15, Acclimatisation

Chapter 15 - Acclimatisation

Only 48 hours since she had arrived in India, and now Kamala felt like it was England that was the dream. Although the astonishing, shape shifting, mirage that was India still hadn’t settled for her. Now that she’d unpacked properly and found the adaptor, her laptop was charged up again, and the first thing she did was email Mother to say she’d arrived safely. Then she began a long, leisurely email to Jerome - as instructed by him; tell me everything, he’d made her promise, every little thing you see and feel and smell and hear.

“At the airport (she wrote) I’d thought, so this is it at last - then there was the night-time India along the road and I’d thought …ahaa, so this is it, and then again there was the elegant guest house, the china bed-tea set, the blazing, bustling street where organic and mechanic danced a seamless dance together… and now I don’t know what to think any more... will the real India please stand up?!

“Then there was the drive here through miles and miles of countryside and - seemingly, back through time - back to a time of ox-powered ploughs and scrub-thatched homesteads, roadside temples and Heath-Robinson irrigation contraptions, wild peacocks, mop-headed child mothers with infants on their hips, monkey herds and flights of shocking green parakeets, women elegantly pacing the road beneath head-loads the size of fridges, and, containing all of this, acres and acres of emptiness - I’ve never seen so much emptiness as this in England, Jez, or anywhere in Europe - when everyone talks so casually of India’s population “density” as if every inch of it’s packed, flank to flank, with human bodies. The emptiness is punctuated with little market towns - shocking orchids of colour and busy-ness in the grey-gold of the scrub-desert.

“And now I’m here. This will be my home for the next year. This silent little bungalow high in the saal tree-covered hills, deep in the interior of the country. It sits on a shelf cut out of the side of the hill, thick forest stretching behind me. I am sitting - rested, bathed and fed - on the veranda, and my view is of the gentle curve of hills to my left and right, and the plains stretching endlessly in front of me… Oh wait, see for yourself!” She turned the laptop so that the viewfinder found the view and tapped the ‘capture image’ button - and the view was mirrored and miniaturised, embedded in her letter.

“There were no foothills as we drove up, the hills rose directly out of the flat, like witch's hats. Heat and dust was what I had associated with India. I’ve driven through plenty of it on the way here - I’ve watched it run out of my hair, off my body and down the plug-hole as I poured mugs of tepid water over me scooped from a big red, plastic bucket - but in this little bungalow, there are only shadows and damp. The silence is peppered with birdcalls and occasional hoots from the boys herding goats on dry pastures far away. There’s a rhythmic sound striking the air like a bell, and it’s making me feel sleepy - what might it be…? A copper worker beating a bowl into shape with a little hammer? A woman thumping spices in a copper bowl? Maybe a bird… a copper-smith bird? Aunty Seema told me about their bell-like call which sounded so lovely when it started in the hot season, but then went on and on and on and until it almost drove you mad. Anyhoo, must go now... the news has started and I've got quite addicted to the miserable drivel you forced me to listed to. Give my love to Amelia and Janey.”

Kamala switched the laptop into radio receiver mode and settled back to listen to the news.
Wealthy industrialist and philanthropist, Andreas White, is planning a visit to India within the next month, White Enterprises spokespeople in Mumbai said today. The purpose of the visit is to preside on Thursday at the opening of the White Dam, the biggest hydro-electricity generating dam in the world. White was also there, he said, to make sure that the people displaced by the dam were given adequate housing and farming land in compensation. Several hundred acres of government land have been released for the purpose and Mr White himself has had a hand in designing the ergonomically efficient domestic units and kitchen gardens. He has had state of the art energy efficient solutions installed such as solar powered street lighting, environmentally friendly organic waste disposal systems and has had special moisture retaining shrubs planted on the perimeter of the settlement.

