The onset of menopause made my mother grumpier. Not that we knew anything about it then. Neither did she. She did not know what was happening to her body other than the unpredictable monthly cycles hitting her with force each time and leaving her out of breath. From getting angrier at smaller things first, her rage later came to be directed at everyone in the family, including her children. Sometimes she complained of a constant weight pulling her down from her shoulders. Then she cried. Sometimes she felt so hot that she rambled around the house in bare clothes. Uttering curses. Loud and louder. Her raucous swears took turns to unleash. Father and relatives, including her own mother would constantly roll out of her tongue – decrepit and shrunk. At night her expletives were usually replaced by howls, so deafening that they penetrated the walls and reached neighbouring houses. No one however said anything at all. Not directly at least. Sometimes she threatened to commit suicide. Her attempts included switching on power plugs with bare feet and wet hands or drowning her head in a bucket full of water. Nothing ever happened to her. She pulled her head out of water when she felt short of breath, cursing us for not making an attempt to stop her.

“Why does she do that, didi?” Anuj once asked. 

“Just seeking attention, I think”, I replied.

Our father was a station Master with Northern Railways. We lived in a railway staff quarter with a decent backyard. Our two bedroom house was near railway line in a quaint town in Rajasthan. Each time a train crossed, the house swayed with its rumble. The sound of trains passing at nights stroked the house with a murmur, propelling us to reveries. I dreamt of making big in a metropolis. I did not know what mother dreamt of.

Anuj was 18 while I was 20. I was already in my second year of college while he had just started preparing for engineering entrance exams. Our lives were busier than they ever had been. Studies and friends occupied our routines. We were spending lesser time at home. Though Papa would come home for lunch, we would come back late in the evenings. Ma was mostly alone in the house during the days. I do not know how she spent her free day time in the week days but our Sundays would begin with her nagging and would end with her endless bitter blether that left each of us mentally exhausted by night. Overtime, we began anticipating weekends with a sense of fear.  

Once on a Sunday morning in the monsoon month of August, I was preparing breakfast in the kitchen while Anuj lay in the bed next to the window which opened towards the railway line. The radio kept in the window played old Hindi cinema songs. Anuj sang along.

“Zindagi ke safar mein gujar jaate hain jo Makam, woh phir nahin aate…..”

Ma had just come out of the bathroom, her black wet hair down and dripping. She stood by the door of the room where radio played. For a while she remained there. Staring at the window. I watched her from the kitchen and wondered what she thought. Then all of a sudden she lunged forward, grabbed the radio and smashed it against the floor. Her eyes ablaze. I rushed to the room and found Anuj coiled in a corner on the bed, his legs tugged into his chest, his eyes frightened with disbelief. Father was out on a call from the station.

“What happened, Ma?” I shouted.

Her fiery eyes turned to look at me. For a fraction of a moment, I think I saw her lips curving in a weird smile. But in the next moment, her face turned glum and then she wept.

“I don’t know, I don’t know, Priya”, she said repeatedly as she cried.

Later, after breakfast, she slept. And she slept the entire day. It was unusual but we embraced the respite the quietness of those hours offered us. When Papa came back during lunch we told him what had happened.

“I am sorry I wasn’t here, Priya. It is troubling how your mother is now a days. I don’t know what’s happening to her”, he said.

“Don’t you think we should take her to a doctor, Papa?” I said.

“May be we should. I will try looking for one”, he replied.

The following days turned us back to our usual routines. The hours began trudging with familiar strum of the everydayness. There were some normal days too, though they were few and far between. Days when Ma wouldn’t be much angry at us. Days when she kept to herself most of the time. Days which reminded us of our childhood. Papa thought she was doing all right so he did not seek medical help. We thought the worse was over. We had little idea that we were standing in front of the closed eye of a whirlwind which was soon going to consume us.

Owing to the nature of his job, Papa would be transferred from one place to another every three years or so. For most of the times it would be a small station of a non- descript town. Before we could settle in one place, it would already be time to leave. Our quarters were always near the station so father would generally walk to work. Ma seldom left the house. She would always be doing one house chore or another. During our summer vacations, we would visit our paternal and maternal grandparents by turn. I don’t recall her being cheerful or excited about visiting any of them. Instead she would sulk. Many a times our trips would be cut short because Ma’s interactions with them would turn fierce, violent even. “Your mother is different”, Papa said when once he sensed my perplexity following an unpleasant incident. “She is a straightforward woman. Such people can’t deal with the ways this world works sometimes.”  I would brood over his words some years later when I would begin wondering what made mother resent them or most people in her life.

