Uneasy lies the Bald Head

10 years back, somewhere around this time of the year, I lost it. Looking back of course, there was nothing to lose it for, really. I was at the fag end of my 23rd year of life, in-between jobs and not married. Big crime. And everyone was making a huge deal out of it ( it will be interesting to note here that ALL those same folks have kids today who are way above that "tender" age limit and are still not married.Ahem!). Anyway, I was young and hassled and hyper-sensitive to the opinions of those around me. In desperation, I turned to Thirupathi Balaji and asked Him to solve my issues. I had a luxurious mop of jet black, curly hair thanks to good genes and years of eating fresh water fish. I decided to give it to Thirpathi Balaji.Just find me a decent job dude, I said, and someone I can love; in return for my hair. So, I came home looking like this...

I don't need to mention specifically that this move did not go down well with anyone around me. Suddenly the neighbors avoided me, the relatives raised eyebrows. And it particularly did not appeal to many naysayers who were now convinced that I was a freak of nature and a terrible example to both young and old :-P

I was a forceps baby, my mother says. The kind that wants to stay on in the birth canal and is half hearted about making an exit. So, I had to be pulled out with tools. This is considered to be a very dangerous form of birth; many babies suffer brain damage. I think I am fine, though. The good thing about a forceps birth is that soon afterwards, the nurses will give you a skull massage to set your plates back in place again. So the day I shaved I realized that I had a pefectly round head thanks to some nurse with very talented hands.

At this point in time, I had multiple piercings and wore amethyst pendants on an indigo thread. Very artisty, bohemian. Of course, people who saw me thought I had done this out of a misplaced sense of being cool and anti-establishment. I used to wear scarves of all hues to cover my head when I went out. The trippiest part was sitting casually in a restuarant, reading a book and then all of a sudden pulling off my scarf, shocking decent folk who sat around me. Heh heh, those were the days! ;-)

My hair grew back very very fast. I landed a job! And started dating a certain bassist I had met online. Things in my life were on a roll suddenly. So maybe Thirupathi Balaji does grant favours after all.

I have to shave my head one more time. I made this promise to Thirupathi Balaji once again sometime back. So one of these days, I will moonlight in my bad-ass look of yester years. Watch out naysayers. Here I come to corrupt your progeny again! >:-D

Happiness is a Green Marsh

I live on a marsh in the heart of Koramangala, a busy business district and suburb of Bangalore. It is highly unlikely to find a marsh of this size here. Land is at a premium and even tiny plots are lapped up by eager developers to make multi storey apartments which they sell to professionals who don't mind living even in a pigeon holes, so long as they can be close to work and can avoid the crazy Bangalore commute. So how did this marsh stay a marsh? How come no construction big wig has come along and bought it off and raised a skyscraper jungle here? Apparently the land is under dispute and has stayed this way for more than 25 years. We are talking of more than 175 acres of prime land.

Some of the nose-in-the-air Koramangaleans I spoke to before moving here, who have been living in "4th Block" since the past 3 generations ( 4th bock is something like the Bel Air of Koramangala), pinched their noses the moment I told them about where we had bought our flat. "But that was a septic tank!" one lady exclaimed. "It is reclaimed land.There is honestly no point in investing so much money to live on shit-wetlands". The lady must be right. Everything stands unusually lush and healthy on my marsh including the vegetables that my neighbours grow in their private gardens on the ground floor. Now I know why the soil is so nutrient rich!

We moved to this apartment complex some 6 months back to be close to the kids' school. The residential complex is unbelievable- it is green, has all facilities and a very limited number of flats ( just about 120 ) and the entire complex is spread out over 3 acres of beautifully landscaped gardens. It is so quiet, you can hear the birds sing. Since this is right next to a marsh, there is no main road next to it and there is absolute silence at all times of the day. But here is the catch- the approach road is not tarred and since the property adjacent is disputed, there is no way a decent road will come up anytime in the near future.

