Kalyana Read online

  The four old women danced a fast, rhythmic dance, their arms up in the air and their large behinds creating a hurricane in the middle of our living room. They stood around in a circle and sang songs of the American women going mad.

  I did not join in. Like a tree stump I remained lodged in my chair, pouting. My nostrils flared flames. How could my mother think that this was the best style to complement my round, female face? She must have lost her marbles, like Father sometimes said after her elaborate theatrical performances.

  “Oh Kalyana, even the Beatles of Great Britain fancied this style.” My mother thumped my back lovingly and then walked away, as Manjula swept my chestnut brown locks off the floor and into the rubbish bin.

  “Beatles?” So insects fancied this style. I sat with a frown marring my features. The women in America were not the only ones who had gone mad.

  There was a triumphant grin on Manjula’s face as she disposed of my beloved curls. She showed no compassion as she heartlessly powdered my neck and back with talcum powder, blowing away any remaining brown strands. My neck and back felt itchy.

  “Don’t scratch!” Manjula hit my hand every time I tried. “Sores will break out!”

  She stared into my face, a condescending glint in her eyes. “Do you want to go to school with sores all over your body? What if you meet a boy in school? Do you want him to see?”

  I shook my head mutely.

  “Then don’t scratch! He will reject you for sure, then.”

  I tried to follow my aunt’s direction. But as the tingling sensation overtook my body, I could not stop myself from scratching my neck and my back. Digging my nails into the skin transported me to the heavens above. I thought of the Hare Krishna devotees and their long needles. When no one was watching, I dug my nails deeper into the skin, moving on to the little red bumps on my legs as well. Manjula called them mosquito bites.

  As it happened, Manjula was partly right; sores erupted on both my legs, and yellow pus filled the boil-like eruptions. I did not want to go to school with pus-filled sores on both my legs. I complained of stomach cramps, but my mother understood. She soaked my legs in a bucket of warm water mixed into a strange solution that made the bucket of water look like the clouds from the blue skies had fallen into it. My mother then took a rag and cleaned the sores gently. Pus drained out of them and into the warm water. She dried my legs with a clean towel, tossing it into the concrete sink to be beaten on the rocks later. Then she bandaged both of my legs with a white strip of cloth to keep me from digging my nails into the sores, re-infecting them.

  A week later, after the sores had healed, I discovered a new hobby. I peeled the scabs and once more found myself hurtling into bliss. My mother smacked my hand every time she caught me.

  “Leave it alone, Kalyana! Let it heal!”

  But when her back was turned I peeled the scabs all the same. Eventually, despite my efforts, the scabs disappeared and made way for scars. I returned to school with my bowl haircut, my lemon-yellow dress, and my black open-toed sandals. The scars I hid beneath knee-length socks of brightest white, as though the purity of the white socks would miraculously wipe away the bloodless suffering of humiliation.

  Each morning I would carefully pull on my dress and socks and shoes and grip the handles of the chocolate-brown suitcase my father had given me. My mother would hand me the lunch she had prepared. She would roll vegetable curry in a roti, a type of Indian flatbread that she made on the kerosene stove. She would wrap the roti in wax paper and then in The Fiji Times newspaper that my father had bought for three cents from the corner store. I used to crane my head to find words I could read and recognize. It never occurred to me then, but now I wonder whether my father, who could only write his name, got his daily dose of news merely from looking at the pictures.

  My mother would also drop a ten-cent coin into my pocket in case I should get a craving for the popsicles and blood-red sugar candies they sold at recess at the school canteen. I carried the same ten-cent piece every day, too afraid to stand in line and buy a treat from the senior girls who ran the canteen. Then one day, the tallest, heftiest girl in the school asked to borrow it. I watched her stand in line and buy herself a purple popsicle, and though I waited expectantly, she quickly walked away with the treat, smirking.

