(It’s funny, Mrs. Naidu, because even though our teachers made us memorize all of these things about Dharasana, they never told us that you were the one who led it.)
I looked at the photos of Dharasana in the book, and it seems like there were lots of aunties there. In fact, if I squint my eyes and turn the page to a certain angle, the aunties look like Nimisha Aunty and Kamala Aunty and Amina Aunty and Mary Aunty and Hema Aunty and even Amma.
Especially Amma.
What did you say to them at Dharasana, Mrs. Naidu?
How did you make them fight alongside you, even if you didn’t know if you would succeed?
I’m looking for the right words, Mrs. Naidu. But I can’t seem to find them anywhere.
All the best,
Sarojini
August 5, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
It turns out that Deepti didn’t do much better at getting people to join the SDMC. She and I were supposed to meet before class, but Abhi is going through this phase where he won’t get dressed in the mornings because he wants a school uniform like the Class One kids, so Deepti came in late after struggling with him, and when she saw me she shrugged and rolled her tired black eyes.
(Which, as you know, Mrs. Naidu, is the main thing Deepti does with her eyes.)
We didn’t get to really talk until we were walking home and Deepti said, “Amma’s coming. Everybody else said they weren’t sure, which I think means no. How many people did you get?”
“None,” I said.
I guess Deepti thought she heard me wrong, because right then Abhi ran up to us and started a new rhyme – something in Kannada about a crow – because she scooped him up and said, “In your whole neighbourhood, you only got one?”
“Down!” Abhi said.
“I got none,” I repeated. “Zero. Nobody.”
“Up!” Abhi said, as soon as his feet touched the ground.
“What?” Deepti said, carrying him again. “Why?”
“They can’t leave work,” I said. “They don’t want to come without their husbands. They think the HM is useless. They think the school is useless, we’re useless, and this whole idea is useless.”
“Down!” Abhi said, wiggling.
Deepti put him on the ground and said, “You told them how we have a famous lawyer and the thing about the Constitution and how the reservations are nonsense?”
(Only she didn’t say “nonsense,” Mrs. Naidu. She said something much worse.)
“I told them,” I said.
Deepti groaned and said, “Idiots.”
(Only she didn’t say “idiots.”)
“Up!” Abhi said.
“Abhi, stop it!” Deepti said sharply.
“Down!” Abhi said, pointing at his feet.
“What’s going on with him?” I asked.
“They taught him opposites,” Deepti said, rolling her eyes. “He knows up and down and inside and outside and heavy and light and front and back. The more he knows the crazier he acts.”
“You and me both, Abhi,” I said, thinking about how I had tried to convince the aunties yesterday with facts and logic, when I really should’ve pretended that my blood pressure was rising or I was having a heart attack. That’s what Hema Aunty does, and they all listen to her.
“Up?” Abhi said.
Deepti groaned, but when she picked him up, she kissed him on the cheek.
“Anyway,” she said, “at least we have your Amma and my Appa, right?”
“My Amma’s not coming,” I said.
“What?”
“She told me she wants to focus on earning the money to pay a bribe for the seat. She said that I shouldn’t start this because I’ll get a bad reputation and Greenhill will hear about it and won’t take me, even if we get the amount we need.”
“But you’re not listening to her, are you?”
“Of course not.”
“Are you telling me that you’re disobeying your mother?” Deepti asked. “As in, your mother? As in, the aunty that all the other aunties are afraid of because she’s the strictest and toughest aunty of all?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Isn’t she going to kill you? Like, chop you up into little pieces, or lock you in the house until you’re dead?”
(No offense, Mrs. Naidu.)
“Probably.”
“And Hema Aunty knows you’re doing this?”
“She knows I’m doing the SDMC,” I said, “but she doesn’t know what Amma thinks.”
“But still, if Hema Aunty knows, the whole area – including your Amma – will find out in the next ten minutes, if they haven’t found out already, right?”
“Probably.”
Deepti’s eyes got really wide like she was going to say something Deepti-ish – actually, I think maybe even she thought she was going to say something Deepti-ish. But whatever it was, she changed her mind. Instead, she said, “I’m tired of talking about this.”
“Okay,” I said.
“Appa gave me ten rupees. Do you want some groundnuts?”
I said yes, because that’s the kind of question I like answering.
I miss questions like that.
So we got some hot groundnuts and walked home. It was gray and cloudy and a little rainy, and the nuts were crunchy and hot, and it felt nice to have a best friend friend again.
Even if it wasn’t Amir.
And even if my days are numbered.
All the best,
Sarojini
August 6, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
Honestly, Mrs. Naidu, it’s a miracle that I’m writing to you right now. Because for a minute there, Amma was so furious I thought I was going to die she was going to kill me I would end up in your condition.
Yesterday I came home late, partly because I was helping Deepti catch up on everything she’s missed in science classes and partly because I was avoiding a certain eyebrow-raising lawyer’s house. Amma was already home when I got there, but instead of making dinner like she usually does, she was scrubbing the floor.
