Dear friends,
short-story writing is an unchartered territory for me. But somehow I have mustered up the courage to put this up on the blog. Hope you enjoy reading this.
The
Turn
This
is the story of Sukumar uncle whom I knew as a kid. He used to wave at me and
my brother occasionally as we walked past his house to the school. My father
knew him well. We lived in a village and everybody knew everybody. My father
owns a small areca nut plantation. Sukumar and my father used to discuss prices
of crops and efficacy of pesticides. Sukumar uncle never visited our house and
looking back now, I don’t think that it was because we were from different
castes. Perhaps there was something in Sukumar’s persona that repelled people
and it was as if they did not want him to pollute their houses with his
negative aura. As me and my brother grew up and went to different schools and
colleges, we forgot about him. Much later, once when both me and my brother had
come home from abroad-me from London where I was a dentist and my brother from Australia,
where he was a successful doctor-my father asked us whether we remembered
Sukumar uncle. ‘Yes, I do’, we replied in unison. Father smiled and went on
tell us his story, with a bottle of beer in his hand. So, here is Sukumar
uncle’s story as told by my father with a little modification in the narration
without affecting its heart.
…………………x…………………….
Sukumar
ran his dark and stout fingers over his sumptuous belly and belched loudly.
‘Good meal, good meal’, he repeated so that his wife, who was cleaning the
greasy utensils in the kitchen could hear him. Gayathri had cooked a lavish dinner
of mutton biryani and fish curry that night. She knew that her husband was in
good mood and that comforted her. Sukumar could not live without eating meat at
least once a day. Only Gayathri knew how he liked his food and she took utmost
care not to disappoint him at the dining table. Any laxity from her side would
mean nursing a bruise, a cut or a burn for weeks.
Sukumar
sat in front of the television and began to eat pieces of neatly cut apple,
arranged artistically on a glass dish. Monsoon rain of the Western Ghats was
lashing heavily outside and Sukumar stared through the glass windows at the
steady flow of water falling down from the rooftop. It was time for his daily
news on television and politics interested him immensely. After all, he too was
a party man. He supported the ruling party and he had considerable clout in the
political affairs of his village. In fact, his ancestors were the oldest
registered members of the ruling party. Sukumar took pride in this. His family
had benefited substantially from its association with the rulers. They had
built a sizeable empire over a period of several decades in the form of land
holdings and stashed cash and jewelry in bank lockers. Sukumar owned areca nut,
coconut and rubber plantations, all cash crops with considerable revenue. He
was once the local Panchayat president too. He made his money, had a fling with
a lady secretary of his office and lost the next election. It did not bother
him much. He was respectfully called the ex-president anyway.
Apart
from his promiscuity, Sukumar was also well-known in the village for his temper.
He lost his cool for the flimsiest of reasons and he had even man-handled a
couple of servants for not doing the household chores to his satisfaction.
After the second incident, people refused to work in his house. You may argue
that the era of feudal landlords, wherein it was a common practice to whip the
servants and take their women as a matter of right, is over. Especially in the
coastal regions of Karnataka which have always been progressive, these things were
almost never heard of even when we were kids. That is the reason why there was
no help for Gayathri at home and Sukumar found it difficult to get laborers to
work in his farm. So, he had to make do with occasional smacking of his wife-for
sugary tea or bland fish curry.
As
he watched the local news on television, Sukumar heard somebody calling out his
name outside the gate of his house.
‘Sukumar
sir, president saar! Lend me a torch to go home! Sukumaar saar!’
Sukumar
rushed out of the house and switched on the lights of the gate. It was raining
steadily now and suddenly the power went off. A bolt of lightning struck
somewhere with ferocity followed by a deafening thunder. Sukumar saw the face
of Aitha in the momentary flash of the lightening, holding the latch of the
gate. He had a torn umbrella in his left hand and an old and dirty cloth-bag hung
from his right shoulder. He was drunk and he wobbled.
Aitha
was a tribal who lived a kilometer away from Sukumar’s house. He was around
thirty, lean and had a bony countenance. He worked as a laborer in plantations
and was an expert in climbing areca nut trees. This was a tricky job as the
climbers once atop a tree, had to pull the top of the adjoining areca tree towards
them using a hooked stick and hop onto that treetop. In this fashion, the
climbers covered the plantation in quick time by not getting down from a tree
to climb the next one. Aitha executed this task effortlessly and was good at
his work. But over the years, as the price of rubber rose and rubber
plantations increased in acreage, he had shifted to the job of rubber tapping.
This was more rewarding to Aitha in terms of money and gave him more spare time
to loiter around. People frowned and disapproved of his choice but it was after
all Aitha’s life and his choice. Wasn't it?
During
the previous year’s harvest season, Sukumar had asked Aitha to pluck areca nuts
from his plantation but Aitha had flatly refused. He was a regular in Sukumar’s
farm before but this time he was not interested. No other laborer was willing
to work for Sukumar either and this had infuriated him. He was firmly of the
belief that Aitha had instigated others against him but he could do nothing. He
had to hire laborers from the neighboring village at exorbitant wages.
Sukumar
went inside the house and fetched a torch and umbrella and slowly walked
towards the gate.
‘What
happened?’, he shouted at Aitha.
‘I
lost my torch. It fell down somewhere. I can’t find it. Can you lend me a torch
so that I can walk home? I will return it tomorrow morning’.
Aitha
was reeking of liquor and Sukumar noticed that his right hand placed on the
gate was shaking. Sukumar thought about Aitha’s refusal to work for him and
seeing his temerity to come to his house on a rainy night and ask for help, his
blood boiled with rage.
