A Sister's Promise (13 page)

I cannot help the rush of blood rouging my face. ‘I . . .’

‘Just joking, Sharda,’ he grins. His eyes, the ochre of the sun at twilight, gleam at me.

‘Why does he send you to this small school when you can go to the best school in Dhoompur?’ I have always wondered about this.

‘Oh,’ he frowns. ‘According to him this will teach me how to deal with the common man, which he says will stand me in good stead when I am older.’ He leans closer to me, and I breathe in the musky tang of his sweat, ‘I think he sends me here because it’s free. He does not like spending money, my da, despite the fact that he has more than most.’

I nod, not knowing what to say, running my thumb over the chocolate, wondering if it will taste as deliciously sweet as I have fantasized.

‘Can you teach me profit and loss as well in the break?’ he asks.

‘Of course,’ I smile even as I wonder why he is singling me out.

Tutoring Gopi in maths soon becomes a regular event.

One day, I gather up the courage to ask, ‘Why don’t you get Shimy to teach you? She is bright as well.’

He grins at me, his eyes glowing. Is that fondness I see in his gaze? ‘I like you teaching me. You are an enigma, Sharda. So bright and yet so strangely innocent. So clever and yet so vulnerable.’

His words warm me like a tumbler of hot barley spiced with nutmeg and tart with lemon.

I think I know why he gravitates to me. It is because I do not fawn over him like the other girls. I am not coy with him, blushing and smirking and playing games.

I treat him as an equal, something he’s not used to, with everyone always looking up to him, boys and girls alike. I do not give in to his charm, or bend over backwards to please him. I teach him, but do not indulge him. I take care never to be alone with him. I try not to get too close, and only help him with his maths at lunch time, in full view of all my classmates. I am very protective of my reputation, which is, as you have told me often enough, Ma, my ‘most important asset’.

And yet, in the nights, after I have finished studying, after I have blown out the candle and settled down to sleep beside you and Puja, it is a boy with shining eyes whom I see flickering before my closed eyes. It is his face that eases me into sleep, his face inhabiting my dreams.

Puja must sense something, for she asks me, one day, out of the blue, ‘Have you ever been in love?’

Have I said his name in my sleep?
I wonder.
Why am I beginning to care for him, of all people?
I worry.

Gopi embodies the very opposite of all the qualities I admire and hold dear. He is brash, cocky, someone who disregards rules just as much as I value them. And yet, every so often a chink of vulnerability perforates his smug exterior.

‘Do you like me, Sharda?’ he had asked just the previous day.

I laughed, making sure to keep my eyes on the ground, where I was teaching him the basics of algebra.

‘I do, I suppose,’ I said after a pause during which I pretended to consider his question.

I looked up just in time to see his face fall briefly, a puzzled little boy appearing through the veneer of bravado, before he righted it and laughed, saying, ‘You tease.’

I do not want to be one of his conquests. I have seen the way he treats the girls who shadow him, who hang on his every word. I would much rather have the respect he affords me. But that look lodged right in my heart, and it blossomed—a ruby bloom unfurling.

‘Answer me, Sharda, have you been in love? In fact, are you in love right now?’ Puja asks, and her voice is as insistent as the Muslim call for prayer that blasts every sleeping body for miles around out of their slumber at daybreak.

Although Puja is lost in her own world much of the time, she is very perceptive and picks up on the slightest fluctuations in emotion. Puja, who doesn’t give a jot about her reputation and does exactly as she pleases. Puja, who you say, Ma, only half-joking, is the cause of your prematurely grey hair. Puja, who, from the moment she entered this world, a squalling infant, not breathing at first, captured Da’s heart, so he won’t hear a bad word about her, won’t see that she is, in fact, running wild.

You receive a visit from the village matrons every other day, Ma, with a blow-by-blow account of Puja’s transgressions.

‘She is growing up,’ they say, spitting slivers of chewed paan with each grave word, their eyes like puris. ‘She can’t go around doing what she likes any more. She is so beautiful, and you will get her married very easily, perhaps even for no dowry at all, but she needs to guard her reputation.’

When Puja swans home, clothes torn, hair dishevelled, you begin to admonish her, but she grabs your hands and dances you around the courtyard and when your head is spinning and you are breathless, she kisses your cheek and says, ‘Ma, I’m hungry, what lovely feast have you conjured up today?’

And you follow in her wake, smiling and sighing at the same time.

When Da gets home from work, you tell him about the matrons’ visit, urging him to intercede. ‘If you talk to Puja, she’ll listen.’

But Da only laughs, his eyes softening as he looks at his favourite child, ‘Oh she’s still a kid. She’ll grow out of it. Won’t you, lovey?’

The choicest endearments for Puja. Endearments Da has never used on me.

Puja throws her arms around Da, kisses his ear. ‘I was only playing, Da. The girls didn’t want to play lagori, so I asked the boys.’

‘She’s only little. Why can’t those witches mind their own business?’ Da grumbles then.

You sigh, Ma. ‘She’s growing up,’ you say, unintentionally echoing the matrons.

‘If it was me doing that, you would be cross, Da,’ I say.

‘Oh but, Sharda, you wouldn’t dare,’ Puja says, laughter bursting out of her
—
a starry shower.

Now, I look up from the book I am pretending to read, adjusting my glasses
—
the ones with the rectangular, too-large frames, which Puja says do not do my face any favours, but which are the only ones you and Da can afford, Ma.

‘Why do you ask?’ I query, closing my book after carefully marking the page with a sliver of blue cotton torn from your old sari.

