Karankarki
“They disappear,
They lose their minds,
They commit suicide.”
“No locusts will come a thousand miles away to devour sin.”
1
Once again, a great loss, but this time Ayya couldn’t bear it. It is equivalent to the pain out of the beatings by twisting the arm so hard and putting it on the back to break the spine. “Fate is haunting me”, he murmured as usual. He slapped on his chest rapidly until his eyes darkened.
“Is it possible for human to act in defiance of the fate?”
Ayya looks at a young man who has come to the funeral house and asked this out of anguish. He doesn’t know what to tell him. An old man put an arm around Ayya’s shoulders as a support and moved him towards the chair. At that moment, that woman’s scream was heard for the third time from upstairs. The voice was stale in the ears of everyone who have come to the funeral. A murmur was heard, “Why they have tied and kept her in the upstairs”.
The dead body fell from the front side of the terrace above the side of the unsealed parking lot in the front of the house. The dead woman must have lost consciousness immediately after her body fell to the ground. There were no signs of survival struggle that had happened. The grass on the ground charred in the form of outspread limbs. The fire scorched the grass in the shape as if it was drawn by chalk. The trace of burn marks was seen as dots in the grass, where the fragments of fire splashed from the body while it fell. The person who committed suicide might have decided never to survive. She has jumped from the terrace after setting fire in the fuel drenched body. The skull was cracked, and the head must have collided first. The heart, which had been beating unconscious for a whole day with 80 per cent burns, stopped.
“When fate is playing, what can be done by whom?
Ayya kept muttering like this over and over again until his daughter’s body was taken. When he came after burying the burnt body, he ran towards the ornamental pond in front of the house, grabbed the unmournful lilies and threw them out of the pool. He screams by knocking his head dangerously in the middle of the fountain system. The growing blood droplets from the head drip into the ornamental pond, and the fishes bounce by tasting it. Those who came to the funeral have grabbed him tightly and took him away. The body trembled, and the nerves clenched as he screamed out of grief. Yes…my daughter is no more… she died by experiencing cruel pain. It seems that still, he doesn’t realize that how he had done such a foolish thing.
2
The house has witnessed the murder of Editor Lakshmikanthan, who was writing the erotic strings during white rule. NS Krishnan and ThiyagarayaBhagavadhar, who believed to be responsible persons for that murder, were arrested and later released from jail, and they also died. But that house is still intact without change. On its less human bustling street, you can only see the movement of schoolgirls for half an hour in the morning and evening. It is a double-storeyed house in the middle of an elongated rectangular land with a five-foot-high and one-and-a-half-inch wall fence around 108 cents of land. There is a four-storey beautiful fountain between the fence door and the house in the middle of a ten-foot circular ornamental artificial pond. The architectural setup of a fountain was made as the water overflows from the first layer to the second, like this to the bottom beneath the fourth to receive and discharge the water in the pond filled with the lilies. There was an underground way to send that water to the garden at the back of the house. The Lilly has blossomed in the pond. The ornamental pond was dripping fat enough to soak the saliva on the tongues of non-veg eaters. Sometimes, out of the boring life, the fat big fish spill and fall to the ground and then to the broth pan of the house maid’s house. They painted the house a long time ago. To the east of that house is a Central Railway Station, the Egmore Railway station to the south, and if you walk without turning to left or right for hundred feet from the right on the eastbound lane, you can reach Moormarket in ten minutes. Can’t you find out the house with these notes? Ignore it; we will take care of the matter.
There was a century-old Anglo-Indian school is there on the next fence of the house. At sometimes, the voices of the students are heard. It was at that school that Ayya’s daughter Maragatham had completed her schooling. He doesn’t like to see her in a short skirt. The full skirt is not allowed in that school. Ayya always wears a white supremacist handloom cloth. It was not easy to get a seat in that school even before the independence. She is currently studying in the third year of English literature at Presidency College. Her brother went missing by the day she was writing the semester, and three thousand rupees were also missing from the household cash box.
“The fate is playing…what will he do?” the dad murmured.
