One Part Woman (17 page)

As soon as he gulped down a small pitcher of coconut toddy, his tummy cooled down. It had a sweet–sour taste. Kali then stuffed his mouth with a handful of mochai seeds. Muthu and Mandayan sat opposite him. Katthayi lay inside the hut. Both the children were asleep, but Katthayi was still awake and listening to the voices outside in case they might call her suddenly. Though she had kept everything ready for them, they might suddenly ask her to help with something. The string-bean dish she had made with sesame and chilli powder was still inside. She had roasted some eggplant and made a gravy dish. Everything was untouched. She was worried about how much of it would be left over.

It always happened this way. They would initially plan to eat a lot after drinking. But they fell down flat after eating just a little bit. From a very young age, she had seen this happening to many men. Her mother was much smarter than her. She always made only half of what the men asked her to cook. Katthayi still hadn’t found the courage to do that. What if it was not enough? What would she do? Mandayan would
give her a thrashing with the coconut stem. He might look like a little fat insect, but his hands were like whips. Well, there will be enough food for tomorrow. Let the children eat rice for a change. They only got to eat millets and porridge otherwise. If she kept the rice pot on top of the water pot and closed it properly, it wouldn’t get spoilt. Even if she killed a chicken and made some gravy the next day, this rice would be enough.

She’d almost asked Kali if he had children, when she stopped herself. What if it made him sad? After coming to this grove, she hadn’t cooked this kind of food for anyone else. Muthu was like a brother to her; he was a good man. He came once in a while and always spoke to her kindly. She had agreed to make all this food because it was for him. It was just as well, because she didn’t know Kali too would come.

She could hear their conversation very clearly. She hoped to hear something about a child. The moment she heard Mandayan’s voice, she stepped out with the string-bean dish she had made. There were enough mochai seeds in the bowl. Kali ate a mouthful of the string beans and said, ‘Tastes like intestine curry.’ It made Katthayi very happy.

‘Is Ponna akka well?’ she asked hesitantly.

‘Hmm. Why wouldn’t she be? She’s well,’ he said.

She didn’t know what else to say. But feeling that she had to say something, she said, ‘Shall I bring the rice and gravy?’

Ponna used to talk sweetly to Katthayi. Since she was a new wife when she went to their village, Katthayi was quite
clueless and couldn’t have lasted there even for a year but for Ponna’s support. She prayed quietly that only good things should have befallen Ponna akka.

It looked like Muthu too was drinking slowly that day. The moon cast its light well on the spot where they were sitting. Mandayan refilled the pitchers with toddy from the barrel. It had been years since Kali had drunk coconut toddy. Once, Muthu had fetched a dried-gourd container filled with the toddy. Kali and Ponna were visiting then. Muthu took Kali into the fields. It was the season before the harvest, so the millet crops were as tall as human beings. Since it had rained very well, it was wet and cold among the plants. Muthu walked into the fields softly without leaving footprints. It was very difficult for Kali to do the same.

In the middle of the millet field, there was a rock large enough to build a cattle enclosure on. Muthu had built a tiny hut on top of it. It looked like a hen coop. It was not very high; one had to crawl to get into it and sit down. No one looking at the field from outside would even know there was a hut in the middle of it. He had used tender palm leaves to weave the hut without any holes on its surface. So, he could lie there on rainy days too. Now he made a fire outside the hut using some dry twigs that didn’t give out much smoke. Then he fried some eggs. That was the last time Kali had had any coconut toddy.

‘Muthanna, I didn’t know our Gounder was your brother-in-law,’ said Mandayan. ‘Had I known, I’d have invited him long ago. It is always a delight to see him drink toddy. It makes
me want to keep pouring him more. Most men would drink it all in a gulp and keep spitting here and there.’

Muthu laughed, ‘Mandaya! You are referring to me, aren’t you?’

‘Oh, not you, brother! You don’t keep spitting,’ said Mandayan and kept a bottle of arrack before him. ‘It was brewed yesterday. Try it, Gounder.’

