Right in front of the club, the policemen in peaked caps began to bash the president who was perspiring, unable to answer them. Vishwanathan fainted seeing Vasudevan being taken away in the jeep.
In the lock-up of the Aluva Police Station, after smashing in Vasudevan’s right eye, the sub-inspector bellowed, with his upturned moustache trembling, ‘Son of a bitch! Are you all playing Naxalism in my territory?’
They did not listen to anything Vasudevan said. After writing down his name and his house name, with one yank they tore off his shirt buttons and stripped him. They kicked him in his navel, scorning him for being a Nampoothiri without his sacred thread. They regretted that they could not conveniently bash his head against the wall, as their hold on his oily hair kept slipping. Blood squirted from the broken bridge of his nose and forehead. Poked by the hard bamboo baton, his ribs broke. The torture increased. With their kicks, faeces spurted out. Their containers wrecked, the seeds of this descendant of an ancient lineage that venerated the deity for centuries, lay scattered.
‘Arunodaya Club! That means red dawn, doesn’t it? Yeah, yeah, you will have many bloodied, “red” dawns!’ mocked a policeman, as he broke Vasudevan’s cheekbones with a knuckleduster. Vasudevan silently cursed the moment when the name of the club was changed for no reason. They continued their punishment, demanding the name of his companion who had helped remove the idol to install the revolutionary flag instead. Before he lost consciousness, they had inscribed in blood many new names in his mind. After vomiting a mouthful of blood on his naked thighs and fainting in front of the khaki figures melting in the air, the young lord of Nedumpilli Mana heard this too: ‘You will dump the icon in the pond, chop off the heads of feudal lords! Right, you bastard son of a dog?’
That year, the re-installation of the idol of Vishnu was celebrated with great zeal by the Thachanakkara folk. As part of it, lakshaarchana pooja and udayasthamana pooja were celebrated for the first time in Thachanakkara. In the thaamboola prashnam, or soothsaying using betel leaves, it came to be revealed that the Vishnu of the little temple was more powerful than Thachanakkara thevar, who was the avatar of Parashuraman. The young man, despite being brilliant and a Brahmin, who was turned into a madman the very instant he thought of dumping Vishnu’s idol into the temple pond, was acclaimed as the living example of the maya of Vishnu. An extra elephant was added for Vishnu of the small temple for that year’s festival in the month of Medam. To add to the gaiety of the children’s festivities, apart from balloon sellers and ice fruit vendors, a new lunatic too appeared on the temple land. It was Vasudevan of Nedumpilli Mana, whose life was totally crushed. By the time his innocence was established in the trial court, he was unable to remember anything from his prior life. He had started walking around with a chunky black telephone receiver that he had found from somewhere, which he kept pressed to his ear. Instead of the sacred thread he had discarded in his saner days, he had a yellow plastic thread tied across his torso, with which he had done his initiation ritual into a boiling insanity, all by himself. He walked busily through the temple ground, deep in conversation through his wrecked phone, with the strangers planted in his shattered consciousness as mere names. Often, he was troubled with a breakdown in communication, saying, ‘Hello, isn’t this Kanu Sanyal? This is me, Vasudevan! Hah, don’t you remember? The one who operated that idol case … Hello, Choman Mooppan? Hello, is this Mandakini chechi? Hello … ’allo … ’allo…’
Children honoured him by calling him Hello Nampoothiri. As time went by, Hello Nampoothiri got abbreviated to Alomboori, and then to Alamboori. Kochu Parashu’s son Vishwanathan began to take different routes, scared by Alamboori’s stare which, like that of a beaten cat, would not lose any of its sharpness even after nine lives. To endorse her vaunted charity, for which she was known throughout Thachanakkara in those days, on every Vishu of the month of Medam, Lalitha used to give Alamboori a one-rupee coin and bow before him. Accepting the coin and touching it to his blinded right eye, each time the erstwhile young lord of Nedumpilli Mana held his yellow plastic thread ritually with his left hand, and gave his blessings extending his right hand. ‘Always, only good will happen to you!’
The first man in Thachanakkara who started bathing in the irrigation bund was Alamboori. Those who would pass by before the crack of dawn would see a piteous figure, a silhouetted idol standing smiling on the culvert, praying with raised hands, for the good of the entire world to the sun god emerging from the east.
