Christmas in Thalassery Thalassery, or Tellicherry, as the British named it in their time, is a small town on the south-west coast of India. My hometown. On quiet nights you couad hear the dash and murmur of the Arabian see, which was only a five-minute walk away. It is an unpretentious, friendly place, which claims to have started the game of Cricket in India. There are many schools and a college, so people tend to get educated. Most men still wear a mundu (a cloth for the lower half of the body), and my father, a lawyer, wore a pair of trousers and a black jacket only when he went to the Courts. There was one Christian family on our road and the two daughters of the family, Mabel and Ida, were my friends. Until Mabel got married, we spent a great deal of time together, walked to college, played badminton and throwball together. Met up most days to gossip. And, Christmas dinner was always at Mabel’s house. Chicken Biriyani rather than Turkey and sweet rice payasam instead of cake. No one put up Christmas trees; generally, no one gave or received gifts. Mabel’s family would attend midnight mass at the local church. And that was it for another year. Christmas has become an expensive end to the year in England. Tree and baubles, fancy food and a cake, gifts all round…My daughter hauled her box of decorations down from the loft and spent a morning creating colour and glitter. On Christmas day, we shall dine lavishly at the house of a Christian friend. There will be gifts given and received though we say ‘no gifts’ every year. The drive to our friend’s house will take forty-five minutes, and the day will be joyous and noisy. I wonder, does anyone go to church for midnight mass anymore?

There is Something Rotten in the State of ...

There is Something Rotten in the State of… --- and the stink is pervasive – on the obsequious media that will turn on Truss when they are sure she is history, (quite soon now from the noises coming from our toe-licking BBC,) and on the Conservative MPs who are like rodents caught in the headlights. Now, a wordy member of my household says, they want to shuffle the deckchairs about and put Ben Wallace and some such layabout at the head of this country. Anyone will do so long as the Tories can stay in power for another year-and-a-half. Jesus Wept! The Mother of Parliaments was thrust into my receptive twelve-year-old Indian head, by the Sacred Heart nuns in my Convent school in Thalasseri, in the mid - forties. A model not only of functioning democracy, but also of elegant government and political rectitude. In 1981, when my father visited, I took him to see the Houses of Parliament, the Palace and the door of Number 10 from a respectful distance on the sidewalk. When he returned to India, he did a brief talk on All India Radio, Kozhikode, about his trip. Full of eulogies for the wonderful buildings, the tidy (!!!) streets, the punctual trains… Late last night all hell broke in the revered Westminster Hall. Tory M Ps were being manhandled into the lobby if they were not quick enough to go in to vote against a labour motion. All decorum had disappeared through the august portals. The Kerala Marxists could not have put up a better example of rowdy behaviour. So much for decorum and elegance ______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ 1.32p.m - The P M walked out of number 10 and to her podium as I was writing and announced her resignation. Now the horse-trading will begin. The Tories do not have the talent or rectitude in them right now to find acceptable replacements. So, we will end up with another set of nether orifices. No escape. I watch with some discomfort – who next? However, much better than the soaps on T V.

Our Winter of Destruction

Our Winter of Destruction I look at our PM, Liz Truss, and I think, how did this come about? What were the Tories thinking? They are self-destructing, I tell myself. I am happy to think that, but meanwhile, we have 18 months of this government. Liz Truss, bouncing on her high heels, travelling in search of a brain transplant. Before that, we had bungling Boris, empty as a finished beer-can. Now crunched up and binned, thank God. About him, the less said/ thought, the better. She took the cap off bankers’ bonuses (and because of that, the bottom off workers’ wages). She gave the green light to greedy fracking, never mind the creaking, tumbling local landscapes. What next? Jeremy -unt is back at the helm, more or less, and he is cruel as well as cunning. Put your crown jewels away and get ready for a harsh winter. The Tories are muttering and murmuring, but no one takes Liz on. What is her power-base? I wonder, what keeps her at No 10. ‘Who will rid us of this…?’ I think, as Liz minces in and minces out. We are in dire need of a government that cares about the people in this country who have to choose between heating and eating. We need a general election, now, not a year later. The advent of -unt does nothing to allay my fears of a subsistence winter. This man is the austerity chancellor. Any ideas, Keir??

Self Destruction? I have to be wary of wishful thinking. I listen to the sound bites coming out of Kamikazi and Busy- Lizzy and wonder what they are hoping to achieve with their loyalty to the notorious mini budget. Self-destructing, I say with glee. The Tory grandees murmur in some remote background, but do not come out of their rabbit holes. Lizzy just goes home and dyes her dress another colour overnight. As she bounces in to public view she looks radiantly smug. Even the Tories must have come across the word mortgage in connection with their loyal lumpen masses who vote them into power. Another 500 pounds or thereabouts on their monthly payment is a minor irritation. Rees- Mogg will instruct them to work harder, in between switching their heating off and inventing meals that are mainly bread and vegetable soup. Maybe more children will become eligible for school meals. Rashford, where are you? Schools will supply old uniforms to more children. Mothers will have nervous breakdowns and become thinner with denying themselves enough food. Fathers will look for second jobs and get progressively angrier. Are we a third world country now? Labour can sit back and enjoy the side-show. Tories are doing it all on their own.

Self Destruction? I have to be wary of wishful thinking. I listen to the sound bites coming out of Kamikazi and Busy- Lizzy and wonder what they are hoping to achieve with their loyalty to the notorious mini budget. Self-destructing, I say with glee. The Tory grandees murmur in some remote background, but do not come out of their rabbit holes. Lizzy just goes home and dyes her dress another colour overnight. As she bounces in to public view she looks radiantly smug. Even the Tories must have come across the word mortgage in connection with their loyal lumpen masses who vote them into power. Another 500 pounds or thereabouts on their monthly payment is a minor irritation. Rees- Mogg will instruct them to work harder, in between switching their heating off and inventing meals that are mainly bread and vegetable soup. Maybe more children will become eligible for school meals. Rashford, where are you? Schools will supply old uniforms to more children. Mothers will have nervous breakdowns and become thinner with denying themselves enough food. Fathers will look for second jobs and get progressively angrier. Are we a third world country now? Labour can sit back and enjoy the side-show. Tories are doing it all on their own.

