One Part Woman (9 page)

Even though he was curious to find out what his mother and mother-in-law had been discussing, Kali waited for the news to unravel itself. Two nights after his mother-in-law’s visit, his mother came to see him in the barnyard. She had raised him single-handedly, working really hard—it was no mean feat farming four acres of land and tending to cattle all by herself. Working alongside her from the time he was a child, Kali took full charge of the place when he was only fourteen or fifteen years old. He was free to do whatever he wanted; he just needed to keep her informed.

He let her be alone and free, just as she desired. She made her own food, and also went to work in other fields. He did not consider that a question of prestige. She wanted to make a little money of her own. What was wrong with that? Let her work as long as she could. If there was something to be done in the field, he told her. She came to help. He paid her what he paid the others, but that was their secret. Wherever she went to work, she simply had to find the time to come and see him every day. Otherwise, she couldn’t sleep in peace.

She had very deft hands. In his opinion, no one else could do the things she could. He loved her cooking, but he didn’t tell Ponna that. His mother’s kootucharu was tasty beyond words. Whenever she planned to make it, she’d tell him in advance, and Ponna wouldn’t make any gravy that day. If she steamed groundnuts or other pulses, she would bring it to him in the barn. On all such visits, she would raise the issue of a second marriage. Initially, he refused to participate in the conversation. When she got insistent, his protests grew proportionally stronger. So he thought that a second marriage could not have been the topic of her conversation with his mother-in-law.

It was evident to him that she was struggling to say something. She kept inquiring about the cattle, asking the same things over and over. She spoke about the seeds they were going to sow in the fields that year. Unfortunately, on that particular night, he felt very sleepy. He still had some toddy left in the dried-gourd vessel. He had planned to down it and doze off. But he was not used to drinking in his mother’s presence. Though he knew she too was in the habit of drinking, she had never done it in front of him so far. In the toddy season, Munia Nadar would keep aside a hanging jarful for her. She would go when it was dark and drink it without anyone coming to know. Even now she was Munia Nadar’s customer. Whenever he made some, a bottle would be kept aside for her. She would drink a little every day for several days.

Seeing her struggle to begin the conversation, he decided to help her out. After all, the topic was no secret to either of
them. ‘I have some toddy. Do you want to drink, Amma?’ He could not see her face in the dark. Nor could he guess the reason for her silence. Was she cringing that her son had offered her alcohol? Or was her silence to be taken as a yes? He took a small pitcher from under the cot, threw the water out and filled it with toddy and stretched it out to her. When she accepted it, he was happy. He drank what was left in the gourd bowl. He felt that it should now be easier for him to extricate whatever matter was stuck in her throat.

‘What, Mother? I am told you and my mother-in-law were conferring all night. Which fortress have you planned to capture?’ he prodded.

He could see that her pitcher was not yet empty. She was the kind who drank slowly. He was getting to know that now.

‘What fortress are we going to capture at this age? If we die today, we are fully gone tomorrow. What else would we talk about? It was about you two.’

‘What? Talking about a second marriage again?’

‘You have said no to it several times. Ponna’s parents are fine with the idea. If we are a little forceful, even Ponna would say yes. But you refuse. I don’t understand why. Anyway, drop it.’

His mother spoke gently and at a measured pace that day, although it was in her nature to shout. She appeared completely new to him. Even when you have spent years with some people, their real faces are revealed only when the right time comes. God knows how many faces lie concealed forever, with no opportunity to reveal themselves.

His mother spoke without a break. Perhaps she was afraid that if she paused, she might not be able to resume speaking. ‘You have done all the prayers you could do,’ she intoned. ‘You have even walked around the barren rock that one in a thousand people take on. Nothing has happened. Whether we have children or not, we are all going to die one day; we don’t live forever. When we are alive, we should be useful to the people around us. What else is left for human beings? Your father died leaving me all alone. But my plight would have been so much harder if I did not have you. I had my son entwined around my legs, and so I could bear all my difficulties happily. You were the only hold I had in life. Don’t you need one such for yourself? When people ask “Do you have grandchildren?” I am unable to reply. I wonder why this earth doesn’t split into two and swallow me whole. If this is how hard it is for me, it must be so much more for you and Ponna. The wretched people around us do not see what a man has. They only see what he does not have. We have to hold our heads high in front of these people, my son. Please don’t get me wrong. This is not something a mother should talk about with her son. But I have dared to speak. Please listen.’

