The fortunes of Valli

Sunday herald short story competition10- First prize

It was 5:30 pm and dusk was casting its shadow over the busy settlement on Shastri Road. Along with smog and a light drizzle, it had reduced visibility to a few 100 feet. Bare  yellow light bulbs, kerosene lanterns and petromax bulbs competed to provide light for the dwellers of that community. The slum, going under the impressive name of Selva Vinayaka Nagar, had sprung up a few years ago when labourers working on the construction of apartment buildings set up informal residence on government land.

Once developers realised that people would invest even in the outskirts of the city, more construction came up, and the squatters stayed on. Initially, the owners of the posh buildings often protested that the slum was an eyesore, but learned that rolling up car windows and looking straight ahead helped alleviate the discomfort of viewing and smelling the open drains and garbage heaps.

It also helped that a maid from the local slum was much cheaper than one from the  city. In fact, the situation was ideal for all; the men from the slum were always available for work, while the women became maids to the families that moved into the buildings.

The gloaming became murkier as the smoke rose from the sticks and brush that burned in earthen chullas or stoves over which women cursed as they rubbed their red, irritated eyes. Preparations for the evening meals were on.

Valli, the queen of one of the humble earthen abodes in the slum, poked at the anaemic fire and coughed when it smoked, her thin body shaking and the small pottu (bindi) on her forehead bleeding into her frown. Her face, with its permanent network of wrinkles even though she was only in her early forties, twisted as she shouted orders at her two older daughters, Thangam and Easwari.

For their family meal, they would be having kolambu, a watery curry made with assorted vegetables, along with parboiled rice. This was their invariant menu and the best that this family with two adults and nine children could hope to have.

As with almost every family living in the slum , Valli and Thangam did housework in the apartments nearby, while Raasa, her husband, and their two oldest sons, Siva and Marudu, worked in construction. Eashwari, the fourth child, had just finished her  class ten, and the other children, namely Sakthi, Mani, Velu, Santhi and Vasu, went to the local municipal school.

With all the mouths to feed, a simple meal was the best they could hope to have.
Or was it? Against her will, Valli's gaze slid to the small white goat tied to a stake outside the house, the one that the foolish children had named Panju, meaning cotton.

Her mouth watered at the thought of goat curry, but she sternly suppressed the thought. That goat was going to be their ticket to easy money, according to Raasa. All thanks to the road that the government had built to serve the new settlements, and which had rapidly become a main artery of traffic in the area.

As soon as the road opened, bicycle and motorbike repair shops sprang up, as did tea stalls and petty shops selling betel leaves, cheap biscuits and cigarettes. Alongside these legitimate businesses also flourished usual unsavoury interests of alcohol and prostitution, albeit on a minor scale. After all, this was just a by-pass road, not the highway.

However, another business opportunity also arose, this one more devious than the others. One day, one of the hens owned by a fruit-seller ran out onto the road just when a car came roaring through. The car-owner paid Rs 500 rupees to cover the damages, handing the woman a huge profit, and the locales a perfect money making proposition.

Since then, there had been a number of small ‘accidents’ with livestock, often enough to make the upper-class residents wary. Therefore, negotiations had been held. The slum people refused to totally abandon the practice, but agreed to curtail it.

Rates were fixed for different animals, and peace returned to the area. From time to time, somebody would let an animal loose when he was in need of some cash and some hapless motorist would end up paying. The rate depended on the kind and size of the animal, with a discount for locals. The maximum payment to  date had been Rs 500 paid for a  piglet that had been hit by a car from the city.

Raasa, ever ambitious, aimed to beat that record with Panju. He had appointed the smaller children in charge of the goat's care, and every day, they took it out to graze near vegetable stalls and the area's pitifully small green patches that were called parks. The efforts were beginning to pay off and the goat was already plumping up.

There was a local temple that would have its annual festival in a month's time, when there would be a lot of traffic in the area. With luck, the goat might bring in Rs 1000 ! Her thoughts distracted by that huge sum of money, Valli burnt her fingers as she checked the rice.

As darkness fell, the members of the family straggled home. Amidst talk of an accident at a neighbouring colony, where a little boy was killed, Valli served the evening meal and Easwari cleaned up after her. Then the woven-straw mats were spread on the earthen floor, and everyone went to sleep.

