Pavithra

The silent air hovers over the landscape, the night’s dry coolness not yet replaced by the sticky humidity that will come all too soon.  The world slumbers, the sun just barely reaching its bright fingers over the crest of the low-lying hills.
       Then BOOM, an explosion rocks the earth, jolting me upright as shreds of dreams scuttle into the recesses of my memory.  A garish purple monkey leers over me, threatening to drop an unnaturally orange mango on my head.  A hodgepodge of brightly patterned curtains flap at the windows, ushering in the sharp staccato of machine-gun fire.
       My head reels.  What’s happening? Where in the world am I?  Gunfire?!  Then my mind catches up with me.  India.  Right.  India.  You’d think I’d be used to this after two weeks.
       Another explosion shakes the ground.  I jump.  No, calm down.  This is normal.  It’s just a government firing range.  Right outside of the compound.  The compound where forty-one children live.  And where I’m staying.  Completely normal.
       Without warning, a bell starts sounding.  Its metallic clanging adds grating notes to the rhythm of explosions and gunfire.  All around me little bodies begin to stir.  Sleepy eyes blink, tiny mouths yawn as eleven small girls roll out of bed.  On the plastic chair by my head, my alarm clock shows the time in an eerie blue glow.  5:45 a.m.  Time to start the day.  I force myself out of bed and begin to fold the blankets and smooth the sheets with a precision that I never use at home.
       The girls smile at me.  Good morning, Auntie, they chime, a hand to their brow, palm facing out.  A little salute.  Good morning, I smile.  Some stare openly at my pajamas—until last night they had only seen me in the brightly colored salwar kameez, the traditional clothing for women.  The flannel pants and t-shirt intrigued the girls (this was boy’s clothing in their minds): Super, they breathed, fingering the heavy material, uncommon in their warm climate.  Auntie, super, thumbs up to emphasize their admiration.
       I glance over at Pavithra, the newest girl at the orphanage, who looks very lost amidst the flurry of preparations.  She stands uncertainly by her bed, rubbing her bleary eyes with tiny fists, until an older girl directs her to brush her teeth.  As she passes by me on her way to the sink, I offer a smile.  She hesitates for a second, staring with wide brown eyes.  Then she quickly averts her gaze and hurries off.  I bite my lip.  You poor, poor girl.
       I hurriedly dress in a dark blue salwar kameez, not wanting to be late.  The girls sleep in their clothing from the previous evening and change after breakfast when they have bathed.  They find it odd that I shower at night and wear fresh clothes in the morning.  As I run a brush through my hair one of the girls comes over, bearing a plastic jar brimming with golden liquid.  Auntie?  I extend my hands, cupped, as she spoons out some of the sweet oil.  Then, with some hesitation, I pour it over my head, combing it through my hair.
       Within a day or so of my arrival in India I discovered that people use oil for grooming their hair.  With their dark complexions, the girls’ hair looks radiant:  gleaming dark locks, tamed into long thick braids.  Never caring much for hair products beyond economy-sized bottles of shampoo and conditioner, I was unused to the sensation of putting oil on my hair.  It was strange for my hair to feel sticky and greasy before the sun was even up.  I was glad, however, to smell the sugary fragrance confirming that this was coconut oil—one of the men on the last team told me that he had discovered the boys in his cottage were using ultrasound oil on their hair.  Whatever gets the job done, I suppose.
       I throw the gauzy “modesty scarf” around my neck and hurry to the porch.  The girls line up in order of height and, following the sure stride of Nanajothi, the grandmotherly housemother, we head off across the flat dusty earth to the round open-air meeting room.  Across the way I see the boys file out of their cottages, bare feet raising small dust clouds.

       I had arrived in India two weeks before with sixteen other Americans.  After grueling plane flights, a confusing day and a half spent in the chaos of Chennai, and a long winding journey pitching along unpaved roads into the heart of the Southeastern countryside, we were relieved to enter the wide compound and calm regularity of the orphanage.
