A Voyuer Salutes A Mother

 

The proud child

The young boy was standing next to me waiting for the flight from New Delhi to arrive. May be he is waiting for someone important. His impatient fidgeting betrayed the smile on his face, maybe he was getting late for an appointment! 

Noticing me he turned and smiled.

“It’s a pity all flights are delayed. There must be a heavy fog in Delhi today". I casually commented. "Is some one important coming"? I just could not stop asking him.

"Yes, my mom", he very replied. "This is the first time she is coming to the place I am working and the flight had to be late. And that too being her first air travel ever"! There was a sign of disappointment on his face.

"Oh, don’t worry. The fear of flight goes away within minutes. Once you begin to see the beautiful land below you just cannot be scared anymore!

He laughed and said-

"My mother and scared, that she would never be. It’s just she always traveled by train to save for me, so I could be comfortable. Today I can afford to make her travel in comfort. It’s such a wonderful feeling!

“Yes I understand. You mom must be very proud of you”!

 “Oh no, you got it wrong. It is me who is proud of my mother”.

“That is very beautiful thing to say. You must be feeling the same for your father too”.

He stopped smiling and looked straight into my eyes. I had a feeling of stepping into an ugly zone!

"It is a very special day for me and I will not spoil it by answering you with anything but the truth.

I have never known my father, never seen him. He is just a name in hundreds of school forms we filled".

He smiled again and continued –

"I am not prejudiced against him. He was the sperm provider for my creation and half of me is comes from him. It is said tenderness of a mother brings a child into this world but the strength of a father makes a man out of him. But it was my mother all the way for me. She stood against the world for me. Gave me everything I wanted, taught me everything that I need to know. Mom did not just make a man out of me, she brought out the human in me.”

The arrival gate was getting crowded with people pushing their trolleys. He rushed towards them but stopping halfway returned to apologize.

“In my excitement I almost forgot my decency to say goodbye to you.”And he went away to receive his mother.

I stood looking at him as some old memories came back to me.

The Girl and The Woman 

1974 was the year.

Our boarding school was then in a temporary building meant for a different purpose. On one side of the building around the courtyard were the class rooms with the parallel side had our dormitories.  Arms joining these two sides were for stores, N.C.C. offices that opened only on Friday afternoons. In the corner, facing our classroom was a locked room. It probably was meant for lodging purposes as it had an attached bathroom. 

Apart from regular classes our class rooms were used for extracurricular activities in afternoon and preparation classes in the evening.

It was in one of our evening self-study period we saw her. 

Dressed in a flared pair of jeans, a short top and a cowboy hat she looked like a heroine of a western movie. Dragging a huge bag behind her she confidently walked up to the corner room. Ours was an all boys’ military school. The only glimpses of girls we got were of the local school students in their moldy uniforms during our monthly permitted outing to town. Presence of a girl was a rare occasion. She was someone who has just stepped out of a movie magazine, someone who can make us dream all night.

Leaving my classmates to peep at her through the glass panes I walked up to her and offered to unlock the door. Once inside the dimly lit room she sat on the corner of the dusty bed. Introducing herself she talked to me continuously and I stood looking at her in awe.

“So hot it’s here, and look at the room, it’s dusty, isn’t it? I was told by the supervisor he will have the room ready for me, and see! What a uselessly naughty fellow that one. I don’t like to complain but a promise is a promise ..................................................”

I was standing there transfixed, looking at the young beautiful face! She must have been twenty, may be eighteen and looked so young, so full. Probably she was from a well to do family as dresses and mannerism suggested. She loved being independent and wanted to do what she loves. Here she will be the teacher at our kindergarten section.

The Voyeur

We became good friends. 

The frequency of occasional after dinner visit to her room, apart from the ones on Sundays and holidays increased. Slowly the number of visitors too increased and the older students too became regular visitors. The atmosphere in her small room would become suffocating with them talking with subtle sexual intonations and suggestive innuendos. She was aware but she welcomed, smiled and listened to them all. 

