Blackie continued to bark, but the fish did not respond. Blackie gave up after some time. He mournfully barked his goodbye and walked away.
* * *
One day as I was wandering through the mountains I saw a single blue himkamal as big as a saucer, growing from between two rocks and half-buried in snow. I started looking at it and my mind entered into a dialogue with this beautiful snow lotus. I said, “Why are you here all alone? Your beauty is meant to be adored. You should give yourself to someone before your petals fall and return to the dust.”
As the breeze blew its stem, it shook and then bent toward me, saying, “Do you think I am lonely being all alone?” All alone means all in one. I enjoy these heights, the purity, the shelter of the blue umbrella above.”
Living With the Himalayan Masters
Swami Rama
Glossary
Ekadashithe eleventh day after new moon or full moon day
BogarA siddhar who lived circa 550 BC, also believed to have brought yoga to China. His books including ‘Bogar 7000’ are available even now. He was an expert in alchemy.
anneyelder brother
arivaalsickle
military hotelTill early 2000s, non vegetarian restaurants were called military hotel
Pancha bhootaearth, water, fire, air and sky
Vaikunta ekadashiAccording to Padma Purana, Lord Vishnu took the form of a female (‘Ekadasi) to kill demon Muran. This occurs during December – January.
ThoothuvalaiSolanum Trilobatum, a herb
Tamashaa fuss
Jala Samadhideath by drowning
akkaelder sister
Mandapampillared outdoor hall
Karthikaieighth month in Tamil calendar
Satsangspiritual gathering
EnthiranRobot, a Rajinikanth starrer released in 2010
Poramboke landdenotified land
benamitransaction made in the name of another person, not in the name of the one who has financed it
pattaa title deed to a property
nungupalm tree fruit
Zamindarlandlord
tasmacGovernment owned liquor outlet
Masala moviecheap action movies with comedy, romance and melodrama
behenchoda cursory word; sister fucker
nilavembu kashayamdecoction of Andrographis paniculata
samadhimeditative absorption and trance
veshtimen’s garment worn in southern part of India
paramapadhamgame of snakes and ladders
devadasia girl dedicated to the service of god by the pottukattu ceremony. The wealthy keep these women as concubine but their wards cannot go on to become heirs. They excel in fine arts like music and dance.
pallaankuzhitraditional Tamil game played by women
paandiTamil hopscotch game
gandooriUrs
ejamaanmaster
arivaalmanaivegetable cutter
karuvelam treeProsopis juliflora, a shrub
vettiyanone who burns corpses, digs graves
upanyasamspiritual discourse
rajasampassion
thamasaminertia
Ramalinga Adigala famous Tamil saint also known as Vallalar
Aadi and ThaiTamil months
sthala vrukshama tree that is indigenous to every temple
janavasamthe place where the bridegroom and his people were accommodated and the groom is taken through the streets on the eve of marriage
babusclerks
“Idhar hi Lohri banayenge!”We will celebrate Lohri here itself
Lohria popular Punjabi winter festival celebrated with bonfire; it marks the end of winter
gilli-dandavillage street game in which a smaller stick (gilli) is hit with a larger stick (danda)
addaa place where people gather for conversation
chutiyaarsehole, moron
panchakarmaa herbal therapy, a fivefold detoxification treatment involving massage
Qira’atrecitation of Al-Quran
Maalikmaster
Chamchagirisycophancy
nimboo paanilemonade
agraharama street adjoining a temple resided by Brahmins
chachiaunt
bhabhielder brother’s wife
bewakoofstupid
kooththandancer, here it means Lord Shiva
sothupindam(derogatory) one who eats but does no job
jallikattusport that involves bull taming; played during Pongal in southern parts of Tamil Nadu
kamarkattuvillage confectionery
akkadathere
ikkadahere
thambiyounger brother
kumkumvermilion
kailimen’s wear; it’s also called lungi/sarong
sura puttua dish made out of shark
sattvikrighteous
raaticow dung cake used as firewood
Acknowledgements
There was a Tamil writer called Gopi Krishnan (1945 – 2003). He lived his life like the characters out of Haruki Murakami’s ‘Norwegian Wood’. Not surprisingly, the characters he created in his own works too resembled Gopi. During his final years – none realised they were his final years since he looked like a forty year old then – he asked me for a help. It was perhaps the year 2000 when he approached me and said, “If I had Rs. 500 a month I can survive.” That was sufficient for his daily tea and cigarettes. He used to smoke a brand of cigarette I had not heard of – it was the length of my forefinger. At the time he called in this favour, I was on the breadline myself. So he came up with an idea to raise money: give one story to a magazine every month in return for five hundred rupees. A magazine, that time, gave me 80 rupees for a story of mine. And the literary magazines were in no position to pay at all. When the editors were selling off their household effects to keep the ‘literature’ alive, how could they afford to pay authors?
