Marginal Man

by Charu Nivedita

  The helpers also partook of the revelry. This took them by surprise, for, on such occasions, they were given the dregs and the spittle. They were so pleased that they took the boats out to sea that night, brought in a good catch and even cooked for us.

  The merrymaking lasted till the wee hours of the morning. Gnanam had drunk too much and was lying akimbo on the sand. We were worried because he was lying face down. Four of us shifted him to the tarpaulin, one limb per man, but he rolled back onto the sand again and we left him there.

  Kannan, who was sitting in a chair, kept turning to the left and then to the right, like he was trying to cross a highway. He threw up with each half-turn of his head. He was also asking a question that seemed to be bothering him no end: “Why the bloody hell doesn’t Mani Ratnam ever make a good movie?” After he had asked this question maybe a hundred times, he drifted off to sleep.

  I must be careful to not spill too much ink about Kokkarakko; he might walk off with the entire novel. But I insist on telling you how we became acquainted with each other. You will never fully understand him if I don’t. He was one of the readers who was in attendance at the Bangalore readers’ circle meeting. Nothing about the man struck me then. He was just another face in the crowd. It was only the next day I realized that there was something about him that singled him out, that set him apart from the others. He asked Guru and me if we could go to a pub on Brigade Road the following afternoon. We accepted the invitation and gave him our numbers without asking for his.

  That night, Guru and I hit the sack late after staying up with friends. As was my wont, I woke up with the birds, but Guru was out like a fused light. I tried in vain to wake him up at ten, then at noon, and then at six, but he didn’t stir. Kokkarakko called me at six as well to tell me that Guru wasn’t answering his calls. I told him that Guru was playing Sleeping Beauty and we agreed to meet at one of the pubs on Brigade Road at 7. My last attempt to rouse Guru was also in vain. The vodka must have been too strong for him as he was more of a beer person. The drunken spell having run its course, Guru woke up at 9 and had a quick shower after which we were off to Brigade Road. It was 10 by the time we reached.

  Kokkarakko told us that he and his friend Natesan had been milling about Brigade Road for three hours, waiting for us to turn up. If I’d left without Guru, I might’ve ended up in Manipal. The pub was about to close. We managed to order three rounds of drinks before leaving for Natesan’s place where we spent the night.

  In the morning, when I woke up, Natesan was not home. He’d probably left for his morning walk. Wanting to make some tea, I went to the kitchen. Neither match nor lighter generated a flame. Kokkarakko came into the kitchen after hearing me potter about. When I told him I was trying to light the stove, he said, “You have to open the cylinder valve too.” He did so and lit the stove. Immediately, a huge column of fire shot up and Kokkarakko’s hair got singed. Kokkarakko didn’t panic; he just turned the cylinder valve off. The fire vanished almost instantly. Kokkarakko didn’t seem to mind that he’d nearly reduced us both to charcoal. Only after Natesan returned home did we realize what had happened. Natesan, it turned out, was a stickler for cleanliness. After all of us had slept, he’d washed the kitchen clean. To clean the stove, he’d disconnected the tube that connected it to the cylinder. When Kokkarakko opened the valve, the gas had escaped via the tube. I swore to never enter a stranger’s kitchen again.

  My thoughts keep returning to how he called Guru all day even though he had my number and decided to try me only at six in the evening when we were scheduled to meet in the afternoon.

  Months after our meeting in Bangalore, I received an e-mail from him. He had much to say:

  Tokyo is the city that outshines both Singapore and Hong Kong. In Hong Kong, the area where the Chinese live is quite filthy (not unlike Indians), but there is no doubt that the city is exciting. Though the whites quit the place ten years ago, it still functions more or less like a colony.

  Tokyo is a chunk of paradise on earth. It appears to me that its society is cleaved into two parts. The first part is hostile, purely Japanese, unadulterated. The other part is more welcoming of gajins. Gajins are the outsiders. It is amusing to watch the faces of the Americans fall when they realize what they are being called. The purely Japanese sect frequents their own bars while the other sect goes to theirs. This is the custom here. As I’m a gajin, I go to Roppongi, Japan’s Sin City. There are several strip clubs, cabarets and restaurants there. My friends and I decided to go someplace and have an orgy that day. I’d been unwell then, so I was on a diet, but to my luck, the fever subsided, allowing me to relish some authentic Japanese food.

