Yes, that’s true. When I heard of the decision, I decided to grow up. I guess this process, ‘growth’, may have started before I took this decision. In any case, I was sure that things would never go back to how they were.
There was nothing special or ceremonial to mark this ‘giving back’. Ammachi packed an airbag with the five or six sets of clothes I had, my Bata sandals, and my A for Apple and B for Ball knickers (I was wearing the C for Cat pair). At first, I thought of leaving behind my Binaca animals, worried that Anne, Mathew and Elizabeth (I knew I had to practise calling her Lisa from then on – that’s what people close to her called her) might take them. Then I realized that they would come in handy if I needed to bribe them for anything. To be honest, whenever I thought of the three of them, I felt terrified. The game was in their court now. The hidden ball, the torn frock, the broken balloons, the countless slaps, scratches and bites … they – Anne, Mathew and Lisa – would be waiting for the opportunity to take revenge.
All that week, Appachan was in a lousy mood. I spent those days gorging on the snacks Ammachi made. I was only a child, but I knew that Ammachi’s home-cooked food was soon going to be a nostalgic memory for me. Appachan and I didn’t go out that week, except for a single trip to the toddy shop to say goodbye to everyone. Watching Kelan’s and Velayudhan’s sorrow, I began to cry, which set them going, and soon we were all crying together. On the way back, I ran into Kuttappayi. Usually, I became tongue-tied before him, but on that day, I told him, with tears running down my cheeks: ‘They are giving me back to my mama and papa. I’m going to be living with them from now on…’ I was never sure what to call him, so I didn’t call him anything. Kuttappayi said nothing. Just stood there staring at me with his pumpkin eyes. Frustrated, I repeated: ‘I’m going away … I won’t come back.’
‘What’s it to me, girl, if you go away?’ he said finally.
The failure of my first love spread across my chest like an ache. ‘Give me back my Parry’s and Nutrine sweets, then!’ I screamed.
Another important incident that happened in that week is the disappearance of Chandippatti. It might seem overly dramatic, but that is what happened. Chandi must have gone away, convinced that life in Kottarathil Veedu without me would be boring. Ammachi said he must have gone sniffing after some new bitch. In any case, no one was in the mood to discuss his disappearance. Ammachi kept making more and more snacks as though to drown her sadness.
And what about Appachan?
Appachan barely spoke. This almost-silence would become his constant mood for the rest of his life. Appachan and Ammachi began to say, as if to console themselves, that since I was just a child, this sending away would not affect me too much. I did not try to correct them, to explain to them that it was not so. Like I said, I had already begun the process of growing up. It must be then that my belief that everything was already decided for us began to take root.
Sheenanty gave me, as though it was a going-away present, two sets of frocks and a book titled Oru kudayum kunjupengalum. What a silly title, I thought – ‘An umbrella and a little sister’ – and at first decided not to read the book. But then I changed my mind. I was curious to know why anyone would give such a stupid title to a book. Besides, it would distract me from my sadness, I thought. But that book! It was an ocean of sorrow! The moment I began reading it, all the sadness that I had locked up inside me came rushing out. I was convinced that the only reason children were born was to suffer sorrow, and that there was a huge difference between the sorrows of children and those of adults.
That week was also one of intense training. To walk wearing slippers, to eat at the dining table, to cut nails neatly, to eat only after brushing teeth, to shit only in the toilet … Ammachi and Sheenanty tried their best to teach me all these things.
‘Well, you’ll learn once you get there,’ said Ammachi finally, frustrated. ‘There’s nothing you won’t learn when Anna takes out her cane…’
I began to pray fervently to Geevarghese Sahada that Anna would die before I got there.
Kuncheriya valyappachan and Anna valyamma, in the brief moments when her mind was clear, were also upset that I was going away. For them, I was more of a habit than a person. Thomachan chachan even gave me a gift – a school bag. More than the gift itself, what touched me was the effort he made to get it. You will remember, he is the type of person who doesn’t like to make an effort even for the most important things. And yet, he went all the way into town to buy that bag for me. I did not want to know what Neenanty felt. Nor did I have the time to find out – I was too busy gathering up my memories.
