by Nair, Anita
‘Of course you can have fun even in your old age. Go and look at Pallikunnath. You should see him enjoying himself. Let me tell you,’ Chemban Kunju said, ‘that woman Pappikunju is your age. But she is well preserved. You should see her with her hair combed back neatly, her lips red and the caste mark on her forehead. She is like gold to look at. That fisherman and his wife are like a young couple.’
‘So should I also dress up like a young girl?’ Chakki asked.
‘And why not?’
‘Won’t you be ashamed?’
‘What is there to be ashamed of?’
‘No, I can’t,’ said Chakki shyly.
Chemban Kunju described the life of Kandankoran. ‘Let me tell you something. One day when I went there, I saw them, like a young couple, in each other’s arms, and kissing. I was quite embarrassed.’
‘Disgraceful,’ said Chakki.
‘What is so disgraceful about it? They are like young people laughing and playing all the time,’ Chemban Kunju said.
‘Haven’t they any children?’
‘Only one boy.’
Chemban Kunju looked at Chakki and said, ‘I want to fatten you up a bit like Pappikunju and we must also have some fun like young people.’
In fact, Chakki also had such longings. To be held in his arms and to be kissed. But she wouldn’t say it.
‘You should put on a bit yourself,’ she said.
‘I will also improve in health,’ Chemban Kunju said. ‘And it is only then that we shall come to the rest.’
‘It will all come to pass by the grace of the goddess of the sea,’ he said. ‘When we have land and a home, when we can live even without having to work—well, then we can enjoy ourselves and have fun like young people. By then we will have given away the girls in marriage.’
But she wasn’t beautiful like Pappikunju, protested Chakki. Chemban Kunju felt for certain that even that wouldn’t be so when the time came.
‘But what if I die by then?’
‘Go away, silly. Don’t say such things.’
Then one day the colour of the sea changed. The water looked red. The fishermen believed it was the time the sea goddess had her periods. For some days after that there would be no fish in the sea. After two or three days of idleness Chemban Kunju could not keep quiet. He wondered why he should not go farther out into the sea, beyond the horizon as the fishermen said, and look for fish.
He called his men to the boat and discussed the matter. None of them would give him an answer there and then. It was very rarely that the fishermen of that coast had gone to sea at such times. When the goddess of the sea had her periods, they didn’t go out fishing.
‘If you won’t come, I am going to let you starve. I cannot afford to give you any maintenance,’ Chemban Kunju told them sharply.
That period of deprivation continued for some time. Everyone slowly went through his savings. Some launched their boats and tried their luck, but there wasn’t even the smallest fish to be had. The workers bothered the boat owners for help and advances. But even the owners had nothing left.
Achakunju, who made up his mind to get his own boat and net, was the one in the greatest need. He had children to feed.
One day he had nothing left. The day before he had cleaned up whatever little dried fish and odds and ends there were left in the house. The fisherman and his wife began to quarrel. Achakunju got angry with his insubordinate wife and gave her two slaps and went out of the house. It was she who had to stay home and bear the burden of the children. Could she walk out of the house?
Nallapennu cursed Achakunju. ‘You are walking out of here so that you can go to the teashop and have your fill!’ she said.
Nallapennu waited for him till evening. Finally she took her brass tumblers and went to Chakki. She said she would like to mortgage them to Chakki or sell them for a rupee. Chakki took them and gave Nallapennu a rupee.
Lakshmi, who heard of this, arrived with her child’s earrings. Then other women came with their possessions. Chakki began to feel worried. She did not have money to dispense like that, yet nobody would believe her if she said she had no money. Kalikunju, who had toiled and saved for a year to get a brass bowl, came to Chakki with it.
‘If all of you come like this, what will I do? I haven’t any money buried away,’ Chakki told her.
Kalikunju had come because her children were starving. She did not expect such words or treatment from Chakki.
‘Everybody wants Chemban Kunju’s money. When he is in trouble, everyone lets him down,’ Chakki said.
‘What did we do?’ Kalikunju asked.
‘Nothing. But there is no more money here.’
