As Sweet as Honey

53




Two Rovers were hired and two drivers. Shanti-Mami packed us pooris, potato subji, curd rice, idlis smeared with chili-dal powder, and mango pickle neatly in stainless-steel containers, as well as thalis and a couple of blankets. Jugs of water, plus a tin of her special rava ladoos and Scottish shortbread, also came with us.

Nalani thought we could do with some diversion and planned a picnic for all of us in Akkase Park. She used to go camping with the girl guides up into the mountains, and loved eating outside with a fire. It would be a change for Oscar, too, we thought. At first, Grandmother said she was too old, that picnics were for young people, but Ajay convinced her.

“Paati, you’ll be driven there to sit down. No exertion,” he said.

Grandmother, Ajay, Sanjay, Oscar, and I rode in one car with Raman, our driver, and Aunt Meterling, Uncle Simon, Nalani, and Rasi rode in the other with Mr. Joseph. Food and blankets packed, we set off in the early morning when there was mist coming off the ground. The sun, when it emerged, was a giant orange in the sky, almost too beautiful to look at. We had our windows down, and soon got absorbed in the unknowns of Pi traffic. Gaily painted trucks, auto rickshaws, motorcycles, cars, and buses honked to make sure everyone was aware of them, and then honked again to pass, turn, or check the volume of their horns. Raman told us that this was the best time to be going to Akkase, because the city would reach very high temperatures, and we should not worry if we got lost, because he had GPS, which was news to all of us except Sanjay. The amount of stuff that was coming from computer technology, the driver said, was going to revolutionize the island.

The radio played film music as we navigated the last rotary to head to the mountains. In thirty minutes, the car in front stopped on the side of the road.

Raman went to investigate, as we got out to stretch a bit. It was the first rest stop of a total of four. Nalani, of course, needed the facilities often, but so did Meterling. The countryside started to get prettier as we left the city at last. We left the highway for Old Commissioner’s Road, where there was more foliage and thatched and mud houses, not brick. It was not long before Western-style toilets disappeared at the rest stops. Grandmother had fallen asleep, and Oscar nestled in the place where her blouse ended, before her sari tuck began, a roll of soft brown flesh that had comforted us all at one time or another. In half an hour, Sanjay and Ajay were asleep as well, while I looked out the window, as the landscape sped by, until my eyelids too became heavy. In the other car, Rasi later reported, they sang songs. First Aunt Meterling began a tune from an old film, so familiar that even Rasi knew the words. Song by song, they sang a repertoire of film hits from the fifties and sixties.


Adding to the beauty of the island was the variety of terrain. Mountains, forest, and shore, all in a space that was not too difficult to explore. No wonder Captain Geert Pieter thought he had stumbled onto an enchanted island in 1726, thinking it might indeed be peopled with “elves of hills, brooks, standing lakes and groves.” The greater magic was that the Dutch did not find it until the eighteenth century. Life here was so leisurely, in spirit at least, if not in actuality. Of course, we were on vacation, away from the all-nighters cramming for exams and papers, the days regulated by the buzz of the alarm clock, and weekends at home in front of the drone of the television, where all the studying could be nullified only by endless repeats of old shows.

We stirred as the car began to climb up into the hill country. We passed a coffee estate, and I saw a sign advertising Banac’s Best, Ltd. I could smell the roasting beans, a fragrance that was said to increase one’s intelligence. Skinny trees jutted out as coffee plants thickly enveloped the hillsides. We drove up a dirt road, with a background of almost violet-colored mountains. There was mist in the air still, and the freshness that comes from altitude. As we rounded a turn, a field of lilac primula caught me by surprise. I heard Grandmother’s intake of breath. The driver said these were the royal carpets Akkase was known for as he brought the jeep to a stop.

We got out, stretched, and waited for the rest of the family to climb out of the other car. From where we stood, we could see a vast view that was largely preserved in its natural state. Some sixty miles further was a bird sanctuary near a lake. Birds, coffee, mountain, and flower jostled for space. Oscar declared he was hungry, which made sense to all of us, as we had driven so long. Uncle Simon and Ajay set up the blankets under a tree, until Grandmother pointed out that the monkeys would not hesitate to steal the food and scamper up the leaves. So, we settled on a grassy open space, and set about opening the contents of our picnic. That must be why eating outdoors is so captivating: unpacking food from containers, stretching out on mats and blankets, not minding if an ant comes by for a crumb. The drivers went off for a smoke and their lunch.

After eating, we split up to explore. There were many other travelers about, and Grandmother happened upon an elderly woman who, it turned out, knew Grandmother’s sister’s doctor. They might even find shared family, I thought, smiling to myself. That’s how it was on Pi. The woman’s son and his wife had brought her out for a visit, but when Grandmother stopped to chat, the couple wandered away for a walk, as we did as well. Akkase was a paradise for young lovers and hikers. Soon, even in our party, the couples went off on their own, Ajay helping Nalani up a steep path, Simon drawing in Meterling for an embrace. So, Sanjay, Rasi, Oscar, and I walked by ourselves, Oscar carrying a stick in case of tigers.

