Fishy Chronicles 95 – The Webs We Weave (27)

 

A shadow fell on me. I belatedly realised it was a cloud.

My legs felt leaden but I pushed myself to put one foot ahead of the other. I felt I was crawling, but reached Appa’s side in a matter of seconds. I forced myself to look at the fair man standing next to Sam Uncle. He was handsome as hell, especially with his black hair slicked back. Sam Uncle’s son Paul Mathew took in my slow plod expressionlessly. His equally handsome cousin Ashok Thomas, who had a fan following (male and female), in school, smiled, looking embarrassed.

Some weeks ago, my cousin Roma, her best friend Serena Mammen, and I were watching a group of boys from a corner of our church’s compound in Mumbai. We mimicked an intense conversation, but our eyes and ears were on the group of boys-cum-men in front of us.

Evelyn John, a senior at school and from another parish, had started coming to this church and was often seen in the company of these boys.

“Why is she hogging our guys?” Serena groused.

Had the boys ever been ours in any sense?

“Beauty Verghese said Evelyn already has a boyfriend in her church. She was found out, but is still seeing him. Why is she coming here now? Do you think she’s broken up with him?” Roma said, looking at Serena.

“Is Beauty related to Kurian?” Serena said, referring to the tallest skinniest boy in the group.

“One of those guys is her brother or cousin," Roma said.

“Isn’t Ashok’s sister in your class?” Serena looked at me.

“No.”

Roma poked me. “She is!”

“No. She’s not,” I said with feeling. Nidhi made my life a living hell. She had hated me for no reason for years, had managed to isolate me in class, and made snide jokes behind my back.

“Why so hoity toity?” Serena turned her warm caramel eyes on me. It felt like a pool I could slowly drown in. Did girls like girls? Yes, they were called lesbians. I shook myself and continued to look at the boys. I saw Paul, now in engineering college, glance our way and a heavy sigh escaped me. Our eyes met and I turned around and began to walk to the other side of the church. I needed to go home and eat.

A hand grabbed my shoulder, and forced me to slow down. The arm attached to the hand quickly slid around my neck and Serena fell in step. “What happened at school yesterday?” she asked softly.

Roma was on my other side and they had me hemmed in. “Nothing.”

“I heard you got into a fight with Nidhi Thomas.”

I took a deep breath. These nosey, irritating girls. Didn’t they know a mob would set on me if I blabbed? I walked on, with difficulty. Both girls now had me in a vice-hold, forcing me to stop.

“No fight. I’m not talking to her and she and her… ‘friends’ … have been troubling me.”

“Why?” Serena asked.

“She thinks I’m interested in Ashok and warned me off.” Ashok was Nidhi’s older brother.

“Really?” Roma said with glee.

“I don’t know how she came to know this.”

“So you are interested in Ashok!” Serena said.

“NO, damn it! I’m not!”

“See, when you get so defensive it means something’s up,” Serena said.

“I agree,” Roma chimed in. They now had me pinned against a pillar near the church’s doorway. Roma started tickling me.

I laughed. I couldn’t stand it. “No. Noooo. No! Anjali likes him and I’m keeping tabs on him. But please, please, please it’s a secret.”

“She’s a Hindu and nobody would stand for it,” Roma said of my best friend.

“Who’s getting married? We just look at them. It’s not like they look back!” Those pretty, very hairy, boys only had eyes for the beautiful girls in school and in church. What chance did two 14-year-olds, that everyone looked through, stand at romance. Worse, Anjali looked Rastafarian with her curly hair, which resembled dreadlocks.

Nidhi and her group were giving me side glances and giggling. It was awful being near them. Worse, other girls had started ignoring me and keeping their distance.

Roma and Serena looked at the girls opposite us and murmured. I had been sharing my misery with Roma at recess everyday and even then my trauma didn’t lessen.

Nidhi’s pack began to swan towards us. One of the girls shoved me aside and walked into the church. I backed away.

Just then Santosh George, a boy two years my senior in school, waved at Nidhi and she went over to him. They had a short conversation and he passed her a piece of paper. She smiled like she had eaten a big bowl of custard and began making her way towards the church entrance. Most of her friends were now inside. One of them waited at the doorway. Nidhi wrestled with her fluorescent pink satchel, took out her pencil box, shoved the folded paper in and closed it.

