Free A Scandalous Secret by Jaishree Misra Page B

… and there was a gang of girls that was bullying me … yes, bullying me … no, I don’t want to go into all that … leave me alone, please!’
    Tears, recriminations, it went on for weeks, all through the summer holidays, Mama and Papa obviously hoping that I would change my mind by the time term was due to start again. But I held out – I had no choice – and, gradually, the nagging stopped. Mama had scoffed at all my excuses, even as I wept in her arms. What had really hurt, though, was that even if there were moments when Mama perhaps doubted the veracity of my story, she never once stopped to ask the actual reason for my hasty return home. She had never really been able to cope with strong emotion. Everything in her world needed to be neat and immaculate: not just inanimate things like her home and its furnishings but her marriage, her daughter’s prospects, her very emotions. But, they had to relent finally …
    The literature department at Lady Shri Ram College was good, taking me into their second year on the basis of my having spent a year at Oxford. They were impressed, clearly, and mystified at my having chosen to come back. But they too bought my story about having been bullied. ‘Great Britain is very racist, I am told,’ the Head of Department said, looking sympathetic. ‘It was in fact so bad, she actuallyfell sick,’ my father said, waving his arm in my direction, where I sat huddled on a metal chair. The weight I had lost, both during and after my pregnancy, bore that out. I was all skin and bones then and the principal needed no more persuasion. I could finally say goodbye to my Oxford dream.
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    Neha looked out of the window of her car, not seeing the Delhi traffic or the crowds or the late September sunshine falling on the windscreen. She was far away, back in her college days, remembering how she had kept her head down and completed both her BA and MA, topping Delhi University in her final year. It had been no effort, immersed as she had been in her books at that time. Getting the gold medal had led to an offer to teach in the faculty but Neha turned it down, having by then met Sharat through Ramu Uncle, a family friend. Sharat and she had met only a couple of times before the formal marriage proposal came – it was all very handy, given that they were both Chaturvedis with all kinds of family ties that went back generations. Neha’s parents were overjoyed and there was no reason to let them down again. It was, after all, what Ramu Uncle described as ‘a most advantageous match’.
    She now looked down at her beringed fingers, the stones in the gold bands catching the sun and sending little pinpricks of light dancing around the plush leather interior of the car. Despite generally shying away from jewellery, Neha was sentimental about these three rings and almost never took them off; her wedding and engagement rings and the cluster of diamonds that Sharat had given her on their tenth wedding anniversary. He was a perfect husband – mild mannered and courteous and generous with his wealth – and Neha was well aware of how many friendsand cousins envied her her good fortune. Neha herself felt fortunate that, after all her problems at university, she had finally found someone like Sharat – her rock.
    And so it was that, with all the charmed events that had gradually come after her return from England, Neha had eventually given her parents little cause for complaint. They now probably barely even remembered that Oxford dream they had all once shared. The topic hardly ever came up. It would be ridiculous indeed to harp on about that, given how Neha’s life had eventually turned out. Oh yes, today, seeing Neha return to her Prithviraj Road home in a gleaming Mercedes car, even Mama would be forced to admit that – apart from not having borne a child so far – her daughter’s life was pretty immaculate