by Anita Nair
‘What are these?’ Maya asked, pointing to the raised platforms in the long corridor.
‘Marriage pandals. If we wait around here, we can see a few marriages. Would you like to?’
So we found a place to sit and waited. A procession of people arrived and another and yet another. Couples climbed on to the dais to exchange garlands. The music of the drums and the nadaswaram flowed, packing itself into the meagre spaces between people.
‘What a crowd,’ Maya marvelled. ‘How do they know who is marrying whom?’
‘I have heard of instances where the bride has garlanded the wrong groom,’ I said.
‘And?’ Maya was incredulous. ‘What do they do then?’
‘Nothing. It is accepted as divine ordination. Krishna has decided, and who are we mere mortals to question his decision, etc.’
‘Interesting!’
I looked at her face then. There was such contentment there that I wanted to grab it and make it mine. ‘Maya, do you want to get married?’ I asked.
I watched her head turn. A slow swivelling, as though she couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘Koman, what did you say?’
I clenched my features to not show any emotion. ‘I asked if you wanted to get married.’
She started laughing. ‘I would be committing bigamy. Remember, I am already married. So, sorry, no. I can’t marry you. Thank you for asking.’
‘This is not a joke. I am serious. Will you marry me? Who is to know that you already are?’
The more I thought about it, the better I liked the idea. To exchange garlands and be wed. No pomp, no ceremony, just the two of us and a god to witness our marriage.
‘Are you serious?’
‘I am. I really am.’
‘But why, Koman? Why now? Why do we need to be married?’ Maya placed her hand on my elbow.
‘I don’t know. Perhaps I am feeling my age. I long to belong to someone. I want to know that someone else has a stake in my life and well-being.’ For the first time, I was beginning to feel lonely. I thought of how all my energies were now concentrated on Radha. That seemed to be the role in my life. Uncle. Much as I loved her, I wanted more.
‘Oh, Koman.’ Maya’s voice was soft with sympathy. She paused and said, ‘Do you think it will cause any legal problem?’
I shook my head. I wasn’t sure, but as long as we didn’t register the wedding, what legal value did it have? I prayed that we wouldn’t meet a roving reporter from a Malayalam daily, gleaning titbits to fill column space. I remembered a news item from a couple of years ago, when an eccentric had done a thulabharam with pencils. He sat on one side of the huge iron weighing balance and the other side was heaped with boxes of pencils till both pans dangled at the same height. Anything is news these days. So why not an elderly couple marrying?
I wasn’t a celebrity, but a reporter might recognize me. Last year I had received another national award. It had meant nothing to me. The time when I needed the assurance of awards and recognition was long past, but the newspapers had made much of the occasion. For a while you couldn’t open a newspaper or a magazine without staring at my face, or reading what I preferred for breakfast, or a listing of my achievements, as they termed it.
So Maya and I married. The crowds stared. An elderly couple getting married was an anomaly.
‘Must be sweethearts who were not allowed to marry when they were young,’ I heard a voice say.
‘Poor things, at least now they’ve been able to get married.’
‘Maybe she is a widow.’
‘Their children probably don’t like the idea.’
I thought of the countless stories our marriage would spawn. The countless interpretations as to why two elderly people were exchanging garlands. Only the truth would remain unmentioned. That Maya was already married.
All they saw was a woman in a cream and gold sari and a man in a mundu with a narrow zari border and another mundu draped around like a shawl. They saw the laxity of our skin and the grey in our hair. They saw the smoothening of vicissitudes and the played out emotions.
We became man and wife in the eyes of God and a few strangers. ‘Wife, are you happy?’ I asked her.
‘I am, husband. What about you?’ she retorted.
We smiled at each other. A conspiratorial smile. One more secret added to the secret life we began to lead ten years ago.
Malini greets us with raucous shrieks. She glares at Maya and hops towards me. ‘Any one would think I was the mistress and she the wife.’ Maya laughs.
‘She hates having to share me.’ I scratch her head. ‘What about you?’ I drop my voice.
‘You belong to me,’ she says. ‘Malini, he is mine. Do you hear me?’
We smile again at each other.
