The Ugly Duckling

Mountain flower

“Clang, clang, clang,” the sonorous bell of the fire engine tore through the din of the busy street.

“Look, Baba a fire engine,” shrieked Ankita, the ten year old girl running to the balcony to peer down the busy street through the wrought iron railing and point excitedly at the bright red fire engine.

Fire engine had come when my uncle’s house was on fire,” Ankita said aloud with a dreamy look in her eyes.

“Come back inside,” said Sandip Mitra, my friend and her father.

Father and daughter had dropped in on me like every Sunday morning after the latter’s dance or music class or whatever other cultural aptitude my friend was trying to equip his pint sized girl with.

“….clouds of black smoke was there and many men stood in line carrying buckets of water,” Ankita continued in her far off reverie.

“See the new comics Uncle has got,” Sandip shifted uneasily in his couch, sifting through my Tintin collection.

“The hillside was full of people and we were all coughing in the smoke,” Ankita reluctantly came back inside my parlour. The fading fire engine’s bell was surpassed by the melodious folk song emanating from the Murphy radio on my book-rack.

“Let’s go home, you must be tired from your classical dance practice,” Sandip stood up.

“No, Baba, not at all. I love dancing, see…,” laughed the little girl and broke out spontaneously into graceful moves of a folk dance.

“Stop! stop right now. How many times have I told you not to dance like an illiterate tribal,” exploded Sandip before yanking Ankita out of the room, down the stairs.

Such incongruous father daughter uproar scenes were not new to me. After being childless for a decade after marriage both Sandip and his wife Monali had gone in for adoption. First an attempt to buy an abandoned baby boy from a shady nursing home backfired at the eleventh hour when an accompanying aunt dropped sly innuendos on the pedigree of the baby.

After making rounds of Govt. adoption centers and private ones with no success for months, they decided to throw in the towel and settle for whatever brat the Missionaries of Charity orphanage in Calcutta gave them. The nuns at the orphanage were stern, and it was no pick and choose session. It was a long drawn process with endless rounds of interviews and visits to the orphanage for acclimatization with the child. Tons of paperwork followed in the wake wherein the adopted child was registered like a piece of property by a court of law and rich relatives had to stand in as guarantors in case both the foster parents died or abandoned the adopted child. After overcoming all the lengthy legal procedure they had brought home a four-year baby girl who looks wise was distinctly from the North East part of the country.

The arrival of a child is supposed to bring joy to the parents but it was only the beginning of their trouble. Even for biological parents, bonding with a baby is a complex process. The “cuddle hormone” or oxytocin which induces maternal behavior in mammals by snuggling up right after birth was missing in this case. Moreover, each parent had harboured their own set of parental great expectations from the new toy but none had thought that the new guest would have a mind of her own. Both Sandip and Monali soon realized that rearing an adopted child is no piece of cake.

All the attempts to inculcate conventional civilized values and Bengali culture into the growing girl were met with stiff resistance. Having survived on her own in her initial years in an orphanage where she was hardly attached to any caregiver had made Ankita an enfant terrible. She was prone to anxiety and aggression and could be very headstrong.

At school her unusual pahari mongoloid looks and lisping speech made her stick out like a sore thumb.

“Chaina, chaina, howls like hyena” the classmates chanted whenever they got a chance. Name calling and body shaming was the forte of cruel classmates.

Ankita responded with hard punches and the Mitras’ were often hauled up by the school authority to discipline their special needs child.

While all other children easily sang Rabindra sangeet or danced to Gurudev’s music Ankita was tongue-tied and graceless.

But she was no crybaby and frequently got into fights with children even older than her whenever she perceived any sense of wrong doing. Plucky Ankita was imbued with a strange sense of righteousness and physical strength.

In matters of art and culture Ankita was unlike her classmates. While other kids painted soft and sweet subdued images of landscapes, bunnies and flowers, Ankita sketched bold colourful sketches of scenes of war, forest fire, animals and hunting.

“I’m fed of this girl. We should have never adopted her!” exclaimed Monali throwing up her hands.

“Maybe we don’t know her yet,” Sandip was more patient.

Ankita’s tantrums were the talk of the housing society and school and often the Mitras’ avoided social functions because Ankita could be unpredictable and inadvertently some smart Alec would voice his sagacious opinion about the pitfalls of interracial adoption.

“Maa I want more’” Ankita was again gorging on chicken lollipops at a social do like there was no tomorrow.

Her foster parents had to drag her away from the buffet table. Her voracious appetite for meat was also disturbing to her parents. She even chewed up the bones as much as possible. Deprivation during her initial years had made her ravenous and the subliminal memories of a tribal past just refused to go away. Nurture was failing before nature.

In time her parents began to accept their different child and let her be herself. The only positive effect Ankita had was that, failing to win the affection of their child, both Sandip and Monali began to seek solace from elsewhere. Sandip joined a photography club and Monali found her calling in a local theatre group. Ankita was Sandip’s favourite subject for capturing on camera and she also accompanied her mother to drama rehearsals where she put in her own impromptu performances.

