A Preface to Man

by Subhash Chandran

‘Today’s your birthday, no?’ the sanyaasi asked suddenly.

  ‘Eh?’ Not catching the question, Naraapilla used his right hand to cup his ear. The second time, when the sanyaasi repeated the question, raising his voice, Naraapilla was shocked. With that he sat down more firmly. Like a child whose artifice has been exposed, his smile bordered on tears.

  ‘Tell me all that you have to say,’ the sanyaasi said, ‘I don’t accept any hansel!’

  Naraapilla had forgotten his own reference to hansel just a while ago. He felt anxious that the man of divinity sitting across him could read his mind. He took the damp thorth off his shoulder and wiped his brow. Dried sandalwood flecks floated in the air. Words gushed out of him like from a breached dam.

  ‘Swami, I, this me, have lived long. Have reaped much, threshed and measured much, ate much, saw many as children and grandchildren. Saw many births and many deaths. I lived thus, a long time. On the birthday the exact age shouldn’t be mentioned, but I will tell you approximately. Not one or two, at least about eighty years! But these days, what should I say, a kind of … You understood?’

  ‘Keep talking! It’s not polite to ask if one has understood every now and then,’ said the sanyaasi, keeping his head bowed.

  Naraapilla corrected his posture, sitting straight. He didn’t hear distinctly what the sanyaasi had said. For a long time Naraapilla had been having a feeling that his ears were sharper in the night and as the day progressed, his sense of hearing weakened.

  ‘Ah, let it be, whatever it is,’ saying this sentence, which was a good enough answer for whatever the sanyaasi was telling him, Naraapilla pointed to the corner of the room and continued, ‘That flame is going to die. Just extinguish it. There, like that, that’s all there’s to it. So, what was I saying, Swami, eh?’

  Stretching his hand and pressing the index finger on the lamp to douse the flame, the sanyaasi said, ‘This. After living all this while, you have reached an age when the wick can be extinguished any day, no? Umm, let me hear the rest!’

  It did not appear as if Naraapilla enjoyed it a bit. Frowning, he said with displeasure, ‘I told you, I don’t know how to say that. Or else, I will put it bluntly.’ Looking around, and after making sure that no one was lurking near the lodge, he continued, ‘The belief is that after we die we will go to heaven, hell, etc., no? Leave the thing that those who do good will go to heaven; even if some of those don’t go to heaven, we couldn’t be bothered. But those who have sinned, shouldn’t they get an assurance of sorts from somewhere? Do you understand what am I getting at? That is, imagine I commit a sin without the world knowing of it. Then imagine that I carry it with me for the rest of my life without even a fly getting wind of it. If I have a guarantee that I will get a punishment when I reach hell, I can die in peace, no? If not, what will happen? What if I don’t get punished in this world or the other world, terrible, isn’t it?’

  ‘Terrible for whom? For you or…’ the sanyaasi asked with his eyes closed, looking inward.

  This time, Naraapilla clearly heard what the sanyaasi had asked. ‘For me!’ he said. ‘For who else? Swami must be aware that the wrongdoer gets a kind of relief when he gets the punishment, whether from God or the court?’

  Hearing this strange concept for the first time in their dialogue, the sanyaasi looked at Naraapilla’s face. He perceived the old man’s heart had kept its dim yellow light in his indifferent eyes, wide open under the grey eyebrows.

  ‘In this old age, what punishment are you expecting?’ the sanyaasi asked a little loudly.

  ‘Why should I receive punishment?’ A little shaken, Naraapilla looked behind him at the door and said, ‘That’s right. It’s only the one who has sinned need worry about punishment? What I was getting at is not that, Swami. Imagine now that the police nabbed one who’s committed a lot of crimes. Did you imagine? Think that he was beaten up in the station or they take him to court and he gets dumped in the jail for a long period. Did you think? When the criminal comes out after all that punishment, his heart will be clean. Clean how? Clean enough to commit another fresh crime! Hee! And not clean in the sense he would lead a straight life thereafter. Understood?’

  The sanyaasi smiled with the right side of his mouth. ‘I am getting it gradually,’ he said, ‘but this is not a new problem. When the sinner gets punished, the others get a feeling that the world is going in the right direction. A tiny feeling only. But as far as man is concerned, such a feeling is paramount. Is that not so?’

