Subbuni and his female deities (Rasigan) by M.Gopala Krishnan

M. Gopala Krishnan. 

This is an English translation of Rasigan, a short story written by M. Gopala Krishnan. Translated by Saravanan. K.

                                                                        ***

  Subbuni and his female deities (Rasigan)

This is an English translation of Rasigan, a short story written by M. Gopala Krishnan. Translated by Saravanan. K.

                                                                        ***

We received information from Subbuni that every one of us should assemble at the loom house that evening to discuss changing the ‘female deity.’ All four of us became terribly angry at his decision. Angappan went to the extent of suggesting that Subbuni must be thrown out of their ‘association’ immediately. Both Selvarasu and Mathesh expressed their angst that even meeting Subbuni in person itself would amount to nothing less than a sin. I convinced all three and coaxed them somehow to meet him in the evening even though punishing Subbuni for his impudence to change our ‘female deity’ still remained the matter of our consensus.

We assembled at the loom house long before he had arrived. We all had decided that we would stand in unison to reject his offer of ‘changing deity’ by not accepting whatsoever justification he was likely to place before us for consideration. It hadn’t been even one year since our ‘female deity’ was changed. There was no immediate urgency to change it again now.

We could see Subbuni coming by bicycle at the corner of Kamakshi Amman temple. He looked like the God of death, sitting astride a buffalo. His body gesturing various moves full of zeal, he approached us with the jingling of his bicycle bell. The stones of the loom house, while looking in the dark, were bearing the resemblance of students standing stiff in school assembly. He stumped his toe on the ground stylishly and tilted his bicycle on one side.

While alighting from the bicycle with his one leg on the ground and the right leg drawing a curve of semi-circle around in the air, we heard him emitting a shrill cry of pain, “ssss….soooo.”. A sharp cow thorn had pierced his foot. We were standing, showing our back to him as if we were not aware of his arrival. He leaned his bicycle against a stone of the loom house and shouted at us irritatingly. “Have you all come to any funeral? Why the heck do you all stand like this with your fallen faces? You don’t even realise that a man has come to meet you. Do you?”

“Man?...Where? Where?” Mathesh turned his head with irritation. Subbuni untied his lungi, adjusted it, and tied it again on his waist.

“My dear folks! I know you guys are very angry with me and won’t accept what I am going to say. But if you listen to what I say, you will be proud of me for the rest of your life for what I have done.”

He jumped up, sat on the veranda, put his hands inside his vest, and took out a brown-colored envelope. ‘It will either be yet another Saroja Devi book or video CDs of some actors featuring in cooking oil advertisements.’. Not overtly expressing our curiosity, we were just waiting for an opportune moment so that any one of us could start our collective tirade against him.

“I do accept I would also be extremely angry like you if I came across such a suggestion. The main difference between you and me is that I would like to pay attention to know what it is, unlike you. You guys prefer to be stubborn. How could we then sort out this problem?” He scratched his head violently and requested them, “Any one of you come forward and have a glance at it before we could think of sorting out our differences.”. He took out some photos from the cover and threw them in the front.

All those pictures were newspaper clippings printed on shiny papers and looked splendid. We stealthily glanced at them through the corner of our eyes. ‘Who’s this woman? Is she the newly appointed ‘female deity’ he was talking about?’ They could not take their eyes away from that picture. Her smile and curves had arrested them.

Mathesh whispered in a lower voice, “Who’s this woman?”

I was annoyed at Subbuni’s efforts towards changing our mind with those pictures. ‘No. I shouldn’t allow it.’ Before bursting with the angry words, something in the corner of my brain alerted my senses and made me ask myself, ‘Have I seen her before?’

Angappan held the picture above his head and examined it. The dim light of the loom house was not sufficient to relish her appeal. “She looks gorgeous, da… Where have you got her?”

Selvarasu, who was puffing his bidi till that moment, turned his face to them and said, “All asses will look similar. You won’t find anything special in this. Will you? A new ‘female deity’ is yet to take birth to replace our present one.”. He got up, went near to a wall where datura bushes were found thickly grown, and urinated there.

“She is born now, Selva. Open your eyes; look at this before you pass your judgment.”

Subbuni was very happy as three of us were now on his side. Only one was not with him. He was confident that he would enjoy a majority on his side under any circumstances.

“Yes…though she looks beautiful, she doesn’t possess anything big that could make her eligible to be our ‘female deity.’”. ‘What will happen to my pride if I accept whatever Subbuni says? Mathesh objected.

Subbuni emitted an inscrutable grin on his face. “Yes…you are right. I do accept that she doesn’t have anything big. You must know, being endowed with something big alone won’t be sufficient, Mathu,” said Subbuni.

Angappan examined all those pictures deeply once again and relished them simultaneously by bringing them near to his eyes and holding them at a distance. The expressions on his face kept changing—he smiled first, then got astonished, and then wrinkled his face—as if he was the immediate heir of Navarathri Shivaji Ganesan1.

As it was relatively dark, everyone could bear his intolerable expressions lest they directly go to hell, had it been daytime. While we had reservations in terming her thin and slim, we couldn’t consider her relatively fatter either. Her body was well built. Long legs. Smile with buck teeth. Charming and plump cheeks. She seemed attractive if her body parts were individually assessed. I couldn’t figure out that missing factor that had made us think that she was not a perfect beauty. Mathesh seemed to have fallen flat on seeing her. Angappan was already prepared to align his loyalty with Subbuni. Selvarasu extended his hands to pick up those pictures, unwillingly though. Subbuni pushed his hands aside hastily and told him, “Don’t touch it, Selva. You can touch it only after washing your hands.”