3
He could not adjust himself with the historical murmuration of this house. It was easy for him to get out of this suffocating life and give up everything. He felt more relaxed than ever. However, it was unbearable suffering for him to leave the six Indian laburnum trees lined up in the house’s garden. The day he left, the Indian laburnum trees were in full bloom. Under the trees, there was an artistic sloping bench with an iron cast frame. The flowers hung like golden scallops and showed off their beauty. It’s a fan, a passionate lover stole the money from his own house and ran away somewhere. Now, he had forgotten the memories of the Indian laburnum tree as he walked 1000 Kilometres of land. He was lying asleep on a stone floor in an abandoned century-old Inn with a sense of liberation. In recent days, he was mesmerised by the faintness of leaf smoke given by the monks.
4
At least, even one lip from the ten people within an hour accuses him of being so stingy that he keeps so much property and pretends to be having nothing, without even doing this to his own children. He and his paternal grandparents are the Gods to the tenants in his family-owned buildings throughout the city. The rent comes from 415 people. The rent paid during the Dandi pilgrimage of Gandhi is still the same today. The white people have gone. The actor and actress have come to power, and it is 6 years since the death of MGR. the former actress Jayalalitha is now in power. If the rent is adjusted to the current situation, today’s fair amount should be Rs. 8,30,000 and a minimum of Rs. 4,15,000. But the rental amount is 41,500 only. Some of the rented shops are earning Rs.30,000 a month, but still, the reason they pay rupees 7 as rent for a month is of the bond written on that day. But the present tenant can be given advance notice, and the new tenant can be rented out. But Ayya doesn’t want to do it. Surplus of properties from donations such as hospital, post office and school throughout the city from north and south, only 67 assets are leftover. Ayya’s eldest son Sathiyamoorthy, who fled from here, has never seen some of the property. Some of such are dilapidating, and the Pipal trees are grown looks like crumbled threatening buildings. Dogs, cats and the people who dare to do anything to exchange their pleasure have taken refuge in those buildings. I have a topic only for you that the wanted criminals have been lurking there for weeks. Even if you go there now, you can get a startling scene in those gorges.
5
Sathiyamoorthy, who ran away, is a Tamil graduate of the Pachaiappa’s college, which is known for the saying, even the steps of Pachaiyappa’s will sing a song. His dad ordered him to get a doctorate. For Sathiyamoorthy, it was not a big deal, but every single thing of the house suffocates him. Until his graduation from Pachaiyappa’s, he has used to go to college by bus from Choolai Post office to Pachaiyappa’s college. He got the bicycle in his post-graduation. He can go by car in concern to his wealth, at least a bike. “Despite of the wealth, why it is like that”, the voices of these words entered his body like a wire that came into out had given him painful sufferings. He had forgotten that he has a mother who was tied up upstairs. Her unreasonable screams startle them in the middle of the night. Such a big house in the city and so many properties…but they didn’t bring them happiness. The crying and the endless screams are echoing incessantly in the house where there is no laughter. Doctors come to the house week after week. It just seems like there is no end to it. The father also rejected his daughter Maragatham’s request to buy a car for household needs. Two rickshaw pullers are always ready for a ride on the road near the fence.
6
When Sathiyamoorthi left after the class, the Philosophy professor who has always been friendly with him had stopped him and said,
“Come, wants to talk to you”.
He is known as a fortune-teller of the pupil by looking at their face itself’. He used to choose a pupil of his choice to talk to them. Some students are waiting for that opportunity.
Sathiyamoorthi believed that his face would betray something, and in fact, the storm was blowing inside him.
“Is your reading of face being like reading of fingerprints”?
“The palm lines are not so accurate witnesses…importantly, a happy person never goes to see the fortune teller. Which, the fortune teller knows it”.
“I read in a story that the fortune teller told the fortunes of a man by holding the hands who was lying on the deathbed out of disease. He said that, the disease and the destituteness will wipe away from him within three days. But the man died 366 seconds before he had said this”.
The professor stared at him.
“Everything is a medium, that’s it. Look at there.”
He has asked him, pointing out a fig tree which is some 200 feet away from them, “Will there be a fruit in it or not?” He suddenly intends to say something.
“You can say as you know it already. If you have seen that tree from here for the first time, you might have confused what tree it is. For one who has a lot of training will tell you almost within a little heed. But it is fraudulent to say that in the next three years, a ton of fruit will be harvested and you can be rich by loading in the ships. Is there anyone in the world who is not mesmerized by these petty fantasies? People are spending money only for that happiness”.
