My name is Sheela. Sheela means off good character. I am from a rural part of Karnataka that you have never heard of before. My parents told me the stories of the Vijayanagara Empire and all the like large empires that were started in our Indian state. All the while, we were sitting in a simple hut with only a thin wooden board between my fanny and the soil. I was the first of my family to travel to the state city Bangalore. I was the first of my family to receive college education. My grades were perfect through all my years. Yet, it was hard to find a college that would recognize our local school teacher. He was an old man, who had lived half of his life in the forest. He came back to our village, when he had found a few text books. With the same religious zeal that had kept him in the woods, he had learned the textbooks to teach us children about reading, algebra, and world history. I believe that he is a good teacher. Yet, the colleges did not recognize him, except for an all girl college in Bangalore that we had never heard off.
I stood in a circle with three other girls in our dormitory room. My hands were still clutching my bag in front of me. I did not have much. I had three sets of clothing and five sets of underwear. I had three notepad and four pens. There was also the toiletry. The phone calling card had only an hour, so that I could call my parents in an emergency. Actually, I would call an uncle with a phone, who would then relay any messages to my parents. The message relay would involve half day on a donkey back and another half day in a river boat. I am kidding you. I may be poor, but things are not that bad. Oh, and I had my pink unicorn with me, a stuffed cuddle toy. I had stolen it from my little brother once. He was so sweet and innocent that he was not hurt at all and so generous that he let me have it.
I was standing in the circle with the other girls. We were negotiating, who got which bed. Radha took the lead in the negotiation. I liked getting the bed next to hers, because I admire her strength. I did not like so much that it was next to the bathroom as well. However, at least we shared a window. The beds were pretty basic. Each of us had a night stand next to the bed to store our belongings. The other two girls kept to themselves speaking a different language.
Radha had full black hair, yet her skin was whiter than mine. I am not pitch black, yet clearly a daughter burned by the strong country sun. She was wearing a Western T-shirt. It was white with blue sleeves. In the middle was one of those Disney characters 'Daisy Duck.' She was wearing a golden earring. Dangling from the ear ring was the Swadhisthana symbol for the second chakra. It expresses a creative and bold energy. It is also considered the sexual energy center. My parents would have never let me in public with such a reference. Her parents seemed a lot less strict, as she had chosen the college herself. She said that a friend in school detention had told her about it. She had a very big grin, when she said that. I hope that the college is good and not a sham.
One thing that was hard for me to get used to was the constant hugging and calling each other sisters. Back in my village, we always kept a polite distance and I had only one brother, who called me his sister. The hugging that they were so comfortable with was really awkward for me. Not only was it very close, my face would also touch their hair. I could smell the soap in freshly washed hair. I could smell the musk in the dirty girls. It tickled my face. Once, a strand of hair even got stuck in my mouth. I was so embarrassed as I was pulling the hair out of my mouth and it tucked on my lips sharply. The most embarrassing hug was Radha's hug. Her hair smelled so fresh. It had a smell of lavender and mango. It made me want to touch it to feel it. It made me want to grab a good bunch and put it under my nose for a good smell. No, I actually really wanted to put my nose all the way down to her scalp to feel it. Also, her hug was so much tighter than the other girls. All evening, the breast of other girls had touched my breast. My breasts were so sensitive that I jumped. The girls' breasts were so soft like nothing I had felt before. I jumped frequently and they laughed at me. Radha's hug was so tight that I could feel our chest bones flattening the breast against each other. I could even feel her nipple, like little buds. A strong emotion had started flooding my body. It felt like my ma consoling me from a spell of crying. I felt a bit more alive feeling another human being as vividly as I had never felt another life.
You can imagine when I closed my eyes in the new bed and pulled the blanket over me, I was really glad to be in my own space. There were three other girls in the room, yet with my eyes closed I was in my own room. I did not have to interact anymore, no more smiling, no more hordes hugging me. Being in the city was so new and different. There were so many people. My mind was so full that it quickly fell asleep. Memories of the face of a banana seller in the street flashed in a dream. In another flash all the girls were in my hut back with my parents. In another flash, I kept sharpening my pencil over and over until the whole pencil was gone and I started crying, because I would fail class without a pencil.
The warm Bangalore sun shone through the window. It painted the window outline on the floor. The palm trees outside stood happily up to the sky. The other girls were lying in their bed on the side, on the belly. Arms were stretched out standing away. Others were tugged in. Blankets were crumbled. I slowly got up to avoid the bed from squeaking. The bathroom was simple. There was a whole in the ground for our business, a squatting toilet. There was a sink with a mirror. The mirror was framed in wood. There was a farm or garden hose in the corner to wash ourselves and the bathroom. A handwritten sign reminded us that clean and studious girl made it far in the world.
I squatted down to relieve my pent up water urge from the night. The hissing stream calmed me down and relaxed me. The sense of alert to come here was passing, when Radha knocked at the door. She knocked very vehemently. She started kicking. She screamed that I were selfish keeping the bathroom to myself with three other girls. She moaned that she needed to pee urgently. I was desperate to finish my business, yet very afraid of that powerful woman. So, I unhooked the metal hook in the door. She stood their in the door. I was squatting way below her. Her face was mad and impatient. Before she could think of something I jumped up and to the side. I felt so violated. I had never been with disorderly dress in front of anybody, let alone with my modest parts exposed. Worst of it, I had not the time to wipe. So, the urine was still glistening in my pubic hair. There were yellow droplets against my black hair. Radha was completely unbothered by me standing next to her going about her private business.
As I sat on my bed and brushed my hair, I was not sure, if I really liked life in a big city. People were so different. Everything was that much closer. I thought back to the people in my village. Ram was a fisherman. Every morning, he would walk past our hut. He was coming from the river from the catch at dawn. He would stand at a polite distance and wave over to me. He always had a joke for me. One of my favorite one was: "Mommy, mommy, I don't want to swim anymore. Shut up kid, we are soon in Sri Lanka."
Perhaps, I simply needed to get used to a different way. The girls were all so much warmer and excited. Perhaps, I simply had to shake of my rural proclivities and become a city girl. All these new social forms were surely strange, yet they were intriguing as well. It was intriguing to leave my peasant ways behind and join this group of young girls, urban and educated girls. Yes, they shall not find out that I am some country egg. I shall go in the day, pissing with the door wide open and hug as many girls as I can. I will become the uber urban girl.
My thoughts were interrupted by a loud noise at the door. A girl in her senior year burst into the room. She told us in the room to stand in a line. We kind of did. Yet, I blurted out that she was not the teacher. She immediately turned to me and looked me stern in the face. She had green eyes and was wearing make up on them. Her hair was put in a pony tail behind her. She smacked my breast from the side. I gasped hard. I had never felt such an intense feeling before. I almost sat down. She howled at me that the teachers owned the classroom. The senior girls owned the dormitory. It was a truce between the school and the senior girls. The school saved the money to pay a teacher for oversight. The senior girls could take some liberties with the freshmen to do chores. The other three girls stood a little taller as they heard about their fate.
