8
In Chevathar, the birth of a son was greeted with the kuruvai – a long-drawn-out call ululating from the throats of aunts and sisters. It sounded like a dirge but was in fact an expression of overwhelming joy. Blessed was the mother of a son. Blessed was the family into which a son was born. He would extend the family line, bring in dowry and good luck and attract the blessings of the Gods. A girl, on the other hand, was greeted with downcast faces. A girl meant nothing but sorrow. One more unproductive mouth to feed and heavy expense for the family – dowry, marriage costs, the endless demands of in-laws who had done her parents a favour by taking her off their hands. Many despondent mothers quickly extinguished the life of the luckless baby, especially if she had arrived at the tail end of a succession of daughters – by smothering her, feeding her the poisonous sap of the calotropis plant or the roots of the valli shrub, or encouraging her to ingest sharp-edged husks of rice grain which could fatally puncture the alimentary tract of an infant. If she was allowed to live, the girl was never allowed to forget that through her the family was paying for its sins in past births. All this in a land where the highest deity was Devi, the Mother Goddess, created by the commingling of the essence of the great Hindu trinity – Brahma, Narayana and Parameshwara – to rid the world of an evil they could not handle themselves.
Every woman in the village quickly learned her place in life, no matter how exalted her station. When Charity first arrived in the Big House as a young bride, she was shocked when Solomon hit her for not bringing him his coffee at exactly the right temperature. Tearfully she had returned to the kitchen. When she told her mother-in-law about the incident, Thangammal had wiped away her tears with her sari pallu, and told her something she had never forgotten: ‘In these parts, my daughter, a woman must be prepared to be beaten by her husband. If he’s a good man he won’t beat you too much, and not without reason. We put up with it. It’s the way things are. When you are newly married, you are beaten for not bringing enough dowry, when you give birth to your children, you are beaten for not producing a male heir, or if you have already given him a son, for not producing only sons. And then, when you have produced enough children, you are beaten for losing your looks and your youth.’
‘But it was not so in my father’s house.’
‘You are not in your father’s house.’
‘But, mami, it’s wrong.’
‘There’s no question of wrong or right. My son is a good boy. Here, take him the coffee again.’
The circumstances of their birth and the evolution of their separate lives gave the men and women of Chevathar village sharply differing perspectives on the rape of Valli. While the men grew robust in their hate and mistrust of each other, and obsessed about the larger consequences of the tragedy, the women identified with the girl’s trauma and were reminded once more of the misfortune of being born a woman.
After the first shock of hearing the full details of the attack, a thick unease settled in Charity’s mind. She grew snappish and irritable with her sisters-in-law Kamalambal and Kaveri, she yelled at the servants and was especially harsh on her older daughter Rachel. She was surprised at first, then realized that it was the particularity of the situation that was so upsetting: the violated girl was about the same age as her own beloved daughter, she was about to be married. It could have happened to Rachel. And her mother would have been powerless to protect her. Though she kept repeating to herself that nothing had happened to Rachel, that nothing would happen to Rachel, Charity was anxious all day. She took it out on her daughter, slapping her for forgetting to put the sliced onions for the pachidi in water and for gossiping with a servant girl. The second time she slapped her, Rachel burst into tears. Charity was quick to console her. She forced herself to calm down, to concentrate on the preparation of the refreshments and the dozens of other tasks that needed to be finished in time for the meeting of the panchayat that evening.
All through that interminable morning, news continued to filter into the Big House and Charity took it all in. The girl who had been attacked had a fatal flaw in her birth horoscope as well as in her menstrual horoscope, it was whispered, the dreaded mula natchattiram would explain her misfortune. After a while it was reported that it was not the mula natchattiram that had led to the girl’s downfall, but the even more feared naga dosham. A few women claimed to have seen a large cobra-shaped discoloration near the girl’s groin, the mark signifying that an invisible snake lurked in the girl’s genitalia to cause the death of the first man to have sex with her. It was said that her parents had concealed the information for fear that the girl would never get married. Others said it had nothing to do with imperfect horoscopes at all, it was a jilted lover who had assaulted Valli.
Charity had barely met the girl’s family but by noon she knew most of the details of their lives, some accurate, most invented. She was informed that Ponnammal, the girl’s mother, had recently given birth to her ninth child, even though, in her late thirties, her childbearing years should have been almost over. She was told that misfortune had visited the family because of a curse directed at the girl’s father by his brother-in-law who lived two villages away for defaulting on a loan. As the fragments and stories grew more fanciful and extreme, they began to distance Charity from the horror she had felt earlier in the day.
She started to get Solomon’s lunch ready. As she worked, she hoped she would be able to discuss the attack with him, but long experience had taught her that she could only do so when the time was right. She had learned, over two decades ago, that her job was to keep the household running smoothly, that she had no part to play in the affairs of the village. If she’d had any doubts, an incident that had occurred when she first arrived in Chevathar had removed them. The wives of two sharecroppers had asked her to mediate in a land dispute and she had promised to talk to her husband. She had broached the subject when she was serving the evening meal and Solomon had hit her for only the second time in their marriage. Shocked and fearful, she had agreed never to interfere in matters that did not concern her.
