‘Who could be angry with Mainao for long?’

BENGALURU: Mainao stands on her toes, on the threshold of youth. She is a cheerful, attractive girl with small twinkling eyes and rounded limbs taut with the touch of the sun and rain. Her complexion is a sunburnt brown, with tints of copper-red. When Mainao laughs, her small eyes crinkle and look even smaller.The firstborn in her family, Mainao has three younger siblings. Her father teaches in a primary school about three kilometres away; her mother takes care of the household.They are not too badly off. There is enough rice in the granary, cattle in the shed and plenty of areca nut trees and betel leaf creepers in the kitchen garden.

This is the year of Mainao’s all-important matriculation exam. She works hard on her lessons morning and evening, although she is not that good at studies and would much rather do the household chores. And how well she does the chores! When she sweeps the courtyard, it looks so neat that you could eat off the floor. When she cuts loose the warm shawl with a farou-megan motif from the loom, even the pigeons on the roof coo their approval: ‘Why Mainao, you’ve worked our eyes and feathers into the loom so deftly!’ When she weaves an arnai sador in the dhekia pattern, the ferns underneath the betel nut tree bow shyly, wondering, ‘Are we that pretty? O Mainao, you’ve made us look so good with your weaving!’

Mainao has long, lovely hair reaching down to her hips, black, silky and well-oiled. When she gathers it all up into a bun at the nape of her neck, it looks only a little smaller thanher head. She is rather proud of her hair. She would beg her mother for money to get it trimmed at the beauty parlour in town, about a kilometre away. 

Her parents scold her sometimes because of her preoccupation with her hair. But who could be angry with Mainao for long? She will be crestfallen for some time, and then grin. Nowadays, she likes to imitate a Hindi film heroine with long hair. Like her, she embellishes her hair with colourful clips. However, her mother and others who see her busy with the household chores – swabbing, weaving, cooking – are not aware what goes on in the girl’s mind. When she returns from the parlour in town, she washes her hair with hibiscus petals or jetuka leaves. Then, with the colourful clips adorning her hair, she stands near the gate in front of the house.

At these moments can anyone peep into her mind? No. Secretly, she plays and laughs with a young man. In her mind, the image of the young man is vague. He is somewhat similarto the handsome young actor who courts the heroine Mainao adores, with his songs full of yearning while running on the beach.
Extracted from The Loneliness of Hira Barua by Arupa Patangia Kalita, translated from the 
Assamese by Ranjita Biswas, with permission from Pan Macmillan India.