The Elephant Chaser's Daughter Read online

We entered the dorm and sat down on her bed. She turned to me seriously. ‘You know Shanti Bhavan won’t let that happen.’

  I nodded, remembering how she herself had been saved.

  Almost a year ago, Rafil had come to Shanti Bhavan to take Sheena home to get her ears pierced. Despite her apprehensions about sending her to her foster family in his care, Mrs. Law was prepared to accept the contention that piercing a girl’s ears and nose was a special event in most South Indian families. Mrs. Law consented on the strict condition that she be brought back in two days without fail. To Sheena she said, ‘Let’s talk before you go.’

  Sheena received counseling on how to protect herself. No one had forgotten what kind of man Rafil was.

  I was relieved when he kept his word and Sheena returned with a tiny gold stud that accentuated the sharpness of her nose. Everyone was excited and showered her with compliments on how pretty and traditional she looked.

  The next day, on my way to the chemistry lab, I caught sight of Sheena emerging from Mrs. Law’s office. I was surprised and wondered what was wrong. I concluded that even the principal might have wanted to inspect Sheena’s new piercings up close. I waited to ask her about it during our evening snack break.

  Little did I know Sheena had met with Mrs. Law to confide in her a story that would leave me convinced that all men were bad and not to be trusted. As Sheena soon told me, on the second night of her stay at home, she woke up to a rough hand caressing her breasts. Startled, she sat upright. In the dim glow of the kerosene lamp, she saw that it was ‘Uncle’ Rafil. His children who had been sleeping next to Sheena were no longer beside her. Rafil had moved them to the corner of the room so he could be alone with her.

  Sheena didn’t want to look at him. She ran to the next room where Aunty Nela was sleeping and lay down next to her, trying to lull herself back to sleep. All through that night she kept waking up, afraid that Rafil would try to touch her again.

  During that visit, Rafil had noticed how attractive Sheena was with her fair skin, dark shiny hair, petite frame, and chiseled features. She was turning out to be a lot more beautiful than he had imagined. He hatched a plan to get her back from Shanti Bhavan at any cost. There was no line he would not cross, even going so far as to threaten the lives of Mrs. Law and the senior staff, anyone who refused to hand Sheena back to him.

  Soon the school authorities found out from Mr. Jude that Rafil wanted to sell Sheena for a handsome sum to a rich man living abroad. DG immediately arranged to file a case against Rafil for sexual abuse of a child. Eventually Rafil settled the matter and promised to leave Sheena alone if he was given some ‘compensation’. This arrangement kept Rafil at bay and Sheena hasn’t seen him since.

  DG also knew how much Sheena longed for a family of her own. Each time he came to Shanti Bhavan from America, he made it a point to call her to the principal’s office. ‘My family and I will always be there for you. You are our daughter,’ he assured her. I could see she trusted him not to abandon her and that he gave her a sense of belonging. With time, like me, she began to look up to DG as a father. For now, both Sheena and I had found our comfort in Shanti Bhavan.

  Classes began in earnest. My life was now dictated by tests, projects, assignments, and activities like dance and music lessons. I signed up to learn the piano but dropped out, dejected, realizing I simply lacked the talent for it. Then, I joined hip-hop dance classes that were being conducted by professional artists from America. I couldn’t stop admiring how well Kavina and Avinash danced. I, on the other hand, ended up making a laughing stock of myself. My deliberate Indian classical dance moves were at odds with their quick contemporary steps.

  Fortunately, I soon discovered a place where I could thrive. I loved public speaking and editing stories for the school newsletter. Mrs. Law noticed and appointed me editor-in-chief. For the first time, I was in charge of something, and for days I went about with an air of newfound confidence. I grew to realize how much I enjoyed working with words, and as time went on, expressed my voice through writing.

  My favorite part of school life in the summer was swimming in the afternoons in the giant tank that stored water to irrigate the banana plantation. Aunty Shalini instructed all the girls to wear tights under our swimsuits to avoid revealing our legs as she was concerned about what the workers on the farm would think of us. Being terribly conscious of my heavy thighs, I had no objection. I dreaded getting my period, as it meant I couldn’t go swimming. I had heard of a solution to this problem in the health classes conducted by volunteers—tampons—but we didn’t have any.

