Gopallapuram
KI. RAJANARAYANAN
Gopallapuram
Translated from the Tamil by
PRITHAM K. CHAKRAVARTHY
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Dedication
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Chapter 18
Chapter 19
Chapter 20
Chapter 21
Chapter 22
Chapter 23
Chapter 24
Chapter 25
Chapter 26
Chapter 27
Chapter 28
Chapter 29
Chapter 30
Chapter 31
Chapter 32
Chapter 33
Chapter 34
Chapter 35
Chapter 36
Chapter 37
Chapter 38
Chapter 39
Chapter 40
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
GOPALLAPURAM
KI. RAJANARAYANAN(b. 1922) has spent over five decades gathering the most exotic tales of his favourite land, Karisal Kadu—the scorched drought-stricken land in Tamil Nadu. Popularly known as Ki. Ra., he is a powerful storyteller. His short story ‘Mayamaan’ (1958) is considered the hallmark of the golden age of modern Tamil literature. An English translation of his collection of folk tales, Where Are You Going, You Monkeys?, was recently published to much acclaim. He has been the recipient of the prestigious Kalaimamani and Sahitya Akademi awards.
PRITHAM K. CHAKRAVARTHY is a storyteller, theatre activist, freelance scholar and translator. She presently teaches film history and dramaturgy at Ramanaidu Film School, Hyderabad. She has translated the highly acclaimed The Blaft Anthology of Tamil Pulp Fiction (volumes 1 and 2), among other books.
To my grandmother, who is my father’s mother,
Rayangala Akkammal
1
THE VILLAGE IS FAST ASLEEP. A silky moon swathes it in a chilly blanket.
Bats fly down from far away and retreat into their abode, having eaten their fill from the fig trees near the pond.
Nocturnal beings are slowly crawling back into their shells. Cats return to their homes, content with their hunts. Owls race to their roosts. Bandicoots hurry into their burrows. Crickets that screeched through the night are now ready to sleep. Dogs, tired of their night watch, have curled up. Night has gone to sleep and the day is waking up.
The forerunner of daytime, the rooster, claps its wings and calls on the village to rise. Drongos and crows begin to screech.
The sound of conches and big drums is rolling out of the temple.
The village reluctantly wakes up from the last dregs of slumber, stretching its taut limbs.
Slight murmurs when the stiff body relaxes … suckling sounds of infants searching for the other nipple, hindered by the thali. Stern voices of the elders waking up the younger ones. Creaking doors. Throat clearings, sinusitis coughs. Front yards being plastered with cow dung. Calves crying out for their share of milk. The cows echoing their thirst.
The village wakes up, as one, to face another new day.
The older ones retire to the pastures, while the younger lot chooses the lanes. As the entire village excretes and cleanses itself, the air carries the stench across the region.
A mother stands on the road and calls aloud to her child, by its name.
Pots are filled at the common well. There are loud exchanges as they change hands.
A young lad lounges on an open cart, parked along the lane, brushing his teeth with a neem stick, ogling at the women at the well.
Cotton seeds are ground in the grinding stone, in the backyards.
The village is bathed in the orange glow of the early morning sun.
The children begin the game of the day, while the elders go about their daily chores.
The Kottaiyar house is the only one that has two floors. The name was not because they have a kottai or fort and rule the place, but because the house has a tall compound wall. And so, the villagers and those in neighbouring towns call the family Kottaiyar.
There was a time when they were wealthy. But today, the house and its compound wall stand dilapidated, like relics of history. The stone and mud house has turned black. It turns blacker during the monsoon. The compound wall built with mere clay is now velvety green with moss.
The first floor is unoccupied. Wild pigeons take shelter there. The Kottaiyars do not mind, for if they were to have a sudden visitor, there is always a fat pigeon for the feast.
Ages ago the compound was full of tall trees. They have been felled for firewood.
Even today the people of the village walk through that lane as humbly as possible. They can see the folk of the Kottaiyar house with their sunken stomachs, skeletal waists and hungry eyes, gazing vacantly.
Sure they are down, but it does not look as if they are out! They may slump inside the house. But when a stranger walks in, they puff their chests up, widen their nostrils slightly and walk with bold, resounding steps.
