Free The Parcel by Anosh Irani

or had made the mistake of trusting. No matter where people were or what they were doing, their chocolates had a way of taking them back.
    —
    Madhu was ten. He lived with his parents and younger brother in a one-bedroom flat in a building called Shakti. It was 1984—an important year in his life. It was the year he made his first real friend, a boy named Taher, whose father owned a stationery shop just below the building. Taher and Madhu lived in Shaktiand went to the same school, but until 1984 they rarely spoke. No one noticed Madhu except when he had to walk to the blackboard to spell out an English word. Mrs. Bhaskar loved to give them spelling tests.
    “Who would like to spell
obedient
?”
    “Who would like to spell
continent
?”
    “Who would like to spell
miracle
?”
    No one would, so the pupils were chosen randomly by Mrs. Bhaskar’s crooked finger. Her forefinger was malformed, bent permanently, and when she looked at one student and said, “You,” there was confusion because her finger was pointing in another direction. The students learned to look in her eyes to gauge correctly.
    “You,” she said. “Yes, you, Madhu. Come here and spell
canal
.”
    Madhu knew how to spell the word. He was
sure
he knew. But when he was halfway to the board, someone said, “He walks like a
girl
!”
    Madhu froze. He just stood there in his short pants and felt as naked as a gushing river.
    “Is there a reason you are standing in the middle of the class?” Mrs. Bhaskar asked.
    Of course there was. He had been found out.
    But Mrs. Bhaskar was so concerned about
canal
that Madhu’s feelings did not enter her mind. The minute Madhu resumed walking, the laughter became even louder because now he was trying
not
to walk like a girl. What resulted was a new kind of human being who tried not to sway, who became stiff and professorial. Madhu made it to the board, spelled the word, and fled to his seat. It was only when he sat down and read what hehad written that he realized how scared he was. Instead of the word
canal
, he had written three others:
    I am sorry
.
    His father had tried so hard to make him a boy. How could he fail at something he already was? Mrs. Bhaskar must have seen the pain in his face because she never called him back to spell anything. But the damage had been done. After that incident, Madhu tried not to walk much when other people were around.
    The only person who showed him kindness that day was Taher. He did not look at Madhu but he did not laugh either. He was quiet even though the boy next to him was grinning.
    That was enough consolation for Madhu.
    A couple of weeks later, Taher took Madhu by surprise once again.
    It was a Sunday morning and a cricket game was on. Five a side, the boys from Madhu’s building versus the richer ones from Navjeevan Society, the building opposite. For the past hour, Madhu had heard that wretched red rubber ball being thwacked around behind the building. The shouts of excitement only made Madhu feel more out of sync with life, and he sank to the floor. The hard tiles became an ocean in which he could drown. He imagined diving into the wet floor and resurfacing as an Apsara, a celestial being with whom he’d felt an immediate kinship when he’d encountered her in the Amar Chitra Katha comics. So he rose from his ocean bed to get some air, to show himself unabashedly to the fishermen and hunters and whoever else might be on shore at the time, without realizing that he was standing right by the kitchen window.
    The minute Taher saw him, Madhu ducked out of sight.
    Then he heard a boy’s mother call him home. There was a protest from Taher and the others that this boy was the only one left to bat, but the mother didn’t care and the son went home. Madhu heard the boys from Navjeevan shouting, “We won, we won, we won,” and then, “No double batting, no!” And then Madhu heard his name.
    What had he done?
    Taher called out his name a second time. “Come down and