Fishy Chronicles 89: The Webs We Weave (21) – Late night caller

“How are you?”

I froze. It wasn’t a question. Just a statement. I had more than a hundred questions to ask but couldn’t get a single one out.

Rita grabbed the phone from me and said, “Why did you break up with Sarah chechi!”

I gawked, and tried to pull the phone from her, but it was clamped vice-like against her ear, the streetlight illuminating her frowning face. I bent and put my ear to the phone to listen to what he had to say.

There was more silence and a little while later, he cut the line.

Rita’s eyes were round. “We should call Johnnycha back. Let me get his phone number (FC88). But I don’t have the code!” she said in distress.

I grabbed her shoulder and took a deep breath. “It wasn’t Johnnychyan.”

“What?”

“Not him.”

“But-but you said he calls this time of the night.”

“Earlier, I mean, before – a little after 12.30. But this wasn’t Johnnychyan.”

“How do you know?”

What an annoying kid. Why couldn’t she take my word for it. “I know his voice. I’ve talked to Johnnychyan a few times,” I said unnecessarily. But this man’s voice sounded familiar. There was some intimacy in his tone too. Rita looked like she would burst. She looked agitated and wrung her hands.

I put my hand on hers and she stilled. “Maybe a wrong number,” I tried to sound reassuring.

“So there’s not going to be a wedding?” she asked faintly.

“Shall we try to call him?”

“How? I don’t know the code to the phone.”

“Does your dad know?” Joychyan was more forthcoming with his kids. He bent rules for them. My parents didn’t and I’d face an inquisition.

“Daddy knows the code. I’ve seen him making phone calls. I’ll get the number tomorrow.”

“Worse comes to worst we can go to the junction and call him.”

“But… I don’t have money.”

“I have… some.” Long distance calls cost lots of money. Why had I offered? I thought of the money I had saved. I had received some gifts from my mother’s family and my stash was now a princely 1,107 rupees and 75 paise. It was stored in a tattered wallet that used to be Appa’s. Amma had given me a coin purse, but even she had no idea of how much I had accumulated. In my earlier years my parents had relieved me of any money gifts I got from family, but after I turned 10, my mother’s father suggested that I learn to keep the money and spend it. He had then sat me down, and explained about our promise to help the poor and that a tenth of all earnings, including gifts, needed to be kept aside. I goggled at this bit of information. When I tried to protest to my parents, separately, they became stern. And so I kept my thoughts about the tithe to myself. My granddad also taught me how to calculate percentages that day – how to calculate a tenth of what I got.

Rita poked me hard in the navel, dislodging me from the memory. “Let’s try tomorrow, when everyone goes to sleep in the afternoon.”

Shit. Rita was going to make me spend my money. “Er, don’t you want to try to get the phone code first?”

“Too many people around. And we may get caught. You’re already in trouble. If I get caught too, everyone will think you had something to do with it.”

I gritted my teeth. It was hard to fault Rita’s logic. She was clever – I would have said cunning, but never mind.

We sat on the settee. “Should we tell Sarah chechi about the call?” Rita asked during a slow part of the serial.

“No. I don’t think the call was for her.”

“You mean it was a wrong number?”

Unlikely. “Yes.”

“Oh. But… isn’t it too late for one?”

Not if you live in another time zone – the ring of the phone had been different. Why had I thought Johnnychyan was travelling. “Yes.” I really wanted Rita to stop talking and suddenly I was not enjoying this ‘alone’ time.

“So why dial at all?”

I wanted to rage at Rita and turned suddenly. Rita tilted her head and looked at me, her eyes narrowing speculatively. I had a sudden memory of Roma and Rajiv arguing wildly yesterday near their bedroom, then Roma pinning Rajiv to the nearest wall, ramming a single punch into his stomach and disappearing. Joychyan had found his only son, his most favoured child, bent double and asked him numerous questions but had been unable to elicit an answer.

I spent anxious moments at dinner yesterday because Uncle had given me a couple of cold looks, but then his eyes had settled on his nephews Mobby and Bobby and then on his daughters – lingering on them for an eternity.

I shook my head and changed tack. “Some poor soul was trying to call someone else, I imagine. I wish I had a boyfriend who’d call me in the middle of the night.”

Rita sniggered and we turned back to the TV.

It was while we were surfing channels a few minutes later that she dropped a bombshell. “You know, Rebecca chechi (FC81) is coming tomorrow.” Rebecca was Sarah’s sister, younger by a year.

Rita nodded at my incredulous expression. Despite the light streaming in through the open windows, we had to sit really close to see and hear each other. “Mummy said she had a few days off and decided to visit.”

I didn’t know what to make of it. Rebecca had left for the US a few months ago, saying she wouldn’t visit for a couple of years until her course ended and she got a job – all of which had not gone down well with Appachan and Ammachi who felt Sarah and Rebecca were unnecessarily focussed on studies and careers instead of getting married. This was strange because their mother Anniemama had a PhD in Chemistry and was a professor in a college in Bangalore.

