Michelle Sindha Thomas
GOD’S OWN COUNTRY | KOTTAYAM 1900-1977
II: BABY THOMAS
I learn the story of their childhood from Aunty Lucy—prim, serious, distant, of the chin-length bob and Greek salad recipe—because Babyammachi never felt the need to tell us anything much before we were adults and she died at a ripe old age, always found a way to shut down our attempts at conversation with a disinclined “yes” or, more typically, “no.” You took pleasure in provoking her, painting her nails blue while she was sleeping or asking her to list the contents of her cabinets to pass time when Mama made us talk to her on the phone—which Babyammachi did not mind. She found you familiar, your earth, your purple-red blood and small forehead like hers, she maybe even found you charming. She told us she was “peculiar,” as if to ward us off. She carried a hand towel and put it down before she sat on our chairs. At her place, she kept decorative objects displayed in their packets and covered her brown 1970s furniture with thick plastic wrapping. A plastic runner also spanned the entire length of her flat. She wore sturdy glasses and brown or navy polyester pants and loose tops with a particular under-tummy drawstring—or a brown sari on special days—and a long, thick, pragmatic ponytail. She was small and matte and resisted eye contact like an unhappy button mushroom: “You don’t want anything to drink do you?” and how she sighed when we did want something to drink after our long drive just to visit her and she begrudgingly pulled out absolutely minuscule yellow-flowered cups, pouring us each a sip of grape juice. Remember the first time she babysat us? I was fully 12 years old and I called Mama and Papa on their way to the airport, crying for them not to leave us with her. The entire week, she pored over the newspaper and her tiny prayer book, looking up only to tell me “no” when I asked her if she could teach me how to embroider; I wanted to sew a rose on a handkerchief for Mama. I taught myself how to embroider that week, I wanted it so badly. Maybe that was the lesson.
David, Michelle, Cherie, Babyammachi, Ruby, Jeffrey
Over the years, I just stopped trying to engage. I am only now trying again to understand Babyammachi, asking questions long after she has gone, wanting to make sense of her and to forgive her.
“Do you know any songs, Babyammachi?” She did teach us one song, do you remember? “Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream. Merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.” She stopped her tuneless recital to emphasize an underlying message, alternative and alien to our former understanding of the song, raising her voice because we were in the pool, of all places, and not paying enough attention: “Did you hear that? Life is BUT a dream.”
“There are some things you should know about your grandmother,” Aunty Lucy told me.
Thresiamma had given birth to eight children: Clara, our grandmother, the eldest but the smallest and thus nicknamed “Baby.” Janet, who grew up to become a nun. Philomena who did not become a nun. Twins Lucy and Agnes; Agnes also became a nun. James the engineer, and John the baby who grew up to become a bon vivant. Marykutty, the firstborn, had died in childhood.
This is the first I had ever heard of Marykutty: “We had an older sister but she died when she was only three,” Aunty Lucy said, “I still have a photo of Marykutty in her burial casket, with my father looking at her.” I was so surprised, I did not think to ask follow-up questions: Was she sick? Was there an accident? Baby Clara was born when Marykutty was about three years old, and their mother struggled with postpartum depression. The shock of losing Marykutty broke her depression, but infant Clara spent the first months of life in a family plunged in grief, mourning their firstborn.
Despite this early tragedy, Thresiamma and L.C. Isaac settled into an acceptance of the situation and, with the help of family and domestic caregivers, gave Baby Clara the attention a child deserves, followed by plenty of siblings. She seems to have relished her role as the big sister: “I want to tell you that your grandmother was very talented,” Aunty Lucy said. She played harmonium when the family sang at night and said their prayers. She used to make dresses for her sisters, said Aunty Lucy: “When my twin sister and I were eight years old, on All Saints’ Day, we took our holy communion and your grandmother made dresses for us, for me and my twin.” She recalled every detail of the fabric: “It was not a true white and not a shiny satin, it was like a Chinese satin. We had a Singer machine and she made us beautiful dresses with several layers from the waist down so they would flow. Your great-grandparents also wanted to give us a tea party, so they invited our family and neighbors and all the teachers from our school; it was not a Catholic school, but they invited everyone to the house and we had a nice tea party that day.” She continued, “For Christmas we would each also have a new dress. Your grandma would make all the dresses.” I am a little upset by this anecdote because I am still offended Babyammachi wouldn’t teach me how to embroider when I asked. “Well, I never saw her doing embroidery,” Aunty Lucy maintained.
