Rising Heat, page 20
‘The wonderful leader that we have obtained for our region, the respectful K.K. Murugayyan sir. We all know that in this region where there isn’t even a high school, he promised to bring an industrial training institute and delivered his promise by building one here. As a consequence, we enjoy the importance our village has gained and are prospering from that. Not only am I very honoured that such a man should preside over this function, since he follows the footsteps of Thalaivar—everyone knows that Thalaivar started performing in drama first and then grew step by step. For us too to achieve such heights, I request Sir to produce a movie and make this region even more famous. To add to that, it is indeed my great pleasure to bestow this flower garland, that I imagine to be a garden of gold, again on this great man’s golden shoulders.’
As the Slicer stood up reluctantly, Shaktivel garlanded him and took both his hands to his eyes in reverence. If at all a movie was made in the future, that he should be made director was written all over it. But the episode didn’t end with his speech. Rather, it stayed smouldering through the play. When the play ended, it opened again. Sevathaan walked in like a storm, fuming. They had put the actresses on a bus early in the morning, seen them off and were all seated on the plinth of the temple.
‘Where is that rascal? Garlanding the guest. The glares I got from the chief guest! I wanted to kill myself right there. My dignity is all but destroyed!’
The boys from that valavu had gone back already. Sevathaan looked at Balu, and holding himself back from hitting him, said, ‘How could he reuse the garland that was already given to the guest? The Slicer was furious at me for allowing that fellow to garland him in the midst of so many people. Why, Balu, when I warned you all, you got angry at me, didn’t you? See how he showed his cheap thinking now? Will that man ever come this side now? You all stood in the corner, he walked over and garlanded that man. “The director of the show will speak now!” Isn’t that what our Maaple announced over the mic? If I see you get together with those guys again, I will become the Devil to you all, you better watch yourselves.’
Everyone including the village head got together and scolded them to no end. All the fatigue they felt disappeared completely. Gajendran and Keerthi kept saying, ‘We told them so many times’ at every pause. The next day, all the boys called Shaktivel and interrogated him with fury.
‘Apparently, you worked on the play giving up your sleep? So only you gave up your sleep? What about us?’
‘Why did you garland him with the garland that was already given to the guest?’
‘Quite the temerity you have to do what you did, don’t you?’
There was no one to placate them. Balu stepped out quietly. They asked the boy to leave too. Gajendran and Keerthi led the rest. Shaktivel got angry.
‘Don’t speak disrespectfully. If it wasn’t for me, would you have written a play yourselves?’
‘Dei . . . you used to stand in the corner of our streets in respect, we’ll break all your bones, watch your tongue now . . .’
Shaktivel grabbed Keerthi’s shirt, Keerthi retaliated and the two of them fought rolling on the ground. That was it. The dam broke. Everyone joined in to kick Shaktivel. He was caught like a mouse amidst hungry crows, struggling in pain. Finally, when he managed to escape from them, he ran as fast as he could and then stopped at a safe distance. His shirt was torn to bits. His lungi was torn at the back and hung loose. His hair was completely dishevelled. He waved his hands as he spoke. His face was covered with dust. Tears were fighting their way out. He looked like a madman.
‘Dei . . . you all brought me here and beat me up, didn’t you! If I don’t make it big in cinema and make you all stand in subservience to me . . . I wasn’t born to my father . . .’
The other boys jeered. ‘As if you are your father’s son now. Maybe it was my father, or my grandfather,’ they shouted and pretended to throw up, mocking him all the way.
Gajendran and Keerthi started writing the play for next year’s drama.
Chapter 14
The vadhanaram trees mimicked human voices as they fell with an ‘o’ sound. These were trees that were so tall that one couldn’t see their tops even if one looked all the way up. These were saplings that had withstood the trampling over years to become mature at great heights. They were the best part of the goat farm. Even after the goat farm became the buffalo centre, the trees stood tall. Only on the western corner of that land stood four or five pitiable Delhi buffaloes, tethered. They always had an expression of being hungry no matter what time of day. They frothed at their mouths and breathed loudly. It they spotted a cow or another buffalo at a distance, they tried to tug on the trees with a grunt. They ate the food they were given by weight and sat quietly. Other than the space that the buffaloes occupied, it was all trees with the crows reigning over them.
