The curtain was drawn away. Vallan, now bearing the countenance of the almost demonic Raudrabheeman, had forced Keechakan to the ground.
Keechakan tried to shake the furious Bheema off. This couldn’t be happening to him. How could Malini have tricked him?
But the blows fell, each like a sledgehammer. Keechakan’s face seemed to descend into his body. His voice, his breath, began to lose
life, his eyes popped as the weight of the blows smashed and mutilated his flesh, yet his eyes were fixed on a point above, even as he gasped for air. He could not die.
He sought Malini, she who still reined his life to his body, Malini, his precious Malini. One final gasp and Keechakan lay, a mangled ball of flesh, pulverized beyond all recognition.
It took some time for Koman to realize that the performance was over. The music had paused. The tirasheela once again shielded him from the audience. The flame of the lamp flickered. All was quiet except for the hammering of his heart.
He rose and went backstage. As if in a daze, he went to the pettikaaran. He took the crown off and sat by himself. I have to be me. I have to be the man Koman, he repeated to himself. I was Keechakan. Now I am me.
Then they began to arrive. Members of the audience and the committee members, each one bearing praise as if on a platter. Koman searched their faces. Would Nanu Menon come?
When they had left, he wiped his make-up off quietly. There was no need to be perturbed. Nanu Menon may not have come backstage, but he wouldn’t be able to ignore him in print. Koman knew that. His Keechakan warranted it.
The following Sunday, Koman glanced through the newspaper eagerly. Would there be anything about him and his vesham? Koman stared at the newsprint. The words swam in front of his eyes. It couldn’t be …that was the thought that ran through his brain, again and again. A furtive rat seeking an escape from the sewer pipe it had been thrust into. Eyes beady, moustache twitching, it ran. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be.
‘Contrived’: the word spat at him. The letters blurred. ‘ …predictable performance. Swamped in technique veering towards the theatrical …’
Koman felt the air in his tracheae leave in a rush. A fist slammed his throat. He gasped. Trying to suck in air, reprieve, his eyes scanned the print. ‘Still we sit watching Keechakan as he first woos and then abuses his Malini …yet, even that is not the tragedy of this veshakaaran. It is his wanting to be more than who Keechakan the
mythical character is. Interpretation is fundamental to kathakali, but an interpretation that has been perfected over the years by the masters. This veshakaaran seems to imagine that there is a Keechakan beyond the poet’s characterization. With that he does his obvious talent an injustice. As for that final moment of Keechakan’s death, what was it, kathakali or drama?’
Koman sat huddled on a chair. He felt his body tremble, suddenly cold. He wrapped his arms around his legs and wedged his face between his knees. He would have to seek a place within himself to shake off the repugnance of Nanu Menon’s words and gather courage. What was worse? Total decimation, or the devastating faint words of praise? What hurt more?
When the day spent itself out, Koman went out. Shadows hung in street corners and stillness wrapped the hour. Koman heard the crunch of gravel beneath his feet and tried not to weigh down his steps with the heaviness of his grief. He didn’t want to be seen or heard. He didn’t want any attention. He wanted to be alone, to lick his wounds and summon back some vestige of self-worth. Enough to let him meet the eyes of all those who had read the review, with nonchalance if not a wry smile. But above all, he needed to forget.
The man wrapped the bottle in a sheet of newsprint. Koman searched the sheet to see if by some strange and macabre coincidence it was the one with his review. No one had seen him walk to the toddy shop. He searched the man’s face. Had he read what Nanu Menon had written about him? He dismissed the thought. The man was not interested in kathakali. But was it pity he saw in his eyes?
The man counted out change. ‘Will this be enough?’ he asked with half a laugh.
Koman felt his lips twist into a smile. The man thought he was buying the toddy for Aashaan. For a moment, he considered saying, no, no, it is for me.
Then he let it be. Aashaan didn’t care that the world thought he was a drunk.
In his room Koman took the bottle out of the fold in his mundu. Then he took a glass and poured a measure of toddy. He gulped it down. Sour, rancid and vile, the stench of its fermentation rode his nostrils. His stomach heaved. But for the first time that day Koman felt his nerve ends settle. The second drink wrapped him in a layer of
cotton wool. The third sent the annoying gnat-like fears out of his mind. Now there was only one thought: the next drink. The next drink. The next drink …
When the vomit came up his throat, Koman just leaned forward and let it spew. It felt as if every ugly thought he carried within was finding its way out. When there was nothing left to vomit, he retched. Great, loud sounds that seemed to drag themselves from the bottom of his soul. His throat hurt. His tongue felt like wood. Words slurred out of him: a line from a kathakali padam. Even as he drifted into a senseless state, he knew this physical degradation was nothing compared to the humiliation he had felt.
In the morning, the light penetrated his brain with the edge of a blade. He sat up, dragging his limbs and senses from the ground. Around him were remnants of his dissipation. A bottle lay on its side. The glass stood on its head. Pools of dried vomit patterned the floor. His clothes were strewn about on the floor and the stench of vomit and festered pain swamped the air.
He held his head. It felt heavier than the crown he was used to wearing. And just as weighed down.
His mouth tasted foul. Even the back of his eyes hurt when he peered cautiously at the morning light. Koman wanted to lie down and die. To drift away to some place from where he would never have to return.
But Aashaan would be back this morning and it wouldn’t do to let him see him thus.
They came, each one of them, bearing solace as they knew how to shape it.
Mani hammered the door, his rage tempering every word and gesture. ‘Open the door, Etta,’ he thundered. ‘I know you are in there.’
