Fishy Chronicles 77: The Webs We Weave (9) – Breaking point (cont'd)

Photo credit: A. Peter

We sat in the shade of a large tree in my great uncle’s courtyard, the heat and sweat adding to our stress. The older girls discussed what had happened, explored explanations and excuses, raged at Bobby the Brute and then slipped into silence.

Strangely, I wasn’t too bothered. This was an average day for me, though I was pleased my cousins had given Bobby the hiding of his life. Not for a moment had he thought his sisters would have had the courage to set him straight and how! (FC76)

I went to the back of the house and scratched the goat’s head. I wondered why someone would name their goat Petty. One of Appachan’s older brother Kunjappachan’s grandchildren had named the goat, and had been too young to know what it meant. Aju called the goat Petty because it liked to be petted. It didn’t have a petty bone in its body. It was sweet and gentle and ate everything in sight, including money. Unusually, Kunjappachan once gave Sarayumama a cash gift and, after leaving her uncle’s house, stood out of sight of the windows to count his generosity.

The story goes that the resting goat got up, plucked one of the notes from Sarayumama’s hands and gobbled it up. It took her a couple of seconds to register what had happened before she screamed, dropped the rest of the notes, pounced on poor Petty and tried to pry its mouth open – which is like opening the jaws of an inert crocodile. Mathan Uncle was conflicted – help his wife retrieve a masticated note or pick up the money on the ground. He chose the latter because by then her cousins had come out of the house and pulled the goat away from Sarayumama. My aunt wailed so much that Kunjappachan gave her another note to replace the one she had lost.

I decided to go and see what was happening with Sarah chechi. “You stay right here,” Shyla said.

“Why?”

Nina and Shyla, my older cousins, looked at each other blankly and then Nina said, “Because we should all be together when we have to go back and face them,” she tilted her head to indicate my grandfather’s house.

“I’ll be there when you face them. I’ll just come from the other direction.” I began to walk away.

“Don’t let anyone know we’re here,” Shyla said when I reached the road.

“They’re going to know when Kunjappachan returns home,” I didn’t turn because the girls and their complaints jarred my senses.

Except for the occasional vehicle on the main road, there was no noise in the village. The only sounds were of birds talking to each other or sometimes, if you listened for it, the movement of the river’s water.

I slowed as I reached my grandfather’s house, all was silent. The front door was open and there were people in the sitting room. The silence felt suspicious.

I climbed into the field adjoining the house from a spot where the barbed wire sagged, I had seen the workers come in this way, and darted behind the trees and got into the compound through the side entrance. I hugged the walls and crept along until I was near the Mathans’ room, from which a great deal of noise was coming.

“Those girls! Ammachi, you’ve got to deal with them firmly,” Sarayumama said. Her voice shrill and somewhat hoarse. I swatted away the idea of her voice leaving her this vacation. So far I had only seen this happen in the movies. And with my aunt’s luck she and her voice would bounce back brilliantly.

Ammachi murmured soothingly. In the background Bobby groaned. I felt fear creep over me but still crept closer to the open window. Through the worn half curtain stretched across the bottom of the window, I could make out my cousin lying on his parents’ bed and people sitting or standing around him, the stance of their bodies serious.

I crept towards the front of the house, but lost my nerve, so I turned and ran to the kitchen and slowed. Sonimol chechi, our servant, usually sat on the steps during quiet moments. Today she was not sitting here. With all the girls absconding and Ammachi and her daughters bent over Bobby, Sonimol chechi was probably neck deep in work.

As I moved I wondered if I was being foolish and courting more trouble. If the family caught sight of me, they’d immediately brand me the leader of the pack because I had broken Bobby before and he had it in for me bad. I stopped at the study window. Only the neighbours next door would be able to see me, but my great uncle and his family were sitting in my house now. Through the trees on both properties, I could see my cousins standing and watching me.

I leaned against the cool wall and parked my bum on the narrow ledge that ran right around the house. There were low murmurs coming from the study. I pressed myself into the wall by the window.

