This is an English translation of Vanammal, a
Tamil short story written by Azhakiya Periyavan. Translated into English by
Saravanan Karmegam.
***
That stretch of red sand seen as far as the
horizon, where one could find the sunlight with the white survey marker stones
and the pebbles evenly speckled across, looked like a sky that had turned
crimson. The palm trees, without any tree near, were standing alone anxiously.
For Salammal, the scorching sun was extremely
intimidating. She was walking with a pitcher on her head towards a dried-up
pool nestling amidst the group of rocks of the slopy hillock standing on the
northern side of her rain-fed land.
Yonder, she could see the Oosimalai (literally
‘sharp-edged mountain’) that stood like wavy smoke of dark flames in the
direction of a bird that flew past her, swooshing fast.
Salammal’s body, which didn’t fail the
frailties of old age, was marching with the grace of an eon. She was walking
fast, speaking to herself, heaving sighs, as the hem of her saree which was
used as both ‘summadu’ -to carry the pitcher and ‘mukkadu’ to cover her head.
Tired of carrying two or three pitchers, she sat under the shade of a tree,
fully exhausted.
The hot wind, while blowing through the tender
mango leaves, was a little soothing. The scent of mango leaves gently wafted in
the air like the smell of burnt leaves, before settling. Some people had
planted mango saplings like hers in the neighbouring patches of land. Some
others had left their land parched.
It happened four or five years ago. Salammal
must have been in good senses. She heard that the Christian missionaries were
giving mango saplings free of cost to the poor farmers who had some rain-fed
lands in their possession, in and around the village. She perfectly used that
opportunity to her advantage. The saplings they gave her were just enough for
the small land she possessed. She was not very happy with the saplings as they
were of only Mangalore and Neelam varieties. She went to Alathur government nursery
and bought some more varieties – Khader, Peethar, Banganapalli, Malkova and
planted them in her land. Salammal gently broke the pots and took the saplings
out of them to avoid their joints from being damaged, planted them as if she
were handling newborn babies, collected water from all possible ponds and pools
and nourished them as much as she could. She felt she regained her life only
after she saw those saplings, which initially looked dull like men who wouldn’t
fit in the new places, sprouting with green, tender leaves. Salammal deeply
loved the plants. She had made her house a beautiful garden with whatever the
plant she could grab. She would always be busy with either shoveling, watering,
or just raking the dried leaves. The flowers that blossomed in her garden would
smile on the women’s heads in the village. People said that the fruits from her
garden had an exquisite taste.
“She is mad after the tree. Is he hailing from
the jungle or what?” People would wonder.
“It is all right for a woman who has no
children or place to settle, to have an attachment to something. But her
interest in trees is beyond comprehension,” they said.
“Someone near Vellore has printed a wedding
invitation for his trees and got them married. Is she also planning anything
like that?” The villagers gossiped.
No one could comprehend Salammal’s love for
trees. Every tree in the village is like her mother’s lap. It was her everyday
routine that she would sit under any one of those trees, and vent out her heart
to them.
Once, when the nature proved too harsh for her
to bear the damages the gale and rain had caused, she abused the sky, cracking
her knuckles and cursing the rain. The gale had caused huge damage to tender
guava branches and drumstick trees. She collected the broken branches and
covered them with a cloth soaked in red sand. People’s sarcastic remarks at her
didn’t move her resolve. Last month, a village development scheme was set to be
implemented in her village. It was decided that the pipal tree that was standing
with a full of thick branches near the ‘village ratchai’ (where the village
panjayat used to assemble) and the cannonball tree on the fringes of the
village should be removed to build a library, a water pumping station and a
television room. As soon as Salammal came to know about this decision, she
became extremely furious. When the first swing of the axe fell on the tree, she
stormed angrily, obstructing the chopping as her disheveled hair fell before
her. She panted as she came running there.
“Deiiii…We are all sisters staying here. Who’s
trying to drive us out of here?” she yelled out as if she were possessed.
“O! Mother! Please bear with us. Who are you?”