  I stuck to vegetarian food because of my sickness, so I couldn’t try the sashimi, but my friends ate on my behalf and told me how divine it was. I contented myself with a screwdriver.

  Next, these friends of mine took me to Geronimo, a shot bar. This bar serves only liquor, which means you don’t get any soda to dilute the stuff with. You just drink it “raw.” And in one gulp – no sipping. Here, different liquors are mixed and served under fancy names like “Cracy Phuk,” “Slippery Nipple,” “Blue Nights,” Pink Orgasm,” and “Flaming Lamborghini.” You drink to cowboy music there. The walls featured metal plates with names and dates inscribed on them – achievement boards of sorts. If you want to see your name feature on these plates, all you have to do is down fifteen shots in one night. You can’t drink the same thing twice, and you can’t choose what you drink; that privilege is exclusively the bartender’s.

  I don’t know how, when or why I decided to take up the challenge to have my name inscribed on a plate. By 4 a.m., I had downed twelve shots – just three more to go. I told this to the barman. He showed me the menu and asked me to give him the names of the shots I’d already drunk. While naming the shots, I realized that two had been repeated – what a waste! My friends urged the barman to bring the remaining five shots, all of which tasted like acid.

  Flaming Lamborghini was one of them. Although I was sipping it with a straw, it felt like fire in my mouth. The last shot was tequila with a large worm in the glass. It was part of the drink, I was told. I had to swallow a worm after being a steadfast vegetarian the whole day! The worm tequila was my seventeenth shot. If you ever happen to go there and if you’re sober enough to read, you can try searching for a legend’s name on the plates. What you say? It’s KOKKARAKKO – 20.08.2007. I saw it even last week but did not have the presence of mind to take a picture of it.

  They also gave me a t-shirt with the bar’s logo as well as the names of the seventeen shots I’d drunk that night.

  It was half-past-five by the time we left Geronimo. Outside, the sun was shining brightly. We half-staggered, half-crawled back to our rooms. When I regained consciousness, I heard a scraping at the door like nails on a chalkboard. Opening my eyes as wide as a slit, I looked at my watch – 8:35. The sun was still shining. Was it evening already? Or was it the next morning? If it was indeed the next morning, my flight would have departed! And just then I noticed I’d slept with my shoes on.

  I got to my feet. When I tried to walk, I tottered and almost fell face first to the floor. Somehow, I managed to go outside. My colleague – fresh as a fucking daisy because he didn’t take seventeen shots – was waiting for me. He told me with a sickly sweet smile to get ready in thirty minutes. I asked for a few minutes and got ready for the “ice cure.” Do you know what an “ice cure” is? It’s this remedy that fixes a hungover man’s fucked up homeostasis. All you have to do is plug your washbasin, dunk several ice cubes into it and fill it with water. Then, you keep your face in the chilly water until it’s frozen stiff. Then, you sit in a tub of cold water for fifteen minutes.

  The ice cure took care of my hangover. When I resumed the company of my friends, they all greeted me like a returned hero. Nobody could believe that I’d returned to work within three hours after downing seventeen shots.

 
; Now you might understand why I feel that Kokkarakko should come with a ‘Beware of Walking Drunk Tank’ sign around his neck. They say that even elephants can stumble sometimes. History repeated itself when we were celebrating my birthday in Kodaikanal. Kokkarakko had driven us there from Chennai. He had four pegs of vodka to celebrate our arrival and went off to sleep, exhausted after the drive. I tried slapping him, shaking him and shouting at him to wake up and have a peg for the occasion. He jumped up and gulped down three pegs. He babbled for a bit and fell asleep again only to wake up at 10 p.m. the next day.

