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| Mouni (To know more about him click here) |
This is an English Translation of "Azhiya Sudar" a short story written by Mouni
To read the Tamil
version of this short story click here.
Translated
from Tamil by Saravanan. K
I didn’t go to him that day, like the way I usually go
to meet him every morning. The sun light was very harsh since dawn. Overcome
with an inexplicable weariness, I didn’t venture out of the house. As I thought
of meeting him in the evening, I rather preferred spending that sweltering day at my home.
It happened day before yesterday. At about half past
four in the evening, I reached his house. He was my childhood friend. As usual,
he was sitting on a chair in the front hall of his house when I went there. As
I thought that he was fully immersed in some deep thoughts sitting in front of
the open window, I hesitated to go inside unexpectedly and was standing in the
outer hall instead. When he called me to come inside without even turning his
face towards me, I was indeed surprised. His appearance was also looking quite
bizarre. There were only one chair and a table inside. At the opposite side, the
window was kept opened facing the street.
“Have you finished coffee?” I entered as I asked him.
“Not yet” he told.
“Why?”
“Yes…I have been sitting here since morning. Mind full
of thoughts” he told, smiled lightly.
I could understand that my friend had forgotten
laughter and it was true to the best of my knowledge that he did not laugh at
all in the recent past. Even when he laughed that time, it rang like a sound of
laughter which had lost its life in it. The
way he spoke and the way he looked outside with an emptiness in his eyes made me uneasy.
Before I started thinking about it further, he himself started talking. He had
changed as an unfathomable man in the recent times.
“Please come here…Come and sit here. Just have a look
at the opposite side” he got up, sat on the table as he told this. I sat on the
chair.
“See what is visible there by sitting at the place
where I was sitting” he told me.
A big tree that had shed its leaves, looking like a
dead tree was standing in front of me. Other than that, nothing specific was
visible to me. It appeared to me that the tree was bemoaning silently in
loneliness with its dishevelled hair kept untidy. The birds flying across the
sky would perch on its branches in unison suddenly and merge with the tree as
if they had all become dead. The noise of those birds was coming out
intermittently like a sound of death. After a while, one after the other, all
flew away from the branches as if all of them became alive at once. I didn’t
think much about the appearance of the tree. I could not understand how far
those visuals seen with the half closed eyes in the scorching sun light and
empty stare outside since morning could have caused such an emotional upsurge
in my friend’s mind.
“What have you seen? His question sounded too heavy
for me to handle.
“That…that tree ” I told.
“What? Is it a tree? I see”, sitting at his place, he
bent down a bit and looked outside to have a glance of it and continued
talking.
“Yes…it is. Are you able to see how it is groping with
its hands spread up for an object which is not present in the sky? It moves;
dances and then stops. It didn’t stop after its game was over. Did it? A breeze
would blow from the west sluggishly. The clouds sniffed by love would come in,
floating thickly and rest on it. Unable to bear them, it would start swaying
again. Is it a blown out fly whisk that sweeps the streets of sky from the clouds?
Or is it yearning for rain drops in order to sprout? For what?”
“It seems that you have become a big poet. Haven’t
you? Why do you have this much fury and hatred? I asked him. I didn’t like his
words and talk.
“Please listen to me. Pushing back the time with so
many ‘yesterdays’, my mind had gone to an incident that occurred nine years
ago. After I remembered that incident, my mind has lost its balance. It is so
troubled that it can’t be expressed in words. That is all…” he stopped for a
moment. His eyes were shining with an unusual glitter as if they were trying to
find out some oracular phenomenon that can’t be seen with naked eyes. The way
he was talking showed that nothing more was in store for me.
“Right...Nine years ago I was a college student. I was
eighteen years old at that time. An incident happened in those days keeps
appearing in different fantasies as a first thematic line of a song since
morning. You might be remembering how I looked in those days…”
“You…looked well groomed…”
“It’s ok…it’s ok…My elongated nose, stretched out
ahead of the face, curved enough to pull the persons back walking in front. The
parted thin lips just below it would show the shiny lining of teeth to people softly
to make their eyes glare. I trimmed my hair anew that time. I would keep
fondling my untidy frontal tuft very often with my hands just to make people believe that I had lost my long, thickly grown tresses. With my sharp
naughty eyes, I was so indulged with my physical appeal and had high regards
for myself. Many people might have seen me that time. I was not bothered about
their opinion about me. The look I have these days is nothing but only a dry look . My eyes are also dried anyway. Aren’t they? It seems that all my beauty
was dead in my youth itself. Doesn’t it? But my life has not ended in the
youth. Has it? It was probable that she had also seen me.”
“Who was she? I asked him.
