Ummath

by Sharmila Seyyid

  When Thawakkul knocked on the door at dinner time, Theivanai hesitantly opened the door.

  ‘Why, Theivanai, you face is …’

  ‘Sorry, Akka, this is new to me. I’ve never stayed in a Muslim household before. I didn’t know that you had come home. When did you arrive?’

  Habeeb and Nisha joined Thawakkul as she conducted their guest to the dining room. ‘It may be your first time in a Muslim home but we are used to having Tamils stay with us,’ smiled Nisha.

  ‘Don’t worry about it, ma. This is a house where many Tamils have stayed. I’ve partnered Tamils in trading businesses and have several Tamil friends.’ Habeeb’s words and the family’s friendliness made Theivanai lose her initial reserve and feel more comfortable.

  ‘We helped perform the marriages of quite a few Tamil couples right here in this house. It was during the curfews imposed by the Indian Army. We also saved many Tamils by disguising them with skull caps and veils… oh, the list goes on,’ said Thawakkul cheerfully. Theivanai soon felt at home.

  During dinner, they managed to draw Theivanai out and talk about herself. Theivanai, too, asked questions about the eating habits of Muslims. The discussions expanded into the social mores and customs of which Theivanai appeared to be wholly unaware.

  Habeeb took great interest in their conversation and participated in it, giving his views with affection.

  ‘Magal, have you made all the arrangements for Theivanai to go for her training tomorrow?’ Nisha asked with motherly concern. She seemed to have taken Theivanai under her maternal wing.

  ‘She has to leave at eight thirty in the morning. I have told Azeem to bring his auto-rickshaw.’

  ‘Azeem is like our son, Theivanai, so don’t worry about a thing. He is a very good young man. I’ll provide a packed lunch for you in the morning. Allah will find a way for you to finish your training quickly and start something on your own.’

  Thawakkul’s house would invariably be full of good cheer in the evening. Habeeb would leave for his morning prayers everyday before going to work and return after dark. The older of Thawakkul’s younger sisters, Gulfer, worked at home as a seamstress. The third daughter, Jana, was a teacher in the Palmyra Development Organization. The fourth, Sanofer, was an under-graduate arts student at the university. Nisha also engaged herself with a lot of art and craft work. All day long they would all be busy going out and fulfilling their duties.

  This was a very normal household. There were no raised voices or problems because all the inhabitants were understanding and respected each other and all other human beings. The atmosphere was new and delightful to Theivanai.

  5

  ‘Amma, how much longer will she be here?’ Vathsala believed that Yoga’s mere presence in the house was a bad omen. She had no affection whatsoever for her younger sister, and her incessant grumbling distressed Yoga.

  Early each day, Vathsala and her husband, Senthooran, would leave on their motor-bike, to return after dark. Their two sons were day scholars. After school they would go to Vantharumoolai, where their new house was being built. Vathsala spent most of her evenings after work giving Yoga a hard time.

  Vathsala was reluctant to introduce Yoga to her children as their aunt. ‘Why should the children be burdened with information that they don’t need to know? It is not as if she is a great patriot and heroine, she is just a crippled nuisance.’

  ‘As soon as her letter came I said, “No, let her not come back. She left us with no regard for us at all…now that the connection is severed, let it remain severed.” But Amma, and that one who is standing there, staring wide-eyed, refused to listen to a word I said. That little one said, “Poor thing, let her be …”’

  Yoga gradually began to understand Amma’s aloof behaviour and pitied her.

  One day, Vathsala and Senthooran met with an accident and Senthooran fractured his arm. Both husband and wife were badly bruised with nasty cuts and scrapes. Amma ran to them in panic seeing them come in swathed in bandages. Kala and Amma quickly made them comfortable and tended to them. Their neighbours dropped by to enquire about the casualties.

  Yoga, sitting in the corner of the veranda, wanted to express her concern as well, however, given their attitude towards her, she was reluctant to thrust herself into their presence.

  Vathsala called out to her mother and Kala. ‘How much longer will she be here?

