Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam
***
A sound of someone yelling was heard – it must
either be from the neighbouring house or the one opposite.
“Get up, I say. How dare you sleep here! Pick
your stuff – this bundle, clump, pot and bowl- and get lost from here. This
veranda has turned into a resting place for everyone. Hasn’t it? Won’t you get
up now? Today is a Saturday in Puratasi month…”
The yelling was so intense that Nannaiyan was
very sure that it was directed at him. He rubbed his eyes. The house owner, the
woman, was making the cow dung water in a container on the veranda. He gathered
up his stuff swiftly and got off the veranda, carrying the big pot and his
elder child on his shoulder. Within minutes, his wife picked up her infant and
the other two bundles and walked on. Their middle child woke up amidst the din,
got up quickly, seeing its parents moving jittery, and walked behind them.
Nannaiyan kept his luggage on the adjacent house veranda, tightened his dhoti,
strode again a little and reached the Ganesh Temple porch after six or seven
houses in the opposite row.
It might be true that the house owner woke him
up as if he was sleeping till the sun scorched his back, but the time wasn’t
too late for one to wake up that early. It was still dark, but with a little
visibility. The splashing noise of cow dung water sprinkled on the front yards
of the houses was slowly casting out the darkness.
As soon as the children were laid on the
temple porch, they fell asleep again. Nannaiyan’s eyes were stinging. His wife
was also suffering from burning eyes, unable to open her eyes. They didn’t eat
that night. The ‘Pazhaiya Soru’ they received as alms last night was not even
sufficient for their children. They had been on a time meal for four days. That
too, to fill their tummies half. Undying hunger was burning like fire in their
belly. They would puke if they continued to starve even for one more time. The
head remained heavy and started aching due to a lack of food. As he glanced
through the street, rubbing his eyes, the yells of the woman came over his
mind.
It was a Saturday in the month, Puratasi. All
the beggars around the world had gathered over there. A big crowd of beggars
was marching. How many beggars? Forty or fifty? So many beggars even before
dawn! When did they wake up? Where did they sleep last night? Where did they
come from? Did they brush their teeth? Everyone looked uniformly moulded –
faded saffron-clad, a rudraksha bead hanging on the neck, a begging bowl in
their hands, half of them with tonsured heads. Half of them had dry, ruffled
hair; some were very old, blind, and had limping legs. It appeared to Nannaiyan
that the effects of previous births were moving on in a procession.
Sitting on the veranda, he asked:
“Sami, where are you going?”
“They offer it at Sivaguru Chettiar’s house.”
“What are they offering?”
“They give a coin and a handful of rice to
every beggar. We go there.”
“A coin?”
“Yes”
“Who’ll get a coin these days? A big charity
indeed. Isn’t it?”
“Anyone can find fault in anything. Right?”
The beggar strode fast along with the crowd.
Nannaiyan made a conventional calculation: He,
his wife, three children- he could get five handfuls of rice and five coins,
provided that the head count included his infant.
“Five handfuls of rice- will it be enough to
stick to the walls of a stomach?” he asked himself.
“Everyone is going there. Why don’t you try
your hand?” his wife offered her suggestion.
“What do you mean by trying my hand? Aren’t
you coming?”
“I can’t afford to walk. I can’t carry all
these bags and bundles. These three are erratically sleeping on an empty
stomach filled with just air. How can they walk?”
He rose, alone, and sat. In minutes, the
beggars were seen sitting in a queue in front of Sivaguru Chettiar’s house.
Seeing the neatness of the queue, one could understand it had been a regular
affair for a very long time. Not only during the Puratasi month, but it was
said that Sivaguru was doing that charity on all Saturdays. When Nannaiyan
thought that he could sit as the last man after forty or fifty beggars, he felt
his legs and mind became completely exhausted as though having walked seven or
eight miles.
Should I share the seat with these men? After
all, he had been reduced to being a beggar, a famished beggar. Should he sit
along with those ‘beggars-by-birth’ who had never even smelt of what was known
as wealth? He would lose nothing if he sat with them. Would he? Unknown place!