The boys who grazed the goats would drive them here and climb up the trees to play woodpecker. Watching these strong boys climb higher and higher up the trees in no time was frightening. They grabbed a branch and hopped from one to the other with the verve of wanting to snatch the moon. Sometimes, they broke a few branches from the top and dropped them down for the goats. In the month of Chithirai, when the trees adorn a fresh young green, the sight would rejuvenate the whole village. Aside from the land where the trees stood, a strip of land shaped like the map of south India lay open by the north side of the road that went past the temple. The villagers had assigned that land to the temple. In the beginning, they would cook pongal there together. Later one year, they built a little podium and placed two stones on it. The temple priest hung two bells for them. The officers of animal husbandry didn’t seem to mind it.
They were chopping those trees down too. The crows fluttered over in limbo and cawed away. The goats saw the fallen branches and ran towards them. With twenty big men whose torsos were built like tree trunks chopping and dragging, work went ahead in haste. Everyone thought it was the officers who had arranged for the trees to be cut. But why did they suddenly wake up to this after staying quiet for all these days? Were they going to fill that land with more buffaloes?
The men cutting the trees kept mum. They were not from around here. They were surely from elsewhere. The men who had worked with axes and short-handled hoes were no longer to be seen in the village. They had brought these men from outside. The little ones climbed on the fallen trees and danced in glee. Men and women stood around and gaped at the newly exposed sky with wonder and curiosity.
‘Why are you cutting them?’ Rangamma asked loudly.
One of the men looked up and, with a gesture that looked like he was going to spit his betel leaves on her face, said, ‘To sell.’ It was as if he was callously spitting at the whole village.
Veeran was provoked to get to the bottom of the situation. ‘Who asked you to cut these trees down?’
They responded with an attitude of ‘no one here will listen to your orders’.
‘The ones who can give such a direction.’
How audacious these men who came from Asalur were! They treated the villagers like dust.
Whenever they auctioned manure, the village heads consulted the entire village. The auctioning of trees fallen from rain or wind also included all the villagers. Why did they not ask anyone about cutting down the trees? Veeran dug his stick deep and limped over to the buffalo centre.
He stood outside the centre and shouted loudly. The way he stroked his moustache and twisted it and shook his head as he spoke scared the people across him to the core.
‘Why the hell did you have to bring the men from Asalur? If you are the government, do you think you can do anything? If I come at night and untether a couple of the buffaloes, what will you do?’
He spoke as if he was flinging stones at them. Two people came hurrying from inside, gesturing to Veeran that the reason was ‘something else’ and took him inside. After that, the real reason spread across the village via Veeran. Everyone was shocked.
After the colony was built, the land prices for the forests in this region had risen to unimaginable heights. Whoever had money simply stacked up cash and bought it at any price that they could get it for—nothing short of multiples of lakhs. The lands could be sold, the money invested in the finances and one could relax, relieved of land labour. Much of the land was sold off. Unable to see government land with so much value lying around unused, the minister Kandhasamy decided to appropriate it. They said that the land had been leased to the Office of Animal Husbandry several years ago and that he had bought it from the grandson of the original owner. The land was in Kandhasamy’s benami’s name. He was the one who brought the men to cut down the trees and put a fence around the land. Once he heard about it, the doctor in charge of the buffalo centre decided he didn’t want to be in the middle of this and went away on a leave of absence. Only if another officer was instated could any action be taken against the land usurper.
‘Who is that doctor? That transvestite!’
Veeran dug deep with his stick and limped across again. He whispered something to all the youngsters in the village. He had them bring the rest from their homes. They went to the arrack shop en route.
