Dear Mrs. Naidu

by Mathangi Subramanian

  Mrs. Naidu, there are a lot of mysteries in this world.

  But none of them are as mysterious as Amma.

  All the best,

  Sarojini

  August 22, 2013

  Dear Mrs. Naidu,

  Yesterday I read that after India got Independence, you became Governor of Uttar Pradesh. (Well, then it was called the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh.) Before that, you were in the municipal government in Mumbai, and you were the first Indian woman president of the Congress Party. (Annie Besant was a president before you, but she was a Britisher.)

  I don’t know exactly what you did when you held office, Mrs. Naidu.

  (When I first read “held office” in this book about you, I pictured you holding Vimala Madam’s study in your hands. But then I asked Annie Miss about it, and she says that it means working in the government after a lot of people vote for you to represent them.)

  Anyway, like I was saying, based on what I’ve read, it seems like when you held office, you travelled lots of places and gave lots of speeches and wrote lots of letters to Gandhi Thatha and Nehruji and your family. Also, it seems like the whole time you were trying to make sure that women got their rights and that Muslims and Hindus were united and that the Britishers left India. Since almost all this happened, I conclude that you were probably very busy, and you were probably also very good at your job.

  If you have a second, Mrs. Naidu, maybe you can come speak to our Councillor about holding office. Because I’m not sure what she does, but I don’t think it’s anything like what you did.

  If you remember, at the end of the last meeting, Amma and the aunties the SDMC agreed that we would come up with a budget, and then half of us would go to the HM and half would go to the Councillor. I couldn’t believe it, but Nimisha Aunty and Annie Miss had the budget ready the day after the meeting. Amma checked it, and then she asked Deepti to ask the construction people what they thought, because they’re always around houses and know what materials cost. Most weren’t sure, but a few made a couple of changes. Then Amma checked it again and said it was okay. Even though she’s not in the SDMC, Mary Aunty made copies for us at the Xerox store next to the flats where her husband is a night watchman. Amma took two copies and went with Nimisha Aunty, Kamala Aunty, and Deepti to see the HM. Then Annie Miss took two copies and came with me and Hema Aunty and Amina Aunty to see the Councillor, who also happens to be the lady whose face is on the hoarding which is on Hema Aunty’s roof.

  At first, I thought bringing Hema Aunty was a mistake. The whole time we were walking over there, she wouldn’t stop complaining.

  “That woman promised me a roof,” she grumbled. “Once they get your vote, these people have no thought for anything except power and money. And this year the rains are worse than ever. How am I supposed to keep anything dry?”

  “Aiyo, Hema,” Amina Aunty finally said. “We’re not here about your house. We’re here about the school.”

  “She’s right,” Miss – who had gotten over her Post Aunty Stress Syndrome – said. “We need to stay focused.”

  “I’m telling you, that woman will give some excuse,” Hema Aunty said. “She’s like all the other politicians. Corrupt. Useless. I don’t know why we bother asking.”

  “She might say yes, Aunty,” I said. “Not all politicians are bad.”

  (When I was saying that, Mrs. Naidu, I was thinking of you.)

  Hema Aunty clicked her tongue and put her hand protectively on my shoulder. “So sweet, Sarojini. But you’re young. You’ll see.”

  (I don’t know why adults are always saying that kids don’t know anything because we’re young. Plenty of grownups don’t know anything either.)

  “We should at least try,” Kamala Aunty said. “Who knows?”

  “Waste of time,” Hema Aunty muttered.

  “This is it,” Miss said.

  ‘It’ was where we were meeting the Councillor, and ‘it’ wasn’t what I expected, Mrs. Naidu. From reading about you and Gandhi Thatha and Panditji and Ambedkarji and Gokhaleji, I thought politicians either lived in huge houses or tiny ashrams, and that they worked in offices piled with papers and plastered with posters for their party and filled with people wearing khadi who want to make India a better country. I thought it would be one of those buildings so full of energy that you could tell from the outside that it was someplace special.

