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Also by Shankari Chandran

The Barrier

Chai Time at Cinnamon Gardens

For Ammamma and Apps, the original Nala and Rajan

‘Why at the beginning of things is there always light?’

The Narrow Road to the Deep North

BY RICHARD FLANAGAN

THE GITA

The Bhagavad Gita, or sacred ‘Song of God’, contains a discussion between Lord Krishna and the warrior prince Arjuna, on human nature and the purpose of life. It forms an important chapter in one of Hinduism’s main religious texts, the Mahabharata—a Sanskrit epic about a great war between two sides of the same family.

ATTRITION

CHAPTER 1

Colombo, 1932

‘If you’re going to do something, son, you should do it properly,’ he said to Rajan. The boy had never seen a monk like that before—completely naked, his light brown skin unimpaired by clothing. At his feet lay the orange robe of his order. He had taken it off and, making sure all the edges were aligned into a perfect square, had placed it neatly on the pavement. His movements were slow and deliberate.

Rajan had seen human anatomy in all its simple and complex artistry—but only in books. He had seen monks in Jaffna, but this one was different. This one was young and surprisingly muscular. The sunlight wrapped itself around him like his orange robe. He looked beautiful. The boy watched fascinated, as the monk wiped his shorn head with the palm of his hand. It came away damp. It was a dry day: not too hot, not too humid.

Rajan’s mother thought it was a perfect day. She took him to the stalls outside the hospital and gave him two cents for a treat. He wanted to buy a glass of faloodah with it, to share with his sister, Lali. She had been unwell for several weeks and Rajan knew it would help her.

There was nothing like faloodah: flavoured, coloured gelatine suspended in milk on a bed of rose syrup, topped with swollen basil seeds. It was the perfect combination of colour, flavour and texture. Years later, when Rajan became a doctor, he would reassess the nutritional impact of the drink with educated eyes. Protein, calcium, sugar and starch were bound together in a cocktail of artificial colour and sweetness. Milky pink remained his favourite colour in adulthood long after he stopped drinking faloodah. He would start drinking it again, much later in old age, when he dared death to take him.

Lali loved faloodah and little Rajan loved her. He was only eleven, and had never been given pocket money before. The two coins felt heavy in his hands. He placed them in his shallow pocket and then took them out again. He was afraid they would fall out. Lali laughed at him weakly from her hospital bed.

‘You always expect the worst,’ she whispered, her lips cracking as she spoke. He loved her so much because she only expected the best.

Up north, she had been treated by the local apothecary whose miracle tincture was supposed to ‘purge’ her fever. Rajan, who read a lot, had never read of purging as a cure for fever. His sister hadn’t eaten in weeks and finally the little boy convinced his mother that Lali needed help. Fearfully, they brought her to Colombo.

He was sure now, that faloodah would save her. It would provide hydration, energy and happiness in equal measure. Its milky pinkness would make her smile. He had been on his way to buy it from the teahouse when he saw the monk undressing quietly on a side of the street.

The monk wiped his shorn head again with his palm. Once more it came away damp. He sat down on the pavement in the lotus position. To the little boy, the monk looked like Lord Buddha himself, who had found an answer to the suffering of mankind and shared it with the world. Their country was the keeper of that answer; an island citadel that protected the Buddha’s ways and his wisdom.

The monk began chanting slowly and clearly. Rajan couldn’t understand the words but he understood their tone. It was peaceful. The boy felt calm watching the monk close his eyes, oblivious to the gathering crowd. People were watching and whispering. People were always watching and whispering in the capital.

Rajan had seen angry monks walking the streets shouting about something, anything. Usually it was about the British but lately it was about the Tamils. The monks hated Tamils even more than they hated the British or the Muslims.

The monk in front of him didn’t seem angry, though. He was happy, sitting quietly on the pavement. Rajan wanted to talk to him, ask him what he was doing. He had opened a bottle of water and was pouring it on himself, as though he were bathing. Rajan’s eyes started to sting. ‘You should stand back, son,’ the monk said to him as he smiled and rubbed his body with the water. The water; something was wrong with the water.

Rajan was about to speak when his father touched his shoulder. What was his father doing here? He was supposed to be with Lali at the hospital. They were all taking turns to sit with her: she never liked being alone, even though she was the eldest child.

For the first and last time in his life, Rajan saw his father cry. He didn’t say anything: there was no need. He looked for his mother and saw her crumpled on the ground, her mouth open but the cries trapped in her chest. She was beating herself, trying to free her voice. His father raised her up and they began the slow journey back into the hospital. Behind them, Rajan heard screams. He turned around to see the young monk who had been meditating—naked and peaceful—still seated, still silent, but now glowing. People screamed as tall flames wrapped themselves around him like an orange robe.

