The man in Terylene shirt and eight cubits long Dhoti (Terylene Shirtum Ettu Muzha Vettiyum Anintha Manithar) by G.Nagarajan

 

*This is an English Translation of “Terylene Shirtum Ettu Muzha Vettiyum Anintha Manithar”, a short story written by G. Nagarajan. Translated by  Saravanan Karmegam. 

G Naga Rajan 

   

The brothel agent warned her not to keep the door open and stand at the entrance as he received a reliable information that there might be a police raid. ‘There is no information about Kamala who ran away from the brothel home a month ago. Sarasa, who had gone home for Onam hasn’t returned yet.’ After locking the outer door, Deivanai, sitting alone on mattress on the cot under tube light in the room adjacent to outer veranda, was sulking at it.

Intituitvely thoughtful of something, she climbed up the steps in the outer veranda, reached upstairs, and switched the light on. That room had some more comforts than the one downstairs. Paintings from other countries decorated its walls. One very big cot made in Chettinadu ¹ with a mattress laid on it, that could accommodate two persons had been kept along the wall. That room, normally reserved only for ‘night bookings’ was lying empty for about a month without getting clients. As luck would have it, Kamala could garner some ‘night bookings’. 

Deivanai lifted the mattress slightly up, and took out a long half an inch thick binding rope lying beneath it. It was the rope used by her mother to bind her beddings when she had left her town. Standing in the middle of the room, she stretched it, pulled it with force at different places as if examining its strength, and looked up at the ceiling of the room. An iron ring was hanging in the beam. It was dangling just above the cot’s edge, but an inch away from it. ‘Is it possible to reach the ring with the rope by standing on the cot?’ She couldn’t see the ring clearly as the upper part of mercury lamp hanging in the middle was covered with a curved tin sheet obstructing the view. She went down in haste, brought a long bamboo stick used for drying clothes. She climbed on to the bed, and examined whether she could tuck the end of the rope into the ring. That time, the sound of knocking on the door was heard downstairs. Leaving the rope and stick on the cot itself, she ran downstairs. Before opening the outer door, she stood, hesitant for a second as she felt that no one had actually knocked at the door. She could hear only the sound of Poongavanam’s house door opening. She looked through the gap in the door to see if anyone was standing outside. She felt that no one was standing there. Deivanai went upstairs.

She resumed her attempt to tuck the rope inside the ring again with the help of the bamboo stick. Her shoulders started aching. Sweat began to appear on her forehead, flowed down erasing the Javvadhu vermilion on forehead before flowing down further. An idea came over her mind. She dropped the stick and rope on the floor immediately and ran downstairs. She found out a half feet long rusted nail near the window in the back yard. She came again upstairs with the nail. She tied the end of rope in the middle of the nail. As she forcefully tightened it, the rope cut her palm, hurt it. Unable to bear its pain, she slavered it and gently blew air on it. Standing on the cot, she again tried to hook the nail into the ring with the help of stick. As the nail was not fixed properly at the tip of stick it fell onto the ground repeatedly. She rested for a minute, and set right the shiver in her hands. Again resumed her attempt to hook the nail into the iron ring. While half of the nail could enter the ring, the knot in the rope obstructed the remaining half from entering fully. The weight of the rope also prevented the nail from entering the iron ring. Seeing the rope lengthy, Deivanai felt that the rope shouldn’t be that long. ‘Where she could get a knife to cut off the rope to the required length, she reflected.  There was no knife at home. Blade? That was also not available’. Deivanai remembered an Arival manai ² lying in the kitchen. She jumped down, ran downstairs and brought the Arival Manai. She stood at the edge of the cot, planned to shorten the rope deftly, by measuring out the distance between her neck and the iron ring, and fixing an approximate point on the rope where the noose to be made. Luckily the Arival Manai was relatively sharp, she didn’t have much problem in cutting the rope. Deivanai had yet another idea. She parted the tip of the stick a bit with Arival Manai. Now, she was able to raise the stick above, with the rope not falling down as it was tightly wedged at the tip of the stick. After successfully tucking the nail into the iron ring, she made the rope hanging perpendicularly as the nail was pressing across the iron ring. Standing on the edge of the cot, she tried to make a noose big enough for her head to enter with a knot at the tip of rope. She couldn’t make both noose and knot. She wasn’t experienced in these kinds of affairs. After a couple of failures, she was successful in making a noose with a knot. That time, she heard someone knocking on the door downstairs. Deivanai halted all her attempts for a second. The sound from below grew louder. “There is no such urgency for all these now”, she reflected, ran downstairs, wiped her face with the hem of her saree, adjusted her dress and opened the outer door.

