2 August 1999
Dada and I had been on the receiving end of quite a few beatings, he more than me. Being the academically weaker one, he was the one who was often chastised for low marks, suspensions and unfinished practical files. Though I detested it, I am for the parents’ and teachers’ right to slap a child. Though, sometimes there comes along a teacher like Raman Verma; he teaches mathematics to eleventh and twelfth graders. He is the weapon of choice our principal uses to rein in students and dole out disciplinary beatings. He pulls guys by their belts and smacks them right across their faces. I have borne the brunt of it once for unpolished shoes.
It hurt for two days.
Brahmi’s bruises were more severe and Raman sir wasn’t the perpetrator.
‘Volleyball match,’ she explained to Rishab and Sahil.
In the next period Brahmi slipped me a piece of paper.
Will your parents be home today?
No, I wrote back.
Can I come, she wrote.
Of course, I said.
Through the rest of the day at school, I alternated between being furious at the cause of the bruises, and being confused as to why she would want to come to my house when no one was around. I didn’t ask her out of nervousness for what her answer might be.
‘Raghu?’ she asked as we entered my house, which was more dishevelled than usual. ‘Where’s you room?’
I lead her to my room. She drew the curtains shut.
‘Do you have a first-aid kit?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Can you get it?’
‘Of course I can but—’
‘Can you close the door on your way out?’
I nodded and ran to get it from the bathroom cupboard. When I came back, she was tucked inside a blanket, only her bare back showing, her face away from me. My heart thumped in fear and excitement and embarrassment.
‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to look,’ I said and turned away.
‘Come here,’ she said.
Unsure, I walked up to her, my eyes glued to her back. A part of me was thinking of Richa and how uncomfortable I was seeing her but how natural this seemed.
She was still wearing her bra but the straps lay limp on her upper arm.
‘Are you here?’
I moved quickly. It was then that I noticed the bloodcurdling welts on her back. There were three huge gashes, blood clotting around them, inflicted with a belt. Two Band-aids were stuck on them clumsily.
‘Take the Band-aids off.’
I did as instructed. Her back quivered as I ripped them off even though I tried to be gentle.
‘Now do as we were told in the first-aid class,’ she said, her voice resolute, unshaking. ‘First Dettol.’
My fingers trembled as I dampened a little piece of cotton with Dettol.
‘Are you sure?’
‘Do it,’ she said, biting into my pillow.
I cleaned her wounds. She muffled her cries. The more I cleaned a wound, the bigger and deeper it seemed to get. More and more raw flesh stared at me. I bit my tongue twice and tasted iron. I put a piece of cotton and stuck the gauze to it with medical tape.
‘Will they stay?’ she asked.
‘Yes.’
‘Double tape it?’
‘Okay.’
‘Thank you,’ she said.
I packed up the kit and left. She came to the living room once she had dressed.
‘Sorry, you had to do that. There was no place I could have gone,’ she said.
‘Tauji did this to you?’
She nodded.
‘Why did he hit you? Please don’t evade my question. I want an answer. I love you, we have established that. So I need to know.’
She fought away her tears. ‘I made a few STD calls to Mumma–Papa. They caught me.’
‘Can’t you tell your parents about this?’
‘What would they do? They are away and I don’t want to trouble them,’ she said.
‘But—’
Her eyes flooded with tears and she put her arms around me. And soon I was crying, and crying more than her and it was she who had to quieten me, ‘Oh, Raghu, you’re so stupid! Why are you crying, stupid, stupid boy, shh, shh, I’m fine, Raghu, look, I’m fine now, stop crying now, such a stupid boy. What am I going to do with you? Just look at you, you baby.’
Weren’t parents supposed to be our saviours? This can’t be repeated. She can’t be another Sami. I won’t watch on helplessly this time.
‘Do you want to watch television?’ she asked.
I nodded vigorously and she had to ask me if I was okay. We watched TV for what seemed like hours. She thanked me when it was time for her to leave. We had just stepped out of the house when we bumped into Arundhati. I introduced them.
‘Ah! So you’re the famous Brahmi? Hi! I’m Arundhati! I played the role of Raghu’s pretend girlfriend for his master—’
‘I know,’ said Brahmi.
‘You’re cuter than I imagined,’ gushed Arundhati.
‘She has a thing for cuteness,’ I said.
‘We should make her meet Sahil then. He too has a thing for cute people,’ said Brahmi.
‘Is he cute?’ asked Arundhati.
‘Is he cute?’ I asked.
‘Maybe,’ Brahmi said and the girls laughed.
When Maa came back from work, she saw the soiled bandages in the dustbin and didn’t even ask me the wheres and hows, or if I had hurt myself. Her apathy had only begun to hurt when she came to me with an instruction.
‘If she comes one more time inside my house, I will throw you out.’
Little does she know that she will come back, in a few years’ time, as her daughter-in-law. Yes, I have imagined that.
And why not?