The night of shadows by Dhamayanthi

 

Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.

This is an English translation of "Nizhaliravu", a short novel written by Dhamayanthi. I have posted here some sample pages of the translation. The complete translation will be available to the readers after it is brought in print.

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No one had ever thought that the rain would descend suddenly with such ferocity. When the sweat had still been overwhelmingly clammy, the rain that seemed to cool down everything around was indeed a surprise. Rathnavelu sir hadn’t brought his umbrella. He was visible through the window, standing on the outer porch along with Appa, pointing at something afar and folding his hands back. Appa was blankly staring at the rain flowing down through the tiles in the front yard. Elisi turned and glanced at the cot. The face that bore no signs of life was lying without any movement. It was exactly one full night. It was the deadline set by the doctor before he sent her back home. The leg below the right knee was amputated last week. A saree and a blanket lay on it, covering it to avoid the amputated leg from being clearly visible. Elisi went near her and grasped her hands. No movement. The pupils weren’t moving as the eyelids remained closed.

Soon after the person from the hospital who had accompanied them in the car laid her on the cot, Rathnavelu sir told Appa, “Sekar, get me the list of people to be informed. I will do it”. Amma, who threw her eyes on Patti’s legs, turned and gazed at Rathnavelu sir. It seemed that the emptiness seen in her eyes had filled the room. She felt she heard the thunder striking only at that moment. A big drop of rain fell above the window grills. Startled, Rathnavelu sir went near the window, saying, “Is it raining?” Suddenly, it looked like it was going to be a heavy downpour. As the drizzle came in, spraying the room, she felt that the gentle light spreading in the room was connected with the rain that had descended on the room. Appa took out Patti’s diary from the table, opened it, gave it to Rathnavelu sir and said, “Call these contacts”. When he uttered Jessi Athai’s number, his voice grew thicker as if he was clearing his throat. A thick voice. Even Patti had that kind of voice. It was with this voice, she once asked Appa, “What’s your problem if Elisi marries a person of her choice?” The grey hairs falling on her forehead were tousling in the wind at that time. The white strands of hair falling across her dusky forehead were merging and parting like streaks of light and darkness.

Elisi clasped Granny’s hands. The veins running through her hands were bulgy and prominently visible. One could see those hands either neatly folded across in the old photographs without any tinge of hue or resting on Grandpa’s right shoulder. The eyes would wander in dreams and chase them.

“You are very beautiful,” Elisi used to tell her.

“Marry Murugan and get a girl child like me,” she would reply. Elisi held her hands tightly and felt it like a river that turned chilly and immobile. The joints in the fingers were wrinkly, and the skin was dry. She clasped her hands into her palms as if she had thought that the blood flowing through them would remain alive only for a while more. It looked like she was holding the last pages of a saga in her hands. The sound of Rathnavelu sir climbing down the steps at the doorway was heard. Appa might have sent him off along with an umbrella.

Elisi rose as she heard a sound at the doorway. The pastor of a church where her Amma used to go on Sundays and his wife entered the house with a bible in their hands. The pastor gazed at Patti dejectedly from head to toe and muttered, “Jesus”. Amma brought them a plateful of laddus and some mixture and held it out to them. They picked a pinch of laddu, dropped it into their mouth while cursorily remarking not to inconvenience herself. Amma briskly pulled two chairs near the cot. Appa was sitting on a stool in the corner. The Pastor’s wife threw a frowning, repugnant stare at Elisi and said, “This is….” while intently looking at Elisi’s forehead. Amma said, “This is my daughter, Elisi”.

“I thought she must be a Hindu girl as she wears a vermillion on her forehead. Is she your daughter?” the pastor inquired. Appa intervened quickly and suggestively gestured with his eyes “speak no more.” Amma brought hot tea when they were relishing the laddu and mixture. The pastor resumed prayers only after drinking it. Amma and the pastor’s wife covered their heads with the hem of their sarees. The pastor’s wife saw Elisi not covering her head, threw a blank stare at her before she shut her eyes tightly. The pastor’s body jerked as he resumed prayers. His wife screamed feverishly, “Sthothram…sthothram”. Her screams overwhelmed the blows of rain. Suddenly the pastor started jabbering in various languages as his tongue got obviously twisted. His wife increased her pitch and yelled “sthothram…sththothram to the god of all gods”. Meanwhile, the pastor bellowed, “You Satan, leave Deborah Cathrine Rathnakumari. Leave her…leave her.”

