Chapter 7: On the Call of the Sea and a Wedding by the Lake.
Tales of Treselda Cottage (Part 7).
On the Call of the Sea and a Wedding by a Lake.
When Conrad, Ava's eldest brother was very small, he had travelled by boat to Anjengo with Mama. Ava loved Anjengo. The little town was home to her father's family. She would listen starry-eyed to Conrad's vivid description of the journey. The boats would set off from Chakkai Vallakadavu. Chakkai was then the hub of trade and commerce, as goods were brought in on the waterways, off loaded at the pier and stored in bales in warehouses before being taken by bullock carts to the thriving market places of Pettah and Chalai. Mama would pack the red and cream woven reed basket with snacks and their overnight metal trunks with clothes and essentials for their stay in Anjengo. They would buy hot roasted cashew nuts in paper cones while they waited for the passenger boat, watching all the goods being loaded and offloaded into small open boats, manned by skilled oarsmen.
Conrad and the other older boys, rarely spoke to the smaller children in Treselda Cottage, busy as they were with big-boy preoccupations. He was mostly seen spawled out on the chair by the window, nose buried in a book that he would have brought home with him from boarding school. When he did speak to them, it would be on a topic that interested him. Boats was one such topic, and he was usually ready to recount stories of his "travels", making the lone journey he had made to Anjengo as a small boy sound like the tale of a seasoned seaman. "You have a seaman's blood in you", Uncle Bennet, the attorney, had once told him, giving him an old, worn copy of Moby Dick. Conrad had immediately dived into the book, and Ava remembered how annoyed he was to find two pages missing. "The most crucial ones", he had exclaimed, but he had gone on to read and finish it in any case. Ava was most worried watching him progress with the book. He had missed the most crucial part, after all.
When Conrad finished school, he took a ship from Bombay to Nyasaland in East Africa to join his parents there. Mama had hesitatingly let him go, sending her son Edgar with him to Bombay port to send him on his way. There was no looking back for Conrad since that journey. He found that the wide expanse of the ocean and the call of distant lands lured him and long sojourns by ship excited him, unlike they did others, who almost without exception, found that they could not take the heaving and rolling of the ship and the unchanging monotony of views of the horizon over unending sheets of water. The time at sea refreshed him, he said. He had spent hours on the deck, alone or with new friends that he had seemed to easily make at sea. "He'll never be lonely as he always has his books for company", Mama had remarked. It was no surprise to anyone when Conrad had gone on join the Navy when he finished college.
By the time it was Ava's turn to travel to Anjengo, the waterways had fallen into disuse. Trains had replaced boats as goods carriers and roadways had replaced waterways as the chosen means to get from place to place. The elaborate system of canals that had criss-crossed Trivandrum and connected to the bigger waterways gradually became dumping grounds for solid waste, and open drains for not just storm water, but also sewerage and sewage outlets from across the city. In their days of glory, the major waterways had connected lake to lake, Veli to Kadinamkulam to Anjengo, to the backwaters of Allepey, Quilon and beyond. Ava couldn't believe that the still, smelly and dank water of the Pattoor canal was once sparkling clean, full and flowing, under the bridge that she crossed on her daily walk to and from school, and over which Paul Bastian and his friends struck their nonchalant poses. Mama often recounted how her eldest daughter, Ava's mother Yvette had fallen into the canal as a little girl, and had to be fished out quite some distance away, as the waters were high and in full flow. The small canals were a part of the larger network that connected Trivandrum to Anjengo and beyond, and being inter-connected, got washed out during storms and by the backflow from the sea during high tides.
Anjengo or Anchuthengu (Five Coconut Trees) was a small ox-bow lake marked by five distinctly shaped coconut trees that could be spotted from afar by approaching boats, waywardedly swooping out of their otherwise disciplined grove, trunks almost parallel to the lake, crowns hovering close above the waters. Boats meandered around them to reach the jetty.
One particular event at Anjengo had been the talk of Trivandrum for generations together. It was the wedding of Leonard and Bridgette. Mama spoke of it fondly, Leonard being her elder brother. People who had attended it held it up as a yardstick of sorts, by which future weddings in the community were to be held. The fact that the bride and groom had made a perfect couple was actually what it was about, that gossamer web that had woven itself across the collective imagination of generations as a golden memory of the wedding. However, when old-timers who had attended spoke of it, it was about the little details of that evening by Anjengo lake.
