Durai Arivazhagan
Vellamaathi and her son Thalamuthu resolved to leave the palm garden-at present, there was only the label but hardly for the fact, was there any trace of one such a garden. To illustrate the Palmyra garden and its reality, not even a tender shoot of a Palmyra was found in the whole vicinity of the land. Once there was a garden of Palmyra with trees ranging three thousand in number. That had been running as a grey visual of insects flying across in the eyes of Vellamaathi and her son Thalamuthu resolved to leave the palm garden-at present, there was only the label but hardly for the fact, was there any trace of one such a garden. To illustrate the Palmyra garden and its reality, not even a tender shoot of a Palmyra was found in the whole vicinity of the land. Once there was a garden of Palmyra with trees ranging three thousand in number. That had been running as a grey visual of insects flying across in the eyes of Vellamaathi. The felled Palmyra tree was taken to Mariyadass’s brick kiln and burnt as firewood nowadays.
Palmyra garden Mariyadass is now hailed as brick kiln Mariya dass. The Palmyra tree climbing Thalamuthu then became a leftover, due to lack of work, withdrew into his own self and concealed his slender body into his small hut.
FOR Vellamaathi and Thalamuthu, the Palmyra garden was everything and their being, in that their roots were profound. Hence they found it Hard to estrange themselves from the garden.
When the farming lands had desiccated due to a dearth of water, the cucumber stream (vellari odai) farmers had sold their Palmyra trees that stood over the furrows of their fields to Mariyadass. The vellari odai farmers and the farmers of valankaa oori, koravalli, and Rettaiyurani sold their trees and tried their best to survive. The cut and split palm loads were transported through trucks to Mariyadass’s brick kiln at kaavanoor.
The clay at kavanoor was smooth that it could be amenably filled into the moulds. Even after removing it from the mould, the moist would linger in shape and can slowly and intensely vaporise in air and later, can be baked with the help of the kiln. They then converted into the solid edifices and brick-concrete structures of the townships. Mariyadass never drifted to find firewood for his brick kilns nor went for the neem trees, tamarind or black babul wood. Cheaply found palm wood was much availed and was split by hydraulic machinery to make firewood. The baked bricks turned about to be heaps kept aside and made Mariyadass gorgeous.
He was roaming around his kavanoor kilns with no less arrogance; likewise, he was wandering around the palm gardens of Vellari odai in earlier days. Whilst the ban on toddy was imposed, all lives were changed but not Mariyadass’s; he had different plans, left his remorse behind, severed all the palm trees in his garden that became the material for fire in his kilns and thrived out of it. Never perturbed about his closed toddy shops, he then had a keen outlook to improvise his kilns.
Having betel nut in his mouth with sweet perfumes spewed all over his body, with a silk jibbah, and costly mallu dhoti around the waist, he would set out on a ride through his reklaa cart driven by young bulls. He would then visit north corner farmland muththayi, mooppan’s wife and many such young women with no limit to assuage his carnal desires as a cat having the lust for dry fish. His daily life is such he would hijack women even to the periphery of his groundwater tank or to the bamboo hut through using the methods of money or muscle…
Nanjeli was an old woman- she would be selling pathaneer, the processed sweet water from coconut left the village vellari odai long ago. The pathaneer would be poured into the palm leaf itself after precisely cut and unfurled it as a bowl. Those green leaves were not needed then as there was not a busy sale of pathaneer. They had been scorched by the heat and dried out, and lying everywhere. The nerves of the leaves were dwindling in the air though they are lifeless. Not just nanjeli, but also Esakki, Eena Muthu, Thavasi, all Mariyadass garden tree climbers, too, had left the village. The palm was cut, the emptied pots of the tree climbers were left in the lurch, the wagons full of Palmyra wood loads were scramming on the road that carried them to kavanoor.
The palm garden is under blazing heat. And under such heat, the umbrella thorn trees that lost their juice stood dried out. Birds like thaen sittu-honey sparrows, the crow pheasants, Yellow-billed babblers, all small birds used to hide in palm sprouts vacated themselves to migrate to umbrella thorn (karuvelam) trees. The thousand numbered unoccupied palm leaf, and clay clad huts over the periphery had become lairs for venomous snakes. The sunlight was heavily filling all the pots, and palm crap was kept around as debris.