“You have to get her married sometime. The family is not very well off, but the boy is smart and has a good job in Mumbai. He’s also bought a flat, that is what Ivachan said. And once she finishes her Masters, she can get a job. Nowadays everyone wants a working girl.”

I tried to peer through the curtains. I couldn’t figure out who my great uncle was talking to. Or about which cousin.

“She’s attracting a lot of attention. Kunjumol says she doesn’t do any housework and disappears when she’s told to do something. How can she just walk away like that!” Appachan said.

I held my breath. There were several people crowded in the room. A chair scraped the floor and one of the doors to the study closed with a click. “Bobby says she ordered the girls to run and locked all the doors.”

“Not exactly,” Appa said. “Bobby said some of the girls beat him and Nina and Sarah locked him in.”

“It’s the same thing!” Appachan shouted. He hated his children countering him and Appa had done more than his fair share of it. “I am sure your daughter had a big role to play in it. She’s becoming a mirror image of Sarah everyday.”

“Bobby didn’t mention her. And Sarah is a smart, sensible girl, brilliant and full of promise. You shouldn’t force her to marry and ruin her chances at life just because she wants different things in life.”

“Keep quiet! Let’s organise a meeting with the boy’s family as soon as possible. Georgie, you speak to your daughter. Make her understand she has to get married soon. Maybe all this nonsense will end. She is almost 24, old by today’s standards. She’s a bad influence on the girls. A marriage will set her right. It will set everything right. You’ll see.”

I waited for Georgiechyan’s rebuttal, but there was silence in the room.

Soon, the men started leaving the room.

                                                    ******

I stayed plastered to the wall, feeling repulsed by what I had heard. I felt a deep disappointment for my cousin Sarah.

Because my relatives perceived her as stubborn and given to new ideas, she was going to suffer for it. I thought of my father’s sister Sarojmama and wondered at the haste of her wedding. After her marriage, she had given up all plans to study further or even sit for the civil services exams, which is why she had wanted to go to Delhi in the first place. Or was it?

I roused myself and darted to the front gate. I heard someone shout, but sped down the road towards the junction. I wondered whether to tell Sarah chechi what I had heard. There was no knowing how she would react. Sometimes I was scared of her.

I slowed near the junction and groaned. My nosey second cousins, who lived opposite Kunjappachan, were stuffing their faces at the bakery and called out to me. I listened to their sarcastic chatter, but smiled and shrugged at their queries. The girl, Eenya, who had just begun college, said, “I saw Sarah chechi and some of the girls walking around the church compound. Is it someone’s birthday or death anniversary today?”

“No, Eenya chechi, they are just there to pray. I’m going to join them.”

I turned to run, but her brother Thomachan grabbed my upper arm to hold me still. “Wait. We heard a lot of shouting in the afternoon. What’s going on at the big house?” On a quiet day one could hear people quarreling in other houses. And if people stood in their courtyards, they could probably make out the gist of the argument. People usually stopped what they were doing to listen.

“There was a rat in the house, we beat it some but it escaped into one of the rooms. We don’t know where. No one wants to be in the house until it’s trapped.” I did consider Bobby a rat, and for sure Appa and Amma would consider my take on today’s happenings (FC76) a travesty of the truth – but then, who was ever going to know the truth.

“Uh-huh.” My cousins looked at me closely, but I held their gaze. Finally they nodded slowly.

I broke into a run, only slowing as I reached the tall gates of the church. The gates to heaven, Sarayumama once told me. There were some older men standing by the church offices, watching Sarah chechi and the girls. They were in the graveyard adjoining the church, walking over the graves in the crammed cemetery and reading out the names on the tombstones.

“Have you also come to check out the graves? Is it a city thing? Aren’t there any graveyards in Madras or Bombay*?” One of the men tossed at me, laughing at his friends. I didn’t know who he was, but for sure he knew my family.

