CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND--AN EGG A DAY

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND

BY A.V. DHANUSHKODI

Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.  HAMLET, ACT  I , SCENE V

EPISODE NINE---AN EGG A DAY

Every night, after dinner, I would sit in my cane chair in my room and read a novel: Peter Cheyney, Earle Stanley Gardner or James Hadley Chase, before going to bed. The genre, paradoxically a relaxant.   Invariably and most incongruously at that time, in the cool breeze of the night, I would pick up the clear tinkling sound of the bells of a bullock cart or two, lazily moving towards the city of Thanjavur from Thirucirapally, on the bypass road. The tinkling of the bells was a perfect accompanying instrument for the full-throated languorous folk-songs the drivers of the bullock-carts would sing.  Between the bypass road and the highway, was the bungalow of the District Collector of Thanjavur, my father.  The year, 1958.

The Collector’s bungalow was situated in the midst of around ten acres of land, barren, except for wild trees and bushes, sparsely growing wherever they liked at will, spanning the entire area between the highway and the bypass road. In the close proximity of the bungalow, however, one had tried to impose some semblance of design in their growth, adding flower plants, mostly roses, bougainvilleas, and jasmines.  The bungalow per se was palatial with a typical layout of a Collector’s bungalow anywhere in India: in the centre of the bungalow was a wide flight of wooden steps, leading to the veranda of the first and the only floor above the ground floor. On either side of it on the ground floor was a large room, one of which my father had turned into an office room.  Next to that was a smaller room, occupied by the clerical staff. The large room on the other side  of the stair-case was  used as a reception room to seat VIP official-visitors, adjoining which was a smaller room, a kind of pantry containing refreshments for the VIP visitors.   

The layout of the first floor was a replica of the ground floor.  The large room above the VIP reception room was my mother’s bedroom  and the adjoining room above the pantry was my bedroom.  The large room on the other side of the stairs above the office room was my father’s bedroom and the adjoining room above the clerical-staff’s room was my study.

Living with my maternal grand-parents in Madras (as Chennai was known then) for college education,  I would go to stay with my parents during holidays.  Those days were most blissful, as nobody bothered me. My father would be weighed down with office work all his waking time and my mother would be equally busy, managing the household, taking care of my father’s needs and playing the graceful host to the VIP visitors; additionally, there was a horde of servants to manage.  I was free to do anything, a freedom I never misused.  I would read a lot, mostly tons and tons of crime novels, as I mentioned at the outset.  Also, I spent a lot of time sketching nature--roaming the sprawling area around the bungalow--and hens.  We had around fifty of them, I think. Most of them were Leghorns, snow-white in colour and most elegant in their snooty movements, pecking selectively at choice worms and victuals; and Rhode Island Reds, ruddy and fat, like Friar Tuck, ambling along awkwardly, pecking at anything and everything.  In between them were the most charming and beautiful “country chicken”, as we used to call them endearingly.  They were neither tall and snooty like the Leghorns, nor fat and grob and raucous like the Rhode Islands, but were ideal hen-templates in form, size, facial beauty and movements.  And, they had the most musical clucking sound any hen was capable of making.  

Another pastime of mine was watching hatching of eggs.  As you know,   Leghorns and the Rhode Islands will not hatch, but the country chicken will.   Therefore, while the Leghorns and the Rhode Islands were careless where they laid their eggs, the country chicken would hide theirs in unimaginable nooks and corners, under bushes, stones, and piled up cardboard cartons.  I would systematically hunt them out and bring them to the kitchen, where mother would place them in dated boxes, for chronological consumption, but not before selecting from among them equal number of well-shaped and big eggs of the three breeds of hens, for hatching.  She would then select the most trustworthy “hatcher”, invariably the same country chicken with burnt-sienna body-colour, and black dots over it. 

Nature’s instinct for procreation and preservation of species is most tenderly evident in the hatching of the chicks.  The hatcher sits  patiently on the eggs for twenty-one days, without consuming practically anything at all, at the end of which one hears faint pecking of chicks from within an egg or two.  The pecking spreads rapidly to other eggs and one has to mercilessly lift the “mother” hen to see the egg shells cracking with relentless pecking of the chicks within and hear the occasional chirping accompanying them.  Extreme patience will be rewarded with nature’s wonder of the egg-shells cracking open little by little, then the pink, rubbery, translucent beaks sticking out first, followed by the slimy head with closed eyes struggling out and finally the chicks tumbling out awkwardly, skinny gooey mess of  miniature dinosaurs.  A few more minutes of patient watching of the wonder will be amply rewarded with the sight of the messy things quickly transforming themselves into perfect walking and chirping eggs made of airy downs, trembling with the slightest whiff of breeze brushing them.  Added to the downy eggs will be two black pellet eyes, pink translucent beaks and legs, all soft, rubbery, and pliable to the touch.  It would be weeks before they harden.

I would often sit before the mother hen, now puffed out as big as a Rhode Island Red, with all the chicks tucked within its feathers, to keep them warm, as they grow day by day.  Often I would hear the chicks chirping within the puffed up hen and, now and then, would see a tiny pink beak or a head darting out and in, if I was alert and watchful enough.  Sometimes I would lift the hen to see the chicks, but there would be none on the floor; however, if I would shake the hen a little, the chicks would drop down one by one, to add up to a dozen or more.  Some would be white, some red, and some multicoloured. Landing on the floor, they would scramble around in confusion, searching for the missing mother, without having the intelligence to look up to see her in my hands.  Yet, they would have the inherited intelligence, if left on the top of a table, not to venture farther than the edge of it, after peering down the bottomless abyss, but return to the safety of the solid table.  Once, I did push one of them over the edge, and watched it as it weightlessly floated down,  flapping its “wings” and “yelling” in extreme agitation, landed on its rubbery legs, and ran around in circles for a while.  I would also derive immense pleasure, watching them troop behind the hen in a single file, pecking at microscopic grains and worms.  When they would wean themselves away from their mother in about a month, I would feel sad.

I was not particularly fond of eating eggs at the time.  I was, however, fond of handling the perfectly shaped and packaged nutrition, especially those of the Leghorns and the Rhode Islands.  They were big and heavy: white of the Leghorns’ and light venetian red of the Rhode Islands’.  The eggs of the country chicken were small and light, but tastier than the others.  If at all I would want to eat eggs, occasionally, I would prefer those of the country chicken.  But my mother would give me no freedom in the matter.  She was absolutely certain that if I wanted to eat eggs, I should  be happy with either the white lady’s  or the red ruffian’s eggs; never for me the “country” eggs.  I wouldn’t push the matter further, because I wasn’t too keen on eggs.

