by Anita Nair
‘Go where?’ Sethu asked.
‘Come back to work,’ James Raj said, as if he had just thought of it.
‘But what about the baby?’
James Raj scratched his chin thoughtfully. ‘Do you remember Faith? She has left the hospital. She might be willing to take the baby into her care. You can pay her for it and I’ll ask my wife to keep an eye on them. Mary Patti is there for advice as well. Mary Patti, I don’t know if I’ve told you this before, is my relative by marriage.’
Sethu’s eyes lit up. Faith. Jada Kondai. Plaited bun. The quietest of the three. Given to bursting into cries of ‘Praise be the Lord’, whether it was for a hen laying an egg or a thunderstorm, but otherwise harmless and cheerful. She would do.
‘What shall I call him?’ Faith asked, cradling the baby in her arms.
‘Om …’ Sethu began. Then he made a decision. With Saadiya, his promise too had died. ‘I haven’t thought of a name yet. For now, you can call him Koman.’
Faith wrinkled her nose. ‘What kind of name is that?’
‘It was my uncle’s name,’ Sethu said, dropping a kiss on the baby’s head, and then he was gone.
Faith looked after the baby well. Sethu came back after three days, worried about his son. But the baby seemed to be thriving. When he began to leave with the baby asleep on his shoulder, Faith said, ‘Perhaps you should leave him here. He’ll fret when he wakes up and you won’t be able to cope.’
Sethu paused at the doorstep. He thought of the house on the sands. It was a mausoleum of Saadiya’s dreams. Of her unrequited desires and their anger. It was also empty. He would be alone with no one to help him. And by the time he got the baby used to him and he had learnt its routine, it would be time to leave again. Faith was right.
He gave her back the baby and said, ‘I feel so inadequate.’
Mary Patti smiled. She said, ‘Don’t.’ She took a whorl of tobacco from the length Sethu had brought her. ‘Babies need women. Boys need men. We’ll look after him till we can, then he is yours. He is always yours. But you need to make a living now.’
Sethu sent them money. He went as often as he could to see them; then slowly, the time between visits grew. And each time a worm of doubt or guilt niggled in his mind, he trod it underfoot. They are good women. They care for him better than I would, he told himself.
On his last visit to see the baby, who was less than a year old then, Faith said, ‘He said he would like to see you.
‘Who?’
Sethu was curious.
‘He. The doctor.’
‘Why? Did he say anything?’
Faith shook her head. Her eyes said: as if the doctor would ever tell me why. For a long time, Faith had nurtured an infatuation for him. Some day he would turn around and notice her, she had thought. Then he had brought home a wife and Faith, her heart broken, had resigned from the hospital. She couldn’t bear to be where he was.
Sethu sat across the table. When he had knocked on the door, the doctor had grunted, ‘Come in.’
When he saw it was Sethu, he had gestured to the chair and returned to the file he was looking at. He peered over his glasses and said, ‘I will take just a few minutes.’
Sethu felt the smile on his face freeze. He had been prepared for the doctor’s apathy, but as the minutes stretched, he felt a slow coil of anger uncurl. He looked at a point over the man’s head. I must not lose my temper, he told himself. I must not forget that at one time I revered this man. He dropped his gaze to the doctor’s face and encountered his eyes. It unsettled him, and he knew the doctor knew it.
‘I am very sorry to hear about your troubles,’ he said.
Sethu remained silent. Then it suddenly erupted out of him: ‘You were right. It must please you to know that your prophecy came true. Our marriage was nothing. Our love was nothing. Everything was wrong. You were right!’
The doctor took his glasses off and pinched the bridge of his nose. ‘Do you think that I called you here to gloat over your …’ he groped for a word and let it remain unspoken.
‘I am sorry that it had to end this way and believe you me, I would have wished it to be otherwise. But now my concern is for Faith and her family. And your son.’
‘What of them?’ Sethu asked. The women cared for the baby well. No matter what the doctor said, he knew that for certain.
