Trial by Silence Page 3

  Seerayi knew that if she did not inform them that Kali was back, someone from there might come looking for him—and that would complicate matters immeasurably, given Kali’s current state of mind. There would be loud arguments and accusations, and the entire village would come to know of the situation. But if she could find a way to avoid all of that for a few days, it was likely that Kali’s anger would subside. By then, she thought, she might even be able to get him to see things in perspective. After all, Kali never talked back at her. He mostly agreed with her. His mother had raised him single-handedly, enduring many difficulties. And he was always one to make sure he never hurt her in any way. If he did not agree with something she said, he usually just kept quiet. He would later express his disagreement very gently. Seerayi was aware of all this, and now she set about strategizing the ways in which she would handle him.

  Kali was very fond of the chicken dish she made. Ponna took much care with cooking this particular dish, but he always told her that it did not match the one his mother made. ‘I am doing it exactly like your mother does,’ Ponna would insist. ‘It is the same chillies. It is the same castor oil. I grind it all in the same stone. Then how come it does not taste the same?’ And he would reply, ‘You need something else too—some deftness of hand.’ But she’d disagree, laughing. ‘No, no. Nothing of that sort. Your mother does not add water when she grinds the paste. She just spits into it twice. That’s why it stinks so badly.’ But that never made him angry. He would just say, ‘All right then. Why don’t you spit into it next time? Let’s see how that tastes. It might even intoxicate like Muniyannan’s arrack.’ She would blush at this remark, and say, ‘Then why do you go there to get drunk? I can spit in your food every day.’

  The chicken Seerayi had chosen to cook was young and fresh. It might have even started laying its very first eggs in four or five days. She had carefully removed the little, newly forming eggs—more like egg blossoms, she thought—and had fried it separately in the ladle in which she crackled seasoning. Kali was particularly fond of that. If she were to feed him all this lovingly prepared food, and then speak to him carefully about things, he would certainly listen to her. In her mind, she rehearsed how that conversation would go.

  FOUR

  It was midday and Kali was still sleeping. Seerayi went near the cot to take a closer look. He had not spread even a thin piece of cloth over the cot before lying down. The coir weave had pressed into his skin, leaving its impression. The loincloth was all he was wearing. His abdomen looked like a wilted plantain leaf. ‘There is nothing in there,’ she thought. He had not eaten anything. He must be very hungry. Kali’s legs stretched out beyond the edge of the cot. The hair on his head was thick and long, like women’s tresses. It looked like he had applied castor oil on it the day before, since he was travelling out of town. Now it glistened with a dark oiliness, and as it lay spread out over the cot, it looked like a dam containing him. He had a broad face, like two palms held together side by side. He has shaved his beard and trimmed his moustache. And he had a wide chest. It occurred to Seerayi that Kali was a bigger and healthier-looking man than his father had ever been.

  Several years ago, when Kali told her that he wanted to marry Ponna, Seerayi’s first thought was whether Ponna would be a physical match to his strong, stone-idol-like body. She had not responded right away, but after a few minutes she asked, ‘Is she a good match for you?’ He had not quite understood what she meant. Thinking that she was asking about Ponna’s character, he said, ‘Yes, yes, she is a girl of very good character.’ Then Seerayi had to ask more explicitly. ‘Not that, you idiot! Here you are, built like a big black tree. What if she is built like a mouse! That’s what I meant.’ He had laughed. And Seerayi felt bad that her remark had amounted to casting an evil eye on her own son. As they say, the proud gaze of parents causes more damage than the jealous and evil eye cast by townspeople, relatives, the deformed and the widowed. So on that day, she used some chillies to perform a little ritual to ward off any evil eye she might have inadvertently cast on him. Now when she thought about how Kali might have reduced this strong, living body into a dead one that morning, she was reminded of her husband.