  I was heavier than my classmates, and they called me names like ‘Fatty’ and ‘Hippopotamus’. Every morning before class, I would stand in front of a full-length mirror to see if I appeared any thinner than the previous day. Whether I was in a skirt, trousers, or salwar, and whatever pose I tried, I would end up frowning at my reflection. I just wasn’t as pretty or slender as the other girls. My bright smile which everyone said lit up my eyes and created a small dimple on my cheeks was the only consolation.

  I often wore long, loose shirts to conceal the layer of fat around my waist. As I put on more weight, the school staff began to keep track of whether I was exercising enough. Whenever I asked for a second helping at lunch or dinner, my classmates would warn, ‘Don’t eat too much rice. You will get fatter.’ I’d snap at them to mind their own business.

  My frustration with weight even made it difficult to look at the few pictures I had of Amma in her youth. She was slim and pretty, her hair full and longer than mine. The girls in my class said I had my mother’s sharp nose and narrow chin but not her tall, lean figure. Instead, unfortunately, I had inherited my father’s short, broad frame.

  My mind was never at ease. Even when I should have been relaxing in the dorm at night, I was thinking of one thing or another and bustling with energy. I couldn’t bring myself to sleep, and would stir restlessly until late at night. Seeing me awake, some of the girls would ask me to tell them stories and I would narrate from the Nancy Drew Mysteries and Goosebumps series that they loved. Others would join in too, often sharing their family tales on their lives back home. The girls thought I was too serious because I preferred those stories, the real life stories however raw and sad, to fairy-tales of magic and make-believe that I quickly lost interest in.

  Leelie used to describe to us about going fishing with her brother, sneaking off to play cricket with the village boys when her parents were not watching, and pulling pranks on her alcoholic maternal grandmother. We often begged her to tell us about her sister who caught their neighbor stealing cow dung from their shed. The little girl yelled at the woman as she was running off, ‘How dare you steal our cow dung? We work so hard to feed the cow, and you take all its dung away?’

  Leelie’s life was so different from mine, even though we came from the same village. She made everything about her family sound exciting and funny, but I grew to understand it wasn’t all easy for her. Her days in the village were harsh as she had to work long hours alongside her mother in the hot sun, plucking beans, harvesting corn, and sowing rice in the small plot of land they owned beside the lake. She learnt how to turn even upsetting events in her family, such as fights between her parents over debts, into something humorous. Perhaps her wit was a way of handling the pain.

  One night Kavina told us about her early childhood. Her family hailed from Andhra Pradesh, a state not too far from Shanti Bhavan, where they had lived and worked for generations as daily laborers. In the beginning, they were too poor to rent a place and ended up living on the streets. Her young mother used to take Kavina and her two older siblings to look for shelter for the night, often winding up on the doorsteps of strangers. Her father had abandoned the family after a tense affair with her mother’s sister. Her mother begged on the streets with her children during the day, desperate for money.

  But Kavina’s revelation of her past didn’t make us think any less of her. We saw in her the girl she was in the present
and she had a lot we envied. All the girls were jealous of her slender figure, plump shapely lips that she loved pouting as we’d seen film actresses do, and elegant dancing style, all of which attracted many boys. She was smart and witty, and often talked about her dream of one-day studying dance and drama at Julliard in New York City. A beautiful, distant ambition!

  The close friendships we formed were on full display during festive times. Halloween, Diwali, and Christmas came in quick succession, bringing forth days of laughter and fun, colors, and lights. But the sweet surprises and earnest joys of this special world were not always ours to keep. The conflicts and troubles from our lives outside the school refused to be exorcized.

  One morning, I noticed the boys in my class talking in hushed tones. One of my classmates, Keerthi, asked, ‘What happened?’

  ‘Ravi’s mother died last night,’ Avinash said. ‘His father arrived this morning to take him home for the funeral.’

