On a Shoestring to Coorg

by Dervla Murphy

  However, as Dr Chengappa said, the idea of schooling is so novel to this community, and so potentially disruptive to their simple economy, that in Coorg few are influenced by the promise of long-term advantages. They rarely go hungry here, and are accustomed to having children always available to do certain essential jobs while they themselves work to bring in the cash. Moreover, many are probably unable to grasp the magnitude of the change which has officially overtaken their section of the population within the past few decades; and perhaps it is just as well, at this stage of India’s development, not to have hordes of unemployed college–educated Harijans added to the millions of young Indians already roaming the cities in search of jobs that do not exist.

  31 January.

  There is an Irish casualness about Devangeri’s social life which naturally appeals to me. When people say ‘Call any time’ they really mean it: and they do likewise. This morning I was still enjoying my pre-breakfast read – Rachel having not yet been loosed upon the world – when Mr Machiah came bounding up the ladder. (He must be nearly 70 years old but is such a keep-fit enthusiast that he does still bound, even up our ladder.) Rachel of course was thrilled to hear the day’s social round beginning so early and came prancing out in the nude, grinning from ear to ear. I made coffee and we discussed the tourist trade in South India, and then Mr Machiah went off to attend to his paddy-business in the compound.

  Half an hour later Mrs Ayyappa dropped in for a chat and stayed until eleven, when she had to go home to supervise the cooking of lunch for nine Harijan labourers who are threshing paddy four miles from the house. Every day, for six weeks, nine large lunches of rice and vegetable curry (with trimmings) are wrapped in separate plantain leaves, tied with pepper-vine twine and dispatched in a basket on a servant girl’s head to the threshing-ground. Some employers now provide extra money instead of food, but, as Mrs Ayyappa said, ‘What use is money to hungry labourers who are seven miles from the nearest eating-house? They would only buy home-made liquor and spend the afternoon asleep instead of working.’

  In Coorg, where the only readily available pastimes are reading, card-playing and conversation, one realizes the extent to which, in the West, we have grown independent of our neighbours for entertainment. I suppose this is just one more milestone along mankind’s road to a completely dehumanised existence. When I stop to think about it – as I did today, while chopping onions after Mrs Ayyappa’s departure – it seems to me intensely alarming that so many of us now have to make an effort to ‘fit people in’ (even close friends) because of the many ‘events’ that make up the contemporary social rat race. Increasingly, we tend not to regard each other as capable of providing an evening’s – or even an hour’s – entertainment. The individual is becoming less and less important in comparison with the occasion that brings people together, whether it be a drinks party, a race meeting, going to the theatre, playing golf, attending a concert, skiing in the Alps – or simply watching television. And one wonders what will be the long-term effect of this changed emphasis on the significance of other people in our lives, this habit of regarding them as companionable accessories to the occasion, instead of as original sources of entertainment, worth being with for their own sakes. Most of our Coorg relationships can only be transitory, but already they have a substance they might never have attained against an urban background.

  2 February.

  Yesterday morning, on the bus to Mercara, we found ourselves sitting beside the wife of a first cousin of Dr Chengappa, who invited us to a Coorg wedding at the end of the month. It would not be a very big affair, she explained. Owing to inflation, there were unlikely to be more than 1,000 guests.

  Because of the oil crisis, one occasionally notices on the local buses richly dressed Coorg women who most certainly have never before boarded a bus. They slowly lever themselves in, holding their saris close to their legs while looking comically martyred. Often they are followed by their young, who regard bus journeys as an amusing glimpse of how the other half travels, and if there is no vacant seat the conductor will deferentially make one available – not, of course, because the newcomers are women, but because they are ladies.

  Having changed our books at Mercara’s library we set off to walk down the very beautiful mountain road, meaning to stop the bus when it came along; but soon we were picked up by two young cousins of the Andanipura Ayyappas who dropped us off at Mill Point. I had walked only a few steps towards home when an infected ant bite on my right heel – which had been throbbing all the previous night – burst rather hideously and it has been making me feel more than a little sorry for myself ever since.

