Fishy Chronicles 97 – The Webs We Weave (29)

Joys of school
(Photo credit: A. Peter)

At lunch I managed to sit in the chair next to Jimmy (FC96) just as Mobby lowered himself into it. The breath squeezed out of me, I became lightheaded and things blackened as Mobby’s butt pressed my chest and stomach.

“Hey!” Jimmy pushed Mobby with both hands. Mobby jumped off – too shocked to be his usual rude self. Jimmy shook me, and I took in a deep quavering breath and the room stopped looking grey. Unfortunately, the incident only excited more looks of annoyance among some of the elders, notably my mother, grandmother and father’s sisters. I ignored them. A little body pressed into my side, and I groaned. Rita and Eva, Sarojmama’s daughter – a pestilential 11-year-old, sat beside me. But in the next instant, Roma hauled Rita off her chair and flopped into it. Rita protested and tried to pull Roma off, but it looked like she was trying to budge a massive bull. In the end, Eva scooted to the next chair and Rita sat next to her sister. This was awful, like a silent inquisition, a surveillance in progress – I felt like a fly knowing a swatter was over its head.

I couldn’t ask my questions. Despite Roma disliking Jimmy she wanted to know all that we were doing. Anjali had once suggested that Jimmy might be interested in Roma and so never looked at her because he felt shy. But he talked and joked with other girls – so bashfulness wasn’t the reason for his disinterest.

Then Anjali suggested that Roma might be interested in Jimmy and was miffed by his inattention. That was an interesting point of view, so I watched the two at Sunday School, until I felt cock-eyed and decided to stop. Stopping had to do with the realization that I was overanalysing everything and clearly barking up the wrong tree.

“Masticate your food,” Jimmy muttered.

“Eh?”

“Eat! You’re attracting attention.”

I wanted to tell Jimmy that cows masticated their food, not humans, but he was probably learning a new word with all the livestock at his grandparents’ home. I could see what he meant when I looked up, so I mixed the sambar into the rice, my mouth watering with the aroma, and waited till his mouth was full. “Who’s C?” I whispered in his ear.

I acted innocent until Ashok stopped slapping Jimmy’s back. He had choked on a piece of fish and was red in the face. He blew his nose into his brother’s handkerchief, because of course he hadn’t carried one or had lost his, and gave me a filthy look. That day in the church courtyard (FC95), when Nidhi whacked me on the head, I knew who had written the love letter that dear ‘love pigeon’ Nidhi ferried about the church and school courtyards. I just could not figure out who ‘C’ was or why Jimmy was calling himself a humongous lover T and writing such rot. Anjali’s theory was that Jimmy was fronting for someone else.

I didn’t think so. Could it be the impossible had happened and Jimmy had fallen in love with someone in school?

He was grim all through his meal, though it did not affect his appetite. But I was forced to keep quiet because all the adults’ radars were trained on me now.

I used the ensuing quiet to work on my strategy. Jimmy was going to fob off every question I had. I had lost the advantage of surprise by asking him at lunch – where there was no privacy. Now he would build his defenses in anticipation of my next set of questions.

Whenever I glanced at him, he was eating stiffly, and his brother Paul’s eyes darted from Jimmy to me, forcing me to stay quiet.

Maybe I could use the telephone tonight. I had finally discovered the code – Appachan had been making a call and I was standing nearby. I had spent the rest of that day memorising it and celebrating the discovery. 

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Anjali and I couldn’t figure out why Jimmy was using the initial ‘T’.  Was he using an alphabet from his surname. Was he writing the notes to throw off anyone who’d intercept them? It was all farfetched. Why would someone make Jimmy write a note that his girlfriend might not be able to read? Jimmy’s handwriting was worse than a doctor’s.

Plus, it was too elaborate for Jimmy, who liked to charge ahead first and then think. He wasn’t middle-man material.

And then the letter explained Paul’s interest in it. Did he think his baby brother had a love interest? Paul should never know. Jimmy would tell me. In his own time. Maybe. Maybe later. Maybe never.