•

Allevaddy village, Jaffna province in the north of Ceylon, 1932

Before he went to sleep, Rajan prepared wood for the kitchen fire and thosai batter for breakfast. Appa liked to start the day with fermented pancakes.

Lying in bed, he stared out of his window, unable to sleep. His mother used to sing him a lullaby. She called out to the moon, ‘Nila nila, run quickly. Don’t stop until you reach the mountain peak. There are jasmines, they are fallen from heaven. Bring them back, nila nila. They will help us sleep.’ He tried humming the lullaby quietly to himself.

In the morning, he woke up at the same time as his father. Appa drew water from the well in the courtyard they shared with their cousins. Appa stood in his sarong and poured cold water over the little boy’s head; two buckets every day. Then Appa bathed himself leaving Rajan to make breakfast.

Rajan’s thosais were not as crispy as Amma’s, but Appa said they were very tasty. Sometimes their neighbour, Aunty Savitri, brought over a bowl of potato curry to eat with the pancakes. She showed Rajan how to swirl the batter on the flat iron pan without burning himself. He tried to create the concentric layers of thosai, the way Appa liked it—a thick central moon orbited by thin, brittle rings.

‘Don’t worry, mahan, your Amma will be back soon,’ she said, kissing his head. After Lali’s funeral, Amma had stayed in Colombo with relatives.

Rajan served the steaming pancakes onto Appa’s plate and sat next to him. They ate in silence, the only noise coming from the street as the village cocks crowed, waking the rest of the neighbourhood.

He stood up, reaching over to take his father’s empty plate back to the kitchen. Appa stopped him, touching his arm tentatively. Rajan wanted his father to hold him.

‘Amma is coming back tonight, mahan. We must help her. We must help each other.’

‘Yes, Appa,’ he tried not to cry. He wanted to vomit out his pancake and the sick feeling he carried with him every day.

‘Go and get ready, mahan, you’ll be late for school. By the time you return home, Amma will be here. Everything will be better.’

When Amma arrived that night, she kissed him, whispering his name and nothing more as her tears fell. She held his face, stroked his cheeks and smoothed his hair, as if remembering him with her hands. He pulled her towards the settee, but she shook her head and prised her hand from his. She drifted away towards her bedroom, faltering briefly outside Lali’s doorway.

Rajan stared out of his window that night. His mother cried herself to sleep, calling, ende kollonthai, ende kollonthai, my child, my child, while he watched the moon. It floated above them like a glowing pancake.

•

Every day, Rajan read until it was dark and then he read by candlelight. He meticulously scraped wax from the bottom of the dish with his foot-ruler. He would re-use it with a new wick tomorrow. Years ago, Lali had shown him how; she was very careful. For his birthdays he never asked for books because they were so expensive—he could borrow books—instead he asked for candles.

His grandmother laughed when he told her he had finished all of the school textbooks by the age of fourteen. She looked at him with pride, spat three times to ward off the evil eye, and asked him, ‘Rajan, what are you studying? If you’ve finished all the books from school, what else is there to learn?’ His mother never asked him this. She said every generation should have the chance to be better and freer than the one before it. So she kept buying him candles and, when she could, she bought him books.

His cousins laughed and rolled their eyes whenever Amma quoted Auvayar, saying: ‘Katrathu kai mun alavu; kallathathu ulahalvu—what we have learned is the size of a fistful of earth; what we haven’t learned is the size of this world.’ Rajan loved the legendary poetess, whom the gods allowed to live on the moon so she would always be with the Tamils.

Rajan’s classes were taught in English at the local American missionary school. He learned Sinhalese as well, but Tamil was the language he loved most. When he called out to his mother in the middle of the night, it was in Tamil. When he remembered his sister, it was in Tamil.

After Lali’s death, Amma rarely left their house, but once a month she travelled to Jaffna town to visit relatives and buy medicines. Appa didn’t allow the village apothecary into their house anymore, so Amma’s medicine box had to be stocked by the town doctor. Rajan was quick to help his mother with her errands, and during school holidays, he was allowed to stay in town with his cousins for a few weeks longer. Amma smiled, knowing why he wanted to join her. He loved the library and its endless shelves of Tamil literature—manuscripts that chronicled the history of the Tamil people.

The library was open only until three o’clock, but Rajan, in his neatly pressed shirt, would disappear quietly behind the piles of books. They formed tall, haphazard towers, like anthills all over the rooms. He would emerge hours later and disappear outside just as quietly. The curator, Mr Kanagasabai, noticed and followed him one day. The old man found him organising the books.

