The Secret Society
The Secret Society
Follow the link to listen to the podcast of this story by my sister Lekha Warrior...
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1IQddQNOG3GlxPvLxCEpCy
When my dad took my mother, my older brother and me to London, I was a little over a year. I have no memories of the ship we were said to have sailed on or of the three-week journey itself. Considering that traveling to England was a really big thing those days, it is surprising how few collective memories we had of that particular journey.
The memories I have, start from the time I must have been nearing my third birthday. I remember mummy come home with a new baby and remember how close I was to Raj, my older brother at that point. We had a separate room and a large bed to sleep on and I remember clearly huddling up on one end of the bed and talking with my older brother every night before we fell asleep. After Venu, my younger brother arrived, Raj and I got closer because my mother had less time for the two of us. We soon formed a secret society between the two of us and kept Venu, my younger brother out of it. When Venu was old enough to share our bed, we would wait for him to sleep and then I’d climb over him and cosy up to Raj and pick up on our secret society meetings.
Raj looked after me both at home and outside. It was his responsibility to drop me to my nursery school every morning. One day after he left me at the nursery and turned to leave, he heard me cry out in distress. A big boy was bullying me. Raj returned, walked up to the kid who was visibly bigger than him and grabbed his cap and threw it on to the ledge of a window. He warned the bully in no uncertain terms to stay away from me or face dire consequences from the leader of the Secret Society. I felt safe and protected.
One night Raj whispered to me with a sense of urgency in his voice. Apparently, we were in big trouble. He had overheard Daddy and Mummy talk about us going back to India. To me that meant nothing because I had no clue what this move would imply but I knew from Raj’s voice that it was not that simple. “You don’t know,” he said, “India is full of snakes. If they bite us, we will all die.” He then went on to describe what snakes were and how we had to do something to escape this brutal and inevitable death. Seeing me get ready to cry, he reassured me, “don’t worry, the Secret Society takes care of its people.”
Over the nights that followed, the Secret Society sprang into action. Raj had thought of several alternatives and ‘discussed’ them one by one with little me. This would have been around the end of 1972. I was a little past my 5th birthday. ‘We’, finally, decided the best option was to run away from home. We would need to carry food supplies advised my wise 8-year-old brother. At some point we must have started picking up packets of biscuits and stuffing them into a bag, a few at one time. Coming from a home where food was always rationed, my mother probably realised that things were disappearing from her store. I remember my parents finding the bag and asking us what we were up to.
Suddenly, it all became too much for me. I buckled under the stress. I broke the solemn promise I had made to my leader and ratted on him. I told my dad I did not want to go back to India and that I did not want to die. My dad, bless his gentle soul, kept a straight face and got me to tell him why I was so afraid of going to India. I remember telling him that I was scared of having to walk over snakes when we got out of the plane. I still have the memory of the mental image I had of a carpet of snakes covering the land of India. “My baby”, said my dad comforting me, “I’ll carry you.” “Promise me you won’t put me down till we reach home,” said I. “Promise,” said my dad. He must have told my brother not to worry either and that we were not going to die of snake bite. I still remember my utter surprise and delight when we got off the flight when we landed in Mumbai in 1973 and saw no snakes waiting in our welcome.