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| Rajendra Cholan |
This is an English translation of “Putril Uraiyum Paambugal”, a Tamil short story written by Rajendra Cholan. This is 42ndEnglish Translation in Tamil Classic short story series.
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Sitting with her legs folded, when Vanamayilu was busy
segregating, and beating the bundles of corn stover flat that she had collected
near the fence of the grove to pile them up neatly for using them as fuel in
the kitchen, she saw the young man who was staying the in the house opposite, and
mumbled. ‘Look at his eyes…looking like eggs of chicken, ogling at me
without even batting his eye lids. He couldn’t have been born with sisters.
Could he have?’
“Look at him. Do you know how long he has been
goggling at me like this?”
Kanthasamy, her husband, who was feeding the fodder
mixed in water kept in a trough to the cattle by stirring it with his hands,
did not pay attention to her rants.
“Look at that bloke…He doesn’t even move a bit…Hell
with him and his look. Sitting like Aiyyanar statue…”
He scooped out a handful of husk from the trough, holding
it on his palm and was feeding the cattle.
“This guy will learn a lesson if only he gets beaten
elsewhere. Till then let him ogle like this. If not anyone now, someone in near
future will definitely take his eye balls out. I don’t know I get terribly
uneasy when a man stares at me. I am not such a woman who debauches blatantly
right in front of her husband. It is such a lowly birth which deserves slaps
with slippers. Isn’t it?” she nudged her jaws against her shoulder in contempt.
She looked at the opposite house sternly, threw a frowning stare at her husband
and pulled her sari to cover her breasts which were already fully covered.
“Listen to me…yaa…that man is staring like this
piercingly giving a damn that you are sitting here. If you don’t chastise him now, you don’t know
what he would do after this. It seems he won’t even hesitate to hold my hands
to pull towards him. Will he dare to do that? I will beat him black and blue
with the broom. Won’t I?”
He tethered one of the bulls standing on his right to
a peg, and brought the bull standing on his left.
“I have been telling you something, seeking your
attention. But you keep feeding them as if you are destined only to do that.
Don’t you? If you throw back a stare at him as if to ask that idiot why he was
looking this way, he will run away from there, for sure. Won’t he? But you
prefer sitting idly rather than rebuking him. Don’t you?”
He kept on stirring the fodder in the trough, and feeding
the cattle.
“Does he think of me that I am a cow on heat? See him
there…still standing without even moving an inch aside. If he has guts, let him
come to me. Only then he will understand who I am. Actually my reputation of
not getting into any brawl won’t be any help in this case. I won’t leave such
men just like that. I will pour cow dung water on his head and spit on his face.
Won’t I?”
He was breaking the soft corn stover, without showing
any visible interest.
“I think that chap is thinking so high of himself. As
he is working in government service, he thinks that I will run to him showing all
my teeth. He is not aware that he would get beaten with the winnow.”
He came inside the house carrying as much corn stover
as his hands could hold, carrying them against his body.
“You are also existing here, shamelessly, as a man.
Aren’t you? That man is staring at me as if he was standing there after he had
swallowed a crow bar. But you seem dumb struck that you don’t like to question
him why he is doing that. He won’t swallow you by mixing you with jaggery. Will
he? If it was some other man, he wouldn’t be quiet like you?”
She kept the bundles near the stove, scrubbed her
cloths once, and made sure that no dust was sticking to her saree, clock on
breasts and blouse.
“Since it was me, the matter has ended up with this.
If it had been any other woman, she wouldn’t have remained quiet like me for
this long. She would have jumped out of
this entrance long ago. But man like you will never understand my importance”
She came out, sat again with her legs folded and started breaking the stover
again.
“Look over there…he is just showing me that he is still
standing there. It seems that he is not going to move not even an inch here and
there from that spot”
Her husband tethered the bull, went to the haystack
and started collecting hay.
“Doesn’t he have any relatives? He has been all alone
ever since he had come here. I haven’t seen him visiting his native place” she
told him.
Her husband’s concentration was still on the haystack.
“If he had had relatives, they would have definitely
advised and kept him disciplined. He wouldn’t have ogled like this. It appears
that his relatives had let him loose like the wandering bull of Perumal temple.
Useless ass!”, she turned her neck with a contemptuous jolt.
“If he could stare at a woman who did nothing other
than minding her own business at home, what would he do with women who are roaming
carefree out there? Had I been like them, what else all he could have done with
me? Chee…only pus flows in his body…not blood”. With a contortion in her face,
she pouted her lips, and threw away the bundles of corn stover on the floor.
He bundled up the hay he collected, brought it to the
bulls and shook it out in front of them.
“Ever since he came here, Pangajam is nowhere to be
seen. When I go to meet her, she is not ready to come out of the house to speak
to me. Even if she comes out, hardly she stays up unlike earlier just to speak
a couple of words comfortably. She swiftly disappears like a crow as if she has
forgotten something. Have you ever noticed all these? Both are in the same
building and only Goddess Kaliyammal knows what is going on…”
After shaking out the hay, he lifted the tilted bamboo
fence and fastened it straight.
