Kalyana Page 20
I waited and waited and waited for your reply. Hope nobody is sick in Canada. Try and call sometime if you can’t find the time to write, okay.
I love you always.
Your Loving Mother,
Sumitri
So! Our Raju, the one who sowed seeds in wild fields and rowed his boat in feral waters—Raju, the lover of curves—was finally settling down. I was so thrilled to get my mother’s letter bearing this news that I called her on the phone immediately, asking her what I could send for the preparations. It struck me then that it had been a long time since I had heard her say “hello.”
“My little Kalyana,” she said. In her voice, I could sense the tears filling her eyes.
I still had not told my mother about the baby. Feeling a twinge of guilt, I relayed my own good news.
My mother was so delighted to hear of my pregnancy that it seemed to outweigh her disappointment that I would for the first time not be part of a great family celebration, a joyous festivity; by that time in my pregnancy, traveling would have proved difficult. But things were different now, she said. The duty of a mother was first to her child, born or unborn, and then to the rest of the world.
Still, she worried. She told me that at this time only a woman would understand what to do and what to say, and I did not have a Manjula or a Roni to lean on in Canada. Only a woman would understand how to rub coconut oil on my hair and wash it, when things became tiresome. I told her about Angela to ease her mind.
I regretted deeply that I would be unable to attend Raju’s wedding. How long had it been since I had seen an Indian bride, clothed in gold and red, the colors of passion? In Canada, brides did not walk around the fire of a smoky altar held up by banana leaves and tree stumps. Here, even in the movies and the news, we only saw brides gliding down church aisles and wearing white, the color of purity. A few solemn guests dressed in suits or silk dresses sat still, some looking serious and some smiling slightly. Here there were no band and baja, no drums and songs, no old women singing, no children thumping the ground. Here, the little boys and girls dressed in suits and dresses like their parents, and sat quietly or stayed home. They did not dance or cry or run or jump in the aisles. If they did, their mothers or fathers or aunties or uncles immediately removed them from the auspicious occasion. How I suddenly missed the sound of the pundit blowing the conch shell!
After putting down the phone, she must have written me again. Shortly after, I received another letter:
Dear Kalyana,
I am overjoyed beyond belief. Two pieces of good news in one month: a son’s wedding and a daughter finally becoming a mother herself. But so is life. A cycle of good news and bad news, suffering and joy. It is best you stay there and look after yourself. Your body is not your own right now.
How’s Kirtan? He must be so happy, jumping for joy, running and screaming down the streets telling everyone. That’s what your father is doing down here. Kirtan, a father soon. I still remember when I first met him. Remember? He came over wearing that striped tie and crisp white shirt.
Have you chosen any names yet? It doesn’t matter if my first grandchild is a boy or a girl. These days, girls have as many opportunities as the boys. Not like before. And you are in Canada, too.
Make sure you eat well, drink lots of milk, and rub lots of baby oil on your belly. You don’t want to end up with stretch marks all over your belly.
Everyone here is well. We are just getting ready for the wedding. Making the guest list for our side of the family and filling out invitation cards. I am sure the girl’s family is doing the same. Lots of work. You remember?
Well, I must go and get all the work done. So much to do. Thank goodness Roni is here to help me with everything. Roni says to say, “Namaste.”
Your Loving Mother,
Sumitri
As the final days of my pregnancy approached, Angela with the help of Kirtan threw me a surprise baby shower. She decorated the room in pink streamers and lined the counters and tables with cupcakes smothered in pink icing—for we had discovered I was carrying a daughter. She organized games to guess the baby’s weight, length, and birth date. And Kirtan supplied the goodies: samosas, pakoras, and chutneys. Angela invited people we knew from the writers’ circle and they came, bearing gifts. Peter and Julie were among them.
As I sat in the middle of my living room, taking in the joy and love around me, I began to understand my mother’s blessings: For in Kirtan’s loyalty and devotion, steadfastness and truth, I saw my father, and in Angela, I found Manjula. I found a sister and a friend.
