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| S Rama Krishnan (click here) |
When Robertson was coming to India from England by
the ship ‘The Great Coast’, he avoided conversing, drinking liquor with any of
the East India Company Officers who were accompanying him in the journey and
rather preferred to spend all his days scrutinizing the geographical maps in
his chamber. During his eleven days of journey, he learnt about some enigmatic
plants nurtured by some specific communities on the slopes of Indian mountains,
scripts made with coded pictorial representations about the art of growing
plants and the secret sign language used to understand the conversations of
plants during eclipses. He was awestruck, startled. Unmindful of his bizarre
interest on plants, his fellow Company officials were making noise gaily,
celebrating the birth day of Jesus Christ adding to the gaiety.
As most of them had frequented India, they were gabbling on
excitedly in inebriation about the busty dark-complexioned women, the jungles
for hunting and the foolishness of people who weren't aware of guns.
Robertson,
knowing about the book “The Secret Life of Plants” written by Thandavaraya
Swamigal of Thirikoodar Hills, sitting in his room where he could avoid the
noise of his merry making fellow men and was registering his impressions
thinking about the manuscript of the book which couldn’t be found anywhere. He
had prepared an exhaustive procedure for searching the manuscript of
Thandavaraya Swamigal which could arguably prove, all western knowledge gained
in the field of botany till date, false. For him, recording the conversations
of plants during eclipses was the essence of his journey. It was indeed
surprising to know that every Indian book on botany was looking like stories of
parted feathers of fantasy.
On the next
night after Christmas, he was standing on the upper deck of the ship with his
face looking pale, carrying the restiveness of unending waves of sea birds.
Even at the time he was aimlessly staring at the sea holding grey colour hat on
his one hand, he couldn't come out his thoughts about Thandavaraya Swamigal. He
was thinking about the secret symbols hiding in every family in Indian lives
laden with riddles and their illusionary, enigmatic imaginations. The only
another Roberson who travelled in the ship went past his room, seeing the light
in his room still on. She kept on hearing the sound of his sleepless babbling
daily. He was speaking with himself as if he was speaking to someone. The
Spanish servant boy who served dinner, saw him lying amidst papers with swollen
eyes. His cat was sleeping upon his gun. On the fourth day noon after he got
treated by the doctor, he came to the upper deck with his cat on one hand and a
black hat on the other. His cat was staring at the sea. The fry further went
deep into the water on seeing the shadow of the cat on water surface. In his
dream that night, the gluttonous giants, about whom he had read in Indian
mythological stories when he was young, were belching out with their stuffy
stomachs after swallowing up that ship.
On the evening
the ship was nearing the shore, he kept his boxes ready and was gazing at the
landscapes before him, with the cat in hand. Before alighting from the ship, he
drank a bottle of liquor, threw the empty bottle away in the sea. The Sun fell
into the sea. The harbour with fishing boats was visible at the distance. The
wind from that unknown land flew across, gently stroking the back of the cat.
With its eyes dizzying, his cat travelled in the chariot along with Robertson,
enjoying the semi-dark evening.
After seven days,
he reached Madras. Since it was a holiday, there was not much crowd in the
city. Only birds were sitting along the shore. A couple of children were seen
roaming around with fishing nets. On his way to the Church located along the
shore for offering prayers, a woman with six fingers carrying a fibre basket in
her hands, with her betel leaves stained teeth, smiled at Robertson. It looked
as if the whole area full of red colour buildings, trees grown along with reeds
and huts nestled in coconut trees, had become alive from the dream. While
returning from his prayer, he met Gomathi Nayagam Pillai who had come from
Velsy Bangalow, awaiting him. Gomathi Nayagam was fifty two years old then. His
wife was carrying her eighth child.
On his way,
when he met the six fingered- woman once again, he realised that there was an
irresistible strong attraction and charm in her. He stood there, kept looking
intently at her. She took no time to tell him on his face. “Don’t search for
the origins of streams, women and trees. Leave this place”. She gave him a
wooden toy while leaving him. The toy had sex symbols of both the genders. A
lot of coded languages were found carved on its body. Unmindful of the palm
sized toy he was holding in hands, Robertson was busy enquiring Gomathi Nayagam
pillai about her. When he was informed that she was a soothsayer woman,
belonging to weaving community and their words were powerful enough to become
true, he could feel that death was hiding behind the charm found in her stained
teeth.
