Independence

Independence

“Out!…. Out!” broke out an excited babble of voices in that late March afternoon. Ramendra Barua, a seventy-year old pensioner, smiled softly looking down from the balcony of his second- floor apartment.

A group of happy, boisterous children were playing their favourite game of cricket in the apartment -building’s tiny common area. A tin bucket served as the wicket and the ‘yard’ marked out by a piece of chalk. Only a faint trace of the chalk-marked yard now remained being trampled incessantly by the boisterous ‘runners’.

Ramendra Barua, a resident of Uzanbazar, had sold off his plot of land along with his ancestral Assam-type house five years back. He now was living in a block of flats, a quintessential feature of the ‘modern’ Guwahati city where block of flats like his have sprung up everywhere like mushrooms. The builder had given him a two-bed roomed apartment overlooking the main road as part of the payment. Now he spent his retirement days in peace, reminiscing the old bygone days where everybody knew everybody in the colony and people lived a chaste but nevertheless a tranquil life.

Sometimes, Ramendra would stand on the vast common terrace and look across the sky-line towards the not-so- distant Nabagraha hills. Blinking his brown eyes, he would gaze and retrospect about how Guwahati had changed so much with the roll of times. Now the bottle- green tinted forests were being cut down ruthlessly by the government in a bid to modify and modernize the place .Thousands of migrant people were building numerous illegal settlements in the open spaces, dotting across the hills.

Thinking about the signboard across the street screaming, “Guwahati city – Our green city!”,Ramendra would sigh and smile at the whole irony of it. “Have the advertisers gone blind?” would think Ramendra ,looking at the Nabagraha hills from the terrace ; the hills now sporting a bald, brazen look , the thick and dense foliage cropped away at close quarters.

That afternoon,“ What are you thinking?” the soft voice of his better half, Shanti Barua floated in, breaking into his chain of thoughts.

“Nothing…” answered back Ramendra Barua, a wee bit sadly. “Are you thinking about Sunny?” asked his wife, her knowing eyes falling softly on her husband’s wrinkled face.

Smiling at his wife, Ramendra Barua shook his head, he didnot want to ruin her jovial frame of mind.

Just then, Aboni, their Man Friday brought in their daily round of afternoon tea; red, sugarless tea with ageless butter biscuits from the Sheikh Brother’s Bakery in Panbazar.

“Deuta! Here’s your cup of tea! I have made it just the way you like…. with a hint of lemon!” exclaimed Aboni, smiling affectionately at his employer of ten years. “Aboni! What we will do if you go away?” smiled Ramendra. “ Dhet! Deuta! Where would I go?” admonished a secretly pleased Aboni .

Bablu! It’s time for your English tuition. Come upstairs! Your tuition sir will arrive any minute now!” somebody screamed from one of the apartment .The group of children, taking the cue, scrambled up the stairs forgetting to collect their cricket bats. The cricket bats now lay forsaken on the ‘cricket field’, left behind in their owners’ hurry to reach their homes in time.

“Did you go to the Ideal Pharmacy today to buy our monthly stock of medicines?” asked Shanti conversationally.

“No! I completely forgot! I will go down to the pharmacy first thing in the morning” replied Ramendra, a bit flustered.

“That’s alright! You know, I was thinking of inviting Roma and Biren for lunch tomorrow afternoon. I want to make rohu fish kalia and matir dali”, Shanti looked at her husband.

Ramendra was quite fond of his sister-in-law Roma, Shanti’s younger sister and brother-in-law, Biren. Biren was his erstwhile colleague and fellow engineer in the Assam State Electricity Board. Ramendra rubbed his hands happily and thought “Tomorrow Biren and I will be able to talk about our ASEB days till our heart’s content…. I hope tomorrow comes soon!”

“Why don’t you ask Aboni to make his special duck curry too?” added Ramendra happily, suddenly the cloud of melancholy lifting up.

Shanti smiled and thought happily, “It seems that my idea did the trick!” Calling Aboni to her side she embarked upon a hearty discussion of the things- to- do for the next day’s spur-of-the-moment lunch party.

