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  And so here she was, alone, with a child ready to come out of the womb. She had believed Kamalanathan when he said he would care for her till the end; she had rejected the love of her mother, her father, her brothers and sisters for him; it had been eighteen months since she eloped with him, and now the man she had trusted was in prison.

  She felt wetness between her thighs. Was it urine? No, her water had broken! She slowly moved to the front door. She tried to call out to the old woman, but her voice caught in her throat. It was an effort even to open her mouth. She bit into her finger, trying to overcome the pain. Her heart screamed “Ayah!”, but the word refused to come.

  “Don’t worry, I am here,” said the old woman, rushing in. A god-send! “Don’t expect a miracle like this more than once! The next time you’re stranded alone about to have a baby, I tell you, not even God can save you,” said the ayah.

  Aarthi looked at her with tears rolling down her cheeks and then turned to the baby. A boy child, cast in Kamalanathan’s mould.

  Memories of Surya crowded her mind. How much he loved me!

  Once you feel strong again, go back to your mother. That will be best for you.

  My mother went without food for days so she could feed me. But I ran away. Will she take me back, Ayah?

  Of course she will. I promise you. If you stay here there’s no telling what might happen.

  I stamped on my mother’s heart when I ran off with that cur. What face should I wear when I return?

  It’s not like that. When your husband comes out of prison he’ll drive you to your death. He’ll take your son and turn him into a pickpocket too.

  From the moment the baby was born, the old woman never left the hut. She made hot water and kanji, bathed the baby, didn’t even go to work. Her profession was begging in the Madurai bus station.

  Who is this ayah, Aarthi wondered, who begs in order to feed me and my baby? My God!

  Get ready now. I’ll give you money for your bus ticket. I’m sure your mother will accept you.

  I don’t want to leave you, Ayah. Once I get my strength back, if worse comes to worst, I’ll sell my body to feed you and the baby. Please don’t ask me to go.

  If you stay here, your life will be ruined. Go now.

  Will I ever see this ayah again, before I die? Oh God, why should I alone be in this sorry state? She hugged the old woman and wept her eyes out.

  She reached her home town. How long since she’d seen it! The eighteen months seemed like eighteen years. The first thing she noticed was Thennavan Tea Stall. Thennavan had been a classmate of Surya’s. He had visited their home several times. Where was Surya now? Where else? Delhi, of course. She still hadn’t even met her anni, her sister-in-law—a woman who had been married earlier, had a child, gotten divorced, and was now married to Surya. Surya might even have a child of his own by now. She would ask Amma about it, first thing—that is, if she was allowed to enter the house. Why was she thinking about Surya so much?

  Her throat was dry; she wanted some tea. She untied the knot in her pallu and checked. She had a little change, but not enough courage to face anyone she knew yet. So she hastened home. As she passed the Perumal Temple, old Chinnachi recognized her, and began weeping: “Aiyyo, what’s become of you?”

  From Chinnachi, Aarthi learned that just after she eloped, her parents moved to Thirumalairayan Pattinam.

  Her stomach rumbled. Somehow she managed to reach the bus stand again. The baby cried for milk. She sat in a corner and fed him. How could there be so much milk in her breasts, when her stomach was so empty?

  She still had enough coins in her hand to reach Thirumalairayan Pattinam. It was a good thing she had not spent them on tea. By the time she arrived there and found the house, she was almost blind with hunger.

  Finding a woman lying unconscious at her doorstep holding a new-born baby, Parvathi sprinkled some water on her face—and only then looked closely at her. Oh, what sin had she committed to have to witness her darling daughter in such a state?

  Parvathi pushed away the past, and turned to the care and feeding of Aarthi and the baby. “Your body is tender now. You must eat healthy— for the baby, too,” she told Aarthi.

  A few days later, Kamatchi and Kamalanathan showed up. Parvathi, of course, didn’t allow them in. So they stood on the street, yelling, demanding that Aarthi hand over the baby.

