| Melanmai Ponnusamy |
This is an English translation of Tamil short story “Vana sudhandhiram” written by Melanmai Ponnusamy. This short story was published in Ananda Vikadan, a Tamil weekly (08.05.13 issue).
Kadarkarai’s back arched backwards as he was unable to bear
the weight of his school bag when he slung it over his shoulder. The boys, like
sparrows filled with joy in their small feathers, were flying with happiness.
It was a Friday evening. Evening sun pierced their eyes like a needle, leaving
a burning sensation on the softness of cheeks as if they were baked in
fire….
‘Now, the next two days will be holidays…aiiikkk….aiiikkk……we
can dance, can sing, can watch TV, and can play cricket on the streets, can
throng into and drown in the well in the woods, and swim there.’ Like the wind that is thrown out
of the flutter of sparrows, there was a flood of ecstasy of dreams spilling out
of brims in their heart. They looked like bunches of some smiling flowers, as
if dreams had developed legs and roamed on streets!
Unable to withstand the weight of the school bag, Kadarkarai
bent forward. The heart, smothered, unable to bear the burden of sorrows.
Different teachers for different sessions. They announced the results of the
monthly tests. Answer sheets folded, elongated. Marks were written inside the
circle drawn upon it. Near to it, the names. When each teacher turned up with
the bundle of folded papers in his hand, everyone’s heart palpitation would
never be normal. Suffocation due to fear would descend upon. How much would it
be...? Trepidation and terror would vie with each other in their mind.
Kadarkarai too got affected by this. But after the announcement of results, he
was happy. His heart sprang up as if it had gotten feathers. In social science,
eighty-four out of a hundred. In Science seventy-six. In Tamil, ninety-two. In
mathematics, sixty-eight. Only English posed a serious problem.
All teachers specifically praised Kadarkarai. “What is your
name?”
“S. Kadarkarai”
“What is your father’s name?”
“K. Sinnan”
“What is he doing?”
“Herding pigs”
“Does your father know how to write his signature?”
“No, sir…only a thumb ink impression.”
“Kadarkarai is the first student coming from an illiterate
family background. He has scored this many marks. We should praise him.
Everyone should take him as a role model.”
The music of claps from the entire class resonated in
synchronization. Beaming with pride, he looked at the teacher innocently with
his eyes wide open. He felt like bursting into tears as if some sort of
congestion was blocking his heart. Mirth and tears simultaneously overwhelmed
him. Arunsunai, who used to sit to his left, nudged him with his elbow at his
waist and smiled at him, winking at him. Nudge of praise.
“He is actually rebuking all of us in the guise of praising
you”—he” murmured and winked his right eye at him.
The math teacher was like a machine. He came, announced the
results, and started his lessons mechanically. The English teacher was kind of
a lunatic, deeply entrenched in caste. He would treat the children from the
East Street slum with his casteist eyes. Intolerance and annoyance at seeing
them were jumping out of his eyes like flames. Kadarkarai would now be ready to
get beaten with brooms. The teacher would announce the marks and praise
everyone. Then, he would turn to him, leaving others. He would omit his name
along with four other children from slums. At last he would announce it with an
offensive tone.
“Madasamy…twenty-eight”
“Solai raj…thirty-six…”
“Pavunraj…thirty-three.”
“Muniyasamy…thirty-one.”
“Kadarkarai…Twenty-seven”
After segregating these five students aside, he looked at all
of them at the same time.
“You buggers… Who is dying here to see all of you coming here
to study? I am teaching English lessons with all my efforts. I am explaining
everything till my breath gets dried up. I am teaching grammar. After listening
to all these, you idiots could score only this much. Couldn’t you? All of you
have failed. For what the hell do you all come to the school? You…useless pack
of fools are only fit for herding pigs….”
He was the type of teacher who didn’t have qualms about
venting out his anger and indignation. He was fond of finding sadistic pleasure
in demeaning and in spitting out venom and derived a sort of happiness in
reminding every one of their caste.
“Even if it likes to fly high, a village sparrow cannot
become a kite. If you go to the forest stream to collect pig dung, at least you
would be able to collect four baskets of dung. Why do you come here to take
away my life?”
Kadarkarai would feel as if his small feathers had been
chopped off at once. He would feel a pain at the bottom of his heart as if a
burning rod was inserted there. The pain of being beaten by a slipper while
being given another to wear. The suffering of slur thrown at him. The English
teacher whipping with the soaked broom of invectives—all the praises other
teachers showered upon him would be forgotten just like a duster that wiped out
them all. The insult from this teacher would prick like a thorn in his heart.
It would make him bend just like the load he carried on his back. Kadarkarai
was unable to come back to his normalcy. 'The teacher comes in the last
period and spits out. The spittle he spat out still spills in the heart!'