Chaos There's the mini budget about which the less said, thought about, the better. Give the billionaires a break, for heaven’s sake. Trussliz is just behaving according to her class-imprint. She has no empathy or intelligence to understand what the average person in the street has to negotiate because of her wanton decisions. The mortgage payments go up – so what? And Kwatank is whipping through like the hurricane, Ian. His gaze is dead; as far as he is concerned, the hullabaloo about his MINI is just the usual clatter. Like all else, it will pass. The hoi-polloi will have something else to grumble about next week. Except mortgage payments come by every month… The poor man’s balancing act is one I am familiar with. I once lived on a monthly take-home of 92 pounds. I remember how I used to check the electric metre obsessively. The line on it went round on and on relentlessly. The amazing part is that there have been no calls within the Tories to get rid of either Truss or Kwarteng. They are self-destructing fast. The old guard, Hague, Hunt et al are just watching. With glee, like me?

I Despair!

I DESPAIR! Our P M. Liz Truss. How did this come about? What are the Tories thinking about? They are self-destructing, I tell myself. I am happy to think that, but meanwhile, we have two years of this government. Liz Truss, bouncing on her high heels, travelling in search of a brain transplant. Before that, we had bungling Boris, empty as a finished beer-can. Now crunched up and binned, thank God. About him, the less said/ thought, the better. Our Liz is at the U N this week and I am cringing to imagine her dealing with all those experienced apparatchiks. They’ll have her for porridge if she is not careful; And, not-so-Cleverly holding her hand is not going to cut it. Seventeen days and she has taken the cap off bankers’ bonuses (and because of that, the bottom off workers’ wages). She has given the green light to greedy fracking, never mind the creaking, tumbling local landscapes. What next? Today, I don’t recognise our normal political landscape. The Tories smell defeat in 2024 and they are armed with a wrecking ball. Ed Milliband was at his best at Westminster this week, but I doubt the Tories care. So gear up for a nasty eighteen months. Hopefully the bankers will handover their bonuses to the struggling poor and pay for school uniforms.

The Queen and I As early as age thirteen, I had a thing about the two princesses, Elizabeth, and Margaret. Somebody gave me a coffee table book about the princesses, and I spent hours looking at them. In black and white of course, this was 1950. At College, I read Russell and Joad and Laski and all persons in between, and became staunchly left-wing. And there I have stayed, Left, but peaceable Left, not Kerala communist blood-letting Left. In the fifties there was a lot of murder and mayhem in North Malabar. When, eventually, I ended up in the U K in the seventies, I knew I was anti-monarchy. I had lived through the unedifying reign of George VIth, when many Indians, including my father, had ended up in prison for demanding independence for India. But perversely, I admired and loved Queen Elizabeth, the second. She was only nine years older than me. Her poise, elegance, devotion to duty and wisdom enchanted me. What a woman! Living in Britain has only reinforced my view. The grace with which she has managed the many conundrums in her life – Charles and Diana’s chaotic marriage, the anti-monarchy upsurges now and then, Andrew’s unsavoury shenanigans, to name a few. But there she is, consistently dignified, fair and gracious. This country is impoverished without her; we are, at the moment, lost without her.

Our Aspiring Leaders

I am looking at the two candidates who aspire to be our Prime Minister on the fifth of September, and I think – Is this all the Tory Party has to offer the Country? Two wannabes with nothing to distinguish them from the lumpen masses inside the Party, and the mindless acolytes outside. I am from Kerala, where even the barely literate household staff read the newspapers every day, the-beedi rollers have one employed at full wage just to read the paper to them while they roll the tobacco into the poor man’s smokes, and the far Left is more often in power than not. No Country deserves the entitled apparatchik, or the frozen person. The only bright spot is that the two leaders will both make most people so mad that they will vote for Labour in 2024. Meanwhile, how do we suffer this empty, pompous lot? What we need, of course, is a people’s uprising. This is not going to happen. Our version of this is called a polite No-Confidence vote. Look at the time and effort it took to shed Johnson. The two contenders talk non-stop about tax; I get the impression that this is what exercises their tiny little brains. NHS? Truss wants to sack nurses, I hear. BP raising the prices for the common man on fuel while accumulating vast profits? Sunak is all in favour. No way out for any of us.

When did we become Third World? I am listening to the tales of hardship on Channel 4. A mother who has no money to feed her daughter until the next Universal Credit check arrives. A father who has nothing left after paying the utility bills. What happened to this rich Western Country? Are we third world now? In 1974, I fled from a bad marriage to the United Kingdom. I lived in lodgings on Lower Richmond Road. I was paid 59 p an hour and the rent was nine pounds a week. I had a gas metre in the room and had to feed it to stay warm. I remember the careful shuffling of expenses until, a few months later, I got a job teaching Maths in a Secondary School in Wickford. The Department of Education would not pay for the ten years previous teaching experience, or my Maths degree, until six months later. I had to get verification from the University of Madras direct to the DES. Teachers were not paid very much in the seventies anyway until the Houghton award, and we got a huge pay-rise. Meanwhile, I did dinner duty to get the free meal that went with it. I had no Winter garments, coming as I did from Africa, so I layered. I lived in a high-rise Council flat and took a bus from Basildon to work. I watched the electricity meter frequently and bathed in small amounts of hot water when the meter seemed to be going round too fast. I was glad the children were not with me. The Houghton awards trebled my salary and the accumulated back pay made me feel rich. So, I put down a deposit of eight hundred pounds on a house that was selling for 9350 pounds. I have memories of not buying the Whippy that I was greedy for, getting my first overcoat for nine pounds after six months of saving… The mothers and fathers who struggle to feed their children are in a very bad place now. For this, the Tory government is responsible.

