This is an English translation of “Mazhaiyin kural
thanimai”, a short novel written by Ba. Venkatesan. Translated into English by
Saravanan Karmegam.
***
Part 2 (24 –30)
By the time
Uttanapalli Jamindar brought a woman from Mysore after marrying her as his
second wife since his first wife died without giving him an heir, his youth had
long ago deserted him. The woman he brought was very young. Jamindar was aware
that the villagers were laughing at his back, seeing them in pairs. He had
never been worried about it. (One would feel the pain of fever and headache
only when he suffers from it). But, after some days of his marriage, when he
felt that she was laughing at him after the lights were off on the bed, he was
unable to take that lightly. He was suffering from an aching desire to prove to
her that he was in no way inferior to young men in the display of love. His
greyed moustache proved his desire outdated. (But love doesn’t mean the union
of bodies. Does it?). Though his body was growing old, he had been spending
many sleepless nights thinking about how to prove himself as a youthful lover
at heart. At last, like a king in the north who built a memorial for his wife,
he also decided to build something similar for his wife. His wife casually
pointed out a vast stretch of land lying outside Hosur, which was at a little
distance from Uttanapalli, facing the Ramanayakkan lake, sitting at the edge of
the entire Agraharam with wonderful weather throughout the year. The task
seemed to be extremely easy while assessing the place within the span of time
the chariot took to cross it. But the reality proved otherwise. The owner of
the land, Basavanna, told the Jamindar’s men not to speak about the land
anymore. Jamindar felt it was a slap on his face. Now he had been under
pressure to prove to his young wife that he was an influential man as well,
when he was already suffering from the aching desire to prove his mettle of
being a great lover. He tried hard to bring Basavanna on track by employing all
his tricks – sending his men secretively and then openly to coax him and
meeting him in person first with sweet-coated words and then with intimidation.
Jamindar tried to tempt him with an assurance that he would offer a piece of land
worth double the price at Mathagiri or Andhivadi. But Basavanna didn’t budge
even an inch. The real problem was not the location of Basavanna’s land, nor
its size, nor its value. It was its heritage significance. It had the
reputation of being a stable used by the king Tipu Sultan for maintaining his
horses. The land could retain its potency of manure for longer than any other
land due to horse dung. Selling it just meant selling the reputation and
blessing of the ancestors resting in burial pits along with the inherited fame
and pride. But the Jamindar remained stubborn. Even if he became flexible, his
wife wasn’t. When the situation went out of hand, rendering the Jamindar
frightened even to put out the lamps during nights, he decided to crush
Basavanna with his influence after his repeated failures in all possible
tricks. The district collector promised him to help despite the disgrace of
dwindling influence of the Jamindar due to his second marriage, which forced
him to approach the collector to settle a petty matter such as that. The
collector fulfilled his promise. As he had expected, Basavanna shuddered at
seeing the paper envelope with a government stamp. He had to go to the
collector's office with documents that would prove his ownership of the land
located on the banks of Ramanayakkan Lake, the paper read. Basavanna didn’t
have any such documents. It didn’t occur to him, his grandfathers and his
great-grandfathers to get that land, the King Tipu Sultan gifted it brusquely, registered it in writing. There
were two reasons behind it. One, all those who had been with him now were the
heirs of those who were friends growing up with his grandfather and
great-grandfather. Everyone knew that
Basavanna’s land was once a horse stable of King Tipu Sultan. Second, they were
living longer during the reign of Tipu Sultan. They were not aware that the
ownership of lands lying beyond Hosur, Uttabnapalli, Pagalur, Andhivadi and
Mathigiri had been registered in writing on papers. Even if one had those
documents in hand, it would give two different meanings to its owner and the
one who wants to grab it. That too, more specifically, if the land was meant
for the English lord or government, its allegiance would overlook its
historical importance and change its place. Basavanna was sure that his land
would never be his if the Englishman intervened in the matter. Since the matter
had become very serious, the Jamindar wouldn’t consider compromise. Being the
owner of the land, Basavanna’s self-respect prevented him from approaching the
Jamindar, and at the same time he wasn’t ready to accept his defeat either.
