The Gypsy Goddess

by Meena Kandasamy

  You stay silent for some time. You console her with stories of worse atrocities you have read about. She tells you that she does not know what is in those books you speak of. She has never gone to school. She tells you that caste is about having one set of people to read books, one set of people to be crooks, one set of people to misbehave, one set of people to slave. Impressed with you, she tells you that the young people of today have not seen anything. Yes, they saw things like beatings, killings, police shootings, meetings but they did not see what these eyes have seen. Women were always stripped bare before they were beaten. Yes, yes, I am telling you the truth. These eyes have seen that, these eyes just as they see you today. The landlords, those great souls, would not bear the sight of seeing clothes tear. Poor women, they shrivelled in shame. The ones who died from the beatings were silently buried. The ones who survived swallowed their shame and some poison. What could we do? What could be done? We beat our breasts, we wept. And so it went. Since food was followed by drink, saanippaal would be waiting for the beaten woman or man – cow-dung mixed in water – a concoction that would drain them to death. When the Communists came with their red flag of resistance, hoarsely shouting and leading strikes, this revolting practice was put to an end. She traces the history of feudal torture: being forced to drink diluted cow-dung was soon replaced by being forced to drink a cocktail of fertilizer, so disobedience brought no disgrace, but death.

  Seeing Maayi garnering all the attention, the women of Kilvenmani gather around you. You ask their names, you remember their stories, and you, being the people’s person that you are, easily forge a conversation. You unravel them masterfully, telling them of a friend who lost a daughter, a sister who suffered sexual violence, and they talk to you in turn, filling you in with bits and pieces of other storylines. You learn of Veerappan’s little daughter, who had unaccountably stopped speaking and, because the words had left her, nobody knew what had made her stop. She died in the fire, and the memory of one night of rape and terror that she carried in her died that night. And because you probe, you also learn, dear reader, that Kunjammal lost her infant when an insect fell into the cradle – the child had wriggled, cried in pain and, scratching herself, had fallen face-down into the mud and suffocated. When Kunjammal went to feed the child, she came to an empty cradle, and the women stopped work and began singing dirges. They tell you stories and stories in this manner, of women who do not appear here, of children whose names are not printed on these pages. Constrained by this text and its subtext, you lose those threads.

  Move ahead and march forward, dear reader. You are wanted in so many places. You haven’t even met the men yet. I understand your compulsions. You want to follow a certain structure, stick to the semblance of some discipline.

  Have you entered a paddy field at transplantation time? One foot in the silt, you think the other foot will help you break free, so you shift your weight, and that leg sinks too. You cannot come away unless you are knee-deep in trouble. That is how it is with the women who have started sharing their stories: one thing leads to another, and it goes on in endless circles, one foot down, the other follows, and then it is just wading through the mud, and it is difficult to walk away. You are evidently in a hurry, and as you make no efforts to hide the fact, the women volunteer to walk you to where you want to go. They show you the martyrs’ memorial where Pandari Ramayya’s hut once stood, they point to the forty-four names, they take you to the tree where their village made its fatal decision to stick to the red flag. You can spot the coconut trees riddled with gunshot wounds; you can recreate the night from your readings.

  The women make it easier for you. They tell you that the rice fields were not the dwarves that you now see in front of your eyes. In the sixties, the fever of Green Revolution was only catching up, so the old rice varieties were still around and these grew as tall as ten-year-old children – spraying them with pesticide was very difficult because of their height – and men and women and children who took shelter in these fields on that night were spared because they could not be spotted. The fields are golden and ripe for harvest, the women entreat you to taste the rice. They pull the ears of paddy, peel the husk, and the grains of rice they give you are milky in the mouth. You thank them profusely, you thank them politely, and you keep at it until they ask you, ‘What next? What else?’ and you tell them, diplomatically of course, that you want to meet Nandan, little Nandan from Part Three, Chapter Nine, the angry young Nandan of page 210. Word is sent, and tiny messengers tear across the village, but he is nowhere to be seen. You then ask about the other eyewitness you have encountered in the last 52,000 words, and a kid who went looking for Nandan remembers seeing Ramalingam at Muthusamy’s tea stall, so you go there.