  3 – Guilt over a Goat

  We had a series of meetings in quick succession soon after the Pichavaram Carnival. Most of them were held in Mahabalipuram which was proximate to the sea. I preferred forests and mountains to the ocean, but since we were all middle-class men, we had to keep the costs in mind. Since it cost less to travel to Mahabalipuram, my friends preferred to meet there. However, I nagged them every once in a while to persuade them to choose the mountains sometime.

  We eventually settled on a mountain house in Ebbanad.

  Ebbanad is a small village nestled in the shadow of a mountain, around fourteen kilometers from Ooty. It has a population of 6000. There is a mountain path in Ebbanad that leads to a house, the only token of human habitation. The owner of this house rents it out to travelers. It was in that very house that the ten of us were planning to stay. The place is not easily accessible at all. The path is rocky and only a jeep can take you there with much ado. If it rains, there is the possibility of the jeep gliding like a bar of slippery soap on a laminate countertop and falling off the ledge.

  My friends had put me and all our belongings in a Tavera and sent me on my way. When we were almost halfway there, it began to pour. It was only good fortune that Arul was an ace driver who was determined to convey me to the house. The others had to walk in the rain. No connectivity meant I couldn’t even get hold of them on the phone.

  Though the journey was fraught with danger, Arul reached the house without incident. The house stood alone in a ravine. Mountains towered behind it like giant sentries. Only the twittering of the birds punctuated the silence. A profound tranquility hung over the area.

  Arul unloaded the luggage and got back into the car for the arduous return journey to Ebbanad. In a few hours, my party had arrived, soaked to the bone and dripping all over the place. They were being bled by leeches. The slimy creatures were all over them. My friends began to pull them out and toss them into the fire. Their wounds continued to bleed for several hours. Just then, quite unexpectedly, Arul appeared before us in pretty much the same leech-bitten condition. The Tavera had stalled during the ascent and he came to ask for our help to push the vehicle. My friends groaned in dismay. They had just arrived after a grueling six-kilometer trek through the forest and now they were being called to exert themselves further. Ultimately, five of the sturdiest young men went to help Arul with the Tavera.

  There was no electricity in the house. We had come prepared for it, so that wasn’t much of a problem. If we wanted light, we could just start a campfire outside the house. Inside, we could use hurricane lamps. But we soon realized that there were other problems in store. There was a cook and a helper in the house. The former had no clue about cooking. When we asked for sambar, he served us boiled dal. When we asked him if he could make some gravy with the dry fish we’d brought, he said he could whip it up in no time and that it was no big deal. We ended up having to eat fish dunked in boiling water with spices sprinkled on it. Every cup of tea came with a lethal six tablespoons of sugar in it. And like all of this wasn’t enough, there was no water in the bathroom. In the style of the villagers, we took some water in plastic bottles and relieved ourselves among the rocks, but this too was dangerous. If you are spotted by a bear or an elephant that starts pursuing you, there’s not much you can do to escape with a bottle of water in your hands, a half-full bladder and your pants around your ankles. We discharged in fear and, trembling, hurried back into the house. Hot water for a bath was out of the question. Imagine the plight of having to bathe in cold water in a hill station! Only the braver among us bathed. We were totally severed from the world for three days without electricity, mobile phones, laptops, newspapers and television. Wait, there’s more! The rain had drenched all my clothes while I was on my way here, so I couldn’t change out of my wet clothes for three days.

  But even amidst all these problems, the ravine felt like heaven. Sometimes the mist obscured the mountains from view. When the mist lifted, I thought I saw a huge boulder at the top of the mountain, but when I looked at it through my binoculars, I realized it was a bison.

  Prabhu the chef was also among us. It was he who saved us from the culinary experiments of the house chef. On the first day, he cooked the chickens we’d taken with us. The next day, there was barbecued lamb. Now you must be wondering how we stumbled across a goat in the middle of the forest… That, dear reader, is a story in itself.

  After Prabhu had cooked the chickens, we made a campfire and were sitting around it having literary discussions aided by generous helpings of drinks. Around midnight, two young men arrived at the place on a bike. We couldn’t believe our eyes.

