[Short Story] Shadows of Innocence

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Asha skipped in through the gates after getting down from the school bus, her satchel rattling behind her, her lunch bag waving wildly. She smiled as Chander the watchman gave her a mock salute. 

 

‘What is in that lunch box?’ he asked. ‘Chapati as usual…’ she replied without turning, her disappointment evident in her voice. She spotted Neeru, her best friend. The two sprinted towards the classroom eager to outdo the other.

A surprise awaited Asha in the classroom. She was to play the lead in the class play Red Riding Hood.

                      

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After a hectic morning, I sat down thankfully at my desk for a much-needed break. I stared at Asha’s photograph on my desk. Dressed in a bright red T Shirt and a denim skirt, she had given her best smile. She was my three-foot, four inch angel, my world. I sighed, thinking about the argument we had that morning. Kritya wandered in with a mug of coffee, ‘Hey! Have you sent out the reports we prepared…’she stopped mid sentence. 

 

‘Daughter trouble?’ she asked.

 

‘How did you know?’ I asked with a weak smile.

 

‘ I am a mind reader …I can read almost every look that crosses that pretty face!’ she laughed.

 

‘So, what is the trouble this time with the little one?’

‘Kritya, these days, it is mostly about food… I am trying to teach her to eat healthy … but she resists so much! She threw quite a tantrum this morning all because I packed chapathi sabzi again… I am worried about her weight gain .’ Kritya shook her head and patted my hand. 

The telephone rang, signaling the end of my break and my rant I plunged back into work with a deep sigh.

It was 7:00 in the evening when I returned home. Shanti, the domestic help, bolted for the door after mumbling something about dinner – I smiled after her- she had her own set of troubles with a difficult marriage and two young children to look after. In the evening Asha was her normal endearing self again. After dinner, I put her to bed.

‘How was school today? What did you do?’

  Asha began talking excitedly non-stop. I smiled. Then she said with a pout. “Neeru’s papa came to pick her up today!’

She turned to me and asked, ‘Why is Papa always away?’ When is he coming next?”

 ‘Papa is really busy honey … what did he tell you on the phone yesterday? Did he not say that he would come in two weeks? With…’ I paused on purpose with my eyes dilated and my hands outstretched.

 I waited for her to say ‘with lots of gifts for me!’

But she turned over and wailed ‘I miss Papa! I want him now …’

I held her close to calm her but her tiny frame calmed the loneliness I felt inside.

She suddenly sat up and said, ‘Mamma! Mamma! Teacher said, I am going to be Red Riding Hood! Me!!! Neeru was so upset you know!’ she chuckled.

I gave her a tight hug. ‘We must buy you costumes… let’s go shopping this weekend!’ 

‘Mamma read to me!’ she commanded falling asleep midway.

 

'Where does your grandmother live, Little Red Riding Hood?

     A good quarter of a league farther on in the wood; her house stands under three large oak-trees, the nut-trees are just below; you surely must know it,' replied Little Red Riding Hood. 

 

My mind kept repeating ‘three large oak trees, three large oak trees three large … Tamarind trees… stirring the memory of an afternoon lying under the canopy of tamarind trees … of a soiled blue dress with large flowers …

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  She watched him with a fixed stare as he entered the darkened classroom. He smiled as he signaled her to be quiet, then handed her the bar of chocolate. She took it, her hands trembling, but since she had thrown away her lunch, she gorged at it, unmindful of what was happening to her. It had become their secret routine, this entire week.. A few minutes before school ended, she would ask to visit the bathroom, get into an empty classroom where he waited with a bar of chocolate. 

Asha felt really special from all this attention. He hugged her and whispered ' You are so beautiful... You are so beautiful and smart...! ‘Oh how I wish, that uncle is my father she thought, he is so kind and wants to be with me every day …!'

When the school bell rang, he clutched her arm and said, ‘This is our secret; don’t tell anyone, not even your mother! Do you understand?’ his voice had grown bolder and sterner over the days.

She hid the half eaten bar in her skirt pocket and ran to join the school bus queue.  Asha pushed back the hair that had escaped from the tiny pigtails her mother had struggled with in the morning, impatiently. She took out the bar of chocolate and ate it frequently making sure that no one was looking – she had to finish it before she reached home or her mother would be very angry and also ask who had given it to her.

That night as I bathed her, I noticed the mysterious red marks on her body. ‘What are these marks Asha, did someone hurt you?’

Asha looked confused and turned away. I shook her and asked her again insistently. My voice taking on an urgency that surprised me.

‘It’s Vivek sir… he’s very nice … he … he …he gives me chocolates that you never give … it’s a game … It was supposed to be a secret …now I’ve told you … he will be very angry…’ She whimpered between sobs.

