Stay wild

A letter to a bumpy perfect child

Dear Mala

You know there is a book about you, right? Yes, you! That’s how we first met. It’s the only way we’ve met really, but not really.

I was picking out books for friendlets. Your eyes - those wide expanses of white and pupils like black moons swimming in them, stared at me from the cover. One palm open wide so that the mylanji doesn’t get squished, the other drawing a blob on your foot. Hair braids twisted into loops and tied with different coloured ribbons; you wore your ribbons like I wear my methiyadis. You were wearing a shammeez/shimmy dress, like we did as toddlers. Love was just waiting to happen.

Promptly your book landed in my bundle. That’s not the only time I brought you home. Each time I felt love for a friendlet I have passed you on…... across the oceans and even right next door. Between one passing and the next there would come a day where I’d miss having you in my cupboard and go out and get you again.

Soon enough a friendlet would appear, demanding love and I’d hand you over. I wonder, who will come calling now. Children like you existed in the stories of my mother and aunt, and in their wicked delicious belly laughs. We too were children like you. Especially my sister, standing behind doors and going ‘boo’ and terrifying humans and animals alike. Like a big boned 11-year-old me jumping to go piggyback on a grandma with a bent bank and soft skin. I bet you felt immense sibling rivalry with the cat, like my sister did with our dog. Your two toothed noodle haired brother seems like he could be the stuff of great annoyance, but you barely seem to notice! Midukki!

I laugh my mother’s full belly chuckles, each time at a different page in your story. This time it was the one in which you yelled “heehaw” at your grandmother, holding aloft drumsticks and curry leaves, like a comical clumsy warrior. Startled, grandma loses control of her ladle sending the dosa batter flying, which lands smack onto the face of your bawling brother. I wonder whether the splat of batter on his face made him stop crying, like the cheese slice test they are doing on crying babies now (bwahahaha, I’m sure you would approve)! or did he start crying because of the batter splat? I love your mother’s saintly face while she gets you gift that puts a pause on your reign of terror. You now know that the gift she gave you was not as innocent as her expression would lead us to believe, right? Your boos and hee haws started failing! But my love, you like us were baked in twisted hot blazing sun and found an obvious solution to that pesky gift and made a return to be your squishy terrorizing self.

You are your author’s craft - a lesson in the sparse and direct and action-packed story. You must be proud, she made you perfectly! I am in awe of the artist who drew you and breathed life into the chubby, crooked, bumpy, fleshy toddler, like the toddlers we all were. The love and

sparkling life she created around you, in water pots and scooters and Lil chicks, uff my heart expands. Like you came alive and let her in on secrets the text didn't contain. Mala, I hope you keep surprising many kids and adults who like us are gorgeous in our uncontainable selves with mischief oozing from our pores and the reverse night sky in our eyes.

Stay wild you dark cherub.

Booooo!
Love

Roshni

(Mala’s Silver Anklets, Story: Annie Besant, Pictures: Nancy Raj- Tulika Publishers)

Letter prompted by

Nidhi Arora