Dear Mrs. Naidu

by Mathangi Subramanian

  “Which one are you on?” I asked Deepti, even though I already knew.

  “The record one,” said Deepti. She rolled her eyes, probably because she knew I knew even before I asked.

  “So we’ve seen the gate and the compound wall,” Rohini Reporter said, flipping back through the pages of her notebook. “There’s no playground or drinking water to be seen. I spoke to Annie Madam about sponsoring the club, and the HM isn’t here, but I have his phone number. What else?”

  “We have other things we want,” Deepti said. “Like we want them to find someone who can help me. Or, I mean, to help kids like me.”

  “ Like you?” Rohini Reporter asked.

  “What I mean is, kids who have gone to lots of schools.”

  Before I knew it, I was saying, “RTE has a section that requires schools to enroll out-of-school kids like Deepti and then help them learn what they missed so they can stay with their proper grade.”

  (I guess even when the twelve-year-old girl part of me knows to stay out of things, the lawyer part of me doesn’t.)

  “Do you mean another student?” Rohini Reporter asked. “Or a volunteer?”

  “This is all on the backside, right?” I asked.

  “On background, yes,” Rohini Reporter said, and her mouth turned up a little at the corner. Even though her lips didn’t finish smiling, her eyes did.

  I stopped for a second to think. But at that point, I had already started talking to her, hadn’t I, Mrs. Naidu?

  “You were saying?” Rohini Reporter said gently, her pen hovering above her notebook, ready to start moving again.

  So I told her how it wasn’t supposed to be a volunteer helping Deepti, but a real teacher. And I told her about how corporal punishment is illegal and how Annie Miss said that teachers needed regular training so they knew how to keep order without hitting us, but they couldn’t because they were always leaving school to do election duty or censuses or whatever, unless they bribed people to get them out of it. And I told her about how we were trying to convene a School Development Management Committee, (which Rohini Reporter understood even though I used English lawyer words in between the normal Kannada ones) but the Aunties work a lot, and how even if they stayed home, they wouldn’t spend time on an SDMC because they think anything that has to do with the government is useless. Then I told her about our old HM and how great she was, and how the new HM wasn’t stopping us, but he wasn’t helping either.

  “That was some excellent background,” Rohini Reporter said. “Are you sure you don’t want to go on the record?”

  “No, Ma’am,” I said. “Um, I mean no, Miss. I mean – no. Just, no.”

  Finally, she put the notebook in her handbag – which, by the way, I think I’ve seen in the window of the fancy handbag shop next to the Bata showroom – and actually pushed her hair out of her face with her hands.

  “When is this going to be in the papers?” Deepti asked.

  “I don’t know if it will be,” Rohini Reporter said. “I came here on my own time because I was impressed with you two. I’ve never heard kids pitch a story quite so convincingly. I figured if you two were as clever as you seemed, it was probably worth investigating. And after I’ve spoken to you and seen the school, I want to write about it even more.”

  “But I don’t understand,” I said. “All that sounds good.”

  “It is good. What’s not good is that my editor doesn’t know that I want to write about this yet. When I tell him, there’s a good chance he won’t let me.”

  “What?” Deepti asked. “Why not?”

  “It’s sad, but Ambedkar is a lot like every other government school,” Rohini Reporter said. “Which means newspapers have published a million stories like yours already – especially in the spring, when everyone was talking about that report that said that no one is following RTE. For my editor to let me write this, I have to come up with something new. The story has to be different.”

  “It’s going to be different because we’re going to make the government do what it’s supposed to do,” Deepti said. “Not like all those other people at other schools.”

  “Are you sure?” Rohini Reporter asked. I know it sounds mean, Mrs. Naidu, but it was kind of soft. Like she didn’t want us to lose our hopes, but she didn’t want us to get them too high either. “You’re smart girls. But you’ve got to face a lot of adults who don’t care if you succeed. Some of them might even want you to fail.”

  “The aunties believe in us,” Deepti said.

  “The same aunties who won’t join the SDMC?”

  Even Deepti didn’t know what to say to that.

  Rohini Reporter reached into her bag and pulled out a card. It had her name and phone number on it, and fancy curly letters that said Southern Chronicle in English and Kannada.

  “If something happens, call me.”

  She held the card out, and Deepti grabbed it.

  “I’ll call,” Deepti said, “and Sarojini will talk.”

  “You really have a way with words, Sarojini,” Rohini Reporter told me, nodding. “Have you ever thought about becoming a reporter?”

  “She’s going to be a lawyer,” said Deepti.

  “How do you know?” I said.

  “It is written,” Deepti said, keeping her face serious and tracing a finger across my forehead, like she was reading Sanskrit or something.

  I was going to smack Deepti, but before I could, Rohini Reporter asked how to get to the main road. Deepti wanted to go check on Abhi before class started, so I said I’d walk her there. We left the school compound and I helped her find her scooter. She put on her helmet (which is bright red, like her leggings) and thanked me and put her key in the ignition so she could drive away.

  Just as Rohini Reporter’s scooter was spluttering and puttering itself on, I felt my heart drop straight through my stomach and into my feet.

