Fishy Chronicles 82: The Webs We Weave (14) – Games people play

Sarah and I waited on either side of Sonimol’s door (FC81). My cousin Mobby was hiding inside the room with the servant because we had surprised him in the middle of a night-time rendezvous.

We had to wait a long time because there were no noises coming from the room. Sometimes I thought I heard whispers.

After about half an hour, though it seemed longer, Sarah wiggled her fingers at me, gesturing for me to go to her. I walked the three steps to her reluctantly. She cupped her hands around my ear and whispered, “Get me the cricket bat. Behind table… storeroom.” She pointed at the storeroom’s doorway.

I walked a few paces towards the doorway, but stopped. This could be a ploy to get me away from the servant’s room – Sarah could latch the door behind me once I was in the storeroom. I returned to my post by Sonimol’s door. Sarah looked like she was going to explode. Her outstretched arm and forefinger jabbed the air furiously in the direction of the storeroom’s doorway, her eyes bulging with rage. I shook my head slowly, watching her nervously.

“Why not!” she hissed from across me.

I put my fingers to my lips and hopped, praying the couple inside the room weren’t able to hear us. “Shhh!” I rounded my mouth.

She came to me and grabbed the neck of my t-shirt, trying to strangle me. “Listen, you!” she spat into my face, “You do what I say or get out of here.”

“You go back to your room. I’ll stay here and sort matters.”

She dragged me a little away from the door and spat again, this time into my ear and on my cheek, “And how do you plan to do that?”

“I’ll think of something…” I regretted suggesting we follow Mobby to see what he was doing (FC81).

She opened her mouth, but I jammed my palm against her mouth, trying to shush her. A furious look shot into her face and she started to shake me. I pinched her upper arm hard and she yelped in pain, letting me go. She went back to her side of the door, rubbed the tender fleshy area of her upper arm and looked daggers at me.

A few minutes later, she went to the storeroom and got the cricket bat. Shock coursed through me. Was she going to beat me with it?

She leaned the bat against the door and then got a small nest table from the sitting room and sat on it carefully.

It was old, carved and delicate and I wondered if it would break under her weight. But I was quite sure this family would brave a broken heirloom rather than bear down heavily on Sarah.

I was surprised Mobby Dick was so quiet inside the servant’s room. I darted over to Sarah and cupped her ear, “Do you think he’s still in the room?”

“Yes.”

“There’s a window in there.”

“He’s too wide to squeeze through the bars,” she whispered hoarsely into my ear.

I’d forgotten the window bars. “We can’t stay here all night.”

“You can’t, for sure.”

I glared at Sarah, who grinned and puckered her lips to kiss the air in front of her mouth. I walked back to my post and put my ear to the door. How was it possible that Mobby the Dick was so silent in there? Why did Herman Melville give his whale two names. Could Mr Melville have foreseen one of those names becoming a popular swear word 200 years on? And why did Sarayumama put two bs in Mobby’s name. Had she ever read Moby Dick?

I went back to Sarah. “How are we going to get Mobby out?”

“I don’t know.”

“How long do you plan to stick around?”

“Your guess is as good as mine.”

I wanted to hit Sarah on her head with the bat leaning against the wall. “What are you planning to do with the cricket bat?”

“I’ll figure it out soon.”

“So why did you get it?”

“Chumma (Just like that).”

“Idiot!”

“What! What did you say?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t hear myself,” I said, rushing back to my spot, suddenly scared.

Sarah was furious. She got up from the spindly stool and charged at me. She caught my ear and wrenched hard.

“You’re just bloody evil! All of Ammachi’s* horrible genes in you,” I shouted, giving Sarah a mighty shove. She tottered backwards and fell, landing on the nest stool. It flattened out with a disturbing crunch.

Sarah lay still on the ground in shock, her hands clutching her mouth to stifle her scream. “Run, Chechi, run!” I whispered as loudly as I dared and started running back to my bedroom through the storeroom and into the corridor.

I was suddenly afraid my grandfather, sleeping in the room opposite the storeroom’s other door, would wake up with the sound of the nest stool smashing and catch us. I was even more worried my demon cousin would rise from where she had fallen beside Sonimol’s door and catch and strangle me with her ferociously strong hands.

I turned to look and saw Sarah close on my heels with the bat tucked into her armpit. As I neared the corridor, sweating now and tense that my grandfather’s door would open any moment, we heard Sonimol’s door open and a pair of slippered feet slapping the ground in hot pursuit.

I waited further along the corridor for Sarah, terrified Mobby would be upon us soon. But she was pulling a starched embroidered table cloth – an unholy reminder that Sarayumama was once young – off a tiny corner table near the sitting room’s entrance. My heart thundered in my chest and ears as I waited near my door, willing my cousin to give up her tomfoolery and run to her door. Being older didn’t necessarily mean wiser!

But in an instant, I understood her interest in our aunt’s stiff muslin endeavour. Sarah grabbed Mobby from behind, her arm looped around Mobby’s neck jerking his head back, and with her other hand shoved the cloth deep into his mouth. My cousin gagged and bent over, scratching at his mouth.

Sarah picked up the cricket bat she had rested against the wall and watched him roll on the floor. There was a cold calculating look on her face. I hugged the wall near my bedroom, watching in shock as Sarah raised the bat and slammed it on Mobby’s back and legs and every body part he was unable to roll over and protect. I ran into my room unable to watch anymore, and threw myself under my sheet, trembling.

In a while I heard Sarah’s door close and after a very long time Mobby’s.

I wiped the sweat off my face and neck and continued to shiver with tension, trying to calm down.

When the sky started to lighten, and my mother woke up and left the room to begin her chores, I crawled into her side of the bed, curled up and continued the prayer I had spent the whole night repeating – I begged God to take me away from this awful place.

