by Binita Bhattacharya
Glossary of Important Terms:
1. Shiva – The Destroyer of evil in Hindu Mythology
2. Kanjibharam – A variety of richly woven silk from the Southern parts of India
3. Kaali – Black in Hindi
4. Totli – stutterer in Hindi
5. Koele ki potli – sack of coal
6. Kaajal – Kohl
7. IIT – The Indian Institute of Technology
8. IIM – The Indian Institute of Management
9. Mashimoni – Endearment for a Maternal Aunt
10. Mahashivratri – The day of Lord Shiva’s marriage to goddess Parvati
11. Darshan – A visit to a religious place for eg. A temple
12. Neelkanth – As shown in Hindu Mythology Lord Shiva consumed the poison that resulted from the schism to protect the universe from perishing due to which his throat turned blue and hence he became known as the Neelkanth (blue throat in Sanskrit)
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Megha Roy had applied for a half day at work which was granted without much ado. Another prospective groom and his mother were coming to take a look at her today. Her mother had given her a photograph, but Megha couldn’t muster enough interest to even take a look at it. She obliged her mother only for the sake of peace at the home front and her own sanctity.
As she placed the files, containing all her research work on the implications of the Company’s proposed merger with a major international group, on her boss’s desk, she asked, “Sir, w..w…wouldn’t you n..n..need me for the p…p…presentation?”
“Nope. Explain the particulars to Urvashi. She’ll take care of the presentation. You may leave now”, replied her Boss without looking up from his laptop.
Megha wasn’t as surprised as she was hurt by her boss’s response. Even before the confident and attractive Urvashi Singh appeared in her life, her boss had never allowed Megha to make presentations. No one had the patience for her stutter and her countenance was like salt on an open wound. The people she worked with were too refined to put the thought in words but the reactions she received from a majority of her fellow colleagues, the change in facial expressions, the narrowing of the eyebrows, the scrunch of the nose, the eye rolls, were ample evidence. It ranged from outright aversion to polite tolerance. But the bosses were a different class altogether. They either avoided looking at her altogether or applied their master’s degree in poker face to their best advantage.
Megha’s only advantages were that she was extremely good in transforming meaningless facts and figures into interesting and palatable reports and had an eye for detail. Those and a degree in Law from the University of Calcutta were the only things that secured her a place in the Company.
As she stepped on the pavement in front of her office at Camac Street she noticed that the dark clouds hanging overhead were ready to burst. She hurriedly summoned a cab and within thirty five minutes she was at the door of the rented North Kolkata residence she shared with her parents.
It was situated next to the Shiva Temple at Shobhabazaar. Megha passed by the temple morning and evening and watched the throng of devotees. Her mother was a regular too. But Megha stubbornly kept away.
‘What difference could he possibly make? He’s already done the irrevocable’, was the thought that resonated within her soul every time she walked past.
Once inside her bedroom, she saw that her mother had put the clothes and accessories out for her. A peacock blue Kanjibharam sari had been selected to impress the groom. The ornaments were the same as usual. A pair of old fashioned gold bangles with a matching neckpiece and earrings that belonged to her late grandmother. Her eyebrows rose at the assortment of expensive cosmetics her mother had purchased for the occasion.
She dressed as her mother desired not being in the mood to deal with another episode of her hysterics, which she knew would be forthcoming at the slightest resistance.
But when she stood before the dressing mirror she burst into a fit of mirthless laughter. She mentally applauded her mother for her efforts in trying to make the crow look like the peacock.
The face in the mirror brought back memories of schoolmates bullying her, ‘Kaali Totli! Koele ki Potli!’
Tears threatened to smudge her kaajal. Not that it mattered. The black of the kaajal would blend well with her dark skin.
When she was first deemed marriageable by her parents and relatives and they started husband hunting for her, Megha had felt that she was being denied the right to find true love. She dreamt of having a boyfriend like the girls she knew and wanted to marry for love like they did in the movies and romance novels.
But time had been a cruel teacher.
Over the years, the very few friends she had and her cousins had all married and bore children but Megha’s dream of marrying for love couldn’t survive the onslaught of reality.
She dried the tears using tissue paper and readied herself for the battle she had so often fought and lost.
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She had once again disgraced herself and her family in the company of strangers. The proposed groom’s face had reddened with suppressed laughter. She could picture him sharing the joke of the week with his friends. Megha wanted to tell him to get lost. A reprimand burned at the tip of her tongue but she held back for fear of further embarrassment.
