Rising Heat, page 2
Nearby was the well adjoining the Veera forest, its massive mouth gaping wide open. The well did not belong to the temple; rather, it was his grandfather’s younger brother’s and they had allowed it to be used for temple purposes also. Every time he saw the well, his mind conjured up the image of Valliakka wearing her sari drawn up like a man as well as the screeching sound of the irrigation structure as she drew water with it. That Akka had since been given away in marriage. The forest had disappeared too, and the irrigation structure had been completely dismantled without a trace.
Mani was still sitting on the mound of the well. Neither was the dog coming to him nor was the boy able to grab it. ‘If it continues to run away like this, it is going to wither away right here.’ He should have made a habit of keeping it on a leash. This was all his father’s doing. ‘Why keep it leashed? It will behave without one,’ Appa had said. Not that keeping it unleashed was a bad thing. The dog would lick its food clean and find itself a spot next to the goat shed. There was no need to tie it up at night and let it loose in the morning. Even so, it never cooperated at times of urgency, like right then. When it sensed that it was being summoned to be taken back home, this was how it stalled for time. He didn’t even have the leash in his hand, yet, the dog perceived from the way he called its name that he had come to take it home, and it fooled around.
‘Mani, Mani-i-i-i . . .’ He put his hands together and went closer. The dog wagged and twisted its tail affectionately. As he drew closer, it dashed away, its twisted tail still showing its affection. ‘Let it die without food.’ The mind that wants to take this dog home deserves this, he thought, and smacked himself on his head repeatedly. He bit his lower lip and flung a stone at the dog. The animal closed its eyes, facing the boy directly, and avoided the stone by shrinking itself and turning to its side. The boy ran around and gathered more stones. His bare upper body got stickier with sweat. His khaki shorts pinched around his hips. He was as mad as an angry piglet. With the pockets filled with stones, he began to throw them in a volley, one after another. But even when a stone hit its target, the dog made no sound. ‘You filthy scoundrel of a dog! Is there not an iota of fear in you?’ Mani ran further away, seeing him so angry.
‘Where will you go? Even if you run all around this entire forest, I am not going to let you go today. You think you can escape eating your food today, you rascal!’
The dog ran through the thorn-laden forest. The erstwhile foot tracks were covered with undergrowth. The bunds on the boundaries of the fields were strewn with branches. The forests that used to be richly verdant like a large green blanket now stood bare, as though persistently gnawed at. He couldn’t run in any direction with his bare feet. The dog deftly slipped through the brambles and disappeared. The boy panted for breath loudly as he found himself deep in the forest. Which place was this? If people had traversed through these places like before, there would be recognizable landmarks. Everything was in ruins. Was there anything around to help identify precisely where he was? He spotted the fences that divided the Veera forest from the mango forest. They were made from kiluva trees and were all but destroyed. Walking along them would lead to the path to Itteri. Even though the tar road that ran past the temple went all the way to the lake, it was this path that the pedestrians frequented.
He walked along the fence. His skin was wet with sweat and glistened in the sunlight like a gleaming piece of wood soaked and darkened with rain. His feet were completely covered with dust. His eyes roamed everywhere. Hugging the temple on the east side was the Veera forest. On the west was the Minna forest. Where the two forests ended the mango forest began, right in the middle. Farther and higher away were the Veli forest and the Manuva forest. The mango forest ended at the lake pit that was shaped in the form of an unearthed brick. It spanned over a hundred acres or so. The rest were open lands bearing pearl millet, corn and groundnuts.
There were a few wells across the forests with meagre amounts of water in them, not unlike water inside a coconut.
Within this region had lived twenty families. His was four families. Then there was his grandfather’s younger brother and his sons, his grandfather’s older brother and his sons. Other than them was an evaari, a merchant, from Karattur who owned two acres. His looms and sizing business fetched him abundant money. He looked just like a piece of sun-dried coconut. He had filed a lawsuit against the government for taking his land. Well, he had the muscle and money to spend on lawsuits, but what could the rest do? They and their families were displaced from their lands.
The innumerable generations of his family that land had borne! That land which had been cooled over and over again by their sweat and transformed into fecund earth. That land which had embraced securely the life of every dispersed pearl millet grain and corn seed. The laughter of the cotton flowers. The strength of the groundnuts. Everything had turned lifeless. Edifices sprung everywhere from a land where crops once flourished. Boulder-like buildings, everywhere. Across the entire hundred acres.
He hadn’t come by here since the displacement a month ago. What was the point anyway? Just old memories all over again, reducing him to tears whenever he caught sight of the denuded land. That was why he always fixed his gaze on the road every time he passed by this side. He had no desire to even steal a glance. What was left to see in a land that was turning barren? But his feet still longed to walk around the entire land one more time. The dog was nowhere to be found. It must be sitting on top of some mound waiting eagerly to see if he came looking for it. If only he had brought a little rice he could have left some for the dog. Mani would have gobbled it up after he left. Let it be. For how many days more will it continue running away like this? Let it come home when it does. It must return home sometime. With such thoughts, he abandoned chasing the dog and instead walked towards a cluster of roofless houses whose walls seemed headless from a distance.