  Because right then, Hema Aunty came round the corner to buy vegetables from the cart on the main road. The one by Janaki Madam’s house that always has the good spinach.

  Hema Aunty looked at me.

  Then she looked at Rohini Reporter driving away.

  Then she looked at me again.

  She didn’t say anything, but she shook her head and stuck her big meaty fists into her hips.

  I ran back to school and almost crashed into Deepti.

  “I’m doomed!”

  “What do you mean?” Deepti asked.

  “Hema Aunty saw me talking to the reporter woman,” I groaned. “I’m so dead.”

  (No offense, Mrs. Naidu.)

  “Things were going too well,” I said to Deepti. “I should’ve known it would be written like this.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Deepti snapped. “No one’s written anything.”

  “You just said it was written that I was going to become a lawyer!”

  “Yeah, because you’re writing it that way. You get all excited about this law stuff even when it’s boring.”

  “I’ll never be a lawyer.” I dropped my face into my hands and squeezed my eyes really tight, like if I closed them hard enough everything would go away. “I’ll never get to go to law school or even finish primary school because Amma’s going to lock me in the house for the rest of my life.”

  “Why are you always so afraid?” Deepti asked.

  “How come you’re never afraid?”

  Deepti shrugged and said, “I don’t have time.”

  (Honestly, Mrs. Naidu, if Deepti had been alive when you were alive, she definitely would’ve been a freedom fighter. Maybe she would’ve been the youngest freedom fighter in history.)

  (But don’t worry, you’d still be the youngest person to top the entrance exam to Madras University – I don’t think even Deepti is smart enough to do that.)

  All the best,

  Sarojini

  August 15, 2013

  Dear Mrs
. Naidu,

  Happy Independence Day!

  Thank you, Mrs. Naidu, for fighting for our freedom. I hope that wherever you are, you are celebrating right now.

  Hema Aunty would say that India’s independence was written.

  Deepti would say people like you wrote it that way.

  Me, I think maybe it’s a combination of both. It’s like Deepti said, I’m writing the part about me possibly becoming a lawyer. But then I didn’t write the parts where Appa left or Amma never completed sixth standard or Deepti’s parents had to move to Bangalore to try and keep their farm.

  I guess maybe it’s easier to accept what’s already been written if you know that you can rewrite some of it along the way.

  As for my fate – well, that still hasn’t been written, by me or anyone else. Amma is working so many houses that when she got home last night, she could barely keep her eyes open long enough to eat a few dosas and interrogate me about my homework before she fell asleep.

  (“Interrogate” is a lawyer word and a detective word. It means to ask someone a lot of questions, but in a scary way. It’s something that evil geniuses, policemen, and mothers are really good at.)

  And since Amma’s working so hard, she didn’t have time to come to the Independence Day function, which is good because Hema Aunty – who always complains about being busy, but also always has time to be anywhere that there might be gossip – was there telling everyone she saw me talking to a reporter.

  Since we had the function today, we didn’t have any homework, which means I got more time to read about you. Today, I read about how in the 1930s, you wrote and then passed out all these pamphlets trying to educate Indians about the Britishers and to get people to support the freedom movement. You weren’t the only one – it seems like lots of other Freedom Fighters wrote them too – but since you were a poetess, I’m pretty sure yours were the best.

  There’s one you wrote that’s addressed to girls. I’m not sure if you remember this exact leaflet, but it’s kind of like a poem.

  My favourite lines go like this:

  “Do not think of yourselves as small girls. You are the powerful Durgas in disguise. You shall sing the Nationalist songs wherever you go. You shall cut the chain of bondage. And free your country. Forget about the earth. You shall move the skies.”

  What did you mean by that, Mrs. Naidu?

  Here’s what I think you meant: I think you meant that even if you’re small, like me and Deepti and Amir (even though Amir’s not a girl), you shouldn’t be afraid to try and make big changes.

  But here’s the thing, Mrs. Naidu. We are trying.

  But no one believes in us the way you believed in the people of India.

  Here is the list of people who don’t think we can do it:

  Amma

  Rohini Reporter

  Headmaster Sir

  Hema Aunty

  Nimisha Aunty

  Kamala Aunty

  Amina Aunty

  Mary Aunty

  Anyone who has spoken to #4-8 on this list.

  Here is the list of people who think we can do it:

  Vimala Madam – but we all know that Madam is might be an evil genius, so it’s hard to trust her opinion.

  Annie Miss – but then, she once said that even if we can’t fix our school, the struggle will still be a valuable learning experience, which sounds like the kind of thing she read in her just-and-beautiful-world books but maybe isn’t true in real life.

  That’s a lot more people thinking we can’t do it than people thinking we can.

  Then there’s the fact that the people who don’t believe in us make really good points. Especially Amma.

  What if doing this ruins my reputation? What if Amma sacrifices and sacrifices and then I lose the seat because of what I’ve done?

  Or what if I end up staying at Ambedkar School and no matter how much we fix it, it doesn’t get better and Amma has to spend her whole life washing dishes because I never get a good education and then never get a good job? What if Rohini Reporter starts writing about Ambedkar School and the government ends up closing it down, like the HM’s old school? Then instead of helping the school, I would’ve made things much worse.

