Fireflies in the Night: A Coming of Age Historical Novel Read online

  Fireflies in the Night

  A Novel

  Nalini Warriar

  Copyright © 2016 by Nalini Warriar. The book author retains sole copyright to this book.

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  ISBN: 978 0 9877-484-4-7 (ebook)

  ISBN: 978-0-9877-484-1-6 (print)

  All rights reserved. Please do not scan, upload, reproduce, distribute or transmit this book in any form or by any means without prior permission of the publisher. Brief quotes for review purposes being the only exception.

  Cover: Bookbrush

  Created with Vellum

  Dedication

  This book is for my girls, Rukmini, Maya and Ariane. And for my beloved and soul mate, Gopi.

  Acknowledgments

  My deepest gratitude to the following: Jan who was there in my darkest hours; Pauline, my non-friend for her generosity; my champion and kindred spirit Janine; Phil, the eater of my words; Barry the nagger. Thank you, my readers, for without you I could never do this.

  Fireflies in the Night

  A Coming of Age Historical Novel Based On A True Story

  Set in 1960s India-Next Generation Indie Award for Best Fiction 2017; Best Books 2016 Kirkus Reviews

  Nalini Warriar

  About Fireflies in the Night

  Two sisters and a beautiful mother caught between tradition and love, a family torn apart by tragedy and betrayal. Set against the lush background of wild animals and tea estates of Assam, India, this story weaves through the 50’s and 60’s and the India-China confrontation of 1962.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Author’s Notes

  Books by Nalini Warriar

  About the Author

  Get a Free Book!

  1

  Eastward

  In 1957, Achankulangara Namboodiripad Krishnan sits on the side veranda of his rented home in Madurai in the state of Madras, South India, three wet betel leaves clutched in his hand. With the end of his shirttail, he wipes them dry. Opening a silver box in which he keeps condiments, he spreads pink lime paste with a silver spoon on each of the three leaves, using his bent knee to hold them together. From another pot he uses his fingers to sprinkle fragrant betel nut shavings spiced with cloves and cinnamon over the paste. The final layer is sweet grated coconut.

  After rolling the leaves, he places the packet in his mouth and chews. He does this slowly, for the roll is rather large and his tongue often gets caught between his teeth. He savours the burst of flavour filling his mouth, leans back and closes his eyes. A drop of the betel juice trickles down his throat. It is sharp and peppery. His taste buds tingle. The back of his mouth becomes numb. He wants more. Now there is a dizzy sensation that starts at the back of his eyes.

  Just what he needs. Not bad at all.

  He swallows the betel leaf and coconut juice accumulating in his mouth and takes a folded piece of paper from his pocket. His hands are unsteady as he flattens it with his palms and goes over the lines once again. ‘Transfer Orders,’ he reads. ‘Achankupfangarat Krishan Nampodhiripadi, you are to report to your new station Dibrugargh, Assam.’

  ‘I’ve told the bastards time and time again that my name is A.N. Krishnan,’ he mutters under his breath, moving the chewed wad of leaves to the other side of his mouth where the juices do their work. ‘These Hindi-speaking wallahs will never learn to spell my name properly. And the sons of bitches want me to embrace Hindi! Pah! Nayindamakkal! Children of dogs,’ he curses in Malayalam.

  The A is for the town he was born in and the N identifies which social strata he belongs to. Early in his career, he drops his full name and opts for only initials since no one can pronounce it properly. He’s also weary of correcting them. Another ulterior motive is to hide his true social standing behind the initials for the Namboodiripads are part of the royal family of Cochin. He thinks it best not to announce his colours. He’s even stopped wearing the gold studs in his ears. They only give his status away. Even after all these years his mother can’t look at him without an air of grievance.

  ‘Ah, to hell with everybody,’ he mutters now. ‘They deserve the tiniest mounds of white rice on leaves of paper for their cremation ceremonies. And may there be no crows at all for miles and miles. And,’ he says this aloud now, ‘may they call till they are hoarse and can make no sound.’

  He says all this in Malayalam, the best language for cursing and uttering evil prophecies. Mounds of rice are arranged on clean banana leaves and they attract crows during the ceremony and the quicker the crows come and pick at the rice, the more peace the departing soul can expect while relatives stand around clapping and calling to the crows to come and get it.

  He wishes he had a wad of five leaves instead of three. Then perhaps he would be numb all over. He wishes he could shut his brain off for just a while.

  His thoughts race and he moves his jaw furiously for a moment. And as always, his tongue impedes the last vicious chomp. He screws up his eyes as tears well up in them. A burning sensation accompanies the sharp pain as the lime penetrates the wound. He decides not to swallow the betel juice and spits it out. It clears the concrete floor and lands with an audible splat on a glossy banana leaf from where it slithers slowly down to the next leaf and to the next. His eyes follow its path until the blob drops on the dry earth and it leaves him with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

  This is the thanks he gets for being an honest and hard-working member of the Indian Revenue Service. This is the reward for supporting a family of five, wife Devi and his three children, on a government servant’s salary.

