A Life Less Ordinary (20 page)

“I was dusting upstairs,” I said.

“So go and finish your work.”

I went back upstairs. In the upstairs room there were three cupboards full of books. Every time I saw them I wondered who read them. There were several books in Bengali, too, and I would sometimes dip into them. One day I was dusting in that room when Tatush came in. He saw that I was looking at a Bangla book, but he did not say anything then. The next day in the morning when I came to work and went in to give him his tea, he asked if I knew how to read and write. My heart sank and I did not know what to say so I mumbled something, pretended to laugh, and started to move away. He asked me again, “Can you read at all?”

“I won't lie,” I said, “but what I know is like knowing nothing.”

“But have you studied at all? Up to which class?”

“Till about the sixth or seventh.” He seemed to fall into thought then and did not say anything more.

Next day when I came to work, he was smiling. Most of the time, he had a sort of half-smile on his face, and I often felt that he had no anger in his heart. He spoke slowly and gently, and always seemed to me to be like Sri Ramkrishna. Sometimes we would begin talking and would go on talking and he would tell me many things. I was standing there thinking these thoughts when he asked me, without any preamble, “So, Baby, do you remember the names of any writers you like?”

I looked at him and laughed. “Yes, there are some, like Rabindranath Tagore, Kazi Nasrul Islam, Sharatchandra, Satyendra Nath Dutt, Sukumar Rai….” I don't know why I said these names, but Tatush put his hand on my head and looked at me in amazement. He looked as if he could not believe what he was hearing. Then he asked, “Do you like to read and write?”

I said, “Yes, I like it, but what's the point? There's no reading and writing for me now.”

“But why not?” he said. “Look at me, I still read. Don't you know why all those books are there? If I can read, why can't you?” Then he said, “Come upstairs with me for a moment.”

Upstairs he pulled a book out of the cupboard and said, “Tell me, what is this book called?”

I looked at the book and thought to myself: I can read this. But then I hesitated: What if I make a mistake and say the wrong thing? And then I told myself, So what? I'll then say I don't know how to read.

Tatush was watching me as these thoughts passed through my mind. “Go on,” he urged me. “Read, read something at least.” So
I blurted out, “
Amar Meyebela
, Taslima Nasrin.” And Tatush said, “You were worried you'd make a mistake, weren't you?”

I laughed.

He said, “Here. Take this book home and read it if you like.”

So I did. I would read a page or two every day. The people around—my neighbors—were very surprised and began to comment on my reading, but I did not really care. Every time I began to read, I found it a little difficult, but as I went on it became easier. One day Tatush asked me if I was managing to read the book I had taken. I said yes, and so he said, “I'm going to give you something that I want you to make use of. Just imagine that this is my work as well.”

“What is it?” I asked.

He pulled out a notebook and pen from his writing table and said, “Here. Write something in this notebook. If you want, you can write your life story in this. Whatever has happened in your life ever since you can remember and you became aware of yourself. Whatever you remember up to now, write it down. Try to write a little bit every day.”

I took the pen and notebook in my hand and as I began to think about what I would write, my thoughts ran away with me. Tatush said, “Why, what's wrong? What are you thinking about?” I started. I was so absorbed in my thoughts…and then I said, “I'm wondering if I will be able to write or not.”

“Of course you will be able to write,” he said, “whyever not? Go ahead:
write
.” Pen and notebook in hand, I went home. I wrote two pages that day. I would write, then I would read Taslima Nasrin's book. In the morning when I went to work, Tatush asked me if I had written anything or not, and was really happy to hear that I had. “Excellent!” he said. “Write every day: you must do that.”

Some days I would be so absorbed in my reading and writing that by the time I looked up from my books, everyone around was well into their second sleep. Sometimes they would wake to find me still at work. And in the morning someone or the other would ask me, “So, what is it that keeps you awake? Why do you read so much?” I tried to fob them off: their questions made me unhappy. I was not comfortable in my house and wanted to leave it. All the time I was hoping to be able to find another place that was better than this one. It was very inconvenient to have to share a bathroom with four other families. In the morning you had to queue up to use it. And we were not allowed to use it to shit, we had to go out into the fields where there were pigs and other animals, so it was not very easy. Boys and girls, the young and old, we all had to carry our bottles of water and go off into the fields.

Tatush had once asked me if the place I stayed in had a bathroom. He had suggested I use the bathroom upstairs in his home. So then I began to use it, and I would bathe there before going home. Sometimes when I got home late my landlady would demand to know why I was so late, and that made me very angry. I thought,
What business is it of hers?
I am not tied to her and she has no control over my life. I pay my rent and that is all they should be concerned about. Why then are these people so interested in what I do? After all, I so rarely went out anywhere. The moment I got home I would finish my chores and settle down to my reading and writing. The only thing I did was to occasionally go and visit a friend of mine, Savita. She was my friend from the old house I had worked in and there were times when I was late coming back from her place. This was hardly a crime, but my landlady was so nosy and interfering that even when I went to buy vegetables and provisions she would want to know where I had
been. “Where do you
go
every day?” she would ask. “You should not go out so much.”

Would it have made a difference if my husband had been with me, I wondered? When we were together there were still questions, and being with him was no different from my being alone. And if people talked then, when he was with me, how could I hope to shut them up if I was alone with just my children? People talked about my being alone, living in a rented house, and having just the children with me. And because of this, many thought I was fair game and I faced quite a bit of harassment. Some men would make the excuse that they wanted water to drink and would push their way into my home. Or if I went somewhere with the children, they'd follow me and try to force me to talk to them. But once I got to Tatush's home and began talking to him, I would forget all this. Tatush had some friends in Kolkata and Delhi and he had told them about my reading and writing. They took a real interest and that made me very happy.

