A Tiger's Wedding

by Isla Blair

  I couldn’t understand why my parents needed so many servants. There was the syce (the man who looked after the horses), the cook, the dhobi for laundry, the matey who washed dishes and cleaned vegetables and who would chop wood and draw water for cooking, the chokra who waited at table and ran our baths and cleaned the silver and the sweeper who cleaned the bathroom and the kitchen and it was he who also polished the tiled and wooden floors with delicious smelling polish, a mixture of beeswax and turpentine. With felt pads attached to his feet, he would scoot up and down the hall and the corridors as if he was skating on the river Thames, like a figure in a mediaeval painting. There was a tailor who only came occasionally, but who sat cross legged in the sewing room and I don’t know how many gardeners there were, two or three certainly. The reason, my father explained, why there were so many servants was the caste system – jobs were delegated to certain castes and this could not be altered; the sweeper could not touch the food, the matey washed up, chopped the wood and cut up vegetables but didn’t cook. Besides, being a servant in a planter’s house was considered a good job when employment was hard to find.

  Ayah was to pay us a visit! Mummy announced this with the excitement she knew we would feel. Ayah, our Ayah, our very own Ayah was coming here to Kalaar. Mummy had sent photos of us through the intervening years but of course, we were five years older – would she recognise us?

  We were to have tea and scones in the sitting room. We heard the car scratch over the gravel below the waterfall, the bit before you walked down the long colonnaded verandah. Ayah came down the verandah and Fiona ran to meet her. She was smaller than before (it was I, of course, who was taller) and she had more grey in her hair, but she still had her gold cross on and her gold bangles and she still had that comforting smell of coconut hair oil that enfolded her in a little cloud. She was crying as she held Fiona’s face and Fiona was crying too. “My Missy Baba Isla,” she said as she embraced me. But of course, I wasn’t. I wasn’t a baba anymore and somehow I wasn’t Ayah’s. I was a young lady who wore a bra and I belonged to myself.

  Ayah wore the white starched sari we were so familiar with and her chupplis and we all went to sit on the sofa and Michael brought us our tea and scones. We were shy of each other as Ayah clasped our hands and patted our cheeks and we all laughed and tried to tell her about our new lives, our new selves. She took out a little bag with gifts in it for us. Wrapped in tissue paper we found a cache of sweets and a small tin of Cuticura powder each; modest gifts, but given with such tenderness, it brought a lump to my throat and I felt ashamed again that I had nothing to give her.

  It was soon time for her departure as she was due back at her new employer’s house to give her charges their baths. We kissed her goodbye and she cried and waved and in my heart I knew then that, this time, the goodbye was more profound than just that word. For my Ayah had gone, along with my babyhood. She had moved on, just as I had.

  We went back to the sitting room, “Wasn’t that lovely. She hasn’t changed a bit,” said Fiona. But to me she had and even then I recognised that the change, rather than being in Ayah, was in me.

  What I did not find out until I was an adult was that Ayah had a baby boy who was aged only two years old when she left him to come and work for us. He was left with her parents, who brought him up, and she spent her leave time travelling to Kovalam to see him. What sort of grief can she have endured in such a parting? And she came to look after us, Fiona and me; she loved us, yet all the time she must have been pining for her baby. This separation apparently was quite common (still is) in families in India where the wife’s job is more lucrative than the husband’s. And I thought I had some separation anxiety? My tears were as nothing compared to what Ayah’s must have been. I just wish, as a teenager, I had known.

  Sometimes, if it wasn’t raining too hard, we would be driven in to Munnar town and we would have the thrill of visiting Maraaka’s bazaar and we’d want to buy everything, the trashier the better: dolls with wobbling heads and rather sinister smiles, tinny mouth organs, marradaddi ornaments (marradaddi a Swahili word, meant over the top and rather vulgar; it is such a good word that it is still in constant use in our family), garish glasses and vases in impossible colours and, of course, the much longed for glass bangles – some with cut frilly edges, some plain, some with gold painted lines and squiggles on them – blue and green and ambery yellow and red, even purpley ones. They jangled and tinkled and were utterly irresistible. You could keep the gold ones, the mother of pearl, the wooden ones with a tiny brass clasp, the ones made of elephants hair and indeed ivory (oh dear, there was a lot of ivory about in 1956) – no, the only prized bangles were the glass ones. Our mother bought us eight bangles each; I still have a couple at the bottom of a drawer in my dressing table.

