Amballore House (12 page)

My friends do not follow the American Express Card principle of "Don't leave home without it (a plate)." But then, they are eager to follow the My Home Express Card principle of "Don't leave restaurant without the plate." This results in plates stacking up when my friends leave their homes.

This scenario begets a very interesting phenomenon: by the time a typical graduate student is done with his studies and starts packing to get back to civilization, — that is what my friends claimed as doing: going back to civilization — he hoards, on average, 23.7 plates. The garage sale they hold just before leaving the country is rumored to be frequented by restaurant owners who have set up a plate-retrieval campaign.

This problem was brought to the attention of immigration ministry, who set up a ruling whereby student visa availability was made conditional to an oath that students would give in front of the parliament building to the effect that they would follow the American Express card principle of leaving home with the plates.
There is intense lobbying by plate owners to appoint a senate subcommittee to see to it that the immigration ruling will be fully implemented.

The problem is, however, not as severe as purported by the Canadian press, because in Canada, all our plates are eaten by polar bears, who roam around our neighborhood freely. Santa Clause of the North Pole ends up retrieving them from the polar bears and distributing them on Christmas Eve to diners across Canada.

Mind you, I used to adhere to the My Home Express Card principle of leaving diners with plates, just like my friends. Well, sort of. It was not exactly like that. It was more like the plates refused to stay inside when I left the diner, attached as they were to me, having formed a friendship during dinner. They more or less escorted me out of the restaurant, into my car, and finally, into my home. But now I am a changed man. I am a born-again Canadian practicing the principle of loving your restaurant just as much as loving myself. I am refusing to be escorted by a bunch of nitwitted plates.

After our romantic dinner at the Ice-caps, we usually go out for a dance at the North Pole bar. During the slow dance, she almost crushes me to death with her intimate bear hug. I end up running for my life. All of love's labors are lost!

But come next Friday, this lovers’ quarrel is easily forgotten. Love conquers them all! We are always back in our favorite restaurant the next Friday to reenact the same drama of us having our dinner at the Ice Cap, her trying to eat me, me applying my charm to make her eat beef stroganoff, me getting jealous of the waiter-bear making passes at her, me shoving my plate into his mouth, him going away relishing the plate, me offering the burned-out candlestick as my tip, us going to the North Pole bar for a dance, her trying to crush me to death with her bear hug and me running for my life.

This drama gets reenacted continuously. During these weekly romantic encounters we discuss a myriad of topics, like the research of Canadian physicists on the possibility of negative absolute temperature existing in Canada in direct violation of the laws of
thermodynamics. We also discuss about the prominent personality of Santa Clause who lives only two blocks from her and how ice storms usually make her day. One day she even suggested that Santa Claus should be appointed as the prime minister of Canada and Christmas should be declared as the Canadian Independence Day!

At last I found the true love of my life. I found the meaning of life that I had been seeking all along. I have confidence in my lucky stars that our love is eternal. My love for her has blossomed by leaps and bounds. She is the best thing that has happened to me. She is the very epicenter of my dream world.

Often, I get overwhelmed by wistful exhilaration at the mere thought of being in love with her. Our love story is a testament to life’s balancing acts of happiness and sorrow to build a world endearingly real, away from the tantalizing fantasies, and this we do not mind at all.

To us, love meant walking hand in hand with pounding hearts in a field mounded with snow, littered with blindingly bright snow dunes in the daylight. It meant skipping a heartbeat while embracing each other in the profound silence of a starlit night in the winter wonderland of Canada. It meant murmuring to each other, looking at the giant Arctic sky that could well have been a giant umbrella. It meant humming a love song to each other to convince ourselves that our love affair was well beyond a mere illusion. It meant being caressed by her long, flowing hair fluttering in the soft breeze, carrying lavender fragrance. It meant enacting a fairy tale where I called her Snow White when we strolled over fields of white snow.