“Who’s afraid of Gods these days? Everyone enjoys
their time as long they are alive, giving a damn to what others in the village say
about them. Once a girl attains puberty, no girl will be allowed to step out of
the door in my home. As I was brought up that way, I stand clean. I am not like
others. Oh…good heaven…how could they go astray, betraying their Thali ?”
She feigned a shudder with an expression of contempt,
animating the parts of her body.
“How dare they could play around without being
questioned?”
When she was bringing another bundle of corn stover,
she saw through the gap of doors that someone was standing on the street and
calling them out. Her happiness knew no bounds.
“Someone has some there. Please go and see.” She told
him.
“Who’s that?”, he just turned his neck, asked her.
“What sort of a man are you? How do I know who he is?
I don’t know everyone in this village. Do I? I never stepped out of the door of
this house since the day you brought me here after our marriage. Even during the
rare times I walk on the street on account of going somewhere, I used to feel
awful that my body gets rotten. Yet, you have the nerves to ask me this
question without any qualms. Don’t you?”
She hid along the wall as if the garden would be
visible to the street through the slit of street door.
“Go and see who it is. Someone is calling out”
He stopped fastening the fence, and got up. She also
kept the bundle in the kitchen and followed him. Near the door, she hid her
body behind it, stood there showing up only her face.
“Please come in…come in... Isn’t it you? Please have a
seat, he told the visitor.
The fair complexioned visitor with white shirt sat down on the veranda.
“You are aware that we once discussed a matter in
the village panjayat related to laying of road to Koralur. Now
I am thinking of submitting an affirmation after obtaining signatures of
concurrence from the concerned. Next week the minister is visiting
Kooteripattu” he spoke a little about it.
She noticed his fair, spotlessly clean fingers
taking out a pen and white paper kept folded in his pocket. Her husband was
wiping his hands dried with husk and chaffy hay, on his loin cloth for
putting his signature.
“You should have cleaned your hands in advance.
Shouldn’t you?” at once the visitor lifted his head to see who spoke it, she
pulled her head inside.
“Can you please ask someone to bring water…to
drink?”
“Heii…bring him some water for quenching his
thirst”
She moved away from the door and washed the bronze
mug, which she had already cleaned in the morning, with some tamarind swiftly
and poured water from the pot into it. She searched for the single ‘ever-silver’
tumbler she bought in the third month, brought it with her and stood near the
door.
“Come here…come inside” she called out to her
husband.
“Give it to him”
“I told you to come inside”
She twisted her body in all possible angles. With
her body convoluted with feigned body movements she was standing near the
door like an innocent soul.
Kanthasamy received the jug from her, gave it to
the visitor.
“The water is from the well and likely to be a bit
salty”, she told standing behind the door as if she was talking in the air. The
visitor left after drinking the water.
“What sort of a man are you? Don’t you know that I
would be uneasy if you ask me to bring water in front an unknown man? I can’t
do that. Can I? Even now my body sends out chillness into me at the very
thought of it. I am still unable to come out of the shock. I was profusely
sweating. Do you know that?”
She came to the grove and sat beside the corn stover.
“The moment you asked me, I felt that my entire
birth had come to point of nothing. I was confused as to what this fellow had
had in his mind to ask me like that. I was totally clueless why you had asked
me to do that. Now tell me…what did you have in your mind when you had told me
to do that? You just tested me whether I would bring it or not. Didn’t
you?”
He kept on fastening the bamboo fence which he had left
half way.
“The soles of my legs felt so uneasy even to stand
near the door. But you…an ignoramus…have asked such a good woman to step out of
the door to give water to an unknown man. It is not justifiable anyway. Is it?
You will be asking me to do such things in future too. Won’t you?”
She cleaned up the trashes lying there after
breaking the remaining corn stover with required measurements.
“Some women are so adept at speaking pleasingly
with unknown men. Aren’t they? That too without giving any second thought…But
when I speak, I feel some millipedes are crawling on my skin. My eyes
won’t be at ease even while raising my head to have a glance of a stranger
other than my husband.”
She shook her body once, and emitted an expression
of contempt.
He halted fastening the bamboo fence, came to the
street and was searching for the Palmyra tree fibers he had kept under
the columns of the house.
She kept the broom aside, came out of the house,
and stood there without any purpose. Squinting her eyes, standing without any
specific task, she was gazing absorbedly at the empty house opposite.
That egg eyed man appeared again. Buttressing her
cheeks with her hands, burying her jaws into her palms, she was standing with
her eyes wide open. As her face gleamed with an expression of amazement, she
was standing there as if she was to act in some pantomime.
At her back, Kanthasamy came with a stack of
Palmyra fibers.
“Look at the chap…he has come again and staring at
me like earlier. Why shouldn’t I burn his eyes with a brand?”
“Let him be so…. You get inside …..and stop your
rants….and those empty harangues….” He sat down again to fasten the bamboo
fence. ‘Hopeless woman…trying in every effort to show her as if she is still a chaste one,’ he muttered.
***
Translated from the Tamil by Saravanan. K
Source: A Tamil short story written by Rajendra Cholan.
