This is an English Translation of “Sankili”, a short story written by Yuvan Chandrasekar. This story was published in Kalachuvadu Magazine (March 2022 issue). My sincere thanks to Mr Yuvan Chandrasekar for giving permission to translate his short story. This is 27th English Translation in the Classic Tamil Short stories Series in this blog. |
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| Yuvan Chandrasekar |
Ever since the day I retired from my job, some unusual dreams and desires keep coming and disappearing. I want to visit the village from where I started my career; I want to see how the elementary school building where I went to attend my classes, wearing half trousers, crying, is looking now. I would like to see whether Indu, who hugged me tightly and gave me the first kiss, is still there with the same intensity of love; and whether the dead bodies still continue floating in the Mullai River; and whether the Lord Ganesh, sitting impressively with the enriched shine and aroma of gingely oil flowing down His body, still winks at me like the Lord Ganesh appearing in Sarvagan’s novella, “Amara Pandithar”.
While sitting idle, visuals run haphazardly in my mind. A strong desire preoccupies to catch hold of those visuals, moving with the lightning speed of a meteoroid and see how many spectrums are illuminated in different colours.
At the top of all, the mind puzzled with a question - Had I been keeping all these intact for the past fifty years, knitting them together? Or had I been shedding them one after the other? There was only one way out to get rid of this confusion- An un-quenching desire of revisiting immediately all the instances carved in my imaginations without missing even one, got stronger. In the closed eyes, those visuals only are visible. Aren’t they? When going there, I have to check whether the same sound and scents are still lingering there.
Sababathi wrote reply without delay.
Almost after fifty years, now riding in the bicycle. Probably, the cycle was also equally aged. With its rusty spokes and mud guards, the bicycle rolled along, making heavy grunts. Cycling on dirt-tracks running along the banks of the river towards Melanachikulam, lying in two parallel trenches created by cart wheels on both sides and an elevated land in the middle, made the journey easy. Sababathi tried his best to maintain the balance while riding the cycle. It was pretty appreciable for his age of sixty that he was still able to carry one person in “doubles” in the pillion, with his lungifolded on his waist. The buttocks which had got accustomed with the sophistication of luxury car couldn’t understand how magnificent task it was. Unable to bear the pressure from the iron rods in the pillion carrier, the buttocks were begging for immediate relief. On the contrary, my mind was getting hugely restless. Every time I looked at the Mullai River, I remembered my father’s face, floating immobile on the slow moving water surface.
On the running water, father used to demonstrate his swimming skills, floating immobile. As he wasn’t in a position to give quarter of an Anafor the car, he would get into the river, tying his washed Dhoti as turban in his head and start floating. It was a river taking everything to Vadipatti that came along with it. Once he came ashore, he would stand on the bank, drying up the cloth, wear it on his waist and leave for his sister’s hotel where he was working as store in charge. While describing this to my friend through telephone, he replied, wondered, “I think he would have gone somewhere else.” On another occasion, the grocery shop keeper Kudumi Chettiyar told during a casual talk that a crocodile was seen once in the Mullai River. After he left, father laughed it loud, telling that it was just an empty rumour. Only on that day, he narrated an incident with the exquisite eloquence- how he got the children panicked by lifting his right hand at them when they screamed, followed him “Over there, a dead body…yonder…yonder…” thinking that he was a corpse floating motionless on the running water. Sababathi kept on speaking about him, not letting my father’s words reverberating in my silent connection with him.
“Yappaa...the elder man’s house comes first on our way. Can we go there first?”
I said “yes’.
The zeal that had filled my heart when I met him at the bus stand, looked frail now. He was speaking like a person who lived two generations ago. His behaviour also attested the same. I must have come from Madurai by car. My desire of entering Karattupatti as old Krishnan had actually prevented me from doing that.
What he meant by ‘the elder man’ was none but our Head Master. When I was studying in sixth class, he came to our village on transfer from some other town. As he liked the river bank, coconut groves and the tranquillity in the clean air around, he settled in our village itself- he used to say.
Not only he, almost all the teachers who came to our village on transfer purchased houses, and settled there permanently. Nevertheless, there were two differences. One, the house of the Head Master was much bigger than that of others; second, others had at least a couple of children. The reply that ‘sir’ gave to the Chief Educational Officer who shared his food with ‘HM sir’ after his inspection, is still ringing in my ears the way it did on that day across the grills of the windows.