  Kali’s father too had been hale and hearty before he died suddenly. It was the month of Aadi. In all the fields across the village, the ragi crop had grown well and stood proud and lush. But that was also the time rats attacked the crops. So the farmers formed groups to hunt and kill the rats. They would set the traps on one side of a field and chase the rats into those traps from the other side. Kali’s father was among the people engaged in the hunt. He had accidentally stepped on a trap as he tried to avoid tripping over an old, petrified rat on the way. He died even before they brought him home. Had he been alive, Seerayi’s life would have been much easier. He had loved her just the way Kali loved Ponna.

  Kali now looked a lot like his father. Seerayi touched him gently, trying to wake him up. But he didn’t budge. So she shook him more vigorously. Usually he would waken at the gentlest touch. In fact, if the cows mooed even once, his eyes would open right away. It made her fearful now that Kali was not waking up. She even wondered if he might have mixed some poison in the arrack he drank before he tried to hang himself. She couldn’t even count the number of people who died by mixing ground arali seeds into their toddy or arrack. Growing agitated at these thoughts, Seerayi now slapped his cheek and called out, ‘Kaliyappa . . . Kaliyappa!’

  He opened his eyes to be greeted by his mother’s face right in front of him. It took him a while to find his bearings. Then she asked him to eat.

  ‘I don’t want anything,’ he said and turned over.

  Upset, she said, ‘Look here, I have cooked chicken gravy. I have not eaten either. I have been waiting for you to wake up. If you are not eating, I am not eating anything either. There!’

  He sat up, irritated. ‘Why are you acting like this, Amma?’ he snapped, and stepped outside. He had never experienced daylight so intensely before. It disoriented him. Holding a hand over his eyes, he walked over to the pot and splashed some water over his face. Only then did he feel even a little steady, and slowly came to his senses. He looked up to know the time. It was a little past midday. The sun had passed overhead and had started its descent on the other side.

  ‘Did you eat anything at all this morning?’ he asked as he stepped inside the hut.

  By then, Seerayi had placed food ready on two plates. She gave one to him, saying, ‘What do you think? Considering what you were about to do this morning, do you think I was capable of swallowing food?’

  He took the plate from her and sat down on the cot to eat. Slowly, he mixed the curry with the rice. His mind was now light and blank. She had put a lot of meat over the rice. He now moved the pieces of meat aside and just ate a mouthful of the rice mixed with the thick gravy. She kept looking at him as he ate. He ate the first mouthful without showing any interest in the food, but after that he slowly seemed to register the taste. So when he started eating patiently and with some relish, she was relieved. She ate a little too. She paid attention to his plate and served him more meat. Even though her mind was clear, she still found herself sighing frequently.

  He ate to his heart’s content and lay down again on the cot. Seerayi did not comment on that; she let him sleep as much as he wanted. She took charge of all the things that needed to be done that day. Kali woke up at dusk and stepped outside and sat down on a rock. He could see his mother doing all the chores, but he did not feel the urge to do anything himself. He just sat there for a while. Then he ate his dinner, and he ate well. After that, he set the cot right outside the hut and lay there, awake. This was the first time he was experiencing such an emptiness of mind for so many hours. He found it pleasant. Seerayi came and sat down on the rock nearby and started talking to him.

  ‘Kaliyappa . . . look here. You have promised me, so you should not do anything like that ever again, all right? If you die, what is there for me to live for? I will grab hold of y
our feet and just follow you where you go. But then what would Ponna do on her own? Don’t you know how much she loves you? Even I might hesitate for a moment to give up my life after you. But she—she would follow you right away. Did I endure all those hardships only to see our family ruined? What’s the point in dying? If we die today, the world still carries on tomorrow. The point is to live well and show that to the world. Do you know how much I have had to endure? The difficulties I had to overcome until you grew up and became a responsible man . . .’

  He was listening to her.