The hell broke loose. Selvarasu became uncontrollably agitated after hearing those words. He flicked the beedi, and invectives started pouring in the moment he opened his mouth to speak. As I couldn’t write down all he spoke, I just allowed myself to record the first sentence he uttered.

“Dei…I need to wash my hands. Don’t I? I know what you would be doing with it. Definitely you wouldn’t worship it by lighting a lamp in front of it. Right? You dog…you ask me to wash my hands.”

We all came to a consensus that what Subbuni had told was wrong. We insisted that going further with his suggestion would be possible only after he made apologies to Selvarasu. Subbuni seemed to have been unaffected by all their protests. He kept the brown cover in safe custody inside his vest.

“Folks! Listen to me! You can’t do anything here without me. You all know very well that every Saturday you all have no other means of enjoyment other than coming to my house. Think before you try anything funny.” Subbuni sat nonchalantly cross-legged and lit a cigarette with the aura of a person of high esteem.

His words were not void of truth. On Saturday nights, Selvarasu used to be the first person pacing fast to meet Subbuni at his house.

Subbuni was working in Poonthurai. It was only through this town of Poonthurai that the modern lifestyle from outside came to Chennimalai. Every aspect, right from weeklies such as Kumudam and Vikadan to CDs of newly released movies, all found their way to Chennimalai only from there. As Subbuni was employed in the Commercial Tax department, he had some privileged access to them. He was a Vandichakkaram Sivakumar 2 for Chennimalai. When he used to alight from the Angaiyarkanni bus passing through Arachlur at seven’ o'clock every evening, his customers would be waiting for him in queue to savour his offers. 

His house, located in Nadukkampathu lane adjacent to Angalamman Temple Street, was nothing more than a traditional loom house. His mother, ‘deaf’ Muththal, was the person who could tell when the loom became functional in the house and who all had woven there. However, she was such a deaf woman that one must be ready to face the probability of being forced to devote his whole lifetime if he ever wanted a reply to his question from her. Muththal was a hard worker and an expert in all loom-related works as well. Other than loom-related works, she used to sell snacks in the evening and assist in cooking during marriage functions. One could see tattoos drawn on the shrunk, shiny skin of her hands and shoulder. Her elder son was Komaru, alias Kumaresan. The youngest was Subbuni, alias Subramani. They were born after her years-long dedicated visits to the Chennimalai Murugan temple. Other than the fact that the letter “K” in his initials represented a man called Kanagavel, his father, Subbuni, did not remember anything about his father. Muththal would also never lament about her husband nor complain about him. Ever since the day Subbuni could remember his adulthood, he had been seeing his mother wearing only one set of uniform-like dress—a dull saffron-coloured sari, a white blouse, and a square-shaped vermillion tattooed on her forehead.

It was a house with four big halls, cemented with traditional tiles on the roof. The floor was made of evenly leveled cobblestone bed and polished with cow dung. At the rightmost corner was a kitchen with a wash basin. Adjacent to it was a ‘big house’ on the top with a single window. The similar pattern was replicated on the left side corner too. The main thoroughfare of the house was on the right corner kitchen area. The big halls lying in the middle remained empty. Locking the house simply meant locking only the ‘big house.’. It meant closing the kitchen with a palm leaf partition tied with a yellow rope. No security was needed for anything in the house; there was nothing in the house worth requiring security either.

Both the brothers were always at loggerheads with each other. Other than the curly hairs, nothing between them bore any similarity. They were even unashamed of fighting with each other for no justifiable reason.

As it was agreed to allot the ‘big house’ to each, Komaru occupied the left corner, and Subbuni settled with the right side. Muththal was also of the opinion that the western side of the house must go to the elder one. Komaru was more educated than Subbuni, which fetched him a job in Erode with a higher income, and he always boasted about it. A curtain was hanging at his room door, and he had instructed everyone to follow ‘manners’ by seeking permission before entering his room. In his room were a cot, a mattress with a cover, a Godrej table with a tablecloth, and a Philips tape recorder placed on it. While at home, he would listen to Ilaiyaraja songs at low volume, audible only to him. He would enjoy running commentary of Kuthabiran, Ramamoorthy, and Abdul Jaffar on some cricket matches held in Chennai. Sometimes, he would play mischief with the volume of the tape recorder by increasing and decreasing it to get Subbuni annoyed, who was waiting outside the door with his ears sticking to it. He had an exclusive cupboard attached with the mirror of a man’s height. While going to Erode, he would lock his room and wouldn’t spare keys with anyone.

Subbuni also wanted to have all the facilities that his brother had but was determined not to buy anything as it was already done by his brother. With the mat not kept properly, pillows that were never washed of its oil dirt for long, and dresses hanging on twin doors, he showed himself as a rebel in the house.

When the television boxes became a household name, Subbuni went ahead of his brother Komaru and purchased it first. Aligning the tall antenna with a long iron pole fixed along with the side wall cemented with the roof and turning it in different angles to bring the clear images on screen from its initial struggle with dense black and white dots had all made Subbuni emerge out of the wall he was standing in as a victor. The Dyanora TV had accorded him a status of an achiever. He installed the television in a specific place so that he could only watch it. Except for Komaru, anyone could come to his room to enjoy television programmes. Evenings in the house were full of mirth. Komaru started coming home late, deliberately though. At times he admonished Muththal that he would go back to Erode if she couldn’t serve him food as she was so much engrossed with the television.

Subbuni used to add fuel to the fire. “Let him go…ma. We will rent out his portion.

