Cedilla (46 page)

He was back remarkably quickly. In fact he had hardly spent more than thirty seconds inside the house. If I had been less preöccupied with cattle atrocities seen beside the road I would have registered that this was something altogether remarkable. I was in a very different sort of society from the one I was used to. A man enters a house and tells his wife that they are having a surprise guest, not only for dinner but overnight. He emerges half a minute later, smiling and composed. It was a sequence of actions as mysterious in its way as the riddles I had enjoyed leaving unsolved at Burnham – Antony and Cleopatra, the man who asks for a glass of water and has a gun pointed at him by the barman instead. It was completely impossible in British terms without the creation of domestic turmoil, protests and mutterings, without mollification by bribery or vows of retaliation, but here it was perfectly routine. No broken glass, not even a hiccup.

I wasn’t sure that I was up to socialising of any high order, but perhaps that wouldn’t be expected of me. I was exhausted, and grateful to be cared for by anyone who was willing to take me on. The house was spacious and airy, well equipped with large ceiling fans. It was furnished to allow entertaining in both the Western and Indian styles, with sofas and chairs, and also mats for those who gravitated more naturally towards the floor.

I began to sit up and take notice when I was introduced to Raghu’s
younger brother Kashi, a fine young man with a boyish grin who seemed to dance along the ground rather than walk on it. He looked no more than thirty – in fact he was nearer to forty. He was marvellously sleek, like a matinée idol of the sort that is out of date in the West. If his features had been blown up to vast dimensions on a poster, staring into heroic distance, it would be hard to blame any sentient creature for being mesmerised by them. I would have liked to give him a good long lick myself.

Now that I was indoors I could tell that the household wasn’t absorbing the fact of my presence quite as smoothly as it seemed. The establishment had been set on its ears, in the nicest possible way, by the arrival of this visitor – this person who had come from England all on his own but couldn’t cross a room, let alone continue his pilgrimage, without help. I was an astonishment and a wonder.

Next to make herself known was Raghu’s daughter Chu-cha, who must have been about ten at the time. I used the technique I’ve evolved over time for the reassurance of children, whose curiosity is so highly developed, whose vulnerability to embarrassment follows it every step of the way. I gave a little nod at the opposite wall and said, ‘Is that you in that picture?’ In fact I could hardly see the photograph I was indicating, and had no evidence that the girl even spoke English.

The point was to convey that I would be fixing my attention safely on the middle distance for as long as she pleased to look at me. I was giving a sort of permission, by saying in effect, ‘
I’m
going to be looking in this direction for a while – where
you
look is your business.’ I wouldn’t embarrass her by intercepting her gaze prematurely, and our eyes would meet only when she had adjusted to what was unfamiliar about me. It was up to me to create a sort of antechamber to this first encounter, where a stranger could compose herself.

When this had all been managed I asked Chu-cha, ‘Is your mother in?’ and she looked rather doubtfully at her father. He explained that she was indeed in the house – where else would she be? – but it was polite, when a visitor came, for a wife to wait for twenty minutes or so until called to present herself. When the time came he called softly and Sumati appeared, bowing in the sinuous posture of Namaskaaram, which alas I had no prospect of returning properly. She had
to take the thought for the deed like everyone else. Her hair had a wonderful oiled shine to it, and the fragrance she carried made English scents seem two-dimensional.

She offered refreshment before retiring gracefully to attend to her duties. This too was the proper procedure. Would I care for some sweet-lime juice? I would. I was determined to drink it slowly when it came, delicious though it was, so as to defer as long as possible the moment when I needed the lavatory and tipped the delicate balance of hospitality into something cruder and more compromised. There is such a marked social difference between intake and output in digestive matters. It was too much to hope that Tamil Nadu would be the culture that disproved that rule, with excretion and embarrassment showing no overlap.

Chu-cha settled herself on a mat near my feet so that she could examine me closely – evidence that any nervousness had been dispelled. She felt entitled to look as much as she wanted.

