When he stepped out of the house for a stroll, he thought – this has probably happened to many people in different times to different degrees. Maybe some of them have built whole philosophical systems out of these thoughts! Anyway, in this case, a sufficient number of theories were already available, and one didn’t need to forge yet another. Let Appuppan sitting high above not blight his joyful daily ritual! He was about to decide on placing the request before Appuppan when someone called to him loudly: “Kochuve!”
It was Kuttappaasaar, the washerman.
“Did you hear?”
Kuttappaasaar was, of course, unaware that Kochukuttan’s mind was hung so heavy with thoughts that no other news could possibly enter it. No, he shook his head.
“There’s a police jeep at the junction, and they’re asking for Naniyamma’s house!”
Police, in Naaniyamma’s house? That didn’t sound real. Kuttapaasaar had walked off by then, so he couldn’t ask him anything more.
Naaniyamma lived by herself. She must be nearing ninety now. She cooked just one meal a day. Had a big yard around the house and lots of mango and jackfruit trees – anyone could get some fruits any time. Sometimes relatives came visiting, but such occasions were rare. He had helped her during the thulam showers last year. The roof was leaking, so he had replaced two of the tiles. Maybe something had happened to her...He turned into the lane leading to her house, walking briskly.
There were people who would murder a ninety-year- old woman or despoil her body without a tinge of guilt. Maybe something of that sort...The obscenity of such thoughts struck him as they kept revolving inside his head. Why such ugly thoughts now? He was sure they wouldn’t have occurred to him some time back. As he gained pace, nursing the general thought that his thinking was rather disordered these days, a stone struck his backside. He turned to look. It was Ambika chechi, of the Tekkethil house.
“I’ve been calling out to you for so long! Where are you running off to?”
“No place in particular,” Kochukuttan lied.
“But where are you off to?”
“Naaniyamma’s. The police is there.”
“Ayyo!” she exclaimed, stupefied. Kochukuttan didn’t stop. Stopping meant chatting with her. And that meant letting her persuade him to repair her tap, which would then extend to washing down the tiles of her roof. So he ran.
When he slowed down, he realised that his thoughts had not been running with him. Or were they testing him, to see how far he’d run? Suppressing such intellectual dilemmas for the moment, he turned to face the immediate empirical reality. The police jeep was parked at the gate of the house. The sub-inspector stood leaning against it. Two policemen stood further away. Another policeman was walking around the house, shouting, “Anyone home?”
“Saar, it seems there’s no one in there,” he shouted.
“Look again, carefully,” suggested the SI, walking over towards him.
The boundary between Naaniyamma’s house and the road was a row of dilapidated thatches put up a very long time ago. You had to walk through the yard to reach the house. A path shaped out of people’s footfalls winded down it, like a moulted snakeskin. On either side of the path grew shameplants, false daisies, heart-leaf sida plants, and many others.
Kochukuttan tried smiling at the policeman who was standing there, but the policeman did not smile back.
“There’s someone in the toilet outside the house, it looks like,” said the policeman.
“Will they be out anytime soon?”
“Will take time if they are constipated.”
The SI hmm-ed. Tapioca lay drying on a mat outside. He picked up a few pieces and began to munch.
“What’s the matter, saar?” asked Kochukuttan of the unsmiling policeman.
“You’ll fix it, huh, if you knew?” he snapped back.
Kochukuttan said nothing and stepped back. He could hear the anxious heartbeats of the people who had gathered there. He alone couldn’t hold his anxiety back; it tipped over. That was why he had to take the policeman’s bark.
Naaniyamma never went anywhere. She must be inside. Her hearing was poor. You just have to go right in. The suggestions were pushing and shoving each other on the tip of Kochukuttan’s tongue when they heard the sound of something shuffling in the sand at the back of the house. After some time, Naaniyamma came out. The sound stopped.
She paid no attention to the people standing in her yard. She dropped the coconut frond she was dragging and sat down beside it.
“Hey,” the policeman tried to call.
She did not look at him. The policeman squatted next to her and said, “We have to ask you something.”
Naaniyamma began to weave the fronds.
“Saar, she can’t hear,” someone in the crowd said. The driver of the police jeep turned to look. All the faces he saw bore the same mien.
“Saare, she is a potti! Stone-deaf!” the driver called out.
Kochukuttan did not like the expression potti, but he kept quiet.
Excerpted with permission from The Cock is the Culprit, Unni R, translated from the Malayalam by J Devika, Eka.
