The death became public when Boju walked to the flowering mango tree
and fired two shots, choosing his father's favourite gun from among
the twelve on the gun-rack. Swift-footed Yeravas were already out of
the gate and across the ramp to the opposite side of the stream.
"Yajamana! It's Madaiah Yajamana!"
Villagers snaked in through the gate like disciplined pilgrims: women
in white, men in their best sober clothes. The dead man wasn't just
anyone; he had married Cheppudira Ponnappa Dewan's daughter and had
received the title of Rao Bahadur for his loyalty. Such solidity of
background. He deserved a splendid funeral and the family could afford
it.
The sons laid Madaiah on a stone slab near the well, peeled off his
dirt-encrusted clothes and washed away the accretions of eleven years
of decay. Neighbours, relatives and prompters were at hand.
"Bathe him in scalding water!"
"Sit him up! Sit him up!"
"The sovereign on the forehead!"
"The mirror, where's the hand-mirror?"
They dressed him like a bridegroom in kupya chale, with the peeche
kathi at his waist, covered his wispy hair with the gold-lined turban
and put a mirror in his hand. They stuck a gold sovereign on his
forehead and sat him up in the front room because the Kaleyanda men
never take anything lying down. The round table was pushed to a corner
to make place for more people. The sons changed into white dhotis,
covered their bare chests with white cloth and stood at the door,
stupefied by the suddenness of death.
Mourners kept coming; they leaned on the round table, sat on it,
toppled furniture and filled every inch of space, like stacked linen.
Such discomfort was borne with fortitude that was an expression of
their caring. They came all day to touch the feet of the dead man and
to drop a rupee coin in the brass plate at his feet; they would stay
till the body was cremated.
Chambavva kept vigil near the body in widow's white, with the shoulder
cloth knotted in front, greying hair loosened, denuded of chains,
earrings and her tiger-claw brooch. Her soft skin was unused to the
roughness of the reed mat on which she sat but her grief overshadowed
physical discomfort. Her status had slipped from that of wife to
widow. Even a decaying husband was better than no husband.
True, the Kodavas treated their women better than most but a widow was
a symbol of grief. Though her husband had ceased to exist for God
knows how long, his physical death left a vacuum. He looked so fresh
and youthful now, after the cleaning. Chambavva's mind wandered back
to the days of his hook-nosed handsomeness. She remembered the
strength of his arms, the eagerness in his stride and the precise
confidence of his limbs and she bent her head so as to avoid glances
of pity from the women who pressed around her like doves of peace.
Near Chambavva stood Nanji, pale and prominent in her advanced
pregnancy. She rearranged garlands, relit the incense sticks, served
black coffee with puttoo to the guests, and tried bravely to hide her
sorrow.
Nanji was the saddest person at the funeral. She did not mourn the
death of her father-in-law which had been coming a long time. It did
not sadden her any more than the felling of a rotting athi tree or a
withering coffee bush. Her tears were for the splendid diamond ring
that Madaiah used as his instrument of suicide. After slitting his
gullet lengthwise and causing him to vomit a chamberpot full of blood,
it had passed slyly into the stomach and would still be there, in his
fermenting gastric juices. Neither Baliyanna or Boju or any of the
Kaleyanda men thought of the possibility of rescuing the ring. The
diamond, big and perfect, was a family heirloom that should rightfully
have passed to her husband. Now it was irrevocably lost.
The moronic stupidity of men who could not think clearly in moments of
grief! It could easily have been removed. Had she not once, when
slitting the belly of a chicken, found a gold sovereign with the royal
insignia of Queen Victoria lying face down amidst undigested grains of
rice? Had she not washed and rubbed and scrubbed it and added it to
the treasures that she kept in a red satin purse in the bottom drawer
of her wooden chest? Nanji itched for action but any suggestion from
her could easily be misconstrued. So she submerged her grief in the
endlessness of her duties, ensuring that everyone had eaten and
pausing to feed the little son who slept in a cradle in the bedroom.
