One Part Woman (12 page)

When Muthu entered the barnyard, Kali was feeding the cows. ‘I am staying here tonight, mapillai!’ Muthu shouted out to him. It felt like the entire barnyard was trying to contain a great excitement within it. There was joy on Kali’s face too. At the thought of a night in the barnyard with his old friend, a celebratory mood pervaded his mind.

‘Machan, does toddy suffice, or do you want arrack?’ he asked Muthu.

‘After drinking toddy every day now, it has lost its zing for me, mapillai. See if you can get some sharp arrack.’

‘All right. I’ll be back,’ said Kali, and took the ochre dhoti that was hanging on the hook, tied it over his loincloth, and left. ‘Shall I also kill a chicken?’ he asked.

Muthu replied, ‘Have you forgotten the rules of the fast? We can do all that on the last day of the festival. Not today. I have asked Ponna to bring dinner here. She will bring something soon. Don’t worry.’

Kali closed the thatched gate behind him and blended with the darkness outside. Muthu knew he would go to Munia
Nadar and get some good stuff. The moment the temple flag was hoisted in Tiruchengode and the festival was on, you couldn’t as much as smell a fish. That was how strictly the rules of the fast had to be followed. After the fourteenth day, the strictures were relaxed. There would be no dearth of cows, goats and pigs. Also, rows of bullock carts carrying baskets of fish from Pallipalayam and Kokkarayanpettai would start streaming into town.

When they were little boys, they went together to herd cattle. There was a rugged stretch of land between the two villages. It was as high as two coconut trees and was as wide as the living quarters of the village. People called it Narikkaradu, the Fox Land. In the main cultivation season, that was the grazing ground for cattle. In what looked like something arranged out of large rocks, there were plenty of short trees and bushes. What started as time spent together tending to the flock developed into a friendship. They roamed around together, and they had nothing to hide from each other. Once the Tiruchengode festival started, they wandered about the streets of the town every other day for months. They could walk and sprint the eight-mile distance in half an hour. Not that they needed to get there in any hurry. In the months of Chithirai and Vaigasi, they would sit in the front yards of different houses and flirt with the girls. Once they were done taking care of the cattle, what was left for these young men to do?

It was also quite common for them to stay in each other’s houses. Although both were Gounders, Kali was
from the Kaadai community while Muthu was a Venduvan. It translated into an uncle–nephew relationship. But they addressed each other in the friendliest of terms, as ‘vaada’ and ‘poda’. Whenever Kali went to Muthu’s house, he had an eye on Ponna. It was a wonder for him to have seen her as a child and then to see her suddenly blossoming into a girl. As soon as he turned eighteen, his mother started looking for a bride for him. Since Kali knew that Muthu was privy to everything about him, he was not sure how to walk up to him and say, ‘Give me your sister in marriage.’ But finally, on a night when they were lying around in Kali’s barnyard, sated with toddy, he asked Muthu.

‘Do you think I am a good man?’

‘Why do you doubt that? You are a better man than me.’

‘Are you just humouring me? Or are you being truthful?’

‘Truly! I am ready to go to any temple and swear that you are a good, good, good man.’

‘Then, will you marry your sister to me?’

Muthu did not hesitate even for a minute. He said, ‘Dey, mapillai! Oh no, I cannot address my mapillai as “dey”! I should say “Mr Mapillai”!’ He went on and on, teasing Kali.

Kali assumed that it was the toddy that did the talking and that Muthu would forget everything in the morning. But the very next day, he spoke to his parents and sister, and came back to Kali the same evening with their consent. From then on, they started addressing each other as mapillai and machan.

That night had been quite like this one. A waxing moon, three-quarters its size, was throwing its light across the sky.
Muthu could hear Kali opening the makeshift gate to the barnyard. He sat up. Kali came with a full bottle. ‘This is Mooppan’s arrack. It is our luck this was available today,’ he said and started pouring it.

They drank the arrack out of small earthen pitchers and cracked open peanut shells and popped the peanuts into their mouths. Muthu always drank it almost neat and also downed it all really fast. It sank down his throat with a sting. It was definitely good arrack. It would be good if Ponna came with the food before he went for the next round. He had a habit of holding his nose and swallowing it all in one go. Kali was different; he took his time with each glass and drank up to four or five. He preferred to feel the intoxication slowly growing inside him.

‘Mapillai, the last two fasts have just not been the same without you. You must come this time. I will make sure no one bothers you. Tell me, will you come?’

Kali’s eyes teared up and they shone in the moonlight. He was moved by Muthu’s words.

‘I will come, machan. I will,’ he said.

‘We can drink and make merry like we used to. Come. Tell me when you can come. I will get things ready …’

‘When does your sister want to go?’

‘It is you who has to decide that. She is scared of you. She has not come there for two years now. If you say yes, I will take her with me tomorrow.’

‘All right. Take her with you. I will come on the day the gods go back uphill, stay for the last day and then return.’

