Fishy Chronicles 75: Lockdown Diaries: The Webs We Weave (7) – Mobby Dick

I tossed about in bed, thinking of my cousin Mobby and our servant Sonimol chechi coochie cooing (FC74).

My cousin and I had a level of closeness earlier – I admired him as one did an older male cousin. But the shenanigans of the past few weeks (FC69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74) had me hating the entire Mathan family and the sentiment was reciprocated stoutly.

In the morning, I set out to watch my cousin – Mobby the Dick. I hung around the kitchen, which led to many inquiring looks. I did errands for my mother and chatted with Sonimol chechi, who, I felt, looked on edge. But I was a kid – what did I know. I followed her outside, and her eyes went to the shed, from where we could hear barks of laughter and inaudible chatter.

Most days I sat under the guava tree at the side of the house to avoid Ammachi (grandmother). She had started giving me more housework. I raised the matter with my mother but she had no solution. “Just do what Ammachi asks. It won’t kill you to do some more chores,” Amma said.

“Okay.”

My mother’s eyebrows rose, but she handed me a knife and showed me how to peel a potato the way Ammachi wanted – scraping the wet skin off. Ammachi had given cousin Shyla an earful for peeling off thick strips of tuber. Shyla was now on dish-washing duty and hated it. If the dish was even a bit dirty or had soap suds on it, she was made to wash it again.

“She’s Margaret Thatcher without the charm or dress sense,” Shyla said. She was sitting, with other cousins, on a step leading out of the kitchen. Sunlight flashed off the blue stone on her finger (FC73). I hurled wheat grain at the chicken – they scurried away and then returned for more of the same punishment. Now, I threw a grain at a time to listen to my cousins.

“M-itler… without the polished propaganda or moustache.” My cousins giggled at Shyla’s assessment.

“Shhh,” Nina said when my grandmother came out of the kitchen to scold Sonimol chechi, who had been slow in getting firewood from the shed. Mobby was near her.

“She does look like Hitler. Her moustache is quite becoming,” Shyla continued.

I was surprised at the jokes. My grandmother had been generous to the older girls, gifting them sapphire earrings and rings. The younger girls had got rings.

I lost interest in Shyla. Mobby had been talking to Sonimol chechi while she walked slowly to the shed, picked a piece of wood and walked back to deposit it in her large basket near a wall of the house. At the rate she was moving, a season would have passed. No wonder Ammachi had come out in search of her.

I was mesmerised by the idea of love unfolding. It was illicit, forbidden, and my junglee idiot cousin was involved. Someone else’s love story had commandeered all my attention.

I moved towards the lovers. When I was near Mobby, with Fatty (Ammachi) yapping at my heels, I threw handfuls of grain at him. The hens dashed towards him and he screamed, trying to find escape. I had just remembered he was frightened of farm animals and hated the way they looked at him – a childhood fear he hadn’t outgrown.

Sonimol chechi stood in front of Mobby with her arms spread wide, but the hens rushed around her towards the grain falling off my cousin. I showered him with more until I felt the sting of Ammachi’s stick.

Even though I had seen Ammachi, I was too slow avoiding her. Blows rained on my arms, back and legs, until I pulled the stick out of Ammachi’s grasp, broke it and threw the two bits into Sonimol’s basket. I grabbed my grain tin, intent on throwing the contents at Mobby, but stopped. If I deliberately annoyed Fatty I would be sent back to Bombay on the next train. She was sated now that she had given me a thrashing.

I had to chill. There was more to come.

I walked away and sat near the guava tree, calling out to Romeo. He was a young rooster with dark green and red brown feathers. I adored him and fed him kitchen titbits every day. He hurried to me and ate out of my hand. Then he let me hold him and listened to me grumble about Mobby Dick and Ammachi.

******

Over the next few days I felt cheered – my father couldn’t get tickets back to Bombay. There was some peace in the house and my cousins had started involving me in their chatter.