       Within the bamboo gates, the sunburnt earth stretched flat and wide, with occasional buildings breaking up the horizon.  Dry, mostly dead grass clung firm to the red dirt in small, misshapen clumps.  All around was the smell of warmth and sun—moist, sticky light hovering about.  The two clusters of five cottages stood solid, their color tending more towards the dusty red of the earth than the brilliant white they once had been.  Red-tiled porch roofs slanted towards each other like the hats of old gossips at tea.  Banana trees grew haphazardly, the tall ones bending low with the weight of their fruit, the dying ones crouching, stripped of their leaves by the ruthless mother cow, Dora.  Green scum lined the concrete water basin for clothes washing and the nearby concrete slab was veined with blue from the soap.  From the rusty barbed wire fences (meant to keep the cows in and the village goats out), a colorful mix of children’s clothing waved lazily
 in the warm breeze:  plaid shirts and cream-colored shorts and navy pleated jumpers and black hair ribbons and long white tube socks.
       The sound of the two-cylinder engine rattling on as a thick metal cord hauled up rocks from the bottom of a soon-to-be well, the strong spicy aromas curling from the outdoor kitchen, the faint impressions left in the dust by forty-one pairs of tiny feet, the mix of musty grain scattered around for the chickens and turkeys, the soft tinkle of the bell around Dora’s neck, the gritty mortar, grey and oozing, slopped onto row after row of new bricks.  The curving walkways hedged in by crumbling whitewashed stones, the carefully woven panels of palm fronds making up intricately constructed huts, the silky sugariness of hot brown tea served mornings and afternoons, the dusty floral talcum powder copiously patted onto chocolate skin, the clop clopping of coconut halves in an elaborate game of “red light, green light,” the constant rhythm of explosions and gunfire puncturing the air, the studied chanting of the ABC’s and the slender wooden fence
 surrounding all eight acres of it.
       The first two weeks were amazingly carefree considering that I was staying at an orphanage.  I lived in a guest cottage with six other members of my group and the whole thing seemed almost like an extended sleepover, with frequent henna parties and nightly card tournaments, picture taking and sunscreen swapping.  We would do work around the compound each day until the children arrived home from school.  Then there would be English lessons interspersed with games and songs.  It was always light hearted and fun and just a bit too perfect.  I ate with Americans, lived with Americans, always went home each night to my cottage—a little pseudo-America where I was surrounded by people who knew me and understood the Berkeley, California culture I was coming from.
       The schedules were at once structured and extremely flexible—everything had a set time but as there were very few clocks around the property, any time was the right time.  We started and ended each day with a meal and a team meeting.  It was at one of these meetings that I first learned Pavithra’s story.
       We were sitting in the open-air rotunda, lounging on plastic chairs arranged in a lopsided circle.  Viji, the Indian-American woman who had founded the orphanage, was instructing us on Indian culture.  She was nearing the end of her talk and began to tell us the stories of some of the kids at the orphanage.
       “…and the newest little girl, Pavithra arrived here just two weeks ago.  Her mother left her in the hospital at birth and then she was adopted by a couple who were unable to have children—it’s pretty rare for Indians to adopt, especially people who are so poor.  They loved her dearly and raised her like their own.  But the wife got cancer, and even though the husband did everything he could to get money for treatment, she passed,” Viji related calmly, her hands folded neatly on her lap. “He was left with enormous debts and had to go out to work each day, leaving this little girl to wander around unattended.  He heard about this orphanage and decided it would be best for her to live here.  The first night he waited at her bedside until she fell asleep and left her side weeping—just overcome with emotion.”  She finished to absolute silence.
       Oh.  My.  Oh my.  I sit in shock as Viji goes on to relate other children’s stories—a girl who was forced to be a servant for her stepfather and stepsiblings, a boy whose father had gambled away his life savings and burned himself to death before the faces of his family, a set of siblings whose mother died of cancer, a girl who was abandoned by the side of the road when she was one day old, a boy whose father wandered off of a construction site after suffering a head injury and was never seen again.  I can’t take it in.  I mean, yes this is an orphanage but—I didn’t think—well how did I think they had become orphans?
