Rising Heat, page 21
He stood up and lit a beedi. It kept getting snuffed out by the wind. He went to the plinth. Mani lay curled at one end of it. Since being wounded by the bike, it had lost all its vigour. The wound in its testicles was not healing at all. Mani kept licking it all the time. But the wound kept growing in size. The dog was growing bald and looked pitiable. ‘And you need the plinth, do you?’ he said and kicked the dog. The hapless animal had no energy even to yelp. It rolled its tail, got down slowly from the plinth and went towards the garbage pit.
‘Hey, old lady . . . feed yourself and stay quiet the rest of the time. If you keep saying this and that, I will light your funeral pyre today.’
Annan struck a match to light his beedi. His hand shook and his head couldn’t stay still. The matchstick kept slipping from his fingers.
‘Look at how you have drunk yourself beyond comprehension, you fool . . .’ she said, getting off the plinth to pour the water that was in a mud pot over his head. But she couldn’t reach the top of his body; it had grown taller than her. He pushed the pot away in an instant. It slipped from her hand and shattered to pieces. Paati struck her stomach in grief as she saw the broken pot. He sat in the cow shed and flicked the lit matchstick. It fell on Paati’s thatched roof.
The wind was blowing hard. Seeing the tiny little flame stoked its enthusiasm. The very dry thatch began to crackle and burn. Paati was still grumbling about the broken mud pot. Annan was lying in the cowshed. The fire burnt with nothing to stop it. It spread at a relaxed pace, as though crunching on a snack. Even though someone yelled, ‘Aiyyoo, fire!’ from afar, Paati didn’t realize what was going on. Her eyes were so bad that even if the fire had been right behind her, she couldn’t have seen it. Only after she noticed a few people rushing over shouting did she get up and come out, and see the fire with her blurry vision. She didn’t feel like crying. Instead, a deep guttural ‘aang’ sound rose from within her. A few village oldies surrounded her and wailed, striking their foreheads and their stomachs. Then the tears began. And her mouth split open like a palmyra sprout. For a while, sounds rose on and off from her.
Some ladies surrounded her and tried to console her. ‘Whatever is gone, is gone, Aaya. Don’t cry now.’ The fire came together on the roof as if someone had their hands clasped together above their heads, and the smoke bellowed through the village. Seeing the smoke, more people came running.
‘I was standing by the temple and chatting. And then I look up and see the smoke of all smokes! At first, I too thought it may have been in a village street and came running.’
‘I was by your land then. I saw the smoke and thought it was the mango forest and rushed over.’
The winds spread the fire everywhere. The men tried to stop it from spreading to the other sheds in the vicinity, and doused it with pots and pots of water from the well. The fire was at its peak. No one was home. In order to save the other two sheds, they organized themselves in a line from the well to the house. Men, women, all stood in a line and passed pots of water back and forth. They couldn’t put out the fire but they could stop it from spreading.
Someone broke into Paati’s shack. The top of the door was in flames. They brought two pots from inside. Spirals of smoke pressed through the door. The stench made it hard to breathe. The smoke pushed away anyone who tried to enter the house. They tried to push through the smoke but returned defeated, rubbing their eyes. In a wide-mouthed container that they managed to bring out were her saris and clothes, still burning, and nine one rupee coins in a little knot. They handed that to Paati.
‘Toss these also in there to burn . . .’ she shouted. The sugar had burnt into caramel. The groundnuts were completely charred. The rice crackled in the fire as it burned. Everything was gone. Nothing that could be called Paati’s possessions was saved. Only the cot escaped because it was outside.
When the boy got down from the bus at the stop, the news about the fire reached him. He rushed home. His stomach fluttered when he saw Paati. If all these people had not helped that day, everything would have been lost.
Just because he was drunk, would he eat shit? Wouldn’t he at least be cognizant enough to know that he was setting the house on fire? That scum of a brother! The one born to destroy everything. The boy wanted to pick him up and throw him in the fire too. He grabbed him by his hair and pulled him up. He slapped him on his face. Annan hissed, skewing his face as if an ant was bothering him. The boy kicked him. Let him die of broken testicles. He punched him on his back. Let him suffer from breathlessness. The rogue of a rascal.
He was held back by people he didn’t even know. Paati too hugged him. He hugged Paati back and cried. The fire was not completely put out yet. It softened but flared up occasionally, as if to check what was going on. They heard the palm beams falling, destroyed by the fire. Everything around was getting charred. What else was left?
Oblivious to any of this was Annan on the floor of the cowshed, with his face in the mud and saliva oozing from his mouth, lying like a mendicant.
Chapter 15
Appa’s voice hid deep inside him. Words came out dead, without any sound. The man was seated on the plinth against the wall and could not be moved from there. He sat there in shock. The only sounds he emitted were like the sobs of a weeping child. He refused to even set eyes on food, as though he had decided to loathe the very idea of it. All that he had managed to save from before was now completely gone. Grief, that had come to hide in the house as though afraid of being sent to the netherworld, wasn’t letting go of him easily. Even the people who came to visit him threw words at him, intending to torment him more. His heart suffered to the point of being scalded.
