Heavendrea the matriarch

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Heavendrea was my landlady for many, many years. We got along very well because there wasn’t any occasion when we had to get along together. Fritz Perls would have loved us because we lived out his ideal of ‘I do my thing and you do your thing.’ I was not in Shillong to live up to Heavendrea’s expectations and Heavendrea wasn’t there to live up to mine, and, more importantly, we both acknowledged that. She wanted me to pay the rent in the first week of every month which I did without fail. Life was simple because the matriarch had few demands.

I was one among many of the tenants in Heavendrea’s little kingdom. Her house was a proper building with a solid foundation and brick walls. The houses given on rent looked like makeshift structures with floors and walls made of wood and roofs of tin. I liked my little house anyway because Shillong hardly offered anything better to ‘outsiders’. My house had two little rooms and a littler kitchen.

When I approached Heavendrea for the house, I requested her to let a friend of mine stay with me for a few days until he found another place. “No.” Heavendrea’s answer was curt and firm. She wouldn’t hear anything more about that. And she wouldn’t say anything more than ‘No.’ No explanations. Keep your distance. The message was clear. You are you and I am I. Heavendrea must have been a fan of Fritz Perls.

Most of Heavendrea’s tenants were South Indians, from Kerala and Tamil Nadu. We the tenants were all friendly with each other and used to have drinks together occasionally. Sometimes there would be friends from outside Heavendrea’s kingdom too. Disposing of the empty bottles of beer and whisky became a problem. Heavendrea discerned it without our telling her and made an arrangement. When the barrel provided by her for the purpose spilled over with empty bottles, she got a scrap dealer to take it all away. Not without making a sardonic remark: “All the brands available in Shillong seem to come here.”

Then one day the Khasi pastime of ‘agitation’ started. Every now and then some political organisation with the label of NGO and the Khasi Students Union together would organise some sort of protest movements against some nonlocal community or some government decision. Protests were a sort of entertainment for them. When the Central government decided to bring the railways to the state, they protested. When the government wanted to mine the uranium available in the hills, they protested. When they had nothing to protest against, they organised ‘agitations’ against some community of people.

1992 witnessed some very violent riots against nontribal people. It was in those days that we, the tenants, learnt about the magnanimity of Heavendrea’s matriarchal heart. She kept the gates locked and advised us against moving out without very valid reasons. At any rate, no movement whatever at night. One late evening, the serenity of Heavendrea’s kingdom was disturbed by an unusual noise at the main gate. We all came out of our houses to find out what was happening. Heavendrea was telling the young rebels or militants at the gate to get lost. They wanted to talk to us, the tenants. Heavendrea guarded us with the vehemence of a CRPF [Central Reserve Police Force] personnel.

When I decided to marry in 1995, however, Heavendrea’s magnanimity shrank. “You have to leave the house next month itself,” she told me. I requested her to give me enough time to find another accommodation. “That’s your business. Whether you get another house or not, you have to leave mine next month.”

Fritz Perls turned in his grave. His ghost reminded me of the later lines of his Gestalt Prayer: “If by chance we find each other, it's beautiful. If not, it can't be helped.” Having lived in the same premises for more than six years, Heavendrea and I had failed to find each other. Why did she even refuse to look into my eyes? She wasn’t like that.

It took me quite some time to realise that it wasn’t Heavendrea’s fault at all. She wasn’t as heartless as all that. One Rev Machiavelli was at work. More on that when we come to the letter M.

Heavendrea did not even come out of her house when I left her housing complex where I had lived for the longest period ever in Shillong. One of the hardest things in Shillong is to find a place to stay. The next hardest is to be on good terms with the landlady and her people. Heavendrea was an exception. She was my beloved matriarch who took such troubles for me as to find a scrap dealer to take away our wastes. Heavendrea was next to cleanliness. I was destined never to find another Heavendrea in my life. Rev Machiavelli had a vision for me. Alas! 

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