Closure: A short story!
It is day three of my unplanned visit to my inlaws place in Kerala. After the passing away of both my inlaws, living in the house built by them is now a little different. My husband and his siblings had decided not to partition the property which consists mostly of the house they grew up in.( At one time the house had been renovated to increase the rooms to accommodate more and more extended family ie spouses, grandchildren under the same.roof.)
Though a comendable decision, it brings about its own peculiar problems. Like who will maintain the place?. What about finances? And the labour involved.and so on and so forth.
Just three years of no proper human habitation, the sprawling house has already started threatening to fall apart. Rats and then therefore a snake became a not so uncommon guest.
Not all the extended rooms are now needed, but the expenses for the upkeep of rooms, including restrooms, continue.
But i am digressing!
The story I want to share today is about this man who came in the morning to chop the branches of the mango tree, cut yesterday, into smaller pieces 'vergas' which is then meant to be used as fuel for the 'adpa' hearth.
As I hear the regular thud of him chopping the logs, I ask my BIL about his wages.. about a 1000 bucks a day! Seems high to me! Can we afford it? I ask.
After paying wages for the cutting the branches, and then further paying for chopping them, it works out to around the same amount, if we chose to buy the 'vergas', or opt for the gas cylinders, without the unnecessary efforts too, my brother in law offers.
So then why do we call him? I wonder! And why does he come? I further wonder. A very highly politically aware Kerala has made it difficult for the very small farmers, due to minimum wages, to make enough for his own sustainance, and the trickle down policy of reservations has done nothing much for the 'poorest of poor' either.
The only upside to this depressing scene is the seeming unbroken continuation of old traditions.
When I see the man as I go out to check the friendly cat, somehow plots for many short stories, spontaneously make home in my head. There is a semi tragic air about the stoic way in which the man is single mindedly steadfastedly chopping the logs.
My fertile brain immediately weaves various plots of inter caste one sided / two sided unrequited love between the daughter of the house and him, and then it adds another angle of perhaps two daughters, love triangles etc and then I remember Satyajit Ray's Satgati and I wonder should I make my story about unintended labour's exploitation and so on and so forth.
However to start my story I need to know his age. For that I ask my SIl how old he is! She not only tells me about his age, he is around 60, she also gives his life story!
And as stated before, by writers of yester years, life is always more deeper than fiction. His own life story has much much more, than anything I could have spun.
He was married, had a daughter and was settled in Chennai, working in a small teashop. His wife one day killed herself, and till date he has no clue as to why. He chose to came back to Kerala, leaving his daughter with her grandparents. Even today, years after his wife's death, he works like a bull and drinks like a fish. His now grown up married daughter visits him once a year.
I think he is a person awaiting closure.