  We then set out for the MSA (the Munnar Supply Association). This was then the only shop built for the planters by the planters; things were ordered and sent out from home or sent up from Cochin or Madurai or even from Delhi. It was a red brick, red tiled building with gables, buttresses and a porch and it was built in 1902. Inside it was cool, with white walls and glass and wooden cabinets; you could lean over the glass and see all the household things on display – shampoo and Cuticura powder and Wrights coal tar soap and Lifebuoy and Pepsodent toothpaste “to avoid tooth-drop” and lavender water and Ponds cold cream and tins of mustard footbaths. Under the glass they held the appeal of unavailability and all the more desirable for that. On shelves behind the counter were jars of things and tins and packets with familiar labels: Heinz and Fairy and Yardley and Coty and Tate and Lyle.

  There were little packets of Reckitt’s Blue in muslin bags, that made white clothes go a bluey white; there were packets of starch and bottles of bleach; there were boxes of Cadburys chocolates, too, which were always a disappointment when you opened them, as they had usually gone white and mottled from the damp – or was it the heat? There were the coveted jars of Bovril, Sye baked beans and Mohan’s cornflakes (the latter I thought were pretty disgusting and had an oily cardboard-y taste).

  In the middle of the store were long trestle tables, with linen and muslin things on display; napkins and table cloths from the mission, lovingly embroidered by nuns with flowers and fruit and birds with long tails; you could buy linen sheets and the sheerest of sheer lawn nightdresses, with smocking and delicate white embroidery, and those little round net mats that you put over glasses and jugs to stop the ants and bees getting into the lemonade and to keep the dust out of water jugs.

  In the corner of the MSA sat a small bald man with legs like spurtles (sticks for stirring porridge). He always wore long khaki shorts and long woollen socks that came up to his very knobbly knees. This was “Daddy” Dupen and he was in charge of the MSA and he seemed to live there; I don’t suppose he did, but I never saw him anywhere else. I was rather frightened of him, without reason, as he didn’t even notice Fiona or me when we went in to the shop, but would nod to our mother and continue to sit on the stool in the corner. It seemed a strange way to spend a life.

  Occasionally there was a gymkhana – rarely in the monsoon months, which were given over to rugby and fishing. They were held on the Munnar race ground and many of the villagers came out to watch the somewhat odd proceedings from behind the railings; all the planters and their families turned up, for this was one of the social events of the year. It would start with a “Handy Horse competition”. Here a somewhat cabalistic British ritual would take place – riding through narrow pens and putting on raincoats while mounted and other bewildering shenanigans. There was tent pegging, there were paper chases, there were ladies races and several for the men; all the horses were owner-ridden. There was the enclosure which held the car park, the announcer’s stand, the Tote, the place where the riders saddled up, and the bar where the women and children would mingle, sipping shandies, lemon tea, pink lemonade, lime juice and soda, long gin and tonics or short gin and “its”. Company news was discussed: who was to be acting manager on
which estate, who was going home on furlough; gossip – whose ayah was getting too close to the children? Mrs So and So was seeing a great deal of her husband’s SD, “And, my dear, he’s an Indian” – was it healthy, was it right? People’s reputations were tossed and gored, school reports were discussed, photographs produced and never far from the surface was the yearning for the children – never discussed, that would be far too dangerous, a flood gate could open, besides it wasn’t really playing the game; these emotional things were private and best kept to oneself.

  Here was an English way of life that so many of the newly arrived young planters and their wives could only dream about: servants, private horses, cocktails, shooting, fishing, tennis, cricket and golf; a way of life you could not possibly imagine as you left your parents’ semi-detached in suburbia, all this and sunshine and log fires in your bedroom and someone bringing you tea in bed every morning. The only price, and there is always a price, was forgetting the sound of your child’s voice and not quite being able to remember the colour of his eyes.