  ‘Dey, Swami’s losing track again!’ Naraapilla said, ‘Because of that spittoon’s noise, I can’t hear what you are saying properly. I am a little hard of hearing. I’m hearing only in halves and fractions.’

  As if heeding that, the music from the spittoon stopped in the middle. There was a cut in the electricity supply to Thachanakkara. Naraapilla gave the sanyaasi a disbelieving look. With a smile of gratitude for that miracle he continued, ‘Swami is talking of humans. I am talking about me. That is the difference. Isn’t that a terrific difference, Swami? That is, we know all the canons of this world. We wish that all the people in the world would live and die according to those laws. But don’t we believe we alone are not bound by those canons?’

  ‘None of these is applicable to us, right? Is that the way you really intended it?’ the sanyaasi asked, concentrating on tearing off the nail on the big toe of his right foot. ‘That means even when we live unmindful of others, gifting pain and sorrow to the world, we can remain unaffected by all that—that is what you believe, yes?’

  ‘That’s where Swami has gone wrong.’ Naraapilla thrust forward enthusiastically. ‘Does anyone create pain and sorrow in this world on purpose? No! Such extremely wicked people are not there in this world! We do things for our pleasure or maybe for a little happiness; those appear to be wickedness in the eyes of others. That’s all, no?’

  The sanyaasi, who had been somewhat indolent till then, became wholly focused on him. The cool breeze slammed the window shut. Naraapilla’s face became more sombre.

  ‘Swami asked earlier what sin I had committed?’ When Naraapilla started again, the sanyaasi raised his hand in denial and said, ‘No, no. That is not how I asked. What punishment are you expecting in this old age, is what I asked.’

  ‘Ha, all right!’ Naraapilla laughed sarcastically. ‘Aren’t both the same, Swami? Let that go, let that go. After all who’s Swami to apportion punishment to me, no?’ The old man suddenly became silent and sat still, gazing at the floor. After some time, swaying his body to the sides, with a low voice he said, ‘Yes, I have committed a sin. Now that I have said so much, I might as well tell you that too. If you ask me if it was intentional, no! Not at all. But if you ask me if it was done without any forethought, that is also not so.’

  Through the open door, a ripe banyan leaf floated in and fell on the floor of the lodge. The sanyaasi saw with his inner eye, the grey hairs on the back of the old man feeling discomfited by the cool breeze.

  ‘That means you were the cause of a small, a very small, violation, no? That is all?’ the sanyaasi asked.

  Naraapilla opened his eyes and looked at the sanyaasi. At that moment, he felt a spasm in his abdomen. A pain that began as a pecking and gradually tore him apart with increasing intensity.

  ‘Pho,’ he said slowly, screwing up his face and keeping his hand on the pain. ‘When you say small … when you consider it, it isn’t such a small infraction. Well, no, you can also say it is small. How many people die from so many causes! Drowning in the river, poisoned, run over by vehicles … no? When you add it all up, one death is nothing, isn’t it so, Swami?’

  The sanyaasi gave Naraapilla a sharp look. Even though he was looking at the sanyaasi’s face, he did not see that at all.

  ‘Can we say that?’ the sanyaasi asked, stroking his beard to hide his agitation. ‘Isn’t each death like the end of the world, in a sense? At least as far as the dying person is concerned? If that be so, every death would be sorrowful in equal measure. That is a u
sage of us sanyaasis— in equal measure. Whether it is a human being or a monkey, even a lowly chicken, death can create a very heartbreaking emptiness—in the minds of those who love.’

  ‘Eh?’ Looking back and ensuring that his tumbler and walking stick were still near the door, Naraapilla asked, ‘Did Swami say, chicken? Why are you bringing chicken into matters that concern human beings? I was not talking of the sorrow caused by death. There’s this unbearable sadness in murdering someone, even if unintentionally—I have been straining all these three-four years to meet you to speak about that! Tell me this, Swami, we kill the mosquito which sucks our blood, we kill the louse on our head, we beat to death the snake and the mad dog coming to bite us, right? That is no crime and there is no guilt, not a wee bit! Like that, on the other hand, what if someone kills another for some reason? All hell breaks loose, there’s noise, there’s incarceration, no?’

  ‘Is it right to say so? Are human beings like mosquitoes, lice or snakes?’ the sanyaasi asked, with a smile marking the mind of the old fogey sitting across him.

