There was some man my mother had given a job in the school as a physical instructor who also teamed up as my bearer for the 20 odd kilometers I used to go by bus everyday. Sort of a benefactress for both the school's director and this man, who were her patients. I used to torture him into giving me a soft drink every day we used to walk back from school. I hated him but I loved his father, who was a village priest. He had a long aquiline nose and had a Sandalwood paste done in a way till the mark came upto his nostrils. I found him very good looking and kind. I thought my tutor was a monster since he was mean not to ever give me any cold drinks. What I did not know was that they barely had money to cook food in their family, and my mother had put him in a job because of his father's insistence when she went to the temple. So everytime he did give me a Gold Spot, my mother would force a note in his pocket.
He and his father were both very nice men and his family adored me. Everytime I went to their house in the village I got an omelette. I hated the Omelette. I wanted to eat smoked potatoes and water rice like them with Saag from their garden but never got that. They always gave me the parboiled rice and omelette. I loved his mother because she used to take me to the big and cold mud thatched room in their house which smelled of fresh straw and showed my how rice was beaten on a dhinki. And taught me to play see-saw on their bullock cart.
I was the previleged one in at least 5 villages...as the daughter of two dashing doctors from Cuttack. And so it couldn't be that I did not win a prize. I beat up C, the physical instructor, who also doubled up as my private tutor. My mother inquired what I wanted and bought it and secretly gave it to me through C Sir. I was told the school had retrospectively decided to award me because that was the first time I spoke, even if I did not come first. I had a school bag which I hated. I wanted a shiny steel box, like all others used to carry. It was heavy. So 'C Sir' used to carry it for me. It had a Bonnisan baby joker pasted on the top. Bonnisan for Happy Healthy Babies.
Somewhere through that winter and the rest, my mother bought me 2 illustrated fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. My world was awash with the idea of the being a mermaid dying for her love, sharing a chocolate house with Hansel and Grethel, wearing a frock that looked like a lotus, a black rose, having a house in a kite, understanding animal languages, visiting Russia to meet Ivan Ivanovich, live in a caravan and so on. I used to sleep between my parents and the first thing they did was to ask me tables. They wanted me to learn upto 30. I was not even 6 that time. I hated that time when I woke up and used to pretend to sleep over. But I loved it when father picked me up from the tables to talk to me about Popes and kings and India's Independence struggle. They stopped the tables recitation after I reached 25.
With the fairy tales I used to read strange books my mother bought me to read. I was being trained to go to Stewart School in Cuttack. My mother used to work in the hospital and then come back and teach me. I devoured the Science book and the New Horizons book for English. She got me another years book in advance that I was supposed to do in my spare time. I did that in no time.
I used to play Doctor Doctor with my cousin in the sprawling drawing room in our quarters. We were always short of paper we used for our games. I despised the white notepads that MRs gave my parents. My attention was in turn on the sheaths of blue kept in a black leather bag in my father's shelf. One day I picked a few sheets a little scared some one would know. We played with it, and I threw it out the window. It went unnoticed. Next day I became a little bit daring and we brought out another bunch and had a field day cutting it into prescriptions, bus tickets, coupons, currency and so on. Within a week a ream worth of typed paper was lying in a heap outside the window. A few days from then some summons came for my father to attend. He was and till date remains an extremely organized man. I was in the room when he came to the shelf. He opened the bag and found a pen without a cap. ( We were using the bag as the money bag conductors carry ). He never told me a word.
Not long there after I once jumped inside the operation theater in the Primary Health Center both my parents were posted at. It was an open air, open access, brightly lit room with windows that had no panes, and my father used to remove fibroids, lipomas, drain abscesses, squelch hernias and so on, with some spectators from outside who kept standing outside the window panes and looked on at the proceedings. One day I entered the OT to ask permission for something. On the outside was my mother, with a baby hanging upside down in her left hand, and a woman with red between her legs and a bucket below. I ran inside when she asked me to go out. I saw dad stiffen. But no one spoke a word. I strained at what he was operating through the drapes. I stood there a long time before I got bored and walked out. It was a circumcision. I knew that day that my mother was a gynaecologist. She was giving birth to a baby !!!