  As the two sisters began to fight over the rights to the grand-child, Aarthi tried to push her mother aside and join the fight herself. Kamalanathan grabbed her by the hair and kicked her. Unable to bear watching her daughter thus abused, Parvathi ran into the house, came out with an arivaalmanai and aimed the blade at Kamalanathan’s throat. Kamatchi saw her, and dragged Kamalanathan out of the way just in time, so that Parvathi lost her balance and fell.

  Kamatchi and Kamalanathan stood in the middle of the street, threw handfuls of dust at the house, and cursed them:

  “May you be ruined! May your daughter become the whore of this town! May your womb rot, and may your daughter’s womb rot as well! May the pox take your children! May your family be wiped off the face of the Earth!”

  After this tirade, Kamatchi dragged her son away. But it didn’t end there. A call came for Aarthi and her parents from the police inspector. At the station there were long fiery debates, but the verdict was in favor of Parvathi. Maybe it was because Kamalanathan was unemployed, or maybe because Krishnasami, Aarthi’s father, was a well-respected retired school teacher. Whatever the reason, it was decided that the baby would remain with the mother. Kamatchi threw some more curses at them in front of the police station, and finally went off with her son.

  “Whatever has happened, has happened. At least from now on, you must be smart and careful,” Parvathi warned Aarthi.

  But Fate had different plans in store. Aarthi’s life was to change course once again; this time the agents of change were a series of love letters from Saanthakumar, the neighbor.

  Aarthi, you are the springtime of my life. I love you, read the first letter.

  My life has no space left for love, read Aarthi’s reply.

  I love you more than my own life. If you reject me, I will have nothing left to live for, he wrote.

  The tears in my body have dried. I have no more tears, no more love, to give you.

  I need your love, darling.

  I hate you. I hate all men.

  But as the days passed, her coldness slowly thawed. She understood that his love was completely true.

  He was an amazing lover, and he was ready to give up his life for her. “So what if you have a child. Didn’t your brother Surya marry a woman who already had a child, and love that child as his own? The same way, I’ll love your child as though he were mine,” he said. He was a man of peaceful disposition, like Surya. His nature was true to his name: Saanthakumar, prince of peace. She called him Saanthan.

  Aarthi learned that men could still be men without being rough. A man should have a touch of the feminine in him; it made him more complete.

  Not long after Aarthi finally discovered her true and complete man, the news spread through the neighborhood. Saanthan’s family, too, heard the news.

  But Saanthan’s parents did not share their son’s peaceful nature. They became enraged. They were from a higher caste, and rich as well, which made them much more powerful than Aarthi’s family. They placed a heavy padlock on Aarthi’s front door, and demanded that the entire family vacate the town immediately. The men came with huge clubs in their hands, the women with filthy curses on their lips. Aarthi’s father Krishnasami stood helplessly outside the house in his torn veshti and banyan. “I need to go to Karaikal, to bring Leela’s husband. Please,” he begged, “let me go inside to get a shirt.”

  “A shirt? You stood there like a towelboy while your own daughter was fucking her cousin brother, and now you want
a shirt? Better you should be stripped of your veshti and underwear and forced to parade around town naked! This is all your fault. What right do you have to call yourself a father when your daughter is the town slut?” With that, Saanthan’s father clipped Krishnasami sharply on the nape of his neck.

  Krishnasami had a weak body and was not expecting this attack; he stumbled to the ground. Parvathi wept aloud, flailing her breasts and her mouth.

  “What’s the point of wailing now? Your daughter had a bad itch and started walking the streets. You should have scalded her thighs in the beginning. If you’d done that, maybe she wouldn’t have slept with her own cousin and borne him a child. She wouldn’t be checking out every man around, trying to snare them. Now she’s just a bitch in heat,” yelled Saanthan’s mother.

  Realizing that it would be dangerous to stay any longer, Krishnasami left for Karaikal, wearing the same torn banyan, taking along his wife, his daughter, and her child.

