Calling out an appropriate obscenity, Anthony gave him an additional piece of liver.

night watch

Sankunniyaasan was having his supper—a bowl of kanji made with broken rice with a bit of coconut milk mixed in—when he heard about Madhavan’s death. A grain of rice got stuck in his throat, aggrieved already by long years of beedi smoking, and he dislodged it by coughing loudly. He had another pinch of mango chammanthi and chased it down with a spoonful of kanji before getting up slowly and walking to the water pipe outside to wash his hands. All the while, his wife stared at him, carefully watching the expression on his face. As he stood wiping his hands on the edge of his mundu, Sankunniyaasan was overcome with a desire to be at the house of the dead man before anyone else could get there. His heart beat faster as this thought took hold, and he grabbed his shirt, ensured there was money in its pocket, and walked hurriedly into the darkness. Watching him leave without a torch to light his way, his wife felt the mild sense of concern that close relatives of elderly people are known to experience.

The dead man’s house was just a couple of hundred metres away. Sankunniyaasan walked down the lane at the boundary between the two properties and climbed up to the main road. It was only after 8 p.m., but perhaps because it was a holiday, the road, well-lit with street lights, was deserted except for a pack of dogs in heat, nipping and quibbling and flirting with each other. ‘Piss off, dog!’ Sankunniyaasan shooed them away, and two or three fearless ones in the pack came towards him, growling menacingly. Usually they were so nervous that they ran away as soon as one pretended to pick up a stone. Turning frequently to watch whether they were following him, Sankunniyaasan walked away quickly. The obvious fear of the most intelligent species of animal when isolated pleased the dogs, and they barked at him in unison.

Only a couple of neighbours had arrived at the house of the deceased before him. A close acquaintance of Sankunniyaasan was in a corner of the front yard, busily making phone calls. Another person stood around, his arms folded and his face suffused with a calamitous expression. The soft sobs of the wife and daughter-in-law of the deceased emanated from the house. A child, the grandson, sat on the bare earth in the front yard, celebrating the rare opportunity to be out in the open at night by digging small holes in the dust.

Sankunniyaasan stepped inside the house. The women stopped crying and looked at each other. They were completely unprepared for his presence. Except for his partially open eyes, Madhavan did not look dead. His big toes were not tied together, nor was there a piece of cloth tied from under his chin to the top of his head. His hands were not folded over his navel in the required humble, supplicating manner. Sankunniyaasan stepped promptly out of the room, tapped on the shoulder of the man talking on the phone and brought him back inside. The man, an office-bearer of the community association, snatched a mundu hanging on the clothes line, tore strips out of it, and made the required knots on the dead body.