 |
| Pavannan |
Vaitheki took off the uniform the
hospital had provided her, and put on a frock-a yellow flower design drawn in
the backdrop of pale blue- brought from home by her mother. The frock which used
to be skin-tight once, was now hanging loose on her body. Her mother avoided
looking into her eyes as Vaitheki lifted her head up, and looked outside window
staring at neem trees with a feigned indifference, and wiped the tears that
welled up in her eyes with fingers. Her father went near to her, fixed the
hooks on her back, combed her hair and fastened it with a clip. Vaitheki
remembered those days when her parents used to be on their toes hurrying her up
for school, each one of them standing on her both sides.
“What has my dear Vaitheki
drawn today?” the senior doctor entered the room with a smile asking about her routine.
“Good morning doctor” Vaitheki
smiled at him, displayed her buck teeth, moved towards the edge of the cot and
sat. With a momentary grin on their face, her mother, father and grandfather
paved him the way, moved aside. The scent of neem flowers came wafting through
the windows that were kept opened. Vaitheki took out her drawing note book kept
near pillow, and gave it to the doctor. The doctor flipped its pages prudently,
keenly glanced through the picture she had drawn a day ago. It was a
painting-a cot and three kittens sitting on it. She had named them Neela, Mala
and Kala and written them under each kitten.
“Very nice…Very nice” the
doctor told, examining the painting in different angles again and again. “It
looks very beautiful, Vaitheki. Their whiskers and eyes… it seems as if they
were real, sitting in front of me. If there is a competition in painting, you
are the one who must be given the first prize” He patted on her shoulder.
“Which one among these three kittens does my dear Vaitheki like most?” the
doctor asked her with a grin on his face.
“I like all the three”- when
she told this, her eyes were wide open, effervesced gracefully.
He sat near to her, asked her
to show her tongue, pressed her lower eye lids down, examined the eye balls and
said, “My dear girl does not have any problem at all. She can go home happily”.
He then turned to her father, and told him, “A wonderful improvement sir. I am
really amazed to see her strong will power at this age of eight. I have seen
children running away at the very mention of medicine. But children like her
who take medicines very patiently without griping are very less. Vaitheki is a
great child” he patted on her shoulder. Her mother tried to ask him something
hesitatingly.
“No serious problem anymore
ma…now you can well be confident…In case of any rare, extreme exigency, please
do what I said” he calmed her down. He, then, turned to Vaitheki, and asked her
sweetly, “what would you like to become after you complete your studies?” His
fingers stroked her soft cheeks gently.
“I would like to become a
doctor…doctor” Vaitheki replied with a smile.
“Hats off, Vaitheki! I
appreciate your spirit. You can join as my assistant in my clinic. Can’t you?”
he laughed. While laughing, his eyes were filled with tears. He removed his
spectacles, wiped it as he went out.
As her father went out to pay off
the hospital charges, mother collected the items kept in the room, and stuffed them
into a box. Vaitheki showed her paintings to her grandfather sitting on her
side, explained each one of them to him enthusiastically. Each painting had
picture of a cat in one corner- Peeping cat, cat standing near the door, cat
sleeping beneath the cot, cat hanging from the branch of a tree, cat licking
the pool of water on the floor near a water bucket by the side of well-
Vaitheki thought of asking her grandfather at once about her toy cats. She was
confused with the different durations she had actually stayed in different
hospitals. When she thought of asking about cats, thousands of questions - where
they are now? Is anyone sleeping beside them? Has its colour, that did start getting
faded, become alright?- hit her mind. At the very next moment, when she
realized that the replies she would receive from anyone in this regard would
never satisfy her, she brought the images of those sitting cats in her mind and
delved into surreal thoughts. In the world of her fantasy, those cats were
waiting, curling their bodies, looking up to her face, for her touch and
caress.
Vaitheki grew up as a child who
had been avoided methodically by other children during her formative years.
Even the children of her relatives would move away from her, curling their lips
in repugnance at seeing her. There were days, it was very usual even when the
elders who, by mistake, happened to stand beside her used to display a fake
smile on their face for a moment, and avoid her with a cursory touch and grin.