THE FAB FIVE Did you see the soap opera yesterday? The edifying sight of Liz Truss and Rishi Sunak tearing into each other, the raking up of mistakes made by the Tories in Government over the last decade, the excavation of ancient biographies – who went to school. Where? Labour’s job is being done for them. When McDonnel makes an ugly swipe at Starmer, I want to send a message to him to shut up. Go and do this in Committee, I think, not on the media outlets. I am on his side; I am left of left. Brought up in Kerala, what do you expect? I want a redistribution of wealth tomorrow, my wealth included… The LEADERS’ DEBATE yesterday was a catfight. How did these guys not know at least after the first debate that they were doing a Labour party political broadcast? How stupid are they? Mind you, I have always believed that anyone who joins the Tory Party is, by definition, stupid. But a lot of morons vote for them, and they are a reality like plant pests. Interestingly, the discussion of policy was minimal – it was all about who is the best top dog. No one will call a general election; they know they will be wiped out. 2024 seems a long way away.

The LEADERS Larry, the No 10 cat, and eleven others are all hoping to be our P M. Couldn’t be more diverse. Men, women, Asian men, cat… All it needs is for Priti Toxic Patel to join the motley bunch of would-be-leaders. The Press don’t know what is really going on, how to separate the aspirants, where to show their power. Boris had been their man until they did a Mark Anthony on him. When you create a Frankenstein, you must expect it to turn on you. All the contestants have talked about tax cuts and not much else. The thought of money reigns supreme. There is no mention about the cost-of-living crisis, the pressure on the NHS or Ruanda. One must assume that all of them favour sending immigrants to Rwanda and keeping quiet about the Brexit disaster. If you don’t mention it, it might go away. Is this pervasive racism in the Country, or the obligatory racism to succeed in the party? True blue as a ‘Cruella’ supporter calls Braverman. And – Boris is hanging on as P M, the characteristic smirk absent. My worry is the appalling lack of talent, principles, or any real political intent beyond the acquisition of power. What’s Rishi Sunak got to offer anyone but himself? And he leads the pack, I understand. Liz Truss’s ignorance, Hunt’s opportunism… Who will rid us of this scurrilous lot?

The LEADERS Larry, the No 10 cat, and eleven others are all hoping to be our P M. Couldn’t be more diverse. Men, women, Asian men, cat… All it needs is for Priti Toxic Patel to join the motley bunch of would-be-leaders. The Press don’t know what is really going on, how to separate the aspirants, where to show their power. Boris had been their man until they did a Mark Anthony on him. When you create a Frankenstein, you must expect it to turn on you. All the contestants have talked about tax cuts and not much else. The thought of money reigns supreme. There is no mention about the cost-of-living crisis, the pressure on the NHS or Ruanda. One must assume that all of them favour sending immigrants to Rwanda and keeping quiet about the Brexit disaster. If you don’t mention it, it might go away. Is this pervasive racism in the Country, or the obligatory racism to succeed in the party? True blue as a ‘Cruella’ supporter calls Braverman. And – Boris is hanging on as P M, the characteristic smirk absent. My worry is the appalling lack of talent, principles, or any real political intent beyond the acquisition of power. What’s Rishi Sunak got to offer anyone but himself? And he leads the pack, I understand. Liz Truss’s ignorance, Hunt’s opportunism… Who will rid us of this scurrilous lot?

The Westminster Shenanigans I expect there are a great many people like me watching the soap-opera unfolding in Westminster today. We are still waiting for Johnson as he is getting his suit buttons restored, and his shirt ironed, before coming out to the podium, to resign. I just wish he had stayed till the next general election – he was the best argument Labour could have had for defeating the Tories. However, I suppose the Country is more important than the party. I have a huge confusion in my head – no, no, no – not due to age. I had this cerebral image in my head, long-standing, as I was forcibly fed this lie in History lessons in my schooldays in India. I blame the Sacred Heart. A Mother of Parliament, where democracy prevailed in its purest form. Jesus Wept! So, what do I think of a popinjay like Johnson? How did the Tories allow him to crawl into power? Why did they not get rid of him many months ago? There were so many occasions when he let the Country down – the Brexit debacle still being played out, Parytgate… Other unmentionable misdemeanours. They were all clinging to power while they looked away from the sleaze that was the Tory parliamentary party. They are all complicit and should be booted out. WE NEED A GENERAL ELECTION – NOW I say this with some pride – I am a die-hard Socialist. Left of left. I believe wealth needs to be redistributed and the foodbanks are a disgrace to the United Kingdom. I hope Labour, when it comes into power has the backbone to do this.

The Galle Face Beach There was a routine in my husband’s home. Every evening, after coming home from work, Balan (my just-unwrapped husband) would take his parents to the Galle Face beach and park the car alongside all the other cars lined up, descanting families greedy for the evening air. He would then guide his father to the edge of the beach and the old man would walk the length of the beach and return to the car. Balan would accompany him on his slow walk while my mother-in-law stayed in the car. He is a good man, I would say to myself, about this stranger whom I had married. Balan insisted that I accompanied the threesome in the evenings; so I would sit in the back of the car with the mother and look at the crowds on the beach. Far away and across from us, the limousines drew up in the grand portico of the Galle Face hotel. Behind us the traffic speeded towards the Fort, the shopping enclave of the rich in the city. I begged out of the daily Galle Face parade after a few days, much to the consternation of my husband I started searching for reading matter. An addiction was waiting to be fed. In desperation at finding nothing, I went up to the disused storeroom at the top of our home. There was a Dutch almirah there with a glass front; I opened it and the silverfish ran about frantically, as old books with yellowed pages tumbled out. All on religion, but I had reached a point of no return. I had to find reading material. I grabbed a copy of the translation of Bhagawath Geetha in English, blew away the dust on it and took it down. Next day, my sister-in-law came by to tempt me to a dance. She saw the book I was reading and had a good laugh. ‘On your honeymoon and you are reading Geetha,’ she chortled. I didn’t have the heart to tell her that honey and moon would not be enough for me. I was addicted to the printed word. And I did go for that dance where fell in love with the joyous rhythms of the Singhalese Byela.