  We would go to friends houses every other day and there were the weekend visits to the Club, which became our social world rather than whirl. Jane Beaumont was my friend and her sister Beverly was Fiona’s. We compared notes about most things. Jane had a crush on Annette Stevens, who was a brilliant horsewoman, and I developed one on Duncan Finlayson, the doctor. I blushed and stammered whenever I saw him at the club, going into the men’s bar or at church or on a fishing trip to Devicolom or Kundali.

  On one occasion we were invited to Chris and Ann Hickson’s for a buffet dinner party after which we all played charades. Chris was mad about Eartha Kitt and would play her records to the distraction of Ann. In fact, Fiona and I had been given the duty of bringing her latest album out with us.

  We had drinks and supper (coronation chicken and kedgeree and rice with raisins in it, followed by trifle) and then it was time for the charades. I was rather nervous, as word had got about that I wanted to be an actress and there were good natured comments like, “Well, let’s see how good you really are Miss Edith Evans!” I so wanted to impress everyone – Dr Finlayson, my newly re-acquainted friends, the Duncans and the Beaumonts and, of course, my parents – I really wanted them to take my idea of becoming an actress and going to drama school seriously.

  I can’t quite recall the exact story of our charade, but I know I had to discover a body and scream. No half-hearted mewing for me. I filled my lungs and opened my throat and SCREAMED. The Hicksons’ servants came running into the sitting room, where there was much nervous laughter and cries of, “Oh my god! What a noise! Vi, Ian – she has a good pair of lungs on her I’ll give her that!” My throat closed over with shame that I’d shown off and over-acted and my eyes pricked, but Daddy came to find me and put his arm around my shoulder. “Well, done Isla. You gave us all a fright but that was the point wasn’t it? Well acted.” I was known as Sarah Bernhardt after that and I didn’t mind at all – even though I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was.

  * * * * *

  It had stopped raining when all the servants came out to see “Missy Isla riding on Sahib’s horse.”

  I had cajoled my father into letting me ride Durban, the only horse that remained in his stables in 1956. He was not keen. “He’s a nervous horse, dear, and he has a very hard mouth. I’m not sure he will let anyone onto his back but me.”

  Durban had been bitten by tsetse flies in his native South Africa before he made the journey by ship out to India and he had little white flecks all over his brown flanks. I was determined and made the request daily until, worn down, my father agreed. I told him I’d had riding lessons (he knew; he’d paid for them) and felt I would be quite competent at “going for a little trot, just in the garden.” So the syce brought Durban out with Boy, Matey and Michael in attendance. Fiona, my mother and Chang watched the proceedings from the drawing room window.

  With the syce’s help I mounted, wearing my red tartan trousers and no protective hat, and set out at a gentle trot. There was a sudden clattering of pans from the lines where the labourers lived and Durban’s ears went back and he was off, at a terrific pace, round the garden. I tried to restrain him by pulling on the reins, to no avail. Durban, I think, was having a game with this cocky little upstart who had presumed to get on his back, and just rode at full pelt around the garden. At least he didn’t speed off with me into the tea, or worse, into the dark, impenetrable jungle, he just went for a gallop round and round. The servants fled out of his way and my father, each time I appeared, tried to catch his bridle, but Durban was having none of it. Round and round he went, with me clinging to the reins, his mane and my legs gripped him as hard as I could. With each turn Fiona and my mother said, “Here she comes again,” as a patch of red tartan flashed past and Chang put his paws on the glass of the window as if he was trying to catch a buzzing bee. Eventually my father on one side, and the syce on the other, caught Durban’s bridle and he was persuaded to stop. I fell into my father’s arms, tears of humiliation, rather than terror, falling down my cheeks.

  “I told you he had a hard mouth, dear.” The understatement of the year,

  “But you are not hurt and nor is Durban, so let’s go in and settle down.”

