Pandemic in the Time of the Tories

 

 Pandemic in the Time of the Tories

Faced with a stubborn pandemic, I remember all those times, decades ago, in India, when we took death and destruction by epidemics as a recurring event. They left their forever mark. My father's brother had a face pockmarked by small pox in youth; his elder brother died of small pox at the age of twenty-two. Their mother cried quietly in the night, for many years, while I listened to her sadness, sleeping on the floor, on a mat in her room.

    Cholera came and went. Achamma (paternal grandmother) filled empty half-coconut shells with cow-dung solution, firmly believing that Mariamma, the witch of pox, would be kept off by that. We had to drink lemon juice with coarse brown sugar blocks (vellam) scraped into it. It was vile. In the wartime, there was no sugar.

    Plague was rare, but in the empty shell of a half-built house, opposite my home, a whole beggar-group died one by one. The Municipal bin-wagon came to take the bodies away. This was in 1945, when the second world war raged in Asia; the owner of the abandoned house was caught in the war there and could not return to India until many years later. We put arsenic everywhere to kill rats, but the vermin flourished; the municipality sprayed the gulleys and gutters and eventually the epidemic died out.

    Now we have Covid. How do you shut a country down in this day and age, when populations are constantly travelling, meeting up, depending on each other for services and succour? WHO expects it to peak and wane eventually; there is no evidence of that yet. This disaster will have its worst impact on the homeless, the poor, the uneducated, all handicapped in different ways. The current government shows no sign of being concerned. It has the money-men to keep on side, so the country cannot be locked down.

    Some Tories believe in herd – immunity. The herd is the ‘other’, not themselves. How many have to die for the Government to sit up and take notice? Right now, they are busy preparing for Christmas and the prolonged hangover after.

BOOK GREED

 

Book-Greed

I am like a greedy person at a buffet – I picked and collected and never stopped to think how many books I could keep on the go at the same time. Two or even three are quite normal for me, one upstairs, one downstairs, one in the loo…

So, now I am looking at my line-up and wondering which to read, read rather than sample, first:

             Klara and the Sun – I absolutely love Ishiguro, his, restrained, immaculate narrative voice;

             A Promise of Ankles by Alexander McCall Smith. He hooked me in long ago with his Ladies’ Detective Agency books set in Botswana. Now, I tend to gravitate to all his other books too;

             Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth. I can’t resist Wole Soyinka. Having lived in Nigeria for five years and spent the greater part of my young-adult life somewhere in Africa, Soyinka beckons;

             Then there is Amor Towles’s The Lincoln Highway.  I expect wry humour and a great story. I think his A Gentleman in Moscow is one of my all-time favourites. I have read it three times now;

             Burhan Sonmez’s Istanbul, Istanbul is heart wrenching, narrated as it is from a prison cell, where there is barely standing room;

             Human Traces by Sebastian Faulks – Faulks is talking about mind and madness. Intriguing as I realise, late in life, that every single one of us is mad in our unique way;

Since the Riots by my friend Melissa Jane Knight, is just beginning to draw me in; 

A Passage North by Anit Arudpragasam. Having spent five years in Jaffna and Colombo when I was just married, this book has to say something nostalgic to me.

But, even for me, the name of the author is well-nigh unpronounceable.

Eight books, every single one, promises good writing and interesting stories. I have sampled each and know there is no wrinkled apple there.

I have decided to pick them up now, one at a time, and read through. No book-hopping to drive me totally crazy, I think I will start with The McCall Smith.

MAGIC! That is books. And a tale of greed.

Adichie, The Purple Hibiscus, and Kambili's Father

 

Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie – My favourite author.

I came upon Adichie’s PURPLE HIBISCUS by chance. One of those surprises reading addicts come upon, surfing through Goodreads or Amazon in a fallow week. I suppose the fact that the story was set in Eastern Nigeria helped.

   I lived in Enugu and Ikot Ekpene for five years, from 1962 to 1967. If you could probe into my psyche, you may find that I am, at the core, a lot African, a little Eastern Nigerian. I taught at two teacher-training colleges run by Irish (Holy Rosary Training College), and American (Holy Child College, Ifuho) nuns. You may even decide I am not very impartial when I talk about Nigeria. Mea Culpa.

   Nevertheless:

   I found Nigerians kind, compassionate, hospitable and tolerant. At Ifuho, I had many Nigerian friends. The young practising teachers came to my house regularly. They introduced me to Nigerian food and music and took me ‘shopping’ in the waste ground in town they called their market. I was searching for coconut oil for my hair, in typical Keralam fahion. I remember urchins tugging at my long knee-length plait – was it real? What I got was palm oil; my hair did not disagree with palm oil.

   Adichie’s story of the girl, Kambili, and her mother and brother, bullied by their father, is told with grace, humour and empathy. Not to mention the unmistakable skill of a great writer. However, the father is not your typical Nigerian man. It is a bit like saying all Romans are Nero. Or, all British people are buffoons like Boris Johnson. Let’s not go there.

   I have a Nigerian neighbour – when I am alone in my house sometimes in the night, because my family is out of town, I go to them. I sleep there. When I lost my little girl in Nigeria, the Nigerians held me up; they helped me out of that dark tunnel, which is bereavement.

   So, do not, please, lump all Nigerians with one character, in a novel.

 

Getting Married, 1957 Style

  This is me getting married, in 1957

My grand niece is getting married on the 19^th December. She is up to her neck in nuptials related planning – wedding dress, will it arrive on time? The party after – how many and who? Personal beautification – nails, hair, face, feet… No wonder she is stressed.

   I have never got my nails ‘done’ in my lifetime. When I was small, Achan clipped my fingernails for me with a discarded razor blade. I cannot remember suffering an injury in the process. My hair was ‘cropped’ by a barber in town, until Achan decided to let it grow long. I looked like a boy and got all the boy roles in school plays until I was thirteen years old.

   I went to hair stylists after I came to the U K, and my long hair became impossible to wash and dry daily as in Keralam. Some years later, I started resenting the cost of chopping off bits of hair here and there, with no discernible improvement in looks. I have not been to a hair-dresser for many years now. I take my kitchen scissors to my hair now and then; occasionally my daughter tidies that up a bit, with a long-suffering grumble.

   But my niece is getting her nails ’done.’ I remembered me dressing up for my wedding:

               Wash early and dry your hair, my aunt instructed. The jasmine won’t like wet hair. Right. There would be a jasmine fest, I knew that.

               An hour before the ceremony, which took place in our front yard, in front of all our friends and family, my cousin, Mani, plaited my knee-length hair, grumbling all the while about it still being wet. She then coiled it up in a kondai and put a foot-length of a jasmine garland around it.

               I dusted some Cuticura powder on my glistening face, put a red dot on my forehead with a liquid paste, and used my forefinger to line my eyes with kajal. All done.

                Then I wound the Benarasi white-and-gold sari (the costliest I had ever owned at 105 rupees) round my waist, put a nappy-pin on my gathers at the waist, and I was ready. The gold thread in the sari gave my face its glow.

               In India, now, middle-class weddings have become extravagant shows – shows of influence and wealth on the part of the bride’s family. The ceremony takes place in a wedding hall, dedicated to weddings. The bride is covered in gold jewellery and a professional make-up artist dresses her hair and face. There might even be a manicure and a pedicure. Jesus wept!

