#ExclusiveExcerpt: Those Days in Delhi by Yashodhara Lal

This was it. I squared my shoulders and swallowed.

I peeked through the half-open door of my parents’ bedroom. Mum was lying on her bed with a book in her hand, reading glasses on, long black hair unravelling from its bun and across her pillow. She was giggling and snorting to herself – apparently something in the book was very amusing. Great. At least, she seemed like she was in a good mood. Now was the perfect time to ask.

I raised my hand to knock at the door but hesitated. It was uncharacteristic of me to knock. She might get suspicious. I stood there, frozen and wondering how to make my entry when Mum suddenly bellowed, ‘Gudia … GUDIA!’

I almost jumped out of my skin. Her yell rang through the house and in my head. My nostrils flared even as I tried to calm my furiously beating heart. I stifled a sigh and stepped into the room. It was no use telling her again, especially now when I wanted something, to not call me by that ghastly name. Gudia. Doll. Huh.

‘Ah, there you are!’ Mum looked up at me over her reading glasses for a split second before looking back at her book and starting to snort again. She beckoned me to come over. What’s she up to? I wondered, but scooted over to her like the obedient daughter I was.

Mum was now shaking uncontrollably with that strange silent laughter of hers which meant she was really tickled. She held the book out to me, hands trembling, and choked out, ‘Go on. Read!’

But this was an adult book. I knew because I had seen this one with its striking red cover last week, among all the other adult books on the high shelf that we had been warned to stay away from, and which, of course, I regularly nosed through when my parents were at work. I looked at her uncertainly, but she nodded and pointed, ‘This paragraph right here!’

I shrugged and then frowned at the small print on the yellowed pages – it was a second-hand copy, like many of my value-conscious mother’s purchases. This bit appeared to be about a guy undergoing some sort of a medical check-up – for the army perhaps? What was so funny about that? I mouthed the words as I read and finished aloud: ‘They held our testicles and instructed us to “cough”. But one unfortunate fellow amongst us heard the instruction as “off”, with the result that he applied himself to taking off with as much speed and enthusiasm as he could muster from that crouching position. They were still rubbing him with ice when I left.’

My mother went into paroxysms of laughter again. I smiled politely, waiting for the shaking to stop.

‘Well! Isn’t that hilarious?’ Mum wheezed.

I hesitated. ‘Ma, what’s … testicles?’

Mother dearest stopped laughing all of a sudden. She blinked at me over her reading glasses, as if seeing me for the first time. After a few moments, she demanded, ‘How old are you, Gudia?’

‘Twelve,’ I replied, offended. She could be a little woolly-headed at times, and I was only the middle child, but still.

Mum opened her mouth as if to say something and then closed it again. She frowned. Then the frown cleared. ‘If you’re twelve, then you already know, of course.’

Huh? But I didn’t. How was I to know what testicles were? No one ever told me anything, and I never got to study the adult books properly because my brat of a younger sister invariably wandered into the room just when things got interesting. But there was never any point arguing with Mum.

She turned her attention back to her book. I remembered my mission. ‘Uh, Mama?’

‘Hmm?’

‘Erm, Mum,’ I cleared my throat. ‘Need my pocket money.’

Mum was half-Nepali – she got those genes from her father, our Dadu. Her already-narrow eyes now narrowed further. ‘So why didn’t you take it from Daddy?’

‘Forgot,’ I mumbled, and then smiled tremulously up at her. ‘Please? The new session is starting in a few days and for Class 7, I thought I’ll get some extra stationery, some registers and scrapbooks and maybe a compass or even a whole geometry box and …’

‘All right, all right,’ Mum grumbled, reaching for her purse. She kept one eye on her book and I could tell she was eager to get back to it. Good. I hoped she might forget to check with Daddy about the pocket money. And knowing him, he probably wouldn’t remember, anyway. Luckily, I’d taken it from him at the beginning of the week this time.

‘Thanks, Mum,’ I said, grabbing the ten-rupee note and jumping up off the bed. Mum mumbled something, already lost in her book, shaking with silent laughter again. I made my escape from her room and made my way past the hall to the front door. Glancing about to make sure no one was watching, I sneaked out the flat.

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