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.