White Deaths (வெள்ளை மரணங்கள்) by Ashokamithran

 

This is an English translation of “Vellai Maranangal”, a short story written by Ashoka Mithran.

***

That tall shelter of three hundred feet length and forty feet breadth, thatched with clay tiles must have been constructed for the ‘White’ soldiers who had been put up there during the First word War. After disbanding the military, this long shelter must have been handed over to the Nizam Railways. It was then divided into 12 houses and the last one was given to my father. Those houses were functioning as ‘running stop’ for railway guards and ticket examiners. My father would go to his office at ten in the morning and come back only after his superior officers leave for their homes. Sometime, he would bring some bundles of files home and take notes from them.

Our house had three entries- main entrance in the front, one in backyard and the stairs on its side. So, these three doors should be kept locked if we wanted to have a peaceful sleep every night. We had some big sized padlocks, otherwise known as Aligarh locks. The shelter had been built running east to west. If we opened the side door, the harsh rays of the sun would fall onto the floor till noon. The dust, husk, tiny stones and clay balls should be handpicked from rice, dal, mustard and dried chilli before using them that day. Rice and dal ought to be threshed and, for that, a winnowing basket made of bamboo stalks is needed. A fresh basket cannot be used for threshing before getting it conditioned. This winnowing basket must be plastered on its both sides with a wax-like paste made of paper, fenugreek and water ground in a grinder and then dried under sunlight. The women at home would be very busy all day long at the entrance on the eastern side.

I and my elder sister would leave the house, totally unbothered to extend help in house hold chores, to roam around the open barren land that lay sprawled over miles. The land didn’t have an even surface. Its surface was bumpy and uneven, and its soil was not fit for agriculture. In that open land, was a peripheral wall in a man’s height with its only door remained locked. A recently built shelter stood in front of it. It was a workshop allotted to the jobless Christian elders to earn something for their living by way of doing any job they were good at. At noon, a free meal of some gruel would be provided.

The patch of land that lay beyond this shelter always remained a mystery for me and my sister. Someone had been guarding that sprawling land with a peripheral wall. Who could that be?

The lock hanging outside was big and looked very old. Would it have a key to open it? The key could have been lost as it was not used for years.  My elder sister wouldn’t be able to accompany me all days I came out to roam on this open land. I would go alone to those hillocks and wander. Every hillock had a silky surface that had made climbing on it difficult. Moving from one hillock to another, I lost my way. Panic stricken, I started running aimlessly. I found a railway track lying at some distance away from the hillocks. I would be able to reach the railway station if I went along the railway track, I thought. I know how to reach my home from the railway station.

Only after going near to the railway track, I could see another rock standing there with steps. Sooner I gained hope that I would reach my home, I summoned up some courage. I climbed on the stairs and found a Hanuman Temple at the top.

The statue of Hanuman had been carved out of a single rock and was smeared with saffron paste all over. If Hanuman was seen anywhere around that area, people would smear Him with Red-Oxide paste all over His body. A priest was there. I grew hesitant to speak to him. He gave me some Tulsi leaves and holy water. I climbed down the rock, walked along the rail track and reached my home in half an hour.

Now, these two places had become a point of mystery for me. First one, the place with a peripheral wall of a man’s height. Second, the Hanuman temple. Why didn’t our father take us to this temple? Is he aware of this temple?

I just told my elder sister of everything I had seen. She asked me to take her there today. I said “I’ll take you there tomorrow”

“I like Hanuman”

“You’d like that temple. I don’t know the straight way to reach there.  I only know how to reach there taking a roundabout way.”

“I am also coming”

“O.K. We’ll go tomorrow”  

Next day I came back from the school by four. But my sister was late by half hour, came at half past four. We had some curd rice and a coffee, hurriedly, and headed out. Mother became angry and shouted at her, “A cart full of utensils lying to be washed. Where are you going now?” My sister mumbled something inaudibly and came out of the house. We paced fast, running and walking briskly, and reached the rail track. Finally, we were at the Hanuman temple.

Four or five people were there. It must be an auspicious day, we thought. We went around the temple, boldly though, as we were confident duo. Though the village had no wells around, we found a small well there. The households had water taps. Those who had no water taps in their houses would fetch water from the water pipes laid on the streets. But how and when a well had been dug in this temple, we grew perplexed.

Akka struck up a conversation with a woman there and came to know that the name of the temple was Laxman Jula. After that, Akka would go out herself to visit this temple and often get scolded by mother for her impudence. But we grew unintimidated. I was unable to visit the temple quite often as the circle of my friends for playing became bigger.

One day akka told me, “There is a short cut to that temple”

“How?” I asked her.