One morning, I was suddenly overcome by a craving to have eggs for breakfast. I tiptoed to the kitchen (one of the edicts of my father had prohibited entry into the kitchen) and peeped in.  Mother was making crisp dosais for father.  She had heard me tiptoe to the kitchen-door, “What is it?” she asked, without turning around.

“I want an egg for breakfast today,” I replied, preparing myself for the heated dispute that was sure to follow.

“O.K.,” she said, after a moment’s hesitation, the meaning of which I knew.  She too was preparing herself for the anticipated altercation, “Leghorn or Rhode Island?”

“Ma, you know what I want,” I pleaded.  Suddenly I heard the clucking and pecking sounds approach me from behind.  I turned and looked down to see the most charming bird of all I loved.  It was the polka-dotted burnt-sienna country chicken, scanning the floor for grains.

“I know what you want, but I am not giving it to you,” she replied in a firm tone. 

“Why not?  It’s so tasty.”

“That’s precisely why.  It is tasty because it contains more fat, and fat is not good for you.” 

“But, I am so lean and young.”

“You won’t be lean anymore, if you eat her eggs,” she said, pointing to my hen, pecking and clucking around my feet now.

“Ma, one egg is not going to make me fat,” I was reasonably insistent.

There was a long silence.  It was a happy sign that her heart was relenting.  I waited patiently.  Strangely, the pecking and clucking had also stopped. 

“Alright, get one from the box.  But only for today.”  Then a pause. 

“From tomorrow, if you want to eat country eggs, ask her,” she said pointing to my hen.  I knew she was joking.  I laughed and my mother laughed with me.  At that moment, I felt a soft gentle nudge at my ankle.  I looked down.  My bird was looking up at me.  I had goose pimples and a tingling along the spine.  The next moment, she moved away, clucking and pecking.  Mother could not have noticed the strange vibration that had passed between me and my hen.

                                

***

Next morning I got up early and went down to the kitchen for my cup of coffee.  Sipping it, I wandered around the house, watching the fifty odd hens clucking and pecking at worms, insects, and grains for the day.  I felt a sudden urge to sketch them.  I gulped down the coffee and ran up the steps to my room to fetch my sketchbook and pencil.  Taking them, I turned around to rush out, when something caught the corner of my eye.  I did a double-take to see a beautiful small egg on the seat of my cane chair.  It was the egg of a country-chicken.  I couldn’t believe my eyes. 

I put the sketchbook down on the cot and slowly walked to the chair, expecting the mirage to dissolve into thin air any moment.  It didn’t.  It was solidly sitting there in my place, waiting for me to pick it up.  When I did, it was so warm, I thought it was a boiled egg.

I ran down the steps  and along the corridor in the courtyard to the kitchen, where my mother was getting ready to make breakfast for all of us.  I rushed into the kitchen in great excitement shouting, “Amma, Amma!”

“Don’t bother me now, can’t you see I am busy?  Appa has to go to office early today.”

“Sorry Ma, but I was so thrilled, I couldn’t wait to show you this.”

“What?” she snapped in irritation.

I showed her the egg.

“I told you not to take that.  Put it back in the box,” she commanded.

“But Ma, I didn’t take it from the box.  She gave it to me,” I was breathing hard with excitement.

“What?  Who gave it to you?  What are you talking about?”  She was losing her patience. 

“My hen, the polka-dot!” 

“Enough of your fooling.  Put it back and bring one of the others”, she insisted.

“Truly Ma, she gave it to me,” I replied and described to her what had happened.  She didn’t believe a word of what I said. 

“Doesn’t matter.  Just for today you have it.  And don’t repeat this tomfoolery tomorrow,” with that last word, she went back to work. 

I was a little confused and distraught myself, as even I could not believe what had happened.  I placed the egg next to the stove and left the kitchen wondering about it.   Then a thought occurred that perhaps my mother was playing a practical joke on me.  The more I thought of it, the more I was convinced of it.  I wondered at her ingenuity in fulfilling my wish, without ostensibly yielding ground.  Truly, she must be very, very fond of me.

I got up late next morning.  The clock showed 7.  I hurriedly went into the adjoining bathroom and was vigorously brushing my teeth, when I heard a very familiar sound, accompanied by a faint unfamiliar sound.  The familiar sound was that of a hen clucking, a country-chicken; the unfamiliar sound was like a sharp stick scraping wood, in an uneven rhythm.  Then  the  unfamiliar sound  changed  into the walking of a hen on a wooden floor.  The sound was getting louder and louder.   

I stopped brushing my teeth, opened the bathroom door very quietly,  peeped through it into my room, and saw my country hen walking into my room, clucking gently.  Then she stopped in front of my cane chair and looked up.  After a moment’s hesitation, she heaved herself up, flapping her wings, and landed on the seat.  I could see her partly, as she settled down comfortably.  All was quiet now.  A few moments passed, as I watched her with unbelieving eyes.  She got up, walked to the edge of the seat, looked down, and jumped, flapping her wings and cackling, as she landed on the floor.  Then she walked out of my room, through my mother’s bedroom, to the flight of wooden steps.  I heard her hopping down the steps, one by one, her talons scraping the wood, clucking all the way down.  Soon her sounds dissolved in distance.

I tiptoed out of the bathroom, to the chair, and saw a beautiful egg on it.  When I touched it gently, it was warm.  I picked it up very carefully, feeling the warmth of the egg fully in my palm now.  I was thrilled beyond words. 

When I described to my mother what I had seen and heard, she was speechless.  I asked her if I could have that egg for breakfast and she said emphatically YES!  And, she added, “What Nature, your Supreme Mother, gives you, must be good for you.  I am powerless against HER WILL.”

I stayed with my parents for ten more days, until the end of my vacation.  Every day, until I left for Madras, my hen gave me an egg, precisely at 7 every morning, straight from her womb, with all the warmth of her affection for me.  And, every time I picked up the warm egg, I marvelled at the miracle.   Now I realize, after so many years, that it was no miracle.  When your heart reaches out to nature, nature responds, nature as manifested in everyone and everything around you. 

District Collector of Thanjavur was the last position my father held before retirement from government service.  When he retired and came to Madras, they did not bring the hens with them.  I asked my mother about them.  She said, they had to sell them.  To whom, I probed.  To a restaurant, she replied, avoiding my shocked eyes.