Some even commiserated with me about my grandparents not giving me a ring (FC73). But it rang false. I felt they were happy I hadn’t got a ring. I couldn’t understand why, but it was an emotion I had witnessed many times during my vacation.

One day I was in the fields and Babychyan, who had worked for Appachan (grandfather) for decades, asked me where my sling was.

“Ammachi destroyed it because she said I was becoming a boy.”

“Oho. Like that, is it.”

“Yes.”

“So, no more mangoes.”

“I have been able to pull some out of the trees with the long stick, but…”

Just then Mathan Uncle passed by, gave us a haughty look and disappeared between some banana trees. Babychyan walked to the rubber trees and gestured to me to follow.

The old man walked into the rubber thottam (estate) and used a long stick to probe the ground. He bent and picked up, and threw away, twigs and leaves. Eventually he found a couple of sturdy branches, pulled out his sickle-like knife and started hacking at them.

He cut away until they resembled white sticks. He scraped his blade across the twigs until they became smooth. He wound coconut leaves around the base of the twigs, and firmed them with strips of dried rubber milk he peeled off the trees. I was aghast at what he was doing and turned to look around. All the elders were busy.

“Won’t Appachan be angry with you for taking the rubber milk off the trees like that?”

“He won’t mind,” Babychyan smiled, a black hole appearing where his front teeth should have been.

He rolled and rolled the rubber strips around the contraption and I felt lightheaded with happiness – Babychyan was fashioning a slingshot.

He handed it to me and we turned to go. I hesitated as we left the thottam. I hadn’t brought my bag with me and Babychyan was half naked, with only a mundu on. So I darted behind a tree, tucked my blouse into the waist of my pavada (long skirt) and dropped the sling into the back of my blouse, where it lay uncomfortably half way down my back.

I chafed at how long the men took, yakking about the weather, crop price, manure and blah blah.

“Appa, I need to go to the toilet. Badly.”

“Oh. Go behind a bush. I’ll stand guard,” he grinned.

“Appa!”

“Okay, come on. Let’s go home. Too hot anyway.” He put his hand to the small of my back and stopped.

“Please, Appa, not here. Babychyan gave me a gift, but I can’t show anyone.”

“Ok-ay.”

Appa waved at the others and I walked in front of him till we reached the road. His hand caught my arm, “Well?”

“Babychyan asked me about my old sling and then made me one.”

“Why do you need to hide it?”

“Ammachi may burn it again. And,” I turned my head in the direction of the clearing, “Appachan may get angry.”

“Don’t you think it caused you too much trouble last time?”

I opened my mouth to contradict him and realised Appa didn’t know what Bobby had done to Rita (FC72) and that I had sprayed a hailstorm of stones on Bobby to free her from his clutches. I was the reason Bobby had to go to hospital and I was still sticking to the story that I had nothing to do with his injuries.

“Is there any truth to what Sarayu chechi said?”

“Eh?”

“That you shot stones at Bobby?” I stayed silent, trying not to look away from Appa’s steady gaze. “Amma and I think you did. Why?” He stopped at a chayakada (tea stall), ordered two teas and gave me money to buy meat puffs from the bakery nearby. We sat on plastic stools near the chai shop and bit into our puffs.

“Isn’t it better to tell the truth and get on with life?” Appa persisted.

“When I told the truth about the business in the loft (FC70), no one believed me.”

“True. But Amma and I believed you.”

“But the rest of them didn’t, and look how bad things are now.”

“So you are going to run scared all the time.”

“No… but-but…”

“Did you hit Bobby with the slingshot?”

The joy of biting into a sinful meat puff died instantly. Appa knew. I would be a bigger liar if I didn’t tell the truth now. I nodded. I took a bite. “Ya-th,” I said, spraying pastry crumbs into our teas. We watched them float and sink, while we finished our puffs silently.

I wiped my hands on a piece of newspaper that Bakery Uncle gave me. “Aren’t you going to shout at me, Appa?”

“No. I’m not happy at how much you hurt Bobby. I don’t understand why.”

