Diary of a Malayali Madman, page 12
A while later, the conductor came along. ‘Move over there,’ he said to the young man.
‘Where? Where’s the space?’
‘Space? I’ll get your old man to come and make some space,’ said the conductor aggressively, and pushed him.
And that was it. People started pushing and shouting, ‘Move over, you scoundrel.’ ‘Don’t let him get away.’ ‘Push the bastard out.’
The driver stopped the bus. The young man jumped out and ran away, and the crowd erupted, laughing and whistling and, until the bus pulled into the market, everyone joined in making fun of the young man and calling him names.
I laughed right along with them although, inside, I felt a pang of guilt. After all, I had encouraged him, albeit tacitly, to stand the way he did, pressing against me.
Dineshan has been murdered
Shyamedathi’s son, Dineshan, was hacked to death by a bunch of RSS supporters. Apparently, they went to the soda factory where he worked, dragged him out and, in broad daylight, cut off both his legs and then finished him off with a hatchet.
In the past, Theeyoor had lost people to bombings and knife attacks. But these acts had always been done under the cover of darkness. Never has there been a murder as brazen as this, in plain view in the middle of the market.
Dineshan took part in demonstrations by DYFI and the Marxist Party from time to time, but he had never been in trouble before. After the demolition of Babri Masjid, the Red Star Arts and Sports Club in Thiyoor had staged a one-act play in protest. Dineshan had been involved in that. Apart from that, he’d always stayed away from party-based altercations. In fact, he was not brave or strong enough to get himself involved.
His murderers, a group of five or six people, had come in a jeep. One of them was a guy from Chenkara who was also the main accused in last year’s bombing. The rest were from out of town.
His hacked-up body lay there for about ten minutes before anyone would approach it. People were frozen in terror.
Dineshan was Shyamedathi’s only child. I cannot even begin to imagine the agony she must be going through. My heart breaks, thinking of her lying in the corner of her veranda like a bundle of old clothes, too shocked to even cry.
Dineshan’s murder has stunned the entire town. After the funeral, there was a meeting in front of Shyamedathi’s house. Ravimaman spoke at the meeting, but he could barely get two or three sentences out before he broke down. I could not bear to see it and had to turn away and cover my face. Every single person there was crying.
Terror
I am stuck in an ancient cave reeking of unidentified dangers. I am all alone. There is only one word to describe what I am feeling: terror.
I’ve heard so much about Dineshan’s murder since yesterday – about his hacked-off limbs, the animal screams of his dying agony, the terrifying silence of his killers.
Last night, even before it was dark, Achchan locked all the doors and switched on all the lights. He’s done it again tonight.
I was at Chethana when I heard the news. ‘Leave quickly,’ Gopan sir told us. ‘There’ll be no buses today.’
I left with twenty or so students who were from my town. In the blazing sun, we walked the six kilometres into town and, by the time we were walking down the hill towards the market, we’d become part of a large crowd.
I haven’t left the house today. I thought of going to see Shyamedathi, but couldn’t muster up the courage.
In the evening, Divakaran came to tell us that there would be no milk delivery in the morning. I overheard him talking to my father about Shyamedathi. They took her to the hospital last night, he said, and she is still slipping in and out of consciousness. His poor father seems to have lost his mind. He behaves as if he doesn’t know that his son has been killed, laughing and chatting with everyone and inviting them to tea.
‘They know who the killers are,’ Divakaran said. ‘None of them will be alive for more than a month. Do you think the Marxists will sit back and do nothing?’
No, they won’t. Neither will their opponents. There will be no peace of mind in this place for a very long time.
I had an early dinner which I barely ate, and shut myself in this room. I have been lying here ever since with the door and windows locked. All that my mind can come up with are scary thoughts about the future.
Dasettan is still in the hospital. It seems that he has sustained a serious injury to his spine. Some people say that Dineshan’s murder was retribution for the attack on Dasettan. The local RSS activists, including Kunnumbrath Unnikrishnan, are in hiding. I fear that the Marxists might attack our house, frustrated that they can’t get to the others.
