Every summer, I go to Bhagalpur. Have you heard of it? It’s a small village in Bihar. My granny (mum’s mum) lives there. In a big white house with fields all around.
She doesn’t live by herself, of course. She is way too old for that. She lives with my uncle, aunt, and my cousins. I kind of like my cousins. They are sweet. They don’t act bossy nor do they pretend to know everything. And they never ever boast about their clothes. They never ask me “which car do you have” or “which TV do you have” like my friends at school. Bah!
Back to my cousins, their names are Jyoti and Ojas. We are a team. And oh, they have a boy who looks after them. His name is Siaram and he is not much older than us. I like Siaram a lot. It’s really good to have him around. When we can’t play a game because three is an odd number, he is happy to join us. He is usually on my team and is ever ready to listen to my command. That makes me happy. I wish I were class monitor and everybody listened to me in school too. Sigh!
.
Siaram came to work for granny as a little boy. Ask him for his mother or father and he points upwards, “They have gone to the sky, Vishnu bhaiya.”
“Arre, buddhu,” I correct him, “People don’t go to the sky.”
“Then where do they go?”
“Oho, Siaram. They don’t go anywhere. And they definitely don’t become stars. They just stay in our hearts”
“But—“ he trails off. He doesn’t argue with me. He just stands there. Looking small and utterly lost.
That makes me feel so guilty. I try and make up by distracting him, “Let’s play a game.” And the sad look disappears from his face.
Every morning Siaram brings me a glass of milk. And every morning, I make faces before gulping it down. That is the only thing I don’t like about mornings. I wish nobody watches me but Siaram does. Like a hawk. He doesn’t take “no” for an answer. He merely threatens to raise an alarm.
And that worries me. I sure don’t want granny to know that I’m wasting her precious milk. That will mean another long boring lecture. Somehow granny’s lectures always begin with “When I was a little girl….” Blah, blah. Oh, I can’t bear to hear another one of those stories.
So I do the next best thing. I make a great show of gulping the awful thing, leaving a sizeable amount back in the glass. And then I back it up with an excuse. Too much malai. Too thick. Too hot. Too cold.
But something happened last year which made me change my mind. Made me look at milk differently.
Tired of having that disgusting liquid day after day, I decided to rebel. That fateful day, I marched up to granny and declared in my best grown-up voice, “I am not going to have milk hereafter. It’s always way too hot. It smells. And I just hate it.” I dragged the syllables in hate for good measure.
Granny replied calmly, “Okay, there’s a glass of chilled milk in the fridge. You can have that.”
“No, granny, I’m too full.”
“Have it after a little while, dear.”
“Granny, you don’t understand. I am not going to have milk. Not now. Not ever. I will never have milk again.”
Of course, granny wasn’t too thrilled about my decision. She wailed, “If you don’t have milk, you will become pale and thin and unhealthy. What will your people say? That you came back from your granny’s place looking like a bag of bones? When I was a little girl, I used to come back roly-poly from my granny’s place,” she broke off and started singing one of her silly songs, in her sweet voice.
Nani ke ghar jaayenge
Doodh malai khaayenge
Nani ke ghar jaayenge
Mote hokar aayenge
(We will go to granny’s place. We will have milk and cream there. And come back nice and fat. Or some such nonsense.)
Granny tried every trick in her book but to no avail. I was determined. From that day, I refused to even look in the direction of milk. Every morning Siaram brought the tall glass to my room and several hours later, he carried it back to the kitchen, untouched.
My stubborn behaviour really upset granny. Strangely enough, Siaram looked more affected than her! As if he was a relative or something. Drama king!
For one whole week, he walked around with a sad expression on his face. What’s his problem,” I thought, thoroughly irritated. “It’s not as if he is my relative. So why is he so concerned about my health?”
Days passed. One afternoon as I lay on my bed, there was a meek knock at my door.
“Bhaiya, it’s me, Siaram.”
It wasn’t like him to disturb me in the afternoons. I sat up.
“What is it, Siaram?”
He walked in looking very timid, pale and tired.
Without warning, he burst into tears. “Bhaiya, this is a humble request. Please, have milk from tomorrow.”
I sighed. I should have known.
“I know you are concerned about my health, Siaram. Don’t worry, I will get my nutrition from other far tastier sources like chicken, fish, eggs,” I explained patiently.
Tears filled his eyes. “It’s not that, bhaiya. It’s just that—”
I was really puzzled. It wasn’t like Siaram to be this emotional.
He continued amid loud hiccups, “when you used to have milk, you used to leave a little amount behind.”
“I was a bad boy, wasn’t I?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“No, no, bhaiya. It’s just that—it’s just that I used to mix water in it and carry it home for my little brother. So, when you stopped drinking milk, my brother did too.”
You can imagine how I felt. Terrible. Stupid. Selfish. I tried, very hard, to say something, anything but I just couldn’t. From the next day, I decided not to have one but two glasses of milk much to my granny’s delight. The second glass, of course, was for Siaram’s brother. But I couldn’t tell granny that, now could I?
Vibha Batra is a writer based in Chennai. She has a Masters in Communication from the University of Madras. She has 3 published books to her credit: Ishaavaasya Upanishad, an English translation of her grandfather's work (published by Rupa Publications in 2007), Tongue-in-cheek, a collection of poetry (published by Writers Workshop in 2008) and A Twist of Lime, a collection of short stories (published by Think Big Books in 2008). Her short stories and poems have appeared on various e-zines, including Clockwise Cat, Muse, Kritya, Long Story Short, and Dignity Dialogue. She is currently working on her next book, a novel.