The hut of Thalamuthu, too, was palm clay make that the sun was alighting through the holes of it and was piercing his eyes as he was lying down though. He wasn’t willing to wake up and rolling on the mat. Even in the hazy dawn, Thalamuthu would be set out for his avocation to collect pathaneer, armed with the sickle meant for cutting the stem of the flower of palm, kept in a conical box.
Pathaneer is sap collected through the cut stamp of the palm tree flower; it would be sweet and non-alcoholic and collected before fermentation.
He is, in fact, married to pathaneer extracting. He would insert both his feet in a tightly knit rope, widen his legs and would start climbing the tall Palmyra tree. The two legs that help him climbing the tree would be firmly held with the help of the rope that binds both his feet and legs-that would help him not to slip as it firmly grips the tree. Whilst climbing, he would keep his chest close to the tree. He would climb at least fifty trees in a day. Thalamuthu turned out to be a lizard, at least literally. Keeping his leg folded on a branch of the tree, looking downwards with finesse, he would slice the palm fruit’s stem. Once in four trees, he would sharpen the sickle and always keeps ready of the white marble powder in the sickle box, bundled in a piece of cloth to sharpen it.
The sickle box is made out of three branches of coconut tree submerged into water and prepared. That would be nearly feet’s length in which reserved are; a sickle to slice palm flower stem, flat sickle and (chalk) lime powder box.
From every tree, he will extract three litres of pathaneer, and few trees can proffer at least ten litres. Steaming seventy-five litres of pathaneer, Vellamaathy, his mother, would prepare twenty kilograms of palm jaggery per day. The jaggery would be in many varieties: sukku karuppatti, puttuk karuppatti, olaik karuppatti. The sweet aroma would fill the entire village. Vellamaathy would frequently be running for firewood for jaggery heating.
She would be proud of her hands, their rugged form and show them to the women at the village, ’this is the hand that makes not less than fifteen jaggery per day’. She would be really proud of it.
At his tender age, when he was accompanied by his mother, trespassing the palm garden, Vellamathy would say to Thalamuthu, ‘’this is the feminine Palmyra and this the masculine one, which is blossomed in length that helps to extract the palm wine and pathaneer. Masculine one only helps to extract kallu-the palm wine. ’He has grown into a man listening to such types of narratives of Palmyra from his mother and others.
She would further narrate, ’for all hands, the sap would not come out, it is the boon for certain hands only. Like the mother who knows, to whom the milk should drip, the palm tree would also drip its sap to the one who treats it as his mother’’. And there are those trees for whom that have never given a drop of its sap who rush to climb the tree and finish his work. Your father would first speak to the tree, and then after getting its permission, he would make ascent towards it; the result would be more of the sweet wine he would get. He would collect a piece of the tree first, keep it on his eyes close, pray the tree and then only would extract the sweet fluid.
Usually, there won’t be any less income for eight months in a year as the sweet liquid pathaneer will be available for six months. When the season for pathaneer extraction is over after six months, the palm fruits would be available in plenty.
Bestowing pathaneer and karupatty, the palm jaggery that he and his mother produced to the hands of Mariyadass Thalamuththu would feel content.
That small hut was the only property owned by him and his mother; that has sheltered them after their hard work, for keeping the necessary tools for their work and mostly known as their home.
Like his mother, the palm trees have given him warmth that the tree would never fail to provide him with abundant sap with the touch of his hands. He is really macho, and his mother has tried her best to see him wed locked in an urge. Her bloodline from Vethalai and Thalaiyuthu villages will vanish seeing her head as she would ask any of her relative’s daughters for marriage with her son.
No one is interested in giving his daughter’s hand to someone who climbs palm tree for his survival, and bread wins.
‘’someone wed locked with a palm tree climber has to collect firewood from the wilderness, and live in a surrounding where palm climber’s toolbox (neetrup petti); useful and playing things made out of Palmyra leaf (kadakam) are kept around. The stinking created by such things in the shelter would be intolerable as the hut, which has a roof made out of Palmyra leaves. This is horrible. If he dies out of the steep fall from the tall tree, should my daughter be his wife, decorated with the colourless sari and howl out of pain? She has so many guts, rather senses to ask a young woman for her son’s wedding.’’ people would chatter like this even standing close to her.