"Adopting a child is a journey of faith," said Dr. Pallab Maulik the grim child psychologist who was also attached to the orphanage. "You have to have complete faith that the child that has ended up in your hands was meant to be there."

The Mitras’ were seeking professional opinion on how to best handle their tough daughter. While Ankita was somehow coping up in school at home she was unbridled in her behaviour. She would wake up sobbing and gasping in her sleep.

“Why did my Maa give me away? I was not good enough!” cried the little girl before sinking into herself for days.

Soon Ankita expressed her desire to know about her birth parents. On the good doctor’s advice the Mitras’ requested for Ankita’s case history and luckily for them it was a semi-closed adoption so details of her origin was in the records. It was revealed that she was found miraculously alive after her entire Ahom village was massacred by ULFA insurgents in Assam. This revelation helped Ankita move on from feelings of abandonment.

“You see you’re a special child who lived. You have brought joy to your foster parents. You can be the best girl in the world,” counseled the psychologist.

“But doctor, she is very stubborn, doesn’t want to learn anything good. Embarrasses us at social places and school is also getting fed up with her,” complained Monali.

“What makes her happy? “The learned Doctor asked.

“Hills, trees, nature, animals,” said Sandip “all the things missing in our concrete jungle.”

“Then you could take her to a hill station for a trip. It might be something.” The good doctor advised. Therefore, the March tour to a hill station in Sikkim was planned. It proved to be game changer as the couple soon noticed how calm Ankita had become in the chilly ambiance of the hills. Her complexion glowed pink and she slept soundly. Her temper was subdued in the frosty natural habitation.

“Ankita, if you do well in school and your hobbies, I promise that we’ll bring you to the hills for every vacation.” Sandip offered an incentive to his daughter. He had sensed what might just work for the girl.

“And I will learn to cook the delicious chicken momos for you,” promised a smiling Monali.

After returning the parents noticed a positive change in their wild daughter. She was making an attempt to integrate into school and also form a tentative attachment with her foster parents. The persuasion and praise policy was paying off slowly.

“Maa, there’s a Talent contest in school, and I too want to be selected,” shrieked Ankita back from school one day.

The Mitras’ knew of the cutthroat competition among parents who would stop at nothing to promote their children on to the stage or screen. Ankita getting selected was a distant reality as the themes were all traditionally Bengali.

There was a month’s time before the final selection and all the participants’ parents went into it with a war footing. Dance choreographers, professional voice and makeup artists were hired and children did drills of dance, song or drama with mercenary like training.

“We don’t even know what she’s good at?” said an actor of the theatre club.

“I know. I have done online research on her indigenous people and downloaded their popular songs and dances.” said Sandip.

“Let me frame a dance drama script using the material, before we go in for rehearsals.” replied Monali.

Thereafter the daily brainstorming sessions of the photography and theatre clubs turned intense but Ankita was never tired to rehearse again and again as it was a labour of love for her.

The big day had finally come.

“Now we have before us a solo dance drama performed by Ankita Mitra of class 5 B,” announced the compere.

All eyes were on the stage when Ankita glided in gracefully in the ethnic garb of a nasoni or female dancer to the beat of the dhol and pepa flute playing in the background. She was doing the Rongali Bihu and was draped in a Chaddor and Mekhla the traditional Assamese attire. Her movements were elegant and her expression was one of pure joy. She was decked up with colourful kaanfuli earings, gaamkaru bracelets and golpota necklace hung around her neck. The traditional gogona headdress had matching flowers. All were spellbound at her elemental performance.

After the competitions concluded the judges huddled together to match their scores while the contestants and their keepers waited with bated breath. The Mitras’ were simply glad that their misfit girl had achieved the self-confidence to perform on stage. It was enough for them that their adopted daughter had bloomed at her own pace.

There was a hushed silence when the school Principal took to the stage to announce the winners.

“I have the pleasure of inviting our chief guest and Trustee Mr. Singhania to come up on the stage and give away the prizes to the talented students of our school who have delighted us with their various performances this evening.” announced Mrs. Rajput, the school Principal.

“Miss Supriya Sarkar is third runner up in the vocal section,” intoned Mrs. Rajput while a gleaming girl scampered up the stage to receive the prize from the chief guest.

“Master Aditya Singh has won the second prize in the extempore speech section,” Mrs. Rajput continued while a smart boy ran up the stage to bow before the audience.

“Now before we announce the first prize let me say that we all very surprised at this brilliant performance. Everybody please join your hands for Miss Ankita Mitra for the best performance in the dance drama section,” almost screamed the normally staid Mrs. Rajput punching the air with her fist.

To the wild clapping and thunderous applause, Ankita ran up the stage to receive her prize.

The ugly duckling had turned into a beautiful swan!

(2008 words)