That last week was like a boundary between reality and dream. I began to think quite seriously about dying, even ate half a sheet of paper in a bid to die. But when I woke up normally the next morning, I realized that half a sheet was not enough paper to kill oneself with. So, I spent a whole hour pouring mug after mug of water over my head, hoping to catch a fever and die. I also considered running away, and only gave up on that idea when I remembered the beggar-mafia people who caught hold of children, put their eyes out and made them beg.
Ammachi used every spare moment to advise me. ‘They are your parents, Maria,’ she reminded me. ‘You must listen to them. Anne, Mathew and Lisa are your siblings. You must love them. And it’s time to stop wandering around. Good girls from good families should be at home, not roam around markets and toddy shops. And your stubbornness … it’s not a good thing. When you are in other people’s houses, you shouldn’t behave as you please. Don’t ask for things. If they give you anything, accept it respectfully. And another thing … You must stop telling lies because you’ll go to hell if you lie. You must fear God and that will lead you to heaven.’
And, finally, it was Sunday. Mathew and Lisa and their papa and mama arrived. Anne wasn’t with them. I tried to give Mathew and Lisa friendly smiles. As soon as they came in, their papa began to hurry everyone along. He was the type who didn’t believe in wasting time unnecessarily. Their mama, meanwhile, was busy packing up all the snacks Ammachi had prepared. She was the type who never paid attention to anyone. Mathew and Lisa kept looking at me with a weird expression on their faces.
‘Why is this creature coming to live with us?’ they seemed to think. ‘Three children are quite enough in a house. Why do we need a fourth one? That too, a devilish one like this! Come along, we’ll show you!’
I went and lay down next to Appachan, pretending to be asleep. After a while, I imagined that I was dead. Finally, when I heard Ammachi calling ‘Maria…’ I roused myself from the world of the dead. Appachan, too, got up with me. No one embraced me or gave me kisses, perhaps because they were unsure how I would react. Holding back my tears then must have been one of the most difficult things I have ever done in my life. I did not know then that life was a series of moments when one held back one’s tears.
Their mama went and sat in the front seat of the car with their papa. Those children followed, squeezing themselves into the front seat with their parents, leaving me and my airbag forlorn in the back seat. We began our journey. I vowed that I would love my parents and my siblings, prepared my mind to put up with anything and everything that came my way.
Steeped in sorrow, I fell asleep, and everything returned to normal – the same Kottarathil Veedu, the same Appachan, Ammachi, even Neenanty! But their mama roused me from my dreams, and I looked at her wondering where she had come from. Then I saw their papa, Mathew and Lisa, and that brought me back to reality. Their mama was holding out an ice cream towards me. It made me happy and I took it to be a positive sign that they had welcomed me into their family.
When we reached their home, all of them got out of the car and went inside. Their servant came and picked up my bag and she, too, went inside. I was left outside, alone. After a while, even though no one had invited me, I walked in. After all, this was supposed to me my home too from now on. I sat in a corner, trying not to attract anyone’s attention, not knowing what I was supposed to do. I could hear children playing, and occasionally people came and went, but no one saw me sitting there in the corner. Soon, I began to feel hungry. I could hear noises in the kitchen – their mama was preparing something. Finally, I heard her call: ‘Anne … Mathew … Lisa…’ And then, after a short interval, ‘Maria…’ A little late, but no matter, I was happy that she called me too.
Although I was called last, I was the one to reach the dining room first. In Mama and Papa’s house, it was tea. In Appachan and Ammachi’s house, there was no teatime, only coffee time. The snacks – achappam, kuzhalappam and neyyappam that Ammachi had made – were set out on the table along with the tea. I did not reach for them, and only had the tea. When Mama held out a neyyappam to me, I said, ‘No, thank you.’ ‘Nyo thyankyu,’ said Mathew, imitating me, and everyone laughed. The children repeated ‘nyo thyankyu’ to each other in sing-song voices and made fun of me. (That Sheenanty! She was the one who taught me to say ‘no, thank you’. How was I to know that you didn’t say such things in your own house!) Papa was not at the table. I would learn later that his was mostly an invisible presence.
