The Snake

Patti handled it deftly. There it was, slithering along the edge like a long rope. She took a long stick, and gently prodded it. The little girl stood in a corner, terrified, transfixed, thinking, ‘It is going to slip from the stick. It is going to ‘bite’ Patti ‘s hand.’

Patti’s face was set, intense. ‘Get out of here. We have children here. Don’t scare them. Go away.’

The snake coiled around the stick like the wool that twined around Amma’s knitting needle. Patti walked carefully towards the dark garden-area in the back. After a few yards, she rotated the stick and threw it far, shouting, ‘go!’

When she came in again, Patti’s forehead was beaded with sweat.

From the tub near the well, she scooped water up in her cupped palms and washed her face, hands and feet. She drank from the pot in the verandah in quick fast gulps. When she eventually turned, her saree was damp in front, water dripped from her face.

‘Patti, Does the snake understand Tamil?’

‘If you say it the right way, it will understand even English.’

Now the girl could laugh. It occurred to her that Patti was a supernatural being. ‘Patti, you are a superwoman.’

Patti told her that there was a snake in every village home. ‘It is called the ‘immortal snake’ and is believed to protect the house. We should not taunt or provoke it. If we do, it will retaliate, and it becomes impossible to handle.’

‘You asked it to go away. Won’t it come back?’

‘It may. If it does, I’ll take care of it.’

I’ll never come to a village anymore, the little girl swore to herself.

*

He loomed before her, something in his hand. May be a rock, pebble, brick or even a chisel. Whatever it was, it could come down on her head anytime.

She panted with fear and tried to raise her voice to shout for help. But she was being choked. She couldn’t make a sound.

‘You are done for, today. I am going to finish you once and for all. Wait and see.’ He always switched off the light when he entered. As if he liked darkness. As if his eyes couldn’t handle the light. As though he was afraid of himself, of the world. Fears assailed him, phobia, strange phobia.

‘Could fear generate so much rage, so much insane jealousy? That too, directed at her? Oh God! A manic display of fury? Nerves taut, eyes red, oh God, God!’

She was desperately planning how she would get away. She could hear his breath, like a snake’s hiss. She remembered Patti. ‘Don’t provoke him.’

I never provoke him, she thought.

She could feel him, sneaking by her, his body on her skin, which made her cringe with fright and disgust. She recalled his words whenever he came close to her. ‘What are you? a log of wood?’ Her voice suddenly pushed forth in a scream from the depths of her being. ‘Raju!’

It felt as if the whole universe around her was shocked into stillness. The hammer fell and two hands reached out to strangle her.

Her mind ordered her, ‘Shout! Cry out!’ Her voice came out in a moan. ‘Raju’

She could hear Raju’s footsteps thudding in their rush to reach her. Would he reach before her breath stopped?

‘Appa, leave her. Go quietly to your room.’ Raju’s controlled voice.

The hands that were pressed around her neck, loosened. Raju pried them off from around her neck and turned to leave with him, holding him close. Before leaving, he turned back and looked at her. His eyes seemed accusing, even in the darkness.

‘Did you miss giving him his dosage?’

‘If he knocks it away when I give to him, what can I do?’

‘How many times has he done it?’

‘Every time.’

She sat down, gently rubbing her bruised neck. She had stopped crying, her tears had dried. But now she wanted to beat her chest and wail. Like that village woman who had cried beside her husband’s dead body laid out in the courtyard. Not a drop of tears. But a wail that the whole village could hear: ‘You wretch, you ruined your life and mine. You miserable wretch!’

‘Did you miss his dosage?’ Medicines. Would this rage and fury subside with just medicines? Weren’t they entwined with his genetic roots? Was it just a disease?

In the twenty-two years that had gone by, she didn’t know where her life derailed. Or when. She had thought about it numerous times. She was exhausted. Today, she had escaped. What if Raju had not come?

It perhaps would have been a final escape. Is death a freedom or a punishment?

She tried to close her eyes and sleep. But her thoughts kept slipping, like sand through the gaps between fingers. How was she to empty her mind?

‘Hey, you are educated. Good or bad, you have to manage. I can’t help if you come back to me shedding tears. I have managed to educate you, a single parent, working as a cook in several houses. I hoped you would lead a good life. You didn’t take my advice. Don’t forget, you have chosen this path.’ Amma was an expert in ‘I told you so.’

