An excerpt from my novel: The Scent of Pepper

Ch 2

The death became public when Boju walked to the flowering mango tree
and fired two shots, choosing his father's favourite gun from among
the twelve on the gun-rack. Swift-footed Yeravas were already out of
the gate and across the ramp to the opposite side of the stream.

"Yajamana! It's Madaiah Yajamana!"

Villagers snaked in through the gate like disciplined pilgrims: women
in white, men in their best sober clothes. The dead man wasn't just
anyone; he had married Cheppudira Ponnappa Dewan's daughter and had
received the title of Rao Bahadur for his loyalty. Such solidity of
background. He deserved a splendid funeral and the family could afford
it.

The sons laid Madaiah on a stone slab near the well, peeled off his
dirt-encrusted clothes and washed away the accretions of eleven years
of decay. Neighbours, relatives and prompters were at hand.

"Bathe him in scalding water!"
"Sit him up! Sit him up!"
"The sovereign on the forehead!"
"The mirror, where's the hand-mirror?"

They dressed him like a bridegroom in kupya chale, with the peeche
kathi at his waist, covered his wispy hair with the gold-lined turban
and put a mirror in his hand. They stuck a gold sovereign on his
forehead and sat him up in the front room because the Kaleyanda men
never take anything lying down. The round table was pushed to a corner
to make place for more people. The sons changed into white dhotis,
covered their bare chests with white cloth and stood at the door,
stupefied by the suddenness of death.

Mourners kept coming; they leaned on the round table, sat on it,
toppled furniture and filled every inch of space, like stacked linen.
Such discomfort was borne with fortitude that was an expression of
their caring. They came all day to touch the feet of the dead man and
to drop a rupee coin in the brass plate at his feet; they would stay
till the body was cremated.

Chambavva kept vigil near the body in widow's white, with the shoulder
cloth knotted in front, greying hair loosened, denuded of chains,
earrings and her tiger-claw brooch. Her soft skin was unused to the
roughness of the reed mat on which she sat but her grief overshadowed
physical discomfort. Her status had slipped from that of wife to
widow. Even a decaying husband was better than no husband.

True, the Kodavas treated their women better than most but a widow was
a symbol of grief. Though her husband had ceased to exist for God
knows how long, his physical death left a vacuum. He looked so fresh
and youthful now, after the cleaning. Chambavva's mind wandered back
to the days of his hook-nosed handsomeness. She remembered the
strength of his arms, the eagerness in his stride and the precise
confidence of his limbs and she bent her head so as to avoid glances
of pity from the women who pressed around her like doves of peace.
Near Chambavva stood Nanji, pale and prominent in her advanced
pregnancy. She rearranged garlands, relit the incense sticks, served
black coffee with puttoo to the guests, and tried bravely to hide her
sorrow.

Nanji was the saddest person at the funeral. She did not mourn the
death of her father-in-law which had been coming a long time. It did
not sadden her any more than the felling of a rotting athi tree or a
withering coffee bush. Her tears were for the splendid diamond ring
that Madaiah used as his instrument of suicide. After slitting his
gullet lengthwise and causing him to vomit a chamberpot full of blood,
it had passed slyly into the stomach and would still be there, in his
fermenting gastric juices. Neither Baliyanna or Boju or any of the
Kaleyanda men thought of the possibility of rescuing the ring. The
diamond, big and perfect, was a family heirloom that should rightfully
have passed to her husband. Now it was irrevocably lost.

The moronic stupidity of men who could not think clearly in moments of
grief! It could easily have been removed. Had she not once, when
slitting the belly of a chicken, found a gold sovereign with the royal
insignia of Queen Victoria lying face down amidst undigested grains of
rice? Had she not washed and rubbed and scrubbed it and added it to
the treasures that she kept in a red satin purse in the bottom drawer
of her wooden chest? Nanji itched for action but any suggestion from
her could easily be misconstrued. So she submerged her grief in the
endlessness of her duties, ensuring that everyone had eaten and
pausing to feed the little son who slept in a cradle in the bedroom.

There was no single person at the funeral to direct the course of
events; it was directed by several men and women reputed to 'know'
these things. The rituals went on till four in the afternoon when ten
young men of the village dressed in black kupya-chale appeared, with
their guns ready for the funeral honours. Baliyanna, Boju and four
cousins carried the body on a bamboo chair to the half-acre clearing
that was reserved for family cremations, where one dead son had
already preceded the father. Fresh stacks of wood had been readied for
the cremation. Three times they carried the body around the pyre;
Chambavva followed, with a cracked mud pot on her head, water
trickling down over her face. The cracked pot symbolised the
dihiscence of her married life. Nanji walked behind Chambavva,
throwing rice into the unlit pyre. When the Rao Bahadur had been
mounted on his final perch, the sons, wife and relatives touched his
lips with wet tulsi leaves in a final act of farewell; Boju removed
the silver sheathed dagger from his dead father's waist and Chambavva
broke her bangles over the body; the ten young men lined up before the
pyre, raised their guns in a slow graceful arc and fired twice.
Baliyanna lit the pyre.

