‘What you will do,’ Aashaan said through a mouthful of betel leaves, ‘is ignore whatever you read and go on as if nothing ever happened.’
Koman stared at him in astonishment. How can I pretend nothing happened? My career as a veshakaaran has as much worth as the red-stained earth.
‘How can I?’ he snapped. He could rein in his impatience with Mani or his father. But Aashaan? Aashaan ought to know better than to mouth such platitudes.
‘How can I pretend that Nanu Menon’s criticism means nothing? Everyone who has anything to do with kathakali would have seen it.’
Aashaan leaned forward and touched the skin beneath Koman’s left eye. ‘What is this?’ He felt the puffy skin. ‘Is this meant to be your face of mortification? Didn’t you sleep last night? Why are your eyes bloodshot?’
Koman moved away. How could Aashaan be so indifferent to what Nanu Menon had written?
Aashaan looked at him and smiled. ‘Anyone who has anything worthwhile to do with kathakali knows the exact worth of Nanu Menon’s criticism.’
Koman sat up straight. ‘How can you say that? Even the pettikaaran, I think his name was Shankaran, seemed to be in awe of him.’
‘That’s my point. Shankaran may be lord of the green room, but he is not a veshakaaran or a musician. And he is not even a very skilful pettikaaran. Shankaran is impressed by Nanu Menon. He might even take him seriously. But speak to our Gopi. He will tell you what he knows about Nanu. Do you know that Nanu was a veshakaaran once? They said he was destined for great things, but I thought he was a mediocre artist. In fact, his most convincing role to date has been that of a great artist who had to give it all up because of illness. I am sure his illness is a myth. He probably realized that one day he would be discovered for what he was. A poser. Now he is the self-appointed guardian of the performing arts.
‘You know me well enough to know that I don’t gossip or spread
vicious stories about other artists, or even critics. But Nanu …
‘Do you know what they call him in kathakali circles? Neerkoli. It’s not just that he resembles the water snake, thin and slimy creature though he is, with his pointed face, seeking faults everywhere he goes. It is that his words carry no venom. He is a failed veshakaaran, now a failed critic. He ought, with his background, to be able to review kathakali from the performance point of view rather than a literary point of view. Yet, any deviation from the attakatha, from the composition, is viewed by him as sacrilege. You are expected to be Keechakan as he understands it, don’t you see? He will not tolerate an interpretation that is beyond his comprehension—which is what a true kathakali critic would ideally seek.
‘More importantly, though, if you had prostrated before him and appealed to his ego, he would have written of you as the future face of kathakali. You ignored him. That, my boy, was your crime. It had nothing to do with the Keechakan you were.
‘The average man reads him. But by evening, he has already forgotten what he read. How does it matter to him who you played—Keechakan or Bheema? And kathakali connoisseurs don’t let anyone else decide for them. Neither does a self-respecting veshakaaran. Do you understand?’
Aashaan stopped abruptly. A spasm of coughing contorted his face.
Koman thumped his back. ‘Are you all right?’
Aashaan sipped some water. ‘This will pass, but what worries me is you.’
Koman stared at the floor. ‘Nanu Menon may be a neerkoli, a harmless snake without venom. But even a neerkoli’s bite hurts. I feel like I never want to be on stage again. I know I should listen to you, but I feel that I have lost my nerve. I have to find my courage again.’
The afternoon heat lay between and around them, muffling all thoughts except Koman’s admission of cowardice.
Aashaan sighed. ‘You will know when you are ready to wear the colours of kathakali again. Only you can decide that.’
In the twilight, all his uncertainties returned. What was he without his colours and crown? Who was he? Koman felt diminished, stripped of his own self and worth. Tears welled again. What nature of being
was he? How could a grown man weep? But he didn’t know what else to do. Then a little voice whimpered in his ear: you could end it all.
Koman huddled in his bed. He had played heroes and villains. He had made love and murdered. He had vanquished and been vanquished. He would give it all up. End it all. He would turn his back on this world which was unable to recognize his devotion to his art, or his worth.
And so Koman wiped away the colours of a veshakaaran and slipped into the role his father had hoped to cast him in. Dutiful son. Rambunctious young man. Ordinary being without any artistic pretensions.
He was tired and drained of all emotion. For the first time, he saw the value of being with people whose minds were contained by the practical needs of everyday. He let it comfort him.
Koman did everything his father wanted him to. He accompanied him to the rice mill and timber yard. He went with Mani to the talkies. He went with Babu to the rubber estate. ‘Tell me which one of these would suit you best and I’ll help you start a business of your own,’ Sethu offered. His pleasure at having retrieved his son from the morass of art was transparent.
‘Give me time,’ Koman pleaded. He had turned his back on the stage, but he couldn’t forsake what had consumed more than half his life.
‘There is no hurry. Take your time,’ Sethu said, afraid that any pressure would cause his firstborn to escape again.
So Koman took time. Stolen time that allowed him to quell the memory of failure which stared at him pointedly and whispered about him in hushed tones.
Stolen time that he shared with his brothers, seeking respite in what seemed to fill their lives. But there was no escaping what had seeped into his blood.
When he went with them on a hunting trip, Mani whispered, ‘You will have to tread very quietly.’
It was like the footwork of a padingiya padam: quiet, gentle steps that essayed the slowness of the song’s rhythm.
He saw Babu gesture to Mani with his chin. He watched Mani raise the gun. The shot rang through the air. They heard the sound
of hooves drumming the ground. Mani threw down the gun in disgust. ‘I missed the boar. What next?’
Babu was the scout. He knew the forest better than Mani did. ‘We have to wait till dawn. There is a meadow by a stream. If we start walking now, we’ll get there in an hour’s time. A herd of deer grazes there every day, at dawn.’
