Sad? Yes..No..Maybe?

Its amazing how different people react towards sorrow and misery.. There was Munshi Totaram, who rightfully blamed himself for the death of Mansaram, and of course went into chronic depression and stopped going to the courtroom, stopped taking cases, but.. did not stop living a 'healthy' marital life.. if you know what I am alluding to here!

There was Nirmala.. who did not blame herself entirely, but was torn to bits thinking about what happened.. but still moved on with her life.. and as a matter of fact made new friends.. ! Jiyaram and Siyaram - the remaining two son's of munshiji went on to hate their father based on the half presumed, half interpreted truth of their brother's cause of death.

The rest of the world hated Nirmala - based on complete presumption and prejudice that step mothers can never make good mothers and she was the reason that a young and bright kid like Mansaram was forced into depression and ultimately death.

Time they say heals all wounds no matter how deep, but conviniently the saying does not quantify the time needed. So as time went by Munshiji's depression got worse and his debts grew and house was seized and auctioned.. Nirmala fortunately found solace in Sudha - wife of the doctor who treated Mansaram. Sudha and Nirmala would talk for hours and hours.. about various things.. it does help to have a good friend in times of depression.. but little did Nirmala know that she had more in common with Sudha than their new found friendship.

Sudha's husband - the Doc was the same person who had rejected Nirmala's alliance years back! Had he only listened to his mother and married Nirmala ... her life would have been soo different, may be even Mansaram would not have been subjected to torture and ultimately death. Wouldn't it be wonderful if one could see the future - the consequences of your actions - perhaps we could be better people and a better society. But since our crystal balls with smoke aren't really efficient - we aren't efficient decision makers either , with exception to those who really use their grey matter to think before they act. - But our doctor sahib ain't one of those.

Sudha after deducing from Nirmala's narration of her woes, that its her husband thats the culprit in destroying the life of young and good natured Nirmala, was all red and boiling with anger. She confronts her husband and after a lot of shouting and guilt tripping, Doc realizes his folly and volunteers to help Nirmala - first financially - then .... hold your breath .. fixing Nirmala's Sister Krishna with his brother for holy matrimony!

Talk about irony! So at this point in the story - Nirmala was having mixed feelings - One side she was really happy that at least her sister was going into a better household - with all pomp and glory! She was depressed on the other side that they had to auction Munshiji's house and live in shackles almost - Thanks to his depression-triggered-no-work-no-money situation. And on another side she was soon to become a proud mother of a baby girl.

Que Sera Sera

Misunderstandings are common in any relationship, no matter how hard you try you can't possibly avoid them, the best solution then is face it .. head on, don't hide, confront..

Alas neither Nirmala nor her husband nor her step son believed in this simplistic approach. Honesty and trust are the two most important values in life that can change things for the good and thats something that lacked in Munshi totaram. He wants his beautiful wife to be with him, and yet never says it to her! He wants his son to be away from his wife and says the wrong things, he scolds the kid for no reason, calls him a vagabond - a total no no! The poor kid is confused as to what to do about it. Feels guilty of having hurt his father and betrayed his dead mother, runs away from home to the hostel..But the worst comes when he realises why his father's persecuting him.. and thats the day things turn ugly..

Thoughts of his father even considering a possibility of adultry with his new mother made him ill mentally.. gave him suicidal thoughts, but he did not need to go that far, he fell ill physically too just thinking about the situation he was in. As his conditioned worsened day by day the onl good it did was that it made Totaram realize his folly but.. as the famous saying goes 'honi ko kaun tal sakta hai' . Nirmala tried her best to save the poor kid, she tried giving him food, tried talking (she figured it was easier talking to the kid than the father!) but the kid was so taken aback by his fathers misunderstandings that he even refused to look at his his step mom. He finally took one shot at clearing his name - so when Nirmala came to the hospital to see him despite all the growls from Totaram (- the nasty!) and donate blood, he fell on to her feet and told her and the rest of the world that he always looked upon her as his own mother.. and with that display of affection he breathed his last breath!

Tragic.. yet I get the feeling its all in vain.. only if Totaram had been a litte more sensitive to his son. Only if Nirmala chose to be vocal right in the begining of the misunderstanding, only if the son did not place his father so high up on the pedestal and give his life up...But as the song goes
Que Sera Sera... whatever will be will be....

Speaketh thy heart

I apologize for my long absence from the blog scene had a lot of other reading to do, but here I am and lets go back to the 20th century story we started on...



Nirmala's woes were just beginning when she began her new life.. as the wife of Munshi Totaram. She was married alright, to a person she had no romantic interest in and to her utter dismay there was her Sister In Law - Rukmini (finally a decent name) who wanted to play Lalita Pawar all the time. Every time poor Nirmala made an effort to reach to someone outside the house, Rukmini would call her names and say she's characterless trying to talk to everyone shamelessly and when Nirmala not wanting to conflict with Rukmini, would confine herself to the kitchen or the bedroom, devious SIL would call her names again accusing her of being an anti-social. Many more tiffs and quibbles like that arose over time between the in-laws.



At this point I really wondering why the kid was quiet, Nirmala could have raised her voice back, she could have stood up for herself, told her SIL that she was the one who reprimanded her to go quietly to a corner.. gave her SIL a piece of her mind. After a few pages she did do something more than be a church mouse, but before I go into what she did when her patience crumbled, I have to mention here that Totaram being the man he is and the times and trends that this novel is set in felt hurt and retired when his beautiful young wife refused to come close to him (romantically). So he tried and tried in all ways to impress is wife and get her close. And when Nirmala's patience with Rukmini ran out, Totaram got the oppurtunity to win his wife's heart.. She complained, he screamed, ending Nirmala's tiff with Rukmini and Rukmini's monopoly in the household matters. Responsibilities of money and house shifted to Nirmala's young an inexperienced hands..

Of course this did not make things better for Nirmala or for Totaram, except that it gave a Nirmala some importance in the house and a connection to Totaram's kids, but Nirmala was still not as close as Totaram would have liked. The responsibility of kids and home took toll on Totaram's moves to woo Nirmala. She'd always be with the kids, feeding them, learning from them or teaching them, playing with them... yes yes you get it.. its always them them.. never Totaram.. and another drama in line.. this time fury was directed towards the eldest kid - Mansaram. Without divulging any details, Nirmala was in for the most miserable time of her life! Her husband suspected her of having 'feelings' for Mansaram.

I closed the book there.. I felt anger rising, I know its only a novel, but then, I read novels as though I were a part of them, and putting myself in that situation, I loathed Totaram. I mean first you marry a girl fit to be your daughter, and suspect her natural instincts of gelling with people of her age and that's what she did, gel well with her step son. She was spending some quality time and sharing few laughs with him.. how can the husband assume she is having an impure relationship.. and after all would you suspect a mother of illicit relation if she enters the son's room at late hours to enquire why he hasn't eaten food? What was the husband thinking! And the feminist in me says, so what even if she was in his room, it is quite natural for people of the same age to be drawn towards each other, at least initially, values and customs do have a role later to ward off any thoughts.. if you are really bound by them.

What would have been an interesting twist would be if the boy Mansaram really liked Nirmala as herself and not as his mother and left the house with her, ridiculing not just the relationship his father wanted so much to establish, but also the customs of those times, that did not see the tenderness of age, did not see the willfulness of a woman's heart but saw the girl child just as a burden.. or the wife as an object not even an entity let alone human...