IF YOU LOOK FOR ME, I AM NOT HERE

By Sara Srivatsa

When Malika loses her longed for daughter at birth, it is not the only loss in the family: the surviving twin - a boy - loses the love of his mother. He grows up needing to be the daughter his mother wants. This is a moving family portrait, richly coloured by the vibrant culture and landscape of India, where history, religion and gender collide in a family scarred by the past and struggling with the present.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bluemoose Books
• Release date: Jan 28, 2016
• ISBN: 9781910422151

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If you look for me, I am not here

Sarayu Srivatsa

Imprint

Copyright © Sarayu Ahuja (Srivatsa) 2016

First published in 2016 by

Bluemoose Books Ltd

25 Sackville Street

Hebden Bridge

West Yorkshire

HX7 7DJ

www.bluemoosebooks.com

All rights reserved

Unauthorised duplication contravenes existing laws

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

Hardback ISBN 978-1-910422-13-7

Paperback ISBN 978-1-910422-14-4

Printed and bound in the UK by Short Run Press

Dedication

for Rosa Maia

-

If you look for me, I am not here.My writings will tell you where I am.... they point out my life like Lines drawn in the map of my palms.

From Babur Dom Moraes

-

It was the hottest summer since the English left the country. The silkcotton trees burst their pods before their time and tiny parachutes of silk sailed in the wind, scattering colonies of seeds all over the red soil. The burning sun lay on the crops, roasting them crisp, sucking all the moisture out of them. The wind howled in pain and, when it could suffer the heat no more, it abducted straying rain clouds and steered them towards Machilipatnam.

The tar road outside Machilipatnam Railway Station had melted in the heat; inside, cobwebs of dust had settled everywhere. The platform was bright with noise and activity: vendors tinkled trays of cold drinks; a radio warbled a popular tune; children waved at passing trains; a woman vomited; unwashed young men with bloodshot eyes watched pigeons defecate in the trusses, and Swami, the crippled boy, crouched beneath the statue of an Englishman, George Gibbs (1814–1862). Although a hundred years old now, the bronze figure gleamed in the morning light. Swami sat up and spat out at the statue: Motherfucker. Fucking bastard.

On a bench nearby were Patti and Amma, waiting. Their train to Madras was two hours late. The smell of refried snacks, sweaty feet, vomit, and ammonia clung to the air. Amma was irritable and nauseous, but it was not entirely because of the offensive smells or the indefinite wait: she was pregnant.

Patti was uneasy. Her silk saree was the colour of worry: a nagging dull brown. Chandan dotted her forehead and an ashline underlined the dried blob. She smelled of sandalwood, incense and deep disquiet. She rummaged in her handbag and fished out a framed photograph of Lord Shiva, touched it to each eye, touch-touch, and mumbled a prayer.

Just then a group of hijras entered the platform, clapping their hands to announce their presence. Besides the noise they made, the way they were dressed drew people’s eyes to them: gaudy nylex sarees, kohl round their eyes, flowers in their hair, night-old stubble clouding their chins bluegreen. Sweetie-Cutie, the youngest of them, approached Patti and Amma. She was no more than twenty-one. Her bloodred saree had silver sequins on it. She had coiled her hair at the top of her head, and to one side was fixed a red rose. Her face was heartshaped, with a broad forehead and angular cheekbones. Her thin, flat lips smiled redly at Amma, who covered her face with her hands like a child.

‘Don’t hide your face,’ Sweetie-Cutie said to her, ‘you are fortunate to be so beautiful.’

Amma was beautiful. Her skin was the colour of cashew, her eyes the purple of aubergine, and her glossy black hair tumbled to her knees. She smelled sweetly of jasmine. Two diamond studs shone on the sides of her nose like clots of pure mercury.

Sweetie-Cutie caressed Amma’s cheek. ‘Give me a smile, my love. That’s all I ask from you.’ Then she turned to Patti. ‘Spare some money, ma and I’ll bless you with a grandson.’

Patti joined her hands together, dismissing Sweetie-Cutie with stubborn silence and staring adamantly at the rails. Luckily for her, the train to Madras arrived just then and people scrambled to board it, followed by coolies carrying tiers of luggage on their heads. Patti grabbed Amma’s hand and rushed toward their compartment. They found their berths and tucked their bags underneath. As the train drew out of the station Sweetie-Cutie waved to Amma and blew her a kiss. Amma smiled and waved back.