But Nidhi didn’t notice it fall out and flutter to the ground. I walked past her and picked it up. This particular kind of blue paper note was being passed around by some older girls in school – they huddled in groups and giggled over it. Did people spray perfume on it, like in the movies? I felt a sting on the back of my head. I felt another harder blow and whirled around to see Nidhi’s face stretched into an ugly snarl. She hit me on the forehead, before a hand caught hers and Paul said angrily, “Stop it, Nidhi!”

Roma and Serena were now by my side, as were Paul’s friends. Roma babbled angrily at Nidhi and tried to press my forehead. I felt tears fall and pushed away. I slammed into my father.

“What happened, mol? What happened?” He tried to pry my hand off my forehead, but I couldn’t stop the pain in my temple or stop crying. He held me close and around me there were sounds of people coming nearer and questions from the parishioners. Serena and Roma were taking turns to tell Joychayan what had transpired. Appa pulled me backwards, to the side of the church, out of everyone’s view, and after a long time I let him look at my face. He touched what felt like a mountainous swelling on my forehead and I moved his hand to the back of my head to rub gently at the other nubs of pain, where that vicious, vicious girl had hit me twice more.

He massaged my head silently. My mother was by our side in a few minutes, asking questions and wiping my face with her sari pallu.

Appa disappeared soon, and Amma ordered me to stay put and rushed after him. I followed them, suddenly frightened for their well-being – Nidhi’s family were bigshots in church, and everyone either fawned over them or claimed they were related to them.

Nidhi’s father had his hands on my father’s arms and was talking to him, rather calmly considering the severity of his daughter’s crime. But my father was staring angrily at Nidhi, who was now conveniently bawling into her brother’s shirtfront. Joychayan tried to push away Nidhi’s father Joey, but seemed more interested in the conversation. Soon, Nidhi’s uncles and aunts surrounded her family and they all slid into their cars and evaporated. The remaining onlookers, mostly friends, were embarrassed at being caught watching. Joychayan made light of the incident – much to Roma’s and Serena’s indignation. Something was clearly rotten in the state of Denmark. So, so unfair.

I sat on the bench at the side of the church and felt sorry for Appa and Amma. We were as minute, invisible and powerful as an atom in the universe. And unfortunately Appa lacked even his brother’s loyalty.

Which is why I could not understand how Appa was being so friendly now to Joey Uncle’s brother Sam. They are good friends, the contrary voice in my head reminded me. But I lost my nerve looking at Sam Uncle, his son Paul and nephew Ashok, feeling guilty and embarrassed – even though I was the one who had been damaged. That word seemed most appropriate considering the overall harm Nidhi had caused me – the beating, the mental trauma, the intense humiliation. She was Satan’s spawn and I was breathing the same air as she in school, in church and as family friends… and I couldn’t do a thing about it. I fretted about her tyranny over me most days and it was affecting me emotionally. My only support was Anjali, who had a name for Nidhi – bully, or rather several – big bully, stupid bully, brainless bully, crack bully. Nidhi was scared of Anjali, and for good reason.

Nidhi, or one of her cronies, had locked Anjali into a school toilet one day, leading our class teacher to punish Anjali for loitering. Nidhi and her friends had laughed when Anjali was ordered to stand outside the classroom for the whole period.

But Anjali fought back. She locked the girls in the toilets or classroom several times after that, forcing all of Nidhi’s mean girls to be in a constant state of terror. Not just that. Their things disappeared. And sometimes they were found lying outside, on the ground below – probably thrown out of our classroom window. Even if Nidhi and her friends could see their belongings strewn on the grounds, by the time they raced down three storeys their things had disappeared. The crows took little things like sweets and shiny objects and tore apart small packets of chips and snacks, while the kindergarteners on the ground floor took whatever they could get to before the crows. Most of the KG class kiddies burst into tears and screamed if the big girls tried to prise their belongings from the little ones’ fists, pushing the KG teachers to complain to the principal.

The girls complained, and their parents did too, to the class teacher. But Anjali and everyone else denied all knowledge of what was going on. And when the parents became bold enough to approach Anjali’s parents, Narayanan Uncle, a well-known lawyer, suggested they advise their children that it was a crime to harass and beat children, even if their children were minors.

Also, Anjali’s siblings were popular in school and Nidhi soon stopped trying to bully Anjali.

Appa dragged me along with him, his arm firmly around me, and Sam Uncle and Paul fell in step.

“Feeling okay now?” Paul asked me.

“What do you mean?”

“Your head. Nidhi.”

