Kerala 2

Part 2 of 2

Travelling with Aunty

The next day we go for gold. The hotel concierge tells us where to shop, the best places for gold. A couple of men escort us, unsolicited, take us to a jewellery shop not far. It is as large as a warehouse. We walk up to the impressive frontage, grab the brass elephant-head handle and tug at the glass door. It’s locked. The tall Sikh guard looks down on us indifferently. Our escorts scatter. We wait. Handsome mustachioed young men stare at us from within. No one makes a move. Eventually a lazy buzzer goes off and the door opens.

We sail in. We get ‘vip’ treatment. Several men jump to attention and pull out stools for us. A scruffy chai-boy appears carrying a wire cage with tall glasses of hot milky tea. Having slopped two glasses of tea on the polished counter he stands close to me, inches away, hands behind his back, breathing sweaty steam on to my cheek. My nostrils flare taking in his alien scent. My peripheral vision registers him staring unblinking at my profile and feel my right ear scorch with hot breath.

AG makes herself comfortable. She asks if she could have a diet coke. The men look lost. ‘My figure, you know,’ she says. They don’t know, they look doubtful. Then she gets her little note book out and asks to borrow a pen. One of the young men whips out his pen. It does not work. He’s hurt by his unfulfilled chivalry. He examines the pen for too long, confusion and anger evident. Another man offers her one, a Parker Pen. AG takes it, admires and says, ‘Eh, not bad.’ She asks intelligent questions, makes copious notes about fluctuating world gold prices, international markets, methods of weighing gold, and jewellery trends. She studies diamond cuts carefully with an eye-glass and notes countries they come from and is surprised by the news of a thriving Indian diamond industry. I enjoy this secession too.

AG examines the workmanship of the gold bangles, and finger, ear, nose and toe rings with the eye glass. She moves on to examine a large variety of gold chains that hang in glass wall-cabinets in the interior. A vast cavern manned by more men, handsome, mustachioed, old spiced and roving eyed.

I wait by the counter, by now tired and bored. I stand for a while, I shift from foot to foot like a tired flamingo. Having left greasy smudges on the counter tops I study my reflection, angles and poses, in the many mirrored walls. Then I retire to the threadbare, maroon, velveteen sofa at one end of the cavern. Several pairs of eyes are on me. Today I am wearing a short dress, I tug at my skirt, pull it over my knees. It falls four inches short of gold-shop modesty.

AG comes back from her inspection tour. She rummages in her bag and returns the Parker Pen. We leave the shop having purchased an incredibly cheap pair of inferior ruby ear-rings.

The next day we buy genuine second cut Hindi movie videos and original Malayalam movies though we both know no Hindi, and understand only a smattering of Malayalam. We purchase CDs of Ravi Shankar and ethnic drum music. We buy many recycled paper-back Indian novels and out-of-print books.

I remind AG of our mission. It’s close to the end of our week here. We need to go to Travancore to look for our grand-parents’ home. We need to trudge through vast expanses of muddy paddy fields and coconut plantations and locate that practically unknown postal address – Mathavan Charveel Veedu, our ancestral home.

AG says, ‘Plenty of time.’

The day before the end of our trip AG decides that she has had enough of Kerala. She says after all she is only 27, we are young, there’s plenty of time. We will come back. We still have temples to visit.

Homeward trip is a disaster, wrong choice of airline. The plane arrives half full from Mumbai. I am claustrophobic and overcome by the odour, a cocktail of chemical air freshener, spicy Indian airline food, stale floral hair oil and urine.

We are overrun by three to four year-old-shrieking thugs from only-child families. One thug reigns supreme, hits me on the head from behind my seat with an airline vomit bag of his toys, miniature metal cars. Mother and father look on indulgent. Another monster slams port-hole shades up and down. He catches his fingers and howls his head off. I am kind, I refrain from saying ‘good show!’

Things look up for AG. She is sitting next to a proverbial tall, dark, handsome man in a smart suit. A man about 20, either leaving his family for the first time or suffering from a bad cold. He sniffles. AG takes pity on him and hands him tissue after tissue paper insisting he blow his nose. He squirms with embarrassment. He dabs his eyes and nose and does not know what to do with his wads of soggy integrating tissue. He stuffs them in his trouser pocket. She gives him more tissues. She whispers to me above the drone of the plane, ‘The poor baby. Must be upset at having to leave his parents.’

Meals and another big sleep and we are over Hong Kong. Bumpy landing. A few mumble prayers. An elderly couple furiously thumb through prayer beads. Cabin pressure drops quickly, the children scream with earache. We’ve arrived. Parents scramble about calling after their little ones tear stained and trying to get out before them. Some men and women tug at briefcases in overhead lockers with one hand and dial calls on their mobile phones with the other. The passengers pull and push, carrying children and tons of hand luggage, and try to get through smiles and choruses of airplane attendants:

‘Thank you for flying with us, have a pleasant stay in Hong Kong.’

Outside an electric storm rages. I am happy to be back.

End