She was left with no ammunition to defend herself. It was like a curse: ‘Suffer your dues’.

‘How would I know it would end up like this? Do you know what a rainbow is, Amma? I felt as though I was riding it. How was I to know, it would slowly vanish with the coming of sunlight?’

Well. No point in thinking about all that. What happened yesterday was almost forgotten. Was it a rainbow vanishing? What remained were the cigarette burns on the back. It was like in the Thirukkural: ‘Burns by fire do heal / What don’t are scorching words of the tongue…’

Living today by Ishwar’s grace. Tomorrow, by Narayana’s. Neither god was helpful. Nor was Amma saying, ‘You have to manage your life.’ How? I can’t. Not able to. Not possible. Senses desperate for rest with hard-won sleep.

Patti appeared, skilfully swirling the stick. ‘Don’t worry. If it returns, I will take care of it.’ She sang from the old Tamil prayer, Kaithala niraikani, ‘Fruit in handful, sweets, puffed and flat rice.’ Have you forgotten? Ok. Try this instead, Paalum theli thenum, ‘milk and pure honey, sugar and pulses….’ End your prayers saying, ‘bless me’ in three forms.’ She laughed.

‘I have forgotten Tamil, Patti.’ Patti couldn’t hear her. She felt like crying. She could not recall a single word. A silent darkness enveloped her. Exhausted, she closed her eyes and went to sleep.

She had to go to office the next day. That was a different world. There, she was Mrs Sharma, Sheela Sharma, her pain hidden behind her lipstick.

In the morning, when her eyes opened, Raju was sitting before her. She jerked awake and rose to a sitting position.

‘Raju, what happened?’

‘Appa is missing.’

She looked at him, her eyes wide. ‘What? You got him to bed.’

‘Yes. I thought he had fallen asleep. When I woke up in the morning, he was missing.’

Wearily, she got up. ‘You may not know this, Raju, but he does this often. Tell me, how does one take care of such a person? You ask me if I give him his medication. He knocks the medicines from my hand. If I try to explain, he tries to beat me up violently. The doctor says, ‘He is getting better. Just don’t miss his medicines. What am I to do?’

‘I’ll go file a complaint with the police and look around for him.’

‘He will return by himself,’ she said, irritated. ‘We don’t need to file a complaint. This has happened so many times.’

‘Amma, what are you saying? How can I not worry? He is my father.’

The sight of his tears made her relent. She gently patted his shoulders and said, ‘Do what you think is right.’ Turning, she went to wash her face.

‘He is my father, Amma.’ Indirectly it meant, ‘And your husband.’

Years had gone by with that misplaced belief. She rubbed her face hard. As though, along with the water droplets, she could wipe away her memories and chase them off.

‘Let him return by himself,’ she murmured to herself.

What if he didn’t?

She shocked herself by thinking, so, what if he didn’t? How did it matter?

What had happened to her today?

Raju left without heeding her advice, probably concluded that she was heartless. Yes. Her heart had hardened. Into a rock, a rock that had a history, dating back to the stone age.

She rushed about making the day’s food. Swallowed two slices of bread and coffee in between. Washed and got ready to go to the office. Raju returned just as she was leaving. Alone. Tired. Disappointed. ‘Are you going to office today?’ he asked, indignant.

‘I have to go today, Raju. Trust me, Appa will come back. I have been taking care of him all these years while you were in hostel. I used to feel scared too, rush to the police in panic. He would always come back.’

She continued carefully, ‘Look, you will go back to join duty next week, after your vacation. Please understand. I feel we need to hospitalise him again. I don’t see any other way.’

‘I don’t agree with you.’ Raju snapped in anger. She sighed, picked up her handbag, put on her sandals. ‘There is a lot to speak about, Raju. Let’s talk in the evening,’ she said, with a soft, placating smile, and started for work.

‘You don’t have to tell me a story.’

As she left, the door banged shut.

‘God…,’ She muttered, hastily wiping the tears that were beginning to collect. She was grateful she’d got a window seat on the bus. As the bus moved, the cool breeze of Mysore gently blew on her face. That caress seemed to shake the roots deep inside her. The statue of Krishnaraja Wadiyar, the square, the jewel-like palace, the wide plaza before it, the gigantic trees that stood on both sides of the royal avenue that stretched out their branches against the sky. The memory of walking hand in hand with him here seemed like a story from the epics. Or scenes from a movie. Unconnected with her.

