The Mother

 

She waited patiently at the end of the long queue in front of the tea garden dispensary. Draped in a faded saree that hung just below her knees, a white bandana covering her oily hair, she carried her child in a sling wrapped around her shoulder.

It was the usual hot and stuffy mid-June afternoon in Jabra Tea Estate, a picturesque garden in the foothills of the Himalayas. Jabra in Mirik Block was a hotspot of malaria then and hundreds of tea workers and their families were affected.

She looked worried and distracted. The infant had been having high fever for the last three days and was doubtless suffering from malaria. The nurse at the dispensary had asked her to take good care of the baby and feed him some nutritious food instead of the standard tea flowers and rice that they had daily.

Taking care of a sick child at home was a luxury for a single mother like her, particularly when she was struggling to attain permanent status as a tea-garden labourer. She was forced to carry the child to work every day, so that she could at least feed him between shifts. The father of the child was a jobless drunkard, who turned up on Saturdays to seize her weekly wage, the pittance she earned, and disappear for the week. However, last Saturday was different. Last Saturday, she mustered up her courage and chased the worthless man away with a burning twig from her ‘chullah’, shouting after him, threatening to kill him if he ever came back to harass her or her child! It was a courage borne out of desperation, by a mother at the very end of her tether.

She trudged along with the queue, patting her child, who was crying inconsolably after the blood test. When her turn came in front of the dispensary counter, she greeted the nurse with bright eyes, unfolded her tightly closed palm and placed on the table her week’s earnings.

“Give me his medicines and the health tonic you promised to bring from the town. This week, I have money for both!”

----Story by Madhumita

             PC: Andy