After tea, we went to have our baths. The children continued making fun of me. Lisa was the worst! When I could not take one more ‘nyo thyankyu’, I gave her a whack. The three of them set upon me and beat me to a corner. After the bath, Mama brought me an old frock that belonged to Anne, and when I put it on, Anne kept saying that it was one that she had thrown away. I said I had plenty of frocks in my bag, and she said they were all crappy old things. ‘Your frock is crappy,’ I said before I remembered to hold my tongue, and Anne pushed me down, gave me a kick and went away.
The meal habits in the new house were very different from those at Kottarathil Veedu. There, we ate whatever we wanted whenever we wanted, sitting wherever we wanted. And because of that, in Kottarathil Veedu, someone was always eating something. But here, everyone sat around the oval dining table at designated mealtimes at regular intervals. There was fried fish, fish koottan, beef pickle and achinga ularthiyathu for dinner. The achinga cooked in coconut oil was one of my favourite things to eat, but unlike Ammachi’s preparation, Mama’s achinga had no taste. So, all I ate was a bit of rice with some of the beef pickle which Ammachi had made. No one asked me to eat more like they did in Kottarathil Veedu.
After dinner, Mama took me to a small room which was to be my bedroom. For the first time in my life, I was going to spend the night alone. I was terrified! But when she asked me if I was scared, I told her, in a voice trembling with fear, ‘Ey, not at all.’ When Mama left the room, I pulled the bedsheet over me and sobbed myself to sleep. Ghosts … crazies … serpents … child-catchers … there was nothing that didn’t come that night to terrify me. And when I woke up in the morning, for the first time since I could remember, I had peed in my bed.
I began to go to school along with Anne, Mathew and Lisa. ‘She’s an orphan my papa adopted,’ I heard Anne tell her friends in the school van. I ignored the orphan part of the story but believed the adoption part. In those early days, I believed firmly that I had been sent to this house due to some confusion that small children could not understand, and that I would be back in Kottarathil Veedu as soon as it was cleared up.
It did not take me long to understand that the family circle at the new house was complete and fully functional without me. No matter how much I tried, I could not enter that circle. If I tried and breached the circle for a moment, I was immediately thrown out with only a few scratches to show for it. As time passed, I realized the meaninglessness of it all and gave up trying to fit in. In my later life, all I would ever feel towards home and towards family relationships was a sense of detachment. Ammachi was wrong – my place was not inside the home but outside of it. But she was right too – the fault lay with me, not with my home or my family.
Discipline – that was the single most important thing in that house. (I would later come to understand the importance given to discipline in all households with small children.) I used to wonder whether it was our papa who had invented the clock.
In this new house, all the snacks were stored in big glass jars. Laddu, jalebi, cakes and other mouth-watering items smiled at me from these jars. In Kottarathil Veedu, snacks were stored in steel jars. A better system, as far as I was concerned, because they did not display themselves and tempt little children. Try as I might, I found it hard to stop loitering in front of the glass jars, ogling at their contents. But Ammachi had impressed upon me that I should not ask for anything when I go to other people’s houses. So, I refrained, no matter how tempted I was. Sometimes, Mama would see me and ask: ‘Do you want anything?’ If my dignity was stronger than my temptation, I would answer no, but when the desire to eat those snacks got the better of my self-esteem, I would say yes, and immediately feel as though I would die of shame. Sometimes, Mama was in a good mood and would open the jars and give me something without asking whether I wanted a snack or not. Whenever she gave me two laddus or cakes, I gave one back and tried to scrape back some of my dignity. The other children opened the jars and ate what they wanted, when they wanted, and threw away what they did not finish. After all, the house was theirs, so were the cakes and laddus and jalebis. I picked up what they threw away, dusted off the less mangled pieces and ate them, always making sure that no one saw what I was doing. It was then that I resolved never to store snacks in glass jars when I would have my own house. Unfortunately, I never had a chance to put my resolution into practice because I have never had a home of my own.