She doesn’t live by herself, of course. She is way too old for that. She lives with my uncle, aunt, and my cousins. I kind of like my cousins. They are sweet. They don’t act bossy nor do they pretend to know everything. And they never ever boast about their clothes. They never ask me “which car do you have” or “which TV do you have” like my friends at school. Bah!
Back to my cousins, their names are Jyoti and Ojas. We are a team. And oh, they have a boy who looks after them. His name is Siaram and he is not much older than us. I like Siaram a lot. It’s really good to have him around. When we can’t play a game because three is an odd number, he is happy to join us. He is usually on my team and is ever ready to listen to my command. That makes me happy. I wish I were class monitor and everybody listened to me in school too. Sigh!
.
Siaram came to work for granny as a little boy. Ask him for his mother or father and he points upwards, “They have gone to the sky, Vishnu bhaiya.”
“Arre, buddhu,” I correct him, “People don’t go to the sky.”
“Then where do they go?”
“Oho, Siaram. They don’t go anywhere. And they definitely don’t become stars. They just stay in our hearts”
“But—“ he trails off. He doesn’t argue with me. He just stands there. Looking small and utterly lost.
That makes me feel so guilty. I try and make up by distracting him, “Let’s play a game.” And the sad look disappears from his face.
Every morning Siaram brings me a glass of milk. And every morning, I make faces before gulping it down. That is the only thing I don’t like about mornings. I wish nobody watches me but Siaram does. Like a hawk. He doesn’t take “no” for an answer. He merely threatens to raise an alarm.
And that worries me. I sure don’t want granny to know that I’m wasting her precious milk. That will mean another long boring lecture. Somehow granny’s lectures always begin with “When I was a little girl….” Blah, blah. Oh, I can’t bear to hear another one of those stories.
So I do the next best thing. I make a great show of gulping the awful thing, leaving a sizeable amount back in the glass. And then I back it up with an excuse. Too much malai. Too thick. Too hot. Too cold.
But something happened last year which made me change my mind. Made me look at milk differently.
Tired of having that disgusting liquid day after day, I decided to rebel. That fateful day, I marched up to granny and declared in my best grown-up voice, “I am not going to have milk hereafter. It’s always way too hot. It smells. And I just hate it.” I dragged the syllables in hate for good measure.
Granny replied calmly, “Okay, there’s a glass of chilled milk in the fridge. You can have that.”
“No, granny, I’m too full.”
“Have it after a little while, dear.”
“Granny, you don’t understand. I am not going to have milk. Not now. Not ever. I will never have milk again.”
Of course, granny wasn’t too thrilled about my decision. She wailed, “If you don’t have milk, you will become pale and thin and unhealthy. What will your people say? That you came back from your granny’s place looking like a bag of bones? When I was a little girl, I used to come back roly-poly from my granny’s place,” she broke off and started singing one of her silly songs, in her sweet voice.
Nani ke ghar jaayenge
Doodh malai khaayenge
Nani ke ghar jaayenge
Mote hokar aayenge
(We will go to granny’s place. We will have milk and cream there. And come back nice and fat. Or some such nonsense.)
Granny tried every trick in her book but to no avail. I was determined. From that day, I refused to even look in the direction of milk. Every morning Siaram brought the tall glass to my room and several hours later, he carried it back to the kitchen, untouched.
My stubborn behaviour really upset granny. Strangely enough, Siaram looked more affected than her! As if he was a relative or something. Drama king!
For one whole week, he walked around with a sad expression on his face. What’s his problem,” I thought, thoroughly irritated. “It’s not as if he is my relative. So why is he so concerned about my health?”
Days passed. One afternoon as I lay on my bed, there was a meek knock at my door.
“Bhaiya, it’s me, Siaram.”
It wasn’t like him to disturb me in the afternoons. I sat up.
“What is it, Siaram?”
He walked in looking very timid, pale and tired.
Without warning, he burst into tears. “Bhaiya, this is a humble request. Please, have milk from tomorrow.”
I sighed. I should have known.
“I know you are concerned about my health, Siaram. Don’t worry, I will get my nutrition from other far tastier sources like chicken, fish, eggs,” I explained patiently.
Tears filled his eyes. “It’s not that, bhaiya. It’s just that—”
I was really puzzled. It wasn’t like Siaram to be this emotional.
He continued amid loud hiccups, “when you used to have milk, you used to leave a little amount behind.”
“I was a bad boy, wasn’t I?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.
“No, no, bhaiya. It’s just that—it’s just that I used to mix water in it and carry it home for my little brother. So, when you stopped drinking milk, my brother did too.”
You can imagine how I felt. Terrible. Stupid. Selfish. I tried, very hard, to say something, anything but I just couldn’t. From the next day, I decided not to have one but two glasses of milk much to my granny’s delight. The second glass, of course, was for Siaram’s brother. But I couldn’t tell granny that, now could I?
Vibha Batra is a writer based in Chennai. She has a Masters in Communication from the University of Madras. She has 3 published books to her credit: Ishaavaasya Upanishad, an English translation of her grandfather's work (published by Rupa Publications in 2007), Tongue-in-cheek, a collection of poetry (published by Writers Workshop in 2008) and A Twist of Lime, a collection of short stories (published by Think Big Books in 2008). Her short stories and poems have appeared on various e-zines, including Clockwise Cat, Muse, Kritya, Long Story Short, and Dignity Dialogue. She is currently working on her next book, a novel.