Above the front door are etched the symbols of Vishnu—the conch, disc and naamam.
Beyond the front yard is a long veranda with a thinnai. On the left of it is a huge six-foot-tall cupboard, with two wide wooden doors, on which are etched in brass, a conch, a disc and a naamam. Once upon a time, the cupboard held priceless gems and jewels. Today it carries farming tools wrapped in buffalo skin to prevent rats from gnawing them.
In front of the main entrance, the eldest man of the household, Maniam Arasappa Nayakkar, sits straight, not leaning back against the stone pillar. He sat there early in the morning, and has continued to do so until high noon. He can manage to sit erect and still from dawn to dusk.
Every day, without fail, disputes from this village and the neighbouring ones come to him for arbitration.
The usual kinds of cases that come for the panchayat in a village are situations that the village solves unanimously and instances that can be solved by the influential people of the area.
Brokerage, prestige, security, obstinacy, communal or caste disharmony, distribution of yield, arson, labour riots and other sundry disputes were always solved by the elders arriving at unanimous decisions.
Other cases that involved families, like quarrels among cousins, a difference of opinion among couples, rejection of elders, property division and dowry issues would always come under the purview of the influential village elders. Certain difficult disputes could take days or even months to be solved. Such cases can really be solved amicably only by time, not an individual judge.
The tougher part in this was trying to comprehend the case completely, for the village folk had a distinct way of stating their side, and that differed from person to person.
The plaintiff might suddenly turn on the judge, assume him to be the defendant and begin to accuse him. ‘You sinner!’ he’d cry, ‘What did I do to you to deserve such treatment from you?’
An outsider might even think the argument is between the plaintiff and the judge. ‘You will rot in hell. May your entire lineage be ruined!’ could be some of the words spat out in anger.
During such times, Arasappa Nayakkar would grin silently, raise his left palm and appease the angry man. The affected woman would promptly fall silent, step aside with her head bent and wipe her tears with her sari pallu.
The Kottaiyars were experts at solving such tricky cases; in fact they had been doing so for three generations now.
Those were the times when the rules of the Palayapattu had lost their power and were slowly shifting into the hands of the colonists. Those were dark days. Burglaries, banditry, riots, were on the rampage. Since there was no real authority in place, it was left to the people themselves to protect their property. People’s courts seized the thieves and burglars and handed out the punishments.
One day …
2
IT WAS A BLISTERING SUMMER.
A woman from the Kammallar caste, who lived in a village next to Kayathaar, was walking down the Mangamma Road after an argument with her husband.
It was almost time for the cattle to be penned. The sun was blazing. She looked around as she walked, hoping to find a handful of water to quench her thirst.
It wasn’t as bad as it is now. Then, black babul trees grew dense across Karisal Kaadu, right up to the horizon. Shorter thorny shrubs, with a thick brush of white flowers atop, were scattered amongst them. Roots of the undergrowth were shrouded with cucurbit vines. The honeyed fragrance of the shrub blossoms was enticing. The buzzing of the bees was unceasing. The gentle breeze scattered the heat slightly and that made even the slightest sound more audible. The noises swept past the ears, as if one had never heard them before.
Her throat was drying up. She had covered her head with the loose end of her sari so that her heavy ear ornament would not be visible as well as to protect herself from the sun. Her clothes were drenched with sweat. Thirst and loneliness were depressing. She held the end of her sari tight between her teeth. This was making her mouth parched as well.
As she walked along, suddenly she stopped, hearing parrots screeching. There must be a water body close by, she thought. At the spot where she halted, the road forked into a by-lane going east. She did not know if she should move on down the same path or turn into the by-lane. She walked into the by-lane, not even conscious of taking the turn.
In just a while, there were signs of the presence of water. Tall, green jamun trees surrounded the region. A water bird disappeared into a bush, with its chicks. Cacti had grown chunky like paddy fields. Grey partridges crowed from somewhere, ‘Kutticher … oh, kutticher!’
The lane ran along the spring. She walked up to it. She could have walked down the main path along Mangamma Road and would have arrived there too.
This was a never-drying spring. The water from it tasted like tender coconut: nature’s gift to any passer-by.
