This is an English Translation of “En Muthal Ankila Kaditham”, a short story written by Charu Nivedita. Translated from Tamil by K.Saravanan. To read the Tamil version of this story click here. This is 23rdEnglish Translation in the Classic Tamil Short stories Series in this blog. |
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| Charu Nivedita |
My rendezvous with Barberra was absolutely an accidental one. To be more precise, all meetings are accidental anyway. Aren’t they? During a theatre festival held in Madurai a year ago, it so happened that I had to participate in it upon the invitation of my friend, Manikkam as he sought my assistance in the direction of his play which was set for a performance art in the festival. I met Barberra in that festival. She was an American lady, aged about twenty or twenty-five years, who could converse in Tamil. I used to get specifically annoyed with such Americans who come to Tamil Nadu, particularly to participate in such art festivals. There is a reason behind it- they would associate themselves with a particular troupe. If it was related to literature, it would be Sangam Literature or at the most, it would be Bhakthi literature. If it pertained to modern literature, no one would spill a word as if it was a taboo. As I thought Barberra could be one among those persons in that coterie, I didn’t give much attention to her. Due to this unreasonable prejudice against her, I didn’t talk to her anything specifically about the play set to give performance on the last day of the festival. Since the performance of all plays in the festival was poor in taste (all were modern plays), Barberra didn’t attend the festival on the last day.
As our play was sexually explicit in some of its portrayal, the stage witnessed a huge uproar with some lumpen elements causing ruckus, branding our play as pornography. Adding fuel to it, one character in the play was named after a prominent politician in Madurai. His followers jumped into the scene and ransacked the stage. It was a different matter that I and Manikkam rebuked each other later for not being careful in assessing those unwarranted events in advance. After this incident, I received a letter from Manikkam. With an apprehension that he might have written about his forthcoming play, I opened it. To my dismay, he had written about Barberra in the letter. He mentioned that she had met him and asked about the brawl in the festival with great concern. Even that candid concern didn’t get me impressed about her at that time. In the letters that he wrote subsequently, he had mentioned that he had been meeting Barberra frequently. In one of his visits to Chennai after a month, Manikkam asked me to accompany him to meet Barberra. We, all nine-including his friends and my daughter Reshma- went to Barberra’s home to meet her.
I understood that Barberra was a scholar in the University of Chicago and had come to Tamil Nadu to conduct a research on Sex workers. She had completed two years of research in Madurai and one year in Chennai respectively, and she would return to the U.S in a month (she pronounced U.S as Yues). She could speak Tamil effectively. Despite developing this proximity, I couldn’t talk much with her in that meeting as she was cooking dinner for ten persons. She was making Sambar and little gourd as side dish. We had brought little gourd along with us while coming to meet her. We were getting ready to leave the next morning after spending that night at Barberra ’s home. She insisted “Please have your breakfast and then leave. You guys didn’t have your full dinner yesterday night”. She left along with Manikkam in his scooter, holding three big sized Tiffin Carrier in her hands. She came back with idlies, Sambar, vadai, and Chatni sufficient for forty persons to have a sumptuous breakfast. As we couldn’t eat all the food stuff, a huge chunk of food stuff remained unused. Barberra collected the remaining food stuff, left by the scooter again. To my question where she was going, she replied that she was going to distribute them in some orphanage home. While leaving, she told, “Come again. We can talk leisurely”. I dialed her number after a week. She spoke as if she had known me for a long time. I met her on that day again along with my daughter, Reshma. We had a night long conversation.
“We should have met long ago. Shouldn’t we?” she asked. She told me that she had been staying in Chennai for the last two years and would visit Madurai twice in a month. After that meeting, we started meeting once in two days. Barberra asked hundreds of questions-Is oral sex very uncommon in India? All the sex workers who I had met, often, complain that most of their customers insist them to perform fellatio- many such questions and many such discussions. As the day of her departure neared our friendship grew thicker. I gave her one of my novels and my friend’s novel. Immediately after seeing its cover, Barberra got excited, jumped.
“One of your friends used to insist me often to read your novels” She told.
“Who was that? Was it Manikkam?” I asked her.
“No…someone called Kumar.”
I had a friend namely Kumar.
“Yes. Kumar is also my friend. Manikkam hasn’t said to you anything about my novels. Has he?” (We had inched closer to address each other in singular) “If I had met you a year ago, I would have tied your hands and legs, bundled you up and taken to Pondicherry”
I was yet to understand what I meant by these two propositions.
First-why should I tie her hands and legs, bundle her up? Second, why did I prefer Pondicherry?