“I am Nagalamma, Poovulamma, Ellamma…It is our
residence. We now stay in this cannonball tree, Ellamaa’s place. If you ever
try to cut the trees where we live to drive us out, we will destroy the whole
village”
The axes and swords fell off. As soon as it
was assured that the trees wouldn’t be cut, the ‘deity’ possessed her ‘went
back’ to its abode. The day she saved the tree, Salammal was sitting under the
pipal tree. Salammal lived alone. After she was driven out by her husband as
she was childless, she remained in that village and settled there as a
destitute. Her only relation, her elder brother, also left her in search of a
job and livelihood. She was left with a house in the village and a small patch
of rain-fed land. She decided that she would toil in that land as much as she
could and till the time her strength lasted. She unfolded her summadu, wiped
her face with it. ‘It all appears that I planted them a day ago. But they have
grown fast. I need to remove the sticks that support the flowers. I have to
wait for some more time for it to ripen’ she thought. Her eyes that were
rolling through the scorching mirage were fixed in the empty space in the east.
The mirage and scorching sun found afar seemed to have moved from there and
descended into her heart. Her eyes grew teary like sluice gates as she delved
into her past.
No one in the village had taken Salammal
seriously, as she had no one who would come in support of her. The shepherd
woman Rangamani and her brothers- in-law would always find Salammal worth
teasing. One day, Salammal saw Rangamani, who was on her way back home after
collecting firewood, plucking the mango leaves and crushing them. She scolded
Rangamani heavily, as she was very anxious that the mango saplings would lose
grip in the root and die. It had been only a very few days since those saplings
were planted. When she went to her farm the next day, she found half of the
mango saplings were lying uprooted. It pained her as though someone had slit
her throat. “Aiyo, my babies! All my loving babies are gone!’ She beat her
chest and stomach, picked the uprooted plants and wailed terribly. Rangamani
owned the land that neighboured Salammal’s land. Rangamani had had an eye on
Salammal’s land for a long.
“Should I afford such a big insult for petty
issue like this? It is all my mistake. They are all going to die now. How could
you do this just for scolding you not to pluck the leaves? Am I the scapegoat
to show the arrogance of your caste?” Salammal lodged a complaint with the
village panjayat, and kept crying as if someone dear to her heart was dead in
her home. The villagers were perplexed, why is she crying like this for trees?”
The village panjayat that assembled in the dusk, passed the judgement that they
wouldn’t be able to get into it further unless they knew who had cut the trees.
No one took Salammal’s contentions about the possible culprits, and her earnest
pleading that the footprints on the land belonged to none other than the
roguish Rangamani.
Salammal felt completely dejected. Unable to
comfort her wailing heart, she ran to the pastor who gave her those mango
saplings in the early morning and inconsolably wept in front of him.
“You don’t have to cry like this. Let me
arrange some saplings for you.” Salammal nodded her head swiftly, on hearing
his assurance.
“You must get those culprits punished, Samy.
They have slaughtered half of my children,” she said.
“Lodge a complaint with the police. I will
come there in a while”
Taking the pastor’s advice, she went to the
police station.
The casual reply from the policemen that they
wouldn’t take such petty cases like cutting trees didn’t take away her
determination. She was standing at the police station’s doorway all day,
clearing her nose frequently.
Finally, they said, “Bring a complaint that
states they have beaten you before cutting the trees”
After filing the complaint, she spent her days
walking to the police station and the pastor’s house. Only when she received
the first summons after lodging the complaint did her wailing heart find some
peace. “Even at the worst time, justice will never die. Will it? Count your
days now. You had chopped my plants as they were bleeding. Now wait and see
your destiny”
On all the occasions she received the summons,
she would wait in the court complex, waiting for justice. But she was
disappointed to see that no justice, as she had expected, was delivered in the
court.
In two days, she whined, “Why do these men
hesitate this much to declare wrong is wrong?’ and went to Thambidurai’s house.
He was her elder brother’s son.
After her elder brother had died, Thambidurai
was her only support. Though he was living miles away from her, she would catch
a bus and go to meet him at least once a month. Salammal reared all his
children, cuddling them dear to her heart. Among them, Salammal loved the
youngest, Sivappi, more. Thambidurai suggested to her to take the advice of a
government lawyer. The next day, she caught the lawyer by tracing him through
the sources, and literally made him embarrassed with her grumbles and sobs.
