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