‘Why are you talking as if you don’t know me?’
‘Why are you getting impertinent?’
And so there began a battle of words. Karuthamma cut in to make the peace. She was afraid that if a real quarrel developed her story would be brought into it. Karuthamma touched Kalikunju’s feet and begged her to stop. Disappointed, Kalikunju left with her brass bowl.
‘What is this, Mother, losing your head like this?’ Karuthamma asked.
‘And why shouldn’t I?’
‘Since we got the boat and net, you and Father both seem different people.’
That evening, while Chemban Kunju was having his supper, Chakki gave him the news of the village, the story of their starvation. In no home had the kitchen fires been lighted.
‘Let them starve. Let them all starve,’ Chemban Kunju said.
Karuthamma was shocked.
‘Let them suffer. When they get money again, these people will dance and make merry. Then they will go to Alleppey and eat extravagantly. Even if the wife normally has nothing to cover her, they will go in for gold-embroidered finery as soon as money comes into their hands. They don’t walk the earth at such times. Now let them count the stars.’
‘A fisherman need not save,’ Chakki said, stating an old truth.
‘Then, let them not,’ Chemban Kunju said. ‘And they will suffer like this. And teach it all to that girl, to starve like this.’
‘Oh—you are, of course, a wise man!’ Chakki said with a smile.
‘Yes, I am a wise man. I have cash in my hands.’
‘Don’t tell me that,’ Chakki said. ‘That Pareekutti boy has had to shut down his curing yard. And the girl is hanging about unmarried, in the full bloom of her youth.’
Karuthamma wanted to add, ‘Pareekutti, too, ought to starve, shouldn’t he, Father?’
As the hard times in the village continued, Chemban Kunju and Chakki managed to collect a lot of odds and ends—brass pots and pans, even bits of gold—at bargain prices. They would come in handy for Karuthamma’s marriage. One day Chakki bought a nice bedstead. When her husband came home she told him, smiling and somewhat shyly.
‘I have bought a bedstead,’ she said.
‘Well, why did you buy it?’ Chemban Kunju asked with the same sort of smile.
‘What is a bed for? To sleep on.’
‘And who will sleep on it?’
‘When your daughter’s bridegroom comes, it is for them.’
‘Is that so?’
‘And for who else? Not for an old man and his woman.’
‘All right, then I shall have a nice mattress made for myself, just like the one I saw at Kandankoran’s,’ Chemban Kunju said as if he wanted to believe it.
‘Then you should have a wife exactly like his to sleep on it,’ Chakki said.
‘I shall make you into one like that.’
One morning when Chemban Kunju woke up, he found Ramankunju waiting for him. Chemban Kunju welcomed Ramankunju and asked him to sit down. Ramankunju was a boat owner of the seafront. He had two boats. All his property had been mortgaged. For a short while Chemban Kunju had worked for Ramankunju.
Now Ramankunju wanted some money to pay maintenance wages for his starving workers. He already owed Ouseph money and he felt embarrassed to ask for more.
‘Those who have been
standing by us and depending on us are starving. There is no work to be had at sea. How can I watch this sight?’ Ramankunju said.
Chemban Kunju agreed that it was true.
‘Yes, of course, it does not become a boat owner of your standing,’ he said.
Without the slightest hesitation Chemban Kunju agreed to give Ramankunju the money.
‘How much money do you need?’
‘A hundred and fifty rupees will do.’
Chemban Kunju counted the money and gave it to him.
‘Are you not giving any maintenance allowance to your workers?’ Ramankunju asked.
Chemban Kunju scratched his head and said, ‘How can I do that? I am also a worker. Can a squirrel open his mouth as wide as an elephant?’
When Ramankunju had gone, Chemban Kunju went to Chakki and laughed aloud like a madman. She had never seen him so happy and excited.
‘What is this? Are you mad?’ Chakki asked.
‘What do you know, silly?’ he said. ‘His miserable boat is going to be mine within six months. This is the advantage of having money in your hand.’
When Chemban Kunju’s workers began to worry him for some maintenance allowance, he asked, ‘Are you ready to work?’