I could go on and on. Suffice it to say, our love affair is much more than a fleeting moment. We both believe that marriages are not made in heaven, but in the Canadian Arctic. Wedding bells are around the corner! Guys, what do you know? We are planning to get married in the Arctic Cathedral.

When you hear the resonating sounds of the Arctic Cathedral bells and when you get drenched by countless snowflakes that the arctic
breeze sprinkles upon you, then you know those bells are ushering in an era of everlasting happiness for both of us; then you know those snowflakes are our wedding confetti from heaven; then you know that love is in the air; then you know we are ebullient with the joy of togetherness; then you know my and her world is replete with boundless happiness; then you know my and her lives have attained a state of exuberant joy; then you know that our minds are intertwined in a bondage only death will part; then you know we plan to live happily ever after!

All of you are invited to the wedding! The ceremony will take place this summer. Remember to dress up in your winter clothing.

7
THE SKY IS FALLING

It was in the year 1975 that Chicken Little appeared in front of Thoma’s rental home in Mannuthy. He came to the front yard of one fine morning. He crowed at the top of his voice: “Cock-a-doodle-doo.”

He then started pecking at the grains and worms in the ground. While he was merrily munching on the rice, he suddenly remembered that he was not there to have an eating spree. This thought jolted him into the task at hand—the one he came there to perform. He sprang into action immediately, having gotten enlightenment.

“The sky is falling,” he announced, crowing as loud as he could. Thoma, Ann, and their children filed out of the home and gathered around the strange rooster, with puzzled looks on their faces. Ann immediately looked at the sky and begged everyone to get into the house to avoid injury. Thoma contemplated making a spiced curry of the stray rooster.

Then all of a sudden, the sky started falling! Chicken Little resumed his act of pecking at the seeds, satisfied at his important announcement having materialized. The children, in total disregard for the warning issued by Ann, spread out to the street to meet and greet the falling sky. And then it happened: A land of two acres with a house on it fell from the wide sky above.

The house and the attached property was rightly called the ancestral home, since it was the very first home that the family undisputedly owned ever since Thoma was excommunicated from his original ancestral home by his own siblings..

Even though the property was a gift to the family from Josh, his siblings preferred to believe that it fell from the sky. They believed, or rather liked to believe, that it was one of those accidental happenings of life—like winning a lottery, which conveniently left no room for obligation, accountability or good, old-fashioned gratitude.

***

It was in 1975 that Josh bailed out the family from the canyon of hell that Mannuthy life had proven to be. The disbursements from the graduate school fellowship and teaching assistantship from the Canadian university barely supported him. He tightened the proverbial belt and starved himself to save enough dollars to send to the family to purchase a house in Amballore. The exchange rate against the Indian rupee was favorable enough to accomplish the impossible dream.

The consequences to Thoma’s family would have been disastrous if this had not happened. It meant that Number-Six would not have gotten a free land to build his home and bring up his family; it meant that Number-Six, Number-Eight, Number-Nine, and Number-Ten would not have gotten higher education, which subsequently enabled them to get into respectable careers, leading to respectable matrimonial alliances; it meant that Number-Eight would not have gotten a free land whose proceeds went towards her dowry; it meant that Number-Five and Number-Seven would not have gotten free lands as if they sprang out of the sky above—it also meant that these two would not have made huge sums of money by selling their properties; it meant that Rita, though belated, got to pay off her long-owed dowry to Tim.

Most importantly, it meant that all in the family were saved from the pit of starvation and death. It heralded an era of normalcy where Josh’s siblings could lead respectable lives with dignity. The support that Josh extended was what Thoma had desperately needed, and what Ann had urged God to grant, in her daily prayers. Mannuthy citizens witnessed the miraculous rise of Thoma’s family—from rags to riches; from nothing to the zenith of prosperity—and bestowed acclaim on it.

