For Ummachi.

Thodakkam (the beginning):

1. naming (Ay Meri Zohra Zabeen!)

If you are a Syrian Christian in Kerala, your grandmother is Ammachi; if you are a Hindu, she is Muthassi or Ammuma. We Malayali Muslims delicately replace the ‘a’ with ‘u’: so our Amma becomes an Umma, which incidentally is the word for a kiss in Malayalam, in a loving, intimate act of translation. My grandmother was always Ummachi to me, and I in turn was her Maalukutty, Maalootty, Maluponnu, Painkilee. I always had trouble remembering her given name – Sahida Ebrahim – which used to irritate me while writing fictional informal letters to her in school. I used to worry that the postman would not be able to deliver the letter to her since we were told the addressee’s particulars were of exceeding importance (in retrospect, this was hardly the issue – I never did manage to send her a single letter while she was alive).

I could never picture her with any other name other than Ummachi anyway. This wasn’t just because my childhood naivete refused to let me see her as a complex human being; nobody I knew called her that name. She was affectionately Sai-itha to her younger siblings, Sai-mol (mol means daughter in Malayalam) to her elder sister, Itha (the equivalent of Didi for us) to the help and the young men who helped her run her food business, Umma to my mother and her brother, and Saitha-ummachi to the rest of the clan. One name used to irk me though. My cousin sister would always call her Chemmi, and every time she did I would firmly plant myself in Ummachi’s lap to not-so-subtly stake my claim. I didn’t know what it meant then and was too proud to ask her. I was jealous of this secret codename between them, suspicious like an irrational spouse (irrational because Ummachi was unwaveringly faithful in her love for me, it was I, in the end, who didn’t love enough) – did she try to get closer to her in the months I was away in Delhi or Vizag or Hyderabad? Names are never just names, Saussure and the rest of the Linguists had made that very clear. It was much later that I was mature enough to understand that my cousin never knew her own grandmother, and my Ummachi was the closest to one that she had. I eventually assuaged all my doubts and allowed this to continue without protest – but only after I learnt what it meant: Chemmi, short for Chammandi, after Ummachi’s excellent chutney which she loved.

I myself was named after my great grandmother, but this came as a late realisation in my life. Chechummachi’s actual name was Zuhara, and she had passed away shortly after my parents’ marriage. Her last wish was to see her favourite granddaughter decked as a bride, she didn’t even hope to see me because her cancer would not let her live that long. After cancer strikes you learn to be practical with your wishes (incidentally, Ummachi’s last wish was to live a little longer than she did. Unfortunately her cancer decided that some wishes were just not negotiable.) Thus, by virtue of my name I was already in memoriam. I was also the only one in the family who had a popular Hindi song attached to my name – already a little North Indian, a little Hindi, a little strange. I would only realise much later that my upbringing in a predominantly North Indian culture meant that I was permanently a foreigner in a certain sense to my extended family, to my culture, beginning with my adopting English as my ‘native’ language, and then suffixing all their names with didi, bhaiyya, aunty, uncle, mama, mami (I reached a compromise when it came to my paternal grandmother, she is Dadi-amma to me).

If I was Zohra to my English/Hindi speaking friends, then in Kerala I was Maalu. Till date, no one in my family calls me Zohra, except Attha (my father) whenever he is disappointed with me. The only exception was when Ummachi would croon Que Sera Sera to me on certain nights, singing in her clear, mellifluous voice, without an accent, but I would hear the lines as Que Zohra Zohra, very pleased to have a song in the language that I was most at ease with, that I believed came most naturally to me. I wonder if she did this on purpose, it is one of the many, many questions that I have left for her to answer.

Journal Entry 1:  

Sleeping on the floor on a makeshift bed in central Delhi and feeling the distinct Kerala pangs while listening to music that cannot be separated from my being, so soothing in its familiarity, almost as if I am lying next to Ummachi, and my brother and I are taking turns to press her aching legs – she has just begun her slow descent from almost paralysis – or no, much before that, before we were granted the slightest glimmer of false hope that she might walk again, be herself again – I’m remembering the days when we were healthy. We’re bathed and young and waiting for Ummachi to do her kannaku – the business of the day – a nightly ritual injected with humor as she good naturedly takes digs at her trusted lieutenant James, the Chief Assistant Cook of the Kitchen, and accuses him of cheating her of her money while he laughs – until there was no kannuku to do, of course, because there was no business, because the biryani and the pathri and the chicken cutlets and the rolls never tasted the same again, because the person was barely even there – no matter how much I try for the happier times, I find my memories are juxtaposed with the sadness and pain – I wonder is it still too soon, just two years in? But in reality, everything had begun degenerating years ago, with the detection of the first tumor: death by cancer is never instant; instead, it is a withering process with unexpected collateral damage.

