 |
| M. Gopala Krishnan |
This is an English translation of Paarkudangal, a Tamil short story written by M. Gopala Krishnan. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.
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I am standing on that long, empty temple corridor
glancing at a thin-waisted sculpture of woman carved on the stone bearing the
face of Yali 1. My eyes, fixed on its breasts, are staring at them
absorbedly. I look around and see none. The pigeons dwelling in the holes of
temple towers flap their wings, fly across and settle down. My eyes fall upon
the breasts of the statue again. ‘Was it just an imagination of the sculptor?
Or was it just the way she stood for pose before the sculptor?’ Every pillar
has been carved with at least one woman statue. All their breasts are looking
similar, in same size. My fingers grew jittery, longing to touch them to feel
it. Why did they make these voluptuous beauties stand in these temples? It will
be so much embarrassing if someone happens to see me ogling at their breasts.
Isn’t it? Everyone wants to look at it. They move away glancing at them
sideways as if they are not interested in them. But their heart will still be
longing to have a close watch on them. Won’t they? I had also stood in front
of mirror, amazed, comparing the curvaceous frame of the sculpture with my body
while changing my dresses. My body is not like hers. So what? She is a statue,
just a stone statue. But I am a truth standing in flesh and blood. I look
beautiful when I smile. Do I look beautiful? I feel like laughing at once I think of it. Laughing gets difficult anyway since the mere try of it pains a lot.
The lips are dried, paining. Thirst. I need something
to drink. While licking the lips with tongue, it awfully tastes salty and
bitter. This odour! A sharp odour that burns the tips of my nose. I am very
much familiar with this pungent odour. While climbing down the stairs on the
western side of the second-floor nestling in elongated leaves of naval trees, I
used to cover my nose to avoid this stench. It is the same pungency! Adjacent
to the steps, was there a chemistry lab. The lab girl will be explaining some
blue liquid boiling in the beaker and calling it either some element or
mineral, with her elegant curly lips. Is it Suganthi’s voice? Is she speaking
in Malayalam? Possibly no. I am so sure that someone is watching me so closely.
I want to open my eye lids to see who it is. But the eyes are too heavy to
open. This touch seems be that of a woman. Does that Malayalam speaking voice
belong to this woman? What is she doing exactly here? She has masked my eyes so
that I wouldn’t be able to see anything. Hasn’t she? I feel a sharp, sudden
prick somewhere and it moves further slowly and spreads all over my body. The
pain seems to have so many legs. Doesn’t it? The millipedes have hundreds of
legs, but they say horse has thousands of legs. Is this stench an odour of
pain? Are they the waves of pain in the ocean of emerald in which my body now
floats?
As the waves hit the shore ferociously, Manisha2
comes running. Her blue duppatta, flies away, flapping in the wind. Now
the scene is in slow motion. Her big, beautiful assets move up and down, in
slow motion. Tiny lights around the screen are sparkling3. When I
sulked, “what a poor taste it is”, he, sitting beside me glued his eyes on the
screen did not move his eyes away from it even a minute. No matter it is
running or jumping, it is I who knows all its discomforts. “Men are privileged
species; they can leave the place on any emergency at any time, run anytime
they want, fly away anytime time they like. But we aren’t like them. We need to
leave our place at least two minutes in advance. Only then, walking slowly
becomes possible. Even your slow walk would attract hundreds of eyes in the
street. If you run, it will multiply into thousands. Every eye will be waiting
to see your duppatta flying away and half sari sliding out”- Chandra
aunty would warn me into my ears while fastening the ribbon tightly in my hair.
Aunt’s body was well built one. Even her ordinary walk would make her assets
shake up and down. Now, where is she? She was also visiting the hospitals
during her old age. I must ask her what had happened to her after that. I asked
him to give me her mobile contact number. But I am sure that he would have
postponed it. Or he would have concluded himself that talking to her at this
hour was not really needed.
The expanse of emerald green still pulls me towards
it. The softness of mosses in the water caresses my feet. I am being pulled
into the deepest depth of the ocean. It is not cold, and rather it is warm. The
air bubbles coming out of breath of fishes come near to me. The fishes do not
have such torments in their life. I have heard that whales are mammals. If
whale is a mammal, won’t its breast shake when it swims jumping up above water?
