It was the Festival of Lights. Father had said he would be home that day. Siva played in the patch of yard outside the tiny house, his eyes darting every now and then toward the road. For a while he swung on the small wooden gate that Father had put up last summer. From the gate you could see all the way up to the banyan tree that stood along side the main road. The main road was the only pucca road in the little village where Siva lived. It had been laid two years ago.
Siva had stood, with his two best friends, Raju and Vishnu as the workers had poured the hot, black liquid onto what had once been a path of smoothened gravel. The Road, it had been heard, would bring prosperity to their village. Managalapatnam would now appear as a small dot, a bus stop on the road between Salem and Madras.
Not everybody had wanted Mangalapatnam to be put on the national road map. Ramasami Gounder, through whose land this wonderful road had cut through had tried his best to stop its construction. He had made several trips to Madras and, it was rumoured, spent considerable sums of money in these efforts. At one point, it seemed as though he would succeed, that the road would be diverted several kilometers, so that his land would be untouched-and Mangalapatnam. But some of the villagers, led by Siva’s father, had made a representation at the Engineer’s Office, situated in the next town. When Siva asked his father why the Engineer had listened to them-after all, the Gounder had money to back his whim-his father had said that the Engineer was a Good Man. It was the highest praise that Father knew.
So, a year later, amidst some fanfare, The Road had been finished. The Head of the Panchayat had made a speech, the Engineer was a special guest (a short, bald, dark man-Siva couldn’t imagine anybody who looked less like a Good Man), sweets-little sticky orange toffee- were given to all the children. Gounder had not made an appearance.
And so the road stretched out, right in front of the Big House, a daily reminder to Gounder that the power he and his family had enjoyed over the generations was slipping out of his grasp.
The sun was dying, a last burst of orange filling the sky. The birds made a racket as they flew back to their nests. Siva liked to watch them everyday. He thought that someday, he would be like a bird, and fly away. Only, his feathers would be steel. He would be flying those one of those giant birds, an aeroplane. He said the word aloud, sometimes, just to feel it. Vishnu had taught him the word. He cast a last look up the road, and set off toward the Big House.
Vishnu was Gounder’s son, but he liked to play with Raju, Siva and the other boys in the village. He was an only child, and his mother had died when he was two years old. He didn’t remember her at all. Gounder sent him to an expensive private boarding school in Ooty for 8 months of the year. It was only during the holidays that he came back to the village. Vishnu hated boarding school. His classmates were from rich families all over India, several were sons of landowners like his own father; nevertheless he felt out of place in the school. As he tucked into breakfasts of porridge and toast-and-marmalade served on worn china, he would dream of eating dosai with sambar and chutney; and it seemed to him that this was the forced vacation, the four months he spent in Mangalapatnam-that, that was his real life. Vishnu envied Siva his freedom from the strict routines of boarding school life. If he wished, he could play outside all day, climb the mango trees or try to catch fish in the river. Siva had no bells to listen for, no strict house master who checked whether his shoes were shined- actually, Siva had no shoes at all, only some threadbare chappals, and ran barefoot all over the place most of the time.
Vishnu poked his head around the kitchen door. Nobody was around, thank god. His father’s voice boomed. Hastily grabbing a few of the sweets made for the feast, he slipped out. He had an assignation to keep.
‘Vishnu! Vishnu!’
Drat the boy, where was he? It didn’t take much imagination to guess. Vishnu’s association with the village boys annoyed Gounder, but despite his strictures and the occasional thrashing, Vishnu still sneaked out to play with them. Well, thought Gounder, at least he was away most of the time. The boy had nothing to do here, that was the problem. From next summer, he would send him away to his sister’s house in Madras. Let him spend some time with his city bred cousins, and eventually he would not care much for his village playmates.
The sun was setting across the fields, as Gounder sat on his porch, smoking his cigarettes, (foreign made, especially brought from Madras for him). In the distance he could hear the temple bells. The diyas had been lit around the house. He himself had no interest in the celebrations, but it had been the custom of his father, and his father’s father before him and his great grandfather before that, to hold a feast on the festival day. Some traditions were meant to be kept. The villagers would all be there, and there had been some ‘entertainment’ arranged. A drama troupe would perform the traditional Ramakatha. He wondered if Seetha would be presentable woman. Last year, she had been a buxom woman with hard eyes, wide mouth, shrill voice and surprisingly soft hands. She had been worth the five hundred rupees. Ah well, there were other things to take care of tonight. The tip of the cigarette glowed in the falling dark.
