Ramblings :)

‘Aye the ant’ fell. He fell from the ceiling. He had been marching wearily with the rest of the troopers, egged on by the big headed supervising ants, on their way to drag a moth carcass from the over head attic to their nest just outside the room. He had walked that line on the ceiling many times. Today, he had looked down briefly to see if the girl was still asleep, had lost his balance for a second, and fell. He was now midair, free falling. He looked up; sighing at his stupidity. He fell in a straight line onto the girl’s head, getting lodged deep inside her hair. It was dark inside even for an ant and he coughed as some strong smells hit him. Her head must be unpopulated as the Baygon bottle, he groaned. He was sure that no big lice, no small lice, not even a cockroach could stand the morbid chemical smell. He plodded through the black, tangled forest; extricating himself from the numerous knots and traps with great difficulty, finally emerging on the surface, breathing with relief. He found a strand of hair that fell over her face and walking thorough it, landed on the hollow below her neck. ‘Aye the ant’ then took some time to look around and thought; now what? He then looked up; “I did fall a long way down”.

He had never seen the girl so close as this. She is huge. He thought about her four measly legs (only two of which she used. How stupid of her.) He had often seen her; going in and out of the room as he and the troopers went on daily raids through the gaps on the wood ceiling. She didn’t do much, except sleep and then disappear as the sun grew hot. Once, she had thrown a sticky red candy out the window and the colony had feasted on it for two days. A red stickiness melted Aye the ant’s heart. He had an urge to plunge his mouth into her neck. “wonder what she tastes like..hmmm. But no, no. Must remember what the trainer taught him and the others about control. Besides, it made ants age faster if they went around biting larger animals. Of course, sometimes it just made them stop ageing and just die. He chuckled at his own joke. Now what was he trying to do? Yes, he remembered now. Let’s see if I can go down this leg near her face which is small and is dangling down from the edge of the bed. I could reach the floor with a jump and walk up to join the rest of the troopers as they returned with that moth( may it rest in peace).

He started walking as fast as he could, looking up at the ceiling now and then. The supervisors must be shouting now; “Go to the kitchen table!”, “Go pick up that dead lizard!”. Such block heads. The queen was much nicer but she was now so big, one could hardly see her fat face. Aye the ant now walked through the forested surface of the girl, marveling at how big she was. He also wondered how she survived with such a vulnerable outer covering. Anyone could punch a hole in it; he even with his bony shiny skin, found it hard to live with all the sharp objects around. They’re probably yet to evolve such sophisticated surfaces as me, he thought, and sympathetically shook his head, without really meaning it.

Aye now stood on the girl’s thumb nail; the tip of the dangling hand. He looked down. Hmmm. The floor looked hard. He considered the risks and hesitated. Maybe he could walk back and reach the floor through the cot’s legs after all. What was the hurry anyway? Maybe today was the day to do some exploring by himself. He had heard much about big ants who always went on raids alone. Such brave, interesting, great ants. Maybe this was his big chance. He could… Uh oh. The girl’s awake.

Aye couldn’t understand how the giant who was stone asleep until a second ago could’ve jumped up so suddenly. She raised her hand (the one he was reflecting on of course, if anything bad can happen to an ant, it will) and tied her hair up. Great, he was now deposited on her head, again.

He stood up wearily after landing face down on the dumb giant’s forehead. He sighed for a while and then, straightening his antennae, looked ahead, alarmed. He was being carried out of the room by the girl. She shook the floor with her ‘thump thump’ steps as panic ceased him.

He should have jumped when he had the chance. Breathe. Breathe. Breathe. Damn.

The giant now sat her giant bottom down on a chair. Aye’s head wobbled from all the rumble tumble motion. He wanted a second to make sure the giant was still before slowly raising his head. He anxiously moved close to the edge of the girl’s forehead and looked down expectantly. And there it was, an ant century’s worth of food for the colony sprawled out on the table in front. Haa. Sweet lord of all ants, help me fall into that bowl of milk!.. Aye was drunk with delight and went into a reverie. He was shaken out of his dream world full of melted sugar and cookies and milk before long.The girl raised her hand again to her smelly head. Help! Aaah..! What is wrong with you? You and your stupid hair! screamed Aye in his tiny ant's voice as the hair was brushed back and his little ant body was pushed into the tangled mass of hair again. His head had been hit. Pressure. Pressure. Passing out now. Aw.

Nothing to say.

