Chapter Three: Unseen Joys and Silent Sorrows

 

Chapter Three: Unseen Joys and Silent Sorrows

The house was unusually vibrant, the kind of vibrant that only weddings in India can bring. The walls were washed anew, marigolds draped across the front gate, and the constant hum of guests and rituals turned our quiet home into a festival ground. It was the wedding of my father's younger sister—his only sister—and like any traditional household, this event was more than just a union of two people. It was a moment of pride, a social symbol, a collective project that tested the strength of every family member, especially the women.

At the heart of it all, managing everything silently, was my mother.

She wasn’t just a spectator in the wedding. She was the backbone. From dawn till midnight, she worked tirelessly—cooking in large quantities, arranging gifts, serving guests with folded hands, overseeing decorations, checking if relatives had food, and ensuring the rituals flowed without interruption. People came and went. Some praised her, some ignored her, but no one truly saw the effort she poured into those days. No one acknowledged the way she carried the wedding on her shoulders.

When we look at the wedding photos now, there’s a strange emptiness in them. My mother appears in only one or two frames, always in the background—half-hidden behind a curtain, or walking away. I once asked her why she wasn’t in the pictures. After all, she was the one who did everything.

She smiled and replied, “I was pregnant with you. I was shy.”

It was a simple answer, but it said so much.

She was pregnant. And nobody noticed.

Amid the glitter and the noise, the songs and the sweets, she was quietly carrying a life inside her—me. While others danced and celebrated, she folded clothes, ironed saris, and made tea for guests, all while navigating early pregnancy. And not once did she ask to rest or step aside. She felt shy, she said. Maybe not just of being pregnant, but of claiming space in a home that rarely acknowledged her efforts.

Two months after the wedding, I was born.

In most homes, the birth of a child brings joy. Neighbors come with gifts, relatives arrive with sweets, and celebrations echo for days. But in our home, there was no such noise. I was a girl. And I was born after ten long years of marriage. For most people in the family, this wasn’t a cause for joy—it was a disappointment.

No one came with laddoos. No one placed a silver coin under my pillow. No aunt sang traditional songs, no uncle burst crackers in celebration. I was welcomed into the world with silence.

But there was one exception—my father.

For him, I was the world.

He was the first one to hold me in his arms. He looked at my tiny face, my closed fists, and something within him softened. Perhaps after years of being torn between his roles—as a son, a brother, a husband—he finally had a role that felt pure. He was a father now. And he chose to love me without restraint.

While others ignored my presence, he embraced it.

He took me everywhere with him—to the market, to the park, to the railway station where he worked. I would sit in the basket of his cycle, wrapped in a warm shawl, clinging to his finger. He bought me bangles that were too big for my wrists and hair clips shaped like butterflies. On Sundays, he’d bring sweets from the halwai and say, “This is for my daughter.” I was too small to remember those days, but my mother tells me that during my infancy, he was the happiest she had ever seen him.

But happiness in our home was never left unchallenged for too long.

Soon after the wedding celebrations ended, the bitterness returned. My grandmother—who had briefly softened during the wedding—reverted to her old ways. The moment the rituals were done and the guests had left, her complaints resumed. The taunts came back. The cold glances. The deliberate silence. The manipulation.

My mother, still recovering from childbirth, was once again at the receiving end.

What made it worse was the realization that many of her wedding belongings—beautiful saris, embroidered suits, gifts from her parents—had been quietly given away to my father’s sister. Dresses she had kept safe for special occasions, saris she had never even worn, were suddenly missing. When she asked, she was told, “These are for your sister-in-law. You don’t need so many clothes.”

She didn’t argue. She never did.

But a wound was left.

Even her dignity seemed negotiable.

As the newlywed sister began visiting our home more frequently, another layer of insult was added to my mother’s daily life. My aunt, who once shared a close bond with her, now found a strange satisfaction in pointing out her flaws. Each visit brought a new complaint—a dish was too salty, the tea wasn’t hot enough, the house was too dusty. Small things, but consistent enough to sting.

What hurt most was how my father responded.

He noticed everything. He heard the harsh words, saw the unfairness, and knew his wife was suffering. But he remained silent. Torn between the two women in his life—his mother, who raised him, and his wife, who stood by him—he didn’t know what to do. His silence wasn’t out of indifference. It was confusion. It was fear. He loved them both and didn’t want to hurt either. But in trying to please everyone, he ended up pleasing no one—not even himself.

He grew more inward during this time.

He would come home from work and sit quietly. Sometimes he’d stare at the wall for long stretches, as if thinking of a world far from this one. The loudness of the house—the arguments, the passive aggression—began to exhaust him. He started craving silence. And when silence didn’t come naturally, he found a way to force it.

Sleeping pills.

It started with occasional use. If he had trouble sleeping, he’d take one. If a headache wouldn’t go away, he’d take another. At first, it seemed harmless. After all, many people took sleeping aids once in a while. But for my father, it became a pattern. A way to escape. Not just from sleeplessness—but from pain, confusion, and helplessness.

My mother noticed it early on.

She saw the packet tucked away in a drawer. She noticed how groggy he felt in the mornings, how long it took him to get ready for work. She asked him gently, “Why are you taking these so often?”

He didn’t answer.

Or he’d say, “Just feeling tired. Don’t worry.”

But she did worry.

He wasn’t addicted yet. But the signs were there—the emotional numbness, the dependency, the escape. And the worst part? Nobody else noticed. Nobody asked. Everyone was too busy with their own grudges, too wrapped in blame and ego to see the man silently breaking in front of them.

And through it all, I was growing up.

I don’t remember the early days, but my mother often says, “You were your father’s shadow.” I’d follow him everywhere. If he went to the market, I’d insist on going. If he sat on the floor to read the newspaper, I’d crawl into his lap. In a house where women were often invisible, I made sure he saw me. And he always did.

He talked to me like I was older than my age. He told me stories about trains, about his childhood in Delhi, about how he once wanted to become an engineer. He never said much about the pain he carried—but in his silences, I learned to listen.

Looking back, I realize now how much he needed someone to understand him. Someone to see his pain. Not the role he played as a son, brother, husband—but as a human being who had sacrificed everything. For everyone. And got nothing in return.

He loved deeply. But he was caught in a world where love was measured by obedience. Where mothers expected loyalty over fairness, and sons were taught that silence was strength. And so, he stayed silent—even when he saw the woman he loved suffer. Even when he saw his daughter, born after ten years, being met with indifference.

He wanted to fix everything. But he didn’t know how.

And that helplessness, more than anything else, became his slow poison.