In my office, a client-
"My name is Bhagyashri. It means the fortunate one. Ha. Ha. I am my parent's first born. My father used to say that soon after my birth he inherited his father's business. He believed it was my "paigun" -meaning literally the good luck of my feet- that brought him this fortune and so my name. That the inheritance involved his father's death never figured in the relating of this story. After me came two sons. So that cemented my parents' belief that I was indeed Bhagyashri. Anyway.
I was really pampered. Anything that I asked for and many things that I didn't, I got. Every Bhai-Duj and Raksha-Bandhan- when actually brothers are worshipped by their sisters, I was the one who was really worshipped. All I had to do was tie a silver thread around their wrists and smear red vermilion on their foreheads. In return, I got fabulous gifts. Gold, silver jewellery, clothes, the latest in bags, shoes and cash. By the time I was 15 I was richer than most people in any village in India.
I went to the best convent school in the city. I wasn't very clever but no one minded. Least of all the teachers. Every festival my father sent brilliantly wrapped gifts to the school. I was loved even if it was, in hindsight, only 'dabba' love as they say i.e. the gifts were loved.
I traveled to school and classes in a chauffeur driven car. The driver never wandered off. He waited until school and classes were done and took me straight home. I went shopping with my mother. If I wanted to go with friends, I could. But Mother accompanied us. Even if one of the other mothers was also chaperoning my Mother insisted on coming too. But when I was 16 I still managed to fall in love. With whom? Ha. Ha.
I could have fallen in love with one of the boys from the boys' school opposite my school. Everyone in my Xth Class seemed to have a boyfriend there. I could have fallen in love with my brothers' tutors. They came daily to the house. I could have fallen in love with my father's friends, old as they were. I fell in love with the chauffeur. It was inevitable I suppose. You come to love those whom you spend most time with. The old chauffeur had retired and his nephew took his place. He was good-looking, I thought, and he waited so faithfully for me, never seeming to mind if I was late or if I yelled at him or ordered him to fetch this and that. It never struck me that he was being paid to do that. I thought he did it all for me. I fell in love with his slavish obedience. I had not been taught that I couldn't have what I wanted. Or couldn't ask for what I wanted. So I told him I loved him. In the beginning he wouldn't say "I love you" back, but in time he did. We didn't have to meet secretly or lie to anyone about meeting each other. It was easy as easy. We were sent away together.
And then my brothers found out. They saw us eating pani-puri on Main Street when I should have been in school. There was no drama. No one scolded me. They just stopped me going out of the house. No school, no shopping, no temple visits, nothing. Ramesh-my lover- disappeared. But I had his number. I called and he came in the night to stand behind the wall near my bedroom window and I climbed out of my ground floor bathroom window after everyone was asleep and climbed over the wall to meet him. Just like in the movies, with the moon shining down on us. If there was no moon then it was even more exciting, clinging in the dark, pretending to be scared. It was wonderful!
And then my brothers found out. Within a week my marriage was fixed. I was to be married within the month. Yes I was 16 but if you are old enough to meet a boy at night, you are old enough to marry. They said. I screamed, wept, refused to eat. But nothing worked. The days sped by. I called Ramesh. I planned and plotted. " It's no use," Ramesh sighed. "We must go our separate ways. Be happy in your new home." But I wouldn't accept that. In my life, I had never ever not got what I wanted. I wanted Ramesh. I would have him. " I will not marry anyone but you. I will kill myself. I will run away, " I vowed. Ramesh cried.
The day of my marriage arrived. The women from the family had been at the house for days cooking, sewing, decorating, cooking, preparing. They put mehendi on my hands and arms and feet; they rubbed turmeric and cream into my skin; they put ropes and ropes of jasmine flowers in my hair.I had jewels in my hair, in my ears, around my neck covering my chest, around my waist and arms and wrists and upper arms and fingers and ankles and toes. They put a long red ghagra skirt on me and a red and gold blouse. A red and gold veil was thrown over my head. I was ready. Now all they had to do was wait for the baraat-the groom's family to arrive. In the distance we could hear the sound of the "band", the drums and trumpets that accompanied the groom as he rode on a horse to my home. The women ran out of my room to the entrance to get a look at the baraat. This was the moment I had been waiting for.
