‘The Retreat’

Lindsay Liang

The Retreat

“Pay attention to each part of your body in turn…do you feel any tension? Focus on the area, take a deep breath…then, let it go.”

Appu Master strolled from one person to the next, correcting their posture, nudging them to straighten their spine. As he approached Annie, she tried to shrink into the anonymity of the group, but he wouldn’t let her off that easily.

“What’s bothering you, Annie?”

Annie was too embarrassed to reply. Appu master, the Yoga teacher, was not a disciplinarian; more a kindly uncle worried about your welfare. He was eager to make sure everyone got most out of the retreat that addressed the problems of both body and mind; a judicious mix of yoga and vipassana accompanied by a cleansing, homely diet.

He’d knock at the cottage doors at five to make sure you woke up well in time for pranayama underneath the lime tree which spread its luxurious foliage beside the lotus pond. Here they spread out mats on the dew laden grass. As the session progressed, the sky would brighten over the Western Ghats, the outlines of the mountains coming into view. There was one that looked like a falcon’s shoulders, its beak pointing to the sky. She had made a mental note to find out what the locals called it. But the practice of silence that is part of vipassana meant there was no time for chit-chat.

They had a set routine for most of the day: pranayama and yoga before breakfast, followed by Gita or bible classes, or for those more secularly inclined, volunteering at the resort gardens. And after lunch, perhaps unwisely, guided meditation. Around four in the afternoon was the only time they were free to do whatever they wanted. 

It was the time when she caught up with the odd WhatsApp message from Ashok. Timmy was getting on fine. Yes, he was taking him for walks, and no, there was no need to take him to the vet. And then, the children, he added in a tiny footnote…they loved Timmy. When she did not reply, he hastened to assure her they’d be gone in three days’ time. Well before she returned.

“What’s bothering you, Annie?”

Appu master was now standing beside her, bending over to adjust her posture. His white Tagore beard cascaded down to his midriff. His dark eyes gleamed like the seeds of the custard apples they were served with herbal tea every afternoon. A cocktail of emotions welled up within her; anger, sadness, a sense of betrayal that Ashok hadn’t told her about the children. She held herself together with difficulty. If Timmy had been here, he would have sensed her mood and given her cheek a consoling lick. 

“Everything ok with the food?” Appu Master asked. 

A flash of irritation, immediately followed by guilt. Appu Master had gone out of the way to make her comfortable. The previous day he had shown her his extensive collection of books. She was surprised by the breadth and range of his tastes. He was one of those people who could comfortably switch from Ancient history to the latest developments in Neuroscience without pausing for breath. 

“It is grand,” she lied, dreading the lunchtime gruel for the fourth day in a row. Eight more to go. But this is what she signed up for, wasn’t it? To get away from it all: a PhD that seemed to be floundering, the imminent arrival of a couple of brats she had no inkling existed until a month ago. 

It was summer in England. She had been looking forward to the long days to catch up on her thesis. And the coastal walks, perhaps a concert or two at Royal Albert hall, just the two of them. So when Ashok had sprung the surprise, she had refused point blank to play nanny to the kids the rest of the summer. His problem, not hers.

It was approaching lunchtime. As she stepped out of her cottage, a smell of cashews and onions being roasted in ghee wafted across from the next compound. The rich aroma reminded her of the biryani their cook, Elsie, used to pack in her lunchbox. In turn, it brought back memories of her daily walk to school, hand in hand with her childhood friend Nancy. They walked through the cobbled streets of Fort Kochi, where spice merchants were setting out their wares. If the big clock at St. Xavier’s was chiming eight, they knew they had time to take a few turns on the see saw before the school bell rang.

She loved spicy food, but since it made Ashok’s eyes water, she turned to more bland curries. Soon after he had told her about the children, however, she threw extra spice into his favourite paneer tikka. And as his tongue lolled and his breath came in gasps, just like Timmy, she had announced with grim satisfaction her solo trip to an Ayurvedic retreat in Kerala.