At the gate, while bidding them goodbye, I told Jimmy, “So you’re going to act as if there are no C and T and that you don’t know what the note is about?”

“Shhhh!”

“Why? I have nothing to hide!”

“Shhh!”

“Don’t shhh me! Anyway, Paul’s been asking me about the note.”

Before he could reply, his father grabbed his arm and hustled him into a rickshaw. As the yellow and black rickshaw hurtled down the uneven road, he looked dismayed and did not wave goodbye.

“What did you say to Jimmy?” Roma said softly, her breath tickling my neck.

I turned and walked back to the house. A few steps from the doorway, a sharp pain shot through my shoulder – Roma’s fingers were digging into my flesh. She pulled me away from the door and slammed me against the wall, her arm jamming my throat.

“You idiot. You dare fool around with me!” Roma thundered in my face, her breath smelling of sambar and pickle. There was a bit of curry leaf stuck between her bared teeth.

There was nothing for it… I pinched her breast hard. She screamed and let me go, grabbing her chest but feeling embarrassed to rub it. I darted into the house, and looked for a hiding place. None was available, so I sat near Pilipochyan, and pretended to be interested in a Malayalam magazine. Roma rushed in and stopped. I looked up nervously. She gave me a dirty look, but seemed intimidated by Pilipochyan’s presence, especially when I held out the magazine and pointed at an article. Roma marched off. She would be waiting for me, sometime and somewhere, probably with her minions.

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“I tell you, Anjali, he’s hiding something! He’s probably T!”

“No way! There’s no girl in school who could make him interested in her.”

“What rubbish. There are hundreds of pretty girls in school. It’s a paradise for boys.”

“But you know Jimmy, na. He doesn’t like ordinary girls.”

“Kuch bhi. He talks only to ordinary girls.”

“Why are you whispering? And why are you calling me so late at night?”

“Everyone’s sleeping and I’m not supposed to be using the telephone here. They’d skin me if they knew I was making a long-distance call. Why haven’t you been replying to my letters?” My cries of desperation in longhand, I wanted to add.

“Er, I was busy.”

“Doing what?”

“You know Trevor?”

“Trevor Mascarenhas, your brother’s friend?” And Anjali’s latest crush.

“Yes. He’s got a new girlfriend.”

“What! Who’s your source?”

“It’s not important.”

“Of course it is.” It was the difference between reliable and unreliable gossip.

There was silence on the other side, so I asked, “How is Anita taking it?” Anita was Trevor’s erstwhile girlfriend. She was a year our senior in school and only became our focus because she and Trevor had become close walking up and down the shady corners of the school during recess. Their break-up had been a hot topic for days in our class, because many girls had a crush on Trevor. And, unfortunately for Anita, she was in our school bus. Not that she spoke about Trevor, although when she did speak to her friends about him it was in whispers. We tried to catch every word despite the sounds of whooshing air and Mumbai traffic coming in through the bus’s open windows. We closed the window next to us, and suffocated in the heat while listening to the whispered conversations going on in the seat in front of us. We heard snatches, mostly cuss words and expressions of sympathy from Anita’s friends.

For this privilege, we had to dislodge the kids that were already in the seat behind Anita, which led to a one-sided scuffle. One sided because we were bigger than the younger kids, although we had to get through some loud wailing and the occasional well-aimed kicks to our ankles. Things settled down soon, when the children couldn’t get a rise out of us – our efforts at eavesdropping meant we stayed hunched unresponsively in our seats for most of the long ride home.

“I think Anita has taken the breakup very well. She’s hooked up with Benny Wong.”

“What!”

“And Trevor took Sarita Kumar to Juhu Beach.”

There were too many things going on. Suddenly Jimmy was unimportant. Trevor-Sarita, Benny-Anita – the mind boggled. All the girls wanted to be friends with Benny, because he was clearly a foreigner, though his family – originally from China – had been in Mumbai for over 60 years. He was very cute and a flirt. A charmer, a girl’s boy. Anita was the unattainable hottie, and Trevor’s ex.

