“The Night” (Iravu)– by M. Gopala Krishnan (Published in Sahitya Akademi's Indian Literature journal)

 

M Gopala Krishnan

This is an English Translation of Iravu, a short story written by M. Gopal Krishnan. Translated by Saravanan. K . This story has appeared in Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature journal (Nov- Dec 2022 Issue)

 Thirumalai had a temperature, unbearable for him as if the bed had been strewn with embers, and he was unable to lie down on the bed as each atom of his body seemed to have been set afire. His condition demanded some immediate easings. He tried twisting his body but his hands and legs remained immobile with a lethargy in defiance of his wishes. When his Old Mother had him lain on the bed, she would assist him to keep his right hand across his chest. That day too, she had covered him with a shawl only after placing the right hand across his chest as usual. The left hand remained as such, stretched out. The legs seemed to have been attached with his body below his waist like plain wooden planks. All what he could was just to call someone aloud with a heavy voice and tell them his needs.

Old Mother was sleeping along with his maternal and paternal aunts in the hall opposite. Usually, Thirumalai’s cot would be kept at the corner of the hall. But his bed was arranged in veranda today. Apart from being a comfortable place, it was the place where people didn’t make a nuisance of themselves.  Directly in front of his cot, was the main thoroughfare of the household. To its left was a kitchen. Adjacent to the kitchen was a room, along its wall. Of the rooms, this one was fairly bigger with a window attached in the outer wall. The entry of air and light was quite good in that room. Apart from all this, the hall was sultry even during the day time. The said room did not command any specific importance till date. But in it Ganesan’s First Night has been arranged today. It meant that room was going to be Ganesan’s bed room henceforth. His room of romance! A mere articulation of those words with himself was just enough to make Thirumalai’s whole body burn with rage.

He summoned all the pain in his soul and emitted a sharp scream, “mmmmaaa”. His coarse voice dissipated the darkness with a huge amount of restiveness. For a moment, it was doubtful whether that sound had reached the inner part of the rooms. No reply came any from anyone. There was no movement noticed in the hall either. Exhausted due to marriage related works, all were in deep sleep. ‘These people might also sleep. But Ganesan would not have slept, for sure. The charming components of that room will not allow his body to sleep. Will they?’ 

He mustered all his anger and agitations together once again, and shouted at high pitch, “yammaa…yammaa” till his throat grew blocked. He was now fully enervated. He panted. The heat of his breath that ran with a steady surge up and down made him sweat.  

A sound was heard in the hall. Seconds later, a light was switched on. Old Mother, tottering, came down the stairs of the hall. She called out to him, “Thirumale…”- a sleepy call. She climbed the veranda stairs and switched on the light. The yellow light of the incandescent bulb descended on the veranda. 

She bent down and looked at Thirumalai who was lying in sweat. She wiped off his forehead with the hem of her sari. “Are you alright? What happened Thirumale”-she asked with a mild shiver in her voice. 

Thirumalai’s eyes looked at her fixedly. He quickened his normal breath intentionally to make it look abnormal. He shut his eyes as he cleared his throat. 

“Do you need water Tirumale?” Thirumalai grew further irritated at seeing the old lady not showing any signs of urgency. 

“Yammaa…Yammma..”, he held his breath for a second and drew it in with force, and screamed. His breath stopped for a moment and started wheezing. In seconds, his face started sweating. He pulled up his eyes upwards. ‘Now, the old lady would get frightened at seeing it, for sure’. The sounds of footsteps were heard from the hall. 

“What happened akka?” came his mother’s sister’s concerned voice. 

Thirumalai’s anger rose when he saw that the door of the house had still not opened.            

“Don’t know. Seems to be severe wheezing problem. He is sweating. He has been alright till now. I don’t know what has happened all of a sudden. I wanted to give him some water, but he is not opening his eyes”, she told as she was wiping him again with the hem of her sari. 

They heard the sound of front door opening. Once he understood that the light on the entrance beam was on, Thirumalai felt relaxed. Not opening his eyes, he just drew his breath in again without slackening its speed. 

“What happened Amma?” Ganesan had come there by then. The Old Mother explained her state of confusion about his condition once again.

“Anna..” Ganesan called out, as he lovingly caressed his forehead. The scent of marriage coming from him got Thirumalai further enraged. He sucked his breath in once again and cleared his throat forcefully. His respiratory tract was obstructed as if some blockage was being drawn up from the interiors of his chest pit. He started prattling without opening his eyes.  

“Anna…Annaa..What is happening to you? Please look this way” Ganesan was sitting beside his cot. His hands were shaking due to anxiety. “Amma…bring some water”. He wet the towel with water. He wiped his face with the wet towel. Thirumalai brought his breath under control and opened his eyes slowly.

“What is happening to you…Anna? Thirumalai was embarrassed at seeing the uneasiness on Ganesan’s face. He turned his face aside, spoke stammeringly, “Nothing…I just felt that something has obstructed my chest. Now I am alright. You go…and sleep.” His words trickled very heavily from him. His Old Mother kept staring at him unwaveringly. Unable to bear her look, he diverted his gaze towards the thatch with a blank expression. Without moving out of his seat, Ganesan too was watching him intently. 

“You go inside…nothing has happened to him?” The emptiness found in his mother’s voice pierced Thirumalai. 

“Just wait ma…Anna…do you want to go for a pee?”

Thirumalai didn’t reply. His rage reared its head once again in him. With the odour of marriage and a newly groomed vigour, Ganesan lifted him from the bed and made him sit. Mother’s sister moved into the hall. “It is not required now. Just a while ago, before sleeping, he went for urination” his mother sulked, went to bring the urine collection pot. He lifted the dhoti up a bit, held the pot down and asked Thirumalai to pee in it. There was a silence as if the fire of jealousy burning inside Thirumalai had been calmed down. His mind became quiet, releasing its hold on anxiety as if all his anger and rage which had till then, held him to ransom had died at that moment. A satisfaction of chasing away the scent of marriage! Putting him again on the bed, stretched out his legs comfortably, Ganesan left. His eyes closed, lying on the bed, Thirumalai could still feel that his Old Mother had thrown an unnerving stare at him for a moment. 