‘It doesn’t matter anyway? Does it? All the children of this school are my children. Aren’t they?’
Nearly after a half century, I could understand that they were not uttered as mere empty words-Yes…he could remember me. Along with that, he was able to recollect each and every one of my classmates. He enquired about them too. We, I and Sababathi, were unable to remember most of our friends. It appeared to me that ‘sir’ had a hunchback just as he was unable to bear the heaviness of memories.
It was said that a very big cathedral in the nearby village, Pommanpatti was the reason why all the teachers who had come to that village preferred to settle there. Austin Ayya who was working there as a pastor was also another reason. A character in the play “New Age Jesus Christ” written by the Head Master, enacted by the senior class students would describe the conduct of Austin Ayya through expressions like, ‘unruffled voice’, ‘softer words’, ‘charitable heart’ and ‘immaculate conduct’. Our ‘sir’ used to proudly announce that Austin Ayya was the role model for the chief protagonist of the play.
It was the year we all left the village, Austin Ayya was gored in his stomach by a charged Karattupatti bull, which came pouncing, tearing off the rope, and threw him out in the air. He died on the spot. Manikkam Servai, who had just started a new branch of an Association which was teaching physical exercises and Silambam every morning, uttered an unsavoury remark:
“The bull has been dedicated to God Muniyandi. That is why it happened”
When we, I, Sundram Anna and mother, were waiting for the bus to Periyakulam, Cholavanthan Police were bringing Manikkam Servai, hand cuffed. They were waiting for the bus at the opposite side. It was understood that he was arrested on the complaint that he had misappropriated the donation amount meant for the Association.
….
We climbed four stone steps, went past the hen than ran amok after seeing us from the stone-fitted front yard, and the cow with a fixed look at us, lifting its head from the trough, and approached the broad veranda, entered the house. The teacher peeped out of the room on the left, from where the aroma of cooking was coming, holding his right palm near is eye brows, blinkering his eyes for better visibility, and asked:
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me” Sababathi told.
“Who? The one who brings me tender palm?” the teacher sneered. Well- built body, would not look sixty if he still used face powder and eyeliner. The grey hair which started in his youth, had now spread all over his head and showed his actual age. He was four years younger to ‘sir’. Sababathi told on the way that ‘sir’ was eighty nine years old.
I made both of them stand in front of me, and lay prostrate. They might have thought that I would only pay my customary obeisance- But they were stunned to see my gesture.
“O! Jesus!” when their voice, completely astounded, echoed above the back of my head, I felt that the half a century of anxiety broke itself suddenly and went up to my eyes. They sat near me on the mat spread on the floor, enquired about my life in Chennai, my children, and the children of my children. They ate all the apples I brought, along with us.
After spending nearly half an hour with them, I said while leaving, customarily though:
“Will see you sir”
He looked at me earnestly. An implausible naughtiness in his eyes!
“I don’t think we shall meet again. Shall we?” betel leaves stained reddish mouth dropped a grin. Even though it sent a shrill pain in me, I reconciled myself that it was a fulfilling smile.
When I was about to leave, an old man entered the house. The teacher shouted in an elated voice,
“Pushparaj sir…see here who has come?”
I could identify at once who he was. He sat there, his head was shaking incessantly. It was very much visible that he was unable to recollect anything despite his earnest efforts. When he picked up a piece of apple from the plate with his trembling hand and tried bringing it to his mouth, it fell down from his hand. He picked it up again, and held his right hand with another hand tightly, and somehow managed to drop it into his mouth. He looked at me intently; and then nodded his head up and down. A sign to prove that he could remember!
There was a reason why I didn’t forget him. He struggled immeasurably to push mathematics into my mind. Didn’t he? How many times he could have twisted the muscle in my thighs? There was one more incident to remember.
Wilson Gnanaraj once asked him, “HM wants the attendance register.”
“HM…which HM…which bird’s HM1is this” he asked him.
Later, it appeared to me many times that he just cracked that joke to entertain Treas Teacher who had come to him to borrow red ink bottle.
Pushparaj sir also left along with us. I felt that an old bird with its withered feathers was walking along with us.
Sababathi stopped the bicycle at Wales cycle shop as the tyre had gone flat. Wales’s son was running the shop. He resembled his father. It was understood that Wales died of liver failure fifteen years ago due to over drinking of alcohol.