The Chettiar hadn’t yet come to the front yard of the house. It would take an
hour, as he was busy with a puja, they said. It was not even fully dawned.
Where else can he go? Nannaiyan sat down a foot away from them, with a detachment
of not being one of them, as his mind and body were shying away with
embarrassment. Most of the beggars were still sleeping. The beggar sitting near
him had cropped hair. A ruffled, unkempt hair, like the spines of a brush that
used to be shoved into the bottle to clean its interiors. A rudraksha bead
hanging on his neck. He looked like a fatty goose.
“Sami, where are you from?” he asked.
Nannaiyan felt it was an insult to his stature to speak to him. He didn’t
reply.
“I am asking you. Which place are you from?”
“Why should you know it?”
“Shouldn’t I ask it?”
“Salem”
“Salem? O god! It is very far. Isn’t it?”
“Yes”
“You sitting here… from that distant place?”
Sitting in the queue, he couldn’t escape his
questions.
“Yes, what else can I do? I have lost my
livelihood. So started begging.”
“It means you had some other job. Right?”
“I had. Not now”
“Farming?”
“Weaving”
“Weaving? You mean weaving dhotis and saris.
Right?”
“We weave towels and hankies, too. But we
didn’t have yarns. How long could we manage selling all that we had? The jewels
will remain jewels as long as they are worn on the hands and nose. The moment
they are sold and turned into cash, they can feed us for only two days. So, it
is all gone. If one keeps doing like this, what will then be left to sell?”
“Why wasn’t yarn available?”
“It wasn’t just available. That is it.”
“Didn’t you have any other means of
livelihood?”
“We can have one if only we know it. All we
know is only weaving dhoti and sari. We are drained out of blood sitting in the
loom all through the day. How can we carry a shovel and an axe? How can we work
that demands physical labour?”
“Pitiable”
A single-eyed beggar sitting near retorted,
hearing his words, “So, you have come here as you thought begging doesn’t
require physical strength. Haven’t you? It is not an easy job either. Look at
us. Today in one town, another town in the evening, and another town at the
night. We would have gone very far in the morning. You can get at least
something only when you run place to place like this.”
His words, spoken with the professional warmth
of a beggar-by-birth, evinced an amount of indifference and concern for an
inexperienced beggar.
“If we stay in Thanjavur today, it is
Kumbakonam tomorrow, Thiruvidaimaruthur tomorrow night, Mayavaram day after
tomorrow, then Sirgazhi and Kanagasabai. This is how we wander every place
every day. But you say you have come to beg because your body is frail. I can’t
comment on it. Can I?”
“Are we born just to die with this endless
walk?”
“You get food only when you walk. If you keep
roaming in one place, people will get bored with seeing your face. Only the
lazy beggars will sit in one place. Mendicants and the devotees of lord Shiva
believe in wandering.”
Those words signaled, though not obviously
about it, that Nannaiyan was no longer fit to beg. Nannaiyan grew restless. “Am
I going to be a permanent beggar or what? It is my bad, testing time. Hmmm.
Useless blokes,” he lamented, and got up.
“Why do you leave, Anna?”
“Wait, let me be back after brushing my
teeth,” he got up, turned at the corner of the street, walked along the banks
of the river and slowly waded into the canal that ran across. He rubbed a piece
of brick on the rough surface of the sluice gate, brushed his teeth with that
powder and washed his face. He scooped up a handful of water and drank it. As
it went down his throat, it filled his empty chest pit, and caused a sharp,
lethal pain as if it was arresting his breath. It was a sheer shock of pouring
water into an empty stomach when he was ravenous. He gulped it down slowly and
sat for a while on the edge of the canal. He rose again, drank water until he
was full and turned to the street.
It was Saturday. The competition would be
sharp. One should win in the competition to at least fill something in the
stomach. There was only one way to do it. One should tell the truth without
corrupting it. It must be told convincingly that begging was not my regular
‘profession’. ‘It is how one could ignite compassion in others'.