The news spread through the tiny village. Marykutty’s daughter had returned from the city suddenly; showing up at her home after quitting the job at the shrimp factory. Now this was no scandalous news in itself, but the rumour was that she had shut herself inside the house and refused to talk to anyone, not even her mother. Neighbours were stirred; concerned voices whispered that the girl’s eyes were as vacant as that of a dead fish. She looked a little ‘gone’ too. “Something must have happened” they whispered to each other as they stood in queues at the water taps. And they all agreed on what that ‘something’ must be; nodding with eager sadness, the tinge of pleasure they felt inside on hearing the news surprising them and filling them with shame. “Poor girl”, a middle aged woman said loudly.

Marykutty, an old widow, was bewildered. Rosy had gone to the shrimp factory three months ago. It was two hours away by boat and bus so she had decided to stay at the rooms provided by the factory owners for the women they employed. It was back breaking work; bending over crates of cold, stunned shrimp, peeling it carefully from morning till night. Her skin peeled away in the ice cold water, the numbness spread to her neck, her legs and kept her awake shivering, even at night sometimes. Her clothes and hair acquired the lingering fish sea smell that floated all over the factory premise. The work was hard. But Marykutty knew and Rosy knew even better that they needed the money. So she had stayed on; coming home once a month to hand some money to her mother. If Rosy’s departure had saddened Marykutty, her sudden arrival and the change in her crushed the old woman. Rosy refused to utter a word to anyone. Sometimes she came out her dingy room, the only bedroom in the house, to get food and then sat on the verandah with her plate of rice, picking absently through it. Many people came and went; all shaking their heads in sympathy. But Rosy acknowledged no one. Her eyes were fixed on something invisible; demons no one else could see.

At night, Marykutty hugged her daughter close and with tears asked her what had happened to her. But Rosy remained frozen. Rumours smoked around the little village; Rosy had had an affair with an ice plant worker, No, it was a supervisor. “ something must have happened”, they repeated among themselves.

Rosy’s silence did not break with time. She ahowed no willingness to speak even after a year had passed since her return. Marykutty went to work as a maid again; dragging her ailing knees to the house of a wealthy man in the neighbourhood in return for food and spare change. She had made her peace with her daughter’s silence; “let her be”, she told neighbours and relations who tormented Rosy. The mystery suppounding Rosy’s silence waned as more months passed. Elopements and a burglary captured the villagers’ attention.

Then oneday, a man from the city reached the little village in search of Rosy. The old men who sat around at the boat jetty directed the stranger to Marykutty’s house; a little upset at him for not giving in to their questions. He talked at length to Marykutty outside her house, standing near the tattered fence. Neighbours watched as Marykutty shook her frail head and went inside. The man had come to take Rosy away. He had made a mistake he said, but he wanted to make amends. “ I will marry Rosy”.

The villagers were dumbfounded. They waited outside Marykutty’s house;the men, the women, wailing children and curious boys. The mad had gone to the teashop nearby and was sitting there smoking a beedi, letting his tea go cold while the Marykutty talked to her daughter.

Marykutty got out from the house and went in search of the stranger. She led him out of the teashop. Rosy had refused. She wouldn’t say why, but refused; her head shaking, her face set firmly. The stranger pressed some money into the old woman’s hands and left to catch a boat back home. Much talk went on in the village that night. Old women lamented as they sat outside their kitchens; scrubbing fiercely at dishes as their voices rose; agitated.

The man who operated the little ferry walked silently as usual to the boat jetty at dawn next day. Rosy was already up at her house, packing her meager belongings to go back to work. She had talked all night to her old mother and said goodbye before setting off for the factory again. Those at the jetty saw her getting on to the wobbling wooden boat. The engine whirled as diesel smell rose and merged with the cold breeze. Rosy sat still on the little boat as it carried her away to the city; her eyes fixed on the palm fringed coast at a distance, calm, reassured.

Diary of a woman. On a bad day.

Generally on good days, most women including me are proud of their womanhood; proud of its complexities and many thrills. Then comes those atrocious days every month when we would give anything to trade places with any hairy smelly man on earth- the grand period variously known as ‘chums’, hell on earth etc.

I woke up today into one of those days. (waking up to it’s the worst thing; an entire day ruined in the very first blink) Time; 5:58. I curse all men and the entire universe, “Damn you all!” and stumble into the bathroom to change my clothes. I stand still there for a while, staring at the floor, reminding myself to breath, not to panic. All my senses are battle ready; picking up traces of pain germinating all over my body. I walk slowly back to my room. I could cry with sadness. I pop a pill into my mouth and swallow it with difficulty. The water repulses me; my insides are in a whirl. Oh why couldn’t there be a time machine to take me to the next day right now? What am I going to do? Nearly ten hours of intense perfect agony to be followed by more hours of minor agony lie in front of me. Aw.