When Komaru bought a television for himself, another antenna was found on the other side wall. He tried coaxing Mutthal and asked her to come to his room to watch programmes on his colour television.

“Don’t go there, old woman! Don’t forget the old for new”—as Subbuni intimated to her, the matter became a big issue and was brought to the notice of village elders.

Village elders passed a verdict that the old lady should watch television at her elder son’s place one day and at her younger son’s place the next day.

“Hell with your stupid thing. Keep it with you. I won’t watch all that nonsense”—the old lady spread her sari on the veranda and lay there, head supported with her hand.

Subbuni didn’t stop with that. When he came to know that Kajalakshmi movie hall in Tiruppur was showing movies with the help of a video deck, he learned the tricks of using it. It was he who started the revolution of showing movies with a video deck in Kumaranmalai.

It was a Saturday night of the second week in the cold winter season in the month of Karthikai. (Roughly October-November). Subbuni’s room was filled with visitors. No one would be permitted to enter other than the invited ones. Everyone had to share the burden of electricity and the rental of charges of decks and cassettes. It was solemnly accepted that no one would bring their near kith and kin to watch the movies. An oath of secrecy was also taken by the members that no one would disclose anything about the show to anyone.

Taking the younger generation of his area from being brutes who were just watching Oliyum Oliyum programme once in a week on television to another level, sharing the knowledge he had gained from many sources with others, and making everyone filled with the happiness that he was enjoying had all made the stature of Subbuni relatively high in his surroundings.

They waited for the village to go to sleep. The first show was the Kanthan Karunai movie. Muththal was also happy seeing his son playing the movies like movie halls inside her house. She blessed him, “Let him live longer.”. At once she went to bed at ten o'clock; the boys started becoming restless. Subbuni had two cassettes—one in Malayalam and another in Korean.

Selvarasu requested Subbuni very earnestly with his reddened eyes, “Let us watch Malayalam first, Subbuni.” There were three movie halls in Kumaranmalai. Those situated in the town wouldn’t run Malayalam movies. Chandraroopa cinemas, located at Othukkuli Road, used to run Malayalam movies during the period when other movies were not available. He had seen “Mohanarathri” and “Elaraikkulla vandi.”. But those soft porn flicks failed to satiate his craving for ‘that.’. Though they were capable of stimulating his hormones, they were found inadequate in explaining the essentials in detail. He was very hopeful that Subbuni’s movies would offer him a new lease on life.

“Play anything you want, Subbuni. Every nonsense is the same anyway.” Angappan was restless as he had to leave for home early. He wanted to watch both before he ran out of time. ‘It wasn’t affordable going back after giving money. Was it?’

Subbuni preferred the Malayalam movie first. Subbuni’s room was burning with heavy sighs and eyes that remained wide open. When Subbuni suggested having tea after the Malayalam movie was over, no one was ready to accept it. They jumped to the Korean movie without wasting time. The foreign faces were looking more attractive than the local Malayalam faces. Finally, that task was accomplished rather quietly in that dark room.

The next morning, when the sunlight was harsh above the head, Subbuni came out of his house with his reddened eyes. ‘Mill Ramatha,’ who was making chili powder in a stone grinder for cooking mutton stew in the front yard, asked him, “What a naughty guy are you, Subbuni! Had you told us about the movie, we would also have joined.”. On hearing her words, Subbuni was hell shocked and felt a lump in his throat. “What are you saying?”—the toothpaste soaked with saliva came out of his mouth, speckled in the air.

“Your mother told me that you were showing everyone some ‘deity’ movie with a video deck last night.”

From that day, the ‘deity’ movie became their secret code.

Only after two weeks did Komaru come to know about Subbuni’s mischief. Despite his earnest anger, restiveness, and fights with Muththal, she was not ready to believe his version of complaints.

“I watched that movie myself. How could I believe your words?” She rejected his complaint with a sway of her hands. Subbuni, eating his eighth idli mixed with sambar, was so elated listening to his mother’s words.

“Ma…The night before the coming full moon day, we are going to play the movie “Thai Moogambikai.” Don’t miss it,” he told her aloud. Only if he could manage playing this deity movie exactly at six would he be able to play his actual ‘deity’ movie immediately after all the old people resigned to bed. Hence this arrangement!

It was Komaru who played a major role in introducing full-length ‘blue films’ to those people who were once just contented with watching ‘bits’ of occasional ‘deity’ movies. One of his mischief acts done out of jealousy to dismantle the porn-watching infrastructure of Subbuni became, in fact, counterproductive, as it only enhanced Subbuni’s influence.

Komaru thought that his job towards this goal had gotten over after he informed Mettankadu Sinnakasi about Subbuni. It was a well-known fact that no one would be able to do anything, no matter how petty in nature, without the knowledge of Sinnakasi in the Kumaranmalai area. His was the first and prominent face one could witness in everything around there. A single-word introduction was sufficient to describe him—he was a Casanova. Jack of all trades. Experienced. A fun-loving chap going to the town by Yercaud Express every month to enjoy the pleasures of his life. The elders of the village would be waiting every Monday evening to listen to the stories of his escapades. Despite the burning jealousy in their belly watching him spend thousands of rupees to enjoy his world of heaven, they were trying to find some elements of solace for themselves by listening to his sleazy stories.

Initially, Sinnakasi was not much interested in listening to Komaru. Neither was he inclined nor objected to watching videos. But what had pricked him was that someone could do something like that without his knowledge. ‘How could they do it without his knowledge?’

“Ask Subbuni to meet me? When Sinnakasi said these words, stroking his buttered moustache, Komaru was immensely happy and thought, ‘This will be the end of Subbuni.’.

