Disowned Read online

  Preeti knew what to say and do, when to say and do it, and to whom. And she was always reminding me: “Put that away, good girls shouldn’t eat in public.” “Stop skipping on the sidewalk. Girls don’t do that.” “That skirt’s too short. You can’t go out like that.” “Remember, I told you not to look at strange men. They’ll think you like them.” There were so many rules, it was mind-numbing, and I couldn’t remember them all. Next to the poised and cultured Preeti, I was a bumbling, odd curiosity—strange and alien, like the ugly duckling, but one that would never metamorphose into something better.

  Everyone at my new school called me “the foreign girl,” even the teachers. I thought I’d finally fit in, now that I was in India. I finally looked like everyone else around me, unlike at the international schools of Africa, but whenever I approached a girl to chat, others would stare and whisper, and some would point, like I had chickenpox or something.

  In those early days, I was the school monitor’s primary target. I left my red sandals at home and wore an old pair of white canvas shoes that belonged to Preeti after that first day, but the monitor gave me no slack. If it wasn’t my shoes, it was my hair. If it wasn’t my hair, it was because I’d reverted to English in front of her, which was what normally happened whenever she came close. My brain stopped working whenever I got frightened, and the only language I could articulate was the one I’d grown up with, but as far as the school monitor was concerned, I was disobedient.

  There was no place to hide, not even a quiet library like at my old international schools. There was one dusty shelf in a dark corner of my classroom, so during breaks, I’d sit on the floor and go through the books, teaching myself to read in languages I hadn’t known existed a year ago. Since my father’s language was Konkani and my mother’s was Sinhalese, English was their common lingo. While I knew a few words of Konkani and Tamil and could understand simple sentences, I struggled in class. I wished I’d asked my parents to teach me their languages. I wished they were with me. I missed them badly. I even missed my old school.

  But even those colossal African elephants couldn’t drag me back to my past.

  Chapter Six

  A shrill whistle rang through the air, almost making me drop my books.

  “Hey you! Com’ere! Wanna show you something. Ha ha!”

  We’d just come across a group of young men squatting next to their motorcycles in front of a bike store. They started calling out as soon they saw us. Preeti immediately bowed her head, and Aunty Shilpa grabbed her hand and mine and pulled us across the street. I hurried to keep up with them, not daring to look back at the leering men making lewd gestures.

  Strolling through town with Aunty Shilpa and Preeti was a nice change to staying stuck in the dreary apartment with an unwelcoming Grandma. But one thing bothered me, and that was how the men stared. They stared until we disappeared from view, so we ended up walking stiffly, like we had bull’s eye marks on our backs and there was nothing we could do about it. Sometimes, the men would come close and brush against us. After a few times, I recognized the difference between an accidental bump on a crowded street and a deliberate, unwanted touch. When any of this happened to any one of us, Preeti and Aunty Shilpa would cross the road hurriedly, pulling me away with them.

  I found it strange to be catcalled by men who were old enough to be my father. “Is this normal?” I asked them on my tenth day in Goa.

  “Happens every day,” Preeti said, with a defeatist shrug.

  The next day, Aunty Shilpa decided it was time to teach me Indian street smarts.

  It was a Sunday, the day when Grandma went to her various worshiping places and the three of us had the apartment to ourselves—the day when Preeti and Aunty Shilpa’s faces softened and their shoulders relaxed. The reason Grandma never took us with her was because girls were considered “dirty” and forbidden to enter religious places when menstruating. Not bothering to plan around our periods, Grandma decided to go alone, which was perfectly fine with us.

  “Listen to me carefully now,” Aunty Shilpa instructed me in an officious tone. “When you walk outside, first, you cover your chest with your bag and hold it tight.”

  “Next, shove your elbows out and walk like this.” Aunty Shilpa did an exaggerated strut in front us, her plastic bangles jingling with every step. Preeti and I collapsed on the sofa laughing.

  “You look like a constipated chicken, Aunty Shilpa,” I said when I finally caught my breath.

