Original: Ganga Snanam (கங்கா ஸ்நானம்)
In English: Saravanan Karmegam
****
Chinna Swamy was
standing on the banks of the river Ganga watching it flow swirling and eddying.
The banks looked as high as three quarters of a coconut tree. The blue light
coming from a nearby storied house was falling on the water dimly. The thoughts
oscillated between water and his home, rendering him almost oblivious of either
Ganga or Kashi.
His wife asked him
something.
“….”
“Listen here”
“Mmm”
“The width seems
double of the Cauvery River in Kumbakonam. Doesn’t it?”
“Mmm…it looks
so”
He felt someone
laugh. His back shuddered once with a deep chill.
“You are still
unable to forget that. Aren’t you?” she glanced at his face as she was washing
her legs in water.
“Mmm”
“You haven’t
bathed yet. How long more would I stand here?”
He climbed down
the steps further into water”. “It’s said our Karma would never leave us even
in Kashi. Now you see… that scoundrel is standing right in front of me”
“Let him stand…let
him. He must have bathed in Ganga yesterday. My mother Ganga would have washed
all his sins away. Why should we remember all those things now? You please take
bath now” she said, getting into the river, chanted, “O! Mother! My Mother
Ganga!” and bathed with her heart full of happiness.
“It is easy said
not to remember anything. Now, in a short while I have to face him. What if I
am destined to share some words with him? A very thought of it gets me
astounded. It is that remaining thousand rupees apart from the three thousand
rupees have brought us here. Right? Would we have dared visit this place if it
had been only for the sake of my sister? Or would that have been so destined
for him to visit here before us? What is god doing in this? He is just playing
with my destiny?”
“I too don’t
understand all these that clear. But we can think of it after taking bath. We
can inform our landlord, and leave from there with our luggage to find out some
other place to stay. You please first take bath. Mother Ganga would offer us
some solution”
A boat went past
them with its steady noise of rowing.
Chinna Swamy again
felt someone laugh. He too felt laughing. He stepped into the water, got into
it and bathed fully.
“Gosh…the water is
as chill as crystals” he scooped a handful of water and gently dropped it
through his fingers. His body shuddered once. The tenderness of water coupled
with the weird circumstances that tend to mock at his situation. Would anyone
ever believe this coincidence?
**
The train reached
Kashi at about eight in the night. Our travails with the crowds in the train,
layers of coals, dust, dirt of three days, reek of old butter from the
co-passengers who boarded the train at Nagpur, and rushing crowds in
louse-ridden shabby shirts and Veshti- all got disappeared the moment we set
our feet in Kashi and an inexplicable peace and an innate desire to see the
River Ganga overwhelmed our hearts. A man from a Tamil priest who settled in
Kashi a few generations ago, had come there to receive us.
As we sat down
keeping our luggage in the house, the owner came to me, asked, “Where do you
hail from?”
“Savukka Natham”
“From Thanjavur
district?”
“Yes”
“We are also from
Thanjavur district. But we own nothing there now. We had long become the men of
this city, Kashi since the day my grand-father settled here.”
He went to
Vaitheeswaran Temple last year to have his second child shave off his hair.
“You went there
from Kashi?”
“Why not? Even if
you go to the seven heavens, we can’t get rid of our family deity. Can we?
Kashi is a place where we had settled. But my family deity is still the god
Vaithyanathan”
Chinna Swamy
couldn’t help laughing when he was washing off his three days dirt thinking of
the house owner’s longings for his native which reared him up on its laps three
generations ago.
“Last time I
visited Vaitheeswaran Temple, Sirgazhi, Kumbakonam, Thiruvarur…not a place
left. Somewhere near Thiruvarur…a man did come here a day ago. Right?” He asked
an assistant standing near him.
“Yes…he is from
Vilancheri. Do you know it?” the assistant turned adjusting his thick glassed
eye frame.
