By Ba. Venkatesan
Translated into English by Saravanan Karmegam.
**
He introduced a new technology to that region
- solidifying the roof by spreading the iron mesh with a cement mixture instead
of the old way of doing it with the mesh made of dried twigs, and the layer of
leaves before solidifying it with the cement mixture. He moved the pillars
standing in the centre of the room obstructing the view towards the walls. He
avoided the total load of the roof descending on one point; and distributed it
to the sidewalls, making them bear the load. Very soon, he occupied the place
his father had left behind. His superior knowledge made the phonies disappear
from the field, who were once swarming like mahua flowers using the long
absence of his father from the profession. The rain that used to be a companion
in his loneliness during his childhood days had now become a faithful servant
when he became an adult. The change in the weather neither delayed his work nor
stopped him. The building works he had already planned during the rainy season
were underway. The newly plastered wet walls did not carry any signs of rain,
even after a heavy rain. But, if the walls needed to be exposed to sunlight for
drying, despite having no moisture in them, the rain would delay its arrival
for some days. There were occasions the rainy season stayed with Sarangan, even
when it didn’t set in when it had to. Since the taste of the water would either
increase or decrease the density of the cement mixture, the rain had taught him
the secret technique of adding the right amount of water into it. Pillai would
be astonished when Sarangan, sitting beside him, told him about the subtleties
that Pillai had never heard of during their night chit-chats. As he kept
speaking with his father, he found newer riddles branching out, growing long
like the ones he used to experience while telling his friends such stories when
he was young. He just enjoyed doing his work, truly treating it as an extension
of his childhood games. He found it challenging and extraordinarily joyful.
When he returned to Basavanna’s land after three years, he was not the old
Sarangan. He had become a respectable, well-built, and mature man both in body
and mind, who enjoyed an exclusive place for himself among the architects and
the circle of rich men. Even Basavanna’s land didn’t look like the old
playground. Sarangan was very certain that the ground was going to be his
dwelling henceforth. The layout of the house he was going to construct on that
land was clearly drawn with colourful brushes in his mind. Within days, he
started doing his work. He cleared the jungle patches and levelled the ground.
He razed the Jamindar’s old dream palace to the ground, which was standing as a
skeleton after the termites had eaten up the remaining part of the building the
rain had left after wearing it down. The works resumed in full swing. The
people’s warning about Basavanna’s curse didn’t fall into his ears. The stories
spread by the people thus assumed newer dimensions. If someone is stubborn with
doing something that is proscribed, it must be a professional enmity if the
doer is an elderly person, or it must be a lover if the doer is a young man.
The villagers whispered that Sarangan was
building that house in memory of the lover he had in his heart. Although no one
had ever asked him about it directly, everyone was thinking it was the only
reason. The elders rued that the old tussle between the desire and the curse
had started. On the contrary, the lady who was believed to have come in
Sarangan’s dreams seized every girl across the village without their parents
knowing about it and assumed a colossal proportion. So, everyone, either with
hope or without hope, or gloom or happiness, was eagerly waiting for the day
Sarangan would complete constructing his house. The rain house, which was
apparently believed to have no match from Salem to Mysore as far as its beauty
was concerned, was completed in thirteen months. The villagers were also proud
of the house that would stand as a permanent landmark to boast about their
village. It was only a day before the housewarming ceremony; Sarangan brought
his father from the latter’s dungeon bedroom to see the newly constructed
house. Seeing the splendour and the expanse of the house built with the
combination of old architectural patterns and new building methods, Pillai
stood astounded. When he asked Sarangan why they needed such a big house for
two people, Sarangan replied that it was for three, including the rain. (But
the rain would never like to confine itself within small living spaces like
humans. The walls needed to be placed apart with large distances for it to play
like children in all directions. Sarangan had invited everyone to the ceremony.
He had ordered them lovingly that no one should cook food at their homes on
that day. He had been a familiar child to the elders ever since the days he was
a toddler. For young men, he was a childhood friend. For small children and
boys, he was a magician who could catch the rain and play with it. For the
young women, he was a lover they were secretly in love with. There was no space
left even for a grain of sesame seed to fall. The parents had brought their
daughters and fully decked them out without any inhibitions. Those women were
flying like butterflies around the dais where Sarangan was seated in the
centre. The movement of people closely brushing against each other while
walking up to the reception area, inner rooms, and the dais where the ceremony
was held looked like a brim-full field raising the waves in the gentle wind.