“So where are we on ‘T’…?” I spotted the bunch of keys dangling from Appachan’s drawer. He rarely forgot them at his desk. At night he dropped the keys into the top drawer of the chest of drawers in his bedroom. But tonight they were innocently stuck in a keyhole. I pulled the drawer’s handle – it was open. I moved the lamp closer to the edge of the desk – papers, envelopes, official-looking letters, printed pamphlets.

“You’ll have to try harder with Jimmy,” Anjali said, startling me. This was easier said than done. Anyway, I had probably run up a large telephone bill for Appachan. Would he ask the telephone exchange for a bill with all the telephone numbers listed, like the cops did in American TV serials? Or maybe he’d call all the telephone numbers and verify them for himself. “Will ring you another day, Anjali.” I hung up before she could reply.

Anjali would be annoyed, but there was Appachan’s desk to be explored. I listened for a sound around the house, then used the keys to open the other drawers – files, bundles of cash – 100s and 500s and smaller ones of lower-denomination notes, a little filigreed silver bowl containing small change, a pair of spectacles. In the lowest one, I found some dried flowers sticking out of a dictionary, big fat books that seemed to be encyclopedias but were ancient telephone books, some smooth white stones that I suspected were the ones that were found in the flower pot in Sarayumama’s room and had likely been in my jhola the day I damaged Bobby (FC72, FC73), and irrevocably spoilt relations with my eldest aunt at the start of my vacation here. In the lowest drawer, there were some albums, yellowing documents and leaves of loose paper, and… I gasped, feeling the adrenaline rush through me faster, the photographs from the loft – the ones of the handsome Sardar and Sarojmama (FC69, FC70). How had Appachan been able get up into the loft and retrieve them?

I pulled out the envelop and looked at the photos. They were a handsome couple. The colours in the photos were fading. There were some photos taken in a garden against a large flower bush. Sarojmama had a large red rose behind one ear and her long plaited hair rested on one shoulder. There was a photo of them holding hands with the Taj Mahal in the background, just one photo – a polaroid snap. I had a strange sad feeling looking at the pictures. I looked at them over and over, wondering what had happened to their romance, why they hadn’t stayed together. I put the pictures back into their cover reluctantly and then saw the letters addressed to Sarojmama, tied in a bundle, right at the bottom. I tugged one out from the side, but it was likely to tear. I knelt on the ground and reached in. My heart jerked at the sound of a door opening.

I shoved the envelop and its photos back on top of the bundle of letters and moved the rest of Appachan’s papers over them and locked the drawer as quietly as I could. I stayed under the table, switched off the lamplight hurriedly, and gently slipped the key back into the top right-hand drawer of Appachan’s desk. I wanted to come back and read the letters, but I didn’t want to risk taking Appachan’s keys – he would raise hell if he couldn't find them. But it was unlikely this opportunity would come again. I wondered if I should have kept one of the photographs, if I needed them. For purposes of blackmail or to put my aunt in her place in an argument.

The door to the bathroom in the corridor opened, and closed noisily. I keyed the locking code back into the telephone and ran back to my bedroom.

                                                            ******

The narrator makes a long distance call to her best friend and is apprised of new developments. 

This is a work of fiction and is the latest episode of the Webs We Weave series. You can read the earlier ones 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, 95, 96)

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#younglove #jimmy #sarita #trevor #juhubeach #breakup #trevormascarenhas #love #cops #americantvserials #crimeserials #americancrimeserials #youngadult #fiction #keralastories #keralavillage #kerala #farmanimals #youngboy #younggirl #teenager #teenageescapades #teenagestories #fishychronicles #websweweaveseries #websweweave #bombaymalayalis #syrianchristianmalayalis #syrianchristians #bestfriends #friends #breath #rita #oldphotos #roma #oldromances #oldloves #brokenlove #lovestories #mol #paul #jimmy #oldphotos #loveletters #teenagelove #teenromance #teenagers #adolescence #romance #failedromance #sardarji #sardar #tajmahal #love #polaroid #silverbowl #filigree #coins #money #cash #bull #youngadultfiction #mumbaitraffic #mumbai #mumbailove #loveletters

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Fishy Chronicles 83: The Webs We Weave (15) – Reckoning

I lay under my bedsheet, motionless. I feigned sickness when Appa told me it was time to get up. He felt my forehead, but let me sleep.