I ran to my cupboard, picked up the bag of my gold and silver jewellery, every piece that I had been given over the years, went over to my bathroom window and jumped. There was no one in the back of the house. Everyone had run to the front door. Then I climbed over the wall and jumped down into the back lane. Just like in the movies. I tied my veil around my face, picked up my red and gold skirt and ran through the streets. It was late evening, but there were plenty of people who stood and stared as I sprinted past. No one stopped me. I stopped an auto rickshaw. They never seem to stop when you want them but this one stopped at once. I got in and went to Ramesh's house. Of course I knew where it was. I had looked at my "future" home so many times, from a distance. It was in the dirtier part of the city.Also the more crowded part.
I stood outside the door and called out to Ramesh. He came at once. Saw me and gaped. " What are you doing here? How did you come? Oh my god, your father will kill me. You must go. Go. Go back. " I was stunned. I thought he would have been proud of me. Happy.
"Go back? Are you mad? I will not marry anyone else but you. You are my husband. If you don't accept me, I will go away and kill myself."
Ramesh took me first to a friend's house. Then he put me up in a rented room.
"We will marry soon," he promised. " Just let's wait until your father and uncles stop looking for us." But my family never did come looking. I learned later that my father had a heart attack when the women came screaming that I was missing. It was the worst disgrace. To have a daughter run away from the wedding "mandap". No one came looking. But Ramesh said we had to wait.
I waited. Then he said, we couldn't marry until I was 18. But even though I couldn't legally marry, that didn't stop me having a child. I had a baby girl within a year. I lived in that room with my daughter. Ramesh gave us what money he could spare. He was working as an auto rickshaw driver and he said he didn't earn much. He visited us regularly. But after a couple of years, his visits became fewer. I kept begging him to marry me. I was already past 18. He complained that he didn't have the money to marry. To prove that, he began giving me less and less so that I had to go out and find work to feed myself and my child. I worked in a creche as an assistant. That way I could keep my baby with me.
Ramesh and I began having terrible fights. All I wanted was to marry him. "I don't care if we have no money." So from pleading that he had no money finally, one day he confessed he was already married. He had married a year before.
"My family insisted and I couldn't say no." He wept. "But I will always look after you."
His visits became fewer and fewer until sometimes he didn't visit for weeks at a time. I grew resigned to living alone with my daughter. I had begun giving tuitions. My convent education, even though I had not finished my Xth really helped. I was earning enough to pay the rent and feed myself and Priya, my baby. When Priya turned 4 I pleaded with Ramesh to visit at least, on her birthday. He came. The next month I learned I was pregnant again. When Ramesh heard of it, he stopped visiting completely.
How I got through the pregnancy and delivery I don't know. I would have died and Priya with me if the creche madam and my tuition students' mothers hadn't helped me. I gave birth to a son. My boy is as healthy and beautiful as Priya. Both my children so beautiful, that when I step out with them, people stop to stare. My mother saw us one day. She stopped but she didn't stare. She cried and cried and took me home. My father cried even more than her.
My parents didn't let me live with them. "What will the "samaj" -community, say? Your brothers are to be married. Who will marry them?" I understood. Really, I was grateful that they had even spoken to me. I didn't tell them I wasn't married. They thought Ramesh was looking after me. I couldn't bear to tell them the truth. They gave me money, they bought clothes for the children. I was grateful.
Then last week Ramesh visited. He took one look at my baby boy, Jeevan, all of six months old, gurgling on a mat on the floor and said, "My son."
I will always be ashamed that I actually felt pride when he said that. Proud that I had given him a son. He had never said, " my daughter" to Priya let alone said it in the tone of voice that he now said "This is my son."
I should have known then what it meant. Ramesh's wife had given him only daughters. Jeevan was Ramesh's only son.
"I am taking him," he said.
"What?" I gasped.
" Yes. You cannot look after him. He can't stay here in this room. I will look after him. Don't worry I will bring him to visit you and I will pay you money each month to look after Priya."
"You are not taking my son away from me. He isn't yours. He's mine. He's nothing to do with you. I gave birth to him. He's mine and no one else's." I sprang up clutching Jeevan to my breast.
"I will be back and I will take him away. If you stop me I will go to the police. I am his father and I have every right to take him."
Bhagyashri sat in my office looking at me desperately.
"So that's why I am here Madam. Tell me please. Does Ramesh have the right to take my children away? I don't want anything from him. I have told my parents everything. They're going to support me. But I want to know, my parents want to know, can he take my children away from me?"
I said wryly, "You're lucky Bhagyashri, that your children are illegitimate. Had you married Ramesh, he would have had the right to them as a Hindu father. But as bastards, they're all yours. He can't take them away."
