By Ba. Venkatesan
Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam
***
When his hands crawled on it, Sarangan
literally drowned in the astonishing warmth of her body. Her breath and
abdominal navel were burning like fire, while the breasts and buttocks were as
chill as water. He buried his face in the coziness found at the nape of the
neck, palms, and cheeks. The temperature of her body pushed Sarangan into the
ancient frenzy that had tried to seek death for ages. Sarangan, too, wished to
be a prey to the hunger of that seductive enchantress. If it happened, the
Paramakal region would have met once again the dance of the deluge of rain that
lashed years ago, despising its solitude for ages. It hadn’t come out of its
old wreck fully. The rain didn’t like to portray itself again as a slayer of
towns and lives. It had a sense of caution of a destitute person who had
accidentally found a treasure. It knew the trick how to keep the luck that fell
into its hands. That was why the rain had thwarted all the possibilities of a
private time Sarangan had made with Kamalam. Sarangan was prevented as if being
picketed under the direct supervision of the rain so that he wouldn’t be able
to merge himself, as he wished, into the charm of Kamalam. He had sensed that
the rain was watching him intently. The moment he felt it, his body grew limp, chilled
and stiff. The temperature that could have otherwise melted his whole being
like a thin sheet of tin, receded. When he understood that he was observing his
nudity with the eyes of the rain, his masculinity was deeply embarrassed out of
shame. He pushed Kamalam away from him, who was snuggling him in her embrace
and threw her away. Unmindful of being without clothes, he got off the bed and
ran to the door. He wide-opened the doors deliriously with a fit of rage to
find out the eyes that were teasing him. At the moment, he understood that he
was the very creation of those eyes that were prying on him for ages outside
the room, that damsel on the cot had disappeared. He woke up the next moment.
He had become the old Sarangan.
**
Kamalam had become famous when the movement of
English officials became so frequent in Uttanapalli to seize the Jamindar’s
properties. She was twenty-one years old at that time. Her mother had left her
a house in Uttanapalli, donated by the Rayakottai landlord and some land for
Kamalam to enjoy till she could stand on her own. She knew very well that
Kamalam would manage it despite it being a negligible amount of property.
Kamalam was a very beautiful woman. It would be mean if she were left with that
simple description. Her beauty had the ability to make any man, no matter how
powerful he was, feel inferior. Her bright, lustrous body was proving the flow
of healthy blood wherever it was displaying its gleam. Dark and big eyes that
were always floating in tears. A small but neatly chiselled sparkling nose,
lips, and earlobes. Her lock of hair had the tinge of reddish brown. Her legs
were like those of a horse, and the long tongue that of a snake. Her height
became famous later because it challenged the masculine height. She possessed
wonderfully shaped breasts that seemed to have blossomed after an assessment of
her age and requirements. The solemn navel that soothed one’s senses at its
very first look. People said her beauty had lesser appeal in her physical form,
while at the same time, it possessed a higher degree of transcendental appeal.
Her youth was announcing its victory over her, probably because of its ability
to chisel Kamalam into an immaculate form of beauty by chipping in her curves
without spilling out the indispensable appeal of every part of her body. She
was a cosmetically inclined, fashionable woman. She knew the art of making
someone guess the hidden nudity with the way of put on clothes. Her mother
wasn’t aware of that. It was an expression of the innate predilection she had
possessed. Those who saw the clothes and jewels adorning her body used to say
cheerfully that they had been inscribed with her name when they were just
cotton and gold, respectively. It all happened only later – it means, it all
happened only after the English lords found her. Before that, she was just an
ordinary woman like any other walking around Uttanapalli. Her beauty remained
as useless as a moon shining in the forests without anyone who could take it to
others. The villagers didn’t even have an inkling that a woman with such beauty
was living among them. After her mother’s death, Kamalam was alone. The
loneliness didn’t intimidate her. She was extremely confident in her beauty.
