Things were steep in that little town. It was quiet, but I felt like I could go around the bend at anytime. I knew it was the same for Navi because she was like me - a thinker. But Navi and I didn't speak to one another. It was a strange type of loneliness and at the same time a togetherness that was sacred. No matter how long we knew of eachother we were in conflict. Somedays I would stop dead in front of her desk at lunch time and pretend to look around for someone else hoping she would speak to me. But what would happen if she did? I would have to goad her and ask her with a crooked face "What do you want?"

She wouldn't give me a chance to put her down - call her a retard or a mommy's little baby girl. For years I wondered why I behaved so badly towards her. There wasn't a logical reason for it. Then the answer came to me. Just once I would have liked her to tear me down, put me in my place and rip my balls off! Then I'd know that maybe she stood a chance. Just once she could get into a scrap and be called down to the principal's office over the loudspeaker. Just once stay for detention after school.

She followed her mother around the Gurudawara, not straying far for long. The women fawned and complimented her mother about how proud she must be. Not like my mother. My mother stopped asking me to help out with the Langar at the temple because I wouldn't stop slamming pots and pans when I began to hear women gossip. But Navi stood in the middle of it - saying nothing as she rolled the Roti's out with the rolling pins. Her mami ji would always laugh that Navi was so bholi. "No matter what goes on around her, she never seems to hear, see or say anything." I wasn't fooled. Navi knew what and whom they talked about and the salt and pepper added to fact. Something harmless could evolve into a Tsunami and destroy people's lives. But at the same time she was somewhere else. She was a good girl and so she was Safe. My mother would say that I needed to ignore what people said.

I only volunteered to in the kitchen if Mrs. Rai was there. Mrs. Rai didn't tolerate idle gossip and her presence brought reverence. She would instead talk about the good things that were happening. Although everyone loved Mrs. Rai, it was obvious that people thought it was a lot more fun if she wasn't there. "She's too pious," said one woman, "she doesn't like to talk about anything fun."

Years ago Mrs. Rai had shocked all the women by saying they should go home if they wanted to talk because making the Guru's Langar while gossiping about people would bring a plague into their lives. I shake my head when I recall how I saw a woman pointedly sized me up at me and leant towards another woman's ear and filled it of her opinion of me. In college many years later it was her troubled daughter who told me she wasn't a virgin.at fourteen.