When the English lessons were taught, the classroom would
turn into a furnace. Same was with the drill teacher. His nickname was Cane. He
was thin and tubby. We wouldn’t be able to see him without a cane in his hand.
Not only in games; even in the classroom too, his uncouth behaviour would have
its way. He would keep on insisting on orderliness and rules in an
authoritative and intimidating tone.
Kadarkarai entered the street with the load of his school
bag. Other boys would buy some stuff from the shop. Those who did not have
money would simply watch, yearning. Arunsunai brought two ‘achu
murukku.’.
“Take it, Kadarkarai.”
“No...I don’t need it.”
“Keep one.”
Looking at his surroundings with frightful eyes, he took a ‘murukku’
from Arunsunai.
“What business do you have with a boy from the slum?” Arunsunai would be reprimanded.
“You fool… Let him be a dupe. If he gives, will you accept it
or what?— Kadarkarai
would also be scolded.
The playful roaring of piglets announced that he was nearing
his street. With mild biting, absurd jumping, and their curly tips of tails,
the piglets were playing merrily. One pregnant pig was tied near to the veranda
in the front. Its legs behind were tied together and were tied to a pillar. The
painful roaring of the pregnant pig, which was trying to release itself from
the rope with all its force till the rope had lost all its tension, filled the
air there.
Kadarkarai remembered Irulan. His freedom was something
indispensable. The entire forest was his kingdom. Goats would graze on their
own. He would stand, with his stalk standing like a pillar on the floor.
Scorching sunlight was like moonlight for him. He would sing songs aloud by
knitting foul words together amid the freedom of the forest where no one else
would be there.
There would be no teachers. There would be no orderliness
called classrooms. The regulations of getting afraid of a cane and playing
within the limit of a circle wouldn’t be there. Insulting insinuations of
outrageousness like “you people are fit only for herding pigs” wouldn’t be
there. No more homework. No more impositions. No more punishments of writing
the same English lessons five times. Many ‘no mores’ were its freedom. Freedom
of woods. The woods of liberation!!
He sat down in front of the house, the floor of which had
been hardened by the constant sprinkling and scrubbing of pig dung water.
The English teacher had given him an imposition. He had to write three pages of
story three times in a notebook!
“If you all come on Monday without writing it, the cane is
with me. I will peel your skin off your back. Your palms will get ripe and
swollen.”
It seemed that his four canine teeth were protruding out of a
completely tonsured face. He sat and started writing his homework. Dull evening
light without sunlight. Piglets were walking along the pigpen. Sewage water
droplets were spilled out due to pigs wagging their tails. There was a buried
wooden pigsty in front of the pregnant pig. It was dried up without gruel. At
the salt corner of the front side was lying a heap of pig dung inside the
pigpen. A broom used for cleaning the garbage and sand was lying beside the
garbage itself.
There was an intimidation of ‘tonsured’ face teacher, there
was a locked door not allowing him to drink water, and upon his dried-up tongue
was there leftover ‘murukku’ and the physical uncomfortableness of having to
fold his legs and bend to write… The last finger of his left hand moved upon
the lines of the English book…mental exasperation of writing them on the notebook
with his right hand!! Feel of tiresomeness resulted from the pain of
pressurizing compulsion!!
His mind ran to Irulan. He longed to sit beside him. He
wanted to listen to the stories he narrated. Last month Kadarkarai went to the
river bridge area in search of his father. To the north of the bridge, there
lay an ocean of barren 'lands.'. Goats were grazing. ‘Karichcaan’
birds were perching on the grazing goats. After removing his vest and briefs
and tying his waist ‘lungi’ as a turban around his head, Irulan was jumping and
hopping under the scorching sun. Well-endowed youth! In an open area…in stark
sunlight…in the freeness of woods where there were no fetters…Kadarkarai looked
at him astonishingly. Later he confided all those breathtaking surprises only
to Arunsunai.
It was Sunday of the last week. It was dusk and dark. Irulan
was sitting on a parapet wall of the bridge, which was built for the sewage
canal. There were four or five boys standing very near to each other….
Kadarkarai was one among them. He would have his lap full of ‘karachevu.’ No
matter who it might be, he would get a handful of ‘Karachevu.’ Kadarkarai also
got it.
“While herding goats, the cotton fruits I picked up from
Aiyappa Nayakkar’s semi-arable land are lying here on my lap as ‘karachevu.’
Taste them in the name of Aiyappa Nayakkar’s virtues"—the justification he
used to give was interesting and in commensuration with the generosity of his
hand.
“You have stolen them? …Won’t they scold you?”
“If caught, they will beat you black and blue and squeeze
your dung out of you. But until you get caught, it will be our kingdom.”
It was his adventurous pride that cheerfully celebrated
itself without considering theft as a crime.
