Another Dull Day

Note: This short story was shortlisted for the Commonwealth Short Story Prize 2012 (http://www.commonwealthwriters.org/commonwealth-short-story-2012/)

Life has been really dull this year.  Even the monsoon came at the right time.  All we have had are deaths and weddings and babies, they keep coming and going. 

The year before last, ‘Cut-throat’ Kuttan the stingy vegetable-stall guy…he chopped his wife and three of his four kids with a machete and finally, he hanged himself from a hook right above those bloody bodies.  Poor guy, he could not bear the shame after his eldest daughter ran away from home with some Romeo.  He had loved his kids so much and he had worked hard for his family but that daughter forgot all about that.  Then, last autumn, Rajan Swamy…he stabbed his wife and smashed her head in with a grinding stone.  I knew he would do something crazy.  He chased me once, on the Main Street of all places, and that too for no reason at all.  I had only looked at his wife.  Everyone used to look at her, especially all those guys who sit in the Club reading room waiting for lunch or recovering after a late-night binge.  What a sight she was…white jasmine flowers on her head…with her sari slipping from the shoulder all the time…and she had…what a belly!  There were so many policemen here, measuring every splatter of blood, talking to all, treating us villagers as if we were all killers. 

The temple priest had told us then that these are bad times.  A few weeks after that murder, a strange old woman had come to the Devi (goddess) temple.  She looked poor but she paid one thousand and one rupees for the day-long pooja (religious ritual).  She asked for the pooja to be done in the name of Devi and with Devi’s nakshatram (astrological star).  I too do it in the name of Devi, the five-rupee two-minute pooja of course, but that is because I do not know my birthday or nakshatram…no one knows, it seems.  Now, that is not the case with this old woman.  She had told the temple-priest that she is from across the river.  We made some inquiries, here and across the river and in the neighbouring villages too. No one has seen or heard of that old woman, before or after she came to the Devi temple.  The temple priest told me that she must have been the Devi herself.  Maniyan laughed when I told him what the priest had said.  He rarely laughs these days.  She must have been Devi...I am sure. 

Anyway, nothing happens out here these days.  It is the same with business, just the usual.  The tea-shop guy complains that business is dull.  But he dilutes the milk too much and only regulars like us go to him.  Thankappan, the rubber-trader in the shop next to ours – he is always grumbling about bad business.  He stands in front of the shop, scowls at the dark clouds, spits betel juice at every puddle.  He is trying to irritate the rain gods, I think.  Well, can’t blame him…rubber is like gold these days and a rainy day surely spoils his collection.  He has bought a new car, re-tiled his house and the new banker is always there in his shop with new plans and loans.  He and his money are a bit like me and my dreams, smiling when I have it and scowling when others get it.  I like to be in his shop when I am free, watching him and his calculations or helping his customers pile rubber sheets on to the weighing machine.  He allows me to place the weights on the balance – he knows that I do it well for him.  I do the balancing act while he does the punching on the old chunky calculator, checking and rechecking, before billing on small strips of paper.  At times, I pass a helpful comment to the customer about their rubber sheets – how or why the sheets could be better with the right amount of acid or a few more days of drying.  I have heard Thankappan say the same.  He reduces a kilo or two from the total weight to compensate for the badly-prepared sheets.  Once in a while, he slips me five or ten rupees for my help.  I don’t do it too often.  Those same customers come to our shop and I don’t want our business to suffer.  Who knows, people might hold a grudge, go elsewhere or even skip a haircut.  People do anything for money.

Today, like every other day, I opened the barber shop at seven.  I swept the floor; cleaned the scissors, razors and combs; wiped the mirrors; laid out the fresh sheets and towels I had brought from home after washing and ironing; and, dusted the seats inside and the bench outside for waiting customers.  I placed the board with the notice from the Barbers’ Union about barbers’ hardship and the need for solidarity.  Below that notice, there is a sheet with the Union approved charges (Any Hair Cut – 20 rupees, Face Shave – 10 rupees, Armpit Shave – ‘O’, some wise guy had cut out the ‘N’ and left only the ‘O’).  I peeked at the centre-folds of the old film magazines on the bench…those big breasts, fleshy thighs and tight clothes.  I was far from those pictures well before Maniyan and his father arrived at half past seven.  As usual, Maniyan’s father entered the shop, lit the lamp and started praying loud and long.  Maniyan and I waited outside the shop till the prayer was over. 

After every customer, I have to sweep the floor, clean the chair and air the sheet outside.  There is space for two seats in the shop and when I am inside cleaning, Maniyan or his father stands outside.  Maniyan’s father chats with Thankappan or the waiting customers.  Maniyan does not join in any of those discussions on politics or social problems.  I listen only when it is local gossip.

  Around nine, I run home to help Maniyan’s mother carry stuff to the market. I have a hurried breakfast then.  I like to eat alone, standing in the kitchen with Maniyan’s mother, the fresh smell of her powder, boiling milk, first cooking and wood-smoke in the air.  She gives me more to eat when the others are not there…even half a glass of milk and not just black tea.  Today, after breakfast, I de-husked a dozen coconuts before we set off to the market.  She had some vegetable to sell…bitter-gourd, spinach and green chilly for half a dozen people. I carried the basket with a few stems of tapioca, those de-husked coconuts and couple of jackfruit.  These days, coconut and jackfruit fetch a good price, and I have heard in the market that the price is nearly the same in the city.  After leaving Maniyan’s mother at the market, I returned to my tasks at the shop. 

Saturday mornings are usually quite busy.  Today, the first customers were the old butcher and his two assistants. The butcher asked us,

‘Hai…I have not opened shop today…aren’t you all going for the wedding?’ He was referring to Councilor Ibrahim’s daughter’s wedding in the Town-hall.  The old man continued, ‘There are five buses from here to town, and everyone’s going…’ 

Maniyan’s father had been invited too and if it had been Tuesday, our off-day, I could have gone on that trip.