Those memories had created a fantasy. Which is why she had decided to move to Mysore.

The doctor in Delhi was very sure. ‘He is better. Only, don’t stop his medicines. It would be good to shift to a place where he was happy.’

‘We were happiest in Mysore.’

‘Try to take him there. There is a good hospital there too.’

Getting a transfer was difficult. But the move did not arouse any sweet memories in him. His memories, his eyes, were clouded. No emotions, no feelings. Or rather, there was, fury. Only fury.

‘You have brought me to a strange place. I don’t understand their language. You have deliberately brought me here, right? Tell me. Tell me.’ ‘You have planned to murder me. I know your plan. You are a devil.’ ‘What is that dam? You took me there yesterday. Hmm. Krishnaraja Sagar. You took me there, holding my hand. You wanted to push me into it, right?’

Was this the same man? The man who had walked with her eons ago. Bright-eyed, face suffused with colour. This was someone else. A different man.

The doctor was a good man. ‘Just give him some space. Be patient. He will be alright.’

One year. Two years. She had even forgotten the number of years that had gone by.

Her body worked like an automaton. When the bus reached her bank, her body acted on its own – descended, and walked over on its own. But Raju’s ‘I don’t agree with you’ chased her all the time.

‘Did you think about why it is that he gets angry only with me?’

‘Did you think about it, Amma?’

‘I don’t know. Why don’t you tell me?’

‘You still look young. Smart. You dress up well. You go out.’

Her body shook in silent shock.

‘I am going to work, my son. If I don’t earn, how can I run the house? How can I buy medicines? After all, you have just now begun to earn.’

She couldn’t bear it. ‘Raju, is it you talking? My son. Young. Educated. Of this generation. Is it really you?’

He said softly, ‘Sorry, Ma. My father is also important to me.’

Oh. That this boy would not understand! A sense of sorrow welled from deep within.

‘Tell me, what is to be done? I think he needs to be hospitalised. For a while, at least.’

‘Why don’t you go to Kanpur? With Appa. It is a big house. His parents are there. There are a lot of people to take care of Appa there.’

She was angry beyond words. She left for the bank without even replying to him.

It was this young man who needed counselling. Well, he was also a male. ‘You are my god, Amma, epitome of love’ and all that poetic rubbish in film songs, words of fake emotions that are heard only in Indian movies. She almost felt like laughing. Did he know what she went through in Kanpur?

‘This is what happens when you fall in love and marry a woman of your choice. I told you then, don’t marry a Madrasi. But you didn’t listen to me.’

Words aimed to incite. Aimed to pierce. When things got difficult to handle, ‘You have to take care of him. It is your responsibility. It is your duty. Don’t forget it.’

Your duty. Your responsibility. Nothing else. Not just emotional blackmail. Accusation, Blame. Complaint. ‘You are lying. There is nothing wrong with our son.’ ‘How did he get this disorder?’ ‘Don’t make up stories.’

It was like a story. A fairy tale. A colourful fairy tale. Begun during Karwa-Chauth when women of the north pray for their husbands – whatever kind of a husband he might be – fast the whole day for their husbands, and get to eat only after the moon is sighted. A festival in which mothers of her friends had deep red mehndi designs drawn on their hands. That day, Rekha, her friend, got mehendi put on her hands. The aroma of mehendi was still fresh in her memory. The joy of the moment of waking up, to see the beauty of blood-red patterns on her hands. Walking with a spring in her step, her twin braids swinging, her heart filled with joy, a feeling that the beauty of the whole world had enveloped her.

‘Which husband are you doing your Karwa Chauth for?’ She turned, hearing a teasing voice. He was a student at the boys’ school next to hers. He was leaning on his cycle, like a film hero, strikingly handsome with a charming smile, his even white teeth sparkling. She was smitten. Also felt like laughing. She stopped, looked at him in the eye and said, ‘Have to decide which of my three husbands I should pray for.’

He laughed out loud. ‘Am I one of the three?’

‘I’ll definitely not fast for you.’ She continued walking.

‘Why not?’

‘Chee. Get lost.’ She began running.

