But I didn’t.
“Who are you?” the secretary asked in English.
When Amma and I just looked at each other, not knowing what to say, the woman repeated it in broken Kannada, “Neevu yaaru?”
“We are friends of Mrs. Vimala Rao,” I blurted out in English, just so she knew we understood.
Amma looked surprise for a split second, but then her face went blank. “That’s right,” she said, in Kannada.
“You are friends with Vimala Rao?” the secretary asked. She was speaking Kannada too, but you could tell that she wasn’t used to it – like she only used it when she was ordering people around, like her cook or the school ayah. “Vimala Rao the famous advocate?”
“Yes madam,” I said, making my eyes look wide and innocent. “She’s like a mother to me.”
Okay, maybe that was a bit much.
You probably don’t approve, Mrs. Naidu. But (no offense or anything), you probably never have to do anything to get someone to talk to you properly. I mean, if you wanted to speak to someone powerful, you could just say you were friends with Gandhiji. Who wouldn’t want to talk to someone who was friends with Gandhiji?
Actually, you probably didn’t even have to say that. You could just say you were Mrs. Sarojini Naidu, poetess, freedom fighter and former president of the Congress Party.
But Amma and I, we’re not poetesses or presidents. We’re just fighters.
At least, Amma is a fighter. I haven’t decided what I am yet.
“Please Madam,” Amma said, “can we see the headmistress?”
“What is this vital business that requires Madam’s attention?” the secretary asked.
“We’re here about the 25% reservations,” I said in my most lawyerly voice.
The woman’s eyebrows went up even further and her lips tightened.
“I’m from the economically weaker sections – see,” I said, taking the pile of forms in Amma’s hands and showing the secretary. “This is our BPL card. And our income certificate.”
I was still trying to sound lawyerly, but I don’t think lawyers’ voices usually shake like mine did.
The woman held up her hand and smiled.
It was not the kind of smile that makes you feel better.
It was the kind of cold, rocky smile that tells you that you’ve just fallen into a trap that you set yourself.
“You’re in, what?” she asked, “fifth standard?”
“Sixth,” I said.
“Well,” she said, crossing her arms and leaning backward, like she had just won something, “let me say this to you in plain language, so I’m sure you’ll understand.”
I felt Amma flinch. Under the table, I took her hand and squeezed it, hoping that would short circuit the lasers in her eyes.
“Here in Karnataka, RTE seats are for pre-nursery students only,” the secretary said.
I looked at Amma and she looked at me. Annie Miss hadn’t said anything like this, so I wasn’t sure if it was true. But I didn’t have proof either way, so I didn’t say anything.
The secretary must’ve known, because she saw my face, and her smile glittered even more. “Sometimes we have extra seats in upper grades. Unfortunately I’m not sure that you would be eligible for them.”
“Madam, my daughter’s education is the most important thing in my life,” Amma said. “Tell me what to do and I will do it.”
“You see, the seats here at Greenhill are very much in demand,” the secretary said, laughing breathily. “Securing a seat here requires… sacrifice.”
She took out a piece of paper, wrote something down, folded it, and passed it to Amma, who picked it up before I could see it.
“Madam, we know that the fees are very expensive,” I said, as my mother unfolded the paper. “That’s why we came about the reservations.”
“I’ve seen many income certificates like this,” the secretary said, ignoring me. “Most have cost the families several thousand rupees. Hardly any are accurate.”
“What?” I asked.
Did she think we had made up Amma’s income?
Why would anyone pretend to be poor when everyone knows it’s better to be rich?
And what was on the piece of paper that Amma was now putting into her purse?
“Madam,” my mother said, leaning across the desk. “Do you have children?” I saw the secretary’s smile fade as Amma reached across the desk and took her hand. “I’m sure you do, and I’m sure you want the best for them. I’m sure you also want them to value honesty.”
The secretary looked at Amma’s rough, brown hand on top of her soft, fair one.
“At this time, Greenhill will not be able to offer your daughter a seat,” she said, pulling away. She opened her drawer and picked up something that smelled like Dettol, and made a big show of rubbing it on her hands.
Amma had that look that she gets just before she tells off the corporation people who ignore our water problems or the men that come home drunk and wake everyone up or the boys who used to beat up Amir.
It was the look that she gets just before she says exactly what she needs to say to win a fight.
I waited, Mrs. Naidu, because I was sure that she would find the right words. She always finds the right words. Remember, I told you?
But this time, she didn’t find the right words. She didn’t use her laser eyes. She just stood up, and said, “Thank you for your time.”
“Of course,” the secretary answered.
That glittery smile.
Amma took my hand, and we left.
Or, actually, Amma took my hand and dragged me out of the school and out to the street and kept walking.
“Amma, what happened? Why didn’t you say anything? Why did she think we were lying about our income certificate? Why are we walking when the bus is right there?”
You can tell how upset I was by the number of times I broke my no-questions-to-adults rule.