‘Mandaya, do you brew this often?’

‘No, Gounder, if I set aside what is left of the toddy, I can brew some arrack every fifteen days or so. The Gounder who runs this grove prefers only arrack. Also, when the Muslim merchant—the one who owns this place—comes, he always carries a bottle with him. We are lacking in nothing here, brother. After having come here, we are finally making some money. We have been able to stay put in one place without wandering around with all our stuff.’

‘It looks like your wife doesn’t like the place that much.’

‘Oh, don’t bother about her. What better place can a tree climber expect to be in? Her worry is that if we fall sick, we don’t have any relatives to ask after us. Well, even if they are nearby, do relatives always care for us? It is the problem of children that worries me most. We roam around here and there. But we can’t just drink toddy and hang around as we wish. We have two children who look like little sheep. Now she has conceived again. The first two are still so small, and now another is on the way. We don’t know how we’re going to manage.’

‘Why don’t you get it aborted?’

‘She is scared of it. In our village, a girl died after they inserted a plant stem to abort her foetus. Since then, we’re scared to think of that option. If she dies, how will I raise these two? And even if we have four more, won’t they somehow grow up if I just feed them some toddy?’

Kali’s head reeled as soon as he drank the arrack from the pitcher. Arrack made from coconut toddy had a distinct taste.

‘All right, don’t worry. Just give me the child that is going to be born. I will raise it,’ Kali said to Mandayan.

Muthu was relieved to see Kali gulp down more of the toddy. He knew they would have to spend the night there. Even if they left at dawn, the people who’d gone to the festival would have returned before they reached.

‘Gounder, don’t you have a child yet?’

‘Don’t get me started on that. There is nowhere we have not prayed, no god we have not made offerings to. Nothing has happened, Mandaya. That’s why I’m asking you for your child.’

‘That’s it, then. I will give you the child that is going to be born. You raise it.’

Katthayi rushed out of the hut in anger and said to her husband, ‘Will you eat shit when you are drunk? You have promised him now. What will you do if he comes for real later and asks for the child? How can we just give away a child we have given birth to? Even if we do, how can a Sanar child grow up in a Gounder household? Think before you speak! If they heard us, his relatives will come here to beat us to pulp. Let a Gounder find a child from among his relatives.’

‘So, you won’t give it to me?’ said Kali. ‘Give it! I will take care of the child. I will also see which fucker objects …’ And Kali slid down on the mat. Remembering that he hadn’t eaten anything, Muthu asked Katthayi to bring some food. Then he mashed it well and fed Kali. But Kali just said, ‘I want a child … a child …’ and fell back again on the mat. While Muthu and Mandayan were eating, Kali’s drunken rant continued.

Let him empty out his mind, thought Muthu. Just a question about a child had upset him so much. Muthu felt very sorry for him.

Ponna found herself standing alone in the middle of a large crowd. She couldn’t find her mother anywhere. Though there were faces milling around everywhere, none of them were familiar to her. Where did her mother go? Her supportive hand had been on Ponna’s shoulders all this while. She must have mingled with the crowd when Ponna’s eyes were glued to the top of the large chariot. She might have wandered off when Ponna was busy looking at the shops with ironware suited for any kind of work. In that one unknown moment, when her eyes were lost in the spectacle of things, everything known to her must have taken leave of her.

For a little while, she stood frozen in fear, but the crowd eventually pushed her in one direction or another. She drifted along like a piece of wood in a flood. The large lanterns hanging in the streets were heaving like snakes. The men who were rekindling fading lanterns stood out in the crowd. Policemen too were wandering the streets armed with lathis. She observed the dark shadows and dots of light casting themselves on the crowd, making everyone look like objects
of smoke. She recognized none of the faces. It amazed her that there were so many people in this town. How many must there be in this entire world! The earth seemed to hold innumerable people, but none of them were known to her.