Koman flinched. The sound made his head hurt. He looked around him. The room was clean enough. He touched his cheeks. They were smooth. He had carefully shaved his stubble away. No one must know that last night I was an animal, wallowing in my own pain and vomit. No one must know that I wept all day. No one must know how much I grieved, he had told himself sternly. So he forced a smile and opened the door. ‘What is the matter?’
Mani stared at him. He pushed a lock of hair from his hot forehead. ‘You ask me what is the matter? Didn’t you see it? Didn’t you read yesterday’s paper? That nasty little man. I’ll tell you what. When Babu is back this evening, he and I are going to round up a few friends and we’ll pay him a visit. I’ll personally break every bone in his right hand.’
‘Ssshhhh …’ Koman laid his hand on Mani’s mouth. ‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘What do you mean it doesn’t matter? This morning, when one of the men at the gymnasium pointed it out to me, I bloodied his nose. You know what upsets me? When someone writes nice things about you, not one bastard says a word. But just one bad notice and they take pleasure in pointing it out. Do you know what that son of a cunt said? “I thought you said your brother is a top-class performer. Did you see this?” I gathered his collar, shook him and then sunk my fist in his nose and came here straight.’
Koman gazed at his brother. He felt a great cloud of love for this ungainly, loutish brother of his. ‘These things happen,’ he said. He tried not to let the doubt show on his face.
‘All that is very well. But Nanu Menon needs to be taught a lesson …’
‘Let it be, Mani,’ Koman said. ‘Go home now. I’ll come by later. We will talk then. I have a class now.’
‘Are you sure?’ Mani asked, pushing his fists into his pockets. ‘Do you want something? A bottle?’
Koman shivered. ‘Go home, Mani,’ he said, giving him an affectionate push.
Koman sat on the bed. His legs didn’t have the strength to hold him. Within him the trembling began again. He had to go to the institute. He’d had a day’s reprieve yesterday, but there was no escaping today. He had a class and he would have to see his students and colleagues. What would their response be?
Anger on his behalf. Indignation, too. Or would it be smirks and mockery? Or perhaps it would be embarrassment? He swallowed.
There was a gentle knock on the door. Koman stared at it. Who could it be? Mani had left a while ago. Babu was away. Aashaan was expected to return from his trip only by midday. He had no friends. Over the years, his association with Aashaan had isolated
him from his peers. Inevitably, it had fractured all his friendships. He didn’t need anyone. His art, his master and his family had sufficed.
He went to the door and peered through a crack in the wood. It was his father.
In all the time Koman had been away from home, his father had not once come to see him. When he was a student at the institute and later when he took this room in the lodge, his father had wanted to disassociate himself from his life. Yet, he was here.
‘Achan,’ his voice started, unable to hide his astonishment. He opened the door.
‘I came as soon as Mani told me,’ Sethu said. He stared at the young man in front of him. His firstborn was a handsome man, but now his nostrils were pinched and his eyes wore black shadows. About him was the scent of a hunted animal.
‘Come in,’ Koman said, trying to still the tremor in his voice.
Sethu hesitated, then stepped in. He looked around, trying to gauge his son’s life in one swift glance.
‘Sit down,’ Koman said, clearing a few books off his bed. He wished he could hide his face in his father’s lap and weep.
Sethu sat on the bed. ‘I don’t know what to say,’ he said, trying to conceal his awkwardness.
Koman said nothing.
‘Listen,’ Sethu said suddenly, ‘I have some friends who know the editor of a rival newspaper very well. They could ask him to organize a feature about you. Won’t that undo the damage? At least to some extent?’
Koman smiled. He knew an incomparable joy seep into him. I have this. Whatever happens, no one can take this away from me. My family’s implicit faith in me, their total love for me.
‘It is all right,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter. There will always be people who hate my vesham. I can’t let it affect me. So don’t let it upset you, either.’
Sethu stood up. He felt uneasy in this room with his son who wore disgrace so effortlessly. Either he was totally inviolable or he was a superb actor.
In my home, I can hold him, comfort him, but here, I can’t seem to even reach him. He isn’t my son. He is Koman, the veshakaaran.
‘If there is anything you need, let me know. Or if you change your mind about the newspaper feature,’ Sethu said. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder. Koman nuzzled it with his cheek. Sethu felt his eyes fill. His son had never let his defences down before him. He must be deeply hurt.
‘I will come by,’ Koman said, as Sethu left.
When he was alone again, Koman felt paralysed by nerves. It had been easy to play the valorous hero in front of Mani and his father. All he had to do was invoke a vesham. But alone, he had no disguise to hide behind. He felt bereft.
If his family who knew nothing about kathakali and understood nothing about the appropriateness of a vesham were offended by Nanu Menon’s words, what would they say at the institute? How could he face them?
He lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. A splotch on the plaster resembled Nanu Menon’s profile. As he looked at it, he thought he saw the profile turn full face and gaze down at him. The baleful eye of criticism.
He shut his eyes. What am I going to do?
He slunk into the kalari quietly. The students filed into the classroom, chattering. There was abrupt silence when they saw him already there. In that dense silence, a voice cut through. It was a student who had failed to see him. ‘Did you see that piece on Koman Aashaan?’
Koman flinched, but what the voice thought he would never know. Its owner spotted him and hid himself in a back row, fearing Koman’s wrath.
Koman pretended that nothing was the matter. For the rest of the morning, he pretended a serenity he didn’t feel. He led the boys through a scene from Lavanasura Vadham. The boys, taking their cue, responded with their best. When the class was over, he walked to Aashaan’s room. He would find respite there.
Aashaan was waiting. There was a furrow on his brow as he prepared his betel leaves. Koman sat on a chair heavily.
‘How was your class?’ Aashaan asked.
Koman shrugged. ‘What am I going to do?’
Aashaan folded the leaves into a triangle and popped it into his mouth.