Next to the bottles there was a list of all the Paradise products and a kathakali dancer with his face green and skirts swirling. Along the bottom of the S-shaped swirl of his billowing skirt, it said, in an S-shaped swirl, Emperors of the Realm of Taste- which was Comrade K. N. M. Pillai’s unsolicited contribution. It was a literal translation of Ruchi lokatbinde Rayivu, which sounded a little less ludicrous than Emperors of the Realm of Taste. But since Comrade Pillai had already printed them, no one had the heart to ask him to redo the whole print order. So, unhappily, Emperors of the Realm of Taste became a permanent feature on the Paradise Pickle labels.

Ammu said that the kathakali dancer was a Red Herring and had nothing to do with anything. Chacko said that it gave the products a Regional Flavor and would stand them in good stead-when they entered the Overseas Market.

Ammu said that the billboard made them look ridiculous. Like a traveling circus. With tailfins.

Mammachi had started making pickles commercially soon after Pappachi retired from Government service in Delhi and came to live in Ayemenem. The Kottayam Bible Society was having a fair and asked Mammachi to make some of her famous banana jam and tender mango pickle. It sold quickly, and Mammachi found that she had more orders than she could cope with. Thrilled with her success, she decided to persist with the pickles and jam, and soon found herself busy all year round. Pappachi, for his part, was having trouble coping with the ignominy of retirement. He was seventeen years older than Mammachi, and realized with a shock that he was an old man when his wife was still in her prime.

Though Mammachi had conical corneas and was already practically blind, Pappachi would not help her with the pickle-making because he did not consider pickle-making a suitable job for a highranking ex-Government official. He had always been a jealous man, so he greatly resented the attention his wife was suddenly getting.