The builder had a hard time selling these flats although they are so full of air and sunshine. Folks were put off at the prospect of getting onto the "jiggly road" as my children call it, right after breakfast and bumping their way along for more than half a kilometer till the approach to the main roads. Most people, whose style is flooring the accelerator the moment they are seated, have had flat tyres. Shoot over 10 km/hr and damage to the undercarriage is a given. I have dodged snakes and coyotes and some riffraff too on this road. But it is just a half kilometer stretch and I sometimes think people make too big a deal out if it. Can't blame them I guess- blame the age of instant gratification.

I am a crazily overworked mom. What I look forward to the most in my action packed routine is my mid-morning coffee break, after the kids and husband scoot off to their respective destinations. I sit high up, in my favourite balcony on the second floor, which is open on three sides and look out at my beautiful marsh. It is overgrown with weeds and shrubs of all sizes and shapes and stretches in all shades of green, as far as the eye can see. On most days, cowherds bring their animals to graze. There are eagles soaring at all times of the day. Squirrels, mice and birds are forever scampering in the rows of private gardens downstairs. Far away on the horizon, there is an occasional glint and glimmer as sunlight bounces off the metal bodies of steady streams of soundless cars.

And I think how wonderful it all is. The odds of looking at a marsh this beautiful in a congested city like Bangalore, is almost nil. Most apartment complexes ( high end or not) furnish views of the neighbour's underwear. And I wonder why people crib so much about the little jiggly dirt road and the fact that this land was once upon a time a septic tank.

From what I hear, there is no way any road is coming for a long long time. And the marsh is disputed and there is no way it is going to get resolved or developed for a long long time. So I can wake up everyday and have my mid-morning coffee, looking at my lovely marsh for a long long time.




"This could be Rotterdam or anywhere, Liverpool or Rome, Because Rotterdam is anywhere, Anywhere alone..."

I've relaunched the comic strip that I ran a few years back on the blog, but this time on Facebook! Do follow it on http://www.facebook.com/Oormila.Cartoons

The do it yourself Barbie Doll Princess Cake

Ok people. This is how you make the Barbie Cake:


First you bake three cakes in three sizes, one bigger than the other, so that you can stack them one on top of the other...




Then you mix some cream and butter with sugar and whip it all up really smooth. This is going to be the "glue" for your cake.



Now to make the "fondant icing" or the edible sugar play dough to wrap all over the cake- You take quarter cup water and dissolve a tablespoon of gelatin in it ( by warming it in the microwave). Then, in a saucepan, boil one and a quarter cup sugar with one third cup water. This is thick sugar syrup. To this, add a teaspoon of vanila essence, and a tablespoon of glycerine. Mix all this together. So basically, you have a mixture of gelatin, sugar syrup, vanilla essence, and glycerine.



Put a kilo of icing sugar into a bowl and make a hole in the centre. Pour the liquid mixture ino the centre of this and start kneading...

Tada! Here is your sugar play dough.

Now make the fondant into balls and put a bit of food colour into them. I wanted light pink and dark pink, so have accordingly added colour...

The fondant should be kneaded till the food colour mixes completely and is even.




It is very important to seal the fondant in cling wrap or a plastic bag to prevent it from drying out.


Now let's prep the cakes. Take the biggest round first and coat it with the butter-cream-sugar mixture.


Be generous with the coating.


Stack the next round on top of the base.


By the way, to make sure the cake holds together well, it is a good idea to put some toothpicks into the cakes and poke them down. Make sure you don't choke on the toothpicks though, heh heh...


There is the last round going on top of the stack.


Now take a clean plastic sheet. I didn't have one available, so I cut open a large plastic bag.


Roll out the fondant. It will be like chapathi dough.


To make sure that the skirt "undulates", take strip of rolled fondant and make little pillars. Line the sides of the cake.



Here is the dark pink fondant for the front of the doll's skirt.


Put it on one side of the cake. It will drap well and the butter-cream icing will act like a glue.


Now roll out and cut the light pink fondant and cover the sides of the cake.


At this point, your cake should look like this.



Now cut a little hole in the centre of the cake. Remove the legs of the doll and insert it into the hole. Roll a little fondant and wrap it around the doll's hip to make a belt.


