Follow the link to listen to the podcast of this story by my sister Lekha Warrior...
https://open.spotify.com/episode/5QjB2Cv2yipMtiwVqO1JpA?si=Bb9v7GqCRq6iSJUMOWvvkA
I loved the Indian summers. With the mounting sun, the days got brighter, the air was usually laden with a peculiar odour of ripeness that would emanate from the fruits, the trees and the life around us in our little hamlet. There was hardly any traffic but you had to listen carefully to find silence amidst the ambient sounds. Birds and insects of all kinds, stray dogs, cats, rodents, frogs, toads and the people! There were only a few people in the area but human voices were everywhere. Vegetable and fruit vendors would scream out their wares. Neighbours communicated across balconies and verandas. We lived in times when we were all allowed to make a lot of noise. We children would shout, yell and holler at each other. Our skin would tingle with the blood rushing through our veins; the sun would embrace our little bodies and perspiration would flow freely, leaving the taste of salt perpetually on our lips. The atmosphere around us was vibrant and rich, our senses were all perpetually stimulated and we were totally alive.
As a child, I’d wake up, get ready, eat something and then set out of the house. My dad would have left for work, my mother had the house to look after and her health was always wanting, so she was generally happy to be left on her own. I, was a child on a mission. I had before me, a world to be explored and every morning I went out searching for new adventures. The few girls I played with those days were not allowed out of their homes until 5pm, so I found myself mostly alone. I would wander through new construction sites, play in the mud, randomly visit people’s homes on the pretext of asking for a glass of water and would make lots of new friends with whoever would entertain me.
One such summer, I remember seeing a group of boys around my age assemble on a patch of land in front of our building. They had cricket bats and a ball with them but the ground was overgrown with weeds and grass as high as my knees. They discussed amongst themselves for a bit and then got down to clearing the land. They normally had kept their distance from me but today seeing me stand and stare at them, one of the boys asked me if I’d help, saying that I could earn a permanent place on their cricket team if I did. I couldn’t believe my luck. It was like winning a lottery. Finally, I’d have friends to play with in the mornings and so, I dove straight in. A couple of hours later, drenched in perspiration, we were all done. I know I had worked really hard, because the boys actually let me play one round of cricket with them. I remember them naming me Bishen Singh Bedi, after the famous Sikh bowler of those times. I was highly flattered then but in hindsight I figure it was a collective male defence mechanism of the group to delude themselves into accepting me into their midst, my floral skirt and long hair notwithstanding.
Sadly, my inclusion into the boy’s cricket team was very short-lived. We broke for lunch. That evening when they re-assembled, I suddenly became an outsider again. One of the younger boys was sent across to tell me that they were not allowed to play with girls. I wasn’t happy and felt cheated and used and would have surely cried. But I saw that none of them looked like they cared too much about my feelings, so I shrugged my shoulders and walked away. Served me right to believe a bunch of boys!
Summer nights were as glorious as the days. We would take our mats, pillows and cotton sheets up on to the terrace and lie down to sleep. I remember Daddy telling me about the stars in sky as we lay under them watching them twinkle. “Do you know,” Dad asked me, “that many of the stars we see don’t exist anymore?” “Then how can we see them?” I enquired incredulously. Daddy went on to explain, “They are several thousand light years away. That means they sent out this light many thousands of years ago. For all you know they could have been destroyed immediately after. We are seeing their light, not the stars themselves.” I was quiet. I reflected on the immensity of this revelation. If I couldn’t believe the existence of something twinkling right in front of my eyes, I was going to be very careful about the things I would let myself believe in again.