For eleven days Chambavva did not comb her hair or sleep on her bed;
along with the family she abstained from meat, milk and spices and
each day at noon she offered food, first to the spirit of her dead
husband and then to the crows. With Nanji, she walked to the backyard
with the food wrapped in banana leaves, laid it near the well and
clapping her hands, called: "Ka! Ka! Ka!" The crows – death meant
little to these realists who only believed in survival – were happy to
feast on the food. The crows enjoying the food meant that the dead
person too was satisfied. Chambavva did it for eleven days until the
soul of her husband joined that of his ancestors and had no further
need of worldly victuals.

At the eleventh-day ceremony a hundred guests were fed besides the
Yeravas, the workers on the estate and a multitude of wanderers,
beggars and derelicts. Then came the pilgrimage to Talakaveri on
Brahmagiri hill, where the family scattered the ashes in the river. In
the evening when they came home, they ended their abstinence by eating
thaliya puttoo with chicken and drinking coffee with milk. Only
Chambavva the widow would henceforth wear white and no other colour.

Early next day Baliyanna sitting in his father's study to sort out
urgent matters of the estate, saw the cream-coloured envelope
addressed to his father. It had arrived from England on the day of
the suicide and Nanji, who had put it there, did not for a moment
think that anything could be important enough to intrude on the
immediate tragedy.

So it stayed there, leaning on a jar of water until Baliyanna slit
open the envelope and read the three-page letter. He bellowed with
rage and Nanji, cleaning sardines in the kitchen, wiped her hands on
her sari and rushed to the study.

"What is it?"

A photograph slipped from between the pages of the letter and fell to
the floor. Nanji picked it up and saw the cause of Baliyanna's rage.
Appachu, the star son of Madaiah and in England studying for the bar
stood with his arm around a white woman. "He's married an English
whore!" cried Baliyanna. He grabbed the photograph, tore it to shreds
and threw it into the chamber pot that had served his father right
until his death. "Thu!"

Appachu had passed his law examination with honours and married one
Marjorie Hicks who was neither English, nor a whore. She was a fair
complexioned, unfortunately plain-looking Eurasian, the daughter of an
undertaker from Tooting Bec. In the same letter, Appachu conveyed the
tragic news that Machu, the other brother studying medicine at Charing
Cross Hospital in London had gone on a weekend spree to Torquay and
drowned while swimming.

Machu's death did not shock so much because death, when it is an
accident, is unavoidable. But one could certainly think before jumping
into marriage with a half-caste. "He could have got the loveliest of
Kodava girls for the asking!" Baliyanna shouted.

Appachu had further committed the unforgivable sin of disclosing both
catastrophes in one letter. Had the Rao Bahadur read it, he would have
had monumental reasons for suicide. His death now became a greater
misfortune because effect preceded the cause; the suicide remained a
futile act, without reasoned justification, which could have given it
some valour.

The family was branded by three distinct tragedies. People talked.
"There will be no escaping the anger of our ancestors." "Kodagu will
be punished."

The rains were held back that year. For months on end the river Kaveri
ran dry and when the rains finally came, it was time for Kailpodh when
Kodavas worship their weapons and too late for the paddy and coffee.
The drought affected the economy of Kodagu for several years, and the
burden of guilt was borne by the family of the Rao Bahadur.

World Health Day

I wrote an article in The Hindu for World Health Day, published on 11th April. Here's the link: April 11 2010: http://www.hindu.com/mag/2010/04/11/stories/2010041150200400.htm
I'd love to have your comments.

Kavery.
I think I forgot to give the link the previous time, sorry.

Love: It is Their Right

Two separate incidents in the last few weeks show up the tragic extremes of our intolerance: The endorsement of ‘honour killings’ in Haryana by some 36 Panchayats across the state; and the suspension and subsequent death of a Professor in AMU for being involved in a homosexual relationship.

What makes us fume over the private lives of others, particularly when they harms no one? A false sense of family honour is no reason for killing off young couples; the self-righteous reproach of another’s sexuality is no reason to target him or her in the public sphere, or anywhere else. Custom and traditon grace every society and every religion. They are important in bringing people together during festivities, devotional rituals, charity etc. They help strengthen our social fabric and ensure a continuation of certain artistic and other skills which are vital towards the betterment of humanity. But we err when we try to apply rules set thousands of years ago to a modern, multicultural, globalised generation. Fanaticism about caste, religion and custom are as virulent as that which leads to terrorism, and no less cruel. That the perpetrators of these ridiculous beliefs happen to belong to the so-called respectable society is more dangerous.