               My grand niece is a clever girl – she is keeping a tight hold on the wedding expenses. She is managing the entire process, with no immediate family to help. I wish I was there.

               This girl is my friend and a member of my family. I have great faith in her ability to get things, in the end, right.

                  

Our Bosses -- the Animals

 

The Three Cat Tessellation

I cannot imagine a home without animals. In our house, who owns who is always debatable. When our fluff, Booboo, perches on Kitta’s knee when he is marking a hundred university scripts; when Pepper, my cat, complains as I move my legs in bed (My legs are solely for her to sleep on at night.); when the mutt, Lily, nudges my daughter’s legs aside on the sofa so that she can curl up in her lap, the answer is crystal clear.

   I often wonder how it is that some families love animals and some don’t. Genetic, or exposure to pets early in life?

   Next to our house in Thalassery there was a Chayakkada. Men going to work at building sites or factories stopped there, on their way, to get a hot cup of chai; my aunt said they probably never bought tea leaves or  milk for their households, the morning drink generally being yesterday’s conjee. The chayakkada was a tiny roadside veranda and a small room with two rickety benches in it. It was run by a man called Kumaran, and when he washed his tea-pan out, he swung the dregs on to the road.

   He had some saving graces. Every six months he would have another litter of kittens to give away, all fluffy-tailed and long-furred. They went quickly; in passing our household got one or two. Achan disapproved of cats saying they caused asthma, but he was on a losing wicket. When he was near we hid the kittens under the gatherings of our pavadas (long skirts) or later, my sari. Sometimes the kitten gave the game away by purring on my stomach.

   My first cat was named Sundari. She was all white and had a beautiful face. The next one was Beauty, which meant the same thing. They had pretty faces and plentiful fur. They disappeared often down the road, scavenging at houses where fish was being scaled and finned, but returned to puke on our doorstep. Eventually, they would disappear into cat paradise – I would call their names without a miaow in reply.

   The last one was Mimi; when I got married and left, my father, who maintained he disliked cats, arranged for the fisherman to feed her daily.

   In my husband’s home, no animals were allowed. My husband’s parents did not like them either. So, it was not until I became single again that I got another animal. Leone and Makeni, the two dogs were named, after my favourite places – Makeni is in the north of Sierra Leone. I had to give them to friends to keep when I left Uganda for good. It broke my heart and I vowed never to get another animal.

   Next year, in Zambia, (1993) I got Inji (Malayalam for ginger)– a majestic ginger tabby. By now, I could afford to take my cat with me, so Inji went with me to Malawi. Meanwhile my daughter, who was also in Malawi, had acquired another kitten – Ammu. A boy was holding some kittens up at a roundabout; predictably, she fell for it. Ammu drove Inji mad cavorting all around her and got frequently swatted. She came with us to England. Inji died of a kidney disease in Malawi, and Ammu became road-kill in Croydon.

   In Croydon we got Tyson and Louis, (we never learn) forever fist-fighting as kittens. My little granddaughter called them Tyson and Nui-nui. Two road-kills again. I vowed I would never get a kitten again, but my daughter came back one day with Booboo and Pepper, two tiny kittens that hid under a cupboard in the kitchen, until they were really hungry, and came out to eat. They are still with us, now five years old. Pepper sleeps on my bed and Booboo pesters my son.

   There was also Keeri, whom I got in Kochi, and I brought home to England with me. She was adorable, intelligent and followed me around. She slept on my right shoulder generally, and would scurry up to bed with me. She also got run over in 2015. Now, my daughter won’t let me get another kitten. ‘They all die,’ she says.

   We have Lily instead, a long-suffering, loving dog that does not recognise that she is not human. She is also thoroughly spoilt. We are right suckers for animals.

   I’d love another Bengal-kitten like Keeri.

 

Christmas and I

 In Thalassery, my hometown in Keralam, Christians were in a negligible minority. On Court Road, where I lived, there was just one family – that of Mabel and Ida. Mabel was my age and one of my closest friends. We walked to school and college together. Our families knew everything about each other. Her father, Earnest, a lawyer like my father, was my father’s friend and the three of us children, and two fathers, often went to the local beach together.

   So, Christmas was not a memorable event. But Mabel’s Mummy always sent us home-baked Christmas cake, and I often had a lavish Christmas dinner in their home. That was about the size of our Christmas. Mabel’s family attended midnight mass at the local Methodist Church. We didn’t exchange gifts or cards; no one had that kind of spare money then.

   When I got married to Balan, and went to live in Colombo, the texture of Christmas underwent a sea-change. My husband’s urban family, though Hindus, celebrated Christmas with gifts for the children in the family. So, I was drawn into the obligation of gifts for Balan’s nephews and nieces. The more westernised wings of the family went to Christmas balls and Balan’s British employers hosted a lavish celebration at the luxurious Galle Face Hotel every year. I went, but never having danced anything but Bharatha Natyam before, lurked at the sides of the ball room, and was glad to make my escape before the revelry became raucous.

   When I had children of my own, Balan would bring gifts home. Sometimes sparklers. In Nigeria and Zambia, we often went to the houses of our Christian friends for dinner; it was all very low key.

   When did it escalate into this money-eating monster? I hardly noticed the transformation, The deluge of packing paper at the end of Christmas week always irritated me. I didn’t see the point. But my grand daughter begged for Christmas trees and baubles, as soon as she could talk, and we obliged. Now she’s past the baubles stage; spending-money is much more in demand. Phew! As they say.

   This year, we shall give her some money and let Christmas skid past. As usual, I shall have dinner with Mary and Michael. Any excuse to enjoy their cooking and the company of the two families together. We met up in Zambia in the late sixties and her mother hosted the fancy dinner. Our children grew up in each other’s houses.

   So, the ritual persists. Perhaps that is what it is about – bringing family and friends together over a rich dinner.  I will settle for that.

 

The Sound Track to my Life

 Our Philips radio, the Bakelite monster, was the first on our street, Court Road, so called because the District Courts were just a hop, skip and a jump away. It arrived in 1945, a year after electricity in the houses. I remember hearing about Gandhiji’s assassination on that black and brown box, and the whole neighbourhood crowding into our corridor, weeping while they listened. It had big dials in front and needed a great deal of tender coaxing and fiddling before it surrendered its news-nuggets. 

     I remember Nehru making that famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’ speech, at midnight, on the ramparts of the red fort, the day India became independent in August, 1947. ‘At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India will awake to life and freedom...’ The hair on my arms stood on end.

   Transistor radios arrived while I was living in remote Ikot Ekpene. I got one in 1964 for my father when I travelled to India after my first tour – if you were Indian in those days, the whole point about going overseas was to return with as many electronic gadgets as you could carry in your hand-luggage, wires trailing down the gangway. You walked down the narrow aisle in an aeroplane knocking down passengers right and left with your loot.

   The radio, in one shape or another, has come to stay in my life. In all the African countries I worked, the World Service heralded my day in, and I slept, at the end of the day, to the world news, in the dulcet tones of another privileged gentleman (no women then) with cut-glass accents. On an insomniac night, the national anthem and our gracious queen put me to sleep. They bred the news readers specially, I used to think, in exclusive enclaves, to confound the world.

