Anna pushed
open the gate to her house. The lock had been cold, drenched in the monsoon.
The circular designs on the gate frame painted in white, now looked a mottled brownish
red.
The front
yard lay littered with fallen leaves and little brown flowers from the Ilanji
tree. Right at the centre stood this gigantic tree, over four decades old, with
dense green foliage that overshadowed the yard and spread beyond the compound wall.
She walked over to the Ilanji and touched it’s bark, thick and cracked in
places. Pepper vines had found their way through the tree, so had a money plant
whose roots clutched on for life onto the magnanimous Ilanji. The bark was cold. Green moss added a
much welcome tenderness to it. The June
rain has done its job, she thought. The fragrance of the Ilanji flowers couldn’t
be missed.
She always shared
a personal bond with the Ilanji. Having once
read that this is the tree assigned to those born under her star sign, she wondered
if that was the reason. No. There was much more to it that prompted her to run
her fingers through the tree trunk with love, to whisper “Njan ethi”(I’ve come).
To say that she got her first job, to share matters of the inner heart, to hug
, sometimes even shed a tear or share the loud silence. At times, she believed
the tree housed the spirit of Appachan (her grandfather), the man she loved and
respected the most. That might explain why she felt warm and secure under its
stretched out branches.
Ammachi (grandma)always
said that the good spirits had hid treasures under the tree years ago. Legend has
it that spirits carried large pots of gold and precious stones to protect them
from falling into the hands of evil forces. After years of carrying them around
over large distances, the spirits grow tired and leave the treasure. And such
is the treasure that is hidden below the roots of the Ilanji, waiting to appear
in front of Anna some day, Ammachi always said, adding that only one with a
good heart would find it.
Anna missed
Ammachi. The way she would wait in the porch to greet her with a big hug when
she came home for holidays. And every single time she said the same thing, “Ninne
onnu koodi kandiditu marichal mathi ennayirunu,” (I just wanted to see you once
more before I died). She missed her crisp white v-necked chatta and the white mundu
folded into a perfect fan-like tail
behind...a characteristic of Christian grannies, which surely is on the
endangered list now with more grannies sporting a metro look in saris or
nighties. She missed the warmth, and the smell of thailam and pain relieving
oils that emanated from her body. She hated seeing the porch empty.
Ammachi
left Anna on the 12th of December, 2012. It was a special day, newspapers
said, not because the most special person of her life would leave that day, but
because it was a sequential date that would appear again only after another
1000 years. Long time. Perhaps, the best day to take her off that ventilator
support for which everybody was eagerly waiting except Anna. She had fought for Ammachi, but lost it in the
end...to Science..to Time...to Ammachi’s sons and daughters....and in the end
to Ammachi herself.
Now with her
not around, opening the door was a painful exercise. Her eyes fell upon the
couch with deep maroon-coloured cushions with black flower designs. Anna had
chosen this for Ammachi. The cylindrical cushions were still there where she
had left it the last time. It still smelt of camphor and eucalyptus from
grannys’ oils. This smell clouded her eyes with tears as she cuddled up onto
the couch like a little child...into grannny’s lap, the safest haven where her childhood
remained. She missed Ammachi’s fingers
running through her hair and saying: “Kurechu velichenna thechu koode ninaku?
Kuppi ingu eduthu kondu vaa, Njan thechu tharam” (Why don’t you apply some
coconut oil on your hair? Bring the bottle here, I’ll apply) and she would
proceed through the grand ceremony of proudly emptying the oil bottle on to her
grandchild’s city-bred spoilt hair.
*******************************************************************
It is hard
not remembering Ammachi. She would come along in the sound of the splutter of
mustard seeds in hot coconut oil...the smell of ginger-garlic and shallots
being sautéed with fenugreek in oil brought her along...the memory of the red
meen curry cooked with tamarind in earthen pots, the one that was made especially
for Anna even for breakfast.
She is
there in the clear cold puddles that could be splashed in during the rain...the
memory of a promise that Anna could play in the rain if there was no thunder and
lightning.
She is
there in the clothes and earrings that Anna wore. A memory of her telling the
ever grumbling Anna: “ Nee sundari alle? Ninne onnum vangathe nalla oralu ketti
kondu pokum” ( You are beautiful, my child. A good young man will marry you,
without demanding anything in return)
And many
more.
***************************************************************************
On a day
when Ammachi disappeared into a marble in the church yard that said “We shall
meet again on that beautiful shore”, a part of Anna turned cold, cold as the
marble. A part of Anna died...a three-year old Anna who slept with Ammachi, a
feeding bottle and a kitten (at times)...Anna who took bath together with
Ammachi in the red-walled bathroom in the old house, until her parents took her
along abroad.
A childhood
died.
As Anna
locked the gate again, she stared at the Ilanji. The Ilanji which might now
house three spirits: of Appachan, Ammachi and of a childhood.