  I think you know what I mean, Mrs. Naidu, because the first Independence Day should’ve been one of the happiest days in India’s history, but ended up being one of the saddest. That’s because India got broken up into two countries, and everyone forgot about Hindu-Muslim unity and started hurting each other. Tasmiah Aunty’s grandparents crossed into Pakistan then, but her Amma and Appa stayed in India and moved south, to Bangalore. They never heard from her grandparents again. Tasmiah Aunty still sounds sad when she talks about it. And that happened to lots of people, Mrs. Naidu, not just Tasmiah Aunty.

  So when you moved the sky, and people became free, they also became sad and scared and angry, even though that’s not what you or Gandhiji or any of the other freedom fighters wanted.

  When there’s so many people and possibilities dragging you down, Mrs. Naidu, it’s hard to feel like a Durga in disguise.

  How do you forget the earth when it’s always beneath your feet?

  And when no one wants to help you, how do you move the skies?

  All the best,

  Sarojini

  August 19, 2013

  Dear Mrs. Naidu,

  Mrs. Naidu, I don’t want to alarm you, but I think you should know: this might be the last letter I ever write to anyone.

  Honestly, by tomorrow, I might be dead in your condition.

  I guess I should explain.

  As usual, I stopped by the construction site this morning before school. Abhi had a newspaper in his hand and was waving it around, and Deepti was trying to take it from him. When she finally got it out of his hands he started crying, so she tore off a piece from the back and gave it to him. He held it up and pretended he was reading it out loud, but really he was just saying lots of nonsense.

  “Look,” Deepti said, shoving the non-torn part of the newspaper at me.

  “At what?” I said.

  But then I saw it.

  An article on page four.

  An article by a certain reporter with Bata showroom slippers and floppy hair.

  An article in Kannada so perfect that every word was like a cut and polished piece of glass.

  Or maybe more like a knife.

  I was going to paste the article here, Mrs. Naidu, but Deepti wouldn’t give me a copy, and no way was I going to buy one and leave it in the house for Amma to find. So instead, I will tell you the main points:

  Ambedkar School has a lot of stuff wrong with it. (The article has a list.)

  This means Ambedkar School is not in compliance with RTE.

  This makes Ambedkar School the same as lots of other schools all over India.

  Ambedkar School is different because it has a Child Rights Club headed by a sixth standard student named Deepti.

  Deepti and the other Child Rights Club member said that they are trying to fix the school, but nobody in the community wants to help them.

  After I read this, Mrs. Naidu, I had a lot of questions, most of which involved the kind of language that Amma does not approve of and Deepti uses all the time.

  I started with, “How did you get this?”

  “Rohini came by this morning and gave it to me,” Deepti said, taking Abhi’s hand and dragging him into the road, which I guess meant we were going to school.

  “You realize my Amma reads this paper every day?”

  “So? It never mentions your name.”

  “Everybody knows that there are only two people in Child Rights Club,” I said, “and Rohini Reporter specifically says that she talked to you and one other person. Even if I never said anything, Amma would know it was me.”

  “So you’d be dead either way,” Deepti said.

  (No offense, Mrs
. Naidu.)

  “So?”

  “So if you’re going to die, aren’t you glad you died fighting for justice?”

  “You think this is going to get us justice?”

  “It can’t hurt,” Deepti said.

  By then we were at school, Mrs. Naidu, and things started getting really crazy.

  When we walked into the classroom, we saw Annie Miss, which wasn’t strange at all. But what was strange is that she wasn’t alone. She was talking to Hema Aunty, Nimisha Aunty, Mary Aunty, Amina Aunty – even Kamala Aunty.

  “Are you Annie Miss?” Hema Aunty was saying. She had a copy of the Southern Chronicle in her hand and was thrashing it around. It crackled like fireworks.

  “Yes, that’s me,” Miss said. She was sitting at her desk, and she looked like she was glad that there was a huge piece of steel between her and the aunties.

  “So you’re the one that told the reporter that we wouldn’t help our girls?” Nimisha Aunty asked. “You told her that we don’t care about our children?”

  “How dare you,” Amina Aunty said in a kind of loud whisper, lunging across the desk so her face was just centimetres from Miss’s face.

  (So much for protection from the desk.)

  Miss gulped loudly.

  “No one is more important to us than these children,” Hema Aunty boomed, “and nothing is more important to us than getting them educated. How could you say something like this? And to a reporter? A reporter?”

  “If you would please read the article, I think you’ll see –”

  “Oh, so now you think we can’t read?” Amina Aunty barked, snatching the paper out of Hema Aunty’s hands and shaking it so the fireworks sounds started again. “I’ll read to you right now. You said, ‘We have been trying to recruit community members to the school development and management committee, but there has been an unfortunate lack of response.’”

  “Yes, well, I didn’t mean –”

  “Now Amina,” Kamala Aunty said, gently touching Amina Aunty’s arm and lowering it. “You know how these reporters are. They twist people’s words.”