‘Do you realize they’ve been here?’ Maya asks. I nod. I saw it as soon as I walked in. How can Radha be so nonchalant about the risks she is taking?
‘I get this feeling that she is trying to put herself into a corner so she is forced to make a decision,’ Maya says, unpacking our bag. I agree, but I don’t say anything.
Chris walks in then. He leans back in his chair and yawns. ‘I wasn’t sure if you would be back. I thought I would take a chance.’
‘Do you know if Radha is coming?’ he asks.
Weren’t you together a little while ago, I want to ask. Instead, I say, ‘So how have you been? Busy?’
I reach out to switch on the fan, but there is no power.
‘Not too bad. A little bored. I keep thinking I should get out and do more touristy things.’
‘Perhaps you should,’ I say. I wish he would leave. I would like to be alone with Maya.
‘I went to Shoranur to check my mail. The Internet connection is so damn slow. I wonder if they have even heard of broadband. And then the taxi driver wanted a hundred bucks to drop me back here. I would have walked, but it is so hot.’
Chris yawns again. The fan begins turning. ‘Is the power situation always so bad here?’ he asks. ‘It keeps going off. I can’t even do any writing. How do they imagine they can turn this into a real tourist destination if nothing works?’
‘Do you want to play a game of chess?’ I ask.
‘Do you play?’ His eyes are eager.
‘I do,’ I say. ‘Besides, it will give you something to do.’
‘I’ll come by for a game tomorrow morning,’ he says. ‘Do you think Radha will be here then?’
I feel sorry for him. He is lonely, I think.
‘I’ll call and ask her to come,’ I say. I pat his arm.
His smile is tinged with relief. And gratitude, too.
What is Radha thinking of, I wonder again. She has the boy all twisted up in knots.
‘He is beginning to feel disenchanted with his Indian experience,’ Maya says, when Chris has left.
‘I thought so, too,’ I say. ‘Well, at least his reasons so far seem genuine, but I have seen this happen again and again. So many of my students come here with such great expectations. They imagine this to be a tropical paradise where they are going to have their life-changing experience. Then familiarity sets in and what was exotic becomes lurid; what was old-fashioned is dismissed as inefficient; and what is spiritual is termed bloody laziness. I have also seen how, when they go back to the comfort of their homes and lives, these negative images lose their edge and soon they can talk about their stay in India with such enthusiasm that they inspire a fresh lot to come, seeking the meaning of life here.’
‘That is very bitter.’ Maya’s surprise at my vehemence halts me. ‘You know enough people, foreigners, to know that it isn’t true. And that you are generalizing. What about Philip? What about Anna? What about Susan? You can’t say they are like that.’
‘I know, Maya. I know it’s an injustice to generalize. I know that there are people like Philip, Anna and Susan, but there are also the others, who do exactly as I am doing now—generalize. They make sweeping judgements about us and our country and anything that counters their
views is not acceptable to them. Visitors from other countries come here, look around, see the lack of amenities, and are pleased. This is the India they were expecting. Cochin is too commercial, they tell me. Why do people in Madras and Bangalore ape the west so much, they ask me. What would they like us to do? Spin thread with charkhas, read by lantern light and drink buttermilk instead of Coke? We can’t remain in the dark ages merely because it adds to the atmosphere.
‘I had a student who even brought geegaws as if we were still stuck in the times of Vasco da Gama. Someone must have told him that if you give the natives a few trinkets, they will be your slaves for life. He must have brought a thousand erasers and ballpoint pens, and he handed out a couple to everyone he met. The thing was, he actually thought he was buying favour by doing so. I had to finally ask him to stop; he was embarrassing himself. The other students and the locals called him the Rubber Sahiv.’
Maya is silent.
‘I don’t like it when you talk like that, Koman. It doesn’t suit you. You are surly, you are arrogant, you don’t tolerate stupidity. I know all this about you, and I always thought it was because you couldn’t stand mediocrity. But you were never bitter …bitterness smacks of dissatisfaction. Are you dissatisfied with life, Koman?’
I listen to her speak. I know that my diatribe is born out of irritability with the Radha-Chris situation. And helplessness that our time together is drawing to an end. I would like to rant and rave at the fate that is taking my wife away from me.
