Sulekha's Tale

They moved to Chennai, it used to be Madras then. Suelkha, her two younger sisters and her brother who was still a toddler now had the ground level quarter, next to the squat compound wall at the government Municipality campus. They had two big shady mango trees at the backyard but they didn’t have the perfectly shaped ripe, yellow mangoes like the trees in Tiruchy.

Today evening Amma prepared for her Friday visit to the temple. They take a small bag and place a container with oil, a box of match-sticks, alongwith some bananas and a purse full of coins. As Sulekha walks reluctantly besides her mother you can hear her mumble songs. It’s almost a habit to her, very involuntary weekly habit.

Sulekha is the eldest one; she had the almond shaped eyes, and dark ebony skin of her mother. She vividly remembers the elation in the house when her father got the job at the government office. Her father’s four sisters had gathered for a ‘farewell’, they even scripted a long list of things he was to parcel for the coming Diwali. Now he writes them long letters but he is worried he can’t send them any gifts.

She is oldest among the dozen kids stuffed into an auto-rickshaw on the way to school. She sits with her yellow ribbon fluttering; knees awkwardly bent holding a six year old in her lap. She collects their bags and holds all their tiffins, and hands them out as soon to the little ones when they reach school.

Sulekha doesn’t speak much, her teachers complain often. There is noise around her all the time maybe she doesn’t know if she will be heard.