“Beyond that workshop, if we jump over the tall compound wall, we can reach a small pond. The hillock on which the temple is sitting is very near to it”

I had gone to that pond many times. If you throw a broken clay piece at a particular angle, it would jump off the water surface a couple of times before drowning under water. However, this wouldn’t happen in every attempts. After spending some time in the pond, I used to go to the hillocks. It never occurred in my mind to venture straight after crossing the pond. But my sister did.  

I made up my mind that I must find out the short cut the very next day. Akka was busy with grinding flour. For some obvious reasons, I also grew uncomfortable with my sister wandering alone in that barren area. It was a wretched stretch of land! One could find only a skeleton number of shepherds and cattle herders, that too occasionally. To graze the cattle, a good amount of grass was needed. Wasn’t it? The land would wear a green cover not more than ten or fifteen days immediately after rain. Other days, it remained a parched, barren land.

I went past the workshop and reached the compound wall that stood at a man’s height. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw its door kept open. I peeked into it. The area behind the door was very big, must be of many acres. The place had some buildings in various sizes, big and small. Since it was kept locked for ages, the place was filled with wild bushes all around and some cactus plants showing up here and there. I walked carefully as I wasn’t wearing sandals. A couple of minutes later, I could make out that it was a cemetery. There were some cemeteries, smaller in size near the Mother Mary Temple in my village. They would be visible clearly when seen from the streets. Those cemeteries, though suffered from the wild growth of bushes, one could see the walking path clearly. But, here there were no signs of such tracks that once existed.       

The epitaphs on the tombs were in English. They looked many years old. On one of the big tombs, there were twenty names inscribed on it. They must have dug a very big grave to bury all those bodies in a single day. Suddenly, a fear engulfed me. I was caught up in that cemetery that evening, alone. I must get out of this place immediately. Ignoring the pain of thorns pricking my feet, I could manage reaching the entrance of the cemetery only to find it locked. Overwhelmed with terror again, I knocked on the door, violently. I screamed, “Open the door…Open the door”

The door should have been locked only some while ago. Luckily, the man who locked it hadn’t gone away far. The door opened. A short man with uneven face was standing there.

“When did you come in?” he asked.

“The door was open.”

“If it is open, will you come in? Is it a place for you to loiter?”

I stood silently. The rough facial features of the dwarf man evoked some amount of fear in me.

“Get out…Get out of this place”

“What is this place” I asked him, hesitantly.

“It is a Christian cemetery. Many people have been buried here. Now, you get out”

He closed the door with some effort, latched it, hooked the lock and presses it down with his both hands.

“You have no keys?” I asked.

“You are still standing here? Now see all the ghosts roaming here will come to you. Go out from here”

The short man walked along, with an asymmetrical gait on one side. I went to the Laxman Jula. The route I took was really a short cut. This time, the priest who was offering prayers at the temple picked some amount of saffron paste from the Hanuman idol and dotted it on my forehead. “As long as it stays up on your forehead, no ghost would approach you” he said.

I was immensely astonished at all these- Just a while ago, that cemetery warden told that all the ghosts would come to me. And, now this priest is telling me that no ghosts would never dare to approach me as if knowing what had happened in the cemetery.

I told my sister of everything that night.

“That place, remains always closed. Do you know what it is?”

“What’s that?”

“It is a graveyard. So many white men have been buried there”

“Did you see that?”

“Yes. The door was open. I went in. There were many tombs looking like Tulsi stands. A couple of them were big in size. All had some names inscribed on them”

“Will you go there tomorrow?”

“I don’t know. There might be a lot of ghosts roaming around”

 “Who told you?”

“A short man”

“Then, he might be a ghost himself”

I felt my stomach rumble with a discomfort. I resolved that I mustn’t go back to that place again. I couldn’t sleep and had dreams of different kinds that night.

Next day, I couldn’t pay attention to the subjects in the school. I was whipped for my poor response to the question asked by Bengal Tiger Vathiyar. Though I enjoyed a reputation of being his favourite student, he would prove his name by pouncing upon me if I ever failed to pay attention to his lessons.

Watching me eating the curd rice without speaking anything after coming home, my mother grew apprehensive, and asked me, “What happened to you today?”

“Nothing”

“No…you face looks gloomy”

Doesn’t she know that I also don’t know anything? She seemed to have understood that there must be something secret of sorts.

I headed towards the workshop. I looked back as to ensure if someone was following me. No…no one followed. I went fast near to the locked door, pulled its lock. It opened. I pushed it a little in with an effort and closed it once I was in.

The dead leaves were strewn all around. I wouldn’t be able to see even a snake, if there was any. My bare feet made a lot of noise. I went to the spot where the biggest tomb was standing. It was where twenty people had been buried. All were about between nineteen and twenty years of age. The epitaph under their names was read as: “The Cholera devoured those who came to sacrifice their lives in the war front”

I couldn’t understand the poetic beauty of the sentence that day. There must be nearly 200 tombs in that graveyard. Those many white men had breathed their last in that village. There wasn’t even good road to reach that place. So, those bodies must have been carried from somewhere.

