Of Lice and Lies ...

I don’t know if any of you remember her but her name was Bhavani. (or something to that tune) She was the first person I was friends with at St. Anne’s.

The first few days of school, I was feeling lost and alone. I didn’t know anybody. Prior to Std 1, I did not attend kindergarden or nursery classes; the closest being Sunday School, if that counted at all.

That particular day, some of the girls were crying uncontrollably in spite of the fact that their mums were standing just outside the classroom, peering through the shutters, shushing and uttering “tiam” in their various dialects. The sight and sounds of kids crying made me feel worse. My mother wasn’t there. There was no one to console me had I contributed to the barrage of tears.

As I sat in class trying to be brave, she approached me and made a great show of pretending to cry. That broke the ice. I knew she was mocking the girls. I laughed. I’ve found a friend.

Bhavani was as puny as I was and we were both equally scruffy. Her uniform was crumpled all the time. Perhaps her family didn’t own an iron? Maybe they didn’t even have electricity at home? Mine were often crumpled too cos’ I tended to take naps wearing my pinafore. I wear the same pinafore throughout the whole week and only change blouse daily. Dirty-leh..

That we were of a different race didn’t matter. We managed to communicate even with the smattering of English that I spoke. We giggled over silly things and were soon friends with the other girls, including the cry babies. Recess times would find us playing “catching”, skipping ropes and 5 stones, which I never mastered, even to this day.

Children are usually affiliated with innocence but they can often be cruel as well. Young as we were then, there were already snobs amongst us. And there were the troublemakers too.

One day, someone (try as I might, I cannot remember who that someone was, maybe it has been blocked out to protect the culprit??) shouted, (why do kids shout rather than speak?) “Don’t friend her .. she got kutu-one! See her hair got white white one. After you near her the kutu fly to you. My mother say if got kutu, must cut botak head and then must put kerosene wash the head.”

After 40 years I still wonder if there’s any truth to that statement. Did Bhavani have lice on her hair and if you were infested, do you really need to wash your shaven scalp with kerosene?

All eyes were upon her and I could sense her discomfit. She looked at each of us in turn, her eyes imploring for someone, anyone, to go to her defense.

I would have you believe I was the heroine who stood up for Bhavani that fateful day or called the accuser bluff or that I had taken her by the hand and scuttled off somewhere else to play.

Bhavani looked at me with eyes that spoke volumes. I stared back. That’s when it happened.

At the age of 7 I committed my first act of betrayal. I chose to walk away.

From that day onwards, I did not speak to her. Perhaps I was ashamed of myself or perhaps I was angry with her for arousing such emotions within me?

As the days passed, the remorse I had felt dwindled to nothing or so I thought. Some years later an article with a similar theme appeared in the Reader’s Digest. I remember crying while reading that article. The feelings of contriteness and shame which I thought had dissipated so long ago, resurfaced.

Many years have past since I last thought of Bhavani but last year I read “The Kite Runner”. There is no connection whatsoever between that story and mine but I found myself identifying with the character Amir. Reading that book made me recalled that incident in school as well as the times I had opted to take the easy way out and in doing so, betrayed or had been disloyal to a friend.

Amir wasn’t a bad person but sometimes it’s so much easier to let others take the blame; to follow the crowd; to keep quiet rather than to stand up or speak up for someone whom you know in your heart is right. And if you miss your chance to do right at that moment, it’s gone forever.

Maybe this story isn’t so much about Bhavani but my own weaknesses rather? Little did I know that this act of cowardice had left a scar and even though the years have rendered it almost invisible, it will always be there.

F