The world has enough sorrow resulting from the inequality between people, natural disasters and other calamities. Let us not burden it with more sorrow by interfering with the love lives of others. If two people can find love in this brutal world without harming another, what is my problem? Or yours?

I wish we could air our views and discuss such fanatic behavior, and if we find ourselves following stupid customs that are set in concrete, have the courage to change.

PS: Read Georgina Ford Maddox’s article on the subject of Homophobia in The Indian Express dated 15th April 2010.

World Health Day

Hi Folks,
If you're interested in the state of health care in our country and the world, read my article. I'll be very happy to have your views.

Still Want To Do It?

My father smoked for many years, my husband smokes (while advising
others not to) and some of my friends do it. I'm against smoking. With
some zillion dreadful diseases waiting to strike us, we don't need any
additional hazards. However, the anti-smoking campaign which has been
taken to near evangelical heights by our previous health minister
wanted, most of all, that our celebrity stars give it up. On screen.
What they did in real life did not matter. The subject of smoking and
the stubbornness of some of them to persist brings to mind this
comical account by Spike Milligan about his days in the British Army
as a lowly Lance Bombardier. Read on.

"One morning a chill of horror ran through the serried ranks. There in
Part Two Orders were the words: 'At 0600 hours the Battery will
asemble for a FIVE MILE RUN!'
Strong gunners fell fainting to the floor, some lay weeping on their
beds. FIVE MILES? That wasn't a run, that was deportation! On that
fateful dawn the duty bombardier bade us rise: 'Wakey, Wakey, Hands
off ----- on Socks.' ((fill in that word which rhymes with socks, if
you please.)

The defenders of England rose wraith-like from their blankets. All
silent, save those great lung-wracking coughs that follow early
morning cigarettes. The cough would start in silence; first there was
the great inhale, the smoke sucked deep down into the lungs, and held
there while the victim started what was to be an agonised body spasm.
The face would first turn sweaty lemon, the shoulders hunched, the
back humped like a Brahmin bull. The legs would bend while the hand
grabbed the thighs to support the coming convilsion.

The cough would start somewhere down in the shins, the eyes would be
screwed tight to prevent being jettisoned from the head, the mouth
gripped tight to preserve the teeth. Suddenly! From afar comes a
rumbling like a hundred Early Victorian Water Closets. Slowly the body
would start to tremble and the bones to rattle. The first things to
shake were the ankles, then up the shins travelled the shakes, and
next the knees would revolve and turn jelliform; from there up the
thighs to the stomach it came, now heading for the blackened lungs.
This was the stage when a sound like a three-ton garden roller being
pulled over corrugated iron was heard approaching the heaving chest.
Following this up the convulsed body was a colour pattern, from a
delicate green at the ankles to layers of pinks, blue, varicose purple
and sweaty red. As the cough rose up the inflated throat, the whole
six colours were pushed up into the victim's face. It had now reached
the inner mouth; the last line of defence, the cheeks, were blown out
the size of football bladders.

The climax was nigh! The whole body was now a purple shuddering mass!
After several mammoth attempts to contain the cough, the mouth would
finally explode open. Loose teeth would fly out, bits of breakfast,
and a terrible rasping noice filled the room. Aweeioussheiough!
Followed by a long, silent stream of spume-laden arir. On and on it
went until the whole body was drained of oxygen, the eyes were
popping, and veins like vines standing on the head which was now
'twixt kees . This atrophied pose held for seconds. Finally, with a
dying attempt, fresh air was sucked back into the body, just in time
to do it all over again. Bear in mind this was usually performed by
some sixty men all at the same time."

Cigarette anyone?

To doubt or not to doubt?

In my meagre take on Marginality, I asked that I be doubted and be allowed to doubt. That, some of you did rather well! I’m grateful that friendship affords this freedom for dialogue and combat.

Lisa Lau teaches at Keele University in Staffordshire and has a doctorate in Earth Sciences. She is also a serious literary critic who has, at different times, praised and criticised my work. She likes my piece on marginality but is surprised that I should use the term ‘marginalised’ for people like my husband and myself who chose to live away from the so-called privileged areas. You’re right, Lisa. We’re are not damaged by our marginality in any way; we have all the basic amenities, and more, and the ability to look after ourselves. We live on the margins but we are not marginalised.