       My view of the orphanage changed after that.  The children were amazingly joyful and eager to please.  They delighted in helping us with our work around the compound, crowding around to help scrub buckets of laundry, eagerly taking up shovels and pickaxes in their slender arms to lay a trench for bricks, racing across the compound with a wheelbarrow filled with clay—for them there was no line between work and play.  And yet, if I looked closely, I noticed times when a child would pause in her action, staring at the horizon as if she were seeing some other place, some other time.  A look of pain would flicker around her face, the tiniest hint of a frown tug at her mouth.  It would be over in a second but no words can describe the hurt and loss that had touched on those delicate features, if only for a moment.

       The fan spins lazily above my head, ineffectively stirring around heat and dust and flies in wide arcs.  I sit on a low white bench, my knees crammed under a small white table.  Forty-one pairs of wide brown eyes watch me as I contemplate the puzzle before me.  Heaped on one of the simple metal plates is a great mound of steaming rice, smothered with thick yellow curry.  The aroma of rich spices wafts up to me.  It looks delicious and I am hungry, but how in the world am I going to eat it?  It is customary in India for people to eat with their hands, but as I had been eating with Americans for the past two weeks, I have no clue what the proper etiquette is.  Now the other Americans have gone home, and I have moved in with the children, leaving me to figure everything out on my own.  As if on cue, all forty-one children begin to eat, expertly mixing their food with their right hands.  Tentatively I bury my fingertips into the mound of curry, bringing a
 few grains of rice to my lips.
       Nanajothi sees my plight and instructs one of the younger housemothers to bring a fork over to me.  I take it gratefully and instantly regret it.  Eating with a fork when everyone else is using their hands, oh that’s a great way to blend in.  Good thinking Naomi.  I hunch over in vain, trying not to stick out among all of the tiny bodies on the bench beside me.  The children, normally quite talkative, are uncharacteristically quiet, and I feel the silence pressing in on me.
       When I am finally (finally!) done, I rise to wash my dishes at the sink in the back of the kitchen.  Halfway there, a little boy reaches out for my plate.  I can wash it¸ I tell him.  No, he shakes his head emphatically, No, Auntie, I do.  I relent, hating myself for it.  I know that there is a great respect for elders in Indian culture but I am unused to being waited on by others.  How can people get used to this?  All I want is to blend in.

       Nah-womi, vhat are you doo-wing? Nanajothi asks, a smile occupying her tiny wrinkled features.  I am sitting on my bed, reading (On Writing the College Application Essay by Harry Bauld—useful stuff).  Um, I’m reading, I hold up the book, it’s for univers—uh, school.  School, yes, school she can relate to.  I figure it isn’t wise to talk about things like college in a community where many can’t even buy food.  She nods, her hands clasped in her lap as she sits serenely in a beige plastic chair.  She looks every bit the teacher that she once was, reminding me of the studied patience that characterizes those who instruct preschoolers (Oh, that’s a very nice picture—I love all the colors!  It looks just like a stegosaurus in a tutu eating giant gingersnap at the North Pole!  If I didn’t know better, I’d have thought you’d taken a photo.)
       As I read, the girls come up.  Goodnight, Auntie, they say.  That tiny salute.  They blow a kiss (Mutum, they tell me, kiss).  Goodnight, I tell them, catching their floating kisses, stuffing them into my pockets.  They laugh.  I smile.
I turn back to my reading, jotting down notes and snatches of essay ideas on a legal pad.  I am just finishing reading an explanation of why every idea I could possibly have has already been done before, that essay has been written, it’s now a cliché, sorry, tough luck, when I become aware of the tension in the room.  I look up and see Pavithra standing before Nanajothi who is talking rapidly in Tamil.  She points in my direction.  I hear the words “auntie” and “goodnight.”   One of the older girls demonstrates: Goodnight, Auntie, she says, showing Pavithra the salute.  Pavithra stands silent.  Nanajothi raises her voice.  The words sound harsher.  The other girl talks rapidly, moving Pavithra’s hand into a salute.  Pavithra still doesn’t say anything.
