Abandon Read online

  This predatory novel, like an owl in search of blood, knows the reason for my disenchantment. Like a wise psychoanalyst it knows that my life began on a stormy, rainy night in the veranda of a delivery room. To this day I have no idea who made me and then abandoned me there. Perhaps rage at this rejection rose within me at times, during moments of humiliation, when I would hit myself, drawing blood. My insistence was not on suicide but on self-flagellation. But that was a different I. Time did not spare me, though it certainly changed me.

  When I was two, a childless couple chose me from a thousand others. Sakshi and Hitabrata did not have a child even after several years of marriage. I came away in their arms from the orphanage in Ranchi to Calcutta nearly twenty-five years ago. It was Hitabrata who named me Ishwari. I grew up amidst love, care and affluence. I did not even know I was not their biological offspring. I became the apple of everyone’s eye – Hitabrata’s brother’s and sister’s and Sakshi’s mother’s. I was afflicted, and used, by all sorts of relationships – with uncles and aunts, parents and grandparents. Each of these relationships imprisoned me with its own needs. This tussle for possession over me continued for exactly fourteen years. Then Sakshi gave birth to her own child. And they threw me away.

  After fourteen years they disowned me like garbage. I felt the wild hoofbeats of humiliation on my sixteen-year-old body and mind. I did not grasp the implications of this change. On her return from the nursing home with her baby in her arms, Sakshi’s first act was to evict me from the large, well-appointed room next to hers in which I had lived until then. I was made to move to the ground floor. Their faces radiated unshakeable hatred. Sakshi’s mother wrinkled her face when I went near her. After kissing my face lovingly all these years, she had only now realised that I had sin coursing through my veins. She realised my beauty could never have come from Hindu lineage.

  I was not allowed to touch anything in the house. And the strictest surveillance was employed to keep me at a distance from the newborn baby. This was the child – Chitran – who I had come to adore at first sight.

  Sixteen-year-old Ishwari experienced an extreme reaction to her love being scorned, to being assaulted mercilessly. Whenever she wanted to express her love for Chitran, the tiny compartments of her heart filled with vengefulness. She did not realise that suppressing love is the strongest form of self-flagellation in the world.

  There was no shortcoming to the family’s hatred. They wouldn’t tolerate me another moment. There was a single demand: ‘Go away, go away, go away!’

  But where could Ishwari go? She had so many requirements – shelter, college fees, bus fare, books. For fourteen years I’d been trapped in a sticky and deceitful web of love and affection. I was not prepared for the indifference of existence. I was not equipped to face the brutality of the world. In my stupor, I was assaulted again and again. My life began to mock me. I consumed leftovers like a flea-ridden dog. I constantly felt impure, sullied by love, and my sixteen-year-old mind persuaded me that the only reason for my misery was that child, Chitran.

  When the child was about a year old, I was driven mad with loathing for him. When he fell ill I couldn’t sleep for joy. I prayed for his death. I used to dream that Chitran was dead and a crazed Sakshi would beg me for forgiveness. It was like the moral of a cautionary tale. But my heart was raw vengeance now, stripped of love and affection. My dreams knocked a howling Sakshi to the floor, stamped on her with their heels.

  I grew into a quiet girl, burying my nose in the theory of velocity, immersing myself in the most difficult calculus theorems to persecute myself. I would solve geometry riders all day. Riders, riders and more riders so that my heart could grow as heavy as lead.

  And in the lab I searched for poison – I was determined to create a toxin from a compound of nitrogen and a carbonate with nitrogen sulphide. Evading everyone’s watchful eyes, I’d go up to Chitran, who would look at me with wide eyes and say, ‘Eh?’ Then he would suck on my finger. I would run away.

  Gradually every child became Chitran for me: a tyrannical, obscene lump of flesh, dogged by misfortune. Long after emerging from Sakshi and Hitabrata’s shadow, when I no longer even recollected their faces, nor Chitran’s, I remained callous and devoid of feelings for children. Still, the image of Iswari’s sobbing face in the mirror appears vividly in my mind. Ishwari sobs before the mirror because there is no one else to witness her tears.

