*
I am at Puime’s house. We are doing math problems at her table when I get up to go to the bathroom and she furrows her brow and says, “What’s that? Did you sit on something?” And then her expression changes and she says, “Oh my gosh! Look, you’ve attained.” I twist around and there it is, on the back of my white school uniform like a small blooming red frangipani. I know what is happening. Amma has described blood flowing, pain, pads, the whole thing. There are older girls at school who have gone through this, so I’m not scared. I walk stiffly into Puime’s bathroom and lock myself in. I’m not some village girl whose mother never warned her, but I still panic when I see the thick blood. I stuff my white handkerchief between my legs, twist around to wash it off the back of my uniform, and wait. I feel my pulse burning. It had to happen at Puime’s house. Even now her mother will be calling all the other women to tell them that I have become a big girl. They will all look at me differently now.
Puime’s mother calls Amma, and she is at the door very soon. She hugs me tight and whispers, “You’re a big girl now.” There’s such excitement in her voice. She says, “No one can see you. If a man sees you, it will be bad luck.” She throws a white sheet over my head. I can’t breathe well, but she holds me tight. Her strong, slim arm is around my shoulders and she says in my ear, “Hush, girl, hush, shh. We’ll be home soon, very soon.”
She leads me out of Puime’s house, thanking them as we walk, my steps stumbling and hesitant. We go out to the car, where my father, embarrassed, nods at me. We get in the back, she and I, and she pushes my head down against her lap, my arms around her waist, so that I am hidden under the sheet as we drive through the churning streets.
At home Amma closes me away in my room for the traditional seven days. She hangs her thickest saris across the windows so that no man’s lust or woman’s envy can find me. She rubs my back. She tells me stories of the village, tells me how dangerous I am, how if a man sees me at this moment when my first blood is coming, even my own father, I can make him vulnerable to demonic possession. I can cause calamitous karmic shifts within my own fate. I listen to her, but I am also bored sitting here alone, missing school. I reread every book I own, go through my pile of American magazines over and over.
In the mornings when Amma takes away my soiled pads, she says, “In the old days, we had to use cloths and take them to the river, wash them in the water. How things have changed! Now we have maxi pads. No mess, no fuss. Just use and throw away.” She unfolds one for me like a flower, hands it to me with a flourish. “No one has to stoop in the river washing away blood. Now everything is modern.” I understand how happy she is to be the mother of a grown-up girl. When she leaves the room, it is with a dance in her step. She brings me trays of food, roti with eggplant and potato curries, nothing fiery, nothing with garlic or onions that could awaken desire and lust. She watches while I eat.
I’m not supposed to bathe during this time, so I become used to the scent of my body, like some small rooting animal alone in the dark. I wonder what is happening in the world. Has Puime gotten a new cassette? Has she invited someone else to come and dance around her room with her? Has the boy she has been in love with for the last three months, Suresh, talked to her? Is Thatha even now down at the river swimming, missing me? When Amma comes, I beg her to let me out, but she says, “Don’t be silly. You have to stay here until you are finished bleeding and can be bathed properly.”