Since then, she had discovered how to bide her time, to use elliptical ways to influence events – gentle nagging, charm, the insinuation of requests at opportune moments. It was clear, when she began to serve lunch, that this was not the right time. Solomon was brusque with her, and barely touched his food. Refusing a second helping, he washed his hands and left. His disquiet bothered Charity. She longed to help him, but what could she do? She sat silent and disturbed over her own meal, barely tasting what she ate.
Arriving at a decision, she waited for the house to quieten and retreat into its afternoon somnolence before slipping out into the heat of the day. Solomon would not be pleased with what she was planning to do, but then he need never know. Drawing her sari pallu over her head to protect it from the sun and also to disguise herself, she made her way to the Andavar quarter.
At the entrance to the lane of low-standing shacks of mud and thatch, she realized that she had no idea where Valli’s house was. She couldn’t remember when she had last been in the Andavar quarter, perhaps five years, maybe even a decade ago. There were very few people about. Flies, stunned and oppressed by the sun, crawled in the gutters and coated the dirt- and snot-stained faces of a small knot of children who sat, drained of all energy, in the meagre shade of a coconut palm. Upon seeing the headman’s wife, they came to life. As they swarmed around her, she spotted a woman she knew quite well squatting in the doorway of her hut, languidly picking lice out of her daughter’s hair. The woman jumped up when she saw Charity. She walked her over to Valli’s hut, barely a couple of doors away. ‘The girl is sleeping, the vaidyan gave her a potion. But it’s no use, amma. When she wakes up she’ll be just as damaged as before. It’s useless . . .’ Charity thanked the woman, and stooped to enter the hut.
Inside the sweltering windowless space she could just make out the dim form of Valli lying on a mat, an old sari draping her. She slept heavily, her breath rasping. Near the door
way sat the girl’s mother feeding her baby. Two other women, neighbours, gossiped quietly a little further into the room, bending over from time to time to brush away the flies that moiled around the girl’s mouth.
When they saw Charity, the neighbours immediately grew animated, vying with each other to greet her and give her the latest news. Valli’s mother said nothing, but continued to stare vacantly at Charity. Under that terrible gaze, drained of tears, emotion, hope, Charity grew anxious again. The full horror of what this mother, this family had gone through broke over her, and yet, and yet, could she really know what they had suffered? She felt guilty and ashamed that in her concern for her own, she had forgotten the trauma of those most affected by the attack. She was glad she had come, although she doubted that she could do much for this woman, who seemed to have gone beyond sorrow to some bleaker place where no one could reach her.
‘I’m here on the thalaivar’s behalf,’ she said, slipping easily into the lie. ‘He wondered if there was anything that could be done to help.’
The girl’s mother made no response. Charity was about to try again when one of the other women spoke: ‘There’s nothing to be done. What has happened has happened, no one can alter her fate. We can only hope that her suffering is eased quickly.’ Charity half turned to look at her, and the woman inclined her head slightly and continued to speak. The girl was born under a bad star, she was paying for sins committed in a past life, things would be better for her in the next . . . the words flowed without pause in the oppressive dark. The woman stopped after a while, and then there was only the harsh breathing of the sedated girl, drawn it seemed from some deep chamber by only the force of will, and the noisy snuffling of the infant at his mother’s breast.
There’s nothing I can do, Charity thought. These women have already begun to move on; they would be able to help the girl and her mother better than she could. There was no terrible spill of anger here, none of the fury that drove the mythical Kannagi to burn up her tormentors. This way was different, more practical, perhaps the only way left to the women of the village. There was good and evil, and both were necessary to keep the world in balance – you raged against Fate only when you didn’t understand. It was best to accept and go on. Charity knew this too, of course, but she had forgotten it in her concern for Rachel. Quickly getting up, murmuring words of condolence, she fumbled in the knot of her sari for some coins, pressed them into the hands of the woman nearest to the girl and rose to go. As she stooped to leave the hut, the breeze of her passing disturbed the flies crawling over the baby. They stirred sluggishly, then settled once more.
9
Towards late evening, having completed the chapter he was working on and feeling calmer, Father Ashworth decided to take a walk on the beach. Chevathar’s sunset was as dramatic as its dawn, and this evening the show was as good as it had ever been. As the sun subsided into the sea, a marvellous play of light and colour opened up. Shimmering bolts of orange, red, gold and a delicate lilac spread out in every direction. The fishing catamarans were coming in, further up the shore, slim black projectiles spearing through the bronzed surf. One of the fishermen would paddle and direct the nose of the craft, the other would stand and brace its passage through the waves, precise rhythmic movements as timeless and graceful as the world that lay about them. The return of the boats under the waning sun filled Father Ashworth with a deep melancholy, which had nothing to do with the recent events – it was something he often felt at this hour. Curiously enough, it was not a depressing feeling, more a sense of things closing down as night took over, putting an end to the day, its triumphs and its evils, its pain and its pleasure. This was the defining moment between light and dark. Its power and majesty came from its agelessness. It had been so when the spirit of God had moved upon the waters and it would be so a hundred years hence. Verses from Ecclesiastes came to him:
One generation passeth away, and another generation cometh: but the earth abideth for ever.