In 1989, I walked as a 9 year old into a section full of 90 odd students. I was readmitted into Standard 2 Section B because the "English Medium" ICSE schools would not admit me in Standard 3. I thought I had failed, so I was doing it again. I was not in Stewart School, because my mother was told kids did drugs there in that school. And that scare was enough for my parents to decide to put me in good old SCB. I was in my favorite yellow Salwar and in my aluminium box which was heavy with hard bound notebooks. I was pink with shame. Someone called me back and the teacher asked me to go back and I began to go towards her. ' Go Back...' she said a bit louder. I blushed. A guy I later knew to be Santosh called me from behind in Oriya to come back. I went and sat next to him. We were friends. A few minutes later it was decided that I should ask Amrita, the smartest girl in the class for her friendship. But it would depend on whether she wanted to be my friend or not. I eagerly waited for the Recess.
The bell rang and I was taken by 3 or 4 kids to a girl who was incredibly round cheeks and eyes that ended in a oiled sort of way between her lashes. She had incredibly beautiful eyes and wore her hair parted on the side with a white band pushing the front hair back. In one moment I felt ashamed of the Yellow Salwar, the Aluminium box I was carrying. They were all bought at my own insistence when I was back in the Integral School. In one moment, I wanted to be like her, with her shirt having a round collar, and blue tunic. " See I don't have a problem in making you my friend. But I need to know what my best friend has to say about it". I waited for her Best Friend to come. An extremely fair girl, with a nose I noticed immediately, and kajol in her brown eyes, came banging desks on either side of her with her palms. " Can I be your and Amrita's friend? "
She took one look at me from top to bottom. I was very nervous. 'She is not a good girl', she said and walked back, palms banging desks either side of her. "I am sorry", Amrita said matter of factly. " I really had no problems being your friend but since my Best Friend says you are not a good girl, I will go by what she says". She walked away. Santosh consoled me. " Don't worry, I will be your friend." We shook hands or what I don't remember. I hated myself for being bad. I wondered why my parents had to give birth to a bad girl. I cried that day while returning from school.
That white girl was known was "White Ghost" amongst us. I used to run away every time I saw her. Because every time she neared me she cast a shrewd look that convinced me I had something deeply worng with me. Santosh had some time convincing me I wasn't bad. We shared our tiffins. But I did not like Santosh for all his help. He just did not want to read and had a terrible handwriting. I wanrted to befriend Amrita an her Best Friend. She was a very vicious girl it was said. She was a 'dada', a goon. And her name was Subhashree Panda.
Somewhere through that winter and the rest, my mother bought me 2 illustrated fairy tales by Hans Christian Andersen. My world was awash with the idea of the being a mermaid dying for her love, sharing a chocolate house with Hansel and Grethel, wearing a frock that looked like a lotus, a black rose, having a house in a kite, understanding animal languages, visiting Russia to meet Ivan Ivanovich, live in a caravan and so on. I used to sleep between my parents and the first thing they did was to ask me tables. They wanted me to learn upto 30. I was not even 6 that time. I hated that time when I woke up and used to pretend to sleep over. But I loved it when father picked me up from the tables to talk to me about Popes and kings and India's Independence struggle. They stopped the tables recitation after I reached 25.
With the fairy tales I used to read strange books my mother bought me to read. I was being trained to go to Stewart School in Cuttack. My mother used to work in the hospital and then come back and teach me. I devoured the Science book and the New Horizons book for English. She got me another years book in advance that I was supposed to do in my spare time. I did that in no time.
