The Summer of '82 - Chapter 7

The clock was ticking away fast unlike the other days. I had locked myself in the room for a long while, pretending to be asleep. I prayed that my parents would come back early and I could plead them to persuade ammamma not to take me to Pranthan Kuttan. I could fake a stomach ache, or even a headache and bury myself under pillows and pretend as if I was in deep sleep. I started fearing the knock on the door and the anticipation of the knock on the door scared me even further.

As the lights outside the window dimmed, my heartbeats got louder. So loud, I did not even hear the thump on the door.
‘Open the door, Shaiju’ I heard my mother’s voice. Ecstatic, I opened the door and hugged her. ‘I don’t want to meet Pranthan Kuttan. Please ma, I don’t want to go, tell ammamma please’ I pleaded clinching on to her saree.

She stooped down and hugged me. She then pulled me away and wiped my tears from my wet cheeks. ‘He is not mad, Shaiju.’ She combed my hair as she spoke. ‘Ammamma loves you. Do you think she will put you in danger?’ I shook my head to say no. She then pulled me along to the courtyard where my ammamma was waiting. Reluctantly , I held ammamma’s hand and started walking along her side.

The day was getting dark and the voice of the temple speakers blared devotional songs. We walked through the dry leaves and then turned towards the now familiar spooky house of Pranthan Kuttan. The pipal tree at the corner of the land now had three diyas lit underneath it. An old lady with a stoop was sweeping the courtyard. On seeing my grandmother, she searched in anticipation of an unexpected visitor.

‘Janaki, your eyesight is getting weak’ ammamma shouted out to the old lady.

‘Aha, It is you, Parvathy. Did you loose your way to this house? You are coming after such a long time!’ she said as she walked forward. I could see, she was walking with a limp. I hid behind ammamma searching for Pranthan kuttan in the shadows of the house. ‘And who is this hiding behind you?’

‘Thats Shaiju, Padmas eldest son!’ she said as she pushed me ahead. ‘I wanted him to meet Kuttan.’

‘He looks so much like his mother, the same eyes’ she said as she caressed my face with her rough hands. I tried to express a smile, but was not very successful in the effort as my fear was far greater than the expression of acknowledgement.

‘I am glad you came to meet Kuttan’ she said as she led us to the verandah. Both of you sit here, I will get him. ‘Paru, what will you have, tea or coffee?’ she asked.

‘Nothing, we just had tea before we left home’.

Janaki Amma then disappeared into the darkness of the house. I could the tiny sound of the clang of metal in the darkness. This was followed by grunts, and i held my ammamma’s arm tightly. I felt my ammamma’s hand caressing my hands trying to pacify me. The clang of metal got louder and slowly from the shadows emerged an oddly huge figure. The old lady, Janaki, escorted him to an arm chair, that lay in the corner of the verandah. I wondered how i missed it when i was there in the afternoon. He sat silently. I couldn’t see him clearly in the darkness, and i tried to hide as much as possible behind ammamma’s shadow.

‘It’s very dark in here, let me get the lamp’ she said as she disappeared into the shadows again.

‘Kutta, do you remember me’ ammamma spoke.

‘Whe.. were... ooo fa so..’ a scruffy sound came from the chair. The words were broken coming in pieces from his throat.

‘I was busy kutta... I have so much to do in the fields’ ammamma replied.

‘Na.. com.. to.. mee... me..’ His sound had sadness in it along with the scruffiness.

‘I am sorry Kutta, but I do have got somebody to be your friend’

‘wi you rea da git..ta to - de?’

‘No, not the Gita, but Shaiju has got some new stories to read out to you’

‘Ooo- shai - ju?’

My ammamma pulled me to her front. ‘Won’t you read him the stories you have bought Shaiju?’ I shook my head. ‘Shaiju, he is your friend, why dont you first shake hands with him?’ I shook my head violently. My ammamma pushed me forward with all the force. That is when the old lady entered with the lamp and pranthan kuttan’s face was lit up with the soft glow of the kerosene lamp.

His head was huge with a huge lump on his left. His lips awkwardly twisted upwards with a cleft in between. He wore nothing but a white lungi and his long torso was bent with his bones sticking through his skin. He was dripping saliva as he looked at me as his lips widened. I was terrified.