Tada! Now go impress people with your cake! Happy Baking everyone! :-)

My "virtual" Tuscan garden- a wall mural

The finished piece- Tuscan arch and courtyard with Butterfly Samarra in the foreground :-) The girl is real ;-)


This is my first attempt at muralling. I was in Home Stop a few weeks back when I saw a lovely set of wrought iron garden chairs and a table. They were placed on a wooden deck. There were differently themed backdrops erected behind these decks- seascapes, trees, desert scenes... I had a Eureka moment. We had just bought a new place in Koramangala and one of the balconies had a 10 ft high and 6 ft wide balcony. It would make the perfect backdrop for a "virtual" garden. Put these two chairs and the table in front of it and one could simulate the effect of sitting in a garden!

I toyed with the idea for a while, making preliminary sketches. Vivek has always been supportive of all my eccentricities. But I wondered if he would think that this was a little over the top. Surprisingly, he was thrilled with the idea. So I sauntered off to the paints shop and got myself a litre of White Apex Ultima Exterior Emulsion and several little bottles of "Staints". That is what they call the colours that are mixed with the white base to give you whatever shade you need. Now, I have never worked with house paints before and secretly feared that at the end of it all, I would be left with a really pretty wall mural but conked out kidneys! But some intense research later, I was convinced that the paints and their negligible fumes were safe. I set to work.

I am going to guide you through the process ( many friends liked the finished work and expressed interest in how it was done. Some folks wanted to try it at home on their own walls. The Magnanimous Oormila is only happy to share the tips. Please DO try this stunt at home. It is perfectly safe)



First, I took a big red crayon and drew the picture on the wall. I felt like a mischievous 3 year old The last time I scrawled on a wall like this with a red crayon, I got a spanking and a red bottom...
I didn't go into too many details at this point. Kept it simple.




Next, I worked on the bricks. I used shades of brown. I also worked on the wall and marked out a bit of foliage on the left.



I wanted a view inside the arch. So, I sketched out some trees in the distance and marked the horizon and sky.





I see some pretty trees with pink flowers on the inner ring road everyday on my cross country fro Banswadi to Koramangala. I have painted that on the right. To make the trees and the foliage on the left seem 3-D, I have given a grey shadow to the left.


I have put some white flowers on the shrubs on the left.


Okay, now for the gutsy part- get on a high stool and paint the top of the wall. I also drew cobble stones and have done a rough underpainting in dark brown.





Final stage- I deepened the shadows thrown by the tree and the shrubs. And I made the cobble stones more even.




Tada! Enjoy your virtual garden! Here I have asked my little girl to stand in front of the mural to give you and idea of perspective and scale...

The Myth of Sissy-Puss

It was the fag end of our holidays. Almost September. We had just arrived at our great-aunt's house in the back waters. She had written to us saying that there was a two week intensive canoeing camp happening in the village. She thought it would be a treat for us kids. My cousin and I signed up for it promptly. Two weeks of great-aunt, good food and water sports. There was no better way to end a vacation.

We walked into the courtyard carrying our backpacks. Suddenly a large hairy creature the size of an overgrown bandicoot whizzed past our legs. I squealed and jumped. The furry thing was scooped up by a beautiful young platinum blond who stood in the doorway of the outhouse. She looked like a water nymph in her chiffon ruffled sun dress, her pale hair blowing in the wind. She greeted us, carrying the animal in her arms. The fluffy rag moved again. It was a Persian Cat.

"Heidi," she smiled charmingly, giving both of us a hand," I'm staying here for a fortnight. And I see that you have already met Sissy-Puss."

The cat glared at us with its cataract clouded eyes then turned its head away with disdain.It looked like a knotted, worn out carpet. It was hard to believe that someone as strikingly attractive as Heidi could have a cat as ugly and unkempt as Sissy-Puss.

“That’s a really unusual name for cat!” my cousin said, laughing.

“Yup. My father named him after a Greek King. How old are you kids?” She bent down to smile at us like we were toddlers. It struck us how how short we were. Heidi must have been a good five feet eleven inches tall.

“Thirteen,” we said in chorus. My cousin blushed beetroot red and shuffled his feet. Heidi had the most mesmerising sea-blue eyes and I think she knew she could daze men of any age.

