Fireflies in the Night

Fireflies in the Night
Historical, Literary Fiction.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HZS28CW  

EXCERPT

Chapter one

Eastward

In 1957, Achankulangara Namboodiripad Krishnan sits on the side veranda of his rented home in Madurai in the state of Madras, South India, three wet betel leaves clutched in his hand. With the end of his shirt tail, he wipes them dry. Opening a silver box in which he keeps condiments, he spreads pink lime paste with a silver spoon on each of the three leaves using his bent knee to hold them together. From another pot he uses his fingers to sprinkle fragrant betel nut shavings spiced with cloves and cinnamon over the paste. The final layer is sweet grated coconut. After rolling the leaves, he places the packet in his mouth and chews. He does this slowly, for the roll is rather large and his tongue often gets caught between his teeth. He savours the burst of flavour filling his mouth, leans back and closes his eyes. A drop of the betel juice trickles down his throat. It is sharp and peppery. His taste buds tingle. The back of his mouth becomes numb. He wants more. Now there is a dizzy sensation that starts at the back of his eyes.

Just what he is looking for. Not bad at all.

He swallows the betel leaf and coconut juice accumulating in his mouth and takes a folded piece of paper from his pocket. His hands are unsteady as he smoothes it with his palms and goes over the lines once again. ‘Transfer Orders,’ he reads. ‘Achankupfangarat Krishan Nampodhiripadi, you are to report to your new station Dibrugargh, Assam.’

‘I’ve told the bastards time and time again that my name is A.N. Krishnan,’ he mutters under his breath, moving the chewed wad of leaves to the other side of his mouth where the juices do their work. ‘These Hindi-speaking wallahs will never learn to spell my name properly. And the sons of bitches want me to embrace Hindi! Pah! Nayindamakkal! Children of dogs,’ he curses in Malayalam.

The A is for the town he was born in and the N identifies which social strata he belongs to. Early in his career, he drops his full name and opts for only initials since no one can pronounce it properly. He’s also weary of correcting them. Another ulterior motive is to hide his true social standing behind the initials for the Namboodiripads are part of the royal family of Cochin. He thinks it best not to announce his colours. He’s even stopped wearing the gold studs in his ears. They only give his status away. Even after all these years his mother can’t look him without an air of grievance.

‘Ah, to hell with everybody,’ he mutters now. ‘They deserve the tiniest mounds of white rice on leaves of paper for their cremation ceremonies. And may there be no crows at all for miles and miles. And,’ he says this aloud now, ‘may they call till they are hoarse and can make no sound.’

He says this in Malayalam, the best language for cursing and uttering evil prophecies. The rice mounds are arranged on clean banana leaves and they attract crows during the ceremony. The quicker the crows come and pick at the rice, the more peace the departing soul can expect. The relatives stand around clapping and calling to the crows to come and get it. 

He wishes he has a wad of five leaves instead of three. Then perhaps he would be numb all over. He wishes he could shut his brain off for just a while. His thoughts start to race and he moves his jaw furiously for a moment. And as always, his tongue gets in the way of the last vicious chomp. He screws up his eyes as tears well up in them. A burning sensation accompanies the sharp pain as the lime penetrates the wound. He decides not to swallow the betel juice and spits it out. It clears the concrete floor and lands with an audible splat on a glossy banana leaf from where it slithers slowly down to the next leaf and to the next. His eyes follow its path until the blob drops on the dry earth and he is left with a sinking feeling in his stomach.

This is the thanks he gets for being an honest and hard-working member of the Indian Revenue Service. This is the reward for supporting a family of five, wife Devi and his three children, on a government servant’s salary. He doesn’t go to the gymkhana and the turf club like most of them. The membership alone costs a fortune. All he allows is a basket of fruit or sweets at Deepavali. But the gymkhana membership and a basket of fruit are not same thing. He allows it only because they insist so much. He can’t stand the constant begging and grovelling. He has noticed the diamonds in the present Commissioner of Income Tax’s wife’s ears and nose and the new car. The Commissioner’s children are getting their education in an exclusive boarding school in Ootacamund. He, Krishnan, didn’t comment on that. Yet he can’t help wondering if the CIT is afraid he might blow the whistle and generate one of those purges that rumble through the musty halls of Revenue Bhavan from time to time. This is the result: this transfer to a place where they can forget all about him. Shove him away before the CIT himself gets the shove?