Chandra aunt once told me while giving me oil bath, “See…my dear girl. Now, you
have become a grown up girl. You shouldn’t wear tight blouses. You should make
your dresses in such a way that it covers both your shoulders and neck”. Her
words left no impact on me at that time. It was only in my eighth grade, I
understood that it was something giving me an enduring sensation, something
beyond a meek, ordinary outgrowth of one’s body. A secret sensation coupled
with fear. Seeing them on mirror while changing my dresses, my eyes got
attracted towards them. This curiosity further forced me to look at my friends
attentively. So many unanswered questions started hovering around my brain.
Though she would discourage me by a gentle whack on my head if I ask my aunt
about this, she would explain it earnestly while lying beside her or making
plaits on my hair under the guise of rebuking me for being impudent with such
questions. It would be both embarrassing and dreadful listening to her.
It is the fear that still carries me on its head. It
carries me everywhere from lab to lab. How many tests! How many queries! All
medical gimmicks performed on my nude body! I don’t remember whether it was my
ninth class or tenth class. A maternity specialist took a special class for
girls. Her name sounded bizarre, named after a star, Thiruvonam. Yes…her name
was Thiruvona Selvi. How beautifully she taught us to check our breasts with
our own palms! She taught some simple testing techniques while changing our
dresses. I just followed her instructions a couple of times and then stopped.
There wouldn’t have been any need of being enslaved to these tests and persistent
fear had I followed those simple tests unfailingly. These tests are horrible!
One lady once asked me to stand, pressing my breasts against a glass surface
after removing my blouse. Who’s that? Christina? She must have seen so many
women endowed with different sizes. Mustn’t she? For her, they are just some
balls of flesh, group of tissues that are put to test and incapable of evoking
feeling in her. But all are not core professionals like Christina. There was
one Krishnamma, with a mild growth of moustache, used to stare at me while
cleaning the glass surface, and wouldn’t deliberately allow me to put on my
blouse even after the tests were over.
I hear a sound of someone walking in, approaching me
faster. I am unable to open my eyes. I could feel someone standing by my bed.
As I tried to ask ‘who’s that’, I feel an excruciating pain as I tried moving
my lips. I may feel good if I had some water. Neither could I move my hands nor
open my eyes. Is my fear still keeping me on its lap? Or, is it what the death
is? Am I dead now? Never. It is not possible. If I am dead, I won’t be able to
feel this odour, this warmth. The sound of steps falls into my ears very
clearly. The sound of death wouldn’t be this softer. Would it? Wild buffalo is
the vehicle of Yamraj3 known for its lightning speed, wouldn’t walk
this soft.
Where is my husband? Had he been here, I would have
hidden myself behind him. He will do nothing to alleviate my fear even if I
tell him my fears. All what he could do is nothing more than throwing his sharp
eyes at me. A mild nod of his head. All his contributions to lessen my worries
will come to an end with that smart nod. He didn’t even try to be okay with
anything that he had handled. Did he? He didn’t even find complete pleasure in
me. If he had had that experience of finding it out, he would have discovered
all my fears by himself too. The intensity of lust is very short lived, only in
the beginning, to be precise. How fast he would finish off everything! He would
turn his back to me well before I could understand what it was and whatever
happened after that were all only my shameless moves. Weren’t they?
These black stone statues, standing fully endowed, are
not shy of themselves. Which temple is this? Each of those statues is capable
of performing magic of arresting one’s attention. Those statues are not dressed
up. They stand in broad day light without hiding their assets. If those busty
things are not covered with cloths, this world won’t see these many problems.
It attracts the attention only when it is half exposed, half hidden. The
torment starts when the mind tries to find out the stuff half hidden through
its imagination. If fully exposed, nothing will look different as all will look
same. The unresolved madness of millennia will get resolved in just a matter of
seconds. This is the secret that makes all men alike sleepless. Art and poetry
are nothing but empty babbles. Aren’t they? How many of sensuous descriptions!