All what he
was talking the next whole day with Pillai was nothing except the Thiririkoodar
Hills. Pillai thought that he was also as fascinated as other English men who
were having an unrelenting thirst for hunting. But hearing his frequent
references to Swamigal and some enigmatic plants, he told himself that he must
be under the spell of an invisible madness. Robertson roamed around the city of
Madras and could succeed in procuring some copies of botanical treatises and
history of jungle anecdotes that were hiding in some old book shops still
thriving since Moghul period. He understood that some plants nurtured in
families generation after generation have grown up as extended branches of time
and acquired some super natural power. That, they are the ones which teach all
the secrets of man-woman relationship and as they are carrying the hereditary
memories of families, they tend to acquire the power of shining, he thought.
When he came across stories related to shrubs used as narcotic substances,
creepers inducing secret passions, flower plants kept in bath room blossoming
in dreams at the sight of young virgins’ nudity, the lonely tree radiating the
smell of animosity and the branches of trees where the spirits were hiding etc,
his interest on the subject increased many fold. Robertson’s cat was getting
accustomed with the surroundings. The women walked away from the area the black
cat with green eyes was roaming, went by other small paths, hiding themselves,
instead.
Gomathi
Nayagam had made all the arrangements for the journey to Thirikoodar Hills.
Robertson was writing a letter to his wife. Before he completed the letter with
the last line, he heard someone knocking at the door. He stepped out of the
house, saw the six fingered woman walking at a distance. A head of a rooster
with blood streaking out was found lying at his entrance.
Countless
number of water falls were found in Thirikoodar Hills. There found stone
statues of lions, lions, stone halls with water sprayers, trees whose names not
known, monkeys, stone beds of ascetics and Siddhars in the caves, water
springs, long tailed dragon flies, bushes full of heart shaped leaves, rocks,
black rocks, sleeping trees, the lonely house of Neeli, wood leaches, wild
squirrels, skulls of dead hunters, heaps of elephant dung, army of flies,
scabby flowers, white cloths of people who died falling into the springs
looking like dried honey comb, drunkards roaming around seeking sexual
pleasure, illicit gamblers, a statue of Amman without breasts, an altar stone
with the strains of pig’s blood, pebbles reminding breasts and grey ducks. When
Robertson arrived in there, the rainy season was still not over. Despite post
winter season, it was still raining. He reached the foothills in one morning
when the hill was witnessing simultaneously sunny light on its one side and
rain on another side. His cat, staring at the trees till then, raised its head
as it sniffed the odour of meat.
The verdant
expanse of the Thirikoodar hills covered his body and made it look greenish.
His body was physically standing in front of the Thirikoodar hills, which it,
hitherto, had seen only in geographical maps and fantasies, with all its senses
surrendered muttering with itself. A big empty space where the sound of humans
became non-existent was lying beneath the hills. The game of sun light’s
arrival and the rain’s disappearance was going on concomitantly. All rocks
became alert at the sound of human presence. Robertson let his cat go from his
hands slowly and walked along the twin falls. The red flowers were strewn on
along the path. It looked as if frozen with the spread of dense mosses. The day
time was lengthening itself. The remains of hunters’ foot prints could be seen.
The wind was throwing the noise of falls at the hills. The foot prints were
found erased on the boulders which stood obstructing the paths. Small
caves were visible all through the way. Since they were small caves he
could see them badly stinking with broken mud pots scattered all around. He saw
all the caves had an inevitable scent of women in them. The bats were sleeping
in the warmth found inside the caves. He found that some caves had springs and
eye- shaped boulders were kept on them to obstruct it. Behind the twin falls,
the trees were thickly grown all through the way. Some trees that shed its
leaves were staring at the sky. It was looking like a forest area without much
of human activity. The cat came back shaking its head after roaming around
somewhere, with wild flies sticking all over its body. Robertson lit a
fire to get rid of the wild flies. The cat curled its tongue towards the flames
of fire. Till the evening of his first day of expedition, Robertson was roaming
along the hill tracks found behind the twin falls, but returned in vain. All
his maps had become like toy boards. He saw all paths were either found closed
or half of them were cut off.
