Sujata, My Mother & My Wife

[desiaks]

I was born as the only child to my parents when my mother was barely sixteen years old and my father was 27 years old then. He used to work in a hazardous chemical factory in shifts. As the earnings were not good enough we lived in a small studio apartment which is called one room kitchen, where you have a living room a kitchen and a toilet no bedroom.

As my mother Sujata had married my father when she was only fifteen and the next year I was born so she had to discontinue her studies to look after me. But she was determined to study further so after 3 years she got admission to a collage and completed her degree in three years. I was also studious as her and always tried hard to excel in school. My mother did a great job to educate me at home I remember she often used to sit with me for hours and make me recite poems, math tables, spellings etc. Her continuous monitoring always angered me. But all this paid off when I got admission to an engineering collage. I selected mechanical engineering as in those days computers were unheard of otherwise I would have preferred computer science.

Now let me tell you something at my home. As I have mentioned we lived in a studio apartment there was hardly any privacy for my parents. Till I was 7-8 years old we all slept in the living room. I had a different bed which was placed perpendicular at a distance from my parent's bed. As I grew older my parents started sleeping in the kitchen. In the night my mother would place a mattress in the kitchen where they both slept. This would happen when my father was doing a day shift. I remember all this changed when I was about sixteen or seventeen. I noticed my parents never slept together even if my father was having a holiday. I wondered what the matter was. I was scared that my parents would divorce. I even suspected that my father would be taking another woman. Fortunately nothing that sort of happened. Meanwhile my mother took up a job as a school teacher and soon became popular in the school.

But things were not going smoothly at home as I noticed my father used to come home with a very pale face every passing day he appeared more tired. Once I asked him to get himself examined but he ignored. One day the inevitable happened we got a phone call at around midnight that my father has lost consciousness and is hospitalised. My mother started crying I was also in tears and did not know what to do. My mother hugged me and I tried to comfort her but she would not stop crying. There was no transport available at midnight. So early next morning we went to see him. He was all but a pale shadow of himself as we knew him. We both hugged my father, we knew there was something wrong with him but what it was we were about to be told.

A young doctor examined my father and read the blood reports etc and called me outside the room while my mother was by my father. "Look here, at this report. This says your father's body is poisoned by continuous exposure to the hazardous chemicals." I was terrified to know that.

"We could have done something if you had come earlier but it's too late now the damage to his internal organs and nervous system is irreversible only some miracle can save him now." This was a shock for me. I could hardly stand on my feet.

"At the most you can ask for compensation from the employer and I promise I will make a very strong report in your favour."

At that moment I felt somebody has taken life out of my limbs but I gathered myself and went smiling into the room to see my father.

"What did the doctor say?" asked my father.

"There is some problem with your blood reports but you should be alright."