WINDS OF CHANGE

Anukriti Upadhyay You Can Be Anything You Choose

Till the end of the pitted and dusty lane, she was a dry, brown leaf swiftly floating down a clear stream. Part of it was easy, the part about being brown. ‘Brown as mud and common as mud,’ Aaji would scream every morning waking her up. The rest of the way, down the row of tiny rooms lining the pond with water the colour of old oil and ducks like old cotton spilling from Aaji’s quilt, she was an earthen pot filled with cool, gently rippling water. Once she was out of the earshot of the jeering boys yelling obscenities, she could select from a wide array of choices—she could be the pretty red car parked at the curb, the striped kitten walking on tiptoes along the boundary of the old bungalow, blue shadow of a chalk-white seagull. Anything, absolutely anything. The possibilities were limitless. She chose to be a pale spot of sunlight gliding along the dark tar road till she reached the big intersection and crossed into the maze of sunless lanes. She couldn’t be a pale spot of sunlight any longer. She had to hand over the steel box with two meals to Aai, who worked the early shift at the municipal hospital. Aai was in the main hall, resting between rounds of swabbing the floor and cleaning the sh*t of the sick. She always smelt of phenyl, and incense smoke, and sweat. ‘You are late again,’ her mother took