Something ordinary can be so very complicated. Sister Anthea is there, Shayne, Neelu. We've not been at the orphanage long and we are ready to have a chat about the delay in the process of Ankita's court case when I notice two nuns standing at the entrance to the waiting room from the Shishu Bhavan. From around their white habits lined with a blue stripe, a small, dark skinned child appears and walks confidently towards me like a bucket brimming with dreams. I am sitting on a long sofa facing her as she comes. Before I have recognized her she is climbing into my lap. She pecks me on the cheek as if she has done so a hundred times before, says, hello Dadda, and then she turns and lays herself down on me relaxing into the contours of my shape. My daughter Ankita has arrived and stuck to me like an old and trusted memory.
She looks at Shayne and reaches out her arm. Hello Mamma, she says. And now the room is alive to the reality of what is occurring. I am stunned. Shayne is smiling broadly, her eyes tuning themselves to the shapes of the music of the spheres swirling around us. And Neelu, eyebrows furled in an ecstatic shape, peers into me as she searches from Ankita to me for my reaction. And here we are. Like that. The four of us sitting on a sofa saying hello.
Ordinary. We were not really expecting to see Ankita so soon. And certainly not like this. We thought there would be careful talk, the precautionary mumblings from both us and Sister Anthea,that because things are still so uncertain we should wait to meet the girl. But to Ankita, this was just an ordinary and expected step. Like walking down some gentle slope she was letting the momentum of the hill place her stride easily into its grace.
And now we are summoned outside by the brimming bucket. "Adieou" (come) she says and winds her fingers slowly at us from the door leading out to the front courtyard. The three of us obey and walk down the stairs to follow her to an underground parking station below the new building where there is a bright yellow and black striped swing. It is the old fashioned metal kind with a seat at each end and you swing face to face. One little sister, one big sister, to and fro-ing to the rhythm of the sibling size up. Very cool. The pair of them. One trying not to out smile the other.
To out-smile the parents is an impossibility in this moment. We are both in some strange hypnotic jet stream. No more than ten minutes ago we were walking down the lane telling each other that it didn't feel right and that we should hold off meeting Ankita until things were sorted. And now we are here, watching something out of the ordinary, but really quite simple.
And then we are taken back to the reception room by our daughters and we talk to Sister Anthea and we agree that we should now wait until the court makes up it's mind before we see Ankita again.She, in the meantime, has taken us outside to a waiting car and ordered that all four of us get in and go. Sister says she will get upset when we leave without her. Back inside she counts to ten in english and points at the emdrioded shape on her skirt, 'butterfly' she says in a voice as delicious as rose water .And her dark, dark eyes seek mine and she drinks deeply. A smile as big and shiny as a new brass pail. This week long wait has been hard, but the reward...Did I say she walks like a bucket? But such a pail as never been made.
