by Preeti Madhusudhan
It was going to be a warm, humid day, Viji could tell. At five in the morning, the petals of the December flowers were already feeling a little fickle, as though they were sweating. As he absentmindedly rubbed the petals between his fingers, the deep- purple-hued velvety softness came out as a film of inky-blue, staining his forefinger. His thoughts astray, he wiped it on his spotless white dhoti. A fleck of dirty-blue in the sparkling white, like the voter’s ink on a clean finger. The 40-watt bulb a few feet away gave out an ethereal orange glow. Dawn wasn’t going to arrive for a while, so the morning’s crisp air was as yet unlit. He was on his haunches, another white cloth restraining his thick curls away from his well-defined brow. A gentle, almost mystical smile twitched around the corner of his thin lips. He held a trowel in his right hand and was mechanically digging up the soil around a jasmine bush. His left hand was similarly engaged in levelling up what was being dug. His thoughts, however, were in Kanchipuram, raking up an incident from decades ago.
Viji recollected their countless temple festival experiences in the temple town of Kanchi this morning, as he continued gently tilling the soil around his favourite jasmine. If Kowsalya saw him now, she would lovingly chide him. Kowsalya had been a gentle breeze, a loving companion and a much-needed friend. She knew as though by some sixth sense, from day one of their married life, when he needed company and when loneliness.
The far corners of the sky, above the fields opposite their house, were just turning a mild mauve. It reminded him of the vastra adorned by the Lord Vishnu at the principal temple at Kanchi. Very uncharacteristically, he almost chuckled. He was amused by his mind’s inability to think of anything else this morning.
His mind raced back to that May, years before any of them had married. Viji and Gopu had as always returned to Kanchi for the grand festival in the principal temple whose main deity was Lord Vishnu’s. Viji from his job in the Nuclear power plant at Kalpakkam and Gopu, Viji’s younger brother, from his job in the Central bank in Kallakurichi. Gopu had arrived the evening before. Ramu, the eldest one, was away at work. As Viji entered home tired from the bus journey, his aunt started boiling milk for his coffee. He was just wiping himself dry after his bath, when she had started her usual barrage of questions, complaints and accusations. He hadn’t written to her in a long time, he was aware of that. But he had just been too busy with work. So he let her rattle on for a while, knowing it will cool her down. But Gopu had interfered in his support, “Akka, must you start immediately? He just came in! “. This was enough for her to start off on him. It was just then their father entered. Something about him stopped them all in their tracks, even their aunt.
It wasn’t that he had a physique that intimidated. He was just about the average height, average weight. He had a wiry structure that all his three sons had inherited. There was a quiet about him, a peace and an unguent like quality that soothed even the most viperous of persons. He always managed to calm his sister with a glance and even quell the active tongue and imagination of Gopu. Bereft of his young wife when he was about 30, he had raised his three sons with his widowed sister’s help. His sister raised the children with the minimum resources available to her. His Sanskrit proficiency gave him a pittance for a living, but earned him immense respect in the community. He had raised his boys just like him, ram-rod straight, with heightened senses of morality and principles.
The boys never felt the want for anything. They viewed the world through their father’s immaculate perspective of goodness and simplicity. They believed in their maker’s grand plans for everyone. Through their father and aunt’s conditioning, they grew learning to be happy with whatever little they had, never desiring more. The only desire, urge any of them ever felt was for a sight of the deity at the Vishnu temples. They worked hard at anything knowing that was the way anything ought to be done. With dedication and absolute commitment, not because the deed would yield a specific result, but because the very act of performing a deed with efficacy and love was in itself the reward. If they studied well, it was because that was how it was to be done, if they learnt the Vedic slokas and the Tamizh hymns well, that was because The Lord deserved nothing but the best of recitals, not for any other reason. They worked hard at school at studies and at various competitions not because it was going to give them better job prospects, but only because they didn’t know how else to perform.
They saw their dad live an earnest, simple life teaching Sanskrit, not just as a language but also the principles of life that it held within its deep vestiges. The language and its potency gripped him and teaching it at the school for a salary or imparting it freely to those that approached him, accorded him the opportunity to delve deeper in it. Without actually intending to, he emulated its cleansing effulgence to his sons. The boys knew their father, though a widower at 30 with three young children, hadn’t married again much against the common practice of those days. He hadn’t wanted them suffering the angst he had, under a step-mother. They were aware that he had given up his rightful inheritance to their grandfather’s property in favour of his step-brothers, just to avoid complications for his father. The three boys had imbibed his selflessness not through their father’s conscious moral policing. On the contrary, he had never sat them down, or lectured them on anything. They saw him be a certain man and they just knew that was the way for them too.
So it came to be that day all those years ago that May. When they had completed their evening ablutions, their dad with a slight inclination of his head said, “It’s time”. They were ready anyhow. The three boys and their father had a telepathic connect. Even in a crowd, amidst the jolly commotion of a family gathering, they always knew without being told, when their father was ready to leave.