When I came through the door, she didn’t look at me and she didn’t say hello. Instead, she scrubbed faster, and said, “Hema asked if I was going to the meeting at the school after the holiday.”
“What holiday?” I asked.
“I asked her, what meeting is that?” Amma said, like she hadn’t heard me. “Hema said, the one your daughter is organizing.”
“Oh,” I said, really quietly, under my breath.
(Except I didn’t say “oh,” Mrs. Naidu. I said something much worse.)
Amma didn’t hear, because she was saying, “I told her I know that can’t be true, because I strictly forbade my daughter from wasting her time like that.”
I didn’t say anything, mostly because the only words I could think of were ones I had learned from Deepti. Which, as you might imagine, Mrs. Naidu, were not the right words for this particular moment.
When I didn’t answer, Amma said, “I told you to stop this nonsense.”
(She really did say nonsense, Mrs. Naidu. Amma’s not like Deepti. Or like me.)
“Sorry,” I said, softly.
“Sorry?” Amma asked, finally turning around. Laser beams shot straight out of her eyes and into my growing heart. Or maybe they went into my stomach, because my insides started to feel like they were being fried. “Sorry? I didn’t tell you to say sorry. I told you to stop. Stop creating trouble. Stop lying. Stop all of it.”
As it turns out, Mrs. Naidu, there is a word that was more wrong than any of the words Deepti had taught me. And even though I knew it was the worst possible thing to say, I said it anyway.
“No.”
“What?” Amma stood up and punched her hands onto her hips. She’s not very tall, Mrs. Naidu – in fact, I’m already taller than her. But when she stood like that, she looked twice my
size.
In my whole life, I have never talked back to Amma. I have always done what she asked me to do, because I thought she was always right. But even though I am only twelve, and even though Amma has always taken care of me, and even though I trust her and love her more than anyone in the world, I had to talk back.
Because today, for the first time in my life, Amma was wrong.
“I’m not stopping,” I said, my voice growing louder, like someone was slowly turning up the volume dial in my throat. “You’re right, my plan might not work. But your plan might not work either. What if we don’t have the money for the seat? Or what if we get the money and they still don’t take me? Plus you’re always going with the aunties to yell at officials who ask for bribes. Why is it okay to pay a bribe when it’s for me?”
“Are you openly disobeying me?”
“Yes,” I said. “Amma, this time I know what I’m talking about. I spoke to Madam and I read the law and I decided –”
“You decided?” Amma interrupted, her voice growing along with her height. “You decided? You do not make the decisions in this house. I do.”
“Why?”
“Excuse me?” Amma said, like she couldn’t believe that I would say something like that.
(Which, three months ago, I wouldn’t have.)
“Why should you make all the decisions? What if you’re wrong?”
“I’m your mother. You are my daughter. Daughters listen to their mothers.”
“Like you listened to your mother when you married Appa?” I said – well, actually, I screamed.
Remember I told you about the expression, Mrs. Naidu, the one that goes, ‘she looked like she’d just been slapped?’
Remember how I told you how Amir looked at the water truck after I said that horrible thing, and how it was worse than he looked after he was slapped?
Well, Amma looked much, much worse than that.
Except she wasn’t sad-worse. She was angry-worse.
“Do you get enough to eat?” Amma shouted. “Do you have a roof over your head?”
“You didn’t buy this roof! Tariq and Farooq and Tasmiah Aunty did,” I yelled back. I kicked the steel pot we keep under the weakest part of the roof. It rattled angrily and sloshed sludgy water all over the places Amma had just scrubbed clean. “And it still leaks, so it’s not like it’s much of an improvement!”
Amma didn’t say anything for a second, and beneath our loud, hard breathing and the dripping of rain water on the now-pot-less place on the floor we heard shuffling and whispering, like someone was standing right outside. And honestly, Mrs. Naidu, there probably was someone out there, because in our neighbourhood, everybody can hear everything all the time, even when you’re talking in a normal voice – which we definitely were not.
Amma pulled me to a back corner of our house room. Her fingers left red marks on my skin.
“I did not raise you to be disrespectful and defiant,” she hissed. Even though she was whispering, it still sounded like screaming. “I raised you to be a good daughter.”
“I am a good daughter,” I whisper-screamed back. “I get good grades. I follow your rules. Now, I’m trying to fight for our family. Why can’t you trust me?”
“I used to trust you.”
“You mean when I listened to everything you said without asking any questions? I’m not like that anymore, Amma. And I’m not stopping.”
“You are stopping. From now on, you are coming straight to Madam’s house after school. No more Child Rights Club. No more Deepti. No more nonsense.”
“But Amma –”
“This conversation is over,” Amma said, dropping my wrist. “Now clean up the mess you made and cut the onions for dinner.”