Siva and Raju were already at the appointed meeting place, the old cowshed that was some distance behind the main house. He could see their silhouettes against the rising moon.
‘You’re late,’ said Raju.
“I overslept, said Vishnu, sheepishly, ‘but look what I’ve got!’
The sweets were a bit squashed, but welcomed, nevertheless.
‘Did you get it?’ Siva asked, licking his fingers.
‘Yes,’ he replied, and pulled out a set of huge keys from his other pocket.
‘Well, we’d better be going then..’
‘Not yet’, said Vishnu, ‘they are still getting into costume. We can’t risk being seen.’ ‘Rubbish, you’re just scared.’
‘ Am not.’
‘Are too.’
‘Oh stop it you both’, said Siva, ‘Vishnu’s right, we should wait a bit.’
‘Did your father come?’ Vishnu asked.
‘Not yet, but the last bus comes in only at 8.’
The fireflies had come out. Raju tried to catch one-it was easy enough to do. Raju liked to catch everything-butterflies, dragonflies, moths. He liked to put them in a jar and watch them. Even though he made small holes in the jar to let the air in, they inevitably died after a while.
Vishnu said, ‘Oh, let them be!’
‘Why?!’
‘They look prettier out there.’
‘Listen to him, talks like a girl. Pretty, can you beat that?’
Siva had other things on this mind.
‘Let’s go through it again’, he said.
‘Oh come on’, said Raju, ‘we’ve been through it like a hundred times already. You think too much.’
Siva ignored him.
‘You’re sure there won’t be anybody there?’
‘I told you, during the third act, they’ll all be on the stage,’ said Vishnu, in his patient voice. ‘They don’t have enough people. I watched them rehearse yesterday.’
The plan was simple.
When the actors were on the stage during the third act, they would steal into the shed where the costumes where kept and make off with a tail. If that seemed like an odd choice of pastime, it was easily explained. Yesterday, one of the lead performers had told Siva off. Siva had merely been exploring the ‘set’, but the man, annoyed by the boy, had held him by one ear and thrown him out, with a cuffing, no less. Such a man, the friends decided, surely deserved to have his face rubbed in the mud. It transpired that the man was to play the role of Hanuman, as well as a minor role in Ravana’s court. This involved a fairly simple costume switch- the donning of a mask and a tail. Well, he was going to have to play Hanuman without a tail.
Meanwhile, there was nothing to be done, but wait.
There was some light in the patched up shed, but the boys still stumbled a little bit. Vishnu wished he had had the foresight to bring a torch. ‘We should have got a torch’ whispered Siva, just ahead of him. Vishnu grinned to himself.
‘Got it!’ exclaimed Raju, his voice a little too loud.
Shhh! The others shushed him. Too late.
‘Who’s there?’ boomed a male voice just outside.
Oh no! There was only one exit from the shed, and that probably meant running full tilt into the voice.
‘The door’s open..’ said a second voice in a surprised tone. There was nothing to do but to run for it and hope the element of surprise would work in their favour. They dashed out, bumping into the men just as they were entering.
‘Whaa..’ said one, flailing, but the other tried to grab at one of the tiny figures as it rushed by. Vishnu felt his shirt rip at the back. Helter-skelter they ran, followed by the men giving the chase.
Vishnu felt his heart pounding in his ears, as he headed toward the cowshed. It was on his father’s property, which was fenced, so he hoped that the men would not dare cross that. Panting, he sank finally on the ground behind the cow shed and held on to his side with one hand, while feeling his back with the other. How was he going to explain the torn shirt? He stiffened when he heard the muffled sound of voices that were coming from inside the shed. Oh no! The men had actually crossed the fence. Slowly, he crawled toward the side where he knew there was a small gap in the wall. Putting his eye to it, he tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness inside. He could make out the silhouttes of three men. Three? There had been only two.
