If there was no one at home, he’d quietly eat the food prepared; in general, he depended on others to feed him. His parents and relatives fought hard to change him but to no avail.

Then followed gambling and marijuana. By this time he was brutally strong and could beat anyone who objected to him. His relatives ganged up against him, tied him to a tree and thrashed him, starved him for three days, and then chased him away.

He did not know anything about the people of Gopalla who had worked as a whole to bring down the shrub forest and turn it into arable land. Here, Mother Earth smiled, smeared in turmeric and well bathed. A forest once dense with thindora creepers today serves the people well with its lush bitter gourd and broad beans. Of course there were no rice plants yet at Gopalla. The bit about rice in the song was from some anonymous rice-growers’ chants. No one knows how it became linked with this one.

He thought about Thiravasam, the village where he was born. The people were the same as the ones here. They too had tamed the harsh red soil into fertile land to reap the fine seeragasamba rice.

He was the only weed to sprout in that hard-working community; the only one who refused to do any physical work and ate of others’ labour. At the doorstep of death, he couldn’t help but think about his sorry life.

The song brimmed with the joy of labour and hard work. Amidst that joy, here he was, alienated from his brothers and folk, dying nameless.

The enlightenment that touches one just before the last breath is released now touched him too. He gazed at those girls with love. He wanted to jump off the stake and join in their dance, frolic along with them. A tremor ran through him. And then, that was it. He was relieved from his misery forever.

They didn’t realize that he was dead for a while. Once they did, the guards sent the girls away. The children left, constantly turning around to look curiously. It was said that some of those girls went into a fever the very same night and one actually died. Yet another was in such a bad shape that she could have almost slipped away had her parents not prayed to the dead man’s spirit to save their child. They swore that if the child was saved, when she got married and had her first son, they would name him Kazhuvan—the man placed on the stake.

That patch of ground next to the neem tree is now known as kazhuvan ground. They buried him next to the Kamalla woman and also planted a dolmen at the spot.

To this day, the people of Pacheri pray to both these people as divine spirits, offer pongal, name their girls Kamallachi and their boys Kazhuvan. As he successfully kept his identity unknown till he died, he is now a part of their folk legend; they sing his praises.