One Hundred Shades of White

by Preethi Nair

  Other times, the neighbours came with their elderly parents and their children who also finished off all of the food, every crumb, so even the red ants had nothing to fight over. Occasionally, a vada would unwittingly fall out of someone’s pocket as they said their goodbyes and made their way back home. At that moment, every conceivable life form made its way towards the food but normally Tikko got it first. The crows would screech with disappointment and attempt their fourth or fifth assault on the rice that lay in the sun but Aya was too quick for them and she waved them away with her palm switch. The polecat looked disappointed and took her eye from the crows and moved swiftly onto the chickens, just in case one of them escaped from the coop. Often, the polecat had to settle for a lazy lizard that couldn’t be bothered to move quickly enough in the hot sun and if this was the case, the polecat gobbled him up. Ammamma said you had to always be observant, even with nature, because predators were always about, waiting for an opportunity to descend on the vulnerable. She reminded me about the predator every time we went out of the enclave and as the only time we did this was when we went to the beach, I took the predator to mean the sea.

  It was a long ride to the beach on a bumpy rickshaw. Ammamma shouted at the driver to avoid the potholes but he never took any notice and so we bounced up and down on the seat. On the way there we saw lots of rickshaws and taxis lined up like an army of yellowback beetles who had suddenly escaped from wherever they were trapped. It was like a race for them all to be first to get to where they were going and they left behind trails of smoke. Once we were at the beach, Ammamma would run into the waves and urge me to follow, but I was scared, the sea was a predator after all, so I dipped my toes in whilst she ran in with all her clothes on. We then sat together on the rocks to wait for her clothes to dry. ‘The sea has many answers, Mol, just sit and listen to it and it will bring back the pace.’ She described ‘the pace’ as a universal pulse. If you felt the pace, you could see the signs but the difficulty wasn’t really in seeing the signs but interpreting them. ‘Feel it, Mol, breathe it, listen to the waves and you’ll hear all the answers.’ The only answer I wanted to hear was her say yes to the balloon seller who often came up to us as we sat there. I was desperate for her to buy me one of his long balloons that he had twisted into an animal shape, but she never did. Other children rallied around him, fascinated by the shapes he had twisted, but knowing they could never have one, not unless he gave them away and this was highly unlikely. Ammamma said that they didn’t have Achans or Ammas who could buy one for them and that is why they looked sad and scruffy. ‘But we can do things for them, we can make them feel that someone is listening to their prayers and that magic exists,’ she said. So every time we went, we buried rupees and paisas along the beach. ‘All anyone needs is a little hope so that they are able to trust, and from trust, amazing things can happen,’ she informed me as we dug the money into the sand. What we did on the beach was our secret and I wasn’t allowed to tell anyone that, not even Achan when he came back, or, she said, she would be upset.

  Ammamma hardly ever got upset and she only shouted at us once when Satchin and I kicked over the mountain of colourful spices that she had left out to dry. It went everywhere, staining the white walls with bright yellows, oranges, reds and browns. Nobody could clean it off, not even the dhobi, but that was hardly surprising as Ammamma said she wasn’t very good at removing stains. She said she was sorry she shouted at us but it wasn’t because of the mess we had made, but the lack of respect we showed for the spices. ‘You have to treat them with respect because they can do magical things,’ she explained. We didn’t see what magical things they did but we said we were sorry and that we would help Amin whitewash the walls. Ammamma said that we had done enough. The walls would have been whitewashed the next day had the postman not arrived with a telegram.

  Amma tipped the postman, took the telegram and said that it was from England. Ammamma looked nervously at her.

  ‘He wants us to go and join him there as soon as we can,’ she said to Ammamma sadly. ‘It will only be for a short while, a year. He says he desperately misses the children and me. I am also to sell the house as soon as I can.’

  Ammamma nodded.

  ‘Ma, I don’t want to go to England. If we have to go, you’ll come with us, won’t you?’

  Ammamma didn’t say anything.

  ‘Come, we need you, the children need you,’ she pleaded.

  Ammamma looked at her, looked down at me, and then back at her.

