Homeward bound.

Have you ever wondered why the good things in life often follow the bad or the not so pleasant? Is this God’s way of making up with us or telling us that there is a price we pay for each good thing that comes our way? Or is this a way to restrain our unbridled enthusiasm and happiness that otherwise could lead us to our very own destruction?  I didn’t have answers to these questions – and didn’t really hope to find them either – as I reclined in the backseat of our blue Mini Cooper and stared up at the street lights rushing past as Soumya drove back from Blackpool. Our holiday had been cut short by the news that my father was no more.

Tim and Tot had slowly drifted into a troubled heap near my feet after spending the past two hours wiping away the tears from my face.

Deep in my heart I was happy that I was not there to see him go. I wanted to remember him as he was when we last met – strong, silent and confident.  The unshakable pillar in our lives. Not the shadow of the man that I once knew and loved more than anyone or anything else in the world. The passing of time had taken its toll on his indomitable spirit. His flesh had turned weak and three strokes had rendered him speechless and immobile.  In a strange sort of way, his passing had brought a sense of calm to my harried nerves, and no doubt to everyone who truly loved him. The days, months and years of pining, of waiting and suffering had come to an end. He had now found the peace that he so longed for and which we all prayed for. The spirit had been returned to the source.

“Soumya”, I said softly as I continued to stare at the light bulbs flashing by, “can we go home?”

“We are Manju.”

“I know, but I don’t mean this home Soumya, I mean home!”

“India?”

“Yes. Even if it’s for a couple of days. I believe we owe this to our sons. How will they feel if they never really get to know their grandparents? Their country? Or their culture? Over the past three years both of our father’s have expired. Wouldn’t it be terrible for them if our mother’s too were to leave us behind?”

Soumya did not answer immediately. He continued to stare out on to the road ahead. Manjula, unknowingly and unwittingly, had touched upon a thought that had coursed through his mind as well. Wasn’t this – the tangled web of relationships that they had left behind in India – a legacy that they needed to hand down to their sons? It had been 13 long years since either Manjula or he had set foot in their respective homes. Much had changed. And the recent spate of bad news had made him terribly nostalgic and homesick. If this could happen to Manjula’s father, a man he silently admired for his strength and courage, what could happen to his mother or Manjula’s mother or to themselves for that matter with the passing of time?

“Let’s think about it. Flying to India for a vacation – even for  a couple of weeks – will need a lot of planning and money.  It is also dependent on my getting leave from work.  But then, it definitely is worth considering. ”

I knew from his answer that the germ of the idea had found support somewhere in his mind. That is all I needed for the moment to keep my spirits intact.

As I found myself drifting between slumber and deep thought, I found my mind slowly moving on to thoughts of what had been and what we would possibly see if and when we went back now. My sisters had, from the sound of the letters they wrote and the photographs they sent, grown up to be beautiful, measured and intelligent. My brother, handsome and enterprising. Soumya’s siblings too and their children – to whom he was greatly attached – would have changed considerably since we met them last. His mother, my mother – and there I stopped. I couldn’t get myself to visualise her without her customary bold streak of vermilion in her hair and big warm smile that seemed to start around the corner of her eyes and light up her entire face. The rich filigree of her silk saree would now change to delicate thread work on a bland white cotton base.  As would be the case with his mother. The tears started rolling silently down my cheeks once again.  And soon I was asleep.

“Ranga-di, let go!”, I yelled out to my sister Arati, “this is a fight you can’t win!”

“Why should I? This dress is mine and no monkey can take it from me!”

Arati and I had climbed up to the terrace that hot, sultry afternoon during one of our longish visits to Madhupur to find a monkey had taken a fancy to one of Arati’s bright flower printed dresses that had been washed and put out to dry. Rushing toward the monkey, Arati had taken hold of the dress and was trying to wrestle with it to let go.

“Let go, you ape! This is mine!”

The moneky seemed to disagree and soon, before my eyes, a virtual tug-of-war match had ensued. After a couple of minutes and much shrieking on all sides, the monkey decided to put matters to rest. It reached out and slapped Arati right across her face. I watched aghast as it wrenched the dress from her hands and made off to the nearest tree. As the tears steamed down our faces – Arati’s in pain and mine in disbelief – we watched the monkey put on the dress and turn to us in a sure show of victory.

We rushed downstairs to tell our parents what had transpired.

