The Bad Mother's Escape - Part 2 of 3

 Long form Article

Read introduction for context.

Picture: Viv's 1st flight trip 

The spring birds chirping near my bedside window woke me up from my sleep. The March weather of Jammu is just the right level of cold for me - a product of Trichy’s sweltering climate round the year. My neck felt a little delicate from the cervical spondylosis I suffered from the previous week; but still for the first time in a long time, I opened my eyes looking forward to facing the day. Three months ago I decided to quit my abusive marriage, this came after years of contemplation. The slowest and toughest three months of my life. I was only waiting for my son Vivek’s (name changed) academic year to get over; the guise of a routine holiday visit to ‘nani house’ would be an unsuspected and hassle-free way for both of us to escape. This may sound deceptive but with my deteriorating mental tenacity and dwindling chances for redemption I had to play my cards right for sure shot success. I woke Viv up and both of us were brushing our teeth. Rahul, who got back home from his business trip earlier this morning, entered the bathroom energetically to bathe our 7-year-old son and get him ready for school. He looked particularly young and handsome that time; his cheeks and lips were as pink as a teenager’s; must be because of the good time he had with the office assistant in the trip. I looked into the mirror and saw a distressed woman ten years older than me.

    Our neighbors think of us as the ‘modren family’; the father takes care of the child from when he wakes up till he is dropped off in school, the mother-in-law helps with his homework, the father and brother-in-law entertain him till bedtime while the lucky daughter-in law i.e. me chills and pursues a career. Only I knew that this is a religiously followed plan of action to annul the bond between my son and me. Being tactfully directed to work behind the scenes is my cue to get out of Viv’s sight, they want control of what he pays attention to. Any resistance or attempt to address the politicking will result in melodramatic accusations of the evil daughter-in-law i.e.me trying to separate the child from them and breaking the family; an ugly scene that Viv rather not witness. For all the times I babysat my cousins, niece, and nephew I was quite a confident mother eager to raise my own baby, but the shiny new toy and all the importance that came with it had to go to my mother-in-law. I was just grateful that my life was not like the many cases where the child is separated from the mother and flown off to another country with the NRI father.

     Rahul gave Viv a bath, made him wear the school uniform that I pressed and the school shoes that I polished. Now, he was towering over our son with the tall glass of milk that I heated up. Viv was looking neat and cute except for the red eyes; soap goes into his eyes every single day. He has developed a tolerance for physical pain by now but the torture of having to drink milk is unbearable for him. He does obey his father out of respect and anxiety but cannot drink more than half a glass. As the threats of punishment begin, I point out that it is getting late for school and hand over a bread omelet for him to eat in the car on the way. What a way to start the day!

“Thank God! today is the last of this meaningless routine” I thought to myself, albeit very quietly or Rahul may hear it.

An hour later, I was in my boutique to take care of a few final deliveries. Viv’s school bus will drop him off at my shop’s gate in a couple of hours. I ordered a pizza for lunch from his favourite coffee shop and waited inside. Unlike a job, a service oriented business and its clientele are not transferrable to a different place.  I looked around the lovely little shop, the small business that earned me some respect in the community; most importantly, it made Viv take notice of me. He saw people talk to me with respect and praise/thank me for the cool clothes I make, request me to make a quick delivery and pay me money. The changing dynamics between Viv and me seemed worth putting in all my savings and some jewellery as investment in the business. The two-year-old establishment was doing quite well and would start making profits in another year. To shut down the business before breaking even caused me great pain; after paying off 2 months salary as relief to my employees I am left with just a little more than 15,000 in my account. I failed in my marriage and now I have failed in my business.

Inner Guide: Don’t fail your son.

Mind voice: Hmm yes, he is more important. I stayed in the marriage for him and now I am leaving it for him.

I suddenly got reminded of a line in Bhagavad Gita where Krishna says,” I will give you everything you need”. Perhaps I don’t need the marriage or the business then. As atrocious as that sounded it also made me feel light. I turned to YouTube for some clarity, indulged in my daily dose of videos by the spiritual masters and by Dr. Ramani Durvasula, a clinical psychologist pioneering in Narcissistic abuse awareness. Dr. Ramani explores every small nuance in Narcissistic relationships, that validates my experiences and keeps me from going insane. Videos of Sadhguru Jaggi Vasudev, Om Swami and BK Shivani throw clarity on life and motivate me to start afresh. Matt Valentine’s blogs seemed like personalised messages written just to pacify me. These Godsends helped me wade through the past 3 months, giving me the required strength daily. The pizza and Viv, both arrived at the same time, and we instantly took off in my Activa to the park which was a few blocks away.