How many of similes! If all these aspects are filtered through, all the
romantic stock of our literature will become miserably thinner. One poet
compares the shrunken breast to one’s poverty. Another one cries that it is the
benevolence of a generous person. Both Andal and Meera4 have talked
about it. Were they also tormented by its burden?
Are they really a burden to the womenfolk? One
shouldn’t have any doubt about it. It is just a torture. One has to face the
agony of being very careful all the time. The dress shouldn’t slip out; it
shouldn’t be worn loose; it shouldn’t be visible outside the contours of
garments. While climbing up and climbing down the stairs, one should be alert
that it doesn’t shake. Why should one have all these troubles just because of
an additional part of the body destined to carry babies? Isn’t that all? This
world never prefers to treat it that simple. Does it? There are thousands of
eyes always awaiting, kept themselves open to have a glance of them.
This man is no way different from those eyes. On that
night, when he came near to me, I was shaking inside with a fear of unknown
accompanied his approach. He didn’t even give me time to prepare myself for the
next. They were the ones, he was all the way longing to see so impatiently
after removing my dress? Weren’t they? A spectacular ecstasy on his face on
seeing them! A restiveness. How forcibly he grasped them into his hands! It
still pains. The boorishness of his clench! After that incident, at the stroke of
night’s fall, my body would start shivering at the very thought of him
approaching me with beastly speed with his swaying hands. They were his only
targets of pleasure on my body. Weren’t they? Yet, he wasn’t satisfied with
them. Many a night, he had told me without any compunctions that they could
have been still bigger in size. I was clueless as to what reply I must give to
this stupid observation. Everyone’s body has its own curves and crooks. Isn’t
it?
Someone touches my shoulder, shaking me, grasping my
left hand fingers. Who could that be? Is that he?
I am not very certain about it, notwithstanding with
the fact, that I am very much familiar with his touch. A voice is heard near my
ears, and then moves away.
“Malini” …Yes. It is my name. Is he the one calling me
up? There hasn’t been any instance so far in which he addressed me with my full
name. He called me up ‘Malu’. If I am able to open my eyes, I will feel good, I
think. I am still unable to get rid of the heaviness that is pressing down my
eye lids. I moistened my lips with my tongue. Paining much. “Give her some
water” – someone softly ordered, with a tinge of Malayalam in the voice. “Feed
her slowly….slowly…” Drops of water on my lips- a spring that brings back my
life. As it gets down through my throat, my nostrils feel the whiff of it. Is
it his scent? Or is it the scent of Dettol? Is there anymore scent along with
it? Or is it the pleasant whiff of cough syrup?
When I was lactating, my body smelled of milk stench.
While coming near to me, he used to crinkle his face with a sulk, yet wouldn’t
miss caressing it. If I asked him whether they now looked in proper size he had
wanted them, he would deny bobbing his head. “What I want is something
different…something which looks like a copper idol” he would say. His
disappointed voice would pull my heart away from him.
Putting my little baby crying in soft sobs and kicking
his tender legs in the air on my lap, cuddling him against my breast, and
glancing at him when he suckles pressing his gums upon it with his eyes closed,
is nothing less than a moment of bliss. It is dream of both pain and pleasure.
The frenzy of baby hitting the breasts to take out milk from them. How much
painful the breasts are when the baby doesn’t drink milk from it for long! Excruciating
agony. The drops of milk gushing out, spilling all over while pressing the
breasts hard to relieve the pain. It has a typical taste, sweet yet not
completely sweet. The left breast is sagging as the baby has been pulling its
nipples down frequently while suckling, as I lie on my side cuddling him
against my breast. He didn’t leave suckling till he reached two years. He
defied all my attempts to make him forget suckling. He became so infuriated
when he tasted the layer of neem oil applied on my breast. I am still unable to
forget the slap I gave on his back as I was unable to bear the pain of his
furious bite on my nipples. At one point, he despised suckling it. Stopped it.
Never came back to it even if I tried to feed him with it. He smiled at me. I
started crying.
Where is my little
doll?
I must be lying down here for a very long time.
