Theeyoor Chronicles Read online

  And yet, nothing happened. The Marxists behaved as though they did not even remember having a man named Ramachandran in their ranks, while the Congress grew tired of him within a short period of time. The arrogance that had become second nature while he was with CTC was in full display, and he treated his new colleagues with disdain. Only towards Bhaskaran Nair he showed, outwardly at least, some respect. The young men in the Youth Congress found Ramachandran’s egotism and haughtiness enervating, and accepting his lead, began creating small and large nuisances for everyone around.

  As for the blade business, after the initial enthusiasm, Ramachandran paid very little attention to it, other than to collect his share of the profit – 1,000 rupees per month – from Pichayya, and spent the night drinking with his associates. His lack of involvement in the business side of things suited Pichayya well, and he made it a point to keep Ramachandran happy when he came to collect his share. He did not dwell on how all this might affect Appanu Nambiar.

  It did not take long for the Congress Party to realize that Ramachandran’s defection to their side did not bring with it the expected financial and other benefits. Instead, he created too many headaches for the Party, and soon they were looking for ways to get rid of this nuisance from their midst. They did not have to wait long. Ramachandran himself paved the way for his exit from the Party.

  3.

  On a searing hot afternoon, Ramachandran walked south along the walkway in the middle of the vast fields in Theeyoor Thekkumbhagam. He was halfway across when a woman climbed on to the walkway from the field below with a bundle of grass on her head. The walkway was wide enough for two people to pass each other, but the thick bundle of grass on the woman’s head stuck out to the sides, narrowing the available width considerably.

  ‘Move aside, woman,’ Ramachandran commanded in a gruff voice as they came face to face. ‘This walkway is not your personal property.’

  The woman moved as much to the side as she could. ‘Just bend your shoulders a little, child,’ she said. ‘I can’t really step off into the field now.’

  Ramachandran, already irritated by the heat and sweat, was enraged by her response. He lunged forward and gave the poor woman a hard push. The woman screamed as she fell into the field below. Hearing her scream, a man came running from a small house nearby. It was Karunan, and the woman Ramachandran had pushed into the field was his mother, Narayani.

  Narayani fell on her back, and as she tried to scramble up from the sticky mud, she fell over again in a faint. By then, some more people had assembled, and she was carried home in a chair by two of them. She had not sustained any major injuries other than some scraped skin, but she had sprained her back and howled with pain every time she tried to stand up straight.

  ‘This has gone completely out of hand now, more than we can tolerate. Don’t care if it is Ramachandran or anyone else – we cannot stand by and let this arrogance continue.’

  Leaving the others to express different versions of this sentiment, Karunan walked straight to the Congress Party office. Chathu was the only person there at the time, and he was fast asleep on a makeshift bed made of two benches pulled together.

  ‘Get up!’ Karunan shouted, making Chathu jump. ‘Aren’t you ashamed? Sleeping soundly when that crazy son of a bitch you all have welcomed into the Party is wreaking havoc all around! Did you hear what he did to my mother? Pushed her into the field from the walkway.’

  ‘What happened? Who are you talking about?’ Chathu asked in a placating voice.

  ‘Him! Ramachandran! He’s the most important person in the Congress Party these days, isn’t he? I’ve been carrying the flag for the Congress for over twenty-five years. If you let that son of a bitch back in here, I’ll cut him open and take his intestines out!’ Karunan was beside himself.

  Ramachandran did not hear about what transpired at the Congress office, but he did not go back there ever again. Realizing the seriousness of the matter as the crowd gathered hearing Narayani’s screams, he walked away hurriedly across the field looking constantly behind him, and took a circuitous route home through some back lanes. Avoiding his mother who was in the middle of an argument with their neighbour Meenakshiyamma, he went inside and sat in his room on the ground floor of the house. But he could not sit still for long. Deeply disturbed and extremely anxious, he climbed up into the attic.

