‘It really caused shock waves in Calcutta society,’ said Kakoli to the assembled company. ‘When they told her husband he said: “What baby? Bloody nonsense!” He was fifty-five years old.’
‘You see,’ continued Meenakshi, ‘when she stopped having periods, she thought it was her menopause. She couldn’t imagine she was going to have a baby.’
Maan, noticing his father’s frozen face, began to laugh uncontrollably, and even Meenakshi graced him with a smile. The baby too appeared to be smiling, but it was probably just wind.
13.18
The baby and mother got along very well over the next couple of days. What was most surprising to Savita about the baby was her softness. She was almost unbearably soft, especially the soles of her feet, the inside of her elbows, the back of her neck — here she was even more amazingly, heartbreakingly tender! Sometimes she laid the baby beside her on the bed and looked at her admiringly. The baby appeared satisfied with life; she was quite a hungry baby, but not a noisy one. When she had had her fill, she would look at her mother with half-opened eyes: a snug, smug expression. Savita found that, being right-handed, it was easier to feed her from the left breast. This fact had never struck her before.
She had even begun to consider herself a mother now.
Cushioned by her mother, daughter, and sister in a feminine and loving world, Savita felt the days pass placidly and happily. But from time to time a wave of deep depression swept over her. Once this happened when it was raining outside and a couple of pigeons were cooing on the window ledge. Sometimes she would think of the student who had died in this very hospital a few days ago, and wonder about the world into which she had brought her daughter. Once, when she heard how Maan had dispatched the crazed monkey, she burst into tears. The depth of her sudden sadnesses was unaccountable.
Or perhaps it was not as unaccountable as it seemed to her. With Pran’s heart trouble hanging over the family, they would always live under a shadow of uncertainty. Savita began to feel more and more that she had to learn a profession, no matter what Pran’s father might say.
Notes passed between Pran and Savita as usual, but most of them these days were about suitable names for the baby. Both agreed that she should be named soon; it was not necessary to wait for her character to develop in order to pick a suitable name.
Everyone made suggestions of one kind or another. Eventually, Pran and Savita decided by correspondence on Maya. Its two simple syllables meant, among other things: the goddess Lakshmi, illusion, fascination, art, the goddess Durga, kindness, and the name of the mother of the Buddha. It also meant: ignorance, delusion, fraud, guile, and hypocrisy; but no one who named their daughter Maya ever paid any attention to these pejorative possibilities.
When Savita announced the baby’s name to the family, there was an appreciative murmur from the dozen or so people in the room. Then Mrs Rupa Mehra said:
‘You cannot name her Maya, and that is that.’
‘Why ever not, Ma?’ said Meenakshi. ‘It’s a very Bengali name, a very nice name.’
‘Because it is just impossible,’ said Mrs Rupa Mehra. ‘Ask Pran’s mother,’ she added in Hindi.
Veena too, who, like Meenakshi, had just become an aunt by virtue of this baby and felt that she had some rights in the matter, thought the name was a good one. She turned to her mother in surprise.
But Mrs Mahesh Kapoor agreed with Mrs Rupa Mehra.
‘No, Rupaji, you are quite right, it won’t do.’
‘But why, Ammaji?’ asked Veena. ‘Do you think Maya is inauspicious?’
‘It isn’t that, Veena. It’s just that — as Savita’s mother is thinking — you must not name a child after a living relative.’
Savita’s aunt in Lucknow was called Maya.
No amount of arguing by the younger generation could budge either of the grandmothers.
‘But this is gross superstition,’ said Maan.
‘Superstition or not, it is our way. You know, Veena, when you were young, Minister Sahib’s mother did not even allow me to call you by your name. One should never call the eldest child by her real name, she said, and I had to obey.’
‘So what did you call me?’ said Veena.
‘Bitiya, or Munni, or — I can’t remember all the names I called you to get around it. But it was very hard to keep it up. Anyway, I think that is all blind belief. And when my mother-in-law passed away, I dropped it.’
‘Well, if you call that blind belief, what do you think this is?’ said Veena.
‘This has reason to it. How can you scold the child without invoking your aunt? That is very bad. Even if you call her by some other name, it will still be Maya you are scolding in your heart.’
It was no use arguing. The parents were overruled, the name Maya had to be scratched, and the search for a new name began.
Pran, when Maan told him of the veto, took it philosophically.
‘Well, I was never a Maya-vadi,’ he said. ‘I never believed that the whole universe was illusion. Certainly, my cough is real. Like Doctor Johnson, I could refute it thus. So what do the two grandmothers want her to be named?’
‘I’m not sure,’ said Maan. ‘They only agreed on what was not acceptable.’
‘This reminds me of my committee work,’ said Pran. ‘Well, Maan, you’d better rack your brains as well. And why not consult the magical masseur? He’s never short of ideas.’
Maan promised to do so.
Sure enough, a few days later, when Savita was fit enough to go home with the baby, she received a card from Mr Maggu Gopal. The picture on the card was one of Lord Shiva complete with his family. In the card Maggu Gopal stated that he had known that Savita would have a daughter despite everyone’s opinion to the contrary. He assured her that only the following three names were sufficiently auspicious, given what he had seen of her husband’s hand: Parvati, Uma, and Lalita. And he asked whether Pran had replaced sugar with honey ‘for all the daily necessaries’. He hoped for Pran’s speedy recovery, and reassured him once more that his married life would be a comedy.
Other cards came in as well, and letters of congratulation, and telegrams, many of them with stock phrase number 6: ‘Best congratulations on new arrival’.
A couple of weeks after the baby’s birth, it was decided by consensus to name her Uma. Mrs Rupa Mehra sat down with scissors and paste to make a grand congratulatory card to celebrate the baby’s arrival. It had taken her a little while to accept the fact that she did not yet have a grandson; and now that she was happy with her granddaughter, she decided to give tangible expression to her pleasure.
Roses, a small, rather malignant-looking cherub, and a baby in a crib were pasted together, and a puppy and three golden stars completed the picture. Under the three stars the three letters of the baby’s name were inscribed in red ink and green pencil.
The message inside was a rather prosaically formatted poem in Mrs Rupa Mehra’s small and careful hand. She had read it about a year ago in an edifying volume, The Fragrant Minute for Every Day by a certain Wilhelmina Stitch — an appropriate name in view of Savita’s present condition — and she had copied it out at that time into her small notebook. It was the poem for the ‘Twelfth Day’. She was certain that it would draw from Savita’s and Pran’s eyes the same tears of gratitude and joy that it had drawn from her own. It read as follows:
THE LADY BABY
‘A Lady Baby came to-day—’ What words are quite so nice to say? They make one smile, they make one pray for Lady Baby’s happiness. ‘To-day a Lady Baby came.’ We have not heard her winsome name, we can address her all the same, as Lady Baby-Come-to-Bless.