Babyammachi in college
Babyammachi was a strong student and attended St. Ann School in Kottayam, then CMS College for her undergraduate degree. “Your grandmother was also a very neatly dressed person,” Aunty Lucy said, proffering a detail that I, frilly and fanciful, might find interesting, “When you knew her she was different, but before she got married and all, she was the one in the house who was always dressed so nicely, saris spic and span and stiffly ironed.” I responded skeptically, and she conceded: “She was well dressed but people didn’t call her well dressed and all that,” then renewed her defense with the adoration of a little sister, emphasizing, before changing the contended topic, “Your grandmother was a very neat person, always made sure everything was clean.” After graduating from CMS College, Babyammachi decided to become an English teacher and went to Trivandrum University for her teaching degree.
Meanwhile, Lucy finished chemistry and physics degrees in Chenganasherry and was back in Kottayam, figuring out what she wanted to do with her life. She had declined an invitation to the University of Rome; she was not ready to leave India and thought she might teach for a while and eventually go to a medical college in Kerala. Philomena had already gone to St. Agnes College in the state of Mangalore to teach physics and had married and settled after two years. She called Lucy to let her know the chemistry lab was looking for a demonstrator and was she interested? Lucy took the position and began teaching chemistry, but her interest was diverted: “At that time,” she said, “There was an American social work professor who had started a new degree program at St. Agnes College.” In light of her upbringing, with her parents’ emphasis on public service and altruism, Aunty Lucy was drawn to the program—she joined the School of Social Work and found her calling.
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Uncle James, center, and family
Papa and Mama and I went to Kottayam last year to see Babyammachi’s brother James, now the patriarch, his wife Leelamma, and all his children, gathered for the winter holidays. They are practical people and had their day packed with activity. Uncle James still had a sharp mind, filling in the gaps and correcting dates and details of Aunty Lucy’s stories. His daughter, a gynecologist, saw patients in the morning, hosted us for a lunch that finished sharply at the stated end time, and had the maids quickly transition to dinner preparations for her college friends in town for a wedding. Her efficiency and sheer steadiness of energy reminded me of you. This side of the family has particular affection for you, even though you visited them what, once? For an hour? There is an integrity, solidity, and stubbornness to you, clear markers that you are their own, down to the fixed and purposeful facial features. I, on the other hand, spent most of the visit talking to an uncle-by-marriage who loves gardening and cooking and happily sent his son to culinary school. There is something frothy, melodramatic, and impractical about me that does not resonate with the stoic Lachumthara family line, but I like to imagine that I am amusing to those soft floating dreamers who marry in: the gardening uncle, Aunty Leelamma, who squeezed my cheeks and waved goodbye until we drove out of her sight, and I imagine, too, Babyammachi’s husband, Papa’s father, our grandfather.
Kurian Thomas
Kurian Thomas had a shape-shifting quality to his face, shared by Uncle Syriac, James, Kevin, and me—the glimmer and echo of him continuing faintly in one son, two grandsons, one granddaughter. Our hair is unpredictable and disobedient, our features gentle and unfixed; we look different from every angle and in every photograph, our smiles are crooked and shy.
“We called your grandfather Kunnya, meaning, ‘Dear One,’” Aunty Lucy told me, “He was known as the best dressed man in town. In those days, most young men wore a mundu and shirt, but he would wear a bush shirt and trousers. He always walked very straight and whatever he wore was very neat.” He grew up in Ambalapurra, near Alleppy, where Babyammachi was also born: “His family was a very good family, well-known, educated. He had a bachelors in mathematics and a degree in teaching,” Aunty Lucy said, thinking he must have studied in Madras. “In those days, that was a high education,” she went on, “His whole family, they were teaching and all, three boys and two girls. He had a brother who was an older person, also a teacher. You know Mercy and all? Mercy’s father. All these people were highly educated in this family. There was another brother, Gregory, who went to Africa in the 1950s. He was also very tall and well dressed, in fact, they wanted Babyammachi to marry Gregory but our father did not want her to settle in Africa. They had a sister, Chechamma, who was a math teacher and was very pretty. She was not married but she was well respected.” I marveled at her lack of pity for Chechamma and started to understand why Papa’s side of the family never seems to feel sorry for me in my perpetual solitude. They easily comprehend that I’m a hard one to match and that life goes on; they’ve seen it before: “When your Uncle Ike was in high school and Chechamma used to come and teach him math, he would do well. The whole family was so nice. Not only nice, but they were smart and educated people,” she emphasized, in case it hadn’t yet sunken in, “They led a very good life, they were decent people. You should be very proud of your grandfather’s side. And your grandfather was a very nice man.”