Soon after Komaru met Subbuni, all the loom house members assembled for an emergency meeting. Komaru fantasised that Subbuni’s game was over due to the intervention of Sinnakasi Annan. ‘Now let all these chaps remain in the loom house and die there.’

We were all terrified at the idea suggested by Sinnakasi Annan. “Dei… it doesn’t sound good. I am scared. We have been watching porn for these many days secretly. Let us not go beyond it. Maple…let’s not entertain this idea. If it is known to anyone, nothing remains but a disgrace.” Angappan was shivering when he told this. Though Mathesh was in favour of the new experiment, he was also petrified.

“No one would come to know about it. Just like what we are doing at present, we could finish watching it at midnight. Such movies wouldn’t be lengthy anyway. They won’t show anything more once the main essentials are over. Will they?” Selvarasu told enthusiastically.

“There is a facility to forward the portions we don’t like to watch. Isn’t it?”

Finally, it was decided to play a blue film once a month. Sinnakasi would also come when the movie was scheduled for display. His only one condition: the first movie should be his choice, and it was his responsibility to arrange the movie.

Only it was at this time when Subbuni’s house was filled with an increased number of visitors who had begun their auspicious journey of watching porn from local Malayalam to international level; Subbuni had decided to change our ‘female deity,’ much to our consternation, angst, and anger.

***

The first ‘female deity’ of the Loom House Association was selected in Ranga Movie Hall. It was a Rajnikanth movie. It was her debut movie, and she acted as a heroine to another main character in the movie. She was slim and fair. It seemed that her body was so frail that it would break even at the slightest touch. On seeing her on the screen, Subbuni fell flat and shouted, unmindful of his surroundings, “O! Here is my female deity.”. All the members of the Loom House Association accepted her as their ‘female deity’ from that day.

Her status of being their ‘female deity’ was not put to the test for the last nine long years. During this period, her four or five movies were also released. They watched them in its first show. They prepared an album with her pictures collected from many sources and updated it with newspaper clippings. They celebrated her birthday on Theradi Street by cutting cakes.

It was the third day after they celebrated their female deity’s birthday. It was a festival day of the local goddess Mariyamman. The entire village was in a festive mood with neem leaves and turmeric displayed everywhere. A free buttermilk stall was opened on behalf of their Loom House Association. The picture of their ‘female deity’ was placed along with goddess Mariyamman.

As a part of the festivities, Kamal Hasan’s ‘Vetri Vizha’ movie was released in Thirumagal movie theatre. They couldn’t find time to watch it during the first three days of its release. The buttermilk kiosk consumed their time during the day and dances around the pole in the evenings. The members of the association used to wear dresses uniformly during festivals. This year, they bought soft cotton saris designed with flowers from Erode’s S.B.B textiles and made shirts out of it for each one of them. It was only on that particular evening after the turmeric ablution ceremony was over that they found their convenient time to visit the movie hall.

All of them were very tired. Despite knowing that they wouldn’t be able to concentrate on the movie, they went to the theatre just to keep up their tradition. As the movie started, Subbuni fell asleep, slowly stretching his legs out as an enthusiastic hero was running behind someone on the screen. 

Who woke him up? It wasn’t even known how he woke up exactly at that particular scene. Suddenly he got up and yelled at everyone.

“Look there….look there….Look there, our female deity, daa….”. Everyone rubbed their eyes once to see properly since they went there with a belief that their female deity didn’t act in that movie. Kushbu was dancing to the song “seevi sinukkeduththu poova mudichchu vantha puthupponne.”. Though they had seen her in some movies earlier, she didn’t attract their attention. Now he was going to celebrate her as their female deity. They thought that he was speaking in his sleep, something incoherent.

But Subbuni was fully awake. Fully ecstatic, he was totally engrossed in the screen without even batting his eyelids.

Soon after he came out of the hall, he bought two yards of partially withered firecracker flower from a nearby flower shop. Though the picture of Kushbu pasted on the woven leaves partition was very small, he placed those flowers around it and relished that moment.

No one in the Loom House Association had ever thought of replacing Kushbu, who had entered their heart as their ‘female deity,’ with someone new. They were living with a belief that Kushbu would remain their permanent ‘female deity’ forever.

***

Now all of a sudden, Subbuni declared someone as their female deity. He even ordered to wash off one’s hands before touching her photograph. If someone dared to ask him for justification for his decision, he just blackmailed them with the Saturday shows. As they couldn’t afford to miss it, they decided to remain quiet and accepted what he had said.

Selvarasu, still carrying ego on his face, sat at a distance sulking at Subbuni’s decision.

“What is her name?”- Angapan asked him inconsequentially.

“Deva Manohari”—While pronouncing it, Subbuni spelled it letter by letter as if he was experiencing a sublime pleasure by doing it. ‘What a fantastic performance just to pronounce her name!’

“In which movie did you come across her?”

Rolling his eyes wide, he summoned the questioner to come near to him.

“The more important aspect in this episode is that my decision of appointing her as our female deity is not based on watching any of her movies….”. They got annoyed with his way of talking with impending suspense. Subbuni laughed intermittently.

“You dog! Tell that first.” We could hear the irritated voice of Selvarasu.

“I met her in person.” He looked up proudly as he told this.

It was indeed a great shock for all of us. ‘Where did he meet her, that too in person?’

“Stop your bluff. You told me she is our female deity. Just because we accepted it, don’t try to cook up stories that you had met her in person.” Angappan untied his dhoti once, adjusted it, and tied it again.

