Fishy Chronicles 73: Lockdown Diaries: The Webs We Weave (5) – Showdown

I hadn’t expected things to unravel fast.

I had thought my cousin Bobby would have wanted to keep quiet about what he had done to Rita (see FC72). But not so, it seemed. Bastard Bobby had now become Brazen Bobby.

The family had taken the idiot to hospital, but sadly his injuries had warranted a quick discharge and he was back home by evening.

At the entrance of our home, he leaned his head on his mummy’s shoulder and whimpered. Mobby, Bobby’s older brother, was holding him upright. Even though his legs hadn’t been injured, he was feigning difficulty in walking.

Bobby’s left eye was shut and swollen, his head bandaged and he had to turn his head 180 degrees for his good eye to look for me in the crowd that had formed in the sitting room. He pointed at me.

“Your daughter hit my son with her slingshot!” Sarayu Aunty screamed into Appa’s face.

“My daughter isn’t violent,” Appa murmured, his gaze fixed on Bobby, who looked scared now.

“SHE BEAT UP MY SON AND HE NEARLY DIED!”

“Don’t be silly, chechi. My daughter is half your son’s size. There’s barely a scratch on the brute… er… Bobby.” There was a gasp and people stared at Appa. At this point, I felt scared.

Sarayu Aunty screeched several unladylike words, forcing her father to tut-tut in shock. And her husband Mathan chee-cheed first and then did an about-turn and smiled and nodded in agreement.

It reminded me of the time I overheard my mother say that Sarayu Aunty and Mathan Uncle’s union was made in heaven. It did not sound like a compliment and I lingered near her to catch the rest of the story. Mathan Uncle had spent much of that summer vacation, indeed every vacation, surveying all of Appachan’s farm and identifying what he wanted to take back. Sarayu later told her mother what she wanted packed. The provisions were usually enough to last several months to a year.

My father turned to me. “Mol, did you use a slingshot on your cousin Bobby?”

“N…o.”

There was another gasp, this time of disbelief. A commotion broke out. People babbled, fingers pointed at me and angry words hurtled in my direction. There was not a kind eye on me, except Rita’s who was quivering behind her mother.

“Quiet!” Appachan (grandfather) shouted.

“I see her with the slingshot every day…” gurgled Mathan Uncle, the rolls of fat at his throat jiggling in tandem with his agitation “… shooting mangoes off the trees.” I knew Mathan Uncle watched me, no doubt worried there would be no mangoes for him when his family returned to their home after the holidays. Satan’s spawn, now defiantly facing him, would in all likelihood have eaten all the ripe, unripe and budding mangoes.

I saw others nod in agreement, though the girls stayed silent. It must have been the result of sharing my mangoes with Rita, and indirectly them, this morning.  

“Go and get your slingshot! You can’t be allowed to play or behave like a boy!” Ammachi (grandmother) shouted. My eyes were glued to her hairy double chins quivering dangerously. Her jaw looked like an ultra-shaky caramel custard.

“Go on,” Appa nudged me.

“I don’t have it.”

“What?”

“Someone’s flicked it.”

“Liar! You filthy, lying child!” Sarayu Aunty raged, taking several steps towards me.

My mother was instantly behind me, her hands tight on my arms. But Appa pre-empted Amma. “Don’t call my child names.”

It was clear people wanted to say more, but they were unwilling to cross swords with Appa.

“Get your slingshot, child!” Appachan roared.

“B-but I don’t have it. S-someone’s taken it.”

He got up from the old teakwood armchair and walked towards our room. All of us followed. He ordered my father’s brother Joy, younger sister Saroj and her husband Pillipochyan to check our room. They rummaged through our things and cupboards. 

I felt numb watching the shabby exercise unfold. I looked up. Appa's lips were in a thin line. The three searchers were egged on by the onlookers, but there was no sign of the slingshot.

“Look through the whole house,” Appachan shouted, and more people were pressed into service. Other relatives went through Saroj Aunty’s, Joy Uncle’s and the children’s rooms, the dining room, the study and storerooms.

