All That Glitters....

Shalini woke up with a jerk. Rubbing her eyes sleepily, she looked around for the cause. The noise was coming from her left; she spied her mobile. It was vibrating furiously and had reached the end of her bedside table and was about to topple over. She reached for it hurriedly and squinted to see the name flashing on it. Krish.Why was her son calling her in the middle of the night? She glanced at her watch lying beside the mobile; it was 2.00 pm. What could be the emergency?

“Hello”, she husked into the phone. ‘Krish, what’s the matter? Why are you calling at this time? Hope everything is fine at home? “

“No, Mom, it’s not”, her elder son said. He sounded frightened and anxious. “I know it’s midnight in India, but this could not wait. Dad’s acting funny again. I and Darsh are scared. Please come back soon. We need you here.”

Shalini could have wept. She cursed herself for leaving her children and coming to visit her family. But when she had come, two months back, international travel had not been banned. Nobody had foreseen that covid would spread so rapidly all over the world, especially The United States and the flights between the nations would be stopped. She had come for a month’s visit but now could see no light at the end of the tunnel. Given the situation, she could only hope for some miracle.

“Oh Krish! What has he done now?”, she asked her son. “I spoke to him last week, he sounded fine. Though worried about you both, I had relaxed thinking that things are under control.”

“Oh Mom. Please come as soon as you can”, her elder son almost pleaded, “I don’t want to alarm you, but please we cannot handle him”.

Assuring him that she will try for the tickets on the first flight out, she ended the call. Now wide awake, she flopped back on her bed. Despair filled her. Worried sick for her children, Krish, 23 and Darsh 21, she felt so helpless. Though they were both in college, Krish in medical school and Darsh majoring in Economics, they were still her babies and ill-equipped to deal with the situation and their father.

Their father, her husband, Vaibhav Ahuja.

 

Early Days….

Hers had always been a difficult marriage. Very early on, young even she was, she had understood there was something not quite fine with him, but the optimism of young made her ride over her unease.

Theirs was an arranged marriage; she a fresh graduate and he a coveted engineer. She was the eldest of three daughters, and no doubt her parents must have been relieved and happy to have found such a ‘suitable match’. The cherry on the cake being, soon after marriage, he got a break in the United States and she was amongst the ‘lucky few’ in the family who went abroad, so early in life.

For the first few years, things went fine. Soon the boys arrived. She got busy looking after her family. Running a house on shoe string budget was difficult-he was a junior executive in his firm- and she too got a job nearby in the government office, which was actually a boon; as today she is financially independent, drawing a government pension.

Theirs was a typical suburban upper middle-class family both parents working, kids in daytime creche and evenings at home. Weekends were a flurry of activity; cooking for the entire week, grocery and vegetable shopping, finishing the pending odd jobs, shopping for clothes on sale, a weekly trip to the nearby Walmart and the inevitable picnic lunches with the ubiquitous sandwiches and fruit on a bright sunny Saturday.

A busy mom handling home and a career, she got caught up in routine. Looking back. She still can’t pinpoint when she realised that Vaibhav had changed. Was it when they had to go for an all-important soccer match when Krish was in the fifth grade? Krish’s team had reached the finals between inter- school competition and all the parents were going to be present to cheer for the team. Vaibhav had been oddly quiet and listless that week. On the day of the match, he refused to leave the house even after much cajoling by her and Darsh. Perplexed by his reluctance, she and Darsh had finally left him alone. Krish’s team won. There were jubilations at school and home. But Vaibhav remained oddly aloof; neither congratulating Krish nor even mentioning the match, which was so unlike him.

Little incidents like these soon made her aware that something was not right with Vaibhav. He would be in such high spirits some days that it would be difficult to control. He would insist on the family dining out, even on a week day against their better judgement. Refusing him was never an option, he would herd them out for the evening, however tired they were.

Vaibhav had always been an affable and easy-going person. But some days, they saw an utterly unbelievable scene- Vaibhav would lose his temper at the most inconsequential thing. He would scream at her if she served dinner a little late, which was never an issue earlier, what with so many chores they both had to attend to in the evenings. He would raise his voice on the boys if they were just being themselves-i.e. boisterous as any typical boys their age. On other days, he would join in their games and the house would ring out with shouts and loud laughter. They never knew what was coming next. Soon, she and the boys learnt to meander around him watch out for his moods.

She suggested seeing a doctor and surprisingly he had agreed. After a battery of tests, Vaibhav had been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder. They were devastated. How? When? And the most devastating of all…why?? All unanswered questions played on both their minds.

She started connecting the dots. The extended silences in their bedroom, which she had thought was pre-occupation about his work; his perplexing reluctance for sex, which she had attributed to tiredness; his sudden burst of energy, which though disquieting, was welcomed by her as the long silences were terrifying and disturbing. The days he was full of enthusiasm she deluded herself into thinking that he was his usual cheerful self and whatever his issues at work had been solved. Now, with sudden clarity the picture was clear in front of her eyes. More scary and grim.