I did not know then that the little mistakes we make at an age when we don’t know any better have such significant impacts on the rest of our lives. If I’d known, I would have tried my best not to make them. All I can say is that I am amazed that Mama looked after me more or less even after I told her to her face how much I hated her.
Anne tortured me physically whenever she could get away with it, but it was Lisa who made my life miserable. Her torture was psychological and so much more hurtful. The moment Mama’s back was turned after serving us food, Lisa grabbed the fried fish and mutta porichathu – the best of all the dishes, usually – off my plate, or the snacks at teatime. Once I complained to Mama, and the three of them objected, putting up a united front. ‘Maria ate hers, we saw her!’ ‘If you want more, all you have to do is ask Mama. Why tell lies!’ Anne added for good measure. I stopped complaining after that. The funny thing was that Lisa snatched my portion not because she wanted to eat it but because she wanted to hurt me. She managed to get me thrashed regularly by Mama as well as our teachers by other means too, such as tearing my books, scribbling in my notebooks and so on.
Of course, I did not take it all lying down; I gave as good as I got as often as I could. The difficulty was the 1:3 ratio I found myself in – me against the three of them. They could easily convince Mama and Papa that I was the one who started it. So, my retaliations had little effect.
Thankfully, though, not soon after, Mathew seemed to change. Perhaps he was bored with the childish games, he stopped torturing me, often took my side, and began to share snacks from the glass jars with me. I remember the first time he took some laddus out of the jar and gave them to me … I refused to accept them because my enmity towards him had not ended and also because I was not willing to forgo my dignity, but that night when I was alone, I cried my heart out. That was the first time I became aware that some tears were pleasurable. After that, I began to look at him with eyes wet with gratitude. Years would pass and my enmity with Anne would also end. But Lisa … I still have no relationship with Lisa.
It didn’t take long before I became an ordinary, occasional visitor as far as Kottarathil Veedu was concerned. A significant incident during this time was Sheenanty and Jomon chachan’s wedding. The night before the wedding, we children were playing, horsing around. I was fully aware of the repercussions when I decided to kill Lisa. They didn’t worry me; all I wanted was for her to die. After playing, a tired Lisa sat on the concrete balustrade of the veranda upstairs with her legs dangling. I sneaked up behind her and gave her a push. My hope was that she would fall on the concrete floor of the yard below, break her head open and die. But the horrible girl landed in the grass verge and lay there, bleeding and wailing at the top of her voice. As the adults ran to her, I retained the small hope that she might yet die.
What followed was a festival of thrashing … Mama, Papa, Ammachi, Neenanty – I was beaten by everyone. Even Anne insinuated herself into the melee and gave me a slap or two. It was only after I was beaten thoroughly that they took Lisa to the hospital. Tears flowed down my cheeks, but I wasn’t crying. Having expected a more serious outcome, I was sad that she didn’t die. The only consolation was the demon girl had broken her leg and was held up for about two months.
Everyone hated me in those moments, even Appachan, Ammachi, Sheenanty and Thomachan chachan, so I don’t have to tell you about Papa, Mama, Anne and Mathew. I, too, was overcome with hatred – hatred for the whole world. I kept shouting that I had tried to kill Lisa and that I would do so again if I had another opportunity. ‘I will kill you too,’ I screamed at Anne. ‘Enough!’ Sheenanty shouted, finally. ‘I won’t let you spoil my wedding like this.’ And with that, she grabbed me and dragged me off to her room.
