Hi. My name is Radha. I am a twenty year old Indian girl with brown skin, dark eyes, and black hair. I am a freshman in a Bangalore all girls college. I grew up in Hebbal, which is Northern most part of Bangalore. We have a large lake, which is very creatively called Hebbal Lake. Many people come for bird watching. One of my strongest childhood memories happened there.
There was a crude tree house built to observe a colony of spot-billed pelicans. When the little ones had grown and left the nest, so did the bird watchers. Then, it became our club house, the club house of a few local kids. That day Billy was with me in the tree house. His parents called him by his American name Billy, because they thought to prepare him to get a job at an American high tech company like his father did.
Billy was naked on the floor. He was tied with the rope from a nearby swing at a play ground. He laid there in the corner against the backdrop of wood slats. The wood was rough and dented from the use. Bright narrow lines of light painted on his body from the sunlight cutting through every crevice in the wall. He looked surprised. I wondered, what his feelings could have said. The British teacher in our high school kept asking us over and over, what we were feeling until she would get a satisfactory answer. I often told her that I was feeling like beating her ass up. Yet, she insisted that weren't a feeling. Billy would have been quiet, because the red and white checkered handkerchief was placed pretty well in his mouth.
The way down the tree house was to climb wood pieces that had been nailed to the tree. Right about the middle of the way was a large branch going out horizontally. It was a good place to stand. We sometimes played a dare, who dared walking out the furthest onto the branch. Right under the branch were many of the nailed wood pieces missing. So, one had to get low, put the belly on the tree, and slide down until one could wrap the arms around the branch and dangle from it. Often small pieces of the lichen covered bark would break of and paint little dots on your stomach. Sometimes a scrape would add a few red lines that would rarely bleed.
That day, I had to wait for Billy's sister and her girl friends to climb up. They were carrying on a chatty conversation about something that they had read in a magazine. They paid little attention to me. The screams only started, when I was safely on the ground and disappearing into thick of shrubs.
You can say that I am a bad girl. I am. That's what how I got into this particular college. On a Friday afternoon in high school, the teacher decided to take it easy. His mind was probably already on weekend plans. The sun was shining lazily into the room. Half the kids were already busy doodling in their notepads. The class was fascinated with Japanese manga. Groups had formed around certain manga comics. They were trying to replicate the characters. The books of previous classes that day were still on the desk. Classmates had been too lazy to store them away in the book bag. A fashion of wearing ties had swept the class as well. The boys were wearing thin ties in stark colors like pink and neon. The girls were wearing half length wide ties with horoscope symbols on them.
The teacher announced that the student painting the best ganish on the blackboard would be excused to leave early. Ganish is a kind of Indian elephant deity. The teacher explained that Ganish were a remover of obstacles and getting out of class that day surely seemed to be the largest obstacle. He was trying to be funny.
Of course, carnage ensued. The kids were running to the blackboard. On the way, they were running into tables and book bags. Once at the black board they were pushing, shoving and quarrelling about space for their master creation. It was perfect for me. Before the girl sitting next to me could get up, I grabbed her hair. It was short hip hair. I pulled her head down under the table. She fell kicking her chair over and landed on her book bag. The world from down here looked different. The desks were scrupulously cleaned from above. Yet, beneath they were a calico patch of stickers. There were expressive stickers like 'you suck'. There were random price stickers from the cafeteria. The religious Hindu students had left quotes under their desks: "It is better to walk than to run; it is better to stand than to walk; it is better to sit than to stand; it is better to lie than to sit."
My classmate's mouth was on my thigh to muffle the volume of her cries below the chatter of everyone else at the blackboard. She was wearing a white thin t-shirt. It was intentionally very large to be kind of like a dress draping down on her body. The neck cut was large as to show the décolleté above her large breast. The front that was now pressed against the ground showed Marilyn Monroe's face, large lips, and mole in Andy Warhol colors. Her bra strap stood out on her back. I quickly unclipped the bra. Pulling it over her tense struggling arms was not so easy. By the time, the artsy girl in the class had won the Ganish competition, the white underwire bra was in my back pocket. My classmate was sitting next to me clutching her arms across her chest to protect her nipples from showing through the shirt.
She had a tear in her eyes. I told her not to cry, because we would get both in trouble. Plus, I would let her earn her bra back. She had to do two tasks. Her mouth was pleading with painful grievance. Her sweaty little fingers were quick to scribble. She had to write a note to a boy in the front row. The boy was often made fun off. His clothes were often too small. His pant legs would stop middle in his calves, when he was sitting. It looked like a woman's Capri pants. He had these large glasses on that were purely bought for the most square inch of coverage rather than style. It was rumored that he was farming frogs in his room at home. Almost every student on the route to the boy read her little note: "I am in love with you. To proof my love to you, I am not wearing a bra today. If you can see my nipples and believe in them, write me back."