  ‘As we leave home each morning, we catch a glimpse of this jinxed creature’s face. You know what that means. Today we nearly died because of her evil eye. But you still refuse to send her away.’ Vathsala was almost hysterical and wanted Yoga to hear her rant.

  Nobody expected Yoga to do what she did next, although she must have done it out sheer desperation. She fell at Vathsala’s feet.

  ‘Why Akka? Why do you dislike me so much? You know I never wished you any harm. I realize it was wrong of me to run away from that house without telling anybody, but at that time there was nothing else I could do. I have paid for my mistake. Please don’t punish me anymore, Akka!’ Yoga wept.

  No one had noticed how she had moved to prostrate herself at her cruel sister’s feet. Kala’s eyes were brimming with tears. Vathsala kicked the weeping girl in disgust and moved away. Yoga continued to lie there sobbing and banging her forehead on the floor.

  Pathma got up with determination. Her body language said, ‘This is precisely what I expected would happen if Yoga returns.’ Such hurtful words! Yoga was in unbearable agony. Only Vathsala Akka was capable of using such an array of cruel words with such ease, words that left scars all over the heart.

  Living in Akka’s house was demeaning, degrading and demoralising.

  Long ago, Yoga had left the house in Batticaloa totally resolved to join the Tigers.

  She had wandered around aimlessly for many hours through the streets of the town. Although she had decided to enlist, she hadn’t the faintest idea how to set about doing this. Having walked about ten kilometres from town, she arrived at Arayampathy. She was too numb to feel tired and continued walking. On the way she had seen army activity in Nochchimunai and Navatkudah. This trip was meant for dying, and so she did not care if the army shot her. She continued walking without paying any attention to where she was. She did not know that she was walking around Arayampathy. She had nearly forgotten the pain of the burn injury in her thigh. It was her hunger and thirst that bothered her the most. As she passed through Arayampathy’s main street, she found a street that led to the Paduvankarai River. The setting sun’s rays were fading away. And then a strange foreboding of her future pressed down on her and spread fear through her body. She continued walking towards the unknown, to new experiences and a totally uncharted life. In the distance, the surface of the river sparkled in the twilight. She walked on, staring at the silvery waves that rose from the murky waters of the river. She looked up at the overcast sky above. There was not a soul around.

  I have to get into the water and die. There is no one here to try and rescue me … Death has come close to me … Death, here I come, embrace me!

  She walked quickly towards the water.

  A tractor with a lot of young people in it passed by. She quickened her pace.

  Death is here…

  The tractor stopped and then backed up, stopping by her side.

  ‘Little sister, where are you going? It’s dark…’

  She said, ‘I’m going to jump into the river and die. I thought I’d join the Tigers and sacrifice my life, but I don’t know how …’

  Her answer must have surprised them and they looked at each other.

  ‘Where are your parents? Is this your home-town?’

  ‘Don’t ask me about them … I don’t know or care whether they’re dead or alive. They don’t need me and I don’t need them either.’

  ‘Then do you want to come with us?’

  Yoga examined each of their faces in the gloaming.

  ‘You said you wanted to join the Tigers and sacrifice your life. So come with us.’ />
  Are these people really Tamil Tigers? They don’t have any rifles. How can I believe that they are part of the Eelam Movement? What will they do to me? Will they send me to fight? Will I be able to die?

  ‘You say you are from the Tiger forces. But you don’t have any proof of this…’

  Her eyes glittered in the dark.

  They smiled.

  ‘But I don’t find you frightening at all, brothers…’

  ‘Little sister, don’t get confused. We are going to the Tamil Tigers’ camp. Don’t walk alone in the dark, come with us. There is no time to keep talking…’

  Oh, these are the gods who will send me to the battle-front and let me into the presence of Death. So, these are the Tigers…Death has opened its doors…

  She clambered on to their vehicle willingly.

  When they suddenly saw the police in front of their house, Pathma and Subramaniyam were alarmed. The news that the police gave them caused grave concern.

  ‘Did you send a daughter of yours to Batticaloa town to work?’