It became sunny. Sivaguru Chettiar was still
in puja. Nannaiyan went past ten or fifteen households. There too, he saw a
sharp competition waiting for him. A monkey entertainer, holding a stick across
two feet above the ground, was coaxing a monkey to jump over it. The monkey,
obviously not concerned whether it was a stick or an ocean, jumped over it. The
boys were standing around to watch the show. Laughter mixed with din. A grand
competition it was! Nannaiyan walked on and stopped after two houses.
It was a big house. There was a canopy
covering the front yard. An old man was sitting on an easy chair that faced the
west.
“Amma,” Nannaiyan called out.
“You are calling Amma because you think that
Aiya wouldn’t give you anything. Aren’t you? I am destined to see your face
even before I could open my eyes. Did you wait for the dawn to offer me your
face to see? It seems that you have come here so that Aiya would wake up to see
the luck of the day. I don’t understand why you are standing dumb. Reply to my
questions. You have come here even before dawn. I just want to know why. I have
just got up from the bed, washed my face and took a second to recline. But what
I see is your face. Are you an auspicious lamp? Or a mirror? Or my wife? Tell
me”
The old man spoke without pausing for a
breath. Though he insisted on receiving a reply, he was speaking nonstop,
hardly giving a pause to receive it. Had he broken off a second that would
suffice to slice an areca nut, Nannaiyan could have attempted a reply. But the
old man didn’t stop.
“Hey, even before the rooster coos, you are
standing here with this beard, moustache, shabby look, and a dented jug. Do you
think people will give you alms, seeing all these? Tell me. Why are you
standing dump?”
Nannaiyan thought of telling him that he would
leave if the old man kept his mouth shut without being garrulous. But the old
man was still unrelenting. After briefly admonishing him for not being a
mirror, lamp, and his wife again, he said, “Only you have work in the early
morning. We don’t have any work in the house. Right? We have to leave all the
morning chores – brushing the teeth and washing the face- and run to you
instead, to welcome you. Right?”
‘O! heavens! He is tired a little now.’
“It is not like what you think…” Nannaiyan was
about to say. But, fearing that the old man would start again where he had
left, he jumped to the main topic.
“Sir, my profession is weaving. I hail from
Salem. We had a decent living with the income from the weaving. But we couldn’t
get the yarn for the last seven months. We lost our livelihood. We could manage
our meals by selling whatever we had. We have come here with the hope of
finding a job. But the situation remains the same here, too. They gave us a
food token in the temple meant for the pilgrims for three days. It was stopped
after three days. On the fourth day, we hardly got enough food to fill a tooth.
Three young children are starving. My wife and I have been hungry since
yesterday.” Nannaiyan poured out his heart without pausing for a breath.
“What do you expect me to do now? Should I buy
you a loom and yarn?”
“How can I ask you such a thing? I am unable
to see my children going hungry. You can give me something for our stomach.”
“Listen, I suspect something amiss now. I
don’t know whether Salem town still exists or has become extinct without
anything worth calling living beings. I have been watching for the last six
months. Around one lakh men have come here displaying their distended stomachs
with similar excuses of no yarns and jobs. Do you have anything to comment on
it?”
“What else would I say about it, Aiya?”
“What else means? Let me tell you. Listen to
me. Even for begging, you need a capital. Look there. Hanuman is playing. The
monkey entertainer’s capital is Hanuman.”
Nannaiyan turned and looked at him. A
Kurankatti – a monkey entertainer- was standing there, listening to them
talking about him.
The old man said:
“That monkey, the Hanuman, is his investment.
Wait for some time and see, he would leave with an aluminum bowl full of rice.
Who’s smart? He or you? We need a capital for anything in this world. Capital.
