35. Sona
SONA
T empted as I was to call Sneha aunty immediately, I waited until it was a decent time in the U.S. When I called her from my locked room that night, she recognized my voice instantly.
“Sona!” She broke into soft sobs, which made me tear up too.
“I’m sorry I didn’t call sooner, Aunty,” I said, trying to control my shaky voice. “I didn’t know. Mihir just ended things…”
“I suspected as much.”
“I’m so sorry. I can’t imagine…” I found it difficult to verbalize my exact emotion. “I don’t want to intrude. I just wanted to see if you are doing okay. Mihir misses you both.”
“He does?” she asked with sincere hope.
“Yes, he wants to call…he’s just wary.”
She sobbed with what I suspected were tears of relief. “Did he tell you everything?”
She told me her side of the story, the parts that filled in the gaps in Mihir’s version. She spoke of her sorrow, her grief and loss. She told me of his reaction to it all.
“I understand he feels cheated and lied to, but saying we didn’t love him had us completely unraveled. How can he say that, Sona?”
“He was hurting. I guess he wondered if anyone could love him. He’ll be himself soon. Everything will be alright,” I said.
“Has he found her, his birth mother?” she asked.
“Not yet.”
“I hope he finds her. It might give him some perspective. He thinks everyone pities him, but the truth is, we all loved him to do what we did. I hope he sees it.”
“He knows, Aunty. He sees it now.”
“I miss you too, you know,” she said.
“I’m so sorry! Mihir asked me never to call you again. You extended me your friendship, and I foolishly let my relationship with Mihir undermine it. But I’ll be closer now. I hope you can come visit me with Tara.” I told her about the Houston job.
“That is wonderful, Sona! We couldn’t be more proud of you. Congratulations.”
“Thank you, Aunty.” My mood brightened as I envisioned her smile.
“Sona, can I ask you something?”
“Yes, of course.”
“Any chance of you and Mihir…”
“He asked me this evening,” I said softly. “Said, rather. He said he wants me back.”
“Yes?” I detected hope in her voice.
“But it’s been difficult for me.” I told her how things had unfolded.
“He is a fool,” she said. “Who takes such a critical decision about one’s life when one is feeling lost?”
“It took me three months to get to where I am now, and my heart refuses to trust again.”
“I understand,” Aunty said. “I’m glad he has you there. At least that’s one thing he got right. Will you keep me posted?”
I hesitated. “I would hate talking about it behind his back, Aunty, but I can bring it up with him. If he’s comfortable, I’ll be happy to share updates.”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry to drag you into our family drama.” Her voice had dropped low with guilt.
“No, please don’t say that. I’ll be happy to keep in touch with you, just not about Mihir. We do have our own friendship.”
She laughed, and then I heard her say my name. “Arvind is asking what’s brought this huge smile to my face,” she said back on the line. “I said it’s you.”
“Well, I’m looking forward to seeing you in Houston. You better not renege on it.”
“I will definitely come visit you. Thank you for everything, beta.”
I hardly got any sleep that night as I dove into reading about adoption and the relationship between birth parents, adopted children, and adoptive parents. There was a sea of information. I read several shorter articles and bookmarked ethnographies and case-studies for later. It was almost four in the morning when I finally fell asleep.
I woke up late and rushed through my ablutions and grooming routine to get ready on time.
I didn’t remember Malati’s address, but Sanjay was a sharp man. Once he’d driven a route, he seldom forgot. He drove me confidently, without missing a turn, right to the gates of the building.
The elderly gentleman was at the tea stall again. He was a bit surprised when I said “Namaskar,” to him. Malati opened the door with a wide grin, like she was keen on figuring out the mystery of her father’s cryptic entries in the notebooks.
We peered over the entries, written in Marathi, with some English letters thrown in.
“Where did your father work?” I asked.
“At a bank.”
“I thought he was a social worker?”
“That was his philanthropic side. He worked as a clerk in a bank. Good permanent job, sure, steady income, good pension plan, you know. Evenings, he spent caring for people who were less fortunate.”
Intrigued by her narrative, I’d stopped looking at the notebooks.
“It began quite by accident. On his way home one evening, he stopped to buy a jasmine gajra for my mother.”
I nodded. Gajra was a string of flowers that women put in their hair as an adornment.
