Arundhati Roy - The God of Small Things

The poem was interspersed with grunts from the old lady on the bed, which no one except Chacko seemed to notice.

Whe swam the Eske river where fird there was none;

Buitair he alighted at Netherby Gate,-

The bride had cansended, the galla ntcame late.”

Comrade Pillai arrived mid-poem; a sheen of sweat glazed his skin, his mundu was folded up over his knees, dark sweatstains spread under his Terylene armpits. In his late thirties, he was an unathietic, sallow little man. His legs were already spindly and his taut, distended belly, like his tiny mother’s goiter, was completely at odds with the rest of his thin, narrow body and alert face. As though something in their family genes had bestowed on them compulsory bumps that appeared randomly on different parts of their bodies.

His neat pencil mustache divided his upper lip horizontally into half and ended exactly in line with the ends of his mouth. His hairline had begun to recede and he made no attempt to hide it His hair was oiled and combed back off his forehead. Clearly youth was not what he was after. He had the easy authority of the Man of the House. He smiled and nodded a greeting to Chacko, but did not acknowledge the presence of his wife or his mother.

Latha’s eyes flicked towards him for permission to continue, with the poem. It was granted. Comrade Pillai took off his shirt, rolled it into a ball and wiped his armpits with it. When he finished, Kalyani took it from him and held it as though it was a gift. A bouquet of flowers. Comrade Pillai, in his sleeveless vest, sat on a folding chair and pulled his left foot up onto his right thigh. Through the rest of his niece’s recitation, he sat staring meditatively down at the floor, his chin cupped in the palm of his hand, tapping his right foot in time with the meter and cadence of the poem. With his other hand he massaged the exquisitely arched instep of his left foot.

When Latha finished, Chacko applauded with genuine kindness. She did not acknowledge his applause with even a flicker of a smile. She was like an East German swimmer at a local competition. Her eyes were firmly fixed on Olympic Gold. Any lesser achievement she took as her due. She looked at her uncle for permission to leave the room. Comrade Pillai beckoned to her and whispered in her ear.

“Go and tell Pothachen and Mathukutty that if they want to see me, they should come immediately.”

“No comrade, really… I won’t have anything more,” Chacko said, assuming that Comrade Pillai was sending Latha off for more snacks. Comrade Pillai, grateful for the misunderstanding, perpetuated it.

“No no no. Hah! What is this? Edi Kalyani, bring a plate of those avalose oondas.”

As an aspiring politician, it was essential for Comrade Pillai to be seen in his chosen constituency as a man of influence. He wanted to use Chacko’s visit to impress local supplicants and Party Workers. Pothachen and Mathukutty. the men he had sent for, were villagers who had asked him to use his connections at the Kottayam hospital to secure nursing jobs for their daughters. Comrade Pillai was keen that they be seen waiting outside his house for their appointment with him. The more people that were seen waiting to meet him, the busier he would appear, the better the impression he would make. And if the waiting people saw that the factory Modalali himself had come to see him, on his turf, he knew it would give off all sorts of useful signals.

“So! comrade!” Comrade Pillai said, after Latha had been dispatched and the avalose oondas had arrived. “What is the news? How is your daughter adjusting?” Hc insisted on speaking to Chacko in English.

“Oh fine. She’s fast asleep right now.”

“Oho. Jet lag, I suppose,” Comrade Pillai said, pleased with himself for knowing a thing or two about international travel.

“What’s happening in Olassa? A Party meeting?” Chacko asked.

“Oh, nothing like that. My sister Sudha met with fracture sometime back,” Comrade Pillai said, as though Fracture were a visiting dignitary. “So I took her to Olassa Moos for some medications. Some oils and all that. Her husband is in Patna, so she is alone at inlaws’ place.”

Lenin gave up his post at the doorway, placed himself between his father’s knees and picked his nose.

“What about a poem from you, young man?” Chacko said to him. `Doesn’t your father teach you any?”

Lenin stared at Chacko, giving no indication that he had either heard or understood what Chacko said.

“He knows everything,” Comrade PilIai said. “He is genius. In front of visitors only he’s quiet.”

Comrade Pillai jiggled Lenin with his knees.

“Lenin Mon, tell Comrade Uncle the one Pappa taught you. Friends Romans countrymen…”

Lenin continued his nasal treasure hunt.

“Come on, Mon, it’s only our Comrade Uncle-”

~Comrade Pillai~~

“Friends Roman: countrymen lend me your-?”

Lenin’s unblinking gaze remained on Chacko. Comrade Pillai tried again.

“Lend me your-?”

Lenin grabbed a handful of banana chips and bolted out of the front door. He began to race up and down the strip of front yard between the house and road, braying with an excitement that he couldn’t understand. When he had worked some of it off, his run turned into a breathless, high-kneed gallop.

“kndmeyawYERS;”

Lenin shouted from the yard, over the sound of a passing bus.

“I cometobery Caesar, not to praise him. Thee-vu that mendoo lives after them, The goodisoft interred with their bones…”

He shouted it fluently, without faltering once. Remarkable, considering he was only six and didn’t understand a word of what he was saying. Sitting inside, looking out at the little dust devil whirling in his yard (future service contractor with a baby and Bajaj scooter), Comrade Pillai smiled proudly.

“He’s standing first in class. This year he will be getting double promotion.”

There was a lot of ambition packed into that hot little room.

Whatever Comrade Pillai stored in his curtained cupboard, it wasn’t broken balsa airplanes.

Chacko, on the other hand, from the moment he had entered the house, or perhaps from the moment Comrade Pillai had arrived, had undergone a curious process of invalidation. Like a general who had been stripped of his stars, he limited his smile. Contained his expansiveness. Anybody meeting him there for the first time might have thought him reticent. Almost timid.

With a street-fighter’s unerring instincts, Comrade Pillai knew that his straitened circumstances (his small, hot house, his grunting mother, his obvious proximity to the toiling masses) gave him a power over Chacko that in those revolutionary times no amount of Oxford education could match.

He held his poverty like a gun to Chacko’s head.

Chacko brought out a crumpled piece of paper on which he had tried to sketch the rough layout for a new label that he wanted comrade K. N. M. Pillai to print. It was for a new product that Paradise Pickles & Preserves planned to launch in the spring. Synthetic Cooking Vinegar. Drawing was not one of Chacko’s strengths, but Comrade Pillai got the general gist. He was familiar with the logo of the kathakali dancer, the slogan under his skirt that said Emperors of the Realm of Taste (his idea) and the typeface they had chosen for Paradise Pickles & Preserves.

“Design is same. Only difference is in text, I suppose,” Comrade Pillai said.

“And the color of the border,” Chacko said. “Mustard instead of red.” -

Comrade Pillai pushed his spectacles up into his hair in order to read aloud the text. The -lenses immediately grew fogged with hair oil.

“Synthetic Cooking Vinegar,” he said. “This is all in caps, I suppose.”

“Prussian Blue,’ Chacko said.