THE PUPPETEERS OF PALEM Read online

  He had felt it before in the house. It usually happened just before Bamma said something to Amma when Nanna wasn’t home. And when Nanna wasn’t home, Bamma always said something bad. Now she was about to do it again. He felt his stomach tighten a little more. His mind filled with fear—a fear that he could not define, a fear that was not even his. That always came right after the stomach-knotting.

  Please, Bamma, don’t say anything. I don’t like it. Amma doesn’t like it. Please, please, please.

  ‘Prabhakarayya came again today.’

  Swish. Swish.

  ‘Did you hear me?’

  ‘Haan, Attayya.’

  ‘If you hear me, you should reply. Haven’t I told you that before?’

  ‘Yes. Sorry.’

  ‘Hmm, very quick to say sorry, you are. But you need to stop doing things that you end up being sorry for.’

  Swish. Swish.

  ‘Understand?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The knot in his stomach was hurting him. Chotu felt like the life was being drained out of him. It was not just fear now; it was shame, it was embarrassment, it was guilt. And a stray thought came out of nowhere and formed in front of his eyes in big letters: I wish he came home now.

  ‘Anyway. So… Prabhakarayya came again today.’

  ‘Haan.’

  ‘Came to ask about the money.’

  ‘We will give it.’

  ‘Where will you get it from?’

  Swish. Swish.

  ‘We will give it.’

  Come home, the words still loomed in front of him. Nice and big and heavy. Yes, it would be nice indeed if Nanna came home now. His stomach never knotted this way when Nanna was home. And there was no fear or embarrassment or guilt. But he would not be home for a while yet. Bamma knew that. And Chotu knew that Bamma knew.

  How did he know? It was a slow, seeping realization that something bad was round the corner; a slower version of what he had felt in that split-second the other day, in Saraswatamma’s irrigation well by the big neem tree. They had all gone swimming that afternoon. It had been Chotu’s first time with the big kids. He had spent most of the afternoon on the edge of the well, clutching the ropes, afraid to venture out into the water. He had only just learnt to stay afloat. He kept pushing himself out with his feet, eager to show them all his swimming skills, but his hands wouldn’t let go. Each time he jumped out and yo-yoed back onto the safety of the edge, cackles of laughter sounded from the boys.

  ‘You’ve learnt to swim, haven’t you, kid?’

  ‘Uh huh.’

  ‘Are you sure?’

  ‘Yes!’

  ‘Then let go of the damned rope.’

  So he started slowly, taking a tentative lunge into the water and immediately turning around to swim back to the edge. Then he tried bigger leaps, further and further away from the rope. As the afternoon wore on, though his arms ached, he felt he could make it across the well to the other side.

  He took a deep breath and waded in.

  He started off at a brisk pace and covered the distance to the half-way mark quite easily. But then he slowed down. His arms grew numb and he had to stick his neck out to stay above the water. He pumped his legs as furiously as he could but they refused to rise above the water’s surface. All around him he heard the smooth, rhythmic splashes of hands and feet. His own attempts were making no sounds at all. His ears dipped under the surface. He took in a mouthful of water and spat it out frantically.

  Someone glided by him. Aravind. Chotu looked at him and pumped harder with his limbs. But while Aravind moved with apparently no effort, he stayed where he was, slowly running out of gas.

  Aravind said something. Since his ears were immersed he couldn’t hear the words. When he shook his head, Aravind sidled up to him, placed his hand under his stomach and lifted him up.

  ‘Do you remember what I said?’

  Chotu nodded.

  ‘Everyone who comes to swim with us has to go through a ritual.’

  Chotu nodded again, continuing to pedal.

  Aravind looked at him and grinned. Chotu sensed that everyone around had stopped swimming and were staring at them. He heard a few sniggers, a few excited whispers, and finally someone said, ‘Do it, stamp him!’

  ‘Take a deep breath,’ Aravind said.

  ‘What?’

  ‘Take a deep breath.’

  Chotu obeyed. But he was tired from all the pedalling. All the air left him as soon as he breathed in.