     Of the few things I like in Jammu city are the corporation-maintained parks in every block; the chilly breeze and the balmy winter sunlight made it the perfect weather for our last picnic there. The expansive green lawn sprinkled with colourful spring flowers, was all the decoration we needed to celebrate Viv’s 2^nd grade graduation. As he chomped on his pizza, he excitedly shared his grand plans for the holidays with his cousins down south, regardless of the fact that I was paying no attention. I had talked to him about my idea to leave everyone here in Jammu and move south as soon as I got the idea 3 months ago; and asked him what he thought of it. To my utter astonishment, the little child paused for a few moments, made clear eye contact and calmly said, “Yes, we should do it”.... as if he totally got the drift of the situation; it was surreal. He also managed to keep the secret for these 3 months. Except for the one time when he felt smothered by his Dadi’s ¹ unwarranted disciplinary actions and almost let it out in open rebellion. I made up some silly excuses to handle the doubts it raised in my mother-in-law’s mother board, she believed it but not fully, just enough to keep quiet for the time being.

   It was almost 5 pm, the sun was setting, and the cold winds were getting stronger, we were just a little over 3 hours away from catching our train to Delhi. We rode back home and got busy with our last-minute packing, Viv was wiping off his belongings from the closet and tried stuffing it into the travel bags. I made him understand that if we carry all our belongings with us Papa² may find out that we won’t come back and hence not let us leave in the first place. The difficulty of having to pretend and the sorrow of leaving behind his favourite toys struck him hard. At the age of 34, if I felt terrible about leaving behind my precious collection of books, acquired over years, imagine the plight of the child. It is one thing to want liberation from misery and a whole other thing to do what it takes to achieve it – courage, conviction, discipline, perseverance, and action. I was beginning to wonder whether I had it; if I did, should I use it? Even if I should, what’s the guarantee of a beneficial outcome? My doubts were getting louder with time, and I grew more tense. When Viv complained of stomach and headache, I understood that he was getting tense too. I put everything aside and gave him a long, comforting hug, I promised him that life will be calmer, kinder, and easier from tomorrow.

    Viv and I were dressed and ready by the time Rahul arrived, he is never in a good mood when we leave for my maayka³.  Rahul noticed that something was up with Viv, he picked us up and drove us to our in-laws’ house in the next street to spend some time before we leave. This is the most crucial 30 minutes in our escape plan, we are almost leaving but any mess up in this time can keep us from never going anywhere… ever! There can be no loose talking, no giving in to sentiments and no getting angry. It is the standard operating procedure of my mother-in-law and Rahul to speak nonsense and get me worked up every time before I leave for the holidays, my father and brother-in-law will provide them with the necessary support. This is because they are upset that I won’t be available for mental torture for a few days and want to make up for the lost opportunities. It thrills them to see me get rattled but remain quiet and powerless. “Shrinika, you may have every reason to get angry but just remain like a buffalo- mute and expressionless. A buffalo is what you are, just be that and you can have the last laugh!”, I told myself that and quietly prayed, “God, I may be doing the right thing for Viv and he may trust me but I don’t know if he is okay with leaving behind his family for that. I know it is not fair to ask a 7-year-old to do that, I am just asking you to give me a chance to show him a better way to live, to make him aware of the options and to let him choose. Please watch over him, don’t let him say anything that might land us in trouble”.

   No sooner than we entered the house, my brother-in-law exclaimed, “Oye Vivoo! Why are you leaving me and going?  Stay here yaar⁴, we’ll watch a movie with large popcorn and Pepsi, then we’ll go have tandoori chicken in Sizzlers dhaba⁵”.

Vivek: “You can take me to all those places when I come back”

Mind Voice: “When-I-come-back? Is he being smart, or has he forgotten? Does he want to come back?”

 “Vivoo…. you are leaving me no. I won’t talk to you”, said Papa ji⁶ in a seemingly playful tone but serious enough to make Viv feel guilty. While he was wondering what to say, Rahul intervened, “Oh calm down all of you. Mummy……. doesn’t Viv look a little sick to you?”

Mummy ji⁷: He looks tired and hungry; did you have dinner?”

Viv shook his head and went to the restroom. Rahul who followed him there came back and said, “Shrinika, he’s got loose motions, yaar. I don’t think he should travel in this condition. Why don’t you postpone your trip?”.

I: “We are going there for merely two weeks; any postponement will give us very less time to be there. No point in going only. Also, the flight tickets are non-refundable”.

Mummy ji was quietly staring at me, I could hear her mind voice say, “what kind of a mother is this one?”

Rahul: “Okay then…. you go! Viv stays back!

That was a shocking master stroke, the other two men threw in a few sentences to support. I managed to calmly retort, “Rahul, Viv has stayed back in Jammu for the last two holiday seasons, that makes it a whole year. Only I have been visiting my folks down south. At this rate, he will forget everyone there. I’m sure this is just the usual harmless bowel disturbance, he’ll be alright”.