While Pushparaj sir was walking along with me, brushing my shoulders, asked me when he had an opportunity to be alone with me.
“Thambi…could you give me ten rupees, if you have?” when he asked me in mumbling voice, something deep in my heart made me uncomfortable. I took out my wallet and thrust a hundred rupees currency note into his hands.
After sending them off, when I started leaving by the bicycle, turning to them again and again, I felt that HM ‘sir’ and Pushparaj sir were sitting at the same level in me, barring the differences in their memory.
When I pressed his hands with the hundred rupees note, the shivering in his hand stopped for a while. Narrowing his eyes, he examined the note once, and said with an absurd smile, “Now I remember well. You are our Ramana. Aren’t you?” The way he laughed his heart out with his toothless mouth and the way I kept silence as if I accepted it, seemed to be a hallucination that it had happened many centuries ago.
I could remember Ramana very well. He was elder to me by two forms. He used to be alone, not mingling with anyone. His family was running a small tiffin centre. All of his family members were also not very much attached to anyone in the village. It might be due to the sense of insecurity of having migrated from other state and domiciled in the town two generation ago or it might be due to their inability to speak the local language fluently yet or it might be due to the apprehension that they would have to entertain the people with free Pondaand Boliif they nurtured friendship with them or his family might be the reason in which three beautiful girls were born one after the other- The reason could be anyone of these.
One day when I boarded the bus at Cholavanthan, I saw Ramana’s elder sister sitting at the seat right behind the driver seat. She smiled at me.
“Aren’t you Krishnan?”
Voice, almost musical.
“Yes…akka”, I replied, and continued further, not willing to cut short the conversation, “ Let me buy the ticket for you too”. It was the time I joined in my new job, and I wanted to spend money on anyone and on anything just to prove that I was affluent enough to do so.
“No…No…Please don’t. Uncle would have bought the ticket” she showed her hand to the rear.
I turned back. Only twelve passengers, in total, were travelling in the bus. I saw Muthaiya Annan, with a moustache as if drawn with pencil and a towel on his shoulder, looking outside through the window, and chewing betal leaves. He was a big land lord with lots of land properties, four or five cemented houses and nearly fifty servants working in his lands at his command.
When we were in our village, there was a rumour about them. Now, Mridula akka just endorsed that rumour. That was all. There was yet another gossip-that, only because of this rumour, the only son of the family, Ramana went out of the house. When I was studying in the eleventh class, I came to know about it through Sababathi’s letter. How to verify this information other than Sababathi…!
I carefully avoided enquiring Mridula Akka about Ramana, who resembled exactly her younger brother.
I remembered one more anecdote about Muthaiya Annan- His daughter was Selvi. She was the classmate of Ramana. She used to pick petty altercations with Wilson Gnanaraj very frequently who was also studying in the same class. Her enviously endowed frame that couldn’t be covered fully in her Thavani, her cheerful face and the smile that never got dull easily- All these would make the place around her always brighter.
As a sixth class student, if I had felt in this manner, Gnanaraj, who was of her age would have been troubled by her so intensely. Wouldn’t he? Gnanaraj was a youth with curly hairs falling on his forehead, dimples in his cheeks while smiling, sharp nose like a knife, and finely arranged white teeth glaring the eyes of person seeing it. Truly speaking, the image of Selvi kept lingering on in the dreams of my youthful days for a long time even after we had left the village.
There was one more image that lingered on in my thoughts more than that- the image of both the wrists of Gnanaraj, tied with a load bearing rope connected to the rear of Rekla Cart, Muthiah Annan goading, whipping the single bull pulling the Rekla Cart, Gnanaraj being dragged on the ground to the speed of the cart, his parents who could do nothing other than crying, beating their chest and stomachs, and following their son who was dragged by the cart- it was an extremely ghastly image. I didn’t see all these with my eyes. It was the description of the events recorded in a newly started Tamil Investigative journal when the case was pending in the court.
After that incident, one day Gnanaraj was found dead and Selvi was found dead after two weeks Gnanaraj was found dead. It was said that their dead bodies were floating in their respective caste wells. Sababathi, in one of his letters written with a lot of spelling errors, had informed me that some believed both were suicides and some believed that only one of them was suicide.