Mustn’t I? Is it since yesterday? Or day before yesterday? Who was that doctor
who talked to me with a smiling face? Was it Suganthi Varatharajan? I couldn’t
be attentive to what she spoke. The fear was very much over powering. I grew
suspicious at everyone. Everyone seemed trying to hide something from me. It
all started with a petty pain of a mere touch. Was it on the right or left? I
brought it to their notice only when the pain became so unbearable. He was also
not very serious about my complaints in the beginning. Only after my persistent
complaints about the pain, he decided to take me to the hospital, that too, in
the fifth week, followed by one month of visits to hospitals. The pain was
aggravating, bringing me almost under its tight grip. It was in one of my
visits to Suganthi, I got all my doubts cleared, yet afraid of asking what it
was. She just told, “A small surgery”. These many tests just to conduct a small
surgery! How many times the radiation must have penetrated my body as if
chopping it off into pieces! I got simply bored with the terms MRI and tissue
analysis. He was also tight lipped. His eyes were teary and his voice wasn’t
coherent. He would just utter something out of some needs and then quickly
whisk away. They took me to the operation theatre in the early morning. He
brought me in a bed to the operation theatre grasping my hand. They stopped him
at the entry and took the bed in, and closed the door. I was strictly
instructed not to eat anything after ten ‘O clock from yesterday. I didn’t even
drink water. Emerald greenish hue filled in the room. The window blinds were
swaying in the air. A mild humming of air conditioner blowing out cold air. Wearing
a green colour surgical attire, Suganthi entered the room as the nurses and
other doctors were busy in their respective assigned tasks. She came near and
smiled at me. The streak of kunkumam worn between the partings of her hair was
visible sparingly. “Just a small injection” she told, nodded her head and left.
A chilling pain in the spine drove me mad. She came to me after sometime and
asked something. I could see the movement of people and a lock of her hair was
visible outside her green colour cap. I could feel that they were all doing
something on me, bending over towards my body. But I couldn’t see what they are
exactly doing. Are they crating? Are they going to cut them off? What are they
doing? I could understand one thing for sure- They got me getting rid of the
fear that has been engulfing my psyche.
Was he waiting outside? Was the same fear hiding
itself near him? What might he have thought of? What might he have told about
my problem? He was never attracted towards me anyway. Now this problem added to
it…will they remove all? One? Or both? How could they have removed them? Like
the way Kannaki tore her breasts and threw away! Did she tear the left breast
off with her right hand and threw it out in the air? How come that milk pot
could emit fire? Madurai was set ablaze. Wasn’t it? Kannaki too did have this
problem? Didn’t she? Not only she…all women have the same problem. She was very
daring that she could tear her breast off and threw it. Here I am lying on bed,
giving them away. Many women still safeguard them strictly under their
braziers.
Is wearing braziers necessary? Will he remember this
question I asked curiously as a newly married bride? If he now asks me “what is
your size?”, what could be my reply? I can run like female athletes henceforth.
No more hesitations, no more worries that it will shake up and down while
walking and running. Removing both will be seriously comfortable since removing
only one will become cumbersome. Did the doctor mention about it? I heard her
telling something with smile bending over to me as her hair streaking out. She
must have told about it I guess. is it one or two?
I have heard
that Goddess Parvathi has three breasts. Poor woman! I have these many troubles
with just two. With three, it will be a torture for her. Will it grow again
like nails clipped once or hair that trimmed once? No…it should not. If it
grows, all other ailments associated with it will also grow along with it. How
pathetic it would be to see a group of tissues that bears life in it could
develop into such a deadly cancer? Is it possible that a gland that produces
milk could release poison? If grows again, I have to undergo the same torments
of tests, injections and medicines. Some persons covering themselves in green
colour attire, wearing masks would come near and chop them off again with their
laser knife. I don’t need them to grow again; I can’t bear it being chopped off
again. I must tell him all.
Will he approach me after this? Every time he
approaches me, it is the spot he used to begin all. Will there be scars at the
place where they were cut off? They would be looking like those broken statues.