“Call me if you need any help…ma”- the sound of the latch being fastened by Ganesan was heard again.        

The veranda and the hall delved into darkness once again. ‘Mother could not have slept yet in the hall. The words which she keeps using within herself for grumbling, would not allow her to sleep now. The questions she thought of asking me many times might be forcing themselves to come out of her throat pit now. But she was unable to throw those questions directly at my face. Only because of her silence that emboldened me, I have been orchestrating this stupidity lying on the bed’. He felt like laughing out loud. ‘The sound of my laughter must emit light like a lightening piercing through the frozen thickness of darkness. I know my lower lips would crook and be pulled downward when I laugh. While laughing like that, even my regular laughter would carry that crook in it. There is no need at all for me to take effort to laugh with that crook’. 

‘By this time, he…’ Thirumalai’s thoughts took a step back. ‘What’s this? The rage reared its head once again. Nevertheless, I, looking on from the other good side of me, reproached myself for being able to think like this? That too about Ganesan!. Every one won’t get a brother like Ganesan. Everyone may be having siblings. But at the age of twenty-four, he has been carrying his brother whose hands and legs are paralysed. I am nothing more than a torso with life which is lying either on a woven chair or a cot. Just because there is life in the torso, can it be called a human being? I cannot even pee on my own’.    

Ganesan would get up at five in the morning. But Thirumalai’s sleeping pattern was not predictable. ‘Immediately after getting up from the bed, he would come directly to the bed. His first job was to remove my shawl, make me sit straight with both my legs dangling on both sides, lift my dhoti and collecting my urine in the urine pot kept under the cot. Then he would take that pot to the wash room, wash it and keep it upside down at a corner of the wash room. “Do you want to sleep or should I make you sit on the cot?” he would ask me’. Most of the times, Thirumalai preferred the chair. His hand woven chair was placed right under the ceiling fan in the hall, just four feet away from the television. He would make him sit on that chair, adjust his dhoti properly and switch on the television. There would be no programmes other than some morning prayers. Even though Thirumalai didn’t like them, he would watch them without complaining.   

He would come once again before taking his bath. His Old Mother would have fed him a coffee before that. There was not even a single instance where Thirumalai drank coffee without making at least one complaint about it, no matter how much delectable it was. One day, he would say it was not hot enough. Another day, he would shout that she was deliberately giving it very hot because she wanted his tongue scalded. Sometimes he would scream why she hadn’t put in enough sugar as if she preferred to have him treated like a diabetic. He would rant that only his legs and hands were paralysed and nothing else was wrong with him. On yet other day, like a miracle, after drinking coffee without complaining about it, he would stare at his mother who used to compliment wittily that rain might come that day. He would reply, “Yes…for that only I didn’t complain about it.”, laughing with his crooked lips. “It would have been better, had you complained about it instead of making this comment” – the old lady would reply.  

Ganesan would take him to the toilet, arm supporting him along with both hands. He would have readied commode in advance. Once inside, he would lean him against his own shoulders, remove his dhoti and underwear tied with a thread. Then he would make him sit on the commode and wait for him. Once he would say, “I am done” with his head down, Ganesan would wash him off and take him to the bath room. After sitting him on a wooden stool, the Old lady would pour water on his body. Ganesan would bathe his body. He would massage his limps as if he were a baby. After that, he would wipe his body dry, wear him under wear and vest. He would tie the dhoti around his waist tightly and bring him again, arm supporting. He would make him sit on the hand woven chair, bring Vibhoothi¹ from inside and smear it on his forehead liberally. 

He worked in a Cooperative society. He would leave for his office at half past nine in the morning and would return at half past one in the afternoon for lunch. Before his arrival, the Old Mother would have given the kneaded rice to Thirumalai transfixed by television programmes, sitting in his chair. Whenever he felt hungry, the taste and aroma for him were nothing but only those of his mother’s cooking. On Sundays, she would cook either chicken or mutton and would feed him. And only on that day, he would like to have betel leaves in addition to his regular food.

After lunch, he would leave for his office only after asking whether Thirumalai needed anything from outside. When he comes back, it would be dark. In the evening, a group of people used to assemble there to play card in the outer hall. A group would be formed with Anbarasu, Butcher shop Chithappa and a retired spectacled teacher, and some others. Even Thirumalai’s hand woven chair would also come to this card playing crowd. Whenever any hand was missing or Thirumalai wants to play, he would be roped in. He would in turn engage Subbuni for assistance.  

Subbuni would stack the cards, show them to him. Thirumalai would instruct him in a low voice which one to be picked up and which to be removed. No matter how badly he played, he wouldn’t face losses. Subbuni would get his due from the amount won on that day for going to the movies. Anbarasu was Thirumalai’s childhood friend. Along with Thirumalai, he also grew under the care of the Old Mother. Whenever he didn’t have any work, he would spend his time with Thirumalai. Thirumalai had been reading the Murasoli² newspaper since he was fifteen years old. Without reading the letters written to “brotheren”, his day would be incomplete. Even now, he was the only person buying Murasoli in Sirumugai. Soda Shop keeper Marimuthu didn’t mind bringing that newspaper from Mettupalayam for him. It was Anbarasu who would read Murasoli out to him. Reading books was an easy task for Thirumalai. Once the respective pages are given to him, he could read it easily by placing a card board under it. But reading newspaper was not that easy. Anbarasu would read out the news of “Kazhagam³” with intended puns. 

It was also Anbarasu who was fulfilling Thirumalai’s secret requests. All the planning and executions of those requests would take place during the playing of cards. 