Pillai’s second son, daughter, and son-in-law were loudly announcing their
affinity with the ceremony. Someone from somewhere in any corner kept calling
out Sarangan’s name. The smoke emanating from the fire pit and the kitchen
carried the burning aroma of herbs, twigs, and cooked stuff and filled the room
with it. Along with it was the scent of new clothes, a lock of hair, flowers
and sweat. There was din everywhere. The scent that was spilling out of young
women’s saliva overwhelmed other scents filled in there and settled overhead so
aggressively as to make the youth assembled there soused. The soldiers,
wielding the greeting letters of the English lords in their hands, were
marching past stiffly on the designated paths. Petty landlords, landowners, and
Jamindars were sitting on the chairs specifically allotted to them,
chit-chatting, and receiving greetings from others. Sarangan, the main attraction
of the ceremony, was sitting in front of the fire pit and doing the rites. With
his twenty-eight years of memory, Paramasivam Pillai was spending his time with
his friends and was keenly attending to all aspects of the ceremony. Everyone
was merrily walking around there with a single source of happiness—being a
Sarangan’s guest—oblivious of their personal problems amid the charm of the
ambience. It was amidst the din Sarangan met Kamalam for the first time. In the
hubbub of chanting mantras, someone whispered into his ears that the name of
the girl, who was flashing in the crowd with her appearance and disappearance,
attracting Sarangan’s eyes, was Kamalam. When Sarangan turned, curiously, to
see the person who was watching him, keenly enough to trail behind the
direction his eyes were moving, he couldn’t specifically see anyone. But the
very moment his eyes met Kamalam and his ears heard her name, a mild shiver
went through him. He felt that he had been rendered nude in front of the crowd.
Though it was just a matter of seconds, his heart felt an inscrutable pain that
he had never experienced before. His mind, which had been forced into the
rituals, didn’t think about it beyond that time. The father and the son were
extremely busy; they had no time to think about anything other than keeping the
house tidy, which had been lying completely unkempt for two days after the
hubbub of the housewarming ceremony. (Pillai’s second son and daughter had
already left on that day after the ceremony was over.) When Sarangan went to
bed on the second day, he felt like crying for no reason. He was surprised to
see tears rolling down his face. A feeling of heaviness, he felt, in the
midnight, that about ten people were forcing his body down. He didn’t sleep
after that. On the third morning, he felt that his body was burning with a
temperature, and his mouth tasted bitter for the first time in the last
twenty-two years. He wasn’t interested in going in the rain that time either.
The very thought of going out was as bitter as neem fruit. He lay on the bed
with diverse thoughts clashing with each other. For the first time, on that day
Sarangan could understand the comfort of daydreaming while rolling on the bed.
Though Pillai was embarrassed and surprised at seeing his son’s behaviour, he
couldn't muster the courage to ask him about it. He knew that Sarangan was
mature enough to resolve his issues himself. Both spent their day in the
solitude they had forcibly drawn for themselves. On the third night, Sarangan
slept a little, even amidst his turbulent heart, due to the fatigue of the
previous two days. On the fourth day’s dawn, when he got up, he was seriously
frightened at seeing no changes in his state of mind. Fever and gloom got onto
him at the very moment he opened his eyes, like the puppies waiting for their
master’s call. His unease doubled at the fact that he had avoided the rain a
day ago. He got to know that he was never the way he used to be. He pondered
over and was overly confused whether the eccentric changes he had never
experienced earlier happening in him were a good omen or a bad omen. It is said
that the one who doesn’t know the way to his house will roam on the same ways
that lead to his house. Unable to understand what exactly was bothering his
heart, Sarangan was beating around the bush under the inebriation of the
anguish. His body had some strength that lasted only up to the time he came out
of his room on the fourth morning. When he came to the yard to wash his face,
his vision blurred. A moment before that, he saw someone standing, hiding in
the dark behind the pillar on the other side. The moment he identified who it
was, he could identify ‘other Sarangan’ hiding in him. His mouth muttered
laboriously, “Kamalam”. The pain that was hiding in him for the last three days
threw him down with a virulent swing the moment he uttered it. As his head hit
the floor, he leaned backwards and lost the thin strand of consciousness that
could distinguish reality from fantasy. It seemed that his body was flying
without his efforts. It entered a cold, dark room. The wall bore the layers of
darkness permanently indistinguishable with time. The picture of his mother was
vaguely visible in the dark, along with the hanging lamps, windows, man-high
mirrors, a massive entryway, wooden toys, a decked-up cot, and a water mug. At
the time, the darkness and the place appeared very familiar to him; there rose
from those items a scent of silk sari (his mother and his sister disliked silk
sari), which he had never been familiar with. Then he smelt the scent of breast
milk. It turned into the fragrance of flowers, and then was found the
captivating scent of saliva mixed in Thamboolam. When all the scents merged, he
was able to see Kamalam again, standing near him. Her face shone indispensably
for him to watch it fully. She tossed him onto the bed and took his clothes
off. The excruciating pain in him, slapped him again. She slithered on his
body, moving up and down. The undulations and planes of the woman’s body
stroked Sarangan and had him suffocated. Kamalam sloughed off the heavy
weakness on his face and kissed his mouth, combing up his moustache. Unable to
bear the chilling ache of its attack, his body trembled violently. It seemed
that the red tongue of a snake parted his lips, and bit his tongue. The
surroundings were under the spell of Kamalam. The gleam of nudity, which he had
never experienced before, left him deeply embarrassed.
To be continued…
