Mira.

The beginning of monsoons was the saddest thing, when I was 7. It meant the onset of school and the end of a glorious summer that had been spent playing cards and drinking cold milk. More importantly, however, it meant that Mira would go away.

Mira was our maid’s daughter. She was my age, give or take a few years. She was short with long hair tied in an untidy plait. She had big, watery eyes and a small smile. When she craned her neck, you could see a sharp, cocoa- coloured collar bone.

Mira was the youngest in a family of 4 kids. Her mother, our maid- Malti couldn’t imagine raising her kids in a heartless city like Bombay. She feared that if she kept them with her in her shed-like house, some danger was bound to come their way. If it’s not the rains, it will be some dreadful disease, she told my mother emphatically one day. So they lived with their uncle in a small village in Kerala and came to Bombay for a month in the summer.

Mira wasn’t like my other friends. For one, she was very curious about my books. At the end of every summer, she would take back a few old books of mine. I am not sure if she read them, but they would make her happy. Unlike the rest of my playmates, she had an odd sense of loyalty towards me. She would beg to be on my team when we played carom. Even though I lost almost every game back then, she seemed to want to lose with me, just the same. I taught her to play scrabble. Naturally, I won but that didn’t seem to upset her in the least. She said she’d rather lose to me than win against someone else. To my 7 year old mind, that was the best compliment one could receive.

Most days she would go back home. She would trail behind her mother, idly holding the end of her mother’s sari. Some days she would fall asleep in front of the TV watching cartoons. If her mother came to get her, my father would say- Let her be. You can take her back tomorrow. The next morning- Mira’s eyes would sparkle as she stuffed her small mouth with egg. She once told me her mother had warned her to never eat egg. It was her small rebellion. I promised never to tell anyone. That was the extent of our secrets. Eating eggs.

Then one day she told me a real secret. To this day, I remember the look in her eyes. I also remember, clear as day, how it had made me a feel. Perhaps, it was commonplace somewhere in the world. In my world, it wasn’t. Mira showed me a semi-circular burn mark on her back. It stood out arrogantly against her soft brown skin. Then she zipped her dress and told me that her uncle did that to her if she didn’t fill the buckets. Or if the food was cold. She said that her uncle told her he’d do bad things to her is she didn’t work hard. 7 year olds don’t really know too many bad things. Not even imaginative 7 year olds like me. I figured if there was something worse than being burnt with a hot pan, I didn’t want to know of it. That night, Mira fell asleep with her hand resting on my arm. I remember putting an extra sheet on her, as the night grew darker and colder. I don’t think she noticed it. But if she had, I am sure she would have appreciated it.

I am not sure when exactly, but Mira stopped coming to Bombay. By this time, we had grown up and apart. I then left Bombay myself, for a few years and studied abroad. Even her mother had left Bombay for good. Then a couple of weeks ago, when I came home on a vacation- I saw Mira’s picture in my desk. It was under a pile of old cards and letters. It was a picture taken when we were 8 or 9. Her arm was around my waist. She was smiling her small smile. I wondered where she was, if she was okay. Was she married? Did she have children of her own? Had her uncle kept his promise and done bad things to her? I don’t think there was any way to find out. And standing there, in my room, now knowing full well the extent of said bad things, for the first time in a long time I wished I could go back to being 7 again.