  ‘He’s left a number to call him. I’ll sort it all out and arrange it, Ma, you’ll see.’

  I ran to find Satchin to tell him that we were going to England to be with our Achan. He was helping Amin collect coconuts and dumped the basket on the floor, running to find Amma. ‘Is it true, Amma? Is it true that we are going to England on an aeroplane? Is it?’

  ‘Yes, Monu,’ she said, but she looked very disappointed.

  That is how I remember it. The telegram came and then time went at an exaggerated pace, like the hour hand decided to become the second hand so that it could make up for the things we had missed with Achan. Amma frantically began to sell the furniture and found the servants other positions in the town. Our dog Tikko sensed the chaos and left home so he didn’t have to say goodbye. Sellers were turned away as they came to the gates, all were told that we were moving and all looked devastated. I don’t know if this was because we were their best customers or because they knew something that we didn’t.

  The whole move to England was explained to us as if we were going on a big adventure and we would return from our expedition shortly. The way Ammamma got herself into the habit of packing me with old wives’ tales, cramming me with every conceivable detail, told me she knew what the sellers did. There was something else that was happening and I was unaware of it, but she listened, listened to the pace and the signs.

  It was the month of June, the time when the wild musician took over the skies and began jamming, hitting his drums with such strength that the rains fell harder than ever, flooding people’s dreams. The workers abandoned their fields, shaking their heads; beautiful flower blossoms fell, drenched by the weight of the water, and their petals were washed into murky puddles that splashed everywhere; ugly furry caterpillars, red and black centipedes crawled out of the ground; food became inedible and schoolchildren ran as fast as they could to avoid the night fever, arriving home with soaking books to a beating because there was no money to be so careless.

  Ammamma, interpreting the signs, went to consult the astrologer. When the rain did not subside as all had hoped, her visits to the astrologer became even more frequent and she took me with her, as if to verify that the child he spoke about was the right one. They got into this shell-throwing routine. He would mumble a prayer and throw three shells across a board. Ammamma would look up at him, he would talk to the shells and then shake his head or ruffle his beard, at which point she would try not to look upset or cry. We followed this routine twice a week, always with the same outcome.

  On one of our trips, we stopped off at the beach, yet Ammamma didn’t run into the sea but instead sat on the side.

  ‘Mol, promise me you’ll try to remember this, all of this, the place you are from when you are older, not just the place but the pace. You won’t forget the language, the smells, colours, the people, will you, Mol? Don’t ever forget where you’re from.’

  What was she talking about? I wouldn’t forget in one year; Achan went away for a year and I never forgot him. I would remember her every day for that year because Amma said that a year wasn’t really a long time. The balloon seller stopped and instead of waving him away, she asked me to pick two, one for me and one for Satchin. I was elated and chose a blue one that looked like a dog for Satchin and a pink one that looked like a bird for me. As we rode back, she told me that it would be hard to say goodbye, that I should try not to cry because crying would indicate that the person wasn’t coming back and that was not the case as she would be wi
th me always. ‘Mol, sometimes when you have to say goodbye it will feel like there is a monsoon inside. When it feels like this, breathe.’

  ‘Amma says that a year is not such a long time,’ I said to Ammamma.

  ‘It’s not so long, Mol,’ she replied.

  Little by little, the house was emptied of our possessions until all that remained were three suitcases packed with our worldly goods, tied with string. The patter of raindrops echoed throughout the empty house. Ammamma stood at the gates, waving her young family off. Amma would not let go of her, drenched in a pink sari and with wet hair, rain running down her face. Ammamma kept looking over at us both seated in the car and mumbled, ‘The children, the children, you just take care of the children.’ And then she pulled out a little bronze figure from the pocket of her mundu and gave it to Amma.

  ‘We’ll see you soon, Ammamma,’ Satchin shouted.

  I was sitting in the car, trying desperately not to cry, thinking how was it possible to have the monsoon drummer inside and not let it show. I breathed and tried not to look at her.

  ‘Yes, Monu, look after your Amma and be good for her. Bye, Mol.’

  I said nothing. I wish I had taken one last look at her.

  We arrived in England on my fourth birthday.