It was pointless though. Outside my bedroom door there was a commotion building steadily. I heard feet running up and down the corridor, raised voices, a door slam.

I pressed my hands to my ears, praying I could be transported elsewhere, cursing myself for interfering in things that always got me into trouble. It seemed I had no instinct for self-preservation.

While all these thoughts ran through my head, the electricity went off. I heard the fan creak to a stop and, when I could no longer take the heat and suffocation threw off the sheet to suck air into my lungs and cool my sweating face and body.

I had the fright of my life. Sarayumama was leaning over me, looking ready to kill me.

She bared her teeth and grabbed my shoulders in a vice-like grip, shaking me and screaming in my face about sins and crimes, her first-born baby, and etc, etc. I lost track because my brain hit my cranium too many times, and aimed only to get away from the spray of spittle from my aunt’s mouth.

Sarayumama suddenly let go and I fell backwards, hitting my head against the teak headrest of the bed. It hurt like hell but I stayed frozen, frightened to my core. When the haze lifted, I noticed my parents in the room and there was a babble.

But Sarayumama wasn’t done with me. She dug her short stubby red-painted nails into my shoulder and tried to tear out flesh. I pushed her hands away with effort. This enraged her more and she grabbed fistfuls of my nighty and hauled me off the bed. I tried my best to land on my feet.

“SARAYU!” 

My aunt’s hands became limp and I staggered back, my nightdress bunched up under my chin. I pulled it down, feeling conscious of my bare thighs and the family that had now grouped in the room and outside the bedroom door. I saw my cousins peeping in, mostly curious, fearful and… pitying.

“I told you I would deal with them,” Appachan (grandfather) said.

“She has been targeting my children since we came here.”

My grandfather took a slow deep breath, his eyes behind his glasses moving with exasperation from his older daughter to me.

“Look at her size and look at your sons!” Amma said. From the corner of my eye, I saw Appa’s head turn in her direction, immediately quieting her.

Appachan turned to look at my mother, and she lowered her head. He turned back. “Brush your teeth, eat your breakfast, and then come to my study.”

My chest squeezed. “W-why?”

A fist slammed the side of my head, and I staggered sideways. The room swung around me and I fell to the floor. Arms grabbed me, but I was conscious only of pain in the side of my head and face and the back of my head where the headrest had hit me. My mother was crying and my father was furious and standing with his arms spread wide in front of me, shouting.

When I felt my head steady somewhat people had swarmed into the room and Sarayumama was being hustled out of the door with difficulty by her siblings Sarojmama and Joychyan. My grandfather waved his cane about, roaring furiously at no one in particular, and my cousins Rita and Roma avoiding his cane came rushing to me.

I breathed slowly and kept my eyes closed, lying still on the floor to stop my head from spinning.

******

I cried in the toilet while I brushed my teeth. And then I raged at the memory of my aunt punching me. In the scarred bathroom window, the bruise on my cheekbone was turning maroon.

When I sat at the dining table, I could see my father, his siblings and their spouses standing uncomfortably in my grandfather’s study. The door leading from the study into the dining room was ajar and I sat as far away from it as possible. There was a steady whine, mostly by Sarayumama and her husband Mathanchyan.

I drank the cup of tea Elsa Aunty, Joychyan’s wife, gave me. She stroked my head gently and told me not to be afraid and put a couple of idlis on my plate. I cried some more. Rita put her arms around me and I felt her face wet against mine.