The snake charmer and the Kurankatti have to dance, clapping their castanet. Or
else they can sell coriander or curry leaves. If not, they can make a living
carrying loaded bags. You don’t even have the capital to do that. You are
standing like dried pieces of a lemon fruit thrown into the scorching sun in the
Purattasi month. Aren’t you?”
Silence followed for a moment.
His throat choked at the remark that he had
become inferior even to the monkey entertainer. Salem, loom house, the house
where he lived, the cow, the hank of yarn soaked in dye hanging in the yard –
all came through once on his mind. ‘Born somewhere, lived somewhere afar, and
now getting scolded by an unknown man! Why? For what? His eyes welled up with
tears. He held his breath, without biting his lips to avoid the tears from
spilling out, opened his mouth and trapped the tears in his eyes from flowing down
the cheeks.
“What do you say?” The old man repeated his
usual question.
“How to reply to this question? His whole body
shivered, and he stood without uttering any word.
“You moron, keep standing without a word.” The
old man got up and went in.
The Kurankatti asked him, “You weave for a
living. Right?”
Nannaiyan nodded his head.
“The time has become notoriously bad. I have
never come across such a ruthless famine and difficulties in my life. This
wretched famine has thrown out the people from their very livelihood. The world
without morality!” The Kurankatti said, feeling pity, while staring at him,
obviously absorbing the predicaments of the ruined person. ‘It is our destiny
that we were born like this. But you don’t deserve this. Do you’ – his eyes
expressed what his mind was thinking. Nannaiyan, who was already shaking from inside,
shed tears as he looked into the Kurankatti’s eyes.
In a while, the old man’s wife brough ten hot
idlis and some pazhaiya soru sufficient enough for two stomachs, and placed
them before them. The Kurankatti and his monkey got two idlis each.
“Look here, man! You'd better not be under the
illusion that you will get these daily. If you show up here tomorrow again, you
will see my angry face. Get out! Find your means of livelihood.” The old man
yelled out, standing at the doorway and went in without waiting to acknowledge
Nannaiyan’s obeisance.
Nannaiyan walked towards the temple porch.
“Have it”
His wife was enormously happy seeing it as if
she had fallen into the granary of rice.
“How come these many? Did you buy it from the
hotel?”
“Can we ever buy it from the hotel in our
condition? I got it by begging. Keep it there.”
The elder child grabbed the idlis. The middle
child screamed, “Appa, there is a monkey.” The Kurankatti was standing by the
veranda.
“What are you after?” Nannaiyan asked.
“Aiya, you are so naïve. Would that small
amount of rice and idlis be enough for you? You could have visited a couple of
houses more to get some more rice for the night. Now you have to walk again.”
“You have the luxury of speaking like this.
But we have been starving since last afternoon. Now we can have it first and
think about other things later.”
The Kurankatti was silent for a while and then
said:
“Do you know anyone in this town?”
“It is a new place. Why are you asking?”
“Nothing important. I just want to tell you
something.”
“What’s that?”
“You shouldn’t be angry if I say that.”
“Tell me what it is. Anger doesn’t matter.”
“Okay. Meet me after meals. I have a person
here. He is so generous to people like you. I’ll take you to him.”
“Who’s that? Any trader?”
“We can discuss it later. Have your food
first.”
After having food, Nannaiyan got off the
porch, and walked along with the Kurankatti. They went past the market street
square and walked on the path along the Railway station. In a brief walk of
some minutes, they reached the village boundary. Beyond it was a pond. Beyond
it, was found a slum of scavengers along the road. There were about thirty
huts. Open area everywhere with green fields. Rows of coconut trees on both
sides of the railway station road. Nannaiyan stood astounded at seeing the
greenery as if he had seen something he had never seen in life.
They stood in front of the slum. “Here lives
the person I told you about. Eii…Kali…Kali…” the Kurankatti called out aloud.
“Why are you yelling?” a voice came somewhere
from the huts.
“Bring here Vaithyalingam along with you.”
Nannaiyan stood confused, unable to decipher
anything.
