Slice Girls

by Joan Arakkal

  Zachariah, the former Deputy Director of Education, was a mathematician who solved theorems for relaxation. His mathematical brilliance was not confined to paper. It translated into well-calculated masonry and carpentry and resulted in a unique house on a hill: the house that Zach built.

  He called it Manimangalam, which means ‘the house of bells’. Chimes rang out from the clappers scattered around the house and grounds. One hung around the neck of a weathercock that stood majestically on the gabled roof. Another dangled from the pulley that drew water from the well. It was at Manimangalam that many of his sixteen grandchildren watched the arrival of the annual monsoons in June, on school holidays from various parts of the globe. When the peals of the dinner gong sounded, we clambered onto our seats around the long dining table, eager to taste the food that appeared steaming from the wood fires of the kitchen, lovingly prepared under the supervision of my grandmother. It was a strange location to build a house – on the crest of a hill, far away from the neighbours. Every summer break, I would catch the train from Coimbatore and eight hours later alight at Kottayam station in Kerala, where my grandfather would be waiting eagerly to take me Manimangalam.

  Climbing 150 granite steps up through the rubber plantation to the house, my excitement about the days ahead could not be suppressed. The monsoonal rains with their thunderous clap pelted down in huge drops. Frangipanis, crotons and mangoes delighted my senses.

  When the days faded, the blackness of the night would swallow up the dusk, leaving glow-worms casting a bluish light against the impenetrable dark. The colourful crotons stood like dark sentries along the pathway that disappeared into the distance. No-one would approach the house at this hour, yet there was always the hope that the distant faint rumbling of a bus at the foothills might deliver an unexpected visitor. Perhaps he would carry a lit torch as he climbed the steps, watching out for the slithering occupants of the grasses around him.

  Mornings broke on the hill with the sounds of Voice of America and the smell of Cuban cigars wafting from the verandah. I would walk sleepily to where Chachan sat in an armchair, smoking his prized Havanas sent to him by his son who lived in America. He drank a cup of strong, sweetened, black coffee, made with beans I had helped pick, and listened to his radio, which was carefully tuned to avoid the static from across the distant lands. I sipped my light coffee and watched in awe as he solved mathematical theorems and played with geometry to entertain himself. When Paul Erdős said, ‘A mathematician is a device for turning coffee into theorems’, I believe he was referring to my grandfather. As I pored over the algebra, trigonometry, geometry and calculus textbooks that I had grudgingly brought along, Chachan guided and coached me.

  I loved my grandfather, and in his eyes, I could do no wrong. The first granddaughter occupies a unique place in the heart of grandfathers but when it came to mathematics, it was my younger brother, Abe, who won his approval. Certified by my grandfather as the most intelligent of his grandchildren, it was clear to everyone that Abe had inherited his genius. As for me, I struggled to find the love and passion for numbers that came so easily to them. Nevertheless, I soldiered on and tried to share in the enthusiasm of solved problems and QEDs.

  The days blended into nights, and nights into days, and the summers passed all too quickly. Soon it was time to board a train and head back to my parents and the beginning of a new school year.

  In later years, I chose to drop advanced maths so that I could focus more on the sciences that were necessary for entry into medical school. When I wrote to Chachan about my decision to forsake what he called the ‘language of the universe’, his disappointment was not masked. A blue inland letter arrived, carrying his regret and wry humour. His disappointment was expressed in biblical terms. Quoting Matthew, he wrote, ‘do not cast your pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet’. Knowing that my grandfather was a believer but not a zealot, I grunted under the weight of this oblique name-calling.

  Some years later, another letter arrived. This time, pasted on a handmade birthday card, was a cutting from Time magazine that read, ‘A star is born’. I had just graduated from medical school.

  Over the years, Chachan lost his mobility. There was little that neurologists could do to stop the unrelenting demyelination of his nerves. With the stoicism of a logician, he chose to embrace his limitations. Never moaning, he lived to be ninety-four – long enough to meet his great-grandchildren. My daughter occupied the same special place in his heart as I once did. Just before his death, when he was asked who he would most like to see, it was my three-year-old daughter he hankered for.

