The Damocles' Sword

I received a mail yesterday from Veena saying the auction notice for our house has been sent by the bank and on July 16th they are going to attach the house. It is part a big mess created by Appan many years ago. Actually each time the bank decides to take action something or the other comes up the it gets delayed and there is a reprieve for sometime, then it all starts again. It hangs like a Damocles sword over our heads, never letting us relax.
Then each time some solution to the problem comes up, either Appan or Amma manage to shoot it down. Sometimes I think it is best for the house to be attached at least this ongoing tension will disappear from our lives.
The house has been an unlucky one for all those who lived in it. Every owner has ended up in debt and been forced to sell the house, I suppose we are just one more in the long chain of owners. Maybe the bank will be the next victim.
Maybe when I went down for Appan’s funeral last year and stayed for 40 days at home, is the last time I get to spend time at home. From now on maybe I will be one of those millions of homeless. We have a lot of memories there, some beautiful, some terrible.

God and His plans

I feel a little smug and satisfied today. God struck for me yesterday or so I think. Since our marriage six years back, the balance has always tilted in his favour. I know it is the same in all marriages, the man has more power but in ours, he is in power and I am just a menial servant with no real identity, hopes or anything resembling life. We go on vacation and I am not allowed to visit my parents but expected to bow low and scrape before his mother and the all powerful sisters, who are allowed to scream, blame and literally make life hell for all around them. When my parish church has a feast, I am made to beg and beg to be allowed to visit only to be denied and left feeling hopeless and dead. But he ensures we are there for all his church feasts. My attitude in the beginning was anger but slowly I became resigned to fate and consoled myself with the fact that I took on this crucifix and I need to carry it to the end.
This year as his brother was going to India at the time of the church feast, he decided he would not go on vacation at the same time, and rather go during Thom’s school vacation. So all was set, then as the days for his brother’s vacation approached so did his problems. Then at the last moment, the brother was not allowed to go and suddenly during the feast, the brother was not there at home. We had a party yesterday and he got drunk and after that he was very upset, opening up. He was upset that this was the first feast when neither his father, his brother nor himself was able to attend the feast, the first feast when his mother had to be without any of her men around her for the feast.
Well it was almost like my fantasy come true. Each time I begged him to let me go home, he used to smirk. It was like I was being avenged for the times when he refused to let me go and my parents had to do without me even when they knew I was just a hour away from them. I know it is a small thing but to him this is a big deal. Every time we have guests and they enquire after his mother, he tells them, “My mother has her daughters to stand and support her like pillars on her either side, and she does not live looking up to us. Her daughters take care of her.” Very proud, that his sisters had their noses in all our matters and had full control of everything. So what changed now? For me this has been special, because I was able to attend the Ettu Nombu perunal in our church and he was not able to attend the perunal in his. This is the opposite of what usually happens. Maybe God has decided things need to change and like they say in Hindi, “In God’s house there is delay not darkness”(Bhangwan ke ghar mae dher hai andher nahi).