I braved the angry looks. I felt I looked guilty, even to my parents.

“Where is it, mol?” Appa asked, the room seething with tension.

I shook my head, wondering how to make them believe me. Then I heard the low, nervous, boy-man voice. Rajiv, Rita’s brother and Appachan’s favourite grandson, said, “We haven’t checked Sarayumama’s room.”

“She’s the culprit! She’s hidden the slingshot somewhere. BAD GIRL, BAD, BAD GIRL!” Sarayu Aunty screeched.

“Afraid, chechi?” I couldn’t believe my mother said it. It was like we were all forced into a room, once a close-knit family but now everyone a stranger to the other and all of us teetering on the edge of an unimaginable and gaping precipice.

Appachan and Ammachi gave my mother filthy looks, but Appachan said, “Go check Sarayu’s room.”

A churlish scream rent the air, but the mass of bodies moved quickly to Sarayu Aunty’s room and began to search. And there, at the back of the bottom drawer of the dressing table and wrapped in a Malayalam Manorama newspaper was the slingshot.

Rajiv gestured to Roma to come closer and pointed at the potted plant on a corner table. My grandfather moved to look at the plant, a mix of disbelief and fury spreading across his face. We all pushed around him to see. There were smooth, medium-sized white stones placed in a ring around the plant.

My grandfather began to shout at everyone. Most of his ire was aimed at Bobby and his parents, but everyone got a lambasting.

I sneaked out, but was grabbed by my collar and given a good shaking. A few seconds later, my father dislodged my grandfather’s hand from the back of my neck and they stood facing each other for an eternity – with only their faces betraying corrosive emotion.

I squeezed myself between them, my eyes closed – muttering a prayer I didn’t believe. I didn’t think God would forgive me for what I had done. Pitting father against son, being violent with a cousin, inflicting injury on a pervert, being hard headed, stubborn, etc, etc, etc – all vices that had no place in a good Suriani girl. I was bad and would go to hell.

I felt cool air. Appachan was walking away, banging his stick on the ground. Sarayu Aunty screamed at everyone to get out and people moved out and into their own rooms.

                                                        ******

My parents were angry with me for several days and I lurked around the house, avoiding everyone. I stayed away from the mangoes for a couple of days, but soon I hankered for them and tried pulling them off with the long stick with the loop at its top end.

Ammachi had thrown my slingshot into the flames of the stone stove in the kitchen and the burning rubber spread acrid smoke through the house, forcing us to open all the doors and windows. It had led to a fresh argument between my grandparents.

My cousins stopped taunting me, but still wouldn’t let me back into their fold. I knew they suspected me of attacking Bobby, but couldn’t figure out what had happened. Only Rita kept me company when everyone else was having their afternoon nap. 

One day I noticed a glint on her finger and held her hand closer to my face for a better look at the ring. “Where did you get it?”

She looked embarrassed. “A-Appachan and A-Ammachi gave it to me.”

“When?”

“A few days ago.”

“Oh.”

“Didn’t they give you one?” Rita asked. I looked at the ring again – a thin gold band, with a blue stone in the centre. “Ammachi made it from the big stone in her pendant.”

“Did Roma get one too?” I asked.

“Er… y-yes.”

I felt a weight press my chest. “Only you two got rings? Not the other girls?”

Rita squirmed. Her face turned red and she looked at the ground. She tried to pull her hand out of mine, but my hold was fierce. I let it go when my vision blurred.

“Go home, Rita. Your mom will be looking for you. I’m not fit to be around you,” I pushed her towards the house. I turned to the mango tree and my tears fell freely. I picked up the long stick and hit the leaves several times and managed to dislodge a mango. I stayed looking up at the tall mango tree until I heard Rita go.

                                                        ******

My parents looked my way many times during dinner, but I was sitting with my cousins at the end of the dining table. The men and children were eating first.

I ate with disinterest. All my female cousins sported new rings. The styles were the same, plain solid gold bands set with one, two or three sapphires. My grandmother’s pendant had been huge. I could see bulky sapphire earrings, set in gold, in Sarayu Aunty and Saroj Aunty’s ears.