She knew that she would be able to burn down the entire village with that. This
confidence and self-esteem had nurtured a scorn and a sense of retribution in
her towards the prominent men who neglected her. She was waiting for a long
time for the right time. Her beauty also grew mature in its own way. When the
time she was waiting for reached her in the form of a district collector who
came to the house of Uttanapalli Jamindar, she grasped that moment and used it
to her advantage. When that Englishman, riding in his motor car, was about to go
past her as one of the pedestrians in the market street, his vehicle stopped as
if it had been struck by her smile. He then postponed his work, caught another
coach and returned to his office. On return, he didn’t pay attention to any
work, nor signed on any documents. He then ordered his subordinate officials to
arrange a secret dinner that night, which should be more fragrant than the
bunch of flowers. He never used the vehicle that abandoned him in the
Uttanapalli market street in front of a woman. Kamalam’s name became popular
overnight across the district. The wealth started pouring in through the split
created by her fame, which hit, cracked the roof. Her luck lifted her to the
place she had never imagined. Only after this, the villagers realised the importance
of Kamalam. But it had already been too late. Coming from Rayakottai to her
village, when she got out of the car gifted by the district collector, she had
already become inaccessible to all. A flash of her smile had now become a
permanent dream of most of the men who had just gone past her, ignoring her
presence in the market street earlier. The husbands lusting after her were
literally dying, without their wives knowing it, thinking of the days Kamalam
was walking around before them in an accessible distance. The way the village
now looked at her had completely changed. But Kamalam remained unchanged. The
love for the villagers and retributive attitude towards the old Jamindars who
had earlier neglected her were still burning alive in her heart. After she
earned money and fame, Kamalam had habitually enjoyed teasing men whenever she
found it possible and in all possible ways. As she was getting closer to the
Englishmen, she stubbornly rejected going to the local landlords’ places, even
if they sent her invitations.
On one hand, if someone wanted Kamalam, no
matter how big a shot he was, he had to take off his towel from his shoulder as
a mark of respect and wait at the doorway of her house. She could easily manage
any misunderstanding with her beauty. On the other hand, she would be the first
uninvited guest at any function in the village. It was a different type of
game. As soon as the married women saw Kamalam, their faces would turn dark out
of fear. On the contrary, one could see men’s movements turning refined and
their eyes turning sharper. The game would then start, wherein women would
start looking out for their husbands, abruptly stopping their chit-chats the
moment Kamalam made her entry in the ceremony, while men would hide themselves
behind pillars to avoid their wives and, at the same time, relish the beauty of
Kamalam. She would enjoy all these with love and happiness like a mother
playing with her children. Neither did she have anyone closer to her nor anyone
who despised her. As much as there were no hearts that didn’t yearn for her,
there was no voice that could call her out. Perhaps, they might also have liked
this game. Despite all, Kamalam would never even look up to anyone in public
places. It was the freedom she used to give men who wanted to relish her beauty
as much as they could. At the same time, it was a trick that she employed
skilfully not to make her appeal look cheap by smiling at everyone she met.
Though the women around her were afraid of her, they didn’t hate her. They knew
that Kamalam was the unique, virtuous identity of their village. She was an
eternal Sumangali. It was Kamalam’s beauty that had brought wider roads in the
village for the chariots and motor cars to run. It created the shops that sold
gold. With her fame, new markets had emerged in the towns around her place and
other small towns. The women of Uttanapalli began enjoying the quick marital
alliances. (Most of them stayed back at Uttanapalli as
‘In-law-house-bridegroom’. ) Wonderful stories for children took birth from the
moves of Kamalam and became very popular. But she remained a ‘modest’ Kamalam,
participating in village functions high-spiritedly like a spin-top that was let
loose, and controlling the affairs of the village. She would remain in the
house till the last alms seeker and the last beggar leave, and then leave with
the Thamboolam, taking not a drop of water from the guest. She would return
after filling the house with her smile, carrying no hatred in her heart even
while not being sent off. She helped in filling every void that included the
need for money, without being approached. The village had started believing
that Kamalam possessed magical powers ever since the day she stopped the
Englishman’s car with her smile. It didn’t matter howsoever secretly it was
arranged, the room of first sexual union always carried the scent and
footprints of Kamalam. No matter how much the distance was, pregnant women
always heard the giggle of Kamalam very vividly. Kamalam’s tricks were too
enigmatic to make an easy guess. So, the villagers were not surprised at seeing
Kamalam, who had been a stubborn lady, stepping down for the sake of Sarangan.