Kamala was impressed. Maybe the demo had had some effect after all, she thought - they might not have stopped the dam being built, but Mr White clearly cared about what happened to the people now. Maybe Mother's family could use some of those energy saving techniques - they were vegetable farmers, weren't they? That got her thinking about Aunty Seema... What would she think if she knew Kamala was there, in India, and had no intention of getting in touch? But then again, how could she? She hadn’t the faintest idea where in India Aunty Seema might be, or even what her surname was - Mother had never mentioned her maiden name, and even if she had Aunty Seema was married, wasn't she? She'd had that son in America... and anyway - she may not even be alive still. She gazed out hopelessly at “India” - the scrubland billowing away like an ocean - melting into a blue horizon, stroked here and there by snail-trail roads and silver slivers of river.

The small town at the foot of the hills, the last one they’d driven through on their journey here, glittered at her in the morning sun. She had broken her promise to Mother about coming to India, and although Mother had, in the end, said go, to have then asked her for her family’s address would have seemed like adding insult to injury. If Mother had wanted her to contact them, she would have given her their address. But she hadn’t said a word about them. Just given the usual advice about not drinking the water, peeling fruit and making sure she packed lots of toilet paper. Strange, that, thought Kamala. When they’d stopped for supplies in the town, the shops seemed perfectly well stocked not just with toilet paper but with absolutely everything imaginable and many unimaginable things too. I guess it’s been a long time since Mother was here, she thought, things have changed.

She sipped the last of the tea which had been silently laid there by a ageless man with a sad smile. He wore a sort of uniform, once white but now grey with age and a million washings. He wore biscuit-coloured plastic, moulded shoes. There were pale, blue-green marks tattooed on his cheeks and forehead. Kamala had tried to talk to him, but he had been overcome with shyness and backed away from her smiling and shaking his head at the floor. When she finished her tea, she decided to have another go, picked up her tray and carried it through the living room - past the heavy teak furniture between damp-daubed walls hung with portraits of District Inspectors from the days of the British Raj.

She’d seen which door the shy man had brought the tray from earlier and pushed it open with her toe. For a moment she glimpsed the life of the kitchen - another world, another planet - in its natural state. A woman squatted in one corner with a pile of bright red vegetables beside her, she was pushing them against an upright blade, which she held steady with her foot on its wooden base. The cut vegetables fell into a tray on the floor. On the kitchen veranda the shy man squatted too, his back to the room, arms stretched out in front of him, elbows resting on his knees - he held a bidi, a little brown cone-shaped cigarette - between forefinger and thumb, and gazed out into the forest which reared up above the bungalow.

A young boy - about fourteen - was vigorously scrubbing big tin saucepans with a fistful of some kind of brown fibre and a white paste. They gleamed like mirrors when he rinsed them through in the water trickling from the long, lanky tap that craned over the square, stone sink. They were all laughing quietly at something one of them had just said, the boy rocking his head in the distinctive Indian swinging cradle movement that meant yes, maybe, approval, concurrence...
Kamala smiled at the cosy, domestic scene, and for the first time felt that she was not alone, that she was part of a new family - but the feeling only lasted an instant. Until her bright “Hello!” shattered the scene… the boy dropped the pan he’d been washing with an enormous clatter, clapped his soapy hands to his sides and froze to attention. The woman looked up in horror, "Look out!" Kamala cried... and a second later the woman had swiped the vegetable towards the blade with an automatic motion and sliced her finger instead. (Kamala tried to rationalise how she had known this was going to happen - she might have seen the hand moving towards the blade... but deep down she knew that it had not been something she'd seen with her eyes. She'd sensed danger, pain, blood and had cried out.)

The woman ducked her head and covered it with the end of her sari, the cut finger seeping blood into the edge of the sari it was holding. Kamala noticed that they both had the same blue-green face tattoos. The man shot up like a rocket, rushed forward and grabbed the tray from her stammering.

“Sir, very sorry, sir, very, very sorry! Not knowing you are finishing, sir.”

“No, no, please! Don’t worry… I didn’t mean to… I was just trying to help… Oh, you’ve hurt yourself. Let me see.” But the woman’s look of horror became one of terror as she realised Kamala’s attention was on her and looked desperately to the man to be rescued.

