Original post
Imagination or reality, fiction or true story.
Everything blends together, and if the characters really existed, if their story is partly true, I freely transcribed what Surya told me in her English as precarious as mine.
Have I already posted this on vf? I can't find it. Maybe on the small forum Wapiti created to continue our wild stories that went on for pages and pages and no longer pleased anyone on vf.
No matter.
I heard from Bavani—life is crazy, isn’t it?
That’s why I’m bringing her story back.
I’m settling into the -miscellaneous- section; I like being away from the noise.
When the house is overrun with running feet, laughter, arguments, and music, I go to the barn turned into a honey house. It’s cool, it smells of wax and honey, and among the disorder of hive frames, supers, and stacked jars, I refocus.
Here, in -miscellaneous-, no one rants. I can let my fingers glide over the keyboard in peace.
Alright, enough digressions.
At the end of the notebook, I’ll tell you what became of this little girl.
Bavani
“Bavani, stop daydreaming, work.”
I’m not daydreaming, I’m thinking.
My teacher is Surya, and she asked us to write a story.
She doesn’t like us—I heard her talking to the teacher in the little kids’ class.
She said: I stay here because the white people pay better than in government schools, but it’s a shame to teach gypsies. Filthy street urchins.
I’m not a gypsy, I’m a Narikuravar.
Grandmother told me: you’re going to this school, you’ll learn English well, and when you come back, you’ll be richer than the others because you’ll beg better from the tourists.
Grandmother makes necklaces and sells them, but often she sells nothing at all.
There are lots of tourists in my town, Tiruvannamalai.
Before, I lived behind the temple with dad and mom. We had our spot and were happy, especially when mom cooked rice on the brazier. Then we’d lie down, and I’d press my back against mom’s huge belly, and it would move inside. One day, mom told me: stay here, I’ll be back very soon. I waited a long time, and neither dad nor mom came back. After a long time, dad came, and we went to Salem to my grandmother, who’s dad’s mom.
I asked: where’s mom?
“Shut up, two was too many.”
“Two what? He didn’t say.”
So I went to Salem to grandmother’s hut, and there was no rice, and Muriga came to get me with his minibus.
Now I live here. We eat several times a day—yellow rice, then white rice to digest, and eggs and bananas.
And we have to study.
Papom *
.../...
Papom: in common language, it’s the equivalent of -see ya-
2
12 January
I am, I was, today, tomorrow, yesterday, thank you, my name is Bavani—all that I can say, and I even understand because Surya says it first in Tamil. But when it’s Annabelle, I don’t understand anything at all because she only speaks English, and it’s awful because she gets angry so fast.
We just sit on the floor, elbows on our desks, and smile.
Earlier, there was a terrible drama.
Balamourigan needed to pee and did it standing up in the hallway that leads to the bathroom, and Surya saw and laughed.
Annabelle saw too and didn’t laugh. She shouted, “disgustingpig,” and yelled at Surya, “hygienehygiene,” repeating that word over and over.
Surya just answered, “Yes, ma’am,” with her eyes on the floor.
White people always say “-hygiene-,” which I think means cleanliness. You have to wash in the morning, at night, your teeth, your feet, your hair.
When I first arrived, they cut my hair down to my scalp because of the bugs sleeping in it that clung on tight. Now it’s grown back a little, and I wear blue ribbons.
.../...
3
In our dorm, there are forty of us girls, and we each have our own locker. In the morning, we put our mats in another room in a neat pile, take a shower, and go eat idlis and buffalo milk from the buffalo grazing under the coconut trees.
Now, she doesn’t graze under the coconut trees anymore because the cyclone tore everything up, even the school roofs. A lot of kids went back to their families because their parents said a curse had been put on the school.
No one came to get me, and the curse didn’t catch me anyway, and the roof’s been fixed.
We do activities every day. I love singing and dancing the most. It’s Mayanka who plays the harmonium, and we sing along and jump with our arms up.
We also have a pool. A town in France donated the money for it. They didn’t donate any for cleaning, though, so the water’s green like a pond, and we’re not allowed to swim because of hygiene.
After class, Annabelle and Christian take some of the kids for a walk through the village of Madalapet to the beach. I always go because I’m always well-behaved.
Christian stops under the puli-mâ* and plays the harmonica, which is a small instrument you blow into while holding it to your mouth. The villagers come to listen, but they stay far from us because we’re Adivasis, and it’s like we have a disease that’s as contagious as leprosy.
Before Pongal, I ran away...
…/...
