The Kitten (பூனைக்குட்டி) by Pavannan

Pavannan

Translated by Saravanan Karmegam    

Vaitheki took off the uniform the hospital had provided her, and put on a frock-a yellow flower design drawn in the backdrop of pale blue- brought from home by her mother. The frock which used to be skin-tight once, was now hanging loose on her body. Her mother avoided looking into her eyes as Vaitheki lifted her head up, and looked outside window staring at neem trees with a feigned indifference, and wiped the tears that welled up in her eyes with fingers. Her father went near to her, fixed the hooks on her back, combed her hair and fastened it with a clip. Vaitheki remembered those days when her parents used to be on their toes hurrying her up for school, each one of them standing on her both sides.

“What has my dear Vaitheki drawn today?” the senior doctor entered the room with a smile asking about her routine.

“Good morning doctor” Vaitheki smiled at him, displayed her buck teeth, moved towards the edge of the cot and sat. With a momentary grin on their face, her mother, father and grandfather paved him the way, moved aside. The scent of neem flowers came wafting through the windows that were kept opened. Vaitheki took out her drawing note book kept near pillow, and gave it to the doctor. The doctor flipped its pages prudently, keenly glanced through the picture she had drawn a day ago. It was a painting-a cot and three kittens sitting on it. She had named them Neela, Mala and Kala and written them under each kitten.

“Very nice…Very nice” the doctor told, examining the painting in different angles again and again. “It looks very beautiful, Vaitheki. Their whiskers and eyes… it seems as if they were real, sitting in front of me. If there is a competition in painting, you are the one who must be given the first prize” He patted on her shoulder. “Which one among these three kittens does my dear Vaitheki like most?” the doctor asked her with a grin on his face.

“I like all the three”- when she told this, her eyes were wide open, effervesced gracefully.        

He sat near to her, asked her to show her tongue, pressed her lower eye lids down, examined the eye balls and said, “My dear girl does not have any problem at all. She can go home happily”. He then turned to her father, and told him, “A wonderful improvement sir. I am really amazed to see her strong will power at this age of eight. I have seen children running away at the very mention of medicine. But children like her who take medicines very patiently without griping are very less. Vaitheki is a great child” he patted on her shoulder. Her mother tried to ask him something hesitatingly.

“No serious problem anymore ma…now you can well be confident…In case of any rare, extreme exigency, please do what I said” he calmed her down. He, then, turned to Vaitheki, and asked her sweetly, “what would you like to become after you complete your studies?” His fingers stroked her soft cheeks gently.

“I would like to become a doctor…doctor” Vaitheki replied with a smile.

“Hats off, Vaitheki! I appreciate your spirit. You can join as my assistant in my clinic. Can’t you?” he laughed. While laughing, his eyes were filled with tears. He removed his spectacles, wiped it as he went out.

As her father went out to pay off the hospital charges, mother collected the items kept in the room, and stuffed them into a box. Vaitheki showed her paintings to her grandfather sitting on her side, explained each one of them to him enthusiastically. Each painting had picture of a cat in one corner- Peeping cat, cat standing near the door, cat sleeping beneath the cot, cat hanging from the branch of a tree, cat licking the pool of water on the floor near a water bucket by the side of well- Vaitheki thought of asking her grandfather at once about her toy cats. She was confused with the different durations she had actually stayed in different hospitals. When she thought of asking about cats, thousands of questions - where they are now? Is anyone sleeping beside them? Has its colour, that did start getting faded, become alright?- hit her mind. At the very next moment, when she realized that the replies she would receive from anyone in this regard would never satisfy her, she brought the images of those sitting cats in her mind and delved into surreal thoughts. In the world of her fantasy, those cats were waiting, curling their bodies, looking up to her face, for her touch and caress.