                                                      ******

* grandmother in Malayalam

Sarayumama is the narrator’s father’s older sister.

                                                      ****** 

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

Her cousin Sarah and she have discovered their cousin Mobby attempting a rendezvous with a servant in the middle of the night. 

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

                                                     ******

#fiction #keralasyrianchristians #lifeinakeralavillage #FishyChronicles #mumbaimalayalis #malayalam #nesttable #heirloom #cricketbat #embroideredtablecoth #servant #servantquarters #clandestinelove #love #forbiddenlove             

 

Fishy Chronicles 81: The Webs We Weave (13): Trouble in threes

Following my cousin Sarah’s pen kaanal (viewing of a prospective bride, FC80), I was buttonholed by my cousin sisters who felt I had some inside information.

Of course, I couldn’t tell… because I hadn’t had an inkling of what had been going on or what was going to happen.

But thereafter the vibes in my grandfather’s house turned positive. Everyone seemed excited and happy. Only there was a fly in the ointment. In a manner of speaking.

It seemed Sarah’s parents, my father’s oldest brother Georgiechyan and his wife Anniemama, had dragged their feet in telling their younger daughter about Sarah’s betrothal. My uncles and aunts hinted at it, and finally it took a sarcastic joke from Sarayumama for my uncle to make that call.

Only someone beat him to it.

For a few days, I wasn’t able to pin down Sarah chechi. And somehow I felt she didn’t want me to. I tried to stick as closely to her as possible, leaving home to go to church with her on Sunday morning. At church I saw a cute boy and sat in a spot where I could watch him without getting noticed – I stared straight at the Achen (priest) but could see the boy without turning my face.

Of course, I stopped thinking he was cute the instant his right index finger pushed into his right nostril and then rooted around his left. I concentrated on the Achan. After the blessing, I saw not-so-cute-boy-now stick the fingers of his right hand into the lamp of holy oil and smear it on his forehead. It took a hard shove from one of my cousins for me to go near the lamp. I dipped my fingers in the opposite side of the lamp. I glared at the boy’s back, but lost interest when Sarah and one of Johnny’s cousins bobbed into view. They seemed to be sharing pleasantries near one of the church’s side entrances. Sarah turned her head to look into the church and started when our eyes met. She immediately began walking towards the church’s main gate.

I ran after her, “Wait, Sarah chechi,” I said after I thought my cousin was going to attempt a sprint. 

“Got to get home.”

“To cook?” 

My cousin stopped at my sarcasm. “Hmm. You’re right. Why hurry.”

“You took the crossword!”

“So I did.”

Was I hearing right? “Why did you tear it out of the newspaper?”

“I don’t tear crosswords. I do them and return them to the pile.”

I looked at her in disbelief. “So why should the crossword you worked on with Johnnychyan just disappear… whe-when it hasn’t disappeared ever.”

“I find it strange too.”

I felt frustrated. “Do you think Pilipochyan read it?”

“Why would he tear it out?”

“It may have been incriminating… if someone were to read it.”

“What’s incriminating in crossword clues.”

“Yes. I’m wondering that too.”

“Keep wondering. But don’t waste too much time on it.”

I stopped following Sarah. Clearly she was going to stonewall me. So, I dragged my feet and walked behind Sarah, who turned around and grinned at me every now and then.

At home, I was changing out of my Sunday clothes and saw my mother’s bible on the dressing table. A sliver of a newspaper was sticking out. My mother’s Bible sometimes held letters she wanted to read several times, before they were either stored or destroyed, and her grandfather’s obituary. She took it out occasionally while reading the Bible in the mornings, stared at his face and quickly slipped it into the back.

No one would think of touching or looking through Sarah’s Bible. But would she keep the crossword there?

I peeped through her doorway. My cousin was shutting the door in my face, getting ready to change into her home clothes. I couldn’t see her Bible.

I couldn’t go sneaking into my Uncle’s room or open cupboards. This time I had to kill my curiosity.

                                                    ******

That day I got to stay up all night – legitimately. My grandfather, in a mellow mood, allowed me to watch a movie. Everyone had gone to bed and I had begged him. He waved his hand at me, smiled and said, “Keep the volume low, don’t let Ammachi… or Sarayumama… hear.” I had smiled eagerly and nodded.

The movie was in a language I couldn’t understand – Korean or Japanese – but it had subtitles. So I switched off the lights and stretched out on the red sofa to watch. Only when the movie ended, my mind wandered and I dreamed of cute boys and mean girls. I slipped off the sofa and lay on the cool floor, basking in a pool of moonlight, dozing, feeling too lazy to get up and go to bed.

Until I heard one of the doors open.

I hesitated, wondering if I needed to hide – after all I had taken Appachan’s permission to linger past my bedtime. But what if it was Mobby… going to meet Sonimol chechi (FC74).

I crawled quickly behind the curtain nearest the bookcase – which was mercifully free of dust now because everything in the sitting room had been washed before Johnny’s family had turned up to meet Sarah. I let out a breath. It was Sarah creeping forward. I had to stop this midnight meandering – it was not good for my nerves.

Sarah sat on the red sofa and picked up the telephone. She unlocked the phone with the number code and began to dial. She dialled a couple of times and then the voice came through. Sarah and her sister Rebecca spoke. In the silence of the night, I could hear the conversation clearly from where I stood.

“Who is he?” Rebecca asked.

“Johnny, a guy from church. Works in Mumbai.”

“You’re okay with it?”

“Yes. He’s nice. Different. Cool. Plus, he kind of proposed, only there was no privacy with Miss Slingshot about. She almost, almost figured out what was going on.”

Rebecca laughed and said something rude about being more intelligent than necessary. I was beginning to get worked up at the name calling and the insults, when Sarah said, “We have too many stupid cousins. A sensible girl is a welcome change.”

