Maidless in Mumbai Read online

  Diurnal lull has given way to nocturnal madness. At the stroke of midnight, Tara has turned into T-Rex. She lunges at my breasts, chews them silly and bawls her head off. This is where maternal instinct should kick in because there is such a thing, right? Why else would they put up that cheesy mother-and-child picture on the wall in which the mother is smiling?

  Sameer and I service both ends of Tara, but a fibre-optic connection has taken over between mouth and butt. Every time I breastfeed, Tara takes a piss/poop. We call the night nurse, but she seems to have bucked her insomnia at last and dropped asleep over a bedpan somewhere.

  I know, sending six messages to Sister Roshan through the night is a departure from my usually measured response to things. Maybe when she calls back, I’ll disown knowledge of all but the first message, and blame the others on an Android glitch.

  21 June

  Yesterday’s slight disquiet has hurtled into today’s full-blown anxiety. Sister Roshan has responded at last: I cannot come. Please forgive, Madam.

  I make ten calls to her, back-to-back, steadily counting through the choked up feeling in my throat. Twenty rings each time, my hopes lifting to a crescendo till the nineteenth ring and then crashing. No reply. I am not in a forgiving frame of mind.

  I go for my first how-to-bathe-baby lesson, feeling the crosshairs of bad luck on my back. Not to mention some wrenching and clenching in the gastric zone (which can’t be contractions as the baby is out). The lady with loudspeaker-in-place-of-voice-box cuts my path like a black cat. ‘Heading home?’

  Best to keep my eyes on the nurse, who is holding Tara by the crook of her neck. How can something be so tiny and so . . .

  Hairy. Tara’s skin is shrivelled, her head is wonky. Will she have to go through life looking like this? I feel guilty now. I’m supposed to be blown away by this surge of affection, this where-have-you-been-all-my-life epiphany. I am supposed to fall in love with my baby instantly. Right?

  At this vulnerable moment, the loudspeaker-lady sows the maid seed. ‘You have your maid in place, don’t you?’

  ‘I was getting a nurse,’ I mumble. ‘The city’s best.’

  ‘Best-shest, who cares! The maid. You have the maid, right?’

  She makes it sound like we’re talking about a specific maid. My lips are moving, but no sound comes out. I’m saying something about how we have a part-time cook and a part-time cleaner, but how we don’t feel ready for a full-time maid. After all, it isn’t easy to go from a cozy twosome to a crowded family of four in one fell swoop.

  ‘What? No maid? Did you say you have no maid?’

  More lip syncing on my part. Something about the specific maid she’s referring to being on the distant horizon of my plans.

  ‘Why? WHY?’

  I’ll just project my best unruffled image, the one reserved for the workplace when we’re twenty minutes from deadline. ‘I’ll hire a maid now that the baby is here!’ (And now that Sister Roshan isn’t.)

  ‘You have it backassward. First the maid, then the baby! No one makes a baby without getting a maid first!’

  I am Eve in the Garden of Motherhood. The snake with the loudspeaker voice has just paid a visit. Niggling, nagging thought: could the natural order of things have escaped me? About the maid coming before the motherhood business? The ugly maid seed is taking root . . .

  ‘Pay attention, mothers!’ says the nurse sharply. ‘If you talk so much now, how will you bathe your babies yourselves when you go home?’

  Who said anything about going home? Like, ever? Tara has turned up without an instruction manual, and there is no Sister Roshan. How can something as vital as keeping Tara alive be entrusted to me?

  I lodge my protest in no uncertain terms, something to the tune of ungluing me from the bed sheets, unwrapping me from around the bed-legs, scraping me off the floor. But it seems that the bed must be vacated for the next lunatic who has decided to have a baby.

  ‘Found a good baby maid, did you?’ inquires the obstetrician, signing the discharge papers. He has obviously discussed the matter with the loudspeaker lady and decided to rub my nose in it. No maid, I say, and then I get the sort of look doctors give you when you’re dying.

  But who’s dying here? I am Giver of Life, remember? All I need to do is dress Tara in her going-home outfit and slip into mine. Except that the Zara jeans I wore when I was two months pregnant have shrunk without warning. Why else wouldn’t they fit now that Tara has vacated my premises?

