i. and never will I have to answer again to anyone
When Neela is ten years old her sister Asha dares her to steal a biscuit.
It is one of the many rules in the Rasgotra household that you get one – and only one – biscuit a day. And, like every other rule Cherita Rasgotra sets for her children, it is not to be broken under any circumstance. Everyone knows the consequences.
So Neela, being a smart and rational girl, tells her sister no. Asha isn't surprised, after all Neela is only ten. She's just a scared little girl. Asha on the other hand is already twelve and, with her many years, has tons of wisdom and bravery.
Neela, who with her mere ten years has a temper as big as any other Rasgotra, does not take that lightly. She is NOT a little girl! And she surely isn't scared.
Now she just has to prove it.
So she grabs the cow-shaped jar and defiantly sticks her hand in. She looks her older sister square in the eyes as she pulls out a nice round chocolate biscuit and takes a big bite.
Mmmmmmmmmm.
Even Asha has to admit perhaps Neela isn't such a chicken after all.
And later, when they have dinner and after getting caught putting the cowjar back, she doesn't even wash her hands. THAT's how brave she is.
And even though she's not allowed biscuits for a whole week, she sure does feel like a big girl now.
ii. And by then I'm sure I'll be pretending just like I am tonight
When Neela is 17 years old her friend Nancy dares her to sneak out and go have pizza with her. On a Wednesday. At night.
No. Her mother has rules about that. Home by 8 on weekdays. If you're late you'd better be dead or dying.
Once, when Neela was 12, her brother and sister, Ajeet and Geeta, went to a friend's party on a Thursday and didn't get home until 10. She can't exactly remember the precise details but Neela's pretty sure there was crying involved. Ajeet was 16 at the time and Geeta already 17, but that hadn't meant the rule didn't apply.
Now here Nancy is, trying to get Neela to break her mother's number 1 rule. Surely she must be barking mad. Nancy sighs and mopes that Neela's never any fun.
Now, you should know that Neela's no bore. She goes out plenty. Just last week she went and danced with a total stranger. She has fun all the time!
So she can't just ignore that obvious lie and relents. They decide to meet at the park in front of Neela's house. Neela pretends to go to bed early, having finished all her homework at record speed. She then climbs out of the window, shimmies down a drainpipe and – after marvelling at her own acrobatic skills – runs to the park where Nancy is waiting with their mates Marcus and Lilly and a random bloke she's only met once before. She thinks his name is Kevin.
They eat pizza and chips and Kevin turns out to be terribly funny. They even play some basketball at the makeshift court in Marcus' backyard. Neela plays to win and does, since boys always think she's bad at sports because of her height and gender. She doesn't like it when people judge her like that, so she kicks their arses out of principle.
When she gets home her mother is waiting for her and is terribly upset. Even though Neela tries to argue that really, it's only 11 o'clock and she just had a slice of pizza, her mother is furious. She grounds her daughter for all eternity and shoots her one more disappointed parting look.
Neela doesn't really care, she's still on a chips-and-pizza high and all she can think of is funny Kevin with his green eyes and how she hopes to see him at school tomorrow.
Not to mention how she's shown that, obviously, she is tons of fun.
iii. Please don't get me wrong
When Neela is 28 years old her ex-roommate Ray dares her to go out and do something wild.
They're having lunch at their old apartment and were having what she thought was a nice conversation. Actually the first one not filled with tension since she had moved out. It started with balloons, she thinks, and about being a kid. And, now, here he is, daring her to 'do something wild'.
Neela doesn't even know what he means by that, and she'd 80 sure it's something dirty, so she punches him in the arm like she would have done before everything and tells him to shove off. He rolls his eyes and calls it a 'classic Neela reaction.' He even mentions a stick up her butt.
She takes offence at that and reaches to smack him again. He's too fast this time and she gets even more annoyed.
She doesn't have anything up her anywhere, thank you very much! She's spontaneous all the time. Remember, once she bought $400 shoes on a whim? And remember that time she when she went clubbing and didn't come home until 2 in the morning? She does crazy things all over the place, like wearing hot pink nail polish even though it's totally inappropriate and not cutting her hair for 5 months.
So fine, she'll go do something wild. It's not like she's new to it. She'll...she'll...oh! She'll get a TATTOO! That gets both a gasp of surprise and a burst of laughter. He doesn't believe her, it seems, but she'll show him.
She drags him out of the apartment and to the closest tattoo parlour she can think of in her wild (ha!) and frenzied state. Once she's actually inside she hesitates, but one glance at Ray's disbelieving face convinces her.
When she comes out, he wants to see it. After all, she could be faking it. So she shows him, on the side of her lower back, in small, fancy lettering: MALLON BOULEVARD.
He's confused as to why she decided to tattoo his street name on what is essentially her butt. Neela explains that once this comes back to bite her in the arse – which she is sure it will – she wants to be able to tell whoever comes to question her about her ex-roommate's mysterious disappearance to check her arse for his whereabouts. Hopefully they'll refuse and they'll never find where she buried him. Which, in case he needs to know, is in the small plot of unused land in near the end of his beloved street.
He's too proud of her to really care that she's already plotting his death and just calls her and her murderous tendencies 'sweet'.
She's not though. He should know this by now. She's not sweet, with her aching tattoo and soaring adrenaline. She's wild. She's totally a wild woman.