I got up, but Appa stayed seated. I waited for him to stand, but he ordered another chai.

I sighed and went to him. “You won’t believe me.”

“Try me.”

“What if you don’t.”

“If it is the truth, you have nothing to fear. Be brave and say it.”

I wanted to unburden myself desperately. “You can’t tell anyone.”

“Not even Amma?”

“She’ll get very upset.”

He sat straighter in his chair. “Okay. Tell me.”

I pulled my chair closer to his and described the events that had led me to send Bobby to hospital. My father was very upset. “Rita hasn’t told her parents?”

“She says she hasn’t.”

“Yet the slingshot disappeared from where you left it.”

“Y-yes.”

“And reappeared in Chechi’s room.”

“Y-yes.”

“Tell me the truth. I won’t punish you. I want the truth.”

“It is the truth! I am not lying. That is what Bobby did to Rita – I saw the whole thing. I don’t know who moved the slingshot from under the bed. I don’t know if anyone else knows.”

Appa caught my arm and pulled me onto his lap. I was too close to tears to feel embarrassed. He nodded several times and I felt comforted by his tight embrace.

At the gate of the house, Appa said, “Let’s not tell Amma… for the time being.”

******

After my heart to heart with Appa, I started feeling better.

I had started sitting next to Pilipochyan when I couldn’t while away my time outside the house. I felt safe near him. One day we were alone in the sitting room and a commotion sounded outside the house. Ammachi and Sarayumama were having an argument. Neither would stop and neighbours started coming out of their houses to watch. It was midday and Appachan was away in the fields and Mathanchyan was nodding his oily head at his wife’s comments.

The two women screamed, though I was unable to make out what they were saying. My uncles’ wives and Amma stood watching from the side of the house, but were unwilling to intervene. In the end, Sarojmama forced herself between her mother and older sister. She pushed Sarayumama towards the house and put her arm around her mother and dragged her away.

When everyone had dispersed, Pilipochyan and I were still leaning against the window, listening to the sounds of silence – the birds chirping, the breeze, the occasional truck on the road, rustling leaves, sighing trees. I loved this silence.

Pilipochyan’s eyes were on a blue bird sitting on a teak tree in the neighbour’s yard. There was a softness about his face and eyes and he looked at peace. “What do you think mother and daughter could have done differently, mol?” Pilipochyan asked softly, without turning his head.

“Er…” Stay quiet? I had seen my parents do this during arguments. But I was beginning to realise this was not the norm. Because I was left out in the cold, I had started watching all my relatives. I had seen my uncles be rude to their wives and forget the incident soon, but my aunts would be distressed about their public humiliation for the rest of the day. I also noticed how happy Ammachi and her daughters were when this happened.

“Yes, mol?”

“Maybe… Ammachi or Sarayumama… er… could have kept quiet?”

“Yes, mol. If one of them had chosen to, the argument would have died. Now, everyone has had a good laugh, and mother and daughter will be angry with each other for days.”

My thoughts exactly. I had found out that not reacting to my fireball relatives was the best torment for them. I had started walking away from angry situations and become friends with gentle Pilipochyan and sweet Rita. Roma and I were close again, but we avoided talking about the rest of the family.

I still roamed the dark house at night. But now there was an ulterior motive. At past 12.40am, I was hiding behind the curtain in the sitting room.

For a couple of days after his last tryst with Sonimol chechi, Mobby did not leave his room at night.

Just before 1am, his door squeaked. He crept along the corridor, occasionally switching on his torch to see the way ahead.

I felt tension build. I hadn’t clearly thought out what I was going to do, but I wanted to stop his nocturnal meandering for good.

He hesitated at my grandparents’ door and then turned right into the storeroom.

I grabbed the old brass vase, on a tall corner table, and ran to the storeroom. I could hear Sonimol chechi’s door open. I hurled the vase at Appachan’s door and ran to my room. The vase ricocheted off the door and bounced on the floor, shattering the silence. I heard footsteps racing into the corridor and Mobby’s door squeaked shut.