The doctor leaned back in his chair. He wiped the lenses of his spectacles with a white handkerchief, inspected the glass and said, ‘All things are lawful for me, but all things are not expedient; all things are lawful for me but all things edify not …’
Sethu stared at the doctor and asked, ‘Corinthians I?’
The doctor smiled. ‘Your memory is as superb as ever, but I would rather that you understood the wisdom of the words. I do empathize with your position, but the world won’t.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sethu asked, puzzled by the veiled references.
‘Do you know that your son is being brought up as a Christian?’
Sethu leaned forward. ‘When he was born, you saw me whisper the Muslim call for prayer in his ear. What you and Saadiya didn’t realize is that I whispered a Hindu prayer as well. So if Faith or Mary Patti want to induct another religion into him, it doesn’t matter. One more religion won’t hurt.’
‘You think this is a joke, don’t you? Never mind your son; I can’t have Hope and Charity’s name slandered. It affects my hospital’s reputation.’
‘What do you mean?’ Sethu was even more puzzled.
‘It is natural that you would want to see your child, but your visits to Faith’s home are much speculated upon. Even her sisters are not spared. All this coming and going makes the world talk.’
‘But Mary Patti is there,’ Sethu said in defence.
‘Mary Patti is a silly old woman. They say you have bought her consent with chewing tobacco and an occasional bottle of spirits.’
Sethu sank his head into his hands. Then he rose from the chair abruptly. ‘I understand. What I don’t is that you are doing nothing to stop this vile gossip. If you were to say you trust them, the town would take your word for it!’
The doctor’s face was stern when he said, ‘I do trust them. But how can I trust you? You destroyed my faith in you.’ His eyes were grim and full of contempt.
Sethu walked out of the room. There would be no farewell, as there were no words of greeting.
He tried to explain to Faith why he would not visit again for a while. Faith wept. ‘I don’t care what anyone says. You must feel free to come here any time you wish.’
‘Thank you, Faith.’ Sethu smiled. ‘But I can’t ruin your chances of marriage.’
‘It’s all that Hope’s doing. She still hasn’t forgiven you for not telling us you weren’t a Christian.’ Faith wrung her hands.
‘I’m sorry I lied. I didn’t mean to. But at that point, that was all I could think of,’ Sethu said quietly.
‘You didn’t lie, did you? You said your name was Seth. It was Hope and Charity and the doctor who decided you were a Christian.’
‘It’s called lying by omission. But that’s all in the past now. It seems so long ago, my coming here, meeting Saadiya, and now I have to leave …Mary Patti,’ he said, turning towards her. ‘I do not want your daughters’ reputation besmirched. When my baby is a boy, I will come back for him. Until then you must give him all I would have. Three years, not a day more, and you can be sure I will return.’
Sethu started travelling. He went everywhere that James Raj had business interests. One day, he was on a train that would take him past his old home. On a whim, he stepped off the train at Shoranur. The town was some distance away from where his home had been, but this was the nearest railway station. The same one from where he had boarded the train many years ago. Then, he had barely looked around him. Now, he devoured every little detail. The flowing river. The distant hills. The green paddy fields. The coconut trees. The blue skies. The beauty of it all made his eyes smart.
; It took Sethu only a few moments to know that he would never leave again. This was home. From where he had fled, he had returned. He would have to sever ties with James Raj, who would have to accept that Sethu could no longer be parted from his home. Sethu began writing a letter in his head: It’s been two years since I went away from Nazareth. 1940 to 1942. But in all these years I never wanted to stay anywhere for too long. Now I have arrived at one such place.
Then for the first time in his life Sethu dredged from memory a biblical quote from the Psalms, a prayer for what would be his home, his life, his future: Thou which has shewed me great and sore troubles, shalt quicken me again, and shalt bring me up again from the depths of the earth. Thou shalt increase my greatness and comfort me on every side.
Sethu did what he always did by way of getting to know new territory. He took a walk. The station was busy. It was the most important junction that connected Malabar, Cochin and Travancore to the rest of the country. The Shoranur station hummed with movement. Engines and passengers, porters and vendors … the trains and the junction determined the life of the town and its people.
