Authors: Anita Nair
Ladies Coupe (16 page)
‘A vegetable pulao; curd vadas. A cauliflower curry and an egg masala. Then there are papads and pickles,’ I said, lifting the lid off each dish and displaying it to him.
He made a face. I pretended not to see it.
‘But that’s exactly what you made the last time. Why didn’t you think of something different? Everyone’s going to think you have no imagination.’
I swallowed. Why did it hurt even now? And it was hurt that made me snap, ‘If you don’t like what I have cooked, you can order food from a restaurant. This is as much as I can do. And who are we trying to impress anyway? It’s the same motley group that knows very well who we are. It isn’t as if they are royalty …’
But Ebe had already left the room and I was left alone with my hurt and anger and a sense of shame. How could I be so petty? But a brief moment of remorse was all that I would allow myself
That night my hate propelled me along. Oil of vitriol destroys water. It dehydrates all traces of water from any other compound. But that night I was Aqua Regia. Royal water. All acid and hate. Capable of dissolving even gold, as alchemists knew. Capable of dissolving shame and remorse and keeping my hate for him intact.
‘Mmm … what a lovely aroma!’ Daphne’s silvery voice tinkled as she walked in through the door.
The lithium girl. Of the coterie, I liked her the best, even though I knew that Ebe was infatuated by her. I smiled at her.
The others – Bromine Premilla, Laughing Gas Xavier,
Tetra Sulphur Nawaz and Gamma Ray Sankar Narayan smiled at me and sniffed the air appreciatively. Arsenic Kala alone pursed her mouth. On arrival, she had made it a point to tell me that she hoped that I hadn’t made the pulao too spicy or oily or she would suffer from indigestion all night.
Tetra Sulphur Nawaz and Gamma Ray Sankar Narayan smiled at me and sniffed the air appreciatively. Arsenic Kala alone pursed her mouth. On arrival, she had made it a point to tell me that she hoped that I hadn’t made the pulao too spicy or oily or she would suffer from indigestion all night.
Daphne sat down next to me and said, ‘I thought I’d never find an autorickshaw to come this way. You’ll have to drop me back, Mr Principal.’ Another peal of laughter.
Ebe smiled at her adoringly. I saw the approval in his eyes and felt a twisting pain inside. When was the last time he had looked at me so adoringly?
What had changed between us? Or was it I who had changed? And with it my expectations of him?
‘You have completed the crossword again,’ Daphne said, riffling through the newspapers that Ebe had just put down.
‘How does he manage to get it right every day? Maggie, what is the secret?’ Daphne pouted.
I smiled and shook my head. On the day the coterie dined with us, he woke up early in the morning, sat with a book of phrases and a dictionary and set about doing the crossword in preparation for the evening. So that when the coterie came in, they almost inevitably found him finishing the crossword with a flourish. I could tell them that, but instead I smiled and said, ‘He doesn’t tell me.’
‘No secrets. I just have a natural aptitude for crosswords, I suppose,’ Ebe said, wanting to deflect attention back to himself.
‘Daphne, do you have anything new for us?’ Sankar Narayan asked.
Daphne wrote poetry. Poems about trees shaped like hands, and clouds that winged their way through the skies like birds, and buds that were ‘destined to die untouched, unplucked, unloved’. Daphne was quite sensible except when it came to her poetry and when suitably persuaded, would draw out her burgundy-coloured leather-jacketed notebook from her bag and read aloud her most recent effort.
Now, she paused in the middle of whatever it was she was saying and said, ‘I actually do have a new one but I’m not very sure about it.’
‘Come, come, don’t be so modest. Let’s hear it,’ Ebe said.
Daphne, like she had a book set aside for poetry, had a voice reserved for reading poetry. A breathless husky voice. A sweet young thing’s voice swayed by what it thought was the lyricism of phrases such as ‘ungainly seas’. The voice embarrassed me. Her poetry embarrassed me. When Daphne did her little girl act, it made me want to squirm. But I held my breath and always tried to look very interested when she began to read. I worried that someone would burst into laughter and show her up for what she was.
When the poetry reading was over and done without mishap, the coterie began discussing school affairs. Gamma Ray cleared his throat. I could see that he was brimming with a new story.
‘I don’t know if any of you has been observing this, but I spotted the beginning of a new romance in the school corridors.’
Ebe frowned. He hated it when someone knew for a fact what he hadn’t even suspected.
