The House of Blue Mangoes (12 page)

This would be the last time Subramania Sastrigal, the poojari of the Murugan temple, was officiating at the festival. At seventy-seven, all he now wanted to do was meditate upon the Merciful Countenance of God without pause: Subrahmanyom! Subrahmanyom! Subrahmanyom! His son, Swaminathan, had assisted with all the ceremonies for eleven years now and from next year would do it alone.

For two days and three nights, with only the smallest of pauses, the udakkai drum had sounded along with the chants of worshippers and priests and the ringing of the temple bell. The devotions in praise of Lord Murugan at Chevathar were famous and attracted visitors from all over the district. Today was the day when the God-possessed would lead the procession of the Lord from the river to the temple. Their route would pass through the village, thereby ensuring blessings for every devotee who was witness to the Lord taking human form.

The first time Father Ashworth had seen the God-possessed, their bodies pierced by spears and metal hooks called alaku, he had felt faint. Then fascinated. It was the most visible demonstration of faith in action that he had seen, and he never failed to be impressed. He knew that not everyone saw it that way and was careful to keep his brethren away during the Murugan festival. But the terrible majesty of the God-possessed continued to mesmerize him still, seventeen years after he had first seen it.

At the edge of the century, those who needed the reassurance of the Merciful Lord had increased dramatically, so fourteen men would wear alaku this year. They had spent two weeks in a state of ritual purity, abstaining from sex and indeed from the company of others, spending all their time concentrating absolutely on the Lord. Now the fourteen were the centre of attention on the banks of the Chevathar. Virtually every man in the village was present, and a few old women (younger women being considered ritually impure). There was an unusually large number of visitors, perhaps thirty or forty.

Subramania Sastrigal stood directly in front of the fourteen men, chanting hymns in praise of Muruga, while by his side his son beat rhythmically on the udakai. The professional alaku-piercer who visited at this time of year stood by. The sun was well up by now and the chanting of the sacred invocations and the thudding of the udakai twined in the heat-soaked air to create a glassy cathedral of sound within which the fourteen men stood rigid, slowly falling into a trance. The legs of a man towards the middle of the group started trembling and shortly afterwards waves of ecstasy travelled upward through his body. Subramania Sastrigal signalled to the piercer and his assistants to start work. Without wasting any time, the piercer, a middle-aged man from Melur, took hold of a seven-foot-long spear and approached the devotee. His assistants each took hold of an arm, holding the devotee erect and immobile. The piercer compressed the man’s cheeks, causing his mouth to open and shut like a goldfish’s. Then, holding the point of the spear to the devotee’s cheek, he pierced it swiftly and precisely. He thrust the leaf-shaped tip of the spear through, then pierced the other cheek, and pulled the spear all the way over, so that its length was balanced nicely. The devotee had his eyes open throughout the procedure and showed no signs of discomfort, nor was there any bleeding. By now six of the men were shuddering, as they grew entranced. Four more would be pierced with spears and one would draw the Lord’s cart through the processional streets to the temple. The other eight would be pierced with hooks adorned with flowers, limes and packets of sacred ash.

The piercer and his assistants worked swiftly. One of those who had wanted to be pierced by a spear had failed to achieve a trance-like state, attributed to the fact that he hadn’t been sufficiently pious or had perhaps been the victim of someone’s envious eye. Six of the hook wearers (two were adjudged unsuitable) were festooned with gleaming metal fangs. One man had hooks inserted though the skin of his back and attached to the little wooden cart on which a clay representation of the Lord reposed. The procession was now ready to move forward. The crowd was ecstatic. Eleven men had been visited by divinity, the most for as long as anyone could remember. It was proof enough that Vel Murugan looked upon his devotees favourably.

The entranced devotees, heavily garlanded and besmeared with vibhuti, bare-chested and clothed only in clean white veshtis, led the procession. They went first to the Vedhar quarter where they stopped in front of Muthu Vedhar’s house. Here, Muthu’s wife Saraswati bathed their feet, then knelt and pressed her forehead to the miry earth. The priests were given trays containing agarbattis, bananas, coconuts and other traditional objects of worship. With a swift motion using a chopper, Swaminathan cleaved a coconut, which he returned to the family; the tray was waved in front of one of the devotees and then returned to Muthu Vedhar’s family, transformed now into holy prasadam. A woman anxiously whispered into the ear of Kathiresa Marudar, the devotee pulling the cart, that her young son was very ill. ‘Do not worry, the Lord is with you and your family. He will take care of your son.’ He dropped vibhuti on her palm and she smeared it in a wide swathe across her forehead. Slowly, the procession moved down the narrow street, the women of each house worshipping the God-possessed as Saraswati Vedhar had done.

