A Tale of Turmeric.

This story came from a line that just popped into my head from nowhere, and borrows from snippets my family recount from their youth as Indian born Brits.

It was the best time of day for stories; the sun was low enough for work to stop and high enough above the copper-streaked sea that the Storyteller, Kathaakaar, would not be busy. Pinky ran across the sand to the Storyteller’s shrine, methi steeped fresh and green into her fingers. One silvered copper bangle that Auntie gave her longed for a sister to sing with but could only rattle lonely on the bone of her almost too thin wrist. She sang a song with no words to herself and ran a snaky path, light as mongoose, across the sand to the Storyteller.

He sat behind the counter of his “shrine” chopping limes and squeezing mango pulp. When the sour smelling men came with the dark, the shrine became a bar, a shack for beer and illicit distillations, and Pinky would race home before mother got an itch to take the chipakana to the back of her legs. But until then, in the magic last half hour of the sun, to Pinky the bar was a shrine: the shrine of Kathaakaar, the place for wonderful stories.

“Kathaakaar, dear Kathaakaar! Have you a story for me today?” She swung herself up to a high stool, resting her arms flat on the counter, one hand atop the other, chin on top of both, wide smile next, little hook nose above that and too-big eyes, alight with a child’s excitement to top the lot off. To most, he was known as Tirah, the bar, but to Pinky he was always Storyteller, dear Storyteller.

“Meri Jaan - beloved one - not even a greeting for an old man, no? No respect! Always the same ‘A story! A story! Tell me a story!’”

“But your stories are the very very best, Kathaakaar mahoday.”

“Such flattery, Bitiya; it will always get you somewhere. Now, what shall we have today? How about ‘How Ganesha got his long trunk’ ?”

“I know that one! You told me one hundred times.” she slapped a hand down on the counter and filched a slice of mango. Tirah pretended not to see.

“What about ‘Where the Sun Goes When she Sleeps’ ?”

“She-sleeps-beneath-the sea-the-fish-comb-her-hair-and-Moon-Prince-who-loves-her wakes-her-every-morning-but-she-shines-so-bright-she-can’t-see-him-and-they-never-get-married…” she breathed in deeply, “The end.”

“Hmm. Perhaps I have used up all of the stories, eh? Think on that! A man can only remember so many, you know. A story can’t be made the same every day like bandy legs Zubin makes his vada pav. You need fresh ingredients to make a story most tasty.”

They sat for a few minutes, the chack chack chack of Tirah’s knife on the limes as steady as a clock. The sun sank and Pinky could almost see it do so. She wondered if it hissed like the hawker’s hot tin when it touched the sea. She counted the wrinkles on Tirah’s face and wondered how old he might be. Her brow furrowed and unfurrowed as she weighed up which story was her very most favourite; she would ask him for that because even a story that’s been heard one hundred times before is still a story, after all.

“Kathaakaar, dear Kathaakaar, will you tell me a story of when you were a child like me.”

“Pah!” said Tirah, not stopping at the limes for a moment. “That is a story you already know, Meri-Jaan! It is no story at all; but, also, it is the story of every nine children from ten in the whole of India!”

“Tell me! Tell me!”

Tirah did not look up, but perhaps his knife slowed on the block a little as he began to speak.

“Once upon a time, and far away, there was a boy who was always very very hungry. His mother and father were farmers and they were very very poor. And also hungry. Because they had many many children. Too many children. Eleven children; yes, eleven! Thirteen mouths and never enough food for them all.”

Tirah put down his knife and looked at Pinky. “One day, the boy ran away. Very…very far away. He had a long journey but he did not stop until he came to the sea.”

“Then what happened?”

“Then…he built himself a little jhonpadi…” Tirah swirled his hand about him, “...and grew old by the sea chopping limes and squeezing juice and telling stories to naughty children who steal his mango when they don’t think he can see them - and I can see you, snake!”

He rapped the flat of the knife sharply on the bar - chack chack - and Pinky giggled through the mango, smiled a tight lipped smile, tried, and failed, not to seem like she was chewing. A trickle of tell-tale juice escaped one corner of her mouth; she snorted and another trickle came from her nose. Tirah banged both fists down then pointed at her “Ah haa! Guilty One!” and both erupted into laughter.

Pinky wiped her mouth on the back of her arm, “Kathaakaar, tell me, what sort of farm was it? Did you grow methi… in the sand, like me?”

“No, Meri-Jaan, it was haldee - turmeric. And it was in the high mountains near Kashmir, where the very best, the most yellow, the most golden turmeric is grown.”

“Turmeric grows on a farm? I thought it was like…like paint.”

“Oh no, Bitiya. It is most certainly grown. Grown in the ground.”

“But…it’s just yellow dust! Mamaji puts a pinch in the rice, and they paint it on the bride and groom.”