“Paatti, why are you crying? It is not a teak
tree. They are just ordinary trees. Right? Leave the matter,” he said.
“Aiya, they are not trees. They are like my
children born out of my womb. You must pass the verdict to punish those
killers.”
For every summon, Salammal’s grieving wails
grew louder. The lawyer sent her back with a warning that he would get the case
dismissed unless she stopped pestering him.
Salammal, who thought Rangamani’s friends
would be punished on the very next day she had filed the complaint, was indeed
hugely shocked to see nothing had happened to them. She met every possible
authority and attended innumerable summons from the court. Despite frequent
visits, she could get nothing from the pastor who had assured her of new
saplings. Salammal was finally exhausted.
Salammal came to her senses when a quail
swooshed from the bush nearby. The sun was scorching above the head. While
seeing the mango plants that rustled in the wind, her disappointment
disappeared. She spent the remaining days tending to the trees that had been
left, watering them, cracking her knuckles to drive out laziness and speaking
to them. If she ever happened to meet Rangamani in the fields and near the
ponds, she would feel crushed like dead leaves by her deriding sneer. In order
to avoid it, she would prefer working over there for longer hours. Salammal was
happy about the trees that stood ready for harvest next year. Tomorrow was the
last summons from the court. She was delighted as she remembered the lawyer’s
assuring words that the verdict was likely to be passed that day. She then
covered her head with the mukkadu, picked up her pitcher and walked down the
slope that led to her home.
Salammal was sitting under a mango tree
blooming with flowers. The sun was harsh like a cat guarding its kitten. Her
heart, sitting in the cage of her body was merrily playing like a child. Seeing
the dance of the mango tree, she felt a rumble of water stirring in her
abdomen. Her hands caressed the mango tree lovingly. Her eyes welled up with
tears, ready to streak down her cheek.
The court complex was wearing a zealous appeal
with men moving around. The lawyers, policemen and people were busy running
here and there. Salammal saw Rangamani and her brothers- in-law sitting at a
distance and chit-chatting. Salammal thought they were chit-chatting about her.
The anger crept into her dry body. She turned her face to the other side. She
was astonished to realize that all her days, ever since her middle age to this
day, were just spent in a sort of ‘penance’, waiting at this court complex. The
call from the court’s orderly sounded like an oracle for Salammal. She ran in.
The judge spoke: “There is no evidence to prove that the accused persons have
cut those trees. Since they were freshly planted, they could have died as their
roots might not have been strong enough”
Those words stunned Salammal. Her throat pit
went dry, and breathless and spat out a sound of utter haplessness.
“Aiya…they weren’t just plants. They were my
children. They are the hope of this barren woman, aiya”
She came out of the court, babbling like a
madwoman and sat under the mango tree. She was angry, felt miserable and
insulted. How many visits she had made for those plants, how many complaints
she had filed, how many times she had climbed on the court’s steps! Fire of
helplessness was burning under her belly!
‘They were innocent children. What had they
done to deserve such cruel punishment? What would they have spoken to each
other if they could speak? Even after coming home, she didn’t cook rice. She
kept wailing, venting out her angst softly till midnight.
Immediately after getting up in the morning,
she took away the pots in the kitchen, removed their supporting trivets and
then dug out the mud ‘hundis’ buried under it. Some of those five hundis were
full and others were not. She broke them and collected the coins. While
carrying them, tying them up in the hem of her sari, her torso bent forward due
to its weight. She walked to the nursery in the neighbouring village. After
placing an order for some mango saplings, she returned to her land.
Before the sun became harsh, she could dig ten
or fifteen pits. The aroma of the soil rose as she dug in. Suddenly, she
remembered her granddaughter, Sivappi. Sivappi used to come to Salammal every
year during the school summer holidays. Salammal would gift her clothes with
the money she had saved by doing all sorts of menial work during the year.
Salammal’s heart was heavy as she had spent all the savings from the hundis on
mango saplings this year.
“My dear girl, she will be disappointed this
year,” she thought.
She looked at the grove, in despair. The
tender leaves were waving gently in the wind.
“It is all right. Only one year to go. After
that, you, my children, will take care of my dear girl. Won’t you?” The mango
saplings danced elegantly in the wind. The soil gave way for digging pits,
listening to her words.
***Ended***