Sometimes, my mother would be weeping aloud suddenly. My elder brother died of some excruciating stomach pain when I was just two years old. Even after ten years of his death, my mother couldn’t come out of her depression. Here, so many men have been buried. How depressed their mothers and father could have been! For them, it was a foreign land. Their parents couldn’t have been with them when they died. All were English soldiers. It was quite probable that some of them might have lived in the rooms where we are living now. Presently, there must be only seven or eight physicians in the village. How many physicians would have been there during their times? The absence of adequate medical facilities might have caused their deaths.

Even for my age, I felt crying. I was standing there, still crying.

Someone patted on my back comfortingly and told, “Please don’t cry. I will also cry”. I turned around and saw my Akka standing there.

“How did you come here?”

“Don’t I know where you would like to go?”

“This door doesn’t have locks”

“No. It does have”

“But it doesn’t lock”

“It’s O.K. Let’s go to the temple”

We came out, latched the door and pressed its hook. But it remained unlocked, opened. Next two subsequent days, it was frequently opened. The rust inside the lock did remove the dirt outside.

We went to the Laxman Jula and came back taking a roundabout way.

“Let’s not come to this place again” I said.

“I too don’t want to come here” Akka said. “Do you know one thing?” she asked me.

“What?”

“I had already visited this graveyard before you”

                                                                   ***End***

The Journey by Ashoka Mithran

This is an English translation of “Pirayanam” written by Ashoka Mithran. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam. 

…

I turned back again hearing the moans of pain. My master’s eyes were visibly strained, closed, due to unbearable pain. The long wooden plank I was dragging having him lain on it was partly drenched. I reached out to him in a leap. 

“I don’t believe I would make it anymore”, he said. 

I looked around, and found not a trace of white patch on the sky. The hill locks nestling each other on the sprawling landscape as far as my eyes could see were covered with small bundles of clouds. The edges of the hill lock where we were walking down ended in a vertically descending gorge of about hundred feet with a brook at the bottom. Though it looked a pool of stagnant water from above, it was a running stream fiercely hitting the rocks and was falling into a valley at a little distance away. On the other side, the hills stood high. Walking down a distance of twelve miles along the edges would lead us to a mountain pass. After that, there lay a plains full of small bushes. They would gradually wane as we enter the forest area. Beyond the forest was there flowing a small river. We would then get in to a village, Harirambukur where we would find the first traces of human settlement, sitting on the fringes of the forest on the river bank. It took two full days when I and my master were on our way by foot passing through Harirambukur to reach our hermitage six months ago. ‘Now half of the day is over even before crossing half of the mountain. In half an hour, it’d get dark’  

I opened my rug sack, took out a big towel and long bag woven with rough woollen fibre, removed the woollen rug wrapped up around my master’s body and other clothes, wrapped him up again with the long towel and helped him to stuff himself into the woollen bag. Though the bag could accommodate his whole body including his head, I kept one end of it open to expose his face out. I covered his ears with a woollen muffler, wrapped it up around his head. 

“Can I make some gruel for you, Master?” I asked. 

He gestured with his eyes, ‘yes’. 

I took out a small tin box, a round shaped utensil usually given to soldiers during the Second World War and a ‘military’ water bottle from the bag. Half-filled the utensil with water, opened the lid of tin box in which frozen kerosene half a quantity of the tin had been kept. I struck the match stick, brought it near to the brim. The frozen kerosene started burning in steady flames at once. Holding the handle of the utensil deftly, I heated up the water in the flame. Sooner the water reached its first boil, I mixed a handful of starch flour I carried in a bundle on my back, with it and stirred it with a dry twig, continued boiling and added some water to prevent it becoming a thick paste. The porridge was ready. I closed the burning tin box with its lid. The fire was off except some streaks of flame popping out. I kept stirring the mixture in the utensil itself and made it considerably cold. When the hot gruel reached a tolerable level of safe consumption, I gently lifted my master’s head a little, kept it on my lap and started feeding him with it. Within a couple of gulps, he gestured that it was enough. It looked he had mustered up some strength in his body. I drank up the remaining gruel and packed the utensil after cleaning it with cloth instead of water as there was only a little water left in the ‘bottle’. I had to go to the creek below to bring water, possibly only in the next morning. 

My master was lying, with his mouth open. With my year-long Yoga training under his guidance, I had hard learnt not to breathe with my mouth under any circumstances. But my master, who had lived his life as a complete ‘Yogi’ for the past fifty years was now struggling even to breathe with his mouth. Until the day he fell down with a sharp shrill clutching his stomach tightly, hardly anyone could have felt his breathing unless they employed their keen eyes on him to notice it. Even if it was visible, they would be able to feel his breath coming out in long and steady spells from the previous one. Now he was struggling to breathe through his mouth. 

