I'm Not Butter Chicken

Paro Anand

Description

I'm not butter chicken, you can't order me!'. Not a very wise thing to shout at your dad. But then, that's teenagers for you: so un-wise, yet breathtakingly brilliant, all at the same time. Growing up in a changing world, coping in a fallible world. The stormy years, the funny, wise, heart-wrenching years.The precious years, the bandar years, the wonder years. Teen stories, heart-breakingly wise, because they are so true.

Sujets

• Fiction Jeunesse
• Fiction
• Adolescence
• Family
• Children's literature
• The Wonder Years
• Butter chicken
• Young-adult fiction
• Young adult
• Growing Up
• Literature
• Juvenilee Fiction

Informations

• Publié par: Roli Books
• Date de parution: 22 août 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 1
• EAN13: 9788174369017
• Langue: English

Extrait

I’M NOT BUTTER CHICKEN
Author of more than nineteen books, Paro Anand is a Performance storyteller and runs a programme, Literature in Action. She has worked with childern in difficult circumstances including the orphans of Kashmir and children of poachers in Madhya Pradesh. A record holder for making the world's longest newspaper with children, she has been awarded for contribution to children's literature by President Abdul Kalam and the Russian centre for Science and culture. Her novel No Guns At My Sons's Funeral was nominated onto the IBBY Honor List, 2006, as the best book for young people from India. It is translated into Spanish and German.


OTHER TITLES BY THE AUTHOR No Guns at My Son's Funeral Weed Pure Sequence
OTHER INDIAINK TITLES
Anjana Basu
Black Tongue
Anjana Basu
Chinku and the Wolfboy
Anjum Hasan
Neti, Neti
A.N.D Haksar
Madhav & Kama: A Love Story from Ancient India
Boman Desai
Servant, Master, Mistress
C.P. Surendran
An Iron Harvest
Haider Warraich
The Auras of the Jinn
I. Allan Sealy
The Everest Hotel
I. Allan Sealy
Trotternama
Indrajit Hazra
The Garden of Earthly Delights
Jaspreet Singh
17 Tamatoes: Tales from kashmir
Jawahara Saidullah
The Burden of Foreknowledge
Kalpana Swaminathan
The Page 3 Murders
Kalpana Swaminathan
The Gardener's song
Kamalini Sengupta
The Top of the Raintree
Kota Neelima
Death of a Moneylender
Madhavan Kutty
The Village Before Time
Manohar Malgonkar
A Bend in the Ganges
Manohar Malgonkar
Cactus Country
Pankaj Mishra
Cactus Country
Ranjit Lal
The Romantics
Ranjit Lal
The Life & Times of Altu-Faltu
Ranjit Lal
The Small Tigers of Shergarh
Raza Mir &
Anthems of Resistance: A celebration of
Ali Hussain Mir
Progressive Urdu Poetry
Aanjay Bahadur
The Sound of Water
Shandana Minhas
Tunnel Vision
Selina Sen
A Mirror Greens in spring
Sharmistha Mohanty
New Life
Shree Ghatage
Brahma's Dream
Sudhir Thapliyal
Crossing the Road
Susan Visvanathan
Something Barely Remembered
Susan Visvanathan
The Visiting Moon
Susan Visvanathan
The Seine at Noon
Susan Visvanathan
The Seine at Noon
Tushar Raheja
Run Romi Run
FORTHCOMING TITLES
Rani Dharker
Anurima
Ranjit Lal
Black Limericks

I’M NOT BUTTER CHICKEN
PARO ANAND


IndianInk
©Paro Anand All rights reserved No part of the publication may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior permission of the publisher.
All characters and events in this book are fictitious and any resemblance to real characters, living or dead is purely coincidental.
First published by IndiaInk in 2003 Second impression, 2011 IndiaInk An imprint of Roli Books Pvt. Ltd M-75, Greater Kailash II Market New Delhi 110 048 Phone: ++91 (011) 4068 2000 Fax: ++91 (011) 2921 7185 E-mail: [e-mail]; Website:www.rolibooks.com
Also at Bangalore, Chennai, Jaipur, Mumbai & Varanasi
Designed by Cumulus ISBN: 978-81-86939-15-4
Crying was first published in Children’s World. Babloo’s Bhabhi was first published in There’s Another Way (Madhuban).

~DEDICATION~
To my parents Pran and Sarojine Chopra
Kuldip and Harshi Anand
and the evergreen Nanno P. and Shora P.

~ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS~
To the people from who I drew inspiration and strength. My friends — Vijaylaxmi Nagaraj, Anju Taneja, Dr. Malhotra, Arun Kapur, Vir and Payal.
The children of many schools, especially Vasant Valley and Sardar Patel Vidyalaya who have laughed and cried at the right places.
Bete, whose ‘yes’ meant the world to me. Anju Sareen who cheerfully organizes my mess. And then always and always, the strongest, wisest friends anyone could hope for— Keshav, Aditi and Uday.