The next day dawned bright after the overnight showers.

That day, Valli wore a sky-blue nylon sari with white flowers on it, one of her ;work’ clothes. With her large red plastic pot balanced on one hip, she skirted the large puddles on her way to the local hand pump to get water, the last chore of the morning.

Most of the area's socialising went on at the water pump, which was the area's unofficial women's club. Valli's steps were buoyant as she enjoyed meeting and talking to her friends before leaving for her cleaning job.

Just as she was striking up a conversation with her friend from the next street, Velu, her six-year-old son, ran up.

“Amma, Amma, the police have come. They want to speak to you. They are waiting at home.” Bewildered, Valli followed him, her pot still empty, and pulling down her nylon sari's pleats from where she had tucked them out of the way at her hip. Meanwhile, her mind was hard at work. Nothing they did was illegal, at least not at the present time. Why, then, would the police come to their home?

A crowd of curious neighbours was gathering when she got home. These people loved free spectacles, and this one promised to be an interesting one. The policeman waiting in front of their hut was a decent sort. He himself had grown up in a slum like this, and knew the psychology of its dwellers. However, he had a duty to perform, though unpleasant.

“Amma, do you have a son called Mani? Maybe, seven years old, and about this height?” He held his hand at his belt-level.

Valli nodded dumbly to each of his questions. “Did he come home last night?”
“Yes ... yes ... I think so.” Valli was perplexed at the question. She had served nine plates at dinner, and every one of them had been emptied. With nine children, and working outside the home, that was the only way she kept track. Velu suddenly spoke up from next to her. “No, he didn't.”

Valli struck him a quick sharp blow on the side of his head. “Hey, you shut up, or I'll tell your father when he returns tonight.”

The policeman held up a hand as Velu  snivelled. “Don't hit him. He's only telling what he knows. Is there someone else who might know?”

“Easwari!” screeched Valli.

An attractive-looking girl came sidling out of the hut, her hands twisting the end of the pink half-sari she had on. She had just turned sixteen and was the baby-sitter to her five younger siblings.

Given a choice, she would have wanted to work for those rich people and see their grand houses, but school was out for the summer, and someone had to be home to feed the younger ones and keep them out of mischief.

“Tell the policeman that your brother Mani was here last night!”

“I don't know!” Easwari uttered plaintively but truthfully, moving to a  strategic spot out of her mother's reach.

“He took Panju out to graze yesterday morning, but he didn't come for lunch. Sakthi told me that he was with his friend Murugu, so I assumed that he would eat at his house. In the evening, I found the goat tied up, so I thought Mani must have come back. That's all.”

Sakthi was her 12-year-old brother and Murugu was a kid in the neighbourhood. It was strange but true that people who themselves struggled for food would often feed a neighbour child.

“Then who ate at our home yesterday?” Valli asked belligerently.

“It was Sunderam, Sakthi's friend. Sakthi brought him,” Velu piped up.

Valli prepared herself to argue, but the policeman had heard enough.

“Amma, I came here not to accuse you of anything, but to give you some sad news. Your son Mani was killed yesterday when a car hit him in the neighbouring colony. He was grazing the goat in that area, when it escaped from him and ran across the road. He  was trying to catch it when the accident happened. It was not possible to identify the child from the remains, and the goat also went missing. It must have made its way home last night. Today, when this boy took it out to graze again, someone from that colony recognised it. When I talked to him, he told me that usually Mani is the one who takes it out...”

Valli suddenly sat down in the dirt as her legs gave way and her mind went cloudy. In the periphery of her senses, she heard Eashwari begin to wail and a sudden clamour of voices as everybody began to talk at once.

In a heartbeat, the attitude of the neighbours went from curious to concerned. People were dispatched to the construction site where Raasa and his sons worked, and a woman went to fetch Thangam.

Two others rounded up Santhi, the four-year-old and the toddler Vasu. Sornam and Mari, the women who lived next door, helped her off the floor and led her indoors gently. At the door, Valli paused. Someone was asking the policeman when the body would be brought home.

“We thought the child was an orphan. Also, the morgue was full yesterday, so we cremated it.”

Her tears came then.