   Radios got smaller with the years, and now, I have a tiny unobtrusive white companion which is always within hands-reach when I sleep. When I travel, it is the first object I pack along with my pills and potions of senility, and my multiple sticks for support.

   When the little box, quite ugly in white plastic, is not near me, I fret and fidget till I get it back to where it belongs. At the moment it is all agog about Afghanistan. I am waiting for that day when it tells me that our slippery P M has gone AWOL for good.

 

   

 

 Street lights arrived in Thalassery around 1943. You had to buy a connection to the house, so by 1947, we had electric lights in the veranda, the corridor and Achan's room upstairs. The 40 watt bulbs didn't do much, so Achan also had a small lamp clipped to the headboard of his bed, by which we both read.

   Naniedathy cooked with firewood and debris from the coconut palms, which smoked a lot when lighted. This was a fallback when we ran out of firewood. Krishnan, the rickshaw wallah took me to school and later, Usman, who had T B and coughed a lot. The first car owner on the road was my father, it was a small second-hand Morris minor, with a sliding panel in the roof for when it got too hot in the car. When it rained that panel let the rain in.

   Life was paired down. In all of Thalassery there were four cars and these were owned by doctors. There were no supermarkets -- fish and meat were sold in a covered hall in the centre of town; often the fishermen or women brought it to our houses for sale.

   The carbon footprints were barely visible. Now, we have two cars in the driveway and lights blaring in empty rooms all over the house. In our small way we have all contributed to the looming climate catastrophe. And listening to the 'leaders' at the COP26, I cannot imagine anything much is going to happen.

   In our house, we are going to use the car less, not leave lights on in empty rooms. Maybe organise a rota so that our children share cars to school, with families down the road. Another thought: we could boycott companies who are carbon-profligate by not buying their goods. The only place we can persuade business is in their wallets. During the Freedom Movement in the forties in India we had some success with not buying imported goods. This was piecemeal, more gesture than a major event. But gestures are important too. Perhaps this is a battle which can only be won at street and family level.

   I wonder what the young ones will do next. Greta Thunberg is quite a force.

COP26 and ROBBERS?

 So, it's on starting Sunday. Hope the canapes are artistic, the three-course meal delicious and the desserts out of this world. All, of course cooked with no fossil fuel in sight. I have been to a few of these get-togethers of African countries in Africa -- the representatives from the poorer parts of Africa took the daily allowances and saved it to take back to their households. 

  Our accommodation would be paid for by our sponsors, so we stayed in 4-star hotels in places like Blantyre and Freetown. I would go down to the hotel dining room for a meal, (I was earning an expatriate wage) but my counterparts ate the meagre food they had brought from their homes. I would have to personally drag them to the dining room and offer to pay for their meals, to salve my high-earning conscience.

  I am delighted the countries are meeting to plan their behaviour in the coming years. Occasionally, I wonder what fraction of the Paris Agreement got adhered to by the Big Guns. I am hoping this COP 26 will not be another shower of the nitrogenous stuff. Are they planning for ways of monitoring the post-COP behaviour of the rich and the greedy?

  China has agreed to make an appearance, but apparently it is only making a token attempt to plan the reduction of its carbon emissions. Our esteemed leader spoke to the Chinese President today. Well Done! Except Mr Xi  Jinping would not have been impressed by our P M's stuttering and stammering.

  I have often wondered what exactly our esteemed P M actually cares about. Not the poor of this country, not the 'to be levelled up' North of this nation, and certainly not his blond thatch. Sometimes I think he sleeps in his trousers and walks out without ceremony, entitled, to the parliament or wherever. Somebody should buy him a hair brush. 

  Can we trust Boris Johnson to WORK for a successful execution of COP 26? WORK is not a word he likes. Alok Sharma will be the in the limelight. I hope he is able to bring the gathering together, including the robbers who are out only for their own profit.

  Greta (what a girl!) is out and protesting -- I hope she can keep the so-and-sos in line. As for me, I've always believed all of us can do our bit:

    switch to electric cars or use public transport; plant trees, respect our wild and wondrous places, teach our next generation about climate change and how it affects their world...

  We need to remember that this world is all we have, it belongs to all the living creatures on it now and in the future, and its resources are NOT for the rich countries to seize and gobble. UK's history in this respect has been shameful. We have a long way to go to redeem ourselves.

SHIT STORM

 This morning, I watched the Tory crowd of idiot-ministers trooping down Downing Street. I call them 

I I s -- incompetent idiots. A country full of amazing people-- innovative, clever, original, funny-- , and Boris Johnson,of course, HAD to choose this bunch of vacuous men and women to be his lieutenants. Of course. How could he manage any different? because they would have shown him up for what he is -- idle, incompetent, ill-informed, spoilt--- Also,if you had a brain, would you join the Tory Party?

  I pointed out the trooping of the imbeciles to my daughter, and she used language that I balk at in the home. She, and my granddaughter, take no notice. But I grumble, when their language gets too picturesque for me. SHIT STORM, she called the line-up.

  Sunak, I believe, thinks only of his future -- Johnson, Beware. The budget has suffered serious incontinence in the last week, leaking out in slow dribbles. I wonder why.

  Our only salvation is a Labour Government -- if it could just get its act together. Stop the squabbling between left and right. attack the Tories with venom in the Parliamentary debates. Stop being civil; doesn't work with the Tory die-hards. They are immune to anything but money in large amounts.

  So, wake up, Starmer, pipe down, McDonnel, talk to the Greens. Otherwise you are in danger of me and my Labour loyals forming a new party.

Vermin on T V

 Vermin on T V

I understand that mice are coming out of some toilet bowls in parts of London. The photo above was in the Guardian, posted on Facebook, by a friend.

And all kinds of vermin are on our T V. I look at all that mouthy, right-wing press trying really hard to protect our sick, incompetent, lazy, right-wing Tory government, from the  damage they do to the country and to themselves, and I give up in disgust and finger my T V remote furiously, to escape the B B C. Sky, I used to think, was marginally better, but they seem to have joined the procession behind the Pied Piper too.

That army of suited and coiffed young men and women, our inglorious Press -- what are they trying to do. Destroy the Fourth Estate? How do they justify to their sick minds the toadyism and dishonesty involved? Sometimes I think they now want to rule the country themselves. 1984, Orwell?

Our Press today were scurrying around for pitfalls to drop Keir Starmer into. Even before his speech started they had condemned his address. They keep pushing Andy Macdonald forward at every step of the way. And then , they lined up four docile members of the audience to Keir Starmer's speech. They could not find a single neutral person with no agenda to push.

I am a Corbynite. I am also a member of the Labour Party. I think Corbyn AND Starmer have their pluses and minuses. But to mount this furious, deceitful attack on Starmer to aid and abet that bunch of Tory dilettantes? Has the Press no self-respect, no understanding of their role in informing the people of this country with respect for truth, and adherence to enlightened neutrality?

In desperation -- and I have to be desperate to do this -- I go to GMB. I am greeted with the face of Farage and I execute a quick retreat.

Our country has no fuel for its care-workers, doctors, nurses, teachers etc to get to work, the supermarket shelves are emptying of food, and the Press tote the Tory Party line. The people are panic buying, they say, the Government has no role to perform when the institutions that keep the country functioning collapse.

