Shrewed one

“Do you know what George did once?” I asked
“No, tell me”
“We were staying at the Mysore house. All of us were sitting in the living room and George announced that he was good in palm reading. All of us wanted him to read our palm. He read my youngest sister’s first and told her, she would do well in studies, then he read Liza’s palm. Liza was then waiting for only one news. She wanted to know if she was selected to play basket ball for the junior team. So she asked him
“Did I get selected?”
He concentrated on her hand and then said
“you will receive a good news in 5 days time”
“Does that mean that I got selected?” She was jumping up and down
He just grinned and said” I didn’t say that, I said you will get a good news”
I pushed Liza away so George could read my palm. I wanted to know if I would get admission for medicine, so I asked him
“Will I pass the entrance exam?”
He didn’t answer for a few minutes. I got so worked up
“What Acha? What is wrong?” I asked him
“Acha? What does Acha means?” Beautiful eyes asked me
“In Malayalam, It means uncle”*
“Oh ok, then what happened?”
“He pushed my palm away saying I can’t read your hand”
“Why not?” I asked him
Amma and Chechy too asked the same question
“It is difficult to read her hand”He replied
“Please Acha” I begged
“Acha read her palm” Amma asked him
“He took my palm and looked at it again, this is the most difficult palm I have ever seen”
“What do you mean?” I asked him
“Well, if she killed someone with a knife and a cop was watching it, and when he goes to arrest her, she would tell him, No, I didn’t kill, I was just taking the knife out to save his life” Acha looked at Amma and spoke.
“Your daughter is very shrewed” He spoke again
“I am not” I felt so upset. “I don’t want you to read my hand anymore” I took my hand away.
“My turn” Maria gave uncle her palm
“He took her palm and concentrated for some time”
“What is it Acha?” She too asked
“I am sorry Maria, I can’t read your palm” He replied
“Why not?” Amma and Maria asked.
When I heard him saying the same thing he told me, I felt so happy. There was nothing in life that gave me that much hope. For once I knew my uncle would tell the same thing about my sister, that she too is cunning and shrewed like me.”
“Then what happened?”
“I pestered and begged Acha to read my sister’s palm, because I wanted him to say that she too was like me. He looked at me and at my sister and then spoke
“I am sorry Maria, your fate is like Esau
“Esau?” Beautiful eyes looked at me
“Yeah the guy in the bible who lost his first born inheritance to his younger brother”
“Oh ok” He nodded his head
“That bastard told my sister that I will take her inheritance because I am shrewed and cunning. How would I do that? She is my sister! My blood? Why would I take anything that is hers?” I started to weep again.” He told her to be careful, I might even take her husband!” I creid so much that I was struggling to breath.
“Come here” Beautiful eyes extended his arms and asked me to move closer to him. he held me close.
“It wasn’t over yet. The day after we reached back home, Amma came home with a letter. The letter from the sports council of India congratulating Liza for getting selected to play basket ball in the Junior team. So Maria and my sisters believed George’s palm readings”
I was crying so much. He wiped my tears
“You know something?” I asked beautiful eyes
“Tell me”
“That evening when everyone went to bed, I took the letter out from Amma’s hand bag. I checked the date. It came two weeks ago. My mother didn’t tell Liza at that time because she wanted to talk to George and ask his opinion before telling Liza. If George said No, Liza shouldn’t play basket ball, then Amma would have thrown that letter away and Liza would have never known. That is why she made us use her office address for all official correspondence.”
“What did you do?”
I waited for everyone to wake up in the morning and I showed the envelope to Amma and asked her
“When did you receive this letter Amma?”
“Yesterday! What is wrong with you?” She started to yell” Nina, Give me the letter back. It is a very important document” She tried to snatch it from me.
“Give the letter back to Amma” Liza was shouting and pushing me
“Then why is it post masked two weeks ago’s date?” I asked Amma, while tying to protect my body ffrom Liza’s blows
“What? Where? Show me the letter” She snatched the letter from my hand
“Check the date” I yelled at her
I watched her looking at the date and then she spoke to Maria
“Our cunning in house detective is looking for faults. I got the letter only yesterday. Yeah it is right, the post mark shows a different date, so what? When did letters in India being delivered on time. Who knows what the post man was doing all these days? You know something Nina, you are really cunning. You are trying to tell me that I lied to my children? How dare you? You are serpent full of venom! You are so jealous that your sister got selected. You don’t even know how to play basket ball and you are still jealous of your sisters. In the morning itself you want us to fight eh? Why would I hide a good news from my own daughters? You don’t like the fact that Acha spoke the truth about you? You will never do well Nina, I swear to God that you will never do well”
“She cursed me” I howled” My own mother cursed me”
“Shhh, Nina, stop crying” He wiped the tears.
“I want to thrash the life out of that bastard who did this to my family”
“Why not?”
“What?”
“I said why don’t you go and thrash him?”
“Are you mad? Do you know who he is?”
“He is not God, is he?”
“No he isn’t. But he can get you killed with one phone call”
“Come on Nina, you can still beat this guy”
“Beat as in whacking or defeating?”
“Both”
I thought hard. Was there a way I could do both? Vengeance is mine says the lord, I remembered the biblical verse. Nah I will change that, Vengeance is mine, says Nina Thomas. I smiled because for once I knew Mr. George is good as a palmist. Because I was going to be the cunning and shrewed person he portrayed me to be!

*months ago Dhanush asked me how I could call my uncle Acha and I was wondering why he said that. Only today I realised that he must have thought I called him Acha where the Cha is pronounced as the cha in Mugachaya, where as I was calling him Acha where the cha is pronounced as the chaya. The word Acha was used the similar way we called the achan in the church and I thought Dhanush was mad at me for respecting my uncle.. Sorry Dhanush for the misunderstanding

11 thoughts on “Shrewed one

  1. acha when written in english has the same letters.. but in malayalam we use different letters…father is more like achhan and uncle( maternal uncles of christian mallus) is achan…

  2. I have never heard a meaning of achan/acha as uncle in malayalam. Both the malayalam words, ??????? (achan) and ??????? (achan) means Father. The slight difference is to differentiate between the two, the former denoting the male parent and the latter for the priest as both are fathers. Uncle is ammavan in malayalam, whether it is christian or hindu. Usually christians use the word uncle itself.

    Unless it is a locally used word, you people have been fooled to call him acha.

    Anyways, sad to the see the whole family brainwashed by that guy.

  3. Hi Sarah
    In your blog dated Sept 21 it is clear how you guys decided to call him Acha.
    Guns & Roses Sept 21
    I was taking the change of clothes from my bag and Maria spoke to me
    “You know something Nina, the way we call him uncle, there is no love in that, may be we should call him ‘Acha'” Maria suggested
    “Maria, Acha is father in Malayalam. He isn’t our father! “
    “He is 1000 times better than our father!.. When was the last time you had a good time with Appa?”
    I tried to think of all the times I spend with my father. Sure, there were good times, but at the back of all those good times, there were fear. I realized after all what my mother said all these years were true. My father is indeed good for nothing.
    “Ok, we will call him Acha” I agreed

  4. Among christians in Kerala more common is ‘chacha’ or ‘achacha’ or ‘achaya’ to call uncles. We usually add name like Siju chacha etc..
    For the first time I heard of calling uncle ‘Acha’ was from your blog, a little surprised too. But as Geet pointed out me too was a kind of convinsed by the situations which lead you to call him ‘ Acha ‘

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