Aditi was born on a Friday in mid-November of that year. She was four weeks premature.
“Mother of Gods,” cried my mother on the phone, overjoyed with the news of the birth of her poti, her granddaughter. “That’s what her name means, Kalyana. That’s what it means.” She immediately wanted to know the details. How much had her poti weighed at birth?
“Five pounds and eight ounces, Momma.”
“Five pounds and eight ounces. No problem. She will grow. In Canada, they have all the technology. Not like Fiji.” Then swiftly changing her tone, she said, “If Aditi was born in Fiji, it would have made big news. Her picture would have been published on the front page of The Fiji Times and Fiji Sun. My poti would have been famous from birth. It’s Diwali here today,” she said. “It’s November 13 today.”
My mother wanted to know what the birth was like for me. Did I howl and scream as Aditi came into this world? Or did I keep quiet and stay still? I told her that Aditi slid into this world effortlessly and easily. There were no buckets of blood, or, if there were, I was blissfully unaware, for in Canada, pain need not be an essential part of a woman’s life where childbirth was concerned. A blue-eyed, yellow-haired specialist inserted an epidural into my spine, eliminating all such suffering.
And yet not all the suffering. Aditi had to stay in the hospital for two weeks. She had an immature brain, meaning that she often forgot to breathe, and the doctors said she must sleep in a glass incubator. She must stay in the hospital under the professionals’ care.
I knew that my mother was right. In Canada, Aditi had the support of advanced medical technology; in Canada, Aditi had a chance, and for this I was grateful. But I missed her terribly every night when I came home to a quiet house that did not hold the sounds of a newborn baby. Sometimes I wished I could stay in the hospital lobby all day and all night, close to my child, but when visiting hours were over the nurses would insist that I go home. “Get some rest, Mom,” they would say. “Your baby needs you healthy.” Reluctantly, my head held low, I would return home with empty arms.
But soon our daughter began to grow and thrive, and at last, the hospital released her into our care. With the passage of time, and perhaps by dint of my constant worrying, she even began sleeping and feeding peacefully, too. She would coo, laugh, and gurgle and spit. She was a spark of joy in our lives.
My mother sent Aditi a pink frilly dress and dried herbs that she claimed a priest had blessed. The dried herbs will keep her heart beating and her breathing steady through the night, she wrote on a small piece of yellow paper attached to the packet of herbs. It will offer her protection. In a letter, she asked me to put the herbs under the baby’s mattress. I put them on the dresser, by her baby powder and diapers.
Upon hearing the news of Aditi’s birth, Manjula, too, sent her cards and presents from Toronto. My mother and I were both happy that my aunt had remembered, although Mother once asked me in a letter why Manjula had mailed the presents and not driven over with them. Did her sister not wish to see her grand-bhatiji, her own flesh and blood? Accustomed to our island nation, where one could travel by car from end to end in one day, my mother had no concept of the vastness of my new home.
Kirtan, just like my own father, doted on his little girl. He would lie on the middle of the floor beside her blanket, kissing her forehead and countin
g and tickling her toes. Nor did he feel shame at picking up a broom and sweeping the floors. He would even take on the task of throwing Aditi’s spoiled napkins, or diapers as they called them here, in the washer as I slept in our bedroom in the middle of the afternoon, exhausted from my new role as a mother.
In those days, Angela was also a great help. She would bring over home-cooked meals to ease the load on Kirtan and me. For that I was grateful, but especially I liked the gossip: of people coming and going in the writers’ group; new romances budding and heartbreak tearing members, old and new, apart. It filled my empty days with curious stories.
Whenever Angela arrived on my doorstep, she would stop and gaze into Aditi’s eyes and blow gently in her ear. Aditi would giggle and spit, lighting up the room. Watching Angela play with my daughter, made me yearn for the day I would see Aditi play with Angela’s child, while we, the proud mothers, would sit in the living room drinking cappuccino and chai.