‘You’re not supposed to be here son—there are rules about opening hours and there is a committee … the committee won’t like it,’ he said without much conviction. Rajan looked up at him, surprised to be interrupted. He was reading Gray’s Anatomy again. He had memorised all of the body’s systems; he was mapping the trajectory of different diseases so that he would be prepared the next time sickness came to his home. It took several moments for him to find his voice.

‘Iyah,’ he addressed the curator respectfully. ‘I was just reading,’ he offered as a full response.

‘I know, son. I can see that,’ the old man replied. ‘I love to read too; although my eyes are not as good as they used to be. My Amma told me I went through her candles too quickly.’

‘Me too,’ Rajan relaxed a little. ‘Will I get in trouble if I stay here?’

‘No,’ Mr Kanagasabai replied. ‘But I will.’

The old man looked at the order Rajan had created and sighed, finally saying, ‘Come back tomorrow. Bring a notepad and pen, and some cloths. We need to clean the manuscripts before we file them.’

Rajan closed his book and blew out the candle. Tomorrow he would go with Amma to Jaffna town again.

Tellippalai village, Jaffna province, 1936

Nala balanced precariously on her cousin-brother’s back, peering into her mother’s window. Mohan had positioned himself on all fours, among the tickling fingers of their grandmother’s fern shrubs. He was only two years older than Nala, but at ten he was already much bigger and stronger than her. Mohan liked to lift sacks of coconuts to grow his muscles. He told her that was what MG Ramachandran did before he became an actor. Nala’s parents had gone to see MGR’s first film with Mohan’s parents. Nala asked if they could go too, but her mother had said, ‘Chee chee, it’s not for children.’

Nala wasn’t sure why or what was for children. As usual she wouldn’t listen to Mohan when he told her that spying on her sick mother probably wasn’t for children either. She climbed down from his back and sat next to him under the window.

‘It’s her presha,’ she composed her face into her best medical expression.

‘Her presha?’ Mohan questioned.

‘Yes, her presha.’ She rolled her eyes as though everyone was supposed to know what ‘presha’ was.

‘It’s like demensha,’ she continued.

Whenever their grandmother Archi cursed Nala’s father, he said ‘demensha’ and rolled his eyes the way Nala did. Her mother would shush him, but the children could see she was trying not to laugh. According to Nala’s mother, Archi was too young to have dementia; she was forty-eight years old. But Nala’s father liked to remind her that it ran in the family and cursing could be the first sign. Amma would shush Appa again.

‘Her presha was too high and the baby came too early,’ Nala continued her medical report. She heard the doctor say that high presha ran in their family: like demensha.

She opened her notebook and started writing. Her father had given it to her for her birthday, because she was good at drawing. She liked to carry it around with her everywhere. Pressing hard with her pencil, she wrote: 18th April 1936, Amma has hi presha. It was a few days after Tamil New Year, but no one had celebrated this year. Amma couldn’t go to the temple or anywhere for thirty-one days after the baby.

‘Where’s the baby?’ Mohan asked quietly.

‘Dead,’ she replied. She wanted to cry. Amma had been in her room all week and Nala knew she wasn’t eating or sleeping; only crying. Amma had been certain the baby inside her this time was a boy.

Nala’s younger sister Kamini was born three years ago. Amma had cried then too. The little girl was beautiful and healthy, but Amma didn’t care. She remembered hearing Archi try to comfort Amma. ‘It will happen, mahal, soon, it will happen.’

But it didn’t happen soon. It took a long time for Amma to have babies. Some of Nala’s aunties had babies every year. That was why she had so many cousins, but Mohan was her favourite. She was convinced that Amma’s babies took longer because they came out fairer, like her.

Amma’s next visitor was the family astrologer. Amma wouldn’t listen to Appa or Archi or the doctor. In desperation, Archi had called Mr Viswanathan. He used to be the family tailor, but his hobby had turned out to be surprisingly accurate. He had given up tailoring and taken up full-time astrology. It was Mr Viswanathan who had read and matched Amma and Appa’s charts, when Appa’s family first proposed to Amma’s family. Both families trusted Mr Viswanathan; they knew it would be a good match.

Standing on her cousin-brother’s back again, Nala watched the astrologer. He sat on a chair next to Amma’s bed and opened up his books. Amma stirred but still didn’t move.

‘Thangachi, little sister,’ said the old man, ‘your Sanni period has ended now.’ He leaned forward to show her a chart with twelve boxes on it. He pointed to the different boxes.

‘Saturn is moving out of the fifth house, the house for family and children.’ He tapped the fifth box. ‘Jupiter is moving into this house next month. You will be blessed with sons soon. These things, they are written in the planets, thangachi, and when the planets move, our destiny moves too. Your sons will come.’ The old man patted Amma’s hand and left the room.