“Aw! Sissy-Puss is older than you guys then! He's fourteen. I've had him since I was a little school girl. He’s the closest thing in the world to me.” She looked indulgently at the cat and released him from her arms towards us. Sissy-Puss didn't think much of us. He hissed, turned his tail up, flashed his bottom in contempt and walked back towards the outhouse.


Great-aunt rented the outhouse of her villa every year to students who came for brief stays. It was always by word of mouth. Great-aunt was a widow and her kids had all settled abroad. She lived in a sprawling mansion that looked like a heritage home. One of her sons had brought a classmate along during his student days in the U.S. That fellow had such a good time, he went back and raved to all his friends about his stay in the backwaters.The next year onwards, there was a steady stream of foreign students who came down to great-aunt's place for holidays and vacations. She was a gracious hostess- she cooked for them and put them up comfortably in the outhouse as paying guests. Since all the people who came there were friends of friends, she always had good people. And for someone her age, good company.

Heidi was the guest there this month. She was German, great-aunt said and was studying towards a degree in philosophy at a college in Oxford. She had brought her cat along for her stint in India. Heidi and Sissy-Puss had been in Manali and Dharamshala for the summer. Now that the weather was much better down south, she had come to Kerala to do a tour of the back waters.

My cousin and I ran into the cat on our way to the dining room. It was stretched out on the carpet with its eyes half closed, enjoying the patch of bright sun that came in through the skylight. It flicked its tail hearing our footsteps but didn't bother to raise its head. My cousin went up to take a closer look . Sissy-Puss suddenly bristled, put out a paw full of sharp claws and hissed.

“What a crappy cat,” he muttered, “I have seen rottweilers with better attitude.”

Heidi joined us for lunch. “I absolutely love Kerala food,”she said. “I think it has to do with all the coconut you guys add. I think these home made pickles are awesome too.”

“Sissy-Puss doesn't seem to be in such a good mood,” my cousin said looking at the cat. It had gotten up now and was ambling away with its trademark disdainful look.

“It's his afternoon siesta time,” she said, forking a mix of rice and fish into her mouth. “ He's a very fussy fellow. Just cannot do without his nap. He can be really crabby otherwise.”

“Has he had something to eat? Do you think he will like some of the fish ?” I asked.

“Oh, Sissy-Puss has only cat food. I've got bags of it. In fact, the majority of my luggage was cat food and I had some serious explaining to do to the customs officials. He never eats anything else.”

She helped herself to a generous amount of fish curry."This is really good," she said.

“But don't cats like fish?”

“ I guess they do. Sissy-Puss is a pedigreed cat, you see. Give them the right things to eat and they live healthy for years. Sissy-Puss has outlived most Persians I know. His only complaint is cataract which is expected for a guy his age. He's ship shape otherwise. You got to maintain them well.”

I raised an eyebrow. Heidi's words seemed incredibly ridiculous in the light of how scruffy Sissy Puss looked.


Two weeks went by without incident. Heidi was usually out sight seeing or was busy working on her papers in her room. We met her only at dinnertime. Sissy-Puss would be in the outhouse most of the day, lazing in his basket with the table fan on. My cousin and I were almost through with our canoeing lessons.

That afternoon it got horribly cloudy. Our lessons had been cancelled on account of the bad weather. It was a sudden squall. The lake behind our house was in spate and the waters were dark and choppy. The skies were black and the heavens looked like they would unleash their wrath anytime. We ran indoors and waited in the dining room. There was a breath taking view of the lake and adjoining paddy fields from the french windows. Heidi entered with great-aunt.

“Stunning weather,” she said, walking up to the window. She adjusted her light cotton shawl around her shoulders. “I am yet to see the furious Kerala rains that my friends keep talking about.”

Great-aunt had made fried pearl-spot fish for lunch. It was the local delicacy and was famous the world over. It could arguably transport the eater to seventh heaven with each mouthful.

“Seriously, Heidi,” I said, “you must give your cat some of this. Think about it. He comes all the way from Oxford to Kerala and to the land where the pearl-spot fish thrives. And he goes back without having even a bite. How sad is that?” I felt convinced that the fish would do wonders to Sissy-Puss' sour temperament. Perhaps it was eating the same boring cat food day after day that had made Sissy-Puss such a sour puss.