Back in bed, its useless trying to sleep. The pain and anticipation of more pain is driving me into a rage. My legs are frozen and they hurt. My back hurts, I have Goosebumps all over and it feels like there’s construction going on in my womb. I twist and turn and think as always on these days of how lucky men are. I could slap any man who dares to appear in front of me today (especially well intentioned stupid ones who ask me if I have a headache and what’s wrong. Headache? Is that all they know of?!)

Maybe a change of scene will help I think and I lift myself up( going “ah, ah, ah, ow” with every step) and go sit on the back porch near the kitchen. Even the trees look gloomy to me. It’s as though Mother Nature is trying to remind me that I am a woman, aka baby machine. I can just hear her, “I get all the feminist stuff you say and the tomboyish things you do, but where are my babies??” Is all the pain a deterrent against wasting of precious baby making eggs churned out by my female specimen every month? Naah. Couldn’t be. Because pregnancy is an even bigger terror from what I hear. Well at least it will be over al at once. Now I am rambling. The pain killer seems better at the ‘side effects’ than the effect it’s supposed to have. What did I ever do to the world?

My grandma with whom I am staying comes over and asks me how I’m doing. I smile sadly and hug myself. Grammy goes inside and comes back holding her hand out. She puts it on my plam, and asks me to chew it; some ayurvedic medicine which looks like small misshapen peppers( I have to put it my mouth other wise I would have described it in other terms). I sit there on the steps chewing and drinking hot water my granny handed to me. There are ants lugging food into a tiny hole on the sand in front. I wonder if the ants are male. I have hot water in my hands. Muahahaha. Eh, probably not. My my. The travails of my life.

CHERTHALA DIARIES

Two weddings, a death and arson. (Not in that order)

Day one

For a sleepy little place, Cherthala, where my grandmother lives and where I live presently has ben the scene of much drama the last few days. The first big piece of news was that the Allappuzha medical college hospital building, an ancient complex which was once a king’s palace, was burned down. Thankfully the hospital, except for the gynaecology ward, had been shifted the day before to a new building. Grandma, along with her pet newspaper theorises that the fire was deliberately set by opponents of the shifting initiative. I have to say that the arsonists are not helping their cause at all. It’s highly unlikely that the hospital authorities will move the hospital back to a burned out shell of an old building and besides, I’m sure that all the pregnant ladies of the district have already carried the gyno department to the new building with urgency after the new development.

As I’m telling you all this, there is heavy domestic drama happening on TV with my grandma as audience. There’s wedding and twenty different people trying simultaneously to thwart it. there’s also a mad guy thrown in the midst of this madness for extra spice. Back in the real world, there’s been some hilarious incidents relating to a wedding in the family. Now, the situation according to elders is that it is a friggin pain finding girls for the unmarried spinster men in our family. Reasons are many: one, the men are high school dropouts while all the girls in kerala seem to be post graduates with a B Ed. Two, the men are financially sturdy while the girls who’d agree in their desperation to marry these block heads are not so very well off or otherwise attractive. Any girl who would match the criteria set by the wannabe groom’s family scoffs at the suggestion of marrying below a B Tech/ MBA. Thus there is an impossible demand supply problem leading to desperate attempts by the men’s family to find girls.

Two of my uncles are in the race to get married for a while now. Recently it was announced (woohoo) that one of them, a 37 year old, had finally found a suitable bride. She’s from a not so well off family but is “not too bad looking and has long, thick hair”, according to the said uncle. But now we've been told that the wedding’s called off. The reason is a long, sad, and possibly hilarious story which I will summarise. Now, the wedding had been fixed un officially; the bride was the younger of two girls, the eldest still unmarried. Hearing this cheerful news, one of the groom’s friends, who lives near to the prospective bride house went to visit her himself. The girl’s parents invited him in and introduced him to the bride to be. The story goes that the friend almost fell off his chair when he saw the girl; an obese Amazon of a woman with countable strands of hair on her head. The friend went back, smacked my uncle on his head and asked him what the hell he was thinking tying such an unattractive whale to his neck. A good deal of confusion ensued when the anatomical descriptions of the bride, made by the two friends failed to match. Embarrassed, the groom went again to the girl’s house to ascertain facts. After a lot of tricky maneuvers, the truth was brought out; the girl’s family was trying to get the poor man to mary the older girl un expectedly on the wedding day (the guy can’t pull back because of the money and effort which had already been spent on the wedding ceremony) after enticing him with the younger damsel! And they almost pulled it off too. My uncle is not the only desperate one around. After this embarrassment the search for a bride was widened and they’ve finally found someone. She’s post graduate with a B Ed but has a squint eye which balances things between her and my uncle. Block head for squint eye and we have a wedding on our hands!