Working in Sierra Leone and Zambia in the late eighties, I remember storing petrol, dangerously, in 40 gallon drums on my veranda. At one time there was no bread, no toilet paper in the shops ... But they were third-world countries, not 21st century Britain. Is the U K now a third-world country too?

Variant events of Concern

 Yippee! I have been waiting breathlessly for the most recent royal sprog. Forget the other thousands born on the same day. Indeed forget all else: the global pandemic, our disaster of a government headed by Wursal Gummage,  environment going to the dogs, energy supplies in a perilous state, food disappearing from supermarkets and Kwasi Kwarteng in charge... 

   I am concerned with the juxtaposition of: 

                 Armaments conference recently held in the U K;

                 Boris Johnson in search of a war,  like Falklands, to shore him up;

                 Generals in the U S probably looking for employment now the Afganisthan                                       is a no-go area;

                 Biden proving to be a damp squib. sending Haiti immigrants back in numbers...

    And to add to it all, the Labour Party destroying itself with internecine wars, McDonnel relentless in his criticism of Labour Right, when they should be directing all their energies into unseating the Tories in 1924.

   I am an active member of the Labour Party, left-of-left, if that is possible. So, now, I don't know what can knock some sense into my Party. 

                                        

A Dietary Deficiency

Soon after the year of Indian Independence, in 1947, when Muslims and Hindus decided to massacre each other in the name of religion, I saw the plight of the displaced. The refugees reached the far south where I lived, more than a thousand miles away, on foot -- their plight was pitiable. The families that came begging to my home were hungry, shabby, and their eyes looked upon the world without hope. We gave them rice conjee, more starchy liquid than rice, but they were grateful. 

 The latest Tory assault on the refugees trying to escape persecution of one sort or another defies comprehension. I was a migrant when I came to the U K; I found a tolerant people with a capacity for laughing at themselves. I now know that there is racism and an aversion to the other. But, we are also generous and compassionate.

 You could not invent Priti Patel if you tried. Reminds me of Lady Macbeth. A severe deficiency of the ‘milk of human kindness.’ A dietary deficiency that is irreversible, in her case. That level of cold heartlessness that she displays is sub-human. How does a person reach that nadir of cruelty? Yesterday my daughter and I talked about how disappointed we were in the people of this country, to have voted this monstrosity of a Tory mis-government into power. This is a conversation we have at regular intervals. In this instance, we were talking about the rise in National Insurance! Today we are ashamed, aghast, disgusted; there is nothing more to say; Hilary Mantel is so ashamed of the people who voted the Tories in that she wants to emigrate and change her citizenship. 

  

  Is this the same country that welcomed me here in 1974? I was on my way to Nigeria when I got a message from a Secondary School Headmaster in Wickford, saying, 'Please just come and see us.' The school was desperately short of Maths teachers and the Headmaster asked me to 'help out for a few months.' I had run away from an unsatisfactory marriage and was in a state of confusion and conflict. A few months to stop the dizzying swirl and think, I decided. I stayed for seven years. From Wickford I moved to a post in Dagenham. This country was kind to me. I loved my work, my friends. I grew in self-confidence. 

 

  So, I think, the border patrols are now instructed to drive the immigrants back into the angry waves, in their over-crowded, pathetic little boats? Are there people willing to do this for a wage? I hope not. This is a country that has always, in the past, given succour to the unfortunate, the displaced, the dispossessed. I have difficulty visualizing the RNLI pushing women and children back into the frothing sea. 

  We could of course get Priti puffed-up Patel into one of those boats and send her back ‘where she came from.’

Teachers' Life

 Teachers' day. Now, there's a thought. I was a teacher from 1963 to 1998. Actually, I never stopped being one. That tone - pedantic and authoritarian, does not please my children. Actually, the best teachers' days in my view are Saturdays and Sundays. Bliss to get up late, hang around in a housecoat all day, drink lethal numbers of cups of tea...

I was a smorgasbord kind of teacher -- I taught Secondary School, Primary school, Teacher Training college and nipped at the heels of University without much success. Too much like work, that last one. Until the British Council gave me a fancy name ('Maths Adviser -- deceived no one) and sent me to Africa to educate the 'natives.' Who knew a lot more Maths than I did, and a great deal more about how to train teachers without any resources other than a blackboard and chalk . One wag said to me, 'Just give us the money and go away, Anand.'

Uganda, for instance, put up with me with genuine affection and a smidgen of amusement. One day, the Makerere University lecturers invited me to one of their parties. No women around; I think I was a honorary male. They exchanged stories about the Tanzanian soldiers marching in to get rid of Idi Amin and the bombs whizzing past the top of the flat where we were meeting.

These guys were seriously clever, one of them had two Ph.Ds in Maths. Why two, Omurotu? I asked. Scholarships, he said. Whenever one was offered, I took it. The second one was in India and he came back with the Indian habit of wobbling their heads, which is often caricatured on T V in England. In the process of those two five-year scholarships, he lost his wife -- she gave up waiting around and left.

All the Maths syllabuses in Africa were too ambitious at Secondary level and sometimes at Primary level. Often the teachers at Primary level, who taught all the subjects to one class, did not have enough Maths in them to manage the aspirations of the Ministry of Education.

My first job was to get some consensus about what needed to be taught, when. Simultaneous Equations in Primary 5??  Jesus wept!

It was in Nigeria, in a tiny little town called Ikot Ekpene, on the Aba road, that I started my teaching career. My salary was nineteen pounds a month. It was a girls' training college and I loved walking into my first classroom of The Sacred Heart College, Ifuho. The college was run by American Catholic nuns, and all the girls had to wear uniforms -- brown pinafores over white blouses. Skirts had to touch the floor when the girls knelt for prayer, which was many times during the day. But that dirty brown on polished dark complexions?An abomination. Grass green is what I would have voted for.

They stuck their pens into their tight curls and firmly believed that my long knee length plait was an add-on. Until someone gave it a tug and it didn't come off.

That was just the beginning in Nigeria. I lasted five years in that country, until the Biafran issue brought war and destruction. We fled, leaving possessions behind.

I can see there is a great deal to talk about my peripatetic teaching life still to come. Zambia, Sierra Leone, ... Even Wickford in entrancing Essex. So, the rest in part two, if you don't mind.

Getting Ready for the Education!

 Educating Anandam

I remember that day. I had planned to go to the house behind ours , where two of the aychees (sisters) of my choice lived.  Madhavi with never-ending patience for me, and Naani, the opposite. Nani would flip if I ran around her kitchen -- the pots were on three-stone fires, with dry coconut fronds for firewood. I also had a reputation (well-justified) for snatching handfuls of grated coconut off the grinding stone, where it was sitting ready for the daily fish curry.

  In my home there was no compound to run around in. Next door was surrounded by generous tracts of land whichever way you looked. I like the south side best, which had multiple attractions for a girl of eight years. The huge Tamarind tree whispered in the breeze and tempted me to talk to it and dwell under its huge shade. I could pick the wind-falls and nibble at the sharp tangy fruit. Madhavi was always warning me how there would be blood in my poo if I ate tamarind, but it was too tasty to reject. 

  The land furthest from the house was terraced towards the end, where there was a fence, on which wild, pink, Yeshoda flowers grew plentifully. The flowers had long stems such that I could make garlands by plaiting the stems. Then there was the forbidden treat of looking through the vines at the plot next door.

