Chapter 23 - Khushi: In the line of Sorrows

Please read the following synopsis of the novel before reading the chapter below which be found at - http://classicjunkie-media.blogspot.com/2009/07/synopsis-khushi-in-line-of-sorrows.html

This segment of Novel carries important aspects and message about Maternity Blues about which you can be informed at - 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternity_blues

Chapter 23

“Mamu, were you ever like this?

Have you been fighting all your life?

Has there been effort to any sort of reconciliation?

Mamu?”

These were not unexpected inquiries but Aakash made it little later. May be there was never an empathetic discourse between the mother and the son where he could intrude his question.

Indeed she was surprised. She might have assumed it was a normal life for her. She could have accepted the turbulence in her life and munched the rock and roll within.

People chew miseries and they become used to it.

She was very unaware of the miseries, loneliness and insecurities of Aakash. She might have never given a thought or ignored everything carelessly. She never tried to know who the real victim was due to their everyday brawl. They never took parenting as a serious endeavour. And probably they didn’t even try to notice that there was a growing child under the same roof to whom they have neither become a role model nor the epitome of love. They have shut their eyes wide open.

Can anything virtuous be expected from this boy?

She is willing for an answer. But in an instant her glow changes from unstable pink to pale-green. She is offended.

“Why?

Why do you need that?”

She is in self defense mode.

“Why do I need that?

Hunh!

You people are so unkind to me!

I have forever been victim of your hostility and you want to know why!"

There is certain harshness in the tone. It indeed lowers down the dominance and stance of Seema. She surrenders her ego and in a soothing tone.

“No it was never like that in the beginning.

We should say we had happily compromised in this relationship.

We intended to start everything fresh!

Yes indeed we had dissent on some points.

We both concealed many things from each other.

As people grow old they become better liar and pretender.

We were two of them.

But after marriage, at least I was determined to bring the best out of this second patch up!”

She takes a sigh of relief.

“Practically it was not a love marriage!

We never dated!

However Mr. Rajesh would assert that he loved me and it was a love marriage.

I don’t believe him.

I think he had a sort of sympathy for me.

And he always had that cunning restlessness to prove everything on his own term.

You see he is so stubborn.

I am sure if you ask him he would tell you otherwise.

There were some attractive qualities in him!

Not sure what are they; maybe gentleness!

Obviously he was an educated and income stable person!

I should have appealed to him anyway!

I was beautiful.

Hah!

,

,

But, I have to say we stumbled upon each other!

And I know, we were never made for each other.

I am 12 years younger to him.

He is a placid personality unless we are fighting!

We know we can blow fire!

I was too much frustrated about relationships after my first marriage failed or made to fail.

We are two extremes like fire and ice!

And we are equally sensitive and dominating in our own ways.

We won't allow anyone to hurt us.

Or if we do the same, we won't be saying sorry.

Priorities, personalities and the meaning of coexistence changes in a conjugal life!

We didn’t accept that change; we didn’t compromise anyway.

We thought we can be funny with each other or disrespectful to any length.

But things don’t work like this.

Sometimes it is better to fake good if the relationship is not getting altogether.

If he was fire, I should have been the cold water and not the ice.

 And if I was fire he should have been the water.

We disrespected any opportunities because they came as a form of responsibility!

Working in responsibility is indeed a difficult prospect.

And for a woman like me who has gone to so much of upheaval in life, once I distrust anybody, he is always a fraud to me!

I can go to any length to prove that.”

Aakash is excited because at least she has something to say. Her revelation is slightly different than the version dramatized in their last battle. She has revealed her part of truth and cunningly able to mask the remaining half truth.

The hidden part of the truth is always responsible for blowing the conflict out of proportion.

There are always two sides in a coin.

Which side she would pick as the weapon of battle would be her personal choice.

 “You were born to us 4 years later.

By then, we were just struggling to adapt to each other.

I was trying to undo his habits and he was trying to do the same on mine!

How we endured each other those years, I don’t.

We thought you would bring fortune, happiness, peace and their abundance in our lives. 

So we gave you the name Aakash; the space we wished to build for three of us and only 3 of us!

The irony is we never build any space for any one of us.

This house has just become a four wall system!

Your father was so obsessed with geometry and space that he forced the name Aakash upon you.

He has always been a mad like this!

Ha! Ha!

Usually woman love bright pink colours but I was obsessed with this sky blue.

And there was nothing abundant in my life; neither love, nor relationships or materials.

So I always dreamt of abundance of everything.

Hence I should say I forced the name Aakash upon you.

Ha! Ha!

I have always been mad like this!

Ha! Ha!

There was something in you, some very intelligent aura.

Bright as blue and maybe I thought the name Aakash was suitable for you.

I hope you like our choice of your name!"