‘Now which is this pair of love birds?’
Daphne giggled. Ebe cocked his eyebrow and repeated, ‘So who are the love birds?’
‘Nisha from IXD …’
Daphne gasped. Everyone knew that Daphne was very fond of the girl and groomed her to represent the school in inter-school debates.
‘ … and Mansoor from XIA. I’ve been watching them for a while now. Ever since this term began they have been together at every recess, huddled in a corner, chatting about god knows what. So one morning I warned them. I told them that if I caught them talking in the corridors, I would
send them to you. So Nisha began going to his classroom where a group always surrounds them. I called her and asked her what business she had in the XIA classroom and she had the audacity to tell me that she and some of the girls in that class are good friends and was there any rule against seniors and juniors mixing. We have to do something about this.’
send them to you. So Nisha began going to his classroom where a group always surrounds them. I called her and asked her what business she had in the XIA classroom and she had the audacity to tell me that she and some of the girls in that class are good friends and was there any rule against seniors and juniors mixing. We have to do something about this.’
‘That one is a little snob anyway,’ Arsenic Kala added. ‘When I told her that she should spend more time concentrating on improving her mathematics, instead of participating in inter-school debates, she told me that she intends to have nothing to do with maths once she’s cleared her tenth standard public exams.’
‘She is a good girl,’ Daphne defended her protege.
‘That she might be,’ Ebe said, ‘but we can’t have such goings-on. The next time,’ he said turning to Sankar Narayan, ‘you spot them together, let me know immediately. I’ll sort this out once and for all.’
In an effort to change the subject, Daphne began to talk of an inter-school cultural festival that would begin next month. I listened to the voices as they rolled and cascaded and thought of molecules bonding and separating …
‘Maggie, why are you so quiet?’ No one called me Maggie except Daphne.
They all turned to look at me.
‘She’s not a great one for discussions. She doesn’t have an opinion about anything. The only time I’ve ever seen her truly animated was many years ago in Kodaikanal. There was this student Alfred …’ Ebe butted in and steered the attention away to a reminiscence; yet another piece of history that revealed what a brilliant man Ebenezer Paulraj was.
Alfred Arokiaswami. Nine years old with dimples in his cheeks and mischief in his eyes. He had springy, curly hair that his mother always left a little too long for Ebenezer Paulraj’s taste.
Ebenezer Paulraj sent Alfred’s mother a note. But she
ignored it. So Ebenezer Paulraj had Alfred’s soccer practice stopped and instead he was asked to join the SUPW group as they went about emptying wastepaper baskets from each classroom. And still Alfred’s whorl of curls continued to flaunt themselves.
ignored it. So Ebenezer Paulraj had Alfred’s soccer practice stopped and instead he was asked to join the SUPW group as they went about emptying wastepaper baskets from each classroom. And still Alfred’s whorl of curls continued to flaunt themselves.
The next Monday, Ebenezer Paulraj had Alfred summoned to his room after morning assembly. And then, Ebenezer Paulraj gathered a handful of Alfred’s hair and clasped a rubber band around it so that the tuft of curls resembled a pineapple.
‘You will not take this off till the evening bell rings. Do you understand?’ Ebenezer Paulraj told a snivelling Alfred. ‘Since you like your hair so much you leave me with no other option but to do this. In my school, only girls are permitted to wear their hair long,’ Ebenezer Paulraj said, and sent Alfred back to his class.
During lunch hour, I saw a giggling group huddled around a child in the 4B classroom. I could hear muffled sobs. ‘What’s going on here?’ I demanded, going in.
There sat poor Alfred. Ridiculed and teased. The butt of many jibes and the cause of much merriment. I saw the humiliation in his eyes, the stricken look, the confusion, and I felt a great rage explode in me.
‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourselves?’ I asked, and the group melted away.
I undid the rubber band which I recognized to be mine and smoothened Alfred’s curls down. I wiped his eyes and told him that it didn’t matter what the others said. He was a good little boy, I said again and again, emphasizing the word ‘boy’, for the other children had been calling him Alfreda when I walked in.
Then I took the rubber band and stormed into Ebenezer Paulraj’s room.
‘What is the meaning of this?’ I demanded.
Ebenezer Paulraj looked up from his sheaf of papers and asked, ‘What is the meaning of what?’
