Topic suggested by Udhaya on Thu Jan 21 23:14:27 .
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- From: Udhaya (@ 205.218.142.217)
on: Thu Jan 21 23:15:25
Melody for the Mourning
With a spirit too vast for her frail frame, Manju never knew better to fill the small shoes she was given. She shot up faster then both her brothers eating less than a third of what they ate. Not that a girl like her got the thick curd, or the fresh milk, with the bubbles still brimming on the surface that the boys got. Kamu athai never knew how to curb Manju. By the time Manju was 12 she had burst into puberty to athai's dismay. What a confusing time that was.
"Athai, can Manju come play with us now? She has been in the kitchen all morning."
"No, Ramu, go play with some boys your age. It's time Manju stopped playing with boys out in the street."
"But, Kamu athai, nobody can make the top climb their palm like Manju. Can she at least come out and show us."
Amma was no help, siding with her sister-in-law,
"Why don't you ask cousin Kumar to show you? Athai is right, Manju shouldn't be seen with you boys playing in the street."
"Right, like I got nothing else to do. Kumar can't even wind up the top, let alone make it spin and climb his palm from the ground."
Manju always had something extra in her that knew how to show affection. I can still remember the time I got slapped and left behind by Appa for throwing a fit for not taking Manju with us to swim in the pumpset-well by our village rice fields. I put on my shoes to leave the house, leave everything, but I couldn't move. I sat there leaning on the verandah pillar and cried for an hour. Not that Appa hit so hard or that the swimming trip was all that fun, but I must have known right then that Manju was being taken from me little by little. Manju must have known too, she stole into the cellar to fetch me the biggest Malgova mango reserved for Appa and the gents in the family. She would have got such a hiding if athai had caught her. She didn't care, she massaged the fruit with both her hands, tore off the beak and poked a hole on top and watched me eat the whole fruit. I was so full halfway down the mango, but Manju told me to keep going . . .
"It's all for you Ramu, you don't have to share that with anyone. None of the gents in the house will get to eat a mango that big. Go on, finish. Go on, enjoy it."
While I slurped up the flowing fruit, she refused to eat any of it when I offered her. She just shook her head and kept untying and tying my shoelaces like everything depended on it. Every time she tied it she got a perfect bow with the lace ears the same size on both ends. She was amazing like that.
One evening that same summer, when it was just getting dark out, I caught her sitting on the mango tree reaching over the compound wall next door. She was giggling with Gurjit Singh, the tall kid next door, God I was so upset with her.
"Manju, what are you doing playing with that boy, when all this time you wouldn't play with me? That boy is a Northie, Appa says they marry their own sisters."
"Shut your mouth, Ramu. He is my friend. If you tell anyone you saw me here, I will never speak to you ever."
"Then come play with me."
"No. I want to stay here."
"Why?"
"Because, he is jolly like me, he's my age."
Gurjit put his hand over her thigh and Manju cupped his face with her hands.
"This stupid kid might tell his parents and word will get to my dad. God, my dad will belt me good."
"Gurjit, don't worry. Ramu will never do that to me, will you Ramu?"
"Fine, you go play with that turban-headed monkey next door, what's it to me."
But it was everything to me then. I couldn't do anything to forget about Gurjit giggling with my Manju, his hand over her thigh. I saw Manju less and less from then on. When she wasn't being drilled by amma and athai about cooking and cleaning, she was up on the mango tree giggling with Gurjit. I hated the very sight of that boy. I remember chanting myself to sleep, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall, wishing somehow that it would make Gurjit fall from the tree and render him unable to be pieced back together again.
More than the games we played or the model rockets and boats we used to make out of newspapers, I missed sleeping next to Manju at night. She used to tell me bedtime stories of Rama rescuing Sita from Ayodhi, or the feats of Hanuman letting his tail grow taller than any seat in the palace. While I lay there strumming my uh huhs, she ran her fingers through my hair to lull me to sleep. But all that had changed that summer. Manju slept on the hallway floor next to the kitchen,not like before with her brothers and me in the front hall.
Then one night, I still cringe at the memory of that night, I got up in the middle of the night to get some water out of the mud pot from the kitchen's corner. In my drowsy state, as I walked along the hallway towards the kitchen, I saw something flash the corner of my eye. I stopped to take a good look. I felt something crumble at the base of my stomach. It was Manju lying on her side with an outstretched arm and her half-sari riding up her lower thigh. The gold paisleys on her blouse seemed to float in the dark of the night from her deep breathing. The thin mesh of her leaf-green half-sari barely held onto her body like a ready-to-burst pomegranate shell. Manju resembled the Devasthris I've seen in Raja Ravi Varma's paintings. From the corner of the room, the oscillating table-fan spread ripples along her dress, failing to lift the hem of the half-sari over her thigh but managing to billow it just enough. I still can't articulate the feeling I had then, it was a mixture of confusion, mesmerism, and opportunity. I would like to believe that I knelt down to straighten her dress, but somehow my hand crept under the billowing hem of her half-sari to the thigh that Gurjit found so easy to reach. I felt a jolt of panic and joy fight though my body as I wished to bring all my sensations to the surface of my right palm. But my conscience intervened and I pulled back my hand with such disruptive force that Manju's eyes shot
open with a fierce expression. She raised herself from the floor and her reflexes quickly straightened out her half-sari.
