Don't Wake Me: The Ballad Of Nihal Armstrong

Rahila Gupta

• Publisher: Oberon Books
• Year: 2019
• Print ISBN: 9781786827685
• eBook ISBN: 9781786827692
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Ethnic Studies
• Index: Social Sciences

Don't Wake Me: The Ballad Of Nihal Armstrong is the unforgettable true story of a mother and her disabled son; a dramatic and poetic testimony of one woman's tireless battles in the struggle for her son's rights. Translating the raw experience of motherhood into a powerful verse monologue, Rahila Gupta reveals the challenges, impediments and frustrations of being repeatedly misunderstood – and of battles won against all the odds.

DON’T WAKE ME:

THE BALLAD OF NIHAL ARMSTRONG

A dramatic monologue in verse

by Rahila Gupta

Scene I: Birth

Scene II: The early years

Scene III: Primary school

Scene IV: Secondary school

Scene V: The door shuts

SCENE I: BIRTH

A dramatic monologue in which Nihal’s mother tells him the story of his birth and life.

Scheherazade told endless stories

To keep herself alive.

From that ether of unborn souls,

My keen words too will strive

To tease you into existence

By sheer narrative drive.

In this post-industrial age with

The decline of the sperm,

Carcinogens and allergens,

My barrenness, a worm,

Made threadbare all my dreams of you

Budding one day to term.

Your dad and I were packed off home,

With a temperature chart,

And told to go on holiday

Where I rewrote Descartes –

I copulate, therefore I am.

Excess drove us apart.

Imagine my shock two years on:

One motile sperm had fused,

Its exploits traced by ultra-sound.

Tears met the doctor’s news.

All fairly typical so far,

Just my freedom to lose.

It was only in my eighth month

That the alarm bells rang.

My weight gave up its steady climb,

Despite your gran’s harangue:

Eat, eat, eat! Your kicking slacked off,

The future boomeranged.

Though the scan showed you small for dates

The doc wasn’t concerned,

Asian babies are often small.

Great, no need for heartburn!

There’d be time to grow. For two weeks,

Your birth would be adjourned.

I drank tons of raspberry tea.

I meant to bring you on.

Don’t feel that you were unwanted.

Tying and untying our bond

Has been the metre of our lives,

Knot of our liaison.*

But then the fateful Sunday dawned,

When you put out your call.

Couldn’t still my leaping stomach,

Cool my bloodshot eyeball.

I tried to keep my nerves on ice,

Hope has its own pitfalls.

By five the midwife called me in.

Drove past where I was born,

Neat circle that broke through my pain

But made your father yawn.

She, who had given birth to me,

She was long dead and gone.

By six, strapped to a monitor

That tracked your quiescent heart.

A midwife dug her vicious hand

Deep – with my legs apart.

My thighs quivered like thin jelly

She smiled: that’s just the start.

At seven, I talked to a woman

From my pre-natal class.

A tornado convulsed through me –

Full belly to my arse.

Doubled me up, the pain turning

My eyes to frosted glass.

It’s coming, it’s coming! your dad

Rushed to find the midwife.

Cold-eyed, she sighed, many hours yet

To the birth of new life!

My patience for a bed, I cried.

Please, she said, no more strife.

She found us a white room and bed,

Which felt just like heaven,

Until the cyclone hit again.

Your dad, at his wit’s end,

Sat down and read The Sunday Times,

Hoping you’d come by ten.

I broke my promise to lie low.

My lunch surged up at eight,

Graced the floor like a late Monet.

Dad found a bowl too late,

He searched the lonely corridors

For Her whose dawdling sealed my fate.

It’s too early for air and gas.

D’you know the pain I’m in?

I know my job, thanks, says the shark.

She has blood on her fin.

Here’s a couple of headache pills,

Help you float with a grin.

At nine, the shark came in unasked,

And felt my heaving mound.

Heeding my appeals at long last,

Her tense hands scooted round.

Fear pulsed like a live current when

She ran without a sound.

Before my lungs let go again,

She was back – monitor

And medical student in tow.

I’ll insert a catheter,

The foetal heartbeat must be found.

You! Go get the doctor!

The doctor b...

Table of contents

• Front Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• ‘The Magnitude of Mothertext’ Deirdre Osborne
• Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong
• Don’t Wake Me: The Ballad of Nihal Armstrong (Abridged version)
• ‘The Great Unmentionable in Disability Politics’ Rahila Gupta
• ‘Pressure to be Cheerful’ Rahila Gupta
• Works Cited and Indicative Further Reading