Of Marriageable Age

by Sharon Maas

Genres: Literary Fiction; General Fiction; Sagas

Synopsis

A spellbinding story of forbidden love. Three continents, three decades, three very disparate lives:



Savitri, intuitive and charismatic, grows up among the servants of a pre-war English household in Madras. But the traditional customs of her Brahmin family clash against English upper-class prejudice, threatening her love for the privileged son of the house.



Nataraj, raised as the son of an idealistic doctor in rural South India, finds life in London heady, with girls and grass easily available . . . until he is summoned back home to face raw reality.



Saroj, her fire hidden by outward reserve, comes of age in Guyana, South America. When her strict, orthodox Hindu father goes one step too far, she finally rebels against him and even against her gentle, apparently docile Ma.



But Ma harbors a deep secret, one that binds these three disparate lives and hurtles them toward a truth that could destroy their world.

Release date: March 11, 2014

Publisher: Bookouture

Print pages: 350

Sample

Paul was four when the sahib took him away from the place with all the children. It began like every other day. He awoke to the sound of banging on a big brass plate: that was Sister Maria, waking the children, while outside the crows cawed in great excitement as if they knew the day was special, flying off in a turbulence of flapping, clapping wings. He kneeled on his mat for his dawn prayer and then, stretching and yawning, he got up and went outside for a pee.

Next to the tap by the well stood the buckets of waiting water, each with a metal cup hanging over the side. The children jostled forward chattering and laughing, and Paul was last, as usual. He ladled up a cup of water and threw it all over himself, one half down his front and the other over his shoulder, so that his skin glistened and all the pores stood out like they did on a plucked chicken. He had his very own piece of soap, now the size of a one-rupee coin, with which he rubbed himself down till he was covered in bubbles, and then he sloshed off the suds with three cups of cold water. You had to bathe with only four cups of water, Sister Bernadette said, because water was precious and the well was almost empty and no-one knew if the east monsoon would come this year, and if it didn't, well, they'd have to stop bathing and washing, and then they'd have to stop drinking, and then they'd die. Paul prayed for the monsoon every day.

A button was missing from the fly of his blue shorts. He'd shown one of the ladies in white—her name was Sister Bernadette and she was his favourite—that a button was gone and she had made him search for it but he couldn't find it, so she told him he'd have to go without because they had no more buttons. Two buttons were missing from his white shirt, too, but that didn't matter as much as his fly button. Most of the children had buttons missing from their clothes. Where did all the lost buttons go, Paul wondered sometimes. How come they always disappeared, never to be found? Once he asked Sister Bernadette where all the buttons from the children's shirts and dresses and shorts ended up, and Sister Bernadette had smiled and said, maybe Baby Jesus takes them to play with. 'But if Baby Jesus takes the buttons, then that's stealing,' Paul said, but Sister Bernadette only smiled and corrected herself. 'No, no, Paul, Baby Jesus doesn't steal, it's Baby Krishna who steals the buttons and takes them up to heaven so he and Baby Jesus can play with them.'

Baby Jesus and Baby Krishna are very good friends, Sister Bernadette told Paul and all the children. Sister Bernadette knew lots of stories about Baby Krishna but she wasn't allowed to tell them, because Mother Immaculata said that Baby Krishna was naughty, he stole curd and butter, and Baby Jesus was good. That's why Sister Bernadette said it was Baby Krishna who stole the buttons, and why she wasn't allowed to tell the Baby Krishna stories. But she still did, sometimes, secretly.

It was still dark and the air was still chilly with night, but the crows were flying past overhead and in the east the sky glowed pinkish-yellow. They all gathered in the central courtyard between the home and the school and they had to be quiet now, and kneel on the sand, which hurt Paul's knees, and put their hands together. Mother Immaculata, the big fat lady in white with a large wooden cross dangling on her bulging breast, who always frowned so much and whom Paul was afraid of, strode to the front of them all. They said their prayers in unison: 'Our father, who art in heaven…’

After prayers they had breakfast sitting on mats on the school verandah, a crumbly white iddly with a spoonful of jaggary, and sweet tea with milk, and after that a lady in white took away the banana leaf plates and another lady walked around with a big bucket and a ladle pouring water over the children's hands to wash off the iddly and jaggary, and then it was time for lessons, sitting right there on the mats.