Sweetie-Cutie clasped her hands at her fake bosom and shouted: ‘I am so fortunate.’ But her body knew otherwise.

The train sped out of the city. It passed fields of stunted trees and one station after the next, where people waited with trunks and cloth bags. At the end of one platform, an old man sat holding a rope tied around a goat’s neck: a big fat goat, its horns painted yellow and bright red ribbons tied to them, readied for ritual sacrifice. Redeyed.

The train pulled into Madras Station early next morning. Patti and Amma got off and boarded a bus to Chiroor. It was late evening when they arrived at the village. In the light of the moon Patti found Ratnamma sitting on a rope cot outside her hut. Spread out on a mat on the ground around her feet were several jars containing herbs, seeds and chunks of bark. Next to her feet was a human skull, the eye sockets large and gleaming in the moonlight. Not far away, an old potter turned his wheel and the smell of clay rose into the night air: moist, muddy. Next to him on the ground was a row of clay idols of the Snake Goddess, their faces black, with algae-green eyes and red tongues.

Ratnamma motioned to Amma, asked her to sit next to her. Amma did as she was told. Ratnamma clasped her hands to her chest and gravely looked deep into Amma’s eyes. ‘Look at you. So tender, like a baby cucumber.’ Ratnamma tweaked Amma’s cheek. ‘All men want their women to be green, untouched and innocent. You must be careful of men. All men: father, brothers, husband and even sons. They will clip your wings so you can’t fly anymore. Remember, it is a burden to be a woman, a disgrace, because we are always captive in one way or another. Large rocks are tied to our back and we sink deep into dark waters.’ Ratnamma pointed to a spotted insect and then crushed it with her foot. Red ants appeared out of nowhere and swarmed around the dead insect. ‘See those ants,’ the old woman said to Amma. ‘Men are like them. Be careful. Men will wait until you are helpless, and then take over your body and mind.’ Amma watched the ants disentangle the insect’s legs and pull it towards a hole. She would remember this in the years to come.

Patti made a rumbling sound deep in her throat. ‘We have to get the last bus back,’ she said impatiently.

Ratnamma yelled out to the old potter. He covered the clay with a wet sack and rubbed his hands together, releasing tendrils of clay that fell to the ground. He walked over with an idol; Ratnamma took the Snake Goddess from him and thrust it into Amma’s hands. ‘Pray to her every day,’ she said. ‘She will bless you with a healthy child.’ She pressed packets of black seeds of the magic peepal tree into Amma’s hand. ‘One a day,’ she said, raising her finger. ‘Eat the seed before or after the midday meal. But remember, it is before the meal for a boy and after for a girl.’

Patti paid the old woman and walked Amma back to the road, carrying the clay idol and a month’s supply of magic seeds. They didn’t have to wait long for the bus. It was crowded, but Patti and Amma found seats at the back and soon they were off into the sultry night. Amma was tired and hungry. The motion of the bus rocked her to sleep. At dawn the bus made a stop at a wayside hotel for breakfast; Patti and Amma had coffee and fried vadas and chutney. The bus wouldn’t start and they had to wait for nearly an hour. Patti was edgy and Amma was wholly worn-out. It was midday when they reached Madras Station, just in time to get the return train to Machilipatnam. Minutes before the train pulled out, the attendant from the refreshment room at the station came with two South Indian Thali meals and handed them to Patti and Amma.

‘Mallika, now don’t forget to eat the seed before you start,’ Patti said, joining her hands together in prayer. ‘Oh Lord Shiva, bless me with a grandson. I have already named him Siva after you.’

‘I want a daughter,’ Amma retorted.

‘You must have a son.’ Patti slapped Amma’s arm. With the birth of a son, Patti explained to her, three generations of the family would cross over from heaven into eternal bliss. Without the birth of a son in the family they would be reborn again and again as snakes or rats, or even mosquitoes, into this cruel world.

Amma took a seed out of the packet and held it between her fingers, then tossed the seed into her mouth. She ate the rice and potato curry; she finished the pachadi and the sweet. Then, after she’d eaten, when Patti was not looking, she swallowed two more seeds.

That was the precise moment when Siva’s fate looked at him cockeyed.