  Through all this commotion Saanthakumar did not so much as peek out of his house. It was said that he was kept locked inside.

  Krishnasami’s sister Leela was married to a man from the fisherman caste. He held a government post and wielded a good deal of power in the community. When he saw the state in which his brother-in-law and his family arrived at his house, he immediately called for his men. The entire fisherman ghetto gathered there.

  When the angry crowd descended on Saanthakumar’s town, his household became terrified. There was a peace conference. It was decided that Krishnasami’s family would move out.

  Thus an event that might have sparked a major caste war fizzled out without making a mark on history.

  Leela’s husband found them a house in the same street. Krishanasami attempted to hang himself in shame, but of course, he failed in that too.

  Parvathi was forever in tears.

  Aarthi, after watching all these events, finally ran off, leaving her child behind.

  “How did she find the heart to leave?” sighed the mother.

  So where is that boy? He must be about nine now?

  He’s in an orphanage in Trichy. He got in on your uncle’s recommendation.

  He had a frail body, and the same sorrow-steeped eyes that seem to be found exclusively in orphanage children.

  What’s your name?

  Surya.

  Your sister named him after you. She hasn’t forgotten any of us. Her love is very deep.

  Do you know me?

  Mmm.

  During final exams last April, he came down

  with typhoid. He sat for the exams anyway. The orphanage ayahs took care of him. God knows what kind of care those coolies gave him. He returned after the exams looking like a bag of skin and bones. He was terribly worried that he would fail his exams. We can’t keep him here; your father’s pension money can barely feed us.

  The young boy was stuffing his clothes into a ripped plastic bag, getting ready to leave.

  Will you go alone?

  Mmm.

  Surya took some money out of his pocket, regretting that he didn’t have much there, and gave it to the boy. He put his arm around his shoulders. “Study well, Surya.”

  Parvathi said she had no idea where Aarthi was now, but that she got letters from her once in a while. Beyond that, she could give no more information. On a hunch, Surya went to Trichy. There he learned more; that Aarthi had come straight to Trichy from Karaikal. She had used her body to earn money. She used to show photos of her whole family to all her customers: “This is my naina; this is my amma; this is my anna, Surya; this is aunt’s husband, my mama—a very powerful man.” Somehow, this had reached her uncle, who sent rowdies to chase her out of Trichy.

  That’s all I could find out, dear Lady Reader. Nobody knows where she is now. I cry her name to myself: Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi, Aarthi. I was no help for her. How her heart must be grieving, as so many strangers lay their bodies on top of hers. Even as I write this, I am shedding tears, cries Surya, a.k.a. Muniyandi, a.k.a. Nano, a.k.a. Misra, a.k.a. Charu Nivedita, a.k.a. Lady Reader, a.k.a.

  That this woman’s life, filled with pain, shame, hunger, betrayal, love, and loneliness, has now been reduced to mere words on a page, fills the heart with emptiness.

  Her water broke at noon. She left to the hospital at once. They gave her an injection to hasten the delivery and put her on drips. She was scanned. They checked the child’s position in the womb. She felt that the fetus had moved sideways. She tried forcing it out. She was still conscious. The child was born when the clock above her head showed 9:00. But her life was sinking away. She had lost too much blood. Her pressure was dropping. She could hear hushed voices all around her bed. The chief doctor wrung his hands. Her limbs shivered. Somehow, they brought her back on the road to recovery. There were many sutures. It hurt so much she almost bit the doctor’s hand. None of the tranquilizers had any effect. He kept suturing her till midnight; she was screaming loud enough to shake the foundations of the hospital.