Basavanna hatched a plan. He fed his wife and children with poisoned rice,
killed them and then killed himself by hanging on an Indian beech tree. His
ownership of the land that had been passing through the narratives was finally
confirmed with his death. It then settled on the soil strongly, mixing with the
weather that stood frozen on the land he owned. The government didn’t expect
Basavanna’s death. Jamindar too. The government forgot his death. It had
problems more important than this. But for Jamindar, the victory of Basavanna
had turned into an unforgettable nightmare. He first thought of dropping his
plan of building a bungalow. Since his wife insisted on not abandoning his plan
when the task became handy after steadfast efforts, he accepted it half
heartedly. He assigned the task of building the bungalow to Paramasivam Pillai,
who had been a famous architect in the Paramakal area (Dharmapuri) and a family
friend of Jamindar. Both he and the villagers knew that the task would never be
completed. The Jamindar was ready to sacrifice his money for the sake of his
hollow vanity. The people remained unconcerned, leaving the Jamindar to suffer
by losing his wealth and peace of mind in the tussle between the curse of Basavanna
and his desire. It wasn’t one or two years; the construction work went on for
seven years without even erecting a single floor. Basavanna’s curse threw away
a plethora of bad omens. In the first year of building construction, the child,
the heir of the Jamindar family, in the womb of Jamindar’s wife, was born dead.
The people gossiped that the Jamindar must be secretly happy about it (for
there had been no history that the real heirs of Jamindar were ever born dead).
Jamindar believed that his discomfiture would come to an end with that incident
because that woman became mentally unstable and confined herself in the room
where she gave birth as soon as she came to know that what she had been
believing was her child in the womb was actually a dead body. No one saw her
after that. The bungalow, which was under construction in Hosur for her, also
slipped out of her memory completely. Due to mental agony, her age doubled
every year, and she became older than the Jamindar with age and disability
after two years. The Jamindar also felt relieved that there was no need to
build the bungalow anymore. His wife’s ugly appearance and the foul odor
emitted from her body were so repulsive that they prevented him from even going
near her room. He requested Paramasivam Pillai to stop the construction works
and promised him to give back the total amount committed. But to his dismay, it
wasn’t easy for the Jamindar to abandon Basavanna’s land as he had surmised.
The problem took a different shape. Paramasivam Pillai thought stopping the
work before completion would infringe on his fame and professional ethics. So,
he didn’t pay heed to Jamindar’s words. He then announced that the construction
work would resume, no matter if the Jamindar accepted or not and gave him the
money or not. Paramasivam Pillai was also one of the rich men in the Paramakal
area. Jamindar knew that Paramasivam Pillai would give a damn for money. He
remained helpless. The construction works were in full swing, rendering him as
helpless as holding the tail of a tiger. He knew that everything had gone out
of hand. He had become so unconcerned that he grew unattached to everything
happening around him. He had money to spend. As long as he was alive, he spent
it without inviting any complaints. He had ensured that the money reached
Pillai’s family (Pillai was staying in Basavanna’s land) on the right dates.
But it was unbearable for him to see his friend wasting his skills and time on efforts
that would never bear fruit. Seeing Pillai not pliant in his resolve, the
Jamindar was struck deeply with guilt that the death of his friend would also
happen in Basavanna’s land. (Due to the undying desire, now condemned with a
curse and responsible for the death of two innocent people). But when the
problems are born, their solutions are also born along with them. Most of the
time, they wouldn’t wait for the brain that connects them with debate.
Paramasivam, who went to his home in the severe rain that shook the entire
Paramakal area in one day after seven years, did not return to Basavanna’s
land. The villagers said that he went away running, yelling that he had found a
child from that land and he would return after handing it to his wife. The Jamindar
came to know that the rain had struck him from returning. Though his health
condition didn’t allow him to pay a visit to him (this was the excuse he gave
himself), the villagers had their version, which said that the Jamindar didn’t
dare to face Paramasivam Pillai’s wife. Even after Pillai stopped his work, the
Jamindar kept sending him money for his satisfaction. When he died suddenly
after seventeen years without leaving any will, the government announced that
all his properties were nationalised. One of the unmarried brothers of
Jamindar’s wife, loitering around, filed a case on behalf of Jamindar’s mad
wife and was ruining the remaining money and name. It was the only property
that escaped the claws of the government, ie. the land grabbed from Basavanna.
Knowing that the land had been written in the name of Paramasivan Pillai, with
the utmost honesty, the government handed over that land to his family. The
document was registered after two months of rain that drove Pillai out of
Basavanna’s land. Pillai’s wife received it just out of reverence for the dead
soul; she tossed it somewhere immediately after that and forgot about it the
next moment. People said that the Jamindar went to that land last time on the
second day, and the rain stopped. The village remembered him, for a very long
time, the way he wept inconsolably, looking at the half-erected building that
the rain had pierced into a bundle of holes, forgetting his age and status as
everyone around him was watching. None of the villagers ever placed their head
while sleeping towards that side after that incident. The forest cover that
grew between that area and the village gradually separated the building and
pushed it into an inaccessible distance and solitude. In the middle of the
forest, the dream of the Jamindar had stood ruined as debris.
***