They said they were ready.
‘Then we will go far out into the sea to look for fish,’ Chemban Kunju said.
‘How can we do that? Go far out into the sea at a time such as this?’ they asked.
Chemban Kunju had another trick in reserve. All right, he would engage others for the work. After that he would keep those very people to work for him.
‘I have a boat and its accessories. And I can’t afford to stay idle. I am losing a lot of money,’ he said.
Two or three days later, very early one morning, Chakki and Karuthamma saw the boat speeding westward far out into the sea. Only then did they realize what had been happening. That day the women and children of some thirteen families waited by the seashore. They waited anxiously and prayed. The old ones looked at the sea and said that the currents looked vicious. They thought there were whirlpools in the sea beyond.
Even after dusk the boat did not return. On the seashore one could hear weeping and crying. By nightfall the entire seafront had gathered there; everyone stood looking west toward the sea.
It was a windless cloudless night. The stars shone brightly. The sea was calm. Far away in the distance someone thought he saw a speck on the sea. It might well be the boat. But it wasn’t. There was no sign of the boat.
Fisherman Kochan’s old mother beat on her chest and asked Chakki to bring her only son back. Vava’s wife, who was carrying a baby, did not blame anybody; she just cried. The seafront was a picture of misery.
When it was nearly midnight, shouts were heard.
‘The boat is coming,’ someone cried out.
The boat was speeding toward the shore like a bird.
The boat had a shark in it. They had caught another but they couldn’t manage to bring both.
Chemban Kunju cut the shark to bits and distributed it to the women to take inland for selling. He told them they could give him the money after they had sold it. Kalikunju, Lakshmi and the others got their share. Thus in many a home the fires were lighted in the kitchen that night.
Two days later they again went right out to sea. That day, too, Chemban Kunju returned triumphant. Even when the sea seemed barren, Chemban Kunju could make money. The old ones were defeated and kept quiet. The women said that they could eat now, thanks to Chemban Kunju.
Some of the other boat owners also went out fishing beyond the horizon.
After the hardships everyone hoped there would be bright days ahead when the chemmeen (shrimp) were plentiful. The year before, the Chakara had been to the north of Alleppey. By all accounts, therefore, this year it should be at the Nirkunnam seafront. In any case, to avoid bad luck, they must get ready for it. That meant that the boats and nets had to be repaired, mended and kept in good trim.
Ouseph and Govindan, the moneylenders, came out to the seashore, their pockets bulging. Everybody was in need of money. The fishermen agreed to any terms. The traders who owned the curing yards made friends with the big fish merchants of Alleppey and Quilon and Cochin, and their agents. The seafront soon reflected the affluence of borrowed money.
There were also small traders who went from home to home lending money to the womenfolk. They gave advance money for the fish that would be dried and stored. One young trader was stabbed by a fisherman in his hut because he tried to molest his wife.
Chemban Kunju saw Ramankunju from time to time. Ramankunju feared that Chemban Kunju would ask for the return of his money. But not only did Chemban Kunju not ask for his money, he even offered him more, if Ramankunju needed it.
Pareekutti made no preparations for the Chakara season. His father had asked him to close down his curing yard. It was Abdullah’s opinion that Pareekutti should take up some other work elsewhere. But Pareekutti would not leave the seafront.
Abdullah was surprised and asked, ‘What is this?’
‘Father, you brought me to the seafront and left me here to trade in fish when I was a little boy. I don’t know any other vocation,’ Pareekutti said.
‘How did you manage to squander all your money?’
Pareekutti had to answer. ‘Father, in business you may profit or lose. Sometimes you don’t even have your capital left,’ he said.
‘What if you lose still further?’
‘What you have decided to bequeath to me as my rightful share is all that I ask for. You needn’t give me anything more,’ Pareekutti said.
‘But I have nothing of real value to give you,’ his father said.
Abdullah had many responsibilities. Although he was once a rich man, he had lost everything. He had a daughter to give away in marriage. Abdullah described all his problems. Even then Pareekutti wouldn’t change his mind.