I watched my cousins and then looked at my grandfather. I felt hurt at being left out. I looked away and, despite my best intentions, tears fell into my plate.

I felt a little hand squeeze mine and a whisper against my neck. “Stop crying, chechi. You can have my ring… please stop crying. Everyone is looking at you.”

After I had composed myself as best I could I looked up for a fraction of a second. Indeed, there were people looking at me. My father’s sisters had knowing, happy looks. My parents seemed upset, their eyes boring into my face, and I didn’t want to look at the rest of my family.

I tried to eat but the food had become difficult to swallow.

Something made me look up and I saw Bobby wink at me with his good eye and wiggle his left hand’s ring finger and wink again.

I wanted to throw my steel glass at his head. Instead my eyes crawled over his swollen maroon eye, the fat bandage around his head, the scratches on his face, the bruises on his arms and I wondered if his groin still hurt from the biggest stone in my jhola that I had shot at pointblank range. And then I wondered how the slingshot I had tossed under my bed had found its way into Bobby’s mother’s dressing table. Someone had saved me from an inevitable, and irreparable, fall from grace. Someone here was on my side. But who?

I smiled sweetly at Bobby, balled my left fist over my plate and simulated the stretching back of a sling with a large piece of potato. The potato landed on my plate, splashing curry. The look of shock on Bobby’s face quickly changed to impotent rage. I wiggled my left middle finger at him and then pushed rice and chicken into my mouth. I didn’t look up, but ate my food with gusto and took a second helping of Ammachi’s spicy chicken curry.

When I did care to look, I saw sour looks of disapproval, but surprisingly no expression on Appachan’s face.

                                                        ******

This is a fictional series revolving around the 30-something narrator. She is reminiscing about a holiday with her father’s family in Kerala. This is the continuation of episodes FC69, FC70, FC71 and FC72. 

On her cousin Bobby’s insistence, the narrator’s family believes she has beaten him. There is a showdown and a surprise twist.

 (Find the rest of the episodes here FC69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91)

Fishy Chronicles 72: Lockdown Diaries: The Webs We Weave (4) – Bobby

Being ostracised has benefits.

I became angrier, tougher. My male cousins called me names. The girls gave me haughty looks and locked themselves into a room, playing with dolls, clothes and makeup. The elders tolerated my parents, but looked through me.

I no longer felt close to Appachan (grandfather). We eye-duelled often, each refusing to look away first. One day my father caught me at it and took me for a walk into the fields.

“They are all treating me badly, even though I didn’t do anything wrong!” (see FC69, FC70, FC71) I slapped my hand against a tree trunk, imagining it to be Bobby, and my palm stung. Appa took my hand and rubbed it.

“Every experience is going to teach you something, mol.”

“What is this teaching me?”

“Patience. How to deal with a… a pervert. How to deal with elders who should know better. How to deal with love turning sour.”

“We didn’t seem to handle them well.”

Appa knelt in the wet mud, unconcerned about the dark brown mud staining his starched white mundu  and looked me in the eyes. “Yes. Not to make light of what happened… but it was an experience. Next time you are angry with someone, you know you can handle it better.”

“How can I handle this better?”

“Don’t say what jumps into your head and mouth. Think. Manage the situation.”

“Then, Appa, I’ll be just like every other girl filled with guile. Isn’t that what you keep telling me you hate in a woman… her needing to be manipulative because she doesn’t have the opportunities of a man?” I still hadn’t understood what it meant, but Amma assured me I would understand in time.

Appa opened his mouth and closed it. “No. Not the same. I was referring to a different person in a different situation. You know, I want you to be in a better place… to have choices Amma and your aunties didn’t, don’t, have.”

I was getting bored with this stream of thought and nodded vigorously.

“And Bobby?” I had christened him Bobby Bastard. I called him a bastard several times a day, mostly when he whistled and taunted me in the company of his cousins. Luckily, no one had heard me. Yet.

