“How’s the bund?” Chathan asked.
Fool, Chathan said to himself, he doesn’t realize that it is food that is growing in those fields. Did his grandson know that once the people nearly starved to death when the crops failed? That was during a great war in some far away land. They were saved because the granaries of the Big House were thrown open. Now Thampran was left with only this stretch of fields after the government had taken away most properties of the large landowners and distributed them among the landless. Many who were left with smaller areas had stopped growing paddy because it was no longer profitable. They either left the fields fallow or reclaimed them for other purposes. But Thampran continued cultivation to keep up the tradition.
Chathan started walking along the dyke ignoring the lightning and thunder. Of the ten coconut trees he had planted on it to mark the tenth birthday of the present Thampran, only six remained. For some reason he had been called to do that job. It was shortly after his marriage. Those days no body had trees on bunds of rice fields because the shade was considered to be bad for the crops. Later on it became a common practice because the price of coconuts increased steadily.
The young Thampran had come to watch the planting. He wore a white dhoti with a broad gold thread border. A gold chain with a cross, adorned his neck. Chathan felt that the boy was also the colour of gold. The supervisor escorting the young master had ensured that he didn’t go near the Pulaya. But after he grew up Thampran used to talk to Chathan about the trees that they had planted together. Those palms symbolised a bond between the two.
The old man carried on along the embankment looking for telltale signs. But his eyes were weak and the light was poor. He could not make out small details like bubbles on the water surface of the field or tiny waves spanning out from the bund or water seeping in. The only thing to do was to go home and tell his grandson to be prepared. Dykes didn't break every year, but one had to be on perpetual alert.
He stopped midway, at the sluice near the pump house. It was there that the bund had caved in for the first time in his memory. He had grown into a young man two years earlier. One night he had woken up to see people shouting and running to the dyke in heavy rain. He joined them.
Those who reached first jumped into the breach to form a human barrier against the gushing waters. Others that followed dived into the lake and came up with blocks of clay held against their chests and dumped them into the opening. The mud was reinforced with the fronds, hay and small branches of trees that the women had, pressed in by hand and pounded down by feet. The gap was filled layer upon layer and the crop was saved. Chathan had felt grown up and proud of having been part of the effort.
That was also the night of Neeli.
Before they left, the supervisors who had come to the spot had distributed some bottles of arrack. The crowd moved into the large thatched boathouse and the men drank. Women sat separately chewing tobacco and gossiping. A few of them had a sip of liquor occasionally. Chathan knew that it would go on well into the night. He didn’t fit in and wandered off aimlessly. By then the rain had almost subsided.
Minutes later he found himself in front of Neeli’s hut. They had practically grown up together. She was two years younger to him but had come of age. One call and she was with him as though she had been waiting all the while.
Chathan pulled out a plaited frond from a pile and they lay down together in the drizzle. Afterwards Neeli cried silently, curled up against him. But Chathan was looking at the sky, at a lone star that shone through a gap in the cloud cover. Many decades later, whenever he recalled Neeli’s face he would see that star as well. Sometimes he felt that she was of that celestial body and had returned to it.
Soon they were married with permission of the Big House. Thampran allowed them to put up a hut on a plot beside the rice field. The arrangement had no permanency. Like the other tenants they too could be evicted any time without notice or giving any reason.
The first child that Neeli bore was a girl. Chathan knew that he was not the father. The day after the wedding Mathappan supervisor, a young man at that time, had called Chathan out from the hut in the evening and sent him to buy two bottles of toddy. They were to be left at the supervisor’s home. When Chathan returned a couple of hours later, no lamp was lit in the hut and Neeli was sitting on the earthen floor staring into the darkness outside. Tears were rolling down her cheeks. Chathan realized what had happened. Neeli suppressed a sob when he tried to touch her, and moved away.
There was nothing that a Pulaya could do about such things. It was part of their life. Chathan went outside the hut and lay on the sand. There was no star in the sky that night.
Everybody called the baby ‘White Neeli’. The whole of Kadep knew who her father was. White Neeli too grew up with the children Chathan and his wife subsequently had, and was married off in course of time. Mathappan secretly offered some money for the wedding, but Chathan refused to accept it.
Continued at
Morning After the Storm - Part 3..
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