  I returned home with empty pockets that day. I never saw that girl again, even though I looked for her everywhere. My mother, furious, gave me a new ten-cent piece the next day and I spent it in the cafeteria, starting a long-overdue tradition of my own.

  School began in the morning and lasted until the long hand of the clock pointed straight north and the short hand, due east. Monday was handkerchief day. Tuesday was lice day. Wednesday was nail day, Thursday was uniform check, and Friday was assembly. Each day was yet another opportunity to avoid the balding headmaster who had made me hear the sound of every kind of musical instrument in my head.

  Manjula was responsible for ensuring I carried a handkerchief each Monday. Sometimes, though, her mind was drifting to thoughts of her knight arriving on a black horse, and I arrived at school with an empty side pocket. On the Mondays that Manjula forgot, I would fold a piece of paper in a perfect square and wave it up in the air for the teacher to see as the other students waved their handkerchiefs, a storm of flashing white against the dark building. Later, though, I would scold Manjula for her forgetfulness, claiming she had caused me trouble with my teacher. I liked hearing Manjula’s apologetic squeak. The students who didn’t fold a piece of paper and wave it in the air on Mondays received their beating in front of the whole class.

  I always feared receiving the humiliation of a public beating, but some of the children did not seem to care. On Wednesdays, my teacher would inspect our fingernails for black grime. Rakesh always failed this test, and Mrs. Smith would grab him by the ear, drag him to the front of the class, and snap the square, wooden blackboard duster on his fingers. I would wonder whether he was beyond human suffering, like the Hare Krishna devotees. Week after week, year after year, I saw him receive his beatings and yet never flinch a muscle. He would walk back to his desk with a smirk on his face, as though Mrs. Smith had merely grazed his fingers with a feather. I admired him. Fiercely I wished to be like him: fearless and above the human experience of suffering.

  On the final day marking the end of the week, the whole school, boys and girls from classes One through Eight, would become little armies. Each class marched left and right, in a straight column out to the soccer field. We would line up in front of the statue of Gandhi ji, while the headmaster stood on top of the concrete steps and barked orders: “Hands out. Hands to the side. March in place.” We had to follow his directions no matter the blazing sun or drizzling rain.

  Every week followed the same pattern. But on October 10 of that year, we assembled for a new purpose. Fiji had gained independence from British rule, and like little soldiers carrying sky-blue flags, all of the students registered in the school were to go into the town to celebrate. Instead of marching for the soccer fields, we lined up to board brown buses.

  I had never ridden in a bus without my mother. I felt both alone and exposed, certain of the penetrating stares of the boys and girls all around me. Their glances burned like fire into my skin. I knew they must be poking fun at my tubby stomach, at how it jiggled when the bus bounced over the potholes on the uneven roads. I knew their nickname for me: Forty-Four-Gallon Drum. When Noora had first yelled that out to the rest of the class that one hideous day, I had wished for the earth to open so that I might fall into the pit and disappear; but instead, upon coming home, hiding in the comfort of my own room, I began, in small sentences and broken words, to try to write away my shame.

  I never told my mother that this is what they called me in school, that the other girls giggled and laughed because I was like a forty-four-gallon barrel of lard. I never told her that I ate lunch alone, shut in the toilet behind a closed door. B
ut here, on this field trip, my secret—that I had no friends—was exposed like the emperor in the tale Mother had told me. I was the naked emperor on this bus, but unlike the ruler in the story, I knew I had no clothes.

  When we reached the town celebrations, the pundit didn’t blow his conch shell. Independence Day was nothing like an Indian wedding, complete with a gleaming bride, vibrantly dressed guests, a tall altar, and a rainfall of confetti. Children from all the other schools, wearing different colors and shades of the same style of uniform, stood in perfect lines, led by their own grim headmasters and stiff teachers.