The old man chatted while his two assistants got their hair cut.  A few times, he leaned towards me and whispered,

‘Mutton biriyani, chicken fry…there will be mutton biriyani and chicken fry…Hai…mutton biriyani, chicken fry…’ 

He kept on chanting that over and over like a prayer.  I don’t think he heard me sigh and swallow saliva.  I do not like him.  He likes to tease me a bit too much.   When it was his turn, he gave Maniyan’s father precise instructions about how he wanted the hair cut, at the sides and the back, with his sideburns and even the hair on his ears.  I felt like telling the old man that he had more hair on his ears than on his head.  After his haircut, the old butcher requested for an armpit shave.  Maniyan’s father pointed at the board and shook his head.  The old butcher pleaded,

‘Hai, after all these years, where can I go for my armpit? Come on…’

‘Maniyan…’ his father sharply ordered and allotted the job to his son. The old man removed his shirt and stood in from of Maniyan, raising each arm in turn.

‘In the city, women get it shaved down there, you know…’ one of the assistants said.

‘Ah! Do you want everything shaved off, too?’ Maniyan’s father asked with a smile reaching for a razor.

‘As it is, his wife has problems…’ the other assistant joined in the tease.

‘Leave the butchering to us…’ the old butcher guffawed, inspecting both armpits closely and patting Maniyan on the shoulder after the job was done.

‘Excuse me…’ a woman enquired from outside the shop, standing on the road a little away from the entrance.  It was Molly Teacher, the school-teacher, and her little son.  

The men became silent and the old butcher quickly put on his shirt.  He paid for the three and as I was entering the shop to clean, he winked at me and the rascal silently mouthed his chant,

‘Mutton biriyani, chicken fry...’ 

The three left after greeting the teacher with a respectful nod.  I cursed silently at that retreating back.

‘Teacher, leave him here…you go to the market and come back after fifteen minutes.’ Maniyan’s father told Molly Teacher.  The lady pushed the reluctant child towards the shop, promised a sweet and told him to behave well. 

‘Summer cut…it is so hot this rainy season…he gets a cold when it grows long…must be the sweat…’ she told Maniyan’s father before leaving for the market. 

He placed an extra cushion on the chair, lifted the kid to that seat and chatted to the kid affectionately while cutting his hair.  He used to talk like that to Maniyan.

Before Maniyan started working in his father’s shop, I did the armpits and an occasional face.  I was never allowed to do the haircutting.  At that time, Maniyan was in the Polytechnic studying to be a lift technician.  After he had got good marks in the school-leaving exams, Maniyan’s father had approached the AVR family for financial help and they had assured him assistance for his son’s Polytechnic course. They are the biggest landowners and businessmen on this side of the river.  We had assumed that they might later provide funds for a Gulf visa, too. 

Long back, Maniyan’s father had thought of going to the Gulf.  But then, his daughter fell ill.  She was a bit loose in the head but she and I were good friends.  Maniyan loved to tease us saying that we are twins.  She had big black round eyes like mine, the same protruding forehead, fleshy hanging lower lip, squat body and broad flat nose, too.  Maniyan’s father spent his life’s savings on that dying kid and he had to depend on the AVR family for his last dream, to give Maniyan a life unlike his.

‘My son will be a technician…not a bloody barber like me.’ He would shout happily after his customary peg or two at night, his light eyes sparkling with delight, at times even hugging his son.  They look quite similar with the same light eyes and handsome sharp features.  He must have been trying to see himself in his son.  Maniyan’s mother would smile at her husband’s happiness, but never laugh with him, actually scared to think about her son’s future. 

‘Too much dreaming will spoil dreams,’ she says, ‘and too much laughter will bring sorrow.’

Maniyan’s father has a long relationship with the AVR family.  His maternal grandfather was their barber and that was during the time of the industrious A.V. Ramanathan.  Maniyan’s grandmother worked as a maid in that house till she got pregnant.  They got a plot of land from AVR as a gift for services rendered. That is where we live now.

Later, Maniyan’s father was their barber too, and I went with him as ‘cleaning assistant’ on those monthly haircut days.  We worked silently and non-stop from eight till noon, attending to all the males in that household – the family members first and then the servants and the other dependents.  We were served lunch, at the back, where we worked.  I have never been inside that huge house.  Maniyan told me a secret long back.  He told me that he had sneaked in couple of times and it was not as fantastic as it looks from outside.  I don’t believe his secret, he must be teasing, but I have not told anyone. 

Even now, they have a few elephants, a dozen buses plying in our village and neighbouring routes, two or three movie theatres in town and most of the children and grandchildren are abroad.  They come in all kinds of cars during the harvest festival.  I have heard Maniyan’s father talk about the festival celebrations in that house during his childhood days.  For 14 days, feasts were served for the family and all the others, with more than hundred eating at every meal. 

Only once did I hear him say quite bitterly that he was never allowed to play with the kids of that house, even though he looked like them, with light-eyes and sharp features.  In that drunken rage, I heard him say,

‘Bastards then…bastards now…’

Then, his bitter rage lasted just for a while.  Before dinner was served, he apologized to his wife and son.  Maniyan and his father were real close and I used to envy Maniyan, I think.  Maybe not envy…it is tough to envy without experience…

In my case, I can vaguely remember a tired thin mother but little else.  In my dreams, I am two or three years old when my mother and I land here, homeless and starving, and in that dream, my mother is a good woman and she dies young.  In the movies I watch every Tuesday afternoon at Sree Murugan Theatre, the dreams are always colourful, delightful and look so good.  I suppose I want my dreams to sound or look a little real.  I have not asked anyone, not even Manian, about my parents.  What is the point in asking about people who were never there?  I am happy here with Maniyan’s parents.  I call them ‘Maniyan’s father’ and ‘Maniyan’s mother’.  When I was a kid, Maniyan used to take me to school but I was never good with studies.  He tried to teach me.  He gave up saying that my big black round eyes can see everything other than textbooks.  I just wanted to stay at home and help Maniyan’s parents on their land or at the barber shop and that’s all I have ever wanted to do.