Colombo, Here I Come!

In 1957, the country was called Ceylon. When I heard from my family that I was going to get married to this man from Ceylon, my first thought was, what do we know about him? His job, his degree, his salary, my family had investigated all that – as to the man himself, zilch. I had seen him once, when he came for the ‘seeing’. He was quiet, didn’t speak to me, and kept his head down. For us middle-class girls, there was only one way of getting out of affectionate incarceration in the family home – marriage. I had graduated three years ago, was not allowed to work, did not meet men. Many of us escaped through marriage. It was a lottery. My mother-in-law was the familiar mistress of my new home in Colombo; my father-in-law was quite ga-ga at the age of eighty-three, and they lived in this enormous half-empty, house in a posh part of Ceylon, near Colpetty. The bed-rooms were the size of throw-ball courts and the kitchen was ruled over by a young Tamil girl called Pakyam, who did not want me anywhere near her territory. My kind sister-in-law, Kamala, lived a five-minute walk away, and made a concerted effort to take me around, generally introduce me to the Colombo-7 posh set, to which she belonged. I wore whatever came to hand from my small suitcase. I washed my knee-length hair every morning as Malayalee girls did, put Cuticura powder on my face, and a red pottu on my forehead. Eye make-up was the ‘Mayyi’ made for me by my maternal grandmother, mixing clean soot off a new mud-pot in gingelly oil. On my first Saturday in Colombo, Kamala decided to take me to the Eighty club, where all the socialites met to compare clothes, jewellery and circulate gossip. When she came to pick me up, I was already dressed and waiting. White cotton sari and a green blouse. Kamala looked at me, up and down. 'Haven’t you got any silks?' she asked me. I opened my suitcase. She prodded and put everything back, except one of my three silk sarees. She didn’t look happy. I knew I had been found wanting. She came again the next Saturday (full marks for effort) and invited me to dinner at her best friend’s home. Kamala’s husband was an imposing man, and I looked forward to a whole evening in his company. We generally enjoyed talking politics, Indian and Ceylonese. He had occupied slots in the higher echelons of Ceylon Government and had interesting stories to tell. And an infectious laugh. He was also tall and handsome, which was a bonus. This time, Kamala insisted my blouse did not match my sari and fretted till she found one that got close. The next time she invited me, I begged off. This was all beyond me.

My Conjoint Family

My Conjoint Family I am an addicted news-worm. It annoys my daughter, (“The news hasn’t changed since the last half hour, has it?”) She is a sports addict. She shares the living room T V with me. So, I bought a T V for my bedroom. However, watching T V in the bedroom does not compare remotely to the pleasure of communal watching: squabbling over political opinions, taking tea breaks and realising how, we in this household, with all its shortcomings, flares- up of temper, avoidance of chores, not respecting private spaces… still prefer being together (most of the time) than in our separate ivory towers. This applies only to those past teen age. The one teen in our home has original methods of adult-avoidance. In Thalassery, where I grew up, we had one radio with an uncertain reception. I listened to All India Radio, Kozhikode and Delhi, but my cousin, Mani, who shared radio time with me had little time for it. She wanted filmi music. When things got unsolvable, I fell back on my reading habit. Books have got me through a great many tough times. I thank my Achan who quietly descanted an untidy smorgasbord of books on me without my noticing. He did not consider my age or abilities at any time; the books were his reading. I remember reading (if you can call struggling through pages of complicated new ideas, reading) Bertrand Russell’s CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS and MARRIAGE AND MORALS when I was fifteen years old. For dessert I had school girl stories by Angela Brazil, which I hid from Achan. Hockey Pam and Netball Nellie reigned. H G Wells’s tome, the HISTORY OF THE WORLD put all of it in perspective. By the time Achan gave me FREEDOM AND ORGANISATION by Russel in two hefty parts three years later, I was a convert. I remember C E M Joad, in passing – he too was part of my enforced education, until I got used to abstractions and began to have my own opinions. Today my daughter is in the West End at a musical, my son is submerged in Mathematics scripts to mark and my granddaughter is doing her usual distancing from all things adult. This involves many hours of sleeping and not responding to being called. So, books – in the plural, both in soft backs and on Kindle. ANARCHY by William Darlymple, discussing as it does the inglorious British rule in India, is for me, very personal. It was the time when my father went to jail for his views, war raged in Europe and in S E Asia, and I was seven years old. There was rice rationing, sugar rationing, cloth rationing ---. Kerosene was difficult to find. We were piss-poor with our only wage-earner incarcerated at His Majesty’s pleasure Exams were cancelled because there was a paper shortage, hip hip hurray. The house went vegetarian for survival She died soon after. She was my surrogate mot, Velyamma grew spinach, Okra and Brinjals in our garden. Velyamma, sitting on a rickety bench on the veranda, counting her coins, which she kept in her pan box, was a regular sight. By the time Achan was released from jail two years later, Velyamma had stomach ulcers. Achan lost his mother and sister while he was in jail.