Never worried about it, Thalamuthu just continued his way of living with the exclusive perfume of Palmyra, enlightening and provide more lust to him. His mother was nonetheless having more agony of his son remaining alone with no spouse. So she would squat in front of the son of god, with a thali (holy knot around the neck) and keeping it in a box before him as an offer would pray insistently. The holy rope is kept in a box, with a beautiful yellow colour made out of Palmyra leaves. It is blazing in its tint; just a handful in size would be kept in the attic safely.
On good Fridays and crucifixion Sundays in the church during the time of gruel serving days, the placards and banners would be prepared by freshly aromatic Palmyra leaves with strong nerves-the leaves would be carried on by the volunteers as they would dwindle in air. Years passed on with these usual scenes, but no marital alliance for her son got materialised.
The people of koravalli,valankavoorani, Rettaiyurani and vellari odai left their villages for better prospects… yet Thalamuthu and vellamathi continued their living, shrinking themselves in their small hut with a veil around their body, gripping their lungs in hand, with that odour of the lasting oil tarnished Hair of their heads. The heat of their respiration was like the burning firewood in the kiln.
The birds visiting the canal of vellari odai would be easily hunted by Thalamuthu, and keeping it a closed bag, he will bring it home. Digging off the land, Vellamaathy will bring the sedge tuber. These have become scarce these days as birds are rare and the tuber grows scarcely on the earth. Thalamuthu, too has gone emaciated and weak, losing all the vigour in him.
After thinking a lot, Vellamathy and Thalamuthu, with an uncompromising mind, decided to vacate their homes and migrate to any place for their living. At the outskirts of the village, they came across a trucker with a brick load was rushing ahead of them, spraying dust on them. Vellamaathy did not overlook to gather the pipal tree-shaped thali from the yellow box made in palm leaf and dropped it in the hundi of the divine sanctuary that she usually prays.
Whilst she was taking the thali-the holy rope from the yellow box, a bit of yellow powder cemented with her hand, which she sported on her forehead and said,
‘’with this hand, I have made fifteen jaggery pieces’’… the village named as vellari odai was wantonly fading behind from their eyes. The felled Palmyra tree was taken to Mariyadass’s brick kiln and burnt as firewood nowadays.
Palmyra garden Mariyadass is now hailed as brick kiln Mariya dass. The Palmyra tree climbing Thalamuthu then became a leftover, due to lack of work, withdrew into his own self and concealed his slender body into his small hut.
FOR Vellamaathi and Thalamuthu, the Palmyra garden was everything and their being, in that their roots were profound. Hence they found it Hard to estrange themselves from the garden.
When the farming lands had desiccated due to a dearth of water, the cucumber stream (vellari odai) farmers had sold their Palmyra trees that stood over the furrows of their fields to Mariyadass. The vellari odai farmers and the farmers of valankaa oori, koravalli, and Rettaiyurani sold their trees and tried their best to survive. The cut and split palm loads were transported through trucks to Mariyadass’s brick kiln at kaavanoor.
The clay at kavanoor was smooth that it could be amenably filled into the moulds. Even after removing it from the mould, the moist would linger in shape and can slowly and intensely vaporise in air and later, can be baked with the help of the kiln. They then converted into the solid edifices and brick-concrete structures of the townships. Mariyadass never drifted to find firewood for his brick kilns nor went for the neem trees, tamarind or black babul wood. Cheaply found palm wood was much availed and was split by hydraulic machinery to make firewood. The baked bricks turned about to be heaps kept aside and made Mariyadass gorgeous.
He was roaming around his kavanoor kilns with no less arrogance; likewise, he was wandering around the palm gardens of Vellari odai in earlier days. Whilst the ban on toddy was imposed, all lives were changed but not Mariyadass’s; he had different plans, left his remorse behind, severed all the palm trees in his garden that became the material for fire in his kilns and thrived out of it. Never perturbed about his closed toddy shops, he then had a keen outlook to improvise his kilns.