I had letters too, about my comments regarding the minor tribes of Coorg. Some agreed that these tribes have been sidelined; others felt it is unfair to say that the Kodavas have exploited them. True, we have never been physically cruel. In fact the Kodavas (also known as the Coorgs) treat their workers with a lot of kindness. Many try to get Yerava children to go to school, give them free medicines when they’re sick and so on. But somewhere along the way, we have ignored their steady decline into drink and destitution. It is certainly not okay to sit back and say, “they love booze and ganja and are promiscuous,” or to call them “nature’s children” and then forget their plight.

The reason behind their unwillingness to assimilate our terms of progress really interests me. When I was in Coorg as a child and later when I visited, I used to be fascinated by some of their festivals when they go from home to home singing bawdy songs and dance, with lewd gestures thrown in. Although mothers urged their daughters not to show themselves at such times, we girls never felt disgusted or threatened. Such coarseness with its sexual allusions are common to all cultures at some time or the other. I find nothing wrong with it.

There are 18 tribal groups in Kodagu. It is not too late and reach out to all who belong to Kodagu and have as much claim to it as the Kodavas. When we begin to address the needs of the less fortunate among us and help them live in dignity, we will be strong in the real sense of the word.
Please don’t get me wrong. The Kodavas have a long tradition of being helpful to the underprivileged in their midst. We have a strong sense of community and belonging. Accepting that the other tribals are our own brothers and sisters is the best thing that could happen to us. We must become aware of our strengths and our faults and see what amends we can make. Only then can we defend our beautiful district from being ruined by those who only want quick ‘progress’ and quicker money and do not have any love for the land.

Upliftment of tribals is not easy. It certainly cannot be done through free handouts, food or a few scholarships. One needs to understand and empathise with their own unique culture, help them revive their customs, provide them with medical care and train them in vocational skills they are comfortable with. In July-August I will be working in a remote area of Tamil Nadu where a doctor couple have been working for the betterment of tribals in 70 villages. They started by addressing their health problems and then helped them develop farm collectives, handicrafts and other means of being self-sufficient.

A few days back a close friend from Coorg called up to say that there is a fresh and vigorous initiative to address the plight of the Yeravas. Wonderful news. I would be only too happy to offer my services as a doctor to help the disappearing tribal communities of Kodagu.

Scenes from a Tribal Hospial, Dharmapuri, Tamil Nadu.

Some more from the margins

Marginality is not always within our control. Certainly, for a large
section of people, it is not. Society has rendered them voiceless;
they are easy meat for exploitation. As a doctor and a writer, It is
my business to lend them a voice. Those who have marginalised
themselves out of choice can help those whom society has marginalised

Marginality is fluid, and in continuous flux. Its meaning will change
too, with the times. You could say that right now, in Indian politics,
Rahul Gandhi is the epicentre. Tomorrow he might find himself
marginalised, pushed to the periphery, like his grandmother was once,
after the Emergency. If the political climate decides the destiny of
certain people, then the financial status, cultural identity, caste or
race might decide the destiny of others.

Those of us who have escaped such marginalisation, are the lucky ones.

I come from a tribal community in south India. We are called Kodavas
from Kodagu which is also known by its British name, Coorg. We were
hunters and ancestor-worshippers and had no inkling of the Hindu gods
until the 17th century when neighbouring kingdoms invaded, built
temples and gradually Hinduised us. There are several tribal
communities in Kodagu but the one I belong to happens to be the
dominant tribe. In the last couple of centuries we have exploited the
other tribes, taken over every bit of land and more or less crushed
them. Some have no choice but to work on our land in order to survive.
Many face extinction.

I don't feel proud to say any of this. I only state it as a fact. One
of my novels, The Scent of Pepper deals with this issue. We have done
is exactly what the white Americans did to the Red Indians, what the
upper caste Hindus did to the lower castes.

From my position as a writer, I do not see literature as separate from
life. In literature too, marginality can be a strength or a curse. The
Second World War gave birth to a certain type of Jewish literature
which reminds us of the base levels to which human cruelty can
descend. In India, Dalit literature gave tongue to a huge section of
oppressed people. Until the 1970's, except for Mulk Raj Anand who
wrote feelingly about the cruel, oppressive force of the caste system,
there was little in Indian literature that highlighted the suffering
of Dalits to a larger public. The Marathi writer Namdeo Dasal came on
the scene, threw every rule in the literary cannon in the ditch and
wrote in a hurtfully original voice. It humbled the non-Dalits into
accepting the fact that true literature is not elitist, it is just
human.

Mahashweta Devi has spent a life-time writing about the plight of
tribals. In recent years there have been several gifted writers have
emerged from the North-East. We are able to read their work, thanks to
good translations.