“Stay away from Bobby. You know what he is. In fact, you know that’s what all men are capable of.”

I wondered why Appa was telling me this. It scared me. “Why are the others siding with him?”

A drizzle began and we moved under a large rubber tree. “Lack of good sense. Your uncles and aunties are taking sides even before they know the truth. The truth can be uncomfortable.”

“Can we go back home to Bombay, Appa?”

“This is home.”

“No!”

“It is. It is my home and Appachan’s and yours. What happened was unfortunate. I tried talking to Appachan, but he’s an old-fashioned man.” 

“It is going to be like this for us… for me… for the rest of this vacation.” My mouth turned downwards. Every night Amma told me to adjust with my cousins. But I could see her get upset when they left me out of their activities. After a while she let me walk about alone in the fields and I played with the slingshot. I got better at knocking mangoes off the trees, and started following Appa into the fields with the workers. I picked kandaris, which were small vicious chillies, wild mushrooms and fallen cashew fruit.

My father had a childhood friend who lived near the fields and every day I drank a small glass of tea and ate hot salty peanuts from a paper cone, listening to Appa and his friend laugh and reminisce. 

Returning to Appachan’s household stressed me, but I counted the days.

                                                ******

I was lying in the shade of the guava tree at the side of the old house. The grass was damp but by the time it was time to go indoors, the back of my clothes would have dried. 

I had eaten some unripe guavas and my mouth felt like a scrap of sandpaper. I opened my eyes, blinded by the light shining through the leaves, and looked for the old mango tree in the adjoining field. I would have to get out of the compound and nearer the tree to get at its mangoes. 

I had tried a combination of shooting down the mangoes with the slingshot and using the long stick with a small noose at its top end to tug the fruit off. I knew the girls watched me often, salivating over the mangoes. So, I always got down just enough for myself.

“Don’t be greedy and selfish. Just because you’re angry with your cousins doesn’t mean you shouldn’t share your booty,” Amma had said, with a smile, when she saw me eating my loot in partial view of my cousins in the room they had kept locked despite my pleas. I knew they could hear my mother scolding me. I nodded, making appropriate grunting noises and keeping my eyes wide and innocent. When my mother disappeared I sat in the shade, my back against a dry patch of mossy wall.

I knew my cousins Roma, Rita, Eva and the others were watching me. After I had gnawed all the pulp off the mango seed, I licked my fingers, hands and arms. Then I washed my hands, face and feet under the tap near their window, not once looking at them.

I smiled at the memory and squinted at the mangoes swaying in the cool breeze, the swishing sound of the moving leaves making me feel lazy and contented. I lay there even though I heard my older male cousins talking. They were hiding behind a nearby shed and smoking.

I felt a hand touch my bare leg and sat up in fright. I must have dozed off and now there was a shadow bending over me – Roma’s sister Rita. “Please may I have a mango?”

I raised myself and wanted to say no, but Rita, about 10 years old, was asking so earnestly. “Sure. Wash it first.”

She looked doubtfully at the four damaged mangoes, resting on leaves on the ground beside me. I had not mastered the art of felling a mango without bruising or splitting it, even though I practised constantly. “They’ve broken open in places, but are all good.”

“May I take one for Roma too?” Rita said in a small voice.

I gritted my teeth, “Take them all.” And I lay back down again. I knew Rita was watching me, but I kept my eyes closed and a little later her footsteps faded and water gushed from the nearby tap.

I sat up with a sudden sense of foreboding. The boys had moved away from the shed several minutes ago and the girls were not at the window. My cousin Shyla had ordered everyone to the dining room to eat the mangoes.

A big red ant bit me and I stood up. I brushed off the large translucent insects from my clothes and skin. Their numbers had suddenly increased and hundreds of them were now marching up and down the guava tree’s peeling trunk. I grabbed my slingshot, wrapped my jhola’s (large open-mouthed bag) strap around my neck and shoulder and straightened.

Revulsion stole over me.