‘Aaa u al - righ’ he looked at me, as his saliva dripped on to his lungi. The old lady wiped his mouth with a cloth, and then sat next to him.

‘What?’ I couldn’t understand what he said.

‘Kuttan is asking if you are alright?’ the old lady deciphered it for me.

‘Yes, I am. Thanks’ I replied.

‘Oooo fel fra winn... in noo...’ he said

‘Kuttan says you fell from the window in the noon.’ the lady repeated. I felt ashamed, I did not know why, but i did feel ashamed. I looked down to my toes in shame.

‘wi.. you.. Ree me...stthho... ree’

‘Will you read me a story, he says’ the old lady spoke.

‘Sure,’ i said as I opened my tinkle comics ’which one do you want to listen to, Suppandi or Kalia, the crow.’

‘Son you will have to read a bit slow, alright?’ she said as she got upto leave. I shook my head and opened the book to read it. I did not know when the fear disappeared. I read out the stories slowly. In between I saw his mouth dripping. I looked around looking for the old lady and ammamma but they had gone inside and I could hear them talking. Kuttan tried to wipe off his face, but was struggling. I took up the cloth and wiped it for him. He smiled. I wouldn’t know why, but that smile changed the equation between me and Kuttan. He laughed at the stupidity of Suppandi. His laughter, a broken one, occasionally spitting as he laughed. Seeing him laugh, I laughed and soon I could understand his broken language. After an hour, we left from Kuttan’s house. I jumped as I walked.

‘Ammamma, why is Kuttan called pranthan kuttan? He is not mad, is he?’ I asked her.

‘No, no. He is not mad at all. He is just a little different from all of us’ she said.

‘Why is that ammamma’

‘I dont know son. God sometimes plays funny games with all of us.’

‘Why is he tied with a chain, ammamma?’

‘Some years ago, he ran away from his house into the street. Somebody made fun of him and he bit that man, and the people of the village started beating him. That is why Namboodiripaad decided to tie him up so that he wouldnot trouble anybody.’

‘But it is wrong, isn’t it ammamma?’

‘It is, but then Namboodiripaad has many problems to take care off and the safety of Kuttan is the last thing he wants to risk.’

‘He can’t even wipe his own face. Why is that ammamma?’

‘Because he is a special child. His arm is weak and he has no control over his hands, that is why?’

‘Ammamma, can I read him The Kaziranga Trail, tomorrow. Is it OK, if I go and meet him in the evenings?’

‘Oh sure dear. You can. He will like it if you read out to him’ she said as we entered the gate of our house. We could see the tungsten wire of the bulb glowing dimly in the low voltage. Kittu and Sita were reciting their poems from two to ten in unison making it sound like a sacred chant. I ran upt my mother tugging on to her saree.

‘Ma, I am hungry.’

The Summer of '82 - Chapter 6

The path to the temple was a spooky one. The major path of the temple was covered with dry leaves while a clear ground was visible in a serpentine curve which indicated a trickle devotees who would visit it. The fear of snakes under the leaves were the reason we were told to walk on the clear path. The summer heat made the snakes come out of their holes and seek the shadows under the trees and the dry leaves around. A house in ruins donned the other side of the path. A huge house without a boundary wall. The leaves had fallen all around the courtyard. An old banyan tree stood in abundance of aerial roots reaching out to the ground at the far corner of the land with little stone statues of Gods and Godesses smeared with red on their forehead. The house had a strange effect on me. I drifted my path as I stared blankly at the tree. The wind moved the leaves on the ground in a pattern that had no structure. I stepped into the courtyard of the house not realizing that I was left behind all alone.