The sun also ariseth, and the sun goeth down, and hasteth to his place where he arose . . .
He walked to where the Chevathar broke away from the estuary and cut through the tinted sands to merge with the quiet thunder of the Gulf of Mannar. More verses from his favourite book of the Bible rose in his mind:
All the rivers run into the sea; yet the sea is not full; unto the place from whence the rivers come, thither they return again . . .
There was a verse he could never remember, and then the terrible beauty of the next:
The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun.
The boats were almost all in now, the sun reddening the passage of the stragglers. The frail craft, the trim, work-hardened bodies of the fishermen, the great echoing power of the beach, none of this had been changed by time. This could be the Sea of Galilee; these the humble workers the master called to be fishers of men. Jesus would have been at home here, the priest thought. His followers were carpenters and peasants, not very different from the tenant farmers of Chevathar. They lived and worked under the blazing sun, suffered under the colonial yoke, were tormented by devils and disputes, rape and murder . . . As he watched the fishermen haul their catamarans up the beach he wondered what the message of Jesus would have been, had He lived and preached in India. Essentially the same, that was evident, but the parables would have changed. Instead of the vine and the fig tree there would have been rice and the mango tree, toddy would have replaced wine, and the Good Samaritan would probably have been the Good Marudar. But the basic truths that lay at the heart of the teaching would not have changed, could not have changed, for the Son of God had been fashioned by much the same circumstances as obtained in Chevathar.
A long way up the beach, he spotted a lone figure facing the westering sun. The speck of saffron that was wrapped around his indistinct body was all Father Ashworth needed to see to know who it was. It was the elderly poojari from the Murugan temple, and if it had been dawn and not dusk it was quite likely that he would be chanting rhythmically one of the most powerful mantrams the Gods had ever deigned to pass on to man, the Gayatri mantram, which the old man had taught the Christian priest before he had begun withdrawing from his duties and the world.
A disturbing image troubled Father Ashworth for an instant. He had heard it said that untouchables and the lowest of the low were forbidden from even hearing the holy chant and if they did, molten lead was poured into their ears. Will I ever come to terms with this country that is now my home, he thought. Will I ever understand it enough to be a truly effective vessel of Your will, Lord?
It was time to go to the headman’s house. As he began making his way there, the question posed so exquisitely in Psalm 137 occurred to him: How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land?
The light was failing by the time he reached the house. There was no one about on the veranda. He slipped around to the back, hoping to meet Charity and Kamalambal. A frequent visitor to the house, his arrival didn’t elicit more than a few half-hearted barks from the unsecured dogs in the backyard before they went back to more interesting pursuits. Only Daniel was outside. The boy was playing with something on the earthen stoop. As the priest approached, he looked up, frowned, then smiled.
‘Look what I found this morning, Father, on my way home. From the big tank near the river.’
Father Ashworth looked down to see two little tortoises the size of his thumb, with a sunburst pattern on their black backs, moving creakily across the packed earth.
‘Enchanting. We should try and find out what kind they are.’
‘Will they grow any bigger?’
‘I doubt it, they are not like turtles, though I have heard of land tortoises somewhere that grow to an enormous size.’
‘Appa is in a terrible temper today,’ Daniel said, changing the subject abruptly.
‘I know, and with reason.’
‘You’re here for the meeting, then
.’
‘Yes, my son. Do you know where your mother is?’
‘In the kitchen. Would you like me to tell her you’re here?’
‘No, no, I’ll just walk around. The meeting is supposed to start soon.’
10
It was dark by the time the meeting began. Pinna-oil torches were lit, throwing a flickering light on the gathering. The courtyard in front of the house was covered with the colourful sedge mats indigenous to the region. There were more mats on the veranda. When Father Ashworth took his place at the back, he noticed the headman deep in conversation with Subramania Sastrigal, the poojari of the Murugan temple. He was sure Solomon was urging the priest to keep the peace among the Vedhars. Father Ashworth’s joints creaked as he lowered himself to the ground. It had taken him months to get used to sitting on the ground when he had first arrived in Chevathar but then it had become more familiar to him than sitting on furniture. Of late, however, age had crept into his joints and sometimes he felt himself wishing for a comfortable chair. He looked around at the faces that rose out of the twilight. Vakeel Perumal, dressed as always in spotless white; Muthu Vedhar, the tall, imposing leader of the Vedhar community, whose wealth and prestige were next only to Solomon’s; Swaminathan, the priest’s son, who had virtually taken over the running of the Murugan temple; a scattering of village officials and tenant farmers, among them Kuppan, the father of the girl who was attacked; Chokkalingam, the grain merchant, who now lived across the bridge in town; a small deputation of Paraiyans; and four or five others.
There was a brief eruption of noise as the deputy tahsildar walked into the courtyard. Solomon stopped talking to the poojari and came forward to greet him with folded hands. The young official returned the thalaivar’s greetings, acknowledged everyone else with a sweeping namaskaram and sat down facing the gathering, Solomon next to him.
The House of Blue Mangoes Page 5