Never in my life had I wanted my own room so badly. I wanted to slam a door and then cry into a blanket and then punch the walls. But in our little place, all I could do was put the steel pot back under the leak and scrub the muddy rainwater off the floor and get out the knife and pretend that my eyes stung because of the onions instead of my anger. For a long time, the only sounds were the rhythm of the drip-drip-drip of rain into the pot, and the sizzle of dosas frying on the tava.
Then things got even worse, Mrs. Naidu, because thinking about apartments with doors made me think of a certain former current former friend, which made remember what holiday Amma was talking about.
Friday is Ramzan – or, actually, Tasmiah Aunty said it’s Eid-ul-Fitr, and that the month of fasting that comes before is called Ramzan, but Indians are always mixing things up and saying it wrong.
Which means that on Friday, we’re going to Amir’s place for Eid dinner.
Mixed-up-and-wrong. Sounds like just about everything in my life right now.
All the best,
Sarojini
August 8, 2013
Dear Mrs. Naidu,
Even though you were a very successful person, and even though you had a love marriage and a huge house and lots of friends and maids and children and dogs and cats, it seems to me that things weren’t always easy for you. Like, for example, you were sick a lot. I read that you needed all kinds of surgeries, and that during one surgery you almost died, and that after another surgery you had to be in a wheelchair and the doctors told you that you might never walk again.
But they were wrong. You walked again. And after that, you marched and sailed and danced and ran and probably even would have flown if you could’ve made yourself a pair of wings.
When they told you that you couldn’t walk, Mrs. Naidu, how did you know that you would prove them wrong?
No one’s told me that I can’t walk. But plenty of people have told me plenty of other things I can’t do. Here’s a list:
They think I can’t get a seat at Greenhill.
They think I can’t fix Ambedkar School.
They think I can’t convene the SDMC.
If I do convene the SDMC, they think I can’t make it matter.
They think I can’t stay out of trouble.
If you’ve been paying attention, Mrs. Naidu, you know all about #1-4.
Maybe you knew about #5 too. Maybe you’ve been thinking about it this whole time.
But for me, #5 really started today.
The trouble started at the place where trouble always starts: the water truck. Or, at least, the place where we wait for it (the truck, not trouble). Because today, the water truck was late, so Deepti and I stood side by side with our empty drums, half wondering how we’d get to school on time, and half listening to the latest gossip.
“Can you imagine? A Hindu boy and a Muslim girl,” Hema Aunty was saying. “They’ve been going around together this whole time and the parents didn’t know.”
“My husband thinks the boy will commit suicide,” Amina Aunty said.
“She’s such a nice girl,” Kamala Aunty said. “Doing a degree in home science, you know.”
“Two communities are two communities,” Hema Aunty said. “It will never happen.”
“Unless they elope,” Amina Aunty said.
Hema Aunty and Amina Aunty would have started yelling (not because they were angry, but because they’re not used to talking in normal voices like the rest of us), but two things distracted them.
First the water truck pulled up, which means everyone started elbowing and scrambling for a place in the queue.
(I know it sounds rude, Mrs. Naidu, but we were all late for something – making breakfast, taking our baths, getting to school.)
Second, the air turned white and yellow with flashes of lightening.
Except there weren’t any clouds, and there wasn’t any thunder – unless you count the sound of aunties banging drums together to get to the water truck.
It was Nimisha Aunty who figured out that the lightening wasn’t coming from the sky, but from a camera around the neck of a lady wearing red cotton leggings and chunky earrings
. Her painted toe nails peeked out from a pair of leather slippers that Deepti and I had seen on sale in the window of the Bata showroom. The woman’s hair kept falling in her face, but instead of using her hands to adjust it, she puffed it away with big gasps of air out of her mouth. (At first I thought that was a sign that she was crazy, but then I realized it was because she was concentrating so hard that she didn’t want to let go of the camera). She had been standing to the side, but when the truck arrived, she slid into our crowd as quietly as a raincloud.
“Hey!” Nimisha Aunty snapped, drawing herself up close to the photo-taker and getting into her face – or, actually, getting into her shoulder, because Nimisha Aunty was much shorter than her. “What do you think you’re doing?”
“Southern Chronicle,” the woman said. She put her camera down and held up the plastic ID card she had on a cord around her neck.
“Reporter?” Hema Aunty said, clutching her chest. “Hai Ram!”
Mrs. Naidu, I’m sure you know a lot about reporters. I know that at Dharansana, you kept the protestors quiet specifically so that reporters would write positive things about Indians and negative things about Britishers. And your plan worked. The reporters wrote about how the British beat Indians with lathis, and the people who read the articles started supporting freedom for India. Plus, you were a kind of reporter yourself: you wrote articles for the Bombay Chronicle and Young India about rights and British Raj and home rule.
So I’m very sure you know what reporters are like when they write about revolution.
But, here’s the question, Mrs. Naidu. Do you know what they’re like when they write about slums?
“You’re here to find out how poor and pathetic we are, aren’t you?” Amina Aunty said. Then she turned to us and pointed at the reporter and said, “She’s looking for starving children and weeping women tearing their saris apart.”
Dear Mrs. Naidu Page 10