“Arre yaar! Did you never leave the beach?”

Pinky’s chin dropped onto her hands and she looked down, confessing the truth in his words. Seeing her crestfallen, he put down his knife and placed a comforting hand on her nut brown, bird-thin arm, the skin of it already toughening from sun and salt and sand. Softening his voice he said “So, turmeric, heh? Let me tell you all about turmeric.”

Just then, a man they had not noticed, a dirty, broken-sandalled man with greasy rupee notes in his hand, stumbled against the bar, slouched to rest an elbow on one of the high stools. A thick vinegary stink of yesterday’s booze, of sulphurous burnt garlic began to stain the air around him, pricking at Pinky’s nose. He scratched at an armpit through the waxy cloth of his shirt then snorted out the content of his nose into the sand, one finger pressing shut a nostril.

“Eh Tirah. A beer and a glass of that cashew daru you got down there, eh?” he slurred, slamming down his money and patting it. Gurning, he took in the scene at the bar, noticing Pinky for the first time, Tirah’s hand still on her arm. “Watch the old dog doesn’t touch you where he shouldn’t, eh? Make a whore of you, eh?”

“Bar is closed, Mikesh,” said Tirah, pushing away the man’s money. “Come back tomorrow.”

“Yaar - I’m just joking my friend. Get me a beer, eh?” Mikesh pushed his money back towards Tirah, then turned to Pinky “And you, Bitiya, you should run home to mamaji. You’ll get this good man a bad name, close down his bar! And then where will I get my cashew daru, eh?” He rapped a finger on his cash again and stifled a belch.

Tirah flipped up his knife in a spin, caught it in the air then stabbed it hard into the chopping board. He grasped the money in a fist and stuffed it into the torn breast pocket of Mikesh’s fake and faded LaCoste polo shirt.

“Yaar… the bar is closed. Get home to your poor wife, while you still have rupees for her and the kids, eh?”

Mikesh looked from Tirah to Pinky and back again, then down to the money in his breast pocket. He fought with the alcohol for a moment or two and then gave up and stumbled off, muttering “bastard” and “child-fucker” under his breath. Tirah covered Pinky’s ears with his hands and held her gaze with his until Mikesh was out of her earshot.

“Are you alright Meri-Jaan? Did the drunk fool scare you?”

She shook her head. Her brown eyes reflected the evening sun which burned hot red and wavered just above the sea; they seemed to grow larger, even more out of proportion to her weaselly head. “But he smelled bad. Very bad!”

Tirah waved a slice of lime beneath her nose. “All better?”

Pinky looked to the horizon, and then to the strip of lights which were beginning to wink on along the shoreline. Sounds of the coming darkness grew louder; growing throngs and contra flows of people whose day was ending and those whose was beginning. Pinky shuffled to the edge of the stool. “It’s nearly dark.” She looked forlorn and Tirah again rested his hand on her arm.

“No, little sister. Don’t go yet. There is…there is a story to be told. Let me tell it? Stay. I’ll close the bar…no more smelly rats coming, eh? And after, I can walk with you, safe to your mamaji.”

Pinky longed for a story but knew she should never stay out past sunset There were rules –sadachar – unwritten rules; who could come and go with whom and who could not and when the neighbours might have something to say about it, whatever that meant. She didn’t understand these things, but she understood a slap to the back of the legs and an empty belly. She wavered, but something about Tirah’s face, a wistfulness, a sheen of almost-tears across his eyes…Was he sad, or was it just dust on the sea breeze?

“The truth about haldee, then? Is that the story, Kathaakaar?”

Tirah laughed “Very good! Now…to know all about haldee, there is more than one story that must be told. More than two in fact, so…are you sitting comfortably? Here take this cushion for that poor little bony chutad of yours.”

“Is it the story of when you were a little boy?”

Tirah wavered. He rubbed at his forehead, at the yellow bindi, like the sun, painted with turmeric paste in the centre of his brow. The scar beneath it itched. Something caught in his throat; perhaps the ripe smell of the man who didn’t wash enough? A tear tried to gather in his eye and the word child-fucker crawled out from the ashes.

He wanted to teach Pinky all the names for haldee in the world: tzer merich, kurkum, terremerite, besare, acafrao da terra. He wanted to tell her the story of the Moon Prince who fell in love with the sun and sailed up into the sky in a silk balloon dyed gold with turmeric. High in the air, the monsoon rains came and washed out all the colour, and there he stayed, forever white to the sun’s gold.

He wanted to tell her how the god Vinayaka was born from a doll that the Goddess Gauri made of turmeric paste; how he became Ganesh when Lord Shiva cut off his head and gave him the head of an elephant instead.