‘You
bloody bastard! You can’t come and work for me and now you have the gall to ask
me for a torch!!’, Sukumar screamed.
Standing
sideways near the gate and holding the grills with his left hand, Sukumar
slapped Aitha’s arm hard and pushed him back. Aitha swayed unsteadily and then
fell backwards on his haunches.
‘Saar,
don’t hit me. How can you hit me like that? I am just asking you for a torch.
Give me that and I will go away! I promise that it will be returned tomorrow’.
Sukumar
was beside himself with anger. How dare this lowly tribal talk to me like this?
And look at his tone! Sukumar opened the gate, walked up to Aitha who was
slowly trying to get up and kicked him on his chest with all his might.
‘That
serves you right, scoundrel! Get lost from here’. Sukumar turned around, closed
the gates and walked back to the house.
Aitha
writhed in pain and cursed Sukumar loudly. ‘You are a shameless coward’, he yelled
at Sukumar’s back. ‘And a tarty crook too. You think I don’t know what you did
to that panchayat secretary!? Hah!! Hitting a poor soul like me! Motherfuckers!’ Aitha let out a hearty laugh and stumbled away from the gate.
Sukumar
heard every bit of Aitha’s humiliating words clearly. He could feel his ears heating
up and his moustache jumped in unrestrained fury. He was in a state of frenzied
wrath unsure of what to do about the unexpected insult. ‘I must teach him a
lesson. I must make sure that he regrets his words till his death’, he muttered
under his breath. He stood silently for a while. A thought ran in his mind as a
curved smile broke on lips. ‘Why not?’, he asked himself aloud and took
measured steps towards the bedroom. It had been a long time since he had the
thrill of thrashing anybody. He flung open the wardrobe and pulled out a long
leather belt. As Gayathri watched from the corner of her eyes, Sukumar rolled
the belt around his fist and walked out into the rain with a torch and an
umbrella.
Aitha
had started trudging slowly and unsteadily towards his house. The terrain was
undulating and there was not a single habitation in the vicinity except
Sukumar’s. The rain was a steady drone and it was almost impossible to make out
the bald contours of the forest path which led to Aitha’s house through a
shrubby forest patch. Sukumar caught up with him just as Aitha took a turn from
the main road and hit the forests. Suddenly there was a whizzing sound as the
black length of leather hit Aitha’s back violently. He screamed in horror and
pain and fell flat on his face. Sukumar kicked Aitha on his ribs and again on
his shocked face. Blood spluttered out from Aitha’s mouth through broken teeth
as he made a painstaking effort to get onto his knees.
‘Saar,
don’t hit me saar! Why are you hitting me? What have I done to you?’, Aitha
pleaded in a hoarse tone and with great effort sprung to his feet and suddenly made
a dash into the forests. Sukumar was taken by surprise and he ran after him
hurling abuses. He quickly caught up with a limping Aitha. This time a hail of
blows fell on Aitha as the leather belt swished incessantly. Aitha rolled on
the ground trying frantically to block the strikes with his elbows and satchel
but the attack was relentless. Sukumar was panting. His eyes were bloodshot,
heart thumping and he could feel the rise of blood in his loins. He enjoyed the
sound of the belt whipping Aitha’s skin through his torn shirt. ‘This is what I
have been waiting for, to show this asshole his deserved place’, thought Sukumar
as he continued the assault.
Exhausted,
Aitha almost stopped his protest and efforts to ward off the blows. His frail
frame was no match to the masculine massiveness of Sukumar. The stinging pain
of the flesh and the ceaseless rain began to unclutter his mind. The high of
the arrack had long evaporated and he was acutely aware of his battering by
Sukumar and the unbearable agony. As the cobwebs in his mind cleared, Aitha
remembered his visit to the blacksmith that evening. He was asked by his wife
in the morning to get an old knife sharpened and Aitha had paid ten rupees to
the blacksmith for the job. The knife was in the bag! ‘If only I could get my
hands on the knife!’
Sukumar
was continuing his attack with belt and his feet. Aitha went on with his pitiful
cries for mercy as he slowly pushed the satchel under his stomach and lay with
his face down. He groped inside the bag and amongst the modest contents, soon
found the wooden handle of the knife. He crawled slowly towards Sukumar’s feet
and continued to beg him for mercy. Sukumar laughed and spat at him, mocking
him, ‘Oh, you know how to beg too’! Suddenly Sukumar felt a stinging pain near
his right ankle. Warm blood gushed down and mixed with the falling raindrops. A
screaming Sukumar bent down to hold his leg with dread in his eyes. Aitha sat
on his knees in a flash and pulling Sukumar’s head down by the hair, stabbed him hard on
the back of the neck. The knife sunk easily into Sukumar’s thick flesh as he
made a gargling sound from his throat. Blood bubbles trickled from his nose and
mouth as he flailed his hands feebly and collapsed to the ground in a heap.
Aitha stood up, steadied himself and briefly looked at the convulsing body of
his tormentor. Then he bent down near Sukumar’s head and jabbed him thrice on his back, puncturing his heart. He pulled out the knife, held it against
the torrential rain, washed his face and feet and walked home.
………………………..x…………………………….
We
looked at father in disbelief as he finished the story. ‘What happened next’?,
we wanted to know. ‘The usual things’, father said. ‘Aitha was arrested after a
couple of days and charged with murder. The case dragged on for years. Aitha
spent some time in jail, may be a year, I think. Then everybody forgot about
the incident. Sukumar’s wife moved to Dubai to live with her only son. After
seven years, Aitha was acquitted. The police could not find the murder weapon
and they could not prove that Aitha was responsible for the death. They did not
even appeal against the judgment’.
‘Where
is Aitha now’?, my brother asked.