Marginality, however, is a delicate issue. One can become obsessed
with one's vicitmhood and that is dangerous. Marginalised people
(feminists, gays, Dalits, minority religions, to name a few) will
serve their purpose better if they are open to criticism and deeper
analysis of their condition. They must be able to doubt their own
idelogy and reflect upon it from time to time. And political
correctness should not make others shy of being critical, when they
have to.
Internet has given tongue to many issues of marginality which until
recently were not known of widely. Internet can be a great platform
for debate and dialogue. But increasingly, one finds a great deal of
shrill argument that is prejudiced and often, hate-filled or
rhetorical.

I guess this too is essential, as a vent to supressed anger and
hatred. But if we are to move forward, our minds must learn to
separate the grain from the husk.

For me, the only way of doing this is to doubt myself. As a writer, I
want to retain my freedom to doubt myself, my beliefs, my victimhood.
I want to be able to doubt my heroes – the Gurus, Gods, Gandhis,
Ambedkars and the Obamas. And I want always to respect that freedom in
others.

Coming back to the literary conference and the several papers I
listened to, how worthwhile were they? Merit, especially in
literature, is vindicated by posterity. Marginal or otherwise, the job
of a writer is to write. The less I talk about it, the better.

*

.

Marginally Speaking

Vijay and I have just returned from a literary seminar in Aurgandabad
University. One of the incentives, besides the hope that we would be
learning something of value from the academics, was that Ellora and
Ajanta were nearby. We – foolishly – presumed that we could make some
time to zip off…

I'm dizzy with the knowledge I gained in three days of listening to
learned papers. As creative writers, we thought we would be excused
from making memorable speeches.

Some hope. The charming HOD of the English Department was insistent
that we both speak on the theme of the conference: "Reinventing
Marginality. A Multidisciplinary Approach to Literature."

My, my. Too late to decline the invitation, so I got to work. Here's the gist:

In my medical college years and then as a young doctor, I read very
little besides my medical books and journals. You could call it the
ten-year starvation that left me with severe malnutrition in literary
matters. In my own way, I have tried to make up for this deficiency.
But academics eludes me. Visiting a university is a learning
experience, every time.

Marginality can be looked at from different perspectives: One is the
marginalisation of those ignored by society and 'pushed' to the
periphery. The very poor, the uneducated, the Dalits and tribals have
repeatedly faced indifference and oppression. In a foreign country,
the uneducated immigrant is often marginalised, like the unemployed
blacks in London; in the US, the poor black communities and the
Hispanics.

In India, the need for survival impels such people to take up jobs
that provide for basics like food, clothing and shelter. So we have
rural folk migrating in droves to constructions sites, quarries and
road-works. The delicate filaments of their own culture and tradition
which are particularly important to them snap and disappear; they
forget their mother tongue, their folk songs, their gods, their
families. It is a tragic existence, the ultimate result of which is
millions of people who must lose everything that is precious in life
in order to fill their stomachs. It is cultural suicide that happens
every day before our eyes.

The periphery or the margin is nothing but the blind spot in the
collective eye of the powerful sections of society.

Humiliation and loss of dignity are the worst outcome of
marginalisation. Having been denied the opportunities for progress,
marginalised communities take a long while to catch up with the rest.
No society can be complacent until it has addressed their sufferings.

How about me?Then there are people like myself and my husband who
chose to live on the margins. As a doctor, after my surgical training,
I've worked in small towns and rural areas. It was a personal choice.
My husband and I are both writers and as writers, we do not wish to
live in cities, if we can help it. Our marginalisation is voluntary.
It offers us a ringside view of society and the absence of too many
distractions.

Artists and writers often tend to live on the periphery. The muse
seeks quiet in which to nurture imagination and creativity. However,
many writers are able to produce their masterpieces even while they
live in cities. Their creativity feeds off the constant interaction
with society.

Many writers, in recent times, have moved out of cities.This does not
mean that writers do not like the limelight. We do, we do. I like
being made a fuss, of but only once in a while – that is, once in
three or four years, when I have managed to write a book and it is due
for release. This brief moment of fame with book launches, readings,
interviews, reviews and the fan-mail is quite wonderful but it is also
exhausting. It takes away several months of my writing life and I can
never make up for it. I feel frustrated for having spent so much of my
energy, apparently, for publicity. But then, I know that once my work
has gone into the public domain, I have to put in some effort in order
to draw attention to it.

For a writer, it is a privilege to be invisible.