Ravimaman usually doesn’t spend the night here, unless he gets back into town late after a long journey. If he decides to stay over one of these days, the RSS lot would definitely hear about it. They too would be watching.
Apart from Achchan and Vimalechi’s two boys, it’s just us three women here. But that won’t stop those who come determined to cause harm. Anyone is fair game for those who have decided on killing and maiming. A few years ago, they killed a boy at the bus terminus. He was only sixteen years old. He was on his way back from collecting his school-leaving certificate. A case of mistaken identity, they said. To date, nobody knows who the culprits are.
All day, I have been thinking up such scary thoughts. And I am not the only one who’s scared. I can see fear in Achchan and Ammini. Ammini, especially, seems to have lost her fortitude and looks shaken. The person I find amazing – and disgusting – is Vimalechi. In the midst of all this worry, I saw her sitting Shanoj and Sarang down and making them do their homework. What is the point in that, in this forced education, when they are not even given the freedom to be scared? What will they learn? What type of human beings will they be when they grow up? Education be damned. Lack of education has never been the main problem with this world.
Shantha’s visit
Yesterday, Shantha came to see me during my daytime nap. She was dressed in a light violet blouse with small puff sleeves and a violet sari printed with big flowers.
There was only one difference between this Shantha and the Shantha who had been alive. She spoke in a language that I could not understand. It had a beautiful rhythm, and words as light as butterflies. She looked happier and more beautiful than ever.
Anti-social elements
The newspapers report that Theeyoor is regaining normalcy, the journalists suggesting that the people have returned to their familiar ruts, pushing the fallout from Dineshan’s murder into the recesses of their collective memory. After all, how long can the destruction of crops and property, the burning and the stoning be sustained? How long can the youth on both sides of the political divide live in hiding? The District Collector had presided over a peace meeting and requested the public to isolate the anti-social elements bent upon causing trouble.
Who, exactly, are these anti-social elements? If they are a specific group, how are they formed? Who sustains them?
Today, for the first time in a week, I ventured out of the house. The faces of the people I met along the way and in the market were frozen and dark with the shadow of fear and anxiety.
On my way back from Chethana, I ran into Ambujam’s father, Narayanan Nair. He had a stroke almost a year ago, and watching his slow limping gait as he leaned on his walking stick, I felt sorry for him.
Ambujam and I were roommates in college. She’d moved to Bombay after her marriage eight years ago. I’d seen her only two or three times since then.
Narayanan Nair has a nickname – Aani Nair. A name he’d acquired because of his propensity to insert himself into people’s affairs like a nail and cause harm. In the days of the revolt, he’s said to have been a police informant, spying on the Communists. Later, he began to inform on Communists who worked in the army and other central government offices. He’s been responsible for many of them, including Ravimaman, losing their jobs. Despite a lifetime of troublemaking, he’s survived until the ripe old age of seventy-five without much harm to himself.
As soon as he saw me, he stopped, leaned on his walking stick, and said, ‘How are you, child?’
‘Good.’
‘No prospects of marriage yet, eh?’
‘No.’
‘Ah, what to do…? Each according to her destiny. We desire one thing, but the gods decide something else for us,’ he said, as if empathizing with me, and laughed.
I was embarrassed. Without bothering to reply, I hurried away. Unfortunately, the next person I met was worse than Aani Nair. Dakshayani Amma, the woman who looked after Dr Gangadharan’s children. She came down the lane, turned on to the road and, catching sight of me, paused and fell in step with me.
‘Your Dasettan is not out of the hospital yet, is he?’
‘Not yet.’
I was convinced that there was a hidden meaning in her usage of the word ‘your’. I didn’t let on that I had noticed.
‘Vimala didn’t go to the hospital to see him, did she?’
‘No.’
‘Did you?’
‘I haven’t either.’
‘Oh. Why ever not! He may have fallen out with your sister, but he still likes you, doesn’t he?’ she said, laughing. She winked at me and pooched out her lips.
