By Ba. Venkatesan
Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.
When Paramasivam Pillai brought Sarangan,
after picking him up from being swamped in the mud, to his wife, she was not
composed enough to observe him fully. Due to her pressing anxiety as to how to
bring back her husband, who was readying himself to go back to Basavanna’s
land, and the gloom of losing him again behind the shut door, she had
completely forgotten Sarangan. Only when she turned normal, comforting herself
by burying herself in the daily chores, did she see a new baby playing in her
own children’s hands. She was startled at seeing a two-day-old baby playing and
looking at their faces. From that day, Sarangan was giving her amazing moments
unceasingly. Only when she observed him always smiling while playing did she
understand that he never cried. She thought that he might have forgotten how to
cry, perhaps, due to the shock after being drenched in the rain. Other than his
babyhood days, no one had ever seen him crying till he reached twenty-two years
when he met Kamalam. The next two days, when she was involved in tending to
him, she regained her composure to relish his beauty in its fullness. The
chiselled noses, lips, hands, and legs, she knew, were going to be the
much-talked-about topic across the town in the coming days. He was a
dark-complexioned boy. Dark complexion means utterly dark. A pure dark
complexion without mixes of any other colour. The colour was so glistening that
it wriggled in her hands like a snake’s body. As if to negate its gleam, or to
make it prominent in a backdrop, his eyes were burning red. It was those
reddish eyes that made them believe the fever not visible outside his body was,
in fact, burning inside and shining through his eyes. But the child was not
dead. Apart from not being dead, he didn’t sneeze even once, as though proving
what Paramasivam Pillai had told her about him correct – he had been drenched
in the rain for a very long time. Even while he was growing into a young man,
he never fell sick in bed due to water-borne diseases. Days later, when
Paramasivam Pillai’s wife understood that his body had the power of resistance
to diseases, a crystal-like translucence and the suppleness to thwart any
injuries, she was overly worried about him as to how he would face his old age
and death. (When life becomes extremely boring, as one would find it
intolerable at some point). It must be said that Sarangan was growing up in
Pillai’s house as a pampered child. As far as his wife was concerned, he was a
miracle baby, not the one sinking in the mud, but rather the one who sprouted
out of the mud. He was the reason behind the return of her husband and his
staying in the house, forgetting the wretched, cursed land of Basavanna. Pillai
and his other children were second to none in showering love on him. Other than
in his family, Sarangan was growing as a darling child of everyone in the
village as well. He was unanimously selected by his peers as their leader. He
was always surrounded by a bevy of boys. The stories he was narrating took them
to different worlds they had never experienced. Sarangan had known the secrets
of the countries lying on the other side of the earth, their mesmerizing
buildings, and the princesses who were sleeping in those buildings and who
would wake them up when. The places he picked for playing were capable of
keeping his friends blocking their breath with the awe of delight. They had
never imagined such suitable places for playing before. They found several
hiding spots, such as rat burrows along the edges of waterbodies, spider webs
knitted so densely, and the nests of birds. Sarangan got all of them accustomed
to the living beings residing in those hiding spots. They were astonished at
how Sarangan had known all those secrets. They couldn’t hear the secret voice
that informed him of all those secrets. Saranga’s solitude offered him the
chance to get such a bond. While the strict parents kept their children in the
interior rooms of their houses, not exposing them to the drizzle of the rain,
Sarangan was left alone to spend his solitude. If there had been any friendship
that didn’t abandon him during the rainy seasons, it was nothing but the rain
itself. He was growing along with the rain. (Sarangan’s face used to brighten
up when the sky became overcast with darkness). The rain never proved to be a
sorcerer with Sarangan, as against the villagers’ general belief that it would
unleash the epidemic across the village. On the contrary, it took him to the
spectacular hiding spots in the village that the villagers had never seen. It
told him the stories of the marvels it had witnessed while roaming around the
world from the top. Sarangan heard the voice of rain very vividly. He played in
the rain, completely oblivious of time. The time he spent at home during the
rain was minimal. But neither Pillai nor his wife stopped him from doing that.
They knew about the relationship he shared with the rain. So, they allowed him
to do what he wanted. When other children confined in the rooms groused in
jealousy and craving, Sarangan spent all his days in the rain during the entire
season. The sooner the season came to an end, would it leave the more countless
eccentric stories for Sarangan to boast about and spectacular hiding spots as a
mark of its gift while bidding adieu. Only because of one of such rainy
seasons, Sarangan could find out about Basavanna’s land again, which had been
forgotten by the villagers. Only when the rain brought him in front of the
Jamindar’s old palace of love, leading him to Hosur from Kelamangalam, while
playing with it, did he think that he had found at last the best place to play.
