Tell A Thousand Lies (29 page)

“Please tell me they are lying,” I begged. “Please give me my baby.”

“She was born dead, Pullamma.”

“I don’t believe it.” I sat up, my jaw stubborn. “You said I’m healthy. You said there was no reason I shouldn’t have a safe delivery. I think they gave my baby away.”

“I saw her myself. She didn’t make it.”

“She can’t be dead. She just can’t. You’re lying.”

“No, Child.” Dr. Janaki sounded devastated.

A cry was wrenched from me. I fell back against the bed, and broke down. I cried for what seemed like hours. Dr. Janaki held me, rubbing her hands over my back. A while later I pulled away and reached for the glass of water. “How does she look?”

I had to know.

“Pullamma, she is gone.”

“Does she have Srikar’s features? I need to see her.”

“It will just hurt you.”

I sat up, shaking. “I have to see her. I have to name her. She isn’t some nameless baby, some roadside trash that I can just discard. She needs to know she was loved.”

Dr. Janaki rested her head on my shoulder, her body trembling. “Are you sure?”

“Yes,” I said. I was calm now. “I owe it to her. I owe it to Srikar. He doesn’t even know he had, then lost, a daughter.”

At a nod from Dr. Janaki, the nurse brought over a small wrapped bundle. I took it gently. Then I looked into the face of my baby. “Such long lashes,” I said, running my eyes over her face. My daughter! I had never known love this powerful. “She would have been such a beautiful baby.” My voice caught. “I would have loved her so much.”

I said to Dr. Janaki, “You know, I promised myself that my children would have beautiful names?”

Dr. Janaki nodded, tears flowing. The nurse was crying, too.

“I am going to call my baby Vennela. She brought a ray of pure love into my life. It doesn’t matter she did not live. It doesn’t matter she was a girl. I am going to love her all my life. My little ray of heart-warming moonlight. Isn’t that a nice name?”

“Beautiful,” Dr. Janaki said, voice choking.

I looked at the nurse, still very calm. “I know you need to take her away for the last rites. But I want to hold her. Can you leave me alone for some time?”

“Fifteen minutes,” the nurse said, sniffling. Dr. Janaki followed her out.

And then I was alone with my baby. Mine and Srikar’s. I leaned over and rifled through my bag, laying a tiny pink frock with yellow smocking on the infant. “Now I understand where my urge to learn smocking came from. It was so I could make you pretty dresses.” I held her up to my cheek. “I finally understand why your aunt Lata hated all the traditional sayings related to girls.”
Tell a lie, beget a daughter
. “You are worth all the lies in the world put together, my love. Your poor unfortunate father. You came and you left. He never even knew.”

I rocked my baby till the nurse came.

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My infant daughter, being too young for cremation per Hindu rites, was buried. I wasn’t allowed to go because I was still recovering from my caesarean; Dr. Janaki was prevented from going, too – some cock-and-bull story that hospital rules prevented doctors from attending funerals of their patients. But I got Dr. Janaki to find out the location.

Ten days after the birth and death of my baby, I stood over her grave and wept. I wept for my child, for my husband, for my dead friend Geeta, for the stripping of my illusions.

Chapter 37

Post Vennela

R
esident girls were discharged from the Home once they’d given birth to their shameful secret. But I, being a special case, wasn’t allowed to leave. Dr. Janaki urged me to use this time to prepare for college, but what was the point? With my baby gone, who would I study for?

I sat near the chicken coop. After my baby’s death, I had no desire to make friends with anyone. A little distance away, a group of girls were practicing a song for some silly little function the Warden had dreamed up. The Chief Guest was some politician. Not Kondal Rao. Beyond that, I didn’t care. I watched the baby chicks chase each other.

“How are you, Child?” Dr. Janaki sat next to me.

“I’ve been watching the baby chicks, resenting that they’re chasing each other, having fun, while my baby was denied that chance.”

“Oh, Pullamma!” She gave me a quick hug, then took a deep breath. “The function is tonight.”

“I have no desire to go.” I hoped she wasn’t going to badger me to join in. I’d had enough of being positive.

“You don’t understand.” Her voice was heavy with suppressed excitement. “This is our chance to escape.”

“Oh!” My heart started beating hard. “You want me to pack?”

“No! Don’t do anything to draw attention to yourself. There isn’t anything you can’t leave behind, is there?”

Other than my baby?
“No.”

“Good. Meet me here at 7:30 p.m. When the politician’s convoy arrives, the guards will hurry to help the Minister out of his car. Everyone’s attention will be on them. That’s when we’ll sneak out. A car will be waiting outside to take us to Bangalore.”

“But I don’t want to go to Bangalore.”

“But, Child, you have admission in a college there, and I have a job.”

“I want to go to Hyderabad.”

“I thought, with Vennela gone... Also, the risk...”

“Studying medicine was your idea, not mine. I want to go back to Srikar. I want to tell him about the baby we lost. I want to set up house with him again.”

“What about Kondal Rao?”

“I’m not pregnant anymore. I don’t have a child anymore. My mistake was that I refused to move from the flat. But this time, not only will I move – to the Himalayas, if necessary – but I’ll stay at home, never venture out. If I stay hidden, there’ll be no risk for Kondal Rao. Why would he care?”