Vaitheki grew up as a child who had been avoided methodically by other children during her formative years. Even the children of her relatives would move away from her, curling their lips in repugnance at seeing her. There were days, it was very usual even when the elders who, by mistake, happened to stand beside her used to display a fake smile on their face for a moment, and avoid her with a cursory touch and grin. The thick, curly hair streaking on her cheek, corner of her ears, hands and legs like a charcoal mark had made her stand aloof from other children. The changes occurred on the child’s body, who was otherwise looking normal with pale brown complexion and healthy growing child like any other children till the age of three, was something beyond the comprehension of medical knowledge. Within six months, it started spreading all over her body. There was not a single doctor left out in Pondicherry who hadn’t been consulted. All their suggestions and different medicines she took for months together yielded no result. When her parents stood helpless, one doctor gave them a slip of reference, suggesting consultation with the specialist doctors in Chennai.

After some months, they also declared that it was beyond their ability and advised her parents to go to Bangalore. Her father spent all his savings on medicines and multitude of consultations without even calculating how much it was. ‘My daughter who was once looking like a flower is now looking like a bush. I don’t know whose evil eyes have befallen on my daughter. O! Lord Muruga! Heal my daughter. In the month of coming Aadi ¹, I will come to your abode, carrying a flower Kavadi ^2’.  Her mother took refuge in the feet of God. Her father was stunned when the administration of a school at the corner of the street denied admission to her. Other schools in vicinity too were hesitant in giving admission to her the moment they saw her.

At the end of his tireless efforts, her father could admit her in a school with the recommendation of a pastor known to him. He had to shell out some thousands of rupees for the infrastructural developments of the school. Other girl children in the school didn’t talk to her. She was not permitted to participate in the games too. Initially she was shocked at the manner she was subjected to such a humiliating rejections. She was broken, depressed. Only at that juncture, her mind soon discovered the art of converting her loneliness into a close confidante.

She started drawing pictures in the note books given by her father - she would draw lines with various colours, circles, intersecting lines and thus drawing squares and elongate them randomly at her whims. In her paintings, animals without horns would have horns and those with horns would have no horns. In her painting note books the chickens were flying piercing through the sky, the birds were walking, hopping, tottering, the cows and goats were travelling in cars, human beings with tails on their back were crawling with four legs. Her mother couldn’t tolerate these fantasies represented in those pictures, looking askance at her with her teary eyes. Her father, quite a sympathetic man, understood the efforts of his child in diverting her mind, would move away without uttering anything, nodding his head in affirmation with a feel of satisfaction.    

In the school annual function in which her parents had participated, she won six trophies for the first time- stood First in total marks, full attendance, singing competition, Painting competition, Frog jump and running in jute bag competition- when the auditorium quaked with the claps of praise, her father with the teary eyes, held her hands into his tightly, pressed them lovingly. While returning from the beach on Sunday evening that week, her father stopped in the market, and asked her, “Anything you want, Vaitheki? We would like to present you a gift for the first prizes you have won.” She was unable to bear the shock of that sudden display of love. She looked at both of them unbelievingly, staring at them one after the other alternately. With her eyes wide open, she walked into the toy shop, moved ahead touching each toy with her fingers -Thalaiyatti pommai,³ electric train, soldier on a horse, baby elephant. If she stopped for a while, looking at something intently, her father would get curious and ask, “Do you need this one?”. Vaitheki went near to a toy kitten kept on a table in the corner, and pointed at it.

Thick curly hairs hanging all over its body, small cute rounded eyes and whisker looking like a bunch of grass- felt smoother while fondling it. Ear lobes folded, stiffened, sitting with its back bent forward prompting one to take it on their lap and snuggle it. She stood beside it, touched every part of it, wondered and immersed in its beauty. “It just looks like a real kitten…pa” she smiled at her father. Her mother’s face got gloomy without a tangible reason. Her father paid the required amount, bought it for her. Vaitheki slept that night, keeping that kitten beside her on the bed. She was awake for a long time, prepared a long list of names in her mind to name that kitten and then got them deleted. Without being able to finalise a name for it, she was lying on her bed, staring at the darkness outside through the window. Suddenly, the blue hue of the window curtain prompted her to finalise the name, “Neela” (Literally it means blue colour). Very next moment, the kitten got its name, Neela. She mumbled in its ears, “From this moment onwards, you are my best friend, Neela”. She gently kissed on its forehead and ear lobes. She felt a tickling sensation when its hairs brushed her nose. Caressing its leg, she smiled “You are four-legged cat; I am two-legged cat. Ain’t I?”