The thick, curly hair streaking on her cheek, corner of her ears, hands and
legs like a charcoal mark had made her stand aloof from other children. The
changes occurred on the child’s body, who was otherwise looking normal with
pale brown complexion and healthy growing child like any other children till
the age of three, was something beyond the comprehension of medical knowledge.
Within six months, it started spreading all over her body. There was not a
single doctor left out in Pondicherry who hadn’t been consulted. All their
suggestions and different medicines she took for months together yielded no
result. When her parents stood helpless, one doctor gave them a slip of
reference, suggesting consultation with the specialist doctors in Chennai.
After some months, they also
declared that it was beyond their ability and advised her parents to go to
Bangalore. Her father spent all his savings on medicines and multitude of
consultations without even calculating how much it was. ‘My daughter who was
once looking like a flower is now looking like a bush. I don’t know whose evil
eyes have befallen on my daughter. O! Lord Muruga! Heal my daughter. In the
month of coming Aadi 1, I will come to your abode,
carrying a flower Kavadi 2’. Her mother
took refuge in the feet of God. Her father was stunned when the administration
of a school at the corner of the street denied admission to her. Other schools
in vicinity too were hesitant in giving admission to her the moment they saw
her.
At the end of his tireless
efforts, her father could admit her in a school with the recommendation of a
pastor known to him. He had to shell out some thousands of rupees for the
infrastructural developments of the school. Other girl children in the school
didn’t talk to her. She was not permitted to participate in the games too.
Initially she was shocked at the manner she was subjected to such a humiliating
rejections. She was broken, depressed. Only at that juncture, her mind soon
discovered the art of converting her loneliness into a close confidante.
She started drawing pictures
in the note books given by her father - she would draw lines with various
colours, circles, intersecting lines and thus drawing squares and elongate them
randomly at her whims. In her paintings, animals without horns would have horns
and those with horns would have no horns. In her painting note books the
chickens were flying piercing through the sky, the birds were walking, hopping,
tottering, the cows and goats were travelling in cars, human beings with tails
on their back were crawling with four legs. Her mother couldn’t tolerate these
fantasies represented in those pictures, looking askance at her with her teary eyes.
Her father, quite a sympathetic man, understood the efforts of his child in
diverting her mind, would move away without uttering anything, nodding his head
in affirmation with a feel of satisfaction.
In the school annual function
in which her parents had participated, she won six trophies for the first time-
stood First in total marks, full attendance, singing competition, Painting
competition, Frog jump and running in jute bag competition- when the auditorium
quaked with the claps of praise, her father with the teary eyes, held her hands
into his tightly, pressed them lovingly. While returning from the beach on
Sunday evening that week, her father stopped in the market, and asked her, “Anything
you want, Vaitheki? We would like to present you a gift for the first prizes
you have won.” She was unable to bear the shock of that sudden display of love.
She looked at both of them unbelievingly, staring at them one after the other
alternately. With her eyes wide open, she walked into the toy shop, moved ahead
touching each toy with her fingers -Thalaiyatti pommai,3 electric
train, soldier on a horse, baby elephant. If she stopped for a while, looking
at something intently, her father would get curious and ask, “Do you need this
one?”. Vaitheki went near to a toy kitten kept on a table in the corner, and
pointed at it.
Thick curly hairs hanging all over
its body, small cute rounded eyes and whisker looking like a bunch of grass-
felt smoother while fondling it. Ear lobes folded, stiffened, sitting with its
back bent forward prompting one to take it on their lap and snuggle it. She
stood beside it, touched every part of it, wondered and immersed in its beauty.
“It just looks like a real kitten…pa” she smiled at her father. Her mother’s
face got gloomy without a tangible reason. Her father paid the required amount,
bought it for her. Vaitheki slept that night, keeping that kitten beside her on
the bed. She was awake for a long time, prepared a long list of names in her
mind to name that kitten and then got them deleted. Without being able to
finalise a name for it, she was lying on her bed, staring at the darkness
outside through the window. Suddenly, the blue hue of the window curtain
prompted her to finalise the name, “Neela” (Literally it means blue colour).