“But why?” I hissed at Rita’s ear.

“What do you mean why?” she hissed back.

“I mean it doesn’t make sense. Airplane tickets are very, very expensive. And now Sarah chechi isn’t getting married.”

“Maybe she feels bad about Sarah chechi and is coming to make her feel better.”

“A phone call would have been cheaper.”

Rita looked doubtful. “Mummy said Rebecca chechi is being a good sister.”

The snort escaped before I could control myself. Rita’s head whipped around. How could I tell Rita that two sisters couldn’t be more similar in outlook and ambition than the George sisters – they were joined at the hip, or probably shared the same egg but one just dropped out of her mother’s womb a year later. Appachan and Ammachi grumbled about them to all their children over and over and over – especially Ammachi who took it as a personal failing. In recent years the sisters had avoided visiting, using college and extracurricular activities as excuses. But it was getting harder for their parents to arrive at the ancestral home without their children.

“Oh, and Rajanchyan is also going to visit.”

“Oh.” I felt intense shock. Rajanchyan was my oldest uncle after Georgiechyan. He was something of a black sheep, unable to see eye to eye with Appachan and rarely visited. It had to do with the ultimate act of rebellion, and once unthinkable among Syrian Christians – that of eloping.

Rajanchyan had fallen in love with his wife Sislymama in college. When he broached the subject, his parents were against their union even though Sislymama was from our community. There was no particular reason they could offer, though family status may have been one. He soon got a job and moved to Delhi and some years passed that way. When Ammachi began to press Rajanchyan to marry a family friend’s daughter, he quickly married Sislymama, letting his family know via a telegram. It led to years of strife, with my grandmother making no effort to accept Sislymama. Even now.

Family get-togethers with Sislymama and Rajanchyan and their four children – Shyla, Nina, Joey and Tomo – were fraught with silences and awkwardness, with everyone looking for cues from the patriarch and matriarch. Eventually only Rajanchyan’s children stayed over during the holidays. Even that proved awkward for everyone because my grandparents didn’t make an effort to be close to these grandchildren, forcing their children to make the effort. In the pecking order, Ammachi favoured her daughters’ children. Her sons’ children vied for whatever affection was left over.

“What happened? Why is Rajanchyan visiting?” I said as normally as possible.

“I don’t know.”

“You know that he’s coming here, but you don’t know why. Why aren’t you saying?”

“I don’t know, Chechi. I only tell you what I hear Daddy and Mummy say.”

“Ok.”

“Let’s try and make that phone call tomorrow.”

“What phonecall?”

“The one to Johnnychyan.”

“You still want to ask him why?” I had hoped she would forget our mission.

“Yes. We need to know.”

“No. We don’t.”

Rita’s head whipped around and she gave me a filthy look. Despite the white streetlight dulling my view of Rita and, in turn, every emotion of hers, I moved back a bit.

“I m-mean only Sarah chechi needs to know and Johnnychyan may not bother talking to us,” I was having second thoughts big time. We were poking our noses into things that were best left alone. Who knew what would happen.

“Oh, like that. We’ll see.” She shoved the coffee table away with her feet and mine hit the ground – pain radiating upwards through my heels. The idiot got up, switched off the TV and went back to her room.

I surveyed the settee and floor. For all her previous gyaan* about Ammachi spotting the crumbs and them leading to us, the floor and settee were littered with food particles. I wanted to watch some more TV, but it was past 2am and someone was bound to get out of their room for a leak.

I saw one of my aunts’ super-starched cross-stitched table cloths on a small table and used it to dust the settee and mop up the crumbs from the floor. I emptied the table cloth out of an open window. There were oil stains on the rexine seat where we sat, but someone’s bum would rub it clean tomorrow.

I draped the embroidered cover over the TV, looked out of the window one last time and went to bed.

Tomorrow I was going to make certain we got the code and didn’t go to the junction.

                                                     ******

*Gyaan – Hindi colloquial word. Means unwanted advice

*Chechi – Older sister in Malayalam

 

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related
to a family vacation in a rural part of Kerala. 

Rita and the narrator receive a late night phone call but the caller disconnects without speaking. The girls believe it is Johnny and decide they need to speak to him and find out why he's decided to end his engagement to their cousin Sarah.

