Page 75 - Lavender-B-7

‘How can I make you Sita in the play?’ the class teacher had told Ruma. ‘You wear
spectacles,’ as though wearing spectacles was a crime.

When the school had a fancy-dress competition, Ruma had expressed her desire to come

dressed as a doll. Her classmates had laughed loudly. ‘Have you heard of a four-eyed doll?’
someone chirped and they all had giggled.

Ultimately, she had gone dressed as a teacher, wearing a sari, pepper-grey hair done up
tightly in a bun and a pair of glasses perched on her nose. She had won the first prize. But
the prize had been a small consolation. She would have
much preferred to be a Japanese doll.

Ruma had then begun to learn to hide her

glasses in school. She had preferred to peer
short-sightedly at the blackboard rather than wear
her glasses. She had preferred to let her grades slip
rather than wear spectacles. Even when copying the
sums from the blackboard, she got confused between
the numbers and the signs, yet she refused to wear the

glasses which remained packed in her schoolbag.

When the family had left Allahabad and come to
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Delhi after her father was transferred, her mother
hoped that she would overcome her inhibitions. She
hoped that the school would be more sensitive.

‘I shall pick you up at one o’clock, darling,’ she said

cheerily, ‘until then, have fun.’

‘Have fun,’ thought Ruma, ‘how little does
Mummy know!’

Within minutes she had slipped her glasses into her bag. The school bell rang and Ruma
looked around hesitantly as she saw the children heading towards the Assembly. The
children stood in the rows according to their classes and Ruma had to ask quite a few
children before she could find Class IV-A, which was her class. Soon the prayers were
over and the children went back to their classes. The class teacher entered Class IV-A and

smiled at them.

‘Children, we have two new girls this year,’ she said, beaming short-sightedly: in a way that
at them. ‘One is Ruma,’ and smilingly she asked Ruma to shows that a person can only
clearly see objects that are close
raise her hand, ‘and the other is Anita.’ to them
inhibition: a feeling that makes
All eyes then turned to Anita, and Ruma almost gasped. one self-conscious and unable to
act in a relaxed and natural way
For Anita was sitting in a wheelchair. A little later the class beaming: smiling broadly

1 now, Prayagraj
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