The Modern Woman - Puthumaiyy Penn - Chapter 3

This is Chapter 3 of a multipart series. If you have not read Chapter 1 yet, or you want to read it again, here is the link to Chapter 1.  I would suggest you read in sequence. There are many Tamil expressions throughout. For non-Tamil readers, there is a glossary at the end of each chapter.

She gazed up at him, lying there. She placed her palms on his heels, and slid her fingers through his toes. She snapped them back; an audible set of snaps joined a satisfying moan that escaped his lips. She placed his feet in a V against her cheeks and gazed at her man lying in front of her. Bared, to the soul. Oh what a beautiful creature he was! Her throat went dry as she recalled the first time she saw him in the nude.

That was last year. It had been a few months after her parents died in a road accident. After wandering aimlessly, trying to get a grip on her life and failing miserably, she had returned to the village. Until then, she had not visited the village at all, not once. All those years, her father seemed to be quite adamant and effective in almost avoiding coming here, break off all ties. Yet, now, she was back, hoping it was for good. A few days after she had returned, found a place and settled in, she set out for a walk around the village, trying to soak in all the familiar sights. In 16 years, the village had changed. Just like her. And yet, some things remained the same. The PCOs and their big yellow telephones had gone, and almost everyone had a mobile phone. Conversations were gone, though. The local cinema now had dolby sound, air conditioning and push back seats. Yet, you could still get fryums, yellow finger chips, goli soda and Sherbet at the stalls during intervals. Almost every rooftop in the village had a dish antenna cropping out of it, its mouth gaping at the sky, as if swallowing the transmission waves from the sky, and regurgitating it to TV sets within the homes. The programs were largely still the same. Senseless soap dramas about adultery, treacherous mothers-in-law, men with two wives, twin sisters. One thing that did change was many of these mega serials now had female protagonists and antagonists. Her eyes welled up as she remembered her mother obsessing with all the serials and discussing the day’s episode with her friends back in Madras.

“Hope there’s TV in Heaven, Amma”, she murmured to herself, laughed and walked on. 

She had walked through the paddy fields, and further up, where the hills began. As a child, she had wandered through these parts in search of wild berries and fruits, and a bit of solitude. Her steps quickened as she recalled an alcove with a pond and a tiny waterfall and she walked towards it. Would it still be there, after so many years? These woods had been spared the ominous change that had befallen the rest of the world. By instinct, she found the opening to the alcove and stepped in. She was about to run and jump into the pool and get into the water, when she heard a voice. A man's voice. Was he...singing. She couldn’t make out the words, but it sounded very familiar. As she went closer, and peeked her head through the thicket into the alcove, she saw him. Right under the tiny waterfall that fed this pool, his back towards her. About six foot tall, lean and athletic. He seemed to be oblivious of her presence and his surroundings as he stood in a towel, and oiled his hair and arms and sang.

“Natta nadu nisiyil theriyum natchathirangaladi…”¹

Bharathi stood rooted, still hidden behind a bush, watching him. A tinge of guilt swept through her for being almost voyeuristic. Besides, she couldn’t move if she wanted to. That would give away her presence. So for now, she lay still. And watched him.

Oh, he was a beautiful creature. Sunlight shone on him, rays filtered through the thicket of trees in tiny pockets, like strobe lights in a disco. A dark mop of hair on his head shone even brighter with the oil. Broad shoulders that glistened and showed off the muscular back. She watched as a randy drop of oil oozed from his neck, down his back and disappeared in the hollow of the towel that he had wrapped around his waist.

He turned around, facing the pool, and her. She lay still, still hidden from his view. And then she saw his face. It looked hauntingly familiar. But she wasn’t able to zero in on who he was.

He placed one foot on a nearby rock, and started applied oil to it… His thighs reminded her of horses at the Guindy Race Course. She used to go there as a child and watch those horses running through the track. His legs, much like those equine limbs, were slender, yet strong. When he switched, putting one down and the other up on the rock, the towel dropped! He instinctively looked around, re-assured of his solitude, ignored the towel and continued the oiling. And the singing. There he stood in all the the lord intended him to be… he paused, looked up at the expanse of the pool...

“Solai malar oliyo unadhu sundhara punnagai than…”², a smile spreading on his lips as he held his hand up, admiring the beauty of the verse and the joy it brought him in his rendition.

Bharathi was transfixed! Oh! This cannot be happening. It can't be him...Oh fuck, it is him! Sakthi. Her Sakthi. Her divine intervention from a canine aggression, and the one memory she carried from her days in the village to Madras. He was her first crush. Back in Madras as she was growing up into a woman, she looked for his face in all in the boys, in the neighborhood, in buses. Even when she was in college and had a few guys propose to her, she dismissed them all. The one odd guys that she admired secretly, she realized looked quite familiar to Sakthi. Like distorted copies of him.

She quickly looked down, to his feet. There it was; a scar on his foot. It was him, indeed. A tinge of disappointment as he turned around, now hiding from her sights. He walked up to the waterfall and stood under it. She always wondered why people's hair looked the best while under a waterfall or a shower. So soft and silky, like it was just shampooed. The water fell on his body, reflecting the sun in the pockets of brilliance that reached him. He stood there, in abandon for a few moments, head bent down to protect his eyes, and to let the force of the water on to the back of his neck. Instantly relieving him of all stress. Like a hundred masseurs dabbed their hands on his back all at once.

She watched the water flow down his rugged back, the sun reflecting it's brilliance in a glowing white cape. Having stood there rooted, looking his now magnificent body, her legs shook, and her knees started to give away. As she grabbed a branch to steady herself, it snapped!