There’s another high school dropout uncle who’s also on the prowl for a wife. To ease things, he’s filthy rich and owns an estate. The problem: the estate’s in a remote place and no girl wants to move to this Godforsaken (in my opinion, heavenly) place. But the rumour’s that they’ve found someone. A math post graduate who’s probably very tired of learning math. Matrimonial bliss.

contd

Day two

The morning held little cheer. It all began last evening when news arrived the husband of grandma’s part time domestic help, Bhanu, had died. He was an old man; a drunkard and a pain from what I’d heard earlier (of course now he’s a saint and his death a terrible loss to entire human civilization).Grandma and uncle went to express their grief and came back shaking their heads and saying that it was for the best that the old man passed without burdening anyone an painlessly for himself. We left it at that. But I woke up this morning and went out through the kitchen door to find a bunch of neighbourhood men gathered at one corner of the large backyard, staring up at a tree.they looked comical; like a group of tribal elders, some squatting and others standing, contemplating something. “Your uncle’s promised them that tree for the funeral pyre”, granny said sadly by way of explanation.

Tragedy had struck.

The young cashew tree had been chosen to accompany the dead man to the next world. The loafers in the surrounding area had assembled to oversee the felling of the unfortunate tree. My heart sank. There’s really no need to cut the tree; there’s other equipment available to burn the dead even here and besides, a smaller tree or a branch from a big tree will suffice for any man. Its not an elephant we’re burning here. Grandma was as disappointed as I was but there was no way out.

The tree felling committee was in high spirits; glad to get their hands on my grandma’s well wooded plot (she’s not exactly popular, what with her fiery temper). “Most of the wood won’t even reach the pyre” grannie remarked and narrated her previous experiences with funeral wood cutters. So this isn’t an isolated incident. All the dead and dying people in the neighbourhood werepotential threats to our dear trees and no one could stop them from expecting us to provide tree after tree to burn. I gaze sadly as the branches come down one by one with a thud. There’s enough wood already to burn the man but they’re determined to cut the whole tree. And all for what? Call me insensitive but let’s assess the facts. The tree is young, and it bears my grandma lots of fair sized cashews in addition to just being a tree and helping the earth around it in numerous ways. The man was a drunkard who did no great service to anyone and like all human beings, did a lot of damage to the earth. So it follows that the tree, young as it is, is infinitely more beneficial to the world than the guy who’s dead. Also, the guy’s dead after a long life and he tree’s just reached its prime. The unfairness of the situation is obvious.

The tree’s crown is coming down now. The blade is set on its trunk. Noone does anything to stop this murder. Only the ants seem to care; big red ants called ‘musharu’. The men jump up and down in their mundu. Some are hopping around the tree, fighting the ants who are valiantly defending their home. I pray for the ants to grow into giants with poisoned claws. Nothing happens. The men dance around wincing, but press on with the work anyway

(it would have been funy had it not been been in this tragic context. If only they’d show this resolve for something good)

.

The tree’s down and the trunk is carried off, leaving a stump in its place. The ants walk around disoriented; their leafy nests smashed.

contd

Day three

There’s considerable racket going on here today. The squirrels had appeared on the cashew trees this morning and the uppan birds were leisurely going about picking insects near the pond. But soon voices emerged from far away and chased away these delightful idlers and woke me out of my own morning laziness. The annual festival at the local temple was to begin today; grandma enlightened me. As part of their efforts to awaken dormant devotees of the neighbourhood, the temple 'authorities' had decided to fill our ears all day with the Gita and an assortment of devotional songs; a sort of warm up before the full scale blare of the festivities. I soon blocked out this minor irritation; hopping about the yard talking to red ants and irritating spiders building their nests on the grape fruit tree with my discourteous staring. But after about three hours of force-fed bhakthi, grannie had had enough. “what is this fool singing about?”, she asked aloud (quite unbecoming of a grandmother. You’d expect old, ‘wisened’ hindu women to be favourably inclined to all forms of religion!) .“For all we know, he could be reciting a grocery list with cries to the lord in between. What a fool!” she says as she goes out with a stern looking broom. Then up comes her head through the window.

“I will stuff these coconuts down his throat…that’s what I should do…!”