The sun was setting behind the hills and spreading monstrous shadows on its slopes. It would take only a couple of minutes for the darkness and those shadows merging with each other. I collected some dried twigs from the creepers and plants grown thin like sticks here and there. I didn’t feel cold. My master who had never worn the upper clothe in his life was now lying bundled up in a woollen bag wrapping his body with a woollen towel. He needed warmth. The dew drops would descend heavily in the midnight. Unlike with its usual vapour form, it would fall in the form of smoggy bundles. My master would require warmth at that time. The warmth was required for one more reason- One could see the puck marks during the day. The owners of those puck marks would surely come that night. 

I brought some dried plants uprooting them. I had to squint my eyes very often to look around before completing two rounds of collecting those dried twigs carrying them as much as I could cuddling it along my chest. I had a bundle of wood secured with the wooden plank I was dragging with my master lain on it. Those wood pieces were hard nuts, wouldn’t pick up fire fast. Even if they did, they wouldn’t last even a night. We would never carry wood beyond our requirement when we used to make visits to Harirambukur on some emergency needs from our hermitage twice or thrice a year. But this time it was very clear that those firewood wouldn’t come sufficient enough.

I handpicked some smaller palm sized twigs and heaped them conically near my master’s legs. There were no signs of birds around. Though the wind was breezy, it nevertheless made a deep booming noise as it had to hit on the slopes of the hills. The creek in full spate flowing about a hundred feet below, at a distance of half a mile away, was giving out its continuous rumbles. Other than these sounds and the sound of my master’s choked breath, there were no sounds around for my ear to hear. 

The dried twigs were burning like wicks of crackers. I poised five or six pieces of firewood sticks like equidistant hands of a wheel just for the tip of flames to reach it. The stars started twinkling in groups in the sky. One of the sticks caught fire and burnt with flames. I swiftly took it out from the rest, swung it fast across as to put the flames off, and kept it down again as a live ember. Only one of those sticks was emitting a thick smoke. I flipped it, tabbed it on the ground a little. The smoke was now thin. I sat near my master with a long bamboo pole keeping it under my custody for meeting any eventuality. The cliffs of the mountains around us that looked monstrous frozen waves were visible as dark shadows even in that pitch dark. 

Having left with no other options, I had to sit and keep watching them for hours till dawn. Sitting in tranquillity, I began to feel the ever growing presence of my being in me. I used to bring such consciousness in me in my earlier days, deliberately awaiting it every day, sitting on empty spaces when my master was lying on bed inside the hermitage without any ailments in his body. Now I grew worried to get rid of that consciousness surging in me without my consent. At that time, I felt the two cliffs at the distance became one and were moving in my direction. An unfathomable fear appeared to rise from my abdomen. My super-conscious state of being vanished at once. Shifting my attention from the mountain cliffs, I started watching on the sky. The stars which were found strewn around the sky a while ago were now visible in individual clusters. Those clusters didn’t first bear any resemblance of images that could be perceived in some way in my mind. But, very soon each cluster seemed to have developed limbs of different kinds, and resembled various images flying wildly extending their limbs. It also seemed that even my breathing while closing my eyes did come out with an appeal of musical rhythm. I felt my consciousness dragging me into slumber when my mind was actively engaging itself with it. Cutting it off abruptly, I opened my eyes and threw them over the stars above. When the stars were changing into different clusters and then into different images, I glanced at those cliffs. The moment I became aware that my mind was inclined to merge with the rhythmic sounds of master’s breathing, I grew alert and sat down straight. I mustn’t lose my consciousness that night no matter whatever the situation. I must reach Harirambukur somehow crossing this mountain, plains, jungle, and river. I should make medical treatment available to my master. The snowfall started descending, heavily. I wrapped my head up with an old towel that was lying with me unused and sat down with my one thigh upon another. 

I could hear the roars of wind blowing across the mountain cliffs bang in me. The sound of brook was also heard. I was expanding, expanding in all directions and kept expanding as if I had started losing my weight and frame every second. Though every sound around me was audible in my ears, I felt that they all had been active only on some common base. That time, I heard an odd sound coming above all. It didn’t get along with other sounds around that time. Again, that sound of hissing with ferocity! I curled myself in seconds. The proficiency I had mastered through my year-long training towards concentrating one’s mind did seem unnecessary that moment. I heard that sound of ferocity once again. Grasping tightly the bamboo pole, I threw my eyes at the direction the sound came from. I saw two twinkling fireflies. I swung my stick only to see those bright sparkles feign a move. I swung the stick again, this time stretching out my hands further. It hit somewhere followed by a sharp, shrill howl which made me shudder. Next moment, that wolf retreated, fled. 