  ‘Another one.’

  Chotu took another breath.

  This time, as soon as he breathed in, Aravind placed both his hands on Chotu’s shoulders and pushed him below the water. Chotu closed his eyes and clawed at Aravind’s torso, but he wriggled away. He thrashed and kicked, but Aravind’s hands held him by the scalp and pushed him down further. Then, just for a single terrifying second that brought home the boy’s words (Stamp him!) beyond all doubt, Chotu felt Aravind’s feet on his shoulders.

  The first thing that struck Chotu was the silence. Only a second ago, everything had been so noisy and full of life—the splashing of the bodies, the shouting, the taunting, the games, the fun—and now everything was blacked out. He heard nothing. His eyes were wide open, but he saw nothing. All he could tell was that he was going down. He tried looking up. Somewhere up there, he saw a little white circle of light, just big enough to push his ring finger through. And it was getting smaller.

  His tried to pedal his way upwards, but the weight of Aravind’s feet kept him down. It had been a bright, sunny afternoon until the last second. And yet, now he was caught in a pitch black abyss. And he was sinking deeper into it.

  He thought of his mother and her pickles. He thought of his father—how nice it would be to hear him ask, just one more time, if he had done his homework. He thought of his grandmother. He said a silent goodbye to each one of them.

  Then his ears flipped. A big weight that had been sitting on them all this time seemed to have lifted. Chotu looked up desperately. Was it his imagination or had the little circle of light over his head grown bigger?

  He raised his hands and brought them down, kicking hard with his legs at the same time. Yes, the circle had become bigger, and it was widening further. He was no longer in a black pool; it was now green and it was getting brighter each second. Then he burst through a layer of white and shot through the surface gasping for air.

  The sights and sounds of the world returned. The ropes, the yellowish mud, the sky, the sun, the laughter…

  But why wasn’t he splashing the water? He willed his hands and legs to move, but they’d given up. He tried to roll over on his back and float until he regained some strength, but he sank right through.

  He bobbed up once more, gasping for air. And he went down again.

  Oh, so this was drowning.

  When he slashed out with his arm, it met something… something smooth and wet. Somebody. He tried to call out for help and ended up swallowing a mouthful of water.

  Fingers closed around his hair and pulled him up, so that he could breathe.

  Ramana!

  Chotu felt an overwhelming urge to wrap himself around Ramana and never let go. He moved closer to him. But Ramana held firm with his hand in Chotu’s hair and pushed him away. Then he started dragging him towards the edge.

  Oh Ramana thank god!

  ‘What the hell, Aravind? What the hell.’

  Thank god thank god thank god.

  ‘He’s just learnt to float. Did you not see how scared he was to swim?’

  You saved my life Ramana you saved my life.

  ‘Relax. Nothing happens when you drown a few feet.’

  ‘That’s not the point. You scared him. And he was not ready.’

  Scared yes yes you saved my life thank god.

  ‘You’re not a swimmer until you’ve been stamped. Even kids know that.’

  Chotu looked at the remorselessly smiling face. His mother’s words rang in his ears… When you’re big
and strong, Chotu, you can beat all these boys up. His wet fingers dug into the mud. As he stared, almost with fascination, at the figure that was climbing out of the well, he thought, When I am big and strong, Aravind…

  That had been almost a month ago.

  In the interim, Chotu had come to intimately know a new emotion—an emotion stronger than any he had known so far, one that he would correlate with the restlessness he felt whenever his grandmother spoke to his mother. And he was feeling it intensely right now towards Bamma as she said those words that hurt Amma so. And when Amma was hurt, his stomach grew queasy.

  ‘Have you people thought of going to the city?’ she said.

  Cackle.

  ‘Hmm.’

  Swish.

  ‘Have you or have you not?’

  ‘You know how he does not like leaving Palem.’

  ‘Arey, if you don’t leave Palem, where will the money come from?’

  ‘We will give it.’

