Marginal Man

by Charu Nivedita

  When I was studying in Serfoji College, I used to spend most of my time in Saraswati Mahal Library. King Serfoji (1777 – 1832) was a polyglot who knew Tamil, Telugu, Sanskrit, Urdu, English, French, German, Danish, Greek, Dutch and Latin. He dispatched emissaries to every corner of the globe to bring back books for his library. I have seen his numerous notations in English in several books here. He was well-versed on the subjects of medicine, architecture, astrology, music, dance, theatre and food. I doubt there was ever another ruler so adored and loved by his subjects. It is said that he built an underground sewerage in Thanjavur, but I’ll never know how it disappeared and where to. I wonder what poor King Serfoji thinks when he sees his domain – now an open-air toilet – from wherever he is.

  Standing in Naalukal Mandapam, I thought of Mekhala. Forty years had gone by – where would she be now? In her eyes, I was nothing but a deceiver. I don’t know what had come over me that I’d started to ruminate over the past all of a sudden.

  I entered a lane hoping to find my way to West Street. I had to repeatedly ask for directions. People would tell me to turn this way or that, but I always wound up in front of somebody’s house or at a dead end. I pressed on and managed to find another lane that led to West Street where the Kamakshi Amman Temple was.

  When I lived with my aunt – my mother’s older sister – in Venkatesa Perumal Kovil Lane, I used to accompany her to the amman temple daily. My aunt, like the goddess, was called Kamakshi and she spent a good deal of time at the temple, but her devotion to the goddess did not win her any succor or relief from the misery the two feckless men in her life – her drunken, unemployed son and her untrue, uncaring husband – caused her. She eked out a living by working by a maid in four houses. She regarded me as her son and I looked upon her as my mother and was very devoted to her. Every Saturday, she would give me an oil bath, train the smoke of the incense on her puja tray on my face, and feed me a sumptuous lunch of rice and mutton curry. I had never been as fond of my own mother who, to be honest, I’d barely touched. My aunt continued to give me oil baths even when I began going to college. She frequently asked me to massage her legs and press her feet when she was tired and soap her back when she was bathing. I remember how my hand used to slip down her marble-smooth back. It felt strangely good to touch her, and it saddened me that a beautiful woman like her was unloved. Before I left, she held me close to her bosom and stroked my head. “You won’t forget this mother of yours when you go to Delhi, will you?” she asked me. While I loved my aunt, my mother despised her. She would tell me she used her fair skin to seduce men.

  I’d told my aunt about Mekhala, but telling someone about her had not unburdened me. I was restless in Thanjavur, so, when I landed a job in Delhi while I was still in college, I slipped away in the night without a second thought or a word to anyone. I’d always dreamed of going to Delhi and once I got there, I forgot all about Mekhala, but my aunt, even though I never thought about her much, I felt guilty whenever she crossed my mind. Perhaps I could have eased my conscience by sending her some money, but my income could not sustain me if I sanctioned a share for her as three hundred rupees of my salary of five hundred and sixty had to be sent to my father. He’d taken a loan from his brother to marry my sister and the unfortunate task of repaying the loan, interest and all, had fallen to my lot.

  Within a year of getting married, my sister delivered a baby girl and my father promptly wrote me a letter saying he needed money for the child’s ear-piercing ceremony in Tirupati. He reminded me that, as the maternal uncle, it was my duty to buy the child a pair of gold earrings. I sent him an obscene letter. This was the gist:

  At my age, you were a father of two children, but at the age of twenty-seven, I still have to pleasure myself as I am still single. If my brother-in-law fucked my sister and gave her a child, why must I be burdened with meaningless expenses? You have two other daughters who are younger than me. Do you expect me to pay a fortune for their weddings, but gold for their offspring and get relegated to a street corner while they happily fuck their husbands? By the time I think of getting married, my dick will have shriveled and fallen off like a dead leaf.

  After my letter had been read, my family concluded I was crazy.

  Almost everyone you know has come to the same conclusion that it doesn’t even surprise me anymore.

  After my explicit letter had reached them, I heard not another word from them.

