by Anita Nair
I make a quick calculation. Suddenly all of it falls into place. He thinks I am his father. For a moment, I know a deep sense of regret. I would like to have had a son like Chris. But Chris isn’t my son. I do not know his father. I do know, however, that there is nothing of me in him.
He will not believe me if I deny it. So I decide I will tell him all about his mother. And this time I will not choose my memories. I will tell him what happened the way it did.
1970–1971 The Crucible
Koman
Within a few days of my return from Madras, my life acquired a pattern. Three months later, it felt as if I had never been away. The newly-weds lived with my parents. I lived in my little house by the river. An occasional airmail arrived from some distant land, testifying to Mani’s well-being, at which time I would go home to see my family. I would choose a moment to call my father aside and give him the letter. He would read it quietly, weep mutely, and dry his eyes before joining the rest of the family. I would leave a little later. I couldn’t bear to be in that house where Mani was never mentioned.
Aashaan was drinking less. The bond between us seemed stronger than ever. Then one day Aashaan looked up from a letter he was reading and said, ‘She is coming back.’
I looked up from my book, at the airmail form in his hand. ‘Who is coming back?’ I asked.
‘Angela. She was my student for two years.’ Aashaan’s eyes were thoughtful.
‘Your student?’ My eyes widened. ‘When did the institute start letting women study kathakali?’
‘She is the first. I suppose they think there is no harm done if the woman is a foreigner. Also, she is admitted as a short-term student, not for a full course. I don’t understand it all, but she’s doing some research as part of her dissertation. She’s been here twice already.’
‘What is she like?’ I was curious. What did a Madaama make of kathakali?
‘Not bad at all.’ Aashaan smiled. ‘Her sense of rhythm is exquisite. She works very hard and her Malayalam is adequate. But she tires me with her questions. She is hard work.’
I smiled. Aashaan’s tone was wry with amusement.
The old man folded the letter carefully. ‘She is going to be disappointed when she knows I am up for retirement.’
‘What will she do then?’ I stood up. In a little while, the afternoon classes would begin.
‘I am going to suggest that you teach her. She is ready for the third-year class.’
‘Me!’ I was horrified. ‘I can’t teach a woman kathakali.’
Aashaan frowned. ‘Don’t say that! She is good, and very dedicated. That’s all you need to consider. Besides, you speak some English, don’t you? So she can tire you with her queries.’
‘Sundaran does, too,’ I said.
‘Ah, Sundaran.’ Aashaan’s smile carried a hint of irony. ‘Sundaran. Our Mr Handsome. To send her to him would be like leading a lamb to the slaughter. He won’t see her as a student but as an opportunity. That I can’t allow.’
I looked away. I had two male foreign students in Madras. They had been interesting to teach. This woman would be the same. I just had to remember to see her as a genderless being.
She arrived the day the rains did. The day before, all morning the cuckoo’s song had filled the air, piercing the stillness. Sweat ran down my body in rivulets and I thought that if the weather didn’t break, I would suffocate from the stillness. Even the deep pond by the house was a sheet of green glass. I drank water and fanned myself. I took countless baths and at night I slept with a wet towel draped on my chest. The heat was relentless and both day and night were stricken with torpidity.
Dear departed wind, please come home, all is forgiven, I whispered, standing on the riverbank. Please come back and I will never ever complain about how you make the tiles on the roof rattle or the coconut palms writhe in a manic dance. Release me from this rigor mortis of thought and limb. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. What use am I as a wearer of guises if my mind can’t infuse my movements?
Then it began.
The listless air moved. Clouds gathered and moved up the coast. Hope scuttled out of the river bed. Leaves rustled and the skies darkened. Lightning and thunder. The bars of heat loosened and with its first drops the rain snapped apart the inert month.
The earth fed on the rain like a greedy baby devouring the colostrum of fecundity. More, more, more, the earth craved for the thin, watery rain. Then, sated for the moment, it belched. A deep, dank fragrance. Moist earth laden with the memories of sun-baked days and crumbling surfaces. The wetness of rain. The wetness of release.