Very next moment, the kitten got its name, Neela. She mumbled in its ears,
“From this moment onwards, you are my best friend, Neela”. She gently kissed on
its forehead and ear lobes. She felt a tickling sensation when its hairs
brushed her nose. Caressing its leg, she smiled “You are four-legged cat; I am
two-legged cat. Ain’t I?”
From next day, Vaitheki
recited all the verses she had memorized to Neela. Tapping its toes, she would
repeat the tables. ‘Look at this naughty look!’- The toy kitten accepted all
the loving bouts of Vaitheki with its smile. She would find happiness in wearing
garlands made of fallen cherry flowers found in the garden around its
neck. Coming from the school, she narrated different stories to
Neela while her fingers still fondling Neela’s neck. Neela too would tell her
stories into her ears- its stories of wander, hiding from one place to another,
the stories of stealthily overturning the utensils to drink milk, and the
stories of chasing rodents. Vaitheki slept that night peacefully under the
warmth of those stories. Watching her activities, her mother became more and
more morose. “Let her live in her own world” – with his single note, her father
would keep her mother’s mouth shut. Her mother failed in her attempts in
penetrating the layer of loneliness that Vaitheki had built for herself, to
scoop her up, hug onto her, but in vain and stood depressed every
day.
She won six trophies in the
next year too. Her father took her to the shop to purchase yet another gift for
her. This time too, she selected a toy kitten for herself again. She named it
Mala. She stood first in the subsequent years too. Seven trophies were
announced for her. As she won six trophies consecutively for three years,
seventh trophy was given to her as a special trophy. That time too, she asked
for one more toy kitten. Before buying that, she had already finalised a name
for it. The name was Kala. She had allotted the half of the space in her cot
only for those toy kittens. Her aunt, who had come from Cuddalore saw her
sleeping amidst the ‘kittens’ and passed a witty remark, with a smile, “If
this goes like this, it would be difficult to differentiate the kitten from
Vaitheki”
Before she could understand
the causticity of those words she spoke, they had already driven knives into
Vaitheki’s heart. She cried her heart out, inconsolably as if her heart was
about to burst out. Her father, who had never been harsh with anyone, took her
aunt in isolation, and rebuked her severely for her impetuosity. Vaitheki
wondered, thinking about all these instances as if they had just happened a day
ago. Her memories were rolling down just like pearls scattering around from a bundle
thrown open.
“Shall we leave now?” her
father held Vaitheki’s shoulder. Seeing the gown she was wearing, he said,
“Isn’t the same gown we got from Hyderabad for her birthday?”. He looked at her
mother for a moment. “Two years gone…it has passed just like that. Hasn’t it?”
He heaved a sigh. Both of them picked up their bags in their hands, looked
around the room once and came out. Vaitheki ran to an old man and a boy who
were lying admitted in the adjacent room, said good bye to them, and came back.
As her grandfather sat in the front seat near her father in the car, both
Vaitheki and her mother occupied the rear seat. Her father drove the car in
reverse, took it out from the parking bay, and came straight for moving
forward. When the car rolled forward with a mild jerk, an uneasy feeling filled
in the stomach. Only after the car started striding on the main road, leaving
the entrance of the hospital, both their mind and body came to normalcy.
Vaitheki started looking outside through the window after the car moved ahead for a
short distance.
The buildings were looking like
different types of wooden sticks inserted on a wet earth, and were standing frozen.
The trees on the sides of the road had their branches spread towards the sky.
Under their shadow, seen many push cart vendors. Looking at the movie posters
pasted on the walls one after the other, she kept reading their names in her
mind. Those different names of movies occupying her as a cluster, came out
first mixed, and then hit her memory. Suddenly she called out to her father,
and asked, “You told that we would go for watching a Sivaji4 movie once it hit the theatre. What
about it now?”. Hearing it, her father felt his throat had got choked up for a
second. Eyes were filled with tears. Without turning his face, he told, “It’s
been out… ma. Next week we can watch it in the CD. Vaitheki saw her face
reflected in the rear view mirror. Her eyes were sunken, cheeks looked hollow
and facial bones were visible. She felt that her cheeks, hands and neck had
become softer devoid of any tingling sensation which she used to feel earlier in
her body whenever her curly hair brushed against her skin while fluttering in
the wind. Even though she could feel that her body had turned normal like
others, she was embarrassed to see that her complexion had turned into the hue
of burnt wood.
