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Portrait of a Girl
By Adreyo Sen
QuailBellMagazine.com
Lily, currently employed with an advertising agency in Manchester, England, was a student at Columbia between 1973 and 1977.
Lily was the first person to attempt college from a family late to the ranks of the Indian lower middle class. Her father was a library clerk and her mother a sanitation worker, roles leading them to value education. Both sets of grandparents were embedded in the agrarian economy. The youngest of five children, Lily came to New York on a full scholarship, the result of a stellar performance throughout her school career and the intervention of teachers who discovered her talent. Lily ascribes her educational success to the “sacrifices her parents made.” Understandably, Lily came to New York under immense pressure to succeed, her anxiety complicated by her ambivalence towards her family and her guilt over her increasing fascination with a career not typically recognized in India as guaranteeing financial success and, more importantly, “prestige.” Lily’s zero hour is her attempt at suicide while a student at Columbia, which serves as an entry-point into her story. Lily’s memories of her childhood are fond – typically she views the world through rose-patterned lenses. Her nostalgia, unconscious Orientalism and even her elisions offer rich insight into an India negotiating the after-effects of Independence and into the claustrophobic and delusive confines of the ivory tower. At fifty, Lily is a slender woman with the expression of an anxious fern. Her laugh is often tinged with self-mockery. Diffident and eager to please, Lily is perpetually insecure and does not realize how much she is valued in the new community she’s built for herself. I Mrs. Antara Debi (1) on Lily (Ranjana) When Rannu was five, she’d bring home little things – a floral pencil, a perfumed eraser. “Where did you get that from, chokher bali (2)?” I would ask her. She would look at me with her bright eyes and chirp, “My best friend gave it to me,” or “Teacher gave it to me for class participation.” Rannu often came home with shoe prints on her skirt. She denied being bullied. Rannu’s father suggested I beat her for stealing. But Rannu reacted very badly to being hurt. The gentlest of slaps made her sob for hours. I had a better idea. I withdrew 200 rupees (3), from my potli (4) and took Rannu shopping. She was initially hesitant, but soon, she piled her little hands with the littlest, dearest things. When we came home, Rannu disappeared. Then, she arrived at my side with a cup of tea. As I sipped it, she beamed into my face. Then she burst out, “Ammi (5), can I bring you roses from Divya’s garden?” I held her close. “No, child,” I said, “Just promise me you’ll always be honest.” I could sense her puzzlement. We both knew she was always honest. 1. Debi – Literally means “goddess” and denotes the idea that the married woman is the enshrined (and therefore constrained) deity of her household. 2. Chokher Bali – Affectionate dimunitive traditionally couched as an insult – literally means, sand in my eye. 3. 200 Rupees – Approximately 1000 rupees now, adjusting for inflation, that is, 20$. 4. Potli – Typically a brightly embroidered bag with mirror work and sequins used by rural women and lower-class and lower middle-class urban Indian women. 5. Ammi – Affectionate dimunitive for mother, less denoting of respect than other synonyms. II Mrs. Antara Debi (1) on Lily (Ranjana) When Rannu was eight, she had a gastric ulcer. She recovered and Doctor Saab (2) advised us to feed her dahi (3). Rannu was violently against the idea, screwing her little eyes in disgust and crying. Eventually, I won her over with flavored dahi from Mother Dairy. She got used to it and switched to the plain one. Watching her nibble happily, I wished I could make dahi for her myself. I made a sample and broached the idea to her. She smiled her reluctance into my face and I knew she was going to be impossible. Rannu loved standardized things. But I insisted and she smiled sweetly at me. I insisted, but she kept on smiling and I felt that intense anger only that sorry crea4ture could inspire in me. Rannu’s father spoke up irritably. “Why are you embarrassing yourself?” he asked me. He brooded silently next to Rannu. But Rannu didn’t realize his anger was directed at her. Later Rannu came to me crying. “Why didn’t you tell me the yoghurt was expensive?” she sobbed, “I would have agreed straightaway.” Rannu never had any idea of money. Her monthly sitar (4) lessons cost more than a year’s supply of yoghurt. 1. Debi – Literally means “goddess” and denotes the idea that the married woman is the enshrined (and therefore constrained) deity of her household. 