Gregory and family in Africa
Babyammachi on her wedding day
L.C. Isaac arranged for Kurian Thomas to marry his daughter, Baby. Their wedding was grand, as the first in the family, with relatives and neighbors joining the elaborate preparations. “Did they even like each other?” I wondered aloud, unable to imagine Babyammachi as a coquette as I regarded her wedding photo, even with the start of a smile curving her mouth, the necklace of tiny diamonds and sapphires arranged in floral shapes which she incongruously, eventually left to me. Lucy was startled: “Of course! There is no question about it! They weren’t like people are in this country, kissing in public—they wouldn’t show off like that—but they respected each other.” I must work harder to understand quiet, understated love when all I know are spontaneous declarations and PDA followed by arguments in public and swift, violent, irrevocable coolings off.
Kurian and Baby Thomas
Babyammachi was about 24 years old when she married, and both she and her husband went to work in Pallai as teachers. They were respected professionals in this community; even Aunty Jaya’s mother, who was not yet involved with our family, remembers them teaching at St. Thomas School. Kurian had a reputation for fairness to the extreme, applying principles of justice to even small everyday matters: If two shopkeepers in close proximity were selling bananas, he would buy a kilo from each. Baby and Kurian Thomas took walks together in the evening; people from Pallai remember this detail with fascination (Jeffrey’s wife, three generations removed, tells me) because they found it so very modern that a husband and wife would promenade in town as peers, with so much to say to one another, in 1950s rural Kerala. They often went back to Kottayam to see the family and Aunty Lucy remembered them always together in various activities, playing badminton on the front lawn.
Soon, Babyammachi gave birth to their sons Syriac and Isaac. While the family was not dependent on her income, she chose to continue teaching and hired a nanny to care for the children. This is the first glimpse of a Babyammachi I recognize, yet I can appreciate her interest in her work and indifference to tradition. Kurian indulged Babyammachi’s preferences, supported her decisions, and made her family his own. “Sometimes your grandfather would come and give me some money,” said Aunty Lucy, “Seventy rupees was a lot of money at that time. Kunnya was an extremely nice person. He always had a big smile, talked very nicely, you could tell he was smart and nice,” she paused, before she started crying.
Kurian Thomas with his students
By his early 30s, Kurian Thomas was known as a talented mathematics teacher, beloved by his students. Uncle Ike even met one of them lately in America, who remembers him as the most well-dressed person (Uncle Ike also fondly describes his neat collection of ties), disciplined, passionate about his work and deeply involved with school activities. One day, Kurian was taking his students for an excursion—on the way, by the time they left Pallai and neared Kottayam, he felt a pain in his chest. He was admitted to the district hospital in Kottayam, where Babyammachi’s mother Thresiamma rushed immediately. The chest pain developed into a heart attack. “I think in those days,” Aunty Lucy said, “they did not have modern methods of CPR or EKG tests available, nor did people recognize all the symptoms of heart disease. He was not heavy and he never smoked.” Thresiamma stayed with him, comforting him, fervently saying prayers and hoping for recovery, with Kurian repeating the prayers after her. While Babyammachi was still in Pallai, she took solace in knowing that Kunnya was not alone, her mother was there to support him and was with him when, after two hours of suffering, he passed away. “That’s what I want you to know,” Aunty Lucy said, “He died in a very nice way. It was not a sudden death, but he was with our mother.” She had been in Mangalore, studying: “In those days you could not come right back. Or even know right away.”
Kurian Thomas was buried in Kottayam. He was survived by his wife, Baby, now 28, and sons, Syriac, four years old, Isaac, two years, and Jacob, six months.
Babyammachi took on an identity and a refrain that she would not shake off and actively vocalized for the rest of her long life: “I am a widow with three young sons.”
Mama says Babyammachi also maintained a superstition: “Everyone I love dies.”
She moved the children in with her family in Kottayam and took a teaching position in Ramapuram, an hour away by bus. L.C. Isaac had encouraged her to take a job away from the mounting responsibilities at home so she could recover from the shock and rest. Everyone in the family was impacted by the loss: This is when Janet and Agnes decided to become nuns and dedicate their lives to prayer on behalf of the three dear fatherless boys. Thresiamma cared for them during the week with the aid of two domestic helpers and in time, the boys began to believe Thresiamma and L.C. Isaac were their own parents; Babyammachi would only come home to them on the weekends. When she was home, she busied herself with school paperwork and grading student assignments. “She had a hard life that way,” Aunty Lucy said, “Your dad and all didn’t attach to her like a mother. I can see that.”
Babyammachi with little Papa