  But this place didn’t look special at all. It was a set of normal-looking flats on the corner of the main road. The building wasn’t posh exactly, but it was much nicer than any of the homes in our area. It had a little garden inside the wrought iron gate and a winding stone staircase that smelled like it had been freshly mopped. The Councillor’s flat (which I guess is also her office) was at the top of the stairs. The door was open, and there was a pile of chappals in the hallway.

  We all hesitated at the door, except for Hema Aunty, who walked right through and led us into the flat. It was crowded with furniture and dark teak panelling. There were a lot of people sitting on leather couches looking at their cellphones. They were mostly men with big moustaches and fat bellies. No one was talking. There were no stacks of paper, no posters, and no khadi anywhere.

  Hema Aunty sucked in her breath. I followed her eyes and saw why.

  It was the face on Hema Aunty’s roof.

  Except instead of floating by itself on a hoarding, it was attached to a woman stretched out on a divan, wearing a nightie, full make-up, and chunky gold jewellery. Her long, choppy hair looked like it had been straightened and dyed at a salon. She was texting on her mobile, but doing it really slowly because her long, polished nails got in the way of pressing the keys.

  Without looking up, she said, “Yes?”

  I think we were all confused, Mrs. Naidu. Because aren’t politicians supposed to care? And aren’t they supposed to get dressed properly in the morning? Aren’t they supposed to be excited to speak to the people who voted for them?

  (I guess maybe that’s just you, Mrs. Naidu.)

  Annie Miss was the first to recover. She said, “Mrs. Reddy, we’re here from the SDMC.”

  “The what?” Mrs. Reddy asked. She still didn’t look up.

  “The school,” Hema Aunty said loudly.

  “Which school?”

  “Ambedkar Government School,” Amina Aunty repeated, slowly and loudly, like maybe Mrs. Reddy was deaf, or didn’t understand Kannada.

  “I called yesterday?” Miss said, her voice adding question marks where they didn’t belong. “I’m the Class Six teacher? The Child Rights Club sponsor? You said we could come? This morning?”

  “I get so many calls,” Mrs. Reddy said, waving her hand like she was swatting a mosquito.

  “Yes, well,” Miss said.

  “What is it you want?”

  Mrs. Naidu, during monsoon season, when I was young, I used to sit outside our house and watch the wind whip around the branches of the coconut trees in our grove just before it started to rain. Sometimes, eagles would land on the leaves of the trees, I guess because it was hard to fly when the air was so angry. I never understood how it was possible that something as skinny as the frond of a coconut leaf could be tough enough to hold the weight of one or two or even three eagles, especially when the wind was blowing so hard. No matter what, the leaves never fell down, and they never let go.

  Those leaves are a little bit like Deepti and Amma and Tasmiah Aunty and probably you, too, Mrs. Naidu – much stronger than they look. It’s the kind of strong I want to be one day – the kind that only needs a few skinny twigs to hold up the weight of the world.

  That’s the kind of tough I thought Mrs. Reddy would be. But she’s not like coconut leaves. She’s like the monsoon wind, pushing anything and everything out of her path, and not in the least bit interested in protecting anyone from a storm.

  Annie Miss was the only one of us who was nice enough to stay polite, so she said
, “We’re from the school management committee. We’ve come because our school is not in compliance with RTE – that’s the right to education.”

  “I know what it is,” Mrs. Reddy said. She was still staring at her phone but I thought that I saw the corners of her eyes pinch.

  “Then you know that our school is in violation of the law,” Miss said, “and that as a Councillor, it’s your duty to help us fix it.” I couldn’t believe it, but even Miss’s voice was getting the tiniest bit sharp. All the question marks were definitely gone.

  “My duty?” Mrs. Reddy said.

  And then she laughed, a deep, bubbling laugh, like a mother-in-law in a Kannada serial just before she explains her evil intentions.