They spoke of the white linen covered tables that had been set up by the lakeside for the wedding reception. They spoke of paper lanterns on boats hired for the purpose, that lit up the surrounding waters in a ring, flickering on one by one after the sun had set over the waters, slowly melting into its own reflection behind silhouetted coconut fronds. They spoke of the fairy lights strung across the canopy of coconut trees, mirroring the clear sky above it, that seemed specially star-studded for the occasion. They spoke of the delectable six-course meal, served by uniformed bearers, starting with cake and wine, moving onto beef cutlets and salad, roast beef slices with potatoes, mutton stew with appam, and pork vindaloo and fish curry with coconut rice, ending with a flambéed pudding that was brought in on a large platter borne by six bearers. They spoke of the band from Quilon that played popular tunes without a break, serenading from table to table, and of and the circular wooden platform set up in the middle, that was filled with couples dancing the fox-trot, waltz and two-step late into the night. The young ones from Trivandrum had prepared for that night, gathering at Fiddle Noreen teacher's house evening after evening to learn the latest moves. They spoke of the grand march that signaled the beginning of the dancing, when couples had marched in to the tune of the band in twos and fours, splitting and merging into formations that went in streams around and through the party area before the couples took to the floor as the band struck up the first waltz.
Leonard had married quite late in life. He was one of the pioneers from the community to work on the tea estates, and he met with huge success, sending money back home to Trivandrum, and lifting his family out of debt, and into relative prosperity. Leonard had gone first to Ceylon, where he was able to relieve the British tea estate owner of most of his work and gradually take over all manegerial aspects of the estate. He leveraged on his command over the English language and possessed a deadly combination of charm, good looks and dapper dressing (in well-tailored shark-skin suits made to order in Madras), along with sharp intelligence and a capacity for hard work. He gradually took over all aspects of running the estate - the books, plantations, factories, manpower and logistics and was able to turn it into a hugely profitable business, procuring more land on behalf of his boss and expanding operations.
When his boss took on an estate in Nyasland, a British protectorate in East Africa (the present day Malawi), he asked Leonard to move there and to run it for him. Leonard applied the same high standard of work ethics to run the Ngyonyo tea estate in Nyasland on behalf of his boss, who hardly visited the place, and in due course turned it too into a profitable business with a huge turnover. Leonard lived it up in Africa, a land he came to love. He owned the latest automobiles and drove across the continent, on exploratory trips. He had cultivated a firm social standing, and was well liked. Many youngsters from Trivandrum joined him, starting off their careers in Ngyonyo, and then moving to other estates or taking up jobs in the big cities in Africa and the UK. He was therefore looked up to as a hero of sorts in Trivandrum.
For the British, the men from Trivandrum were a godsend. They looked Eurasian and carried Portuguese surnames but seemed like proper Englishmen, educated in Jesuit boarding schools, well spoken, well read, church-going, good in social settings, and (if they went into details), well turned out in high-quality handmade leather shoes and impeccably tailored suits. They often played western classical instruments and were sure-footed on the dance floor. Yet, they were hardly foppish. They ate with their fingers, cooked spicy food, wore lungis at home and were capable of adapting to any circumstance and living in tough conditions, mingling well with the locals wherever they went. They were also more than willing to work with their hands when the need arose. It was not difficult to understand why they would become prized employees.
If Leonard Moreira were to marry, it would have to be to someone who could accompany him to Africa, get used to estate life and stand shoulder to shoulder with him in the social circles he moved in. Leonard had famously refused to reply to any of his mother's letters from Trivandrum regarding marriage proposals. Over the years however, he had seen his brothers and nephews come in with their wives and settle on the estates, building up family lives of their own. This might have spurred him to think on those lines himself, and he began to consider ending his carefree bachelor days. This was when the proposal for Bridgette D'Souza of Anjengo came to his mother through a relative. Bridgette spoke impeccable English and was well read, having been schooled in Anjengo, in one of the first convents with Irish nuns, older than the one in Trivandrum. She was an only daughter and had inherited acres of her father's coconut plantation in Anjengo. She was also famously beautiful, tall, with thick, long hair and a flawless complexion. She was the reason for Leonard Moreira's long journey home, and that in itself was intriguing enough for the community in Trivandrum. They were a sight to behold, standing hand-in-hand by the lake on their wedding night.
The guests struck up the Laudáte, signaling the end of the feast. Masses in those days were held in Latin, and Psalm 117, the Laudáte was commonly sung at the close of all gatherings. "Laudáte Dóminum omnes gentes omnes populi; Quóniam confirmáta est súper nos misericordia eius et véritas Domini mánet in æternum". (Praise the Lord, all ye nations, praise him, all ye peoples. For his loving kindness has been bestowed upon us, and the truth of the Lord endures for eternity).
Ava pictured them, a gathering of Malayalis with Portuguese surnames under the wayward coconut trees of Anjengo lake, conversing in English, dancing to American tunes, following a hybrid version of Portuguese customs localised over centuries, singing Catholic hymns in Latin and speaking of life in the estates of East Africa. Now if that wasn't a snapshot of the multi-cultural nature of Trivandrum of yore, what could be, thought Ava.
(To be continued...)