I turned to my master. All the firewood I kept near him were on the verge of going off. It must be past midnight. I understood I had fallen asleep moments ago. More than half of those wood pieces which remained alive as ember had gone ashes. The wolf must have come only after that. I blew on to a foot size stick that remained half burnt, and made it burn with flame. I examined my master with the light of the flame from head to foot. The woollen bag in which he was lying was found torn on it left near his leg. Had I been careless even by a couple of minutes, the wolf would have torn open the bag and clasped my master’s legs in its teeth. 

The wood was now fully blown out and only emitted smoke. I scooped out a small amount of frozen kerosene in my finger tip and dropped it on ember. It caught up with fire again. I went near my master’s face under its brightness, and called him mildly, “Ayya”. My words didn’t fall into his ears. He was sleeping with his mouth open a while ago, but now with his mouth closed. He might have been thirsty or hungry when I fell asleep. I called out to him again, moving his body gently. He lay there without any movement. I checked his breath with the back of my palm. I placed my ear on his chest, tried to hear something from his chest pit. But nothing remained there for my ear to hear. 

I wasn’t shocked with the death of my master. I was mentally prepared to accept the worst when I happened to see his body, which once walked on here with its purest form,  completely immobile having lost all his energy even to move his body while allowing urine to trickle down. I would have to relinquish my training in yoga. It took more than three years to find out a master like him and oblige him accept me as his disciple. I wasn’t sure of how many year more it would take to find another master of his stature. It remained doubtful anyway. I might meet another master according to the dictates of my destiny. My deepest prayer at that time was nothing other than my master safely reaching Harirambukur without any dangers on the way. Long ago I heard my master telling me that a dying person should be fed with cow milk just before he was about to leave out his last breath. Today his words stood completely irrelevant. His words in another occasion that people like him should be buried in six feet grave also sounded absurd now. I had already missed offering him cow milk and now at least he must be buried in six feet of grave. For that I had to reach down the plains leaving this rocky mountainous area. He must be buried in six feet of grave covered with big stones instead of sand in order to prevent the wolves digging his grave out. A wolf from the pack had already sniffed him and it wouldn’t take much of time for the remaining wolves to come for waging attack. 

The ‘under-developed’ moon appeared. I slowly removed the woollen rug, bag from his body. My master’s face shone with an unfathomable, splendid peace bearing the resemblance of a person in deep sleep with a solemn countenance if at all no efforts towards checking his breath and heart beats were ever made. I tore an old cloth and tied his toes together. With another piece of cloth I tied his hands too. With his single dhoti, I covered his whole body from head to foot, carefully stuffed his remains into the woollen bag, closed it tightly and waited for the dawn keeping the embers alive by slowly burning it. I was sitting with my legs folded against my chest snuggling my face between my knees. By the time the dim rays of the sun appeared in the eastern sky, I saw two-inch layer of snowflakes around me. When I started towing the wooden plank with my master’s mortal remains in that half-light, I saw something moving behind me. When I looked at it again second time, it was walking at the same distance. This time the wolf was yelping, mildly. 

I failed to understand how the dead ones gaining weight. I could feel dragging the wooden plank with his dead body seemed relatively more difficult than pulling it when he remained laid on it but with breath. The plank moved a little smoothly as long as the snowflakes were sitting on my head in the morning. But before noon, everything dried out completely, leaving one wonder if at all that place ever received such a heavy snow fall. I was now moving on the descending side of the mountain. Most of the times, I was literally pushing the plank from behind instead of pulling it from the front. It proved an extremely difficult task to drag it with its ever increasing weight carefully avoiding it falling into gorge. As I had drunk the remaining gruel which my master left the previous day, I didn’t feel hungry though I hadn’t eaten anything after that. It was only my shoulders and waist that ached a lot. I didn’t halt anywhere and was moving with a singular aim in mind that I must reach the plains crossing that hilly terrain before the fall of night. My body remained strong enough to match my mental strength, though it proved insufficient. I had to tread very slowly, one step after another. It seemed the hills kept extending endlessly as I saw them. It would be sufficient if I could manage getting four or five hours of sun light. It would remain utter foolish if I was forced to collect the dried twigs again to spend another night by not utilising the available sun light to the best of my ability. At many places, the rocks were found split open and descended so steep hundreds of feet down. I could see the plants grown even in that rock bottom. Within the very short span of journey during that day, I could see the rotten remains, decomposed and limbless bodies of dead animals which might have fallen into that gorge accidentally. 

