Gireesh pumped my hand. There was so much intensity in the shake that I thought my shoulder might come unhinged. I let my arm fall limp to my side in mock pain. Gireesh pulled his hands to his mouth and slid down the wall to sit on the floor. “I can't believe it!” he said. He uncovered his mouth and stared at us. Then he looked at my limp hand and his fingers flew to his face again. “Ooh, Ooh, sorry, sorry. Are you Ok?” He shook his head. He stared some more. “I am so happy you are here.”

Minutes seemed to pass where nothing was said. Gireesh looked at us, occasionally uttering, “My God,” and “You.” I noticed that Gireesh hadn't lost his charm. He was still trim and handsome, his face still smooth and attractive. A manicured mustache surrounded his upper lip and thick manicured hair topped his head. He looked professional and boyish both at the same time. His astonishment eventually passed enough so he could speak to us in full sentences, although even these were colored with exclamations and rambled so close together that I interpreted them as a single expletive - “Wow!” The enormous grin that had bloomed on his face when he had first seen us sitting on his balcony remained fixed to his face. “You don't know,” he said. “So many people you have brought here. So many.” He clicked his tongue.

Gireesh's excitement was infectious. “Surprise,” I said. John and I both were beaming smiles. “We tried to call to let you know we were coming, but there was no answer. How is everything? How are you?”

“Everything is so good, so good, because of you.” Gireesh clicked his tongue again. “So many people.”

The exuberance in Gireesh filled the air. I felt it tingle around me - a brilliant aurora of energy and enthusiasm. Gireesh pushed his small frame against the wall and pressed his hands to his knees. He jumped up. “I will show you,” he said. He ran down the cement steps and back up them a minute later. He dumped an oversized book in my lap. “Look, look,” he said and pulled the pages back to reveal signatures and addresses and dates and comments. “All, all of them because of you.”

The pages of Gireesh's guest book were filled with names we recognized. Since we left the Thattekkad Bird Sanctuary last December, we have told numerous travelers about Gireesh's homestay in the park. From the look of it, a lot of them had come. “Before you not many, now so many,” Gireesh repeated. He shook his head. He sighed again.

Gireesh bought a canoe, he told us, because we had suggested it last year. He had a brochure started. He had tiled the balcony and put a shower in the upstairs room that was missing one before. “I have made one and a half lakh rupees since last year,” he told John. A lakh is a hundred thousand. He was doing well.

“Anything you want, anything at all; you let me know,” Gireesh told us. If we wanted to go bird watching, we could do that tomorrow. If we wanted to take the canoe out, we could do that tomorrow too. John asked about tracking elephants in the forest. “Yes, yes, tomorrow, definitely, we will do this.” Gireesh said. I asked about water birds and Gireesh assured me that tomorrow we would walk to a lake in a small village nearby. “And,” Gireesh added, “I want you to see my office in town and the high court and meet my senior advocate. We can go to his house and meet his family. I will arrange it for tomorrow.” Tomorrow was filling up fast.

The items pegged for tomorrow filled four days. They began early in the morning to avoid the heat of the day and commenced again in the early evening. “What will we do tomorrow,” Gireesh asked.

I batted my weary eyes. “Sleep,” I proposed. We had been dressed and ready to go at six-thirty every day, but we had been awake since four. “You have a bird,” I told Gireesh.

“Yes, yes there are many birds here.”

“No, you have one bird that I'd like to kill. You have a rooster.”

“The rooster is a problem? I never hear him.”

For five months his family has owned the rooster. They are accustomed to the rooster. He is a beautiful rooster. But at four in the morning my thoughts of him were less endearing than theirs. “Kill the rooster,” I moaned to John while thrusting earplugs into my head.

Two mornings later Gireesh climbed the stairs to our balcony. “My God,” he said. “That rooster. I can't sleep with that rooster. My mother can't sleep with that rooster. All we hear in the morning is that rooster. Tomorrow he is roast.

So there, I'd done it. I'd made Gireesh and his family aware of the rooster. I'd ruined their sleep. “Good going,” John said.

“This is no problem,” Gireesh said. He threw his arms over our shoulders and exposed his teeth in another of his wide grins. “You are my chechan and chechi, my older sister and brother now,” he exclaimed.

Gireesh is the most animated man I have met in India. When he talks his hands wag and shake. I suggested that if he tied them behind his back he wouldn't be able to talk. He gave me a small punch on the arm. He prances around his house, grins and says, “Yes, yes,” as a matter of course. He rushes up the steps to tell us dinner is ready and then sits with me at his dining table pouring over bird names. When he laughs, he pumps our hands wildly. “I love it. I love it,” he said of a story I told. He slapped my leg. “Very very funny.”