But other doors opened and I could hear Appachan’s raised voice. There was knocking on other doors and several people spoke at the same time. I raised my head from under my sheet – my parents were still fast asleep.

Torchlight shone under our bedroom door and several footsteps sounded in the corridor. Up and down, down and up. After a long time, one by one, three doors closed.

I waited for over an hour for Mobby’s door to open again. I drifted off to sleep, certain I was saving Sonimol chechi from a great tragedy.

But I was wrong.

(Stay tuned)

******

This is a fictional series revolving around the 30-something narrator. She is reliving childhood memories of an unhappy vacation in Kerala, India, with her father’s family. This is part of The Webs We Weave series (FC69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93). 

She has discovered her cousin is having a clandestine affair with a member of the staff. She tries to put an end to it. She also tells her father the truth about her cousin Bobby.

Fishy Chronicles 74: Lockdown Diaries: The Webs We Weave (6) – The Mathans

I don’t know if my lot got worse, but I detected lessening antagonism from my female cousins.

While walking around the courtyard, Nina, my eldest uncle’s daughter, ticked off Mobby, Bobby and some of the older boys for bullying me. They dispersed quickly because the events of the last few days had everyone on tenterhooks (FC69, FC70, FC71, FC72, FC73).

Rita still followed me around, and we played hide and seek or board games in the courtyard. I missed my slingshot and was convinced it had been my most useful toy. Certainly it was a great self-defense tool (FC72). But, I spent most of my time with Appa.

As they did every day, the fields looked lush and full of possibility. The rain had cooled the air and it was pleasant. In the distance Appachan talked to the bare-chested workers, thin white towels tied around their heads, all of them listening respectfully. In another corner of the field, Mathan Uncle was staring up at a banana tree and jabbing the air with a pen.

“What is Mathanchyan doing, Appa?”

“Counting the bananas.”

“But they’re not ripe!”

“It doesn’t matter,” Appa said, a laugh in his voice, “He’s going to take them.”

Though I felt repulsed, we watched Mathan Uncle move from one tree to the other.

The Mathan family’s return to Madras would be tortured. His children dreaded the journey because they had to carry or drag sacks of coconut, bananas, rice and more, not forgetting the many fights with other passengers because the family’s luggage would take over the entire bogey’s space.

The rest of us loathed their departure too.

At first the Mathans waited till the other families left, and decamped with the leftovers and what they had collected over the vacation. One year, Sarayu Aunty and Mathan Uncle were so occupied bagging their loot they missed their train. In the next few years, they understood the merits of leaving early. They got first dibs on all the fresh produce and the extended family’s considerable muscle ensured the Mathan belongings were tucked under every available train seat in a matter of minutes. In the days leading up to the journey, Uncle would discuss luggage-stowing strategy. 

Every year we hired several cars and each adult and child was responsible for one or more bags. At the train station there would be a mad scramble to find the train compartment.

Yesterday Joy Uncle, Rita’s dad, said, “Mathakutty, Ammachi said you’re going by train this year.” The previous year Joy Uncle felt sorry for his sister and booked airplane tickets for her family.

“Yes.” Mathan Uncle squeezed oil from his etheka appam with a grimace. Strangely, the oil had never bothered him before. He looked up when the silence stretched, and smiled.

“Well?”

“Oh, it was too expensive. Besides, there was less space to store the luggage. We came here by First Class though.” His eyes darted to Sarayu Aunty, whose lips were pressed together and eyes narrowed at Joy Uncle. She was her husband’s most ardent supporter. I watched them with interest.

A few days before this exchange, I had followed the men into the fields, sticking close to Joy Uncle who held up a big black umbrella to blunt the intense sunlight and heat. We could see Mathan Uncle in the distance, walking between the tapioca bushes. He was wearing the kind of straw hat ladies wear on holidays. He also had a notepad and pen.

“Do you think he knows where the kappa (tapioca) is?” Georgie Uncle, my father’s eldest brother, chuckled. Mathan was a second-generation city Malayali and his only interest in the farm was what he could take back for free.

