Ponmudi

Mr. Hendricks loves Wikipedia. Its entry on Ponmudi begins like this:

Ponmudi (The Golden Peak) is a hillstation in the Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala in South India. Its [sic] located 61 km north-east of Trivandrum city at an altitude of 910 m. It is a part of the Western Ghats mountain range that runs parallel to the Arabian Sea.

So far, so good. Then it veers off into a downright dirty lie: Ponmudi is connected to Trivandrum by a narrow winding road whichoffers a scenic view on the way to Ponmudi.

Cut to the maniacal laughter of one who has escaped death a thousand times. Because that's what you will have done if you indeed take this "narrow winding road" with a "scenic view". Scenes of your impeding demise, maybe. Of course, there's no other way to reach the "Golden Peak," and I have to report that it is only worth seeing if you have the balls of a NavySeal. I don't, and yet I made it there and back with my lifeintact, but my adrenal glands were completely shot to hell.

The offer seemed innocent enough. My in-laws wanted to show their American/Minnesotan daughter-in-law the coldest place in Kerala. They had been there before, but not for a few years. Granted, the traffic in Kerala had already scared the shit out of me, but foolishly I thought that had somehow conferred immunity. I mean, how much worse could it get? How many times could you watch opposing traffic coming toward you at twenty-five miles an hour while your father-in-law attempted to pass the car barely in front of him, forgetting to downshift and praying for the millionth time that the car wouldn't die because it was in fifth gear at ten miles an hour? How many near misses of a pedestrian or a scooter (a small motorcycle) could you tolerate? How many times could you hold your breath every five to seven seconds and still remain oxygenated? How many times could you hear horns honking without jumping every time, even though the honking was constant, like some sort of hellish conversation you couldn't understand. Even Mr. Hendricks, a man with a disposition of Buddha-like proportions, was griping my hand so hard as to leave bruises. And this was just the ride out of town.

We pulled over at the side of the road to stretch our legs. We'd probably already been in the car for at least an hour, maybe more. Still oblivious to the terror that awaited me, I wondered how much longer the drive would be. My father-in-law had mentioned "twenty-two hairpin turns," and I thought he was casually remarking on a curvy, twisty road. The term "road" needs to be defined. If by "road" you mean a dirt path cleared of trees and boulders, but filled with rocks and holes and only wide enough for one car, then, yes, it was a road. I'm pretty sure I don't have to mention that there were no guardrails, but I will, just for good measure.

So we start up the hill again, and while gently disentangling my hand from the crush of Mr. Hendricks', I begin to feel tired but uneasy. I mean, where the hell is this place? Then, off in the distance, my family points out the restaurant we'll be going to after we see Ponmudi. It appears to be very high and very far away. The road is getting worse: it feels like the car has no shock absorbers. And then the unthinkable happens: the car horn breaks. We have no horn. This is the only way to alert opposing vehicles that we are on the other side of the hairpin turn, because you sure as hell can't see anything. We press on, and now I begin to shoot desperate looks at Mr. Hendricks. He seems as nervous as I do, and yet, his parents are only mildly disturbed. Sure, the horn giving out is unfortunate, but that's no reason to discontinue our treacherous climb.

Then I see a road sign. A yellow sign with a drawing of an actual hairpin, about a thousand times bigger, and the number "1". At first, I am in complete denial. That can't possibly mean what I think it means, I calmly tell myself. We continue on, without a horn and another five minutes goes by. There isn't another sign, and yet the turns we've made on this stretch of the road are between ninety and one hundred thirty five degrees. To my horror, another yellow sign appears, exactly like the first one, and the number "2" is on it. Now the fear sinks in: I've got twenty more of these motherfuckers to live through. At the next sign, again after another five to seven minutes and several sharp turns and one car we managed not to collide with, I nudge Mr. Hendricks. I glare and jerk my head in the direction of the sign. He misses it.

"Three!" I hiss. "We're only at three!"

