Of Dreams Coming True

The sun bore down upon Amrita and beads of perspiration had formed on her forehead. Her gold-brown skin shone with the sweat. The collecting basket lay neglected beside her.

"Why am I always expected to do things I don't want to, Keshav?" she asked.

Without waiting for a reply, she went on gesturing with her hands and wrinkling her forehead with displeasure. The big brown eyes were annoyed.

"I mean, he doesn't do the things he hates, does he? When he wants to sit with his books all day, he does! When I ask for it, I'm kicked out! And Aayi says women should not do all the things men do."

She picked at the grass near her feet and sighed loudly.

"It's just not fair."

'Baa!' said Keshav.

She looked up and smiled at the hairy snout opposite her. Her sun-dappled hand reached out to stroke his head. With her other hand, she held out some of the grass for him to chew.

"You do understand, don't you, Keshav?" Her features had softened out and a tiny dimple winked on her right cheek. Loosening the pallu of her saree, she softly dabbed at the sweat on her forehead, her eyebrows set in a worried line.

"Whenever I ask to be excused from the cotton-picking, for any reason at all, it's always, 'Now, Amrita, you don't want to be doing that. That stuff is for the boys to do. Get to work.' It just sucks, I tell you!" Her mimicry had swelled into a high-pitched scream by the end of the sentence.

Keshav chewed his blade of grass and gave her a blank stare. She sighed and stood up. She had to get a move on. Or Baba would be disappointed with her day's work.

"Why do little boys get what they want, and big girls nothing?" She heaved a long breath and muttered angrily for a second or two.

They were cotton merchants, her father and his seven brothers. As far as she knew, they had been cotton merchants for three generations. Her great-grandfather had dandled her little brother on his knee and told the tale to an incoherently babbling baby. That little brother was the one she was being competitive with. For everyone in her family, it had always been Piyush this and Piyush that, and Amrita had been bossed about to fetch things that darling little Piyush wanted.

She did not like it one bit.

Slowly, she picked up where she left off at the edge of their cotton crop. Her mother worked her way from the other side of the crop. She was lightning fast in pulling off the soft centres of the exploded pods. Amrita always received a 'oh darling, you need to pick up your pace if you want to finish in a thousand years' from every old great-aunt who passed by her spot. With a loud cackle to boot.

All she had wanted was to go to the big, white building on the edge of the town. Like the other children did. Day after day, Armita watched with longing eyes at the crowd of school girls and boys reading thick books sitting around the trees in the backyard of the building. This was their daily routine around noon. After a while, they opened bundles of packed food and ate them, chatting happily.

Amrita burned to join that happy laughter. She wanted to be shooed back inside for the afternoon classes by the old teacher with his thick glasses.

They all looked vastly superior in her eyes. Piyush swaggered through the trees like he owned the place and sometimes, he waved at her as she straightened her back out and flexed her finger muscles. It seemed to her like he was mocking her fate. But, she knew he wouldn't do that. Despite all her jealousy at his life, he was her little brother and absolutely doted on his big sister.