“What’s happening to me? I can’t bear this anymore,” he moaned as he held his daughter’s hand. Rimika had to see her father writhing in the hospital bed in excruciating pain. Treatment for cancer in the oesophagus was considered then to be more about comforting the patient and sympathising with the patient’s relatives than about targeted therapy that could lead to recovery. Of course Rimika’s father, Biren Guha, had ignored all warnings on hoardings and newspapers stating in bold print that smoking leads to cancer and smoking kills. He had been a chain smoker. Though his wife was a doctor, which husband has been known to heed the caveats of a doctor-wife? When warned by his wife Sabita, which was often at least five times a day, Biren Guha just laughed. Women are so funny; they just can’t mind their own business and are such irritating naggers. Obsessive-compulsive disorder, undoubtedly.

At first it was about a persistent sore throat. Sinus problems, the local doctor said, though Sabita felt that there was more to it than met the eye. Biren Guha almost lost his voice. Sabita’s suspicions turned true. Her husband Biren was diagnosed as suffering from cancer in the throat. At Stage 4. The doctors could not assure them in any way. They started chemotherapy. Biren Guha found the chemotherapy sessions and the side effects unbearable. He lost weight rapidly. He had no urge to eat, nor had he the discipline and determination to swallow despite the pain. The Ryal’s tube was the only way in which body and soul could be clipped together.

There was no question of further hospitalisation. The doctors advised the mother and daughter not to admit Biren Guha into a hospital. Care at home was what he needed, said the specialists. So, that was it. One night Rimika sprang out of bed as she heard her father’s loud cough followed by a sound of choking. As she switched on the bedroom light, she was petrified to see blood gushing out like a stream from her father’s throat. Rimika screamed for her mother. Sabita sat upright on her bed. She had not slept for a few nights, so tonight she had fallen fast asleep. “Oh Rimika, I am afraid now we will have to let your Baba go. He is suffering so much, and all treatment is hopeless now. It’s only delaying his departure, which is now inevitable. There’s nothing further that we can do. Be strong.”.

Rimika stared at her mother. Of course she was a trained doctor. But to speak so impersonally about her own husband! I hope I never will be like her. Rimika loved and admired her mother and felt her mother’s support was her greatest pillar of strength in her twenty-one-year-old life. Yet.

Biren Guha did not live for long after that. Sabita and Rimika clung to each other not as mother and child but more like siblings, as they watched the last departure of their loved one from their home. Her uncles and cousins had bought a wooden cot—the ones that are piled up in furniture shops that sell cots—for the last journey to the crematorium. Garlands of tuberoses, tuberose sticks, burning incense sticks, corn tossed on the road that led to the crematorium—it all happened as expected when a person becomes a dead body. The mother and daughter did not accompany their loved one’s body to the crematorium. They were absolutely drained out. As the relatives buzzed around them busily, they just sat back, resigned. They merely spoke if someone asked for something. The relatives organised all the religious last rites of the sraddha. Sabita and Rimika were like robots on those days of mourning. The relatives took over the running of their home for those two weeks.

In the next few years, though Rimika was appearing for her Economics Masters’ examination, her mother Sabita seemed to have just one purpose in her life. She felt she should arrange a marriage for her daughter. Though Sabita was aware that Rimika had several boyfriends, she had figured out that none of them could take on the responsibility of being a dependable lifelong provider. The husband, the breadwinner, the provider of all material needs, from food to clothes, from groceries to fashion accessories, from eating in restaurants to tourism abroad. And of course, children. Bright younglings, who needed to be admitted to the best schools, who would clear every competitive examination with a song on their lips. Rimika’s mother, pragmatic Sabita, dreamt a lot about a house full of grandkids and a son-in-law who would be more like a son than a son bound by law.