I walked into the dark, cool church, light coming through the open doors and windows. I felt alone and free and at peace. I stood by the huge lamp hanging from the ceiling at the centre of the church and filled with holy oil. I prayed that only the best should happen to Sarah chechi. I dipped three fingers in the holy oil and drew a cross on my forehead.

Rita waved to me. She was holding Sarah chechi’s hand and they were leaning over a grave. I knew it was our grandfather’s grandmother’s grave. Some of her children and grandchildren were in the same grave and I sometimes wondered if they got out when it was quiet and played or talked. We stood on another grave to stare at the stone slab, reading again the names and years of births and deaths. It was a plain white slab that had grown in height over a century and a half. The original cross was cemented into the face of the grave.

“When are we going back, chechi?” I watched Eva, Tanya and Teena sitting together on a bench at the side of the church. Roma was lying on another bench, the only movement a hand fanning a newspaper over her face. She got up when she heard me and started walking over.

“If you’re bored you can go home,” Sarah chechi said. I didn’t care for the sarcasm.

“What about the others?”

“They’ll probably go home when they get the courage… or hungry,” she looked up and grinned.

“Aren’t you scared, chechi?” Rita said.

“Of what, baba?”

“Of what they’ll do to us. We beat Bobby and they will punish us for it.”

“Okay, and then what? Do you think they’ll beat us?”

“Er… n-no.”

“Shout at us?”

“Of course.”

“Isn’t that what they do every day? So they’ll shout louder and try to make you more scared.”

“But aren’t you afraid?” Rita persisted.

Sarah chechi shrugged her shoulders and laughed, all her perfect teeth showing. Her face was pink from the heat and she looked beautiful. “No.”

“So why didn’t you stay back to face them?” I asked, irritated by her nonchalance.

She grinned even more, “Felt scared, for sure, but I wanted some peace of mind too.” She started jumping across the graves again.

Roma and I turned to look at the young men who had just entered the compound. They glanced at us and went into the church. One man lingered near the entrance, looking at us, and then joined his friends.

                                                               ******

He waited until the rest of the girls had gone ahead and joined Sarah chechi who was walking slowly.

“Which of your cousins is that?” I heard the deep voice say. I shivered.

“One of my Bombay cousins. Hey, you, come here, slow coach,” Sarah chechi said and I hurried to her.

“Say hello to Johnny,” I shook hands with him and he laughed. He was dark and tall and quite good looking. “He’s Thomachan’s friend.”

I nodded. Sarah chechi pointedly looked at the group at the end of the road, and tilted her head towards them, telling me to be gone. I started walking reluctantly towards my cousins. I turned to look and Johnny waved. I waved back. I waited at the end of the road and watched the two say goodbye. Johnny walked the other way and disappeared.

                                                             ******

At the house, the girls disappeared around the back of the house to enter it through the kitchen. Sarah chechi scowled at them but walked in through the open front door. I, with Rita and Roma clutching my hands, followed.

The family – with a variety of expressions on their faces – was arranged in the front room. I was surprised at the looks of sympathy from some of the older women and men, but felt fear bubble up at the rage on Sarayumama’s face. Surprisingly, Kunjappachan was still at our house. And he had a warm smile on his face.

And then we saw Bobby, in the middle of the large red rexine sofa, propped up by his father and brother Mobby. He shifted position and let out a low groan.

“Look what you did to my son!” Sarayumama shouted. “You beat him, you junglees, where do you learn these things from!” she tossed a disparaging look at her sisters-in-law, who looked back at her stonily. “Well?” She screamed at Sarah chechi.

There was pin drop silence. She came closer and screeched into our ears, “Nothing to say?” Rita, Roma and I lowered our heads to avoid looking at her. “Aren’t you going to put some sense into your daughters’ heads? Are they going to go about bashing up boys and behaving like they aren’t from good families.”

Kunjappachan made a tutting sound. “Now, now, mol. I’m sure they will get a talking to.”

“Not good enough!”

“It will do for now,” Appachan said coldly.

