Ambi's Cyclonic Storm

 

It was the early seventies, and a devastating cyclonic storm had just finished ravaging the Andhra coast with considerable thoroughness when Raman decided, with characteristic resolution, that none of this was any reason to postpone his youngest sister Mangalam's wedding. He had been saving money for over a year, dispatching funds in careful instalments to his paternal aunt in Ponneri. Ponneri was one of those small, unhurried towns that sit quietly north of Madras, going about their business with the serene indifference of places that have never felt the need to announce themselves. It was here that Mangalam had been living under the old aunt's guardianship, and it was here that Raman had been directing three months of meticulous wedding preparation. A cyclone was not part of the plan, but then, cyclones rarely consult anyone's plans.

Three days before the family was due to depart, news arrived at the township that railway tracks between Vijayawada and Nellore had been torn up at several points, roads damaged, bus services disrupted across the state. Raman stared at this information briefly and then proceeded to pack the large squarish leather bag that contained everything the family would need for the journey and return — a portable household compressed into cowhide — and ushered Chella, Ambi and Kumaran onto the early morning bus from Nowrangpur that arrived at the township bus stand near the town market at six in the morning, already almost full. The conductor had barely raised his whistle to signal departure when an old man who had been sleeping in one of the seats — sleeping with that complete, boneless abandon that only the very old can manage — suddenly woke up, looked around with the wild eyes of a man who has no idea where he is, and shouted that he needed to get off, was this Jeypore? The conductor, a thin, lanky young man of about thirty, informed him with barely contained exasperation that this was the township, that the bus did not go to Jeypore, and that he had specifically asked the old man to get off at Borigumma — and the old man had slept off to glory all the way past it. The old man gathered what dignity was available to him and hurried off the bus.

What followed was the kind of journey that only a man with a sister's wedding on his conscience could endure with equanimity. The ramshackle bus wound its way down the eastern ghats — pausing at Pottangi where the crew stopped to pay their obeisance to Hanuman, and at Sunki at the summit where Ambi, undone by the combined assault of coconut pieces, diesel fumes and winding gradients, went to a corner of the road and parted company with everything he had eaten since morning, Chella producing a lemon for him to smell and Raman pressing a few aromatic betel nuts into his hand — before descending to the Andhra plains and reaching Vizianagaram at half past twelve. The Madras Mail arrived on time at one thirty but ran only as far as Vijayawada, the cyclone having made further travel by rail impossible. At Vijayawada, APSRTC bus services had been suspended entirely. Raman, after considerable exploration, located a private tourist bus heading to Tirupati, negotiated passage with the conductor through the universal diplomacy of a five-rupee note pressed discreetly into a willing pocket, and the family breakfasted at the VLR stall at the station before boarding. As the driver started the engine, the devotees among the passengers called out in chorus — "Govinda! Govinda!" — an auspicious invocation in Telugu households seeking the Lord's blessing for the journey to his abode. In Tamil households the same exclamation carried the approximate meaning of: at God's mercy. Both interpretations seemed equally apt. The feisty driver drove through the day and into the night on battered roads, kutcha paths right through hamlets that no buses ventured hitherto and shallow water bodies and sometime around dawn the bus reached Sullurpeta, where Raman and family alighted, found a local bus heading south toward Pulicat, and arrived at Ponneri an hour or so later — three days after setting out from the township.

At the Ponneri bus stand, Raman hailed a horse-drawn tonga — a publicly available conveyance that clip-clopped passengers about town for a negotiated fare — and after some haggling, the family settled themselves inside, on a mat laid over generous hay that offered the occupants a degree of cushioning against the road's opinions. The tonga made its way down Hariharan Bazaar Street and pulled up in front of a pyol abutting a long stretch of household. Raman's paternal aunt, Pattammal — a formidable woman in her late seventies who managed large households and larger crises with equal composure — opened the grill door and ushered them all in.

They had made it. Mangalam's wedding was still on.

— — —

Ambi had no remembrance of having witnessed a complete wedding before, and weddings, insofar as he had formed any opinion of them, seemed to involve a great deal of activity directed at no clear purpose that he could identify.

What he understood immediately and completely was Mangalam.

Raman's youngest sister took one look at Ambi and an attachment was formed, the kind that occasionally happens between people who recognise something in each other that neither could name. Ambi was no less drawn to her. While the adults — Raman, his parents, his younger brothers, Mangalam's elder sister and a typically reticent fufaji and the ancient Pattammal — busied themselves with the hectic logistics of a three-day wedding, Ambi attached himself to Mangalam's side and entertained her with detailed accounts of his school life and township adventures, to which she listened with genuine interest and delight. He was not wrong. Mangalam was happy to have a small, earnest, talkative boy for company, and Ambi was happy to have found, in this unfamiliar coastal town, someone who was entirely and exclusively his.