Having betel nut in his mouth with sweet perfumes spewed all over his body, with a silk jibbah, and costly mallu dhoti around the waist, he would set out on a ride through his reklaa cart driven by young bulls. He would then visit north corner farmland Muththayi, Mooppan’s wife and many such young women with no limit to assuage his carnal desires as a cat having the lust for dry fish. His daily life is such he would hijack women even to the periphery of his groundwater tank or to the bamboo hut through using the methods of money or muscle…
Anjali was an old woman- she would be selling pathaneer, the processed sweet water from coconut left the village vellari odai long ago. The pathaneer would be poured into the palm leaf itself after precisely cut and unfurled it as a bowl. Those green leaves were not needed then as there was not a busy sale of pathaneer. They had been scorched by the heat and dried out, and lying everywhere. The nerves of the leaves were dwindling in the air though they are lifeless. Not just nanjeli, but also Esakki, Eena Muthu, Thavasi, all Mariyadass garden tree climbers, too, had left the village. The palm was cut, the emptied pots of the tree climbers were left in the lurch, the wagons full of Palmyra wood loads were scramming on the road that carried them to kavanoor.
The palm garden is under blazing heat. And under such heat, the umbrella thorn trees that lost their juice stood dried out. Birds like thaen sittu-honey sparrows, the crow pheasants, Yellow-billed babblers, all small birds used to hide in palm sprouts vacated themselves to migrate to umbrella thorn (karuvelam) trees. The thousand numbered unoccupied palm leaf, and clay clad huts over the periphery had become lairs for venomous snakes. The sunlight was heavily filling all the pots, and palm crap was kept around as debris.
The hut of Thalamuthu, too, was palm clay make that the sun was alighting through the holes of it and was piercing his eyes as he was lying down. He wasn’t willing to wake up and rolling on the mat. Even in the hazy dawn, Thalamuthu would be set out for his avocation to collect pathaneer, armed with the sickle meant for cutting the stem of the flower of palm, kept in a conical box.
Pathaneer is sap collected through the cut stamp of the flower of the palm tree; it would be sweet and non-alcoholic and collected before fermentation.
He is, in fact, married to pathaneer extracting. He would insert both his feet in a tightly knit rope, widen his legs and would start climbing the tall Palmyra tree. The two legs that help him climbing the tree would be firmly held with the help of the rope that binds both his feet and legs-that would help him not to slip as it firmly grips the tree. Whilst climbing, his chest would be kept close to the tree. He would climb at least fifty trees in a day. Thalamuthu turned out to be a lizard, at least literally. Keeping his leg folded on a branch of the tree, looking downwards with finesse, he would slice the palm fruit’s stem. Once in four trees, he would sharpen the sickle and always keeps ready of the white marble powder in the sickle box, bundled in a piece of cloth to sharpen it.
The sickle box is made out of three branches of coconut tree submerged into water and prepared. That would be nearly feet’s length in which reserved are; a sickle to slice palm flower stem, flat sickle and (chalk) lime powder box.
From every tree, he will extract three litres of pathaneer, and few trees can proffer at least ten litres. Steaming seventy-five litres of pathaneer, Vellamaathy, his mother, would prepare twenty kilograms of palm jaggery per day. The jaggery would be in many varieties: sukku karuppatti, puttuk karuppatti, olaik karuppatti. The sweet aroma would fill the entire village. Vellamaathy would frequently be running for firewood for jaggery heating.
She would be proud of her hands, their rugged form and show them to the women at the village, ’this is the hand that makes not less than fifteen jaggery per day’. She would be really proud of it.
At his tender age, when he was accompanied by his mother, trespassing the palm garden, vellamathy would say to thalamuthu, ‘’this is the feminine Palmyra and this the masculine one, which is blossomed in length that helps to extract the palm wine and pathaneer. Masculine one only helps to extract kallu-the palm wine. ’He has grown into a man listening to such types of narratives of Palmyra from his mother and others.
She would further narrate, ’for all hands, the sap would not come out, it is the boon for certain hands only. Like the mother who knows, to whom the milk should drip, the palm tree would also drip its sap to the one who treats it as his mother’’. And there are those trees for whom that have never given a drop of its sap who rush to climb the tree and finish his work. Your father would first speak to the tree, and then after getting its permission, he would make ascent towards it; the result would be more of the sweet wine he would get. He would collect a piece of the tree first, keep it on his eyes close, pray the tree and then only would extract the sweet fluid.
