Rising Heat, page 3
The roots of the felled trees came out like gigantic tubular root crops. Creepers, boundary trees and thorn shrubs were all severely uprooted. A crowd had collected around them. They practically crawled on top of each other in a furious bid to grab as much as they could. As if this was going to help fuel their kitchens for the rest of their lives. Perhaps they were gathering good pieces of wood and herbs for their own pyres? Whatever the reason, this was the last bit of fortune from this land for these people. The land that had once begot in abundance field after field of lush pearl millets and fertile green vegetables. It spilt out any residual trace of vegetation to the ruthless assault of this bulldozer.
Ensuring that every last bit of life was sucked out of the land were the supervising government officials in their spick and span outfits. They hovered around with notebooks in their hands. As if they wouldn’t move on until the entire earth was excavated and exposed. As soon as the land was taken by the housing board to build a colony, the officers began swarming around. The way they drove everyone out was as cold-hearted as the God of Death. As if they were reclaiming their ancestral properties. An officer with no moustache arrived one day. His face was perpetually sullen. Whether it was Thatha or anyone else in his household, they all folded their hands out of respect when they spoke to this man. He only spoke in commands. ‘He has power in the government. It is we who have to obey him,’ Thatha would say. Once everyone left the forests, the bulldozer crept in. The officers were stoic like Death in handing out orders and measures to the workers. This was what had been going on for a month now. What other actions would they take to completely destroy these lands?
The boy sat on the mound around the well. The boundary marker was still standing. And so were two coconut trees. The hired hands had slit the throats of everything here and, like children on a rampage, left it all to writhe helplessly to death. Under a coconut tree was a dog pit. Looked like that was where Mani slept. The shade of the coconut tree was cool. The dog had dug out some soil and made a round pit. The soil was still cool. What would it do when they chopped down these trees too? Would the dog come to the valavu or would it give up its life here? He couldn’t decide.
Poor cat, he suddenly recalled. It grew up like a child with the family. As soon as they began to pack all their things, it turned mad. It meowed incessantly. No one could catch it. Appa had suggested that it be put in a gunny bag and carried along. They tried cajoling it, tempting it, chasing it, chiding it. It ran away somewhere. The next day, it was found right there in the forest, dead, with its throat bitten off. It seemed like it had been caught by the dog. Akka used to feed it from her plate. The cat ate from one corner of Akka’s plate. If it smelt curd and rice, it came running from wherever it was. It gave up its life the very next day after they moved out. All the creatures that played around were gone. Only the dog still remained, but in a calcified state, and kept coming back into the forest. The whole lot of goats from the pen had been taken to the market. Only the people and their limbs still remained.
Would they keep collecting firewood until they cleared the whole forest? Women, boys and children were all running with baskets in their hands. They didn’t spare even the aloe leaves. He could check there to see if someone was going back to the valavu. He could go back with them, he decided, and got up.
The mound around the well was quite tall. For irrigation purposes, it was built to be a foot taller than the Pamberi well. One could see all the way to the lake from here. His Atthai used to make a visit from Maniyur once a month. They’d all stand on the mound to look for her. Each wanted the brag, ‘I spotted her first!’ Whenever Atthai visited, everyone was happy. ‘You must eat with me’, ‘You must drink coffee with me,’ they said as they pulled Atthai in all directions and troubled her.
Whenever the temple festival was announced, Atthai arrived driving her white goats. Along with her came her son too. Atthai’s husband had passed away at a young age. She had only one son. If she came for the festival, she stayed with them for a week or ten days. They invited all their relatives to come over. Amma’s relatives arrived in bigger groups—a crowd from Amma’s younger sister Chinnamma’s family from Karattur and Maama’s family from Kollur. The flour made specially for the festival was quite distinctive. Whenever kadalaimaavu was made, it got over quickly. Occasionally, they cooked a goat too. Would that sort of happiness ever come back again? If Atthai were to visit thereafter, how would they all be with each other, together in one place, now that they had all moved away, each in their own direction?
To see their own, they would have to plan a visit going forward. Not that there was no bickering or fights when they were all together. There were always fights between Amma and Periamma or Periamma and Chithi or Chithi and Amma on little matters—if the goats strayed into the cultivated fields or if the chickens shat somewhere. Often, there were fights for no reason. But after a few days of them ignoring each other, things returned to normalcy. There were fights with Paati too. Paati didn’t get along that well with her daughters-in-law. Still, it could never be like living with everyone together! On the west side was Thatha’s older brother’s family. On the east side was Thatha’s younger brother’s family. If anyone needed anything they just had to call out once. There would be a response no matter what time of day or night. Going forward, it would come down to a polite smile when they ran into each other in the streets.
