Thursday 20 December 2018

Ghost Town

In ten years, these roads will be walked by ghosts. Memories will hang from the once green trees and the voices of Aachi and Potte and Ayya will float in with the wind, boundless, undefined, united. There will be no hierarchy or stratification, no proper place and appropriate behaviour. There will only be History, the ghosts of a time gone by.

Today, there is a skeleton of a town that once was. Perhaps village is a better word for the one street that constitutes their world. We ask of other worlds and other peoples, and we are pointed in a vague direction. They are There and we are Here. The world goes on. Heads rest where they belong.

There is a temple huddled away somewhere, behind that wood there, to the right of those trees. Scooters make their way on a path once meant only for feet, unsandalled. Yet today, they speak of locks and gates and property names. The temple is quaint. The Sunshine plays hide and seek with trees unnamed, probably a few generations young. They sway with the barely-there wind, almost as if to say Welcome, this is Here, where you belong. Here looks like white dhotis and holy strings cast across shoulders. Here smells of nei-abhishegam and panchamritam. Here sounds like bells tolling too loud too near, ringing in the spirit of all things holy. It feels like the flame under your palm, the grains of ash that adorn the forehead, the cold gold on wrists and necks and deities ahead. It speaks the dialect of belonging, inviting no one, drawing boundaries in blood and righteousness. It is the way it is over Here, no questions asked.

Every once in a while, the gatekeepers of Here face a little trouble. There is a noise or a skirmish, something to remind them of There. Someone shows up, standing a little too close, trying a little too hard, acting a little too comfortable. Reminders are given, loud and clear. Lines are redrawn, thick and bold. And even if There comes Here, it is reminded that it does not belong. It should go back There. It has no place Here.

Thatha was from There. So were Aachi and Potte. They stood, heads bowed, clothes ragged, hands poised to receive. In their faces was etched Distance, Difference, Deference. They knew they were from There. They knew they had strayed Here. They knew these streets and these footsteps were not theirs to keep.

Aachi called out in a feeble voice, stick in hand, unable to walk. Are you well, she asked, her memory clear as the water she used to wash their doorsteps with. Do you have children? Where are you now? What took you so long to come by? Ayya, she called. When did you come? Why didn’t you come sooner? What took you so long to look me up? Amma, she said. Are you well? Do you remember? Do you remember?

Aachi stood just outside the door. In her hand was a stick, picked off the ground and smoothened till it didn’t hurt her roughened palms. On her shoulders, a towel, once-white now dotted with the brown of poverty. Her sari was closest to blue, if you had to pick a colour. Her hair was silver, her lips red from paan, her demeanour filled with gratitude. I’ve missed you, she seemed to say. If only she had the words. If only There could miss Here. If only the rules had spaces set aside for emotion, age, relationship.

When I heard the story of Aachi, they told me the story of Potte too. No one knew Potte’s real name, the storyteller chuckled. She was just Potte. She couldn’t see from one eye, you see, so it made the most sense. Just like Umacchi, they told me by clarification, calling upon another ghost of another village at another time. Not that that made it better. 

Potte slept at the foot of the door I had just walked through. Or perhaps it was the other door, or the one next to it. There was a chance it was the one on the other side though. After all, all of it was ours, I was told. It was all ours. She slept at the foot of a door, woke up when the clock struck 3, and worked her way through all the doorsteps. Sweep, sprinkle, cleanse, decorate. Perikki, thelichu, saani, kolam. Again and again and again. Till the street sparkled, the air had that peculiar smell of dung and cleanliness in equal measure, and the ants of the village had a feast awaiting them. Again and again and again. 

The storyteller smiled as she told me of Potte, her eyes glistening in the memory of the woman who used to count the chimes of the clock before waking up. She told me Potte would demand her way into the house at the strike of 5, peer closely at anything she needed to look at with her one seeing eye, and worked like “that”. You see, in the local tongue, working like “that” was the ultimate compliment. Apdi vellai panniva. The certificate had been given, the story had been passed on, the memory had been kept alive.

The last of all, there was Thatha. He didn’t belong, you see. Definitely not from Here, but apparently not from There either. He was from Outside, a place even farther away from There. He looked different, stood away, seemed nervous. He said he’d been cheated of his wealth by two men, his brothers maybe? They’d hurt his son, chopped off an arm, and beaten up another. He’d sought refuge in the powers that be, travelling from town to town, temple to temple, until he hit a thousand. Until he landed up here, in the quaint temple of a sleepy town where the sunshine played hide and seek and the wind whispered of memories gone by. He said he sought refuge, blessings, an end to this constant rollercoaster he had been on. He seemed to expect the brashness, the cruelty, the consequences of being from Outside.