Ma was sharp-tongued. She had never been gentle. I don’t remember being spoken to with ardent affection or when younger, held with tenderness. Not that she did not love us. She did. In her own way she did. Her love, however, tended to confine us within the unspoken boundaries set up by her. Sometimes her forceful protectiveness would smother my heart. When we grew up and began pushing those boundaries, she was irked.

I remember it was the day after my class ten board exams were over. My school friends and I had decided to watch a movie in cinema hall all by ourselves. Ours was a group of four girls. I hadn’t watched a movie with my friends before. Either the family went together or father would arrange for a VCP and we would get movies on rent. It was siesta time. Ma was in her room. I tiptoed and looked at her through the gap in the unlatched double door.  All of a sudden Anuj came and gave me a strong push forward. I squealed as I landed inside on the floor with a noisy thud. Ma was up. Angry. Her sleep was disturbed.

“What are you doing lying there? Why did you shout so loud? Can’t you let me have some rest ever?” she yelled.

“I did not do anything, Ma. I was just standing by the door and Anuj pushed me”, I said. My heart thumped in fright.

“What were you doing standing here?” she asked. Her voice somewhat mellowed. I looked at Anuj who stood in a corner, giggling. I had told him about the movie.

 “Ma I want to go watch a movie with my friends in cinema hall. Can I go?” I said and then stood silent and waited for her response. It was easier to get permission from father. It was her I needed to persuade.

“Oh so now that you have given your board exams you think you have grown up all of a sudden! Want to go to movies with friends? Alone by yourself, eh!” she said.

“All of my friends are going, Ma. Even Neha’s mother has permitted her to go. Please let me go too”, I said.

“No need. If you want to watch a movie, we will all go together. I will ask your father to get tickets for this Sunday”.

“But…”

“Enough!!”

I couldn’t go. There was nothing I could have done. I detested her, that episode etched in my mind for many days to come. Time passed and I went to college. She tried to impose restrictions but now bit older, I learnt to stand my ground.  Anuj and I, now on the brink of new era of the late 90s, began exercising our choices more freely. After a while she gave in. I guess she realised she could not bind us closer to the house, closer to her anymore. Then slowly she pulled back. No one of us noticed. If we did, we could have seen the signs. I however believe that the visceral in us was more relieved. We deliberately ignored when we should have stepped in.

When we were little, Ma would get dressed in the evenings. She liked to sit outside in the verandah or on the threshold of the main door, staring in distance or watching trains go by when free from house chores. Floral printed sarees with Matching ear rings and bangles were her favourite. Once in a while I sat by her side too. And curiously tried seeing what she saw. Two times I observed people from the passing by trains wave at her, she waved back.

“Sab bhagte jaa rahe hain aur Main pichhe choodti jaa rahi hoon”, she said. I listened but did not understand. Then I forgot about it. I remembered when it fell upon me to put the pieces together. I realised then that her gaze was always remote and impenetrable.

Six months after the radio incident, one day I returned from college and found no one home. The door was flung open and everything in the house was in disarray. Ma was nowhere around. Anuj must have been at one of his tuition classes and Papa at the station. At first I thought it was a robbery. We did not have a landline phone. I ran to the station to inform Papa. We came back rushing and when checked, nothing seemed missing. Except for Ma. Where was she. Where could she have gone.  What happened here. We sat worried and did not know what to do. Should we go to the Police or should we wait. We asked around in the neighbouring houses but no one had seen her.

Two hours later, Anuj came home. Along with Ma. She was bewildered, her speech incoherent. We could not make out what she said. Anuj had found her on his way back home. She had been sitting on a street pavement, crying inconsolably. We were terrified to see her like that. Papa was pained. Beyond he could say. He was never a man of many words and rarely expressed his thoughts. That day he cried too.

Mother had an erratic temperament. Father never said nor did anything that went contrary to her diktat. He was a simple man whose days would pass in a disciplined manner, going from house to office and then back. On his off days he would go to the market to buy groceries and other essential things. But he also took us to fairs and movies when we insisted. I seldom saw him and mother sitting together and talking. Not even when they had evening tea. One could not presuppose what might trigger her. It could be anything from us playing outside in hot afternoons when kids to father forgetting something to buy from the Market.