Mummy ji said wearily,” Rahul, why are you wasting time trying to put sense into her head? Anything you say will be readily misunderstood just because you said it. It is your fate to put up with such tragedy, what can we do! Come let’s have dinner”.

Its true that I am adamant about catching the train tonight at all costs but in my defence, Viv has raised many false alarms in the past with his fluctuating digestion pattern. He ate bread omelet for breakfast, pizza for lunch and chai toast at tea time, sufficient Maida to cause constipation. No way he'll have diarrhoea.

Rahul, unwilling to give up so easily, turned to Viv and asked, “Oye, you are sick, right? Why don’t you stay back? I'll take you to Shimla next week” . A vacation at Shimla is an offer too good to refuse but Viv remained unmoved. Rahul asked once again, “Are you sure you want to travel now?”

That was a pivotal moment, all eyes were on Viv. Out of the five adults in the room, four wanted him to say ‘no’ and were intimidating him with their piercing looks. It was a mental war going on at that time. As much as I wanted him to say ‘yes’, I also started doubting myself. Viv said in a soft tone, “I want to go”.

“YES! YES! My son said YES!”, I screamed inside. Despite all efforts to hide my excitement, I guess it showed and Mummy ji noticed. I could hear her think, “Why does she feel so victorious, it is too much feeling for just a holiday trip. Wait a minute! Is there any truth to Viv’s emotional outburst last week? When he said he will go to nani house and never return…”. It was now becoming difficult to maintain eye contact, I didn’t want her to read into my thoughts.  I casually went to set up the dinner table. Mummy ji didn’t probe into it much. She was sure I’ll come back, that I’ll not abandon my business in which I invested my all. Hmm, looks like I passed the litmus test.

     We all finished dinner; Mummy ji packed a roti for Viv because he refused to eat with us. He’ll probably feel safe and relieved once he gets into the train and  will want to eat then. Thank God, he didn’t give us away. We touched Mummy ji and Papa ji’s feet for blessings and left for the train station. Rahul was constantly turning around to see how Viv was doing at the back seat, the kid looked increasingly tired. “Waise⁸, I have never seen a mother so insensitive to her child as you, Shrinika” , said Rahul, fazed by my strong will to leave and take Viv with me. As soon as we reached, Rahul went to the nearby medical store to buy a few sachets of Electral and handed them to me. Make him drink this and get down at Pathankot or Jalandhar if things get worse. I’ll ask the respective relatives to come and pick you guys up from there"!. 

I thought I’ll be free from his control once I catch the train at Jammu Railway station; that would be the case in a regular scenario. But this time, Viv’s health makes Rahul want to try everything to stop us from going. He has got relatives living equidistantly from Jammu, all the way to Delhi. A chacha ji⁹ in Pathankot, two mama jis¹⁰ – one in Jalandhar and other in Gurgaon, an aunt in Chandigarh and a cousin in Ambala.

 “Do you really wanna go?”, asked Rahul pleadingly as he seated us in our berths, he meant with respect to Viv’s health. “Everything will be fine, trust me”, I meant with respect to all of our future. Rahul hugged Viv and kissed him goodbye. The train started moving, we started moving away from Rahul. As I waved the last goodbye I could see his face fade into the crowd; the face that melted my heart, the face for which I crossed mountains, the face that gave me the worst nightmares - it faded away. There was a moment of relief.

    All the mental space taken up to formulate clever plans to escape and create appropriate lies to execute them was now occupied with existential questions.

Inner critic:” Are you doing the right thing? Do cultured family women deceive their husband and in-laws like you just did? Why didn’t you try telling your parents-in-law about Rahul’s affair? You should have done that before deciding to leave”.

Viv got up from his berth and quickly ran towards the bathroom, I went after him to help. It was a watery elimination indeed. I brought him back afterwards and fed him the ajwain roti that Mummy ji packed, ajwain helps with loose motions. Viv ate it normally but immediately vomitted right in the middle of the aisle, I could see pieces of the roti he just ate and small lumps of cheese from the afternoon’s pizza. Alright, Viv is sick, because of the stale cheese in the pizza. I left Viv alone in his seat to go call the janitor to help with cleaning the vomit. By the time it was done, I noticed Viv’s lips lose colour and his eyes were half closed. I quickly made him drink a glass of Electral and sat by his side.

Inner critic: Rahul was right, you are a bad mother! You couldn’t even see that you child was sick. Imagine what would have happened if he had not bought Electral? Shame on you! Get down at Pathankot and go back to Rahul.

Inner Guide: Talk to your paediatrician.