“No problem, sir.” he said “Just small cutting… Please, sir” He held the kitchen door open for her, with the same respect and desperate hope of someone holding a window open for a wasp that’s strayed indoors, out of its natural environment…

“But she’s bleeding badly, she might need stitches…”

It was no good. Kamala could tell she wasn’t helping, and that she was just making everyone feel extremely uncomfortable. So she left. She got a plaster and some disinfectant from her first aid kit (Mother’s advice again… though Kamala had pointed out that every second brain surgeon in Britain was Indian so they must know a thing or two about medicine) and handed it to the shy man - after first knocking pointedly on the kitchen door. Even this seemed to cause discomfort, though. He received the first aid things with both hands and touched his bowed forehead with them. The kitchen behind him was deserted now.

She sat down again on the wicker armchair in the veranda - its shadows pressed down on her, held her prisoner. What the hell was she doing in this god-forsaken place? This wasn’t her. She was a cosmopolitan woman, a scientist, an undergraduate - she needed life, people, action… what was she doing all alone in this surreal time-warp? She knew what they were expecting of her, back there in the kitchen. But she wasn’t going to sit here and holler, “koi hoi?“ like something out of the Jewel in the Crown, to send some faceless factotum scurrying from the nether reaches of the house to tend to her needs. She couldn’t do it. She was a person, they were people. They might work for her, but that didn’t make her better than them. And anyway, who else was she going to talk to?

There were supposed to be three others staying in the bungalow - where were they? Who were they? Sunil, the driver, had said something about them being delayed and then driven away, abandoning her here, with no-one she could communicate with. She had watched the Greenfields logo on the side of the car winking on and off between the trees as the car drove away, feeling increasingly bereft. Then she’d told herself (in Mother’s brusquest voice) to pull herself together and had busied herself with unpacking, putting little homely touches to her room - photos of Mother, Jerome, Amelia, Marie Curie, a framed copy of the poem that began
'Go placidly amid the haste and noise...' that she’d had since she was 11... But that took all of half an hour, and now here she was marooned on the veranda again, alone, bored. This is not what she had been expecting.

She leaped up. I’m going for a walk she decided. “Koi hoi?” she called out. Then cringed, she didn’t even know what that meant. What if it was a terrible insult? But what else could she say? She didn’t know anyone’s name. This was ridiculous, she had to take charge. The shy man appeared in a flash.

“Sir?”

“What is your name?” She demanded in the imperious voice she imagined he expected of her.

“Sir, Mohan Baiga, sir”.

“Right. Mohan, my name is Kamala. I would like you to call me Kamala, but if you can’t do that, you can call me Ms Steel, OK?”

Mohan looked stricken. Had he understood a word? She tried again.

She laid her hand on her chest and said “Kamala. Ms Steel. Not ‘sir’”

“Sir?”

“Kamala.”

“Sir?”

“Ms Steel. Ms Steel.”

“Mistil, sir?”

“No sir, just Ms Steel”

He rocked his head in assent. “Ok, sir, Mistil!“

She flashed him a smile. “That’ll do!” And to her relief, he smiled too.

“Now, Mohan. I am going for a walk. I will come back in one hour. OK?”

“OK, Mistil going walk. Understand. Mohan make dinner ready.”

He namastéd deeply, relieved some propriety had been restored at last. He was still worried, though. He knew that memsahibs, especially foreign ones, had peculiar notions of how to behave. They were likely to put themselves in all kinds danger and must be protected, without being thwarted. If they came to harm, Greenfields would definitely sack him. If he tried to thwart them, they might sack him themselves. He had faced this kind of problem before, however, and knew exactly what to do.

Kamala put on her walking sandals, found her sunglasses and her camera and walked to the end of the drive - the boy from the kitchen was there too. He namastéd and opened the gate for her. She felt like a bit of a fraud - they were virtually the same age, but smiled and thanked him.
She felt wonderfully brave and intrepid now. She was in control. She wouldn’t let this strange silent place oppress her, she would woo it, capture its beautiful dappled golden-green light in photographs, get the measure of it in the even pace of her footsteps. But as she strode round the second hairpin bend in the road she heard something in the bushes behind her, and, glancing over her shoulder was just in time to see what she thought was a shadowy figure slipping from the road into the forest. She stared, but there was no more movement. The road seemed deserted. She decided she must have imagined it, and carried on. Then she heard a twig crack, stopped and turned abruptly. Again, she could see no-one, but someone was following her, she was sure.