  “You laugh, eh?” she said, with a mock stern look. “If you follow my instructions, no one will be eve-teasing you.”

  “Eve-teasing?” I asked. That was a new word for me.

  “Don’t you know anything?” Preeti said, throwing her hands in the air.

  “Is that when girls pick on you, like at school?”

  “No, it’s when boys follow you, call you, and touch you everywhere,” Preeti said, making a face, her beautiful eyes squinting in disgust.

  “You’re not a child anymore, Asha,” Aunty Shilpa said, looking serious. “Stay away from crowds. That’s where they corner you and you’ll be stuck.” Her voice broke and she stopped to cough, holding her chest. She looked unwell, I thought.

  “And don’t look at men or boys in the eye,” Preeti said, pointing a finger at my eyes, almost poking me. “Because they’ll think you’re loose.”

  “Loose?” I frowned. My parents had used that word to describe what happened after we’d had some bad food at a roadside stall. “I’m feeling really loose,” my mother would warn my father in the front seat. “Find a restroom quick. That food had been lying under the sun all day.” Surely that can’t be what Preeti means, can it?

  “And if Grandma ever finds out a boy likes you, she will kill you,” Preeti said.

  I knotted my forehead, trying to figure this out. This new protocol was as perplexing as it was complex.

  “Yup,” Preeti bobbed her head from side to side, the Indian nod I was becoming familiar with, “last year, she beat me with the broom because the boy next door said hello to me. Aunty Shilpa grabbed the stick away or I’d be gone by now.”

  I stared at my cousin with my mouth open.

  “The most important thing to remember,” Aunty Shilpa said, wagging a finger, “is if anyone tries to talk to you, or tries to give you a ride, or says they have a nice present for you, walk away quickly. Walk away. Do you understand that?”

  I nodded.

  “Or you’ll disappear like Pushpa and Maya,” Preeti said.

  “Who’s that?”

  “They used to live upstairs,” Preeti said, pointing at the ceiling.

  “Where are they now?”

  “They got sold,” she said.

  “Sold?”

  “Uh-huh.” Preeti nodded. “A man from Mumbai came one day, and said he had jobs for girls in a factory in the big city. He said they’ll make lots and lots of money and can send it to their families. Pushpa and Maya’s family signed them up. They wanted me to go with them, but I wanted to finish school first.”

  “What happened to them?”

  “A few months ago, our neighbor told us Pushpa was sold to a rich family in Dubai and Maya was sold to a family in Kuwait. They’re slaves now.”

  “Slaves?” My eyes widened. “Can’t they get out and come back?”

  “It’s not that easy,” Aunty Shilpa said, shaking her head. “Terrible things happen to girls who go to the Middle East. Even Lebanon, Qatar, and even Saudi Arabia.” She gave a shudder after that last name. “They treat girls worse than how we treat street dogs. They work day and night till they die or till someone kills them.”

  “Don’t you read the newspaper?” Preeti asked me.

  I shook my head. I was learning to speak the language but couldn’t read fully in Konkani yet, and I’d never heard such crazy stories when I lived in Africa.

  “They sell Sri Lankan girls to work in rich Arab houses, don’t you know?” Preeti seemed eager to share more of this horrifying news with me. �
��They’re kicked and beaten, and they have to serve the man at night too.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked.

  Preeti ignored me. “If anyone finds out you’re half Sri Lankan, they’ll get you too.”

  A cold shiver went down my spine.

  “The thing is, don’t believe any stranger who makes wonderful promises,” Aunty Shilpa said. “Remember no one can save you after you’re taken.”

  The cities of India seemed far more dangerous than the jungles of Africa.

  “Just be careful,” Aunty Shilpa said, seeing my fearful expression. “It’s different here.”

  Yes, things were certainly different. The sky, the ocean, the people, the markets—even the cows were different. I felt as lost as Alice when she fell down the rabbit hole. In Goa, I was at a Mad Hatter’s tea party. Every. Single. Day.

