The House of Blue Mangoes (67 page)

As he bellowed out the carols, Kannan looked around him: at his mother, Ramdoss-mama, his nephews and nieces, the dozens of well-loved faces, unselfconsciously revelling in the sheer pleasure of being alive and together. So long as we can summon up this spirit, no matter what the disadvantages and reverses, my father’s dream will never die, Kannan thought. He felt a momentary sadness that Helen wasn’t with him. But caught up in the optimism of the moment, he reckoned even that breach could be healed. I’ll celebrate next Christmas in Doraipuram with my wife, he vowed.

The old tunes continued to roar through the church. Daniel was now leading the young people in a rendering of ‘Hark the Herald Angels Sing’. Kannan was delighted that the boy who could have made a brilliant career for himself wherever he chose was determined to return to Doraipuram and the clinic once he’d obtained his medical degree. Together we can turn this place around, Kannan thought.

Scarcely had the service ended than the young people raced to the maidan by the Community Centre for the next event of the day – the hockey match between the Marrieds and the Unmarrieds. The youngsters won as they always did, although Kannan, the fleetest member of the Marrieds, was well satisfied with the goal he scored.

And so the hours sped by, and the great sprawl of the Dorai family forgot its worries and feuds, the future and the past, and concentrated on enjoying every moment of a very special day.

At the funfair, Kannan won a rather strange-looking rubber duck and narrowly missed winning another prize (a tin of Parry’s sweets) for marksmanship, and then it was time for lunch. Poochie-chithi was in charge of the Lunch Committee and she had laid on a feast that would be talked about for years – three kinds of rice (tamarind, lemon and curd), two kinds of meat (chicken and mutton) and fish, sambhar and rasam, two kinds of pachidi (boondi and onion), five kinds of pickle (lime, nellikai, mango, chilli and brinjal), two kinds of kootu (cabbage and potato), appalams by the dozen and, finally, to top it all off, paruppu payasam that was served by the bucket. The family ate as well as it had sung and played. Then, their appetites sated and feeling very sleepy, the older Dorais went off to rest and prepare for the evening’s activities, while the children sped through the mango groves and along the river, shouting and screaming and investing the slumbering rocks and ancient landmarks with their youthful exuberance.

The evening was, if anything, even more hectic. More sport and competitions, tea, a Bible quiz, and then the highlight for the children – the formal unveiling of the Christmas tree at the Community Centre. It was a rather spindly casuarina branch indifferently decorated with coloured paper and balloons, but nobody minded at all, especially the children, whose attention was riveted by the bright hill of presents that rose beneath it. As they fought to get at their gifts, Kannan said to Ramdoss who stood next to him, ‘Appa would have been delighted. This is what he established Doraipuram for.’

‘I agree,’ Ramdoss said. ‘Nothing beats a family in full cry. I hope Daniel-anna is watching.’

The tree gave up the struggle as the sea of children besieged it but by now the happy mob was completely beyond caring. The last present was snatched up and then there was more entertainment, amateurishly enacted skits, which nevertheless went down as well as everything that had preceded it. A short prayer to thank the merciful Lord and the founder for having bestowed Doraipuram on them all and the family wandered out on to the maidan where long tables groaned under overflowing containers of food. Dinner paled in comparison only to that magnificent lunch, but it was more than ample.

And then, just when it appeared that the hard-pressed organizers of the festivities would crumble, Christmas was over. The last guests rose from the benches, belching contentedly. The cooking fires were extinguished and lamps put out. Rounding up the children, who had stayed up long past their bedtime, the exhausted uncles, aunts and cousins who had made it all possible walked home under a sky scarved with stars.

Just before he turned into Neelam Illum’s driveway, Kannan thought tiredly but happily of the day gone by. He had never felt so much a part of Doraipuram. It was quite extraordinary, he reflected, how from age to age, this piece of land by the river pulled people into its embrace – his grandfather, his father, his brother, himself . . . At moments like this, any doubt that he might have felt about returning was stilled. This is the land of my family, he thought, it belongs to every one of us, we have made its hard red earth our own with our failures and our triumphs, our blood and our laughter. I’m glad I’m here, it is the place of my heart.