The brothel agent and a new person were standing outside.

“Why this much time to open the door?” asked the brothel agent.

“I was upstairs” Deivanai replied.

“I told you to switch the lights off and lock the door. Didn’t I? Who asked you to go upstairs? As the brothel agent entered the house, the other person too entered along with him.

“Umm…switch the light on” the brothel agent told her, as he entered the house. Deivanai switched the light on in the outer veranda. The person who had come along with the brothel agent looked very tall. His hair was styled, incompletely, like Bhagavathar’s ³, and he was wearing a Terylene shirt and eight cubit long dhoti. Unlike other usual visitors who used to stare at her, he was glancing through the outer veranda and the room adjacent to it. “Does  everything look O.K  sir?” the brothel agent asked him.

He entered the room adjacent to the outer veranda, examined the walls closely in the tube light, and told,” Not bad. You have kept everything neat and clean”

“Here everything is very clean” the brothel agent told, threw out a sly smile. “Let me take leave, then”

“The amount?” asked the new comer.

“I will collect it from the doctor” The brothel agent replied and left.

The visitor closed the outer door and switched the light off in the outer veranda, came to her. Deivanai greeted him and entered the room lit by tube light, adjacent to the outer veranda. She directly went to the bed and sat there. He came near to her, stood hesitantly.

“You may sit down here” she remarked.

“No…There is a chair in the outer veranda. Isn’t it? Please bring it here” he told her. She smiled.

“I am habituated with sitting on easy chair comfortably” he explained.

Many visitors had flirted with her sitting on that reclining cane chair. She went down, brought that cane chair and put it in front of him. He sat on it. She sat on the cot again. Both of them were looking at each other.

“You look beautiful” he told her.  She smiled at him.

“Please pull your saree down a little” he told her. She laughed again. “I am not kidding. Pull your saree down a little so it does not cover your breasts fully”.

She obliged.

“Sit straight”

She sneered.

“Please sit straight” he told as if he was pleading her.

“Are you going to photograph me? She laughed.

“Yes…you may think so” he retorted.

She adjusted her saree and hair as if she was sitting in front of an artiste. He gazed at her intently for a while, relished her beauty, found her pose inappropriate, and told her, “You don’t offer good view in sitting. Please lie down”

“But you are sitting there…doing nothing. Aren’t you?” she told without smiling.

“I have come here just to sit and watch you. Haven’t I?” he replied. She lay, smiled. She folded her one hand, buttressed her head with it, and lay there looking at him, yet smiling. He kept looking at her.

“Don’t you have an urge to do?” she asked him.

“Yes I do have…a lot”

“Then why this distance?”

“That is why I keep staring at you”

“Is just a stare enough for you?” she smiled.

“I can touch to feel you as well”

“But you haven’t touched me yet. Have you?”

“If I touch you, you won’t keep quiet. Will you?”

She laughed. “I won’t be naughty. You may touch me, if you like”

The sound of knocking on the door was heard from below. She had trouble getting up as if she couldn’t do it on her own. The visitor rose, calmly, went to the door and opened it. It was the brothel agent again who had knocked on the door.

Before the brothel agent asked him something, the visitor took out something from his pocket and gave it to him.

“No…No…Keep it with you. I will collect everything from the doctor. Doctor has arrived at the shop. He asked me whether you had come” the brothel agent told him.

“Do tell him that I will be there in a some while”

The brothel agent leaves. The visitor locks the door.

“Atrocious!” exasperated, he sat on the cane chair. 

“What is that?” she asked him, getting off from the cot, came near, stood beside him.