When Elsa Aunty went into the kitchen. Roma grabbed my chin, lifted the edge of her kurta and scrubbed my face dry. “Don’t let her hit you again! Jump out of the way. What got into you, didn’t you see it coming?”

“No.”

Despite being our aunt, Sarayumama had sometimes hit us when we were children. She prized the boys, especially her sons. The girls annoyed her. Her irritation increased whenever she saw her father return from his errands. His granddaughters would race to the gate to open it, even though the car was still about a half a kilometre away. They would mass around his car, opening the door for him, opening all the car doors and pulling out and carrying the packages into the house. The girls chattered all at once. The younger girls’ hands would be in his juba pockets, emptying it of loose change. Then he would open his wallet and pull out a large wad of low-denomination notes – notes he had especially arranged for at the market – and hand them out to the girls. He made a big production of looking through all the bags of groceries and then would go back to his car and carry back a large bag of toffees. There was usually a lot of laughter then, and all his granddaughters would sit around him, or on him, listening to how his day went. The older folks would sometimes leave their work to come and watch. Sometimes Appachan’s brother would come along, and he would call us his “little happinesses”.

“What’s happening?” I asked.

Roma pursed her lips. Rita’s small hands turned my face towards her. “Sarayumama said you and Sarahchechi beat Mobbychacha with a cricket bat.”

I was shocked. The tea I had just sipped went up my nose and I coughed into my sleeve. Roma beat my back and slapped the top of my head with her palm to help me tide over my coughing fit. She did not know how strong she was – it hurt like hell.

“Is it true?”

“No.”

“So, how did Mobbychacha get hurt?”

“What makes you think he got hurt?”

“Lal Doctor,” our neighbour down the road, "visited in the morning. Said nothing was broken, but Mobbychacha told him that he went for a drink of water at night and you two bashed him up.”

“B-But but why would we do that?”

Rita looked at Roma, and Roma slowly shrugged. Something made me shiver. I turned to look into the study. Mobby was looking at me with hatred and behind him, unable to see Mobby, Appachan gestured at me impatiently to enter the room.

Rita and Roma hung back behind me in the doorway, squeezing behind their father even though Appachan glared at them.

Appachan tilted his head at the corner where Mobby sat on a chair. He looked woebegone, probably for the audience’s benefit. My cousin Sarah was standing next to him, her face impassive.

Appachan pointed again at the spot next to her and smiled.

It disconcerted me. I remembered how he thrashed me those weeks ago, assuming I had been having an illicit rendezvous with my cousin Bobby (FC70). How coldly he had treated me thereafter.

I tried not to smile back. I felt fearful and looked at my parents – who looked anxious.

“So, mol, we were discussing your tendency to roam around the house at night,” Appachan said.

I opened my mouth, but out of the corner of my eye I saw Roma shake her head, and closed my mouth.

Appachan smiled, waited expectantly, and then sat further back in his chair. His eyes narrowed on me, looked at Sarah, and Mobby, and then returned to me. He put both his hands on the knob of his polished walking stick, balancing his palms one on top of the other. He swung the top of his cane around in a circular motion.

“Are you going to tell me what happened last night?”

I looked at him, surprised. Didn’t he know? Roma shook her head. That meant to tread cautiously – mostly to shut up.

“What happened last night?” I asked. An incredulous exclamation rose from somewhere in the room and people shifted positions nervously.

“Oho, you don’t know?”

I wondered when Appachan would use his stick to draw a coherent response from me. I shook my head.

“Can you explain what happened to your cousin Mobby?” Appachan waved his hand at his grandson. I stepped forward to look at Mobby properly. He looked angry. He wore a long-sleeved shirt and was covered from head to toe. I could see nothing that was a reminder of last night.

“What happened to him?”

“She’s lying, you-you liar!” Sarayumama shouted from somewhere behind me and I lurched in terror into Sarah. She steadied me and let me go. The family rearranged itself to block Sarayumama’s way.