He truly could not understand what she was leading up to. He could hear her gulp down the toddy left in her pitcher. He still had some left in the gourd bowl. She might need more. When she put her pitcher down, he said, ‘Do you want more, Amma?’

She declined and proceeded to say, ‘Sengottayan and Pavatha of Tiruchengode have so many ways of helping
people. From the moment the flag is hoisted to when the gods come down and go back up the hill, how many miracles they perform for how many people! People in my father’s house are entitled to carry the deities. And they have been doing so till date. I was born in that family. Will the gods fail to show me a way? We roamed around that street from the beginning to the end of the festival. The fourth day, when the gods come down, and the fourteenth day, when they go back up the hill, are very important. But since I attained puberty, I have not attended the event of the fourteenth day. They wouldn’t send me. You know why. You have gone for it with and without my knowledge. This year, we need to send Ponna there. And you must agree to this.’

Kali was speechless. He had never thought there could be such a motive for attending the fourteenth day of the festival. Which man would say yes to such a thing? His mind went blank, and whatever his mother said after that was dwindling into mere noise.

‘Who is without lack in this world? The gods have made sure everyone lacks something or the other. But the same god has also given us ways to fill that lack. We don’t know whether the problem is with you or her. But we know there is a problem, and there is a way out of it. Why don’t we give it a try? If you accept it, it will all work out. A lot of women go this and that way. Who knows about these things? Even if people know, they ignore it. They say nothing is wrong as long as it is done in secret. This will be done in secret, too, but only with your permission. She is yours, after all.’

He saw a world of utter silence in front of him. In the dark, he could sense the movement of her lips.

‘All men who set their foot in Tiruchengode on the fourteenth day are gods. It is god who is giving this. It is not a problem if we keep our mind on god. Who knows which god comes with what face? It is the nature of gods not to reveal their faces. If you say yes, we can go to this year’s festival. Well, we don’t have to go from here. Ponna’s mother can take her. You don’t have to go along. You can be here or in your father-in-law’s place. It is your choice. Think about it and let me know. Everything is in your hands now, my little god.’

He did not know when his mother left. He also did not know how long he had been sitting there. His eyes were wide open. Usually, he fed the cows once at midnight, but tonight he could not even hear their mooing. Amma, why did you struggle so hard to bring me up? Just so you could push me into this terrible fire? You could have killed me even before I came into this world.

His eyes were bloodshot in the morning. And they stayed so forever after that.

For the people of Tiruchengode, the chariot festival was a three-month affair. The preparations began as soon as the month of Vaigasi started. And the shops and stalls lasted till the months of Aani and Aadi. But, strictly speaking, the festival itself was only for fourteen days. For a lot of people the fifteenth day was the day of completion. So if you include that as well, it was a fifteen-day-long festival. The deities that were brought down from the hill on the fourth day returned uphill on the fourteenth day. On those two nights, crowds poured in to get a vision of the gods. And more than the day the gods came down, it was the day of their return that was charged and climactic.

Crowds would gather from the morning onwards. They would have erected water pandals on all sides to dispense drinking water to the travellers. The fields of the Tiruchengode farmers would lie untended. Even if there had been good rains, they would stop with the first ploughing of the topsoil. All the carts bringing people to the festival would be parked in these fields. It would look like a fair for
bullock carts! People also brought large parcels of food. But they could buy food from the several stalls too. There was no dearth of cultural performances in the four main streets in which the chariot did its rounds or in the pillared temple halls at the foothills.

At the peak of the celebration, all rules were relaxed. The night bore witness to that. Any consenting man and woman could have sex. In the narrow lanes, on the fields around the village, in the rest stops on the hill, and on the open surfaces of the rocks, bodies lay casually intertwined. Darkness cast a mask on every face. It is in such revelry that the primal being in man surfaces.

No one sent unmarried women to the festival. But women over thirty were to be seen everywhere. Young men roamed all over the place. These men tried to lure as many women as they could on this one night. This was also the night when many of the young men had their first taste of sex. And women took on the role of their teachers.

Kali too went there in the days before his marriage. He started roaming the streets when the evening set in. That night there was no business in the prostitutes’ street that was right in front of the temple at the foot of the hill. Those women dressed themselves up to dance in the temple halls. They laughed as they went about: ‘Who is going to look at us? Today, every woman is a prostitute!’

In that first year, when his body was ready to get to know a woman’s, he was overcome with shyness and he escaped from all the women and hid under a bullock cart. Lying there, he
saw all the movements in the dark around him. He didn’t dare to come out. On their way back home the next day, Muthu teased him. He gestured the number two to Kali, who was frustrated that he had let the opportunity slip by. He would now have to wait another year. But Muthu made sure Kali did not have to wait a whole year. By the following year’s festival, Kali had gained enough experience.