The house was in shambles. The wood under the tiles had wilted and seemed as if it would give away anytime. I doubted if anybody stayed in that house. There was a strong stench that polluted the air. All the windows were closed. A richly carved door with a brass lion handle was hidden under a layer of dust and eaten by termites. I prodded on the verandah. The walls had lost its color many years ago, it seemed. There were broken battens holding hanging electric wires as it hung out to a bulb under a wooden beam. As I slowly inched ahead, I noticed the window had a slight opening. The window was heavily framed with a wooden ornate grill. I inched myself close to the window and searched the openings if it could reveal the interior of the house. As I searched the window, I realized hot air being puffed on my shoulders. For a moment I froze, not knowing what to do. If I had to run, I would have to turn to the entrance of the verandah. There was a small opening right across, a few steps away, but it seemed too small for me to escape. The hot air started slowly to have a growl... and I shot to the little opening ahead. My judgement turned out to be right that the opening was small for me to escape. But I managed to scrape past it bruising my hand and my legs as I tumbled onto the courtyard below. The momentary shock had made my ear warm and I scampered through the dirty ground and ran. I ran into the belly of Namboodiripaad. Regaining my composure I ran out. I could not hear anything else except my own breath. As I ran back, I could see Kannan walking back. Seeing me, he was ecstatic. I ran towards him and then caught his hand and continued down to the temple. I guess he was confused and yelling, but i could hardly hear anything except my breath and the beats of my heart that were pounding inside me. We ran to the temple pond and sat there catching my breath.

As I calmed, things came back to normal. My ears cooled down, and my heartbeats sank into silence. I turned to look at Kannan who was staring at me.

‘Where did you disappear’ Kannan asked me completely furious ‘I was scared.’

‘I dont know how I went into that spooky house on the path’ i said, trying to justify myself. ‘I dont know how i reached there, it was like, i was pulled in there, and then as I entered the house i could feel someone breathing heavily over my shoulders and I ran and jumped out of a small window’

That is when i felt the pain on my elbow and knees. I looked at my elbows and it was scratched with a wooden splinter piercing my skin. I pulled it out and the sting emanated great pain. I stepped down to clean the wound with the water in the pond. As the water caressed my wounds a burning sensation passed through the body and I cried with my eyes shut, cringing in pain.

‘Did you see him?’
‘Who?’
‘Pranthan kuttan?’
‘Who is that?’

‘It is Namboodiripad’s youngest son. He is mad. He bites everyone he sees.’ He didn’t bite me, i thought to myself, and I was glad i was not bitten. I shook my head. ‘No, he didn’t. But i felt his breath over my shoulder.. ’
‘.. I know you felt his breath. I wish you had seen him. No one has seen him. He is tied to a long chain so that he doesn’t get out of the house.’

‘Tied??’ I don’t know if i felt bewildered or sorry for him.
‘Namboodiripaad doesn’t like anybody to go to his house. Pranthan Kuttan has bit so many people... and he is so strong it is difficult to pull him apart from his victim. The last time some one had gone was when Hamsa had gone to give back Namboodiripaads umbrella which he had forgotten in his shop and Pranthan kuttan bit his ear’

‘Bit his ear’ i was now scared.

‘Yes, the left ear of Hamsa you see is fake!’ Kuttan said pinching his left ear. Hamsa was the only grocery shop in the village and he had inherited from his father who had inherited it from his father.

‘No one goes into that house. You know there were ten deaths in that house, and all of them were not in the right way’
‘What do you mean?’ the pain had gone away, or probably i was used to the pain or probably I had gone numb of what I had just heard. Probably, it might also have been the fact of being scared to death of witnessing a madman at such a close distance.

‘Well, Namboodiripaad had ten children. Seven boys and three girls. Four of them were born dead. Later one girl fell into the well, one son had gone to the main road and was run over by a truck, one of the girl had hung herself from the ceiling, and one of them got swept away when he had gone swimming near Madakkeri Dam. One boy ran away when he was eight years old after he witnessed his sister hanging from the ceiling.’
He continued. ‘Nobody goes to that house. It is more haunted than the temple. Do you still want to see the ghost?’

I was not sure anymore. We decided to go back home. Our stomach was grumbling and as I got up, I realised I had excruciating pain on my left knee. With Kannan as a support we limped back home. We went past Namboodiripaads house, and it looke spookier than before. We hurried past the house and our fears were then lesser.

Namboodiri was in the verandah of our house when we entered the gates. He was with ammamma and in deep discussion with her but her attention diverted to us the moment we entered the gates. There was silence as i limped to the verandah. Ammamma looked at me and held my hand. She then twisted it to have a look at my elbow, which was bruised and had turned dark brown. Namboodiripaad left saying nothing, and ammamma took me to the bathroom and started applying dettol on it. She was silent all the while. I tried to break the silence. Out in the courtyard Kannan was playing with the custom made bat hitting a ball onto the blank wall.