‘Did you see how Sevathaan disappeared without a trace? All those fellows are but women, just like their Thalaivar.’
Veeran held an intimidating machete in his hand. Each person held an axe, a short-handled hoe, a staff or some sort of a weapon. A few trees fell quickly. They surrounded the men chopping the trees and the youngsters called out for them. ‘Come out!’ Veeran stood right in the front, like the leader of the group.
‘One more cut and the next will be one of your heads.’
‘You people from Asalur think you can show us such attitude. Come out!’
The tree-cutters, who were about twenty or thirty in number, stood stunned. They didn’t know how to react to the strong, drunk, angry and naked youngsters standing there with weapons. They were surrounded by fire. They couldn’t bear the heat but they couldn’t run out of the forest either and struggled, being trapped in between.
Annan stood swooshing his machete. From his eyes flew red sparks. ‘Dei . . .!’ A blood-curdling warning emerged from him. His face reflected the rage of hunter dogs when chasing rabbits. The women stood separate in a tight group, anticipating a possible fight.
‘Thalaivar, indeed! This must be Sevathaan’s mastermind. He choreographed everything and snuck into his house to hide? Go, see if he is there. If he is, drag him over here.’
The boys hesitated. Annan stood there quietly. A few big men waved their staves as they walked away. ‘Until yesterday he was a drunkard, roaming around like a rowdy, and today he has elevated himself to the post of a leader? Has he become a big mover and shaker? We’ll see.’
Deeply jealous of his growth, they walked over and knocked on his door. He wasn’t there. He didn’t want to be found at the forefront of the problem and had gone into hiding. The few men, wearing nothing but strips of cloth to cover their privates, swung their staves at the glass panes. The panes came down crumbling. The coloured bulbs all around were smashed to smithereens. Whatever things were left outside all became dust. They broke anything they could lay their hands on. The whole place looked as if large pigs from a sewer had rampaged through it.
Veeran, who had sent those burly men there, also assigned work to the seething youngsters.
‘So many people are here cutting these trees. But look, not one person came out of that office building. Go, go and serve them some.’
An army marched towards the buffalo centre. In fact, this was on top of the configuration of youngsters surrounding the woodcutters that hadn’t changed at all. The women watched, wondering with fear what was going to happen. A mother who tried to pull her son out of the group got a forceful push in return. The noise was like Armageddon.
The buffaloes that were tethered amongst the neem trees with fat braided ropes that pulled them through their nostrils finally found freedom. Using the energy that was suppressed until then to make themselves nimble, they ran everywhere on the roads, and made their way into the colony. Fearing the buffaloes, many houses shut their doors. The men from the buffalo centre ran in all directions. Inside the centre, everything, including the semen tubes, eggs and refrigerators were destroyed.
‘Instead of letting the buffalo spend the night when asked for, you insist that you will only provide injections.’
‘Dei . . . putting up a show for us, weren’t you?’
No one could be identified in all that frenzy. There was running, screaming. Wherever there was an enemy, there were attacks. Any unsettled disputes, even if they were burning within just as small, ordinary flames, were being avenged. A tray of eggs from the buffalo centre went to the arrack shop’s pantry. The people at the arrack shop also feared the spread of the attacks but not even a little bit of the chaos reached them, despite the fact that the shop belonged to Sevathaan.
At the bus stop that was always crowded, not a soul could be found; it was completely deserted. Usually, a bus left every minute, but the buses had been halted a distance away. There were no bicycles, motorcycles or vehicles on the road. The shops were all shut. Noises arose from all around. No one knew what anyone else was doing or what was going on. The men trapped within the circle tried to escape amidst the commotion—they were chased with staves and axes. Holding their lives in their hands and with their eyes filled with the fear of death, they ran in all directions.
The snout of a police van appeared in the distance. Veeran tried to pull the crowd back to the spot where they had dispersed from. He didn’t realize that he had long lost control of the mob. His yells resonated far beyond their ears. Annan was shirtless, and missing his lungi. Like a ruffian, he held a staff in his hand and wandered around in his shorts. His hair was completely dishevelled, like a beggar’s. Not caring about any of that, he ran towards the mud road, and tripped on a stone and fell down. He got up and ran again.
