RED SKIRT - ENGLISH STORY

 

RED SKIRT

1) Red Skirt

            Kuru Aravinthan

 

As soon as the cops stopped me, I rolled down my car window realizing that there was something going on.

‘Madam, the bride parade is going on. You can’t go through here right now. Please either turn back or pull your car over and wait’ said the officer as he walked past.

I pulled my car over and killed the engine. Several vehicles were already parked there. People were getting out of their vehicles and mingling with the crowd by the roadside to watch the parade.

I looked at my daughter Mathumitha sitting right next to me. She was staring and poking at her mobile phone. I couldn’t bear to wait inside the car for half an hour. How can I?

‘Mathu, come on let’s go see the parade’ I asked her.

‘What? What is there to see?’ she frowned. Staring at that mobile phone seemed more important to her than watching the parade.

‘Don’t just stay in the car all alone. Come with me. It will be fine’ I practically dragged her with me.

It was a huge parade and the mere size of it alone left me awestricken. It was amazing to look at the people and their costumes.

‘This has been happening for many years now. Earlier they used to call it ‘Gay Parade’. But now they have changed it to ‘Bride Parade’ so that everyone can participate in it freely’ I overheard someone talking in the crowd.

I turned around to look at Mathu. Her eyes were fixed, and she was eagerly watching the parade.

‘Mom they say that our prime minister has also joined this parade’ said Mathu.

There is nothing to hide from her. She was born right here in Canada and she seems to know everything.

‘Back in my village too there were people like this living in shadows afraid to come out. The society just set aside these kinds of people and branded such things as taboo. So, they just remained hidden to our knowledge forever.’ I said.

People from all kinds of disciplines such as Doctors, Nurses, Policemen, Military personnel, Fire Brigadiers, Teacher and IT professionals have joined this parade to show their support and the fact that We too are humans echoed throughout the parade as it went past silently. Many more were standing at the roadside showing up signs and offering their support for the cause.

At that moment I felt that I have unwillingly entered a completely different world. I started to become more defensive about this and I felt like leaving. So, I hurried back to my car dragging Mathu along with me. I was more relieved and felt safe once I got inside the car.

‘My daughter tells me that she is going to see a movie with her friend. But I am worried that she might lie to me and go with her boyfriend instead. By the time she gets back it is usually past 10 at night’ my neighbor Saratha complained me about her daughter.

‘It all depends on how you raise your child. Try to be stricter at least from now on.’ I advised her.

As soon as Saratha got out of the plane and set foot in Canada, she realized that the culture here was diverse and totally different from what she experienced back home. She tried to adapt herself and her family to this new way of life and now she is lost in it. So, I gave her some of my insights.

Now since Saratha’s daughter was all grown up, she couldn’t control her and that is why she was complaining to me about her daughter. I made her understand that blindly following the norms and ideologies that this society has in a country with such a diverse culture is what got her into this mess in the first place.

Everyone usually says to be friendly with your children once they grow up. But not only for this country, even for me also that wouldn’t be suitable. We should be strict towards our children. Or else they wouldn’t respect our words. My Mathu would do exactly as I say. That is how I have raised my children.

But still I was afraid. In this country you shouldn’t punish your children. You shouldn’t scold them. You shouldn’t order them what to do and what not to do. Once your daughter grows up, even her own father shouldn’t kiss her. In the school they teach them to dial 911 and complain if something like this were to happen. I also know some children who have dialed 911 on their parents as they were being strict.

Apart from this one other thing worried me the most. Mathu is growing up and she is becoming a beautiful woman. I can feel the eyes of the boys turning towards her. This is the reason that worried me.

Still I was careful. I checked whether she was getting any frequent call from some boy every now and then. My husband told me not to pry on her personal life. But I couldn’t help. He sometimes used to tease me saying that I might have been a watchdog in my previous life.

Nowadays everyone needs a cellphone. It helps a lot to stay in contact with other persons, get to know where they are and what they have been doing. It is kind of like a guard dog that stays with our children. But as their parents it falls on us to teach them when and how to use cellphone especially when they are in their teenage. That is why I still ask my daughter to leave her cellphone at my bedside every night before she goes to bed.

Although she doesn’t like me controlling her and telling her rules to follow, she got used to obeying them with a frown on her face. Just like her cellphone, her laptop is also under my supervision. Every night at ten o clock, it should have been shut down and she also knows to keep the door of her room open until she goes to bed.

When she was doing homework in her computer, I used to take a peek at what she was up to on that screen every now and then. I have cancelled the subscription of all the unnecessary channels in the television. I was as cautious as possible to prevent any other outside influences that might lead her down a wrong path.

So far Mathu has been living with us under our shadows. But now since she has been accepted for higher studies in the university, she has to leave us.