“When I was your age I looked after my young brothers, cooked food for everybody in the house and looked after the entire household”, she shouted at me one day when I didn’t get up to fetch milk from the milkman because I was doing homework. I was twelve years old. She had fumed in anger because her hands were spattered with the dough she was kneading for chapattis for the dinner. 

Later, on the day of the incidence, papa called a doctor. By then, after a continuous sobbing spell that went on for few hours, she got tired and slept. After he discussed with us the details of the day, the doctor advised father to consult a specialist in the city.  Next day he took her to the specialist. Many a visits and two months later, she was diagnosed with schizophrenia. A kind of mental illness none of us had any idea about. We were ill prepared about the extent to which her ailment would affect her as well as the rest of us.  

Mother grew up in a farming family in a small village in Haryana. Her mother, my Nani, usually worked in fields with Nana, cut and brought fodder for the cattle, milked them and made daily rounds to sell the milk. Being the eldest, Ma had to take care of the house from a young age. She could not study past class ten. Nani was stern and authoritative by nature. Ma would constantly be abused by her over one thing or another. Maybe because she was a girl. Maybe because she was a liability for her poor family like girl kids usually were for their parents in the state. She was closer to the brother next to her in a row of five siblings, two sisters and three brothers. Mahesh Mama, our eldest uncle, had died in a road accident when he was twenty and it had left her shattered.

Years later, in her agitated state of illness, she would tell me all about it. Bit by bit. It was as if I never knew this woman I called mother. As if we had been strangers all this life. That I did not know how she suffered. She would constantly lament her mother for not allowing her to study on account of the hardships at home. The doctor said that it was her hormonal changes during the menopausal phase that brought out the outburst of her repressed trauma of all those years resulting in her medical ailment. Her treatment however did not prove much effective. We tried our best to take care of her, to extend as much support as we could but at times it would become very hard to deal with her. Sometimes we would be frustrated with her.

One day, when I came back from college, I was arrested by mother’s loud wailing at the main door. Anxious, I entered the house to find her lying on the diwaan, naked till her waist. Papa sat by her side, trying to console her and to make her wear the blouse. She kicked her legs and slapped her bare chest with her hands as she cried.

As soon as she saw me, she got up and said out loud, “This man did not let me study! Your father, he ruined my life!”  Then she hit Papa. Hammering his body first with her fists then legs, she cried and moaned still louder. Papa sat silent. Teary eyed. His face sullen with helplessness. I felt scared. My body shivered in panic. Still, I moved forward and covered her bare chest with the loose end of her sari. She gave in to me. Hugged me and sobbed. After a while, she slipped into a slumber. 

When I was eight, father was placed at a small town. Its railway station had only one platform. The staff was a close knit unit. The quarters of the families that lived there, shared 3 feet wall in the open backyard. All the festivals and occasions were celebrated together. Near Diwali, the families would organise Ramleela in the evenings. Members from each household would play different roles. Ma would participate too. She would play role given to her with enthusiasm.  Meetings and get-togethers would regularly take place both before and after the Ramleela. Sometimes at our house too. Papa stayed cocooned in his bedroom if he was home. When asked, he would politely give advice on matters. Because of these meet ups, meals would be delayed at times. Papa would then cook food for us. Ma would later be angry at him. She would create a ruckus, whining about the mess he would leave in the kitchen.

“Your mother doesn’t like clutter or untidiness. That is why she is angry”, he said one day when on one such occasion Ma got so angry with him that it made me cry.

“Please, Ma. Don’t fight with Papa. He cooked food because I was hungry”, I said, sobbing. Furious, she looked at me but did not respond.

After that town, Ma never befriended her neighbours anywhere we went. She was sometimes stubborn about things. One could never make out what pleased her or made her irritable. And it was this I think that made Papa maintain a certain distance from her too.

Mother’s illness was diagnosed in the initial years of twenty first century when internet was in its nascent stage in India. There was no awareness about the illness. Our small town/city exposure had us little informed about her condition. I only understood the correlation of her menopause and illness two decades later when in the beginnings of my forties I began experiencing peri-menopausal symptoms myself.