2. Saab – Literally translates to “sir,” but is, in fact, a loaded legacy of India’s colonial past. Doctors are called Saab to imply their semi-divine status. 3. Dahi – Yoghurt 4. Sitar – Indian musical instrument. Music lessons are traditionally an extracurricular activity privileged by Indian families with high educational aspirations for their offspring. III Elena Kisleva on Lily (Ranjana) I met Little Dorrit long before I read Charles Dickens’ fat little book. She was my freshman roommate, a colorless little thing until she raised her large, cat-like eyes at you. They beamed with shy affection and I was always terrified that I would wake up one morning to find her purring at my side. But the creature gave me no trouble. She was a silence and I never knew when she’d entered or left the room. In my second semester, I came down with a severe cold. My boyfriend was there whenever he could, cheering me with stories about his totally weird family, but sill, I was sometimes alone. One night, I was coughing into my blanket, when something sat down next to me. It was the creature. Something warm and moist pressed itself against my forehead and Jana sang to me in a shy, soft little voice. She sang Indian, I think. Indy (1)? My cold subsisted for a couple more days. Ana took care of me. I’d wake up from a sound sleep to her absence and a beaker of still-warm soup. When I was finally myself, my boyfriend and I decided to treat her to dinner. She smiled her apology. “I’d be embarrassing,” she said, blushing into her scuffed sneakers. She was obdurate. “Suit yourself,” I said finally. I was really pissed off. When I came back again, Jana was gone. I waited for her for a bit and then settled into bed. There was something squishy under my pillow. I poked underneath and retrieved a Snickers bar. I didn’t see the creature till a week later. 1. Indy – Elena probably means Hindi, India’s dominant language. IV Mr. Arvind Kumar on Lily (Ranjana) When Chutki (1) was born, Chutki’s mother was over the moon. You see, she was our first beti (2). It had been a full eight years since our last child. Chutki’s mother wanted everything for her daughter. But Chutki was a shy and awkward child, slow to grasp the potential of all we’d achieved over twenty hard years. Chutki’s mother was hard on Chutki. All mother are hard on their daughters – they only have them for so long and then they are someone else’s. But Chutki was really unhappy One day, she threatened to run away. I was terrified as so I took her out shopping. I bought her one of those branded dolls. Barbie, I think. I think Chutki saw this as an opportunity for future gifts. Badmash (3). But the next time she threatened to run away, I put her new Nike shoes in front of her. “Run,” I said, and don’t come back.” She cried in my arms. But Chutki ran away from us in the end. Not when she went to New York, but later. She ran away into her mind. She is a prisoner there now, chained by its chudails (4) and rakshashi (5). And until she comes back to us, I’ll love me the gentle shell that brings me tea every morning. 1. Chutki – Affectionate dimunitive, literally meaning “little one.” 2. Beti – Loaded Indian word for daughter, implying subservience and docility. 3. Badmash – Naughty 4. Chudails – Indian demon supposed to haunt women barred pregnancy by mental illness, or miscarriage. 5. Rakshashi – Indian female demon rendered doubly monstrous by lack of conventional feminine traits. V Deep on Lily (Ranjana) When I went to meet Poka (1) in the ward, she refused to talk to me. She sat in front of me, her slender fingers digging into her forearms, her hair in a mess. Poka never knew how pretty she was. “Really,” said her psychiatrist finally, “I expected better from you.” Later, she told me patients are often angry with their loved ones after their breakdown. I endured Poka’s angry silence the next day and the day after. And then I had to return to Dubai to give a presentation to my firm’s new client. I knew why Poka was angry with me. When she was eight and I was sixteen, I used to tease her a lot. She was my little gudiya. Sometimes I would lock her in the bathroom in the dark, at other times, I would hide her things, or accuse her of little misbehaviors. Lily was so silent I never knew she minded. As she grew up, Lily continued to quietly attend to my needs, bringing me my morning tea all the way till I left India in search of work. Lily was the brilliant one. The rest of us had to make our way in the world. Now I know Lily was attending to me out of her sense of duty. She’d stopped loving me the first time I’d left her in the darkness. 1. Poka- An affectionate diminutive for insect.
#Unreal #Portrait of a Girl #ShortStory #Fiction #Cultural #India #Indian #Perspectives #PointOfView #Memories #Family
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