On my skin it felt like a thousand arrows shot by a god. A tingling, ringing, singing that punctured my pores and jingling my senses. Or perhaps it wasn’t the rain at all. It was that first glimpse of her.
She was for me the beginning of the monsoon. Her fragrance was the fragrance of the dark, wet earth.
‘Have you seen her?’ Sundaran asked.
‘Who?’ I pretended not to understand.
A student crouched at his feet. A frog. So was I at one time, I thought. With the advent of monsoon and the month of karkitakam, the official massage sessions, the uzhichil, had begun. Ninety days of massage to prepare the body for the rigours of dance.
I remembered how feet had trampled and squashed my breath and hurt my body despite the film of oil that coated it. It was only with Aashaan I discovered that pressure needn’t always be brutal.
‘Who?’ Sundaran echoed mockingly. ‘The Madaama. Aashaan’s new student. Have you seen her?’
I let my foot move across the back of the student. Up and down, then on the small of the back. ‘If you mean see, I did see her. She was waiting for Aashaan outside the office room. If you mean meet, no, I haven’t. Why would I anyway?’ I said, not raising my eyes from the boy’s back. ‘I don’t know all of Aashaan’s students.’
Sundaran snorted. He was disinclined to believe me. He knew that one of these days Aashaan would have to ask either of us to take her on. He darted a venomous look at me. I saw a vein throb at his temple. I saw him look at the student lying at his foot.
The boy lay on his back. Sundaran prised his legs apart brutally. He pressed his foot down on the boy’s thigh. The boy yelped in pain.
I looked up. ‘Careful,’ I murmured. ‘You’ll maim him.’
Sundaran snorted again. ‘You and I had to endure worse and neither of us is maimed. Anyway, he’s my student and I’ll give him the massage as I see fit.’
As if to emphasize his lordship over the boy and his muscles, Sundaran’s feet trampled on him viciously. I turned my eyes away. To intervene would be to make the child suffer even more.
Later in the day I went to the tea shop outside the institute. I saw Sundaran there. I went to sit beside him. ‘What is wrong?’ I asked. ‘Why are you angry? Have you noticed that the boy is limping?’
‘Perhaps I was too harsh this morning. But I had to vent my anger. I couldn’t keep it bottled inside me. I had a letter from home demanding money. No matter how much I send, it’s never enough. And as long as I am stuck here, nothing will change. If only I could find a way of getting out!’ Sundaran twisted a piece of paper as he spoke. Suddenly he raised his eyes and said, ‘Not all of us are fortunate to have rich fathers like you or a godfather like Aashaan. But let’s not talk about it. I am to be Damayanti, the first day of Nalacharitam, two weeks from now.’ He began talking about a vesham.
I didn’t pursue the conversation; I could see that Sundaran was making an attempt to camouflage his bitterness. I nodded and listened. I would talk to Aashaan about Sundaran. Perhaps it would be best for the Madaama to study with Sundaran. And yet, I felt again the piercing rain, the fragrance of the wet earth, the cool breeze, and knew a strange reluctance to thwart Aashaan’s plans.
The invitation came the same evening. ‘We’ve been trying to reach you for the past few days,’ the organizers said. Would I play Nala?
I agreed. Sundaran and I paired each other
well. Sundaran’s finely chiselled features and large eyes had steered him towards female roles and in our student days we had always been cast as lovers. There was a chemistry between us which enhanced the storyline. Besides, it would please Sundaran. The first day of the play was well balanced between Damayanti and Nala.
Nala. Monarch of Nishada who fell in love with Princess Damayanti on mere hearsay of her beauty. In her kingdom, Damayanti too pined for Nala; neither had even seen each other, but their souls had already communed. Then Nala sent an emissary—a handsome golden swan—to Damayanti. All I need to know is if I dare hope, he beseeched the swan to find out. The swan carried a message of love and yearning to Damayanti.
She blushed and admitted her feelings. How can I say more? It doesn’t befit a woman of good breeding to flaunt her feelings, she said. And yet, my dear brother swan, I declare my love for Nala without shame or fear.
