Pandaram had risen before dawn. He had bathed at home, streaked himself with sacred ash, drunk his karuppatti kaapi and was now taking his snuff.
“Shall I pack a couple of dosais for the trip?” asked Ekkiyammai from the kitchen.
“Nonsense. You don’t think I’ll get a few idlis on the road? Am I going into the jungle or up the hills?” said Pandaram.
“Appa, I want bangles,” said Meenatchi.
“Go back to sleep. It’s cold outside! We’ll see about the bangles later,” said Ekkiyammai.
Meenatchi lowered her head. Pandaram realized that she was weeping. “Little one, won’t I get you bangles if you ask for them? You’re my little darling, aren’t you?”
Meenatchi nodded silently.
“Lie down, little one. You’ll fall sick otherwise.” “I want a watch.”
“A watch?”
“It’s okay if it doesn’t tick. But it should look like a real one.”
“All right. Go lie down now.”
“Lie down? Her? She’s always on the run,” said Ekkiyammai, coming in. “Where is she? Is your trunk locked?”
“Appa, can I put the tobacco in your trunk?”
“Look at what this wretched girl says! Why, do you want the new clothes to reek of tobacco? Put it in the yellow bag. The box with the sacred ash, the tobacco and the loincloth all go into the yellow bag.”
“The loincloth won’t reek of tobacco?” “What did you say?”
“Nothing.”
Ekkiyammai went inside.
“Ekki, listen, don’t be lax,” said Pandaram. “Make sure you go once to all our temples while I’m gone and keep an eye on our lot, okay? I’m leaving some of the items behind here. Take Kumaresan along.”
The hazy headlights of an approaching van swirled outside the house.
“Appa, the car is here!”
“Why are you raising the dead for that, shrieking like that? Is there a husband waiting for you inside the car?” said Ekkiyammai.
“They’re just kids, don’t harangue them. Where is Vadivu?”
“Sleeping.”
“She’ll never stop sleeping!”
“Appa, Vadivu says she gets good dreams early in the morning. Aah, akka’s pinching me!”
“Go inside, don’t shoot your mouth off,” said the eldest,
Subbammai, giving Meenatchi a little push. “Vadivu told me. It’s true! In the dream . . .”
“Go inside!”
Madhavaperumal got out of the car. “Master, hurry. We should be out of Nagercoil before the sun hits the ground.”
“I’ll be on my way then. Shit, I can’t find my slippers.
Wretched things, where’d they go?” “One is right here,” said Ekkiyammai.
“And your father Nanappan will bring the other one? You have mashed potato in your head, no brains . . .”
“Appa, here it is . . .” “Bring it over!” “Your umbrella?”
“Get the umbrella too,” said Pandaram. “When Vadivu wakes up, tell her I had to leave early.”
“Appa, my bangles . . .”
“When I come back, little one,” said Pandaram, cupping Meenatchi’s cheek with his palm. He got into the front seat of the tempo traveller. “The car’s in good condition?”
“We don’t take the vehicle for a trip if it’s not in good condition, master.”
“All right then,” said Pandaram, his head outside the window.
The van revved up and left, leaving dust and mud in its wake. Lamp posts came to life briefly in the glow of the headlights before leaping backward. A dog jumped to the side with a lurch, its eyes glowing in the dark.
Muthammai and Kumaresan were waiting by the pond.
Muthammai had laid the baby to sleep on her breast.
“Turn on the light,” said Pandaram, alighting from the vehicle.
“Hey, do you want to take a nap?” “No, master,” said Kumaresan. “Where is Arumugam?”
“He brought the item here, got his money, and left.” “He left? And what if a dog got to her? She’s still bleeding.
Now get her in the car.”
“My baby,” cried Muthammai.
“You keep the baby with you. Shit, now she’ll go ‘My baby! My baby!’ for days together.”
Kumaresan and Madhavaperumal grasped Muthammai between them and hauled her into the vehicle. Inside the van, the seats had been removed. The baby woke up with a howl. “Shhh, hush hush hush, it’s all right, it’s all right . . . who’s my golden baby? Who’s my king? My pearl . . .” “Feed it,” ordered Pandaram.
Madhavaperumal got in. The van started up again. “Madhavaperumal, what is Vandimalai like?” asked Pandaram. “Very efficient. You just have to give him twenty rupees for a drink. He’ll take off somebody’s head if you ask him to.” The van jolted along. Pandaram drew in some snuff. He pushed a bit of tobacco into his mouth. He could not do without tobacco while travelling.
At the grounds of the Nagaraja temple, Vandimalai waved to them. The van came to a halt. Misshapen figures could be seen huddled on the ground.
“What’s up?”
“A policeman came by. He wanted two hundred. ‘Wait for the master,’ I said. He raised his fist at me. Gave him a hundred and fifty.”
“We’ve not seen the last of it. All right, load them in.” Eight men, six women, and four children lay on the ground.
All of them were impaired in one way or another, their bodies horribly deformed. Half of them couldn’t even move.
“Master, do we have room for all these inside?”
“Are we taking them on a jolly trip? Load the bigger ones in first. The smaller ones can go on top of them.”
Madhavaperumal and Vandimalai lifted the big bodies one after another and squeezed them next to each other in the van. “Aiyyo . . .” wheezed Seengkannan, whose eyes oozed pus.
“What is it now?”
“My hips hurt, master!”
“We’ll make a fine golden chain for your hip later. Shut up now and be still.”
“Ammo! Ammo!” the children wailed as the van started up.
One of the children had a giant, grotesque head. The rest of its body was much smaller. “Ngurrr, ngurr . . .” it groaned. “Mandaiyan is making his call . . . Number one or two, something is on its way.”
