“He came of age and was taken away!” one snorts, impressed at his own wit.
“Yeah, he came of age and rode away on a bullock cart!” says another, as though it was he who thought of it.
“Like a bride!” says another, as though no one had understood the joke before.
Sivakami knows, through her sources, that none of these boys made any mark, academically. There was only one other Cholapatti boy, apart from Vairum, who had done well. He had gone to Thanjavur, where one of his four sisters was married into a family of revenue officials. His parents had eight other sons, two of whom might even be in the crowd massed at her garden wall. Their brother was not being insulted.
Sivakami crouches by her wall, her face hot.
Then a neighbouring door opens: not Murthy’s, to her left, but the other, to her right, Dharnakarna, the witch.
From beyond her eastern wall, Sivakami hears the young witch’s slightly muffled voice: “Move away from my door with your dirty talk!”
The boys escape toward town, yelping with shared fear and collective bravado like skinny yellow pi-dogs.
Safe.
Dear Amma,
Murthy Periappa will have told you all about our trip, so I don’t need to.
The names of the three other boys in my hostel room are K. Govindasamy, an Iyer boy, C.S. Francis Lourdesamy, a Christian, obviously, and S.K. Natarajan, a Reddiar.
They are all in the sciences stream, like me, though
Lourdesamy really wants to be a priest.
As Minister Mama coached me, I explained about my skin condition before my roommates could ask, and they have helped to defend me against those who don’t understand. We in our cell are enlightened people, not given to old folkways.
I know you want to know about every single meal I eat, but I’m not going to write about that. I won’t lose any weight, that’s enough.
The masters really want to give us a challenge. This is a big change from Kulithalai school where the teachers were always afraid I would already know more than they did. I didn’t. (Not always) But here, I can have as much extra homework as I want. Most of the other boys don’t want extra, obviously. I am taking extra maths, physics and chemistry-won’t bore you with the details.
Your son, Vairum
Sivakami folds the letter exactly as Vairum must have, far away in Kottai, in a room she will never see. She knows he knows she is upset by the idea of his rooming with a Reddiar and can barely stomach the thought of his sleeping in the same room with a Christian, probably from a family of converted untouchables, she thinks, masses of whom were convinced by missionaries that Christians don’t have any truck with caste. He’s almost certainly descended from a lower caste, at the least. She’s amazed the other Brahmin boy’s parents permit it, but maybe they have as little control as she feels she does. When Vairum was admitted to a Christian college, she worried this would be the result, but Murthy persuaded her. St. Joseph ’s is an excellent college, even if it’s not a Hindu one.
She slips the letter back into its envelope, imagining his hands doing that, writing his sums, eating his food. She tries to imagine the food, picturing great steaming vats of rice attended by Brahmin cooks. Chinnarathnam had made discreet inquiries on her behalf and reported that there were both vegetarian and non-vegetarian dining halls and that the cooks in the vegetarian hall were Brahmin, one of a few concessions by the British administration to the Brahmin parents, whose sons make up a significant segment of the student population.
She places the letter before the Ramar. Later, she will haltingly read it aloud for Muchami and Mari since they, too, relish news of Vairum’s great adventure.
VAIRUM FOLDS THE FINE PAPER in half and in half again and slips it into a pinkish-brown envelope. He scoops a crusty gob of official-smelling mashed-rice paste from the small pot on the corner of the worktable he shares with Francis Lourdesamy and smears it across the underside of the envelope flap. He addresses the sealed envelope to Minister and Gayatri: another brief but chatty note, another promise kept. He makes a point of thanking Minister for his advice and asking after their children. He does like the idea that he has people to write to, even if there is little he really wants to tell them.
He’s alone in his room and, as he folds his jingling pouch of silver into the waist of his dhoti, he wonders where the others are. His money pouch doesn’t include the silver piece he was permitted to keep from the gathering of coins that marked his return to Cholapatti. That coin is folded into his waistband, as always, separate from his spending money. It is, after all these years, as much a part of his daily toilet as hair oil and a fresh shirt. No one knows it’s there, and he doesn’t feel dressed without it.
He leaves the hostel and passes the temple tank, nervously putting his palms together to greet two of the maths masters, who overtake him, absorbed in serious conversation. They nod back, busy, friendly. Their recognition inflates him.
Exiting the campus gate, he takes the long way around the traffic roundabout, idly browsing the knick-knacks for sale. A woman squats against the wall of the main St. Joseph ’s campus, behind an array of Ganesha statuettes. The largest is about eight inches tall, the smallest about two. They are beautifuclass="underline" crude, geometric, of a wood so light as to seem made of foam. Vairum picks the little fellows up admiringly, one by one. Vermilion dots the pointed crown, the noble forehead, the trunk, hands, belly, feet-thirteen auspicious red smudges. Three grooves mark the bridge between the beady black eyes, three grooves cross the belly to imply a modest garment.
Vairum bends over the elephant-headed gods, unmindful of traffic and dust in the road, ignoring the woman grinning in fear at his white patches while unceasingly extolling her wares’ spiritual and artistic value.
He must have one-a companion to witness the commencement of this new enterprise, to help put the shoulder to unseen obstacles that may yet block his twisted road. He extracts from his pouch the price of a smart-looking fellow about three and a half inches tall.
His new purchase in one hand, his letter in the other, he waits now to cross to the post office when Govindasamy, one of his roommates, pulls up in front of him on a bicycle, and the others on another bike just behind him.
“Where were you, man?” calls Nattu, louder than necessary, as he falls off the handlebars. “We were looking for you.”
“Um, meeting with my physics tutor.” He grins back at them shyly.
Govindasamy points to his own handlebars. “Get on. We’re going swimming.”
“Ah, I-” Vairum looks at the letter in his hand, savouring their insistence.
“Get on,” Nattu yells again, already remounted. Francis wheels unsteadily through the traffic to turn left, narrowly missing a gourd vendor and his cart. They’re going to the river, the Kaveri, whose vicious seductions his mother had explicitly instructed him to resist, the only condition of his departure. This very afternoon, arriving at the physics building, his eye had caught, not for the first time, on a high-water mark memorializing one time the river had flooded the campus, running across fields to embrace the city in a morbid hug. Then there are times when one or another of the river’s dams are, without warning, released…
Govindasamy jabs his hand aggressively in the direction of his handlebars once more. “Get on!”
Oh, the sweetness of one’s company desired!
Vairum hops up on the handlebars, smiling widely as Govindasamy pushes off through the traffic.
The sun jigs on the docile water like Krishna on the defeated serpent’s hoods. Children splash and shriek, their mothers wash clothes. The city bakes. It’s the driest time of year. Vairum licks his lips; they taste of dust, of a cracked, parched road. Does the river look so wet and cool in Cholapatti? So meek? His feet rub sweatily in his shoes as he approaches the ghat with his friends.