The entire stretch of land from the mango forest all the way to the Veli forest had belonged to them—his Thatha, Periappa and Chithappa. Standing in front of the rest, his Chithappa’s house could be seen even from afar. It was a big house—eight ankanam, measured by strides. On the front was a large plastered area to dry grains and ears of corn. The veranda extended along the east side of the house. Now, with the roof demolished, it was just a lifeless, headless house with exposed walls. Behind that was Periappa’s house. That was also a big house. He had to get help from a grown-up even to push open its doors. The ferrules were knob-like that one could grab and hang from, swing from, like the doors of the temple. All around that house were walls the height of an adult. Just a little away from it was an open shed thatched with dried coconut fronds for Thatha and Paati. At the front was a work area. His house was to the west of Periappa’s house. It wasn’t as big as the other houses. There were two sheds right across each other—one to cook and keep things in, the other to sleep in and store things that were used only occasionally. In one corner was a cowshed.
So many cows and buffaloes had been kept tethered in this cowshed, one next to the other. Young calves had bounced and played around. There had once been piles of cow dung everywhere. Mounds of grains, covered with cow dung to protect them from the elements, had covered the ground like large vats buried upside down. But everything had vanished within the flick of a finger. Now termite nests and anthills proliferated over the shattered plates that lay at his feet.
Very close to the north side of the cowshed was where the old buffalo used to be kept tied. The buffalo had been with them ever since he was a little child. His father’s sister, Atthai, had given it to them when it was a little calf. It was very meek and easily scared. If someone new approached it, its eyes filled up with an unfounded fear. It would circle the cowshed over and over again, not stopping even to be milked. The same thing happened when it was taken out to the farmland or to be impregnated—it would gallop around, neigh, horripilate out of fear. But it never tried to pull itself free and escape. It identified everyone from his household but particularly loved his sister. She was the one who grazed it, fed it, did everything for it. She even understood the buffalo’s language. It made a particular sound when someone from the family returned home after being away. It had different sounds for different things—for food, for water, to beckon its calf, if it was time for milking, if its fellow buffaloes were taken away for any reason, if it needed a male buffalo. It was so attached to the family. No one other than his mother could milk it. It would smell the person and run away, kicking. It would allow itself to be milked until the next calf in its uterus was seven or eight months old. Only when they decided to stop milking it would it stop lactating.
They had sold it only a month before they were displaced. What could they do with it thereafter? They couldn’t keep it in the valavu, in the house that they were going to move into that was one among a cluster of houses with a common street running through. Some people from Karattur bought it and took it away. The very next night, his mother thought that she heard the old buffalo and got up to check. And sure enough, there it was standing outside! It had come running back in the middle of the night. Amma couldn’t hold back. She hugged its face and started crying. The whole household woke up and rushed outside wondering what had happened. Such a dear old buffalo and he didn’t even know where it was any longer.
Memories alone stagnated like the rainwater that collects in the crevices of rocks.
He walked away from the cowshed towards the old house. The last bit of cow dung that Amma had smothered on the floor was still discernible in dried patches. Amma always applied more cow dung on the western corner. It was in the same corner that he and Annan stacked their books. That was the corner where Saraswathi, the Goddess of Learning, ostensibly resided. They had brought a table and a stool from his Atthai’s house. There was fighting galore the first week after these items arrived because each of them wanted to use them. Those pieces of furniture might have been old, but they were so smooth and shiny, like a snake’s body. Until the night before the table and stool arrived, neither ever sat down to study. Once the furniture arrived though, it was study time all day round. Annan was older and had a lot more to study. So, Annan got the table and stool. But the boy was little at that time—and everyone’s pet too. He demanded that they belonged to him with obstinate tears. Appa finally brought another old stool from Chithappa’s house and arranged for them to sit across the table to study. From then on, both of them stopped studying altogether.
They had removed all the roofing and the substructures. Next, they would raze these lonely walls floating in solitude. Amma used to stuff everything on the shelves in the western wall. The eastern wall was quite deep and hosted all the things the boys had. Here sat the little money boxes got from a stall at the temple chariot festival. The box that looked like an orange was always his. Annan had the one that looked like a mango. It was quite ugly-looking, with a tip that stuck out like the beak of a parrot. He never felt like putting money in that one. These collection boxes were filled bit by agonizing bit—for collecting neem seeds or for digging out groundnuts and such. The Karattur chariot festival was celebrated every year in the Tamil month of Maasi, between February and March, and celebrations went on the whole month. They would hire a cart to go to the festival. Their relatives would give the children some money to buy something for themselves from the stalls there. Thatha, Aaya, Appuchi, Atthai . . . all of them. That was when these boxes were full of money. Amma also gave them money once a week on Thursdays to spend in the market. Annan would buy himself something or the other to eat and spend it all. The boy’s money would go directly into the box. And the money he collected was used up at the time school reopened, to buy books and notebooks.