Robertson was
looking very much disappointed and his heart was filled with the springs of
bitterness when Gomathi Naygam Pillai met him that night. He was unable to find
out any way. Next day, Gomathi Nayagam took Robertson to a village called
Koodankaavu. The sun light was descending upon that village, having its all
houses thatched with tiles. They were walking through the village where one
could see cows and children everywhere, went directly to Thaan Thondriya
Pillai’s house. Thaan Thondriya Pillai, stout frame with water weight and
blackened foot, welcomed them, offered seats to them. Following their lengthy
conversation all through the day, Pillai brought some science books and
manuscripts from the inner rack of his house, showed them to Robertson.
Robertson
asked him, “Are plants capable of speaking? Are there any enigmatic plants
around here?”
Thaan
Thondriya Pillai walked up to the inner hall of his house, ensured that there
was no woman in the house. He, then, told in a low voice.
“Yes. It is
most likely. They do speak. As the women in the house shouldn’t hear this, I am
telling this secretly. The plants are capable of speaking. They are aware of
secrets. Thandavaraya Swamigal even told that they have flesh like humans”
Pricked by the
reference of Thandavaraya Swamigal’s name, Robertson asked him to provide more
details about him. He told him that he hadn’t known about him much;
he would roam around the jungle half nude; women would close their doors
whenever he entered the village; no woman would ever cross his way. Sufficient
amounts of grains would be dispatched to him. Along with these details, when he
added one more information that Swamigal died of syphilis, Robertson understood
that it were all nothing but exaggerated fantasies.
Robertson
spent the whole of rainy season in meeting a lot of persons. Even those who
knew about Thandavaraya Swamigal repeated the same stories only. Some more
anecdotes were also added in the stories about him and it got extended into
different narratives such as he was capable of bringing the trees along with
him while coming down the hills, he could make the young women’s bodies known
to trees to satiate their mysterious desires; he himself was a magician and he
knew about coital techniques. But the manuscript of “The secret Life of Plants”
was not available with anyone. Every one showed him the picture of Thadavaraya
Swamigal with his six fingers, long matted hair and thin frame, instead.
Once the rainy
season was over, the paths to Thirikoodar Hills opened up. Robertson started
walking deep inside the hills till midnight, carrying ration along with him
sufficient for a week. The dark paths of the hills became clear as they
received the sun light. The yellow insects stuck to the rocks had started
falling down. The trees with heavy roots were heaving sigh. Passing through the
slits found in the rocks, Robertson reached the inner layers of the jungle. The
jungle looked like a green cup. All the components of it seemed to have lost
their shapes. Other than rocks and trees, he couldn’t see anything. He felt
that nights in the jungle were colder and greener than they were during the
day. He could hear whispers and the sound of flutters of wings raising and
dropping somewhere. The bodies of twin trees intertwining with each other
became visible. Darkness had descended upon the tall trees where snakes were
hiding. Seeing the trees hit by broken arrows, he was walking past further deep
into the jungle. Now, the trees looked standing alone and unruly. The trees
resembling stones were sucking up the moisture.
On the third
day, his cat was seemingly frightened at the shrubs found around. At the touch
of his cat, some plants closed their leaves. The butterflies flying alone were
flying above the cat, looked at it. When he followed his cat which fell down
after a failed attempt of jumping from a boulder, Robertson came across a falls
which no one had ever seen.
It was a falls
falling from a great height. The magnificence of that falls falling from the
edges of rocks was not known as yet. It was further more surprising to see that
the falls didn’t make noise. Despite falling from such a height, the falls
didn’t make any noise. It appeared that a superlative silence was descending.
For the first time, he saw a falls which didn’t make noise. Even the burbling
of water was also absent. He was lying there for two full days amidst the wet
rocks through which the water flowed, watching the falls like an animal. No
sound anywhere. He couldn’t understand where the sound of falls was hiding
itself. Even his cat which was lying on the rock, full of flowers grown on it,
could not remove its eyes from the marvellous scenery unfolded in front of it.