  Over a glass of tea, you let the men know where you are from and what you do for a living and why you are here and when you plan to leave. You tell them of your fascination with the history of their village, you tell them where your sympathies lie, you make it clear that you have been heartbroken ever since you learnt of the Madras High Court judgment that absolved all the landlords. You share the people’s anger, you make it known, in no uncertain terms, that the absence of evidence does not constitute evidence of absence. Even if you may not stand with the red flag, you tell them that you stand with the oppressed people, that you salute their struggle. You tell them that women and children didn’t deserve to die. In turn, Ramalingam tells you that killing of children is a caste-Hindu specialty. He talks of the time when the people of the cheri built a hut where they met at night and learnt to read and write; of the witch hunt that followed, of a one-year-old child who was trampled to death by the landlords and the police because they could not find her father who was the Communist Party’s first point of contact in that cheri. Even running away did not help, he says, because when the man came back from Burma or Singapore or wherever, he was dragged to the landlord’s place and beaten to death. When Ramalingam’s uncle returned in disguise he was identified. They pounded him to a pulp, poured kerosene over him and set him on fire. The police obliged the landlord by covering up the case and attributing his death to a fire that destroyed all the haystacks in that farm.

  Ramalingam speaks non-stop, his sentences sprout without an end in sight – you see, ingadhaan, you know, ayyayyo, what can I say, adhu mattuma, of course, enna nadanthadhu, you will agree with me, indha aniyayathukku oru alavae illa – so you hear about how the mother-fucker mirasdars played the people of the cheri one against the other, Pallars versus the Paraiyars, even as you hear about the cinematic rivalry between MGR and Sivaji Ganesan. You hear about barbers desisting from offering their services to the people of the cheri; you are shown how the men fashioned shaving devices by inserting blades into flattened metal cylinders that held incense sticks; you learn that the only recourse to medicine was the Anjal Aluppu Marundhu, a cheap, herbal powder for pain and fever and chills and cold. You learn that his life’s ambition was to be in the army, that, in his time, studying up to the fifth standard enabled men to join the military, but that became impossible because he had dropped out of school for two whole years when his teacher started calling him ‘Danger’ for daring to wear red to class one day. You are told that it was forbidden for the people of the cheri to catch the eye of any caste-Hindu: they were made to hold their gaze to the ground. You see a demonstration of how prostration had perfected itself over the years, how men and women and children of the cheri were made to fall at the mirasdar’s feet, until the practice ingrained itself and people fell without hesitation, like palm trees severed at their roots. He goes on and on.

  You listen carefully, you ask the appropriate questions. As an extravagant witness who has observed marital discord and military disasters with an air of appreciable nonchalance, you lend an atmosphere of everyday, even as you try to prise information from one of my old informants. You talk about a triple murder elsewhere in Tamil Nadu where unknown assailants killed a landlord and his two sons and left their three heads on the doorsteps o
f his bungalow. Your questions follow: ‘Is there Naxalite activity here, have they talked of eliminating their class enemies? Annihilation? Assassination? Do they spread their propaganda through their secret meetings? Did they compile a charter of rapes and murders and lawlessness to show why a landlord is an enemy of the poor and landless peasants? Have they held a people’s assembly in your village?’ How can you falter in this fashion, dear reader? Are you not aware that the more you ask, the less they will speak, and that sometimes you have to shut up in order to prevent rousing people’s suspicions? You might speak their language, stay in their homes, sleep on their mats, but people keep their secrets wrapped up. We might share this page, but beyond the careless chatter, I don’t know what your political affiliations are. Who knows who you work for, to whom you owe allegiance? Maybe you work for the Q Branch, the state intelligence. Maybe you work for Naxalites, harping on about a new democratic revolution, a dictatorship of the proletariat and driving out the class enemies from the countryside by means of liquidating landlords and sustaining the guerrilla struggle, and all this questioning is simply a charade to hide your identity. In any case, the people will not help you in combing out the truth.