There was no movement in Patti.

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04.04.1974

You got up in the early morning. With the sky that hasn’t yet fully dawned and the rays of darkness that haven’t yet receded, your heart is muddled with chaos. You are just trailing the path that you have just passed through. Your first cry, carrying the blood stains of the womb, reaches you. The darkness of your path assumes the hues of shadows. The presence and the espousal of shadows comfort you on the path where no streaks of light are visible. The different images of shadows remind one of different times and the men who were once associated with them. The thick and plump shadow reminds your English teacher. The wart near his eyelids appears like a prominent projection of shadow. He had been a man who was trying to touch you all the time. You had frequently suspected that all his thoughts were focused only on your body parts or anything related to them. Your prior assessment of him must be the reason why you found his neatly made tie knot and weird-looking pointed shoes repugnant to you. Most of the time, you had no good teachers. Fear and fright were the only feelings you had experienced during your school days when it came to female teachers. They never understood your dynamism and the animated spirit in you. They assessed the students best if they could mug up on and vomit. That one fair-complexioned lady teacher made you stand outside the classroom for two sessions for watching a bird with blue, green and orange feathers that was observing the classroom hesitantly while perching at the doorway before it flew away. Do you remember that? That lady had always been pregnant. Every birth of her child remained the start of a subsequent pregnancy. Kala would call her E.P. - Ever Pregnant. You would laugh out loud at that time. Yet, you couldn’t help remembering E.P. during that time when two of your children remained alive, and the other three died due to malaria. Yes, you remembered that bird with different colours sitting hesitantly by the classroom too.

What were you just thinking about? Ah…The English teacher who appeared like a shadow or the shadow that appeared like him. Mostly, the teachers do like the students who just nod their heads without raising objections to whatever they say. Differences of opinion would amount to negating their own existence, and this precisely explains why many didn’t like you. You wouldn’t accept this. This allergic relationship was the reason why the struggle for your indispensability and identity finally wore away. You tried to cross some lines. You were not in the horde of humans who moved on, avoiding those lines and not crossing them. Many girl students moved on, presumably considering the amorous touches of the teachers unoffensive. They said he was like their father – it was a token given to them, and because of this very reason, the English teacher had his hands on your marks. It wasn’t new to you anyway. You had been familiar with such a thing ever since the day a fat female teacher made you cry by pinching around your belly button on account of an anonymous letter reportedly written either by you or your family members when you were in seventh grade. It was the reason why the school buildings had first appeared to you as worth despising and later became objects of hatred. You wouldn’t accept that the schools were temples and teachers were gods. The teachers are offering other teachers just to get the degrees from the universities. Mohan Kalaikumar bought a V.I.P. suitcase, one sovereign gold ring, and a broad-bordered Kanchipuram silk for Professor Kamala Devadas. Selvi’s professor stayed at her home in the night, as his wife wasn’t at home. Her father asks her to make a crispy dosa for the professor. Yes, the schools are temples anyway.

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The complete translation will be available after it is brought in print.

 

The Scent of Solitude (தனிமையின் வாசனை) by Dhamayanthi

This is an English translation of “Thanimaiyin Vasanai,” a short story written by Dhamayanthi. Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.

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The distance between you and him is as lengthy as the panting that would come from reading long sentences. A lizard, which seemed to have been impregnated, was stalking an ant in the reception hall of your house. It stops suddenly, looking confused as it couldn’t trace the ant in the shadow of the almirah. The ant must be lucky; it isn’t visible anywhere.

You might think that the lizard had swallowed up the ant the moment it wasn’t seen. Some people pick their moments of joy from the joys around them. Some people would make their surroundings joyous with their presence. You do smile. But it is not lively anyway.

Even a small particle washed away in the waves had a chance of coming back in the retreating waves that break on the shore. But you are like a current in the river, and you just float in the direction of the river. Come out and see the flower that has blossomed out there. But all your worries are just about him—why he hasn’t eaten those round-shaped idlis kept on the table.

The days he ate those idlis with a teasing, “What will happen if I throw these away? There will be headlines that there is a bomb attack in” India"—were still alive as shadows in your eyes before they had melted to become tears. What sort of a woman are you? Have you taken your birth just to cry for the sake of emotions? Your eyes carry the discomfiture of emotions that have no justifications.

