The Blue Dot

Selvi was fifty-eight when her husband passed away. She lived by herself in a rural village in southern Tamilnadu. She had the farm and cattle to look after.

With each passing day, she felt lonelier and lonelier.

The home was quiet. The farm was quiet. A few villagers talked. But those words did not count to her. The silence grew suffocating.

One day, Selvi learned about an evening school for adults in the nearby town. She would hear new voices she thought.

She enrolled.

The bus stop

The day arrived. Her first day of school. She got ready and reached the bus stop early.

One problem. She did not know how to take a bus.

She had her husband all along.

She would carefully watch her husband squint at the approaching bus. It was always exciting for her when he said, ‘ம்ம், இது போகும் ஏறு ஏறு. (Hmm, this is the one. Get on, get on.)’

She missed his presence by her side.

She felt alone at the crowded bus stop. People came and took their buses. Buses came and took its people.

She felt left out.

Too ashamed to ask for help, she decided to make the three-kilometer walk to the school on foot. It was 6 kilometers every day.

Selvi was the oldest in the class. The first time when she entered, She felt like everyone asking ‘Why bother?’. But no one bothered. They had their lives and concerns.

She did like the sound of people talking around her in the classroom. The teacher arrived on time and taught something by drawing on the blackboard.

She understood nothing.

Malar

Selvi had a friend named Malar, a single mother in her 30s with a young son. Malar worked as a construction worker during the day. Her reason for joining the evening school was quite unusual.

One night, like any other, her son refused to eat the food cooked with poverty. He cried his soul out.

She was too exhausted to convince him.

‘சாப்புடு. வேற செய்ய முடியாது. அம்மா படிக்கல. படிச்சிருந்தா நல்ல வேலைக்கு போய் உனக்கு கறி சோறே போட்ருப்பேன். (Eat. I can’t do anything else. Mother doesn’t know how to read. If I had studied, I could have gotten a good job and served you proper meals.)’ She expressed her inability.

‘சரி எப்போ தான் படிப்ப??(Okay, when will you study??)’ The little son yelled, his face wet with tears and mucus.

It made her think, why not?

Malar joined the evening school, dreaming of passing the eighth grade and becoming a worker who could do math and feed good food to her child.

The red dot

Whenever they had time in class, the two friends, Selvi and Malar, would chat.

‘பொட்டு வெச்சிக்க கூடாதோ? (You shouldn’t apply the kumkum dot on your forehead??)’ Malar asked.

‘ம்ம்? வெச்சிக்கலாம். எனக்கு பிடிக்கும். ஆனா ஊர்ல வித்தியாசமா பாப்பாங்க. ஏதாச்சும் பேசுவாங்க. அதான் வெக்கிறது இல்ல. (Hmm? One can apply it. I like it. But in our village, people will see it differently. They’ll talk about it. That’s why I don’t apply it.)’

‘ஓ...(Oh…)’ Malar understood.

பார்வை

One evening while walking towards the school, Selvi found it hard. She felt exhausted. About everything.

She stopped and sat on a small bridge wall, catching breaths.

Nothing was going well for her. She could not manage the farm properly. The school did not make sense one bit.

Her classmates progressed to pencil-and-paper, some even to pen-and-paper while she remained stuck with chalk and slate, still practicing writing letters.

After a few minutes, Selvi took out her slate, her eyes fixed upon it with frustration. She did not want to suffer anymore.

She quit.

Throwing the slate into the bushes, Selvi turned around and walked back towards her village.

A bus went past her.

She realized that she recognized a few letters on the nameplate.

Her heart skipped a beat.

She rushed back to the bus stop and waited anxiously for another bus with a nameplate. Within a few minutes, one appeared at the end of the road. She squinted her eyes.

The letters on the bus nameplate looked familiar.

The bus stopped for her. The bus conductor peeked out, seeing if she was coming.

She kept reading the nameplate intently.

‘எங்க மா போகணும்? (Where do you need to go, ma’am?)’ The bus conductor asked.

‘ஒரு நிமிசம்! (One moment!)’. She raised her finger, asking the conductor to wait. She focused on the board. Her eyes widened. She understood the destination name.

But buses to that destination had other routes as well. The nameplate had a “via” section under the main destination.

The driver started moving the bus. She stepped in front of it to read the full board. ‘ஒரு நிமிசம்ய்யா… (One moment, brother…)’

The “via” section had four names. It was easier since she knew the town names around her village. Her school stop name was the third. She knew where the bus was headed.

She could read.

‘வண்டிய எடுங்க… வண்டிய எடுங்க… (Lets go!!)’ She boarded with a proud smile on her face. The conductor and the driver were not happy.

She took the window seat. The breeze greeted her warmly.

Outside the window, shops flashed by. Each had a name board. But the bus was moving too fast for her to read them.

Still, she managed to decipher a few small ones — a bookshop named ‘தமிழ் (Thamizh)’ a fruit vendor called ‘சோலை (Solai)’.

And then, a tiny tea stall caught her eye. The board read ‘செல்வி (Selvi)’.

She giggled loudly.

The conductor stared at the troublesome lady. ‘ஒன்னுமில்லைய்யா… (It’s nothing…)’ she replied, giggling uncontrollably.

One step at a time. Forward.

She entered the classroom.

One problem. She had thrown her slate away.

Malar saw Selvi’s empty bag and tore some papers from her notebook to give to Selvi. A student offered an extra blue pen from their bag. No one had an extra pencil.

Selvi wrote her name at the top right corner of the paper.

செலவி (Selavi)

Something didn’t seem right, she thought, squinting closely. Ah, it was the dot.

செல்வி (Selvi)

There, she fixed it.

A blue dot that would never leave her forehead.