On the third day, he went near to the falls, stood under it. The falls with its
speed, chillness and fragrance swept him away. He was lying there watching the
white flowers blossomed everywhere on the right side of the falls. Those
flowers looked like a tube with eight petals. He uprooted one white flower
plant along with the earth. He completed drawing the layout of falls during the
day time. Unable to withstand the laughter of the Silent Falls, he got himself
away from it, crawled along the rocks and reached his home after six days, only
to be found that he had been infected with water born fever, too feeble to
talk. He was treated by Gomathi Nayagam Pillai and got cured. The very thought
of the Silent Falls caused him immense pain in his heart. There were some
conspicuous changes in his behaviour too after his return from the jungle. In
one of his dreams on a night, he found his body becoming a big hill and his
body parts turning into trees. The blood was gushing out of his heart like
silent falls and flowing from head to toe. Once he realized that the jungle
where the silent falls flowed was nothing but human body, the plants mentioned
in the “The secret Life of Plants” was nothing but man and it was the plants
that resided in the human body were capable of talking, having secret desires,
he relinquished all his clothing at once and started roaming around Thirikoodar
Hills with his black cat.
The Paliyar
women used to see the “Cat Man’ many times lying in the rubbles. His body bore
the scars of leech bites and cracks from the scabby skin. His cat, totally
changed its behaviours now, was screaming at everything. People had seen it
scratching the trees and chasing something invisible in the air. The face of
the ‘Cat Man’ was full of thick facial hairs. At times, he made visits to
Paliyar villages, stayed there for some time. However, the trees hiding in his
body were inducing his passions even though he avoided talking with people. On
the day of eclipse, everyone went into hiding at their houses. When the Cat Man
went to the village on that day, it stood carrying a deserted look. Paliyars
told him that it was the day the plants would talk to each other. He went down
from the hills on its left side. The shadow of eclipse started shrouding all
over. The day became dark and the jungle went into night. So dark it was
through which even fly can’t penetrate. The trees stood with their heads down.
The branches extended its hands and hugged each other. The small shrubs became
lively. The touch of leaves and their mild scent created an inscrutable sense
of lethargy. The petals of couple of flowers blossomed, hugged the shrubs on
the other side. The roots started shaking as if there was a water current
beneath. The sniff of trees was making noise. The trees loosened their bodies
and passionately attracted to each other. The stone trees started shining,
stretched out their branches. Even trees which were sleeping till then, got up
and shared their cravings. The Cat Man felt that it was conversation of the
plants only in the jungle.
From the
nerves of leaves hugging each other, light was streaking out. The trees
intertwined with each other gently like snakes. The individual trees standing
on the hilly rocks stretched out their bodies, started eating up the fruits of
flower plants standing at the edges of rocks as if they moved out of their
place, coming down. Countless number of seeds fell down. Once the eclipse was
over and the streaks of sun rays came out, the leaves released themselves from
their cuddle. The trees straightened their bodies. The fruits that were half
eaten were restless. The leaves which were unable to release themselves from
the flowers were cut off. The jungle was filled with relaxation of trees at the
sun light and restiveness of lust. The air around spread an aroma of waves. The
jungle ceased its bustling and returned to its initial calmness. Robertson was
blinking with disbelief, confused as to whether all what he saw were real or
just an illusionary representation. In case, if it was real, the secret life of
plants was just similar to humans. Wasn’t it? A myriad information had been
hiding in the layers of their memories. Hadn’t it? A botanist called Robertson
who was hiding inside the Cat Man became alive, came out. The events he saw
just a while ago were pretty true. It was a marvellous fact that no other
botanist had ever discovered till date. After this discovery, one would be able
to understand plants only through the scientific procedures employed for
studying human behaviour. Since they have the nuances of human attributes and
dreams, trees are able to mingle with human beings easily. Having decided to go
down to register what he had seen, he went to the Paliyar village.
The Paliyar
village women were walking before him with wet clothes on their body after
bathing. That time only, he noticed one thing. All women had their stomach
tattooed with a long shrub with leaves and flowers. There was a picture on
their breasts as if it was covered with green leaves like shrubs tattooed on
their stomach. He understood that the plants were some kinds of rare code
languages to indicate something important in Indian lives. Leaving his cat
alone, he came down from the hills hastily. The door which he had left closed
already was found closed as it was. The news of Robertson’s death provided by
Gomathi Nayagam had also gone to England. He entered his room through the rear
door, found a lot of lizards sleeping in the drawer as he opened it. Just to
register his findings that there was nothing called manuscript of Thandavaraya
swamigal; as it was nothing other than the jungle only, he picked up his diary
for jotting it down. The room was full of dusts and cob webs. Swiftly he put on
his clothes, stood in front of the mirror. When he saw himself in the mirror he
felt elated with the feel of success and laughter. He pushed the front door and
looked out whether anyone was coming. There was no human movement. He picked up
a liquor bottle from the shelf in the room. The glass tumblers kept along the
liquor bottle slid down on the floor. When he was cleaning the glass pieces
broken from the fall at the height of almirah, something went into his skull
suddenly: “Where has the sound of glass breaking gone?” Why hasn’t sound come?