***

They travelled all day and night and most of the next day. It was evening when Patti and Amma returned to Machilipatnam and to their home, Victoria Villa. The tall trees around the house cast ghostlike shadows; the branches trembled and set free sparrows that flew across the moon. Large moths rose into the air in a white cloud that settled on the front veranda like a soft duvet. The house trembled and creaked in the wind; the windows wheezed and let the breeze in. Amma took a deep breath and opened the front door.

Amma was tired and she retreated to her room. Patti got busy in the kitchen. She was making vattal kozybambu for dinner. She fried sundried berries and popped them into spicy tamarind curry simmering on the stove. She shredded cucumber and mixed it with fresh yogurt and tempered it with mustard seeds, curry leaves and dried red chillies. She boiled the rice and fried the papadams. Then she went to the dining room and spread a cloth over the old table; she sang a song as she set steel plates on it. In the centre she placed a glass containing assorted spoons, and around it the bin of papadams, a bowl of sour curds, lime pickle, and steel tumblers of water. She would bring in the rice and tamarind curry, piping hot, when they sat down to eat.

Up in her room Amma changed into an old cotton saree and then lay down on the bed. From the bedside table she picked up Georgette Heyer’s Convenient Marriage and, so that she wouldn’t fall asleep, she started to read aloud from the page where she had stopped, when Sir Robert Lethbridge kissed Horatia Winwood and told her rather flippantly that he intended to steal her virtue. Amma closed her eyes and thought about Lethbridge. A smile tickled her lips and they fell apart, waiting, wanting. White moonlight hit the glass window and two squares of light shone on the floor: a pair of ghostly eyes, witness to everything. The window was shut but the breeze blew through the gaps, made an eerie sound. The room was alive: breathing and waiting. Amma had fallen asleep.

Appa returned late. He stood by the bed looking down at two mosquitoes perched on the edge of the pillow. He brought his hand a few inches over them and whacked them hard. Amma woke up with the sound. The corners of her mouth curved upwards, and her aubergine eyes smiled. Appa sat beside her and pulled away the palav of her saree. He stroked the hollow of her neck, her breasts and her bare waist and then he gently undressed her. He picked up a bottle of scented oil and with utter tenderness rubbed it all over her body. He held her carefully lest she slip out of his fingers. Then he kissed her lips, crushed cherrypads, once, twice, and thrice. Amma giggled. When he kissed her neck, she giggled. He sucked her nipples; he thrust his tongue into her bellyhole; he licked her feet, the insides of her thighs. She giggled. Then he turned her on her stomach, stroked her back, cashewtoned, spicesmelling, spicetasting, all the way down to her buttocks, such harvestheaps, Then he ran his thumb down her spine and licked the trail. Amma laughed.

Her laughter penetrated his heart and he turned her over again and took her passionately. Amma could smell the damp breath of his pentup longing. Her heart throbbed wildly, recklessly, and then missed a beat. And oh, by God, good heavens, by Jove... Amma gasped. She let out a huge, roaring laugh and exclaimed in mock dismay, ‘Good God!’

To which Appa whispered ecstatically: ‘Oh, Rukmini, Rukmini…’

Amma raised her head and stared at him with accusatory eyes. ‘Why are you calling out to your mother?’

Appa looked at her in dismay. A buzzing sound saved him from answering. He rolled over and slapped Amma’s cheek. He held her face in his hands and kissed the spot where the mosquito had bitten her. Turning his head and looking into her eyes, he began to speak, softly. ‘Mallika, did you know, it is the female mosquito that bites? She pierces the skin of people and animals to suck blood. She can’t see clearly, but the temperature of the body produces an infrared picture for her and she is attracted to carbon dioxide. The male is a vegetarian, poor fellow; he lives on fruit and flower nectar but the female requires a blood meal to develop her babies. She is called Anopheles.’

Amma sat up and gently touched her palm to her stomach: skin-touching-skin, warmth against warmth.

‘What is it, my sweet Anopheles?’ Appa asked teasingly.

‘I can feel our daughter moving.’

Appa smiled. ‘It could be a son.’

‘It’s a girl,’ Amma retorted, her voice shaking. ‘It has to be a girl.’

Siva trembled deep inside her womb. It was by instinct that he did so, for he didn’t know about Amma’s fixation then. By the time he got to know it was much too late: he had arrived in the world embroiled in others’ fates and handcuffed to his own destiny. There was no escape from all that was to come after this, and all that had happened before he really began.