The seaside climate had its own views on the matter. Ambi, accustomed to the cool hill air of the eastern ghats, developed an allergic response to the coastal humidity that rapidly turned into a bronchial asthma attack. Pattammal proposed taking him to her trusted doctor. Ambi refused to go unless Mangalam accompanied him. The tradition was firm: a bride-to-be was to remain at home for at least a week before the wedding rituals began. Ambi was equally firm on his condition. The standoff continued until Raman stepped in, bundled Ambi into a bullock cart with the old aunt, and proceeded to the clinic — Mangalam's participation having been successfully vetoed by the combined weight of tradition and Raman's patience running out.

Ambi returned a couple of hours later with bronchodilators and an expectorant syrup, and found Mangalam waiting. She put him to bed, administered his medicines, sat beside him and lulled him to sleep with the quiet assurance of someone who knew he would be all right. He was. Within two days he had recovered fully.

But with the wedding now only a few days away, the house had taken on a different character entirely. When Mangalam was busy, Ambi took it upon himself to loiter from room to room in the large house, with a curiosity for people and things. Soon he came upon the timber room in the backyard to spy upon his father Raman and Pattammal talking heatedly over money matters. Raman was quietly grappling with an unplanned funding gap that had appeared from nowhere — most of the accumulated savings he had been dispatching to his aunt over the past year were unavailable for the marriage expenses, a discovery that must have landed like a stone in still water. As a last resort, (Ambi reckoned many years later) Raman commuted fifty percent of his IAF pension to bridge the shortfall — a decision made without fanfare, without complaint, and almost certainly without anyone else in that busy house fully understanding what it cost him. Relatives meanwhile arrived in all hues, anchoring themselves at Pattammal’s home, filling every available corner with noise and bags and the cheerful self-importance of people who have come a long way for an occasion. Mangalam was absorbed into the preparations — present but not accessible, near but not his. Ambi grew pensive. He did not have the vocabulary for what he felt, but he felt it completely.

— — —

The three-day wedding commenced after the entire contingent moved over to the Kalyana Mandapam, the venue for the grand gala celebrations on the other side of the town beyond the railway bridge, closer to the Kari Krishna Perumal Temple.

The first morning brought the Naandi Shrardham — a ritual preceding an auspicious event to seek the blessings of the manes — and the evening the Nichayathaamboolam, the formal engagement ceremony. Ambi sat through it watching a stranger sit beside Mangalam with a familiarity he found deeply objectionable. He tugged at Chella's sleeve and demanded to know who this impudent man was and what precisely he thought he was doing, sitting so close to our Mangalam. Chella told him to be quiet and go play with Kalyan and Ganesan, his cousins from Kollenvilai, boys of his own age. Ambi transferred his interrogation to Raman, who told him matter-of-factly that Mangalam was getting married to the Mappillai — the groom — Surya, who has a good job at a government research undertaking and that Surya will henceforth protect and take care of Mangalam for the rest of her life. He wondered aloud why Raman could not continue to protect Mangalam himself — if not in Ponneri, then back at their own place in the township. Raman merely frowned at him and said, "You are too young to understand these matters." The words passed through Ambi and left no impression, because the idea that anything could alter the fundamental arrangement of the world as he currently understood it — that Mangalam was Mangalam and therefore available — did not register as a real possibility.

The evening brought the Janavasam — a procession ritual announcing to the world at large of the ensuing marriage — in which the bride is taken in a decorated car to a nearby temple, the groom in another. Ambi managed, by methods not precisely documented, to get himself into Mangalam's car. She was pleased to have him there. For that brief hour the world was restored to its proper order. Ambi went to bed that night with mixed feelings, turning over the day's strangeness, but anchored by the evening's rightness.

Dawn the next day broke to the loud play of Nadaswaram and Mridangam, announcing the main day of the wedding with the unambiguous authority of a proclamation. Chella rushed Ambi through his bath and dressed him for the occasion, fielding his questions with the economy of someone who had budgeted a fixed number of answers for the exercise: "yes, no, maybe, I don't know all that, Ambi."

The rituals unfolded. Kasi Yaathirai was performed — the theatrical tradition in which the groom pretends he has renounced the world for Kashi, and the bride's family must persuade him otherwise. Ambi found this genuinely entertaining, though he may have been rooting for the wrong side. Then Surya and Mangalam were seated together before the sacred fire, and the rituals proceeded through their ancient order while Ambi watched with awe, fascination and a growing unease he could not name.

The Nadaswaram reached its piercing peak as Surya tied the thali — the sacred thread — around Mangalam's neck. Then Surya took Mangalam's right hand in his and held it, and did not let go.

