Dear Namita

Dear Namita,

Here I am because I can’t be anywhere else. I need to be here. Were I elsewhere, I would find myself very distracted; distracted in a manner such that I seek to be, yet wish not to be. I want to communicate with you today via the written word. I can’t leave it for later, I must not leave this letter unwritten anymore.

Allow me to start at the very beginning- when my eyes met yours, I knew I loved you. I knew also that you loved me back, without a shred of doubt. One knows of such love, and one can only encounter it when one is ready, I was.

Such love is not uncommon yet the power of it is beyond human grasp. I barely knew you, yet I knew you. I had barely held you and yet love overflowed the rims of my heart. Was it because you were because of me? How did you know to love me back the way you did? Perhaps you knew then. But me, I did not, and that is perhaps why I failed so numbingly. To rise again from this failure’s ashes is what I attempt today. Only you can help me restore my inner faith, the faith I have lacked, in myself, my darling, my precious child.

You would respond spontaneously with a gesture, soundless yet verbose, were you here in physical form. But you are not.

Your hair, all wispy, reminds me of your older brother’s; your face, a perfect oval, is the prettiest oval I have ever spied. When I hold you, and I speak in the present tense, you feel as soft as gossamer. I know you are reading me and experiencing my tender love. What I am unsure of is whether you understand my need to describe you thus; through this description I am exteriorizing my inner demons, those that overpower me at night. In vain I struggle to ward them off. Since night after night, for years now, feeble attempts to set myself free of them have been foiled. I have decided to express my love on this old letter-paper I found in my walnut desk. Perhaps through this expression I will at last find freedom. One way or another, do respond my lovely child. Silence is not an option.

Your gentle cries wake me up, and I caress your tear-streaked face. You stop wailing instantly. Perhaps your little tummy hurts. My body’s offering to you, is tainted with selfishness and fraught with hunger. I wish for you to keep wanting me. I offer you myself without restraint, but maybe it is not enough. Your body grows despite its pain. You cry out loud, often disturbingly, and all I wish to do is shut you out. One week in a row, we both, sleep-impoverished, and fraught with fatigue, want no more of each other. It happens I am told. I regret that week.

Your Baba takes you to the clinic, without me, on three consecutive days. I regret my absence.

Your eyes, sunken and half-open, remind me of an old woman’s. I wish not to set my eyes on you. I regret not caring enough.

I hate myself, when due to the constant effulgence that summer brings, you sleep through the day and seek me at night. I myself, too tired to care, pretend to not hear or feel you. I regret my callousness. 

I hate the doctor, I hate that clinic, I hate the nurse who carried you back and forth from the nursery where they insisted they keep you, I hate that street, I hate that colony where lies the child-clinic, I hate the smells and the cotton, the cheap perfume of the receptionist at the clinic, I hate the fear that had us in its hold then. I hate myself and I want to snuff out this hate, replace it with something more ordinary- like self-respect, or love, even love perhaps.

Two months, and some: you are better. You are always hungry and ranting. You want me now. I have returned to work. We have started bottle-feeds. You seem unhappy with the taste of unfamiliar milk gushing out of the teats. What choice do I have? You have to get used to the formula, because I need you to.

I regret forcing my lack of choice on you.

Two months, fifteen days: you love formula milk. I return home and stare blankly at you, exhausted by guilt. You push the bottle away, as ayah just stops it from rolling off. You look straight at me, pleading, take me in your arms, and give me of yourself. I am moved but I shrink. I am unable to pick you; unable to give of myself, yet I blink back tears. I must feel something. And then I stretch my arms to hold you, but the bottle is back in your mouth, the tender moment having passed. I regret the passing of this moment that makes me weak, and now makes me weep.

Three months: the painful crying has recommenced. You don’t want me anymore. You are searching the bottle I think. It hurts.

I still cradle you night after endless night, as I try and keep bottle-feed to a minimum.

You cannot eat anything, you are unable to keep down the formula, you don’t want my feeds. I fail. I wince and cringe. We weep together.

What is it that we could have done and did not? I don’t know, I really don’t. I don’t want to say anymore of what could and what should have happened, because it was not to be that way. I can feel my spirit lifting. Tonight, after the day’s job is done, will I meet those demons again? I believe I am in the process of banishing them as I pour out my love on this piece of paper my beloved child.

As you read me, you will understand yet again, that I will always love you, as will your baba.

One day, together, your Baba and me, your younger brother and you, we shall sit around and be merry again. Your place in this foursome is permanent. You will always be our oldest baby, who chose a different life and a distant place, this time round, but you have a date with us, and never ever forget that, will you!

Your Maa, forever and ever more