  (Serials are not as good as detective novels, Mrs. Naidu, but sometimes they feel a bit more like real life.)

  When she heard that laugh, Hema Aunty had had enough.

  “Don’t speak to a teacher like that,” she snapped. “This woman gives her life to serving our children, which is more than I can say for you. Why do you think we elected you, to just sit on your couch in all your gold and act like you’re better than us?”

  Mrs. Reddy didn’t say anything. She just went back to her phone.

  “What Ms. Hema is trying to say,” Miss said in her just-and-beautiful-world voice, “is that RTE is based on the idea that the local leaders will work with schools to help improve the education system. And since you’re the local leader –”

  “That’s not what it’s based on,” Mrs. Reddy told us.

  “Yes it is!” Amina Aunty said.

  “Sarojini, tell her,” Kamala Aunty said, putting her hand on my shoulder.

  Then they all looked at me.

  Even Mrs. Reddy looked up.

  Mrs. Naidu, I know that you’ve spoken in front of hundreds of people, and that probably some of those people were kings and queens and presidents and prime ministers. And I know that I’ve never met anyone like that before.

  Still, I have a feeling that none of those leaders laughed like Mrs. Reddy.

  I straightened my back and cleared my throat and, using my best lawyerly voice, I said, “RTE says that the SDMC is supposed to come up with a development plan. Then we are supposed to present the plan to local leaders and they are supposed to help us implement it.”

  “So what you’re asking for is money,” Mrs. Reddy said.

  “We brought a copy of the plan with a budget,” I said, and handed it to Mrs. Reddy. She put down her phone and looked at it while I kept talking. “We would like either to get a donation from you or to raise the money with your help.”

  “Hmmm,” Mrs. Reddy said. She still didn’t look at us, but at least this time her eyes were on the plan instead of her text messages.

  She flipped through the pages, and none of us said anything, because I don’t think any of us knew what we could possibly say to someone who seemed to care more about the state of her fingernails than the people who voted for her.

  Finally, she put the papers down on the table, picked up her mobile, and said, “If I am interested I’ll let you know.”

  The air became heavy and thick with silence.

  “Come,” Hema Aunty finally said, grabbing Kamala Aunty and Annie Miss by the elbows. “I told you this was a waste of time.”

  Annie Miss said, “Thank you,” over her shoulder, as Hema Aunty dragged her and Kamala Aunty out the door.

  I guess at first they didn’t notice that they had left me behind. Mrs. Reddy was still looking at her phone. “Ma’am,” I said, “why did you become a Councillor?”

  She paused for a minute like she was deciding whether or not I was worth speaking to. I guess she decided I was, because she looked at me with her smile that looked stuck on her face with Fevicol. “Why do you ask?”

  “I’m reading a book about a female leader now,” I said. “She cared a lot about girls and their education. I was hoping you would be like her.”

  (Obviously, Mrs. Naidu, the female leader I am talking about is you.)

  Mrs. Reddy kind of snorted and went back to punching the buttons on her phone. “What was your name again, child?”

  “Sarojini,” I said.

  Mrs. Reddy said, “When you get older, you’ll understand.”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. “I don’t think I’ll ever understand people like you.”

  “Like me?” Mrs. Reddy asked. She sounded like she was about to laugh again. “And what am I like?”

  “I don’t know. But I know who you’re not like. You’re not like any of the aunties who came with me today.”

  “Are you saying that you’d rather be like one of those women than like me?” Mrs. Reddy said, putting her phone down and staring me.

  “Definitely,” I said.

  I don’t think she understood, Mrs. Naidu, but I wasn’t going to stay and explain it to her. I left, and when I got outside, Hema Aunty stopped yelling and wagging her finger long enough to put her arm around me and roughly pull me close.

  “Useless woman,” she said, kissing me on the top of my head so hard that a bunch of curls sprung loose from my plaits.

  “Forget her,” Amina Aunty spat. “We’ll find another way.”