I still have a sketch I made of my hen, carefully preserved in my steel cupboard.

March 2010

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNEBLIEVABLE KIND--MY CHAPERONE

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND

A.V. DHANUSHKODI

Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.  HAMLET, ACT  I , SCENE V

EPISODE EIGHT---MY CHAPERONE

I think I must have been nearing ten at the time this episode took place.  I was living with my parents in Kovilpatti, a taluk in Thirunelveli district in Madras Presidency. 

It was summer vacation.  My mother, my brother, and I had gone to my maternal grandparents’ house in Madras to spend a few weeks.   During the daytime, I would be with my friend Arunachalam, who was the son of a tenant living in one of the two portions behind the main house, which belonged to my grandparents.  Another small family, related to them, was living in the other portion.   After dark, I would be at home doing nothing but chatting and playing with my cousins and listening to the conversations of the elders.  Usually, we children went to bed early, after dinner.

Arunachalam’s mother tongue was Telugu, but his command over  Tamil  was excellent, his ancestors having settled down in Madras many generations before, like thousands of Telugu families, which gave them the lung-power to vociferously claim “Madaras Manathe!” when the 1956 reorganization of the states was implemented. His command over Tamil was so good that, years later, when we picked up our friendship again, while staying with my grandparents again during my  college  days,  he  wrote  stories,  which  were selected for publication in some of the popular Tamil magazines then.  Coupled with his proficiency in Tamil, was his rich imagination.  I used to wonder at the speed of his writing, and he rarely revised what he wrote. 

He was two years older than I was at the time this episode took place, and had not yet started writing stories, but was already adept at telling stories.  Unfortunately, I do not remember any of them, except one. However, I do remember that they were extremely fascinating, especially the spooky stories. 

The one I remember was about “Sangili Karuppan”, a spirit, which, according to him, was haunting the first and the second floors of the main house; as those floors remained unoccupied at the time, the wandering spirit of Sangili Karuppan found a permanent abode there.  To my probing question why the spirit was called Sangili Karuppan, he told me that, when he was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for having murdered his wife, he turned violent and had to be chained to a pillar.  He, in turn, was murdered by a gang of other convicts, who were set upon him by his wife’s younger brother, in revenge.  My friend further added that the chain, fastened to the legs of the his ghost, was, in truth, the gold thaali he stole from his wife, after murdering her.  At twelve every night, according to my friend, one could hear the chain being dragged on the floor, as Sangili Karuppan roamed restlessly from room to room on the first and the second floors. I, of course, would not believe a word of what he said, would laugh heartily---which seemed to distress him deeply---and try to dismiss the “incident” as a product of his wild imagination.  I said try, because there still would lurk, in the remote recesses of my mind, a formless fear, morphing sometimes into monstrous forms in my dreams.

One night, after dinner, we were all assembled in the courtyard for a light chat before retiring to bed.  The night being unusually warm, everyone seemed reluctant to leave the courtyard, which was sucking in cool air from above, like quicksand.  The courtyard was sandwiched between the old and the new constructions of the house, the new construction rising up to the second and the third floors.  Sitting in the courtyard, one could see the parapet wall of the terrace on the second floor, which had but one huge hall, besides the terrace.  Access to the second floor hall was through the steps from the courtyard leading to the first floor and, from there, through the wrought iron winding steps, coming up from a stairwell, next to the front door of the house, but not visible from the courtyard. 

In the midst of our harmless chatting, someone---I think it was one of my uncles---hit upon an awful idea for testing the courage of the boys.   Each one of us, he said, should go up alone to the second floor, lean over the parapet wall, shout his name, and come down.  Everyone was enthusiastic, except I.  I was the youngest of the lot and, by nature, withdrawn and timid.  However, I had no choice.

First was my brother, whom we saw going up the steps from the courtyard.  As we waited with tensed expectation, I whispered to my mother, who was sitting next to me, hugging me, that I was too nervous and that I could not do it.  She whispered back, “Don’t be silly.  You are a boy, not a girl.”  How I wished I was a girl!  “No, ma, I can’t.  I’ll die, if I go up alone!”  I whispered again.  “No, you won’t,” she said in a very reassuring soft voice.  “Yes, I will,” I asserted, “I’ll die and haunt the first and the second floors, along with Sangili Karuppan.”  I had told her about Sangili Karuppan.  She laughed aloud, attracting the attention of the others but, before she could concoct a convincing reason for her laughter, we heard my brother shout his name, leaning and waving from the second floor parapet wall.  Everyone cheered heartily and loudly and asked him to come down. 

My uncle pointed to me and said, “You next!”

My heart was pumping two hundred beats per second.  My mother could feel it.  She said urgently in a low voice, “Don’t be scared.  I’ll follow you all the way.”  “How can you?  They won’t let you.”  “I can.  Look, after you start, I’ll tell them I am going to the bathroom next to the winding stairwell, but will climb up the stairwell and join you on the first floor.”  The winding stairwell and the bathroom next to it were out of sight from the courtyard.   Her assurance calmed down my agitated mind to some extent, but I had a vague feeling that something was wrong with her assurance; at the time, my feverish mind was unhinged, therefore unable to detect the flaw in her plan.

“You next!  Get going!” whipped my uncle’s voice

I looked at my mother pathetically.  She nodded and smiled at me reassuringly.

Hercules pulled me up and pushed me toward the stairs going up from the courtyard.  As I climbed up step by step with extraordinary mental effort and disappeared from their sight, I could hear my mother saying, “I have to go to the bathroom”.  That gave me the much-needed mental courage to quicken my pace.  I reached the first floor, which was in total darkness---we were not allowed to switch on the lights in any of the rooms---passed through the room next to the landing, and reached the winding stairs coming up from the ground floor, next to the bathroom.   I opened the door of the stairwell, stepped on to the landing of the wrought-iron steps, and looked down. I could not see anything down there.  “Maa!” I called out softly, in a trembling voice.  “Yes, yes, I am here.  I am coming up.  Go up, I will follow you,” I heard my mother saying in a suppressed voice.  That gave me the energy, which had drained out of me by then. 

As I started climbing the winding stairs going up to the second floor, I heard footsteps behind me, climbing up.  I quickened my pace, reached the second floor, stepped out of the stairwell, and waited for her to catch up with me.        