Before she was married, Amma had lived with her father in a mango-coloured house on Gibbs Road, not far from the market. B.K. Vishnu was the owner of the Victoria Dyes factory. He was also a musician; he played the violin. When he was 35 he married Vatsala, a singer, fifteen years younger than him. Amma never got to know her mother: she died the night Amma was born.

Appa’s name is P.S. Raman Iyer. He holds a Masters in Biological Sciences from the University of Sussex. He had been part of a research team in London known as the Mosquito Behaviour Unit. After working in London for some years Appa returned to India, where he was appointed the deputy director of the Malaria Research Centre in Madras. Here, he made good progress in the genetic mapping of the Aedes, Culex and Anopheles mosquito genera, using molecular approaches for reducing or eliminating vector-borne diseases. In support of his research, the Indian government repaired and revived the old George Gibbs Institute, which had been inoperative for many years. It appointed Appa as its director and relocated him to Machilipatnam, giving him Victoria Villa as his new home. It had belonged to the Englishman, George Gibbs; the house and some of the contents were over a hundred years old.

When Appa arrived in Machilipatnam, he pulled up to the house at 23 Gibbs Road in a battered Ambassador. Seated beside him was his widowed mother, Patti – Mrs Rukmini Iyer, smelling of Amrutanjan Balm. She had accompanied her son with a stainless steel tiffin-carrier, a small khaki-covered suitcase, an old English holdall, a lantern, a jar of balm, and a mosquito net that had been darned in a number of places. These six items, according to her, comprised her life: food, clothes, sleep, light, no-pain and no-bite.

However, as soon as Patti settled in the old house she began complaining about the rundown place. There were holes in the roof and missing windowpanes. The thin reed screens covering the windows let the sun in, the wind blow in. Appa was too excited about his new job to be bothered. Malaria epidemics had plagued the town and Appa worked late into the night at the George Gibbs Institute.

Meanwhile, Patti occupied herself looking for a girl who would be a good housekeeper and wife for her son. She hired the local astrologer, Perumal Krishnan, to guide and assist in her search. It was not long before Perumal arranged Amma’s marriage to Appa. She was all of nineteen, and a stranger to Appa, as he was to her. Both were unaware of all the feelings knotted deep within them, breathing, wanting, waiting to unravel, even though theirs was a marriage of convenience. Love was meant only for the deviant affairs of the heart, not for the utilitarian alliance of bodies and mind. This is how it was in those times.

Amma had come to Appa’s house with a single trunk, a photo frame with her mother’s picture in it, her mother’s coral beads around her neck, her mother’s old Singer sewing machine and a ragged doll. The doll’s body was made of cloth and its head of papier-mâché, golden locks tumbling from it; it had sea-blue eyes and long lashes that went updown when rocked. Amma loved her doll; it had comforted her through all those lonely years and let her hope, wish and dream. Before the year was over, Amma was expecting. She nurtured one deep, achefull dream: she longed for a daughter she could be a mother to, a mother she never had. She had already chosen a name for her, a name for stars: Tara.

As for Siva, he did not exist for her.

***

Appa woke up to the heady aroma of coffee. Amma was already in the kitchen roasting coffee beans. When they were done she held a warm bean against her tummy, warmth touching warmth. She took a fistful of coffee beans and ground them in a hand grinder. She put spoonfuls of the powder into the filter and poured hot water over it. Patti stepped through the doorway carrying a vessel of fresh milk and stumbled over a loose floorboard and spilt some of the milk on the floor.

Appa came up behind her. ‘The house is a terrible ruin. I must call the carpenter. Mallika, when are you going to put up the curtains?’

‘Yes-yes,’ Amma said looking for a rag. ‘I will fix the curtains today.’ Then as she bent down to clean the mess on the floor Siva bumped his head against her wombwall and his sister flipped to her side. Ouch. Ouch.

