Uma stares at the World with Suspicion

Uma stares at the library room in the Officer’s Mess, in the new southern town that they have moved to.
It feels a bit familiar to her. So many windows and sunlight streaming in. The nakedness of its display! Space opening itself so joyously to its readers, touching is mandatory, it seems to say. She smoothens the gold rimmed bindings with her stubby fingers, takes a deep whiff smelling the insides of a dusty ancient tome, Oh! Poor thing! no one took you out to read? I shall be your saviour….

‘Read as much as Possible’ figures in her latest to-do list this year. Actually she likes both the numbers 1 and the zero. Unable to decide which she prefers, she usually settles for a 10. Everything has to be done 10 times. Or at 10 past or 10 after. Or in the years when you are 10 or 20 or…Uma is 10 and this is her list of 10 items.

1. Meet as many Famous saints as possible
2. Take part in Sports Day at school and Win
3. Practise speaking on any Topic everyday . Extempore
4. Never sit next to a Boy
5. Pay more attention at school Assembly
6. Take Autographs for the Future
7. Improve General Knowledge and Vocabulary
8. Make an effort to Like girls
9. Join an all Girls school
10. Read as much as Possible.

Uma never tires of making lists, in the event of nothing else to do, she will tear out a neat white sheet of paper, ruled or unruled, lick the back of her pencil, bite her lips, swing her feet with abandon and ponder on what the list should be about. Once she has made the list, she forgets all about it. She does not need to read it now, having given it her all she has every word etched in her memory, embedded for posterity, to cash in if the situation should so demand.

This new list is as the result of a fiasco in the last school she was in, as a Class Monitor in Holy Cross, she wants to be now better prepared, for Life.

No, she couldn’t have guessed it was coming. Else she is a conscientious one, our Uma. Since she seemed to be always so quiet and studious, the good samaritan Sisters in the previous school thought it imperative that she get a little boisterous. It was funnily enough a co-educational institution for a catholic school and though she did not mind boys, in fact it was girls she disliked and hence had insisted on studying with boys, she couldn’t bear the silliness surrounding her. Everyone was always passing ‘chits’ to everyone else. Every pretty girl had a boy stalking her, following her every move, rest breaks and intervals were filled with croonings of the latest film hits and whenever a teacher went out, a pandemonium always broke out in the classroom.

Boys would try throwing love notes at ‘their’ girls and the girls would giggle and someone would shout suddenly about what someone else was saying about some other person….it was the Circus itself with just clowns surrounding her. Hence she did what she thought befitted a scholarly ten year old. She refused to be party to such frivolity. It could also be that she was not really pretty and she had no interested parties to distract her. Boys though will respond to their own calling than the parameters of aesthetics. Some did find her quiet demeanour very alluring.

Khalong was from somewhere near Shillong and he made it very clear to everyone that he wanted to sit next to her. So after the new seating arrangements were put in place he bartered the latest trendy pencil sharpner that his uncle from Mizoram had gifted him for the prized seat. Next to her. He was now sandwiched between two girls, Uma and the-girl-who-always-whined. It was a policy decision made by the Head Sister to inculcate a healthy respect for the ‘other sex’, as she called it.

When the holy Sister first stated her liberal purpose using that three letter word in the classroom there was a big bang in the heads of each of the thirty, ten year olds, sitting demurely in front of her. What was she saying? This word unlike other words that were said before and most promptly ignored by the restless bunch was taken in, in concentrated silence. As though something sacred was being spouted. Not that anyone knew what it meant but even at ten they knew its potency. The word, then crept into their consciousness and stayed there till it would be called urgently at a latter date, trying to redeem itself and its duty of having a healthy respect for the other. How much respect would actually show when it manifested itself from a word to an act, that was doubtful but it certainly hinged upon decisions such as this.

Of Khalong sidling next to Uma. Trying to lend her his geometry box, his notes, his dirty handkerchief when she sneezes. Uma is starting to feel suffocated. She is used to being left alone and ignored. This sudden spurt of attention takes away the joys of staring silently into space observing the twisting tail of the class lizard hunkered overhead, threatening to drop at any moment on the language teacher. If only he were smarter she would not have minded but Khalong apart from being the rough and tumble sporty kind was also very loud and upfront about his ‘feelings’ for her, which made her dislike him even more. Plus this assumption of his that she needed his help. Okay she was not the most brilliant in class but she had come third and that was not too bad, was it? Third, in all the sections A, B, C put together.

