‘Boudi! Aaduri Boudi! Are you awake?’

Aaduri woke up to the sound caused by the rapping of the door ring. And then she heard the cry. Who was calling her? She tried to recognize the voice. When she realized it was Suman Da from the next house, she knew at once what the matter was.

She herself had gone yesterday evening and told Reena to definitely call for her if she sensed anything. Aaduri sat up hurriedly. She turned on the bedside switch and responded, ‘Is it you, Dada? What’s the news?’

‘It doesn’t look good! Can you come out! I think we need to take her to the hospital!’

As Aaduri rushed to go outside, she forgot to get the odna to cover her bosom. She unlatched the door and stepped out. Her hair was dishevelled. She looked such a sight in her tight nightie that Suman was unable to look directly at her while speaking to her. Realizing that, Aaduri said, ‘All right, I’m coming. You go, see if you can arrange a vehicle.’

‘Okay, you come. I’m getting so angry with her, you know, Boudi … I urged her so much in the evening to come with me to the hospital. To consult a gynaecologist. But did she listen to me? And then it happened – she slipped at the water tap…’

Aaduri was startled; she halted as she was about to go back into her house. She turned around and said to Suman, ‘Don’t be angry at such a time. You’re a man, you’ll never be able to understand what the state of a woman’s mind is at this time. Even though I haven’t … Anyway … You should go. I’ll get ready.’

Riziya was taken to the Uttarpara Hospital. She was given an injection to induce labour. Aaduri and Suman were waiting outside. Waiting for one’s child to be born was different from any other kind of waiting on earth. Suman paced up and down the corridor. He sat on the wooden chair there, and then got up again.

They got the news around dawn. The nurse arrived and said, ‘You’ve had a daughter.’

Suman stood silently for a while after that. Aaduri realized that his sudden silence was actually his sense of fatherhood. Waves of happiness illuminated his face. Suman was very happy. Aaduri was happy too. She stood up, and in a fit of emotion, held out her arms towards Suman, to hug him in congratulation. Suman, too, accepted her embrace. Aaduri said, ‘Come, Dada, let’s go and have a look.’

The nurse said, ‘Come after an hour.’

It had been a normal delivery. When the baby was shown to Riziya, she seemed to cast an indifferent look. A body that had grown inside hers had just seen the light of the world. But Riziya felt weighed down with anguish. Her labour pains had ceased, but what of her mind? A mind constantly plagued by a secret terror. A mind which housed an unexpressed lament and trepidation at concealing a fateful truth. What if Suman questioned her?

The newborn baby had been placed beside Riziya. There were many new mothers near her. All of them were suckling their babies. Riziya seemed to be oblivious of that too. An ayah arrived and scolded her rudely. Was she thinking about her mother-in-law’s admonishment because it was a girl? A mother’s first milk is very beneficial for the baby. She advised her to suckle the baby. Riziya prepared to offer her breast. She looked at the baby as if for the first time. She was very fair-complexioned. What a pretty nose she had. She was blinking her eyes. She seemed to want to cuddle as she moved her hands clenched in a fist in her direction. And then when she suddenly started howling, the sound struck at Riziya’s motherhood. She began feeding the baby. At the touch of an indescribable feeling, tears began streaming down Riziya’s eyes.

Aaduri and Suman came to visit after an hour and a half. Aaduri’s delight and Suman’s joyous exclamations calmed Riziya’s mind a great deal. Suman was hesitant even to touch her fondly. Such a tiny baby! Like a soft flower petal. Touching it might scar it! Aaduri laughed at that.

The nurse arrived and asked, ‘Who is Reena Nath’s husband? Please go to the doctor’s table.’ Suman left at once.

‘Are you the father? Please fill up this form. Both the mother and the baby are well now. It was an emergency, that’s why I had your wife admitted. Show me the card from the health centre.’

‘I don’t have it.’

‘What do you mean you don’t have it?’

‘It wasn’t made.’

‘Which gynaecologist did you consult? Let me see the prescription!’

‘I don’t have one!’