"What are you trying to do, Ramu?"
"Nothing, I was . . . straightening your dress."
"You have become such a bad boy. I never in my dreams believed you would . . . don't ever speak to me again."
With those words she covered herself entirely with a bed sheet and lay face down. I don't know how I got through that night,but all my hopes were towards the next day when I was going to cry my forgiveness to her absolution. But the next day was nothing like I expected. Manju spoke to me during lunch and supper showing no emotion. She seemed to have relegated me to the list of people she just had to get along with in life. The grin-and-bear-it-you-are-a-woman-now temperament that amma and athai were shoe-horning into Manju had already been instilled. That indifferent treatment was worse than any punishment I could
have imagined. I wanted to pay a price to bring the old Manju back. I picked the most painful punishment I could think of. During my nightly prayer, I even asked God to make it hurt as bad as it could.
The time for my penance had come that night. Same as I had done the night before, only intentionally this time, I woke up in the middle of the night and headed towards the kitchen. The whole house was asleep.
It irked me to see Manju asleep with her whole body beneath a bed sheet. Make it hurt, God, please make it hurt, I murmured as I headed towards the firewood embers in the kitchen. I knew the tips of the firewood would still be hot hours after supper because amma has threatened to brand me with it when I misbehaved. I knelt near the clay over and grasped the glowing tips of the firewood with both hands. I could smell the burning of the skin, a shudder shook my body inside out as I dropped one of the pieces on my toes. I screamed without meaning to and the whole house awoke. In minutes, amma and athai were applying thick lamp-oil to my palms and toes and coming up with reasons why I must've done it. They said something like Goddess Kali was sending a warning to the family through this mishap, that Kali's indignant spirit possessed me to sleep-walk.
Appa and mama were yelling at amma and athai for not properly putting out the embers. Manju kept calm and gave me a look that said she knew why I did what I did. She took over from amma and athai and applied the oil in soothing circles over my palm. She convinced them to let me sleep next to her. Slowly the night retreated to its quiet.
Manju and I stared at each other with tears welling in both our eyes.
"Manju, I'm sorry for what I did last night. Will you please forgive me? Can we go back to how it was? Please, Manju. I will do anything you want."
No words came from her lips, she curled herself into a ball and shook from crying for a long time. I held her with my elbows not letting my oily palms touch her. She buried her face in my chest and cried for almost half an hour.
"Are you still mad at me, Manju?"
"I can never be mad at you silly." She spoke through her tears. "You are my very own stupid silly Ramu."
"Then why are you crying?"
"Gurjit's father caught him writing me a letter. Gurjit got belted really bad. Gurjit's sister Neetu sent me a note through her servant. Gurjit will never see me again."
Manju cried some more. Somehow, I felt so relieved that I wasn't the cause of her crying. For the rest of the summer Manju and I became inseparable whenever she got free from the kitchen. I began to play with Gurjit and his sister just to position myself to carry notes between Gurjit and Manju. It turned out to be one of the most magical summers. I learned the strange way people could be with each other without the physical presence. I wanted to spend the rest of my life living through the love Manju and Gurjit expressed for each other.
Of course, things changed. In the autumn of that year, Manju was married to a guy ten years older than her. Everybody in the family thought it was a great catch for Manju since the guy had a job in the Central Government, a handsome salary, stability,and pension benefits. Athai and mama managed to do the impossible, take all the fight out of Manju. She began to look the way she did the day after my incident with her. She could bury so much in a casual smirk. I couldn't bear to see her after her wedding. I just left the house when I started hearing tales of her drunken husband, her venemous in-laws . . . nobody was going to take the fight out of the Manju who lived in me.
Nobody.
©1998 Udhaya Kulandaivelu
- From: Gokul (@ gatekeeper.ohioedison.com)
on: Wed Feb 3 19:14:52
Sorry for this laaate response.
Udhaya, that was really neat. I loved the portion describing the family's reaction to ramu burning his fingers.
manjus always end up like this and raamus too. I wonder what happens to gurjits. You are not only a good poet, good storyteller too:-)
- From: NOV (@ cache1.jaring.my)
on: Wed Mar 17 02:25:20
Udhaya - Quite neat. Very touchy subject. Kudos on your courage. :-))
I like the way you have left the ending unfinished.....
- From: sachu (@ 205.177.170.62)
on: Sat Mar 27 12:38:56
hi udhaya
i especially enjoyed the way you have written thestory coming from a young boy .the boy watching manju sleeping and the whole scene was written so well
- From: vj (@ chme111pc1.ecn.purdue.edu)
on: Sun Mar 28 20:13:49
udhaya,
i liked it a lot....
- From: Raj (@ master.hyd.deshaw.com)
on: Mon Jun 28 10:55:17
Udhaya! What to say..you have a powerful way with words...amazing flow , superb leash over the sequence of events...boy, you are a master story-teller. Brilliant!
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