‘Ammamma, why is pranthan kuttan tied with a chain?’

‘Were you scared?’ she asked as she took a cotton swab and wipped it on the wound. The pain intensified, and i cried out in pain.

‘I was’ I replied. ‘I thought it was the ghost in the temple.’

‘And I thought you wanted to meet the ghost in the temple?’

I was shocked. How did she know?

‘How did you know?’ I asked surprised.

‘Well, I am your grand mother, I know’ she replied with a sparkle in her eye. ‘And his name is Kuttan not Pranthan Kuttan. Pranthan means mad, and he is not.’

‘But Kannan said...’

‘In the evening we shall go and meet him. I want you to carry your Tinkle comics’ she said.

‘No, I won’t’ I was reluctant. I did not want to be bit by a mad man! And to give him my favorite comic books. I wouldn’t do that either. She applied Soframycin on the wound.

‘Keep it open, it will heal faster’ she said ‘and we will be meeting Kuttan today.’

‘No, ammamma. I wont. I dont want to be bitten by a madman.’ I went out and hugged her trying to persuade her to change her mind.

‘Son, I will be there with you. I wont let you be bitten by anybody.’ She persisted. ‘You will be fine, I promise you.’

When I told about my conversation with ammamma, Kannan fled. He remembered, he had something to be done at home and will see me the next day, if i was alive, he said.

The Summer of '82 - Chapter 5

A few days passed. The wound on my forehead had healed, but the mark of the stitches remained. The doctor told me it would take sometime for the mark to fade away into the skin. Kannan and I raced through the fields south of the house to the narrow gauge railway line that passed through the village. The railway line looked like coming from eternity and going towards eternity. In the hot summer sun, we would walk on the steel rail with arms outstretched trying to balance ourselves without stepping on the gravel below.

‘So, when do we see the ghost?’ I reminded Kannan as I took one step further.

‘I thought you had forgotten’ Kannan replied.

‘Come on Kanna, dont you want to see a ghost. It would be so much fun. We can try to scare him instead!’ I was ecstatic.

‘I told Das, about you wanting to see the ghost’ Kannan replied.

‘And what did he say?’ I was curious.

‘He says there is no ghost. Namboodiripaad wants to make money through the pooja he will conduct’ Kannan replied.

‘You mean there are no ghosts’ I was disappointed.

‘Not according to Das’ he said as he jumped down on the gravel. He kept his ear on the rail. He motioned me to do the same. We could hear the beats of the train at a distance. On the horizon, we could see a speck, which grew bigger and bigger. The engine blew its whistle and we scampered to the side and hid behind a shrub as a train chugged past us. There was a constant fear in both of us of being spotted by some of our relatives who knew us. The rail line was beyond limits for us and being noticed by someone who knew my ammamma was the biggest threat we had.

The train was quite slow. Kannan said that the bridge a kilometer to the west was built recently, so the train would slow down when it came into our village. The train had people of all different kinds looking outside iron framed windows. There were old people and young men and women with children. Women in burkha’s, looked outside the train hiding themselves from the beauty of the landscapes. As the train slowed down, a man emerged on the door of one of the compartments. He had a sack on his foot. He then looked at the landscape, then took out a red kerchief and waved violently. He then pushed the sack out of the train, as the train continued its journey into eternity.

Once the train had passed into a distance, Kannan and I looked at each other and then rushed out from our hiding. We ran to the place where the sack had landed. The sack was a bit wet, with markings of two circles and a cross overlapping it. We were panting, searching for our breath, when the sound of a jeep was heard at a distance.

The jeep screeched to a halt where the road ended, ten feet away from the rail line. Three men got off it and started walking in our direction. Kannan pulled me across to the other side and we hid behind a short retaining wall that mentioned we were 1082 kilometers away from Bombay. With the sun shining directly at us, we could hardly figure out who they were from that distance. One of them took off a knife from his lungi and cut open the sack. He then motioned the other two people to haul it. The sack looked heavy and it leaked a powder on its way. When the three men were gone beyond the limitations of our vision, we ran across the line hurling stones at the jeep that had left its mark on the muddy road.