The watchman looked disapprovingly as she stepped out into the street. Retreat attendees were discouraged from leaving the resort. But they were adults after all and couldn’t be held against their will. At worst she’d get that disappointed look from Appu Master, which made you feel you hadn’t lived up to his expectations. 

Across the street was a single storey house set back a little from the road, set amidst coconut trees. Through the open gate, Annie could see the soot-blackened walls and a thatched roof extension on the side where an old woman sat in front of a firewood stove. She was stirring the contents of a mud pot with an iron ladle, from which steam billowed. She was dressed in a lungi, a patterned cloth wrapped around the waist. An old towel was thrown over her blouse. Beside her was a stack of steel plates. School children were coming out in small groups from the Government LP school next door and gathering in her yard.

The old woman lifted the pot from the fire, holding either end with the towel. She doused the fire with a mug of water. It died with a hiss. Meanwhile, the children were forming a queue, each one picking up a plate as they moved forward. The old woman heaped it with the steaming biryani.

At the retreat, lunch was served between twelve thirty and one. Rice gruel, lentils and garden-grown vegetables, a diet meant to detoxify body and mind. A diet she had decided to put herself through soon after the quarrel with Ashok. When they had first met, he had said he was separated and waiting for the divorce papers to come through, but he had never mentioned the children. Her own views were very definitive. From the outset, she had made it clear that she did not want children. Much as they were romanticised, they stood in the way of life. Wasn’t Timmy good enough? So what else was Ashok hiding from her?

Annie was about to hurry back to the retreat, when the old woman beckoned her.

“Would you like some biryani?” She asked.

Her first instinct was to decline politely, but there was something so homely and inviting in the woman’s gesture that she couldn’t help walking in. She found herself queuing up with the children, who stared curiously at her. One of them passed her a plate and a spoon with a gap-toothed smile. Some who had finished eating were washing up at the tap that sprung from the ground a little distance from where the old woman was sitting. A couple of others were drying them with a clean cloth and stacking them back up beside her.

Annie had intended to restrict herself to a spoonful. She protested weakly as the old woman heaped much more than a spoonful. The rice was fluffy and finely cooked. Blended with green peas and carrots and sprinkled with the occasional clove, it was not just delicious, but also a visual treat. Under the old woman’s encouraging eye, she ended up wolfing it down.

“Janakiamma, can we pick some mangoes?” asked one of the kids.

Janakiamma. So that was her name. 

There was a large mango tree at the very back of the compound. It was early yet and most were unripe, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“Take as much as you want,” said Janakiamma, grinning. “And gather some for me too. I’ll pickle them for you next week.”

It was well past two when Annie sneaked back into the resort. The guided meditation session was already in progress. As she quietly spread out her mat and settled in her usual corner, no one seemed to notice. From the corner speakers came the gentle sounds of a Chaurasia’s flute playing at low volume.

Appu Master was giving his instructions in his low dulcet tones.

“Be here, now.”

Yoga she could manage, but meditation was hard. The moment she sat still, her bitterness would surface; towards Ashok’s career-obsessed first wife who had dumped the kids on him, towards the department, which, despite support from her tutor, had decided the subject she had taken up was too well trodden to merit a PhD, towards the canteen staff at the resort, who refused coffee after five. But now a feeling of warm contentment began to envelop her. The sounds of Chaurasia’s Raag Madhuvanti trickled in from the next room, aptly capturing the essence of the moment. Appu Master’s taste in music was faultless.

Back at St. Xavier, he was known as a disciplinarian. Being punctilious about attendance and assignments herself, it did not bother her too much. It was the critique of her essays she dreaded, almost as much as she loved his off-the-cuff quotations from Macbeth or the Meghadoota. But time seemed to have mellowed him. Nevertheless, she braced herself for a telling off.

“For the next twelve days, you have entrusted yourself to me,” he had said on the first day. “Can I treat you like school children?” 

