Grief is a coiled snake.
“An individual who is killed by a gang is called a martyr” The Annihilation of Caste.
It was 4 of May 1965.
Perumal had no idea that he would not live to see the end of the day when he woke up.
As a matter of fact, his life delivered no surprises. Only pain! Pain so endless and consistent, its presence was never felt. Perumal belonged to the Irular community, one of the lowest castes that one could find. The village he lived in was one of those countless villages where time stood still; majority of the village was of lower castes, and the village was ruled by one landlord, loaded with money and privileged to have hit the lottery of birth by being born in one of the upper castes. Perumal and the rest of the villagers toiled hard, did what was told, received what was offered, lived without raising their voice (or head), married, begot children, brought them into the same misery, grew up, and died.
None of them knew what work they would do on a given day. They would all - menfolk, womenfolk, children, everyone – assemble at the fields at 7 in the morning and the landlord, or his manager, would assign the job to them. It could be tilling the fields, harvesting the crops, cutting firewood, removing weeds, cutting vegetables, lighting a fire, tending a stove, plucking the fruits, digging a canal, drawing water from a well, take the sheep for grazing, milking the cows, collecting eggs from the pen, butchering a goat or a chicken, mending the broken cart, leveling the path, trimming the hedge, painting a wall (never the interior – one could not enter the Big House), tiling the roof, sharpening the sickle, honing the knives, washing the clothes, pounding the millets and make sure one did not lose a limb or a finger or leg in the process. The work continued irrespective of whether it rained, or the sun shone, hot or cold, whether one was sick or well. The day ended when the work ended. One ate when the manager was not looking.
The evenings and the nights were as predictable as the day. Drag yourself home (if those ramshackle shacks can be called home), stretch your legs, not for too long as the enervation would put you to sleep, attend to the cuts and bruises, cook, eat under the moonlight or by the feeble light of a flickering lamp, sleep, once in a while engage in an act of procreation, wake up, go to the fields to defecate, jump into the river to bathe, return to the fields at 7.
Rinse. Repeat.
The act of procreation engaged sporadically defied any sense or logic. Why would one bring another child to such a life? But then, what could one do? It was more an act of diversion than purpose. Those ten minutes made one forget all the pain and anguish. In those ten minutes, one could afford to forget the endless toil, the snake bites, the scorpion stings, senseless beating and continued insult. A child of seven years of age could treat them like a piece of rag, and often did. They grow up watching their parents and children are quick learners.
On the day in question, Perumal was directed to the fields. His job that day was to mend the fence. The purpose of the fence was to keep away small animals and workers from the neighboring farms. Poles, concertina wires, barbed wires drawn in a crisscross pattern between the wooden stakes comprised the fence. The tools were minimal. His clothing resembled that of the Father of the Nation. He resigned himself to more cuts during the day. His only hope was not to injure himself too badly because he would then return home late. The day ended when the work ended.
His wife Valli and his 7-year-old son were sent to the main house to sort and pack the cabbages that grew in the farm. This was a task that they hated. Hated more than the other jobs. One had to peel off the outer layer, in most cases, dry them with a towel, drop them into a sack, weigh them as close to 30-kg as possible, stitch the gunny bags, heave them to a side, start with the next one. The peeled outer layers were later shifted to the shed to feed to the cattle. God forbid should the supervisor (the 18-year-old son of the landlord) find few scraps of the cabbage peels in your possession. Most cabbages were never perfectly round, and they often slipped and fell on your toes, or your fingers got caught below a dropped one inside the bag. The big, pointed needle occasionally pricked your fingers or palm while trying to stitch the bag’s mouth. The mountain of cabbages looked daunting. The son of the landlord seated himself in the comfort of a shade, in a semi-reclining chair, reading something and listening to some music. Valli and her son could not see the device itself, but they saw the snaking wires of the headphones that crept across his torso and the big head hugging headphone itself.
Perumal looked at the short stretch that he had managed to erect with a mixture of pride and apprehension. The former came from his skill on display that he had not known he was in possession of, the latter came from not knowing if it would meet the approval of the landlord. His forearm was already a spiderweb of minor scratches from the unruly razor-sharp wire that he needed to straighten and wrap around the top of the barbed wire. One sudden uncoiling left a deep cut on his shoulder. He removed his vest and skillfully tied it around the cut. The cut throbbed a little and then did not disturb him anymore. Even injuries know the extent to which they can trouble their owners. The sun was merciless. There was not a cloud in sight. Blinded by the heat, his focus was on the fence, and he did not realize he had stepped on a small anthill. Those tiny red-headed monsters clambered up his leg. Some city dwellers would immediately sense a few crawling insects, however small, over their skin. Perumal’s skin was calloused and dry. Perumal came to know about the ants only when about thirty of them bit into his skin almost simultaneously. The pain was excruciating and Perumal dropped the plier he held in his hand, which comically fell on his other leg, point down, tearing a part of his skin, and he jumped back, in a contorted way, body bent with hands trying to brush off whatever it was that was crawling up his legs and backwards, more by instinct and also by the fact the front direction was barricaded by the fence he was in the process of erecting. He landed with the ant-bitten leg on the coil of concertina wire and the cut on his shoulder paled into insignificance when the edges sliced through his instep. He fell backwards, hit his head on a stone looking straight into the white-hot sky. He tore the towel that was wrapped around his waist, shredded them into narrow strips, wound them tightly over both his legs wherever he saw ruptured and sliced skin. The coil of wire reminded him what his father had told him when he was young.
