Crooked Shapes

artwork by amina

'I swear. Is he my own father or what, for me to just let him get away with it?'

Striding rapidly through the harvested fields, he goaded the bullocks on along the worn track till he reached the house. Without stopping to un-harness the animals, he called out, 'Mangalatchmi! Give these cattle some bran-and-water. Quick! I'll be back.

..' and set off at the same speed.

'What-at? You going as soon as you've come?'

'Chhe! Be quiet...asking where I'm going just when I'm leaving!'

Beneath his heavy tread, the dust of the road flew and mingled with the dusk. Going up the lane, he reached the road beyond. In the middle of a row of four or five poovarasu trees was an open space with a smudged kolam. Then the house, the door aslant. He went in. Through the passage towards the rear was the kitchen. Ladle in hand, she looked up from stirring millet porridge.

'Wha-at...at this time? Suddenly got the feeling, is it?' she smiled teasingly.

'Got the feeling, your ass!'

'Why so grumpy...?' She dropped the ladle in the pot and came up close to him, rubbed her body against his.

He gave her a penetrating stare. Rage seethed in his eyes.

'No need for all this fooling! Last night who came here?'

With knitted brows, she thought over it. 'Why, nobody...!' she stood there, puzzled.

'Nobody...?' he queried, his demeanour overbearing. 'Minsaami didn't come here last night?'

'What? At night?'

'Then what? As if he'll come in daylight!'

'Thah! Have you gone mad or something? Why should he come here at night?'

'Ei...don't you bluff? Out with the truth!' he demanded, insistent.

She gave him a surprised look. 'Wha-at you want me to say?'

'You want me to tell it with my own mouth...?'

'What's all this you're saying? Can't you say what it is without telling riddles?'

'None of all that! Why did Minsaami come here last night?'

At last, she got a little fed up. 'Look, no Minsaami-Chinsaami came here. Don't dance to what people say!'

'Chhee, don't be yapping! Tell the truth: why did Minsaaami come here last night?'

'Who's yapping? What you are asking is proper, isn't it, but if I ask anything I am yapping...'

'Look, you just watch out now.' He came a little closer.

'Thah!...Let me alone! You don't even say what it is all about. Just "Why did that fellow come? Why did this fellow come?"'

'Wha-at, me! You're thinking "Who's this fellow? He is nobody?"' he excoriated her. 'Suppose I am your husband and I ask you, will you talk like this!'

'Only because that man is useless, it went so far. Otherwise would you come openly to me, like this? You dare to ask another man's wife such a question.'

Swiftly he reached out, seized her hair, 'Ai....last night did Minsaami come here or not?'

'Chhee, take off your hand. Who are you to ask me that?'

PALAAR! He struck her right on the ear.

'Ayyo!' she cried as she crumpled and fell. 'Ada, sinner! What sort of a mind you have got, da! Oh how much I have done for you! You got what you want, now you come back to give a kick! Listening to mischief-mongers and coming here like this, you sinful fellow!'

Looking at her weeping and wailing he gnashed his teeth in fury. 'Shut your mouth!' he said. 'Even now just tell the truth, or say, "Who are you to me to ask me that? I can do anything and go anywhere." Now tell me, did Minsaami come or not?'

'O why are you killing me like this, da? Upon Goddess Mariaatha I swear he never came here.'

'Then who was here last night?'

'HIM. It was my husband only. HE was here,' she said, referring to him in the third person plural.

'Just stop going on telling lies. HE already left when it was still daylight, after saying "I'm going to round up the cattle."'

'Daylight...! Who told you that? HE only left this morning! All night HE was here. In the afternoon HE said "I'm going" and went off somewhere. The HE came back...' She spoke between sobs.

'What, meh? Who're you trying to fool here? You think the man listening to all this is some fool with a flower in his ear?'

'Ada, you sinner! What for should I tell a lie? Is it written on my head or what, that I should come to you and tell lies?

Abruptly he bent down and raised her face. Sparks of wrath flew from his eyes as he demanded, 'What did you say...!'

'Chhee! Take you hand off!'

'Stupid whore! What a nerve you've got!'

'Who's got a nerve? You or me? It's because you have a nerve that you put your hand out and beat me!

'If you are decent why should I hit you?'

'Decent? What's gone wrong with my decency that your eyes would notice, anyway?'

'This kind of talk is just what I'm telling you to stop.'

'You think she came to me, isn't it? So just like that she must have gone to somebody else also---that's how you think?'

'Ei! What did you say...?' Enraged, he seized her and gave her a shove. Holding a tuft of her hair in both his hands he brought his face close to hers. 'Thei! Know why you came to me when you already had a husband...?'

'Must have lost my mind, that's why. See, now I know how grand it really is; isn't it?'

'All right, so you made a mistake, I made a mistake. Let it be. All this time we've been with each other, have I ever opened my mouth and questioned you about your husband coming here? After all, HE's the husband. If HE can't have even that, then what's left for HIM? So I've never asked you any question about it---have I or haven't I?'