This morning English was the first lesson and Teacher called on Paul, though all the children had stretched up their hands and waved them, all except two or three who didn't know their alphabet yet; but Paul knew his. 'A, B, C, D…' he began, and only once he hesitated, before M. He always mixed up M and N, but today he got it right and when he was finished all the children and Teacher clapped. After the first lesson came Hindi and then Tamil, and then the boys and girls went to the toilet; they had to walk in a straight line, each one holding on to the shoulders of the child in front, without running.

The toilet was the field; you had to be careful because there were thorns but the soles of Paul's feet were quite hard and thorns didn't bother him much, unless they got in deep. Paul never cried when that happened, he just told Teacher and Teacher would pull out the thorn with the rusty tweezers she kept on the ledge above the window. Teacher was nice. If you had to do a poopie she gave you a cup of water to wash your bam-bam with, and a little spade to cover it with sand. You had to be careful not to step on the poopies of the other children. But the poopies were mostly hidden behind bushes and rocks.

After the toilet there were more lessons and then there was lunch. The children sat on their mats and two ladies pushed a wagon with a huge cauldron on it between the rows, and each child got a dollop of rice on a banana leaf plate, and then a spoonful of sambar. Paul was always so hungry he ate up every single rice grain, wiping the plate with his forefinger so it was bright shiny green afterwards. After lunch the children lay down on their mats to sleep. The sun was high in the sky by now and the ground so hot it burned your soles, but the verandah was shaded by a palm leaf roof and though the breeze blowing through was also hot it made you nice and sleepy.

Paul was just dozing off when he heard the throbbing of the motorbike as it turned into the courtyard with a splatter of gravel. He turned his face towards the sound and opened his eyes a slit.

He saw at once that the rider was a sahib, even though he wore a white lungi like any other man. Sahibs always wore trousers, Paul knew. He was a sahib because though his face was brown like everyone else, it was a golden-reddish kind of brown, and his hair was also golden-brown, not black. Paul had never seen a real live sahib or a memsahib before, only pictures of them in his school books, so he pretended to sleep while squinting out beneath half-closed eyes, watching the sahib as he flung one leg over the motorcycle seat, jacked the bike up on its stand, and walked forward, looking around as if searching for someone. Paul saw that he was limping, and, strangest of all, he wore socks with his chappals. Paul had seen pictures of socks in his English reader — S is for Sock — but had never seen anyone actually wearing them before. These were grey and had a blue stripe.

Mother Immaculata bustled out towards the man, the ring of fat between her sari-blouse and skirt wobbling as she ran. Paul knew that sahibs shook hands when they met each other, but this sahib made a pranam to Mother Immaculata, laying the palms of his hands together like they did when they were praying. But Mother Immaculata didn't like that. She stretched out her hand and the man shook it. Paul watched carefully, because this was very unusual and very interesting. What was the man doing here? Sometimes — not very often — the children had visitors. Men and women came; Paul knew they were aunts and uncles of the children although he himself had no aunts and uncles. But never sahibs. Had the man come to choose a child?

Paul’s heart beat faster. It hardly ever happened, that a child was chosen, and this time it couldn't be, because then a lady would be with the sahib. Once, just before Christmas, a man and a lady had come in a big black car. Mother Immaculata had told the children the day before that they were coming to choose a child to be their very own, because the lady had lost a child — which Paul thought very careless of her; he could imagine losing a button, but how could someone lose a child? — and that the lucky child would get to live with them, and call them Mummy and Daddy. So all the children had rushed at the visitors, screaming and jumping and waving at them, swarming around them, pulling at their clothes and calling out Namaste! Namaste! because all wanted to be chosen.

