Stigma

Enchantedworld

Amma looked at her with tears streaming down her face. "How could she?" Amma whispers.

"Never mind, amma! Never mind. Just let go, okay." I try to pacify a weakening amma.

She walks out of the gate. She walks out on us. Amma does the same.

***

We were two girls from a strict Iyyer family in a small town from Southern Kerala, the sleepy Palakkad.

Shree was the younger and the bolder one among us. Impeccably straight and strong willed amma never felt the absence of a boy child, when she was around. Climbing trees and playing home made balls; she easily beat all the local village lads. When we went on summer trips to Ottapalam where muthassan* resided, she deftly handled the ticket purchase, luggage loading to the train and finding the reserved seats. Like a man, like a boy, always chivalrous and responsible.

“Sree is a smart girl, Vinuvenna*,” she would convey across miles to Bahrain. Half the men folk of Kerala migrated to the gulf countries, to provide greener pastures for their families, mostly being the only earning member to feed a household of 10 to 12 hungry mouths. The real estate and IT sector had boomed, yet the economy of Kerala was unquestionably underlined by Gulf remittance.

ShreeLakshmi was a star as far as our ‘Poonthanam Madom*’ was concerned.

She passed her matriculation with flying colors and went off to study medicine at AIMS. It was one of the leading medical institutes, where only meritorious students with brilliance par excellence could get into.

I studied English literature at Victoria College, Palakkad.

Shree and I were more than sisters. We spent endless monsoon months discussing and debating Kerala, communism, education prospects, hypocrisy, literacy and our lives.  One night in April, I rang her to hostel. “Shree, I want to see you immediately.”

“Now?! Ananthu, we are really very far away, you know?!”

I didn’t care. I had to talk to her. She came.

In her smiles, I knew she understood love. Mine and Nihal’s. Nihal was a Muslim from Kannur. ‘Pattathi pennum kaaka chekkanum*’- roughly translated to Brahmin Girl and Muslim guy. It was enough to raise a hurricane in conservative Kerala. Public graveyard of Muslim mosques would disallow the burial of dead for even family members of Nihal. And I would be barred from my madom for ever. ‘Padi Adachu pindam vekkal*’ - The name of a cruel ritual -last rites would be performed on a living person akin to that when a person dies.

And Poonthanam* would be ostracized forever, a family which didn’t know how to raise its girls with honor, with culture, with good upbringing. Since I was the older girl, Shree’s life would be charred till someone bestowed kindness on her and married her. And that someone could well be a widower or a divorcee.

Shree said, “It’s your life. Dreams are like castles on sandy beaches, perfectly sculpted, till the waves roll in. Think about it. Everything else you do or achieve in life after this will be overshadowed by your one act.”

I said bye to a Nihal who refused to look back. I blinked away the single raindrop that meshed with tears. I loved walking back home that day in rain, because no one could see me cry.

***

I place the garland of Thulasi on amma's photo frame. Today is her death anniversary. She had a massive heart attack on the day Shree married a Catholic Christian. Shree became what I wanted to be and rebelled against the system. Amma was shattered when she knew and finally relented to death but not to Shree.

I had the choice to do what I wanted after amma’s death, but ennui loomed large. I couldn’t ever replace Nihal with anyone else in my heart. I wandered in nowhere.

Shree got divorced in her 8^th year of marriage plus a kid. Saju was a typical Keralite guy, dominant and snobbish. Initially, Saju didn’t pressurize Shree to convert, but ultimately that became a cause for daily squabbles. Saju’s upbringing complimented the egotistic male chauvinism predominant in Keralite homes. Women even if educated or equally talented still remained relics beneath men’s feet. Saju was a typical mamma’s boy, petted and pampered so thoroughly that he had to be waited upon hands and feet relentlessly. And it never occurred to him that he had an erroneous attitude. Shree was too headstrong to lay in apathy or to bear in docility.

The irony was that this wasn’t happening to the lower uneducated non-worldly-wise class of the society, Shree and Saju were highly qualified doctors, the cream in fact, educated from pioneer academic institutions. And myself and Nihal, we were still saying our good byes.

Shree and I are still more than sisters. We tried to rebel against a system that was too strong for us. And lost.

One of us, against the system and one with the system.

Yet we became. One another. For her. For me.

Malayalam Glossary

Muthassan-Grandfather

Vinuvenna- Respectful address of husband’s name.

Madom- Name of traditional Brahmin homes in Palakkad.

Ponthanam Madom- A proper noun- Name of a madom.

Pattathi pennum – Brahmin Girl and

kaaka chekkanum-  Muslim Boy

Padi Adachu Pindam Vekkal- Customary ritual, where people who go against caste and traditions  are considered dead even when alive and done away with rites done to dead people.

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