My Ancestral Village

My Ancestral Village We, my Achan and I, lived in Thalasseri, only four miles from the houses where my father and my mother were born, themselves only ten minutes' walk away from each other. As I grew up, I visited these villages – Kodiyeri and Moozikkara, about once a year, when my mother’s family came on annual leave (my grandfather was a guard in the South India Railways, posted to Thamabaram in the outskirts of Madras, now called Chennai.) There was no electricity in the villages, and I was scared of the dark in the compounds. I didn’t really know my mother’s siblings very well though they were roughly my age l; in any case they looked too smart for me – they had pretty school uniforms and were self-sufficient in a way I was not, at seven years of age. The fact that they spoke with a slight Tamil accent some of the time did not help. I would spend two days with them and go home to my lighted-up, Court Road, with buses lumbering past, and fishermen bringing fresh catch to our backdoor. Clearly, I missed the noise and bustle. Later, much later, I would walk straight from college to my aunt’s house. At the edge of our town, you stepped suddenly into a vast green expanse of banana and tapioca plantations that went on – and on – and on. My aunt’s home had a huge compound with a pool in one corner. She had cows and calves and lived off the land. Lunch would often be red spinach and cucumber straight off her vegetable patch. Supper may be jack fruit mash. The food was alien but the moong dhal and rice were familiar. And her unhusked rice fresh off her fields was slightly pink in colour and delicious. The evenings started early with the sound of children in the neighbourhood chanting evening prayers. The dark, when it came, on moonless nights was total and the silence deafening. Before the town bus service started in Thalassery in the early fifties, we walked on the narrow bunds between the paddy fields to reach my aunt’s house. When the new shoots were planted, with the start of the rainy season, you saw miles of tender green stretches floating in pink water. I wanted to grow up quickly and find the words to describe that village. I am still trying.

On the Subject of Birthdays Over the past few years, I have insisted that my family do not give me birthday gifts, instead the money should be donated to their favourite charity. At 87 I should be clearing out the cupboards, not collecting more junk. They can, if they prefer, pay for something I have bought for myself anyway. (This is me being cunning,) So Kitta and Manju are paying for the John Snow book, THE STATE OF US, which I have pre-ordered, and THE CONCERT FOR GEORGE video, which brought so many of the big singers together. I keep listening to Billy Preston singing ‘My Sweet Lord.’ I have reached that harmless age! I have to remember that birthdays were non-events in my childhood in Thalassery. Velyamma (aunt) would not give me my morning coffee until after my bath, and prayers at the household shrine, evidenced by a smear of sacred ash on my forehead. There were no new clothes, gifts, or fanfare. Achan did not notice; in any case the date of the birthday varied from year to year because it was my birth-star-sign that was significant, not the date. So, the day could fall on any date between mid-April and mid-May. It was my husband, Balan, who started the gift-giving when our boys were three and five years old. Balan was brought up in Colombo, in an affluent home, which of course took gifts seriously. It was all a question of habit and expectation. Life in Thalassery was pared down; my father had a large joint family to sustain. He was determined to make me understand that. Later, when he stopped practising (he was a lawyer) he handed the responsibility towards the clan to me. I had to pay for roof-rethatching, school fees etc for some relatives. Gradually, that generation died, or their children became prosperous; they no longer needed me. As I became old, then older, my children indulged me, until I called time on that. I have a new rule in my house: on birthdays my children must obey all my ’commands.’ Fetch tea, indulge me to watch news several times a day, not complain when I play Indian music loudly in the sitting room… This works!

The Boris Charade

The Boris Charade Today I watched the ’tangled web of deceit’ within the Conservative Party ducking and weaving for dear life; in the end they threw Boris out with the bathwater. After all, they had their own political fortunes to safeguard. Constituents were getting a little restive. The mighty Steve Baker, he of the powerful ERG, spoke at length in Parliament today. He squirmed and slithered and, in the end, decided Johnson was too toxic to stay near. However, what escapes me is why the Tory M Ps could not bring themselves to shed the P M weeks ago, when it was clear that he had no respect for the truth, and he was a liability. Did he respect the M Ps who were propping him up? I doubt it. For Boris, it appears, the whole thing is a huge joke, and that offensive smirk never leaves his face. Now we have the ethics committee investigating a serving P M. How far have we descended! Meanwhile, Boris is in India, in good company, I must say. Modi and Johnson must agree on so many things, including Modi’s abhorrent treatment of the Muslims in India. I cringed watching the charade: Boris in turban and Indian garments, Boris paying his respects to the image of Gandhi. Boris being greeted with flowers on his arrival in India. Jesus Wept! Modi has debased India to the point of no-return.

Party-Gate Revisited

Party-Gate Revisited I am watching the elaborate system that is trying to save Boris’s skin. And the best of them is our Press, especially the BBC brigade of sycophants. Once upon a time we had a BBC that was the envy of the whole world, including me when I was working in some god-forsaken countries in Africa. I would wake up to the 6 am news on the World Service and my day would be heralded happily. Now, I look at them on T V, spinning out excuses for Boris, and I am puking. My daughter says, ‘He is one of them, Mum.’ As though that is a good reason. Boris is not going to resign. Remember he said quite recently that they would have to drag him out with heavy machinery. Rishi Sunak will go, because he is not able to face ignominy as well as Boris, who is well acclimatised to it. Rishi is ‘precious.’ As the very rich tend to be. And if you are Indian as well… Once upon a time, the ‘Mother’ of parliaments was revered, and countries (like India) built constitutions based on the unwritten British version. Now we have institutional greed and no principles anywhere in sight. I think we are stuck with this bunch of cowboys at the top. I wonder, surely, within the Tory members of Parliament, there must be some who are ashamed of the way the cabal behaves. Why don’t they get rid of the bunch of incompetents at the top? So, I think, another two years or so of turbulence, disregard of the public, reprehensible behaviour at the top, and of course financial misery for the poor.

What A Sunday Boris Johnson, our undaunted Prime Minister arrived in Kyiv, on Saturday, probably parachuted in like James Bond, I imagine, because no one is quite sure how he got there. Must have asked Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commissioner, who went before him. The Press here did not make a huge issue out of her visit. But, of course, she was a mere woman. And does not weigh anywhere near as much as Boris, and cannot claim an unruly blond thatch. Rishi Sunak, our esteemed gilt-edged Chancellor, meanwhile, is throwing a tantrum, because unknown, conniving people, started investigating his wife’s tax status, and publicised the extent of her enormous wealth. Very bad manners in rich-boy circles. No 10 would never do such a sneaky thing, would they? After all Rishi is a neighbour. Now the lady is threatening to move her establishment to the United States. Our chancellor will become a grass-widower. Boris is on a mission to save his PM-ship. Sunak was getting too close for comfort, but now it looks as though the Chancellor has burnt his boat. Not Machiavellian enough. He could of course, return to California, which he once called home. Boris, of course, is showing big ‘as a global leader.’ The Ukranian PM, Zelenskyy, doesn’t have a clue about how insubstantial Boris’s affections can be. Thankfully, City drew in the match against Liverpool. The commentators were all disappointed. What is City’s magic with the guys, that make all of them drool when City gets a goal? Klopp and Guardiola hugged after the match, as though they meant it.

