I had a dream.
I saw a face.
Then you were born.
I looked at your face and knew that was the face in my dream.
I promised my Lord I would keep you close to my heart.
Time passed and you grew in front of my eyes.
Sometimes I failed to understand you and we cried.
Sometimes you ran into my arms and we laughed!
You grew into a young woman, with beauty that dazzled my eyes.
You wanted to fly.
I wanted to be a strong, modern mother, so I encouraged you.
To tell you the truth, I dreaded your independence.

I was born in a small town in India called Hazaribagh, which means “a thousand tigers.” Although the town was small, the families were big. My grandmother lived with us. She was tiny, but she held a large space in our lives. Everybody respected her. In our family there was a lot of talk about how strong she was spiritually and how she could see the future. I was convinced that whatever she said was the truth. One thing she often said was that the power of love is beyond measure. I grew up hearing “love can conquer anything.”

By the time I was seventeen years of age everyone was talking about my arranged marriage and showing me my would-be husband’s picture, I remember thinking, This is the man I have to love. By the time I was married, I thought I was in love — with a man I hardly knew. I cannot tell whether I was in love, or in love with the idea of love.

I was the only daughter so my parents wanted a big wedding for me. All my cousins and aunts and uncles came and brought me saris and beautiful gold jewellery. I felt like a princess — special. I could say or do anything. Everyone said how lucky I was that I had someone to love besides Mummy and Daddy.

After our wedding, my husband left India for studies in England. When he finished, he was invited to teach in Canada, so he wrote and asked my father to send me to join him. I asked Daddy not to do that. I pleaded with him. So many emotions were crowding my mind — on one hand I was like Radha going to meet her lover Krishna; on the other, I felt like I was being banished. I knew I was going far away and would not see my parents for a long time. How was it that my father, who always said “I love you my darling girl”could survive without me? That was when I wondered if love was an emotion parents had to stop feeling when a daughter got married.

With all these emotions, I left for Montreal. It was a horribly long journey and I was frightened most of the time. I didn’t understand what anyone was saying in English; everything seemed strange, so I just slept. As we were getting ready to land in Canada, I wondered if I would recognize my husband, for I had not seen him in three years. When I stepped off the plane it was late on a cold winter night and I was exhausted. And there was my husband — a recognizable stranger. As we left the airport in a taxi, I saw something floating around in the air outside and thought, This must be dust; what a dirty city! The next morning when I woke up, I looked through the window and I was stunned: I had never seen so much snow in my life. I said to myself, I must love him. Otherwise I could not have undertaken this journey. My grandmother was right, love must conquer everything.

That idea of love stayed with me until you were born. When I saw your face, the love I felt cannot be described. I recognized how my mother felt when I left her. Every time the nurse took you away from me, I felt empty and lost. All I wanted to do was hold you.

You were so tiny and every time you laughed, your nose would crinkle. When your brother was born, four years later, you behaved as if you were his mother and copied everything I was doing. My life as a mother was going beautifully.

My life with my husband was not going as well. We were such different people. I liked to daydream and he was always worried about the practicalities of life. Although we were so far from our families in India, our life was tangled up in his family’s well-being. As the eldest son of a large family who depended on him, my husband had to send money home every month, on top of what had to be sent for weddings, sickness or death. He took his responsibilities seriously. I admired him for that, but it was hard on our family.

I had studied classical dance in India and I was determined to keep my dancing alive. At the beginning of my life with him, he treated my dancing as a hobby. Sometimes I would get an invitation to perform and he would undermine my efforts: he would have an important meeting to attend that same day. I realized that he would never see me as anything other than his wife and the mother of his children. This became so hard on me emotionally that I withdrew from him. During this time all I could think about was surviving — one time I remember I wrote to my father, “Help me,” without explaining what help I needed. The truth is, I couldn’t explain. I was a wreck. My parents thought I had fallen in love with someone else. Sometimes I would go to India and stay away for a whole year. I felt so lonely.

“Love conquers everything…”

It did not.

When my daughter was about seven, and my son, three, I put my energy into learning about politics, about how to decorate my home and garden, and about women’s rights. I wanted to change my thinking from subservience to independence. I wanted to be my own person. I was changing quietly, opening my heart and mind and trying to balance the Eastern and Western cultures. Now I understand why: because I had a daughter and a son. It became very important to me that they knew the culture and ways of where I came from as well as the country and culture into which they were born. No doubt I was changing. I was watching my friends change too. They were also first-generation Canadians, having left most of their families in India. I could see that many of them were on the same journey I was — trying to find their feet in this new culture. Some were professional women who lived the traditional way at home with the husbands as the leaders in the families. When we got together I could see their growing social independence — how they spoke with a new confidence. So I was not unique in my circumstances; there was nothing so special about me.

But God was preparing me for something bigger than I could ever imagine.

One afternoon the phone rang.

I picked it up and my life changed.

It was mid-afternoon. Your father had come home to have lunch with me. Usually he never came home for lunch. That day he did. We were laughing and eating — you were studying in Montreal and had never called in the middle of the day. I heard your voice and I said, “Ah! What timing! Daddy is home too.”

For a minute there was no sound.

You said, “I am not feeling well.”

Quickly I said, “What happened?”

“I was raped.” In the same breath you asked me not to say anything to your daddy — that it would kill him. But my mind and my mouth were not coordinating. The sound came out...

Rape.

