10.08.05
kehla
My body can�t take it.
Before me, the Ganges is large and glistening in the pale orange sun like henna. The people litter it, dotting it with small black dots and in some places large groups of women sit washing their clothes for the week. Grandmothers, dark, frail and thin, beat large white sheets against its shore.
The water is holy, my mother tells me. She blesses me in it so that I will grow big and strong, so that I will go to school, go away to college, and one day bring back money to my family. I would bring them out of poverty. Every young boy born to every poor family was destined to be the one to bring them out of poverty.
I smiled anyway.
The water was cool flowing from my mother�s hands over my head. I stood and watched at her, and hundreds of other little boys stood watching their mothers, their little brown things flapping in the wind as their sisters learned for the first time how to beat a shirt clean and dry against the mud.
My sari is dirty and clinging to my body because of the sweat. My feet hurt. I feel dizzy. The bass has stopped and the college boys stare at me from their seats. I�ve danced too long. Their money lies on the floor at my feet, trampled to near destruction.
I smile.
I bend to pick the money up and we leave, some rupees richer. It�s what must be done. We stop on the way home to take a piss and I take out my little stolen quill so that my yellow stream can hit the wall with the others. They hiss as they splash, warm, testosterone-less, to the floor and into the gutter. It�s so hard to pee in these saris without getting them dirty.
The quill I stole in my first class at a British school out of spite. The teacher stood, looming over me with his impressive jowls and all I could do was stare. He spoke to me in a language that I could not understand and would not let me ask the others in Hindi what he meant. I couldn�t stand being intimidated by his furry brows or by his long switch so that day I simply took the quill and pen home with me.
I don�t know. It wasn�t bright.
In fact, I think neither was my attempt at self castration one night underneath the red lights of a shopping district street. The broken window glass left my body beyond repair and when I was taken to the hospital all the doctors could do was to leave a smooth place between my legs with a little hole for me to pee from.
The transition from eating in boarding school dining halls with their high vaulted wooden ceilings to begging on the streets for my meals, from tying my tie and adjusting my cap each morning to wearing makeup and twisting my sari �round my waist. How many dreams of mothers were squandered the same way? How many sons no longer existed, no longer came to weddings, no longer came to births?
This woman is teaching us now how to make women beautiful. She brings us customers and we examine their faces, the pustules, the wrinkles, the discoloration. We wear gloves over our reddened hands, push and prod them, poke until the little pimples explode their white insides over the dark brown skin and disinfect with steam and with potions.
They smile.
We learn how to make people comfortable. We talk to them in soft soothing voices so they forget the smoothness between our legs. They forget the hardness that was once there.
I forget which is more offending.
This is our new hope.
Today we put on our make-up and ring our eyes in black kohl. The night falls quietly on padded feet and we shuffle out in lines, candles delicately in hand. Once inside our bodies grind to the sounds of the drums and the tambourines. We grunt, flashing our legs, pulling up our saris to our things. The shrieks dare us to go further.
Two begin swaying together simulating the act, screaming to the rhythm. I sway. I spin again, dancing and pounding my feet deep into the earth. My hands clutch at the air in pain. It�s too much, Shiva�s dancing.
The boy�s parents pay us, they shove money in our hands, throw it at us as we leave. They can�t let us leave empty-handed though their stares show how disgusted they are. We�ve broken up their soiree, but now the boy is fertile. The boy will bear children, he will be rich and healthy and his ground will bear fruit.
As we leave the baby cries and the sound of the Ganges rushing past the city is like a whisper.
shi-ou-sama at