Dr. Janaki looked like she didn’t know what to say.

“Please Dr. Janaki. All I want is Srikar. Once I go back to him, I’ll tell him what a wonderful person you are. He’ll listen to me. I know he will. You’ll be able to reunite with him.”

The hope on Dr.
Janaki’s
face would be comical, if it weren’t so sad. “Okay then.”

She left on her rounds, leaving me to worry about what could go wrong. Maybe the car wouldn’t show up. Maybe we’d get caught. Maybe Dr. Janaki would be held up somewhere.

Despite all the worrying, leaving was unexpectedly easy. The politician’s convoy arrived, everyone rushed to welcome them, and we strolled past the unattended gates. The car was waiting. We got in. A brief stop to say goodbye to Vennela, and we were on our way to Hyderabad.

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We drove most of the night. Early next morning, we stopped at a hotel to freshen up. “Let’s have breakfast before we go,” Dr. Janaki said.

“If we delay, Srikar will leave for office.” So, by 5:00 a.m., we were on our way to
Madhuban
Apartments. I tried to imagine our reunion. He’d be so happy to finally know what had happened to me. Poor Srikar. It would be so hard for him to know the baby hadn’t lived. I would help him with his grief. We’d never forget Vennela, but we’d have each other. These days away from him had been miserable. I felt a spurt of anticipation that our separation was coming to an end. Another five minutes, and we’d be at
Madhuban
Apartments. My heart picked up speed. We’d have to look for a new place, and not only because it wasn’t safe anymore. We couldn’t live in such a small place because Dr. Janaki would be with us. I laughed.

“What?” Dr. Janaki said.

“I can’t continue calling you Dr. Janaki, can I?”

She smiled, despite the tension on her face.

“Stop!” I said, startling the driver. We’d arrived. “Park here.”

Dr. Janaki and I walked to the gate. My heart beat fast. What would people’s reaction to my sudden reappearance be? What had Srikar told them? I stepped in, a smile on my face. This early in the morning, there was no one in the courtyard.
Sandhya
would be making her husband’s lunch, Geeta getting her children ready for school. And Srikar?

“Pullamma,” Dr. Janaki screamed, and slammed my face into the gate.

My chin hit the metal latch.

A knife thudded to the ground at my feet.

I jerked my head up.

A man ran up, knife in hand. Another man followed, the expression on his face fierce.

I froze.

“Run!” Dr. Janaki screamed.

I sprinted toward the car. I could hear footsteps pounding behind. I opened the car door. “Go, go, go,” I shouted.

The driver jerked the ignition on.

Dr. Janaki slid in, and slammed the door shut.

 
The car screeched, and took off. I got on my knees and looked through the rear window. Two swarthy men shook their fists at the car, knives in hand.

I sank into the seat, heart hammering against my chest.

“What happened there?” the driver said, voice high.

“I think those men were attempting robbery,” Aunty gave me a warning glance.
 

She and I both knew that had been an attempt on my life. Kondal Rao must have learned of my escape. It was logical that he would expect me to go to
Madhuban
Apartments. How could I have been so stupid? How could I have put Srikar at risk?

“Can you take us to Bangalore, like we talked before?” Dr. Janaki said to the driver, her voice tense. She gave me a questioning glance.

What could I say? My foolishness had already put Srikar in danger. How could I expose him to greater risk?

“Don’t you want to go back to
Madhuban
Apartments when it is safe?” the driver said.

“I’ve changed my mind.”

“Alright, then.”

Chapter 38

The Move to Bangalore

I
n Bangalore, we settled in a flat close to the hospital. We also settled on calling Dr. Janaki, Aunty.

“Classes are going to start soon, Pullamma,” Aunty said.

“It is too public an occupation. I worry about those frenzied devotees, Aunty. If they ever track me down…”

“Pullamma, the best way to hide is in full view,” she said. “After all, who in their right minds would expect a Goddess on the run to be practicing medicine? That too, in a different State?”

She bullied me till I agreed. I needed something to fill my time, so medicine it was. Studying to be a doctor was hard work, but I was determined that my baby’s death would not go in vain. I would try and save as many babies as I could; maybe that would bring peace to my baby’s soul. My own was beyond redemption. No one could possibly go through what I had, without having committed grievous sins in their previous lives.

I enrolled in a college. Studies came to me easily enough, perhaps because there was no Chinni to distract me. When I was reading, I wasn’t thinking about Vennela or Srikar, Ammamma or Chinni. I also made the yearly pilgrimage to my daughter’s grave in the cemetery beyond the Home. I took her flowers and dolls and frilly little dresses; I talked to her for hours, telling her about her father, her family and my love for her. I know this worried Janaki aunty. But the visits gave me the strength to go on.

At nights, when I was too tired to fall asleep, I would hold my baby’s little pink and yellow frock close to my heart. Then I would give myself permission to grieve. For her. For her father. For me.

Maybe my baby wasn’t meant to be. Like Lata had once pointed out, I had gotten pregnant in the month of June –
Ashadha
Masam
– and my baby came in March. She must have been doomed from the moment she was conceived. I’d been studying medicine long enough to know this couldn’t possibly be true, but what if the elders were right? What if I were responsible for the death of my own child?