The next day, late in the afternoon, merry sounds of laughter broke out from the Baruas’ apartment. “Ha! Ha!Ha! Bhindeo! Do you remember the day when you came to ‘see’ baideou for the very first time, your bride-to-be? Instead of baideou , I was waiting for you in our old drawing room. I remember you were sitting very uncomfortably on the cane chair.”

Ramendra nodded, his eyes watering from happy tears of mirth.

”Do you remember what you asked me much later? After a long hour of silence you asked me very solemnly, “Aren’t you too young to think about marriage?”  You must have been so confused seeing a pig-tailed twelve year old girl professing to be your bride-to-be instead of baideou!” chortled Roma, erupting in fits of laughter.

The whole group joined her in her laughter, catching her infectious happy mood, remembering the good old days of the yesteryears.

“Baideou! When are you planning to join Sunny and Melissa in America? Have you thought about it?” quizzed Roma suddenly.

Abruptly the bonhomie atmosphere changed into a sombre one.

After a moment of silence, Shanti replied carefully “ No!Nai Roma! I have not thought about it….. Sunny was so insistent the last time he came to visit India with his family…. But you know me well! I simply cannot dream about leaving this place. I came to this place as a young bride and I want to die here in peace…. My roots are here…..”

She paused….“But Roma! I do miss my son, Melissa and my little one, my little granddaughter…… My Tina!”, Shanti added glumly.

“Life is like that, Roma. Sometimes you cannot get the things you want all at once” Ramendra interposed gently, looking at Shanti with melancholic eyes, heavy with unspoken grief.

That cloudless night, Ramendra sat on his cane arm-chair in the verandah, smoking his favourite brand of Dunhill cigarettes. He sat still, a solitary figure under the cloak of darkness, gazing at the wisps of white smoke slowly dissipating in the darkness of the night .Sitting alone, deep in thoughts; his mind was preoccupied with thoughts of his only child, Sunny.

Sunny, his only child was now a father himself living across the seven oceans, in the land of golden dreams, America.

Ramendra could still remember the first day he and Shanti took Sunny for his first school interview to the Don Bosco school situated two blocks away from Ramendra’s house.

“Deuta! Father! I won’t go!” wailed a little four year old Sunny. Ramendra and Shanti were seated with the other equally nervous-faced parents in a waiting lounge. Trembling with anticipation, they waited patiently for their son to emerge from the interview room, facing the very first examination in his life. After a long wait Sunny emerged, to their utter relief, smiling with the Father dressed in the milky-white habit.

After a few days, when a letter arrived at their door-steps bearing the news of their son being selected for admission in that prestigious school, their hearts erupted in jubilation and happiness.

Sunny, now a strapping young man, worked on the hallowed Wall Street and lived in New York, as thousands of other migrant Indians, with his American interior-designer wife, Melissa Stuart Barua and their little daughter, Tina. When he bagged a top-notch job in a big financial corporation on the Wall Street, their euphoria knew no bounds.

A couple of years later, he broke them the news of his decision of marrying an American girl. Shedding their initial worries and apprehensions, Ramendra and Shanti gave in their consent whole-heartedly.

Koka! Koka! Aita”, their little grand-daughter would now mouth, looking prettily at her grandparents, at the web-camera. The proud grandparents would look into the flickering computer- monitor lovingly, their hearts aching to hold and play with their little grand-daughter, to smother her with their love.

It was Sunny’s idea to persuade his parents to sell off their house to a builder so that they would not have to live all alone.

“Deuta! If you do not want to live with us permanently at least stay somewhere where both of you will have people around you. That way I and Melissa can stop worrying about you and Maa living all alone. Deuta! You know, I cannot come back here even if I would want to….It wouldn’t be fair on Melissa or on Tina” had said Sunny quietly.

Finally after much deliberation with his wife, Ramendra signed off his land away to be bought by the happy-faced builder.  Sunny, on his visits, would always broach up the topic of Ramen and Shanti of coming to live with him and Melissa permanently.

