One Hundred Shades of White. Preethi Nair
was because we were their best customers or because they knew something that we didn’t.
The whole move to England was explained to us as if we were going on a big adventure and we would return from our expedition shortly. The way Ammamma got herself into the habit of packing me with old wives’ tales, cramming me with every conceivable detail, told me she knew what the sellers did. There was something else that was happening and I was unaware of it, but she listened, listened to the pace and the signs.
It was the month of June, the time when the wild musician took over the skies and began jamming, hitting his drums with such strength that the rains fell harder than ever, flooding people’s dreams. The workers abandoned their fields, shaking their heads; beautiful flower blossoms fell, drenched by the weight of the water, and their petals were washed into murky puddles that splashed everywhere; ugly furry caterpillars, red and black centipedes crawled out of the ground; food became inedible and schoolchildren ran as fast as they could to avoid the night fever, arriving home with soaking books to a beating because there was no money to be so careless.
Ammamma, interpreting the signs, went to consult the astrologer. When the rain did not subside as all had hoped, her visits to the astrologer became even more frequent and she took me with her, as if to verify that the child he spoke about was the right one. They got into this shell-throwing routine. He would mumble a prayer and throw three shells across a board. Ammamma would look up at him, he would talk to the shells and then shake his head or ruffle his beard, at which point she would try not to look upset or cry. We followed this routine twice a week, always with the same outcome.
On one of our trips, we stopped off at the beach, yet Ammamma didn’t run into the sea but instead sat on the side.
‘Mol, promise me you’ll try to remember this, all of this, the place you are from when you are older, not just the place but the pace. You won’t forget the language, the smells, colours, the people, will you, Mol? Don’t ever forget where you’re from.’
What was she talking about? I wouldn’t forget in one year; Achan went away for a year and I never forgot him. I would remember her every day for that year because Amma said that a year wasn’t really a long time. The balloon seller stopped and instead of waving him away, she asked me to pick two, one for me and one for Satchin. I was elated and chose a blue one that looked like a dog for Satchin and a pink one that looked like a bird for me. As we rode back, she told me that it would be hard to say goodbye, that I should try not to cry because crying would indicate that the person wasn’t coming back and that was not the case as she would be with me always. ‘Mol, sometimes when you have to say goodbye it will feel like there is a monsoon inside. When it feels like this, breathe.’
‘Amma says that a year is not such a long time,’ I said to Ammamma.
‘It’s not so long, Mol,’ she replied.
Little by little, the house was emptied of our possessions until all that remained were three suitcases packed with our worldly goods, tied with string. The patter of raindrops echoed throughout the empty house. Ammamma stood at the gates, waving her young family off. Amma would not let go of her, drenched in a pink sari and with wet hair, rain running down her face. Ammamma kept looking over at us both seated in the car and mumbled, ‘The children, the children, you just take care of the children.’ And then she pulled out a little bronze figure from the pocket of her mundu and gave it to Amma.
‘We’ll see you soon, Ammamma,’ Satchin shouted.
I was sitting in the car, trying desperately not to cry, thinking how was it possible to have the monsoon drummer inside and not let it show. I breathed and tried not to look at her.
‘Yes, Monu, look after your Amma and be good for her. Bye, Mol.’
I said nothing. I wish I had taken one last look at her.
We arrived in England on my fourth birthday.
I thought my father would be waiting for us on the other side with a big gift, but he sent a driver to come and get us. We pulled into the Hilton on Park Lane. It was cold for me, despite being the end of August. Amma took a big yellow cardigan out of her bag and wrapped it around me whilst Satchin had his nose stuck out of the window, mesmerised by the different types of cars. I didn’t feel that way because that was day one of remembering my Ammamma. Although it was just the first day, I felt sad, so I looked down at the floor and occasionally I looked out of the window. The only way I can describe our arrival was that it was like being taken from bright Technicolor into a silent black and white film. No rickshaw noise or horns or buffaloes or cows crowding the street, blocking traffic, no grasshoppers or croaking toad lullaby or screeching chickens, just a mute, inoffensive calm.
Half asleep, we waited in the lobby for my father. He arrived a few hours later in an immaculate dark blue suit and a big smile and Amma woke us up, telling us that that he was there. Satchin and I went running over to him and I asked him what he had got us. He laughed, squeezing me tightly, hoisting both of us up, and then he went over to kiss Amma. Her lower lip began to tremble and she looked as if she was going to cry, but she smiled and looked at my father saying, ‘You know it’s Maya’s birthday today. We have to celebrate.’ The driver came back later with a Dundee cake and a rag doll that he said my father had left behind in his excitement. ‘She’s called Jemima, Mol,’ he said, giving her to me. What kind of a strange name was that? ‘Jemina,’ I repeated.
‘Jemima,’ he said, making a face.
I made the same face.
‘Oh, my funny little Mol,’ he laughed. ‘You will like England.’
If he said that I would like England, then I knew I would like England.
We sat and played in the lobby and then I was taken off by a deep, deep sleep.
The next thing I knew I woke up in a strange bed with lilac sheets and I was surrounded by beautiful lilac walls with balloons painted on them. Amma must have told him that I loved balloons and so he did that for me. That’s how I would say I woke up to my new life in England; happy, in a new, big five-bedroomed house in South London. I went to investigate all the devices and wandered into the bathroom. We didn’t really have a bathroom as such in India; Aya brought the hot water to us on the veranda, so the glistening silver taps intrigued me. I turned them and water came gushing out. It startled me so that I fell back, tumbled onto soft green carpets, and then hastily retreated. Then I saw him, my brother, in his room in a peculiar two-bedded house with a ladder. I climbed the stairs to meet him at the top. He was still asleep and so I shook him to wake him up but in one of his strange moments of fright, he rolled over, falling from a great height and crashing to the floor, making the sound of the dhobi’s wet clothes hitting the wall.
Amma came running in and found her son’s body under a blanket. She began crying, ‘Monu, Monu, are you all right?’
He was still for longer than he needed to be, making sure he had her full attention, and then he began to stir slowly back to life. She was kissing him on his forehead and checking if he was okay. He looked fine from where I was sitting – the body occasionally needs a good shake up. Then he began to moan, just a droning type of a sound, managing the word ‘Maya’. Her eyes widened as she plucked me off the top of the bed and she was about to shout at me when my father walked in and rescued me from whatever fate she had planned. ‘It’s just children playing, Nalini, no need to get upset,’ he said reassuringly. I was so happy to have him back and was taken into those arms with that familiar rocking motion. Amma made a big fuss over Satchin, which seemed to greatly ease the pain. Both of us looked at each other, with our respective parent on side, and drew the battle-lines. Within a few hours he had made a miraculous recovery, vowing some kind of pay back.
Later that day, Achan took us shopping. We went to a huge department store and he asked Amma to pick clothes for us for our new school and buy us anything else we needed. She didn’t know what to do so Achan called over a shop assistant and asked her to bring garments in our sizes. Then he turned to Amma and asked her to buy some English clothes for herself but she shook her head and wrapped her shawl tightly around her. He asked the shop assistant to get some clothes for Amma too and the shop assistant said