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259
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Ebook
2015
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Publié par
Date de parution
01 juin 2015
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9789351180128
Langue
English
Publié par
Date de parution
01 juin 2015
Nombre de lectures
0
EAN13
9789351180128
Langue
English
ANITA NAIR
MISTRESS
PENGUIN BOOKS
Contents
About the Author
Also by Anita Nair in Penguin
Dedication
Prologue
Book 1
Sringaaram
Haasyam
Karunam
Book 2
Raudram
Veeram
Bhayaanakam
Book 3
Beebhalsam
Adbhutam
Shaantam
Epilogue
The Kathakali Lexicon
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Copyright Page
PENGUIN BOOKS
MISTRESS
Anita Nair lives in Bangalore and Mundakotukurussi, Kerala. Her books have been translated into over twenty-five languages around the world. Visit her at www.anitanair.net .
Also by Anita Nair in Penguin:
The Better Man (1999)
Ladies Coup (2001)
Where the Rain Is Born: Writings About Kerala (ed.) (2003)
The Puffin Book of World Myths and Legends (2004)
For a family of uncles -
Mani in Mundakotukurussi in Kerala and Mani in NewYork. And in memory of Sethumadhavan, Rajan, Sreedharan and V. Ramachandran
In art, don t you see, there is no first person
-Oscar Wilde
Prologue
SO WHERE DO I BEGIN?
The face. Yes, let s begin with the face that determines the heart s passage. It is with the face we decode thoughts into a language without sounds. Does that perplex you? How can there be a language without sounds, you ask. Don t deny it. I see the question in your eyes.
I realize that you know very little of this world I am going to take you into. I understand your concern that it may be beyond your grasp. But I want you to know that I would be failing in my intentions if I did not transmit at least some of my love for my art to you. When I finish, I believe that you will feel as I do. Or almost as I do.
Trust me. That is all I ask of you. Trust me and listen. And trust your intelligence. Don t let someone else decide for you what is within your reach or what is beyond you. You are capable of absorbing this much and more, I assure you.
Look at me. Look at my face. The naked face, devoid of colour and make-up, glitter and adornments. What do we have here? The forehead, the eyebrows, the nostrils, the mouth, the chin, and thirty-two facial muscles. These are our tools and with these we shall fashion the language without words. The navarasas: love, contempt, sorrow, fury, courage, fear, disgust, wonder, peace.
In dance as in life, we do not need more than nine ways to express ourselves. You may call these the nine faces of the heart.
In time, each one of them would remember it differently. But for as long as they lived, it wouldn t ever fade: the memory of that moment of grace. Of light that tripped down the aluminium staircase, casting as its shadow a white radiance, of a breeze that had cooled itself over the pools speckling the river bed. Of Chris waiting, an isle of stillness on that busy railway platform.
He stood, oblivious to the curious glances, the urchins who stood around him with hungry eyes and open palms, the vendors who beseeched him to try their wares. He stood unaware that his baggage blocked the way to the staircase, making people mutter and grumble as they stumbled over his bags.
Chris looked around, whorls of light captured in his hair, the weight of what seemed to be a giant violin case listing his body to one side. As if to compensate, his mouth was drawn into a thoughtful, lopsided line.
They stood there for a moment, looking at him. Then he raised his eyes and saw them as they paused at the top of the staircase. Old man, young woman and not-so-young man. Hesitant, unsure, eclipsing the path of light and stilling the flow of feet.
The line mellowed into a curve, a gesture so transparent with gladness and so untainted by all that was to come later that they felt, each one of them, as if a moth s wing, soft and ethereal, had brushed their souls. It was a caress so brief and so enchanting that they ached for it the instant it was over.
Such was the grace of that moment.
Then, as if to stake the first claim, the young woman stepped forward. Hello, you must be Christopher Stewart, she said. I am Radha. Welcome.
Her hand stretched towards him even as Chris folded his hands in a namaste as his guidebook had suggested he do when greeting women in India.
She dropped her hand as if reproached. He reached for her hand as if to apologize. With that fumble of gestures, manners and awkward beginnings, Chris planted himself in a new land.
Hi, I m Chris. Pleased to meet you, Ra-dha. He spoke her name softly, lingering over the syllables, committing them to memory, savouring each cluster of sounds.
Radha shivered. Ra-dha was a feathery trail at the base of her spine. To break the spell, she turned to the not-so-young man. This is Shyam, she said.
The not-so-young man beamed and stretched out his hand.
Sham, Chris almost yelped, feeling as though he had slipped his fingers into a mangle. What sort of name was that? For that matter, what nature of beast was this, he wondered, as he extricated his fingers from the handshake. Behind his back, he clenched and unclenched his nearly numb fingers slowly.