In my innocuous effort to justify my words, I told her, “You know…My close friend Ramesh is in Pondicherry. If I ask you to come there, you might give some lame excuses. That’s why…”
“It is sad that your understanding about me is only at that level. Isn’t it? Even though I live in America, I am also an orphan like you. As citizens ranging from the President of America to ordinary person living at the bottom of social strata talk about non-conformist ideology, persons like me stand isolated.”
“Even in our country, the conceptual understanding of non-conformist ideology is in its incipient stage. In one of the meetings on caste annihilation held recently, some of my friends feasted on beef and announced that it was their symbolic gesture of Non-Conformist ideology.”. On hearing this, Barberra laughed her heart out. After a while, she asked, in a rather serious tone, “What’s the relation between non-conformist ideology and beef eating? They can eat dog meat or cat meat. Can’t they? I have read about a nomadic group in your country eating cats and crows. Who are they? I forgot their name.” She thought for a while. Then told, “Kuravas. Yes. They are Kuravas. When we were talking about dog meat, I remember an incident. Just like the way you prefer eating rice, we prefer eating beef. Just like the way we eat beef, Vietnamese eat dog meat. During my visit to Vietnam once, one of my Vietnamese friends called me for a dinner at her home. She told me that she was going to surprise me with the preparation of a special Vietnamese delicacy. I asked her eagerly what it was. She took me to her kitchen and showed something inside the refrigerator. I screamed as if I had seen some ghost. Yes…it was a ghost anyway. The head of a ghost was kept inside the fridge! It was the head of a dog, totally skinned, rounded eyes staring at me scarily. She told that dog’s head was a delicacy in their country. But you are boasting that eating beef is non-conformist. Aren’t you?”
I too felt that she was correct. As I and Ramesh thought of taking beer before having meals in the meeting, we couldn’t have sufficient meals as we had ended up the last ones. As it was a last line of the feast, we couldn’t even find a piece of meat in the stew. But only when we went out to throw away the left over food in the dust bin, we could understand how serious my friends were in their non-conformist views -Meat pieces were found scattered around the dust bin. They bought six kilograms of beef and had thrown out four kilograms of it into the dust bin!
‘It is just atrocious’ I shouted at Ramesh. He reasoned out ‘beef eating would take time and one can’t develop the habit of eating beef all of a sudden. It will happen gradually’.
‘Before these fellows get accustomed with beef eating, all the cattle in our country will vanish’ I told him.
I narrated the above incident to Barberra as well.
She remained silent for a while, kept thinking.
“I guess, being a vegetarian in your country is way more non-conformist than eating beef. In one summit held in Rio recently, some developed countries, particularly the U.S, have complained that the cattle in India must be wiped out since their dung is the most important reason for the depletion of Ozone Layer. There is a reason behind this propaganda- those countries need hide. They export the hide of cattle at several hundred times higher price than the total cost of its flesh. They take the hide and sell the meat to you guys! You all eat that meat thrown at you, and yell it is non-conformist. It sounds funny. Doesn’t it? Barberra told.
Barberra ’s views were really convincing. Beef had become a part of middle-class food. It has been five years since beef was being brought along with hot idlies in the push carts in almost every street of Mylapore, Anna Nagar, Triplicane and other places from 8’O clock till the mid night movie show.
When I was working in Vellore, there were days I used to get terribly confused with what was written in the boards kept at beef stalls- it was written ‘Beep Briyani’ in Tamil. Not having courage to ask anyone about it, I was perennially confused. Only when I saw the boards ‘Beef Briyani’ kept in push carts after I came to Chennai, I could understand what it was. I thought the people in Vellore were afraid of arms 1. Weren’t they?It seemed that due to their fear for arms (Ayutham)they removed it from its spelling1. Now, beef had become extremely popular in every nook and corner of Tamil Nadu both with and without Ayutham.In Pondicherry, all those three push carts selling beef near the Gandhi Statue on the beach could manage nothing less than Rs 3000.00 daily per cart. A plate full of roasted beef was sold at Rs 7. It was way back nearly four or five years ago. One person could easily eat minimum four plates. I explained everything in detail to Barberra .
“I think, as cattle is something not repugnant to you all, you could easily accept it as part of your food. But at the same time, I am very certain that you would never be able to accept pork as your food at any point of time. Right?” She told.
“Yes…you may be correct”
“Just like an oil well which is important for an Arabian, we too had cows and Moringa tree as an inherent part of our life long ago. When the Moringa tree was on the verge of extinction, a cine actor came for its rescue. We don’t know who would come to rescue these cows. It’s alright. Come let’s have tea”- she prepared tea for both of us, brought it to me. After a heavy silence, she started speaking.
“We should have met long ago. I was struggling to find a companion to talk for the past one year” she told.
“Why? You don’t have friends here? Do you?”