I know my friend is right beside me, I know her parents are next to us, the morning Sehri will be prepared in twenty minutes – and I’m grateful, I truly am. But, in this moment I don’t want them, I don’t want to be here. In this moment I resent these bodies and I resent Delhi and I resent North India and I want to be in Kerala and I resent this estrangement and I want a Malayalam channel to play and I want to hear; oh how desperately I crave to hear my roots. Sometimes I ignore what I know of the human anatomy, and I imagine that my ears are directly linked to the heart, and that we store memories over there, and we store secrets in our bellies. I put on the earphones and I shut my eyes and I press play. And I leak.

2. khalbilethi  (you have entered my heart)

 Everybody knew that I was Ummachi’s favorite out of her four grandchildren, I was her devamthantha poo, a flower sent from the heavens. She waited six long years for my arrival, travelled to Delhi in the peak of winter to meet me for the first time on a bitterly cold December morning. My first, distinct memory of her is when she travelled to Delhi for the second time, which coincides with my first memory of my brother, wrapped in a blue blanket, cradled in her arms. Soon after his birth, we left Delhi for Vizag following Attha’s posting notice, and Ummachi returned to Kerala, where she counted the months till our summer vacation, craving our return. I remember asking her to stay with us and not go back there, nobody spoke Hindi in Kerala!

The place, to which we returned to every summer, however, was a curious, shape-shifting entity.

Ummachi (and Vappichi) moved very often between rented houses, and this fact would have been acceptable to me as a child had all my grandaunts lived so. Every time I would arrive at a new house I would plead: this is the last time, no, Ummachi? (Ummachi and I conversed primarily in English, I thought her to be a very modern grandmother) Grandmothers were supposed to wait for their grandchildren at constant locations, why couldn’t she have a permanent place to reside in? I used to be upset at having been denied a tharavadu, an ancestral home steeped in history, meant to be inherited. I couldn’t have understood her financial constraints. Since Vappichi didn’t work, her business was the only means of income – which worked for her, being a fiercely proud and independent woman. I kept entering various houses to find her – some had arched doorways, some had light green walls, some had stairs, some lasted just a year – always thankful to find her the same as she always was, not shape shifting to adapt to each house.

Finally, her son had a house built for her, in Kakanaadu (the land of crows), where she spent the rest of her days (divided between the hospitals and hospices and palliative care resorts, of course).

Onjillikal House was blindingly white, and not my tharavadu; my tharavadu was in Ummachi’s enormous khalb (from the Arabic qalb, meaning heart). But it was a house for which I was very special, a house that waited eagerly every summer for me to come, that exclaimed “Malukutty vannu, Malukutty vegum vaa!” (Malu has come, Malu come fast!) the moment it sensed me reaching its black gates. A house that was decorated with my photos, framed and enlarged, that existed long enough to witness the height reversal as my younger brother began to tower over me over the years. I knew where the shawls were kept to drape myself in makeshift shawl-sarees, I knew which corners the dreaded lizards liked to frequent, I knew the mirror on the top floor was slightly spooky. I knew that every time it rained, the sounds would reverberate all around the house, amplified for our pleasure (I knew that rains in Kerala were like no other. I took them for granted, like I took Ummachi and the house for granted). I was the princess to this house, my grandmother was my beloved, and this house was my palace. I feel like Ummachi conspired with this house to cast something in our eyes so I never noticed her age; was the cancer then a punishment for this hoodwinking, to forcefully watch her decay in front of our eyes?

Onjilikkal House has been put up for rent now, as there is no one left there for it to keep company. A new family will reside there someday. But I like to believe that it won’t forget the person for whom it was constructed, and it misses her. The memory of Sahida Ebrahim ghosts there between its walls, the scent of her in the corner where she stocked all the perfumes she had collected, the distinct smell of biryani where it used to be prepared in bulk to meet orders, near the windows of her bedroom where she would sleep, always able to keep one eye on the gate, and somewhere near the telephone stand waiting for our call…

Journal Entry 2:

I play songs that tame my thoughts, songs in my native tongue, which offer a certain comfort and reassurance of their own, as if they themselves are kin. I listen intently to the words which come to me in waves, revealing their meaning on their own terms, inextricable from the accompanying music. I try to make out the gist of these words, in this language that rests within me like a kadal (a sea), with a mind of its own, that stubbornly refuses to obey me as English does, that remains like a fossilised, primordial, sedimentary memory. Mostly, it’s savouring the cadences of Ma- la –ya – lam as my tongue rhythmically moves to the beat of this palindrome – I finally start to get the la right – rolled back and touching the roof– the thing is is that you have to link the letters together, unlike English it’s a more seamless marriage of sounds, you have to appreciate the tone to know when one word ends and the other begins…

3. ormayundo ee mukham? (Do you remember this face?)