Ponna brought dinner. Usually, when she came there, she did not like anyone else hanging about. But today, it was her brother, Muthu, and he had come to speak for her. So she had cooked the dinner with care. Often, jobless fellows from the village would be sitting and chatting away with Kali. She would come there hoping to catch a private moment with Kali, and all her desire would vanish the moment she saw someone else. Those people weren’t good at taking a hint and leaving the couple alone. She would wait impatiently, and finally leave without talking to him.

She would often explode, ‘If someone comes, meet them at the gate, talk to them and send them away! These wretched people never leave once they come and sit inside the barnyard. They look at how good our cattle seem to be, and they go and talk about it to the entire village!’

She didn’t mind Uncle Nallupayyan. Even though the entire village talked ill of him, in her opinion he was good-hearted. He always had a kind word or two for Ponna. Once, when Uncle had come over, Ponna was on her way to the barnyard, carrying food, when she stopped to watch some children playing. What did children have to worry about? They could play all the time even in the streets. She too felt like playing along with them. But someone might remark, ‘Now that she does not have a child of her own, she has decided to become one and prance about herself.’ They might stop their children from talking to her. So Ponna contented herself with watching them from a distance. When she entered the barnyard, feeling content, she heard Uncle
Nallupayyan say, ‘This is the kind of space you need for a calf to play around in.’ A week-old calf was leaping about all over the barnyard.

‘We have the space, Uncle, and we can rejoice at the calf’s bounding about. After all, do we have children to run around this place?’ she said in a tone of resignation.

Whenever this topic came up, Uncle had words that were like balm to her aching heart. In fact, she would often make some such remark just to elicit his response. And Uncle responded that day. He said, ‘Don’t worry, daughter-in-law. Enjoy the calf’s happiness. That is a child, too. If you go out into the street, don’t you see a number of children playing? Watch them as long as you want. That’s enough. What else is there in a child? Everything lasts only a little while. Take this calf, for example. After some time, it will leap on to this cot. It will go and bother the goats. We will get annoyed and tie it up in one place. My brother’s children used to come to my house. It would all be nice for a while. After that, it would all be a nuisance with them breaking this and smashing that. I would chase them away like dogs. They’d cry as they ran. So what? In their own homes, they behaved themselves. That’s because if they broke anything, their mothers would take hot iron rods to them. So, it is better to look at it all from a distance. It is a nuisance to have to take care of children. Be relieved that you don’t have to go through all that. Let stupid dogs who know nothing about happiness keep having children and keep suffering. Let us laugh at that too!’

‘Are you always this playful, Uncle?’ she asked.

‘That is the key to happiness, dear girl. Take everything lightly, you will not be assailed by worries. Do not think about who says what. It balances out if we too talk ill of them!’ he said.

Now, again, Ponna felt as happy in the barnyard as she was whenever Uncle Nallupayyan visited. She hadn’t been to the chariot festival for two years in a row. Her brother was not going to let that happen this time. She had cooked what her brother loved most: kootucharu and spicy vadai. As soon she set her basket down, Muthu said, ‘Ponna, we will serve ourselves. You go back home. I have discussed everything with mapillai. He has said yes to your going with me in the morning.’

Though Muthu had told her this, she would only be convinced if she heard it straight from Kali. Would he really have agreed to send her to Tiruchengode on the day the gods went back to the hill? She felt like asking gleefully, ‘Really?’ But she wondered if that would be hurtful to Kali. He might say, ‘Do you want it so badly?’ Even if he did not say anything in her brother’s presence, he would make sure he told her later. To break her silence, Muthu said, ‘Mapillai, you tell her yourself. She will believe it only if you say it. My words don’t carry weight any more.’

Kali laughed, ‘Well, there are places where your words work wonders. Ponna, leave with your brother in the morning. I will come on the fourteenth day … We’ll see.’

Not wanting to be in the way of their conversation, Ponna left right away. But a million thoughts assailed her. What did
he mean when he said ‘We’ll see’? Was it in response to what her brother meant when he said ‘I have discussed everything’?

Just a little while ago, when they were preparing dinner, her mother-in-law had told her, ‘What is there to think about? This is god’s work. You are going to be with whoever appears as god for you. God will show you the way. Do you know the old Vellapillai woman in our village? Do you know how her mother conceived her? She was given by the god on the fourteenth day. Asking for a boy, her mother went there a second time too. And she got the male child she wanted. Ponna, this is a tradition that has been going on for ages. Don’t worry about anything. Just think of god.’

As she walked back home, Ponna chanted to herself, ‘Oh, god of Sengottai, mother Pavatha, it is in you that I trust. Please show me a good way.’

Once Ponna left, Kali refilled the pitchers and also took some food on his plate. He always liked to drink as he ate. But Muthu preferred to be done with all the drinking before getting to the food. Sometimes the food would stay untouched because he would have passed out after all the drinking. In some ways, he was much like the goat who was let out after being kept shut inside for a better part of the day. It would rush to the fodder and start munching it loudly. Muthu was exactly like that. Kali always laughed at his speed and urgency. As soon as he drank straight from the pitcher, Muthu opened his mouth wide to take a deep breath. The sting from the arrack reached his nose. He took a handful of pakodas and put them in his mouth.

