Since my birth I had no memory of father or rather man as I always found myself clung to my mother. For a couple of months after my birth, as she says, I was kept in a city hospital where my skinny body was placed in incubator, pierced with syringes. For day and night she used to sit beside my bed, crying and praying to God for my survival. However, when she found she had no money, or even jewellery to sell off for my treatment, she was forced to bring me home in a sickly state. For few months, she kept me pressed to her bosom, taking utmost care of me. As a child I had more pills and syrups than milk or food. Anyhow, by her constant selfless efforts and prayers I survived.
Hardly was I two when I came to my senses and felt familiar about my surroundings. The house I lived was just like a cottage, a front room and the same type of rear room with a small kitchen in it. There was a charpoy , a small chair and tea-poy as furniture. Most of the time, I was kept to stay in the rear room and mother often would come and lie in the same room with me. However, I often found her wake up in the middle of the night and walked to the front room closing the door behind her.
One night I too woke up and after mother went inside closing the door I peeped into the dark room through a small window and heard some kind of indistinct conversation between mother and someone else. The voice no doubt was of a man.
Later on this had become a routine with mother.
Then one day, mother gave me a bath, dressed me in new clothes, and took me to a nearby school. I remember, when the principal asked the name of my father, she wore a hateful expression on her face and replied- “He’s dead. Write Sushma – my name. “ she spoke in an authoritative tone.
The principal laughed reading the details in my birth certificate.
“Okay. It’s written here. Pritam Sen.”
At that moment I, for the first time, realized mother had been heartily hating my father. Somehow my inner instinct urged me to find out who my father was and where he was.
“Mom…where is my papa ?” I asked fearfully after returning from school.
To my utter horrible shock she slapped me so hard I felt darkness all around me, fell to the ground and within moments plunged into unconsciousness. Sometime later when I regained consciousness I saw myself surrounded by neighbouring women and mother crying before me. She immediately hugged me and kissed me with deep affection.
There and then I made up my mind never to ask her about my father.
With growing age I came to know more about mother and myself.
We were stricken by utter poverty. Our modest cottage-like house too was on rent. The population of the area was close to the slum-dwellers, hit by sickness and poverty. The people around were dirty, sick and quarrelsome. Mother never let me go out to play with the neighbouring children, saying they were dirty unwanted orphan children.
I thought to myself what mother was doing to feed me, to send me to school and providing me excellent clothes to put on. However, I had no doubt, she was doing hard work.
Since long, her routine during night didn’t change. She would never sleep in my rear room but shut herself in the front room closing the door behind her. I heard whispering of mother and a man every night, but dared never to ask her who the stranger was.
One morning when mother was looking happy, serving me with tea and chapatti, I spoke to her in a soft timid voice, “Mom, last night I dreamed about papa .He was calling us both to follow him……..far away to a distant land. “
She glared at me sternly, raising her eyebrows.
“You.brute. naughty child!” She raised her hand to slap me, but this time her hand was stuck in air. Her eyes fixed on my innocent scary face. I immediately felt repentant for my silly utterance.
Nevertheless to my utter astonishment and relief, she didn’t slap me but soon tears fell rolling down her cheeks. Then she whispered to herself in low voice- “ I can’t keep you in dark about your father for long. You’re becoming a man so fast…………….!”
She lovingly twisted my cheeks and ordered me to eat fast.
Few months later one night, I suddenly woke up on hearing a sort of terrible noise in our front room. Since I knew I was alone in the room and mother was sleeping in the front room, I shouted at the peak of my voice and rushed to the door. “ Mom…….mom……!” As I started knocking the door, I heard mother crying for help and a voice of man abusing her and seemed to be beating her.
“Open the door, mom. “ I yelled banging the door as hard as possible. Then I kicked the door so hard it eventually broke open and I was horribly stunned to see mother lying on floor and a stout bearded man beating her pulling her hair with one hand.
“Leave my mom…….. ! “ I rushed to him and catching hold of his hand, started giving him hard blows with my hand. He quickly pushed me aside, released mother and walked to the door.
“Never say….never say no to me….. I’ll kill you. Understand ?”
Uttering words of threat furiously he disappeared into the dark.
I ran and hugged my mother crying – “ Mom…are you alright ?”
She too took me in her arms and burst out in tears, her face expressing utter horror and helplessness.
“ I’d never do it…..never……! “ she repeatedly spoke madly.
