The Saga of Muziris

by A. Sethumadhavan

  When he realised that she would continue to rag him, he went away without saying anything more.

  His enthusiasm grew with that first performance. The beginning had been good. He also took her disinterest as a challenge. He would make her eat her words by playing Rauldan, someday.

  He was growing day by day. He had put on height and weight, his arms and legs were rounder and stronger. The small moustache had become thicker and his voice had changed. He had become a man.

  When he completed three years in the ninth standard, Josa began to feel embarrassed. His younger classmates seemed to look at him, in his permanent seat on the back bench, as though at an uncle. Some of the teachers took great pleasure in making fun of him. He was fed up. Classes and studies were not meant for him. If Johnson studied and got a good job, that was his life. The good Lord had not said that everyone should be like Johnson. If everyone was to go by the same path why had the Lord created so many paths?

  By now, Selina was in the tenth and had to start looking for a good college suitable for girls. Either St. Xavier’s at Aluva, or St. Teresa’s at Ernakulam. Arguments were being brought forward in favour of both colleges. Whatever the merits of the colleges, Rosa Chedathi had put her foot down and said that her beloved daughter would not stay in a hostel. As in the case of the name, there was no need for a fight on this. The girl would study somewhere from where she could reach home by the evening. Or, she would not study at all.

  Josa felt that there were changes in that household too. He hardly got to see Selina. He might catch a glimpse of her somewhere sometimes; that was all. Rosa Chedathi also did not look cheerful as she used to when she brought him tea. Pailappan Master was his old self, talking to him and putting his arm round his shoulder.

  The news that Josa had been waiting for finally arrived. Louis Asan’s set was to perform Karalsman at the Koonammavu Church festival. The programmes were going to be grand this year. The important people of the locality had decided that Chavittu Natakam that had not been so popular for some time now had to be given its due. The play demanded that six soldiers stayed on the stage with Karalsman, three on each side of him, to fill the stage and to perform in the gaps. The asan had identified Josa from among the comparatively newcomers as one of them. Though Josa was younger than the rest, he looked at least five or six years older than his age.

  ‘It is up to you to prove that it is not just in looks,’ Pailappan Master said.

  Josa saw this as a big beginning. The role was not a small one. It was always the duty of the soldiers to fill the stage and entertain the audience with great steps and well-planned fight sequences. If he could catch the asan’s eye by performing in a couple of plays like Angelica and Geevarghese Charitram after Karalsman, he would soon get roles like that of the minister. Finally, the path to Rauldan was opening out, Josa thought to himself. He would wait as long as it took, if finally, it led to Rauldan…

  Eldo, who usually took the role of Rauldan, had been waiting for a visa to one of the Gulf countries for the past year. Karalsman Mathai too had a whole lot of problems. His workshop was in bad shape with him wandering around from stage to stage. Anyway, it was a habit of Louis Asan to identify possible replacements. After all, one never knew when someone would disappear.

  ‘He has this eye,’ Pailappan Master had said right at the beginning. ‘He can read the line written by the Lord on any man’s head. He won’t let you know to begin with, that’s all.’

  So, he was included among those on whose heads the Lord had written that he was to be an actor. Josa was happy.

  He would not let this be like the first performance. He would tell everyone about this. His father and mother, uncles and aunts, he would let them all know. Only those who felt like coming need come. He wasn’t seeking their blessings. It was to show them, to let them know, that Josa could also do things when he set his mind to it…

  Josa was getting ready. He wrote down the names of those who had to be informed in the forty page notebook, in which he had once copied out the love poem from the book he had borrowed from Pranchi. He wrote in small letters and big letters. He would let everyone know and only then would he tell his father and mother, he decided mischievously.

  He could still remember the entrance of Karalsman he had first seen. Karalsman Emperador, the Emperor of France who entered in colourful clothes, escorted by brave soldiers. He had learnt the lines of the song that accompanied the entrance even then, when he had first heard Anthappan sing them in his rough voice, to be repeated by the accompanists.

