Chemmeen

by T. S. Translated by Nair, Anita Pillai

  Palani said once again, ‘Why does a fisherman have to save money? What lies spread before him is his wealth. What is that we don’t have? Even if he doesn’t set aside anything, the sea mother will bless him with enough. That’s how it is!’

  She retorted, ‘So why then does everyone starve when there isn’t a catch?’

  ‘That’s to be endured.’

  Karuthamma thought of her mother and father. Of how they managed to own a boat and nets. Suddenly, as if a burning ember had touched her heart, she felt a searing pain. A pain that coursed through her veins. How did they come to own a boat and nets? That guileless Pareekutty was ruined.

  Palani asked, ‘Is it because of your father and mother?’

  It seemed that his expression had hardened. He continued, ‘That must be where your avarice came from! Everyone wants to know when we are going to visit your parents!’

  All the women there had asked her the same. She too didn’t have an answer. After the wedding, it was unseemly not to be invited to the bride’s home. But she was doubtful whether it would ever happen. She said, ‘We left home when my mother was on her deathbed. Who is there to come over here and invite us?’

  A little later, she spoke up with a laugh, ‘After the wedding, has anyone from the groom’s side invited us for a visit? Isn’t that too a tradition?’

  Karuthamma had only meant to tease. Nevertheless, it contained a tiny sting. Palani felt as if he had been slapped. He was hurt. He didn’t think it was funny. Nor did he take it that way. His expression changed.

  ‘Didn’t you know that there wasn’t anyone to invite us for a visit? So why then did they send you with me?’

  Karuthamma’s face paled. Palani was angry. She hadn’t expected that. He didn’t pause.

  ‘But that wasn’t it, right? Here was an orphan, who has no one to weep for him or celebrate with him. And here is a girl unfit for the shore. So let’s burden him with her. If he died at sea, there won’t be anyone to grieve for him. That’s what happened.’

  It was an unjust accusation. A girl unfit for the shore! How could she bear that? Nevertheless, wasn’t it true? The niggling feeling of guilt that lay hidden within her seemed to have taken shape. In these first days after marriage, her husband was already saying that.

  Karuthamma covered her face with her hands and sobbed furiously. Her body quivered and shook with the force of that sobbing. Palani sat there looking at her. For some time, all that was heard was the sobbing. Did he feel sorry for her? A voice from somewhere spoke in her ear: ‘This isn’t me saying so. Everyone else is saying it!’

  It seemed Palani’s heart had softened a little. He said, ‘I didn’t say this.’

  A little later he said, ‘It is that Pappu who is saying all this!’

  And so, after the wedding, for the first time tears were shed in that family; and attempts at reconciliation were made.

  A grey pall enveloped the surroundings. An unease that stretched through the night. Through her sobbing came a plaintive cry, ‘I … I … I am unfit for the shore!’

  She pleaded with him to believe in her. She wouldn’t behave in a manner that would cause her husband to be lost at sea. She wouldn’t be the reason why giant waves would break over their roof. Venomous snakes wouldn’t slither and crawl on the shore; unnamed sea monsters wouldn’t rise from the waters with gaping jaws and cause whirling winds; she would live as a fisherwoman. She asked him a thousand times if he didn’t trust her. He wouldn’t respond. All she could do was lay her head on his wide chest and try and melt its hardness with her tears.

  Palani asked, ‘Why do you keep on asking me, “If I believe in you, if I believe in you…” as if you don’t trust yourself?’

  Once again a burning coal seared through her. He did have some suspicions about her dark secret. Some quisling had filled his head with gossip.

  She didn’t speak thereafter that night. Whether he knew her secret or not, wasn’t it better to have revealed the truth to him? But if she told him the truth, would he forgive her? So how could she tell him? Instead of someone making up false stories around what really happened, it was best to tell the truth.