“No, I’m not. How can I be?” I forgot how tongue-tied I got in Paul’s presence. “She’s a brute and was allowed to get away scot-free!”

Paul’s mouth tightened and his back stiffened. He hurried forward to join Ashok.

I felt something in me sink. I couldn’t remember a time when we ever conversed, and here I had driven Paul away by tearing apart his cousin. But Nidhi was someone who needed to be torn apart.

While I looked longingly at his bobbing back, my father whispered in my ear, “They are coming back with us for lunch. You know Sam is a good friend of Rajan. Your Upappan (paternal uncle) will be happy to see him.”

                                                            ******

All through our journey home I wondered how to handle things hereon. I didn’t want to spoil my relations with Paul or Ashok just because Nidhi was an unadulterated ass. We were all family friends and because of her conking me on the head with her metal pencil case relations between our families had become strained. This was why I was staying mum about how Nidhi was treating me in school.

We were never friends. I was too boyish and she too girlish and we did not care for each other from very early on.

As we got off our scooter at the house, I felt a tap on my shoulder and Paul murmured, “Hang back a bit. I need to talk to you.”

My spirits soared – what did he want with me?

I dawdled while Appa led the others into our house. I walked towards my guava tree and Paul followed. Most of my family had come into the sitting room to greet Sam Uncle and Ashok.

“What is it?” I said, trying not to sound hoarse. I felt nervous alone with Paul.

“What was in the note you read that day?”

“Eh?”

“The note you picked up in church last month.”

There was a kind of intensity in Paul. “Why do you want to know?”

He was taken aback. “Just… curious.”

“I didn’t read the note.”

“You’re joking! You spent almost a full minute reading it.”

It had taken me that long to read the six lines because of the shitty handwriting. Perhaps the reader had had to guess at things and imagine love. Perhaps that was why the notes were an ongoing affair.

“Did you forget that your cousin conked me on the head?”

“Who was the note addressed to?”

“I couldn’t make out. The handwriting was bad.”

“Bullshit! Stop toying with me. Be careful or you’ll have more to worry about from me than with Nidhi! Spill it out!”

I stared at the pink-faced fart in front of me. I couldn’t believe he was threatening me.

“Abhay sala, kuthe, kaminey. How dare you stand in my compound and threaten me. If I shout out my uncles will come and make mincemeat out of you and spread you under the tapioca trees like manure!”

I opened my mouth to recite this Bollywood-style dialogue I had just concocted. The swearing I had been practising for some weeks to lay it on whoever I could, after duly evaluating how far I could get with it of course. I closed my lips and licked them. As the air cooled my lips, I realised I was tossing away my fraction of a fraction’s chance to marry this man of my dreams. If I was an idiot and used my angry-young-woman dialogue, I would probably stay unmarried for life. Even though the voice in my head laughed at the idea and told me I had a better chance of marrying Brad Pitt, I wondered what Nidhi would do. Anjali’s voice sounded in my head, “She would act like a pathetic, whiny, sugary, twisty woman!” We had debated that often, watching older girls in action – the extra-wide coy smiles, unwavering eye contact, fluttering eyelashes, wild laughing at bad jokes, inability to smell the boy’s terrible body odour, etc, etc. Mostly it involved smiling and being constantly wide-eyed and blinking. It looked uncomfortable, but according to Anjali’s dad, who was listening to us while we watched a couple through a pair of binoculars, it would get easier in time. Anjali and I agreed he was joking.

The reason I couldn’t tell was that I was afraid of Nidhi. I had told only Anjali what was in the note. We knew it had to stay a secret.

“Well?” Paul demanded.

“Please believe me, I couldn’t read the note. The handwriting was very, very bad,” I said in a breathy baby-girl voice like Marilyn Monroe’s.

His nostrils flared, and he looked as though he was debating whether to believe me. “Who was it addressed to?”

I shrugged and began to hurry towards the main door.

In the whole minute it took me to read the note, I had chuckled at the rubbish in it but hadn’t been able to figure out who the “baby doll C” was or “your humongous lover” the writer T.

But one thing was certain. Paul knew more about the note than he was letting on.

