Nagesha was replacing the rusted washer of a faucet at Cauvery Silk Emporium when he heard the news of Aaya’s death.
“Nagesha, idiya kano? Are you there?” Achuth mama’s voice seeped out of the Nokia handset.
“Huu huu mama, bande. Yes yes, uncle, I’m on my way” he responded while pressing the red button that ended the calls.
The water outlet of the faucet was staring at him. Its threading, diseased with rust. Nagesha opened his aluminium toolbox, plucked some cotton from his roll, and kneaded it into a little ball. Then with the care of a q-tip introduced into the earhole, he wiped that metallic mouth. As bits of rusted iron got trapped in that network of fibre, there was a knock on the door.
“Aitha Nagesha? Customers are waiting,” said Krishnappa, the owner.
Nagesha stopped cleaning the tap, as though awoken from a dream, and stood up. “I’ll be right back,” he said to Krishnappa and left.
“Nagesha! Yey where are you going?! Nagesha!!” yelled Krishnappa. “Thoo, always the same story with this guy!”
The first thing he did was go to Muni wines. He bought two quarters of Hercules rum. “Kelo Nagesha, listen, two days ago you fixed the kitchen tap, now it’s already leaking,” Ravi, the barkeep said withholding his rum. “I’ll fix it Ravi, have faith man, nambke irli,” Nagesha uttered his practised catchphrase, and with those reassuring words gently coaxed the bottles from Ravi.
He drank on the way, and by the time he crossed the Wadiyar Golf Club he’d begun staggering. He had wanted to be a golfer once, back when he was a child of nine and worked as a ball boy there. But his fascination with nuts and spanners came back to him after he failed his 10th standard. He played with the tools in the old Aluminium box at his house. Trying to bend the claw and ring spanners to his will, until the day he did. And that’s how he became the plumber of the small town that was born only because they needed a place to make bricks for building the Mysore Palace.
The smell of fresh dung hit his nose as he crossed the entrance to the Mysore Zoo. To which animal it belonged was difficult to tell. A group of government school children in yellow uniforms were chattering away as their two teachers kept watch. A third teacher was at the ticket counter, negotiating a cheaper deal.
Nagesha turned onto Arunachalam street and saw a blue tempo setting up a pandal. “Yenna mama idu? What’s this mama?” he slurred from outside Achuth mama’s door.
Achuth mama was combing his hair into a clean crop in front of his pink plastic mirror. “What do you mean?” he asked without turning his head. “I said, what do you mean?” He repeated himself before turning to see that Nagesha was frozen, staring at Aaya’s body. Her forehead was painted grey with vibhuti.
Back when memory was still learning to hold itself, a tiny Nagesha was drawn towards that ashy smell. It led to a small musty room in the corner of their house. Inside, Aaya lay asleep and the scent of vibhuti emanated from her like she was a flower. Nagesha inhaled with closed eyes, but once fully inside, he felt uneasy. Everywhere he looked, there was only Chamundi and Mahishasura. On her clock, her cloth bag, even items that seemed useless like printed matchboxes, cut-outs from plastic rice bags. Everywhere the many-armed goddess astride a lion, donning a blood-red saree. Her eyes wide, and her foremost arms thrusting a trident into the dark-skinned man-creature, muscular, moustached, but his eyes fearful, his thigh being torn into by the lion’s claws. His Vahana, the buffalo, lay beheaded beneath his feet.
When Nagesha picked up the rice bag from Sri Chamundi Rice Traders, Aaya awoke and said, “Akasha? Is that you?”
The guttural bellow of a passer-by buffalo now awoke him from that reverie. “Mama this is not right,” he said. Achuth mama softened at seeing Nagesha like this and put a hand on his shoulder, “That’s true pa, but what can we do? We mustn’t blame ourselves, we didn’t do anything, it’s just her time has come.”
Nagesha brushed his hand away, “Not that mama! This funeral business. It’s not right! She needs to be buried there,” he said, pointing towards the majestic Chamundi Betta. Achuth mama covered his nose in disgust, “Today also you’re drunk, shameless fellow. Don’t act childish, be useful for once in your life and put a helping hand in sending her off. I don’t want to hear any of that hill garbage today! Understand?”
His mama’s words landed like a slap. His mind bubbled with the anger of a cobra but his language failed him. He turned around and sat down on the red oxide steps outside the house. In the middle of those steps was a small slide. Built to help load and unload bricks easily.
Many years after that encounter in the room, while playing on that slide he had asked his Aaya, “Why do you like Mahisha so much? Everybody says he’s a demon.” It was a Sunday in August, and she, as usual, sat oiling her silver hair in the sun. Nagesha had forgotten his Aaya’s deaf ears in the excitement of his scandalous question. Her not hearing him the first time, gave him the courage to go and shout it in her ear again.
Aaya let out her firecracker laugh when she heard, a laugh which always began and ended with a single ‘ha.’
