Coloured and Other Stories

By mohana rajakumar

What’s it like being the ant in the ice cream? The characters in this short story collection will show you; experience life as they know it as transplants from across the world into American suburbia.

Adapted from real life anecdotes both her own and those of others, Mohana takes us into the world of the South Asian immigrant living the American Dream. Think of her as a cultural translator for those who you may not notice otherwise, living in the margins of our cities.

“What are a few inches when you know he will provide for you the rest of your life,” her mother would have said, smacking her in the cheek.

The sight of his feet, white, broad toes, and clean, short-clipped nails startled her. Americans normally wore their shoes everywhere; they had special shoes to wear inside their houses, shoes specifically for their bedrooms.
BABY

 

• Language: English
• Publisher: mohana rajakumar
• Release date: Dec 27, 2013
• ISBN: 9781533717955

mohana rajakumar

Mohana is a writer and scholar of gender, race, and writing. Her work has appeared in academic journals and books. She is the award-winning novelist of Love Comes Later and An Unlikely Goddess, among others. As the host of the Expat Dilemmas podcast, she peppers each show with reflections from a decade of living abroad. She teaches courses on literature, argumentative and creative writing. You can read more her website: www.mohadoha.com.

Book preview

Contents

Dasi

Coloured

Food

Baby

Tree

Down

Truth

Exposure

Weeds

Plates

About the Author

Dasi

Dasi was first published in the anthology Book of Voices. Ed. Michael Butscher Flame Books: England. March 2005.

~*~

Age 78

We were all sleeping, or under the delusion of sleep, crumpled, a few feet from the entryway of the temple.  This was the closest they would let us sleep, since some of us still bled.  The double curse of woman and blood kept us from the smooth pavement of the steps. There the surface was worn by the hundreds of pairs of feet approaching to do the pilgrim’s duties.  Here, on the side of the road, the dirt was a meager covering over the sharp rocks, roots and assorted trash that made our beds.

I exhaled, aware that those around me were also waking, but no one was talking.  My eyes opened, to see curled forms next to me.  A few more minutes and then the call to prayer will sound.  We will rise, joints creaking, shake dust from ourselves as best we could, ignore the fact that our night’s lodging left permanent stains on our white widow’s saris and then begin.

If we chanted the full four hours without stopping, we received a full bowl of rice.  Of course this rice wasn’t hot, as it usually came from the bottom of the pot after the priests had eaten, but it was far better than if you only chanted for three, two, or for the just arrived, one hour.  These shorter prayers awarded only a few spoonfuls of rice, never enough to fill the bowl and not enough to quell the ever-present hunger.  It was a rough system, not fair, but then the hopes of fairness had been left aside long ago when our heads were shaved at our husband’s deathbeds.

Krishna, Krishna, Krishna …

How I had grown to hate that name. I, who, as a young girl, had been so fascinated by his blue skin and curly black hair in my brother’s picture books.  This god who became man had come to earth to help people, save them from the demons overrunning the place.  And he had a special place in his heart for women, my aunt would always tell me.  At prayer time she would point me to the crude wood frame that held his smiling face, firm blue skin, and glowing, playful eyes.

Aunty, what should I say? my girlish voice, trembling in the most sacred of spots in my family’s hut.

If you don’t know what to say, just chant his name.

My father’s sister was a devout woman who had brought me up in Hindu worship.  It was she who had been the first to tell me my duties at my husband’s death.

Age 60

Is it strange that here in the dirt and dust I have found a particular place to sleep? A spot I can tell merely by the way the curve of my back fits into the exactness of the rough earth? It’s strange – no matter how they try to stamp out the individual in us, she rears her head again and again.  Oddly enough, physical fights break out among us regularly. They are mere skirmishes really, since most of us are too weak to sustain any physical activity for long.  From where I lay, in the encroaching dusk, I see the two women, the loose flesh of their faces flapping as their lips moved back and forth.  I was too far away to hear what they were saying but I could see the two jagged edges of a blue comb gripped in one hand.  I sighed and rolled over. Possessions were precious few here and some thought they had a right to keep the things that they arrived with.  Our group was silent as the argument continued, joined by women taking sides.  The verbal wrangling would grow more heated and last well into the night.  They would be tired tomorrow and those that participated would be too fatigued to finish their chants.

They were younger than we were.

Most of them hadn’t spent a winter here and were still full of themselves.

