Dear Mrs. Naidu

by Mathangi Subramanian

  I needed courage then, Mrs. Naidu. So you know what I did?

  I thought of how Amir might need help in English.

  I thought of how Deepti was so smart but kept switching schools.

  I thought of how the secretary woman treated Amma like she was lower than dirt.

  And then I thought of you asking for a rocking chair before the Britishers took you to jail.

  Then I swallowed really hard, like I was swallowing down all the doubts and fear and nerves, and knocked on that huge, heavy door.

  “Is that you, Sarojini?” came a voice.

  “Yes,” I said, through all those layers of wood and money and evil.

  “Come,” she said.

  When I walked in, Vimala Madam was sitting at a desk and looking at a thick book. She was wearing a modern kurta, like the kind you get at the stores on 100 feet road, and baggy salwars, no dupatta. Her thick white hair puffed around her face in frizzy tangles, the way mine does when I keep running my fingers through it while I’m taking exams. When she saw me, she cleared her throat, and said, “Your mother tells me you need help on a school project.”

  “Yes, Madam,” I said, launching into the speech I had rehearsed with Amma. “Thank you for your time, Madam. I know you’re very busy, Madam, and–”

  “Don’t apologize so much,” she interrupted.

  Which was funny, Mrs. Naidu, because Amma told me the same thing just a couple of nights ago.

  “Okay, I’m sorry,” I said. “I mean, I’m not sorry. I mean, I’m sorry I said I’m sorry, but –”

  “What do you need help with, Sarojini?” she barked.

  (You see what I’m talking about, Mrs. Naidu?)

  “I need help understanding a law,” I said.

  Then she did that thing, Mrs. Naidu. The thing I told you about, remember? Where she puts her glasses down her nose and then raises just one eyebrow.

  “The Right to Free and Compulsory Education Act of 2009,” I said, carefully reciting the long and complicated English syllables I had memorized this afternoon, and reaching into my backpack and pulling out the pamphlet Annie Miss gave us at the Child Rights Club meeting. “I need to know what it says.” When she kept staring me, I nudged it across the desk, and added, “Please, Madam, if you don’t mind.”

  She stared at me with her eyebrow and her glasses and her hair. Then she cleared her throat, crossed her arms, and leaned back in her chair, pushing her glasses onto the top of her head. Her eyebrow was still up. She didn’t touch the pamphlet.

  Let me tell you, Mrs. Naidu, the glasses-on-the-head thing was much worse than the glasses-on-the-nose thing.

  “When young lawyers come to me with questions about laws,” Vimala Madam said, “they usually do so for a reason.”

  She paused, like I was supposed to talk. But I didn’t know what to say.

  “As in,” she said, “they think that this particular law can help them. Perhaps they are trying to defend a client, or to convince a judge to consider a new angle to a case. They come to me asking what the law can do and how it can help them.”

  She paused again, but I still didn’t know what she meant. I wasn’t a lawyer. I was a twelve-year-old government school student, which is probably the opposite of a lawyer.

  She knew that, right?

  “What I am asking you, Sarojini, is this: how do you think this law can help you?”

  Well, why didn’t she just say so?

  “This law says that private schools have to let me in because I’m from the economically weaker sections,” I said. “At least, someone told me that it says that. I want to know for sure.”

  “I see,” Vimala Madam said. “And why does this interest you?”

  “I go to a government school,” I said. After a minute, when she kept staring me, I added, “But I want to go to a good school.”

  “Why do you want to go to a good school, exactly?” she asked.

  What kind of an adult asks a kid a question like that?

  An evil genius adult. That’s what kind.

  “I want to pass Tenth and then go to higher studies,” I said.

  “Why is that?” Vimala Madam asked again.

  “I want to get a job with a good salary. I want to move Amma to our own home,” I said. “I want Amma to be proud of me and to be able to stop cleaning houses and to rest.”

  I don’t think I’ve ever said “I want” so many times in my life.

  (There was one more I want, Mrs. Naidu, but I didn’t say it out loud.)

  When I was done, Madam stared at me. Honestly, I wasn’t sure if that meant she was going to help or that she was going to fry me with some evil genius instrument in her office.

  Finally, she said, “Give.”

  I stood across the wide table while she picked up the law and put her glasses back down over her eyes – which is where they belong, so I don’t know why she ever moves them. She looked at the law for just a second before she looked up at me.

  “This is in Kannada,” she said.

  I nodded.

  “You read Kannada well,” she said.

  “Better than English,” I admitted.

  “Then come over here,” she said. “And bring a chair.”

  So I got a metal chair from the other side of the room and unfolded it next to her. She put the pamphlet between us, like Amir and I used to do when we wanted to read the same comic book. Then she turned to Section 12, which is the part of the law about reservations for economically weaker sections.

  And from there, things got to be not so bad, Mrs. Naidu.

  In fact, they got to be pretty great.

  Vimala Madam didn’t speak to me like a teacher. She didn’t act like she was smarter than me, even though I think she probably is.

  She talked to me more like we were both adults who knew stuff, and could figure things out together.