A week had passed since the shop had been open for business. There were no ingredients to make soda in the shop either. He was two months behind on the rent. For a week, Annan had been loafing around like this. Like fishing out every morsel of soaked rice from water, he used up all the money. Appa pretended not to notice anything and kept himself busy visiting finance offices frequently. Even at that moment, he was at a finance office to arrange five thousand for someone to borrow. He had gone to co-sign the document for that person. The boy had gone to college. Annan ran aimlessly but managed to run towards home.
Before the police arrived, the whole place was empty. No one heard Veeran say, ‘Let’s get arrested.’ They all disappeared without a trace. In the end, Veeran too vanished from there. As for the one or two people who got caught, the police laid it on them. The woodcutters who escaped from the mob were brought back and the cutting of trees continued with police protection. They installed a fence all around that land.
The buffaloes that were freed, though, were still roaming about in rage.
Annan came home running, so intoxicated that he didn’t know what had happened. He was full of fear from his hallucination of being chased by a faceless person. He tripped on stones. He pulled himself off the ground and continued to run. ‘Who’s that?’ he mouthed uncertainly. No one was at home. Only Paati was sitting on the plinth, winnowing rice. Unable to bear the state in which he returned home, she put the winnow aside and went running to hold him. ‘Chi, get lost, you old lady,’ he said and shoved her down. Paati got herself off the ground using her hands to support herself and sat on the plinth again. When she realized she didn’t have strength in her arms to control him, she tried to accomplish that with words.
‘Payya . . . would even you approve of what you have done? We are such a decent family. How many people have we advised to better their lives? How can you do such a thing and make us seem like we preach to the world but let our house crumble?’
‘Go, ask your son all this. If you continue to talk to me, I will only kick you.’ He spat out words at Paati with a drunken drawl. Paati couldn’t see properly. She had been getting some interest money that she used to feed herself. After Thatha passed away, she couldn’t do any manual labour. With none of her past strength still in her, she lived on the edge of life and death, like the male calf of a milkless buffalo.
‘Think about this, da. If you continue like this, who will give you a girl in marriage? Your father too has looked in several places. The whole village calls you a drunkard. How will any father give his daughter to you? Are you going to stay single like this your entire life? No matter how much we tell you, you don’t listen. If you give advice to a good person, he will use his brain and remember it. If you give advice to the devil, it is but useless.’
‘Ey, old lady. Even today, I can find a girl and marry her. You shut it and keep it that way.’
Paati’s eyes filled up. Her body had become desensitized from all the insults she had borne through her life.
‘I will shut it, my dear. If you buy a couple of towels for your grandmother, I will shut it happily. Mm . . . the women who deliver milk talk amongst themselves about how you visit someone in the colony every day. Why this habit? There are bitches in the colony who simply want to spoil all our youngsters. Ever since the colony was created, a plant is snapped out even before it sprouts a couple of leaves.’
‘I will go anywhere I want and live however I want to. What do you care? Do you cook, eat? Stop with that. If you breathe any more than that, I will kill you. I will step on your throat and crush you.’
He sat on the stone mortar and flung a piece of firewood at her. It fell on the plinth and split into pieces. Paati, who lifted her legs away from them, said as she dug out the muck from her eyes, ‘Of course, you can kill me and you all can live well . . . I too am waiting for my life to end. But my fate is such that I have to live to see all these horrible things. He sold the land and gave you a lump of money. You insisted on keeping a shop. Here we are, expecting you to double the money. Instead, you stand here with nothing. How much more can he do to help you? If one has good children, he can walk with his head held high. Otherwise he only has to continue to bear the burden. But do you even feel a little gratitude that someone is saying and doing all this for you? Mmm. If one walks on his two feet, he will get to some place. If he insists on walking on his head, he will only collapse.’