When he was alive, Mani had had a father, mother, and eight brothers and sisters. Cruel fate had ordained that he die all alone, but his family's grief adequately compensated for that. However, after a couple of days, the crying stopped and life went back to normal.
It was the tenth day after Mani's death, the day the mourning officially ended. There was a get-together of the family for a small feast. As the betel leaves, supari and scented lime were handed out, as per custom, Raasa's sister Ponnamma spoke up.
“Valli-onm (sister-in-law), what was fated to happen has happened. But God, in taking something away from you, has also given you something.”

Raasa and Valli looked at her in surprise. Her husband Durai, who was a local political party member, explained.

“Machchaan (Brother-in-law), the man who caused the accident does not want a police complaint filed against him, because it will cost him a lot to go through the legal proceedings. He says he will give you a suitable compensation so that you don't have to go the police. I recommend you take it, because you will also have to spend money if you go to court. What do you say?”

“How much?”

“He said Rs 30,000, I think you can get Rs 50,000.”

“That much?” Raasa and Valli were flabbergasted.
Durai nodded. “The lawyer's fees themselves will be that much for that man. This is a bargain for him.”

Raasa looked at Valli. It was too big a decision to be making by himself. After all, she had borne the child and raised him. However, Valli's thoughts were not of her dead son, but her other children. She slowly nodded.

Durai rubbed his hands together in patent satisfaction. “Very good, very good. I'll meet that man tomorrow and finalise it. Now, there are a couple of other things I want to talk to you about.”

He leaned back in his rickety wooden chair, now confident.

“I know you just lost a son and I sympathise. But I also want to remind you that you have two marriageable daughters, and one son who is of an age to set up his own household. Now, I have a son and a daughter, and my brother has a son. Instead of playing guessing games, let me come straight to the point.

“I would like you to accept my daughter as a bride for Siva and give your Thangam to my son in marriage. My brother's son would be ideal for your Easwari. If you consent to this, we can have the weddings at the next available auspicious day. In this way, the money you get will go into ensuring your children's future, and not rot away in some bank that won't even pay a good interest. Think it over and give me your answer.”

Valli could not speak for the emotions crowding her throat. This arrangement had always been her wish, but previously they had been too poor to afford the weddings. Three children, two of them girls, settled so easily and so well! It was every mother's dream.

In the heady excitement and hectic work surrounding the wedding preparations, the previous tragedy sank quietly into history. The waters of Time closed seamlessly and surely over the little dead boy, Mani.

Valli's dream came true at the time of the local temple festival when all three marriages were solemnised. Everyone who had been bemoaning the family's sad fate was now speaking of their good fortune.

Following the weddings, as per custom, the new brides, their grooms and their families were invited for a big feast. The main item on the menu was Panju.

 Yes, the nimble-footed goat that had taken a life however unwittingly, had paid the ultimate price and fallen to the butcher's knife. Thus ended the saga of the little survivor.

Even if he had lived, he would have been sold . . . for there was no room for a goat in the upscale house into which the family moved, that year. Durai's party bigwigs had met Raasa and impressed by his demeanour, had made him a party member. Being naturally ambitious, he climbed the ranks rapidly, and in a short while, became the party's local secretary. Between his salary and ‘perks,’ the children prospered too, the bright boy, Sakthi, even dreaming of becoming an engineer.

As for Valli, she became the icon of the settlement. With prosperity came a whole different lifestyle. Now comfortably plump and clad in rustling silks, gold jewellry, a big red pottu (bindi) and an equally big smile, she came to represent good fortune, a veritable Mahalakshmi, and her presence was sought for every auspicious ceremony of the colony. These were many in number, and she had to perforce refuse most of them.

But an invite to her old neighbour Sornam's daughter's wedding couldn't be turned down.
She was the guest of honour at the wedding feast, and ate well, enjoying the local gossip almost as much as the good food.   When it came to Sornam's ears that she had refused a dish, the poor woman rushed over in trepidation.

“No, no, everything is just wonderful,” assured Valli. “The thing is, for some reason, this curry upsets my stomach these days. It started at my first three children's wedding feast, and to this day, I cannot eat goat curry. I used to love it, you know! It is so strange. But the chicken curry is really good. Can I have some more?”

“Of course,” exclaimed Sornam, serving the curry with her own hands.

 “Akka, somebody must have become jealous of you and done some black magic. I know a swami who can help you get your appetite back. Then, no goat in this area will be safe from you."

The two women laughed uproariously.