56, Lane No 70

M P Narayana Pillai

Translated from the Malayalam by Sunil K Poolani

Apart from the flower called raat ki rani, Ramdhani has seven offspring. When five of them reached the age that made them capable to prey, they were scurried away. The remaining two get beaten up by a bamboo stick, and driven away, every dawn. But once dusk falls, they seek the same abode. Two dry wheat rotis each would be kept for them.

One day they wouldn’t come. That day this practice could be stopped.

The city is the world of the banished people from the country. Hunger banished them. They live on in the faded dreams of a lost spring.

The hornbills on the ornamental, twisted coconut leaves that adorn religious functions, and the oil-soaked, untied hair; Ramdhani on the baang mixed in badam sharbat, and the Bhojupri songs, which praise Lord Ram, and are sung in the shade of a lone mango tree in the centre of wheat fields.

The handful of flowers that Ramdhani brings every evening to 56, Lane No 70, is what announces the spring in this desert-like city. There is a picture of Lord Ram in the darkness that surround under the staircase. A picture that shows a hunting scene along with wife Seeta and brother Lakshman. The flowers are meant for there.

The only person who celebrates Holi at 56, Lane No 70 is Ramdhani. He bustles in and out of all the rooms with a paper packet that contains saffron. Sometimes he goes down the streets and sings a couple of ribald songs. And returns in the noon and would take some baang. And dream of Lord Ram.

The year he drove away his last son. The hornbill with a long beak and firewood on his head stopped Ramdhani who was venturing into the thirteenth number room with saffron. There is somebody sprawled on the floor. Red eyes. A kerchief tied around the neck.

The face has started sprouting boils.

The same morning he was taken to Arthur Road Hospital.

A sore called small pox.

All of a sudden a silence overwhelmed 56, Lane No 70.

The hornbills were reduced to twelve. In three-four days, the hornbills’ number came down further.

One morning, one of Ramdhani’s driven-away sons was seen lying down the lamppost, with boils. A few minutes later, a municipal vehicle came and took away the body.

The fifteen-year-old raat ki rani clamped on to her crutches and wept.

The poet said the return has begun.

The same day the eighth hornbill too headed towards Arthur Road.

The last news of the first hornbill who had gone to the hospital arrived that day. He wouldn’t require the thirty rupees, the common property. That expense will be borne by the hospital. On that day’s mail there was a letter, bearing a pencil-written address, arrived for him. The five hornbills opened it. He has got a son.

Suddenly, the poet ran his fingers over his face.

No problem. They are pimples.

The rest of them looked at each other with suspicion.

One of them sold his wedding ring and drank that night. Drank till surpassing the knowledge that his alive.

The trust is losing, the poet said.

The poet was ready to spend the common property of thirty rupees, the charge meant for the electric crematorium. The poet went to the slums where Dravidian stonecutters from Salem live, and brought back marijuana. He sent Ramdhani to get some baang. Some hornbills went and beaked their way back with illicit brew. Vinegar, spirit, ammonium sulphate, aspro, tranquillisers, potassium cyanide… like sparrows bringing the twigs to build their nest, they collected all these by evening.

Ramdhani brought saffron, to celebrate a new Holi. In the menstrual blood where beliefs were shattered.

When saffron was smeared the contempt towards pimples got receded.

Alcohol made the small pox look like malaria, jaundice, warts or pimples.

When the baang that looked like leaf-ground chutney went inside his abdomen Ramdhani became an animal and stood on four legs. The hornbills forcibly opened his mouth and poured into it arrack from a tumbler. Then he became a snake that has had its prey and lay down calmly. The hornbills took him and laid him on the terrace. Like Garuda placing the rattlesnake on the branch of the tree.

Alcohol helped the poet to talk more and more. Four hornbills listened to him carefully.

The poet had indeed loved the raat ki rani. Not anymore.

When they heard that, the four went down. They caught hold of the heroine in the shadow drama who was stitching near the window. She tried to wriggle out. Kicked them with her helpless legs. She was drawn up the staircase. Two stretches were seen abandoned on the staircase.

The poet could decipher one more thing. C Vasu has ceased to become the poetic hub. And C Vasu is not something that he loathes or loves.

And the poet noted that beliefs and relationships depend on the flow.

Still they ran their fingers over their faces. Seeking a pimple called small pox.

(First appeared in Janayugam Onam Special, 1964)

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