Free Kalpana's Dream by Judith Clarke Page B

left to wash, it would only be a few minutes longer before she could get away. At least Nani wasn’t talking to her, telling her stuff and asking those questions Neema couldn’t understand.
    At that very moment, as if once again she’d read her great-granddaughter’s thoughts, Nani spoke.
    ‘Do you remember the river, Nirmolini?’ Kalpana asked in Hindi. ‘Do you remember the river in my town?’
    Neema’s face stiffened, the anxious smile which hid her true expression tightened at her lips. What had Nani asked her? The question had her name in it, that was all she knew. It could have been anything. It could have been something like, ‘I wonder how you will ever find a husband, poor Nirmolini, when you have such ungainly knobbly knees? And such huge feet, in those ugly, clumsy shoes?’
    It probably was, thought Neema, panicking suddenly, because now Nani was looking at her again, and there was a tiny frown between her eyebrows, as if something made her sad.
    In her soft sweet Hindi, Kalpana asked once more, ‘The river, Nirmolini? Where you sat with Sumati and me?’
    Neema froze. She was saying it again! Or something like it – because one of the words was the same. Nadi. ‘ Nadi ’ could mean gawky, or even ugly; it sounded like it might. Nani thought Neema was a ‘ nadi ’ girl. She’d mentioned Sumati’s name too – she was probably saying how Sumati would also wonder, shaking her head sadly when she received the letter which told her how Neema had grown up very plain. And worse than plain: NADI .
    ‘In the evenings, all three of us?’ asked Nani softly. ‘You used to love the river, and the sky.’
    Nadi ! There it was again. Neema flushed, and tears welled in her eyes. ‘I – I have to go and do my homework!’ she stammered, and tossing the tea-towel onto the bench, she ran out from the room.
    How stupid I am! Kalpana scolded herself. She had upset Nirmolini, made her feel awkward, as she always did, chattering on in words the poor child didn’t understand. And Kalpana actually knew the English word for nadi , of course she did. It was ‘river’. And she knew ‘in my town’. She should have spoken them, even if she said them wrongly, even if she couldn’t manage a whole sentence, but only ‘river in my town?’ She heard Sumati’s voice again: ‘too proud in little things!’
    Kalpana picked up the tea-towel and folded it slowly, carefully: it was still warm, still warm from Nirmolini’s little hands.

15
Trouble Sleeping
    My Dear Sumati , wrote Kalpana.
    I am sorry to hear your throat is once again quite sore from shouting. It’s a pity that your sister’s goat has made it his business to become your enemy, and that he should discover your two best saris spread out on the bushes to dry. What trials you have in life! Try not to worry too much about the saris. When we are both back home, we will go to the bazaar and buy the best and brightest saris in Bhairon Singh’s shop. As we both know, he is the only person in the whole of India who understands how to make rainbows out of cloth.
    In the meantime, keep up the honey and lemon – once at morning, and again at night. And dear Sumati, do try to stop from shouting. Speak softly to the goat, in sweet and gentle words.
    Ah, words, Sumati! I think of you often at your sister’s place – of you and Lakshmi talking together, the words flowing easily between you, clear as soft new rain.
    Here words are muddy for me. The little awkward English that we learned when Usha was at school I am too proud to speak. Remember how Usha and her friends giggled when they heard us in the courtyard, ‘practising’? And remember how we also laughed, thinking it strange that such funny, unfamiliar sounds could ever tell of anything we knew?
    But here, those words we found so funny are meaning everything.
    My great-granddaughter says only ‘ Namaste ’. She says it perfectly of course – but that is all.
    My son-in-law is a kind and loving man, but I