“Vilancheri? My
sister has been married off there. We had come here with the help of money she
gave me”
“Then you must be
knowing this man as well”
“Who’s that?”
“He came here
yesterday early morning, probably from Prayag. His name is Duraiyappa. He has
gone to the temple to see the Puja”
“Duraiyappa…?”
Chinna Swamy’s head span as if a thunderbolt had descended on it.
“Yes”
“Dark man, cleft
chinned?”
“Yes”
“On his forehead,
on its right, is there a scar?”
“Yes…it is the
same man. He’ll come back any time after watching Puja given to God
Visweswaran”
“O.K”
Chinna Swamy grew
restless, felt someone laugh. It seemed Duraiyappa himself was laughing at him.
A devilish laughter. ‘How come this scoundrel being here? How could he opt this
time to come here? That too, when I am here at the same place where he stays.’
A barrage of unanswered questions hit his mind. His entirety shook a little. “This
bloke? Now? At this place?”
He came out of
water, towelled his hair, put on a new silk clothe, got into water, washed his
legs again, smeared some Thiruneeru on his body and sat in prayer. His wife was
changing her sari.
“I have to, now,
face this chap. Whose mischief is this?”
Elder sister kept
whining about visiting Kashi quite often. After three years of family life with
her husband in Vilancheri, she returned to her parent’s house fourth year.
Thankfully, father and mother were not there to see all these amusement. Her
husband became bed-ridden on the seventh day of her leaving him. On the eight
day, he died.
She returned to
the place from where she left like an unfamiliar man stranded in a forest.
Yearnings and diseases started fast eating up the woman who had lived three
years in confinement, faced ignominy of unlucky woman who wiped off every
fortune from home. She asked me to sell her husband’s land. Now I had four thousand
rupees in my hand, the price of it. She remained conscious till the day before
her death and told me:
“Chinna Swamy,
Duraiyappa isn’t aware of my pathetic health condition. Had he known it, he
would have paid a visit here. How much do we have to pay him?”
After due
calculation, it stood at Three Thousand and Forty Seven rupees.
“Don’t ever beg to
condone this amount. You have to pay him off without leaving a paise. You
understand it?”
“First, get well
Akka. There is no urgency for it now”
“No. I won’t make
it anymore. I know my condition Chinna Swamy. I thought of going away from this
world after seeing that debt being paid off. It didn’t happen. You do it now”
“O.K”
“Some amount of
thousand rupees will be in balance. I dreamt living in the fantasy of visiting
Kashi with that amount. It didn’t also happen. You and your wife go to Kashi,
and bath in Ganga bearing me in your hearts. And, you can use that amount for
travel expenses in train and other lodging requirements. You must not bear a penny
of expenses from your pocket.”
Next day, there
reduced the total count of my family by one. ‘Is it for what you were born,
lived and died meaninglessly, just to pay off the debt you husband had left?’
After a month,
Chinn Swamy left for Vilancheri with the remaining three thousand and some odd
sum. When he reached Vilancheri, it was already dusk. The wind was chilly. One
could keep watching admiringly Duraiyappa’s house veranda and doorway.
Exclusively shiny, smoothened surfaces! Duraiyappa was leisurely reclining in
an easy chair.
“Mama”
“Who’s that?”
“It’s me”
A hurricane lamp
was dangling above head in the main hall.
“Me? Who’s that?”
“Chinna Swamy”
“Oh! Our Chinna
Swamy”
“Yes… Mama”
“Please come
in…come in. When did you come?”
“Just a moment
ago”
“So
pathetic…Sundarambal is no more”
“Yes…mama. That’s
all her luck to be here”
“Any serious
ailments in body?”
“No ailments in
body. Just unfulfilled desires.”
“Pch…Hell with the
chores! Neither he nor you are lucky enough. The villagers were chomping on it for
quite a time about it. May I know the reason behind your troubled journey to
come here now?”
“I came here to
settle a pending matter, Mama”
“No big deal about
that pending matter. Does it?”