She had the swan paint her a picture of Nala and this she pressed to her bosom, imprinting his face forever on her heart.
Then Damayanti’s father announced her swayamvara. The gods Indra, Agni, Yama and Varuna, too, decided to attend, along with other royal invitees. Kings, emperors, princes: Damayanti would choose her husband from amongst them. Nala also set forth, confident of Damayanti’s love for him.
On the way, Nala was delighted to meet the four gods and as a mark of homage, he bowed before them and said, ‘Your wish is my command.’
The gods smiled at each other and said, ‘In that case, we would like you to go to Damayanti and ask her to choose from amongst us.’
Nala, having given his word, had no way of extricating himself from this mess. He pleaded, ‘How can I see her? She will be in her chambers.’
The gods smiled. ‘That doesn’t matter. We will teach you to be invisible and you can then enter her chambers and tell her our heart’s desire. But remember, the mantra will work just once.’
Nala did as they asked him to. However, Damayanti, who didn’t know it was Nala who had come as the gods’ messenger, sent him away saying her mind was made up. So he came back saying she was in love with someone else. ‘Perhaps you should send another messenger whose persuasion skills are better,’ he advised.
The gods smiled, having understood with their divine powers that it was Nala whom Damayanti loved. ‘Is that so?’ they asked.
Nala nodded.
‘We’ll find a way,’ they said. Then they added, ‘Tomorrow we will go to the great hall and each one of us will look just like you. But you are not to let her know by word or gesture which of us is really you.’
So the four gods and Nala entered the great hall where the swayamvara was being held and they were announced as Nala, the king of Nishadha. Everyone looked up in surprise when they saw five men, exact replicas of each other. Damayanti’s eyes widened, too. She smiled without saying anything.
Soon Damayanti walked into the hall carrying a garland. She walked past all the kings and headed straight towards the five Nalas. Everyone held their breath. Who was the real Nala? And would Damayanti recognize him?
Damayanti looked at the five men and without any hesitation she garlanded the real Nala. The gods assumed their real forms and Yama asked, ‘How did you know the real Nala?’
Damayanti smiled and said, ‘My love for Nala is strong and true and I would know him even if there were a hundred lookalikes in the room. Besides, Nala is a man and I knew that the other four were gods. I saw how Nala’s feet touched the ground and that his body threw a shadow and that his eyes blinked. And I knew for sure that my heart had guided me to the man of my dreams.’
The four gods smiled and blessed the couple and left. And so Nala and Damayanti were united.
This then is the first day of Nalacharitam and that was the Nala I was to be.
I smiled again at the thought.
Later, Aashaan said he would be there and he would bring Angela with him. ‘Let her watch both you and Sundaran perform and she can choose who she wants to study with.’
I felt my mouth go dry. She would see me in a vesham, as the romantic Nala. As Nala who was honour bound to not speak, even though it was his love at stake. As Nala who had to leave everything to chance. What would she think of me? ‘Does she know the story?’ I asked.
Aashaan smiled. ‘She knows it very well indeed!’
Angela
‘This is Angela.’ Aashaan smiled.
I raised my eyes and said, ‘An-ga-la. That is how my father calls me. He is German.’
I saw a mixture of emotions in Koman’s eyes. Surprise, curiosity, excitement.
Our eyes met.
Angela, he repeated. In the German way. It sounded like a name he knew and didn’t.
‘Are you German?’ he asked and I saw that he almost bit his tongue. I had just said my father was German.
I smiled. I didn’t want to cause him any embarrassment. Already I felt something akin to awe when I was in his presence. ‘My father was. But my mother was Spanish. And I grew up in England. So what do you think I am?’
He flushed.
I felt contrite. To make amends, I said, ‘He has talked to me about you. Do you know how proud Aashaan is of you?’
Again I felt a timbre of something else creep into my voice. It would come to me later what that inexplicable timbre was, I thought. For now I smiled again.
‘And I am glad that you are to be my Aashaan,’ I added.