“She's right, Heidi. I don't think an occasional indulgence will do him any harm,” great aunt said. “I am diabetic and I have an ice cream once in a while! I'm still cool. Pushing 65!" She winked at the girl.

“This dish is unbelievable, it really is!” Heidi gushed, smacking her lips. “What do you call it?”

“Karimeen Pollichathu,” great-aunt said with pride.

“I am never going to get the pronunciation right,” Heidi laughed. “Yeah, maybe I'll give Sissy-Puss a wee bit. This fish is a real treat!". She flaked the flesh off a whole pearl-spot fish and mixed it with some rice for the cat. Great-aunt put it in a coconut shell and as was expected, Sissy-Puss made short work of it.

It rained non stop for the next four hours. The courtyard was flooded and the lake had swelled beyond the wave breakers. Heidi and Sissy-Puss stayed indoors all evening. She turned up for dinner with Sissy-Puss in his basket, looking a little worried.

“ He doesn't look too well to me,” Heidi said, her voice strained. “He hasn't been active or responsive. I don't think the fish agreed with him.”

By late evening, Heidi was pale with worry and was pacing nervously in great-aunt's living room. Sissy-Puss was in his basket meowing weakly. His eyes rolled back from time to time and he looked queasy. Heidi wrung her hands and cried, “He looks really sick, ma'am. I need to take him to a vet right away. Please!”

Great-aunt started freaking out. This was pearl-spot fish not puffer fish! If fried pearl spot fish could kill, the entire population of Alleppey would have been wiped out by now. Not to mention their cats. She began cursing herself for having suggested that Heidi feed her cat the fish. It never struck her for a second that Alleppey fish might not necessarily suit German born, Oxford based Persian cats. She made phone calls to the local vet. He was stranded due to the rains and there was no way he could make it to the house. He prescribed some medicines for a bad stomach though. Great-aunt sent one of the workers, a strong swimmer and regular participant in the boat races, wading through the water to get the medicines from the village .

Sissy-Puss was dead by morning. He had had a few bouts of diarrhoea through the night. He lay stretched out in his basket, writhing from side to side, his expression as contemptuous as ever. Then he let out a rancid meow and was gone. We were shell shocked. Great-aunt didn't know if she should say sorry or not. Surprisingly, Heidi didn't lose it like we dreaded she would. It looked like she had gone into a stupor and had become completely numb. She just made some calls and sat silently by the phone like a stone. Some guy called Stephen rang up and said he would be there as soon as he could. She quickly packed her things and Sissy Puss' possessions. Great-aunt didn't know if it would be alright to ask her what to do with the cat's body. We waited for her to break her silence.

Heidi made some more calls. After a sleepless night, she told us that she was going to get Sissy-Puss embalmed. The waters had receded by now and great-aunt called the local funeral parlor. Heidi went to town to make arrangements. Our parents arrived that morning to take us back. We never saw Sissy-Puss again or got to say goodbye to Heidi. Great-aunt later told us that she left two days after we did, with Sissy-Puss embalmed in a box. She was inconsolable and very tearful. She left in a highly emotional state saying that she hated India and that it had taken her faithful companion away from her. Stephen had come to take her back to Oxford.


I was in class on a hot Delhi monsoon afternoon. It was five years since that vacation in the backwaters where I had met the German girl and her cat. The professor was waxing eloquent about the theme of the absurd in Camus' The Outsider. It was stuffy and humid and everything seemed absurd. The drone of the fan coupled with the heat made my eyes droop. Then, the professor made a reference to the myth of Sisyphus.

I was jolted from my sleep. The professor talked about the Greek king who was doomed to roll a large boulder uphill only to have his efforts undone at the end of the day, when the stone would roll back. Poor Sisyphus was cursed to do this for all eternity on account of his bad attitude towards the gods. I suddenly thought of Sissy-Puss and his bad attitude and imagined him with a gigantic boulder, maybe one of wool, doing this for all eternity in cat heaven. It also struck me that this was where Heidi and her father had got their inspiration for Sissy-Puss' quirky name. I muffled a laugh.