The younger ones were so transparent.  Their grief was fresh on their faces at the sight of a husband and wife approaching the temple together.  The envy in their eyes could have substituted for snake venom as they assessed the saris of the female pilgrims.  The clean hands and faces, the bright flowers in their glossy hair, the gold draped around their necks and hanging from their earlobes.  Most of us, like me, had gaping holes in our ears. The older ones had ear holes that brushed their shoulders, replacing their absent locks.  Their shaved scalps had white sprigs of hair pushing up, determined, through the leathery skin.

I watched the older ones through shuttered eyes during the day, knowing their wrinkled, frail bodies awaited mine as our fates were intertwined.  Yes, those young housewives sparked envy indeed.

Age 50

My only friend here, Rekah, died before me.  It was after that summer that I wanted to take my life.  The problem was there was no inner room that I was granted entrance to where I could hang myself. 

And, aside from my own sari, there was no material for me to hang myself with.  I refused the indignity of showing my body, even in death, to those that would find me.  These men had enough satisfaction in our torment.  My mind refused to give them even one glimpse, even the glimpse at a corpse, for free.

The first few days after they had taken Rekah away, I wandered around the temples.  I didn’t chant, I didn’t present myself for prayers, and I found myself walking farther and farther away from those surroundings where I had lived most of my adult life.  I realized during that time that these were the images in the foremost of my mind.  The chalky white of the sacred dust on the priests’ foreheads mingling with the red, the endless droning from us waiting for our food, the dusty brown of the temples, some centuries old, looming over us.  With the intricate carvings of the animals on the temple eaves, I often caught myself looking over my shoulder.  I felt as though I were watched continuously by those decaying stone eyes, my every movement monitored.

Dasi, you must pray tomorrow.

I heard the voice but failed to respond.  Each day my wanderings grew in an ever increasing circle but I still felt compelled to sleep in my group at night.  I hadn’t made it our sleeping area while the others were awake.

You haven’t eaten in two weeks. Please pray tomorrow Dasi. Please.

Even among ourselves we use the word, servant.  For that’s what we are. We were religious servants; supposedly, we are spending the rest of our days in exile, worshipping Krishna, the champion of the downtrodden woman.  The woman who had whispered to me realized from my turned back that I was not going to respond, and I heard her sigh.  Without Rekah, I wanted no one else to care for me.  I cared for no one.

Age 34

What is your name?

The voice was friendly, jovial even.

The beauty of the woman who asked the question astonished me.  She stretched; languidly it seemed to me, as if after a night of contented sleep. She was tall, as if her legs decided they would take up most of her body.  Her white sari struggled to conceal those legs and bosom simultaneously.  Her breasts were still high, their peaks sitting above her waist in the manner that they should. All around us were the drooping bosoms of the oldest widows, sagging sometimes to their waists.  The sight of her startled me; I was almost embarrassed by her bright eyes and plump cheeks.  At the time I thought shyness prevented me from responding, but now, I realize anger clogged my throat.

Rekah, she continued. She smiled a quick flash of still white teeth.

In my mind I still see that face, perfect in its babyish roundness, those clear black eyes staring straight into mine.  She was the first to look me in the eyes in over ten years.

"We are all dasi here," I said.  I refused to be saddened at the spark leaving her eyes and her hands clutching each other at her waist.  Her chin trembled.  I realized her self-introduction had been bravado.  I felt like the little boy in my village that used to pester our family’s docile cow; she died of starvation my mother said, not because we didn’t have food, but because we couldn’t protect her from his daily mistreatment.

But my name was Saraswathi.

I heard my name for the first time in over a decade and it set off a metallic ring in my ear drum, as though hearing it from a transistor radio.

Age 22

And what is your name, miss?

Today landowners came and met with priests, asking for special bagans and pujas to help their crops grow and keep their lands prosperous for another year. 

The older ones tried to group around the steps and hide us, younger and firmer, in their midst.  Forgetting this rule, I left to relieve myself. I was cornered on my way back.

I shook my head and kept walking, but he was large, and filled the space in front of me. I could brush aside and pass him, but that was an offense tantamount to sacrilege.  After all, our rice rations often came out of their storehouses.  Instead, I lowered my head and kept walking.  If I could get near to one of the temples, I knew there was a better chance of rescue.

He walked alongside me, almost as if we were out for a stroll, two hundred yards from the first temple, near the rubbish heaps and latrines. I quickened my pace, dreading the stretch of stalls we approached.  The stall owners were henchmen of the landowners and their booths ensured profit as well as a network to monitor the priests.  The