He walked around the well. He couldn’t quite see inside it. Darkness had deposited itself like char. The folks who had come to pick firewood were beginning to use the tar road to get back to the settlement. There were footpaths in all directions. No distinctions remained on cultivable lands. Anyone could go in any direction. He changed his pace to catch up with them. The well slowly receded farther and farther away—the well in which he used to swim; into which he fell twice and was rescued. It was quite a deep well. Eight muttu. It was someone’s goodwill that he was saved that day. His mother and he had tied a pot to the irrigation apparatus to draw water from the well. It was always faster when two people worked on it together. So his mother drew from over the sluice. He drew it, weaving his legs around the water-lifting apparatus with his crotch against the pillar. It was a mud pot. A pot that had a bulging middle. It held twice as much as a regular pot. He had drawn it all the way up. Amma leant over to grab the pot. The pot kept sliding down. ‘I am not able to reach,’ she said. At that instant, he fell in along with the pillar and everything. The iron in the apparatus had rusted. If he had fallen on his head, that would have been the end of him. Luckily, only his hip was injured.
The other time was when everyone had gone to Karattur for a funeral. They had just installed a brand-new motor at Chithappa’s. A centipede came out limping from the water channel the motor pumped into. Engrossed in making a path for it to go on, the boy kept moving backwards and got himself dangerously close to the edge. He slipped and fell into the well, but managed to grab on to a rock sticking out of the wall. Selvan called for help and Chithappa pulled him out. He has been rescued twice but if he fell in once more, that would be the end of him, an astrologer had predicted. Though, anyway, now they had moved away once and for all from this place.
Memories and events would remain buried, and concrete structures would be raised over them. The fragrance of the soil would be sealed with concrete. It would deny the land even drops of rain. Where were so many people going to come from? To whom were they going to sell these homes that they were building? The more he thought about it, the more perplexing it was. Steeped in his thoughts, he hurried towards the baskets of firewood, half walking, half running.
Chapter 2
It had been more than ten days since he last visited his Thatha and Paati. If he delayed any more, he’d have to endure Paati’s incessant bickering and her tears that rolled down suddenly as she kept talking. He couldn’t blame her, though. After having her sons so close to her and seeing them all the time, she found it unbearable that, like a thatched roof wrecked and strewn around by a cyclone, they were all brusquely scattered and thrown into different corners. He had resolved to pay them a visit at least once a week.
As soon as he returned from school, he flung his school bag into the house, stretched and cracked his hands and left. If Amma was around, she would tilt her head a certain way in disapproval. It meant, ‘If you don’t see the old woman, won’t you be able to swallow your food?’ Her anger and irritation at her now frail and drained mother-in-law were yet to subside. He had never understood this unending fight. It was good in a way that Amma was not home then. Akka was getting the stove started in the veranda. He called out to her, informed her about where he was heading and left immediately.
Beyond the fenced forest area, by the banks of the lake, was some unassigned land that the boy’s grandparents had paid some money for. When the builders took their cultivable land for the colonies, Thatha and Paati built a small shack for themselves on that land. The boy’s house in the valavu had remained unused when they lived in the forest. Periappa and Chithappa also used to own individual houses in the valavu. They had since sold them to build themselves larger houses in the forest. Now, the whole family was forced into a state akin to that of the Indian roller bird when Kandhan destroyed and threw out its nest along with its eggs and fledglings. Should they fly around the same tree lamenting their broken nest or should they look for another place to build a new nest? Nothing was clear. The boy’s family decided to move into their house in the valavu. When Periappa’s father-in-law promised him a tiny parcel of land if he moved closer, Periappa took the offer and built a small house on it. A house only as big as his old workshop. Chithappa too went to his father-in-law’s house. But he didn’t build himself a house there, he moved in with them.
During those days, Thatha looked like a meek dog. He would be lying on the cot but vanish suddenly. He would sit on the stone mortar outside the house and stare at the sky. He would roam around somewhere all day. He wouldn’t engage in a conversation with anyone and only yell irritably at Paati. ‘The food is terrible! the stew is tasteless!’, and a thousand more such complaints. It was quite sad to see him like that. The sons were all relieved that they somehow found a way to settle themselves down but none of them showed a breath of concern for their father. They were all afraid that the parents may insist on staying with one of them. It was Paati who broke the uncomfortable silence and came up with an idea.
‘Why are you being so stubborn? As if there is not a little space for us under this vast open sky? Won’t it suffice if we built four pillars and a roof over that on the unassigned land by the lake? At this age when the family is waiting to get rid of us and the cemetery is waiting for us, do we need a mansion to live in?’
Thatha took her word literally and built a hut in that location. The only concern there was the potential flooding of the lake. But that could be addressed if it happened. That land was elevated enough. Only if it poured non-stop for several days would the water reach the brim. They’d manage as long as they could. When they announced that they were leaving, none of the sons said anything. There were long, deep sighs of relief all around.
Only when he reached their place did Paati return home too. She had gone to pull out weeds in the kiluva forest. It was the season of weeding in the cotton plantations. Paati never stopped working. If she did, it would mean starvation for those two beings.
‘Kuppan promised to come by in the evening. Why has he not come by yet? Till they lived in the forest, they had something to fill their stomachs with but, apparently, he has no food at home now. He’s really struggling to make ends meet, he says.’
Paati kept talking as she lit the stove. The wrinkles that surrounded her eyes were like dried jujube fruit. He sat on the mortar and chatted with her.