“You have read something from my face”.
“Yes…but you don’t feel neither happy nor sorrow in saying that…there is a loneliness in your face. Such loneliness is dangerous at this age”.
As he tries to move away from that place with the bowing head, he constantly wanted to talk to him by clearing his throat,
“You are writing poetry; I have read your poem in a weekly magazine. The poem, Vikatakavi who broke 175 pots is so wonderful. The poem, During the days of Water Scarcity is also too good, poems of a Monk escaping from life…but there is a parody and criticism in your language. You can bring your poems as a book. The most wonderful poems.” He understood that he is on an urging foot to leave from there.
“I have not written for a year.”
“Old poems can also be put in as a book.”
“To publish the book money is needed.”
“Is money a problem for the son of the richest man in the city?”
“Dad thinks that, all these are unworthy.”
“Well, I will pay to compile your poems as a book. But don’t put it in Tamil; you have to translate into English. Yours, Stained air, The murdered lily pond…are best poems. But don’t publish your book in Tamil.”
“Why”
“Your poems itself will force you to beg, if you publish in Tamil”.
“I have stopped writing.”
“There is no wrong to stop while starting”, he laughed jokingly.
“You are reading a lot…it is good. What are you reading now?”
“I have started reading the story of a man who turns into a cockroach… My sister has some books at home.”
By staring at him, he said,
“Send me your poems”. He handed him a slip of paper with his address written on it. They both walked on their way.
A scene he had read in a European novel sometimes ago came to his mind when he turned his vehicle to the opposite side of KMC. He has remembered the scenes of selling processed human heads. If someone cuts off my head and do processing it to sell it to my father, will my dad buy it and put it on the table and see the beauty? Else he might put it on the decorative fountain system as a decoration? Else he might afraid of buying this by giving money and thought that this might add to the sin? He thought those things and laughed himself by cycling the bicycle. He had disappeared the day after his poems had reached the Philosophy Professor on the mail. The suffering of that has increased.
7
Sathiyamoorthi’s mother was screaming incessantly from the darkroom on the day of his disappearance. Her screaming itself a great tragedy for the rest of the people in that house. A complaint was lodged at the police station, and an advertisement was given to the newspaper.
“It is of the curse than what else? Even if they possess huge wealth, they couldn’t enjoy it” The murmurs of different lips…
In his house still, they are cooking in the Pot…that too, they use firewood only. He strictly said not to use the gas cylinder. Why all these, not even an AC in such a big house.
“Just only, he has put a fan for two or three rooms”.
Many kinds of murmurs were heard, like “People like someone else are earning and surviving by using his grandparent’s properties. But his son is roaming road by road by doing brokerage work and struggling to earn fifty or hundred rupees”.
Maragatham murmured that her brother had managed to escape. She also has another brother who is reluctant to escape. He is different from the mentality of the people in that house. More than that, he is proud and amazed by the family, he doesn’t bother about the tragic moaning of the house, his father is a wealthy man in this city, he couldn’t get past the twelfth standard and be wandering around collecting the rent for his father. He has no other rights than to hand over the collected money, and he also had a nostalgic dream over the bullet, which differs from other motorcycles from its sound. When he asked his father, he has shown him a bicycle of his missing brother, which was found by the police, lying on the wall without maintenance.
“Raghu, take this bicycle for now and will see the thing later”.
This, too, sounded fair to him. Those words of his father, which were not so harsh, gave comfort to Raghu. Yet the dream of the bullet is chasing him, and he has tried to earn money. He rides his brother’s bicycle in the city streets with the two building brokers to fulfil his dream. He climbs at the steps of the houses of the people who want to sell and rent their houses. The label of a boy from an honourable family was like fuel to his brokerage business, and the money has started to add in his pocket. He is also hearing the lament about his family from several lips.
