Milk: A Short Story

Even though I had been expecting the news for about a week, when it finally arrived, it did hit me hard.

As the fan in that central government office lazily rustled the papers, I held them down with my left hand, wrote out my leave letter, and gave it to the office attender, "Give this to Ayya. I'm leaving."

Arumugam slightly bowed his head and, reached for the letter with both hands as if it were a precious gift while at the same time carefully avoiding any contact with my fingers. His eyes, flickered up to meet mine for a split second, a faint smirk playing on his lips before it vanished. "Alright, sir," he murmured, his voice unnaturally smooth, "I will give it to Ayya."

I got on my bicycle, the chain whirring lazily as I began to pedal. As it slowly picked up speed with a rhythmic clank, the forward momentum felt like a lie. My mind started pulling me through my memories to the very day it all began.

I

The day I entered the headmaster's office, even the very moment is still fresh in me and sends shivers. The look he gave me... no, I wasn't even worthy of his hatred; it was pure disgust. From that moment, that look became an indelible part of my life's memories. Could a human face carry so much loathsome malice? Yes, it could. That was the truth. His face would have contorted in the same way if someone had dumped a basket of filth in his room. Usually I would have been beaten black and blue and he would have skinned me alive for having dared to step into his office. Did I say step into? Sorry. I was dragged into his room.

“Sir, Why such a delay? It is getting mighty delayed. Any problem?” The voice had a ring of authority to it. For me, the only thing visible in front of me was the wooden bar of a browny table with its slightly dust coated edges. To my side, a fall of black coat cut a sharp line against a white dhoti. My whole world, however, seemed anchored by the hand on my wrist. Its grip was iron, a pressure that should have been crushing, yet all I felt from it was a steady, surprising and even a reassuring warmth.

The headmaster’s gaze moved from me towards the man who had addressed him. The raw disgust on his face vanished as if behind a mask; his shoulders slumped, and his entire body posture seemed to soften into a subservience.

"It is not exactly a 'problem,' PSK..." he began, his hands wringing the air as if searching for the right words. "You see... this school runs primarily on the children from our Agraharam. It's only in the last two years that the Chettiar children have started coming. If I admit this... this boy now... it will become..." He trailed off, flustered.

"PSK, please understand. The Agraharam people might agree out of fear of you... but the Chettiars will tie me up and skin me alive. I'll lose my job. Don't strike at the stomach of a poor Brahmin." His gaze flickered towards me, his lip curling for just a second, before he turned back to PSK, his features melting into an expression of weary resignation.

"For boys like him, there's the American Mission School, isn't there? Let him study there. If needed, I will even bear his educational expenses. Above all else... there is such a thing as Dharma, isn't there?"

Just then, another man wearing a white turban entered. It was not a silky one like the headmaster was wearing. It was rather rough cloth.

"What are you saying, Headmaster Sir?”, he emphasised the ‘Sir’ with a sarcastic respect that even an urchin like me could understand, “Those who went to the Mission School have all left your great Dharma. You are grabbing him by the neck and pushing him out, while they extend their hands respectfully, saying, 'Welcome, welcome.' Is this how you protect your bloo...”, he caught hold of himself, and then said, “Is this how you protect your wonderful Sanatana Dharma? Fantastic! I tell you. Only when your 'Dharma' is destroyed will this nation get its freedom.”

Then he turned to PSK, “Oye, PSK! There's no use talking to him. Just go to Okkur and see the Chettiar yourself. Or at least send him a letter. Only then will this work get done."

The headmaster looked back at me with a disgust which he did not even disguise now. Then he addressed both the turbaned man and PSK, "...If you have ancestral property to ensure your family dines in comfort even while you eat jail gruel, you can talk about any reform you want. But I tell you now. Be assured. Because of this, a situation will arise where the school itself will have to be shut down. I'll take him in... as my karma. Everything Krishnaarpanam!"

The man in the turban growled, "We didn't live in comfort headmaster sir. You haven't seen a hundredth of the financial burden my brother endured or the humiliation that came with it. Not just to him but also to Chellamma and her children. The police harassment we endured even after he went to Pondicherry... you will never understand any of it in this lifetime, oye."