  Chachan also rested assured that the beauty he found in numbers was now seen by my brother. The elegance of mathematical solutions provides him with the same ineffable sublimity as it did my grandfather. Today, when I see Abe sit in his inherited armchair, working on his mathematical solutions, I remember Chachan’s contented smile. I can almost smell the cigars from all those years ago.

  DAYS OF INNOCENCE

  My first primary school was set up in a sprawling building of the air force facility on the edge of a jungle. In the mornings, we gathered at the bus stop in neatly ironed blue-and-white uniforms and shiny black shoes that we had polished with military efficiency. Standing under the shade of the jamun tree, sucking on its tart berries, we hoped that we would get to ride in the air force truck instead of the humdrum school bus. On a good day, we climbed into the khaki canvas–covered trucks, some of the taller students lending a hand to the younger ones to hop into the vehicle. The adventure had begun for the day. Half an hour later, we jumped off the truck on to the firm grounds of the school. Anticipation was always mingled with trepidation when we greeted the teachers. We looked forward to the games period and lunch breaks and wished away the regular tests and boring social studies periods that covered history, geography and civics.

  A loud, much-welcomed gong marked the end of morning classes. Shoving aside our books, we ran to meet the dabbawalas who were waiting under a tree with our lunchboxes. Lovingly packed into the many-tiered steel tiffin carriers were warm rice, curries and rotis and, on special days, dessert. My friends and I sat in a circle and undid the latch of the tiffin boxes, and the smells of eight Indian states wafted through the air. We passed around the lids of our containers to receive morsels from the stoves of different kitchens. I first tasted the flavours of Punjab from Neeni, my Sikh friend. My Tamil friend, Jaggu, introduced me to the calming pleasures of curd rice. The taste of Sara’s kesari (sweet semolina loaded with ghee) tantalises me to this day. We chatted, giggled and exchanged stories as we munched away.

  Our window into the Western world was Enid Blyton. Her books about the Famous Five and Secret Seven captured our imagination. As we entered middle school, we bonded further under the title of the Exciting Eight – it was the best our thirteen-year-old minds could do to emulate our favourite author. As we ate our spiced lunches from all around India, we longed to taste her seemingly exotic picnic lunches of boiled eggs, lemonade and potted meat sandwiches. When we finished, we returned our tiffin carriers in their cloth bags back to the dabbawalas, waiting patiently under the tree. The unnamed bags would unfailingly weave their way back to the right homes – a mystery that remains unsolved more than a century after the system started.

  After lunch, we ran into the forbidden bushes to find the wild berries and raw mangoes that grew along the edge of the school campus. The bell always came sooner than expected and we scrambled to our wooden desks with berry-stained fingers to resume afternoon classes. Our cotton uniforms were crumpled and dusty and our once-neat braids tied with red ribbons were tousled from hanging upside-down with our knees locked around a tree branch. Reluctantly, we settled in for the remaining few hours of compulsory learning, eagerly awaiting the last bell of the day.

  My childhood friends all spoke different languages in their homes and worshipped different gods. Our mothers draped their six-metre saris in distinctive styles – their pallus hung
on the left and sometimes on the right, some went across the shoulder from the front and some came from behind. The pleats around the waist could be few, many, or none at all. The differences sat easily on our young eyes and we loved our mothers and the elegant saris that helped us understand their origins.

  Sweetmeats appeared on the days of different religious festivities. I took cakes and the quintessential Kerala achappams (crispy waffles shaped like multi-layered flowers) for Easter and Christmas. Shaheeda brought phirni (creamy rice pudding) and sheer khurma (vermicelli and dates in milk) during the holy season of Ramadan. On Guru Nanak’s birthday, Neena treated us to kaju barfi (cashew nut fudge) and malai ladoo which was a labour of love – her mother had spent hours concentrating milk to make the sweetened dessert. We couldn’t wait for the Diwali celebrations, when we ran between homes with their doors thrown open and verandahs lined with flickering oil lamps and ate ourselves silly on sweet and savoury delicacies until the gods came home.

