A Life Less Ordinary (14 page)

I had hoped that once I came home from hospital I would be able to get a little rest. But on the contrary, the work only increased. I was also beginning to get this yearning to go away somewhere for a while. Fortunately, my chance came when my younger brother-in-law arrived from Dhanbad and asked me to
return with him. “There's a big
mela
on there—why don't you come and visit?” I did not stop to think. I quickly packed a few things, took my children, and headed off to Dhanbad, where I spent a week. We went to the
mela
every day. We wandered around and generally had a good time.

I came back a few days later, happy and relaxed, but shortly afterward our little neighborhood was rocked by a terrible tragedy. A man named Panna had set fire to his wife and burned her to death. She was a beautiful doll-like woman, with dusky skin, curly hair…and he just burned her to death! It was a Sunday and she was at a neighbor's house watching television. Panna was drunk—he was often drunk and violent toward his wife. When he found his wife watching television, he was enraged and he caught hold of her and dragged her home. There they must have fought, for suddenly he poured acid on her and searched around for a light to set her on fire. Defiant, his wife picked up a matchbox herself and slapped it into his hand, saying, “If it makes you feel better to kill me, here, go ahead and do it!” Panna was drunk. He took the matchbox, lit a match, and threw it on her. She burst into flames, her clothes burning off her skin, her skin becoming pale…she was naked…she was still alive when Lata, a neighbor, saw her slumped against the wall in their house and heard her whimpering in pain. She shouted out, calling for help, and lots of people came rushing to their house. We also went there. I saw that she was half-standing against the wall and her skin was blistered with burns…she was unlucky enough to still be alive…

Panna tried to run away, but the neighbors caught hold of him and locked him up inside the house. The police were called and some people quickly took Panna's wife to the hospital. The police came a couple of hours later and made some inquiries and took Panna away. His wife never came home again. But when
questioned in the hospital by the doctors and the police, she refused to blame Panna and said he was in no way responsible for her condition. Till her dying breath, she blamed herself for what had happened!

When they brought her home for the last rites, I went there to see her. Her face was still pale, her bindi in place as always. But her eyes were open, as if she was watching us, and I kept thinking she would speak any moment! I remembered how alive she always looked, how she used to take her two children, a boy of ten and a girl of seven, to school every morning, holding each by the hand. Sometimes if I was outside our house, she would stop by to chat. I wondered what the children would do now, who would look after them. Panna was let out after only three months, but whether he was back at home or not made no difference to anyone. Finally Panna's father-in-law came and took the children away.

Panna went back to work in the gas factory where he had been earlier. He was erratic: some days he went to work, others he just skipped. The house they had lived in was sold, and Panna frittered away whatever he earned on drink. One day we were talking about his wife when Shashti told me that she often dreamed of her, and was frightened because she felt that Panna's wife was standing behind her, looking at her with those eyes that refused to close even in death…I got up to leave when Shashti reminded me that there was a puja in her home the next day and I had promised to come. I told her I would be there—I thought that I would pray for Panna's little children at the puja. Shashti's house had an idol of Ma Mansa there and it was to her that I planned to pray, but I determined that I would also keep a fast that day for the goddess. So I did not eat anything all day, and in the evening, as many people collected to fetch water from the pond for the puja, I also got ready to go, but my husband dragged me back home, raining curses upon me. When I asked him why he was be
having like this, he began to beat me. I had fasted the whole day, and I'd bought fruit from the market as an offering, but I wasn't able to do this and that made me really sad. So the next morning I plucked a few flowers and went to Shashti's house to offer them. There were many other girls from the neighborhood there as well. I stood among them, and joined my hands to pray. Suddenly I felt a tug at my hair. I ignored it and continued to pray. But then suddenly someone caught hold of my hair and pulled it so hard that I fell to the ground…I turned and saw that it was my husband. He shouted at me, “Come on, you bitch! Get yourself back home!” Like everyone else, I knew that if I went back with him now, he would beat me up thoroughly. So I just continued to pray, and after everything was over, I went home. But even then, I did not go inside, I just stood at the door.

A few minutes later I saw Shashti and a few others rushing to my home, shouting loudly. They were angry. She screamed at my husband: “You can do what you like with your wife, I know it's no business of mine, but you can't come to my house and disrupt things. You disturbed our puja and in front of everyone. How dare you? You've not only insulted me, you have also ruined the puja.” Then she turned to me and said, although for his benefit, “And what did you do anyway that he caught hold of you like this by your hair and dragged you away? Was it that you attended the puja? There were so many other girls there! Does that mean they are all bad? None of
their
husbands complained.” Then she added, “Only you can survive with this man. I don't know how you can take all this without complaining. Had it been me I would have taught him a thing or two…” And shouting and screaming like this, she left.

I was now worried that he would take all his anger out on me, so I went toward the door and stood in the shadows, hoping he would not see me on his way out. A little while later I saw him
going off to work. I knew he'd be furious when he came back, so I quickly fed the children and put them to sleep. When Dulal came in the evening, I told him everything and he also gave me a talking-to. “Why do you go there when you know he doesn't like it?” he asked me. I thought to myself:
It's not as though I went there on my own, there were so many other people there, and even if I had been alone, what was wrong with that?

I began to think that I would have to do something about my life: things just could not go on like this. My elder son had finished at one school and now needed to move to another, and my younger son had just started school. Money was always needed for little things for them. My husband was reluctant to give money to me, and never without my having to ask at least ten times. I decided that it was time that I looked for work. I started to ask around the neighborhood. I told everyone that I was looking for work. But many just laughed at me. They did not take me seriously. “Why do you need to work?” they asked. “Surely your husband earns enough for all of you?” Someone else said, “You won't be able to work, just forget it.” I thought,
If he earns so much, why is there never any money to run the household?

