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Somesh called me to his birthday, he is ten years old his mother said and I went home and asked my mother how old am I and she said you are turning seven and I said I want to grow big too, like Somesh and have a birthday party. One day he takes me to a big festival and I hold his hand but I could lose him anytime. It is so big and full of people all I see is faces everywhere, big and black and yellow faces cropped with black hair or no hair. There is a fish market and it smells like burnt hair and there is a bangle market, I tug the end of his shirt and ask him to get me some but he says they are for married women and that I was a kid. So if I marry you will you buy me those, I ask him and he looks at me and smiles. There is another little girl like me and she follows another little guy like him and they go together to the shop and buy a red dhago and he breads her hair with it and she smiles and he giggles and they point at us and run away. I tell him lets go she can wear it why cant I and he tells me she is married and I tell him lets get married too why cant we get married? And he says you are so stupid we can’t get married if we did we will have to sleep together. And I smile at him and say I have slept alongside my brothers I have slept by my mother and I have slept by my girl friends and I will sleep with you too, we can sleep together tonight because you are so nice. I am not saying that sleeping together if you sleep together like I am saying you will have babies, says he. I know what you mean I say looking down. You are just a little older than me and I understand what you mean I say. He doesn’t say anything and I keep looking at people with red faces, bald head, will I look ugly like that guy if I am bald I ask him but he just laughs and I grow red. I like teasing you I say and he is just quiet. There is an old man buying puchki, usually it is we who eat them a lot but this guy was just standing there by the sun-baked seller and gobbling it like he hadn’t eaten yesterday. I want to eat puchki but I wonder whether he has money to buy it for me, I don’t care so I ask him to buy it anyway. And we both sit on one corner and lick the juice running down our hands. Nachana maichyang nachana shouts one guy from the middle of nowhere, only that we hear is his voice and a large crowd cheer up and start dancing in a circle and people join it one by one making it itself a big market with a hole in the middle, like my daddy says he has a hole in his heart. One time I asked Somesh if his parents fight too and if his sister goes under the table and he said his father was not a drunkard and I felt sorry for my daddy because he is a nice guy. I once went to his house and his mother gave me candy and a lot of candy to Somesh and there were a lot of airplanes and helicopters in his room and there were no dolls and he said he likes to fight with fighter planes and only girls play with dolls. And I said I want to fight with fighter planes too and we played, he won and I again said I wanted to become like him and he said he will teach me. We go to another shopkeeper where a fat faced woman is selling ghurra, that you take it by the end of the thread and spin it fast, spin and spin it until you cannot really see it, and that is fun. Somesh wants to buy some marbles but he says they were not smooth enough and I said I play marbles too but he said other girls never do but I was different and he likes it, he will play with me sometimes.
He takes my hand and we dance in the circle but a thin bony man with a dirty beard and uncombed hair pulls us to the middle we bend our waist and shake our butt and this guy says I dance like a sexy woman even though I am a little kid and they all laugh and I laugh too but Somesh just stops dancing. ‘Hey kido what’s wrong with you is that your wife?’ a guy asks and Somesh says no but that he likes me and not to tease me. Everyone laughs and a woman who was fat and dancing with this lean guy said ‘this kid is a red hot chilly, will kick your ass one day’, Somesh turned red and I know what he means when he is red, he pulled me out of the circle and left, and we could hear them laugh like devils. I wanted to dance more. I was insistent but he said if I wanted to be with him I will have to follow him. There is a hill, a brown barren hill where some dogs are napping so that they get to eat fish when the market ends and we both jump and dance and fight and walk across and hear the loud music that is saying ‘common lets get drunk and let’s dance for one night and your pains will be over.’

I keep telling my mama I want to go play when we don’t have nothing to eat but she just looks at me with swollen eyes and hands me our younger brother to stop him from crying while she goes to the stove trying to cook something, unable to decide. Somesh, I want to go to school that you are going to I say but he says my mother will not be able to pay and the school I go to does not ask for money. He says that is for rich people poor can’t go there. I just remember my brothers who must be sitting at home and hiding under the table because daddy will come home and mommy and daddy will fight. They get so scared I have to cuddle them close though I hide under the table too but they start crying and I tell them to keep quiet. But in a while I start crying too and dad will pull me out and place me on the table and ask what his mistake was and why he has to suffer so much; why he is poor and why mother hates him. I just sit there and cry he tells me to shut up and that he loves me. In a while he takes all three children out, seats all on the table, says, you three kids are the light of my mind if you cry I will get blind. Amrit then stops crying and so do we all. Daddy I am hungry says he and daddy shouts at mother to get something and mother at the other corner of the room is lying on the bed her head turned to the ceiling still crying, says she has no food to give. Daddy curses her, swears and says if it had not been only for three of us he would have left her already and mom cries even harder and our eyes start watering again. I go to mom sit by her and my two brothers are watery, their mouth swell all ready to cry but daddy says stop, I love you. He takes the youngest in his arms, swings to and fro, dances with a lorry and he smiles and Amrit smiles too and mother just keeps staring at the ceiling.

