A Sister's Promise (11 page)

‘Always so modest,’ he mumbles and she laughs again, less hysterically this time and he can’t help feeling a tad pleased that he’s helped relax her nerves. This is a new side he is seeing to his proficient, distant mum—glimpses of a fumbling, unsure woman who seems to be hidden behind that accomplished façade.

It makes Raj even more curious about this stranger—his aunt—who is waiting for them on the other side of the world. A woman who has the power to reduce his efficient mother to a clumsy wreck; who, with one telephone call, has cracked his mother’s shell of indifference, made her push aside the work that she lives for, and to embark, at a moment’s notice, on an impulsive journey. His mother, the opposite of impulsive, who likes to plan everything—even their meals—weeks in advance.

‘It was the happiest time of my life . . .’ his mother says wistfully.

And so, as the plane taxies for take-off, Raj pulls his headphones out of his ears and crosses his feet, trying to find a comfortable position for them in this cramped space, and resigns himself to listening to his mum rather than his music.

PUJA—CHILDHOOD

SEEDS FROM A POPPED POD

Extract from school report for Puja Ramesh, First Standard, Age 7

Puja is an intelligent girl but she does not apply herself as much as she should. She is easily distracted. She gets into trouble mostly because she is not paying attention and/or talking too much to concentrate on her work, but she is quick to apologise. She is extremely popular and is loved by everyone.

‘You are very special,’ Puja’s sister tells her.

‘Why?’ Puja asks, a thrill running through her because she knows what’s coming.

‘Well . . . when you were born, you were not breathing. Everyone was sobbing and

then . . .’

‘And then?’ No matter how many times Puja hears the story of her birth, she is agog, mesmerised by this bit.

‘And then you joined in, a plaintive mewl, threading through the loud cries. It was the most beautiful sound in that sorrowful room. And everyone’s tears turned to laughter as they thanked God for the miracle baby—the answer to their prayers—a special, perfect delight.’ Sharda’s voice is warm as a hug, as sweet as kheer.

Puja laughs, her joy bubbling over.

Sharda holds Puja high in the basket of her arms and asks her to describe what she sees.

‘I can see way past the ocean to the very edge of the sky, that bit where the sky swallows the sun and vomits the moon, and which sometimes, but only on very precious days, gives us rainbows,’ Puja says.

Sharda sets Puja down gently and runs inside the house to fetch the cane stool, which is falling to pieces, its threads unravelling like dry brown snakes.

‘What are you doing, Sharda?’ Puja asks, puzzled, hopping from one foot to the other. She is barefoot and it is mid-day, the sun a fiery ball of fury in the cloudless sky, and the earth is baked yellow, scorching hot.

‘Wait a minute. Ah now,’ Sharda says, climbing onto the stool and squinting into the distance. ‘Do you think I am now as tall as you were when I was lifting you up high just then?’

Puja nods, distracted by a gold-winged dragonfly alighting on the hibiscus flower next to her. She goes to catch the dragonfly, but it flies away in a honey-flecked flutter.

‘I cannot even see past Sumatiakka’s hut,’ Sharda says, jumping off the stool.

‘Really?’ Puja asks, dragonfly forgotten.

‘Did you truly see the sea?’

‘I did, I did,’ Puja jumps, excited, flashing Sharda a huge, gap-toothed grin. She has just lost her two bottom teeth and the new ones haven’t begun growing. Sharda gives Puja all her milk to drink as well as Puja’s own portion so that her teeth will grow more quickly.

Sharda lifts Puja up and twirls her around.

Puja fancies herself a ballerina, her skirt and plaits flying behind her. When she is feeling dizzy with happiness, Sharda stops and hugs her close.

‘You are the only one who can see all the way to the edge of the sky,’ Sharda whispers in her ear. ‘Nobody else can do that you know—see the sky’s secret place, which sometimes gives us rainbows if we have been really, really good.’

Puja throws her arms around her sister’s neck, breathing in her smell of Lifebuoy soap and coconut oil and sweat.

‘Really?’ she whispers, eyes shut tight, her head still tilting on the axis of her neck from being a whirling ballerina.

‘You know why that is, Puja?’ Sharda’s spiced breath is warm in the crook of Puja’s neck, tickling the hairs nestling there, making them wriggle and wrenching giggles out of her.

‘Why?’ she asks when she has finished laughing.

‘Because you are unique—the baby who defeated death at birth. You are the most special girl in the world, loved by everyone, even the sky. It even says so in your school report.’

Puja laughs, and asks her sister to spin her again. Sharda does as she asks and the world around them splinters in a jumble of colours.

Puja opens her mouth and tastes the jackfruit flavoured air. Her stomach rumbles but her heart is replete with the complete conviction that what Sharda is saying is true.

Puja notices it in the way her parents’ eyes soften when they see her. She clocks it in the way the villagers pinch her cheeks and remark that she is the cutest, most beautiful angel to ever grace their humble village.

‘Even more beautiful than the butterflies?’ she asks them.

‘Even more so,’ they say as they cackle, displaying paan-scored gums.