  Chotu saw the unsaid word ‘somehow’ loom in front of him. Heavy with the weight of uncertainty. He hated his grandmother. Not always; not when she told him stories and played with him. But right now, he hated her almost as much as he hated Aravind.

  But he was also scared. Grandmother was big and tall and nasty when she got angry. She had that look about her—as though she was happy to inflict pain on others. He had seen that in her face before, and more importantly, he had felt her happiness. In fact, ‘happy’ was the one word that he saw clearly, every time she said those bad things.

  Now too, there it was, flashing before his eyes in big capital letters. HAPPY.

  Chotu had seen that somewhere else too, but where… His mind went back to the day of the drowning incident. Before Aravind stamped on him? No, maybe a bit later. Yes, it was after he had come up to the surface once and then began drowning the second time. Between the splashes of water and the impossible gasps for air, he had seen one face with the word ‘happy’ writ large over it.

  Sarayu.

  ‘Self-respect is not everything, Pilla,’ his grandmother was saying. ‘Sometimes, women have to do things to save their husband’s self-respect.’

  Swish. Cackle.

  HAPPY.

  Sarayu had been staring at him and her mouth had twisted into a half-smile. As he struggled, the expression on her face had become stranger—but also happier. After Venkataramana had taken him to safety, Chotu had stolen a glance at her. Disappointment? Sadness?

  Swish.

  ‘Now I am saying something, and you pretend as if you aren’t listening. Prabhakarayya is going to come again, I tell you. You better decide what you are going to do to protect your husband’s honour and this house. Understand?’

  Chotu rolled over on the cot and squeezed his fingers tight around his belly. He hated them. He hated her and Aravind. When he became big and strong he would… but no, he was scared of Bamma too. Of that expression she wore, when she said something bad to someone. Of that happy face that exploded to life when she saw someone sad. Yes, Bamma’s face.

  And Sarayu’s face.

  ‘Come home,’ he thought. ‘Come home soon, please.’

  Chapter Fourteen

  Diary of Sonali Rao

  March 01, 2002

  Dear Shilpi,

  I arrived in Palem this evening.

  The cart came only as far as the Dhavaleshwaram highway. The man said they had stopped going all the way to Palem, long ago. ‘People don’t go to Palem anymore, Amma’ he said. ‘Will be an extra ten rupees if you want me to drive you all the way up there. Got to pay for the reverse trip too.’ Now you know how shifty these tonga-wallahs get. They give you any old story for an extra buck. So I told him I was fine with getting off on the highway and walking. I only had my backpack with me, after all, so I figured it shouldn’t be too tough.

  But the walk is longer than I thought, Shilpi. If you remember, I had come here as part of the TV crew, a year ago, and then we had vans that drove right up to the place where the police had put up their ‘Keep Out’ signs, so I didn’t really get an idea of the distance. But today, having to drag along on my feet, it was slightly different. The path is a difficult one too. If I had known there was so much dust and gravel around, I would have left my designer sandals at home and come in my Nike shoes instead.

  And it’s not a straight path either. You know, when you travel in a van with the windows drawn up, you don’t really get a feel for where you’re going. And you know what a horrible sense of direction I have. But when you walk along this path leading away from the highway into the village, you see the Arthur Cotton dam in the distance between the trees. First, it is to your extreme left. After a fifteen-minute walk along the path, you look up and see that it has moved a little. And then some more. By the time you get to the outskirts of the village, it will have disappeared somewhere behind your shoulder.

  But you can just tell you’re close to a river, Shilpi. Remember when we went to Goa? Remember how we used to feel it in the air that we’re close to the beach? Palem is very much the same. It’s funny, because I don’t remember noticing this on my last visit here. But today, when I stood by what looked like a closed-down paan shop, I ‘felt’ it in the breeze that was coming from I don’t know where. It was heavy. It was cool. It was refreshing. And I understood why Palem was situated so far away from the road. They wanted to be close to the river.

  Shilpi, I know what you’re thinking. I can see your nose twist upwards (you look so cute when you do that) while you read this. I know you didn’t like my coming here. I still remember how earnestly you tried to talk me out of it. Mother and Father would not approve, you said. You’re right. They wouldn’t. Which is why I want you to keep this our little secret, my dear. Every time you feel like telling them where I am, remember—you pinky swore.