  I was twenty-four when I last saw my aunt, just before I left for Delhi. Although I was tight for money, I don’t think I was justified in not sparing a portion of my earnings for her. I could have at least paid her an annual visit. I didn’t. To this day, my heart aches when I think of the way I abandoned her. How could I have been so ungrateful to the woman who loved me more than my birth mother?

  Exactly thirty-six years later, I found myself weeping bitter tears before Bangaru Kamakshi amman. I silently asked her, “What grievous sin did that woman commit? All her life she’s been most faithfully devoted to you yet she is visited only by sorrow. Where is your mercy? People look to you for justice. Is this your twisted notion of justice? But what are you to do, poor thing? After all, you were carried here to safety from Kanchipuram because the Brahmins wanted to save you from the Mughal ruler who would have melted you in the furnace and made ornaments out of your golden body to adorn the bodies of his concubines.

  In the year 1786, the Mughal army was marching towards Kanchipuram. The people of Kanchipuram feared that the soldiers would loot the golden Kamakshi idol, so it was clandestinely moved to Udayarpalayam where it was hidden. The Maratha ruler of Thanjavur did not want the goddess lying unworshipped in Udayarpalayam, so he invited the Kanchipuram Brahmins to install her in Thanjavur itself.

  Chapter twelve

  The Story of a Tamil Family

  Aunt Kamakshi had been married off when my grandmother’s coffers were still full. Her husband, Kandasamy, was a port officer in Chennai. My aunt’s beauty was divine like the goddess who was her namesake. Like Kamakshi Amman, Aunt Kamakshi shone like she was dusted with gold; when she walked, her feet were like little birds that never seemed to touch the ground; her skin was as fair and as smooth as the inside of a seashell. Kandasamy, in stark contrast, was the color of soot; he had a lopsided face and rodent-like front teeth. He was a sight to behold in the bridal chamber, I was told.

  One year of conjugal life had not infused any love into the marriage. Kandasamy never once took Kamakshi out, and at home, they lived like strangers under the same roof. He always had his nose in a book during the day and the evenings would find him in a club where he played table-tennis. On his ten o’clock return, he would resume his reading. This was the unchanged tune of his life.

  Within a year of marriage, Kandasamy kissed his job goodbye, saying that it was futile to slog for a foolish wife. He packed them both off to Villupuram soon after. There, he began privately tutoring college students, but his income was a pittance. It wasn’t enough to make ends meet.

  In the meanwhile, Aunt Kamakshi gave birth to a son who was named Natesan. The birth of the child, a third mouth to feed, reduced the family to dire straits. Kandasamy was as affected as a stone. His life was comprised solely of reading, tuitions and evening games. After he had relocated to Villupuram, his sports preferences shifted from table-tennis to volleyball, something that had his interest and devotion.

  As Kandasamy chose not to work and Kamakshi had no choice to work, food was scarce or lacking altogether in the household, and when Kandasamy heard that his wife had begun to borrow provisions from the neighbors, he thrashed her for having brought dishonor upon him. Kamakshi’s life had begun to take on a familiar pattern of hunger, neglect and beatings. Kandasamy did not have to fear for his fare as he had several well-stocked friends in town.

  Kandasamy and Kamakshi’s son, Natesan, was bright-complexioned and handsome – everything his father was not. His good-looking son ga
ve him cause to suspect his wife’s fidelity. He reasoned that she’d been frequenting the neighbors’ houses, even after being barred from so doing, for more than just rice, tamarind and chilies. She soon became a prisoner within her own four walls. She was forbidden from showing a sliver of her face to her husband’s tutees.

  As Kandasamy’s overbearingness intensified, Kamakshi’s endurance was wearing thin. When the last portion of her tolerance had evaporated, she packed herself and her son off to her mother Pappathy Ammal’s place. However, the mother was neither a rock nor a relief to her ill-used daughter. Pappathy’s petulant raves made up for Kandasamy’s indifferent silence.

  Finally, like she had done once before, she packed her chattels and quit the place.