  I thought my father would be waiting for us on the other side with a big gift, but he sent a driver to come and get us. We pulled into the Hilton on Park Lane. It was cold for me, despite being the end of August. Amma took a big yellow cardigan out of her bag and wrapped it around me whilst Satchin had his nose stuck out of the window, mesmerised by the different types of cars. I didn’t feel that way because that was day one of remembering my Ammamma. Although it was just the first day, I felt sad, so I looked down at the floor and occasionally I looked out of the window. The only way I can describe our arrival was that it was like being taken from bright Technicolor into a silent black and white film. No rickshaw noise or horns or buffaloes or cows crowding the street, blocking traffic, no grasshoppers or croaking toad lullaby or screeching chickens, just a mute, inoffensive calm.

  Half asleep, we waited in the lobby for my father. He arrived a few hours later in an immaculate dark blue suit and a big smile and Amma woke us up, telling us that that he was there. Satchin and I went running over to him and I asked him what he had got us. He laughed, squeezing me tightly, hoisting both of us up, and then he went over to kiss Amma. Her lower lip began to tremble and she looked as if she was going to cry, but she smiled and looked at my father saying, ‘You know it’s Maya’s birthday today. We have to celebrate.’ The driver came back later with a Dundee cake and a rag doll that he said my father had left behind in his excitement. ‘She’s called Jemima, Mol,’ he said, giving her to me. What kind of a strange name was that? ‘Jemina,’ I repeated.

  ‘Jemima,’ he said, making a face.

  I made the same face.

  ‘Oh, my funny little Mol,’ he laughed. ‘You will like England.’

  If he said that I would like England, then I knew I would like England.

  We sat and played in the lobby and then I was taken off by a deep, deep sleep.

  The next thing I knew I woke up in a strange bed with lilac sheets and I was surrounded by beautiful lilac walls with balloons painted on them. Amma must have told him that I loved balloons and so he did that for me. That’s how I would say I woke up to my new life in England; happy, in a new, big five-bedroomed house in South London. I went to investigate all the devices and wandered into the bathroom. We didn’t really have a bathroom as such in India; Aya brought the hot water to us on the veranda, so the glistening silver taps intrigued me. I turned them and water came gushing out. It startled me so that I fell back, tumbled onto soft green carpets, and then hastily retreated. Then I saw him, my brother, in his room in a peculiar two-bedded house with a ladder. I climbed the stairs to meet him at the top. He was still asleep and so I shook him to wake him up but in one of his strange moments of fright, he rolled over, falling from a great height and crashing to the floor, making the sound of the dhobi’s wet clothes hitting the wall.

  Amma came running in and found her son’s body under a blanket. She began crying, ‘Monu, Monu, are you all right?’

  He was still for longer than he needed to be, making sure he had her full attention, and then he began to stir slowly back to life. She was kissing him on his forehead and checking if he was okay. He looked fine from where I was sitting – the body occasionally needs a good shake up. Then he began to moan, just a droning type of a sound, managing the word ‘Maya’. Her eyes widened as she plucked me off the top of the bed and she was about to shout at me when my father walked in and rescued me from whatever fate she had planned. ‘It’s just children playing, Nalini, no need to get upset,’ he said reassuringly. I was so happy to have him back and was taken into those arms with that familiar rocking motion. Amma made a big fuss over Satchin, which seemed to greatly ease the pain. Both of us looked at each other, with our respective parent on side, and drew the battle-lines. Within a few hours he had made a miraculous recovery, vowing some kind of pay back.

  Later that day, Achan took us shopping. We went to a huge department store and he asked Amma to pick clothes for us for our new school and buy us anything else we needed. She didn’t know what to do so Achan called over a shop assistant and asked her to bring garments in our sizes. Then he turned to Amma and asked her to buy some English clothes for herself but she shook her head and wrapped her shawl tightly around her. He asked the shop assistant to get some clothes for Amma too and the shop assistant said something to her that she couldn’t understand. ‘She wants you to try them for size, Nalini.’ But Amma refused. Achan bought her the clothes anyway. He bought lots of things for all of us and then he took us to eat.