A Special Day

Every year when this day comes along, I relive the events that made this day the most important on my calendar. On March 22nd, 2003 Saturday, I was pregnant and the due date was fast approaching on April 2nd. I was scared and my conversations with Veena inevitably ended with her telling me, “See, the baby has to come out, and you have to do it, pain or no pain. So don’t worry, there is going to be pain but the baby will come out.”
That wasn’t very comforting but well the truth so I had to just bite my lips and bear it.
That morning I had my weekly checkup, compulsory in the last month and as usual I went to the hospital, amma had come from India for the delivery and she came alone. As usual thee was a big crowd. I waited my turn and watched the others there. A girl who was two weeks overdue was there; she had been there last week and the week before but this time she looked uncomfortable and worried. She was ushered in and then they called my name. The doctor had put me on a strict diet as I was putting on too much weight and she seemed satisfied with the result. Then she checked my blood pressure and said, “ Have we done an internal exam yet?” I shook my head and said, “No”.
“Then come, let me have a look”
I hated internal exams and each time ended with the doctor shouted angrily at me.
“You need to be very slow, because I find it very hard to relax during the internal examinations.”
The doctor smiled, “ Don’t worry, and think about something else.”
I closed my eyes and thought about yellow flowers, sunflowers, and chrysanthemums.
“There, it’s over, but you are 4cms dilated. How are you feeling? Any pain, discomfort, anything different at all?”
I shook my head, scared, “No, nothing.”
A nurse came up and said, “You are lucky, 4cms and no pain, that is great, now you have just 6cms to go.”
The doctor said, “Come lets do a ultrasound, just to make sure everything is fine”
As I lay waiting for the doctor to do ultrasound, I could hear her talking to someone else, “My God, You are nearly 8cms dilated, How come you are feeling nothing?”
The girl she was speaking to was very young, slim and tall and she looked surprised at what the doctor said.
“You need to get admitted to the labour room now. I will forward the paper work.”
“So Can we go to the maternity wing now?” she asked the doctor and the doctor looked at her and said, “My dear how do you plan to go there, you are in no state to walk or move. The ambulance will take you there.”
The maternity wing was on the other side of the sprawling Kuwaiti hospital and medical college. Then the doctor came to me and asked, “Why are you all dilated and getting ready to have babies today without any contractions? Is it because of the rain.”
Then she did the ultrasound and told me, “The baby is big but the delivery is going to be easy, you have very soft tissues.”
Then She told me to wait as I needed to get admitted and she wanted to put at the fetal heartbeat. I went out into the waiting area and told amma and asked her to call J.
Back inside I saw overdue girl and her mother worried, the fetal heart beat was irregular and they needed to have a C section done and she was also referred to the maternity hospital.
They then made me lie on a bed and gave me rubber bulb to hold and told to press it each time the baby moves, so I lay there and did it.
Soon it was over and the doctor came over and gave me some papers and told me, “Go home now. Come and get admitted at 2.00PM or earlier if you had any contractions. Right now there are no beds in the maternity ward.”
Great, I came and saw J there, looking worried and scared. I told what the doctor had said and we came back home.
At home I called appan and told him that the contractions have started.
Amma made me take a bath, then at 2.00PM Byju came with a SUV and took us to the hospital. There we had a little difficulty getting to labour suite as I was instructed as the guard outside kept insisting that I needed to get admitted to the maternity ward first. Then someone came out and looked at the papers and let me in. Inside, everyone looked relaxed, “ Any pain, discomfort, anything at all?”
“No”
“I don’t why the duty doctor is sending everyone over today without them getting any contractions?”
“I don’t think you need to get admitted now, go home and come back when you feel some change.”
I did not know what to do, “ But the doctor said I was dilated 4cms.”
“Well, that is okay as long as you feel no pain.”
I went out and told J, he started to look even more worried. Then he came in, “ SO should we be back?”
“Wait,” Another nurse said, “Let the doctor check you before you leave, just to make sure.”
After checking she said, “she is already 6cms and dilating fast, get her admitted immediately.”
Then I lay there and the pain was induced and as contractions started, I started screaming and flailing my hands around, they sedated me and I kept on screaming and at 10.27PM, he came out. He did not scream or cry just whimpered. My angel, small, beautiful and lovely

Vacation blues

“I have booked tickets for our vacation in August” J called to tell me, “Its from August 2nd to the 23rd and that means you can stay at your parent’s house for two or three days around the days of your father’s death anniversary.”

I seethe inside, I can feel the anger building up, but I say nothing. My husband takes more pleasure in denying me my little happiness than anything else in the world. I knew he had probably planned and sketched out the details and methods to ensure that I did not get time to spend with my people and my home. For him marriage meant I give up all by past life and move into his. Well it might have worked had I been married when I was two or three year old, but when you marry at the adult age of thirty one, your past is part of your life. Anyway I don’t ask him to forget his people, why would he expect me to forget mine. But all this is just academic. I put my head in the wolf’s mouth when I consented to marrying him and now after having a son, leaving is not an option,  especially when I know he is good father. A bad husband surely but a good father. Arguing would have been fruitless, as I know from past experience. All I can do is wait for an opportunity to escape my burden or else hope that God in his greatness has other plans for me.

Anyway he comes home for lunch and I am so angry that I cannot bear to look at his face, he knows it but ignores it. By evening I am still angrier. Then at night when he sleeping his stomach starts acting up, flatulence and bloating and he wakes screaming from deep sleep, screaming that he was having a heart attack. I ignore him and go on pretending to sleep. He soon realizes it is only gas and goes off to the toilet. This has been a regular occurrence. He does something nasty and manipulative and his system acts up scaring him to death. Maybe this is his fate, a lifetime of fear of untimely death as a retribution for the mental torture he subjects me to.

For me each vacation in his house is hell, his sisters and mother are nasty ladies whose noses are permanently stuck in their brothers’ and their wives’ lives. The brothers’ don’t mind while we hate to have to see and deal with them everyday and night. They have totally henpecked weirdoes for husbands so they tag along too.

The Outing

“How was the flower shop visit?” I asked Thom when he returned from school
“Okay”
“What did you do there? What did you see?”
“OH, just flowers.”
“Did they give you flowers.”
“No, just to the teacher.”
“Did Mahadev come to the class today?”
“Yes, Mahadev came, so did Rohan.”
“What about Jackly?”
“I don’t like Jackly.”
“Okay, so we will just throw in the waste bin”
“Which one?”
“The one outside our flat, let the garbage truck come and take him away.”
“No, No, just throw him in the waste bin inside our house.”
“Why? You said you don’t like him didn’t you?”
“Yes, but not that much, I don’t like him only a little.”