Kali laughed. ‘Eat slowly, machan. Do you think I won’t leave anything for you?’

‘You know me, don’t you? This is nothing new to me,’ said Muthu. Then he asked Kali, ‘Mapillai, we gave our girl in marriage to you as soon as you asked, didn’t we? Is it fair that you have not sent her home these past two years?’

‘Is it fair that you didn’t ask me this these past two years? Why are you so concerned suddenly?’ Kali too spoke out.

‘True. It was wrong on my part. I accept. I thought I should not interfere when there were elders to do that …’ said Muthu.

Kali’s voice rose in anger: ‘What good are these elders for? They plan to pimp their own daughter and also come and tell me that shamelessly.’

Sensing a change in the air, the dog came running towards him, barked once, and moved away to lie down elsewhere. Having waited for just this kind of moment, Muthu spoke: ‘Please don’t say that, mapillai. It is because we couldn’t bear to see you two suffer that we came up with that idea. This is nothing new, mapillai. It has been going on for ages now. We have gone there a few times too, haven’t we?’

‘You tell me. If your wife was childless, would you have sent her with a stranger?’

‘Mapillai. Don’t call him a stranger. Who remembers faces? All men are gods that night. Think of him as god, you might even feel happy about it. Isn’t it a great blessing if our child comes from god? Haven’t you heard people remark, “This child is a boon from god”? Those children were born exactly this way, mapillai.’

‘When you and I went, were we gods? All we wanted was to find some decent-looking women to fuck, didn’t we? Did you ever think of yourself as a god?’

‘It does not matter what we thought of ourselves. If the women get children because of us, we become gods for them.’

‘Really?! All men there are radiant with divinity, roaming around holding their cocks in their hands. It happened because people were ignorant in those days. Who will send their women now? Will you send your wife?’

‘How much have you suffered these past twelve years because of this one issue?’ reasoned Muthu. ‘You lie confined to this barnyard and the field. This should end. We should be able to hold our heads high in front of others. If I were in such a situation, and if this were the only solution, then yes, I would send my wife.’

‘You might,’ countered Kali, ‘I won’t. Actually, if you were really faced with such a situation, I know you wouldn’t either. You are now arguing for the sake of it. In those days, when a boy was a mere child, they got him married to a girl. In reality, it was the boy’s father who did with the girl all that the husband was supposed to do. The boy was a husband just in name. Will such a thing be approved of today? This is just like that.’

‘It is not like that. There are women who go to other men for various reasons. This is not like that. Here, as part of a festival, god gives a woman a blessing. I want you to become the Kali you used to be. And I want to see my sister happy again. That’s why—’

‘You are so old-fashioned, Muthu,’ snapped Kali. ‘Earlier, a woman could be with however many men as long as they were all from the same caste. Even related castes were fine. But if she went with an “untouchable”, they excommunicated her. Is that how it works today? We insist that a woman
should be with just one man from the same caste. Then how would this work? More than half the young men roaming about town are from the “untouchable” castes. If any one of them gets to be with Ponna, I simply cannot touch her after that. I cannot even lift and hold the child. Why do I need all that? I am happy lying around here. I don’t want a child so desperately. Moreover, all of you will call me impotent and laugh at me. So, let it go.’

‘When a woman goes secretly, who knows which caste the man belongs to? Also, it is a mistake only if others come to know of it. Anyway, if you don’t want to do this, we won’t. But please don’t use this as a reason not to come home for the festival.’

‘I will come. But let me be clear: I am not sending my wife anywhere.’

It was clear to Muthu that he could not shake Kali’s conviction on this matter. But that didn’t mean he would abandon the matter altogether. He knew he had to find another way to convince Kali. Before they went to bed after midnight, they spoke about other things. In the morning, Muthu woke up to the sound of the blackbird.

He roused Kali and said to him, ‘Don’t brood over anything. Come on the fourteenth day. I will make excellent arrangements. Let’s have fun!’

Kali saw him off at the gate. On his way out, Muthu was assailed by doubts as to whether he was right or wrong in what he was about to do. His justification to himself was that since he was doing it for a good reason, it must be the right thing.

‘Mapillai said yes to everything, Ponna. I explained to him that this was a religious matter, and I made him agree. He loves you so much.’ Saying this to Ponna, he took her with him at the crack of dawn.

Muthu knew that Kali and Ponna had not had a chance to speak to each other in private either the night before or in the morning. Now he had to make sure it did not happen until the task was done. Also, it was important that Ponna always thought of it as god’s work. Kali could be handled. In fact, once a child was born, it might not even matter if he found out. None of these things might matter to him when a child called him ‘Appa’ and crawled on to his lap.