Read Online Naming Maya by Uma Krishnaswami - Free Book Online Page A

have to wait till he finds someone else to see the house. Is there something you’d like to do, Maya? Shall we go look at the shops on Mount Road?”
    â€œI don’t care,” I say.
    â€œWell, what do you want to do?” Now she asks.

    I set my chin. “I don’t care,” I repeat.
    â€œDoes that mean yes or no?” She sounds exasperated.
    I shrug. “Yes, I guess.” I’ll go, but I can’t pretend I’m going to enjoy it.
    We take an auto rickshaw to Mount Road, which has been renamed something else but everybody still calls it Mount Road. The auto man refuses to make the U-turn it would take to get us to the side of the road we want. He is headed the other way, he says, but we can cross, right here. He points to a little break in the median, and then blasts off with a cheery toot of his horn.
    Crossing Mount Road is a little like running an obstacle course in which all the obstacles move with great noise and speed in unpredictable directions. This is because, among other things, drivers don’t stop for pedestrians. Some stop for the lone traffic light on the far end of the divided road, but we can’t bank on that either. If we want to cross, we have to scope out the oncoming vehicles quickly, then make a mad dash across the road. We keep a swift eye all around so we can dodge cars and buses and motorbikes. They all keep coming. They honk and beep at us for daring to get in their way. We manage to make it safely to the other side, in spite of one blue bus that obviously has us in its sights for target practice.

    We end up in a huge dusty cavern of a store filled with carved wooden figures—elephants, camels, birds, masked dolls with spring-mounted heads that dance when you touch them. And little brass bells on strings, and statues sized from tiny to larger than life. I hover around the trays of miniature objects. I’ve always liked small things. They are comfortable. You can tuck them in your pocket and only you know they’re there.
    â€œWant to get something for Joanie?” Mom asks. While I am debating whether to reply, she says, “It’s okay, pick something you like. A Two-Gift?”
    I stare at her. That’s a Dad line.
    One gift to keep and one to give away, me to Joanie, Joanie to me. It was a rule we made years ago when we were both much younger. Every time we go anywhere with our families, we bring back two gifts. Looking at our twin collections, you can trace the places we’ve been the years we’ve been friends. We each have a replica Capitol (Joanie’s visit to Washington, D.C.); a bear bookmark from Arizona (my trip to the Grand Canyon); coral from Florida (Joanie’s trip to see her grandma Beth); and Mickey Mouse buttons from Disney World (my sixth-birthday trip).
    Dad loved the term Two-Gift . Whenever we went anywhere on vacation, he was the one to remind me. “Nothing for Joanie?” he’d ask. “A Two-Gift?”

    No Dad to remind me. No Dad to make funny faces, to make me laugh so hard the tears would run down my cheeks and I’d beg for mercy. “Stop, stop. Oh, I’m getting a stick in my side.”
    Mom would say, “Stitch, sweetheart, stitch.” But Dad would pretend he had a stick in his side that wouldn’t come loose, and stagger around trying to get it out, and drive us both into a weakness of laughter.
    I steal a sideways look at my mother. The only thing that makes her laugh close to that hard these days is chatting with Lakshmi Auntie about old times. Suddenly, despite my determination to stay mad, I want her to laugh with me about something now. But there’s no funny memory handy.
    From among the baby elephants, I finally pick two. They are carved in a dark wood, each one no bigger than my thumb. Their trunks are raised high. Their ears have a friendly flap to them.
    We pay and wait while the cashier wraps the little carvings in great wads of paper and