On the Call of the Sea and a Wedding by a Lake.
When Conrad, Ava's eldest brother was very small, he had travelled by boat to Anjengo with Mama. Ava loved Anjengo. The little town was home to her father's family. She would listen starry-eyed to Conrad's vivid description of the journey. The boats would set off from Chakkai Vallakadavu. Chakkai was then the hub of trade and commerce, as goods were brought in on the waterways, off loaded at the pier and stored in bales in warehouses before being taken by bullock carts to the thriving market places of Pettah and Chalai. Mama would pack the red and cream woven reed basket with snacks and their overnight metal trunks with clothes and essentials for their stay in Anjengo. They would buy hot roasted cashew nuts in paper cones while they waited for the passenger boat, watching all the goods being loaded and offloaded into small open boats, manned by skilled oarsmen.
Conrad and the other older boys, rarely spoke to the smaller children in Treselda Cottage, busy as they were with big-boy preoccupations. He was mostly seen spawled out on the chair by the window, nose buried in a book that he would have brought home with him from boarding school. When he did speak to them, it would be on a topic that interested him. Boats was one such topic, and he was usually ready to recount stories of his "travels", making the lone journey he had made to Anjengo as a small boy sound like the tale of a seasoned seaman. "You have a seaman's blood in you", Uncle Bennet, the attorney, had once told him, giving him an old, worn copy of Moby Dick. Conrad had immediately dived into the book, and Ava remembered how annoyed he was to find two pages missing. "The most crucial ones", he had exclaimed, but he had gone on to read and finish it in any case. Ava was most worried watching him progress with the book. He had missed the most crucial part, after all.
When Conrad finished school, he took a ship from Bombay to Nyasaland in East Africa to join his parents there. Mama had hesitatingly let him go, sending her son Edgar with him to Bombay port to send him on his way. There was no looking back for Conrad since that journey. He found that the wide expanse of the ocean and the call of distant lands lured him and long sojourns by ship excited him, unlike they did others, who almost without exception, found that they could not take the heaving and rolling of the ship and the unchanging monotony of views of the horizon over unending sheets of water. The time at sea refreshed him, he said. He had spent hours on the deck, alone or with new friends that he had seemed to easily make at sea. "He'll never be lonely as he always has his books for company", Mama had remarked. It was no surprise to anyone when Conrad had gone on join the Navy when he finished college.
By the time it was Ava's turn to travel to Anjengo, the waterways had fallen into disuse. Trains had replaced boats as goods carriers and roadways had replaced waterways as the chosen means to get from place to place. The elaborate system of canals that had criss-crossed Trivandrum and connected to the bigger waterways gradually became dumping grounds for solid waste, and open drains for not just storm water, but also sewerage and sewage outlets from across the city. In their days of glory, the major waterways had connected lake to lake, Veli to Kadinamkulam to Anjengo, to the backwaters of Allepey, Quilon and beyond. Ava couldn't believe that the still, smelly and dank water of the Pattoor canal was once sparkling clean, full and flowing, under the bridge that she crossed on her daily walk to and from school, and over which Paul Bastian and his friends struck their nonchalant poses. Mama often recounted how her eldest daughter, Ava's mother Yvette had fallen into the canal as a little girl, and had to be fished out quite some distance away, as the waters were high and in full flow. The small canals were a part of the larger network that connected Trivandrum to Anjengo and beyond, and being inter-connected, got washed out during storms and by the backflow from the sea during high tides.
Anjengo or Anchuthengu (Five Coconut Trees) was a small ox-bow lake marked by five distinctly shaped coconut trees that could be spotted from afar by approaching boats, waywardedly swooping out of their otherwise disciplined grove, trunks almost parallel to the lake, crowns hovering close above the waters. Boats meandered around them to reach the jetty.
One particular event at Anjengo had been the talk of Trivandrum for generations together. It was the wedding of Leonard and Bridgette. Mama spoke of it fondly, Leonard being her elder brother. People who had attended it held it up as a yardstick of sorts, by which future weddings in the community were to be held. The fact that the bride and groom had made a perfect couple was actually what it was about, that gossamer web that had woven itself across the collective imagination of generations as a golden memory of the wedding. However, when old-timers who had attended spoke of it, it was about the little details of that evening by Anjengo lake.