On Sunday, when the mutton stew was boiling, Anbarasu would be present. Thirumalai’s heart would pounce at seeing a small liquor bottle swinging in Anbarasu’s underwear pocket. On the pretext of reading out Murasoli for Thirumalai in the outer hall, he would mix up the liquor and feed him without anyone’s knowledge. At the most, two times in a small ever-silver tumbler. That too, with a dilution of equal amount of water. Even that bit of intoxication would make Thirumalai hang his head down throughout the rest of the day, and chuckle at the people who he met, with his trademark downward pulled lips curled into a crooked smile. When they were drinking, if Ganesan happened to come by that way, he would avoid them. The Old Mother would bring pieces of meat taken out of boiling stew, in a large bowl. 

At times, Thirumalai would show immense interest in reading historical novels. But he wouldn’t read those historical story books keeping them on his lap like other books. Keeping Anbarasu beside him, he would read those stories as fast as he could. Anbarasu, sitting down near his legs would be browsing through some other books. Thirumalai felt that the nights of those days were stretching longer with pain and longingness of an intractable desert. He would be waiting painfully for the first sign of dawn with the feel of sultry and suffocation as if the bodies confined within the walls of the room were rolling down near him. Yet, he wouldn’t be able to reject the books brought by Anbarasu. The earnestness of his interest to read them next day morning would put aside all the mental agonies of previous night.  

When they started talking about Ganesan’s marriage, this mental agony had started to burn in Thirumalai. Ganesan was four years younger. For the last two years, he had been postponing all the marriage plans. He had even, reasoned with an open heart that when Thirumalai was suffering with such an ailment, his getting himself married could never be a good proposition.

Whenever he postponed his marriage like that, an intrinsic concern would blossom in Thirumalai for Ganesan. He would call him upon to change his mind, ‘Ganesa! It is indeed painful for me when you postpone your marriage citing my condition as the reason. Think about our Old Mother. You know I won’t be able to do anything. She would like to see you getting married. Wouldn’t she? Please agree to this marriage.’

Only after his genuine persuasive efforts, did Ganesan agree to get married. Now, it seems to be quite unbelievable that he could have ever spoken such lovable words to him. ‘I should have been very happy when he refused to get married. Shouldn’t I have? Both the sense of gratitude for Ganesan’s matured attitude regarding me and the concern towards mother must have pressurized me as an intolerable misery at that time. Mustn’t it have?’ 

… 

It has been fifteen years now. The Old Mother sent him off with tearful eyes who left happily for Melkundha after getting a job in Electricity Department. Her son who never stayed outside even for a night!  Her eldest son. But it was a government job. She sent him off with pride on one side and tears on the other. 

The idyllic Ooty hilly roads and the enthusiasm about the new job made Thirumalai forget the distance of the journey. After Ooty, when he reached Melkundha, the icy wind and the cold greenery engulfed him. The green pastures and the top of the trees were shining in the crimson light of the afternoon. When he opened the windows of the house allotted to him in the Electrical Residential area, a quick inflow of icy air filled the rooms. The clouds cradled by the sunshine were moving at the fringes of the hills in the distance. For a moment, the loneliness of that night ahead frightened him. The small stone-walled room, wooden cot, a blanket rolled up like a python and a rug in dark hue of blood spread on the floor seemed disagreeable to his temperament.

He hurriedly locked the door and went down. It was getting dark. Children wearing caps and sweaters were playing in the children park located at the centre of residential area. He remembered that his appointment letter had carried the information regarding winter essentials such as caps, sweaters and hand cloves. There was no need of such winter clothes in Sirumugai. He must have purchased them after getting down at Ooty. But he had felt that it was better to reach an unknown place during day time, and so set off directly. He would buy all those items after making some enquiries about them in the office in the morning. He started walking along the peripheral road of the campus. 

It must have been only six or half past six. But, it was heavily dark without any glimmer of daylight. Would be there anything to eat nearby? A Gurkha watchman wearing a cap and a muffler wrapped around his neck, was sitting in a wooden cabin designed for a man to stand and sit, smoking a bidi. When he saw Thirumalai walking near him, he looked at him intently. He was a new face in that place. ‘This fellow must be the replacement of the person who had been there when he came in the afternoon’. The Gurkha gave him a customary salute. It looked as if he had booked that salute for some use in future. It was kind of a salute given by him to officers when they were on surprise visits. 

Thirumalai introduced himself, saying he had come there for the first time, gave him his house number and enquired about the availability of restaurants around the area. Thirumalai could see Gurkha’s face bearing a friendly expression. The man told him that there were no such restaurants nearby. Further, he told him that there was a small restaurant outside Melkundha bus stand and it wouldn’t be open at night. The Gurkha further said that it would be always better to cook food for oneself at home in such hilly regions. He also asked him whether he had the habit of smoking bidi. Thirumalai also felt that he needed the warmth of cigarette smoke in that icy weather. But he was not ready to degrade himself to the level of smoking bidi. The Gurkha warned him not to venture out of the house without cap on head and sweater on body and explained how the sudden changes in temperature would result in dangerous effects on one’s body. Thirumalai felt that conversing with Gurkha who was speaking in broken Tamil gave him a better feeling of comfort rather than bemoaning his loneliness on the taut silence of a lonely room.  He didn’t feel hungry as yet. Perhaps, one might not feel hungry as the stomach gets indolent in cold regions. He had some bananas and some pieces of breads in his bag, though. He could manage somehow with that.  

When he returned to his house after a long while, the entire campus was taking refuge in the warmth afforded by the glass windows. On reaching his room, he threw his body on the cot after eating the fruit. The chill made his body shiver. Once he covered his body with the blanket, the shivering grew aggravated. He covered his body up to his neck. As the trapped heat of his body spread inside the blanket that was weighing down on him, the warmth inside grew cozier. He felt that it would be further better, if he closed his ears too. There was a cotton roll in the shaving set. But he was too lazy to get up to fetch it. He took the dual fibre towel placed at the edge of the cot and tied it around his ears tightly.            

