Mamiji

I received her in the cartel of relatives that followed Archana, my wife, into my life. She was the wife of Archana’s maternal uncle.

I met Archana first, at her place. We sat in a room lined by tall book-cases. From their spines, books appeared old, many were leather-bound. Atmosphere was stiff. None appeared comfortable to make light conversation. Stilted inane talk filled the room and made the air heavy.  Mamiji salvaged the situation. She spoke to me with a candour that belied the fact that we were meeting for the first time. She asked me direct questions about my job. She wanted to know how Archana, who was then pursuing post-graduate degree in Pathology, would practice her profession in Air Force where I had been commissioned a few months back. There was not a trace of hesitation in her voice, but neither did she sound nosy. She keenly listened to my answers. I instantly warmed up to this elderly lady.

Those days Mamiji lived in an old house in Bengali Market in Central Delhi – barely a kilometre from Cannaought Place. Shops and kothis situated circularly around a traffic roundabout added a quaint charm to this small upscale locality famous as a cultural hub of the capital and home to the iconic sweet vendors, Bengali and Nathu’s Sweets.

There was no trace of Mamaji in the house.

I and Archana were married soon.

My unit, a lonely outpost, a dilapidated missile squadron of the Indian Air Force, situated amid fields stretching for kilometres all around, was in the grip of death-throes. Nearest settlement was a village where the trendiest place was a sleepy branch of the State Bank of India housed in a ramshackle building, and a post office deep in the village, occupying a mud-and-brick, one-roomed shanty. A few young engineers came to the unit – it was allegedly a missile-training institute – for training in a defunct, missile-technology. Learning an obsolete technology? I often wondered.

I regularly escaped to Delhi in weekends, like a whale coming up for air. Soon Mamiji’s house became a fixture of my breath-giving Delhi visits. Mamiji readily accepted me in the family. She would chat with me for long hours, cook for me her trademark recipes – dahi-wada, kadhee, til and mawa laddus, and always made me feel as if she had been eagerly awaiting my visit. Delhi in my mind, among other things, and specifically Cannaught Place, became synonymous with Mamiji’s house.

Over the years, I saw her regularly, even after I was posted out of Delhi. We visited Delhi often. I was posted to a small hospital across Yamuna in Ghaziabad. I was alone for a year as Archana stayed back in the previous station for my daughter’s school-finishing year. I resumed my old routine, and visited Mamiji in weekends.

Archana would often talk to me about her uncle. Mamaji was a journalist. He followed the left ideology, treating wealth as a scourge. He earned only enough, to fulfil his and Mamiji’s bare needs; these too, with difficulty. I learned this and much else about her later, decades after I had first met her. She would occasionally, almost in a reverie, talk about her past. Mamaji was not comfortable in Delhi. He found people here shallow and self-seeking. Necessities of living forced on him a profession he could practice only in a city. He saw himself as a writer, a creative person. He rented a room in Mussoorie hills and would often escape there for days, alone. He would not inform anyone of his departure, only to reappear after weeks. This had become a pattern in Mamiji’s life and his sudden disappearance had stopped being a source of anxiety.

On one occasion, a few years before my marriage, he did not return for many weeks. Mamiji went to Mussoorie. Owner of the room he had rented, did not know his whereabouts – yes, he had been there a few days back, but then left after some time, without telling anyone. He used to appear in the town out of blue, without any intimation, with just a sling bag, and disappear as suddenly. There was nothing unusual in his recent visit. He left the room one morning, and when he did not turn up till evening, owner assumed that he had left for Delhi. Mamiji lodged an FIR with the local police. The village was small. She went around the local bazars and walked the numerous foot-trails. But could not gather any information. She returned to Delhi. And waited expectantly. Months passed. Relatives tried to reason with her that Mamaji must have met with an accident. Without any trace? No, she could not bring herself to believe this. She visited Mussoorie again. Perhaps she would find a clue. She met a shepherd who said he had met Mamaji during his last visit, about a year ago. He had spotted him sitting on a ridge, at a lonely spot. He took her there. They scavenged the steep wooded slope. Few bones and some shreds of clothes – which Mamiji thought could have come from Mamaji’s shirt – were found stuck on shrubs on the slope.

Family assumed that Mamaji was dead.

Decades later, I read a memoir of Ruskin Bond, Landor Days. In the book he wrote about a journalist he once met in Landour. To Ruskin Bond, journalist appeared to be ‘walking away from something – unhappiness or disarray’ in his life. Ruskin further wrote, ‘He had escaped from Delhi, he told me. Had taken a room in Landour Bazaar and was going to spend a year on his own, away from family, friends, colleagues, the entire rat race. He was full of noble resolutions. He was planning to write an epic poem or a great Indian novel or a philosophical treatise.’ Ruskin devoted a few paragraphs to the story of this journalist. ‘In effect he did nothing but walk up and down the mountain growing shabbier by the day. … Then he disappeared; that is, I no longer saw him around.’