“Nothing to talk about her. Please listen to me. How
many years has it been since I had gone to the temple? After that day, I have
never gone to temple till yesterday. Before that, I used to go to temple very
often. You also accompanied me most of the time. Didn’t you? During that night
about which I am talking now, you were with me. Weren’t you?”
“It was not a festival day. She had also come. I was
not aware that she would come. When we were going out of the temple, we met her
at the entrance of the temple while she was entering. She might have been
thirteen years old then. She turned suddenly and looked at me. I might have
been the one who had turned her eyes. After turning…what was the force that
pulled me along with you to follow her inside? I didn’t know. It could have
been a childhood fantasy of that age. Please don’t give excuses of infatuation,
etc like that. Even though it is void of reason, it is true that the heart gets
depressed. You may consider it vanity”
“I followed her. On many occasions, there were
instances where I was so close to her that I could even touch her. I was
mumbling something frequently too. But I knew that it didn’t have anything to
do with conveying something. Because there was, indeed, nothing to convey”
Standing at the close proximity of the deity, she was
in meditation with her head bent down. I was standing just behind her very
closely. I was able to see the hanging lamps of sanctum sanctorum, shining in
dim light at a distance, through the gap of her folded hands.
It seemed that his eyes went behind the idols,
triumphed all the beginning and ends of life and immersed in the world of
divinely bliss!
“I didn’t know how long I stayed in that state.
Without marching ahead, the ‘time’ in her form remained there in the close
proximity of God”.
“When she turned towards me after releasing herself
from the meditation, I was so ecstatic that I uttered out of my control, ‘I am
waiting to do anything for you. I can do anything’. You and others who had accompanied
her were standing at a distance. Those words couldn’t have fallen into your
ears. But it was certain that she heard those words. She smiled”.
“I had suspected even at that time as to whether it
was she alone who heard those words. I thought that the idol inside the sanctum
and the statue of lion standing attached to the wall also heard those words.
When I looked at the Lingam at the opposite side, the idol of deity smeared
with sandalwood vermillion and vibhoothi visible above the knit coconut
leaves, became alive and angry, twisting its eye brows. The Statue of
Lion standing along the wall also got terribly frightened, scarred and angry, contorting
its face. It stood on its hind legs and threatened. I saw her. She had turned towards other side. With her coiffed plait hanging behind, she was walking slowly
along with the people who had accompanied her. I followed her for a short
distance, looked at her and stood there. It appeared to me that the sound her
anklets were making were required to disturb the tranquillity of this world
which had gone into deep slumber. She was happily talking with them, played
with words and finally left with her anklets making sounds majestically. The
silence of the shrine got perturbed by the resonance of the sound of her
anklets. The bats flew criss-cross with clicks”.
When my friend was narrating, my mind started
visualizing it. Without any fetters, it started drawing pictures- temple,
sanctum sanctorum- yes. The bats flying across inside the temple during day
time were actually flying without knowing that it was day.
“The half of the day’s light would hesitate to enter.
In the dim light of the night, the idols were standing there with the signs of
life in them. The temple is a place where one could nurture the feel of
divinely bliss which could be attained in silence with deeper experience and
privacy. Isn’t it? The bunch of lamps would be burning. It would cause a shock
of not being able to identify the difference between the devotees roaming in
the brightness of lights and their shadows. ‘For teaching which truth, the sanctum
sanctorum has been created? Are we mere shadows? Whose moving shadows are we?’- when
such queries were raised by my mind, the whole of my body shuddered for once”.
The eyes of my friend were looking splendid. His
speech with an awareness of having realized a secret one way or the other, was
ringing in my ears sublimely. He would stop talking whenever he realised that the
words wouldn’t be enough to express himself. That time, his eyes would shine
brightly.
“She left for taking a round of
sanctum’s periphery. Her tresses neatly made as plait were hanging, moving elegantly.
Her self-effacing walk carried her grace ahead. An unquestionable thought of
following her came over my mind. I didn’t articulate it to make it known. At
the start of the sanctum’s periphery, there was a bael tree. The moon light was
seen, speckled through the leaves, like white patches. I kept telling myself,
“O! My dear lady! Please look at me”. She turned and looked at me. I could
understand from her eyes that she also conveyed the message ‘follow me’. A
sound was heard from somewhere. It was the sound of a bat hanging with its head
down. A sound which gives a fear of death while laughing into the ears!
Standing under the bael tree, I kept looking at her. After that, I was walking
ahead to follow her”.