“To whom should I talk? This seems to be a sex starved society. I am afraid of even showing off my hands outside. I beg you not to get angry, Charu. Here no one knows how to talk to me by looking into my eyes. Every one stares at my breast while talking. Having decided to get out of this place, when I was hurrying up for my earliest departure, I happened to meet you. Now, my heart says that I shouldn’t go. But, you know everything is over. I can’t afford postponing it further”. I could feel her shiver in her hands that were holding my hands tightly. I was scolding Manikkam in my mind for portraying her in different light for the last one year.
“Do cancel everything. Stay here for ever, Barbell” I told her.
“No one has ever called me Barbell” she smiled at me, continued.
“It’s impossible Charu. I can have a decent life only if I could complete this Ph.D. It is already too late. If I had met you a year ago, I would have been able to plan my life accordingly. It’s alright. If you don’t mind, can I ask you one thing? You keep on entreating me as your friend. Aren’t you rolling flowers on my ears…?” 2. Before she could finish her sentence, I intervened, “You know this expression “rolling flowers on one’s ears. Do you?”
“Yes I know. I have to thank my professor for it” (What she had meant by ‘professor’ was A.K. Ramanujan who died recently. Barberra had learnt Tamil from A.K Ramanujan). Okay. Let me come to the point I was trying to tell you. Let me take Reshma along with me”
“What! What are you saying?” It was true that Reshma would be very happy with Barberra. But, it was utterly unimaginable for me to think of getting separated from Reshma when she was just four years old. “No…Barbell…It is just impossible” I told her.
A long, heavy silence followed it. I was lying on the grass bed, holding my head with both of my hands, Barberra smiled at me. “Why are you smiling?” I asked her.
“I know that this will be your reply.” She told.
“You don’t understand Barbell. Do you? This parting is dreadfully torturous, unbearably painful for me. If I get separated from Reshma at this juncture, I will become an orphan, Barbell” I explained.
“Okeiii…forget it”. I was fascinated with her unique ‘okeiii’. American way of telling okay! I started our conversation from where she had started just a while ago.
I told her about a cine actress, a dream girl of our boys here and told, “You are also looking like that actress. That could be the reason why they ogle at you like that. I do accept that this country is a sex starved one. But, there is an inevitable problem lying beneath it as well. As far as sex is concerned, it is not a tabooed subject in America. But remember, even in such an open society, pornography is still a big business. Isn’t it” I asked her.
“I am unable to reply to this question immediately. Let me write about it after giving some deep thought into it” When she uttered this sentence, an unknown fear overwhelmed me- If I needed to write a letter to Barberra, it must be in English. Even though she was very much comfortable with spoken Tamil, she didn’t know how to write or read letters fluently. I didn’t know anything in English other than writing a casual leave application in the office. I told her about my predicaments. “I am least bothered about your problems. I need your letters. That’s it” she told. “Each and every day, I grow suspicious whether I will be able to go to my place or not” she stopped abruptly, thought for a while and then continued, “No…I must go”
She turned her face away from me, lay on the bed on her stomach, and buried her face in it. She couldn’t speak anything. I could see she was weeping inconsolably. “No…Barbell..no…” I leaned against her back. After a long silence, she spoke in an ineffectual tone, “Dear Charu, it is the pain of person who is able to just wave his hands only at a person, with whom he had shared quarter of a century of close friendship, left without any traces, and found him again after ten years on a railway platform while he is travelling in a moving train. It is nothing less than a torture, Charu. It is simply unbearable for me” Barberra told.
She had just one week for her departure. It was a holiday. I called her at about ten in the morning.
“Are you coming? Please come immediately. I want to meet you. When are you coming? I need to leave at twelve” she told.
“I am coming. I will meet you at about twelve” I told her.
“Have you finished your breakfast?” she asked. Actually I had had a glass of Bermuda grass juice only in the morning. I was very hungry. Yet I told her, “Yes...I had”. No person other than Ramesh has ever asked me whether I had had my food, I thought. When I thought about my relationship with Barberra, my heart beats seemed to have got awry. ‘What kind of a relationship is this, that too, at the age of forty? When did I have this deep attachment with lady who had already been set to leave for the U.S in a week? It was almost two hours journey from Anna Nagar to Besant Nagar where Barberra was staying. I got down at Adaiyar Depot, got a bag full of snacks from Iyangar Bakery in the opposite side, arranged an auto rickshaw and when I reached Barberra’s house, it was 12.45. I was explaining the travails of the journey from Anna Nagar to Besant Nagar. She held her head with hands, sat, rued, “O! My God! I have troubled my Charu unduly every time he came here to meet me. Haven’t I?” She was repeating it again and again regrettably. “As I have to meet those sex workers at two, we can talk only for two hours. Just to have a conversation for two hours, you are travelling for four hours. Aren’t you?” she told, regretting. “It’s okay. If then, I will come, meet you tomorrow evening so that we can talk all through the night. I will bring Reshma also along with me” I told her.