  —

  Taking her towel, soap and clothes out of her bag, Ishwari climbed down the spiral staircase to the terrace. Gourohori Basak had unlocked the bathroom on the roof for her, surprised not only that he still had the key, but also that he had remembered where he’d kept it. As she brushed her teeth, Ishwari observed that besides cobwebs, the rubbish in the bathroom comprised a heap of liquor bottles. She used a stick she found on the roof to dust the cobwebs off. She didn’t have to, but Roo might have been frightened by the thick, silvery threads. This reminded her that she had not locked the door to the room when leaving it. What if Roo woke up and, not seeing her anywhere, tried to climb down the winding iron staircase?

  Ishwari rushed out of the bathroom. And saw her son standing halfway down the spiral staircase – just one step below him, Gourohori himself, a glass of milk in one hand, the other clutching Roo’s shoulder. Gourohori’s shawl had slipped off his body.

  A chill ran down Ishwari’s spine. ‘Roo!’ she exclaimed, her voice trembling.

  ‘Quick, I can’t keep my balance,’ said Gourohori cautiously.

  She ran up to gather Roo in her arms, toothpaste still foaming in her mouth. She was still shaking when she entered the room, panting. Despite his injured foot, Gourohori manoeuvred his way up to the room too. ‘There could have been a terrible accident,’ he said. ‘Why did you go out without locking the door?’

  She remained sitting, stricken, her son in her lap. ‘If he had slipped he’d probably have fallen all the way.’

  ‘Never mind, nothing like that happened,’ Gourohori cut in. ‘If you hadn’t been there…’ The old man seemed angry with himself. ‘You know, I could see him coming down the stairs groggily, and I couldn’t even run with this injured foot.’

  ‘You’ve done a great deal for us since last night, Gourohori Babu,’ she said. ‘I owe you a great deal.’

  Gourohori put his hand on Roo’s head. ‘Brush your teeth or milk first, sir?’ he said.

  With a quick glance at his face, Roo accepted the glass of milk with both hands and gulped it down.

  ‘Why are you crying?’ asked Gourohori Babu, looking at Ishwari. ‘The night is over, there’s nothing to be afraid of now. And there’s always a risk of accident where a child is concerned. We overcome these things to grow up, to grow old. Supposedly, I fell off my bed so many times when I was a child that my head changed shape altogether.’

  ‘There’s always a risk, Gourohori Babu,’ said Ishwari, ‘I probably won’t be able to protect Roo. I’m not worthy – I’m not a worthy mother or a good mother. Again and again I’ve failed to protect him. Once, I chose to abandon him and run away instead of keeping him by my side – he had a high fever. He could barely eat. Still I sacrificed him in order to live.’

  ‘Please be calm,’ the old man tells me. ‘God tests mothers in different ways. I think his injured hand should get some treatment first.’ On his way out, Gourohori stopped and turned. ‘You should help him have a wash. And one more thing: he’s the one who will decide how good a mother you are, at the right time.’ Gourohori nodded cryptically.

  ‘Toilet, Ma,’ Roo called out to her.

  ‘Yes, let’s go,’ she said, and descended to the terrace, Roo in her arms. She waited outside while he used the toilet, then rubbed toothpaste on his teeth with her fingers. At this moment she had none of the things that Roo needed, not even a change of clothes. After rinsing his mouth, she gave her son a bath. He hadn’t had one in three days.

  And they needed food, something nourishing that would sustain them for the day. Ishwari needed some tea too. Her head felt like a ton of bricks. Her shoulders ached.

  How strange life is, she mused, how long it has been since they slept on the same bed, mother and child.