There was a big dent in her
shoulder pits. Hands were looking like thin sticks. She was sad and her sadness
penetrated her heart. The very next moment, she remembered the words the doctor
spoke to her during consultation. She made those words heard aloud in her
heart- ‘Vaitheki, you must not think about the past ever. There is nothing
called yesterday. Only tomorrow henceforth’. As she repeated those words a
couple of times as if she uttered them for others, her mind turned to the state
of happiness.
It was just a mere
serendipitous incident that a specialist doctor participated as a chief guest
in a painting competition and he had requested Vaitheki’s parents to come to
the school to discuss certain matters. His words, ‘this can be cured with
laser treatment; that too within seven or eight months she can be fully cured’
gave them an enormous hope. “Even if her education takes a hit, let it be. We
can send her to the school next year. But how long can we keep this child in
this condition? No matter how much we need to spend on her. We have to treat
her anyway” her mother begged her father. With the permission from the school,
they managed obtaining leave. Once her father arranged a big amount as loan
from the office in the very next week, her treatment started.
With the treatment given for
six months uninterruptedly, her appearance changed completely, amazingly though.
Not a single strand of hair was found on her body. But her dark complexion had
got further darker, unbelievably darker. Dark shoulders, dark hands, dark neck,
and dark cheeks. That night when she returned from the hospital, she stayed
awake in the night, cuddled those kittens and cried silently. The room was
filled in with the thickness of darkness. At that moment when the darkness,
that had engulfed the entire world outside the window rose like an ocean and
filled in the room, the kittens assuaged her, telling her, “aren’t we all dark
in complexion?” Their tiny hands stretched forward tenderly and patted her back
lovingly. Just to make her sleep, the eyes of the kittens started narrating
stories. As their bent-back slowly getting straightened up, and the way they
got metamorphosed themselves into small girl children with tiny braids, made
her immeasurably happy. Those girl children crawled towards her, sat beside
her.
They woke her up, led her to
the garden. Leaning against the hay stack, they chit chatted, counted the stars
in the dark sky, held their hands together, played, spun like spin top, ran as
their braids flapped behind. They picked the flowers and made a garland out of
it, put it around her neck, made her sit in a palanquin and carried her. The
old songs they sang while carrying her in the palanquin resonated like lullaby.
At one moment, they got her down, made her sit on a swing and moved it to and fro.
They got her immersed in the experience of ecstasy of a bird flying around,
swimming across the sky. Then they got down from the swing, and made her sit on
a flying carpet and flew towards the clouds. The soft, icy clouds which she had
never experienced. She couldn’t forget that wonderful experience of driving
through them and coming out on the other side like an arrow. All her sorrows
and pains that had been choking up her heart densely, vanished at once in the
presence of their fun loving company. Getting tired of being ecstatic, Vaitheki
fell in deep sleep without even knowing when she had fallen asleep.
Unlike before, her love for
those kittens grew manifold from that day. During the day time, she was deeply
absorbed in the dreams about the previous night. Next day too, once the
darkness descended and every one fell asleep, those girl children came near to
her rolling over from the corner of the cot. As they came close to her, they
picked up her hands into theirs, caressed her cheeks and pinched it gently.
They narrated stories and sang songs one after the other. Laughed. Jumped.
Kissed. Low pitched murmurs were ringing around her all the time. One day, when
her irritated mother asked her, bending down to pick up those kittens lying
beside her, ‘What is this heck of nuisance of talking to yourself?’, she jumped
on it, hugged it tightly, and refused to part with it. When her mother tried to
snatch it away from her forcibly, she cried violently. “Hell with you! You are
just incorrigible! He only brought them. Didn’t he? Let him take care of this
nuisance.”-visibly annoyed, her mother moved away. Once her sobbing stopped,
she stared playing with those kittens, twisting their earlobes, curling their
whiskers, stroking their bodies and twisting their tails.
Vaitheki spread her wings,
flew in the world of ecstasy which got her relieved of bitterness and fatigue.