She strode on with head held high, arms swinging confidently at her sides, just like they advised in the security leaflets at Uni. But her terror was mounting. What worked at a provincial English university town, may not work in the forests of India. Every time she looked back, she thought she caught a glimpse of movement, the tail end of a dash into the undergrowth at the side of the road. She told herself not to be silly, other people had just as much right to walk along the road as she did - more, in fact. But then this wasn’t how an innocent traveller would behave... she was frightened now, she‘d lost the heart for this intrepid walk. She didn’t know what to do, though. She couldn’t turn back to the bungalow, because she would have to pass the place where he was hiding. She couldn’t go on, because he’d just keep following her and she’d get further and further away from safety. She thought about calling for help on her mobile - then remembered it didn’t work out here (she hadn’t had a chance to replace the SIM card yet) and anyway - who would she call? There was only one thing for it. She would have to face him.

“Who’s there?” She demanded in the most imperious voice she could muster.

After a short silence, there was a rustling in the bushes at the side of the road and then out stepped the boy from the bungalow.

Kamala laughed in relief. “Oh, it’s you! What are you hiding for?”

She beckoned for him to catch up - guessing he was going back to the village down the hill, worried, perhaps that she‘d think he was skiving - but he just gazed into the forest, avoiding her eye. Puzzled, she moved off again, but heard him start again too. This was ridiculous, she turned and called to him again, and unable to ignore her a second time, he namastéd politely. But point blank refused to come any closer. She started to walk towards him, but he backed off looking alarmed and embarrassed… so with a sigh she gave up and continued her walk trying to pretend he wasn’t there. She felt a little nervous at first - but then decided he couldn‘t possibly want to assault her if he was too shy to even look at her. It was rather surreal pretending to be alone while someone was purposefully following her every step and also pretending to be alone… like two people in a lift. A lift spangled with golden green light and shadows, a lift echoing with birdsong and raked with mountain-top leaping winds. A lift that lifted Kamala’s soul.

Until they met other people. Then she felt like an alien from another planet with her big shiny camera, her Gucci sandals and shiny silver watch. People hacking at stones beside the road or balancing giant barrel-like bundles of firewood on their heads, stared rudely as they passed, exactly as if she was an alien, and didn‘t respond in the slightest to her friendly greetings. A group of men in a passing lorry started to whoop at her - but fell silent when the boy waved and called out to them.

But mostly they walked alone. A noise in the canopy of leaves above her caught her attention. A group of monkeys was lolling about up there, grooming each other, nibbling at bits of fruit, dandling their babies on their laps. They looked like people in a park on a Sunday afternoon. Kamala was thrilled. She started calling out to them, trying to get the adorable baby ones to come close so she could photograph them, but then the adults started shrieking and chattering aggressively at her. Kamala tried to shoo them away, but they took no notice. One particularly big and nasty looking one squared up to her and bared his sharp little teeth - Kamala started feeling panicky and took a hesitant step backwards. At this the monkey - realising he was winning, leapt forwards. Suddenly the boy was between them - brandishing a big stick and shouting. The monkey sped off. Laughing with relief, Kamala turned to thank him, but the stupid boy had dropped back again, pulled on his invisibility cloak, started taking a great interest in the middle distance… and they had to go back to pretending they didn’t know each other was there.

“Bloody ridiculous!” muttered Kamala, shaking her head but with a vague sense that perhaps it hadn't been a bad thing that he'd been there. She decided to turn back… he hid behind a tree as she passed him. She was tempted to pop her head round the tree trunk and shout “Boo!” but she realised that would be cruel. So she just shook her head and rolled her eyes and stomped off along the path… but then she heard him coughing pointedly behind her. She looked back only to see him staring into the undergrowth again. She was getting tired of this game. He was clearly a little unhinged. She was about to carry on and ignore him, but he coughed again, rather desperately this time, and stared boggled eyed, nodding now too, at the same spot. She realised now that what he was staring at was the other path. He was trying to tell her she’d gone the wrong way.