  Now an uncomfortable silence prevails, everyone dismisses your suggestion of people taking the law into their own hands; they pooh-pooh your suspicions of Naxalite activity.

  I am confident that you are capable of salvaging any situation, dear reader. You break the impasse by bringing up talk of the Gypsy Goddess. They attest to the legend, they repeat the story of seven mothers who were burnt to death, along with their many children; they tactfully point out that the temple exists in Pudukkottai, which is a part of Tanjore, but much farther away. They reassure you that their village has its own guardian deity. They take you there.

  At the Kali temple, there is a feast of sakkarai pongal cooking. You ask the people for the occasion, for any reason for this celebration, and they laugh an open, whole-mouthed, belly laugh, and tell you that this day is special because you have come to their village. The more you infantilize them, the more they treat you like a child. Some conversations are closed on cue, and knowing that there is no point in probing further, you make it known to the people that you want to go to Irinjiyur, Gopalakrishna Naidu’s village.

  Feigning interest in the cause of dear old balance and self-screwed neutrality, and the latest fad of ethical journalism, you reveal that it is solely in your professional interest to secure his interview. ‘My visit would be pointless otherwise,’ you say, and everybody understands that the amateurs always have it hard. Dear reader, they also understand – given the timing of your visit and the circumstances under which it has been facilitated – that this is one of those ‘anniversary special’ stories that you are working on, that, twelve years on, Kilvenmani is a season-ticket for journalists who want to make a pilgrimage into people’s memory, that writing an annual one-page article salves not only your conscience, but also everyone else’s. You are allowed the privilege of being seen as progressive, the system is allowed the pitfall of being problematic, and the people – potent enough to pay back – are promised paradise for staying pathetic. (Forgive the former alliterative sentence.) Back to you, dear reader, dear reader. Back in the village of Kilvenmani, back on the fourteenth day of December 1980, back on that lazy Sunday, when you express your intent to meet Gopalakrishna Naidu with the most honourable of motives. The villagers smirk and laugh, they elbow one another and tell you that, yes, yes, you should go, that today is the perfect day to see the head of the PPA.

  You are taken to his Irinjiyur residence, where you are informed that today being the day of harvest, he is now at Anakkudi. You see his Alsatian on the last leg of its life, and for whose sudden ill-health suspicion has now fallen upon the cook – you do not catch his name, but he is the one who appears earlier in this novel – and he, fearing dismissal any moment, is too eager to please, so you press upon him the need to meet his master, you brandish your credentials, and, learning how well-connected you are – and knowing nothing about six degrees of separation – the cook sends word.

  You impatiently wait in that house of many, many rooms when word reaches you that Gopalakrishna Naidu has been killed. At first, you do not believe the news of his death. You go to Kilvenmani to personally ascertain the facts of the assassination. You hear rumours of beheading. You hear rumours of forty-four parcels, each wrapped in palm fronds, sent to the people. But you shouldn’t believe all that you hear and you shouldn’t tell all that you believe.

  You watch the women sing of the landlord’s perverse lust, his bloodthirst and this red harvest. You hear the men say, with a sigh, ‘Mudivu kandachu,’ which can be variously translated as ‘It has been completed’ or ‘We have seen the end.’ You join the people of Kilvenmani – on the village streets, in their paddy fields, in their toddy shops – as they rejoice in the revenge. You know, more than anyone else, of how they have waited every day for this day.

  Mudivu kandachu. It has been completed. We have seen the end.

  Acknowledgements

  A long list of thank-yous to:

  Amma, for putting up with a moody rascal who happens to be her daughter. So far, she has only received heartache in exchange for her love for me. Appa, for listening to my never-ending outrage, for talking to me about the hunger and poverty of his childhood with a pain in his eyes that my words cannot capture, for taking me back to a reality that he had struggled hard to escape, for travelling with me on every trip to Tanjore, for sleeping with my manuscript by his pillow, for his secret pride. Thenral, for hugs and massive financial helping-out and sisterly motivation that involves constantly teasing me for having these dream projects, and for promising to read this novel only when it is finally, properly, decently published. Cédric Gérôme, for being the love in my life.