There was no single person at the funeral to direct the course of
events; it was directed by several men and women reputed to 'know'
these things. The rituals went on till four in the afternoon when ten
young men of the village dressed in black kupya-chale appeared, with
their guns ready for the funeral honours. Baliyanna, Boju and four
cousins carried the body on a bamboo chair to the half-acre clearing
that was reserved for family cremations, where one dead son had
already preceded the father. Fresh stacks of wood had been readied for
the cremation. Three times they carried the body around the pyre;
Chambavva followed, with a cracked mud pot on her head, water
trickling down over her face. The cracked pot symbolised the
dihiscence of her married life. Nanji walked behind Chambavva,
throwing rice into the unlit pyre. When the Rao Bahadur had been
mounted on his final perch, the sons, wife and relatives touched his
lips with wet tulsi leaves in a final act of farewell; Boju removed
the silver sheathed dagger from his dead father's waist and Chambavva
broke her bangles over the body; the ten young men lined up before the
pyre, raised their guns in a slow graceful arc and fired twice.
Baliyanna lit the pyre.
For eleven days Chambavva did not comb her hair or sleep on her bed;
along with the family she abstained from meat, milk and spices and
each day at noon she offered food, first to the spirit of her dead
husband and then to the crows. With Nanji, she walked to the backyard
with the food wrapped in banana leaves, laid it near the well and
clapping her hands, called: "Ka! Ka! Ka!" The crows – death meant
little to these realists who only believed in survival – were happy to
feast on the food. The crows enjoying the food meant that the dead
person too was satisfied. Chambavva did it for eleven days until the
soul of her husband joined that of his ancestors and had no further
need of worldly victuals.
At the eleventh-day ceremony a hundred guests were fed besides the
Yeravas, the workers on the estate and a multitude of wanderers,
beggars and derelicts. Then came the pilgrimage to Talakaveri on
Brahmagiri hill, where the family scattered the ashes in the river. In
the evening when they came home, they ended their abstinence by eating
thaliya puttoo with chicken and drinking coffee with milk. Only
Chambavva the widow would henceforth wear white and no other colour.
Early next day Baliyanna sitting in his father's study to sort out
urgent matters of the estate, saw the cream-coloured envelope
addressed to his father. It had arrived from England on the day of
the suicide and Nanji, who had put it there, did not for a moment
think that anything could be important enough to intrude on the
immediate tragedy.
So it stayed there, leaning on a jar of water until Baliyanna slit
open the envelope and read the three-page letter. He bellowed with
rage and Nanji, cleaning sardines in the kitchen, wiped her hands on
her sari and rushed to the study.
"What is it?"
A photograph slipped from between the pages of the letter and fell to
the floor. Nanji picked it up and saw the cause of Baliyanna's rage.
Appachu, the star son of Madaiah and in England studying for the bar
stood with his arm around a white woman. "He's married an English
whore!" cried Baliyanna. He grabbed the photograph, tore it to shreds
and threw it into the chamber pot that had served his father right
until his death. "Thu!"
Appachu had passed his law examination with honours and married one
Marjorie Hicks who was neither English, nor a whore. She was a fair
complexioned, unfortunately plain-looking Eurasian, the daughter of an
undertaker from Tooting Bec. In the same letter, Appachu conveyed the
tragic news that Machu, the other brother studying medicine at Charing
Cross Hospital in London had gone on a weekend spree to Torquay and
drowned while swimming.
Machu's death did not shock so much because death, when it is an
accident, is unavoidable. But one could certainly think before jumping
into marriage with a half-caste. "He could have got the loveliest of
Kodava girls for the asking!" Baliyanna shouted.
Appachu had further committed the unforgivable sin of disclosing both
catastrophes in one letter. Had the Rao Bahadur read it, he would have
had monumental reasons for suicide. His death now became a greater
misfortune because effect preceded the cause; the suicide remained a
futile act, without reasoned justification, which could have given it
some valour.
The family was branded by three distinct tragedies. People talked.
"There will be no escaping the anger of our ancestors." "Kodagu will
be punished."
The rains were held back that year. For months on end the river Kaveri
ran dry and when the rains finally came, it was time for Kailpodh when
Kodavas worship their weapons and too late for the paddy and coffee.
The drought affected the economy of Kodagu for several years, and the
burden of guilt was borne by the family of the Rao Bahadur.