"My name is Bhagyashri. It means the fortunate one. Ha. Ha. I am my parent's first born. My father used to say that soon after my birth he inherited his father's business. He believed it was my "paigun" -meaning literally the good luck of my feet- that brought him this fortune and so my name. That the inheritance involved his father's death never figured in the relating of this story. After me came two sons. So that cemented my parents' belief that I was indeed Bhagyashri. Anyway.
I was really pampered. Anything that I asked for and many things that I didn't, I got. Every Bhai-Duj and Raksha-Bandhan- when actually brothers are worshipped by their sisters, I was the one who was really worshipped. All I had to do was tie a silver thread around their wrists and smear red vermilion on their foreheads. In return, I got fabulous gifts. Gold, silver jewellery, clothes, the latest in bags, shoes and cash. By the time I was 15 I was richer than most people in any village in India.
I went to the best convent school in the city. I wasn't very clever but no one minded. Least of all the teachers. Every festival my father sent brilliantly wrapped gifts to the school. I was loved even if it was, in hindsight, only 'dabba' love as they say i.e. the gifts were loved.
I traveled to school and classes in a chauffeur driven car. The driver never wandered off. He waited until school and classes were done and took me straight home. I went shopping with my mother. If I wanted to go with friends, I could. But Mother accompanied us. Even if one of the other mothers was also chaperoning my Mother insisted on coming too. But when I was 16 I still managed to fall in love. With whom? Ha. Ha.
I could have fallen in love with one of the boys from the boys' school opposite my school. Everyone in my Xth Class seemed to have a boyfriend there. I could have fallen in love with my brothers' tutors. They came daily to the house. I could have fallen in love with my father's friends, old as they were. I fell in love with the chauffeur. It was inevitable I suppose. You come to love those whom you spend most time with. The old chauffeur had retired and his nephew took his place. He was good-looking, I thought, and he waited so faithfully for me, never seeming to mind if I was late or if I yelled at him or ordered him to fetch this and that. It never struck me that he was being paid to do that. I thought he did it all for me. I fell in love with his slavish obedience. I had not been taught that I couldn't have what I wanted. Or couldn't ask for what I wanted. So I told him I loved him. In the beginning he wouldn't say "I love you" back, but in time he did. We didn't have to meet secretly or lie to anyone about meeting each other. It was easy as easy. We were sent away together.
And then my brothers found out. They saw us eating pani-puri on Main Street when I should have been in school. There was no drama. No one scolded me. They just stopped me going out of the house. No school, no shopping, no temple visits, nothing. Ramesh-my lover- disappeared. But I had his number. I called and he came in the night to stand behind the wall near my bedroom window and I climbed out of my ground floor bathroom window after everyone was asleep and climbed over the wall to meet him. Just like in the movies, with the moon shining down on us. If there was no moon then it was even more exciting, clinging in the dark, pretending to be scared. It was wonderful!
And then my brothers found out. Within a week my marriage was fixed. I was to be married within the month. Yes I was 16 but if you are old enough to meet a boy at night, you are old enough to marry. They said. I screamed, wept, refused to eat. But nothing worked. The days sped by. I called Ramesh. I planned and plotted. " It's no use," Ramesh sighed. "We must go our separate ways. Be happy in your new home." But I wouldn't accept that. In my life, I had never ever not got what I wanted. I wanted Ramesh. I would have him. " I will not marry anyone but you. I will kill myself. I will run away, " I vowed. Ramesh cried.
The day of my marriage arrived. The women from the family had been at the house for days cooking, sewing, decorating, cooking, preparing. They put mehendi on my hands and arms and feet; they rubbed turmeric and cream into my skin; they put ropes and ropes of jasmine flowers in my hair.I had jewels in my hair, in my ears, around my neck covering my chest, around my waist and arms and wrists and upper arms and fingers and ankles and toes. They put a long red ghagra skirt on me and a red and gold blouse. A red and gold veil was thrown over my head. I was ready. Now all they had to do was wait for the baraat-the groom's family to arrive. In the distance we could hear the sound of the "band", the drums and trumpets that accompanied the groom as he rode on a horse to my home. The women ran out of my room to the entrance to get a look at the baraat. This was the moment I had been waiting for.