  The three people who lived in that house rarely ventured up into the attic and it had been left almost entirely without disturbance for years. Strewn across its floor under cloaks of cobwebs were a variety of wooden furniture, old vessels and cooking pots, metal-bound wooden measuring vessels, rusted iron trunks, account books and ledgers. It was not Ramachandran’s first time in this world where time hung as heavy as the smell of mould, and yet he looked at these objects as though he was seeing them for the first time. He opened the iron trunks, peered at the time-warped, faded faces in the photographs piled in a corner, examined the columns of names and numbers in the old account books, ran his eyes over someone’s old and discarded textbooks … And suddenly, his hands touched something strange and unexpected.

  Beneath one of the iron trunks was a long leather sheath, and in it was a sword with specks of rust on it. A few minutes of polishing with a piece of cloth brought the hidden shine back to its hilt and blade. Ramachandran held it in his right hand and hoisted it high, and a tremor ran down his body. He had heard that there was a time when no one in Theeyoor or the neighbouring places dared to stand face to face and talk back to the members of his father’s family. The sword was evidence of the irrepressible masculinity of his forefathers, the emblem of the power they had wielded, and the authority to strike down those who dared question them. How many people’s blood had anointed its blade, Ramachandran wondered, and the thought sent another tremor through his body. He sat in the musty attic until sundown, examining the sword in wonderment.

  Appanu Nambiar came home earlier than usual that day, steeped in anxiety. He called Ramachandran down from the attic.

  ‘I heard about what you did,’ he said. ‘The Marxists are protesting near Theeyoorangadi calling it caste violence – harassment of the Harijan. And Karunan and his people have gone to the police station to meet with the sub-inspector. It’s best if you leave town. Leave by the north door, and climb up the hill. Dileepan maash will come on his scooter to get you at around half past seven near Chotta Raghavan’s shop. Until then just wait, hide in the dark. I’ve arranged everything.’

  Ramachandran realized that, under the circumstances, his best option was to obey his father. And so he met up with Dileepan maash as arranged, and went to Vayalumkara. He wished fervently that he could take the sword with him, but it was too long for the bag he packed, and he had to leave it behind with great regret.

  Dileepan maash lived in a small brick house in the middle of a two-acre field at the western end of Vayalumkara. A part of the field had been turned into a banana orchard, and the rest planted with all kinds of vegetables. Dileepan maash was perhaps the only person with no political affiliation in all of Theeyoor. Only two years away from retirement, never in his life had he voted in an election, or donated even a single paisa to any political party. Perhaps because of his apolitical nature, he was also entirely selfless and always did what he could to help someone in need.

  With his wife and two children, he lived a comfortable life that had its routine and rhythm. He was the headmaster of Theeyoor Lower Primary School. A stickler for order, he was feared by the students as well as the teachers. Every morning, Dileepan maash rose at half past five, practised yoga for half an hour, and rested for ten minutes, after which he worked in the banana orchard and in the vegetable patches for almost two hours. He would then bathe, have his breakfast, and leave for the school on his scooter at exactly quarter past nine, arriving ten minutes later.

  After the school day, Dileepan maash came straight back home, changed out of his day clothes, had a glass of tea and worked his land. The time left between this and the even
ing meal was spent reading, and if he had a new book or a magazine about agriculture, he would even forget to have his food. He had very little interest in reading anything that had no direct practical use in real life. However, he had a soft spot for poetry, and he worshipped Changampuzha, Vayalar, O.N.V. Kurup and Sugathakumari, and could beautifully recite famous lyrics such as ‘Manaswini’, ‘Sargasangeetham’ and ‘Pavam Manavahrdayam’.

  Dileepan maash had certain unshakeable viewpoints about poets and poetry. A poet’s job, as far as he was concerned, was to give the reader an aesthetic experience made from the music of words. Those who allowed social problems and other such issues to enter their poetry, like grit in rice, or those who wrote prose poems, were not, in his view, poets. He had dabbled in poetry himself in his youth, and had written a couple of pieces, but having had the wherewithal to realize that writing poetry was not within his grasp, he had confined himself to the reading of it. This decision had engendered a mild sense of inadequacy, the only regret he allowed to settle in his mind, and on the rare occasions when he dwelled on it, it made him upset, and the usually mild-mannered maash was easily pushed into confrontations even by the simplest of provocations. This change of character was so drastic that it confounded those who knew him well, and because of this peculiarity, his wife nursed, deep within her, a fear about his mental balance.

