I was about ten. I remember sitting in the classroom of my new school. The bright summer sun had escaped the half-closed wooden shutters of the window and fallen on the floor, creating pretty patterns. I was watching that meditatively, sitting in the last row. The chair beside mine was vacant, the only vacant chair. That is when those words came floating.
"Is this the new girl we heard about?"
"I think so."
"I heard her mother is a prostitute."
"What is a prostitute?"
"I don't know. But I guess it is something bad," Then, after a contemplative pause, "Maybe illegal."
Yes, that is who I am. The label 'child of a slut’ hung on to me like a birthmark, never to be removed. Even though I knew all my spellings or could solve math problems faster than everyone else, even though I learnt to read and write before most of my age, at the end, I was the daughter of a slut.
My early memories are very vague, like a dream, or perhaps I should say a nightmare. The nights were chaotic, and the days monotonous. We grew up like weeds, unwanted and ignored. Unlike kids in normal homes, no one documented our growth in photographs. No one celebrated our growth with cakes and party games.
In all this, my only solace, my haven, was the school. My mother ensured I went to school. The school was run by an NGO who took the initiative to give sunshine and warmth to weeds like us. That is where I realized my passion for books. That is where they upgraded me to my new spic and span grand convent school. Everyone likes to do charity. It gives them a feeling of superiority that nothing else gives. I was the result of that charity.
I wouldn't say I disliked my new school. Who would? With clean classrooms, a library full of books, bathrooms that smelled of cleaning liquids rather than urine, and the vast expanse of playground, it was a haven for me. Yet all this opulence intimidated me more than anything else. It reminded me every instant that I did not belong to this world. I would quietly take the seat in the last row every day, unaccompanied and unspoken, pretending to be invisible. I knew everyone talked about me in hushed voices because education prevented them from showing their obvious distaste.
But as I said, my identity of being a prostitute's daughter lived with me like a scar, a constant companion, and perhaps I got used to it. I got used to being with myself, listening to lectures with every inch of my attention, reading books in the library during recess, or simply watching others quietly. I really had no complaint.
When I secured admission in a government medical college, it left some perplexed, some amazed. Overnight, I became the hero. One would say that was probably the most memorable time of my life, my victory. I would say, why was I treated differently from the lab-partner in school who also secured a similar rank? Was it because I was never expected to reach where I did?
"The slut's daughter, she did great; she graduated and is now working in that fancy departmental store. Look at her! "
Yes! That is what the world perhaps wanted to say. I never belonged, you see, to the meritorious world of academic achievers.
I have always remained one without a true root, a stranger in the world of insiders, a stranger in the world of castaways. I remember going home from the school hostel during the holidays. The children, they thought I was an incomprehensible nerd, sitting in the isolated corner of the very hot terrace and reading a book. Was it not more fun to while away time till fate snatches away childhood?
In the five golden years that I spent in the medical college, I almost forgot my identity. Not that I lied to anyone about my mother's profession, but I chose not to speak about it. For the first time in my life, everyone spoke to me like an equal, evaluating me for who I am and not my origin. I made friends. I fell in love with Rudra, the bespeckled intellectual who brought in Lenin, Stalin, Karl Marx, and the demolition of a world of bourgeoisie in coffee table discussion. I fell in love with his progressive, idealistic mind and his love for books. I thought, here I am, truly lucky to get a match made in heaven. For the first time, I forgot that I was only an outcast for whom even heaven had separate rules. How naive I was!
One day, as my relationship with Rudra matured, talks of marriage came in. On a spring noon, I visited his pretty house in a posh suburban Kolkata, embellished with a well-manicured garden and a gate where bougainvillea stooped and welcomed all with its extravagant color. We went for a walk in the evening. I had always loved this part of the city, especially in the 90's, when traffic and humans were scarce. I watched the orange bloom in the palash tree at the end of the park. I watched the sun set against the army of brown and green that lined the roads. My hand was in Rudra's.
"Would you always love me like this? Even if there are parts of me that might be unacceptable to you?" I asked.
"There is no part of you that is unacceptable to me," he had said, laughing a little.
I had paused. I had hesitated. Would the truth snatch him away from me? Then, gathering all the courage I could summon, I said,
"What if you knew my mother was a prostitute?"
He didn't know how to respond. But the shocked silence on his handsome face told me everything. That night, I cried a lot. In the isolation of my bed in the hostel, I had sobbed silently through the dark hours.
After a month, Rudra came to talk to me. He said after that evening, he had decided to break up because his parents would never be able to accept me. But in the last month, it had become impossible to keep away my thoughts.
"We will convince my parents. Let us fight this out together," he had said, squeezing my hand in assurance.
Our fight lasted for almost a year, in which there were endless emotional dramas that Rudra had to face. In the end, they agreed on one condition. I should forget my past, blurring it like it never existed. I should never ever visit my mother. They would say to the world that I was a motherless orphan. An orphan is far better than a bastard, I suppose.
When I shared this with my mother, she was overwhelmed with joy! Her daughter is not only in a noble profession, she will now have a family of her own. Something she had only yearned for.And the condition of severing all ties with her? That's a price too small! She could never live with me in a world that had no place for her.
I had sleepless nights. I had restless days. What should I do? Embrace my love and a secure life with him? Or step back; hold the shriveled-up hand of the woman who had the audacity to not only birth me in a brothel but also one who never bowed down to expectations of putting me in the same profession. The one who had once traded her dignity to fund my dreams. Can I really leave her now that she has lost her sheen?
Besides, I asked myself, why should I? What is wrong with my mother? We trade some part of ourselves to survive; maybe knowledge, maybe brawn, maybe brain. Yet, no one is looked down on. Why should my mother be ridiculed just because all she has to offer is her sexuality? Should we not instead ask why is that on sale in the first place? Why is she an outcast, but her customers still get to return to a family?
My identity, which had all this while been my scar, I decided to wear as an ornament handed down by my mother. I remember the first days of my school sessions. I would never let my mother accompany me to school. I would ask her to leave me once we reached the station. I was so embarrassed by her existence! I remember her crestfallen face. I wish now I could mend things. But time is truant. It never comes back.
I decided to stay back with her even though it meant giving away the man I was madly in love with. I knew it meant giving away the life I have always yearningly looked at, like a hungry, destitute stares into a restaurant full of food. I have taken up this small apartment near the hospital I work in. I walk into a silent house, lonely dinners where only the television does the talking. Mother visits me often. But she prefers staying in her dungeon, lest my neighbors find out about her. Rudra got married a couple of months after the break-up. Why was it so soon? Was he upset I left him, though he fought valiantly for me? Is he happy now? Does he remember me on spring mornings when the Palash tree is in full bloom beyond the park?
I don't know. I need not know. I am happy being the outcast who won against all odds.
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Outcast
by Urmi Palchoudhury
BIO:
The author is a 43-year-old Bengali from Kolkata. Presently, she is a stay-at-home mom to her two kids after leaving her job of eighteen years with a leading IT company. She has an Engineering degree in Electronics and Communication, though literature, primarily in English, has always been her first love. She primarily writes short stories and flash fiction. Ordinary people and their extraordinary tales attract her the most. Three of her stories have been published till now.
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