Especially with having to learn a new language it had not been easy. Being a boy his own interest was in taking charge of a wayward elf like her who ate alone, walked in the garden alone, struggled with Assamese and couldn’t, wouldn’t laugh aloud in class when he or the other boys acted goofy. This much then was enough for a boy to like a girl. He could feel good about protecting a poor thing, giving her some much required company and confidence. Allowing her to share his bawdy space. Did he for a minute think of himself. Of how he came across to her ? Well, it did not matter apparently. He did not question his purpose towards her nor her response towards him.

She was being kind. Uma is kind as we have seen. She stares kindly at the bloated lizard (unlike other girls who might scream), she very kindly smiles at the-girl-who-whines, when she whines, which is all the time, she kindly offers to close the classroom door when it gets too hot and muggy or there are sudden showers, she in short tries hard to be kind. If she cannot be first in class in academics she will beat Sudip Sen by being the kindest. She was being kind now to Khalong by borrowing his tattered and incomplete notes, she would not use them of course but he had been offering them as though this was maha prashad itself and he being a tribal, a Christian, who did not speak Assamese or Hindi, she was conscious of the small slights he faced time to time in a very Bengali dominated school. She did not wish to add to it.

That was how our happy tribal concluded that he had scored her heart.

“I gave your name in for Extempore tomorrow” he announces triumphantly one day, after his unlabelled, uncovered notes have been returned without being perused or copied. He is not someone to sense that or that in Uma’s world, if you do not cover your notebooks with brown paper and label them in your own handwriting, running not bold, you are insulting Goddess Saraswati. She has not yet responded and he is not in a hurry to hear an answer. Is this how they grow up? To be men? Telling their side of the story and not waiting for a reaction, a conversation, an acceptance.

“Why?” Uma can be rude and reticent when kindness starts intruding into her space.

“What do you mean why? I know you can do it! You read all the time…you must have so much to say. It will be easy, I found out that other teams don’t have anyone strong signing up, they have already signed up for the Debate….and we need someone from Daffodils to win this time, we are lagging behind already…” Khalong is the vice-captian of Daffodils, one of the team with three others at school, all named after flowers that the students of Holy Cross, Silchar have never had a chance to see and may never ever see in the future either. That has not deterred the sweet nuns from transplanting the gardens of Devon and transposing them to a tropical belt where a Mahua, Juhi, Kachnar or even Raat-ki-Rani might have been more apt. Or NeelKamal, Palash, Parijaat, Shankhapushpi...
Daffodils or Pansies did not emit to Uma the fragrance of her land.

In which case the school wouldn’t be as popular of course. Without the Christian hymns that were taught, without the English sounding teams, without the English discipline, without the English uniforms and ties (in humid Assam) and buckles and belts and labels and covers and polished black shoes and pure white socks (in humid Assam) Who would dare send their ward to be educated here? After all a proper education meant all this and more. Pity that she wasn’t in a boarding school, her father could neither afford nor comply with it. Whoever got left out, too bad, they were sure to suffer in the future. In the future who would care about Assamese or Bengali or her own language Telugu? What chance did Khalong have with just his native Nagamese!
She could sense that if she had to be anybody at all, she had to master English.

Which meant Khalong had done her a favour. Poor boy that was his intention anyway, team Daffodils was just an excuse. Which meant she should be thanking him politely and make him feel special.
“Thank You Khalong” Uma is as reticent in her kindness but the rude edge has been couched.
“That’s the first time you said my name!” he races down the corridor with a swoop and flourish of a film hero, turning back to give her a smile and flick his lock of hair back in place. He fails to notice the disinterested look in Uma’s eyes, infact a look of pure disdain. Its just a name, she thinks! What is in that?

There are matters more pressing like when and what of this competition he has tethered her to. She is told to arrive at the Auditorium at 10 am tomorrow, sharp. The five topics will be given ‘then and there’ and she will have to choose one and speak on it for a five minutes. It doesn’t sound too complicated to elicit any preparation and Uma shows up at 10 am sharp as directed at the Auditorium.