“When are you and Greg having a baby, Angela?” I finally asked with a smile. “I think now is a good time. Then we can see our children grow up together.”
Angela quickly looked away. I saw tears flood her eyes, and my heart sank as she said, “We can’t, Kalyana. We have been to every fertility clinic in London, but still no luck. We have one of those rare cases where the cause is not evident.”
“I am so deeply sorry,” I told her. My heart ached for her. In that moment, I too suffered a loss; I too, would never hold Angela’s baby. We would never share that bond, that sisterhood. But still I held out hope. “You never know.” I kept my voice encouraging. “If they can’t find a cause…”
“If that happens, Greg and I will be overjoyed. But till then, I don’t want to go on hoping, you know.” Angela paused. “It was the hope, the yearning, that used to kill me, and my mother, every day in England.” She sighed heavily then went quiet.
Was that why she had come to Canada? To get away from the memories of it all? I could sense that she did not want to talk about this any further, so I asked no more questions. We sat there for a few moments, observing the silence, feeling the loss.
It saddened me that not every woman was granted the gift of motherhood. Angela’s revelation made me think of the auntie-without-a-name. She, too, must have endured pain, when year after year, season after season, her womb remained empty, her lap stayed bare, and people’s accusing eyes followed her far and wide.
My daughter was much too small, and I often worried about her rolling off the bed or choking on her milk. But all my anxiety was needless. With the passing months Aditi fattened, sat up in her car seat, and learned to kick her legs, roll over, crawl, and scream at the top of her now fully developed lungs. She also discovered how to aim spoonfuls of food at the wall and the floors. I took pictures of her every stage and from every angle possible, sticking them in large albums and sending a select few to friends and relatives. I sent the best of the bunch to my mother.
My mother always wrote back immediately, thanking me for her granddaughter’s lovely pictures, telling me how happy and blessed she was to receive them and how Aditi’s pictures reminded her of the time when I was small. She said we had the same chubby cheeks. As usual, she offered advice: she insisted I feed Aditi an array of curries, to sharpen her mind; and to give her custard, so she’d sleep through the night. And as usual, I ignored her. But she had good news of her own. I could picture the smile that must have lit up her small face when she wrote that Raju’s wife, Yashna, was expecting a baby of their own. I was happy for my mother. I knew the joy Aditi had brought Kirtan and me. And I was certain that Raju’s son or daughter would bring my mother the same joy, erasing her loneliness.
After Aditi’s birth, my mother was on my mind more than ever. Images of her flew back to me from my childhood. When Aditi fell ill and I collected her vomit in my hand, when I wiped away scratches and blisters from her knees and tears from her face, when I gently and carefully trimmed her nails, I thought of how my mother had done the same for me. Sometimes, when I awoke in the middle of the night to comfort my small daughter with tales of Krishna and the five-headed snake, I could almost feel my mother’s presence in the room. How long had it been since I had seen her?
My mother, worn out with all my excuses, had stopped asking when we were coming to see her and Papa. Now she just requested pictures. Perhaps she had finally accepted that we were grown and gone, maybe even forever. She seemed to understand that it was through pictures that I could best communicate.
And so, as she asked for more, instead of writing letters I continued to send her photographs. Pictures of Aditi smiling, frowning, scowling, and crying; pictures of Aditi dressed as a pumpkin, a rabbit, a bumblebee, and once as a smiling green frog, hopping among falling leaves. Aditi swaying on a red-and-blue swing set and jumping in the sprinklers, surrounded by gora children. Aditi wearing yellow rain boots, standing in a muddy puddle. Aditi sitting on Kirtan’s lap, on her first birthday, then her second, and then her third.
My mother, gauging Aditi’s size from the pictures, continued to send gifts: Little island shirts, printed shorts, and frilly socks. Once, she sent Aditi a swimsuit. It was white with red hibiscuses printed all over it. Angela marveled at it, and then, to my utmost horror, she suggested that all three of us go swimming. I saw two problems immediately: I did not know how to swim and I did not know how to wear a swimsuit. The women of Fiji swam in the ocean fully clothed, their skirts and dresses ballooning all around them as they bobbed on top of the waves. But Angela persisted and succeeded in dragging me and Aditi to a store whose aisles were lined with different colors and sizes of swimsuits.