EPILOGUE

Time now for a final story, this one featuring Auvaiyar, the venerable Tamil poetess and saint who lived some time between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries. The old lady was walking along a road one day when she encountered a cowherd perched high in a nava tree. The boy was enthusiastically plucking and eating the deep black fruit that stained his lips purple. Auvaiyar was hungry so she asked him to throw her some fruit. Mischievously the boy, who was actually Lord Subrahmanya in disguise, asked, ‘Would you like hot fruit or cold?’ The saint was puzzled and faintly irritated. ‘What’s this about hot or cold? Can fruit on a tree be anything but cold? Throw me some fruit, you little scamp, I’m hungry.’

‘All right then, paati-ma, here’s your fruit,’ the cowherd said with a laugh, and plucked a handful of fruit and dropped it on the ground. The poetess picked the fruit up and was blowing off the dirt when the boy shouted, ‘If the fruit is cold, why are you blowing on it?’

Ways of seeing. Every reality is perceived differently, depending on who is doing the looking, so let’s take the road ourselves to see what we can see. This road stretches back a couple of centuries to the time when the precursors of John Company came to India to trade and decided to stay. It has had numerous twists and bends, and is choked with the debris of a thousand battles and the unquiet spirits of the great and the good, but it is now coming to an end. A new road will need to be hacked out of the future and the implements to do so are in the hands of millions. Their leaders view the road ahead, each in his own way: the Mahatma sorrowfully, as the killings in Noakhali and elsewhere seem to presage the carnage that lies ahead; Jinnah inflexibly, he will make sure he gets his Pakistan before the terminal disease in his blood gets him; Mountbatten, the last Viceroy, guiltily, for he knows the mission he was charged with, the orderly transfer of power, is bound to end in costly failure with millions dead or displaced . . . Virtually alone among the great ones, Nehru, though his heart is heavy, looks to the future with hope. It is he who will say, on 15 August 1947, the undying words that schoolchildren will memorize so long as there is an India: ‘Long years ago we made a tryst with destiny and now the time comes when we shall redeem our pledge . . . At the stroke of the midnight hour, when the world sleeps, India shall awaken to freedom . . .’

And what of the people? When they walk the road to independence, what will they see, how will they feel? As they march along, bound in the opposite direction to the multitudes who will take over from them, some of them, like the soldiers of the 1
^st
Cameron Highlanders, racist to the end, chant:

‘
Land of shit and filth and wogs

Gonorrhoea, syphilis, clap and pox
.

Memsahibs’ paradise, soldiers’ hell

India, fare thee fucking well
.’

But that is the minority view, even among the British. Most of them are beset by feelings of dejection, sorrow and fear, but what they feel, overwhelmingly, is relief that the years of uncertainty and ambiguity are about to end.

For millions of Indians, the horror of Partition will be the single overwhelming reality. Freedom for them is synonymous with grief, hatred, displacement and loss. For millions more, the most wretched constituents of the subcontinent, independence will not be an occasion for rejoicing, their lives will be as miserable as before. But what of our grandparents and parents, uncles and aunts, who have wrested a prize that has demanded of them every ounce of commitment, idealism, courage and talent they possessed, what do they make of it? No matter who or what they are, ordinary or extraordinary, rich or poor, high caste or low, humble or exalted, they look to the future with joy and hope. But embedded in the euphoria there are questions; no victory or triumph is ever unqualified. What exactly will freedom bring? Will its surging optimism cleanse the country of the noxious vapours of casteism and communalism? Will its currency buy the poor and the disadvantaged bread, hope and equality? In sum, will the country be equal to freedom’s challenge?

Late April 1947. Early in the morning. It will soon be very hot, for summer has crept up on Doraipuram. Already the houses have begun to draw their cloaks of green – the dark green of mango and jack, the feathery green of tamarind, the lighter green of neem and ashoka, the green-black of palmyra, the slate green of casuarina – tightly around them to ward off the blazing heat of day.

