Govindan Nair was at his meal, and suddenly he said: ‘And, son, what about our delightful neighbour? Is he still emptying his bowels? Has the horse-dung-smelling purge worked?’ The son answered: ‘Father, I have not been to see him since eleven o’clock, that is, since I started on the oil bath.’ ‘And you,’ Govindan Nair said to his wife, ‘and you, my lady, I imagine you are too virtuous to find out whether our friend is living or dead. I fear the medicine was very strong. Ah, our Vaidyans!5 They know how to purge a calf but not a delicate Saraswath Brahmin. Shridhar, go and see.’
It was a very hot day in March. No, it was actually April, getting on to May. The sun was indeed very hot. The bilva tree seemed more thorn than leaf, more sun than air. Shridhar, so I learned later, jumped down the garden wall and entered my house from the backyard. He saw me, so he said, lying flat, my face to one side, my latrine bucket gone rolling on itself, and lying handle out in a corner. I was obviously unconscious. Going to the latrine, with the sun so hot, and I so weak, I must have tumbled and fallen against the threshold. I could not reach the bathroom. ‘Uncle is dead, Uncle is dead!’ shouted Shridhar in terror, running back to the garden wall. Govindan Nair, so I was told, jumped like a three-year-old heifer, washed his hands, and stood beside me. He touched me and felt my pulse. He carried me to my bed. Shridhar fanned me. His mother stood at the wall trying to learn what was happening. Govindan Nair jumped back across the wall. He says nothing more. What did he bring? — The chair was empty. Why are they all in the next room? I wondered. Shridhar suddenly came in, took a fan and started giving me breeze. From the window I could see Tangamma handing a tumbler of coffee — so hot, she had a towel around it — to Govindan Nair. ‘Sir, here is your nectar,’ he said. ‘Everybody has his nectar. Mine is tobacco juice, and yours the juice of a blackberry. At the ration department we are told we live on thirty ounces of rice per person. I solemnly declare, we live on nectar. Man does not live on terrestrial viands. He lives on the fruits of heaven.’ And he laughed as he propped me up in bed and, holding me with one hand, gave me coffee with the other. Shridhar was still fanning. Tangamma was standing by the wall playing with a trefoil of bilva. Where was I? Where was my wife? Does bilva make nectar, I wondered. I must ask Narayan Pandita Vaidyan. Suddenly I had to go to the latrine again. ‘The bowels are a tremendous responsibility of man, three hundred miles of guts hold a few handfuls of chemical compost. And this little chemical mixture makes or unmakes the stability of man. Funny, isn’t it?’ Govindan Nair said this, and stood by the door to the courtyard. ‘Call me, brother, when you want water. Water is our best protector against sin. To smell is sin. To do is no sin. To gulp is sin. To purge is bounty. To die is fanciful. Reality is when you die really. Shridhar’s death is my joke. When you fall unconscious they say you are dead. In fact where were you, brother, when Shridhar thought you were dead? Were you dead to yourself, my friend? You purge to live. You sleep to die. When sleep is life, where is death? Ha, ha, ha,’ he laughed, keeping me company from outside, while my bowels were pouring down hot liquid. I thought my guts would come out. There’s such innocence in a purged body. Disease is unnatural. Death is natural. To die rightly is to wake and find one has ever been being.
Shridhar knew his father as he knew his textbook. (He always stood second or third in class. He was in the fourth form.) A cigarette was bought from the neighbouring shop, and a matchbox. Sitting by the window, Govindan Nair lit his cigarette, while Shridhar returned to give back the matchbox to the shopkeeper — then, coming back, he started fanning me again. I said, ‘I must build a house of three storeys anyway. My wife can hire out the first two floors if need be. It will be so much capital invested. A house of three storeys these days is a safe investment. How much would it cost? One can live on the third floor.’
‘Thirty thousand rupees, if there’s no inflation after the war,’ Govindan Nair declared. ‘Let’s begin buying this house, for the moment. A bird in hand is worth two in the bush. Govindan Nair in Trivandrum is worth two wives in Kartikura House. Isn’t that so, brother?’ he said, but looking towards the wall, he saw Tangamma hide her mouth with the palm of her hand, and laugh.
I have developed a bad habit. I like women. Not that I like all sorts of women. I like woman, in fact. What is woman, you may ask. Well, woman is Shantha. Shantha is a school teacher in the Nair Society High School. She is fairly tall, and has delicate hands. I am not particularly tall or fair or good or bad. I am just a man. And Shantha is not just a woman, she is woman. I think often of the child she will bear forth (that is, when he will appear), and I cry with delight even before the time is come. Shantha lives with her mother and two brothers round near the Poolimood. The brothers go to school. The mother cooks. Shantha earns (they have some property too, in north Travancore). Shantha also loves. Her house is not far. Only in monsoon are the roads very difficult. Even so we somehow manage to be with each other. I can cough just a little, then Shantha will put her pillow against my neck. That is why she is so exquisite in her love play. She is shy like a peahen. Her giving is complete. But the truth is, who is there to take? Can you? There’s a story said of Sinbad the sailor. He was told by the jinn: Take, take all the royal treasury. He opened his hands to take. The hands had changed into gold. (I read this in my old school text). That’s taking. Saroja of Kartikura House is a true Brahmin. She knows how to take. But Shantha is a Nair. Nairs worship their mothers and recognize their fathers. I liked my father and had affection for my mother. The world has to be worshipped. Shantha worships me and has herself. I worship nothing (no, not even money, although it will make the three storeys possible), and I don’t think I care for anything. Caring for nothing is to use everything for oneself. Caring for oneself is to give things their self. Shantha loves me, and so she will have a beautiful boy. She’s not worried about marriage. I am a Brahmin. Shantha is not ashamed to be woman. I am afraid to be a man.
That is why I carry Shantha so badly on my face. When Govindan Nair wants to speak of her, he simply says, the Vazhavan-kad house (Vazhavan is a small hamlet in north Travancore). He calls her by her house name as if her house were she. In fact her house is she. To speak the truth, that is how I met her. She came to the Revenue Board about some land division. She looked so innocent, I told her to sit down and immediately took out her file. She was sure her case was right for she could not know how her face might ever be wrong. Might she think of anything wrong? She was certain she could not. So truth became her thought. If she said, ‘Come to me’—it meant come. If she became my mistress it was because she felt wife. She remained a wife. My feet were there for her to worship. My weaknesses were there for her to learn; my manhood, at least such as I possess, for her to bear children. She had never touched any man before. She said she knew me to be her man the moment I went and stood against the filing ladder. For a woman love is not development. Love is recognition. The fact that my intestinal troubles improved after I met her proved she was right, so she felt. Devotion to me was proof of her truth. The child was meaning. The woman is always right.