“Nowadys you don’t get any help. Santha comes now and then, if I send word. It would be good if Santha came and helped everyday, but she drags that girl too. I don’t like her coming here.”

Unni? What’s wrong with her? I no longer know the people in my home-town that well. Unni was a young girl we used to play with when we went to stay in my grandparent’s place. She was quite some years younger than me, and that’s how I remember her. Smallest of the bunch. The girl who couldn’t talk coherently.

“I don’t like the way she speaks. She is upto no good.” My mother lifts her nose into the air.

Unni comes with Santha and I tell myself she is no more a child, not quite surprising as I am not quite young anymore. She has grown, and she has taken care to show off her charms. Like allmost all the young women.But lack of money and ill-advised accessory choice gave her a cheap look. Hint of too much kajal, big bindi with some curious design, too many bangles, weird hairdo. I can see why my mother disapproves. Poor girl, I know everyone wants to look good when they are young. Taste doesn’t come until you are over the adolescent rush.

I smile pleasantly to her, afterall this girl in the ghastly makeup is the girl who showed me how to make a peepi[whistle] with coconut leaves. She smiles and then asks my brother when he had come back from college.

“The doctor said she should be married off.” My mother tells me after they are gone.

They took her to a doctor?

“Oh, she was behaving starngely and all, so they took her to Medical College. Too many ailments and fainting and wandering off and all. He said she just want to get married. That is what Leela told me.” Leela is Santha’s sister, and the sisters are known to war even though they live in the same house with their children.

She is what? 15 or 16?

“16. They are looking for boys now.”

***

“Manu sent his wife to her house” My mother tells me after Santha had left. Manu is Unni’s brother.

What happened?

“Unni is back now. And Shyla is there too, after her husband died. So Manu and his wife were sleeping in the veranda. No place to sleep in the house. ”

Why is Unni back?

“She keeps coming back.But this time her husband had run away. It has been happening from the time they married.”

Hmm.. What did they expect when they married her off at 16?!

“They had to.” My mother is adamant.

Independence Day is nearing and we are being made to practice the mass-PT by George Sir. That is when an ambassador taxi stopped near us. A man gets down with a brief-case and marches;yes marches as if the drum beats were for him, straight-shouldered and all; and goes straight to George SIr.

“Good evening. I am Xavier, came to join as the new temporary English teacher.”

George Sir looks him up and down, and points to him the Principal who is sitting on the stage, watching us practice. Then he says matter-of-factly.

“When you meet him, you should salute him first.”

The poor man walks–marches–and salutes a bewildered Principal before presenting his appointment letter.

When you start out like that in front of the whole school, it is quite difficult not to be the butt of many a joke, and his many quirks didn’t help either.

Children can be cruel. I know that now. Most of the times unintentionally so. I think they realize the cruelty and meanness of many a silly act only when they grow up. I like to believe I was a sensible child. Yet we did glorify people who were just mean. Even though I know that “grown-ups” don’t exist in the sense I thought they did when I was little, I can’t help wonder why some of the adults in my childhood were never really grown-ups.

While going home last time, I met this girl. A very interesting girl, I should say. When I stepped into the bus at last, I was relieved enough to know that even though the sleeper I expected turned out to be a 2×2 seater, mine was a ladies seat. So I smile at her. She doesn’t.

I was slightly piqued. Mean, am this nice young lady sitting next to her–of course I made her give up the window seat, but hey it was my seat–,so can’t she return at least a lopsided one to my most charming of smiles? However, being the magnanimous human being that I am, I let it go. I settled into my hard-won seat, opened the window and then she asks me if I know how to recharge a prepaid phone.

Ever ready to show off how good a person I am, I tell her to sractch off the silver stuff on the card she has. She borrows a one rupee coin from a guy in the next seat and tries scratching furiously. After a couple of seconds she hands me the whole thing, almost crying.

“Please. I can’t. I am so tensed I will scratch off the numbers.”

I dutifully do the honours. Though I am slightly worried about the whole drama thing.

Since I didn’t know which number to call, she gets four more rows of people get involved. And then it is done. I heave a sigh after all the commotion. Being of the genre who hates people, I was finding it all quite different from my existence. However, she begins to get calls immediately, which she dutifully cuts after a curt ‘don’t call me’. Lover’s tiff?

After the movie where she alternated between laughing loud (always poking me to show how funny the joke was) and crying about something that was bothering her, I drift off to sleep. I wake up to drink some water, and she is sitting there, all awake, not even trying to sleep. I smile at her, and go back to sleep. But she had other plans.

I am curling up into the most comfortable of balls when she asks me:
“Where is your office?”

MG Road. I try to sound sleepy.

“Do you know a Vivek who works in MG Road?”

Well, in which company?

“In MG Road.”

Is it Vivek N?

“I don’t know his full name. His friend’s name is Sujith. He works in Outer Ring road. And there’s an Ajay also in their group.”

I have no idea. There is a Vivek N in my company. He is a Malayali. He is fair and not that tall.

“I haven’t seen him, so I don’t know.”

????! I actually said that .. heheee…:P

“He is from Kottayam. Where’s this guy from?”

I don’t know. Somehwere in South. I really don’t know this guy except his name and that he is in such an such a team, and he is a Malayali.

“It is the same guy. I know. How is he in office?”

I don’t work with him. I think he is good.

“Don’t even talk to him. He is very bad. I know all about him. I know how he plays with girls. I have heard a lot…”

I don’t think it is the same guy. Mean, you don’t even know where he works or his name.

“It is the same one. He works in MG Road. And he is from Kottayam”

There are a lot of offices in MG Road. And I don’t know if the Vivek in my office is from Kottayam. And this person looks like a good person.

“Aah-ha.. You think so? I know about him. I would rather not tell you. But he is actually a very bad person.” She is getting slightly agitated. Poor me is finding it all slightly otherwordly. She doesn’t even know the person she is talking about, and she doesn’t know who I was talking about, yet she is so sure of both of them. I regret I mentioned Vivek.

I smile. Best escape route.

“Better not keep any company whatsoever with him. It is not good.”

I won’t. I promise her.