  A family of Parayas ( untouchables, so called, then) lived there. It was a clan rather than a family; at least thirty people who lived in bamboo-and-thatch lean-tos. During the day the women were always cooking huge clay-pots of food, and the men quietly congregating in shady ground, drinking toddy.  At night,the drumming would start and we could hear singing and celebration, when the traffic noises on our road had died down. In the late forties the land was acquired by a lawyer, who built a beautiful house there Where did the Parayas go? The next empty plot of land probably. I like to think that, with Independence, they prospered, the children went to schools... 

  As an only child, I had to create my own entertainment -- did that lead me in the direction of undue dependence on the written word? An uncle taught me Patience, a card game which I could play on my own with a pack of dog-eared playing cards discarded by my father and his '28' crew. There was also the tiny green pods shed by the Arecanut tree, which I collected to play chottu kali, flicking one on to another with forefinger and thumb. 

  But, on that day, Achan found me early, just after I had eaten my dosha and sammandi. He was going to teach me public speaking. He would give me a topic and I had to prepare a three-minute speech on the subject. To be delivered on the long walkway in front of our house. Part of my education!

  The people wandering past our house would stop and stare at us, while my father threw useful suggestions at me. Slow down, throw your voice etc. The children from the houses on the left and right of our home would line up and gawp. There was no escape. This was all part of my 'education according to Achan.'

  GOT IN THE WAY OF MY GAMES and FORAYS NEXT DOOR.

  

War brings my cousins home

 My uncle, Achan's elder brother, Sankaran Velyachan,, ran away to Malaya, in his late teens. He had good reason to run, rumour hath it. A maid in his house got pregnant and he might be forced to marry her, being the only bachelor in the house. So, he persuaded his sister to part with her gold necklace, sold it, and bought tickets to Malaya, before the elders in his household had added 2 and 2 to make 5.

   A few years later, in Singapore, he became a doctor, licensed to practice medicine. This was not an uncommon story in the nineteen-twenties. From my father's family, two more young men ran away in search of fame and fortune. One worked in the post office in India when he returned home in the late forties after the war in the East had ended. The other didn't wait for the war to end; he returned to Madras (now called Chennai) in 1944, in a Japanese submarine, armed with many toys-for-spies. Actually, he just wanted to go home; he abandoned his spying goodies on reaching Madras, and forever after, was known in his village to which he vanished, as Japan-Balan. He was my father's nephew and I I knew him well. He was handsome, lazy, good-natured, and often drunk. But, there was no guile in him.

   During the second world war many families were split up, with the men stranded in Burma, Persia or Malaya. My uncles's wife, however, was with him when the war started. He was in Penang and Singapore and Sungei Patani, working in rubber estates, until he returned to India after six years, with many hair-raising tales about the Japanese army in Malaya. 

Photo specially taken for the edification of Velyachaan and Velyamma. We were dressed up for the event. Appu, being male, got pride of place on the chair. Of course.

   In 1940, Velyachan sent his two children, aged six and nine, to Thalassery for their education. There were no schools on the rubber estates where he worked. So Achan became their beloved Elayachan (younger  father.) Achan loved those two, Appu and Mani. (Sometimes I was jealous of Mani.) They melded into our extended family and I now had siblings. A money-order and the odd letter arrived every month for my father. When Japan invaded Malaya the letters and the money stopped. Subsequently, my father went to jail and money became a rare thing.

   Velyachan and his wife, Velyamma, Ammu, were stuck in Malaya for six years -- when they returned in 1946, Velyachan's mother had died, and us children were now savvy teenagers. My father and I were sad when Appu and Mani went away with their parents in the direction of Velyamma's home in Ottappalam soon after. After that, I saw my cousins only during brief visits every year. I missed them; my father missed them.

   UNTIL, both Appu and Mani became old enough to travel on their own. They ignored their parents and made a bee-line for my Achan's house and the town where all their friends and family lived. Velyachan gave them an education and lost their loyalties. 

   As I grew older, I travelled to India from wherever I was posted, once a year. I went straight to Mani's house. Wherever she was, was home. 

   She died two years ago and I now have no great desire to go to India.

Freedom, they Call it

 Today, it is not my father, I remember. It is Sankarotty Nambiar. Yes, my father went to jail. Along with two others, a lawyer and a businessman. There was deprivation and anxiety. And madness and death for my grandmother. 

BUT -- I recall my Achan, (father,) talking about his imprisonment, first in His Majesty's (King George, the V1th) prison in Vellore and then in Tanjoor. They were well-fed and not locked up in rooms, he said. they were allowed access to the kitchens and to newspapers. (until the British lost Andamaan Islands, briefly, to the Japanese, and the Government did not want any more news of defeats reaching the prisoners.) My father also told me about his friend, Sankarotty, who was not a professional, a lawyer or some such -- he was a congressman, who had no particular job, like so many in India at the time.)

My Achan - raising the flag on Independence day, at the Tellicherry maidanam, '48 or '49. I was in that crowd somewhere. He often wore a top, over his jubba, like Nehru did. So Thalassery folk called him Kundilal Nehru.

Sankarooty was not identified as a 'class one' prisoner, like my father. He was treated cruelly. Not enough food, knocked about by the warders often, locked up. Apparently, the warders would bring rice and a thin curry to the likes of him, then take it away before they could eat it. A game they played. The rice was full of sand and stone.

I once asked Sankarotty why he was not married. My achan shut me up. He was in prison during the years when he would have married, or got a job, my achan said later. Achan found him a small job at one point. And in our house we had standing instructions: whenever Sankarotty came, we had to welcome him, feed him, and give him a bed. I remember him, always clothed in Khaadi, carrying a kind of dignity on him. He was one of many. Many men lost their youth to the freedom movement; I don't think they dwelt on it.

Even in our household, there were tragedies not spoken about. Achan was away for two years; he was the only wage-earner, who sustained an extended family of sisters, nieces and children. In those years, we had no new clothes, no fancy food... Once, in school, I needed to dress up in a decent frock for a concert. The nuns borrowed one, a pink satin one, from a girl called Sourya. The satin was, well - satiny. I glowed in it. 

My Achamma (paternal grandmother) firmly believed Achan was being beaten up by the warders. She never had any love for her daughters who cared for her; the sons were her precious children. One died of small-pox when he was twenty-two years old, another was a doctor in Malaya and the family had no news of him for a long six years, while the second world war raged in Europe and later, in Asia. So, when the youngest, Achan, went to jail, she lost it. She went mad and died before he came back.

When Achan came home in 1944, he was anxious that his fledgling law-practice would have been wiped out. He need not have been afraid. Every week, the other lawyers in Thalassery, sent him briefs, till he built up his practice again. Thalassery offered love and respect to him all his life. And, all my life, roam the world as I have done, I have loved that little seaside town.

However, when we celebrate freedom, I HAVE to think of all the women who are second-class citizens in India, pushed around by the men. I think about the house-servants who do the dirty jobs the rich don't want to do - like the woman in Bangalore sweeping up dog-turd into a torn newspaper from the street. She had no gloves or bin bags.

So, freedom, yes. And we have gone a long way to better living for all. Still a long way to go.

