Quaffing the tea of forgetfulness

This is the moving coming-of-age story of Ru (Reuel George), who stood out at St Lorenzo School of Boys in Calcutta because of his unusual name, his Chinese-Naga looks, and his inability to conform to an ethnicity or religion.

- Lamat R Hasan

His classmates called him “the snake from nowhere”.

Ru’s parents find it difficult to dodge their son’s questions regarding their identity. Their answer — that the Georges were “nomads” — does not help much. Ru continues to be a boy from “nowhere”. His mother tells him to remember that he is an “Indian”; his father, a onetime novelist, emphasises that names do not belong to religions and that they are descendants of St George, who once slew a dragon.

The St George connection is empowering and after punching an Anglo-Indian boy in school for hurling racial slurs at him, Ru announces that his family came froma line of dragon-kill-ers. This is his “currency for respect” at Il. Just then, his parents decide to pull him out of school. He settles into home tutoring, still wanting to understand the mysterious origins of his family, who speak the “fire tongue”, have no relatives or visitors, and keep some rooms, in their old large house in Bowba-zaar, locked.