He looked at the old man with a question in his eyes. Aashaan nodded. ‘My time here is up; I retire in two weeks’ time. Why do you look so surprised? I told you, didn’t I?’
‘But Sundaran,’ Koman said.
‘She chose to be taught by you,’ Aashaan said. ‘Teach her well. She is good.’
Our eyes met. Mine blue and his a pale brown. Sea and sand. A frisson of excitement flowed between us.
Koman broke the gaze.
Koman
The rain fell. Sheets of rain that separated us from the rest of the world. A haze of water that dispersed people and sound, trapping colour and light and refracting forbidden desires.
When the rain stopped and there was a lull splattered only by the trickle of water down the eaves, the drip from the leaves, I knew with a start that I had sinned again. That despite being separate, each in a designated space, I the teacher, she the pupil, the distance had dwindled and we had enmeshed, limbs and souls touching fleetingly and yet with the impact of two heavenly bodies colliding. A teacher and student in harmony. I knew, however, that there was more to it than harmony. I feared that she knew it as well. I could smell it in her sweat. Did she in mine? Our bodies longed to leap the distance. This is lust, I admonished my vagrant senses. An aashaan cannot lust for his student. An aashaan must not.
In the afternoon Angela came back for the theory classes. Her eyes were blue and her hair a deep brown. There was a mole above her lip, on her left cheek. Freshly bathed, with her wet hair falling to her waist, she sat before me cross-legged. Her skirt swirled around her like the petals of a lotus. The familiar stranger, I thought.
‘The Madaama is turning into a Malayali girl,’ Sundaran remarked.
I looked at her with Sundaran’s eyes. He was right. Angela was adopting the dress and mannerisms of her new world. She wore her hair like Malayali women do, with two strands drawn from behind her ears and braided into a narrow plait. It held the hair away from her face, exposed the curve of her ears and the line of her throat. Between her brows was a tiny red dot. Her eyes were lined with kohl and anklets dressed her feet. When she walked to the kalari, her long-legged gait abruptly became the nimble steps of the Indian woman. When she sat with the boys, she remembered to lower her eyes. I am besotted, I thought. This softening of my heart when I see her, what is it?
I tried to stop myself from doing so, but my eyes followed her as she danced the man’s dance. I saw how it enhanced the tilt of her breasts and the arch of her buttocks. Again, the softening within. How could it be?
Now I watched her perform the navara
sas, is part of the preliminary routine of the theory session. She is my student and I must remember that, but how can I not feast on the energy she radiates? She loves what she is doing. How can I not love that love?
‘Koman Aashaan,’ Angela’s voice broke through my crazy spiralling thoughts. ‘I know this will sound silly, but I didn’t dare ask Aashaan.’ She spoke in English.
The other boys, her batch-mates for now, paused. Their faces reflected their perplexity. They had understood just one word. Aashaan. Even they realized that the Aashaan she was referring to was not me. The long-drawn vowel of “aa” bore the awe of reverence.
I smiled. ‘Entha?’ I asked in Malayalam. What?
One of the boys couldn’t hold back his curiosity. ‘Aashaan, what is the Madaama asking?’ He spoke in Malayalam.
‘Do your work,’ I snapped.
‘It is one more of the Madaama’s questions. Don’t you remember how she tired out Aashaan last year ?’ In the silence the whisper was amplified.
I groaned. Didn’t the boy know she understood Malayalam? Angela hid her smile. She drew her lips in. I felt the beginning of a smile stretch my lips. Our eyes met and we burst into laughter.
The boys stared. They had never seen me laugh before.
‘What is it?’ I asked, wiping the amusement from my face. This would not do, I rebuked myself sternly.
Angela placed her palms sideways on the ground. ‘Why are the sides of the feet used? Like this? Rather than the flat of the feet?’
‘What she wants to know …’ I translated her question into Malayalam, turning her query into a lesson. ‘Anyone?’
The boys stared at a point behind my ear. I sighed. Could standards really have dropped so much since my time? Or were the boys not interested enough?