She could hear his teasing laughter. Her heart beat fast. She lost sleep. A thrilling deviousness entered her. Their relationship began there. Unknown to the tired mother, who cooked in many houses to bring her up.

She finished her tenth standard. He, his twelfth. He joined college. She, typing classes. They continued to meet. For two years. After he passed his graduation, and she, her typing classes, their madness reached a peak. They decided that they could not live apart anymore.

When they declared their intention to their parents, opposition exploded in both their families. His family accosted him. ‘What, a Madrasi girl?’ Her mother was shell shocked. ‘A north Indian. You have lost your mind to his film star looks. After all, other than that, what do you know about him?’ Her mother shouted at her. The opposition from all sides became relentless.

The stronger the opposition, the stronger was the intensity of their determination. Overnight, impulsively, they travelled to Mysore. There, when they exchanged their garlands in the Chamundeswari Temple, they felt on top of the world. As though they had conquered life. For a week, they roamed the streets of Mysore hand in hand, Chamaraja Road, the Royal Avenue. He enjoyed her childlike glee at the sight of the Devaraj flower bazaar. When he kneeled before her and handed her a rose, her heart overflowed with joy.

‘How beautiful Mysore is. We will come here again,’ he vowed.

When they returned to Delhi, reality pulled the ground out from under their feet. Both families refused to accept them.

‘This is a life you chose for yourself. You have to manage it.’ Her mother was firm in her stand.

His parents viewed their very attempt to get their blessings, as an affront, as an ultimate expression of their arrogance. They were not even allowed to enter their house.

Their life began in a single room on a terrace. Somehow, they both got jobs. She managed their household with what they earned. She passed the bank exam. His looks earned him a job in a five-star hotel. The sky was within their reach. They felt that they did not need anyone else.

In two years, Raju was born. Amma came down from her high horse. ‘Whatever may have happened, how can we break our relationship?’ She cooed as she played with her grandson.

The Kanpur family, who wouldn’t allow them to enter their threshold, now climbed the stairs to visit them in their tiny one room apartment on the terrace. The rainbow once again appeared in the sky. When they were riding this rainbow, travelling towards heaven, some evil spirits must have spotted them. Or Gods with evil powers.

There was no other reason, no logic, for the complete derailment of their lives. There was a gradual change in his behaviour. He started losing his temper often. She tried to talk to him about it. But he got unreasonably angry. For days on end, he avoided going to work. She was afraid to even ask him about it, experiencing a fear she had never felt before. His handsome face, contorted into something sinister. As though he had entered into someone else’s body. She called her in-laws.

‘He will feel better if you stay here for a while.’ Their invitation surprised her. They left for Kanpur. A large house. A lot of people. She felt lonely in that house full of people. They talked among themselves. Joked among themselves. He became highly enthusiastic. An extreme form of excitement. He joined them in making fun of her. Showed his temper in their presence. As though he derived a joy from that. One day, in the presence of his family, he abused her and hit her for no reason. No one tried to stop him.

When she was crying alone, her father-in-law quietly came to her and said softly, ‘Take him to a doctor. This is not normal. It is some kind of mental disturbance. Don’t tell him.’

She was shocked. She hadn’t even thought about it. ‘Could it be true?’

‘My brother had something similar. There is even a name for it in English.’

‘Where is your brother now?’

‘He went away somewhere. Long ago. Never came back.’

She knew that taking him to a doctor would be a Herculean task. With great difficulty, with a lot of help from his office friends, she got him admitted into a hospital. She hoped that things would level out after that. She took off from work and cared for him day and night, shuttling between home and hospital. The doctor said a lot of things, used a lot of words. Schizophrenia, he said. It was then that she had to admit Raju into a hostel.

What is this disease, which only sees the wife as an enemy? That makes him abuse only the wife? Is it actually a disease?

‘Did you think why?’ Raju’s question.

Well, it was her looks that he fell for and got married to, right? How did they suddenly, become unpleasant, undesirable? Was this part of the disease? She was not able to believe it.

Years went by. Her work, the hospital… She lost count of time. His state was like the childhood game of ‘snakes and ladders’. She was not able to rejoice when she got to a ladder. She still feared the snake that was lurking behind, to bring her down to the netherworld.

Why should I slog night and day, she thought, slog meaninglessly for a man who abused her for no reason? Even as she tried to shed these thoughts, they kept following her.

