Ayisha’s story

Ayisha’s story presents an imagined fictionalised viewpoint of the ayah herself. Her story is set on the eve of Indian independence, and this fictional narrative is drawn from, and informed by, written British Raj childhood memoirs and recorded oral history research on domestic servants in India. In the form of a poetic monologue, Ayisha’s story recounts the relationship with her young English charge, Wendy, the domestic bonds that tie her to the colonial family, her treatment by the British family, and her brother’s part in the independence movement.

Ayisha’s monologue:

Verse 1

Before dawn, 

I am lost somewhere between sea and sky.

I turn my head as the ghost of the raven rakes my skin.

Again, I turn and run.

I lose my footing. 

I am quite lost.

I rise slowly from my mat, my is head confused.

As my girl sleeps, I tie rag strips on the taps, so her bath runs silently.

“Aap ka ghu-sal tayyar hai”*

I teach her to tie her laces and we chase her laughs to the breakfast room.

I dwell upon my mother’s messages and I feel her hands gently stroking my hair.

How can I come home when this other family calls me from sunrise to sunset?

The ropes bind me to them as they are bound to me.

Each night I slowly unpick the loose strands of that binding.

Verse 2

Morning comes,

My hands outstretched, I gently rest my palms on the skin of the sky.

Screeches of green and red-flamed parakeets splinter in my ears.

I spin to catch the twist of their wings.

I lose my balance. 

I am quite lost.

Beware the demons in the nullahs!

Cross the stream here so you don’t fall!

Never touch the pink mayapple, it is poison!

The memsahib smiles her twisted smile, 

but I overhear the names she calls me.

She keeps me at a distance ready to change me for another.

The sahib patrols the borders where

I fear harm may come to my brother and his friends.

Verse 3

At the throat of the noonday, 

my fingers rasp at the thin air.

Red ants bite my soft ankles.

I scratch and teeter on one leg, 

not quite falling.

The lunch bell clangs to my swing. 

Panting children and dogs come running.

Later we read and sleep, for a while, on the verandah.

 “Ek, do, teen, char”.

The memsahib hears my girl reciting the numbers I have taught her. 

The memsahib cuffs my girl on the back of the head, and barks:

“That’s not your language, that’s the servants’ language”.

Verse 4

The afternoon haze brushes the trees,

I sit and stare at the sun through their leaves,

my hands absently part the dark soil.

The black and white flecks of a mongoose flashes in the thicket.

Startled, I lunge to the side

I stray from my path, but only for an instant.

I stare into the muddy water when 

the children dive from the river bank.

I follow my girl as she swims to the opposite shore.

In the water, she is as strong as an acrobat.

We pass through the bazaar on our way home.

There I feel released, for a moment, from the stranglehold of orders from above.

My sisters tell me to come home to the village.

My brother says the sky is awaking across the fields.

My head is beaten by words from both sides.

Verse 5

The evening rush of wind snatches the letter from my hand.

I run like a milk-white moth fluttering in the lamplight.

There, between the bungalow and the forest, I stagger.

I turn and recover my step.

I reach out again and again.

I sweep the children’s rooms and tidy their clothes.

I listen for their breathing.

I turn down the lamp and rest on my mat.

If the memsahib thinks I am sly and conniving, then why does she trust me to raise her young ones?

Is she afraid of me?

Is she losing her hold?

Verse 6

Slow and gentle the midnight constellations pearl at my feet.

I am soaked by the green night,

The comet, a tail, a blink of sun, splits the roaring earth.

I tremble.

I wrap my shawl.

I kick a stone into the river and feel reborn.

I come to my girl when she cries in the night.

My story eases the suffocating pain of our departures.

She falls asleep against my shoulder.

My girl is always with me, but time is another country for us both.

Different men are taking power and we must be gone.

My family ghosts wave to me from the quayside.

A different country will lie between us.

Another ocean will separate us.

* “Your bath is ready, miss-sahib”.

Download Ayisha’s poem and monologue

CAST AND CREW