The rest of the morning went in figuring out the content of the sack. The Famous Five books were fresh in my memory and I would have loved it if we could unearth some kind of criminal mystery and be famous for our quick wit and smartness. Who was the guy who pushed the sack out of the train? How did the three guys know that this man had pushed the sack from the train?

‘THE RED KERCHIEF!’ I shouted in excitement. ‘He had waved the red kerchief before he pushed the sack out of the train’ I jumped at my discovery. But that was the only clue we had. Probably this happened every day. If it did, we would be on our way to get the National award for bravery from the President, for unearthing a smuggling racket!

Our shadows had shortened and the stomachs growling, when we decided to get back home. The path back home was lined with Dandelions and ‘Touch me not’s’ which we kept brushing as we walked, closing its leaves to our amusement. The touch-me-not’s gave us a great sense of power, to control the fate of a plant merely by our touch. Back home, Shaiju, Sita, Suma and Kittu were sitting in the verandah tearing the newspaper into small bits.

‘What are you guys upto?’ I asked Shaiju.

‘Watch this’ he replied. He took the entire little bits of paper and went to the road. The road was empty, and Shaiju sprinked the little tits-bits of paper around. He then came back with a wide smile on his face.

Kannan and I looked at him with bewilderment over the compound wall. ‘What?’ we asked in unison. ‘Wait till the next bus passes by’ he said, the smile still plastered on his face.

We heard a truck at a distance. All the other kids waited with bated breath. As the truck passed by, Shaiju’s eyes lit up and the kids ran after the truck. The little bits of paper on the road, was sucked up in the air like magic and followed the truck to a small distance, after which the tiny pieces of paper looked like snow flakes showering from the heavens as everyone danced on the road enjoying the surreal feeling.

‘Kids, get off the road’ the voice of Das was heard. Shaiju looked at Das ‘Did you see that, Dasetta*? Wasnt it beautiful?’ Das smiled. ‘Yes it was, now you kids get off the road. It is a not a nice place for you kids to play’

The kids very obediently stepped aside the road and walked home. I looked at Das and waved out to him. Das approvingly smiled back. I was very happy to see Dasettan smiling at me. There was something about him that made me seek his attention. Kannan tugged my t-shirt and then pointed me to a jeep that was parked a few meters away from Das’s house near the bridge over the canal.

‘Look at that’ he said.

‘It is a jeep! So?’ I replied.

‘It is that same jeep, we saw at the railway line!’ he was sure about it. ‘No it is not’ There were so many jeeps in the village that looked the same!

‘KLX 483, that was the number of the jeep’ he said. I looked closely. ‘There is only one guy in this jeep, in that jeep there were three!’

That was when two men emerged from the canal. Both of them got into the jeep and sped away. As they passed Das’s house, one of them put out their hand and waved out to Das. Das waved back and then disappeared into his room.

(*etta - big brother)

The Summer of '82 - Chapter 4

That night it rained. It was summer, but yet it rained. The winds hit the windowpanes which creaked in pain holding on to the latch. The thunder was loud and so was the lightning. The thunder was so loud that we felt something might have fallen on our roof. The rain splattered on the mangalore tiles in a pattern that determined the force of the wind. I lay wide awake, thinking of the ghost that lived in the temple near by. Shaiju, Sit and I slept on a mat on the floor. The floor of the house was usually smeared with cowdung. Many a times, earlier, I had seen my ammamma collect cowdung from the shed and then apply it in the house and in the courtyard. I hated the smell of it, but it kept the rooms cool in the summer. Ammamma said that it also kept the mosquitoes away. But the cowdung floor had its disadvantages too. Some times a rat snake would enter into the house in search of jumping frogs. The snakes usually hid in a corner of the house unknown to anybody, unless a hapless soul happened to sneak below the furniture in search of a lost object. That happened to be the last day of the snake’s life on earth.