“These kinds of time calculations” as he was telling her, she hugged him, placed kisses on his cheeks and kissed his lips in haste.

“It is alright. You better sleep now” he told her.

“What are you doing then?” she enquired. Lay on the bed.

“I am just sitting here” he replied.

“I don’t mean that. I am asking about your profession.”

“Taking birth, growing up and then dying. This is my profession”

Getting off from the cot, she tries to hug him. But he remains reclined on the chair. Having failed in her attempts, she goes back to the cot and tosses her on it.

“I feel thirsty” Deivanai tells him.

He switches the light on in the outer veranda, brings water from a pot in the corner, and gives it to her. When she drinks it, part of it doesn’t go inside her mouth, spills over and wets her breasts instead.  

As he is standing, tells her, “Good bye”

“When will you come next?" as she is enquiring him, he takes out five rupees coin from his pocket, gives it to her. She receives it, touches it with her eyes and keeps safely under the pillow. He then opens the door and leaves.

At three ‘O clock, the brothel agent came to the house. She was very much eager to ask him about the visitor. But the brothel agent didn’t like her show any interest on any particular visitor. So, on the very outset, she informed him, “That man gave me five rupees.” 

“Which man? asked the brothel agent.

“That man…the one you brought first. That one”

“Who did I bring first? I came here only once today”

“You brought him here at half past seven or so. Haven’t you? You don’t remember that? Do you?”

“What? At half past seven! When I left Subbu’s house, it was already nine.”

“Did you go to Subbu’s house today?”

“Yes…merry making till I spent twenty rupees. The Head Constable warned me not to venture out till nine on the street today. So I stayed back at Subbu’s house till nine”

“If then, you didn’t bring that Terylene shirt man. Did you? I understood that a doctor also came with him. And you took that ‘doccutor’ to some other house. Didn’t you?”

“Doctor! Who is that Doccutor? Are you out of your senses? Or have you been dreaming by keeping the door opened?”

“No…I don’t. I was sitting upstairs keeping the door closed. I came down only when you had knocked it.”

The brothel agent blinked clueless. She continued.

“He had a long hair. He was wearing a blue colour Terylene shirt and eight cubit long dhoti. But he never touched me.” Deivanai laughed when she told this.

“You…whore…stop your blather. When I came to the street, it was already nine ‘o clock. I brought only one guy. It was that Sayabu. Who did I bring before that?”

“Let us see who is actually blabbering, whether it is you or I? Quipping, she turned the pillow over to show him the five rupees coin that she received from the visitor. But nothing was found under the pillow. Deivanai shuddered. She got nervous, and turned the whole pillow over. Nothing was found. She searched for it under the mattress and inside the pillow covers. She toppled the pillow covers upside down holding its two ends. The pillow fell on the ground. She groped inside the pillow cover. Searched the floor completely. That five rupees coin was not found. The brothel agent was standing clueless.

“It shouldn’t have gone anywhere. It must be somewhere around here”. Deivanai was still hopeful.

“Which one?” the brothel agent asked her.

“That five rupees given by the Terylene shirt man."

“You had dreamt. Hadn’t you? The brothel agent laughed.

“It is you who will forget everything under intoxication” Deivanai retorted, still searching the missing five rupees coin.

“Probably it may be in the room upstairs” Deivanai climbed up the steps, ran upstairs. The rope that she had left hanging from the iron ring with all her efforts and the noose that added beauty to it at its tip, left her astounded in the light of mercury lamp which she didn’t switch off.

***End***

Notes:

1. Chettinadu: The region in southern Tamil Nadu known for its exquisite cuisine and architecture.

2.   Arival Manai: A curved cleaver with its sharp edge facing the user, fitted on a wooden frame held down by legs, used for cutting vegetables in olden days. Even now, it is used in many Indian villages.

3.     Bhagavathar: It refers to famous film Actor Thygaraja Bhagavathar.  His iconic hair style was a sort of craze among youths those days.

Translated by Saravanan Karmegam

Source: G. Nagarajan’s Short story “Terylene shirtum Ettu Muzha Vettiyum Anintha Manithar”