 24 years elder than me.”
My brows shot up, trying to fathom what reason could there have been to get an adolescent girl married to someone as old as her uncle! “Didn’t you ask your culpable parents the reason for this unjust treatment?”
“I did. I still do and they never have an answer. I didn’t know anything about the matrimonial responsibilities. But I tried hard to harmonize with the confines of matrimony. My in-laws never wanted my husband to get married for he was a mint of money. They never wanted a share of his property to go in the hands of his wife and child. That would dwindle with the proportion of wealth transferred to the other members of the family.
“My husband and I never got on well with each other principally because of the gap of a generation in our ages. Our tastes and preferences didn’t match, obviously. On our anniversaries, when I wanted to have a candle-light dinner with him, he would rather invite friends and family over for a party. I hated the noise and the crowd. But I attuned myself.
“One day, within a year of marriage, I realized that I have conceived. I was 18 then. My son is 18 now, exactly 18 years younger than me. My only best friend.”
She went on. And I still didn’t know that her narrative so far was just a drop in the bucket.
“I have an elder sister and a younger brother. 14 years after marriage, my sister first conceived. She had twins, a boy and a girl. It was a great moment for the entire family.” She paused and then continued. “Three years ago, my husband, my sister, my brother-in-law and their twins were driving down to a place and on the way the car met with a terrible accident. Right on spot, four of my family members passed away- my sister, her daughter, the driver and my husband.”
My jaws fell open. I blurted out, “Didn’t you say, you help your husband in his business on the first day of class in the introductory session?”
With a smile on her face, she said, “I said I take care of my husband’s business. My brother helps me too. He is more of a father to me, now that he has lost one of his sisters. He keeps phoning me every now and then checking if I am alright. He has become over-possessive of me these days. ” She said the last sentence more to herself than to me.
I tried remembering her introductory speech.
Her words brought me back from my wonderland.
“I always detested the life of a widow, the treatment dished out to the unfortunate women and the hardships they encountered for the rest of their lives in the name of family and society. ‘You must not wear red garments now’, ‘You should turn into a vegetarian’, ‘Concentrate on spirituality, devote yourself to God’, the list of advice was endless after my husband’s demise.”
‘A storm is as strong in its aftermath as in its raging’- I had read it somewhere. I saw the truth of the author’s words that day in my student’s eyes. Blistering eyes going red as her mind transported down the memory lane.
I stared at this young lady in a red salwar suit, with a dazzling pair of slippers, glossy lips, glistening-but-moist eyes and a languid smile. She had kept her chin up.
I wondered how this lady instead of steeping down into her troubles, geared up her courage and oiled the hinges of her troubled life in an attempt to make a mark. She had plunged into the depths of pulchritudinous life and revived her education. She was doing her graduation in English, her favorite subject and wanted to do Master’s from an international university of repute. She had picked up the threads of her life from where she had left them. She hadn’t lost her bottle yet. She still hadn't encountered Zen-like disconnections from the realities of life. Mere survival wasn’t enough for her any longer. My mind inclined with respect and admiration for her.
“I always believed that everything happens for a reason but I could never justify my bizarre marriage or my husband’s sudden demise. Until this evening, I couldn’t even reason out why I started learning English language. But now I know, I had to meet you, Debarati. “
I gave a faded smile, not because I was unhappy at her declaration, but because I was pondering on her every word and gauged what made her open the book of her life to a stranger. I was only a teacher who had never before spent any private time with her. What made her rely on me so much to unmask her life in few minutes? I didn’t ask her anything and the question kept hanging in my mind without any answer.
Hours after our discussion had ended, her words went on spinning in my mind.
A month later, she called me up on my birthday. Wished me and invited me to join her on a trip to Goa. Because of some professional engagements, I turned down the lucrative offer with a gloom. She was travelling with her son, her closest pal, who had promised to get her married to an eligible person who would fill up the void in his mother’s life with all the love on earth, who would not let the soil crumble again.
I wished her a happy journey and sojourn. She deserved to be happy and embrace life with both arms.
Before she rung up the phone, she promised to bring me back an exotic drink as a souvenir and compensate for my loss.
I was informed about the day she was returning. So I waited for her call, waited to listen to her stories and adventure.
Few days passed by before she called. I was leaving my office premises and took my phone out to check if there was any text pending to be read or any call missed. There was. 2 missed calls. Instantaneously I called her back.
“Hello”, came a deadpan voice.
“I have been thinking about you for a while. Where have you been? When did you return? Did you have fun?” I said in one breath, hardly giving her a scope to answer.
When I paused to breathe, she said, “I was dying to talk to you. I tried your number a couple of times with no effect.”
“I was giving classes. I just saw your missed calls and phoned you right away. I was thinking about you for the last few days yearning to listen to your tales of adventure. So how is everything?”
After a terse pause, the castrated voice of my student uttered, “Mom passed away today morning.”
Impatience plagued me like never before.
The fog continued to hang over and I failed to lift it from my shoulders.