****

Books

This is in answer to queries from friends and readers about my novels. Of late, they are mostly unavailable in bookshops. This is a pity because all of them are in print and continue to sell. My publisher tells me that ever since the recession, bookshops have become wary of storing books that are not ‘red hot’ best-sellers. Many bookshops around the country are closing down and this is not due to decreasing readership but because on-line purchase has become easy and popular. My books are available on several sites. I’ve seen them on
www.penguinbooksindia.com
www.flipkart.com
www.amazon.com
It is cheaper to get them online sometimes. If you can ask your bookshop to get it for you, they often do.

 

The Children

 

 

I get a lot of queries about the Learning Centre and Libraries that we run – we meaning a group of friends who like doing this sort of thing. Some of us have been doing it in a small way for a long time. In 2006, we decided to form a Trust and get more systemmatic.

 

The Nalanda Learning Centre and Library Project (also called Nalanda Trust) started with the first centre here in Lonavla. Now we have eight centres in different parts of India and requests for more.

Education is indispensable in today's world. Unfortunately, it does not reach the children who desperately need it. This is mainly due to the unimaginative policies of governments, the ignorance of illiterate parents and the selfishness of  a society that does not care to think about the less fortunate.

 

Knowledge is wealth and power; knowledge is also the beginning of awareness, wisdom and sensitivity towards others. Widespread knowledge and true awareness that comes with it is the only way we can hope to save the world.

 

Basic education, like health, is the right of every individual.

 

 

How do we do what we do?

 

We believe that any average citizen can make a difference to the future of hundreds of children by providing an opportunity for learning.

Teaching the use of computers, English and vernacular speaking and reading skills, adult literacy, craft and vocational guidance are all part of the objectives of the Trust. Nalanda Trust now runs eight centres in different parts of India (Lonavla in Maharashtra, Hyderabad, Vrindaban in UP and Madras). In Hyderabad and Madras it reaches out to hundreds of children in the slums. In both places, we have tied up with other voluntary groups to achieve our goal. In Vrindaban, a library that has been set up in a school caters to 900 children. In Lonavla there is a learning centre and three libraries.

Each of our centres is supervised by our group and kept small and meaningful; every rupee spent goes towards benefitting some child. Nalanda Trust is a registered charity. Administrative costs are kept to the absolute minimum because of volunteers who give their time and experience for free. We plan to always keep the overheads to a minimum. We also recycle library books by transferring used books from one centre to another.

A total of 2500 children are currently being helped by Nalanda Trust.

Funds. We rely on friends and well-wishers who contribute in any modest way they can. They, and the children who attend our centres are our inspiration.

 

 

 

Aunty, Uncle or --

 

The other day, the daughter of a school friend asked if she could call me Kavery and not Aunty.

Wow! That's a change and I was thrilled. I'm called Aunty by all sorts of people – nurses, sales reps, shop assistants, beggars, house-helps, patients and of course my genuine nieces and nephews. It's really not just my vanity that makes me wince when a vegetable vendor tries to charm me into buying an extra bunch of palak with, "Lelo na Aunty, taaza hai." I just hate being Auntified. I put up a tough fight and resist being herded into this amorphous group which makes me feel like someone who leads a boring life and insists on offering unsolicited advice.

 

My worst (or should it be the best?) Aunty Moment came a few months after we came to Lonavla. Here, most of my patients are construction labour and they often turn up at home when it is an emergency. One night, someone rattled the front door and asked for 'Doctor Saab'. I let the portly, middle-aged woman and her two children come in. The kind woman addressed me as Auntyji, and I quickly told her not to. Moments later she addressed me as Uncle. No, no I said, I'm not Uncle. I'm a doctor. When I had dressed her daughter's leg wound, given her an injection and some medicines, they got up to leave.

 

"When should I bring her again….Mummy?" the lady asked, innocently.

 

Mummified!

 

I could clearly hear my husband chuckling upstairs.

Gooma…

 

Returning from a long journey, we stopped for breakfast at a run-down hotel in a small town on the Karnataka-Maharashtra border. It was a pleasant morning. Breakfast finished, my husband smoked a cigarette and we strolled in the rather spacious compound. On a low wall that bordered the garden sat three strikingly handsome cocks: one a wild mix of red, orange and greenish black; another a saffron yellow with a collar of furry gold; and the third a speckled black-and-white stunner with a velvety wattle. The birds knew they had admirers. Two of them flapped down to the ground and began to strut, like mannered fashion models and the third fellow set off a splendid round of music. It could have been the late morning warmth, or he might have had a ticklish throat: the crowing was all fun and falsetto.