“Achchan (father) said there was a rat problem,” Joy Uncle said. “He said the rats would get most of the kappa. Mathakutty is counting his chickens before they’ve hatched.”

“No kappa even with the traps?” Appa said.

“Achchan asked Mathakutty to drown the rats caught in the traps and he disappeared to the toilet and didn’t come out,” Georgie Uncle said. The brothers laughed. “What’s this about them going by train again?”

“Last year they weren’t allowed to get on to the flight with all their luggage – baggage limit was only 20kgs. Apparently they didn’t know. Mathakutty didn’t want to pay for the extra kilos and Achchan had to bring back most of it. They had to run to catch their flight because they had spent too much time emptying their boxes and trying to figure out what to keep. Achchan was very angry when he returned,” Appa said. The brothers nodded. I imagined my grandfather holding in his anger over the three-hour journey to his home and needing the tiniest spark – Ammachi – to combust. We had watched Appachan explode.

“Mathan had to pay a fortune anyway. He could have saved himself the heartburn and expense at T. Nagar market,” Joy Uncle said.

Appachan was leaning on his stick and watching Mathan Uncle with a resigned, grumpy look on his face. Among the sons in law, he favoured Saroj Aunty’s husband Pilipochyan. He was genteel and usually seen reading a newspaper in a cool corner of the house. The only things the Phillip family took back with them were homemade snacks, chutneys and sambar podi.

We hung around the fields and I hid behind nearby trees to avoid my grandfather’s cold looks. It stung that he could be so angry with me. Appa looked at me and his father, torn.

The only person who struck up a conversation with me was Pilipochyan. He didn’t feel afraid to talk to me even in front of Appachan, which filled me with gratitude.

One day Ammachi had an argument with Appachan and twisted my ear when she saw a ball of hair roll across the sitting room. I burst into tears and fled. I refused to come back into the house and do the rest of my chores even when she threatened to beat me. Ammachi came out of the house, picked up a fat twig and ran towards me.

Despite my misery, the sight of fatty trying to hurry across the courtyard made me smile. I watched mesmerized as her body parts jiggled and moved to their own rhythm. My parents had now come out of the house, as did others. I felt rage steal over me for my grandparents’ unreasonable behaviour. How long could you punish someone. I waited till Ammachi was within reach. She raised her twig to hit me and I stepped back and ran around her.

From behind me, Bobby shouted, “Thrash her good, Ammachi!”

Despite her angry screams, I ran round and round my grandmother and the twig scythed the air impotently. Was Ammachi mad? Did she think I’d let her beat me? Behind me people shouted – some voices encouraging Ammachi and others begging her to stop. A shadow loomed over me and a hand gripped my shoulder forcing me to stop running.

I whimpered from the pain of the grip and struggled to free myself. I stopped when I saw my grandfather. His face was twisted and I raised my arms over my head, cowering in fright. Ammachi rushed towards me.

I could hear the twig wave furiously and snap. I lowered my arms and saw Appachan bring the two pieces of the broken twig together and struggle to break them again. Ammachi screamed outrage in my ear. In an instant, my mother was next to me, pulling me away. I stood between my parents, trembling with fear and humiliation. I was too ashamed to look around. I put my arms around my mother and wept.

                                                     ******

I didn’t know it then but I suffered from stress. 

I spent most nights reliving the slights I had experienced during the day. Today was worse. I lay on my side, spent from crying. My parents had fallen into an exhausted slumber. They had talked to me and tried to console me. I overheard them making plans to return to Bombay and felt somewhat heartened, but disappointed that nothing had been resolved. Disappointed that my grandparents and family would continue to believe the worst of me, even though it was untrue. Not being given a ring (FC73) rankled too.

When I couldn’t sleep, I left the room. I had been doing this for days.