“Ma, Ma..! look at what happened!” I said pointing toward my sister’s crimson red cheek. “A monkey just slapped Ranga-di“ 

Just as we were about to reach the bottom step, I tripped and fell. Arati, who was holding on to my hand, also fell – on top of me.  Through the puddle of blood that started streaming from my nose and the tears running down my cheeks, I noticed my mother and father rushing toward us leaving my son’s Tim and Tot playing on the bed.

“Manjula…Manjula…we’re home”, Soumya said as he gently shook me out of my slumber.

As we walked up the steps to our house with our children in our arms, we knew it was time to seriously consider where we wanted to be and what we wanted to do.

Life gives us many choices not many of which are easy to make. Should we choose to live life for ourselves or for our parents? For now or tomorrow? For our children or for their future? As usual, these were questions I didn’t have an answer to. Well, for the moment at least…

Rumblings of discontent.

The morning was gray. A dark, steely, dirty gray that did not augur well for the day ahead.

Jim had left for office a couple of hours ago and the boys were in school. But unlike other days, the darkness had not lifted as Manjula had gone about her chores both within and outside the house. If anything, it seemed to have intensified. Something, Manjula instinctively felt, was amiss. So when the phone rang, her heart skipped a beat and when she heard a sobbing voice at the other end, she wasn’t at all surprised.

“Manjula, this is Barrol, could you come over please? I need to talk to you.”

Over the past couple of years, Barrol McAlister, now Mrs Barrol Dey, had become a really good friend. Smitten by her fellow researcher at Oxford – Rathin Day – she had decided to give up her Scottish roots and become a good Indian bride. No doubt part of this was a result of the sunshine years her parent’s had spent in India while working with the British Government under the then East India Company.  Part by the fact that she herself had spent her childhood between the two capitals of British India – Kolkata and Shimla - and had fond memories of the same. And part by the fact that she was fascinated by the riot of colour, music, dancing, melodrama and the romance of Indian cinema. Every weekend she would gladly allow herself to be whisked away into a world of make-believe and would emerge from the Odeon – three and a half hours later – with a smile on her face. In between, she would have laughed, cried, danced, sang, loved, hated and died with many of the actors.

When Rathin walked into the University one day, he seemed like everything she could have ever asked for. He was tall, dark and handsome in a Mills & Boon sort of way. He was also sharp-witted and academically brilliant. Besides the fact that he was Indian, what held him in good stead with Barrol was that he was from Bengal – that part of East India which was famous for its poets, artistes, musicians, social reformers and the intelligentsia of the times. And unlike many of the young men she had met who seemed to be interested only in a handful of things, Rathin could talk for hours about a whole host of subjects. Soon she was immersed in the philosophy of Kant, the non violence of Gandhi, the poetry of Rabindranath, the cinema of Ray, and the sound of the Bhatiali floating across the Ganges at the break of dawn, which Rathin sang to her. Love soon blossomed.

Five years had passed since then. In the interim, Barrol had learnt to speak the Bengali language, had learnt how to wear a sari – in which she looked ravishing – and had learnt to rustle up a reasonably good chicken curry. “Don’t forget one of the surest ways to cement your place in your man’s heart is to offer him food that he really yearns for”, her friends had collectively advised her.

Rathin too had responded warmly to these developments and their brisk courtship soon turned to marriage – first at the Marriage Registrar’s office in the UK and then amid much pomp and splendour back home in Kolkata, where the young lovers had travelled. Rathin had suddenly become the true ‘Sahib’ with a beautiful ‘Memsahib’ to boot. Life was good!

Not wanting to question Barrol on the phone, Manjula quickly picked up her hand bag and walked out of the house.

Half an hour later she knocked on Barrol’s door at Merrydale Garden to find two of their friends already seated there. They looked cross. Very cross. And it was clear that Barrol had been crying. Her tear-stained make up had left gray stains on her otherwise alabaster skin.

“What happened? I asked Barrol and everyone else in unison, “Is everything okay?”

“Hardly”, said Irene, “Rathin’s having an affair…”

“Hold on, Irene”, said Pratima from the other end of the room, “let Barrol tell Manjula”.

“Barrol?”

She slowly looked up, “Rathin has been acting strangely of late. While he has always been busy,  he has recently started staying away over the weekends on the pretext of completing his dissertation at Oxford.”

“So what’s wrong with that?” I asked trying to understand things a little better, “Isn’t he in his final year?”