Talking to Thatha, there was a woman, child in hand. Don’t stand here, she said. Go to the back, stay there, come at the end. Don’t touch anyone, don’t go near anything, just be. Do as you are told, don’t ask questions, be grateful for setting foot into Here. It wasn’t the first time Thatha had been told all this, it seemed, or maybe Outside was a harsher place with stricter rules and more rigid allowances. He listened, Thatha did. He stripped down to his underwear for a short while, a pair of maroon shorts that had seen too many wears. A few minutes later, a towel wrapped itself around his waist, decorated by a hole for each time he had been asked to stay in his place. When he did tell them parts of his Life written by his Fate or his God, they claimed it was Fiction, dictated by a scheming, plotting Human. Thatha waited his turn, sought holy blessings when the time was right, unmindful of human intervention and ire, and then he made his way back to the Outside, to wherever he came from, to wherever he was going. No one asked him where or how or why. They didn’t ask what happened to the one-armed son or the one lakh spent. They looked the other side and turned a blind eye. No one
wanted to know the way Outside.

Today, there is a skeleton of a town. It has a Here and a There. It has an Outside that no one wants to know. It has rules and boundaries and ways to be. There are things to wear and distances to keep and foods to eat. There are hymns to chant and songs to sing and prayers to murmur. There are people to meet, others to greet, and yet others to ignore. Today, there is a skeleton of a town. Its bones are made of diktats from an era gone by. It is held together by the threads of Tradition, the strings woven in the language of Ought and Should. It is oiled by Fear, fed by the need to Conform. Today, there is a skeleton of a town from an age gone by. 

Tomorrow, there will be none. It will be a Ghost Town, walked by the footsteps of Aachi and Potte and all the Ayyas that ever were. Maybe they will hold hands as they step across the slush to visit Ayyanar. Maybe they will banter merrily as they watch the Perumal abhishekam together. And maybe, just maybe, the ghosts of Ayyas and Ammas of many generations past will decide it is time; time to walk from Here to There; to see what lies beyond, to break a few rules, and to remind the ghosts of Aachi and Potte and Thatha that they are missed too. 

Tuesday 20 November 2018

TN 3066

This was a piece written in August that I just never thought to publish, for some reason. Given that I've revisited it twice in the last two days, now seems as good a time as any.

A story about an auto ride a fair few months ago. :)

-


TN 3066

His name was Manikandan, and he drove an auto; TN something something 3066.

It was dark when he pulled up in front of me, a few minutes past 9 PM. I wasn’t scared per se, just a little wary, the same cautiousness that rushes through the veins of any girl travelling alone after dark. I climbed in, told him that haloed OTP number that would let me get moving, and began fiddling at my phone. I was coming off a work day that was running at 13 hours and counting, and just about getting used to the concept of a commute. Spending over two hours a day on the streets was not my idea of fun, and I was figuring out how to be “productive” in this time. I sat there, in the sat behind him, checking if there was anyone I had to call and say hello, wondering if calling my fiancĂ© (preferably called boyfriend) at this hour was a wise idea or if I should act pricey some more and hold off for a few more hours. My beautiful indigo sari tied specifically that morning to make a point at my workplace (yes, I am the only girl; yes, I wear kurtis without dupattas; yes, I can wear a sari too; yes, I can play billiards with you boys in this sari; and yes, you wait and watch I will show up in pants one day) was a crumpled mess just about hanging on to my body enough to get home. My brain was whizzing with everything that needed to be done – I was fresh to full-time, “regular” hours employment and yet had not given up any of my side “projects.” I had kept telling myself that they were not too many, did not take too much of my time, and were not demanding too much attention, until I had counted the previous evening. There were seven projects. Seven. And, as a friend mentioned, a wedding to plan and physiotherapy to be on and a diet to focus on. Half my brain was constantly thinking about how many litres of water I had had so far and the other half was conscious of the possibility of back aches, pains and general skirmishes being just around the corner. Somewhere in the middle of all this, I was trying to keep a handle on work, other work, the other work work, and life in general. So just that moment at 9:07 PM on August 3rd 2018, Manikandan and Auto Number 3066 were not at the top of my mind.

Manikandan had other plans though.