Gireesh has excellent English. He speaks rapidly (hands flying) and understands and tells jokes with all the subtle innuendos of someone who is a native speaker. In a deep, drawn out resonating voice he said, “Yes, of course,” when I asked if he conducts his court cases in English as well as in Malayalam.

Gireesh is a defense attorney, a profession that has served him well for running his homestay. The forest department respects him and allows him to guide guests through the forest without a guide license. (From living in the forest, his bird spotting skills are far excellent.) As a lawyer, he has contacts in government departments, in various service organizations, with the police and clout within the community. “You want to return your Sri Lanka air tickets?” he asked. “No problem. I will get them to refund your money in one week.” (The airline office had told us it would take fifteen days.)

But, as I learned, it wasn't only Gireesh with clout. As his Chechi, I too possessed the ability to make friends and influence people. Only, I wasn't aware of it at the time.

We were sitting at an Internet cafe when John told me. “He did what?” I cried. A huge grin cracked on John's face. “You're joking right?”

“No, it's true.” Still that silly grin.

“Get outta here. He wouldn't. Not because of me.” I went back to the computer, dismissing John as a jokester.

“Gireesh, Gireesh,” I yelled when we got back to his house. “I need to ask you a question.” I scanned the yard as I entered the house. “Where's the rooster?”

“He is roast.” He burst into laughter.

“This is a joke. This has to be a joke. Where is the rooster?”

Gireesh grabbed my hand and danced through the house to the kitchen. He pointed to a large pot on the ground and his mother pulled back the lid. “Curry... roast.” Gireesh's mother twisted her hands next to each other and pantomimed the kill with a snap of her wrists. She grinned.

I looked at the pot while Gireesh laughed. “The rooster was a pain,” he said. It kept you awake. It kept me awake. It kept mother awake. So, now, no more rooster. Because of you, no more rooster.” He slapped his hands together sideways - satisfaction, task accomplished.

“Oh my John.”

“I told you. I heard his mother grab it this morning. I heard it's' last doodle-doo.”

“You live in a bird sanctuary,” I said to Gireesh. I emphasized the word 'sanctuary'. I repeated it twice. “And you killed a bird!”

“Not a bird,” Gireesh corrected. “A roast.”

So, I'd done it again. “Good job,” John said. This time he meant it. “Tomorrow we sleep in.”

As I left the house and walked up to my room, I heard one of the other travelers make a comment. “I hope she doesn't say anything about us.”

I yelled down, “You don't snore do you.”

But no one snored that night. No rooster crowed; and we slept late. It wasn't until three days later that we learned that Gireesh never needed the rooster at all.

“Are the chickens still laying eggs without the rooster? John asked.

“No chickens,” Gireesh said.

“What do you mean, no chickens? Where are the chickens?”

“We don't have chickens.”

“You don't have chickens?” I nearly choked on my meal.

“We never had chickens.”

John cracked up laughing. “Then why did you have a rooster?”

“Because it's a pretty bird,” Gireesh said. “It ate the kitchen scraps.”

“And it woke you up at four o'clock every morning,” I added.

Gireesh flapped his hands around and grinned. “It was a good bird,” he said.

His mother pointed her spoon at the dish in front of her and gathered another fingerful. “Good bird,” she said through a full mouth. “Very good bird.”

Gireesh's grandmother ran her thin wrinkled hands down my arm. She held my upper arm for a moment and then my forearm and then rested her hand on mine. Her wrinkled bosom heaved inside her tight blouse in a heavy, contented sigh.

"One month," Gireesh's mother said. She sat across from us at the dining table. She reached over to touch my arm too and I leaned a bit closer to her. "One month you stay," she said.

Gireesh and his family would have us stay six months if we wanted. "Two months then," Gireesh said and slapped his knees to finalize his decision.

"You are my mugkal and mugken," his mother said.

I looked at Gireesh.

"Daughter and son," he explained.

Two new titles - already we were chechi and chechan to Gireesh (his older sister and brother). These titles were the compromise he was willing to adopt when I insisted he stop calling us sir and madam. "Call us Janet and John," I said. But first names aren't the Kerelan way for family, he told me. "Then I can't call you Gireesh either," I said.

"Then you call me Onion," he said.

"Onion," I repeated.

"No, not onion," he said and blurted out a laugh. "Onion. It means younger brother."

"Onion." I tried again.

