452 Matching Annotations
  1. May 2023
    1. boiling insidelike the oil in her frying pan.

      similie

    2. “Don’t use too much,” she said. “Or he’ll be shouting at us.”I liked that she said us, though she didn’t even know my nameyet.

      she is going to be long good friends of Viji and Rukku

    3. .

      they found a job and a kind woman

    4. There was a bit of coconuthusk that I could use to scrape the dishes clean, and a tin ofpowdered soap.

      this is the aunty at the start of the book.

    5. The smell of roasting chillis tickled my nose

      the smell of crabs makes me feel that way

    6. Viji found job by messing up.

    7. Ai-ai-yo!

      onomatopeia

    8. rickety

      likely to collapse

    9. .

      mean bus driver left and they voyaged far

    10. fording

      crossing

    11. flood of vehicles and pedestrians.

      metaphor

    12. vise

      it is a tool that presses things. This case it was pressing her shoulder

    13. .

      bus driver attack

    14. ?

      they worried about leaving

    15. k

      They entered the bus to leave

    16. doubts slithered into my mind.

      pesonification

    17. The conductor looked at me and then at you, and stuck a handin his pocket and pulled out a hard green sweet that had melted outof shape.

      i have been to ubers that have this function

    18. I leaped out.You jumped in.

      why did rukku jump in only now

    19. they are leaving home

    20. “Come, Rukku.”“No.” You dug in your heels.“Rukku, come!” I stepped into the bus.“No, no, no,” you sang out. “No.”

      They will be separated and the letter in the beigining is her trying to find rukku

    21. buses to and from the city roared through ourvillage.

      personification

    22. .

      they prepared to leave the house

    23. likesunshine slipping into a dark room

      similie

    24. bewildered

      confused

    25. It made no senseto me why any God who made us suffer in this life would startcaring for us in the next.

      That is a very good question in hinduism religion

    26. .

      Viji daydreams and wonders about gods helping them

    27. But I should have known she’d never tell.

      On Breaking Bad the mother would never tell, despite desperately wanting to tell her husband's secret

    28. All she’d done was beg. I would never becomelike her, I promised myself. I’d never beg anyone for anything.

      this promise will make her identity for the rest of the book

    29. I can’t bear seeing you hurt, but how can I stop him?” Shegazed at the pictures of the Gods and Goddesses smiling downserenely from our kitchen wall. As if they’d suddenly leap into lifeand start helping.

      personification

    30. taut

      stretched

    31. father hurt everyone

    32. earthen

      to become compressed with dirt

    33. .

      Abusive father bought presents

    34. When he tossed a package in my direction, I didn’t even try tocatch it.

      Viji and Rukku, one who trusts and the other who hates

    35. he set packages wrapped in newspaper onthe cracked kitchen counter. “Presents for my girls.”

      My father also gave me a wrapped present once

    36. .

      father is abusive kids are scared

    37. She didn’t finish her sentence. She didn’t need to. She’d told mea million times how scared she was that if you set foot in a hospital,the doctors might lock you away in “a mental institution.”

      On a book i read a person died because they were too scared to go to the doctor for the same reason.

    38. Talking to you was always easy, Rukku. But writing’s hard.

      the sisters are separated

    39. Appa broke Amma’s arm that night, before storming out of thehouse.

      The father is very abusive

    40. We’d just finished our dinner when we heard Appa’s heavyfootsteps. The sound of him staggering up the stairs to ourapartment told us all we needed to know.

      This situation is similar, when my father arrives his footsteps are heavy so i know he arrived.

  2. Apr 2023
    1. .

      They are really poor and mom is unwell

    2. payasam

      I have eaten something like this.

    3. sniggered

      laugh with hate

    4. our

      their father appears to be bad and abusive.

    5. Imagining Appa “before” took a lot of imagining. I was a goodimaginer, but even so, I couldn’t imagine him all the way nice.

      repetition: using derivatives of imagine a lot.

    6. haltingly

      stuttering and being unconfident of what you are saying

    7. Not that you’d care whether it was true or not. For you, thingswere real that the rest of us couldn’t see or hear.When I finished the story, you’d say, “Viji and Rukku together?”“Always.” I was confident.Our togetherness was one of the few things I had faith in.

      what separated them?

    8. Not that you’d care whether it was true or not. For you, thingswere real that the rest of us couldn’t see or hear.When I finished the story, you’d say, “Viji and Rukku together?”“Always.” I was confident.Our togetherness was one of the few things I had faith in.

      she is a good storyteller to her sister

    9. Talking to you was always easy, Rukku. But writing’s hard.“Write her a letter,” Celina Aunty said, laying a sheet of paperon the desk. Paper remade from wilted, dirty, hopeless litter thathad been rescued, scrubbed clean, and reshaped. Even the pencilshe gave me was made from scraps.“You really like saving things, don’t you?” I said.Crinkly lines softened her stern face. “I don’t like giving up,” shesaid.She rested her dark hand, warm and heavy, on my shoulder.“Why should I write?” I said. “It’s not like you have heraddress.”“I believe your words will reach her,” Celina Aunty said.“We’re opposites,” I said. “You believe in everything andeverybody. You’re full of faith.”“Yes,” she said. “But you’re full, too. You’re full of feelings youwon’t share and thoughts you won’t voice.”She’s right about that. I don’t talk to anyone here any more thanI have to. The only person I want to talk to is you, Rukku.Maybe writing to you is the next best thing.If you could read my words, what would you want me to tellyou?I suppose you’d like to hear the fairy tale you’d make me tellevery night we huddled together on the ruined bridge. The story thatbegan with Once upon a time, two sisters ruled a magical land, andended with Viji and Rukku, always together.That story was made up, of course.

      she has a sister that she misses.

    10. Not that you’d care whether it was true or not. For you, thingswere real that the rest of us couldn’t see or hear.When I finished the story, you’d say, “Viji and Rukku together?”“Always.” I was confident.Our togetherness was one of the few things I had faith in.

      They will get back together.

    11. wilted

      wilted:become limp with heat or water, lost energy.

    12. Talking to you was always easy, Rukku. But writing’s hard.“Write her a letter

      The person wants to write a letter, but its hard and Celina tells her to write a letter.