  One throw-up, two poops and three wettings later, we step out of the hospital. Tara, wrapped in the last swaddling cloth we own; me, in the slouch pants I came to the hospital in, toting a polythene bag of piss-soaked clothes; Sameer, comfortable holding the camera for our first family selfie, not as comfortable holding Tara.

  I’ll focus on regaining my characteristic joie de vivre on the ride home. Blue sky, trees, flowers, a new appreciation surges through me for the sheer miracle of life . . . ‘—change of plans.’

  What did I miss here? I straighten up. What change of plans? And why is Sameer speaking in his bad news voice? ‘Your mom isn’t moving in with us, Anu. You see, mine isn’t going home in a week like we’d planned.’

  It’s like that moment when you’re feeding birds in a park and an asteroid hurtles out of space and gouges out a giant section of earth where you once stood.

  ‘She’ll be staying with us for longer . . .’

  ‘How much longer?’ My voice sounds like it is coming from somewhere else. From hell, maybe. Sameer’s knuckles are white where he’s gripped the steering wheel and he’s saying something about ‘Ma got here and became all emotional . . . her first grandchild . . . what could I say . . . told her to stay as long as she likes . . .’

  As long as she likes! ‘I couldn’t help it, Anu . . . It was the decent thing to do . . .’ Sameer is still talking, but I’ve tuned out.

  I could curl up into a ball and hurl myself out the car. Or crawl into a bunker somewhere and wait for the air-raid sirens to stop ringing. I am unchecking everything on my list. No nurse. No maid. No mother. No peaceful baby without barracuda gums. No jeans. Whatever happened to being on top of things?

  22 June

  I’ve been known to change my mind, especially when confronted with avoidable pain. Like the time I fled the salon with only one eyebrow done.

  Having second thoughts is a sign of intelligence. It means that not only are you the thinking sort, you are the thinking-again sort. Which is why Sameer assumes that I’ll change my mind about his mother and her staying with us ‘as long as she likes.’ That’s where he’s wrong.

  My mother-in-law has moved in with her jackboots on. She looks like an immigration officer in charge of stamping ‘REJECTED’ on passports on her better days. And a manufacturer of nooses on worse.

  It used to bother me before, how MIL (mother-in-law for the uninitiated) glowered at me. I know now that this is only my overactive imagination (by and large). MIL’s facial expression is probably produced by the struggle of raising Sameer all by herself after his father died early. I feel a little mean-spirited now. Maybe I should be doubly sweet to MIL to make up for her hard life (and for the thoughts that cross my mind when I look at her). After all, appearances aren’t everything.

  ‘Have you had tea, Ma?’ I inquire sweetly.

  ‘Ask Sameer first!’ I am mildly puzzled. Why should I ask Sameer if he’s had tea when he’s been driving me home, and I know for a fact that he hasn’t?

  ‘What about you, Ma?’ I persist sweetly.

  ‘What about me?’ A giant sigh (also a product of her hard life). ‘Who is there to make tea for me?’

  MIL wields her umbilical cord like a whip, and Sameer jumps up as though it has struck him upon his back: ‘I’ll put tea on for us all!’

  MIL convulses like she has walked into a high-voltage fence. I pretend I can’t see the thought balloon floating above her head: What have you done to my son? Instead, I think of tea and of the many improvements to Samee
r in the six years we’ve been married.

  A description of old-model Sameer would read as follows:

  Man who scratches head in puzzlement when doorbell rings and is unable to find kitchen with map. Who wonders how the crumpled heap of clothes on floor turned into the ironed pile on shelf. Who barely registers the jangling phone or the empty fridge.

  The new and improved Sameer wheels out with three steaming cups. ‘Tea is not good for the baby,’ says MIL. No one is giving the baby tea, so I have no idea what she means. However, I do remember to cast a look of abject gratitude at the man I’ve married as he stirs sugar into his mother’s tea and looks at me lovingly: ‘Why don’t you take your cup inside and lie down?’

  And so I do. There’s nothing I need more right now.

  23 June

  I’ve been having the opposite of a déjà vu. Sitting in my own home with a what-is-this-strange-and-unfamiliar-place sort of feeling (which doesn’t only have to do with Sameer’s mother hovering without a date of departure).