From next day, Vaitheki recited all the verses she had memorized to Neela. Tapping its toes, she would repeat the tables. ‘Look at this naughty look!’- The toy kitten accepted all the loving bouts of Vaitheki with its smile. She would find happiness in wearing garlands made of fallen cherry flowers found in the garden around its neck.  Coming from the school, she narrated different stories to Neela while her fingers still fondling Neela’s neck. Neela too would tell her stories into her ears- its stories of wander, hiding from one place to another, the stories of stealthily overturning the utensils to drink milk, and the stories of chasing rodents. Vaitheki slept that night peacefully under the warmth of those stories. Watching her activities, her mother became more and more morose. “Let her live in her own world” – with his single note, her father would keep her mother’s mouth shut. Her mother failed in her attempts in penetrating the layer of loneliness that Vaitheki had built for herself, to scoop her up, hug onto her, but in vain and stood depressed every day.            

She won six trophies in the next year too. Her father took her to the shop to purchase yet another gift for her. This time too, she selected a toy kitten for herself again. She named it Mala. She stood first in the subsequent years too. Seven trophies were announced for her. As she won six trophies consecutively for three years, seventh trophy was given to her as a special trophy. That time too, she asked for one more toy kitten. Before buying that, she had already finalised a name for it. The name was Kala. She had allotted the half of the space in her cot only for those toy kittens. Her aunt, who had come from Cuddalore saw her sleeping amidst the ‘kittens’ and passed a witty remark, with a smile, “If this goes like this, it would be difficult to differentiate the kitten from Vaitheki”

Before she could understand the causticity of those words she spoke, they had already driven knives into Vaitheki’s heart. She cried her heart out, inconsolably as if her heart was about to burst out. Her father, who had never been harsh with anyone, took her aunt in isolation, and rebuked her severely for her impetuosity. Vaitheki wondered, thinking about all these instances as if they had just happened a day ago. Her memories were rolling down just like pearls scattering around from a bundle thrown open.

“Shall we leave now?” her father held Vaitheki’s shoulder. Seeing the gown she was wearing, he said, “Isn’t the same gown we got from Hyderabad for her birthday?”. He looked at her mother for a moment. “Two years gone…it has passed just like that. Hasn’t it?” He heaved a sigh. Both of them picked up their bags in their hands, looked around the room once and came out. Vaitheki ran to an old man and a boy who were lying admitted in the adjacent room, said good bye to them, and came back. As her grandfather sat in the front seat near her father in the car, both Vaitheki and her mother occupied the rear seat. Her father drove the car in reverse, took it out from the parking bay, and came straight for moving forward. When the car rolled forward with a mild jerk, an uneasy feeling filled in the stomach. Only after the car started striding on the main road, leaving the entrance of the hospital, both their mind and body came to normalcy. Vaitheki started looking outside through the window after the car moved ahead for a short distance.

The buildings were looking like different types of wooden sticks inserted on a wet earth, and were standing frozen. The trees on the sides of the road had their branches spread towards the sky. Under their shadow, seen many push cart vendors. Looking at the movie posters pasted on the walls one after the other, she kept reading their names in her mind. Those different names of movies occupying her as a cluster, came out first mixed, and then hit her memory. Suddenly she called out to her father, and asked, “You told that we would go for watching a Sivaji⁴  movie once it hit the theatre. What about it now?”. Hearing it, her father felt his throat had got choked up for a second. Eyes were filled with tears. Without turning his face, he told, “It’s been out… ma. Next week we can watch it in the CD. Vaitheki saw her face reflected in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were sunken, cheeks looked hollow and facial bones were visible. She felt that her cheeks, hands and neck had become softer devoid of any tingling sensation which she used to feel earlier in her body whenever her curly hair brushed against her skin while fluttering in the wind. Even though she could feel that her body had turned normal like others, she was embarrassed to see that her complexion had turned into the hue of burnt wood.      