A bitter taste, sharp as bile, flooded my mouth. A violent knot twisted in my stomach. My chest heaved, and the feeling of being less than human filled me completely. I was a wild creature, trapped and spitting with violence. Every nerve screamed a single command: Flee.

Bite the hand. Crawl from the room. Flee.

As my eyes darted to his wrist, choosing the spot to sink my teeth, that very moment pressure eased. The iron grip softened into a gentle, rhythmic pat, a gesture of such profound understanding it was as if he had heard my silent scream. I felt the rhythm of that pat almost echoing with my own chaotic pulse, and then calming it. An unknown strength flowed back into my limbs.

He was no longer holding me.

I stood. And this time, I stood on my own.

Amidst all that whirlpool of emotions, I understood that I have been admitted to the school.

II

Then the nightmares began on a daily basis. Only the nightmares were real and happened in day light of the school days.

The classroom was a landscape of neatly arranged heads, ordered shortest in the front to tallest in the back. Then there was me, an island of one. I sat marooned in the last bench, the single, glaring exception to the rule. From that distance, the blackboard was blocked by white uniforms – the backs of the tall boys before me.

The Maths teacher’s voice droned on, a monotonous hum about mangoes in a basket. "...if Murugan received two times what Kanthan received, and Kanthan received two times what Somu received..."

I squinted, and then tried my best to see through the gaps in the columns of the uniforms only to be blocked by the next row of uniforms. Finally, gathering courage, I raised a hand. "Sir," I called out, my voice small and shaky. "I cannot see the board."

The teacher stopped. A slow, malicious smile spread across his face. "Oh? The great Sahib is planning to become an ICS officer, is he? Dei! If you can't see, then get to the front. Come."

A ripple of snickers went through the class. I felt my ears burn as I slid out from the bench and began the long walk up the aisle.

As I neared the first bench, Ravi, the boy sitting there, recoiled as if I were something diseased. He physically shuddered, pulling his cloth bag closer to him to shield it from my touch.

Even as I went to sit in the empty space, the teacher's voice roared, cracking like a whip. "HEY, YOU! Who told you to sit on the bench? Sit here! Know your place." He slammed his cane on the dusty patch of floor right in front of his desk. "On the ground! We need a Commander for our floor-ces!"

The room exploded. It wasn't just laughter; it was a vicious howl of delight. A tidal wave of mockery crashed over me, pinning me to the spot. Dozens of eyes, all glinting with the same cruel pleasure.

SWISH!

The cane cutting through the air was the only thing that silenced them. I sank to the floor, the cold stone seeping through my thin trousers. From down there, all I could see were scuffed shoes and the legs of benches. The teacher had already turned his back on me, "Where did I leave off... Yes... if Kanthan received two times what Somu received...”

My mind drifted. Everyone received always more than what I received if at all I received.

III

The sharp clang of the lunch bell was my signal to escape. While the other boys swarmed under the sprawling banyan tree, their shouts and laughter echoing as they opened their tiffin boxes, I would slip away. My hiding place was a small grove of plantain trees behind the school compound, where a narrow irrigation stream gurgled, hidden from view.

Soon, I would see the familiar figure of Marian-annan, his dark, wiry frame cutting through the harsh afternoon sun. He worked on Lawyer PSK’s lands, and his hands were calloused from toil.

As he drew closer, my eyes would always find the small, worn iron kurusu (cross) resting against his chest. It was a constant reminder of conversations I wasn't meant to hear—his quiet, earnest voice urging my father in the evenings. "The Yesu Saami (Lord Jesus) people, they treat us like we are human," I once heard him say, his words full of a desperate hope. "Look at Samikannu's son, Muniyan. He went to their mission school, and now he is a teacher there. They call him Stephan, and even the Iyers and Aandais show him respect. Your son is a brilliant boy. Get him into Mission school."