Read the entire The Webs We Weave series here 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

#Ammachi #Appachan #money #tithe #kerala #keralafiction #bombaymalayalis #bombay #TV #marriage #elope #love #PhD #chemistry #timezone #gyaan #grandchildren #professor #bangalore #fiction #telephone #phonecode #code #brokenengagements #intimacy #brokenengagement #ambition #extracurricularactivities #malayalam #syrianchristians #punch #gift #tablecloth #embroideredtablecloth #US #unitedstates #college #education #wrongnumber #womb #egg #wallet #percentage  #% #earnings #coinpurse #telegram #matriach #patriarch #grandchildren #grandparents #family #career #job #rupee #paise #tone #rules #inquisition #navel #rules #logic #cunning #expensiveairplanetickets #airplane #airplanetickets #ancestralhome #rebellion #actofrebellion #sarahandrebecca #sarah  #rebecca #sisly #sislyandrajan #gettogethers #affection #peckingorder #junction 

Fishy Chronicles 88: The Webs We Weave (20) – Hunt for a phone number

Photo credit: A. Peter

How hard could it be to get a phone number?

After our sugiyan-eating-crimewatching-spree the previous night, we spent the next day plotting how to get Johnny's phone number. First, we went over everything we planned to say to him, practiced and changed dialogue and went over and over and over it.

When we did decide to look for Johnny's phone number, it seemed even harder than plotting our still unfinessed conversation with him.

First, we cased the George family's room, I from my bedroom’s doorway, and Rita from outside the house. For some reason, Sarah and her mother wouldn't get out of the room. Frustrated and finally discovered by Ammachi, I was made to scrape a couple of coconuts on the quick – while Rita continued to watch the Georges from the backyard.

She returned nearer lunch, a shade darker than before her surveillance activities, looking dejected, with a strong odour of sweat emanating. She used the small once-white dish cloth, tucked into the handle of the fridge, to wipe her neck and face, while I looked on in disbelief… and disgust. I was going to have to remind myself never to touch them or wipe my plate with any of the dishtowels. 

She took out a bottle of cold water from the fridge and put it to her mouth. From nowhere, Ammachi appeared, launching into an angry lecture.

When Ammachi advanced menacingly with a raised ladle, Rita screwed the cap back on the bottle, skipped into the study, and threw her arms around our surprised grandfather’s neck. His smile twisted into shock momentarily as her body odour hit his senses.

His face righted instantly, his arm coming around her shoulder and she sat on his lap. Ammachi watched from the doorway, her lips tightly squeezed over each other, and then marched back to the kitchen. After a while, Rita got off Appachan’s lap, opened all the drawers of his table, which were now unlocked, and picked up a ten rupee note and waved it into his face excitedly. Appachan laughed at something she said and waved his hand at her. She kissed his cheek, and skipped back towards me. She grabbed my arm and we disappeared out of the house.

I took the note from her and examined it. This was a so-so sum – it could get us a packet of chips, a bar of Amul chocolate or a smaller bar of Cadbury chocolate. Alternatively, we could get two veg puffs, but who wanted to eat veg puffs. We could split one meat puff instead. In the middle of my thoughts Rita plucked the note out of my hand, folded it into a thin length and put it into her pocket. She put her arm in mine and we stood under my guava tree.

I felt deflated – my cousin was not going to share. I was surprised Appachan gave in so easily and handed over a higher low-denomination note. I swallowed the saliva that had gathered in my mouth in anticipation of a meat puff.

One more time.

“Er, maybe we can get a meat puff with that.”

Rita’s thin shoulders lifted and sagged, and she clicked her tongue to signal a negative.

“What are you going to do with the money?”

“Hmmm… I’m going to put it in my piggy bank.”

“The church box one?”

Children sometimes got a coin box in our church. Our church in Mumbai gave out wooden ones, with a small inscription indicating the purpose of the boxes. But our village church in Kerala gave out nice tin boxes with either Jesus staring into the heavens or St George spearing a dragon or Mother Mary holding baby Jesus painted on them in vivid blues and reds. At some point Roma and I realised the key to the hatch at the bottom of the conical tin box would stay with our parents and the money was meant to be handed to the church, eventually finding its way to the poor. Then we began to drop only low-denomination coins into the tins and hid the cash. Of course, we never spoke about it – we were acting sinfully. Our thoughts about money showed greed. Clandestine greedy thoughts were still a sin. Cash was meant for other things – sinfully ‘good’ things. One needed to be adroit in managing sin and ourselves.

Rita shook her head.

“Then what?”

“I want to buy some hair bands.”

My eyes roamed over her sparse head. We girls had to keep our hair long. It was a family thing. Something about femininity and knowing our place etc, etc, etc. Despite begging her parents for a boycut, like her best friend’s, Rita was not allowed one. A month ago, while visiting her mother’s brother’s family – recently visiting from the US – Rita had found her uncle’s shaver. After watching him use it for a while, she used it on herself.

She sobbed at the inroads she had made on her head and a local barber was called in to rectify the hairy issue. As Roma told me, it was extremely funny and the family had had a hard time keeping straight faces. While she didn’t quite get the chic pixie haircut she wanted, the sailor’s crew cut was now growing out charmingly.