“B-But…”

Bobby made a snivelling sound. And Sarayumama leaped at us. She grabbed Sarah chechi’s arms and tried to shake her, but Sarah chechi looked our aunt in the eyes calmly and stayed still. Sarayumama, much shorter than her niece, shook vainly instead.

Sarayumama let Sarah chechi go. A cunning look replaced the angry one. “Don’t worry, mol. A marriage will fix your stubborn temper for good. And sooner than you think.”

Sarah chechi’s eyes widened and her mouth opened, but closed immediately.

Sarayumama continued watching her niece gleefully. “What a pity your sister is hiding in the US, else both of you would have been sorted by now. You girls don’t have any manners.”

“Don’t talk about my daughters that way! Things will fall in place when they have to,” Georgiechyan said gruffly. He stepped forward and stood between his oldest daughter and sister, forcing both to move backwards. “Go to your rooms, children. The elders will talk to you about what happened.”

Sarayumama stood with her arms spread wide, blocking our way. “That’s it? That’s all? They brutalise my son and get away scot free?”

“If he had manners and learnt how to respect women, no one would have laid a finger on him,” Nina said from the dining room doorway.

Sarayumama ran to her and managed to beat my cousin a couple of times before Nina was pulled away by my aunts. Nina began to cry and there was sudden uproar.

The children and adults were screaming and shouting at the same time and Kunjappachan and my grandparents looked aghast at what had just happened.

“Quiet!” Appachan shouted. “Stop hitting the girls. We won’t talk about this now. Control yourself, Sarayu!”

“B-but…” the sound died in my aunt’s throat. For once my aunt couldn’t find her voice. There were angry looks from the rest of the room and some of the elders blocked the dining room entrance. From the dining room, we heard Nina crying and we pushed towards her.

This wasn’t the end of the matter. There would be an inquisition. My parents were glaring at me and I could feel my spirit, so far strong, wilt.

                                                             ****** 

Kunjappachan left after evening tea. His jokes and chatter loosened his brother. We girls first hid in the dining room and later moved into various corners of the house, answering the boys questions and then discussing plausible responses to any of Appachan’s questions between ourselves.

“What’s wrong with telling Appachan the truth?” Sarah chechi said sarcastically.

“He won’t believe us,” Shyla said.

“So what? You know he won’t. So why waste your time cooking up alternatives. Tell the truth and get it over with.”

“Did you see how Sarayumama beat me!” Nina raged.

“Why did you let her? You’re an adult, why did you let her touch you. She’s half your size, by the way. You could have pushed her away or pinned down her hands.”

“I-I didn’t think… besides the rest of them would have turned on me!”

“You don’t know that. And Sarayumama has a screw loose anyway.” There was silence and then a chuckle echoed around the room.

“You can’t say that,” Nina said, weakly, smiling.

But Sarah chechi had lost interest. Her father’s head appeared at the doorway. “You girls are wanted in Appachan’s study,” Georgiechyan smiled kindly.

We filed out of his bedroom and were walking towards Appachan’s study when I heard Sarah chechi ask, “What was that bit about my marriage?”

“Later.”

“What?”

I turned to look. Sarah chechi had grabbed her father’s arms, was leaning into his face and murmuring furiously, but Georgiechyan did not respond. He pushed his daughter forward. I held out my hand, and after a couple of seconds of hesitation, Sarah chechi took it. Her face was angry.

                                                             ******

As Sarah chechi had predicted, Appachan didn’t believe a word we said. It wasn’t anything he said, but his coldness all through. Worse, he let Bobby and the others sit in and we were interrupted often. Sarah chechi looked at the others calmly and refused to be drawn in. Only because our parents were present were we saved from a thrashing. 

We were soon told to leave. My aunt and grandmother smirked and laughed, telling us we deserved it. I wondered what “it” was. The study door closed with Appachan, Sarah chechi’s parents and my father and his brothers.

After everyone left the dining room, I returned to the closed study door, feeling fearful. I heard snatches of the conversation. Appachan spoke about a boy coming to meet Sarah. He had good prospects, he lived in Bombay. Plus he was highly recommended by Kunjappachan.