'What is this mischief! Fine justice, isn't it? All right then: just question HIM...'

'Ai! I keep on asking you something and you sit there without even opening your mouth. You're thinking, what can he do?---so proud, is it?'

'Then what? You want me to say I went to everybody in this town?'

'Chhee, be quiet! The more I think of it, the more it burns me inside!'

'So let it burn. How I am trembling and shaking in my guts, only I know, you sinner. To sin against a woman is a terrible thing, that's what they say...'

'I'm telling you, don't talk like this. Just tell the truth. I'll just go away.'

'What truth?'

'That Minsaami came here.'

'Chhee! How can anybody talk to you? A woman can only say it once...a good bullock needs just one word...'

'So then---you're saying he came here...?'

'Yes, he came! He and I, all night long--we lay together! Po!'

PA-LAAR! He struck her again.

'Ayyayyo!' she shrieked, 'no man in the house, and he walks in and attacks like this... Ayyo!'

'Don't shout. Say it, and I'll go off.'

'Wha-a-at---ca-an---I----sa-ay!' she sobbed in a long drawn-out moan, a raga of despair. One after another, with the flat of both hands he hit her again and again. 'Shameless bitch! From today on, finished! Go to hell. Did you think I was a grinning idiot, too, like HIM...?'

'Ayyo, ayyo, let go...sinner! No, no,...I didn't go with anybody else but you, nobody else but my man and you.'

Tears streamed from her eyes. They spilt on the cow-dung-smoothened floor. Blood oozed from the corner of her lip. With heaving sobs she said, 'I deserve it. I deserve this and more. See, I betrayed the man who married me, so...'

'Did anybody at all tell you to betray him?' he snarled.

'Enough, 'pa, enough. You go, now! Enough pleasure you had with me, and enough pain also... Goodbye to you, and goodbye to your THAT...'

'Son-of-a-bitch, today I'll take out his bones one by one,' he muttered to himself. The twilight had darkened to a bitter hue. Beside the odhiya tree, near the corner of the garbage mound, he turned into the lane and approached Minsaami's house. There he saw him playing cards with three or four people on the verandah, by lantern-light. He gave a roar, 'Dei Minsaami!'

Bent over to peer at the cards, Minsaami straightened up. 'What?' he asked, with a jerk of his head.

'Come here a bit, will you?'

Minsaami came up to him. The other shoved him up against the low wall. 'Where'd you go last night?'

'Nowhere...'

'Don't bluff---where'd you go?'

'Here, what's all this fuss? We talked about going to the cinema. We couldn't get any cycles. So we stayed back.'

'I know you stayed back, da. Afterwards, didn't you go anywhere at all?'

'What do you mean? Here we are, playing cards throughout the night....and you just come and put these questions, don't know head or tail about what!'

'Trying to bluff...? Didn't you go to Parvathi's house?'

'Oh! Is that what you're talking about...Yes, I went. What about it?'

'Why did you go?' he asked, taking a step forward.

'Why did I go? Why, I went and came back just like always.'

The other's eyes reddened. 'Dei! Don't play with me. What for did you go?'

'Just went to sit and chat...'

'Who with?'

'Wha-at is this, da! Before going, does anybody make a plan with whom to talk?'

'What do you have to talk to her about?'

'Wha-at's all this nonsense! If I talk to her, what's it to you...seems HE HIMSELF doesn't say anything. And you come along from who knows where and say I should not talk to her. Who're you to say that...tell me!'

His body throbbed with rage. He asked, 'All right, you sat and talked, and then when did you come back?'

'Came back straightaway...'

'You're lying.'

'Are you asking me to say I came in the morning...?'

'Dei!' He reached out and caught hold of his banian.

'Dishta...! Up till now I gave you some respect because you are elder to me. Just take off your hand. If you want to kick up a ruckus, I also won't keep quiet. After that all the shame will be for you only...'

'What, da! Are you warning me or what?'

'I'm saying it nicely. Just decently take off your hand.'

'What appa, Minsaami, the game's started. Come quickly, 'pa.'

Kishtan hesitated. Then he loosened his grip. 'Later, after I have found out everything, I'll take care of you.' Staggering and stumbling in the dark, Kishtan reached home.

'Where'd you go without saying anything?' his wife said. 'By now the water on the fire must have got cold!' Without replying he went to the backyard. Removing his upper cloth he slung it on the rope, slipped off his lungi, filled pitcher after pitcher of water and poured it upon himself. After he had dried himself, he wrapped the loincloth around his waist.

'Seems there's good selling price at the Mallaatta Cooperative Committee. I threshed the remaining four sacks. Took them and dropped them there. We can buy a chain for the elder girl. Her neck is so bare....'

Having sat down to eat, he just fingered his food...ate for form's sake, drank out of compulsion....went to the corner and stared at the crossbeam.

'What's this--sitting there, moping....like a man who's gone and lost his wife! With me right here, solid as a pounding stone!'

R. Rajendrasolan is a contemporary Tamil writer. V. Surya is a leading translator from Tamil.