  This morning I longed for daughterless peace, after a second restless night, and when Rachel said wistfully that she wished someone could take her to the Machiahs I impulsively suggested – ‘Why don’t you go on your own? You should know your way round South Coorg by now.’ I felt slightly appalled as I listened to my own words – and a good deal more appalled when Rachel’s face lit up and she said, ‘Oh, goody! May I really go on my own?’

  ‘Of course,’ I said, busily stiffening the upper lip. ‘Why not? There’s no traffic here. But don’t stay for lunch. Be back at one o’clock. And stay on the path – don’t walk in leaves.’

  ‘Good-bye!’ called Rachel, disappearing down the ladder to plunge into the depths of a snake-infested forest.

  I immediately remembered an article in a recent issue of The Illustrated Weekly of India giving snake-bite death statistics; the annual national average is 3,000. Then I reminded myself that 3,000 is very, very few out of 550 million – and anyway the statistics were probably inaccurate; villagers sometimes poison their enemies and blame snakes. On this consoling thought I settled down to chop cabbage for a salad.

  The fact remains, however, that Coorg has more than the national average of snakes per square mile … Having finished the salad I lay down to ease my throbbing leg and sought to lose myself in Fraser’s Account of Coorg and the Coorgs under the Vila Rajas (London: 1796). But I found Mr Fraser downright off-putting, for he chose on page three to inform me that ‘there are seven varieties of poisonous snake common in Coorg’. Next I wrote two rather incoherent letters while drinking my litre of toddy, which came late today. Then I had a chaser of Arak – at 10.30 a.m., I blush to record. After that I re-read the snake article and noted that 62 per cent of India’s snakes are nonpoisonous. Having made some very strong black coffee I laced it with rum and told myself how lucky I was to have a non-clinging, self-sufficient, outgoing child. Drinking the coffee, I wrote another – even more incoherent – letter which I had just finished when Subaya appeared to inform me that Thimmiah Sahib was planning to call at noon. I leaped to my feet. Rachel dearly loves Tim and would be bitterly disappointed to miss him; so I must hasten to retrieve her, sore foot or not. It is only a slight exaggeration to say that you could not have seen me for dust between here and there.

  Rachel was sitting on the veranda, ‘helping’ Uncle Machiah to chop betel nuts, and she observed my arrival with a perceptible lack of enthusiasm. ‘I thought you were going to rest your foot,’ she said coldly. ‘What are you doing here?’

  I explained.

  ‘Oh,’ said Rachel, ‘I do want to see Uncle Tim. But you go ahead. I’ll follow by myself – I know the way.’

  As I limped home – painfully aware of my foot, now that the anaesthetic of anxiety had worn off – I could see my excessive fussing about snakes as a cover-up for something rather more complicated. If for five years and three months one has been an essential prop, it comes as a slight blow to the amour propre when that prop is suddenly discarded. But now I feel we are over the worst; I cannot imagine myself ever again getting into such a flap without just cause.

  5 February.

  Today we caught the noon bus to Virajpet and found it full of migrant tribal coffee-pickers – filthy, ragged, excessively uncouth in their habits, covered with crude jewellery and open sores, almost black-skinned, very small in stature an
d laden with babies. (There seemed to be no more than ten months between the countless children in each family: but I daresay this was an optical illusion.) Before circumstances drove them out of their jungles these people lived happy, healthy lives; now, despite all the official benefits and concessions to which they are entitled, many of them have sunk to the lowest level of degradation.

  In Virajpet we lunched with a retired teacher who lives in a ramshackle little bungalow half-way up the hill. He had met us a few times around the town and pleadingly invited us to his home; his wife died recently and obviously he is still feeling very lonely.