“Just choose a color that you think will look flattering on your skin type and wear it proudly,” Angela said. I chose a black swimsuit with white borders and a full back. Angela rolled her eyes but accepted my choice, without arguments, without fuss. “Put it on,” she said.
Shifting my eyes to the ground, with shoulders slumped and legs heavy, I made my way into the fitting room. I slipped out of my clothes and into the revealing swimsuit. For a moment I felt the ocean breeze rustling through my hair, and the deafening sound of the waves, crashing on the seawall, whistling in my ears. Then I saw my reflection in the mirror in this small room. A hippopotamus looked back at me, jolting me back to reality. My thighs appeared too large and my stomach was fat. I gasped at my nakedness on display for all of the world to see.
“Come on out,” yelled Angela when I had remained in the dressing room for over ten minutes. “Kalyana,” she bellowed again, a little too loudly for my taste.
Releasing the air trapped in my lungs and bundling up all my courage, I slowly made my way out of the fitting room. At first, I only peeked through the door. The hallways seemed empty, except for Angela standing there, holding onto Aditi’s small hand. So I stepped out under the blazing light: A hippopotamus caught in the flood of a hundred headlights.
“Not bad,” said Angela, looking me up and down, making me flush. “It’s the right style, right cut. All good!” She smiled. It warmed my soul.
“I feel very naked,” I said in a small voice.
Angela shrugged. “My advice is to put on your swimsuit, don’t look in the mirror, and just walk out there like you are the Goddess of Fiji.”
I chuckled.
Later, at the pool, I followed Angela’s advice. I did not glance in the mirror, and did all I could to avoid staring at the rows and rows of naked bodies of women, fat and small, young and old, standing under showers and reclining on benches, slipping in and out of their scanty bathing suits. I wrapped a beach towel tightly around my waist, hiding my stomach and my thighs, and, clutching Aditi’s small hand, I walked out to the pool. Then throwing my towel onto a bench close by, I slipped into the lukewarm water. I stayed at the edge of the shallow end and held on to my daughter by her waist. Aditi flailed her arms and legs, splashing the water all around me. Angela, comfortable in her brigh
t blue bikini, took out a camera from her bag and snapped a picture of us. I sent it to my mother.
After settling into my new role as a mother, I began to long for the nights I spent at the bookstores and coffee houses, away from Aditi, listening to poets read aloud the secrets of their hearts and writers tell stories of the world as they saw it. There were times, when the evening sun set over the distant mountains, that a surge of guilt passed through me at the thought of wanting time alone, time away from my family. But Kirtan insisted that a woman was not only born to be a mother and a wife; she was born to follow her passions and desires, and pursue her dreams. So, on a rainy Saturday, leaving Aditi in the care of Kirtan, Angela and I ventured to the writers’ club, just like old times.
It seemed as if no time had passed. The same people, the same charm, and the same hazy smoke filled the space. Perhaps I gained strength from becoming a mother, because for the first time, I longed to stand in the center of the stage, amidst the bright lights, and face the clapping, cheering audience. I longed to write. Yet I had often sat down in the middle of the afternoon when Aditi took a nap and all was quiet, and still no words had come. Here, through an endless stream of stories, I could at least feel another artist’s joy and pain.
A heavy-set girl with freckles climbed up on the stage and pulled out a crumpled piece of paper. Angela and I had never seen her before. The girl looked over the heads of her audience, straight towards the back wall. Upon the first cue, the room fell silent. The girl stared back at her paper and, in a husky, uneven voice, she read:
Just About a Rose
Sweet smelling and bloody red
She lies in the midst of thorns unhurt
Greenest of leaves and warmest of the rays
Surround her, promising protection