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Pooja Tolani has graduated in Mass Communications and is extremely fond of reading fiction. She also likes movies and sketching.

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Yet to Come ...

HANDS OF PLASTICINE

by

Pooja Tolani

Vaidehi wrinkled her nose as the musty smell in the storeroom filled her nostrils. Tucking a corner of her sari pallu to her waist, the docile 44-year-old housewife set to work. She had some serious cleaning to do. “Mom, you’re an absolute cleanliness freak!! I think you need to see a psychiatrist!!!” Vaidehi smiled as she recalled her daughter’s frequent exasperation at her mother’s near obsession with neatness. Hrishita was her only child, her darling baby, the light in the lonely darkness of her life. Vaidehi still found it hard to believe that her baby was now herself the mother of a charmingly devilish 3-year-old girl. It amazed her sometimes that so much of her life had passed her by. Even five years after her marriage, Vaidehi still missed Hrishita with the same desperation, the same sense of loss that she had felt the morning after her daughter’s wedding. Even today, every moment, no matter what she did on the outside, her daughter was never far from her thoughts. And this morning was no different as she pried open an old suitcase full of Hrishita’s old things. It was filled with kilos of plasticine- the child had been obsessed with the stuff- her old Enid Blytons, notebooks, colors, torn drawing books. Hrishita had never let anyone touch her things, not even the old ones. Today, Vaidehi was looking for an old teddy bear -Hrishita’s first. Hrishita had suddenly decided that her daughter had to have it. And so Vaidehi was put on a hunting mission.

Vaidehi flipped open a notebook to see spellings of cat, mat, bat, and rat in her daughter’s childish hand. Smiling, she picked up another notebook, which turned out to be her daughter’s childhood diary. She hadn’t even realized her child kept a diary at that young an age. After just one page, she was hooked.

DEAR DiaRY,
Today is SundaY. I went to VICKTORIA Memmorial with mummy and daddy. Daddy buyed me 2 icecreams for me. He buyed one choclate and one strawberrys for me. I rided the horse also. I enjoyed a lot. I love mummy and daddy very much on Sunday. Tomorrow it is MONA’S Happy Birthday. Mummy telled me to wear my new blue frock. I’m very excited. Ok bye.

Vaidehi smiled. Old events long forgotten, a drama she didn’t remember dressing Hrishita up for, a cut she didn’t remember bandaging, all came back. And today she remembered with a new perspective, enjoying every bit of it. She read page after page, reliving her daughter’s childhood through her experiences, her thoughts. And today, she also relived the most horrifying nightmare. A nightmare she’d never realized, never guessed her daughter had been through.

DEAR DiarY,
Today I did not get homework. I played with my blue and red plasticiene the afternoon. Mummy and dadi went to the sheela auntie’s house today in the evening. Miss jones scolded myself and Mona. I and MONA were talking in the class. In the evening DAdu played new game with me today. i don’t like the game. It is not nice. Ok bye.

Vaidehi frowned, Dadu and game? Vaidehi’s father-in law had been a very stern man. He had never shown any kind of affection to Vaidehi ever. In fact, he’d never had any regard even for his own wife. Vaidehi had realized soon after her marriage, that the men of this house had no consideration for the thoughts, feelings or opinions of their women. And she had reconciled herself to a meaningless existence in this household. When Vaidehi had given birth to a daughter, there had been no celebration. And Hrishita had never enjoyed any attention from her grandfather on account of her being a girl child when he’d hoped for a grandson. As Vaidehi read on, she saw pages and pages of a child’s description of the hell that she was put through, trying to understand what was happening to her.

DEAR DIARY,
Dadu has hurted me today. It is paining me very today. I told him I don’t want to play.but he is very stubborn.mummy says I’m stubborn. He is more stubborn. I hate dadu. God is going to boil me in hot water? Dadi says bad childrens go to hell and god burns them in hot water. I am getting scared. Dadu telled me I was a bad girl if I didn’t played with him. I telled mummy to take me to Bombay. But she didn’t listened. I’m missing mummy very much today.It is paining me very much today. I hate dadu. He pains me very much. Ok bye.

For an hour, Vaidehi simply sat there on the floor of the storeroom, with the notebook in her lap. The notebook filled with pages and pages of her daughter’s fear, guilt, shame, confusion and finally relief after her grandfather died. What shocked her most was the absolute ignorance. How could she have not known? How did she not see it? Her daughter had been going through hell and she, her mother didn’t realize it?? Fingering the pages of the notebook she tried to imagine her daughter writing it. She tried to imagine what she must have felt. And it was only then that the dam burst, and a painfully soft moan escaped her lips. The mere imagination left her shaken at 44. And her daughter had been through it at 9, for a year.

Slowly, she recalled things which she should have noticed, should have taken more seriously. Slowly things fell into place. She remembered how Hrishita had almost suddenly started avoiding her grandfather with vehemence-everyone including herself had concluded that she was getting more and more scared of her stern grandfather with time. She remembered how her performance in school had fallen down for a year or so, and how she’d picked up gradually after her grandfather had expired. Though at that time, not even in her dreams had she imagined there to be a connection between the two happenings.