Josh, like George and Kareena in the family, owed nothing to their siblings to be obligated to support them. Just like Kareena, he got out of his home while very young and supported himself through the national merit scholarship he received from the Indian government. These three had fended for themselves to stave off starvation and miraculously had survived to be able to support the
rest in the family that Thoma and Ann brought to this world as if there were no tomorrow, as though children’s nurturing rested with the world. As a matter of fact, the younger ones’ upbringing was done by these three.

When he embarked upon a challenging graduate study and a possible career path that unfolded in front of him, Josh could very well have taken care of himself by saving enough to support his own future wife and children. But he did not. The future would dramatically reveal that he miscalculated on a monumental scale and committed the blunder of a lifetime by giving away his hard-earned savings. He would later find out that two his siblings, Number-Six and Number-Nine, colluded to trap and endanger him.

This story of treachery was reminiscent of Thoma’s own life. He brought up his siblings at the expense of supporting Ann and the children but was then eventually expelled from his ancestral home by his own siblings. Josh was aware that the backstabbing ran in the family like a genetic disorder, had enough vision to foresee this repeating, and took precautions to ward it off. However, the tide of the events would go against him and his siblings would manage to outmaneuver him. They would stab his back. The history would repeat.

A period of thirty eight years, from 1975 through 2013, spanned the acquisition of the property, its occupancy and its eventual disposal. Writ into this period was also a tale—not a fairy tale, but nevertheless a tale—of precipitous greed and treachery.

Josh bought the property and handed it over to his siblings and parents, without thinking much about the legal ramifications of the property ownership. Because of his naivety and the latent simplicity of youth, Josh did not pay attention to the legalities and let the family handle ownership details. Later on, he would learn that it was a mistake.

Anyone’s life, while young, is blinded by a blind faith; by the time one passes the youth, he gets a rude awakening that one trusts his blood relations at his own risk. It usually takes a lifetime for one to open his eyes and see the realities of life. At least for Josh, that is
exactly how it was.

Immediately after the land purchase, claims of ownership from siblings started sprouting out like wild mushrooms. They started claiming that he financed part of the purchase—and rabbits had three ears too. They claimed that the sun rose in the west and set in the east to support their argument. They adamantly refused to believe that it was the money that Josh sent from Canada that made the miracle happen.

As far as the official documents were concerned, the property was shown to belong to Thoma and Ann. Since the asset was legally in the hands of the parents, they had the right to write the will to hand over property to their children. The property transfer would happen usually after the parents’ death.

In the patriarchal society of Kerala, property’s successors were sons and not daughters. This, however, did not happen in Thoma’s family, because Josh intervened. Three girls stood to gain—Rita, Number-Eight and Number-Ten. Kareena decided to place no claim on the property, and decided to stay out, unlike the rest who took to arms and were on war path. George also decided not to place any claims.

Number-Five claimed his share of the land—twelve cents— immediately after the purchase, even before the dust settled down. It was an outrageous move to place the claim before his parents’ demise. Family politics played a role in his decision. A rivalry had sprung up between him and Number-Six. The latter was very much in command of things at home after Josh left. This power grab alienated Number-Five who decided to cut the Gordian knot as a solution. By charting his own path by taking immediate claim of his share, Number-Five liberated himself from the family affiliations, letting the rest fight out their claims and chart out the courses of their lives.

The land allocations to Number-Five and Rita left behind one seventy eight cents of the original land. Part of it—a whopping sixty eight percent!—was then equally divided among Number-Six, Number-Eight, Number-Nine and Number-Ten, each getting thirty
four cents. They then sold their shares to generate cash to fund their education. Raising money for badly needed education was an item of high priority and therefore, the distribution of land to four of the siblings and the subsequent sale of their shares to generate cash served as a course-changing event for the family.

These apportionments left behind a residual land of forty two cents. This piece was assigned to be distributed as follows: Josh, thirteen cents; Number-Six, nine cents; Number-Seven, ten cents; and Number-Eight, ten cents.