  I’m not sure if we will, Mrs. Naidu. But at least I don’t feel so alone any more.

  All the best,

  Sarojini

  August 23, 2013

  Dear Mrs. Naidu,

  I’m very sorry, but this letter will be short. I’m sitting in Vimala Madam’s kitchen (don’t worry, she’s not here, she’s in her study) and Amma thinks I’m doing my social studies homework which I’ll definitely do later, but honestly, Mrs. Naidu, how can I be expected to concentrate on anything until I tell you what’s going on?

  Since you fought for many kinds of freedom in many different countries for many different people, you probably already know what I’m about to tell you. The visit to the HM went just as badly as our visit to the Councillor. Deepti said that he wasn’t at school (which is obvious because it’s not the first of the month yet) but Amma figured out where he lived, so they went to his house (which is also obvious, because once my Amma decides she’s going to do something, nothing stops her from getting it done). Deepti said that the HM asked them to speak to the Block Education Officer, so Amma got his number and called him in front of the HM. She said the BEO told her to speak to the HM, and then Amma said that if they were so confused about who was in charge of the budget, they should probably speak to each other. Then she handed the phone to the HM.

  Apparently both the HM and the BEO got upset and told Amma that she couldn’t just go around demanding financial information like that. Then Amma said that actually, she could, because one of her responsibilities as an SDMC member was to monitor spending – which, if you think about it, Mrs. Naidu, is a very lawyerly thing to say. I guess the HM was not impressed, though, because he told her something that I can’t repeat here but was very rude and then Amma said she was going to call a famous human rights lawyer and tell her that the school was breaking the law. And when she was done with that, she said, she was going to call the Southern Chronicle and make sure they ran a terrible article about the school on the front page.

  “So basically, there was a lot of yelling,” Deepti told me, “but no budget.”

  When I talked to Amma about this last night, I asked her if she thought maybe the HM and the BEO were taking money or selling rations or doing any of the other things you read about schools doing in the paper. Amma told me that it’s possible, but she thinks it’s more likely that they wouldn’t give her a budget because they hadn’t made one, and they were embarrassed about it. She says she wants to ask Janaki Madam, the old HM, for advice. But she says that even if there is a budget, requesting money is going to take a long time, so we should try and start with someone who can give us the money right away.

  So that’s a long way of saying
that we may have a plan and a committee, but that’s pretty much all we have, Mrs. Naidu. And you can’t build a playground with a sheet of paper. (Unless that sheet of paper is a cheque. Which, in our case, it is not.)

  I saw Amir this afternoon. He came by Ambedkar School on his bike just as Deepti and Abhi and I were leaving, and then he got off his bike and walked us to the corner where Deepti had to turn left and I had to turn right and he had to go straight.

  “Is there anyone else we can ask for donations?” I asked.

  “Amir, don’t you have any rich friends?” Deepti asked.

  “I don’t have any friends, remember?” he said. “Except you two. Are either of you rich?”

  “I have lived in a lot of fancy houses,” said Deepti.

  “I never thought of it that way,” I said. “You’ve actually lived in some of the poshest places in Bangalore. Probably even posher than some of the houses of Amir’s non-friends.”

  “Yeah, Deepti,” Amir laughed. “Can’t you get your fancy house people to help?”

  Then Deepti got this funny look on her face, and she said, “My people,” kind of under her breath.

  “Deepti,” I said, “whatever you are thinking, please stop.”

  Then she said, “Bye,” and turned left a whole two blocks earlier than she had to.

  “What’s she up to?” Amir asked.

  “Trust me, the less we know, the better,” I said.

  Amir shrugged and said, “Hey, do you want to come over?”

  “I can’t,” I said. “Amma basically told me that if I don’t come straight to Madam’s house after school she’s going to send me away to a convent in Bihar.”

  “They take Hindu girls in convents in Bihar?” Amir asked.

  “I don’t know,” I said, “but you know how my Amma is. She makes impossible things happen all the time.”