  The ability to keep out of anything that would cause him trouble was an enviable asset that Dileepan maash possessed, and yet, when Appanu Nambiar panted up to him and asked him to take in Ramachandran, he agreed. He knew that Ramachandran had become who he was today because of the relentless altercations between his parents and the toxic atmosphere it had created while he was growing up, and he felt sorry for him.

  But Ramachandran, Dileepan maash would soon find out, was in a world far away from tender feelings of empathy and understanding. He did not concern himself with any thoughts or emotions other than the immediate gratification of his needs, and the unstoppable urge to be the winner in all situations. Surviving for oneself and dying for oneself was one and the same to him. His life was an arid land that was unaffected by life’s little pleasures and pains other than the animal need to preserve one’s own life.

  Ramachandran stayed with Dileepan maash for over a week. During this time, Appanu Nambiar ran around trying to fix the mess his son had created. The Theeyoor police sub-inspector, Karunan and Chathu were duly compensated for their troubles, and a round wooden table was donated to the Congress Party office. Finally, when it was confirmed that there was nothing more to fear, he sent word to Dileepan maash and brought Ramachandran home.

  These troubles had absolutely no effect on Ramachandran’s behaviour. He did not go to the Congress office ever again, but he went to Theeyoorangadi, sauntered back and forth in front of the Marxist Party office in Theeyoor Meleyangadi, and chatted with his acquaintances as though nothing untoward had happened. But people were cautious, and kept him at a distance, and Ramachandran found himself adrift. He was lost and bored, and he took to going to Pichayya in Kundungal often, not just the once-a-month routine. Appanu Nambiar assumed that his son was changing his ways and taking a deeper interest in the business, and was happy.

  Four or five months passed. The realization that everyone feared him but no one gave him any special consideration had become a constant irritation for Ramachandran, and he tried to instigate confrontations with a couple of people, but nothing came of it. The whole situation was beginning to get on his nerves when, one day, there was an almighty row between his parents. Having spent months employing deathly silence as a weapon against each other, they seemed determined to settle all their frustrations at once and tore into each other with relish. When he could not stand by and watch any more, Ramachandran inserted himself between them and gave each of his parents a resounding slap. It was gone 9 a.m. by then.

  He left home and went straight to Theeyoor Meleyangadi, where he found a crowd gathered in front of Pulluvan Raman’s shop. It was 24 October 1990, the day the BJP had called for a nationwide shutdown as a response to the arrest of their leader L.K. Advani. Advani had been on a countrywide tour in an air-conditioned van turned into a ‘chariot’ – a Rath Yatra – and it had been stopped by the police when it reached Samastipur in Bihar, and he had been arrested. All the other traders in Theeyoor Meleyangadi had heeded the call, but Pulluvan Raman went ahead and opened his shop, and refused to shut it even when a bunch of RSS activists came around and threatened him.

  Raman had been a staunch Gandhian from the time of the Quit India Movement, and until the death of Mahatma Gandhi, he had been an active organizer locally. After that, he retired from politics and took no interest in any political party. When Wardha Gopalan was the president of the local Congress Party, he had tried to bring Raman back into the fold, but the effort was unsuccessful.

  By tradition, Raman, a Pulluvan by caste, should have been a healer of children’s illnesses. But he had never been interested in it, and spent his time drawing instead. As an adult, he had tried to make a living with this skill, drawing and painting stage curtains, name plates, advertisement boards, and the occasional portrait. But when it began to get difficult to make ends meet, he had given it up and opened a shop. Drama troupes still sought him out, and he made stage curtains for them when they did.

