Hilda

“I once had a sweet little doll, dears,

The prettiest doll in the world;

Her cheeks were so red and so white; dears,

And her hair was so charmingly curled.”

When I was five I really wanted a big doll. As a rule, I wasn’t a child who really wanted things. I was quiet, obedient and shy. Also, where we lived, there was nothing to want. It was a dusty small town where family outings were walks to the vegetable market. On a typical evening out, I would be perfectly happy if we came back with a bunch of bananas. So why I wanted a big doll, why I deeply yearned and pined for it, and why it became my heart’s desire is a complete mystery.

The dolls we had in the sixties were made of light, deformable plastic and had strung limbs and molded hair. Their eyes and lashes were painted open. If you were very lucky you could get one with hair that was tied up in a ponytail, hair that you could undo and brush. I had seen magical dolls that shut their eyes when you laid them down, large beautiful expensive dolls with firm dimpled limbs and real-looking countable toes inside shoes that could be removed, even dolls that said “mama” and walked when you pulled a string or pushed a button. But that was not the kind of doll I wanted. Those dolls were out of our reach and I knew it. I just wanted a bigger version of the inflated ones with painted-on permanently open eyes. I just wanted it to be big enough so that I could pick it up and cradle it like a real baby.

My mother miraculously said yes she would buy me a big doll when we went to Calcutta to visit my grandparents. Our days, when we got to Calcutta, passed pleasantly enough but there was no mention of a doll. One day we went to visit a sweet and gracious lady, a friend of my mother’s. While she and my mom chatted in low voices, I played at their feet with a doll she kept to entertain visiting children. She was one of those large exquisite dolls but she didn’t say mama or walk at the push of a button. If you held her right hand and moved it forward, she put forward her left leg. She was better than the automatic dolls with stilted steps, she held your hand and walked naturally. After an enjoyable couple of hours we were ready to leave and I was ready to hand the doll back when that very lovely lady gave me a huge shock, she asked me to keep the doll. Keep it as in take it home and sleep with it and play with it every day and have it forever!

I named her Hilda after a character in a book I was reading in school. She was as big as a real baby. In fact, when she went out cradled in my arms with her curly brown head popping up over my shoulder, there were people who momentarily thought she was real. My aunt who made my dresses always saved a bit of material to make a matching dress for Hilda. She made doll-sized bedclothes for Hilda too. Everybody agreed that Hilda was the most beautiful doll in the world. My little neighbor from upstairs who used to stand in the doorway every morning asking to play with Hilda, looking like a doll herself with her freshly-bathed dark curls and rosebud lips, thought so. So did all the hundreds of children that played with her in our house over the years.

I’m an atheist and not the most cheerful person in the world. Melancholy is an old, valued friend. Everyday, in the comfort of my study, I bemoan the state of the world and my part in its undoing. But somewhere, deep down, optimism springs eternal; I have an unshakeable crazy belief that whatever I truly desire will come true, that everything will always be alright in the end. It’s all because of Hilda.