“Believe me. I have taken this decision only after meeting her. Listen to me patiently. Once I complete my narration, I assure you that I will treat you to Barotta at Ramasami mess.”

‘If he is ready to buy barotta from Ramasami mess for all of us, then there would be no wrong in listening to whatever nonsense he speaks. Heaven wouldn’t fall upon our heads just by listening to him. Would it?’

…

Subbuni was waiting at Erode railway station to send off his officer who had come from Chennai for an audit. He was strolling on the platform as the officer was sipping a glass of hot Aavin milk. When he was watching the beautiful girls waiting to board the Yercaud Express and blessing them to have a prosperous life with a heavy sigh, she was coming in front of him. It was the moment Subbuni felt that the purpose of his life had just been fulfilled. It was only on that platform Subbuni could understand why God had given him eyes. She was walking towards him like a well-built horse, walking as if the entire universe was on her feet. He felt being tied up and pulled by her hair fluttering in the air. The cooling glass hiding half of her face made him burn with heat. When she went past him, the air around her carried her scent. He followed her as if he had been possessed by her spirit. He walked along with her attendant, who was walking behind her with her luggage on his head. However, it was the beauty of her buttocks that pulled him forward now.

He was so besotted with her beauty that he couldn’t even hear when his officer called him out. She stood in front of the air-conditioned coach and was inquiring about something from the coachman. At once he signalled her to come in; she jumped into the coach. She stood and threw her eyes for a second towards the direction where Subbuni was standing. That moment…that very moment was enough for Subbuni to live his whole life.

Wiping his sweat, Subbuni asked the attendant who was pushing her boxes inside the coach, “Who’s this lady?”

The attendant looked down on Subbuni and remarked with a discourteous tone, “Don’t you know her? She is actress Deva Manohari.

He stood there watching the closed door. He peeked through the glasses only to find nothing beyond the curtains. He searched for her name in the list of passengers, which was not yet fully dry, pasted on the coach. Her name was not in the list. Thinking of meeting her, when he tried to get into the coach, his officer came there and put his hands around his neck.

“I am here, Subbuni.”

Embarrassed, Subbuni picked up the box he was holding in his hands. “This coach is yours. Isn’t it, sir? Please come with me,” he boarded the coach.

“Subbuni, this is A1 coach. I need to board A2 coach. Just next to this. Please come out. We can go there.”- His officer started walking.

“We can go to your coach from this coach too, sir”—his words didn’t fall into the officer’s ears.

After putting down the luggage at his berth, the officer turned to him with a smile and gave his hand to Subbuni for a gentle shake. Without even responding to his gesture, when Subbuni jumped out of the train, he could only hear the siren sound of the train. The green light signal came alive at a distance, and the Yercaud Express started leaving the platform.

Subbuni ran along the A1 coach. He searched for his angel’s face through the lit, square-shaped windows. When he reached the end of the platform, the train had already gained its full speed.

….

“Beauty would find its actual meaning only in her. I couldn’t even move an inch away from there. I was standing as if I was in a trance. I even thought of boarding another train to go to Chennai. It took very long for me to regain my composure. I wanted to gather information about the reason for her visit. I went to Gobi the very next morning. My assumption was correct—she had come for a film shoot. I inquired when she would come again. She is coming again on the tenth of next month and would stay in the Emerald Hotel. I found all these photos in the magazines.”

Subbuni was speaking without a break. He had already taken a firm decision that he would wait at Erode railway station on the morning of the tenth day of next month. He further informed that he would apply for leave and go to Gobi.

All four of us agreed unanimously that we had accepted Deva Manohari as our ‘female deity’ after a sumptuous feast of barotta at Ramasami mess. On the tenth day evening, we were all eagerly waiting for Subbuni. As we didn’t receive any information from him, we forgot it.

After a week, Subbuni called us on a Saturday evening and told us to assemble at the loom house. The guaranteed feast of pepper chicken rendered all of us incapable of rejecting his call.

When we met him at the loom house, we found him with an increased girth. New dresses. Shiny shoes on legs. Gold-coated wristwatch. He was looking like a completely changed person.

“It’s all because of our female deity’s graciousness...da”—he took out a cashew cake from a carton box and gave it to them.

“Is what you say true?” Selvarasu came near, with his washed hands, as a precaution.

“I went to Gobi on the tenth day morning. Pariyur Amman temple was the location of the film shoot. I was able to see her very closely. My heavens! What a beauty! I forgot even the burning sunlight. No hunger. I simply kept on devouring her. Whatever she did had an element of elegance in it. My heart started longing for her nearness as my appreciation grew more and more, and I even wanted to leave along with her. I went to the chap who I met on that day in the railway station and started inquiring about her. I gave him the album I made and requested him to hand it over to her. He gave it to her during the break. Overwhelmed with the tremendous amount of anxiety, I started sweating seeing her glancing at it. It seemed that she liked it very much. That man gestured towards me to come near. I was trembling as I went near to her. She was smiling as she was watching her pictures and kept saying ‘good,’ ‘good.’. After glancing at all the pictures, she looked up and asked me, “What is your name?” I couldn’t tell my name. To be very right, I couldn’t recollect my name. I stammered and told her something. She smiled at me. All I remember is that I kept telling her, ‘I am the leader of her fan club in the village. I like you very much, and you are our female deity’. For every utterance, she just gave out a smile. You must have watched her smiling! Aiyo…no matter how much property you own. You could very well mortgage every penny of it for her smile.”

It was an extremely difficult task to pull Subbuni out of those moments of his intense fantasy.

“It’s alright. What happened after that? It is unbearable to see your drooling face,” Selvarasu asked him, annoyed with his intemperance.

