Chidambaram : Story by C.V.Sreeraman

This iconic story was adapted by G.Aravindan , one of the greatest film directors of Malayalam cinema into a multiple award winning movie starring Bharat Gopi, Smita Patil, Sreenivasan et al  in the year 1985

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As he stepped inside through the front gate of the temple’s entrance, the man recollected the lines of Ayappa Dixitar :

Chidambaramitam pradhamithameva punyasthalam

This is Chidambaram, primarily, a sacred place.

His eyes forayed the surroundings. The sheer size was awe inspiring. There were four  gopurams – ornamental towers- kissing the skies. Though similar in appearance, the stone sculptures were unique in themselves. The innumerable corridors and vaults interconnecting the towers seemed like the simulacrum of a fort; more intimidating than the temple.

He walked through the stone-paved pathway outside the inner temple. The sunlight was still not ceding defeat. It had just started abating. The man walked over the green grass thriving along the edges. As prickly thorns pierced the inner soles, he remembered the slippers which he had left behind… Another thought troubled him. Though there were four tower entrances, why had he chosen the southern gopuram? Would his mind have been enslaved with misgivings had he entered through any of the others?

Had the uncertainties started at the entrance of the southern gopuram? No.

In the journey from Kadaloor, this bizarre distraction had begun when he had crossed the village of Manaloor.

When he had seen the signboard of the village on the roadside, inadvertently his mouth had enunciated:

Sarpannan Shengodan Konar

Chunnabukar Theru

Post Manaloor, Via Chidambaram

In those days, he would write down that address on the inland letters which Akhilandammal would bring.

Deep in thoughts, he walked on. He reached the temple pond. The vast pond lay within the temple boundary walls, with sharp, clean steps descending to the waters. The man sat on the ledge. There were two sanyasis nearby. One picked up the container of ash which had slipped down from the fish shaped kavadi leaning against the wall and refixed it to the contraption. The man cast a careful look at them. How sturdy and healthy they looked. There was a patina of contentment on their mien. What would have instigated them to seek sanyasa?

The man was forced to think about himself then.

‘Well, if you listen to me, you might survive for some years.’

That was not spouted by any scholar of Vedanta but by his doctor.

After many months, when the doctor had seen him again, he had tersely remarked, ‘ You are still going strong with your habits. Any idea about the condition of your liver? Really alarming…’

Then the doctor had elucidated further, ‘ See, I am a heart patient. I also had some vices. Though not as acute as yours, I still managed to control those. I became more and more religious. Whenever temptations came my way, I would read the Bible. You should become religious…read religious texts.’

That day, he had wearily faced the luscious advertisements; and walked to the bookstore he had never entered before. When he eyed the books on the racks, he found that most authors were unfamiliar. When he read books by Roman Rolland and Lokmanya Tilak, the misery only increased. There was nothing he had not known before; but he felt envious about their power of articulation. He went on reading. At that time, he had developed swelling on his feet. He had gone to the doctor again.

‘You need to move away from this atmosphere. Take a trip somewhere…preferably religious places.’

That was how he began his journey.

Now, on watching the radiant good health of the man who was explaining Vedanta to the listener; legs crossed and his matsya-kavadi leaning against the wall, the man started contemplating:

Was physical rigour the beginning of sanyasa?

Was sanyasa the refuge of the anguished?

Or was it an adventure wrought by an overwhelming greed for survival?

The man’s mind refused to be contained by these musings. The ruminations which had pestered him when he entered through the southern tower entrance refused to leave his mind.

The more he tried to forget those, the chakravyuha of thoughts were assaulting him from all sides.

In the lacerated mind, the picture of Durgaprasad’s building  at Haddo took shape. It had wooden walls and an iron sheet for roof. Port Blair town tapered away until it ended at Haddo. The hills of Haddo played a hide and seek game with the sea…The days and nights spent staring at the sea…How the sea’s cheeks flushed ripe when the tide rose and how it paled during the ebbing…how the bones of the sea showed up in the craggy rocks on the beach…

Vechhapuri and his wife had come to live in a corner of that building. The wife’s name was Akhilandammal. Her face displayed the droopiness of a sapling which had been transplanted onto strange soil. Except for a lush head of hair, there was nothing alluring about the woman. It was better to refer to her as a grown up girl than as a young woman.

She too, like him, would sit staring at the sea forever. Once she had asked, ‘Why is the sea so dark in colour over here?’ He had replied, ‘That is why we call it the Kalapani in Hindustani.’ Kalapani also meant an exile from the mainland.

It was the loneliness which had brought them close. Depression seemed to be dripping around in that absolute solitude. The woman was alone the whole day. She could often be seen sobbing…caught in the memories of a village which lay somewhere on the opposite shore of the great sea. At other times, she would write letters to her father. He would jot down the address for her.

It did not take much time for them to become intimate, soon trespassing all ethical boundaries. Initially he called her, ‘Akhilandammal.’ Then it became ‘Akhilammal’. When she insisted, it turned into ‘Pappa’,  and when her lips moved over his cheek, he could not help whimpering, ‘My Pappa’…

At one time their relationship had come to a point of ending. Vecchapuri got a room in the neighbouring labour camp and he shifted his residence. But on a midnight, out of the blue, the woman had come searching for him. As he stood blanching, she murmured, ‘Vecchapuri has night duty.’ He yearned to ask, ‘But why did you come at this odd hour?’ She had replied to the question which never left his lips. ‘ I felt like seeing you and so I came.’