  ‘Yes, but not exactly to work, sir. With the onset of the war, we’ve had to move all the time, so we left her in the government official’s home in Batticaloa for protection.’ In fear, Subramaniyam’s words came out hesitatingly.

  ‘Has she come here?’

  When Sithambaram and his wife discovered that Yoga had run away, they had informed the police who were convinced that Yoga would definitely return home to her parents.

  ‘We looked after her so well. We treated her like one of our own children. We bought her new clothes and took her to the temple. I remember she met someone there, someone who had been a neighbour and had studied with her, called Senbagam or something like that. Then we don’t really know what happened. She left suddenly.’

  Sithambaram, feeling guilty, stayed silent. His wife spoke with her usual histrionics. Subramaniyam listened helplessly. He couldn’t understand why Yoga had not gone to her Chitti’s house where Vathsala had been staying.

  When Subramaniyam told her that Yoga had attained puberty, Pathma’s conscience pricked her for not having visited her daughter even once.

  ‘My child is now a woman. Who knows where she is wandering? Who knows what sort of trouble she is in…’

  Every day Subramaniyam went in a different direction to look for his daughter.

  ‘I spoke to Senbagam, too. She says she does not know anything about it. The last she saw her was in the temple.’

  He made the rounds of refugee centres that had been set up in schools trying to find Yoga. Telling people that a girl child was missing elicited unpleasant and unpalatable responses that the army may have made ‘use’ of her. In his imagination he saw photographs of an unclaimed body that had been exhumed from a grave somewhere, a body that had been killed in mysterious circumstances, and his conscience was wracked by feelings of guilt.

  And then another thought struck him.

  ‘Perhaps as the child was on her way home, the Tigers dragged her off…’

  Pathma felt that this was probably true and she cried inconsolably. She prayed in her sleep and in her waking hours that somehow Yoga should come back. She prayed to the gods and promised to do all the penances and all the rituals like offering rice and going on fasts.

  After sixty-five days, Subramaniyam saw her at last. She was in full battle dress with a weapon in her hands.

  When she emphatically declared that she would not come back home even if the alternative was death, Subramaniyam felt hurt beyond belief. The memory of those painful words and his daughter’s angst would haunt him forever.

  He fell sick after that incident and although the doctors said that his body didn’t actually have any problems, he lay curled and grew feeble. He had lost the will to keep struggling against poverty and the war. He blamed Pathma for Yoga’s rebellion.

  ‘If we had kept her with us, none of this would have happened,’ was his oft-repeated lament. One very wet day, life quietly slipped away from him.

  ‘One day,’ he swore to Pathma, ‘Yoga will change her mind and will come looking for us. As soon as her anger cools down she’ll definitely come … where else will our child go? If and when she does come, don’t punish her … she is our child, and you have to forgive her. We are the main cause of her present state … we are the culprits. Promise me that you will not let Yoga down … Swear to it …’

  Vathsala firmly believed that it was his grief over Yoga’s treachery that had caused her father’s death. As Vathsala had grown up in Chitti’s house, she made up a lot of stories in her mind about the cause for Yoga’s behaviour and fomented her hatred for Yoga.

  ‘Why should we take back someone who stubbornly maintained that she’d rather die than come home to us? What do we care what hell she falls into?’

  ‘Vathsala, don’t make me take a wrong decision for the second time. Let me keep the promise I made to your father. You know that I’ve promised that if Yoga comes back, I’ll take her in.’

  Therefore, it was not out of love for Yoga, but to keep the promise that she had made to her husband, which weighed more with her, that she had wept and cajoled until Vathsala had relented and agreed to let her sister return home.

  However, before she brought Yoga home, Pathma had begun to see things very clearly. All her children’s futures revolved around Vathsala. In fact, Vathsala and Senthooran were the ones who provided for their every need – food, clothing and shelter. Although the boys were old enough to earn a living, they were working with Senthooran.

  This house was to be a part of Kala’s dowry when she eventually married. Pathma realized that she, as Kala’s parent, could ill afford to provide this and therefore had to rely on the largesse of Vathsala and Senthooran.

