Day 2 (29th Dec 2007)

The next morning I wake up late in spite of going to bed relatively early. Gotto do something about this constant feeling of not enough sleep. Waking up at 7:30 am is late by Thekambattu standards. My late morning excuses are strong though – Akash, being afraid of a toad in the bathroom, decides to pee in the bed. Aditi, unwilling to be outdone by her brother, pukes at 2 am. Besides, Akash has developed this horrible racking cough which is at its worst at nights. I deeply appreciate the maushis who take care of my children daily at home – if I’ve had a bad night, they’re atleast there in the morning to hand over the children to and catch an hour of sleep.

I totter out of bed, and more hellos exchanged with the late night arrivals – Meena, Madhavan (collectively known to me as the MMs) and the kids Nikhil and Lavanya. That brings the kid count to 8, ages ranging from 1.5 to 10 yrs old – a daunting number of children by most standards.

Sunder and Madhavan give me the impression of having been up for a long time, and apart from making me feel guilty for waking up late, try to deny me my chai. The vultures. Not that Madhavan has been upto anything useful being awake (can’t say the same about Sunder, he and his family run the household, so he was probably pottering about doing useful stuff at 5 AM).

All the adirasam and nick nacks are in a large (environment unfriendly) plastic bag, which has been hidden in a military sort of camouflage backpack. Madhavan has managed to find and extract the seedais from it. Everyone is initially polite, and take just a few but in a few hours we all warm up to each other and the snacks and grab seedais or whatever is on offer, by the fistful. Lots of free time, a friendly home, and fried south indian junk food….. heaven and hell rolled in one.

I pursue an active outdoor life herding the kids to nearby hills and rocks, in the hope that this will keep the adirasam calories in check. The only time we don’t lug the baby backpack carrier, is the only time it is most needed. There’s no way I can take responsibility for 7 older kids including Akash, and carry Aditi in my arms as well. So the baby gets left at home with the other caring adults. They call me a callous mother, but I know they are secretly grateful to me for taking the older ones out of their hair.

Lunches are delicious affairs on banana leaf plates. Akash is learning to eat by himself, and takes his pride of place among the older children. He is thrilled with the novelty of eating on a banana leaf – these yuppy city kids, I tell you! Aditi wanders about around the table eating or not as she pleases – with the threat of her puking hanging over my head all the time, I am reluctant to feed her by force. This one has learnt very early on how to get her way. A special chutney powder is brought out for lunch that Nikhil pigs on. The adults take a siesta or loll about like lizards according to their personal preference. The inside of the house is cool and wonderful against the noon-time heat. The kids wander in and around the house in a desultory fashion.

Today Sunder has to head into town (Karumandurai) for some errands. He leaves on his “chal meri luna” moped, and gets back freshly sun burnt and hungry, for a late lunch. The rest of us are ready for evening chai by then and Sunder has brought even more goodies – fried daal vadais, which are gobbled up with gusto. The moped has caught Akash’s attention (vadais only interest him marginally) and he spends a lot of time during our stay, hanging off the branch of the Singapore Cherry and jumping on and off the moped parked under it.

We all take on some household and kitchen tasks as there are so many of us. I get away with just washing vessels once in a while, and perhaps making an occassional pot of tea. It helps if you take along two young children and hide behind them when there’s cooking to be done 🙂

Sunder Sonati’s land is quite a vast expanse, and the house is picturesquely built near the top of the hill, at the upper boundary of their land. The house is beautiful, with something close to my dream floors – red terracotta tiles. A large bathroom which has three solid heavy doors – one to each bedroom and one to the backyard. At the window there is a (rubber) golden eagle hanging by a thread. Along one side, about 3/4ths of the length of the bathroom, runs a three brick high bathtub. A large toad lives in the “mori” of this bathtub. There is a large and a small mirror, some general purpose shelves, and an array of hurricane lamps stacked under a counter. A washing machine adds a modern touch to the bathroom. Sonati and I are half serious when we discuss that they could market their place as a rustic holiday cottage for city slickers “roughing it out in the wilds of Tamil Nadu” – and charge extra for toads in the bathroom, owls flying in through the gap in the roof, and water on the bedroom floor during cyclones.

