A famed, valiant man on this earth,
The one who learnt many Vedas and
shastras,
The one who wields a powerful bow in
hand
He is the bravest, Falgunan.
A loincloth was dangling like a tail from the knot on his
waist. Sengalvarayar, visibly elated, sitting on a thick wooden plank lying in
front of the house, was singing this song. He was so immersed in the song that
the dust thrown at him by a tipper truck going towards Mummudi Chozhagam in the
south failed to disturb his zeal. The cadence of the song was near perfect
despite him being under intoxication. The lock of his hair was so thickly grown
on his head that one could make a big bun out of it. Only when attending some
important functions would he consider changing his loincloth into a dhoti. Even
if he put on a shirt, it would come out of his body within seconds and lie on
his shoulder as a towel.
Until recent times, he had been a performing artiste. Buoyant
roles like valiant soldier and gallant hero did actually fit his energetic
persona—tucking the feathers of chicken into the crown, smearing charcoal
powder on the face, spiralling like a spintop to the tunes of drums, and above
all these, when he danced with a black cloth wrapped around and displayed his
molar teeth like the goddess Kali, the women under prohibitive observations,
pregnant women and women with babies, would move away from the place fearing
uninvited troubles.
Spurious boozing ruled everywhere. There ensued getting into
the psyche of women who were watching the show with the mere assessment of
their eyes and then knocking on their house doors for liaison, keeping
concubines, and illicit fornications. He was known for his sharp words, just
like the roles he used to take, his irascibility, and picking unwarranted
street fights that used to bring him disgrace with accumulated effect. Though
he stopped participating in the street plays and playing castanets all the
night without roles since the day he had been given inconsequential roles due
to his old age, his days were full of songs and merrymaking under inebriation.
He would pick scuffles wherever he stopped and fought with everyone on his way.
If Asalambu hadn’t been the wife of a wastrel like him, he would have, by now,
sold all the lands and assets that his father, Kariya Padaiyachi, had left for
him and become a beggar on the street now.
While passing the residential area, the oration and songs
sung by his father fell into Sikamani’s ears when he was on his way back home
from Mandharakuppam. The people sitting in a tea shop at a distance were all
watching this show. He grew infuriated. As he went near his house and parked
his bicycle, Sengalrao’s oratory skills took a beat and had moderated a little.
Sikamani entered the house with undiminished anger. In the portrait fixed near
the doorway, “Doctor ayya” 1 was smiling.
“Amma…Amma…” his voice resonated through the workshop and the
veranda of the house. Asalambu, who was busy blowing air in the earthen stove
at the grove in the backyard, spewed out words acerbically as if being harshly
bitten into her flesh, “Why are you now yelling like the evil spirits vying
each other on Avittam?2. No epidemic will take away
anything from here.” He stood stunned, almost forgetting what he wanted to tell
her, seeing her nearly pouncing on him.
Seeing the embers catching on fire with the air she blew, she
grew calm and asked him, “What’s the matter?”
“That chap is sitting there, fully drunk and bringing all the
disgrace. All the people around are just watching his pathos like a street
show. I just wanted to ask you to call him inside, but you are so angry as if
you would leap on me.” He was searching for something in the flower pots filled
with water kept along the wall. As he didn’t find anything, he turned to her
and asked her, “Amma, where is the bucket used for diluting lime?” Getting no
reply from his mother, he grew annoyed and turned to her. He stood astounded at
seeing her eyes well up with tears rolling down her cheeks.
“Amma…” His voice grew shaky.
“You ask me to take him into the house as he is creating a
ruckus on the street. He has just gone out after kicking everything here as I didn’t
make fresh dry fish curry and is sitting there. I am totally helpless as to how
I am going to spend my remaining days with this wastrel. This bugger gets blind
at everything if he is drunk.” She cleared her nose and flipped it out into the
stove. Then she changed her talk as if she became uneasy to have spoken all
these to him. “That bucket… I saw that in the front veranda. Go, see there.”
He stood staring at his mother. She was slightly plump. She
was sitting in front of the stove like a dark caricature drawn with the smoke
of the stove and savageries of his father. Sikamani was equally helpless that
he couldn’t admonish his father for all his wrongdoings. When the petty rebuke
was likely to grow into a full-blown scuffle with the usage of unmindful words,
it was his mother who would come in between them like a wall to stop them from
fighting. “My suffering is not days old. Since the day I gave my neck for him
to tie the thali, this has been the show. Even if you wash with the
tamarind-laced water, the innate character will never change. Will it?” It was
his mother who always protected him like this and, in a way, responsible for
him to grow into a hopeless uncouth.