  It made me feel like a grown up.

  Like a lawyer.

  I learned how the Block Education Officer is supposed to help me and Amma use the reservations to get into area private schools. And how in Karnataka, the schools admit in Class One or Upper KG or whatever the first grade of the school is, but that they can give seats to students like me if they can’t fill their 25% in the lower grades. (Other states admit students in all grades, which explains Deepti’s cousin in Pune.) And how a lot of private schools in Bangalore are calling themselves ‘minority institutions’ so they don’t have to take in students like me.

  (A lot of this isn’t in the pamphlet, but Vimala Madam just knows about it because she’s a human rights lawyer.)

  (Don’t tell Amma, Mrs. Naidu, but after this, I think being a lawyer might not be so bad.)

  When we finished, I felt hopeful because I knew the rules. But then at the same time, I knew it was going to be really hard. Especially for me and Deepti together. I didn’t want to take a seat if she didn’t get one, and I definitely didn’t want her to get a seat without me.

  “Let me ask you something, Sarojini,” Vimala Madam said. “Now we’ve been through Section 12, would you like to know what is in the rest of the law?”

  “Whatever you think is best, Madam,” I said.

  “Let’s go back to your reason for wanting to know about RTE. Tell me again why you came to me.”

  “So I could go to a private school.”

  “Well, yes,” she said. Her eyebrow went up again, which made me realize I hadn’t taken the time to appreciate when it was down. “But what was your reason for going to a private school?”

  “To get a good education,” I said.

  “Correct,” Vimala Madam said, nodding. “To get a good education. NOT to go to a private school.”

  “But… if I don’t go to a private school how will I get a good education?”

  “Why, at the school you already go to!” she said.

  “But Madam,” I sa
id, thinking maybe she had forgotten. “Remember, I told you I go to a government school?”

  “Exactly right,” she said. And she looked so pleased that I didn’t want to tell her that I had no idea what she was talking about.

  Please don’t be offended by this, Mrs. Naidu, because I know I’m young and haven’t done anything that you’ve done and still have a lot to learn. But when I started going through the law with Vimala Madam, I started to feel like I think you must’ve felt when you and Gandhiji and Panditji and Ambedkarji and everybody else realized that they had found the way to get rid of the Britishers for good, and that it was going to work.

  It was like I was discovering all of this power that I have, even though I’m just a twelve-year-old girl.

  Did you know that our teachers are not allowed to hit us? Hitting is called ‘corporal punishment,’ and it’s illegal in India.

  Did you know that every single school in India is supposed to have certain facilities? There’s a list at the back of the law. It has all the required things like toilets for boys and girls and drinking water and playgrounds. Playgrounds, Mrs. Naidu. Abhi would love that.

  Also, did you know that every school should have a school management committee that has parents and teachers on it that is supposed to manage the budget and help improve the building? Vimala Madam said students can join too. Annie Miss would love that.

  When Amma knocked at the door, I don’t know who was more surprised, me or her. Me, because the time had gone so quickly, or her, because Madam and I were leaning so close together we were almost on top of each other, and we were laughing and talking and I was getting really excited.

  “Well, Sarojini, it was a pleasure,” Madam said, shaking my hand.

  “Um, thank – thank you, Madam,” I said. No one had ever shaken my hand before. At least no one like Vimala Madam.

  “Now, my dear, I am going to give you a task,” she told me, closing the pamphlet and handing it to me.

  “Yes?” I said, tucking it into my backpack.

  “You must share what you have learned with your fellow students. Then you must come back and tell me what they think.”

  “Okay,” I said, nodding.

  “Okay-ah?” Amma said loudly.

  “Sorry, I mean, yes Madam,” I said, blushing. “Of course, Madam. Thank you, Madam.”

  Vimala Madam looked from me to Amma and back to me. Then she burst out laughing.

  But it didn’t feel mean. It felt good. Like something had changed between the two of us. Or maybe even the three of us, because even Amma smiled a little bit.

  Not the way things have changed between me and Amir, though.

  This was a change for the better.

  All the best,

  Sarojini

  July 20, 2013

  Dear Mrs. Naidu,

  I know it’s only been a couple of days since I wrote to you, but a lot has happened. I guess maybe that’s how your life was too – everything was the same for a long time, and then all of a sudden, everything changed. Maybe you kept trying and trying to get the Britishers to leave, and they wouldn’t go, and so you thought you would spend your whole life fighting. But then one day, they finally left, and it was what you wanted, but then everything was different.

  (To be clear, this change that I’m talking about isn’t as big as the Britishers Quitting India, Mrs. Naidu. Just so you don’t get too excited or anything.)

  Anyway, today was Saturday, and I only had a half day of school, and I finished my chores and my homework and everything, so Amma said it was okay if I went to see Deepti at the construction site. I had seen her in school but we hadn’t had a chance to talk about what I learned, about how to get private school seats.

  I was so excited, Mrs. Naidu. On the way, I practiced my Vimala Madam impression, especially the eyebrow part.

  (No story is ever complete without an evil genius. Just ask any detective.)