A young woman with a lead bangle in her hands,
a lead ring, lead earrings, and lead nose rings came running. Along with her
came a monkey that had recently grown into an adult from being a kid.
“Look here. He is Vaithyalingam.
Eii…Vaithyalingam, come here.” Kurankatti called out to the monkey.
The monkey jumped, nuzzled, and looked upward,
pulling his clothes. It pounced upon his monkey and pushed it away.
“Aiya, you have assured me you wouldn’t get
angry. Can I take it true?”
“This is Vaithyalingam I have told you about.”
“Who? Are you kidding?”
“You are getting angry now; you have failed
your words now. Haven’t you? I and my wife are raising him as precious as our
lives. I can give him away to you.”
“To me? For what?”
“Well, you don’t know begging. The weavers
don’t know begging. Do they? It must come from birth. It is an inherited trait.
No one can learn it easily. It is like carpentry or metal works. You don’t have
the money even to find a livelihood by carrying the bags, as Vanniyar aiya
said. What are you going to do? That too, in this despicable village. The
Chettiar will give a coin and some rice only on Saturdays. He won’t allow even
the smell of beggars on weekdays. Vanniyar may be a man of charity. But can we
go to his house every day to beg? Only these men give alms. Others are wicked
souls. Before we go near them, they will make you feel the squeeze. They will
throw water on you. It is such a village of enviable charity! If you can give
something, you may get something back. This is why I am telling you all these”.
He further added, “No one in this village knows about you. Make Vaithyalingam
dance, and you will never face the problem of food. There is no one here to
believe your words that you are a weaver.”
Nannaiyan threw out a gentle smile.
“So, finally, you have decided to make me a
Kurankatti. Haven’t you? When you are drowned fully, the level of water over
your head doesn’t make any difference. Right?”
“Nothing has gone over your head. Once this
famine is gone, you can return to your tiled house. This problem won’t last
long. I hold my words only till then. Being a Kurankatti is no way inferior
either. It is as valuable as doing business in gold, as Aiya said. A good
capital. Can I ever give this monkey to someone unknown? I saw your children
and wife. It was unbearable.”
“Kali, do you know who they are. They are from
Salem. They had a decent life from weaving on the loom. They couldn’t get the
yarn and thus had to beg. His wife looks like the goddess Laxmi. Even that
goddess is crying out in deep anguish now. Three very young children are
literally enervating. Let them keep Vaithyalingam. It is distressing to see
them like that.”
“What? Do you mean Vaithiyalingam?”
“Don’t be shocked. We have three. We can give
him one. We have no people to make them do acrobatics. Look at their face and
be generous. All your sins will be absolved in no time. You will soon get a
king-like boy child.”
“They have not even asked you to spare the
monkey. It is you who’s insisting on dumping it on their head.”
“They will accept it happily.”
“Sami, is that okay for you?”
“Tell her that you can,” Kurankatti badgered
him.
“Okay…I’ll take him.”
“He has accepted this offer in front of you.
Right?”
She smiled, displaying her pearl-like teeth.
Her husband’s benevolent heart might have touched her. She said, “You force me
to nod my head, to accept it.” And then said, “Wait Sami, I give you this
monkey as my husband wants me to do it. Take him with you. Vaithiyalingam will
never let you go hungry.”
She was dark, healthy and was standing with a
brimming beauty like an idol in the temple.
“Thank God, Kaliyatha has shown her mercy.
Nothing to worry anymore,” Kurankatti grinned.
There were fields all around. As much as one’s
eyes could see, the crops in the vast stretch of green fields were waving in
the wind. Chilly wind was blowing. Sponge-like clouds all over the sky.
Nannaiyan saw her fake anger and smile, and grew confident.
“Hold this stick in your hand. Done? Now just
give him a command – Jump over the pole- Just say it.”
“Jump over the pole.”
Vaithiyalingam jumped over the pole.
He then gave the stick to the monkey and said,
“Now say, herd the goats, Vaithyalingam” Kurankatti trained Nannaiyan.
“Herd the goats, Vaithyalingam.”
