1896, Bombay, Bombay Presidency
Mrs. Bhickaiji Cama wiped the sweat off her brow as she made the trek from Grant Medical College to her home in Cusrow Bagh. Her large red parasol with Japanese maidens on it helped the heat, but there was no escaping the Bombay humidity.
Rustom, her husband, preferred she take a tonga to the hospital. She insisted instead on walking, over having that poor tongawalla contract the plague, should she fall victim to it again.
But then, Rustom would also rather she strutted about the doctors’ offices occasionally, overseeing big-picture things, as would befit a woman of her wealth and status. But she preferred to bewilder him, and seemingly everyone, by turning up day after day to the hospital, tending to women and children with the plague, dressing their swellings, and administering their medicine. For hours on end.
Every hospital was short-staffed now, with the epidemic reaching astronomical proportions. Sure, she did not have a medical degree, but she could read, write, and speak English, Marathi, and Parsee Gujarati. And having been a star cricketer at school, she could be on her feet all day, breaking only for tea.
She didn’t want to stay home all day, scrutinizing her jewelry and collection of garas - sarees made from the most exquisite Chinese silk, and embroidered with the most intricate patterns, prized possessions of every Parsee woman. Reading yesterday’s death toll in the Times of India like it was a test cricket score was not for her.
Not that there was much else to do at home. She didn’t have a brood of children as would be expected for a woman her age. Her mother and mother-in-law beseeched her to adopt a child, or three, from the Parsee orphanage. She’d nod and agree, but never follow through. She didn’t know why.
“Who is all this for?” Awabai, her mother-in-law, would say, with a flourish of her fine-boned hand, indicating at once one or all of their expensive treasures. Like Rustom didn’t have eight other siblings with wives and children of their own.
Maybe that was it. That dream of having one’s own nest had felt special when she was the only daughter-in-law, a blushing bride in her peacock-patterned gara. But now, the big house with its gaggle of children, the horde of friendly residents, and the crowd of reverent visitors thronging it was too much. It somehow triggered claustrophobia that was never to be seen on even the worst, most crowded days in the hospital.
Bhickoo had had enough.
It was a big world. It was a big country. She wanted to do something about it.
But mostly, she felt guilty depriving Rustom of a wife who would help his rising legal career.
She wasn’t one to be in awe of Englishmen and their pallid, freckled wives. She wouldn’t rub shoulders with white government officials and laugh at their jokes. She couldn’t even stop herself from questioning them intently about insufficient facilities in the segregation camps.
But most of all, she hated, detested the city of Bombay. There was a new ugly building coming up every day now, more often than not built by a Parsee merchant with opium money. Money made from selling opium in China. Profit from ruining the bodies and minds of the Chinese people, in cahoots with the British.
Those men had to be living under mountains of denial to keep up that business. How would they even feel for their own countrymen, suffering under oppressive conditions in the plague, and heaps upon heaps of unfair taxes targeted at lining the kitty in London? What even was the point of the Avestan classes her father-in-law conducted for droves of eager Parsee boys every day, if it didn’t stop this?
She wanted out.
Away from Rustom.
Away from Bombay.
She had a plan.
Bhickoo lay weakly on her luxuriant marital bed, in her French nightgown, as Rustom came in.
“How are you, my love?” he said.
“Better than earlier, but I’m just so weak,” she said.
“No,” he said and hugged her close, “I cannot bear to see you suffer so. That touch of the plague has left you so drained.”
Bhickoo pathetically nodded.
“Dr. Mistry is not helping much, is he?”
Bhickoo pathetically shook her head.
“Looks like we need to try something drastically different,” Rustom said, “You can’t keep getting paler and thinner. Let’s try Dr. Robinson down in Bandra?”
“Actually, I was thinking, why don’t I go on to Paris or London? Uncle Dadabhoy is there, he can help me find a doctor. And Khurshed sings in the opera now, and Perin is at the Sorbonne. They will take care of me. There is no plague there. And far away from the heat, I might actually get better.”
She hoped she sounded convincing enough that Rustom would agree, and he wouldn’t ask to tag along.
“Bhickoo, yes!” Rustom said, exceedingly happily, “That is a great idea!”
He agreed! Why, then, was she feeling despair?
“Bhickoo, this is perfect,” Rustom continued, “You’ll be in good hands with the Naorojis. Uncle Dadabhoy is now a Member of Parliament. You can talk politics to him all day, and he wouldn’t mind. I’m sure Khurshed will be thrilled to take you shopping in Paris and Milan. And Perin and you can get up on the soapboxes at Hyde Park and give passionate speeches, and you’ll have a captive audience…”
“Rusi—” Bhickoo said. She just wanted him to stop.
“Uh,” Rustom said, “And the cool, fresh air will heal you, and you’ll be as good as new!”
“Rusi,” Bhicko said again. She really wanted him to stop.
Rustom however looked expectantly at her, waiting for her to scold him. It might take a while longer to stop pretending in private that their marriage was done. They would have to pretend in public until one of them, likely him, died.
Instead, she wrapped him in a tight embrace and kissed him, more than they had shared in the last five years.
As shocking as it was how readily he had agreed, this was the best thing she could have prayed for.
“Thank you,” Bhickoo said, kissing him again, savoring every bit of their last kiss together.
Thank you so much for reading! I rather enjoyed writing this chapter. There’s so little about what Madame Cama was like as a person, and I hope I’ve done some kind of justice to the person she was.
Two things I wonder about here - For those familiar with Mumbai, does how I talk about the city, and the locations I mention, does any of that break immersion? Does anything make you say “No, that’s not right!”? I’d like to fix that.
And I’m not very familiar with Zoroastrianism… If you are, please tell me how I can bring this faith alive in this chapter. Given her family was very devout, there ought to be more piety and religiosity interweaved in the story!
As always, please share this with friends and family who would like to read this.