“You don’t have long hair,” I said, trying to be patient.

“Yes, but it will grow soon.”

“Are you sure?”

Rita looked alarmed. “Yes!”

“What if you want to keep it short again?”

“No. Want it long,” she said, her outer lip jutting and a fierce look creeping into her face. I was suddenly nervous of her.

“How are we going to get Johnnycha’s phone number? I don’t think we can enter Georgiechyan’s room – where would we look?” I gave up hopes of eating 10 rupees worth of anything.

“Maybe Appachan has the number in his phone book. I can check later, when no one is looking.”

***

It was while Rita and I were standing near the tall long-suffering mango tree, that we spotted the Mathan sisters – Eenya and Tara. “Let’s see if we can get it from Thomachan,” I said.

Rita frowned. She didn’t like Thomachan – he was an oily character and it was surprising he was friends with Johnny. But I knew they weren’t as thick as Rasool and Johnny. For sure Rasool would have Johnny’s phone number, but where did he live?

“Let’s go to Thomachan’s house and see if he’s got a phone book,” I said.

“What if we get caught?”

“We’ll have to take that risk.”

“He doesn’t like people entering his room,” Rita said.

“We don’t have a choice. Maybe we could ask him for Rasool’s number.” Even as I said it, I knew such a request would send a shock wave around the family – Thomachan’s and ours –why was I asking for an older man’s phone number, someone no one quite knew except for the fact that Johhny was great friends with him. The few times I had met Johnny, Rasool had been around – either buying cigarettes, reading a newspaper or sitting some way off and watching us with narrowed eyes and no expression.

I shivered. I didn’t have a good feeling about all this. What was I doing getting into more mischief. I had to accept that Sarah and Johnny were not going to get together. “Maybe we shouldn’t do this.”

“Okay.”

I looked at Rita in surprise. I hadn’t expected it. “You’re okay with it?”

“No. But if you want to give up, it is fine. I’ll get his number.”

“H-how?”

Her shoulders moved up a fraction and she turned towards the mango tree. “Can you get that one?” She pointed at a ripe mango, that couldn’t be reached with the pole.

I sighed and looked around. Many people didn’t know about my new slingshot (FC75, FC72, FC73). Every time I used it I had an illicit feeling, a high, like I was using contraband. My eyes focused on the windows along the side of the house facing us. Sarayumama and Mathanchyan were watching us from their window. I waved to them and they turned around and disappeared. I waited a while to see if they would return. Then I looked at our neighbours’ houses. It took several tries to bring down the mango with the slighshot – bruised, with some pulp hanging out. Sweet success.

I had a thought. “Do you know who moved my old slingshot to Sarayumama’s room (FC73)?” Rita hesitated. “You know?!” 

“Er, no. No, I don’t.”

“You’re lying!”

“No. No. I don’t know!”

I stared at Rita in disbelief. All this time she knew, but now she wasn’t going to tell. What was going on? “How would you know? You were with me the whole time that day.”

A shrug and bland expression. I grabbed her. “Tell me!”

“I don’t know!” She pinched my upper arm viciously and I let her go. She began running to the house, and I watched feeling confused. And I wondered whether she was still interested in getting Johnychyan’s number.

***

I needn’t have worried.

While everyone was having their afternoon siesta, I saw Miss Pincher rummaging through Appachan’s address book on his desk – a fat book that Appachan sometimes forgot to lock up. She saw me watching from across the dining room and shook her head.

I pointed at my chest with my thumb and my head with my forefinger and mouthed ‘I have a plan’. I was not sure what, but it would come to me.

Rita had located Johnny’s parents’ home number, but Johnny’s wasn’t there. “How can we ask his parents for Johnnycha’s number? They’ll want to know who we are and why we want it,” Rita voiced my concern.

When we were sure no one was watching, we left the house. First we went over to Kunjappachan’s house. We decided that asking our great uncle for the phone number might be easier than asking our grandfather. But when we entered the house, the side door was always unlocked for relatives, friends or workers, we found Kunjappachan snoring on his bed. We looked at his table, but lost our nerve. Unlike our grandfather’s table, this was piled high with newspapers, magazines, papers, official looking papers in Malayalam, files, etc. There was even a bowl of something edible resting precariously on one corner of the table, and ants climbing the sides of the table to reach it. My great aunt was fast asleep on a settee in the sitting room, all the curtains drawn.

We left Kunjappachan’s house without rifling through anything. In hindsight, he would have asked us a lot of questions.

We crossed the road and went to Thomachan’s house. A quick look through his window indicated my cousin was asleep. We scanned his room but saw nothing that resembled a phone book.