 

As a young girl in our village, I used to hear the cocks crow early morning. It seemed wicked to even consider getting out of bed; so listening, I would sneak back into some bizarre dream until an unkind adult hand pulled back the blanket and got me up. Now that I live in a town, I hear the cocks so rarely; but I do hear them. In the darker, dingier bylanes of the congested town that is Lonavla, there is one family that rears the most wonderful country chickens. Some times, through the sound of traffic and the incessant noise of construction work, I hear him. Majestic, defiant and pure-throated, the bird seems to have adjusted to the aberrations of a bustling, small-town life. Here a cock can crow at noon and get away with it. Who listens, anyway?

 

We take something of our original selves, and our sins, everywhere we go.Early memories yield a reassuring and magical tapestry that is all yours and yours alone. Is it essential to care about such memories?

 

Six year ago we lived in the Annamalai hills of Tamil Nadu where I worked as a surgeon for a Tatas Group. One day I woke from a sort of feverish slumber and heard an owl. It was the unmistakeable, gentle ummmm-ummmm-ummmm of a variety of small-sized owls that lived high up in the thicket of bamboo near our house. From then on, every day, precisely at the same time, I would hear the bird.

 

 There are no owls to listen to in Lonavla. I miss them. In my childhood we had a wider, wilder variety of them. The most majestic I have seen was large and white – as large as a cock, with a four-foot wing span. It was dusk, with barely a few moments of fading light left in the sky. This big white creature flew out the dark branches of a tree and skimmed just above our heads before flying away in an alarming rustle of her feathers. 

 

Owls are said to hoot but that is just one variety of them and I've heard them too. You can track the course of the bird from the hoot, if you listen with some patience. I prefer the hum to the hoot though. Mmmmm…. In our Kodava dialect, we call the owl "Gooma." Just say "Gooma…" to yourself on a dark and lonely evening and you can conjure up ghosts, haunted castles and an old, toothless man with  a lantern coming for you.

 

"Wise as an owl" is a western perception. It is those remarkable rings round the eyes that give him a wise and spectacled look. But here, we perhaps look at the neckless head. "Ullu ho thum," is an Indian way calling one stupid.

 

 Wise, vulnerable, lonesome or scary, the owls are lovely birds. They are my favourite.

 

 

 

 

 

Fish soup, tea and cherry preserve anyone?

I’m not trying to foist a favourite dinner menu on readers. I like fish, tea and cherries – separately, at different moments but together….

In Brothers Karamazov, this is the menu suggested by Ivan Fydorovich to his younger brother Alyosha when they meet in a tavern. Alyosha eagerly agrees to the menu and seems to enjoy it too.

Every alphabetically literate person who opens the papers to the health section believes that tea is full of anti-oxidants that keep us forever young, cherries help fight cancer and fish provided the magical omega 3 fatty acids that lower cholestrol. In 19th century Russia, they ate it simply because they loved it.

My real reason for mentioning it is the chapter, “The Grand Inquisitor” in which it appears. The novel is one of those scintillating classics that’s to be read and re-read, for its sheer complexity of human characters. In this chapter the two brothers discuss religion. Ivan explains to Alyosha how Christianity has changed so much that Christ himself would be unwelcome on earth.

Sample this line: …”and we wil give them a quiet, humble happiness, the happiness of feeble creatures.” Or, this, when a Cardinal accuses Christ of “giving mankind what it does not want – freedom of choice. What it really wants is Miracle, Mystery and Authority.”

Eh?

A Day of Fun

Nalanda Learning Centre, Lonavla

A Working Day...

Nalanda Learning Centre, Lonavla.

Briefly...

 

 

 

A good friend whom I asked for advice about setting up a blog, told me that the best way is go for it and not spend too much time analysing the HOW.

 

The briefest of briefs to discribe me would be: "A Quack turned Hack." In today's world, where money dictates every profession, that is only a mild pejorative that close friends would use to describe a surgeon-cum-novelist. Right now I earn only from my words but continue to treat patients. Until a few years ago, it was the other way round. Please do not ask me which of my two pursuits is more important. I might say something foolish and then have to eat my words, which would be disastrous since I'm trying to make a living from those damn things.

 

I had a good childhood. Nothing special. Except that when I first made my appearance, in my mother's village home in Coorg, my father happened to be peeping through the window of the small dark room. He watched me 'Come Out'. I feel rather special when I think of it. In that small home lived two families with four parents and nineteen children, ten of them female. My mother was the oldest among the girls. The young father needed some pluck to take the risk of watching his daughter being born.

 

I grew up like any village girl. And being from Coorg (Kodavas or Coorgs and not Coorgis, please)  I was reared on a diet of wild meat, crabs, river fish, mushroom, bamboo shoots and the like; I went barefoot to the village school and generally had a merry time. My later years took me to Delhi and then to medical college in Bangalore. I did my higher training in UK and took the fellowship of the Royal College of Surgeons, London.

