Cinnamon Gardens (2 page)

That afternoon, Louisa was kneeling at one end of the back verandah. The heavy wooden box in which she stored her dry rations and spices was open before her as she measured out the ulundu to be soaked overnight for the morning’s thosais. She was disturbed from her task by the exclamations of her two younger daughters, Kumudini and Manohari. She dropped the lid shut and, not even waiting to padlock the box, picked up her bunch of keys and hurried through the drawing room. She came out onto the front verandah to find Annalukshmi standing by the bottom step with a bicycle.

Louisa drew in her breath in astonishment. “What on earth is this?”

“A bicycle,” Annalukshmi said, trying to sound as if it were the most normal thing in the world for her to turn up with one.

“I can see it is a bicycle. But what is it doing here?”

“It’s Miss Blake’s. She gave it to me as a going-away present.”

Annalukshmi pushed aside some hairs that had strayed from her plait, which she wore in a knot at the nape of her neck. In her mind, she went over the arguments she had rehearsed with Nancy to combat her family’s resistance.

Louisa clicked her tongue against her teeth in annoyance. “Don’t talk rubbish, Annalukshmi. You know you can’t go around on a bicycle.”

“And why not?”

Louisa’s face flushed at Annalukshmi’s impertinent tone.

Before she could proceed further, her middle daughter, Kumudini, laid a warning hand on Louisa’s arm. Arguments between her mother and older sister were often overheated, and Kumudini frequently had to step in as peacemaker. “Akka, be reasonable,” she said to Annalukshmi. “You can’t. People will say all sorts of things.”

Though Kumudini was twenty-one, and a year younger than Annalukshmi, she was regarded by everyone as the eldest because she was such a model of propriety.

“And look at the state of your sari,” Kumudini continued. “It’s ruined.” She shook her head. Though only a five-rupee Japanese Georgette sari, it was lovely, with a clover-leaf design on an off-white background. Now there was a grease stain along the bottom of it. Kumudini had, with great care, stitched this sari onto a length of belting because, at that time, a sari was sewn onto belting that hooked around the waist very much like a skirt, the only dressing required being the pleats and the fall draped once about the body and over the shoulder. Her efforts had been in vain. The sari was probably ruined. Further, the white sari blouse had two very unladylike sweat stains under the arms.

“We should put a chain around her neck and take her from door to door,” Manohari, the youngest, put in sarcastically. “She looks just like a monkey on a bicycle, and I’m sure people will pay us a lot of money to see her do tricks.”

Manohari, who was sixteen, actually thought the whole thing a bit of a lark. The situation merely presented her with an opportunity to exercise the wit she was famous for and lord it over her eldest sister.

“Excuse me for pointing out the obvious,” Louisa said, “but decent, respectable girls don’t ride bicycles.”

“They do,” Annalukshmi replied. “Lots of Burgher ladies and European ladies ride bicycles. Look at Miss Lawton.”

“Miss Lawton!” Manohari cried. “Miss Lawton says no rickshaws, Miss Lawton says ride a bicycle. If Miss Lawton told you to go and jump in the well, would you do that next?”

“So Miss Lawton is encouraging you in this nonsense.” Louisa fiddled with the keys on her triangular silver key ring
so that her daughters would not see the hurt she felt when Annalukshmi valued the opinions and advice of another woman above her own mother’s.

“Be sensible, Akka,” Kumudini said. “It’s one thing for European ladies to ride bicycles. We can’t.”

“And we never will, unless someone makes a start,” Annalukshmi replied. “How will the women of this country ever progress? European women can ride bicycles and do all sorts of other things because a few brave women made a start.”

“I don’t care what Miss Lawton says,” Louisa said as she hooked her key ring onto the waistline of her sari. “You cannot ride that bicycle, Annalukshmi. It’s simply out of the question.”

Annalukshmi started to protest, but her mother waved her hand to say that she would not entertain any further pleas. She went back into the house to continue her duties.

“I shall ride it anyway,” Annalukshmi called out after her mother.

Louisa chose to ignore the taunt.

Annalukshmi now glared at Kumudini and Manohari. “Thank you very much for your sisterly support,” she said.