  ‘Do you know how the men in this village behaved?’ she went on. ‘As soon as night fell, they would knock on my door, throw stones at the house, shout out my name . . . No matter how much they persisted, I never opened the door. Our Nallayyan. You know him. Don’t judge him too kindly. He said to me, “Sister-in-law, live with me. I will bequeath my property to your son.” I said to him, “Get lost. All your wealth isn’t worth even a single strand of hair on my leg.” I was only thinking of you all the time—the one person I could call mine, the one person I needed to protect from any suffering. That was why I stayed strong.’

  He was still listening to her.

  ‘When there is a child in your life, it is a whole other matter. That is when you feel you have a hold on life. You have been yearning for a child, and you have shut yourself up in this barnyard. And there in the house Ponna lies staring at the ceiling. I could not bear to see the two of you suffer so much. That was why I made that suggestion. I could have taken her there myself without saying a word about it to you. But she wouldn’t have agreed to it without your permission. That was why I spoke about it to you first. Even now Ponna thinks you consented to it. Would she have gone otherwise?’

  He continued to listen to her.

  ‘We have not done anything that other people in this world don’t do, have we? You know the old man in Madakkaadu, don’t you? Do you know his name? It’s Maacchaami. In those days, people revered him for being a god-given child. He was born after his father and mother had been childless for ten years. Aren’t they living well? What have they lost because of this? Why—do you know how many women go to another man even when they have their own husbands? Did I recommend that? This festival has been happening for ages. We pray and promise various kinds of offerings to god. This too is such an appeal. We say to god, “You give me a child. I will name the child after you . . .”’

  And he listened.

  ‘Do you think I was unaware of all the times you went to this festival? You used to look so radiant on those occasions. I did not want to stop you. I did not want to come in the way of your enjoyment. If Ponna accuses you of having been with another woman, what would you say to her? Or is it one sense of justice for you and a different one for her? Tell me. Look here, this was entirely my idea. You should not blame anyone else for this. Your parents-in-law, or your brother-in-law, Muthu—everyone acted according to my plan. If anyone is at fault here, it is me. Accuse me any which way you want. Hit me and kill me, if that’s what you want to do. This portia tree has so many more branches left. If you hang me on one of these, I will die happily. But please don’t blame Ponna or her family for this.’

  He kept listening.

  ‘I am responsible for this. I did this so that my son can be sociable again—meet people without hesitation, go anywhere he wants to, do things, be happy. I want my family line to continue. When I die, I want at least a grandson or granddaughter to be there to hold the torch to light my pyre. That’s why I did this. I did not think I was doing anything wrong. I thought of this as a prayer. If you insist that it was wrong, you please decide the appropriate punishment for me. Blame me. It is all on me. No one else is to blame . . .’

  He just kept listening.

  Well into their marriage, one day when Kali and Ponna were intimate, he told her about the time his mother had asked him if Ponna was an adequate match for him.

  Ponna said, ‘That’s so inappropriate of your mother. How could she ask a thing like that!’

  ‘Why not?’ he replied. ‘Listen, you see the various sizes of pestles we have in the house? Why do you think that is? We use one with a big ferrule to separate ragi from the husk. Then we use a pestle with a small ferrule to pound the ragi. If we need just half a cup of flour, we only need a small mortar. But if we need to pound flour for four or five people, we need a mortar that is deep, and a pestle that is big. There are so many such details. This too is just like that.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘the man’s parents think about all this. But do the woman’s parents worry about such things? No. As soon as they find a man, they marry their daughter off to him.’

  ‘No, no,’ he responded. ‘Don’t say that. A girl’s parents worry a lot more about such things. Let me tell you a story . . .’

  Kali had a lot of stories. These were bawdy stories that circulated only among men. Once in a while, he entertained Ponna with such a story. She would say, ‘How can you talk so freely about such things? Aren’t you ashamed?’ But she eagerly listened to them nevertheless.