Several things happen on the banks of any water hole. Water is pure wealth. So, when it remains in a remote spot like this, of course things do happen.
Crabs are busy burrowing. Tell me, what business did the river fish have at those holes? Actually, the clever crabs burrow close to the edge of the water, so that the ripples could flow into them. The river fish are very fond of the worms that dwell in those wet clay holes. Storks stand on one foot, waiting for the fish to come there. A little beyond, the fox huddles in the bush to pounce on the stork.
Even the hunter is waiting at the watering hole, for he is aware that no matter how far away his prey wanders, it would have to come here to have a drink. Scavenging beasts also linger there for their victims.
This race for survival happens not only during the daytime. It continues into the night. Toddy cats come in the dark, to the trees along the bank, looking for roosting birds. Leopards and civets compete noisily. Civets are busy among the shrubs and bushes. Thus the banks are always full of activity, the mighty killing and eating the weaker beings.
The woman approached fast to have her drink. There was already someone there, looking intently at her as she neared. He too was waiting there for his prey.
She did not want to wait to drink cupfuls from her palms. Instead she wanted to lie along the bank and slurp it up. She tucked her sari high up, went deeper into the stream and drank thirstily, cupping her palms. She slapped her face and neck with the water and happily splashed around. Her actions resembled one hugging an infant and then burying her face in its soft stomach.
The man hiding in the bushes couldn’t take his eyes off her ear ornament. He cautiously looked around and silently came nearer.
She suddenly espied his presence from the corner of her eye. She wasn’t scared, instead she smiled widely.
‘Did you feel this water?’ she asked, grinning. ‘I could live in this forever. I can have my babies here.’ Her carefree smile worried him a little. He could lose sight of his objective.
‘Hand over your ear ornament,’ he growled, abruptly. ‘If you try to scream, I’ll drown you!’
She stood dumbstruck for a moment, unable to raise a peep or move. The water in her palms stayed there, dribbling through her fingers, almost begging for his mercy.
Her unblinking stare and terror hastened him. His heart beat fast. He wanted it done in a hurry. Fearing that someone might walk by, he pushed her face deep into the water.
She raised a soft scream, calling out to either her mother or god.
Water rushed in through her nose and open mouth. He pressed her deeper down with his foot, pried her earrings out and tucked them into his waist.
It was exactly at this moment that two unexpected things happened.
One, while he pressed her face down into the water, she took a firm hold of the big toe of his right foot in her teeth.
Second, a bullock cart pulled up near the stream.
3
THE DRIVER SAT MAJESTICALLY IN his bullock cart. It was coming rapidly down the Mangamma Lane towards the water hole.
Krishnappa Nayakkar, the driver, held the reins tight and sent his cart into the stream.
As the bullocks drank greedily, he held the reins loosely to his chest and looked at the man curiously. The driver’s bare chest had thick hair, peeking upward. His broad nose showed that he was quick-tempered. Just beneath his neat moustache were his lips, stained dark with betel juice. His hands were calloused from hard labour. On his arms and back were muscles, taut and heavy. His legs dangled on either side of the iron seat; his feet were large.
As the axle in the wheels had loosened with the heat, he had brought the cart deep into the stream to cool and tighten it. Once the bulls were done drinking, he tried to turn the cart around to splash water on the axles. But the wheels were stuck in the slush underneath. He tried his best to move it, but failed. So, he called out to the man, standing still, waist deep in the water, for help.
The man watched dumbly, wondering how to get out of the water. If he tried to move his foot, the woman’s tightly clenched mouth on his toe would come along too.
Krishnappa Nayakkar had to use all his strength to turn the cart. Once he did, he turned back to the man who stood stock still, watching.
Nayakkar splashed the wheels and axle with water using his hands, occasionally sparing the man a look.
Unexpectedly, the man spoke. ‘I’m unable to bear the heat. That’s why I’m standing in the water.’
Nayakkar didn’t reply. He merely listened and continued to splash. The amount of water that was gathered in his cupped palms was enough to drench the wheels and scatter some around as well. It spattered on the spokes noisily. Remember, people say as loud as a ghost gasps? Well, it was that loud.