  The many places, apart from home, where this book was written. The International Writing Program in 2009 at the University of Iowa that afforded me the time and space to do my mandatory reading. The Charles Wallace Trust (CWIT) Fellowship in 2011 at the Department of English, University of Kent, where the first draft of this book was written. Alex Padamsee, for being kind enough to make time to allay my first-time novelist fears over cups of coffee. Richard Alford who runs the CWIT for selecting me for the grant, and to the British Council in Chennai for their help with this residency. Uma Alladi and Dr Sridhar for offering me a fortnight-long residency at the University of Hyderabad when I needed it the most.

  David Godwin, for almost being my third parent, for helping me pick up the pieces of my life, for pulling me back into writing when I thought all was lost. On some sad nights, I kept at writing not only for myself, but because I didn’t want to fail you.

  James Roxburgh, patron saint of Tamil mistranslations and the 24-hour clock, for the brilliant edits, for putting up with my endless procrastination, and above all, for what seems to resemble an unending conversation. You possibly know Kilvenmani better than me by now. Belinda Jones, my copyeditor for not just spotting errors, but also politely pointing out when a village woman started appearing under another name towards the end of the book. Helen Crawford-White for coming up with a cover so retro, so flamboyant-camp-and-Tamil-and-1960s-all-at-once.

  Ravi Mirchandani, for deciding to run with this book, for not complaining about the many Camel cigarettes that I shamelessly snitched from him, for being so cool. VK Karthika, for publishing me in India, and, above all, for taking a liking to this reckless, badass writing.

  My friends in the United Kingdom for opening their homes to me, for countless meals and the welcoming space to sleep: Farah Aziz, Murali Shanmugavelan and Claire Sibthorpe, Sarah Sachs-Elridge and Senan, Sabitha Satchi and Seena Praveen.

  Ajit Baral, Akshay Pathak, Amanda, Anne Gorrissen, Azad Essa, Ayesha, Isai Priya, Jaisingh Amos, K. Maariappa, Keerthikkan, Lekshmy Rajeev, Millicent Graham, Nikhila Henry, Pilar Quintana, Raphael Urweider, Ronelda Kamfer, Shazia Siraj, Sumana Roy – for support and advice and love, I c
annot thank you enough. To Jaison, Jolly Chechi, Uma, Thushar, Jenny, Prasanth, Ami and Thachukutti, Auswaf, Anver, Haseena, Hoda, Iza, Fatima, Diya, Noushad, Vinod, Sudhir, Asha, Tara among many, many, others, for making my visits to Kerala a home-coming.

  Javed Iqbal for consoling me from far away, over GTalk, on a crazy winter night in 2009, saying that there is no story that cannot be told, and for adding, that the difficulty in telling a tale is a story by itself. S. Anand, for wildly suggesting several years ago that I should attempt to write a non-fiction history of Tamil Nadu’s worst massacre of Dalits to date. I was too shy to take up that challenge. Andy Barker, Sara Dickey and Ravi Shanker for their valuable inputs on early drafts.

  Comrades in the Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Viduthalai Chiruthaigal Katchi for their help in making it easier for me to reach the people and, therefore, their stories. Comrades AV Murugaiyyan, District Secretary of the CPI(M); A. Kumaresan of Theekathir, Kaaviyan and G. Ramakrishnan, for their moral support and standing by me. Comrade Balasubramaniyam at the CPI(M)’s Nagapattinam office for the classic full-timer’s dedication.

  Comrade R. Nallakannu, from the Communist Party of India, for being the hero of the working classes, for embodying simplicity and struggle, for always having a kind word for me. You are the leader I look up to. Comrades D. Raja, Tha. Pandian and C. Mahendran, for their help and support, for unfailingly asking me how the writing was progressing, for sharing anecdotes and archival material whenever I sought their help.