  31

  I’VE READ ABOUT YOU in Muniyandi’s writings. Now I finally get a chance to speak to you. Yes, I’ve read every word Muniyandi has ever written. I’m sure there’s no other lady reader who understands all the secret meanings behind his words, the meanings that he himself is unaware of. He’s had several phone conversations with me, never realizing who I am. Do you know why he keeps on referring to the “Lady Reader” in his writings, again and again, helplessly? His whole obsession is me. Yes, that Lady Reader is me. That’s my real name, Vasuki—lady reader. In his work, he has changed my name from Vasuki to Aarthi. I am his sister. It’s because he feels guilty about what has happened to me that he keeps on agonizing about Greek tragedies, international politics, beedi-rolling child laborers, nuclear physics, history, Rwanda, women laborers working in stone quarries, ornithology, the Karmenian genocide, and prostitutes. He sees the violence suffused in all these things, and assuages his guilt with the thought that the violence in his sister’s life is just a part of this larger violence. Poor soul. Violence is just a word for him.

  As I have known him well for many years, I have come to understand that Muniyandi’s life is different from his words. He is a coward. He has a silly, ongoing fear that his writings will become hugely controversial and be banned by the state. In fact, he’s afraid of all sorts of things: bus conductors, policemen, women writers, the literati, dogs, cats, mice, cockroaches, frogs, caterpillars, beggars, train tracks, and vehicles. He has confessed to me, over the phone, that once, when he didn’t have exact change for a bus ticket, and the conductor reacted as though it were a criminal offense, he walked everywhere on foot for several days afterwards. Likewise with auto-rickshaw drivers. On that day when he wanted to go from Chinmaya Nagar to K.K. Nagar, an auto driver demanded forty-five rupees. He argued that the fare should be only eighteen, and finally bargained it down to twenty-seven. But the auto driver, piqued, drove so rashly, and took the bends in the roads at such dangerously high speeds, that when he finally got out of the auto he had a slight chest pain, for which he went to the doctor, who said that his blood pressure was high, and that he should stay in bed after nine o’clock, and should be careful not to lose his temper, and should not stay up too late reading, and several other do nots. After that, he developed a fear of auto drivers as well.

  He often says that bus conductors and auto drivers terrify him even more than policemen. He is scared of all human company and wishes he could retreat to some lonely place. He drives me mad with his worrying: about whether his writing is anti-establishment, whether he’ll be arrested for it, whether he’ll be thrown in prison, whether he’ll be allowed to write in prison, and if so, whether I will come and give him paper and pen. He apparently read a news item somewhere that quoted a few belletristic police officers who wanted him behind bars. He even started going to meditati
on classes, fearing that without them he would die of loneliness in prison. He asked me once if I thought meditation would help him control his mind and not lose it completely. How can such a coward write anything that will be a threat to the state? How can he write anything that will be a threat to social morality? In truth, all the social mores that he claims his writing is transgressing are the very standards by which he lives his own life. He’s just saying these things to get noticed. But whether you are rejecting the social mores or accepting them, you are putting them in the foreground. Doesn’t he realize that this counterculture he’s talking about has been completely co-opted by the establishment? I think the greatest favor these counterculture writers can do us is to stop writing about prostitutes.

  T H E M A R R I ED L IF E

  OF N A L IN I A N D S U R Y A

  BEDSHEETS

  Why are these bedsheets still soaking? Why haven’t you washed them yet?

  You didn’t tell me you were soaking them. How was I supposed to know?

  I asked you why they’re not washed. Don’t get smart. I don’t need to tell you before I soak them.

  I can’t wash them now. I’m going out.

  You know the bedsheets will get ruined if they soak for so long. If you’d bought them with your own money, you wouldn’t treat them so carelessly.

  If I didn’t buy them, where did they come from? Did your cheap father give them with the dowry?

  Don’t blame my father for your worthlessness.

  I’m worthless, am I? It’s your family that’s worthless. They have looted the entire town’s wealth and made themselves rich. Your father and mother have sold their consciences long ago.

  Your family is no better. Your sister ran off with her own brother. Your younger brother is licking his wife’s foot. And you have the guts to talk about my family?