Prison and Moong for Supper

Prison and Moong for Supper In late August of 1942. the police came for my father. It was all very civilised. There were two of them, in an open-topped jeep and they were not in uniform, but the jeep shouted 'police' loudly. I saw them walking up our walkway. My father was shaving, looking in our mottled old mirror, propped up on the window sill. I saw the jeep because I hovered where my achan was -- always. 'Policukaran,' I said and my father looked up. Achan got up quickly and wiped his face with his small towel. Streaks of lather, as usual, remained in his ear lobes. The men knocked on the front door and my aunt opened the door to them as Achan called out, 'Tell them to come up.' Achan knew they would come for him; a friendly policeman had warned him some weeks before about this LIST. 'Yor name is top of the list,' Lateef had said. Lateef was a member of the crowd that assembled in the far corner of our veranda to play '28', on Saturday evenings. On our veranda because Achan was a widower and didn't have to worry about a wife objecting to the crowd and the noise, or even the many cups of tea that had to be delivered periodically. 'If they pass the QUIT INDIA resolution in Wardha, the arrests will start,'Lateef had whispered, and they did. The ALL INDIA CONGRESS COMMITTEE met in Wardha, and passed the resolution on the 12th of August. It is Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe being released that brought all this back into my head.For Achan also, there had been no trial, the period of incarceration was not mentioned, nor were the nature of his crime, or the jail to which he would be taken. It was three months before we got a letter from him, severely inked out by a vigorous censor. So now, we knew he was in Velloor jail. The policy was to put them in jails away from their states so they couldn't communicate with others in the vicinity. Achan, as many middle-class people spoke Malayalam and English fluently. When he returned from Jail in late 1944, he was fluent in Telugu as well. I was seven years old when Achan went; some days I thought he would never come back. Achamma, his mother thought he was being tortured. She lost her marbles, refused food, spat medication out, and died slowly. When she died, Achan was parolled for two weeks and I knew he would live. At home, my aunt struggled with Arithmetic, the arithmetic of money and its elasticity. She grew spinach, okra and aubergine in the compound and stopped buying fish. In the evenings we ate a conjee made of moong and wheat, because black-market rice was beyond her budget.Kannettan, next door, who took me to the temple festival every year refused that year because I had no dress that was not torn or shabby. The nuns in school were strong supporters of the British Raj; they made me stand up in class, and mocked my 'criminal' dad. After several incidents, I bit back one day. 'He is in jail because he is fighting for our freedom. Yours too, Sister.' She looked shamefaced and stopped baiting me after that. The neighbourhood looked after us, giving us sugar and rice, fruit and vegetables. The tailor, dhobi and jutka driver did not take money from us. And the day Achan came back, they crowded in our veranda and their love of him was obvious. I glowed with pride. My Achan was SO special.

The Banshee Wail

The sirens on the T V are weird, banshee-like wails, from the cities in Ukraine that are being attacked. The people under siege, crowd into the underground stations. A milling, jostling mass of women and children and a few men. The siren is a familiar sound, which started in Thalassery with the second World War, when Japan was threatening the British colonies in Asia. As it happened, Japan dropped a couple of bombs on the Madras coast and never came back. Events overtook them, such as being wiped out in the Pacific after America joined the war. Indians working in Burma, started the long trek home and many died on the way due to starvation and Japanese bombs. My uncle, a doctor working on rubber estates in Penang and Sungei Patani could not get out for four years. By the end of the war, his savings had been wiped out -- when the Japanese came, they had converted all assets to Japanese currency, now totally worthless. He had to start saving again for passages on steamer for his wife and himself. That took another year. He came home in 1947, with crisp bundles of Japanese money, which he gave to us children to play with. Children, yes. He had not seen his son and daughter, who were living with my father for a very long time, and attending school in Thalassery. They melded into our household and did not remember the parents much after the first year. Mani, my cousin, a few months older than me, occasionally talked about her mother’s food and clothes. Mymoon was a noodle dish, she mentioned – what did I know of noodles in Thalassery? Appuettan and Mani gradually became my father’s brood. They never quite trusted their parents after they returned to take charge. Every school holiday, they rushed back to us, like homing pigeons. Our house waited for them. The siren in Thalassery came from the Municipal Building, next to our College. The sound reached us two kilometres away at nine in the morning and six in the evening. At nine a m it reminded us to get dressed for school, and at 6 in the evening, the clarion call was time to wash and settle down to prayers, and then homework. There wasn’t a clock anywhere in our house, so the siren was useful. I wonder—is that siren still going on?

BOOKS RULE, O K.

 

BOOKS RULE, O K.

I am an addicted news-worm. It annoys my daughter, (“The news hasn’t changed since the last half hour, has it?”) She is a sports addict. She shares the living room T V with me. So, I bought a T V for my bedroom. However, watching T V in the bedroom does not compare remotely to the pleasure of communal watching: squabbling over political opinions, taking tea breaks and realising how, we in this household, with all its shortcomings, flares- up of temper, avoidance of chores, not respecting private spaces… still prefer being together (most of the time) than in our separate ivory towers. This applies only to those past teen age. The teen has original methods of adult-avoidance.

