the passion that some women reserved for lipstick.
A name was nothing, thought Durga. She herself was nothing like her namesake in Hindu mythology – the Goddess Durga, protector of the good and the pure, and destroyer of the evil demon Mahishasura. According to legend, the combined energies of the gods created the feminine form of a ten-armed yellow-clad woman riding a lion. They hastily supplied her with weapons of destruction against the demon and she became Durgashtini or a mother goddess who destroyed evil and offered her devotees protection.
Names could be misleading; Durga’s aunt, whose skin was the colour of milk with a spoonful of honey, had been superstitiously nicknamed Kaali, ‘The Dark One’, as the first surviving child after three stillbirths. Was a name an identity, an anonymous cloak or a terrifying emptying of self? The extra ‘a’ that her Gujarati neighbour Anal Shah had hastily inserted between the ‘n’ and ‘l’ of his name after receiving a scholarship to Harvard was the linchpin between respect and ridicule, but Ajay Dikshit at Trinity, a Cambridge friend, had succeeded in solemnising a marriage with Emma Cockburn in front of an audience too solemn to titter during the exchange of vows.
Durga said, ‘So you mean Ashok is told, “Shoot the enemy, Bill!” and when the job is done and Ashok gets a medal, it’s “Well done, Bill!” and pat, pat on the broad back.’
Heera continued, ‘Exactly. I don’t think I told youabout Seema Tipnis; she was a receptionist to an eye specialist called Ramsbottom. Poor thing, she was so embarrassed to say this man’s name. After all, she’s Hindu – how could she refer to Lord Rama’s bottom fifty times a day? She told us his name was Dr Ramsey, but I found out, anyway.’
‘Naturally,’ said Durga.
‘Talking of names, funny how Asians born here just can’t pronounce Indian words the way we do,’ remarked Heera. ‘I once challenged a young Punjabi fellow to say “Pandit Ravi Shankar”. And do you know – each and every word sounded so strange from his mouth. I said to him straight, “If you can say the ‘a’ in ‘another’, why do you have to say it like ‘ant’?”’ Heera paused, puzzled. ‘But
you
don’t talk like that, Durga, and you have lived here all your life,’ she remarked. Distracted by the sight of Eileen carrying a pair of longjohns, she continued, ‘
Arre
, I thought I asked you to throw this pair of men’s thermals away. Why are they still here?’
‘But they are new. Someone can use them,
na
,’ protested Swarnakumari reasonably.
‘Who do you have in mind? Darling Rupert? Have you seen how long the fork is? It can lift a truck,’ observed Durga.
‘I have a funny story to tell you about thermals, girls. My cousin Viju came to stay with us. Smart chap, he cracked the ticketing system of the London Underground by the second day, so he stopped buying a ticket. When his wife smiles, you see her large pink gums first, then her teeth. Anyway, you know how many of these first-time Indians are: he wore sweaters here even in the summer. Such a smell of mothballs! White thermals under his shiny suit on a Sunday, canyou imagine, and we went to the Natural History Museum. I think the thermals had a very long fork, because it was looking so bunched up under his belt, I knew it couldn’t be natural. Oh, and one trouser leg of his suit was longer than the other, so I asked him why. He said the Indian tailor told him he should continue wearing the trousers and it would be all right in time.
Arre
, what a funny thing for the tailor to say!’ roared Heera.
Durga interrupted, ‘Viju could grow a longer leg. It’s never too late.’
‘Anyway, we saw specimens of those reptiles in the museum, and then his thermals started itching, so we couldn’t go to the Imperial War Museum. We had to come back to Cambridge. I finally told him straight, “Enough of this nonsense!” I made him change into a white kurta
A name was nothing, thought Durga. She herself was nothing like her namesake in Hindu mythology – the Goddess Durga, protector of the good and the pure, and destroyer of the evil demon Mahishasura. According to legend, the combined energies of the gods created the feminine form of a ten-armed yellow-clad woman riding a lion. They hastily supplied her with weapons of destruction against the demon and she became Durgashtini or a mother goddess who destroyed evil and offered her devotees protection.
Names could be misleading; Durga’s aunt, whose skin was the colour of milk with a spoonful of honey, had been superstitiously nicknamed Kaali, ‘The Dark One’, as the first surviving child after three stillbirths. Was a name an identity, an anonymous cloak or a terrifying emptying of self? The extra ‘a’ that her Gujarati neighbour Anal Shah had hastily inserted between the ‘n’ and ‘l’ of his name after receiving a scholarship to Harvard was the linchpin between respect and ridicule, but Ajay Dikshit at Trinity, a Cambridge friend, had succeeded in solemnising a marriage with Emma Cockburn in front of an audience too solemn to titter during the exchange of vows.
Durga said, ‘So you mean Ashok is told, “Shoot the enemy, Bill!” and when the job is done and Ashok gets a medal, it’s “Well done, Bill!” and pat, pat on the broad back.’
Heera continued, ‘Exactly. I don’t think I told youabout Seema Tipnis; she was a receptionist to an eye specialist called Ramsbottom. Poor thing, she was so embarrassed to say this man’s name. After all, she’s Hindu – how could she refer to Lord Rama’s bottom fifty times a day? She told us his name was Dr Ramsey, but I found out, anyway.’
‘Naturally,’ said Durga.
‘Talking of names, funny how Asians born here just can’t pronounce Indian words the way we do,’ remarked Heera. ‘I once challenged a young Punjabi fellow to say “Pandit Ravi Shankar”. And do you know – each and every word sounded so strange from his mouth. I said to him straight, “If you can say the ‘a’ in ‘another’, why do you have to say it like ‘ant’?”’ Heera paused, puzzled. ‘But
you
don’t talk like that, Durga, and you have lived here all your life,’ she remarked. Distracted by the sight of Eileen carrying a pair of longjohns, she continued, ‘
Arre
, I thought I asked you to throw this pair of men’s thermals away. Why are they still here?’
‘But they are new. Someone can use them,
na
,’ protested Swarnakumari reasonably.
‘Who do you have in mind? Darling Rupert? Have you seen how long the fork is? It can lift a truck,’ observed Durga.
‘I have a funny story to tell you about thermals, girls. My cousin Viju came to stay with us. Smart chap, he cracked the ticketing system of the London Underground by the second day, so he stopped buying a ticket. When his wife smiles, you see her large pink gums first, then her teeth. Anyway, you know how many of these first-time Indians are: he wore sweaters here even in the summer. Such a smell of mothballs! White thermals under his shiny suit on a Sunday, canyou imagine, and we went to the Natural History Museum. I think the thermals had a very long fork, because it was looking so bunched up under his belt, I knew it couldn’t be natural. Oh, and one trouser leg of his suit was longer than the other, so I asked him why. He said the Indian tailor told him he should continue wearing the trousers and it would be all right in time.
Arre
, what a funny thing for the tailor to say!’ roared Heera.
Durga interrupted, ‘Viju could grow a longer leg. It’s never too late.’
‘Anyway, we saw specimens of those reptiles in the museum, and then his thermals started itching, so we couldn’t go to the Imperial War Museum. We had to come back to Cambridge. I finally told him straight, “Enough of this nonsense!” I made him change into a white kurta
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