Funny Boy (3 page)

When I knew Amma was getting dressed for a special occasion, I always positioned myself outside her door. Once she had put on her underskirt and blouse, she would ring for our servant, Anula, to bring her sari, and then, while taking it from her, hold the door open so I could go in as well. Entering that room was, for me, a greater boon than that granted by any god to a mortal. There were two reasons for this. The first was the jewellery box which lay open on the dressing table. With a joy akin to ecstasy, I would lean over and gaze inside, the faint smell of perfume rising out of the box each time I picked up a piece of jewellery and held it against my nose or ears or throat. The second was the pleasure of watching Amma drape her sari, watching her shake open the yards of material, which, like a Chinese banner caught by the wind, would linger in the air for a moment before drifting gently to the floor; watching her pick up one end of it, tuck it into the waistband of her skirt, make the pleats, and then with a flick of her wrists invert the pleats and tuck them into her waistband; and finally watching
her drape the palu across her breasts and pin it into place with a brooch.

When Amma was finished, she would check to make sure that the back of the sari had not risen up with the pinning of the palu, then move back and look at herself in the mirror. Standing next to her or seated on the edge of the bed, I, too, would look at her reflection in the mirror, and, with the contented sigh of an artist who has finally captured the exact effect he wants, I would say, “You should have been a film star, Amma.”

“A film star?” she would cry and lightly smack the side my head. “What kind of a low-class-type person do you think I am?”

One day, about a week after the incident at my grandparents’, I positioned myself outside my parents’ bedroom door. When Anula arrived with the sari, Amma took it and quickly shut the door. I waited patiently, thinking Amma had not yet put on her blouse and skirt, but the door never opened. Finally, perplexed that Amma had forgotten, I knocked timidly on the door. She did not answer, but I could hear her moving around inside. I knocked a little louder and called out “Amma” through the keyhole. Still no response, and I was about to call her name again when she replied gruffly, “Go away. Can’t you see I am busy?”

I stared disbelievingly at the door. Inside I could hear the rustle of the sari as it brushed along the floor. I lifted my hand to knock again when suddenly I remembered the quarrel I had heard on the night of that last spend-the-day. My hand fell limply by my side.

I crept away quietly to my bedroom, sat down on the edge of my bed, and stared at my feet for a long time. It was clear to me that I had done something wrong, but what it was I couldn’t comprehend. I thought of what my father had said about turning out “funny.” The word “funny” as I understood it meant either humorous or strange, as in the expression, “that’s funny.” Neither of these fitted the sense in which my father had used the word, for there had been a hint of disgust in his tone.

Later, Amma came out of her room and called Anula to give her instructions for the evening. As I listened to the sound of her voice, I realized that something had changed forever between us.

A little while after my parents had left for their dinner party, Sonali came looking for me. Seeing my downcast expression, she sat next to me, and, though unaware of anything that had passed, slipped her hand in mine. I pushed it away roughly, afraid that if I let her squeeze my hand I would start to cry.

The next morning Amma and I were like two people who had had a terrible fight the night before. I found it hard to look her in the eye and she seemed in an unusually gay mood.

The following spend-the-day, when Amma came to awaken us, I was already seated in bed and folding my bride-bride sari. Something in her expression, however, made me hurriedly return the sari to the bag.

“What’s that?” she said, coming towards me, her hand outstretched. After a moment I gave her the bag. She glanced at its contents briefly. “Get up, it’s spend-the-day,” she said.
Then, with the bag in her hand, she went to the window and looked out into the driveway. The seriousness of her expression, as if I had done something so awful that even the usual punishment of a caning would not suffice, frightened me.

I was brushing my teeth after breakfast when Anula came to the bathroom door, peered inside, and said with a sort of grim pleasure, “Missie wants to talk to you in her room.” Seeing the alarm in my face, she nodded and said sagely, “Up to some kind of mischief as usual. Good-for-nothing child.”

My brother, Diggy, was standing in the doorway of our parents’ room, one foot scratching impatiently against the other. Amma was putting on her lipstick. My father had already gone for his Sunday squash game, and, as usual, she would pick him up after she had dropped us off at our grandparents’.

