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.

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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.)

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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).