It was 5 am and I was fast asleep, snug under a light quilt
that protected me from the air conditioning. There was a jerk and the bed shook
as my aunt Chaakli sat bolt upright. She mumbled something about oversleeping
and swung her legs by the side of the bed like an Olympic pole vaulter. She
went around the bed and peered inside my mosquito net and whispered “Go back to
sleep, it is too early!” Then she rushed out gently closing the bedroom door
behind her. I tried to go back to sleep. But sleep had fled the room like
Chaakli. I woke up and rubbed my eyes to the clanging of vessels in the big
kitchen downstairs.
“Hysterectomy drains your energy Anjali” said my aunt
Chaakli (Jacqueline) walking in with a steaming cup of tea. Chaakli was one of
my favorite grand aunts. She is not that old, she was the youngest of a brood
of 14 kids, the eldest being my grandmother. She is in fact as old as my mom,
and mom and aunt were and are best friends to this day. Kerala families of
yesteryears were like that. For instance, my Dad and his uncle (his dad’s
youngest brother) were firm friends and even studied together in the same
class, till my Dad overtook him. But they remained best friends even as my Dad
reached the 10th standard and Mathai remained languid, in the 7th. They are best friends even now, even though
Uncle is still in the 10th standard and my Dad finished college
years ago. Don’t get me wrong. Mathai does not go to school now. He spent many
a fruitful years bunking the 10th standard, till the kindly priest
Father Yohannan, who was the long suffering principal of the school, gave him a
transfer certificate (TC) and advised him to move out.
But before Mathai moved out of the St Paul’s School, Fr.
Yohannan had to face the wrath of Mathai’s mother Lillykutty. Lillykutty was Fr
Yohannan’s eldest sister. She was about 19 years older than him and was married
before Fr. Yohannan was born. Yohannan and his nephew Patrose (Mathai’s eldest
brother) were born on the same day though in different hospitals as his mother
Elikutty went to her mother’s house for delivery as per the customs. So did his
sister Lilykutty. His father’s elder sister Rosakutty attended to the neo natal
duties of Lillykutty in the absence of Elikutty.
Lillykutty was a ‘righteous woman’ who went to church
regularly and accepted her good fortunes as a reward from the good Lord
and misfortunes as the devils work which
was to be dealt severely and rather personally. She was in Yohannan’s office
before he could say “Shut the door and barricade it” to his faithful assistant.
Her diminutive husband Paulose was in tow. He had no choice. “Sit down” barked
Lillykutty to Paulose. Paulose obeyed timidly. He looked at Fr. Yohannan with
pitying eyes. He knew Yohannan was
screwed.
Yohannan squirmed in his seat as Lillykutty peered at him
like a snake peering at the mouse it was contemplating for dinner. Fr. Yohannan
wiped the sweat off his forehead and tried reading the teacher’s register at
the same time, but Lillykutty’s acute gaze had him sweating under his collar
like the mouse that knows it is dinner. He tired drinking some water, spilled
most of it down the front of his shirt and the rest on the table.
“Yohanna!!” hissed Lillykutty narrowing her eyes till they
were tiny slits. Fr Yohannan paled and looked at her like the aforementioned
rat facing the snake. “You are my youngest brother. So I will restrain myself
today. But what you did was not good. Rusticating your own nephew…” she paused
for dramatic effect. “…your own flesh and blood because he got a few marks
short is a crime against your family, against God, against St Mathew after whom
he is named and also Mathai’s father’s family who are no good but hurt by this
act of yours!!!” she finished wheezing. Paulose wisely kept his mouth shut.
Lillykutty had a touch of the asthma and the doctor had advised her against
talking too much. But that didn’t prevent her from talking. In her family, she
said, only the women talked. The men should shut the eff up if they wanted
children to carry on the family name.
Yohannan looked at her rather alarmed. The last time she had
a wheezing attack, he had to give Mathai a double promotion. This was soon
after he spent four years in class 8. Yohannan knew he could do scant against
the SSLC board even though the education minister was his relation from his
mother’s side twice removed.
“Lillykutty, Mathai got an average of 28 marks in his exams.
The passing marks is 35! There is nothing I could do even though most of the
teachers here are our relations. You know how relations are. They talk!” wailed
Fr. Yohannan.