Things worsened over the years. Though it was controlled by medication and ‘mood stabilisers’, his disorder played havoc with their lives. Each day dawned different. Though the doctors had warned her about his unpredictable behaviour, she still was unprepared for it.

Vaibhav was the least sporty person she knew. But suddenly, one morning, she woke up to an unbelievable sight of Vaibhav in full running gear. He announced, “I am going to train for the upcoming marathon”. She was stunned. “But Vaibhav, you have never run or jogged in your life. A marathon requires lots of practice and dedication. Are You sure you are up to it?” “Oh, yes!”, he answered airily, “Just wait and watch! I am going to run the next marathon”. With exuberance and in high spirits he had waved good bye and left. This continued for over fifteen days and then, she never heard the word, ‘marathon’ again.

Shalini had tried her best to keep the boys shielded from Vaibhav’s eccentricities, for want of a better word. But things had deteriorated beyond repair. Now, all they could do was to make the best of the situation. Medication and luck kept the family going.

Now…

The morning went in scrambling for the first possible flight to Washington. Luckily for her, ‘Vande Bharat Mission’ had just been announced by the government of India and she got a ticket (Krish had sent her the scanned documents of Vaibhav’s medical condition) in the first flight out, operated by Air India.

She reached her place exactly forty-eight hours after her son’s call. They now lived in a fairly palatial bungalow in the suburbs. The house was eerily quiet as she unlatched the lock. Opening the door, she stood rooted to the spot. The house was utterly empty. EMPTY ..as in, BARE ! She stared at the walls in stupefaction. Where was everything? The living room sofas, the side board with the family phot frames, the side table lamps with the small curios, the beautiful Kashmiri carpets that she had got from India years ago, her Knick knacks, her plants??

Even as she was registering all this, she heard her son’s voice... “Mom?” She rushed upstairs to their bedroom. It was locked from inside. She banged on the door frantically. Krish opened it a little and seeing her, hurried out. She hugged him to her and peered inside for Darsh. He too came and hugged them. They both led her inside and made her sit on the bed. She looked around. The room was full of their stuff. She heaved a sigh of relief. They were surrounded by familiarity, unlike the surroundings.

The story came out in a rush. Dad had started acting strange some ten days back. He had stopped eating, stopped interacting with them and did not go to work. Initially the boys were not perturbed. They were used to his moods. Then one day, when they came home after classes, they were horrified to see a U-Haul in their driveway. Dad had packed their complete house in the huge truck and was preparing to leave. Luckily for them, he had spared their room, also maybe because, they had locked it , as if they had some premonition about the way things were unfolding.

Without a backward glance, without even saying goodbye, he had driven away.

Shalini started shivering at the thought of what her boys had gone through. She berated herself for leaving them alone with him. How could he do this? Had he stopped taking his medicines? Had he lapsed back?

Slowly, seemingly after ages, she got up and went down to walk through the house. It was completely bare. The kitchen was empty of all the cooking ware, her fridge, her appliances and even her recipe books. Their bedroom had been wiped clean. The guest bedroom was just walls, bare of even the paintings that she had hung to make the guests feel welcome.

She sank down on the floor, her legs giving away, taking in the enormity of the situation. What will they do now? How will they live? They couldn’t afford to buy all the household things again, from her savings. She thanked God that she had a separate bank account and had not listened to Vaibhav when he wanted her to convert it into a joint one. She knew she had money in it; she had just bought her ticket from it.

Seeing the woebegone faces of her sons, she was galvanised into action. Real estate was down thanks to covid; she got a fully furnished two-bedroom apartment on reasonable rent in the city, where they shifted immediately. It was easy, they had to just carry their bags in the car he had left behind.

She knows it will take them time to heal, after the emotional roller coaster they had been through. But being strong, they will survive.

The boys are about to finish school. They will get jobs and move way wherever it takes them. But what about her? Where will she go? Thankfully, she had a pension but with the rising cost of living, it would be impossible to survive on that. She dared not touch her savings; it was her nest egg.

These questions plague her and continue to do. Her future looks bleak and lonely. The emotional abuse that she has suffered for almost three decades has taken its toll but she has to keep walking, if only for her sons’ sake. She had no husband and they no father. She was now their both mother and father. The responsibility is daunting but then she has no choice but to carry on!

She knows, ‘Every cloud has silver lining’ …and now to wait for her silver lining to make an appearance! Which it will, of that she was absolutely sure. After all, had she not battled all odds till now and remain unbroken? So, this too shall pass and the three of them will rebuild their lives, finally free of the albatross that was Vaibhav !