Giving a damn to the wild guesses of the villagers, whether they were true or
false, Kamalam understood at the very moment she saw Sarangan in the house
warming ceremony in the breathtaking, beautiful house built on the banks of
Ramanayakkan lake that she was going to meet Sarangan privately very soon. His
dark skin that was brightly shining in the flames of the fire pit, broader chest
and its sturdiness disturbed her otherwise mature mind a little. After fifteen
days, when she saw an old man, who introduced himself as Sarangan’s father
standing at her door with shame and fear embarrassingly subduing his body,
telling her that his son who would never be affected by any sort of water borne
diseases had now fallen sick, suffering from a fever by thinking of Kamalam,
she left immediately along with him to meet Sarangan not keeping him waiting
for long. Though it was not her first encounter with men that could have
otherwise entailed bringing in her a splendid fantasy, the very image of
Sarangan she brought into her mind again indeed sparked the carnal desires in
her. She believed that the moments she was going to share with him would become
the pillars of her memories that would ward off her loneliness and bear the
burden of old age in the future. However, when she saw him lying on the sick
bed in the solemn backdrop the rain had created, all her sensual fantasies were
shattered. The man lying there was not the well-built man whom she saw fifteen
days ago at the same place in a different situation. Kamalam found it difficult
to believe that love could squeeze a man into nothing such as that. When she
heard Sarangan’s mouth mumbling her name relentlessly, she, for the first time
in her life, became angry and unbearably repugnant about her beauty. She sat by
his cot, stroked him lovingly and then completely removed his clothes that were
sticking to his skin, emitting foul odour due to the sweat of disease, and made
him nude. His strong chest that hadn’t lost its vitality even in the suffering
from fever rose in its mammoth proportion in front of her eyes. Her compassion
metamorphosed into fragrant lust. She kissed his mouth, gently moving the beard
that had grown like a thick bush. Sarangan woke up that time. He gazed at her
through the darkness, as if attempting to ascertain who she was. But he had
already been feeling her well before that. He smiled at her, without showing
any sign of amazement. He hadn’t fully recovered from the disillusionment. His
breath grew irregular due to happiness and hopelessness. Kamalam also took off
her clothes, covered him with her nude body, trying to comfort him. Both didn’t
speak to the other. But the things they wanted to share with each other were
multiplying by the hundreds each moment. She knew how to tell him all. She
aligned her body with his, in all possible angles, while making love. As
Sarangan’s trembling hands embraced her as though attempting it like the last
resort of a dying man, his body could still offer her, even amidst his frailty,
a new experience. During the initial moments, they were rolling on the bed like
animals. She had never experienced such a strength, a relentless shower of
love, and the boorishness of attacking an enemy in any of her earlier
encounters with other male bodies. As time went by, it was Kamalam who had been
caught in Sarangan’s body. She could feel that the heat of nudity gave him a
new strength. Surprisingly, she was unable to take that heat on. The depth of
her beauty lost its secrets and was laid bare. She was profoundly shy. It was a
feeling that she had never experienced for years. She was shocked to realize
that her beauty and skills that once were used to insult men were now facing
their crushing defeat in the hands of a new person, a sick man younger than
her. She thought she was just venting it out, but in fact, she was stuttering
something into his ears. On the other hand, Sarangan, with a composed silence,
was moving busily on Kamalam. His eyes closed again. He was hugging her tightly
with his hands, holding her against his body as if he was overly terrified of
his dreams getting shattered if he ever woke up or spoke anything. Kamalam’s
lips, breasts, and femininity were struggling not to release themselves. She
thought that one of them would die for sure. When Sarangan’s body grew limp due
to the trickeries of the rain, she thought it was due to the lack of
experience, and tried to hug him more tightly during the initial moments of his
body growing stiff with cold, to ensure her adequate role in lovemaking. She
clasped his flaccid hands and tucked them under her buttocks to hold them.