“Akka summoned me
the day before her death, and asked me calculate the amount to be settled. She
wasn’t comfortable going with this burden”
“Pch…debt…what
a big deal about it? Any big deal about this big debt or what?”
“It stood at Three
thousand and forty seven rupees that time”
“Mmm”
“It is one more
month added now. Right?”
“Yeah…I would be
able to purchase a village with that one month interest amount. Wouldn’t I? You
fool”
“Can we calculate
it now? I have come ready?
“Have you brought
the money?”
“Yes…I have
brought”
“Why to take
trouble now? I am very tired. I have been standing in the field since morning.
Feeling hungry. Sleepy too. Isn’t a good idea if I receive it in the morning?”
“O.K”
‘Is it for this
petty matter you took trouble of travelling this distance by train and bus?”
“Isn’t my duty to
undertake that trouble?”
“You, a fool! Had
you written me a letter, I would have come there to collect it. Why this
unwarranted troubled journey?”
“It wouldn’t look
good. Handing it over to you in person is respectful. Isn’t it?”
“O.K…O.K…We can
settle it in the morning. You may leave now”
“Then keep this
cash with you now. We can settle it in the morning. I am going to sleep here.
The wind is cool here”
“You want me
somehow move away from my seat. Don’t you? It’s O.K. Give it to me”
Chinna Swamy gave
him the bundle of cash. Duraiyappa kept it in his safe, locked it.
“Please come in
washing your legs. Let’s have dinner together”
After dinner, they
were chit chatting till midnight. The village used to go to sleep by half past
six. The place became quiet without bustle of the village except the chirpings
of crickets. The bells hanging in the neck of bulls sounded somewhere. A child
was crying elsewhere.
Duraiyappa gave
Chinna Swamy a bed sheet and a pillow and went in locking the door. Chinna
Swamy lay on the veranda, with his thoughts growing perceptive. “What big of a
man Duraiyappa is! He is really a great soul! How respectful he is! How lenient
in negotiating hard things! When Chinna Swamy got off the bus that evening at
Vilancheri corner, he heard someone praising Duraiyappa’s ‘offering food’ to
everyone. One could get food at Duraiyappa’s house, no matter who he is and
when it is. He is popularly known as “Annadada”- the man who offers limitless
food to everyone- throughout the district. In every train journey, one would be
able to meet at least one passenger who would praise about it. What a
deference! A beauty of politeness that comes handy to the great souls’
The cool wind that
was blowing a while ago also stopped. Chinna Swamy fell asleep.
Morning he had a
breakfast with four crispy dosa, some curd along with last dosa, and a coffee
that prompted one to wonder about its taste, a salubriousness fighting the
sunlight in the hall after meals, the floor that knew no sun light- A sort of
coolness filled in Chinna Swamy’s heart.
Duraiyappa came
with a deed document, sat in front, put on his spectacles and closely
scrutinised the document. After a diligent calculation, he looked up to Chinna
Swamy and said, “So, can we now make the entry as settled?”
“Mmm” Chinna Swamy
said.
“O.K. Take out the
cash”
“You are keeping
the cash with you” Chinna Swamy said, smiled at him mildly wondering Duraiyappa
might have been confused it with something else.
“You say money is
with me?”
“Yes…mama. You
kept it in the safe yesterday night”
“What did I keep?”
“Don’t be funny
Mama…I gave you three thousand and forty seven rupees. It was bound with red
coloured, thick papers as a bundle”
“Don’t be silly
Chinna Swamy. Don’t be silly like a kid”
“Am I silly? You
play funny Mama”
“Mama or
son-in-law…does it matter anyway? Take out the cash. I get late for the field.
Don’t get me late”
“Mama…please check
your safe once again”
“Again playing
funny! Haven’t you brought the money with you?”
Chinna Swamy
started to feel his stomach rumble. At the same time he preferred to believe
that mama was still playing pranks with him.