Sarah chechi declined politely, citing further studies and job prospects. At this point my grandfather shouted at her, telling her she had no choice in the matter. I felt a cold wet hand on the back of my neck and a ladle sting the back of my legs. I screamed when Ammachi started hitting me harder, trying to twist myself out of her grip. The study door flew open and Sarah chechi yanked my grandmother’s hand off my neck, pulled the large stainless-steel ladle out of her hand and threw it across the dining table. She dragged me away and let go of me in the corridor.

“Why do you have to sneak about! Why? Why can’t you be a normal kid and be silly and foolish and girly, like, like, like…” she pointed, frustrated, at my cousins watching us from a corner of the sitting room.

I felt my face on fire. I stayed quiet, unable to think of anything. Sarah chechi pushed me away from her and stomped off to her parents’ room and locked the door.

I stayed still against the wall until my parents took me to our room. We didn’t speak that night. Nor did anyone speak at dinner time. 

                                                             ******

* Madras is now Chennai and Bombay is Mumbai

This is The Webs We Weave (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. 94) series and is about events that occur during the narrator's childhood family vacation in Kerala, India. 

Please note that this is a work of fiction.  

Fishy Chronicles 76: The Webs We Weave (8) – Breaking point

The next morning there was a buzz in the air. People stood in clusters, murmuring and looking wary.

I asked Roma what was going on.

“Someone was in the house last night. Dropped the brass vase in the sitting room near Appachan’s* room. When they checked the house, all the doors were locked.” (FC 75)

I was flummoxed.  I hadn’t thought of the burglar angle.

“Er… was anything stolen?”

“No! That’s the strange thing. Appachan said he heard people running, but no one woke up except Georgechyan and Pilipochyan.” Their rooms were near Appachan’s. “Ammachi^ says she can’t make out if anything was taken.” Maybe except jaggery and snacks. Ammachi’s grandchildren had been making inroads into her legendary stocks of savouries – one of the boys had got a spare key made to Ammachi’s snack-morgasboard and the key was passed around. Snacking never seemed to be an issue in Amma’s parents’ home – my grandmother and great grandmother left cakes and snacks out on the side table for the kids and adults. There was just one rule – everyone had to eat well at meal times.

Every time we walked past Appachan’s door, I glanced at it. When he was away in the fields and everyone seemed busy, I examined the door. I ran my fingers over the dent in the door, where the sharp mouth of the worked vase had gouged out the wood. 

A hand slapped the back of my head hard. I felt humiliation wash over me. I had done my best to avoid being hit during this trip. I whirled around.

Mobby… and Fatty, holding a ladle. I wondered if it was hot. “Don’t hit me.”

“Hahaha. Why not, baby? Do you know something about the door?” He watched me carefully.

“Yes.”

Shock crossed their faces. “What do you know!” Ammachi pushed Mobby aside and I leaned away to avoid the saliva popping out of her mouth. Shee!

She was squeezing my shoulder hard and I twisted myself out of her painful grip. “I-I heard a loud noise and some footsteps.”

“And?” Mobby said. He looked uncomfortable and his jaw was tight.

“Nothing. Is it true, Ammachi, there was a robber in the house last night?” I tried not to watch my cousin openly.

“Yes. They stole food. And were trying to take the brass vase and some uralis (traditional brass utensils).”

“How many uralis were stolen?”

“Er… nothing… so far… but the kitchen was in disarray. I have work to do.” She marched away. I wondered what Ammachi had to do. Every day she sat on a chair in the kitchen and ordered the womenfolk about, while looking for chores for her granddaughters. In Ammachi’s eyes everyone was idle and needed to be gainfully occupied.

“She’s training you girls,” Amma said when I complained.

“For what?”

“For marriage. No need to act so surprised. Your husband’s family will expect you to have all those, these, skills. And more.” I hopped on each leg, trying to keep quiet.