I nudged my bench-mate and scrawled on my notebook, “I actually knew a cat called Sissy-Puss.” He giggled noisily and wrote something back.

“Something funny, miss, that you care to share with the rest of the class?” The professor looked up, cleared his throat and took his glasses off. He pointed the arms of his spectacles in my direction.

All eyes were on me. I felt the horrible beginnings of a heart attack coming on. “Sorry sir. Just.. nothing. The name, it reminded me-”

“Of what?” the professor snapped. It was unbearably hot in that classroom. The professor wiped beads of perspiration off his forehead and slammed his text shut. He crossed his arms and looked at me most indignantly.

I should have had the sense to apologize and shut up but just like Meursault in The Outsider, the heat had obscured my thinking.

“ I once knew a cat called Sissy-Puss, sir, that died of indigestion,” I blurted. I didn't realize how ridiculously corny or cocky it sounded till it came out of my mouth. The class was in uproar.

I had the rest of the afternoon to think leisurely about Sissy-Puss and Heidi once I was sent out of the classroom. I wondered what happened to Heidi. How did Sissy-Puss finally get packed and sent home? Was he buried on German soil or was his final resting place in some pet cemetery in Oxford? Did Heidi think the pearl-spot fish actually killed her senile cat? Or did local vet's medicine do it? Or did Sissy-Puss die a natural death, having had the privilege of supping on a king's feast of pearl-spot fish as his last meal? What actually killed Sissy Puss?

I Had A Little Nut Tree...

All night, the rains spat. At about 3 a.m there was a crashing noise and part of the roof above my room caved in. There was a torrent of rain water, broken tiles and branches. When we ventured out in the morning to survey the damage, no one could believe what they saw. The Nutmeg tree, the pride of the estate, had fallen. Every one's face fell with it. After all, it had stood its ground for over half a century, weathered as many monsoons and several bad tempered storms in between.The invincible, deathless tree lay partially uprooted, leaning heavily against the back wall of the summer house.

My grandmother first showed me old, sepia tinted, moth chewn photos of the Nutmeg tree when I was six years old. She was about eighteen in it, thin as a lotus reed and was standing with an equally young and strapping grandfather. Next to them, reaching up to their thigh, was a nutmeg sapling. My great grandfather had planted it in her honour a week after she came to the estate as a new bride.A beautiful daughter-in-law's arrival needed to be marked with something that equalled her in worthiness .The nutmeg tree was thus a permanent fixture from her days as a young adult and so it was understandable, the fondness with which Grandmother regarded it. Although she never said it, she knew with a sense of unmistakable pride, that it stood for her beauty and the prosperity that her arrival had brought to Grandfather's family.

I often thought the tree had some distinctive rock star qualities. It had the bed head look and was wild and unfettered in its own way. It was a sight to behold when the storms struck. The tree head banged, thrashing its several arms on the clay tiles of the roof of the summer house. It looked scarily like a doped out rock star whacking his guitar on the roof. Sometimes, in the twilight, I imagined the tree to have the silhouette of a rocker from the 70s. On hot , still summer nights when the leaves were dry, dusty and motionless, the tree could have been the outline of a Hendrix with a distinct Afro. On wet damp monsoon evenings with its massive foliage hanging heavy and limp, its bark glistening like snake leather pants, the tree could have been Morrison. No one could deny that the tree had marked personality.

The summer house stood at the far end of the courtyard to one side of the huge iron gates that framed the long walk to the ancestral home. The tree spread itself above it. The summer house had a very shady past. Smelly, rather.It had originally been a cowshed for over thirty years. This was when grandmother had her own mini farm comprising of seven cows, a chicken coop and a sprawling vegetable garden. Then grandmother grew old and the cows got too rowdy for her to handle. One of them kicked her while she was milking it and she broke her hip. Grandmother retired. The cows were sold and the chickens were curried one by one depending on the frequency of guests at the estate. Grandmother decided that she couldn't tend to the vegetable garden either so she threw several handfuls of balsam seeds into the patch and within two weeks, there were pink and purple blossoms choking out the tomato and beans.