  Which is probably why I forgot to take the long way to Deepti’s house, past the used paper shop and the hospital and then around the luxury apartments to the construction site. My feet just took me the way they’ve been going for years – through the coconut grove, under the overpass, and onto the main road.

  Which is the road the call centre is on.

  Which is the place where Farooq works.

  Which I passed at exactly the time when the workers get their tea break.

  Which is why I heard a voice yelling, “Sarojini!” even after I realized where I was and tried to duck back into the grove before someone noticed me.

  Slowly, I turned and said, “Hello, bhaiyya.”

  “Hi there, chotti,” Farooq said. He had a big smile on his face. In one hand, he held a steaming paper cup. In the other, he held a metal flask that I knew was full of Tasmiah Aunty’s chai. My mouth started watering.

  “Do you want some?” he said, like he could read my mind. Which he probably can, Mrs. Naidu. We’ve known each other that long.

  “It’s okay, bhaiyya,” I lied, “I just had tiffin. Thanks.”

  “So late?” he said, and poured me a cup anyway. “I don’t think Aunty would let you sleep that much. Have some.”

  Mrs. Naidu, do you know what it’s like to have something you love after a long, long time? Something you’ve been craving that you didn’t even know you missed?

  That chai tasted like cardamom and ginger and friendship and love.

  It tasted so good that I had to close my eyes, because I wasn’t sure what would happen if I didn’t.

  Farooq noticed – because he notices everything– and laughed.

  And then I felt kind of silly and I laughed too, which meant I could open my eyes again, and I could say, “Thanks, bhaiyya. I missed this chai. Please tell Aunty.”

  “Of course,” Farooq said. “We miss you too, Saru.”

  If you’ll notice, Mrs. Naidu, I didn’t say anything about missing anybody. I just said I missed the chai.

  But that’s Farooq for you.

  “You haven’t come by lately, chotti,” Farooq said. I opened my mouth to give an excuse, but before I could, he said, “Wait, don’t tell me – you’ve finished all the detective stories at Gangarams?”

  I couldn’t help it, Mrs. Naidu. I smiled again. It’s funny, because when I see my classmates at school with their older brothers I am really glad I’m an only child. But whenever I see Farooq or Tariq, I kind of wish I had siblings.

  “No,” I said. “I’ve just been busy. Our new teacher is very strict.”

  “Strict?” Farooq asks. His body got all stiff. “Does she hit you?”

  “No,” I said slowly, because I hadn’t thought about it before. “Actually, she doesn’t.”

  “Then strict how?”

  “Strict like she gives a lot of work. Mostly she gives us books and stories and then wants to know our opinions. She keeps telling us she wants our hearts and our brains to grow. I don’t even know what that means, except it must have something to do with extra work, because she gives twice as many assignments as Geetha Miss gave us last year.”

  “Wow,” Farooq said, almost to himself. “Not bad.”

  He kind of stared off into space, and it was the perfect time for me to ask the question that was hanging in the air between us, the question about how Amir was doing and whether maybe he and I were still friends.

  But you know how grown ups are about questions, Mrs. Naidu.

  Not that Farooq is a grown up, exactly. But now with his flask and his job and everything, he’s not a kid anymore, either.

  So instead I said, “Um.”

  I guess that made him remember I was here, because he looked down at me and said, “You know, you can still come over sometimes. Amir could use a friend.”

  “I thought he’d probably have a lot of friends at his new school,” I said out loud. The part I didn’t say out loud was, I thought he probably doe
sn’t want to be friends with me anymore.

  “Actually,” Farooq said, “I don’t think he has any friends at all.”

  “I’ve seen him with lots of other boys,” I said, “walking home from school.”

  “He doesn’t walk with them anymore,” Farooq said. “He just did that the first week or so. Lately, I haven’t seen him with anyone at all.”

  Then I started to worry.

  Because I started to remember.

  I remembered how at Ambedkar School, the kids in our class used to make fun of Amir for being kind of small and hanging out with girls like me, and how the older kids in our neighbourhood used to get angry at him for speaking Urdu at home, and how his brothers and I were always sticking up for him because he was never very good at fighting.

  (But do private school kids fight? Isn’t that just something government school kids do?)

  And then I remembered more. How once Amir and I became friends the fights stopped. How whenever I was around the other kids would see us playing cricket and watch Amir hit straight sixes and speak Kannada and help decorate our house at Deepavali. But most of all I remembered how when Amir and I were together, they didn’t just like him better – they liked me better too. They didn’t make fun of me for not having a father or for not always acting like a girl is supposed to act or for being hungry more often than everybody else.

  Together, Amir and I kept each other safe.

  So who was keeping him safe now?

  “What do you mean he doesn’t have friends?” I asked.

  “He never talks about anyone, and they never come home,” Farooq said. “His teachers don’t speak to us properly so I’m not sure.”

  Well that was no surprise. If you remember, no one spoke to me or Amma properly at that school either.

  “Plus he hasn’t been getting good marks,” Farooq said. “Even though he’s partly on scholarship, and he has to keep his marks high to keep the money.”