Memories of incidents were spread across the walls. Every spot evoked images that filled his heart. At the earthen hearth that lay wrecked, dishonest actions were uncovered. Amma had terrified Annan as she held both his hands, threatening to pile burning charcoal on them. Annan had apparently taken money without anyone’s knowledge. If he had taken the money, the charcoal would burn him; if he hadn’t, the sizzling coal would have no effect. With sweat pouring over his entire face, Annan had admitted to taking the money. Amma had tanned his hide that day.
The noise of the crows interrupted his reverie. They had begun to settle on the tamarind trees. These birds that used to brush their wings against the vadhanaram trees in the goat farm as they flew by appeared like little dots. Apparently, there was a goat farm there a long time ago. But now, only a plaque that commemorated Kamarajar’s inauguration of that goat farm still remained.
It would soon get dark here. Amma would look for him. He should leave now. When he returned from school, he had come here straight without informing her, furiously determined to somehow get hold of that dog at least today. His mother would have assumed that he was playing somewhere. But where could he play now? There had been so many games to play in the forest. When he joined with the children of the farm workers, they kicked up so much dust in the air—enough to wonder if the late afternoon sky got its colour from the red soil. They played with no heed to the dimming skies.
He could barely play anything ever since they had moved into the valavu. Other houses choked theirs from both sides. Under the pretext of renovation, the houses had eaten into the streets too. Whatever was left after all this was the only space to play. Boys who were learning to ride bicycles constantly kept cutting across into that space. There were always people on the streets too—those who went to fetch water, those returning from the forest. On top of all that were the girls who sat on the thresholds of their homes under the pretext of combing their hair or delousing it, only to watch all the boys who were out playing. And the frequent chides. ‘Don’t touch this’, ‘Don’t touch that’, ‘Don’t go there’, ‘Don’t come here’. How could anyone even feel like playing in this environment? The only thought that occurred to him there was to scoop up some dust, sprinkle it on everyone’s faces and run away somewhere.
A gentle darkness enveloped him. Only his light-coloured pants were visible as he walked. He could see the loggers arrive far away. It was indeed quite beautiful to see them in the dim light as they walked with their axes and saws balanced on their shoulders. But these were the people who gruesomely chopped to pieces the tall standing palm trees that were until then full of life and health.
The flourishing crowns of the palmyra trees that produced ice apples and palm toddy in abundance were being ripped off and discarded. Little boys who liked palm hearts came running for the last bit of goodness before the trees withered away. The trees that spread across the forests and stood with stately elegance were all succumbing to the deathly blows of the bulldozer. These people came to do this job from somewhere far away. With unrecognizable faces. They kept axing down the trees and sending them to the brick kilns. The sight of the workers boarding the bus with their food containers and hands hanging loose or else riding away in their bicycles became a daily event.
How many trees! Like the palmyra tree near the water irrigation channel that had led to a fight between him and his Chithi. The fruit from that tree was so sweet, it was like eating jaggery. The top of the hard shells had husks smooth like butter and bunched together. The bottom was covered with coarse husks that hung torn and fibrous. It was these shells that had the sweetest fruit. Thatha would annoy everyone by repeating this every time they ate palm fruits. His description of the husks was repulsive to hear. Still, he would say it with such relish.
There were always fights involved when it came to the fruits from that tree. The tree was right outside Chithappa’s house. The boy used to wake up to the call of the rooster and gather all the fruits from that tree that dropped with the breeze. In the morning, Chithi would look around the tree for the fruits and, finding none, scold him. She would say anything that came to her. But he wouldn’t hold back either and would yell back at her. Chithi went on disregarding the fact that she was fighting with a little boy. Then it became a fight between his mother and Chithi, and soon Appa and Chithappa were butting heads too. For a long time, no one talked with each other. Even if they chanced upon each other, they growled.
The tree at the northern end was the best for palm toddy. Kandhan could climb that tree. If he climbed up once, he came down with a puradai, a dried-gourd container, brimming with theluvu, a non-alcoholic, sweet palm toddy. If he climbed a second time, another container full of toddy came down with him. Just that tree alone could fill a whole pot with toddy. The sap seeped out non-stop until the frond dried up. It was on top of that tree that Appa furtively drank kallu, fermented toddy. He snapped a frond stalk and made a straw out of it. He climbed the tree and drank nearly a quarter measure from the containers held between each of the frond knuckles. He then climbed down the tree swiftly, just as he had climbed up. He climbed without any rope or harness, and drank seating himself amidst the spathe. Since the tree oozed enough sap to make the containers overflow, no one knew that some went missing. Kandhan never found out about this secret operation till the end. The palm jaggery that his wife made—that she boiled in a large open vat with her hair pulled up in a large bun—tasted just like honey. God knows which forest they had gone to now, scouring for hooch.
In the grip of darkness, the whole forest evoked the scene of a massacre. The bulldozer had razed all the plinths and was filling the pits with the debris. The borders were all erased without a trace. There were no landmarks to identify one’s land from another’s. The bulldozer was approaching from the direction of the lake, levelling everything in its path it went along. Its bloody hands and demonic fangs had not yet touched the stretch of land right at the front. Just seeing it approach with its iron jaws that levelled even the strongest walls was terrifying. It was an image of a juggernaut that swallowed anything and everything in its way and rolled on. One that pulled out the richness of the earth from deep inside and spat it out.
