Climbing the Mango Trees: A Memoir of a Childhood in India, page 19
My grandfather, far too old to work now, had stopped his annual trips to Simla some time back, but we still went, sometimes to Simla and sometimes to other hill stations, sometimes with elders of our parents' generation and sometimes without. I hardly knew where I belonged. At Hackman's Hotel in the hill station of Mussoori, I sometimes felt grown-up enough to attend the dinner dances there with my older brothers and sisters, to eat the never-before-tasted cream cheese on crisp breads as I watched scantily dressed European cabaret artists slither along the dance floor accompanied by the glow of a spotlight, but at other times I just felt too awkward in my glasses and my pigtails and chose to skip them, and to accompany my mother on her shopping expeditions the following morning instead.
All major saree shops had branches in hill resorts. My mother was their much-welcomed patron. I would sit with her for hours at Leela Ram and Sons as she examined bolts of French chiffon.
In chiffons, she never seemed to pick pure colors. She might pick a blue with a hint of silver, a salmon pink dulled with gray, or a maroon so dark it was almost brown. Then she looked for matching borders, thick Benaresi brocaded borders that came in rolls of wide ribbon, made with real gold and silver thread. She laid one border after another on the chosen chiffons to see how well they matched. Once the decisions were made, she still could not take anything home. The borders needed to be sewn onto the delicate chiffons by hand. Fabrics for the blouses and petticoats had to be picked out, and then everything left at Leela Ram's for stitching and finishing.
We had not stopped going on our hill picnics, but, just as in the city, their character had changed. The older generation, if they were in the hills with us at all, stayed at home now, exerting themselves just enough for gentle strolls and shopping on the Mall. It was the youngsters who picnicked. One year, in Simla, about eighteen of us, ranging in age from the mid-twenties down to me, still in high school, and including college-mates of my brothers and cousins—lovers, friends, and relatives—decided to create our own kind of picnic by bicycling from Simla to Mashobra, a good eight miles away, all of them uphill. We were heading towards a destination at least a thousand feet higher than Simla, standing tall at 8,250 feet above sea level.
Mashobra was a tiny hill town on the India-Tibet Road. Now part of the national Shimla Reserve Forest sanctuary, it was always devastatingly beautiful. High up on a spur that fell down sharply into deep valleys, it was ringed by snow-covered peaks. Its glades were massed with wildflowers, its steeply sloping sides thick with deodars (Himalayan cedars), oaks, pines, and rhododendrons where pheasants, musk deer, partridges, and eagles darted, leapt, and soared. There were plenty of gushing streams for those who wanted to wet their feet, and orchards for those hungry for apples or apricots plucked straight from the trees.
All members of my family knew Mashobra well. We had picnicked and trekked there, year after year. Aside from simple local dwellings, there were a few remaining turn-of-the-century British homes from the Raj days, the most famous of which was Wildflower Hall. Built originally in 1866, it had become a cooling haven for the rest and recreation of British India's rulers, its viceroys and commanders-in-chief. Lady Dufferin, writing in her book, Our Viceregal Life in India, declares, “This country villa of ours is 1000 feet higher than Simla. It is on top of a hill and in the midst of the most sweet-smelling pinewoods where the mountain views are magnificent.”
Wildflower Hall's most famous resident in the early part of the twentieth century was Lord Kitchener, the great warrior of Khartoum. Indians referred to him as the Jungy Laat Sa'ab, or the Warrior Lord Sahib. Having made a name for himself in North Africa, he had been posted to India as commander-in-chief. Thwarted in his hopes of being appointed viceroy, he found great solace and comfort in Wildflower Hall, where he gardened and worked on an ingenious ice pit. Winter snow was pushed into a dark, covered hole and left there all through the frigid months. By the summer, its own weight had converted it into ice, which could then be used by the Wildflower Hall kitchen for the rest of the year.
Kitchener left India in 1909, and Wildflower Hall was sold to a hotelier whose wife eventually tore it down and, in 1925, built a hotel with the same name. It was considered quite grand for its time. This was the hotel, the Wildflower Hall, we had known and frequented. Our family had grown up with it. We often stopped there for lunch or tea when we were out on family treks or picnics. We wanted to show it off to our new friends.
The day of our picnic we rented our bicycles, picked up some sandwiches and drinks, and, in one large group of wild bicyclists, left Simla through the Sanjauli tunnel.
We would have to bicycle uphill for most of the outward journey. That hardship seemed a fair trade for the return trip, which we knew would be a joyous glide home. We pushed our pedals and sweated along the hairpin bends, all stubbornly pointed upwards, stopping often to drink at the small waterfalls. When we reached Wildflower Hall, we found it eerily quiet. All the vegetation seemed unkempt and overgrown. We tried a door. It was locked. We knocked. Where was everybody? We tried another door. It, too, was locked. We so wanted our new friends to see our beloved Wildflower that one of us probably pushed on a door too hard, and it flew open. We all entered a familiar dining room, happy and laughing. It was then that the few lone caretakers approached us. They accused us of breaking into the hotel, which was now closed, and said that we should wait right where we were, as they had called the police.
