Day 1 (28th Dec 2007)

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A family holiday after ages… and for Rohit, a reunion with Sunder and Sonati after several ages. We set out early from my brother’s place in B’lore to catch the Intercity train that is to take us to Salem. Having added several buffers of time (extra for each additional kid and each additional piece of luggage), we arrive 50 mins early at Majestic Circle for the 6:15 am Ernakulam Express. We are loaded with seedai, tenkuzhal, adhirasam, mixture, bhakarwadi, butter and cheese, and loads and loads of Darjeeling tea, ostensibly for our hosts, but which we consume with gusto over our stay there.

The train is empty as it pulls out of Majestic, but Rohit assures me that it will be filled up in B’lore cantonment. As always, he’s right – there’s a great hustle and bustle at Cantt., passengers and people to see them off, and porters and bags and screaming children, and even more hyper parents shouting instructions louder than the screams. Aditi’s first train journey. Wonder what she makes of this? She is just taking everything in with eyes wide in wonderment and a little apprehension. Akash has stretched himself out and gone to sleep, but unfortunately, has to be disturbed as the rightful passengers of those seats have arrived. The train pulls out all too quickly for the entire wave of humanity to get in comfortably. The ticket collector (who Rohit claims is drunk) has to listen to a barrage of complaints from customers who almost fell off the train and died in trying to get in. I totally sympathise with the mildly drunk TT and don’t envy him his job. He too chimes in with his own complaints about his long hours and overtime, and effectively shuts up the whiners. The TT further claims that he is fluent in 8 languages, his native tougue being Bengali. He has already proved his fluency in Tamil, English, Kannada, and Malayalam. He can probably handle whiners of all tongues with equal aplomb, in whichever part of India he’s on duty.

We chug along merrily for a bit, then I climb up to the top berth so that we can all have more space. I had naively booked only two seats for the four of us – Akash is only 3 and a half, how can I claim he’s five?! I’ve learnt my lesson for next time. I have a pleasant snooze for a bit, then Akash works up the courage to climb up to the top berth. He tramples all over me as Aditi tramples all over Rohit. There is justice in the world and I am at peace. Only thing to shatter the peace is a woman in the side berth travelling with her son of about 12 yrs. The woman seems pleasant enough to look at but is extremely bad tempered with her son. The kid is probably an incorrigible brat, but at this instance, he seems to be the wronged martyr – she shouts at him for every single thing, nagging him continuously:

Mom: “We’re sitting in the train you idiot, take that backpack off your back.”
Boy meekly takes the backpack off – but slyly keeps it on one shoulder, never catching his mother’s eye. I note and appreciate the small act of defiance.
Mom: “Why don’t you climb to the upper berth and get comfortable”
Boy, mumbling: “I’m comfortable here…”
Mom repeats her earlier question some 15 times at 1 min intervals, until the boy gives up and climbs to the upper berth.
Mom (after giving the boy a few mins to settle in his upper berth): “It’s time to eat some breakfast – here take” (passes a sealed plastic packet of what looks like Nilgiris Bread).

Then she jumps down his throat for accidentally dropping one of the two pieces of bread in the plastic packet (“Can’t you read, you clumsy oaf? It says clearly here that it’s a twin pack – that means there’s two in there!!”), Next target of nagging is his hand held gameboy (Why not take it away from the kid if it’s not allowed? Why give it to him and then shout that he’s using it??) At a later point in the journey, when the boy has taken out the gameboy again, Akash asks me what that is, and I helpfully say that it is a “gameboy” without realizing that I am getting the boy in further trouble with his mom. Another bout of nagging from below, as the boy lies on his top berth probably cursing me along with his mom (“Bloody aunty and her big mouth! Can’t she keep shut?”).

Amid such excitement, I am slipping in and out of a pleasant snooze. Akash is kept happy with a couple of packets of gems, and by now he’s comfortable enough to climb up and down from the top berth. Having packed him off to Rohit below, I am just slipping back into slumber. In less than 10 mins, Akash leaps onto my berth and is making dog-like circling movements to settle down among the blankets. Suddenly Rohit is calling out urgently to me: “Madhu, Madhu, she’s puked!” I mutter curses to myself, and take what seems like a very long time to untangle myself from Akash and the blankets in the narrow upper berth. Luckily the wet wipes are easily accessible and are put to good use. So is the newspaper bearing the terrible news of Benazir Bhutto’s assasination. Aditi sits calmly on Rohit’s lap (the other one which is puke-free!), and watches the cleanup operation. Again luckily for us, she has not puked over our co-passengers. Everyone has vacated the bay for us to finish our cleanup ops in relative peace. Rohit changes into shorts (Tamil Nadu and its frowning tradition be damned!) I change Aditi into fresh clothes, and slowly the other inhabitants of the bay come back.