“What if he hasn’t written it down anywhere?” Rita said. We hadn’t ever had the need to be in Thomachan’s room. It looked dirty, and his table rivalled Kunjappachyan’s. Fat books pinned down loose long note paper. A brown banana peel rotted away on the edge of the plastic dust bin – not quite in or out. “Maybe he remembers the phone number and doesn’t need to write it down,” Rita whispered hoarsely in my ear. I shivered. That whisper tickled.

“Don’t think so. He’s failing in college.”

“Whattt? Who told you?”

“I heard Eapachyan tell Roychyan.” Eapachyan was Thomachan’s father and my father’s first cousin and Roy was Kunjappachan’s brilliant grandson. “He wanted Roychyan to give Thomachan a pep talk on studying harder.”

“B-But Thomachan is studying engineering!”

“I know.” To get into an engineering course one had to be good in maths and science and thus had to have a brain. Thomachan had also got into a good college. My grandmother suspected college girls were ruining Thomachan’s concentration. Of course, I didn’t tell Rita that. The only person ruining Thomachan was Thomachan.

The longer we kept our faces pressed into the bars of the window, watching Thomachan scratch his crotch, cough and roll around his bed, the more it dawned on us how futile it was to get Johnny’s phone number. He was out of bounds to us – out of bounds to Sarah – the family didn’t want anything to do with him, they had stopped talking about his family altogether, and here we two girls were trying to keep a wound open. We weren’t letting Sarah heal.

“I don’t think this is a good idea,” Rita said.

“I don’t either.”

We jumped off the ledge and walked slowly towards our house. At the gate, we hesitated. The sun seemed to be in a hurry to leave and it was cool, the sounds of silence enticing. Rita said it first. “We don’t need to go home… no one will notice.”

“What do you want to do?”

“Let’s go to the junction.”

“Okay.”

We moved to the opposite side of the road so that our cousins would not see us. We had second, third and fourth cousins living in the houses dotting both sides of the road to the junction about a kilometre away. Most were likely to be asleep now, but there was always the stray relative who liked the afternoon quiet as much as we did. Rita and I enjoyed the sight of the river gushing under the bridge, slowly letting our spit fall into the spray below us. We walked towards the junction, but everything was closed, including the bakery shop. I glanced at Rita and felt glad. She was looking at the closed shutters glumly. 

We walked past shuttered shops, only the medical store was open, which we ran past because an uncle ran the place. But then we spotted Rasool’s Padmini Premier parked on the road further along the road. He was wiping the windshield.

Rita started running towards him. “Achacha, can I have Johnnychyan’s phone number?” Rita poked Rasool in the midriff, causing the cigarette in his mouth to fall. Rita picked it up and held it up to him. He reached for it and wiped the butt against his white shirt, all the while looking at us speculatively.

“Why?”

“I want to talk to him.”

“About what?”

“Er, about stuff.”

“He may not want to talk to you.”

That stumped us. Why had we assumed Rasool would give us Johnny’s phone number or that Johnny would want to talk to us.

“He told you that?” Rita’s voice squeaked.

“Eh…”

Rita’s back straightened and she gave Rasool the coldest look I have ever seen her give anyone. She wasn’t a bit intimidated by Rasool, who was a beefy six-footer. Rasool’s jaw slackened and he moved back slightly.

“Did he tell you he didn’t want to speak to me?” Rita repeated.

“No. No. Er. Who are you?”

“I want his number.”

Rasool’s jaw clenched. He took a deep puff of his cigarette, threw it and crushed it into the ground, both Rita and he eye duelling.

“You have a pen?”

“No.”

He located a piece of paper and a pen in the glove compartment of his car and wrote down a number. “There are only seven numbers here. Bombay phone numbers have eight numbers.” Rita waved the piece of paper at his chest. Rasool took it and scanned the numbers. He leaned the paper against the car’s window, struck out the old number and wrote it afresh. He was trying hard not to laugh, which was easy to hide considering his enormous moustache.

Rita grabbed the paper, counted the numbers one more time, her eyes moving from the first set of numbers to the next.

“Thank you, Uncle,” Rita smiled sweetly, though Rasool’s smile suddenly died for some reason. Rita tugged my skirt and turned. We ran all the way back, just in time for tea, getting in through the back.

***

When I went to the sitting room at 12.50am, Rita was already there, happily waving a packet of chips.

“How did you get this?”

“The 10 rupees Appachan gave me.”

“You mean the 10 rupees you took.”

She shrugged. “Do you want some?”

“Let’s wait till the serial starts.”

A door opened. “Hide behind that curtain. Quick! Quiiiickkk!” I lunged at the TV, switched it off and ran to the curtain nearest the door. I held my breath. I could feel Rita panting beside me. I bent towards her ear, “Shhhh.” She put her hand on her mouth and held her breath.

Through the curtain we saw a light growing brighter. It flashed around the sitting room and then disappeared. I counted to five and then tiptoed to the corridor, and saw the light disappear into Sarayumama’s room. Damn. Was Mobby lurking again? I went into the storeroom and stood near Sonimol chechi’s room. Not a noise. There was no light coming through the cracks in the wooden door.