Wouldn’t they? Would they have stitched the open skin after removing those
fleshy rounded assets? When could I see that spot again? Now it is logically
acceptable that he would move away from me. I don’t think he would leave me alone. If he suffers
from something like this, would I be able to leave him alone? No one can run away from each other. Both are impeding
each other from running away. Aren’t we? Poor fellow! Must be feeling dejected.
He must have been afflicted by the fear of having faced everything closely all
alone. Medical expenses run in lakhs of rupees. He must be feeling miserable
now and struggling to get out of this unending darkness in order to see some
light out there.
I could feel some shade of light in my eyes. Now I am
able to move my eye lids. Are the doors of emerald sea opening now?
Am I floating in the air? Or just lying down? Body
seems to be weightless. Leaving my memories alone, has my body melted into
nothing? Feeling thirsty. I moved my lips. It pains. Some drops of water are
flowing down from my mouth. Is he sitting near to me? No…I don’t think so. I
opened my eye lids. I could see an image of a person bending over towards me.
Blue light in the backdrop. The moment I clucked my tongue on lips and drank, I
heard someone saying, “Very good”. They tried shaking my right shoulder. Voice
of a woman “are you able to open your eyes now?”. My left eye opened a bit. At once
the heavy eye lids gave way, the light spread in the front as if covered with
snow. Behind the snowy dimness was there her face seen through the gap of
opened eye lids. “Look at me this way…” she gently touched my jaw, and turned
to her. Now I could see everything clearly. A portrait of sun flower on the
wall. A door on the left. It just opens and a person comes in. There he is. I
close my eyes once, and then open. He is standing beside me with his
disheveled hair, tired and sunken face.
“Malu…” he grasps my hands softly. Tears rolling down
my cheeks. “Don’t cry. You will be alright…” tears roll down his cheeks too.
The woman warns, “Let her not strain herself.” I gaze
at his eyes as he sits on the chair. What should I ask him first?
I have to see myself in the mirror. Only after that I
could muster courage to ask him anything. “I was waiting for the moment you
would open your eyes”- he says, wiping his tears. “When was the surgery over?”
I ask him, a question for the sake of asking. “It was over by half past ten
morning yesterday. They kept you under observation till morning today and
brought you here at about eleven. You didn’t open your eyes all day” he says,
his voice drowns with heaviness.
“What is the time now?”
“Half past six in the evening”
Time for lighting the home. The house had been left
unattended without lighting lamps.
“Where’s our boy?”
“He’s gone out with his grandpa. He’ll be back soon”
I know these are unimportant questions. Just a
customary start of my conversations with him. The questions I wanted to ask him
are totally different from these simple perfunctory queries. Where and how to
start?
I guess he is also reeling under similar conflicts in
mind. What to tell him first? How to tell him that? Suganthi must have
explained him everything. Now, how is he going to tell me all these?”
My muscles started aching. Let him start himself. If I
don’t get any convincing answers to any of my questions from his talk, I will
later consider asking him that. There was no pressing urgency to ask him now.
Is it one or both? Did they just remove some of its problematic interiors or
remove it completely? Will I able to see that chopped group of flesh?
I closed my eyes.
I am standing in that long corridor again.
I heard a voice from somewhere. “The statues in all
the temples stand broken. Handiwork of some miscreants. Look at the spots where
they have tried their hands to maim them! Lowly births! They are also born to
their mothers and suckled milk from their breasts. Aren’t they?”
Standing there a thin waisted sculpture of woman
carved on the stone bearing the face of Yali. She is standing with her right
hand raised upward. The breasts of her elegantly erect frame are found
mutilated.
***Ended***
Notes:
1.
A Hindu mythological creature,
portrayed with the head and the body of a lion, the trunk and the tusks of an
elephant, and sometimes bearing equestrian features mostly found in South
Indian Temples.
2.
Manisha- Manisha Koirala, a film actress.
3.
A
scene in movie “Bombay” by Maniratnam, a famous Tamil film director.
4.
Female
devotees of Lord Krishna.
Source:
“Paarkudangal”, short story written by M. Gopala Krishnan
Translated into
English Saravanan Karmegam.