                                                            ******

The narrator is remembering a long summer vacation at her paternal grandparents home in Kerala. Initially idyllic, the vacation soon takes a dark turn. (Please note this is a work of fiction and is the latest episode of the Webs We Weave series. You can read the earlier episodes at: 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)

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Fishy Chronicles 94 – The Webs We Weave (26)

Photo credit: A. Peter

In a couple of days my cousins Rebecca and Roy left Kunjappachan’s home. There were tears all around and a grand farewell. It seemed a mob was in and out of both households and no one mentioned or joked about cousins kissing. I was still confused by what it meant.

On their last day at home, Roy had visitors. A pair of foreigners visited Kunjappachan’s house and some of the younger kids went over to gawk from the doorway. I felt my face turn red at the sight of the very handsome Japanese man, but shuddered at the cold look his partner – a mannish-looking Scandinavian woman – gave all of us. ‘All of us’ were the girls, of course. Word had spread that a blond woman was in the village and I could see my male cousins hurrying over from next door.

It was normal for us to stare at visitors. We peeped through windows and open doors or nonchalantly lolled on the broad ledge that ran around the front of our granduncle’s house. You could tell we were bored out of our minds.

Anyway, Roy and his father soon left to drop off the couple at the nearest railway station, much to our intense disappointment.

Things had become dull. We had to stay indoors whenever it rained. That meant many chores. I loved the rains here. It swished and poured, one moment it would turn grey, because of the sudden darkening of the skies, and then you could see sheets of white pouring rain in the distance. I saw this in Mumbai too, but grey shabby buildings interrupted the beauty of it all. Here the trees bent from side to side with the rain and wind and shook themselves, their leaves dancing. They shone and glinted. They looked nourished with a newfound green. If we were lucky, some mangoes fell off and we might find them intact the next day. In the mornings, my father, his brothers and Appachan did a recce of the fields and the rattan trays in the kitchen would be full of assorted vegetables and fallen fruit. I sorted through them every day, finding small chillies, the occasional cashew fruit. One day there were even wilting white nutmeg flowers, that an aunt had washed and offered to the youngest child. The flowers often gave the tongue a nice zing!

I thought of Romeo (Mob Justice) often, but resisted the idea of getting close to another animal as I would be leaving for Mumbai in a few weeks. I didn’t want to pet another animal either in case someone turned on it out of spite for me. But every now and then I stood under my favourite guava tree during a downpour, and under a wide umbrella and felt pure bliss – even though the effort drenched me. It was in moments like these that I didn’t need to talk to or be with anyone.

One day my father gestured to me, “Do you want to go with me to the village market?” It happened once a week.

“Yes!”

“Ok, change your clothes and go and tell your grandmother and mother.”

I hesitated. “What mol?”

“What if Ammachi says no.”

My father sighed and went to the kitchen. He came back in a few minutes and I dashed off to change. I wore the kurta salwar I had worn yesterday, and scraped a comb through my tangled hair. It poked out oddly in places, but it didn’t matter.

I rushed out of the door, with Rita screaming at my back demanding to know where I was going. Appa and I were out of the gate before she could finish her questions. I waved my dupatta in the air, let the breeze man it like a sail, and then flapped my wings like a bird. What joy to be out of the house.

The men had gone to the market earlier in the day, so my father was likely on a personal errand. I wondered if I could get him to buy me a meat puff or an icecream. But then thoughts of the handsome Korean, not Japanese as I had thought, entered my mind and I forgot food. Maybe it was worth studying hard and going abroad to the US. There might be a romance in it. I shivered at the thought of my cousins hooking up… and my thoughts drifted to my male cousins. Hooking up with any of those idiots was a fate worse than death. Anyone planning a future with them needed to be warned. I hoped anyone planning a future with any one of my cousins had a premonition about it. Then I ticked myself off for those thoughts. Them marrying had nothing to do with me. Maybe they were not all bad. Maybe.

Appa braked hard at one of those signals that are rarely seen in villages in Kerala. Our road was laboriously tarred, narrow for a main road, and with space for very large puddles. As children we sailed paper boats in them. But for any soul that wanted to walk alongside the road, there was no kaccha path in spots but steep drops into the lush green overgrowth of someone’s estate. I would have said bowels of the estate, but with everyone owning a toilet now we rarely saw a stranger’s bare defecating bum.

A large car braked near us as well and I lowered my flailing arms self-consciously. I could see the amused looks and then the faces turned away. I leaned into my father’s back and whispered at his ear, “Appa, don’t turn. Johnnychyan and his family are in the car next to us!”

But of course my father had to look, and after an uncomfortable few seconds Johnnychyan nodded, tried to smile, and said, “Hello, Uncle.”