The slap cuts off all other noise in the room.  I cringe.  Pavithra stands, tears welling up in her eyes.  What is going on?  Is this because of me?  I don’t care if she doesn’t say goodnight.  Please stop.  Please stop.  Please stop.  Suddenly the room is too small.  If only I could tell them.  If only I could understand what they are saying.  Is this a cultural norm?  Is it really as harsh as it seems to me?  Does this happen when I’m not here?  Is it only happening because I am here?  Please stop.  Please stop.  I wish I was somewhere else, anywhere else.  I want to be home where I am understood and can understand and where I don’t feel so out of place and where I am not the cause of punishments when I don’t even know what’s happening.
Pavithra is sent over to me, she is crying, gulping air.  Goodnight, Auntie, Nanajothi instructs.  Goodnight, Auntie, the girls instruct.  I try to smile at her.  She raises a trembling hand to her forehead.  She is hiccupping.  Oh, please don’t hate me for this.  Please just say it Pavithra.  Please.  Please.  Goodnight, Auntie, they insist.  Please stop.  God, please stop.  Pavithra still stands there, racked with sobs.  Her hand at her forehead, hair matted, tears flowing.  Please, Pavithra.  Please, just say it.  It wasn’t my doing.  I didn’t want this.  I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.  Just say it.  Please please please.
I don’t know what happens exactly.  I know that Pavithra doesn’t say “goodnight” but at some point Nanajothi relents and sends her to bed.  I don’t know what to do.  I know that they were trying to show me respect but I was only being further ostracized in the process.  I can’t deal with all these cultural differences by myself.  I mean, coconut oil and salwar kameez I can do; I can learn how to do laundry on a concrete slab and even to eat with my hands.  But this is too much.  For the first time since I’ve arrived in India I feel homesick.  I miss talking to people and not feeling like I’m constantly messing up.  I miss complicated card games and jokes and singing Disney songs.  I miss my idealized India where I could go out and associate with the children during the day, and go back to my American friends in our little American haven at night.

That Monday is a school holiday.  The children are tireless and want to continually play “Go Fish” (Don’t show people your cards! I instruct them.  Auntie, they complain, showing me their cards, all the children is cheating!), and “Red Light, Green Light” (Who wants to be “It?” I ask.  Me “It,” please Auntie, me “It,” they plead), and volleyball (I told you, I’m terrible at sports, I say.  No, Auntie.  You super.  My team, they insist).  Finally I make excuses and retreat to my bed.
I am flipping through pictures on my camera when Pavithra comes into the cottage.  I look up and smile, trying to convey everything I can’t communicate in words.  I’m so sorry.  I didn’t mean for that to happen.  Please don’t hate me.  To my surprise, she grins and comes over to where I am sitting.  She says something in Tamil, pointing to the camera.  Do you want to take a picture? I ask, showing her how.  She says something else.  I wish I had listened to those Tamil tapes Viji had given us back in March.  Yeah, I say, Press that button.  Hold it down like this.  The flash goes off.  She jumps, then laughs.
Can you say “Auntie?”  I ask tentatively.  Say “Good morning, Auntie.”  Maybe I can prevent further punishments this way.  I point to myself, Auntie Naomi, I point to her, Pavithra.  She just looks at me and then reaches for the camera.  Oh well, maybe not.  She aims the camera at my face, the flash goes off.  She giggles, delighted.  I smile, wishing that this could go on forever.
But more girls enter the cottage now and, upon seeing my camera, make a beeline for my bed.  As I try to facilitate an elaborate hand-off of the camera, Pavithra loses interest and wanders off.  Sorry, I whisper, turning away in time to catch the camera as it falls to the floor.

A bright rainbow parachute lies on the dusty ground, pinned down by the weight of all forty-one children arranged about the edge.  The second team of volunteers has arrived and with them came suitcases full of decorations, crafts, treats, and games.  Two of the guys head over towards the parachute, rolling the gigantic red ball that has been sitting on the porch of one of the boy’s cottages for a day and a half.  The thing is over six feet in diameter, blown up by a pump large enough to inflate a bounce house.  The kids get excited.  What in the world do these crazy Americans have in mind?