  ‘Eh? Isn’t it so? You were the one who mentioned chicken earlier. At least you sanyaasis should say it is correct? Let me say, there are murders which ordinary men commit, this side of the portals of the courts. Hapless common men! Do you know, sometimes, even the murderer may be as innocent as the one murdered. The dead are celebrated by all at all times. Sometimes, the killer may be a better person than the one killed. Do you understand? But people will say he is a villain. Police, lawyers and the magistrates together will toy with him for a period, and then hang him to death. So what about the murder done by the executioner, with the consent of the court? Truly, isn’t this like beating to death a mad dog coming to bite you? Even if the one who writhes and dies is a man? Then, there is sin and there is no remorse!’ Showing the stubs of his remaining two incisors Naraapilla laughed. Suddenly his face showed a mysterious emotion, fleetingly. Rubbing his tummy in a circular motion, with unfocused eyes Naraapilla said, ‘I too may have been killed that way! Then my children would have been happy. Not mere happiness, real beatitude!’

  ‘You shouldn’t say so!’ the sanyaasi said, with a bitter smile donned to mask his bitter emotions. ‘Your children must be happy to have such a wit for their father! But if it’s something you can confide in me, tell me, whose death is making your mind so uneasy? In whose murder do you needlessly believe you have played a part? Tell me! Any expiation which gives more comfort than repentance is yet to be discovered!’

  The day had broken outside the lodge. An old woman headed for the temple, reciting hymns, peeped into the lodge through the open door. Seeing the back of Naraapilla, seated facing the sanyaasi, she raised the volume of her hymns and hurried away.

  ‘Or give me a chance to divine and tell you!’ After meditating for some time, opening his eyes and staring at Naraapilla, the sanyaasi said, ‘The death of a child, no? A male child who died while still young from not getting medical attention in time?’

  At that moment, Naraapilla felt a devotion towards the sanyaasi. Joining his palms he said, ‘Not that one, Swami. How many children like that die from diseases, how many are saved! Even my Pappanaavan’s case is like that. This … This is not that.’ Playing host to a feeling that there was nothing further to hide from the sanyaasi, Naraapilla’s mind underwent an upheaval.

  ‘One kick!’ Suddenly, Naraapilla said in that frightening voice of Ayyaattumpilli stock, ‘One kick alone! When that was done, I was sure it was over! What was over? My life! Now can’t you see? Who’s there to boil and give me a drop of tea on my birthday? If I become bedridden, that would be it, no? Will any son of a bitch even look at me? Oh, I didn’t think it would come to this. Or else I wouldn’t have kicked that kick. But that kick happened! Didn’t everything end with that one kick? See, it was with this leg.’ Naraapilla pulled his right leg from underneath the lotus position. The sanyaasi struggled to control himself and stared at the dark leg full of grey hairs. The look on the old man’s face seemed to be aiming at tearfulness and losing its way into stubbornness. The atmosphere in that dilapidated lodge became funereal and seeped in silence. He sucked his lower lip into his mouth, as if making faces, and managed to get his equilibrium back.

  ‘But it did not stop with that.’ Pulling back his leg, Naraapilla continued, ‘She continued for many days with that head broken on those steps. The mother of four sons, with no one by her side was spitting, shitting, smashing her head against the walls—all in that one room. After spending many days like that, the story ended. Here, like this, I returned home after my bath and prayers, and people and excitement at home! Ah, dead!’

  Naraapilla did notice the sanyaasi seizing as if struck by electricity and his tongue getting cut, caught between clamped teeth. The sanyaasi lowered his face, unable to look at the face of the old man who was sitting like the dried, shrivelled, corpse of a vulture in front of him. Outside, along the main road of Thachanakkara, the calls of a fish vendor rose and fell with many intervals between them and moved farther. Realizing that he had been sitting for a long time with lowered unblinking eyes, sighing deeply the sanyaasi got up and said, ‘What was…’ Unable to complete the question, a sob rose in his throat. He rubbed both his open palms on his face roughly, and pulled his beard, and with difficulty completed the question, ‘What was the crime she had committed to deserve such a punishment?’

  Naraapilla looked up at the sanyaasi. When he felt that some people on the way to the temple had stopped in front of the lodge, the sanyaasi went and shut the door. Looking at the old man with his back full of grey hairs, the sanyaasi stood by the door, breathing heavily.

