East of the Sun by Julia Gregson

Author:Julia Gregson
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Historical - General, India - History - 20th century, Women - Travel - India - History - 20th century, Historical fiction, 20th century, Fiction - Romance, India, Romance - Historical, Fiction, Romance, General, English Historical Fiction, Historical, British, British - India - History - 20th century, Fiction - Historical, Women, Love stories, Travel, History
ISBN: 9781439101124
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
Published: 2009-06-15T20:09:19.655000+00:00

Chapter Thirty-two

It was late morning at the children’s home and Viva was sitting under the tamarind tree in the middle of the courtyard, cutting up bits of tissue paper for the kites they were making. From where she sat, Viva could hear the hubble bubble of children’s voices, talking in a bewildering variety of languages: Hindi, Marathi, English, for some, snatches of Tamil and Gujarati thrown in, all mixed with the croaky sounds of the pigeons that lived under the eaves of the home.

And through all this cut the fluting tones of Daisy, who was talking to them while they worked.

“It’s a funny thing, isn’t it,” she was saying, “how few grown-up people ever really stop and look up at the sky—we scuttle around full of worries, like insects. The only ones who look up to the sky on a regular basis are madmen or children or…Can you finish this sentence, Neeta?”

“I don’t know,” whispered Neeta, a shy girl with anxious eyes.

“Kite flyers.” Suday, the fat boy, wanted them to know that he’d had his own kite before.

“And what does looking up teach us?”

“That the sky is blue,” Neeta rallied.

“Good, Neeta. And when we look up, it widens our horizons. We see what a little speck we are in the universe, so insignificant, and we all take ourselves so seriously, but in the sky, there are no boundaries. No differences of caste—careful with that glue, Suday—or religion or race. It teaches you, ‘There are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy.’ A man named Shakespeare wrote that.”

Viva felt a peculiar sort of pain watching the children listening so intently. What kind of heaven and earth would they find?

Next, Daisy outlined the plans for the day: when the kites were finished, Viva would take them down to Chowpatty Beach to fly them. At this news, some of the children turned to look at Viva with huge wondering eyes; some of them had never seen the sea before. They made her feel like a magician, a conjurer.

Viva glanced at Talika. She sat at the end of the bench, completely absorbed, small hands busily working the scissors, dark eyelashes cast down, skinny little legs waving above the ground. No one would have recognized the pathetic scrap Viva had bathed a few months ago, but she was still frail-looking and much too thin.

“Watch me, watch me, Wiwaji,” said Talu, a tall, thin boy with a pronounced limp. None of them could say her name properly. They either called her Madam Sahib, the Bombay version of memsahib, or Miss Wiwa, or sometimes, as a term of endearment, Wiwaji. One or two of the younger ones called her Mabap (you are my mother and my father), a compliment that never failed to wring her heart.

“I’m cutting out my peacock’s tail,” said Talu.

“I am seeing a dead rat’s tail,” said Suday, the joker, picking it up and whirling it about his head, and when Talika laughed it was a peal of child’s laughter.

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