To Marian-annan, it was the world's greatest puzzle that a man as good as PSK was not a Christian. He saw goodness and dignity as things that come to man from the blood of Jesus, and yet here was this Hindu man who embodied them more than anyone. "He is the only one," he'd confide in my father, his voice filled with a conflicted reverence. "He's not like the other masters. He doesn't even think he is a master." I think, in his heart, Marian-annan believed the lawyer was a kind soul who had simply been born into the wrong story.

Every afternoon he arrived, there would be a quick, nervous glance around, a slight nod of his head, and he would discreetly press the small, warm steel container into my hand.

"Aiyaru sent today’s milk for you," he'd whisper every day, like a solemn prayer, his voice rough but full of a hindered empathy.

I never savoured the milk. Crouching behind the broad, waxy plantain leaves that shielded me from the world, I'd tilt my head back and pour the milk down my throat in three quick, desperate gulps. It wasn't a treat; it was a prescription. A dose of strength that I had to take, always laced with a perpetual taste of fear. The fear of one of the students finding out and the consequences which I could never guess. Afterwards, I would kneel by the gurgling stream, the cool water a relief as I scrubbed the container clean, and would hand it over to Marian-Annan.

It was during this quiet ritual one day that a shadow fell over the water before me. I froze. Slowly, I looked up. It was Gopalu, the son of Kammathu Pillai, the wealthy landlord from nearby village. He stood there, flanked by two of his cronies, a slow, cruel smirk spreading across his face. His eyes weren't looking at me. They were fixed, with triumphant discovery, on the small steel container still glistening in my hands.

“Echhilpaal” (Spittle-Milk), he announced triumphantly to his friends. “That is what he drinks. Here onwards, let us call him ‘Echhilpaal’”. Soon it spread, faster than dysentery and diarrhoea in our huts, it spread across the students.

"Hey, Echhilpaal! Stand aside. We have to eat."

"The other day, my mother had sent thokku from home. As I was eating, I saw that ghoul Echhilpaal staring at me. The moment I got home that day, I got a stomach ache."

"Yes, his eye is the evil eye. Look, Echhilpaal is watching. Close your tiffin box, man!"

That name was their favourite weapon, and they were experts in how to use it for maximum pain. It was never just a word; it was a physical assault.

Sometimes, one of them would cup his hands around his mouth and shout it across the dusty playground—"Echhilpaal!"—making heads turn. Other times, they would corner me by the corridor, their bodies blocking any escape. They’d lean in close, their faces inches from mine, and one would hiss the name, spitting it like poison.

Then, they would watch.

They wouldn't laugh right away. They would just watch, silent and attentive, their eyes gleaming. They were connoisseurs of my humiliation, waiting for the performance. They watched for the tell-tale signs: the way my jaw would clench, the hot, shameful blood rushing to my cheeks, the involuntary flinch in my shoulders.

The moment my eyes darted to the ground, unable to meet their stare, was the moment they won. A cruel, triumphant smile would break across their faces, and the laughter that followed was not joyous, but sharp and jagged, designed to cut me to pieces. They didn't just enjoy my pain; they fed on it. They found a cruel satisfaction in closing their tiffin boxes right in front of my face and turning their backs to me.

But it was only when the Maths teacher called me by that name in class one day, and the entire class laughed, that I made my decision.

IV

That evening after school, I did not go back home. I walked briskly through the back lanes of the Agraharam and went through the lanes to the backdoor of PSK's house. It was open. Marian-annan was cleaning. The kurusu hanging from his shoulders seemed to radiate a confidence into me. Sweat glistened on his dark body, and the smell of jasmine wafted from his hands. His presence kind of reinforced my courage that was wavering. He looked at me with surprise and even shock registered in his face, as if to ask 'What?'. I gestured towards the inside of the house.

Then, a little louder, "I need to see the lawyer."

A lady appeared partially from the kitchen, keeping her distance. "Who are you, boy? What do you want?"

"I... I need to see the lawyer."

Before the lady could say anything, he himself came out. "Ah, Ambi, is that you? Come, come," he said, and in a flash, he crossed over, put his arm around my neck, and virtually embraced me as he led me inside.