  The only course open to Pathma was to sit through all the tempestuous confrontations without saying a word or taking sides and only pray fervently for divine intervention.

  Although Yoga would eat when Kala forced her to do so, most of the time she preferred to fast. Even the air inside the house felt alien and hostile.

  Senbagam did not visit her any more. Yoga was not surprised to hear that Senbagam’s husband did not approve of her associating with someone who had voluntarily joined the Tamil Tiger Movement. ‘You are a respectable young woman. Educated. You have a responsible position and job in society. Why should you talk to someone who has been a Tamil Tiger?’

  ‘Why do you say such things? I have known Yoga since she was a little child. We used to play together and go to school together…’

  ‘Ah … We know all about all that. So she did go to school with you – then why did she join the Tamil Tiger Movement? Hear she joined it voluntarily. What a strong will she must have…’

  ‘It is not like that at all. She was suffering a lot. Anyway, you’ll probably not understand…’

  ‘Yes, and I don’t need to understand anything either. Now listen to me very carefully. I don’t want to see you calling on her again… no … no arguments. This is my final word!’

  Vidhushanan’s words hurt. Senbagam could not understand why he resented Yoga when he had never seen or spoken to her. She could only conclude that Yoga was right when she said that she was badly jinxed. Lacking the courage to defy her husband, Senbagam resigned herself to losing that friendship. On her way to or from work, she would greet Yoga over the fence, but otherwise she kept a distance.

  Senbagam had completed her A-levels and worked for the Samurdhi Bank in Vantharumoolai. Yoga envied the way her friend’s career had progressed and regretted having had to drop out of school. Although Yoga did not have a clean uniform or the good shoes which Senbagam wore to school, Yoga had been better at her studies than Senbagam.

  She dusted and shook out re-awakened memories of the past; she cried and sometimes laughed thinking about them, but for which her days passed in emptiness. Sometimes, in her helplessness, she consoled herself with words of hope.

  ‘Akka, be patient … Vathsala Akka has told me that she will give me
this house as soon as the construction of the new one is completed. When Akka leaves, there will be no one here to rant and rave at you and you can live here in peace.’

  Kala’s soothing words made Yoga laugh. It was like hoping that the new flood would erase the tsunami’s destruction. She felt no better than a walking corpse.

  If only Sathuriyan had been here, he would never have let her suffer like this.

  Whenever people jeered at her or pitied the crippled woman, she consoled herself with thoughts of Sathuriyan. He had been willing to accept her even after she had lost her leg. He had planted the seeds of happiness in her heart. His fingers interlaced in hers, he had drawn her to him with promise of, ‘Come let us live!’ He had been like a breath of cool fresh air.

  In her treasure chest of memories, the happiest were those of Sathuriyan. His love continued to sustain her through the darkest days of her life.

  The tractor trundled on to Karadiyanaru. This was the Tigers’ strong hold controlling their conquests in the Batticaloa region. The training of the new fighters was done on the grassy knolls of Karadiyanaru.

  Yoga had come this far with the determination to die. There were many youngsters of her age who had joined because they had been impressed by the propaganda speeches, and there were others who had been conscripted. Although everything was a new experience for Yoga, which either terrified or thrilled her, she regretted nothing. Six months passed by quickly. As soon as her training was over she was sent to Vanni.

  The fast pace of events confused her and she could never keep her mind in one steady state. As a Tiger, she was able to enjoy many comforts that she had been denied at home, especially the absence of the awful gnaw of hunger.

  Contrary to her belief that she would be sent to the war-front immediately, she was not. For more than two years she was given tasks such as digging trenches, standing guard over them and patrolling the borders. The border had to be guarded constantly and three people were assigned to guarding the trenches in twelve-hour shifts. In the beginning, she found it difficult to stay awake and alert for so long. However, she wanted to prove herself and this seemed like a great opportunity, so she kept at it with determination. She soon got used to it. She became fearless and physically strong; the equal of any man. She acquired the kind of guts, courage, fearlessness and confidence that men consider exclusively their own.