The monkey, holding the stick on the back of
its neck, walked a couple of steps and then waited for the next command. Then
followed the school-going sessions, the prisoner standing politely with his
hands folded across, whispering secrets in wife’s ears, and the skills of
climbing the temple tower – the Kurankatti taught them all. With all these
lessons, he had transformed Nannaiyan into a kurankatti.
She laughed and said “Fortunately, this is a
trained monkey. If it is a new monkey, its obedience won’t be this smooth.” as
if trying to justify why she had laughed. Then she said, “Take him with you”.
She kissed the monkey on its head before
giving it away to Nanniayan. The monkey resisted, refused to go with him. Kali
went into the slum, brought a handful of peanuts, gave it to Nannaiyan, and
said, “Keep it in your hands, and drop one by one as you walk on, it will
follow you.”
“Aren’t you coming?” Nannaiyan asked
Kuranaktti.
“I’ll follow you. You go first,” Kurankatti
replied.
“What is this? Why have you brought this
monkey?” Nannaiyan’s wife asked him.
“For our livelihood. Kurankatti gave me.”
“Adding one more as though three are not
enough for this famine?”
“Those children will only eat up. But this one
will eat and earn. Collect our bags, we can tether it at the opposite house.”
They changed their house. He tethered the
monkey to the window grill in the veranda of the house. The toddler smiled and
clapped its hands, and tapped on the monkey’s head.
“It seems to be a good monkey. It behaves like
a trained monkey,” his wife said.
The second child shrieked. Fearing her abuses,
Nannaiyan tried to explain the arguments of Kurankatti as his own.
“It is good. The children will have him to
play.”- Her words assuaged his fears, contrary to what he had expected.
The first child, visibly frightened, was
standing at a distance.
“See here. It is Hanuman.” Nannaiyan narrated
the Hanuman stories and tried to lighten their fears. He asked him to stroke
the monkey. Meanwhile, while playing with it, he also tried his training -
‘jump over the pole, herd the goats'- with the monkey so that he could rehearse
it before employing it.
Lastly, Vaithyalingam untied the bag, for it
was also very hungry.
“For how long can we play with it? What about
the dinner?”
They didn’t know the time that went by. Seeing
their children playing with the ‘new child’, the family had been joyful for a
long.
Nannaiyan collected the aluminium bowl, went
down the street.
“Are you not taking this monkey with you?”
“Isn’t it too early?”
He was not ready to stoop to the level of a
‘beggar-by-birth’ that soon. Even a monkey wouldn’t treat him as a kurankatti
seeing him wearing a loosely hanging dhoti worn around his calf, and a ‘mal’
upper garment. He stood confused for a minute and then decided to go alone.
He walked around the streets, begged at some
houses, singing the ‘original’ songs about his misery. The ears, which were not
aware of the happenings around, never tried to know it, and were never worried
about anything, were now listening to his story about the paucity of yarn.
Only when he was exhausted after roaming a
couple of streets did he understand what Kurankatti had said was right. His
small aluminium bowl was not even half-filled with rice. When he came back to
the veranda, the sun was above his head. He could earn some coins in quarter of
an ana and half an ana. He bought some roasted peas and bananas.
The sun was scorching. The heat in the
Purattasi month was piercing. The children ate the peas and the banana and
began to sleep. The monkey also ate them. Unable to bear the heat of the sun,
it fell asleep on one side. His wife also slept.
Nannaiyan gazed at the sleeping monkey and
smiled. It was sleeping like a human. It was sleeping, covering its eyes with a
hand, unable to see the white clouds brightened up by the sunlight. How old was
it? Six months or one year? At this young age, it had become strong enough to
protect a thirty-five-year-old man and a thirty-year-old woman and three
children. ‘Does it know that such a responsibility has fallen onto its head?
How funny is the destiny that a monkey from a slum area lying a hundred and fifty
miles away has been assigned the task of protecting the family of a man who was
born and brought up somewhere?’ Nannaiyan was perplexed at the turn of events.
