The Second Daughter of Eve
By Samuel Rufus
Part IV [Continued from the previous EPISODE]
Amma went on and on thinking about the content of the diary entry -
For such a little child as this one! And that too for her age she has such an amazing maturity on her – how beautifully she has thanked me for my cooking. Something that even my children haven’t said about my cooking all these years. She’s indeed such a sweet, precocious and precious little girl.
From that day onwards, there was a marked shift, a significant shift, a paradigm shift in her attitude towards me. She used to call me in endearing terms after that. I became her ‘chellam’ [darling’] from then on! I was no more an adopted child. I was from now on, her beloved second daughter. So much was the transformed self in Amma that, when someone once asked her in Church, ‘How is this adopted daughter of yours doing? Has she adjusted herself to your home?’ Amma quickly retorted on a stern and firm note, ‘I don’t have any adopted daughters. I have two daughters of my own. The first one is Jane and the second one is Aurelia’. Such was her newly-found possessiveness towards me.
Well, Aurelia was the
name given to me by my Appa. Appa was a great fan of the famous Welsh poet John
Dyer, whose poem titled, Aurelia had had a great impact on him. He said
he found it so charming a name, that he wanted to christen me – Aurelia,
meaning, ‘the golden one’.
Yes! Aurelia, meant ‘the golden one’, and quite interestingly, dear reader, let me confide in you that, it was not only John Dyer who influenced my Appa, but also his own Mother – whose name played a huge part in my christening process as well – something that even Amma wasn’t aware of, for a long long time.
Well, my Ammamma’s name was Thangam (meaning: Gold). Since Appa happened to be Ammamma’s favourite kid - amongst all her nine children, it was no wonder then that he had cherished a deep longing within him to christen his favourite kid – me – with a name that reminded him of his own Mother. However, the name ‘Thangam’ would have so explicitly reminded Amma of her Mother-in-Law, and hence the Dyer-twist to my name.
Appa had enrolled all the three of us in the best schools in town - Scudder Higher Secondary School for Girls – the same school that Jane, my elder sister also studied in. As for Peter, he was enrolled in Sundarsingh Memorial Higher Seconday School for Boys – that was situated in the adjacent compound.
It was part of Jane Akka’s routine to carry the lunch bag for the two of us, which she did almost always with a mother’s pride on her. Moreover, our walk down the Murugankurichi byways to school with Akka was always accompanied by a leaning on her shoulders up until the time we reached the school entrance. That’s when Akka would promptly give custody of my tiffin box to me, get my assurance that I would eat everything in the tiffin box without leaving out anything, and then, get my added assurance that the tiffin box would be guarded carefully until 4 in the evening, when she came straight from her class and took the tiffin box with her on our way back home.
Akka was a highly protective sister at all times. Once while on our way to school, when she found a boy passing snide remarks at me, she gave him one shelling, that had him reeling on and on for hours.
Although Akka was highly over-bearing and over-protective when it comes to me, I always had this quaint quirky fascination for boys my age. Not all boys merited my attention though. My criteria for the word charm that fit my own personal dictionary went something like this –
charm: a guy who is brainy and quick-witted with a great sense of humour and a great intellect. Period.
Any other boy, although he could have been handsome and smart in the worldly normative way, didn’t merit my attention at any point of time. Hence it became part of my second nature altogether that, the moment I got even the slightest opportunity to talk to such a brainy lad, I grabbed the offer without much ado, and I made sure I sustained the talk on and on, much to the chagrin of Akka.
Amma was always highly supportive of my fascination for the brainy boys of my age. Whenever Akka snubbed me before Amma for my quaint penchant, Amma retorted back saying, ‘So what? There’s nothing wrong in it. Her libido is tuned that way, perhaps! What’s your botheration here? There’s nothing wrong in that’. These rhetorical retorts helped stop Akka on her snub tracks. Appa also was always on my side on this count! Always! Whenever the brainy lads in town - of any community, caste or creed - came down to our school geared up for the festive inter-school competitions, I was all eyes and ears on them. Nothing else I allowed to come in the way – even if it was our Social Science teacher, whom I loathed with a venomous hatred, or my History teacher, who I loved so much!
That's because, as a precocious young girl, I’d always thought that such brainy boys were from another planet altogether, and hence whatever they said meant so much to me.
It so happened that, one day, after my return from school, I was doing my homework assignments, when I came across the Grand Inter-School Thirukkural Competition in my school diary. This Inter-School Competition was one of its kind, and it was slated for the 12th of August. Our headmistress had also informed us that, the winners would get their prizes on the occasion of the Independence Day festivities in school, when the District Collector was expected to give away the prizes. I was all excited about the Competitions. Hence I opened up on the Thirukkural Competition topic to Amma, over my cup of coffee, and Amma gave me a lot of tips and tricks to commit the Thirukkural to memory.
