LETTER FROM DARJEELING

LETTER FROM DARJEELING was first published in the October, 2015 issue of Spark, a leading Indian literary magazine. Here’s the link http://www.sparkthemagazine.com/letter-from-darjeeling/

“Aaaargh!” Amritha tugged as hard as she could but the stupid chair still wouldn’t budge. Why, oh why, had they bought this idiotic, collapsible, folding one when the market was flooded with perfectly good, normal high chairs that didn’t have half a dozen adjustable positions? “All you need is a bit of dexterity,” the sales man had said but then he obviously hadn’t tried to hold a yelling baby in one hand and open the ridiculous chair with the other. But then, before this, neither had she. At that time, she’d been a euphoric expecting mother and hadn’t known that being a mother wouldn’t be a bed of roses.

“Waa! Waa! Waa!” Puce in the face, fists clenched and tears streaming down her cheeks, the baby in her arms made it very clear that there would be no time for luxuries like reminiscing. “Oh to hell with it,” muttered the exhausted Amritha and pushed the stubborn chair away. She carried her daughter back into the bedroom and put her down on the still unmade bed. Picking up the bowl of Cerelac, she started feeding her. Her daughter who was obviously ravenous, lapped up spoonful after spoonful as Amritha sighed in exhausted relief.

Why had they bought that stupid chair? And that crib and the changing table and wipe warmer and bassinet and baby timer and……oh the list was endless! She hadn’t even used most of it. But she’d been so excited back then and had paid no heed when well-meaning friends and family members had offered advice. She’d had absolutely no idea what it would be like. No idea at all!

Two hours later, she awoke from what seemed like the most blissful sleep. The choice had been between a bath and a nap and after staying up most of last night, the latter had been her obvious choice. Her daughter was still sleeping peacefully beside her, her chest rising and falling rhythmically. She looked like such an angel when she was asleep. No one would believe how she reduced her mother to near hysteria almost every day. Amritha smiled wryly as she mused about it. Of course she adored her and all that but she had to admit that motherhood hadn’t been the breeze she’d thought it would be. Suffice it to say that being a mother had made her realize that sometimes so much as taking a proper shower and washing her hair would fall in the category of luxuries. Then of course she missed her job terribly. For someone as ambitious as she’d been, giving up working had been a huge sacrifice. She’d visited her office once when Amiya had been a couple of months old and it was puzzling but the place where she’d spent the better part of the last five years suddenly seemed strange and unfamiliar. Everyone had come over to congratulate her and some of the other women had even mentioned that Amiya was indeed a gorgeous child and Amritha a very lucky mom. Amritha had smiled at everyone but obviously hadn’t admitted to anyone that at that moment she would have willingly traded places with any of them. It sounded awful and selfish even to her. But they all looked so ……well, just so normal! Except her. She was the one who couldn’t leave the house when she wanted, couldn’t wear the clothes of her choice any more, couldn’t even have a normal conversation with anyone. And how she missed her work! Her fingers itched to fly across the keys of her laptop, even the long hours and crazy work pressure she’d always grumbled about suddenly seemed so appealing.

Then her trusted maid quitting to get married, Arnab traveling as much as he did now and her parents being abroad basically meant that there was literally no help at all. No one to watch her daughter if Amritha needed to go to the bathroom, no one she could leave her with if she wanted to step out of the house for a spot of grocery shopping or a cup of coffee with a friend, no one to hold her up and tell her that she really wasn’t the worst mother in the world if sometimes she couldn’t understand what Amiya wanted. No one at all she could turn to. She had never felt as alienated as she did now.

The doorbell snapped her out of her thoughts. “Oh shit!” she muttered, hoping Amiya wouldn’t wake up, as she hurried to open the door. Who could it be in the middle of the afternoon? She would give them a piece of her mind for ringing her doorbell at such an inconvenient time!

It was the India Post boy with a letter. “Sign here please.” She scrawled her signature on the thumbed register and thanked him as she took the letter and shut the door. No prizes for guessing where it had come from. The familiar Darjeeling address was written at the back in the even-more-familiar elegant handwriting. Her mother-in-law didn’t believe in calling unless there was a dire emergency, and she didn’t quite think of email as a revolutionary option for communication. “Our generation communicated this way and it worked very well, thank you very much,” she would mutter every time Arnab tried to explain that everyone was emailing now. “All my friends’ parents are on FB,” Amritha had grumbled once “Writing letters is so old fashioned.” “I’m happy this way,” her mother-in-law had retorted “I don’t like this Facebook and WhatsApp and all that. Writing a letter to a loved one gives me joy and happiness. Nothing can replace that.”

As Amritha tore open the envelope, she couldn’t help the familiar stab of resentment she felt every time anything came from her mother-in-law: they had never really got along. The relationship had been doomed from the first day. Amritha still remembered the first time she had visited their house for dinner. The main course had been a delicious Doi Maach and Arnab’s mother had looked extremely disappointed when Amritha had timidly mentioned that she came from a Tamil Brahmin family and was a strict vegetarian. To his mom, not eating fish was sacrilege.

The relationship between them had remained strained ever since. Nothing softened the blow as far as Arnab’s mom was concerned. Nothing impressed her. Not Amritha’s amiable and agreeable disposition, nor her wit and the success she enjoyed at her workplace and not even the delectably soft and delicious dosas she so efficiently churned out the first time Arnab’s entire extended family visited the newly- weds. After all, she didn’t eat fish! And she hadn’t managed to learn how to drape a sari the traditional Bengali way.

While the initial hostility had cooled a little – Arnab’s mom no longer introduced her to people as “Meet my vegetarian daughter-in-law!” – five years on, they still weren’t best friends. Yes, her mother-in-law had sent her all those goodies when she’d been pregnant with Amiya including a huge bottle of Maavadu Urugai (that couldn’t have been easy to get in Darjeeling!). She had also visited Amritha immediately after Amiya’s birth, but hadn’t offered to stay even through Amritha’s own parents couldn’t be around because her dad was unwell. Amritha of course, like any new, inexperienced, exhausted mother, had been desperate for help. At that time an offer to stay and help with the baby would have been much preferred to the gold earrings and pendant that her in-laws had brought for Amiya. But she had been too proud to ask and her mother-in-law hadn’t offered.

She sighed as she pulled out the letter from the envelope and started skimming it. She was astonished to see that this time the letter was addressed to her. It was unfailingly always addressed to Arnab so this came as something of a shock to her.

“My Dear Amritha, I haven’t heard from you in a while but I can understand how frenetic life must be for you these days. Being a mother is as joyful as it is confusing. You’re probably not getting more than 3 hours of sleep at night. I hope you are taking care of your health and eating well. Try not to worry too much about your weight, you need all the rest and nutrition you can get. I’m coming over to stay for a few months so I can help you and spend some time with my granddaughter.’ Her eyes as round as dinner plates and her head almost reeling with shock and lack of sleep, she tried to steady herself as she sank into the sofa. ‘I will take the Tuesday morning flight from Bagdogra. I haven’t booked my return yet since I will do that after Amiya is old enough for day care. I want you to go back to work since I know how much you miss working. Please do not go through any trouble trying to arrange anything for me, you have enough on your plate. Let me know if I can get you anything from Darjeeling. Love to Arnab and little Amiya.”

Amritha smiled to herself as she folded up the letter and slipped it carefully into the envelope. She knew her husband had a not-so-insignificant role to play in this, but she was nevertheless touched by the gesture, a gesture from one mother who understood what it was like to be a new mother. And not surprisingly, she no longer felt lonely and alienated.