by Sudha Nair
Ria stays in her room and refuses to come out for dinner. I find her crying, her hair a dishevelled mess, her eyes red and tear-streaked.
My hands fly to my mouth. “What happened?” I ask.
“I don’t want to talk about it, Ma.”
“Tell me, Ria. What happened?”
Another burst of tears.
I don’t know what to do. Vivek hasn’t returned from work. It’s at times like these that I feel helpless, like a heavy bag of useless stones. Not an adult with good old tact, like Vivek.
“Tell me, Ria.” I try one more time.
“Raj broke up with me…I don’t want to live anymore. I just want to die.”
Raj? I didn’t know she loved Raj. And I’m shocked to hear such morbid thoughts. “Ria, listen to me,” I say but she doesn’t want to listen to me. She shrugs me away when I touch her shoulder. She throws herself on the white bedspread, curling into a ball, and weeps, her petite frame heaving with sobs.
I stand by her bed, feeling at a loss about what to do, what to say to convince my baby that this too shall pass, and tomorrow will be another day.
Strangely enough, seeing her crumpled figure on the bed takes me back in time. To the time of her as a baby, lying down in a white cloth cradle strung up at two ends. Freshly bathed, wrapped in a white muslin blanket. Her eyes closed, her breath smelling of milk, a thumb near her mouth, ready to be popped in. Wanting to be lulled to sleep. Even though she’s distressed now, she looks like the peaceful baby from eighteen years ago. Time has flown!
I start to croon a lullaby, the only one I know. She stops sobbing mid-stream as if shocked that her mom still treats her like a baby. But I continue anyway, singing it over and over, until Ria’s sobs get softer and she begins to snore. I kiss her forehead. Her skin still feels soft to the touch. She smells of a mild perfume, not the Johnson’s baby powder smell I once associated with her.
I wonder if she’ll miss me when she wakes up. If she’ll look for my familiar face. Give out a whimper, a loud cry, and then a wail, until I return. I smile at my own stupid thoughts, then decide to spend the night with her, by her side. I lie down beside her and prop my hand on her arm. She stirs, finds my hand, and grips it in her sleep.
Her grip used to be a proof of her strength and a sign of her independence. I remember her grip on my hand when I set her down in a walker, much before she learnt to walk on her own. Revelling in the freedom to glide from room to room, by herself. I remember her grip on the feeding bottle as she learnt to hold it by herself, and the way she held on to the spoon, scooping cooked peas into her mouth. By age four, she could swing standing up, planting her feet on the wooden slat and gripping the ropes. Using the power of her body to propel herself forward, to swing higher and higher, as high as the ropes could go. She was fearless.
Her grip slackens slowly. I relax beside her. My breath pattern gradually synchronizes with hers. I stare past her head at the wall, at the posters taking up the wall space. It’s been a long time since I came into her room. There’s a new poster of Anna Kendrick, her latest singer fad. Other faces I don’t recognise. There’s still that old poster of Kate Middleton in her wedding gown, the one that she fell in love with, the one she had held up as she announced, “I want to become a designer. I’m going to design a wedding dress like that when I grow up.” From the time she began to walk, she loved dresses that swished and shoes that squeaked, giggling at every occasion to delight herself. I still see that child in her, at times. And sometimes, there are these difficult moments of living with a teenager.
I kiss her hair, now long and shiny, with a faint fragrance of Head & Shoulders. I feel wistful, missing the smells of my baby, longing for the scent of Johnson’s Baby Shampoo. I smile, thinking of how she’d play dress up with her hair tied up in a long towel that fell to her hips. “One day I’ll have long, knee-length hair,” she’d say, not letting me give the ends a trim.
She’s at the breakfast table the next morning, refusing to make conversation. She stares at her plate, picks at the fruit, and has two spoons of cereal before she shoves it all away.
“Are you going to be like this forever?” I ask. “Whatever happened?”
She remains mum.
I want to tell her to live her life to the fullest, like Kate Middleton did when Prince William broke up with her. I try to get my words of wisdom across, but she cuts me off.
“You wouldn’t understand, Ma.”
I feel her frustration. She’s right, I wouldn’t understand. But then I’ve never told her about my past. About the tall, handsome man I fell in love with when I was a young working girl. I haven’t told her how crushed I felt when his fiancée came to visit, and I was forced to put on a cheerful face during the introductions. I haven’t told her that man didn’t even know that I had feelings for him or that he’d held a special place in my heart, reserved only for him and me.
There’s no sense in bringing that up now. She’d think I was too old-fashioned anyway.
She rises from the table. “Anyway, what would you know? Our times are different.” With that she stomps off to her room.
I’m left at the table hanging on to the words she’s just spewed at me. I’m battling with feelings of compassion for this teenager and annoyance at her stupidity. How do I tell her to stop trying to prove her self-worth through another’s eyes? How do I offer her the comfort of being older and wiser? How do I prove to her that one day this too shall pass?
I hear Ria lock her bedroom door. I panic. I have to take this to Vivek. I find him in our bedroom, unaware of the happenings of the night before. He’s at his desk filing some papers. He senses my rigidity, notices the alarm on my face as I enter.
“What happened? I came to check on you last night. Why were you in Ria’s room?” he says.
“It’s Ria. I’m worried about her behaviour lately. And yesterday…,” I say, slumping on the bed, and staring into space.
“Just give her time,” he says.
“She’s having some boy trouble. I’m afraid she’ll do something rash,” I say, my tone pleading. “She’s not telling me what happened. Can you talk to her?”
He suggests a drive. The three of us. Ria is not particularly enthusiastic but she can’t refuse her papa.
We settle into our old Maruti Omni and take off. It’s drizzling outside. Ria’s in the back, pensive. Vivek looks at her in the rear mirror and asks, “Feel like an ice-cream?”
“Can we?” she says. I sense a flurry in her voice.
“Of course,” he says. “There’s a Naturals around the corner.”
We pass by the familiar Ganesha temple. When she was a little girl, she’d join her hands in prayer every time we’d pass by a temple. “What did you pray for?” I’d ask. “Blessings,” she’d say with a childish smile.
I catch her face now in the rear-view mirror. She doesn’t fold her hands like she used to. There is no outwardly show of emotions like before. Only the muted movement of her lips like she’s having a private conversation with Him. I smile to myself.
We settle in our chairs at the ice cream shop. She has her favourite mango flavour. The ice-cream makes her happy. She feels like talking, at last.
Father and daughter talk about the latest scientific expedition to Mars, and the possibility of spotting leopards at Kanha National Park. They don’t bring up the boy who just walked out of her life. Instead, they make plans for the adventures to come: a visit to the Golden Temple in Amritsar, a snorkelling trip to Maldives. Now, she’s back to being Papa’s little girl. Papa can make her worries disappear.
I squeeze Ria’s hand as she slurps down the last of her cone. She smiles at me. For the first time since last evening I feel a sense of peace.
I think she’ll be alright. We need to have that talk about boys later. After all, didn’t Kate finally get back to William? And me? Didn’t I find my own Prince Charming? I’m happy for now, as long as I have my baby darling back. And a smile on her face.