My cousin Bobby was watching Rita from behind the shed. She was washing the mangoes and bent to pick up another from the ground and Bobby lunged. He clamped a hand on her mouth and his other arm was around her stomach. He lifted her. Rita struggled and tried to scream, her legs flailing. Bobby loosened his hold and the mangoes rolled out of Rita’s hands. He turned and moved swiftly towards the shed.

Suddenly he screamed in pain and dropped Rita. “Run, Rita, run!” I shouted, shooting another stone at Bobby. I had a pile of stones in my bag. I preferred smooth, medium-sized ones and these were now pounding Bobby everywhere, each stone finding its mark.

“You bitch!” he bellowed. He was bleeding from his temple, the blood dripping down his face and staining his shirt. I panicked and then remembered Appa’s advice a few days ago. “Stay calm. Plan and attack.” I slowed my breath and the fuzz in my mind cleared. Bobby rushed towards me even though he could see me drawing back the sling. I let it go at pointblank range and Bobby doubled over, screeching. He fell to the ground and rolled in the dirt.

I heard running feet behind me. “Run, chechi (older sister), run,” Rita screamed, looking pale but peering from the front of the house.

I watched Bobby writhe. I wanted to remember this moment for eternity.

Then I turned and ran. I grabbed Rita’s hand and we sprinted into the house through the open front door. There was a ruckus and people were rushing out of their rooms and out of the house through the kitchen.

I pulled Rita close to me, “Not a word to anyone.” She nodded, her face wet with tears. I wiped her face with the end of my skirt and we followed the others out of the house.

“I don’t want to see him,” Rita hiccoughed, dragging her feet.

“He can’t do a thing to you now. And if we hide, the rest will know we had something to do with it. So act as though you know nothing. Else, we'll get a thrashing.” A crowd was forming over my cousin who was still prone on the ground. Sarayu Aunty was bent over him, his bleeding head on her lap.

“But I did nothing wrong!” Rita whimpered.

“I know, Rita, but neither did I and look where it got me.” Our eyes held and there was sudden understanding in Rita’s. 

Then we merged into the group. Rita and I held hands tightly. I felt terrified. Rita now had a look of concern on her face, and I forced myself to look the same way. Bobby stilled when he saw us. We continued to look at him with fake concern.

“What happened, Achacha (older brother)?” I heard myself say. Rita looked at me in surprise and then turned her face back to him. “How did you get hurt?”

I saw fury on Bobby’s face, and then his eyes darted around the crowd. They lingered on Appa and Joy Uncle – Rita’s father. When I glanced at Appa, he was looking from Bobby and Rita to me, and our entwined hands, with narrowed eyes – disbelief creeping over his face. From the corner of my eyes I could see Amma look at Appa and then at me. She turned away quickly and focused on Bobby.

The family members grouped around Bobby shoved us aside and the boys lifted the idiot and carried him into the house like a sack of rice. I heard an uncle tell someone to call the doctor. Neighbours yelled from across the dirt road, asking about the commotion. A couple of aunts moved to the low boundary wall to explain.

“What do we do now?” Rita whispered.

“Nothing.”

“But…”

I shrugged. “You can tell your parents what happened.” I saw the doubt in Rita’s eyes. “Either you tell your parents, or keep quiet.”

“What if they don’t believe me?”

I shrugged.

“What if Bobbychyan says we hit him?” Rita said.

I felt a sudden warmth when Rita said “we”. “There’s two of us to tell everyone what happened. But I have a gut feeling he may not want anyone to know.”

Rita buried her head into my shoulder and cried. I dragged her behind a tree and waited. I had not the slightest idea what to say.

“Thank you, chechi.”

I was thrown. I put my arms around Rita and patted her back. We stood like that until we heard people moving in the kitchen. Rita washed her face at the tap and we went in.

(Continued in the next episode.)

                                                ******

This is a fictional series revolving around the 30-something narrator. She is reminiscing about a family holiday with her father’s family in Kerala. This is the continuation of episodes FC69, FC70 and FC71. The narrator has crossed swords with members of her extended family and is facing isolation. But something disturbing happens and she addresses the problem head on.

Find all the episodes here 

FC69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91