I used to play Doctor Doctor with my cousin in the sprawling drawing room in our quarters. We were always short of paper we used for our games. I despised the white notepads that MRs gave my parents. My attention was in turn on the sheaths of blue kept in a black leather bag in my father's shelf. One day I picked a few sheets a little scared some one would know. We played with it, and I threw it out the window. It went unnoticed. Next day I became a little bit daring and we brought out another bunch and had a field day cutting it into prescriptions, bus tickets, coupons, currency and so on. Within a week a ream worth of typed paper was lying in a heap outside the window. A few days from then some summons came for my father to attend. He was and till date remains an extremely organized man. I was in the room when he came to the shelf. He opened the bag and found a pen without a cap. ( We were using the bag as the money bag conductors carry ). He never told me a word.
Not long there after I once jumped inside the operation theater in the Primary Health Center both my parents were posted at. It was an open air, open access, brightly lit room with windows that had no panes, and my father used to remove fibroids, lipomas, drain abscesses, squelch hernias and so on, with some spectators from outside who kept standing outside the window panes and looked on at the proceedings. One day I entered the OT to ask permission for something. On the outside was my mother, with a baby hanging upside down in her left hand, and a woman with red between her legs and a bucket below. I ran inside when she asked me to go out. I saw dad stiffen. But no one spoke a word. I strained at what he was operating through the drapes. I stood there a long time before I got bored and walked out. It was a circumcision. I knew that day that my mother was a gynaecologist. She was giving birth to a baby !!!
In 1989, I walked as a 9 year old into a section full of 90 odd students. I was readmitted into Standard 2 Section B because the "English Medium" ICSE schools would not admit me in Standard 3. I thought I had failed, so I was doing it again. I was not in Stewart School, because my mother was told kids did drugs there in that school. And that scare was enough for my parents to decide to put me in good old SCB. I was in my favorite yellow Salwar and in my aluminium box which was heavy with hard bound notebooks. I was pink with shame. Someone called me back and the teacher asked me to go back and I began to go towards her. ' Go Back...' she said a bit louder. I blushed. A guy I later knew to be Santosh called me from behind in Oriya to come back. I went and sat next to him. We were friends. A few minutes later it was decided that I should ask Amrita, the smartest girl in the class for her friendship. But it would depend on whether she wanted to be my friend or not. I eagerly waited for the Recess.
The bell rang and I was taken by 3 or 4 kids to a girl who was incredibly round cheeks and eyes that ended in a oiled sort of way between her lashes. She had incredibly beautiful eyes and wore her hair parted on the side with a white band pushing the front hair back. In one moment I felt ashamed of the Yellow Salwar, the Aluminium box I was carrying. They were all bought at my own insistence when I was back in the Integral School. In one moment, I wanted to be like her, with her shirt having a round collar, and blue tunic. " See I don't have a problem in making you my friend. But I need to know what my best friend has to say about it". I waited for her Best Friend to come. An extremely fair girl, with a nose I noticed immediately, and kajol in her brown eyes, came banging desks on either side of her with her palms. " Can I be your and Amrita's friend? "
She took one look at me from top to bottom. I was very nervous. 'She is not a good girl', she said and walked back, palms banging desks either side of her. "I am sorry", Amrita said matter of factly. " I really had no problems being your friend but since my Best Friend says you are not a good girl, I will go by what she says". She walked away. Santosh consoled me. " Don't worry, I will be your friend." We shook hands or what I don't remember. I hated myself for being bad. I wondered why my parents had to give birth to a bad girl. I cried that day while returning from school.
That white girl was known was "White Ghost" amongst us. I used to run away every time I saw her. Because every time she neared me she cast a shrewd look that convinced me I had something deeply worng with me. Santosh had some time convincing me I wasn't bad. We shared our tiffins. But I did not like Santosh for all his help. He just did not want to read and had a terrible handwriting. I wanrted to befriend Amrita an her Best Friend. She was a very vicious girl it was said. She was a 'dada', a goon. And her name was Subhashree Panda.
hii
ReplyDeletehi! definitely i benefitted frm dat fairy tale book else wud hv stayed ignorant abt mermaids story
ReplyDeleteif you scroll down you will find some really painful stuff written down below...this story is one heartrending renidition of my life. at time i hate mom for giving me a book that gave me such stupid ideas about life and love...its meaningless in present world.
ReplyDelete