He looks confused. "What?" He's interrupted by his mother. She says, "I know why Denise is worried, she's not used to it, but you? What's wrong with you? You've been here before!" I have to mention at this point that my in-laws do not speak English (well, my father-in-law speaks a little, but my accent is really challenging for him) and I do not speak Malayalam, the native tongue of Kerala. This was actually a relief, although I'm sure my alarm needed little translation.

We continue on, and even though I did not have respite from the terror, I will interject here another item from Wikipedia:

The climate is alwayspleasant and it serves as a base for trekking and hiking. The tea-gardens here are also famous.

I will grant that the climate is probably always pleasant, if in fact you can even notice such a thing during your ordeal. But the "famous" tea gardens are completely defunct. Mr. Hendricks told me that when he visited Ponmudi as a child, there were tea stands all along the road where you could stop and not only have tea, but buy some to take home. He thought he remembered coffee, too. Tea is one of the official drinks of India, but in the South, they prefer coffee. Apparently the tea stands (we saw their abandoned shacks) were put out of business by the ubiquitous strikes and fights with the state government. There are so many unions in Kerala that it's a miracle when anything gets done. More often than not, it doesn't. So the promise of tea, coffee, and gifts evaporated, and I had only hope to cling to as we continued our death ride up the hill.

Obviously we made it. The killer is that, while in fact it was very cool and windy, the view wasn't as spectacular as I had been led to believe. Or maybe the view of the edge of the Western Ghats did not justify three hours of nightmarish anxiety. We walked around a bit, took a few pictures. We then went to the restaurant, which looked like a large, glorified cafeteria without the line. We had a typical South Indian thali, which consists of several little dishes and rice, and any other curry you might order. We asked for a fish fry and a chicken fry, both of which were pretty good. South Indians eat with their hands. I never got the hang of it, but really didn't have to: a fork and a napkin always appeared on the table, just for me.

We finished lunch and stepped outside onto the terrace. The view outside of the restaurant was pretty nice, lovely, in fact. It was windy and sunny and we took a few more pictures. Then we started our descent, which I had been trying to avoid thinking about all during lunch. Actually, I had been ruminating about it during the drive up, too, thinking that even if we made it up the hill alive, there was still the trip back to survive.

But my mother-in-law, with her wonderful senses of humor and intuition, told us the story of Mr. Hendricks' birth during our trip down the hill. I was completely delighted, not to mention blessedly distracted. I had always wanted to know how Mr. Hendricks came into the world, and in a charming bit of serendipity, our birth stories share some features. Both my mother and my mother-in-law were first-time mothers when they gave birth to us, and both of them had somewhat precipitous deliveries after normal courses of labor. In fact, both of them were told, "Don't push!" by the panicked nurses who saw baby heads emerging. Both doctors were late, and my mother-in-law was attended by the doctor on call. My father-in-law had a friend who worked in the hospital. Because of this, he was able to stay in his friend's call room at the hospital so he would be there when the baby arrived. Usually, fathers weren't allowed in the hospital until after the delivery.

Mr. Hendricks, according to his mother, was sixteen days late. Not only was he big when he was born, about eight and a half pounds, but he had a ton of hair and the longest fingernails they'd ever seen. He was also exceedingly fair. All the nurses used to sigh and lament because he was so fair and pretty. "What a shame," they'd say. "He should have been a girl."

Given the language and geographical barriers between me and my in-laws, I never thought I would hear that story. When we got home to Trivandrum, I thanked her for telling us. "Well,"she said, "I know you deliver babies and I thought you might beinterested." I also found out why my husband is an only child. An only Indian child: what are the odds? My father-in-law casually remarked that he thought it was better just to have one child. My in-laws also said that by the time Mr. Hendricks was three years old, he often told them that he didn't want a brother or sister. "We don't need another baby," he'd say, batting those big brown eyes in his fair, pretty-girl face, up at them. How could they argue with that?

So while hissing the word Ponmudi in our house is code for what a fucking nightmare, it also brings a smile to my face when I think of listening to my mother-in-law telling the story of her delivery. The hairpin turns and the rocky road and the sheer drop off outside my window seemed to fade away as I imagine her all those years ago, waiting to have her very late and very pretty baby.