I went back to find Rita. The phone started to ring. I shushed it involuntarily and then picked it up to silence it.

I held it to my ear nervously, not speaking. Rita got out from behind the curtain and stood next to me, listening.

We held our breath and waited for what seemed an eternity. Finally, the person on the other side said, “How are you?”

****** 

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related
to a family vacation gone wrong in Kerala. 

In this episode Rita and the narrator look for a way to contact Johnny, Sarah's fiancé, to ask him why he's decided to end his engagement to their cousin. But getting his phone number isn't as easy as the girls think.    

Read the entire The Webs We Weave series here 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

#Ammachi #Appachan # surveillance #dishcloth #refrigerator #fridge #sweat #bodyodour #stink #water #dishcloth #ladle #tenrupees #cadbury #cadburychocolate #amul #amulchocolate #vegetablepuff #vegpuff #meatpuff #guava #guavatree #keralachurch #moneybox #coinbox #jesus #babyjesusandmothermary #mothermary #magazines #jesusandmary #stgeorge #stgeorgeandthedragon #dragon #sin #greed #cash #coins #clandestine #torch #padminipremier #cars #river #keralariver #fiction #bombaymalayalis #bombay #cigarette #medicalstore #TV #femininity #shaver #crewcut #boycut #pixiecut #US #sailor #charming #patience #mango #mangotree #mangofruit #mangopulp #slingshot #telephone #phonebook #brokenengagements #mischief #ahigh #contraband #malayamnewspapers #malayalam

Fishy Chronicles 87: The Webs We Weave (19) – The secret

Though it was a state secret, everyone in the family got to know of Sarah and Johnny’s ‘disengagement’ (FC86) in a few days – even the youngest kids.

We had just spent awkward hours in a humid church, squeezed into an increasingly stinky crush of people there for the Sunday service. All the while people glanced our way, whispered to each other, hastily looked away when we looked at them, and either spoke with a smirk or double meanings.

Elsamama and Amma stood on either side of Anniemama, effectively fending off questions. But then some girls approached Shyla and Nina after church and asked. They were saved the trouble of answering when a stony-faced Sarah stepped out of that side entrance and almost bumped into them. The girls scattered in different directions like an army of ants interrupted, while Shyla and her sister stayed rooted to the spot in shock. Sarah raked her cousins with a filthy look and walked past.

I kept out of everyone’s way. It was too much tension. Today people who had seen through me for weeks wanted to speak to me. My nosey second cousins who lived opposite Kunjappachan’s house, Eenya and her sister Tara, blocked my way. I composed myself – lying, or being economical with the truth, was easier when emotions didn't come in the way.

“Is it true?” Eenya asked.

“What?”

“The engagement is off?” Tara said.

“Engagement?”

“Sarahchechi’s engagement to Johnnychyan!” Eenya burst out.

“As far as I know it’s still on,” I pushed past and walked quickly to the dirt road leading out of the church. The church had loads of money – every parishioner had someone in the Middle East, the US, UK or Australia and the church often got hefty donations from those wanting to make good impressions – yet the road outside the church stayed clay red and untarred year after year after year, and when it rained there was a strong chance you would slip. 

A puddle splashed and I felt cold wetness at the back of my salwar. But I hurried on. A hand grabbed my elbow. I started in fear, but relaxed when I saw who it was. I started walking away from the church’s gates.

“What does it mean? They aren’t going to get married?” Rita asked. She had been standing a way off but must have heard the conversation with our second cousins.

“No.”

“What happened?”

“Johnnycha’s family called and said they didn’t want to marry.”

Rita caught my upper arm and made me stop. I sighed and stood under the stoop of a shop. I watched people go past in their Sunday whites, and slippers, unperturbed by the 99.99% possibility of top-quality slush scarring their whites for life.

Rita looked confused. She opened her mouth, but words didn’t come out. Finally she said, “He doesn't want to marry Sarahchechi?”

“Yes.”

“He said that?”

“Ye… er… there was a phone call. I don’t think it was him.”

“So he didn’t say.”

“Someone in his family said it for him.”

It doesn’t count.”

“Yes it does.”

“Someone could be doing it chumma (just like that).”

“Too serious a business for someone to do chumma.”

“I mean… I don’t think he wants to.”

Something about the way she said it made me pause. “What do you mean, Rita?”

She looked around and pushed me back into the damp brick wall. “You remember we went over to Eenya’s house for her birthday?”

I snorted, but stilled my cynical tongue. There was no traditional payasam that Eenya’s mother was known for, but some awful cake Tara had baked. The plain yellow cake at the bakery was better. “Yes.”

“Achacha was there.”

“Which Achacha?

“Johnnycha!”

“What?”