The girl children, holding her fingers, flew away in the emptiness of space in
the direction prefixed by them, coaxing her also to come along with them. She
loved that journey. The trees covered with darkness. Dark bushes. Cliffs. Dark
clouds. Since she could join the school only in the next academic year,
Vaitheki had to stay home. As her mother thought that she had to be fed with
nutritious food and her words must be filled with mirth, she showered more love
and affection upon her. She made Athirasam, Porivilangai balls, Murukku5-
all that she used to love much. She would sit beside her, and comb her hair,
making different patterns of coiffure. In order to drive away her shyness, she
took her to the temples and markets along with her. Her father brought some old
school books and asked her to read them. He brought drawing note books and
paint boxes for her. Seeing her drawings, he cheered her up with his
encouraging words every day.
All her times which she
couldn’t spend with others closely, were actually spent with the cats. Vaitheki
always loved to keep them on her lap, hugging them onto her chest, and cuddling
all the time. Without giving a damn to time, those girl children
came out of those kittens whenever she thought about them. Putting their jaw on
her shoulders, they murmured something into her ears. The stories and songs
they narrated made her laugh heartily, clapping her hands, to an extent of
filling her eyes with tears, choking up with laughter, followed by resultant coughing.
Mother came running to her on hearing her coughing sound, stood there bemused
watching her hearty laugh.
Mother’s arrival severed
everything, and emptiness engulfed again. Her mother shook her, shouting, “What
is this all? What is this?”. Without knowing what to reply, Vaitheki threw an
empty stare at her. However, the subsequent events that occurred every day
after that didn’t allow her mother to take the things for granted. Her mother
became extremely worried, shed tears seeing her condition. Without knowing how
to go about ahead of this situation, her father also got hugely confused.
Mother insisted that doctors should be consulted immediately. Her father was
literally broken at the very thought of admitting her into a hospital for
further treatment. He stood for a long time near Vaitheki while she was
sleeping in the dark, caressing her head tenderly. Her lips, parting slightly
for every breath reminded baby fishes. Her childhood innocence was reflected on
her softer cheeks. He was prompted with the feeling that by any means his child
had to be cured. The intensity of this feeling increased many fold when her
subdued voice was heard incessantly in that empty room.
On one particular night,
Vaitheki accepted the call of those girls who lured her to come out to watch
the moon light. She slipped out of the bed, without making noise, and silently
took off her shawl. She tiptoed, hit the cloth almirah accidentally, turned
towards other side, and again hit the cloth lines used for drying. Steadied
herself somehow, moved in the dark with blind assessment of direction, opened
the door and when she entered the garden, the chilly wind of the night embraced
her. The chirping of insects was resonating through all directions with an
unusual sound that she hadn’t heard of before. She stood stunned at the beauty
of stars scattered in the sky looking like dots in the kolam6 that
had been left incomplete and forgotten. The children showed her the moon
floating like a round plate in the sky. Vaitheki stood immersed in the beauty
of its light. Moisture of dews. The light that lay spread across like milk. The
fragrance of jasmine blossoming in the bushes. The icy wind bracing her chest.
The girls were dancing, singing new lyrics. Vaitheki joined them and danced.
She also started singing, in an unbridled ecstatic elation. While dancing in a
circular motions, her legs hit a stone and fell down. As her head hit on a
washing stone kept near the well, she fell unconscious.
When her mother came to the
well for taking water in the morning, she saw her lying unconscious, came
running to her, and scooped her up. She shook her violently,
“Vaitheki…Vaitheki”. She lay speechless, immobile like a statue. Her father
came there hearing the sound near the well, lifted her, laid her on the sofa
and sprinkled water on her face. Vaitheki opened her eyes, still only half
conscious, and couldn’t identify anyone around her. She mumbled the same moon
song. Her hands rose up involuntarily as if someone was holding her hands. A
streak of smile shone in her lips. Her father and mother stood completely transfixed,
staring at the allurement of ecstasy and gravity of loneliness in her eyes
shining concomitantly.
Their trips to the hospital
continued again as usual. As the first one was not satisfactory, they went to
another doctor. As he was also not efficient, they went to the third doctor.
The third one approached the issue with a motherly tenderness. He treated her
as if she were his own child.