  Enkum pukazhchire…ponkum pransainakaril

  Thunkanai vazhukinta..thankamudiyarachan.

  Andonurulpidikku…mandalameethilenkum

  Kandaniveerarkale…thundayithurathiduven.

  (The great gold-crowned king of France, first among the great and famous soldiers, blessed by the Lord, drives away all the attackers.)

  He had learnt the rest of the lines later as he watched the play again and again. He had seen this play so many times.

  Louis Asan had repeated the lines and made them study them so many times in the kalari, but what still filled his ears and mind were the lines in Anthappan’s hoarse voice. Jose tried repeating the lines in a soft voice: Enkum pukazhchirai… Chinna Thampi Annavi’s lines in high Tamil. He had learnt them many times, but Josa repeated them once again.

  The play started with the soldiers coming in with the narrative. Then the king spoke of the great things he had done and questioned the minister about what was happening in the land. With this the audience entered the story completely. After finding out all the news of the kingdom, Karalsman sends a messenger challenging Al Birande of Turkey, his sworn enemy, for a fight. Al Birande’s son, Prince Perabras was also a great champion like his father. The stage after this was filled with fights.

  Pailappan Master had told Josa about the real Charlemagne. Charlemagne had been the emperor of France. He was the protector of the Holy Roman Empire. There were many stories about this brave warrior and great scholar who had filled the life of a time.

  Josa now entered Gothuruthu, walking tall. He had also become a part of this thuruthu, of its life.

  One evening, when he went there, Pailappan Master’s face looked sad. Quite unusually, he himself brought the tea instead of Rosa Chedathi. There was no sign of Rosa Chedathi or Selina anywhere. When he looked at the things placed on the table, Josa was taken aback. The eatables were in the old porcelain dishes instead of the plates with flowers they were usually brought in. There were the same crispies, the bunch of plantains. This time there was also a boiled duck egg.

  Pailappan Master sat forward, wiped sweat that did not exist from his forehead and looked around to make sure that there was no one in earshot. He pushed the dishes forward and said, ‘Eat, son…’

  This was the first time Master had called him that. Josa felt confused.

  ‘How is your rehearsal going?’

  ‘It’s going well, Master…’

  ‘See that you do the sword fights well.’

  ‘Um…’

  ‘You know that the rest of them are older than you, but the asan thinks you are good.’

  ‘I know that, Master. It is all your blessings.’

  Pailappan Master’s face fell. It was as though he wanted to say something, yet felt reluctant to speak. Master looked at Josa’s face for a while, cleared his throat and said, ‘Don’t take it badly if I say something, Yosa. We’ve been seeing each other for a long time now, haven’t we?’

  ‘What is it, Master?’

  ‘Do you like Selina?’

  Josa was startled by the sudden question.

  ‘She looks at you, doesn’t she?’

  Pailappan Master was speaking in a very soft voice, fixing his gaze somewhere far off. Josa could not say anything in reply.

  ‘That is because that is the age you both are. And she is stubborn. Anyway, even if she looks at you, don’t look back at her. This will end like that. That is the way it is.’


  Josa did not know about the usual ways sat there, stunned. Why did Pailappan Master say all this now? Had he done anything wrong? She was the one who always took the lead in finding hidden spots to talk with him. Beyond that…beyond that…

  Pailappan Master looked around once more and said even more softly, ‘Just remember that Pailappan Master is saying all this for your own good. Or both of you will feel sorry later.’

  Josa grunted involuntarily.

  ‘If you had studied and got a company job by the time she reached marriageable age, I could have tried. Even if Rosa and the family opposed.’ Master’s gaze was fixed on the hens that cackled in the yard.

  What was Pailappan Master saying? How could he make him understand? He had never expected this conversation to take place on this veranda. Josa looked around anxiously. Was she standing behind the door, listening to all this?

  ‘You didn’t eat anything,’ Master looked at the dishes. ‘Take that duck egg. It is from that pampered duck of Eli Chedathi.’