~CONTENTS~
~I’m not butter chicken~
~Invisible things to look out for~
~Crying~
~The process of becoming groan-up~
~IQ unbelievable~
~Caught~
~Babloo’s bhabhi~
~If I were brave~
~Nalya~
~Man years~
~In spite of what he’d done~
~Bare feet — New shoes~
~I’m not butter chicken~
“I ’m not butter chicken, you can’t order me!” Nitya shouted at her father. And then she turned torun. But he grabbed her arm. Hard. Oww! She yanked her arm away, stumbling as he was forced to release her. Upset the silly little over-carved table and fled. Heart thumping wildly, bursting out of the cage of her ribs. Raced up the stairs. Slammed the door shut and leaned, panting against it.
She heard footsteps thumping up the steps behind her. She braced herself against the door in case he tried to kick it in. But the footsteps just kept on coming. Kept on coming up the stairs. And they never seemed to reach. As the sound began to fade, she realized with a start that the footsteps weren’t footsteps, but the beating of her own heart. Thumping so loudly, it had seemed like her father’s angry footsteps. She stilled her beating heart by swallowing great gulps of air.
She listened now, pressing her ear against the door. Surely papa would come up. He would never let her get away with this. But the stairs were empty. No footsteps creaked on them. There was a murmur far away. Voices? Nitya just couldn’t be sure. She waited. She knew she’d have to pay the price sooner or later. Shout now — pay later.
He could be so vindictive. So loving sometimes, so… so… so… She didn’t dare give a word for what she thought of her father just then. The word, whatever it was, was too, too terrible. And maybe there would be no going back once it was out. Like there was no going back on the words she’d barked out at her father — I’m not butter chicken, you can’t order me — No going back.
Nitya didn’t realize that she had slid onto the floor. Her trembling legs, trembling both from exertion and fear had collapsed under her. But she had been listening so hard for the footsteps that she hadn’t noticed that her legs had literally let her down. Like her tongue had let her down. It always did. She could never control it. Your tongue is too long for your mouth she was often told. Crossing her eyes, she stuck her tongue out as far as it would go. Pointed and sharp. It looked as razor sharp as she was always told it was. Trouble was she didn’t even always agree with it. Sometimes it said things that she herself would never — could never — even have dreamed of. Like just now, for instance.
I’m not butter chicken — you can’t order me! Wow! It was a pretty smart thing to say. Much smarter than anything she could possibly have thought of by herself. She certainly wasn’t that smart. If she were, she’d get better marks in school. But she didn’t, because she could never get the smart, correct answers out at the right time. And yet, when you least expected it, phatak, there’d be a real smart-alecky comment that would come racing off the tip of her wretched tongue before she could ever have formulated the words in her own tiny brain. Crossing her eyes, she stuck her tongue out again. So whose tongue was this? So agile and smart. Too smart for its own good, too long for its own mouth. She stretched up a bit and tried to get a better look at it in the chrome of the door handle. Her distorted reflection stared back at her. Eyes bulging in disbelief. Her tongue rippled restlessly, never still even for a split second. She tried to hold it still. But it rippled like a hyperactive pink python. I wonder if all tongues are as restless or is it just mine?
Voices — there they were again. Just a murmur. What could they be saying? Ma’s probably saying, let it go, she’s a teenager. Papa’s saying, enough is enough, she doesn’t deserve your sympathy or my understanding. This time I’m really going to let her have it. Nitya’s tender behind smarted at the very thought of ‘getting it’. To be fair, it had been a long, long time time since anyone had ‘let her have it’. But this time… well, to be honest, it was a pretty rude thing to say. Oooof! I’ve really let my self in for it this time.
She lay down. Right there on the floor. The crack under the door revealed the lit-up lobby, the top of the staircase. There was the murmuring again. What were they talking about for so long? The tension was killing. Why didn’t he just come up, scold her, thrash her, do whatever he had to do with her and get it over and done with? May be this is his idea of torturing me . Well, if that was it, it was working. Nitya was tortured. The tension was like a live thing leaching the strength out of her — making her evil tongue dance around like an obscene cabaret dancer.
Cabaret dancers danced all around her. In slimy pink costumes. They looked just awful. But there was something familiar about them too. Nitya looked a bit closer. It was as though she was looking at hundreds of mirrors, seeing zillions of reflections of herself. All in cabaret costumes. Pink and restless, like tongues that had got out of too-short mouths. And were now like living writhing things — obscene and uncontrollable. Mouthless tongues with her face on them.
She awoke a little while later to the sound of voices. Her tongue felt hot and swollen and dry. Too thick and too long for her mouth. The tongue which had danced itself to exhaustion.
Voices. Voices again. Punctuated with laughter this time. Laughter? What was funny? Where was the fury? Where were the pounding footsteps — t