I didn’t have to wait for more than a few seconds, when I saw her dimly    in the semi darkness, reaching the landing.  She was smiling at me, nodding her head. For an instant, I saw her gold thaali chain catch the light from the street lamp and bounce it into a sharp gleam of lemon-yellow.   I stretched my hand out to touch her, saying, “Come with me ma.”

She stepped back quickly and said in a reproachful tone, “Don’t waste time.  I can’t go with you to the parapet wall.  They’ll see me.  I’ll wait for you here.”

Reluctantly I left her there at the landing, went to the parapet wall and peeped over it, to see them all sitting in the courtyard, looking up expectantly.  I waved to them and shouted my name.  They responded instantly with thunderous applause and a variety of verbal approbations.  Greatly relieved, I turned around and rushed back to the stairwell, to give my mother a warm hug, but I saw her turn around and hasten down the steps.  “Ma, wait for me,” I cried and rushed after her.  Laughing gently, she shot past the first floor and descended down into the darkness of the bottom of the stairwell.  I understood her haste, as she had to get to her place before I got back to the courtyard, lest the others should suspect some foul play. 

When I reached the courtyard through the main flight of stairs, they all cheered me once again, hugged me, and kissed me as I ploughed past them to my mother, who was sitting in her place with open arms.  Never before, or after, did I get such a warm and loving embrace from my mother.  Kissing me profusely, she cooed, “You did it, you did it.”   “Thank you ma,” I said, basking in the warmth of her bear hug.

That night, snuggling close to my mother, I slept like a newborn baby.

***

When I woke up the next morning, she had already got up to attend to the chores of the day.  I brushed my teeth and went straight into the kitchen to receive a tumbler of hot coffee from her with a smile.  I could see in her eyes how proud she was of me. With coffee in my hand, I walked past the bottom of the winding stairwell, sat at the front door, started sipping the coffee, watching the traffic on the street as usual.

It was then that the thunderbolt struck me.  I jerked my head back to my left and saw, to my horror, that the bottom of the winding stairwell was filled with old broken wooden chairs, stools, and tables up to a height of about five feet. From the bolt of the securely closed grill door to the stairwell, there hung a very old rusted padlock.

A.V. Dhanushkodi

January, 2010

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND--PREVIEWS

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND

A.V. DHANUSHKODI

Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.  HAMLET, ACT  I , SCENE V

EPISODE SEVEN---PREVIEWS 

This episode dates back to my school days, when I was around ten.  It was the year of India’s independence.  I remember the declaration of independence well, by the coins released at the time; in particular, the white-metal four-anna coin with a prancing lioness on one side.  

I was in school in Kovilpatti, (the headquarters of a Taluk of the same name in the district of Tirunelveli), where my father was serving as the Deputy Collector of the Revenue Department. We were living in a bungalow, on the outskirts of the town. The bungalow stood on a raised level of ground, resembling a hillock, and from the veranda, which skirted around the three walls of the façade of the house, we had a bird’s eye view of the main road as it left the town, on its way to a small town called Ettayapuram, some eight miles away.  As Ettayapuram was within the jurisdiction of my father, I accompanied him on one of his official visits to the palace of the Raja of Ettayapuram.  Even now my memory of the Raja’s (who betrayed Kattabomman to the British) palace is green, particularly the arsenal, where unending rows of swords, spears, and shields were neatly arranged.  Most of them were rusted from years of disuse.  I lifted a sword from its place and tried to brandish it, but unsuccessfully, as it was very heavy for a boy of ten.  My father, who was observing me, told me to put it down, as only men could handle it, not a boy of ten.  I felt very disappointed with myself, that I was a mere boy of ten and not a man.

The bungalow we were living in had the typical layout and dimensions meant to be inhabited by British officers: large rooms, with high walls, supporting wooden beams, on which rested tiled sloping roofs.  Our bungalow had a spacious hall in the centre,  big bedrooms on either side of it (two of which on one side was used by my father as his office rooms), a corridor behind the hall, from which ran a covered and paved walk, through an open court, to the bathroom, kitchen, store room, and the servants’ quarters at the end of the house.  I could be describing any of the many bungalows we used to live in, during my father’s career in the revenue department of the provincial government as a Deputy Collector and, later, as the District Collector.

Of all the rooms in the house, one room fascinated me most: the office room, where my father sat at his large writing table.  On it were many objects, which would spin me into a daydream of being in my father’s place, handling them with great pride and authority.  In fact, I did so really, as often as I could, whenever I was at home and he was not. 

Most impressive was the table, when I sat in the revolving wooden chair with arms, and legs on casters.  The table was covered with a green felt-cloth, except for a width of about six inches all around at the edge.  I would sit in the chair and glide from one end of the table to the other, feeling the felt with my hand as I moved.  Then, I would pull the chair close to the table and scrutinise the writing pad, covered with a large blotting paper with dots and dashes and scribbling all over.  First, I thought they were notes meant to aid my father’s memory in writing some important official documents, but soon I discovered that they were mere doodling meant to try out new nibs.  At the time, there were no fountain pens but only wooden handles with provision at one end to fix metal nibs; after fixing the nib, one dipped the pen in an inkwell and wrote.  The pen-and-ink stand was made of either metal, or wood, or porcelain, with removable ink-pots, for red and blue inks.  I remember that Parker was the only brand of ink available then.  An inseparable accessory to the writing kit was the blotting paper, which was stretched and fixed over a semi-circular holder made of wood with a knob on top; when excess ink flowed from the nib on to the paper, one rolled the blotter thus fixed, over the writing.  I would pull out of the waste-paper basket scraps of discarded paper, carefully spill blobs of ink on them, and blot them out with the blotting paper.  Then, there was the pincushion with pins of different lengths stuck in it; staplers had not made their appearance then.  Pulling out the pins one by one and sticking them in again was a pure sensual pleasure.  The ruler was another object, which attracted my attention often: it was not flat but cylindrical, so that one could roll it on paper and draw parallel lines with certainty.   More fascinating were the photographs, which were printed on them.

Of all the objects on the table, I can never forget the calling bell.  I have often seen and heard father summoning the peon on duty, with one strike on its head.  Occupying his seat, I would often imitate his authoritative manner while striking the bell, but no peon would appear to know my pleasure; however, that was easily solved by my doubling as the peon, with sincere servility, asking for my father’s pleasure.  I would then, as my father, bid him bring me a cup of coffee immediately and then, as the peon, run out of the room to the kitchen and inform my mother of the bidding, but she would “shoo” the peon out with one sweep of her hand.  Unfazed, I would pretend to have received a cup of hot coffee from her and run back to the office-room to offer it to myself as the father and accept it from the peon.  I would then, as the father, dismiss him with all magnanimity, back to his afternoon siesta, with the assurance that I would not wake him up again, until he woke up on his own, knowing it would never happen. 