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Hippo rock is the ideal afternoon haunt for the kids as it is close enough to home, yet far enough outdoors. Nikhil has spontaneously taken Akash under his wing, and Akash hero worships him. I let him go with the older kids, extracting a promise from Nikhil to always look out for Akash, which he does quite seriously.

In our various trips to hippo rock, Aditi, still not quite steady on rock surfaces, insists on some rock climbing, which Rohit and I take turns to let her do. The rock has quite a flat top on which there are a couple of rock pools – from last week’s rain. Aditi is fascinated with these, and it’s a fulltime job making sure she doesn’t take a tumble into the pools. She is itching to taste that green water, I can tell by the naughty look on her face. Somehow between us, we manage to keep her from drinking that water over the 4 days we spent there.

All the older children have given each other nick names – Badri is Hippo, Varun is Polippo, Lavanya is Jumbo, Nikhil is Scorpio, Popo is Dino, Lobo is Rhino, and Akash is Zako. They only answer to these names when we go on a ramble in the countryside. A plan evolves for going across a valley to some other distant rocks this evening. Packing fried nick nacks for a picnic, I set out with my secret seven. My only mandate is I should bring them home before dark. We leave Aditi behind with Rohit. Akash is excellent on these rambles, mostly walking by himself and rarely wanting to be carried. But there are times like when he scrapes his foot or knee and becomes a baby wanting his mamma to carry him. Usually even for these, I manage to convince him to walk after a few cuddles. I have forgotten his sport shoes in Bangalore, which means he has to walk in flip flops on all these rambles. My little rock climber is a sport about this, bless his little feet.

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The slopes of our hill are covered with tapioca fields, and we walk carefully in the ridges and troughs between the rows of plants. We cross a farm at the bottom of the hill, on our way up the opposite hill. There are cows and huge piles of hay, and a family of goats. The mamma goat is tethered to a tree, and the kid is prancing around her. It is domestic enough for me to catch it, and all the kids cuddle it for a while. After we leave from there, Akash wants to hold the kid, and I narrowly avoid a tantrum in the making.

McCavity, McCavity there’s no one like McCavity…

Read the poem here if you’re curious.

We reach our destination which is a set of large rounded boulders spread over a plateau. The kids all go beserk claiming boulders for themselves, shouting ridiculous territorial things at each other. You can see that they’re not too far from peeing on the boulders to mark their territory! Akash’s main aim in these outings is to have a picnic at the destination – he may not eat much, but the picnic must be had. Accordingly, I pull out the yummy home baked chocolate cake, murukkus and seedais, which are duly polished off. It’s time to head back, and I peel off each reluctant kid from its boulder and we troop homewards.

I introduce the kids to pictionary, the game of quick draw, and they are hooked on it for the rest of the holiday. Aditi and Akash contribute by throwing the dice, stepping on the board once in a while and making a general nuisance of themselves, much to the indignation of the older ones.

The highlight of the evening (well actually the entire holiday!) is a shadow puppet show by Sunder, Sonati, Varun and Badri baba. They have made lovely cut outs of McCavity the Mystery Cat (the title character of one of T S Eliot’s poems), and several scenes from the poem. A thin veshti (dhoti) serves as the 4 foot wide screen, tied across a couple of chairs. All lights are put out save the small one behind the screen, and the show begins…

In Sunder’s best stage voice, it is an impressive reading of a classic poem. He sounds the part – a conniving, theiving, disreputable cat who is the master of crimes 🙂 Sonati’s rendering of a high pitched “Ah my jewels!!” is much appreciated, as are Varun and Badri’s execution of the choreography with the puppets. One of the best stage performances I have seen. Akash is captivated from start to finish. He is so deeply moved by it, that he mutters his own morphed version: “Macavity the mischief cat.. Macavity Macavity no one likes Macavity…” to himself even after we get home from the holiday, and has taught it to the neighbours’ kids!