Mariammal’s aathal was surprised. She could not understand why this girl had come scampering in such scorching heat. To aathal’s question, ‘Hasn’t your man come, di?’ she just gestured, as if asking her to be patient, rushed indoors, drank two pots of water, gurgling noisily, and sat down with a, ‘S-s-h, aathadi!’
‘Hasn’t your husband come with you?’
‘He… He says he will, around the time we start cooking the pongal. If he comes this early, no business will get done at the shop, it seems.’
‘That’s all right; you too should have set out only after the sun went down a little. What does it matter if you don’t come in this sweltering heat?’
‘Yes, you are right. I heard that machchan had come here for Pongal…’
Suddenly, it became clear to aathal. The girl’s machchan – the son of aathal’s only brother – had arrived from town the previous day, to participate in that day’s Kaliamman koil Pongal. That was why this idiot had come up here in such a hurry.
When aathal asked, ‘Did you have the afternoon kanji before you set out?’, the daughter shook her head, indicating a ‘no’, and the mother, cursing her, poured out some kanji and placed it in front of her. To see her in this condition – lips all dry, skin turned darker, and her ears and neck bereft of any ornaments – tears streamed down the mother’s cheeks. It had been so widely known that Mariamma was meant to be married to Thangarasu machchan. They had been together all the time, right from when they played cops and robbers to when they went to the fields to pluck fruit of the cactus plants. It gave the mother great pain to see the way things had turned out. She had had many plans for her daughter’s future. To change the subject, the daughter asked, ‘Where’s annan, aatha?’
‘He has gone to town to bring some rice and pulses so we can cook something special, because you were coming over with your husband…’
Once she had had her kanji, Mari hurried out to meet Cheeniammal. Cheeniammal had sent her the news of machchan’s arrival through some girls who worked in town, sticking matchbox labels. Ever since she got the news, Mari had lost all peace of mind. She was bent on going to her village at once. But her husband would not send her; he said the Pongal festivity was still two days away, and that it was not necessary to go back just yet. He did not like her going off to her village every so often. Just because her village was less than three miles away, how could he accept her setting out every other day? He did not mind her absences that much, but every time she went, she would carry off some groceries like pulses, jaggery, and so on from the shop. It was quite a job to do business in that small town. He was angry about her wanting to go again now and attend the temple festival. And yet, he was unable to speak harshly to her; a couple of moans and groans and then, he let her go.
Mari didn’t care at all about all of this. She just had to go to her village whenever she felt the urge to do so. And now, with her machchan visiting the village, how could she stay away?
Hadn’t she grown up thinking that the very purpose of her being born and growing up had been for Thangarasu’s sake? The old women of the village still laughed and spoke of the tantrum she had thrown when she was in the fourth class, because Thangarasu’s father had been transferred and would have to move with his family to Pudukkottai! She had rolled on the ground, flailing her limbs and howling that she had to go with them. The women of the village would bring that up often and mock Mari with the question, ‘When is your husband coming here?’ But she had not seen those barbs as mockery; she had believed they were asking the question in all seriousness. When the other children of the village frolicked around in the village pond, she never went anywhere near it. If she bathed in that pond water, her body would be covered in sores and begin to fester. Machchan, who was studying in the ‘town’, would not appreciate all that. So also if she ate too much of the gruel, developed a pot belly and machchan refused to marry her… what would she do then?
The girl who had been chanting ‘machchan’ all the time attained puberty. A few days later, the very thought of machchan brought on a shyness, and a kind of hesitation washed over her. Together with the thoughts of machchan, there also came dreams that set her heart aflutter. As she went back and forth from her village to the town to stick matchbox labels, her mind dwelt on her machchan. If, during the famine years, her ayya had not gone to work in the fields of Tanjore and died there of dysentery, she too would have studied and made herself suitable to marry him. That was one regret she always had.
Machchan had come to her house once, to invite them to his sister Gomathy’s wedding. She saw him through the gap from an inner room, her heart so happy to see him speak lovingly, with complete familiarity, to her mother and brother.
She kept locked inside her heart every single piece of news of her machchan. Years had passed by, the famine had been on them, her father had died, making it very difficult for them to eke out a bare living, but nothing had changed as far as her thoughts about Thangarasu were concerned. Even when it became clear that he would not be marrying her, she could not, as her mother and brother did, hate him wholeheartedly.
Mari vividly remembered the day her uncle and aunt had come to their house, and her annan had thought they had come with a proposal of marriage between machchan and her. They had come having fixed up an alliance with some other girl.
Maama had not only invited them for the wedding but also left with the following injunction to annan: ‘You must be at the wedding a week before the event; just as you worked for Gomathy’s wedding, you should take on the responsibility of looking after everything this time too.’ The minute they had gone, annan stood before aathal and began to jump around angrily. ‘Do they think I’m as dumb as a donkey, or what?’ If he had worked all that much at Gomathy’s wedding, it had been because he had seen their house as a place where his sister would go and live some day. If he did not help them, who would, he had thought. But whoever knew that Maama, Thangarasu’s father, would be so lured by jewels and wealth… What kind of uncle and cousin were they? Cheap beggars! Annan’s mind was filled with hatred.
At first, when annan spoke so heatedly, aathal shouted in return. ‘What are you jumping up and down for? The boy is educated and working in the town; will he marry this dumb girl, Mari, all worn out working at the match factory, sticking labels? What were they to do?’ came her fiery retort.
Though she had spoken thus, that night, aathal wailed, laying her complaints before her dead husband, ‘Ye! My Rasa! My god! You went away, leaving me to my fate… you came to the wedding hall and took me captive, saying, “When I, the rightful husband, am here, will I allow anyone else to tie the thali around her neck?” Did you bring me here, then, to leave me in this state? I went round chanting my brother’s name all the time – thambi, thambi! I raised him and now… Oh, my Rasa, now I have no one to support me on this earth…’
Surreal yet gritty, violent yet poetic – such is the world of Chandan Pandey’s fiction.…
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