This is an English translation of “Odiya Kalgal” written by G. Nagarajan. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.
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The heat of the sun had started scorching him almost half an hour ago. Lying on his back, he tried to move his body and head to avert the heat. Turning the head wasn’t very difficult as the movement in neck didn’t pose any problem. It was only his body that went stiff as if the entire torso below his neck had been tied up tightly. A mere try of forcible turn on one side sent a piercing pain in both knees, forcing him to yell out a sharp cry in an attempt to lessen the pain.
The body lay motionless for some while - The body that had gained the strength of a diamond over a period of twenty years struggling in dust and rocks, supporting his two hands that wielded nothing other than some rudimentary tools of humankind in its fight with the nature obviously for the return of nothing. It had lost its softness, become dark and acquired a rough protective skin instead, as a small seed he seemed to have earned in the course of his struggles with life. On his arms and ribs were there bars of swelling that looked unusually odd. Streaks of clotted blood looked like ruby. His body bore some black lines here and there especially on his chest with four or five centimetres width; a dirty dhoti below his waist. If your eyes are sharp enough, you can see his knees were swollen a bit and visible above the dhoti. They were just immobile. The round shaped sun light in a size of one rupee coin fell on his hand. Though it played a truant game, the scorch on its face burnt like a copper sheet. The body moved the neck, got the eyes opened. His body shook with a big sigh; the tongue dried up; and it emitted a sharp, shrilling yell “water”. The body became him.
“Umm….ater…” the meek sound entered his ears. He turned and saw a policeman standing beyond the grills of the lock up room.
“Ayya….please some water” his body implored.
The policeman ran to the station telephone that gave out a long ring, and was glued to it for some time. He, then, lit a beedi and sat on a chair.
“Ayya, please give me some water. Do you want me to die without water?” he pleaded.
“You…motherfucker!” shouted the policeman, threw out the beedi, and jumped off the chair swinging his baton in circle.
“Three of us would have been sacked today. Who could catch you if it was late even by half an hour? Market gets busy today. You don’t enjoy the privilege of a regular briber to get us lenient today. Do you?”
A very pricking fact indeed. He was a prisoner, a prisoner who tried to escape. He fought with the powers regulating the law and order. This was the result of not having enough freedom. He forgot his dried-up tongue. Yet, his memory didn’t fail him. It was an eccentric peril that happened between nine and ten in the morning. They took him to the hospital that night, obtained a medical certificate and brought him back to the lock-up. He would have got up at half past eight in the morning and understood that he had been kept one among the ten or twelve prisoners in a corridor behind the police station. Others had got up much earlier. Seven or eight policemen were busy walking across in the police station.
Those who were in the police station were going out, and some new policemen were coming in, changed their dresses, puffed cigarettes, had some light hearted fun with others, and sometimes were critical of something, talking and laughing aloud. All the prisoners who were around him were either talking among themselves or with people who came from outside or with police officials. Sometimes they were found arguing with them too. The policemen and prisoners were busy brushing their teeth, washing it off, cleaning their mouths after eating the snacks standing aside so unconcerned with the big tub near the corridor which was replete with water and the water flowing out of pipes. He grew jealous at seeing them. But his jealousy was the result of inebriation he hadn’t yet got over. He wasn’t gifted with patience. It didn’t rather appear to be an essential character he must possess.
His curled body that lay under a roof in the corridor suddenly got up, sat and he paced to the spot as if attempting to separate the police station from the corridor. The joyous city outside was in its usual mirth. He crossed the doorway and stepped into the police station. A boy carrying an empty tea glass holder brushed against him and raced past the police station. He just followed the footsteps of the boy. Neither he nor the boy was stopped by anyone. He just escaped from the B-4 police station. Like an arrow shot through the air without turning to either side, he sped away, walked fast that bore a near-resemblance of running, completely indifferent to the sounds made around which reminded him of his furtive escape with the stolen paddy grains tied in his waist pouch when he was a small boy.