“Deuta! You know I will be the happiest of all people if you finally decide to come and live with me. I have bought a big apartment there only with the thought that some day you and Maa will come to live with us” Sunny would say, a bit exasperated.

“Sunny, you know how your mother feels about it. She will never agree to it. She is too independent…. We are happy with our trips to your place but living there permanently… It will create a very different situation, Sunny. Buwari might not be too happy about it. After all, who would want two interfering old people around forever?” would say a smiling Ramendra realistically.

Back to the present, Shanti, the same night, lay awake in the tiny apartment bedroom, the hum of the air-conditioner failing to smother out her thoughts. It was only March but it felt like Guwahati city was already reeling under the sweltering heat of the mid-summer.

Closing her eyes, a tired Shanti floated back to her past, to her treasure of bitter-sweet reminiscences.

The recollection of the day she had first walked down on the black cemented floor of the tiny Assam type house as a new bride flitted across her mind. As she walked into her new home as a bride, through her veil she could see a huge gathering of people surrounding her, gauging her, studying her every movement. Her heart fluttering, she bent to touch her mother-in-law’s feet…..

“Buwari!  From today you will have to take the responsibility of the household” said a stern looking mother-in-law, the late Nolinibala Barua handing over the set of household keys to Shanti…..a ceremonial gesture of passing over the responsibility to the new bride. The metal keys felt cold and alien in her trembling hands…..she could feel a mild tremor of fear passing through her body.

But as years passed by, her and her mother-in-law became close companions, expertly running the household without a hitch. One would render advice gained through long years of experience and one trying to handle the reins of her new household.

Her father-in-law, a prominent barrister of those days, would invariably be locked up in his study immersed in his pile of books and papers. “Buwari! Why don’t you eat with us?” would insist her tall-figured father-in-law. Shanti would shyly take her place on the ancestral Segun- kaathor dining-table.

Very soon she was with child. Her tiny frame became rounder and bulkier as her child grew in her womb. In that vulnerable stage, her otherwise stern mother-in-law became her unwavering source of support and company.

Her husband, a young field engineer then, would be away on long tours to far-flung places. Many a days would pass before a telegram from Ramen would come in out of the blue. Shanti, a young bride then, would turn to her mother-in-law more and more to talk about her fears and insecurities….her anger at Ramen.

Finally, as the due-day arrived, she lay on the hard hospital bed of the Mohendra Mohan Chowdhury Government Hospital, writhing in agony. Her swollen body convulsing spasmodically in pain, her tears flowed without a rein, wetting her cheeks. All she knew then was that Ramen was working in some godforsaken place. Since there were no telephone connections in most the households in that age, he could not be reached at that hour of need. Shanti screamed in terror and anger. She could feel the warm hands of her mother-in-law gripping her hands, trying to reassure her that everything was going to be alright.

Shanti’s train of thoughts now turned to Melissa.

Melissa! Her own daughter-in-law!

Some years back, Ramen and she had flown down to New York to meet their would-be daughter- in –law. Sunny and Melissa were waiting to receive them at the bustling New York airport.

As Shanti and Ramen approached the two waiting figures among the throng of the hurrying crowd, she noticed a pretty tall girl, red lips curved into a wide smile, standing quietly next to Sunny. Shanti, trembling with anticipation, embraced Melissa in her arms, kissing her lightly on her cheek. Welcome home, Maa!.”  Maa!…As soon as Shanti heard this syllable, all her inhibitions broke down and she smiled at Sunny, nodding her approval of his choice of mate .

Sunny and Melissa had a Christian wedding at a beautiful church in New York City. On the day of the wedding, they were seated along with Melissa’s welcoming parents. Seating on the wooden seats of the church, under the beautiful dome-shaped ceiling Shanti could not help being awe-struck by the solemn grandeur of the old church.

As the ceremony kicked off, Shanti could not help crying silently at the piety of the occasion. She felt as if a divine aura was engulfing her. Her little boy, stood facing Melissa at the altar, telling her that he will stand by her ‘for richer and for poorer, in sickness and in health….. till death do us apart’. For Shanti it seemed that it was only yesterday when Sunny, as a toddler, had uttered the word ‘Mother” cementing their unbreakable relationship. A new chapter was unfurling in her son’s life and she, as a mother, felt proud of the man her son had become.