I like the proprietary tone of her voice: I don’t like it when you talk like that, Koman.
‘We have been married for just a day and you are already finding fault with me.’ I laugh.
Maya giggles. ‘I am, aren’t I?’
At night, I lie next to Maya, watching her sleep. Tomorrow, she will be gone. And I will retreat to my old life.
I feel fear then. This is a fear I have never known before. It isn’t as though I have not been acquainted with fear. I have been swamped by fear, different kinds of fear. The fear of not belonging. The fear that accompanies a decision: am I doing right? The fear that every artist feels—will I be able to fulfil the expectations of my art? Will I be able to do it again and again?
But never this fear of being alone. I have never felt lonely before. I was always content to be alone. I never needed anyone or anything. My art was enough.
Now, as my art demands less and less of me, I fear being alone.
I think of Radha. Shyam is back. How is she coping? I worry that Chris’s disenchantment will soon percolate into their relationship. What then? He will depart, leaving not even a trail of dust, and she will be the one to suffer. I have to engage his attention. I must start answering his original question. The artist and the man. Am I one or two people?
Some years ago, a film was made about a kathakali dancer. It had an international crew and a star cast. But it didn’t do well at the box office. Too serious for the people who go into the movie theatres expecting entertainment, I heard.
One day, when I had gone to the institute, I met a journalist who often wrote on dance and dancers. Kaladharan’s knowledge of kathakali was adequate enough for him to engage me in discussions about the merits and demerits of various performances.
‘Did you see the film?’ he asked me.
‘No,’I said. ‘Did you? I feel this strange reluctance. I heard it’s way too serious for the public. I suppose that means the film has some depth?’
His eyes widened. His lips curled into a smile. ‘It has no depth at all. It is merely an enactment of depth, if you know what I mean.’
I grinned. I understood perfectly. I had seen it done before. Complexities were introduced to make a work of art esoteric and exclusive. And yet, as we practitioners of art knew, such efforts merely skimmed the surface and worse, were pretentious …and try as an artist might, the calibre of that work of art would never rise above the peripheries of the ordinary.
It is this that worries me. Chris imagines my life to be exceptional. He has heard much about me as a dancer, and he thinks that only from an extraordinary beginning and existence can such artistry rise. Perhaps this is why I made the introduction to my life so full of lyric and vigour. My purappaad to the story, the beginnings of the story of my life, has had much to recommend it, but it is time now to tell him of my life as a veshakaaran and I fear that this veshakaaran’s life will not compare with the characters he has been. How can I compete with gods and demons? Or even heroic mortals? My life has been singularly devoid of such exalted heights or infernal depths.
I turn to Maya. I take her arm and drape it around me. Tonight, I have this. In the warmth of her embrace, I think I can even voice my fear.
Bear with me and hear me out, I will tell Chris. I am an ordinary man made extraordinary by my art. In this story of my life, perhaps you will discover, as I will in the telling, how my art ruled my thought and life, how it helped me escape the confines of my secret fears. In the end, that is what counts. That art imbues meaning to one’s existence.
So this, then, is how it began.
1952–1960 Going Forth
The river had a name. So did I.
At the high school, Raman Menon peered over his glasses and said, ‘Koman. That’s a pet name, if I may use the phrase. Doesn’t he have a proper name? And what about his surname?’
My father narrowed his eyes into slits. In the few days I had been with him, I knew the import of that look.
‘His name is Koman, with no tails, tags or suffixes.’ My father spoke softly.
The headmaster, who even in the heat of Shoranur wore a dark suit to work, blanched. I felt a chill blaze my back. He was the headmaster, but my father made him seem like a silly boy.
‘Koman,’ he wrote in a register. ‘Age?’
So there I was. Koman with no tags, tails or suffixes, age twelve, enrolled in a school and a new life. With a ready-made family: father, mother, two younger brothers. And a river that cradled me.