These days, when I pray at the temple, I ask Devi if it is my envy which changed everything. 

Eighteen months back, Maniyan discontinued his studies at the Polytechnic and started working in his father’s shop.  The AVR family discontinued funds for his studies quite suddenly.   Maniyan’s father also stopped going to the AVR house, as their barber or for any other reason. Since then, life at home has been quite bad.  Maniyan’s father still drinks the same amount but he is always so angry with Maniyan. 

Six weeks back, on that hot night before the rains, I saw him walking around the house late at night, with a razor in his hand.  I hid my head under the sheet but through a hole I saw him stand near his son’s sleeping form, and I think I heard him mutter harshly,

‘Like father…like son…’

I do not know what he meant.  I was really scared.  I thought about all those murders that had happened in our village.  I stayed awake all night.  Early next morning, I raced to the river for a quick bath and then prayed for long at the temple.  On my way back, I saw Maniyan’s father lying beneath the big comforting banyan tree near the temple, an arm hiding his face from the rising sun and I think he was crying.  These days, his prayer in the shop lasts much longer.  I too pray a lot for him at the Devi temple.  But, with each sunset, the prayers seem to lose strength. 

Today, after Molly Teacher’s kid and a few others, there was a lull till about eleven.  At half past ten, I went to the tea-shop and got two glasses of tea for Maniyan and his father.  They had just finished their tea when Senan, one of the drivers in the AVR household, rushed in.  He asked for an ‘urgent’ haircut and face shave.

‘I am going to the airport this afternoon…Rohinikutty is coming from US…’ he said, nearly bursting with self-importance. 

This Rohini used to live in our village for a few years.  Her parents live abroad.  If she was not so aloof, she would have been every guy’s heart-throb.  I have seen her a few times and she behaved like a real snob.  Once, I told Maniyan,

‘That girl thinks she is some princess…so haughty…she can’t even smile…’

‘Why should she smile at people she doesn’t know?’ Maniyan defended that snob. I think they studied together in school. ‘If she smiles, you will say that she is a flirt…and you and the other guys will look at her the way you look at Rajan Swamy’s wife.  Don’t pass judgement on people you do not know…’

I still think a flirt is any day better than a snob.  But then, I did not argue with Maniyan.  I didn’t like this Rohini at all…even though she is so beautiful, the best in the AVR family, the best this village has seen.

Maniyan’s father started with Senan’s haircut.  Maniyan and I stood outside the shop.

‘From here, she went to US, you know…my Sarasamma aunty went with her as maid, you know…’ Senan continued, ‘my aunt came in an earlier flight yesterday…Rohinikutty stopped over in London and stayed with her brother…’

 The three of us did not have to ask him any questions.  Even if we had told him to shut up, he would have continued. 

‘Sarasamma aunty told me last night that she went as a maid…but only after she got there did she realize that she had to be a mid-wife or a nurse…’ Senan sniggered at his aunt’s fate with disgust and amusement in equal measure, ‘do you know that Rohinikutty was pregnant when she went to US?  If my aunt had known before leaving, she would not have gone, you know…Tchah!  My aunt will never stand by such things, you know, even if they gave her lots of money, you know…but then, for Rohinikutty’s sake, she stayed there for so long without even saying a word outside, you know…’

Maniyan’s father gave the finishing touches to the haircut. Then, he applied lather to Senan’s face, picked up the razor, paused for a while, looking at his hand. It was trembling. He asked Senan,

‘Is Rohinikutty coming with the child?’

‘Tchah! What child? Her parents wanted her to abort but she refused. But, after delivery, they convinced her to give it away.’

‘Gave it away? Where? There?’ Maniyan’s father asked.  He kept on looking at the razor, unable to control his trembling hand.  

‘Who cares…somewhere…come on…I haven’t got whole day, you know…she is coming with her husband…they got her married over there, you know…all very hush-hush…with such money, such looks, which man will worry about her past…I wouldn’t care, you know… shave fast…I want to be there on time…I wonder if she will remember me…will she bring something for me…at least a bottle of whiskey…or perfume…not the usual Gulf-wallah perfume, you know…’ Senan continued, leaning back against the head-rest, closing his eyes, chattering on and on.

‘Maniyan…’ his father's voice was hoarse when he ordered his son to take over the shaving.  I watched Maniyan and his father stare at each other, two sets of light eyes, one set brimming with tears, the other with rage.  Maniyan shook his head, refusing the razor.  He sat on the bench with his back towards the shop, still holding back his tears.  Maniyan’s father extended the razor towards me and stepped outside the shop.  I think he was also trying to hold back his tears.  I do not know why they get so emotional about abandoned kids.

I went inside with the razor, feeling happy to be entrusted with a shaving job after such a long time. 

Around two, I saw the old butcher return after the wedding trip. He saw me, scowled and shook his clenched fist at me,

‘It is all because of you, your envy…they served only mutton biriyani…no chicken fry…such stingy idiots…and I got only bones, no meat…all because of your drooling… your envy…’

I felt like laughing at him.  But I did not. Too much laughter will bring sadness.  It was a good day and I did not want to spoil it.

Around late evening, when we were closing shop, we saw Rohini going past us in her car with that Senan putting on such airs, as if he was driving royalty.  Rohini is still a snob.  She did not look at us.

The rest of the day was like any other day. Nothing happens out here.

Buried Gods

I am not fond of history and certainly not fond of people who cite history as a reasonable excuse for present actions. But it is difficult to evade that subject.

A few days back, I read an article by Mallika Sarabhai in The Week (issue: November 21, 2011) titled ‘Whose history is it anyway?’ The title captures my deepest doubts about the subject. The article deals with the Somnath temple and the people responsible for the current version of its history. I was not interested in understanding if ‘the’ history revolves around acts of looting or whether the British manipulated history and used popular sentiment to divide and rule.

