#32 A Place Called Home, About Those Termites

A Place Called Home

Last month, we celebrated my sister’s 70th birthday in the hill cottage we had built for my parents in 2001. Our own ‘Cowshed’, a simple barn in stone and wood, was perched 15 minutes up the slope, in a clearing in the forest. When my parents summered in their cottage, my sisters would join them for long periods, while the children of the family slithered between the two homes. At night,

“Maggi at Nani’s house”, my nephew would announce, as he darted out of our garden,

“Wait for me”, our little son would shriek, as he pulled on his pink slippers with yellow butterflies on the straps. 

My father still played a mean game of carrom, and after a while, the kids tired of losing to him. After tea, back bent, arms crossed behind his back, he walked slowly up the road to the cluster of shops a kilometer away. The children pranced and clamoured around him, declaring which brightly coloured pack of snacks would be their evening treat. 

Once a week, I drove the kids down to the cool emerald waters of Garud Tal, to frolic in our little dinghy, chase the darting fish, terrorise the tadpoles, and occasionally to swim across the lake with me. Lunch was kadhi-chaaval at a tourist dhaba at Sat Tal; while we waited for our food, Kedar and Rishi would demand ten rupees, and try to pop balloons at the rifle shooting stalls. If there was still time, we would clamber into a row boat, then insist on taking the oars from the boatman.

“Stop, Mamu”, Rishi would order, strip the t-shirt from his skinny torso, and jump into the lake. 

When my mother passed, in 2011, my father refused to go back to the hills. One summer afternoon in Delhi, I wondered aloud what we should do with their home. The next day, Rishi, now a strapping teenager, burst into our living room. 

“ You can’t sell the Satoli house, Mamu - it’s our family home”.

I had no clue what he was talking about, and my face signalled as much.

Rishi turned to his cousin - “Kedar said you want to sell Nani’s house”.

Not really. Selling the house would have been the rational act, but family memories wafted through the verandah where my parents spent most of the day, up the stone staircase with the photo of my niece as a 3-year old, through the gallery with the old rocking chairs, into the bedroom where my sister had painted vibrant floral murals on mud-plastered walls.

Last week, spring water painted the leaves trailing from the little shrine above the pond. As I returned from my morning run, my sister marked her birthday in silent contemplation before the shrine. “This home has such a sense of family for me.”

“For me, it’s the Cowshed”, Pia declared. 

“Me too”, Premila agreed, “

though I’ve grown to love this house, too.”

I found myself drifting through the decades, to the 1960s, to a wet drive up the Alaknanda, winding towards Badrinath. On the narrow Himalayan roads of the time, vehicles moved in convoys, one direction at a time, regulated by gates that directed when the up-traffic would yield to the down traffic. When we reached Pipalkoti, a rain-soaked shanty town perched above the river, the convoy managers decided we could move no further. The comforts of the Army guest house at Joshimath waited, only 35 km away, but that night, we would be billeted on the dank floors of pilgrim shelters in Pipalkoti. 

The tarpaulin was removed from the carrier atop our black Ambassador. Bulging bedrolls were coaxed down and hefted into the little room allotted to us. Thin mattresses were spread on the ground; blankets in blue and khaki were familiar from every mountain trip. My mother sent for ‘phenyl’, to scrub the bathroom. Night crept softly into our little lives, shushed by the familiar fragrance of a clean home, by the umbra of parental care.

Children of the partition, our early lives played out in company accommodation across the new nation. When classmates went to their ‘native place’ in the summer, we took long train journeys from Madras or Bombay, by way of Delhi, to spend a few weeks in the meadows of Kashmir, the valleys of Himachal. When the swaying of the train released us from the night, it was into a gentle morning, tea-flavoured milk held out by my mother, my little sister cocooned in her father’s broad arms as he sang his bhajan for every journey, 

“Utth jaag musaafir bhor bhayii. Ab rain kahaan, jo sovat hai.”

“ Wake, oh traveler, wake to the light of life.”

A home needs no address.

About Those Termites

The rapid fall of the Indian rupee in 2022 would not have occupied so much space on social media if Modi and his followers had not made such an issue of rupee weakness in 2013-14. From the idiosyncratic policy wonk, Subramaniam Swamy, through ‘spiritual’ gurus and TV cheerleaders, the weakness of the UPA and the strength of the Indian nation were to be measured by our exchange rate.

It now costs almost 80 rupees to buy a dollar - more if you include bank fees - and the apologists for rupee weakness are out. A senior banker wants to remind us that the Japanese yen has depreciated by more than the rupee. This is true, but, as I reminded a friend yesterday, the price of our imports is not denominated in Japanese yen, and a weak rupee means that we import inflation, especially via crude oil.One columnist wrote that a weak rupee is not all bad, as it should boost exports. Which is true, except that the Indian government just decided to tax the largest Indian export, namely refined petroleum.

Since the middle of the last century, most rapidly developing nations exported their way to growth, beginning with Japan, then South Korea, and, most spectacularly, China. As it cemented its position as the manufacturer for the globe, China was continuously accused of manipulation to keep the yuan - and hence Chinese goods - cheap. But it takes more than a cheap currency to ignite exports; exporting nations need to develop competence, efficiency and a reputation for quality and reliability. As they climb those ladders, price is no longer the major determinant of demand for their goods, and a thriving export sector survives a strong currency. Think German cars, or French wine. 

Closer home, think garment exports from Bangladesh, or Vietnam. At the turn of the century, as Chinese labour became more expensive, many believed that India would become the tailor to the world. Instead, our garment exports have been overtaken by both Bangladesh and Vietnam. The Vietnamese Dong has steadily hardened against the Indian rupee, as has the Bangladesh taka - below. Earlier this year, it was falsely reported that per capita income in Bangladesh had overtaken ours. That’s not true yet, but those ‘termites’, as our Home Minister unfortunately called them, are doing something right.