One day, when I ran to the kitchen as the peon for a cup of coffee for myself as the father, my mother played along and took about five minutes to mime coffee making. That was truly a revelation leading to the realization as to the origins of my histrionic talent.  Taking the steaming cup of coffee, I ran back into the office-room to offer it to myself as the father, bending low and extending both hands holding the cup of coffee and saying, “Ayya, kaapi”, when I saw, to my unspeakable horror, my father sitting behind the massive table with the sternest look I had ever seen on anybody’s face within the short span of ten years of my existence.  The sight made my hands shake so violently, I thought I heard the clatter of the cup on the saucer; surely, I had reached the end of my life, when I saw him boring through me with his laser-look.   Then I heard his sharp command, “Leave the cup of coffee on the table and get lost for good!”  That was the second revelation and realization as to the origins of my histrionic talent. As I stood there for a moment, speechless, he added, “At this rate, you will really end up as a peon when you grow up.”  I turned around and shot out of the room, without telling him that I had played him as well, and that I had a fifty-fifty chance of ending up   as the Deputy Collector of Kovilpatti, when I grew up.

Another day was a holiday for my father and for me.  The afternoon was rather hot and he was going through a pile of files in his office-room.   The peon on home-duty was outside the office room, sitting on the floor, leaning against the wall, and pulling  the pankha rope.  Slowly his eyelids began to drop, he began to doze, and soon he was motionless.  Within minutes, I heard my father call out, “Ahamed Ali!”  Ahamed Ali woke up with a start and started pulling the rope vigorously.  Again, after a few minutes, he slowed down and turned into a statue.  But this time, before my father called out to him, I gently took the rope from his open hand and started pulling  it, sitting with my back to him.  Poor man, he was fast asleep, unaware of what was happening.  I must have pulled for about five minutes, at a steady pace, without a break.  Then, suddenly, I felt the presence of someone behind me.  I turned around to see my father standing at the door, staring down at me.  It was then that I realized that Ahamed Ali was blissfully snoring.  The snoring and the rhythmic movement of the pankha must have presented a puzzling picture to my father, who must have decided to investigate in person The Case of the Snoring Pankha.  I stopped pulling and sat still, waiting for the death sentence (the Deputy Collector was also empowered to perform the functions of a First Class Magistrate in those days); the pankha rope at hand would have served well as the hangman’s noose. 

Even early in his career, my father had earned the reputation of being  an official of absolutely unbending character in his admirable integrity, which he maintained even after retirement, until his final call.  I did not know then that he secretly nursed a dream that I should follow in his footsteps, until one day, much later, towards the end of his career, he expressed his wish about my future.  It was too late then to change my mind, which was set on becoming an artist.  However, as I loved and adored him from the time I could remember, I did attempt thrice to get into the Indian Administrative Service, but only half-heatedly, that I failed to fulfil his dream.  Later, when I was selected by the American Government to serve as the Economic and Commercial Specialist at the American Consulate in Chennai, he was much mollified and happy, having been disillusioned by then with the Indian government service.  He was happy for another reason that I did not turn into one among the few who dared to become artists.  He believed firmly, that artists were destined to die of starvation, however good they were in their art.  At the time, his belief was not far off the mark.

Now, he merely told me in a tired voice, “I appreciate your laudable ambition in life.  When you grow up, I’ll appoint you as the Chief Pankha Puller at the Collectorate.”   With that, he turned around and went back to work.  After a moment of indecision, not having the heart to wake up Abu Ben Adam from his “deep dream peace”, I picked up the rope from where I had dropped it and began pulling the pankha  at a steady pace.  After about five minutes of steady pulling, I was eager to see my father’s appreciative nod and slowly peeped in.  The room was empty.

I don’t remember if Kovilpatti had electric power in those days but, I am sure, our house did not have electric power.  It is only logical to assume that if the most powerful man in the taluk had no power, then the whole town must have been powerless. Still, logic and rational thinking have not had much to do with the goings on in our country, then and now. However, I still remember visually vividly the daily ritual Ahamed Ali performed at dusk.  In one corner of the veranda next to the office room, around ten hurricane-lanterns stood in a row.  Ahamed Ali would sit in front of them, place them one by one in front of him, and dismantle them.  Then, most diligently, he would wipe every part of every lantern, taking his time. 

The most fascinating and delicate operation of all was cleaning of the glass shade of the lantern. He would take it out of the lantern with utmost care, as a surgeon would a baby, the operation being as delicate and tricky as delivering a baby.  The glass shade was held in place by a thin aluminium wire guard, most ingeniously designed to hold it tight, and by a clamp-cover at the top, which had a built-in spring.  One had to first pull the clamp up by a ring attached above it, tilt the shade to one side, and gently coax it out of the wire-mesh by enlarging the opening at the top with one hand.  Ahamed Ali would do it all with great ease, what appeared to me to be the most delicate and complicated operation. After having coaxed all of them out, he would neatly arrange them in front of  him and open a packet of finely ground ash, drop a pinch of it into the shade and swish it around deftly to spread it into a thin film along the inner wall of the shade, take a piece of clean thin cloth (most probably one of the old discarded mull dhotis of my father), place it inside and wipe the glass with it; he would then repeat the same process for cleaning the outside of the shade.  When all the shades were wiped spotlessly clean, he would cut the tip of the burnt edge of the flat wick with a pair of small scissors, pour kerosene from a glass bottle into the container at the bottom, and assemble them one by one after lighting the wicks with Cheetah Fight matchsticks.  Finally, he would take them one by one to every room and hang them from hooks, hanging from the ceiling in the centre of every room.

Many, many, evenings I used to sit next to him and watch him clean the   lanterns and wish that I could do it, someday, at least once, if he would let me.  But there was no hope, he wouldn’t let me even touch the lanterns, let alone clean them.  Whenever I asked him when he would relent, he would answer, “Never, until you grow up!”  I would protest, “I may not want to, when I grow up.”  “Well, that’s your problem,” he would answer, “If I let you clean them, I would lose my job,” was his stock answer.  Not you too Ali, I would despair within myself.