  The next person on whose doorstep Kamakshi found herself was Umayal’s.

  Umayal was Kamakshi’s older sister and the two shared the feeling of sororal warmth, but Pappathy popped up frequently like a fly in the milk to pick fights with Kamakshi. What her husband had suspected her of, her own mother had accused her of. Pappathy alleged that Kandasamy was not Natesan’s father. On hearing this, Kamakshi flew into a fiery rage and accused Pappathy of killing her husband, Umayal and Kamakshi’s father, just so she could roll around with other men.

  Pappathy Ammal said no more. She just repaired to Servarayan Temple and hexed Kamakshi, her own flesh and blood.

  Within a week, Natesan’s stomach tumefied and he died.

  Umayal’s husband, Ramasamy, was the owner of six acres of land and two houses, and the father of four sons.

  The firstborn, Azhaguvel, completed his education up to the elementary level. He associated his memories of father with the sound of a thwack. The abuse made him bitter and despondent; he became a smoker and a drifter. He pinched money from the house to go to the movies, and, at the age of twenty, acquired a mistress, whose bed he found more comfortable than the sweet-nothing he slept on in his father’s house.

  The second-born, Murugavel, had a singular passion, dedication and devotion towards film. While in the eighth grade, he played around with the idea of writing a film script that would be a game changer, and finally, he ended up writing one instead of studying for his exams. Not surprisingly, he failed, but this was no matter of great sorrow, for the young man did not wish to attend school any longer.

  The third son was called Gnanavel. He played truant from school in order to go and play in the tamarind grove. This went on for a year before his father was acquainted with the information. From then on, Ramasamy took it upon himself to drop Gnanavel off at school, and, as a sign of rebellion, the son soiled his shorts in class every day. Unable to bear with Gnanavel’s shenanigans, the principal summoned Ramasamy and boxed his ears. Following this humiliating incident, Ramasamy stopped forcing his son to attend school and Gnanavel eventually dropped out.

  Rajavel, the fourth son, was akin to his brother Murugavel in many aspects – he watched movies everyday and wrote scripts, but he soon realized that direction was a more intelligent exercise than screenwriting. Is the leader of the ship the captain or the engineer? he loved to ask. Rajavel was of the opinion that Murugavel’s understanding of cinema was faulty, and he became the sharpest critic of his brother’s works. The two had lengthy, heated discussions, debates and arguments on Tamil cinema all day long. At times, Murugavel, chastised by his younger brother’s sharpness, would beat him up, but he couldn’t be beaten out of his belief that he was a know-all where film was concerned. He would criticize flaws in song-lyrics, even if they were penned by the legendary likes of Kannadasan. He was generous in his unsparing criticisms: “Fool! Can’t you say something I haven’t heard a hundred times before just in a hundred different ways?” He would constantly boast of his game-changer film that was still to come.

  In Kamakshi’s absence, her husband had an affair with a nurse from Pondicherry. After Natesan’s death, Kandasamy came to drag his wife back to Villupuram. He blamed the child’s death on her. The nurse was still an active force in Kandasamy’s life. He was most willing to set Kamakshi aside and marry her, but she would not hear of it.

  Kamakshi would go on to have a second son, Dhanapal, whom she loved very little and sometimes not at all, due to his striking resemblance to the man she hated.

  Though Umayal had borne Ramasamy four sons, she had a strained relationship with him because of his sexual indiscretion and misconduct. I realized this many years later from the broad hints Umayal dropped during our conversations.

  “Your uncle is a scoundrel,” she said. “He binds a woman’s mouth and hands to have his way with her.”

  Once, when she had returned home from the border of the lake with her load of washed clothes, she found Ramasamy forcing himself on the maid who was gagged and bound like a goat taken to slaughter. Shocked out of her senses, Umayal ran to the maid and untied her. She forcefully pushed Ramasamy to the ground.

  Ramasamy casually put on his veshti and left the house, not a word said. He returned home late at night and went to bed in silence.

  Silence, however, wasn’t there to stay for long.

  The next morning, Ramasamy rushed to his wife who was sitting cross-legged on the kitchen floor, cutting vegetables.