Melissa and Sunny made their first trip to Guwahati shortly later as newly-weds. Shanti arranged a grand reception at the Ashoka Brahmaputra Hotel….she had overseen and supervised every little detail…right from the florists to the caterers. She wanted to celebrate the marriage of her only son and welcome Melissa, her new daughter into her home and hearth.

In the evening, as Melissa dressed up for the reception,“ Maa! I love this silk skirt” said Melissa, looking into the long, floor-length mirror, patting down the beautiful crimson -coloured paat mekhala-chador.

Shutting the clasp of the gold gam-kharu on Melissa’s hand, Shanti spoke, unsure of her words, “You are looking beautiful…This bracelet came down to me from my mother-in-law, Sunny’s grandmother…as a bride on the day of my juroon. Today I am very happy to see my Buwari wearing them……I do not have a daughter and I hope you will think of me as your own mother….” An undercurrent passed between Melissa and Shanti as they looked into each other’s eyes, a look of understanding and love flowing between their hopeful eyes.

That evening, as the relatives swarmed near the newly wedded couple she could see people gazing at Melissa, taking in her beauty and her easy laughter. Her heart swelling in pride, she clucked away like a mother hen, ever protective of her brood.

Melissa became, indeed, like their daughter. Shanti smiled to herself when she thought about the holiday when she and Ramen were in New York for Christmas.

Melissa had insisted Shanti to wear a plaid tweed skirt and a white cotton top

“Maa! You have to wear this skirt. You will look like a Hollywood actress, I promise!” persisted Melissa. When they went out shopping to the Macy’s, a big departmental store, Shanti felt like a little girl,  the folds of the soft skirt twirling on her legs for the very first time in her life.

“Maa! You look beautiful!” exclaimed Sunny when Melissa and Shanti arrived home later, their arms loaded with parcels, thoroughly fatigued by their shopping excursion. She blushed, to the utter delight of Sunny and Melissa, when she heard Ramen say playfully, “Oh! Sunny! Look! Even Sophia Loren would get a complex if she could see your mother right now.”

The night Tina was born in a private New York hospital, thousand of miles away from Shanti and Ramen, they sat in their living room in Guwahati, waiting nervously for the cell-phone to ring. Both of them had mixed emotions; their frayed nerves, on one hand, intertwined with the overflowing joy in their hearts.

“Hera! Why don’t you call up Sunny?” fretted Shanti.

“Roba!Wait! Have some patience” retorted back Ramendra, his own patience now wearing thin.

Finally the much awaited call came in. Ramen leapt to his feet and asked without a breath, “Sunny! Is everything alright? How is Melissa?”

“Deuta! Everything is alright. You are now the proud grandparents of a little baby girl. You have to come down to New York next month. I will make all the arrangements…,” cried Sunny jubilantly.

Laughing away, Ramen broke the news to Shanti of the new addition to the Barua family. Shanti wept…joyful tears speaking volumes of the fathomless joy she felt.

Tina! Shanti’s eyes now misted over as she thought about her grand-daughter, remembering the first time she held the little bundle of joy in her arms, afraid of hurting her. .”  Tina, now a little lady of four years of age, loved Shanti’s dish of fish tenga which she would gobble with plain rice. Melissa, for her daughter’s sake, learnt to cook it quite skilfully, having had many cooking lessons on Assamese cuisine under Shanti’s tutelage.

Tina loved to hear stories from Shanti…..

“Grandma! Tell me the story of the old couple and the fox” Tina would insist whenever she would come to visit Shanti and Ramen in Guwahati. Smiling indulgently Shanti would go over the story again, cradling Tina adoringly in her arms.

Tina probably missed the bed-time story-telling of her grand-mother, Shanti mused. Her heart at that moment cried out of her insatiable desire to hold Tina in her arms and tell her the story of “The Old Man and Woman and the Fox- Bura-Buri aru Xiyal” , the same stories she had once narrated to a wide-eyed Sunny.