Outside, there was nothing. A few shops huddled at the tip of the barren land across the station. Sethu paused and drew a deep breath. All he had with him was a little bag. He could carry it with him, but first, which way ought he to go? The road to the left seemed more alive. So it was to the left he set his course.
He walked slowly, gathering the names and shapes of all that he passed. There was just about everything a town of this size would need. Aboo Backer Bakery. Cheru’s Grocery Store. Pappachan Textiles. Padmanabhan Nair’s Swadeshi Handlooms. And Kunju Mohammed’s Variety Store with stationery, shoes and toiletries.
There were schools. The Ezhuthachan School and the Basel Mission Lower Primary School. The St Theresa’s Convent and the Shoranur High School for Boys.
Sethu, as he walked, discovered that the road ran like a ring around the town. By the time he had navigated the ring, his mind was made up.
He would have to reinvent himself all over again. For that the only thing to do was to become a Janmi. A landowner, representing continuity and old wealth. With land, he would acquire a lineage he didn’t have, and respectability. He would buy fields where he would grow his own rice and tracts of land where he would plant teak and rubber and coconut. He had money enough to do as he pleased.
To announce his presence, he would also set up a talkies. The town only had travelling talkies. He would give it what would be its first permanent home for the talking pictures.
Sethu went to the man who ran the small bank in the town. He asked to meet the owner and announced his intention with a deposit of a thousand rupees. The owner of the bank widened his eyes in surprise. Sethu could read that look: who is this man who exudes such authority and worldliness?
Sethu smiled. He recognized the type instantly. They bullied their inferiors and sucked up to their superiors.
‘I am Sethumadhavan,’ he said. ‘I come from Colombo. I am a businessman. I run a trading company, but I have always wanted to come back to my ancestral land. And this time I decided I would.’
‘Where is your tharavad? Your family must still be there?’ the man asked, in a voice striated with humility and curiosity.
Sethu looked into the middle distance. It was a look he affected these days when he talked of the past. It spoke of nostalgia tinged with some unmentionable sorrow. It usually left the questioner content with the answer he provided. But this one is wily, this beady-eyed shyster, Sethu thought, and in time will serve my purpose. So he waved his hand and said, ‘My family was from hereabouts but there is nothing left here. My parents never wanted to return. It is only I who have nurtured a desire to return to my land …’
The bank owner nodded his approval. ‘I am glad. This town needs people like you.’
So Sethu acquired land for fields and plantations and within the town he bought land to build his talkies upon. When it was built, he called it Murugan Talkies. The other big business in town was a bus service called Mayilvahanam. Sethu pondered on his choice of name for only a few seconds. Mayilvahanam meant peacock transport and the one who rode the peacock was the warrior god Murugan. By calling his talkies Murugan, Sethu thought the town would know that here was a man whose business was on a par with the Mayilvahanam people. Or perhaps bigger and better.
Then Sethu set about acquiring the other trappings of respectability.
The owner of the bank knew of a family who had a daughter of marriageable age. ‘They live in a little village called Kaikurussi. The girl is older than someone like you would normally choose; she is eighteen, but very pretty.’
Sethu didn’t let his relief show. Saadiya had been too young. That had been the beginning of their troubles. This time he wanted a woman and not a child-woman. He perked his ears to what the man was saying. ‘Her uncle is determined that she marries a man of means. None of these sambandhams that result in nothing but a handful of kids, he is rumoured to have said.’
Sethu nodded. He agreed with the uncle of the girl.
Sethu was the result of a sambandham. His father was from northern Malabar. He had come visiting and fallen in love with Sethu’s mother, whom he saw at a temple festival. He had asked for her hand and she became his wife.
His mother had never been a wife. She shared nothing of her husband’s life, except his bed. The word sambandham was perfect to describe marriages of this nature, Sethu thought. A bond, a sexual bond, and no more. Sethu had grown up not knowing who his father was. He had moved on, and another man had taken his place. It was considered perfectly normal for a woman to change her husband, if it didn’t suit either of them to continue with the relationship. A boy grew up looking up to his maternal uncle rather than his father, who was little more than a casual visitor, and the women sitting on the steps of the bathing pond talked about their sambandhams as if they were discussing glass bangles …It had made his teeth grit then and it did now.
