The Toss of a Lemon

THIRUCHINAPALLI.

Vairum has read up a little on the history of the city, poring through the Trichinopoly District Gazetteer at Minister’s house. He likes the British spelling-as though Thiruchi were a transplanted Greek city. In any case, this has been universally shortened to “Trichy” or “Thiruchi”-certain names are a mouthful for Tamils and non-Tamils uniformly. Families of the region, though, call the city Kottai-fort-for the city’s most prominent feature, a small mountain fortified by the illustrious Nayaks in their reign, now the site of the city’s favoured temple.

Kottai is the last stop before Thiruchi Junction, and Vairum remembers, when he was eleven and just learning to keep track of such things, panicking when he saw that Minister, who had brought him to Thiruchi on their annual shoe-buying trip, wasn’t moving. He only knew Thiruchi by this name and naturally thought they were missing their stop. Minister laughed and patted his knee. “Kottai is Kottai, m’boy, and Trichy is Trichy. See?” he said, pointing at the sign as they pulled into the main station.

Vairum shakes his head at the memory as they pull into the big station now. He was so green! Murthy is still drowsing, his head lolling to all points of the compass, and Vairum shakes him. He waits for the two immense, slumbering barristers opposite them to wake and arrange themselves so he can extract his valise from behind their legs-brothers, they had explained in the early part of the journey, when everyone was alert and conversational. The young barristers, who were in Kulithalai doing an official and personal favour for an old friend, are also St. Joseph ’s alumni and heartily pleased to meet the young admittee. They are so obese that each occupies nearly half the wooden bench, their legs dangling forward over the below-bench storage area like mahogany pillars in some hall of justice.

As the train halts, Murthy wakes, smacking his lips, and rearranges his oily kudumi-the hairstyle, front of the head shaved, the rest in a ponytail, has not yet been thrust from fashion by British influence-so that it is equally but differently dishevelled. “We’re here.”

It seems to Vairum that the equivalent of the entire population of Kulithalai streams past on the platform. The thrill of arrival in the city never seems to diminish. And now he is to live here!

The barristers awaken with snorts, compose their linen jackets, put on their Parsi-style caps. Murthy follows them to the door with Vairum’s suitcase and they exchange addresses on the platform. The lawyers will change trains here to return home, and Murthy and Vairum are cordially invited to visit if ever they find themselves in Pandiyoor, a market town in the Madurai district.

Murthy leads Vairum along the platform, past the first- and second-class resting rooms, past the steamy tiffin stand, past the small station offices panelled in dark wood and full of uniformed men with moustaches, toward the exit, beyond which the city quivers, mirage-like and muscular.

Late that afternoon, back in Cholapatti, Sivakami has cooked a lot of food and is wondering who will eat it. She has little appetite.

She wanders into the garden. The birds are getting active in anticipation of the evening cool, and the yard seems very loud. Was it this loud when Vairum was still here? She checks on the progress of the papaya, notes the coconut palms look a bit dry. From the northeast, she can hear hoots of young male laughter-the Brahmin quarter’s youth gathering to go to Kulithalai for an evening of loitering in the market square. Muchami tells her that the ones with money play cards at the club. She imagines her Samanthibakkam nephews doing exactly the same. Nice boys, but not brilliant. What if she had stayed, and seen those boys going to secular schools, and her own son in a mediocre local paadasaalai? He would have grown bitter, sharper than any of them, but with no potential to earn. His cousins were friendly when they were small, but during ten years of living on her brothers’ goodwill, their relations would have changed. It wouldn’t have been charity; she would have paid all of her own costs and Vairum’s, but no one would have been permitted to know or acknowledge this; that would be bad form. Vairum would not have been the king of that household, the way he is here, in his own home. She imagines her nephews calling Vairum’s name and laughing.

But she is not imagining it. The boys on the other side of her garden wall, they are talking about her son. She moves closer, though there is no need, their voices are clear as well water.