“Without the money from theft, is it possible to roam around
the forest lands like this? If it has been possible to maintain forty goats,
feed twenty calves, and lead this life, do you think it is all done without
anything? Nothing but theft, man. Without putting your hand on some farmers’
agricultural products, we can't maintain such a large number of cattle. Can
we?”
The way he narrated with the tone of adventure by
trivializing them would leave Kadarkarai cataleptic. He would stand spellbound.
Not only that… Titillating, sleazy stories with the minimized undertone would
also follow in loads of bullock carts after that.
His escapades of touching the women coming to herd their
cattle in the woods, how he threw stones at a couple to disturb their privacy
when they were intimate inside the hedges of ‘seemai karuvelam’ trees, and how
that couple was still paying him money after being caught by him red-handed,
the secret behind getting a feast of mutton rice during Deepavali and
Pongal…like this, the list of his stories would get long. His manner of
pronouncing the private parts of human beings with an ease of pronouncing the
words like goats, chickens, and cows! Irulan… He was an implausible hero for
him.
It got dark. The light of the streetlight was benevolently
copious on the front yard of the house. He was writing with the help of that
light. Still, there were only three pages. His fingers started aching. Folding
and bending while writing caused an excruciating pain in his left waist bones.
Tea and water provided by his mother had already filled in his stomach, mouth,
and heart. When his father Sinnan came, he inquired, “What? Writing homework?
Write…write…’ he encouragingly stroked his head.
He brought dirty water and rice porridge from the house and
poured them into the wooden pigsty for the money minting golden pot, the
pregnant pig. He chased away other piglets with a stick when they thronged to
the sty to drink it. Only the pregnant pig drank it as it was thirsty.
“Study…Kadakarai…study….You should also become like airport
Ramalingam! You should become above that….” He appended his dream too along
with it.
Born in the “Chakkiliyar’ caste, Ramalingam was the first one
who studied up to tenth class. He was working in an airport and used to come to
the village wearing a coat, suit, and boots. Now, he was receiving a pension
and was eligible to buy concessional rations meant for air force personnel. The
liquor bottles he used to buy were popular in the village. He was the ideal
gentleman for Sinnan. “My child should also study…should go for higher
studies…should go for a big job…should become with flying colours in” life”—Sinnan
used to frequently dream like this.
When the English lesson was completed, it was fully dark. He
kept his bag near the lamp. He longed to see Irulan even at this odd hour. He
started walking towards the bridge wall. The court of Irulan had assembled there.
Stories were born with legs and were coming out in the form of words. When he
reached there, only a handful of ‘karachevu’ was remaining. He gave it to him.
Kadarkarai got it and ate it. Then he became immersed in the flame of stories.
The ‘tonsured’ face English teacher came through his mind
like a bad dream. Not only on the day the result papers were distributed; every
day the same verbal admonishments…abusive words…discourteous sights…the heart
would get hurt with the bloody sore of a needle pinch. His daily thrashing, his
words, “fit only for herding pigs,” sort of daily disgrace from the English
teacher and beating with slippers, all would make the lap of Irulan comfortable
and would increase his love for him.
It was Monday. ‘Tonsured’ face had come to teach the English
lessons. All the imposition notes were kept on the table. He checked every
notebook. Only a cursory glance. A glance for a minute with an indifferent
attitude! He checked Kadarkarai’s notebook line by line. He had written
everything correctly. He had written the same story three times. The teacher’s
face grew dark with disappointment as he didn’t expect this. He closely
scrutinized the spelling of words. He drew circles at some places with his red
ink pen.
“You bugger! Even copying it verbatim has this many spelling
mistakes?”
“No… sir.”
“What do you mean by ‘no, sir… Stretch out your hand?”
For everyone, including Arunsunai, it seemed to be a gross
injustice. The worst possible form of ghastly intention is by insulting someone
in a deliberate manner! All looked at the ‘tonsured’ face with repugnance. He
took out his cane and asked Kadarkarai to show his palm. Without any second
thought, he whipped it furiously. Sudden, extremely sharp waves of pain
got him to shudder as if being burnt by fire.
Thrashing…thrashing….thrashing….he beat him up till he got his madness quenched
its thirst. Thrashed on his thighs too…thrashed both his palms too… calloused
blood clots…. Kadarkarai jumped off in pain, cried like hell with pain, and
shed tears as he was uncontrollably crying with a ruptured heart. He ran to
Sinnan and stood in front of him with his school bag. He poured out his crying
heart to him.
“It is alright even if I die, but I will never go to the
school anymore.”
“Why? My son?”
“If you compel me to go again, I will consume oleander seeds
and die.”
Next week.
Kadarkarai, with Irulan, was herding the goats along those
barren forests with a stalk in his hand, letting out a stream of invective
thinking of the ‘tonsured’ faced English teacher in his mind.