  So there was this man in this town. He had just one daughter. It had been five or six years since she came of age, but she was still not married. Both she and her mother were quite worried about this. But the actual reason for her not getting married was her father. He was very fond of his daughter. She was his only child. He had seen her naked when she was a child. At that time, he thought to himself that his daughter’s reproductive organ was very small, like a doodlebug’s nest. So he decided that since hers was a small hole and would only be able to take something as big as a little finger, he was determined to find a man who had a small penis. He was concerned that if the man who married his daughter had a large one, she would suffer.

  And so he came up with a plan. Whenever prospective bridegrooms came over to take a look at the girl, he would give them a lot of water and buttermilk to drink. After drinking all that, the fellow would start squirming in his seat because he would have to pee. Just then, the girl’s father would find some excuse to take the young man out into the fields. There, he would keep talking non-stop to the fellow until he simply had to undo his loincloth to pee or shit. And when the fellow sat down to do his business, our man would also quietly sit down next to him and sneak a peek at his penis. He was looking for a fellow with one as small as a little finger. But none of the men had such a small penis. And he was worried how his daughter would manage if her husband had a big penis. So he would find some excuse to reject all the men.

  Since her father kept turning away the men she actually liked, the daughter was curious to know why. She asked her mother to find out the reason. So the mother spoke to her husband one day. And that’s when he explained to her his views on the matter. Apparently, the wife yelled at him, ‘I have not met a stupider man in my life!’ But still he did not relent. That was how much he cared for his daughter. So the mother reported all this to her daughter and said, ‘I don’t think you are going to get married anytime soon.’ The daughter had to find a way out of this. She already knew a little about penises. So the next time a man came to see her and explore the possibilities of marrying her, she was ready with a plan. When the young man came to the backyard to wash his hands, she explained the situation to him. Then she suggested that when he went to the outfields he carry a pitcher of water with him and splash some water from it on his penis a few times. As expected, the father took the young man to the outfields. And as instructed, the young man carried a pitcher of water with him and, when the father was not looking, he splashed some cool water on his own penis. When he squatted down to pee, the older man too sat next to him and looked. He could not even see the fellow’s penis clearly; it was so small. So he decided right away that this man would be his son-in-law. Thus the wedding happened. And the daughter lived happily.

  When he finished the story, Ponna was overcome with embarrassment.

  ‘Actually there is more to the story,’ said Kali. ‘Want to hear?’

&nbs
p; ‘No need!’ she said, blushing further.

  ‘All right,’ he said. ‘Some other time then.’ He found it very hard that day to coax her out of her shyness and embarrassment.

  FIVE

  Muthu was very restless for a couple of days. He had wanted to visit Kali, but was not sure if it would be a good idea. Kali had come to his in-laws’ home in Adaiyur on the day of the big festival. But since they had planned to take Ponna to Karattur to the festival grounds that night without Kali’s knowledge, it was Muthu’s task to provide a distraction for Kali. And so he led Kali far away to drink arrack. They went to Mandayan’s house, located in a coconut grove, where they all drank the arrack made from coconut toddy. Muthu went to sleep right there. But Kali decided to return to his in-laws’ place because he was really missing Ponna and wanted to be with her. That’s when he found out that Ponna was not at home and had, in fact, gone to the festival. Unable to bear the shock of this news, he rushed to his barnyard and decided to hang himself on the portia tree.

  Muthu had known nothing about the things that had happened after he had got drunk and dozed off in Mandayan’s cottage. He had woken up late and chided himself for failing to keep an eye on Kali. Neither Mandayan nor Kathayi were able to tell him precisely at what time Kali had left. He was not sure if Kali had gone back to Adaiyur to his in-laws’ home or to his own barnyard in Aattur. In case he had gone to Adaiyur, would Ponna have returned by then? On the other hand, he might have gone to his barnyard. Kali found it hard to be away from there for even a single day. His mind was constantly preoccupied by the sounds of his sheep and cattle. Even if a small rat had newly made the barnyard fence its home, Kali would somehow notice it first thing in the morning. Muthu often teased Kali, ‘How many lizards live in the barnyard fence?’ Kali would only smile in response.