Sarangan’s body shook violently at that moment. Kamalam was unable to initiate
anything further. She didn’t expect that he would throw her face away from his
face. She felt deeply insulted, as if she had been thrown away in front of a
big crowd in that state. What Sarangan did after that pushed her to the limit
of fear. Utterly disregarding the privacy that had filled the room, when
Sarangan got up, ran to the door and opened it wide, Kamalam stood completely
dumbfounded. She got off the bed quickly, collected the clothes strewn around
on the floor, and ran to the place to hide herself. She saw Sarangan on his
knees, crawling, muttering something between his lips and searching for
something all across the room when she came out wearing the dress hurriedly.
Kamalam couldn’t wait for him anymore, with the hope that he would return to
her. The privacy that permeated all over the room was shattered. The tenderness
found in the room grew cold and rigid. She felt that both of them were playing
their own games in their world like children who weren’t even conscious of
their bodies. However, her ego refused to accede to the fact that an event
which had been very closely associated with her was being reduced childishly to
an insignificant one. She went out of the room silently. After that, Kamalam
never met Sarangan, though she longed to meet him. When she met Paramasivam
Pillai as she went out, she said that Sarangan’s fever was coming down and he
would be cured soon. She further said that she would certainly return one more
time to meet him and went back to her residence. The sudden change of Sarangan didn’t
make her nurture either hatred or fear towards him. When she recollected the
moments she spent with Sarangan leisurely, the warmth and strength of his hugs
were still able to rekindle the passion in her body. Only compassion and
happiness seemed to dominate her heart whenever she thought about him. She
thought that Sarangan’s frail health and juvenile mind that was unable to
digest her sudden entry might be the reason behind his eccentric behaviour that
had attested to the old saying – Even the feast will turn into poison for the
one starving for days. (A small boy). So, she genuinely wished to meet Sarangan
once again. She was waiting for an opportunity to make it happen. She didn’t
get that opportunity at all after that. The mighty river of her life flowed
with the speed she couldn’t control. After her encounter with Sarangan, Kamalam
didn’t stay in the village for long. When Anekkal landlord expressed his desire
that he wanted her to stay with him permanently, she went to Anekkal with him,
as advised by her mother, according to her custom. The entire village gave her
a warm send-off on the day she left the village. They requested her not to
forget the village. It wasn’t known whether she could keep her words in this
regard, but she had very shortly forgotten the feeling of love she had felt
once beyond the carnal needs of her body. Anekkal landlord was always with her,
ensuring she had no other disturbing thoughts. He treated her like a queen. He
arranged a separate house and servants exclusively for her. Unlike in
Uttanapalli, Kamalam kept herself aloof from the eyes of others, like a wonder
that could be seen only on rare occasions. She had a cordial relationship with
and wielded influence over the landlord’s wife and relatives. There had been no
dearth of never-ending gossip about her in that place as well. Though she was
placed on an inaccessible pedestal which everyone was afraid of even to look
up, her shine, passion and scent always kept announcing her presence to the
villagers. Kamalam (the queen of the story) had buried the memories about her
peculiar lover, who never attempted to enjoy her beauty, into the mound of
insatiable luck heaped in front of her. After six years, she gave birth to a
baby girl from the landlord. Her name was Chintamani. People said she exactly
resembled her mother. After Chintamani’s birth, men began boldly adding their
names in the narratives that spoke about Kamalam. Kamalam would laugh it out at
all those stories and swallow her age, agony and memories in the laughter. When
she remembered the love she had for Sarangan, the time had already eaten up her
youth. The landlord was not alive when Chintamani became an adult. She was
eighteen years old at that time. The landlord’s wife conducted the ceremony of
Chintamani attaining puberty in her presence, as she was her husband’s