Karuthamma noticed that Pareekutti was not preparing for the Chakara season. He hadn’t made ready the vessels for boiling shrimp. He wasn’t buying the coir mats to dry the fish on or the baskets to contain them. She told her mother that it was time to return the money to Pareekutti. If they felt grateful for the help he had given them, the money had to be returned.
Chakki in turn shouted at Chemban Kunju. Not only did it not work, but Chemban Kunju became angry. Karuthamma was convinced that Chemban Kunju would never give Pareekutti his money.
‘I am afraid I can’t bear this burden,’ she said to her mother.
For a moment her mother didn’t get the point.
‘What burden are you carrying?’ she asked.
Karuthamma burst into tears. Chakki comforted her. But Karuthamma was obstinate.
‘I am going to tell Father everything, everything—then I know he will find the money.’
Chakki was terrified.
‘Don’t say anything, my child!’
If Chemban Kunju knew only as much of the story as Chakki did, what would happen? Chakki couldn’t imagine it. When she heard Karuthamma’s words, Chakki realized that there was more involved than she herself knew.
—Translated from the Malayalam by V.K. Narayana Menon
Grandmother’s Funeral
Jeet Thayil
What stories you must know, there in your closed dominion, quiet narratives composed for the doomed enclosures of bone, hair and fingernail fragments; the ancient hoops of gold removed from your ears and wrists. The light drowns to a shoreline uncertain and unseen from this dim church, whitewashed on a hill in the lush south. The congregation stands entranced, our white shirts and mundus starched, sung aloft on ancient rhythms, the talismanic glow of hymns repeated in a tongue all of us remember and nobody understands; some words promise an impossible redemption: barachimo, deyvam, shudham, slomo. Evening censers glow in the patriarchs’ palms, pass the smoke from hand to hand and end to end of this heaving room, where Syriac, the first figure of faith, waits with his fierce accountings; your ally in the conundrums of C
hrist, the mother, her open heart in the calendar. The two single beds in the hall where you and your husband lived your lives in chaste matrimony, a wedlock holy as hands, perfected your many children, the young dead become legend, oversaw your strict enunciations of shekels, rice and prayer. Then the slow erosions of memory, your tidy acres overgrown, the ungentle stripping of names, faces, an ignoble disrobing for the writer you were, grace, the first of our long line. Crawling to eternity, alone inside the one house generations of sons and daughters embarked from, you faced the curse of longevity visited on the women of this tribe with a wilful retrieval of dignity: the clenched refusals of food and water, the final naysaying to the sanctification of all who lived to your great age: a life-affirming No that resounds still through the halls of your ruined house.
In Search of Doubting Thomas
William Dalrymple
The rains come to the South Indian state of Kerala for long months at a time. It is the greenest state in India: hot and humid, still and brooding. The soil is so fertile that as you drift up the lotus-choked waterways, the trees close in around you as twisting tropical fan vaults of palm and bamboo arch together in the forest canopy. Mango trees hang heavy over the fishermen’s skiffs; vines creep through the fronds of the waterside papaya orchards.
In this country live a people who believe that St. Thomas—the apostle of Jesus who famously refused to believe in the resurrection ‘until I have placed my hands in the holes left by the nails and the wound left by the spear’—came to India from Palestine after the Resurrection, and that he baptised their ancestors. Moreover, this is not a modern tradition: it has been the firm conviction of the Christians here since at least the sixth century AD, and in all likelihood for hundreds of years before that.
Certainly, in 594 AD, the French monastic chronicler Gregory of Tours met a wandering Greek monk who reported that in southern India he had met Christians who had told him about St. Thomas’s missionary journey to India and who had shown him the tomb of the apostle. Over the centuries to come, almost every Western traveller to southern India from Marco Polo to the first Portuguese conquistadors reported the same story. Indeed, the legend of St. Thomas led to the first ever recorded journey to India by an Englishman: according to the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, King Alfred (he of the burned cakes) sent Bishop Sighelm of Sherborne ‘to St. Thomas in India’; years later the bishop returned, carrying with him ‘precious stones and the odiferous essences of that country.’