  Like most elderly educated Coorgs, Mr M—— speaks conspicuously good English – precise without being pedantic – and he greatly deplores the present state of the nation’s schools. He is even sceptical – with good reason, I should think – about the apparently improved literacy rate. In his view the Indian government got its priorities wrong at the outset. Thousands of schools and colleges have been built during the past twenty years and these make impressive statistics, if one does not know that most schools are without adequate staff or equipment. Obviously India’s future would be much brighter today if the money wasted on buildings had been used to attract a better type of teacher. Nowadays even the most highly qualified and dedicated teachers cannot give of their best to their school duties because to feed their families they must overwork as private tutors. I assured Mr M—— that the quality of education is a problem all over the world, even in developed Western countries. To which he replied, ‘Every problem is worse in India than almost anywhere else. And we cannot afford mistakes or vanity or pompous posturing. We have no margin for error. Our government’s slips cannot be minor – they lead straight to disaster.’

  It is odd how many Indians combine hypersensitivity to criticism from outsiders with an addiction to dwelling on – almost gloating over – their national defects. They seem to take a perverted sort of pride in their proneness to corruption, and a current ‘funny story’ – I’ve been told it three times in the past two days – was printed as a news item in the Deccan Herald. It concerns a young Bombay university lecturer who last week unsuccessfully attempted suicide because he had become so depressed by the blatant and universal (in cities) adulteration of food. When the contents of his stomach were analysed it was found that he had been sold poison so heavily adulterated it could not have killed a mouse …

  7 February.

  Today we lunched with the Hughes and while we were waiting for the bus at Mill Point, and chatting to Uncle Machiah (who was going somewhere on Aruva business) Rachel suddenly said, ‘I have a very sore eye.’

  I glanced at it and remarked in my callous way, ‘It doesn’t look very sore.’ But luckily Uncle Machiah was more compassionate and found a tick embedded in the left upper lid, between the eyelashes.

  He is a wonderful person on such occasions – indeed, on every occasion. ‘This happens quite often,’ he said calmly, ‘but it must be removed without delay. What could be more convenient? You are passing Ammathi Hospital on the way to Sidapur. Get off there and Dr Asrani will fix it in ten minutes. All you need is a drop of glycerine or liquid paraffin on the lid – when it has been loosened out it comes with a tweezers – no problem!’

  By the time we got to Ammathi the lid had swollen perceptibly and there was a problem, because Dr Asrani had taken a fortnight’s leave and his very young Tamil locum proved hair-raisingly incompetent. It was plain that within the ten days since Dr Asrani’s departure the whole hospital had nose-dived into the depths of inefficiency, providing a striking example of how completely these small rural establishments depend on the standards of one man.

  To begin with Dr P—— diagnosed a sty instead of a tick, and when I had brusquely put him right – inwardly thanking the Lord for Uncle Machiah – he looked utterly nonplussed until I suggested glycerine or liquid paraffin. A search revealed that neither was available so we settled for vaseline, applied with cotton wool, and proceeded to the treatment room where Rachel lay obediently on the couch. Then Dr P—— turned to me and said briskly, ‘You must please wait outside. You can come in when I have finished. Parents are never allowed in here.’

  ‘They are, by Dr Asrani,’ I retorted, feeling my blood temperature rising by several degrees. ‘And I can assure you that I am not leaving this room until my daughter does.’

  Dr P—— looked considerably taken aback. ‘You have been here before?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘I have.’

  During this exchange Rachel had been lying calmly on the couch with her hand in mine, knowing quite well I would never desert her and obviously rather enjoying the adults’ battle. She now asked, ‘When is the doctor going to remove the tick?’ and I looked questioningly at Dr P——.

  In retrospect I can see the funny side of what followed, but at the time it left me shaking with rage. The nurse couldn’t find the cottonwool, or tweezers, or any forceps smaller than a jack – and finally a forceps of more practical dimensions was produced by a sweeper who was carrying it in her bare hands. By this stage Dr P—— was looking thoroughly demoralised. He sulkily obeyed when I ordered him to sterilise the forceps in my presence before putting it near Rachel’s eyelid – a delay which may have done good by giving the vaseline longer to work. When the ‘operation’ at last began the ‘surgeon’ made mighty heavy weather of it, though his patient, on maternal instructions, remained more unflinching than I could have believed possible. However, since the tick was extracted intact at the fifth attempt I suppose I should count my blessings and complain no more. As usual, Rachel rapidly recovered from her ordeal – though the eyelid is still very sore – and we arrived at Mylatpur in time for several iced beers (forgotten luxury!) before lunch.

