Tiny boots were kept on the table — beige with tiny teddy bears on the top.
“These were from the sales section, reduced price. Aren’t these cute?” Roma asked her husband, fearing the usual response.
Her mother-in-law heard it, saw the tag, and gasped.
“Look, Rohan! So much money for tiny shoes!”
Rohan had been ignoring her, but his mother’s tone made him turn quickly. He knew that she had again committed a major crime.
He stared at them as if they were not a pair of shoes but another ‘case’ to prove her lack of commitment to the family. She knew here was his chance to lecture her about her extravagance and foolishness.
“What? Designer shoes for a two-year-old? Throwing hard-earned money like this. Are you mad? Mini hasn’t even started walking properly.”
If one has a husband like him, one does need a mother-in-law to kill joy.
“Do you still have the receipts? Take everything back! We still have to do a lot of shopping for Rekha Didi’s son. She is blessed with one after two daughters!” he demanded, his voice carrying the confidence and authority of the man of the house.
Roma stood there for a moment. Tears gathering in her eyes. Mini would be two next month. She had started taking baby steps.
Roma had gone to Reliance Mall with her friend and couldn’t resist the temptation of buying these shoes. These were lying in the ‘Return Section’ of the mall. The salesgirl had shown her the tag, ‘For sale: Baby shoes: Never worn.’
“You pay only one fourth of the original price, ma’am. You won’t get such a deal.”
Mini was always getting hand-me-downs from her cousins: an old bassinet, an old pram, old shoes, and old clothes. Roma always wondered why Rohan never thought of buying anything new for his own daughter.
“Look, Roma, I have brought these dresses for Mini,” her sister-in-law would chime in. “These are as good as new.”
She had no option but to accept these just to avoid the conflict.
That pinched Roma. She and her husband both were working, but a substantial amount of their income was spent on his sister’s family.
She could have stayed silent. She had learned how to stay silent in three years of marriage. She knew how to diffuse tension by keeping quiet, admitting her mistake, walking into another room, and quietly crying into her pillow.
But not today.
Maybe it was not just because of those boots. Maybe it was because of the injustice meted out to her daughter—the hand-me-downs she had been trying to mend to make them look presentable. — had finally made her rebellious.
Maybe she was unable to tolerate the same treatment given to her daughter as was given to her.
“ I have the receipt, but I won’t return these,” she said quietly.
Rohan failed to hear the change in her voice. Or perhaps he ignored it and decided pressure mattered more than caution.
“I said we need money to buy gifts for Rekha didi and her family. Tomorrow the child will be pthirteen days old. You could have at least asked me first!”
“Asked you?”
“What’s so strange about that? It’s the family budget. We’re supposed to discuss things like this!”
“The family budget,” she repeated with a nod, and there was something in that nod that finally made him fall silent. “When was the last time you discussed with me how much money you spend on your family ?”
“That’s different. Why should I discuss it with you? These are the social obligations. This is our duty.”
“Why is it different? Don’t you have any duty for your own child?
“What do you mean? Do I not provide everything at home?”
“No, you don’t. You always grumble about the expenditure incurred on her, always telling me how much extra you have to spend after her arrival even though you never buy her anything new.”
She picked up the receipt and tore it into tiny pieces, leaving Rohan aghast.
