Pushing Gods Out

Shanti is married into a clan of human gods. There is her husband Rampal (Keeper
of Rama), his parents Ramdas (Servitor of Rama) and Rampyari (Beloved of Rama),
as also his brother Ramprasad (Gift of Rama) and others. For the partial namesakes
to fulfil the purpose of their being, they must have Rama, and they are waiting for
Shanti’s womb to deliver him. As part of preparations, the family consults a priest,
who enters with his Encyclopaedia of Superstitions.

‘‘The male child is the cradle of civilization,’ the pundit announced. ‘Without a boy, the
family is doomed, since there is no one to carry forward the name. A cradle must be
made. Yes, a cradle, handmade by the father who desires to see it filled. And he
must rock it before the sun comes up and before the sun goes down. This will lead
any malefic powers astray and deceive them into believing the baby is already born,
and there is little they can do to harm it now. And when Shanti is enceinte, the ruse
must be continued. A pair of Rampal’s pants is to be hung near the cradle. This way,
the evil sprites will not dare come near and replace the baby with a changeling.’ The
pundit paused.

But it is not just the men preparing for the coming of their Rama, Shanti too is waiting:

He will come, she thought. Her Rama would come. And before all the necessary
good he would perform in the world; he would be her personal saviour. Sita, his
consort one day, would have to wait. Shanti would be the first in line. Rama would
always choose her before any other woman. She would nurture him with the milk in
her breasts; look after him while he slept, keeping away all evil. She would even
strike him if he did not do her bidding. He would have to see that other men had been
cruel to her, vile and unfair, and that he must be different. He would take note that
society has given her little while taking her everything. And if need be, he would go
against its very grain to protect her and bring to her the honour that had been denied
her.
He would avenge her against other men and bring their heads on pikes if that be her
wish. At last, she would be the Queen, and he her Prince-Minister-Viceroy. He would
be her servitor. She would develop the strongest of umbilical cords to nourish him,
and feed him with not just the food of her body, but also her thoughts. He would
come into the world with thoughts precisely like hers. They would be soulmates,
made from the same flesh, the same blood, with a common mission to liberate her.
So far, her body had been a cage, but he would grow safely inside it. She would keep
him there till he had developed the wings to fly out and liberate her from the worldly
cage that imprisoned her. The umbilical cord would be clamped and cut, and blood
would be spilled, but it mattered little, for she would create another one – tangible to
her though intangible to the others – and the two would be inseparable. He would be
the last piece of her bodily puzzle, and when he left her empty to come into this
world, he would fill that void with his service and devotion. He would be the second
and last man in her life. The first was required to provide the seed for the garden of
her body. Now, the soil of her soul would nourish the seed into an elegant sapling
and then a sturdy banyan tree. No matter the height and breadth he may reach, his
roots would always be in her.

Such can be the resolve of a mother.

The family decides that Shanti must deliver outside the sphere of modern medical
practices, and inside the home. Modern doctors and nurses are too mechanical in
their work, and with the use of anaesthetics and their strangely carved tools, the
mother cannot experience the painful ecstasy of childbirth the way nature has
ordained.

The thought that she would have to form a sac in real life and put her child in it,
saddened Shanti deeply. But it must be done, she told herself. She reconsidered her
other weapons, and once again, her mind latched itself to the umbilical cord, the
intangible one, which she would create once her Rama was delivered. But would that
be enough? The question presented itself for the nth time. When the mind asks
endless questions without receiving any concrete answers, it starts attacking the
body. It was either that or Shanti’s water had broken.

When it is finally time to push her Rama out, Shanti is no longer sure if she wants to
carry on with her plan. There are too many risks. Shanti does not want to play men’s
game. She would not only be risking her own life but also of her Rama’s. But perhaps
it is too late. Her body has stopped listening to her mind. When Shanti’s sister-in-law
puts her hands on her stomach to induce crowning, Shanti places her own at the
bottom to keep the baby from coming out. There are loud cries. The women panic.
Shanti’s mother-in-law thinks that she is possessed by the devil. Hearing all this
noise, Rampal enters the room and notices blood in the basin. He asks his mother if
it was normal.

‘What are you doing, bewakuf aurat, stupid woman? Why are you preventing him?’
Rampal forcefully removed her hands.

The carnival of birth was finally over. The inability to decide whether it was Rama
who had let her down or the other way around, had left Shanti devastated. How did
one discern the outcome of a war when no participant won? Rampal had lost
because he didn’t get a chance to play a role in the war; he was supposed to wait for
the boy to grow up before he could even begin. The pundit had lost because his
religion of science had failed him. Shanti had lost because she realized that the
nature of her body was stronger, more powerful, than the nature of her mind. She
had wished to keep the boy inside, but her body wanted to play differently. The same
body that provided her with the powerful tools to create, preserve, and deliver life,
had taken a morbid revenge on her. By misusing the navel string as a means to
strangle her Rama, it had given a different meaning to the life-enriching vessel.
‘My own body,’ she cried to herself wordlessly, ‘my very own body wouldn’t do my
bidding. I am its conductor, but I cannot direct the way. I feed it, but it has
regurgitated only disloyalty. I clean it, but it has come out unclean. How could I then
be sure if my flesh had torn and become Rama, he would have done what I asked of
him? Just a few minutes ago, he was well and alive within me. And that was where I
wanted him to stay – inside me. But no, my body has a mind of its own, and it is full
of ambiguous intentions. It refuted the idea that my precious Rama would have been
safer inside me than in this world, where he would start off as a pawn, and perhaps

with the right tutelage under a worthy minister, become the great king’s guard,
fighting his battles and protecting his honour. And men also achieve greatness when
they sacrifice for the common good, which none can define and none can agree upon
unanimously. But this rule is for men alone. A woman’s greatness, on the other hand,
comes largely from sacrificing herself. Here I am, son-less, yet alive, while my body
has strangulated a part of itself. Was it me who killed my Rama? Did I tie the knot
around his neck? It was me who wanted to create another cord after this one was
cut, I confess. But my body did not permit it. It did not think it right to let me carry out
my plan. Yet my plan was honourable! It was. I merely wanted to be happy with my
chains.’