There was the sound of a lighter being flicked, and in the sharp flare, he saw his father. Vishnu’s eyes widened and he tried to stop breathing.
‘The bus is late’, said his father.
The other men were shorter, stockier in build, but their faces were indistinct blurs. One of them mumbled something.
‘Yes’, replied his father.
The second man seemed to have a question.
His father shrugged.
‘Leave it there, by the side, let everybody see.’
What were they talking about? Vishnu could not fathom the meaning of that conversation, but he knew he had better keep very quiet.
‘Come to me later, then,’ said his father, and strode out. The men followed.
Vishnu scrambled back to his original position, and watched as his father headed back to the house. Peeking from the side, he saw that the other men headed off toward the fence. Probably they were going to meet someone at the bus stop, he thought. He had better find the others.
‘Hey! Are they gone?’ A voice whispered from just above him. Startled, he found Siva and Raju staring down at him from the branch of the mango tree.
‘Yes, it wasn’t them anyway. ‘
‘Who was it?’, asked Siva as he landed with a leap.
‘My father and some other men, I don’t know who they are.’
Raju was clambering down the trunk.
‘Where’s the mask?’ asked Vishnu.
‘Left it behind in the shed.’
‘So you mean we risked our lives for nothing?!’
‘And I’ve gotten my shirt torn too,’ he added mournfully.
Siva burst out laughing.
‘It’s not funny!’, snapped Vishnu.
‘It is, you should see your face!’
‘Let’s go back and watch the rest of the show,’ he said.
‘No, let’s head toward the bus stop, my father will be coming’, said Siva.
‘I hope he gets me an aeroplane toy’, he said, as they trudged toward the fence.
‘Those are quite expensive you know’, Vishnu said, and immediately wished he hadn’t, seeing Siva’s downcast face. When they reached the bus stop, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Maybe the bus hadn’t come.
But where were the other men, then? Maybe the bus had left, thought Vishnu.
They hung around for a while. Siva kept looking up the road. Vishnu tried to cheer him up with tales from his boarding school, but Siva didn’t pay much attention, although Raju kept asking the most annoying questions, in his childish way.
Finally, Siva said, ‘I’m going home. Father might be already there….and maybe he got me something’, he added under his breath.
Bidding goodbye to his friends, Vishnu crept back via the window into his room. He needed to change his shirt and hide the torn one somewhere. With any luck, Father would not notice the difference. As he changed, his mind went back to the conversation he had overheard earlier that evening. He couldn’t understand it, but there had been something…disturbing…about it.
His father didn’t notice the changed shirt.
In dreams, he was chased by dogs, which turned into giant lizards, one of whom had a silver lighter dangling from its neck. Waking up with a start, he looked at the dial of the little alarm clock near his bed. It showed 9 am. It was late.
Rushing around to brush his teeth (they had the only indoor bathroom in the entire village, what’s more it had fancy fittings and ceramic tiles in a flowery pattern), Vishnu hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble for being late for breakfast.
His father was in his usual chair on the verandah.
‘Oh, you’re awake,’ he said, as Vishnu stepped on to the verandah.
Vishnu stared. His father seemed to be in a good mood.
‘Go have your breakfast’, he said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’
When he went into the kitchen, he found breakfast laid out for him. Idly and sambar, his favourite. Tucking in straight away, it was a while before he noticed that the usually talkative maid Janaki was silent as she served him a second helping. Looking at her, he noticed that her eyes were red, as though she had been crying.
‘What happened Janaki, have you been crying?’
Janaki shook her head .
‘It’s so terrible’, she whispered.
‘What?’
‘They found his body this morning. ‘
‘Body?!’
Janaki lowered her voice even more.
‘Your friend Sivamani..his father’s body…it was a little distance from the bus stop.’
Vishnu felt his insides turn cold and simultaneously an urge to throw up his breakfast.
‘His poor wife, and that boy..what will they do now?’ Janaki mumbled.
Vishnu pushed his plate away and stumbled out of the kitchen.
The verandah was bathed in sunlight.
His father looked up from the newspaper he had been reading.
‘Look what I have for you’, he said nodding to the wooden table at the side.