‘I don’t think that will be a problem. I hope you have told them about me. Like the girl’s uncle, I have scant regard for these sambandhams. I will be very happy to progress with this alliance.’
‘Don’t be so hasty. Shouldn’t you see the girl first?’ the owner of the bank said. Sethu may be given to making snap decisions, but this was a little too rushed, he thought.
‘Should I?’ Sethu asked.
‘Yes, you must. They’ll want to see you as well.’
Sethu, accompanied by three other men, took the train from Shoranur to Vallapuzha. A little trek through paddy fields, past a canal, and finally they were in Kaikurussi.
Sethu mopped his forehead and thought, when I come here next, it will be in a car.
So Sethu, man of means, owner of Murugan Talkies, married Devayani.
He came to the wedding dressed in a cream-coloured silk jubbah and a double mundu with a zari border. He wore a gold chain around his neck and two gold rings. The motorcar he sat in led the way, and at the back walked men bearing petromax lanterns. It was dark when they reached the village border. The car paused and the lantern bearers walked ahead. The entire village came to see this spectacle of a groom in a car, with lanterns leading the way. The villagers, who had never seen such sophistication in their lives, whispered, ‘Did you see that? Who would have thought Kaikurussi would ever see anything like this?’
At the wedding, he noticed a boy and a girl who vied to sit next to him. He smiled. ‘How old are you?’ he asked the boy.
‘Eight,’ he said. ‘She is eight as well.’ He pointed to the girl.
‘We heard that you have been to far away places. To Colomb across the seas,’ the girl said.
‘His father is in Burma. Tell him, Mukundan,’ she prompted.
But Mukundan merely smiled.
‘What’s your name?’ Sethu asked the insouciant girl.
‘Meenakshi. Is Colomb better than Burma?’
Sethu smiled. ‘I don’t know. I have never been to Burma.’
/> ‘Oh.’ The girl looked disappointed.
The boy raised his eyes and asked, ‘What is it like outside this village? Everything must be so different.’ His eyes willed Sethu to say yes.
Sethu knew a strange sense of disquiet. ‘It is very hard to say.’ He tried to be cautious. What if the boy decided to run away from home, lured by the magic of the picture he painted? ‘Sometimes I feel it is the same everywhere. Sometimes I think just entering another room in a house is a different experience.’
The boy’s eyes pleaded for more. Sethu wiped the sweat off his forehead. The night was warm and sticky. ‘You must ask your father. What is his name?’
The boy mumbled, ‘Achuthan Nair.’
‘It will be nice for us to meet when he is here next,’ Sethu told Paru Kutty, Devayani’s cousin and the boy’s mother.
She smiled. Six months later, Sethu understood the meaning of that uncertain smile.
Sethu and Devayani went to meet Achuthan Nair when he returned from Burma. ‘He is a very impressive man,’ Devayani gushed. Sethu wondered what Achuthan Nair was like. Would he consider becoming a business associate, he wondered.
Murugan Talkies ran full house, but the real money lay in the black market. There was a shortage of rice and sugar. The adventurous and not-so-finicky ones ate macaroni that came from foreign lands and was readily available, rather than the vermininfested, worm-ridden rice sold in the shops. The poor ate boiled tapioca. Good rice could be bought only in the black market. Most people were willing to pay extra, for a meal without rice was almost inconceivable. Sethu’s profits were quick and large.
‘This will end when the war is over. Now is the time to profit,’ Sethu told Devayani.
Sethu wondered how he would broach the subject with Achuthan Nair. ‘This chap, Gandhi,’ he began.
Achuthan Nair stared at him. Then he reached forward and fingered the fabric of Sethu’s shirt. ‘What would you know of Gandhi or nationalism, given the fact that you are still wearing these videshi clothes? Your shirt, your car …everything shows your indifference to the freedom struggle. Why else would you flaunt your lack of patriotic spirit in these times when people all over our country, even poor people, are making bonfires of their foreign goods? And you wear a foreign, mill-woven shirt!’