I lost my temper. ‘Have you got nothing else to do other than keeping track of people’s likes and dislikes?’ I shouted. ‘Getting on a bit, aren’t you? Time to stop this silly gossip-mongering.’
Without waiting for a response, I walked quickly away from her.
Moonlight and silence
A moonlit night. As I sit here watching the night, I realize that moonlight is also silence. The neem, mango and guava trees in the yard stand perfectly still, as though lost within themselves.
It’s been a long time since I have watched moonlight. And not just moonlight, I have also stopped looking at flowers or birds. All of it, nature itself, seems to have disappeared from my life.
I have listened to many speakers argue that we humans have become alienated from nature because of our busy, competitive lifestyles. I don’t think that’s a factor in my life.
Yes, I go to work every day, but I don’t have a busy schedule. Nor am I in competition with anyone. I go to Chethana, teach, come back and spend the rest of the time here in this room. I could go downstairs, but I have nothing to share with anyone. I could pass the time sitting in front of the TV, but Vimalechi doesn’t like to have the TV on. She says it distracts the children from their studies. In any case, I have no particular interest in watching TV.
The only enjoyable thing to do, sitting here in this room, is reading. I subscribe to two magazines and check out books and journals from the library at Chethana, and occasionally borrow newly published fiction from Harish or Jitesh. Reading is the one habit of mine that has endured over the years. I feel out of sorts if I don’t spend at least some of my time reading. Lately, though, even this habit has begun to feel boring and pointless. What I read now makes me feel like being pushed down a street full of mechanical dolls moving their lips.
Much of contemporary writing feels insipid to me, and reading it feels like hard work. The writers don’t seem to be emotionally invested in their own words or have a sense of commitment to what they write about. When I read a book, I want to feel that the writer is extending his or her fingers and touching my skin. Without that feeling, I disconnect. The only books that have touched me like that recently, made me feel energized, are Marquez’s Love in the Time of Cholera and Arundhati Roy’s The God of Small Things. Even then, I was bored by the time I got to the end of Marquez’s novel. I think he overdid the character of Florentino Ariza. That business with the schoolgirl was truly appalling and unnecessary.
Not finding anything interesting to read is a kind of torture. I don’t have to do much preparation for my classes. I have plenty of class notes for history, prepared using a couple of guidebooks and textbooks. I just have to talk for a bit and then give them the notes. As for teaching the Malayalam classes, I have a couple of guidebooks for that too. Everything else can be sorted out by flicking through the Sabdatharavali and the dictionary of the Puranas.
‘After all, what’s there to teach in the humanities?’ John from Commerce had declared one day to get a rise out of Jitesh, and started a heated discussion in the staffroom. He is partly right. Who needs history or literature these days? People just want to get by, and all they are interested in are things that make their lives comfortable. Especially the new generation. They don’t let themselves be worried about complex matters. They dabble in politics and arts, but never to the extent that it penetrates their skins. They are not affected by what happens around them. And they have no interest in learning anything new from life or from books. All they want is their class notes, and if you can retain a sense of humour while delivering them, they remain interested. My colleagues have all become adept at this. There’s constant laughter in Jitesh’s and Manoj’s classrooms. Reshma is not bad either in telling jokes and horsing around. As for me, I become completely serious once I enter the classrooms.
To be honest, I am not cut out to be a teacher. I think I’d like a different kind of life, but I can’t quite describe what kind of life that would be. But I am sure of one thing – no matter how much I crave for a different kind of life, I am never going to achieve it.
Sajini’s wedding
Sajini from next door is getting married today. The racket of the celebration began yesterday. I could hear the sound of the electric generator late into the night. The lane leading to her house has been decorated with colourful bulbs, tube lights and shining arches.
Our families have never got on well with each other. Still, Sajini’s parents came to invite us to the wedding. Achchan popped in for a little while last evening, just to be polite. He hasn’t said anything to Vimalechi or me about attending the wedding. It has been a long time since either of us went to a wedding.