“He came of age and was taken away!” one snorts, impressed at his own wit.

“Yeah, he came of age and rode away on a bullock cart!” says another, as though it was he who thought of it.

“Like a bride!” says another, as though no one had understood the joke before.

Sivakami knows, through her sources, that none of these boys made any mark, academically. There was only one other Cholapatti boy, apart from Vairum, who had done well. He had gone to Thanjavur, where one of his four sisters was married into a family of revenue officials. His parents had eight other sons, two of whom might even be in the crowd massed at her garden wall. Their brother was not being insulted.

Sivakami crouches by her wall, her face hot.

Then a neighbouring door opens: not Murthy’s, to her left, but the other, to her right, Dharnakarna, the witch.

From beyond her eastern wall, Sivakami hears the young witch’s slightly muffled voice: “Move away from my door with your dirty talk!”

The boys escape toward town, yelping with shared fear and collective bravado like skinny yellow pi-dogs.

Safe.

Dear Amma,

Murthy Periappa will have told you all about our trip, so I don’t need to.

The names of the three other boys in my hostel room are K. Govindasamy, an Iyer boy, C.S. Francis Lourdesamy, a Christian, obviously, and S.K. Natarajan, a Reddiar.

They are all in the sciences stream, like me, though

Lourdesamy really wants to be a priest.

As Minister Mama coached me, I explained about my skin condition before my roommates could ask, and they have helped to defend me against those who don’t understand. We in our cell are enlightened people, not given to old folkways.

I know you want to know about every single meal I eat, but I’m not going to write about that. I won’t lose any weight, that’s enough.

The masters really want to give us a challenge. This is a big change from Kulithalai school where the teachers were always afraid I would already know more than they did. I didn’t. (Not always) But here, I can have as much extra homework as I want. Most of the other boys don’t want extra, obviously. I am taking extra maths, physics and chemistry-won’t bore you with the details.

Your son, Vairum

Sivakami folds the letter exactly as Vairum must have, far away in Kottai, in a room she will never see. She knows he knows she is upset by the idea of his rooming with a Reddiar and can barely stomach the thought of his sleeping in the same room with a Christian, probably from a family of converted untouchables, she thinks, masses of whom were convinced by missionaries that Christians don’t have any truck with caste. He’s almost certainly descended from a lower caste, at the least. She’s amazed the other Brahmin boy’s parents permit it, but maybe they have as little control as she feels she does. When Vairum was admitted to a Christian college, she worried this would be the result, but Murthy persuaded her. St. Joseph ’s is an excellent college, even if it’s not a Hindu one.

She slips the letter back into its envelope, imagining his hands doing that, writing his sums, eating his food. She tries to imagine the food, picturing great steaming vats of rice attended by Brahmin cooks. Chinnarathnam had made discreet inquiries on her behalf and reported that there were both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dining halls and that the cooks in the vegetarian hall were Brahmin, one of a few concessions by the British administration to the Brahmin parents, whose sons make up a significant segment of the student population.

She places the letter before the Ramar. Later, she will haltingly read it aloud for Muchami and Mari since they, too, relish news of Vairum’s great adventure.

VAIRUM FOLDS THE FINE PAPER in half and in half again and slips it into a pinkish-brown envelope. He scoops a crusty gob of official-smelling mashed-rice paste from the small pot on the corner of the worktable he shares with Francis Lourdesamy and smears it across the underside of the envelope flap. He addresses the sealed envelope to Minister and Gayatri: another brief but chatty note, another promise kept. He makes a point of thanking Minister for his advice and asking after their children. He does like the idea that he has people to write to, even if there is little he really wants to tell them.

He’s alone in his room and, as he folds his jingling pouch of silver into the waist of his dhoti, he wonders where the others are. His money pouch doesn’t include the silver piece he was permitted to keep from the gathering of coins that marked his return to Cholapatti. That coin is folded into his waistband, as always, separate from his spending money. It is, after all these years, as much a part of his daily toilet as hair oil and a fresh shirt. No one knows it’s there, and he doesn’t feel dressed without it.