My body trembled! Mariaan-annan made a sound like a sob. A vessel was placed down hard in the kitchen with a sharp 'clang'. As his arm guided me into the house, the walls seemed to lean in, creating a great silence, an immeasurable fear within me. Within that silence, I heard a soft whimper; I knew it came from the kitchen. A narrow path inside the house stretched on and on. It ended in a room where a picture of Gandhi was hanging. A reclining chair. The evening sunlight drew yellowish patterns through the tiles of the roof. He sat in the chair. His hand never left my shoulder.

"Tell me. You said you needed to see me. Why?"

"I won't go to school any more. Or else, please enroll me in the Yesu Saami school. I don't want this school." My voice was shaking worse than my chaotic heartbeat. But somehow, I had summoned the courage and had said it.

His face tightened severely. "Why?" His voice, which had been so sweet, had turned harsh. Then quickly he seemed to have composed himself, as if he realised something, as if he could see the pain in my heart, not completely, but as if he had glimpsed it. His voice became composed, calm and even loving, “Tell me Ambi, Why?”

The kindness in his voice broke the dam inside me. It did not just break; it shattered into a million pieces. A violent, uncontrollable shudder wracked my body, starting from my feet and convulsing all the way up my spine.

"I won't... go back," I gasped, the words catching on a sob that clawed its way up my throat. "No more... please... send me to the Yesu Saami (Lord Jesus) school... I don't want this one..." My breath hitched, each inhale a sharp, painful gasp. The words started to tumble out, not in a flood, but as sharp, jagged shards of memory.

"Everyone... they laugh... they call me..." The name was a stone in my throat; I couldn't force it out. "...Kanakku Iyya... the floor... so cold... they close their boxes when I eat... your money... your food... your leftovers..." The hated word finally ripped out of me, ugly and loud. "Echhilpaal!"

My voice cracked then, shattering into a sound I didn't recognize as my own. It was a high, thin wail of pure agony, part sob, part the snarl of a cornered animal. "THIS IS NOT MY SCHOOL!" I shrieked, my small body rigid with a force that terrified me. "MY SCHOOL IS YESU SAAMI SCHOOL! ONLY YESU SAAMI SCHOOL!"

I wasn't speaking anymore. I was screaming the words into the sacred quiet of his room. The scream tore my throat raw, leaving me empty, gasping, and convulsing with sobs I couldn't stop. Snot and hot tears streamed down my face, blinding me, my vision nothing but a blur of golden light and the dark, still shape of the man in the chair. My body was hollowed out, a vessel emptied of everything but a dull, throbbing ache and the terrifying echo of my own scream.

I watched the fire in his eyes go out.

It wasn't a slow dimming. It was like when you pour water on the firewood inside the cooking triple stones —a sudden hissing sound, and then, nothing. Just cold, dark emptiness. The lines on his face, the ones that always crinkled when he smiled, seemed to deepen and pull his expression down.

He looked at me, and his face was the saddest thing I had ever seen. It was the same look I sometimes saw in my own reflection after the other boys were done with me—a tired, empty, broken look.

But in him, it was very more intense. So intense that it scared me.

It was as if he had reached inside my chest, taken all the hot, ugly hurt I was feeling, and pulled it into his own body. I could see it all there in his eyes now, all my pain, but it was a hundred times heavier in him. And the weight of it was crushing him right in front of me.

He slumped back in the chair, his whole body seeming to shrink. When he finally spoke, his voice was a pained whisper, a thread of sound in the heavy silence. "'Echhilpaal'... Ambi, that is not a word of shame. When Sivapathahirudayar asked infant Sambandar whose spittle milk he had drunk. He was then blinded by rage of ignorance. But that was the milk of wisdom Goddess Herself gave. It made the child a prodigy. True wisdom knows it is the milk of knowledge... but to the ignorant, to the cruel... even the nectar of the gods can be twisted into spittle and leftover milk."