“You cannot give your own nephew, your own flesh and blood,
seven marks!!!” screeched Lillykutty. To cut a long story short, it was decided
to put Mathai into a polytechnic run by another order of priests. Lillykutty’s
fourth brother was a priest in that order and that is how Mathai moved out of
St. Paul’s and went onto the polytechnic where he really enjoyed himself and
went onto becomes one of the largest car showroom owners of the region. Now you
must be thinking that Mathai had found his calling and passed the polytechnic
exam with flying colors and went onto become a car mechanic and graduated to a
car showroom right? Wrong! He found a
fellow laggard at the polytechnic to bunk classes and go to the movies with,
fell in love with the laggard's sister Elsamma and married her after eloping soon after which her
very rich dad passed away leaving his entire property to his laggard son and
runaway daughter. Mathai put the money to good use and the rest is history.
Mathai and Elsamma were made for each other. Both had failed their way to the 10th
where they got stuck due to the board exams which their teachers couldn’t clear
for them. It was a disappointing end to a successful academic run.
Back to Chaakli or as the English would call her, “Jacqueline”. Chaakli was wrestling with a giant jackfruit.
She chopped it open with one swift move of a cleaver, ripped the two sides
apart and proceeded to remove the raw jackfruit dropping them into a wicker
basket like a well oiled Jackfruit plucking machine. Then she removed the seeds
from the jackfruit, picked up two coconuts and went onto break them with the
blunt end of the cleaver. She then dragged the rather large coconut grater
towards her and sat down to grate the coconut with the speed of a motorized
grater. I felt tired just looking at her.
“You like pacha chakka erissery no!” she said indulgently. I
did like Pacha chakka erissery (raw jackfruit curry), but the sheer effort it
took to make, made me feel bad. But before I could say “what the eff” Chaakli
was lugging two coconut fronds into the back yard and preparing a roaring fire.
“You have to take some cashew nuts with you when you go back. These are
organic.” she yelled over the roaring fire. Before long she had the erissery
cooking away and Chaakli was walking purposefully towards a flock of chickens.
She caught one effortlessly and I looked away while she prepared the chicken
for cooking.
“This is healthy meat, not your antibiotic and chemically
grown chickens you know.” I looked at her warily. What would she do next I
wondered. The cattle and the goats were at the meadow far away from the house I
noted thankfully.
“The better way of eating the erissery is with beef curry”
said Chaakli talking no one in particular. I looked at the cattle grazing
peacefully and cringed. She picked up the cleaver and before I could say “Nooo”
she put it down and said. “But we will settle for chicken curry today. You
uncle has no time to go to the beef shop. I smile in relief, my face white.
Chaakli disappeared and shortly I heard noises in the attic.
Then I saw her climbing down the wooden ladder carrying a giant Uruli, a kind
of a heavy brass wok used in Kerala homes.
Very soon she was grinding masala for the chicken curry on
the heavy grinding stone while I looked on in horror. The grinding stone looked
like it weighed a ton at least. While she ground the masala she chattered on.
“Look at me Anjali; I cannot do half the work I used to do before my operation”.
I flinched at the thought. She had done more work in two hours than an average
head load worker in K R Market would do in a day.
“Why don’t you let Annakutty help you?”
I asked her foolishly.
“She is useless!! She is only good for cutting vegetables.”
scoffed Chaakli as she macerated the masala into a fine paste. Annakutty stuck
her tongue out at Chaakli who was too busy grinding to notice. Annakutty lived
in the nearby village. He dad was a farm worker with Chaakli’s family for
generations. She helped out in the house whenever possible, getting a princely
sum of Rs. 300 per day for basically doing nothing while Chaakli did most of the work by herself complaining
““Hysterectomy drains your energy, I cannot work the way I used to.”
Annakutty once confessed to me that she lost a lot of weight
just watching Chaakli work. “I got so tired of watching her that I became thin!
My mother came and chided Chaakli for giving me too much work!”
“Then what happened Annakutty?” I asked. “Then she sat down and watched Chaakli ammayi
work and scolded me for not helping her out.” She pouted.
As I slept off the delicious jackfruit curry and the twenty
other side dishes Chaakli had made to go with it and a delectable ada pradhaman
to wash all that down, I heard a heavy banging. Walking out of the house I was
shocked to see Chaakli washing what looked like a double bed sheet. “Why don’t
you put that into the washing machine aunty” I asked.