It all started rather unsuspectingly. He asked me if there was a “cutting” on the road ahead, a local phrase to ask if there was a side street that would help avoid the madness that is North Usman Road at any time of night or day. I told him we could only get out through the main road, he doubted my expertise, asked me again, and got me to admit I was not sure. I could have sworn he clucked his tongue at me for a second before revving up that vaahanam of his and hitting the roads with an unquestionable confidence. To be fair, I should have seen this coming. I had made the booking after a work meeting (that was after a work day, on a Friday, yes, I know) and he had picked up to ask where I was. I told him exactly what my hosts told me – North Usman Road – Croma showroom – and the rest of it. He asked me if this was near the railway lines and I said yes on a hunch, guessing off a previous conversation we’d had. He announced that he wouldn’t be following the GPS directions, he’d come through the back streets, and it would be faster. I put the phone down and unintentionally foreshadowed the rest of my evening. “Theliva irukkaru,” I said. A few minutes later, Manikandan was here on 3066, clucking his tongue at how little I knew of the back streets of T Nagar.

I don’t remember how we began conversing. In the beginning, I was explicitly uninterested, caught up in my own head untangling my own web of thoughts. I must admit I quickly felt guilty and wrestled with myself about what the “right” thing to do was – was I meant to be present and engage with this man, an evidently chatty soul who needed nothing more than the mash-up of Hmm-Rightu-Correct-Aamam-Oh to keep talking, or should I use the time for more “important things”? After all, I’m likely never to see the man again and I do have so much to do and it has been a long day, but presence and engagement and humanity! Very quickly, I realised my voice was doing the Hmm-Rightu-Correct-Aamam-Oh rotation while I was neither paying attention nor doing my own thing. Soon enough, I gave up. Manikandan and TN 3066 won.

He spoke about so very many things, more things than any stranger should talk to another, definitely more than a middle-aged man is encouraged to say to a young girl at 9:20 PM at night. He began talking of Saravana Stores, I forget why. Ah yes, we were on North Usman Road, and he began talking of how there are two Saravana Stores in T Nagar now, that there is not enough parking for either even despite designated spaces, and then went on to give me a map of all the Saravana Stores in the city. Two more in Velachery, one in Porur…I decided to take a breather from my Hmm-Rightu-Correct-Aamam-Oh rotation and contribute to this conversation, realising all he needed was a little nudge to keep going. I sighed about how there is a perennial demand for Saravana Stores anyway, and they seem to be doing well, so of course they are crowded. He jumped right on the bandwagon. He told me how he used to buy shirts there for Rs. 5 but now ends up paying Rs. 375. He told me how there are two types of players in the textiles market – the RMKV, Nalli, Pothys and Kumaran types (he repeated these four names three times, they seemed important) and the Saravana Stores types. “Andhe naalu irukke, ange pona perukkage poraange. Rate-ukaage ille. Evlo velai irundhaalum vaanguvaange. Raasiaane kadai nnu nambivaange. Saravana Stores kku vandheenge naa enne model, design, elaam paaka maataange. Rate mattum thaan mukiyam.” (Those four, people go there for the name of it. Not the price. No matter how expensive it is, they will buy. They like it is lucky. If you come to Saravana Stores, they will not look at model, design and stuff. They only look at the price.)  To him, “ooru-kaarange,” or villagers, were defined by those whose colour palette was limited. Oodha, violet and such were outside their comprehension. To them, there was only pachai (green), nilam (blue), manjal (yellow), sivappu (red). At best, mittai colour (pink). That was all they cared about, that was all they knew. But his wife was not like that. His wife was the rare breed of people who shopped at Saravana Stores but also asked about models and designs and also knew oodha colour. She bought all his clothes, he never went even if she called him.

You see, she’d ask him to leave his vandi and join her to shop, but this was a rented vandi, and if someone turned the steering with a jolt a couple of times, the cycle lock would break and who would be responsible for that? And anyway, he only wore those carefully selected clothes a couple of times a year. Pongal Deepavali maadhri. For every other day, there was the trusted khaki.

