A Tiger's Wedding Read online

  A TIGER’S

  WEDDING

  my childhood in exile

  by

  Isla Blair

  A TIGER’S WEDDING - My Childhood in Exile

  First published in 2011

  By Creative Content Ltd, Roxburghe House, Roxburghe House, 273-287 Regent Street, London, W1B 2HA.

  Copyright © 2011 Creative Content Ltd

  Text and photographs © Isla Blair 2011

  The moral right of Isla Blair to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording or any information storage and retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publisher nor be otherwise circulated in any form or binding or cover other than that in which it is published.

  In view of the possibility of human error by the author, editors or publishers of the material contained herein, neither Creative Content Ltd. nor any other party involved in the preparation of this material warrants that the information contained herein is in every respect accurate or complete and they are not responsible for any errors or omissions, or for the results obtained from the use of such material.

  The views expressed in this publication are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinion or policy of Creative Content Ltd. or any employing organization unless specifically stated

  © Designed and produced by Julian Calder Publishing Ltd

  Cover Design by Daniel at HCT Design

  ISBN 978-1-906790-94-3

  www.creativecontentdigital.com

  TO FIONA

  What an older sister doesn’t know is that she has a fan for life.

  Acknowledgements

  There are many people who have helped me with this book to whom I owe thanks.

  Geoffrey Palmer for encouraging me to write it. My literary agent, Gordon Wise, for his persistence, patience and belief in me and the book. My editor, Gillian Stern who inspired, cajoled and encouraged me with unaccountable optimism. Jacquetta Pease for her patient work through several drafts. Bill and Jean Henderson, Paddy and Alice Lappin, Drew Cameron, Bruce Duncan, Susanna Rook and Juliet Clough for their Indian stories. Duncan Gilmour of James Finlay Ltd for his cooperation. Clare Paterson and James Finlay and Co Ltd at Glasgow University of Glasgow Archive Services for their permissions.

  My publishers Julian Calder and Clare Harington for their attention to detail, their stylish, artistic eye. Ali Muirden and Lorelei King for their professionalism, enthusiasm and confidence. Sasha Behar for her cogent questions.

  And then my family: Julian and Jamie Glover for their constructive criticism, encouragement, support and belief. And, of course, my parents whose company I miss always, and my sister Fiona, whose memories, while her own, coincide with mine and whose friendship has sustained me all my life.

  Some names in this book have been changed.

  Contents

  ONE

  Telling the Bees

  TWO

  Not Wanted on Voyage

  THREE

  A Postie in Auchtermuchty

  FOUR

  Love Walked In

  FIVE

  A Tiger’s Wedding

  SIX

  My Protector

  SEVEN

  Billeted Out

  EIGHT

  Monsoon in Munnar

  NINE

  Two Leaves and a Bud

  TEN

  Gin and Nimbu-Pani

  ELEVEN

  Learning to Fly

  TWELVE

  One Collar and Two Socks

  THIRTEEN

  How to Boil an Egg

  FOURTEEN

  Number Four Hundred and Eighty-Four

  FIFTEEN

  Look, Move, Speak

  SIXTEEN

  A Long Way to Fall

  SEVENTEEN

  The Wrong Way Round

  EIGHTEEN

  Sausage, Mash and Picking Sweetpeas

  NINETEEN

  Lemons, Laundry and French Tobacco

  TWENTY

  Oh, It’s You

  TWENTY-ONE

  Letting Go

  TWENTY-TWO

  Looking Back and Forward

  Postscript

  Glossary

  exile – [eg-zahyl, ek-sahyl] – an unwilling separation from home

  ONE

  Telling the Bees

  I banged my sandals together to shake out any cockroaches or scorpions, the gesture an automatic reflex, like saying “bless you” when someone sneezed. I pulled them on and ran after Fiona, my older sister, who I knew had started the day’s little rituals and routines without me. I followed her like a shadow.