Vishnu looked.
Gleaming in the sunlight, there stood a small toy aeroplane, red-tailed, silver-winged.
Siva had stood, with his two best friends, Raju and Vishnu as the workers had poured the hot, black liquid onto what had once been a path of smoothened gravel. The Road, it had been heard, would bring prosperity to their village. Managalapatnam would now appear as a small dot, a bus stop on the road between Salem and Madras.
Not everybody had wanted Mangalapatnam to be put on the national road map. Ramasami Gounder, through whose land this wonderful road had cut through had tried his best to stop its construction. He had made several trips to Madras and, it was rumoured, spent considerable sums of money in these efforts. At one point, it seemed as though he would succeed, that the road would be diverted several kilometers, so that his land would be untouched-and Mangalapatnam. But some of the villagers, led by Siva’s father, had made a representation at the Engineer’s Office, situated in the next town. When Siva asked his father why the Engineer had listened to them-after all, the Gounder had money to back his whim-his father had said that the Engineer was a Good Man. It was the highest praise that Father knew.
So, a year later, amidst some fanfare, The Road had been finished. The Head of the Panchayat had made a speech, the Engineer was a special guest (a short, bald, dark man-Siva couldn’t imagine anybody who looked less like a Good Man), sweets-little sticky orange toffee- were given to all the children. Gounder had not made an appearance.
And so the road stretched out, right in front of the Big House, a daily reminder to Gounder that the power he and his family had enjoyed over the generations was slipping out of his grasp.
The sun was dying, a last burst of orange filling the sky. The birds made a racket as they flew back to their nests. Siva liked to watch them everyday. He thought that someday, he would be like a bird, and fly away. Only, his feathers would be steel. He would be flying those one of those giant birds, an aeroplane. He said the word aloud, sometimes, just to feel it. Vishnu had taught him the word. He cast a last look up the road, and set off toward the Big House.
Vishnu was Gounder’s son, but he liked to play with Raju, Siva and the other boys in the village. He was an only child, and his mother had died when he was two years old. He didn’t remember her at all. Gounder sent him to an expensive private boarding school in Ooty for 8 months of the year. It was only during the holidays that he came back to the village. Vishnu hated boarding school. His classmates were from rich families all over India, several were sons of landowners like his own father; nevertheless he felt out of place in the school. As he tucked into breakfasts of porridge and toast-and-marmalade served on worn china, he would dream of eating dosai with sambar and chutney; and it seemed to him that this was the forced vacation, the four months he spent in Mangalapatnam-that, that was his real life. Vishnu envied Siva his freedom from the strict routines of boarding school life. If he wished, he could play outside all day, climb the mango trees or try to catch fish in the river. Siva had no bells to listen for, no strict house master who checked whether his shoes were shined- actually, Siva had no shoes at all, only some threadbare chappals, and ran barefoot all over the place most of the time.
Vishnu poked his head around the kitchen door. Nobody was around, thank god. His father’s voice boomed. Hastily grabbing a few of the sweets made for the feast, he slipped out. He had an assignation to keep.
‘Vishnu! Vishnu!’
Drat the boy, where was he? It didn’t take much imagination to guess. Vishnu’s association with the village boys annoyed Gounder, but despite his strictures and the occasional thrashing, Vishnu still sneaked out to play with them. Well, thought Gounder, at least he was away most of the time. The boy had nothing to do here, that was the problem. From next summer, he would send him away to his sister’s house in Madras. Let him spend some time with his city bred cousins, and eventually he would not care much for his village playmates.
The sun was setting across the fields, as Gounder sat on his porch, smoking his cigarettes, (foreign made, especially brought from Madras for him). In the distance he could hear the temple bells. The diyas had been lit around the house. He himself had no interest in the celebrations, but it had been the custom of his father, and his father’s father before him and his great grandfather before that, to hold a feast on the festival day. Some traditions were meant to be kept. The villagers would all be there, and there had been some ‘entertainment’ arranged. A drama troupe would perform the traditional Ramakatha. He wondered if Seetha would be presentable woman. Last year, she had been a buxom woman with hard eyes, wide mouth, shrill voice and surprisingly soft hands. She had been worth the five hundred rupees. Ah well, there were other things to take care of tonight. The tip of the cigarette glowed in the falling dark.