From my window, I can see into their front yard. At least five hundred people must have visited them yesterday. They are not that well off, so I don’t know how they managed to invite so many people and feed them all biriyani. And today, two bus-loads of people came. Sajini’s father is a shop assistant in a grocery store, and one of her brothers is a lorry driver. Without other sources of income in the family, I wonder how they managed to put up such a spectacle.
But this is a miracle that happens all around us these days. Even those who don’t have a steady source of income seem to be able to take care of their affairs properly – buy big houses, dress smartly, and live with no apparent anxieties. It’s when I notice this that I feel a sense of inferiority and hatred for my family. Why were we the only ones failing to make something of ourselves?
The tribal
Chethana was like a bereaved house this afternoon. A student of second-year economics, Shirley, was arrested with two of her male classmates at a hotel on the beach. Gopan sir has managed to deal with the matter without much damage, but the news of the arrest has spread among the people.
Last year, Shirley had performed a dance for the College Day. The compere had mistakenly announced it as ‘tribal dance’ instead of folk dance and, since then, everyone had started calling her ‘the tribal’.
Shirley had come onstage dressed in a skimpy black silk cloth tied low around her waist and a tight black blouse. And for the next five to eight minutes, she had ‘performed’ something – biting her lips, giving come-hither looks, jerking her waist, and turning this way and that … The applause and wolf whistles from the students were deafening. The whole thing came to a climax when she kneeled down on the stage and gyrated in a circle.
Next day, there was a staff meeting in which a decision was made to screen future College Day performances beforehand. Gopan sir had called Shirley in and admonished her. But she had not been bothered at all, and continued with her come-hither looks and condescending smiles as she stomped around the college.
It seems that this was not the first time Shirley had been found using that hotel. Apparently, she was once caught with ‘an uncle’ in this same hotel. Who knows what other stories we’ll hear about her? I’m sure there will be more in the newspapers. Good – at least there will be something interesting to read.
In the bus
I’ve had a dull ache in my lower abdomen since morning. I have it occasionally. The effect is more like mental fatigue than physical pain – as if something dark broods within me.
I considered not going to Chethana today, but the thought of spending all day at home made me change my mind.
I caught the 9.45 ‘Jawahar’ bus. The cleaner grabbed me by my arse and pushed me into the bus through the milling bodies of men standing on the footboard. I was mortified.
The bus was so crowded that there was barely space for a needle. Men and women stuck together without space to even breathe. I was prodded and squeezed and jostled about. People muttered in hatred and frustration.
It is when you travel in a crowded bus that you fully understand human nature. No one has a kind word to say, and everyone seems to look for an opportunity to treat others with indignity. Oh, I suffered the full horror of it today.
9.
‘This writing is useless. After all, I’m not even a writer,’ Krishna held up her pen and said to herself one night. ‘I did something silly ten or eleven years ago. Jayamohan had been the college magazine editor then. One day, he came up to me and asked, “Krishna, could you submit a short story for the magazine?”
‘“Me? A short story?”
‘“Why the look of surprise? I know just by looking at you that you are a writer.”
‘“Go away. Stop pulling my leg.”
‘“Pulling your leg? Me? Why would you think that, Krishna?”
‘Jayamohan was a shameless flirt in those days, and women seemed to enjoy his flirtations. That’s why he won the election by three hundred votes, while all the other SFI candidates lost.
‘Although Jayamohan’s request was just another attempt to flirt with me, I decided to take it seriously, and one afternoon I sat in my room and wrote a story inside of an hour. “Blue Lagoons” – that was the title of the story, but I can’t quite recall what it was about. Anyway, when I gave it to Jayamohan, it was his turn to be surprised. He published it in the magazine, and I got a lot of compliments from people. Still, I never wrote another story. If I had focused on that aspect of my life, I might perhaps have become a famous writer. Too late now. I can’t even think about writing, except for these jottings just for my own pleasure. This is a pointless exercise. No one finds it useful.’