Someone’s sin.
Someone’s sin.
Someone’s grievous sin.
TEN
Treasure Chest
24 December 1999
…Tomorrow being a postal holiday, this letter may reach you late. There is no point in me now requesting you to remember me on this Christmas eve. Tomorrow is the last Christmas of our pre-nuptial life. Ann Marie, my patron saint of love, from tonight I will be writing about my childhood. While you will be praying on this night of the Nativity, I will be able to recall the furthest extent of my childhood.
Oh, childhood! In that is the brotherhood of all creatures of this world. A young cobra breaking out of an egg and a plant emerging from the seed into the light with its leafy eyes, are similar not just visually. One should not be surprised if God and the Devil were exchanged at birth and brought up by unsuspecting parents. The essence of childish innocence cannot be influenced by time-space differences. Religion or caste or gender have little to do with it. But the misfortune is this: even if insignificant, everyone must outgrow that exalted state.
There is only one job in which, with every promotion, one has a feeling of self-deprecation: Life.
Kunthi, who had elephantiasis in her right leg, stayed for twelve days at Geethalayam during that year’s Onam. Shankaran’s younger sister used to catch a bus from Thaayikkattukara to Thachanakkara, once a month, keeping his salary date in her calculation. The sister-in-law usually returned on the second or the third day, by which time the displeasure on Chinnamma’s face would be evident. For the children, she was Kunthi’mmayi.
Till his mother’s death, once a month, Shankaran used to travel from Thachanakkara to Thaayikkattukara. He had to look after not only his mother, but also his sister, who was forsaken on the third day of her wedding for the crime of having hidden her elephantiasis. The prophecy of an old, radiant astrologer that her name also would contribute to her failure in life was coming true. When he swore that other than a river in the north, the name Kunthi was not prevalent anywhere on the earth for girls, it devastated her. ‘It’s not auspicious for girls to be named after rivers,’ said the old man, who had tied a yellow scarf over his matted hair. ‘You will see; the lives of girls who have names of rivers, will flow through misfortune!’
Grieving for her divorced daughter, the mother died. For Kunthi, who was left alone in the small house in Thaayikkattukara, only her elephantiasis-affected leg kept her company. Hearing that her husband had divorced her, fearing that he too would get infected with elephantiasis if he slept with her, the young men of Thaayikkattukara gave her a wide berth, and avoided her house.
She always spoke about her husband, who had abandoned her, with pride. ‘Listen, edathiammae,’ keeping her left leg folded in and stretching and stroking her right leg, she would tell Chinnamma, ‘at least three days he stayed with me? Had it been someone else, wouldn’t he have left me the first night itself, seeing my leg? That is what I said, he was humane.’
Oiling her leg, Kunthi nurtured her elephantiasis. Every time before leaving Geethalayam she would come to Shankaran and show her pustule-ridden leg and say, ‘Look, pappae, when I applied the oil pappa gave me, it started shining!’
Looking indulgently at the leg which resembled a yam yanked out of the soil, Shankaran would say, ‘It has come down.’ Then, digging out some coins from the little money in his pocket, he would hand them to her and say, ‘Don’t stop the oil. Here, keep this with you.’
From the time Aunt Kunthi would disembark at
the bus stop in front of the temple, the other children of Ayyaattumpilli would stop coming anywhere near Geethalayam, fearing infection from her leg. But it was their loss. Only Chinnamma’s daughters had the good fortune to enjoy her folk tales that did not lose their charm even if heard a hundred times, find small contrivances to locate the source of smelly farts, and chant potent mantras for driving away minor ailments like head and tummy aches—all learnt first-hand from their aunt.
The five-year-old Geetha would plead with Kunthi, lisping, ‘Pleeesh Kunthi’mmayi, say, no, Kunthi’mmayi?’
‘What should I say?’
‘The mantra that takes away headaches,’ Geetha, carrying her younger brother on her hip, would crow to her with anticipation.
‘I’ll say this only once more. Everyone, listen carefully.’ Then putting on a grave face, Aunt Kunthi would clear her throat and start her staccato recitation:
Kudukudu mathra, kudukudumanthra,
that is going to cure you tomorrow
and cure you completely day after tomorrow, UUSVAA!