  Of course, I should have got straight back up again, with my father leading me on a rein, but I was incoherent with excuses and embarrassment and, of course, a little fear. I haven’t really ridden since – well, just for work and only side-saddle, which is not as frightening as it sounds. You put your right leg around a sort of pommel thing and make your body face forwards; you actually feel quite secure.

  In fact, when I was playing Lady Caroline in a successful 1970s TV series, “When the Boat Comes In”, I had to learn to ride like this for the role. I took myself off to the Ladies’ Side Saddle Association and when the time came to meet “Fanny”, the beautiful grey steeple-chaser, I felt quite prepared. Fanny wasn’t though. Normally on films you get given a film horse, one that knows how to behave and will not budge until it hears “action” and won’t stop until it hears “cut”. But on this occasion they wanted an aristocratic looking horse to go with my aristocratic status as Lady Caroline. Fanny kept looking round to see where my other leg was, as we trotted down to the first filming position. (No rising to the trot, obviously). The scene was a shoot and there were guns and dogs and gamekeepers and beaters and extras dressed as maids preparing luncheon on long tables. I was to ride into this very English scene and disrupt it. The disruption came from Fanny. The first crack of a gun and Fanny was off, heading for the woods; she cleared a small stone wall with me clinging to her back. I wasn’t very good at using the brakes on a side-saddle horse (it’s all supposed to be done with your bum apparently), but her owner was able to stop her.

  “You were lucky, she didn’t unseat you. She’s not used to a side saddle.”

  “You mean Fanny hasn’t been in a film before?”

  “Good God no! She won at Doncaster last week.”

  I never mentioned riding again and I saw Durban only from a respectable distance.

  * * * * *

  Once every three weeks a movie came to the tiny Munnar Picture House. Fridays, usually, and they caused flurries of excitement. “The Thief of Baghdad”, “King Solmon’s Mines”, “Rear Window” and “Singin’ in the Rain”. Then, of course, Saturday night was ”CLUB NIGHT”.

  Fiona and I prepared for Club Night all afternoon. We would wash our hair and crimp it into waves with Alligator Teeth clips. Mine naturally hung in straight sheets. It looked even worse when I tried to curl it; it would go into little humps or ridges and pointy Ls. It would have been so much better to leave it straight, but I longed for curls and bows and bunches and Alice bands.

  We would go off to the Club in the little black Ford car and straight to the powder room, chintzy, with dressing tables and mirrors and that lurking damp India smell. We would then go into the lounge, a long room with dark wooden floors and sofas and armchairs made of w
icker and wood – very Somerset Maugham. We would meet up with my mother’s friends (we were too old now to go to the children’s playroom) and they would have their gins and whiskies. Wine was not really drunk in Munnar – only on very special occasions, as it was expensive to import. We would have our nimbu panis and bowls of cashew nuts and homemade crisps. We would play skittles and indoor bowls; my father went into the bar from which women were definitely barred.

  The men played snooker and laughed too loudly and ordered more whiskies and the turbaned bar bearers scuttled backward and forward with silver trays. There was a “burra-peg” – large measure, “chota-peg” – small measure and a “pow” – a teeny, measly measure. We would then go into the dining room and have dinner and after dinner we knew there would be cards or games (the men usually went back into the bar). The evening would wind down, with farewells called out to our friends as we made our way to our cars to take us home, yawning as we gossiped over the evening’s events. You had to be alert as you drove home, with headlamps on full beam; you never knew what might be round the corner. On one occasion, we saw a large black shape in front of us. My father turned the headlights off and told us to be very quiet. It was a solitary elephant making its slow way across the road and into the jungle. We held our breath. Elephants moved in herds. A chap on his own was a bad sign and could be dangerous. But he moved away without even raising his head in our direction and we, after a while, put the sidelights on and made cautious progress home.

  When my mother and her sister Ailsa, as young girls, were coming back from the Peermade Club with their parents, they encountered a very lucky piece of timing. They were in a soft-topped little car when a Sambhur deer leapt from the bushes, impaling itself on the bonnet of the car before struggling, poor creature, off the road and into the tea. Had it been one second later, it would have landed on the passengers, doubtless killing them outright.