But then it was her fault. She’d seen it coming.
The groom had asked her the name of the Company where she worked. She had that familiar feeling of being strangled every time she tried to pronounce the name. She sucked her gut in and tried her best to force the words but they came out sounding like, “D…d.dd…delloites – D….d…doi….jjode & Asssss….sociates”.
After the guests left that evening, old Mrs. Roy locked herself up in her bedroom and spent the remainder of the evening and a major portion of the night crying.
“We didn’t have to face so much disgrace at the time of your sister’s wedding”, her mother had shouted on her face before locking herself up.
‘Of course not’, thought Megha. Her elder sister had taken after their fair and pretty mother. Megha, however, hadn’t been so lucky.
She tried to coax her mother into coming out of her room for dinner, but the old woman was unrelenting.
“You will be the death of me someday. It was so kind of Mrs. Sen to convince her son to come here in the first place. But you had to go and spoil everything by stuttering in front of them.”
‘Kind enough! Like she’d been given a choice in the matter of her looks. Ma would never understand’, Megha reflected as she silently suffered through the reprimand.
“How many times did I tell you to speak slowly? You are already thirty two and beginning to look like a scarecrow. If you don’t find a husband soon enough who’s going to take care of you when we’re dead?” her mother chided.
“Ma, I am a g..g..grown woman. I can t..take care of myself. Besides I don’t sss….tutter by choice. It just happens. I can’t control its t..t..timing”, explained Megha from outside the bedroom door. How she wished she could cry and unburden her soul like her mother often did, but her reservoir, unlike her mother’s, had long dried.
“Then give me a handful of your father’s sleeping pills and I’ll end my miserable life”, her mother screamed.
The mention of sleeping pills reminded Megha of an incident five years ago.
Her elder sister, Gauri, newly married at the time, had come up with a match for her. He was an old friend of her husband. A 30 year old Software Engineer who’d graduated from IIT and IIM, Kolkata. Tall, smart and raven complexioned, everyone had thought that this black pearl was going to be Megha’s husband. They had courted briefly and things were good between them or so Megha had thought, until the day she received a shocking text from his number that read:
“Hi, I am sorry to say but we have to go our separate ways. Our dreams and aspirations are different. I need my space. Hope you’ll understand that this has nothing to do with you. Please don’t try to get in touch with me.
Arunabho”
Two days later his mother had called to inform that Arunabho had decided to leave for the United States and didn’t want to further the relationship. Mrs. Roy blamed Megha for the catastrophe.
“You must have said or done something wrong. You always do” she had accused.
About a year later, on the day of her 27th birthday, Megha learned from her sister, that Arunabho had settled down in Texas with a beautiful American born Sindhi girl and that they were going to have a baby.
That day five years ago, Megha had locked herself up in her room with a handful of her father’s sleeping pills. She had leaned against the closed door. Her delicate shoulders shook with muted sobs as her slender body sank to the floor. But she hadn’t been able to take the final plunge. She had fallen asleep on the bedroom floor with the pills clutched in her fist.
The sudden power cut shook her out of her reverie. She lit two candles and went into the kitchen to heat dinner. No words were exchanged between father and daughter as they ate. The sound of thunder and heavy rainfall drowned the sound of her mother’s weeping.
By candle light her father’s face looked thinner and darker than usual. Disease, retrenchment and old age had taken finally its toll on this once robust man. Three years ago her mother had insisted on selling their house in Ballygunge to provide for a sumptuous dowry to lure a husband for Megha. But Megha had resisted. If she hadn’t, her father’s heart transplant surgery would have been a far cry.
After her father retired for the night, she took her diary and sat on the sofa by the half open window. The cool wet breeze felt good on her hot skin. She noted down the expenses incurred that evening that rounded off to eight thousand rupees.
‘The month was drawing at an end. Rent and other utility bills had to be paid. Her father’s heart medication was running out.’
Megha sighed.
Speech therapy flew out of the window.
‘So many people die in accidents every day. Why couldn’t I?’ she often thought while crossing the road or standing at the edge of the railway platform waiting for the train to arrive.
‘Coward!’ she often rebuked herself.
But cowardice was the fine line between life and afterlife.