Khalong is already there with a brood of equally happy looking boys, who are no doubt enlisted to support her, since she is his ‘girl’. And they are his friends. Uma hates this public display of affection. What has made this boy assume that he owns her? That she needs his backing, cheering and good will? She is in a very bad mood now. She would have liked to have come quietly and having done her bit for Daffodils, gone away without much notice…but this! She is sure that tomorrow were she to offend Mr K in any way all this would fizzle off into cold vibes and hateful stares. This is what she would have liked to prevent. How could she have allowed this to happen?

“Uma Uma Uma” the chants go on incessantly. As though this were a football match.

She is distracted and dismayed, she cannot find her being, her bearing, her centre, her space. She cannot think anything and her head is all fuzzy wuzzy. Her name is called out and she is walking robotically to the stage, standing in front of the microphone, picking up the lots, announcing it as “ SCHOOL ASSEMBLY” and then, and then all is Dark.

“You could have said we sing the National Anthem” Khalong’s disappointed voice drags.
“ ….and we say the Pledge….oh! and we read the Headlines” another chips in
“Thought for the Day” from a boy Uma has never noticed in school
“that we have Inspections…our hair, nails, badges are checked…”
“But you read so much…how come you were tongue-tied?” Khalong is perplexed.

and it goes on and on till she starts to run and run and run, their voices trailing, away from them all, to the grounds behind the school, where on one end all the didis and bhaiyyas are busy holding hands and shoo her away, so she runs and runs to the other end and settles down under the big water tank to absorb her loss in silence.

Her embarrassing failure in front of the whole school has not deterred Khalong from his pursuit, in fact now he is all the more determined to help her win at something. A week later he approaches her at tiffin time
“I put your name in for the running race. This is really simple. You don’t have to speak at all, I know you are shy, don’t worry. Just run, like you did the other day, okay? Daffodils believes in you” he is excited to have found an area where his girl can shine. Wait, where did he get the idea that she is shy? Uma is instantly irritated at this thought. She is neither shy nor tongue-tied. She is just not very fond of him and prefers to speak a lot with herself.

Once again his troops stand in attention at the will of their commander and prod her to please their Master. This is something she will not succumb to. This coaxing, cajoling, being told to behave in a certain way such that the ‘other sex’ can feel satiated. She begins to sense that the ‘other sex’ might never be satiated, they might demand more from her if she gives in once…with these thoughts and a false start she is the last one to complete the race. She is also not very good with her legs and anything to do with huffing and puffing drains her. She is a reader. Not a talker or runner.

Good! Good riddance. Khalong has been mum for a few months now. Though solicitous of her needs, he has not planted her name in any untoward games or competitions. Meanwhile Sudip Sen, whom she secretly likes but only because he comes first (In all sections A, B, C put together), is flaunting his GK scores and flirting with Bidita AND Bidisha. He has won a gold medal for the school in an inter-school Quiz competition that she too took part in, voluntarily, but lost out in the last round since she could not place Dardanelles on the map. All the girls are crazy about him of course and she has no chance. She does not know about Dardanelles and he does. Neither can she run a race or talk extempore for five minutes and there is this urgent matter of Khalong who sits next to her and professes undying devotion even in his mutedness.

“It’s a chorus, the school choir, you can stand at the back if you like, no one will see you…” this time he has less faith in her abilities but more affection in his tone. This is not the bravado of yore but a newfound sensitivity to failure.
“Thank you, I get scared when I see you and your friends in the audience” Uma manages to finally blurt out her real problem.

And so it came to pass that when Mother Teresa pays a visit to their school, she lustily sings “Love Him, Love Him, Love Him in the morning, Love Him in the noontime, Love Him, Love Him, Love Him till the sun goes down…” to a delirious audience who join in causing the living saint to remark that this is the best school she has ever visited and this is the best choir she has ever heard but among these students you will not spot Khalong nor his friends. In keeping with his promise to her he has forfeited this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity by taking refuge in the chapel and praying hard for her, for her to be a success.