As soon as the wedding was over, they took me to a psychiatrist. Now that I am a veteran of the system, I am amazed that they thought a psychiatrist’s help was required for such insignificant things. This psychiatrist, he looked funny with his dyed hair and Bulganin beard. The skin on his chin was stained with the black dye he had used. When he spoke, he stressed some letters and syllables unnecessarily – ‘ttrreetment’ and ‘ssaikkhology’ and ‘perrrforrrm’ – and had a particular fondness for the word ‘circumstance’. He sat me down and schooled me on good behaviour, even gave me a book about a girl who was well behaved. The story was, well, let’s just say so utterly unbelievable given how well behaved this girl was. And in order to impress the readers with her good behaviour, she put herself through all kinds of unnecessary dangers and adversities. Anyway, I didn’t really understand even half of what the psychiatrist told me, so I agreed to everything. What I did understand was:
I must read that book.
I must strive to be a good girl like the girl in that book.
I agreed to everything then because I hadn’t read the book yet, and when I did read it, I found it utterly boring. When it was time to leave, I told the psychiatrist, very casually, about the dye stains on his face. My intentions were good, I wasn’t making fun of him. There was nothing to make fun of about a few black stains on the face anyway. But it embarrassed him, and my papa and mama. This is the problem with adults – they take everything way too seriously and make problems out of them.
Things didn’t improve much even after the visit to the psychiatrist. The enmity between Lisa and me increased in intensity. Now she had justifications for whatever she wanted to do to me – I was, after all, her future killer. The attempted murder had made me bolder too, and so I retaliated openly and hard. ‘O Lord, please let me not run into her tomorrow,’ we both prayed to Karthav Eesho Mishiha as only children can do.
In the midst of all this, one fine day, Anna valyamma died. I think even the dementia got bored with her. Appachan always said that the dementia had targeted her even when she was young, that she was born with a tendency towards dementia. And he always used the word ‘tendency’ in English. As he grew older, Appachan developed a tendency to use English words willy-nilly. Remember that he never studied beyond Class 4. This was a tendency cultivated by television. For instance, everyone was beginning to feel that Appachan would die soon. So, the other day, I began bawling loudly, demanding that he not die. Suddenly, what do you know, Appachan says, ‘Maria, don’t make things difficult for me,’ in proper English!
When she was sure that it was time for her die, Anna valyamma said her goodbyes, turned over in her bed to face west, and lay there. No one was bothered because they all thought it was the dementia acting out, and so it was a while before anyone noticed that she was dead. Poor Anna valyamma … The truth is that no one cared much about her in life or in death. She had always been proud to declare that she was a member of the Kottarathil Veedu family. Appachan had her buried in the family grave.
After I was sent away, I began to talk less and less until I became silent enough for people to think I could not speak. It was a habit I cultivated in order to avoid attracting people’s attention. I spoke in the night, in the privacy of my little room, to Appachan, Chandippatti, Karthav Eesho Mishiha and anyone else I wanted. I spoke to them to my heart’s content.
As for school…
It is better not to talk about school. When I was little, I used to wonder whether all the teachers with their sturdy canes were just waiting for me to appear. The children at my school were very creative and gave nicknames to all the teachers. Crazy Chacko, Prancing Kunjamma, Black Omana, White Omana, Suppose Saramma…
Crazy Chacko was my maths teacher in Class 5. Once, I had a doubt about a maths problem and asked him a question. He punished me by making me write ‘I will not ask questions in class’ one hundred times in my imposition notebook. True story, I swear to you! Still, this type of punishment was nothing compared to the beating meted out by Kidukkan Kanaran. And this beating became entirely insignificant when Pathrose the Bald came up behind you and rubbed himself against you under the pretext of checking your classwork. All life’s miseries are relative in intensity.
Every time someone talks nostalgically about their childhood, I am convinced that they are lying. The colourfulness of childhood … the joyous wonder … the innocence… Bullshit! I am yet to meet a child who personifies innocence. And as for me, I don’t remember many feelings other than fear and hatred. I guess my childhood wonderments died under the cloud that was the constant expectation of punishment.
There was one summer vacation when I went back to Kottarathil Veedu and spent a month there. They were amazed by this new, mature Maria. All except Appachan, who did not like this grown-up Maria. There was something weird between us, I could see, a discomfort. I thought his love for me had dissipated, that Appachan thought he didn’t have to love me any more because I was no longer a member of Kottarathil Veedu.