My interest in that article was probably roused by another recent touch with history which made me think about a different set of issues. Why do we accept the destruction of a temple (religious or social institution of any faith) if we are not familiar with those gods? When we resurrect gods buried in the past, are the buried gods and the resurrected gods the same? Let me try to explain how or why I went on that tangential track.

Recently, I visited the village of my friend Vishnu. As a reluctant, lazy and conveniently rational traveler, the history and culture of places have always seemed irrelevant to me because I believe the human mind is roughly universal – the same anywhere and at anytime. Further, the need to know such trivia usually fizzles out when a place and its people provide me with decent meals and good accommodation. I did have that in Vishnu’s village but, I could not evade the history of that place.

Where should I start? The ideal place to start in this village is at the temple on the cliff. The official name of the village (as given on maps) has changed thrice in the last two decades with every generation of politicians following the whim and fancy of the masses without. For the villagers, the name has always been Kadalil (In the Sea) and the pedantic amongst them use the unabbreviated version Kadalil Thazhvaaram (Valley in the Sea). Standing near the temple on the cliff, it is easy to understand that name.

The cliff extends like the rim of a cup around the valley. On one side of the cliff, there is the blue expanse of the sea; and on the other side, there is the green carpet of the valley. On bright sunny days, due to some strange mirage, the sea seems to rise to the level of the rim and the valley appears like a sunken island precariously waiting to be flooded.

There is a single path, about three-man wide, from the temple to the beach. The path takes a winding route through a deceptive mixture of sandy slopes, rocky ledges, thorny bushes and waist-high grass. The rustling of the growth along with the whisper of the wind, the scratching and the scraping of small animals and reptiles, and the fluttering wings or the wild erratic flight of birds and their insistent calls accompany one from the bare rocky top to the beach. The variegated beach extends an alluring invite with its white sands striped strangely with red and black as if a painter had slashed the white canvas viciously and repeatedly in a fit of rage. The sea lies like a lagoon, the colour changing from light blue to turquoise and then dark opaque blue and the depths seem amenable for a long walk into the sea untroubled by the deep. An old wooden board explains that this appearance is fickle and warns of rapids, undercurrents and swarms of poisonous jelly-fish. The villagers claim that that there used to be fishing villages all around and that the beach was pristine white then but now, it is a lovely long but strangely deserted variegated beach.

On the other side of the cliff, there is the village in the valley. From the temple, it is a gradual descent through deep and thick forests interspersed with rubber and spice plantations. Descending further, those plantations give way to agricultural plots with coconut, palm, betel and fruit trees and then, paddy-fields, tapioca and vegetable cultivation. A river flows bisecting the valley, winding, meandering and losing itself in the hills beyond where there are deep caves, mines and tunnels, some still active with the search for precious stones and minerals. In the main part of the village, agriculture has given way to some small industries, shops, hotels, bars, medical facilities and educational institutions. But that is of today and should not concern us here.

The present and the past of this village should be understood in the context of events that took place a few centuries back. The exact dates are unclear from the tattered incomplete texts that remain of those times. Even those texts were probably written many years after the actual events, recording tales passed from mouth to mouth. But those documents written in prose and poetry seem to record the relevant history of the village.

This village was rich even then, utilizing well its natural resources and industrious lot. The landowners and the workforce co-existed with reasonable mutual benefit and peace prevailed, though grudgingly, allowing for nearly all-inclusive prosperity.

The texts that remain of those days talk nearly exclusively about two families that dominated the village on the two sides of the river. The families are referred to as Ekkara (this river bank) and Akkara (that river bank). The two shared a common religion, caste, beliefs and colour. But they lived with open hostility and fierce competition for the riches of the land. Marriages between the two families were not permitted even though it would have been economically advantageous. The records do not mention any early wars between the two families. Maybe, they were more than sufficiently rich or probably too lazy to engage in wasteful fights. Or, it was an understanding with the rulers of the land. The last scenario seems most likely because a village that filled the coffers of the state must have been under the close scrutiny of its rulers.

Like most old historical texts, there is very little mention of the others in and around the village, the majority – the priests, the scavengers, the traders, the labourers, the tribal people populating the deep forests and, the outsiders and the mercenaries that came and went with new ideas and services. It is dry reading mostly, with verbose accounts of the families, their achievements and brave deeds and of course endless passages about the benevolence of the rulers and their charity, good-will and careful administration. 

One of the popular texts amongst the lot is a poem, or rather the little that remains of a poem, about two lovers. I expected it to be a Romeo and Juliet story with the boy and the girl belonging to the two hostile families and the conflicts or heartbreak that followed. There are two sections which describe briefly the man and the woman and if there were sections that told their story, it has been lost.

The young woman belongs to one of these two main families (it is not specified). In the part about her, she emerges after an early morning bath, looking at the rising sun, its crimson rays playing on her wet young body, and then she turns to the hills and the temple, praying to the land and the gods. She is described from head to toe with delicate intimate details. In the last part, she is described as (let me quote from a translated summary in prose) ‘staring deep into those green depths, as into a lover’s eyes, her cheeks flushed and her lips parted and swollen as if ravaged by a million kisses, and with unblinking eyes, unafraid of the wild stare, giving herself to that watchful protective stare’. One prosaic interpretation says that it depicts her bhakti towards the gods and the power of the land. Even today, some of the village women (young and old) follow the custom of enacting the scene every month on the day of the quarter moon.

There are just two stanzas that remain of the man. It is possible that he never got much space even in the full original text. The first stanza describes him rather unflatteringly – medium height (‘about twice a good banana cluster’…that must be about the average height of five feet eight inches, I gather); trim, athletic and well-muscled but not overpowering or commanding. I suspect that the superlatives are probably reserved for the men of the ruling class or the big families. The first stanza goes on to describe a handsome face. It pays a lot of attention to his deep-set wild eyes, penetrating look, the fire and passion within and all that. The second stanza describes him as an outsider or a castaway, with ideas so different and outrageous, dangerous to any society, untamed and bound by no sense of morality or decency. But, nothing remains of his later actions or even about the conclusion of that love-play. Some people here believe that in every month, on the day of the quarter-moon, a wild looking young man appears on the hill, looking down at the village.