I ran to my cupboard, picked up the bag of my gold and silver jewellery, every piece that I had been given over the years, went over to my bathroom window and jumped. There was no one in the back of the house. Everyone had run to the front door. Then I climbed over the wall and jumped down into the back lane. Just like in the movies. I tied my veil around my face, picked up my red and gold skirt and ran through the streets. It was late evening, but there were plenty of people who stood and stared as I sprinted past. No one stopped me. I stopped an auto rickshaw. They never seem to stop when you want them but this one stopped at once. I got in and went to Ramesh's house. Of course I knew where it was. I had looked at my "future" home so many times, from a distance. It was in the dirtier part of the city.Also the more crowded part.
I stood outside the door and called out to Ramesh. He came at once. Saw me and gaped. " What are you doing here? How did you come? Oh my god, your father will kill me. You must go. Go. Go back. " I was stunned. I thought he would have been proud of me. Happy.
"Go back? Are you mad? I will not marry anyone else but you. You are my husband. If you don't accept me, I will go away and kill myself."
Ramesh took me first to a friend's house. Then he put me up in a rented room.
"We will marry soon," he promised. " Just let's wait until your father and uncles stop looking for us." But my family never did come looking. I learned later that my father had a heart attack when the women came screaming that I was missing. It was the worst disgrace. To have a daughter run away from the wedding "mandap". No one came looking. But Ramesh said we had to wait.
I waited. Then he said, we couldn't marry until I was 18. But even though I couldn't legally marry, that didn't stop me having a child. I had a baby girl within a year. I lived in that room with my daughter. Ramesh gave us what money he could spare. He was working as an auto rickshaw driver and he said he didn't earn much. He visited us regularly. But after a couple of years, his visits became fewer. I kept begging him to marry me. I was already past 18. He complained that he didn't have the money to marry. To prove that, he began giving me less and less so that I had to go out and find work to feed myself and my child. I worked in a creche as an assistant. That way I could keep my baby with me.
Ramesh and I began having terrible fights. All I wanted was to marry him. "I don't care if we have no money." So from pleading that he had no money finally, one day he confessed he was already married. He had married a year before.
"My family insisted and I couldn't say no." He wept. "But I will always look after you."
His visits became fewer and fewer until sometimes he didn't visit for weeks at a time. I grew resigned to living alone with my daughter. I had begun giving tuitions. My convent education, even though I had not finished my Xth really helped. I was earning enough to pay the rent and feed myself and Priya, my baby. When Priya turned 4 I pleaded with Ramesh to visit at least, on her birthday. He came. The next month I learned I was pregnant again. When Ramesh heard of it, he stopped visiting completely.
How I got through the pregnancy and delivery I don't know. I would have died and Priya with me if the creche madam and my tuition students' mothers hadn't helped me. I gave birth to a son. My boy is as healthy and beautiful as Priya. Both my children so beautiful, that when I step out with them, people stop to stare. My mother saw us one day. She stopped but she didn't stare. She cried and cried and took me home. My father cried even more than her.
My parents didn't let me live with them. "What will the "samaj" -community, say? Your brothers are to be married. Who will marry them?" I understood. Really, I was grateful that they had even spoken to me. I didn't tell them I wasn't married. They thought Ramesh was looking after me. I couldn't bear to tell them the truth. They gave me money, they bought clothes for the children. I was grateful.
Then last week Ramesh visited. He took one look at my baby boy, Jeevan, all of six months old, gurgling on a mat on the floor and said, "My son."
I will always be ashamed that I actually felt pride when he said that. Proud that I had given him a son. He had never said, " my daughter" to Priya let alone said it in the tone of voice that he now said "This is my son."
I should have known then what it meant. Ramesh's wife had given him only daughters. Jeevan was Ramesh's only son.
"I am taking him," he said.
"What?" I gasped.
" Yes. You cannot look after him. He can't stay here in this room. I will look after him. Don't worry I will bring him to visit you and I will pay you money each month to look after Priya."
"You are not taking my son away from me. He isn't yours. He's mine. He's nothing to do with you. I gave birth to him. He's mine and no one else's." I sprang up clutching Jeevan to my breast.
"I will be back and I will take him away. If you stop me I will go to the police. I am his father and I have every right to take him."
Bhagyashri sat in my office looking at me desperately.
"So that's why I am here Madam. Tell me please. Does Ramesh have the right to take my children away? I don't want anything from him. I have told my parents everything. They're going to support me. But I want to know, my parents want to know, can he take my children away from me?"
I said wryly, "You're lucky Bhagyashri, that your children are illegitimate. Had you married Ramesh, he would have had the right to them as a Hindu father. But as bastards, they're all yours. He can't take them away."
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