Appachan leaned towards Mobby and pushed up his sleeve. His skin was blue and maroon. Mobby looked at me with even more hatred.

“Do you know how these got on his arm?”

I shook my head.

“Adi kittum!” Appachan said angrily. It translated to ‘you’ll get a beating’ in Malayalam.

I moved back a step and looked straight ahead. I wondered what Sarah had said. A quick look upwards and her face still showed no emotion. Why were they still asking questions?

“What were you doing outside your room at night?” Appachan asked again.

“Soo-soo. But I didn’t do that,” I tilted my head at Mobby, but looked at a growth on my grandfather’s neck.

“He said you beat him.”

“He’s dreaming, for sure.”

“Insolent child! Beat her, beat her!” Sarayumama shrieked, dramatically straining against her sister Saroj’s tight hold.

From the corner of my eyes I could see Roma shaking her head furiously. I couldn’t bear to look at anyone, so I kept my eyes pinned to the wall in front of me, where Pilipochyan, and Sarah’s parents Georgiechyan and Anniemama, stood. Sarah’s parents looked tense, but Pilipochyan had an encouraging look. I moved my eyes to a large damp smudge on the wall above them and kept it there.

“Are you not scared of the consequences of lying?” Appachan shouted.

Why was Appachan assuming I was guilty? “What makes you think I’m not telling the truth?”

“You are not!”

“Would you believe me if I did? You didn’t believe me when I told you Bobby grabbed my breast in the loft.” I heard gasps and ignored them. “Yet you thrashed me and treated me like a scoundrel. You assumed I was the guilty one. And when he did it again, you were okay with it.”

“He did it again…” Appachan looked shocked.

“You left me out when you bought the rings for everyone (FC73). You let everyone see it. Because you punished me, everyone did the same. If you want to believe me you can. But I’m not going to tell you something just because you think that’s what happened.”

I saw him lift the cane. “That’s right. Hit me… go on… hit me because you didn’t like what I said. Did you want the truth? How do you know whether anything I say is going to be the truth. Why believe me when all this time you haven’t been able to believe me.” I stopped because Sarah was shaking me.

“Really, Sarahchechi, tell him the truth. But can Appachan handle it?” I pulled myself out of Sarah’s grasp. I lunged at Mobby, slapped my palm as hard as I could on his lap and squeezed.

He howled in pain. The stick came down on my arm. I hopped in pain, oblivious to the sudden explosion around me. When the stick rose again and stopped, I looked furiously into my uncertain-looking grandfather’s eyes, “Scared, Appacha?” the stick stayed up a second and then came at me. I ran out of the way into the crowd, which was too dense for me to make an escape. I felt hands push me towards my grandfather, but smaller hands dragged me back. I saw my grandfather get up, using his stick to push himself forward, and snorted. The scene was priceless. I looked around, still in the moment, watching relatives snarl, my parents trying to get to me, my aunts and uncles holding back an apoplectic Sarayumama. Bobby’s hand grabbed my hair, I wondered if it would hurt. In a moment it did and suddenly I was free and stumbling sideways because a blow caught me on a shoulder.

Bodies fell on me in a sudden fracas and I felt suffocated. Had there ever been a sane person in this household? Someone was lifting me up by my ear. My grandmother! I had forgotten Ammachi! Sarayumama shrilly urged her to give me the hiding of my life. Ammachi was right handed and had to let go of my ear to hit me.

Too late, I darted back, again trying to squeeze through the bodies. I looked at my parents, my father was deathly still, but mostly upset. I stopped. Next to him, my mother was crying. I knew what it was. My father was upset I was running away. If I wanted to stay home to avoid a bully at school, he’d say, “Will you run every day?"

My dad, upset with everything happening around me, was more upset I was not facing it head on.

I felt dread but turned and walked back to Sarah’s side. The family quietened.

“Not trying to run?” Appachan said sarcastically. He was standing next to Sarah and glaring at us both.