Appa smiled back, “Hello, mon (son).”

Johnnychyan looked my way and gave me a broad smile that faltered near his eyes, and my good mood of the last 10 minutes evaporated. It felt awkward and I couldn’t drag my eyes away from Johnnychyan.

“How are you, mol?”

I was tongue tied. What do I say? I stared aghast for a long time and then heard Appa murmur, “Say, fine, thank you.” I looked at the people in the car – his parents and an aunt. They looked ahead as though they didn’t see us.

“Er, good Achacha, and you?”

He nodded many times, like his neck was jelly and he couldn’t stop. “Very good.” He held out something. He reminded me of those bobble dolls that we kids wanted but couldn’t convince anyone returning from America to get us.

Appa murmured again, “Be kind. Remember your manners.” There was a bar of chocolate in Johnnychyan’s hand and he was trying to drop it in my lap.

“T-Thank y-you Johnnych-chyan. Th-Thank you.”

Suddenly the car shot forward and immediately swerved to avoid a scooter coming from a side road. Johnny’s father just about avoided hitting a lamppost, before braking to a hard stop. The passengers looking stunned. The scooterist drove up to Uncle’s window and swore at him. Uncle began to apologise profusely. Appa rode near the scooterist to see if he was hurt, but the man ignored him and drove off at top speed.

“Are you okay, Chetta (older brother)?” Appa asked Johnny’s father.

“Y-yes. I’m fine. Just got a fright. We’ll be okay, thanks.”

Appa took in the shaken passengers, nodded at them, and then slowly accelerated away.

“Why did they drive ahead when the signal hadn’t changed, Appa?”

Appa’s shoulders shrugged.

“Why, Appa?”

“Difficult situation – meeting your ex to-be in laws at the signal. Hard to avoid in a small village like ours,” Appa smiled. That was true. Random neighbours even remembered I had worn the same dress two days in a row. And I didn’t even know who they were!

Only outside Appa’s friend’s office did I realise that the chocolate in my hand was now squished into a shapeless mass. Nevertheless, I sat in a corner of the office and licked the chocolate wrapper clean and marvelled at how my dad could stay so cool and polite in a state of siege. Well, not siege, exactly. Maybe war-like conditions. Or, a state of duress. There, that was better.

Afterwards we inspected baskets of wares on the roadside. People jostled each other along the narrow rough concrete paths and everywhere you looked there was red earth and puddles. We walked in and out of the small streets down the main road. I took care to walk slowly, because I had worn white pajamas, and mud stains were difficult to scrub off. I had stopped washing my clothes everyday, and wondered when my parents would discover what I was doing. They were probably just ignoring it. A few days ago I had tried putting some of my clothes in my absent-minded cousin Shyla’s bucket of soaking clothes, but at the washing stone she had thrown a hissy fit and had tossed my clothes into the wet mud, which had led us to argue.

“Why didn’t you scold them, Appa?”

“Scold who?” Appa asked. 

“Johnny and his parents!”

“For trying to run through a red light?”

“For the broken engagement!”

“It is over. There’s nothing to be said.”

“But why? They looked guilty.”

“Rubbish. Things are just awkward. Life is not a bed of roses, you know. There is no happily-ever-after. If you read fewer romance novels and tried to read the good books I give you, you would know better.” Appa gave me a dirty look. This discussion popped up quite often.

Did Appa know I was currently ploughing through a Georgette Heyer. If he knew I was finding it tiresome he would have been happy. Roma had told me the best way to handle a dull book was to skim-read the boring parts and then slow down when the juicy bits arrived. Luckily, someone had decided to pencil in crosses on the corners of the important pages, and our reading had sped up. Some of the older girls had brought many such books with them and were passing them around. Even Rita was reading one which had sex in it. Everyday Roma and I expected a question from her, but strangely she stayed silent. Had she understood what she was reading? Probably not.

“And what is this I hear about you not attending Sunday School? Where do you go when you leave the house?” Appa was pissed now and was in his ‘stream-of-thought-pick-a-fight’ mode.

“Eh?”

Appa’s lips pursed, “Joychyan told me that Roma and you have been skipping Sunday School. Where are you girls going?”

“Er… to… the river.” We loafed about in the fields, around the junction, and near the river, but Appa didn’t need to know such details.

“Why?” Appa demanded.

“It’s all in Malayalam and very boring. Besides, I have to go back and do Sunday School in Mumbai. It is a waste of time doing it here.”