               In Thalassery, where I grew up, we had one radio with an uncertain reception. I listened to All India Radio, Kozhikode and Delhi, and my cousin, Mani, had little time for it. She wanted filmi music. When things got unsolvable, I fell back on my reading habit. Books have got me through a great many tough times. I thank my Achan who quietly descanted all sorts of books on me without my noticing. He did not consider my age or abilities at any time; the books were his reading. I remember reading (if you can call struggling through pages of complicated new ideas, reading) Bertrand Russell’s CONQUEST OF HAPPINESS and MARRIAGE AND MORALS when I was fifteen years old. For dessert I had school girl stories by Angela Brazil, which I hid from Achan. Hockey Pam and Netball Nellie reigned. H G Wells’s tome, the HISTORY OF THE WORLD put all of it in perspective.

               By the time Achan gave me FREEDOM AND ORGANISATION in two hefty parts three years later, I was a convert. I remember C E M Joad, in passing – he too was part of my enforced education, until I got used to abstractions and began to have my own opinions.

               Today my daughter is in the West End at a musical, my son is submerged in Mathematics scripts to mark and my granddaughter is doing her usual distancing from all things adult. This involves many hours of sleeping and not responding to being called.

               So, books – in the plural, both in soft backs and on Kindle. ANARCHY by William Darlymple, discussing as it does the inglorious British rule in India, is for me, very personal. It was the time when my father went to jail for his views, war raged in Europe and in S E Asia, and I was seven years old. There was rice rationing, sugar rationing, cloth rationing ---. Kerosene was difficult to find. We were piss-poor with our only wage-earner incarcerated at His Majesty’s pleasure

Exams were cancelled because there was a paper shortage, hip hip hurray. The house went vegetarian for survival, Velyamma grew spinach, Okra and Brinjals in our garden.  Velyamma, sitting on a rickety bench on the veranda, counting her coins, which she kept in her pan box, was a regular sight.

By the time Achan was released from jail two years later, Velyamma had stomach ulcers.

She died soon after. She was my surrogate mother.

 

Going down with a Splash

 Going down with a Splash

Johnson is on his usual ’find someone else to blame’ mission. So, we have a cabinet reshuffle going on right now. They call it rearranging the deck-chairs on the Titanic. Ministers with unheard 0f portfolios are surfacing.  ‘Brexit Opportunities and Government Efficiency’ – what does that entail? That is Rees-Mogg’s new elevation for his staunch and blind support. Is Johnson admitting inefficiency within his cabinet?

             Strange day. I am still trying to get over the Johnson-Jimmy Saville outburst. We know his policy is all scorched earth (I hope his supporters know that.) He is brutally dishonest and almost a sociopath in his complete disregard of how the rest of the world is affected by his tantrums. And he is scavenging at the bottom of the barrel to last another day, another breath.

             My consolation is that the longer Johnson draws out his exfiltration, the greater the disappointment of the Tory voters. That can’t be all bad.

             I am eager to see the left and the right of Labour patch up, join hands and seek the common good. I am encouraged by the noises Momentum is making recently. I am, without doubt, a Corbynite. But Starmer will do – or Yvette Cooper, David Lammy,  Ashford, Ed Milliband …  We are rich in talent and commitment.

             Meanwhile fingers crossed. And toes and hair and eyes…

NORTH MALABAR IN THE NINETEEN-FORTIES

NORTH MALABAR IN THE NINETEEN-FORTIES 

Sometimes, the world disappoints – the squabbling for power at the top in many countries, the huge gaping void between the lives of the rich and the poor, the careless wars started for the aggrandizement of the Arms industry… In the Summer I can escape into my garden; in the Winter gloom descends.

                I take refuge in the past; I can pretend the bad things that happened never really happened! It was another world anyway. I flip the pages of old photo albums and the years slip away:

There’s me and my Achan. We are in Gunther’s studio. Gunther is not a Malayalee and I never found out how he got washed up on the second storey of a narrow building on Big Bazaar Road in Thalassery. He puts me on a high stool and I am terrified. Achan quickly pulls a chair up and sits next to me, with his arm behind me. We were a team even then.

                As I grew up, he organised massive rear-guard action to prevent me from going ‘native’ like all the women in his extended family, who stopped going to school as soon as they became literate. Around ten years of age and well before puberty set in. They spent their lives in one kitchen or another. In the 1940s there were few schools in Thalassery; it was not considered worthwhile to send girls to school. They would marry at fifteen years or so and disappear into an in-law kitchen.

    When I started my periods, my aunt thought she had won the battle. She pounced. ‘She is impure now. For three days, this girl should sit outside, not touch anything, sleep in the utility room…’ ‘Nonsense,’ Achan shouted back. He won. We never mentioned periods thereafter.

     Achan would not even let me spend time in the kitchen. He took me with him walking most days, and gave me poems to learn in Malayalam and English. Vallathol and Tennyson were my worst enemies. I still hate both. Later I discovered Aashaan’s Karuna and became a convert to Malayalam poetry. English, of course, was the language of instruction in schools until Independence; school took care of ‘Wandere’d lonely as a cloud’ and Paradise Lost, Book 4, and Merchant of Venice… I migrated around from there, like Omicron.

We didn’t have a radio till the late forties. But, I do remember that I heard of Gandhiji’s death on the radio, when they started his favourite hymns and songs on a loop. ; Vaishnava Janathom… ’ and ‘Raghupathi Raghava raja ram’. My father’s name was Raghavan and he insisted that song was sung to honour him!

                Till the late forties we had no theatre either. During the dry season, when the harvest was in, a field would be levelled and a tent erected on it. We saw travelling cinemas in there; if it rained, water poured down the sides of the tent-poles and we ran for our lives. We had to make up our own amusements – gossip, visiting neighbours, religious ceremonies, temples…

                Life was simple and make-do.

 

The Tory Lemmings

 

Our Prime Minister is accomplished at one or two things. Running away from a difficult situation – he is good at it. For now, Ukraine will do. Let’s try to look statesman-like. (Difficult when you have no practice at it, looking as you do, like Worzel Gummidge.).  And the deputy is slow-witted. Poor Raab. How do you defend a charlatan? Raab brings out the compassionate teacher in me, faced with the fourteen-year-old slow-wit, who is trying hard to stand up to authority, but merely looks stupid.