He wanted to tell her of Khandoba, the god who carries a bowl of haldee which magically never empties, so that everyone, rich or poor, may share the bounty of the yellow spice.

He wanted to tell her how the people of the east, long long ago, before Mohammed, held the roots of turmeric to look like the mouse that the Buddha had held in his hand and brought back to life; a symbol of healing and the sanctity of all living things, great or small.

But a different story fought for air and took all his breath. The story of a child, a child who had never met a soul to share his story with. Until now. Until the scrawny, beautiful little girl with methi under her nails who looked to him with wonder in her too-big eyes and clamoured for his stories. A child who was kicking impatiently at the side of his rickety jhonpadi with her car-tyre sandals; who pinched his mango and had one silvered copper bangle to her name.

The story of a child, but not a story for a child to hear.

“Kathaakaar. If the story never starts, it can never end,” she urged.

“I’m just trying to remember it all, Bitiya. So I can tell it right.”

“And it’s nearly dark now. Look, the sun is almost gone.” she pointed to the horizon where the sun was a thin blood streak in a hazy sky, bruising to black and purple…

---

“A long time ago…far away…near the mountains of Kashmir,” Tirah began, in a voice no longer his own. “There were twin brothers, Kashif and Kafeel. They lived on a farm with their mother and father, growing turmeric to sell at the market. They had many many brothers and sisters and their hands were rough and orange stained.

The house was small, only three rooms, and the farm was small, only one acre. And though they all worked as soon as they were old enough to hold a spade, they were very poor and always hungry.

‘Kashif’ means “He who discovers” and ‘Kafeel’ means “Responsible one”, and the boys grew into their names. Kashif always wanted to explore and make mischief, and Kafeel was always more careful. “It’s nearly dark, let’s go home,” he would say or, “Don’t pick up the scorpion, brother,” or “We don’t have a rifle to hunt a tiger, brother.”

And though the brothers were mischievous, they were good boys. They honoured their parents and loved their brothers and sisters, but they loved each other best of all.

---

Pinky was desperate to know which of the boys was Kathaakaar, but there was something in the intensity of his voice and the way he looked to the distance that kept her tongue still.

---

“The whole family helped Father to work the farm. Their calendar was measured by the growth of haldee. Before the monsoon came, the boys broke their backs tilling the soil, treading in dung and planting a thousand thousand root cuttings, row upon row, until the acre was filled. Every day that followed was a day of rake and weeds and watering pails. When the plants grew tall, tender leaves were cut for Mamaji’s sweet, steamed rice parcels for market. When the plants flowered, the best ones were cut for weddings. When the plants withered, the dry stalks were cut back to the ground. Then, the hardest work of all: lifting the roots with adzes and spades and scraping the soil off ‘til their hands were sore and their fingernails bright yellow.

After the harvest, the tiger-striped roots with their little finger buds would be boiled and laid out to dry in the sun. Great, heaving baskets-full were gathered up on Father’s back or bicycle crossbars or the neighbour’s mule then off to Furqan Dhar, the village elder. Furqan Dhar had the machine with the putt-putt engine that would tumble the roots to peel them. Furqan Dhar owned the mill that would grind them into deep yellow powder. He owned the crooked market scales that would weigh out your tally; he was rich and old and fat and took a cut from everything in the village. The family worked to their fingerbones but Furqan Dhar sat and drank bhang tea and took his money and cheated the weights and never worked a day in his life.”

---

“Furqan Dhar is horrid!” said Pinky, unable to stop herself. “Did he smell bad like Mikesh?”

“No,” said Tirah, after a long pause where he gazed into the past behind closed eyes and a heavy sigh. “He smelled of oud. Oud and bhang.”

Pinky said “Oh,” and nodded, as if she knew what these things were; she didn't want to ask, to interrupt Tirah again.

---

“One day, after the harvest, Kashif and Kafeel went with Father to market, each with a basket of dry haldee roots rattling on their back. At the putt-putt peeling machine, Furqan Dhar said to Father:

“Send one of your sons to my house. I have some errands that need small hands. There’s a couple of rupees for him.”

“My sons are busy helping their father, Elder Dhar but perhaps on another day.” said their father.

At the milling machine, where the boys held open the sacks for Father as the spice was ground, again Furqan Dhar said:

“Five rupees I will give for the boy. A day’s pay for an hour’s work!”

“A generous offer, but they are both too busy today, Elder Dhar,” Father replied.

And then at the market scales, which could weigh a small boy just as well as a sack of spice, Furqan Dhar stood with folded arms and said “If you want to weigh your spice here on my scale and earn your tally, send the boy. Five rupees and I’ll forget my share. What do you say?”

Father put down the sack of spices, motioning the boys to do the same with theirs. He gathered his sons to his side, one arm around their shoulders. “Furqan Dhar, I know the sort of work that a man like you wants done, and it will cost a boy much more than your five rupees.”