“Hmph. Too smart for her own good.”

“You mean too dumb not to hide it,” both girls laughed. What did that even mean?

Suddenly, Sarah was slamming the phone down and charging towards me. She bumped into my body and gave a short scream. It took a couple of seconds for her eyes to make out it was me and then she was behind the curtain with me, whispering furiously, “You idiot! What are you doing here!”

“Shhh!”

We held our breaths. Through the curtain, we could see Mobby enter the sitting room and look about slowly. He looked like a shady lothario in the moonlight. Tonight he had taken the trouble to dress – he was in a light blue torso-hugging t-shirt and a pair of trousers – not his usual nightclothes. Maybe he was going to flirt today.

When he moved into the store room, two hands gripped my upper arms, making me gasp with pain. “What is he up to?” Sarah demanded.

“No idea, Chechi.”

“Bullshit.”

“Aiyyo, Chechi, don’t swear.”

I thought she would hit me, but then I heard a chuckle. “Tell me the truth.”

“I don’t know, Chechi.”

“Liar. You know everything. Where is he going?”

“You should check.”

“He's going out?”

“Maybe he’s going to take a leak.”

“There’s a toilet next to his room.

“Oh.”

“Is he going out to smoke?”

“Maybe. Sure. Probably.”

My cousin was glaring at me, behind the curtain. Good. Tit for tat.

But maybe a dose of Sarah was what Mobby needed. “Let’s follow him,” I said in a hoarse whisper.

“Why?”

“He shouldn’t be creeping about at night.”

“Just like you shouldn’t.”

“Nor you.”

Another chuckle. And silence. This was a Sarah thing -- her silence made people blurt out stuff they wouldn't ordinarily. I focused on a spot over her shoulder and let my mind empty its thoughts -- now I understood what my yoga teacher meant. Some moonlight squeezed through the curtain's weaves and I waited for Sarah to blink. She snorted and threw the curtain off herself. She reached out and twisted my ear hard.

“OUCH!” I held my ear tightly. She could inflict more pain than Ammachi!

“That’s for lying,” Sarah said coolly.

“Pot calling kettle black!”

“What do you mean?”

“What do you mean,” I mimicked. “Miss Slingshot almost figured it out. So you and Johnnycha were writing messages to each other on the crossword. How convenient that I didn’t know how to read Malayalam.”

“Don’t.”

“What?”

“Don’t know how to read Malayalam. Three days on you still don’t know the language.”

I took deep breaths, while my cousin held her stomach and laughed silently. I started walking away. Sarah grabbed my wrist. “We’ll wait and see what Mobby is up to.”

“Strange you would want to spy on him when you don’t like anyone knowing anything about you,” I grumbled, trying to break Sarah’s hold. Finally I gave up and stood still.

“You’re right, mol. Ordinarily I would have called someone a hypocrite for such behaviour.”

“And?”

“And I think it is fishy for Mobby to lurk about at this time of the night. Also, I did not hear the kitchen door or store room door open, or the back door. The keys are usually with Ammachi.”

“She keeps them under her pillow.”

“Did she give them to Mobby?

“No. She doesn’t trust anyone with them. Not even Sarayumama or Sarojmama.”

“No spares?”

“Yes. With Appachan.”

“The fortress we can’t conquer.”

I stayed silent. Appachan and I had been having a rapprochement of sorts and he did let me watch a late-night foreign-language movie. I could not diss him so easily.

Sarah put her arm around me and pulled me into a quick surprise hug. “Shall we go and see what Mobby Prick is up to?”

I started, wondering if Sarah had figured my rude pet name for Mobby and was toying with me. Or maybe we thought the same way about our cousin.

I knew what Mobby was up to. But I was curious about Sarah’s reaction.

We started moving to the middle storeroom’s doorway. I told her to remove her slippers so that we didn’t make noise. She grinned, “You’ve got experience, mol.”

“I’m sleepy. I’m going to bed.”

Sarah grabbed me and held me still. I tried to stay pokerfaced. She needed me. And she didn’t want to do this alone. She let go of me and put her slippers in the pile near the doorway.

We heard the faint sounds of the latch on Sonimol chechi’s door tapping twice and Sarah stiffened and her eyes bulged in shock. We could see because of the weak light in the work room leading to the kitchen and to Sonimol chechi’s room. The room had large windows, which were closed at night, and a long bench at the side. At one end was a toilet and the servant’s room next to it.

Sarah was racing through the storeroom towards the light. I heard the door to Sonimol’s room open, low murmurs and sudden kissing noises, the door creaking open wider and then shutting. I felt dread. Things seemed to have progressed since I last intercepted Mobby (FC74). We heard giggles and a shushing noise. I reached the door. Sarah was outside it, standing still. Then she put her ear about a centimetre from the door, listening. As I approached, she straightened, her body stiff, her hands stuck to her sides and her fists curled tightly. When I looked at her, I felt frightened.

I caught her arm and shook my head. I pulled her away. She shook my arm off when we were in the storeroom. “What!”

“If you tell or make a noise, they’ll only blame Sonimol chechi.”

“They’re both in the room. That means both will have to face the consequences.”

“No one will punish Mobby. But Sonimol chechi will be sent home… and her family is very poor.” I had done some thinking. I had talked to Sonimol chechi and knew that she was the only person in her family working, her mother was ill, her father was dead and she had a little sister in school.

Sarah shook me off and marched to Sonimol chechi’s door. I grabbed her waist and tried to pull her back, she turned around and we began to wrestle. We lost our balance and fell on the bench and it, and we, started falling forward. The bench pushed backwards and slammed into the wall. Sarah pushed her body into it, her knees pressing into the ground and her body leaning backwards to hold the bench still. We untangled slowly, awkwardly, and set the bench back upright as quietly as we could. We held our breaths. The noises inside Sonimol chechi’s room had stopped and the light had been switched off.

