Bashari Chakraborti“Sona Bis,” they announce from the stage. My name. I think to myself. My truncated, distorted name. Like a lot of things about me. Ma nudges my arm. I take some time getting up, as I gather the end of my saree around my arm, just like Ma had taught me. She half gets up to hold my hand, as she mostly does when we go out of the house. But one look from me and she sits back. I start walking towards the stage. Alone.
People from the audience are staring at me. Are they betting on whether I’ll make it to the stage in one piece? Or are they wondering how I made it this far? To a graduation ceremony? Or maybe they’re just admiring my knock-off Deepika Padukone saree. Sure, it is a cheap variant, but it does its job quite well. The job of making me, the wearer feel stunning Thank goodness this college didn’t enforce a dress code or make us wear those ridiculous caps and gowns.
I smile to myself as I carefully make my way to the stage. As I come near the stage, I catch sight of the steps to the dais. I freeze. I cannot climb steps. I miss Ma’s hand on mine. I cannot do it. I turn around to go back. And catch Ma’s eyes. She is mouthing that prayer. The one she chants all the time. The one that starts with Om Tryam.
I close my eyes for a brief second. How had Ma taught me to climb steps? Ah! I remember. I hold the saree at the point near my navel, lift it up so I can see my feet. For a moment I admire my feet. They look so beautiful in the strappy red shoes I literally begged Ma to buy. I put my right foot on the first step. Ma says my right foot is steadier than my left. Then I put the left foot. On the same step. I repeat the motion, just like Ma had taught me. And suddenly I am up. Up there- on the stage. The auditorium erupts in applause. Why are they clapping? I wonder to myself. Is it relief that I made it to the stage in one piece?
The Dean walks up to me and hands me my degree. I realize I am looking at her saree. It is so much more beautiful than mine. I also realize I am still holding my saree up. I let go. I take the scroll from her.
“Sona has topped this course dear audience”, booms the voice of the Dean. “I admire her grit and guts and her absolute devotion to her studies. She is an example for all of us. I must confess I was hesitant to admit her to this course. But her mother’s insistence and her high marks won me over. I am glad we have her at our university.” She looks at me and says, “Sona, I am absolutely positive that with this B.Ed in Special Education, you will get a good job and be a source of inspiration to the special children you teach.”
Throughout the speech, I have a smile plastered on my face. Just like Ma had taught me. “Smile when you are on stage Sona. Don’t forget”, she had said. I try to catch Ma’s eyes. I want her to click a photo of me on stage. Right at the start of the ceremony I had given her my phone for this. But she is sobbing so hard. Clicking a photo is the last thing I can expect of her now. I just want to hug her tight.
Ma keeps wiping her tears with the end of her saree, the same blue saree she wears to every other occasion. The one I love and hate. The one I’ve thrown up on at family gatherings. The one I clutched for dear life whenever someone smiled prettily at me and asked me my name. The one Grandpa gave her when I was born.
Ma says, Grandpa was elated to have a grandchild. His first grandchild. And though he did not know it then, his only grandchild. But his elation gradually died down over the years as I started growing. Or rather not growing. He reduced his visits to us. Ma, too, reduced her visits to him. Then both sides stopped visiting each other altogether. And one day his garlanded photo took its place next to Grandma’s garlanded photo on the wall of our tiny living room.
Ma would often look at the garlanded photos and sigh. Sometimes she would glance at another photo. And look away. A photo of Ma with a man. Both are quite dressed up in the photo. The man had his arms around Ma’s shoulders. Ma never mentioned anything about this man to me. For years, I did not ask her.
One day, when I was in middle school, at a classmate’s house, I saw a photo of her mother with a man. “Who is that?” I asked pointing to the man in the photo. “Papa, my father. Who else would be in a photo with my mother? That too with his arms around her!” She giggled in reply.
So, I assumed the man in Ma’s photo was my father. That moment, I somehow had a feeling of being complete. I had a father too. That evening, I pointed to the man in the photo and asked Ma, “Where is Papa?”
Ma did not answer. I repeated the question. She still did not answer and went to the kitchen. I followed her to the kitchen, took a tumbler from the rack and flung it on the floor. “Where is Papa?” I shouted. She picked the tumbler and set it back on the rack. “I don’t know Sona,” she looked at me and said coolly. And hugged me. I beat her on her face, on her chest, on her head. “I don’t know. I don’t know,” she kept repeating all the while hugging me while I kept fighting her and shouting. “Never ask me about him again”, she murmured after I had cooled down.
Every day she would get me to complete my schoolwork. Memorize those poems, read that prose and write the essays. She would make me repeat all those difficult sounds and words the speech therapist had prescribed me. Together, we would do those exercises the physiotherapist at the hospital had taught us. “Soon, Sona can walk without any support”, the physiotherapist would assure Ma, as Ma would slip her hand into mine as we walked out of the hospital.
I did not like doing all this she made me do. Many days, I would shout at her. And Ma would say, “Repeat after me, Sona. Din-ner. Din-ner.” I had to stare at her lips to understand what she was saying. Sometimes I would pull her hair. And Ma would hold my wrist and say “Come on, Sona. Say ‘And miles to go before I sleep…’”
Some days, when she forced me to read or exercise, I would throw things around. And she would put everything back, clean up and get me to bend forwards, bend backwards, bend sideways, walk with my hands up or pick up chickpeas from the floor. Sometimes I would just sit on the floor. Not moving an inch. Not looking at her. Not responding to her. But she never left me alone.
Ma taught in the primary section of our neighbourhood school where she enrolled me too. My classmates spoke in hushed tones whenever I was around. I thought they were making fun of me. I hated school. Everyday morning, I would hide under the bed. And every day, Ma would pull me out from under the bed, dress me up and haul me up onto the cycle rickshaw which took us to school.
