Now let us briefly consider the title story \bt oru pidi sORu \et.
[oru pidi sORu, literally one handfull of (steamed/cooked) rice,
means a little rice/food to eat.]
The story revolves around the Madras city pavement (or sidewalk)
dwellers: rAsAththi, her son - the child maNNANGkatti, her
"neighbour" and friend mAriyAyi and mAriyAyi's husband mANIkkam.
rAsAththi is a poor migrant to the city from South Arcot district
who came to the city in search of jobs and income. Having found
nothing permanent, she joined the thousands who live on the
city's pavements. She has no husband. If and when she finds some
job like breaking stones to make gravel for roadlaying or carrying
bricks to the bricklayers in construction she gets some money, hardly
enough to feed herself and her son. If not, she goes hungry or lives on
the charity of some neighbour who may have a little food to spare
or else lives off the avails of prostitution. But she is not a
regular prostitute, but just the occasional streetwalker who resorts
to it to get some food. Her little son maNNANGkatti (literally,
a lump of clay) is the offspring of just one such liaison.
Neither rAsAththi nor the boy has any clue as to the identity
of his father.
mAriyAyi, the neighbour, is "married" to mANIkkam, another itinerant
temporary labourer just like them. But she is also occasionally
reduced to street walking, just like rAsAththi and for the same
reasons.
As the story begins, rAsAththi is pregnant, almost at term, and
expected to give birth anytime. She is not in great physical shape.
She is looking for her son and yells out for him. maNNANGkatti
suddenly appears and pesters her for some money to buy something.
She has nothing to give and starts to yell at him as he pulls at her and
she is about to fall. In her distress, she wants to catch hold of him
and give him a thrashing. But he is too nimble for her and escapes
her. In her anger she says "Wait till you come for food. Then see
what I do." The kid says "Oh. Don't hold your breath. I have already
eaten." Suddenly he feels the sting of mAriyAyi's hand on his bare
back as she shouts " You thieving bastard! You little, shameless
thief! You stole the little food I had kept to feed my husband
when he returns from a hard day's work!" On finding her son beaten
and abused, rAsAththi gets mad and starts abusing mAriyAyi. Soon,
harsh words are exchanged laying bare each other's sexual escapades
and the two women are at each other's throats and in the ensuing
confusion, the kid runs away. As mAriyAyi is getting worsted in the
fight, she tries to escape by punching rAsAththi in her stomach. Just
then mANikkam appears and scolds her for punching a pregnant woman in
her stomach and pulls her away. rAsAththi is in great pain and retires to
her corner in the pavement.
Suddenly she feels hungry and also pangs of pain. She is unable to
move and shrieks in pain. mAriyAyi runs in, and examines her. She thinks
that rasaththi is beginning to go into labour. But rAsAththi doesn't
think so but believes that it is just hunger. mAriyAyi gives her a
little rice and asks her to go get some water for staeming the rice
while she will try to get some firewood. rAsAththi is barely able to
drag herself to the public water pump. maNNANGkatti who had run away
earlier to escape the beatings is nowhere to be seen. The other women
at the pump give her some water and she moves to her corner and a
makeshift stove (\bt aduppu \et). But her legs give way. She goes into
labour and is in svere pain. It s obvious that it is going to be
a difficult birth. As mAriyAyi and the other women rush to her, she
just pushes an aborted fetus out and in the process bleeds to
death. mAriyAyi is just devastated at the death of her friend.
As the sun is about to set, the kid returns "home" hungry and
expecting his mother to feed him. But as he nears his place he
senses that something has gone terribly wrong. Once he finds out
that his mother, his sole relative on this earth, is dead he is
completely lost and becomes almost catatonic. While he is still
in that state the street-people carry away the dead fetus and his
mother to the crematorium and cremate her there. mAriyAyi and
mAnikkam return home and she cooks something for them to eat.
As they are about to begin eating, mAriyAyi is reminded of
the fact that the kid maNNANgkatti - the same kid whom she had
thrashed the previous day for stealing her food and because of
whom she had gotten into a bitter fight with his mother, had not
eaten all day. Her own motherly instincts are aroused and she goes
out to look for him. He is nowhere to be seen. mAnikkam now
joins the search and he finds maNNANGkatti at a roadside
temple on the way to the crematorium. As he picks him up, the
child begins to cry and asks for his mother. mANikkam is also moved
to tears as he carries him home.
mAriyAyi gives him some food. But instead of eating it the child
puts it away. As she tries to persuade him to eat, he says: " No,
no. I am saving it for my mom." And then he begins to cry. Suddenly,
he falls on mAriyAyi's neck and begins to hold on to her and cries
out "mother!" (\bt ammAv \et.) mAriyAyi also holds on to him crying
and calls out "Son!" (\bt mavanE! \et) and starts feeding him from
what little she has.
The story ends there.
This is a continuation of my earlier MMTL: jeyakAn^than - 7
posting on the short story \bt oru pidi sORu \et. A brief
analysis of the story is presented in this posting.
The SETTING of the story is some obscure corner of one of
the nameless pavements in downtown Madras, most probably
the Georgetown - Royapuram - Harbour area, given that the
period is around 1950-1955. We get the bare essentials of the
setting as warranted by the short story (Once again, see the
Edgar Allan Poe refrence in Part 6). But, it is memorable
all the same. \bt pUttA, thiRappA? - pilAtpAra vAzhkkaithAnE?
nAy van^dhu vAy vaiththAlum adiththuth thuraththuvArillai.
... pAnaiyOdu thUkkikoNdu therukkOdiyilirukkum an^dhap
pAzh maNdapaththukkuththAn OdiyiruppAn - adhu avan vAsasthalam.