  I remembered, on road trips in East Africa, how I saw cow herds grazing in fields that stretched to the horizon. They munched on grass, flicking flies with their tails, while their spear-wielding caretakers hovered around, keeping an eye out for cheetahs and hyenas. In contrast, the cows of India were lonely souls, vagabonds who loitered through the dusty streets with nothing to do but chew on rubbish. They sauntered unceremoniously in front of swanky hotels, surprising tourists. I felt sorry for these sacred cows, but it was the elephants that grabbed my attention.

  I’d seen the elephants in the vast savannah lands on safari trips with my parents. Watching the smaller Indian elephant haul logs on the streets one day, I wondered if anyone had succeeded in taming their wild cousins back in Africa. The thought of a skinny Indian mahout in a loincloth scampering up a thirteen-foot tusked African beast with ears flapping like giant sails made me laugh out loud. Preeti gave me a funny look. I smiled a sheepish smile and looked away. She’d never believe me if I told her about the extraordinary animals of Africa. My birthplace would be as strange to her as hers was to me.

  If Africa was big and bold with open skies, India was a claustrophobe’s nightmare. It was a constant tidal wave of colors, smells, and noises that rushed in and drenched me to the bone. The brightly colored saris of women walking by clashed with the brown rags of the beggars on the streets. The sharp, acrid smell of incense burning mixed with the tang of marigold garlands strung together to be offered as gifts to the gods. Then, there were the honks from buses, toots from rickshaws, rings from bicycles, and the incessant sound of people everywhere. The cacophony was deafening and there was no escape.

  Preeti, Aunty Shilpa and I spent every Sunday afternoon together, when Grandma was busy worshiping her many gods and Aunty Shilpa didn’t have to work. We’d sit cross-legged on the beach, licking pineapple ice pops to keep cool, with Aunty Shilpa’s scarf acting as a thin beach blanket. While we people-watched, we kept an eye on the time, so Grandma wouldn’t get mad at us for coming home late.

  We’d watch European tourists in Speedos stroll along the beach next to locals in full-length dress pants, shirt, and tie, looking good but sweltering under the tropical sun. Local women would dip into the waves fully clothed in silky saris right next to tourists in micro bikinis. We didn’t dare go in the water ourselves, partly because Aunty Shilpa was terrified of the sea and partly because they told me Grandma would beat us if she got a whiff of the ocean salt on us.

  So instead, we’d cross the street to the market, ducking double-decker buses, concrete trucks, three-wheelers, two-wheelers, and even the occasional stray cow. Here, we’d discover sidewalks covered with brassware, children’s’ toys, cheap mobile phones, and T-shirts made at the nearby garment factory.

  Some vendors put bamboo mats outside their stores to dry red chilies, which made me sneeze if I got too close. Woven baskets lined the streets, filled to the brim with sweet-smelling guavas, papayas, mangoes, rambutan, and passion fruit that made my mouth water every time I walked by. More enchantments awaited us inside the mysterious spice stores where mounds of gold saffron were piled on tables like miniature pyramids. The one thing I didn’t find in the stores of Goa was gulab jamun balls sprinkled with gold dust, real gold dust, those luxury sweets Shanti from my international school in Tanzania had boasted about. I never stopped looking for them.

  Every little shop we walked by played transistor radio music, each song blending into the next as we strolled along the street. The songs I heard were not the sonorous African drumbeats that made your heart thump and the ground shake. They weren’t the soulful Bollywood tunes where the hero and heroine wrapped themselves around a tree and looked achingly into each other’s eyes, either. The music of Goa was fast, light, and fun. It made me want to jump up and wiggle my hips, like the Sri Lankan Baila my mother used to listen to as we baked on Sunday mornings.

  Everywhere we went, we saw tourists. Some looked like they’d just arrived. Others looked like they’d come decades ago, still dressed as they did in the sixties. While my father had badly wanted to escape Goa, this place seemed to be where everyone in the world was escaping to. And why wouldn’t they? The skies above were permanently painted iris blue, speckled with puffs of cotton candy clouds. The water was an exquisite indigo, and enchanting coconut mangroves littered the bays that curved along the city.