We straightened and waited. Sarah pushed me backwards, but I resisted. So we went back into the storeroom.

“I’m going to stay there a bit. You go back to your room, mol.”

“No, Chechi, I beg of you! Ammachi will send Sonimol chechi back. They might beat her. Mobby is a bastard and will have just had his fun. No one will punish him.”

“Shhh! Appachan will wake up,” she pointed at his door, which we could see from where we stood in the storeroom.

“I’m not going.”

She tried pushing me out of the storeroom, but I resisted. She lifted me and tried to carry me out into the corridor, but I jammed my feet against either side of the doorway and we struggled, not making any headway.

“You junglee,” Sarah  muttered. “How did you become such a boy!”

I didn’t respond. When I continued to disobey, my body suspended in mid air, she eased her hold on me.

“We need a plan,” Sarah said.

“What?”

“We get him out and end it.”

Duh. “How?”

“You let me handle it.”

I laughed.

“Shhh! You nutcase. Do you have a better idea?”

“I do. But it involves violence. Can’t you think of anything?”

“I don’t know. But I don’t want anything to happen in there,” her thumb pointed behind her.

“What might happen?”

She opened her mouth to say something, but shut it. I knew Mobby was in there for sex. But maybe Sarah thought a romance was still in the process. 

“Let’s listen through the door,” I suggested.

“You shouldn’t.”

“Why not?”

“It’s not for little kids.”

Yeah, right. I ran past her and back to Sonimol’s door. Now I could hear whispers. I waited and felt Sarah next to me.

We stood on either side of Sonimol chechi’s door, staring at each other and keenly listening to the silence in the closed room. I wasn’t going to leave until Sarah did.

It was a long wait.

                                                     ******             

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

Her cousin Sarah refuses to divulge the secret behind the missing newspaper crossword. But things get out of hand with the narrator's night-time rambling. 

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

                                                     ******

#fiction #keralasyrianchristians #lifeinakeralavillage #arrangedmarriage #penkanaal #FishyChronicles #mumbaimalayalis #crossword #malayalam #koreanfilm #japanesefilm #foreignlanguagefilm            

 

Fishy Chronicles 80: The Webs We Weave (12) – Sarah’s suitor

Sarah, Johnny and I returned to Appachan’s (grandfather’s) home through the field at the side of the house – under the barbed wire, through the tapioca crop and in through the side gate.

When her holdall and knapsack wouldn’t squeeze through the window bars of my room, I went in and Sarah unpacked and handed me her clothes and then the empty bags. I saw Sarah and Johnny have a short conversation and she watched him go back through the field. If anyone saw…

I couldn’t stop thinking of the crossword puzzle in the newspaper (FC79). At the bus stop and after, I was certain there was a conversation in progress on the sides of the newspaper under the guise of deciphering a crossword puzzle.

Normally the newspaper disappeared in the afternoons and was returned to its pile in a corner of the sitting room in the evenings. While everyone was nursing their tea and snacks I decided to look for the newspaper. I couldn’t think of who to ask to decipher the scribbles. There’d be too many questions. Finally, I decided, my mother was the best person. She’d give me a lecture, but keep my secret.

But the paper wasn’t on the side table. That was strange. It was today’s paper and no one was allowed to keep it in their rooms.

“What are you looking for, mol?” Pilipochyan, my father’s younger brother-in-law, asked. He was my favourite relative this vacation – I felt safe being myself with him.

“Er, today’s paper.”

He lowered further the newspaper he was reading. “You don’t know how to read Malayalam.”

“Uh, yes. But I only wanted the crossword.”

“That’s in Malayalam too.”

I stared at Uncle. He was looking at me somewhat blankly, but there was something else.

“Y-Yes. I think there was a cartoon I w-wanted to look at.”

“You know, I never noticed cartoons in the newspaper.”

Neither did I. Only grey unclear pictures that were probably clarified by the article they were banged into. “Is that today’s paper, Pilipochyan?”

“Yes.”

“May I have a quick look at it?”

He brought the two edges of the newspaper together and held it out to me, watching with interest as I placed it on a nearby coffee table and quickly turned the pages.

There was a quarter page hole in the page – where the crossword had been torn out roughly. When I got over my shock, I noticed some words at the sides of the tear – half words, it seemed. I didn’t have the courage to ask Pilipochyan to read them to me. I’d have to come back when no one was around and tear out the rest of the page.

Pilipochyan’s voice sounded softly over my head, his breath rustling the hair on my head, making my scalp tingle, “Do you know where that quarter page went?”

It was not said in an intimidating way. He just sounded curious. He went back to his armchair and sat on the edge, waiting for me to reply.

“I-I don’t know.”

“Isn’t it strange? Just that part of the newspaper disappearing,” he lowered his reading glasses to look at me better.

“Y-Yes.”

“Do you know anything about it?”

“… No.”

“What I don’t understand is why you’d be interested in a Malayalam crossword when you don't know how to read Malayalam?” he grinned suddenly. I backed away and bumped into a body. “Someone got to the crossword before mol. Any idea who, Sarah?” the grin broadened.

I felt my cousin Sarah’s hands tighten on my upper arms, holding me still. “No, Pilipocha.”

“Hmm. Did you manage to do it?”

“Yes.”

They looked at each other, Pilipochyan smiling at us expectantly and Sarah and I silent.

Suddenly I was released and Sarah moved into the dining room, picking up dishes and walking straight to the kitchen sink. I turned to follow her but held back when I saw the baleful looks of my grandmother and her daughters, who were sitting at the dining table. I turned the other way and skipped out of the front door, making for my guava tree. Romeo, my favourite rooster, was in my spot, fast asleep.