“He seems to come back happier than usual and has also started bringing home lavish gifts on his way back from the University – something he would rarely do in the past.”

“Is that all? Aren’t you reading too much into this?” I asked. “Isn’t it possible that it is as simple as it looks. That Rathin is indeed happy to be getting along well with his dissertation and happier to be back home? Besides, Rathin doesn’t seem to be the type who would willfully step out of line.”

“I know, that is one of the reasons I married him, Manjula…. Rathin’s earnestness, integrity and honesty. But then how does one explain the fact that he is never ready to take me with him on one of these trips, and the one time that I did land up unannounced, he seemed terribly miffed?”

“And did you find anything?”

“No. I found him pouring over his books in the library.”

“And..?”

“And nothing, really. Apart from the fact that he has spent a fair bit of time with one of his colleagues who has been going through a tough separation. He talks about her all the time!”

“Barrol, that’s lame! Of course, he would be talking about her all the time…and now I see the point behind the expensive gifts and the cheerfulness as well. Don’t you see how lucky he believes he is?”

Pratima and Irene, silent spectators through this entire dialogue, seemed embarrassed that they had so quickly jumped to conclusions and perhaps fanned the fire of jealousy and suspicion.

“Besides”, Irene piped finally, “Indian men – particularly Bengali men – would never do such a thing. They worship their wives like their mothers!”

“While I don’t know much about that, I do know that if you continue in this vein and fill your mind with doubt and suspicion, there is really no turning back for the two of you. You might as well write him off right away, since you would have sooner than later pushed him into an affair that he doesn’t necessarily want to be a part of”, I added.

The next hour and a half was spent allaying the fears of Barrol and strangely enough, the fears of Irene and Pratima, who had almost willed themselves into believing that things were really bad between the young couple. Finally, they were convinced, and the delicate equilibrium of married life had been once more restored. But not for long.

A year down the line, Barroll found Rathin one afternoon cosying up to one of his colleagues outside Christ Church College when he least expected her. Despite the best assurances that Indian men – nay, Bengali men – did not behave in that way, the fact is, Rathin had. While it may be suggested that the cumulative pressures of work, academia, married life and an ulta possessive wife took its toll on their relationship, the fact is that the two of them had looked upon their relationship very differently from the start: Barrol had seen their marriage as a means to grow a lifelong partnership with the man she loved, based  on the fundamental principles of trust, respect, loyalty and love. Rathin, on the other hand, had seen this as a passport to boundless opportunity – the brown Sahib, who was ready to showcase his manhood and cultivate the field of love, even as the rumblings of discontent became louder and louder at home.

Their marriage was a thing of the past.

Limelight.

“Why is it so profoundly satisfying to lose one’s identity to one’s sons?”, I asked Soumya one sunny afternoon as we took a stroll down West Park. “I feel so good every time someone stops and praises Timmy or Tot and asks us if ‘we  are Timmy and Tot’s parents?’, don’t you find this strange or do you feel the same way?”

“Strange? Not at all Manjula, I feel much the same way. Life flows in a continuum. A new generation always out seats the former – much like what is modern and new today becomes staid and boring tomorrow! This is life’s way to ensure that we willingly and gracefully give way to the future.”

Our two boys had been growing up right in front of our eyes. And despite our best efforts to provide them with a ‘similar set of inputs’ in terms of food, emotional support at home, space, choice of school, books, toys, outings and pass-times, the two were growing up to be two very different individuals. Tim – formally known as Sushanto – was a charmer, an outgoing lady-killer who had bright eyes, a glib tongue, a mop of unruly hair and a dimple when he smiled. He was also showing strong signs of academic brilliance and his teachers at school were full of praise for his diligence and quick wit. Tim was also very clear that he would grow up to become an engineer like his father, which gave him the license to open up and destroy almost everything he could lay his hands on, since he wanted to know how it worked.

He was also very clear that he when he grew up he would own the big house down the road where he would stay alone with his wife and children. As for us, we could fend for ourselves!