The police, when they arrived, were in no mood to accept any explanations or protestations of innocence. We, with our bicycles, were loaded into the back of an open truck for an immediate trip back to the Sanjauli police station. “Could we not return on our bicycles and just meet you at the police station?” we asked, thinking of the downhill ride we were being deprived of. They were unrelenting.
We sat in the police station for hours, answering the same questions again and again, until it was dark. What had seemed quite funny was now getting seriously worrisome. At that stage it occurred to one of our friends that he was closely related to a very senior member of the Himachal State government. He made a telephone call, which was followed almost instantly by apologies and release.
This was possibly our last large picnic. The number of attendees had been dwindling. We had in our collection posed turn-of-the-century photographs of family picnics attended by three hundred or more formally dressed family members, with my grandfather and his brothers seated grandly on chairs in the center. Later photographs showed forty or fifty people, then thirty, then twenty. We were all growing up, and our lives were never going to be the same.
TWENTY-EIGHT
Kamal's Journey • Shibbudada Interferes
Again • Cookery Exam
Kamal was ending her second year of college when her leg, the same left ankle, began troubling her again. My parents were distraught. Fresh X-rays were taken and sent off by air to Harley Street specialists in London and the Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Care Center in New York. One biopsy after another was done. These results were also sent abroad. The specialists still suspected a bone tumor but wanted to examine her before recommending a clear course of action. She needed to go to the West.
Shibbudada thundered back into the center of our lives. Perhaps he had never left. He would take her. Raghudada, his elder son, had recently married the American girlfriend we had been hearing about. Shibbudada could now meet the new bride, Thelma, and also make sure that Kamal's medical problems were thoroughly examined. He made the decision, and it was not questioned.
I do not know what my father felt about this arrangement. He certainly said nothing, though his eyes looked more lost than ever. And what did Shibbudada's wife and children think? Not a word was said. We all seemed deeply unsettled, though not perhaps for the same reasons.
While preparations were being made for Kamal's long journey—we were not at all sure what its duration might be— I was getting ready for my final school exams.
The hot loo winds blew viciously that year. I hid in my back room, working hard on my revisions. My mother came in daily with a plate holding two beautiful badaam ki golian. We said little, just quietly dripped our salty tears over the sweet almond balls. Every evening, as soon as it became tolerable to leave the air-cooled house, I went outside and picked some jasmine flowers. With a needle and thread, I strung them into a thick rope. I kept this rope near me as I worked. Its aroma, filled with the India I knew, wiped out the rest of the world.
My mother pulled Kamal's warm clothes out of mothballs. Her coats and cardigans were aired. New silk sarees were bought, as it was thought that crushable cottons, which could be worn just once before needing special cleaning, light starching, and ironing, would be most impractical, however much we loved them. She already had several pairs of slacks, but more were sewn. My mother was learning. This was her first child to leave for distant shores. When Lalit and I left, some years later, she would know exactly what to do.
My exam time arrived when our hearts were focused on Kamal. I had been able to concentrate on my schoolwork through the wretched years of Partition, and I must have done so again with my final exams, as I had no difficulties with the English, Hindi, history, or drawing tests. Lower mathematics, my bête noire, proved the most exacting, but for reasons I could hardly anticipate.
I had worked at the arithmetic up, down, across, and sideways.
My father and mother prepare to say goodbye to Kamal (her arm linked to my father's) as she sets off for the West in search of medical treatment. Shibbudada stands behind my mother.
I had practiced doing every possible type of sum or problem that could be thrown at me. I had done it once. I had done it twice and thrice. When the exam questions were put before me, they seemed quite accessible. I finished the exam and checked my answers a dozen times. I handed in my paper well before my three hours were up. When the results came, I had some of the highest marks in arithmetic.
It was the domestic science that let me down.
When I arrived for the “practical” test, there were no stains for me to clean, no herringbone stitches for me to do on a small piece of cloth, and no bandages to tie. I was a master at bandages. I could crisscross them over the head or the ankle to beauteous perfection.
For this test, we were asked to congregate in what appeared to be the dusty ruins of some old municipal property, not at all encouraging for my morale. Then the hapless students were led to a dark corner, where, piled on the floor, were sacks of potatoes, tomatoes, onions, garlic, ginger, and assorted spices.
“Use these ingredients to cook a dish. Here are the matches. Here is the wood. Now … go.”
Go where? Excuse me, what happened to the blancmange?
Over the next few years, I tried to understand what might have transpired that disastrous day. Perhaps some wise-guy examiner had said, “Why are we asking these poor Indian children to cook something they have never eaten, like this boring European blancmange? Why do we not ask them to cook some everyday Indian food, like simple potatoes?”
But to change course without any advance notice? For someone like me, who could not cook at all, it was a frightening proposition. Given a chance to prepare, I might have worked on a few Indian dishes. But just when I had mastered every last detail of British invalid cookery, circa 1930, why were we being presented with Indian spices?
