UNFORGIVEN

UNFORGIVEN 

Everyone knew how much Rathin Mitra and his wife had suffered because of Samir, their eldest son-in-law. Chaoni, Rathin’s eldest daughter, had not visited her parents’ house ever since her marriage to Samir. Samir would not allow her to go to her parents’ house threatening that if she ever visited them, she should never return. The Mitras had not seen their eldest daughter in almost thirty years. A year back, Rathin’s wife had suddenly taken ill at night. All through the night she kept telling Rathin to speak to Samir and get Chaoni back. It remained the lady’s last wish for she passed away by dawn.

In the days that followed, Rathin called up Samir many times but could not get either him or Chaoni on the phone. Rathin also wrote a letter explaining the recent developments but received no reply. A year passed and now Rathin was on his deathbed. He knew it and so did the others around him. Yet, he was not willing to die. He wanted to see Samir and Chaoni. He kept calling out their names.

As time passed, Rathin’s desire to meet his son-in-law and daughter reached a feverish pitch. He kept begging everyone to call them. His four other sons-in-law who had only heard of this awful brother-in-law were getting irritated. They had been model sons-in-law till then, but the old man was not even asking about them. Their wives, who barely knew their sister for they were pretty young when Chaoni was married off, were equally angry. Chaoni was married at nineteen, her sisters had been eleven, nine, six and four then. All their lives they had only heard ill things about their brother- in-law and so each one had groomed their husbands in a manner that would make them appear good in the eyes of their parents. Each wanted her father to recognize her husband as the best.

Chaoni, being Rathin’s first daughter, held a special place in his heart. That she was also a

beautiful baby made her all the more dear to her father. Even after she grew up Rathin would always remember her as the sweet, chubby, beatific baby. Both he and his wife had wanted nothing but the best for Chaoni. They had thought that Samir would be the perfect groom with whom their daughter would lead a happy married life. Samir had all the qualities that a girl’s family looks for. He was good-looking, friendly, well-educated, well-settled, and hailed from a good family. The only concern had been that he was an only child whose father had passed away when he was very young.

Relatives kept suggesting to Rathin that the mother might be too possessive of her son, which might make Chaoni’s life difficult but Samir’s mother appeared very kind and Rathin fixed the marriage. In those days of arranged marriages, the bride was usually not allowed to meet or speak to the groom alone before marriage so Chaoni and Samir never spoke to each other. Had Rathindranath permitted that, the story of this marriage would have been very different.

Things started to go wrong immediately after the wedding. It was customary for the bride to be accompanied by someone from her own house who would stay with her for a few days to make the transition into the new surroundings easier. Chaoni’s younger sister, Lekha, had travelled with Chaoni to Allahabad. Lekha was eight years younger than Chaoni. She had not understood much but had told her mother that the groom and bride did not share a bedroom. Samir had refused to sleep in the same room as her sister. He had also asked his mother to arrange for Lekha’s departure soon. Samir and Chaoni were expected to drop Lekha back at Jabalpur but Samir flatly refused to do so. He was okay to let Chaoni go. Rathin understood that it was a ploy to get rid of Chaoni. So he arranged for his second daughter to be picked up by a friend who had gone for a dip in the Sangam.

In those days parents did not interfere in a married girl’s life. After her marriage, a woman was expected to have minimum ties with her parental home. Likewise, Rathin and his wife stayed away from Chaoni’s life. They did not hear from her. They would write to her but never received any letter from her. They hoped and prayed that Chaoni was fine. Some years later, Lekha’s marriage got fixed. Rathin went to invite Chaoni and family for the marriage. When he reached Samir’s house, Samir refused to meet him but Rathin met Chaoni. Chaoni was still the same. Everyone had told him that she would change after her marriage but Rathin could see that this was not the case with his daughter.

Nothing about her had changed.

Her eyes had lit up when she had seen him. She had hugged him and asked him about her mother and her sisters. She had also wept and said she missed them a lot. Rathin had wanted to bring her home right away but a father of five daughters does not take such a risk. So he had left Chaoni in her marital house though Samir’s mother asked him to not leave without his daughter. Chaoni did not come for her younger sister’s wedding. A few days later Rathin telephoned Chaoni. From her they got to know that Samir’s mother had passed away, a few weeks before Lekha’s wedding. Immediately

after her death, Samir had got a new woman in the house, a nurse by profession. In spite of all this, on his death bed, Rathin kept asking for Samir.

Samir saw no point in visiting his father-in-law. Chaoni was not interested in her parents any more, she was happier with Samir. Immediately after her marriage she had cried for her family day and night but after thirty years, Samir’s house had become her home and she never spoke about her father or mother, unless, they telephoned to speak to her. Even then she referred to ‘Baba’ and ‘Ma’ as if they were mere names. No, he would not go, he thought. However, Rathin’s thought kept coming to his

mind. The old man wanted to see his daughter one last time, was he doing the right thing by denying him that? He remembered reading a letter from Rathin that he had received after coming back from a two-month long holiday. It had mentioned his wife’s death and her dying wish to see Chaoni and him. In the letter Rathin had requested them to come and visit. Samir had rejected the idea. Chaoni’s parents had abandoned her by marrying her to him. Why did they want to meet her now? Did they want to apologize and cleanse their souls before dying?

He was not interested in helping them attain their peace. Samir had suffered a lot because of the Mitras. Long back he had decided that he would never forgive them but the tide of time is more powerful than a mere human’s desire to leave things unchanged, and Samir was a mere human. Rathin and his wife kept playing on his mind till Samir gave in. After all he was a kind man. He and Chaoni left for Jabalpur to meet Rathin the same evening.