Ambi stared. He was thoroughly confused. He was also, though he would not have known the word, possessively green with jealousy that tormented him no end. Who was this Surya from nowhere, and by what right did he take such liberties with our Mangalam?

He turned to Chella and complained, bitterly and at some length, about the fundamental ridiculousness of what he was witnessing. Chella delivered a sharp slap to his face and told him to mind his own business. Ambi retreated to a corner of the wedding hall and sat there shedding tears, unable to understand why the world had arranged itself so unfairly against him.

Pattammal, doing the rounds, warming up with guests seated in the hall, finally saw a morose Ambi in a corner, depressed and teary-eyed. She had, from the moment Ambi arrived at her grill door, taken the measure of this boy with the accuracy of long experience. She dried his tears, took him by the hand, led him to the assembled guests and introduced him to the doctor's little daughter, Valli — approximately Ambi's age, probably the most captivating person he had laid eyes on, standing there in her paavadai (traditional long skirt) with a smile that was infectious.

She took both children to the kitchen, instructed the cook to feed them sweets and savouries, and turned them loose in the garden outside with instructions to play until further notice.

Mangalam was forgotten with a speed that would have been alarming had anyone been paying attention.

Ambi and Valli ran and jumped and frolicked through the wedding hall's precincts with the focused energy of children who have found each other. They had lunch together — Ambi talking to Valli considerably more than he ate, until Chella threatened to send Valli away if he didn't finish what was on his leaf, whereupon he ate in rapid, virtuous silence and waited by the dining hall entrance for Valli to emerge. They picked flowers in the garden. They commandeered the gardener's hose pipe for purposes the gardener had not intended. They had their evening snacks together.

Then the doctor came to fetch his daughter.

Ambi pleaded with Pattammal to let Valli stay. She negotiated with the doctor — she would bring Valli home by evening after dinner. The doctor, who trusted the old woman completely, agreed and left in his chauffeured Fiat. Ambi and Valli had their dinner. The Doc's car had come to fetch Valli. Pattammal then had to wean away Valli, not before assuring Ambi that Valli would return the next morning. He believed her completely and went to sleep.

He woke at dawn to find the hall quieter. Most people had gone. A few relatives sat around in the relaxed manner of those whose work is done. There was no sign of Valli. The old aunt told him gently that Valli was unwell, but that they could perhaps visit her at her father's house in the evening.

Chella dragged Ambi to breakfast. Mangalam and Surya sat directly across from him, having their meal together in the easy manner of people who were now, by every measure available, each other's. Ambi's face fell. The despondency that Valli had so thoroughly dissolved came flooding back.

— — —

It was the last day. The kitchen was busy packing Kattusadham — parcels of rice and accompaniments — one for each member of Surya's entourage. Ambi watched without understanding what it signified. He grew quiet. Pensive. Morose in the way children are morose when they sense something ending without knowing quite what.

Then came the moment he had not foreseen, because it had never occurred to him that it could happen.

Five bullock carts were summoned. Surya's entourage loaded their belongings, along with the seer-gifts given away by the bride’s family to the couple. The carts formed a small procession in the street. Mangalam and Surya took the last cart. Her kith and kin bade her farewell. The procession began to move — down Hariharan Bazaar Street, toward Ponneri railway station.

Something broke open in Ambi's chest.

He understood now, with the sudden terrible clarity that comes when the thing you didn't know you were waiting for arrives all at once, that Mangalam was leaving. Not for an hour. Not for a ceremony. Leaving — going away with Surya to Madras, where Surya worked, and not coming back to this house on Hariharan Bazaar Street, and not coming back to the township in the eastern ghats, and not coming back to any place where Ambi could find her.

He broke free from Chella's hand and ran.

He ran after the carts, down the street, past the shops on Hariharan Bazaar Street, his small legs working with the furious conviction that if he could only keep pace, something might still be salvageable. Mangalam looked back and saw him. She could not help herself — she wept, copiously and without restraint, calling to him to go back, that she would return, that he must go back now. Ambi was in no mood to retrace his steps. He kept running.

He ran all the way to the underbridge. The carts turned right at the junction toward the station and disappeared into the din and the ordinary indifferent commotion of a morning in Ponneri.

Ambi stood at the turn for a moment, looking at the space where the last cart had been.

Then he walked to a culvert near the underbridge and sat down.

The street went about its business around him, indifferent and unhurried. Carts passed. People passed. Somewhere, a vendor called out his wares. The morning had places to be. It spared no thought for a small boy sitting alone on a culvert at the edge of Hariharan Bazaar Street, somewhere between bewilderment and grief, turning over in his mind — without quite the words for it — the unfairness of life.

The cyclone that had ravaged the Andhra coast had long spent itself. The one inside Ambi was only just beginning.

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The Hillranger writes from Dharmarajapuram, where the mornings are unhurried and the boy on the culvert has never quite grown up.