After a lot of weighing of pros and cons, an engineer seemed to be just the right person who would be a provider and a male support to the lonely mother and daughter duo. The target was secured. Sujoy was a simple, loquacious, charming young man who kept saying to the two women how unfair life was. He knew he had been cut out to be a professor of civil engineering in an American university, either Columbia or Cornell. They asked him to try. They promised all support. But he complained it was too late and the arrival of his first child, a bonny boy, was too distracting for him to concentrate on academic engagements. “But then you are so talented, Sujoy. How can you waste yourself going to an office every day and working with endless files? Your brother is in Wisconsin. He can help.” “Oh, no. Please don’t mention all this to him. He will be very upset. He knows how meritorious I am and will feel unhappy as I have chosen to do an office job in India, without any outstanding future prospects.”. Rimika kept quiet. She soon bore a daughter, a lovely girl whom they named Joie. Rimika was now a mother of two children. Rimika had fulfilled her duty. She could not reproduce any other kind, thankfully.

Sujoy suddenly resigned from his job and said his call was to handle Rimika’s family business as a partner. Rimika’s mother was sceptical. But she did not spell out her fears. After all, Sujoy’s decision made Rimika happy. What more did she need in life? But partnership in any business required an immersive commitment. Sujoy was incapable of doing so, though he tried. But he was a guy whose enthusiasm was all about fits and starts. Consistency and diligence were alien to his constitution.

Meanwhile, Rimika tried her hand at culinary classes, gardening, tutoring school kids and setting up a sari boutique. Tutoring children was the enterprise that claimed her completely. Very soon, Rimika’s tutorial became the most sought-after tuition centre in South Kolkata. Often Rimika would tell Sujoy, “Why don’t you join me? You can teach maths and physical science to the kids.” Sujoy found the suggestion heartless and mindless. He protested. “How can you have such expectations? Already I am so overworked. Your family business. Household supervision as you are always cooped up with your tuition notes and class hours. Have a heart, Rimika. This is why I always opposed your working outside the home. Now you have made working from home a way of life.” “Sujoy, if I don’t work, we have to use up all our family savings. That will be disastrous.” Sujoy snapped back, “Disastrous for you as you are a shopaholic and so indulgent. I require just my meals and cigarettes. I can board buses or walk. I hate luxury.”

At last Rimika realised persuading Sujoy to take up any stint of work where he would be answerable to others was beyond his ability. As not unexpected, Sujoy messed up the family business; the partners were up in arms; the quarrels led to legal threats, bullying and lodging of police complaints. Rimika’s mom was a tower of strength for the decoupled couple. Also, she noticed how Rimika refused to recognise the exploitation that Sujoy was subjecting the family to accept.

Rimika told her mother, “I want my children to have their father with them. I want to remain married. I hate the idea of divorce. I would rather suffer and be exploited all my life rather than lead the life of a divorcee. I just can’t think of myself in such an ignominious state. I don’t care that I am the earning member, while he is providing the support by just being there. My dear Ma, don’t you notice what a happy family we are, due to my hard work and the fact that I turn a blind eye towards Sujoy’s inability to take responsibility? He is very vulnerable. Like a child. He thinks I am vulnerable and childlike. I think we recognise the fact that we both need each other. Please don’t interfere in my marital life, dear Ma. My life is not like yours. Baba and you were so different. I had such an easy life as you both pampered me a lot and prepared me for these tough times. I can’t imagine a home without a male guardian. My husband is my life partner for better or for worse, even if he behaves like a lazy and spoilt child. He is my home guard, my security personnel and my friend who knows all my domestic secrets. I can’t leave him, Ma.”

Rimika’s mother returned to her house in the suburbs, wondering whether the Rimika who spoke to her a while ago was really her daughter or someone who had metamorphosed into one of those wives in the Indian epics and myths, whose lives revolved around the fortunes and misfortunes of their families and their spouses.

Stunned and horrified, Dr Sabita Guha, Rimika’s mother, called Reba, her classmate and confidante for many decades, and shared her sense of shock about her dear daughter, who had changed so much that she could hardly recognise her. She ended her phone chat with Reba saying, “I think I should have named her Gandhari instead of Rimika; the smart and trendy name her father and I gave her is wasted on my dear silly girl.”