 

AND SO LIFE CONTINUED, AND EVERY DAY THERE WAS
tension in the home over these things. But I was determined: I had decided that come what may, I would make sure that my children had a good education. I did not want them to be illiterate like their father. I got really furious when my husband asked my elder son to come with him to help push the handcart. The boy would go off with him because his father gave him a little spending money and he could then buy things to eat. And this, too, became a bone of contention. I did not like him giving money to the boy at all. He was getting increasingly spoiled. He'd often skip
school and spend the whole day wandering about, and if I said anything to him, his father would tell him to keep quiet and would refuse to speak himself. If, by chance, I raised my hand against the boy, I knew that I would suffer for it at his father's hands. Sometimes the boy would disappear for days on end and then I'd go from place to place hunting for him. At such times my husband put all the blame on me! He was not the least concerned that the boy did not attend school properly, or study. All that was my responsibility. All he did was to give us a little money now and again. I was really at my wits' end. I did not know what to do. My elder son was now in the sixth grade, and we needed money for extra tuition for both him and his younger brother. Their father sometimes gave a little money to the elder boy but he was not at all interested in the younger one. And I was always fearful that their teacher would refuse to teach them.

After years of living with all this, fighting for dignity, for a life for my children, one day I told Shashti's mother that I couldn't take it anymore. She said to me gently, “Child, do you think you can manage to do the kind of work I do?” Would I be able to work in people's houses, to wash their clothes and clean their dishes? I wasn't sure. And what if Baba found out or his friends saw me, what would they say? That Halder's daughter has been reduced to doing this kind of work? When I told Shashti's mother this she said, “If all you are worried about is your father's dignity, then you had better be prepared to suffer and starve.”
She's right
, I thought. Why am I so concerned about what Baba will think when he does not seem to be bothered about me at all and hardly ever comes to see me?

Shashti's mother and I were standing by the side of the road talking when an old man, about my father's age, walked up to her and said, “Didi, can you help me to find someone to work in my house?”

“All right, I'll look.” Then she looked at me and then back at him and asked him to wait for a minute. She beckoned me to follow her into her house. “Tell me, are you willing to work in his house?”

“Yes, I am,” I replied, “but let's at least ask him what kind of work it is.”

So we went back to the man and Shashti's mother told him I would work. We went together to his son's house, where I found out that the job entailed doing everything: the cleaning, sweeping, swabbing of the house, washing the clothes, cooking, chopping vegetables, grinding spices…I agreed to take it on. That was my first job. I also agreed to the salary his son, Ashish, offered me, as I had no idea what kind of pay to expect.

They seemed to like my work. The family was Brahmin and they held all the customary practices of purity and pollution. But they were quite prepared to let me do everything for them because, after all, they could not do without domestic help. Ashish's wife was somewhat different, wanting to check everything I did, but I did not give her much opportunity because I came to work leaving my small children at home and I was anxious to finish everything quickly and get back to them. Now everyone began talking about what a good worker I was, and suddenly I was in demand. Of course, I could not take on too much. I think perhaps what people liked was that I did not fuss about doing this or that—most girls who were hired preferred to do only specific jobs and weren't prepared to take on everything. Not me. If someone asked me to do something extra, I thought, where's the harm, and I did it. And for this reason I soon found work in several houses and was no longer treated as a servant. My employers became like uncles and aunts to me and their children fondly called me Didi or Pishi.

To manage all the work I now had, each morning, before any
one was awake, I would head off to work and I would finish as much as I could and then return. Then I'd bully and cajole the children to study and start cooking. Then I would send the boys off to school, take my daughter with me, and go off to work again, to return around noon or one. The boys sometimes came home during the break to eat, or else I would take food across to them. Their school finished at four and by the time they came home, I'd have finished everything and would be bathed and dressed. I'd then feed the kids and send them out to play and, while they were playing, cook the evening meal. I'd then send the boys to their tutor, and if sometimes he came to the house instead, I'd make him tea. After all of this was done, I would go out to work again, taking my daughter with me, and in some households they helped to look after her. One young girl would sit my daughter down in her lap and they'd watch television together. I don't think Ashish's wife liked this because she made a barbed comment about it one day: “Amazing,” she said, “I've never seen her take my little boy into her lap but to show such love for
your
child…” I thought,
Just because we are poor doesn't mean we can't be touched.

My husband never told me clearly that he did not like me working in other people's homes, so I thought he did not mind. Initially, I even felt a little sorry for him, thinking that perhaps he really was not earning enough to give us money for the household, but then when I looked in his pockets while he was away I found so much money that I got really angry. Then I thought,
Well, it's okay that he has money: after all, it's for the good of the children.
But no sooner had that thought made its presence felt than another followed, and this time I felt resentful, thinking that the least he could have done was to give us enough for our living expenses.

All my earnings went into the house and I did not keep even a single paisa for myself. Then I decided to try to save little bits and
pieces and I began to put aside one rupee, two rupees. One day I bought myself a little money box from the market and began to put the money into it. When it filled up, I told Dulal, “Let's break it open!” When we did, we discovered a thousand and fifteen rupees!! I told Dulal I would hide this money away for my daughter. I did not want her father to see it, otherwise he would stop giving even what little he did. I kept it aside and even when times were very hard, I did not touch it. But when it seemed as if I would have to delve into it, because there was a real shortage of money in the home, I gave it to Dulal, saying, “Take it away and do what you like with it.” He used the money to purchase gold earrings for my daughter.