“I asked her if I could take a snap along with her. Initially I was seriously afraid of her response. She didn’t say anything. She stood beside me and gave a pose for a snap.” Subbuni touched his left shoulder softly and told me, “She stood this close. What a scent! What an ecstasy!” and he closed his eyes.

Angappan took out the pictures from the brown colour cover. What Subbuni had told them was true. Deva Manohari, smiling, was standing close to Subbuni in green churidars and twin plaits tied with red ribbons.

“You have done it…maple.” Angappan gave his hand to Subbuni enthusiastically. The other three threw a frowning stare at him. ‘What has this bugger planned to do next?’

Subbuni didn’t stop with that. He continued, “The film shoot will go on for another week. I won’t watch the shooting standing at the corner. An exclusive chair has been arranged for her and an umbrella for providing her shade”. When he paused for a while, Selvarasu asked him teasingly, “You will stand beside her holding these. Won’t you?”

Subbuni had long ago become so insensitive to all such insinuations. He smiled at him and told him, “I will stand where she sits. No one would say anything about it, he said proudly.

“What about you attending the office?”

“Office…what office! Despite putting our labour in these many years there, did we get rewarded for it? These four days are the finest part of our lives. It is enough data—we couldn’t bring him down from the exalted mood of fantasy he was floating.

“You all can come tomorrow. We can take a picture with our female deity. We can enlarge it and display it during the Pongal festival.”

Mathesh was not interested in all the gimmicks of Subbuni and told, “You will never lose anything, Maple… You have a job in hand… that too, a government job. It doesn’t matter whether you go to the office or not; you will get your salary. Our case is different. They won’t leave us from the loom.”

Selvarasu flung his beedi and told, “See Subbuni…we guys don’t have patience for all these. You take a photograph with her. It will serve the purpose”. He lifted his dhoti and went near the datura bushes.

Subbuni jumped off the veranda, wiped his cooling glass, curled his lips, and told them, “I thought it was a very good opportunity for you all. I just brought it to your attention because none of you should come with a complaint in the future that I should have informed you about it in advance. That is it. Rest is your choice.”

“Don’t wear this glass in the dark. You may hit the bricks of the loom house.” Angappan patted Subbuni’s shoulder teasingly.

“It is none of your business, folks! I would wear it even while sleeping. He looked at the sky and tried to smile at his joke. Unable to bear him, we closed our eyes instinctively. He left the spot, ringing the cycle bell, but stood suddenly and remarked:

“I forgot to tell you. This week, no movie. Only after he disappeared in the darkness did we realize that watching porn films fell due that week.

Selvarasu flung the last piece of bidi and spat in contempt in the direction Subbuni had left.

…

After one month, we could meet him only in Erode Natesan hospital.

It was one Sunday morning. News reader Saroj Narayanasamy had just started his morning news at quarter past seven on the radio. While making the tufts for the completed shawls, Mathesh came running, panting, wiped the sweat on his face, and told, “Subbuni has been hospitalised”

I couldn’t understand what he said. I got up and went near to him and asked, “What happened?”

“He fought with Komaru. That was why….”- Still, he was gasping.

I wasn’t shocked at hearing this, as I was accustomed to such incidents earlier. A couple of times before this, they fought with each other, got their head broken, and went to the hospital.

“Nothing to wonder in this matter. Leave it. Who’s the doctor?”

Subbuni used to visit Dr. Pushpakala, who was running a clinic near Theradi Street. ‘If you want to take an injection, better be it from a lady doctor’—he used to justify his visit to her clinic.

But Mathesh nodded his head in denial. “No…They have taken him to Erode government hospital. Are you coming with me, Machaan?”

I took off my lungi, threw it, picked a pant randomly, wore it, and ran along with him to the hospital. Angappan and Selvarasu were waiting for us. The ‘Angaiyarkanni’ bus came with its slow pace. Once he jumped into the bus, Selvarasu went to the driver and requested him, “We need to reach the hospital soon. It is very urgent. Our Subbuni has been hospitalised”

The driver bent his head a bit, glanced at Selvarasu through the rearview mirror, and told him, “The time for this bus to reach Erode is half past ten. Neither should I reach before that nor after that. Tell me an instance when Angaiyarkanni was not punctual. We can reach it at sharp half past ten. Now go to your seat and sit,” looking at his wristwatch with his corner eyes.

Left out with no other option, I sat down and asked, “Does anyone know what had exactly happened?”

The problem had actually started in the morning. Subbuni was eating ‘Ooty Varkki,’ dipping it into half a litre of hot coffee kept in a large kettle. Komaru tossed a cassette on the sofa so that Subbuni would see it. Subbuni, busy in swallowing Varkki pieces dipped in coffee, did not pay attention to it. Komaru told him to play the cassette on Saturday that week. Subbuni stared at the cassette on the sofa once, lifted his head, and laughed with his heart out like Veerappa. (The old Tamil villain actor). The curly, spring-like hair on his shoulder and chest moved up and down along with his laughter. He then looked at the old woman who was sitting on the veranda, busy segregating the wild coxcomb leaves from the winnow, and said, “Just check, ma… the sky might get dark rain clouds today,” and laughed. 

She looked up, understanding the brewing enmity between them. She remained silent and got busy again with segregating the greens.

Komaru went to his mother as he tied his dhoti tightly on his waist. “Listen to me, Ma… This deity is very special. You can’t afford to lose this opportunity. Take my words seriously,” he told her as he combed his hair with his fingers, looking at the mirror.