As his stomach was full, he had the zeal and energy to relish the present,
without grieving his miseries. Does the monkey know about his life he led
during the war? He would earn not less than three rupees a day. She was also
earning eight anas and ten anas by spinning the yarn. After getting up from the
bed, he would have two idlies, a crispy dosai and a coffee in the Krishna lodge
and bring some food stuff for his children and wife. Never been thrifty in
spending money. They would never miss watching the cinema. Dhotis, sarees and
shirts were stacked up more than what they required. He would have easily saved
ten rupees a month. If he had done it….
At last, he also fell asleep.
He woke up after two hours – he didn’t wake
up- rather, his children woke him up, violently shaking his body.
“Appa, get up. The monkey has run away. Appa,
the monkey, has managed to break away.”
He woke up with a jerk.
“The monkey is gone. See there.” She yelled
out.
“Where?”
The monkey was sitting on the cone of the
opposite house.
“Pa….Pa….” he tried calling out.
“How did it break away?”
“I was holding the rope untethered, just to
entertain these kids. It released itself with a jolt.”
“What smart woman are you!”
Both of them were trying to coax the monkey.
Chickpeas and bananas had already gone into their stomachs. The monkey
hesitated to come down, seeing their empty hands.
Shortly, the boys and girls passing the street
gathered there. The place turned noisy, “hooooo…hooooo.”
“Eii…Naughty”
“trooooooooov”
A boy threw a stone at it. Vaithiyalingam
swiftly jumped other side and climbed on an electric pole nearby and caught the
electric wires at the top.
“Don’t go there…Don’t go there” someone from
the crowd shrieked. That was it. Its body crooked awkwardly. The crowd yelled
hysterically. The monkey fell from that height onto the ground as if being
stricken by a demon. Its body jiggled twice in pain and then settled with its
eyes closed.
The neighbours assembled there. The entire
street had assembled there. In half an hour, the whole village had gathered
over there. The rib area that was exposed to the electric shock was burnt
black. Nannaiyan and his wife were crying without even knowing why. The
children, seeing them crying, started weeping.
“Is it your monkey?” an old man asked.
“Yes”
“How did it die?”
Nannaiyan narrated the whole story.
“You fool! It is an incarnation of Hanuman
da.” You let him die. Can’t you save this simple thing? You sinner! – he threw
two strong punches on Nannaiyan’s back. He seemed to be one of the elders of
the village. No one stopped him. The whole village was witnessing this episode.
Kali and her husband came running there. Kali
cried inconsolably, repeatedly stroking the monkey.
“Sami, you have proved what would happen if a
flower garland is given to a monkey,” – she cried remorsefully, looking at
Nannaiyan.
The bustle grew thicker. The people on the
street were running briskly here and there.
In an hour, a small, well-decked ‘sapparam’
was ready with a tiny bunch of bananas, a smartly cut coconut leaf, and two
candles. Sapparam looked very elegant. They made Vaithiyalingam sit, dangling
its legs and hands in a praying posture, and decked him well. They bathed him
before setting him. Vermillion on forehead, Thiruchurnam, Kumkum all over the
body.
The Bhajan party was moving in the front
singing, “Raghubathi Raghava Rajaram’ and playing castanets. It was a
relatively big crowd. Nannaiyan was caught amidst the bhajan party like a
prisoner. The party moved along, leaving no nook and corner of the village, and
stopped near the canal on the way to the river. The holy chants of the bhajan
party resonated across the riverfront. The name of Hanuman resounded like ocean
waves for half an hour. They raised a two-cubit high tomb with cement and
planted a peepal sapling and watered it.
The chant of the name was over. Everyone
prostrated to pay their obeisance.
“You bugger! Why are you standing dumb? You
murderer! Fall on, and pay your respect” that village elder shouted. Nannaiyan
quickly wrapped the towel around his waist, fell flat on the ground, paid his
respects, rose and did the same four times.
***Ended***