                                                       ******

The general mood that night was upbeat. People joked about a wedding in the house, but piped down every time Sarah came into view. The women chattered about it and my cousins, boys and girls, lurked unobtrusively to listen. When I stood near the adults, I heard little of interest. So I went to my room to read an ancient issue of the Women’s Era magazine.

The door to Sarah’s room was open and she was sitting at the dressing table and staring into the mirror vacantly. I slowed, wondering why she was sitting alone and wanting to talk to her. On our walk back from the bus stop (FC79) she was near human and I felt we were almost back to how we were.

Her eyes widened when she saw me and I scooted towards my door. “Wait, mol. Come here. I want to talk to you.”

I stood where I was and Sarah came to her door. She held it open for me. She latched the door after me, and grinned, “Too many nosey parkers about.”

She showed me to a loveseat in the corner. “Just to confirm… we’re not talking to anyone about what happened today, right?”

“Right.”

“I have to choose a sari, help me pick out one that matches that blouse,” she pointed at a white and pink blouse on the seat of a chair. I was surprised… and elated. Sarah never fussed about clothes or asked anyone for advice or help. We went to her mother’s cupboard and looked through. We pulled out the beautiful silks, but nothing matched the blouse. Then we opened Sarah’s suitcase and she pulled out a cotton sari that matched the blouse.

“Chechi, here’s the matching sari, and it’s beautiful. Why do you want to match the blouse to the silks? It doesn’t seem to look good with any of those.”

Sarah sighed. “Amma wants me to wear a silk, but I didn’t bring too many saris. The only silk blouse I have is this.” She pulled out a scarlet blouse. I had seen her in the bright red sari at an engagement party. She had looked great in it, but for some reason it had annoyed the elders. “And Amma and Ammachi don’t want me to wear it.”

“Okay. Shall I ask my mom for a sari and blouse?”

Sarah shook her head slowly, a smile forming. I knew the pink sari was a Maheshwari, because my mother favoured them. “Your Amma gave me this sari,” Sarah said. I nodded. I knew that.

She laid out a maroon dupatta on the bed and pulled out several jewellery boxes from the cupboard and opened them. I felt excited. She pointed at two large velvet boxes, one had an elaborate gold necklace and the other a simpler one, both with matching earrings and bangles. “Well?”

“The sari goes well with pearls.”

She looked surprised. She got up, and reached into her mother’s cupboard looking for something. She emptied out a worn silk pouch. An old pearl choker, with three thin strands slipped out. Another pouch revealed matching earrings and tasteful old gold bangles with a few pearls inset, individually wrapped in soft cloth.

Sarah draped the folded sari across her shoulder and chest and sat at the dressing table. I closed the clasp of the choker at the back of her neck. We nodded involuntarily – the pearls and sari paired well.

“Ammachi won’t be happy you’re wearing pearls,” I said. Only gold was an accepted form of jewellery among us Syrian Christians. Middle class malayalis frowned on precious stones.

“Then we must make sure we annoy Ammachi,” Sarah murmured, looking at herself in the mirror critically.

She folded the sari carefully and hung the blouse and sari on a hanger in the cupboard. She began to put the jewellery back into their boxes. When she reached the sapphire ring and earrings Ammachi had made especially for her granddaughters (FC73), her hand stilled. She held out the earrings and ring in the palm of her hand. “Choose what you like.”

I was stunned. “N-No. No.”

“I insist. Ammachi should have given you a ring like she did the others. Leaving you out was cruel. So take whichever one you like – I have one too many.”

“No. Ammachi and Appachan will get angry.”

She shrugged, caught my hand and tried to put the ring and earrings in my hand, “They don’t need to know.”

My fingers closed into a fist. “I don’t want something they didn’t want to give me,” I said through clenched teeth. I didn’t want to touch the dark blue stones. I still felt raw at being left out.

“Don’t be silly, mol.”

“You’d have done the same if they had done it to you. Besides, if they didn’t want me to have it, I don’t want it.” I got up and started hurrying to the door, my eyes filling.

“Wait. Wait. How about this rin…”

I wasn’t looking back, I had reached the door and was moving the latch back when Sarah’s hand closed over mine and I felt her arm around my neck, squeezing me into her body. My tears started to fall. I refused to turn.

“Sorry, molu, so insensitive of me. I really want you to have a pair of earrings or a ring.”

I shook my head. “How can you bear to part with a gift that your grandma gives you? I don’t like some of the things my other Ammachi and great grand Ammachi give me, but I love that they want to give me those things. I love that they’re old and have their history in it. And Amma says I’ll think about them differently some day!” I turned and looked at Sarah, at this moment annoyed at her many transgressions.

She looked thoughtfully at me, cupped my face and wiped my tears slowly. “You’re right. I never thought of it that way. I just think of Ammachi as a silly woman, clinging to her traditions from the dark ages – not that I’m trying to diss her gift. Gifts.”

“Also, Chechi, my parents would be angry with me for taking it from you. And how would I have ever worn that ring or earrings knowing what had happened (FC73).”  

Sarah pushed my hair behind my ears. “I never took you for a thinker. Though, now it makes sense why Pilipochyan prefers you to everyone else.”

I pushed my cousin’s hands off me, gently. She had no idea how much torment I had suffered in the last few weeks. One night I had crawled into my parents bed, in between them, and grumbled labouriously. Appa had asked me a strange question – whether I had a takeaway from my experiences. I had to ask him what he meant.

“What has all this shown you?”

“That people are cruel.”

A sigh. “What else?”

“That they don’t think before they hurt. That you think people are kind and wonderful, but they can bank on a lie and turn evil instantly.” My parents were silent. I poked my father. I wanted him to hear about everything ailing me. “Are you sleeping?”

“No, mol.”

“Why are you silent?”