daughter. With that, the landlord’s family severed its ties with Kamalam. Since
Kamalam was aware that such things would nevertheless happen to women like her,
she was not greatly perturbed by that. The landlord didn’t leave her and her
daughter to stand as destitute. The ablution ceremony conducted for Chintamani
had opened her other eyes. It was the function she attended after Sarangan’s
housewarming ceremony. Standing there made her realize that the journey of her
life, full of stellar adventures, had come to its end. She knew that the
important men who had come there to attend the function would have only one
motive. As they kept praising the beauty of Chintamani in one voice, it kept
reawakening her memories dating back to her youth and the housewarming ceremony
at Sarangan’s house. When the reality of her plummeting significance shockingly
hit her wit, she accepted it magnanimously, silently. But she was unable to
bear the pain of seeing those old, prominent men who were once lusting after
her, even after the landlord announced she was his property, falling now in
front of her daughter by not accepting their old age. All of them were eagerly
waiting for the official announcement from her mouth. The ceremony conducted on
Chintamani had rather given her bitter feelings. She sank into deep despair,
watching everyone, including Chintamani, in fact, teasing her by isolating her
and her past. Sarangan’s memory unavoidably troubled her repeatedly and threw
her awry. The burden of her debt she had to pay him saddened her. She
shockingly remembered that the time had already passed which made the repayment
impossible. Ever since the ceremony, this deeply distressing trouble had kept
her completely detached from everything. She summoned Chintamani that night and
said that she wouldn’t be able to stand guard to keep Chintamani a virgin for
long anymore. Kamalam requested Chintamani to do a favour before the latter
could fill in the void created by her. It was at that time, Chintamani came to
know about Sarangan’s story and the history of the rain house. Chintamani left
for Hosur from Anekkal the next day at her mother’s request. Kamalam sent her
there, hoping that her daughter would pay off the debt she had owed to Sarangan.
But Chintamani couldn’t fulfil her mother’s wishes. She returned as fast as she
went. She wasn’t visibly bothered about her return. As far as she was
concerned, Sarangan was just yet another man or an interesting fantasy. But she
was relentlessly praising the rain house she had seen, its intricate
architecture and the taste of the man who designed it. When she described it,
Kamalam could visualize the house she cherished years ago in her mind. No dust
on any items. The rain-holes were not stuffed with sand. No rust on the door
handles. No leave was shed from the plants. The moisture and silkiness found on
the house, which Kamalam described, didn’t change. The banana trees and flower
festoons at the entrance were giving an appearance that the housewarming
ceremony had been conducted a couple of days ago. The brightness and the scent
of the new walls were still fresh on them. (No one could have maintained that
house better than this.) When Kamalam asked her about Sarangan, Chintamani
replied that she didn’t find any aged man in that house. She further added that
a young man of twenty-two years old was moving around in the dense solitude of
that big house, and refused to divulge any information about him. But he
surprisingly described in vivid terms Kamalam’s story and her appearance, she
said. This was what Chintamani guessed: That young man must be the son of
Sarangan. Sarangan must have told him about Kamalam just the way her mother had
told her about Sarangan. ‘When I uttered your name, he grew restless and
received me warmly. He said he had wrongly thought it was you when he met me
first. Despite my repeated requests, he refused to take me into his bedroom.’
She added.
For no reason, Kamalam couldn’t believe that
Sarangan would have married another woman. However, she believed that it could
have happened. A different life might have been possible for him, the way it
became possible in her life. When she asked Chintamani to describe more about
the young man she had met, she described that he had a dark-complexioned
masculine appeal that bore the shine of an idol anointed with oil, a broader
and bulging chest, eyes that were sparkling red like fire and the teeth that flashed
like lightning.
***Ended***
