Context: Running through the living room, getting late, combing my hair, swinging my faux Aarti thaali in front of Dad for money. Him laughing.
Mom: "Where do you think you are going in your torn jeans and bathrobe lookalike shirt?"
Me: "Movies with friends."
Mom: "Don't we get you nice clothes? Can't you act lady-like EVER?"
Me: "YOU should know better than to ask that. Besides this was an acid accident in the lab. I don't hide my bruises, why my bruised jeans then. You should have seen Ankit's shirt when acid spilled over. It had tiny holes all over"
Mom: "Uff.. Atleast, this is better than your neck piercing. Is this why we sent you to a convent school?"
Me: "Why exactly did you send me to an all-girls Catholic school?"
Mom: "It is a good school and not far away."
Or that is what my mother said. I argued they had different intentions though.
- Keep the boys away from me
- Be able to start a matrimonial advert, if it ever got to that, with "Fair, convent-educated, Punjabi girl..."
The pursuit of either of these ends has been pretty abortive till date.
Perfect timing for plan-change. My younger sister (referred to henceforth as MS) who was going to drive me (because that is another thing I do not know) decided to make a pit-stop at our old school. She likes going there to meet up with teachers, unlike I, who showed up there after 5 years of leaving. Come on. I was there for 13 years. THIRTEEN frikkin years. I was there for cursive writing, through summery pink tunics and white skirts, wintry red blazers, with long well-oiled plaits that hung below the hips, for Mental Math, stories of Adam and Eve and of Our Saviour. I called the teachers "Miss", was duly scared of Mrs. D'Souza who would call us "Junglees from the fish-market" if we created ruckus, participated in prayers that took place four times in 6 hours (much to the dismay of my grandmother who would get a shock every time I started my prayer at a pooja at home with "Our father, thou art in heaven". "Why do you not know any good Hindu mantras? Why only Angrezi mantras?" But, I digress..). That was how it was. Nuns were nuns, teaching us docile girls to be seen before we were heard, and using base verbs with our dids/didn'ts. Teachers came in all kinds of packages- nice, sarcastic, helping, or just plain bad at teaching, standing akimbo while kids ran amok. I had had enough.
First teacher to meet at the gate- Mrs. George. She hugs MS, asks her welfare, while I shuffle restlessly trying to stand with one leg covering the other one with the acid tear. Horrors of having to open hems of our short skirts at the entrance of our school suddenly came alive again. But, that was not for long. A protest happened (the reason of which eludes me now), became political, and caused enough grief to our school administrators to punish us by changing our uniforms to salwar-kurta. The punishment had to be tantamount to the offence. We got the ugliest new uniforms. They were not just a fashion-disaster, but also climatically wrong (too hot in summer, too cold in winter). My more fashion-conscious heart would go out to the 13 year old me, except I know she did not bother so much about it.
Mrs. George asks MS about me. I am still here. Nope. No sign of recognition. "So you do not recognize me out of my school-uniform?" But, that was not it. I just was not an impression-making kid. I read during the lunch-break, stayed away from trouble, kept quiet, was not even class-monitor material. In all, a boring kid that gets good marks and is remembered as "the girl who gets highest in English/Hindi". Not by name nor, sadly enough, even by "the girl who gets highest in Math". College saw me with a different struggle of trying to be anonymous in front of professors. Well, I made an impression on Mrs. George now.
I have grown up since then, from a quiet, shy girl to a person with strong "dislikes". I am taller, hair is shorter. I have a couple of degrees and do my own taxes. Still wear the tunics though. Matrimonial ad is yet to come and the boys need to leave for that. Wiser? I don't know. But, myths have been broken.
- There are Indians other than me who do not like mangoes. And we have all been disowned by our beloved fellow countrymen. But, they are rather cloyingly sweet and...Ahh, nevermind.
- Fantastic, long-distance relationships do not last. Conversely, neither do bad, close vicinity relationships.
- There is a world of make-up beyond the red sindoor bindi mom wears.
- Just because people preach integrity does not mean they practice it too. In-the-face immorality is more acceptable to me over fake, vacillating sincerity.
- Hypnosis does not shrink a butt. Especially if someone else tells it in a loving, but firm, voice to stay as it is. All you get is a confused butt.
- Benefit of doubt is a finite resource.