The word of his missing brother from a few days ago is heard in Rahu’s ears “This is not a house built of bricks…it is a house built on the sins of our forefathers”. The forefathers drained the money from the stones, from the people who struggled in working in the stones. The voice of the unbearable curse has bound this house like a chain. The sound of laughter was never heard in that house; the forefathers who were trapped and struggled with the curse have made the property of the generation an unsold asset even for their needs to escape from the curse. Even what? The money continued to drain from the property like a Tofu. A woman, who is a mother of three children, interned herself in a dark room. It was an unexpected moment during Raghu’s fourth birthday; Maragatham’s mother has started to live in the dark, from then, the light was lost in her room.
It has been a long since to see Maragatham’s mother face. She has a beautiful face, accurate height; even in the little light, she shines like gold. Ponnamma alone goes and comes into that dark room in that house. After making her bath, Ponnamma lights the candle and put it in the distance. Even that light scares her.
Maragatham enquired Ponnamal about her mother, soon after she came out of her mother’s room after she did her and fed her. “No one would believe that your mother has such a grown-up child like you. Still her body is so flourishing. But the sad thing is that Ayya couldn’t relish it”.
Now, in the most recent days, Maragatham has been visiting her mother twice a week. Her mother sat in the light that comes from the decorative glass of the window. Maragatham never heard her mother’s voice other than the words “you go…you go”. Right from the day, she could remember things; she is seeing her mother like that only. When she hugs and kisses her mother, she feels what Ponnammal has said about her mother. She desires to sit next to her Mom and experience the darkness, but she always pushes her away from her side…Sometimes, the adverse screaming is heard at night. Then, many times Maragatham had seen her father coming out of that room. Like that kind of a morning, when Ponnammal comes out of her mother’s room, Maragatham asked her,
“How is Mother?”
“Ponnammal’s eyes were filled with tears”.
“Amma is lying on the floor naked.
When I was frightened and entered in, she gets up and pulls me d, own to sit and she shuddered and cried a lot by lying on my lap. When I told her that I am going to call you, that’s all, she got up and started to beat me in my chest. In this time we have to tell this to the doctor, said Ponnammal”.
Maragatham can be only jealous to see the smile not only of the sweaty face of Ponnammal and also of the smile on her granddaughter’s face. When Ponnammal and her granddaughter are talking and laughing in the back garden, their laughter spreads like music throughout their house. Maragatham will enjoy that sound of laughter. For her, the only consolation is her brother. He only spoke one or two words to her when she entered the house after returning from college. He smiles beautifully, buys candy for her in his petty savings, laughs lovingly, and in the evening, they will stroll in the garden…even the little relief has gone somewhere. It is unknown that when Raghu has come and goes out. There are books to comfort her mind. Even now, she has Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora novel in her hand. As new, she has two of Pushkin’s novels, Dubrosky, Daughter of the Captain… those books are reducing her stuttering. Though, how could Mom stay in that room for so long? Her lips would murmur several times while she is reading the books. “It is not only the property of our grandparents but also their sins oppressing us”, her lips started to murmur like the villager’s lip. She had rejected two love letters that made her shake lightly… in one of those letters, she had a little enticement. She didn’t want to escape from the murmurs. She liked this bitterness. She had a fearless thought that time might come when she too will love the dark. Her father recently replaced the white people era like electric fans for the century-old home. But still, cooking is happening only in the pots by burning the firewood.
8
The Laburnum trees blossoming much after Sathyamoorthi left the house. There is more graze of pigeons than the crows around the fountain. Ponnammal took the wheat from the kitchen and spilt it. The joy of that house lies only in the garden and in that fountain. On the way to the back of the house from the garden, the father was standing on the terrace watching the bicycle leaning against the fence. That’s when the brother takes out the bicycle and goes out somewhere. Ponnammal is brooming the ground.