They spoke of the white linen covered tables that had been set up by the lakeside for the wedding reception. They spoke of paper lanterns on boats hired for the purpose, that lit up the surrounding waters in a ring, flickering on one by one after the sun had set over the waters, slowly melting into its own reflection behind silhouetted coconut fronds. They spoke of the fairy lights strung across the canopy of coconut trees, mirroring the clear sky above it, that seemed specially star-studded for the occasion. They spoke of the delectable six-course meal, served by uniformed bearers, starting with cake and wine, moving onto beef cutlets and salad, roast beef slices with potatoes, mutton stew with appam, and pork vindaloo and fish curry with coconut rice, ending with a flambéed pudding that was brought in on a large platter borne by six bearers. They spoke of the band from Quilon that played popular tunes without a break, serenading from table to table, and of and the circular wooden platform set up in the middle, that was filled with couples dancing the fox-trot, waltz and two-step late into the night. The young ones from Trivandrum had prepared for that night, gathering at Fiddle Noreen teacher's house evening after evening to learn the latest moves. They spoke of the grand march that signaled the beginning of the dancing, when couples had marched in to the tune of the band in twos and fours, splitting and merging into formations that went in streams around and through the party area before the couples took to the floor as the band struck up the first waltz.
Leonard had married quite late in life. He was one of the pioneers from the community to work on the tea estates, and he met with huge success, sending money back home to Trivandrum, and lifting his family out of debt, and into relative prosperity. Leonard had gone first to Ceylon, where he was able to relieve the British tea estate owner of most of his work and gradually take over all manegerial aspects of the estate. He leveraged on his command over the English language and possessed a deadly combination of charm, good looks and dapper dressing (in well-tailored shark-skin suits made to order in Madras), along with sharp intelligence and a capacity for hard work. He gradually took over all aspects of running the estate - the books, plantations, factories, manpower and logistics and was able to turn it into a hugely profitable business, procuring more land on behalf of his boss and expanding operations.
When his boss took on an estate in Nyasland, a British protectorate in East Africa (the present day Malawi), he asked Leonard to move there and to run it for him. Leonard applied the same high standard of work ethics to run the Ngyonyo tea estate in Nyasland on behalf of his boss, who hardly visited the place, and in due course turned it too into a profitable business with a huge turnover. Leonard lived it up in Africa, a land he came to love. He owned the latest automobiles and drove across the continent, on exploratory trips. He had cultivated a firm social standing, and was well liked. Many youngsters from Trivandrum joined him, starting off their careers in Ngyonyo, and then moving to other estates or taking up jobs in the big cities in Africa and the UK. He was therefore looked up to as a hero of sorts in Trivandrum.
For the British, the men from Trivandrum were a godsend. They looked Eurasian and carried Portuguese surnames but seemed like proper Englishmen, educated in Jesuit boarding schools, well spoken, well read, church-going, good in social settings, and (if they went into details), well turned out in high-quality handmade leather shoes and impeccably tailored suits. They often played western classical instruments and were sure-footed on the dance floor. Yet, they were hardly foppish. They ate with their fingers, cooked spicy food, wore lungis at home and were capable of adapting to any circumstance and living in tough conditions, mingling well with the locals wherever they went. They were also more than willing to work with their hands when the need arose. It was not difficult to understand why they would become prized employees.
If Leonard Moreira were to marry, it would have to be to someone who could accompany him to Africa, get used to estate life and stand shoulder to shoulder with him in the social circles he moved in. Leonard had famously refused to reply to any of his mother's letters from Trivandrum regarding marriage proposals. Over the years however, he had seen his brothers and nephews come in with their wives and settle on the estates, building up family lives of their own. This might have spurred him to think on those lines himself, and he began to consider ending his carefree bachelor days. This was when the proposal for Bridgette D'Souza of Anjengo came to his mother through a relative. Bridgette spoke impeccable English and was well read, having been schooled in Anjengo, in one of the first convents with Irish nuns, older than the one in Trivandrum. She was an only daughter and had inherited acres of her father's coconut plantation in Anjengo. She was also famously beautiful, tall, with thick, long hair and a flawless complexion. She was the reason for Leonard Moreira's long journey home, and that in itself was intriguing enough for the community in Trivandrum. They were a sight to behold, standing hand-in-hand by the lake on their wedding night.
The guests struck up the Laudáte, signaling the end of the feast. Masses in those days were held in Latin, and Psalm 117, the Laudáte was commonly sung at the close of all gatherings. "Laudáte Dóminum omnes gentes omnes populi; Quóniam confirmáta est súper nos misericordia eius et véritas Domini mánet in æternum". (Praise the Lord, all ye nations, praise him, all ye peoples. For his loving kindness has been bestowed upon us, and the truth of the Lord endures for eternity).
Ava pictured them, a gathering of Malayalis with Portuguese surnames under the wayward coconut trees of Anjengo lake, conversing in English, dancing to American tunes, following a hybrid version of Portuguese customs localised over centuries, singing Catholic hymns in Latin and speaking of life in the estates of East Africa. Now if that wasn't a snapshot of the multi-cultural nature of Trivandrum of yore, what could be, thought Ava.
(To be continued...)
The picture is of a Vallakadavu in Trivandrum. Source: http://www.tvmrising.in/2012/04/moving-city-mass-transit-future-for.html?m=1
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