Attu’s umbrella

 

Sitting cross-legged on the floor, Attu’s eyes constantly flitted to something she’d placed underneath her frock that spread around her in a little circle. A smile played on her lips, even as her mother fed her morsels of the day’s last meal, a mash of watery lentil soup and coarse rice. It didn’t matter to Attu what she was eating. When Amma fed her, every bite was delectable.  

Amma thought they were Attu’s favourite stones with which she and her friend Guddi played tic-tac-toe on a dry patch of land adjacent to their hut. They’d draw the grids with dry stalks plucked from a  mango tree nearby and frolic around till sundown. Attu had painted the stones in bright yellow and red and took great care not to misplace them. But no, they weren’t the stones. Something else had caught her fancy.

Amma and Attu locked eyes across a mischievous silence, the ember glow of the dying woodfire on which dinner was readied, taking the space in its warm embrace. It had been raining all day and the clouds looked unrelenting. “What are you up to, Attu? What do you have there beside you,” asked Amma. Attu squinted in glee and even let out a giggle. But she wouldn’t utter a word. It was her little dinner time secret that would pop out only after the last bite. Attu again sneaked a look to her left, this time with great love.

Amma’s eyes suddenly swelled with tears. An evening storm followed by heavy rain had brought down the electric pole. Their modest dwelling had descended into darkness and Amma was thankful for it. Sitting across each other under candle light, her little girl wouldn’t have caught her tears; she quickly blinked them back. Attu gulped down the last bite in a hurry and squealed, “Amma, see this.” She pulled out an umbrella and Amma immediately recognized it. It was the same umbrella her employer had given her earlier in the day, a worn-out piece, torn in many places.

Attu had only known banana leaves for umbrellas, available in plenty all around her hut. This one was a big deal. She flung open the polka-dotted brolly, jolting Amma out of her daze. “Amma, can I take this to school tomorrow,” she asked with pleading puppy eyes. “Attu, this has many holes in it. It won’t save you from rain, my dear. Let me first stitch it for you,” replied Amma. Attu peeked out of the open umbrella, flashed a broad smile and gushed: “Amma, just how I can see you through the holes here, I will have the sun streaming down on me when it stops raining. Wouldn’t that be awesome?”

Filled with despair, Amma smiled. Her six-year-old heartbeat had learned to fend for herself the little joys of life. That night Attu went to bed a tad too excited and even slipped out a little prayer. Amma gazed out the window at the night sky; the clouds rumbled. She pulled a sheet over Attu and kissed her goodnight.

(This post is part of the A to Z Challenge)