chandrakant kaluram mhatre nine€¦ · chandrakant kaluram mhatre 2 draining days when she would...

Chandrakant Kaluram Mhatre

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NINE A Short Story Collection


RUNAAL PUBLICATIONS

Navi Mumbai

None of the characters in this book are fictional and every resemblance to

persons/places/events is deliberately intentional.

COVER PHOTOGRAPH


COVER DESIGN

Nancy Jacob


Copyright © 2015 Chandrakant Kaluram

Mhatre

All rights reserved.

ISBN-13: 978-1517774714

ISBN-10: 1517774713

To

G A Kulkarni

whose pen turned prose into poetry

and short story into epic

CONTENTS

1 In the Howling Storm 1

2 An Element of Blank 9

3 If I Leave All for Thee 15

4 The Fathoms They Abide 20

5 Hope Is the Thing with Feathers 29

6 Thus Spake the Silences 39

7 I Will Survive 46

8 Even if Silences Deafen 51

9 Upon the First Day of Monsoon 61

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This book wouldn’t have been if it were not for all the women who taught me a thing or two

on each turn of my otherwise insignificant life.

THIS PREVIEW WAS CREATED FOR

PROMOTIONAL PURPOSES ONLY,

HENCE IT MAY DIFFER FROM THE

ORIGINAL BOOK!

PROMOTIONAL COPY! NOT FOR

SALE!!

1

IN THE HOWLING STORM

It was not even five and it had already grown dark. The chill had overtaken whatever warmth the sun

had generated in its short run and Ranjana could feel her bones shrinking inside her thanks to the cold winds. Sitting on the doorsteps, watching the sun set behind the trees that would chirp in a clamorous clangour was her favourite pastime at the end of her long tiring days. After her return home from fishing in the wetlands and collecting firewood in the marshes, she would throw the firewood bundle - much larger than her own frame - in the courtyard and sit there listening to that chirping until it ceased altogether. She would linger there much longer, even after dark, listening to the crickets, if it were those


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draining days when she would return from working as a daily wage labourer on some construction site in her village or the nearby ones. The chirp would seem to drown her fatigue and she would feel her energies revived enough to go inside and help her mother to fix dinner and other household evening chores. Today, she was exhausted much more than any other day, with every single drop of energy having drained from her body; but to her dismay, the trees in the courtyard had gone utterly speechless today. Instead of the usual chirp, she could hear faint hooting that was slowly but surely increasing in its sonority as the dark engulfed the green foliage of the trees.

Despite being the youngest of the three children, and the only daughter, Ranjana’s childhood was cut short, when she had to begin wading through the wetlands for mudskippers, small crabs, sea snails and such other ‘easy’ offerings of the mudflats that lined her village. Her gatherings would fix the lunches and dinners of her family of which every member toiled hard to make ends meet. Even when she had become really good at sticking her thumb inside the gills of the ever-mobile mudskippers and ripping apart the pincers of the crooked crabs, it would take her hours to manage a catch sufficient for the entire family; but the glowing appreciations for her catch at the time of meals, would bring broad smile on Ranjana’s face and make her forget her pangs for missing school. The thought that she was an earning

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hand just like her much older brothers would make her flat chest swell with pride. By the time she turned fourteen, she was already accompanying her mother as a construction labourer. And even after her mother lost her leg in one of the innumerable accidents at the construction site and was left useless for such works, Ranjana had to continue working there. In fact, now she had to even make up for the loan that their contractor had offered for her mother’s treatments.

“Ranje, come inside,” her mother called out, “It’s not good in your condition to sit in the cold, child! Come inside.”

“Yes, mother,” she replied but did not make any attempts to move from the doorsteps. Her sister-in-law was helping her mother with the chores, so Ranjana felt no compulsion to rush inside at her call. She knew the dinner was well taken care of and she would have nothing to do inside but sit there staring at the fuming mud-stove.

Her eldest brother had got married this summer, just one month after Ranjana had turned sixteen. The arrival of her sister-in-law in the family had relieved Ranjana of the household chores. This meant at least in the evening she didn’t have to toil now. After years, she found little time to spare for herself. But this spare time was not going easy on her at all. Only after two months of her brother’s


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wedding, Ranjana had got her periods and her newly awakened body was making her life miserable than ever. Throughout the day, being busy with the work, she somehow neglected the baffling and overwhelming changes that her body would undergo at times; but as the evening would approach, her restlessness would be palpable to others and their queries would only add to her miseries. Worst were the nights! With six people crammed in their tiny house, turning sides was impossible without waking up the next person. The newly-weds were separated from the rest of the family only by an old sari hanging horizontally from the low roof. Ranjana had to sleep on the other side of this partition whose existence hardly made any difference, despite the pitch dark house. Within a week or two, she had begun stuffing her ears thick with cotton before going to bed; although she could still distinctly hear the soft rustling of the bodies and the restrained moans. And then she would find blood rushing menacingly between her thighs. She would try to press them close real hard, but to no avail. She couldn’t stop it. Slowly that rush would reach her entire body and it would begin to burn, only to increase in intensity as long, dragging moments passed by. Ranjana would remain burning through the night, long after the sari-partition would stand completely motionless.