But even as her parents the thought of leaving her, the thought of missing her innocent smile makes our heart heavy.

But still for her to have a better future, we should bear being separated from her. Since she will be going there day after tomorrow, it is up to us to help her find new accommodations and get settled.

In the morning she woke up and went to say goodbye to friends. But her face was dull. I could not understand why she was anxious.

I thought that she was worried about leaving us to study in the university. I heard a phone ringing in her bedroom. I rushed there thinking that she might have left it in here by mistake.

I could hear the mumbling sound of it from under the pillow. I reached out to it. It was new to me. Where did this come from? This is not my daughter’s. I checked the phone number. It contained calls from Vithura. May she have bought it to her?

I scrolled through the screen and found a text message from Vithura from previous night.

‘Sweety. When you told me that you are going to university, I was happy for you. But you know I can’t bear the thought of not seeing you. We should meet before you go. I will be waiting for you tomorrow in our usual meeting place. I will not leave until I have met you, understand?’

If I leave her to her own way like this, she might end up with coming home with a boyfriend. In a country with such a diverse population that thought alone made me scared.  That is why I tried as much as possible to stop her from seeing Vithura.

Now after reading the text from Vithura, I felt that she was threatening my daughter. Is it really Vithura or is it some other boy in her name?

When Vithura came by the home last time, she told me that she left her phone here. The thought was prying in my mind and I finally asked my daughter about it.

‘Boyfriend? I mean who among our boys is that handsome? I don’t have any such ideas mom’ told Mathu completely denying it.

I know that at this age they do all kinds of stupid stuff. I was afraid that she will get attached to someone in school where there are students from different religious and social background study together.

But I was relieved when she said that she has no boyfriend. If she has one it would be a nightmare to answer to our relatives about this.

At first, I allowed Vithura to get close to Mathu because they were good friends. They studied together and supported each other. Vithura was also very sweet and friendly with me.

But once I noticed some changes in my daughter’s behavior, it had me worried that Vithura might be influencing my daughter in a wrong way. I remember that one day when Mathu came home after going to a birthday party with Vithura. I became suspicious when I felt a whiff of alcohol from Mathu.

She told me that she had drunken some red wine that day. She questioned me how she can not to drink wine while all of her friends around her were drinking it. That day she had all the excuses in the world. She didn’t have a clue what she was saying, and I understood that she was not herself. So, I didn’t continue the conversation any further. I let myself out of her bedroom banging the door behind me in a furry.

They say that you can judge a person’s character by the people with whom they are friends with. Although Vithura was her classmate, she was more into parties and dances than studies. After that I strictly told Mathu to stay away from Vithura.

Mathu then had told me over the phone that she would focus on the studies and was more interested in going to Universtity.

It was her birthday. I was hoping to give her a surprise. So, I went down to the university hostel with a homemade birthday cake.

The road was wet and slippery because of the snow that day. I had to drive carefully.

I parked my vehicle and called her to inform that I was there. I expected that she would come in a hurry to see me. But to my disappointment she was a little late.

She would not have expected me to be there. It looked as if she was trying to hide something from me when she came up with weird excuses as to why she was late. It had me worried that she might be slipping past my guidance.

I then went up to her room, cut the cake, wished her happy birthday, relaxed a little and departed soon after.

‘As her parents our biggest expectation is for Mathu to complete her higher studies properly. In this country you can’t do nothing without having a proper education. It is detrimental to finish her higher studies if she is to have a good future for herself’ I thought to myself.

When I was in the highway driving back home, the image of the flowered red skirt that I saw in Mathu’s bed suddenly flashed in front of my eyes. I now felt that something was off in the way she picked it up and threw it on to the basket as if she was hiding something.

I didn’t seem to remember Mathu having a skirt like that. But still that skirt was so familiar to me. Then it occurred to me in a flash ‘Oh my god! It was Vithura’s skirt… so does this mean that Vithura was there with her?’

I was shocked for a minute and I didn’t know what to do.

‘So, the two of them are…’

I was not aware of how fast I was going, and I suddenly pushed the brakes down.

As the road was slippery with snow all over the place, as soon as I hit the brakes the car took a swirl and went down a ditch on the other side. I felt a sharp pain on my forehead. I might have hit my head and I could see blood coming out.

Everything around me started to feel foggy as the world around me dimmed. I had all kinds of images flashing in front my eyes like a dream.

‘It is the bride parade. I can make out a familiar face holding up a sign and shouting in the crowd as the parade is slowly moving along. I am trying to have a look at that face. But I cannot see clearly. It looks like it is Vithura and maybe… maybe, is she with Ma..thu..?’

 

 

Red Skirt Short Story