On my first trip to India, I spent a week in Lucknow with the mother of one of my friends from London. I was told to refer to her as Aunty, a general term used when speaking to older women in India. She was an elderly lady, frail in body but not in spirit; lively, entertaining and commanding.
Lucknow Aunty (as I have since come to think of her) had a home full of people, with a cook and her family, a driver and six hearing-impaired children that she housed and tutored. Nevertheless, I was given a nice room on the top floor, with plenty of space and peace.
I enjoyed her company so much that I wanted to visit her again on a subsequent trip to India. I called to make the arrangements and was told that she would love to see me again but that she had turned the upstairs into a rooming house for single men and that it would be completely inappropriate for me to stay up there with them around. Instead, she arranged for me to stay with her brother and his wife, who also lived in Lucknow.
Since I was heading to Lucknow in Andhra Pradesh from Chandigarh in Punjab and Haryana, I thought it would be nice to buy a box of Punjabi sweets to take for the children – a treat that they would probably never have, otherwise. I bought 2kg of Punjabi sweets, which were placed in a big, cardboard box, held shut by two thin rubber bands. I packed the box carefully in my backpack, surrounding it with soft items to keep it from getting too crushed, and left for the train station.
After an eleven-hour train journey, stuck in a tiny seat between two Indian women who insisted on holding a conversation across me but refusing to trade seats with me, I finally arrived in Lucknow. Lucknow Aunty was there to greet me at the station and take me to her brother’s house, but by the time I arrived at Uncle’s home, it was quite late. We chatted for only a few minutes before Lucknow Aunty left and then everyone headed off to bed.
I’d been given a room with plenty of storage space, so I unpacked my bag and put everything away. The box of sweets was stored in the drawer of a bedside table for safe-keeping.
The next morning, I got up, had a shower and went downstairs to the breakfast table. Uncle and I sat, while Uncle’s-Wife Aunty cooked and served us our food, even going so far as to stand next to the table and keep watch in case either of us needed another helping from one of the dishes in front of us. (So much for her Masters Degree in Marine Biology... but that’s a different story and it isn’t mine to tell.)
After breakfast, I went back to my room to get the box of sweets out of the drawer so I wouldn’t forget to take them to Lucknow Aunty’s that evening. It was full of ants - hundreds of them, it seemed. There were piles of sugary goodness all over the inside of the box and ants crawling in and out of a complex series of tunnels they’d made through the sweets. I suspected that they were Punjabi ants because of the amount of damage that had been done. Surely there hadn’t been enough time to get the word out for so many local ants to have arrived and built such a sophisticated system!
I took the box of sweets downstairs and showed it to Uncle’s-Wife Aunty. I didn’t speak Hindi and she didn’t speak much English, but the communication was clear enough – “My box of sweets is full of ants and I need to dispose of it and them somewhere.”.
Uncle’s-Wife Aunty gestured for me to follow her and we went outside, where she pointed at the low wall surrounding the property. She didn’t want a box full of ants in her kitchen garbage, which was perfectly understandable, so I put the box on the wall and the two of us went back inside.
A few hours later, as Uncle and I were leaving for Lucknow Aunty’s house, Uncle’s-Wife Aunty walked into the living room and handed me... the box of sweets. I looked at it in confusion and then, when the realisation that I was meant to take it kicked in, horror. Indians are famous for not wasting any food for any reason, but how could she possibly expect me to take a box full of ant-infested sweets to the children?
I protested, gesturing that I didn’t want to take the sweets with me because of the ants, but Uncle’s-Wife Aunty piped up with “I make ants gone. Sweets vegetarian again.”.
She hadn’t meant for the sweets to be thrown away outside; she only meant for the unbearable heat from the sun to kill them off or chase them away. She’d picked the dead ones out, scraping them from the tunnels with a sewing needle, and expected me to take them to the children.
There is no arguing with an older, educated Indian woman. They won’t stand for it. They know what’s right and you’ll do as you’re told. So I did. Worse yet, I felt compelled to eat one when Lucknow Aunty offered the box to me later at her house, looking at me over the top with a knowing smile.