I felt him shrug. “I’m sorry all this is happening. They all seem shallow and silly. I hear a lot of complaints about you, but I’d rather you had a spine and could think for yourself than just be part of the crowd. I don’t know if things will change, mol. But until then, be brave, be yourself… you’ve already started making tough decisions.”

“It feels like hell.”

“Do you think everyone hates you?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Er, not Rita, or Roma... Or Pilipochyan.”

“See.”

“But they won’t help me in any way.”

“Why expect them to?”

“Then what use are they?”

There was more silence. My mother had been holding me tightly for a long time. Now my father’s hand combed my hair. My universe, so far, had no answers.

******

The children were ordered to wear their best clothes and stay in the inside rooms.

So I wore my Sunday church kurta salwar, a ‘ping’ affair, and hung about. But I felt a niggling tension. I wanted Chechi to be married to someone nice. Someone like Appa or Pilipochyan – but livelier… and, of course, more handsome. In the middle of the night, I had hunted for the newspaper and tore out the edges around the hole that represented the erstwhile crossword. I went back to sleep, somewhat at peace and sure that I would get to the bottom of the crossword business.

Everyone in the house was on tenterhooks. I didn’t believe it was possible, but my hairy cousins had all shaved and had haircuts in the past few days. And today they wore gold-bordered white mundus and starched white jubbas. The order had come from Appachan. I thought the only reason the boys obeyed was because they were curious about the boy Sarah was going to meet.

My cousin sisters were forced to switch to cotton saris, from silk, because Sarah was wearing a cotton sari and she was the one that was supposed to be in the limelight today. My cousins were expected to look pretty in case they caught someone’s eye.

Yeesh!

In the preceding days we had changed all the covers on the sofas and armchairs and washed and ironed all the curtains, and my father’s sisters’ (Sarojmama and Sarayumama) embroidered tablecloths from a 100 years ago were fished out and they looked like they were starched to their eyeballs. Plus the furniture had been repolished and unsightly pieces of furniture moved to other rooms. All the nest tables in the house were collected and stacked tastefully in the corners of the sitting room and the boys rearranged the furniture several times until Appachan was satisfied.

We were taken aback when several cars rolled into the courtyard. Some older couples and younger men entered and sat in the sitting room.

Our best cutlery, and some more from granduncle’s house next door, was stacked on the dining table and all the snacks were ready – all home cooked. There was water and milk on the boil, with my aunts tending to it.

I wanted to see if I knew the 'boy' and tried to push my way into the sitting room. There was a wall of smiling humanity crammed into the doorways of the dining room, the corridor and even of the study. I decided to push through like I did in the buses and trains in Mumbai. I spotted Sarayumama smiling at someone and poked her ample bare midriff with my index and middle fingers. She gasped and jumped to the side and I pushed through… only to enter a room that had just gone silent.

And there he was. Handsome. And smiling at me like we were best friends. I beamed back.

I felt a hand grab the scruff of my neck and another violently shove it away.

“Come here, mol. Meet my parents, grandparents and uncles and aunts,” Johnnychyan said. Sarah chechi was sitting next to him on the sofa, a wide space between them, her eyes focused on the floor and her face pink.

I tottered into the room, feeling drunk. It was Johnnycha! Johnnychayan was Sarah chechi’s suitor! No wonder he was so insistent on her returning home. I opened my mouth to say something, but heard a throat clear. It wasn’t my father who had cleared his throat, but he had that look that said ‘behave’.

Sarah’s mother Anniemama, seated nearby, murmured in her direction. Sarah stood up, moved towards the dining room and held out her hand to me, “Help me get the tea?”

I smiled again at Johnnychyan and followed Sarah. My cousins suddenly swarmed around us, piling the snacks on to serving plates and pouring the tea into the cups. Nina carried the tray of tea to the doorway of the dining room and handed it to Sarah. Suddenly my cousins felt shy, so someone pushed a tray laden with eats into my chest and several hands pushed me into the room.

I felt stricken with embarrassment. Traditional stereotypes were not for me. I wanted to dump the tray and disappear. But I inched forward uncomfortably. Sarah served the tea and I followed her while she served the guests snacks and placed their quarter plates on nest tables that Rajiv moved nearer the guests. When I was done, I stood next to my mother and watched.

After an eternity, the guests left. It appeared that things were sealed.

******

In the next few days, there was a quick engagement with only close family invited and a marriage date was debated and set.

Johnny returned to Mumbai almost immediately. The words I had retrieved from the crossword meant nothing – they were alphabets missing the words. And Sarah was let off the hook for most chores – but she had to prepare one traditional dish every day or prep the makings of others under Ammachi’s watchful eyes.

Sarah looked happy, but disappeared after her efforts in the kitchen. I was bursting with questions but was unable to get Sarah alone.

But, eventually, I discovered something else.

                                                            ******

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events related to a family vacation in Kerala during her childhood. Her cousin Sarah is being forced to meet a suitor, but things end surprisingly. 

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

Fishy Chronicles 79: The Webs We Weave (11) – Breaking point (cont'd)

I spent the next day watching and following my cousin Sarah everywhere.

I felt a sense of foreboding but didn’t have anything concrete with which to go to my parents. People sneaking out of their homes with a knapsack in the middle of the night (FC 78) was a cause for worry, but this far along into our family vacation I felt any adult interference only led to complications. Adults misunderstood things and made no effort to sort out matters satisfactorily… especially for the wronged parties.

Now, when I think of my younger self, I know I was a puerile idiot. At that time I thought I saw things others didn’t. In a sense I did, because all I seemed to be doing was watching others and wanting to be accepted.