As mentioned earlier, the texts mainly deal with the two families and their ruler. These texts mention that the ruler visited the village at least twice or thrice a year, staying there for nearly a week. Without any show of partiality, the ruler stayed with both families enjoying their hospitality and riches. His entourage was accommodated jointly by the two families. His ministers and administrators dealt with the business deals and taxes while allowing the ruler to relax and enjoy a vacation in that beautiful land. The two families competed with each other in pleasing the ruler, filling chests with gold and precious stones, preparing lavish meals and presenting creative shows to cheer the five senses. The inner rooms were decked with finery and every available luxury. In that part of the household, the ruler was served by the attractive and the desirable alone, boys, girls and women, young and old, well-chosen from within the family, ornamented and dressed for the occasion to heighten passion and to satisfy any and every fantasy of the ruler. The texts mention these visits of great importance with reverence and awe.

These texts also describe the celebrations that included the whole village in a carnival-like atmosphere, with scenes of bonhomie between the men of the families and the common folk alongside the soldiers and the rest of the ruler’s entourage, with barrels of alcohol emptied fast, dance and song and other revelry extending throughout the night.

Then, the last visit and the days after are also described in great detail. On the second day of that last visit, a day with the quarter-moon, the ruler was found murdered in the inner rooms.

The women and the boys of the inner rooms were questioned. A young woman was found in the ruler’s chamber, unconscious and viciously raped – probably the companion chosen by the ruler for that night, for her innocence, charm and beauty (the description matches well with the young woman in the love poem). She was tortured further and killed by her interrogators but she never divulged the identity of the killer or how the killer entered those chambers. Some of the texts depict the killer as her rapist. In some, the young woman confesses to be the killer but that seems to be a subterfuge on her part for her lover’s sake. The killer remained elusive. In most of the texts, it is speculated that the killer did not take her away because he never expected the kind of backlash that followed.

In the days that followed, fresh batches of soldiers kept coming to this village, unleashing dreadful violence and killing. The two families were gutted and ravaged mercilessly. In that madness, even the temple and the god was not spared – razed and crushed to the ground, buried for ages. 

After the soldiers left the village, the families continued with the search, torturing and murdering their own and those outside. From the village, people were gathered and taken to the beach. It is said that the pristine white sands got scarred black with the burning and the blood that flowed stained it red. It was a period of vengeance against all and the witch-hunt was particularly brutal against outsiders in that land, against the kind who could disrupt the peace and harmony of the land with new ideas.

The temple was rebuilt many generations later and a new powerful idol was installed. Even today, people go there to exorcise the inner thoughts that they should do without. People afflicted with deep-set worries and conflicting passions are brought here and the afflicted stay near the temple for six weeks observing a strict and austere life. At the end of their penance, they have to walk down the path to the variegated beach and have a bath in those fickle waters. It is believed that the exorcised would survive. On the day of the quarter moon, some men in the village still follow a custom of chasing a young man dressed as an outsider, up the hills, to the cliff and away from the village. It is believed that the new god protects the village from wild ideas and strange people.

A Poetic End

My friend Ashok used to have this habit of conversing in such a way that the most important point enters in a parenthesis, like an afterthought, without emphasis and most susceptible to be ignored.

When he shifted from the house next to mine, he told me:

‘It is an unlucky house. I realized it when my dog ran away, a few days before my father died in that house, and when I sprained my back couple of months later my fears were confirmed.’

 His habit prevailed when he invited me for his wedding. On a rainy evening couple of years back we were into the third or fourth pitcher of beer in a pub. I remember that we had a heated argument about George Bush Jr. (after one of us had mentioned some redeeming feature, I suppose) and then we had discussed at length about the similar state of affairs in our respective offices in Academia and the financial industry. Somewhere in between, he slipped it in:

‘I am getting married next Friday…come if you can…it is at the Club Hall, I think…’

If I had caught it then and there, rather than recollecting it vaguely on the morning of the wedding, I would have told Ashok:

‘I don’t think you should marry.’

If asked why I said so, I would have replied:

‘You are too fair.’

I guess that is supposed to mean:

‘Ashok, you are not assertive or submissive; you believe in a mature and understanding relationship between two equals; you are actually willing to accept tantrums and frenzied fits even though you will not exhibit the same…’

Anyway, none of the above was said and I did attend his wedding.

Of his friends, I turned out to be the only one who had not missed his ‘concealed’ invitation. And, since I was the only friend introduced to her, his wife Rachna assumed that I must be a bosom buddy. Ashok introduced her to me as:

‘She is a poet.’

I nearly groaned loudly. From experience I know that creative artists and scientists are tolerable only if they are truly great. Of the mediocre lot, the males are fine when they are very young and their enthusiasm could be blamed on excessive testosterones. With age and wisdom, the males usually end up looking like toads with an air of profound latent intelligence waiting to croak the usual rhyme, rhythm and substance. Meanwhile, the females of that species are typically unaffected by age. I have noticed that they can be classified into three categories. The best try to be another Sylvia Plath forever searching for an appropriate gas stove to air their dainty head. The majority act like dopey-eyed minstrels without even being doped. And, those in the third category exhibit multiple personalities raising plaintive but obscure cries through their writing for a true lover or a better world. But during a break from writing, these behave like well-adjusted partners in humdrum suburbia totally oblivious of their most recent actions and thoughts while writing.

I do not think Rachna noticed my apprehension while I tried to place her in one of these three categories. But I could not concentrate on that task while she smiled sweetly and talked affectionately to her husband’s one and only friend. I was so distracted by her charming behavior that I ended up inviting Ashok and Rachna for a lunch in a posh restaurant and we planned to meet after a fortnight.

