Dialogue With the Dead

(My daughter-in-law, a more active member of OS.ME, said she was receiving a spate of complaints from her friends and admirers in the group as to why they see no more of my articles. I was in fact busy with selling the house which I did at last. And I shall be ‘back in action’ soon. Till then, here is one from my archives.)

Our ancestral home had remained uninhabited for years, so we decided to sell it. We had to empty the household items from the attic before the house changed hands.

Right from childhood, my two elder brothers had deliberately appended a perfectionist tag to me, more to pass on all nuisance-value jobs. Here too I was asked to go from Delhi to Palakkad, Kerala, and take charge.

Chudamani, my lone childhood friend who firmly stayed rooted to the village in the wake of mass exodus to cities, accompanied me to our house. Desolate and dilapidated, the home that had ungrudgingly accommodated 15 to 20 members, now lay on its last legs braving the weather hoping someone will still re-adopt it. 

My friend chose to attend to the ground floor. I headed upstairs, breaking the intricately woven cobwebs. The table and chair that stood by me in my school days were still there. I placed the chair on top of the table and just managed to climb.

The attic was poorly lit with twilight aiding amply to darkness. I felt the dust-ridden items one by one, unfettered by bats, lizards, centipedes, and scorpions around. First, I chanced upon the set of ten king-size Tanjore paintings (kept one on top of the other upside down so that the glasses were safe). I knew they were embossed with gold. A solid few lakhs, to begin with, I rejoiced.

Still groping, I touched a large utensil with ‘ears’ to hold by. It was used in the bathroom for the maid to fill water from the well for all of us to bathe. Suddenly my grandfather, attired in traditional pancha-gachham and uttareeyam, bright vibhooti on forehead, presented himself from out of the utensil, smiling at me. My father wasn’t even married when he passed away. So, when he addressed me, “So you are Sundaram, aren’t you, my child,” I was both stuck with fear and drawn in by his affection. “Yes, I am. And from the photo I have seen of you at home, you are my grandpa,  Kunjanna Thatha, aren’t you?” “Yes, I am my child. I used regularly this and a host of other utensils that you see around here for feeding the poor until, in your father’s time this particular one found its way to the bathroom. Promise me you will donate all these utensils to the village President for mass-feeding during festivals.” “I shall, Thatha,” I reassured him. He vanished into the thin air.

With pimple-like sweat all over my forehead, I looked up through the solitary glass-tile on the roof for light. The branches of the mango tree above were dancing gently to the late evening breeze. As I tried to enjoy more of it, I saw Madhavan Kutty, the handyman of the village sitting on a branch plucking mangoes. Every season he plucked from all the five trees at our backyard. In return Paatti gave him a basketful of mangoes and a four-anna coin. He never grumbled, but he was hard-pressed for money.

His eyes fell on me casually. Instead of extending the customary smile at meeting someone after ages, he stared at me, followed by a volcanic eruption. “Did you know why I had to commit suicide, Sundaram?” I was ill at ease at his calling me by name. I wished he didn’t recognize me. But he did. “But you are alive, plucking mangoes,” I retorted. “No, I am his ghost. You villagers gave me a raw deal for my work, and I could hardly subsist, let alone get married. That is why I had to take that extreme step.” 

“Sorry friend, I didn’t know it. You know I have been away for many years. Anyway, tell me what I can do for you,” I asked him off-guard, not realizing that there is very little I could do to a dead.  “I have borrowed several times from your grandmother koduval, vettu kathi, spade, axe, the entwined rope for climbing the coconut tree, the multi-hooked trap to dig out kodams from the well-bed. Look around the attic. You might stumble on them. Hand those over to the President of the Grama Samooham, and instruct him to…No, he might change his mind and keep them for the Samooham. Better still, give them to Chudamani and ask him to donate these to Velu who visits the village regularly looking for odd jobs. He can hardly afford to buy these.” “I shall, Sir,” I added the salutation unwittingly. But then they say the dead are to be treated with reverence.

Enough of it. The sweat is no longer confined to face – it is from top to toe. Let me get down; let the buyer of the house take it all, I said to myself, and headed down but found the chair missing, this time. “Oh my God, what elemental force is loitering around here? Is it the neglect of daily puja in the house for years that is causing this?”

No sooner did I utter the word puja than I heard the drumbeat of Chendai from beyond our backyard. It was Friday, and the time 7. I guessed Ponnu Thai, the midget, maidservant for many houses in the morning, and an ardent Devi devotee otherwise, is still kicking and continuing with her Friday pujas. Yes, as children, we dreaded most Friday evenings with the drumbeat, sound of the oracle wielding his sword, and occasional screams.

With a full-blown bright red sindhoor, Ponnu Thai confronted me, fully in trance and wielding the oracle-sword.  She smeared vibhooti on me and asked me how on earth could I think of selling the house. I clarified that it was not mine; our maternal uncles owned them. “You…. telling me?’ she asked me, a bit offended. I pacified her saying that it would in all probability be sold to someone from within the village. “Well that is somewhat heartening,” she said a little pleased, and asked me to continue the good work I was doing. I reassured her I would. I am still figuring out what that is.

Hardly had I got over another bout when I saw a chair all by itself climbing its way up the stairs in slow motion. This terrified me to the hilt till I saw Chudamani’s head underneath – struggling to balance the chair. “Where did you take the chair?” I asked him rather in desperation.  “I wanted to check the small cellar in the kitchen store-room. The opening was at four feet high. Why? Anything happened?” he asked. “No nothing, just like that,” I said, trying to sound normal. With utmost care, together we brought down the ten Tanjore paintings and took them to his house. On checking them we found all the gold pieces having been removed, and the paintings staring at us toothless, and in minimal attire.

I shared disposal instructions with Chudamani exactly the way I received from ‘above’, but delivered them as though my own, to sound large-hearted. ‘Just in case the new owner unearths something more, please feel free to donate it as well,” I added, to make it fool-proof.