Siva and Raju were already at the appointed meeting place, the old cowshed that was some distance behind the main house. He could see their silhouettes against the rising moon.
‘You’re late,’ said Raju.
“I overslept, said Vishnu, sheepishly, ‘but look what I’ve got!’
The sweets were a bit squashed, but welcomed, nevertheless.
‘Did you get it?’ Siva asked, licking his fingers.
‘Yes,’ he replied, and pulled out a set of huge keys from his other pocket.
‘Well, we’d better be going then..’
‘Not yet’, said Vishnu, ‘they are still getting into costume. We can’t risk being seen.’ ‘Rubbish, you’re just scared.’
‘ Am not.’
‘Are too.’
‘Oh stop it you both’, said Siva, ‘Vishnu’s right, we should wait a bit.’
‘Did your father come?’ Vishnu asked.
‘Not yet, but the last bus comes in only at 8.’
The fireflies had come out. Raju tried to catch one-it was easy enough to do. Raju liked to catch everything-butterflies, dragonflies, moths. He liked to put them in a jar and watch them. Even though he made small holes in the jar to let the air in, they inevitably died after a while.
Vishnu said, ‘Oh, let them be!’
‘Why?!’
‘They look prettier out there.’
‘Listen to him, talks like a girl. Pretty, can you beat that?’
Siva had other things on this mind.
‘Let’s go through it again’, he said.
‘Oh come on’, said Raju, ‘we’ve been through it like a hundred times already. You think too much.’
Siva ignored him.
‘You’re sure there won’t be anybody there?’
‘I told you, during the third act, they’ll all be on the stage,’ said Vishnu, in his patient voice. ‘They don’t have enough people. I watched them rehearse yesterday.’
The plan was simple.
When the actors were on the stage during the third act, they would steal into the shed where the costumes where kept and make off with a tail. If that seemed like an odd choice of pastime, it was easily explained. Yesterday, one of the lead performers had told Siva off. Siva had merely been exploring the ‘set’, but the man, annoyed by the boy, had held him by one ear and thrown him out, with a cuffing, no less. Such a man, the friends decided, surely deserved to have his face rubbed in the mud. It transpired that the man was to play the role of Hanuman, as well as a minor role in Ravana’s court. This involved a fairly simple costume switch- the donning of a mask and a tail. Well, he was going to have to play Hanuman without a tail.
Meanwhile, there was nothing to be done, but wait.
There was some light in the patched up shed, but the boys still stumbled a little bit. Vishnu wished he had had the foresight to bring a torch. ‘We should have got a torch’ whispered Siva, just ahead of him. Vishnu grinned to himself.
‘Got it!’ exclaimed Raju, his voice a little too loud.
Shhh! The others shushed him. Too late.
‘Who’s there?’ boomed a male voice just outside.
Oh no! There was only one exit from the shed, and that probably meant running full tilt into the voice.
‘The door’s open..’ said a second voice in a surprised tone. There was nothing to do but to run for it and hope the element of surprise would work in their favour. They dashed out, bumping into the men just as they were entering.
‘Whaa..’ said one, flailing, but the other tried to grab at one of the tiny figures as it rushed by. Vishnu felt his shirt rip at the back. Helter-skelter they ran, followed by the men giving the chase.
Vishnu felt his heart pounding in his ears, as he headed toward the cowshed. It was on his father’s property, which was fenced, so he hoped that the men would not dare cross that. Panting, he sank finally on the ground behind the cow shed and held on to his side with one hand, while feeling his back with the other. How was he going to explain the torn shirt? He stiffened when he heard the muffled sound of voices that were coming from inside the shed. Oh no! The men had actually crossed the fence. Slowly, he crawled toward the side where he knew there was a small gap in the wall. Putting his eye to it, he tried to adjust his eyes to the darkness inside. He could make out the silhouttes of three men. Three? There had been only two.
There was the sound of a lighter being flicked, and in the sharp flare, he saw his father. Vishnu’s eyes widened and he tried to stop breathing.
‘The bus is late’, said his father.
