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Vasanthi Victor

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in small letters

     The attic of our grandmother's house lives to this day. I know, because I have been there. Many times. First, as a child, climbing the narrow, steep ladder leading up. Then through the trapdoor which slammed back with a thud. Running madly from one end to the other, so large it seemed to us, careening over the smooth wooden floor. Careful to stay in the center or we'd bump our heads where the roof sloped on either side, beams exposed. The cobwebs and the dust we did not mind, as long as we could scutter, like mice, in what became a special place.

     A place to escape to. A place of retreat. Of pleasures. Of hidden goings-on.

     And grandmother, whom we called Amma, had let us. She was short and scraggly. A gnome of a woman, walking barefoot from the house to the yard and around to the kitchen. A room separate, by itself. The smoke from the open stoves, lit daily, filling her lungs while she arranged and blew and blew. Puffing her mouth over the firewood till it burned steadily with a red glow. While wisps of hair hung about her face and throat; round, gold loops pierced into the top of her ear, dangled like bells. The earlobes themselves were empty with wide holes, so extended they'd grown from the heavy earrings she'd worn and later discarded. Her nose stuck prominently from her face and the hair on her chin quivered, bristled from the fire.

    This was her domain. Filled with black, heavy pots (black from soot) that stood nudged by heavier jars of whole mangoes, pickled in brine. And mud pots all ranged on the floor. On the floor, where she sat, hunched, to do the chopping, the slicing, grinding and coconut grating.

     The attic of our grandmother's house lives to this day though she herself is no more. Or as Appupan would say: Gone to her resting place. The mother of daughters, no sons, she'd moved during the latter years into the youngest daughter's home. Where she spent her days, soon, in a modern kitchen. Formica counters and cabinets; a sink with a faucet (running water most of the time), and two kerosene stoves which were later replaced by gas. So there was none of the blowing or kindling of firewood to make her cough and spit. Except, those few occasions when a large gathering took place and the cooking, boiled indoors and outdoors as well. Pots of fresh crab. Slow-bubbling par-boiled rice going full steam. Roasting ducks. And the swift chop of a hen's neck on the slab outside the kitchen door. On those rare occasions, she seemed like her old self. Muttering and smiling, as the kitchen hands bustled to and fro; and the talk spun on recipes, to the precise consistency for ground paste: For fish it has to be smooth. Like this. For chicken, it's different. Or who, who will eat the fish curry?

     By then she was already asthmatic and gasping for breath at every step. Though so accustomed to her suffering body that she went about with no complaints, only sometimes lying down. Sometimes, to regain her waning strength. Then she'd lay quietly below the whirring of a ceiling fan, on sheets of handloom cotton, a regular pillow under her head. Scenes of days long gone stirring in her memory as though afraid to rest:
     Appupan would sit for hours, morning till noon, on the canvas-slung chair. Outside, on the front porch, he would read the holy bible. The pince-eye glasses slipping on his nose. The wooden clogs he wore resting beside his feet. The copper spittoon he spat in, next to them. The white, thin towel draped around his neck flicking to squat a annoying fly.

     The flick of the corners as if it were yesterday.

     He had never worked, just that one episode when he ran the general store selling supplies to the village folk. He'd sat there too, till it was time to come home for lunch. Closed shop, a slap of the latch and click of Godrej lock, to return like a man on a mission. An umbrella held unfurled in one hand, the other lifting the edge of his mundoo. Off from the dirt and soil. Walking purposefully. Letting down his mundoo just, to lift the latch from the rickety gate. Then back again to gossip and close shop at the tail-end of the afternoon. While grandmother slaved non-stop with one chore after the other with only a young daughter for company. And the two days the washer-woman came in to bang the clothes, all the while chattering about this and that. Those days she'd look forward to.

     The attic in our grandmother's house lives though the house, I imagine, has long been torn down. Or built upon by some cousin who has remained, to marry and carry on. Its brick and mortar useless, lying broken in heaps. The wooden floors, stripped for kindling and firewood, stacked away in a storage shed. Shielded only by woven palm-leaves. Mice still scurrying about its insides. In my mind's eye I can hear the distant roar of waves, as it crashes. The gentle rustle of palms as they sway in the incoming breeze. And the clear, clear cry of fishermen announcing the day's catch.

     Do you see Amma?

     Yes, she is walking to the kollum. Oh, wait...I lost sight of her.

     Too small to look out from. These windows.

     But don't you see?