  Ishwari poured water over her son swiftly, rubbing soap over his arms and legs. She still had to take her own bath, after which she would have to get a doctor to examine Roo’s hand. But the moment she put soap on his feet, he sobbed, ‘It hurts, Ma!’ The soap and water were smarting where his skin had been scraped off.

  Ishwari tried to withstand Roo’s pain for him, feeling once again that she could not protect him. And that her own life would prove more difficult to negotiate with Roo in it.

  ‘I won’t wear those shoes any more, Ma!’ Tears streamed down Roo’s cheeks.

  ‘No, you won’t, not at all. We’ll buy new shoes. We’ll buy slippers, all right?’ She burst into tears too, her eyes locked into her son’s.

  Roo stared at her, his cheeks puffed up, as though he were looking deep inside her. The terrace was filled with sunshine, there was a pleasant breeze and Roo was encircled in her arms – she no longer felt godless like she had a few days ago.

  Roo smiled shyly as he looked at her, placing his left hand lightly on her right breast, and lightning flashed through her soul. The fragments of her heart came together, and she kissed her son all over his face. Roo seemed unbelievably starved too, returning passion with passion. Eventually they were both exhausted. Sighing deeply with his cheek pressed against her breast, Roo said, ‘I’ve been so sad, Ma.’

  Ishwari understood his sorrow at once. She nodded violently.

  Depositing Roo in the room, she locked the door and took her own bath. As she bathed
, several questions about the pile of liquor bottles occurred to her. She thought of asking Gourohori Babu why these bottles were in the bathroom when he had the key to the room. And how long they had been here. Emerging from the bathroom, Ishwari was surprised by Gourohori Babu, who was waiting outside with a cup of tea.

  ‘Here you are,’ he said.

  ‘Why must you keep climbing up and down the stairs?’ she asked. ‘I’d have come myself.’

  ‘None of the boys who deliver tea to the rooms would have kept my request. So I had to come. What’s a morning without a cup of tea?’

  Putting down her towel, soap and toothpaste on the iron steps, Ishwari accepted the cup and took a long sip. She felt fresh now. Spreading out her wet hair, she stood with her back to the sun. She felt as though life held no problems for her any more, as though she had been living here on this terrace for a long time. Gourohori Babu showed her a clothesline to hang her wet towel out to dry. She obeyed him dutifully.

  The old man sat down on the steps. ‘At this age the winter sun feels wonderful,’ he said with an embarrassed smile. ‘But I’m stuck downstairs because I can’t manage the stairs. How beautiful the city looks from here. You can pass the time just looking at it.’

  ‘I’m going to take Roo to a doctor,’ said Ishwari. ‘Would you like to come too? I’ll feel happy if I can do something for you.’

  The old man glanced at her distantly. ‘This room was occupied some time ago by a man and a woman for seven years, pretending to be a married couple! I was in charge then. The owners were abroad for years, leaving this guest house and the one on Dover Road in my care. One day I discovered that they were not husband and wife, they had eloped. She had a husband and children, he had a wife and children too. I was furious at first. Later, when my temper cooled, I realised that two people who had spent seven years together were no less than a married couple. They obviously had a bond – and the bond was all that mattered. And considering what goes on now under the supervision of the new manager, they were quite a nice couple, those two. He used to bring back snacks for her every evening. This bougainvillea here was planted by her. She used to invite me to have dinner every now and then.

  ‘Dinratri is no longer a guest house – it’s a place in a prime location in the city for spending time with alcohol and women. A cheap hotel. Five hundred rupees for two hours.

  ‘I’ve stayed on simply because I have nowhere to go. By allowing you to spend a night here, I’ve tried to protect not your honour but the honour of the people I’ve lived off for forty years. No one comes to a guest house out of choice, only by necessity. If those who really need a room can’t get one, what’s it all in aid of?’

  ‘But how can anyone live in a guest house for seven years?’ asked Ishwari.

