Weathered, but giving

Chapter One

His Majesty Ananda Kumarasingha Thommandram Chettiar

looked out of his ornate Tanjore chariot and brushed invisible dust off his shoulders. His lips curved downward in the split second it took to roll out the red carpet. Even his shoes shouldn’t touch unworthy soil. The carpet rolled out like a giant red passport leading him right into the heart of his palatial mansion. Baby Sanath’s cradle.

Baby Sanath gurgled and called out to granpa. The baby heard the chariot bells. He smelt the horses. 

His Majesty trotted down the carpet like a blindered horse and halted next to Baby Sanath. Scooping him up high above his shoulders, the baby laughed as his chains dangled and slapped against granpa’s face.

The baby’s teether was made of rare waldorf maple. The tree had been growing in the palace gardens for generations, weathered but giving, wood for heirs. Their teeth should not touch anything unworthy.

Toys and cutlery made of gold. Fabrics of silk. Every contact point was worthy of royal sweat and blood. Baby Sanath lacked nothing that money could buy. Hordes of servants attended to his every nod. He grew up with the finest tutors who bore his every tantrum.

He grew up intelligent, insatiably curious, thankfully not arrogant. He longed to know how the rest of the world lived. He heard there were huge families in rural India where they lived a month using the amount of money he spent in a day. How is that even possible?

 Seventeen years passed. 

Chapter Two

Sanath Kumarasingha Thommandram Chettiar

Long-haired Sanath Kumarasingha Thommandram Chettiar trotted around in bell bottoms and hippie shirts. Underneath he was still decked up in gold chains of varying lengths and patterns, right from his neck all the way to his belly button. He rode a bike made of gold handlebars. He mastered three musical instruments and owned a diamond studded guitar. To his friends, he was a passport to imported wine and the high life. Vel was a teetotaler though and he loved Sanath. They hung out under the stars on the beach, contemplated about life, rode like maniacs on the shore, and got in and out of addictions. Religion, alcohol, and tobacco.

Time unleashed its tyranny on His Majesty. Weathered but giving, he scooped Sanaths face into his wrinkled palms. “I want to see you married before I…”

The mridangam rhythm and the nadaswaram melody drowned out the festive conversation. The musicians’ heads swayed and nodded endlessly; sometimes like an irate cobra and at other times like a cork floating on water. 

The palace was decked up like a temple elephant. Every inch smothered in flowers, fabric, and finery. 

Sanath felt the music throbbing in his veins; he couldnt stop his mind from filling-in every pause or not with an offbeat. 

He dressed up nonchalantly in several layers of grandeur; each outdoing the next. The pièce de resistance was the delicate silken scarf interwoven with golden threads and studded with gems. 

The bride, Srimathi, was a bank employee, the most coveted job in independent India. Srimathi had been raised in rural India with twigs for toys. Sanath insisted on marrying her to satiate his curiosity about a torally different lifestyle. 

She had grown up in her neighbour’s house as there wasn’t enough space in her own. Fascinating! She memorised the shape of english letters though she could not read them. Unbelievable! She slogged through every exam for 20 years and it paid off. Her education was her passport into the high life. She secured the most enviable bank job through questionable nepotism and unstinting hardwork. Incredulous!

Long tresses, flawless skin, and a million dollar smile. She was fiercely independent, almost rigidified by rural realities, in absolute contrast to Sanath, who was born with a golden spoon… but that contrast and that divergence was what Sanath craved for in his dull life of luxury.

Srimathi and Sanath prostrated before Ananda Kumarasingha for his blessings. Their garlands and chains swept his feet in a tangle of heavy gold and light, fragrant flowers. 

Ananda scooped Srimathi’s face into his palms for the first and for the last time.

Fifty years passed.

Chapter Three

Naomi Kumarasingha Thommandram Chettiar

Naomi was a long baby. More like a tall one. Maybe her grandfather Sanath’s genes. Or her great great grandfather Ananda’s. With the height, the genes also gave her a shock of jet black hair and fussy fingers. She would eat, touch, and play only with textures that befit a king.

She was verbally precocious; in her perspicacious mood she could hear her grandpa’s walking stick as he hobbled onto her porch. She would respond with a unique, high-pitched granpa gurgle. Her grandpa was no less and would notice that she noticed. Thus began their beautiful journey of bonding wordlessly. 

“Granpa, did you really grow up with toys of gold? And granma, you played with twigs, no toys?” Naomi would interrupt eyes widened as her brain strained to assimilate their divergent worlds. Naomi was eight now and her escape from her world was to enter into her grandparents’. 

“What is life? How do I matter?” She asked them at eleven. Her granpa had coursed through life reflecting on these questions only with Vel on the beach. And they hadn’t found an answer too, other than in their friendship. Her grandma had fought through webs of disadvantage and hadn’t had the luxury of existential crises.

Granpa’s pupils contracted as he groped for an answer. He scooped her high up in his wrinkly arms and her gold chain rested on his face. She loved to twist it around her fingers though granma disciplined her not to play with gold. Blame it on Naomi’s genes.

“The purpose of life is to love and be loved,” his words settled into the deepest crevices of her heart. 

“Tell me when you felt love and loved, granpa,” Naomi probed. He transported her to his yesteryears of lying on beach sands with Vel, contemplating the deep life, and riding maniacally on the shores… he skipped the bit about addictions of course.

Naomi inherited her grandmom’s resilience, her grandpa’s sophistication and became her own person. Powerful. Visionary. Vulnerable.

Twenty-three years passed. 

Four

The past in the future

Naomi’s venture of an urban-rural highway of knowledge and resources attracted investors and young, hot-blooded changemakers. Naomi met Nathan at work and felt love and loved. 

They sought the elders’ blessings through a zoom call wedding. Sanath and Srimathi were deeply gratified to see their grand daughter married. Naomi and Nathan were dressed in work clothes and took an hour off to get married.

Three years passed. Relationships across generations drifted. Priorities changed. Calls were few and far in between with barebone greetings and formalities.

Trrrrring! Naomi answered the most-awaited call and took a few hours off work. “Granma, our papers are through. We are going to pick up our daughter from the agency today…”

“We will come over and stay with you, darling!” granma squealed like she had found a new twig to play with. She called her relatives in her village to collect recipes for toddlers and to see if there were spare hands that could visit to help. 

Granpa beamed as he began to dust his guitar and get ready for the new journey ahead. The diamonds sparkled yet again.