All his frivolous arrogance came to a grinding halt. The way he took the Swega and sped on it with no control; his chutzpah when he flung wads of cash in the arrack store; when he bought fifty coconut saplings and planted them, claiming conceitedly that ‘they will grow with just my touch’ when there was no water in the wells; the way he acted as if he was strong like a tiger, striking anyone as soon as they raised their voices when speaking to him, regardless of who they were—everything was now interred. Now he was reduced to going out only in the dark or inconspicuously, with a towel on his head, if he needed to venture out during the day.
He felt too disgraced to even respond properly to people who came to see him. He shrunk into himself and spoke diffidently. People who had lent him money asked him stinging questions. Sitthan from Soliakaadu had given him five thousand. He came over and said the nastiest things to Appa.
‘I thought to myself, I am lending it to Maama, he’s not going to run away with my money. You received the whole amount in crisp notes, didn’t you? Shouldn’t you be giving it back the same way? If you don’t give back the money, I will destroy everything . . . I am warning you. I will come back this Thursday.’
The way he spoke, waving his hands, seemed like he was going to kick him. Why did Appa borrow from these dogs, who had no empathy or compassion, to invest in the finance company? Anger rose within the boy.
‘I will pay back the money even if I have to sell my head, Payya. Bear with me for a wee bit. I am not going to eat others’ money the way some dogs ate mine.’
‘There is not a thing to sell. You can wave your hands and say all you want. You think I sat there making money while chewing on betel leaves? Only if I toil and sweat will I see a little money.’
‘I am not denying all that, da. I have borrowed from a few people, including you. I didn’t think something like this would happen even in my dreams. But what happened has happened. Bear with me. I will return your money.’
‘When you say wait for a bit, how long is that?’
‘You go on and on about your five thousand. I have lost fifty thousand. Who can I go and demand it from?’
Appa’s voice faded. He started crying. Sitthan waited for a bit and left after warning him.
Appa had borrowed from five or six people to invest in the finance company. Two thousand from Kandhan. Four thousand from the Paati with a moustache . . . the list went on. Close to thirty thousand in all. Everything had been swept away like a flood. From now on, Appa was nothing more than a devil with his hands on his head.
The finance companies that had sprung up like mushrooms all across Karattur now withered away just as swiftly. Everyone had kept praising them but no one really cared to find out where the money went after they put it in those companies. Every street had ten, twenty finance offices. Still, there was not enough money. Even if there was a deposit of five thousand one minute, it disappeared the next minute. They charged them a twenty-four per cent fee, stamp fee, this fee, that fee and deducted a lot of that money. No matter how much money they deducted, no one bothered to understand how it all worked. No one gave a thought to it. They were all happy to receive the interest payments.
But then the whole village was filled with lorries. Rickshaw services encroached the northern districts. Power looms sprung up everywhere. All the lands in the region transformed into blocks of houses and the area lost its original identity. New faces from unknown places began to settle there. The finance companies were ready to give any amount of money for anything. Everything was seemingly prosperous. The ones who borrowed money were paying it back properly. The ones who invested in the finance companies went to a monthly meeting and came back with bagfuls of money. There was no evidence of any problems.
Until someone somewhere filed an insolvency petition: the yellow notice. The next minute, hundreds of yellow notices piled up on the desks of the finance companies. The ones who took loans kept their assets in the names of their wives and their mistresses. Even if they had assets on their own names, nothing could be done with that. Even if the loan amount was small, they claimed to be insolvent. The bonds and deeds that the finance companies held became worthless sheets of paper. Nothing worked. No legal action was favourable. Fearing their own conscience, a handful of people paid back their loans. The rest didn’t feel an iota of guilt that they were swindling the savings of the public. They had become numb to all that. Few of the guarantors with some self-respect paid the loans. Others, like Mohan Master, consumed poison and killed themselves. Suicides became commonplace. And there were more who saw that and tucked a smile in the corners of their lips as they walked on.
For the last month or so, the only stories floating around were that of dying finance companies. Running from pillar to post to get any of the money back resulted only in leg aches. The smell of money had disappeared from across Karattur, replaced now with the stench of corpses.
Appa had joined two groups. In the beginning, he had put in fifty thousand from selling land. Then there was the money, the smaller amounts that were given to him by a few who were single or poor but had a tiny bit of money tucked away that they could invest. They gave him the money only because they trusted him. He had also signed as a guarantor for a loan of ten thousand rupees. Every bit of it had vanished into thin air.
His own money was gone but no one else cared about that. And the money that he had collected from around the village, did he really need to pay that back? Well, there was no bond. No papers. But there was pride—and his conscience. That was why he was vehement about returning all of it. But where was he going to find that money? Amma had about ten sovereigns of gold around her neck. But she had said she was not going to part with it even if it meant death.
‘That bottom-feeder! He took the money from anyone and everyone in town and put it all in finance. That day, when my brother asked for money, he refused him flatly. Today, everything is gone with no trace. Had he joined with them then, today he would be running twenty looms. That dog in heat. Now, he wants my jewellery, yes, mine! We will see about that the day this Pacchiappan Pillai dies.’