That night, which taught him the severity of winter for the first time in his life had sowed the seeds of massive fear in him. He was under the illusion that the whole cot had become a snow bed and he was lying inside it as a puppet. He had a brief dream that his lips, eye lids and other parts of his body had a layer of dew drops like ashes resulting in his body getting frozen and eventually dying. He dreamt that a person wearing black woollen clothes and gumboots with a shawl on his shoulders, walking through the thick snow bed full of thickly grown cedar trees with icy bundles on their heads, was digging a burial pit for him. Overwhelmed with fear, he woke and got up from the bed. The water in the bottle was frozen, an icy slab. He feared that even the pipes in the toilet might emit smog. The only solace for him was that blanket which had steadfastly been with him through all his fears.   

When the light of dawn penetrated through the glass windows, he was asleep. 

Of the three engineers working in his section in the office, only Ponmoorthy lived alone. When he came to know that Thirumalai was also staying alone, he invited him to his house. He made all the arrangements for his visit that evening itself. He told him that there was no need to cook food at home. He got him introduced to a mess situated at an upper ground of the road on the way to their office. It was modest with two dining tables meant for four persons to have meals in the front hall of the house. Only Parvathi and her daughter Selvi served food there. The mess didn’t have an elaborate list of menu. It provided idli or dosai or sometimes Poori in the morning, a simple meal with Sambar, Rasam with fried vegetable in the afternoon and chappathi in the night. If needed, one could order amlette or fried egg. That was it. Those who had monthly account with the mess and placed pre-orders could only avail that mess facility.  Selvarasu, Parvathi’s husband would always be found sitting either chopping cabbage or onion or something like that into tiny pieces. It seemed that his entire world was revolving around with the speed of his vegetable cutting knife. Without uttering a single word, his whole attention would be on chopping the vegetables with his head bent down.

Only after going to Ponmoorthy’s room, Thirumalai came to know about a new world which he had not known of yet. In Thirumalai’s world, women who existed in his life merely as part of indecisive imaginations and incomplete paintings had themselves metamorphosed into a much bigger space with unusual marvels, colours and absorbing interests. Ponmoorthy was a married man and had two children. His family was living in Tiruppur. He would visit his family once in a week. The story of the women who he met in the bus, the story of a woman who sat on his lap as she could not stand in the bus during a rainy day, the friendship he developed with a lady who was sitting in the opposite seat in the train while going to Bhopal, the story of his going to that lady’s home after going to Bhopal- each night thus become the nights of tales.

Though his uninhibited delivery of dialogues and descriptions made Thirumalai feel shy in the beginning, he grew accustomed with it quickly. 

Moorthy’s descriptions and embellished commentaries filled in Thirumalai’s dreams. With an assurance of getting him married immediately in the month of Vaikasi⁴, the way his Old Mother immersed herself in the marriage arrangements served to whet Thirumalai’s cravings. 

It was the last week of December. Ponmoorthy was in the town that week. The impact of winter and its intensity was more severe than usual from the very start of December. One Saturday, there was a festival in a village in the hills located three kilometres from Melkundha. Chantha, who worked in the office, had invited them. Thirumalai went along with Moorthy.

The village was located in the heart of mountain slopes along the grove in the woods. With the boozing and dancing, in the light of flaming torches the village was in the peak festive mood. The roars of hide musical instruments making one’s nerves shudder, synchronized rhythms and the coordinated voluptuous bodily movements of those thickly dark skinned women shining in the dim light with inviting smiles - it all made Thirumalai faint with passion. He could not drink the brew with its counterfeit sweetness, arid flavour as if mixed with sand, not palatable to tongue. He was not in a position to take Chantha’s advice that drinking that beverage was must to withstand the winter cold. He could feel the eyes of that woman, wearing a bunch of crimson colour flowers in her coiffured tresses, fondling him again and again during her dance.

Snow began to descend like a drizzle in the jungle blanketed in darkness. The bitter icy wind entered every nerve of the body and froze the blood circulation. Moorthy was dancing amidst girls. Chantha kept filling in his glass when it emptied. It seemed that no one other than the eyes of that woman took notice of Thirumalai. In the fever of intemperance, that tiny ground was booming with the rhythmic beats of drums. 

In Thirumalai’s body, which was burning with passion and desires for the pleasure from a woman’s body, winter toxins welled up. The warm clothes he was wearing were of no use in the face of the intense thirsts of that night. It seemed just enough for him to go near to her and cuddle her who was dancing with the semblance of her every nerve impregnated with lightening. The tingle of winter and the frenzy of lust made his body shudder.

At that moment, as he stood over-whelmed by possibly by an unknown fear or hesitation, a lightning bolt flashed for fraction of a second, struck his chest and disappeared. Completely losing his senses, Thirumalai fell down on the ground. When he realized that the woman came running to him, held him in her hands, he could see nothing other than darkness around him. 

He could open his eyes only on the evening of the third day. No one was near him. With the blue colour curtains rippling around on all four sides, he lay on the bed as if his body did not belong to him. Some liquids dripped through the pipes inserted in both arms. The tubes attached on his chest and head were running circuitously, joining at one place and twisting at another. The mild traces of that pain were still there in the chest. A nurse with her mouth closed with a green napkin rushed to him. She pulled his eye bags down and examined it, checked his pulses and scribbled something hastily on the card kept at the foot of his bed. Thirumalai wanted to ask her so many questions, but at the same time he felt it was better not to. He closed his eyes. 

When he was brought back to his home after one and a half months, his body was not under his control. Something like severest winter or extreme stroke or a stroke of some sort had rendered his nerves, necessary for body function, totally incapacitated. All the miracles of medical advancements could not rebuild his nervous system. 

…

The clock in the hall rang once, stopped. ‘The time was 1’O clock. Wasn’t it? Or was it half past one? Has anyone heard this sound of the clock? How many nights I had kept watching the movement of this clock’s hands? Now all are sleeping out of tiredness. Yet, two persons must have heard this sound. Or they may be lying at a distance where they can’t hear that sound. As they cuddle each other, they can’t hear it. Can they?’ His mind determined doggedly to interrupt their privacy.  

