Five

by admin

September 5, 2020

531

Nellikai. Tiny awla. Amla. Gooseberries. Starberries. Mouth-puckering sourness. The last time I ate one was forty years ago. We lived in Ernakulum and in our garden flourished a nellikai tree, with tiny leaves, delicate and fern-like. It was happily situated right next to our shed-like garage. Even a small, unsporty girl could easily clamber up onto its roof, and the nellikai hung within easy reach of my paws. Sometimes, I hauled up my dog, and my comic books and made a little nest for myself. My brother deigned to keep me company once in a while but his arrangements for a lazy afternoon were far more elaborate. The record player was moved near the window, the speakers arranged on the garage ledge, this with the unspoken agreement between Mum and us that not a word of the clear blasphemy would be breathed in front of the doting owner of the record player, my Dad. Then a thali filled with chilli and salt water would be carefully handed up to me, followed by cushions, the dog, comic books and other essentials. Once all of these were satisfactorily arranged, his lordship would ascend to his perch, give orders for the needle to be dropped on to the chosen record, critically analyse which bunches of nellikai were fit for his consumption and loll back on the cushions. We would lie there all afternoon, playing record after record, lazily sucking on nellikai seeds, reading comics or simply lying back, squinting at the light filtering through the light green fronds. Tina would get bored after a while and whine to be sent down. This was an excuse to restock comics and chilli water and the afternoon passed in a stupor of doing nothing much at all.

My parents entertained a lot. Sunday lunches usually, with deck chairs arranged in a circle under the spreading nellikai tree, shandies and chilled beer, fried fish and shrimp for snacks, with Mum’s dhansaak or chicken curry to round things off. My young school teacher got along famously with my mum and dad. My mum and she had a lot in common, both fiesty, independent career women, with a wicked sense of humour and a refreshing irreverence for patriarchy and stuffy traditions. So it was only natural that she became a part of our social circle in a tiny town where like-minded people could be counted on the fingers of two hands. I have a memory of her, sitting in half sun half shade with a discreet shandy in one hand, head thrown back, laughing uproariously at some tall tale spun by Dad or in earnest discussion of some feminist issue with Mum or other guests. The nellikai tree was the canopy under which we gathered together all our friends in those happy, simple days of sunshine and blue skies.

I never ate a nellikai again until today. But soon after we left Ernakulum and moved to Madras, I made a new friend. My school teacher from Ernakulum? She moved to Madras as well and her niece joined my school and class that year. We became close friends for the next five years, sharing hopes and dreams, seeing each other through fledgling writing days, and other times of despair. We ran out of things to share the year I turned fifteen, reconnecting only after another twenty odd years. Even so, we are wary of each other, old familiar strangers, certainly not the best friends we once claimed we’d be all our lives long. Still, it feels good to be back in touch with old friends and memories. She remembers different things than I do, her memories are sweeter and leave a feeling of comfort behind. Mine are still rubbed raw with unfinished grief and guilt. I turn to her often when I’m in need of a reminder of those sweeter, gentler times. She tells me of my brother, yes his lordship of the nellikai tree, braiding her hair one afternoon and assuring her that she was a very pretty girl. She tells me of her unrequited crush on him, and of him gently confiding in her of his own unrequited love for his best friend.

Where was I that afternoon, I wonder? When the two of them, my friend and my brother, hung out together in the kitchen? Was he creating his beautiful frosted candles? Or baking yet another pineapple upside down cake? She shares this memory with me and in the telling, brings me a measure of peace and comfort.

I taste a small piece of nellikai this morning as I prepare a little chilli and salt water for my eighteen year old to dunk them in. He seems unusually intrigued by this childhood memory of mine, though normally he can be blasé and jaded when I start story telling. That little piece of tart fruit makes my mouth pucker, my salivary glands burst into action and I am transported back to the smells and tastes of forty years past. Later, when I send out a call to my school friends for a recipe for nellikai pickle, it is of course this friend of mine who responds immediately. She sends me her mother’s recipe and the nicest thing is that I can never tell which of her mums she is referring to. You see, my teacher has been her mum too for many years now. As my kitchen fills with the delicious smells of home (gingelly oil, methi seeds, chilli and mustard), I think back to the five degrees that connect us – me, the nellikai tree, my brother, my teacher and my friend. The tree and my brother are long gone. My teacher who is also my friend and my friend (who is also my teacher of simple lessons) are still a part of my life. And for that, I am very grateful. I savour the sourness of the nellikai thokku, tempered with  spice and sweet, and give thanks for a childhood of such sweet-sour memories and for friends, once lost through bitterness and the salt of my own tears, now found again.