“If the movie is that special, you watch it. Why are you begging others to watch it?” the old woman said. Subbuni turned to him and laughed at him again.

Komaru got angry with the old woman. Subbuni picked up the kettle and threw it into the wash basin in the corner of the kitchen. Gargled there and threw his whole weight freely on the sofa. He opened the Cinema Express magazine, which he had bought the previous night, glancing at the cassette with disdain. In the centre blow-up, his female deity was standing elegantly with both hands on her waist. He relished her pose inch by inch, bringing it near his eyes and then at a distance, and then tried to remove the pin from the middle page, rolling up his lips as if removing the pin might hurt his female deity.

Two pictures were already decking the entrance of his room. A large picture on the door. It was a special edition blow-up published in the newspaper on Diwali. The pictures of his female deity were decking up both inside and outside of his room in different sizes, big or small.

As he was ready with the blow-up after carefully removing it from the magazine, he looked for a space to paste it.

“He is a fool, fond of pasting the pictures of unknown women on the walls. But you…old lady…what has stopped you from objecting to it?” Komaru shouted at the old woman.

“Yeiii….mind your words. If you don’t mind it, you will have to face its consequences.” Subbuni rolled his eyes wide, curled his lips, and warned him sternly.

“I will object to it if you paste them in the house. Don’t intimidate me with your eyes. If you have something burning in your loins, paste them in your room. Why are you spoiling the house?”

“Yeii, old lady. This bloke talks too much. Warn him not to cross his limits.”

The old woman got up and went to the front of the house as if nothing went into her ears. She knew well that it would end up in a bloody fight.

“No point in boasting too much of yourself. Is it clear? Play this cassette and see for yourself how your female deity is dancing without a dress, said Komaru and laughed derisively.

That was it. It was just a flick of a second before hell broke loose. Subbuni turned reflexively. He gently tossed the picture he was holding onto the sofa and pounced on Komaru and gave a strong kick on his waist. As he fell down, Subbuni started throwing punches on him with his fists. Stumbling with his sudden attack, Komaru managed to push Subbuni away from him by folding his legs. Subbuni, with his wet body, fell on his side. Komaru got up, tied his dhoti tightly on his waist, and kicked Subbuni. As he crawled on the floor, Subbuni caught Komaru’s ankle and bit his calf muscles with beastly frenzy. Unable to bear the pain, Komaru caught Subbuni’s curly hair and pulled it towards him. Subbuni left Komaru’s ankle and hit the latter’s stomach with his head. As Komaru fell on the corner of the sofa, Subbuni sprang up and sat on him. All four hands were trying to hold something in the air and moved frantically in the air to attack each other. Both rolled on the floor, intertwining their legs. Subbuni’s body was gleaming with sweat and crumbs of cow dung from the floor. As they were trying to subdue the other with the forceful swings of their hands, Komaru was lying on the floor and Subbuni was sitting on him. He brought his head backward to throw it forward with full speed. His objective was to hit Komaru’s face. But after seeing Komaru’s curved nose, he changed his mind, opened his mouth wide as he bent down, and bit Komaru’s nose in full. Komaru didn’t expect this novel attack in the fight. He summoned up his strength and pushed Subbuni away from him, and Subbuni also released his teeth from Komaru’s nose as he didn’t like its taste. In a second later, Subbuni’s ear was in Komaru’s mouth. As both the biter and bitten were yelling at the peak of pain in a high pitch, their deaf mother Muththal came there running. Her anger knew no bounds seeing her sons rolling on the floor, staining the floor with their blood. She saw the wet wood planks kept outside for drying, picked one of them, and went near to the rolling bodies. Without wasting a second, she thrashed them both indiscriminately.

When their neighbour Ramatha came running to them after their sounds of crying and screaming reached her, she found one of them covering his nose, and the blood was streaking out from his body as the prickles of the wood plank tore his skin. Another one was standing, covering his ears. Blood droplets on the floor. While going out from the scene of the fight along with the deaf Muththal arm supporting her, Ramatha flung two pieces of wood planks to each one of them and told them, “Now hit each other. No one will come to you to ask why.

Subbuni went to Dr. Pushpakala with blood streaking in his ear. It was she who had sent him to Erode.

….

Subbuni's right ear was covered with a bandage. He was watching television, lying cross-legged on the cot and chomping an apple. On seeing us, he showed us the television screen enthusiastically. Their female deity was dancing voluptuously in a skin-tight costume.

“Look at her. What a dance!” he remarked.

I grew angry at Komaru at that time, for he shouldn’t have bitten Subbuni’s ears.

Angappan took out an apple from the almirah, bit it, and asked, “Maple...who has that cassette now?”

Subbuni threw a frowning stare at him. “Leave it, Maple… He had already been snubbed of his pride. Why are you fuelling it more?” Mathesh laughed.

“It is okay…Does your female deity know that your ear has been bitten for her sake?” Selvarasu teased him, sitting on the cot.

Subbuni folded his legs.

“Maple…Leave aside your petty talks. Next week I am leaving for Chennai. Have a glance at it. He took out a blue coloured cover from under the pillow.

“Why Maple…Your torn ear can be stitched only in Chennai. Right?” Angappan stood at a safe distance, commenting on this.

“Nothing good will ever occur in your mind. Won’t it? You beggars! Our female deity’s birthday falls next week. I got this invitation to attend her birthday.

Filled with zest, Subbuni opened the blue coloured envelope and showed them a paper taken from it. It was an invitation card designed with lines and flowers. Added to it was the signature of their female deity in blue ink.