I asked Mamiji, when I visited her next, if she ever met Ruskin Bond in Landour. ‘Yes, he lived near the Room Mamaji had rented. I think, I met him once when I had gone to enquire at the local bank after Mamaji’s disappearance. Mamaji would not carry any money. I asked him to open an account in the local bank. He would ring me when he needed money. I would transfer a little. He did not need much to live.’ Ruskin also wrote that once when he was sitting in the Bank Manager’s office, ‘a woman came in, making inquiries about her husband. It was the missing journalist’s wife.’ Ruskin ended the story thus - ‘some milkmen from Kotli Gaon discovered bones and remnants of clothing at the bottom of a cliff. In the pocket of the ragged shirt was the journalist’s press card.’

As I came to know Mamiji more – through Archana, and later, gradually, in disjointed pieces of conversation with her, stretched over many years – I saw her pluck, her zeal for life, amid harsh circumstances. She did not grieve long over setbacks, gross misfortunes, and basest quirks of fate which were her lifelong companion. She would soon begin to think how she could survive the latest calamity – ‘I must deal with this on my own. And bear the hardships. This is my lot, but crying will not help. And to whom should I cry?’

‘My life now, is heaven compared to my childhood.’ Her mother died when she was six. Father married again. ‘I do not remember, I learned anything in school, Rajiv. I would wake up before dawn every day, wash clothes, sweep the house, prepare lunch, and then run to school. I was so tired that I slept through every class. Back at home I would be busy in house-chores till late in night. I do not know how I passed the classes in school.’ She would laugh as she narrated her story.

A few years into her marriage, Mamiji learned that she and Mamaji would always remain like two islands adrift in the ocean of life. She did not say it in as many words. I read it in her obscure, half-said sentences. She wanted a firmer source of occupation and fulfilment in life. She suggested and Mamaji agreed to adopt an orphan child. Soon they brought an infant boy home. His strange behaviour became apparent as he grew up. He had a severe handicap and was a slow-learner. Mamiji spent hours every day teaching him, but to no avail. Clinical psychologists confirmed her fears - his irremediable learning handicap. She got him admitted in one school after another. She tried to motivate him to study for higher-secondary in an open university. All her efforts came to naught. With difficulty, she made him learn the basics of data management in computer.

Archana’s nana had forced his son, Mamaji, into marriage. He did not want to marry ever. ‘I was unlettered, uncouth, a village-girl. He was a graduate. He had high ideals. All his friends were intellectuals. I never dreamt that he would ever like a wife like me.’ There was no rancour, no self-pity, as she talked about Mamaji. It appeared she hugely respected his intellect and indifference to wealth. ‘He insisted that I must study further. He admitted me in higher secondary. My routine remained as it was before marriage. I would finish the house-work, prepare breakfast, and lunch for him, and rush to school. We did not have any watch. I would often be reprimanded at school for being late. I was many years older than other girls of my class. I did not understand a word of any subject but was ashamed to ask the teacher or my classmates. When I pleaded with Mamaji that I would not go to school again, he would not listen. ‘Just continue, and keep listening to the lectures. You would pass.’ And then he would get busy in his writing.’ She completed school. Mamaji insisted that she enrol for graduation. She was extremely reluctant, and agreed only for distant learning. 

‘If I can take independent decisions in my life today, it is only because of Mamaji. I had not travelled alone in a rikshaw before marriage. When we came to Delhi, we lived in the servant quarter of a bungalow near CP. I would cook food in the veranda over a choolah. Mamaji was struggling to start a news syndicate. He had hired a room. But he needed various municipality permissions. I knew he did not like to meet people. He would send me to various offices. Often, I did not know what the forms I had brought to submit in the office, were about. I sat hours waiting for the officers. But in the end, I got the work done.’

The news syndicate had begun to make profit, provided Mamaji wrote regularly, which he did not. He did not like this mundane work. He thought, it constricted a creative mind. But then, he did not produce any original work either. Mamiji would talk about this aspect of his personality dispassionately. ‘He was deeply vexed with the life he had to live. I know our marriage had only aggravated his frustration. But I could not bring myself to take the blame for this. I did not demand any solace from him. I asked him to plan his life and work, as he wanted. After a few years of marriage, after I had graduated, and was used to the life in Delhi, I even assured him that I would take care of the syndicate with his support. But he felt it was his responsibility to provide for us, though he could not put his heart into it. He remained deeply dissatisfied with his circumstances till the end.’

Mamaji had no savings. No property. After his death Mamiji survived for a few years on help offered by her relatives. Life of abject dependence did not agree with her sense of self-worth. Owner of the Bengali Market flat wanted the house vacated. But he could not evict Mamiji against her wish. Property was worth many crores. He offered Mamiji a fraction of this. Mamiji agreed. She bought a flat in a middle-class locality and invested remaining amount in the business of a relative. This fetched her a small income. She seemed to have overcome her daily worries of livelihood, and without charity, but only for a couple of years. Relative’s business failed. He flatly refused to refund Mamiji’s money. It did not take her long to arrive at a drastic solution. She had a niece in Dehradun whom she would visit frequently. She liked the town. She found an independent, two storeyed, house here. In a few months she sold her Delhi flat and shifted to Dehradun lock, stock, and barrel, after living in Delhi for nearly four decades. She was nearing seventy.