  My erstwhile bedroom is now a nursery. Of course, it’s perfectly reasonable to rearrange a room so that it reflects the mature and grounded nature of its occupants. I’m a parent now. Nothing sensible about holding on to:

  Favourite books (Who’ll have the time to read?)

  Vase of lilies (Flowers will make Tara sneeze.)

  Computer (Work can wait, I’m a mother.)

  Clothes (Redundant after maternity weight has spread itself thick like butter on thighs)

  Instead, there are prudent items of furniture:

  Plastic trolley piled high with nappies, cotton wool, wet wipes

  Nappy changing table

  Baby clothes

  Baby toys

  And one book: What to Expect the First Year

  Still, I feel like that African warthog I once saw on a nature programme. I found it funny then, how he tottered about confused because he’d forgotten where home was. Doesn’t feel that funny now.

  Outside, Dad has come over to play with Tara. He seems as nervous about picking up Tara as Sameer is. Is this some undocumented male thing? MIL is playing to the gallery now that she is the only one with holding skills. She directs a steady stream of gibberish at Tara as if she has mastered an obscure language beyond the reach of her all-male audience. ‘My kitchoo-witchoo! My chintoo-mintoo!’

  ‘Wow, Veena, you are a natural with your granddaughter!’ That’s Dad, buttering up the in-laws. Superb. MIL is unstoppable now. A sigh escapes me—and then my eyes fall upon the newspaper.

  Support builds for dam. My breath catches at the front-page headlines. I skim the story. Same minister, no surprises there. Same spiel about rivers and power; no surprises there either. This is the story that everyone knows: Chief Minister Khandu building a series of dams in his remote home state. His election battle cries don’t proclaim him ‘friend of the farmer’ for nothing.

  Not a hint of the real story. The one I’ve been working on quietly for months. Who would have thought that a soft-spoken waiter could turn into a whistle-blower and promise me the most explosive story of my career?

  Sanmitra, that’s who he said he was when he called out of the blue. It was only after I’d made the eight-hour trip out by air and road to see him that I knew he was a credible source. That he was telling the truth about waiting tables at a hotel owned by CM Khandu’s nephew. Where money changed hands in a clandestine meeting between the chief minister and men in suits. Kickbacks for construction contracts for the first dam of many. Nothing friendly to farmers there.

  We decided to wait. If CM Khandu had taken money once, he’d take it again. Only this time, we’d record it.

  Outside, the men have gotten over Tara, and Sameer is telling Dad how he’s on the fast track for partnership this year. This story is making me edgy about being away from the newsroom. My fingers scrabble at my cell phone. When I show the world the shady backroom dealings on which these dams are being built, a thousand villages will be saved. Sanmitra’s home will still be standing. A fragile ecozone will be pulled back from the brink of disaster.

  ‘Hello, Hotel Grand Palace.’ It is only when someone picks up that I realize how awkward this is. For a woman to be calling at a small-town hotel and asking for a waiter by name. ‘Yes, I’ll hold.’

  What is that mewling sound? Is it Tara’s feed time already? And when did Dad leave? I feel a little pang of guilt. How could I plunge into work and forget that I’ve just had a baby? Coming, Tara . . . what’s taking Sanmitra so long?

  ‘Hello?’ Thank god.

  The mewling outside my door has picked up. ‘Any news, Sanmitra?’ I try to keep my voice steady.

  ‘I told you not to call here.’ He sounds anxious.

  ‘I haven’t heard from you in weeks . . .’

  ‘I am getting strange looks.’

  ‘I’m sorry, give me another number where I can reach you, then.’

  ‘I will call you. Don’t call again. Please.’

  The phone goes dead. Damn. What if I’ve pissed him off and blown the story? Tara is bawling now. I should go to her. I will. In a minute. First, I’ll grab my planner.

  Regain trust with whistle-blower.

  Convince him to share safe contact details.

  Press for details about next meeting.

  Stay mum—too early to tell Eddy yet.

  I am jotting down one last thing when MIL throws the door open and hurls herself at me. As if Tara and she have been washed in by a flash flood. ‘Zara is crying!’