Your father looked at me, saw the terror in my eyes and fell to the floor. I sat with the phone and continued talking to you with a calm voice, but inside I was saying to myself, “Now he is dead. I have to be strong and bring her home.” The rest of the conversation I don’t remember. Before I put the phone down, I promised I would call you back. I started looking for the phone book so I could arrange your flight home and then, out of the corner of my eye, I saw your father moving. I thought, “I must do something for him.” But my mouth said, “Are you alright? Do you want your daughter back home?” In barely a whisper he said, “Yes. Call the airline, then call her.”

Everything was spinning away from me, my mind and heart were racing, and I felt that this sense of panic was never going to end. It didn’t until I saw you coming down from the plane. You looked so beautiful. I was smiling but my mind was searching for what to say.

All I needed to do was to hold you tight — and I did.

About two or three days after you came home, I dropped something and it made a huge noise. I heard you scream. I had never heard that kind of scream before in my whole life. I suddenly knew I had no knowledge or experience about what was going on in your mind and your heart. About six o’clock the same day I was exhausted and sitting on my bed. Suddenly I saw myself standing outside of myself, standing right in front of me saying, “ What can you do, you stupid! You will lose her if you don’t stand up and DO something.”

Now when I think about that experience, I feel as if I’m not telling the truth, but I know that’s what happened.

My struggle began. I am not very good at reading and writing English, but, although I was frightened, I knew I needed the knowledge found in books to help you. I realized that my faith in God would guide me. I couldn’t share what was happening to us with anybody because all my friends had daughters, and I felt that if they knew, they would lock up their daughters and never let them be free. I couldn’t bear that thought.

Every day you were getting sicker and sicker and I was getting more and more desperate to find the right way to help you. I went to every institute that had women in distress programs. I attended their meetings, I heard their stories and I felt even more depressed. One day a woman, whose name I do not remember, said that every one of us is different from one another. So our pains are also different. At that moment, I realized what I had to do for you.

I needed to be stronger than I had ever been. I needed to have another dream for you — one that was different from the first one.

I started seeing you with different eyes; you were no longer my little girl. Overnight you had grown up — your suffering had put you in a place where I had no knowledge of how to walk with you. I saw you struggle — how you would try to get up in the morning when there was no reason to. How you desperately wanted to tell me you were okay. You didn’t want to stay in this world. You didn’t even want to stay in your body. It was as if a fire was swallowing you. The only time you were calm was when I held you, whispering in your ear that it was okay. Sometimes you would push me away, tell me “Don’t make me stay in this world.” I would say, “Even if I want to, I can’t.” For fifteen years you fought to find your way back to my arms.

If that isn’t love, I don’t know what is.

Now I am old and new challenges are here for me. Life’s journey taught me and my husband how to become friends, although our paths were different. He travelled all over the world making money to take care of us, and I took care of our home and our children.

Today I face a new dilemma. My husband retired and then fell very sick. We recently found out that he has terminal cancer. I thought I could help him, could make him get better — that it was my job to make everybody in this family feel better. I had so much confidence in myself that whenever anybody called me and asked me how he was doing or how I was doing, I said to them, “We are just fine,” as if the problem didn’t exist. One day I was in a puppet workshop and I was looking at the puppets. I felt the puppets knew how phony I was. The tears started falling down and I couldn’t stop them. I was so confused. I tried to meditate, asking Him what He was trying to teach me.

I felt as though there was a hole in my heart. For three days I could not stop crying. One morning I was talking to my friend and we both realized that all my life I had tried to fix things, but this was something I could not fix. We talked on and I discovered even more about myself. I used to describe my relationship with my husband as an equal partnership — a friendship.

I never knew I loved him this much.

The hole in my heart became a fountain — one of love — that came out through my eyes. All anybody saw was tears.

Time has passed. He has been sick for over a year but he is still with us. We are all working to keep him at home. My husband was always very committed to his family. I can see now that my children have learned that quality from him. Their commitment towards him is untainted — full of love.

When he goes there will be a hole, but it won’t be dark anymore. When I look into his eyes I see peace. No more tears. Being with him day and night, I feel our journey together is complete.

Love conquers everything. Maybe that is the ultimate truth.

I can’t tell you until he leaves me.

Rubena Sinha is a dancer, choreographer and storyteller. She is a graduate of the West Bengal Academy of Dance, Drama and Music and has, for over twenty years, created many cross-cultural performances that reflect her training in South Asian and other dance forms, including Manipuri, Kathak, Odissi, Jazz, Ballet and Flamenco. Rubena began her training in dance theatre in India under the direction of Uday Shankar, and went on to be founder and Artistic Director of Winnipeg’s Fusion Dance Theatre. In 1994, during a sabbatical in India and Africa, she trained in the ancient puppetry traditions of Bengal. Since retiring from the Fusion Dance Theatre, Rubena has focused on solo storytelling development and performance, with appearances in Toronto, Winnipeg and Vancouver.

"I believe that the exploration of the cross-cultural scenario requires a common thread that binds all of us, and thereby we all tell one story. When that happens, fear of others disappears and we see each other as human beings, irrespective of caste, creed or colour. My aim is to find that thread and weave our stories through music, dance and theatre.”

Rubena currently lives in Toronto with her husband Snehesh. She has a son Debashis and a daughter Pamela, both professional artists. In this piece, she transfers her artistry to personal narrative.