Paul had prayed that he would be chosen, and in fact it had seemed he would be chosen, because the lady, who had sad eyes and wore a purple sari and lots of golden bangles, had stopped and looked at him and smiled. 'He has a lovely wheatish complexion,' Paul heard her say, in English. 'Is he from the north?' Paul had prayed with all his might and even began to hope, because he just knew the lady wanted him.

But Mother Immaculata shook her head firmly. She took the lady by her elbow and led her away, her head leaning in towards the lady as she told her something awful about Paul which he wasn't supposed to know, something which made the lady nod in comprehension and choose another child, a very small one, one too young to go to school.

Paul was one of the eldest children. When he was five he would go to the Good Shepherd, which was an awful place in Madras for big children who would never ever get chosen. Mother Immaculata said the children in the Good Shepherd were Jesus's own little lambs. But Paul didn't want to be a lamb, because he was a boy. Oh dear Baby Jesus, please let the sahib choose me! Oh, please let him choose me, dear Baby Jesus! prayed Paul silently, and then he fell asleep. Baby Jesus had not answered his prayers the last time, and he wouldn't this time either.

He woke up because someone was shaking his shoulders and calling, 'Paul! Paul!' Paul rubbed his eyes and looked up; it was Teacher, and she was smiling. Behind her stood the sahib and Mother Immaculata, and they were talking together and the man was watching him, Paul. Paul didn't dare hope; he knew Mother Immaculata would soon tell the sahib the awful secret about him and then the sahib would turn away in disgust. But no; now Mother Immaculata was stepping forward and holding out her hand to him, and when Paul didn't react right away she flapped her fingers upwards impatiently and said, 'Come, come, Paul, get up, get up!' So Paul scrambled to his feet. And stood there gazing up at the sahib towering over him, who had kind dark grey-blue eyes and a huge hand which he now placed on Paul's head; it felt like a nice cool hat, a cool white hat like the sahib in the pictures wore, but this sahib was hatless, as if he didn't mind the sun.

They were speaking English; Paul could understand a little of it. Mother Immaculata called the man daktah, which surprised Paul, because he knew he wasn't sick, so why had the daktah come to see him? Or had he come to poke Paul with a needle in his arm, because daktahs did that sometimes? And why wasn't he wearing that tube hanging from his ears, like the other daktah who came? Paul hoped he wasn't a daktah, because then he'd go away again. He hoped he'd come to choose a child, and that the child would be him, Paul.

The sahib was saying something Paul didn’t understand, and Mother Immaculata was praising Paul because of his light skin.

'He's a clever boy,' Paul heard her say. 'A very clever boy.' And the sahib was nodding and looking down at him, pleased.

'Paul, count to a hundred!' Mother Immaculata said, and right away Paul reeled off his numbers, hardly pausing to breathe, and the man just kept smiling down at him with those warm grey-blue eyes that made Paul feel all cosy, like a puppy curled up to a mother dog.

Paul's heart was thumping so loud he could hear it. He rubbed the spot behind his ear and cried inside, Please Baby Jesus, oh please, Baby Jesus, please please, Baby Jesus, over and over again. He was terrified Mother Immaculata would tell the sahib the awful secret and then he wouldn't be chosen after all.

'. . . a tiny baby, just a few days old, wrapped in a dirty old sari . . . outside the gate,' Mother Immaculata was saying. Was she talking about him? Was that how he got here? 'A note, with his name — Paul, it said. And then she said something else using big English words Teacher hadn’t taught him yet, and her eyes looked worried, disapproving.