“Not at the party, but he was in a car down the road. And after a while, Chechi disappeared. I saw her sitting in the car.”

“But... how? He's in Bombay... and... and... his family would have known! Thomachan would have known!” Thomachan was Eenya's brother and Johnny's friend.

Rita shrugged. "He was in the car with Sarahchechi."

I shook my head. It was too farfetched. No one took such risks. Not in this village at least. “Kasam se, God promise, chechi!” Rita pinched her throat with one hand and touched her head with the other, indicating that God would smote her if she lied.

Rita squeezed my arms and pushed me deeper into the wall. “Believe me, chechi, Achacha was in his friend’s car – like the car Appapa has. A white one, with big scratch marks. You remember Johnnychacha used to drive around in that.”

"Rasool?" Johnny’s friend drove a dented Padmini Premier. They spent a lot of time in the car. Apparently there was no way to enjoy the company of adult friends in this village, because even if you hid in the fields someone would see you.

"Yes."  

"He was in the car with them?"

"I didn't see him."

"Er, so who drove the car?"

Another shrug.

“I don’t understand. If Johnnychyan had come everyone would have known.” 

“Yes, but he was here last week.” She counted her fingers. “On Sunday.”

How was it I hadn’t seen them. It was impossible. But even more impossible was the possibility of Rita lying. 

“He stopped calling on Wed…” 

“Who stopped?”

“Nothing.” No one knew about the calls. I pushed her away but suddenly Rita was pinning me against the wall. 

“So they are talking!”

“Er…” I clawed at the little fingers that were digging into my fleshy forearms.

“How are they talking?”

“Let me go, ouchhhhhhhh!”

She let go, but stood on tiptoe, her small body pressing aggressively into mine – a most determined expression on her little face. “He’s called Sarahchechi? When?”

“I’m not supposed to say.”

My chest compressed into my shoulder blades and the damp came right through the back of my clothes. Amma would get mad at me if the mossy bricks stained my clothes. “Come on, Rita. A secret is a secret is a secret,” I mumbled.

She didn’t move or ease the pressure on my chest. I tried pushing her, but she jammed her feet into the ground and pressed me against the wall with her upper body and arms. This was something Roma sometimes did to Rajiv and now Rita was doing it to me!

“Ok, ok. He calls late at night.”

A calculating look settled on her face, and she stepped back. “What movie are you watching?”

“Eh?”

“Which movie?”

“A-a s-serial. Crime programme – CSI.”

“What time?”

I remained quiet. That was the only 'me' time I got in our overcrowded household. I didn’t want another person to join. Rita pressed into me again, but this time I didn’t budge. But when her index finger wouldn’t stop skewering my right kidney, I gave up, “ouch... one o'clock... ooouuucccchhhh.” I shoved with some effort, and she staggered back.

Rita grinned and walked to the middle of the road. “Come on. Let's go before Ammachi comes out and thinks we're loitering.”

******

After a nice fat Sunday lunch we sat in the sitting room waiting for the adults to leave for their afternoon naps. But the boys grabbed the TV remote first and after watching them surf channels and laugh at their sisters’ entreaties to allow them to watch a certain film, I walked out. The house was stifling.

I opened the sitting room door and looked back at the scene in the room. The long baby pink curtains (Appachan’s choice) were billowing with the breeze coming in from the windows, the boys were spread across all the chairs and sofas, unwilling to let their sisters sit, the only exception being Rajiv and Roma who were squeezed into a love seat. None of the boys were willing to toy with Roma, especially after the chapter of violence Bobby was subjected to some weeks ago (FC76).

At this moment, I hated the boys with all my heart. They were crude, awful to the core and I did not know how my family favoured them. I shuddered when I looked at Mobby and Bobby, their heads together discussing something in low tones. Idiots.

I wanted to bang the door, but that one moment of rebelliousness would unleash demons that were right now safely snoring in their beds. Why chance a typoon when you could eat a sweet chubby mango. I closed the door gently and ran around to the back of the house for the mango-lassoing pole. It lay near the shed and I hurled it over the side gate and climbed over. I ran joyfully, but carefully, through the pineapple patch, enjoying the sudden rain-induced coolness. 

From a point on the property it was possible to see the river. You could hear it all the time if you stood still and slowed your breathing – a gentle whooshing sound that almost sounded like the trees shivering, but not quite.

Rita followed me and we smiled at each other. I howled and barked, imitating the dogs in the neighbourhood, enjoying our moments of freedom. Rita bared her teeth and yipped like our neighbour's pomeranian. We howled and yipped until we noticed a passerby stop to watch. Another nosey idiot neighbour.

******

Past 12.45am, I peeped warily at the sofa and sighed in relief. Sarah was not there. I felt my spirits sag thinking of how she had been forced to give up on Johnny.