I was not sure if I was growing up but, as sure as not, I knew that my despair was growing.  I would often ask my mother how long it would take me to grow up and she would answer with an enigmatic smile, “That depends on you.  If you want to grow up soon, you would; if not, you would not.”  That sounded more like a limerick or a conundrum, but not an honest reply to an honest question.  After a couple of days of concentrated cogitation on that, I asked her again, “If I become as big as Ahamed Ali, will I be grown up?”  Out came another riddle of a reply from the Sphinx, if it was to answer, instead of question, “Sort of,” and I was   left to myself to sort of sort that out.  Soon, I went to her again for clarification.  “When you are as big as Ahamed Ali, surely, one half of you will be grown up, but I’m not sure of the other half,” was her   ‘clarification’.  “The other half? What is that? And where is that?” I   pestered.  At that point, she lost her temper, knocked me on top of the head with her knuckles, and said, “There!”  So it came to pass that the most profound question remained a question without the other half. 

***

The Board High School, where I studied, could be reached through a short cut, a footpath that started opposite our house, on the farther side of the road to Ettayapuram, and ran straight as a crow flies, but not as a man walks.  One had to negotiate the footpath up and down mini mountains and valleys, turning and twisting left and right around boulders and shrubs.  The walk to the school up and down was the first training ground in calisthenics for me, and Ahamed Ali was my mentor.

One day, Ahamed Ali did not turn up on time to take me to school.  My father wanted me to wait until Ali came, but I begged my mother to persuade my father to let me walk to the school on my own; I was surprised when my father agreed.  I took off with bounding steps, in spite of the heavy schoolbag, which was otherwise carried by Ahamed Ali. 

When I crossed the road, I slowed down to pick some wild flowers and colourful pebbles on the way, which I couldn’t have done normally, with Ahamed Ali egging me on.  As I wound my way up and down the path, a very bright flower of lemon yellow hue arrested my attention.  I wanted to pluck it, but could not reach it, as it was in a thorny shrub beyond a big boulder.  As I stood there, wondering how I could reach it, I saw a long arm extend from behind me and gently pluck the flower.  I turned around and saw him standing behind me with the flower.  He offered it to me with a smile, “Take it, it’s for you!”

I did not take the flower from him.  I hesitated, when I recalled my mother’s edict: “Don’t accept anything from a stranger.”  Strangely, he did not look like a stranger.  There was something very, very familiar about him.  He was quite tall and lean and wore glasses.  His white shirt with half-arms was tucked into his half-pants.  He was wearing slippers.  As he was not carrying anything, I assumed he was not on his way to school. He must have been around fifteen.

I gazed at him for quite some time, trying to recollect where and when I had seen him.  He was still smiling at me, holding the flower.  Something in his inviting smile and look made me forget my mother’s edict, and I took the flower, “Thanks, I have to go now.  It’s getting late for school.” 

“Yes,” he replied and stood there, looking at me. 

“Where are you going?” I asked him.  

“Well”, he scratched his head, “I don’t know.”

“Don’t you go to school?” I asked, a little surprised.

“I do, but today is a holiday,” he replied.

“Today is a holiday?  Where do you study?”

“Yes.  MCC, Madras Christian College School.”

I had not heard of that school.  “Where is it?”

He laughed, “Madras Christian College School is in Madras, obviously.”

“You have come here to spend your vacation with your parents?”

“No, I really don’t know” he replied, with a confused look on his face.

“Where do you live?  I think I have seen you before,” I said.

“Even you look like someone I have met somewhere,” he replied.  He was trying hard to recollect. 

“I should be going now, it’s really getting late.”  I turned around and walked briskly to make up for the time lost.  Once or twice, I turned back and saw him still standing there, waving to me.  When I had almost reached the school, I turned back for the last time to look at him, but he was not there.  I think, from my position, he was hidden from view behind the big boulder and the bush, from which he plucked the bright yellow flower.

The next day, walking down the path to the school with Ahamed Ali, I told him about the tall young boy I had met the day before, but he did not appear to have seen him before in the town.  I asked him to find out where he lived, but Ahamed Ali needed specific description, or his name, neither of which I could give him. As days and months passed, he slowly slipped out of my thoughts and memory.

*

A few months later, my father decided to take us to a film, released a few days before. Very, very rarely did my father accompany us to film shows: first, he was never much interested in watching films and, secondly, he was so very busy day and night with his office work, that he truly had no time for any kind of entertainment.   I remember nothing of the film now, except that it was a “Raaja-Raani” film, with a number of fighting and dancing scenes with songs strewn all over.

When we entered the theatre, the film was already running.  It was a small makeshift theatre, with a corrugated tin-sheet roof.  Nearly half the auditorium from the screen was earth, covered with sand.   The rest of the auditorium was filled with rows of long wooden benches, up to almost the projector-cabin.  Adjoining the cabin was a raised platform running along the width of the theatre, on which was a row of wooden chairs with arms, meant for the VIPs.

The auditorium was almost full.  We were given a royal welcome by the owner of the theatre, who ushered us to our VIP seats in the centre of the row of armed chairs.  None else was seated in the row, except us.  The owner of the theatre sat next to my father at the other end, next to my father was my mother, next to my mother was my brother, and finally I had taken my seat at the end.  The owner enquired if he could get us biscuits and cakes with coffee or cool drinks, but my father declined politely, “Not now, in the interval perhaps”, and told him not to feel compelled to sit with us through the film.  After a few minutes, the owner excused himself and left, promising to see us again in the interval.  We then began to watch the film.

As the film progressed, I became more and more engrossed in it, especially the fight-scenes and the fiery dialogue-scenes.  I could not take my eyes off the screen, except when the song and dance sequences appeared and when the auditorium lights were switched on as the projectionist changed the reel: in those days, the small and touring theatres had just one projector and at the end of every reel it had to be removed and the next reel loaded, which took about five minutes, when the auditorium lights would come on and the patrons would go out for a cup of hot tea or to smoke a cigarette. Also, boys of my age from the nearby teashops would weave through the patrons on the sand, with an aluminium tray of biscuits and a wire mesh contraption carrying four or six glass tumblers of hot tea. During those mini-intervals, I would listen to film songs sung by P.U. Chinnappa or M.K. Thiagaraja Bhagavathar, blaring from the theatre loudspeakers.

After one of those mini-intervals, I was deeply involved in a very dramatic scene, in which the villain and the hero were fighting on the ramparts of a fort. That scene was followed soon by a song and dance sequence. Least  interested  in  it, I  turned away  from  the  screen,  to  discover someone sitting next to me.  I had not noticed him taking the seat, as I was deeply drawn into the fighting scene on the screen. 