He threw his voice from his throat pit with ferocity. This time, it came out like the roar of an animal. He felt suffocated. Severe pain on the chest! He closed his eyes tightly. “What Thirumale!” the edgy voice of his mother came from the hall. Just for a second. After that, only her sharp eyes kept staring at him piercingly. The sound of the latch being released was heard from the inner hall. Thirumalai tried to keep his face normal. Just to reinforce his state of mind, he coughed once again. “Ganesa! You go to bed. I will take care of him” Old Mother got up and came to him. But before that, Ganesan had gone to him after putting on the veranda light.                        

His hands touched Thirumalai’s forehead. “What had happened Anna? Here…look at me”- he massaged his chest caringly. Thirumalai bobbed his head agitatedly as if he was writhing in pain. Sitting at the edge of the cot, Ganesan, asked him, “Is your chest paining? Just a second…” and massaged his chest gently. The Old Mother turned once again to Ganesan, told him, “It is nothing Ganesa! It must be some petty chest burn. It will be alright soon. You go inside” 

“He was quite well in the evening. Wasn’t he? Did something he ate not suit him? Ganesan still kept on massaging his chest. 

His touch was unbearable for Thirumalai. Ganesan had been touching him hundred times daily. But today Thirumalai could not bear his touch. There was a distance. He could feel the lack of warmth in it. ‘He would have been with her, cuddling by this time. Wouldn’t he? Or he would have been narrating my story with heart full of despair.’ Thirumalai felt laughing even in that situation. ‘If it had been so, what would have been her situation listening to his story?’ His graphic visualization of the room which had lost its sheen in an inopportune time had made Thirumalai immensely happy.

Ganesan took his hands off Thirumalai. 

“To be on the safer side, we can call the doctor tomorrow morning to see him. Can we give him a hot tea?” 

“It is not needed…da! It will be alright soon. It is just an ordinary cough. We can provide him some herbal concoction tomorrow morning. Now you go and sleep peacefully. Tomorrow morning, you should leave for the town. Shouldn’t you?”- The Old Mother was insistent on sending him inside.       

‘Once the body lost its synchronicity, would it be possible for it to renew its vigour? With the rhythmic beats of drums at the back ground, the movements of her dark body in an elegant dance in the space infused with light and night had made this body shudder with passionate longings during that winter night. How many miserable nights I have spent on this cot thinking about that night repeatedly with an unquenched lust and a completely disobliging body? Who will get impregnated with my seeds that explode during my union with her body in the air, dancing in the empty space of the night? O! Mother! There is no justifiable reason for you to know about the silent pain of sex without body. I know you prefer cursing me to have me dead at this moment. I too have felt like that many nights. What am I going to achieve by being alive with this body which had become a burden even for myself?’ 

‘There was no reply from Ganesan. He never sulked about it even for a day. Despite having other important works to do, and facing discomforts, he never complained about looking after him. His Old Mother had problems of both senility and defencelessness which might have forced her to complain. But, not a single murmur had ever come from Ganesan. ‘However, the seeds of irritation and ire must have been sprouted today even in Ganesan. Even if doesn’t happen today, my existence and helplessness will become an inevitable encumbrance for him one day once he gets used to the pleasure from her. The moment he understands my discomforts of these nights, it might change into either self-pity or mere boorishness or whatever.’ 

Unable to bear the silence of both of them for a long time, he opened his eyes slowly.  Sitting on the veranda, Ganesan was looking up the sky strewn with stars. As if she was waiting for him to open his eyes, Old mother came near to Thirumalai. Her eyes bored his eyes. She bent down, mumbled something into his ears. 

“Why are you doing this, Thirumalai? Do you think it is right what you are doing? It is a sin. Isn’t it?”

Thirumalai stared at her angrily. 

“Yes...it is sinful. Then give me some poison. All the sins will be absolved. Won’t it?

As he spoke these words with his lips crooked, his Old Mother started weeping. Without understanding what they were saying to each other, Ganesan rose up hurriedly, and came up.  

“What happened ma? Anything serious? Anna! How do you feel now? Are you feeling very unwell?”

Thirumalai just nodded emptily. Tears started rolling down on his cheeks without his control. Seeing both of them weeping, Ganesan came near. His face was stern. The sternness of his face made the Old Mother nervous. She wiped her eyes swiftly and wiped Thirumalai’s face too with the hem of her sari. 

“Haven’t I told you? I told you that I don’t need all this marriage and its chores. You haven’t paid attention to it. Have you? He uttered softly in a dry tone. Thirumalai’s heart was quivering with guilt. He broke down. He felt like hugging Ganesan. As his chest was beaming with guilt, his trembling lips emitted violent sobs.  Old Mother turned slowly. Wiping her tears with the back of her palm, she turned to Ganesan. She couldn’t see his face clearly as it was obfuscated by the shading caused by the light. Ganesan’s expression was immobile marked by depth of darkness and grief without light. A monstrous fear of unknown rose up from the abdomen of Old Mother. 

                                                                ***Ended***

Note:

1.      Vibhoothi- sacred ash one applies on forehead while worshipping God.

2.      Murasoli- A newspaper run by the political party, Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam

3.      Kazhagam- The political party, DMK

4.      Vaikashi- Second month of Tamil year (April- May) 

The Snakes that dwell in termite mounds (Putril uraiyum paambugal) by Rajendra Cholan

 

Rajendra Cholan 

This is an English translation of “Putril Uraiyum Paambugal”, a Tamil short story written by Rajendra Cholan. This is 42^ndEnglish Translation in Tamil Classic short story series. 

***

Sitting with her legs folded, when Vanamayilu was busy segregating, and beating the bundles of corn stover flat that she had collected near the fence of the grove to pile them up neatly for using them as fuel in the kitchen, she saw the young man who was staying the in the house opposite, and mumbled. ‘Look at his eyes…looking like eggs of chicken, ogling at me without even batting his eye lids. He couldn’t have been born with sisters. Could he have?’