Thirteen days after the wedding, I phoned their residence to confirm the lunch appointment on the next day. Rachna picked up the call. She told me that Ashok had gone out shopping and that they looked forward to our meeting. She sounded distraught and, acting against my better instinct, I asked:

‘Are you fine?’

‘Yes,’ she replied rather hesitantly. Then without any prompt from me, she added, ‘He still sleeps on a separate bed.’

‘Ah!’ I managed that profound non-poetic exclamation.

‘He wants me to kiss him there,’ she continued.

‘Oh!’ I was at my wits’ end.

Fortunately, she had to end the session to attend to some urgent business in the kitchen.

For the next few hours, I thought deeply about my plan of action.

I pictured myself confronting Ashok in the toilet of the posh restaurant.

‘Did you ask your wife to kiss you there?’ I would ask.

‘Where…?’ He would ask.

I tried out more sensible questions in my head. Finally, I decided that my advice, if any, should be extempore rather than prepared.

The next day, we met at the posh restaurant. The food was good and the service was impeccable but of the three participants, only one seemed to be enjoying the lunch.

Rachna was her usual self, smiling sweetly and talking affectionately to Ashok and myself. Ashok seemed distraught throughout the meal. I also noticed that he had dropped his old habit while conversing. Habits wilt under duress, I remembered from an old text. Anyway, I was also in a confused state during the meal. My state was the result of the brief tête-à-tête with Ashok in the gents’ toilet before we sat for lunch. There, I had asked him:

‘So, how’s life, man?’

‘Good,’ he replied unconvincingly.

‘Ah!’ my familiar prompt.

‘Actually not good,’ he continued more convincingly.

‘Oh!’ I had reached the limit of my extempore speech.

‘She still sleeps on a separate bed.’ The fact that they admitted the same sounded comforting but then came the twist:

‘She wants me to kiss her there.’

‘Where…?’ I nearly blurted out.

That lunch got over blandly without any other notable incident. I decided to keep my distance from that couple.

We still met each other twice or thrice a year and in every such meeting, the situation was roughly the same. Though the accusation changed with each meeting, both confided to me the same accusation against each other.

Two days back, the play reached its climax. I received a call from Rachna with the succinct message:

‘He is trying to kill me.’

I thought of minding my own business. But curiosity, if not concern, made me meet Ashok that day.

‘So, how’s life, man?’

‘Good,’ the familiar lines from the script. ‘Actually, it is not good.’

‘Ah!’

 ‘She is trying to kill me.’

‘Oh!’

Last night, Ashok called me from a police station.

‘Rachna jumped to her death from the balcony,’ he said.

‘Oh!’

‘She left a note for the police.’ I could imagine what she had to say in her note.

I could not think of a way to help him evade her grave accusation. I nearly missed the last bit of information from Ashok,

‘She wrote it as a poem. The police are trying to understand it.’

‘Ah!’ I sighed with relief.

  

Coming, Going

When the door-bell rang, he was adjusting the volume control of the hi-fi. Without heeding the bell, he listened to the music for a while, comfortably numbed and also bemused by not being able to recollect the name of the composer. It matched well, he thought, with the bright blue sky peeping through lace curtains and the cool dewy early morning air.

He went to the door and opened. He smiled at her as she walked in without a word. He closed the door and leaned against it, watching her. She kept her hand-bag on a side-table and her wind-cheater folded on the back of a chair. Then, she went to him. They stood there, hand in hand, looking at each other, smiling.

‘Missed you…’ she said as he pulled her towards him. ‘So much…’ The ‘much’ lingered long, soft and thick in the air, till they kissed.

They held each other as they swayed with the music, languorous dancing with impromptu steps, instincts leading and following. She leaned against his broad chest, opened a few buttons on his shirt and lightly traced lines in the light hair. Her left hand curled under his arm and held onto his shoulder or caressed his back. His hand circled around her, held her close and tight, with his head resting against her forehead or lightly kissing her ears, her hair, her forehead, her cheeks, her lips. His right hand lingered on her naked skin beneath her blouse, teasing and caressing, moving gently with the music from her breasts to her waist, back and forth.

‘How I wish I could remain like this forever…’ she said later when they rested on the floor cushions. ‘I could sleep…I could dream…lying here, against your chest, I feel so…’ her voice trailed.

Around noon, they dressed, rustled up a quick lunch and shared the meal standing in the compact kitchen of his rented well-furnished studio apartment. Two sparrows came to the kitchen window, looked in, tilted their head sideways and chirped at them and at each other. She opened the window and sprinkled some bread crumbs saying, ‘Sparrow-kutta…here…’ The birds came warily, pecked and left. He watched her, smiled at her, and happy with himself feeling her life filling every nook and cranny of his existence.

Around mid-afternoon, she put on her wind-cheater, picked up her hand-bag and moved towards the door. They kissed long and deeply.

‘I wish I didn’t have to go…’ she said and left.

He stood by the doorway and watched her walk away. A strange afternoon breeze disturbed her hair and he wanted to comb it down with his fingers. He watched her swaying hips and straight back. He remembered that he had first noticed her while admiring her elegant walking style. He stood there till she vanished.

He went back inside. He collected his belongings and packed it all in two suitcases and a large cardboard box. He cleaned up the place thoroughly trying for its pristine condition. At dusk, he rested for a while, sipping water, lazily reading an old mid-day newspaper, a leftover of his packing.

One large headline screamed about a lover killing a straying partner. A smaller news item was about a suicide after a painful separation. Everywhere, everyone seems to be coming, going, never staying together for long, he thought.

He loaded his suitcases and the box in his car. Then, he gave the house-keys to his landlord and received the deposit money. ‘Where are you going? Do you have a forwarding address?’ the landlord asked. He shrugged.