No one can see us from down there. And we looked at each other and smiled. Like co-conspirators.

     A few trunks scattered about, invited our curiosity but try as we could, they would not open. The lock was forever rusted and sealed. The one bed placed against the window, overlooking the parambil, we jumped on. Up and down. Up and down. Later we would discover, it was also where grown-ups lay. Sometimes. On long afternoons. But for now it became our bed. The one we slept on as night approached and there was no more room. Banished as we were to the attic...in those distant, long ago times when we came visiting.

     Going to see Amma and Appupan in Mummy's old tharavat.

     What tharavat? Daddy would say...How old could it be?

     Old enough, she'd reply.

     Tharavat, we knew, meant ancestral home. A place where grandparents, great-grandparents and their great-great grandparents had lived. But really, it wasn't that old. Appan had built this house later, after receiving his share of his father's property. And that could not have been more than 20 years ago. He must have thought it prudent then, to remove himself, along with his wife and daughters to other surroundings. Away from the constant squabble, the bickering of several women all under the same roof. After all, a share of the paddy fields was his. Out, past Aroor, where his mother came from. That, along with the coconuts from the strip of coastal land his new house sat on, would do. For an income. To raise his family. He was a landowner, the son of a landowner. And as such possessed no skills. He had, like the others, attended school but failed to pass the 10th grade. It did not really matter. He would be comfortable. He had been provided for.

     Church and God mattered. Those were the two things he cherished most. And to the very end he toted his bible, every Sunday (later every day), back and forth. Walking purposefully like a man on a mission. Starched, white giba shirt with small gold buttons on top, white mundoo tucked below. Leather sandals that creaked on his feet. Quoting lines to us from the scriptures that we didn't understand. Speaking as he did in Malayalam. A language we barely spoke or knew; raised as we were outside the state. Educated really, in English-medium schools, convent schools. By nuns, strict in their strange attire, and watching over us, ready to swoop on mischief-makers. So it was only fitting that vacation and visits became the two most exciting events in our young lives. The two V's grew, rising in stature, to incredible heights. Tall like a tree, then higher and higher, till they touched the clouds. As the days tumbled into one another and we, anticipating, counted down the days.

Going on the train to Kerala, we sang. Chook-chook gadi. Chook-chook gadi. Holding each other, forming a train, in a line to travel in circles. Pursing our mouths to blow a whistle-blow, at proper intervals. So it was only fitting when Vacation and Visits, exciting in themselves, grew to become important. Merged even as we stepped on to the platform. Crying freedom.

     Freedom which we spelled in capital letters. FREEDOM. On the sand, as we arrived at the house, with our bare bare fingers. Drawing out the letters, evenly, the best we could. And what an expanse of sand. Everywhere- in the front yard, out in the back, on the road, in the verandah; in Appupan's garden, the area to the west where he grew fruit trees (guavas, mangoes, papaya.) And still further to the beach. Sand it seemed to us spread like ground cover. Swept as it was, every morning by a woman at the crack of dawn, in circular strokes. To make clean, whole for the day. Fan strokes that spread neatly around that  it was almost a shame to step on. After the first, few heady days.

     The fan whirred on and on, in circular motion. She drifted in and out of sleep wheezing with each breath. Images hovered inside her, like an octopus, moving steathily.

     There she was walking to the beach with the oldest. For company. The two of them, each carrying a pail of water as they always did, for rinsing afterwards. Walking in the pre-dawn hours so it was still grey and a fine mist spread thinly in the air. With her eyes she searched for a spot that was secluded. Private. Already some women sat at a distance, on their haunches, with mundoos lifted. Like them she faced the ocean and watched the swell of water, as it rose and fell. The waves rushing inwards, pulling away. The peep of orange glow as the sun rose over the horizon. Here, she rinsed discreetly, with her fingers. Then rose with the sun, rising with the sun, to turn back. Back to the house to face the business of the day.

Was it then...that she'd heard the children. That time when they were staying for a while. Was it? Yes, it must have been. Sometime in the late afternoon when the house was quiet. The children, she supposed had gone to the beach to play, as they sometimes did. The oldest, Mollay was somewhere around. Just two days before, her husband had come to carry them all back. They had been so excited at being together, after a long separation. But for her, it meant more time in the kitchen, with some help of course. There she was on the footstool, cutting green mangoes. She'd heard them then, running past. Laughing.

mundoo - sarong
kollum - pond
parambil - yard
tharavat - ancestral home
Mollay- daughter

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