Under the Green Canopy

[11/16, 7:48 PM] +91 95964 46311: 1.     It had been twenty-four years since she'd last seen it, but the place looked exactly the same. The rubber trees stood erect, creating a green canopy that shielded the community of squirrels that scampered from one moss-speckled branch to another from the harsh elements of nature. The familiar smell of latex permeated the air as she walked in the dark, dank rubber plantation, accompanied by the croaking of frogs that were announcing the advent of pending rainfall. It was just becoming light and a few workers were making their rounds, tapping rubber, just as their predecessors had done many eons ago. A strange sadness gripped her heart as she searched for the many faces that were obscured by the gloomy hues painted by time. She called their names out loudly, her voice reverberating through hillocks and barren land where granite stones reflected the colours of the rainbow but the only answer she received was the psithurism of the dense foliage of the hevea brasilienses which was native to the Amazon Forest.

[11/16, 7:48 PM] +91 95964 46311: 2.      Anna sat on a fallen tree and looked into the distance. A mother hen was trying to defend her chicks from something ominous that lurked in the bushes. As a child, Anna had been fond of terrorising cute, fluffy black chicks as they ran helter-skelter in her mother's orchid garden where variegated epiphytes entwined their slender limbs around pieces of wood that had been thrust into the soil. Her mother reared more than five hundred ducks, hens and roosters that came from various regions in Asia. There used to be a large chicken coop near the fence that separated Anna's home from the plantation. Everything around her was obscured by happy memories of days long gone by.

[11/16, 7:48 PM] +91 95964 46311: 3.      The kitchen was a hive of activity as her mother, Freda, rubbed freshly ground tumeric on the flesh of a fat fowl that had been slaughtered by the male servant who came every morning to help the family with their household chores. A group of young girls from the labour lines were squatting over a basket of newly unearthed sweet potatoes which they had brought as a gift for Anna's mother. One of them held a glass of weak tea in her hand. It was a norm for visitors to stop by at her mother's kitchen to share a snippet of gossip or to devour the traditional Indian delicacies that she painstakingly prepared. One of these dishes was puttu, a mixture of coconut shavings and rice flour as well as ragi flour which was steamed in a can that was tied to a kettle of boiling water. Anna remembered her mother mashing the puttu with bananas before shaping them into balls for Anna and her twin sister, Rose.

[11/16, 7:49 PM] +91 95964 46311: 4.      The place looked as it had twenty-four years ago but the light banter of children and the gaiety of life were missing. Anna opened her eyes and she was transported back to the present. She continued her ramble through the sprawlingly huge rubber plantation. There was a strange silence in the air which was brought about by the passage of time. Anna had lived here when her beloved country was fledging its wings to achieve greater heights in advancement. Her father, Richard Petrus Gomez, served as a paramedic for this rubber plantation which was under the administration of the Guthrie Company.

[11/16, 7:50 PM] +91 95964 46311: 5.       The old dispensary still loomed in the bleak surroundings like a hermit who had lost his way while journeying through the circumstances of this weary life. It was a simple, brick and mortar structure that comprised three rooms. The examination room where her father had spent most of his time never failed to instill fear in Anna's mind, even now,many years later. The smell of disinfectants and medicines hung in the air as if her father was still there to administer an injection on her left arm. The antiquated stretcher that many a patient had lain on during emergencies was now a distorted piece of rusty metal attached to wheels with loose lug nuts and a threadbare mattress.

[11/16, 7:50 PM] +91 95964 46311: 6.      Anna remembered one particular day when her father was called away to attend to a rubber tapper who had inadvertently fallen on her tapping knife. When Anna's father arrived at the scene of the untoward incident, the poor girl was writhing in pain and gasping for air as the knife was lodged deep in her bowels. Being an experienced paramedic who had started his career as the sole medical personnel in charge of a hospital at the age of nineteen, he was not unnerved by the blood that oozed from the girl's wound as he gingerly carried her to the waiting ambulance. All along the long trip to the hospital, he comforted the dying girl. The hapless girl did not survive the night at the hospital but Anna knew that her father was an unsung hero who had made the girl's passing on to eternity a little easier.

[11/16, 7:50 PM] +91 95964 46311: 7.       Anna walked towards the bungalow that she had called home for the first nine years of her life. When she peered into the interior of her old home, there was a hollowness that was intensified by the silky strings of cobwebs that protruded from the low ceiling. There were a lizard s eggs on the ledge of the shuttered window, indicating that this place had been unoccupied for a couple of years. When she was a child, her mother kept the windows closed in the morning as the rubber plantation was infested with swarms of flies and other creepy insects. The rubber plantation management used to pay the children from the labour lines to catch flies which were shunned as vectors that spread dysentery and other contagious diseases.

[11/16, 7:50 PM] +91 95964 46311: 8.      For years she had harboured dreams of coming back to this green haven where she had garnered her reservoir of words. Middleton Rubber Plantation had familiarised her with the scents, scenes and colours of life. And now after more than two decades, she was finally here searching for her lost identity. She had endured domestic violence as well as a gruelling divorce procedure. She had come to her childhood haunt to find peace and solace from the realities of life. Here, everything was surreal as the meandering creeks that murmured a thousand secrets and the cool gust that caressed her cheeks. The only thing that she wanted now was to free herself from the shackles of responsibility and honour that had bound her to a sadistic man. Her homecoming presented her with the opportunity to make her own decisions and that was all that mattered.