Chapter-1:
. . . Thiruvananthapuram . . .
A smooth sea never made a good sailor, I was reminded of as I looked at the waves, as they rose and fell like blue satin swaying in the wind. I watch them through the leaves of the tree I am sitting on. I love climbing trees. I love the texture of their branches and the feeling you get when you’re at the top with the cool sea breeze blowing through your hair. My favourite trees to climb are the Banyan tree and the sacred fig (peepal tree).
I catch a falling leaf as I sit on the thick branches
of the banyan tree I climbed an hour ago, lost in thought. My family lives on
the edge of the city of Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala. I live in my Amama’s house
(grandmother’s house). My father, Daniel Harvey, came to Kerala from Britain
when he was twenty-five. My father didn’t have a place to live when he came to
India, so he moved in with my mother, Lakshmi, when he married her. That makes
me an Anglo-Indian. Half-blood. I find it amusing.
“Come down, Indrakshi! It’s time for lunch.” I hear the
feeble voice of my brother, William, call through the sounds of the waves. My
brother’s never been athletic, he can’t climb a tree. I like to tease him about
that.
I set my foot on a branch and then jumped. I land on
the soft grass and can already see my brother walking towards the house. I walk
up to him, feeling the soft grass of the garden beneath my bare feet. I step
onto the brick-laid pathway that leads to the veranda, to find my brother
standing at the entrance. “What’s for lunch today?” I ask. He shrugs, “don’t
know. Amama is making something.” “I’m guessing it’s rassam rice with some fish.”
My brother is eight years older than me, and a fresh
graduate in Dermatology. He looks exactly like our father. He looks so much
like a European man that he can pass for being purely British blood. William’s
taller than me too. I only reach his ear.
We walk into the house in silence. It’s a traditional
sort, with cream-coloured walls and wooden pillars. With a cross-hipped roof laid
with reddish-brown clay tiles. We have a huge garden, and in that garden was
the banyan tree I was sitting on top of. There are a lot of other plants in the
garden as well, sacred figs, coconut trees and other vegetables and herbs. We
never buy vegetables or fruits from the market; we grow them at home. I mean
what is the use of such a huge garden if you don’t plant something in it? Amama
is fond of gardening. She grows and tends to all the plants herself. She’s
pretty active for her age. My mum’s brother also helps to tend to the plants.
The house has a large nameplate of concrete with a stone
slab a few feet in front of the veranda. The stone slab reads ‘കുടുംബം നാലുകെട്ട്’ meaning family nalukettu in Malayalam, my mother tongue. Traditional
houses in Kerala are called nalukettu. We find Amama sitting on a straw malam
(stool) in the lobby which is much like a small courtyard in an old British castle.
We greet her, it is a tradition all over India to greet our elders. Amama tells
us to sit on the paaya, a mat on the floor on which we sit to eat. Amama had
already set the plates with their banana leaves. It’s a tradition to eat our
food on banana leaves instead of plates in Kerala. Amama brought the food and
sat in front of us with her plate with a banana leaf. I can smell the spices
she used to cook. I put some rice on my banana leaf and reached out for the golden
rassam which grandmother sprinkled some coriander on. Rassam is a sort of
south-Indian soup. Amama also made fish and tomato chutney. My guess was
correct. “Amama, where’s mum?” my brother asked while mixing his rassam and rice
with his fingers, a south-Indian habit. Amama smiled and said, “She’s hanging
the washed clothes upstairs. She’ll be here in a minute.” And Amama was right.
Mum came down a few minutes later and sat with us to eat. She told us that Dad
would be home early from the hospital today. My dad is a neurosurgeon in the
Pulse Medicare hospital. He has been working there since the 1990s.
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