PEGGING CLUB QUEENS ON WASHING DAY

“WHO you think you talking to? You think I’m your size?” hissed Radhika. A crooked row of wooden pegs ran down the front of her Red Riding Hood sleep shirt. Wednesdays was the turn of Block 31 at the washing stones in my beloved Bangladesh Market district in Chatsworth. “I was just telling Akka dries the towel long ways,” whispered Clement with a lisp. “Well, there is a new sheriff in town, and she will hang the washing the way she likes,” Radhika shot back with puckered lips. The commotion brought Kaki running. With her fat palms holding down her ample hips, she seethed puffs of fire. “Excuse me, my girl. You might be the new dot-in-law in that house, but that is not the way to talk to our children,” she chastised Radhika. A toss of the head, eyeballs pointing skyward and nostrils wide enough to park two Mynah buses showed that she meant business. “He should be in school not swinging on the line and telling me what to do,” Radhika tried to assert herself. “My girl. Let me tell you the reason that boy is by the house is that he got wheezing chest.” Kaki proceeded to relate his medical history chapter and verse right down to his healing circumcision. “If that boy get sick, my sister have to rush him RK Khan for nebulising. So many times, we almost lost him,” Kaki rubbed rough salt into the widening wound. Radhika was distressed. In the two months she had been married, hardly anyone in the neighbourhood had made an effort to be friendly. “Don’t worry Cookie,” Rabin had tried to assure her. “People are a bit jealous sensing you are such a pretty girl,” he added. He omitted to say that the original plan was for him to marry Kaki’s niece, Club Queen from Unit One. When Radhika arrived in Akka’s home, she tried not to upset the apple cart. “Since I’m new here, I don’t want to change anything. The people who have been doing the cooking, cleaning, washing and ironing must just continue as they were.” In spite of her good nature, Akka was having none of that. Radhika could read her Tessa, Kid Colt, Louise and See picture books at leisure, but only once she had done the entire household’s washing on Wednesday. “By the way, we don’t like to see Sunday longer than Monday over her. Pull your slip up,” chimed Kaki. Radhika had lost round one, but she was not going to fire all her bullets on one day.