It was the first time she pleaded a sense of humbleness and empathy in her outlook. Aakash definitely wants to know how his history was shaped by his parents. Excited and a bit satirical

“Oh, thank you!

Thanks God!

I was not responsible for my name or the family I was born with!
Ha! Ha!

Then?”

She looks into his

“It was as usual.

There was some emptiness in our lives.

Our marriage was not a spiritual connection.

Yes there was spiritual emptiness.

But we tried to force-pull our cart as far as possible!

After you were born things changed.

Priorities changed; you become our priority amidst this hate for each other.

He seems distracted and losing interest on me.

He had become rude; I don’t know whether it was his weakness or strength!

I thought I lost all my charm.

Most of the times women change physically and mentally after giving birth.

I should say I changed for distractions.

He wouldn’t call me.

I demanded more attention.

He was not there to hug me during the desperations of labour pain I endured for you.

I thought it was all because of you, he neglected me!

I cursed the unborn you.

Suddenly I thought I was the share of enjoyment for two men; one already there and one not born.

One my husband and one my son!

I become a bit mad about this unwanted intrusion forced upon me.

I even thought, I have to shed a part of myself to bring back the life in you!

I was not ready for that!

I was thoroughly depressed.

I also developed a compulsion to repeat things.

I would hear voices, voices that would question me about the rationale to that labour pain –

'What would he do when you are dead?

No one to care and no one to love'

I thought if I die giving birth to you; you would suffer a lot in life.

At once I wanted to save you from all the terrible things in this world; immoral indulgence and wickedness.

I wanted to know if I was capable of killing you and then killing myself!

I have to tell you I was not in my proper frame of mind.

At one time I even thought it was better you were never born to me!

I thought I should have aborted the child of a man I don’t love.

I thought I would throw you away!

And after you were born, I thought you were a monster suckling on my breasts and scrubbing my beauty.

 I despised myself for the dark pigmentation all over my face and sagging breasts and belly!

And I believed I was an evil person!

I was aware I was sick yet I was also confident that I was being a rebel for a cause.

I thought I can be a saviour.

If I was sure of myself, why would I ask for help!

I had become confident in myself; the false confidence.

I rejected the idea to ask for any help because there are lots of stigma surrounding mental illnesses.

I never wanted to be called a mad the very next day.

.

Anyway I endured such monstrous maternity blues!

Thanks, I didn’t do any damage.

I am sorry because there was no one to backup my emotions or hold my tears.

I was lonely and desperate!

I don’t know why I thought ill of you.

You were the flesh of me never born.

In a country like Nepal, where women get so much of attention, care and support from both the family and society while they are pregnant or after they have delivered, I was deprived of that emotional pleasure.

No one was there to attend me.

He wouldn’t let my parents to come and he didn’t have his parents.

I don’t have any sisters and all of my 3 brothers were working abroad.

In a place like Kathmandu, there was an easy access to hospitals but not care and support.

Everybody thought they were busy.

If that is the case why is Nepal not going anywhere?

Why are we deprived and underdeveloped?

My son a women can have more psychological problems during pregnancy or after delivery than any other physical complications.

As the doctor said that time, cases like me are rare, 1 in thousand.

But normally the cases of maternity blues are like among 20 to fifty percent of the deliveries.

And they may not exhibit psychotic features of thinking between two extremes.

So, the proper diagnosis of this illness is categorically complicated.

There is a lot of time left for your marriage.

However I insist you that please do support and care your wife while she is pregnant.

That is the best you can do as a man and a father!

Other than that, you know the health care professionals will be standing there for any interventions necessary.

Do care your mother and mother of your child.

Let both the father and husband be standing for the expecting woman.

My son, I am sorry for my madness!

Those were not my genuine intentions."

Aakash just gives a normal reaction to whatever he heard. He didn’t pretend being shocked. Probably he was satisfied to know the precious truth. He empathized with the difficulties in post partum psychosis. He tries to console his mother.

"Don’t ever feel sorry, mother!

You landed safely out of that illness!

And thanks you are here for me and with me!

I need you!"

Children are way more realistic than adults and much more forgiving. It's better not to pretend to them.

She continues.

"He ought to take some role because you are our mutual investment!

He should have been there to bath you, feed you, pamper you and kiss me!

But that lousy bastard was nowhere there!

He even discouraged spending so much of time with you!

Why wouldn't I?

You are my son, the pearl of my eyes!

A part of my flesh for whom I had endured so much of labor pain!

We ceased talking to each other and starting fighting whenever; wherever we can!

One day, two day and we never had any healthy conversation again.

We were already physically and emotionally separated.

You see the way he talks; he never misses a chance to call me a whore.

I am his wife and I need a certain respect.

I demand and I command a respect!

Yes I do!

But son, I know, things don’t go as the way I wish, in this realistic world.

The problem with women like us is we want so much of drama and attention until we are married.