There was a big dent in her shoulder pits. Hands were looking like thin sticks. She was sad and her sadness penetrated her heart. The very next moment, she remembered the words the doctor spoke to her during consultation. She made those words heard aloud in her heart- ‘Vaitheki, you must not think about the past ever. There is nothing called yesterday. Only tomorrow henceforth’. As she repeated those words a couple of times as if she uttered them for others, her mind turned to the state of happiness.

It was just a mere serendipitous incident that a specialist doctor participated as a chief guest in a painting competition and he had requested Vaitheki’s parents to come to the school to discuss certain matters. His words, ‘this can be cured with laser treatment; that too within seven or eight months she can be fully cured’ gave them an enormous hope. “Even if her education takes a hit, let it be. We can send her to the school next year. But how long can we keep this child in this condition? No matter how much we need to spend on her. We have to treat her anyway” her mother begged her father. With the permission from the school, they managed obtaining leave. Once her father arranged a big amount as loan from the office in the very next week, her treatment started.

With the treatment given for six months uninterruptedly, her appearance changed completely, amazingly though. Not a single strand of hair was found on her body. But her dark complexion had got further darker, unbelievably darker. Dark shoulders, dark hands, dark neck, and dark cheeks. That night when she returned from the hospital, she stayed awake in the night, cuddled those kittens and cried silently. The room was filled in with the thickness of darkness. At that moment when the darkness, that had engulfed the entire world outside the window rose like an ocean and filled in the room, the kittens assuaged her, telling her, “aren’t we all dark in complexion?” Their tiny hands stretched forward tenderly and patted her back lovingly. Just to make her sleep, the eyes of the kittens started narrating stories. As their bent-back slowly getting straightened up, and the way they got metamorphosed themselves into small girl children with tiny braids, made her immeasurably happy. Those girl children crawled towards her, sat beside her.

They woke her up, led her to the garden. Leaning against the hay stack, they chit chatted, counted the stars in the dark sky, held their hands together, played, spun like spin top, ran as their braids flapped behind. They picked the flowers and made a garland out of it, put it around her neck, made her sit in a palanquin and carried her. The old songs they sang while carrying her in the palanquin resonated like lullaby. At one moment, they got her down, made her sit on a swing and moved it to and fro. They got her immersed in the experience of ecstasy of a bird flying around, swimming across the sky. Then they got down from the swing, and made her sit on a flying carpet and flew towards the clouds. The soft, icy clouds which she had never experienced. She couldn’t forget that wonderful experience of driving through them and coming out on the other side like an arrow. All her sorrows and pains that had been choking up her heart densely, vanished at once in the presence of their fun loving company. Getting tired of being ecstatic, Vaitheki fell in deep sleep without even knowing when she had fallen asleep.

Unlike before, her love for those kittens grew manifold from that day. During the day time, she was deeply absorbed in the dreams about the previous night. Next day too, once the darkness descended and every one fell asleep, those girl children came near to her rolling over from the corner of the cot. As they came close to her, they picked up her hands into theirs, caressed her cheeks and pinched it gently. They narrated stories and sang songs one after the other. Laughed. Jumped. Kissed. Low pitched murmurs were ringing around her all the time. One day, when her irritated mother asked her, bending down to pick up those kittens lying beside her, ‘What is this heck of nuisance of talking to yourself?’, she jumped on it, hugged it tightly, and refused to part with it. When her mother tried to snatch it away from her forcibly, she cried violently. “Hell with you! You are just incorrigible! He only brought them. Didn’t he? Let him take care of this nuisance.”-visibly annoyed, her mother moved away. Once her sobbing stopped, she stared playing with those kittens, twisting their earlobes, curling their whiskers, stroking their bodies and twisting their tails.