Crack!

A barely audible sound normally, but it seemed to reverberate in the alcove, like an applause in an empty hall. He froze! Realized he wasn’t alone. His eyes scanned through the surrounding thickets, in the direction where the sound came from. Instinctively, he began walking over to his towel.

“Yaaradhu?”³

As if in response, she walked out from behind the bushes. An arm raised, to signal she came in peace? To apologize? To announce her presence? But there it was, a hand lofted to the sky, as her eyes fell to the pond, wishing it was deep enough to drown herself in shame. Now that he knew she was there, she couldn't look him in the eye. 

He was shocked! There she stood! A woman in front of him. And he was totally bare. Vulnerable. His hands barely covered what he hoped to cover. Yet, he felt exposed, to her gaze. Like his whole body was a sexual organ on its own. He raced for the towel, and tied it around his waist, and sort of calming himself. In that instant, a speck of a smile broke open on his face, like sunrise from behind the hills. Recognition dawned.

Bharathi?

She walked into the pool towards him. The water was cold, she steadied herself and ambled towards him with a purpose. Her eyes fixed on his. She ran towards him, as he stepped into the pool and moved closer. His eyes barely took her in, when she dove in to the water, towards him, closing the gap between them. In a moment, she surfaced, right in front of him and looked up at his shell-shocked face. He was still taller than her. Her arms went wide and around him, as he pulled her into an embrace.

“Nee...Inga epdi...How long have you been hiding, da?”

“For a while now, Sakthi”. She said, as he tried to register what she said, and what her eyes were saying. Sakthi... no one had called him that in a long time. People would either address him as Ayya, or Pannaiyaare. At home, he was nothing more than a Dei. "Where have you been? How have you been? When did you come back? Eppidi Irukkay?" So many questions, so much to say, a whole ten years to catch up, he thought... and yet, it could all wait. He looked down at her, seeking an answer in his mind to "Have you been waiting for me, as I have for you?". The longing, evident. Her eyes beseeching him.

"All my life", she said, correcting her previous reply, reaching out and holding his hand. Running a hand up behind her head and pulling her face, he offered his lips. She gave in, as he took what was his, always his. If a decade of longing could be compressed into a single kiss, this would have been it. Her mouth sought his for hers. Her tongue, claiming, marking, feeling every corner of his mouth, dancing around his teeth. She wondered how they would feel biting her flesh. She gripped him tighter, as he sucked her tongue into his mouth and loved it with his own. Her hands...

"Eii.. Loosu? Enga poittay?"

She snapped out of the reverie. The kiss never happened. But why did she feel like it was real? Her every cell, every muscle alive. 

"What matters is, Naan vandhutten"

“I love you. I have always loved you, Sakthi” she wanted to say. But those words eluded her. Well, that's how you know it's love. It is usually elusive.

“You’re beautiful, Azhagi…”, he said reaching out to a disobedient strand of hair and pushing it behind her ear. She stood transfixed. Could this be true? Has he been pining for me like I have? All these years? Surely, for being a Pannaiyar's son, there would have been countless girlfriends and for all she knew, he could be married. But at that moment, all of those thoughts were buried under a shroud in her mind. She was lost in the now, the 'how, and why' forgotten or dealt with later. He swooped the hair off her face, and kissed her on the forehead. She ran her hands up his arms, around his neck and then lazily grazing her fingers on his hairy chest.

“Karadii…”⁴, she teased him, fingers twirling and curling in the hair that covered him from his throat till the towel. 

He walked her out of the pond, holding her by the hand. And there she stood looking the other way, as he wrapped his Veshti around his waist, pulled the towel out from underneath. He puzhinjufied it. Held it open and kodanjufied it a couple of times. Like claps of thunder, the reverberation went echoing around the alcove. He then wrapped his torso in the towel, when he felt her gaze on his back. He turned around, caught her looking at him.

“Kola kuyil osai unadhu kuralin inimaiyadi”⁷ he continued the song he was singing before her dramatic interruption. “valai kumari adi, Kannamma maruva kaadhal kondein…”⁸

She turned around, saw him staring at her singing these lines.

“Moothavar sammadiyil, vadhuvai muraigal pinbu seivom, kathirupenodi, idhu paar kannathu mutthamondru…”.⁹

"Marry me, Bharathi"

She merely closed her eyes giving him her consent, as she had given her whole self. 

To be continued...

Glossary of Tamil Terms

1. “natta nadu nisiyil…” from Mahakavi’s poem “Suttum Vizhi Soodar Thaan”, these lines exult the beauty of her eyes, likening them to stars that can be seen shining only at midnight.
2. “Solai malar oliyo, unnadhu sundara punnagai thaan…” – Your smile is like the bloom of a garden
3. “Yaaradhu” – Who’s there?
4. “Karadi” – tamil word for Bear, for he was hairy.
5. “Vaa da..” – Come hither
6. “Enna Pannaraay da nee…” - What are you doing (to me), O love…
7. “Kola kuyil osai unadhu kuralin inimaiyadi” – The sweetness of your voice is akin to that of a koel (cuckoo)
8. “valai kumari adi, Kannamma maruva kaadhal kondein…” – Young girl, I loved thee for a union.
9. “Moothavar sammadiyil, vadhuvai muraigal pinbu seivom, kathirupenodi, idhu paar kannathu mutthamondru…” – With the blessings of elders, we shall perform all (marriage) rituals. But how can I wait so long, let me kiss you now.