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Two years passed by. In the meantime, the country was wracked by a major financial scam involving several chit fund companies that had borrowed crores of rupees from the unsuspecting public with promises of tripling the sum within a year but had suddenly closed shop being unable to pay the promised returns.
Megha read about it in the English dailies every day. It concerned her because her brother-in-law, Kaustav, was the business expansion manager in one of such companies that had recently come under the Government’s scanner.
But every time she called her sister in Mumbai, she was assured with the words, “Stop worrying. Kaustav works for a legit Company. They are not into any shady business. We’re safe.”
Megha didn’t argue, but her instincts were on high alert.
Kaustav had made crores working for this company in just three years. He’d bought a lavish apartment in Bandra and owned two imported cars.
‘He couldn’t have found a magic wand.’
At work, the sudden resignation of Mr. Damani, responsible for in house Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) reporting, opened a new door for her. Having worked closely with Megha on various earlier occasions, Mr. Damani recommended her name to his Boss.
The publicity and advertising stuff was taken care of by the PR Department but no one volunteered to do the boring behind the curtain stuff and Megha wasn’t surprised when she was chosen for it.
When her boss asked her opinion, she jumped at the chance, “Sir, I’d l..love the op…p.portunity to help.”
She began loving her weekly visits to the orphanages, old age homes and suburban health centers her employers had built. She monitored the use of the grants and suggested improvements. She interacted with the inmates and was ecstatic when they didn’t seem to mind her stutter.
She found out about their problems and submitted her weekly appraisal report to the Company’s CSR head. The head was a man of principals. Her beautifully compiled, realistic reports began to be taken seriously.
It had a strong impact on her sense of self-worth.
It also introduced her to Parvati, a six year old inmate at ‘ChhatraChhaya’, a facility for orphaned children and homeless women.
“She’d been sold into flesh trade by her uncle but was fortunately rescued by an NGO”, the elderly matron told Megha one day.
Megha observed that Parvati wasn’t the typical cute looking chubby kid that a childless couple would want to adopt. She was emaciated with a long face and pitch black skin. Her eyes reflected the helplessness of her lonely soul. Megha wasn’t surprised that every time a prospective couple came for adoption and children were presented for selection, poor Parvati was never chosen.
She couldn’t help but observe that not all parents who came for adoption were good looking themselves. ‘Yet they all wanted pretty children.’ For the first time in her life Megha appreciated the fact that she hadn’t been orphaned at birth.
But the discrimination inspired a throbbing desire in her to protect and nurture the lonely child. She could live without marriage but motherhood was the nectar the taste of which the woman inside her craved.
She stayed up late at night and studied the latest amendments in the Indian Adoption Laws. She almost cried out in joy when she found that the law allowed single, financially stable and healthy women to adopt children. She just had to set aside a sum for donation and get some paper work done and she’d be on her way to bring Parvati home.
She did a quick mental appraisal. She was fairly healthy and well set in her job. She had life insurance. The additional responsibility of a child would be a financial drain but she’d manage. She had to. This was her only chance at motherhood after all.
All she needed to do now was convince her mother. Mrs. Roy would be furious. But Megha wasn’t going to let this golden opportunity slip.
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Mrs. Roy’s efforts for her daughter’s marriage were becoming frantic by the day. The questioning stares of the neighbours and relatives bore into the poor woman’s soul. She approached her old neighbors in Ballygunge and they came up with proposals for much older men. Balding widowers with children and desperate divorcees with emotional baggage topped the list. The likes of these didn’t have high expectations. All they needed were hands to do housework and put bridles over unruly children and a woman’s body to copulate with.
Mrs. Roy hesitated but she had become desperate too.
As she sought her husband’s approval on the proposals one evening, the submissive Mr. Roy couldn’t take it anymore, “D…don’t even think of d…d..ragging Mm….Megha into this. Why do you want to make her life m…miserable?”
“But she is thirty four. It is now or never. We can’t expect any better than this”, argued Mrs. Roy.
“You’re not g…..getting the p….picture R….Ranjana. She is the provider of this f…..family. How many t….times in the last seven years has our f…f..first born visited us? Our son-in-law d….doesn’t even want to keep in t…t..touch with his wife’s poor relatives. We are both old now. Megha is all we have.”
“That’s so selfish of you, Hrishikesh. What will happen to her after we are gone?” she wept.