All through the journey, the past flashed before Samir’s eyes. Thirty years back he had returned

with Chaoni on a similar train. Of course there was no second AC then, the baraat had travelled first class. He had not let Rathin pay for the baraat’s tickets. He was totally against such practices. The family business was doing well; he had money, then, why trouble the father of five daughters with this additional burden? How happy and eager he had been to get married. His heart was buzzing and so was his stomach. For four months, ever since the marriage had been fixed, he had carried Chaoni’s picture in his pocket. At night, he would dream about how life after marriage would be. Friends had teased him saying that he had not stopped smiling since his marriage had been fixed. Some also complained that many girls had become despondent after hearing the announcement of his marriage. To such comments Samir had laughed jollily. He was not a proud fellow but knew that he was

considered handsome; and then Chaoni was also pretty. With her almond-shaped, hazel-coloured eyes, curly jet-black hair, heart-shaped face, porcelain skin and pink lips she had made herself a place in his heart. If ever there was a child-woman face, it was her. She had looked so beautiful in the wedding sari! He had never been as happy as he had been on his wedding day.

However, he had felt something was amiss once during the wedding ceremony. There was no particular incident but it was the look that Chaoni had in her eyes when she looked at him during the shubho drishti. When it was time for the bidaai, Chaoni was all tears and no cajoling from anyone worked. Somehow they managed to get her into the car and leave. Her parents did not come to drop her off at the station. Throughout the journey, Chaoni stayed quiet. Samir only caught glimpses of her as she remained firmly attached to her sister and refused to come and sit next to Samir. He did not mind that. It was during the ful shoja that he got to know the truth. Chaoni bit him when he tried to get close to her. He apologized profusely and tried to talk to her. It was then that he realized that this girl of nineteen had the brain development of a seven-year-old. That entire night Samir sat in the balcony of his room. His mind felt dead. He could not comprehend why Rathin Mitra had played this cruel joke on him.

Samir called off the wedding reception. He did not want to make a fool of himself. Annoyed at the deception, his mother called up Rathin to demand an explanation. To all her accusations, Rathin kept giving the time-tested answers used by all fathers who do not want to trouble themselves over their daughters. Samir’s mother felt like turning Chaoni out of the house right then but could not. Where could she send this girl with the intelligence of a seven-year-old but beauty of a nineteen-year- old? She was not as inhuman as Chaoni’s parents had been!

After Chaoni’s sister left, Chaoni became completely uncommunicative and fell ill. Samir’s mother nurtured her back to health. After that Chaoni attached herself to her mother-in-law. She would follow her around like a pet wherever she went and did small chores for her. In the initial years, Samir’s mother took care of Chaoni. She knew she had groomed her son well so he would never hurt Chaoni but she wondered what would happen of him. After giving it some thought, Samir’s mother contacted a lawyer to get Samir divorced. She planned to get Samir free of the entanglement and yet let Chaoni stay with them. Samir, however, did not agree to the divorce. She pestered him day and night over it but Samir just did not agree. He could not explain to his mother. If there was such a thing as love, he had experienced it. He had fallen in love with that image of Chaoni, and no one could take that place.

After many years Chaoni was very happy when her father came to visit her. Seeing her so happy, Samir’s mother begged Rathin to take her back but Rathin did not. Samir’s mother was getting old. She worried about both Samir and Chaoni. Who would take care of them should something happento her? Then, all of a sudden she passed away. She was alone at home with Chaoni when she had a heart attack. Chaoni saw that her new mother was not moving. She nudged and nudged her but the lady did not get up—that is how the neighbours and Samir found them. Chaoni, once again, became the sad, lonely child that she had been when she first came to the house. She missed Samir’s mother. Samir could not take care of her but could not leave her alone either. He hired a nurse to take care of her in his absence.

In the thirty years, many-a-times Samir yearned for another woman, many-a-times he found himself drawn to other women, many-a-times he felt like pushing Chaoni out of his life but he did not do any of those things. After his mother passed away, he found it difficult to balance the demands of a growing business with the demands of having a hapless wife at home so he sold his business and took up a job where he had to serve regular hours. From a rich businessman he started living the life of an

ordinary middle-class man and did not complain. The only people Samir hated for many years were the Mitras. He just could not understand why they did what they did! They had not only deceived him but were also being extremely cruel to their own daughter. How could they allow their child to undergo mental and physical abuse? He felt nothing but disgust and revulsion towards them. As time passed he gradually got over his anger for them too, but was so disconnected from the whole thing that he felt that he had no responsibility towards them.

In defence of the Mitras, the only thing that can be said was that they had five daughters to be

married off. If the eldest daughter was not married there would have been problems marrying off the other four. If the eldest daughter was mentally challenged, it would be assumed that all the daughters had the same problem.

All their well-wishers had told them that girls like Chaoni recovered after marriage. Marriage,

meaning sex, was supposed to cure any ailment in any unmarried Indian’s personality. It did not work in Chaoni’s case because Samir refused to sleep with her.

When Samir broke off all ties with the Mitras it gave them complete freedom. Samir was painted as the evil son-in-law and they became the helpless parents of a tortured girl. Chaoni’s sisters were much younger to her and remembered little. A lie repeated over and over again becomes the truth and so even the people who knew how Chaoni was, slowly forgot it.

Rathin, on his death bed, could not forget how he and his wife had mauled the honesty and kindness of a mother and her son, and wanted nothing more but to apologize to him. He knew that he may not be forgiven for having ruined the man’s life but he wanted to try. In his delirium he tried to tell the truth to those around him but they did not comprehend. It was only after his death when Samir reached there with Chaoni that the truth was suddenly clear to all. It was Rathin’s fate to die without seeing his daughter, to die not knowing whether he was forgiven or not.