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| La. Sa.Ramamirtham (To know more about him click here) |
A word about translating “Abhitha”: Among other translations published here, I would rate this translation as the most challenging one. (The parts pertaining to ‘soliloquy’ of the main Character after applying bath oil on his head). After selecting this story for translation in my blog, I wondered whether it was my biggest blunder since having an audacity to translate this story into English needed some amount of grit. This is one of the rare stories which I read again and again (at least five times) to understand it, let alone translating it. Tougher narratives are both challenging and fulfilling. Abhitha is one of them. Many of La.sa.Ra’s stories and some of the stories by Mouni fall in this category. Typo error in punctuations found in this story made my understanding relatively difficult. I got this story from www.valaitamil.com. But the same story from the book "Abhitha" published by Kizhakku Pathippagam, has a different version of narrative. The latter seems to be more authentic. However, for its lyrical beauty, let me translate the version found in www.valaitamil.com.
The narrative style of Abhitha is not easily
understandable to an ordinary reader who might be comfortable with a linear story
talking about a course of events which does not tax his brain. This story
should be understood as a ‘spiritual’ experience of an individual in an unconscious state. Perspectives may differ!
Looking for logics and coherence might disappoint the reader in the first
reading. It is a sort of dreamy experience of illogically arranged array of
events that can be understood only in the personal realm. Sometimes, we are
forced to conclude that the stories like Abhitha are written just an
eccentric piece without giving much of consideration to readers’ opinions. You
may read this story keeping two purposes in mind- To have an experience of an
unusual way of story-telling laden with uncommon phrases or
to get yourself confused totally. Choice is yours. I have tried my best to make
it readable. If a Tamil reader finds this English version easier than the Tamil
version, I will consider it my success as a translator.
…..
“Maami !1 Why don’t you, please, coax
Mama 2 to take oil bath?.I must have insisted it on the same
day he had come here. Since I was holding an empty oil bowl that day, I had to
keep my mouth shut. Ah…Say it once again. What do you say? You are saying that
he is not accustomed with it? Aren’t you? How can I accept this lame
justification? If you miss out a routine oil bath in this hot land, you will be
burnt alive like Sokkappanai 3 even
while you are walking. We don’t even require cow dung cakes to burn it. So,
why should we be destined to be burnt like that unnecessarily? Let me inform
the same person to try his hand on Mama’s head. I have kept the oil ready for
applying on head, boiled with ripe Chilly, Ginger and boiled rice. It will do
no harm to the body. You can tell him to chew the ginger as such. With its
crispness, even biscuits will be inferior to it in taste. Every aspect of it is
pretty nutritious”.
“Where has this man, our priest, gone? Of late, he has
become an exemplary expert in missing from the scene when he is much needed. Hasn’t
he?” The last words rose up with a sudden sonority. The priest hadn’t gone
anywhere. He appeared from somewhere at the corner of the house with the bowl
full of bath oil in hands. He was holding a stool as if it had appeared
suddenly out of some tomfoolery. It was a small stool. Everything was almost
over in half a minute- a gentle press on my shoulder and making me sit on the
stool and pouring the oil on my head. In seconds, with the massage that
followed with a lightning speed, my head spun, felt as if it had gone into the
stomach and a churning rod was spinning inside my head. After leaving the Bear
Hills, it was only then I get oil bath. I wondered that the time could be turned
around like that. Oil bath was an important ceremony of hospitality in this
region. I wouldn’t be able to escape it, no matter how much discomforts I might
face by taking oil bath after so many years.
As a custom, when a guest enters the house, sitting in
the veranda, he has to drink the water brought by the house wife, no matter how the water tastes, salty or sweet or it is required or not required. Only after that,
permission to enter the house would be granted. Then, the moment you were done
with the retch induced by the saffron
colour water called coffee, a sign of modern hospitality, someone would come with
a bowl of oil in hands, call you out, ‘Come in, have this oil on your head’. ‘O!
God! What the hell is happening here? Eyes are burning with a spoon full of oil
in it. The body writhes in pain with the fire lighted with oil in the eyes.
