The wailing grew and grew. 

Anika realized that the baby wasn’t going to sleep tonight. That was two nights in a row.  

Stuck in the room with three days of blanket around them, the new mother and her newborn daughter have yet to see the sunlight. It had been three months since the birth. And slowly, Anika was going insane. 

The lap was full, with the weight of the baby binding her to this reality. She felt that she could have floated away into nothingness if it wasn’t for her daughter, currently bawling her eyes out. 

But then, she wouldn’t be dragged into this nothingness if it wasn’t for the baby. 

The door creaked and she looked up. It was her mother-in-law. The same one who had hounded them to get Anika checked ‘checked’. “It isn’t usual, not getting pregnant at 27.” 

She was now standing at the door. “Anika put her down and eat something.” 

“She won’t eat anything,” Anika heard the hollowness in her voice.  

What kind of person was she becoming? 

“She is a baby; you need to eat first.” 

She didn’t understand. How could she just leave her daughter and eat herself? Wasn’t she supposed to take care of this new life? Being the mother? Weren’t they supposed to help her with it? Wasn’t her husband supposed to be here with her? Helping her out? Trying to figure out things about this baby together? 

The mother-in-law went away, the door closing behind her.  

And it was the room again. And her. And the baby. And the musty odor of stagnation. 

She started to sway the baby on her lap, trying very hard to ignore the pain of childbirth and manage it with great difficulty. 

The first sting of tears was always unwelcome. The faces started to float in front of her eyes. Her parents, demanded she be on proper behavior. “It is about the family. Don’t let me hear anything about you from them.” 

Then, after a year, the murmur started. When will you have a baby? Isn’t it going to be late to have a baby? Are there any problems with her? It must be her, saying no to a child. Who doesn’t want children? 

She looked around the room, the wetness of her tears her only companion. The wailing of the child has subsided, but Anika didn’t know when it will start again. 

The uncertainty of it all was the first thing that started to tip her towards it. The darkness in her mind. 

She looked around the room as if seeking the faces of all those people, whose words and glances have made her commit to this action. Bringing life to earth.  

She knew she wasn’t ready. But then she was told that ‘no one ever is’, and that ‘you should just go ahead, otherwise it would be too late for you’ and that ‘late born have complications.’  

 

But what now?  

She looked around, the evening light that could be felt through the crack of the room’s door. The baby had slept. And Anika knew she couldn’t. Because the baby would wake up again because that’s what babies do. 

She looked around. No one was there in the room. The room of a new mother and newborn child. There weren’t any elder ladies from the village who used to give them advice about having babies. No advice now on how to deal with sleepless nights and an unhelpful husband and a mother-in-law who doesn’t help out.  

 

So, what now?  

 

The baby was never the plan. In her heart, she wasn’t ready to be a mother. The love, the care, where will she bring it all from? She was made to feel like a barren cow, of no use and solely losing her validity in society. She was made to endure the humiliation of going to the doctors with her sister-in-law, closely monitored.  

There were whispers that maybe she couldn’t have a child, not questioning if she did want to have a child. And now where was every one of them? When she was sitting here, night after night, in pain and agony? 

Where were they when the labor took 56 hours? Where were they when she had borne a daughter and saw the way her in-laws’ faces were saddened because it wasn’t a boy? 

Why was she given this role? Who assigned it to her? Without her say? Why was she manipulated, driven to anger and remorse?  

Was she stupid? Was this crazy? 

A human life? Dependent on her?  

How would she manage it all? 

The baby gurgled, and she looked down at the bundle that was her daughter. 

Will she have the same fate? 

Will they all ask her the same things? 

Will I be able to change this? 

She didn’t know. 

She didn’t want to know. 

She was tired.  

And sleep was yet to come. She sought the oblivious sleep that could knock her out for days, maybe forever. 

But that was hard to come by either. 

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