  “From whose seed were your brood of four conceived, you whore?” he bellowed like a madman and kicked her in the face. He planted his foot on her neck in an attempt to suffocate her. Arms and legs flailing wildly, like a writhing animal, Umayal managed to wrap her fingers around the arivaalmanai. She brought it down hard on Ramasamy’s foot.

  She ripped her mangal sutra off her neck and hurled it at him, hitting him in the face.

  She smeared her head and body with the blood of her husband that she had spilled. She said vehemently, “Even upon my deathbed, I do not wish for a fleeting glimpse of you, you beastly bastard!”

  This having been said, she left for Villupuram.

  One day, it so happened that two of Ramasamy’s sons left home – Murugavel left for Chennai, and Azhagavel ran away.

  Murugavel, on his way to Chennai, decided to call on his aunt, Kamakshi Ammal, in Villupuram. He visited her and she bid him stay for a week which extended itself to a month which further extended itself into a year. He was moved to tearful sorrow when he observed the manner in which his aunt was being treated. His sympathy soon mutated into something else, a feeling that was strong but undefined, blurred around the edges. It could have been affection; it could have been love; it could have been both; it could have been neither.

  Murugavel spent most of his time writing, a job nothing – not even the apocalypse – could pry him from. However, the sight of his aunt in the kitchen would prompt him to abandon all else to rinse a cup or wash a potato.

  The frequency of Kandasamy’s visits decreased. His tuitions stopped, and so did his marital obligations with a money order for fifty rupees.

  Murugavel was thinking of taking up a job, but Umayal told him that paying jobs were hard to come by in Villuppuram, so the family migrated to Thanjavur.

  Being uneducated and unaccustomed to working, Murugavel was clueless about what occupation would best suit him. He felt that his was supposed to be the life of an artiste, rubbing shoulders with the rich and shaking hands with the famous, but in reality, he was but a luckless smalltown chap with big dreams who would have to crate vegetables and heave rice sacks for a living.

  He was torn between his lust for the film industry and his love for Kamakshi. He tried to coax her into accompanying him to Chennai, but she was steadfast in her refusal, reasoning that her presence would only be an inconvenience; it could offer him no security. She told him he was free to leave, should he want to.

  There was not a grain of rice or a pinch of salt to be come by in the miserable house, so Umayal, audacious and resourceful as she was, began to smuggle booze from Pondicherry into other districts. Consequently, there was an inrush of money, money of a quantity thei
r eyes were unused to seeing. After the first barnburner, they went in a horse carriage to movies. Emboldened by the fruits of her craftiness, Umayal would undertake her next trip.

  A year after they had migrated to Thanjavur, Kandasamy had stopped visiting them completely. Kamakshi gave birth to a third son named Kamalanathan, a replica of her nephew Murugavel. Their lives were going on smoothly until misfortune caught up with them once more.

  Umayal was preparing to leave on yet another trip to sell contraband liquor when Kamakshi’s son Dhanapal insisted he tag along. Murugavel’s response was to lock his junior cousin and stepson in a room whereupon he began to raise a ruckus. Kamakshi could not abide the treatment her lover had meted out to her son and she intervened.

  “Would you dare to treat Dhanapal as you just did if he was your own?”

  Incensed, Murugavel retorted, “I have no place in this whoring house!”

  Umayal, who had witnessed all and knew all, went ballistic.

  “Selfish demons!” she screamed, and dragging them roughly towards a carton, she shouted, “Let me see if you two have the wherewithal to deliver it to the address I give you.” In the end, she set about the task herself, taking Dhanapal with her.

  It was on the selfsame occasion that Umayal got apprehended for the first time. She was thrown into prison and Dhanapal into a correctional facility for juveniles. With Umayal in prison, the family was out of funds. Murugavel felt hopeless. None of the stories he sent out to magazines gave him his big break. However, rejection did not dissuade him; his high hopes and pipe dreams had not completely deserted him. He devoted his efforts to writing film scripts. He had planned to leave for Chennai as soon as Umayal was released from prison.