Illegitimate Child

Sheila Roy was having a cup of tea and observing the birds chirping in her terrace. The shy birds had gotten used to her steady glance. The old lady had been doing this every morning for the last five years and her quiet presence did not bother the birds any more. Sheila was an elegant lady and despite her age it was still possible to see her classical beauty. In her youth she used to be an emotional and feisty woman. With age she had calmed down a lot and she now took pleasure in observing the world develop around her. She was exceptional in the sense that she felt that the modern era was much better than the olden days. She would never voice disregard for the current generation and never did she feel any inclination to glorify her own times.

Whenever she found a youth shrugging and complaining about the rushed pace of life and robotic ways of people, she would secretly smile to herself. She remembered her youth when she was raising her kids Mahima, Ronen and Nitin. Sometimes their father, Dinesh Roy had to go out of town for work and there was only the telegram that allowed contact between them. Sheila often suffered from anxiety attacks when she did not hear from him for prolonged periods. She had been orphaned in her teenage and the sudden loss of her parents had made her extremely insecure about the safety of her family. She remembered that she wished every day for a device that could connect families across geographical boundaries.

And now, 2 more generations later her wish had been granted. In the next room her daughter Mahima was talking to her son over Skype. People said that technology is increasingly disconnecting people. She brushed it off as the usual rant of the human race. A certain degree of self absorption was present in all generations, she felt. In her times people gathered to sit together and chat. And now people connected more over the internet. But the motive has always been the same, to win approval of others about your own existence.

Suddenly a waft of raised voices came floating into the terrace. Mahima was arguing with her son again. Sheila got up intending to intervene. The birds suddenly took notice and flew off in a hurry. “Bird brained indeed”, she muttered to herself as she trudged to her daughter’s room.

“Hey Dida!!!”,  Shom looked happy to see her face in his laptop. His dida has always been a staunch supporter of him and even now her entry into the room seemed to assure him across the seas.

“What is it that you two are fighting about? Are you pressing him for leaves?”, Sheila asked.

“Ask your grandson. No mother in her right mind would be able to control her temper after what he said to me,” Mahima huffed.

“Ma…come on. It’s nothing dida.” Shom’s face seemed red.

“If you are so ashamed of it, then why are you still doing it?” Mahima screamed.

“What is it? Is it about his live in relationship? Is that it?”, Sheila asked.

“You know about it? ”

Both Mahima and Shom were shocked.

“If you two intended to keep it a secret why did you have to fight over Skype so loudly every day.”, Sheila smiled.

“I’ve known for a long time but I saw that you preferred to keep it a secret so I was content knowing Melissa as your girlfriend. At least you had introduced me to my granddaughter-in-law.”

“She is not your granddaughter-in-law officially and that’s not my only problem”, Mahima fumed.

“Ma I gotta go…” Shom started.

“ I’m about to become a grandmom…to an illegitimate child.” Mahima broke down inconsolably.

“We never got the time to marry. Plus it does not matter to us…why do we have to seek validation from anyone else about our relationship?” Shom weakly protested.

“I’ve never been a typical mom. I gave Shom all the freedom in the world. I never intervened in his personal life and never told him who he should sleep with. I’ve even accepted their live-in relationship. They promised me to get married before having a child….and now they say that there is no time.”

“Why ma why? ”, Mahima was howling now.

Sheila was shaken by the piece of information she just received. She had lived a complex life and time had taught her to hide her reactions. She wanted to tell her daughter a lot of things to console her…but no words came out.

“Ma and dida, I have to go…Melissa is throwing up again.” Shom quickly disconnected the call. It was not possible to know if the excuse was real or made up.

“Mahima, I have a story for you,” Sheila said quietly.

“Please ma…I’m well past the age for your stories and morals. I cannot be this flexible. They are playing with their unborn child’s future.”

“Calm down, Moni. I want to tell you a real story. I have lived in pre partition times. I had to face life threatening situations…those experiences have taught me to value life more. ”

Mahima was quiet suddenly…she had grown up listening to excerpts of her parents’ life and every time they fascinated her deeply.