As soon as the powerful mantra recitation was over, Geetha’s sister Rema would pull out a coconut leaf spine from the broom and stretching it towards Kunthi, start her sniffle, ‘Kunthi’mmayi, Kunthi’mmayi, can you please make me the device for identifying the kid who farts?’
‘Ayye.’ Aunt Kunthi would turn her head away to hide her laughter.
‘Why Kunthi’mmayi, you are our dearest, no? Please make us that “oochankkol” to catch farts.’ Geetha would advocate her sister’s cause.
Aunt Kunthi would screw up her nose and take the coconut leaf spine. She would break it into a piece the size of a finger and fold one half like an arm and holding the other half between her palms, start turning it as if spinning a wick for the lamp and then recite the mantra to make it point in the right direction:
Oochankolae, thirukolae,
Oh wand of fart, thou divine wand
show me the farting smarty-pants
The device would stop spinning upon hearing the request for pointing out the person who had passed wind. It would always point towards baby Jithen. Looking at the little miscreant, Geetha and Radha would roar with laughter.
Seeing her sister-in-law’s antics, Chinnamma would fly into a rage, ‘What are you doing, Kunthi? Oho, worse than children. Don’t spoil the children with your inanities. Come and scrape this coconut for me. Or … Never mind, as if you can sit on the scraper with that leg! Dee, Geethae, here, take and scrape this. You are not a baby. At your age I had started draining boiled rice!’
The children waited for each visit, And not only did they not fear her leg with elephantiasis, they even felt sympathy for the one without elephantiasis. ‘If our Kunthi’mmayi had elephantiasis on her other leg too, what fun it would be!’ Geetha told Rema, awaiting Aunt Kunthi’s next visit.
‘Ouw, shut up, will you, you wicked girl,’ Chinnamma would scold Geetha. Unable to comprehend how her wish could be wickedness, Geetha would stare at her sister, open-mouthed.
Though she had only joined the first standard in Aalungal School, even as a child she had attained an elder-sister aura, taking after her eldest cousin Thankamani. ‘Dee Remae,’ she would order about her sister peremptorily, ‘don’t stand in the sun; go inside. If you are disobedient, Alamboori will take you away, ngaa!’
Thankamani, elder to Geetha by ten years, had completed her tenth standard and passed out from the St Francis Girls’ High School, Aluva, and thoughts of her marriage were weighing heavily on the mind of Thankamma in the old house. Thankamani had inherited the thick curly hair of her grandmother; she wanted to be a dancer. She had joined the dance school started by a dance teacher called Sadanandan in a room in front of the Thachanakkara temple, which had been used as a free lodge previously. During the temple festival that year, on the second day when the dance by new dancers was staged, she won applause for her performance of Kaaliyamardhanam. However, Ayyaattumpilli was not fated to have a danseuse in the family. Her guru eloped with another student who had shown great promise in Mohiniyaattam. For many years, Guru Sadanandan’s yellow board hung askew, covered in cobwebs with the faded ‘Parashurama Nritta Vidyaalayam’ still visible on it. With the elopement of the guru, Thankamani started taking primary lessons in culinary skills from her mother in preparation for her marital life. Her debut in Thachanakkara temple thus became her farewell show as well. The large serpent cut-out painted by artist Babu on double thick paper as the show’s backdrop, lay in the attic of the old house in a crumpled heap till it disintegrated. She gave the accoutrements she wore on her hair when performing Kaaliyamardhanam, to her cousin Geetha. The five-year-old carried around the kunjalam, made of gilt, velvet, and black string, with more veneration than it deserved. Tying the kunjalam to her hair, which was yet to reach below her neck, she happily enacted Kaaliyamardhanam in front of the mirror almirah her father had bought recently.
Only Chinnamma did not have a well of her own in Ayyaattumpilli. Through the fence dividing Geethalayam and the New House, she had an opening to go through and fetch water. She was in a hurry to have a clean break with her father and stop drawing water from the well in the New House. ‘If only we had used the money and dug a well instead of the damned wall and gate,’ she would often curse herself.
During those Onam days, carrying Jithen on her hip, Kunthi paced the front yard of Geethalayam, hampered by her leg. Walking like her aunt’s shadow, Rema kept tickling Jithen’s silver anklet-clad leg. When she saw Kunthi standing, carrying her son, near the break in the fence leading to the New House, Chinnamma shouted, ‘Kunthiyye, come here with my son.’