“Even if it’s three or four, the van’s making its next stop only at Sattur.”
“Master, my baby . . .” wailed Muthammai.
“You baby won’t die for a little shake like that. Hey Madhavaperumal, why is she so thorny all of a sudden?”
“Master, she just gave birth. Such creatures are always a little headstrong.”
“It’s not like she’s dropping a baby for the first time. She’s dropped so many that by now it’s like a hen laying eggs, isn’t it?” said the driver.
“I’ll take a short nap. Wake me up when we reach Sattur, okay?” said Pandaram.
“Master, there’s a checkpost on the way.”
“Give them fifty rupees. Are we smuggling contraband here? These are human beings, after all.”
As the van jounced and jolted along, the men and women packed in the back raised their voices in agonized shouts. “Master, we’ll die . . .”
“Shut up!” yelled Vandimalai, his head hanging out of the window.
The scent of fresh shit filled the van.
“Who did that?” “Mandaiyan, master.”
“Fuck. He looks like he wouldn’t weigh half a kilo. Puts out nine kilos a day.”
“Give the wretch a tight slap!”
“No use beating him, Vandimalai. He doesn’t know who beats him, or why. Doesn’t stop if he starts wailing either.”
“We’re in a fine fix there.”
“Yes, you don’t beat up money,” piped up a voice from the back. “Smart of you!”
“Who’s that?” called Madhavaperumal. No one answered.
“What’s that? Mayilsamy, is that you?”
“Why would I say anything, master? I’m just curled up silently here.”
“If you wag your tongue again, I’ll slice it right off, remember!”
“You get very angry if someone talks about money!”
“Hey, who’s that? Forty-eight, is that you?”
“No sir!”
“I’ll stop right here, come around to the back, and whoop all your asses. You know what I’m like, don’t you?”
“What is known, what is unknown, we know everything!”
“Stop the van. Stop the van, I say! I will get to the bottom of this today.”
The van stopped. A light burned inside. Madhavaperumal peeped into the back. All kinds of eyes looked back at him. Some bulging, some reddened, some almost pushing out of their sockets, some blinking like stars.
“What’s going on?” said Pandaram, wiping his drool with his palm.
“Master, they are making fun of us . . .” said Vandimalai. “Who?”
“This lot here.”
“These creatures? They have no souls. No brains either. You have some of both, don’t you? Why do you talk to them like they are your equals? Get going. Stopping the van at the slightest excuse . . .”
The van started off again. As it bounced rhythmically on the road, a light beat set up. Then Mangandi Samy’s voice arose.
He knows my love
Will he forget my heart?
We are bonded in love
My golden heart—will he
Betray me now?
“Shut your ass,” hollered Vandimalai. Mangandi Samy seemed not to hear it.
He made me a garland of tears
Pressed my hand tight
And made this poor girl a promise
My golden heart—was it truly
A promise, or just empty talk?
His voice was strong. It rose above the clangs and jolts of the van’s metal and filled the ears with its sonorous timbre.
No food goes down
No sleep comes to me
These jewels I wear,
My golden heart—are but
Wounds burning on me.
Pandaram tapped to the beat on the roof of the van. The moans of pain, the curses and abuses in the van had all died down. The song seemed to carry the van along. Seventeen years back, Pandaram had purchased Mangandi Samy in Pazhani for eight rupees. He was only a stump, with only one arm, no legs and a little head on top. He had a face that always seemed to smile, with tiny, twinkling eyes. Pandaram believed that Mangandi Samy brought him luck. Before buying Samy, he had bought two items. One died. The other was stolen by someone. He then sold Ekkiyammai’s thaali, her nuptial pendant, to buy Mangandi Samy and had placed him in front of the Velappan temple with a prayer in his heart: “Muruga!” Mangandi Samy made him seven or eight rupees a day. That was enough to settle Pandaram’s debts. He built a house and bought more items. There were some who believed that a glimpse of Mangandi Samy’s face first thing in the morning was a great blessing and brought them prosperity. There were others who believed that they had to place at least one coin before Samy every day. At the Nagaraja temple, Mangandi Samy brought in at least a hundred rupees every day. A man had to be appointed to stand by his side to safeguard the coins falling into his bowl.
Mangandi Samy did not have a large repertoire of songs.
Pandaram had never heard him sing anything in the nature of a religious song. When Samy had just been acquired, he used to sing a few songs of the Tamil Sufi poet Kunangudi Masthan Sahib. All of them were the songs of a woman singing to her lord, her beloved. Songs of love and longing, pathos and feeling. Samy then began to sing his own songs. It was the same sentiment over and over. “You promised to take me. You have left me and gone away. The whole world burns for me. Everything is bitter. I will come away. Take me with you. Don’t you have any compassion for me?” There was no trace of pleading or tears in Samy’s voice. It was always the same strong voice, sonorous like a bell. But as the song went on, even Pandaram felt his heart turn heavy with grief.
Debts of tears
Debts of love
Are great things
To this poor girl
My golden heart—what’s the use
Of talking now?
“What’s the use of talking now?”—Samy sang the line over and over. Then, for a long time, only the song’s beat could be heard. When the beat stopped, all the items in the van were sound asleep. Only the peaceful rhythm of their breathing could be heard.
Pandaram turned around and looked at Samy. Although he had been piled up on top of the other items, with the van’s jolting he had slid down and was now lying between Rasappan’s legs. Only his beady little eyes could be seen. His face was still as a sculpture, as if rejoicing in some great cosmic joke.
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From The Abyss by Jeyamohan, translated by Suchitra. Reprinted with the permission of Transit Books. Copyright © 2003 by Jeyamohan. Copyright © 2023 by Suchitra.
