her window was her pathway to the world.the bars were also selective like the people who had forgotten her , she lay listless trapped in her body wasting way to cancer . the light motes danced , magical mesmerizing her transporting her to the times when life was colorful , beautiful and simple and yes, smelt nice. this antiseptic smell of the hospital oh sorry , hospice had invaded every pore of her body .she breathed ,smelt , sweat this antiseptic phenols smell of Toronto. It was all a lie that the smells were better here , nothing could replace the mitti of Punjab . Oh how she wanted to go back to her home , anything anything was better than being here . she was ready to stay at Rajjo's place and die in her one room house.she remembered those long forgotten days when she was told not to play with her , as she was from the other caste; but they had played slyly. Childhood smiles , those harmless pranks and defying parental authority had all been the norm . where had all the innocence gone? Life had dealt one blow after another.
She wished and wished a gazillion times if she could turn the clock and had she gone with her heart rather than worry about society , prestige , name and her father's standing in the village.
countless girls had before been sacrificed on the altar of arranged marriages. why did girls not get a say? these questions all created turmoil in her mind and she could not speak again . the cancer had spread till her throat . well ,money surely had its benefits , one had a good bed, the best medical care , clinical that is , the patch up on the throat was the best , the drugs which kept in her state of listless , floating in consciousness and then out of it.
What she did have was medical care , the nurses spoke to her, but she ached to hear punjabi , any sweet utterance. Nothing came close to that tinkling sweet words, the lovely half spoken words of love even if they were a curse. Nobody even knew her name here. She was Mrs N. Bal. Her husband , her pati parmeshwar was her identity even if she was in democratic progressive country , the land which had made punjab bankrupt and changes it from an agricultural state to an empty mall state. Sardar Kanwar Pratap Singh Bal came from Canada promising the moon and married her . he had the right credentials according to daarji; he was rich , a well connected family , only son ( every father 's wish list ) and educated. he was handsome and they wanted a quick wedding . Oh all the mistakes they had made . a loveless marriage , the jaldi ..no english word could explain the hurriedness like jaldi could.
her only bright spot was the fun times he had with her friends. the romance of youth clouds everything . kanwar had wooed her off her feet and use was so in love with his suave , handsome personality , but he had a temper which surfaced.
marie walked in and gave her a shot so that she would be pain - free for the whole day . And then she lost consciousness for the the few hours ; her last thought being of Chandini.
late evening , the window again brought in the dying sun, she knew it heralded her death , was that an oxymoron as taught by her english teacher? nothing seemed funny or sad. It was all awash amongst the pain , the purpose of her life , the inability to stand by her decision in front of society and the repercussions. It was such domino effect .
In fact if one tried to categorize the pain , there was no way one could measure the pain which is inflicted by words and the engraving down on one's heart . does the heart survive or does it shrivel into this grey listless muscle just pumping away blood which was not even red just a watered down version supporting a life which was a corpse held together by the last vestige of name and property .
Everything in this world , was just money nothing more. She , Mrs nanaki was just bartering chip since the day she had been born the only child , double property , a good well connected alliance leading to a marriage with the most eligible bachelor from , yes you guessed it toronto , canada and then the black mail to lead a marriage where name was paramount , forget love ( according to k , just a concoction of lusty writers who were wastrels) . And now after the divorce , K wanted her insurance money . Oh , if she had the energy she would walk out and take a flight to Punjab and hide in the haveli . the safe haven with daarji.
nanaki knew no parent except , daarji . Her other strength was Chandini , the joy , the spirit of her life who had made her stand up to the beatings and abuse the alcoholic beatings and said ,'Mama stop giving the strings of your life to others . Stop being a puppet . '
she woke up after that and left the big mansion where lights burned falsely and social pretense was utmost to her husband and almighty . It seemed as if she had never left the shores of punjab just had regressed to the Neathendereal age. Kanwar ji , was just once stop more worse than any b-grade Bollywood villain.
her thoughts went to the last time as always when he had picked up his hand to hit her and in walked in the latest girlfriend who shared his sick sexual deviancy . Nanaki, looked anther daughter room and anther hands which still had scars form last time's burning by cigarette stubs . His hand she caught before he could make contact with her face but his push hurdled her into a vortex which consumed her till today.
Chandini knew , she needed to take this break ,she needed this gap year away from uni. she needed to go with her mother to punjab. she needed to answer this email which had come from some weird man who said he knew Mom. OMG ! was it going to be like an Oprah show where her mom would miraculously wake up and be cured of cancer and live a few years in peace...
She knew she had to tackle and make her decisions fast . With deadlines, bookings and an impending phone call she which she had to make to decide the course of her mother's life . sighing , she pushed her hair back and rubbed her near blind eyes ( only lenses saved her). she wondered where did she get this crazy hair from ? Must be her grandfather , who she knew wore a white turban hiding his hair under neath it . Nothing ,nothing came between he hair and its genes, they just never got straight. well , nobody inner life to bother for so .. ki farak painda hain? Using her mothers favorite line she picked up the phone , dialed and waited... the transatlantic ringtone and then , a stern hello .