Grandmother then decided to convert the cowshed into a little house. She got the masons to wall the shed, put clay tiles on the roof and mosaic on the floors. The cow house was reborn as a summer house and soon lost all traces of its previous associations. With time, it started looking to the manor born. So the nutmeg tree gracing the front yard near the gate along with the fancy new summer house, stood for all that was magnificent about the estate.

The old watchman had been at the ancestral home from the time he was a young man. He believed that the nutmeg tree had supernatural powers. He said that great grandfather had planted the tree after getting the sapling blessed by a tantric. It was more than just a symbol of prosperity; it played the role of a protector of the household. The reason it had been planted at the front gate was so that spirits could not get past it. If anyone cast an evil eye on any member of the house, the tree would make sure that it was negated. There was a funny anecdote about the coconut thief who prowled in the neighbourhood at night. One night, he decided to steal nuts at our farm. He managed to drug the watchman and waited till the old man fell asleep. He then climbed the coconut palm next to the nutmeg tree and chopped quite a number of coconuts off.

No one really knows what happened after that. People were awoken by horrific cries. When they rushed outside, they found the thief suspended by the back of his shirt from one of the branches in the upper reaches of the nutmeg tree. He was completely disoriented and looked like he had been lifted up and hung on a peg. When he was taken down and asked what had happened, he replied incoherently that he had lost his balance and fallen into the foliage of the nutmeg tree. However, the old watchman had a different interpretation. He said that when he came to, he saw the tree put out several of its branches and wrap themselves around the thief and pin him down!

The watchman said that the thief went insane after that. He ended up in an asylum where he continuously rambled about his strange experience in the tree and would run for cover if he ever saw anything that looked remotely like a nutmeg. Grandfather seriously doubted this version and attributed the yarn to whatever anesthetic the thief had administered to the watchman. Besides, soon after the incident, he saw someone who looked very uncannily like the thief, grinning most cheerfully from the bottom corner of the local newspaper,looking perfectly compos mentis. He had apparently moved to a different locality and had been operating there with considerable success before he was nabbed. Not by any nutmeg tree this time, but the neighbourhood gurkha. However, our tree was still the hero having caught the thief red handed while on our property.

Kerala summers are a hot, sticky affair. The nutmeg tree was so lush and so expansive, at least fifteen people could have sat comfortably in its shade at high noon. Not even a ray of even the most intrusive bit of sun could reach the ground. I have spent eight summers at the ancestral home, each of them them two years apart. Whenever I came to the estate, things would be different. For one, I grew up from toddler to young adult. New trees were planted, old ones were cut. But the permanent sight was the Nutmeg tree. I have spent several afternoons propped up against it with a book.The watchman was usually superstitious about people sitting under trees in the afternoon hours. He would shoo us away from the tamarind tree if we sat under it.

"Spirits" he would caution, his face taking on an alarmed expression. "There are wandering souls caught in limbo between the worlds of the living and the dead. You don't want them considering your body for residence! Then it will be very bad. We'll have to get the trantri to beat the devils out of you then."

But somehow, he had no issues with us relaxing under the nutmeg tree. This was our arch protector, the pride and power of the estate and the ancestral home. It had seen grandfather and grandmother as young newly weds, their children and the children that they had. The tree was a living member of the family.




The tree leaned like a colossal giant against the back part of the house. Several of its branches had pierced through the tiling of the roof.

"I think it will be okay once it is put back on its feet". Grandfather flashed a torch into the huge cavity that had been gouged by the part of the tree that had been uprooted. It was broad day light by now and the sun was glaring through the clear skies but my grandfather wanted to be sure by torch light. Whether tonsils or trees, torch light was in his opinion, the best way to examine any problem. " We just need to get a few workers to ease it back into upright position. No damage done. The root is intact".

We were visiting for the holidays and had spent the night at the summer house the previous night after a party.
"This... this looks bad. It must have been one hell of a monstrous gale to do this kind of damage. Let's get the farmhands right away". My father rushed back into the house to make phone calls. My mother and I stood watching the tree in disbelief. I sniffed.

