(B2) Chapter 11 Tenants

As Vidyanathan walked closer to his house, his heart began to palpitate. One by one, five huge men came out of the house, carried from the lorry massive boxes on their heads and went in. And as they lifted the boxes, they pierced the air with a strong shout of “Jai Bhavani”. Although what they pronounced was the name of a goddess, their shrill and loud voices made it most unpleasant. He didn’t know what to do.

When he reached his house, his wife was nearly tearful.

“They are wrestlers,” she said. “They have spread mats on the floor and it seems they will do wrestling throughout the day.”

“Are there no women?” Vidyanathan asked.

“None. There are only those five mountains of flesh. And they have throats like trumpets.”

Vidyanathan held his old wife in his arms and patted her shoulder to communicate “Everything will be all right.”

After some time, the five wrestlers walked in. The eldest among them folded his thick hands and said, “Sir, my name is Gaamaa Pehlwaan. These four are my sons. My wife died a decade ago. The Almighty has not given these boys a sister. We are all worshippers of Lord Hanuman and believe that the human body is the temple of God. We get up at four in the morning everyday when the mind is pure and unpolluted by preoccupations with the world. Then we do wrestling by way of an offering to Hanuman. Please give us your blessings.” So saying, he bowed and touched the old man’s and the old woman’s feet. After this, he signaled to his sons and they also touched the feet of the old couple one by one.

As the wrestler family left, Vidyanathan watched them walk with their heavy steps.

The next morning at four, Vidyanathan got up as usual, took his bath, pasted sandalwood on his forehead, lighted the incense and worshipped goddess Saraswati. Then he sat down and took the violin and the bow in his hands. As he put the bow to the violin string and drew it to produce a most melodious sound, a terrible shriek and a huge thud brought his hands as well his heart-beat to a halt. He went down to see what had happened.

The wrestlers were standing with nothing on their bodies except a three-inch loin cloth to cover their private parts. One of them was lying flat on the ground and another was sitting on him. The others around were counting 1…2….3…

As soon as they saw Vidyanathan, they stood up and Gaamaa Pehlwaan folded his hands respectfully.

“Come sir, he said. Watch how my boys shake the dirt out of one another’s body like the washerman washing clothes on a stone slab.” Then he turned to one of the youngsters and said, “Come boy, give a stool to the grandsire.”

Vidyanathan said, “You never told me that you would make my house an arena for wrestling!”

Gaamaa said as innocently as ever, “But, sir, you never asked. You wanted to know whether we eat non-veg, drink liquor and smoke. I told you the truth on that. You never asked me what is my calling. At least I am not running a brothel or a gambling den or a liquor bar!”

“OK, let us see,” said Vidyanathan and went up to his room. There he lay down on his bed and stared blankly at the ceiling. Then he looked at the violin lying in front of the picture of goddess Saraswati. Vidyanathan could not remember a day when he had not played the violin. Even when he had fever, he would sit for some time and play.

“Poor thing! It is waiting for me,” he said and he got up and began playing. What proceeded from the violin were some of the saddest tunes he had ever played. The ache in his heart broke forth as music and his ears became deaf to the shrieks and the thuds that could be heard from downstairs.

Around ten O’ clock the wrestlers went out. They came and told Mrs. Vidyanathan that they were going in search of work.

Vidyanathan rued the day he had given the advertisement that the ground portion of his house was available on rent. “How in this whole big world did I miss mentioning that the tenant should be quiet and peaceful?” he said to himself and took the newspaper page on which the ad had appeared. And while he was looking at his own ad, he saw another one by its side. A lady was looking for a house where she could live with her daughters and run a school for Indian classical dances. Vidyanathan’s aching mind gave him an idea.

“Margadham,” he called out to his wife, “Why don’t we do one thing? Let us rent out this upper portion of our house to this lady and shift to another house on rent? One Gopalaswamy, retired auditor lives alone with his wife and wants to rent out a part of his house. Their children are all settled in the US. They are very peaceful people and purely vegetarian. Very pious and religious. We can shift there and let this portion out to this dance-teacher.”

His wife was not enthusiastic, but Vidyanathan convinced her. He said that the wrestlers could not be told to vacate immediately. May be they could be told to leave after six-eight months. Till then they must shift to Gopalaswamy’s house. “I can tell you the old couple will be good company!” Vidyanathan said convincingly to his wife.

After some reluctance, Margadham agreed and Vidyanathan lost no time in contacting the dance teacher who agreed readily, as if she had waiting for a signal. The matter was settled within seconds over the phone and when the wrestlers returned in the evening from their job-search, they heard noises of song, harmonium and the tip-tapping feet falling rhythmically on the floor in the upper story.

This was a sound Gaamaa detested the most. His mother was a dancer and he had spent his early childhood hearing the tip-tap of his mother’s dancing feet. His father would shout at his mother for practising what he called “the lowliest of all arts”. Whenever he saw his mother dancing, he would get scared that his father might come home suddenly and start shouting. This developed in Gaamaa’s mind an association of fear for the sound of harmonium and dance. And then a tragdy took place which drove this negative feelings further down into his mind.

The man who used to play the harmonium with his mother began to come frequently to their house. Gaamaa’s father hated this man and made no attempt to hide his feelings. The moment he saw this man, he would lose control and starting screaming at everyone and everything. Ever since the harmonium man began to come to their house, there was a change in Gaamaa’s mother’s bahaviour. Instead of quietly taking her husband recrimination, she would now shout back. The harmonium man, who was puny and cunning, would quietly slip away. His mannerisms were womanly, and he would make gestures as if to entice men.

One day Gaamaa’s father, who had gone out to nearby town appeared suddenly and unexpectedly. He found his wife and the harmonium man locked up in a room. Gaamaa was playing marbles with his friends and rushed to his house after hearing his father and mother scream at each other. The harmonium man, as usual, had made his escape from the back door.

When Gaamaa entered the room, he saw his father dragging his mother by her hair. She was crying and shrieking with pain. His father seemed to have gone mad. When Gaamaa went to his mother’s rescue, his father pushed him away. Then his father pulled his wife with great force and threw her at the wall like a rubber ball. Her head hit against the wall. She clasped the wall with her nails and gradually slumped to the ground never to get up again. A pool of blood flowed towards where Gaamaa stood. His father slipped away from the room and never showed his face again.

Gaamaa wandered around for some days like the typical orphan. Then Ghodaa Pehlwaan, who was running an arena for wrestling, adopted him and he grew up to be a wrestler. But deep down in his mind, the scars of the memories of his early childhood remained as painful sores, and whenever he heard the sound of classical dance and of harmonium, these sores became active wounds.