'Hello "
May I speak to General Gill , please?'
speaking. who is this /
this is Chandini from canada , in reagrds to an email
oh , yes , yes , one minute please.
thinking to herself ( what about the costs , here mister?), did he even know how expensive these calls were?
Yes, Sat sri akal beta . this is a bit awkward but you don't know but i have known about you from your grandfather jai singhji . he always speak about you when ever he comes to Chandigarh on his trips to visits his Doctors in regards his diabetes. I have known your mother since we were studying in college.
yes, but how does that add up? i mean , how can you help , what do you want to do? I wish you would explain how , what and most important why.
the long silence on the other end ,made her wonder if he had hung up or she had disconnected the phone . He spoke , his tone had a strange catch in it , it was deeper with all the emotions of the world , full of a strange kind of love , an inflection which did not match with a stranger who had come into her life unannounced last week. " i have known nanaki since she was a young girl , full of life, exuberance , a gaiety which was a special gift fromGod and anyone who saw wanted to bask in her glory or the special light she seemed to possess. we all grew up together except that I was not from the same social strata . i was a fatherless child who had been given direction in his life by daarji and all his help has made me what I am today . i could never have asked her hand in marriage. a landless jat boy whom had no claim to any money except his education . that has been my single biggest regret in life that if I had got the courage to ask her hand in marriage and had controlled my own inferior complexes , she would have been happier and I would have given her the world.
nanaki was stunned, her mother , a love , marriage , the purity stunned her.
It was her turn to keep quiet and she said what , you did not have the courage to get married to her but you loved her and now you want to appease your guilt conscience by being benevolent and all high and mighty NOW. where were your guts? just because you have a debt to pay back to Daarji , you know want to get her to punajab when she is dying and is in pain and has pain and has lapses of incoherency . So what is this last minute call before you meet the maker?
He had her furious , this sanctimonious person form nowhere. And she kept the phone down.
the phone rang instantly and she said, Yes.
I want to get her back where she belongs . she needs to be back with friends, family and her father wants to apologize and make amends for his weakness, his inability to address the fact that his son in law was an abuser and his false prestige to not accept that its fa,ily which come first rather than society . The denial has stopped but he needs absolution.
I need time to think and why should I shift my mother to a country which has shunned her for ages and there is no equivalent medical facility. you don tknwo how much the disease has ravaged her body , yes her mind is strong it drifts , yearns for the mitti.i don't know what this mitti is all about but the eyes they speak of so much love and yearning , that if I would consider even of done second it would be for her eyes.
i will call you in a few days.
beta,
She wished and wished a gazillion times if she could turn the clock and had she gone with her heart rather than worry about society , prestige , name and her father's standing in the village.
countless girls had before been sacrificed on the altar of arranged marriages. why did girls not get a say? these questions all created turmoil in her mind and she could not speak again . the cancer had spread till her throat . well ,money surely had its benefits , one had a good bed, the best medical care , clinical that is , the patch up on the throat was the best , the drugs which kept in her state of listless , floating in consciousness and then out of it.
What she did have was medical care , the nurses spoke to her, but she ached to hear punjabi , any sweet utterance. Nothing came close to that tinkling sweet words, the lovely half spoken words of love even if they were a curse. Nobody even knew her name here. She was Mrs N. Bal. Her husband , her pati parmeshwar was her identity even if she was in democratic progressive country , the land which had made punjab bankrupt and changes it from an agricultural state to an empty mall state. Sardar Kanwar Pratap Singh Bal came from Canada promising the moon and married her . he had the right credentials according to daarji; he was rich , a well connected family , only son ( every father 's wish list ) and educated. he was handsome and they wanted a quick wedding . Oh all the mistakes they had made . a loveless marriage , the jaldi ..no english word could explain the hurriedness like jaldi could.
her only bright spot was the fun times he had with her friends. the romance of youth clouds everything . kanwar had wooed her off her feet and use was so in love with his suave , handsome personality , but he had a temper which surfaced.
marie walked in and gave her a shot so that she would be pain - free for the whole day . And then she lost consciousness for the the few hours ; her last thought being of Chandini.
late evening , the window again brought in the dying sun, she knew it heralded her death , was that an oxymoron as taught by her english teacher? nothing seemed funny or sad. It was all awash amongst the pain , the purpose of her life , the inability to stand by her decision in front of society and the repercussions. It was such domino effect .
In fact if one tried to categorize the pain , there was no way one could measure the pain which is inflicted by words and the engraving down on one's heart . does the heart survive or does it shrivel into this grey listless muscle just pumping away blood which was not even red just a watered down version supporting a life which was a corpse held together by the last vestige of name and property .