Three hours after she’d entered the storeroom, Vaidehi emerged, a woman with a bruised heart. As she entered the living room her eyes fell on her father-in-law’s portrait on the wall opposite her. Like a zombie, she walked up to it. For the first time in her life, this docile, submissive woman was hurt enough, enraged enough to kill someone with her bare hands. She kept staring at the impassive face of the man she had given the place of a father; the man who had scared her daughter forever. She simply kept staring at the framed photograph.

A loud crash brought Vaidehi’s husband running to the room. He rushed in to find his wife staring intently at his father’s portrait lying on the floor, the glass smashed to pieces.
“How did you do that?” he asked. Vaidehi jerked at his voice and looked up, a dazed look in her eyes. Seeing her husband, she opened her mouth to tell him what a disgusting man his father was, what he’d done to their daughter when suddenly, she stopped. She suddenly remembered all those years of loneliness, of being looked down upon. Of being treated as a plaything. She suddenly realized this man, her husband, was no different from his father.

Her voice devoid of all expression, she answered, “It slipped from my hands”. And she walked out. Once in her room she sat down heavily. She felt empty inside, totally hollow. Just then in the living room, looking at her husband’s face, in that one instant; she had suddenly been hit with a realization. The realization that she could do nothing for her daughter. She could do nothing to soothe the hurts of years gone by. Hrishita would carry the scars of that one year, all her life. And there was nothing her mother could do about it. Like her mother, her mother-in-law, like so many other Indian women, Vaidehi shelved her own emotions, her self-respect for the sake of the family. And now, she had to keep what happened to her daughter a secret deeply embedded in her heart, because she didn’t know what else to do, because that’s what she had done, all her life. Tears rolling down uncontrollably, she opened her mouth but no sound came out. She wept quietly. Her scream was silent.

****************

The twinkling laughter of a toddler filled the terrace. Vaidehi smiled at her granddaughter’s delighted scream when her mother failed to get hold of her in a game of catch. Hrishita and little Samya had come to spend the day with her and how she wished the day would never end. After days, she felt some semblance of peace in her restless soul, but not entirely. Her daughter’s words kept haunting her….I’m missing mummy very much today.It is paining me very much today…….

“Mom?” said Hrishita, as she joined her mother on the bench. Vaidehi opened her eyes and smiled as she shook her head. Vaidehi still had to muster up the courage and speak to her daughter about what she had discovered. For a while both of them sat without saying a word, watching Samya making friends with her mother’s first teddy bear.

“Rushi?” said Vaidehi, breaking the silence.
“Hmm?” replied Hrishita, her eyes still on Samya.
“You remember what you used to say about my hands?” asked Vaidehi.
“Your hands?” said Hrishita, puzzled. And then as she remembered, “Yeah” she said laughing as she reached across to take her mother’s hand. “You have hands of plasticine” she said, a far away look on her face. And then looking at her mother she said, “Mom, your hands are still so soft!”
Vaidehi looked down at their clasped hands and nodded. “Yes. I still have hands of plasticine.” she said softly.
“What?” asked Hrishita little confused.
Without looking up, Vaidehi said, “Rushi, plasticine is pliable, soft. It is what you make it. No identity, no will of its own.”
“Mom, what are you saying?” said Hrishita as she put an arm around her mother.
“Rushi, I couldn’t be strong. Not for myself, not for you.” As Hrishita opened her mouth, Vaidehi held up her hand, not wanting to be interrupted.
“Rushi, you are a strong person. And you will not let anyone hurt your daughter. You will protect her in a way…..in a way I couldn’t protect you.” Her voice shook with emotion as she struggled to keep her tears at bay. Looking up into her daughter’s eyes she said, “Rushi, I’m sorry. I’m so sorry baby. Please forgive me. I never knew. Please forgive me.”

For a very long moment, Hrishita simply stared at her mother, saying nothing and showing nothing. And then, she held out her arms. Vaidehi burst into tears as the two of them held each other as if they’d never let go. For a long time, mother and daughter wept in each other’s arms, trying desperately to forget the hurt, to wash away the pain of so many years. After a lifetime of carrying her burden alone, Hrishita had finally found a release. And the tears just wouldn’t stop. But when they did, she felt a strange peace. A peace one can feel only in a mother’s warm embrace. And they sat holding each other for a long time.

Suddenly, Vaidehi broke free and clutched Hrishita’s hands in a tight grip.
“Rushi,” she said urgently, an almost crazy desperate look in her eyes, “You will not let that happen to Samya. You will not be like me! You will protect her!! You will not…”
“Mom” interrupted Hrishita soothingly. There was something in her eyes that instantly quietened Vaidehi. Cupping her mother’s face in her hands, Hrishita turned for a second to look at her daughter. Turning back to face her mother, she looked deep into Vaidehi’s eyes and said quietly, with an immense inner strength, “Mom, I promise you, Samya is never going to face that.” She paused for a moment and then smiled, “I promise you, I don’t have hands of plasticine.”

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