To motivate me further, she cited the example of one young lad by name Richard from Vivekananda Higher Secondary School, who could recite all of the Thirukkural from memory, and had even got a Citation and a Medal from the District Collector on the previous year’s Independence Day. ‘His name was flashed all over the media – especially on Doordarshan and All India Radio, on that particular morning’s news’, Amma added. She followed it up with a whole lot of illustrations from the Thirukkural, and how the Sage Thiruvalluvar had no rival in the couplet form, considered venerated for ages, as it happened to be the most difficult and the most highly esteemed of stanzaic structures in classical Tamil literature, she said with all pride on her. All of that – however - didn’t quite enter my mind or heart, this once!
I was quite absorbed in what Amma had told me about the young lad by name Richard. I was quite eager to see him. I was all fascination for him from Amma’s descriptions of his brainy slant. Hence it was that, while going to school one day, along with Akka, I prodded her on and on, to take me down the road that leads to Richard’s home just to talk a few words with him. Akka’s answer was a firm and an emphatic ‘No’. Akka said, ‘Aurelia, don’t provoke guys unnecessarily. Let them be!’
But I was resolved that, I would meet him by all means. One full day had passed us by, this way. My mind was filled with Richard and his ways of acing the couplet. That evening, I asked my Anna – ‘Anna, please could you take me to see Richard? Please…..’
‘Richard who?’ asked Peter Anna with an enigmatic smile on him.
He’s supposed to be the most brainiest guy in town, Anna. I wish to meet him and ask him for a few tips and tricks to win the Thirukkural competition. Please Anna, please… this once, could you please take me to meet him… I wish to make our school proud by winning the competitions this time… Please Anna!...
Peter Anna knew my quirky little weakness for the brainy lads in town, and hence, with that unchanged enigmatic smile still sustaining him on his face, he asked me to get onto his bicycle, and without further ado, he monkey-pedalled all the way to Kannagi Street, where Richard lived with his parents.
Well, Richard's father was working as Regional Manager with a Tea Factory in Munnar, Kerala, while his mother was Head Clerk with the Port Trust in Tuticorin. Richard had a younger sister by name, Diana.
Peter Anna was all chivalry on him, while helping out his damsel paapa in distress. Parking his cycle at the neem tree that was quite adjacent to Richard’s house, he pressed on the Calling Bell! A little young girl came running out up to the door of her house, and from within the confines of the closed door, she partially opened up the curtains, and gently peeked from inside the door, to the sound of the Bell.
‘Who is it?’
‘Paapa…’, said Anna, ‘Is Richard your elder brother?’
‘Yesss’ said the little girl with a smile of sibling pride that spread quick across her face. ‘What about it?’ she asked, quite inquisitively, although she surmised that, it should be someone who has come to congratulate her brother.
Just wanted to see him. My sister wanted to talk to him.
‘Who’s your sister?’
Now, here I was in the meantime, feeling all orey shy, and hiding myself far far away near a Neem tree, a few good yards away from Richard’s house.
‘Looks like no one is there’, said Aruna.
No! She was here just a minute ago. Wait! Let me get her for you, and saying thus, he yelled, ‘Paapa, come here… come soon’.
‘Anna, I’m all orey shy here. Please I don’t want to meet him. Let us go’ said I.
Anna knew full well that whenever I was shy about a person, it was his duty to make me talk to my object of fascination, the very next moment itself. He was one among the few confidants of mine, who knew, what coyness meant in a maiden! Hence it was that he took me by my hand, quite coy and reticent hands they were, and propelled me on towards Richard’s house to show Aruna his blushing sister.
The little girl gave a glance on me, and exclaimed out, ‘Hey, you, Aurelia. My classmate! You… You wanted to meet Richard?’
I was doubly happiness personified to see my own classmate as Richard’s sister. My my modest coy spirit quickly gave way in no time, and I answered with a dignified smile on me, saying, ‘Yes de! You see, I badly wanted to participate in the Thirukkural Competition that’s happening next week. Amma said that your Richard Anna would give me some tips on how to memorise the Couplets in a rhythmic order. That’s hence I badly madly wanted to meet him.
On hearing the commotion, Richard came up to the door, and pushing away his little sister to the sides of the door, he opened it and came out!
My heart began to beat fast. It would sure have skipped at least a hundred beats that very moment. I wasn’t in the least aware that I’d be meeting up with my ideal brainy lad Richard this soon. Words quite failed me. I blurted out, ‘I’m Auu… ree… lia…’ I’m Aruna’s – I mean your sister Aruna’s classmate’.
‘Cool’, said Richard. ‘Then why wait outside. Do come in. Is that your brother?’ he asked.
Ah yess… I replied, at an impulsive, nervous pace.
Richard not having quite noticed my nervousness, and not aware that I had come all the way to his home just to meet him, he promptly summoned his younger sister Aruna,
‘It’s your friend Aruna. She’s come to meet you. Take her upstairs. Go…’
‘But Noooo! I came here… er… um… we both came here to meet you’, I replied, with a queer nervousness that quick outsmarted all the beautiful words that I had in reserve, to speak to him, when I first met up with him!
To be continued… on 28th October 2022
