PREFACE
Everyone has a story to tell. In fact, there are so many stories from real-life experiences suspended from your memory cells, ready to drop off like ripe cherries. Most of us look at these cherries as too small or trivial to pluck. We simply ignore them. These cherries decay and are forgotten. Like you, I too have a whole, fully grown cherry tree within me carrying so much fruit. Until recently, I did not even notice the existence of this tree within me. Now that I have discovered the tree, I could not resist spending a little time with this beautiful creation that has been growing within me with its strong trunk and branches, the lovely leaves and the heart-shaped fruits hanging from every branch. My cherry tree gives me both sweet and sour fruits.
I lived in several countries in Africa for several years working. I travelled extensively within Africa and outside for work and pleasure. For the most part, my family lived with me. My second son was born in Freetown, Sierra Leone. Our life was enjoyable and exciting. We received the proverbial African hospitality and friendliness where we lived. At the same time, the life in Africa, particularly in those days of coups, counter-coups and military rules, was not without its attendant risks. I was lucky that those risks visited me the least and only on very few occasions. While none of them affected me physically, a couple of them left indelible marks on my psyche just enough to remind me that life is not always a bed of roses. My travels, for the most part, had elements of surprise, fun, frustration and luck. The stories of occupying a wrong aircraft or reporting at a wrong airport might produce a slight smile on your lips. The ‘loss’ of my sons in Amsterdam and on the Alps might treat you with a mild shock. Whilst on the subject, these stories are not written to evoke sympathy. The objective is to provide the readers with some light moments as I myself have taken the darkest experiences in a lighter vein over time.
Away from Africa and Europe, I have described the horror which I experienced while hanging from a rope ladder from a ship on the high seas, and I want the reader to laugh at my helplessness with no reservation. I can assure you that my pre-schooling was exactly as I have written. There was an elephant named Neelakandan in my village and the older generation still remember the ordeal created by that Tusker. I was only four or five years old when the episode occurred. This story was handed down to me and other children by an uncle who sat up a tree and witnessed most of the drama. I hope you will enjoy the bitter-sweetness of my real-life stories.
1 Shakespeare on a Train
The man in a white sarong and a collarless shirt continued to abuse me. His vocabulary in his vernacular, far exceeded the terms found in any dictionary of that language. It was my language as well, but I did not have the faintest idea about many of the words he was hurling at me. I noticed some of the passengers listening to his charade cringing by some of those epithets. The women turned their faces away and some covered their ears with their hands.
I was frustrated and angry. I also felt sorry that I was partly to blame for the discomfort of those fellow passengers. I wanted to hit back at the man who continued to insult me. I could not even make one sentence in the vernacular to match my adversary’s choice of words.
I was on a train from Trivandrum to Cochin in the southern part of India. It was a festival season. The whole population in the southern city seemed to be moving to the north. Every compartment was full. More people were standing than sitting. I had captured a seat on one of the benches which would typically seat three passengers, but I was among the seven people sitting on that bench. All of us were so tightly squeezed that each one of us, except the ones at the two ends, was kept in place by the two sitting on either side. People were standing between the benches and in any available opening. Many of them were hunched over the people who were sitting.
The train moved at a sedate speed. Most passengers, including those standing, were dozing as there was nothing else to do. The rhythm of the movement of the train aided the drowsiness. The people who were standing, kept shifting their feet to gain a better foothold, to the discomfiture of others. When someone placed his heavy shoe on my foot, it hurt me so badly, that a groan escaped from my throat. I could feel the metal studs on the bottom of his shoe piercing my skin. The pain was excruciating. I tried to wrench my foot from the pressure of the unknown foot. This movement further injured my foot and gored my flesh. I was in agony. Without knowing to whom the foot belonged, I lifted it with both my hands. As I moved forward while lifting that unknown foot, I almost lost my seat as the other six closed the gap by the natural pressure. I was now bending forward and almost out of the bench and my head was buried among several legs. In the fraction of a second that I could cast my eye on my injured foot, I saw blood flowing. My view was again blocked by the movement of several legs around me.
As I lifted the unknown foot, its owner lost his balance. He was now hanging among those standing, knocking down another person. The second victim smashed his nose on the iron railing of the overhead luggage holder. Everyone who was standing started blaming each other. The man who hit his nose on the railing shouted at the person who was still hanging off-balance among the crowd. He partly regained his balance with one foot on the ground and looked around to find the perpetrator of his fall.
“Who lifted my leg?” asked the man, still standing on one foot.
“Who pushed me?” demanded the man who hit the railing.
Everyone looked at someone else inquiringly. The last thought on my mind was to volunteer myself to admit my act. I was already suffering from severe pain in my foot and I did not want to add another pain in my mind. My eyes were stinging with tears of pain.
“’The guy who lifted my leg was sitting there between those two guys,” said the man still partly suspended by the crowd but trying to stand straight. I was not visible to him as I was bending forward with my head buried among the legs.
The train stopped at the next station and a few people alighted. This gave space to the rest of the people to straighten up and find their feet. In a few seconds, more people would get into the train from that platform, making the situation in the compartment worse. At that precise moment, the man looked at me. I lowered my eyes.
“his is the guy who lifted my leg”, he shouted. I was so embarrassed that I could not think of a way to defend myself. The man was so angry and charged up that he started abusing me. His argument was twofold. First, what if the crowd had not been there to support him from falling? Second, I must have had some motive in lifting his leg. I could no longer keep quiet. He had identified me. I told him in a feeble voice that I had no choice but to lift his foot as my own foot was crushed under his shoe.
“Aha, he has admitted that he deliberately lifted my foot. He wanted to kill me.” He told the other passengers. The man moved his accusation to a different level. “He is not a decent man. He had other motives.”
I protested. This infuriated the man further. He expanded his wild accusations to the level of vulgarity. I told him that he should be careful in making such accusations and this seemed to be his limit. He started displaying his proficiency in his vernacular with words not found in the dictionaries. Even though such scenes were common in the third-class compartments and were forgotten as soon as the people alighted from the train, I was badly shaken. I imagined that I had become a laughing stock among the passengers. To retrieve lost honor and to reduce my mental anguish I decided to hit back.
I looked at the man who was still ranting. I sat straight. I looked around and searched the faces of everyone in the crowd to see any trace of sympathy towards me. I found none. I searched my memory for an appropriate counter to my tormentor's tirade. I knew that I would score negative marks if I used the same vernacular. The only other language I knew was English. A third-class train compartment in rural India was not the ideal place to make a speech in English. Still, after weighing the pros and cons quickly, I decided that it was the only weapon I could use on the ranting man. It could backfire. But right then, it seemed the only option in front of me.
I had, in the past, occasionally stood in for the prompter in an amateur drama troupe, solely because the troupe was owned by a friend. He was returning some favor by allowing me to prompt the actors in the play ‘Merchant of Venice’ whenever the substantive prompter was absent. The prompting work necessitated to memorize the passages from the play.