“I had just gotten married to a man 15 years elder to me. It was a typical arranged marriage. The groom came from a Kulin family and was a lawyer by profession. Yes, he was good looking too. So your grandparents and my parents never felt the need to take my opinion of him. To them I was too young to decide for myself. In the days following my marriage, wide spread riots had broken out. In those days we lived in East Bengal and it was still a part of India. My new husband told me that he is secretly making a plan to move to Calcutta in the coming few months. I did not know that he would not get the chance to complete his plan. That night an angry mob had attacked the house of my in-laws. My husband did all that he could to save lives. He helped the women and children to escape first. I remember him smearing kajal all over my face. “You have to hide your beauty till the situation is back to normal.” He pushed a bundle of notes into a nonchalant little bag and put it in my hands. “Keep it with yourself and run…I’ve to go back and help others to safety.”

As I looked back I saw his house; the house where he had grown up was up in flames. I was only 16 years old. I ran along with his 2 sisters in the darkness with almost no hope to live. Soon Mira, my youngest sister-in-law took a right turn and forced us into a small hut. It was a muslim household. Mira used to play with the children of the house. They readily gave us shelter from the riots. Her presence of mind and forbidden friends had saved us that night."

Mahima had grown calm…she was listening to her ma. It was a story that she had heard several times in her life. Whenever she felt ill equipped to deal with her struggles her mother used to share the first hand atrocities that she had to face in her youth. And every time the story worked like magic on her.

Mahima felt a lump forming in her throat. Soon her mother would reach to the portion where she would reach the safety of Calcutta only to hear about the death of her own parents. Barely days after her marriage, Sheila had been orphaned. It was indeed very difficult to settle down in a new place amidst new people but she fought with the situation no matter what.

Sheila sighed and paused. It was still difficult to revisit the memories of her family’s sudden death.

“And then you grew close to baba in the still-unfamiliar lanes of Calcutta? Suddenly your stranger husband became the only one for you in the whole world?”, Mahima said to fill in the heavy silence. 

“Your arranged marriage has more love than any love marriage of any era, Ma.”

Sheila was silent.

“This man who I was married to and who saved my life is not your father.”

Mahima zapped her head towards her mother in absolute shock. She had heard the story over and over again. Not for once had her mother hinted towards such a thing earlier. Mahima’s father had passed away only a few years earlier and he had always loved and cared for his children. Till his last breath he had been quite the ideal father. Mahima did not want the perfect memories to be spoilt by the introduction of a new biological father. Who was her real father then? Her mother’s secret lover? Or was she raped?

A thousand ugly thoughts crossed her mind and she felt an insane rage towards the new person about to enter the picture.

“I don’t want to know,” Mahima  lowered her eyes. “Dinesh Roy was my father and will always be my father.”

Sheila smiled.

“He was and is your father. I mean he is your legal as well as biological father.”

“But you just said that…”

“I said my deceased husband is not your father...”

“When I came to Calcutta, along with the news of your grandparents’ death I also got to know that my husband had been killed too.  I was a widow and an orphan, in a new city when I met your father, Dinesh. He too was a migrant. Young and strong, he was doing all that he could to organize us, the refugees into a community. He was there working 24/7 like a messiah giving new hope of new life to one and all.”

“He saw the grief in my eyes and did not want to intrude into my personal space. Instead he simply extended his hand and asked for help “Will you help me to rehabilitate the refugees?” Those words of iron, not tinged with a shred of pity gave me courage. And I fought alongside him. I thought of what I had lost and vowed to treat every stranger as my own.”

“Those days were very difficult but things changed slowly. Dinesh had managed to find a good job eventually and he decided to send me to college. We had the option to part ways then. But we both knew that we were hopelessly in love. So we decided to start a family together. Then you and your two brothers were born and we had finally found our happiness amidst grief and anarchy.”

 Mahima was sitting with an open mouth.

“Your first husband…he died that night too? You met my father after migrating to West Bengal?”

“Judge me if you wish. But this is the true story...maybe I was wrong in keeping the truth from you for so long. ”

“I’m sorry ma…did I hurt your feelings? I’m not judging. I’m just overwhelmed. You always made it seem that baba was the man who saved your life in East Bengal. I didn’t know that you married him later.”

“I did not. Your father and I had never married.”

Mahima stared at her mother is disbelief.

“Everyone knew us as a married couple already. To marry again would have been ridiculous. You see, we never got the time to marry. Plus it did not matter to us…we never felt the need to seek validation from anyone else about our relationship.”

“So think before you feel sorry for your unborn grandchild, Moni. Technically you too are an illegitimate child.”