Paul wanted to cry. She'd told him! Told the sahib the awful thing! What did insanity mean? Was it worse than awful? Mother Immaculata was frowning so it must be much worse than awful. Now the sahib would… but the man had taken hold of his hand, was looking at it and stroking Paul's fingers while he listened to what Mother Immaculata was saying, now and then looking down at Paul and smiling, as if Mother Immaculata was only saying nice things about Paul. She'll tell him about the day I did pee-pee in the classroom because I couldn't wait, thought Paul. He wondered if the awful secret about him was worse than that, and thought it couldn't be much worse. Mother Immaculata had told him that time that Jesus was very, very sad about him doing that, and he had to kneel on rice grains for a whole afternoon reciting 'Hail Mary' to make Baby Jesus happy again. Please please Baby Jesus thumped his heart, and now the sahib was tugging gently at him, leading him down the verandah between the bodies of the sleeping children, to Mother Immaculata's office. Paul took hold of the sahib's forefinger and clutched it with all his might, so the sahib wouldn't leave him behind. They entered the office, and Mother Immaculata clapped her hands and when Sister Maria bustled up told her to bring two cups of tea.

The sahib sat at Mother Immaculata's desk, reading some papers, and Paul's heart thumped louder than ever because it seemed the sahib had forgotten all about him. At one point they seemed to be arguing. The sahib was waving a sheet of paper, and frowning, and his voice was so loud Paul grew scared and squeezed the sahib’s finger tightly, terrified that now the sahib knew the terrible secret, because Mother Immaculata was arguing back and pointing at him, Paul, as if accusing him of something. But then the sahib looked down at Paul and smiled. ‘All right,’ he said, ‘it’s not important,’ and then he sighed and everything was calm again. The sahib raised his right hand and chuckled, because Paul was still gripping his finger with all his might.

'I'll just have to sign with my left hand,' said the sahib, still smiling, and then he wrote with his other hand on the papers, and Mother Immaculata put some of them in a big cardboard folder and the sahib clumsily folded one other paper with his left hand and slipped it into his shirt pocket, and then he was leading Paul into the sunny courtyard, towards the motorcycle.

'Have you ever been on a motorbike before?' he asked Paul, who shook his head. 'Well, you'll have to let go of my finger so you can climb on,' said the sahib, peeling Paul's fingers away one by one and laughing. 'You can hold on to my wrists when we go . . . look, you sit in front; just slide forward so there's room for me behind you.'

The sahib pushed the motorcycle off its stand. 'Have you ever been to Madras, Paul?' he asked, in Tamil this time, while he untied a corner of his lungi in which he'd wrapped a key.

'Ille, sahib, sah,' said Paul.

'Well, then, off we go!' said the sahib, in English, and he tied the hem of his lungi up above his knees and swung one leg over the motorcycle, the leg which ended in a foot made of wood, although Paul only saw the wooden foot later, after they got to Madras and the sahib took off the grey sock.

The sahib leaned forward.

'Listen,' he said, 'I don't like to be called sir. From now on you can call me Daddy. And I shall call you Nataraj. Nat.'

Ma pointed into the gloom at the back of Mr Gupta's market stall. 'Can you show me that?' Saroj heard her say. 'No… no, not the vase, what's that behind it? THAT… Yes.'

Saroj was too small to see over the counter so she didn't know what Mr Gupta was bringing, and even standing on tiptoe all she could see were brown bony hands wiping something long with a cloth. The thing was heavy and made a thumping noise when he laid it on the counter. Saroj strained higher and managed to peek over the countertop, but it was only when Ma lifted the object that she saw it was a sword. Ma held it up, smiling, turning it around, running her finger along the sheath. She took it out of the sheath and tested the blade carefully with her finger to see if it was sharp, before pushing it back in. She bent over holding it in both hands, and showed it to Saroj, and Saroj touched it. It was hard and cold and had curly letters engraved in the metal.

'It's from Rajasthan,' said Mr Gupta, but Ma shook her head and said, 'Probably not. But it's beautiful.' And then they talked about the price and Ma took her purse out of the basket and gave Mr Gupta some red paper money. Mr Gupta asked if he should wrap it up, and Ma said yes. Mr Gupta gave the sword to Ma wrapped all in newspaper. Then he leaned over the counter and smiled at Saroj.