After that day of course her value in school shot up manifold. Everyone said Hello to her. She was surprised when they called out her name and was duly pleased that they knew her name, just as Khalong was not so long ago. She was soon called to sing at various events and was shifted from the back to the front position, right next to the microphone. She was in school magazines and feted by the Seniors with a ‘well done’ and a thumbs up sign wherever she went. So much so that Sudip Sen who had not even known that she existed in his class sitting all the while in front of his bench, assigned her a nickname and took to calling her OM-a or O-Ma depending on his mood and started teasing her the way he had teased the beauties B and B. It was all too delicious. To be wanted so.

Meanwhile the teachers not to be outdone have made her the Class Monitor for the rest of the year in keeping with her budding popularity and the fact that she still spoke so little.

On those definitive days of our lives where we look back and wish we could erase everything so that we could start again afresh, make a different decision, be a little more frank, a little more honest, learn to appreciate the kindness in other people, learn to sift the good from the bad, recognize real love when it stares right at us, recognize it sitting next to us, annoying us, pushing and forcing us to acknowledge it back, we behave badly. We give in to the devil.

On such a day Uma is told that she has to stand-in for a teacher called on urgent duty by the Principal.

On any other day in any other time, a time before she was popular and called out by name, she would have passed those few minutes till the teacher returned by looking up at the class lizard, engaging him in her thoughts, minutes dragging to a grinding halt with the school bell but today is special. When she stands up and walks to the blackboard, the class hushes itself, they look at her with new awe and respect, didn’t Mother Teresa herself say that Uma sang ‘from her heart’, that we needed more of such joyous people in the world? They see her with different eyes, Mother’s eyes. She has been touched by fame and holiness and she is their classmate.

Very soon there is a battle for her attentions.

Khalong and Sudip outdo one another in telling jokes, making the class laugh, mimicking teachers and throwing dusters and chalk at random to display their manly prowess. Soon their coterie joins in and there are two groups. One pitted against the other.

All this for her.

There is singing too and everyone pitches in going Rambha HO HO HO, Samba HO HO HO!! They talk of the film, the actress dancing it, the singer and musician, when Sudip, trying to gain lost ground, shows off his superior IQ by announcing to the class that this is a copy of an English song and that “you are all English slaves to sing it” Khalong who has started the song and is the most vocal is stuck in mid-sentence in shame when the teacher walks in.
Demanding to know – “Uma, who has been making this racket?”
She should have kept quiet, like always. She should have said ‘we all’ or ‘they both’ She could have taken history on a different course.

“Khalong sir” saying that she sits down finishing off him and her for good.

Uma went to school for a few more days after that incident, till her report card came out and for those twenty odd days Khalong mysteriously disappeared from her life. He was said to have gone back to his village, some said he was sick, others said that he was seen at the chapel. She spotted him though on two rare occasions once under the water tank and on the last day of school at the gate. She passed him by but he did not say a word. She could have asked for his address or told him that she would be moving away to a new town in the South, that they may never again meet but neither Uma nor Khalong gave the future or their inevitable sadness in their latter years any serious thought. When you are ten, all that matters is your self esteem.

Later, in the absence of an Autograph which he refused her with a quick shake of his head, Uma would think of this boy who gave her so much so readily, who had changed her life for the better. Who had brought out a new Uma, an Uma who was not afraid to talk or run and who knew where every country was on the map. He had said that day under that water tank, while she sat and absorbed her ‘running race’ loss in silence that she was not like the other girls who laughed at his tribal looks, his accented English, that she did not poke fun at his old fashioned clothes or his lack of knowledge about the world, He had asked,

“Can you come to my village? We can play in the hills all day and catch butterflies”

Uma had not even bothered to reply. She was annoyed at being found.
Now, she did not know his full name even though she had sat next to him for a whole year nor the name of his parents, she had not asked where his village was nor what it was called. She would have to make do by visiting him in her head. Apologizing to him in absentia.
The 'sorry' that was stuck in her throat was grating her conscience each time she swallowed something, truth was unpalatable,
bitterly accusing her of crushing a delicate divine connection.
Maybe she could write to the school……..

It was Khalong she was thinking of when she saw this library room. This room is like him, Welcoming, Enabling, Embracing.
“I shall spend a lot of time here”…she says to herself looking at the uncovered unlabelled copy of Great Expectations.