  It was a dilemma. A decision had to be made. Several times she began to tell him, but what was she to say? Should she say, ‘I had loved a man once’? Would any husband have the fortitude to hear that? Or should she begin with: ‘In my childhood, I had a companion’? That too wasn’t possible. If she began recounting that, in the sweetness of that memory she would say way too much and even end up praising Pareekutty. And he would think that her affection still lay with Pareekutty. That wasn’t right. Should she say, ‘A Muslim on the shore bewitched me’? No, no, she couldn’t say that! For she would have to describe Pareekutty as a bad man. As a despicable man. Karuthamma couldn’t do that either. Pareekutty wasn’t a despicable man; he hadn’t bewitched her or deceived her. She saw before her an image of him broken, teary-eyed. She could see that even in the dark. She felt as if she had stamped and walked all over his feelings to reach here. She had ruined him in every way. He wanted nothing more of life. Even when he was seventy-five, he would sit on the shore, singing his song. And so he would sing to his death … she could see all of this. Her lips moved to speak. She forgot where she was. She failed to recognize that her husband lay next to her. The core of her being spoke up, ‘I love you!’

  She said that to Pareekutty. The sound of her words shook her.

  Palani asked, ‘What are you saying? You love whom?’

  Karuthamma woke up. Had she given herself away? She said, ‘Yes.’

  He asked, ‘Whom?’

  She spoke a bare-faced lie, ‘My fisherman!’

  The cock crowed. A sound rang through the shore. It was time to go out in the boats. She insisted that Palani leave only after a bath. Again she helped him bathe.

  It was later than usual when Palani reached the boats. It had never happened before. That day the other boatmen had to wait for him. Velayudhan joked, ‘That’s how it is! Once you are married, getting up becomes very difficult!’

  A harmless joke! And the truth, in fact. But Palani didn’t like it.

  ‘Oh be quiet, Velayudha cheta!’

  Velayudhan snapped back, ‘Hey boy! Why are you snarling at me?’

  Palani had worried that Velayudhan would bring up other matters. What if he mentioned Karuthamma? A thought that niggled at him.

  The boat set out into the sea and sailed towards the west. Palani was on the stern. There was no sign of fish anywhere. Boats were scampering this way and that without casting their nets. But Palani continued to furiously steer the boat to the west. It was as if he had no definite purpose. His iron-like muscles rippled. It wasn’t enough, the sea wasn’t big enough. The oar was light. When he leapt, the stern buckled and leapt with him. As if to tear through the horizon and go beyond it. All his vigour had roused itself.

  The boat was deep in the ocean. Land was nowhere in sight. Aandi demanded, ‘Where are you taking the boat?’

  All of them took in their oars. But the boat continued to leap and course forward. Palani had turned into a demon. The horizon his goal.

  Kumaru quaked with fear. ‘You son of a bitch! Just because you have no one…’ Kumaru shouted at Palani. ‘Go kill yourself! You have a slut for a wife! You’ll drown in the sea. That’s your destiny. But we have children and a family!’

  Velayudhan grabbed Palani’s oar from him. He dragged Palani towards Aandi, seated him there and turned the boat back.

  Palani was silent, as if exhausted from that long ordeal. Much later he began rowing. They cast their nets in the waters where the other boats were.

  They didn’t catch anything. No one had managed to get anything. Palani’s boat netted some small fry. Each one of them received a rupee and a half.

  As they were bathing, Velayudhan asked, ‘What happened to you, Palani?’

  All of them were curious to know the same. He had lost his sanity. Palani used to steer the boat with vigour and coura
ge. But he would never be driven by a rage such as this.

  Palani said, ‘I don’t know. Something happened to me!’

  Aandi said, ‘Son, we all have wives and children!’

  Kumaru opined, ‘I don’t think Palani should man the stern any more. He will drown us all in the middle of the sea.’

  All of them had to agree. Some demon had possessed him. That was it!

  Thirteen

  On the fourth day after the wedding it was customary for the bride and her groom to be received at her home. But there was no one here to go and invite them.

  Chakki was laid up on the wedding day. She hadn’t got out of bed since then. That good neighbour Nallapennu dropped in every once in a while to tend to her. Panchami was in charge of the house. Chembankunju didn’t seem very concerned about Chakki’s rapidly worsening condition. Nallapennu kept saying that a doctor had to be called in. But he wouldn’t even reply.

