Visitors to the House by Shashank Gupta

Author:Shashank Gupta [Gupta, Shashank]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: null
Publisher: Harper Children's
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

March 25

The big discovery was that Kadu spoke in a tongue we barely understood. We talked in animated hand gestures. If someone had peeped through the window they would’ve found a pantomime show underway with four women of four ages performing for the basic necessities of life. Whether Kadu was a part of the conversation or not we flung our hands about to stress a simple point like ‘brush your teeth before going to bed’ or even ‘you look fine this morning’. Instead of our decent, civilized behaviour rubbing off on Kadu, her illiteracy influenced us greatly.

The other point of departure in our habits that I was wary of contracting, like mumps, was her propensity to lie. Kadu was a liar. Actually for her there was no difference between a truth and a falsity. No lines had been drawn in her life because when most kids attended schools, she had been busy defending herself in the company of her mother. And when you have an over-vigilant eye watching your movements you hide the truth by telling lies with a straight face. It shocked us but amused Bani, and we realized how Bani was closer to the environment Kadu had lived in just because they were as educated and as rich as each other. I even tried keeping the two apart, yet they ended up sitting on the kitchen floor and gesturing like sisters. It was only when Mira came home that the equation shifted and Bani became the housemaid.

I observed these developments with alarm. Something had to be done soon or this ambiguity of Kadu’s existence would make matters unmanageable. She had to go to school and she had to be a part of some family. It occurred to me like the only task I had to complete, especially after a visit to Didoli.

It was Bani’s day off, so the three of us trooped into town with just a little money between us. This had been a routine before Kadu arrived. We had noodles at a place run by a Chinese shoemaker called Lee. Kadu finished two bowls and could have asked for more had I not yelled for the bill. Mira giggled and imitated the expression the gobbling girl wore through the meal. It was the look of a shell-shocked ape.

I smiled when we entered the bookshop. ‘Thankfully,’ I whispered to Mira, ‘there is little she can hog in here.’

But the greedy pig went about examining the shelves with her hands behind her back, as if she was the school inspector. She stopped and stooped over and, with the strength invested in her, pulled out the fattest volume with indecent pictures on the cover and inside.

Mira howled with joy. ‘You were so wrong, Mini-Mum, she has the appetite of a dinosaur. She will be a professor, a scientist perhaps, much before her time. This is talent you are staring at.’ And she went into cackles of laughter while the surprised girl merely held on to the fat book and looked up at me pleadingly.

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