...rAsAththikko, mAriyAyikkO vibasAram enpadhu thozhilalla;
avarkal vAzhum pilAtpAraththin edhirppuRaththilirukkum
viRakukkadaiyil viRaku suman^dhu selvadhu, lAriyil varum viRakuk
kattaikaLai iRakkik kadaikkuL adukkuvadhu- ivaithAn piradhAna
thozhil. an^dha vElaikaL illAdha samayaththil vEru EdhAvadhu
kUli vElai. adhuvum illAdha samayaththil, mikavum vaRatchi
Erpattu nalla girAkkiyum 'chAnsum' adiththAl... vERu
'EdhAvadhu'... kONi + kan^dhal pAy + mUNGgil thatti +
sinimA pOstar = oru kUrai! - an^dhak 'kOzhippuRai'yil
nIttip paduththirun^dha rAsAththiyin adi vayiRRukkuL ennavO
'suruk'kenRu kuththi vANggiyadhu." Well, the reader gets an
exact picture of the setting of the story in the scattered
descriptions in these few words.
I missed a couple of things in my summary in the last posting.
The first one is the "main" job of rAsAththi. As the passage above
shows, she tried to make a living by working as and when required in the
neighburhood firewood (\bt viRakukkadai \et) shop. The second
important detail is that before she died, rAsAththi got the
rice grains, water and firewood and cooked the rice. Her son
appears just then. He is also hungry and pesters her for food.
But there is not enough for both and she feels her need is
greter than his. But the kid is too hungry. They both go for the
rice. The entire rice is spilled. The kid runs away. She throws
the empty pot at him as he runs away. It hits the road and breaks.
CHARACTERISATION in the story proceeds at several levels. We have
characterisation of rAsAththi, mAriyAyi, mANikkam and maNNANGkatti
BY externals - physical appearance, surroundings, BY reactions of
other characters, BY speech, BY action and BY the authorial statements.
They are all in sync. And the reader comes out with the impression
that she knows these 4 characters very well. mANikkam is the only
subordinate character and JK in very few words rounds him out nicely.
Remarkable economy and restraint! And, great concentration on the
central characters.
The CONFLICT in the PLOT is sketched very clearly. Of course, we
have telling portrayals of the actual physical conflicts between the
two women, between mother and son and between mAriyAyi and maNNANGkatti.
But we also have the subtle, understated, but very effective
description of the underlying conflict between the environment and
the individuals and the emtional conflicts between the mothering
insticts, the humanistic instincts of the poor and their survival
instincts and the struggles that ensue. We also see the DEVELOPMENT
in the characters - mAriyAyi and maNNANGkatti, as the conflict
between these two dominant instincts is resolved towards the end.
Nobody who is familiar with life in India in general, and urban India
and especially Madras in particular, can or would question the
probability of the actions as they unfold. They just ring "true."
And there is a remarkable unity of setting and plot, of setting
and the overall atmosphere so that the reader puts down the story
shaking his head, "Yes. I have seen such things happen!"
JK also communicates his POINT OF VIEW so convincingly that the
reader has no doubts in her mind at least as to where he stands
with respect to his characters (uniformly sympathetic and not
at all judgmental) and as to minds of the two surviving
central characters - mAriyAyi and maNNANGkatti as representatives
of a class AND the mother-child nexus, which he chooses to examine
and to reveal.
The underlying THEME here as in poRukki earlier is the basic
decency and humanism of the poor, the downtrodden, los olvidados
of society, against great odds and the dominance of the mother-child
relationship and the need for it and its life-sustaining and
life-affirming quality. They ARE human beings, just like you
and me, and have the same like and dislikes, feelings and
emotions, hopes and despair. that is the message. And, it IS
strong, but not overstated, JK is not trying to HAMMER it into
our heads.
And, finally the LANGUAGE. Once again, jeyakAn^than reveals the
unquestioned master that he is of the language of the street
people. One can search all of thamizh fiction and find only JK
capable of speaking their language as if to the ghetto born! Only,
the female, dalit christian writer bAmA ( \bt 'karukku" and
"saNGgathi \et) in recent times has amanged to match, or better,
this ability to be the true voice of the oppressed and the poor.
In fact, the language and the characterisation and the setting
and the plot development are so wedded together that it is
difficult to single out their separate roles and functions in
bringing out the effect of the story. It is a very sentimental,
almost a melodramatic story; a classic tear jerker. But, as you
read it you forget the "artificiality", and after finishing it you
are hardly conscious of the art!
And, unlike in "poRukki", you are left wondering, you are left
curious, your mind is disturbed, about the future. What would
happen to maNNANGkatti? Would the "truce" and affection between
him and mAriyAyi last? Would things ever improve for the mAriyAyis
and maNNANgkattis of this society? You think that you know the
answers to these questions. Yet, you keep hoping!
I would like to add the following observations to
my-already-lengthy posting on \bt oru pidi sORu \et.
The THEME of the story could also conceivably include
the sense of guilt overpowering both mAriyAyi and
the child maNNANGkatti over rAsAththi's death.
Not necessarily the corrosive and well earned guilt
of, say, Zola's Therese Raquin but the gnawing sense
of guilt suffered by, say, Raskolnikov in Crime and
Punishment. Then, at story's end, the reader is left pondering
how this would affect the future course of life of both these
characters, but especially, the child.
I will conclude the discussion of the collection \bt oru
pidi sORu \et now by quickly running over the other stories.
\bt pAl bEdham \et is more overtly in the nature of a moral
tale like those in the panchatantrA. It is about man's (and
woman's!) inhumanity and ingratitude towards animals, especially
cows. Thus, there is a nice \bt silEdai \et in the use of the
word \bt pAl \et [Milk as well as gender]. It is an early
indication of JK's strong sense of ethics and morality, and
also an early intimation of the tendency to moralise and preach
which is all too obvious in his later works.