“Look at him. Do you know how long he has been goggling at me like this?”

Kanthasamy, her husband, who was feeding the fodder mixed in water kept in a trough to the cattle by stirring it with his hands, did not pay attention to her rants.

“Look at that bloke…He doesn’t even move a bit…Hell with him and his look. Sitting like Aiyyanar statue…”

He scooped out a handful of husk from the trough, holding it on his palm and was feeding the cattle.

“This guy will learn a lesson if only he gets beaten elsewhere. Till then let him ogle like this. If not anyone now, someone in near future will definitely take his eye balls out. I don’t know I get terribly uneasy when a man stares at me. I am not such a woman who debauches blatantly right in front of her husband. It is such a lowly birth which deserves slaps with slippers. Isn’t it?” she nudged her jaws against her shoulder in contempt. She looked at the opposite house sternly, threw a frowning stare at her husband and pulled her sari to cover her breasts which were already fully covered.

“Listen to me…yaa…that man is staring like this piercingly giving a damn that you are sitting here.  If you don’t chastise him now, you don’t know what he would do after this. It seems he won’t even hesitate to hold my hands to pull towards him. Will he dare to do that? I will beat him black and blue with the broom. Won’t I?”

He tethered one of the bulls standing on his right to a peg, and brought the bull standing on his left.

“I have been telling you something, seeking your attention. But you keep feeding them as if you are destined only to do that. Don’t you? If you throw back a stare at him as if to ask that idiot why he was looking this way, he will run away from there, for sure. Won’t he? But you prefer sitting idly rather than rebuking him. Don’t you?”

He kept on stirring the fodder in the trough, and feeding the cattle.

“Does he think of me that I am a cow on heat? See him there…still standing without even moving an inch aside. If he has guts, let him come to me. Only then he will understand who I am. Actually my reputation of not getting into any brawl won’t be any help in this case. I won’t leave such men just like that. I will pour cow dung water on his head and spit on his face. Won’t I?”

He was breaking the soft corn stover, without showing any visible interest.

“I think that chap is thinking so high of himself. As he is working in government service, he thinks that I will run to him showing all my teeth. He is not aware that he would get beaten with the winnow.”

He came inside the house carrying as much corn stover as his hands could hold, carrying them against his body.

“You are also existing here, shamelessly, as a man. Aren’t you? That man is staring at me as if he was standing there after he had swallowed a crow bar. But you seem dumb struck that you don’t like to question him why he is doing that. He won’t swallow you by mixing you with jaggery. Will he? If it was some other man, he wouldn’t be quiet like you?”

She kept the bundles near the stove, scrubbed her cloths once, and made sure that no dust was sticking to her saree, clock on breasts and blouse.

“Since it was me, the matter has ended up with this. If it had been any other woman, she wouldn’t have remained quiet like me for this long.  She would have jumped out of this entrance long ago. But man like you will never understand my importance” She came out, sat again with her legs folded and started breaking the stover again.

“Look over there…he is just showing me that he is still standing there. It seems that he is not going to move not even an inch here and there from that spot”

Her husband tethered the bull, went to the haystack and started collecting hay.

“Doesn’t he have any relatives? He has been all alone ever since he had come here. I haven’t seen him visiting his native place” she told him.

Her husband’s concentration was still on the haystack.

“If he had had relatives, they would have definitely advised and kept him disciplined. He wouldn’t have ogled like this. It appears that his relatives had let him loose like the wandering bull of Perumal temple. Useless ass!”, she turned her neck with a contemptuous jolt.

“If he could stare at a woman who did nothing other than minding her own business at home, what would he do with women who are roaming carefree out there? Had I been like them, what else all he could have done with me? Chee…only pus flows in his body…not blood”. With a contortion in her face, she pouted her lips, and threw away the bundles of corn stover on the floor.

He bundled up the hay he collected, brought it to the bulls and shook it out in front of them.

“Ever since he came here, Pangajam is nowhere to be seen. When I go to meet her, she is not ready to come out of the house to speak to me. Even if she comes out, hardly she stays up unlike earlier just to speak a couple of words comfortably. She swiftly disappears like a crow as if she has forgotten something. Have you ever noticed all these? Both are in the same building and only Goddess Kaliyammal knows what is going on…”

After shaking out the hay, he lifted the tilted bamboo fence and fastened it straight.

“Who’s afraid of Gods these days? Everyone enjoys their time as long they are alive, giving a damn to what others in the village say about them. Once a girl attains puberty, no girl will be allowed to step out of the door in my home. As I was brought up that way, I stand clean. I am not like others. Oh…good heaven…how could they go astray, betraying their Thali ?”

She feigned a shudder with an expression of contempt, animating the parts of her body.

“How dare they could play around without being questioned?”

When she was bringing another bundle of corn stover, she saw through the gap of doors that someone was standing on the street and calling them out. Her happiness knew no bounds.

“Someone has some there. Please go and see.” She told him.

“Who’s that?”, he just turned his neck, asked her.

“What sort of a man are you? How do I know who he is? I don’t know everyone in this village. Do I? I never stepped out of the door of this house since the day you brought me here after our marriage. Even during the rare times I walk on the street on account of going somewhere, I used to feel awful that my body gets rotten. Yet, you have the nerves to ask me this question without any qualms. Don’t you?”

She hid along the wall as if the garden would be visible to the street through the slit of street door.

“Go and see who it is. Someone is calling out”

He stopped fastening the fence, and got up. She also kept the bundle in the kitchen and followed him. Near the door, she hid her body behind it, stood there showing up only her face.

“Please come in…come in... Isn’t it you? Please have a seat, he told the visitor. The fair complexioned visitor with white shirt sat down on the veranda. 

“You are aware that we once discussed a matter in the village panjayat related to laying of road to Koralur. Now I am thinking of submitting an affirmation after obtaining signatures of concurrence from the concerned. Next week the minister is visiting Kooteripattu” he spoke a little about it. 

