ILoola Pie is a girl.
She is now fourteen years old.
She has loose, droopy breasts.
She was brought up by an aunt and uncle.
Her head was in the clouds.
She was in love with a cousin ten years older.
ILoola Pie wrote poems. Sometimes she stole them from books. She showed them to others, and they said wow. You are good, ILoola Pie. From where did you learn to write these words? Then, she smiled secretly. But sometimes the poems were hers. She tried to write verse that rhymed. She wrote five to six poems a day.
ILoola Pie wanted to read. There were three novels at home. One was called Five Go Down to the Sea by Enid Blyton. She read it a thousand times. She imagined herself as one of the children in the story. With the kids around her place, she tried to create an adventure land. She made them stand outside a closed door and say a secret word in order to enter. The other book had a picture of a woman with breasts spilling over. She read parts of it where a man made love to the woman on the straw. When the man kissed the woman’s breasts, she said, ‘My husband never does this. What you do.’ ILoola Pie did not know what to make of the heat between her thighs when she read it. She hid the book when someone came into the room. The next was a torn book on a treasure hunt. The children in the book get lost on an island where they discover lots of gold behind a waterfall. That book too she read over and over again. The library in her school was closed most of the time. One book she issued from the library was on Romantic poets. She never returned the book. No one asked her for it. She read some poems and sometimes they went right into her head.
ILoola Pie lived quite near her school. She walked to school every day. She also came home for lunch. The front apron of her uniform pinafore was too narrow. On the road, she was conscious of men who would look at her. So, she put one hand inside her pocket, and walked as if nothing mattered. One day, she saw a young man in the workshop call an old man and say, ‘Look, I told you, they jiggle when she walks.’ They both laughed out loud and she wanted the road to open up so that she could disappear. That evening she came home and complained to her grandmother who had come to stay for a few days. The grandmother sat through the night, cutting up an old navy blue skirt and stitching a piece on either side of the pinafore. The apron ended up having two colours: bright blue till where her nipples began and a faded blue beyond. But she went to school the next day with her hands outside her pockets. The young man came out of his workshop and told the older one, ‘Oh, I cannot see them anymore.’ She let her breath out with a sigh.
ILoola Pie was popular in school. The girls liked her. She wanted to stand for elections. She filled in the application for the post of school leader and gave it to the class teacher. The class teacher called her one morning and said, ‘We would like you to withdraw the application.’ ILoola Pie was silent. The teacher went on to say. ‘The other girl who is standing for election, your class mate, she is a very capable girl, don’t you think? So, shouldn’t you give way to your friend?’ ILoola Pie said, ‘No, Ma’am, I don’t think she will mind.’ The teacher had pebbles for her eyes and she said, ‘If you do not withdraw it, we will tear it up. What do you say?’ And ILoola Pie saw everything together. Her bigness. Her loudness. The calm features of the other girl. And she said, ‘Ok, Ma’am’, and went back to class. Later they make her the education secretary. She said no. And they said, you are the most apt person for it. They smiled at her. She agreed. She swore in the school cabinet.
ILoola Pie’s writes letters to her cousin. She writes long letters to her father in the far away town where he works. She writes to her grandmother who writes back to her about the cat who died. ILoola Pie is afraid of cats. But she loves the smell of her grandmother’s home: stale oil medicated with she does not know what. And the house full of sunshine. Here she waits for the cousin to come home late at night. She stays in the kitchen most of the time, helping the girl wash, clean, cook. He comes in with his friends, laughing aloud, cracking jokes. She hears her elder aunty come out to receive her son. She waits in the kitchen hoping he will come in for a glass of water. When he comes in, he smiles at her in an absent-minded way without looking at her. But she blushes when he spares a glance. A girl in her class writes a love letter to ILoola Pie. She is amused. And she looks at the girl just as she saw Aamir look at Juhi in Qayamat se Qayamat Tak. The girl hides behind a desk.
Iloola Pie tries to think of a world beyond. Where there would be sea. And wind. And clouds. And grass. And herself.
She writes poetry.
The walls of her room are blue.
*
Arathy Asok is the author of Lady Jesus and Other Poems, Authorspress, 2018. She is a bilingual writer whose works are described as ‘resistance poetry with a sharp edge’ (Journal of Commonwealth Literature, Vol 54 (4), 2019, 606-642). She has published in both national and international journals and her works have been translated to Malayalam.