‘Do you do Karwa Chauth?’ Her mother-in-law called her one day.

‘No.’

‘Why? It is only because you don’t believe in rituals like these that such things…’

She disconnected the line in anger. She hit herself in the head till the anger faded. Till her head ached.

As she was returning home from the bank, she felt exhausted to her core. How long was she going to live a purposeless life like this? Even looking for a purpose seemed crazy. She felt a deep fear of being caught in a darkness that had no dawn.

Suddenly, the bus stopped. There was a massive crowd ahead. Wherever her eyes went, she could only see heads. She suddenly remembered. Today was the last day of the Dassara festival. Yesterday was the ninth day, a bank holiday. Today was the tenth day, Mysore’s Nada Habba. The whole city was bright with lights. All the streetlights, brightly lit, adding to the sparkle. The palace lights came on like jewels, the palace glowing like a pearl within. A sea of humanity milled all around. She should have left the office earlier. Her colleague Geetha was murmuring, ‘Why didn’t they declare a holiday today?’. The bus driver was muttering that there was no space to move.

She got up. ‘Come Geetha, the bus won’t move for hours. Let us walk.’

‘How? It is too far.’

‘We’ll manage, somehow.’

The two got down, blending into the crowd, started walking, holding hands. The processions and floats started. They could hardly proceed.

‘Geetha, we are here now, let’s just watch. Come, let us go towards Chamraj Circle.’ Geetha walked close behind her.

She forgot the events of the morning in the world of colours, spirit, hope and music that surrounded her. She felt a stab of pain at how life got wasted. Tears welled up in her eyes.

She was in the midst of colourful floats, folk music, dances, palace elephants decorated in silk…. Suddenly, the crowd erupted. ‘Abhimanyu is coming.’

Goddess Chamundeswari’s idol seated in a golden Howdah, was being carried by the beautifully decorated royal elephant Abhimanyu. He was flanked by two other elephants. The crowd roared in joy and showered flowers.

She suddenly felt a sob rising from the pit of her stomach. ‘Devi, Ma, please show me a way. I have not followed any rituals – no fasting, no prayers … I don’t even remember my Tamil prayers. I have even forgotten how to pray. Everything appears meaningless.’ Why am I crying now?

‘Did you say something?’ Geetha asked, pulling her along. ‘Come, let’s get going. It is getting late.’

Struggling, they tried to find their way forward through the huge crowd. Suddenly, her legs seemed twisted together. Far away, in the crowd, she could see him. ‘Was it really him?’ Yes. It was. Her heart beat fast. Would he find his way home? It appeared that he had also seen her. He abruptly turned away, walking in a different direction. She stopped for a moment. He didn’t even turn her way.

‘Hey, why have you stopped? The crowd will just crush us under its feet. Come, Sheela.’ Geetha grabbed her hand and pulled her along. She walked silently. The longer they walked, the longer the path seemed to get. In the push and pull of the crowd, they even wondered if they were going in the right direction. ‘Was he following them?’ She could only see heads all around.

‘Why do you keep turning back?’ Geetha was getting impatient. ‘Hold my hand tight. Wrap your saree around your neck.’ She kept issuing directions. The crowd, the dust and the rush sapped their energy.

Raju was waiting for her when she reached home around nine pm. She expected him to ask, ‘Why so late?’, but he didn’t.

‘The police said they couldn’t find any information about Appa. ‘How can we find anyone in this Dassara crowd?’ they asked.

She didn’t answer. She went to wash her face and hands and her aching feet. Her heart had suddenly hardened into a rock.

She looked into the mirror in front of her. ‘Let him go!’ She told herself.

Like someone who had turned crazy, she saw herself rotating her hands, swirling and throwing something far away, muttering, ‘Go. Don’t come back.’

She could hear Raju’s voice, as though talking to himself. ‘My leave is over. I need to go back. I have told the police to send him to the hospital if they find him.’

She looked at the mirror, rivetted, stunned.

Raju said something like, ‘What if he comes home?’

‘Will manage.’ She replied calmly.

She looked at the mirror. She was again rotating her hands. ‘Go. Go away. Don’t come back. I can’t handle anymore.’

She remembered Patti.

She bent down and washed her face. She just wanted to lie down.

It occurred to her that Raju had not asked her how she managed to return safely in the Dassara crowd.