For our lunch, we went to Sababathi’s home. His wife, looking very old, brought a glass of water, gave it to me, and greeted me.
“Please welcome”
The face which I saw during their marriage in Koodal Azhagar Perumal Temple had now grown old, and become almost unidentifiable. She was resembling a woman who boarded the bus at Karuppati when I was on my way.
That woman who boarded the bus at Karuppatti, and followed me even after I alighted from the bus, actually had got me immensely astounded. Her appearance, barring her face, her chequered saree worn leaving a tail hanging behind, the hair in a bun slanting on one side like that of rooster’s comb, and the basket made of bend-wood she was holding along her ribs with her elbow, carried me to the stretch of memory fifty years ago- Just like a kite picking up a chick roaming on ground, and flying away with ease.
Yes…she bore a striking resemblance to Sarkunam. Even the cloth covering her breasts didn’t cover fully, fluttered casually like the way it did in those days. I wondered how Sarkunam could remain in the same stage of her existence when all other things around her had changed greatly.
That day, Sarkumam suffered a strong kick from the tailor, Anandan while trying to go near to a man, who was tied to the lamp post after being caught when he attempted to enter a house removing the thatched clay tiles, with a brass jug full of water when he was begging for water. Both Sarkunam and the jug rolled in different directions after his kick. She got up, frantically shouted, looking at a direction aimlessly.
“Let him be a criminal. Does that mean he shouldn’t feel thirsty? What sort of atrocity is it?”
Then she scooped up a handful of sand from the ground, threw it aimlessly in the air and left. Along with this knot, one more knot with a story that happened four or five years later also joined with it.
The new daughter in law of Servaikarar’s house went to Anandan for giving measurement for her blouse. For giving measurement for her one blouse, she visited his shop four or five times. On one occasion, after returning home, she rammed all her cloths into a trunk box to the dismay of the entire family which stood stunned at it. “If I ever have a life, it will only be with Anandan” she declared categorically.
The men of her family went after Anandan, caught him, and tied in the same lamp post where the thief was once tied, on the pretext that he insulted the persons who had gone to collect donations from the villagers for a temple function. As if all happened a just while ago, I could still vividly remember how he struggled even to get up with his feeble legs, blood sticking in lump on his nose and mouth which he couldn’t even close properly, after being released at his words in writing that he along with his parents and wife would go out of the village.
The third knot in this chain of narrative was not yet complete. On the day of Madurai Chithirai Exhibition, the new daughter in law who fell in love with the tailor and the grandson of Servaikarar were seen holding a baby each in their hands. Anyone seeing her would notice nothing other than that the new one had grown old. They were holding a candy floss each in their hands, as big as a yac-tail-fan which one could see in the hands of Lakshman and Satrukan in the picture of coronation ceremony of Lord Ram, eating it along with the children. It was a phase of my life where I was able to imagine such examples.
“If you are capable of speaking this much, why don’t you contribute a story to the college souvenir?”- I need to remember Halim sir, thank him for kindling the flame in me.
At last, it was Sarkunam who narrated the secret anecdote mentioned above, which the Servaikarar family had been thinking that it not known to anyone till date. She was sitting in the front entrance scrubbed with cow dung water, at a distance of some yards from my mother who was sitting in the small veranda, and narrated to her.
“He should have stitched only the blouse. Nothing more than that. Shouldn’t he? But see, how brutally he kicked me when I had just gone to give water to that thirsty man? Every sin committed will be paid appropriately. Won’t it?”
My mother got up, indicating that the conversation was over.
I felt as if the brass jug which fell down, rolled on the floor, had taken a complete round and reached Sarkunam’s hand.
The hoarding hanging from the post announced that housing plots adjacent to Thiruvedagam near Madurai were available for a throw away price. My mind calculated the distance between Madurai and Thiruvedagam, and failed repeatedly.
Now, there were umpteen flagpoles erected like a fence around that open ground where only one lamp post was standing in those days. Those flags were fluttering in different hues and there were some colours which I didn’t know which political party it belonged to.
Even though everyone in the village knew about Sarkunam, it was said that there were two main reasons why no one could do anything against her. First, her intimacy with the Muniyandi Temple exorcist. Her hut was very near to the tamarind tree on which the exorcist used to nail all the bad sprits, tie them in it, after dragging them by their tufts, whipping them. Second reason was more of a natural one- she was an expert in relieving people of ricks.
