Bala Devi, Girl-Child Avatar - Book Two - Holiday in Kodaikanal

Chapter Ten - Flame of the Woods

Chapter Ten

Flame of the Woods

About a week later, Bala awoke with a feeling that everything was changing. The sun was brighter, the mountains stood clearly in the crisp morning light and the dark, heavy feelings had moved away. In the Walton dining room, before the waiter brought coffee, Bala was happily thinking about showing Ajay the lake. So, she wasn’t at all surprised when Sarojini asked her and Ajay to join them at their table.

“My son has fired that awful Mehta person,” Sarojini said, never one to beat around the bush, “I never did trust his beastly little eyes in the first place, and he had no discipline whatsoever. None of them do.”

“We never liked him since he ran over Amber’s mother.”

“Since he what?” said Sarojini, dropping her spoon.

“The mare.”

“Oh, he’s done much worse than that,” she said, stuffing a corn muffin into her mouth and then adding a chunk of butter as an afterthought.

“More butter,” she cried. “Waiter! More butter!”

“I thought he had been fired weeks ago. Your son said…..”

“Yes, well, my son is a pushover. He gave him another chance.”

“Oh!”

“But, unfortunately, you know how these things go. Mehta persuaded Ramanathan’s entire staff to follow him, for more money, of course. Now he’s formed his own gang..er…company.”

“Pity!” Bala said, trying to look grown up and sipping her coffee like Sarojini.

Sarojini then put the coffee in the saucer and slurped it up.

Bala stared.

Ajay repressed a chuckle, “Do you mean that the compound is deserted?”

Mrs. Ramanathan raised an eyebrow at that. “Not in the least,” she said, realizing that she had said too much. “We’ve brought more staff as well.” 36

The waiter brought a whole bowl of butter to the table, and she lathered another corn muffin and polished it off. “Lovely having breakfast with you, see you again.” And she was gone, along with the butter, which she slipped into a handy zip-lock bag in her purse.

“Her son could buy this entire hotel, lock, stock and barrel,” said the waiter, who came to clean away her dishes. “She does this every morning.”

A few day later, Granny received a phone call from Ramanathan’s mother. It seemed that her younger son and his wife were sending their four children to India for a vacation, and wanted them to meet Bala and Ajay. They had been born in America and this would be their first visit to the mother country. The eldest Ravi, was the same age of Ajay; a girl, Sheila, was a year younger, and the two boys, two years younger than Bala, were named Narayan and Narada.

They arrived at the Walton, money-belts strapped around their tummies, tee-shirts proclaiming, ‘No Limits’, baseball caps designating their team, ‘Chicago Cubs’, and dark glasses that mirrored your reflection back at you. Sheila wore a tank top, very shorts and very high heels.

“I’m really not impressed,” Sheila drawled in her American twang, as she looked around the lobby.

The plan was for them to remain at the Walton for one week, and then go out to the compound in the woods for the second week of their two-week vacation.

It was definitely not love match between the tribe of NRI’s and the rest of India. Sheila may have had some ideas about Ajay, but he stayed as far away from her as possible. She thought that he was only ‘playing hard to get’, and so she became even more infatuated.