At this point Mangaiathaar Ammal raised her hands, cried out emotionally, ‘Oh God! My Perumal!’ and started to sing.

The audience, seeing that the storytelling was over, slowly drifted out of the room.

9

IN THE OLD DAYS, AKKAYYA was called ‘Diwan Akkayya’ in jest, only because he had once been a supervisor in the Kottaiyar house. From an early age, he had been famous for his wit. No one could play a prank on him. He never interfered in anyone’s business and would allow no one into his either.

Once, weavers brought a head load of saris for sale. Almost every woman in the Kottaiyar house came to look at them. Akkayya joined them too. Some saris were very attractive and he praised the weaving technique.

Sundarappa Nayakkar, who was passing by, asked him casually, ‘So, will this sari’s colour run?’

That was it!

He gave Sundarappa Nayakkar a stare. Held out the sari and snapped, ‘It won’t if you rinse it in the pond water.’ No one there understood what he had meant. They gaped at him in surprise.

Akkayya had more to add, ‘If you rinse it in the river water, it will run. That is because a pond has walls on all four sides. That’s why it won’t run there.’

It was only then that the weavers and the others understood the joke. They laughed for a long time.

Akkayya had no family left. They had all fallen victim to an epidemic of smallpox that had washed over the village once. But he had a ‘set-up’ with a concubine.

When he was orphaned, Mangaiathaar Ammal brought him over to the Kottaiyars’ house. Akkayya cried for his family for many days. Then he fell silent for a period, not speaking with anyone. He would do any job he was given without a peep. If he felt like it, he would eat what was served. The rest of the time, he would stare at a twig for hours. People who saw him at such moments felt sorry for him.

But as time passed, he became normal. It was true that he never had an open smile, but his eyes always sparkled with humour. He was, by nature, a hard worker and no one could compete with him there. In his youth he also developed a sharp mind.

Once Narayana Nayakkar was entering the millet granary to clean it when he heard a hiss from inside and became alert. There were two cobras that had fallen into the granary. No one knew how they got there or how to get rid of them. Akkayya tore up an old blanket, wrapped it around his legs, tied a rope around his waist so that it wouldn’t slip off, picked up a kuthutharam—a long pole with a fish hook at one end specially designed to kill snakes—and jumped into the granary and killed the snakes.

His usual method was to catch a creeping snake by its tail, swirl it high in the air and fling it with all his might to the ground to kill it.