id="u7443858e-7f5b-5dc7-a1ff-2988ceafb82c">
Gypsy Masala
Preethi Nair
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
HarperCollinsPublishers Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF
www.harpercollins.co.uk
First published by Ninefish 2000
Copyright © Preethi Nair 2000 and 2004
Preethi Nair asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work
A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library
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Source ISBN: 9780007305018
Ebook Edition © JUNE 2010 ISBN: 9780007391479 Version: 2016-12-20
Praise for Preethi Nair:
‘A little gem of fiction…a mystic and beautifully lyrical book.’
New Woman
‘This book will have you praying for a delayed train.’
Glamour
‘A genuinely moving novel.’
Daily Express
‘She writes evocatively about childhood and there are passages of tight and lyrical immediacy.’
Guardian
‘A warm-hearted tale of survival.’
The Bookseller
Dedicated to you the reader, in the hope that you may follow the African dancer.
Table of Contents
‘Go away phantom sore throat, untie the muffler and release me so that I may go forth and conquer all that lies before me.’
I have always been a drama queen. I can remember being about seven, scarf tied around my neck, sitting with my Auntie Sheila and her friends listening to incessant banter and clattering coffee cups. Suddenly, I would bolt forth, untie my scarf and ask Argentina not to cry for me. My aunties would stop their slurping and look at me with bewildered eyes. Twenty years later, Evita plays on and the echo of that child resounds deep within me.
I want to bring back this crazy, impetuous child – just for an instant – so I can jump out of my chair at work and tell my boss what I really think of him. And then, maybe, I will stop making excuses and finally escape the mundane routine of a 9-5 existence.
A lot has happened over the past few weeks, and in order to think about things and to locate the little girl I once was, I have feigned illness – the sore throat to be precise – taking a few days off work only to develop the real thing. Cosily tucked up under my duvet, muffler around my neck, my mind wanders.
When I was about eight and played the Virgin Mary in the nativity, I looked at smiling, innocent little Joseph and questioned why he was wearing a tea towel on his head. Indeed, why was I wearing one on my head? The Angel Gabriel and the three shepherds just yawned and accepted the situation, whilst I further contemplated how I had managed to conceive a baby Jesus who was not of ethnic origin.
I took that plastic baby Jesus in hand and threw him into the audience where my Auntie Sheila was sitting. She shared their stern, dismayed looks. It was then I knew that things were going to be difficult.
Not that things prior to that incident had not been difficult. Having lost my own parents in an accident, a long, dusty road had led me to the doorstep of the Vishavans. I’m not too sure about the details of how I arrived there but it was my Auntie Sheila and my Uncle Bali who brought me up. They were a very practical couple and veering away from the realms of reality into flights of imagination was strictly prohibited. The consequences were dire: at best there would be stern looks of disapproval from my Auntie Sheila, and at worst the fear of further abandonment forever loomed around me.
So, like one of those little messages, I have managed to make myself fit into a bottle and have bobbed up and down for a long time