We grew up in a lazy little town where sexuality was not spoken aloud. But I guess natural curiosity in six year olds restrained by convent rules did think it aloud.
Our world at Nannette nursery was a s unruly as our wild little heads.
As curious six year olds we shared forbidden topics, crouched under convent blue desks and spoke in hushed tones. Perhaps we hoped the great father above would not hear a whisper of a sin.
Among us , none could be termed deviant as far as the topic was concerned.
We dressed as expected of our gender and we never were curious enough to talk aloud of the he thing and the she thing until a destined morning when our senior,the rogue Muhammad Ali decided to educate us the novices.
So Muhammad Ali sat on the desk rocking his legs while we crouched under the desk hanging to every wisdom pearl that fell off a rogue’s oily tongue.
Muhammad Ali failed in every test but he was vocal on the topic of sexuality. He educated us that a man and a woman become man wife and baby or rather they multiply by kissing. He clarified it by adding, “a baby is born when a man kisses a woman on her lips” at this point of the narration I was so overwhelmed with the new found knowledge that I turned to Alan and whispered, “ So your dad kissed your mom thrice…” I had to stop my whisper midway because Alan , the true Christian glared at my shameless curiosity and told me to shut my ears. And since I refused he shut them himself with his stubby fingers.
Through my half wrung neck, with the corner of my eye I watched S Vijay peer into Hafsa’s blue skirt and he returned my watchful eye with a weak smile as if he had discovered some forbidden land. It was precisely at that moment Reverend Sister MK stepped in near the desk and grabbed Ali by his Moslem ears.
We counted the numberless whacks she placed with a rhythm on his well rounded bottom. Then she picked up S. Vijay by his left arm and whacked him too. And then she turned around to Alan and me. She almost thundered, “ so you have been listening to the Satan eh?”
Alan groaned and I whimpered, “ No sister, not all of it.”
She glared at us and what she declared next froze us from the topic for almost the rest of our life, “ Do you know what sinners get? Coals of fire in their eyes… the lord shall banish you form his kingdom if you indulge in such evil.”
She made us stand on the benches the rest of the hour as part of redemption from the sin of thinking loud the forbidden.
Standing on the bench on aching feet, I asked Alan, “ What happens when we are banished form the kingdom of God?”
Alan thought a while looked sideways at the open door as if he saw the Lord there and said, “It means you can’t eat chicken anymore.”
Perhaps six year old Alan knew how to discipline unruly womanhood. Somehow that reason he offered managed to rein in curiosity stronger than any education.
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