  ‘I don’t want anything…’ Josa was startled by the sounds that came from his dry throat.

  Without waiting to hear anything further, He got up slowly, took the book Misiha Charitram that he had borrowed to read out of his bag and placed it on the table. And hurried away.

  He heard Pailappan Master call from behind, ‘Yosa, don’t go away…wait, listen to what I’m saying…’

  As he went down the steps without waiting to listen to anything, it was as though a small boy in his mind had been pushed hard by someone behind and fell in the mud. That little boy who had stepped on to this veranda hesitantly, dhoti worn high and with the half-sleeved white shirt that was blue with constant washing.

  ‘Wait, Yosa…it’s Pailappan Master calling you…’

  ‘Let him go…He’ll come again. Where else can he go?’ a female voice spoke from behind. Who was it? Was it Rosa Chedathi? Was it Selina?

  Something fluttered in his mind. He wanted to turn back and look. Then, as though he had decided on something, he stretched his legs to put distance between the place and himself. He had never realised that the landing place was so far from the house.

  As he sat with his head bent on the plank of the boat, when red melted in the water of the river, he sat thinking—about what the teachers in the school used to say about him, what Selina used to say even if it was just to tease him…

  Each person was sent to earth with certain things ear-marked for him. Venkali Pappu’s son also had a path straight before him. It was to mix the lime that was made from sea shells, cooked by Ousepputti Mappila, into a thin liquid, then mix it with blue colour in proportion, dip the long brush made with beaten coconut husk at the end of a big stick, and move it lengthwise, breadthwise, in circles…As Pailappan Master had once said, someone to hold the long brush after his father’s time. A sceptre like the one carried by Karalsman, Al Birande or Dioclesian, a sceptre like the one the important people of the area had offered to Vasco da Gama.

  Had it been Rosa Chedathi? Or Selina? He should have turned and looked. No, it would not be Selina, she didn’t have a mind like that. Though she kept trying to bully him, she would not say such a thing.

  He was turning over things in his mind. After all her boasts and admiration for Thattunkal Sara, was Selina so feeble? Sara had caught the hand of the man she liked without paying any heed to anything others said. How did Selina lose her courage when it came to the rub? If she did not have the guts to cross the line drawn by her father and mother, why had she spoken of such great things? Something was burning in his mind. He turned around and looked backwards. The shore was receding. But, before him, another shore was growing clearer.

  He took the cycle that he had left leaning against the wall of the petty shop at the ford and started pedalling furiously. As he rode forward, tearing the thin veils of breeze that came from the opposite direction, he realised that it was getting dark and the cycle did not have a lamp. The dynamo needed repair. Would there be khaki clad men near the Chali Bridge?

  The lamps started glowing on the teak lamp posts on the way earlier than usual. Josa felt that the light was getting brighter as he moved forward.

  There was a mild drizzle when he reached home. As soon as he got in, he gathered up all his books and ran out westwards through the kitchen door. Rahel who had been grinding chillies on the grinding stone in the veranda next to the kitchen stood and watched stunned as he reached the bank of the stream that flowed nearby.

  There was only a dim light now. He stood there for a while gazing at the stream that flowed splitting the pineapple thickets into two. He then gathered all the books into a bundle and threw them into the water. The books floated for a while in the flowing water and then were swallowed up by the weeds in the stream. A few bits of paper lay sticking to the dark green leaves here and there.

  An old exhalation rose from his chest and made him feel sick. He spat out the sour liquid that filled his mouth and turned back to the house. Rahel had come down to the yard with her chilly-stained hand held far from her body.

  ‘What was it, Josa?’ she asked anxiously.

  ‘Books.’

  ‘What books?’

  He climbed the steps to the veranda without replying to her.

  After a while he spoke without looking at her, ‘I’m going to Pazhampilli Thuruthu tomorrow.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘To see Kunhappan Chettan…’

  She did not have the courage to ask him why again. Because Kunhappan Chettan was the well-known painter to whom the youngsters used to go to learn the trade. Her hand with the chilli paste had reached the edge of her eye without her knowledge and she ran inside to the sink to wash the burning away.