She noticed his fair, spotlessly clean fingers taking out a pen and white paper kept folded in his pocket. Her husband was wiping his hands dried with husk and chaffy hay, on his loin cloth for putting his signature.  

“You should have cleaned your hands in advance. Shouldn’t you?” at once the visitor lifted his head to see who spoke it, she pulled her head inside. 

“Can you please ask someone to bring water…to drink?” 

“Heii…bring him some water for quenching his thirst”

She moved away from the door and washed the bronze mug, which she had already cleaned in the morning, with some tamarind swiftly and poured water from the pot into it. She searched for the single ‘ever-silver’ tumbler she bought in the third month, brought it with her and stood near the door.

“Come here…come inside” she called out to her husband.

“Give it to him”

“I told you to come inside”

She twisted her body in all possible angles. With her body convoluted with feigned body movements she was standing near the door like an innocent soul. 

Kanthasamy received the jug from her, gave it to the visitor. 

“The water is from the well and likely to be a bit salty”, she told standing behind the door as if she was talking in the air. The visitor left after drinking the water. 

“What sort of a man are you? Don’t you know that I would be uneasy if you ask me to bring water in front an unknown man? I can’t do that. Can I? Even now my body sends out chillness into me at the very thought of it. I am still unable to come out of the shock. I was profusely sweating. Do you know that?”

She came to the grove and sat beside the corn stover. 

“The moment you asked me, I felt that my entire birth had come to point of nothing. I was confused as to what this fellow had had in his mind to ask me like that. I was totally clueless why you had asked me to do that. Now tell me…what did you have in your mind when you had told me to do that? You just tested me whether I would bring it or not. Didn’t you?” 

He kept on fastening the bamboo fence which he had left half way. 

“The soles of my legs felt so uneasy even to stand near the door. But you…an ignoramus…have asked such a good woman to step out of the door to give water to an unknown man. It is not justifiable anyway. Is it? You will be asking me to do such things in future too. Won’t you?”

She cleaned up the trashes lying there after breaking the remaining corn stover with required measurements. 

“Some women are so adept at speaking pleasingly with unknown men. Aren’t they? That too without giving any second thought…But when I speak, I feel some millipedes are crawling on my skin. My eyes won’t be at ease even while raising my head to have a glance of a stranger other than my husband.”

She shook her body once, and emitted an expression of contempt. 

He halted fastening the bamboo fence, came to the street and was searching for the Palmyra tree fibers he had kept under the columns of the house. 

She kept the broom aside, came out of the house, and stood there without any purpose. Squinting her eyes, standing without any specific task, she was gazing absorbedly at the empty house opposite.

That egg eyed man appeared again. Buttressing her cheeks with her hands, burying her jaws into her palms, she was standing with her eyes wide open. As her face gleamed with an expression of amazement, she was standing there as if she was to act in some pantomime. 

At her back, Kanthasamy came with a stack of Palmyra fibers.

“Look at the chap…he has come again and staring at me like earlier. Why shouldn’t I burn his eyes with a brand?”

“Let him be so…. You get inside …..and stop your rants….and those empty harangues….” He sat down again to fasten the bamboo fence. ‘Hopeless woman…trying in every effort to show her as if she is still a chaste one,’ he muttered. 

              

              

***

Translated from the Tamil by Saravanan. K 

Source: A Tamil short story written by Rajendra Cholan.  

The Mouse (Eli) by Ashokamitran

Ashokamitran

Translated from the Tamil by Saravanan. K 

This is an English translation of “Eli”, a short story written by Ashokamitran. This is 41^st  English translation in Tamil Classic short stories published in this blog. 

***

Ganesan was terribly annoyed with the repetition of the same act. That day too, the womenfolk in his house cleaned up everything completely, leaving no leftover food in the kitchen after dinner. It was not that they were not aware of anything that was going on there. Elder sister was fifty years old. Wife was to complete her forty years of age. Daughter was going to complete thirteen years. Not a piece of dosai,or pappador tiny meat of coconut was available. ‘What else then could be kept in the mouse trap? Hell with everyone!’  Ganesan went to bed. 

He could have slept no more than half an hour. He heard the sound of the bamboo pole moving. ‘The mouse is somewhere near the bamboo pole’. Just past two minutes, now the bamboo pole rocked more. ‘The mouse is now climbing on the pole’. Now the sound of large brass plate hitting the wall was heard. “The mouse has got onto the loft’. A swooshing sound. ‘The mouse was on its way upon the heap of old newspapers’.A sudden sound of a knock. ‘The mouse has jumped off from the loft to the cupboard’.  The empty tin boxes kept at the top of cupboard rustled with each other.‘The mouse has gone to the almirah fixed on a nail on the wall’. A brief silence. A big banging sound of something being pushed down as if to compensate the silence that preceded. Ganesan and his wife got up, switched on the light and examined the area. The mouse had pushed away the lid of an oil jar. 

Ganesan looked at his wife, gnashing his teeth as she was closing the jar with its lid, covered it with a basket, upside down upon it. “Nothing I say goes into your ears to leave some leftovers and to my dismay I don’t know why do you keep everything here spotlessly clean?” he asked, disparagingly. 

“What else do you expect me to keep as left over? Can we keep Rasam for the mouse? Or will you keep the Uppma in hook of mouse trap?” she retorted. 

“Stop your teasing” Ganesan told her. 

“I didn’t tease you. If it is Dosaior Adai, we can keep in the trap. But you know…we are making dosaiand adai every day at home right. Aren’t we?

“Then let the mouse tumble everything and ruin it.” 

His wife didn’t speak anything. She took out a dried onion from the vegetable bag, gave it to him and told, “You may try it”. 

“Tell me when did the mouse come here to eat this onion?”

Though the onion he had thrown at her might have hurt her, she said nothing and went to bed. 

