Monsoon arrives

I lay on my bed surrounded by the heavy torpid heat of the afternoon. Around me, the air lay still. Even turning the head seemed like an effort that would start a fresh burst of sweat.

The thin netting of the mosquito net too was still, electricity was off today in whole village and the truant little generator had again broken down.

Outside the window, no leaf, no palm frond stirred. The large old house snoozed uneasily in its dusty gardens. Summer is round us, the monsoons delayed for almost two weeks now.

So all around people prayed but the skies remained stubbornly, blindingly blue.

The silence was total and I felt myself slipping towards a welcome doze - one way to escape the afternoon heat.

Suddenly, in the silence, came a young child’s laughter, high and clear.

It is an alien sound here. Children are not allowed in this household.

Not allowed on my orders.

I, the childless wife of Gangaseth, heir to the old family of Caculo. Not to forget the only daughter of Babliseth, the biggest landlord in the twelve talukas.

Nothing, and no one had been able to help me conceive. The doctors from Belgaum and then Bombay with their fancy machines. The ten Devi temples where gallons of milk and honey was offered, the special Novenas that Father Olympio offered at the church of St Sebastian, or the prayers that Malang Pir Baba recited over my head while the incense made fragrant smoky patterns.

Nothing. My womb remained empty.

I suppose had I been anyone other than the beloved daughter of Babliseth, my husband would have left me long back. After all, there has to be someone to enjoy the enormous Caculo wealth. Under the beady eyes of my father though he had no hope of marrying again.

I had stopped attending the many women’s ceremonies. My ever new purchases of diamond and gold jewelry didn’t seem to impress the silly women. Instead, like the uneducated village women that they were, they would coo over some silly child of some stupid woman. Some woman of no consequence, wearing the same old jewelry and a fraying sari with fading zari.

What’s so special about having a child in any case? Any mangy bitch has a brood - does that make her special? Bah!

So I stopped going out to the many gatherings, weddings and what not, where one was bound to meet the endlessly fecund women who were producing children with enthusiasm.

How I hated them and their precious, snotty children.

More their children, bawling and screaming...

And then I decreed that no child was to be allowed in to our house. Not even a child to cross past the forbidding twin gates. Servants with children stayed outside, coming to work by themselves and keeping the children safely outside.

And then today, on the unbearably warm air, this child’s laughter.

I can’t stand it, I simply won’t have it.

I slid off the bed and marched to the steps. The thick silver key ring tinkled at my waist and kept company to the tinkle of the payals on my feet.

I reached the red stone seat in the front verandah. From its height, I looked around trying to see where the offending sound was coming from.

A flash of red round the far corner of the house caught my eye. It was Laxmi.. Carrying the culprit. Trying to slink away before I could catch her.

Laxmi, I shouted.. Anger making my voice screech. Come here.

Her face darkened in fear as she crept towards the steps, the child clutched tight to her chest.

As she came closer, I could see the child.

It was a little girl with large dark eyes, with a careful ring of kajol around them making them even larger.

My heavy silver key-ring jingled as I strode down the steps to where they stood, at the bottom of the steps. Now we were face to face.

Laxmi was shaking visibly.. her head bowed, eyes downcast, not daring to look at me.

The little girl in her arms was staring at the dangling key chain curiously, her mouth half open. Then she looked up at me with big liquid eyes.

The silence was complete as we both looked at each other.

Slowly, a tiny arm came forward as if to touch me, the red lips parted easily and out came another peal of laughter, bubbling, frothing.

I don’t really know how she landed in my arms, but there she was. A warm, squirming, plump little thing. Touching my ear rings, my many necklaces and bangles.

I stood there inhaling some special scent that seemed to come from her.

My mind tried to sort it out, coconut oil, some mango eaten recently and something else, a special baby smell.

As I buried my nose in the soft curls on her head, I noticed a sudden cool breeze.

The sky to the west was darkening with monsoon clouds and mingling with her baby smells was another precious one.

Parched earth receiving its first rains.