Amma looked up from the mirror, saw me, and indicated with her tube of lipstick for both of us to come inside and sit down on the edge of the bed. Diggy gave me a baleful look, as if it was my fault that Amma was taking such a long time to get ready. He followed me into the room, his slippers dragging along the floor.

Finally Amma closed her lipstick, pressed her lips together to even out the colour, then turned to us.

“Okay, mister,” she said to Diggy, “I am going to tell you something and this is an order.”

We watched her carefully.

“I want you to include your younger brother on your cricket team.”

Diggy and I looked at her in shocked silence, then he cried, “Ah! Come on, Amma!”

And I, too, cried out, “I don’t want to play with them. I hate cricket!”

“I don’t care what you want,” Amma said. “It’s good for you.”

“Arjie’s useless,” Diggy said. “We’ll never win if he’s on our team.”

Amma held up her hand to silence us. “That’s an order,” she said.

“Why?” I asked, ignoring her gesture. “Why do I have to play with the boys?”

“Why?” Amma said. “Because the sky is so high and pigs can’t fly, that’s why.”

“Please, Amma! Please!” I held out my arms to her.

Amma turned away quickly, picked up her handbag from the dressing table, and said, almost to herself, “If the child turns out wrong, it’s the mother they always blame, never the father.” She clicked the handbag shut.

I put my head in my hands and began to cry. “Please, Amma, please,” I said through my sobs.

She continued to face the window.

I flung myself on the bed with a wail of anguish. I waited for her to come to me as she always did when I cried, waited for her to take me in her arms, rest my head against her breasts, and say in her special voice, “What’s this, now? Who’s the little man who’s crying?”

But she didn’t heed my weeping any more than she had heeded my cries when I knocked on her door.

Finally I stopped crying and rolled over on my back. Diggy had left the room. Amma turned to me, now that I had become
quiet, and said cheerfully, “You’ll have a good time, just wait and see.”

“Why can’t I play with the girls?” I replied.

“You can’t, that’s all.”

“But why?”

She shifted uneasily.

“You’re a big boy now. And big boys must play with other boys.”

“That’s stupid.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she said. “Life is full of stupid things and sometimes we just have to do them.”

“I won’t,” I said defiantly. “I won’t play with the boys.”

Her face reddened with anger. She reached down, caught me by the shoulders, and shook me hard. Then she turned away and ran her hand through her hair. I watched her, gloating. I had broken her cheerful façade, forced her to show how much it pained her to do what she was doing, how little she actually believed in the justness of her actions.

After a moment she turned back to me and said in an almost pleading tone, “You’ll have a good time.”

I looked at her and said, “No I won’t.”

Her back straightened. She crossed to the door and stopped. Without looking at me she said, stiffly, “The car leaves in five minutes. If you’re not in it by then, watch out.”

I lay back on the bed and gazed at the mosquito net swinging gently in the breeze. In my mind’s eye, I saw the day that stretched ahead of me. At the thought of having to waste the most precious day of the month in that field in front of my
grandparents’ house, the hot sun beating on my head, the perspiration running down the sides of my face, I felt a sense of despair begin to take hold of me. The picture of what would take place in the back garden became clear. I saw Her Fatness seizing my place as leader of the girls, claiming for herself the rituals I had so carefully invented and planned. I saw her standing in front of Janaki’s mirror as the other girls fixed her hair, pinned her veil, and draped her sari. The thought was terrible. Something had to be done. I could not give up that easily, could not let Her Fatness, whose sneaking to Kanthi Aunty had forced me into the position I was now in, so easily take my place. But what could I do?

As if in answer, an object which rested just at the periphery of my vision claimed my attention. I turned my head slightly and saw my sling-bag. Then a thought came to me. I reached out, picked up the bag, and hugged it close to my chest. Without the sari in that bag, it was impossible for the girls to play bride-bride. I thought of Her Fatness with triumph. What would she drape around her body? A bedsheet like the bridesmaids? No! Without me and my sari she would not be able to play bride-bride properly.