  We all prayed to a different god, and that was not an obstacle in our young world. A framework of spiritual and ethical belief was woven effortlessly into our lives.

  The benevolent face of Jesus Christ smiled down at me from a picture above my bed. Every night I would doze off asking Him to bless my family, bring world peace and stave off bad dreams. I even bartered my good behaviour for high marks on my next class test. One day, my classmate lovingly gifted me a picture of her god – Krishna. I brought it home and hung it on a nail next to Jesus. I didn’t see anything amiss about the blue god with a peacock feather in his crown and a flute in his hand resting effortlessly besides a brown, bearded man with a thorny crown pointing to a bleeding heart on top of his robe. My parents smiled at me as I lovingly made a floral offering, first to ‘Krishna God’ and then to ‘Jesus God’.

  As I entered my teens, I often pondered over practices that seemed at odds with what was preached. I also experienced the infamous Catholic guilt for this questioning and found myself on my knees in church pleading to be bestowed with faith. The incongruity of that was not lost on me.

  The secular schools I attended were established for the children of defence personnel. The curriculum followed in all the schools for children of government employees, known as Kendriya Vidyalayas, allowed families to be moved around the country without disrupting students. The stringent selection of teachers into these institutions ensured high standards. My brother and I were beneficiaries of a values-based education imparted by dedicated, high-calibre teachers.

  Each day, our education began at the morning assembly for teachers and students. We stood in orderly rows and recited the mantra of peace from the Upanishads.

  Asatho-ma sadgamaya

  Tamaso ma jyotir gamaya

  Mrithyo maa amritam gamaya

  Om Shanti Shanti Shantihi.

  From ignorance lead me to truth

  From darkness, lead me to light

  From death lead me to immortality

  Om peace, peace, peace.

  When I was in high school, my father was posted to Coimbatore. The principal, Mr Shanmugam, was a Fulbright scholar. His stern but kind face, with vibuthi – the sacred ash symbolising purity and the almighty power of God – drawn across his forehead, looked on at the assemblage of boys and girls. After the invocation, a short discourse was delivered by a student. Valuable insights were gained by references to the works of Gandhi, Tolstoy, Rabindranath Tagore, Voltaire, Vivekananda and other great minds, delivered in bite-size portions by students who had carefully rehearsed their piece with their housemasters the previous day.

  On the week of Gandhi’s birthday, my brother delivered a discourse on Gandhi. His housemaster did not vet his speech, as Abe was known to be a good orator. First, the assembly sang ‘Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram’, a Hindu devotional song popularised by Gandhi. Mr Shanmugam then spoke at length about the Great Soul, his saint-like qualities, his practice of ahimsa and the nonviolence movement that brought freedom to India. He finished by quoting Einstein: ‘Generations to come, it may well be, will scarce believe that such a man as this one ever in flesh and blood walked upon this earth.’

  It was now Abe’s turn to speak. It quickly became clear that he had a different view of Gandhi’s part in the freedom struggle. He highlighted Gandhi’s role in championing the British war efforts during World War I and criticised his role in the partitioning of India. You could have heard the proverbial pin drop when he ended with a salute to Nathuram Godse, the man who assassinated Gandhi in 1948. The students dispersed to their classrooms in a confused and excited babble and the distressed principal and teachers informed my father of Abe’s transgression. I wondered what punishment would be meted out to him that evening.

  Imagine my surprise when I heard my father say, ‘It is okay to hold different views, but you should pick the right forum in which to express them.’ My brother made an apology at the school assembly the next day. He expressed regret that he had made that speech in that assembly. If the teachers noted his regret was only for the platform chosen for the delivery, rather than its content, they let it pass. The enlightened and intellectually liberal upbringing of my father complemented the education we received at school.

  During my school years, discipline was enforced alongside valuable life lessons. I learnt the folly of attacking an opponent in a debate when I was disqualified from an interschool competition for making a personal reference to a student instead of critiquing his argument. My humiliation was complete when Mr Shanmugam announced to the school assembly that ‘Joan kicked the player instead of the ball’ and lost the trophy for the school.