My father’s father and great grandfathers had accumulated the money from the palm wine and the bricks baked in the brick kiln. The Madarasapattinam has got its soul and came to life from the bricks in their kiln…On that day, fourteen families were a slave to them. Then, those of escaped from there the count of dead people is high. The lands that they bought with the hard-earned money from the workers were used to build the buildings as the places turned into be cities. Maragatham’s grandfather’s father had an insatiable craze for building the land into buildings. On the day when the twenty-fourth building was built, suddenly, his eyes dimmed, and he couldn’t see anything beyond two feet. Even the British doctors are helpless in bringing back his sight. On the advice of a Namboodri, one day the four infants of kiln workers were beheaded for amends in the horrible night, the Priest spattered the four infant’s blood on his forehead, and he wiped away the blood that flows from his head, and it is the last thing that he saw in this world. After that, he couldn’t even identify the unregistered property with his ruined eyes, and then he turned mad and wandered. Four years later, he fell into the same kiln pit and died where the four infants were beheaded and killed. His son also believed that he too would lose his eyesight. That is Maragatham’s father’s grandfather. But the income was coming from the built buildings, and he got a stomach ache and died in the third month with the abdominal pain, which continued till his death even before the big account book was half over. Even then, as he works on writing the documents and clearing the encumbrance on the assets, cancer has swallowed him. Out of the fear that began then, to escape from it, Ayya’s father had made an arrangement that the assets can be donated, but they can’t sell anything. This is the will he wrote. With that, he donated more than 16 properties to the government hospitals and one night; he had thrown the statue in the sea, which had been preserved after being drowned in the infant’s blood in the human sacrifice during the grandfather’s period.
Ayya was staring at the door from the terrace. The Maruti that he bought a few days ago was standing out in dark blue. Some lips murmured that, “After a long time at least now, he had thought to buy it”. “The house has to be demolished and built again”, some murmurs like this…
9
Ayya was watching Ponnammal brooming in front of the fountain. The crow that flew in from somewhere went by chipping in his head, and he rubbed his head, but he didn’t feel the pain. While Ponnammal brooming the ground, the ripen leaves were falling. That’s when it seemed to him. The granddaughter who usually comes with her has not been coming for a while now. His mind relentlessly thinks of his missing son. In one of them, the scene that Ponnammal’s granddaughter and his son were just rolling with their naked bodies has suddenly appeared and disappeared in front of him. He closed and opened his eyes as he couldn’t tolerate it. Again, the crow patted him on his head, went and sat on the coconut tree near the fence and looked at him. His heart burned. He was staring at Ponnammal, who is brooming the ground. Water was gushing in the decorative fountain. He had built it with eagerness. The lilies were filled blossoming in the ornamental fountain pond. He counted the lilies to quell the heart burning. One…Two…Three… when counting 23, he missed it. He then looks at Ponnammal with running thoughts that flow with the dust out of her brooming and collecting the trashes. With the angriness, he spits out from the terrace. He lost his patience and started to walk towards her fastly.
She had come to work even before six or seven months of Maragatham’s birth. She has also mingled in the darkness of that house, as he was staring at her and walked towards her with anger, he thought,
“I was right that, such a beautiful girl is dangerous. He thought that, an old woman is brooming and cleaning the ground as if she knew nothing… Destroyer,” his heart is pounding.
His heart throbbed beyond him.
She has worn a cheap but new saree on that day. As he speeds up towards her, he encounters a sandalwood smell from her. The scenes of laughter and moaning with the scenes of bodies function are running on his mind like falling of slips in a deck. Beyond his thinking, the naked bodies were fluttered in the scenes. He is coming near to her with a burning heart.
Ponnammal saw Ayya coming, and she stopped brooming and tapped the bottom of the broomstick with her palm, and she stood still. She bent down to broom again, as she cannot face the harshness in Ayya’s face.
The fear in the trembling erect eyes encouraged him when she was shocked and upright in hearing the voice of the word “Prostitute”.
“Where is your granddaughter for a few days?”
“Ayya…it is.”
As her reluctance encouraged him further,
“What…it is or that”
Ponnammal was trembling in looking at him and moved backwards. The broomstick slipped from her hand. He had never spoken such disrespectfully in such a long time. Now his eyes are like sparkling with blood, and she shudders…
“Ayya…”
“There is no flaw in all these hairs, where is your granddaughter?”
She immediately understood.
“Ayya, she had her puberty. Already you are worried of your missing son, that’s why I didn’t tell it to you. I will bring her after ten days Ayya”.
Now he felt the pain of chipping by the crow in his head. He rubbed his head. He didn’t know what to say …and he lost his anger.
He muttered himself, “Oops…” quickly he took and opened the black bag from his armpit and gave her five-hundred-rupee notes. Out of shame, she looked at him with tearful eyes and didn’t raise her hand to get the money.