*puli-mâ: tamarind tree
4
After school, we’d head to the village, and I turned just before the puli-mā thicket—what a shame, the pods aren’t ready yet, but the seeds are so good.
I walked and walked for what felt like forever, and night had fallen by the time I reached Taralakuppama.
I got on the bus. I wanted to find my mom in Tiruvannamalai. I went all the way to the back of the bus, and the man who comes to collect the fare showed up. He yanked my arm—it felt like it was going to tear right off my shoulder—then smacked my head and went to talk to the driver. I had to sit on the floor right up front, next to the engine, and I was jostled the whole way.
Later, the bus stopped in a town, and it was a police station. The officer gave me a smack, spat on the ground, and called me "filth" before making a call—my school’s name was written in big letters on my red T-shirt.
I dozed off a little, and then Muriga arrived with the minibus.
I didn’t see my mom.
Then Amudhan, who does the cooking, pinched my cheek to show he cared—it’s because his name means "gentleness." I sat between his legs, rested my head against his sari, which smelled like coriander, and closed my eyes because I was so tired.
And there I was on Shiva’s chariot, cradled in Parvati’s arms. She rocked me, and I was so high up that the two hundred men carrying the chariot looked like *muriyu*.
I heard the women in silk saris screaming, "Yena assiggama iroukiraye," so I cried, and Parvati caught my tears, turning them into pearl necklaces. She said, "Give these to your mother, and you’ll live with her in a palace." She also told me:
"You’re a Narikuravar, and your ancestors were proud fox hunters. Men love money, and they destroyed your forests to turn them into rice fields. Never forget your roots, and be proud of who you are."
Something soft landed on my face and jolted me awake—a light frangipani flower.
Amuhan had set me down under the tree, and to recapture my dream, I squeezed my eyes shut again.
muriyu: red ant
yena assiggama iroukiraye: "How ugly she is!"
5
Today, no school because it's Sunday. We ate ladyfingers and crispy pooris.
Annabelle says ladyfingers taste like asparagus—lucky her, I don’t know what asparagus is.
It’s really hot out, so we’re having a carrom tournament under the veranda in front of the canteen.
We’ve got four carrom boards, and we play four to a board.
I love carrom, and I’m good at it. I make the cut shots and we rack up the points. We pull off moves in ten seconds, just like in real tournaments. My team has Chudaroli, Kâlapam, and Mugilan, and I’m the only girl. Black pieces, white pieces, the red queen, and a well-waxed striker—we’re gonna win.
Kâlapam says he’ll be my husband when we grow up. I’m okay with that—he’s strong at carrom, and he wants to be a musician. Since I want to be a dancer, it works out well together.
His name means "father of time," which suits him because his dad, who was a rickshawallah, passed away. He drank a lot of alcohol, didn’t pedal fast or straight, and a bus hit him. His mom kind of disappeared, and Kâlapam used to sell cotton candy that he wasn’t even allowed to eat.
When Muriga told him about coming to a school where they didn’t lock kids in classrooms all day, he said yes.
It’s gonna be hard to be a dancer because you need perfect hands and fingers.
I’ve got two fingers on my right hand that are fused together. Luckily, it’s not my whole hand—that would look like a duck’s foot. Still, it worries me. I tried separating my fingers with a piece of glass, but all it did was bleed and hurt, so I stopped right away.....
.../...
6
Kâlapam and Bavani ran away. Their description was circulated, but with little hope. They’ve now been swallowed up, devoured by the city.
Bavani’s lined notebook and the children’s red T-shirts were thrown near the school.
That’s how I had ended this story, and my memory had filed all these words away in the box labeled India.
__
But...
Mariane called a few days ago.
Mariane has been my friend for decades.
We worked together for a long time.
She’s Franco-Tamil and moved to Pondicherry 30 years ago.
Today, she lives at the foot of the Nilgiris, near Mettupalayam, on the way to Ooty. At the foot of the Nilgiris, and during the scorching heat, the mountains are a real relief.
Anyway, one morning, completely stuck with a stubborn back at 45°C, she went to the Ayurvedic hospital where she knew they practiced effective massages.
That’s where she met Bavani, whose story I had told her.
A one-in-a-billion chance that it was her.
Bavani had indeed been in a school for white children, and after her escape, a Belgian woman from Auroville took care of her young life. She studied and now works here, at the hospital, as a physiotherapist—the equivalent of a *kiné* back home.
“And there’s no doubt, it’s really her—she also has syndactyly, just like you mentioned.
Bavani doesn’t know what became of Kâlapam, maybe he’s with the other pickpocket boys. When they were caught by the police, she managed to escape.
And that’s the end of the story.