They set off on a long walk from Siva Kanchi where they lived to Vishnu Kanchi. Ramu, would join them straight at the temple. He didn’t need to be reminded. He carried a set of dhoti and upper cloth to the school he was visiting in his capacity as the assistant education officer of the region. The younger boys and their father walked talking in their customary low voices. Every once in a while, someone from one of the shops that lined the main road came scrambling up to their father, with their palms joined in humble prostrations. Their father stopped in his tracks with a gentle smile, and after an affectionate enquiry about their family, would move on, politely refusing their offer of a seat or a cool drink. Viji could sense that something was troubling their father. Though he responded to Gopu’s incessant questions and comments as always, there seemed to be a slight hesitation. A slight lag, a snag. Gopu was talking about his job now, his observations on Kallakurichi, the people he shared his lodgings with.
“Gopu.”
Finally their father interrupted Gopu’s monologue.
“Hmm?”
“I don’t think this new job offer you have got is a good idea. I don’t think it will suit you. ”
“What job offer?” Viji asked puzzled.
“He got good marks in the Administrative exams, you remember?” It was their father’s understated way of talking of his youngest son’s 25th rank in the IAS exams. Even in front of his own children, he didn’t want it seem as though he was needlessly proud. Or that may be the way he honestly felt about that. That his son prepared well for and appeared in an exam and had performed well. But of course, Viji remembered it. Ramu and he had been inordinately pleased about that.
“Yes?”
“You know that it wasn’t good enough for the first two or three choices? But he got a letter stating that he was eligible for a placement in the government’s secret services. And I just think that it would not suit him.”
That none of them were accustomed to arguing with their father was the only fact that restrained Viji. He felt the boy needed this opportunity, and for the first time he felt that his brother deserved this as a reward for the amount of work he had invested and waited for his brother to respond. He veered round to his brother. There was a just trace of something in Gopu’s eyes for a flash of a second. His long straight hair fell over his forehead hiding his white and red mark he had applied. With what had become an involuntary action, he swept his hair back to reveal his mark and with that he had also swept away whatever emotion it was that occupied his eyes a moment back. He now smiled, a broad infectious smile that crept to his eyes too. And plain relief washed his features. That was all, no more words were required between them. Viji had never felt more pride in being his father’s son or his Gopu’s anna. “Ramu would be disappointed but he will understand too,” he thought as they reached the mandap. They were there just in time. Children had gathered around the drum mounted the donkey, begging the drum-beater for a chance to hold the stick and beat the drum. The usual crowd of women with their young, village folks with their bright clothes and brighter devotion milled around the place. Ramu was standing at the edge of the frontal procession of hymn singers, talking with their cousin. They soon joined the group in their usual places. Viji turned around to catch Gopu’s eyes. In that instant, they both knew. They felt that same vibrancy they always felt in the divine presence. The ambience and the intangible life-force they experienced then told them their father was right.
Now years later, yesterday when Viji talked with his superior in the steel plant where he was the chief civil engineer, he once again felt the peace that they always felt in the presence of their father. The previous evening’s conversation ran again in his mind.
“But Vijayaraghavan, I know it was you that designed this final mix. Before you took on this project, we never got the right yield. You know how the rust kept reappearing. ”
The frustration and annoyance was evident in the Chief Executive’s voice. He looked at Viji as though he was mentally insufficient. No one could be this nonchalant.
With a slight shrug and a patient smile, Viji answered ,”The rust didn’t reappear and we achieved stability even at the highest temperature, didn’t we? That is enough for me.”
“But then Vijayaraghavan, if I don’t include your name in the design sheets now, you wouldn’t be able to travel to Berlin next month to present the papers. And promotion, incentives and salary hikes will naturally follow!”His incredulity was palpable.
“You will find that Neelamegam or Veeru desire this more than I ever could. In fact I don’t at all. It was my job and I did it. That is my reward. May I leave now please? “, he said in his usual even-toned mild voice. This was probably the most that anyone in the plant had heard Vijayaraghavan ever speak.
The open-mouthed-glazed-eye expression of his boss came to his mind and Viji burst out chuckling. Kowsalya looked out the window from their bedroom in surprise. The east was now flushed a deep orange, the sun was on his ascent.
Preeti Madhusudhan is a freelance architect/ interior designer living in Sydney with her husband and son. She is passionate about books and is an ardent admirer of P.G.Wodehouse. She inherited her love for books and storytelling from her father, a Tamil writer. Preeti is trying to publish her maiden novella in English.
Pic : https://www.flickr.com/photos/ranjithshenoyr/
the story goes naturally. in style and content. there are scores of such good men like viji, everywhere and one only fondly hopes somebody highlight their nice silent contribution without expecting a return.
Beautiful…lovely narration.. I marvel at your style of narration and language..It is a pleasure to read you Preeti:)))