Father Ashworth hadn’t gone to the river bank for over a decade, preferring to stroll down to Anaikal and watch the processionists as they made the final approach to the temple. Solomon had joined him at this vantage point for some years now. The priest decided to walk over to the headman’s house so that they could go together to watch the procession.

Solomon was waiting for him on the veranda and they strolled leisurely down the road. As they emerged from the curve where the road swerved around Anaikal, they stopped. Both saw the obstruction blocking the road at the same time. Transfixed for a moment, they slowly took in the sight before them, and then began to run as one. Fear and anxiety drove Father Ashworth over the fifty or so yards more quickly than he would have believed possible. The structure hadn’t existed the day before. Thrown up during the night, the makeshift pandal, constructed from thatch and bamboo poles, and enclosed on three sides, stretched from Vakeel Perumal’s little shrine on one side of the road to his house on the other, and barred the passage of anyone who wanted to use the road. With dawning horror, Father Ashworth was beginning to understand why the newest members of his flock had been so eager to convert. Ahead of him Solomon had reached the pandal. It appeared they were too late. Angry voices already twisted through the air. They dashed around the pandal just in time to see the huge figure of Muthu Vedhar strike Vakeel Perumal down. A couple of the lawyer’s supporters tried to come to his aid but Muthu brushed them off and was reaching down for the prone figure at his feet, when he was brought up short by an urgently shouted command from Solomon.

Behind the little knot of people, the great Chitra Pournami procession had ground to a halt. It was imperative that Solomon act immediately.

‘Don’t bother with that scum, I’ll handle him,’ Solomon called out.

Instead of accepting the thalaivar’s offer to mediate, which would have had the best chance of defusing the situation, Muthu lost control.

‘You low-caste pariah cur, I will make sure I grind you and your degenerate peoples into the dirt or my name isn’t Muthu Vedhar,’ the giant mirasidar said balefully. He spat at the thalaivar. Time ticked by in stone. The spit was slowly absorbed by Solomon’s shirt. Nobody moved, until Muthu, possessed now by forces that had been a long time building, launched himself at Solomon with an awful roar.

Muthu had almost a foot on him and was in excellent shape, but Solomon hadn’t gone to seed either, and as his adversary bore down on him, he moved quickly out of the way, and seemed only to cuff him as he went past. Carried forward and down by his own momentum and Solomon’s assistance, Muthu crashed face first into the road. Instantly, Solomon was upon him, pinning him to the ground with a wrestler’s grip. He spoke quietly into the other’s ear: ‘You big black buffalo, for all these years I have tolerated you and the other jackals that work for you because I have tried to keep the peace. You have insulted me before the village and for that you will pay. I will give you and all those who owe you allegiance a month to leave. If you haven’t gone by then I will personally make sure that you’ll wish you had never emerged from your prostitute mother’s womb.’

Muthu snarled back, his mouth full of the sour and gritty taste of dirt and humiliation, ‘I said I would reduce you to dust and I will reduce you to dust. I’m not leaving this village, it’s you and your stinking family who will leave or be destroyed.’

‘We’ll see who leaves and who provides a feast for the crows and the jackals.’

Everything happened so fast that there was not the slightest chance to intervene, even if anyone had dared to. Solomon released his adversary, got up and without a backward look walked over to where a sullen Vakeel Perumal stood beside the pandal. Without a word, the thalaivar slapped the lawyer hard. ‘You are a disgrace to our caste, and to our village. You and your family will leave with your possessions by sundown or I will have you thrown out.’ Solomon signalled to some of the crowd following the God-possessed devotees to come and tear down the pandal. When it lay in tatters, he respectfully urged the priests and processionists to continue with the festival. The drums began to beat again, and the spear- and hook-stuck devotees and the rest of the procession, a surly Muthu Vedhar amongst them, edged past the shrine and continued on their way to the Murugan temple.

