Monsoon Memories Read Online Free PDF Page B

reminded her of pictures of white mushrooms with red dots that she had seen somewhere once. A hysterical laugh threatened to bubble out of her throat—even as her eyes shone bright with tears—but she managed to swallow it down.
    ‘So, miss, who gave you permission to sneak out of the classroom with a bunch of boys and steal bimblis?’ Sister Maya asked.
    Shirin couldn’t reply. Her words stuck in her throat. The acidity of the bimblis, along with the terror she felt, was making her nauseous. She was afraid that if she opened her mouth, she would vomit all over Sister Maya’s prized collection of holy statues arranged neatly on her desk.
    ‘I am very disappointed in you. I thought you were a good girl, that you would make your mother proud.’ Sister Maya’s accusatory gaze bored into Shirin. ‘But no, you have to consort with boys and forget all the rules.’ She said the word ‘boys’ with vehemence, like it was a swear word, like Shirin had had a date with the devil.
    ‘Do you know how many sins you committed today? Remember God is watching you, always.’ She pointed to the statues on her desk and the huge one of Jesus nailed to the cross that took up most of the wall behind her chair. ‘Do you want to burn in hell?’
    Shirin could feel God’s wrath, His disappointment and the heat of His anger. She could feel the flames of Hell licking her bare feet. She started sobbing and couldn’t stop.
    Sister Maya snorted in disgust. ‘What is the use of crying now, Shirin? You should have thought of the consequences before you ran after a bunch of boys.’
    She had to endure many more agonizing minutes of Sister Maya’s lecture. When she thought she could stand the guilt no longer and might as well kill herself before the wrath of God did, Sister Maya was finally done. Shirin was asked to kneel down in front of the statue of Jesus on the cross and pray for forgiveness. She was to stay there, on her knees until her mother arrived to take her home in disgrace.
    Jacinta found her kneeling on the cement floor in Sister Maya’s room of shame, the tears forming two little pools around her knees, her eyes swollen and as red as the welts on her palm. Shirin could not meet her mother’s gaze. As Jacinta scooped Shirin up in her arms, something she hadn’t done since Shirin learned to walk, she did not say a word.
    Her mother carried her through the muddy road behind the school and down the little hill, past the stream and through the thin strip of raised earth just wide enough to accommodate one pair of feet, which separated the verdant fields, just starting to sprout milky paddy.
    Shirin held on to her mother, her arms round her neck, sobs coming out in remembered bursts of agony. Jacinta was pregnant with Anita at the time, but she carried Shirin home without a murmur, her breath escaping in short heavy puffs. The ears of paddy, swaying gently in the breeze, mocked Shirin. ‘Look at you,’ they said, in soft swishes. ‘You are a disgrace to your mother. How could you have let her down so? You are soon to be a big sister. What example are you setting?’
    Shirin buried her face in Jacinta’s warm shoulder, inhaling her mother’s familiar smell of Ponds talcum powder mixed with sweat, and refused to look at the fields. She missed the first glimpse of her house, something she always loved, rising up among the banana, mango and guava trees on the next hill, guarded by a soldierly row of coconut trees, and intercepted by mehendi-yellow marigolds and chilli-powder-red hibiscus flowers which her mother and Madhu had painstakingly planted. Her mother crossed the stream at the base of the hill, walking carefully on the makeshift coconut-tree frond bridge. She carried Shirin past the tamarind tree, nestling halfway up the hill, navigating with an ease bred through years of practice the steep path made from uneven stones and pieces of brick haphazardly put together. As they approached the house, Rex, the stray mongrel Madhu