Obviously a wrong person, maybe right for somebody else, approaches us and stirs the emotion in us.

After marriage, we don’t want any drama in life and that doesn’t happen easily.

We are used to drama and they are used to abuse our emotion.

Never cheat a woman!

I can't understand men!

I really can't!

They would say the same about us.

Ha! Ha!

He is a passion less, cold man who doesn’t know how to win the heart of a woman!

Whore is the most beautiful word that he has ever said to me!

Now days, I am used to enjoy that suffering.

,

,

And then, we just started detesting each other's presence!

As always, hatred was our weapon that we used against each other; whenever we could!

Today I realized we were the culprit and you were the only victim.

,

It has been 16 years since then!

My poor little child I am sorry!”

She takes a deep breath after flooding all her guilt. She is stuck in her past, probably not nostalgic, but largely worried about her future.

Aakash, as inquisitive as his nature is, asks a very critical question.

“But you can see, your ways of hatred brought so many unwanted twists and turns in our lives?

You are not happy.

I am not happy.

And he is not happy.

Can we really continue in this momentum?

Who will fix this problem?

Who has to take the initiatives?”

Seema Devi nods but with her stubborn helplessness.

“Why don’t both of you compromise?

For me, at least!

Perhaps things get better that way!

All of us will have a safe landing.

We must!

We can always change for better!

We are not the culprit to be defined by past mistakes!

Are we?

,

And I deserve a far better life than this; probably more peaceful and better loving, better living!”

He pleads. But Seema Devi is willing to continue in her stubborn apathy. She is not willing to bank her ego. Probably she has no fitting reply for their situation. It is not that she has ignored the prospect. But compromise and peace is a two way process and she knows that. She looks as if she is contemplating something deep within.

Don’t do drama; write drama!

And to assess the half of the problem and devise something to solve it, Aakash enters his father’s room.

“Baba Hajur, I have heard part of our story from Mamu.

Would you please tell me the half part of truth?

A lot of things came into frame and need a strict revision.

But let it be!

At this point in life, while I am growing for a reason and you are getting older day by day I don’t see any difficulty for reconciliation.

I think we should straighten out our priorities and strengthen our relationships for better.

Why don’t you two compromise with your self-worth and clear the misunderstanding?

Please let peace befall on this house.

Let’s begin a new episode of love and life.

Let it be before I go to college.

If she walks one step towards you, just walk two steps towards her!

You will find her; you will meet her.

I will see the rest.

Just take that one single step!"

  

He came to the room willing to question the past, the useless past. But the blue colour painted in the walls and the spacious airy room suddenly illuminates with brightness and changes for good. And now he becomes more assertive about the resolution than tempering on the past through question. Rajesh Pratap, who seems more occupied to the screen on the computer, listen his proposal with grim interest and a sort of disrespect to the growing son.

He reflects an ' I know everything attitude.'

It seems Rajesh Pratap has ignored the prospect of reconciliation.

He denies any direct eye contact or proper respect to his son.

He doesn't attend to his son probably because he has no any formalities to fulfill with him.

Rajesh,

"Is that?

What was the half truth she told you?

She is a passion less cold- stubborn bitch!

The problem with the women we have got, I mean what most Nepali have, is that they always want to prove themselves virgin and innocent.

They would try to prove that they don’t have any part to play in the heap of miseries and mess we are suffering from.

As if always clean and innocent!

But which is not true.

I had heard both of you talking!

I am not interested in her bullshits!

She has been nail in my heart since the day I married her.

Oh, she still thinks that I was no way around while she was crying with labour pain!

Ha! Ha!

Gross lies!

I was there all the time.

I never left her side when she was in dire need of a strong man to hold.

I married her.

I was there but she couldn’t notice because she was having hallucinations and didn’t orient properly with time, place and person.

She had become so much demanding and attention seeking I bet anyone other than me could have tolerated her.

I know it was not her fault; it was all because of all those blues.

I never tortured her but yes there were lesser people around.

I couldn’t arrange so much of emotional support around her.

But what she told you is fabrication of everything; she just wants to demean my presence and my effort.

I accept I have done mistakes in life.

And I take full responsibility for that.

Like, I was out of city that day attending a seminar for engineering consultant.

I should have stayed with her all throughout the week.

But how can I?

I was informed of a date 4 days later for delivery by the physician.

That was the reason for me not being present that day.

I can be accused for my mistakes but every charge for this mess in our lives doesn't have anything to do with him.

I have always thought the best of everyone and strived for it.

She is a good fabricator and you better be aware of that.

You can't imagine how much attention seeking, manipulating and dramatic your mother is.

She has an immense grudge against me and she uses it to nag you and me.

She has been doing that all her life; she is a revengeful woman.

She tells everything according to her convenience.

She fakes herself good and constructs an evil person around me, about me.

That is all she is capable of.

Her relatives should have taught her about compassion, consistency and honesty.