  I don’t know what it is that brought me here. I have no friends here. I have nothing but the most tenuous of friendships with any of the people who died here last year. And I don’t know why I waited for one whole year. But sometimes, you know how you feel like someone (or something) is calling out for you? No, I guess you don’t. You’ve always been the sane, rational one, Shilpi. I’ve always thought it a quirk of fate that I am the elder one. Remember Shashidhar Uncle, Father’s friend from the bank? Remember how impressed he was with you and your ‘maturity’? Remember how he thought you were the elder sister? How shocked he was when Father told him that I, with my frizzy hair and untidy clothes and my shrill, loud voice, was the first-born?

  Whatever the reason, I am here. I really do want to look into this matter in some more detail. The reports that came out of the Palem massacre always seemed to me to be incomplete, and I guess, subconsciously, I’ve always waited for some fresh development after what happened last year. But nothing came up. There’s got to be something more to the story than what got out in the news, Shilpi. I know that for sure.

  You’re probably thinking, ‘How? How do you know?’

  I don’t know, dear. I don’t know how I know, but I do know.

  I am staying (at least for the night) at the house of a man called Avadhani. He was one of the people who died. An old woman lives here now. She tells me everyone in the village warned her that the house was unlucky but she moved in anyway. She said I could stay here as long as I wanted.

  I want to write more to you, Shipi, I really do. But I am feeling sleepy. It has been a long day, you see… with the bus and the cart and the walk… I can barely keep my eyes open. So I will stop for now, okay?

  Love,

  Sonali

  Chapter Fifteen

  2001

  The crows squawked at the break of dawn. From their invisible hiding places in the trees by the road. From atop the broken telephone pole by Komati Satyam’s well. They squawked while hopping from one fallen guava to another under the trees that lined Avadhani’s field, pecking at each fruit in turn for a tiny taste. Now and then, a hesitant koel would take advantage of a precious interval and call out, but all
he got in response was a medley of screeches, each one angrier than the last. After a few failed attempts, the koel gave up.

  Chanti walked to the side door looking out to the toilets and opened it. Two crows were perched on the telephone pole, trading pecks and scratches in their fight for territory. The day was going to be a clear one, but the sun had not yet risen. Chanti saw the flapping, jousting birds silhouetted against the grey sky.

  He put on his slippers and went down the stairs. Beyond the toilets, he saw Chotu standing with his back to him. He was looking out at the parched field with his hands crossed behind his back. In the direction of the sun. In the direction of Ellamma Cheruvu.

  The first line of orange appeared on the horizon. The land was featureless in that direction as far as the eye could see. Chanti ambled up to the gate and stood on the opposite side, hands folded, head resting against the chewed wood.

  Chotu showed no sign of noticing him. His feet were bare. He stood in the manner of a commander surveying his troops. Even his white pyjamas and kurta did not detract from the image.

  Then he said aloud, ‘Nothing has changed. Nothing.’

  Half the sun was visible now, the orange glow more pronounced. The dust that had settled over Avadhani’s field shone in an orange light. Chanti looked back at the telephone pole. The two crows were no longer fighting. They had instead given in to reluctant compromise, each taking one half of the top. But they still moved around in circles, twitching and shoving and jostling.

  ‘Nothing?’ asked Chanti. ‘Did we always have so many crows?’

  ‘Oh it’s a dead village,’ said Chotu. ‘Crows come to a dead place.’ His eyes hardened against the sun. ‘Dead.’

  ‘And this dust? This yellow dust?’

  Chotu raised his feet and tapped them against the ground with a soft thud. His voice, deep and contemplative, cut through the smell of fresh coconuts that came from Komati Satyam’s field nearby.

  ‘Dead,’ Chotu said again. ‘Dust gathers on dead things.’

  ‘That has changed though, hasn’t it? Palem used to be alive when we were here. But now…’