  At three-thirty Jane drove us to Ammathi to catch the bus but it had made extra good time from Mercara and left ten minutes early; so we decided to hitch-hike. Often, in Coorg, drivers stop to offer unwanted lifts, but on the whole traffic is very light and this afternoon we saw not even a motor bicycle during our seven-mile walk from Ammathi to Devangeri.

  Approaching Vontiangadi, poor Rachel became quite exhausted – she had already walked over three miles this morning – and as I was carrying fifty eggs, bought cheap from a mass-producer at Mylatpur, I was unable to provide a piggy-back. But when the air began to cool at six o’clock she suddenly revived and finished the course at a gallop. It was a memorable walk, through the loveliest of this lovely region, and our road climbed high at just the right time to allow an unimpeded view of a vast fiery sunset behind the dark blue splendour of the Ghats. Then came an unearthly pink glow, over our whole silent world of forest and paddy-valley, and Rachel was moved to lyricism – ‘It looks as if a giant spilled his pink paint over everything!’

  8 February.

  This being Friday, Dr Chengappa arrived at seven-thirty and brought the sad news that last evening our tailor’s 36-year-old wife died in Virajpet hospital. The eldest of their three children, a clever girl in her first year at Bangalore University, will now have to give up her studies to look after her brothers, aged nine and thirteen.

  We know the tailor, Ponappa, quite well – Rachel often visits his workroom and returns with great bunches of finger-bananas – so we accompanied Dr Chengappa and Uncle Machiah on their visit to the house of mourning. Outside a neat, solid, typically Coorg home half a dozen musicians were playing mournfully – as they had been all night – under the plantain and papaya trees. Many neighbours were chatting quietly in groups, at a little distance from the house, and Ponappa himself stood on the veranda, clad all in white, receiving condolences. When I offered our sympathy he said expressionlessly, ‘It is my fate.’ There was a certain moving dignity about him: yet those four syllables unconsciously put Indian womanhood in its place. Her death at thirty-six was his fate …

  The corpse had been brought from Virajpet during the night and was reclining on a wicker chaise-longue under a canopy of white cloth in the room just of
f the veranda – robed in a fine sari, with crudely painted scarlet lips. Rachel had been inclined to regard the occasion as a ‘treat’ and I had had to warn her to suppress her light-hearted interest in corpses; but when she saw the devastated daughter bending weeping over her mother, stroking the dead woman’s cheeks, she suddenly clutched my hand very tightly and said, ‘I feel sad. I hope you won’t die until I’m married.’ The two sons were sitting cross-legged on a wall bench opposite their mother, looking completely dazed as they whimpered and moaned and rocked to and fro; and beside the chaise-longue sat the dead woman’s elder sister, wielding a fan of sago-palm leaves to deter flies and tending a dish-lamp. When Dr Chengappa entered the room he touched the corpse’s chest with the back of his hand and then his own chest with the palm, to indicate that the bereavement has left him feeling heartbroken. But, because dead bodies are regarded as one of the most potent polluting agents, Uncle Machiah had to remain on the veranda, postponing his ritual gesture of grief until later. He was due to meet somebody in Virajpet at ten o’clock, as part of his apparently ceaseless round of Aruva duties, and so he could not return home for the purifying bath and change of clothes that would have been essential had he crossed the threshold of the death-chamber.

  As we left, I told Ponappa I would be at the funeral this afternoon and when we were back in the doctor’s car Rachel said that she, too, would like to attend. But Uncle Machiah explained that it is not the custom for children – other than close relatives – to witness cremations. Poor Rachel was ravaged by disappointment. ‘I wanted’, she wailed, ‘to find out if burning humans smelt like cooking meat.’