The Art Of Living

“We had to admit her, Ma”, Niladri’s nervousness was apparent in his voice over the phone. “But isn’t it three weeks too early?” I summoned enough courage to blurt that out. “Is she okay?” I asked, and it seemed rather foolish even to my ears. “She went into labour, ma. Initially we did not pay much attention to it, thinking of it as Braxton Hicks, but then the contractions came in faster and she is slated for an emergency caesarean section…do come down as fast as you can, ma. She needs you…” He trailed off. My mind was blurred. I felt numb. Was it too late? I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop.

The world outside the window of the taxi was moving in its own pace. It was 10 AM in the morning and office goers were everywhere, on the pavements, in the buses and taxis. The roads seemed much more clogged than normal. “Jaldi chaliye, driver ji”…I kept asking the driver. As usual Jhinuk was in a hurry and the entire world seemed too busy. I tried to call Niladri, my son-in-law, but the call went unanswered. Perhaps he was in the Operation Theatre, assisting the Obstetrician, who, Jhinuk was seeing in her pregnancy. The taxi seemed to be moving at the pace of a snail.

“I have been looking for you everywhere, in the garden, up on the terrace, masi”, Dona my niece, quipped while tugging at my hands. “Come, see for yourself”, she urged me again. “I am sure that you must have done a fine job, Dona, I replied”, while trying to free my wrist from her grip. “I am yet to complete the arrangements for welcoming the groom, I am busy now, ‘babu’, now run along”, I chided her mildly. But Dona was insistent, “you are always busy, masi”. That sounded so much like Jhinuk. This was, what I had been all my life, busy.

Jhinuk was waiting in her room, with her friends, not demurely, as befitted a bride, but in her feisty, spirited self! She was talking excitedly with her friends and she slid down the settee as she saw me entering, and swirled around in her red Banarasi sari, her jasmine garland letting out a exhilarating scent, the intricate artistic designs on her forehead glistened in the arc-lights. “Am I looking, pretty, ma, Jhinuk asked”. You look distractingly beautiful, Jhinuk, I wanted to tell her, hug her and hold her, but a lump in my throat, and an unruly tear, made me just nod my head in appreciation and look away. She looked every bit, a Bengali bride. A ‘bride’ did I say? Did the years between, go by, that fast? “What was the hurry, Jhinuk?” I wanted to ask her. Just when I was consolidating my responsibilities, striving to lessen my work load and trying to give you more time at home, you found a new home for yourself.

“I would like you to meet, someone, ma” Jhinuk had softly mentioned to me, as both of us were getting ready to leave in the morning, she for her University classes and me for my office. Maybe, you did not want to break the news to me at leisure, so that it would not leave room for me to confront you with queries. That evening, I met Niladri, who was pursuing residency in gynaecology.  Here was somebody, who, after ages, was competing with me for your affections, Jhinuk. I spied on your diary later when you were away, shopping. I had to know your inner thoughts. A mother desperately trying to know her daughter through her diary posts. That was the distance that had grown between us slowly, but steadily. You had written, “Perhaps all beautiful relations grow slowly. Perhaps the most beautiful thing in life is to love and to be loved back in return.” The dried petals of the rose in your diary had been moistened with my tears.

Only the other, day, I was reading in the library, when I heard a sound, perhaps, your step on the floor and when I looked up, you were standing close to me. I remember the gleam of your sandals as you turned to make the dress, swirl around you.  You were going out with your college friends. It was the Ashtami of Durga Puja. I wished I had held you then and whispered in your ears, how each of my burdened days, after, your father’s demise, seemed lighter, when I saw your sleeping face when I came home from work. How, I felt alive, when you pattered up to me with your sleepy eyes in the morning and hugged me. How each of my steps weighed heavily when I reluctantly had to go to work despite your tears. But all these words seemed insufficient. I sat in silence, searching for a greater wisdom, and appropriate words till you grew impatient and said “But you do like my dress, Don’t you?” “Its nice”, I said. You were disappointed by the slightness of my comment. I remember the look of pain in your eyes and then you turned and said indignantly, “If baba were here, he would have surely said something better about my dress”.

Just a few more years back, you were going to your friend’s birthday party, and you had pleaded for a purple dress for the occasion to me in earnest. I remember your squeal of happiness at my acquiescent nod. I had foraged the market an entire hour during my lunch break, to find the perfect dress for you. When I was wrapping up my work for the day, I was asked to stay back a couple of hours. Tears were still dry on your cheeks, as you lay sleeping on your bed. A pale light from the moon, entered through the window panes, lighted up your face and bloodied my helpless soul. I wish I could turn back the clock and bring the wheels of time to a stop.

You were born at 4 in the morning. The nurse brought you in, and your baba and I took turns in holding you. You were beautiful. I was a vast sensation of loving my baby and wanting to see and hold you again and again. Even though I was very tired I did not want to sleep. I seemed to be surrounded by a glow and wonderful words seemed to be reverberating in my head. “Now you know why you are alive”, the words said. “You are alive so that you could receive this precious baby.” I kept praying. “Please make her good and let her grow up to be strong and understanding, so that she may feel, what I feel today, know what I know, and love a man as fine as my husband.” “Please God, hear my prayers.”

“Aapka nursing home, aa gaya hai, Maa ji”. The driver’s voice broke my trail of thoughts. Anxiously, I stepped out of the elevator. The corridor was empty and the lights were off outside the Operation Theatre, signifying that the surgical procedure was over. My legs started trembling at ominous thoughts. My fear was growing from inside out. I caught hold of the nearest chair and sat down in a stupor with my severely flawed motherhood. Perhaps it really was too late to vent my emotions to Jhinuk, to spell out to her, how much I really loved her and to let her know that living life in a linear progression had stripped me of my ability to express myself.

Niladri was beside me with an arm around my shoulder. “Let us go and meet both the girls, ma”. It took a while for his words to sink in. “Just close your eyes, unlock your dreams and then, look again”, he urged me, gently. Whatever had happened in this brief time in the outside world, did not seem to touch me anymore, as I followed Niladri with faltering steps.

Unabashed tears flowed over my granddaughter’s blanket, as I held her close to my heart, just the way, I had held Jhinuk, when she was given to me for the very first time. The aggregate of all my joys and sufferings seemed to culminate in that one bundle that I was holding. “I love you Jhinuk”. “I love you too, ma, and I am sorry” she replied as she hugged me. “You needn’t have said that, but somehow I am glad that you did.” I retorted mischievously. “And I do want to say that you look pretty, Jhinuk.”

Life is a search for balance and it perches itself delicately on the arms of time. And thus goes the world around, time in its season, grace in its moments of true knowing. The children become the mothers and the fathers and love begins again- at the beginning. I had led an extraordinary life in the cause of the ordinary and the wheels of the clock had stopped for me at a juncture, where I could start afresh.

Penned by: Jayeeta Sen Roy