The meeting was fixed. When I went there next day evening, Barbaerra was sitting on the grass spread outside her home, with a book in her hand, reading it. I sat beside her. She looked at me, told, “Five more days to go”
“Why don’t you talk anything else, Barbell? I could feel that she looked childlike just as Reshma. I went inside, prepared tea for all three of us. After drinking tea, Reshma went inside to watch television. I looked at my watch reflexively. It was eight. “Okay Barbell…Reshma must feel hungry. All of us can go to some restaurant” I suggested. Babberra remained silent. Suddenly, she became frantic, held my shoulders, shook it violently and yelled, “Why did you meet me? Please go away…Please. Don’t stay here tonight” she kissed my eyes unexpectedly, kneeled down, lay flat with her head down. I went near to her, tried assuaging her, “See Barbell…if my stay tonight here is the issue, you and Reshma can go upstairs to sleep. Let’s avoid talking. I will sleep downstairs. We can discuss other things in the morning” I told her. But she insisted again, “Try to understand Charu. Please don’t stay here tonight. Please…” she begged.
Her entire body was shaking. I tried touching her shoulders, telling nothing. She said, “Don’t Charu…Please don’t…I beg you…” she didn’t turn her head. I got up swiftly, went inside, called Resham out. Once she understood that we were about to leave, Reshma started crying violently. She was stubborn, not ready to put on her shoes. I picked up the shoes, put them into a bag, and lifted her in my arms, left from there. After that, I didn’t meet Barberra for the next two days, not even telephoned her. However, I couldn’t remain so on the third day. I was so restless that my head would break into pieces. Felt feverish from inside! Two more days were to go for her to leave. I dialled her. Once she understood that it was me, she burst out, “If you hadn’t called me today, I would have come to your place and stabbed you to death. Come immediately”.
I went to her home. She was lying on the bed, looking very weak.
Stunned at seeing her condition, I went near to her, tried to touch her forehead with my hand. Suddenly, I pulled my hand back, remembering something. “Don’t be silly… Man!” she admonished me, took my hands into hers and placed it on her forehead and neck. “Severe fever for two days. Leave it aside. You are working in office or involved in some underground works. Aren’t you? My hands were almost broken as I tried dialling your number repeatedly in this serious condition without being able to even get up. If Meenakshi hadn’t been around here, I don’t know what would have happened to me” she told.
“Being an American woman, you won’t be able to understand how a government office functions here. I don’t have time to explain it to you either. Now, how is your health? Tell me that first” I asked her. “Now I am alright. Leave it aside. That day, how did you manage going to your home? Only after you left from here, I was worried whether you got bus or not. I am really sorry Charu. You must forgive me. That day, I was not in my senses. If you had delayed even by a minute, it would have been impossible for me to leave for the U.S. I must thank you for that. That said, I would dare say you are such a stone hearted man. Despite knowing that I am leaving in a couple of days, you remained stubborn, not calling me for two days. Didn’t you?” she broke down.
Post script: Now, Barberra was just a dream. That, one month of friendship with her remained as a dream. The grass spread at her home in Besant Nagar was just a dream. He endearing words ‘Have you had your food’ were just a dream. The shivering of her hands while holding my hands was just a dream. Her words amidst inconsolable sobbing, ‘Don’t touch me…get away from me’ were just a dream. Now, I am mustering up all my dreams into a reality and writing a letter to Barberra.
*** End ***
Note:
1. In Tamil, a unique special character ‘ஃ’ is called Ayutham. Literal meaning of Ayutham is arms/ weapon as it looks like nails in a shield of a warrior. ‘Ayutha eluthu’ was used to produce sounds like ‘F’ which was not originally present in Tamil.
Tamil Scholar Pa . Ve . Manickanaar [ 1871 - 1931 ] proposed the use of ‘ Ayutha eluthu ‘ to produce such sounds.
Earlier
‘ Coffee ‘ was pronounced and written as ‘ kaa'p'i
‘ Fan ‘ was pronounced and written as ‘p’an
காபி- காஃபி
பேன்- ஃபேன்
ஃ+ பbecame ‘F’ , which is commonly used nowadays. Ayutha eluthu is used in Tamil in the above context because of the contribution of Manickanar.
2. Tamil idiomatic expression- meaning is cheating someone, playing smart with someone.
Translated from Tamil by K Saravanan.
Source: “En Muthal Ankila Kaditham” short story written by Charu Nivedita. (www.valaitamil.com)
