Modern Girls 1By the time we were in tenth standard, Nuratu was one of the few girls brazen enough to relax her hair, and risk the wrath of Mrs Allardyce. That won her some admiration from us. Still, her English wasn’t very good – she pronounced ‘ch’ as ‘sh’ – and her laughter sometimes sounded like the squealing of a goat. And then, there was the problem of her breasts. While we mastered lines from Dryden, and sharpened our minds in various ways, her entire being seemed to be physical. She was, to use the word we were most fond of, local. We watched her with some wonder, this curious creature who tore into boiled yams with all the elegance of a market woman; this hayseed who only used her fork and knife when a prefect was patrolling the hall; who, when she laughed, heaved her chest up and down. Around her hovered a constant skein of our knowing glances…Continue reading

 

Image via