We are thankful to reach Salem without further incident. The train slows down just outside the town, Rohit has moved our luggage to the door, and we have our exit strategy planned neatly. Suddenly the evil mom of the gameboy notices Akash wearing a Tintin T-shirt, and therein starts a beautiful friendship between Akash and the evil mom who turns out to be a gushing cooing aunty to Akash. She makes her son pull out all the Tintins he’s carrying in his backpack, and she reads to Akash, and Akash impresses her with names and coherent parts of the “Secret of the Unicorn”. I stand by proudly watching this friendship bloom. However, it is short lived since we arrive at Salem in a few minutes, exchange good byes and leave the train as per the planned exit strategy. A porter helps us with the luggage (Akash with great concern asks me, “Where is that man taking our bags, mamma?”). Using modern technology such as GPS (no, I’m kidding – just cell phones!) we connect with our Senthil Driver for the next leg of the journey – Salem to Thekambattu in a spacious Ambassador. We drop in at Sunder’s parents’ place in Salem for a refreshing break. The kids are fed and watered and ready for the 3 hour car ride. We are given a quick tour of the SONA engineering college where Sunder’s father teaches a course in ethics, and once in a while some physics. The college is nicely landscaped with trees lining the roads and lots of greenery (perhaps it’s the time of year..).

The initial part of the car ride is idyllic with both the children asleep and me talking non-stop to Rohit and keeping him awake 🙂 We stop at vazhaipadi for banana leaves (which will be used as plates to eat our meals on for the duration of our stay). After that we head towards hilly terrain and just as I am hoping Aditi will continue to sleep through the rest of it, Akash wakes her up. Now both are awake and trampling and kicking and asking questions (Akash: “Are we there yet?”, “Is this thekambattu?” “How much longer?”) and in general doing what children do when constrained to a small space. We watch Aditi looking out the window and drinking in all the sights with an intense curiosity. We remember when not so long ago, Akash was at that age, loving travel for the sake of the novelty and not asking questions.

We take a stretching break near a scenic bridge. After that we’re in the hills throughout. Everything is lush and green – we seem to have caught a sunny spell in the middle of the monsoon, with a cyclone just the week before and another brewing the week after we leave. Just 20 mins before we reach the homestead Aditi pukes again without warning. Again she watches calmly while we clean up – puking doesn’t seem to upset her at all. There’s not too much mess in the car, I put the wet wipes to good use yet again. Senthil very graciously brushes off my apologies. He assures us that we are almost there (by now we too need the reassurance!). Finally he points to a hill on our right and says the house is there. We spot a moving speck of red in the direction he points at. Somebody wearing a red t-shirt and walking down from the house to meet us – they too have seen the car approaching.

Our welcome party comprises of Sunder, Sonati, what seems like a whole gaggle of children (actually only four!), and Sonati’s brother-in-law (the man of the red t-shirt), and Frisky the dog. A general celebration of hugs and hellos. The older children are set to task carrying our vast luggage up the slope to the house. Sonati’s brother-in-law is shuttled back to Salem in the car which brought us here. His younger son (5 yrs old) is staying away from both parents for the first time, so he is a bit down in the mouth to see his father go. The house party now has 5 adults (Sunder, Sonati, her mother, Rohit, and myself) and 6 children (out two, SS’s two, and her sister’s two), Frisky the dog, and Leaper the cat. My children, especially Aditi, go crazy over the cat. It seems used to being rough handled by kids, and handles her attentions graciously.

One of the first things that registers on my mind is – how warm and friendly Sonati is – and I immediately feel at home. No, I’m not writing this knowing she’s going to read it, got to take my word for it. The atmosphere of the place kind of trickles into my brain even through the hustle and bustle of feeding lunch to two unwilling and hyper-excited children, and chores like washing the puke off of all the bundled up clothing. I feel my mind switch to a slow mode – I can still see myself walking slowly to the rock, fetching water from a ground level storage tank in a leaky bucket. It is wonderfully sunny, the rock on which I’m washing is partially shaded by a (guava?) tree, so it’s not hot, but warm – just right. Ummm, I could just lie on the rock and to hell with the puke clothes… but sadly, there is an unrelenting bloody practical side to me.

I am a strange combination of feeling harmonious and restless at the same time. It’s a place to relax and do nothing, just lie in the afternoon sun on the porch ledge that the dog has just vacated. And drink endless cups of green tea. Most tempting to lie there and do nothing… and yet, I want to see all of the countryside – now!

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Hippo rock is the large rounded rock beyond my clothes washing rock. The older children spend a lot of the afternoon on that rock I discover that Akash is in his elements on this rock, sure-footed and doing almost all the rushing up and down as the older kids.You can walk (or run) down this rock, vault over a small hedge and go down to the road. There are several paths ideal to keep a budding rock climber happy for several hours. I watch on indulgently (and I must admit, proudly too!) as Akash practices with the rest of them. When I’m fairly confident of Akash’s skills on the rock, I do some crawling and climbing on the rock myself. The boys are slightly amused but get used to me after the first 10 mins. We play on hippo rock till sunset. One of those idyllic moments when all the colors, the stillness, the small insect sounds, the sound of the childrens’ voices almost in the background, and one discordant motorbike impress themselves upon your mind and you remember the scene vividly years after.

The rest of the evening passes in a blur and I retire to bed after an early dinner. The MMs are scheduled to arrive late tonight. Somewhere in my sleep I think I hear their voices, but too sleepy to come out and greet them.