The words reached my heart with me understanding not a single word he said. It was strange. Can words whose meaning one does not understand a bit, cause such a healing effect to one self? To this day I cannot understand how it happened. To this day I can recall those words. And they became part of me when I understood not its meaning in the least. Perhaps that is what a Mantra really is. He looked at my uncomprehending, tear-stained face, and a deep sigh escaped him.

When he stood up, I saw that the confident grandeur in his stride had faltered. "Alright, come with me. We'll go to your house," he said.

He led me out not through the back, but through the front door, into the main street of the Agraharam. It was the first time my feet had ever touched that ground. The world seemed to stop. In the house opposite, an old man with white-filmed eyes stared, his hand clamped over his mouth in disbelief. Every door, every window held a frozen, silent face. The weight of their stares pressed down on me, forcing my head towards my chest.

When I dared to lift my tear-filled eyes, I saw it. The man beside me, this giant who defied the world around him, was also walking with his head bowed. His shoulders were slumped, not in shame, but as if bearing an immense, invisible weight for both of us.

V

Even before we moved into the foul smelling water stream that separated our huts from the main village, we saw my father standing near the Sivaambal Hotel, at the small side-window where they served tea to men like him who were not permitted inside. The main entrance was for others, but the hotel's rich aroma of ghee and roasting coffee drifted out onto the street for everyone to smell.

He stood on the dusty pavement, a small, weary figure after a long day of labour, finding a moment's rest. He showed no trace of resentment at being kept outside; this was simply the way of the world. He seemed entirely content, lost in the simple act of sipping the hot tea that had been passed out to him in a disposable coconut shell.

Then he saw us. Lawyer PSK, tall and imposing even without his black coat, and me, a small boy held by his side.

My father froze. The coconut shell dropped from his hand, clattering on the soil and spilling the last of his tea in a browny dark puddle. He shot to his feet, his body instinctively folding into a low bow, his spine bending with a lifetime of deference. His thin frame seemed to shrink before us.

"Lawyer Saami," he stammered, his eyes wide with a fear—the fear for him as well as for his son. "Kumbudren Aandai Saami (I bow Brahmin Master)... did my boy... did he do something wrong?"

The lawyer's hand tightened on my shoulder, a silent reassurance. He did not speak with the voice of a master addressing a labourer. His tone was level, clear, and cut through the noise of the street. "I am going to adopt him," he said, his voice calm but with an undeniable firmness. "I wish to raise him as my own son. I am asking, no no, begging for your permission. It is a kindness you must grant me."

My father stared, his mouth agape. His hands began to tremble. He looked from the lawyer's face to mine and back again, his eyes filled with a terror that was slowly being drowned by a wave of utter, soul-shaking disbelief. A single tear escaped the corner of his eye, then another, tracing clean paths through the grime on his weary cheeks. He didn't wipe them away. I don't think he even felt them.

That evening, my father’s hand was cold and trembling as he led me back to the lawyer's house through the backdoor. He did not speak to me or even look at me. When we stood before PSK, he wouldn't meet the lawyer's gaze, focusing instead on a crack in the floor as if his life depended on it.

"Lawyer Saami," he whispered, his voice raspy and broken, offering up his only treasure. "He is yours now. He can sleep in the back... outside the kitchens. Just... make a man out of him. Raise him as your servant in this house, and that will be more than enough."

But before my father could finish, PSK stepped forward and gently pulled me from his side. He turned me to face him, his hands warm on my shoulders. "No," he said, his voice filling the backyard, not with command, but with an unbreakable conviction. He looked at my father, his eyes shining with a strange, fierce light.

"He is not a servant. He is my son. My heir, who will carry my name forward. It is my Dharma—my sacred duty—to raise him as my equal and make him surpass me." He paused, and his next words seemed to hang in the air, rewriting the rules of the world. "This is a small penance for the great sin our people have committed for generations, ostracising a fellow human by birth in the name of God. You have given a boon to absolve me of this sin. For this act of kindness, my family and I and perhaps the entire Hindu religion will be indebted to yours for all of time."