  They were college students from Avinashi. Even they’d wanted to relive the Zorba story. “We brought a goat with us for it,” they said. They had biked 80 kilometers to Ebbanad. As they felt the police might suspect them of being goat thieves, they’d been smart enough to get a receipt from the seller. It was a good move for they were indeed pulled over by the cops at a number of places along the way and the receipt was their saving grace. Some cops had even stopped them thinking they were abducting a child. They had the bleating goat to thank for that. With all that, they managed to reach Ebbanad at 10.

  It had been one hell of a task to carry the goat and push the bike on the slippery rock-strewn path in the rain. They’d sustained scratches and bruises from their falls (from the bike and the walk). They had the pitch darkness to worry about and the prospects of the goat’s bleating attracting a wild animal that would have had a most sumptuous dinner.

  The goat had been seated on the lap of the pillion rider. The dark and the strangeness of the journey terrified the goat enough to bite the back of the young man riding the bike. At one point, unable to bear the creature’s perilous antics any longer, they tied it to a tree and continued their journey. (The man who had sold them the goat had also furnished them with a rope. What a great sense of business ethics he had!) But what unsettled them was the lurking doubt of where the path they were taking was leading them. They had set out to meet the writer, braving all the odds. They assured themselves that the path would lead them somewhere and they could ask for directions if they got themselves lost.Along with the goat, they’d hidden some bottles of liquor so as to reduce their load. When I heard their story, I was reminded of how Werner Herzog had a steamship transported up a steep mountain for the film Fitzcarraldo.

  Okay. Now all that was left to do was find the goat and bring it to where we were. Only a while ago, the gang had returned after pushing the Tavera up the mountain. Going back up again was a dismaying prospect but we were infused with vigor when we thought of the impossible feat the young men had achieved. My friends accompanied them into the forest with a torch. They left at midnight and returned at 2 a.m.

  The barbecue was to be held the next evening, but our hearts began to melt as the goat kept bleating piteously throughout the day. “Should we take a life to satisfy our hunger?” I asked. A friend replied that if we didn’t eat such creatures, the ecological balance would be upset. This is the opinion of Marvin Harris, the American anthropologist. Culture and the environment are related more closely than we think. Can a desert-dwelling Mongolian survive on vegetables? Another friend argued that even plants have life.

  An excellent argument indeed! Both plants and cows have life, so there is no difference whether you eat one or the other. Anoth
er asked, “In that case, can we eat human beings too?” I replied that Tolkappiyar had given a most remarkable answer to this question. I recited it from memory:

  Once the recitation was through, I launched into the explanation.

  “Among the animate beings in this world, there are the trees and the plants that are equipped with but a single faculty – touch; then come the snails and the mussels who are bestowed with the additional sense of taste; termites and ants have an olfactory apparatus while wasps and honeybees possess the fourth sense of sight; animals that bear themselves on two or four limbs have five senses; and the human being is endowed with six.”

  Tolkappiyar had treated of evolutionary theories 3000 years before Charles Darwin. Not to mention that he was only compiling what others had discovered before him. Okay, let’s shelve this discussion for later.

  Going by Tolkappiyar’s distinctions, can one equate the eating of a cow with the eating of a plant? Or can one justify the eating of a cow by a human being? The cow, compared to man, falls short of one sense. Nevertheless, it would have taken cows millions of years to reach the fifth stage in the evolutionary process. And here we are, swallowing all those millions of years along with our beef curry.

  Suddenly, I veered off course and asked my friends eagerly, “What will happen to this world if people couldn’t feel hunger anymore?”

  No response was forthcoming. I declared that the world would be headed towards inevitable destruction.

  What would you do, dear reader, if you couldn’t feel hunger?

  On the night of the barbecue, Prabhu had our undivided attention. With his silver tongue, he began to narrate select events from his life on the ship. At one point, he looked at me and asked, “Which women are the best seducers?” “Brazilian women,” I said immediately. “True,” he replied, and went on to tell us about the time he met this Brazilian girl who was on the barstool next to his. She was part of the ship’s crew. They’d talked for a long time before parting. The next day, Prabhu got a call from the woman who demanded to know why he didn’t call her. When a bemused Prabhu asked her what the matter was, she whined, “But yesterday you said, ‘See you later!’”