One Hundred Shades of White. Preethi Nair

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СКАЧАТЬ stood there defiantly, following the procedure that we had rehearsed many times, that was, to say nothing or claim complete innocence. After five minutes, the word police was thrown about a few times and Satchin, forgetting our pact, just broke down and cried. So then some slave labour arrangements were made and we had to help Mr Patel and his wife brush the floors and clean out their storerooms. Maggie made out like we had stolen the Crown Jewels or something, saying that she was extremely disappointed in us and didn’t think we’d sink to such depths. After going on and on she finished by saying that she would not tell our mother as it would break her heart to know that we had been thieving, but I wished she had, then at least Amma might have had some reaction towards us.

      I missed Amma desperately, or maybe I missed the idea of having a stay at home mum who baked cakes and read stories, who shopped and gossiped. I felt sad in the mornings when I followed the other mothers taking their children to school and I wished mine was there too. Looking back, I never felt like I really had her and that she was mine, but then I don’t think I ever gave her a chance. It wasn’t because I didn’t love her, for it was hard not to want to love her, it was because I was terrified that she too might be taken away. So I used Maggie as my security and clung to her so she couldn’t throw us on the streets if anything happened. On the days Amma was around, I found it hard, as I also didn’t want to be reminded of India, the good times or our culture, because things were bad enough without all of that to deal with as well. I felt we were forced to make a choice and I chose the easiest route, which was to forget the place and the culture that I was from.

      At prayer time, when Amma woke us to pray to the Goddess, she would just manage to say the first few words, ‘Aum, namo Guru Dev …’ when I would suddenly cut in with the Lord’s Prayer which Maggie was helping me with. It probably upset Amma but there was enough confusion without praying to some foreign God. When she prepared for Onam and told us some king story, I interrupted her with the story about the king who asked his three daughters how much he loved them. And as she decorated the bedsit for Onam, I made no comment at the intricate petal design she put on the doorstep and trod all over it with my dirty shoes. When she cooked Indian food, I insisted on something else. I wish I had never done these things but I was desperate for her to shout at me, to react, to tell me that she didn’t love me, that she couldn’t cope with it all and that she was going too, but she never did.

      On the days that things got really tough, I locked myself outside in the toilet and talked to Achan, begging him to make things a little better from wherever he was. I knew he was always consistent and listened, as things always improved after I spoke to him. That is how I knew that, despite him not being physically present, he was around us. Sometimes, I would ask Satchin if he spoke to him to make things better for him, but Satchin would get really sad. One day he became very distressed and said maybe he was to blame for what had happened to our father because of what he had done to Fluffy. There was nothing I could say to that as I remembered what the astrologer said about the rules of karma so I decided not to bring up the subject again and thought that maybe he did die because of the bad things we did. Maybe that’s what happened if we did really bad things. I would talk to Achan alone and I asked him many times if it was this but he never said anything. Other times when I talked to him, I would tell him what we had done in the day, because somewhere I was sure he could hear, even if he couldn’t answer. But my greatest wish was that I would wake up and he would come and find us in that house and take us away, saying that there had been a terrible mistake and that he hadn’t died.

NALINI

      I cannot easily put into words why I told my children that their father had died. To save them from the lies that inextricably led to the fact that the only person he could have possibly loved was himself, I suppose. Not only this, but what do you say to two small children who are about to lose almost everything? Self-worth is fragile enough as it is, isn’t it? What was I supposed to tell them? The truth? ‘Monu, Mol, your father has had enough of responsibility and if that is not enough, he has another family, he’s gone, left us.’ Maybe there are one hundred shades for explaining truth, a spectrum of light to dark, depending on the vulnerability of those who have to hear it. Things are not always so clear-cut, they are not either black or white, life just isn’t like that. I know my mother would disagree, arguing that there is one immutable truth and it is just a question of facing it. My husband left, just as my own father did, without saying a word. Not even goodbye.

      My mother had a series of miscarriages before giving birth to me. She did not really care if I was a girl and she would have to find a dowry for me to marry. I think my mother was happy to prove to her in-laws and everyone else that she could bear children. She was elated when she found out she was carrying me and did not hide her bump like all the other women in the village did.

      I was born in a part of India where God had a riot with the colour green; everywhere you looked He had created hues of luscious greens and made the air so healthy and calm. There was, however, not one moment of peace that I can draw from those childhood years. My father was always trying to kill my mother or she was threatening to kill herself by jumping into one of the many wells. The sound of screaming voices invaded the first eight years of my life but the screaming stopped suddenly with the death of my baby brother. My father had already left the day before the baby was born: one day he was there and the next, he was gone. The shame of what she would tell the other villagers meant that we had to leave the village. We walked twenty-seven kilometres barefoot, carrying our scant possessions on our heads, and settled in the village of Collenauta on the border of Kerala and Tamil Nadu.

      The only thing my mother could do exceptionally well was cook, so she offered her services to the patrons of the village who owned all the sugar cane plantations and who were immensely wealthy. The story I was asked to relay, whenever probed about my father, was that he had been killed whilst trying to save someone drowning. On hearing me say this with the intonation and facial movements that accompanied the phrase, the patrons, Thampurati and Mothalali, took pity on our plight and offered us a place to stay. That is how we came to be hired by the Kathi family, my mother as cook and I as her assistant, and we lived in the small quarters at the bottom of their land, surrounded by rich banana plantations, mango trees and paddy fields. It was a small room but beautifully decorated with simple woodcarvings and all the utensils we required to do our job along with a buffalo, which gave us fresh milk.

      The art of putting together food is a magical thing and if it is done right it has the power to soften the most hardened heart. My mother always said that when you work with what you love, you work with magic. However, if the ingredients are incorrectly administered, or if you work with bad intention, it can also bring the most disastrous results. Subtly, we laboured, convinced that it was the love and gratitude we put into the preparation of the Kathi’s food that made them prosper. Just the right amount of cumin to stimulate appetite for life, a cinnamon quill to bring spice or action into stagnant phases of life, lemon juice to diffuse an argument, chilli to relieve pain and turmeric to heal the heart. Freshly picked coriander leaves tempered bad humour and gave a sense of clarity, fiery peppered rasam warmed the soul, and grated coconut added to many dishes soothed and comforted. Pounded lentils left to soak for days made the batter for soft pancakes filled with shallow fried masala potatoes for a sense of pride and stability. Golden beans added to vegetable thoran were for longevity and prosperity.

      My mother would watch situations and then prescribe accordingly under the watchful eye of Annapurna, beautiful pale blue Goddess of food and abundance, lit by the fire and the passion of the sun and the moon. She was placed on a box in the kitchen area and was adorned every day with fresh flowers. We said a prayer to her when we woke up and just before we went to bed, thanking her and asking that she give us the courage to do our job. So I don’t know if we could really take the credit for delivering small doses of happiness wherever possible, but we believed it was Annapurna, and my mother said it really didn’t matter, for whatever you believed became true.

      There was also a little bronze Annapurna, СКАЧАТЬ