I stand off towards the side with a few team members, snapping photos as the ball is placed in the center of the parachute.  The kids are instructed to push the ball around the circle.  It starts rolling in wide arcs, bouncing up, met by many little outstretched hands, many beaming faces.  I am laughing with some of the girls from the team, That thing is HUGE!  I wouldn’t want it coming at my head, when I see Pavithra running towards me, a look of terror on her face.  Her hands are outstretched, and I reach down to scoop her up.  She is light, lighter than some babies that I’ve held, but her thin arms latch around my neck, she will not be let go of.  I won’t let you go.  She is whimpering, shying away from the parachute and the ball and the ring of laughing, smiling faces.
I take her away from the circle and we watch the game from afar.  There are some chairs and I ask through gestures if she wants to be put down.  She shakes her head.  No.  No, no.  Okay, okay don’t worry.  I’m not going to let go.  It’s okay.  That’s kind of scary isn’t it?  It’s okay Pavithra, it’s okay.  I’ve got you.  It’s okay.  You don’t have to go back.  It’s going to be alright.  She takes my camera and starts playing with it, slowly calming down.  I hold her tightly, balanced on my hip.  Everything will be okay now, Pavithra, for both of us.

Okay, we’ll try this again.  It is almost the end of the trip and I have yet to eat comfortably with the children.  When the second team came, I began eating with them, slinking away, head down, tail between my legs.  But I’m back and am determined to do this right.
The heaping plate looks a little less daunting this time and I plunge my fingers into the thick curry without hesitation.  Though I am not the most graceful eater, I manage to finish my meal with no mishaps and no food dropped into my lap.  Step one, done.
As I head to the sink a girl reaches out for my plate, Auntie?  She smiles.  No, thank you,  I tell her firmly, I can wash it.  A boy comes up, Auntie, please?  I, he points emphatically to his chest, I.  You, no.  I shake my head, smiling, as I reach the sink and thrust the plate under the spigot of water.  Thanks, but I can get it. Auntie will wash her own plate.

It is the last night.  The children are playing in the balmy dusk, making mud pies, kicking balls around, scratching pictures into dusty paths.  I am packed and have wolfed down my last meal in India, at least for now.  I have washed the coconut oil from my hair and have traded my salwar kameez for the jeans and t-shirt that have been sitting at the bottom of my suitcase for the last month.  It feels so strange to wear form-fitting clothing again and to not feel the tickle of a scarf around my neck.
The children stare at me with wide eyes.  Besides the baggy pajamas, not a far cry from Indian clothing, they have not seen me in western apparel.  Super, they all say, thumbs up, smiling in wonder, Super.
I am running around the compound, making sure that I say goodbye to every single child.  I can’t believe this is it—that in twenty-four hours I will be back in America, in my house with my room and my things.  I don’t know how I feel about leaving.  I have come to love India, and if it wasn’t for missing my family and friends, I think I could stay here forever.  Auntie, some of the girls pout, when you go, fly away to America, you mother is smile but all the children, all the children is crying.  They make me promise to come back, to bring my whole family, all my friends, heck, bring the entire U.S. population.  I smile.  I nod.  I promise.  I will be back.
The children shower us with gifts—mostly the crafts that we have made with them the past two weeks.  When we try to give them back they tell us firmly, no.  These are for us.  So we won’t forget the children.  We won’t forget.
We have finally gotten ourselves and our luggage crammed into the hired trucks and vans that will take us to the airport (oh, the beauty of no seatbelt laws).  I am just closing the door when Pavithra comes running up.  I roll down the window and Nanajothi hoists her up to my level.  Shyly, she drops a paper fish into my hand, covered with tissue paper and glitter.  I smile at her, Goodbye, Pavithra.  She says something in Tamil, blowing a kiss.  I catch it, holding tight to that piece of air.  Mutum, I whisper, kiss.
Then, as we start to roll away, Naomi.  Did I hear it?  Wait, what did you say?  I shout out of the window.  I have to know.  Did you say “Naomi?” I ask.
She just smiles.