He leaves the hostel and passes the temple tank, nervously putting his palms together to greet two of the maths masters, who overtake him, absorbed in serious conversation. They nod back, busy, friendly. Their recognition inflates him.

Exiting the campus gate, he takes the long way around the traffic roundabout, idly browsing the knick-knacks for sale. A woman squats against the wall of the main St. Joseph ’s campus, behind an array of Ganesha statuettes. The largest is about eight inches tall, the smallest about two. They are beautiful: crude, geometric, of a wood so light as to seem made of foam. Vairum picks the little fellows up admiringly, one by one. Vermilion dots the pointed crown, the noble forehead, the trunk, hands, belly, feet-thirteen auspicious red smudges. Three grooves mark the bridge between the beady black eyes, three grooves cross the belly to imply a modest garment.

Vairum bends over the elephant-headed gods, unmindful of traffic and dust in the road, ignoring the woman grinning in fear at his white patches while unceasingly extolling her wares’ spiritual and artistic value.

He must have one-a companion to witness the commencement of this new enterprise, to help put the shoulder to unseen obstacles that may yet block his twisted road. He extracts from his pouch the price of a smart-looking fellow about three and a half inches tall.

His new purchase in one hand, his letter in the other, he waits now to cross to the post office when Govindasamy, one of his roommates, pulls up in front of him on a bicycle, and the others on another bike just behind him.

“Where were you, man?” calls Nattu, louder than necessary, as he falls off the handlebars. “We were looking for you.”

“Um, meeting with my physics tutor.” He grins back at them shyly.

Govindasamy points to his own handlebars. “Get on. We’re going swimming.”

“Ah, I-” Vairum looks at the letter in his hand, savouring their insistence.

“Get on,” Nattu yells again, already remounted. Francis wheels unsteadily through the traffic to turn left, narrowly missing a gourd vendor and his cart. They’re going to the river, the Kaveri, whose vicious seductions his mother had explicitly instructed him to resist, the only condition of his departure. This very afternoon, arriving at the physics building, his eye had caught, not for the first time, on a high-water mark memorializing one time the river had flooded the campus, running across fields to embrace the city in a morbid hug. Then there are times when one or another of the river’s dams are, without warning, released…

Govindasamy jabs his hand aggressively in the direction of his handlebars once more. “Get on!”

Oh, the sweetness of one’s company desired!

Vairum hops up on the handlebars, smiling widely as Govindasamy pushes off through the traffic.

The sun jigs on the docile water like Krishna on the defeated serpent’s hoods. Children splash and shriek, their mothers wash clothes. The city bakes. It’s the driest time of year. Vairum licks his lips; they taste of dust, of a cracked, parched road. Does the river look so wet and cool in Cholapatti? So meek? His feet rub sweatily in his shoes as he approaches the ghat with his friends.

This part of the river is three miles from the college. Vairum, looking up, sees the top edge of the Rock Fort, Malai Kottai. Here, the river looks more hospitable than agricultural, tame as an embassy party. Govindasamy, Francis and Nattu shed their clothes and descend the stairs at a point where the river is deep and narrow, dive in and swim to the opposite bank. Vairum hangs back a moment, his mouth open a little, gaping or panting, then shucks his shoes and clothes.

Ganesha sits on the bank, atop the letter addressed to Gayatri and Minister, facing the river as Vairum takes his first tentative steps down the stairs of the little ghat. The water is cool and Vairum first squats and splashes water on his dusty skin, then topples joyfully into the wet.

A cooling wind skims the water. The wooden Ganesha, light as river spume, topples onto its back and gazes at the sky. The letter lifts into the air, drops into the water and floats downstream. Cholapatti is the other way.