My ever increasing tiredness was being compensated by the receding light. My body grew so sensitive that it could feel even the slightest change in the light. Despite the spurt in the efforts of my body, it failed to see the corresponding increase in my speed. I had to try enormously even to drag myself, let alone walking fast. I could see thousands of insects flying in front of my eyes. The journey was left by another two hours. My confidence to cross the mountains before the sun set began waning as the time passed. I would have to stay another snow-falling night again amidst these mountains. Though I didn’t find anything troublesome during the day, the sense of caution once experienced did remain with me. That wolf knew every movement of mine. Now, it wouldn’t definitely come alone. 

The plains were visible at a distance. But I couldn’t afford continuing my journey hoping to reach there now. I carefully placed the wooden plank down on the ground and began searching for dried twigs. I couldn’t find them in sufficient quantity like yesterday. I was one day older than yesterday. I was more tired and weaker than yesterday. I lit the fire with the available wood sticks. I had only four pieces of fire wood with me. I lit each one of them, and went around my master’s dead body with a burning brand of fire stick. That night too, I saw a steep gorge descending near the place where I halted. There was no creek below at the bottom, it might be running in different direction. At the bottom of the gorge, were there thickly grown wild bushes. When I halted my journey yesterday, I wasn’t frightened. It was true that my master couldn’t extend me any assistance with his near-dead body yesterday which could well be meant that I remained alone yesterday as well. But the fright which didn’t engulf my psyche yesterday was now truncating my intellect. All my achievements in life, aims, and bases of my thoughts, desires, and feelings did vanish just like vapour leaving me with nothing but a singular resolve to bury my master’s whole body with honour in the plains. I was sure that the snow fall would never do any harm to my master’s body howsoever denser its volume might be. But I was waiting with fear that seemed to have crept into my teeth and bones. I was so attentive as if my body had grown with ears all over. After the thick darkness descended heavily, I didn’t have to wait much to hear the distinct sound, that came streaking through the roars of wind, I was waiting for. A dense galaxy of fireflies was moving towards me with mild yelps.

Holding a burning wood on one hand and the bamboo pole in another, I was waiting for them to come nearer. My eyes did seem to have learnt seeing through that pitch dark. Though they were moving towards me in a group, they formed a circle around us sooner they came near about fifteen twenty yards from us and began circling, squealing, walking short steps front and forth, and pouncing once ferociously coupled with fake retreats. The minutes were passing like aeons. The circumference of the circle formed by the wolves around us started becoming small inch by inch. Five or six wolves in the pack were fully grown. They circled us keeping their tails between their hind legs. I stood by my master’s head, and swung the burning wood across furiously in all directions. The feeling that the wolves which I hadn’t come across during the day were now following us at some distance to attack, kept me in a persistent dread. But when I saw them closely, I felt a solemn peace filling in me and at times I began feeling that I had ceased to think anything. 

My hands were swaying, slowly, calmly. The wolves were still pacing in circle around us. It appeared that they were waiting for me to launch the first attack. If there was no pressing situation between us which could prompt any one of us to initiate attack, the remaining part of that night would remain uneventful and the wolves would possibly flee at the crack of dawn, I believed. 

I was firm in my stand. The controlled yelps of those wolves now seemed to have merged with the silence of the surrounding. They were walking in circle as if they didn’t like to break the rules they had set for themselves even a little by mistake. I started feeling an enormity of love for them. I felt that I had known them for ages. At one point of time, I thought I also joined them and walking around me in circle. The burning brand of fire wood I was holding in my hand went off suddenly. I swung it fast in the air to produce flame in it. That time, it looked as if the entire hilly region stopped breathing and stood still. The fire wood in my hand completely went off. Dropping it down, I bent down to the fire place to pick up a fire stick that remained alive in their tips. Hardly was it half a moment, I didn’t hear the snorts of wolves. Within a moment of that gap, a big wolf among them pounced upon me with deadly roar. I thrust the wood into the wolf’s wide mouth that came straight in front of my face. The wolf withdrew with meek howl of hurt. Other wolves began tearing off the woollen bag that covered my master’s body. 

The deadly silence and the respect for rules that seemed to prevail there a while ago had now vanished in just a matter of seconds. The wolves attacked me one after another. But they attacked my master’s corpse in packs. I swirled my bamboo pole like a wheel. My shoulder experienced an excruciating pain due to the effect of resistance it received whenever it hit its target. Now the wolves started attacking me in pairs and sometimes in threes. The darkness seemed nearly absent between us. I and wolves were drenched with each other’s blood that kept sprinkling on both of us and falling onto the ground like a sparkling cracker burst after catching fire. 

The wolves didn’t cease their attack, continued panting, pouncing with short steps, biting, getting beaten, withdrawing and again pouncing on me. That time I could realise one thing- I was making loud noises, frantically screeching which I would never fantasise even when I am fully conscious. I had become a terrible animal in that war. Sometimes, we were equally strong for each other. I had become one of those wolves. 