  Amma looked distressed when we went into a restaurant and Achan ordered hamburgers for us. Up until then we had never eaten red meat but Achan said it was important to try new things. Whilst we waited, the waitress came and brought us a colouring book and crayons. This never happened in India; I couldn’t imagine Aya bringing us our slate and chalks before we ate. Then the burgers came and they had flags made from cocktail sticks on top of them and came with something called chips and ketchup. It was an amazing taste and Satchin and I looked at each other chomping into our food and drinking cola. I don’t think Amma was that hungry because she left hers.

  That week Achan had a holiday and he did lots of things with us. We played in a big park, we went to a place called the cinema, we watched television and he let us do anything we wanted. Then he had to go to work and Amma prepared us to go to school.

  ‘Do we have to go to school?’ I moaned. Satchin went to school in India and never once did I envy him. The only part that I thought was fun was when Amin took him and collected him in a rickshaw. Satchin came home with a heavy satchel, his slate and lots and lots of things to memorise. He could recite everything about the Mogul empire by the time he was six.

  ‘Yes, Maya, you’ll enjoy it,’ Amma said, greasing my hair with coconut oil. I subsequently learnt that greasing is not the best technique in England to keep hair healthy and clean, in fact it was the opposite. There was a thing called shampooing but Amma didn’t know that back then. She also packed us off with moist sandalwood, bright red stains on our foreheads because we had just said our prayers, and a tiffin carrier each with our lunch in. Thank God we didn’t understand a word the other children said to us that first day.

  Achan sent a driver and a lady from his office to take us to school and Amma came with us. My class had a lovely, white, round teacher called Miss Davies. They were making crocodiles and snakes from egg boxes when I walked in. Miss Davies stopped all the other children, said something to them, and then they looked at me strangely. Someone pointed at my forehead. Miss Davies said something else to them and then they clapped. All of them were eager for me to sit next to them and I sat next to a girl called Catherine Hunter. Miss Davies handed me a paintbrush to paint the snake she had str
ung together with parts of the egg box. I wanted to tell them all that Amin had once caught a real snake that had made its way into the house and then he put it into a bag and Satchin and I weren’t really frightened, but I couldn’t say any of it. Miss Davies smiled at me and I smiled back.

  ‘How was it?’ Amma asked when we got home.

  ‘Miss Davies is warm and cuddly and is nice to me, she sat with me at lunchtime, to make sure that I ate properly. She helped me undo all the tiffin carrier tins and then, Amma, all the other children looked at me when I ate with my hands. Miss Davies then taught me how to use a knife and fork.’

  She shook her head at the knife and fork part. ‘And the other children, were they good to you?’

  I told her that I played with a girl called Catherine and I remembered how to say her name because it sounded like ‘Kathi’, our surname, but I don’t think I said it correctly as she kept repeating her name. Everyone else was nice but then our company school, along with our company house and car, was very accommodating and all the other children were told to go out of their way to make us feel welcome. Then Amma asked what we had done that day and playing with the cows and chickens seemed so far removed from finger painting and crocodile egg boxes that I thought it might be too difficult to explain. So we both said that we learnt some new words in English like ‘Hello’ and ‘Thank you’ and Amma looked satisfied.

  The only time Amma ventured out was when she had to occasionally take and collect us from school. This was if my Achan needed the chauffeur and, even then, she would grip tightly onto our hands, more out of a fear that we would run and leave her stranded in the middle of the road than to show us the way to school. She didn’t even go shopping. Groceries and things like spices and other ingredients, which weren’t readily available, were delivered to our house every Thursday by a man named Tom. Achan had arranged this as Amma liked to cook. It was the only thing she really loved to do. She could have done other things, like play tennis with Catherine Hunter’s mother, and I suggested it, but she didn’t want to. In any case, Amma only spoke a few jumbled phrases in English so she wouldn’t have understood the scoring system and she wouldn’t have worn the white outfit. Amma didn’t want to learn English either, as she secretly willed that we would be going home soon and her taking English classes would somehow indicate to whoever was listening out there that this would not be the case. So she spent her time cooking with the ingredients Tom brought.