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 here.

“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 demanded 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

                                                                        ******

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.   

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

I hadn’t expected things to unravel fast.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“N…o.”

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

“Quiet!” Appachan (grandfather) shouted.

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

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

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

“Go on,” Appa nudged me.

“I don’t have it.”

“What?”

“Someone’s flicked it.”

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

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

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

“Get your slingshot, child!” Appachan roared.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                        ******

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

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

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

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

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

“When?”

“A few days ago.”

“Oh.”

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

“Did Roma get one too?” I asked.

“Er… y-yes.”

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

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

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

                                                        ******

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                        ******

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

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

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