Kali did not know that this was a special day for women who did not have children. He could not bring himself to agree to send Ponna there. Nor did he tell her anything about it. But he told her this much: that they were not going to her place for the festival that year. Usually, that period was a break for her, and she would go and spend a week at her mother’s place. During that time, she would also go in a bullock cart to see the festival. In fact, the two of them definitely went on at least one of the three days when the large chariot was out. Seeing her shrunken and disappointed face, he took her there himself. He bought her all she wanted from the shops there.

But that time, all he said to her was, ‘It has been ten years since we got married. Why do we still need to go there for the festival? Let’s do it here this time.’ She did not protest, but she sensed that something was wrong. They did not go even when her mother came and invited them to the last day of the festival. Instead, they went to the large snake pit in the fields and offered a rooster for prayer. When he poured the kuzhambu for his mother, she did not meet his eyes. As far as he was concerned, that year’s ordeal was over. The worry could wait another year.

He was still confused whether to bring this up with Ponna or not. He thought she would refuse. In fact, he hoped that that’s what she would do. But he was too scared to broach the subject with her. One moment, he felt the courage to start the conversation, but as soon as he looked at her, he hesitated, feeling completely tongue-tied. At other times, he felt very certain that he should not talk to her about this at all. But she might ask for a reason if next year too he said no to going to her mother’s place for the festival. He knew he could not keep it from her forever, but he was also unsure whether he should ask for her opinion about this or declare his decision.

Her body had entwined with his for ten years now. It had met his fragrances for ten years now. He felt that every bit of her body was his and his alone. If another fragrance were laid over it, it would be a blemish. And he told himself with certainty that once it was blemished, he wouldn’t touch it. If all men were gods, then let the god take possession of Kali’s body too.

He trusted her. He recalled the time when the young men of the village had started teasing him for not having a child even after two years of marriage. Presuming that they knew everyone’s secret in the village, they concluded that Kali was a useless sissy. All their sympathies started flowing towards Ponna. They thought they could lure her if they put some effort into it. He heard that they had placed bets on it. Karuppannan, who owned a palm grove, was the mastermind of this scheme. He had a fair complexion and was under
the delusion that women would just fall all over him for the colour of his skin. He was married and had children. It was his wife who did all the work at home and in the fields. All he did was sit around in the town square, playing dice and ogling women. He also waxed eloquent about his exploits. But most of them actually turned out to be wishful thinking.

He got into the bizarre habit of intercepting Ponna when she went alone to the fields, and grinning at her ingratiatingly. He even started coming to Kali’s house in the middle of the day with his friends to play dice. Ponna became his waitress, bringing him water, matchbox, and so on. Kali would come back from the barnyard in the middle of the night and knock on the door. But Ponna was not sure any more that it could only be Kali. Fearing gossip, she decided to spend one night in the barnyard. Holding him in her embrace, she poured her heart out. His chest, wet with her tears, heaved in anger.

‘Isn’t it because I have no children that people look at me this way?’ she cried. ‘If I had that blessing, would I have to suffer this disgrace? Every dog thinks I am just a stone standing at the street corner that it can rub itself against.’

The next day, Kali encountered Karuppannan. As usual, the latter’s talk was loaded with innuendoes.

‘Kali, my brother, you have two coconut trees. Can’t you water them properly? Look at the new blossoms. They are dried and shrivelled up.’

Kali decided there was no point in beating around the bush. He charged in head-on.

‘Karuppannan, you have no idea how I go about watering things. Haven’t you married off your sister Lacchi to Pudhupalayam? Ask her, she will tell you! Why do you think she keeps coming back here? Do you think she comes to see you, her brother? You poor thing! Your wife is lamenting to everyone that you are jobless and sitting around the town square. Ask her and find out what job you are good for. Don’t worry about my coconut trees. Keep your game of dice to the town square.’

A dark shadow fell over Karuppannan’s face. Though Kali had mixed a good deal of lies with the truth, the conviction with which he spoke rattled Karuppannan and chased him away from the square. He tightened his loincloth and changed his haunt to a shaded spot in the field. After this, Ponna did not have to speak to any random man. If she had to, she hurled words that stung like an ant in the crotch. Her circle grew smaller. She stayed away from people, and kept them away.

Kali was absolutely sure that Ponna would not agree to go to the fourteenth day of the festival.