Dr. Jacob Cheriyan was my mother’s only brother. He work as a doctor in New York. Once a year he comes home for a visit with his wife Molly aunty and two sons, Rajeev and Sajeev. I dread their visit.
First of all my cousins don’t speak malayalam and I don’t speak english. We have language confusion that eventually becomes a comedy of errors.
One time Rajeev wanted to go swimming in the river near our home and came to me and asked
“Nina, do you have a turkey towel?”. When someone speaks english in an American accent you only hear one or two words. The only word I heard was Turkey and the only turkey I know is the one we eat every christmas. I thought may be he got confused after seeing the hens in our house. May be he wanted to eat a turkey. I tried to explain to him they are not turkey, they are kozhi (chicken).
‘If you want to eat kozhi (chicken) you have to ask Akkachi’
He shouted at me and told me “ You stupid,I didn’ ask you for chicken. I asked you for a towel”
Now ‘stupid’ is one english word I know, no one calls me Stupid.
“you bodoh (stupid in Malay). I replied.
“What is bodoh?” he asked
I grinned and replied “bodoh Rajeev”.
He got angry with me kicked me and bolted. I wasn’t going to leave him alone. I ran after him and grabbed his hand and bit him hard. He howled at the top of his voice and that brought the whole house down. He showed Amma the bite mark on his hand and unfortunately there was no evidence of his kick on my body. Amma was mad at me for disgracing our guests and all because of one towel I got grounded.
After that incident Rajeev would make “gobble gobble” sound every time he saw me. I promised myself, One day I will learn to speak to english, better than Rajeev.

Because my uncle work as a doctor in America and read all the latest studies, he felt the need to inform his sister the importance to have fiber in the diet. He told my mother “The new studies show that lack of fibre in the diet is causing cancer of the stomach and intestine.”
‘In America,we don’t eat appam and dosai for breakfast anymore. There is no fibre in Appam and dosai, We only have cereal for breakfast ’
He asked his sister ‘ Do you remember how in the olden days they used to make appam with the husk removed from the rice and wheat flour (thavid appam)?’
My mother nodded her head. Definetely in those times no one had cancer of the stomach and the intestine. So the latest study is correct. Lack of fibre in the diet cause cancer.
As we don’t get any breakfast cereal in Kottayam, the discussion at the family conference soon progressed as to how we would add more fibre in our ordinary Malayalee diet. It was soon decided that we will no longer sift the wheat flour and remove the golden fibre. My uncle and his family went back to America and breakfast cereal and it was the end of the soft chapathi at our residence and the beginning of me feeding the birds at the bus stand. I quickly rolled my chapathi and placed it in my school bag. I will dispose it off on the way to school. I drank a glass of milk and collected my lunch box from Akkachi. On my way out I said bye to my parents. Liza and Sally were already outside the house waiting for my father to start his bike. On a normal day amma would give them a kiss before they go to school and today I know it won’t happen. I kissed both of them and wished them a good day at school. I walk alone to the bus stand at Collectorate junction everyday. While waiting for the school bus, I took the chapathi from my school bag and broke it in to small pieces and dropped it to the ground. I know the crows would see it soon and eat.