I knew Sarah was exasperated with me and, at one point, shoved me. I was so infuriated I pinched her upper arm and sprinted away. I cursed myself for what I did, because it made following her harder. By afternoon I got tired of being an altruistic detective and stopped tailing Sarah. I swallowed my lunch, washed my plate and disappeared before Ammachi began to worry herself looking for things for me to do. I had done enough chores for a lifetime this vacation!

I slipped into the backyard and went to my spot under the guava tree at the side of the house. People rarely came this way, which was why it was my favourite spot. I tucked Romeo, the rooster, under my armpit, kissed his head several times, squeezed him until he squawked a warning, and leaned on the low wall that ran around my grandfather’s house and its courtyard. I had a vantage point here – there were no other exits out of the courtyard except for the side gate and the front gate. From under the guava tree I was camouflaged and had a view of both gates.

Early in the morning, when people were just waking up, I had gone to the spot I had seen Sarah go to in the middle of the night (FC 78) and, after poking several mounds of earth and dead leaves with a long stick, found her knapsack hidden under some coconut leaves. I was hesitant to touch it at first because usually there were snakes hidden under such dead-leaf stacks. The knapsack held clothes, rolled tightly into wads, a pair of shoes and slippers.

I waited. And waited.

Sometime after lunch, when people begin to take naps and the village becomes very quiet because even the birds are taking their siesta, I heard the sound of footsteps coming from the kitchen side. I scrambled to paste myself against the wall of the house. I heard the latch of the small side gate squeak and peeped from behind a wall. Sarah was gently moving the latch up, down and backwards. She closed the gate behind her, but didn’t bother latching it. She crossed the field at the side of the house, walking straight to where she had hidden her backpack. Sarah was carrying a small black holdall. When I raised my head to look over the wall, she was dragging her backpack out from under the coconut leaves. She walked to the sagging portion of the barbed wire fence surrounding the field, put her backpack and holdall on the side of the road and climbed over.

She hefted the backpack on her shoulders, grabbed the holdall and began to walk towards the junction. I jumped over the side gate and ran through the field, carefully negotiating the barbed wire fence – I had torn my clothes a couple of times previously. I had thought through this somewhat. First I had debated writing my parents a note, but then thought better of it in case I had read Sarah wrong. Now I wish I had written that note.

In any case, I had come prepared. In my pavada* pocket my purse held a princely 700 rupees – cash gifts I received the previous year. I followed Sarah to the small bus stop near the junction. The shop keepers watched her for a little while and then gave up. I crept closer and tried to hide behind the pole holding up the corrugated tin roof of a makeshift shop, but then thought the better of it and walked up to Sarah.

She looked startled and I felt momentary elation that I had shaken her composure. “Go home," she said coldly.

“Why?”

“You’re out alone and your parents will worry.”

“I’m not alone.”

“Oh?”

“I’m with you,” I smiled at my oversmartness but stepped back in fear when she darted towards me.

“Go home, you idiotic child!”

I felt hurt at the namecalling. Too bad for Sarah. Now I was going to stick to the plan and see where she was going. I sat on the rough concrete step of a nearby shop and looked at the road towards my home.

“Didn’t you hear me!” Sarah shouted. I looked at Sarah from the corner of my eye. She was in a state – bright pink cheeks and eyes ready to spring out of her face. It didn’t help that every passing man ogled at her.

“Stop fussing, mol. Your parents will worry when they can’t find you.”

“I left a note saying I was with you.” 

My cousin was too fast for me – she was now shaking me by my arms. “Go… back… home!” she said through clenched teeth.

“Sure.” Sarah stopped shaking me. “But you have to come too.” I pulled myself out of her grasp and she looked around for a stick. I lifted a small stone and rolled it towards her feet.

I thought she would beat me for my audacity. She took a deep breath and her mouth moved. Maybe she was praying… or swearing. She went back to the bus stop and stared unseeingly at the shops on the other side of the road. I desperately wanted to run across to the shop next door and call my parents, but the odds of my cousin disappearing into any bus were high. And what would I say to my parents. I dreaded the trouble my cousin would get into if she were found out. Plus… she would never forgive me.

Buses trundled back and forth. “Which bus are you looking for, Chechi?”

“None of your business.”

“I’m getting on that bus with you.”

“YOUuuu…” Her hand rose, and fell, as a shadow loomed over us. Johnny’s eyebrows were raised and there was a crooked smile on his face.

I tried to smile, but I was embarrassed at being publicly humiliated... again. I had a crush on Johnny and my face flamed. I felt a finger under my chin.

“Aww, don’t worry. Sarah’s already sorry for what she was going to do. Believe me, she won’t sleep well tonight,” Johnny chuckled, instantly making us smile with him. “Where are you going, Sarah?”

“Er, mm,” Sarah mumbled. I felt annoyed at her for still trying to keep me in the dark, but she seemed backed into a corner with Johnny watching.

“What?” he asked.

She threw me a dirty look and leaned closer to Johnny to whisper in his ear.

“Careful, Chechi, people may think you’re trying to kiss Johnnycha,” I muttered.

The pause was electric and Sarah sprang back and Johnny guffawed, slapping his thigh. Sarah burst out. “See what I’m dealing with! See! Not a peaceful moment in that house. No privacy whatsoever. Who wouldn’t want to run away!”

“I offered to come with you, but you got angry,” I was keen to meet Sarah’s grandparents in Angamali. They had a menagerie and grew exotic fruits in their backyard. They were enormously interesting.

“You haven’t told your parents!” Sarah spluttered.

“Nothing a phonecall can’t sort. They’ll know I’m safe with you,” Sarah snorted. “But,” I continued, “that’s not the real reason you’re running away.”

Sarah opened her mouth, looked at Johnny and closed it. “You are an insolent child. Insolent. Oof!”

“No name calling, please.”

