No One Can Pronounce My Name by Rakesh Satyal

Author:Rakesh Satyal [Satyal, Rakesh]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Publisher: Picador
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

ON HER EIGHTH BIRTHDAY, Swati received a Barbie doll from her aunt Manisha, her father’s sister. Swati had seen the dolls, usually tucked away in display cases behind store counters and shimmering in their gowns. To actually hold one in her hands, to see the butter-colored tug of its hair and the high arches of its small feet, felt like stealing. The doll stayed in her possession at all times, except when her family went to their temple in Delhi and she kept it under her pillow at home. Had her brother been remotely mischievous, he would have seen it as an opportunity to torment Swati, hiding it in unexpected places or even disfiguring it. Instead, he was a quiet, respectful child who clearly adored his sister, and if Barbie was the most important thing in her life, he would pay the doll dutiful attention.

Barbie was dressed in a demure blue dress with a checkered pattern on its front. An apron, tied with a neat blue bow in the back, hugged her waist and curved over her ample bosom. The blood-drop of her lips and her arched, dark eyebrows seemed to come equally from India and another planet, and Harit dreamed of these things whenever he had the chance. (Later, he would realize that the attention he paid to the doll had less to do with whatever feminine prowess it exhibited and more to do with how much his sister adored it.)

In a household with very little in the way of decoration, a doll as beautiful as this was able to hold sway over everyone. Because Barbie had been given as a gift from a family member, she was not banished from the dinner table but, rather, sat next to Swati’s plate, as if she were judging every dish placed on the table and every bite of food that each person took. Swati would begin to tell the family what had happened during her day by speaking directly to the doll. “Barbie, today we learned about Nehruji and how he studied a man called John Maynard Keynes, and now we have to write three pages in our copybooks about economics.” Harit’s mother and father would smile between themselves and occasionally roll their eyes, and Harit himself began to see how important it was to be as creative as this, to find life as imaginative and decidedly odd as Swati made it to be.

Children have the tendency to pick up and then quickly discard their toys in favor of other ones, but Barbie maintained a powerful spell over Swati. As the years passed and Swati became a more self-possessed young woman, Barbie began to assume a symbolic role in her life. Even as Swati grew up and the doll was in her possession less and less, it seemed to leave an impression of its presence, charmed and strange. As one might associate Harit with the clip-on maroon tie that he often wore as a child, one would imagine Swati as she

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