But that telling off did not come. Over the next few days, she found a way of discreetly slipping out in the evenings. Retreat attendees sometimes went to town at that time for the odd essential – a specific brand of toothpaste or moisturiser or even a visit to the Shiva temple. There was no need really. The resort was well stocked. Nevertheless, there was an unspoken agreement that residents could use the time to take a short break from the daily routine. You had to sign out at the gate, though, and sign in when you returned. But if she nipped out quickly, she could dash to Janakiamma’s place, where she would be waiting with the afternoon’s biryani, wrapped first in a banana leaf and then in a newspaper, secured with a rubber band.

Between twelve and two in the afternoon, Janakiamma cooked the biryani and served anyone who came; the orphan children who went to the government school nearby; rubber plantation workers who came down from the hills after the morning’s tapping, which started before dawn; occasionally clerks from the Panchayat office in town. She refused to take payment for it.

Local people brought her an endless supply of rice, vegetables, ghee and spices. In the rainy season, they mended her roof. The government doctor, a portly man perpetually out of breath, came every week on his scooter to check her heart.

“My heart is alright,” she dismissed him with a laugh, “it is yours you need to worry about.”

Of course, she would not let him go without a parcel of biryani.

It was the last day of the retreat. They were in Appu Master’s study, talking about the St. Xavier’s days. Behind him, on the wall was a large tapestry of Buddha. On either side, books reached up to the walls. Through the window, she could see a taxi pulling up. The driver opened the boot and some of the retreat attendees piled their backpacks into it.

“So whatever happened to your friend Nancy?” asked Appu Master.

“Oh, the usual, trajectory,” she said, unable to hide the disdain in her voice, “married, with three kids, whom she cannot stop gushing about on Facebook.”

A long time ago they had made a pact that they would put their careers ahead of  marriage and families. Too many young women they knew were getting distracted by demands from the family and not living up to their potential. In the third year of Nancy’s medical college, however, her father passed away. Unable to continue her degree, she had chosen to marry a Gulf businessman eight years older than her.

It was getting late. As is usual in these parts, the darkness descended suddenly. A swarm of fireflies appeared from nowhere to invade the room. Appu Master opened the windows and switched on the outdoor lights. Soon they were swirling about at the entrance, throwing themselves at the lights and dropping dead. They lived incredibly short lives.

“How pointless!” Annie said vehemently, “all that frenetic activity just to bring forth another swarm and repeat the cycle? I wonder what runs through their minds…if they have any at all.”

The faded light shrouded Appu Master’s face. It was hard to read his expression.

“It’s a matter of perspective isn’t it?” Through the window the dark outlines of the Ghats were still visible. “From the point of view of those mountains our lives must seem equally brief and meaningless.”

She had to go. The taxi would come very early tomorrow to drop her to the airport. As she stepped out, Appu Master patted her shoulder. Not generally a demonstrative man, it was a rare gesture of affection and she was touched. Then a twinkle appeared in his eye.

“So you discovered Janakiamma’s biryani!”

“And l thought l had got away with it,” she exclaimed in embarrassment.

“My spies are everywhere,” he said with a laugh, “I must watch out or she’ll put me out of business!”

Back in London, Ashok was waiting with a bunch of chrysanthemums at the front door. He had a worried look. It was late summer and despite her ten hour flight, the sunlight was still pouring into the streets like a golden syrup. Through the open door came the excited cries of children.

“A couple of days more,” he said apologetically, “apparently Danielle has been delayed in California.”

Two young faces peered at her from behind Ashok with a mixture of curiosity and apprehension. Indira and Dorothy. Both had Ashok’s round protruding eyes. She considered them for a moment. They reminded her of Nancy and herself.

“Annie,” she said, holding out her hand.

“Annie, might we…” Dottie’s hesitant voice trailed off.

“…pick some apples from your garden?” Indira completed the question.

“Of course,” Annie smiled brightly, “As many as you like.”

**********

Rama Varma is an IT professional by day and a writer the rest of the time, he finished his Masters in Creative Writing from Oxford in 2015 and subsequently won the KillingIt prize for his crime novel, The Banana Leaf Murder from Harper. These days he is working on his second novel and also writes the occasional short story. His stories have been published in the Obelus Journal (Transformation Manager) and the HOW blog (Mr. Moncieuf goes to town). He lives in the UK and has two boisterous boys.