Yet, it couldn’t last for long. A good chunk of wolves was terribly beaten, got maimed and fled the scene. Only three were posing challenge. My upper garment was torn at many places and dangling loose with blood stains. The woollen bag in which my master’s body was kept had long been torn into pieces and lay asunder.

One of the wolves, a lonely wolf kept waging its attack on me tirelessly from different directions without coming under the swings of my bamboo pole. If I swung it below, it would jump off above. If I threw it above, it would slouch its head onto the ground. I was fighting it with all my might and fury as to finish it off. It looked well aware of my moves. I was throwing my blows at it with the love and rancour one would have for his own twin brother. Driven by frantic madness, I started chasing that lonely wolf completely forgetting where I was standing, my master’s dead body and other wolves howling around. It fled the spot howling and disappeared into the darkness of the wild. Its yelping didn’t sound like its usual howl, rather it sounded as if it had fled affirming its victory over its war with me. Other two wolves were fast sinking their teeth into my master’s dead body and tearing it apart. 

Seeing the gory scene, I shrieked, “Aiyo” and pounced upon those wolves. Before I could reach them, they dragged his dead body along with them and fell into the gorge. Unable to see it more, I ran to them screaming loudly, “aiyo…aiyo”. I stumbled on something; must be the wooden plank I was dragging to carry my master laid on it. I fell down, and became unconscious before I touched the bottom of the gorge. 

When I regained my consciousness, I found a thin layer of snow covering my body. The rays of morning sun were piercing my eyes. I rose with a jolt from my long slumber. The snowflakes fell off my body like a cotton fibre. I peeked into another rift lying at some distance. I ran along its edges, reached its bottom only to see my master’s stomach completely eaten away by the wolves. His head was missing, seemed severed. The blood that streaked out was found clotted all over his body as if frozen. The piece of cloth used to bind his fingers together was found ripped off. 

The leg of a wolf avulsed along with its shoulder plate from its body was found tightly clasped in my master’s right hand. 

                                                          ***Ended***   

The star he liked most (அவனுக்கு மிகப்பிடித்தமான நட்சத்திரம்) by Ashoka Mithran

Ashokamithran

This is an English translation of “Avanukku Miga Pidiththamaana Natchathiram”, a Tamil short story written by Ashoka Mithran. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam. 

***

Sriram was twenty one years old. His B.A exams were recently over and the results were to be out in the month of June. It was April now.

Ramasamy Iyer was his neighbour. He was a clerk in a pharmaceutical company. He had five children. First three were girls, the fourth one was a four year old boy and the last one was a girl, a toddler of nine months.  

Sriram had subscribed to an English daily. The newspaper would be distributed at his house at about six every morning. Since his regular newspaper man had to attend a court case that day, he had deputed his son to distribute the newspapers. When Ramasamy Iyer got up in the morning, he saw a newspaper sticking out the window grill. He didn’t know whose newspaper it was. After washing his face and drinking coffee, he started reading that newspaper so attentively. 

A tamarind vendor was on his way selling freshly collected tamarind for an unbelievably cheap price. Ramasamy Iyer came out of the house, approached the vendor to buy a Mananku¹ of tamarind. The vendor weighed two veesai of tamarind each time. Some wrapper sort of stuff was needed to take all the tamarind balls into the house. Ramasamy Iyer was holding a newspaper in his hands without knowing to whom it belonged. When he was taking the third tamarind ball in with the newspaper, he saw Sriram speaking to someone, enquiring about the newspaper man. Ramasamy went into home swiftly, threw out the tamarind ball, wiped the newspaper with the best of his efforts, came out and asked Sriram whether the newspaper he was holding in his hands belonged to him. Sriram nearly snatched it from his hands and opened it. The front page of the newspaper carried a full scape advertisement of a movie. A blow-up of an actress, often praised as the most beautiful woman in the entire South India was printed in the advertisement. Her beautiful face was found grotty with the half-cleaned patches of six veesai tamarind smeared on it. Sriram had an insurmountable crush on that actress. He reproached Ramasamy Iyer for his depraved intention of picking up someone else's newspaper. Ramasamy Iyer told him that he didn’t know anything and he found the newspaper inserted in his window grill. Sriram mumbled something inaudibly and started reading the newspaper. The face of that actress looked awfully ugly. Sriram muttered audibly, “fool”. Ramasamy Iyer heard it and asked him “What did you say now?” 

“I said nothing about you. Fool”- Sriram repeated it again. In the next fifteen minutes that followed, Ramasamy Iyer came out with his opinions that Sriram was a fool, scoundrel, cheat and rogue. Sriram responded that he also had similar opinions about Ramasamy Iyer. That day, Ramasamy Iyer went late to his office by one hour. 

