Tamarind Mem (35 page)
Authors: Anita Rau Badami
Tags: #Performing Arts, #Family, #Storytelling, #East Indians, #India, #Fiction, #Literary, #Canadian Fiction, #Mothers and Daughters, #General, #Women
Dawn seeps into the compartment like pale grey milk. I roll up my bedding and buckle it tight, shake out my old Pashmeena shawl, fold it and place it in my suitcase. It won’t be needed in Nagpur. Lock the suitcase, slide open the door gently so as not to disturb Latha, and Sohaila, and Hameeda the teacher, and sway down the corridor to the washroom. Soon-soon Nagpur will arrive in a warm, steaming puff of noise and colour. If my companions are awake, I will smile farewell. Otherwise, I shall slip away, leaving them with memories of an old story-teller, a weaver of myths.
VINTAGE CANADA EDITION, 2004
Copyright © 1996 Anita Rau Badami
All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer, who may quote brief passages in a review.
Published by Vintage Canada, a division of Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto, in 2004. Distributed by Random House of Canada Limited, Toronto. First published in Canada by Viking Penguin Group (Canada) in 1996.
Vintage Canada and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House of Canada Limited.
Publisher’s note: This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
National Library of Canada Cataloguing in Publication
Badami, Anita Rau, 1961–
Tamarind mem / Anita Rau Badami.
eISBN: 978-0-307-37530-8
I. Title.
PR9499.3.B18T34 2004 823.′914 C2003–905689–9
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