  Jose’s eyes stayed fixed on his father’s lime-wash brushes that were propped against the wall of the lean-to. One was big and the other small. There would be sticks like that at Kunhappan Chettan’s house too.

  The sceptre that had been offered to Vasco da Gama by the people of the place. The sceptre of Karalsman. He could feel something burning inside his chest. He walked into the house, stamping hard on the earth at each step.

  When Josa entered hurriedly, he did not have the old Jatayu on his shoulder. There was another small bird there. Aravindan had never seen Josa without Jatayu on his shoulder. Where had he gone?

  ‘What happened, Josa, did Jatayu shrink?’

  ‘He went away,’ Josa said.

  ‘He used to fly away earlier, too.’

  ‘He would come back in two or three days then. This time, it looks as though he’s gone for good.’ Josa did not look angry, but bewildered.

  ‘Why would he go?’

  ‘Must have got fed up.’

  ‘And who’s this?’ Aravindan looked at the eaglet that sat on Josa’s shoulder with interest.

  ‘He came the third day, after the other one went. He must have sent him as replacement.’ Josa’s face was not bright as it usually was. ‘Whatever…those who went, went, that’s all.’

  Aravindan remembered that Jatayu had also been very young when he entered Josa’s compound, one late evening. There were a lot of birds in Josa’s cages and on the trees in the compound. Some of them were gifts, others had been lifted from elsewhere, yet others had come by themselves. Josa had a special fondness for those that had come from distances. Rahel was always complaining that Josa spent half his income from lime-washing in feeding these winged visitors.

  Josa had changed a lot. His face had thickened. His hair that was almost fully grey had been cut short. A tangled beard was also grey. The half-sleeved blue shirt had a button missing and some stains from something he had eaten, possibly a cashew fruit. Josa had never been like this. Once he finished his work, he would have a bath, comb his hair stylishly, powder his face and wear a shirt with the full sleeves folded back precisely. Just to watch him go out like that was a pleasure. His straight floppy hair always grew as fast as it was cut and an appointment with the barber every third Sunday was a must. He had already
tried out most of the styles from the framed pictures in the barber shop. Since he had a nice head of hair, he was the favourite of barber, Asan. Each time he got out of the barber shop, Manuel who had a petty shop in the corner of the veranda would give him a slanting look and say, ‘Hey Josa! Is this a new getup?’

  Even after he finished dressing, Josa would have a last look at himself in the mirror that enlarged images before he got out of the house. He had begged this mirror from a house in Ochanthuruthu where he had gone for work. It had been brought by some priest from Rome.

  Why did he look like this? Was he upset because Jatayu who had been a permanent fixture on his shoulder had gone?

  It had been Pailappan Master who had named the bird Jatayu. A good-looking bird, obedient too, let us give him a weighty name, Master had said. They thought of a whole lot of names and ended up with Jatayu.

  Josa lived his life diametrically opposite to the way his father did. Venkali Pappu would finish work, crawl through all the toddy shops in Karimpadam and stagger back to his house singing an old film song that started, Vanagayike…

  He could never understand why the lanes became narrower in the evening. He was strongly of the opinion that thorn fences on either side of the lanes and the crown of thorns worn by Christ were completely unnecessary. When it became very dark Josa would set out in search of his father with a burning torch. He knew that his father would be entangled in some thorn fence on the way. The only doubt would be whether he set out for Karimpadam or Kizhakkumpuram. Both the joints had well known toddy shops. By then the tune of the Vanagayike would also have got tangled in his mouth. He would have got a small torch from the toddy shop, but that would have got snuffed out halfway through. In a way that was as well. What if his father suddenly felt a desire to set fire to someone’s thorn fence?

  One night, as he picked up his father from a thorn fence and tried to hang him on to his shoulder, Devassy, who had a grocery at Bharanimukku came to give him a hand and said, ‘Tell your father to change the Vanagayike song to something new.’