Tot – Sumanto, that is – on the other hand was quieter and less outgoing.  Awestruck in part by his brother’s exhuberance, he found respite in music, in animals, in team games and yes, extra-curricular activities that allowed him to express himself in his own special way. There was no doubt that he was exceedingly bright – he was promoted twice out of turn since the school authorities were sure his IQ levels were far above his peers – but he was bright in a controlled sort of way. Naturally, when we were summoned one afternoon to an assembly at the Bingley Junior School, we hardly expected what we saw and heard. Little Tot actually led the School Choir! This, we later got to know from his teachers, had been the practice for the past year. “Why hasn’t he told you?”, she asked. All we could do was hemm and haw. We later got to know that he forgot to share that little detail with us, primarily because it came to him so naturally. It wasn’t something to needlessly talk about.

As the boys grew up, we found we had suddenly gained a new identity: “This is Sumanto and Sushanto’s parents..” or “Hello Tim and Tot’s mama!” or “Hi dear, guess who these are, Tim and Tot’s parents, aren’t they a spitting image of their sons?”

I always found the last one slightly confusing. We, the replica of our sons? Wasn’t it supposed to be the other way around? Well, we didn’t really mind, but it brought a smile to our lips every time we heard an excited parent on the street introduce us as such.

Suddenly we had a new engaged social life to take care of. One peppered with aunt’s and uncle’s. With nieces and nephews. With friends and acquaintances from school, from Sunday School, from the Choir, from the football team, from the neighbourhood…And what followed were a stream of birthday parties, christmas parties, presents, balloons, farewell dos and sleepovers. I seem to have become quite the full-time chaperone, whose sole purpose in life was to collect the boys from one place and drop them off at another – at times to two different places, before having to collect them all over again. But I didn’t complain. The tediousness of these chores disappeared everytime I saw a cheerful smile light up their faces when they saw me waiting for them.

Since Soumya was at work through much of this, our weekends were filled up with outings as he tried his best to make up for all the lost time. I remember a conversation we had had fairly early on in our marriage about this.

“Soumya”, I had asked, “do you realize that the way you work that you are going to miss out on so much of our son’s childhood? Tim’s first smile, his first words, his first steps, his first crush, his first football match, everything?”

“I know, but I don’t have a choice, do I?”, he brooded as a darkness suddenly crept over his face. “The pressures at Woden are only increasing. Close to a hundred people were laid off last week as a result of the industrial slump. With the way the economy is going, I am fairly sure that this won’t be the last time people are exited either. I need you to be my eyes and ears and tell me everything you see and find fascinating about them growing up. I need to continue to put my head down and see us through this storm”.

It was moments like these that made us yearn for home. The security of our country. The safety in numbers. The surety of our families. Of our erstwhile way of life.

One of the biggest debates we had with many of our friends was whether we ought to teach Bengali – our mother tongue – to our children as they grew up. “Bengali, their mother tongue?” Rathin had asked one afternoon as he stood with his back to the fireplace.” What, do you want them to be Indian? Face facts sweatheart, your children are British. Their mother tongue is English. Bengali is a thing of the past. Don’t let your hangover with the past become an albatross that you pass on to them!”

We thought otherwise.

Bengali, unlike many of our friends, was the language we spoke at home between ourselves since we were married. We didn’t intend to stop now.

But then help often comes in from the most unexpected quarters. In this case, from the good Dr Goodburn, my sons’ paediatrician.

“Now don’t get me wrong”, she had started one afternoon choosing her words carefully and watching our faces closely for the slightest indication that she was crossing the line of propriety, “your children are no doubt British and I, for one, are extremely glad that they are, otherwise, how would we have met? But let them not forget their roots, their language, who they really are. I still speak my native celtic dialect as well as I do the Queen’s English. It gives me a sense of identity, of belonging that I hold very dear. Teach them your language as well. English will come naturally to them. Your language won’t, since they will hardly hear it around them as they grow up.

“And don’t worry about them growing up confused”, she tried to reassure us, “a child can learn up to five languages simultaneously till the age of six. If you don’t do this now, it will be too late and you will never forgive yourselves”.

We made sure that we didn’t have reason to. And while, they did speak the language with errors in syntax, grammer and with the most violent cockney accent that you can imagine, the fact is that they grew up knowing that Bengali was very much a part of their being. Would this hold them in goodstead when they prepared to step into the limelight? Only time would tell. But for the moment we were happy.

Soumya and I beamed as the gathering stood up and applauded our young boys, who dressed in starched white dhotis and kurtas, had just finished singing their first-ever Bengali song. The evergreen ‘Dhitang Dhitang Bole’ had once again proved to be a hit. They had instantly gained many fans. And we even more recognition as their parents.