When Appa left for work Amma got down to serious work. She fixed two layers of curtains on each of the windows, the shorter inner one fixed by a spring that went drrriiiiiing when stretched. She hung khus mats in the veranda and on the floor she laid a pai woven with thin, silky, reeds. Then she moved the bamboo screen from the veranda to a corner of the kitchen to make Patti a small private corner for prayer. When she was done, Patti arranged her gods on the low table: a plaster of Paris idol of Rama, a clay idol of Ganesha, the clay Snake Goddess, thumb-sized idols in silver and brass of various other gods and goddesses, and a photograph of Gandhiji in a metal frame. Beside them she set the lamps, a bowl for flowers, a jar of holy ash, a packet of incense and a brass pot, the size of a fist, filled with rice grains. With Amma beside her, Patti stuck joss sticks into the rice pot, lit the lamps and chanted aloud to all the important gods to bless her with a grandson.

Just then there was a rattling at the gate. Patti and Amma rushed to the front veranda. Sweetie-Cutie stood outside in a bright yellow saree. She had flowers in her hair. ‘May the good lord bless the house and your family and may you be blessed with a grandson,’ Sweetie-Cutie shouted in a hoarse, carrying voice.

Patti signalled her to come through the gates. Sweetie-Cutie sauntered to the veranda and stood at the steps smiling redly at Amma. Patti undid the knot in the end of her saree and retrieved a hundred-rupee note and thrust it into Sweetie-Cutie’s hand.

She tucked the note into her blouse. ‘What about the rice, ma? Everyone gives me a sack of rice.’

‘They do, do they?’ Patti retorted. ‘Then go to them and collect your rice.’

‘You should know better than to disappoint a hijra, ma,’ Sweetie-Cutie said, an edge to her voice. ‘We were cursed when we were born. And our curse is more deadly than a snakebite.’ Sweetie-Cutie stepped up to Amma. She waved her hand over Amma’s head. ‘May you give birth to a daughter,’ she smiled, then turned around and walked away.

At once Patti retreated into the kitchen to pray away the hijra’s curse. Amma began to clean the house, moving from room to room with a duster. She gazed up at the old portrait hanging on the wall. She climbed up on a stool to wipe the cobwebs. Staring down at her was an image of a pale, bearded young man in a pair of high-waisted trousers, a shirt with decorative trim tucked into them. At his waist was a belt buckle with a symbol on it: three Ts joined at the bottom, and between them the letters E I C. The man stood against a backdrop of velvety curtains, a sword in one hand and a cap in the other. Amma read aloud the words stencilled below the picture: George Gibbs. The East India Trading Co. 1839. ‘Well, if it isn’t my lord Gibbs!’ Amma looked up into his blue eyes. ‘How kind it is in you to be thinking of me. I am fine.’ Then she ran the cloth carefully over the surface of the picture.

‘Mallika, go get a bunch of ripe bananas,’ Patti yelled out from the kitchen.

At the back of the house Amma reached out to the bunch of rastali bananas drooping from the plantain tree and pinched the fruits one by one. Then, on a whim, she turned around and climbed the steps to the attic. She had never been up there. Her bare feet were black with dust as she stumbled through the debris on the floor. A bat darted across the room and she screamed. Siva started kicking in fright. His twin kicked him back. Amma stood still for a moment staring into the distance. She tiptoed to the far end of the attic, stepping over bundles of old newspapers and files, past a heap of mattresses, two broken umbrellas and wooden cases, to a tin trunk partially covered with an old bedsheet. Inside the trunk she found a bale of cloth wrapped in muslin with a paper tag attached to the end of it. Kalamkari on silk – Tree of Life.

Amma tore open the muslin: handpainted on the cinnamon-brown silk inside were peacocks, parrots, interlacing leaves and plump pink lotus flowers. She touched the soft, musty fabric to her cheek.

The light from the attic window revealed a thick ledger which had clearly been undisturbed for a very long time. Amma lifted it and blew away the dust. Particles glinted in the sunlight and a thread of dustlight traversed the room. Amma opened the cover carefully. On the first page, yellowed and stained, in indigo ink were the words:

George Gibbs

Victoria Villa

23 Gibbs Road

Machilipatnam

Amma turned the page:

Victoria Dyes April 1853.

Allejaes. Red and white. Striped and checks. Medium quality. 16 yards long, 45 inches wide.

Callowaypoos. Patterned. Medium quality. 14 yards long, 45 inches wide.

Chintz. Block-printed.

Dungarees. Plain white. Coarse.

Gingham. Dyed. Medium quality.

Sallampores. Dyed. Medium quality.

Very quickly Amma flipped through the pages of inventories