Mathesh intently looked at the card, visibly struggling to suppress the fire of jealousy building up inside. Yes…it is true. It is an invitation. “It is nice to get an invitation. But how could you go there to attend the function with your torn ear?” he remarked.

Subbuni seemed to have forgotten all his anger and long ago buried his resentment too. “No…the bandage seems to be big. I can remove it in two days. This is not a matter of any serious concern. Is it? Even if my life hangs on a thread, it will leave me only after watching my female deity’s birthday. You guys won’t understand it. Will you?”

…

Leaving his heart behind in front of his female deity’s home in Chennai, Subbuni returned home with his mortal body. He avoided talking to anyone, nor did he like to face anyone, and preferred confining himself within the house. We also waited for him to break his silence, to come out of the house whenever he wanted.

It was the day of Aadi Velli. When we were busy enticing the God for our longevity on the steps of the Hill Temple, listening to the jingling sounds of young girls in half saris, Muththal came in front of us.

“My dear boys…You know he has confined himself in the house. You can go there and ask him about his problems. Can’t you? Neither does he go to work nor come out. What happened to him?”

Mathesh took out a coconut from her basket, rolling it in his hands, and asked her, “He doesn’t come out even for food. Does he?”

She smeared Vibhoothi on Mathesh’s forehead and said, “You are an ignoramus! He never misses food even for one time. He doesn’t like to come out of the house. That is it. You all can go to him to see what it is.”

Deaf Muththal left us. We went to Subbuni and knocked at his room door. It was kept open.

It was a pity to see him rolling up his whole body like a bear in that dark room. Once the light fell upon him, he got up furiously. His bed was strewn with some torn papers.

“Why the hell did you all come here? He roared.

Mathesh took the papers from his bed, looked surprised, and asked him curiously, “This is our female deity’s photo. Isn’t it?”

Subbuni snatched that paper from his hand, still with burning anger, and further tore it into tiny pieces.

“No one is our female deity here. Anyone dancing to the whims of people giving her money can never be our female deity. I will kick you in the mouth if you say again that she is our female deity. Get out of my sight”—Subbuni was still burning with rage.

Selvarasu brought him out, reassuringly holding his shoulders. Subbuni was looking emaciated with his unshaven beard of some days.

“Go, wash your face first. We can discuss other matters later.”

He went to wash his face, unwillingly though. He peeked into the kitchen. His old mother hadn’t come yet.

“What happened to you?” You went to Chennai, and then there was no update from you. You have torn her photos. Tell us what had exactly happened.”

Subbuni started crying as if he was just waiting for that right moment to pour out his heart. He rubbed his eyes and cried, twisting his face. No one went near him. No one had died in that house to console him by hugging him. After all, Subbuni was such a ‘good’ person anyway, to clean his running nose on someone’s shirt while hugging.

Angappan somehow managed to stop him from crying. “It is alright… Machan…I could understand it is damn miserable. You can tell everything now. If you keep everything in your heart, it will burden you anyway. Won’t it?”

Subbuni had gone to Chennai with heartfelt zeal anyway. The feast was arranged in a star hotel. But he was denied entry despite his possession of an invitation card. As they believed that such a shabby fellow couldn’t have been invited to that party, they removed him immediately from that spot. He was standing with a meek expectation that if he could meet his female deity, she would hold his hands and take him inside. As he had expected, a car carrying his female deity went past him. His deity was sitting in the front seat. She saw him standing on the corner. He waved his hands at her. It was just not more than a second; he took a step to jump to reach her; his deity waved her hands at him and turned her head. He went behind the car, running, crying with his lips crooked but in vain as the car vanished from the spot.

It appeared that he hadn’t yet pulled his lips inward, which got crooked in Chennai.

Mathesh clapped his hands and laughed to his heart’s content. Angappan, unable to control his laughter, ran to the nearby lane. Only Selvarasu assuaged Subbuni with the appeal of an elderly person’s maturity. “These kinds of experiences are not new to us. Are they? You will spoil your health if you allow yourself to be affected by such petty things. Just give a thought to it. Haven’t you ever faced such a similar situation before?”

Subbuni went inside the kitchen, feigning as if he was seriously thinking about what Selvarasu said. The rattling sound of kitchenware was heard.

He came out with a box full of spicy puffed rice, put some ‘mixture’ he kept in a bundle in it, and mixed them with his hand.

“Take it. It seems to have been bought from the market yesterday. Just a while ago I saw it. While putting a handful of puffed rice into his mouth, a peanut from it fell down. He picked it up and placed it on his palm.

“No big deal about it. I was just down with it. That’s why I was away from you all,” Subbuni smiled, embarrassedly.

“They didn’t even give you entry. Then why all these worries?” Angappan took a handful of puffed rice and put it in his palm.

Subbuni’s face got contracted suddenly. He grabbed the puffed rice box and kept it between his legs. He looked at all three and told, “Listen! I watched a movie a couple of days ago. That actress is the top-rated actress in Telugu movies now. You can even lift her up with one hand. Very, very slim. She hasn’t yet acted in Tamil movies yet. But she will”—he paused, then brooded over it for some time. We were waiting for him to resume without even batting our eyelids. Despite knowing what he was going to say next, we were waiting for the delivery of words from his mouth, wearing innocence on our faces. It became sure that we would all be served with Ramasamy shop’s barotta today.

“Machan…She is our next female deity, daa…”

                                                                        ***Ended***  

Note:

1. A legendary Tamil actor who acted in a movie called Navarathiri in nine roles.

2. Vandicakkaram—Cartwheel, a movie in which yesteryear Tamil actor Sivakumar featured as a ruffian and carefree young man)