Lucknow Aunty (as I have since come to think of her) had a home full of people, with a cook and her family, a driver and six hearing-impaired children that she housed and tutored. Nevertheless, I was given a nice room on the top floor, with plenty of space and peace.
I enjoyed her company so much that I wanted to visit her again on a subsequent trip to India. I called to make the arrangements and was told that she would love to see me again but that she had turned the upstairs into a rooming house for single men and that it would be completely inappropriate for me to stay up there with them around. Instead, she arranged for me to stay with her brother and his wife, who also lived in Lucknow.
Since I was heading to Lucknow in Andhra Pradesh from Chandigarh in Punjab and Haryana, I thought it would be nice to buy a box of Punjabi sweets to take for the children – a treat that they would probably never have, otherwise. I bought 2kg of Punjabi sweets, which were placed in a big, cardboard box, held shut by two thin rubber bands. I packed the box carefully in my backpack, surrounding it with soft items to keep it from getting too crushed, and left for the train station.
After an eleven-hour train journey, stuck in a tiny seat between two Indian women who insisted on holding a conversation across me but refusing to trade seats with me, I finally arrived in Lucknow. Lucknow Aunty was there to greet me at the station and take me to her brother’s house, but by the time I arrived at Uncle’s home, it was quite late. We chatted for only a few minutes before Lucknow Aunty left and then everyone headed off to bed.
I’d been given a room with plenty of storage space, so I unpacked my bag and put everything away. The box of sweets was stored in the drawer of a bedside table for safe-keeping.
The next morning, I got up, had a shower and went downstairs to the breakfast table. Uncle and I sat, while Uncle’s-Wife Aunty cooked and served us our food, even going so far as to stand next to the table and keep watch in case either of us needed another helping from one of the dishes in front of us. (So much for her Masters Degree in Marine Biology... but that’s a different story and it isn’t mine to tell.)
After breakfast, I went back to my room to get the box of sweets out of the drawer so I wouldn’t forget to take them to Lucknow Aunty’s that evening. It was full of ants - hundreds of them, it seemed. There were piles of sugary goodness all over the inside of the box and ants crawling in and out of a complex series of tunnels they’d made through the sweets. I suspected that they were Punjabi ants because of the amount of damage that had been done. Surely there hadn’t been enough time to get the word out for so many local ants to have arrived and built such a sophisticated system!
I took the box of sweets downstairs and showed it to Uncle’s-Wife Aunty. I didn’t speak Hindi and she didn’t speak much English, but the communication was clear enough – “My box of sweets is full of ants and I need to dispose of it and them somewhere.”.
Uncle’s-Wife Aunty gestured for me to follow her and we went outside, where she pointed at the low wall surrounding the property. She didn’t want a box full of ants in her kitchen garbage, which was perfectly understandable, so I put the box on the wall and the two of us went back inside.
A few hours later, as Uncle and I were leaving for Lucknow Aunty’s house, Uncle’s-Wife Aunty walked into the living room and handed me... the box of sweets. I looked at it in confusion and then, when the realisation that I was meant to take it kicked in, horror. Indians are famous for not wasting any food for any reason, but how could she possibly expect me to take a box full of ant-infested sweets to the children?
I protested, gesturing that I didn’t want to take the sweets with me because of the ants, but Uncle’s-Wife Aunty piped up with “I make ants gone. Sweets vegetarian again.”.
She hadn’t meant for the sweets to be thrown away outside; she only meant for the unbearable heat from the sun to kill them off or chase them away. She’d picked the dead ones out, scraping them from the tunnels with a sewing needle, and expected me to take them to the children.
There is no arguing with an older, educated Indian woman. They won’t stand for it. They know what’s right and you’ll do as you’re told. So I did. Worse yet, I felt compelled to eat one when Lucknow Aunty offered the box to me later at her house, looking at me over the top with a knowing smile.
No comments:
Post a Comment