A cold hand caught my arm. I leaped backwards and hit the wall. I cowered with my arms up to protect myself, when I heard someone shush me. I opened an eye and saw Rita. I wanted to wring her neck.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed.

“I want to watch TV too,” she whispered in my ear.

I was stumped. “You’ll get into trouble.”

“Ok.”

I glared at her, until she gestured for me to come closer. I leaned towards her lips. “What?”

“I got a plan for that.”

“What?”

“When anyone comes, we should run in different directions.”

“What if they block the corridor?”

“We can run through the study to the dining room, get to the store room and wait there till all is clear.”

“But what if they go after only one person.”

“Then we’re screwed.”

******

Fear didn’t deter us. We watched our crime serial without sound, trying to figure out what they were saying, until Rita leaned into my ear and said, “We’ve got to call Johnnychyan.”

“Why?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Ask him the truth?”

“How?”

“Just ask.”

“He’ll laugh at us and complain to our parents.”

“Ok. I’ll do it then,” Rita straightened in the sofa and continued watching TV.

You irritating pimple. “Ok, let’s ask.”

“Deal. You get his number from Sarahchechi.”

“Whhatttt? She’ll bite my head off!”

“Hmm. Ok. I’ll try and get it,” Rita whispered nonchalantly.

“How will you do that?”

“I don’t know. I’ll find a way. Now keep quiet and let me watch. Here. Eat this.” She pushed a large oily ball of sugiyan into my hand. Ammachi had made the ladies cook namkeen and other eats the last few days – she was preparing to send off her children with many goodies. The sugiyan, filled with a sweet moong (lentil) filling, had been made fresh and would stay a few days.

“How… how…”

“How did I get them? Ammachi changed the lock and Rajiv saw her hide the key under the paper at the bottom of the sideboard.”

I had been made to clean said sideboard recently, and had lined its shelves with clean back editions of the Malayala Manorama newspaper. I eyed the little one… had we corrupted this 10-year old more than we knew?

“Eat. Don’t drop any crumbs, or the ants will come and Ammachi will track us down.”

“Ok. Got it.”

After the sugiyan and the serial, too lazy to wash our hands, we wiped them on the back of a curtain in a neglected corner of the sitting room and parted ways, promising to keep the whole day, and night, a secret. 

******

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related
to a family vacation gone wrong in Kerala. 

In this episode she comes to know, through another cousin, that their cousin Sarah had been meeting her fiancé Johnny without the family's knowledge. Johnny's family ended the engagement a few days previously.   

Read the entire The Webs We Weave series here 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

#ants #antarmy #river #bombay #crumbs #washinghands #fiction #keralachristians #keralastories #kerala #keralavacation #keralafamilies #love #loss #brokenengagements #marriage #food #mobby #bobby #sarah #fishychronicles87 #grandparents #websweweave #mumbaimalayalis #malayalistories #cake #secret #padminipremier #crimesceneinvestigation #crimeserial #CSI #malayalamanoramanewspaper #sideboard #payasam #bakery #kidney #johnnyandsarah #keralachurch #typhoon #mango #sugiyan #namkeen #10yearold #corrupt #neighbour's #dogs #pomeranian

Road to Phnom Penh

Photo Credit: A. Peter

A speeding shot of a day fast turning to night. This was taken from a car on our way from Siem Reap to Phnom Penh, after a great two days with friends. We'd been to Angkor Wat, the men and sole teenager absenting themselves from a visit to the temples on the pretext that they'd been there before. 

Since it was new year 2019 we spent the night in Siem Reap's Pub Street crammed into a young crowd, the most peaceful gentle mass of public I have ever been squeezed into, and swayed to some catchy Cambodian music. 

I liked the music enough to try looking for those party music tunes on YouTube. Couldn’t find anything that sounded familiar, but liked what I heard enough to keep listening for some days, mostly Cambodian pop and rock. 

That night we weren't able to get a meal anywhere, finally finding a small South Indian restaurant that was almost closing and had very little food. We were able to eat and found out the owners were Malayalis from North Kerala. The wife and family were Cambodian. The world is indeed a small place. 

Oh, btw, I'm proud of this shot. Reminds me of my years fiddling with a Yashica camera's aperture/shutter speeds to take night pictures. A lifetime of trying to take good pictures. Now I use the camera phone. Something good died along the way. 

                                    ******

#Cambodia #Sunset #Cambodiamusic #Cambodiapop #siemreap #phnompenh #pubstreetsiemreap #pubstreet #cambodiatemples #templesofcambodia #angkorwat #newyear #newyearincambodia #newyearinsiemreap #music #newyearparty #YouTube #teenager #nightphotos #aperture #shutterspeed #Yashica #cameraphone #photographs #wife #northkerala #southindianrestaurantincambodia #travel #traveldiaries #southindianfood #travel #indiansincambodia #malayalis #mumbaimalayalis