Wedding, Birth and Baptism

“Her birth bought death to my mother”, Appappan said on Vena’s birth. After a granddaughter everyone was looking forward to having a grandson when amma became pregnant and when Vena my sister was born, there was disappointment. No one wanted another girl and they were angry. In a society where boys are coveted and girls were just an afterthought, Vena was certainly not welcome. Coupled with Muthi Ammamma’s death on her birth everyone considered her unlucky.

Amma had gone into labour early and there had been no time to rush her to the hospital and she had given birth to Vena at home at Perumbavoor attended by a midwife. When Appan heard of this, e was working in Madras at that time, he was upset and shouted at Njama (Amma’s mother), “You were trying to save money, if anything had happened to her, I would have killed you all.” Though Njama certainly had no such intention, the premature labour and the remoteness of the place made it difficult to get amma to the hospital on time. And immediately after the delivery, they had been rushed to the hospital. Vena was a sickly child but she survived.

Appan and Amma had had a love marriage they had eloped. In a conservative society like ours it had been a terrible thing bringing shame and ridicule to Amma’s aristocratic family. Appan’s family such lower on the social scale had accepted the marriage without any ado. Amma’s family’s rejection always rankled with appan and to him everything looked like an unforgivable slight. Maybe it was his guilty conscience at taking off with the sister of his best friend when they had treated him like family and let him stay with them. Appan had come to Amma’s house to design and construct a tombstone for her grandfather who had been a priest in the Jacobite Syrian Orthodox Church. He designed a beautiful tomb whish is still considered a masterpiece but also made off with the eldest daughter of the house.
Vena became the light of my life, the person I loved most in the world. Everyone thought there would be sibling rivalry towards her considering the fact I had had all the attention focused on me, being the only grandchild in both Appan’s and Amma’s house. Instead I was Vena’s guardian, willing to take on any one any size that thought or spoke ill of her.

She was baptized in the Catholic Church and ammamma was the godmother. No one attended the ceremony. Amma does not even remember it. She says Appan was in Madras and ammamma took her to the church one day and got her baptized but that seemed too far-fetched to be true. Amma probably did not care, angry with God for giving her another girl when she wanted a boy. Anyway no one remembers her baptism and for a long time everyone said she had been named Anna after Ammamma. Only Ammamma’s name is really Mariam and no one even knows who Vena is named after. According to custom the first-born is named after the paternal parents and second born if of the same sex is named after the maternal parents. In our case no one seems to know what had happened. I was baptized in Amma’s church and my godmother is Njama.

Luckily for us Appan was working in madras in the railways at the time and we moved there away from all the sickening competition going on between the paternal and maternal grandparents.