God! Mouthful of phlegm waiting to be spat out!’ I could hear a voice
somewhere amidst fire that once burnt Madurai 4 , that
engulfed my eyes- it was not the priest. He had his mouth shut since the day I
had arrived here- But this voice! Like an incantation! “It is just a usual
discomfort one gets when he takes oil bath after a long time. He will be
alright once two drops of tears come out of the eyes”
“Hold Mama’s hand, take him inside. I have informed
Abhitha to keep hot water ready. I need to go to the shop to buy long pepper”
the voice became thinner as it went afar. From somewhere, a hand caught me. Not
with force. It made me furious. I pulled my hand back with jerk. The hand which
held mine didn’t attempt doing it once again. ‘O! Goodness! It seems that
the pain in the eyes would take them out of eye sack. Doesn’t it? Rubbing
my eyes, I was standing at the centre of the hall as if standing in the middle
of the jungle. I could hear a heartfelt laughter. I strained my eyes, opened
it. Those healthy eyes were now looking like eyes on forehead 5 .
Savithri was enjoying my predicaments. Now she had a chance to laugh her heart
out. Mustered up all the vanity that had spilled on the floor, carrying them on
my back, I walked towards the backyard. I felt that the eyes might come out.
The head was spinning. I stumbled upon something… “Aiyo…Mind your steps”
Abhitha screamed.
A hand caught me again. I tried pulling my hand back
again. But this time, the priest was not in a mood to release his grip. My
anger and bashfulness didn’t matter to him. He held me tightly, applied the
soap nut paste on my back and rubbed it vigorously. The ceremony would come to
an end with that rubbing. A sharp, yet milder streak of heat descended from the
nape of my neck, spread its roots around, till its primary root reached the
centre of my back. In that semi unconscious state in which both my head and
thoughts were fully immersed and near blindness caused by the bitterness of oil
in eyes, I couldn’t realize anything with surety other than the heat I was
suffering from. Just like a pain concentrating at the tips of tied up fingers
creeping into the glabella, an agonising magnetic force radiated from legs to
head.
I poured the water on my head and shoulder
alternately. But the strand of fire that was ignited by the water, flowing from
the nape of my neck, hanging like a thread didn’t cut itself off. ‘Could
this anxiety, a mixture of both pleasure and misery in equal proportion,
self-tuned by a nerve from my spinal cord, be equated with the magic of a
sprout coming out of the earth?’ The breath inhaled deeply inside went in further
and further…O!God! Amidst the mercilessness that prolonged itself, this oil
bath along with pervading heat penetrated the muscle groups and were displaying
its gleeful magic. In due course, all the Yandhras 6 , and
the Chakras 6 that were lying dormant through my family line
from the time of my ancestors, became active at once and started churning my
blood. What are all these? They are either a horror of new birth with the
consciousness or surprise or shedding old skin or purification amidst the fire
or the shivering in the mirage of fire or blinded eye sights or the darkness of
the dawn or liberation of body born with purest mind or a perennial river,
resurgent, flowing in its old speed burning all the dirt hitherto obstructing
the holes in the chest and pores on the body from time immemorial or the mettle
and splendour of strings tuned in its primary pitch with sparkles or the jingling
of anklet amidst the sound of Kandeepam 7, intensely
overwhelming the body, feeling and mind alike. Rubbed my eyes! Once the eye
lids opened, the shade along with the bitterness of oil shed. Awakening to the
visuals with the eyes opened. I raised with my new clarity of being from the
steam of hot water surrounding my body. An idol raising from the furnace!
While the steam of hot water surrounding my body
disappeared, a nearest sight that soared my eyes, there stood a pair of foot
nudging each other closely like a shiny marbles. Eyes moved further up, towards
knees, plump calf muscles in sandal’s milky whiteness, veins flowing in green! O
Goddess! Am I the gifted one who could see your feet? Are you real? Only it was
because of the courage I mustered up from your feet, I could raise my head
towards your head. ‘O! Yours is Abhitha’s face. Isn’t it? The jingling of
anklets overwhelming my body and mind. Is it the smile of the primitive
daughter of this world? My Abhitha! If you are the primitive daughter of this
world in my eyes, then I will the primitive son in the ablution you had given
me. Not only me; everyone feels the same at any given point of time. The heart
opens up and exposes the light outside just like a fold getting unfolded.’
‘I was the whole of light in your birth. I was the
poetry born for the sake of your Avathar, the hook of your dream that had
struck in your throat, the blood line that followed the primitive son, daughter
and you. The remains that existed unchanged till date from the day the fake
appearances disappeared were your identity. When this world comes to you,
informing the news of melancholy, you shall wait to receive it in the time of
conflict. According to the level adjustability an individual is gifted with,
either it merges with it and becomes one; or it gets dispersed like a pellet
hitting a muscle group and thus losing its sheen, fading away in no time. My
birth is my gift. Isn’t it?