Somesh I want to play Ping I say and he takes me to the bamboo swing, I sit he pushes it first slowly, then harder and I say I am scared, he stops, I get down and hug him because I had fallen once before when some other guys had pushed the ping too high and it hurt so bad that I fell on the ground and still have a scar on my neck. That is why may be so many other pale kids in school tease me that a bitch bit me because the scar is so green on white skin, it turns red when rubbed. I hug Somesh again he says lets go buy some dolls. I say if I am lost in this market will you find me because my daddy will kill me and my mother will sit there crying by the stove and they will fight again and my brothers will hide under the table but I will not be there with them. Somesh says don’t worry I will hold your hand when we walk and says he will protect me from those drunkards and I say they will not kill me will they? As we walk we meet an old beggar and he talks about how beautiful we kids are and gives us blessings. Somesh drops a coin on his empty bowl and his wrinkled face suddenly lights up with joy, he says may god bless you with love, may you kids grow up together. He then talks to himself or talks to others I don’t get it but goes on saying that god has blessed us with life and that we should learn to be content with all the happiness people we love have brought to us. I remember my parents, and ask myself why can’t they think like this beggar and be happy, may be I should take him to them and he will give an answer to my dad when he asks me why mother hates him or why is he so poor? We both keep walking under the hot sun and suddenly I see a woman all surrounded with dolls with beautiful clothes and ornaments, with red saris and golden scarf, boys with daura suruwal and topi, there are boys and girls who are getting married, kids playing on the street and I again think these kids must be bad because my mother told me not to go play with them. He picks up a beautiful girl dressed in colorful faria spotted with flowers blue and red and white and asks how much it costs. I tell him I want to get children playing and a bride dressed in red with her rosy cheeks and breaded hair with black dhago and because she looks so beautiful and clean I want to look like her. But he says he is buying that for me and I can choose to buy anything I like but I say I don’t have money he says he will get it for me and that I do not have to pay him back, because I don’t have money never and that he loves me. I am so happy I just want to hug him but I just say you are so much like my pa when he is not fighting with ma he likes me, he says I am his only daughter and I remind him of spring blossoming with flower and greenery and he gets me lots of candy which I later share with my brothers because he doesn’t get them anything; I love them so much, may be more than I love pa. But Somesh says he doesn’t want to be like my father and I feel sorry for my daddy again but I tell him I love him only sometimes, he slaps mother when he drinks and I hate him then. And I hate him when he looks at mother, looks at the pickle she made that tastes so good and looks back at her, slams the pickle on the plate, gets up without eating and says mother doesn’t even know how to make tomato pickles and it smells kerosene in rice, when we fold our legs sit down on a pirka to eat at night. But when he dresses up and mother finds socks that are clean and soft next morning he smiles and says mother is an angel and I and Amrit smile and sit there and watch them, licking dal run down our hands while the youngest one is sitting there peeing, wetting his little pants and crying.

Wet and stinky rugged jute carpet is spread all over the room where we sleep, eat and stay there whole day while ma goes out to seek petty jobs and daddy is working in the coal factory. Somesh says it is hard to work with coals that his daddy works on the table and I say it is boring to sit on a chair whole day whereas my daddy gets to see out and play with friends. I have seen him joke around with his friends when he brings some of them home when he gets money and they all sit down and drink while ma takes us all to the other room to feed us.

They are having a monkey dance and snake dance at the market, I don’t get scared this time, and I say I want to touch that snake. Somesh says it will bite you so I just watch others touch and the way it hisses back at them, like dad does to mom all the time. The monkey there dances, acts and does what the tall guy in a dhoti tells him to do. We just stand there for a while staring at the tricks its master tells to do and Somesh wants to let it sit on his shoulders. Nice dolls says a girl like me but she is not like me because she doesn’t have those dolls and she doesn’t have Somesh either, I just smile she looks like she wants to snatch the dolls from me so I tell him lets go I want to go, we leave. Smell of raw fish and fried fish, crowd of people colored red white black yellow green, cows and dogs alike, dolls and helicopters, kids all around and people drunk and dancing. All of a sudden there is a firing, we thought that was announcement of prizes and people should have gathered but they started running away in panic. I asked Somesh what was wrong and he said run or else you will be killed these are the Maoists they will end the world they will kill you they don’t care children women men animals they kill who they get so run. I know that has happened to us so many times and so many get killed no one can do nothing about it because powerful always rule and these people hate us all, so they come kill everyone they don’t like, he says. I start crying and seeing everyone run everywhere, stumble and fall down, run and stumble again I see a man shot dead and blood, blood in his body I cry, ask Somesh to take me away…he is running already, far away, I just sit there with nervousness. I cant run I cant see anything because my eyes are watering I cant think anything because there are people and there is firing and there is blood, so I just hide under a big cement pipe that is sitting there from ages. I see Somesh run at a distance but then he suddenly stops rather something stops him like so many people he stumbles and falls on the ground I see blood flowing out of his body I just sit there shivering, my Somesh is dying… and for everyone else it is so common, something that happens, just happens, and people just gather at feasts and run at firings. Only I know how uncommon it is for me, he is dying, my Somesh is dying…

   [ posted by [Dipika] @ 01:36 PM ] | Viewed: 2370 times [ Feedback]