I was absorbed in the realm of words. Wandering lost in marvel when Amma (mother) called me towards her. In her hand, a copy of ‘The God of Small Things’ by Arundhati Roy. A story of love, a story of laws- a story of love laws. A story of whom one can love, how, and how much.
“It’s a wonderful book,” she says, “very beautifully written.”
As his name slips out of my tongue, her face turns immediately into an image of distortion. A distortion of intense disapproval and of apprehended shame.
“Him?”
I nod, guilt seeping into every inch of my body, it occupies all the spaces it doesn’t belong to. Everything I have unlearned and learned says, No, there is nothing wrong in what you have done. There is nothing wrong in loving him. There are no rules to whom you can love and whom you can’t. But the child nurtured in fear cowers in shame. I have done something terribly, terribly wrong, she thinks.
“He’s a…,” she lets the words hang in the air. I nod. The unsaid words burning the space between us with deep tension. She looks at me as one looks at a traitor who has wandered into their home. My eyes barely form the courage to meet hers.
I see the laws of love spill from the pages into my world. His body and mine once tangled together now being tangled in vines that pull us apart, farther and farther away from each other. I remember the day Amma handed me the book and my mind fills with the poison of fury and I want to scream. In my mind, I rage out of the door, slamming it behind me, cutting all ties.
In my mind.
What crime have I committed, Amma?
The child who is afraid of being orphaned glues my feet to the earth and she covers my mouth with her little hands, and so I stand there, still, covered in shame and tears spilling from my eyes.
What crime have I committed?