The small stream stemming from the Mullai River ended in the lotus pond located at the rear side of Muniyandi Temple. When the Mullai River went dry showing its bony river bed during summers, the lotus pond would remain filled with water. It was said that other than the river water, it was some four or five invisible springs underneath the pond that had made it perennial.
When the watchman lost his almirah key, it was the same exorcist who found it, lighting camphor, beating the drum and invoking incantations. The place where the he found the key was an unusual one- It was a lotus bud in the pond, in which the key was found intact.
While talking about water, I remember the exorcist’s brother. He used to keep his face tilted in an angle like a crow with his one of his eyes narrowed and the other fully opened. He was always found walking between the Military hotel, run by one of their brothers, and the Mullai river. People said that his neck got tilted as he used to carry water pot regularly on his shoulder. He used to walk, murmuring some songs without parting his lips.
‘The fresh lap of my beloved man…it is thousands of lakh rupees for me’
I would run away from him if I ever happened to meet him. Initially, when he appeared in front of me a couple of times, he would hold my loin with his hand, and say,
“I just checked whether your dick is safe or not” he used to grin at me, narrowing his already-narrowed eye. I noticed that his voice and face were resembling women. Even his walk also looked feminine.
The bus entered Cholavanthan. In the invisible chain, I tried knitting, stacking up every knot that were visible outside. There could have been so many knots buried unidentified. I was standing at the one end of the chain; which one was the other end? That said, was it really a chain or just a wooden rammer that tamps down every coarseness?
Unable to come out of my bewilderment, I got down from the bus. The bus going to Madurai was standing, waiting for passengers as if it was suffering from fever. I boarded. Only four or five passengers were sitting in the bus. I sat by a window comfortably, looked outside.
The Jutka stand functioning in the opposite side with the terrible odour of horses was not seen. Some cemented buildings were found lined up there. Other than a mobile phone shop, Cable TV centre, and a Barotta shop, there were two shops selling oils extracted through wooden grinder and traditional medicines.
The moment the bus was about to move after its seats were filled three fourths, it coincided with the colossal display of the invisible knot that remained left out in me. While my reflex looked after everything- pronouncing ‘Madurai’, giving due changes of amount, and receiving the bus tickets and remaining balance amount- my mind was revisiting the hidden knot calmly which remained buried deep in me.
My elder sister, who was pregnant then, got her leg twisted. My mother sent me to Sarkunam to bring her. I paved the way for the ‘water man’ who was coming in the opposite direction, waited for a while, and reached the entrance of Sarkunam’s hut.
I called her out four or five times, but in vain. Prompted by an unknown courage, I pushed the ‘mat’ door. It opened without much of my efforts. Sarkunam wasn’t there.
It was a very small hut. It was capacious enough only for two adults to lie down, with their limps fully stretched. At the head side of the persons lying, was there an elevated mound. That was, a mound of one feet height, embedded with two stoves made of burnt clay. It was looking very clean, scrubbed with cow dung water. There was no sign of ash inside the stoves. An inexplicable fragrance was filling in the air inside the hut. Being preoccupied with the deep thoughts concerning those moments, I couldn’t clearly comprehend whether I liked that scent or not. I put my leg in, stepped in.
It was only at that time, that magic happened.
While I was looking at the hut, it enlarged like a balloon. The thatch made of hay, became a ceiling made of cement, and a broad swing was hanging, tied at the ends of thick long chains which hang from the ceiling. The swing was as big as the one found in my grandmother’s house in Vathalakundu.
As the elderly persons and children sitting on the swing, huddling each other, two boys were standing on both sides of the swing to push it above. For the boys to get onto the swing once its movement started, there was an empty space left at both sides of the swing. The swing rose up to the top of the paddy granary which was standing behind as its backdrop.
The swing didn’t descend. It stopped there itself.
I, too, stood at the same place, unable to step back and, at the same time, not courageous enough to enter.
***End***
1. HM stands for Head Master. This abbreviation is pronounced as “echcham” which literally means excreta of birds or insects. In many schools, Head Masters are being addressed as HM.
Translated from Tamil by K.Saravanan.
Source: “Sankili” short story by Yuvan Chandrasekar (Published in Kalachuvadu Magazine –March 2022 issue)
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