That evening, for the first time since he had come to Chevathar, Father Ashworth did not go down to the beach to watch the epic rising of the Chitra Pournami moon, choosing instead to watch from the safety of the mission compound. The morning’s scuffle had alarmed others as well, for the worshippers on the beach were sparse. Only the spectacle didn’t disappoint. As the sun plunged down the wide throat of the ocean, the moon rose, huge and handmade, a giant’s plaything suspended from the rusty sky.

19

Summer came early to Chevathar that year. From very early in the morning, the dead white eye of the sun would enamel the sky and the plain with heat and glare until they burned. And then a searing wind that was locally known as the Fire Wind would start blowing in from the teri wasteland, carrying with it dust and heat until you could hardly breathe. By mid-morning every tree, rock and building would take on a life of its own, shimmering and writhing in the heat-bent air, the only things that moved as far as the eye could see. Even the little goatherds took refuge where they could, lying three-quarters submerged in the noxious little pools on the shrunken river bed or skulking in the shade of trees. About the only things that stirred in the sun-bludgeoned landscape were tiny tar-black scorpions and long red and black ants whose bite could reduce a grown man to tears.

The short nights offered little respite as the laterite soil and rocky outcrops of gneiss and sandstone released the heat absorbed during the day into the still, hot air. And then, by six in the morning, the sun would glare into view again.

Dipty Vedhar spent much of May shuttling between Muthu and Solomon, trying to get the two men to make the peace. To his great relief, the deadline set by Solomon, the end of the month, came and went. It helped that Vakeel Perumal had disappeared from Chevathar soon after Chitra Pournami and hadn’t been seen since. Father Ashworth had done his bit to persuade the headman not to act upon his threat and he was as pleased as the deputy tahsildar that the expected clash did not take place.

Then, on 6 June 1899, the most devastating riots the Presidency had ever seen ravaged the town of Sivakasi in the neighbouring district. Tensions escalated once more in Chevathar.

Muthu Vedhar sent Solomon Dorai an ultimatum. He should leave the village by sundown on 15 June or he would feel the wrath of the Vedhars. Solomon’s response was to thrash the messenger until he could barely stand. He was then told to repeat the ultimatum to his master in slightly altered form – if Muthu was in Chevathar after 15 June, he would regret it.

This was the response Muthu had expected and he began to make preparations. Emissaries were sent to the various caste groups who supported him in the neighbouring villages – the Marudars, Pallans, Thevars – to come and join him. He promised them land and loot. Muthu also had a stormy meeting with his kinsman, Dipty Vedhar. If the deputy tahsildar did not do as he was told, he would meet the same fate as the headman of Chevathar!

In the district capital Melur, Collector Hall had just returned from a trip to a fractious village when he received an urgent message from the Bishop, saying he had heard from the head of the Chevathar mission that there was going to be a riot in the village that threatened to be as disastrous as the Sivakasi one, if the authorities didn’t act at once. Accompanied by the Superintendent of Police of the district, Hall left immediately with a couple of policemen and servants. A third of the way to Chevathar his party was held up by an immense train of bullock carts which had for some reason grown becalmed on the narrow road.

Nathaniel Hall, a tall, attenuated man with a blotchy complexion, fumed and fretted on his horse. Fanged outcrops of gneiss rose on either side of the road, effectively preventing them from riding around the obstruction. The Superintendent of Police sent a couple of men ahead to try and move things along. The heat was immense. Sweat trickled down Hall’s neck into his collar; sweat blossomed in great unsightly patches across the back of his khaki shirt and under his armpits and beaded his face. God, how he hated this country! And to think he had lasted seven years, hating almost every minute of it. He hated the heat, the flies, the dark ugly people, his work and his colleagues. A large fly hovered around his face and then delicately settled on it. Hall brushed it away furiously. Just then, the cow in front lifted its tail and relieved itself of a rapid succession of greenish-brown lumps of dung. The odour rose to his nostrils and whatever little self-control he had left deserted him. He turned around to the two Indian policemen who rode behind him and snapped, ‘I want this thing moving immediately. Shoot a cow or two, that should teach them.’