The moon was throwing its light like
a day. Just like her elongated shadow that followed her, I too followed her
behind. Just before the turn at the corner, she turned to look at me. Her eyes
seemed to be begging me to withdraw the words I had spoken. She was looking
beautiful even in her distress. As I approached her closely, I was about to
say, “I will do anything for you”. But I could not complete the sentence. I
returned hurriedly. She also went to the sanctum periphery down. Then I reached
you when you were standing under the bael tree. Both of us reached home without
talking anything.”
When he stopped talking for some
time, I asked him, “Who was that girl? I couldn’t recollect who she was.” My
question didn’t get into his mind. He continued talking. I got angry.
“From that day onwards, I stopped
going to temples. I don’t know why I had stopped going. As a matter of
temperament I stopped going, I thought”
“My mind couldn’t stay peacefully
yesterday night. It just started wandering from nowhere. I left for the temple
to have a “darshan” of God. I started late anyway as I thought that there
shouldn’t be much crowd in the temple. While passing the big temple entrance, you
could see the sanctum sanctorum of the God”.
“A big lamp was burning near the Shiva
Lingam for a long time in a lonely silence as if it was glittering with the flame. Suddenly,
it disappeared for a while, came alive like before and seen again in silence. Some
unknown devotee went inside to worship the God. I was walking slowly. The
disappearance and appearance of the flame bore the semblance of an imperishable
light of the world left behind amidst the indestructibility, by the last man of
the world who had completed his worship. It all happened yesterday just to make
the unignited flame burning inside me, burn with a magnificent glitter”.
“Now, she might be twenty-two years old. She was
looking cosmopolitan in her outlook. I saw her in the temple now and it has
caused a pain in my heart. I have developed an inexplicable distaste towards
her due to this unexpected meeting. I thought that she had not understood me.
Since my thoughts pertaining to cosmopolitanism were not well rooted and I was
also on the verge of changing my mind, all her docility and cultured niceties
had given me a sort of solace. When I thought about the words I spoke to her
earlier, it was only her new appearance that gave me succour from hating
myself. I hated her with all my might. But when she was standing in front of
the God, she had got all her cosmetics removed. Only at that time, I was able
to understand how people could carry exquisiteness and make it possible to
yield to their impulses in front of The God.”
“The splendour of her meditation drove me mad. It made
me stand with an empty stare. Just a lasting presence of bliss! An ecstasy! As
she had turned, she saw me. She looked at the pillar at the opposite side
intently. Even I could see the statue of Lion which stood as an imperishable evidence
of my words springing to its feet, danced. I just looked up. O! My God! One more statue of
Lion was staring at me angrily, bending its head looking down. I got shocked
when I saw her looking at the place where I was seeing. She appeared like a
woman giving me orders. Her eyes were piercing through me. Her eyes moved
out of me like a man disappearing after conveying half of his inner secret to a
mad man in his day dream. Before my emotions became thoughts and before my mind
could understand what she had told, she had left me. When I raised my bent head
up, I saw that she turned towards me again. Two drops of tears rolled down from
her eyes like two diamonds shining in the deep, dark tunnel”.
“I am the shadow of destiny. You are going to witness
the brutishness of allurement of love in its fullness”.
“What did she say? What did she ask me to do? What
else is there for me to do? Isn’t it? Was everything just a dream? She didn’t
speak. Nothing is there in the sound. Is it there? In speech? In her body….cheee..cheee…all
are just meaningless. None of them could reveal the truth. Everything seems to
be so invisible. They elude like smoke even from the tight grip. These pointing
fingers are with us not only for making us realise that all are illusions but
also to make us disappear before we learnt to go ahead through the way it
points at. What is left with us is nothing but a hope of reaching the right
path even by jumping out inadvertently amidst our confused efforts to find out
the way in darkness”.
“See that tree. Aren’t you able to see its stretched-out
branches and its each atom filled with life trying to merge with the azure sky?
When it dances, it searches something in the space of sky. It searches for
something blindly. Doesn’t it?”
It was fully dark. When he was looking at the space
emptily, I left him without informing him.
Once I stepped onto the street, I looked upwards.
There, seen a countless number of stars in the curved sky of the night like dots
drawn by children on a black board. Despite pouring out all their brightness
with their intermittent sparkling, they remained there permanently, shining like immortals without fear of getting melted. I heaved a sigh, exasperated not
being able to understand what was happening above there. I reached home, walking
nonchalantly.
He was not found at his home. I didn’t know where he
had gone and what for he had gone out. I didn’t know whether he knew about it
either. It was just a realization that “He” knew everything- if at all, he existed.
***End***
Translated from Tamil by Saravanan. K
Source: www.azhiyasudargal.blogspot.com (See the "Best 100 short stories in Tamil" curated by S. Rama Krishnan)
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