'So, little girl, what's your name?'

He knew her name, of course, because she had told him many times, but Saroj told him again because he must have forgotten.

'Sarojini-Balojini-Sapodilla-Mango-ROY!' the words reeled off her tongue in a rhythmic chant, knowing themselves by heart. Mr Gupta chuckled and held out two tins, one with curly bits of mitthai and one with pink-and-white sugarcake. Saroj took two pieces of mitthai and a sugarcake and said thank-you-very-much.

People were always asking for her name and laughing when she answered: Sarojini because she was Sarojini, Saroj for short. Balojini to rhyme with Sarojini, which Ganesh always called her: SarojiniBalojini. Sapodilla because she was brown like a sapodilla (and just as sweet, Ma said), mango because that was her favourite — exquisite golden Julie mangoes, soft-yellow-squishy, sucking the seed, or green and grated with salt and pepper. And Roy because she was Roy. If your name was Roy you belonged together and you were family and family was the backbone of society. Baba said.

The sword was awkward to carry because Ma had other things as well, a full basket and a parasol. So she tucked it under her arm, hiding it in the folds of her sari, and they walked to the bus stop and took a bus home. Saroj said nothing all the way home because she was thinking about the sword. Warriors used swords to kill people. Who was Ma going to kill?

When they got home Ma didn't kill anybody. She polished the sword until it shone like gold, and then she hung it on the wall in the puja room.

They didn't usually take the bus, not on market day, which was Monday. On Mondays Ma walked to Stabroek, open parasol in one hand, basket in the other, Saroj trotting at her side. Because there was no hand free for Saroj, Ma always said, hook me, my dear, and Saroj — almost five now and quite tall for her age — reached up for the crook of Ma's elbow. Ma held the parasol above their heads as they cut through the Promenade Garden between Waterloo and Carmichael Streets, and crossed over into Main Street.

Saroj liked the Stabroek Market, which was teeming with people and noise and exciting smells, vegetables and fruit and fat black market ladies calling out, and slippery dying fish slapping their tails on the ground, and pink living crabs in baskets that would snap at you if you stuck your finger at them. You could buy swords there and everything else you needed, hairpins and pointer brooms, Johnson's baby powder and Benadryl Expectorant and Mercurochrome and Eno’s Liver Salts. Saroj liked the walk down Main Street, too, and the big white palaces where you might see white people if you were lucky but Ma said you shouldn't stare, it was rude. There were lots of palaces in Main Street.

If you closed your eyes, it seemed to Saroj, Georgetown would reach out and fold you into soft wide arms and let you snuggle in. If you opened your eyes and skipped, alongside Ma, down its wide green avenues shaded by spreading flamboyant trees, all covered in scarlet blossoms, Georgetown watched fondly, nodded indulgently at you and smiled, and you felt good inside, full of light and colour. You could jump over the little ditches on the grass verges and catch the little fishes in the gutters or collect tadpoles. You could hide behind the flamboyants and peek behind the hibiscus hedges at the houses, in case you saw the white people who lived in them.

Those pristine white wooden Main Street houses seemed to whisper to you as you passed by, bidding you come in. They were fairy-tale palaces, with towers and turrets, pillars below and fretwork panels above, bows and bays and Demerara windows, stairs inside and out, porches, porticos and palisades, built by the Dutch on vast plots because there was so much space on this flat land by the ocean, bathed in sunshine and swept by breezes. The houses nestled, half-hidden, among leafy mango or tamarind trees and luxurious shrubs, and wide emerald lawns surrounded them. Their graceful elegance contrasted with the green abundance that framed them, gardens overflowing with colour and saturated with fragrance, hibiscus and oleander spilling over white picket fences, giant bougainvillea bushes climbing up the white walls and curving up against the brilliant blue sky in a riot of pink and purple clusters.

