Simran Kadam
Pune
*Names of the persons in the story have been changed, respecting their privacy.*
Betty Chavan was born in the year 1928 in British India, Bombay. Growing up as an obese child, she was married off at age thirteen to a coeval boy called Sawant. Betty Sawant lived peacefully with her in-laws for two-three years until her mother-in-law forced the couple out of their house. The reason being both were unemployed at the age of sixteen.
In Mahim, Betty started working in houses to earn money that wouldn’t leave them hungry. She woke up early in the morning daily to mop floors and wash clothes and dishes in other homes. And come back to the rental house in the afternoon where the two lived to complete her house chores. Afterwards, she would return to her job in the evening and come home at night.
Gradually by saving money, she bought a small home for themselves and utensils to cook. But her husband’s unfaltering cries for alcohol and cigarettes enervated her.
Betty’s obesity did not allow her to bear a child for six years. Her mother-in-law was worried about her inability until she gave birth to her first child, Tina, after six years of marriage.
A daughter with crippled legs.
Betty went to her father’s home, she had lost her mom at the tender age of her dependent childhood, and her sisters took upon motherhood. Twelve days later, Betty went to her mother-in-law’s home, where she would keep her daughter under the lady’s eyes and go to work. But the contemptuous lady only hurled curses at Betty.
‘Now that you have given birth, you bore a disabled child.’
Betty would go to her job and come home to massage her daughter’s weak legs daily. She visited Mount Mary’s Basilica in Bandra and prayed for the healing of her daughter’s disability. The routine continued for three years until Tina, her daughter, took her first step and made both women happy.
Betty worked harder to feed her daughter’s little belly and take care of the lady while also meeting the cigarette and alcohol demands of her husband.
Betty gave birth to another daughter and four sons in the coming years.
“Now there are more bellies to feed. What will you do?” asked the husband.
So Betty walked three and a half kilometers daily from Matunga to Mahim for a new job that paid her Rupees 50 after completing her and other house chores.
However, the duty of a housekeeper was not of respect. The sisters of Mahim High School complained of her always being late to work. When she thought she could escape bullying from her home, she faced it again at work. The sisters of Mahim High School fired Betty.
A saying goes, “A brave woman is not defined by the challenges she faces, but by the grace and courage with which she overcomes them.”
Betty filed a case against the sisters in court for bullying her and never granting leaves to the housekeepers of the high school. They got paid fifty rupees, which did not equal the labour-intensive work and ill-treatment the women faced at the school. She won the case.
Funds increased, leaves granted, and jobs turned permanent for the other maids who still worked there. But Betty, who had become the messiah of the poor maids, didn’t go back to high school.
The messiah shifted to Sion with her family of a husband and six children. The husband worked in a church as a priest’s assistant in exchange for a room and food but no salary. The house given to them had little space in the open, so they built a room and set it for rent. Gradually by saving money from the rent, they married off all their kids. The son’s preferences stood rejected in front of the messiah.
The oldest son married the woman of the messiah’s choice. Later his wife left him because of his inconsistent commitment to jobs.
The second son liked a girl who sang in his church choir. “She was so beautiful that she was fairer than the word ‘fair,’ we called her lizard because of her pale skin. And her beautiful black hair reached below her waist,” said the messiah’s oldest granddaughter and Tina’s first daughter.
Whenever she sang, Tina’s spouse would tease the oldest son saying, “Look, your lizard.” But the messiah rejected her second son’s choice and got him married to another woman.
The third son never showed his love in the open, so he never married her but married the messiah’s choice.
The fourth and youngest son wanted to be a boxer and liked a girl who trained with him in the same academy. “She was fair too, with a cute face and long hair. She even worked.” Regardless, the second son couldn’t marry the woman of his dreams, nor could he chase his boxing dreams.
Tina supported every decision of her messiah and never spoke a single word against her while the second daughter was still young to give an opinion. All the sons lived individually in their houses with their families, leaving the messiah and her husband alone in a rented room. Not a single child supported the messiah financially.
It was the age of increased economic, and the messiah fell ill often because of senescence. The husband and wife sold off their church house, which caused a spark of anger between them and their sons. The sons fought for the money from the house, while the married daughters didn’t wish for any sum.
The husband’s health deteriorated and needed medical attention. The oldest daughter Tina came for her father’s care and hospitalised him in a clinic, but the father gave up on his age and left the messiah alone.
In Sion, a builder constructed a building where her house stood, but the kind builder offered her a flat to accommodate. Her flat never had electricity, the fans never worked, and the apartment never had lights because her sons never paid the electricity bills. The sons individually would provide her with 100 rupees for a month, but the sum never paid for her necessities. She filled her stomach with boiled potatoes every day.
The Messiah filed a case against her sons for ill-treatment and low compensation. Her oldest granddaughter urged the sons to increase the monthly sum to 600 rupees which helped the messiah to live a sounder life. The granddaughter brought the messiah to Nashik, Velankini and Bangalore, as she had never been out of Mumbai. The messiah was never grateful to a human being other than her granddaughter.
The messiah’s two daughters would often help their mother, which improved her life significantly. However, old age made her succumb to illness frequently, leaving her to constant attention. The oldest son was alone after his family left him and would live anywhere he found a place. So he moved in with his mother to help himself and her. He worked and looked after the house, and the daughters helped improve the now-old messiah’s health.
The second son’s family committed suicide because they owed a heavy debt to money lenders. The messiah lost her son, daughter-in-law and fifth 20-year-old grandson to money which sent her into depression. Forty days later, she lost her oldest son to a cardiac arrest which severed her depression.
The Messiah was scared to live alone and slept outside at the door of her apartment. She couldn’t recognise the faces of people she knew. Her deteriorating mental health made her children hire a maid to look after her. The going got worse, and the messiah lost her maid too. No one could attend to her health because the oldest daughter was too aged, and the sons were not ready to take responsibility.
They sent the messiah to an aged home.
Nonetheless, the aged home didn’t aid the messiah adequately. She requested to list her old house for sale so she could use the proceeds to invest in a better-equipped elderly care facility. The sons were not ready, but the daughters fought for their mother’s wish. They would visit her with piping-hot food, but the sons couldn’t see her because of their resisting wives. And so the messiah’s wish never reached fulfilment.
A worker in the nursing home bullied the messiah by confiscating her food, and she would weep to her daughters about the woman. The daughters complained about the bullying, but they never received a resolution. For two years, the old messiah stayed in the nursing home, facing bullying and careless behaviour until the day she fell severely ill. The workers called the daughters to inform them of hospitalising their mother for the past eight days.
The daughters visited with the messiah’s siblings daily to ensure she got what she needed. She kept her equation good with her siblings throughout her life. She never asked for money, nor did they because they knew her condition. While lying on her hospital bed, the messiah often told her brother, “Brother brother, please bring me dhokla,” as it was her favorite food.
After living a life of hardships and ill luck, Betty breathed her last to meet her husband on the 1st of March 2018 at age 90.
When hearing a glum story, we sympathize with the protagonist’s destiny, but we often neglect the cause of its end, and when we pay attention to it, the protagonist turns out to be the reason.
( Simran Kadam is a student of TYBAJMC at Vishwakarma University)
Pic courtesy: Jane Massey, sue(1960), Pinterest)
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