Read Online The Red Carpet by Lavanya Sankaran - Free Book Online
Authors: Lavanya Sankaran
Tags: Fiction
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names like Jane.
With scorched shirt tucked carefully inside my pinafore, I kept my eyes on the chapel lectern and tried to look like I was paying attention. Every now and then, like a searchlight in a prison camp, I felt Mrs. Rafter’s gaze sweep over me. After chapel, I was among those who had to stay behind to be scolded by the house captains (two points lost for coming late, one for unpolished shoes. And later, five more for wearing the wrong underwear) while the rest of the school filed out quietly. Tara tried to catch my eye meaningfully, and I smiled inquiringly back.
I didn’t know she had sent me a note.
She didn’t know I hadn’t received it.
Mrs. Rafter was Anglo-Indian, like half the teachers in the school, but she pretended to be English. By our conservative estimate, she was at least as old as the school. She dyed what was left of her gray hair brown, hid the liver spots on her face with a dusty powder several shades paler than her skin, and stained her lips with pink lipstick. She wore shapeless dresses in floral patterns and plastic Bata slippers. She ate spicy fish sandwiches for lunch and perfumed her classes with her breath. She talked of her English grandfather, forbearing to recognize that he had slept with a village woman in the hills of Kemmanagundi to produce her mother. She was supposed to teach us Home Science, or how to be good wives and mothers, but actually it was her mission in life to mold the girls under her charge into little ladies. She taught us Deportment, and labored to correct the myriad regional accents in her classes: Sn-acks, children, not snakes. Raylways, not rilevays. She made her point with a long wooden ruler. Rilevays received one stroke on the palm. A chatty vaat yaar? in casual conversation, two.
When the Queen of England finally recognized her efforts on behalf of English Culture and invited her to tea, Mrs. Rafter would have nothing to be ashamed of.
Our parents kept out of her way, and agreed with everything she said. It was hard not to. Who could object to her high moral standards? And certainly, a convent-educated accent was an asset. It would give the girls better marriage options. Most of all, they agreed with Mrs. Rafter’s view that girls must be Good. It dovetailed nicely with their own notions of the fitness of things.
As in, Boys Will Be Boys,
but Girls Must Be Good.
This involved, primarily, keeping our knees together, and our minds pure. Pure, as in virginal. Innocent of the depredations of Man (or Boy), at least until their parental duty was done. Delivered, one girl, unsullied, to the marital bed. Her price far above rubies.
When Mrs. Rafter walked onto the sports field, we already knew that she was in a bad mood. Forty minutes of Mrs. Rafter’s class first thing in the morning had resulted in:
Two copybooks flung out of the window for untidy writing.
Two girls punished with her ruler: on the legs to keep their knees together, on the arm to keep their backs from touching the chair. You creatures, she said, will never be Ladies. Why are you crying? You think good marks excuse bad behavior? Write one hundred times: I will learn to act like a Lady.
Sports Day practice sessions had intensified every day. Now, just two days before the big event, we did nothing else. The whole school spent hours out on the big field, practicing, training, running, jumping. The three school houses would be competing head-to-head, winning and losing points with every event. This was the only time of the year when the School Goddesses, the older girls, the House Captains, the Prefects, the School Captain, who chatted with such ease and familiarity with the teachers, would condescend to notice us, the junior girls. “Good jump!” they would call. “Well done,” and we would look to see if our friends had noticed.
We practiced everything, including the cheers. We were divided into three houses, each named after the first school principals. On Sports Day we’d take
With scorched shirt tucked carefully inside my pinafore, I kept my eyes on the chapel lectern and tried to look like I was paying attention. Every now and then, like a searchlight in a prison camp, I felt Mrs. Rafter’s gaze sweep over me. After chapel, I was among those who had to stay behind to be scolded by the house captains (two points lost for coming late, one for unpolished shoes. And later, five more for wearing the wrong underwear) while the rest of the school filed out quietly. Tara tried to catch my eye meaningfully, and I smiled inquiringly back.
I didn’t know she had sent me a note.
She didn’t know I hadn’t received it.
Mrs. Rafter was Anglo-Indian, like half the teachers in the school, but she pretended to be English. By our conservative estimate, she was at least as old as the school. She dyed what was left of her gray hair brown, hid the liver spots on her face with a dusty powder several shades paler than her skin, and stained her lips with pink lipstick. She wore shapeless dresses in floral patterns and plastic Bata slippers. She ate spicy fish sandwiches for lunch and perfumed her classes with her breath. She talked of her English grandfather, forbearing to recognize that he had slept with a village woman in the hills of Kemmanagundi to produce her mother. She was supposed to teach us Home Science, or how to be good wives and mothers, but actually it was her mission in life to mold the girls under her charge into little ladies. She taught us Deportment, and labored to correct the myriad regional accents in her classes: Sn-acks, children, not snakes. Raylways, not rilevays. She made her point with a long wooden ruler. Rilevays received one stroke on the palm. A chatty vaat yaar? in casual conversation, two.
When the Queen of England finally recognized her efforts on behalf of English Culture and invited her to tea, Mrs. Rafter would have nothing to be ashamed of.
Our parents kept out of her way, and agreed with everything she said. It was hard not to. Who could object to her high moral standards? And certainly, a convent-educated accent was an asset. It would give the girls better marriage options. Most of all, they agreed with Mrs. Rafter’s view that girls must be Good. It dovetailed nicely with their own notions of the fitness of things.
As in, Boys Will Be Boys,
but Girls Must Be Good.
This involved, primarily, keeping our knees together, and our minds pure. Pure, as in virginal. Innocent of the depredations of Man (or Boy), at least until their parental duty was done. Delivered, one girl, unsullied, to the marital bed. Her price far above rubies.
When Mrs. Rafter walked onto the sports field, we already knew that she was in a bad mood. Forty minutes of Mrs. Rafter’s class first thing in the morning had resulted in:
Two copybooks flung out of the window for untidy writing.
Two girls punished with her ruler: on the legs to keep their knees together, on the arm to keep their backs from touching the chair. You creatures, she said, will never be Ladies. Why are you crying? You think good marks excuse bad behavior? Write one hundred times: I will learn to act like a Lady.
Sports Day practice sessions had intensified every day. Now, just two days before the big event, we did nothing else. The whole school spent hours out on the big field, practicing, training, running, jumping. The three school houses would be competing head-to-head, winning and losing points with every event. This was the only time of the year when the School Goddesses, the older girls, the House Captains, the Prefects, the School Captain, who chatted with such ease and familiarity with the teachers, would condescend to notice us, the junior girls. “Good jump!” they would call. “Well done,” and we would look to see if our friends had noticed.
We practiced everything, including the cheers. We were divided into three houses, each named after the first school principals. On Sports Day we’d take
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