  Aunty Shilpa told me Goa was where the Portuguese had come hundreds of years ago, but had never really left. In Goa, East and West blended so you were never sure where one ended and the other began. Snow-white, staid cathedrals stood proudly next to multihued Hindu temples, their facades covered in half-dressed figurines doing impossible poses. A mishmash of architecture. A mishmash of religions. Grandma, like everyone else, went for catholic mass and, on her way back, stopped by the hindu temple to offer a flower garland to the other gods. When she got home, she’d light an incense stick for the shrine above her bed that contained a statue which looked suspiciously like a big-bellied buddha. It was all very confusing.

  Though she worshiped at several churches to many gods, none of them seemed to soothe her angry heart. She found fault in everything. She lashed out at anyone about anything on a moment’s notice, and she saved her worst wrath for me. On my first day, I learned my job was to help her cook and do the kitchen work. I smiled when I heard about my chores, as I couldn’t have asked for anything better. This also meant I was being useful and I felt, maybe, just maybe, I’d soon belong.

  But I learned quickly that would not be easy. On my second day, she gave a stinging slap on my cheek for taking too long to bring in water from the outside tap. The next day, she slapped me harder for not putting enough salt in the curry. The day after that, she slapped me for dropping the big black pot. I hadn’t been prepared to feel the heat of the iron cauldron on my fingers, but that was only an excuse for her.

  Grandma was strong for a small woman. When she slapped me one day, because I’d mistakenly picked a roti from the communal plate using my left hand, I reeled back and tripped over the stove, making my curry bowl spill to the ground. There I sat, too ashamed to move, shaking while she shouted and called me a “savage girl.” She made me clean it all up and go straight to bed without supper. That night, I swallowed my sobs.

  It was nights like these I remembered the old times, life with my parents. I’d stare up at the ceiling and bring up long-forgotten memories, my mother’s sweet smile, my father’s kind words. I imagined the car crash as a nightmare I’d dreamed up on a sleepless night. Though I knew in my bones they were gone forever and in a terrible way yet unknown to me, my mind conjured up images of them being alive back in Tanzania. Some nights, I even pretended they were coming to join me in Goa. One day. Soon.

  Despite the leering men and Grandma’s sharp slaps, Goa was exhilarating, overflowing with sounds, colors, smells, life. What at the beginning of my stay had felt overwhelming, was now invigorating. Though I didn’t know it then, my stay in this country would be short-lived. But at the beginning, it was a welcome distraction from ruminations over my parents’ deaths.

  But I hadn’t seen the dark underbelly of this town, yet.

>   Chapter Seven

  I’d just got off the school bus, when I heard the commotion.

  I whipped my head around to see three teens surrounding the beggar woman at the bus station. I stopped and watched with a feeling of dread rising in me. I’d been in Goa for more than a year now and had seen these mob scrums before, but this time, something told me it was worse than usual.

  “Weirdo!” one of the boys said to the beggar.

  “Sicko!” said the second boy, making an ugly face.

  “You twisted freak!” the third boy taunted, and pretended to punch her head. The beggar woman ducked, her eyes wide in fear.

  “Freak! Freak!” they hooted. The boys whistled and danced around her while she crouched low, shielding her head.

  This beggar woman was what Grandma called a “dirty hijra from the north.” When I described her to my teachers, they told me she was “most probably a transgendered person relocated from Delhi.”

  She’d arrived in town two months ago, and sat cross-legged in a corner of the station in her pink sari, playing haunting melodies on her bamboo flute. From the way she closed her eyes and the way her chest moved up and down when she played, I could see her soul was wrapped around that music. I wanted to close my eyes too, whenever I heard her play.

  Against all advice from Preeti about talking to strangers, let alone beggars, I started chatting with her while we waited for the school bus to arrive. One morning, as Preeti was greeting her girlfriends at the bus stop, I walked over and said hello. She responded in kind. She told me she was from Mumbai and her name was Meena.