With a friendly wave from the car and a melancholic smile, he bid goodbye. At the cross-road, he squinted at the dying rays in the cool dewy late evening air, and tried to choose north, east, west or south.

The First Lover

For the ‘veteran’ petitioners like Sheila, the new Court was a big relief. No more of standing in the dusty (or muddy, if it rained) courtyard of the old place though most of them agreed that it used to have a nice homely feel. But, they preferred the new, bright and well-ventilated modern building. Sheila thought it was like comparing a favourite old family doctor’s dilapidated clinic and a chic antiseptic impersonal multi-speciality hospital.

Lunch break was over and, in his chamber, the judge was meeting the ‘cases’, reviewing their petitions and deciding their lives. Sheila and other petitioners, their respondents, lawyers and clerks sat in the court room waiting for their chance with the judge. Sheila’s lawyer (or rather, her main lawyer’s junior) Satheesh had assured her that it could be her last day in court, her lucky day. She had smiled. He always told her that. She was quite used to it.

How many years have gone by and how many appearances, she wondered. She still felt queasy before she left her house at 10:30 to reach the court by 10:45. There, lawyer Satheesh and his clerk would try to encourage her or give her instructions about what could happen that day. Each time her name was called in court, she felt her hands get clammy, heart pounding and legs ready to buckle. But, she was quite used to it.

Sheila sat next to Satheesh and his clerk. She listened to the discussion between lawyers and clients. She watched the grief, the determination and the rare smiles. One of the first things she realized in Court was that no case is personal or confidential. It had initially felt like a breach of trust but later it seemed more like a cure. At first, each case or grievance seemed strange and harsh. Then, the scenes got familiar having heard or seen some version at one time or the other.

One lady-lawyer (probably the lawyer of a male respondent, Sheila guessed) joked with her colleague, ‘Hai! My poor chap, you know, he drinks a peg or two and she has a problem with that. Kerala depends on such men for revenue generation, you know. He talks to other women and she has a problem. He tried calling me at night few times, you know, poor chap is such a smooth talker, a real panjarakuttan (flirt). If she has such problems, you know, why did she get married?’

The other (the male lawyer must be that of the petitioner-wife, Sheila decided) laughed and replied, ‘Well, she is going to be 30 lakhs richer with her problems. Now, he can talk as much as he wants with women without such problems. Make sure your client doesn’t disappear, ok? At least, till we get paid…let’s finish it off, ok? No more tricks, please…’

In another scene, a young man was telling his lawyer quite excitedly, ‘I want justice. I want the truth to come out. She can’t escape after ruining my life.’

The lawyer asked that client quietly but firmly, ‘Do you want a divorce or do you want truth and justice?’

Near the court counselor’s office, a lawyer was instructing a middle-aged lady, ‘Talk about those occasions when he hit you. And, when he created a fuss in your parents’ place…and, that he doesn’t know anything about the kids’ affairs…and, that he used your money and gold to start his business...and, that he did not give you any money. He will be telling the counselor that it was always good between you two...’

The mild lady replied softly, ‘There were good times too…people aren’t 100% villain, no?’

Her lawyer said with an exasperated tone, ‘If you say that, the counselor will say that that you two should meet an external counselor since there is still a lot of hope…’

The lady looked confused and also scared (maybe, about such ‘hope’ of returning to her husband, Sheila thought).

The lady’s lawyer quickly consoled her, ‘Don’t worry…just treat this place like any government office…the court officers want to hear the right words…to go ahead with the process…if you say the wrong words, they will get confused and they will treat your case like a badly filled form…and you will have to run around…till they get the form filled the way they expect…’

Sheila smiled at those familiar words. Her main lawyer Ashok had given her that advice long back, before she had filed her divorce petition. She had wanted to include only truth in her petition. Ashok had told her that even truth should be written with the right language.

Sheila looked at her watch – nearly 2:30. She had not had lunch. She did not feel hungry – her appetite always went for a toss a few days before and after such days. She took out a bottle of water from her bag and sipped. How she wished this would end…

She remembered the day she walked to Ashok’s house and requested him to be her divorce lawyer. Ashok is her elder brother’s childhood friend; or rather, was her brother’s friend before they parted ways. She had heard about a fight but never got to know the real reason – some girlie problem, she had concluded. She was eight when she first met Ashok. Her brother used to talk about Ashok’s maverick ways in school – a firebrand anti-social leader for the juniors and most of his peers but he was never well-liked. He was a pain for the school authority and teachers, Sheila’s brother used to say. If he had not been good in studies, Ashok would have been dismissed from school.

To Sheila, Ashok was an additional brother figure then – though he seemed fiercer than her own brothers. Ashok enquired about her studies and extra-curricular activities. He encouraged her to do better and rarely found her achievements praise-worthy. Much later, on her first date, she and her boyfriend had gone to the only Chinese restaurant in town. By sheer coincidence, Ashok also landed at that place for a solitary lunch. Ashok nodded seriously when she introduced her boyfriend. Ashok did not say a word, not even a simple Hi. Ashok sat at the table behind theirs, facing her boyfriend and she could nearly feel Ashok’s eyes on her back. Sheila remembered that it was an awful, quick and mostly silent first-date.

In the years that followed, she used to meet Ashok when they were both studying in Bangalore. Then, her brother and Ashok fought bitterly over some issue – neither of them would talk to her or anyone about the reason. She tried to keep in touch with Ashok but the fight with her brother affected them, too. She invited him for her wedding. Ashok did not turn up, probably because her brother had not invited him. Ashok did not invite her for his wedding – she heard that he had not invited anyone. She also heard about his wife’s death a few years later but by then, her troubled marriage dictated every moment of her life and she had no energy to think of anyone or anything beyond that suffocating world.

She still wondered if she had been impulsive when she decided to get out of that world. She thought about the strange decisive force that had made her ask Ashok to be her divorce lawyer. He ‘interrogated’ her extensively on three days at his place. On the second day, she had met his daughter Lakshmi for the first time – a lovely beautiful girl. The daughter had received her coldly at the door and when her father requested her to make tea for him and Sheila, she told her father that she had some homework to complete. Sheila heard the kid march upstairs to her room and bang a door. Ashok shrugged his shoulder and continued ‘interrogating’ Sheila.