She stalked off, wheeling the bicycle in front of her.

After Annalukshmi had leant the bicycle against the side of the house, she stood brooding over her possession. She thought of the sheer pleasure she got from riding the bicycle, of the exhilaration that rose in her as she felt the bicycle gather speed under her, the panting sense of accomplishment as she reached the top of a slope and the rush of wind in her hair and under her sari as she went down the other side. Then there was the freedom to come and go as she pleased. Already she and Nancy had
made numerous expeditions on Miss Lawton’s and Miss Blake’s bicycles whenever Annalukshmi had stayed over at the headmistress’s bungalow. She recalled one in particular now: a Saturday morning she and Nancy had got up while it was still dark and ridden to the Galle Face Promenade to watch the sun rise over the sea. They had sat on a bench by the sea wall in contented silence, wrapped in their shawls, the air misty around them, the taste of salt on their lips. It had been a spectacular sight, the first slivers of light on the rolling waves like silver-coloured sea creatures that surfaced and dipped, surfaced and dipped. Then the splinters of light had turned gold and, as more and more of them appeared, the sea seemed alive with golden fish.

Annalukshmi was not going to let herself be stopped by the ridiculous conventions of society. She convinced herself that it was only fear of societal censure that made her mother forbid her and no personal repugnance on Louisa’s part. After all, when they were girls in Malaya, her mother had not protested when her father had taught her to ride her cousin’s bicycle. Annalukshmi glanced contemplatively at the bicycle. It really was a very jolly bicycle, the frame a shiny red. There were red, white, and blue streamers at the ends of the handlebar, with corresponding colours on the seat. The wicker basket attached to the handlebar proudly displayed a Union Jack. A plan began to form in her mind. Tapping her chin thoughtfully, she went inside to wash before tiffin.

Colombo, with its fine port, its midway position between East and West, was one of the great junctions of the shipping world
in the 1920s. It was thus of immense importance to the commerce of the British Empire. Yet, the city had none of the chaos of masonry, the hustle and bustle that one associated with the other great cities of the East, be they Singapore or Shanghai or Bombay. Instead, the principal impression of Colombo was that of trees and water. The city was flanked on one side by the ocean, and its inhabitants were never very far from the salty smell of the sea air and its cooling breezes. In the middle of the city was the extensive Beira Lake, from which tributaries snaked their way through the city, forming smaller lakes at various junctures. The waters of the lakes were bordered by foliage of unrivalled beauty, palms of every variety, masses of scarlet flamboyant blossoms, the waving leaves of plantain trees. The streets of Colombo were tarred and kept in good condition. They were wide and lined on both sides by huge trees that cast their shade over the roads. The most common of these was the suriya tree, whose profuse blossoms often formed a carpet of primrose yellow on the pavements. Even the Fort, the commercial district of Colombo, had broad streets with grand, whitewashed buildings. The merchant offices and stores were capacious and often had colonnaded verandahs running the length of them to provide shade for pedestrians.

The only part of Colombo that possessed the chaos and scramble of other large cities was the Pettah, where the colourful bazaars were always raucous with the cries of vendors, the fierce bargaining of women shopping. Here the streets were narrow, the buildings huddled together, the shops and domestic dwellings often open to the streets, the activity of selling and living going on on the streets themselves. The air was pungent with the odour of fruits, spices, dried fish, meat, the blood from butcher shops running into the open drains. The roads were
crowded with people, cows, goats, pigs, and the constant flutter of scavenging crows.

The Kandiah family lived in Cinnamon Gardens, a suburb of Colombo. A century ago, the entire area had been a protected cinnamon estate cultivated by the colonial masters for gain, the cinnamon peelers almost bonded slaves, the price of cutting down a tree, death.

Cinnamon Gardens was laid out around Victoria Park, a pleasure ground with meandering walkways, shaded by fig trees and palms, with benches under clumps of graceful bamboo and araliya trees. Along the numerous archways that provided entrance into the park crept the purple bell-shaped flowers of the thunbergia and within the park were passionflowers, orchids, bright-leaved caladiums, and a multitude of other tropical plants.

