A Perfect Life
It wasn’t the first time the idea of committing suicide came to her mind.
What have I to live for? She would wonder.
At the break of dawn, as the stream of dust swirling in sunlight makes its way into her paltry abode, she would curl into a ball against the cemented wall, holding her swirling head, lost in thought. Mostly, memories; those of the past, which led her to where she is today. It’s only when the deep, long syllabled prayer radiates from the loudspeaker that she makes even a feeble attempt at moving.
The food from last night, spoilt. The children, her two boys, sprawled across the floor, tired from the commotion last night.
I must wake them up. They’ll be late for school, she reminds herself. As she kneels to gently nudge them, she realizes why she’s still holding on to her life; for them, she consoles herself. For them.
For an outsider, Teja, one would imagine, has a perfect life. A stable job at three houses, children — sons, who study well and hold on to the loose ends of her saree despite their constant bickering, a handful of gifts, monetary assistance and care from the people around her without askance. What more does she want? They would wonder. Without batting an eyelid, she would repeat too; what more do I want? Even if I do, I place my request at the feet of Perumal and he gives me if he deems I deserve it.
This would be her response to just about anything. Ask her why she didn’t remind the landlady at one of the houses she works at, to give her the previous day’s rice and fresh curd that afternoon, like she was habituated to every single day? And she would immediately pronounce; how can I, when I can see that she’s busy? If that Perumal deems I skip one meal for a day, so be it.
Worn, slumped and mute, she would go about her day, the same routine; sweep, mop, wash, clean, dry. Some times, even cook, buy and stock. If anyone dares ask her; how are you today, Teja? She would light up like a blooming jasmine and respond in the most enthusiasm she can conjure up at the moment; I’m fine, Amma!
Only to one person would she confide in; that too, with as much care in ensuring it doesn’t hamper with their time, if they are in the frame of mind to listen, and if she is asked. She would pause from time to time, her child-like eyes cast downward in contemplation. Only once has she confessed to her sole listener; I don’t want to live, Amma. I want to end my life.
The first time she admitted it to her, she was sat down, fed and spoken to, at length. It was the first time too, that someone was privy to the reality that this chubby, sincere, silent albeit playful Teja was faced with.
“He doesn’t come home. If he does…,” she began.
On the cracked wall of her living room hangs a dusty black and white photo of a young couple; a plump woman and a tall, lanky man, staring at the camera like a deer caught in headlights. They seem young and in love, a love that shines through her eyes like the glint of a raindrop. When she married, she had moved not further than a hundred yards into her new home. Although in a house the size of a bunch of closets put together, built in an area where one could hear even the whisper of their neighbors, they lived their life, blissfully unaware of what the future would behold. She, as a domestic maid and he, a tailor, with a small shop right behind their house. As time passed, the first child happened. Then, the second.
We must educate them, she would repeat often, for she was sure that that would be the only way to gift them a better life. So passionate was she about it, that she would leap in joy every time they excelled, and cuss them long into the night when they failed. She would run pillar to post to earn every rupee or two to pay their fee, and conjure up the best meals, ones with a vegetable, to keep them nourished. She would storm in rage if they overstepped the line and take a loan to buy a bicycle for them, because she promised she would if they earned merit.
“They are my life now, my only reason to live,” she says, nowadays, for she fills that recent void, that absence created by marriage through her children.
Absence, she ponders.
Suddenly, years after their marriage, he would not return home on days at a stretch. When he did, he would come home hair disheveled, clothes tattered and eyes bloodshot. She would protest. She would fight, scream, be beaten and slayed while her children would huddle together and watch with fear. A day became two, then a week, then a routine. His shop shut down, she would have not an idea of his whereabouts. She would detest him from every pore in her body. She would battle with words like it were her only weapon. She would hope that the strong objection would drive some sense into him. She would wait, day after day after day, praying for a change, a miracle.
“But it won’t,” her only confidant said. “Don’t be angry with him. Don’t fight him. Let him be, and he will come around. He will realize his mistake.”