She looked around for anyone she knew from the village. No one. Any relatives? Anyone she had worked with in the fields? From within her mind, she brought out several faces that she had known since childhood and checked to see if any of the faces in the crowd now matched any of those from her mind’s inventory. None. Even if any face matched, it might not mean anything. Once people enter such a large crowd, everyone becomes a new, unknown face. Mine has become a new face too. Has my mother made me new by making me wear flowers and glass bangles? Do they change everything? It was the job of mothers everywhere to make things new, and to do this, they made themselves anew too. Here, my face, my body, my appearance—everything has become new. Isn’t this what I need to become a mother?

I need to fear only if I am among known faces and in known places. I’d have to be scared about what might happen, what people might say. Have I ever been able to do anything just the way I have desired to? There has always been the fear that someone familiar might chance upon me. Everyone is here. And also no one. She was overcome with a huge sense of relief. Once her fear abated, she saw everything with fresh eyes. Everything was new to her. When she realized how attracted she was by the glamour of newness, she saw that she was standing next to the wheel of the chariot.

She felt that, just like the wheel of the chariot, she had abandoned what she was accustomed to and was standing firmly in what was new. She had a sudden desire to run and jump amidst the crowd. She wanted to explode into laughter. There was nothing to stop her here. She could do anything she wanted to. She yearned to see the whole of Tiruchengode in one long run. But she should control herself. She thought she could absorb nothing if she lost her balance.

There were four paths in front of her. The forty-pillared hall was to the west of the chariot. And once she went past that, she could see the temple at the foothills, looking as if it was standing with its arms outstretched. Around this were the temple streets. These then branched into different streets and led to the various roads. Good lord! How many paths she could take! On the streets branching off the ones bordering the temple, there were several pillared halls where dance and music performances were taking place. From where she stood, she could hear them faintly.

The east chariot street had two exits, one each on its north and south ends. And midway between these, there was a performance going on. To the east of the chariot was another street that ran straight to the base of the hill and then around it. She could not decide which path to take. But she was delighted at the sheer number of options she had! Without jumping to a decision immediately, she savoured that happiness of simply having options.

Then, involuntarily, she walked southward. Did her feet choose this direction because it was the most crowded there?
Was it the crowd that was guiding her? When she walked past the smaller chariots that had been stationed in a row, she saw that a dance event was in progress at the junction of four streets. In a space surrounded by flame torches, more than ten young men were dancing with sticks in their hands. From the centre of the wide space cleared in the middle of the crowd, which was now standing in a circle, she heard the sound of sticks clashing against one another—a perfectly coordinated, disciplined sound. Some of the people in the first row of the circle were seated. All the young men dancing had tied their topknots in the same style. When they leapt up in the air, their dhotis, which they had fastened by bringing the cloth from between their legs and tucking it in at the back, appeared to loosen. Ponna wondered what sort of knot was holding the dhotis in place.

There weren’t many women in the crowd. She could see only some old women and little girls sitting about. Among those standing around the dancers, all she found were a few women dotting the crowd like stones in a plate of rice. They were standing right behind those who were seated, the best place to see the dance from. Ponna felt that she could watch forever the way the topknots of the dancing men bounced up and fell back on their napes; each of the men had tightly combed back his hair, fastening it into a knot at the nape. She liked the way they worked their sticks, sometimes separated as two teams, and at other times as one, but always leaving enough space for the sticks to clash, always doing it without the least discordance. It felt like the clank of the sticks was
hitting open the knots in her mind. This dance was not just about sticks clashing. It was not just mere combat. It was the play of magic wands which cracked open facades to bring out hidden secrets.

She shut her eyes. When she opened them, she saw bodies glistening with sweat and lit by the flame torches. All the bodies looked alike—like black rocks that had been set upright and carved into bodies. The tightening and relaxing of the muscles on these bodies made her mind swing back and forth. The earrings that the men wore glowed in the light. The sound of their ankle bells matched perfectly the sound of the sticks. They all looked like gods. They paused in between movements. She wondered if she should just remain there. But there would be much more to see in all the other streets.