VI

My new life began not with a grand declaration, but with a seat on the floor of his kitchen, a fresh banana leaf before him and a steel plate slightly bent before me. His wife served me rice with a single, sharp clatter of the spoon against the pot, her face a rigid mask. She wouldn't look at me. PSK saw that. He did not speak. He simply got up and asked me to exchange the places.

"He is our son," he said, his voice gentle but firm, leaving no room for argument. His wife stood frozen in the doorway for a long moment, her face a storm of conflict, before she turned and vanished deeper into the house. We heard a sob. I stood without any movement. Then his voice, ‘Ambi eat.’ We ate in a tense silence, but it was a silence that irrevocably broke the old rules. That night, I slept on a mat in his room, the steady sound of his breathing a shield against the ghosts of the classroom.

The next day at school, during the second period the Maths teacher strode into class, his face tight with a barely concealed fury. He didn't speak to me. He pointed a trembling finger at an empty spot on the third bench. "Get up," he snapped, his voice flat and cold. "Sit there." A stunned silence fell over the classroom as I moved from the floor to a wooden bench for the first time, my back straight, my head held high. I could feel the teacher's hateful glare on me for the rest of the hour; he had been forced to see me as a student, and it was clear he would never forgive me for it.

During lunch recess, I was in my usual hiding spot behind the plantain trees, scanning the path for Marian-annan. Then I saw a sight so impossible it felt like a dream, or perhaps a nightmare. It was her. PSK’s wife in her characteristic coarse Kathar saree. She was walking towards where I was standing, following a nervous-looking Marian-annan. My first thought was that I had done something terribly wrong, that she had come to take it all back. Then I saw that. She was carrying my tiffin carrier, a fresh banyan leaf rolled into its handle.

She didn't stop to hand me the box. She held my hand and half-dragged me right up to the school corridor where a few boys were eating. Then she sat down on its dusty floor near a lime coated pillar, and gestured for me to sit before her. A hush fell over the students nearby. Their chatter died, and their hands paused midway to their mouths. With serene, deliberate movements, she untied the banyan leaf, spread it before me like a sacred text, and began to arrange the food: a small mound of white rice, with hollows for the dal, the tangy curries, and the cool, white curd.

Then, she mixed a small ball of rice and dal with her fingertips and held it out towards my mouth.

I froze, mortified. Every eye in the corridor was on us. My face was a furnace of shame. I couldn't move, couldn't breathe, couldn't look away from her outstretched hand. It was the same hand that had belonged to the woman who wouldn't even look at me in her own kitchen. Now, it remained steady, patient, offering me food.

My eyes darted wildly around the corridor, searching for a known face I knew, for some explanation for what was happening, some kind of assurance. I finally found Marian-annan leaning against a coconut tree at a distance, watching us. But something was different about him. As I stared, confused, the recognition flooded into me. In his forehead there was a streak – a white streak though stained by his sweat, still recognisable enough to make his face look different – a streak of vibhuti.

From that day, she became 'Amma', as she insisted I call her. Twice a week, she would come with my lunch. She never fed me by hand again—she had seen my embarrassed eyes and understood—but she would sit with me patiently, her quiet presence a blessed talisman. She'd ask if the curry was too spicy, if I wanted more rice, her voice gentle. Lawyer PSK had given me a name and a future. He had stood against the world for me. But ‘Amma’, with her patient hands and quiet questions, healed the part of me that had forgotten what a mother's love felt like, since my own mother had died when I was six. This ‘Amma’ didn't just give me a place in her home; she gave me a place back in the human family. Somehow ‘Amma’ kind of got a pedestal even higher than PSK.

The next most profound change, came after a month and then became a routine every month. PSK himself would walk with me back to my family's hut, crossing the foul-smelling stream that separated my new world from my old. My father would stand at the entrance, wringing his hands, as this great Brahmin lawyer ducked his head to enter our tiny home. PSK would wave away the offered torn mat, instead sitting cross-legged on our packed-earth floor and insisting my father sit beside him as an equal.