“L..listen Ranjana, no one will u…understand and care for her the way we do. She u..u…nderstands it too, I know. That’s why she doesn’t want to get mmm…married. She only g…goes along with your ridiculous sss..schemes out of r…r..respect and so do I. Sss…pare her the pain, please.”
“Then find me a rope so I could hang myself”, she cried covering her face with her hands.
Megha had just returned from work and was about to enter the drawing room when the subject of her parent’s discussion stopped her. She quietly stood near the entrance until they finished.
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A week later, Megha visited the matron at ChhatraChhaya and confirmed her intention to adopt Parvati.
The paper work was almost done except for the No Objection Letter from her parents. Megha had decided on breaking the news to her parents in the evening. But when she reached home that evening she found her mother weeping bitterly and her father gently rubbing her back.
“Ma, what happened?” She turned to her father, “Why is she c..crying, Bapi?”
“We just r..r….received a call from Mmm..umbai. K…k..austav had been trying to dodge the p…p…police for months. But they f…f…finally had enough on him. He owes sss…seventy five c..c..crores to the public. Today morning the c..c..ops came with warrants to arrest him and seize all his p…personal b…belongings – the apartment, the cars, the b..b..bank accounts, everything. But before they could get to him, he sh..shhot himself in the head.”
Shocked to the core, Megha dropped her purse near the entrance and sank to the floor in despair.
In the excitement of bringing Parvati home, that had consumed her entire being for the last few weeks, she had completely forgotten about her sister and brother-in-law.
But as matters stood now, Parvati would have to wait, probably forever.
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Fourteen days later, after Kaustav’s last rites were concluded and the police had given her the green signal, widowed and penniless, Gauri reached Kolkata with her five year old son, Kapil. Megha had personally gone to Mumbai to bring her back home.
Gauri wasn’t the confident, chirpy girl of her youth any more. She seemed to have receded into some place deep inside her mind where the real storm raged.
But the boisterous child couldn’t have been happier to meet his estranged grandparents and aunt. He hardly understood what went on around him and thought his father had gone to stay with God.
In the days that followed, Mrs. Roy finally gave up on her attempts to get Megha married. Her husband’s reasoning didn’t seem so utterly selfish now.
Gauri relieved her mother from all the housework, something she had selfishly complained about as a young girl. The transition must’ve been difficult but Gauri never let it get the better of her. Megha admired her for her silent courage.
Kapil took an immediate liking to Megha despite her stutter and ugliness and declared Megha to be the best aunt in the world. Megha asked him to call her Mashimoni but he conveniently shortened it to Moni. He clung to Megha all the time she was at home. He loved going to the school his Moni had chosen and wouldn’t touch his homework until she came home and he was done regaling her with the happenings of the day. He ate from her plate, cuddled with her in front of the TV, even slept in her arms listening to a new story ever night. The experience was both exhausting and rewarding for Megha.
His affections were like the welcome shower after a long dry spell and Megha’s parched soul bathed in it.
Gauri didn’t seem to mind.
There had once been a phase in Megha’s life years ago when she had been guilty of feelings of suppressed jealousy and atrocity towards her sister for being the cynosure of all eyes whilst she remained in the shadows for no fault of her own. She had dreamed of a time when she would be able to get back at Gauri. But she had soon realized that Gauri’s beauty and high desirability index weren’t her own doing. Realisation was followed by shame and a fear of her own dark side. She had taken to meditation and cheap self-help books to squelch her evil thoughts but such things are always easier said than done.
But now that Megha actually had the chance, the thought of giving Gauri further grief didn’t once enter Megha’s mind. Instead she felt responsible for not doing enough to warn her sister, for being selfishly absorbed in her own trials and troubles.
Her father’s claim had finally come true. By a tragic turn of events Megha had indeed become the sole provider of the entire family and she tried her best to evolve into the role. It didn’t make her feel empowered overnight but she felt her life had finally found a purpose, a direction, especially when her mother began to appreciate her presence and proximity.
She had never before visited the Shiva Temple next to their house. But on the day of Mahashivratri that year, she took little Kapil for a darshan.
As they stood before the Destroyer of Evil, with heads bowed and palms joined, Megha realized that the God she had always despised for being unjust, had actually paved the way for preserving her family by training her through the years to become the Neelkanth. She had nothing more to ask of him except that he endowed little Parvati with the same gift – Perseverance.