Suddenly Shanti realized, “Ramen has not yet come to bed. Poor man! He must be tired.” As her thoughts drifted to her husband, she thought in anger, “Why can’t I accept Sunny’s proposal? What is left here? As a parent should not my place be with my only child?”

In the next moment Shanti mulled over, “What about my own life….the one I have built up so lovingly with Ramen? Am I ready to leave everything behind and start afresh in a land so alien to me? What about my memories? Will Melissa be happy of if we decide to live with her? …. Will it affect our relationship? ”

Finding no answer to her conflicting myriad of thoughts, a tired Shanti floated off to a dreamless, unbroken sleep.

A few uneventful days later, Shanti and Aboni worked together in the kitchen, a team of connoisseurs preparing the mid-day meal.

Aboni cleared his throat. “Maa! I have to go to my village next month. My uncle’s daughter’s marriage has been finally been fixed…. As you already know, Maa, my uncle had given me shelter when I, as an orphan, was left alone to die by my father’s family. It is my duty to help him now at his time of need…” said Aboni .

Shanti looked at Aboni, a wee flabbergasted at the unexpected declaration.

“Aboni! You should definitely go…. Don’t worry about us! Your Deuta and I will manage till you come back” replied Shanti calmly, her grave tone belying her surprise.

“No! No! Maa! I cannot let you do all the work. I will find someone to help you out till I come back” said Aboni solemnly.

“Hobo De! Do what you think is right!  Now peel and dice these potatoes for me!” replied Shanti laughing out, amused by Aboni’s look of pain.

Years back, Aboni , an orphaned boy, had come to live with the Baruas’ when he was only a mere lad of twelve years of age.

One Sunday, his uncle, who worked as a driver in the Electricity Board where Ramendra too worked, had brought Aboni over to Ramendra’s house.

He requested, “Sir! This is my nephew. Please keep him with you. I want him to become a good man under your guidance….. If he stays in the village, he will fall under bad influence. As it is, lot of young boys of our village have started to run away from their homes to join militant groups….. They want freedom, these fools say…” he huffed.

He went on “Sir! Aboni is my sister’s son. I want a good life for him. Only you can help us… He will do any work you or Baideou reckon fit to give him. He is a good boy, I assure you!”

Ramendra glanced at the reed-thin boy, sitting on the murha next to his uncle.  The young boy was looking around the room, his eyes wide open. Ramendra’s eyes took in that the boy was wearing a tattered pair of trousers and a torn shirt. Some unknown force tugged at Ramendra’s kind heart.

“Don’t worry! I will keep him in my home. He will go to a night school and help around the house in the day-time, if that is alright with you.”

Tears in his eyes, Aboni’s uncle left him at Ramendra’s house, telling him to be a good boy .He kept on reiterating that he was leaving Aboni behind for his own good.

That was fifteen years back. Now Aboni was a young man, a matriculate, deeply devoted to Ramendra and Shanti, addressing them as “ Maa and Deuta” affectionately; as if they were his own parents.

Aboni managed the entire household like any dutiful son. He did all odd jobs from driving Shanti and Ramendra around the city in their old Maruti Zen to handling their multiple bank accounts. He had become a beloved member of the Barua family over the years and Ramendra and Shanti loved him as such. Even Sunny would say amused, “As long as Aboni is with you, I do not have to worry about anything!” Aboni would laugh away with joy whenever he would hear such assertion.

Aboni never let Shanti and Ramen feel the physical dearth of a son. He would care for them with such love and dedication that sometimes Shanti would be taken aback by his depth of love, his sense of fidelity. Her heart would be at peace around Aboni’s presence; finding a channel to give vent to her maternal instincts and desires.

True to his word, as the day approached for Aboni to leave for his village, he began his search of a house-hold help for Shanti and finally found one to his satisfaction.

“Maa, her name is Jonali. She works upstairs for the Rajkhowas, in the flat 4B. The Baideou upstairs was singing praises for her. Let her work for you too till I return” insisted Aboni.

“Okay! Call her here tomorrow. I will explain to her what her duties would be over here!” said Shanti.