There was, I realized, an obstacle that had to be overcome first. I would have to get out of playing cricket. Amma had laid down an order and I knew Diggy well enough to know that, in spite of all his boldness, he would never dare to disobey an order from Amma.

I heard the car start up, and its sound reminded me of another problem that I had not considered. How was I going
to smuggle the sari into the car? Amma would be waiting in the car for me, and if I arrived with the sling-bag she would make me take it back. I could not slip it in without her noticing. I sat still, listening to the whir of the engine at counterpoint to the clatter of Anula clearing the breakfast table, and suddenly a plan revealed itself to me.

I took the sari out of the bag and folded the bag so that it looked like there was something in it and left it on the bed. Taking the sari with me, I went to the bedroom door and peered out. The hall was empty. I went into Sonali’s room, which was next to my parents’, and I crouched down on one side of the doorway. I took off my slippers and held them with the sari in my arms. The curtain in the open doorway of Sonali’s room blew slightly in the breeze and I moved further away from it so that I would not be seen. After what seemed like an interminable amount of time, I heard Amma coming down the hallway to fetch me from her room. I crouched even lower as the sound of her footsteps got closer. From below the curtain, I saw her go into her room. As she entered, I stood up, pushed aside the curtain, and darted down the hallway. She came out of her room and called to me, but I didn’t stop, and ran outside.

Thankfully the rear door of the car was open. I jumped in, quickly stuffed the sari into Sonali’s sling-bag, and lay back against the seat, panting. Diggy and Sonali were looking at me strangely but they said nothing.

Soon Amma came out and got into the car. She glared at me and I gave her an innocent look. I smiled at Sonali
conspiratorially. Sonali, my strongest ally, was doing her best to keep the bewilderment out of her face. By way of explanation, I said, with pretend gloominess, “I can’t play with you today. Amma says that I must play with the boys.”

Sonali looked at me in amazement and then turned to Amma. “Why can’t he play with the girls?” she said.

“Why?” Amma said and started up the car. “Because the sky is so high and pigs can’t fly.”

Amma sounded less sure of herself this time and a little weary. Looking in front, I saw that Diggy had turned in his seat and was regarding me morosely. I was reminded that the sari in the bag was worth nothing if I couldn’t get out of the long day of cricket that lay ahead of me.

All the way to my grandparents’ house, I gazed at the back of Diggy’s head, hoping inspiration would come. The sound of his feet kicking irritably against the underside of the glove compartment confirmed that, however bad the consequences, he would follow Amma’s orders. The sound of that ill-natured kicking made me search my mind all the more desperately for a way to escape playing cricket with the boys.

When the car turned down Ramanaygam Road, I still had not thought of anything. Meena was standing on top of the garden wall, her legs apart, her hands on her hips, her panties already dirty underneath her short dress. The boy cousins were on the wall on either side of her.

As we walked up the path to pay our respects to Ammachi and Appachi, I whispered to Sonali to keep the sari hidden
and to tell no one about it. When we went into the drawing room, Her Fatness, who was as usual between Kanthi Aunty’s knees, gave me a victorious look. A feeling of panic began to rise in me that no plan of escape had yet presented itself.

Once we had gone through the ritual of presenting our cheeks to our grandparents, we followed Amma outside to say goodbye.

“You children be good,” Amma said before she got into the car. She looked pointedly at me. “I don’t want to hear that you’ve given Ammachi and Appachi any trouble.”

I watched her departing car with a sense of sorrow.

Diggy grabbed my arm. I followed reluctantly as he hurried across the road, still holding on to me, as if afraid I would run away.

The wickets had already been set up in the field in front of the house and the boys and Meena were seated under a guava tree. When they saw us come towards them, they stopped talking and stared at us.

Muruges, who was on Diggy’s team, stood up.

“What’s he doing here?” he demanded, waving his half-eaten guava at me.

“He’s going to play.”

“What?” the others cried in amazement.

They looked at Diggy as if he had lost his mind.

“He’s not going to play on our team, is he?” Muruges said, more a threat than a question.