The lady takes a mothering tone when she teases me for being a country girl because my nails are always dirty. “It’s because I’m constantly cleaning and planting!” I cry in defense.
The trendy gay man teases me for being defeminate because I don’t wear sparkly things. “But I only wear dresses!” I cry. “Plus, everything gets ruined when you spend so much time with red earth.”
The friend tells me I’m a cowgirl because I’ve all but given up on make-up. “It’s too hot,” I explain, tired of the teasing.
But today, as we returned to the Land from an afternoon out, I called the bike to a screeching halt and hopped off the back. There was a family of cows grazing, eating the flowers like they were exquisite desserts plated just for them. I grabbed a stick, started screaming in Tamil, and chased the beasts to the hole in the fence—while Vasantha and the Old Man looked on in laughter.
And it dawned on me that my friends may be right, and I deserve the teasing.
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