"He stood first in both Tamil and Maths examinations," PSK would announce, his voice booming with a pride that was fierce and genuine. My own father, his face etched with a lifetime of hardship, would break into a rare, brilliant smile of pure disbelief and joy. And I would stand there, watching the two of them—one who gave me life, and one who gave me a life worth living—and in their shared delight I saw a sacred bridge getting forged between their two separated worlds.

VII

In his house, the law of man and the lore of gods lived side by side. On his forehead, was the bright Thiruman, proclaiming his Vaishnavaite faith to the world. Yet he would sit in his reclining chair in the evenings, his eyes closed in reverence, as my young voice filled the room with the Saivite hymns of Thevaram. A boy who was not allowed to enter a temple, I was committing the large chunks of Periya Puranam, the compendium of the divine and miraculous lives of Saivaite saints, to my memory – they becoming part of me.

It was then that the Temple Entry movement erupted. A group from Manamadurai had to go to Madurai to take Harijans, children of Hari, the name Gandhiji gave for us, into the temple. The group consisted mostly of Brahmins and other land owners. PSK was one of the prominent leaders of the movement. He said he would bring me along too.

That's when the trouble started. The feeling on the bus changed the moment I stepped inside. These were men brave enough to fight for a principle, to break the law for the grand, abstract right of a faceless Harijan mass to enter a temple. That definitely was not a simple thing in itself. There was considerable opposition, even violent opposition to that.

Even for them, the simple, physical reality of sharing a bus seat with a single Harijan boy, seemed to take things far beyond their sense of justice. I could not comprehend the logic though I understood their feeling as clear as the pond water before the first jump. They were going to let us into God's house, but they didn't want me to sit on a seat next to them. They needed an excuse.

They feared how to tell it to PSK.

Finally Raghava Iyengar, a potty chubby friend of PSK somehow gathered courage, "All the seats are full... there's no space, you see..."

PSK did see. He understood their game that I could see. He said clearly, "Then give my seat to the boy. It does not matter whether the father comes or the son." That evening, we were both on the bus that departed. On the way, he asked me to sing. I sang his favourite song from the Periya Puranam. "For the Vedic path to flourish..."

Most others sat in a tense silence, their eyes fixed outside, as if they wished to forget I was even there.

As he leaned back in the bus seat, his hand still on my shoulder, PSK began to speak, "This is the Vedic path, Ambi. Give wisdom to everyone. This is the land that generously offered wisdom to all who came. Didn't you read in your history book that Xuanzang and Faxian came? Didn't the Greeks come to study in Nalanda, Takshashila, and Kanchi? But today, we have become demons who say, 'Don't touch’ to our own brothers, and find excuses to exclude our own people to read the Vedas.'

His voice slowly and steadily rose, till it was filling the entire bus. It had the same effect on me when he first spoke about the greatness of the milk of the Goddess. Only this time I knew the meaning of what he was talking.

“Hey, Ambi, who were the Vedic Rishis? The very people whom they push away today as untouchables, they are the ones. It was from them that the Vedas have been stolen. You know the Puranas, don't you? At the end of the yuga, the demons took the Vedas and hid them, saying they belonged only to them. Maha Vishnu vanquished those demons and rescued Mother Veda. Today, these people have hidden not just Veda Mata, but even Bhagavan Himself from the entire society. We must vanquish their false dharma and protect the Sanatana Dharma, Ambi. We must protect the Vedic path. We must prove in practice that the Vedas and Bhagavan are common to all people. Then alone we will be eligible for Swarajya!"

The silence in the bus conveyed in a loud voice that many in that vehicle did not appreciate his speech. At least one old man was chanting repeatedly, 'Om Nama Sivaya', as if that would keep him safe from what PSK's voice was conveying.

VIII

The years passed in a blur of study and hard work. College degrees, awards, a prestigious post as a Gazetted Officer serving under the proud Indian Tricolour—I gathered them all, not just for myself, but as offerings to the two fathers who had forged my life. Having marrying my aunt's daughter as my father had wished, when we arrived as a newly married couple by train and got down at the station, another surprise awaited me.

A decorated horse-drawn carriage!