The day as Aboni set off for his village, Shanti stood looking at Aboni’s receding figure from the balcony. She felt an inexplicable angst overpowering her.

A sudden insight hit her…… one day in the near future Aboni would leave them for good, today or tomorrow.

Aboni was a grown man and very soon he would too want to start his own family, she soliloquised. After all, how long can Aboni live like this? He cannot fritter away his life to look after us, an old couple. He has already given us so much love. It would be extremely selfish of us to expect him to continue doing that”, contemplated Shanti, standing on the balcony.

“I will have to talk to Ramendra soon about finding Aboni a permanent job in his old organization,” she decided.

Time passed by….Shanti tried hard to adjust to her new life without Aboni. She felt like a mother hen who was left holding an empty nest…a nest where only silence enclosed her in a tomb-like embrace

One evening, Shanti sat alone in the living room. Her listless eyes were fixed upon the television screen. Her daily round of soap operas on the television had just begun.

Staring at the television screen vacantly, she, all of a sudden, felt as if the whole house has become even more eerily silent than usual…..

Tick Tock! Tick Tock!

She could hear the big grandfather clock in the drawing room, a family heirloom, ticking away. The icy walls of the room watched her insolently, mocking her.

Her heart beating fast, Shanti whirled around….

Ramen was sitting in his cane arm-chair, engrossed in reading a paper-back novel.

Shanti felt as if her thudding heart was going to burst out.

She cried out in a plaintive voice, uncharacteristic of her, “Hera! What are you doing? Please come and talk to me… I am feeling so lonely.”

Ramendra immediately looked up; he had never ever heard Shanti make use of the word “lonely”.

“What happened?” asked Ramen softly, concerned at his wife’s sudden outburst. Sensing something amiss, he got up from his arm-chair .He came over to sit near Shanti.

Seconds of tumultuous silence ticked away.

Suddenly Shanti cried out, “Ramen…I was just thinking how time flies…” She looked at her husband, unsure of what she was going to say next.

Ramen nodded, kindness gleamed from his eyes.

Shanti gulped a few draughts of air.

She again spoke,” All these years I never thought of becoming old and yet today here I am…..an old woman……. I miss the hustle- bustle of my earlier life”.

Ramendra’s eyes became soft with sadness.

“Shanti,I know what you are going through….Believe me! I am going through the same feeling.  But this is the reality of life, Shanti! Children grow up and leave the nest. Parents are left alone holding on to the memories…..praying for their children’s well -being and happiness. This is the cycle of life, Shanti! Life and death are all a part of it….”

Shanti peered at her husband’s face, her face inscrutable. A moment of stillness hung heavily in the tiny living room.

Shanti could bear no more….

She broke out crying deliriously, pools of tears running across her pale face, “Why? Why? Ramen! Why life is so cruel? Why do we have to live alone?…. Why can’t we go and live with Sunny? Why can’t he come over here? Is this place not good enough for him? Tell me Ramen, is a parent’s role in her child’s life restricted only till the parental duties are over?”

Ramendra was stupefied.

He had never seen Shanti so grief-stricken before, her words revealing so many facets of her hidden emotions. That moment he was seeing a very different Shanti, his strong, resolute Shanti bowing down to the sway of humane emotions; acknowledging her weakness, her desires and her longing in front of him for the very first time.

Ramen sat next to Shanti, holding her lovingly in his arms.

He murmured, dazed, “But….Shanti ! It was you who always said that you will never leave your home. It was you did not want to become dependent on Sunny. I thought you did not want anything or anyone to impinge on your independence. You have always talked about your independence whenever I would raise this matter in the past, Shanti.”

“What independence are you talking about, Ramen? Are you talking about that independence that will make us spend the rest of our lives away from our own family?” moaned Shanti harshly.

“Is it the fear of rejection you are talking about? Talk to Sunny today! … Tell him that I am ready now! …. Tell him that I miss him and that I love him…… Tell him that I won’t get in his way. Tell him, Ramen. Tell him….,”whispered Shanti, her mind in turmoil, in hope and in fear.