The illness started soon after my birthday, I remember. After ten days of misdiagnosis in the hands of the Campus doctor, I was barely conscious of the shivering with high fever, vomiting bile and difficulty in breathing along with an unbearable pain in my chest. I begged my friend (the one who was my ‘side-y’ in the hostel) to take me to Delhi, to my cousin’s place in Dhaula Kuan. I guess the proper treatment started then. I remember the doctor asking my cousin,
“How did he reach this state of pneumonia without being diagnosed?”
The days that followed are hazy. Daily injections blackened my upper arms, steroids and antibiotics became my staple diet, x-rays to monitor progress and consultation with doctors at AIIMS interrupted fitful sleep. I think I saw the silhouette of my folks standing near the bed with lowered heads. Was it after the first or second week that I left Delhi, returned to my hometown and went to the house of Chaathan?
The journey used to take couple of hours to reach there. The first part was on the highway from Trivandrum to Kottayam and that took an hour or so. The rest of the journey was on a narrow road climbing high into deep and dark hilly forest. I think it was a cousin who gave me those details, the one who was cured of jaundice in that place. I do not remember the journey or my first sight of that house. I do not even remember how many days had elapsed till I regained consciousness there, in that house of Chaathan.
When I regained consciousness and opened my eyes, I saw a lady wiping my face and body with a hot towel. She is beautiful. Though I thought she was old then she must have been in the thirties or late twenties. I guess I always remember her as I saw her then – concerned dark eyes, gentle dusky face, pious and sensual in the traditional two-piece sari-set (mundum neriyathu) and, with each touch I felt she was holding me firmly in a comforting embrace. I call her appachi (aunt).
I saw her turn her head and I followed her look. I saw Chaathan for the first time. He was standing near the entrance of that room. He is tall with a body lean and muscular from sheer hard work, with a visage of indeterminate age, salt-and-pepper-hair and deep light-brown eyes staring intensely.
In the years that followed, I realized that my time in the house of Chaathan was like a permanent tattoo, a mark etched on my mind and actions. I yearned for that and probably tried to mimic or recreate. I remember most the minute and trivial details.
In the house, Chaathan wore a mundu (dhoti) and when he went out for business or pleasure, a well-pressed jubba (kurta) too. For kkrishi (farming), he used to wear just a thorthu (light cotton towel). I used to watch him wash his own clothes, meticulously hang the clothes on the washing line and then ‘iron’ the dried clothes by pressing with his strong brown hands. I observed all that in the days that followed.
On that first occasion, he told appachi
“Give him hot rice and fish curry, the worst is over.”
He left my room without another look or comment.
I realized soon that both of them were not accustomed to having unnecessary conversation. Though appachi was always approachable, she would often counter my incessant chatter with a smile. Chaathan was fine and normal most of the time but there were dark brooding moments when it was wise to let him be. I realized early that they loved to read and discuss, explore fantasy and science together and it seemed like their passion allowed anything.
After a day or two, I was well-enough to roam in that house. It is not a large house. There is a large area in the middle where Chaathan sat in a reclining chair which had a cloth back. Balan, the all-in-all help, used to sit on the floor near Chaathan’s chair and roll beedis for him. My bedroom was in the west wing along with three empty rooms. In the east wing, there is the master bedroom and the dining-cum-kitchen area. The bathroom and the toilet are a little away from the house, behind and shielded by trees.
The house of Chaathan did not have doors. I asked appachi about that and she replied rather confusingly,
“Doors need locks, and keyholes to spy and…when you really want to get out, you might find yourself locked within?”
Seeing the puzzled look on my face, she added with a less-serious tone,
“This house is too small for doors, isn’t it?”
When I was well-enough, I started taking my meals in the dining area which was adjacent to the kitchen, with the smell of cooking and wood-smoke clearing my head.
One evening, I saw Chaathan with a tattered paperback book in his hand and I realized that it was a book that I carried in my backpack for ‘sleepless moments’. It was No Orchids For Miss Blandish by James Hadley Chase. I was having podi-ari kanji (rice porridge), appachi was sitting on the floor fixing a murukkaan (paan) for herself and Chaathan, smoking a beedi, started reading the book aloud, his deep voice resonating in that room. Even now, I can hear that story being read well into the night.