Although my brother and I spoke to our parents in English, their personal language remained Malayalam. Both called each other Kanna, which is a term of endearment for children in Tamil, Telugu, and Malayalam, meaning my precious one. Most of the time you could find them humming Malayalam songs (or old Hindi ones), occasionally lapsing into a duet. Whenever they fought, Attha would respond to her Malayalam in English, and she’d sneer “Like an Englishman” (in Malayalam). At the end of the day, their intimacy could be articulated only in Malayalam. This extended to us children too, most simple imperatives were directed to us in Malayalam (open the door, pass the salt, drink some water). But we felt we were Malayalis most keenly whenever we got into trouble. For Amma in her fury would hurl a stream of insults at us that stung precisely because they were in Malayalam, for otherwise, they were really quite weak – dog, fox, monkey, beggar, and even autorickshaw, once! No other language could do justice to her rage, her sorrow, her elation, only her native tongue could address her most primitive states.

Attha would roam around in his lungi, singing melodies of Yesudas, a singer who enjoys almost God-like reverence amongst Malayalis. Before he arrived in Delhi as a young bachelor, Attha believed that no music could rival Malayalam music, no singer could match Yesudas’ prowess. (Then he made some friends in Delhi who introduced him to Ghulam Ali, and nothing was the same since). Still, he was always more comfortable singing in his mother tongue because his tongue struggled with Hindi pronunciation – his ‘k’ had a tendency to become a ‘g’ whenever it appeared in the middle of a word, as Malayalam operates in this way. So he would have a few Malayalam songs that he enjoyed singing repeatedly. Those songs have imprinted themselves into my memory, like Ummachi’s lullabies; the difference being that they aren’t painful to hear, since they aren’t laced with her faint presence. They take me back to the days when we had only one AC in the house, so all four of us had to sleep together, and I would request Attha to sing all his Malayalam songs and he would happily oblige. My parents were pleasantly surprised to know that I enjoyed listening to their language, and so was I, for this was a subconscious secret that my ears had kept from me.

Consciously, I always tried to suppress my Malayali identity to blend in with North Indian friends. I was already dark, a clear marker of my South Indian descent, and I didn’t want any more reminders that I was different. In Kerala, these reminders were ever present in the fluent Malayalam that was spoken between my cousins. I would constantly feel like an outsider, lacking an in on the untranslatable jokes, the characteristic Malayali your, and I was too embarrassed to try and give this unwelcoming language a go. Finally, I shut my ears to Malayalam so that all their chatter became a suffocating cacophony. I couldn’t wait to be on the earliest train out of Kerala, and seek solace in English. I had naively imagined that English would suffice as a mother tongue, and that I could neatly replace all the Malayalam in me with English eventually.

Still, I would watch Malayalam comedies regularly on Sundays with my parents, because it was a family affair, and because very few films in Hindi or English could tickle them so – I would grab at any chance to watch my father giggle and my mother guffaw. Without my knowing, I began to absorb certain words that kept adding to the secret Malayalam vocabulary within me. Now, as a 27 year old who genuinely appreciates the language, I am that peculiar case of somebody who is able to understand it more or less perfectly but struggles to reproduce the language in my mouth.

I am glad that certain words were taught to me at an early age – Mazha, Pazham, Njaan – for if you can’t pronounce those it’s generally understood you’re not a Malayali. When I sneaked The God of Small Things from Ammi after years, what surprised me was the pleasure I derived in just pronouncing their names right, after savouring them carefully. Velutha. Sophie mol. Chacko. Baby Kochamma. It was a victory to finally understand that they were not exactly to be pronounced as they appeared when transliterated, and to know the secret way to unlock most of them (when as a 21 year old, in an effort to improve my Malayalam, I requested Attha to read out stories to me in Malayalam, he seemed just as surprised, and even happier to oblige). I began to meet certain other criteria of being an authentic Malayali through films: I had seen Manichitrathazhu (The Ornate Lock), a cinematic gem, more than once, and I knew that none of the remakes in the other languages came close to touching the original. I knew why the iconic rain scene in Thoovanathumbikal was so dear for Malayalis. Both of these films, however, belonged to the bygone golden age of Malayalam cinema; the films of my childhood were mostly trashy, star-oriented vehicles for making easy money. This added to my initial rejection of Malayalam, I was ashamed of these silly films. As I began to mature though and reinvent my notions of identity and belonging, Malayalam cinema uncannily witnessed a sudden rebirth, with the New Wave increasingly focussing on the common Malayali while adapting itself to the modern conditions. Ustad Hotel released in 2012, and it was the first Malayalam that I could identify with (almost) completely – a story about the bond between a man and his grandfather, who happens to be an excellent cook (and a tea lover like me), from the Mappila community to which most Muslims in Kerala belong. The music, the lyrics, the dialect, the cinematography, and the beautiful dialogues (Every sulaimani tea has a bit of mohabbat in it) was authentic to the setting and the story; needless to say, I consciously drew parallels between Ummachi and I. It was post this film that I realised that what was common to the New Wave was a collective nostalgia for the past, and a fondness for the land, and I found the solution to reaching out to Ummachi post her death – in rediscovering Malayalam cinema and songs.

