a broom at him still, to spare our neighbor who drinks late into the night and smashes bottles from his second-storey window onto the street below.
It wasn’t only for her uncle that our neighbor got drunk, but it was the start of his downward spiral, as Aunt Pa tells it—Aunt Pa, who often rises early and carefully sweeps up the glass before most of us are up the next day.
Nalani had a funny little finger, smaller than the usual small pinkie. It was a birth defect, a stub. We loved to hold it, and compare its littleness to our own little and littler fingers. Nalani had long, thick braids, and liked to wear chiffony dupattas over her skirts. We thought her laugh was like running water, all sparkle and stream. Nalani liked to paint on glass as well as fold paper fortunes; she was the artist in our family. She painted beautiful girls from the classical period, dancing girls and musicians holding tamburas and veenas, small drums and cymbals.She went to Madhupur Women’s Art College, and took two buses to get there. There had been a row about her going, but Auntie Pa prevailed, saying that all girls should go to college; it was nonsense to think otherwise.
My own mother had gone to college, but many of my aunts had not. Nalani’s mother had been in a class of four, one of the first girls to go to the local Catholic college in 1951. In those days, families who sent their girls to college were made fun of. Why do they protest, our grandfather had fumed (so we’d been told); our girls would be skilled at economy, home science, at the arts, make better wives than those without a B.Sc. Others resisted any Catholic institution, and the kneeling that went on within those walls. All this fuss over a class of four.
“What’s the matter, don’t you want her to get married?” persisted the neighbors, worried he had gone crazy. But my grandfather maintained that an educated woman could educate her family, and college was the natural step to take. But though the band of four was brave, there were faculty who refused to teach girls, who said “they were unteachable, that it was immoral, and even the Gita had concurred.” The president of the college, versed in Sanskrit and no slouch, defended his actions, and threatened to dismiss faculty who would not cross the border. It was a bold step; in other situations, a man might say this, but in private—it would be understood that the threat would not be carried out. Clustering close and walking hand in hand in the corridors, where the men frankly stared, then hurriedly looked away, the four sought to absorb information quickly and become good scholars.
The following year, the enrollment for girls at the college dipped to two and the coed program was done away with. Then, in 1954, a new women’s college was built, and the compulsory Catholic prayer with kneeling was made optional, and families sent their girls in droves, or at least dozens. My motherattended RKV Subalakshmi College and, together with her two best friends, Anu and Miriam, studied physics and chemistry. When Miriam told the girls she was going to become a nun, my mother and the other friend cried. “But, Miriam, what about your hair?!” was all they could think of to say, so shocked and hurt were they; but Miriam hugged her friends and said no shaving was involved, only a crop—“Think of Joan of Arc!”—which made the girls cry even more, followed by Miriam herself.
Everyone was full of stories about our grandfather. He had been posted to Malaysia, on assignment for the civil engineering project he was engaged in. He and a colleague subsisted on careful rations of rice, they were so poor. One morning his friend was so hungry, he ate the day’s supply, and Grandfather wouldn’t speak to him for the rest of the week. The friend apologized profusely, but my grandfather turned a stony ear. Years later, the friend married the daughter of a poet, and he asked his father-in-law to write a sonnet on a single grain
It wasn’t only for her uncle that our neighbor got drunk, but it was the start of his downward spiral, as Aunt Pa tells it—Aunt Pa, who often rises early and carefully sweeps up the glass before most of us are up the next day.
Nalani had a funny little finger, smaller than the usual small pinkie. It was a birth defect, a stub. We loved to hold it, and compare its littleness to our own little and littler fingers. Nalani had long, thick braids, and liked to wear chiffony dupattas over her skirts. We thought her laugh was like running water, all sparkle and stream. Nalani liked to paint on glass as well as fold paper fortunes; she was the artist in our family. She painted beautiful girls from the classical period, dancing girls and musicians holding tamburas and veenas, small drums and cymbals.She went to Madhupur Women’s Art College, and took two buses to get there. There had been a row about her going, but Auntie Pa prevailed, saying that all girls should go to college; it was nonsense to think otherwise.
My own mother had gone to college, but many of my aunts had not. Nalani’s mother had been in a class of four, one of the first girls to go to the local Catholic college in 1951. In those days, families who sent their girls to college were made fun of. Why do they protest, our grandfather had fumed (so we’d been told); our girls would be skilled at economy, home science, at the arts, make better wives than those without a B.Sc. Others resisted any Catholic institution, and the kneeling that went on within those walls. All this fuss over a class of four.
“What’s the matter, don’t you want her to get married?” persisted the neighbors, worried he had gone crazy. But my grandfather maintained that an educated woman could educate her family, and college was the natural step to take. But though the band of four was brave, there were faculty who refused to teach girls, who said “they were unteachable, that it was immoral, and even the Gita had concurred.” The president of the college, versed in Sanskrit and no slouch, defended his actions, and threatened to dismiss faculty who would not cross the border. It was a bold step; in other situations, a man might say this, but in private—it would be understood that the threat would not be carried out. Clustering close and walking hand in hand in the corridors, where the men frankly stared, then hurriedly looked away, the four sought to absorb information quickly and become good scholars.
The following year, the enrollment for girls at the college dipped to two and the coed program was done away with. Then, in 1954, a new women’s college was built, and the compulsory Catholic prayer with kneeling was made optional, and families sent their girls in droves, or at least dozens. My motherattended RKV Subalakshmi College and, together with her two best friends, Anu and Miriam, studied physics and chemistry. When Miriam told the girls she was going to become a nun, my mother and the other friend cried. “But, Miriam, what about your hair?!” was all they could think of to say, so shocked and hurt were they; but Miriam hugged her friends and said no shaving was involved, only a crop—“Think of Joan of Arc!”—which made the girls cry even more, followed by Miriam herself.
Everyone was full of stories about our grandfather. He had been posted to Malaysia, on assignment for the civil engineering project he was engaged in. He and a colleague subsisted on careful rations of rice, they were so poor. One morning his friend was so hungry, he ate the day’s supply, and Grandfather wouldn’t speak to him for the rest of the week. The friend apologized profusely, but my grandfather turned a stony ear. Years later, the friend married the daughter of a poet, and he asked his father-in-law to write a sonnet on a single grain
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