I was able to see his right profile, dimly lit by the screen.  He must have been in his early forties.  He was tall and lean, his hair was dark and thick and his well-trimmed moustache was drooping at the tips.   He wore looking glasses and a dark suit. He must be a VIP, otherwise he would not be sitting in the chair next to me, I thought. 

As I was staring at him, he turned to me and smiled.  I was embarrassed that he caught me staring at him. 

“Hello!” he greeted me.

“Hello!” slipped out of me. I had heard that word before, but I didn’t know what it meant.

“Are you a VIP?” I asked him.

“I guess I am not,” he replied with a chuckle, “Why?”

“These seats are meant for VIPs”, I informed him, after some hesitation. 

“I see, I didn’t know”, he confessed.  Then he asked me seriously, “Are you a VIP?”

I was waiting for that question.  “I am not, but my father is,” I replied and pointed to my father, at the other end of the row.

He leaned forward and looked at my father, “I see.”

By now the song had stopped and I turned back to the screen to watch the film, but I was taken aback when I realized that the movie was set in contemporary times.  The scene was at the entrance to a church and there were many characters assembled in formal dresses, as if they had come to attend a wedding.  Among them were two characters: one of them was old, who looked like the father of the other, who was in his early forties.  They were vehemently exchanging words, at the end of which the father slaps his son, and the son stands there paralysed by his father’s unexpected behaviour.  When the camera zoomed in to show the shocked expression of the son, I was shocked to realize that the man, who was sitting next to me in the theatre, was the son on the screen.  At that moment, I turned to look at the man sitting next to me, but to my great surprise, he was not there.  Thinking that he had stepped out to have a cup of tea, I turned to watch the film, but I received another shock.  The hero and the villain of the Raaja-Raani were exchanging heated words at the end of which the villain slaps the hero.  I felt dizzy.  I must have fainted.

When I came to, I was lying on a cot at home and my father was sitting on the cot next to me with his hand on my forehead.  My mother was sitting on the floor, holding my hand.  Gently caressing my forehead, my father was saying, “He has fever”. His words came from afar.  I had never known him to be so caring in words and action. 

The fever lasted for two days, at the end of which I told my parents what had happened, but they wouldn’t believe me.  They insisted that I must have fallen asleep in the theatre and dreamt of the man next to me and the strange movie on the screen.  As I had no other explanation, I began to believe what they believed must have happened.

***

A few years later, when my father decided that my brother and I should live with my maternal grandparents, I was admitted in the Madras Christian College High School. Once, thumbing through some of the photographs taken at the time, I had the feeling of déjà vu when I looked at them.  As I stared at my photographs, trying to recollect where I had seen myself before, I realized that  the brief encounter I experienced in Kovilpatti as I was walking to school alone, was with myself at fifteen.  Many, many years later, as the last scene of the film “Rajapaarvai” was being shot at the entrance to the cathedral near the Gemini traffic junction with me and L.V. Prasad as my father, I realized with even greater amazement that that was the very scene I watched briefly in the makeshift theatre in Kovilpatti, with myself at forty, sitting next to me.

A.V. Dhanushkodi,

January 2010

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KI ND--SENTRYPEDE

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS OF THE UNBELIEVABLE KIND

A.V. DHANUSHKODI

Hamlet: “There are more things in heaven and earth Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy”.  HAMLET, ACT  I , SCENE  V

EPISODE SIX---THE SENTRYPEDE

The episode I have chosen to narrate took place when I was employed.  My job required me to travel occasionally, to meet the leaders of industry and business and learn first hand what was happening, or about to happen, in their fields of speciality, very much akin to the work that the investigative journalists do.  Once, a need arose to travel from Madras to Ootacamund with my boss, to attend the annual convention of the United Planters Association of South India (UPASI), an association of tea planters in South India.  My boss, let me call him B, had taken over charge of our section just a few months before, and the tour was meant to be an orientation trip for him.  As I covered the area of Tamil Nadu, I had to accompany him on the tour, to brief him on the economics of the cash crop and on the industrial and business leaders who controlled the production and sales of the crop.

B decided to travel by his car, much to my excitement---instead of the usually preferred plane---as that would give him an opportunity to see vast stretches of land: fields, hills, hamlets, villages, and small towns of our country in one shot.  He chose to drive himself and take his wife with him, whom I shall call C for charming, which she was, apart from being as beautiful as a classical Greek sculpture, with Michelangelo’s signature on it; no wonder B couldn’t be away from her for one whole week.  I shall of course call myself D.

The car was a commodious land-rover with ample room behind the rear stretch of seat, for transporting luggage.  The space was packed almost to full capacity with our luggage, enough to see us through one week of outing.  I took my seat next to B, and C was behind us, chatting away whenever I was not struggling to answer probing questions from B about everything he was hearing and seeing around him.  From time to time she would feed us with vacuum-packed nuts, tinned strawberry and cranberry juice, and all unimaginable crispy and crunchy junk food from America, topping them all with a generous flow of the inevitable and ubiquitous Coke.  B needed them without doubt, as he was burning up everything that went into him, like the land rover burning up gallons of gasoline, as he manoeuvred it through the ever present and moving goats, cows, bullock-carts, men and women on foot, besides attempting to avoid ruts and potholes in plenty on the “national highways”.     Even I needed all that fuel, to rummage through my recalcitrant brains to come up with credible answers to the many relevant and irrelevant questions  Americans perennially pop up like corns in the popping machine. After a couple of hours, I felt I would have been very happy covering the distance from Madras to Ooty by foot, carrying my baggage, instead of being battered with a barrage of unending and unanswerable questions in an air-conditioned car.  I had no option but to console myself by considering the experience as an evolution of my soul towards reaching the ultimate goal of becoming omniscient.  Thinking back on the experience,  I now realize that B was a generous giver of whatever he was suffering by driving,  by driving me to suffer: a sadist in short.

The drive from Madras to Ooty took us through the fertile Cauvery delta, the rice bowl of Tamil Nadu.  It was, I think, the transplantation time of the Samba crop, the major rice crop season in the delta.  The fields on either side of the “national highway” were rich cadmium green light, a veritable pleasure for the eyes of an artist, against which were dotted women in saris of blues, greens, reds, yellows, and oranges, transplanting paddy-saplings.  As the car sped, B was shooting questions one after another on the cropping patterns and the monsoon in the region.  I was answering them with relative ease as I had been answering the same questions from my previous bosses, year after year.  C was basking in the beauty of vast stretches of paddy fields interspersed with patches of farmers’ thatched huts, wells, and plough-bullocks, nestling under the cool shades of cocoanut groves. 