Oblivious to Chris s discomfort, the not-so-young man protested, Sham, I am no sham. It s S-h-y-a-m.
But Chris had already moved towards the old man. And you, sir, he said slowly. The old man knew some English, he d been told. You must be Mr Koman.
The old man nodded. Chris smiled, uncertain. In the few days he d been in India, he had already encountered the nod and was still unable to decipher if it meant a yes or a no.
Radha moved closer to the old man. Uncle, she said. This is Christopher Stewart.
Chris said slowly, unsure how much the old man would understand, Your friend Philip Read has told me a great deal about you. I am honoured that you agreed to meet me.
The old man took both his hands in his and smiled. The warmth of his gaze ate into him. Chris let his eyes slide over the old man s face, examining each feature surreptitiously for some familiar line or curve. He saw crow s feet crinkling the eyes beneath bushy eyebrows. He saw how the high cheekbones stretched the old man s skin, giving it an almost youthful countenance and then he saw the dimple in the chin and he felt a flaring within. He let his eyes settle on the clasp of their hands.
Hello, he mouthed. Hello, old man from across the seas. Hello, maybe father. Hello, hello, hello...
BOOK 1
Kandaalethrayum kowthukamundithine, pandu
Kandilla jnan evam vidham kettumilla
How beautiful it is to look at, never have I seen or heard of anything like it
-Nalacharitam [First Day] Unnayi Warrier
Sringaaram
L ove. Let us begin with sringaaram.
Do we know other words for it?
Or do we know it by the widening of the eye, the arching of eyebrows, the softness of the mouth that curves, by that swelling of breath from each nerve-end wanting to cup a contour?
We have words for this flooding that can sweep away all other thoughts. Pleasure, longing, lust...we call it by so many names. It is human to do so. To give a name to everything and everybody, to classify and segregate. For only then can we measure the extent of this need to know, to conquer, to hold this wondrous being, this creature that suffuses every moment with a strange and inexplicable yearning.
Look around you and tell me, what else is love?
Could it be this month?
August.
There are flowers everywhere. Balsam and hibiscus. Yellow trumpet-shaped flowers and the tiny, delicate ari-poo in the hedges. Marigolds, chrysanthemums, countless hues that shape our needs. The undergrowth is dense. Snakes slither through unkempt land. This is an untamed month, wild and wilful. Rain pours, so does sunshine.
The harvested fields stare at the skies with a forlorn vacantness: the past and the future. The present is the harvest that lies in homes, in wood-walled manjas, golden and plump. Love lives in the present. All else is memory and hope.
There are no fruits. Neither cashew apple nor jackfruit, mangoes nor palm fruit. Perhaps in some untended part of the garden, a pineapple rests, nestling among ash-green swords. The fruit of the month is paddy. Kernels filled with the sweet fullness of plenty. This is how sringaaram feels.
The skies are lit up with the moon. A night orchestra plays: crickets with malaccas strung on their wings, the frog with the rattle in its throat, the hooting owl, the rustle of palm leaves, the wind among trees.
During the day, high up in the skies, the crested lark sings. The vanampaadi. From heaven s doors, a trail of the unknown, caressing the soul, stoking desire, propelling needs into words...
Love for the unknown. That, too, is the face of sringaaram.
Radha
We walk up the staircase, two to a row. Chris and his cello; Uncle and I; Shyam and the red-shirted railway-porter laden with bags.
Chris pauses at the top of the staircase and then walks towards the railing.
Beyond the railway lines is the riverbank. Or what is left of it. Most of the sand has been carted away to build homes. The river, when it is swollen with the monsoon rain, creeps into the houses that line the riverbank. Mostly, though, the Nila is a phantom river, existing only in the memories of those who have seen it when in full spate, swift and brown and sweeping into its waters all that dared stem its flow.
Chris stands there and takes a deep breath. I try to see the view as he is seeing it: the gleaming line of water, the many pools that dot the river bed, the herons fishing, the treetops and the tall grass that grows alongside the river, ruffled by a breeze, the distant hills and the clear blue skies, and I know fear. Already, in these few minutes of being with him, the familiar is endowed with a new edge.
I look at him. With every moment, the thought hinges itself deeper into my mind: What an attractive man.
It isn t that his hair is the colour of rosewood-deep brown with hints of red-or that his eyes are as green as the enclosed pond at the resort. It isn t the pale gold of his skin, either. It is the way he s combed his hair back from his forehead: a sweep of order that gives up midway and tumbles into disorder
