Free Motherland by Vineeta Vijayaraghavan Page B

Brindha was allowed to put her things away in her assigned bureau.
    Reema auntie was asking a teacher some questions, and they walked out into the hall. As soon as the adults were at a safe distance, Brindha’s bunkmates crowded around us. “So what did you bring for your cigar box?” they asked.
    Each girl was allowed one cigar box to keep mementos and trinkets in. Brindha had thought hard over the last few days about what she wanted to bring to school this year. She had pasted scraps of wrapping paper around the outside of the box, and on the lid Reema auntie had drawn a picture of our house. This is what Brindha showed them as she took each item out of the box and lined them up on her bed: her red velvet-covered collar for her dog; a hotel soap carved like a conch shell from a weekend beach holiday to Cape Comoran; a photo of Ammamma from when she was young, black-haired, and shy; a pink embroidered handkerchief of Reema auntie’s; a glitter pen that Sanjay uncle had brought from Bombay; and a shiny black locket.
    The girls seemed to approve of Brindha’s choices. They listened hungrily as Brindha described the new posh hotel in Cape Comoran where she saw not one but two movie stars. She agreed to let another girl try out the glitter pen to make a “We Miss You” card for a girl who this year had been separated from them for too much troublemaking and put in an older girls’ hostel where she could be constantly supervised.
    The upper-class girl, who had quietly rejoined the group, grabbed the black locket off the bed and asked sharply, “Where did you get this?”
    Brindha answered airily, “I just found it somewhere.”
    â€œDo you know what this is?” the upper-class girl said grimly. She said she’d seen them on the news, these Tamil Tiger lockets. She kept poking at the locket until she found a spring release that unveiled a cyanide capsule wedged inside. She threatened to give the locket to the headmistress. Brindha begged her not to. She hadn’t meant anything by it, and it was only the first day of the new term. The upper-class girl dropped the locket into her blouse as the teacher walked back in to summon the girls to the storeroom to collect their textbooks for classes. Then Reema auntie reappeared and whisked me off with her for an appointment with the headmistress.
    I could tell by watching Reema auntie dry her clammy hands in a crumpled handkerchief that she was nervous. We sat in Miss Granville’s office for fifteen minutes before she even came in, and when she did she hardly looked at us. Standing at her window, looking off into the distance, she said tersely, “I don’t usually like to meet with parents on the first day because there are pressing things that need my attention.”
    â€œYes, well, I won’t take up too much of your time, Miss Granville, there’s just one thing …” Reema auntie said. Reema auntie had asked the doctor and he said it would be better if Brindha could have a glass of milk every day rather than every other day the way the school scheduled it.
    â€œSo, let me see what you are asking, Mrs. Pillai,” Miss Granville said. “Just your daughter is to have this special dispensation because her bones are more important than all the other girls’?”
    â€œWell, no, the other girls should have equal treatment,” Reema auntie said, weakly.
    â€œSo then the whole school is to undergo this additional expense because one doctor has it in his head that we should do something differently? Do you know all the parents who come to see me, Mrs. Pillai, asking for the girls to have castor oil once a week or sweet potatoes with supper or only wheat flour no rice flour or only rice flour no wheat flour?”
    â€œYes, but—” Reema auntie was cut off.
    â€œ1 shall take it under advisement, Mrs. Pillai.” Miss Granville stood up, dismissing us.
    Brindha came to say good-bye