One day when I was at home with the children, the landlord's elder son came by. I asked him to come in and sit down and he just parked himself there, without making any move to go. He began to talk and didn't seem to want to stop. The things he said were very embarrassing and I could not even bring myself to reply to them. Nor could I ask him to go, or even leave myself. He had sat himself down by the front door so that if I wanted to get out, I would have to brush past him. I understood very well what it was he wanted, although I had to pretend innocence. It was clear from what he said that if I wanted peace of mind, I would have to find myself another place to live. If I wanted to stay on in this house, I'd have to make sure he was happy, and I knew what
that
meant. I felt a tremendous sense of resignation
and despair—if there was no man in the house, did that mean I would have to listen to anyone who decided he had a right over my life? I thought I would find a new home the very next day, and began to hunt again.

 

ONE DAY, AS I WAS COMING BACK FROM WORK, MY CHILDREN
came up to me crying. They told me that our house had been broken down. I screamed, “How could this be? Who has done this?” When we got home, I saw that they had thrown everything out on the street. I sat down there with my head in my hands. What was I to do now? Where were we to go? How would I find a new place so soon, at this time of the day? The children and I sat down there and wept.

It wasn't only my house that had been broken down. Many houses in the neighbourhood had suffered the same fate, but in each of them there was a man—a father, a husband, a brother. I had nobody. That's why my things were still scattered all around while the other occupants had at least collected and put their things in one place, and someone or the other had headed off to look for a new place to live. There were a few people who had stayed behind—a handful of them who cared for my children and were sorry to see us in such a state. I could not stop crying, and seeing me cry, my children also began to weep. I really felt at the time that I had no one in the world to call my own, no one who could come to my help. I had two brothers who lived just across the road. They knew where I was, they also knew that all the houses in that area had been broken down—that kind of news spreads quickly. But there was not a sign of them. I thought about my mother. Had she been there, perhaps there would have been someone to care for me. How much more sorrow would I have to bear?

There was no hunting for a new house that day. We sat there until the evening, when a neighbor, Bhola-da, came. He was a Muslim and belonged to the same area as us. He knew my father and my brothers and he was very fond of my children. “How will you stay here all night alone?” he asked, sitting down next to us. We spent the night in that open, dirty place, wet with the dew falling on us, and somehow night turned into day. No one slept that night.

In the morning Bhola-da said to me, “Why don't you talk to the sahib in the house you are working in?”
He is right,
I thought,
Tatush had said he could give me a place to stay.
But then I said to Bhola-da, “Please, why don't you come and talk to him? I will not have the courage to do so.” Bhola-da agreed: “All right. Let's go.”

When we got to the house, he waited outside while I went in. Tatush was reading the papers. He took one look at me and said, “What is it, Baby? Why are you looking so pale and drawn? You don't look like this normally.” I told him everything: how the bulldozers had destroyed all our homes, how the children and I had had to spend the night outside in the damp. “There's a man I know who has come with us,” I said. “He's waiting outside and wants to talk to you.” Tatush went outside and talked to Bhola-da.

When he came back in he asked me, “Why on earth did you not come here last night? Why did you wait till the morning? And why spend the night outside with the children? You should have come straightaway. Anyway, now tell me, when are you coming?”

“Whenever you say.”

“Right now,” Tatush said.

I agreed, and went back and brought my things in a rickshaw. I was thinking how Tatush had not hesitated even a moment to ask me to come.

When I returned, Tatush had emptied out a room on the roof of his house for me. I put my things there and went down to cook his lunch. He came up to look and then came to me and said, “You needn't cook today if you don't want to, there's plenty of food downstairs.”

“That doesn't matter,” I said. “Your son and the others can eat that later.

“Do you think you will be able to make some hot rotis at night?” Tatush asked. “Up until now there's been no one to cook the evening meal. I normally eat the same thing at night that you cook in the morning. But now that you are here, do you think you can give me hot food at night as well?”

Now I began to cook and work downstairs and I did everything. No one had to tell me what to do: I just worked. Sometimes Tatush would say to me, “Baby, how can you do so much work? You're working all the time. Come and sit and talk to me sometimes.” And then I'd sit down and talk to him and he would ask, “Have your children eaten yet? Have you given them lunch? Go upstairs and feed them, and then come down and have your own meal. Take a bit of milk from here for them.” After coming to Tatush's house, my children began to get a half-liter of milk every day.

One day Tatush said to me, “You know, Baby, there have been other women who have worked in this house, but I have not found a girl like you. You must never think you are in this house only as a domestic worker. Think of this house as your own. I have no daughter, so I think of you as my daughter.” I thought:
What a nice thing to say!
Only I knew how happy I was after I came into this home. Tatush took so much care of me, and if ever I felt unwell, he would come and help out with the work and would be very concerned for my health. He would force me to go to the doctor, then get the prescribed medicines for me and ensure that I
took them. If I demurred, he would force me to take them, insisting that I had to listen to him. If one of my children was ill, he would do the same. I had never met anyone who treated their home workers so well. I lacked for nothing in that home—soap, food, clothes, medicines, everything was there for me. I thought,
I have worked in so many homes, but never have I been in a place where everyone is so kind to me.
It was as if I was everything in that house.

I had everything I needed here, but even so, every now and again I felt sad. It was two months since I had seen my elder son. Perhaps Tatush understood my sorrow, for one day he asked me, “Baby, where does your elder son stay? Why don't you go to see him sometime?” He asked me once, twice, three times, and I had no answer to give him. Then, without looking him in the eye, I told him that I did not even know where my son was. “What?” he exclaimed, “You don't know where he is? How can that be?”