Story time!!

One of my assignments for the Creative Writing workshop I did last mont

THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE

“Good morning doctor!” The on duty nurse greeted me as I walked into the Ob-Gyn clinic. The stark white walls contrasted sharply with the dark green curtains on the windows. The harsh fluorescent lights and the strong smell of disinfectant almost succeeded in stealing away every human touch from the small room, but were beaten by the warm smile on the nurse’s face.

I smiled at her “Good morning Sister, how many patients today?”

“Not too many madam, only 10.”
In this clinic run only for underprivileged mothers, at least 25 patients per day was average. 10 was child’s play. It wouldn’t take me more than half an hour to finish the preliminary screening before Dr. Gayatri, the senior gynaecologist arrived to pass her final judgements. I liked working with her. There was a lot to learn, especially when she got into the practical details while examining each patient. Books were good, but Dr. Gayatri made those words and examination findings come alive. Plus, the care and compassion with which she treated even the poorest patient was inspiring.
Learning apart, the emotions on every to-be-mother’s face were touching to watch. The happiness of the husband and in-laws on discovering the pregnancy, the wonder on the mother’s face as she listened to the foetus’s heartbeats, were all unexpected bonuses of emotion in the middle of work. There were the occasional gripes of a mother-in-law expecting us to guarantee a male child, but these had gradually decreased over time.
I was just finishing up the last patient in line when a new case paper appeared in front of me on the table. It had just a name – Laxmi. I called out, and a girl walked into the room. She looked like a teenager, with large black eyes in a thin face. Her features were sweet, but twisted with a whole range of conflicting emotions. She just sat in the chair opposite me, wordlessly wringing her hands together. My brain on auto-pilot, I started with the preliminary details.
“Yes Laxmi, how old are you?”
“Nineteen”
“And how long ago were you married?”
That question brought her to an absolute standstill. There was no sound from her for a full minute. I repeated the question, my head still down. No answer the second time round too. Finally, irritated, I raised my head. And that was when I really saw her.
She did not have sindoor in the parting of her hair. She did not have a string of black beads – a mangalsutra – around her neck. And yet, I could make out the swell of her abdomen compared to her thin frame. My eyes saw the picture, yet my brain refused to process the information.
She saw me staring at her. Her eyes suddenly glistened and her head bowed down.
I stared at her for a never-ending minute. On one hand, my medical training was telling me that she needed care. She needed tests, medicines, antenatal supervision. My middle-class Indian mind was screaming “how can she be unmarried and pregnant!?”
She squirmed in her chair, pinned there by my gaze. How many others must have subjected her to the same look? I suddenly felt a surge of sympathy for her, along with an overwhelming curiosity to know how she came to be in this unfortunate situation. Being an unwed mother would haunt her all her life.
For a long moment I just looked at her. My expression must have conveyed what I couldn’t put into words; she drew a deep breath and began telling me her story. “Madam, I fell in love with a boy from my area. He was very nice at first. I felt he really liked me and we were very happy. He even promised to marry me as soon as his college was over. My parents did not know about us. I was very happy when he spoke about marriage. He reassured me that this……these relations happened before marriage too. I….got carried away.” A tear gathered weight at the edge of her lashes.
“One day, I realised I had not got my periods for more than three months. I was scared; I couldn’t tell my parents, they would kill me! But when I spoke to him, he refused to believe me. He said this child wasn’t his, I must have……been with someone else” The words came out sounding like they had been pulled from her mouth. “I swear there was no one else madam, I loved him, and I was only with him. But his cruel words hurt me so much! Now I want to teach him a lesson.”
I finally found my voice, “so…..do you want to…..abort the child?” I had used the colloquial Hindi expression ‘bachcha giraana hai?’
Her head whipped up, her eyes huge and the pupils dilated. “NO!! I cannot do that madam!! I want to have this child! I read about tests that can be done to find out who is the father. I want to do those tests; I want to prove that he is the father of this child! He cannot accuse me of being loose and get away with it!!” Her thin shoulders shook as she spoke, but were no longer weighed down. They were squared back to face the world. The transformation had occurred right in front of my eyes in the space of a few seconds.
“But do your parents know?” I asked. “Yes madam, I told them. It was going to be obvious in a few days anyway. They cried when I told them madam, I am their only child. We are poor, but they wanted good things for me” Her head drooped down again and a tear escaped the constraints of her lids to splash down on the table. “My father has a chai stall. He was saving up money for my dowry, but that will never happen now. I want to give birth to this child and make his father accept him”

“But do you want to marry him?” I couldn’t help asking; and was suitably chastised by the glower in her eyes.
“Bilkul nahi madam, I will NOT marry him! I will look after my child on my own! I know I am only 10th pass, but I will find a job and bring up my baby with love and respect. This child is mine! I will not give him up to anyone!”
As I took Laxmi to the examination table, I realised that the horizons of my mind had widened. It was very easy to feel like a mother under normal circumstances. The happy husband, the doting in laws, the equally happy parents of the mother; all coming together in a circle of warmth around the woman. But this slip of a girl, not even out of her teens, had worked up the courage to have a child even under such trying circumstances. She knew that she had made a mistake, but was facing the consequences with her dignity intact. She wanted to be a mother to her child, and loved it even before it was born. It was in Laxmi that I saw a glimpse of the amount of strength it takes to be a mother.