BOYS WILL BE BOYS

boys will be boys, dida used to say, the clichéd refrain ring­ing out every time my “boy” cousin got him­self entan­gled into night­mares of his own mak­ing. like when he broke dadu’s mura­no vase while play­ing crick­et, a gift from one of his well-to-do for­eign returned stu­dents, or when he was caught smok­ing mama’s cig­a­rettes, or caught steal­ing mon­ey from mami’s 200 rupees pleather bag (she said she didn’t believe in spend­ing mon­ey on expen­sive leather. i think she didn’t have the guts to spend that much mon­ey with­out mama’s con­sent). so when­ev­er mami raised hell over her son’s undo­ings, dida would say, let him go, boys will be boys. not that bishu cared, rule break­ing was his favourite pass time, as was loi­ter­ing in the gul­leys with the neigh­bour­hood boys and whistling at every woman who passed by, even the mid­dle aged aun­ties. shame­ful, ma says, such a boy should not be born. he should have been smacked a few times when he was young, baba adds. but bishu, imag­ine if you had been a girl and bro­ken all the rules. dida wouldn’t have dared to say girls will be girls, then, would she? mami would have slapped you, mama and dida would have been silent bystanders. even­tu­al­ly, you would have learnt to obey, mar­ried a good indi­an boy from the right back­ground, right down to the exact gotra, made some legit babies, and no one would have mourned your wild ways. yes bishu, they would have tamed you, had you been a girl. but lucky for you, the y (not x) of your baba’s sperm decid­ed to fuse with your ma’s egg at the moment of your con­cep­tion, and you could do what you pleased. their only hope lay in your abil­i­ty to car­ry on the fam­i­ly name, some day. of course, now that you are gone, they will nev­er admit that their only prog­e­ny, despite all his faults, ran away with the sweeper’s son. and that you live togeth­er “in sin” in a slum near the rail­way sta­tion. no, they would rather pre­tend that you nev­er exist­ed. and in any case, dida is not here any­more to save you with her refrains.

SANCHARI SURis a Ben­gali Cana­di­an who was born in Cal­cut­ta, India. Her poet­ry and short fic­tion have been pub­lished or are forth­com­ing in Asia Writes, Corvus Mag­a­zine, Red Riv­er Review, Red Pop­py Review, Urban Shots — Cross­roads (Grey Oak Pub­lish­ing, 2012) and else­where. Her short sto­ry, “Those Sri Lankan Boys,” was select­ed to be a part of Dias­po­ra Dia­logues Youth Men­tor­ing Pro­gram in Toron­to this year. You can find her at http://sursanchari.wordpress.com