A mutter went around the crowd that were gathering to witness this poor farmer stand up to Furqan Dhar. The two stood in silence, then Kashif, thinking to help his father said “I will go and do the errand for Elder Dhar, Father. Kafeel can stay and help you with the sacks?”

“No! You will not, son. A boy should work for his own father. Where are Elder Dhar’s own sons to run his errands? He should ask himself that. Now, put your sack on the scales…unless the Elder would deny a man his living and food for his family?”

With that, Father dropped a sack on the scale. It clanged down without a weight to balance it. A judgement. Furqan Dhar sensed the crowd was not with him; he snorted and turned away, waving a hand in dismissal.

Pinky was unable to contain herself and interrupted again. “I don’t understand, Kathaakaar. Why wouldn’t their father let them work for Furqan Dhar. Weren’t they poor?”

“Yes, they were very poor.”

“And five rupees was a day’s wage?”

“Yes, it was.”

“I still don’t understand. What is this story really about?”

Tirah felt the past surge up inside him, felt the story wake from years of sleep and push tears up towards his eyes, but he would not…could not …did not have the words to tell it to a child, for all that it was the story of a child, and a child as young as Pinky.

“It is about how a father tried to care for his sons, Bitiya. There are people in the world who take and give nothing back, and a father should stand up to them, for his family, like the boys’ father did. He showed the greedy man that he could not just take what he wanted.”

“I see,” said Pinky. “I think...”

But Tirah knew that this was not the truth. There was chapter untold. It choked him like a boiled egg swallowed whole. He longed to speak it, to free it from his nightmares, but he would not give it to this child, and so within his mind it stayed.

---

Once upon a time the twin boys, Kashir and Kafeel had finished a day’s work and were playing in the forest beyond the edge of the fields as dusk fell. From behind a broad tree stepped a man in shadow and he struck Kashir about the head with his walking cane. Kashir fell to the ground and hit his head upon a stone and the man went about the work that he had wanted done. When he was finished he left the boy bleeding and stuffed five rupees in his pocket, muttering as he went muttering “kabhi kabhi majhe patchhe se thoda sa pasand aata hay”.¹

But Kafeel was hiding, frightened, in the trees and he saw all of what had happened and he remembered the words that the man had said, and he went to his brother and helped him up and roused him with slaps to his face and his own salty tears.

When the boys got home, their father raged and cried. He went to the village elders and demanded justice, but the accused was a rich and powerful Elder himself and the father’s claim was not believed.

“He’s only a boy. There is no witness but him. There is no case for us to hear,” they said, because that was the law. But, there was another witness and Kafeel stood up, and told the Elders what had been done and who he had seen and what he had said after he had done it. He threw down the bloodied rupee notes and counted each one out: one, two, three, four, five. They knew Kafeel spoke the truth because some had heard those very words come from the accused’s mouth before and others knew very well the significance of the five rupees.

But an Elder is an Elder and the word of a boy is nothing. Each Elder of the village court thought of their own misdeeds and none would speak first to condemn one of their own and so no justice was had. No justice that could be seen, at least; only… the guilty man did suffer justice of a different kind. A quiet verdict; a silent judgement meted out upon him by the village worthies and cold shoulders turned against him. He boiled with rage, the guilty man, because in his mind he had done nothing wrong. In his mind he felt the need for his own justice for the worthless farmer and the boys that had brought him such indignity.

So one night, when the cuts to Kashir’s head had healed –one from the stick and one from the stone - leaving scars that together looked like the number thirteen - the guilty man crept to the family’s house in the night. He barred the door and set a fire with five rupees worth of petrol from the putt-putt machine. He set a fire from which only one escaped; a child who ran and ran and the sound of his brother screaming “Jump” still rang in his ears.

---

The sun gave up on the day and darkness quickly followed like a curtain across a stage.

“Come then, Meri-Jaan. Let me take you home to mamaji eh?” said Kathaakaar.

“Which one of the boys was you Kathaakaar?” Pinky asked, “One of them was you, wasnt it? And how did you come to be in Mumbai? Kashmir is so so far! Will you tell me that story?”

“Maybe. Maybe tomorrow, eh?” and both of them knew that tomorrow just means, ‘One day’.

1. “Sometimes…sometimes, I like a little bit from behind". This is an urdu quote my wonderful Auntie Pat told me. She grew up in Pakistan with my dad and eight other siblings. In my family, it’s an expression always used in a humourous context and comes as part of a story from their childhood, about a dirty old man that lived nearby and who was always accusingly mocked as liking young boys. One day he as much as confessed to “Sometimes… sometimes, liking a little bit from behind”, as if it was nothing. This has always stuck with me, the flippant regard for this sort of thing in days not so long ago.