“Perumaalu, grief is a coiled snake. Let it lie in a corner and do not ever wake it up. That is its purpose. To stay where it is. If you try to unwrap it, stir it, go near it, it will dart forward and bury its fangs, causing you more agony. And all you get by disturbing the coiled snake is only more discomfort. Once it had poisoned you with painful memories, it will go back to its coiled form. It will never go away.”
The remaining job to be completed did not give him the luxury to rest and recuperate and he resumed his fencing. The fence is important. Otherwise, animals and his fellowmen will transgress to claim what is not meant to be theirs.
Next time Valli looked up, she was surprised to find four other boys along with the landlord’s son. She did not see when they arrived. Each of them was exactly alike. Wiry, long unkempt hair, shorts, shoes, sunglasses, and the beginning of a mustache.
After packing nearly 70 bags, Valli realized that there were no bags left. The mountain of cabbages indicated that there are enough left for another fifty bags at least.
“Saami, the bags are over. I will need more bags, please”
The boy looked up from what he was reading and jerked his head towards the shed at the other end of yard. Valli slowly hauled herself from her seated position and walked towards the shed. The moment she entered the shed, one of the boys gave some money to Valli’s son and asked him to go buy himself something from the shop at the corner of the street.
The landlord’s son was the first inside the shed. Valli’s son came back to the yard, having eaten a sticky sweet, when the third boy left the shed and the fourth entered it. He knew not to speak to the upper caste people unless spoken to. Even though he was worried that he could not find his mother, he knew that the only option left to him was wait. After some time, the fifth boy entered the shed while the fourth boy had not exited. After a quick discussion among themselves the remaining three boys jumped up, laughed excitedly and now all five were inside the shed.
When Valli limped her way back to the yard, her saree had stains, her lip was swollen, she had some bruises on her neck, and she had a blackeye. The son noticed it all but knew better than to ask. Valli resumed picking the cabbage, peeling the layer, dropping them to the new bag. Her son’s job was to hold on to the bag while she dropped the cabbages one by one. Her son would have told you later the only difference between her countenance before and after the adventure of the sticky sweet was that she was silently and continuously crying later.
Valli trusted the landlord. In all her life, not once had he mistreated her or her family. He was demanding, exploitative and ruthless but was never below the decorum expected of him. When the landlord arrived in the evening to the courtyard, she stood five feet away from him and explained to him what had happened. The landlord was furious. His son’s friends had already left. He slapped his son so hard, that he fell three feet away from where he was standing. He kicked him wherever his leg could land on him and ordered one of his henchmen to lock him away.
“Does your son know what happened?”
“No. He was sent away. Even though he returned before the ordeal was over, he is too young to understand what happened”
“That is good. Young ones should not be exposed to such tragedies in life”
He called one of his henchmen “Kumaresa, go drop the boy in his home.”
He told Valli “Please wait here in the yard. I will have Perumal brought here. This issue must be resolved. What happened is unacceptable”
He was still fuming, when Valli went back to the yard and rested her back against one of the bags that she had packed during the day.
Valli’s son went home and waited. He knew something unacceptable happened in that shed. He also knew that the landlord was kind as he promised to resolve whatever it was that happened.
The landlord in fact resolved it. That very night.
An unsuspecting Valli who was resting in the yard had her head bludgeoned with a hammer. Two of his men went to the field and told Perumal to come with them as the landlord wanted to meet him. One led the way, and one walked behind. There was a flash of movement in front his eye, a piece of rope was flung over his head from behind and pulled back tight, holding Perumal’s hands close to his body; the man in the front turned and shoved a big knife straight into his heart.
Both Valli and Perumal were lucky. Their deaths were instant.
Their bodies were never found.
The community embraces the unattended quickly without long drawn discussions. This community knew when someone did not return in the night, it meant only one thing. That the someone is never going to return. There are multiple possibilities but only one certain end. They have seen this played out so many times. No one died of old age. The lucky ones died of snakebites in the field. The unlucky ones failed to return.
When Perumal and Valli did not return, partly foretold by the early return of their son, ahead of time, alone, they knew what to expect. Somebody fed him, someone else took him under their wing, and soon Valli’s son started going out in the morning at 7 along with the rest to stand and wait for his allocation of the job for the day.
Two things were constant in his life. Each morning, he prayed that he would not be allocated a job in the yard, near that shed. Each evening, he sat outside his home (which is now the home of Murugan and Selvi) and faced the cat. He had many questions that he needed to ask. He was not sure of all the questions. Sometimes he did ask some of those questions. The cat had all the answers. And it never replied.
Picture - Created by ChatGPT with a prompt (based on a photograph I had recently taken while on holiday)
PS: As the narrator of the story, there are certain liberties I am allowed to take as the author. I took one at the start of the story. It started with a lie. The date was not 4 May 1965. It was yesterday.