“It began on a summer afternoon in July, a month of intense heat, rainless skies and scorching, dust-laden winds…
Miss Blandish watched him come across the room. She saw his new confidence and she guessed what it was to mean to her. Shuddering, she shut her eyes…
Some people could cope with this because they believe in God. I haven’t believed in anything except having a good time…”
One night, I was restless, finding it difficult to sleep and I got up to drink the cool water in the kujam (long-stemmed clay vessel). I stood near the bedroom-window for a long time. The moon had gone and I could hardly see anything. I heard a sound behind me and I turned around. A young man, probably about appachi’s age, was standing inside the room. Even in the dark, I could see his eyes, fierce and wild. He approached me slowly. When he was at an arm’s distance, he reached out and clasped my neck with a strong hand that smelled of sandalwood. My back was pressed against the window ledge. I was shivering violently and I wondered whether the fever was returning. We stood like that for a few long minutes. When he released my neck, I crumpled to the floor. I lay there without looking up. When I did, he was gone.
I stood up, trying hard to control the shivering, drank some more water and waited for a while till I could walk steadily. Then, I left my room to go to Chaathan’s room in the east wing. Light from a lamp was streaming from his room. The polished floor had a bronze hue in that light but felt cold to touch. I stopped at the entrance of his room and looked inside.
Chaathan and appachi were in a close embrace on the bed. I could see appachi’s naked back while they kissed deeply. Chaathan, who was facing the entrance, saw me before I could move away. Without breaking away from the kiss, he looked me over from head to toe, taking in the mild shivering and my sweaty state and probably, the panic on my face too. He gave me a slight nod and lifted his palm a little as if to indicate that he would be with me in five minutes or so. I went back to my room and sat in the dark.
It was definitely more than five minutes before Chaathan came to my room. He switched on the light. His calm composure was soothing. He stood near the entrance, looked around my room carefully, breathing deeply and wiping the sweat on his body with a thorthu.
Before I could say anything, he asked me,
“Did he come?”
When I nodded, he continued,
“Are you scared?”
For some reason, I replied,
“No.”
Chaathan smiled with amusement,
“Aren’t you scared of the living? You should be. As for the dead, they are not that bad. Don’t worry. Try to sleep.”
As was his custom, he left immediately without waiting for my response. But, I did sleep well after that.
Next morning, when I went for breakfast, nobody mentioned anything about the previous night. Later that day, I overheard Chaathan telling appachi and Balan,
“He is the right one. Not a believer or a disbeliever, without beliefs or doubts. He is like a fresh book waiting for the writing.”
I do not know whether they were talking about me.
I was then quite fit and ready to venture outside. That day, I stayed within the compound, walking on the sand in the courtyard, scrawling and sketching with my toes and erasing just as quickly, or resting beneath the canopy formed by a maavu (mango tree), a plaavu (jackfruit tree) and a beautiful aal maram (banyan tree).
Next morning when I woke up, I saw a youth standing at the entrance of my room. He looked a few years younger than me but that could have been because of his slight build, impish face and an ever- ready buck-tooth mischievous grin. He introduced himself quickly as Kundra, as if that said everything. He told me to meet him outside after breakfast and the morning bath. Then, he slipped out quickly not waiting for any confirmation from my side.
But, I was there and Kundra was waiting for me, eating a mango lustily with the syrup dripping down the side of his arms. He held out another one for me but I declined the offer. Then, he rummaged in the waistband of his mundu and came out with a handful of roasted cashew-nuts, and I accepted that greedily.
Finally, I had a companion who could chatter more than me. On the days that followed, he was my guide on that land. He told me about the houses outside that estate, the workers’ homes and the bigger houses that lay empty. Chaathan seemed to be in control everywhere, benevolent or otherwise, sharing their lives in every way. He told me that Chaathan’s younger brother had been appachi’s husband. Chaathan’s brother was found dead near the temple with sandalwood paste on one hand and blood on the other. He whispered that there is a rumour that Chaathan had killed his brother.
Kundra took me everywhere.
We explored the hills on one side of the house, the rubber plantation, climbed on top of big boulders perched precariously on rocks, collected wild pineapple growing near the rocks and he showed me the cracks where snakes lived. Even the sacred king cobra that leaves a golden trail, he said.
On the other side of the house, there were coconut trees, the banana plantation, the fruit trees and pepper creepers on teak, rosewood and mahogany trees with tendrils hanging within reach.
There is a narrow way downhill on that side to go to the temple and the river. The path ends on a small hill where the temple is located. The hill shields a place called moonattumukku (three rivers’ junction) and this is the bathing place for women. A turn in the river shields this place from the bathing place for men situated fifty meters downstream and the way to that is via the steps at the back of the temple.
On our third or fourth day, Kundra showed me a hiding place on a small ledge right above the ladies’ bathing place. We watched the women bathe. I saw a young woman bathing alone far from the rest and she stood out, a captivating beauty with graceful movements. I looked at Kundra. He seemed bored after finding little that could interest him. He lay on his back and dozed. I wondered,
“How could he sleep after seeing her? Can’t he see her?”
