“Murali, have you delivered the pillows Cottage 5 ordered?”
“Doing that only, madam,” Murali says, coming out of the linen room with two pillows in his arms. He holds them up for inspection and gives me a cheeky grin. “But these pillows will not benefit much, no? Husband and wife have different ideas, it seems.”
Glancing at the pillows, one in a lavender pillowcase, the other in a red one, I suppress a sigh.“That’s up to them. Our job is to give the guests what they ask for.”
I send him off with a stern gaze, then turn back to the next item on my never-ending to-do list.
God’s Own Country. The slogan used by the Kerala State Tourism Department in its promotional campaigns says it all. With land and water, mountain and coastline, forest and field, quotidian and sublime, all interwoven into an intricate tapestry of unrivaled beauty, Kerala is indeed a place where it’s not hard to imagine God Himself on vacation,swinging gently in a hammock and enjoying a brief respite from a world in which He is under such relentless scrutiny.And as the proprietress of Heavenly Abode, I’m proud to do my bit to live up to the State’s well-deserved reputation.
Located in the midst of a choice network of the intricate backwater lagoons, Heavenly Abodehas ten laterite-and-timber cottages on offer. None of those fancy structures you see in the five-star resorts, constructed at great cost to resemble “indigenous” architecture; here, we have the real thing—homely, comfortable, aesthetic. We pamper our guests with priceless sunsets, Ayurvedic massages and mouth-watering cuisine (The first thankfully came free with the property, but the other two are an ongoing struggle as our cooks and masseurs keep leaving for greener pastures at the better-heeled resorts of Alappuzha). As I said, we are nothing fancy, but most seasons we are booked solid.
Our “USP” (one of Chacko’s favourite terms) is our exclusive range of herbal pillows. There is the ever-popular Passion Pillow—”a potent blend of aphrodisiac herbs like jasmine, vanilla, cinnamon, and cardamom, guaranteed to awaken your inner fire”—at one end of the spectrum and the Meditation Pillow—”filled with rare herbs from the Himalayas and Tibet to lull the senses and promote a feeling of enlightened detachment”—at the other. Foreverything in between, we have the Relaxation Pillow, Rejuvenation Pillow, Tranquility Pillow, Creativity Pillow, Positive Thought Pillow, Migraine Cure Pillow, No-Nightmare Pillow, and many more. There is even a Baby Pillow that can make the crankiest colicky infant sleep like…well, a baby.
The Pillow Menu is prominently displayed in every cottage, on a cardboard pyramid on the nightstand, and it rarely fails to arouse the curiosity of our guests. It intrigues them, the thought that a mere pillow could have such power. And even as they serve our guests, the pillows also reveal useful hints about their inclinations. Do they want to be shown a good time, or do they seek peace and solitude? Someone who asks for a Serenity Pillow can often be enticed to avail a couple of nights on one of our houseboats. A Rejuvenation Pillow is a sure sign that a refreshing massage session will be looked kindly upon. Targeted marketing, I believe, is the term I’m fishing for. Yet another of Chacko’s favourites.
I run a tight ship; being a woman, I have to. But I lead my staff of seven by example. Despite being the owner and manager, I have never considered doing the odd housekeeping chore or helping out in the kitchen during peak hours below my dignity. Years of hard work have gone into making Heavenly Abode what it is today. Though, from the way folks around here talk, one would think it virtually built itself, transforming overnight from a neglected piece of ancestral property into a full-fledged resort. More irritatingly, they’re convinced that this transformation is the result of the money they believe Chacko is pouring in from the Gulf. Yeah, right! And this from the very people who had a field day just a few years ago when I had to go to the local police-station to report Chacko’s abscondence.
“That Binita Verghese! The racket she created! And in the police station, at that! You could hear her from miles away.”
“No wonder poor old Chacko ran off.”
Didn’t they just love it! In a place that lacks too many means of free entertainment, people don’tlet go ofa scandal in a hurry. The police, however, were more efficient. It didn’t take them long at all to dump the case into a rusting filing-cabinet on which someone had quite appropriately tacked an old Hero Honda advertisement—’Fill it, Forget it’. For the rest of the town, the story began to lose its gleeful sheen only when the success of the resort was there for all to see, and then, of course, it was promptly replaced with these absurd Gulf rumours.
Hah! The very thought that Chacko Verghese, of all people, would ever dream of bankrolling my enterprise!
“There are as many resorts in Kerala as flies on an open plate of neyyappam,” Chacko had scoffed, when I first proposed the idea all those years ago. “Who would want to come here?”He waved his hand to take in the ancient, creaking house with fungus-ridden walls and a roof that leaked no matter how many times it was re-tiled.
The only schemes that appealed to Chacko were ones that “no one had ever done before”. And for good reason, it would later appear. At the time, though, I was still in awe of him. Chacko! Where others were content to tread the beaten track, he seemed so full of novelty, vitality, adventure. That was what had attracted me to him in the first place—his sheer self-confidence, his restless energy, his irrepressibility. I hadn’t even paused to think twice before burning bridges with my parents to marry him.
Oh, the wisdom in the old warning about yesterday’s elixir becoming today’s poison!
First, there was the coconut-harvester, which, he said, would revolutionize the coconut farming industry in Kerala, and later the whole world. He had a prototype built, a great, clanging monstrosity that blundered about like a drunk dinosaur. It broke down five times for every ten coconuts it picked and was no match whatsoever for the professional pickers who could shimmy up and down trees in minutes.
Then, in quick succession, came: a factory that produced an “inexpensive fuel” of his own invention, a series of uniformly useless household gadgets, even an emu farm….