When her condition deteriorated further, Papa on the advice of the doctor treating her, decided to get her admitted to an asylum. He could not take out the time required to look after her because of the nature of his job. Neither did he want me or Anuj, by now studying at a college in Delhi, to compromise our studies. I wasn’t doing well at college. Ma’s illness had started affecting us mentally too.

Night before she was to be admitted, I was packing Ma’s suitcase. A week prior to that Papa had tried to persuade her. As expected, she was livid when she heard.

“First you ruined my life and now you want me to leave the house! Whatever have I done to deserve this! Why don’t you people kill me if you want to get rid of me!! ”

“Manju, it isn’t that. You are not well and are mostly alone at home during daytime. I cannot be there with you all the time nor can be Priya. Doctors will take better care of you. Please understand”, he said.

“I am not going anywhere! I can take care of myself! I don’t need anyone!” she shouted and ran out of the house. He ran behind and brought her back after a lot of struggle an hour later. Then he promised her that she would not be taken anywhere. 

That night I had left her sleeping in her bedroom when I started putting her clothes in the suitcase. Fifteen minutes later she walked into the room where I stood near the bed with my back to the door.

“Priya, I can’t sleep. Give me a glass of water” I heard her voice and it froze me to my place. I thought she was fast asleep. I did not realise when she got up and came to me. All of her clothes lay on the bed everywhere. Even if I tried, I could not hide the suitcase or her stuff from her.

“Priya, beta. Are you listening?” she said and moved closer.

I could sense her breath upon my neck. Frightened, I turned. In the same moment, her eyes glided from me to the bed. To her clothes. To the suitcase. And then back at me.  They appeared more wounded than angry.

“You are sending me away”, she said, her voice muffled. I had no strength in me to face her. I lowered my face and uttered, “Ma….Ma…the doctor……Papa said…..”

“Ok, ok….I get it”, she said turning away from me.

I moved forward towards her and tried holding her hand. She did not stop me. I held her hand and as I turned to face her I saw her liquid eyes, defenceless against all that had repressed and tortured her soul all her life. I felt sorry for her. Also embarrassed at myself. I wished she could be happy. That she could be at peace. How much can a person suffer before she can finally have some sense of calm, oh God why do you punish her so, I thought.

“It’s ok, Priya. Do what you have to”, she said pulling herself away from me. I saw her trudging towards the door and then out into the verandah. It was a full moon night. The verandah was draped in a soft pale light. Ma sat on the floor in the middle. Her body exhausted. Papa had gone out to buy some things for her for the hospital. I kept watching her for some time and then I resumed packing her things.

Couple of minutes later, the house began swaying with the rumble of an approaching train.

“Sab bhagte jaa rahe hain aur Main pichhe choodti jaa rahi hoon” I remembered what she had said that day. The rumble grew louder with approaching train and then it all went quiet as the sound receded in distance. When finished with packing, I came out to verandah. Ma wasn’t there now.

“Ma, Ma”, I called and looked around. She was not there in the bedroom or in the bathroom. Papa wasn’t yet back. I came out of the house and looked around. The street was deserted. The neighbouring houses hustled with their normal activities.

Suddenly I saw a man running on the tracks from where the train had just passed. He was shouting and calling people out. Soon many people came out of their houses and ran towards the tracks. I shivered in fright and moved forward. By now the crowd of those gathered on tracks had increased in number. When I reached, I had to push my way to the centre of the circle made by them. While pushing, my eyes caught hold of Ma’s saree. It lay ruffled on the tracks. Stained with blood.

I withdrew and felt drained all of a sudden. My legs had no more power to carry me. I collapsed on the tracks. When I regained consciousness, I was lying on the sofa in the living room. Papa sat in a corner on the diwaan, his head bent downwards. Many people were in the room, some sitting and some standing wherever they could find a place. In the centre, on the floor, lay her body. Covered with a cloth. 

She was gone.

I raised myself from the sofa and lumbered towards father. As I touched his shoulder he lifted his head. His eyes were red and heavy with crying. 

“I could not save her”, trembling, he said and lowered his head again. After a while he asked me to go to the station and make a call to Anuj.

“Ji Papa”, I replied and headed out.

Outside it was as quiet as the stillness of the ashes from a burnt pyre collected a day after. The moonlight still illuminated the earth. Laden with guilt and despair I staggered in the direction of the station, knowing deep down that that night would haunt me for years to come.