“No power, besides these are the bed sheets Sarah bought me
from England. You need to wash it carefully,” She said hitting the stone with
the bed sheets like she was trying to scare the devil out of it. The washing
stone did indeed look like it had seen better days. As in days when Uncle would
put the clothes in the washing machine surreptitiously before aunty found them
and gave them a hiding on the washing stone. Looking at the state of the stone,
this was not too often.
“What do you want for tea!” she enquired without looking up
from her grisly chore. It was a rhetorical question. I knew that she had been
busy cooking while I snoozed. Unlike normal people in the neighborhood, who
would lope down to the village bakery for evening tea essentials, Chaakli would
have slaved over the stove preparing the banquet herself.
I walked over to the dining table laden with coffee, tea and
a dozen snacks that Chaakli had prepared because ‘Hysterectomy had drained her
off energy or she would made a least a decent 20’. The lunch rumbled in my
stomach and I looked despondently at the table groaning under the load. Uncle
came in and chuckled at my sight.
He swiftly removed some snacks from each plate and wrapped
it in a newspaper and shoved it onto the seat of chair next to him. Aunty who
was running to and fro from the kitchen did not notice. She was too busy
roasting the coffee beans and grinding them in the mixie before adding them to
the percolator and topping that with hot boiling water, to slowly release its
precious load of aromatic coffee decoction.
The result was the most delicious coffee in the world. The small coffee
patch beside the house was planted by my grandmother. The small patch which was
about an acre produced some outstanding coffee of an unknown type. Every year
during the coffee season, the coffee beans would be plucked, dried and then
stored for the family’s use. My mom got a tin every year and it was used for
special occasions. The coffee was mesmerizing. It sort of put you into a trance
as you gulped one delicious draught after draught. The trance lingered for a
long while after the cup was emptied of its ambrosial contents.
In the late evening, uncle bought out his jeep. The jeep had
seen better days. It was an old army junk that uncle had bought in an auction
ostensibly to go hunting. Unfortunately, every now and then the jeep let out a
lusty fart from its tired old engines scaring animals away. Uncle who is hard
of hearing never understood why he had never shot an animal since 1965 when he
had bought the jeep. Aunty was thankful that
he had never had and would never will as long as he had this jeep as he had no
concept of Wildlife Protection Laws. As we drove into the jungle amidst loud
farts and the rattle and shakes of the jeep, a herd of deer ran startled into
the bushes. Uncle cursed under his
breath. “I am getting old Anjali or these fellows would be dinner!” He
exclaimed exasperatedly. I looked at the magnificent stag with his beautiful
antlers and remembered the wild rooster uncle had once bought from a poacher
and claimed to be his own kill. It took aunty over four hours to cook and about
one hour for the diners to chew and spit out when they realized what they were
eating. But the gravy was delicious and drowned out the guilt of eating a wild
fowl. I thanked my lucky stars that the stag would never end up as dinner.
Aunty’s parting shot as we farted err drove away was “Don’t you dare bring back
any animals for me to cook!”
Late in the night we drove back home from the “hunting
expedition”, with uncle taking large swigs of some fine scotch from a hip flask
while I drove the jaunty jalopy over the mud roads of the forest, I couldn’t
believe that the man had not shot an animal, not even a wild boar in the last
25 years or so. I remember my dad telling me that he was a good marksman.
“So what’s the deal Uncle?” I inquired. “How come you never
shot an animal?”
He took a long thoughtful swig from the flask, wiped his
face with sleeve of his Khaki shirt and said “Now what do I say Anjali. I gave
up hunting years ago, when they passed the blasted Wildlife Act. And I am happy
that they did too. What’s the point in stalking a wild boar and not
getting a shot when all you need to do is drive one towards your aunt’s prized
vegetable garden!!"
Apparently, the last time one of them wild boars ransacked my
aunts vegetable patch, she took the cleaver and the family had pork roast, pork
curry, pork pickle and pork dry fry for the next 6 month till they were
gagging. She was that hopping mad.
“And was this after her hysterectomy or before?” I asked
dryly.
“After the operation or she would have killed the rest of
the herd too!! There were eight of them!” he exclaimed.
“You are kidding me right?’ I gasped.
No, I am not kidding. There were eight!! But what to do Anjali!”
He imitated aunty. “Hysterectomy drains your energy Anjali or I would have
killed all of them!”
I don’t remember what was more difficult that night, trying
to manage the rattling jeep while ensuring that my uncle who was rolling on the
floor laughing did not fall of the jeep or trying not to giggle hysterically
while we farted our way home.
