Diary of a Malayali Madman, page 11
At tea, she asked me, out of the blue, ‘Did you go to Dasettan’s school, day before yesterday?’
‘No.’
‘Then who was it that went to see him?’
‘How would I know?’
She glared at me, as if she didn’t believe me.
Every moment that I am out of my room, she watches me like a hawk. I have to watch my every move, and be extra careful to avoid being in the presence of Dasettan.
Dasettan, meanwhile, is barely home these days, and even when he is around, I don’t have to be too scared of him. The association with Unnikrishnan and the others seems to have changed him somehow; their new politics seems to have gone to his head. He didn’t come home last night, and didn’t seem to have bothered telling Vimalechi. ‘Did he tell you anything?’ she asked me – twice. I felt sorry for her. How did she get to a point where she imagines that he’d tell me things that he wouldn’t tell his wife?
There’s something wrong with every single person in this house. Achchan lives here as if he is all alone. Well, he’s got only himself to blame for that. Amma spent a large part of her life in a red haze of anger. Venuvettan went away pursuing a dream and ended up nowhere. Vimalechi – and now Valliechi too – seems set to follow in Amma’s footsteps. Achchan’s fate awaits Hariyettan and Dasettan. All of them caught in a single mistake: they got married and became husbands and wives. The only normal people in this house are Ammini and I. In fact, Ammini is better off than I am – I don’t have her mental strength, her resilience.
Vimalechi didn’t sleep a wink last night. This was the first time Dasettan had stayed away from home overnight, leaving her to imagine what horrible scenarios, I don’t know. I’ve been entertaining my own horrible thoughts – that he spent the night with Lillykutty teacher in some hotel room. I have been having many bad thoughts in the last couple of days. I say ‘bad’ only because those are the kind of thoughts that people generally consider bad. If you think about it that way, wouldn’t everyone who is married be bad?
I indulge in the ‘bad’ in secret, on my own, letting myself overflow and be drenched. It is like unseen seeds sprouting in a narrow valley, growing with abandon and filling it with soft, luscious greenery. I imagine a strong arm holding my body and ringing it like a small bell. It is an exquisite sensation, its weight heavy on my closing eyelids, and I lose myself in it.
In the morning, as I lay awake in my bed gripped by lethargy, I heard Dasettan’s voice shouting, ‘This is not a prison, is it? I’ll go wherever I want, whenever I please.’
Eventually, I got to know from Manoj where Dasettan had been that night. The Marxist Party activists set fire to BJP flags and posters in Chenkara. Dasettan had gone to speak at the protest meeting organized by the BJP. ‘You should have heard his speech,’ Manoj said. ‘When did he learn all this Sanskrit? His speech was peppered with quotations from the Bhagavad Gita.’
I am as surprised as Manoj. When did Dasettan begin reading the Gita? Where, indeed, did he learn Sanskrit?
History
I lost my temper with Reshma, and I am glad. She needed to be taken down a peg or two. Such arrogance! How dare she criticize my Indian history class notes in front of the pre-degree first year B-batch students? A degree and a BEd in history do not make a person a history pundit.
What really pissed me off was Asha’s interference in our discussion. She thinks she knows everything. The ability to speak English fluently does not make you an authority on everything in the world. What is her qualification? That she lived and studied in Bombay? And then what happened? Look at where she is now! Her parents got divorced, and now she and her mother live here, on their own. The way she dresses and carries on, you’d think she’s just stepped out of a palace. Well, if she was so well-off, she wouldn’t come to work in a parallel college, would she? It’s all very well to be perfectly turned out, but what about her attitude? No wonder Gopan sir hesitates to appoint female staff. In fact, there are only the three of us in Chethana, while there are nineteen male teachers. ‘Lady teachers will find it difficult to manage a class of over eighty students,’ Gopan sir says. I know the real reason he doesn’t want to appoint women is that women can’t get along with each other unless they have a great deal of social sense, and that’s not guaranteed just because one knows some English.