  We were taught the tenets of all religions, with none exalted or derided. We took it all in our stride: Buddhists walked the middle path, Jains covered their mouth and nose so they did not breathe in creatures, Hindus respected and worshipped the cow, Zoroastrians left their dead to be devoured by vultures, Christians thought Good Friday was a bad day, Mohammedans fasted rigidly during the Ramadan, and Jews kissed their holy book and rocked back and forth when they prayed. At our leaving ceremony, we were presented with a tiny lamp that symbolised the light we were to carry with us into the world along with miniature copies of the Gita, the Bible and the Koran. This was the foundation of my respect for all religions.

  WHEN I GROW UP

  When I was twelve years old, a trip to the cinemas was a rare event. The movies were carefully vetted before the treat was declared and our anticipation built as we crossed off the days on a calendar on the kitchen wall. When the day arrived, Abe and I were dressed and ready long before it was time to leave. We wanted to reach the movie hall in time to watch the trailers and the commercials that sold dreams and fantasies. We settled into the magical chairs that adjusted themselves to take our small frames. As the darkness descended, we were swallowed up by the screen. We felt the fizz tickle our noses and tasted the thunder of cola in the Coca-Cola commercial, and watched in awe as the beautiful Madhubala and Hema Malini soaped their flawless skin with Lux bars. I felt assured that I would grow tall, because the Complan girl said so.

  When the black-and-white movie Boot Polish finally started, we were ready to embrace Belu and Bhola, the orphaned brother and sister. We cried when their aunt forced them to beg on the streets. The Dickensian plight of the children was made slightly bearable by the presence of the kind bootlegger, John Chacha, who was everything that Oliver Twist’s Fagin was not. Munching on salty peanuts that my father had bought in paper cones from the seller who weaved his way between the pews, we laughed and rejoiced when Belu and Bhola played and danced lightly on their feet. Two hours later, when we left the movie hall, we rested easy knowing that the brother and sister had been happily reunited in the bosom of their adopted family.

  On the bus that was taking us home, I settled into a vacant seat next to a man holding a bag loaded with office files. I held the metal bar of the seat in front of me to avoid being thrown off every time the wheels hit a pothole. My head reverberated with the bootlegger’
s song, ‘Nanhe Munne Bachche Teri Mutthi Mein Kya Hai’, asking the waifs on the streets what they held in their fists. The deeper meaning of their reply – that their fists held their destiny – was unclear to me. Starving children on the streets did not have happy endings like the ones we had just seen on the screen. But we could dream. Dream of days when all children had a chance to break away from the shackles of poverty and live a dignified life.

  I looked out the window and saw a girl not much older than Belu. I noted with fascination that her black hair was streaked with brown. Back then, I didn’t know about kwashiorkor or the ‘flag sign’ that heralds malnutrition. Her unkempt hair flowing onto her emaciated face was a time line. The streaks in her hair indicated the times when she was properly nourished and the times when her body was deprived of protein and vitamins. I felt a stirring of guilt when I thought of the warm dinner waiting for me at home. Moving his files aside to give me more room, the man next to me broke my reverie. He asked me, as adults often do in their conversations with children, ‘What would you like to be when you grow up?’

  No-one had ever asked me that before, but I was ready with a reply.

  ‘A doctor.’

  My carefree childhood was filled with friends, holidays and picnics. But through it all there was a strong desire to excel at school. My father taught us that a good education was the passport to the world. He gifted my brother an atlas in which he wrote ‘note the troubled spots’. Abe would spend hours poring over it with wide-eyed fascination. We gobbled up languages, neatly copied out pages and pages of editorials from The Hindu newspaper, underlining difficult words like ‘perjury’ and ‘prerogative’ and discussing them with my father when he returned from work. A quiz followed the evaluation of our handwriting and vocabulary. Public speaking and debating were encouraged at school and at home. My mother often wrote our speeches and my father made us rehearse them. We all rejoiced and shared in the trophies that came our way.