  He doesn’t go to the gymkhana and the turf club like most of them. The membership alone costs a fortune. All he allows is a basket of fruit or sweets at Deepavali. But the gymkhana membership and a basket of fruit are not the same thing. He allows it only because they insist so much and he can’t stand the constant begging and grovelling.

  He’s noticed the diamonds in the Commissioner of Income Tax’s wife’s ears and nose and the new car. The Commissioner’s children get their education in an exclusive boarding school in Ootacamund. He, Krishnan, didn’t comment on that. Yet he can’t help wondering if the CIT is afraid he could blow the whistle and generate one of those purges rumbling through the musty halls of Revenue Bhavan from time to time. This is the result: this transfer to a place where they can forget all about him. Shove him away before the CIT himself gets the shove?

  T. S. Devi stands in the doorway with a tray in her hands, their German shepherd, Rufus, at her heels. She has a small stainless steel jug full of hot, sweet tea, a stainless steel tumbler and a plate of spicy vadas she’s just had fried by the cook, Gopal. She hears her husband mutter and wonders what he is thinking.

  He sits upright in his chair, his long legs stretched in front of him and his jaws clenched. Like her mother before her, Devi never thinks of her husband as ‘Krishnan’ or even calls him by his name. Watching him now, she wants to engulf him in her arms and comfort him. She wants to press his tall frame against hers. But she doesn’t.

  It will only make him frown and turn away.

  She sighs softly, her heart yearning for something she knows
she can never expect.

  She’s been his wife for over a dozen years now, yet she still remembers the first time he came to her father’s house asking for her hand. She remembers hiding behind the window, her eyes pressed to the slit between the curtains in the room off the hallway with the window looking out on the veranda.

  He sat in the chair with the straight back, his arms resting on the sides. She was so close she could see the hairs on them. She pressed her eyes further into the slit. His jaw was square, and he had a prominent brow and curly hair. She ran her hand down her own straight hair hanging down over her shoulder.

  He was the oldest son of the Cochin Namboodiripads and quite used to doing things his way. Like how he didn’t wear those studs in his ears anymore, and how he worked in the city.

  She was of age and there was nothing to say against the union. Not that her opinion mattered, anyway. He’d chosen her, a simple country girl, to be his wife. It dazzled her family. He was handsome and willing to give her a home. There were no doubts in her parents’ minds that he was an excellent choice. Their horoscopes were examined and deemed to be compatible. So she became his wife, content to follow her husband wherever his job took him.

  That’s who she is.

  First and foremost, she is A. N. Krishnan’s wife, previously known as the daughter of the renowned writer, P.T. Nair. Then she is mother to Anupama, at thirteen the eldest, with her straight hair and her father’s quietness; followed by, Kavita, the middle one, nine years old with her father’s curly hair and who knows whose exuberance; and Arun, two, also with the famous Namboodiripad curly hair.

  This is the third transfer since the birth of their first child, Anupama. She knows the orders are in and she hopes it is Delhi, where her brothers and sisters live, or even Cochin, the land of their forefathers. But from the looks on his face, it is probably far, far away.

  As she bends to place the tray on the glass-topped cane table, she raises her eyebrows.

  ‘Assam,’ he says, sighing, knowing how disappointed she will be.

  ‘Where?’ she asks and wipes her face with the end of her sari.

  She stands in the doorway adjusting the folds in her cotton sari, moving her hips back and forth as she gives in to an itch around her waist. Where the sari touches her body, it’s limp from the heat and sweat. The itch is unbearable, so she slides her finger down her waist and encounters the stiff folds of the sari. She has to tell the dhobi to use less starch next time.

  ‘It’s in the east, Devi,’ he says, leaning forward to pour tea.

  From the jug, Krishnan pours tea into the tumbler, raising the hand holding the jug high above his shoulders. When he is satisfied with the amount of froth in the tumbler, he sits back and sips. He folds his right leg under him, slips the flat of his left hand under his shirt and rubs his stomach. He finds the movement soothing: it could lead to a successful evacuation, for he suffers from chronic constipation.

  Rufus sits back on his haunches, ready for whatever comes his way. Now and then, Krishnan throws him a piece of vada. When he finishes the tea in his tumbler, he pours what is left in the jug on the floor. Noisily, Rufus slurps through the puddle, then sits back again to see if there is more.

  ‘No more,’ Krishnan says, in his stern voice.

  Rufus licks his chops one last time then flops by his master’s side, a loud snort escaping him.

  Devi goes back inside to ponder over her future. She wants to retreat to the bedroom to gather her thoughts. But her family needs her attention. She brushes her hair from her face and tightens the knot once again. Then she goes to the kitchen where Anupama is as usual standing on her toes, and stirring the vadas as Gopal, their simple-minded cook, slips them into the hot oil.

  ‘Be careful, Anu,’ she warns her daughter, pleased yet apprehensive about Anupama’s culinary interests.

  ‘Don’t worry, Amma,’ Anu says. ‘I’ve done this before.’

