Vattu

21 February 2004

Ras Al Khaimah

U.A.E

Dearest Amma,

I promised I’d write to you as soon as I arrived, I know, but I had been ill for a while. Before you get worried: I’m perfectly  fine now; it was just a fever. I suppose it is my body’s way of protesting against the sudden onslaught of heat and dust. It has been spoilt, I tell you -- by the moist earth and the humid air and the cool well-water showers that I was used to until I came here. How are you doing? Are the rains making your knee act up? Now that I’m not there, you must ask that woman Janu to tend to it every night --  what do we pay her for, if not to take care of you? How is Achu? Tell that one I’ll get her a nice Gulf scent if she manages to top her class this time.

This is a strange place I’ve ended up in! All those stories that Raghavettan from next door used to tell us when he came home from the Gulf every two years -- they were only half exaggerated. Quiet roads with shiny cars (no rumbling Ambassadors here! I miss their noise) and loud men in long white robes… and the women! On the rare occasion that you do see them outside, only their eyes stare at you from the expanse of black cloth, like the some of the Mappila girls in Kannur. These are the locals,  mind you -- there are so many others from places all over the world, all looking for ways to send more money back home, like me. My construction supervisor is from Sudan -- a giant of a man with ebony skin and brown woolly hair -- Achu would be scared to death of him! And in my room, there are four others: Mansur from Bangladesh, Rashid from Pakistan, and Shaji and Thomas, who are Malayalis like me. Rashid showed me a picture of his new wife (waiting for his letters, just like you, in Pakistan) the other  day -- such a little mouse, Amma! She reminded me of Achu. Then there are all those Filipino men and women who work as salespeople everywhere, and the odd fair Westerner (we saw many when we went to a mall trip once), red from the sun. And people from all over India. The world is a big place, Amma -- no better place than this to show for it.

For now, we’re in Ras-al-Khaimah (if you can’t remember the name, just tell those who ask that it’s Dubai). The company is building a ceramic factory here. Rocky, bare mountains wherever one looks, and the sparse grassiness of a desert plain. They say this is the greenest it will ever get -- most of the other places are cities built in the desert, near the sea. I  am already missing the greenness of Thrissur. And the camels -- you wouldn’t think that they could gallop like horses when you see their long, knobbly limbs and lumpy bodies. Some of the Arabs here drink the milk, it seems -- it is supposed to be very healthy. All I’ve seen so far, however, are cans and cans of thick cow’s milk in endless white rows in the supermarkets (oh, them -- you won’t believe that there are so many things to be bought until you visit one! Even the smallest ones are like palaces of shiny floors and aisles). Speaking of which, do you know what we eat here? It’s a dry, flat bread called ‘khubbuz’ (I can imagine Achu laughing at how strange it sounds) -- it tastes of nothing in particular, and has to be forced down the gullet with water. I dream of your sambar  and puttu-kadala  all the time.

There is so much more to tell, but what would I write to you about every month if I finish it all off now? Send me a picture  of our home with the reply, no? When it gets too hot and noisy at work, I sometime close my eyes and imagine the early mornings --  the milky tea, the rustle of the newspaper, the chirping of the birds, the odd moo from Ammu in the manger, Achu’s voice from the window of her room; reading aloud from a textbook, and the quiet, rhythmic ‘Hsssh, hsssh’ as you sift through the grain drying in the sun…

No, no -- don’t exclaim ‘Ee chekkanentha?’ like when you read my poems. What’s with this boy, you ask -- nothing, really. Humour me, amma; it is only all the pent-up poetry (or vattu --  madness -- as you like to call it) seeping through. I hardly have time to write these days! I will stop here, hoping for a quick reply.

Yours alone,

Balan

…

I will stop here, hoping that what is unsaid will remain so. Hoping you will never know that I am nearly unrecognizable now;  that my hair is falling and my health is failing; that the food is never enough and the heat unrelenting; that my papers were seized by the Arab sponsor the day I arrived; that I will never know when I can see you again. Hoping that no matter what happens, you will always have a money order to collect every month. Hoping.