At night, I told Ammachi that I liked to sleep alone, and she looked at me as though I had said something really sad. She sat beside me and asked me all about my life with my family. Everything is fine, I reassured her. In the morning when I woke up, I found her sleeping next to me.
Life in Kottarathil Veedu went on even though so many people had left – me, Sheenanty, Thomachan chachan, Anna valyamma … One day, Appachan and I were having our coffee at the dining table. Kuncheriya valyappachan was at the last stage of his breakfast, eating the boiled ethappazham. Suddenly, he gave a surprised laugh and began nodding, the half-chewed piece of banana still in his mouth.
‘Looks like Anna valyamma’s dementia has caught hold of Appan,’ Appachan whispered in my ear.
‘Valyappacha, what’s up? Why are you laughing?’ I asked.
‘The thing is, child, all this time I have been trying to remember something I had forgotten a long time ago,’ Kuncheriya valyappachan said. ‘And it has come to me suddenly. It’s funny that I’ve been struggling to remember such a small little thing!’
‘What is it?’ Appachan could not hold back his curiosity.
‘It’s about Anna. I wanted to get her married off. And then I forgot all about it! That’s what I was trying to remember all these years.’
‘Good thing you remembered it now, she’ll be happy in her grave,’ said Appachan. ‘What a thing to forget!’
‘It wasn’t on purpose! I just forgot. Would I have tried so hard to remember all these years if I had allowed it to slip my mind on purpose? To be honest, it is Shoshamma who’s to blame. It was she who dissuaded me, saying that where else would poor, orphan Anna find a home as secure as this.’
Kuncheriya valyappachan concluded his story and went back to eating his banana with the surprised smile still on his face.
Appachan and I went to the pond to catch some fish. There were fewer fish in the pond, Appachan declared, because no one was there to catch them. It was Appachan’s discovery that if people fished regularly at a pond, the fish living there would reproduce faster and in larger numbers, afraid that otherwise they would become extinct. If not, they’d think they had all the time in the world and chill out and become lazy. Anyway, even after a couple of hours of fishing, we managed to catch barely anything, and the tilopi we did catch continued staring at us even after they were dead, with eyes full of surprise, fear and accusations. We took the fish to Ammachi, but when we sat down for lunch, there was no tilopi curry. Ammachi said that even after they became curry, the fish kept looking at her with their little eyes full of fear, so she threw it away. A whole potful of terrified-fish curry!
By the time I came back to Kottarathil Veedu for another holiday, it had become almost empty. Sheenanty and Thomachan chachan had already left, and now Neenanty had also married and gone away to live in her husband’s house. Eetha had become very old and gone back to her own house to await death, handing the kitchen over to her daughter, Molly. Ittan, our karyasthan who took care of all the affairs of the house, barely came to work because there was nothing much to take care of any more.
Kuncheriya valyappachan spent most of his time in bed, his trusted Bible held close to his chest. He was in a terrible state. His death was not imminent – it would be another five years before he would die – but he feared dying more than death itself. He believed it was unfair that his mother and his wife, who were sure to go to hell, had died peacefully. At the same time, he understood that having such thoughts constituted defiance of God, which increased his terror. And when he realized that such thoughts might interfere with his entry into heaven, he began to think about suicide. But suicide was a most heinous wrong in the eyes of God.
Towards the end of his life, Kuncheriya valyappachan became stubborn like a little child. He demanded that Ammachi remain by his side at all times, and expected her to reassure him, again and again, that he would go to heaven. On that visit, I barely even saw Ammachi. She was always in his room, and I was terrified of going anywhere near him because when I went to him, I thought he exuded a deep hatred for me. I would later realize that this hatred was not aimed specifically at me. By the end of his life, he displayed such a hatred for everyone and everything that was alive, that was still endowed with life force.