I froze as I heard her speak. I wanted to know more, especially how long it had been going on for. But held back seeing how distraught she was.  I calmed her down, put her to bed. My mind raced through what I must do next-  complain to the school?  Complain to the police?  Go to the press? Withdraw her from school? Move to another city? As these questions raged …  other thought emerged, thoughts that I had buried in the farthest corner of my mind ...

  ‘So he walked for a short time by the side of Little Red Riding Hood, and then he said: 'See, Little Red Riding Hood, how pretty the flowers are about here - why do you not look round? I believe, too, that you do not hear how sweetly the little birds are singing; you walk gravely along as if you were going to school, while everything else out here in the wood is merry.' 

Thoughts I had locked away in labyrinthine vaults...  I lay wide-awake beside Asha thinking of that Deepavali a long ago. 

 

I must have been four or five years then.  We had gone to my uncle's home in a remote village in Andhra Pradesh. It was a tiny, sleepy hamlet with just one main road that formed a part of the state highway with the village extending broadly on either side of it. My uncle was a government official of some sort - had transfers every few years. We were all very happy with these transfers as it meant visiting and exploring new places.

 

I loved visiting my uncle since I got to spend time with my only surviving grandparent, my grand mother who was very fond of me. It was a large, beautiful house with vast, open spaces. There was a swing in the garden. There were flowering bushes, coconut trees, lemon trees,  and even a small banana plantation.

And then, there was grandpa. That’s how I addressed the old man. He was a neighbour. He had a kind face, was extremely affectionate from the minute he set eyes on me.  My grand mother, a very kind heated woman had taken him under her wing ever since his wife’s death. He sat me on his lap, wound his arms around me at our very first meeting. I tried to wriggle free but he playfully tightened his grip.

The next couple of days were magical. I remember him seating me on the swing and swaying me gently. Seating me on his bicycle and taking me for spins around the house.  

 

One day, he said,  ‘Kala! There are ducks in the village pond, would you like to see them?’He had posed it more as a question to my grand ma for approval.

We set off at day break the next day, after grand ma gave him a steaming cup of coffee. I had hurriedly gulped down a glass of milk eager to be on my way. 

'Look how impatient she is!' mother  joked. I left home, holding his hand as my mother watched indulgently from the veranda.

 We exited through the banana groove and made our way through narrow embankments that skirted the fields growing paddy and corn. I stopped to gawk at the bullocks that ploughed the fields, but he dragged me to a mango orchard that lay beyond.

‘So she ran from the path into the wood to look for flowers. And whenever she had picked one, she fancied that she saw a still prettier one farther on, and ran after it, and so got deeper and deeper into the wood.’

Right in the middle of the orchard was a huge pond.  There were ducks swimming in the water. With a surprising agility he jumped in, intent on startling them.  They quacked and moved away indignantly.  I waded into the water in eager pursuit of the tiny ducklings, which moved under the protective wings of their mothers. I screamed in fear as  I found my feet sinking in the soft mud and tried desperately to return to the bank. He rushed in, lifted me up and walked, holding me tightly in his arms.

‘Oh, your dress is ruined!’ he exclaimed and made an elaborate move to squeeze the water from my dress. It felt strange and uncomfortable.

 'I want to go back home!' I wailed. 

'I'll take you back, if that's what you want.' 

We began walking back.

We came upon a patch in which grew large tamarind trees.  I remember being pushed to the ground and his hands groping me urgently. I must have screamed and struggled - A few passerby came to my rescue. I am not sure if they saw anything.  ‘Grandpa’ left the scene quietly and I watched him leave through my tears.  The villagers escorted me home, but said nothing to my mother. He came warily the next day, but I kept my distance never leaving my mother’s side like the ducklings. 

 

He gave an uncomfortable laugh –‘ She didn’t like the ducks very much, she ran off with the villagers before I could stop her!’

I was confused and grew quiet over the next few days. I only told my mother that I wanted to go back home.  I didn't work up the courage to tell her what had really happened.  The horror of that fateful morning never left me, haunting me with a relentless regularity. Nightmares of lying there in the patch and looking up at the sky through the trees, shook me awake for many nights.  In my teen years I was plagued by the guilt of not exposing him.

Today, the monster was back and the victim was my daughter. 

 

As I sat there trembling, fervent singing from the neighbouring temple swathed me in a comforting embrace.

 

 

Madhumadhure madhukaiṭabhagaṃjini kaiṭabhabhaṃjini rāsarate
jaya jaya he mahiṣāsuramardini ramyakapardini śailasute 

 I joined in the song, my body pulsating with a powerful energy that engulfed and penetrated every pore of my being. The image of the Devi seated on her lioness, surrounded by her female army, giving out a blood curdling cry as she slayed the demon with her trishul sprang up in my mind. 

Suddenly all was clear. The divine mother within knew what her next steps would be.

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