‘History is a serious subject,’ she told me, as if I need her to tell me that. Besides, how much serious teaching do the students here need? All they want is pre-written notes. Or some guide books which they can easily buy for twenty or twenty-five rupees. And if they read them, they will easily get a first class result. They don’t even need to know the first thing about what constitutes history. There was a really good sentence about history in The God of Small Things. I should have written it down, it was that brilliant. But I’d borrowed the book from Harish who insisted I return it in two days, so I didn’t get the chance. Shame I can’t afford my own copy – where would I find an extra 395 rupees?
He won’t come
I am a fool.
I indulged in so many fantasies about Dileepan – that he’d come back, that my life would change because of him…
At times, loneliness is a terrible feeling. I feel that I am all alone at the edge of an infinite, deserted valley. And in those moments, my thoughts go to him; my body presses on to his, melting into it like wax.
I know these thoughts, these imagined wonders, are pointless. He won’t come.
Dileepan must be wandering through some other forests now, searching for other plants. I’m here still, alone in this room. His memories grow around me like green shoots, tangled vines and majestic trees, and I am overwhelmed by a peculiar desire. I want to be not me. I want to shed this female body and human existence. Instead, I want to transform into a dense forest, and I want him to know me, walk through me, touching and smelling, plucking out whatever it is that he is looking for.
Shantha is dead
Suicide. For you, it is material for a news story. Especially when there have been four suicides in the same village within a month, and the last death is suspected to be a murder.
So I was not surprised to see you among the crowd that had gathered in Shantha’s front yard. You’d come for the details – the story of her death and that of the others. Why were the young people in this village gripped by depression? Why did some of them, with seemingly no major problems in life, kill themselves? I’m sure people would have given you many answers – breakdown in values, the competitiveness that consumes life itself, the innate fragility of the nuclear family, alcoholism, sexual permissiveness – and I am sure you’d address each of them carefully in your report. You’re focused on the recognition such a considered report will bring you. There’s nothing wrong with that. Just as history and the poems and stories in the pre-degree textbooks serve me a purpose, the suicides, power politics and accidents serve you.
I don’t know why Shantha killed herself or, indeed, was murdered. She hadn’t come to see me in a while. She is smart and would have noticed that Vimalechi was not happy about her coming to our house. She would have stayed away to avoid causing more trouble for me.
I ran into her yesterday in front of Hotel Chandradas, opposite the bus stop outside Chethana. She was with two men I’d never seen before. I assumed one was the contractor she used to talk about. The other man was fair-skinned, dressed in a shirt and trousers, with a pair of sunglasses on his clean-shaven, fleshy face. He had an out-of-state look. I said to myself that there was something dodgy about him. The bus stop was crowded with students from Chethana, and she may not have seen me. Now I can’t help but wonder whether she was pretending not to have seen me.
It was Divakaran who told us the news when he delivered milk this morning, that Shantha’s body had been discovered hanging from a cashew nut tree in her yard. Divakaran enjoys delivering such salacious news along with the milk. He described how her feet were touching the ground and how there was a wound on her forehead. ‘She didn’t kill herself,’ he added. ‘Someone definitely killed her and hung her up. Any idiot could see that.’
You’d be surprised to know that I wasn’t shocked by the news, that I didn’t feel even a pang of sorrow.
I was surprised, though, that when I set out to her house, Vimalechi came with me. She didn’t say anything, just followed me silently.
As you know, it was noon by the time they brought her body home after the post mortem. I didn’t go inside to look at it. Not because I couldn’t face it, but because I didn’t want to see Shantha like that. Vimalechi went in and, when she came out, her eyes were red. ‘Come, let’s leave,’ she said and hurried out of there. She seemed more anxious than sad, and I’m not quite sure why.
It’s late in the night now. My head hurts from the harsh light of this table lamp. Why am I still awake? Shantha’s death has still not sunk in. It’s just that, since morning, something like a fog seems to have enveloped my mind, and I find myself unable to recall any memories of her.