Amma only seemed to hear the last question, because she said, “I need some fresh air.”
In Bangalore, the air is never fresh – especially on the main road. The world is never green and blue and the trees are never full of fruit and the frogs and the crickets are never louder than the traffic.
Today, though, one thing was louder than the traffic.
Above the screeching tyres and the honking horns and the mooing cows and the revving motorcycles, I could hear the sound of Amma’s heavy, angry breathing.
Mrs. Naidu, do you know what it feels like to hear your mother, who always has something say, being the kind of silent that is louder than words?
Do you know how it feels to know that you are the reason for it?
By the time we got home, it was almost dark. I swept the floor and Amma sat down to make dinner. After giving her a few minutes to take out her anger on the onions she was chopping – or, actually, slashing into tiny pieces – I said, “Amma, I’m sorry.”
I thought those were the right words. But they weren’t.
Amma turned to me and asked, “What for?”
Wasn’t it obvious?
“I’m sorry I made you go there and talk to that woman,” I said. “I’m sorry I tried to leave my school. It’s fine. My school is fine. I shouldn’t have wanted to change.”
My mother took a deep breath, and I thought she was going to scream. Instead, she spoke in a low voice, a voice that was calm the way a pot of water is just before it boils – smooth on the surface, but steaming like it was about to bubble and roll.
“Never apologize for wanting something,” she said. “Just find another way.”
Mrs. Naidu, it seems like what you wanted more than anything was freedom for India. And thank you for wanting that, because you got what you wanted, and because of that I am free.
But did you ever hurt someone you loved because of what you wanted?
Right now, wanting
something doesn’t feel so great.
Maybe it’s better not to want anything at all.
All the best,
Sarojini
July 9, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
Before I read this book about you, I never knew how much you travelled. You went to cities that I don’t even know how to pronounce – Cincinnati, Aden, Dar es Salaam, Nairobi, Chicago. And it seems like in all of these cities, you got to meet a lot of people at speeches and dinners and meetings about political issues. Some of those people became your friends.
When you went back home, did you wonder if you would ever see those friends again?
Did you ever think about the friends you were leaving behind?
Even though the place I live is not a faraway country, it is a place where people leave all the time. Like my friend Madhumita, who taught me how to play gili danda in Class Two. She left because her Appa started drinking so her Amma took her back to their village to get away.
Or like my neighbour, Yashoda, who used to plait my hair in the mornings and walk me to school when Amma had to leave for work early. She left because she got married and moved to the neighbourhood where her husband lived.
Or like my Appa, who disappeared when I was a baby. I don’t know why he left. He just did.
Amir and his family weren’t like that.
Amir and his family were supposed to stay.
But they didn’t.
I saw Amir yesterday at pretty much the worst possible time. The water truck had just come and I was filling up some plastic drums and hauling them back home.
(Amma started at two new houses, and so now I have to get the water every day, instead of just sometimes. When it comes to fetching the water, ‘sometimes’ is better than ‘always’.)
I ended up standing next to Hema Aunty, who normally talks to the other aunties, but today she decided to talk to me.
“Who was that girl I saw you with the other day?” Hema Aunty asked me. “That dirty little thing without shoes.” She said it extra loudly, and Nimisha Aunty, who was standing behind her, started giggling.
“Deepti’s not dirty, Aunty,” I said. “She bathes every day at the construction site.”
“She lives at the construction site?” Hema Aunty clicked her teeth and shook her head. “Don’t associate with her, darling. You’re such a nice girl. You know how those construction people are. They come from these backwards places with their backwards ideas. Your Deepti will be married with three children in a year.”
That made me angry, Mrs. Naidu, because even though I’ve barely even spoken to Deepti, I don’t think she’s like that. But I couldn’t be too angry, because when I first met Deepti, I thought those same things. Now that I see her in class every day, though, I can tell that she’s smart, and that she’s not mean or impolite or anything. She’s just what my Amma would call a little bit ‘rough and ready.’
So instead of telling Hema Aunty she was wrong, which I probably should’ve done, I said, “I should go before I’m late for school, Aunty.”
“Hmmph,” Hema Aunty snorted. As I was leaving, she turned to Nimisha Aunty and said, “Bad enough she was always with that Muslim boy. Now this. But what do you expect from a girl with no father?”
After I heard that, I had trouble keeping my balance, partly because my eyes were misty and my stomach was tight, and partly because the drum was so heavy and the ground was so wet from last night’s rains.
Right at that moment, Amir came up on his bicycle, which was new, wearing his fancy uniform, which was also new.
Like I said, pretty much the worst possible time.
“Hey, Saru,” he said, parking his bike.
“Hi Amir,” I said, putting the drum down. (Which, by the way, everyone knows you should never do, because then you have to squeeze your feet into the mud and bend your knees and arch your back and pick the whole heavy thing back up again.)
“Want me to get that?” he asked.