  Zara? MIL’s agitation has provoked a slip of tongue. Sameer purposefully throws open Tara’s nappy—What? Dry?—and stands around looking stumped. MIL shoos Sameer out with a ‘Go! Ladies’ stuff!’ and thrusts Tara in the general direction of my breasts, exhorting her to ‘Drink! Drink!’ Great. I have just been objectified into a milk bottle with legs.

  A half hour later: Tara has been fed, burped, cleaned and coddled, but she is still crying. The omitted item on my planner is gnawing at me. But MIL is singing a quavering lullaby in my right ear and Tara is crying in my left. Can’t think with all this commotion. Think.

  ‘Ma, hold Tara for a minute, please!’ I smuggle the planner into the bathroom. Silence at last! What was it now?

  Speak to geologist about building dam in seismic zone.

  MIL hammers on the door: ‘Zara is still crying!’

  Why is she still crying? . . . I should find out how his previous elections were financed . . . Zara’s nappy must be wet . . . Why am I calling her Zara now?

  File under RTI.

  ‘ANU!’

  That’s it. One last thing to jot down:

  Get a maid. Now.

  24 June

  MIL is here on an open-ended invitation and Mom is staying away. The two women have nothing in common. Mom has a doctorate in English Literature and twenty years of teaching experience. She advises the country’s top universities, and she always knows what to do. I miss her.

  ‘Who needs a maid?’ she says when I call her. ‘I raised you all by myself, didn’t I?’

  Before things start going downhill, I mean majorly downhill, there are signs. Like polar bears turning up stranded on Arctic ice floes are a sign of global warming. My wonderful mom is many things. An early disaster warning system is not one of them.

  Sign 1: Sameer is giving Tara the NFL—the New Father Look. Read: expression on child’s face after losing parents at the Kumbh Mela. Read: expression on blindfolded journalist’s face after a guerrilla group has dumped him in deep jungle without a compass.

  Sign 2: Zara was not a slip of MIL’s tongue. It was a statement of intent. Tara’s horoscope says that she will float through life unaffected by mothers-in-law if her name begins with Z. Zara, says MIL, is better than Tara.

  Sign 3: Mom raised me thirty years ago and has forgotten all about it. Amply evident from her loud exclamations when she pops by today. ‘I don’t think you had such a wobbly head, Anu!’ or ‘Really? This wobbly?’

  Just af
ter we’ve bathed Tara, and just before we’ve taken her out of the bathtub, she clears her bowels. Shit. Literally. Mom and MIL shriek, ‘Lift her out!’ They obviously mean that I should lift her out because they aren’t lifting a finger.

  Instead, they do a hot-coal-dance with their clothes hitched up around their knees while I hold up the squealing mess that is Tara and slosh out the shitty water. I am on my own here. Clearly.

  While my weaker female counterparts are waiting for their heart rates to settle, I clean up Tara, waft out the bathroom, pick up the phone and put the word out for a maid. Mild way of saying I call everyone I know and speak in a tone bordering on frantic, emailing and messaging everyone who did not take my calls, and restricting myself to only five exclamation marks per message.

  25 June

  The maid hasn’t come, but the milk has. This is when you wake up to find that the breasts you took to bed last night have been swapped with a porn star’s.

  I open What to Expect the First Year, still groggy. There it is, that bit about when the milk comes in. Obediently following the instructions, I get on all fours on the bed. Best to position the authoritative text under me so that I can still refer to it. Best not to

  think of which udderly bovine animal I most resemble now. And probably prudent to wake up Sameer and ask him for a back rub to release the milk.

  New Father makes obliging comments, like ‘Of course, Anu,’ and ‘There, does that help?’ but the expression on his face says ‘Gross!’ Not gross as in: disgusting, but fascinating. Gross as in: only disgusting.

  Tara stirs, but New Father surveys her warily. As if her gangly parts might detach without warning unless I swaddle her like a King Tut mummy. In a staggering display of logical thinking, New Father picks Tara up by her legs. As if she were one of those cartons on which someone forgot to write This Side Up.

  ‘Her head!’ I prompt him. Tara wriggles free of her swaddling cloth and flails her limbs wildly, and New Father grapples with what could well be a ten-foot anaconda. I settle into the armchair, determined not to let this image mess with my inner peace.