We didn’t see any tigers, but what I was thinking of was snakes. We didn’t see any of those, either, except for a slender fellow that darted away. I wondered about Dickinson’s “tighter breathing,” how she got it just right in that poem. I shuddered in the way one does in the aftermath of seeing something alarming, shivering in its memory. Rasi and Sanjay had walked ahead with Oscar leading, and I hurried to catch up.

When we came back, after investigating a pond, a view, and a splendid old tree full of monkeys, we found Grandmother deep in conversation with her new friends. This was Mrs. Shukla, we learned, a retired professor of astronomy—who had, we were astonished to learn, a side interest in astrology—and her son, Rajendra, and his wife, Asmati.

“There is so much we don’t know, with the universe constantly in motion, and so much mystery,” she laughed, as our faces betrayed our surprise. She had learned to read charts, making her a South Asian woman who excelled in two things a woman of her time did not ordinarily do.

“Mrs. Shukla is as revolutionary as Rukmini Arundale,” said Grandmother.

“No, no, I just would not listen to those oldies who said only men can be versed in certain arts. We both have the same brains inside, don’t we—nice gray matter that is waiting to be filled with knowledge.”

Nalani and Ajay arrived, receiving a good deal of teasing because their clothes showed signs of leaves and dirt.

“We were merely sitting on the ground, you fools,” Nalani protested, waving away our sounds of cooing.

Introductions were made, and made again, when Simon and Meterling arrived. They too looked like young lovers, smiling quietly and accepting hot cups of tea. We drew forth the biscuits, and shared Asmati’s homemade fruitcake. Asmati and Rajendra were visiting from Kerala. We listened to Mrs. Shukla’s story of studies, her marriage, and moving to Kerala from her original home in Kanyakumari.

“Do you know the story of Kanyakumari Devi?” Grandmother asked us. “She was jilted at the altar by Shiva, and all the food for their wedding was left to turn to stone. That’s why the sand there resembles rice grains.”

“Why would he jilt her?”

Grandmother laughed. “He was supposed to arrive exactly at midnight, the time Narada selected as auspicious for the wedding, but on the way, an insomniac rooster crowed, and Shiva, thinking it was morning, and therefore too late to marry correctly, went home.”

“That makes no sense.”

“The point is that he had to leave her unwed so the demon she was destined to kill would try to marry her and initiate the battle that would leave him dead by an unmarried girl. That was why the gods created her.”

“Yes,” said Mrs. Shukla, “I heard that the rakshasa in fact was the one who tricked Shiva, so that he could take his place, but of course, our Kanyakumari could see right through that deception.”

“But wasn’t it Narada who tricked Shiva, because on no account could the wedding take place? Oh, there’s another story too about Kanyakumari. They say the diamonds adorning her statue’s nose are so bright that they could light the seas for the catamarans,” said Nalani.

“A holy lighthouse.”

“But instead of safely guiding boats home, the light made the boats crash onto the rocks. That doesn’t happen anymore, because they keep the door to her shrine shut.”

“They open it five specific times a year, though. You know, the sand at Kanyakumari is also tricolored: red, pearl, and black. As a child, I once visited, and we collected the sand,” said Grandmother. “We used it to decorate our Navratri golus.”

“What’s a golu?”

“It’s when we arrange dolls on the steps of a tiny stage, for the nine-day festival, when we honor Saraswati, Lakshmi, and Durga with special poojas.”

“Oh, a doll festival,” said Oscar, disappointed.

“Yes, a doll festival,” I said, tickling him.

“Durga-Kali too was created to kill a demon,” said Rasi.

“But she kept on killing after the demon’s death, so she became anger uncontained.”

“And had finally to be subdued by Shiva.”

Meterling hid a smile.

“Do you think we could go there, Mummy?” asked Oscar.

“Not on this trip, darling, but on the next one, perhaps.”

Mrs. Shukla patted his head.

“My home is also famous for being a place where our rajah and his son ousted the Dutch East India Company by capturing their commander. I named Rajendra after him. But this was before the Geert fellow found Pi. Holland was already in decline,” she said.

So we discussed history and mythology, and inevitably, the talk came round, as it always does, to partition. By the time we were ready to leave, Grandmother and Mrs. Shukla, who had by now discovered they had at least two common acquaintances, were still discussing Gandhi, and how they wore kadhi.

Mrs. Shukla and her family said goodbye to us warmly. She looked at Rasi a moment longer and smiled.

“Remember, be sure to look at the moon the third day after it is new,” she said.

I wasn’t sure she was really addressing Rasi, but it seemed that way. Overall, a mysterious encounter. The moon would be full that night, which was all I knew.