The Ubiquitous Messi today

 Lionel Messi rules the airwaves today. If there was an easy way of stopping this Messi madness, I'd try. Now don't get me wrong. I am a footie aficionado, in stops and starts. When Liverpool plays, I'm there in my recliner singing 'You'll never walk alone,' tunelessly. My daughter is counting the hours for the Arsenal-Brighton game on Friday.

   Messi is a great footballer, but how many times do I need to hear that. I liked Messi, particularly when Liverpool beat Barca in the Champions League match at Anfield, and Messi left the field in tears.However, right now, the media have gone crazy. I have to surf the T V to find a channel where I can find out how many new Covid infections there are today, where Boris Johnson might be hiding right now, how Modi manages to befuddle Indians with his version of militant Hinduism...  

   I have to confess: I am a news addict. My daughter has to remind me frequently that the news does not grow or change every half an hour. I am not entirely sure she is right -- the Taliban is changing it in Afghanistan, weather is creating chaos in many countries and Covid is still growing rampantly in some countries.   

   So my daughter placed a T V in my room and I can safely indulge without disturbing wall-to-wall sport in the living room. 

   Continuing on the subject of the deification of sportsmen, was it Bertrand Russell who said that sportsman have now taken over from the Gods of many religions? Clearly we all want something / somebody to worship. However, there are so many figureheads we can look up to. The authors, singers, artists, speakers, all of whom at their best can draw us in and allow us to experience a glimpse of something amazing, briefly. 

   I have been lucky, having been exposed, quite by accident to many cultures and their gifts. There was Carnatic music in my childhood in India, where there was a tradition of singers being invited into a house to sing to a small community of people who lived near by. My father did the inviting a few times.  Then there was Binaca Geethmala and Yesudasan's incomparable Malayalam songs. Later I came across a collection of arias sung by Pavrotti et al and got hooked. 

   In Enugu the Sacred Heart nuns introduced me to Easter music, and in Egypt, killing time at an airport, I heard Arab music that kept me spellbound. The Beatles came as a shock to the system and in Sierra Leone, I learned the rhythms of West Africa.

   There was also the Bharatha Natyam, wherein the ankle-bells on the dancers jangled and the feet went at the speed of sound. And authors like Hilary Mantel, Bertrand Russell, Jumpha Lahiri, Salman Rushdie and many others. I admit that a goal curving in at a sharp angle, with the grace of a bird in flight belongs to this category of special experiences.

   So, yes, Messi. But enough now. I am looking forward to the Liverpool strikers showing some form on Saturday.

   

Facebook, Instagram, and all else

 Facebook, Instagram, and all else

Before the colonization by Facebook and its side-shoots, we had e mail. And that was a great boon. I was working in various African countries where a reliable water supply was a wonder, during the years 1983 to 1998., leave alone communication systems. Mail did not go anywhere much in any direction in the little towns, far away from civilisation, that I was posted to. 

From Makeni, in the north of Sierra Leone, I travelled to Freetown once every three months or so. I would go to the local telephone house and book a call to England. At the counter I would be given a slip of paper with the number, which denoted my place in the queue. Then you sat on a bench and waited until you were given access to the one telephone available. I was in S'lone for five great years. When my ex-husband got lung cancer, and died, the office was informed by phone and had to sent messages to me by hand of a driver. 

The next posting was to Uganda. There was a phone-line in my house on the campus of the Kyambogo Teacher Training College, in Kampala. Letters still disappeared into cyberspace, but, once in a way, the phone worked. This was now 1988 to 1994.

The British Council, my employers, felt sorry for us 'advisers' and persuaded a reluctant British High Commission to let us use the diplomatic bag. To a limited degree. No frivolities, only essential family mail. I was once told off roundly by some deputy god in the High Commission, for getting some Maths exam papers sent out to me, to tutor my daughter, who had come down on holiday, just before her G C S E exams.

In Zambia, during 1994 - 1996, I could use the Wi-fi in the office. But none was available at home. E mails were still flashes of sunlight in the atmosphere. They hadn't quite downloaded.

It was in Malawi, in 1996, that a V S O  friend set up my computer with a primitive version of e mail. It rarely worked. Things got slowly better and communication with my children in Laindon became much easier.

Looking back, I managed without any undue sense of deprivation. On my visits to the U K , I started hearing about Facebook. I was not interested, but my family in India had adopted it with enthusiasm. They persuaded me to join, and now, the whole clan could communicate, gossip, commiserate, fall out...

WhatsApp was a similar step for similar reasons. In both cases, I began to enjoy the freedom to hold forth on all things familial or political.

And then, the worm slowly turned. Social Media became a scourge, like a pestilence of ancient times. It attacked without discrimination, destroying the self-confidence of countless young people, who had the usual teen problems such as a changing body and hormones to contend with. Depression in the young became as common as acne.

If I could stop the rancour, make Twitter, Facebook. Instagram... disappear overnight, I would. I rarely post on Facebook. If I do it is generally about my garden, or things about my pets.  I wouldn't miss FB if it went. As for Twitter, in my case, it is just an involuntary twitch.

E mail would be more than enough for my needs. I wouldn't have to be constantly looking over my shoulder with that.

EURO - Who says we lost?

 EURO 2021 - Who says we lost?

Look at the facts. The first 90 minutes of football ended in a 1-1 draw. The next 30 minutes ditto. WE DID NOT LOSE.

As for the penalty shoot-outs where 10 men do a kick-about, does it say anything legitimate about the respective skills or the execution of the match? How CAN it? The Footy billionaires make these silly rules. So, we hit the net with two kicks and Italy succeeded with three. Pretty inconclusive as a way of judging a competition that has gone on over months. Find some way more intelligent and fair, EURO administrators, please.

I am maintaining we didn't lose because my granddaughter is really upset. Her mother too. And I felt like a tyre that's lost air slowly and gone flat. So, I did what I do whenever I don't have even a tentative answer. I take a book to bed. 

O K. Saka should have started. Rice and Mount, both more or less invisible during the match should have been taken out. Henderson should have come on earlier and Rashford too. Indeed what is Rashford doing sitting it out while Kane runs around doing nothing much? Maguire did a much better job encouraging and guiding the team. Kane has got his days, but yesterday was not one of them.

And Sterling? He is normally so good at ducking and diving, dribbling and getting through. He did all that yesterday, but did not find the back of the net.

I will refrain from commenting upon the toxic assault on the black men who missed their penalties. It is beyond my understanding.

Gareth Southgate, I figure, deserves a knighthood for what he achieved.  Have you ever seen our team play as well as they have done in recent months? And we reached the semi-final. Let's win the next competition.

Old India --old Thalassery

Old India --Old Thalassery

1938. I was three-and-half years old. I am not supposed to remember the day, but I do. There was only one photographer in Thalassery in the forties, and his name was Gunther. (Kodak box cameras were yet to arrive.) His studio was on the top floor of a line of shops on the road to Big Bazaar. The cement stairway to this room was a challenge, so Achan carried me up.

   This old sepia photo brings it all back. It is scarred and faint in places; what do you expect after eight decades? Gunther has a tall tripod with a black cloth to use as a cover for his lenses. He arranges me and my father in a pose -- Achan on a chair and me on a tall stool next to him.. I remember the height worried me, so Achan put his arm around me. Nothing could ever go wrong when I had that arm holding me. 