I was in the 10th standard when a renowned neurologist visited our little town. The receptionist at the hospital we visited for all my therapies gave Ma this information. “But all appointments are full, Didi,” the receptionist added. That day onwards, Ma started visiting the hospital every day on her way back from school. And begged the staff for an appointment.
They pencilled my name into their register. Imagine Ma’s joy when they told us we have got an appointment.
The visiting doctor put me through many tests, more than I ever had in school. He didn’t share my scores but seemed pleased, so I thought I did well. Smiling, he told Ma, “With this level of cerebral palsy, Sona’s speech should be clearer, and she should be more responsive. It’s odd that neither you nor her therapists noticed her ear cocking and brow furrowing when spoken to normally. She hardly responds unless she’s looking at the speaker. I suspected a hearing issue, so I had her ears checked. I was right; she needs hearing aids.”
My world changed the day I wore hearing aids for the first time. I did not need to concentrate so hard to hear what the teacher said. Or what Ma said. I realized my classmates spoke quite loudly and clearly. And no one was making fun of me. My anger at everyone and everything evaporated. My marks magically improved. And yes, I now had friends.
I often wish I had gotten hearing aids earlier. Maybe then there would have been no need to shorten my melodic name – Sonakshi Biswas to a dull tuneless Sona Bis, just because I was unable to say my name properly.
No point worrying now, I decide. Ma had already done the affidavit for my name change.
My marks in my 10th exams surprised not just me but all of us. Ma, the entire school, and the entire neighbourhood were surprised. I had scored a solid 70%. I put on the new dress that Ma had got me. And she put on her blue saree.
We celebrated with a visit to the temple. Later, at home, Ma made a phone call.
“You abandoned us,” she yelled into the phone, slamming the photo on the table. That photo of Ma with a man, my Papa. “You thought she would be a burden. A liability. Look at her now. She scored first division in her 10th Boards. She will be independent. Economically, physically, mentally. Just you wait and see, you horrible man. Bloody deserter! Just you wait and see.”
She was shaking when she cut the call. I went to the kitchen and got her a glass of water. I rubbed her back and put my head on her shoulder, rubbing my nose on the folds of her blue saree. “I will never trouble you, Ma,” I said to her. “I know Sona, I know”, Ma responded, sobbing and hugging me.
After my 10th results, things seemed to take on a pace of their own. Days and years seemed to fly. Well, not always though. Sometimes they crept by. Crawled by. Or barely wobbled by. In tandem with my walking speed. Matching my walking style.
Over the years, Ma enrolled me in every class imaginable, painting, swimming, dancing. Maybe she was hoping I’d turn into the next Christy Brown or Dan Keplinger. True to my promise of never troubling her, I did everything Ma wanted me to. But I turned out to be spectacularly average at all of them. It was her desire to see me as a teacher like herself that prompted her to get me admitted to the Special BEd course. As usual, I just played along. And surprisingly I found that I am pretty good at it. Good enough to top the class.
Ma loves reminding me that she is not rich. After all, how much does a primary school teacher earn! Yet, somehow, she always scrapes together enough to cover my classes. She also manages to buy me a smartphone, my window to the world. But she has till date not managed to buy another “good” saree to replace her blue one!
Seeing Ma in this blue saree always sends me on a trip down memory lane. Not particularly happy memories. Not particularly sad ones. Just a balanced blend of happy and sad. Like a fine cocktail. Not that I’ve ever tasted one—Ma would probably have a heart attack if I did. But I have studied enough on my smartphone to give a lecture on mixology to anyone who’d listen. I have delved into the behaviour of atoms and molecules, solutions and suspensions, ice and frictional heat. I’ve studied the science. Maybe someday I’ll get to practice the art. The art of making the perfect cocktail.
Maybe someday Ma and I will make enough money to move to a big city, and she’ll let me take a proper bartending course. Then I could work as a real bartender. Just like my idol Shatbhi Basu. Until that day comes, I guess I’ll keep teaching special children and dreaming of what could be.
I sigh. The clapping of the audience snaps me back to the here and now, pulling me back from my brief nostalgic sojourn.
The Dean is silent now. I look at Ma. She has stopped crying. She is looking at me. She moves her head a bit to the left, blinking once as she does it. I figure it is my cue to leave. I bow. I say thanks. To the Dean. And to the audience. Just like Ma had taught me. I clutch my saree again at my naval and lift it up.
I forget that I have my rolled degree certificate in the same hand. It falls and starts rolling away. A guy rushes to pick it up. Quite a handsome guy, I notice. I smile at him. I feel all mushy inside. I turn my face to flip my hair, trying to cover my hearing aid. I’m glad Ma let me grow my hair when I started college. I’m also glad she agreed to pay for my AirPod-style hearing aids.
The guy holds out his hand to me. I take it. He walks me down the steps to my seat. I am all red and hot and shaky. “Thank you,” I manage to say out loud as I sit down next to Ma. He walks back to the stage. I keep looking at his retreating back and wondering what it is that I am feeling. Is it love? Is it a crush? So many words to describe this feeling, yet I can’t seem to find the right one.
Ma is looking at me peculiarly. I hand her my certificate before she can say anything. She looks at it fondly, her fingers tenderly tracing the edges of the paper. She seems happy. And also sad. A balanced blend of happy and sad. Like a fine cocktail.
I take the phone from her. And glance in the direction of the handsome guy. He is looking at me. I lower my eyes, feeling warmth creep up my cheeks.
‘Can people with cerebral palsy fall in love?’ I type out on Google.