Her room was visible from our dorms. With the slightest sound of her door opening, faces would appear in all our dorm windows. She was a novelty to us. To all us kids who have just began to enjoy the beauty of a female body leafing through dirty magazines, a mere glimpse of her would fill our nightly dream. 

The glass panes on the door to her room were covered with thin blinds from inside. To our prying eyes that privacy was just not enough. One late evening after the dormitory light out time I found these kids peeping through the glass door. One could see a very hazy silhouette of her changing into a night gown. I felt pity for these stupid kids with no ingenuity! They could see almost nothing! All one got to do is to tilt the glass ventilator above the door and that would act like a mirror.

And voila - you get the clearest picture.

I stood on my toes and did exactly that to show them. Before I could remove my hand from the ventilator the door opened. All the kids instantly vanished. I was there alone with her looking at me. It took me few seconds to realize that I too should run.

But that would not undo anything. If she complains to the merciless monster of a headmaster tomorrow, it would be my funeral. I stepped into her room trying to say– "I am sorry – I was.., it was just.........”

She turned her back to me and stood resting her hand on the small desk on the opposite wall. I could hear her heavy breathings. She was fuming and I was still babbling, trying to say sorry.

In a very tired voice she spoke up. 

"What do you think I am? Am I something out of  Playboy magazines? What do you all want from me, titillation for your wet dreams"?

Then all of a sudden she flared up and turned to me. Ripping her night gown apart she shouted in a broken voice- “What did you want to see? Is this is all you were looking for?”

My down cast eyes would no more stay looking at the floor. All those heavenly things taunting us in dreams were right in front. Who wants to feel sorry and apologize? I want to keep looking at her for eternity till I drained dry!

“Get out, I don’t want to see you ever “She yelled.

I ran to my room and got into my bed. Even with my eyes tightly shut montage of her images was forming everywhere in my mind. As I lay down on my bed with every ounce of my energy spent her pictures in front my eyes slowly began to cringe to a corner. By morning the ecstasy of seeing beautiful nude real women turned into a nightmarish disgust. 

I was a lecherous voyeur and the most despicable person.  A sick feeling came all over me. I loathed myself. I was sick, sicker than a leper!

Next morning I went and tightly closed the ventilator.

The MOTHER

I never had the courage to face her again. Never went to her room again, except for once.

I missed going to her room. I still saw her from my dorm window and the line of admiring visitors. But strangely I was not jealous any more. I realized I was simply in love the dreams she used to bring about and not her. But there was something that disturbed me now.

Our school mess was supervised by a gentleman known for his Rasputin image. He was married, short and rotund and no handsome prince from any fairy tale, but he had his way. It was his visits now that began to itch. I went and knocked on her door one day. May be I wanted to absolve my sins.  

I could not dare to enter her room and standing at her door I asked.

“He is not a nice person. Why does he come to your room”?

Sardonically she smiled at me and said-

“If I close my door no one can come inside. Not even you".

And she closed the door. May be she did not understand what I meant. Or maybe I did not understand what she said.

Few months later there were lot of changes in her. The way she looked, the way she walked had changed. She again became the center of our after-lunch gossips. Every thirteen year old kid began to give his learned opinion about signs of pregnancy.

It did not take us by surprise when one evening when she was visited by her parents. From our classroom we could clearly hear the heated arguments in her room.

“You don’t understand what I am saying!” she was telling them.

“This is my body and only I have the right to control it. What has happened was my choice.”

"The life that is forming inside me is my creation. It is not a shame, not a result of a sin. It is something I got from very beautiful moments I shared with somebody and I am not letting it go. I will cherish it for my entire life".......................

 "What about society? If a society does not understand me then I do not want to be part of it.”

Her parents went away later that night. We understood our suspicion was correct. She is going to be a mother. For the next few months we saw a life coming into existence inside her. She stood tall, never tried to hide it.

One Sunday afternoon she left the school. It was time to bring this life into the world.

Standing in the airport arrival gate I saw the mother and the son walking toward the taxi stand, holding each other close. I saw the mother from my school days in this mother. I wished I could see her face.

As if connected by something unknown, she turning back looked at me and smiled.

I respectfully bowed to her and proceeded to receive my guest.