The scent of peppercorns
A long time ago, there was a small patch of woods behind Theeyoor Lower Primary School. Just a cluster of trees, really – a soapnut tree, an ezhilam pala, a couple of coral trees, and some other nameless wild trees and bushes. We used to play there sometimes and, occasionally, a rabbit or a mongoose would come out of the bushes to entertain us. I remember seeing a big black rat snake there once.
It was in those woods that I first experienced the scent of ripe peppercorns.
On that day, Shantha and I had reached the school quite early.
‘Do you want to see something?’ Shantha asked me, as if there was something special and precious she wanted to share.
‘What is it?’ I was curious.
‘Come,’ she said, and together we climbed over the fence and went into the woods.
We sat with our legs stretched out on the flat rock under the ezhilam pala. She put her hand inside the pocket of her dress and pulled out the thing that was supposed to amaze me: a handful of ripe red peppercorns! Most of them had bruised and burst.
‘Is this the big deal?’ I was not impressed.
‘Eat some,’ Shantha said. ‘They’re delicious. You have to spit out the seeds. Otherwise it will be too spicy,’ she reminded me.
Shantha and I ate those peppercorns one by one, savouring their mild sweetness and intoxicating fragrance. When we finished, Shantha licked her lips with the tip of her tongue and said, ‘Now look. What do you think?’
Her lips were tinged red and she looked beautiful.
‘So red,’ I said.
‘So are yours, Krishna,’ she said. ‘You look so pretty.’
I stood up and, giving into some impulse that suddenly welled up inside me, pressed my lips against hers. The scent of ripe peppercorns enveloped us in its sweet wonderment.
An assault on Dasettan
Last night, Dasettan was assaulted by a group of Marxist activists in front of the telephone booth in Theeyoor market. They accused him of behaving inappropriately with the young woman who ran the telephone booth. The BJP is arguing that he has been wrongly accused, and that the assault was politically driven. The local newspapers have covered the story in great detail, including pictures of him on his hospital bed and a statement from the BJP district secretary.
Divakaran says that Dasettan was alone when he was set upon by a group of seven or eight people. He’s lost a tooth and has sustained injuries to his legs, back and forehead.
Some people came in a jeep to take Vimalechi and Achchan to the hospital. Achchan went with them, but Vimalechi refused to go. ‘I don’t care what happens to him,’ she seemed to say. The children, Shanoj and Sarang, wanted to go, but one scary look from Vimalechi and they went back into their room. It was that same look that stopped me in my tracks too, but now I feel that I shouldn’t have allowed myself to be intimidated. If nothing else, Dasettan was a member of this family, and we should all have gone to the hospital at least as a matter of courtesy.
There’d be no one to stay at the hospital to take care of him. Ever since he married Vimalechi, he has been estranged from his own family.
Dasettan’s family was old money. They were known as the ‘Singapore folk’. His father had been a businessman in Singapore for many years, and after he retired he set up a business in Theeyoor. It turned out to be a failure. They get by because all the children are settled relatively well, but they pretend to be better than everyone else. The mother is the worst. After her wedding, Vimalechi stayed with them only for three days because she had a huge argument with the woman. She sat up an entire night hurling abuses at Vimalechi and our entire family. The next morning, Vimalechi came back home crying and carrying on, and before noon Dasettan came to join her. And that was that. Neither of them has visited his family since then.
Dasettan had always been somewhat pompous and lazy, and everyone was surprised when Vimalechi fell in love with him and decided to marry him.
Dasettan is not cut out to be a political activist. When he was in college, he used to hang out with some KSU activists, which led to some involvement in the Congress Party. All he did was entertain the party leaders and go around with them. He squandered a lot of money doing that, which caused some serious problems between him and Vimalechi. He seems to have no particular skills other than flirting with women. If he did, and given how close he was to the powers that be, he’d have been a big shot within the party by now.
