When Papa Phelps, our school principal, announced that the bubonic plague had reached our hill-top town, I was twelve years old and the year was 1939.

We boarding-school kids knew nothing about the plague except that it was bad, but then India was swamped with bad diseases. In her teens, my best girlfriend died of tuberculosis. My mother contracted malaria after sleeping all night on her luggage on a railway platform. Lepers in their outcast colonies — no noses, ears, fingers, toes — scared us. We never walked barefoot outside because there was no prevention or cure for lockjaw. I’d already almost died of pneumonia, but I was too busy thinking about the delights of Charlie Chaplin to hear Phelps’ warnings.

Bubonic plague may have invaded our local bazaar but so too, finally, had cinema.

Our school lives were bound by rules: Make your bed every morning. Write home every week. Do not hold hands with boys. Do not leave your dorm after lights out. Do not leave the school compound without an adult. Showers only on Saturdays. No pillow fights.

The boys of Boys Block got away with breaking many rules many times. They snuck off the school compound to hike, swim, and feast in the bazaar on curry and rice and a sweet dessert, jalebi, soaked in sugar syrup swarming with flies. It goes without saying that we were all hungry all the time; being hungry was neither here nor there. What we girls of Boyer Hall resented was the double standard.

After Phelps’ announcement, three of us girls decided we had to see Charlie Chaplin. We just had to — cheerful Audrey Greenway, moody Louise Sipes, and I. Or was it that we just had to break some rules? Break rules and get away with it to even the score board against the ruddy boys. I hope we sprang free for the sake of liberty and equality but after eighty years, do I really remember? Waiting for darkness, the thrill of rebellion thudding in my heart, that I do remember.  

The Oriental rat flea, infected with (but not affected by) the plague bacteria, bites a small mammal. If it’s a cat or rabbit, it dies but if it’s a rat, it lives. Thanks to their unusual blood chemistry, rats survive major concentrations of plague bacteria. Thanks to the rats, bubonic plague killed 15 million people worldwide between 1855 and1960, ten million of them in India, a disaster later named the Third Bubonic Plague pandemic. We knew none of these facts.   

But in our dingy theater we do know we are witnessing magic. The 16mm film whirring on a Kodak projector spins Chaplin magically alive to cavort in black-and-white slap-stick. We laugh ourselves silly. The film breaks. Cursing in Tamil, the projectionist carefully splices it whole. The Little Tramp intoxicates Audrey, Louise and me, his newest fans. 

After the movie, it is as dark outside as it had been inside. We start the long walk uphill on the dirt road. So as to be less visible, we walk on the verge near the village drainage ditch. We are silent. We do not want to be caught. The ditch is filled with raw sewage, garbage, trash — all waiting for vultures to eat it or for monsoon rains to wash it downhill to the next village. The stench makes our eyes water.

After an evening of hearing only Hindi and Tamil, our ears are quick to catch the dread sound of English chatter behind us. They have to be teachers, adults — no one else around here speaks unaccented, fluent English. Without discussion or hesitation, Audrey, Louise and I duck, twist, and jump into the drainage ditch, crouching as deep down as possible.  

We hide motionless in the muck until the chattering voices fade into the rustling eucalyptus trees, then run like hell up the ghat (flight of steps) — home free. The dorm mother does not notice our return because she’s blessedly absent. It’s not Saturday so no showers allowed — so we’re going to die. It’s that simple.

We’re not fools. We were born in India, raised in India, lived in India our whole lives. We know that plunging into a ditch is a recipe for death — so let’s go out with a last hip, hip hurrah. Bring on the illegal pillow fight!

Audrey smacks me in the face, hard. White feathers swirl skyward. I swing for Louise and connect with a thumping whack. Under a snowstorm of laughter, Louise throws her pillow so hard it flies out of her hand.

Like little knights of yore, we joust and joust — until, until… our pillows tear at the seams, leak thousands of feathers, and shrink small in our hands. “Stop, stop!” someone shouts. “We need these pillows. If we keep fighting, we won’t have pillows left to cry into as we lie dying!”