She laughed and shouted “Oh, ok, thanks, mate!” gave him a thumbs up and did a u-turn. A few metres later the snake reared up in front of her.

“You have got to be kidding me” thought Kamala, surveying it coolly “first monkeys, now a snake? India’s certainly laying it on, isn’t it?!”

The snake spreads its hood and bows its head slightly. Kamala bows back. She is vaguely aware that the boy is shouting something to her. He sounds very alarmed - but she doesn't feel particularly connected with that... She drops to her knees - because it doesn’t seem respectful, somehow, for her head to be higher than that of the snake. Now they are eyeball to eyeball. The snake gives a long, low hiss - a sound that goes on forever and echoes in the sound of the sap rising in the trees around them, in the sound of her blood singing through her veins and arteries, in the distant shush of the river. She and the snake are swaying in synch - to monkeys and people she is alien, but in the snake’s hiss is a welcome. And something else is hissing, something moving quick and straight, something dislodged from its natural place, something that shouldn’t be in the air, where it is. Soon it will be close and will harm the snake. She knows exactly where it is now. Exactly where it will be in one hundredth of a second. So, without turning her head, she shoots out her arm and places her palm, turned backwards, in the place where it will be.

The snake dropped and vanished into the undergrowth. Kamala blinked, thinking vaguely she must have missed her footing and fallen onto her knees. There was something in her hand… a rock. She looked back, puzzled, at the boy. He certainly wasn’t pretending he couldn’t see her now. He held what looked like some kind of slingshot in his hand and was staring at her as if she was a ghost. She held up the rock to him, shrugging, mystified… but the boy started backing away from her slowly, then let out a shrill scream of terror and fled into the bushes, vanishing as quickly as the snake.

Kamala followed the path and got back to the bungalow safely, wondering all the way what on earth could have happened. She must have had another of her ‘funny turns’ she supposed. Oh god, she hoped she hadn’t done anything embarrassing! But the boy had actually seemed afraid. Funnily enough, though, she didn’t mind a bit. She was filled with a huge, warm, feeling of well-being, as though someone had opened a door to her, the door to a home full of family and love. She bit her lip. She really wished she wouldn’t keep getting these irrational “feelings”. It was hardly a suitable mental state for a top-of-the-grade research assistant. It never used to be like this before… she shuddered as the image of the inside of the shed came back to her. And then that magazine article... Something being triggered off before you’re ready so that you go “stark raving mad”? Oh, it was all nonsense! She must have forgotten to take her little yellow pills in all the excitement of getting here.

When she got back Mohan didn‘t look at her as if she was deranged. He just smiled and asked if Mistil was ready for dinner. Nevertheless, she couldn’t resist going to her room and going through her bag to find the folded page from the magazine again… she couldn’t help wondering sometimes if the little yellow pills weren’t just some kind of placebo. She carefully unfolded the page and read the paragraph again: "It can be pretty hairy if you don't know what you're doing - the Shakti energy is exceedingly powerful and there are people wandering around who have gone stark raving mad because they raised Kundalini before they were ready." It was all rubbish, of course - sensationalised mumbo jumbo, soft porn dressed up as fact for a frivolous, magazine monkeys.

“I saw the boy from the kitchen in the forest” She said… watching carefully to see Mohan's reaction. He tutted and shook his head furiously.

“Very bad boy. Head full of rubbish. Gone away.”

“Gone away? Gone home for the night?”

“Gone away, pshsht! pshsht!” Mohan hand brushed the air like a cloth flicking away dust. He shook his head again and left to bring more fragrant dishes from the kitchen.
Late that night she was woken by a swoosh of headlights and the sound of an engine being turned off. Doors opened and closed quietly, and she heard muted voices… the voices melted into her dreams and became part of them and soon she was back in a deep sleep.