Their Permanent son
Priyanka Singh

My Temporary Son
by Timeri N. Murari. Penguin. Pages 231. Rs 250.

Not everyone has it in him to adopt a child and treat the child as one would one’s own. But people capable of such love do exist and make up for a miniscule fraction of the world. Tim Murari’s personal experiences bring these peripheral people in focus.

Up until such time that Bhima, an abandoned baby with vesical extrophy (a state when the bladder is outside the body) came into Tim’s life, his world was systematic with little room for deep emotions. Tim has been a journalist with the Guardian and has written novels, screenplays and stage plays. His film, The Square Circle, made it to Time’s list of 10 best films. With so much happening in his life, Tim could not have been bothered by his wife’s efforts to bring home Bhima for better care after a corrective surgery.

Tim wasn’t new to having babies in his huge ancestral Madras home as his wife, associated with the Overseas Women’s Club, would often get orphanage babies, signed up for adoption, to their house before they would leave for their respective homes abroad.

In Bhima’s case, it turned out to be a bonding he wasn’t quite ready for. Tim says: "I was a contented elderly man, not looking to be immersed in any emotional cauldrons...and then, unexpectedly, Bhima came along, skewing all my calculations."

Used to constant pain and alien to a tender touch, Bhima gradually learns to love and trust Tim and Maureen. His sparing but gentle kisses change Tim who, perhaps for the first time in his life, regrets being at the wrong side of 60. His longing to adopt Bhima leaves him restless and in the 11 months that the little boy is with them, Tim fears his home and life would never be the same. Bhima’s impending adoption by a European couple looms large and with it grows his desperation to keep his "temporary son."

Childless himself, Tim bares his heart and one knows why he chose to write this novel— to let his feelings flow unhindered; they needed expression. Tim reaches the pinnacle of pain on his parting with Bhima. How he tries to adapt to the vacuum and his subsequent visit to Bhima’s new home makes up for the latter part of the book.

That it is an exceptional and an emotional book goes without saying, but what it does to you is worse. It leaves you with a feeling of being an inferior human. There are people, including foreigners, who eagerly adopt babies with deformities or those with special needs and give them utmost love and a comfortable home. Our own insufficiencies show up sharper in contrast.

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