“You are the most infuriating child in that-that-that household!” she jabbed the air furiously in the direction of my grandfather’s house. She looked crazed – red faced, with her head shaking madly and trying not to froth at the mouth. Surely I wasn’t the worst child in the house.

“Didn’t you say the boys were worse… and needed to be hung on the trees and thrashed at regular intervals?” Johnny said, instantly winning my admiration.

“Where are you going, Sarah?” Johnny asked, firmly this time.

His look was so intense that Sarah blurted, “Angamali.”

“Your grandparents’ place. You didn’t say you were going.”

“Er, sudden change of plans.”

He pulled out the rolled up Malayalam newspaper sticking out of Sarah’s bag and looked at the crossword. “The rumour is that you’re meeting someone tomorrow.”

This village was smaller than a pin prick in the universe, but if a secret had to be kept it was. But how did Johnny know! The suitor’s impending visit was a state secret – no one other than the immediate family knew. None of us dared to discuss it with our cousins next door in case Sarah tracked us down and beat us to death for revealing her public shame. It was strange Sarah felt this way because all our other cousins were dying to get married and were just waiting to graduate from college. They collected soft toys, cuddled random babies, tried on their mothers’ new saris and jewellery and strutted about imagining they were coy brides – all of which made me want to vomit.

Sarah looked like a storm about to erupt. “I was not consulted in the matter. I see no reason to meet this person.”

“Oh,” Johnny looked surprised. “Wouldn’t it be better to just meet the boy?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Because… er... because most of my cousins who did… married the first guy they met!”

“That’s not good?”

“Of course not! They’ve not studied further. Most are housewives. They are up to their ears in soiled napkins and cooking. They were capable of much more… only if they were given the chance!”

“So marriage has ruined their lives?”

“Er… um. No,” Sarah said, looking unhappy at conceding the point. Our cousins who married early hadn’t complained about their lot. They always looked excited and content.

“Do you have a pen?” Johnny asked.

“What?”

“A pen… to do the crossword.” Johnny smiled. Sarah rummaged through her bag and finally located a pen.

Johnny fished out some money from his pocket and held it out. “Go and get us some puffs, mol,” he looked at the bakery nearby.

I reached for the note, but my hand stopped in mid air. If I went across to buy the puffs and Sarah got on a bus… Maybe it was a ploy. Johnny did have a soft corner for Sarah. “Er, no. Thanks. I’m not hungry.”

A look of surprise crossed his face. No one could resist meat puffs and here I was saying I didn’t want any. The note he was holding out could buy several puffs. “Oh. Ok, mol. Could you get some for Sarah and me? Please?”

I was torn. I backed away and shook my head. I felt Sarah’s exasperated breath against my cheek, “You’re being rude, mol. Go and get the puffs.”

“No. I’m quite certain you’ll get on a bus while I’m buying the puffs. And…” I looked at Johnny but didn’t say ‘… I think Johnnycha will help you run away’.

Sarah gasped and was about to say something, probably rude, but Johnny moved into us, splitting us apart. “You have a point, mol. I didn’t think of that. I must say, I never took you for a quitter, Sarah. Come, mol, help me with the crossword while we wait for Sarah’s bus. Though I dread to think of the state your parents will be in when they discover you have disappeared. Did you leave them a note, Sarah?” He looked at her so strangely. He wasn’t annoyed or anything, but still such a strange look.

“Er, no, no…” Sarah looked embarrassed and rushed on, “er, b-but I was going to call them when I reached… Anga-mali.”

“Hmm. Still, I rather took you for someone who’d stand her ground and fight for what she thought was right. I imagine…” he rotated his head, thinking, his eyes staring into the distance.

“Imagine what?” I prodded.

He roused himself and grinned. “Oh, I imagine that your Appachan and Georgiechyan would have come around to your chechi’s point of view given time. They seem like reasonable men.”

“You don’t know them at al..” Sarah hit the back of my head to shut me up. I whirled around to protest but Johnny grabbed my arm and pulled me near him. He folded the newspaper into a thick square. “Let’s see if we can solve this crossword,” he pointed at the first clue.

My lower lip must have hit my navel because Johnny said, “You don’t know Malayalam?”  

“No.”

“Sarah?”

Sarah sighed and stood closer to Johnny. He scribbled some words at the side of the box and looked at Sarah. He wrote more words.

“You’ve got to put the words in the boxes,” I poked the empty white spaces of the crossword with my index finger.

“Yeah. Those were my suggestions. Maybe Sarah can come up with the right answer.” He gave her the pen.

She looked confused, but took the pen from him. After a long time thinking, she scribbled some words around the crossword. They exchanged the pen a few more times. Still, the boxes stayed unfilled.

Just then a bus stopped. Johnny said, “This bus will take you to Alapuzha and you can catch a connecting bus to Angamali. It’s bursting… maybe you should take the next bus.”

I held my breath. A few more people pushed their way into the bus and it started to roll forward.

“You did the right thing, Sarah. I’m not sure you’d have been comfortable in that bus anyway,” Johnny said. “But, we should return your cousin home before people realise she’s missing.”

“I’m not going anywhere without Sarah chechi!”

“No-no. I wasn’t suggesting you leave Chechi’s side. Come on, Sarah, give me your bags. No one will know you were trying to disappear. We’ll figure out how to get your bags into the house without anyone seeing. Okay?” Johnny looked at her encouragingly, his hand held out for her knapsack. “You don’t have to do what you don’t want to. Okay?”

Sarah hesitated, but eventually handed her knapsack and holdall to Johnny. We walked back to the house slowly, with Johnny doing all the talking.

*Pavada is skirt in Malayalam

                                                         ******

This series is fictional and follows the narrator who is remembering events during a family vacation in Kerala during her childhood. Her cousin Sarah is being forced to meet a suitor and decides to run away. Read the entire The Webs We Weave series here FC 69, 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