  A wave of sadness hit me. We were aware that his mother had been ill for a long time but it was only years later that we learnt she had died from AIDS.

  Ravi was shorter than most of the other boys. When he laughed, he squinted so hard that his eyes were almost invisible through the lenses of his eyeglasses. He didn’t speak much to anyone, especially not to girls, unless the topic was cars or scientific discoveries. It was easy to forget his presence among us, but on that day I couldn’t shake him from my mind.

  Returning to school a week later, Ravi was even quieter than usual. He hardly ever disclosed his feelings about anything, least of all about his relationship with his father. I wondered if his father ever beat his mother, like mine did. When his father remarried a few months later, Ravi’s relationship with him became further strained. Yet, however hard life was, Ravi longed to return home for the holidays. This was not unusual among us, and it was something the staff struggled to understand.

  For Ashok, another boy in my class, tragedy seemed relentless. A few days after Ravi returned, Ashok’s father was stabbed to death by his wife and she disappeared to escape getting caught by the police. The day before, he had murdered their only daughter for refusing to give him money to buy alcohol. After beating her unconscious and fearing she was dead, he poured kerosene on her and set her on fire to make it look like a kitchen accident. The police were investigating but we sometimes felt that these tragic events were treated as though they were ordinary occurrences in the villages and not something to be taken seriously. I often wondered if Ashok’s mother ever thought of what would happen to her son now that he was without her. The gruesome killings dominated our conversation for days.

  For two months after his return, Ashok took to sitting in the last row of the classroom. He barely spoke to anyone and did not join us in our pranks, like plucking coconuts from the gardens or sneaking into the kitchen to savor peanut butter. I had been close to him but now I hesitated to approach him, afraid of his newly developed short temper.

  But one day, he took me by surprise by showing me his late sister’s photograph. I stared into the dark face of a girl who wore pink lipstick, a red bindi on her forehead, and a string of jasmine flowers hanging from the long braid over her shoulder. Her small, bright eyes were just like Ashok’s. ‘She’s beautiful,’ I whispered. He was silent then, but later told me he had no regrets about his father’s death. Ashok’s story would haunt me for years.

  Despite these tragedies and almost without recognizing it, I had begun to take my studies and other school activities seriously. Mathematics and science were still tough for me, but I did well in my favorite subjects—English, history, and environmental education. The daily schedule kept me so busy that my mind was fully occupied. I began to feel there were some things I was good at and no longer chafed at Aunty Shalini’s control over me nor felt crushed by the pressure from my family. I felt confident that things would turn out right and there was nothing for me to fear. Little did I know how wrong I was.

  The parent-teacher meeting at the end of my ninth grade year marked a sharp change in my life. DG had arrived from America a few days earlier than usual and was slated to address the parents. Mrs. Law had already briefed him on a number of sexual incidents that several girls had encountered while home for the holidays. By then, I had informed Mrs. Law of my grandmother’s wishes for my future, just as Sheena had advised me to do.

  During the parent meeting, DG addressed the issue of marriage. Speaking firmly, he said, ‘I don’t want you to distract your children with talk of marriage at this age. We want them to be well educated and then they will go on to college for further studies.’ He waited to let this sink in. ‘They should aspire to higher things.’

  The parents nodded as if in agreement.

  ‘We are not bringing up the children in Shanti Bhavan so you can marry them off early to someone in the village,’ DG said in some irritation. It was with difficulty that he waited for the translations to conclude. There was another matter of equal concern to him. ‘If I hear you are allowing men to make sexual advances towards your children, I will have you arrested. You are responsible for looking after your children, and these sorts of things can’t go on. This has to stop.’

  By now, the parents knew DG well and trusted whatever he had to say about their children. They wouldn’t show any disrespect towards the man, no matter what he said. Crowding around him to express their gratitude, they often embarrassed him by touching his feet and kissing his hands.

  After the meeting, the blind parents of a little pre-school boy were carefully escorted to DG by a residential staff member. Everyone watched attentively as the father said, his voice cracking, ‘We have never seen our child but now we see him through your eyes.’