Sumati must have been busy in the kitchen, and before long we were summoned to the large dining table. I was offered eating implements from a little revolving canteen of knives, forks and spoons, hung up by holes in their handles. My hosts would be eating by hand, but I was a Western Guest and would be lost without cutlery (true enough in my case). In the middle of the table was a large carousel loaded with cooked food, each dish in its own compartment.

I was slightly disappointed by the look of the room, since I expected the exotic in every detail. Here there were traces of the Habitat chic of the period. Low over the dining table hung a fat purple lamp-shade suspended from a pulley. The Washbournes had something very like it.

Raghu took great care to explain the system to me, though I wasn’t expected to use it. Sumati would serve me herself. Raghu gave the carousel a proud push, so that it rotated merrily for quite a time, diffusing the aromas of a dozen separate dishes in a centrifugal spiral. Raghu and the others had large stainless steel platters onto which they helped themselves with food from the carousel. The serving spoons in
their compartments were the only utensils on the table, apart from the ones I was to use.

I was thoroughly entertained by the carousel system. It was fun to watch the wheel being given a push so that the dish in front of me was replaced by a new one. It made me want to try everything. As Sumati served me she would announce the name of the dish, and I repeated it as best I could, to show that I was more than a tourist getting his mouth burnt. I was having my first lesson in Tamil, as well as my first lesson in a cuisine of great depth and variety, not founded on animal sacrifice. So many morsels in savoury counterpoint. A banquet composed of a wide range of mini-meals – perfectly calculated to tantalise then satisfy this body’s appetite. The rice wasn’t offered on the carousel but came passed round from hand to hand in its own dish.

Raghu gave me a demonstration of Indian eating technique. You put small amounts of most things around the edge of the platter, leaving the centre area for the rice, of which you took a modest amount. Then you would mix with your right hand various dishes with a bit of rice in the centre, adding
sambhar
until the consistency felt right. I was reminded of a painter working with his palette, mixing pigments with white and each other until tone and tint were exactly what was needed to balance the composition.

The next trick was to mould the mix into little balls which you would pop into your mouth. To start with I found this a little bit horrifying, though I repeated to myself that nervous-genteel English mantra ‘Fingers were made before forks …’

Even so, it was with fascination and a slight revulsion that I watched Raghu eat his meal. I didn’t dare to start on mine. His fingers flashed with lightning speed, his hands whipped and swirled around the plate, and sometimes he would gather his dollop of food in the centre and then pound his hand up and down to squash everything together. It was a primitive and off-putting rigmarole. Yet during the process my attitude to what I was seeing changed completely, thanks to Raghu’s grace, charm and pride in hospitality. If I started watching his performance with a feeling of disgust masked by good manners, then by the time he had finished I was fully convinced that the food must taste very good. I found I was distinctly hungry myself.

I set to work on my own behalf, rather self-consciously, using the Western utensils, wishing I made a better ambassador for British eating habits. From one compartment came
sambhar
, a spicy lentil soup. There were
batatas
, spicy chilli potatoes, and
koftas
, vegetarian dumplings in gravy. There was
usli
made with bread, chilli threads and cracked mustard seeds, there was
kattirikkaay poriyal
and
sundal
. The word I had most trouble with was
appaLam
, used to describe the crisp and crinkled discs, flavoured with seeds and spices, which made such a festive crackle between people’s fingers and teeth.

The
L
-sound in the word was deceptive and complex, more like the notorious Welsh double-
l
, that daunting, darkly bubbling sound, than anything in English articulation. I wouldn’t let myself try the food until my pronunciation had passed muster. There were a few false starts. Again, the business of getting my tongue round the words before it encountered the named food was palate-enlivening in some profound way. It was as if I had never tasted food before. A number of discrete areas of the brain were flashing at the same time, as on a pinball table with a wizard guiding the flippers. Palate-sensation and language learning shook hands, even did a little jig together.