Vaitheki spread her wings, flew in the world of ecstasy which got her relieved of bitterness and fatigue. The girl children, holding her fingers, flew away in the emptiness of space in the direction prefixed by them, coaxing her also to come along with them. She loved that journey. The trees covered with darkness. Dark bushes. Cliffs. Dark clouds. Since she could join the school only in the next academic year, Vaitheki had to stay home. As her mother thought that she had to be fed with nutritious food and her words must be filled with mirth, she showered more love and affection upon her. She made Athirasam, Porivilangai balls, Murukku⁵- all that she used to love much. She would sit beside her, and comb her hair, making different patterns of coiffure. In order to drive away her shyness, she took her to the temples and markets along with her. Her father brought some old school books and asked her to read them. He brought drawing note books and paint boxes for her. Seeing her drawings, he cheered her up with his encouraging words every day.

All her times which she couldn’t spend with others closely, were actually spent with the cats. Vaitheki always loved to keep them on her lap, hugging them onto her chest, and cuddling all the time.  Without giving a damn to time, those girl children came out of those kittens whenever she thought about them. Putting their jaw on her shoulders, they murmured something into her ears. The stories and songs they narrated made her laugh heartily, clapping her hands, to an extent of filling her eyes with tears, choking up with laughter, followed by resultant coughing. Mother came running to her on hearing her coughing sound, stood there bemused watching her hearty laugh.

Mother’s arrival severed everything, and emptiness engulfed again. Her mother shook her, shouting, “What is this all? What is this?”. Without knowing what to reply, Vaitheki threw an empty stare at her. However, the subsequent events that occurred every day after that didn’t allow her mother to take the things for granted. Her mother became extremely worried, shed tears seeing her condition. Without knowing how to go about ahead of this situation, her father also got hugely confused. Mother insisted that doctors should be consulted immediately. Her father was literally broken at the very thought of admitting her into a hospital for further treatment. He stood for a long time near Vaitheki while she was sleeping in the dark, caressing her head tenderly. Her lips, parting slightly for every breath reminded baby fishes. Her childhood innocence was reflected on her softer cheeks. He was prompted with the feeling that by any means his child had to be cured. The intensity of this feeling increased many fold when her subdued voice was heard incessantly in that empty room.    

On one particular night, Vaitheki accepted the call of those girls who lured her to come out to watch the moon light. She slipped out of the bed, without making noise, and silently took off her shawl. She tiptoed, hit the cloth almirah accidentally, turned towards other side, and again hit the cloth lines used for drying. Steadied herself somehow, moved in the dark with blind assessment of direction, opened the door and when she entered the garden, the chilly wind of the night embraced her. The chirping of insects was resonating through all directions with an unusual sound that she hadn’t heard of before. She stood stunned at the beauty of stars scattered in the sky looking like dots in the kolam⁶  that had been left incomplete and forgotten. The children showed her the moon floating like a round plate in the sky. Vaitheki stood immersed in the beauty of its light. Moisture of dews. The light that lay spread across like milk. The fragrance of jasmine blossoming in the bushes. The icy wind bracing her chest. The girls were dancing, singing new lyrics. Vaitheki joined them and danced. She also started singing, in an unbridled ecstatic elation. While dancing in a circular motions, her legs hit a stone and fell down. As her head hit on a washing stone kept near the well, she fell unconscious.

When her mother came to the well for taking water in the morning, she saw her lying unconscious, came running to her, and scooped her up. She shook her violently, “Vaitheki…Vaitheki”. She lay speechless, immobile like a statue. Her father came there hearing the sound near the well, lifted her, laid her on the sofa and sprinkled water on her face. Vaitheki opened her eyes, still only half conscious, and couldn’t identify anyone around her. She mumbled the same moon song. Her hands rose up involuntarily as if someone was holding her hands. A streak of smile shone in her lips. Her father and mother stood completely transfixed, staring at the allurement of ecstasy and gravity of loneliness in her eyes shining concomitantly.

Their trips to the hospital continued again as usual. As the first one was not satisfactory, they went to another doctor. As he was also not efficient, they went to the third doctor. The third one approached the issue with a motherly tenderness. He treated her as if she were his own child.