A couple of days later, Sriram saw Ramasamy Iyer carrying a bunch of neem leaves in his hands. Sriram’s mother told him that Ramasamy Iyer’s son had small pox. Sriram had planned to go to the Employment exchange, Book store and then cinema. Soon after he left his house, he wrote an anonymous letter to the Health department and dropped in the post box. 

The day was completely hectic for him. When he returned home, it wasn’t fully dark. He felt that something was not alright with him, but couldn’t understand exactly what it was. His heart cried for peace. 

When he was drinking the coffee kept in the flask in slower sips, his mother told him that someone had informed the Health Department about small pox, some persons came to Ramasamy Iyer’s house when he was not there and took his son along with them to the cholera quarantine hospital. Iyer’s wife cried inconsolably, begged everyone who came there to spare her son. But they paid little attention to her words, nor tears and left with her four year old boy. No one could do anything. ‘It is the law here’, they said. Ramasamy Iyer’s wife wept hysterically, running behind them in the street like a mad woman. 

It caused immense pain in Sriram as he didn’t expect all these turn of events.   

Soon after Ramasamy Iyer came home from his office, he ran out of his house without even removing his office dresses. Sriram saw him running towards electric train station. The quarantine hospital which was housing the patients with infectious diseases was ten miles away from the town. 

Sriram was restless. He couldn’t even relish the food provided to him. He was watching the people walking on the street standing near his house compound wall. The time was past ten. The bustles of the town began to settle down. The railway station was at half a mile distance from his house. Sriram could vividly hear the sounds of trains passing through the station, the clangs of bell in the level crossing, and the sound of wheels rolling on rail tracks. This regular affair of the town going silent every night had never attracted his attention before this. The corner house boy studying in the medical college had also put off the lights. The parallel rows of houses were looking like dark shadows in the night. As his eyes got heavy, Sriram lied down on his bed. As he was unable to sleep, he got up, and came to the street again. He was wearing only dhoti. Everywhere it was dark and everyone was asleep. He was waiting alone in the street. At last, the one which had been keeping him under persistent fear, the one for which he was totally prepared to sacrifice everything in his world just to avoid facing it, did now appear in the corner of the street. It was Ramasamy Iyer. Arm supporting her, he was bringing his wife whose her throat seemed to have gone dry due to unrelenting sobs of pain. Sriram couldn’t have seen Ramasamy Iyer’s wife not more than some odd ten times during the past two years despite being their neighbour. She was such a woman who usually preferred to stay inside her house. Sometimes, Sriram used to think she must either be a dumb or handicapped woman. A woman of that unassuming nature was now coming in front of him, all the way crying throwing away all her inborn traits of being a passive woman. He learnt that she had begged everyone holding their legs and cried hysterically like a mad woman. 

Ramasamy Iyer and his wife entered the house. Their children who were sleeping till then without knowing anything that was happening around them, woke up suddenly and started crying in unison. Their mother wept along with them. That boy was her son, only son. He was just four years old. He would never leave her even for one hour. Now he had been thrown into some unknown area on the pretext of diseases he got infected. His mother wouldn’t be able to attend his needs when he needed her the most while lying sick. When he became thirty, she wouldn’t be able to provide him a mouthful of milk. They would throw him amidst thousands of lepers and cholera patients in an unfamiliar place. Not a single soul would be available to comfort that child. He would shake in fear. No one would be there to attend his natural calls. A heavy thug with big moustache would only be present to intimidate the boy. “O! My God! What sin have I done? Why do all these happen in my life? Why do you torture my boy without showing mercy?” 

Sriram couldn’t sleep that night. The boy died after two days. Since he was infected with small pox, they took his body directly to the burial ground without showing his face to his parents. 

After one month, Sriram summoned up his courage and entered Ramasamy Iyer’s house. Ramasamy Iyer was sitting on a recline chair. Sriram told him softly, “I want to tell you something about Raju”. Ramasamy Iyer’s son’s name was Raju. 

Ramasamy Iyer looked up to him, and asked, “What?” 

“Do you know who had informed the authorities about his small pox?”

“Hell with him. It doesn’t matter now. Does it?” 

“It was I who informed” 

Ramasamy Iyer looked at him sharply for a while and called out to his wife, “Kamu” 

His wife came out of kitchen. She was looking completely changed in the past one month. 

Ramasamy Iyer, pointing at her, told him, “Tell that to her” 

With heart filled agony and guilt, Sriram felt falling on her feet and washing it with his tears. Swallowing up everything that rose from his heart, he told her, “It was I who informed about Raju”.

He looked up to her, waiting for her obscene curses, and even prayed for it. But to his dismay she appeared as if she had regained all her old equanimity. 

She didn’t speak anything. 

****Ended*** 

 

1.    Old unit of weight, one Mananku is approximately equivalent to eight Veesai , i.e appx 12 kg (One Veesai - appx 1.6 kg)