I could not ask mother what wrong she had done that she would not do again.
After that dreadful mishap of the night, mother started sleeping with me in the rear room locking the door of the front room.
Next few days passed peacefully as mother seemed happier to find a job somewhere. She asked me to stay home alone in the afternoon since she would return at evening only. Nevertheless, she used to prepare lunch for me before going out.
One afternoon when I was home alone , an elderly man dressed in white half-sleeved shirt and khakhi trouser came and enquired about my mother.
“Where is Sushma Sen ? Your mother?” he asked in strict voice.
“Mom gone to work.”, I softly replied.
He fetched two men from the neighbourhood, took their signature on white paper and said , “ She’s summoned to the session’s court on 11th June at 11. I am pasting this notice on the door. “
So saying he glued the paper on our door and left. I sensed it was something bad and wanted to tear it off but I thought I should let mother know about it.
That evening mother returned home and when I gave her the news she immediately read the notice pasted on the door, tore it off at once and muttered to herself angrily.
“I’d never go to him…. never even if he sends court’s notice.” She seemed swearing stubbornly. “I would never part with my child…..it is mine only ….not his. “ So saying she hugged me most affectionately, went on kissing my cheeks most passionately.
I couldn’t understand what was going on but I felt somebody was trying to take away me from mother and probably he could be none but my father. Nevertheless I dared not ask mother and kept quiet.
Henceforth mother turned more possessive about me. In no circumstances was she ready to lose me. She didn’t obey the court’s notice and let pass the day without least caring.
A week after that a man dressed in black trouser and white full sleeve shirt with a tie over it, paid a visit to meet mother. He looked like a gentleman and urged mother most humbly to give in to his request.
“He’s dying in hospital. Wishes to see the face of his child. His last wish. Please see him. Don’t be so hard-hearted. Though I am his lawyer, I’ve come as his best friend to make a humble request, last request on his behalf. Please….forgive him. “
Mother turned stone-like, dumb and grief–stricken at the news. Her face that always wore hard expressions mellowed down. Tears appeared in her eyes.
In a taxi through over-crowded traffic on road, mother, that morning, sitting with me at back seat, oozed out all her emotions that were long suppressed deep in her heart. My father was a brute, inhuman and monster who kicked her out of her life for no fault of hers. He was a painter, an artist who could never have such an ugly heart. But he had. He painted beautiful pictures and won both name and fame instantly. It was because of his art that mother first fell in love with him in the college. Theirs was love at first sight. Since she too was beautiful and attractive, he painted her portraits and sold them to earn living. However, his fortune changed to prosperity when he met another lady, a local actress who rather purchased his paintings and also allured him. He fell in love with actress and began to find faults in his innocent credulous wife. He started beating mother and drove her out of his house. Mother had no option but to go back to her sick mother, who too died due to her daughter’s shocking misfortune. Mother was left alone, in big world, to live for a baby in her womb. But deep in her heart, she had nothing for father except curses and hatred. Since she had a woman’s heart, soft and loving, she was ready to see my father who was sick and dying in hospital.
We reached the hospital and searched the ward where my father was admitted but came to know that he was dead and his dead body was taken to his home.
Mother felt stunned, overwhelmed with grief, but could not weep.
We hired a taxi and drove towards father’s residence.
Half an hour later we stepped in a big villa where we found a crowd of mourners assembled in veranda. Down on floor lay a dead body wrapped in white clothes, face visible with parted lips, nostrils blocked with cotton buds, and scented agarbattis burning with a lamp lighted close to the head.
Through the standing crowd, mother rushed to the dead body of father and for first few moments, she stared at the face of my father- the face she had hated all her life. She wanted to weep, lament but couldn’t do so as her emotions were terribly blocked inside.
The man, the lawyer who had visited our cottage few days back, held my hand and said lovingly- “Come dear. You’re the legal heir to the property of the deceased artist Pritam Sen and to fulfil his last wish you’ve to perform the funeral-rites of your late father. “
For the first time in my life, I was parted from my mother. I fearfully looked at mother’s sorrowful face and she nodded in consent.
Quite unexpectedly mother and I were shifted from our slum-area cottage to a luxurious big villa of my father. For quite some time we couldn’t believe the sudden transformation in our fortune.
One quiet night, sitting alone in a big luxurious drawing room, I asked mother seriously – “ Mom, do you still hate my father ?
“One can’t hate a dead man, my child. “ She spoke with profound regret.