A surprise inheritance

What a picture brings back and forward

The little girl looks exactly as she did, many many years ago. She wears a yellow saree, fashionably draped around her. Her accessories are unmissable—large earrings, a traditional nose ring, bangles on each arm, and even a forehead ornament. She stands defiantly with her feet apart and arms on her waist. The khunti (spatula/turner) peeking out from her right wrist, adds more character. And, if you are still guessing, her large annoyed eyes and upturned mouth, say the rest.

I am delighted to have my childhood friend back. I look at her face and swallow a large dose of déjà vu. I wonder how I could have forgotten her and how do I remember her as well, so many decades later. Hazy memories come back, like the cool floors of my grandmother’s house. Large terraces, balconies and rooms. A house full of people. Stories in the afternoons.

As someone who loves language and lags in visual skills, it tickles me that I remember this picture more than its accompanying words. Better so, I tell myself, as the rhyme is problematic and patriarchal. And I take it, if she’s appeared so many years later, maybe she’s telling me something. A little lesson on how to be even today. Defiant and unafraid, and fashionable while at it too :)

Neel looks at these Bengali rhyme books with some interest, and then some more to figure out the perfect chewable corner. Hardbacks are his favourites for the same reason. I read him the rhymes, partly here with him and partly somewhere else as a little girl myself. This little inheritance has been my recent big surprise.

The muse :)

With many thanks to Ronita Chattopadhyay for the prompt ‘An inheritance you didn't ask for/that you were surprised to discover’, and Safa for encouraging us to write again :)