The houses in Waterloo Street were miniature versions of those Main Street palaces. Their own house, too. Ma had made a paradise of the garden: bougainvilleas in the back, so huge you could hide within them, croton and fern to offset the roses. Oleander and frangipani flourished in the front yard, their fragrances mingling. Shoulder-high poinsettia and long sleek canna lilies lined the gravel path to the front door in the tower, yellow and pink hibiscus grew along the white palings, and some long leafy nameless things where caterpillars crawled reached all the way up to the gallery windows.

The caterpillars pulled their houses around on their backs. The caterpillars' houses were mud-brown ugly things made of twigs and pieces of dried leaves and sticky threads. If you touched the caterpillar it pulled its house over its head and disappeared inside it. Some caterpillars never came back out again. They turned into nothing. The ugly twig houses hung deserted from the leaves. If you squeezed them they were full of air. But they weren't nothing. The caterpillars had turned into butterflies inside, Ma said, and pointed to the kaleidoscope butterflies fluttering through the garden. 'Ugly things can be beautiful inside,' Ma told Saroj. 'The outside doesn't count. It's the inside that's real.'

Saroj chased the butterflies all through the back garden. 'Don't chase them,' Ma said. 'Just stand still, and if you're lucky one might alight on your shoulder. See…’

And she stood as still as a statue, holding up one hand, and a big blue beautiful butterfly landed on her finger. Ma lowered her hand and leaned over to show Saroj the butterfly. Saroj held out her finger but the butterfly flew away. Saroj stood stock still so the butterfly would land on her but it didn't.

'You want it too much,' Ma said smiling. 'You have to be still inside as well as outside. Your thoughts are still chasing him and he's scared of you. But if you melt away he will come.'

At the centre of that house, at the centre of Saroj's life, was Ma. Ma filled the world and made it good. The house smelled good when Ma was inside it. You felt good. Nobody else could make you feel good like Ma. Indrani was silly because she wouldn't play with Saroj. Ganesh was loud and Baba said he was bumptious. Bumptious came from bum. Ganesh slid down the banisters on his bum. Sometimes when Baba's back was turned Ganesh pulled down his pants and pointed his bum at Baba, and made Saroj giggle. Bum was a dirty word. If you showed your bum you were bumptious. Saroj wanted to be bumptious too, but Baba would be cross. Baba was cross at most everything. When Baba came home from work you had to be quiet. Saroj didn't like Baba too much, because he was rude to Parvati. Ma said you shouldn't be rude but Baba was rude, even to nice people like Parvati.

Parvati always left before Baba came home but one day he was early and said, 'What's that woman doing here? I told you I don't want her around any more. Saroj is too old for a nanny.'

Baba didn't like Parvati because he said she spoiled Saroj. Saroj felt terrible when he said that. Spoiled things were terrible. Spoiled rice on the compost heap had blue mould on it. Spoiled eggs stank. Spoiled mangoes were slimy and disgusting. She looked at her face in the mirror and there was no blue mould and nothing slimy and disgusting. She sniffed at her armpits but they smelled of Johnson's baby powder and that smelled good. She made an ugly face at the mirror. And then she showed her bum to the mirror, pretending it was Baba. Saroj liked most everything except Baba.

Parvati had long black silky hair and took Saroj to the Sea Wall where you could gaze into For-Ever and think about things that had no end. Parvati took Saroj wading in the sea water. She showed her the crabs edging sideways out of their holes, and rushing in again. She showed Saroj how to fly a kite.

Next to Ma, Saroj loved Parvati best in the world. Indrani always teased Saroj about Parvati. 'Baby, baby,' sang Indrani. 'Baby has a nanny!' She stuck her nose in the air. 'I never had a nanny, nor Ganesh. Only babies have nannies. You always had a nanny, so you're a silly little baby!'