After a while, the lifecycle of his schemes became sadly familiar. First, there was the big talk; the more people he told about his idea, the more his own confidence grew. Then came the blind plunge, the reckless pouring in of funds. Then,the first setback, at which the euphoria would fizzle out and the whole shebang would collapse like a punctured hot-air balloon. From there, it was backpedaling all the way till it was only a matter of what, if anything, could be salvaged from the wreckage. For a while then, he would lie low, licking his wounds, suitably chastised. Then the excuses would begin, those absurd, roundabout explanations as to how a “fail-safe” scheme could have turned into such a disaster. This was usually accompanied by theblustering hunt for a scapegoat to take the blame. If none could be found, as was often the case, I would be the convenient backup. My defeatist attitude, my discouraging remarks, my complete inability to see the “big picture”. How was a man to achieve anything with someone like me to tie him down?
There I was, alone all day while Chacko went off to “attend to business”. My marital home had no doubt been built at a time when the Verghese family tree had still been lush, and it fell to me to occupy, as best as I could, its empty rooms and echoing hallways. The old grinding stone sat grudgingly in a corner of the kitchen, passing silent judgment on the packaged spices I used. The laundry stone on whose back dirt had to be trashed out of clothes wore a martyred look. Even the dried-out plantsin the central courtyard seemed to hold me personally guilty ofneglect.
And so, I found myself believingChacko. I really thought I was the one holding him back. How easy it is, despite education, despite everything really, to fall into the vicious circle of self-doubt and self-deception. I needed to be the one at fault. Most of all, I needed to deny that I had made a big mistake, that I had become a poster child for everything that can go wrong in a love marriage, the city-educated girl who had paid the price for following her heart, a ready example for other parents to hold up to their daughters.
Therefore, for a while, I tried. I bit back the doubts, the myriad questions that came to mind, and pretended, even to myself, that Chacko had my whole-hearted support.
Despite my best efforts, however, it was difficult to ignore the fact that we were the town’s real-life soap opera. People waited eagerly for the drama of each of Chacko’s schemes to unfold. We made them feel good about themselves; they could watch us work our way steadily towards destitution from the safety of their own lives and circumstances that, no doubt, seemed secure, even luxurious, in comparison. How I despised their barely concealed glee! How that cackling gossip filled me with bitter rage!
I have matured over the years, though. The gossip no longer disturbs me as it used to. Of course, the tone of the gossip itself has changed.
“He’s hit the jackpot in Abu Dhabi,” people say now, with no apparent sense of irony or contradiction, of the man they had habitually ridiculed. “He always had a fire in his belly, that one.”
The rumours vary every time I hear them. One time, Chacko’s in the oil business, a week later, he’s the right-hand man to some rich sheikh. What’s constant is the substratum of disappointment, disapproval even, that underlies them. Disappointment that Chacko and I failed to live up to our assigned roles—he, the aimless philanderer, I, the bitter wife, filled with regrets.
Well, in my opinion, it’s always nicer to have jealousy talking behind your back than rectitude or pity. Besides, thanks to my resort, I have the soothing hand of success on my shoulder. The resort is my baby now, and I its proud parent.
And while I’ve stopped caring what anybody says about Chacko or me, my resort is strictly off-limits to wanton criticism.
Now, that really gets my goat. Take the pillows, for instance. The purpose of each pillow is clearly stated on the Pillow Menu, leaving no room for confusion. Therefore, it’s frustrating, to say the least, when guests sometimes make arbitrary choices and then blame the pillows. For instance, there was once this investment banker from Mumbai, on a break to recover from work-related stress, who asked for a Tranquility Pillow, then promptly propped his laptop on it and got right back to work, pausing only to throw a tantrum in the middle of the night when the resort Wi-Fi developed a glitch. So much for tranquility! And now, here we have in Cottage 5, a husband who insists onordering a Passion Pillow when his wife has, quite pointedly,asked for a Migraine Cure one!
Hence, the tiny disclaimer at the bottom of the Pillow Menu—”Results guaranteed only when the right pillow is used in the right way.”
This little pearl of wisdom is something that came to me with my very first herbal pillow, the one I made for personal use. That was back when Chacko had begun to talk endlessly about the business venture he was planning to set up in Abu Dhabi.
“This is a sure-fire thing, Binita,” he said.
Of course, by then I had heard more schemes than I cared to remember described in much the same terms. This—his first overseas venture—was the grandest yet. He had a “partner” (“Oh, he’s more like a brother, he can be that trusted!”) whom he had never met, and who would not be investing any actual capital in the venture, only providing access to the “necessary contacts”. Into such an enterprise that practically reeked of failure, he was preparing to pour every last bit of our assets.
And how did I figure in his plans?
“It’ll be a little tough in the beginning, I admit, Binita,”he said, glib as ever.”But only till the business gets on its feet. A couple of months is all it will take, I swear. Till then, you’ll have to manage somehow.”
Manage somehow!And how was I supposed to do that when he was planning to sell the very ground from under my feet!
The situation, as one can imagine, wasn’t exactly conducive to restful sleep.Exhausted and at my wits’ end, I recalled the herbs my grandmother used to put into pillowcases to help with various ailments in the family, from common colds to insomnia. I made myself a herbal pillow, but even that didn’t do me much good. Then one night, when I was lying awake despite the pillow, listening to Chacko’s snores and worrying myself sick over the future, it occurred to me that I wasn’t using the pillow in the right way. Or on the right person.
Suffice it to say, on Chacko that night, the Sound Sleep Pillow—“a soothing blend of lavender and chamomile to render one dead to the world”— worked all too well.
The backwaters, they keep their secrets well.
Me? I use a perfectly ordinary pillow these days. With Chacko safely dispatched to his heavenly abode, I have no trouble whatsoever falling asleep in mine.
Illustration : Shimul Sarkar