Free Julie & Kishore by Carol Jackson Page B

Kishore hardly knew his Mother or his family. He
was sent to school with children he didn’t know. He found living in the big
city was completely different to the untroubled life of the country. The simple
ways of the village and the kindness his elderly Grandmother had showered upon
him were now gone. Even his own brother and sister were strangers and his
Mother had another baby on the way.
     
      Kishore treasured the loving memories of the
time he lived with his Grandmother. He missed snuggling next to her at night,
feeling her protective hand on his shoulder and knowing he could always go to
her for a cuddle when he felt sad or just wanted to be held. His Grandmother
had been so devoted to him.
      In years to come he often wondered if his
desire to move to New Zealand was partly because he never felt like he belonged
with his family as much as his brother and sisters did. He had not bonded with
his parents for the first six years of his life and had always felt out of
place.
      Despite this, when Kishore finally came to
understand the anguish his Mother had suffered when giving him up, he realised
the importance of his relationship with her, he knew he must always show his
love for her and felt a need to protect her.

 
 
    CHAPTER FIFTEEN

 
    The
Hindi word for yes is haan.

 
    I
had heard the saying, ‘love is blind,’ but a girl from New Zealand falling for
a boy from India? I knew that love had blinded
our senses. As far as I was aware the only inter-racial marriages that existed
were between two people who were the same colour. To marry someone outside your
race or culture, to visually stand out - to look different from your spouse -
was not a known occurrence in New Zealand.
      We were aware our love would have to be
strong, not just boy-girl relationship strong but strong enough to survive all
that would be thrown at us. If we were going to be together as a couple , despite what anybody said we could not let anybody
or anything break our bond apart. The problem was to convince everybody else
our love was as strong as we knew it was.
      Was it fate that threw us together? Could our
love alone endure all that we were to face?
      The pressure on me at times became great, I
was being prodded, urged and pushed to end our relationship. When I was alone
in my room, I continuously worried our love would not weather the storm. I
cried into my constant comforting friend, my pillow, asking why my devotion for
a man depended on race and colour, I just didn’t understand.

 
    I
met up with Sarah at the gym - at least she supported me. She listened as I
vented my anger. In the dressing rooms as we changed into our fluorescent pink
and yellow lycra leotards, complete with stripy
legwarmers, I wailed, “Sarah, people just don’t understand, how would they know
how I feel?”
    We
did our warm up exercises, stretching in front of our impatiently waiting
instructor, Marc-with-a-c. He had quite clearly spelt out his name the first
time we met him, he was extremely good-looking but I instinctively knew he
wasn’t interested in girls. He had an infectious, overzealous way about him
that would have made Richard Simmons proud.         
    With, ‘Like a virgin’ and ‘ 1984 ’ bellowing from the speakers with a contagious beat, Sarah and
I, along with about twenty other men and women followed Marc-with-a-c’s lead. We tried to copy and keep up with his
vigorous exercise moves and were encouraged as he yelled instructions from the
stage.
    As
we left, red-faced, sweaty and exhausted, Marc-with-a-c gave us a thumbs up , Sarah waved and smiled at him
while mumbling under her breath, "Thanks for the workout…but…I hate
you.”     
    We
walked back to our cars with my ears still ringing from the thrill of the
music. It could have been Madonna and the Eurhythmics themselves at the front
of the class telling us to ‘move it’ and ‘come on, you can do it!’ instead of
Marc-with-a-c.  
    Approaching
our