“B-but Uncle John helps Aunty Glory in the kitchen,” I said of my parents’ friends in Mumbai “and Appa he…” I was going to say “Appa helps you”, but my mother shook her head. Even if some husbands helped their wives in the kitchen, that was best kept under wraps.

“Strange ideas all these girls have,” my father’s older sister Sarayumama said, rolling her eyes at the mound of rice in the wide rattan tray on her lap. “They think their husbands will be modern like American men and do housework. Hah!” She was concentrating on picking out tiny stones from the rice and had barely progressed all morning. Her sisters-in-law didn’t react and kept working.

But Ammachi didn’t relent. In addition to embroidery and sewing, we were made to cook, clean and keep house. For that is what good Syrian Christian girls did! It was a good thing Ammachi didn’t know that all this ended once we went home – all her children employed maids. Ammachi probably wanted to believe that we still swept and scrubbed the windows, even with a maid around. I didn’t understand why. Most of our relatives in Kerala had at least one elderly servant, and managed some staff for busy periods like vacations.

Anyway, early every evening, all the girls were lined up and made to peel or chop or mash something. Then, whether we wanted to or not, we stood next to the older girls while they fried what we had mashed and moulded into flat balls and another older cousin simultaneously boiled a massive tureen of water and milk for the tea on a four-burner stove. In the background, our grandmother shouted instructions.

If guests arrived, our pain worsened. Or, I should say, humiliation. We were made to serve them. All the while our relatives, mostly men, joked about us getting married – how imminent marriage was, that parents had to look for a groom years in advance, cooking skills were in demand, good manners, blah blah blah and bloody blah.

And then there were the sly jokes about marrying doctors, engineers, civil servants and NRIs. The implication was that if we looked pretty enough, or were fair enough, or were ladylike and well mannered, and wore enough gold ornaments to blind an oil-rich sheikh, we’d marry well and save our parents a large dowry.

My older cousins preened, drew their eyes religiously, Appachan frowned at lipstick, and went on sari-buying missions. The younger girls watched and our eyes popped at the silks and materials. My cousin brothers waited for every opportunity to tease their cousins about marriage and boys and grooms. And they tossed newspapers and wrappers and even banana peels in corners, expecting the girls to pick up the trash. Bobby told an irate Shyla that it was practice for marriage.  

This sort of crass behaviour was unusual. So far. For some reason, the boys began to harass the girls more. The elders would get into a snit and demand to know who had thrown the garbage on the ground and why no one had picked it up.

Because of our idiot cousins, we girls were on tenterhooks and had to sweep the house at least twice a day and be on the lookout for rubbish on the floor. All we seemed to be doing was tidying up after our cousins. 

The younger boys, and those with sisters, eventually stopped. But the older boys, Mobby, Bobby, Joey, Tino and Tomo, accelerated their efforts.

One day we decided to see what would happen if we didn’t pick up after the boys for the whole day. Just before tea time, Ammachi cornered the younger girls in a bedroom and gave us a tongue lashing and stiff lecture about filth and faith – it was hard to find a connection. Ammachi sounded like a medieval priest run amok. We kept our heads down because she waved a fat stick at us.

My male cousins listened from the doorway and sniggered, while Bobby and Mobby guffawed. Over the next few days they diligently dropped fruit peels, bits of paper, trimmed nails, plastic bags and more. They took care not to do so in their bedroom – even they were afraid of Sarayumama. The girls complained to their parents. My uncles admonished the boys and they nodded dutifully, but continued their torment.

One day my grandfather’s brother and his family, from down the road, came over for lunch. As is customary, the men and older boys had lunch first. We wiped the table clean for the next set of diners – the ladies. This time, the boys had gone a step further and dropped food on the floors. There was not much we could do about it now. It was awkward seeing our great aunt, her daughters-in-law and grandchildren walking around the dining table to their chairs in discomfort – the food on the ground stuck to their bare feet.