In the years I had known Mamiji, I saw her happiest in Dehradun. Her financial woes seem to have paused. She rented out one story of the house. Her son, earlier never settled in a job, however menial, was hired as a data-operator by a school, that paid small but regular salary. She joined a commune of ladies who organised weekly satsangs. Her backache – it had begun a few years previously, and the spine surgery had gone bad – recurred and worsened gradually, but she did not forgo her activities. With reluctance she allowed me to leave my old car at her place. Her son could drive her to the weekly meetings of her group. She did not have to walk to the main road to catch an auto.

I now worked and lived in NCR, having obtained premature retirement from military service. I drove to Dehradun every three to four months. Visit was a relaxation, a small break, from the busy, relentless grind at the hospital.

Mamiji had, according to her own admission, taken to reading books in Mamaji’s company. She read only Hindi. She had read a wide selection of writers. She had met many at her house when they visited Mamaji. He would tell her about their works, and the quaintness of their personalities.

Now, in Dehradun, in the evening of her life, she found her love for books rekindled. I had begun collecting books assiduously. Though I did not read Hindi now, I often ordered Hindi books for her online, from what I remembered from my past readings, and some recommended by Archana and my friends who were fond of Hindi fiction. Every week, she would mark the books she wanted to read, in the book-review section of the Sunday paper. Her son would send me a snap, and I often found them at Amazon. She would be thrilled.

The books I ordered only whetted her appetite for more. ‘You read so much. Aren’t Hindi translations available for some?’ I found a few histories and biographies. She rung me after she had read Yuval Noah Harari’s Sapiens, and Einstein and Ramanujan’s biography, and talked effusively about them. We would converse on books for long during my visits. She would prompt me to talk about astronomy, origin of universe, and life, listening carefully. ‘How vast is the universe of books. What a waste it is only to be preoccupied by our sorrows, wrongs committed by others. What an amazing life people like Einstein, Ramanujan led.’ During these visits she would often lapse in to reminiscences of her past, narrating her life dispassionately, as if talking about another person. She would question me about my latest travel. And wonder wide-eyed, as I told her about the ruins of Greek civilisation, picturesque Santorini, mesmerising Lake Como, Renaissance art of Florence.

Her spine deteriorated. She could barely walk a few steps now. Often, she was confined to bed. Pain killers were of no help. During our phone conversations she rarely talked about herself. ‘Pains would continue. If I only talk about my health, you people would stop ringing me.’ And she would change the topic to the latest book she wanted or had read.

Her son met with a terrible accident and was gravely injured. She took him to the best orthopaedic surgeon in the district. He was operated thrice. He soon lost his job. Rental income, and a little Mamiji earned as interest from her paltry saving, would not keep pace with inflation. I saw her struggling with upkeep of the household. But she never complained about her dire straits. She soon recalibrated expectations from her future.

Only once, in more than thirty years that I had known her, I saw her overwhelmed by the enormity of her misfortunes. ‘I am tired of life, Rajiv. To whom should I recount my woes? Nothing seems to be happening right. I need to look up to some source of solace in future. I cannot figure out any. The weight so oppresses me at times, that I find it difficult to breathe.’ But she recovered in a few minutes. ‘Oh! Forget these. What book are you reading now? And what makes you not believe in God?’

I insisted that she accept a little money from me – occasionally, if not regularly. But she would not agree. ‘No, do not talk about it again. I cannot accept myself living on borrowed money. I have lived all my life within my means. This gives me joy. I am happy beta, satisfied in whatever circumstances god bestows on me. I have led a good life, lived as I pleased. God will provide for my future too.’ She did not appear discontented in a life that was far from easy.

Soon she would be eighty-five. How long would I enjoy her company? I often wondered, as I bid her farewell after a visit. Though her body was much crippled, her mind was as sharp, as I had found it when I met her first.

A few months back, she suffered an acute illness for a few days. She was taken to a hospital where she collapsed. Her heart was revived, but her breathing needed to be supported artificially. Her son rung me. They were in dilemma. Should they consent to life-support? I spoke with the doctor. Mamiji appeared to be brain-dead. I could easily fathom what she would have wanted, if she could decide. ‘No, do not consent for ventilatory-support,’ I told him unflinchingly.

She was cremated the next day. Among many cliches painted on the walls of the crematorium, one caught my attention: ‘Thanks for accompanying me till here. In the journey ahead, I will travel alone.’ I could not resist a smile. She had been travelling alone all her life - a long life, lived well.

I had met her a couple of months before her death. As I took leave, she gripped my hands and held them close. ‘Keep coming Rajiv. Your visit is like fresh air. Discussing books rejuvenates me. It feels good to know that you drive here only to meet me,’ she said smiling.

Relations define, colour, and enhance our lives. In our thoughts, they indelibly imprint places, where they once flourished. Dehradun, which for more than a decade jumped up in my mind, whenever I thought of a little break from work, now feels drab and unremarkable.

A Mamiji-shaped hole, to paraphrase Arundhati Roy, now looms in my universe.