By the time he was a hundred years old, Kuncheriya valyappachan had begun to decay. Many a time, he reached death’s door but fought his way back to life, powered by his intense fear of dying and abiding love for life and for food. Finally, when there was no more fight left in his body or mind, he accepted the final sacraments for his soul and prepared himself for entering the heavenly abode. And yet, as the time of his death approached, his face contorted in terror. Forget about children, even adults were reluctant to kiss his face for a final time after he was dead.
It was around this time that we acquired a television set. It would have a lasting impact on my life. I was in search of someone I could feel close to in those days, and the TV brought me Boris Becker. I swore lasting allegiance to him. But it was difficult to keep this promise because, pretty soon, he began losing all his games. It was Becker who lost but it was Karthav Eesho Mishiha who bore the brunt of my anger and sorrow at his failure. The fact that the electricity would cut off every now and then during the course of a match also soured my relationship with Karthav. Every time this happened, I would run to my room, kneel in front of the small picture of Jesus stuck to the wall, and pray earnestly. But, overcome with my intense love for Becker, I would lose my patience within five minutes. In my reckoning, five seconds were plenty to bring back the electricity, and here I was, generously allowing five whole minutes, taking into consideration the dire state of electricity distribution in our country. Besides, bringing the power back was not such a miraculous task. For someone like me who believed in miracles such as water turning into wine and the raising of Lazarus, reconnecting electricity was only a dookly thing. Still, many times it remained cut off until the game was over, and as though to rub salt on sores, it came back just as Becker left the court. Either Karthav did not like tennis, or He did not like Boris Becker. Or, most likely, He did not like me! It could also be that even Karthav found His powers limited when it came to the aforementioned state of the electricity distribution system in our land. I feel bad now when I think about Karthav waiting for the arrival of our lineman Babu, bathed in the abuse showered by a little girl…
My papa came to know of my intense love for Boris Becker. He knew nothing at all about sports in general or tennis in particular, or about the star. And yet he exclaimed: ‘What is she jumping up and down about him for? Look at his eyebrows … like white cockroaches!’
The other important thing that happened around this time was that I became a communist. A thirteen-year-old communist. A God-fearing communist like every other communist in the land.
It happened unexpectedly.
Reading Maxim Gorky’s Mother was the main inspiration. It was to mark a turning point in my life. I began to think that I was born to be a communist. Then I read C. Radhakrishnan’s Munpe Parakkunna Pakshikal and signed the book with my own blood! I didn’t cut myself specifically for this purpose – I just used the blood that oozed out when I accidentally nicked myself while cutting my fingernails. Why waste it, I thought. I think I would have been a communist guerrilla if I’d lived closer to the Bolivian forests. I couldn’t tell you why, but I didn’t find the forests around us particularly romantic.
If someone were to ask me what the most difficult period in my life was, even if I lived to be a hundred years old, I would answer: childhood. It was the single most torturous period I endured.
Lisa … Anne … Papa … Mama…
The snacks in the glass jars.
Maths, physics, chemistry, and the endless confounding equations.
Boris Becker who continued to lose all his matches.
Karthav Eesho Mishiha.
All the sins I committed in full view of Karthav.
My continued stealing (mostly from my own home).
Disrespecting my parents and teachers.
Telling Mama to her face that I hated her.
Fighting with my siblings.
Praying that Anne and Lisa would die.
Constantly killing centipedes, lizards and cockroaches.
Trying to kill Lisa.
Talking during the Holy Qurbana … dozing off (which constituted the additional sin of enraging our parish priest, Father Jacob).
Not reading the Bible regularly (and leaving out sections when I did read it).
Because of all this, along with my parents, Sunday school teachers and the parish priest, I too was convinced that I was headed straight for hell. In those days, I was a believer. I had learned to believe without questioning.
For a long while after, Appachan and Kottarathil Veedu were absent from my life. If you ask me what was in my life in that period, I don’t remember. Like Aravind says, I floated through life. Until, one day years later, vomiting out all the bread I had eaten thus far in my life, I went to Kottarathil Veedu with the sole purpose of eating Ammachi’s appam and chicken curry.
Appachan was in the easy chair on the veranda waiting for me … He had been sitting there for years.