  I was still in my cotton pyjamas, rolling up the legs as I scrambled down the steps of the verandah and out to the bees. There was a little wooden hive for them with a gently sloping roof painted white, the brittle paint coming off in my fingers when I picked at it. Fiona was already there, in her pyjamas and white plimsolls, stretching out her hands for any of the stray buzzing creatures to land on her. Neither of us were afraid of bees; they only stung when alarmed and besides they held our secrets – the big ones and the little ones. Our mother had told us that the bees had to know all the significant things that happened in our lives, otherwise they’d feel insulted and fly away – like when Fiona was born and when Mummy was expecting me, or when the Boy’s fifth child, a little girl, had simply not woken up from sleep one day. I had told them how desolate and lonely I felt when Fiona had been sent away to school, how the pain in my chest had become like a solid rock that threatened to rise up into my throat and choke me.

  I was born in Bangalore, South India, where my father was stationed during the war in the last, dying days of the Raj. He was a tea planter in Kerala, as was his father before him, and I lived there with him and my sister, Fiona – three and a half years older than me – my mother and our beloved ayah. In fact, our Raj days were very much alive, golden, secure, full of sunshine and laughter with the scent of the pine and eucalyptus in the air and the ever present tea and far away, the trumpeting of elephants.

  There was a bubbly feeling inside me, part excitement, part apprehension – because I knew things were about to change. We had been telling the bees for days now that we were “Going Home.” They were probably heartily sick of hearing about it, but we told them again anyway. We always started our days with a visit to the bees, not in the monsoon, of course; the leeches put us off, as we knew they would be lying in wait for us, creeping over our socks and into our shoes. The monsoon and the dry season governed and set out our days...days that had a routine to them, punctured only by little unexpected happenings.

  There had recently been a large, unexpected happening in the shape of a seven foot perria pamba – python – thankfully dead, which we had seen carried between two poles by a group of six excitedly chattering men. Daddy came out as the creature was deposited on the steps of the verandah. He thanked the men, paid them what was expected, and remarked on the python’s beautiful markings. It didn’t look very beautiful to me – I thought it looked horrible, all fat and grey brown, and it had this strange musky powdery, earthy smell, sour and dusty. If I had wondered what Daddy was going to do with it, I didn’t have to wonder long; it was taken to the tanner in Munnar town where it was immortalised into a wallet for him and shoes and a handbag that Mummy wore reluctantly. Fiona and I were appalled. Dry, the python’s skin felt scaly and rough and the markings looked ugly and snaky. We implored our mother to give them away.

  One day, when I was very little, we were out walking, my sister, my
mother, Ayah and me. I think I was about three years old and my sandaled feet stood on the head of a small, surprised snake that curled itself round my leg. Panic gave voice to shrieks and shouts from Mummy, Ayah and Fiona, filled with alarm and concern – for the snake, although small, was the exceedingly poisonous one, called a krait. It didn’t bite me, but the reaction of my three loved and trusted companions filled me with proper fear. I was unable for days to be put on the floor – I had to be carried, rigid, everywhere. I couldn’t trust my feet to be on the ground. Snakes? I don’t like them; I fear them. I don’t like the way they move, how they seek out dark corners; I don’t like their eyes, the fact that they don’t blink; I don’t like their tongues. I don’t like snakes at all. Even a picture of a snake in a book makes me shudder.

  Each morning we would get out of bed, bang our shoes together and, blinking hard to get used to the brightness of the light, we would run through the red canna lilies to the swing that hung from the lime tree. We’d visit the bees and the hen house and laugh as the cockerel strutted amongst his wives and cock-a-doodled. Then we would go in with Ayah to wash our faces and brush our hair before breakfast on the verandah. We always had the green and white checked table cloth and napkins on the verandah: a yellow and blue sort of tartan-y one when we had breakfast in the dining room. In the evening, the cloth was changed to a white one. There was always a jug of water with slices of lime in it (the water, of course, had been boiled), covered by a white lace mat that had little beads or shells hanging from it. This was to keep out the flies. We would have pineapples and plantains and sometimes stewed fruit – prunes and apricots and slices of softened dried pear shipped out from England. We usually had toast, but one morning there was a packet of Vitawheat on the table, wheat biscuits with dimples in them. I opened the packet and – oh horror! – lots of little creatures that looked like small silver fish scuttled out into the light. I dropped the packet. “What are they? Hundreds of tiny silver poochis. I don’t like it.” Daddy laughed. “They are weevils, Isla.” Weevils seemed to live in most things. “Just bang on the biscuit and they will fall off.” I did, and they did, but I was still reluctant to put the biscuit in my mouth. Weevils or not, it tasted like cardboard. We were supposed to drink a glass of boiled milk, but it made me gag. Mummy felt the same about boiled milk, so she didn’t force me.

