of stomach cramps, vomiting, diarrhoea, blood. What can I say? It was horrible. All around there was blood. All around there was vomit. And for the first two or three days the pain was so bad, so bad, that my Bobby could not lie down quietly even for one minute. He would sit up for half a minute, then stand up, then he would crawl around the hospital bed like a mad dog, like a mad dog mad with pain. So, am I supposed to tell Vineet all of this? Am I supposed to tell Vineet how the other two boys that Bobby was drinking with almost died, and how the doctors said that it was only by God’s gracethat my son did not have to suffer as much as they did? Bobby was drinking alcohol. Is this what I will tell Vineet?
Nobody in our family, not even my uncle who gambled, nobody has ever, ever touched alcohol. Not one drop. Am I going to tell Vineet about how my fifteen-year-old son drank cheap liquor like some cheap labourer? I could not tell my own husband, and, obviously, I could not tell Papaji or Mummyji. So how can I tell some man that I met on the Metro just because his stupid friend told me that he is worried about me?
I beat Bobby. I waited until he was fine, and I waited until Papaji and Mummyji went out for their evening walk yesterday, and then I beat him. I beat him with a man’s hands. I beat him with his father’s hands and his grandfathers’ hands. It seemed that my hands had received their strength from all these men, it seemed that I was beating him on behalf of these men who were not here themselves to do the beating. Bobby said nothing. As I beat him, as I beat my words into him, he sat on the bed with his head down, and not one sound came out of his mouth. Not one sound. But Bobby understood. That boy understood in his bones that what he had done was horrible, horrible and shameful, that nobody in the family, not from his mother’s side or his father’s side, has ever touched alcohol, and that even though he was saved this time, if he ever went anywhere near that poison again his mother would break his legs. He also understood, he understood once and for all, that he could never ever speak about this horrible and shamefulact to anybody, especially not to his father or his grandparents. And when I finished, Bobby quietly got up and left the room.
I wish that I were twelve years of age again, when worry was just a word that you heard around you, not something that you suffered like a sickness. It was such a nice time then. I was only a reason for worry, and even then not very much because I hardly gave my parents any trouble. But I never ever had to feel any worry. My mother was still quite healthy then, when I was twelve years of age. She was still strong enough to press my school uniform, oil my hair and make my plaits, and cook, and sing to me. She was still strong enough to be a mother. And in those days my father was also a happy man. He used to walk me to school each and every morning, giving me mental maths problems along the way, and in the evenings he switched on the radio and helped me with my studies. A lot of people grow up, but they still don’t stop being children. I stopped being a child at thirteen years of age, when my mother fell sick. I stopped being a child when I was still a child. But until I was twelve years of age, I lived without worry. And at that time I had only ten toenails to cut.
7
Monday, 6 June 2011
Everybody at the clinic was kinder to me than normal when I went back to work this morning after eleven days’ leave, and this was because I had lied to them, as I had lied to everybody else, as I had even tried to lie to myself. I gave them the same sad little story about how Bobby had got a very serious case of food poisoning. If I had told them the truth, nobody would have spoken to me. Maybe I would have even lost my job. Doctor Sahib was very, very kind to me and called me into his room. I sat down on one of the patient’s chairs opposite him, because he asked me to, and
Nobody in our family, not even my uncle who gambled, nobody has ever, ever touched alcohol. Not one drop. Am I going to tell Vineet about how my fifteen-year-old son drank cheap liquor like some cheap labourer? I could not tell my own husband, and, obviously, I could not tell Papaji or Mummyji. So how can I tell some man that I met on the Metro just because his stupid friend told me that he is worried about me?
I beat Bobby. I waited until he was fine, and I waited until Papaji and Mummyji went out for their evening walk yesterday, and then I beat him. I beat him with a man’s hands. I beat him with his father’s hands and his grandfathers’ hands. It seemed that my hands had received their strength from all these men, it seemed that I was beating him on behalf of these men who were not here themselves to do the beating. Bobby said nothing. As I beat him, as I beat my words into him, he sat on the bed with his head down, and not one sound came out of his mouth. Not one sound. But Bobby understood. That boy understood in his bones that what he had done was horrible, horrible and shameful, that nobody in the family, not from his mother’s side or his father’s side, has ever touched alcohol, and that even though he was saved this time, if he ever went anywhere near that poison again his mother would break his legs. He also understood, he understood once and for all, that he could never ever speak about this horrible and shamefulact to anybody, especially not to his father or his grandparents. And when I finished, Bobby quietly got up and left the room.
I wish that I were twelve years of age again, when worry was just a word that you heard around you, not something that you suffered like a sickness. It was such a nice time then. I was only a reason for worry, and even then not very much because I hardly gave my parents any trouble. But I never ever had to feel any worry. My mother was still quite healthy then, when I was twelve years of age. She was still strong enough to press my school uniform, oil my hair and make my plaits, and cook, and sing to me. She was still strong enough to be a mother. And in those days my father was also a happy man. He used to walk me to school each and every morning, giving me mental maths problems along the way, and in the evenings he switched on the radio and helped me with my studies. A lot of people grow up, but they still don’t stop being children. I stopped being a child at thirteen years of age, when my mother fell sick. I stopped being a child when I was still a child. But until I was twelve years of age, I lived without worry. And at that time I had only ten toenails to cut.
7
Monday, 6 June 2011
Everybody at the clinic was kinder to me than normal when I went back to work this morning after eleven days’ leave, and this was because I had lied to them, as I had lied to everybody else, as I had even tried to lie to myself. I gave them the same sad little story about how Bobby had got a very serious case of food poisoning. If I had told them the truth, nobody would have spoken to me. Maybe I would have even lost my job. Doctor Sahib was very, very kind to me and called me into his room. I sat down on one of the patient’s chairs opposite him, because he asked me to, and