Usually, there won’t be any less income for eight months in a year as the sweet liquid, pathaneer, will be available for six months. When the season for pathaneer extraction is over after six months, the palm fruits would be available in plenty.
Bestowing pathaneer and karupatty, the palm jaggery that he and his mother produced to the hands of Mariyadass Thalamuththu would feel content.
That small hut was the only property owned by him and his mother; that has sheltered them after their hard work, for keeping the necessary tools for their work and mostly known as their home.
Like his mother, the palm trees have given him warmth that the tree would never fail to provide him with abundant sap with the touch of his hands. He is really macho, and his mother has tried her best to see him wed locked in an urge. Her bloodline from Vethalai and Thalaiyuthu villages will vanish seeing her head as she would ask any of her relative’s daughters for marriage with her son.
No one is interested in giving his daughter’s hand to someone who climbs palm tree for his survival, and bread wins.
‘’someone wed locked with a palm tree climber has to collect firewood from the wilderness, and live in a surrounding where palm climber’s toolbox (neetrup petti); useful and playing things made out of Palmyra leaf (kadakam) are kept around. The stinking created by such things in the shelter would be intolerable as the hut, which has a roof made out of Palmyra leaves. This is horrible. If he dies out of the steep fall from the tall tree, should my daughter be his wife, decorated with the colourless sari and howl out of pain? She has so many guts, rather senses to ask a young woman for her son’s wedding.’’ people would chatter like this even standing close to her.
Never worried about it, Thalamuthu just continued his way of living with the exclusive perfume of Palmyra, enlightening and provide more lust to him. His mother was nonetheless having more agony of his son remaining alone with no spouse. She would squat in front of the son of god, with a thali (holy knot around the neck) and keeping it in a box before him as an offer would pray insistently. The holy rope is kept in a box with a beautiful yellow colour made out of Palmyra leaves. It is blazing in its tint; just a handful in size would be kept in the attic safely.
On good Fridays and crucifixion Sundays in the church during the time of gruel serving days, the placards and banners would be prepared by freshly aromatic Palmyra leaves with strong nerves-the leaves would be carried on by the volunteers as they would dwindle in air. Years passed on with these usual scenes, but no marital alliance for her son got materialised.
The people of koravalli,valankavoorani, Rettaiyurani and vellari odai left their villages for better prospects… yet Thalamuthu and Vellamathi continued their living, shrinking themselves in their small hut with a veil around their body, gripping their lungs in hand, with that odour of the lasting oil tarnished Hair of their heads. The heat of their respiration was like the burning firewood in the kiln.
The birds visiting the canal of vellari odai would be easily hunted by Thalamuthu, and keeping it a closed bag, he will bring it home. Digging off the land, Vellamaathy will bring the sedge tuber. These have become scarce these days as birds are rare and the tuber grows scarcely on the earth. Thalamuthu, too has gone emaciated and weak, losing all the vigour in him.
After thinking a lot, Vellamathy and Thalamuthu, with an uncompromising mind, decided to vacate their homes and migrate to any place for their living. At the outskirts of the village, they came across a trucker with a brick load was rushing ahead of them, spraying dust on them. Vellamaathy did not overlook to gather the pipal tree-shaped thali from the yellow box made in palm leaf and dropped it in the hundi of the divine sanctuary that she usually prays.
Whilst she was taking the thali-the holy rope from the yellow box, a bit of yellow powder cemented with her hand, which she sported on her forehead and said,
‘’with this hand, I have made fifteen jaggery pieces’’… the village named as vellari odai was fading from their eyes.
This story is originally written in Tamil and is translated to English by R Balakrishnan.
R. Balakrishnan is a bilingual translator and Tamil writer. He has produced ten translated works along with London based writer Yamuna Rajendran. He has composed many poems and written critical articles in magazines. He is also have published research papers in international journals. His important novels in English translations are Faces of the Dead and Notch, authored by Subrabarathimanian and Lock-Up- a novel by Chandra Kumar. He is an English professor in a college in Coimbatore, Tamil Nadu, India. He is reachable through his email rdada2001@gmail.com