They have always enjoyed the heat of the scuffle between we husband and wife.

She brought her poverty, hatred, insecurity and the burns of a failed relationship with her!

And that evidently ruined my life; our lives!

She was unwilling to realize that our role and priorities and role changes as we bear a child!

I was busy to set up everything right for both of you!

You were born and that was my best day.

I can't explain my delight and dreams!

I thought I could push a mountain to secure safety for you.

But I will tell you one truth.

As the time went, I was bit worried she was more indulged with you!

Oh, I thought she don’t love me anymore!

Neither I was neglecting nor did I lose interest on her.

I have never been expressive person in life and you know that.

Yes indeed I have my drawbacks.

And I can't attend an insecure woman's mood every moment of the day!

Son you can't understand the complex situation weaved in our house!

If possible don’t ever get married!

A person twice married like me neither belongs to house nor hell.

Yes indeed I have done injustice to your step mother and I am suffering for that.

,

,

How can she know the mess she created if she had already lost contact with the reality?

Just one week after you were born and there was this problem.

She won't eat, she won't take care of you or breastfeed you.

She was angry all the time!

Those were difficult days my son!

,

She would weep, cry and be shamelessly violent.

She would be violent to stranger and visitors.

She striked a nurse with an iron stand meant to hold curtains.

And then the next moment, she would be like rain drenched cat, shaking and timid.

Whimpering and disturbing all other people around.

You can't imagine how chaotic could be a situation.

And for a public service holder like me it was embarrassing.

People could accuse of violence against woman!

She would be talking to herself or unknown person I never saw!

She would particularly curse her police constable uncle.

It is possible that he could have beaten or intimidated both of her and the former husband.

The Dalit was accused for raping a minor, cheating to marry a girl of upper caste and was beaten in police custody.

They were separated by force.

I would particularly be embarrassed when she would narrate her past very loud, like a shaman trying some sort of sorcery over his subjects.

Those obscene words, the detail of their sexual intimacies; I was a shameless husband standing there!

If you had seen her eyes those days, you would have noticed there was no hope left for life.

Vigourless!

She would look at us as if we are a recipe on her plate everyone she is salivating eat.

Her big eyes could scare anybody.

I endured all those episodes and saved her from any untoward consequences.

And she would tell everyone that I was not present!

Poor me!

Gross lies!"

Rajesh Pratap looks shattered and doesn’t know how to pick the bits and pieces. All of sudden Aakash hurls a question piercing the silence.

"She revealed something like she wished to kill me and throw me away!

Is that true?"

Aakash should have thought over the intensity of the question and expected a worst scenario be revealed. Rajesh is stunned, worried and answerless for a moment but assemble his strength to tell the objective part of the truth.

"Oh!

No! No!

You know how her condition was!

She was not able to decide the right from wrong!

Totally disoriented!

She was not able to rationalize anything!

It was just the idea that sneaked into her troubled mind!

But she never meant to harm you my child!

There was no such motivation!

You know how horrendous and volatile are transient psychosis!

,

She is your mother and she loves you!

She was worried about you all the time.

Like who would care you if she was not there, etc. etc.

You shouldn’t think otherwise!

,

,

"

It is not clear why Aakash was so eager for a clarification. He should have been deeply hurt listening to what happened or maybe he was trying to strengthen himself by confronting the pure truth.

As long as Aakash can remember, this must be the first time his father defended his mother. Well he should have intended to save the notion of 'MOTHER' from mother!

"The only person she hates is me!

But I can empathize over her situations.

This marriage was indeed a second chance for her to revive the broken spirit!

But she brought along with the disapproval, difficulties, worries, apprehensions and insecurities of the failed first marriage.

She says that her relatives schemed to fail her first love and the marriage.

She peels the scab of those burns again and again to torture me, you and herself.

She was never ready for this marriage and despised me from the very first day; I think.

,

,

The rock hard she is, the rigid she has made out of me.

I don't have anything remaining in me to celebrate.

No emotion, no compassion.

I have become totally dark and pointless figure

I am just breathing and not living anymore.

Don’t know what is propelling this soulless body!

But I am sure of one thing, her outlook of relationships have brought so much of shame to this sacred relationship called marriage."

Rajesh Pratap is way more frustrated. He knows Nepal is a culturally matriarchal society though it is politically patriarchal. And there is confusion around how to treat woman.

"Are there any chances for compromise?"

It looks like the end of discourse for the day and the concluding inquiry. Aakash is very clear; these two stubborn people are less likely to deal a compromise. However he expects an answer for the question he asked hopelessly.

But Rajesh Pratap denies any answer. He is used to the way of life he is living. He may have never thought about reconciliation.

The fading sun leaves a colorful sky.

This gloomy Saturday evening is spreading its worries for tomorrow.

Is there hope?

...................................................................................................................................................................

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