           Thing is, we have focussed on our PM. He didn’t get to this exalted position by his superior skills. There is a whole party of lemmings who chose him, and then kept him there. They are still shoring him up. After talking to his M Ps yesterday, apparently his support has grown ‘overwhelmingly.’ I quote Raab. So, there is a whole covey of Tories who are as, or more, complicit than him. Are they just safe-guarding their own interests? Scared to let go, because they will have to go home and fade away. Look at Rees Bloody Mogg, for instance. What a caricature he is! Jeeves could not have invented one better.

           A second thing Johnson has long practice at is lying – off the cuff, casually, even when the truth would have been simpler. He must have started in Primary School, so he is now a veteran. However, what was the point of that barb thrown at Starmer? You can get away with that in the Chamber, but outside, it’s self-destructive. Slander? Libel?

           At the end of the day, there must be many Tory M Ps who are ashamed of their caricature of a P M. We have to hope that they get together and show Johnson the door. As a committed Labour person, (left-of-left, Corbynite, Kerala Communist without the violence, that’s who I am.) I am watching the Tory debacle with glee.

           And selfishly, I think – draw it out, draw it out; let the Country understand how rotten the core of the Tory Party is. It can crumble at a touch.

THE JOHNSON BUBBLE

THE JOHNSON BUBBLE

When the Met Police intervenes to save the sagging reputation of an inept, corrupt PM , I am wondering whether we are in Orwell's 1984. This is our GREAT (!!) Britain, known all over the world for the quality of its democracy and the integrity of its parliamentarians. I despair! All it needed was a spoilt schoolboy pretending to be grown up, to bring the edifice down. Somebody, please give him a dukedom or some such  - and Oh! a hair brush, and send him home.

    What madness made the British electorate vote this buffoon in to govern us?  Or was it desperation? And why are we exonerating the rest of the Tory M Ps from this disaster? They fed him, watered him and nurtured him, and now, they cannot control him. 

    Boris is going to bring peace in Ukraine, fend off the Putin crazies? That will be fun watching. 

    And what is Cressida Dick playing at? Ruin the reputation of the Met and the trust the British Public have in the Police? In Keralam where I come from, there would have been many grades of physical protests by now. The whole state would have been shut down. Here, not even a solitary flag-holder is defying the stitch-up.

    The Media too is acting like the three monkeys. Don't hear, don't  see, don't say. The mouthpieces of the Tory Government are finding it hard to turn track now. But, when the ship sinks, the rats...

    It would have been fun watching if it had not been so calamitous for all of us.

 

Our Amazing P M

 

There is our wonderful P M. I look at him and ask myself how we came to this. Full marks for looking like a lying, incompetent, soul-less vagrant. Our own very special scarecrow, with his blond, dishevelled thatch and lopsided garments.

          Did the Tories go out into all the inebriated corners of the United Kingdom to find this amazing group of people who prop Johnson up? Is there one whole functioning intelligence when you put them all together? Raab opens his mouth and the loyal defence of the indefensible is pathetic. Raab is sure Johnson will be the P M till the next general election.

          Look at the line-up: Grant Shapp, the now defunct Hancock, Liz Truss, Nadine Dorries, Nadhim Zahawi… And supercilious Cummings in the mix earlier, collecting evidence, planning, setting fire to the ballast at the right time.

          The Tories keep bringing up the vaccine roll-out as evidence of the present Government’s efficiency. The vaccine was created by a clever and committed group of scientists who were here before the government, and will continue, after. The roll-out? This was done by our NHS – also much applauded for being one of the best health care systems in the world. But, not for much longer if the Tory bandits stay in power much longer.

          I watched the Beth Rigby interview of Johnson today – what a display of unremitting lying. His face said it all. One would imagine, he’d have learned to look innocent after all the practice we are told he had in lying.

          Johnson said nobody told him what the rules were, except of course he made them. He is now diving and dodging to shift blame on to some unsuspecting camp-follower.

          What an utter toe-rag!

Mother of Parliament

 

Mother of Parliament

In 1942, there was a war going on in Europe, and by 1945, it had spread to the Far East. 

Indian activists were using methods, non-violent (in most cases) and violent in a few, to 

shake free of the Empire. Of the violent activists, three were executed (by public hanging) 

and others were exiled to Andaman Islands till the island was briefly captured by the 

Japanese.

   By that time, (August, 1942) my father was in jail. He was one of the non-violent ones, a

staunch supporter of Gandhi. So he went, meekly, to jail, for two years. I continued going to

the local Sacred Heart Girls’ High School (the nuns were strong supporters of the Empire)

and took some nasty asides from Sister Benoza. (‘Your father is a criminal, isn’t he?)’ Sister

taught us needlework, and my backstitch did not resemble anything she could recognise, 

remotely, as needlework.

   All through these years we were being taught about the unique ‘Mother of Parliaments,

and the country that created democracy. I believed in that democracy. And now, we have

Boris. And a governing party that will hang on to power however they can. If Boris Johnso

can deliver the votes, he can get a donor to pay for the refurbishment of his flat, attend a

party during lockdown when ordinary folk were dying without the comfort of their families

to see them through.  He goes AWOL whenever he feels like it. As now.

   I am reminded of those students of mine at Beauchamps Comprehensive, who, when

they didn’t do their homework, had been brawling in the school assembly line, or swore at a

teacher, just ran away into the playground and hid. They did it again and again.

Boris Johnson will continue to have no respect for rules and laws; he will let down his

party in innumerable ways, thank God, and I don’t want him to resign.  I look at the polls

with quiet glee and know that so long as the Trolley is shuffling around, the Tories will dive

into more and more trouble.

   Boris as the P M is Labour’s best bet for a general election win.