I turned back to that woman. She was looking directly at me and she gave me an amused smile. I moved away from the ledge, shook Kundra awake and ran away from that place. But, I did not tell Kundra about that young woman.
The next day, Kundra did not come. I ventured out alone but I did not go near the river. When I returned, I saw Balan in the courtyard. I asked him,
“Do you know where Kundra lives?”
The wizened face looked at me for a while from behind thick beedi smoke before replying,
“Kundra? My son went to the city a few years back.”
I was not sure whether I had recovered from the illness or whether my body and mind were still weak and susceptible.
That night, I was once again restless. Light from a half-moon gave me shadows to chase. I fell asleep when the half-moon disappeared behind some clouds. A touch woke me up or was it the smell of jasmine? I sat up on the bed. The young woman I had seen bathing was lying next to me. I thought I would start shivering. If she had smiled again, I would have. But she didn’t. I looked at her face and wondered whether I deserved her. I didn’t know what to do. She touched my face and then my chest. It seemed like she was spreading some balm on those areas which had doubled up in pain so recently. She knew that I was inexperienced and she guided me. We undressed slowly and made love. When she left, my first thought was about how I could convince my batch-mates that I had lost my virginity.
In the days that followed, I spent time walking and eating, regaining strength, helping Chaathan in the fields and talking to him and appachi in the dining area.
On one of those days, he asked me,
“Do you know about resonance?”
I recited from memory,
“A peak in the signal-to-noise ratio as we change the frequency of the input signal, and it occurs when the frequency matches the natural frequency of the system.”
“And, do you know about stochastic resonance?”
“No,” I replied.
“It is also a peak in the signal-to-noise ratio. But, it occurs as we change the input noise intensity. It is a phenomenon where the presence of noise in a nonlinear system is better for output signal quality than its absence.”
Why was he telling me this? Chaathan continued,
“We are more accustomed to linear response where things add up and intuition works most often. But, when we see a wave build up and travel like a solitary wave or a soliton, an immutable and non-dissipating entity, we feel that it is impossible. But it is possible if you step into the nonlinear world.”
He paused and smoked silently for a while before adding,
“We have an issue with noise, too. We would like to deal with the signal alone. The noise is unavoidable but we treat it like a distraction to be reduced. But, are we aware about every signal and can we really differentiate noise and signal without uncertainty?”
Once again, he let these words play upon my senses and strangely, I felt I was beginning to understand him.
“Everything about us and around us is nonlinear and a dirty mixture of signal and noise, especially the mind, the body, thoughts and emotions. When can we perceive more than others? Be free, from constraints; feed the noise, without bias or filtering, in the right environment; let the nonlinear system do the rest. That is when we will sense beyond what we usually sense, when the output signal gets truly magnified with increasing intensity of random feeds.”
I had a lot of questions but I realized that Chaathan had slipped out of that mood into one of gloomy silence. I slipped away and thought a lot that night.
Next day, Chaathan, appachi and Balan sat with me for breakfast. None of us spoke. It was time for me to leave. I kept my head down and finished the food on my plate. When I raised my head, I saw that Kundra and the young woman were also in the room. Then, the others I had seen in that region started appearing in the room. Even the man with the fierce eyes stood outside with that group while I bid farewell.
I slept on the trip from there. I remember very little of what happened after I left the house of Chaathan and till I reached Delhi once again.
I have not gone to the house of Chaathan after those days. Years have passed and whenever I have asked others, they shrug and feign ignorance about Chaathan. Nobody likes to talk about that and most have hinted strongly that I should avoid such talk.
Recently, I was talking to my mother about those days. I thought I should try to ask her once again about Chaathan. But, I stopped myself when she started as usual,
“When you lost consciousness in Delhi, even the doctors lost hope. Only God knows what brought you back from that state when you were nearly dead…”
Some memories have to remain private.
Author’s note:
Under the guise of fiction, I might have abused reality and the physical sciences, especially the three-decade-old multi-disciplinary subject of stochastic resonance.
I could be excused because I hate one and love the other. I am reminded of a foreword in a Physics Ph.D. thesis: ‘Any resemblance to reality is purely coincidental.’ And, I do believe that any hypotheses should not cause Pauli’s complaint: ‘It’s not even wrong.’
I have been warned many times about abusing article-length and proper communication. I wish I could put the blame on small towns and villages where time dilates and space is truly warped.
I know that it seems like a death-wish.
