Friends, lovers, and not-so-nice people

My life in Poona was great fun for the most part. I made some friends my own age, I made some grownup friends, I ran around the city in rickshaws. With my friends, we scammed people for candy cigarettes and then "smoked" them while sitting on top of the motorcycles that were parked outside the ashram.

One of my closest friends was Virochana - he was 4 and a half but I'd known him from New York. We were the only two kids at the Center in New York, so we'd been through a lot of the same things together. Our tormentor was Jonas, a year older than me, and a real redheaded, freckled, mean bully. He used to follow us around and tease us about being boyfriend/girlfriend and dare us to go have sex.

One day, i said, "fine!" and i dragged Virochana to a hiding place I'd discovered in the roof rafters of Miryam, the workers' cafeteria. We took off all our clothes and I made him lay on top of me while Jonas watched. Nothing happened. I made Chana (what we called him) go up there with me a few more times, but finally decided the whole thing was futile and I didn't really hang out with him much after that. I think he was pretty reluctant to hang out with me, probably the whole sex idea disturbed him a little, as did my enthusiasm for it.

One of my best friends was Garima. She also didn't go to the school, so we ran wild together at the ashram during the day. One evening, we went to see a play that the school kids put on. It was a fantastic rendition of Peter Pan, complete with wonderful costumes and song and dance. Garima and I loved it so much, that the next day, we had a grownup fashion some wooden swords for us and we ran around all day fighting each other with them, singing at the top of our lungs, "we are the pirates, we are the pirates, we are the pirates of the RED SEA!"

Jonas was jealous of our playtime and our nice swords. He hid behind the marble wall that ran the length of the ashram and jumped out in front of us, yanking my sword from my hand. He didn't want to play with it, he just wanted us not to play with it, so he ran around flaunting it while we tried to wrest it from him. When we finally got close to him, he threw it on the ground and broke it with his foot. Asshole.

Another of my good friends was Mouna. She was an Indian girl whose family lived inside the Ashram. She was the first person in Poona to invite me for a sleepover. I was thrilled. At home, we packed up my overnight bag and my dad went with me in the rickshaw to the Ashram. I was going to sleep at the ashram! In a sleeping bag! There weren't even going to be any grownups there, just us with Mouna's older sister, Karuna, and her best friend, Gitika.

The thing was, that while I was an independent little runabout during the day, I was daddy and mommy's girl at night. (My mom and Jason had arrived in Poona about a month after we did - and we all moved into a nice apartment in a complex called "the Mayfair" on Boatclub road.) Each night, Daddy would tell me a story and tickle my back. Mommy would give me a bath and play games with me. They would tuck me in and say goodnight. I was used to it. As soon as it got dark at Mouna's house, I totally freaked out. I cried and whined and I wanted my mommmmy!

Karuna and Gitika agreed to bring me home, so Mouna went back to stay with her parents and I climbed into a rickshaw with the teenagers. We went to Boatclub road and climbed the steps to our apartment. The lights were out. Nobody was home! I hadn't thought that maybe my parents might use this night of freedom to go out and do something fun as adults. Of course I had assumed that they were fixtures at home, probably even more upset that I wasn't home than I was. Oh no!

So I went back with Karuna and Gitika, but then we couldn't find Mouna! We looked all over, but it seemed she had gone to bed already so I spent the rest of the night with them. I had a blast! They treated me to ice cream and played games with me. They took care of me in a way that a big sister would and then they put me to bed. The next morning, I got to eat with them at Miryam, where residents and workers ate, and they brought me to my parents. All was well.

Not everyone was my friend, though. There were a couple people I had battles and feuds with. Asha was the Ashram bitch. We hated each other with a poisonous venom, but we never got that close to each other. Of course I've already mentioned Jonas. But there was one, even worse enemy. Her name eludes me, but we had several run-ins.

She was a hulking brute of a girl, Italian and way too big for her age. She had a smaller Italian boy sidekick that followed her around and did her bidding, but he didn't scare me too much. She was one of those people who resent you for anything that you might have and hate you for anything you might not. For me, it was my smarts. (smart-ass?)

I was with my friend Nevedita, and we were just hanging around. I noticed a sign posted in front of a shop about where to wait, it said "cue here". I was laughing about the misspelling when mafiosa showed up. I told her that queue was misspelled, and told them how to spell it, which she took as her cue to beat me up. She had her little sidekick hold me still while she grabbed my arm and twisted a little bit. I said, "doesn't hurt!"

She twisted more.

"Doesn't hurt!"

A little more.

"It DOESN'T HURT!"

At which point, i saw my dad watching the whole scene. He was standing there in his mexican poncho, looking bigger than his actual amoeba-ridden body was. As soon as I saw him standing there, I broke out into sobs, broke free and wrapped myself in his poncho.

I could be strong-willed and fiercely independent. But I was also first and foremost a little kid.