I shan’t tell you her name, so let’s call her Mumtaz. When she was thirteen, her mother married a Sikh and she became Mamta. Her sister, three years older, clung to her Muslim name and remained Shayarana. There was a third girl I didn’t know that well because she ran away when the father died and her mother said ‘yes’ to this burly bearded man in a turban with two married daughters of his own. Mamta loved her new father, who was the second driver on our farm.
Naturally, the sisters came to work too. They were both beautiful and saw their loveliness in the eyes of the men. I was twenty-three and they would walk past me giggling and clearing their throats in imitation of me. This eves’ teasing was a very private interlude that no one else saw. Of the two, Shayarana’s glance lingered longer on my reddened face, and she worked harder than the rest like there was a special status I’d accorded her. Mamta was the clown.
She stole mangoes knowing I watched and ran squealing if the orchard watchman yelled at her. I pretended not to notice. I didn’t acknowledge most of the mischief she created for my benefit only. She lagged behind others and you found her lips deliberately smeared in mulberries,
obviously shaken from the lone tree. She walked like a drunkard in my line of vision. She started carrying a kerchief like I did and blew her nose delicately as a lady would and ran away cackling at my perplexed expression. I had seen her hanging on the branch of a tree like a corpse with her eyes wide and tongue hanging out. She even drove the tractor into a ditch. She cared little that I was the master and she had no business messing with me.
