A Girl with a Broomstick
It was a warm summer afternoon. A soiled yellow bus came to a screeching halt levitating dust from the parched streets. She jumped from the bus, and the loo swept her stray hair, which had escaped from the tightly woven braid.
“Bye!”, she waved, and turned the knob of a big iron gate.
She ran inside, straight to the kitchen. A frosted glass of lemonade sitting on the shelf, quenched her thirst.
“Is it you Inaya?”, her grandmother shouted from inside her room.
“Drink your lemonade first.”
“I’ll come and give you lunch.”
“I already drank, Dadi. And I’m not hungry yet.”
“Has Rano come?”
“Not yet. How was your school?”
“Very good. I got 10/10 on my mathematics test.”
“Good girl.”
“I’ll eat lunch with Mama.”, Inaya announced, and hurried upstairs to her room.
Inaya had lived eleven summers; her eyes as black as coal, gleamed. Rather bony in structure, she had pale white cheeks and long black hair, which rested comfortably above her hips. She loved her hair. One hot summer day, her mother enticed her with a caramel toffee stick — Inaya could do anything for it — to get her to cut her hair short; long hair was an enormous work for the working mother. But Inaya held fast — she pleaded, cried and screamed her opposition, until her mother gave up.
Pouring out the colorful boxes from a black bag, she sat on the carpet arranging them, by color and sizes. They were pencil-boxes. After careful consideration, three piles were made; one- the most colorful, but of similar looking rectangles; second — the fancy ones, and this was the biggest pile; third had only two cases, but were the most sumptuous of the lot.
Satisfied with her arrangement, she alternately and impatiently, looked at the door and her teal-colored watch with a Mickey Mouse face on it. The Mickey Mouse was playing tricks; she chuckled every time.
Rano entered through the opened door, her gaze straight towards the neatly decked stacks. She was not surprised — it was their Tuesday ritual.
“What took you so long?”, Inaya enquired.
“I was finishing up cleaning the utensils. Dadi said that you had guests last night.”, she replied promptly.
Inaya and Rano were of the same age. Rano’s mother had requested Inaya’s parents to let Rano learn English from their daughter, to which they did not object. Inaya had been sharing her books with Rano ever since.
“Look, these all are for you. Ta da!” Like a magician who had magnificently performed a close-up magic, she spread her hands over the splendid collection.
Yellow, white, blue, purple, orange, red, green — she meticulously pushed the first stack — all similar shaped boxes — towards Rano.
“All of them?”, Rano exclaimed, smiling ear to ear. Her eyes squeezed smaller; the smudged kohl deposited in the corner of her eye.
“Yes, all of them.”
“Thank you! You are my best friend.”
“Do you like the Blue one? This is my favorite.”
“Yes, but my favorite is Yellow. It reminds me of Mangoes.”
“I don’t like mangoes. I have to eat them every day of the summer.”
Rano was too awe-struck with her brand new set to respond.
“Look at these — I got two for this term. I scored an A+.”, Inaya declared meritoriously.
“This is called Slider-and-Decker, and this — this is an airplane.”
She opened the purple and green slider case. It was a tinted glass, covering two compartments — one each for pens and pencils. It was metallic, and had two small purple handles to slide it open.
“Wow!”, Rano exclaimed with her smudged eyes wide open.
Inaya, then, swiftly proceeded to demonstrate her airplane. She pushed the many buttons on it, each of which popped open an appropriately sized compartment for various stationery — pencils, pens, rulers, erasers; the sharpener was inbuilt.
The girls were pleased as Punch.
“They are imported.”, she announced. “Here, you can try.”, she extended the airplane towards Rano.
“No, my hands are not clean.”, Rano pulled her weathered hands behind her back.
“Maybe tomorrow then?”
“Yes, maybe tomorrow.”
“Inaya, come, let’s have lunch. Bring your test notebook along.”, Inaya’s mother was back home.
“Coming Mama.”
“I should also go. Thank you for these.”
The girls embraced each other. The embrace was full.
“Come early tomorrow — we will play. And you can be the teacher.”
Inaya gave the black bag to Rano for her cases. Rano picked up more than her little hand could hold, and dropped, and picked up again; she dropped and picked many times before she could pack all of her gifts.
“Bye!”
“Bye bye!”
Inaya took out her hard-bound notebook, draped in bottle-green resin cover, with a name tag on it which said — Inaya Malhotra.
Rano picked up her new bag, and old broomstick, and left.