I went with Gopi’s stories from one magazine to another. All the editors said, “We don’t know this Gopi Krishnan. Give us one of your stories instead.” When I had finally managed to sell one of the stories - getting three times the amount Gopi was bargaining for - he was no more.
My situation would have been more or less similar but for my friends who came to my rescue. One of them took care of my house rent, one paid my telephone bill, one covered my air travel expenses within India, another paid for my clothes while the fifth catered for my breakfast. Another friend had a special assignment: every time I sent her a Whatsapp message she would ensure an excellent meal arrive at my doorstep within an hour’s time. Till four years’ back, when I still enjoyed a drink, a friend used to send me a bottle of Rémy Martin every week. (I requested him to credit that amount to my account now that I had stopped drinking, and that friend vanished without a trace.) Some friends used to occasionally supply Chinese Wenjun, Japanese Sake, French Pastis, Bailey’s, Absinthe and similar exotic beverages. When I stopped drinking these friends too disappeared. Is it such a big sin to turn teetotal?
My thanks are due to a long list of people who saved me from Gopi Krishnan’s fate. I have often wondered how to repay them for their love and kindness, but I have nothing to offer in return save for my writing. So all I can do is continue writing for their sakes.
Nalli Kuppuswamy, Ramesh – Venkatesh – Ambarish (these three belong to the Dinamalar establishment), Jega, Karl Marx, Ramasubramanian, Nirmal, Melmaruvathur Ramesh, Selvakumar, Bhuvaneswari, Kumaresan, Arathu, N. Sathyamurthy – and many more. I am nothing without them.
Further, Suparna Sharma (Asian Age), Tarun Tejpal, Geetan, Mark Rappolt and David Terrien of ArtReview Asia, Sharmista Mohanty, Prabhu Kalidas, Muthukumar, Arunachalam, Kabilan, Shalin Maria Lawrence, Srivilliputhur Raghavan, Guru, Ve. Irayanbu, Priya Kalyanaraman, Nandita
Aggarwal.
I also thank Irwin Allan Sealy who wrote a wonderful foreword to this novel. Not to forget, Avantika, my wife, for encouraging me every time I felt depressed, saying you are ‘this’ and you are ‘that’ (strangely, she really believes that I’m a ‘this’ and ‘that’) - I remember them all with gratitude at this juncture.
.
photo credit: prabhu kalidas
Charu Nivedita is a postmodern Tamil writer born in 1953. He was born and raised in a slum until the age of 18, worked in the government services and survived as a wanderer. Since his writings are transgressive in nature, he is branded as a pornographic writer. For a longtime he was writing clandestinely under the pseudonym ‘Muniyandi’.
He was selected as one among ‘Top Ten Indians of the Decade 2001-2010’ by the Economic Times. He is inspired by Marquis de Sade, Georges Bataille and Andal. His columns appear in ArtReview Asia, The Asian Age and several other magazines.
He lives a reclusive life in Chennai, with his wife, two dogs and a cat.
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