Within a second, he diverted his attention to the white flower plant kept at
the corner of the room. It had grown into a big tree, spreading its branches
booming with flowers all around. ‘Where has this sound gone? He threw out the
liquor bottle upward. It also fell down from that height without making sound.
He kept the flower plant out of the room and tossed another liquor bottle up.
It fell down with a big sound. ‘It means the plant sucks up the sound. Doesn’t
it?’ Can there be any plant that sucks up sound?’ He couldn’t believe. He
brought that plant into his room once again and was testing it throughout the
day.
Finally he
concluded that the plant only sucked up the sounds. He further understood that
the same plant was reason behind the water falls falling on surface without
making noise. He preserved that plant. He spent next whole three days,
recording all his findings, left to meet Gomathi Nayagam Pillai.
Children were
playing at his house. Gomathi Nayagam’s wife got frightened at seeing him. When
he went inside, Gomathi Nayagam came in front, seemingly troubled as he didn’t
expect him, welcomed him. Robertson told him that he was leaving for England
and he would come back to Thirikoodar hills again. The baby in her womb turned
its face after seeing Robertson. He carried along with him the wooden toy given
by the woman soothsayer, sound sucking plant and some notes while leaving for
England by ship. The ship was moving very slowly. He had chat with almost
everyone on board. He was spending his time either by drinking liquor or
dancing, making noise in drunken state.
On the ninth
day since he started his journey, the storm which was, till then, hiding inside
the sea came out ferociously and swayed the ship. The wind scooped up the water
and threw it on the deck. The colour of the sea had changed. The omens
portending the death, engulfing everyone, cut short all chit chats. The ship
was standing marooned in an expanse of the sea where one couldn’t find even a
sign of land. No one knew when the ship got wrecked. When he opened his eyes
last in the height of a wave, he saw a verdant spread everywhere. After that,
his body was floating several days on the waves of the sea. When his body was
washed ashore, the sun light was crawling on his lengthy back.
The notes he
kept in a leather bag which drowned in the depth of frothing sea water were,
later, eaten by fishes slowly. All his secrets were safely dumped into the
bodies of fishes. However, it broke the wooden toy into pieces.
Mr Richard
Burton, a military officer having a penchant for tiger hunting, who shared the
room with Robertson, made all Robertson’s new findings, on the secret lives of
Plant and Silent Falls, known to the world. When he came to the Thirikoodar
hills later, he couldn’t find any such place there. All what he got were just
only Robertson’s notes. He compiled them, published it in 1864. The major
reason why that publication didn’t attract the attention of everyone was the
opinion of botanists who rejected it as an exaggerated fantasy of a tiger
hunter.
John Parker, a
botany research scholar who came to India in 1964, went to the place Robertson
had mentioned in his notes after studying extensively about the Thirikoodar
hills and found out the said water falls falling with noise. There were no
white flower plants. ‘The reason behind the plant’s delicate feelings was just
their ability to absorb electro-magnetic wave’ he reasoned. Further, he
concluded that most of the Indian stories about plants were pretty interesting
ones; and the notes of Robertson were just one of such interesting stories’.
However, he couldn’t help feeling the sense of formication that the leaves,
tattooed drawn on the body of the Paliyar woman who was brought to sleep with
him during his stay, were actually crawling on his body while having sex with
her. He brushed it aside, convincing himself that it was due to inebriation.
But when he failed attempting to find out the reason for the eruption of green
colour patches on his skin, John Parker did feel that he couldn’t help
remembering Robertson. When Gomathi Nayagam Pillai’s eighth baby was born with
six fingers, no one knew whether there was a relation between its six fingers
and its tryst with Robertson when it was in the womb. It was a different matter
anyway.
Translated from Tamil by Saravanan. K
Source : (www.azhiyasudargal.blogspot.com)
“Thavarangalin Uraiyadal” short story by S Rama Krishnan. (100 best short
stories in Tamil, curated by S. Rama Krishnan)
