Meera, like her name, belonged in only one place--to herself in a far flung idea of herself trapped somewhere.
When periods came, she would bundle up her mother's old sari and clutch it between her legs. For underwear, she had learned to cut her father's or brother's old trousers and alter it into something that fit her. No one offered to buy her any knickers. She was the invisible one in the family. After polio stuck her when she was four, she could no longer participate in the games her siblings played. And her parents didn't think it was necessary to send her to school.
And no one spoke to her about what she should be doing during periods or what they were about. Her elder sister, Laxmi showed her how to bundle up cloth, then tie a string around her waist and knot the ends of the cloth on to it so it stayed in place. But cloth was always scarce. If her mother discarded an old sari, she and her sisters had to compete for their share. And sometimes, when children in the extended family out grew their iicha cloth diapers, a tatter of pretty print from a frayed cotton sari would land in her hands. That served as period cloth.
Meera liked to fold the period cloth neatly after they dried in the sun. They went into a corner of her trunk to wait until another month. And until then, she forgot about them, ran household chores, cooked for her family, fetched water in the ghaa, but before that she would polish it with ash until it shone like a gold pitcher. That was her job. To fix everything in the house, to take care of everything, to look out for the others. It sometimes included picking up her siblings' books and piling them neatly on the table.
Meera, for everyone but not herself. Trapped. Far away.