I flung the rubber band on the table and snapped, ‘How
could you do this to a child? How could you humiliate him so badly? Don’t you realize what you could have done to him? You might have scarred him for life. And for what? An extra inch of hair?’
could you do this to a child? How could you humiliate him so badly? Don’t you realize what you could have done to him? You might have scarred him for life. And for what? An extra inch of hair?’
Ebenezer Paulraj touched the blue beads of the rubber band thoughtfully. ‘I suppose you took this off Alfred’s hair. That was very silly of you.’
‘Answer me, Ebe. Don’t tell me I’m silly. Why were you so cruel to a child?’ Exasperation made my tone sharper than I meant it to be.
‘Madam,’ Ebenezer Paulraj said in a voice that I had never heard him use before, ‘I would like to remind you that I’m in charge here and not you. I do not like anyone flouting my authority and the next time you do so, I will have to take strict action. I will not let who you are influence my decisions. Do you understand? This is my school and I know what’s best for my students.’
He lowered his head and pretended to be absorbed in his papers and I knew I was dismissed.
Alfred had his mother take him to a barber and shave his hair off. Ebenezer Paulraj’s wish had prevailed.
And Alfred. He took to tormenting the younger children; being rude in the class and accepting every dare from climbing the highest branch of a tree to sliding down the banisters of the staircase. But Ebenezer Paulraj would never accept responsibility for what he had done. When I pointed Alfred’s behaviour out to him, all he said was, ‘Boys will be boys.’
And I. Perhaps that was the first time I began to question my feelings for Ebenezer Paulraj. Suddenly Ebe was a stranger and a despicable one at that. A bully and a tyrant.
But Ebe didn’t remember it the way I did. As a horrific episode. Instead, it was another example of the psychological warfare he waged against young rascals with too much sauce for their own good. ‘You cane a child and in a week’s time, he’ll have forgotten it. But something like this will
never be forgotten,’ Ebe said, finishing his version of the tale and passing a plate of peanuts around.
never be forgotten,’ Ebe said, finishing his version of the tale and passing a plate of peanuts around.
‘Only you would think of something so ingenious,’ Kala gushed, taking a peanut and then dropping it back.
‘I suppose one has to use one’s imagination,’ Xavier said through a mouthful of nuts.
‘Imagination!’ Ebenezer Paulraj slapped his thigh. ‘That’s the key word. No offence to any one of you here, but have you ever wondered why most school principals are English or history teachers? I have my own theory of course: it’s only when you have taught subjects that require and even nurture imagination that you can employ it in running a school. You need imagination to be able to interest a child in poetry or understand the implications of a battle waged many hundreds of years ago … it’s not the same as teaching algebra or biology. And if you ask me, there can’t be a more dry or boring subject than chemistry. But the little imps like it because to them it’s like a game. This plus this equals that! Frankly, if you want my opinion, when I think of chemistry, what comes to mind is the odour of rotten eggs …’
Laughter. Peanuts rustled. Chips crackled.
I looked at my hands clasped tightly in my lap. What did he know of chemistry or the poetry of the elements?
The magic of the litmus paper test: blue litmus when dipped in acid turns red and red litmus when dipped in an alkaline solution turns blue. The lyricism of phosphorous which when taken out of water self-ignites, burns and becomes a gas. The vigour of potassium nitrate, sulphur and charcoal coming together – explosions that rock the earth. The illusions that transparent calcite can create. The colours – brick-red beryllium carbide; the brassy yellow of fool’s gold, the silvery white of uranium … The words formed on my tongue.
I wanted to stand up and shout, ‘He takes such pride in what he calls his imagination. Let me tell you all about the quality of his imagination. Go to the school library and take
down the books that the senior school students are expected to read, or go to the Circle Library or the lending library in the next street, and you’ll see for yourself the handiwork of the man with an imagination.’
down the books that the senior school students are expected to read, or go to the Circle Library or the lending library in the next street, and you’ll see for yourself the handiwork of the man with an imagination.’
Ebe was crafty. He chose the books with care and rotated his vandalism among the three libraries that he’s a member of. So that no one would ever trace the ruined books back to him. Besides, who would suspect him of such obscenity? For Ebe, with great meticulousness, drew human genitalia – penises, testicles, anuses, vaginas bearing his signature, namely the stubble of pubic hair. Human genitalia attached to humans and genitalia by themselves. Delicate and explicit sketches of sexual organs created by Ebenezer Paulraj, the Da Vinci of book margins, Ebenezer Paulraj, the man with an imagination.
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