He picked the bucket from the veranda and came out. “I am
the brave Duriyothana…” Sengalrao stopped the song seeing him and called
him out, “Sikamani.”
Paying no attention to his calling, Sikamani pulled back the
clip of the bicycle pillion carrier and hooked the bucket in it. He then took
out the yellow towel from his shoulder, wrapped it around his head, checked the
lime and colour powders in the bag hanging in front, and released the cycle’s
stand.
“Dei…thambi….we belong to the royal lineage that ruled once.
Tell our ‘doctor ayya’ not to be afraid. As long as this Sengalrao, the son of
Kariya Padaiyachi, is alive, no one can dare do any harm,” Sengalrao was
blabbering under inebriation.
When he was about to climb onto the bicycle, Vellachi, his
aunt who got married in the same village, living in front of his house, came
fast towards him, struggling to carry her fatty frame. Sikamani stood a second.
After seeing his sister, Sengalrao’s incessant speech came to a halt. She went
near to Sikamani as though approaching him with a complaint and said, “It has
been very long since the harvest of pearl millet was done. You may forget your
aunt living in another village. But can you afford to forget your aunt in your
village? I know you won’t like to give me the millet in bags. Leave it anyway.
If you give me ten ‘padis’ of millet, I can make some ‘puttu’ and eat it. Can’t
I? I helped to buy this land after selling my five sovereign gold chain, as I
thought it was for my elder brother. Will anyone know all these stories here?
Even if I tell this, will it have any effect on anyone now?” She sat on the
wooden plank where her brother was sitting.
It wasn’t clear how his mother could sniff at the arrival of
his aunt. His mother was standing in the main hall, without making any noise,
visibly fully annoyed at his aunt’s presence. The same age-old, ear-straining
stories of her sister-in-law. Sengalrao turned suddenly and spoke with a
precision throw of a stone even in that drunken state. “You should add the
other side of the story as well. After giving away that five sovereigns of
gold, you and your husband never failed to get tired of walking here to demand
it again and again, to stand on the doorway to get it back somehow, and then
finally could snatch ten sovereigns of gold from me at gunpoint. So don’t
repeat your blunted story of five sovereigns over and over again without adding
this stuff.”
His aunt’s face shrank at hearing these words. Sikamani also
felt uneasy. All three who were born with his father were girls. Vellachi, who
was married off in the same village, was the eldest among them. Rajamani aunt,
the second one, was married to Patrasu mama in Uthangal. That family was
wealthy. Even inadvertently addressing the last sister of his father as aunt
while speaking would cause hell to break out. “She flew the coop. You call her
aunt. Don’t you?” It was aunt Hamsala who had eloped and got married. When she
became a widow four years ago, no one from here cared to attend the funeral.
Vellachi was tasked with looking after the goats when the
family possessed a good number of goats in their earlier days. Kasi Padaiyachi,
a local shepherd, became friendly with her when they herded the goats together.
As the time passed, they fell in love with each other and were bound by an
inseparable affection. Though Kasi didn’t possess any property, he owned over a
hundred and fifty goats and calves. She was married to Kasi along with the
goats she was herding as the dowry. Her arrival proved to be his luck that he
found the number of his goats increasing. They could have bought some land but
didn’t, as they feared managing the goats would become a herculean task after
that and hence dropped the plan of doing agriculture. Their son, Manimaran, was
studying in a college in Cuddalore. It had been six months since their daughter
Amirthakalasam attained puberty. She was endowed with a good physique. If
mother and daughter were seen together, one would say they were elder and
younger sisters.
Kasi Mama, who was married to Sikamani’s sister, had no other
bad habits other than stuffing betel leaves into his mouth and spitting it out,
drawing lines on the ground. Be it rain or scorching sun, he would keep a
cloth, which is not easily distinguishable whether it was a towel or a dhoti,
on his head, offering him some amount of shade. He would stand behind his goats
with a long stalk in hand and a loincloth wrapped around his waist to cover his
vitals. During every dusk, most of the time, one would be able to see him
carrying newly born kids either in his hands or on his shoulder.
Sikamani’s aunt was relatively wealthy, with the traders from
the market consistently buying the male goats from them. Yet, she found a
happiness in getting and eating the stuff she received from her elder brother’s
hands.
“Why ten padis, aththai? I will bring your house half
a bagful tomorrow.” Sikamani said, got onto his bicycle, and pedalled it to
Arivazhagan’s house.
***Ended***
Note:
1.
Dr Ramdas, a local Tamil politician, is the founder of a political party,
Pattali Makkal Katchi.
2. In Tamil folklore, evil
spirits fight with each other on the day the star avittam appears.