Even the petty whirring of the fan sounds louder in the face of sharp moments of solitude. Has he realised the pains of your solitude? Or does he possess the same collective disgust the men used to boast to negate the very existence of women?

Look here. This is the photo that he and you had taken together. There is a streak of a smile on your face while his face bears a sternness. Did he marry you out of any compulsion? Don’t stare at. Can’t I even ask questions to clear my doubts?

Everything will be set right if he could understand that you are still too stubborn to let him down. Will he understand this? You might either be one of the negligible particles in his countless number of problems or the centre of all his problems.

Every Sunday your mother, sitting in the main hall, would knead the flour for making puttu. She would sprinkle the saline water that she used to keep in a bowl near her into the flour while kneading. She would then roast green gram with mustard seeds and dried vegetables before doing them up with coconut powder. All these ingredients have their eccentric scent. What about the scent of your solitude?

It is a room of empty air. There is a radio looking like a mystic box that carries the soul of a princess. The music coming out of it embraces you before it escapes through the window. Nothing stays with you other than you.

The god said that you are trying to listen to the voice of your child you have lost. You might be the only woman who is seeking help to listen to the voice of a child that hasn’t yet been born. A cursory look at the almirah offers a view of idlies. A dress in orange. A thread tied with a piece of sweet flag. A red clip to bind the hair. I must show your cupboard to the god.

You know Thangam akka. Don’t you? Such a ruthless woman who beats her mother-in-law by enticing her husband into her hands. Can you speak philosophy like her? Do one thing. Ask the god for a boon to give all your books a life so that you can marry a man you love from that. Ha ha ha ha …

You wrinkle your eyebrows at seeing me laugh. The moments you wrinkle your eyebrows are the moments you look very beautiful. The happiness from the words you are beautiful just vanishes like a moon that disappears in the waves of a river when you ask yourself how it will be if he says this sentence.

Where did this distance occur? How did it occur? You ask him “Will you have your meals?” - a voice that nearly resembles the mammoth dimensions of a sound a tiny piece of paper makes while falling onto the ground. He just replies, ‘Mmm.’ You bring him an eating plate. “Do you need curry?” you ask him. He says, “Mmm…a little,” and gulps the saliva as though he has spoken a long sentence.

Suddenly there is a huge noise somewhere. You peeked out, reflexively. It is the sound of the window that shut with a noise in the wind. You sit down. He is still eating without lifting his head. You stretch out your fingers to his plate and ask, “Do you need vegetable curry?”

“No”

“Why don’t you say anything?”

“Hmm,” he says.

“I mean…”

“Rasam” he asks.

Your eyes well up with tears. You want to lock the house and go somewhere immediately after he leaves the house. You want to let him speak those words “mmm” and “rasam’ himself.

He rose, leaving the plate half filled. You could have reared a dog, or at least you could have had a tail. You are staring again. Why does your anger disappear when you are angry with him?

That lizard might catch the ant. It might dawn tomorrow. But the distance between you will remain longer with a retentive stillness of a python that has eaten its prey. Finding no way to dispose the remaining food, you keep it covered with a plate taken from the shelf. The scent of your father’s words about Ambur Briyani filled your mind now.

Do you feel that you could have taken birth as a lizard, or an ant, or a dog, or a radio box? Do you feel standing atop a hill and shouting as your tears roll down that all good souls are bound to fail?

He has the shoulder you could lean against and a soft touch that could protect you. Yet, he is the only one who has it all. The ant that escaped the teeth of the lizard might now eat the grain of rice sticking on the outer edge of the plate you used to cover. The thread with sweet flag kept in the almirah might be waiting for an unborn baby.

The swiftness with which you shut the window as you got up slowly shows that you don’t prefer keeping this distance alive. It seems you will go out tearing off that distance.

While shutting the last window, you are watching the road he has just taken. Will the eyes become orphans? Your eyes carry an unending journey of an orphan. For the first time, you grow nervous that you might end your life either by taking sleeping tablets or hanging.

You pace, composed, into the toilet. It is a room of four by eight feet. There are old Tamil weeklies kept on the shelf. Your lips mumble “nenjukkul peithidum maamazhai” (It will rain splendidly in my heart). When you think of him coming to you, knocking on the door like Surya in Varanam Ayiram movie with a guitar on his back, you open both the taps unknowingly.

When the sounds are unable to escape through the closed door and window, the drops dripping down from the tap fall on my feet like a noisy waterfall tearing off the silence out there.

                                                       ***Ended***