“Please bring it
mama…”
“What nonsense are
you up to? You keep telling to bring it. Is it the time to play pranks?”
“Mama…I am telling
you the truth”
“It’s alright. I
get to leave now. I have works to do”
“Mama…Mama”
“Leave your Mama now”
“That red coloured
bundle Mama?”
Chinna Swamy stood
terribly stunned. He felt his abdomen growing heavy as if a big stone had
fallen into it.
“You came by train
or bus?”
“Bus”
“Where were you
keeping the cash?”
“In my bag. I
brought it very carefully and gave it to you. You told me we can settle it in
the morning gently sulking that I was trying to move you away from your chair
and you kept it safely in your safe”
“You a sinner! How
skilfully you could narrate it as if really happened?” Duraiyappa yelled in
high pitch, his face looked pale as if slapped by some demons. “Come here to
see da…my entire body coils with shame” he shrieked and went it, opened the
safe and exposed its interiors. Opened other iron boxes, and wooden boxes. Look
well…see it with your own eyes”
Chinna Swamy was
standing still as if severely smacked on his head. He ran to Durayappa’s wife;
then ran out. He took his complaints to the accountant, village headman as his
tongue dried up, lips shivering and the body trembling. The men of that village
came there. Duraiyappa was sitting like a mad man reclining in his easy chair.
The almirahs in the hall were kept open. Clothes and utensils were found strewn
around the floor.
Everyone blinked
knowing nothing of what happened.
“Mama…what is this
all? He is saying something” village headman said.
“I first thought
he is playing funny. But he kept pledging it is true again and again. It is
nothing short of a big thunder like blow on me. So simply sat down, totally
beaten. You can very well rummage the whole house”
The village
headman and his men enquired everyone, everything again. Chinna Swamy cried
helplessly. They searched everything again.
“I never thought
that you would betray me like this, Mama” Chinna Swamy sobbed, silently, as his
voice grew heavier.
“You, the sinner!
Let your mouth rot. He is our Annadada da! He is a saint like man! He has
offered food in heaps like hills. Never raise voice against him” the accountant
admonished Chinna Swamy.
A train was
passing on the Ganga Bridge at a distance under darkness. Chinna Swamy came
there from a distant place, and got entangled with the men of Vilancheri
Village, complained everyone, cried in front of everyone, begged almost
everyone and at last grew stoic at everything around him- But what did exactly
win at last? Duraiyappa went to the court. The travesty of judgement came with
a compromise- that Chinna Swamy had to settle the amount without interest. When
Chinna Swamy refused to accept the verdict, he was intimidated by the judge
that he would pass the judgement making Chinna swamy pay full payment with
interest. At last, accepting this compromise by way of settling it with his own
money…
‘It had been four
years now since all these drama was orchestrated. Now I had come to Kashi to
fulfil my elder sister’s second wish. But on the very first day, the God is
testing my nerves by sending Duraiayappa to the same place where I am staying’
Chinna Swamy delved into thoughts.
Chinna Swamy’s
wife was still sitting in prayer. Would anyone believe it? Let alone what had
happened. Would anyone believe what is happening today?’
“Can we leave
now?” his wife asked him, rose.
“Mmm”
Chinna Swamnmy
rose. Climbing on two steps, he stopped and said, “Wait, I couldn’t pray. My
heart was just resenting Duraiyappa for his deeds”. He then got into the water
and bathed again.
“Do have an
ablution to wash away his sins as well” his wife said.
When he came out
of water, she said, “Don’t dig out the old things when you meet him. If he had
come back, do strike up a casual conversation thinking that you have washed
away his sins performing an ablution. If he hadn’t come back from the temple,
we will pack up and leave the place immediately before seeing his wretched
face”
“Let’s see what is
waiting for us” Chinna Swamy turned north, glanced at bathing bays emitting
lights and climbed on the steps.
***Ended***