When I was a bed-bound child Mum had given me her own kind of instruction in table manners, showing me that the ideal forkful represented every element that was present on the plate. This principle had its source in her social nervousness, which made her long for strict rules, but the idea appealed to the cadet scientist in me. Being identical, every forkful was an equally valid sample. My mouth was a laboratory whose experiments would yield verifiable and statistically suggestive results.

This new lesson, though, was devoted to nothing but the techniques of enjoyment. It was like being let loose with the paint box after years of dutiful copying and colouring inside the lines.

No ‘curry’ Mum had ever made at home prepared me for the benign blast of taste. One of my fellow patients at CRX, Sarah, claimed that curry would kill anyone who hadn’t been exposed to it in infancy (as she had, having been born in India). Now, despite my wayward choice of birth-place, my palate was being naturalised.

I consoled myself for any ineptness in my eating manners with the thought that at least my hands were clean. What sort of state must Raghu’s right hand be in by now! All sticky and foul. As if he was reading my mind, he said:

‘Observe, John, and remember well how to tell the mark of an educated Indian. A country person will get the food smudged all over his hand but … Observe!’ Here he flourished his hand like a magician. ‘Look at my hand. The fingertips have food on them, but the palms are perfectly clean and dry. Go on, take a look … Feel.’

I looked. And then I felt. Raghu’s palms were perfect, not only clean and dry but smooth and warm. My pleasure in the food and the way my hosts approached it was intensified by the good fortune of having Kashi sit opposite me. Raghu was distinguished, but Kashi was – the verbal chime made the assessment even more irresistible – dishy. I spent much of the meal making (I dare say) sheep’s eyes at him (though the phrase in my mind, thanks to a loving German physiotherapist at CRX, was
Kuh Augen
). It doesn’t count as ogling if you just look at what’s in front of you. If he’d been badly placed at table I wouldn’t have been able to see him at all without much furtive wriggling or manœuvring of the wheelchair.

Kashi for his part flashed his eyes at me. I don’t mean that he flashed them with knowledge and purpose, but he flashed them just the same. That was the sort of eyes he had, the flashing sort. He couldn’t help it, and it would hardly make him unique if he had a dash of the flirt in his make-up, and the reflex or habit of making conquests socially. His slim fingers deftly raided the carousel of delights.

I managed to notice, out of the corner of my eye, despite the visual and culinary distractions of dinner, that Sumati waited until we had finished eating before she put even the first morsel in her own mouth. I wondered whether this was a formal etiquette prompted by my presence, or if the same submissive routine governed every family meal. If so then it was part of the same etiquette that made her accept an unannounced guest without a murmur. Travellers in strange lands must take care not to end up like those cartoon characters who cheerfully saw through the tree-branch they’re sitting on.

The whole exhausting, exhilarating evening made me realise that if the word ‘family’ was enough to describe the doings and feelings
of the Cromers, then I would have to find another one to describe the Gaitondes.

I had been relieved to discover that in this mixed household the plumbing was as Westernised as Raghu, rather than as Indian as Sumati. Mum had warned me to expect nothing but holes in the ground buzzing with flies, and until I had seen for myself I couldn’t altogether laugh off those baleful sanitary prophecies. I paid little visits to the lavatory with help from Kashi, who would wait tactfully outside.

I wouldn’t have dreamed of going abroad without being able to administer the business of defæcation properly. By now I fancied myself something of a Zen master at the relevant origami, and I could make myself perfectly clean with a single lotus blossom of folded tissue (four leaves intertwined). If I enjoyed repeating the process with a fresh flower when I had time, it was partly because I was imagining the rapt admiration of an audience, in a bathroom version of Raghu’s demonstration at the meal-table.

Now I asked if I might be given some extra help in the bathroom before I went to bed. Raghu frowned and said, ‘I wonder who would be the right person to help you with that.’ He seemed to be running through a list in his mind, of people whose possible duties might include helping with the bedtime preparations of a surprise guest. There were servants in the household, and I imagined one might be detailed to help me, but Raghu’s hesitation made me think again.