There, found in the building copiously, were the rat burrows, bushes, thickly
grown trees, spider webs in rope-sized knots tied to the branches of trees that
one could easily swing, and a lot of birds’ nests. The darkness that was
suitable for hiding was also adequately dense. The conveniences often found
scattered in various places separately were found under one roof, not
necessitating one to wander around. Sarangan was immeasurably happy. It wasn’t
certain whether he had gained the wisdom to guess about his future in advance,
but his mind firmly fixed that place as a permanent one for playing; at once,
he saw it. He was eagerly thinking of when the rainy season would end and when
he would be able to show that new place to his friends and enjoy seeing them
open their mouths in awe. However, when he brought them to that place after the
rains, they grew pale in fear at seeing that old, dilapidated, crumbling
building. Only at that time did Sarangan come to know about a truth that all
children other than him had already been told about the story of that place by
the elders ever since their birth. Sarangan was obviously shocked when he came
to know that the place, which he was proud of being the first person to have
discovered, had already been a very familiar place for others for a long time.
What had remained bizarre was that they were told that story just to forget it.
Sarangan’s pure heart was clouded with gloom. A bout of an inferiority complex
that he, who had been boasting of knowing the splendours on the other side of
the world, didn’t know about an ordinary local matter known to everyone,
afflicted him. He stayed mentally aloof as he thought that he had miserably
failed before his friends. He was confused about why he was not told about that
fact. However, he was certain about one thing: it was nearly impossible to get
the story from his parents that hadn’t yet been told. The inner drive of humans
that usually lusts after the things that are hidden had actually pushed Sarangan
to visit that place again and again. While other boys had almost forgotten it,
he developed the habit of visiting that place very often. The rain offered him
the courage. He stayed there even in the night hours with rain during the rainy
seasons. The solitude taught him the lessons that his parents and villagers
hadn’t. The villagers hesitated to inform his parents when they came to know
what he was doing. They were apprehensive that if anything related to
Basavanna’s land went to Pillai’s ears, they would be a death. So, they first
called Sarangan and whispered their warning into his ears. But he shut his ears
to their warning. The old memories sulking in the corner began doing their
rounds in the village. It was at that time that the Jamindar died unexpectedly.
It was followed by the untoward death of Pillai’s wife. Her death could achieve
something temporarily that the villagers were unable to do – His mother’s death
made him into a mature man who was till then a youngish lad. Now he was under an
obligation because he had involved himself in family matters, apparently to
compensate for the vulnerability of his father. It could be said that a whole
three years came to a standstill. Yet, he had always been there mentally, if
not with his body. His seventeenth year was set in. With his efforts to address
the mammoth family responsibilities, he began to get opportunities to
experience the world of the elderly. His childlike innocence had slowly started
leaving him. Since it was believed that one could get the direct blessings of
the dead if the auspicious ceremonies were held within one year of the elders'
deaths, he found a suitable, rich bridegroom in Tenkanikottai for his sister
and got her married in the ninth month after his mother’s death. After Pillai’s
other two sons left the house for different places looking for jobs, Sarangan
set out to learn the family’s traditional profession at his father’s request
and partly due to his personal interest in it. He accepted his father as his
guru. Only both of them lived in the Kelamangalam house. Despite Pillai’s
earnest appeals, Sarangan didn’t agree to appoint any servant in the house. He
was happy tending to his father's needs. He called it an ‘offering’ to his
guru. It was a bizarre school of learning. Pillai was not strong enough to take
Sarangan to many places where architectural works were going on to teach him.
He taught him the art, staying in the house. He kept himself away from the
places where Sarangan was testing his skills. Sarangan would explain to him
about the size of the land in which the building was to be erected, the quality
of the soil, the direction of weather conditions, the financial condition of
the builder, the positions of the planets, the number of family members, their
behaviours, and the height at which the wind would settle above the building.
The very moment Sarangan explained Pillai about all these, Pillai would
estimate the size of the house, the number of rooms, the place of construction,
its dimensions, the types of stones to be used in construction, the pole to be
planted for ‘sacrifice,’ the quality of the cement mixture, the height of the
building near the water source, the direction of fire from the oven, the stuff
to be kept in the base to ward off the evils, the deity to be worshipped, the
location of vastu, the corner of sight, the colour of the house, and the scent
of the inner walls, and tell Sarangan. He would further explain to him how to
make the cement mixture. Sarangan perfected the art of constructing buildings,
as his father directed him, and got his skills honed. He took a considerable
time to understand that the character of the people who wished to build houses
and the style and structure of the houses that were built according to their
characters, in fact, followed a specific pattern of a cycle. But he needed less
time to understand it. Very soon, he expanded that cycle with his imaginative
skills. With his hard work and interest, he could get rid of his father’s
influence, starkly visible on the buildings, and become successful in bringing
in an exclusive imprint of his style on them. The absence of Pillai’s
interventions in his affairs gave him some newer opportunities. Taking his
father’s absence to his advantage, Sarangan tried experimenting with some styles.
For instance, he introduced a grey artificial sand made of sand, lime, and
black stone powder in construction instead of lime alone. The rain had already
kept him informed of the usage of the technique in far-off countries.
To be continued…
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