Uh...uh...

Notions. Preconceived. Images. Prejudices. I had them all. For years fifteen have I known her. She looks the same still. Four feet nothing. The 120/- rupee synthetic saree with unrecognisable print and colour. The ear-rings hanging from holes that can probably fit the whole ear-ring in. The imitation mangal-sutra tied up in places with strings less it comes apart . The blouse, much too tight at the arms; the flesh bulging a little as if to protest against this unnecessary cruelty. the petticoat peeping out from under the saree - another nondescript undescribable colour though completely different from the saree. The toes with the silver toe rings - shining cause they get washed every day with the feet. The feet themselves relating the tale of the 60 years that they have lived; the 5 years of working in a field; the 10 years of working on a construction site carrying bricks up the scaffoldng of a premier science institute being built; the 10 years of sitting on her haunches on the soot spread kitchen floor of a college making chapattis for 500 reidential students and the 20 years of trudging through the roads of aundh in her hand-me-down fit-me-not slippers to work in other people's homes - cleaning their bartans, washing their clothes, shining their floor everyday.
She was busy. Getting the washing of the bartans over with. Busy with my morning cup of tulsi and lemon grass embellished tea and the newspaper, I pay her no attention. The backdrop noise is one I am used to. "I think I will finish early and go today", she says. "What?" "There's a sakharpuda - my aunt's aunt's daughter-in-law's sister." The tea and paper forgotten - impending disaster. "But why do you need to go for your aunt's aunt's daughter-in-law's sister's sakharpuda?!"
In a low voice, without meeting my gaze; "uh... uh... she is getting married to the son of the man I was engaged to in the village". "What! you were engaged to someone else besides Nana!" (the nana you have been married to for the last 48 years! Even gentler "yes". "Why did you not marry him?". Hoarsely "he refused to marry me". "Why? Why would he refuse to marry a 12 year old?" A whisper "because I hit him on the head with a stone". 'What?!"
"I hit him on the head with a stone and he was bleeding." "Why did you do that?!" "I was always playing with boys and we used to roam the whole village looking for trees with tamarind, mangoes, chikkus and figs. I was the quickest to climb and I also had the sharpest aim with the catapult. They used to call me Tulsa the viti-dandu champion of five villages. My mother could never keep me long enough in the house to teach me any of the house work. I would eat in my friends' homes if she refused to give me food when I did not do my share of the work in the house. That day, a month or so after my sakharpuda, me and my friends had decided to rob the mangoes from the most coveted mango tree in the village. But there was a dog in that house and we could not climb the tree. So I decided to throw some stones and try our luck. I was raining stones while my friends were collecting the falling mangoes on the other side. My eyes were only on the mango tree. I heard a scream and all the boys ran away. I went to see what the scream was about and realized that the man to whom I was bethroed was coming on the cycle and had been hit on the head with the stone. He was very angry and told his family that if this is what she is doing now, what will she do after the marriage. My brothers also thought I was too forward to be married to a boy from the village and found me a guy in Pune instead."
"Jaaon kyaa?" (can i go?) Pin-drop silence. "Otherwise he will think i did not come because of that." "Uh... uh... of course... of course... you must..."