The dining room floor was a mess and soon it found its way into the sitting room with the guests. And, finally, what we had tried hard to avoid for weeks happened. Appachan, finical about cleanliness, blew his gasket. First, he aimed his fury at his wife, then at his daughters and then at his granddaughters.

Ammachi screamed at the girls to get brooms and mops and we went to work cleaning the dining room floor, while the guests sat in uncomfortable silence in the sitting room. Appachan banged the connecting door shut and, slowly the dull murmur of a reviving conversation began.

Rice and curry were smashed into the floor and had dried up. It was disgusting. The braver among us tried to scrape it off the floor with our fingernails but couldn’t. We poured soap water on the floor and tried to wash away the mess with a spindly broom, but the food clung stubbornly to the floor. Finally, we brought in a tough brush we used to scrub moss off the concrete area near the kitchen garden. We scrubbed the floor in turns. It was an effort to get the soap off the floor and we had to swab the floor many times until it stopped being slippery. We watched as years of dirt was sucked out of the floor and it almost shone. But it was a deadening, humiliating experience. All the older ladies had disappeared into the sitting room with my grandmother and we girls were alone in the dining room, toiling quietly, feeling miserable.

Once we were done, we stood to the side, watching the floor dry under the fan. Bobby walked in through the study door at one side of the dining room. We watched in horror as his food-caked slippers instantly dirtied our floors. He seemed to revel in it. Despite our protests, he walked around the dining room, around the table a couple of times, drank straight from a bottle of water without using a glass, smirked at all of us and finally stopped to admire his handiwork.

Most of the girls seemed to be in a stupor. It was when he laughed that Roma ran forward and punched Bobby in his gut. The air left his body in a shrill sigh and he doubled over. Then she slammed her elbow into his back several times until the older girls pried her off and dragged her away. Nina grabbed his slippers, ran into Appachan’s study and threw them out of the window as far as she could in different directions. There was a narrow dirt road nearby and in all likelihood the slippers would fall into the puddles there. Nina returned, locking the study door with the key that always stayed in the lock and tucked it into her bra.

Bobby was cowering and mewling loudly on the floor, a dish towel stuffed into his mouth, and the little girls were now pummelling and kicking him. Nina and Shyla pulled them off one by one and nearly threw them at the kitchen doorway. Sarah, Georgiechyan’s daughter, gently turned the key in the lock of the dining room door leading to the sitting room, pulled it out and slipped it into her kurta pocket. She whispered to us to get out and gestured wildly at the kitchen door.

Once we were all in the kitchen, the older girls latched the kitchen door from the kitchen and the other connecting doors. All of us rushed out into the backyard. Nina and Shyla pushed Sonimol chechi, the maid, out of the door and ordered her to stay out of the way and not to tell anyone what she had just seen. They latched the kitchen door from the outside of the house and all of us ran in different directions.

Some of my cousins went into the fields adjoining the house and onto the road. They began walking briskly to the junction. They were following Sarah, who was walking towards the church. That was where she often went and stayed for hours. It wasn’t piety, like the others thought. She hated the tedium of household work and often took books and newspapers with her. Though my grandmother had stopped trying to enslave Sarah, Ammachi didn’t stop complaining about her.

Others walked stealthily to the front of the house, opened the squeaky gate gently and stepped out. We needn’t have worried. There was shouting and a major commotion in the sitting room, with people banging the connecting doors to the study and dining room. I knew the family would try to get into the dining room through the kitchen via the store room.

When I saw a head bobbing into view through the window near the front door, I began to run after my cousins. They were half way down the road, walking to my great uncle’s house – my grandfather’s brother’s. I wondered what his family would make of what had just happened.

I watched my cousins trying not to run. Suddenly I didn’t feel alone. Now my cousins knew how I had felt for most of my vacation.

Bobby deserved what he got, but now we were in serious shit.

                                                                        ******

* Grandfather in Malayalam

^ Grandmother in Malayalam

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This is a continuation of The Webs We Weave (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) series and is about events that occur during the narrator's childhood family vacation in Kerala. Please note that this is a work of fiction.