She had no sense of what to say when. At any time, her words tended to sting.
Annan added a salvo of his own. ‘That day, didn’t you all yell at me for setting the old lady’s house on fire? Now look at what has happened. That must have caused damages of maybe a couple of thousands. Now we have lost in the order of lakhs, haven’t we? No one sees an elephant go by. But everyone picks on the mouse. That’s how it is. Let me see if anyone dares say anything about me now. I will tear them—tear them apart!’
There was no new shed set up for Paati. They had arranged for her to stay with each of her sons for a month each time. The spot where the shed stood was covered with ashes. The mud walls were broken and smeared with soot like a cooking utensil.
Annan stayed on his cot for ten days straight without getting up once. As soon as Appa’s financial troubles came up, he got up to mock him for it.
Within a week of the onset of this trouble, Appa lost all of himself. No one knew what to do. The ones who lent him money came home every day to ask him about it. He just stayed quiet. To offer the money that was in an account on the boy’s name only amounted to a speck of salt in an ocean of loans. Appa had no interest in touching that money either. He never brought it up. The boy was going to finish his BSc soon. He hadn’t decided what to do next. He too was very confused.
The house now seemed like it was haunted most of the time. There was no cheer on anyone’s face. No one talked to another with any mirth. Everyone carried on with their work as if they had no option.
The boy’s mind was always in turmoil. He kept on worrying about something or the other. He imagined he would run away from all these troubles. But where? What would he do? Even before he set one foot out, trouble stuck to his face. He couldn’t get rid of it no matter what he did. They had to watch Appa closely at night. What if he resorted to something untoward? If money is lost, one can earn it back. If a life is lost, what can crying, wailing, shouting, fighting do to get it back? It is lost forever. When the boy went out, he felt as if people snickered at him. Well, if their stories are looked at closely for their virtuosity, then we will see who snickers at whom, he thought to himself as his anger crept up. Scared of unpleasant consequences, Paati kept an eye on Appa day and night, just like she did with Akka.
In all this, Appa was very determined about one thing. No matter what happened, he was going to return the money to those he had borrowed from. Once, it was a new-moon day, so dark that one couldn’t see the face of the person sitting next to them. Appa called them all together and said, ‘Shall we sell the land?’
‘Right. Sell whatever is left and you can take a bowl to beg around to eat.’ Amma talked loudly to squelch the already defeated voice of Appa.
Appa got irritated. Even though he was crushed, his old passion wasn’t diminished. ‘Don’t stir my anger now. You speak like you bring bags and bags of money from your house. Like I took the lakhs you brought from your house and bought the lands, yes?’
‘As if my father died without giving me anything. Even when he died, he gave me whatever he saved from working so hard, he didn’t send me here naked.’
‘Yes, yes he gave, didn’t he? Like giving to a beggar. Only because I touched that money have I been cursed to roam around here and there. Have I been able to complete a job fully and properly? Has anything gone right since the time that money set foot here? Who knows how many sins that house committed? My father and my mother asked for your hand only to keep the relationship going, even though they were approached here locally for Virumaayi who lives in the valavu on the west.’
‘So, go to her if you want . . . Keep seven mistresses in every place you go.’
Amma got beaten. Every time they opened their mouths, it always ended in hitting and kicking. It looked as though it had become a habit for Appa to hit and for Amma to get hit. No fight got resolved with words. Annan pulled Amma away.
‘Why are you hitting Amma? Just watch what happens if you do it again. I will deal with having to respect you as my father later. You take all the money and lose it and you think you can get angry at the ones here? Who is going to help you out?’
‘Ask him that first . . . I have to bear the brunt of everything.’
Appa went outside and sat on a rock. The boy followed him and sat on another rock. He asked him, ‘What do you say?’
‘What can I say? It is your decision.’
‘Follow your dad holding his tail,’ said Amma, cracking her knuckles as if to curse Appa. ‘He will find a deep well to push you in.’
‘You keep quiet, Amma . . . If each one keeps interrupting the other, what good is that?’
‘Okay. If you decide to sell the land, I will not come to sign the documents,’ said Annan staring at the lamp.
‘The property is in my name. You can come if you want, or get lost.’
‘You think you can sell the land without us?’
‘If I can’t sell it, I will take a loan against it. I have to answer to the people coming here asking for money. It’s my land, my money. I will sell it, hold on to it. If you want to come with me, do that. Or else, I will proceed on my own.’
Seeing Appa talk like he had given up on everything and everyone brought tears to the boy’s eyes. But Annan was in no state to understand him.
‘Give me one acre of land. I will sell it myself.’
‘How will you alone get one acre of land? There are only two acres. I can sell both together and pay all my debts. There is a house in the colony that we can buy and live in. Whatever we need to buy for the shop, we will and at least take care of that properly. You too obliterated all the money that we got by drinking with those rogues. Maybe he is going to study further? Otherwise, we three can take care of the shop together. If we take good care, we are but going to see some money. Don’t dance to your mother’s tunes.’