Hardly half an hour had gone by after the sunset, but the evening had already grown into

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night. The street lamps were doing their best to highlight the perfect blackness of the dark. Tungsten lights and kerosene lamps from distance were managing to puncture a few timid holes in that thick curtain of the dark. Gradually, these holes began to look like burning eyes staring at her and a shiver went down Ranjana’s body. She remembered such shivers going down her spine, when she would find men at work staring at each of her movements. Their eyes would follow her till she would disappear from their sight. This unsettled and unnerved her in the beginning. She felt those stares burning holes in her body. She tried her best to avoid them. But to her surprise, she soon started liking being stared at. Her mind remonstrated against this, but her body prevailed. With each stare, the ring of the moans across the sari-partition would grow stronger in her ears and her blood would rush hundred times stronger than ever. Such would be this burning rush that soon her mind too got swept off by it and she found herself swirling in that howling storm.

Ranjana slowly got up, holding on to the doorframe and reached for her packet of masheri, tucked carefully between the tiles of the roof. She took out a handsome helping of the burnt tobacco powder on her hand and tucked the packet back into the roof. With one hand occupied with masheri,she found it very difficult to sit down but managed somehow holding on to the creaking door. Matching the


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rhythms of the hooting to which she had got accustomed by now, her finger began to move in her mouth. It was one of the women at work who had introduced Ranjana to this black magic. The older woman had somehow guessed the reason behind Ranjana’s new-found restlessness and had offered her masheri as a remedy. To Ranjana’s delight, it really worked. Whenever her body would begin burning, she had to just stuff her mouth with that dark thing and soon the burning would become much bearable, and even enjoyable. With masheri in her mouth, the scorching stares became much more pleasing now. Soon enough, Ranjana stopped borrowing it from her co-workers and began buying her own packets of masheri which became her constant and compassionate companion.

That evening, too, she had just finished her final helping of masheri of the day; for then she would not dare to carry it at home. The helping had become rather too strong, it seemed. Her head was spinning and her legs were not as confident of her steps as she would have liked them to be. That evening was so different from today’s. Despite being past seven, the sky was still lit. It was her weekly pay day. She tried to compose herself and went to take her wages. She was the last to reach. After all the workers were paid, the contractor told Ranjana that he wanted to take an account of her loan that day. He began his calculations and seemed to take ages to reach any

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conclusion. One by one, all of Ranjana’s companions left; but her mind was more occupied with the deduction that the contractor would make to her wages and did not bother about being left alone with that man. Soon he finished his calculations and, with an elongated smile, told her that he would not be making any deductions to her wages that week. Ranjana began thanking him profusely, when he got up and pulled her closer to him, pressing her hard against his body. She tried to scream, but her tongue did not move. She tried to push him away, but her hands did not move. She tried to run away, but her legs did not move. Her own body opposed her and, without even a show of struggle, surrendered to his pleadings. After that, it became a daily ritual, as he would make her stay back every evening after the work. And soon he didn’t even need to ask her stay back. She would be there waiting for his rough hands to claim her body.

Throughout yesternight, her mother and sister-in-law had struggled to get rid of the throbbing growth inside her. By the morning, when finally they succeeded, it was difficult to tell which of the three women was more exhausted- physically and emotionally too. The men of the family had to spend the night in the courtyard braving the ever increasing cold outside and the stifled cries from inside the house. Ranjana could not recall when she first began using masheri at home but presently with her eldest brother standing in front of her,


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she stopped moving her finger and took it out from her mouth.

“Better you get inside. Everyone’s watching you,” he said in his ever-gentle voice and disappeared in the kerosene-smelling dark of the house.

For the first time, Ranjana felt the questioningly curious eyes from the neighbouring houses ,and even from the street, examining her body closely. As if they were trying to ascertain something. As if they were confirming their guesses. It made her shrivel within herself. She found the cold much more severe now, making her bones rattle and her teeth chatter violently. Even the hooting from the trees had grown shriller and harsher on her ears. And the darkness seemed to drown her existence itself. But deep inside her heart, the storm that had kept howling for long was receding fast and each and everything outside was having exactly opposite effect on her: Ranjana did not slip inside the house. She declined to hide herself there.