  For thirty-odd years, Raman had a shop in Theeyoorangadi where he sold mats, baskets, brooms made of coconut leaf spines, incha used as a body scrub, terracotta pots and pans, coir ropes, and so on. He did not sell anything that was not organic or was made of chemicals, not even rat poison or ant powder. Around six months ago, the owner of the shop had made him vacate the premises as he wanted to start an English-medium nursery school there. So he moved to Theeyoor Meleyangadi. In the shop in Theeyoorangadi, he had a small portrait of Gandhiji that he had drawn himself, framed and hung on the wall. For the new shop in Meleyangadi, he drew a life-sized portrait of Gandhi, framed it and hung it where everyone could see it properly. Every day, when he opened the shop and stacked the wooden boards that formed the door of the shop, he paid his respects in front of the portrait before beginning his trading day.

  Pulluvan Raman had already told those who came to make him shut his shop on that day – 24 October 1990 – that he was not willing to do so. But they continued to threaten him, and the argument went on until he stepped back abruptly.

  ‘There’s no use shouting,’ he said as though giving an ultimatum, and pointed to the portrait of Gandhiji. ‘I swear on Mahatma Gandhi that I will not shut my shop.’

  The strength in the old man’s voice as he stood there, cool-headed, tall, lean and clad in a khaddar jubbah and mundu, made the RSS henchmen hesitate.

  Ramachandran stood in the crowd, watching the scene quietly. He had never been on good terms with the RSS. When he was a Youth Congress activist, once during the festival in Theeyoorkaavu, some RSS workers had staged a one-act play titled Ayodhya. There was much heckling and shouting while the play was going on, and although Ramachandran was not among the instigators, he had actively participated in the altercations that resulted from it, as he did with any event. The curtain was drawn before the play was over, and RSS activists came in full force to take on the troublemakers. Thankfully, the police, having arrived in the nick of time, dispersed the rioters, but it was with shouts of ‘We’ll get you, you scoundrel!’ directed at Ramachandran that the drama troupe had gone back to Chenkara. Since then, whenever they ran into each other, they exchanged frosty looks. It was this long-held enmity that stopped Ramachandran from seeking the RSS out after his quarrel with the Congress and the Marxists.

  But now, watching Pulluvan Raman standing there, fearless and disdainful of authority, he forgot that the old man was challenging a common enemy. Instead, he felt that the disrespect in the old man’s attitude was aimed at him too. His blood boiled, and he did not pause to think of L.K. Advani, his Rath Yatra, his arrest, or the religious zeal that he was trying to foment with the promise of replacing the Babr
i Masjid, the historic mosque in Ayodhya, with a Ram temple. Leaping forward, he grabbed hold of Raman’s collar.

  ‘You won’t shut your shop, eh? Let me see if I can make you.’

  Ramachandran dragged the old man out of his shop, pushed him to the floor and kicked him hard in his lower abdomen. As though they were waiting for someone to take the lead, a few of the onlookers set upon Raman and began beating him up.

  Almost immediately, the unshakeable certainty that he had killed Raman with the kick caught hold of Ramachandran, and he was overcome with a terror he had never experienced before in his life. He extricated himself from the crowd, walked to Theevappara, and climbed to the top. He was not looking for a temporary escape. This time, his veins pulsated with the need to leave Theeyoor behind and run away.

  The next time Theeyoorians heard about Ramachandran was on 10 December 1992. On 6 December, right-wing political groups such as the BJP, VHP and RSS organized a kar seva – a voluntary effort – in Ayodhya to demolish the Babri Masjid. Eleven RSS workers from Theeyoor and Chenkara went to Ayodhya to join the volunteers. When they came back, they shared this news only with a few trusted colleagues: The day the Babri Masjid was demolished, Ramachandran was in Ayodhya with a group of people from Kodagu, and he was almost unrecognizable, dressed in a sweater and trousers, shoes and a woolly hat. When Gangadharan from Chenkara called out ‘Ramachandretta’, he responded with a look but turned away immediately.