When she goes home with her clothes in tatters from climbing trees and squeezing through the thorny mimosa bushes by the pond, Ma shakes her head and pretends to frown. But Puja sees that she is really hiding a smile which escapes the corners of her mouth when Puja flings her arms around her and asks her not to be angry, please. Then, Ma gives up all pretence of scowling and hugs Puja close, kissing her eyes and her dusty nose.

When she spills all the guavas in their stall at the market, bruising them, Da’s face darkens like the sky before a downpour. Puja’s lower lip trembles as she tries to hold in her upset, her heart fit to burst with the effort and Da’s face magically transforms and he opens his arms and engulfs Puja in them. He smells musty, of old sweat and hard work.

‘It’s okay Puja, we’ll ask Ma to make something nice with them. It’s okay, look, I have the mangoes and cashews to sell anyway,’ he says.

Da’s hug loosens her heart, and the hurt disperses like the seeds from a popped pod, and she is able to speak, the urge to cry gone.

‘I can’t eat those guavas,’ she says, wrinkling her nose, ‘they are injured and hurting and if I eat them my tummy might hurt too.’

Da throws back his head and laughs and Puja is fascinated, no matter how many times she sees it, by the way his tummy moves up and down as the laughter bubbles out of his throat.

Puja can make everyone in the village laugh, even when they are angry or upset. Sharda says it is a gift.

‘I wish I had it,’ she says.

‘But you don’t,’ giggles Puja.

‘No,’ Sharda laughs. ‘Only exceptional people have that ability.’

‘Like me,’ Puja says.

‘Like you,’ Sharda grins.

‘You’re a golden girl, my wonderful sister,’ Sharda says.

‘A minx,’ Bijjuamma snorts, shaking her head.

‘A sorceress,’ Nagamma sighs, chewing her paan.

‘A treasure,’ Ma says.

‘A delight,’ Da laughs.

And Puja knows without a doubt that she is special and that she is loved.

Extract from school report for Puja Ramesh, Eighth Standard, Age 14

Puja needs to concentrate more in class and put in more effort. Her poor marks in the end of year exams reflect this. She has barely scraped by this year and if she does not work harder in the ninth standard, she will have to stay behind and repeat the year.

Puja is hiding behind the jackfruit tree, the prickly green fruit stabbing her bare knees. Breathing in the smell of sandalwood and rose incense wafting from the temple by the river, she tries to stifle the torrent of giggles that threaten to erupt as she watches the bemused expressions of devotees, who come out of the temple to find that their chappals are missing.

Bored by the endless summer holidays stretching ahead, and with nothing to do in their tiny village except sit at the market stall and peddle their sorry looking vegetables as dutiful Sharda is doing, Puja couldn’t resist stealing a few pairs from the haphazard pile of footwear outside the temple and hiding them behind Nagu’s little shop underneath the rotting coconut fronds.

Her ears desensitised to the jarring clanging of temple bells and the blaring of the bhajans, she watches as the perplexed worshippers, their mouths stuffed with buttery prasadam laddoos and their foreheads smeared with vermilion, hunt for their missing chappals. They hitch up their lungis in bewilderment and scour the peepal trees for monkeys.

The hairs sticking wetly to the back of Puja’s sweaty neck prickle. She drags her eyes away from the devotees who are now performing funny little dances due to their bare feet blistering from contact with the scorched mud, to see the leader of the gang of youths who congregate outside Nagu’s shop grinning at her.

When her gaze meets his, he winks and indicates with a slight nod of his head towards the heap of decomposing coconut fronds. She looks down at her soiled skirt and busies herself trying to brush the worst of the mud away. He knows; he must have seen her stow the chappals. Will he give her away?

‘Don’t worry, my mouth is sealed.’

She jumps, startled. He has crossed the road and leaning against the jackfruit tree, he smiles down at her. She has seen him and his friends often enough sipping badam milk and biting into spicy vegetable puffs outside Nagu’s shop after having roared up and down Nandihalli and Dhoompur on their motorbikes raising ‘all the ghosts of the peaceful dead along with a tornado of dust,’ according to grumbling old Muthakka. ‘I am deaf and even I can hear them!’ Muthakka moans.

Puja looks right at him, not giving an inkling of her lurching heart and her fear. If Ma and Da hear of this, will it be the last straw? How will she charm her way out of this one?

‘What are you talking about?’ she asks, affecting nonchalance.

He laughs, and his eyes crinkle pleasingly in his stubbly, perspiration-soaked face.

‘Well, your laugh is much better sounding than that racket your motorbike makes,’ Puja says, and he laughs harder.

She gives a silent prayer of thanks to the god in the temple that she has always been able to make people laugh.

The devotees have given up looking for their chappals and have hailed the bus which comes to a trundling stop beside the temple. She watches them squat wearily on the rusty seats and gather their feet up onto their laps to massage their scalded soles.

‘You are one mischievous girl,’ the boy says.

Shall I? Oh why not? What else is there to do here?

‘I have always wanted to know how it feels like to zoom around on a motorbike. It must be real fun to compensate for all that ugly noise it makes,’ she says, and he laughs again, slapping his knees. ‘So will you give me a ride?’