  Holding back tears, DG reached out to hold the man’s hands. ‘One day you will see light through your son.’

  Tears filled my eyes as I watched them.

  DG went around amongst the parents reassuring them that their children were growing up smart and that they would succeed in life.

  The parents filed out of the school building and clustered together in a flurry of tense whispering. DG’s warnings were not new to them, but there was a feeling of collective guilt and some resentment after being openly reprimanded. Everyone then went to the dining hall for a quick lunch before meeting with their children.

  A short while later, Aunty Shalini instructed me to go to my classroom because my grandmother was waiting there. She assured me she would speak to Grandmother about forcing me to marry my uncle.

  When I got to see my grandmother, I greeted her respectfully, but she was stony-faced. ‘How are you, Grandmother?’ I asked, anxious to break the tension.

  She nodded, her coldness towards me clearly visible.

  Aunty Shalini and other staff members seated themselves at the large table facing us both.

  ‘Shilpa came back from home and told us you want her to marry your son,’ Aunty Shalini said politely in Kannada. I struggled to keep my eyes down and still see Grandmother’s reaction.

  I stole a quick glance. To me, the expression on her face read, What is the problem? What wrong have I done? Whatever her thoughts were, she sat straight-faced while Aunty Shalini told her everything I had said and everything I wanted her to hear.

  I fidgeted with my hands in my lap and listened to Grandmother relate how affectionately she had looked after me for the many years my mother was away. But she still hadn’t replied to the question.

  Aunt Shalini said, ‘We feel it is much too soon for Shilpa to think of marriage. You mustn’t force—’

  ‘What? I have never spoken of marriage to her. Never,’ Grandmother said.

  I was shocked. ‘Grandma, don’t you remember that day in the house when you and Grandfather told me you wanted me to marry Naresh Mama?’ My fidgeting was becoming uncontrollable.

  ‘I don’t know why this ungrateful child is lying to you. She is going to break my heart.’

  ‘Grandmother! You know you—’

  ‘Shut your mouth.�
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  With unflinching certainty, Grandmother again denied ever having spoken about marriage. I couldn’t understand how she could be so blatantly deceitful. But I didn’t dare to speak further, afraid to contradict her. Having long been taught in school to be truthful and face the consequences of my mistakes, it baffled me to see Grandmother spouting lies.

  The aunties seemed baffled by the contradictory information. They left us alone in the room to spend time together—something I was not looking forward to. I sat silently biting my nails, fearing what my grandmother might say. I was in no mood to listen to her and wanted to leave the room.

  ‘Why did you tell them that mama kissed you?’ she asked angrily, referring to Uncle Naresh, breaking the heavy silence between us. ‘Is he your mama or some stranger on the road?’

  Grandmother’s face was full of fury. It was clear she felt insulted. Trying to regain her composure, she wiped away tears with her sari. She got up from her seat, turned around, and left the room without even saying goodbye, much less kissing me.

  I wanted to run to Grandmother and tell her I would stay with her forever and look after her, yet I couldn’t move. That was certainly not the life I preferred, I knew. I sat there alone, ashamed that I had betrayed her but unsure whether I had done anything wrong. Could truth be less important than loyalty?

  I raced back to the dorm, tears streaming down.

  Some parents perched on the pathway looked up, confused to see me crying on this happy day. I was ignoring Grandmother’s words that a girl must always hide her weakness in the presence of others. I didn’t want to think about her anymore, and I certainly didn’t want to abide by any rule she had taught me.

  That night I wept for a long time, devastated at having caused so much unhappiness for Grandmother and feeling terribly lonely myself. I was the betrayer in her eyes, who had shamed the family and presented her as a liar. But I felt betrayed by her too—a family member I considered a hero. We had parted as enemies and she might never want me to stay with her again. Since that day, whenever I thought of home, I felt no one there really cared about me. My grandparents had become indignant towards me, my father had mostly been indifferent, my mother had been so far away for so long she seemed unreal, and my sister was off in her own world filled with dark secrets. I wanted to live like Sheena who didn’t have to face the burdens of an unstable home.