Sheila told him everything about her marriage. The economic and intellectual mismatch, the insecurity, the fast decline of a life partner to be a beast of burden, the daily taunts and mental torture, even how they drifted to separate rooms. She tried to recollect the happy moments of that matrimony – a few movies, two trips and couple of convenient dinners at a restaurant.

On the third session, she admitted to Ashok that the problems could have started in a rather innocuous way. Her husband had mentioned once about a ‘close-relationship’ with a girl when he was in college. Sheila admitted to Ashok that she had then retorted quickly and without much thought, probably just to spite, that she also had a ‘lover’ once much before their wedding. A few months later, she had met her husband’s old girlfriend at a wedding. She had nearly laughed at her husband’s discomfiture in the presence of the garrulous rather grotesquely dressed up lady. Her husband never got to meet her first lover or even know the slightest details – the first lover’s ghostly anonymous presence probably served as the poltergeist wrecking their fragile marriage, Sheila confided in Ashok. Ashok asked her if her husband could produce any surprising evidence in court regarding the first lover. She shook her head.

Sheila realized that Ashok used these informal ‘interrogation’ sessions to decide if the petitioner was actually ready for a divorce or whether the client was just being frivolous and immature. At the end of the third session, Ashok informed her that he would help her. Ashok told her that his junior Satheesh would be dealing with the nitty-gritty details of the case and that he would keep track of its progress. After that third session, Sheila saw Ashok once or twice at his office or on the court premises but they never talked to each other. Sheila phoned him once, when she had felt very nervous about the proceedings, but he coldly told her to get in touch with Satheesh.

Sheila understood Ashok’s cold professionalism. She did not find fault with him for keeping her at a distance – she knew how she must appear to him. She knew how she wanted to lean on someone, a friend that would be there day in and day out while she fell into an abyss of loneliness and empty hopelessness. She knew how such a clinging person would appear to another. Sheila could understand Lakshmi’s reaction. Even she would have kept such a pathetic person away, away from personal involvement, Sheila told herself. Even a whiff of friendliness would have seemed like love while she struggled to breathe, suffocated by the air around her, the air of hatred, bitterness and fear.

Sheila struggled with the case alone, debating with herself, weighing the pros and cons on her own, with endless nights of nightmarish indecision, waking up tired and ready to give in to maintain status quo for the sake of some certainty, ready to give up her last dream of living without abuse, her last dream of hoping, even if it was just a hope without a smile. She had to make every decision on her own. There were days when she cursed Ashok for not being even a friend, just a friend.

  

While she waited for the judge to call, Sheila thought about all this – the past, her dull blank life and the many visits to Court. When she was called around 4:00, she followed lawyer Satheesh to the judge’s chamber. She went through the motions, detached, disinterested and mildly confused. It did not take long. When she left the Court, Satheesh accompanied her. She barely heard him say,

‘Well, that’s over…I will take care of the rest of the formalities. Do not worry about anything…’

She gave him an envelope with money as fees. And, he left her alone.

She walked slowly on the tree-lined path from the Court to the exit. She looked up. Through the trees, she could see the evening blue sky. She thought she should say a prayer or a word of thanks. But, she felt too tired and defeated even for that.

Sheila hardly felt the hand on her arm. A bit confused, she came out of her reverie and stared at the person standing next to her. It was Ashok’s daughter – she had grown taller, Sheila noticed. Lakshmi smiled at Sheila, pointed at her father who was standing near a car,

‘Aunty, we have been waiting…’

While...

While I wrote the love poem

I heard her fading footsteps –

Black ink on yellowing pages

Lasts longer with empty jokes;

While I fought for my friends

I saw them shifting company –

Sweat, blood, tears on fallen ground

Mix well with dirty slush;

While I wrote the last note

I prayed to them: ignore –

Or, battles and false verses and such

Wasteful ways will wear resolve;

While I fought for my life

I felt a gentle hand in mine –

Guiding me to new ways but

Without a heart, I let it slip.

Where I died before I was born

I was a hero then.

In tattered fatigues,

Camouflaged blackened face

With mama’s eyeliner,

I dug trenches, built barricades

Around fanciful dreams,

Enacted the best

Of Commando comics –

I loved the Air force:

Vroom , swooosh…I somersaulted, I turned

Ta-ta-ta, dish-keow…my gunner killed, maimed.

 I always returned to a waiting family.

She was always there to place flowers on my grave

With that strange epitaph ‘he died before he was born’.

But then she died

And I decayed.

Nightmares kept me awake

With a lullaby about my brave deeds:

I smiled, rubbed my hands with glee

When I dropped Fat Man and Little Boy

My mustache nearly singed

While I watched flesh vapourizing below;

I was a glad voyeur

In those killing fields, in that nation called Tragedy,

I hooted and cheered, a spectator’s sport it was

While my friends raped and killed women with blank eyes;

I bombed the bunker at Amiriyah in Feb 1991

Man, it was a blast

Thousands, dude, thousands within

They lie when they say it was innocent parents, children.

Why am I there

In all those wars where I died before I was born?

And now, when I should be telling grandkids grand tales

I have to go for my real war

Well within the border, with my own lot.

I blasted my superior about keeping me inferior;

Do you know how he squealed and begged

When my fingers closed around his windpipe

And I pulled it out, blood-spattering good it was!

I watched paid-goons rule the street

Tormenting, dictating, calling me slave;

I waited, I promised, I conned masses

To follow me Spartacus to fight like animals.

Then, one night I heard them on my land

They said it is not mine no more

For the last fight, I unsheathed my sword, charged

Like Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid

Blinded, deafened by the roar of their blazing guns.

I have to go for my real war

Where I died before I was born.