Deep in thought, Kannan makes his way down to the river. He has slept poorly, and hopes the cool morning will refresh him for the tasks ahead. The settlement is gearing up to celebrate the coming of freedom. Three months later there will be another celebration, for the twenty-fifth anniversary of the founding of Doraipuram is also upon them. He has spent the past week serving on various committees charged with co-ordinating the activities that are being planned for both occasions. It has been an optimistic time as the settlement prepares to honour events larger than its constituents’ individual concerns.

But Kannan isn’t thinking about the coming ceremonials. After the revelry is over, the problems that have kept him awake for many nights will inevitably resurface and it is these he is thinking about as he walks by the river. Miriam-athai and her sons have ganged up with Karunakaran and are threatening to sell out to a powerful builder who wants to build beach-front homes. There’s a steady haemorrhaging of young people from the settlement to distant towns and lands in search of jobs and opportunities. The founding families who are committed to Daniel’s dream are growing older. Will it be only a matter of time before Doraipuram is just a memory? He is not sure whether he is up to the challenge of ensuring that the settlement thrives for the next twenty-five years. It’s easier to have a grand vision, he thinks, than to keep it going. But almost immediately he dismisses the thought as unworthy. Each generation has its problems. Daniel and the other founders dealt with their difficulties as best they could, we need to cope with our own troubles as successfully as our skills, passion, imagination and resolve allow. And then he thinks: I worry too much. Of course Doraipuram will survive and prosper because it was founded in love and hope, and these are the most vital and powerful impulses granted to our kind.

He is in one of the mango topes now, surrounded by rank upon rank of medium-sized trees with short straight trunks covered with fissured black bark. The arrowhead-shaped leaves are a beautiful dark green on top and a paler green below. They lie thickly upon the branch and effectively absorb the heat, dust and light, giving the orchard a hush that is broken only by the crackling of dried leaves underfoot. The Neelams are lovely to behold. Blue fruit on a field of green, it’s as if the sky, the high blue-white sky of the Chevathar summer, has exploded and come to rest in this tope. Heavy as a woman’s breasts, these are fruit to be fondled sensuously as you pick your way among the trees. Their fragrance fills the air. Kannan reaches up to a blue mango, caresses it, its heat filling his hand, and gives it the slightest tug. The mango comes away in his hand. Instinctively, he does something he learned from his father, and he from his father before him . . .

He empties his mind, concentrates the senses. He regards the fruit he has picked for a moment, then raises the mounded end, with the dimple in the centre, to his nose and inhales deeply. The bouquet explodes upon his senses: a huge delectable sweetness, overlaid with notes of freshness, lightness, sun and blue, counterpointed by a deep rolling melody of an almost corrupt muskiness. He holds his breath, lets the high and low notes invade every aspect of his being. The heaviness lifts from his heart.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This is a novel, so the usual disclaimers apply – names, characters, places and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental. Having said that, there are a couple of things that need to be clarified.

One of my reasons for writing this book was to recapture memories of an idyllic childhood spent in places like the high tea country in Peermade, where my father worked, and my grandparents’ homes in Nagercoil and Padappai. Also, my paternal grandfather Ambrose established a family settlement and this seemed such a splendid achievement that it marked the point of departure for my novel. However
The House of Blue Mangoes
is wholly invented. It is not autobiographical nor is it in any way family history masquerading as fiction. Solomon, Daniel, Aaron, Kannan and the rest of the Dorai clan are people I’ve imagined and bear no resemblance to anyone I know. The same is true of Doraipuram, Chevathar, Pulimed and Kilanad district.

For those who are interested in a little more information about these places, I can do no better than recapitulate my notes on them when they were first visualized. Kilanad is the smallest district of Madras Presidency, so small that in 1899 it had only two revenue sub-divisions or taluqas (one less than the next smallest, the Nilgiris district, which had three at the time). Shaped like a notched arrowhead, Kilanad’s northern boundary is Tinnevelly district (now Tirunelveli); to the west lies the kingdom of Travancore (now the state of Kerala). It’s rimmed to the east by the Bay of Bengal and to the south it narrows to a point two kilometres short of Cape Comorin (Kanyakumari). The Chevathar, a non-existent tributary of the mighty Tamraparani, bisects the district before debouching into the Bay of Bengal near the village that bears its name.