  ‘In those days people used to take rooms on hire that way. Sometimes for an entire month, sometimes for three. There wasn’t such a thick flow of guests twenty years ago. The rules were relaxed too. Say they’re staying for ten consecutive days, you’d give them a discount of fifty rupees a day. People were eager to be generous back then. There’s no doubt that times have changed enormously. This couple started out for three months but eventually stayed on for seven years. They used to cook and eat in the attic and live in the room on the terrace. The young woman filled this place with plants. The conch shell could be heard at dusk, when there were ceremonial prayers. A chap named Manmatha used to run errands for them, he’d get hold of a cow every Friday to be fed ritually. And all of us would be bribed with the chillies and tomatoes grown here on the roof.’

  ‘We didn’t discuss the charge for the room,’ Ishwari said.

  ‘Look, this Nikhil isn’t a straight-talker, he has been conspiring to evict me in any case. He has even tried to put the fear of ghosts in me. If he sees you today he will create a scene. I don’t have the authority to unlock this room. What shall I say about the charge? I cannot charge you. Can you charge someone for helping them in a crisis? This room is not fit to live in. But since you have used water and electricity from the guest house, you can pay what you like. No rules will be broken.’

  Ishwari remembered the taxi driver from last night. Even he had left without taking the fare.

  ‘It would be best if you leave before Nikhil returns,’ he continued, unprompted.

  ‘I realise you’re helpless, Gourohori Babu,’ she said. ‘I met several helpless people yesterday. Some of them are famous, some impossibly rich. I was forced to appreciate each of their problems. So I do understand that an infirm, retired old man like you has no choice. I’m ready – take the keys, I’ll pull the door shut when I go downstairs. What you have done for us is well beyond your means. Besides, there’s no problem now. I’m sure I’ll find a place to stay. But I am equally sure I won’t find anyone as caring as you.’

  ‘What is your name?’

  ‘Ishwari.’

  ‘Ishwari?’ The old man’s eyes glowed at the holiness of her name, even as anxiety suffused his brow. ‘You’re all alone, a woman, so young too. I have no idea where you’ve come from nor do I know how long you need to stay in a hotel with your child.’

  The old man spoke deferentially, and she respected him for not asking any direct questions. ‘This city is crammed with people, with houses and shops, buses and trams,’ she said. ‘There must be a room for us somewhere. I’m a healthy, capable adult – surely I will find work.’

  ‘I am sure you will, but you will have to start from scratch.’

  ‘So I shall. I have to. Roo and I were separated from each other, it’s only been three days since I’ve had him back. I’m not alone any more. I have a heavier burden now, my relationship with the world is stronger.’

  ‘Roo is your own son, isn’t he?’ Gourohori said after some thought.

  Ishwari laughed for the first time in three days. ‘He is my son, Gourohori Babu, my very own. I gave birth to him.’

  She went back to her room and folded her blanket, then got Roo dressed and returned with him. Gourohori Babu recommended a cheap guest house near Ballygunge Station. It was usually crowded by foreigners but it allowed people to stay for extended periods. ‘There are many places where you can stay,’ he told her, ‘but you have to think of security first.’

  She would actually have to stoop now, reflected Ishwari, and descent in this case meant degradation – degradation was her destiny. Ishwari walked along the passage with these thoughts running through her head while she balanced Roo and her luggage, and stopped abruptly when she heard an agitated voice coming from Gourohori Babu’s room on her left. It couldn’t be anyone but Nikhil Biswas. She sensed Gourohori Babu’s apprehension as he said, ‘Oh, no’.

  I walk up to the door very slowly. The man with a vengeful face standing in the middle of the room is about thirty-five. His expression is like an animal’s. His chin protrudes well beyond his lips, jutting out like a fox’s – he is dressed in jeans and a gaudy yellow T-shirt, white sports shoes on his feet. The face of a bully.

  ‘Gourohori Babu?’ I call out tentatively.

  Inevitably, Nikhil Biswas begins to yelp. ‘Are you the one who spent the night in the room on the terrace?’