" I wouldn't worry too much!". Grandfather put an arm around my shoulders and hugged me. " We have put coconut trees back on their feet again after they got pulled up in storms like toothpicks. Our nutmeg tree is far mightier than that!". Somehow I didn't believe this magic realist attempt to reassure me.

Nobody had breakfast till the farmhands arrived. The watchman kept pouring water over the exposed roots as if cleaning a wound. Grandmother kept stroking the branches.

The farmhands got to work at once. One of them made a makeshift pulley throwing a rope over the tree in a loop and pulling it behind a sturdy mango tree that stood close to it. They heaved and sighed and the tree rose a few feet. Then it crashed again into the roof of the house bringing down part of the wall with it.

Grandmother shrieked " What are you people doing? I don't want the branches to be more torn up than they already are. Careful!". I had never seen her that upset before.

All morning the workers sweated, trying to hoist the tree. By afternoon they gave up. The tree was still slanted against the roof and had not budged an inch. Father paid them generously for their efforts though. In a desperate attempt to keep the tree alive, the farm hands shovelled mounds of earth over the exposed roots and told us that we should be prepared for the eventuality that the tree would grow "sideways" from now on. It might not stand upright but it would certainly thrive in a "lateral" position. As incredibly stupid as it seems now, it sounded like a reassuring option at the time. We just wanted the tree alive and were willing to overlook the direction of growth.

For two days, we kept shovelling mounds of earth over the roots in an attempt to cover them. No one was bothered about the house. Then grandmother had a bad feeling that the leaves were not looking too good. " I think we need to get the tree back on its feet again as soon as possible" she said.

A group of gypsies were passing through the neighbourhood and had heard from people about the giant nutmeg tree that had fallen on the estate and the desperate family that was trying to resurrect it. Their leader landed up and said that they would lift it for us- for a handsome sum. Grandfather did not think twice. " By all means" he said.

The Gypsies could make out the misery on our faces. They proceeded to go about it most scientifically. The leader drew up a detailed plan of what was to be done and instructed his people like an experienced foreman. Finally they ended up applying the very same tactics as the farmhands had two days before. There were some twenty of them and they hoisted the tree up. The leader proclaimed that the tap root was perfectly fine and that the tree would thrive as before without a doubt. Never before in our lives had we collectively hoped that this would be true.

For the next one week, it became an obsession to check the tree out first thing in the morning to see how it was faring. Did it look healthy, did it look like it was doing ok? For the first few days, we felt that all was as before. Then Grandmother found an unusually high number of dried shed leaves at the bottom of the tree. The branches started looked crusty and it was apparent to even a fool that all was not well with the tree. It started looking emaciated and grey. Within two days, the abnormal leaf shedding became too obvious to brush aside. The tree was slowly beginning to look skeletal as it became progressively bare. The nutmegs had begun to wither and shrivel.

Nobody wanted to accept what was apparent. We sat in the front porch of the ancestral home sipping hot coffee looking straight down the walk where the nutmeg tree stood at the iron gates. No one uttered a word.

" I think we should spare it the ignominy of wasting away like this", Grandmother finally took a call." I'll send for the wood chopper ". A collective gasp rent the air.

" Cut down the tree? It has been here forever! What will this place be without it". Grandfather was horrified.

" Oh For God's sake! There is nothing that can be done now. I think that it died the day of the storm. None of us wanted to accept it. It has been long gone". Grandmother sighed unhappily and quickly went inside. She was the iron lady of the house, not one to show her emotions in front of people.

So the tree was cut on a hot Tuesday afternoon. It came down branch by branch and Grandmother stood bravely through all of it. Every time a branch was chopped, she would bend over tenderly and pick all the shrivelling nutmegs off it. This was the last harvest and she removed the fruits respectfully as though she was removing armor off a dead warrior.

The view from the house suddenly looked alien and bare. All that was left to remind us of the tree was a gigantic cavity where it had been. The cutters loaded all the wood into a huge cart. The watchman opened the heavy iron gates and the cart left the estate.

A fierce patch of sunlight that had eluded the earth all this time, shone down on the spot where the massive tree had stood for more than fifty years.