Soon, whenever Vechhapuri had night duty, she would appear in his room without any forewarning.

But when had he visited the labour barrack for the first time? He could hardly remember. But he would never forget about the last departure from the place. One could gaze at the lights of the government saw mill at Chittam island through the cracks  of the wooden walls of the labour barrack. The man used to keep checking the lights intermittently.

That night the lights had shut down suddenly. The man had stepped out. He was waiting for the lights to flare up again. But the sharp stink of sweat and sawdust had filled the surroundings suddenly. He was shellshocked. The shadow in front gathered strength. Vechhapuri. He had started walking briskly and turned to cast a backward glance. Vechhapuri was following him. By the time he scrambled up the weed ridden ridge and entered the main road, the man had started running. Without wasting time to look back, alert to the horse hoofs of death in the sounds closing on him. On seeing the lighted attic of the Malayali hotel at Haddo, he had rushed inside. He was acquainted with the inmates. The men were busy playing cards by candle light.

His fear had not ceased even after sitting next to his friends; and often he peeped to watch the surroundings. Vechhapuri stood there, waiting.

When the dawn broke, and the workers from the powerhouse arrived, the reason behind the sudden load shedding was revealed. There had been a blast at the powerhouse. Engineer Swami and two laborers had been electrocuted. By the time it was morning, another news spread, making the former snippet insignificant. Vecchapuri had hacked his wife to pieces. Then he had run away to the Corbin’s cove. By mid day, another update came. Vechhapuri had hanged himself in the mangrove forests at the shore.

That day the man had felt just one emotion: a pale, icy cold, eternally following terror.

Two days later, when had gone to his senior to get signature on some legal documents for revenue collection, the man had given him a very compassionate look. The boss did not mention that he was privy to all the salacious tales doing the rounds, but his glance had contained everything.  Then his senior said:

‘I will transfer you to the most remote area. There is a colonization going on in Atlanta Bay. A group is leaving tomorrow. Join them.’

The benevolent boss, who had always come to his aid in any adverse circumstance, had yet again helped him. The next day when he moved to various places bidding farewell, he suddenly asked the truck driver to stop. He walked to the female ward of the hospital. There was a group of Tamil women silently surrounding a cot. A body wrapped in bandages…it looked like a bale of cotton. Death was flirting lazily. Yama’s lasso refused to loop around that cotton bundle.

After many months, he got to know -even the deepest wound around Pappa’s neck had healed. Two fingers had been totally hacked away. Tamil acquaintances collected some money for her voyage. Pappa had left for her village.

Today, seated on the steps of the temple pond of Chidambaram, he was remembering all of it. Now, he was reminded of furiously moving, evanescent autumn clouds as he reminisced Atlanta Bay’s settlement and Port Blair.

The man stood up. The sanyasis were still enthralled by some story from the puranas.

He walked.

Few dwarfish stone pillars inscribed with lines in Tamil. He regretted that he could not read the language. He knew how to write his name and also Pappa in Tamil. She had taught him. He reached a dark corridor. A foreigner, with the hair do and markings of a Vaishnavaite, was negotiating with a temple lackey. Money exchanged hands. Was it a bribe for a darshan before due time or an advance for some illicit deal involving idols?

He moved through that corridor and stopped before the gigantic, shut door.

The man imagined Lord Shambhu as Nataraja.

He wondered, when the sanctum sanctorum opens and when the statue of Nataraja becomes resplendent before him, what shall he plead for? To remove his liver disease or to grant him peace of mind? Or to help him attain moksha: salvation?

He felt like laughing. Liver disease.

Now he laughed.

It was a sickness he had intentionally cultivated over the years, by obdurately ignoring his body.

Peace of mind? Again, he laughed.

While expediently flexing his thoughts to suit his desires, his mind had been nowhere in the picture!

Moksha?

Has he ever prayed for the moksha of a person who willingly came to share his sin?

He made haste to move out of the corridor of the Chidambaram Nataraja temple. In the broad daylight, when his eyes fell on his saffron long shirt and loose pajamas, he felt self-condemnation more than mortification.

The man recited:

 kamyanam karmanam nyasam
sannyasam kavayo viduh

 ( Bhagwad Gita  part of verse 18.2 …Giving up actions motivated by desire is what the wise understand as sanyasa)

With great difficulty, he kept on murmuring the lines and walked forward. Then he retrieved from the pocket the token meant for the safekeeping of his slippers. Pay ten paisa, give back the token and claim his footwear.

He went searching for the woman who had talked to him with great ease while giving him the token and whose tone and tenor had reminded him of Pappa. She was sitting at the edge of the decrepit old well; her hands folded against her chest. There was a black muffler wrapped around her throat. The man gazed at her intently. Was she hiding his Pappa somewhere inside those grey strands of hair and engorged cheeks full of folds and lines?

As he wore his slippers the man asked: ‘Amma, are you from this place?’

‘No, the village where I was born is slightly far off.’

He asked her name instead of the name of the village.

‘My name?’ The woman became provoked, ‘Hey swami, clad in saffron and seeking moksha, what will you gain by knowing my name? Better go away!’

The man walked away, his feet clad in slippers, without a backward glance.

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