Everything in this world , was just money nothing more. She , Mrs nanaki was just bartering chip since the day she had been born the only child , double property , a good well connected alliance leading to a marriage with the most eligible bachelor from , yes you guessed it toronto , canada and then the black mail to lead a marriage where name was paramount , forget love ( according to k , just a concoction of lusty writers who were wastrels) . And now after the divorce , K wanted her insurance money . Oh , if she had the energy she would walk out and take a flight to Punjab and hide in the haveli . the safe haven with daarji.
nanaki knew no parent except , daarji . Her other strength was Chandini , the joy , the spirit of her life who had made her stand up to the beatings and abuse the alcoholic beatings and said ,'Mama stop giving the strings of your life to others . Stop being a puppet . '
she woke up after that and left the big mansion where lights burned falsely and social pretense was utmost to her husband and almighty . It seemed as if she had never left the shores of punjab just had regressed to the Neathendereal age. Kanwar ji , was just once stop more worse than any b-grade Bollywood villain.
her thoughts went to the last time as always when he had picked up his hand to hit her and in walked in the latest girlfriend who shared his sick sexual deviancy . Nanaki, looked anther daughter room and anther hands which still had scars form last time's burning by cigarette stubs . His hand she caught before he could make contact with her face but his push hurdled her into a vortex which consumed her till today.
Chandini knew , she needed to take this break ,she needed this gap year away from uni. she needed to go with her mother to punjab. she needed to answer this email which had come from some weird man who said he knew Mom. OMG ! was it going to be like an Oprah show where her mom would miraculously wake up and be cured of cancer and live a few years in peace...
She knew she had to tackle and make her decisions fast . With deadlines, bookings and an impending phone call she which she had to make to decide the course of her mother's life . sighing , she pushed her hair back and rubbed her near blind eyes ( only lenses saved her). she wondered where did she get this crazy hair from ? Must be her grandfather , who she knew wore a white turban hiding his hair under neath it . Nothing ,nothing came between he hair and its genes, they just never got straight. well , nobody inner life to bother for so .. ki farak painda hain? Using her mothers favorite line she picked up the phone , dialed and waited... the transatlantic ringtone and then , a stern hello .
'Hello "
May I speak to General Gill , please?'
speaking. who is this /
this is Chandini from canada , in reagrds to an email
oh , yes , yes , one minute please.
thinking to herself ( what about the costs , here mister?), did he even know how expensive these calls were?
Yes, Sat sri akal beta . this is a bit awkward but you don't know but i have known about you from your grandfather jai singhji . he always speak about you when ever he comes to Chandigarh on his trips to visits his Doctors in regards his diabetes. I have known your mother since we were studying in college.
yes, but how does that add up? i mean , how can you help , what do you want to do? I wish you would explain how , what and most important why.
the long silence on the other end ,made her wonder if he had hung up or she had disconnected the phone . He spoke , his tone had a strange catch in it , it was deeper with all the emotions of the world , full of a strange kind of love , an inflection which did not match with a stranger who had come into her life unannounced last week. " i have known nanaki since she was a young girl , full of life, exuberance , a gaiety which was a special gift fromGod and anyone who saw wanted to bask in her glory or the special light she seemed to possess. we all grew up together except that I was not from the same social strata . i was a fatherless child who had been given direction in his life by daarji and all his help has made me what I am today . i could never have asked her hand in marriage. a landless jat boy whom had no claim to any money except his education . that has been my single biggest regret in life that if I had got the courage to ask her hand in marriage and had controlled my own inferior complexes , she would have been happier and I would have given her the world.
nanaki was stunned, her mother , a love , marriage , the purity stunned her.
It was her turn to keep quiet and she said what , you did not have the courage to get married to her but you loved her and now you want to appease your guilt conscience by being benevolent and all high and mighty NOW. where were your guts? just because you have a debt to pay back to Daarji , you know want to get her to punajab when she is dying and is in pain and has pain and has lapses of incoherency . So what is this last minute call before you meet the maker?
He had her furious , this sanctimonious person form nowhere. And she kept the phone down.
the phone rang instantly and she said, Yes.
I want to get her back where she belongs . she needs to be back with friends, family and her father wants to apologize and make amends for his weakness, his inability to address the fact that his son in law was an abuser and his false prestige to not accept that its fa,ily which come first rather than society . The denial has stopped but he needs absolution.
I need time to think and why should I shift my mother to a country which has shunned her for ages and there is no equivalent medical facility. you don tknwo how much the disease has ravaged her body , yes her mind is strong it drifts , yearns for the mitti.i don't know what this mitti is all about but the eyes they speak of so much love and yearning , that if I would consider even of done second it would be for her eyes.
i will call you in a few days.
beta,
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