  Naraapilla heard that question clearly. He was sitting and moving his body to and fro, wearing the mask of a long-suffering person labouring under all the tribulations of the world, but relaxed from achieving the purpose of his visit and expecting only some words of solace. He stopped his body movements the moment he heard the question from the sanyaasi. With the expression of a thief, hearing approaching footsteps while hiding in a dark room, Naraapilla turned around and asked, ‘Eh?’

  The doors, opened by a strong breeze, hit the sanyaasi’s body. He opened the doors and looked up. When he heard the sound of the unusually loud rain, unleashed by the burning sky, on the tiles of the lodge, he closed the doors suddenly, moved the latch, and asked, ‘What was her crime?’

  Naraapilla tried to get up. The sanyaasi came and kneeled down in front of him and maintained the interrogating posture. Naraapilla trembled at his look. The old man thought that in that closed single room, he was caught in a rigorous test, where he had to prove his eligibility to live even if it was for the next few minutes. Unable to look at truth in the eye with dignity, Naraapilla lowered his eyes. But that did not last long. He then realized a masculine fiend of prevarication, of subterfuge, of treachery for the sake of survival, of false witness for self-preservation, was shaking and rising up in him, surprising even himself. He saw himself as the most gifted actor in the world then. ‘Betrayal, what else? A rank perfidy which no husband can condone,’ Naraapilla stated in as high a voice that his eighty-two-year-old body was capable of, ‘she was one who didn’t have the basic necessities—to eat, wear, or live. The daughter of Paramu Nair of Peechamkurichi, a man of no means, Thachanakkara thevar will vouchsafe. And to look at … Aeyy! A miserable scarecrow with hardly any redeeming features! She was starving, absolutely starving. To add to it, the disease of eating stones and soil! I married her without much thought, thinking at least I could give her a life. Do you understand? Does Swami know what the folk of Thachanakkara used to say those days about this Naraapilla? The man who used to measure money with a para! It’s with such a Naraapilla that she messed with. When we made a new house, a tenant, an outsider, came for the old house. An educated, knowledgeable teacher. One look at him and you could see he’s the kind who goes after other people’s wives. Hey, pulling wool over my eyes … Poetry recitation, taking her to the beach festival then … How
can I say it? Swami can imagine the rest, whatever shouldn’t have happened there.’

  Since the rain was lashing the place, Naraapilla’s voice had reached a high pitch to compensate. He did not notice that the sanyaasi had got up and was furiously pacing the room like a wounded animal. Seeing the sanyaasi lunging at him with the oil lamp he had grabbed from the corner of the room, whirling like a temple oracle, and with a roar like thunder, Naraapilla shut his eyes tight. The next moment he heard the sound of the oil lamp hitting the floor. Naraapilla opened his eyes. The sanyaasi, standing with his head tilted up and with his convulsing arms raised in a clasp, spoke in words broken up with intense pain: ‘And how did the poor thing hit her head against the walls at the time of her death? How? I didn’t know, I didn’t know!’ Crying loudly, he dashed his head against the wall of the lodge. The lodge shook all over, as if in an earthquake.

  ‘Tell me, you vile sinner, you ancient creature! Tell me if it was like this!’ He smashed his head against the wall again and again. The blisters of lime plaster fell off the walls of the lodge. The sanyaasi’s voice rose above the pelting rain outside. ‘Tell!’

  The trembling of the sanyaasi now spread to Naraapilla like a flame. In his frantic efforts to scramble and get up, he fell twice on the floor. In his panic to escape death, in his third attempt, he managed to stand up erect. As he saw the sanyaasi sitting in a corner, hiding his blood-streaked face between his knees and clutching his long hair, Naraapilla started to convulse and writhe, realizing the epilepsy of his childhood was making a return in his ripe old age. He felt as if the walls of the lodge were closing in on him rapidly and crushing him, as if the entire lodge had become a torture chamber and was being hoisted up on the banyan tree. Froth and bubbles flowed out of his mouth. When he failed to catch the drops of rain falling through the cracks in the tiles with his tongue, he had a glance of his son sitting in the corner of the room, for the last time. ‘Pho!’ Snapping at his son with vigour, he toppled over, even as he urinated and defecated involuntarily.