“If everybody hates the demon, we must love him more no kanda? Or else it will be all out of balance alva? Nowadays there are many who call him demon, but once he was king of all this land.”
“NIJJA? REALLY?” asked Nagesha.
“Ai! Nijja kano! Mysooru hesar-alle ide nodu. Sumsumne itbidtara,” she said, “Yes really my darling! Mysore itself is named after him, will they name a land after some nobody?”
Nagesha nodded.
“Come here, I’ll tell you the delicious story of Mahisha’s kingdom!” she beckoned him with her wrinkly fingers.
Nagesha shook his head, he knew it was a trap. But Aaya's coaxing wore him down. When he went near her, she grabbed him, and began oiling his face.
“Bidu!! Aaya! Enne veedu! Leave me!” he wriggled like a cockroach.
But Aaya’s leopard grip was too strong. “THIS IS WHY I DON’T COME NEAR YOU!” he shouted. As though to mock him, she hugged him to her breasts.
“Bejaar madkondbeda kanda, don’t be disheartened my love,” she pleaded with him, “Without the oil, how will you get muscular like Mahishasura?”
Her sweet pleading loosened his stiff body. “Akasha, will you do me a kindness?”
“Huh first you call me by my correct name,” he mumbled. She had only ever seen his name uttered. So the Na had transformed to Aa in her mouth.
She continued not having heard him, “Will you bury me next to him on the hill when I die? It is my only wish.”
Nagesha nodded.
“You’re still here?” said Achuth mama while buttoning his checked shirt.
“I was just catching my breath,” Nagesha replied.
“Good good, you should, don’t let others catch it, they may not survive,” Achuth mama said in jest.
Nagesha smiled. If he’d heard Achuth mama he may have laughed but he was looking at the hibiscus planted at Mahishasura’s head. Unlike other houses, where Chamundeshwari would receive the hibiscus, Aaya always tucked in the flower at the bottom of the photograph. Even while doing her arati she circled the impure demon and not the pure goddess. Nagesha smiled at his Aaya’s stubbornness. The last hibiscus for Mahisha lay there, tucked comfortably, like a squirrel.
“Where are you headed to mama?” Nagesha asked.
“To the ice box guy. Do you want to come?” asked Achuth mama.
“No, I think I need to catch my breath some more.”
But just as he heard mama’s Splendour take a cut at the Zoo junction, the hibiscus plopped to the floor. When this happened Nagesha walked into the empty hall as though possessed. He couldn’t let his Aaya go like this. When he picked up her body he paused for a moment to check if he had actually picked everything up — her body had become light; time had emaciated so much of her that it felt like she died in the middle of reverting to her infant self.
And she was stiff. He held her hips tight on his shoulder. Her cold passed through the green cotton saree. He bit his lip for strength and headed towards Chamundi Betta.
He made his way through the Uttanhalli road on the southern side. A route not many took for fear of leopards. He’d reached the three hundredth step when he couldn’t go on any longer. “Aaya, ore-oru nimut-u. Just give me a minute,” he said and put her down. “I must say though Ajji, you were so light when I first carried you, now you seem to weigh as much as two men. Whatever did you eat!'' he burst out laughing.
He lay down facing the sky, with his Aaya next to him. The dusk had almost given way to darkness. The gurgles of the sky threatened rain. Nagesha yawned. The desire to sleep tugged at him like a baby.
His mind was ringing with Achuth mama’s words when he fell asleep:
“Why are you so hellbent on spoiling our name before dying,” he had asked Aaya the day the priests of the Chamundi temple came to warn him. If the old woman continues spewing such nonsense, they will ban Achuth mama and his lineage from ever entering the temple. The deaf woman could only recognise anger, so she quietly went about preparing dinner for herself: Milk and rice. “I’m talking to you kelavi, you hag!” he raised his voice.
“Mama, why are you simply shouting at Aaya?” Nagesha broke in.
“Adi serrupale! Kuduk sule magne, I’ll skin you if you talk, you drunken son of a whore! You’re the reason she sits on everyone’s head,” he hissed. “Why do you have to talk about burying her with Mahishasura, Myrasura and all that?”
Aaya, not knowing what was happening, only said, “Leave it, leave it, I’ll talk to him.”
Achuth mama gave one slap on her head, “Pade, witch.”
Nagesha let out a squeal of anger, and received the second slap. “Thicka, mokka yella muchkond side-al ninthko, shut your ass, and your face and stand on that corner,” he pointed towards the kitchen.
“Any decent woman would’ve passed away by now, how much more will you make me work for this house?” he announced before leaving.
That night while laying still, unable to sleep in her cot, Aaya said, “Akasha, don’t worry about me, you sleep.”
“You also,” Nagesha whispered. He tried to clear his mind, Krishnappa from Cauvery Silk Emporium had called him first thing in the morning for a small job. I will finish that and talk to mama, he can’t behave like this with Aaya, he thought. When he got the phone call from mama the next day, he pined to relive the night before, this time he would’ve shouted his last words to her.