“No thanks,” I said, looking at the stiff collar of his shirt and the pleats in his pants and thinking that the fastest way to Greenhill was definitely not through our neighbourhood.
“But aren’t you going to be late?” he asked.
I shrugged. Wanting to change the subject, I asked, “How’s school?”
“It’s okay,” he said. “We have this cricket field and all new equipment. Plus we have art class and I’m learning how to paint.”
“That’s good,” I said. But only because I didn’t know what else to say.
“How’s our – um, how’s Ambedkar School?”
“There’s a new teacher and she started this Child Rights Club,” I said.
“Are you going so you don’t have to go to Vimala Madam’s house?”
“Actually, yes,” I said, laughing. He laughed too.
“Hey, this is for you,” Amir said, and handed me a heavy-ish plastic bag.
I looked inside. Then I looked at Amir.
“It’s a backpack full of school supplies,” he said. “There’s those pencils you like – the red kind with the stripes? Plus there’s chart paper and everything.”
“Why does it have your brother’s company name on it?” I asked, looking at the logo on the front.
“They were doing donations for government school students,” Amir said. “And you’re a government school student, so, I thought maybe…”
Mrs. Naidu, I should’ve been grateful. Amma and I never have enough money for all the supplies I need, and normally I buy whatever I can and then get the rest from school, even though I know the teachers buy the ‘extra supplies’ for us with their own money. Amir knew it was hard for us, and he was just trying to help me.
But do you know how it feels to have your best friend remind you that you go to a government school and he doesn’t?
Do you know how it feels to have him ride up on his shiny new bicycle with his shiny new uniform and hand you a donation from a charity while you’re standing in an extremely un-shiny, un-new nightie with mud on your bare feet?
No matter how I was feeling, I still had to get the drum of water home before I changed into my uniform and plaited my hair and went to my government school that didn’t have any sports equipment or cricket fields or art rooms. I took the cover off and put the new backpack on my shoulders and then I stretched my arms a little bit and bent my knees and hitched the drum up on my hip. My whole body ached.
I guess he could see how hard it was for me, because he said, “Why don’t I carry that for you, Saru?”
And then he said, “It’ll be just like the old days.”
That was what did it, Mrs. Naidu. More than the bicycle or the bag or anything else.
It was like Amir was drawing a line in our friendship and separating it into two halves.
There was our old friendship, when we were equal – so equal that we shared the same roof. And then there was this new friendship which, lately, didn’t seem like a friendship at all.
So I said, “I don’t need help.”
And then I added, “Not from you.”
Mrs. Naidu, you know that expression they use in books a lot, the one that goes, “he looked like he’d just been slapped”?
Well, this isn’t something I like to talk about, but I’ve seen Amir after he’s just been slapped.
I know what he looks like.
And Mrs. Naidu, when I said those things to Amir, those things I shouldn’t have said? The look on his face was so, so, much worse.
I probably could’ve apologized, taken it back. But I was so mad, Mrs. Naidu, so mad about everything.
About having to carry water through the unpaved alleyways.
About having to change into my scratchy, thin uniform.
About being the kind of person who might not be poor enough to go to Greenhill Public as a reservations student, but is definitely poor enough to lose a b
est friend.
So instead of apologizing, I turned around and left.
So I wouldn’t have to see how much I hurt my friend.
So he wouldn’t have to see how much he hurt me.
So both of us wouldn’t have to admit that when Amir moved away, he left more than just a tin roof behind.
All the best,
Sarojini
July 11, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
I know I said I was done wanting things. But no matter how hard I try, Mrs. Naidu, the wanting keeps coming back.
When I walk across Ambedkar’s pebbly compound I wish I was walking through Greenhill’s shiny tiled hallways. When I sit on the floor in my classroom I wish I was sitting at the rows of desks and benches at Greenhill with cubbyholes where you could store notebooks and pencils. When my teacher passes out the same story books we’ve been reading over and over again since Class Three I wish I could choose something from the stuffed shelves in the Greenhill library.
Then, on top of all of that, when I was leaving this afternoon, Annie Miss stopped me.
“Come, Sarojini. We have Child Rights Club,” she said.
I was about to make an excuse, but then I remembered that if I didn’t stay, I’d have to go to Vimala Madam’s house.
So I shrugged and followed Miss out of the grey July breeze and into the stuffy classroom where the air was thick and still because the power had gone and the fan hadn’t run all day.
I bet Greenhill has a generator.
“Welcome everyone,” Miss said. I looked around. By ‘everyone’ she meant five of us – which, to be fair, was two more than last time, so I guess it was kind of an improvement.
“Miss, biscuits?” Roshan asked from the back of the room.
“Not today, Roshan,” Miss said.
Roshan and his two friends left, so it was just me and Deepti. Which was one less than last time.
I started to feel bad for Miss, until I remembered what she had done to me. Not on purpose, but still.
“Sarojini, you raised some good questions during our last meeting,” Miss said, opening her bag.
Dear Mrs. Naidu Page 4