While she was thinking about this, she felt a touch on her right arm. She was not able to turn around immediately. She felt a lack of desire in that touch. Kali’s embrace was like this sometimes; his mind would be far from her, hovering somewhere else. It was merely the body working. It panicked her that thoughts of Kali should choose this moment to arrive. What brought up these old things? But then, was it easy to shake off the things that lay layered on top of each other in her mind? It was no problem casting aside superficial concerns. But there were those that had seeped deep into the mind, and lay there rotting. Was it an easy task to hack at them and throw them out?

To avoid thinking about Kali, she turned to look at the face of whoever had grabbed her arm. He was ready with a smile,
a smile that he had prepared to meet her with, whenever she turned around. He was young, but the smile was not the kind that showed an interest for the experience. Instead, it betrayed an arrogance that was simply interested in increasing the number of his exploits. He was no god. Her mother had said every man was a god that night. Perhaps. But Ponna was clear he was not the god meant for her. She jerked his hand off and moved away. She did not turn to look at him again. Though she was overcome with an urge to leave the place right away, she decided to stay put for a while.

Now the sounds of the sticks refused to register in her mind. The sounds of the ankle bells and those of the sticks came separately to her. And the figures seemed to move in a way completely disconnected with the sounds. She pulled each figure away from the crowd. She embraced and kissed each one of them. When she felt that that was all she had to offer to those gods, she left the place and mingled with the crowd in the south chariot street. She didn’t know what it led to. Anyway, it was better if she found out once she reached there. She had done enough of walking towards the known and the familiar. At least on this one night, she wanted to make full use of the opportunity to walk towards the new and the unknown.

On the street that branched off from the south chariot street and went towards the temple at the base of the hill, the crowd was standing in a circle. She rose to her toes to take a look at what was going on. It was a Karagattam performance, the dance where people balanced decorated metal pots on
their heads. There were four dancers—two men and two women. But were they really women or were they men dressed as women? She couldn’t tell, despite looking at them closely. They were at the end of a movement where they danced bouncing up and down in keeping with the sound of the naayanam. She was tired of seeing it every year at the Mariamman temple festival. So her feet took her away from the spot. Looking at the moving crowd, she wondered if, like her, everyone else too was wandering alone. There were all kinds of people there: those walking alone, two people walking together, and people walking in fives and sixes making a lot of noise. They were all mostly men.

There were so few women in the crowds that Ponna could count them on the fingers of her hand. Perhaps they were all huddled close to the shops. The women were interested in buying something or the other. The shops would remain there right until the month of Aadi. She could come sometime later with Kali. But then how much stuff did two people need? The stuff she had brought as dowry still lay in the loft, covered in cloth. If they had a toddler, they could buy little wooden toys, dolls carved of wood, this and that. But now all they needed was some farm instrument made of iron.

A group walking behind her was full of laughter and revelry. She turned around just a little. They were teenagers. She felt that they might pounce on her even if she paused at the spot for a little while. How would she recognize her god in this group? As they neared her, she could smell the arrack on their breath.

‘Oh, this will endure everything, da. A young tree. Shall we climb it?’

‘Sure. You take the top, I will take the bottom.’

The language of groups was distasteful too. To protect herself from the disgust that their words induced in her, she walked away fast. The Omkaaliyamman temple was at the junction of the south and west chariot streets. A play was being performed in the wide grounds behind the temple. She could hear a song floating in from there, sounding like a voice from deep within a well.

Oh Ganapathi, the one born before Kandan, lead my way

I hold your feet, protect me

She suspected that the group was still following her. She ran towards the grounds. Every year now, she had come to the Omkaaliyamman temple to offer pongal. It was also traditional at this temple to walk on a bed of fire in gratitude for prayers answered. She had vowed to do that if her prayers were answered and she conceived a child. The temple was just a thatched hut, and people were entering the grounds by walking in from either side. It was only after she followed the crowd and entered the grounds that she felt a little better. What if the men had managed to trap her? She reasoned that something like that could not happen in festival times with so many people around. She took her mind away from those thoughts and focused on the play.