  After breakfast, we would brush our teeth and go out and look for Sunduraj, our chokra (in England he would have been called a valet). Sunduraj would let us jump up on his shoulders and he’d run round the garden with us. Sometimes he would bring out the box of bricks onto the verandah and build towers and bridges. Ayah would join us and she would bring the dolls out and the doll’s tea set and we’d picnic on a rug under the lime tree with pretend tea and cakes. Once she found an old mirror and surrounded it with moss and leaves and flowers and it became a magical glade with a small mirror pond in the middle. We’d try to make things out of papier–mâché – water and newspaper. Fiona managed to make shapes and one creature she made had distinct arms. Mine nearly always remained blobs like fat sausages. We played shopkeepers and bought pretend things and put them in our pretend basket and we’d end each encounter with “Thank you very much. Good morning.” Ayah was usually the shopkeeper.

  Ayah was small and though she wasn’t fat, she was quite round and felt soft. She always wore a white sari with a white blouse under it and they never seemed to get dirty, despite our sticky hands clutching at her. She wore a gold cross around her neck and two gold bangles on her left arm that chinked when she moved. She always wore her hair in a bun after she had combed coconut oil into it. She smelt nice as she put me on her lap to undress me. She smelt of her coconut hair oil, of course, and curry and rice starch, which she used on her white muslin saris – and sometimes she would have a blossom of jasmine tucked into her tight white bodice. She had soft brown eyes that looked as if they were made of velvet and always seemed to be smiling, even when she got cross with us, which wasn’t often. If I was tired, or hurt, or a bit sad, she would cuddle me and rock me on her chest and sing soothing songs, or just tell me I was her Missy Baba Isla and I was a good girl and everything would be alright. Ayah’s soothing crooning, combined with her gentle stroking of my back, calmed my childish fears and cajoled me into slumber.

  At the time of year when the jasmine was out, she would make a chain of the flowers and wear them round her wrist and make me a wreath for my hair. It smelt lovely. She’d do the same thing with the orange blossom or the frangipani; I felt the most fragrant girl in all India. And on special occasions, she made garlands out of orange marigolds and hung them round our necks.

  Ayah’s name was A J Alyama, but I never knew what the A or the J stood for. She was just Ayah, our ayah, the best ayah in the world. She never struck us, or raised her voice to us. She would sometimes look upset and wring her hands and say, “Eye-yo, Eye-yo,” and say, “Missy Isla, No.” When I had done something after she had repeatedly asked me not to, or when I had hurt her feelings by saying something unkind or rude, she would leave the room and go and sit quietly on the sewing room floor, or she would sit on the steps of the verandah and not look at or speak to me. I would almost immediately ask her forgiveness, but Ayah’s forgiveness was not always readily won. She would sit looking straight ahead of her as if I was not in the room. I’d say tearfully, “I’m very sorry, Ayah. I won’t do it again. I’m very sorry I hurt your feelings and I wish I hadn’t.” And Ayah’s velvet eyes would turn on me and soften, as she held out her arms and I’d fall into them sobbing with real regret and shame.

  Fiona, Ayah and Isla on day of departure from Munnar

  Ayah was a Catholic and would go often to church – on Sundays she seemed to spend most of the day there and so we were in Mummy’s sole charge. It wasn’t often that we, as a family, went to the Presbyterian church in Munnar town, certainly not every Sunday as Ayah did, just for weddings and christenings and at Christmas and Easter. Sunday was the only day we would have lunch with our parents; I liked Sundays.