I walked out into the verandah. The verandah did not have a window, but a netted grill that was framed in wood. A few years ago, it was completely open until one day a ripper landed in the village. He had a penchant to smash people’s head in the sleep. He had killed over 14 women and 5 men. After that, he disappeared. The police never caught him. But every house in the village now had spruced up security in the form of grills on windows. I looked out of the window. It was raining heavily. The heavy rain that fell on the ground created a pattern that defined the direction of the wind. The rain was intermittently mixed with a falling coconut leaf, or a lonely plastic bag that was left outside somebody’s house. The light across in Das’s house was still on. I could see shadows in the windows. There would have been approximately three shadows in the room. All of them were in violent action. I could see one man with his hands on his waist as another person paced in front of him. The other shadow would come into the frame of the window once in a while. The heavy rain made the viewing a bit difficult. Later, the lights were switched off. A while later, three people emerged on the ground floor, one of them carrying a bag and the other carrying an umbrella. I thought the other guy standing inside must have been Das, for I couldnot recognise the other two people who then left on the bike the man behind, holding an umbrella, which I thought was of no use in the heavy downpour.

Next morning, the rain had subsided. Little drops hung on the cloth-line like pearls on tied to a string threatening to fall at the sense of a slightest breeze. The courtyard was full of uprooted weeds and fallen coconut leaves, that angered ammamma to no extent. The non-seasonal shower had added up ammamma’s woes. She rushed off to the field, to check if the crop was not affected. I chewed on my toothbrush, enjoying the juices of colgate that came out of it.

Hamsa, the fisherman cooed in as he entered the gate on his cycle with a basket full of fish. My mother came out with a vessel, and I tagged along her saree to his bicycle.

Seen you after a long time, Parvathy?’ he said to my mother.

‘Yes, Last year we couldnt come. His father had jaundice.’

‘This your son?’ he asked. She smiled putting her hand on my head ruffling my hair. ‘Yes’

He was tall, and he stooped down on me and asked me ‘Which class are you in?’ I could see two golden teeth in his mouth that glittered as he spoke. ‘Fifth’ I replied.

‘Oh yes, I forgot, he and Abdul were born in the same year.’

I knew Abdul. He was Kannan’s friend and we had met briefly at the playground last year when there was a volleyball tournament.

‘The rains yesterday were really bad. A few tiles flew off the kitchen roof. The kitchen is completely flooded’ mother said as she counted the number of fish in the bowl.

‘Yes, indeed’ Hamsa replied. ‘We were lucky to be back to our houses before the storm began. If we were in the sea, we would have been in big trouble’

My mother counted the money and gave it to him.

‘I will send Abdul in the evening for the milk’ he said as he climbed on to his cycle and started cooing again. I saw Das standing on the window smoking a cigarette. I waved out to him, but he did not notice me. He just stubbed his cigarette on the window sill and went inside.

The rain had damaged the crops. The raw mangoes had fallen down early which meant that we will have to wait a while longer to steal it from our neighbor’s yard. Ammamma was particularly disturbed. She ate little and sat at the verandah that day looking into the sky as we played cricket in the courtyard, with a bat that was cut out of a coconut leaf and a rubber ball.
Kannan was bowling while i was with the artificial bat, when Namboodiripaad appeared at the gate. He rushed inside and sat next to ammamma. Kannan threw the ball with great ferocity and I swung the bat with all my might. The ball missed Namboodiripaads head, who was startled for a second, then scowled in anger, thanking his luck of surviving a vital blow on his cranium. Ammamma shouted ‘Enough of this madness. Get inside both of you.’ We dared not not listen to her. She was upset and so both of us sulked into a corner. We overheard the conversation that transpired between ammamma and the Namboodiripaad.

‘These are bad times, I am telling you, it is all because of the evil spirit in the temple’ he said.

‘This is not the first time it happened. Non-seasonal rains have come before too!’

‘Yes, but not with this ferociousness. People were saying they heard noises coming from the temple in the night.’

‘That is strange’ she said ‘The sound of the wind and rain was so strong in the night, I wonder how someone could have heard it.’

‘I think it is time we hurried up the yagna. That is the only way out of this mess.’ He got up to leave. ‘I am going to speak to Shankaran Pillai at the Panchayat. We need to hurry before the evil spirit damages our village even more.’ he said as he hurried jumping over puddles that formed on the muddy path to the gate.

‘Liar’ Kannan proclaimed. Ammamma looked disapprovingly into Kannan’s eyes. ‘He is doing for his own benefit’ he said, trying to justify himself.

‘He is older and wiser than you. You should not say such things’ she said.

‘I dont believe a word he said’ Kannan persisted.

‘Sometimes a small little lie can be overlooked when you know the bigger truth.’ she smiled.