Naraapilla and Kunthi were two souls who were isolated for different reasons in their houses in Thachanakkara and Thaayikkattukara, respectively. Because of that, despite knowing all the vile tales about Naraapilla, Kunthi felt sympathy for the old man. Naraapilla reminded her of her own father, who had died when she was still a baby. When she would calculate that it was sixteen years since her brother had moved to Ayyaattumpilli, she would wonder that, after the episode of Naraapilla ridiculing her during the wedding feast for scraping the curry off the plantain leaf, he had never talked to her!
In normal circumstances, Chinnamma would not have had any misgivings about Kunthi who stood near the breach in the fence, pondering. However, she had become vigilant ever since Appu Nair had called her and had given her a timely warning. ‘That he has become old, he alone doesn’t know,’ Appu Nair had told his niece. ‘Listen, Chinnammae. He may find even the elephantiasis attractive.’
But despite Appu Nair’s anxiety, Chinnamma once herself had to send Kunthi to Naraapilla’s side. Jithen was completing two years on avittam day in the month of Chingam. Kunthi, who reached a day before aththam, stayed at Geethalayam for twelve days to attend Jithen’s birthday. Though there was leftover wheat paayasam made for Thiruvonam, the next day Chinnamma made parippu paayasam for her son’s birthday. After all of them had eaten it, there was a lot of paayasam left over. Chinnamma poured it into three vessels. Then, after thinking for some time, one portion she sent with Geetha to Pankajaakshan’s house, and one with Rema to Thankamma’s house. Though she went out carrying the third vessel, she did not go forward. She called Kunthi after some time and told her, ‘Kunthiye, take this to that side. I have a pile of clothes to wash.’
Chinnamma left to wash clothes in the irrigation bund in the blazing sun; the forty-year-old Kunthi, with the birthday boy Jithen on her hip and the paayasam vessel in her hand, headed towards the seventy-five-year-old Naraapilla.
Eight years later, one of the two women to wail loudly on seeing the white-cloth-swathed body of Naraapilla in the New House would be Kunthi, Shankaran’s sister. On that day, Appu Nair, who had known Naraapilla for close to eight decades, would use his ultimate powers to be astonished one more time and bring out, and dust up one of his forgotten old usages. ‘When I saw that Shankaran’s sister cry out so loud, I went hari hara,’ he would say. ‘Why was she crying?
I am still not able to understand that.’
Though he was only about ten years old that day, since a very hazy picture from the past kept rising in his mind, for Jithendran alone the wails of his Aunt Kunthi would not appear aberrant. Instead, he would feel an unexplained dread towards the thoroughly sodden body of his grandfather, which took a long time to burn up, having been lying in the algae bloom-filled temple pond for a long time.
Remembering how he had tried not to fall off a bouncing cot bound with coir, looking alternately at an unopened vessel of paayasam and a swollen foot of a woman which repeatedly kept coming close to it, a two-year-old boy inside him started crying again.
For the ten grandchildren of Naraapilla, except Govindan’s kids, Aunt Kunthi gave a descriptor: the first one was favourite; the second one, sovereign; the third, a thechi flower; the fourth one, a fine lemon; the fifth, a five-colour parrot; the sixth one, an axe thief; the seventh one, a sacred script; the eighth, a weighty pot; the ninth one, a nincompoop; and for the tenth, cometh the treasure chest.
On those ten descriptors, Aunt Kunthi imposed the traits of everyone from Thankamma’s daughter Thankamani to Chinnamma’s son Jithen. In the chronological order, thus Jithen who was the last, became the treasure chest.
The treasure chest. The collections in the chest were the memories from the beginning of childhood. Memories had roots. They had branches and twigs. Memories would flower and bud. Sometimes they would get mixed up and create new flowers and fruits, never seen by anyone before.
On the riverbank where the wild sugarcane grass was hissing, with a bell metal kindi in his hand, the six-year-old Jithen was standing guard for Naraapilla. When he heard about the seven mountains that had given birth to Periyar river from his grandfather, a stream of words, which he had heard from Aunt Kunthi, began to be reborn as a story through him:
A Preface to Man Page 20