‘But how’s that, Aaya? He supposedly goes to work someplace in the town. He must be roaming around there, wasting time or getting into trouble. Otherwise why would he be in such a dire state?’
‘No, Payya. He’s not that kind of person. He was the farm lead for us since your Thatha’s Appa’s time. He has never stolen anything, ever. He never asked for more than what he was given. He took on tasks and toiled hard. He always kept the monies in order. He must be going through a rough patch.’
‘What is Ramayi up to these days?’
Paati blew gently into the fire at the stove to get it up and put a griddle on top of it. She went into the hut and came back with a pot of red millet flour. He pulled out a winnow and the arivalmanai, and scraped some palm jaggery.
‘Ramayi’s husband is good for naught. She’s come back here for good. That’s another burden on him.’
Just as she made a batter with the red millet flour and poured a dosai, they spotted Kuppan and Ramayi approaching from a distance. Kuppan’s body was shrivelled. Was he already that old? The boy was astonished. That body used to be strong like the dark trunk of a palm tree. A body that picked up a gunny bag the height of a man with ease. As soon as she saw him, Ramayi’s eyes welled up and her lips spread into a smile. She increased her pace, flashing her betel-stained teeth.
‘Ada . . . little master . . .! When did you get here? Don’t you look healthy and tall, like a big boy! Oh, I may cast an evil eye on you if I’m not careful! Well, my master, which class are you studying in now?’
She never knew how to stop with one question. She would keep talking without a pause. She had to be bridled and pulled to a halt at some point. It was on her hips that he grew up. If he’d say, ‘You look so dark, like you were immersed in a truck full of black ink’, she’d draw her hip out and point it out to him.
‘It is because I bore you all the time on my hips that they have tarnished and blackened like this. And if one worked in such heat out in the open all the time, what will the body do but get tanned?’
She worked in the farm until she got married. With her tummy sticking out like a basket, she was brought to the farm to work when she was barely a foot tall. Maybe she was shrunken because of all the blows she received from his mother. Her frizzy and discoloured hair used to be matted like a net. His mother would knock hard with her knuckles on that mess of a head. Amma’s words crackled throughout the day, from the time Ramayi gathered all the cow dung early in the morning to when she drove all the goats into the pen at the end of the day. Moreover, the ‘status’ of being Kuppan’s daughter only led to her being taken for granted. Still, Ramayi was the one who brought him up, enduring all that.
He responded to her with a smile, looking at her eyes that were still reeling from the surprise. A response that addressed all her questions.
‘I came here only a little while ago. I’m in ninth standard now. So, have you come back here for good?’
She pursed her lips and smacked them noisily. She held her sadness on her face as she sat herself in a corner. Her face shrunk to the size of a fist. Kuppan too seated himself next to her.
‘Um-hm. That rotten dog, I was suffering from a stomach ache for four days. Did he even ask me, “What is wrong with you?” Not a word. Whenever I looked for him, he was at the landlord’s house. As if they reward him lavishly. All they do is point out a thousand problems before handing out the trifle of a salary. Those landlords are nothing like the ones here. They are soulless. And even the little they give, he drinks and drinks and squanders all of it on alcohol and beats me up for more. That’s why I gathered the children and moved back here.’
She wiped her nose with the loose end of her sari. Then, she blew her nose, wiped that on the ground, looked at her father and spoke, cracking her knuckles as if to curse. She had such a unique way of talking. She turned her head like a chameleon, twisted her face, made gestures like cracking her knuckles and intonated her words like a song. He simply wanted to ignore what she was saying and just watch her talk.
‘It’s not as if my father has bundles and bundles of money stacked away. On the contrary, he doesn’t have a penny. My life stinks here too, dear.’
Kuppan’s pride was wounded. He moved away to spit out all the tobacco he was holding in his cheek and came back.
‘She doesn’t have what it takes to take control of the situation and thrive. And she mocks me. Look how much she talks. She isn’t my daughter, she is a devil who has come to eat me.’
‘Kuppa, she is just ranting with frustration. Just let her be. Here, eat these two hot, red millet dosai. I made them with palm jaggery.’
Paati handed one to Kuppan and one to Ramayi. She received it in the loose end of her sari. Paati put one on a plate and gave that to her grandson. This was Paati’s standard food. It didn’t cost anything to make. And it was quick too—she could make a few in a jiffy.
Darkness filled in lazily. There was no sight of Thatha as far as they could see. The boy couldn’t leave till he saw Thatha. I should just stay the night, he thought to himself, and began to help Paati. Someone jumped over the colony compound wall. The wall that was laid out and being constructed per measured plans. That completely isolated this shack on the banks of the lake. One had to find the foot track near the compound wall, follow it all the way to the end of the wall and make a ‘u’ turn in order to get to the shack. Strong men would simply jump over the wall to get there. The man who did just that was Murugan.
‘Is the big master not here?’
He sat on the mortar outside. He was so tall that seeing him seated on the mortar was like seeing a full-size pestle perched on it. He had a bushy moustache that completely covered his mouth. Once they started digging the foundation for the colony homes, many men like Murugan settled around here with their families. They came from near and far. They were mostly bricklayers and earth workers.