Review from Kirkus Reviews

T. S. Devi stands in the doorway with a tray in her hands, their German shepherd, Rufus, at her heels. There is a small stainless steel jug full of hot, sweet tea, a stainless steel tumbler and a plate of spicy vadas she’s just had fried by the cook, Gopal. She hears her husband mutter and wonders what he is thinking. He sits upright in his chair, his long legs stretched in front of him and his jaws clenched. Like her mother before her, Devi never thinks of her husband as ‘Krishnan’ or even calls him by his name. Watching him now, she wants to engulf him in her arms and comfort him. She wants to press his tall frame against hers. But she doesn’t.

It will only make him frown and turn away.

She sighs softly, her heart yearning for something she knows she can never expect.

She’s been his wife for over a dozen years now, yet she still remembers the first time he came to her father’s house asking for her hand. She remembers hiding behind the window, her eyes pressed to the slit between the curtains. She was in the room off the hallway with the window looking out on the veranda. Her heart was racing and she threw glances over her shoulder expecting her mother to barge in any minute. He was sitting in the chair with the straight back, his arms resting on the sides. She was so close she could see the hairs on them. She pressed her eyes further into the slit. His jaw was square and he had a high brow. His hair was curly, she could tell. She ran her hand down her own straight hair hanging down over her shoulder. It reached beyond her knees. It was her pride and joy.

He was the oldest son of the Cochin Namboodiripads and quite used to doing things his way. Like how he didn’t wear those studs in his ears anymore, and how he worked in the city. She was of age and there was nothing to say against the union. Not that she had anything to say. And not that her opinion mattered anyway. The fact that he had chosen her, a simple country girl, to be his wife dazzled her family. He was handsome and willing to give her a home. There were no doubts in her parents’ minds that he was a good choice. Their horoscopes were examined and deemed to be compatible. So she became his wife, content to follow her husband wherever his job took him.

That’s who she is.

First and foremost she is A. N. Krishnan’s wife, previously known as the daughter of the renowned writer, P.T. Nair. Then she is mother to Anupama, at thirteen the eldest, with her straight hair and her father’s quietness; followed by, Kavita, the middle one, nine years old with her father’s curly hair and who knows whose exuberance; and Arun, two, also of the famous Namboodiripad curly hair.

This is the third transfer since the birth of their first child, Anupama. She knows the orders are in and she hopes it is Delhi, where her brothers and sisters live, or even Cochin, land of their forefathers. But from the looks on his face, it is probably far, far away.

As she bends to place the tray on the glass-topped cane table, she raises her eyebrows.

‘Assam,’ he says, sighing, knowing how disappointed she will be.

‘Where?’ she asks and wipes her face with the end of her sari. She stands in the doorway adjusting the folds in her cotton sari, moving her hips to and fro as she gives in to an itch around her waist. Where the sari touches her body, it is limp from the heat and sweat. The itch is getting unbearable so she slides her finger down her waist and encounters the stiff folds of the sari. She has to tell the dhobi to use less starch next time. 

Available for e-reader and as paperback at https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01HZS28CW

***Accolades*** 

-Next Generation Indie Book Award 2017

-Best Books of 2016 Kirkus Reviews

-Starred Kirkus Review

-Finalist Foreword Reviews Indie Award  
 
Select Reviews
-An amazing book of caustic family dynamics 4.5*
-An authentic family story 4*
-Elegant, wonderful imagery, beautiful narrative 5*
-Brilliant depiction of coming of age under extreme conditions 5*
-Beautiful story about how one family unravels 5*