  On a stage, indigenous Fijians, or iTaukei, performed the meke. Half-naked, they danced with painted faces and wooden clubs in the blazing sun. They told stories of their past, of wars and surrender. Skilled Fijian women, each with a frangipani tucked behind an ear, shook their grass-skirted hips. People clapped. Children jumped with joy in time with the beating of the drums. Ships pulled into the wharf in the distance. Palm trees swayed in the light breeze. I was horrified to see how little clothing the dancers wore, and yet marveled at how confident they seemed in their movement. What beautiful tales they told through the sway of their hips and the shaking of their chests and the rattle and hum of their clubs.

  Mint and vanilla ice cream and cotton candy were there for the taking. I stuffed my face with mint ice cream, and I saw the stout headmaster go for seconds and thirds. The ice cream melted down the side of his face as he wiped the sweat off his brow. He was a ghastly sight.

  Ratu Sir Kamisese Mara, our first prime minister, addressed us in a speech. I think he said that we had to strive to be promising youths; that we were Fiji’s future, full of opportunity, the privileged ones. His white, curly hair was impossibly frizzy. The burning sun made my scalp itchy and my underarms sweaty, and I was sure I could smell curry chicken cooking in the distance. The aroma made me hungrier than the thought of mother’s rice pudding wrapped in grease-layered puries, and I wished I was hiding under the shade of her dupatta.

  I did not feel privileged.

  When the prime minister was done speaking, the whole crowd stood erect, proudly singing the National Anthem:

  Blessing grant, oh God of Nations, on the isles of Fiji

  As we stand united under noble banner blue

  And we honor and defend the cause of freedom ever

  Onward march together

  God Bless Fiji

  For Fiji, ever Fiji, let our voices ring with pride

  For Fiji, ever Fiji, her voices hail far and wide

  A land of freedom, hope and glory, to endure whatever befall

  May God bless Fiji

  Forever more!

  Blessing grant, oh God of nations, on the isles of Fiji

  Shores of golden sand and sunshine, happiness and song

  Stand united, we of Fiji, fame and glory ever

  Onward march together

  God Bless Fiji

  When we returned to school the following week, the headmaster proudly announced that we were to sing the National Anthem at all Friday assemblies from then onward. The first day that we stood straight and proud and sang, the rhythm possessed me like the wandering spirits possessed Indian pundits at the yearly pooja. I rolled my shoulders back and forth and pounded my left leg on the ground as I bellowed the National Anthem. Now, whenever I hear it play in the corner of my mind, I still feel my classroom teacher’s piercing gaze knife through my back as it did that first day, urging me to stand still and sing on key. Later that day, she cornered me and said huskily, “It never fares well to behave unladylike, Kalyana. Keep still when singing the National Anthem next time.” Her voice was so low that she sounded like a man. I nodded my head and lowered my gaze to the ground until I heard her footsteps fade away.

  At the next assembly, I restrained my burning urge to roll my shoulders and pound my left foot in the dirt. I ignored the rhythm of drums beating through my veins. Yet sometimes I found I must succumb to the music; discreetly I would pound my big toe.

  8

  At school I learned to put up my hand before asking to go to the toilet. I learned to write “Ana and Tom climbed a tree.” I learned to create characters and make up stories. I learned that the dead man after whom our school was named was a great man, full of insight and wisdom. He was a man respected for starting a movement that brought the Indian people freedom from the British rule. So one man of color had stood in front of a crowd of white men and won? It must have been the word “movement” that had possessed him deep in the night as he had slept, for only this word could have the power to cause the submissive to rise. But then, soon after, the great Mahatma Gandhi was shot in a midst of a burning crowd. The teacher said that most great beings go like this.

  I learned other stories, stories with happier endings. I read Cinderella and compared the char princess to Manjula. Yet Cinderella did not walk with a limp and was blessed with beauty, and in the end had the chance to be rescued by her sweet prince. After that she lived happily ever after.

