Dawn was slowly giving way to a bright harsh morning. The still soft rays of the early morning sunlight filtered through the half curtains on Hiranmonee’s window. Hiran lay on her single bed, remembering the dream from last night. She smiled to herself. After so many years she saw her father in her dreams. She hadn’t dreamt of him for years; and now on her birthday she saw him vividly as if he were still alive. Today she turned forty-nine. Would anyone remember? No one had ever remembered her birthday except perhaps her mother and she died thirty years back. Her sisters? No, they have forgotten her existence totally. Her husband? He had said once, birthdays are a luxury that only suits the rich. We do not indulge in such fancies, especially for our wives and daughters. Hiran sighed; dreaming of her father somehow brought back all the memories she had kept hidden in the dark depths of her mind. She felt she was twenty again; shy, scared, but determined, sitting in front of her father, trying to explain the choice she has made.
“Baba, now I realize the reason for your silence. I realize now my mistake.” Hiran whispered. Suddenly with a jerk, she pulled the thin bed -sheet up to her neck. “ But Baba, I will make amends. I will never go to the fish market again.”
Outside, Hiran’s daughter-in-law, Anita, was getting extremely anxious. It was getting very late and there was no morning cup of tea waiting! In fact she hadn’t seen her mother-in-law so far this morning. By this time usually she is up, pottering about in the kitchen, getting everything ready before she goes off to the fish market. It was very unusual, totally unexpected of her mother-in-law. Anita wondered whether she should wake up her husband and inform him of his mother’s inconsideration. Anita looked at the clock, it was nearing eight. There was no water in the buckets, no morning cup of tea and no rice washed and kept ready. She had to leave by ten and if by then Hiran hadn’t got the fish and cooked it, she would have to leave hungry. “How extremely irritating!” Anita mumbled. “Mother-in-laws could be so ungrateful!” She decided to give Hiran another ten minutes before she brought the whole house down.
Anita was a teacher at the local school and at present the only earning member of Hiran’s family. The son lost his job a few months back and hadn’t tried for another. Instead he has plans to venture into some sort of entrepreneurial activity the nature of which was still under discussion with his father. But, such cerebral activity required complete isolation from any mundane household work he may have been required to do, that is if his mother ever had the courage to ask him. But in his twenty-five years of existence it never occurred to his mother to ask and it never occurred him to offer. So far father and son floated a number of schemes throughout the day punctuated with endless cups of tea and lunch of fish curry and rice, cooked by Hiran and financed by Anita.
Hiranmonee had always made it a point to go to the fish market after the rush of the office
babus** was over. By the time the office babus had finished buying their daily quota of fresh fish and took them home to be cooked in a hot watery curry, it would be just after nine in the morning. Hiran would reach the market by nine-thirty. The prices would have come down drastically by then, as the small fish sellers would try to sell their left over stock as quickly as possible. By then the fish had already started to smell in the heat. She compromised on quality, but at least ensured that her husband, her son and now Anita had their fish curry every day.
Hiranmonee’s husband stopped being an office ‘babu’ about twenty years back. But that didn’t stop him expecting his piece of fish for lunch every day. Before Anita had joined the family, Hiran mostly had enough money to buy only two pieces of fish, one for him and the other for their son. She had managed with boiled potatoes and rice on most days. Her husband rarely noticed. Whenever he did, she managed to convince him it was her fast that day. He never pursued her explanations. Her son never noticed.
Hiran had a love marriage; she had chosen her own husband, unthinkable in their family and society. The love of her life was the young, handsome, only male living of an old landed family. He didn’t have any of
the ‘land’ but he had the temperament. A fact she overlooked but her family didn’t. He worked in a small company, in the clerical grade. She convinced her family that he was unfairly kept at that grade- but there was promise of future promotions. Hiran’s in-laws had managed to hold on to the four rooms in the old ancestral mansion. The house, the family name was what Hiran showed to the outside world. She didn’t see the rot behind those crumbling walls.
Hiran’s husband had also suddenly lost his job- through no fault of his - so he told her. He didn’t of course explain why the police had come looking for him in the middle of the night just after he lost his job and why he disappeared for two months, ostensibly on a business tour when he didn’t have a job. Hiran never asked her husband for any explanations ever in her life; it never ever occurred to her to do so; she had married for better or worse… Then he came back and started a business. But nothing changed for
Hiran. Her days remained the same. She had to get up at the crack of dawn to fill the buckets of water, ready for her husband and son. Then after making the morning tea she would trudge down to the fish market for the daily quota of fish, everyday, without ever breaking the routine.
But any illusions Hiran had soon shattered under the heavy burden of struggling to keep her husband and son fed and happy. The promising business soon folded. Her husband made halfhearted attempts to revive it but gave up on account of indifferent health and attitude. Although he folded up the business, he couldn’t shake off the tradition of his past. As the prices in the market rose, Hiran’s stock of jewellery diminished. Father and son never missed their daily fish curry lunch. Except now Hiran had to go later in the morning, after the office babus had finished.
Hiran’s sisters saw the fading glow of her doe eyes, the premature gray hairs and watched the gold on her body replaced by artificial ones. When questioned, Hiran always had an explanation, but never the truth. According to her things would get better. It never did. For twenty-five years she had trudged to the fish market, day in and day out. Even when Anita had come into the family there was no respite.
But today was different. Today was her forty ninth birthday. All these years she had forgotten her birthday or she remembered after it had passed. Today was different because she remembered it so early in the day. She was going to take the day off. Hiranmonee smiled, she was going to rest – no more going to the fish market.
For a brief moment Hiran remembered Panchu the old fish seller from whom she always buys fish, he will wonder what has happened. She had never missed a day. Let him also wait. Hiran closed her eyes. She could feel the warmth of the now harsh sunlight on her closed lids. She heard the shuffling feet and whispers at her door.
It was time for her to sleep again. The long rest she had yearned for all these years, she was finally going to get. She heard the door opening. For a brief moment she wondered what time it was. She sighed, it didn’t matter; let them wait for their fish.
*Hiranmonee means the doe-eyed one; eyes beautiful like a female deer’s.
**office babus refer to the men who worked in the lowest clerical grade.
