I love a rebel – I find them glamorous and long to have their daring. Dirinda was wild at heart but circumspect in her behaviour.
So she kept silent on the new laws and registered as religious in order to wear her scarf.
I couldn’t help teasing her.
“Are you giving up chillum too? That’s also forbidden by your elders.”
“You think I am wearing this to please those old men?”
I was relieved to hear her spirited reply. A cowed Dirinda would be like grass flattened to mud.
“My scarf is a symbol that freedom will come again. Bad laws don’t last. You just have to live long enough to see the back of them.”
“That’s the trick then,” I said. “Staying alive.”