Puja clicks her tongue, and swipes at a mosquito alighting on her arm. It squishes in a splat of blood.
‘Oh, why can’t you just answer my question for God’s sake! Are you in love?’

In the winking light of the lamp, her eyes are radiant, her skin glows gold and she looks even lovelier than usual.

‘Love. It is not for the likes of us,’ I say, finally, and push thoughts of Gopi firmly away. I mean it too. Gopi might intrude into my thoughts, but I know I will one day marry the man you and Da choose for me, Ma, as is my duty. ‘Love is an indulgence only city girls can afford.’

‘Who says so?’ Puja scoffs.

From the kitchen wafts the sound of sizzling onions, and the smoky, slightly burnt smell of frying spices. You are cooking dinner, Ma. Da is washing himself in the lean-to. He is murdering a Kannada film song in his tuneless voice, snatches of which drift up to us. The dog flops in his habitual place, head on the kitchen stoop, long ears flapping, looking at you with mournful eyes, hoping you’ll lob a crumb his way.

‘Love causes havoc, Puja, tears a family apart. Remember when Sampa ran away with the butcher’s son?’

Puja scrunches her face.

‘You must have been too young to remember. Oh the scandal it caused! Sampa’s mother committed suicide. She could not take the ignominy, the stain of disrepute.’

‘Pah,’ Puja mutters, looking disgusted. ‘She obviously did not value her life enough.’

‘Look at every woman in the village. Their husbands have been chosen for them. None of them have married for love. It is just not done,’ I say, watching the play of shadows on the wall.

‘That is why they always have their nose in other people’s business, especially mine. They are forever trying to escape the depressing reality of their lives, their bullies of husbands . . .’ Puja’s voice is steeped with a bitterness I have not heard until now.

I look at her, curious. Where is this coming from?

‘Look at Ma and Da,’ I try. ‘They only met properly on their wedding day. They’re happy aren’t they?’

Dusk has fallen outside and a soft breeze is rustling the aboli bushes. Now the smell of rising dough and boiling potatoes assaults my nose, making my stomach growl.

‘Oh Sharda, there’s no point talking to you. All you care about is doing your duty,’ Puja huffs, saying the word
duty
as if it is something to be abhorred. ‘And studying.’

Despite her obvious disgust, I decide that this is as good an opportunity as ever to expound the benefits of an education, as you are always urging me to do, Ma.

‘Please talk to Puja,’ you have begged, ‘If you do, Sharda, she’ll listen, perhaps.’

‘A good education is important, Puja. Why do you think Da and Ma send us to school even though it would be easier if they took us out and put us to work like half the children of the village? They can’t afford a huge dowry and if we have a good education, we’ll get good husbands.’ I parrot the words you have recited a thousand times, Ma, hoping Puja will take heed this time.

‘I will find my own husband thank you very much,’ she snaps, her rust coloured eyes flashing.

I take Puja’s hand in mine. Her palm is warm and slightly moist. ‘Puja, you are so bright but you don’t apply yourself. If you only . . . ’

‘Huh, stop lecturing me . . . First Sister Seema and now you.’

‘Oh, she’s given you
that
lecture, has she?’

Puja rolls her eyes, meeting my gaze and we laugh together, tiff forgotten, recalling how all of us girls were herded outdoors, one class at a time, far from the boys, to the middle of the fields with only the languid cows and the singing stream, whispering coconut trees, and a gaggle of crows for company.

‘You are growing up,’ Sister Seema had squawked self-importantly piercing each of us with her prickly gaze. ‘You will have thoughts about boys, and be tempted to sin with them. I have seen the looks some of you girls give the boys, as if inviting them to have their way with you. It is wrong. Forget about touching boys, even entertaining lustful thoughts about them is a sin. Banish wicked thoughts. You have to save yourselves for your husbands. It is your duty to keep yourselves pure.’ Her vinegary voice had risen with each pompous word. ‘Beware. Boys are not to be trusted. They will befriend you, bring your guard down and then try to steal your honour. Remember that your reputation is the most important jewel you own, more precious than all the gold your parents are setting aside for your dowry. Don’t treat it lightly. Think of God when you are tempted to sin. He is watching your every move, keeping tabs on your immoral thoughts.’

Now, Puja says, chuckling, ‘I asked Sister Seema who she was saving
her
reputation and honour for. You should have seen her face. She looked like she was choking on a frog she had accidentally swallowed!’

I start to snigger uncontrollably, as I imagine Sister Seema’s gobsmacked face. Puja and I roll around the floor. Our laughter, like pealing bells, makes the dog bark, and ladle in hand, you come out of the kitchen, Ma, smelling of spices, with sweat from the cooking fumes beading your face, to ask us what in the world is so funny.

And just at that moment we overturn the lamp—oil spilling, the reek of kerosene, the stench of burning and the startled jitters of shock as our clothes catch fire—and if it had not been for Puja extinguishing the flames with her fingers and burning herself in the process, (I see her flinch and her fingers blaze red), our hut would have gone up in flames taking us with it.

A premonition, Ma, of what was to come. A dark, smoke-flavoured cloud to douse our mirth.

RAJ

A SPLASH OF VIBRANT COLOUR

‘Mum, I cannot believe you let those poor temple-goers get their feet scorched!’ Raj says, looking quizzically at his mother, trying to find in this woman, whose face he has searched for clues that she loves him, this woman he has loathed for what he believes is her neglect of him, that little girl who was loved by an entire village; the minx who hid devotees’ shoes.