“It’s all fate… the fate won’t leave…” Mmm, alright, don’t mistake me…it’s all fate, then what? Get it; buy something for your granddaughter, and I will spend it when something good happened to her”.
Her hands didn’t rise to get the money, and she bowed her head. The crow that came from somewhere has not patted on his head, but he felt the pain. Ponnammal has looked up at him as he bowed and rubbing his head. The money is hanging in the air as if it is neither in her hands and nor in his hand. But he doesn’t want to lose in front of her, and he put the money forcibly in her hand.
“What is than the playing of fate?” he gets into the car by lamenting like this, and the car left its mark on the cleaned ground.
As she went to close the fence door, she peeked in the direction in which the car has gone. Two rickshaws were parked in the doorway. One of the rickshaw pullers was sitting on the side of the sidewalk and the other in the cart. The man sitting on the sidewalk watched the car’s direction with a smile and lit the beedi. The other looking at Ponnamma,
“By seeing and holding the beedi tightly, he said, hereafter we need not to think of the time for lighting the beedi”.
Ponnamma closed the gate and returned.
Ayya doesn’t like the smell of beedi smoke. The rickshaw pullers will not smoke until Ayya leaves the house.
The fishes in the ornamental pond lay quietly under the water that they may know Ponnammal’s troubled mind out of the insult.
Five cars have entered the house in the evening itself.
10
Ayya has looked a lot of grooms for his daughter. Though most of them were competing to be his In-laws, Maragatham liked the one who came first. The miracle had happened without her knowledge. Both the consent of the house to each other. He is one of the persons of those two letters and the one who made a small excitement in her mind. She astonished, thinking that “how this is! …” Now, with the consent of the family… she couldn’t endure the pleasure.
Maragatham much worried about her brother’s absence. She fixes him in her heart as he is already familiar to her. The moment their eyes met, all the grief of her troubled past has shattered. She was much delighted. The wedding day is not yet decided. She thought that she met him accidentally at Paathala Ponniyamman temple on the 16th day of both the families were agreed, but she didn’t know that he had planned this meeting by following her. While they will part themselves unwillingly after a deep fulsome conversation of love’s relishment, she understood the intensity of him on her when he gave her a beautiful miniature of a winged angel. The beauty of a feet glass sculpture fascinated her. He said that her sister who has come for a holiday from France had bought this. She, too, had sprouting wings.
11
The groom is standing in front of the Dowtan café, smoking and chatting with his friends in the dusky evening. The dark blue car enters the Dowton café. How did he know that the future father-in-law would come to the café to have a coffee with his friends? He smoked deeply and blowing it towards the sky. He throws the smoked cigarette, which is likely to hurt the fingers and lits another. He stared at him from the car and frowned.
12
She was sitting in the hall with the happy dreams of love by kissing the glass miniature and reading Rabindranath Tagore’s Gora. As she hears the bullet sound very closely, she eagerly went and peeked out. Her brother’s dream shines in black. It was brand new without a registration number; the overwhelmed happiness is filled in that house beyond its capacity. She had never seen such disgust on her father’s face as he entered the house at that time. The sign of evil is seen obviously… He, too, saw the vehicle in the doorway.
“That groom does not suits to us…leave it, another groom is coming tomorrow…Good family, that boy is a doctor… I’ve enquired thoroughly. He has no bad habits…”
She was devastated even at the first word, and the other words were not heard to her.
In midnight,
The winged glass sculpture crashes and splashes. She took the overflowing kerosene tin with desire and bathed in it as if it waits for her. She lit the matchstick; the Bullet (Royal Enfield) stands in the dark.
***********
This story is originally written in Tamil and is translated to English by P.Padmapriya
Ms P.Padmapriya is a PhD Research Scholar in English at SRM Institute of Science and Technology. She worked as an Assistant professor of English in Arts and Science Colleges and earned a total of 5 years and 4 months of teaching experience. She obtained her Post Graduate Degree in English from the University of Madras in 2013. She also completed her Master of Philosophy in English from Mother Teresa Women’s University in 2015. She did her Master of Education in 2014. She has published two research papers and presented five research papers in various conferences and seminars. She has also attended four national and international workshops.
This Translation is an outcome of a joint project by Kanali கனலி- கலை இலக்கிய இணையதளம் and FemAsia Magazine.