To the north of the park was the Town Hall. To the south, Green Path led all the way up through the suburb of Colpetty to Colombo’s main thoroughfare, the Galle Road. To the east of the park was Albert Crescent, from which branched off the main residential streets of Cinnamon Gardens: Ward Place, Rosmead Place, Barnes Place, and Horton Place, most of them named after former British governors of the Crown colony of Ceylon.

These streets contained within them many grand mansions, situated well away from the road, some barely visible for the greenery that surrounded them. They were the homes of the best of Ceylonese society, whose members had thrived under the British Empire and colonial economy. This gentry had attained an affluence they never could have foreseen, through trade in rubber, coconut, plumbago, and – this a well-covered fact – the distilling of arrack. The drawing rooms of these homes were
appointed with the very best that Europe had to offer, the finest chandeliers, Waterford crystal, curtains from Paris, damask tablecloths, grand pianos. Everything that made the occupants faithful servants of the British Empire or, if not the Empire – as this was the age of agitation for self-rule – at least loyal to the principles of the colonial economy that had placed them where they were. The fine residences bore names such as Ascot, Elscourt, The Priory, The Grange, Chateau Jubilee, Rosebank, Fincastle, The Firs; and the names of the occupants – Reginald, Felix, Solomon, Florence, Henrietta, Aloysius, Venetia, Tudor, Edwin.

Perhaps one of the grandest houses of Cinnamon Gardens was that of the Mudaliyar Navaratnam. He was kin to Annalukshmi and her sisters, their paternal grandfather and the Mudaliyar being first cousins. His property on Horton Place was named “Brighton” after the Brighton Pavilion, which the Mudaliyar had visited as a young man. A large, three-storeyed, Georgian-style house sat at the end of a long driveway that curved both ways around an oval garden and met under the front porch. The roof of the front porch was flat and served as a balcony, a balustrade running around it. French doors led into the second floor. The façade of this floor consisted of a series of arched windows, in comparison to which the windows of the third floor were but slits. Along the edge of the roof there was another balustrade, which hid the low-pitched, red-tiled roof, An arched, colonnaded verandah ran around the house. The verandah had elaborate flowered-tile flooring and large reclining chairs of teak and caning.

Brighton’s oval front garden was extensive, with stone benches at each end for viewing the vista. A carefully tended lawn was broken by flowerbeds of cannas and roses. Royal palms had been
planted at regular intervals around the edges of the driveway, their feathery, soaring leaves giving a sense of lightness and whimsy to the entire garden. To the left of the garden, beyond the driveway, was a thick clump of trees. This vegetation separated the grounds of Brighton from the property belonging to Annalukshmi and her family.

The Kandiah bungalow – Lotus Cottage – was a simple two-bedroom bungalow with whitewashed walls and a red-tiled roof. It might have been spartan but for carved verandah pillars whose design of lotus flowers and vines was picked up on the fretwork mal lallis above the doors and windows and on the carved valance boards that ran along the bottom edges of the roof. The house was small and would have been unbearably cramped for a family of four if not for the deep front and back verandahs. Like most inhabitants of Ceylon, or indeed any tropical country, the Kandiahs conducted a large part of their living – the entertaining of guests, tea, sewing, reading, some cooking – on these verandahs.

A set of front doors opened directly onto the drawing room, to the right of which were the entrances to the two bedrooms. One was occupied by Louisa, the other by the three girls. They were neat, cheerful rooms. Though the furniture was inexpensive and the three beds a bit of a squeeze, the brightly coloured floral coverlets and curtains adequately compensated for these shortcomings. Beyond the drawing room, and separated only by an archway, was the dining room, with a carved ebony table and matching chairs. From the dining room, a pair of doors led onto a U-shaped back verandah. Along the left arm of the verandah was the bathroom and store rooms; along the right, the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. The back garden was extensive and contained a variety of fruit trees – jak, banana, papaw, breadfruit,
mango; beds of vegetables – brinjal, murunga, okra, pumpkin; and herbs – curry leaves, rampe, lemon grass. At a fair distance from the verandah was the toilet. Lotus Cottage still used the bucket system, a latrine coolie coming by every morning to collect the night soil in his cart.