I have an acute sense of hearing. I reckon it is God's way of compensating me for my other disabilities. The reason I mention it is, I was pricked awake by a slight clattering of dishes early in the morning today. Mom was preparing breakfast for Dad, who leaves early for work. I went to the kitchen to check on her.
"Stay out, Hema!", Mom commanded me even as I barely entered the kitchen.
"Move out of the way!!", Dad shouted as he escorted me out with a forceful shove.
The shove - not the first of its kind - did not hurt. However, I couldn't help thinking why I've never seen Dharma being shoved away or shouted at when he enters the kitchen. He is even allowed to eat at their table.
By the way, Dharma is my 18-year old foster-brother and Mom and Dad are actually my foster-Mom and foster-Dad.
Let me set some facts straight: Firstly, I am not an abused child. I was raised by my foster parents ever since my own mom passed away. I have never seen my real dad.
Raising me isn't easy considering my disabilities - at 13, I cannot understand most of what people speak and hence can neither read nor write. I cannot even do my chores without assistance. Maybe they do love me as their daughter after all; they even named me after their favorite matinee idol, Hema Malini.
As you can guess, I'm virtually unemployable and hence stay indoors most of the day. Mom believes that a little sunlight and exercise does me good, so she insists that I go along whenever we fetch necessities from the neighborhood vendor. So far, the sunlight hasn't improved anything but I enjoy these short walks in the morning.
I went back to my bedroom and proceeded to wake up Dharma. He is the one usually sent on errands.
I hate the vegetables vendor because he stinks and calls me names. The pervert also whistled at me a few times when nobody was around. To avoid him, I started wandering and surveying around, while my brother was busy haggling with him. That was when I ran into Amit.
Amit, the neighborhood hunk, has a reputation as the local casanova and no one has ever been known to be able to resist his charms. He tried to catch my attention a couple of times before, but Dharma was beside me on all those occasions and Amit always maintained a safe distance.
However today, emboldened by the fact that Dharma was not observing and out of ear-shot, Amit got obscenely close to me and started making amorous advances. I resisted at first, but his proximity was too overwhelming. My modesty disallows me from going into the details, so let me just say this: I closed my eyes and started letting my immoral teenage fantasies come true.
A flash of light brought me back to my senses and I saw Amit retreating quickly from the scene. My brother was standing right beside me and delivered me one more of his tight slaps - another flash of light. Overcome by shame, I ran back home crying. Fortunately Dharma did not mention the incident to Mom. I, however, haven't gathered the courage to look him in the eye since morning.
It is 5 p.m. now. The phone is ringing.
I see Dharma picking it up and speaking in a hushed voice:
"Hey Beautiful.. whats up"
"No Dear.. cannot make it to the movie today. I promised Mom that I'd help her give a bath to Hema"
"Ha.. ha.. don't get too jealous. Hema is our 13-yr old sexually-frustrated pet Labrador"
"Yeah.. today she tried romancing our neighbour's dog right infront of me. I mean, how outrageous can things get: Hema Malini seduced by Amitabh right infront of Dharmendra"