 

My surgical career has mainly been in rural India -- Bihar, UP, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka. For seven years I worked for Tata group of hospitals in the south, and won the Tata Excellence Award for my work in 2001. As a member of the Association of Rural Surgeons of India, I've been on their governing council from 2004 to 2007. I now help in editing their journal.

Alongside my fascinating and full-time profession, I started to write. Mainly fiction, first for children and then adults. (My doctor friends used to be a bit embarrassed:  "You write stories?")

 

 My latest work, The Story that must Not be Told  was shortlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2008. It will be published in July 2010 by Penguin India.

 

A quick list of my adult novels:

 

Most recent first.

The Hills of Angheri. Penguin India 2005: the story of a surgeon battling the conflicts between city and rural practice.

On Wings of Butterflies, Penguin India 2002: a feminist farce about the war between women and men

Mango-coloured Fish, Penguin India 1998: a young woman studies the marriages of those she knows while wondering about her own choice

Shortlisted for the Crossword Book Award, 1999

The Scent of Pepper, Penguin India 1996: the story of three generations of a martial community deeply influenced by British settlement

Reprinted in the UK by Penguin, 2001; translated into Malayalam 2002; will appear in a new, revised edition in July 2010.

The Truth (almost) about Bharat, Penguin India 1991: a medical student takes off on a wild motorcycle journey across India, meeting bandits, politicians – and doctors

Reissued by Penguin India 2002

In the 1980s I wrote a number of short stories, three picture-books and three full-length stories for children. The books were all published by Children's Book Trust, New Delhi. Two won CBT awards and one a UNICEF award; one story was serialised on the National TV channel.

 

 I also write for the media on a variety of medical issues but my first love is fiction.

 

I now devote more time to my writing. I run a medical centre for migrant workers in Tungarli, Lonavla. Along with my husband and some friends, I also run the Nalanda Learning Centre and Library Project. (www.nalandatrust.org)    

here I go

“Why did you cut your hair?” asked Rubina, disapproving.

I mumbled something about it being easy to manage but she wasn’t quite convinced. Thirteen-year-old Mayuri – the oldest among the girls who attend our informal Learning Centre – explained: “Sethlog like to cut their hair. They like to wear trousers and not saris…”

Sethlog refers to those of us who live in pucca houses and drive around in cars. I argued for myself: I wear saris for hospital work, and on formal occasions. When I finally managed to stem their queries, we began our class. It was their third lesson about our country and we had the map of India before us. We were well on our way, learning the names and locations of individual states, and I remembered my first question to the class when we started this Know My Country session.

“Who is the Prime Minister of India?”

Mehboob’s hand shot up. “Amitabh Bachchan!” Seeing the horror on my face, he tried “Shah Rukh Khan:”and then “Bal Thackeray” before giving up. Poonam, with her beautiful, all-teeth smile, said, “Veer Sarvarkar”. There were no more guesses.
It is nearly three years since I gave up my full-time job as a surgeon. At a time when I was really enjoying surgery and everything that goes with it, I opted to spend some years being an ordinary doctor. I see patients at home, I see them in a clinic and sometimes in their homes. Thanks to this madcap decision (so say some wise friends), I became close to the community of migrant workers who slog away at construction sites in the booming housing colonies of Lonavla in Maharashtra. The children who come to our learning centre are aged 4 to 14 years and are either from interior Maharashtra or north Karnataka. Their parents who can barely earn Rs 30 a day in their own arid villages, find the daily wages at the construction sites (Rs60 to Rs100 a day), hard to resist. Their children either stay back in the villages with grandparents or come with their parents. Some go to municipal schools but don’t progress beyond a few years. Reason? A lack of interest in studies, parental pressure to start earning or the physical and mental abuse piled on by the teachers.

“Basha, why did you drop out of school?”

“I wanted to earn money.”

“You can earn more if you finish school.”

The real reason, his mother tells me, is that he is reviled for being dark-skinned and ‘low caste’. Not only by other students but by the teachers. And what guarantee is there that he will get a better job after school? So twelve-year-old Basha does odd jobs like gardening, minding their pets or fetching provisions for the sethlog. Especially those who come only on weekends from Bombay and are willing to pay good money. As for learning, he has forgotten everything he once knew and cannot read a full sentence in Marathi.

So we decided to pitch in and start a learning centre and library. That was three years ago and was the beginning of the Nalanda Trust.

Here I go

I decided to start a blog to overcome the tedium of daily work. I've promised myself that I will write what I feel like, with no political correctness whatsoever (no censors-pensors will read this, I'm sure). I'll use the blog to say things that might make you furious or happy; it might make you laugh or scream or even weep. It is my way of making faces at my friends, the readers.
So beware!