Nala grabbed Mohan and raced around the house to watch the astrologer leave. They ducked beneath the large verandah and crawled, until they were almost under the old man and her father.

‘Stay back, Nala, they’ll see you,’ Mohan whispered. She laughed; he was constantly afraid of getting in trouble. ‘Your father will get angry!’ Nala wasn’t afraid of her father; she was his favourite.

‘All the very best for your move, thambi,’ said the astrologer. ‘God bless you, and be safe in Colombo; things are changing in the south.’

Colombo? What was the old man talking about? She had never been to the capital city. Appa tried to pay him but the old man shook his head and put his hands together to say goodbye. Appa did the same. She laughed again; the men looked like they were praying to each other.

‘Shh, Nala!’ Mohan whispered. ‘What’s wrong with you? I’m going to get a caning, and you will too if you’re not careful. This is no laughing matter.’ Mohan sounded just like his father, making her laugh once more, this time louder.

As the astrologer walked down the verandah steps, Archi came running out and gave him a tiffin carrier. Nala could smell the fried okra through the steel. She wondered what other curries the compartments contained.

‘Careful, it’s hot. Thank you again, Iyah,’ Archi said as she handed the old man the food.

Appa stood on the steps and watched the astrologer walk slowly away. Without looking down at the children, he said, ‘Nalayini, why don’t you go and sit with Amma? She’s feeling a little better; she could do with your company. You too, Mohan, your back must be hurting.’ He smiled as he walked back into the house.

Colombo, 1937

Nala inspected her brothers. The babies stared back, blankly. They looked like two dumplings with their puckered, shiny faces and lazy folds of paper-white skin. She wanted to touch the hair that feathered their bodies. It looked soft.

Amma said, ‘No touching, not yet, they’re too small.’ She meant special. Whenever Amma wasn’t looking, she inched her face closer to theirs. She wanted to smell them. She had seen her mother pick the babies up and place her nose in the space between their jaw and neck. Amma would close her eyes, breathe deeply and sigh. Nala wanted to try.

Amma saw her. ‘Move back, Nala,’ she placed a hand on her shoulder and gently but firmly pushed her away. ‘They need air.’

She wasn’t stealing the babies’ air. Perhaps she was breathing too much around them. She tried to take short, shallow breaths.

‘Nala, what are you doing? If you’re going to behave like a monkey then could you please go outside.’ Usually Amma didn’t let her play outside in the afternoon sun. It made her skin darker, and Nala had beautiful fair skin. Not as fair as the babies, but still fairer than her younger sister’s.

She left the room and found the new servant girl. Nala had already forgotten her name but the young woman was happy being called Ayah. She sat on the kitchen floor, deftly peeling the violet skin from small bulbs of onion. She couldn’t cross her legs properly underneath her, they were bowed like the arches of the Pillayar temple.

‘My bones are bent but my teeth are straight,’ she had explained when she first moved in.

From time to time she adjusted her body and sat on her haunches, throwing the cleaned onions into the small hammock her lungi skirt made between her knees. She changed her position back and forth, but she never dropped an onion or lost the rhythm of her work.

‘Sit, Nala bubba,’ she said in Sinhalese, motioning to the low stool next to her.

‘I’m not a baby. I’m nine years old,’ Nala replied, perching herself on the wooden seat. It was smooth and heavy. On one end was a small, serrated blade, shaped like a peacock’s tail. Every morning Ayah straddled the seat and held the half-moon of a young coconut on the blade. She would briskly scrape out the milky flesh for the chilli sambal they ate with breakfast. Ayah had wrapped an old sarong around the blade.

‘Don’t touch,’ she warned Nala.

‘I know, I’m not allowed to touch anything,’ the little girl complained.

‘Have they named the babies yet?’ Ayah asked, switching to English as she shelled the last onion.

‘Nakula and Sahadeva,’ Nala replied. ‘They’re named after the twin brothers in the Mahabharata—the youngest Pandavas. Do you know the story?’

Ayah shook her head and Nala summarised for her: ‘Five Pandava brothers fought against their one hundred Kaurava cousins, and won. It was an ancient battle but I’m not sure it really happened. I think Archi might be exaggerating.’

Ayah laughed, revealing her full set of straight but discoloured teeth. She pulled a piece of betel leaf from her sari blouse. ‘We have stories like that too, in the Mahavamsa. Men fight and people die.’ She chewed hard on the leaf, the red pulp muffling her voice. ‘We’re supposed to learn something from the stories but I can never remember what.’ She stood up, carrying the onions to the table protectively in her lungi.

‘Me neither,’ Nala said. The twin brothers in the Mahabharata were boring. That was all she could remember about Nakula and Sahadeva.

Tellippalai village, Jaffna province, 1939

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