Suddenly, she gripped my shoulder and shouted, “What was that?”  I jerked my head back and saw what had excited her, before it was hidden from view by a huge tamarind tree.  “It is an Ayyanar temple,” I answered.  “Frank, will you stop the car!  I want to see that!” cried C.   But B was in no mood to stop the car; we must have covered about a couple of furlongs by then.  “Sorry dear, we’ve shot past too far.  What was so exciting?” drawled B in his cool Texan accent.  “Horses!  Those magnificent horses and the sabre-rattling horsemen! So fantastic in their torrid colors.”  “Ya, I saw them.  Garish,… no wonder they caught your attention.  What are they, anyway?”  That question was obviously meant for me.   “Frank, please, let’s go back,” C was almost crying. 

I pacified her, “Don’t worry.  Soon enough we’ll be passing by another of those temples.”

“That’s a temple?  It didn’t look like one.  Only horsemen on horses,” commented B.

“True,” I agreed, “It is a temple, nevertheless, and those brightly painted  horsemen on their horses are the guardian deities of the village we passed just now.  One of them is Ayyanar and the other is Karuppusamy. 

"This whole region is dotted with them, on the outskirts of every village.  They stand guard at the entrance to the village, to ward off evil forces.  In fact, they are believed to patrol the village on horseback at nights.  They have assistants, dogs and huge henchmen, you might have seen, had we stopped there.”

“Do people worship them?” asked C.

“Yes.  In fact, the rituals are as elaborate as in any big temple, consecrated to the mighty gods Shiva or Vishnu.  Although they were meant to be Gods for the lower castes, they have come to be worshipped by people of all castes.” 

“Who conducts the pujas?” inquired B.

“The Brahmin priests, of course,” answered C.

“No”, I corrected her, “Velars.  They are the community of potters in the village who make all these terracotta figures of the deities and their minions.  It should interest you to know how these statues are made and erected…”  I was abruptly interrupted by C’s excited high-pitched voice.

“There!  There!  Frank!  Stop, stop!”

We all saw it at the same time.  Another Ayyanar temple, beyond which we could see a cluster of huts and small houses of a hamlet.  This time, without much ado, the car came to a screeching halt right in front of the temple.  B gently glided the land rover off the asphalt highway and on to the gravel apron and parked.

   

We got down and stood for a moment at the edge of the sloping ground covered with wild grass and weeds.  The temple presented a rather sad sight.  Most of the colours painted on the terracotta statues had faded, to reveal the original colour of the clay.  Some of the figures had gaping holes, and the limbs of some of them had broken and fallen on the ground.  Broken terracotta pieces were strewn here and there.  I noticed that the head of the horse carrying Ayyanar had broken and was lying on the ground in front of it.  Obviously, nobody was worshipping the deities there anymore. 

C began to climb down the slope; I followed her.  B remained where he was, near the rover, took out a pipe from his shirt pocket and started stuffing it with tobacco. 

As we approached the temple, I was able to appreciate the beauty of the figures there  more  keenly.   I realized  that  all  the  figures  were    most   beautifully proportioned and most intricately and exquisitely decorated with ornaments.  A master-craftsman himself must have moulded every one of them.  C was in raptures, as we went around the figures to look at them from all sides.  They were flawless works of art. 

As I stood there immersed in the beauty of the statues, C picked up the broken head of the Ayyanar’s horse from the ground, as if it were a newborn baby.   She slowly turned it this way and that to  take  a   better look at the finest piece of art I had ever seen, shaking her head in disbelief, punctuated by exclamations of appreciation.  Then, suddenly she said, “I’m taking this home.”

I wondered if she was serious.   When she looked up at me, I realized that she was very serious.  “May I?” she asked me in a pleading tone.

I was at a loss for words.  It was not for me to give her permission to take it.                                                                                                      

“May I?” she repeated.

Really, I didn’t know what to say.  After a few moments I said, “Well, it is not for me to say YES or NO.  I guess you could take it home, but it is not done, you know.”

“Why not?” she insisted.

“Well, that’s a rather difficult question……it is…. a temple….”

“So?”

“Everything in a temple belongs to the temple.”  Even to me, it did not sound very convincing.

“I know that,” she chided me mildly, “I’d be happy to pay any price for it, but there is no one here to take the money.”

“That’s not the point!” Now it was my turn to chide her, “Temples are consecrated to God; therefore everything in a temple belongs to God.”  This time, I sounded very convincing.

“You are right,” she conceded, “But nobody worships here anymore, obviously,” she was still adamant. 

I was silent.

After a minute she said, “Alright, if it would satisfy you, I’d pay a generous  price for it.”   She  laid  the  horse’s  head  down,  took out her  purse, pulled out a hundred rupee note, put it down at the foot of the horse, and placed a stone on it. 

“I suppose our conscience will not bother us anymore,” so saying, she picked up the horse’s head again. 

At that moment I saw a terrifying object in the hollow of the horse’s head she was holding.   A six-inch long reddish yellow centipede was wriggling within.

“Put it down!  Put it down!” I shouted.

“What’s the matter?” she asked looking at me.  When she saw my expression, as I was looking into the hollow of the horse’s head, she was puzzled and turned the head to look into it.  I saw her go pale.

Then she gently put the head down on the ground and stood there wondering what she should do next. 

“Let’s go,” I said and started moving.  I thought she would follow me.  To my surprise, she did not.

She calmly took a long dry twig from the ground and kneeled down to prod the centipede out.  I stopped and stood there, watching helplessly.  As she prodded, the centipede wriggled and went deep into the head.  She would not give up, she prodded deeper and deeper, when the centipede wriggled out with another, its mate, much longer and thicker and deep yellow in colour.  Following them came three or four small centipedes, wriggling.  When she saw them, she put the twig down and got up.

“That’s right,” I said, “You wouldn’t want a family of centipedes in your car.”

She looked at me calmly and said, “They too need a home.”  She began to walk towards the car.

“The money?” I asked her.

She stopped, turned and looked at the hundred rupee note fluttering in the breeze, held down by the stone she had placed on it.  She thought for a second and said, “That is my offering to Ayyanar.”                            

She turned again and walked up towards the car.

I followed her.                                                                   December 2009