And that's when the first surprise struck me. Not a bullock cart, not a taxi, but a magnificent horse-drawn carriage, festooned with garlands of jasmine and marigolds, a Nadaswaram troupe waiting beside it. PSK was there, his eyes beaming with a pride that outshone the sun.

As the carriage began to move, the joyous, trumpeting music of the Nadaswaram filled the air. We paraded through the very streets where I knew men of my community had been tied to tamarind trees and flogged for the crime of wearing slippers. The ghosts of their cries were faint beneath the music. I looked at my wife, her hand in mine, her face full of a shy, happy wonder, and I felt the past and present collide.

"Come, let's go," PSK said.

Where to? I didn't know.

"Your wedding gift", he told. Still a mystery.

To the music of a double nadaswaram, my horse carriage set off. The procession finally stopped at the Udupi Hotel. There, my father, Marian-annan, the streak on his forehead now a triple white band, and all our relatives and people from our area were standing, dressed in their finest clothes. And they were not alone. There were Brahmins and Thevars, Nadars and Chettiars, all castes and communities mingled together, talking and laughing.

“Your wedding gift", the words suddenly made a grand sense.

As the carriage stopped a cry went out "Bharat Mata ki Jay!" "Vande Mataram!" It was followed by another "Mahatma Gandhi ki Jay!" "Pandit Nehru ki Jay"

The hotel owner himself, a Brahmin, came out with folded hands and ushered everyone inside. He personally served my father, placing a steel tumbler of water on the table before him. That simple gesture contained in it multitude.

As my wife and I moved through the joyous chaos, my eyes landed on a stooped figure in the corner, an old man looking lost and out of place. The face was heavily lined, but the eyes... I knew those eyes. A jolt went through me. It was my old Maths teacher.

Something within went red. I saw myself moving towards him. I saw myself asking him to get to the last row of the hall. Better still, I improvised, “Sir why not you go outside and wait. This hall is full. You can come in the next round. Please.” I was showing him the exit.

I came back. A strange calm settled over me.

Taking my wife's hand, I led her through the crowd. A hush fell as people saw who I was approaching. The old man looked up at me, his face a mask of confusion, a forgotten man suddenly the centre of attention. I smiled gently at my wife. "This is my Maths teacher," I said, my voice clear and steady for all to hear. "But for his heartful encouragement and skilful teaching, I might never have scored that district rank in maths I always brag to you about."

Then, together, my wife and I bent down and touched his feet.

When we rose, the old man's face had crumpled. He lunged forward and hugged me. I felt his frail, bird-like body shaking against mine, and the starched collar of my new white shirt grew damp and I heard a controlled sob.

IX

The crowd gathered in front of his house brought me back to the present. I parked my bicycle and went to him. He was seated in the same reclining chair. His swollen feet were propped up on a stool. The wrinkles of experience on that face, which had lived for over 90 years, gave it an inexplicable majesty.

Slowly, I went near him. Vijayaraghavan Iyengar gently told me, "He's holding on to his life just for you. We are about to recite the Charama Shloka. This is Ganga water, please pour a little slowly into his mouth."

I took the small pot like brass vessel.

They began.

"Sarva-dharman parityajya mam evam sharanam vraja
Aham tva sarva-papebhyo mokshayishyami ma shuchah"

His finger trembled, moved, and beckoned me. I bent close to his mouth. "V…ve…da…nne…rri…" his mouth mumbled. I understood. In a very soft voice, I sang into the ear of the man who was slowly entering the eternal abode of Vishnu...

For the Vedic path to flourish, for the great Saivite discipline to shine,

For all life forms to prosper,

he whose cry flowered from his sacred mouth,

That holy Jnanasambandhan of cool, fertile Pukali,

Taking his flower-like feet upon our heads, let us praise his holy service.

[This is a work of fiction. It is loosely based on the life of Gandhian freedom fighter P.S. Krishnaswamy Iyengar. He adopted a Scheduled Community boy and the boy, Sambandam, became a high official and wrote his biography ‘Harijana Iyengar’ in Tamil. This fiction titled ‘Paal’ was first written in Tamil in 2011.]