  In the days after the wedding, he was busy with everything. He would go to the door of the room Chakki lay in and peer. And so once when he went to stand there, Chakki said that someone ought to go to Trikunnapuzha and invite Karuthamma and Palani home.

  Chembankunju forgot himself in his rage and bellowed, ‘I am not going! And I don’t want her in my house either!’

  A distressed Chakki sank into a faint. That day Chembankunju brought a doctor home.

  The girl hadn’t been invited to her home after the wedding. Everyone wanted to know why. He snapped at them in response. But they wouldn’t budge either. And so Chembankunju fell out with everyone.

  Chembankunju seldom went far away from home. The two boats did go out to sea every day. But the catch was poor. It seemed that he was on bad terms with the workers in the boat as well.

  Everyone at Trikunnapuzha also speculated and gossiped about Karuthamma not being invited to her home. Someone ought to have come along and taken them as per the norms. Everyone knew that she was a girl with a family. Which meant she had been kicked out from there. Even the poorest of people would invite their daughter home after the wedding. Karuthamma too waited for the invitation to arrive at any moment. She hadn’t expected her father to abandon her so. She was anxious about her mother too. But she was too scared to speak to her husband about this. How would he take it? Nevertheless, she made up her mind to bring it up.

  One day after lunch she thought that she had found an ideal time. She said aloud as if to herself, ‘I wonder if my mother is alive or what?’

  He didn’t respond. She looked at his face carefully. She continued to look at him and said hesitantly, ‘Shall we go across?’

  ‘Don’t even think about it!’ A retort that stung like a slap in the face.

  She hadn’t expected him to be so stern. The truth was the change in his expression frightened her. It was like biting down on grit in freshly harvested rice.

  Karuthamma put on a smile. ‘How can you say that?’

  He asked her in a forbidding voice, ‘Hmm … say what?’

  ‘We will have daughters of our own. And when they have their fishermen husbands, we’ll have to pay for all of this!’

  Palani had a stinging retort for that as well. ‘I’ll bear that when that happens!’

  What more could be said? So she left it well alone. When an opportunity arose next, she asked, ‘Could I just go see my mother?’

  He didn’t object to that. But he had one thing to say, ‘If you want to, you can go, but don’t bother coming back!’

  A little shard of anger shook itself free in Karuthamma’s heart. It displayed itself as, ‘Good heavens, what kind of a heart do men have?’

  And then she put on a smile.

  So the days passed with no consideration for the feelings of either Chakki in her Neerkunnath home or Karuthamma in her Trikunnapuzha home. Those souls wept. When Karuthamma was all by herself, she cried. Chakki’s heart seared and burnt. But no one knew about it.

  Hearing that Chakki’s health was failing, Pareekutty went across one day. Chembankunju wasn’t there. He was not on the shore but elsewhere. When Chakki saw Pareekutty, she burst into tears. Pareekutty was disturbed to see her sob so.

  Pareekutty was a much changed man. He wasn’t the eager-to-please, full-of-life Pareekutty he used to be. In between her weeping, Chakki said, ‘I … I … I am dying, Boss.’

  Pareekutty could see Chakki was very debilitated. Nevertheless, he said, ‘What are you saying, Chakki? You are not all that ill!’

  She gestured to him to seat himself by the cot. He sat down. Chakki continued to sob glancing at him. Pareekutty didn’t know what to tell her. And then as they sat there Chakki said, ‘I have so much to tell you, Little Boss!’

  Pareekutty asked her to speak her heart.

  It was the money she wanted to speak about first. Pareekutty asked her not to worry about that any more. Chakki cursed her husband. She said he was a greedy and wicked man.

  ‘What can a helpless person like me do? He won’t give the money back to you!’

  ‘Don’t worry thinking about that!’

  ‘That’s not it, Little Boss!’

  It was difficult for her to go on.

  A little later Chakki continued, ‘I didn’t send my child off to a good home. There isn’t a moment when she is not in anguish!’

  Since it had to do with Karuthamma, Pareekutty didn’t have an opinion to offer.