As they walked, cutting down vines that swung into their faces and bushes that brambled their skins, Koman knew again a sense of familiarity. I am Bheema in Kalyanasougandhikam, cutting a passage through the dense forest. He stopped abruptly. Why am I thinking of the world I have left behind?
Mani got his deer. As they turned to go, Koman stopped his brother. ‘May I try shooting?’
The brothers looked at each other in amusement. ‘This isn’t kathakali,’ Mani grinned. ‘You can’t pretend to shoot. You really have to pull the trigger.’
Koman smiled. ‘Believe me, I want to.’
Koman’s shot didn’t fetch them any game. But it filled him with a sense of power. First, there was the weight of the barrel as it pressed against his shoulder, the pointing of the muzzle, cocking the safety catch, pulling the trigger, the recoil of the shot …the explosion of the dawn. In the silence thereafter, fragmented only by the flapping wings of birds, Koman felt his insides swell. I am not just a veshakaaran. In me is the power to maim, kill and destroy. This is me.
Mani grinned. ‘Achan will be pleased that you actually wanted to hold a gun. I think he is scared that all this dancing has turned you into a woman.’
Babu smirked. ‘I think he would be even more pleased if you got a woman pregnant. All he does when you are not around is whine about kathakali stealing your masculinity away.’
Koman ran his palm along the side of the rifle. He looked up and said, ‘I don’t know about getting a woman pregnant, but I would like to fuck a woman all night long.’
The brothers stared. Then Mani chuckled. ‘If only Achan could hear you.’
Babu sat on a tree stump and scratched his chin. ‘I’ll tell you what. Let’s go to the plantation. I’ll get some toddy and have the
venison cooked. Mani, you get the girls, and we’ll eat and drink and fuck. What do you say?’
His brothers gave him a gift that night. A virgin. He had said he didn’t want a tired old whore. When he saw one, he was reminded of a demoness parading as a pretty young thing. Kathakali was full of them. But this girl was truly a beauty and a virgin.
‘Listen, I am not sure. Why add this to my burden of sins?’ Koman asked.
‘If you don’t, someone else will,’ Babu said. ‘At least with you she will know kindness.’
‘I am not in the mood for kindness. I told you I want to fuck. I’ll probably end up telling little stories to amuse her.’
‘Etta, you can do whatever you want. The girl will not complain. Fuck her or tell her stories. By the way, she is not a virgin in the real sense. I think she had a lover. The son of the family she worked for. They sent her away when they found out.’
Koman blinked. ‘So she isn’t a virgin after all.’
‘Ah.’ Mani stretched his legs. ‘She is a virgin whore.’
Babu burst into laughter. ‘I like the phrase. What next? Married whore, grandma whore.’
Mani smiled, pleased at his little joke. ‘Well, you can have those as well, but our virgin whore is special. Enjoy her, Etta, you’ll never find another like her!’
She waited for him in a room, her hair adorned with flowers and her eyes lined with kohl. She raised her eyes and met his gaze.
Koman didn’t know what to say. She smiled and said, ‘I saw you perform once. You were so gentle as Dharmaputran. When the man said you were here, I asked to meet you.’
Koman stared. What did the girl think she was here for?
‘Do you know why you are here?’ he asked abruptly.
She turned her head away. Then she said, ‘I do.’
She met his gaze again. Her eyes were large and fearless.
He pulled her towards him and began fondling her breasts. ‘What is your name?’ he asked.
His fingers pinched her flesh. ‘No, don’t tell me. I’ll call you Lalitha. That is who you will be for me. Lalitha.’
He bit her lower lip. ‘Lalitha, when I send for you, will you come
without fail? Tell me you will,’ he said, transferring his attentions to the curve of her waist.
She gasped.
Once again he was Bheema, beating a trail through her nerve ends, nudging open lips and limbs. Koman razed Lalitha’s body till he was too tired to think.
When she rose and he heard the tinkle of her anklets, he felt a pang. It was a sound that had echoed his every step.
‘Don’t wear your anklets the next time,’ he said.
‘Will there be a next time?’ she asked.
He watched her plait her hair. ‘Where are you going?’ he asked, reaching for her wrist.
Thunder growled. Lightning tore the sky. She gasped. He liked that. He liked to hear her indrawn breath. She did it easily enough, and naturally. When his mouth sucked on her breast, when his toes caressed the back of her knees, when he drew her to him by her hair, when he entered her with a forceful thrust, she gasped as if she had never known anything like it before. He liked that. Lalitha, my Lalitha, he thought.
Koman was to discover that the past is never left behind. One night, when he lit a match, the whiff of sulphur rode up his nostrils. For a moment, the familiar stench of the mannola, the colours he had worn, filled his senses.
Another time, a peacock feather reminded him of the crown he wore as Krishna.
Is there no escaping, he asked himself.
One day he knew.
For twelve years his life had been lived according to a regimen laid down by the institute. There was no room for excess or time to laze. Now there was no clock to dictate his movements or his day.
He ate, slept, drank and fucked when he felt like it. His bowels rebelled. He felt his faeces harden and crouch in his rectal passage. He squatted for hours over the toilet, willing it to emerge and reduce his misery. He clenched his jaw and, holding his breath, pushed. As the stool emerged, he knew a sense of shame.
The life force that had once given meaning to the navarasas, the breath that had helped him summon the nine aspects of being, was
this what he had reduced it to? Eight years of training, four years of studying and performing, only so he could move his bowels. Twelve years of work just so he could shit, he thought.
The next morning Koman went back.
Aashaan was in his room. ‘Are you visiting or have you returned?’
Koman took a deep breath. ‘I am back,’ he said.
‘In which case, I would like you to go to Madras. A dance school there has asked for a senior aashaan. The exposure will do you good,’ Aashaan said.