There seems to be some big secret behind his recent defection from the Congress to the BJP. Joining the BJP is not the same as being involved with the Congress – it is a dangerous thing to do. Ever since my school days, there’s been a bitter rivalry between the local BJP and the Marxists. Last year, there was a pitched battle just at the corner of our road, which ended in one man’s death.
Ordinarily, Dasettan is not the kind of person to get involved in anything that would be dangerous. Nor is his change of track the result of some ideological differences. I wonder if he decided to be self-destructive because he had anyway lost his peace of mind. I wonder if the constant expression of tiredness and dejection on his face is a sign of having given up. If that is the case, I can’t help but feel a bit sorry for him. If nothing else, he left his own family to be with Vimalechi, didn’t he? And now…
Demonstrations
By the time I left work and got to the market, the whole place was in chaos. Activists from the BJP and the Marxist Party faced off against each other, shouting slogans at the top of their voices. The two groups of demonstrators were separated by a battalion of police. All the shops were closed and people hurried away in all directions. My legs were heavy with fear as I, too, hurried home.
I’m not sure when the demonstrators left. A while ago on the road below, there was a torchlight procession by the Marxist Party, swiftly followed by the BJP. Last year, on a day with similar demonstrations, the groups threw hand grenades at each other at the corner. I wonder what calamity we are in for this year.
Joseph’s wife
I have a special piece of news today: I met Joseph’s wife.
After lunch, I took a short break from Chethana, hoping to pop in to the exhibition of Surat saris at the Hotel Ashoka near the Telephone Bhavan. Reshma had bought a sari at the sale there, and I wanted to have a look.
I turned on to Post Office Road hoping to avoid the crowds and ran straight into Joseph. A blue Maruti was parked at the kerb and a woman was huddled next to it. The man with her was facing away from me, but I recognized him instantly.
I was about to turn around and walk away when he saw me.
‘Hey, Krishna!’ He didn’t try to hide his surprised happiness at running into me. Joseph’s wife stood up and wiped her mouth with a handkerchief.
‘This is Krishna, my classmate,’ Joseph introduced me to her. He patted his wife’s shoulder and told me, ‘You know who this is – Clara.’
Clara smiled. I searched frantically for something nice to say but, before I could say anything, Joseph continued, ‘We’re on our way back from visiting her brother in Kannur. She’s been feeling nauseous since the Chavakkad Gate.’
Joseph’s wife gave me another pale smile.
‘We must get on,’ Joseph said, his hand on the front door of the car. They got in and drove away.
I didn’t go to Ashoka after all, suddenly feeling out of sorts.
Joseph’s wife was quite beautiful. She was pregnant, but her face was that of an innocent young girl. You could tell she was from a well-to-do family by the way she was dressed, in a posh salwar-kameez. Not very tall though. Even in her high heels, she barely came up to Joseph’s chest.
I am amazed at how unfazed Joseph seemed running into me like that, how casually he introduced me to his wife. Had we been there a while longer, I feel he’d probably have told her all about how close we were. Of course, it could all have been an act, because he did seem somewhat eager to get away. Otherwise, why would he not have asked me how I was doing? After all, it has been a long time since we’d seen each other.
To be honest, I started sweating profusely from the moment I saw him. Running into him like that, what I felt was not sadness but a sense of embarrassment. I can’t explain it. And in the evening, on my way back home, something else happened. The bus was about to leave JS Corner when a young man came running and jumped into it. He was perhaps around eighteen, but was quite well-built. An ordinary looking guy. I had seen him before in the bus. Once he’d sat in the seat behind me and started some fun and games, rubbing his knees against my back. I’d turned around and said loudly, ‘What?’ After which he sat looking out of the window with an innocent expression.
Today, the bus was packed. Not an inch of space was left as it moved away from JS Corner. I watched him squeeze himself through the crowd to the front of the bus. I was laughing inside. He came up behind me, and stood with his body pressed against mine. And how! Well, let him, I thought, and didn’t move away.