"Un-ee-yun," Gireesh said slowly.

"Un-yee-yun," I said.

Gireesh shook his head. "Onion."

Malayalam is one of the hardest languages to master. There are sounds we don't use in English, sounds we don't hear. It is unforgiving of a small variation in the shape of a lip or the placement of a tongue. It is spoke rapidly too; and even when Gireesh slows down to teach us a word, he is still too fast too mimic. He opened his mouth and pointed to his tongue. "Oin-yon," he said. His tongue wiggled without direction.

Two more tries. Two more head shakes. "So how do you pronounce the vegetable onion then?" I asked.

"Onion," Gireesh said. He heavily emphasized the long 'O'.

"Own-yun," I said mimicking him. I dropped my jaw low to over-exaggerate the 'O'.

Gireesh smiled. "Yes, that's it, younger brother."

"What do you mean, that's it. I was trying to say onion."

"Yes onion, you've got it."

Somewhere in a subtle curve of my tongue, a flicker I was unaware of, I had got it right. "Own-e-un," I said again and smiled.

Gireesh laughed. "No, no, Onion, onion. Ok, you call me onion and I'll call you cabbage. Together we will be a salad."

My tongue had moved and I'd lost it. I sighed.

I tied my tongue around other Malayalam words too. Gireesh wanted to teach me a song. He sang beautifully, but my attempt brought forth knee slaps and guffaws from everyone. "What? I thought that was pretty good."

"Mala is mountain," Gireesh corrected. "You want to say sky, mala."'

"Mala," I said.

"No," he laughed. "That means door.

Mala is spelled Em - Aye -Zed -Ech -Aye," He ticked each letter off on a finger.

"Zed- Ech?" How in the world did he get ZH to sound like an L? "Mazga." I tried. I tucked my tongue back and down, the tip up. "Maglga." It sounded like I was swallowing my vocal cords.

I was hopeless. His song about the sky and stars, in my mouth became one about mountains and doors and swallowed tongues. For days, Gireesh and his mother asked me to sing. "Just the first line, Oh, please chechi." They broke into riotous laughter each time.

The head master smiled broadly. "Sit, sit," he said and Gireesh's mother pulled over two chairs and wiped them with the end of her sari. "Where are you from? He started. It was going to be the usual series of questions - our names and how long have we been here and when will we leave." I let John answer while I walked outside to watch the children prepare for class. They giggled at the sight of me. They pointed and laughed. They poured from their cement rooms to stare.

They had stared at us from the road too. We were two foreigners talking a walk - fascinating to watch. But now that Gireesh's mother had run out to the road and invited us in; the children were treated to two foreigners up close. It was more than they could bear. Their stares turned into giggles, pointed fingers and finally bashfulness.

Gireesh's mother works three hours a day at the village school doing book work .She pulled on my arm. "My head master," she said and opened her hand to encompass into her introduction a middle-aged, pot-bellied man with rounded eyes.

"We have first standard to seventh," the headmaster was saying. He and John had joined me outside. "We teach everything except Hindi," he explained. "Every teacher must be able to teach all subjects, Classes start at ten o'clock. We have all religions here, Hindu, Christian, Muslim." he paused. "I teach mathematics."

I nodded dutifully." And where do the students go for eighth and ninth level?" I asked. I could tell that the headmaster was proud of his school and that he wanted to talk.

"Eighth and ninth are there," he said. He motioned down the road. "Another village. We also have higher secondary schools," he added. "Eleventh and twelfth standards. You have the same in America?"

I wagged my hand at a group of giggling boys hiding in a doorway. Without looking away, I said, "Yes, the same. Are eleventh and twelfth levels compulsory here?

There was no answer so I turned my head to see the headmaster's furrowed brow. "This word I do not know," he said.

"Compulsory," I repeated. "Um, mandatory, required."

"Ah, yes, required. No." There was a pause while he studied me. "You know," he said," you have perfect English. It is very very good."

"Well, I...I am from America." The headmaster continued to look at me as if expecting more, so I obliged with, "And, I practice every day."

"Practice is very important," the headmaster said. "It is very important."

A young boy stepped beside me and struck a stick against a brass gong. It signaled the start of classes. The headmaster moved his attention to a small gathering of girls as they began to sing. He handed them a microphone and their soft voices filled the air with the morning prayer.

"It is in Malayalam," Gireesh's mother said. (Perfect Malayalam I thought.)

"Very nice," I said. I turned to the headmaster to say good-bye but he had already shuffled back to his office. The children settled into their classrooms and John and I turned back onto the road.