Then? A hand grasped him from behind as he ran fast, then had a head on collision with a truck, was then caught, kicked, tied tightly, brought to the police station, and beaten to pulp with batons, belts and shoes. Finally, while lying on his back, he was hit on his knees with batons by two policemen who would have lost their jobs had he not been caught. All these thoughts stood outside the boundary of his memory, and seemed to be struggling to find a way to get into it.
He just felt to speak with someone.
“Ayya, please give me some water.” He reiterated his appeal once again.
“You need water!” the police man who was on duty went out, without overtly bothered about the trouble of going out, ran to the corridor with all his enthusiasm, filled a bucket with water and threw it on his face and body. Though the splash of water caused a burning sensation at some places on his body, water seemed soothing for him.
“Hello yettaiya! (Colloquial term for Head constable), who do you bathe now?” a young police man came in asking the former.
“The one who escaped in the morning. It’s for him”
“Is it that mother….cker?” the young police man stared at the prisoner intently and took off his belt. “Yettaiya, open the lock-up for a minute” he spoke as if giving an order.
“Don’t take trouble Santhanam, they have almost shredded him. He is lying like a corpse and yelling out for water”
“Mother…cker! He would have left three families stand on the street by now. Please open the lock-up yettaiaya”
Yettaiya gave him the lock-up key. The prisoner was watching the enactment of that drama without flinching a move. His face just turned towards the opened door. That was it all, a flash of whip with the leather belt hit his eyes. A sense of alertness ran high in the prisoner. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth lightly, and lay motionless. His knees developed a sudden unbearable pain. He couldn’t either lift or turn his hands. He could only move his left hand of which the wrist hadn’t yet been broken. His face and shoulder blades were repeatedly smacked. Spittle on his face. Nothing of it had any impact on him. He didn’t move an inch. Eventually, his knees were targeted with rash beatings. He gave out a helpless yell, “aiyo…aiyo”. Tears came out, sneaked through his closed fists covering his face. The young police man fixed his belt on his waist, visibly satisfied with his efforts of showing the prisoner a hell.
The prisoner wasn’t aware that there was one more policemen yet to come. Out of three who would have lost their jobs, only two had paid him their visits. Third one was two-not-six, aged about forty and wouldn’t get involved in any petty scuffles with others. As he had possessed a qualified, graded electrician certificate, Grade A or B, he was earning some extra income through legal means. He never allowed bribery in his dealings. But at the same time he wasn’t contemptuous of people who had bribing as their ethical way of life, nor betrayed them. He would never open his mouth to slander others. Without any ‘black mark’ on his career, he could complete his twenty years of service. Today, he had the test of his life.
Beatings, kicks, disgrace, inebriation that hadn’t yet died down, a sort of unsullied peace lying under all these and a smugness of having borne all these tortures- all these seemed to have induced sleep in the prisoner. He was blissfully unaware of the lock-up door being opened, entry of two-not-six into the cell, his close examination from head to toe, and his mild kick with legs. Two-not-six bent down, arched lower, examined the prisoner’s motionless body closely and pulled the prisoner’s jaw. The body moved straight without showing any signs of movement in it. Two-not-six glanced at the body fixedly as if the body and the direction it was lying had some untold importance. He, then, silently went around the body once, diligently surveyed its various parts and then resumed his works.
The prisoner’s body couldn’t shield itself from the teasing of innate feelings and brutish attacks for long. Very soon, it went stiff with the overwhelming fear. Every part of it shivered separately. Every nook of the body had felt the impact of vicious whacks that had made his nerves go frail and stopped them functioning at its commands. Crackles devoured the muscles; a sheer shock almost akin to heart jumping out like a ball with the poisonous bites of a scorpion; ears that got blocked; the pulls of dermis preventing the eyes from opening; a meek moan from the bottom of throat pit that came with froth seeking water- Two-not-six didn’t bother to watch all these. He just switched off the lights. Two-not-six was immensely happy that his electrical knowledge which would otherwise have helped him earn a good amount of money during off-duty hours honourably, and solve electrical problems in police stations to earn a very good reputation, had now helped him to avenge a prisoner who would have caused an irreparable damage in his career with his attempt to escape.
***End***