‘What do you mean? You never showed her to a doctor? You just kept her like that? You look like an educated person to me.’

‘She refused to go, Sir. Besides, there was time. If she hadn’t fallen…’

‘No! It’s not like that! Your baby is fully matured, although the weight is low. How many weeks pregnant was she?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Amazing! You don’t know that? It must definitely be thirty-seven or thirty-eight weeks. Was any ultrasonography done?’

‘No.’

‘Can you tell me why? Do you think this is child’s play?’

‘Actually I have financial difficulty.’

‘Hmm. Amazing! Why did you bring her to the hospital then?’

‘She fell down yesterday, and went into labour…’

‘All right. You can go now. I’ll make a round in the evening. Fill up the form after that. Amazing! Where do such people emerge from!’ When the doctor started muttering, Suman left. He went and sat outside the hospital. It was exactly seven months and nineteen days since they had run away from Sadnahati. Or was it longer!

Suman spotted Aaduri coming down the stairs. She instructed Suman to purchase baby-cloth, towels and some more items, and then went back inside. Suman set out to get those. The two of them were in the hospital in the afternoon as well. They had lunch at a roadside eatery and sat in the space outside the hospital. Suman suddenly asked Aaduri, ‘Achchha, Boudi, may I ask you something?’

‘Tell me, what do you want to know?’

‘How long does a baby stay in the womb? I mean, how many weeks does the pregnancy last?’

‘I’ve not been through that myself. But I’ve heard that it’s a bit more than nine months. So in that case…’

‘We’ve been married for seven and a half months.’

‘What do you want to know? I can’t understand you.’

‘No, it’s nothing. Since Riziya fell down at the water tap and the baby was born in advance, I’m wondering whether the baby is at risk in any way.’

‘Did the doctor tell you anything in that regard?’

‘No.’

‘Then why are you worrying for no reason? The baby is healthy. The number of months is just something people say. The baby is born earlier in many cases. She went into labour after she fell. Besides, it’s God who decides when someone will be born. Nothing is going to happen to your baby. You don’t have to worry unnecessarily. Your Dada is supposed to come today. If he comes and sees the door locked…’

‘You should go home then, Boudi. You’ve taken a lot of trouble. We will always be grateful to you. I don’t know how we can repay you.’

Aaduri had never observed Suman from such close quarters. He was an educated, decent, and extremely simple man. Aaduri suddenly broke into a smile and said, ‘Since you mentioned repayment, I’ll surely ask for that. You won’t refuse then, will you?’

‘I’ll certainly pay you if it’s within my means, Boudi.’

Suman felt terribly dejected. He was well known in his locality as a mathematics teacher. And yet, he wasn’t being able to reconcile the arithmetic. Whom would he suspect? Riziya? Never! She had not gone anywhere for even a single day. He had urged Riziya to run away with him thinking that to be the solution to the messy tangle she faced. But he seemed to be confronted with a knotty problem now – a knot that he was unable to unravel. But he had finally accepted Aaduri’s simple explanation. Riziya had given birth ahead of the stipulated time.

After bringing Riziya and the baby home, the question of Hindu customs arose in Suman’s head. He was seized by a kind of stubbornness for some unknown reason. He called a widowed woman who lived in the first house in the housing colony. In fact, it was from her that he had learnt about this ritual. Suman had never heard about this puja earlier. Eyes and a face were made on a piece of dry dung using cowrie shells, and a kind of idol was prepared. That was then supposed to be installed in the north-eastern corner of the house. This deity wrote the child’s fate. It was supposed to be kept there for at least twenty-one days. This was a kind of folk puja. It was widowed women who performed this puja late at night.

Riziya was shocked to observe Suman’s antics. She knew nothing about it. After all, dung was excreta, something unholy, impure. How could that be worshipped? She protested mildly, ‘Why do you want to unnecessarily bother with such things? The stink won’t go.’

The widowed woman was startled to hear her. Addressing Suman, she said, ‘What’s your wife saying, boy! Isn’t she a Hindu?’

‘Don’t pay attention to what she says. Just do whatever has to be done.’