Funny Boy by Shyam Selvadurai

and I picked up my comic and followed her as she went into the main part of the house.
    Her room consisted of a single bed, an almariah, and a dressing table. I had been in this room before, but now it was transformed by her personal effects. The greatest change was the dressing table, for the surface was covered with her make-up. I gazed at the various shades of lipstick and nail polish. A glass jar contained a selection of shiny stars and circles. I leaned over to examine them more closely. “They’re pottus,” Radha Aunty said. She picked one up and stuck it in the middle of her forehead to demonstrate what it looked like. I gazed at her forehead, enchanted by the pottu, so different from the coloured pencils Amma used. I turned and looked covetously at the jar. “You want to try it?” Radha Aunty asked, sounding both surprised and amused.
    I nodded shyly.
    She picked up a star, smeared a little Vaseline on it, and then stuck it on my forehead. I gazed at my reflection. Radha Aunty sat on the dressing-table stool and looked at me with a mischievous glint in her eyes. Then she picked up a tube of lipstick. “Open your mouth,” she said.
    Through the corner of my eye, I watched Radha Aunty work. She painted my eyelids with blue shadow, put rougeon my cheeks, and even darkened a birthmark above my lip. When she was done, I grinned at my reflection in the mirror.
    She looked at me and laughed. “Gosh,” she said. “You would have made a beautiful girl.” Then she took me by the hand and led me out to the kitchen. “Look!” she cried to Janaki.
    Janaki smiled in spite of herself. “You better not let the parents see him like that,” she said.
    “Nonsense,” Radha Aunty replied. “It’s all in good fun.”
    For the rest of the afternoon, Radha Aunty allowed me to play with her make-up and jewellery while she lay on her bed reading. By now I had lost my earlier shyness. I donned several of her chains and bangles and studied the effect in the mirror. Then I decided to paint my nails. I opened the bottle of nail polish and paused for a moment to breathe in its heady smell before I drew the brush out. While I coloured my nails, I watched Radha Aunty’s reflection in the dressing-table mirror. She became aware that I was looking at her and lowered her book.
    “Radha Aunty,” I said, “when are you going to marry Rajan Nagendra?”
    “Who?” she asked.
    “You know,” I said, and smiled to show that I knew she was playing with me. I waved my hand and blew on it in the same way Amma did when she wanted her nails to dry.
    “Why are you asking?”
    “Because.”
    “Do you think I should?”
    She was still teasing me, but I decided to treat her question with seriousness. I nodded vigorously.
    “Why?”
    I looked at her, taken aback. I searched my mind for an answer and then, remembering what the adults had said, I replied, “Because he’s an engineer and he doesn’t have insanity in his family.” Radha Aunty looked at me in astonishment. Then she began to laugh.
    “Why are you laughing?” I cried, suddenly feeling shy again.
    She reached out and hugged me, still laughing. “Where did you hear that?” she asked.
    I told her, and this made her laugh all the more. Since she was in such good humour, I decided to go further. “You must get married, soon,” I said. “Please, please. You will be the bestest bride ever,” I added insincerely.
    “The bestest bride,” she said. “You think so?”
    I nodded. “And you must have a long, long veil.”
    “Oh, dear,” she said. “But won’t it be too heavy for my head?”
    “No,” I replied. “You must have many bridesmaids to carry it.”
    “How many?”
    “Ten.”
    Radha Aunty laughed and I laughed, too, with excitement.
    “And how many flower girls should I have?”
    “Seven.”
    “And page boys?”
    “Seven.”
    “Will you be one?”
    “Yes!”
    I reached out and hugged her. “Can Sonali, my sister, be a flower girl?”
    She