We were barely out of T Nagar by now and had a long way to go. It was then that I got a sneak peek at the inner lives of the auto driver community. He told me he only ever drove in khaki. If he wore the carefully chosen clothes his wife picked out, he wouldn’t be able to drive, he said. I had a flash of an image, Manikandan in a bright oodha shirt turning on the auto and forgetting how to get it running. He disappears for a second, comes back in khaki, and all his knowledge comes rushing back, almost like if Samson’s hair had grown back in a second. But even as I was drawing up Samson-Manikandan comparisons in my head, he had gone on to tell me about others of his clan. How some of them could only drive if they were well dressed, how some of them had a “lucky” shirt, how some of them complained if the shirt got them Rs.1500 rupees one day but near nothing the next week, how that led to jovial digs at how maybe it wasn’t washed right, how that let to less jovial digs at how washing is done quite well in my house thank-you-very-much. All just to tell me that Manikandan likes his khaki and some others like their oodha. Got it.

Now that we were talking about the wife, we may as well talk about the rest of them. Manikandan has two children, I learnt. A girl in the 8th grade (who writes exams very fast and yet still cannot finish them, because theriyale ma, varale. I don't know, I just can't.) and a boy who is in the 10th grade (and is very self congratulatory about getting 35 in exams even as others chide him, muppathi-anju elaam oru mark ah! Is 35 even a grade?). The boy next door to Manikandan drives Uber while Manikandan drives Ola. Why? Because the Uber app is largely English based and Manikandan does not know how to read it. In fact, Manikandan did not know how to read Tamil until he was 18 years old.

When Manikandan was an 8-year-old child, the neighbours convinced his illiterate parents to send their second son to school. The Nungambakkam government school refused to admit an eight-year-old into grade one, saying he will face the brunt of bullying, so they got him into Grade 2. The neighbourhood children promised to ferry him to and from school every day and keep him safe. Until on Day 4, they didn’t. They left him somewhere and the child lost his way, going straight instead of taking a right somewhere. (He told me where, but of course I don’t remember). A stranger saw this child carrying a bag and crying down the street, deciphered the pictorial markers that he gave to identify his house, and brought him back home. Those were the days of child kidnapping, Manikandan says, where they would take “chinna pasange,” (small children) put them in a “koode,” (basket) pour acid in their eyes and force them into begging. His mother, seeing her second son walk in with a stranger, got frantic and demanded an explanation. The stranger was thanked and education was forgotten about. In the words of his father, “padippu oru mayirum vendaam.” (roughly, no bloody need for education) And that was that. The eight-year-old Manikandan began to work in the “companies.”

It was when he was 18 that he landed in the last of his companies, leather. You know the type that makes handbags and purses for women? The ones that lets you open them and keep credit cards and such? That is where he worked, in the company of many many “ladies.” It was those ladies who realised he didn’t know to read. Anything. Not even ka nga cha njya, the Tamil alphabet. And it was those ladies who fixed it. They taught him the alphabet at an age when “mandai le onnum aeraadhu,”  (nothing would get into his head) and the rest of his education was the Dina Thandhi. Every day, he invested in the newspaper. Every day he read. Every day he got fast. Now he could take care of himself. Indira Nagar, Tiruvanmiyur, Mamallapuram, he demonstrated as we turned left from Tidel Park. When he was 19, he learnt to read the time.

Manikandan grew up with no sense of the world around him. The Three Ladies were responsible for his education and emotional growth. They’d take him to work every day (he didn’t know which bus to get on) and he’d land up at their houses two whole hours before they were due to leave (how was he meant to know?) and on weekends, they’d introduce him to the world of cinema (Udhayam theatre!). Many years later, he drove an auto, struggling against the market forces that gave offers and discounts and incentives to the customer, but cut a commission from his every ride. He’d drive through side roads and dug up streets and suffocating traffic, you know? For a savari (ride) that was priced at Rs. 46? And when he checked his account, he’d only have Rs. 41. Why would they need my five rupees, he wondered. Sitting at the back of TN 3066 heading towards the ever-red Tiruvanmiyur signal, I could sense the weight of age and memory and struggle. The khaki collar and salt-and-pepper head that made up my view were streaked with the colours of experience, hardship, and stories that bore witness to it all. And that night, for a reason I will never know, he chose to share them.

In those seconds on that street that connected OMR and ECR, the minutes that led up to a house so far removed from his own, there were many memories that were shared. An eight-year-old boy scared on the streets. A father who didn’t understand the spirit of education. A stranger who made him independent. A large corporation that seems too vast to fight. A struggle for the dignity of daily life. The weight of many years and many battles, all cloaked in a choked voice, a pause just a second too long, a conversation from T Nagar to Tiruvanmiyur with a stranger in an indigo sari who thanked her stars she finally paid attention.