The doctor had converted his
clinic into a play court. The children and old people alike were playing freely
there. The tenderness and care of the doctor were soothing for all of them.
With his earnest efforts of six months, he pulled Vaitheki back from the severe
mental stress she was suffering from. Vaitheki asked her father every day,
“Father, will I be able to attend the school again? Will I get all those
trophies again?”
“You will win them dear. If
you don’t win them, who else will?” her father, teary eyed, hugged her onto his
bosom. On reaching home, her grandfather got down from the car and opened the
door of rear seat. “Get down slowly Vaitheki”, he called her out, guided her,
holding her hands. Seeing a new bicycle kept near the entrance door window, she
smiled, with her eyes wide open, “Aii…bicycle!” she exclaimed. “Yes dear
girl…it is for you. It’s me, your grandpa, got it for you. Henceforth, you can
practice driving with this bicycle” her grandfather stroked her head lovingly.
Once they entered the house,
her father showed her a video game box he had bought for her. He taught her how
to play the game in the television by connecting those twenty or thirty video
game discs he got for her. She was very much excited to watch the game of a
motor cycle rider escaping the bullets from the guns aimed at him. In ten
minutes, her hands gained the expertise of operating the game box on their own.
Everyone was trying to engage her in some conversation. In spite of it, it
appeared that some enigmatic silence had occupied the ambience, as if sitting
there permanently on a chair amidst that situation.
Hours later, Vaitheki went
into her room. The items and dresses which were kept clean were found neatly
placed in their respective places. Vaitheki stared at them one by one - Table,
chairs, Television, toys, trophies, medals, cloths almirah, book racks, cot-
once her eyes fell on the cot, she started searching for the kittens,
reflexively. She threw her eyes all around the room, did a random quick search,
visibly anxious that they might have been misplaced. Searched them in the loft.
With a suspicion that they might have been put into a sack, bundled and kept
under the cot, she bent down and searched there too. Nothing was found. Her
chest rose up, heaved a sob.
Her body started sweating
profusely, instinctively. As her tears welled up in her eyes, she bit her lips
violently. As she was about to leave the room, sobbing, she saw the kittens
stuffed beneath the almirah where cloths were kept. She bent down inquiringly and pulled them
out. She held them in her hands zealously. The kittens didn’t turn their faces
towards her. Avoiding her eyes, they were looking at a different direction.
They couldn’t feel the touch of Vaitheki’s fingers. There wasn’t even a sign of
girls who used to come out of them. The thought of not being able to meet them
anymore hit her consciousness deeply. She dropped those toy kittens blinking
blankly with their big eyes, and sobbed inconsolably. Her father and mother
came running to her, tense, on hearing the sound of her sob.
“What happened? What
happened?” her mother’s question did not enter her mind. Due to incessant
crying, her chest beat became faster. Her body was shivering. Tears were
rolling down like flood from her eyes. Unable to understand the reason for her
anxiety and shiver, her mother ran inside, opened a medicine box quickly, and
took out a green colour tablet which the doctor had prescribed for emergency
situations. She lay Vaitheki on her lap, and assuaged her, “Don’t cry my dear
girl. Aren’t you my dearest one? Please open your mouth”, mother beseeched her
and made her swallow one tablet. After placing a tight kiss on her forehead,
her mother started narrating some entertaining stories. In seven or eight
minutes, Vaitheki fell into an empty space of sleep where her mother's voice hadn’t
been reachable. With their worried faces her father and mother were staring at
her face, rather helplessly.
***Ended***
Notes:
1. Aadi- a Tamil month
2. Kavadi- A decorated wooden sticks
bent in semi-circular form carried by devotees of Lord Murugan as a part of
their worship.
3. A toy made of plastic with the upper
body of human being or an animal with the moderately heavy object (clay) under
its seat to maintain a centre of gravity. If the head of toy is tilted on one
side, it will come straight again due to gravity. This type of toys are known
by the town from where they became famous, Thanjavur)
4. Sivaji Ganesan- a popular actor
in Tamil cinema
5. Snacks prepared during special
occasions in Tamil families.
6. Kolam- Patterns drawn in the front yard of the houses with
rice/ lime powder.
