Kottarathil Veedu, Appachan and Ammachi
‘Appacha, every time I think of Chandi, I feel like crying.’
Maria is sitting on the floor on the veranda of Kottarathil Veedu, and Geevarghese is in his easy chair. Maria is talking to Geevarghese, but it is Mariyamma who answers.
‘You’re completely mad! You were mad when you were five years old, you’re mad when you’re thirty, and you’ll be mad when you’re sixty. It’s all your appachan’s fault. He’s the one who made you like this.’
Geevarghese gives Mariyamma a stern look, but decides it is better not to say anything to this woman who, even though she is his wife, is completely foolish. Seeing his expression, Mariyamma hesitates but continues nevertheless.
‘It’s like them old folk used to say! She wants to cry it seems, thinking about some old dog that used to hang around the house! That too a dog that thought too much of itself. Susanna was right when she said children should be brought up by their mother and father. This, see, this is what happens if they’re brought up by their grandfather!’
Mariyamma invokes ‘them old folk’ as evidence to the truth of everything she says. Everything, or at least ninety-five per cent, of what she says starts with ‘like them old folk used to say’. It is just a habit. People who lived a long time ago have nothing to do with anything she says. How would they know what Maria feels when she thinks about Chandippatti?
‘Look at your siblings,’ Mariyamma continues. ‘Look how well they live. How they bring joy and peace and comfort to their parents.’
‘How, Ammachi?’
‘Take Mathew for instance. Isn’t he a big doctor in America?’
‘How is that of any use to his parents? It’s only of use to Americans.’
‘See, this is what’s wrong with you. You only think crooked thoughts. See everything topsy-turvy.’
‘So, what about Anne and Lisa then? How are they of benefit?’
‘Anne and Lisa? They got married at the proper time and had children at the proper time for their parents to enjoy in their old age.’
‘Ammachi, everyone can make a child. It’s not that hard. If you want, I can step out for half an hour and come back prepared to have a child in a few months. I don’t even have to work hard for it. Any man can do the work. So, don’t try to put me down talking about having children. Besides, where is the fairness in what you say? If a man has a good job, he is considered accomplished, even if he doesn’t have any children. But for a woman to be considered accomplished, she just has to produce some children. She can go to Pluto and back, and still you won’t acknowledge her accomplishment unless she has popped out a few children. Truly, Ammachi, I don’t understand your world or its standards!’
Even as Maria is speaking, even before she gets her second sentence out, Mariyamma is shouting, ‘Shut UP, shut UP!’ and when Maria continues speaking, Mariyamma puts her hands to her ears, refusing to listen. She glares at Geevarghese who is sitting there laughing.
‘The girl is spouting nonsense and you laugh!’ she screams. ‘How can you laugh? Does anyone else in this world say such things?’
‘She is right though, isn’t she? She should have been born in some other world, not this one…’ Geevarghese says, partly to Mariyamma and partly to himself.
‘So true, Appacha!’ Maria says. ‘You and me, both of us should have been born somewhere else. If we were born in Brazil, they would have made you president!’
Everyone falls silent for a while. Then, Maria returns to the past.
‘Remember how Chandi ran after you when you chased Neenanty around the house that time? Every time I think of it, I can’t stop laughing.’
‘What? Nothing like that happened, ever!’ Mariyamma and Geevarghese respond in unison.
‘You must have dreamt it,’ Mariyamma continues. ‘This is what it has come to. The girl can’t tell what is real and what is dream! It’s all down to how you were brought up. What else!’
Geevarghese watches Maria’s eyes welling up. ‘It might have happened,’ he says. He pauses for a while and continues, ‘Something like that has happened.’
Maria understands that Appachan is saying this to console her. It only increases her sadness, and she walks out of the house.
Compared to its old appearance, Kottarathil Veedu has a greyish look now, but its ‘garden’ is still well looked after. Mariyamma is fond of flowers and plants. She is fond of the house too, but she liked it better when it was full of people. Now that it is empty, her enthusiasm for looking after it has waned.
There is a section set aside entirely for anthuriums. Every time she sees an anthurium bloom, Maria is reminded of men’s ‘shoo’. If it wasn’t for that, Maria might have liked men better, whereas Nimmi likes men because of it and Aisha loathes it and its owners.
Mariyamma’s ‘garden’ is an example of the fine balance between tradition and modernity. Traditional plants like pichi, mulla, chembakam, the four-o-clock plant, hibiscus and pavizhamalli bob their heads right alongside modern varieties like orchid, gerbera, petunia and chrysanthemum. Roses of both kinds – traditional and modern – although with the arrival of newcomers in yellow, orange and magenta, the old roses in red and pink have lost their lustre. Still, they hold their heads high, saying, ‘We too are roses.’ Kottarathil Veedu had flowering plants even before Mariyamma’s arrival. But pichi, mulla, chembakam and hibiscus did not a ‘garden’ make – they only made a yard with flowers. This was a long time ago. Maria had not been born yet.
Maria looks at the black pepper vines clambering up coconut trees. ‘Let’s say a coconut tree brings in an income of a hundred rupees. But a coconut tree with a pepper vine clambering all over it brings in five hundred rupees. That is the economics of it,’ Maria remembers.
Maria walks through the rubber plantation and reaches the pond. In the olden days, it had been full of fish even if they were only tilopi. Now there are only frogs. When she was a child, their karyasthan Ittan had told Maria that the white foam that floated on the water were frog eggs. Maria had been doubtful. ‘How can eggs be like foam?’ She still has her doubts. When she was a child, Maria had thought that the pond was huge. But now that she has grown up, she understands that it is not that big after all.