The other men were shorter, stockier in build, but their faces were indistinct blurs. One of them mumbled something.
‘Yes’, replied his father.
The second man seemed to have a question.
His father shrugged.
‘Leave it there, by the side, let everybody see.’
What were they talking about? Vishnu could not fathom the meaning of that conversation, but he knew he had better keep very quiet.
‘Come to me later, then,’ said his father, and strode out. The men followed.
Vishnu scrambled back to his original position, and watched as his father headed back to the house. Peeking from the side, he saw that the other men headed off toward the fence. Probably they were going to meet someone at the bus stop, he thought. He had better find the others.
‘Hey! Are they gone?’ A voice whispered from just above him. Startled, he found Siva and Raju staring down at him from the branch of the mango tree.
‘Yes, it wasn’t them anyway. ‘
‘Who was it?’, asked Siva as he landed with a leap.
‘My father and some other men, I don’t know who they are.’
Raju was clambering down the trunk.
‘Where’s the mask?’ asked Vishnu.
‘Left it behind in the shed.’
‘So you mean we risked our lives for nothing?!’
‘And I’ve gotten my shirt torn too,’ he added mournfully.
Siva burst out laughing.
‘It’s not funny!’, snapped Vishnu.
‘It is, you should see your face!’
‘Let’s go back and watch the rest of the show,’ he said.
‘No, let’s head toward the bus stop, my father will be coming’, said Siva.
‘I hope he gets me an aeroplane toy’, he said, as they trudged toward the fence.
‘Those are quite expensive you know’, Vishnu said, and immediately wished he hadn’t, seeing Siva’s downcast face. When they reached the bus stop, there wasn’t a soul in sight. Maybe the bus hadn’t come.
But where were the other men, then? Maybe the bus had left, thought Vishnu.
They hung around for a while. Siva kept looking up the road. Vishnu tried to cheer him up with tales from his boarding school, but Siva didn’t pay much attention, although Raju kept asking the most annoying questions, in his childish way.
Finally, Siva said, ‘I’m going home. Father might be already there….and maybe he got me something’, he added under his breath.
Bidding goodbye to his friends, Vishnu crept back via the window into his room. He needed to change his shirt and hide the torn one somewhere. With any luck, Father would not notice the difference. As he changed, his mind went back to the conversation he had overheard earlier that evening. He couldn’t understand it, but there had been something…disturbing…about it.
His father didn’t notice the changed shirt.
In dreams, he was chased by dogs, which turned into giant lizards, one of whom had a silver lighter dangling from its neck. Waking up with a start, he looked at the dial of the little alarm clock near his bed. It showed 9 am. It was late.
Rushing around to brush his teeth (they had the only indoor bathroom in the entire village, what’s more it had fancy fittings and ceramic tiles in a flowery pattern), Vishnu hoped he wouldn’t get into trouble for being late for breakfast.
His father was in his usual chair on the verandah.
‘Oh, you’re awake,’ he said, as Vishnu stepped on to the verandah.
Vishnu stared. His father seemed to be in a good mood.
‘Go have your breakfast’, he said, ‘I have a surprise for you.’
When he went into the kitchen, he found breakfast laid out for him. Idly and sambar, his favourite. Tucking in straight away, it was a while before he noticed that the usually talkative maid Janaki was silent as she served him a second helping. Looking at her, he noticed that her eyes were red, as though she had been crying.
‘What happened Janaki, have you been crying?’
Janaki shook her head .
‘It’s so terrible’, she whispered.
‘What?’
‘They found his body this morning. ‘
‘Body?!’
Janaki lowered her voice even more.
‘Your friend Sivamani..his father’s body…it was a little distance from the bus stop.’
Vishnu felt his insides turn cold and simultaneously an urge to throw up his breakfast.
‘His poor wife, and that boy..what will they do now?’ Janaki mumbled.
Vishnu pushed his plate away and stumbled out of the kitchen.
The verandah was bathed in sunlight.
His father looked up from the newspaper he had been reading.
‘Look what I have for you’, he said nodding to the wooden table at the side.
Vishnu looked.
Gleaming in the sunlight, there stood a small toy aeroplane, red-tailed, silver-winged.
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