Upon doing that, I learnt that I have sufficient Electral sachets to manage the night and it is okay to wait till morning before giving him any medicines for it. I must buy some bread in the next stop. We were just a few minutes away from Pathankot when Rahul called to ask whether he should ask his uncle to come and pick us up. I lied that Viv is fine now and cut the call saying that I have got to put him to sleep. Wondering whether I was taking too much advantage of Viv’s tolerance, I turned to him and asked, “Shall we get down at Pathankot? We don't have to travel if you don't feel like it”. He replied with a plain ‘no’, not allowing me to figure out what he was thinking. I felt a strong spasm in my stomach and rushed to the latrine, I had food poisoning too, apparently. I got down at the Pathankot station, looked around to see if any relatives were there to check on us. If that would be the case, Rahul will incinerate me for lying. I quickly bought some bread and biscuits and went back to my berth; I don’t know why I felt like we were being monitored. By the time we reached Jalandhar, I made another trip to the restroom and Viv a couple more, but it was heartening to see him have a good intake of Electral and finish half the bread loaf. Rahul called again.

Inner Guide: Don’t answer, let him think you are asleep. Talk to him once you check into the Airport.

As expected, Rahul didn’t call again. Viv was fast asleep, but he may wake up anytime to rush to the latrine, so I had to stay awake. I felt really weak,I didn’t want to use up the Electral, my son needs it more than me, it was also too late to buy a water bottle. I just lay down beside Viv.

Inner Companion: You still haven’t completely recovered from Cervical spondylosis. It aggravated because Rahul neglected your requests to take you to the doctor. It is difficult to live with people who degrade, lie, and manipulate you daily. You spend a lot of energy shielding, absorbing, and recovering from such attacks. You had to constantly be alert and tell yourself that you are not as crazy or evil as they gaslight you to believe. This is what is keeping you from being a better mother and that is why you are leaving this life behind. Don’t beat yourself up, get some sleep.

 My brain was tired of thinking, but I still couldn’t sleep. Eight and a half years of strong trauma bonding was encouraging me to choose the habituated hell than the unseen or  probably non-existent heaven. I deliberately recollected the bitter instances of Rahul and his family’s misbehaviour to remind me to not think twice about leaving. We were just another hour away from reaching Delhi, I had a glass of Electral and finished the bread loaf. We’d soon reach the airport for breakfast. I slept for the last half hour of the train journey.

   We reached Delhi Railway station around 6:30 am and our flight to Chennai was at 6 pm. I planned to check in right away and hang out in the Airport till boarding. Considering my escape plan’s dicey manner of progression and the many opportunities Rahul had to stop us from going, I figured that the Airport check in will assure us a safe escape. No relative can randomly enter the airport and take us back.

   I travel to my birth home twice a year, so, I have made about 17 trips in all these years; out of which Rahul has accompanied me for not more than three or four trips. I usually carry all the luggage myself but now, I felt very weak to manage the four bags because of the indigestion. Viv was even weaker. The walk from the railway platform to the one in the metro station adjacent to it, took forever; I pushed the wheeled bags and carried Viv along. My neck felt too fragile with all the load – physical and mental. We sat in the metro rail to reach the airport. Viv looked better, his lips were gaining some colour, but he still seemed dull. He whispered, “Ma… I’m hungry”. I said, “We’ll have good breakfast in another 15/ 20 minutes once we check into the airport. Drink some water and have these biscuits if you want”. He just had some water. It was another difficult trek from the metro platform to the first floor of terminal 1 D of the Delhi Airport. “The last mile is the longest”, I told myself and pushed through my way.

When I arrived at the departure entrance, I felt accomplished and relieved. I stood in the line, pulled out our Aadhar cards and ticket and waited for our turn to enter. The Security, busy with checking a long line of passengers, saw our ID and ticket and said,” You cannot go madam!”

Me: “What?...... Why?”

Security: “You have booked the 6 o’clock flight on 17^th March 2019”

Me: “Yeah, of course”

Security: “That is why you cannot go”

Me: “You will allow me inside only four hours before the flight take off is it? Bhaiyya I am coming from Jammu and do not have a place to hang out till evening. My son is also sick, why don’t you let us in now?”

Security: “Madam, please see your ticket. If your flight was to be at 6 in the evening, it would be printed ’18:00 hrs’ in your ticket. But it is just printed’06:00 hrs’, which means your flight was at 6 in the morning and it is already on its way to Chennai!”

                                                                                                                           To be continued….

 

^{1 –  father’s mother - hindi}

^{2 – father - hindi}

^{3- wife’s birth home - hindi}

^{4- friend - hindi}

^{5- food shack - punjabi}

^{6- father -in-law – colloquial hindi}

^{7-mother -in-law – colloquial hindi}

^{8- colloquial equivalent of ‘you know’ - hindi}

^{9- father’s younger brother - hindi}

^{10- mother’s brother - hindi}