I would knit every moment of my
birth as a garland that I comprehended during the course of my resurrection of my
blessings’ aggrandizement birth after birth, that I felt as poetry of life and submit it at
the feet of the primitive daughter. Wouldn’t I? Or would I garland around her
neck? But, it all depends upon the moments that were waiting for me, gone past,
yet unnoticed by me and thus got became inept, my realization of wasting those
moments, repenting its losses, and realizing again not to get disappointed and finally
the aggressiveness I would gather at the end of this realization. Be it
Shakunthala, Abhitha, Tharishini, the princess who showed her face through the
curtain of palanquin in the Bear Hills or the daughter of Himavan, Hemavathi!
Once I realized all your primitive faces in my aggressive realization through
Abhitha, all of you exist in my psyche just as names of the faces I see in my aggressiveness.
I felt something more. O!Abhitha! Is your presence required to understand these
all? But it is the wonder that my omnipresence had foreseen. As you are within
me, it is of no use to separate you from me now. Will there be an awakening
without you? Abhitha! You are my manna! You are my divine light!’. I felt that my eyes were
opened anew as if the thin layer obstructing the sight got detached, thrown
away.
The corners of my eye lids were
paining severely. I shook my head once. The chilly evening wind hit my eyes
through its corners, made them chilled too. The ears of paddy were wavering in
the wind. With each encounter with the wind, they heaved a big sigh. It
appeared that they were trying telling something to me or themselves. An
enigmatic pleasurable experience overwhelmed me. I kept the book aside with a
heave of sigh. Even the pages were flapping themselves, wind-blown. They too
tried to convey something. It was the same paddy fields. The same green spears
of paddy. Yonder…the same well with cement rings placed one above the other,
with the same Kamalai 8. No one had stolen anything. But all
seemed to have changed themselves in their respective domains. They seemed to
have started breathing at the sudden touch of a magic wand. The milky movements
amidst the green paddy fields became one and alive, got its arcs on its sides,
spread them, took the shape of a bird, fluttered its wings and floated in the
air.
The speed and beauty with which
it raised itself above, leaving the ground got my body shudder. My heart
bounced up to my chest pit in contradiction with the goose bumps it caused, and
fell upon on itself. Its whiteness was shining in the sky in the arc it had made
and flew away as if this universe, spherical earth was thrown away like a
diamond scattering around forming an arc while being thrown out of an unfolded
carpet. I was ecstatic. My hands rose up to hug myself, reflexively. “What are
you doing? A laughter! As if the stars were showering their glitters. I turned.
A girl was standing, her plaits hanging on both sides of her shoulder, a bag
looking like a yogic Dhoti slung on her shoulders. Her nasal septum got shrunk
at her glabella while she smiled. I didn’t know who she was. The restiveness of
my body didn’t permit it to feel anything other than the bird’s ease of
departure. “See there…see there…a knife with a diamond ferrule is shining in
the sky”. The girl looked upwards, holding one of her palms above her eye
brows. She stood amazed with her mouth opened like a bud which was just
bloomed.
When we were standing astonished
at its splendor, it lost its balance suddenly. The wings became lifeless, hung
as useless attachment on its body. The bird somersaulted repeatedly, bundled
up, descended fast and fell on my lap finally. I cried helplessly. My hands
were shaking. My fingers were caressing its chest lovingly, involuntarily. The
last beating of its heart was actually parting its body. Even in its last
struggle of keeping its life intact, I could feel that its eyes were trying to fix
upon me. I wouldn’t be able to forget the light of happiness and misery
reflected in its eyes ever in my life. Its body shook once and turned on other
side. It became dead. An immaculate whiteness that one could see in the broken
coconut! Once I felt that the lifeless whiteness on my lap, a helpless scream gored
me like peeling a branch off its skin. I cuddled it and its softer
body nestled against my chest.
***End***
Note:
1.
Addressing of an elder lady.
2.
Addressing of an elder man.
3.
Bonfire with palmyra leaves
lit in front of temples during Karthikai festival.
4.
The fire that burnt
Madurai due to the curse of Kannaki (In Silappathikaram)
5.
Eye on Lord Shiva’s
forehead. Known for its ability to burn enemies with a single sight.
6.
Chakras are wheels of
energy or vortexes in your body. Yantra in Sanskrit means ‘instrument,
tool or technology’. A yantra appears as an image of the Divine.
7.
The bow of Arjun. A symbol of invincibility.
8.
A traditional irrigation system with a cauldron type of
vessel to lift water from the well, driven by bulls/oxen.
Translated from Tamil by
Saravanan. K
Source: La.sa..Ra’s “Abhitha”
Short story (www.valaitamil.com)