  Chakki continued to speak, ‘I am lying here on my deathbed and my child hasn’t even been brought here.’

  A mother’s anxiety reared its head. And didn’t she have many things to worry about? Her daughter had had a love story. But she was married off to another man. How was she to know that the love story wouldn’t cast a shadow on her new life? A new chapter was beginning. But how could she be certain that the past would have no influence? Above all this, she had been sent away with a man who had nothing or no one to call his own. How could she be sure that Palani would love her?

  Chakki said, ‘I have thrown my daughter out to sea on a mere coconut frond.’

  Pareekutty comforted Chakki. ‘Don’t think like that. Palani is a good worker. He will look after her.’

  She nodded in agreement. Chakki continued to voice her emotions, ‘The two of you played and frolicked on this shore.’

  A soft chord struck in Pareekutty’s heart. Old memories awakened. Chakki saw that. After all, she too knew of that love. Perhaps she even knew how strong it had been, how it had touched the two lives to the core.

  Ill as she was, it was Chakki the mother who said, ‘My belly didn’t ever spawn a boy.’ With a deep sorrow, Chakki continued, ‘I have a son.’

  Pareekutty looked at her face wanting to know; and Chakki stared back at him as if to ask, ‘Don’t you want to know?’ Chakki clasped Pareekutty’s hand tightly and said, ‘This is my son Pareekutty, you Pareekutty!’

  Relief coursed through Pareekutty’s much bruised heart. The one he had loved was taken away from him. But she still was his in a fashion. He was a part of her life.

  Chakki had no hopes about Karuthamma’s marriage. She remembered the times Pareekutty and Karuthamma played and grew up on this shore. Now she had acknowledged him as her son. And fresh shoots sprang up from the ashes of Pareekutty’s hopes. Would Karuthamma be Pareekutty’s ever? Even if not, would her mother want it? In a moment, Pareekutty arrived at a conclusion which was neither real nor possible.

  That troubled mother told Pareekutty, ‘My son, you must find yourself a bride, do your trade well and prosper!’

  Words that resonated indelibly in Pareekutty’s ears. That last night Karuthamma had said the same to him. But Pareekutty couldn’t reply to Chakki like he had responded to Karuthamma.

  ‘My son, you mustn’t upset Karuthamma any more. She has a fisherman. You must not trouble her.’

  Pareekutty was shaken. The words rang through his ears like a voice from above. You mustn’t interfere in her life, destiny commanded. Or, was it just a thought? No, Pareekutty did hear it. ‘Pareekutty
is Karuthamma’s brother. She doesn’t have a brother of her own. My son must be her brother.’

  Chakki had uttered those words. He had no doubts about that. Chakki spoke much thereafter. Chembankunju had abandoned Karuthamma; Chakki was dying; Karuthamma had been sent away with a man who had neither a home nor a family; whom did she have except Pareekutty? And so Chakki defined their relationship. Siblings!

  Chakki asked, ‘My son, will you always be a brother to Karuthamma? Only a brother!’

  Pareekutty’s eyes welled up. Chakki saw the tears roll down drop by drop. Chakki knew what that meant. She also understood what had caused the teardrops to flow.

  Chakki elaborated the essence of that love story. ‘My son, you were in love with Karuthamma. But you must now be her brother. That is the measure of your love for her, don’t you think so?’

  Pareekutty didn’t have an answer. His throat was choked with tears. If he loved her, he should be her brother now – that was how it should be, he was being told.

  Silent moments passed. Chakki asked, ‘Isn’t that so, son?’

  Pareekutty replied mechanically, ‘Yes.’

  ‘Then my children, you must be brother and sister henceforth!’

  A second later, Chakki continued, ‘If she was here, as I lie here dying, I would tell her the same…’

  Chakki became even more distraught and pleaded with him to be Karuthamma’s brother. Just her brother! And if she had no one, he would look after her! And if she didn’t arrive before Chakki died, he would send someone to fetch her! Pareekutty agreed. But Chakki felt that it wasn’t the right manner in which to proclaim his acceptance. So she pleaded again.

  That night Chakki heard Pareekutty sing from the shore.