  Anu’s long, black hair is knotted high on her head. Her breasts have just started to grow and they push through the thin cotton of her blouse. With it, she wears a skirt reaching to the floor. Devi glances quickly at Gopal, wondering if she will have to supervise Anu’s forays into the kitchen. But Gopal’s eyes are on the pot of hot oil. He nods to Anu, urging her to stand back for a while, prompting her to stir at the right time.

  Devi goes to the front door and calls out to her other daughter, Kavita, who’s supposed to be playing on the pavement.

  ‘Anu! Where’s Kavita?’

  ‘Don’t know, Amma,’ she replies, her eyes intent on the vadas.

  ‘Where can that girl have gone?’ Devi demands impatiently.

  ‘I saw her going up the street with Renuka,’ Anu answers.

  ‘That girl! Never around when I call her,’ Devi grumbles.

  She now sits on the steps and looks up at the sky, wondering where her younger daughter is.

  Assam, Devi thinks. So far away! How will she survive? And yet another language to learn! There will be no family close by to visit. She will be lonely in Assam.

  In Madurai, she is the wife of a respected civil servant and surrounded by people such as the cook, peons, office clerks, and the sweeper. All day, these people, including her husband, are in and out of the house. There is not much privacy. The only sanctuary is the bedroom. But she doesn’t mind. It keeps her mind off the loneliness.

  She has never had a best friend. There never has been anyone to talk things over, no one whose advice she can count upon. Or anyone she can share her thoughts and fears with. She has made all the decisions concerning house and the girls. Soon she will have to do the same for Arun, her monu, her darling boy. He is her favourite, but she makes sure she doesn’t give her secret away.

  Thank Narayana he’s the youngest, she prays silently. She doesn’t have to justify her need to keep him, her darling boy, close to her heart. Her feelings are normal, she tells herself. There’s no need for this wave of guilt rushing through her. It is perfectly acceptable, for he’s her only one. The older ones, the girls, don’t need her love as the boy does.

  Anu is on her way to becoming the perfect daughter and will raise her standing in the community when she is married to the perfect boy. She knows Kavita too will learn and follow in her sister’s footsteps although they are different as night and day: Anu so quiet and still and Kavita so full of light and laughter. The girls’ path is straight leading to the same goal: marriage to a suitable boy. And then there is her boy, Arun, upon whom she can lavish all her love. Arun she will keep close to her.

  Assam, she knows, will be different. All the cities she’s lived through the years have influenced her. She has absorbed the languages, food, customs and traditions like a sponge. But Assam will be different and will bring changes, because Assam is so far away from Kerala and the south of India.

  I come running down the street, my locks streaming behind me. I wear a sleeveless, green dress and my feet are bare. I’m a tomboy, always getting my knees scraped, or my head banged. Always out in the world, exploring, discovering and making friends. My mother remembers the time when I was barely four. She’s told me the story many times. Through her eyes, I can see the scene unfolding before me.

  Every morning, perched on Ulagan, the peon’s shoulders, I waited for the school bus. The stop was only a short distance from the house. At three, Ulagan picked me up by again at the bus stop. One afternoon, I was not on the bus. They searched everywhere and my mother was going out of her mind. My father, ready to head a search party armed with lamps and sticks, paced on the veranda. At six that evening, I was dropped off at my parents’ door by the same bus driver, on his big, black motorcycle. He lived on the school grounds he said, and found me watering the plants in his garden with his wife.

  Then another time, a Class Four teacher found me so charming, she took me to the zoo with her class. Now, both those times, my mother knew it was the fault of adults and not mine, but somehow I seem to cause her anguish.

  I'm the explorer wi
th friends in strange places while Anupama is the quiet one who, at eight, stopped wearing Western dresses and adopted the long skirt and blouse, so typical of the south of India. My mother can’t remember when Anupama has skipped and run like me.

  ‘Amma! Amma!’ I say, as I reach her. ‘Anil and Kamala are going to the fair. And Radha Aunty has asked me to go with them. Amma, can I? Please, please say that I can,’ I burst out rapidly.

  My mother can’t help smiling. Ah yes! Not only anguish, but also laughter. This child of hers is so full of life!

  I can’t stand still. I hop from one leg to the other. I clap my hands. Then I wring them together. I fling my arms around my mother and squeeze tightly. I press my lips to her cheeks. Then my two small hands frame her face as she leans back to look at me.

  ‘After you have eaten your tomato and drunk your milk,’ she says.

  ‘But Amma, that milk smells bad. It makes the vomit come up from my stomach. Can’t I have Horlicks instead? Please, Amma. Cross my heart and hope to die, dear, dear Amma. The milk tastes horrible. If you don’t believe me, why don’t you try a glass?’ I add with downcast eyes.

  ‘All right, all right, you can have it with Horlicks. But you have to promise not to eat anything from the vendors at the fair. You have to change into a clean dress and,’ she looks at my feet, ‘shoes.’

  I look at my feet wiggle my toes and nod. ‘Is Arun awake? Can I take him too?’