   My father was a lawyer, just under thirty years old at that time. My mother had died the previous year; after that he took over every aspect of my little life: what I wore, my personal hygiene, my learning, my health, my happiness. He bought the material for my clothes from P A Chettiar's shop, and Shekharan Mesthri, a few doors away, did the tailoring. Another two doors away, on the edge of the bus-stand roundabout was my barber -- no hair dressers then.

   Before bed, my father made sure I washed my feet and had my evening wash. His sister and niece had instructions to remove lice from my hair (I had many). Every night, I had to drink a cup of milk. For many years after my mother's death, Achan lived in fear of my getting the tuberculosis that had killed her at eighteen years. When I was a hefty thirteen year old, to the eternal amusement of the doctor, he still periodically marched me to the doctor to check my lungs. I also had to ingest cod liver oil till I became too fat at fifteen and had to stop.

   I lived in those slips such as the one I was wearing in the photo until I was of school-age. Nobody wore shoes or sandals in those days. Achan had a pair of shoes for the Courts and wooden clogs for the house. Generally, he wore a mundu and shirt, with a jacket as in the photo, on special occasions. In 1981, when he visited me in England, he still wore the same outfit, minus the jacket.

   That was then. Now my grand daughter has a wardrobe full of dazzling clothes and shoes and slippers for all occasions. When I got married, I was barefooted as I had been all my life. I got one pair of slippers to travel to Colombo where my new husband lived.

   Life was pared down and sharing was the order of the day. With family, with poor neighbours, with anyone who was needy.

   I took my father's care for granted, without realising, that in that little town, and at that time, not many fathers made time to nurture their daughters.

   I was lucky.

   

Our Shameless Media

 Our Shameless Media

My daughter used to love the Today Programme. Now she cringes when she listens. Her morning  listening pleasure is totally destroyed. After listening to the bilge manufactured by the programme to by-pass the Labour win in Batley and Spen, I am embarrassed for them. How do the newscasters, who I assume are well-trained professionals, deal with this level of smoke and mirrors? Have they no professional standards, no shame at what they are reduced to? Why not resign and do something honourable, such as making a huge noise at the footies?

  Once upon a time, not so long ago, we had a news landscape we could be proud of. There was no noticable obfuscation or bias. Now we have a small of group of well-dressed, well-coiffured men and women. trying to mislead a whole nation about the degree to which the present Tory Government is a national disaster. Come -on! A combination of Johnson, Hancock and Gove, with a few Cummingses and Goingses to twist the truth around, and stampede through our country?? I am nostalgic for Teresa May, though I am a confirmed left-of-left, Labour member, and will be all my life.

   I listened to all the news programmes today. No one had the courage to say that after predicting a 7 point advantage for Tories, they had lost Batley and Spens to Labour. In spite of that unspeakable Galloway diverting 22 percent of the vote his way. Do the Muslims in the constituency feel they can trust him? What does he want from all the damage he manages?

   Sky was marginally more professional than the BBC.  Our Bought By Conservatives channel that we all pay for.  Kay Burley was a star when she interviewd the Deputy Chair of the Conservative Party. Like a terrier she got her teeth well into the discussion and tossed the woman about like a wet rag. Well Done, Kay. 

   All the channels want to focus on the leadership discourse within the Labour party. So Labour wins a hard-fought election, I am jumping up and down in the room, chasing up my daughter, who joins me in the celebratory tea-and-toast, and the news is trying to concentrate on Keir's recent problems.

   I am a confirmed Corbynite. But I will be loyal to any Labour leader who is trying to walk the tight-rope that is Westminister politics. BBC tried very hard to make Diane Abbot to say something derogatory about Starmer. But Diane showed breeding and metal; she out-talked the BBC interviewer, who repeatedly tried to force her into a corner. Hats off Diane.

   Has Fox news bought BBC up? If so, may I have my share of the loot?

Our Animal Family

 

Our Animal Family

There is Boo-boo now. She is the one that looks like a fur scarf. Her fur is so long in places, my daughter has to cut it short in unmentionable areas of her body so that her poo is not hanging off her tail. The tail itself is a feather duster, which whisks briskly when she is angry. With a name like Boo-boo, what can you expect? She was already Boo-boo when she came to us.

Boo-boo is my daughter’s cat; pines when she is not at home. When I go past her, sleeping in the empty fruit-bowl or the laundry basket, she wails, asking me – what? I stroke her and talk to her gently and she lets me go. But her eyes are imploring. Where is my mom? she seems to ask.

All the animals in the house adore my daughter. No matter that all four of us in the house spoil them, it is my daughter they come looking for. That girl has some animal-witchcraft within her.

Then there is Pepper; the smart one. She does not have thick fur and actually has a working brain. Both the cats are now eleven years old and Pepper holds long conversations with us. She often sleeps on my legs, at the bottom of my bed; gets quite offended when I move my legs or turn over. Tells me off. Sometimes I find her near my pillow, like a child sleeping with mother. Rare times of magic!

Pepper is a wandering cat, whereas Boo-boo never leaves the compound. Neither has any time for our Jack Russel, Lily.  The little one in the photo, thin and long, is Keeri. She adopted us while I was on holiday in India. She was starving and distressed, so I took her in and brought her to England.

Keeri looked so like a mongoose, I called her Keeri, Malayalam for mongoose. Keeri knew how to love humans. She slept in my arm-pit and every night, she would wait downstairs till I was ready to go upstairs to bed. Following me ino our garden she would be running so fast, she couldn’t get her breaks on near the little oak tree and would go right up. She also wasa roamer.

One day she went out and ended up splattered in the middle of the road in front of my home. We have not added to our cat-family since. I dream about a few more kittens but don't dare.

So, there you are. Except the pup. Lily, the Jack Russel does not really know whether she is dog, cat or human. The less said about her the better.

 The white working class child is educationally disdvantaged. Apparently the schools that they go to are being neglected. Now,we know that the black working classes, and the brown working classes, are equally disadvantaged (probably more). Furthermore, black and and browns get nowhere near the same access to justice or  jobs. Young black men are treated with little respect by the police -- they DO NOT get fair consideration. 

As for jobs, I should know. I came to the U K as an immigrant in 1974. I was grateful for the chance to work as a teacher. I was one of three graduate Mathematicians in a nineteen member Maths department. I loved my work. I thought I would get promoted eventually after a few years, when I had established my credentials, but that never happened. I watched people getting promoted over me, who did not know the new Maths being taught then; many would come to me at break to learn the Maths just before going in to teach. So I moved to Dagenham, where I was treated with much more professional respect. In Dagenham, black and brown teachers were a dime-a-dozen and the classrooms were multi-coloured I had found my niche.

I suspect black and brown school children do better than their educational environments would suggest because of the support they receive at home. It is relentless. I remember teaching Secondary School Maths to my daughter to get her a place in a boarding school in Suffolk. And now, my grand daughter has no choice but to perform when my daughter takes over her learning. We, black and brown, are all like that; we don't take education for granted. 

This is not totally about colour or class; it is about respect for learning, and the effort required by parents to make a success of it.