Wrong, wrong, wrong choice of words! “You let me decide what is a waste of time! When we are here, in this house, we do what Ammachi and Appachan want. And if I tell you to go to Sunday School you jolly well do it. Understood?”

“Y-yes.”

“And if I see that filth in your hands again, I will tear it. Clear?” Appa was referring to the Mills and Boons, Silhouettes and Harlequins hidden in various nooks of the house, some even in Appachan’s book case.

“Y-yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, er… Sir?”

Appa snorted, and chuckled, shaking his head. He put his arm around my shoulders and said, “If I thought those kinds of books were good for you, I’d have got you many. But all it does is lead you to think there’s a good-looking man out there waiting to sweep you off your feet and take care of all your troubles. That’s not true. You’ll have to troubleshoot and fight fire all by yourself. I’d rather you learnt to do these things yourself than assume some silly boy will come to your rescue. Don’t wait. He’s not going to come.”

That one line made me feel glum. What good was life if there wasn’t any romance in it and, worse, no handsome boyfriend quickening your pulse.

“There will not be a handsome man lying in wait for you… to rescue you. There will be a thousand other beautiful girls he will try to rescue before you.”

Thousand? Now Appa was rubbing it in! “But Johnnychyan is handsome!”

“Yes, and look what happened. And Sarah is extremely pretty, many handsome men will make a beeline for her. So what? Do good looks or money guarantee a happy life?” Appa dared me to argue.

Was Appa asking me to ignore good-looking guys and only aim for ugly ones? I was very confused. I nodded like I understood and agreed with what he was saying. If this lecture ended on a good note, I might still get my meat puff.

“Where do you go when you bunk Sunday School in Bombay?” he said suddenly.

The corners of my lips sank to my crotch.

“Mrs Jeelu Kurian called me. Apparently your group stays away regularly.”

ILU (I Love You) Jeelu was a pain. We called her that because she preached about loving your brothers and neighbours all the time. But never about loving your sisters. Our last Sunday in Mumbai before our vacation began, Roma, a couple of Sunday School classmates who were also in school with us, and I had gone to see a morning show with my best friend Anjali. It must have inflicted some pain on Jeelu, because it was the first time she had ratted on me.

“You will not be able to get married if you don’t pass Sunday School or have full Sunday School attendance,” she had made the outrageous claim one day. When I checked with Appa, he confirmed it was a new dictat, which was still being debated in church. This was a huge source of amusement for him.

“What’s the connection, Appa!”

“Just a way to bring you closer to God. You go into a marriage prepared for a life of service. Of course, you can get married any way you want, but you should know the scriptures and at least know what the basic tenets are about. You should be able to instruct your children. By the way, you don’t know anything. You would have to cheat to pass. I am not sure you will be allowed to marry.”

Appa laughed till the tears fell. He had to blow his nose and hold his breath for a few minutes to compose himself, while I hopped on each foot feeling appalled and enraged in turns. I don’t know why, he was merely stating fact. It took me a while to locate the books in the Bible and I could barely keep awake in class. Each exam was touch-and-go only because I wouldn’t study for it.

Appa caught my hand to his chest, and said hoarsely, “Promise me you will never run away to get married. That you will make an effort to pass those exams.” He laughed some more.

I walked ahead. I didn’t feel like eating a puff. Now I was sure I would never get a handsome husband, and Appa had just ruined romance for me. Also, for all her preaching, ILU Jeelu did not love some of us Sunday Schoolers. So much for loving your brethren.

I heard Appa shout, but ignored him. Another shout. I hesitated. I wondered how to have a tantrum and get away with it. But I was at fault here, I had played truant at Sunday School. I would be forced to attend the Malayalam version here and the Hinglish (Hindi and English) version when I returned to ILU Jeelu.

If I kept walking, it would make Appa angry and force him to give me another lecture. The most popular theme now was my lack of manners. I exhaled and turned, marching back.

But… ahead … I could see my father’s good friend Sam… and my footsteps began to slow. My breathing became laboured and my heart raced. As was usual my tongue felt too big for my mouth but I couldn’t take my eyes off the two people with Sam Uncle.

“Come quick, mol. See who’s here!” 

                                             ****** 

The Webs We Weave series follows the travails of a 14-year-old narrator on a family vacation. An innocent incident spirals out of control and one thing leads to another. 

You can read the full series,  at 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

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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.