“Where would I go?”

“You can hide in the rubber fields, under the guava tree… next door.”

“That is for lesser beings.”

I thought he’d beat me, but I felt a movement next to me. Sarah’s eyes looked at the floor, but her nostrils flared and her mouth was tightly pursed… trying to stifle a smile.

I had to ask the question. “Appacha, did you ask Mobbychyan why he was out of his room last night?”

“That is not the issue here. He is free to leave his room anytime.”

“I am not?” What inequity! Appachan opened his mouth to argue. “Why did he need to be out of his room at night?” I could see Mobby shift in his chair.

“He wanted to drink water.”

“There’s water in his room.”

“No. There wasn’t!” Mobby said.

“The jug was half full in the morning.” I hadn’t bothered to look, but went with it. There was usually water in the jugs in every room every morning.

“How do you know?” Appachan asked.

“I saw Bobbychyan throw the water out of the window in the morning.”

There was sudden silence. Everyone turned to look at Mobby’s younger brother Bobby. “Bobby?” My grandfather asked my cousin, shifting his body to face his grandson.

“Er, y-yes, A-Appacha. Er-er, n-no, no!” Bobby’s eyes darted to Mobby and back to Appachan.

“Yes or no.”

Bobby hesitated looking at Mobby. “No.”

“Liar,” it crept out of my mouth before I could stop it.

“You b…!”

“I’m what? Say it, Bobby. I’m a what? I’m a b-b-b-bottle of water?”

He stepped towards me, but looked around at the silent crowd and stopped.

Appachan’s stick rose, pointing at Bobby. “Stand where you are.” He turned to Mobby, “Why did you need to leave your room when you had water in your room.”

“Toilet.”

“Why did you say you went to drink water… several times. Stand up!”

Mobby stood up hurriedly. “I did go to have water, a-and to go to the toilet.”

“Tell me again what happened in the corridor.”

“Er, er, they saw me in the corridor… an-and they told me to go back to my room. And-and then, she,” Mobby pointed at me, “she took the bat and started hitting me. And then Sarahchechi took the bat and hit me. I begged her to stop but she didn’t.”

Grandfather was silent. After a long time, he moved to his chair and sat down.

I hated Mobby with every fibre of my being. Sarah was still, her mouth tight and eyes staring straight ahead.

When my grandfather continued to stay silent, I said, “Giving up?” So easily.

“Quiet!”

“I can’t. Not when someone is accusing me of something I didn’t do. Also seems the rules are different for different people.”

“Quiet, mol! Keep quiet!” this time it was my father from across the room, furious at me. I was angry, and close to tears. Your parents should be on your side. Apparently not. I looked ahead, and took a deep breath.

Appachan stood up. He felt on the top of the bookshelf and pulled out the thin length of stick that he used to threaten us with when we were younger but never used. Bits of cobweb clung to it. There was a gasp and a murmur. “Put out your hands!”

My hands curled into fists and stayed tucked tightly into my side. “Put out your hands!” Appachan screamed.

“Put out your hands, child. Hold it out,” people said around me.

Suddenly the stick whacked my legs. I flinched but held myself still. It stung bitterly, but the pain was blunted slightly by the kurta-salwar my mother had insisted I wear this morning.

My eyes filled and I felt sad. After two more quick lashes, Joychayan stood in front of me, his arms outstretched. “She’s a grown child, Appacha. Enough now. She’s learnt her lesson.”

“Go!” Appachan yelled at me, pointing at the study door. The crowd parted quickly and I turned my back on my grandfather and walked away.

******

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related to a family vacation in Kerala during her childhood. 

Her grandfather believes the narrator and her cousin Sarah are responsible for causing injury to his grandson Mobby and is having it out with them. Things do not end well for her. 

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

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#fiction #keralasyrianchristians #lifeinakeralavillage #FishyChronicles #mumbaimalayalis #malayalam #clandestinelove #love #forbiddenlove