She decided to stay out and taste the chillingly cold dark in the company of the burning eyes.

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I Will Survive

This was once a vast expanse of lush green paddy fields crowded with myriad evergreen trees.

All one can see now, though, is sense-numbing and soul-crushing grey till the extent one’s eyes can take it. Dark black soil that could regenerate and sustain anything and everything is buried deep, rendered lifeless forever. Trees- as old as the mountains that lined up the now-extinct fields in which they stood for ages- have made room for the baleful concrete growth. Beasts on the land and birds on the trees are but a fast fading memory now. Hardly three years have passed but everything has changed beyond recognition. This sun that is scorching this god-forsaken land now is not

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the same sun that had kissed and caressed it to abundance for ages. He wasn’t called the Lord of the lords for nothing! Could it be that he is infuriated at the complete annihilation of his favoured landscape? Could it be that he is avenging those ungodly acts by emptying his fury on this now-cursed land? These thoughts crowded Saguna’s mind as she ferried bricks and cement mortar to the masons without stopping even to catch her breath. The heavy load over her head couldn’t suppress her chain of thoughts for a moment. She kept moving to and fro with scores of other women at that construction site. A new city was shaping up to fulfil the thousand dreams of owning a home and thousands were toiling hard to make those dreams a reality. Majority of those labourers, like Saguna, were the natives who once had toiled there as had their ancestors from time immemorial in their fields.

Saguna’s thought chain was broken with the call for lunch break and she began walking towards her home a mile away from there. Her children would be waiting for her- tormented with hunger. On her way home, Saguna collected dry limbs of trees scattered all over the place. By the time she reached home, her bamboo basket was filled with the wood and dry cow-dung to the brim. Her eldest son, all of ten, rushed forth seeing her approaching their two-storied home and helped her to take the fuel-load off her head. He had just returned from the wetlands with sea-veggies and had got


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it ready for cooking with the help of his younger siblings. Within minutes Saguna got the meal for her six children and herself ready. She fed mashed rice to her youngest one and managed to finish her own lunch with enough time spared for her to return to the construction site. Saguna never liked to cook in the morning just to avoid this afternoon frenzy. She could never think of making her children eat stone-cold meal for their lunch. She didn’t mind walking for miles, cooking and eating all in less than an hour to report back to work immediately after meal. Seeing her children eat hot meal would take away all her exhaustion, making all her efforts worth it. Assigning minor chores to her elder ones and instructing the young ones to behave, Saguna left for work. When she reached the site, hardly had her co-workers washed their hands after having their meals. She, as usual, was the first to resume the work.

Saguna never liked the glint of pity that would arise in the eyes of her co-workers for her misfortunes. She never accepted any concessions at work, let alone asking for them. How could she do so when everyone around was more or less affected by the same misfortune? She never felt that her past privileged her over her co-workers any which way. She was married into the most prestigious family of this village a little more than a decade ago and she hailed from an equally prosperous family. All of it seemed to have happened in

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such a distant past now. Nothing but a faded memory! It was hardly three years ago that she was rendered a widow, but it seemed as if it had been decades. Saguna remembered that fateful day so vividly. She had never seen so many policemen in her entire life. Nor had she seen so many suited-booted people at one place. Her wonder had no limits as that place happened to be her farmland. But the monstrous machines that followed those well-dressed people made Saguna miss a heartbeat. Her husband had declined to surrender their farmland to Government for its noble cause of raising the city of the new millennium. Even that day he did not allow those ugly machines to enter his land. But he was easily thrown off his feet under the ceaseless shower of mighty canes. Saguna had rushed to help him get up and had to taste the biting stings of those unbiased canes. Only when both of them were laid listless, the canes had ceased the execution of justice. How could these ignorant villagers put an obstacle in the path of such a noble cause?

When Saguna opened her eyes the bulldozers had already began levelling their farm. The fields of green vegetables were nowhere to be seen. Nor was there left any trace of the alphonso grafts or the banana plantation. Dumpers after dumpers were being emptied, wiping out any sign of green that had adorned that part of land just hours ago. Saguna saw all this with her unconscious


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husband’s bleeding head in her lap, her children crying inconsolably clinging onto her. Before the sun had begun to descend it was complete tranquil all around. Her children had stopped crying, thoroughly exhausted. The dutiful men and their machines had all but gone. No one could tell now that there ever existed a farm in that place. Nor was that necessary, for soon there would be houses built for the people who would be least bothered as to what existed there before their dream home on that land! Saguna’s husband had to be carried home on a make-shift stretcher that day and the next morning on a bier to the crematorium. Hardly had she entered her twenties, when she was rendered a widow.