His sleep was broken by something slimy falling on his face.
“Amma!” he exclaimed when he awoke.
A huge buffalo was standing over Aaya, its hooves caging her body on either side. Its drool had been drawing a rangoli on Nagesha’s face when he awoke. He was still when the buffalo licked his face, coaxing him out of sleep. Buffaloes were the cows of Ittege Gudu, the real ancestors of this land. But this one had a face like it needed to be here.
“You scared me!” Nagesha yelled at the animal. “Yen nin hesaru? What’s your name?”
The buffalo let out a large breath with its nostrils flaring. Its huge horns stood like two black crescent moons.
“Seri, seri, bedu, leave it,” he added jokingly. The buffalo replied with a nudge to Aaya’s body.
“Nam Ajji adu,” he explained. But the buffalo continued nudging her with its snout as though trying to scoop her up. Nagesha saw it with wonder for a moment and looked at the animal as though asking it, “are you doing what I think you’re doing?” When the animal continued trying, he surrendered to instinct and helped Aaya’s body onto the buffalo’s back. It was still stiff and bent the wrong way. “Aaya enaku kosoro konjo…” he cooed in Tamil. His sweet pleading loosened her body, and it sat snugly on the buffalo’s back. Before Nagesha could even lift a finger to direct the animal, it had begun its trek up.
The growl of engines from the other side of the hill fell on Nagesha’s ears when they’d reached the top. He was sweating, the beads from labour had begun to mix with those of fear. He knew what was coming.
A lightning bolt struck the sky as they walked towards the temple, in its illumination, they saw Mahishasura’s statue, ten feet tall, a sword in one arm and a cobra in the other. Nagesha stood there like a statue himself, until he finally said, “I’ve brought my Aaya, she wants to be with you from now on.”
The sky thundered. The roar of the engines grew closer, and Nagesha fell to his knees and felt the ground. He touched the earth with the grace of a plumber, trying to find a patch of land he could dig into. He pined for his aluminium box that lay alone in the silk emporium’s toilet, if only you were here!
He moved about tapping the ground frantically, until, right behind the statue the land sounded just right — like a muffled heartbeat. He began digging, and the buffalo quietly stood guard beside him.
As though to ease his effort, the rain came all at once. And then, embarrassed at itself, reduced to a helpful drizzle. The wet allowed his hands to dig deeper and faster.
When Achuth mama and the seven men sent by the temple reached the top, Nagesha stood drenched. His hands looked like he had disembowelled the earth. Achuth mama slapped him several times but Nagesha didn’t say anything. He didn’t even laugh.
“Bevarsi sule magne! Nan janma brashta madbit allo! You bastard son of a whore! You’ve corrupted my birth!” Achuth mama pushed him down the hill. Biting his lip in rage, he felt a triumph, as though he’d finally reached that unreachable spot of itch on his back.
Nagesha’s roll down the hill was broken by a hibiscus bush. Helpless, and cradled in it, he watched as they tried to search for the site of burial. That’s when the rain crescendoed, forcing the men to take cover in the forest floor. One of them noticed Nagesha sprawled in the bush like a giant cockroach. “There he is!” He yelled and the men ran to him.
After the first swing of the stick, Nagesha didn’t feel any pain. It was almost amusing to him. To see these familiar faces disfigured by rage. The pata-pata of their sticks landing on him matched the pata-pata of the rain. As he lay there waiting to die, he saw a lightning strike spread slowly in the sky. And then all at once there was a blinding white — the hill shook in its thunder.
He awoke to the pleasing scent of vibhuti and he opened his eyes to the red of a freshly bloomed hibiscus. Nagesha groaned, ‘However, did you survive that rain?’ he said to the flower as he struggled out of the shrub.
There was nobody at the hilltop despite the daylight. Nagesha hurried to see if they found Aaya. He searched the ground behind the Mahishasura statue. He searched and searched but the earth looked undisturbed. Had it all been some drunken dream?
At that moment he felt something nudge his back. It was a stray buffalo grazing on the hill. “How did you get here?” he asked. The animal let out a large breath while chewing the cud. He felt like he’d seen it somewhere, but he couldn’t remember where. “Yen nin hesaru?” he asked, placing a gentle hand on its face, the buffalo reciprocated with a lick. A lick that sent a great pain coursing through both his arms. His face contorted into a grimace. He couldn’t even move his arms, it felt as though he had accomplished some great thing with them, as though he’d disembowelled the earth.
Pranava is a teacher-writer at St Joseph’s University, Bangalore. Their love for listening to stories began with their grandmother’s tales about family betrayals. Their love for telling stories began with their madam’s English classes. In the city, you may find them walking about with a slightly maniacal smile, eavesdropping on other people’s conversations — hoping to steal a line or two for a story. They write irregularly on psychmatteru.wordpress.com.