Supplementary
A Childhood in Malabar: A Memoir
It was someone’s birthday at Ambazhathel – I’m not sure whose – the day
there was a cyclone. Ettan, my elder brother, and I were invited to the feast there
that day. Malathikutty took us to the serpent shrine before lunch. We watched Meenakshi
Edathi setting out turmeric, milk and bananas for the snakes.
Meenakshi Edathi was a distant relative of the Ambazhathel
family. Being poor, she was dependent on their generosity. She was dark-skinned
and middle-aged. She spent her time rushing around the house and compound, never
stopping to rest, her face perpetually wearing an expression that asked for forgiveness.
She had only certain trivial duties to perform, like welcoming the oracle with an
offering of paddy when he came in a procession, lighting all the lamps at dusk,
churning the curd and taking out the butter for the children, and drawing designs
with rice batter on the door on the day of the Nira festival. There were innumerable
servants to carry out all other tasks. However, the family could not have existed
happily for a single day without Meenakshi Edathi. She was the only one who knew
how much paddy should be boiled each time to make enough rice for the household
or how many mundus had been given to the washerman or when to give the children
a purgative.
‘Why isn’t the snake coming?’ I asked. ‘Snakes never come out when human
beings are watching, child. The black Krishnasarpam will glide out as soon as we
go away,’ said Meenakshi Edathi.
I began to feel sleepy after lunch. Malathikutty came back with us to Nalapat. Barely an hour after we got home, we heard the sound of the gale. The wind tore through the coconut palms in the southern compound with a frightening roar. The dry leaves that had collected around the pond swirled upwards belligerently. Branches shook. The seat of the swing that hung from the ilanji tree fell down.
‘I wonder whether it’s a cyclone . . . The sound of it scares me,’ said
Ammamma. She asked all of us to sit down in the middle room upstairs and gave us
metal dice to play with. Since the light had grown dim, she lit a brass lamp as
well. Muthassi called out from the thekkini, the southern room, downstairs, ‘Have
you closed all the small windows, Kochu?’ ‘I’ ll close them, Amme; I’ll close all
of them,’ answered Ammamma. We suddenly heard the sound of the rain from the south-west,
like the roar of a vast crowd of people. Using all her force, Ammamma slammed the
windows shut. Raindrops glimmered on her face.
‘It’s not even four, but it’s pitch dark outside,’ said Ammamma.‘I want
to see Kutti Oppu,’ said Malathikutty. ‘She’ll come by dusk,’ said Ammamma.‘I want
to go to Ambazhathel now, this minute,’ said Malathikutty. ‘I’ll send you to Ambazhathel
as soon as the storm stops.’ Ammamma tried to comfort her, but Malathikutty began
to sob loudly. That was when we heard a coconut palm crashing down. ‘Kochu, what
was that? Will the house collapse?’ That was Muthassi.
‘Don’t worry. It was a coconut palm falling. We’ll go and have a look at
it once the rain stops. Let’s say our prayers and sit here quietly’, said Ammamma.
All of us took shelter in the southern room downstairs as Ammaman’s mother instructed
us to do.
She said this room had the strongest ceiling. The thekkini was flooded and the water that had collected in the sunken courtyard of the nalukettu, the central hall with four wooden pillars, began to overflow. Ammaman and all of us sat on the bed. Ammamma and the grandmothers sat on the rolled-up mattresses stacked on the floor. And the servant woman took refuge in the makeshift toilet adjacent to the room.
Ammayi arrived, drenched to the skin, unmindful of the thunder and lightning and driving
rain. ‘How can you be so foolish, Bala? What if you fall ill of a fever?’ asked
Ammaman. Ammayi laughed. ‘Here’s Kutti Oppu,’ exclaimed Malathikutty joyfully. Ammayi
hugged her.
Cheriamma suggested that we chant aksharaslokams
to forget our fear: each one of us would have to recite a verse and the next person
would follow with a verse that began with the first letter of the third line of
the quatrain that had just been chanted. No one volunteered, though. So Cheriamma
recited from Vallathol’s Imprisoned Aniruddhan. Ammamma said, ‘I can’t remember
a single couplet.’ ‘I hope the house doesn’t collapse,’ murmured Muthassi.
As soon as Ammaman and Ammayi went upstairs, the servant woman started to
wail loudly. She kept hitting her head with her hands while she wailed. ‘What madness
is this?
Do you want to break open your head?’ asked Ammamma. ‘What if I never see
my folks again. . . My Guruvayoorappa! I’ll never see them again!’ ‘You can go home
tomorrow morning, as soon as the rain stops. All right?’ said Muthassi. ‘This rain
will never stop. It’s a whirlwind, isn’t it? We’ll all die,’ sobbed the woman.
‘Is she crazy?’ asked Muthassi. We heard trees crashing to the ground. And
a dog whining in the western yard. ‘Aiyo, Sankara! What if the cowshed crumbles?
Bring the cows in and tie them up in the washing area outside the kitchen,’ said
Ammamma. ‘The cowshed won’t fall down, Valiamma. Its beams are quite strong,’ said
Sankaran Nair, who had gone to check things out. ‘Then let the cows stay there.’
‘There’s knee-deep water in the yard now,’ said Sankaran. ‘We want to swim,’
I cried. ‘You can swim in the courtyard of the nalukettu,’ said Ettan. I put my
hand into the water in the courtyard. ‘It’s ice-cold.’ I grumbled. ‘Don’t play in
the water, children,’ Ammamma called out loudly. We climbed back on the bed. Someone
seemed to be knocking on the door on the southern side. Sanakaran opened it. A dog
stood on the verandah, dripping wet-Thumbi, the black-and-white pet dog from Ambazhathel.
‘Look, here’s Thumbi. ‘He’s drenched. Poor thing, he must have come out
with Balamani Amma’, said Sankaran. We looked at Thumbi and he looked at us. He
was shivering in the cold. Sankaran spread a gunny bag on the verandah. ‘Lie down
on this. In a storm like this, how can we make a difference between a man and a
dog? Go to sleep, Thumbi.’ Thumbi lay down on the gunny bags and looked contentedly
at me and my brother. We spent the whole night in the southern room. By the time
we woke up, the rain had stopped.
It was the sound of a pleading voice saying ‘Please open the gate’ that
actually woke me. A young man stood smiling in the waist-high water at the gate.
‘I’m from Vadekkara. Is everyone here all right?’ ‘Yes,’ said Ammamma. ‘We’ve had
no casualties. How did you come, Balan?’ ‘I started out at daybreak and waded through
the water.’ ‘That’s really smart!’ ‘The number of huts and trees that have collapsed!
Fowls lying dead everywhere, dead goats floating in the water what a sight!’ Come in, Balan, and change your mundu.’
‘Have they sent us anything from Vadekkara? Murukkus or dates?’ I asked.
‘No, child. I’ve come empty-handed,’ said Balan, displaying his buck teeth. ‘What
a time to ask for murukkus and dates!’ muttered Ammaman’s mother. I hung my head,
ashamed.
Kamala Das
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