Identity
Shalini Narayanan
Her name was not hers. It belonged to her grandmother. But she didn’t mind that. After all, her grandmother was a part of her. But sometimes she was not sure whether she was herself or her grandmother. They said she looked like Paati (granny). And if she wore a half-sari and a pottu (dot) on her forehead, her Periappa (uncle) would sometimes rear back and look at her strangely.
“Deva, this girl is a spitting image of Srimahalaxmi!” he would exclaim and chant some mantras to keep the spirits away.
She lived in a rural hamlet where ladies went around in sarees and flowers in their hair; where men ploughed the fields and wore veshtis. And everyone went to the temple and prayed to the gods for various things—a good harvest, a good boy for their daughters, a son to carry forward the family name. But she only prayed for one thing—that her grandmother would leave her body and allow her to be herself. So her Thatha (grandfather) would not look at her as though she were a ghost and her Periappa would treat her as a niece, and not his mother. Sometimes, when her mother would oil her hair in the mornings and make two plaits, she would be chattering away. The rhythmic strokes of the brush and her mother’s voice would lull her into a gentle state of sleepiness. But when her mother had finished tying the plaits and putting a pottu, along would come some Mami (aunt) and utter the same six words—
“She looks just like her Paati!” and she would again start wondering if no one could see her and could only see Paati in her.
Tomorrow was Deepavali, the festival of lights. Everyone would take an oil bath early in the morning, dress up in their finest, burst crackers, have sweets. For her it was a happy day with cousins and aunts and uncles coming over and everyone bringing gifts for all of them. But as she was growing older, her face stopped belonging to her even more.
“Paati, Paati, Paati!” that’s all she could hear when relatives were around. And then all talk would veer around Paati’s lustrous hair, her sweet smile, her beautiful eyes.
When morning dawned very early, even before the sun could rise and declare it the next day, she did not wait for her mother to wake her up. She tip-toed her way to the bathroom and came back to lie down next to Amma. She woke up to her mother’s shrieks when Amma went to the bathroom and saw hair spilled over the floor in bunches. When she joined the others to witness the commotion, her mother shrieked again, looking at her.
“Aiyo di, what have you done? Chopped off your beautiful hair? Have you gone mad?”
And as all eyes swiveled in her direction to look at her with her short boy-cut, she felt vindicated. They were seeing her now. Finally.
Shalini Narayanan, D. Phil., is a media academic by training, and fiction author by choice. Her daily micro-stories on Facebook (@AuthorShaNar) continued unbroken for two full years from September 2021 to September 2023, and have their own fan following. Her novella based on her blogs was also published in 2019. She has also contributed her writing to – Kissa: A Story Podcast and raagdelhi.com. Shalini was with the Indian Information Service, working under the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting for 23 years, before taking early retirement. She has worked with the public broadcaster – both Radio and Television- for a decade and in other organisations under the Ministry such as the Publications Division, the Central Bureau of Communication and the Indian Institute of Mass Communication. She has also co-edited India Connected: Mapping the Impact of New Media (SAGE India, 2016) which went into further translations in Hindi and Marathi.