Taramoni

I sat on the sofa with my legs dangling from a side, sipping my morning cuppa. I was skimming through the newspaper while waiting for my sister to wake up. Today was the last day of my vacation and I was sad both at the prospect of going away from Bagdogra as well as getting back into the mad hustle bustle of Mumbai. Much as I liked the pace of of the city , once out of it and into a sleepy , lazy world had numbed my senses, wanted this haze to last for some more time, but that was not to be, a girl has to work to earn her bread and you gotta do what you gotta do. Taramoni sat on the floor peeling potatoes to make alu paranthas for my breakfast. Taramoni was the domestic help but was more of a motherly figure, having taken complete charge of the household chores. My sis and jij called her amma and so did I. After leafing through all the pages, which appeared to me to be very few, of the Telegraph, I was listlessly looking out of the balcony into the lush green lawns, the greens looked lovely with light sunshine enveloping it. "How is Mumbai city choto di?" Taramoni asked me all of a sudden. I jumped out of my reverie and for once I was at a loss for words as to how to describe Mumbai to her. I tried to get a reference of the places she had been so that I could explain it to her in terms she would understand. I asked her "Where all have you been amma?". Nowhere much, I came to Siliguri after my marriage when I was 16years and have pretty much staye dhere all my life." "you mean you never stepped out of this place all these years?", "No, I went back to my village twice","Only twice? Why?", "Its a looong story choto di" she said and gave me sardonic smile. There was a farway look in her eyes and somewhere I guess was a lot of forgotten pain that peeked out. I pressed her to tell me, thinking this will fill my time till sis woke up. She said she was born to a poor farmer and was the youngest among three daughters, there being a lot of difference between the ages of the older two and her. Her mother died during her birth and her father followed suit when she was just 4. She went to live with her eldest sister, who was married into a family with a little plot of land so that they were relatively better off than how her father had been. Her sister doted on her and gave her off to marriage to a local youth from the village who worked in Siliguri as a laborer at construction sites. She was very happy with her the prospect of getting married to Shyam, her husband as he was one of the village's most eligible bachelors. He walked with a swagger and was proud of his looks. He kept himself well groomed all the time and was known as a nice guy, not one leering away at the young village belles like others of his tribe. Taramoni got married in a simple ceremony and came to Siliguri with stars in her eyes. Young though she was, she was very keen to finally have a home she could call her own and could run it the way she wanted to. Her husband was caring and life fell into a routine albeit a happy one. Sometime when the going got rough monetarily , Taramoni would insist on stepping out and finding some sort of work to supplement the houslehold income,her husband would put his foot down, saying he couldn't allow his wife to take on any work outside the household. He would work harder, take on additional work and somehow they would tide over. Three years passed in this matrimonial bliss and Taramoni had now become the mother of a healthy baby boy. Life continued in its usual style till she began noticing her husband spending less and less time at home. And sometime he wouldn't meet her eyes. She feared the worst. She had heard stories of men keeping other women and had seen a lot of men in her village have two wives. She was terrified of this happening to her. She didnt ask him any questions , praying that it was anything but htis and even if it was another woman, he would get over her. He would see how happy she could make him. She well she kept his home, how well she managed thier house with his meagre earnings, how well she took care of him, how well she was raising the child. Had she ever given him any chance to complain, had she ever thrown a tantrum for new saris like shampa , their neighbor . hadn't she taken him to bed and not complained the times he had come home drunk, hadn't she gone without food so that he could have something to eat whenever times were rough. She lived in constant terror of his coming home one day and telling her there was some other woman in his life. she prayed fervently. She prayed to God asking him to make her husband forget any other woman if there was any and stay with her. She could hardly eat anything now a days and wept frequently. Now a days he used to go missing for days on end and she never asked him anything. Till one day he came back home after a week and stood by the doorway. There was relief at having seen him but it soon gave way to fear when she saw he just stood there looking at the floor, he didn't meet her eyes. She said nothing and there was silence for a long time as nobody spoke. Her heart was thudding inside her chest and she could feel a lump rise in her throat. Then he spoke "I married Brinda and I have come to take you away with me, we going bakc to our village". Her worst fears had come true and she felt the room spinning about her. She cluthed the lone chair in the room for some support. She quietened her heart didnt speak for sometime and then finally told him " I will not go". He looked at her incredulously, he obviously didnt believe his ears. He said "What do you mean?, you have no money and there is babai to look after and he is only six months old , how do you think you will manage?" "Just leave" was all she muster for fear of breaking down in front of him. He looked at her for some time tried to make her see reason, said he still cared for her, but she just kept mute. He took one last look at her and then picked up a few of his belongings and walked away. Taramoni told me she hasnt seen him since then. she stepped out, looked for work, found work as a domestic help and raised her son single handedly and it was because she was caryying the stigma of her husband having taken another woman that she never went back to her village to her sister's palce. she said she couldn't have taken all the viallagers gossiping about her husband and didnt want to create any embarassment for her sister even though she knew that her sister would welcome her and her son. Alone in an alien city, with no education , no idea about anything not pertaining to domestic chores, Taramoni set forwrad on her journey to live life, raise her son and do so with pride. It didnt matter she didnt know where she would find work, where she would find the money to educate her son , how she would survive. What she knew for sure was the only way she could live life was on her terms and with dignity. She went to her sister's place though after 10 long years when she thought that now her visit woruld not churn village gossip barrel. Her sister had sent her husband to look for her in the city many times but had not been able to trace her, she was angry that taramoni hadn't come to her in her times of distress but when she saw the look of dtermination in her eyes, she understood and just held her close to her bosom for a long time. Taramoni says there were a lot of difficulties she face all along, often there would be no money for medicines , no money for new clothes , strangers had helped and today her son had completed 10+2 years of schooling and one of her employers had got him a job as a watchman in his factory and he was drawing a salary of 5k per month. Taramoni had built he rown house and was a grandmother now. She still wore sindoor though. I asked why didnt you remarry? she said one marriage was more than enough for me and laughed. I wondered where she kept hidden all that courage, that fierce sense of pride and the limitless grit. I was moved by her attitude towards life and the way she had battled on and won. I knew there is no right way and no wrong way to react to a situation but yes if in your heart you have the conviction of having done the right thing and refuse to look back and carry any regret then that is when you know you have done the right thing. I asked her,"Do you ever think how much eaiser it would have been if you had just gone along with him that day?" she laughed deriridingly and said, " Na choto di, I couldn't have lived with him knowing he had wronged me". There was still that faraway look in her eyes as she said this but I could sense no regret in her voice. there were so many question I wanted to ask her but then my sis called for me, she had finally woken up and I rushed inside to the bedroom.