My Alter Ego

 

My alter ego from Keralam

Posted on July 6, 2020 by anandnair78

This is a blog about my very Indian other self. Actually Malayalee, (from Keralam, speaking  the local language, Malayalam) because I probably have less in common with people of some of the northern parts of India than with crazy Croydon, where I have lived  since the late nineties, with occasional forays into Keralam to recharge my other self.  I started this site in 2013 and never pursued it. But now, senility combined with Covid Lock-down,  and the remorseless tick-tock (Rushdie style) of seconds, minutes, hours, days… persuade me that I must get this going, if my granddaughter is to have any idea about her fractured beginnings.

At fifteen years, she has a room and bathroom of her own, you enter there at your peril — unless your sneak in to pick up the daily debris, while she sleeps the sleep of the innocent. In our house in Thalassery, in the north of Keralam, I ponder, five of us females, aged between seven and fifty-five, slept in the puja room. Ammamma, the eldest had a narrow bed, the rest slept on mats spread on the floor. It was a small room; when the mats were rolled out, there was no walking room, so you stepped over the others if you needed to get out. I did not qualify for a pillow at my age, graduating to one only on my wedding night. I wonder what my new, just unpacked husband thought when he found his wife constantly slipping down a notch, in the bed, to escape the pillow. It didn’t help that some kind souls had covered the nuptial bed in jasmine petals. JESUS WEPT!

Men were considered superior to us; they slept upstairs on beds and mattresses. Indeed, but for the beds upstairs, the house was mercifully devoid of furniture. My father had two chairs in his office in the corner of the veranda. His clients sat on a bench, which was not trustworthy, as it had uneven legs and tended to go up at one end, when a weight came down on the other. My father also had a big table and a Dutch glass-fronted almirah. The almirah contained his law books, with The Indian Penal Code occupying pride of place. He was a lawyer.

We had a Planter’s chair too on the veranda, on which I used to curl up and sleep, waiting for my father to pick me up and carry me up to bed, when I was still little. It was a lovely object, that chair, until you got close to it. Most of the wickerwork had torn off on the seat and you had to stick to one little Strip, which had a few strands left. And look out for those sharp bits of unravelled cane sticking out!

For the rest, we sat on palakas and thadukkus , wooden stools and small grass-mats. These days, when I visit India, I see no stools or mats to sit on. The middle classes sit on sofas, while the poorer families sit on basic wooden chairs. Just as well considering the shape of my knees.

My Threadbare Kerala Home

 

MY THREAD-BARE KERALA HOME

Posted on July 12, 2020 by anandnair78

MY THREAD-BARE HOME

I rarely offer to empty the dishwasher as it requires bending and straightening up many times. There is no space in the cutlery drawer for all the armaments we accumulated over the last decade — it wasn’t too bad before that. Around 2007, my daughter returned to England from Kenya and I from India, bringing with us our households. So three households were now crammed into the small bachelor home of my long-suffering son. In the end, he bought a larger house, just to accommodate his unwieldy family.

When the spoons and forks spill over into the drawer, I remember our home in Thalassery. We had one metal spoon in the house, which was my father’s for use with his evening conjee. The rest of us had spoons made from the leaves of the Jack fruit tree. This was an adhoc arrangement. When conjee was served, one of us children would be instructed to pick a few jack leaves. This was no off-hand chore. The leaves had to be fresh but not too soft — they shouldn’t disintegrate in the hot conjee.  And they had to be shaped and held together by a piece of eerkili (spine of the palm leaf). I was never great at these feminine skills.

Once, my visiting aunt got so disgusted with my ineptitude, she asked me to go back to the jack tree and fetch better leaves. I had enough by then. I gave her my father’s precious spoon.

‘That thing that is sucked by all and sundry?’ she asked contemptuously. ‘I’d rather go hungry.’

This happy spoon-less state of affairs continued till I got married and went to Colombo to live with my in-laws. They were of a different ilk; I would call it faux-western. Proper china and a plenitude of spoons and forks and knives, not to mention sofas and sprung beds, and curtains in the windows. When I went home to India to have my first baby, I felt as though I could breathe again. I packed away my tooth brush and Colgate tooth-paste, and happily went back to an earlier oral hygiene — burnt husk on my index finger.

My husband threatened to visit after a few months. Now I would need to pander to a different food-protocol. He ate rice like the urban Ceylonese — with fork and spoon, the fork in the left hand, pushing food into the spoon in the right hand. And we,in Thalassery, had no forks or knives or spoons. The gofer was sent into town to bring back two spoons and two forks. He returned empty-handed. So I went hunting and unearthed some cutlery in a disused drawer in a small shop at the bus-stand.

‘From the time of the White Saives’ the shopkeeper said. ‘Who is this for, now?’ Emphasis on the NOW. I refrained from answering. The deal seemed almost a betrayal.

How far have the mighty fallen! My father grinned with great amusement, when I went home with my finds.

‘What are you going to do about the dry latrines?’ he asked. But that, as they say, is a whole other story.

At the back of my Retina

 

At the back of my Retina

Saris, magenta, indigo, saffron, emerald …, drying on a clothes-line, in bright sun, near a ‘dobhighat,’in Chennai; dark pink, silk umbrellas with silver trims, held over the image of Ganeshan at a temple festival, as the drums beat, the cymbals clash, and the elephants in the holy procession toss their ears;  the sindhooram powders for the dot on the forehead, in all the colours in creation, and some extra, displayed in front of an odds-and-ends shop in big bazaar in Thalassery; glass bangles shimmering in the sun, in a bangle-wallah’s basket; these are some of the colours of my childhood, and they survive in the back of my retina, to be called upon whenever I need a reminder of who I am.

  I recover this sense of belonging to my colourful past when I travel to India. During the months and years in between, the colours fade. When I come back to work in England after a summer in India, my colleagues are amused; they don’t quite know how to respond to this new Anand, who wears silk saris and chunky jewellery, as she swishes down the corridors. ‘Dressed up like a Christmas tree,’ one says, as I float past the classrooms, piles of books in hand. But it is all too much effort to be sustained as winter mornings get shorter, and I revert to my mongrel self.

   There are compensations. There is no green like the green of England, I think, as I drive from Laindon to Brentwood to drop my boys off at school. And it is everywhere, with no respect shown to urban areas. The small parks, the spaces full of trees and hedges -- it is as though the creator spilt huge barrels of green without discretion, all over the place and it spread willy-nilly. My visiting American friend is envious of this plentiful green.

   This green is a green all its own. Not sure about the ‘pleasant’ whenever I come across that other unmentionable intrusion of colour into my daily life. It is bad manners for the non-white person to mention it, but I often wished one of my ‘liberal’ friends in the staffroom would pick up the cudgels on behalf of Mo, Prashar, and myself, the three ‘persons of colour’ in a staffroom of ninety others. Persons of colour, my foot. Are all the others colourless, like see-through, pink plastic?

   I was lucky – I spent half a lifetime in Sri Lanka, Africa and India, and garnered a whole backdrop of ‘other’ to prop me up, through sundry episodes, which threatened to diminish me. I also carried that green in my head, that blazing, vivid, forest-green of Africa. When I am homesick, it is not India I miss, but the little towns of West Africa. I remember the multi-coloured Garra cloth in the market, rolled out on makeshift wooden tables, the head scarves of women saying boo to the limitations of their lives, and the family of yellow birds that made their home on a tree in front of my first-floor flat in Makeni in Sierra Leone.