A hope and a nightmare

I wake up hearing the rooster crowing the beginning of a new day. I look out of the window but it’s still dark. I lie back on the thin sheet lying on the hard earth, and listen to the sounds of snoring originating from the bed nearby. To my husband, my sons, and the entire village, I am the picture of happiness. A woman who has everything she can possibly hope for – a powerful husband who is the head of the village, two strapping young sons, wealth, lush fields, and a granary filled to the brim. No one seems to care, or even notice, that I’m dead inside – and have been for the past 18 years.

I listen to the sounds of the house coming awake, the servants bustling about their duties, the cows lowing for their hay, the dogs barking at each other, and the birds heralding the dawn with their joyous chirps. I decide to go for a walk in the fields behind the house. The fields of golden wheat swaying in the early morning breeze bring a smile to my lips, but all the time I want to cry. I reach the huge, ageless banyan tree in the middle of the field and sit down with my back to it. The dam bursts as I surrender myself to the tears. The memories of that day, the day I died, eighteen years ago, come rushing back.

I was a young bride of seventeen, and had been married for just under a year. I conceived my first baby within a couple of months of marriage. My mother-in-law and the other women in the extended family pampered me because I was carrying the future of her family in my womb. I was fed the most delicious foods, given plenty of milk with saffron, and a hundred other things – all of it designed to make my child lovely and clever and healthy. When I went into labor, the servants were instructed to decorate the entire house with garlands of marigolds. Preparations for a feast began and the cooks made pedas (sweets made of milk and sugar and cardamom powder), ready to be distributed to every house, when my son was born.

I lay in an inner room with the midwife, or dai, supervising the labor. After hours of agony, I heard a baby’s wail. As I lay back both exhausted and relieved, I heard frenzied whispering. I strained to hear the words, but all I could grasp were some snatches. “Baby girl…no, not dead…drown in milk…say it was stillborn…” A pain greater than the physical pain of childbirth coursed through me. My heart filled with dread as I realized that my firstborn was a girl. My mother-in-law had asked the dai to drown my precious baby in milk, and announce to the world that she was a stillborn child. I had heard of similar happenings throughout the villages of northern India, but in my innocence, I’d never believed them to be true. “No, I will not let her die,” I decided. It would be better to lose my child than to have her killed. I waited till my mother-in-law and the other female relatives left the room and I was alone with the dai and my baby. The dai was old and had delivered generations of babies in the village, including me. I decided to appeal to her for help.

“Dai maa,” I called out, tearfully.

She came running to my side and asked me if I wanted water.

“Save my child,” I pleaded.

She was taken aback, despite having heard the same plea several times from mothers before me. Today, she nodded.

“I will tell your family that I will dispose of the baby’s body. I will take her to my brother’s house in the next village. I know an elderly couple without children of their own who will be pleased to have such a beautiful child,” she explained.

“I want to hold her, see her face,” I said.

“No, child. It is better for you if you don’t,” she said, and left with my baby without another word or backward glance, despite my hysterical pleas.

I died a hundred deaths the minute she disappeared. No one noticed or cared. Life went on, I gave birth to two sons, and the same dai helped deliver them. But, she turned a deaf ear to all my questions about my firstborn, my daughter.

Every single day, as I offered prayers for the health and safety of my family, I offered a special prayer for my lost child. As I watched my sons grow into toddlers, I tried to see my daughter in them. As they grew into twinkling eyed mischievous boys, I imagined my daughter, playing house with her foster parents. Every time we went to other villages around us, or had visitors from other villages coming home, I would carefully scrutinize every little girl’s face, hoping to find some resemblance to my own.

Today, she turns eighteen. Does she even know that she’s adopted? If she does, does she ever think of me, who I am, and why I let her go? Does she hate me for abandoning her to her fate? Or does she understand my plight? This last thought terrifies me. The only way she could understand my plight is if she went through the same nightmare. No, I hope and pray that she’s luckier than I have been. I pray that she comes searching for me and I imagine what she would say. And I hope that if we’re reunited, it’ll be a joyful one, and not a nightmare.