The doctor had converted his clinic into a play court. The children and old people alike were playing freely there. The tenderness and care of the doctor were soothing for all of them. With his earnest efforts of six months, he pulled Vaitheki back from the severe mental stress she was suffering from. Vaitheki asked her father every day, “Father, will I be able to attend the school again? Will I get all those trophies again?”

“You will win them dear. If you don’t win them, who else will?” her father, teary eyed, hugged her onto his bosom. On reaching home, her grandfather got down from the car and opened the door of rear seat. “Get down slowly Vaitheki”, he called her out, guided her, holding her hands. Seeing a new bicycle kept near the entrance door window, she smiled, with her eyes wide open, “Aii…bicycle!” she exclaimed. “Yes dear girl…it is for you. It’s me, your grandpa, got it for you. Henceforth, you can practice driving with this bicycle” her grandfather stroked her head lovingly.

Once they entered the house, her father showed her a video game box he had bought for her. He taught her how to play the game in the television by connecting those twenty or thirty video game discs he got for her. She was very much excited to watch the game of a motor cycle rider escaping the bullets from the guns aimed at him. In ten minutes, her hands gained the expertise of operating the game box on their own. Everyone was trying to engage her in some conversation. In spite of it, it appeared that some enigmatic silence had occupied the ambience, as if sitting there permanently on a chair amidst that situation.

Hours later, Vaitheki went into her room. The items and dresses which were kept clean were found neatly placed in their respective places. Vaitheki stared at them one by one - Table, chairs, Television, toys, trophies, medals, cloths almirah, book racks, cot- once her eyes fell on the cot, she started searching for the kittens, reflexively. She threw her eyes all around the room, did a random quick search, visibly anxious that they might have been misplaced. Searched them in the loft. With a suspicion that they might have been put into a sack, bundled and kept under the cot, she bent down and searched there too. Nothing was found. Her chest rose up, heaved a sob.

Her body started sweating profusely, instinctively. As her tears welled up in her eyes, she bit her lips violently. As she was about to leave the room, sobbing, she saw the kittens stuffed beneath the  almirah where cloths were kept. She bent down inquiringly and pulled them out. She held them in her hands zealously. The kittens didn’t turn their faces towards her. Avoiding her eyes, they were looking at a different direction. They couldn’t feel the touch of Vaitheki’s fingers. There wasn’t even a sign of girls who used to come out of them. The thought of not being able to meet them anymore hit her consciousness deeply. She dropped those toy kittens blinking blankly with their big eyes, and sobbed inconsolably. Her father and mother came running to her, tense, on hearing the sound of her sob.

“What happened? What happened?” her mother’s question did not enter her mind. Due to incessant crying, her chest beat became faster. Her body was shivering. Tears were rolling down like flood from her eyes. Unable to understand the reason for her anxiety and shiver, her mother ran inside, opened a medicine box quickly, and took out a green colour tablet which the doctor had prescribed for emergency situations. She lay Vaitheki on her lap, and assuaged her, “Don’t cry my dear girl. Aren’t you my dearest one? Please open your mouth”, mother beseeched her and made her swallow one tablet. After placing a tight kiss on her forehead, her mother started narrating some entertaining stories. In seven or eight minutes, Vaitheki fell into an empty space of sleep where her mother's voice hadn’t been reachable. With their worried faces her father and mother were staring at her face, rather helplessly.

                                                                 ***Ended***

Notes:

1.      Aadi- a Tamil month

2.      Kavadi- A decorated wooden sticks bent in semi-circular form carried by devotees of Lord Murugan as a part of their worship.

3.      A toy made of plastic with the upper body of human being or an animal with the moderately heavy object (clay) under its seat to maintain a centre of gravity. If the head of toy is tilted on one side, it will come straight again due to gravity. This type of toys are known by the town from where they became famous, Thanjavur)

4.   Sivaji Ganesan- a popular actor in Tamil cinema

5.   Snacks prepared during special occasions in Tamil families.

6.  Kolam- Patterns drawn in the front yard of the houses with rice/ lime powder.