Renita D'Silva

I wash the clothes, rinse them and then scrub them again. Will that square little box do that? I am not using any fancy machines when my hands will do.

Sometimes, it is easier to leave things as they are, rather than to fight, go against the flow.

There__ a great drought in my village. People are dying. The price of rice and pulses has rocketed. There is no water anywhere. And here, people are complaining about the rain...

But he__ an untouchable, Shirin._ __e__ my Untouchable Prince Charming, then. Only I am allowed to touch him.

What wouldn__ my people give for a few bites of the biryani she ordered me to throw away yesterday because she said it smelt?

Every family has secrets, Reena, and they__e there for a reason.

You put cow dung on my face?_ __very day religiously until you were three. Why else do you think your skin is so clear?

What better hiding place than an old, woodlice-ridden album of photographs!

You are a girl, Shirin. Girls don__ run around naked.___hy?___hey just don__.

What am I doing here, Reena? Why am I dancing to the tunes of that old hag?___ou are saving your family.

You don__ live in luxury! You are relegated to sleep in the little store room behind the kitchen with the cockroaches and rats and are at the mercy of Mrs. Gupta,_ Reena was indignant. __t__ five-star accommodation compared to a mud hut.

I watched the rows and rows of chappals left by devotees outside the Hindu temple and wondered if the homeless boys who sometimes steal our chickens ever steal them, and if they do, are they punished, and if so by whom?

Have you been reading those books that clueless illiterate Duja in charge of the lending library lets you borrow?_ __o, Ma._ __hen what put you in mind of devils possessing nuns to take over the church?

Where are the coconut trees bowing allegiance to the wind, the wide open spaces, the verdant green fields?

She liked the way a ray of mild autumn sun infiltrating the thick cluster of trees caught a reddish orange leaf swirling in the wind and transformed it golden yellow. She liked that it wasn__ a leaf she recognised, that she could name or associate with her past.