I did the best I could. I cut up everything I found—potatoes, onion, garlic, ginger, tomatoes, chilies, and green coriander— into even-sized pieces, and threw them into a pot with a little water. I sprinkled a few spices and salt over the top, put the lid on, as I could not bear to look at my bubbling creation, and prayed. It did no good. The only reason I passed lower mathematics was that my marks for arithmetic were so high, they made up for the cooking I must have failed.
I did well enough in the other subjects to pass school in the First Division (the top grade). I applied for admission to Miranda House, Kamal's college, and on my form stated that I wished to do an Honors in English with a minor in philosophy.
Meanwhile, Kamal and Shibbudada got on a plane and flew off to London.
TWENTY-NINE
A Joint Family in New York • Grandfather's
Decline • A Riverside Cremation
The summer of 1950 was relentless. We stayed in Delhi to I await letters, telegrams, phone calls, any communication from abroad. The news from the first stop, London, was not heartening. The Harley Street specialists seemed to confirm the Indian diagnosis, bone cancer. New York was the next stop. Sloan-Kettering doctors agreed, and suggested two long sessions of radiation treatments.
Kamal and Shibbudada, who were staying at New York's Bar-bizon Plaza Hotel for the first month, now needed to find longer-term accommodations. Shibbudada decided to rent a large house in Flushing, Queens, where there would be room enough for Raghudada and his new wife, Thelma, as well as for Thelma's mother, Kamal, and himself. He was creating a little joint family in New York.
Thelma and her mother were doing most of the cooking. Kamal's letters were full of praise for them and for the new foods appearing daily on the table. She seemed particularly enamored of upside-down cakes, and whole hams glazed with pineapple. We could not even imagine what they might taste like.
In Delhi, my grandfather, now in his late eighties and already enfeebled, took a turn for the worse. Until then he had used a walking stick to help ease himself first onto the front veranda and then onto the Number 7 front lawn in the evenings. Here he enjoyed the few passing breezes, smoked his hookah, and drank his whiskey. Of late he had felt too weak to make this effort. He chose to stay in his room, generally in his bed. He soon began complaining of the heat. Large ice blocks were sent for and spread under and around his bed. I remember taking my shoes off and sloshing into his room to give him a kiss. A haze rose from the ice. My grandfather looked so thin. Several women in their white summer sarees hovered around him.
Soon he was unable to get out of the bed at all and seemed asleep most of the time. The doctor, the same S. B. Mathur who had pierced my ears, had recommended an oxygen mask. The women were taking turns holding it up to his face. In the heat of the day, he was kept in his room, but if the evening was reasonably cool, the entire bed, with my grandfather in it, and his oxygen tank were carried out onto the lawn.
One day, when it was my mother's turn to hold the oxygen mask, she beckoned me and said, “I have to run to the kitchen. Could you take over for a few minutes?”
My hand replaced my mother's. The mask stayed over my grandfather's sleeping face. I must have got distracted and shifted my position, as I felt my grandfather raise his arm and, with a
Kamal and Shibbudada on their grand tour of Europe, traveling in style to Britain on board the RMS Queen Mary.
powerful move, pull my hand back into place. He was dying, but this once-powerful man was not going to go easily.
Kamal had begun her first radiation treatment, but her letters remained upbeat. They were not going to return directly, she wrote. Shibbudada was going to take her on a grand tour of Europe first. They would sail from New York on the Queen Mary, stay in London at Grosvenor House. Then travel to Paris, Rome …
Shibbudada, just like all of us, was worried about her future and was offering her the world, now. He seemed determined to keep her smiling.
My grandfather continued to deteriorate. One day, as I cycled into Number 7, I saw small groups of people walking silently towards the house. He must have died, I thought. I berated myself for not having been with him at the time, but he would not have noticed anyway.
He lay on his bed with his eyes closed. The sunlight coming in through the window was making strange shapes on his chalky face. His arms, lying outside the top sheet, were covered to the wrist with the crisp starched sleeves of a muslin kurta. The hands—those aristocratic hands with the long, tapering fingers and perfectly oval nails, hands inherited by my father and most of my father's children, except me—were facing down in a slightly cupped position.
I could hear my father and eldest uncle, Taoji, talking.
“We must send for the barber.”
“The body must be bathed …”
“… and put on the floor. Shall we use the big room?”
“That will be best—there will be so many people.”
Most men had personal barbers to cut and shape their hair, but in our family we also had ceremonial barbers. A ceremonial barber had many functions, some involving hair and some not. This gentleman was an official matchmaker and carrier of horoscopes, a service he had performed for my parents. He was also responsible for shaving the head of the oldest son of a deceased father in a semi-religious ceremony. It was only after this purifying shaving had taken place that the oldest son could light the funeral pyre, as custom demanded.
A chair was put on the lawn. My uncle sat down, and the razor approached his head. He just stared at the grass.
The big room, across the gallery from the drawing room, was cleared and cleaned. Once he had been bathed, my grandfather was moved there and laid on the floor on a clean sheet. He was now in a fresh kurta with mother-of-pearl buttons. Relatives and friends began to congregate, sitting down cross-legged on the floor all around the body. Some dabbed their eyes, others talked. They filled up the room, even overflowing onto the front and side verandas and the gardens beyond.