Ganesan couldn’t sleep. In those two small rooms in which even ten persons wouldn’t be able to either sleep by their side nor eat together, four or five rats were playing around with full-fledged freedom, biting, tearing the cloths, opening the lids of boxes, scooping out the pulp from tomatoes, drinking oils, and unfailingly stealing away the wicks from the lamps kept in front the God. 

Ganesan put on his shirt with quarter of an Ana in his shirt pocket, closed the door and hit the street.  

All the hotels were closed. Only the shops selling beedaand betal leaves were kept opened. ‘Just a vada…even a half of it will be enough…’ 

Unluckily, no leftovers of vada anywhere. Breads, buns, biscuits and bananas were only available. Experimentation with all these stuff in different times in the past was already completed. But the mice were grown insouciant in attitude towards it. ‘Any food stuff roasted in oil- like vada, Bakkoda, or pappad-were found useful earlier. We can’t make all those items at home daily as the cost of dal and oils is unbearably high. Can we? Rice Uppma, Rava Uppma, then Pongal. Then the cycle will be reverse- First Pongal, rava Uppma and then Rice uppma- this is how one could get food at home’. Even the words Pongal and Uppma had made him sulk. Possibly, the mouse would also feel the same. Wouldn’t it?

The mouse must have been lucky that day as Ganesan had decided to return home. A public meeting was going on at a distance in the ground. The crowd wouldn’t consist of more than thirty or forty persons. Despite that thin attendance, the speaker was enthusiastically giving his speech, waving his hands fervently. ‘I could listen to him for a while. Couldn’t I?’ Ganesan walked towards the crowd. The speaker was throwing warnings to Nixon. Then to China. Then to Britain. Then to Russia. Then to Pakistan. At last he warned Indira Gandhi and leaders in Tamil Nadu. ‘Even if one hundredth of these warnings had reached the pedigree of those rodents, they would have taken refuge into the Bay of Bengal. Why don’t these rats understand Tamil language?’ 

Something he came across there was found to be more useful than the speech for Ganesan. Just a distance away from the meeting venue, so many persons were standing around a push cart. Hot snacks items were being fried with the help of a stove grouted in the cart. Within seconds they were kept on the place after scooping them out of boiling groundnut oil with the slotted ladle, they were sold out. 

Ganesan was also standing near that shop. About twenty chillies coated in flour were frying like submarines in the oil. One of them standing there was demanding, “Make vada…make vada”

But the chilly Bajji was again fried. Ganesan too joined them yelling, “Make Vada…” But there was a pressing demand for bajjis. One person came in his car and instructed, “pack eight bajjis” and went to pee in dark. Ganesan once again insisted, “Put Vada this time” 

Once the chilly bajjis were taken out, they were shared immediately in minutes of time. They were bundled up in two, four and sometimes in ten. 

“You have asked for vada. Haven’t you? How manyvadas do you need?” 

Ganesan was hesitant to tell him that he needed only one. “Two enough” he told. 

“Let me make it after this” 

However, only chilly got the preference again and went into oil. The one who was demanding vada for long became restless and neared the point of getting into a big scuffle with the vendor. “It is getting ready soon. See…he is also waiting for it” 

It was rather a painful waiting for Ganesan. Now there was a big crowd around the push cart. Everyone was waiting for their turn to savour the snacks. They might have thought that he was eagerly waiting to relish vada. What would they think if they did come to know that the vada he was demanding was for a rat? The very thought of it pained him.

Once the vadaswere taken out, Ganesan was served with first lot with two vadas in a piece of old Malai Murasu newspaper. The oil was hot; it spread on the paper till his palm got oily. Two vadaswith good aroma. The pulses used in the vada were protruding from its crispy surface in white. 

Ganesan was walking towards his home. Unable to hold the vadasas they were very hot, he kept changing it from one hand to another. Both his hands and papers were fully soaked in oil. Poor push cart vendor…he didn’t know that the vada was for rat. Ganesan wouldn’t have been that embarrassed had they been made at his home. The whole episode was painful for him anyway. 

Without making shirt dirty, it was nearly impossible for him to take out the key from his pocket. He kept he vadasdown, rubbed his hands soaked in oil on his rear anklet and calf and wiped it. Went into the house, hooked a vada to the clasp in the mouse trap. He ate the remaining one by himself. A fifty-year-old man would have some definite repercussions if he ate vada at ten in the night. He reconciled that it was a recourse to something due for him. He lay down and slept. 

It was in the morning, Ganesan developed a discomfort in his stomach. The mouse had got caught in the trap, kept on screeching all the way through the night. He wasn’t aware of it. His wife only informed him about it. 

Now he had to dispose of the rat somewhere. He left the house carrying the mouse trap. The rat tried slipping its nose out through the small hole in the trap. It wasn’t clear from the size of the nose if it was big one or a small one. But would the size, no matter it was small or big, be a matter of concern when it had strength to push the flour box down, roll the oil jars, nip the dirty cloths and tear off vegetables? 

Ganesan didn’t prefer the street gutter this time for its disposal, and went to the ground instead. ‘The rat would take at least one week to find out the way back to the house. In case this rat is gone, another one might come…’   

Ganesan wanted the boys who were playing over there to move aside. But they were waiting for him to open the mouse trap. He kept the trap on the floor and gently pressed down the lever of its lid. The rat jumped out and ran away. 

It was neither big nor small in size. As it wasn’t familiar with open ground, it started running haphazard. One of those boys threw a stone at it. Ganesan requested him not to do that. It was at that time a crow came flying from somewhere, pecked the rat once and flew away. The rat tumbled, lay on its back, hopped. It hastened its speed and hopped faster. The crow took a circle above and descended fast. There was no place for the rodent to hide. The crow picked it up and flew away. Ganesan was sad at seeing it. 

On seeing one more thing, his sadness had got indeed increased. While returning home carrying the mouse trap, he looked into the trap. The vadahe fixed on to the hook in the previous night hadn’t been eaten up yet. 

***

Translated from the Tamil by Saravanan. K 

Source: “Eli”, a short story written by Ashokamitran.