Today I was earlier than usual. It was about 1pm. Sometimes I watched TV with the sound muted. I watched the mouths move, while my mind wandered. I closed the curtains to avoid the TV’s light attracting attention. Today I was in no mood for stimulation, so I sat in a dark corner of the sitting room and looked out of the window.

I watched Timmychyan, our neighbour down the road, walk unsteadily to his house. He had been drinking all evening and his wife would, in all probability, lock him out of his house. Sometimes neighbours saw him sprawled on the steps leading to his front door. Most days one of his children would open the door and bring him indoors. The stray that had adopted him followed him, wagging its tail. Timmychyan leaned against the streetlight’s wooden post and dug in his pockets. He found a packet of biscuits and struggled to open it. Frustrated, he threw it on the ground unopened and slid to the ground. He watched the dog sniff and bite the small packet of biscuits.

My heart was in my mouth. Most of the time Timmychyan walked in the middle of the road. I often prayed for God to make him move to the side of the road. As an adult, on the rare occasion I thought of Timmychyan, I wondered if he had had a death wish.

A noise startled me and I looked for escape, but the footsteps crept along the corridor leading off the bedrooms. I hid behind the curtain next to me.

My cousin Mobby hesitated at our grandparents’ room and disappeared into the store room. Through the curtain I saw the faint light from his torch in the store room’s doorway. Maybe he was thirsty. Or hungry. But he was going into the wrong room.

My tummy growled. After Mobby returned to his parents’ room, I would look for something to eat.

But Mobby didn’t return. I waited and then peeped at the wall clock illuminated by the streetlight. He had been missing more than 20 minutes. What was he doing? Did I miss seeing him return?

I stepped out from behind the curtain and darted to the store room. When I had summoned enough courage, I peeped in. The doors to the dining room and kitchen were still latched. But the small zero-watt light bulb near the servants quarters, off the kitchen, was switched on. I heard muffled laughter.

The door was shut but light shone from the cracks in the wood and Sonimol chechi (older sister) giggled. I was glued to the wall near the storeroom. Sonimol chechi, the live-in servant my grandparents had for about a year, slept in that room. She was in her late teens and from a poor family in a distant village. Sometimes my cousins and I went into her room to have our faces powdered and eyes drawn with kajal. Then she’d comb and tie up our hair the way we wanted. For some hours after, we would feel pretty and play girly games.

I roused myself. What was Mobby doing in there at this time of the night? Didn’t they know they’d get into trouble? I thought of the pretty smiling girl in the half sari and felt pity for her. Mobby, with the same genes as Bobby, could be upto no good.

I pressed my ear to the gap in the old wooden door. Sonimol chechi giggled. All I could hear were low murmurs and kissing noises. Though I wanted to gag, I was titillated.

I stood back. Mobby was having fun with Sonimol chechi. He was still in college and his parents would never let him marry a servant. Had the two in the room already done ‘it’? The longer I listened, the more my disgust grew. Sonimol chechi mumbled and sighed and then the bed creaked.

I pounded the door with my fist, and raced through the store room back to my door. I thanked God I had been walking around the house at night without slippers and was able to make no noise running back. I had just opened my door when I heard Mobby’s slippers slapping across the store room’s floor.

I threw myself on my bed and covered myself from head to toe with my sheet. A few seconds later, Mobby’s door squeaked open and shut.

I waited with my eyes closed, trying to slow my breathing. I listened for noises of people waking from their sleep. My parents continued to snore. Outside I could hear crickets and a bus clattering on the road. I wiped sweat off my face and neck and turned on my side.

A strange thought crossed my mind.

I wanted to stay longer.

(Please stay tuned.)

                                                    ******

This is a fictional series revolving around the 30-something narrator. She is reliving childhood memories of an unhappy vacation in Kerala, India, with her father’s family. An altercation with her grandmother leads to a sleepless night. The narrator finds someone creeping about in the dark.

This is part of The Webs We Weave series (FC69, 70, 71, 72, 73, 74, 75, 76, 77, 78, 79, 80, 81, 82, 83, 84, 85, 86, 87, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93).