Balwant Uncle came to take Saroj's photo. It was her fifth birthday. Every time Indrani, Ganesh or Saroj had a birthday Balwant Uncle came to take a photo of the whole family. Saroj wanted Parvati to be in the photo too, but Ma said Parvati couldn't come to her party or be in the photo because Baba wouldn't like it. Baba was cross with Ganesh because he stuck out his tongue just when Balwant Uncle took the photo. So he didn't get any cake. The photos were all stuck in an album, and sometimes Ma sat Saroj on her lap and showed her the photos. She wasn't in any of the first photos, because Ma said she hadn't been born yet. Some of the pictures were taken at the beach. Ma said that beach was in Trinidad, because Ganesh used to have his birthday in Trinidad. Saroj was born in Trinidad, said Ma. But they never went to Trinidad any more, which wasn't fair. The beach looked nice, because the sea was blue, not like the ocean, which was brown. 'Why don't we go to the beach any more, Ma?' asked Saroj. But Ma only shook her head.

When Saroj was six Jagan became King. Several uncles had come to dinner. There was Basdeo Uncle and Rajpaul Uncle, Basdeo Uncle waving a pamphlet at Rajpaul Uncle and jabbing the air with his forefinger. Three more uncles, Vijay Uncle, Arjun Uncle and Bolanauth Uncle, sat on the shiny red sofa, laughing at some joke Balwant Uncle had just told, opposite Baba in the armchair. Baba was glowering. He didn't like the uncles to tell jokes, but Balwant Uncle was full of jokes, so Saroj liked him best of all the uncles.

Saroj was helping Ma and Indrani clear away the table. All the uncles and aunties had come for dinner, but the aunties had returned home early, leaving the uncles to an evening among themselves, because this was an important day. Saroj had felt Importance swelling in the house all day, all prickly and exciting.

The drone of the radio announcer's voice crackled. Suddenly, Baba said, 'Sssh! Now it's coming!' and all the uncles jumped to their feet if they were sitting, stopped their talk in mid-sentence, and huddled around the radio, Bolanauth Uncle fiddling with the knob and the radio voice growing louder. And then they all gave a shout of triumph, the uncles and Baba crying out, 'Jai! Jai! Jai!’, waving their fists, hugging each other, slapping each other on the back.

'What happened?' Saroj asked Ma, but Ma just shrugged her shoulders and disappeared into the kitchen. Saroj pulled at Ganesh's sleeve. 'What happened?' she begged. Ganesh was two years older than Saroj and already a young man. Ganesh knew the secrets of the uncles.

'We won the election!' cried Ganesh. His eyes were burning with a fire that Saroj didn't understand. What was an election? And how come we won it? Would there be some sort of a prize, like when you did something good at school or at the May Day fair, when somebody won the raffle?

'No, no prize, Sarojinibalojini,' said Ganesh patiently. Ganesh always took time to explain things. He bent over and talked to her as if they were the same size, the same age. He stroked the hair from her face and said, 'It just means we Indians were running against the Africans, and we won.'

'Oh, you mean a race…Why didn't we go and watch it then, instead of listening on the radio? It's much more fun…'

'Yes, Saroj, a bit like a race, only the Africans weren't really running against the Indians, they just wanted to get voted, and —'

'What are you telling that child, Ganesh?' Saroj looked up into Baba's frowning face, the cross face he'd been wearing more and more these days. Ganesh jumped to his feet. Though for Saroj he was tall he still hardly reached Baba's waist and they both stood looking up as if to a high white tower. Saroj knew they had done something wrong but she didn't know what.

'I'm telling her about the election, Baba,' Ganesh looked down at his feet as he spoke, twisting the end of his kurta.

'And what do you know about the elections, heh? What do you know? Do you know anything? Anything at all?'

'Baba, you said if Jagan wins the election then Indians are going to rule!'

'Yes! And you know what that means! That means this is a big day for us