But so what? After all, this wretchedness goes by the name of art these days, and so all is immediately forgiven. Besides, we all have learned to pretend to believe in the things we read at least while we are reading them, so that we may derive pleasure from them and dismiss everything else as lies. So no real harm done here.

Dhamu was from a family of five brothers, originally from Kuzhithurai. The children had been orphaned when their mother ran off with the healer who had been treating her stomachaches. Not only had their mother left her family, but she had gone off with a man from a lower caste, which was even more disgraceful. Soon after, the oldest, Chellappan, stopped a lorry on its way from an estate and hoisted his four brothers onto the back, and all of them had ended up in Nagercoil. I only knew three of the brothers. Chellappan only cared about the store; nothing else interested him. Dhamu was a patriot from the August Movement. He had been clubbed by the police at the clock-tower junction for refusing to take off his turban. That was when everyone came to know who he was. In those days, people considered it a veritable service to the nation to buy fruits from Dhamu’s shop. Students would pass a hundred stores to get to his.

But there was another reason for my personal fascination with these brothers: Chellappan and Dhamu shared a wife. To me, this was an exotic and titillating arrangement. Others praised it as a smart way for the brothers to keep their income in one piece. I was curious to know if the arrangement caused any friction in their family and work life, but I found out that was not the case. Chellappan worked during the day; Dhamu took the night shift—this was how they divided their life. Dhamu’s shop had no shutters. On the day Gandhiji was assassinated, they hung a black shawl to cover the entrance; this was the first time that shop had ever been closed since it started. The only time Chellappan and Dhamu were seen together was when they all went to Pazhani for a head-tonsuring ceremony for one of the kids.

Sukumaran was my source of information about Dhamu’s and Chellappan’s lives; he was the youngest of Dhamu’s brothers and my classmate in school. Since I was obsessed with their family lives and wanted to learn more, I was close with Sukumaran. I still vividly remember going to their house one day on the pretext of borrowing a copy of Savarkar’s Volcano. Sukumaran’s sister-in-law—Dhamu and Chellappan’s wife—was incredibly voluptuous. She had an insane figure. Very healthy and thriving. Sukumaran said to me, “Both my brothers vie with each other to feed her by hand. She knows how to enjoy her food.” Apparently, both brothers were absolutely adamant that nobody else should watch her eating. Sukumaran also told me that his sister-in-law had become addicted to alcohol, a habit she’d picked up while recuperating after giving birth: “When Dhamu asked her if she knew Gandhiji had asked people not to consume alcohol, she said, ‘That’s only for men.’” Some of her children looked like Chellappan, and some looked like Dhamu. There were also children who looked like her, and so their father was a mystery. In school, I felt sorry for them. Imagine not knowing for sure who your father was! But now, with the wisdom of years, I know that the idea of chastity is not as entrenched as we imagine. A mother is the only irrefutable foundation of human birth. What else is a father but the sign of our trust in our mother’s testimony?