  Often on Sundays, our parents would give tennis and lunchtime cocktail parties. Fiona and I would scuttle into the drawing room and, before the servants came in to clear up, we would down all the “heel taps” – all the dregs of the gin and tonics and whiskies left in the glasses, even though we didn’t like them very much. We guessed from the colour of the lipstick on the rim of the glass which lady had had what. “This one is bright red – it must have been Grace Brent’s.” We liked Grace Brent; she spoke the same way to us as she spoke to our parents. Only once did Ayah catch us draining the dregs, but she never told our parents, even when we were sick. Some ayahs put opium on their little finger and let their charge suck it to send them to sleep. Our Ayah never did that. Well, I don’t think she did.

  On weekdays, we would lunch in the nursery with Ayah and sometimes Mummy would come in and talk with us. After lunch we were supposed to have a “rest”. The curtains were pulled shut and we lay on top of our beds with a light counterpane over us. Ayah would stroke our backs and murmur shooshing sounds. I felt this was such a waste of the day, but usually my eyes closed and I nodded off. On waking, it was walk time – rain or shine. Even in the monsoon, we’d set off, sou’westers on our heads and Wellington boots on our feet. Poor Ayah only had her “chupplis” (flip flops) and carried a big umbrella. Mummy had bought Ayah a pair of Wellington boots and a large pair of woollen socks but after wearing them only once she told my mother she couldn’t walk in them and went back to her chupplis. She wore a large green waterproof poncho type garment that exposed her arms when she held up the umbrella, but she said it was better than the cumbli that some of the other servants wore. When we returned from these watery walks, we would look inside our Wellington boots to make sure there were no leeches.

  We never went far, just up the road and through the tea. Occasionally our mother would come too, but she was usually busy in the house, so it would only be the three of us. If it was the hot season, we would wear o
ur sun hats and if it was very hot (though it never got really, really hot in the High Range, not like in the low country where the air got so thick you felt you couldn’t breathe), Ayah would make us walk in the shade of the same huge umbrella.

  Interesting things often happened on our walks. Once, we saw some baby snakes come out of eggs and squiggle together and then head off in a line. I didn’t much like the look of them and Ayah called us away saying the mother or father was probably nearby and it was best to move on.

  On occasion, Ayah would meet someone she knew. She would stand and chat, but she wasn’t very good at Tamil, as she was a Malayalam, and the languages were quite different – so they’d end up speaking in English. Once we met the watchman from the factory, a really tall man with blue eyes. I thought he was beautiful. We salaamed him and walked on. I asked Ayah why he had such startling blue eyes, when all the other Indians I knew had brown eyes. She said “He’s a Pathan, Missy Isla, he comes from the North. He is only working here and will go back home soon.” I still wanted to know why his eyes were blue. Being a Pathan didn’t seem a good enough answer. Did all Pathans have blue eyes? Ayah said most Tamils were small and dark skinned, the Pathans tall and lighter skinned, and Parsees fair skinned. Malayalams, like her, were somewhere in the middle. “But his blue eyes...?” Ayah changed the subject.

  We were on our ordinary walk on one ordinary afternoon, when Ayah suddenly stopped. She held us both and whispered to us “Missy stand still, very still, no moving.” We stood still. Some one hundred yards ahead was a large black cat the size of a calf. “Pulli, Missy. Look at the ground, make no contact with eyes, don’t look Missy.” We stood very still, looking at the ground, holding our breath. We knew panthers were dangerous, but they usually came out at night and this was the middle of the afternoon. Perhaps that was why Ayah was so nervous. When animals behaved unusually – especially wild animals – there was often something wrong. I’d heard about rogue arni and man-eating perria pulli – elephants and tigers. I’d only ever seen a tiger once and that was on the Periyar Lake when it was swimming – very unusual indeed, for a tiger.