Morning After the Storm - concluding part.

The fellow slumped to the floor as round nine started. Chathan finished his bottle to the applause of the onlookers. Two of them had to help him home later. Chathan laughed aloud thinking of that scene and how angry Neeli had been.

When Maran’s wife brought dinner, Chathan asked her to call her husband. After the eighty-fourth birthday celebration Thampran had given him a bottle of brandy with a warning that it should be drank only a little at a time and slowly. Chathan had buried it near the front steps. When his grandson came, the old man asked him to dig out the bottle.

“I’ve rum,” Maran said, “which my son gave. Shall I get some of that?”

“No, I want Thampran’s.”

Maran brought the bottle. “Don’t drink too much, grandfather,” he cautioned.

Chathan laughed loudly. “During my coffin days,” he said, “I used to down a bottle of arrack a day.”

‘You were young then,” the grandson reminded him.

I was young of course, Chathan said to himself. He clearly remembered being summoned to the Big House one night during the tenure of the first Communist government in Kerala State. Thampran had received news that Party activists planned to take over a hundred-acre paddy field of his the next day claiming that he had no proper title.

The area was enclosed by a bund that had been raised from the lake decades earlier. A causeway connected it a piece of the mainland, which was also owned by the Big House. Chathan remembered hearing at that time the Maharaja had complimented the then Thampran on his endeavour and exhorted people to emulate him to increase rice production.

The supervisor who was responsible for protecting the field took only four people including Chathan with him. They reached the place before sunrise and took their positions where the land-bridge joined.

By mid-day the aggressive, slogan shouting procession by the Leftists over the causeway began. Women had sickles in their hands. Several of the men carried red flags tied to short clubs. When the demonstration passed the halfway mark, the defenders released their surprise weapon – mouse rockets, the type that was hand launched during festival processions as part of fireworks.

The first salvo, which was aimed just above the heads of the marchers burst about the middle of the column. Slogans turned to screams. The second round was directed at the leaders. In a matter of minutes the attack was in shambles. No one was seriously injured.

Megaphones blared from the mainland, “Victory to the revolution. We shall take revenge.”

Chathan happened to be their first target.

Three men attacked him one night while he was returning from a temple feast. Chathan stabbed one of them to death and escaped, running straight to the supervisor’s house. He was immediately taken to the vicarage where the supervisor’s brother was the cook.

The siblings decided to hide Chathan in an unused broken coffin on the mezzanine floor of the large cemetery chapel, which was some distance away from the church. Every night the high caste cook carried food, water and arrack to the Pulaya.

Chathan had no idea how long it lasted but one day he was brought out of hiding. He was told that the President in Delhi had dismissed the Communist government and the Big House had taken care of the police.

The thunder was back suddenly. Chathan had a gulp of brandy and started his dinner of boiled rice and fish curry made the way he loved. He late slowly, relishing every mouthful, and drank more.

His mind began wandering. What would happen to the Big House after Thampran died? Both his sons were in America. They were unlikely to return permanently. Anyway, the relevance of the Big House was fading. New moneyed classes and power centres had emerged, but no Pulaya was among them. Would his people ever become rich and powerful? Pulaya Christians were still without any real position in the Church though decades had passed since their conversion. Even the Communist Party was dominated by the high castes.

Suddenly the skies opened up. Rain came pouring down, lashed by strong winds. Repeated thunder and lightning rocked the earth. Chathan pulled around him an old blanket that the lady of the Big House had given, and took another swig from the bottle.

He saw a figure approaching, flashing a torch. It was Maran. Standing at the door wearing a plastic raincoat with the hood pulled over his head. He shouted to be heard over the din, “Water is only about nine inches below the top of the bund.”

“That’s bad,” Chathan said. “There’s risk till the tide turns.”

“Yes,” Maran agreed. “I’ll check again after some time.”

“Raise alarm if the level goes up by another three inches.”

Maran was silent for a while. “Who will come, grandfather?” he asked as he was leaving.

The realisation sank in brutally. The boy is right, Chathan thought. Nobody would come. No one was bothered. The bund and the crop were at the mercy of the elements. There was nothing that the old man or his grandson could do about it.

Chathan drank more. Does it matter now, he asked himself. Even if the crop were wiped out, Maran would ensure that the old man had enough food to eat. Or he could always go to the Big House as long as Thampran or the Lady was there. He had spent his life for them.

Many events of the past came to his mind – Mathappan’s tyranny, squaring off with the police officer, defence of reclaimed field, the man who fell dead from the tip of his knife, his days in the coffin. Did all that have any meaning? Or, was his too a dog’s life to be lived through?

The storm raged on.

Where was Thampran? Chathan had a sudden urge to see him. But Thampran would be asleep in the comfort of the Big House. He wouldn’t come to check the bund. He was not expected to. That was the job for a Pulaya.

Nothing mattered now. It was the end of the world, the deluge. Drink and get knocked out. The floods would come and take him away.

He lay down with the bottle in one hand. After a while he heard the harvest song. It came from a distance but with great clarity. The music was back, carrying the pulse of nature with it. People cared after all. The granaries would fill. Haystacks would rise towards the sky. There would be dancing and games and merrymaking. “Hurry, Neeli, we’re late,” he called out and sat up.

There was no response. A gust of wind rushed through the room.

Where was Neeli? The curly haired, big-eyed girl that he had loved for so long? Oh, yes, she had died, Chathan remembered. He tried hard to recall her face but could only see the star, bright and shining – the star that gave life, the star that took it back. Yes, it was all in the stars. Written down. Fate.

The harvest song still kept playing in Chathan’s mind above the unabated fury outside.

The storm blew over some time in the night and the morning was clear without any trace of clouds. The rice fields looked like an extension of the lake. Two of the palms on the dyke were uprooted and their heads that once swayed proudly against the sky were now under water.

Chathan was found on the bund, lying near the breach. His lips were touching the wet clay as though kissing the earth goodbye.

A crow perched close by staring curiously at the body.

Ends.