Her brothers like anyone else in the entire region had undergone the similar fate and Saguna did not wish to become a burden on them. Every single time they extended her help in any form, she turned it down. Nor she accepted any help from her neighbours. Her misfortune was massive and her responsibilities ever-increasing, but she was able-bodied and she could work. On her own, she would survive.

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Even if the Silences Deafen...

Diwali being around the corner, Kausalya had been expecting her wretched mobile to ring for more

than a week now. Unsure whether it was in working condition, and unable to know it for herself, she had shown it to at least ten people urging them to examine its functioning and was assured by all those knowledgeable young people that there was nothing wrong with it. Lest she would miss her son’s customary call inviting her over to his place for Diwali, she hadn’t left it out of sight – having little confidence in her auditory faculties - even for a moment. She kept it right in front of the clay stove while preparing the rice bhakaris in the morning and again in the evening and then she carried it with her when she went around the village to deliver those bhakaris to her clientele


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which comprised of people settled there owing to the presence of a huge factory near her village. Kausalya could never solve the puzzle of outsiders pouring in her village making it swell on all the sides, while her own village-folks would abandon it for good - her only child being one of them. However, she was well aware that it was thanks to these ‘outsiders’ and their taste for bhakaris that she was able to make ends meet. When she stood at their doors last evening with the newspaper-wrapped bundles of the full-moon shaped and coloured rice breads in her hands, each of them had enquired earnestly if she had got the call. Kausalya had smiled knowingly and assured them that she wouldn’t leave without informing them and having made makeshift arrangement for their bhakaris.

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PREVIEW…

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Upon the First Day of Monsoon

The courtyard appeared melancholically vacant in the punishing heat of the Sun which stood on the

verge of the Mrug constellation. Parvati noticed that her husband’s face was equally vacant, though his eyes were crowded to the brims. He sat on the edge of veranda, staring into the remotest corner of the sky. He had been sitting there since morning today. It was only for the lunch that he had turned inside the house and that too after Parvati had repeatedly called out for him from the kitchen. He had finished his meal of rice and fish curry without bothering for the fish bones. Parvati knew that he had eaten only for her sake, that he wouldn’t have even noticed what was served in his plate. She had hardly eaten a few morsels, when he washed his hands. Paying respect to his plate


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by joining his clean hands, he left the kitchen and resumed his position on the veranda. Parvati pondered over her meal for long. Each morsel was taking longer and longer but somehow she managed to not leave any food in her plate. After cleaning the utensils, she too came out and sat on the veranda. Afternoon seemed to be dragging itself much slower than the morning today. The morning itself had taken hours to pass by each of its second!

Everywhere it seemed unnervingly calm. Houses in the neighbourhood too were listless. Hardly anyone seemed to be stirring anywhere. She remembered the frenzy of farm activities that would capture their entire village every year around this time of the year. Not a single hand could be found at rest or inactive. Age did not matter, nor did gender. Every single soul would be under the spell of monsoon frenzy, scurrying hither and thither, carrying out tasks one after another. Ploughs would need mending. So would other tools of fields. The courtyard would be bustling with tools and the hands mending them. The noise of sawing and hammering and chiselling would cease only to respect the steaming cup of tea which surprisingly was found to be refreshing even in the sizzling heat of the first week of June. But not a single soul stirred anywhere today. It seemed some dark spell of inactivity had grappled the entire village.

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The clouds in the sky, however, were as hyperactive as ever and soon the southern horizon became distinctly dark. Slowly but steadily that darkness begun to capture entire sky, moving towards the sun. Soon the courtyard was blanketed with the cool shade cast by the dark clouds. Parvati saw the shade creeping over the ploughs, pickaxes, spades and other tools neatly stacked in the courtyard and gently said to her husband,

LIMITED CONTENT AVAILABLE FOR THE PREVIEW…


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*

All the short stories in this collection were earlier published on channillo.com

*

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Chandrakant Kaluram Mhatre is a bilingual poet & writer of short fiction from Navi

Mumbai, Maharashtra State of India, writing in English as well as his mother-tongue Marathi.

He is a translator of Marathi literature into English and is also a keen researcher of folk culture, language and literature. He is the

author of amazon bestsellers, One Hundred Poems of Tukaram (2015) and One Hundred

Poems of Chokha Mela (2015).


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chandrakant kaluram mhatre nine€¦ · chandrakant kaluram mhatre 2 draining days when she would...

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