Fifteen Lanes Read Online Free PDF Page B

kameez wet. It would take hours to dry and I didn’t own another. I wanted to go outside but I couldn’t leave Deepa-Auntie.
    “Tell me about Yangani,” I said.
    Deepa-Auntie smiled at the memory. “She was the most beautiful baby in the village. All the other girls were jealous of me and would beg to hold her. I’d let them, but Yangani would always cry until they gave her back. After I taught her to walk, she followed me everywhere.”
    We both jumped when the door suddenly opened. It was only Ma, with my sister, Aamaal, who was born three years earlier.
    “What are you doing in here, Noor? If you’re done with the washing up, you should do your homework.”
    I was already finished my homework, as Ma well knew. It was the first thing I did when I got home from school every day, such was my pleasure in studying. Ma also took pride in my schoolwork. Every year I won firsts in Math and English. She secreted each medal into the hem of her skirt as if theywere made of real gold and not just gold-colored tin. Her real concern was not too little time spent on homework, it was too much with Deepa-Auntie.
    “I’m telling her about my farm,” said Deepa-Auntie. “Didn’t you also grow up on a farm, Ashmita-Auntie?”
    “No,” said Ma. “I didn’t. And if I had I wouldn’t waste my time thinking about it since I’d be smart enough to know I would never live there again.”
    “How can you be sure, Ashmita-Auntie? The voyage of life is very long with many bends in the river. So many things can happen. Who knows what course it might take?”
    “It’s not so long for us,” said Ma.
    “Why do we never visit your home anymore, Ma?” My breath quickened to ask.
    The last time we’d been to Ma’s village was for the birth of Aamaal. Before that we’d gone once a year. On our final visit, Ma and Grandma had argued behind closed doors, and when we left, Grandma didn’t walk us to the main road, where we waited in silence for a bus. Ma hadn’t spoken of Grandma since. I never asked, but I missed those visits. For those few days, I could laugh as loudly as I wanted and run far and fast. No one shouted at me, or beat me. I risked a beating now, asking Ma about these visits, but she was far less likely to let her anger loose with Aamaal beside her. I didn’t begrudge Aamaal her favored status. With her golden skin and thickly fringed eyes, anyone could see she was going to be a beauty. She was my mother’s child in a way I could never be.
    “You should not waste your time thinking about the past, Noor.”
    “Please, Ma.”
    She frowned.
    “Please, Ma,” Aamaal echoed. For once I was happy that she always copied me.
    “They only wanted our money, Noor. In my village the elders pretended it was something else, a sacred duty. Maybe there was a time when that was true but it was many years ago. When my mother dedicated me to the temple, it was for money, not religion, not even tradition.”
    “I don’t understand.”
    “Grandma felt it was time for you to learn your history, your calling. We didn’t agree. She’s a devadasi, as am I.”
    It was the first time I’d heard the word that dropped like a stone from my mother’s lips. I understood it was significant. “Am I also a Devadasi?”
    Ma laughed mirthlessly. “The foolish hen tells you life is a twisting river like the one in her mountain homeland. Do you see such a river flowing past our house? There is only the open sewer carrying foul waste discharged from bodies too numerous and worthless to count. Perhaps it goes underground when it passes the great mansions of South Bombay, or slinks, like a thief carrying treasures, when it courses through the sleek neighborhoods to our north. It makes no difference. When it empties into the sea it’s still shit, and the destination was never in question. You were born into your fate, Noor. I may forestall it but you can’t escape it. We can only hope your next incarnation will be more forgiving.”
    She stroked