But most importantly, I knew that the question that Bhaiju bhaiyya, one of Ummachi’s young cooks, asked me as he pointed to his face doubled up as a twofold question: did I remember his face after my time away, and did  I, as a true bred Malayali,  remember that it was actor Suresh Gopi’s iconic dialogue: ormayundo ee mukkam?

Ormayundu!

I remember!

Shesham (after):

Journal entry 3:

Did you know that I never made it to your funeral? Do you know I couldn’t even bear to step foot in Kerala – after? 

Even now, Ummachi, I am still at a loss – how do I communicate how much I miss you, how do I talk to the dead, how do I request them to return you to me? All I can say is that I would apply manjal on my face 5 times a day, I would eat all the oranges and tomatoes and the mausambi juice you kept aside for me, I would wear that pavaada and saree that you wanted me to instead of insisting on jeans –  I would do anything Ummachi, if only to hear your voice again, if only on the phone, if only for an hour – and we can talk endlessly Ummachi in our own special dialect of English-Hindi-Malayalam (but mostly English) and I would not hesitate to tell you all about my day, I would be more patient,  I would not spare a single detail, I would embellish my stories, I would sing as many songs as you want me to instead of giving in to my customary shyness, and I would dance in a million styles to earn both your easy praise and your laughs, and if the cancer stops the words from forming on your lips then I will speak for the both of us, just like I did on our last day together (if only I’d known that Ummachi, I would have stayed in Kochi longer, I would have let go of college, I wouldn’t have gone running back to Delhi). When I sang the songs of your youth (Lag Ja Gale, Ajee Rooth Kar Ab) I knew you were singing with me too, I  could see it in your eyes, they were so childlike, they gave me no indication that you were leaving…why did they lie, Ummachi? Why did they give me that hope that you were still there, my Ummachi, in your frail cancer-stricken body, in your cancer-stricken brain…I know you were there that evening, I know you had fought against cancer to let me be with you before I left. Ummachi, I would have you back in any condition, after the chemo, after the radiation, after the paralysis – I just want to give you one last Umma- please Ummachi –

They tell me grandmothers die all the time, which is part of life, that what I carry with me isn’t unusual. I don’t care Ummachi, I know you wanted to live, I know we would have Whatsapped each other, maybe even had our own Instapage. Your celebrated kitchen would have been a runaway hit! I would have been more patient Ummachi, had I known, I would have Skyped everyday. I didn’t realise how intensely I was loved until that love vanished, and I never myself realised just how much I was capable of loving and missing and remembering, constantly remembering. Even now, as I close my eyes to this song I have already travelled back to the time when I believed your hair was magically black unlike other grandmothers, when I would give you facials and detangle your hair, that 8 year old me has just landed in the Kochi platform from the train coming from Vizag – Allapey – Bokaro, was it? – and I’m wearing my shorts and t-shirt, looking as boyish as I can, as I jump off the train already gleeful to recognize the Malayalam lilt of the coolies and I am searching for you so that I can run into your saree and wrap my arms all around you and cling while you laugh, so happy to see me, so relieved, took that for granted, I didn’t realize how lonely you were – but you shouldn’t have loved me Ummachi! I was a selfish girl, Kerala was just a break, I never embraced my land. Years later as I stepped out of the Kochi airport, into a cab instead of our rusted old Ford to meet you, nervous with anticipation and dread at the same time – will you be at the door or immobile on the sofa? – trying to ignore what the others were saying – Ummachi is very weak mole, she is very ill, (she is dying), and the betrayal of the actual moment when we met – when your eyes took some time to find mine, when I was furious at the world, at time – it hadn’t been that long! It was too soon! This is not the way I say goodbye to my grandmother! – but I would take even that Ummachi, given the chance I would sit next to the bed for years and patiently wait for you to recognize me, for how can I not? You have loved me with the added weight of having waited for me for 6 years, and now I will wait for you Ummachi, like the princess awaiting her love in the old stories you used to sing to me. I will be your knight, and you will always be my princess. You waited for me all my life. Now I will wait for you.

Now:

My grandmother is now more than one memory, reiterated; one death, reverberating along the years. Loss above all loss. It’s almost April: Delhi is hopeful, more welcoming. Trees and flowers in slow bloom, lazy remembrance. Yesterday I thought of the Onjilikkal house, on a call with my brother. I was surprised at how much he remembered her, how he had his own hagiography. The past: where the dead live and life dies. I am singing our song at its doors, Ummachi.  Aayirum kannamai kaathirunnu ninne jnaan. I am waiting for you with a thousand eyes.