Whether out of gratitude for the care she was delivered by this lady, or from sheer hope, she followed her every word. She would dissolve into her sheets when she hears the door creak open late at night. She would serve food when asked, not indulge in his whereabouts, and shut her ears when a swell of abuses begin.
Her patience paid off, no doubt, for he, at the very least, would apologise for ill-treating her on some days. He would indulge her with flowers and sweet, buy food for his children and even come home early some days. She would be delighted for days, narrating the story in detail to anyone who cared enough to ask her of her day. She would swing her hands left and right, back and forth as she animatedly describes in minute detail, of the smell of fresh jasmine, the mouthwatering ladoos, the joy in her children’s faces and so on and so forth. It would keep her going, on days when he was not as harmonious with her.
“Tell me, what’s your problem?”
She hesitates for a moment, nervously running her big toe back and forth across the floor, flexing her short, stubby fingers now and then. She doesn’t know where to start. Seated at a doctor’s office, she shifts in her chair uneasily.
Hairfall, she manages to mumble afterward. Hairfall, in heaps, like the head were shedding its strands in Autumn. She cups her hands into a ball to show how thick her plaits were and how frail they’ve become now. Tension, she adds in an inaudible tone. Persuade her and she utters another one of her predicaments at length to another listener. Heavy head in the mornings, severe fatigue, sleep deprivation, an aching back, loss of appetite, skin allergies.
“Since when?”
She squints her eyes upward as though drawing a timeline of her life and says after a long pause…since I delivered the first child. Tell Teja you have an aching back, and she says with fervor; apply eucalyptus oil, massage your back and take a hot water bath. Tell her you’re unable to eat and she’ll suggest you have fenugreek seeds with sugar. She’ll have a ready, home-made recipes at hand for every ailment you bring to her ears. She’ll even offer to present them to you. Yet, ask her what she did about that tiredness and she mutters with a sheepish smile; I do, I do, I take medicines; mouthing words which struggle to sound honest.
You begin wondering if those eyes are downcast now, again, because she isn’t keeping well. Her perky, enthusiastic chants now spring at irregular intervals. She goes back into her quietude, answering only when questioned, asking only when necessary. The word ‘Perumal’ emerges every now and then, denoting that something is amiss. Not until days after, when her confidant asks her, does she revel in another predicament.
“He’s married to another woman,” she whimpers.
She, the other wife, calls Teja often.
“Come home, won’t you? Come when my husband is home,” she says. Now, her husband. Every time Teja hears these words, she can feel a saw slicing through her body, her mind, her being. She knows not how to deal with the event. Should she be angry? Should she weep? Should she throw a tantrum? No, she swallows it all, like a big boulder being squeezed through a burrow, and carries that weight around, day after day, day after day, hoping a time will come when she can dislodge it and be…be free.
“Your children need a father. Don’t leave him, not until they settle down,” says her confidant.
She bobs her head up and down. Her children sense her burden. Nowadays, they don’t give her the slightest of opportunity to fatigue her, to upset her. They insist on accompanying her to every place she goes, for their own fear that she might leave them any moment. Hardly do they mingle with the children out in the streets, burying their tiny heads in books that bind several hundred pages. They make her their world, darting home at the first sounds of a bell, force feeding her on days she refuses to touch even a morsel of food, days when she leans against the wall, holding her spinning head lest it drop down.
“They are your life now, your reason to live,” she consoles, her confidant.
A weak smile forms on Teja’s face. She looks into the distant future; a day when her children would find a job, build a house bigger than a few closets put together, have a family, and give birth to a generation which would be unhappy no more. And she? Her Perumal would give her what he deems necessary. She beams as these thoughts circle her mind.
Seeing that cherubic smile she wears on the road, one would wonder, can she ask for a more perfect life?
Note: This is an extract from a real-life story, the story of a hero, a woman I came across, who is living and smiling through ups and just so her children have a good life. She’s a hero not just because she’s a woman, but because she, like so many other women, men and transpeople out there, is trying to change the fate of the society, of her family in her own way possible.