I ought to have been happy. But I had this ‘I’ to battle with. When I had referred to myself as Koman, I knew who Koman was. I asked no questions of Koman. I accepted that Koman was a boy whose mother was dead and whose father lived elsewhere because he had a livelihood to earn. I ate, drank and slept, shat and peed, ran and swam, dreamt and prayed. I was Koman the boy, one among a million boys in the world.
Now Achan had decided that Koman had to be an ‘I’.
And this ‘I’, I needed to know. So I gathered bits of myself. From stray comments and conversations, from my stepmother whom I called Amma, from her glances when she thought I wasn’t looking and from my brothers’ curious questions I shaped the ‘I’.
When Achan and I drove to Kaikurussi where my mother and brothers were, my father asked me to wait in the car. He went up the steps of the house to where a plump lady with a sweet face stood. There was a red stone in her nose ring. Like a drop of blood, the dull red jewel was the only spot of colour on her pale face. ‘Where is she?’ he asked the lady.
She smiled. ‘Resting. I will tell her that you are here.’
Another woman stepped out of the doorway. She was plump, and her mouth spliced into a smile when she saw Achan. He returned the smile hesitantly. ‘I have something to tell you,’ he said.
So then I knew that my father hadn’t ever mentioned that I existed.
My stepmother was a good woman. Or perhaps she knew it was futile to protest and so accepted my presence without any recriminations. One day I was a near orphan. The next day I was a boy with a family.
Later I heard her tell Paru Kutty, the lady of the house whose face took its rosy hue from her nose ring, ‘He used to be married. She died. I should have known that a man like him would have a past.’
‘Better a past wife than a mistress in the present.’ The lady’s voice sounded as if she had bitten into a piece of raw bitter gourd.
I knew a certain relief then. My mother had been a wife. I wasn’t a bastard.
My you
nger brothers were seven and five. They stared at me when my father called them to meet me. They said nothing at first. Then the elder one asked, ‘Do you know how to play marbles?’
I nodded. I knew relief again. I played marbles. I could shy a mango from a tree. I could climb trees. I could swim and hold my breath under water to a count of sixty-nine. I could be a brother.
‘See these,’ the elder one, Mani, said. He pointed to a pair of wooden clogs. ‘Velliyamma’s,’ he said. ‘Let’s play with them. She isn’t really our mother’s older sister—she’s a cousin—but that’s what we call her.’
‘Whose are these?’ I asked, stepping into a pair of clogs they placed on the floor for me to try on.
‘Her husband’s,’ the younger one, Babu, said.
‘Where is he?’ I asked, trying to walk.
The two boys looked at each other. ‘He has a new wife. They live there,’ Mani whispered, pointing across the road.
I stopped. The wooden clogs were heavy, but I knew lightness. So this was something men did. Discard the past and step into a new future—even if the past held wives and children. The owner of the clogs had, and so had my father. It had nothing to do with my mother. It was what men did.
I looked at my brothers. Mani’s face was a flock of birds. It never rested, lifting from one expression to another. His eyes enlarged and narrowed, his nostrils flared, his nose wrinkled, his mouth parted into a hoot of laugher or widened into a smile of singular sweetness. His teeth gleamed; his brow broke into a line of sweat beads, which he wiped away with the back of his hand. He was tall for his age and a little potbelly protruded from his middle. I am so hungry, he said all day, and later when he was an adult, that would still be his call to life. A hunger that was never satiated. A greed that demanded more and more.
In contrast, Babu was small and thin, with a pointed face that was fixed into one expression, and a wandering eye. When you looked at Babu’s face, you felt a trickle of fear. It was as though one eye went with you wherever you went, constantly looking, leaving nothing unturned, while the other stared straight and steadfast, constantly assessing. He picked at his food and wept easily. If he didn’t have his way, if he felt threatened, if he lost a game, he ran on his short, spindly legs with tears coursing down his cheeks and a tale to tell. His stories almost always ensured a whacking for Mani. Sometimes Mani didn’t even know what he was being punished for. But he took it without complaint, sure that he deserved the beating, if not for this imaginary misdemeanour, then for a real one perpetrated some days ago for which he had gone unpunished. They were my brothers and when they called me etta, I felt a sense of pride and responsibility. My brothers, my little brothers, I thought. But already I knew who would be my favourite.