  I wondered what happened to the girls who were Manjulas and not Cinderellas, girls who walked with a limp and stood no chance of being saved by a man. Would they spend an eternity waiting to live happily ever after? Or would their princes emerge one day out of the blue to rescue them from the depths of their suffering? Was every girl, princess or not, promised her prince? These things puzzled me, although at the time I was more interested in begging my father for a pair of glass slippers. I surely liked those shoes!

  The story of Rapunzel reminded me of my “pyala cut” hair and my lost locks; the illustrations of Rapunzel’s long, golden tresses left me feeling envious. And the image of the gingerbread man sitting on the edge of a wolf’s nose as the animal approached the banks of the river made my heart jump out of my skin in anticipation of the cookie’s coming end. Was this unpredictability life’s only promise? I wondered, but I felt a little sorry for the wolf all the same. A soggy cookie is never fun to eat.

  I read that this was the way you went around the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, the mulberry bush, and this was the way you brushed your teeth, brushed your teeth, brushed your teeth, so early in the morning. I would put a tiny rock on the middle of the floor and stack pillows on top of the stone and pretend to be a princess sleeping on a small pea. I would build my own bridge with cushions in the middle of our living room. I changed my voice from high-pitched to low and gruff, imitating each of the billy goats and then finally the ogre at the bottom of the bridge, as I walked slowly over the cushions.

  Raju would say, “If you tried to cross the bridge, it would break in the middle and you would fall in the river below. But don’t worry, sister, you would definitely float!” He would leave the room, laughing loudly.

  Manjula did not laugh. She had a new occupation: she became my audience. After dinner she liked to sit at the edge of our mattress and listen intently as I read my fairy tales aloud. Out of the corner of my eye, I would steal glances at my unsuspecting auntie. I could see how she raised her eyebrows with piqued interest or lowered her sad gaze when the prince lost his Cinderella or the beast clutched his heart, falling to the ground as the last rose petal descended into the glass jar. I started raising and lowering my voice to match the action in the story, and took pleasure in capturing her emotions like a fisherman traps the fishes in his net. You could say that, in some odd way I had started to resemble my mother.

  At first, Manjula would sit at the edge of the mattress and appear to let her mind wander into a distant world as I read her the children’s stories. Then she started sitting closer. She would look over my shoulder and try to see the illustrations, and somehow I began pointing to each of the words I read. Sometimes Manjula would interrupt and say, “Wait, what’s that word again?”

  Occasionally I noticed her lips moving silently as I read. And gradually, as I saw her eyes roll over the words on the pages, I began to suspect that she wa
s learning and growing in her understanding of “Ingalish,” even though I never heard her utter an English word.

  To an outsider, it might have appeared that I was the headmaster and Manjula the student. But the truth was that there were no teachers here, only students. For after that, Manjula began sewing my dresses for a discounted price. I never paid more than three dollars for a new frock or blouse or skirt. She would take me to the seashore more often, and not just to catch crabs; now we lingered in the parks and on the swings. Sometimes she would put me on her lap on the swing and wrap her arms around my waist as we soared to the skies. Or she would stand behind me, her legs parted and steady, and use her strong hands to push me up and up and up. I flew far and away, towards the moving clouds.

  I outgrew the fairy tales, but my hunger for books became insatiable. My mother would take me to the Carnegie library every Saturday, right after we stopped for green milkshakes and mutton rolls by the Pacific Harbour. Even now, the memory makes me salivate, for the milkshakes had a flavor that tickled all the taste buds like a million sparklers. I remember my disappointment when I tasted my first Canadian milkshake; it was nothing like the milkshakes of my childhood. In Canada, milkshakes are thick in consistency, but in Fiji they were runny and had their own distinct flavor. I have never tasted anything like it since.

  The Suva Public Library had stood there since 1909, making it one of the oldest buildings in all of Fiji. The first time I entered the building, I was in awe. I was like a tiny fish swimming in an ocean of books. I was free to dart through one aisle and come out the other. I could take out one book and shove it back on the shelf and then remove a second, flipping the bent and crisp pages or looking through the illustrations.