The Wall
THE WALL
SOWMYA AJI
HarperCollins Publishers India
To the schoolgirls kidnapped by
Boko Haram, in solidarity
To Kanhaiya Kumar, for a moment of azaadi
To my grandmothers, Ranganayaki and Ranganayaki,
for teaching me to spin the tale
CONTENTS
Prologue
1. The Banyan Tree
2. Ramani’s Story
3. Putti’s Story
4. Putti and Gowra
5. Annaiah Returns
6. Chikthayi’s Story Continues
7. Gangi’s Story
8. Gangi’s Story Continues
9. Gangi and the Wall
10. Mayisa’s Story
11. Annaiah and the Wooden Ramani
12. Thimmakka’s Story
13. Thimmakka’s Marriage
14. The Birth of Parvati
15. The Attack on Bangari
16. Ramani’s Story Continues
17. Yellamma’s Story
18. Kamadeva’s People
19. Rajegowda Dies
20. Kamadeva’s Story
21. Preparation for the Habba
22. Annaiah’s Penance
23. Sundru’s Story
24. The Revenge Begins
25. Ooramma Speaks
Epilogue
Note on The Wall
Acknowledgements
About the Book
About the Author
Copyright
Idu premakke saakshiyendu hagalu rathrigala kondu
minchu mudige kayyanittu
ond esalu neela kappu koodalu jopana kaddu tanda
koodalolagondu nadi ittu
nadiya nageyante suli ittu.
(As proof of his love, he killed night and day
put a hand to lightning’s hair
and carefully stole one long dark strand.
There was a river in the hair
and the river’s laugh was a whirlpool.)
—K.Y. Narayanaswamy, ‘Preeti’, from the anthology
Aaduva Giniyonda Kelisamma
Courtesy Sumana Mandayam and Chitra Dasarathi
PROLOGUE
he wall has been there for as long as anyone can remember. Like the fire, the wind, the rain, the earth and the sky. About twenty feet high, five feet thick. Looming over everything, brooding. A wall that keeps everything out. Or in.
The top layer of the wall is jagged stone, sharpened to slice anything that crosses it. Four, maybe five, kilometres long, it stretches along the entire village and its fields. Where the wall appears to taper off on either end, there are tightly interwoven thorny shrubs, seamlessly blending with the surrounding hills.
The tales of the wall go further back than the farthest ancestor anyone knows of. As if you can climb the wall, say the villagers. That’s common sense. Oh, and he thinks he climbed the wall – sarcasm. He has gone over the wall – a euphemism for death. Moral stories end with: don’t try to climb the wall.
Time has wrought a few cracks in the wall, tempting hot-blooded youths to try and climb it. Almost everyone who climbs the wall falls and dies. The few that survive become impotent and their entire bloodline gets wiped out. They talk dreamily of what lies behind the wall: a sea of colourful flowers mixed with dark shrubs, as far as the eye can see. The brilliance of those colours and the smell of the flowers make them delirious for life.