“This kid was struggling with a mathematics problem, so father helped him and asked the child to come find him if he struggled again. The kid used to knock on our door often. It was a different, safer time, when people were more trusting. No iron grills on the doors. Anyway, Father began tutoring him, sort of. He lived in the slums close by. Then one evening, he came to our home to tell him that a kid begging on the street had collapsed. Father rushed over to see what the matter was. One thing led to another, and he was out every evening, helping someone or other. People with no homes, poor children, you know? That’s how he knew all the doctors too. He kind of recruited them to help him. Mother would be annoyed, because he was often gone until late hours of the night. But she changed her mind when that young kid he tutored cleared his tenth standard with flying colors, went to college, and got a secure job.” Malati laughed.
“Aah, we couldn’t change his mind. He used to say, ‘ God has gifted me with a safe life, where I don’t have to worry about my next paycheck, so that I could donate my time to worthy causes. ’ Anyway, did you find anything useful?”
“Oh, I haven’t looked,” I said when her question broke my spell. “This has a lot of initials, but nothing specific. I think he was trying to protect identities but keeping notes for himself to follow up. See here?” I pointed to a section. “It seems like this kid had a cough and fever, and he was treated by this doctor, with these initials, and these subsequent checks are when your father made follow-up visits. As far as I can tell…”
“That sounds right. He always used to say things like, ‘ Today, I need to check up on this person or that person, ’ and I often wondered how he remembered.”
I hesitated for a moment but decided to tread the waters. “I hope this doesn’t offend your sensibilities, but did your father know any sex workers?”
“Yes, sure,” she said with no hesitation. “He was on the board of a sex-workers’ organization until he was mobile. Why do you ask?”
“Mihir’s birth mother was one and gave him up,” I took the liberty of telling her. If he had come in search for his mother, Malati was the best lead, and Mihir would’ve had to share the truth with her anyway.
“Oh!” she said and frowned in thought.
“He just learned about this, and he’s hoping to find her.”
“Let’s see if my father kept notes of that kind,” she said and pulled a notebook into her lap.
We went through the whole stack of notebooks twice but couldn’t find anything helpful.
“Here, you look again. I’ll be right back,” she said and vanished inside the house. She returned with a bundle of papers tied up in twine and placed them carefully on the coffee table.
“What’s this?”
“Old letters,” she said, undoing the knots.
I picked up an envelope, and my eyes went wide as I read the sender’s name. Arvind Seth.
“That’s why I know the name,” she said. “I sorted Father’s things when I put them away. I wanted to throw them out, but I couldn’t bring myself to get rid of the last remnants of his memory.”
I put a hand on hers as she smiled and wiped away a lone tear.
“Take your time,” she said. “I’ll finish cooking lunch. My kids will be back from school in some time.”
Against the light sound of cooking pots, ladles, and water in the background, I went through the letters. I didn’t want to pry, so I resisted reading the details, but they were pretty standard letters with updates of their life in the U.S. with the progress Mihir was making. His pictures accompanied a few letters, but they were still in the envelopes, so either the birth mother didn’t want them, or Kamte never offered them to her.
If she had refused to accept the pictures, chances were that she’d not be keen on meeting him in person after all these years. Maybe Mihir was right in assuming that he might be a source of pain for her.
Despite this turmoil, a part of my brain remained distracted. The last time we had talked about his baby pictures, he’d mentioned kids and my heart had warmed. Holding Payal’s baby after she was born had made me crave motherhood. Now, I wasn’t sure. Although, the image of the chubby child in my hand was eerily similar to how I had imagined our baby during one random wild flight of my imagination. I pushed the thought away and focused on the letters.
When Malati peeped back in, I said, “None of these give any clue about the mother except that her name was Sharda, which we already know.”
“Wait, her name was Sharda?” she said with a wooden rolling pin in her hand.
I flew out of my seat. “Yes, why? Do you know her?”
She shook her head in thought. “There is one Sharda Tai I know, and she used to be a sex worker, but it would be farfetched to assume she’s his mother, no?”
“Still worth a shot.”
“Could be…” Her hand slid up and down the rolling pin. “She’s the vice president of an organization that advocates for sex workers’ rights. She and my father worked alongside each other for some years.”
“Do you have her number?”
Malati shook her head. “But I know the organization. They will have their office number on their website, right?”
I quickly scribbled the name of the organization on the handy notepad I always carried. Then, I collected the papers in a neat pile and tied them up with twine.
“Malati, you have no idea what you have done for him. We can never thank you enough,” I gushed.
She beamed. “I’m glad I could help. Like my father used to say, it starts with one kind gesture. It takes only one deed to change the world.”
“He sounds like a wise man.”
She smiled. “I wish you both a happy life. You seem to have a very compatible relationship.”
I didn’t have the heart to contradict her, so I smiled and said, “Thank you.”