The Island

THE FOLLOWING information may perhaps be helpful to you.

• Antony and Vathsala get frightened when they see Sri and Manjula, who live across the street.

• Because Shanthi wished it, Thayaparan took Thilaksan with him to Canada.

• Because Sabaratnam and Kangeswari are not on talking terms, Bharathan and Padmini don’t venture out.

I have again been sent back to my island.

Four walls surround my island. The only things in my island are an almirah of books, a cassette player, a settee and a window.

I am looking out of the window.

High above the houses and the trees is the sky. I like the sky’s blue colour. That is why the walls of my island are blue. The floor, too, is blue. Besides, I have four blue shirts.

I like the sky. I like its blueness. I like the drifting cottony clouds. There is a vast distance between them and me: there is no intimacy or relationship of any kind. Despite this, or perhaps because of this, I like them.

A line from Mahakavi’s song, ‘A little crab is drawing a picture in the sand,’ wafts softly from the cassette player.

The sky is blue. I gaze at it. I cry.

I cry only on my island. When I am on this island, I cry frequent­ly. I pluck off and throw away the smile which I wear when I go out, and I let myself go, crying. The window knows this very well.

Even now, I am crying.

I am over thirty-five. Up to now, my island has only changed loca­tion, but nothing has changed on the island. I feel unable to leave this island forever. However much and however hard I try, they keep send­ing me back here, again and again.

I have strengthened myself in many ways. I have taken precau­tions. What’s the use, though? The reality is that I keep losing. No, no, it’s more accurate to say that it’s reality that defeats me.

I am not unaware that nothing is achieved by crying. Besides, I don’t like crying. But do tears wait upon my wishes? They come of their own accord, like now. My throat feels congested and heavy.

I cry, looking up at the sky through the window.

The cock and the hen in our house are always fighting. I can’t remember when it started. But as far as I can remember, they have always kept their faces averted from each other. The chicks are on their own. All this, despite them being in the same coop.

Whenever I see them, I wonder if the situation will not affect the chicks.

It did affect them.

I can still remember the time when I first fash­ioned an island for myself.

I was then a child.

I used to go out and play cops and robbers with other children. I played marbles, built a temple and drew its chariot. I gathered jujubes. I shied a ball at tins stacked on top of each other and toppled them.

My playmates’ parents loved me. They always gave me something when I went to their homes.

Till I grew worldly-wise, I believed everything I heard was true.

It did not take me long to realise that grown-ups were amused by my credulousness. They said we had the only garden where goats grazed. They laughed, saying that we had the only garden without a fence.

I felt small and ashamed. They liked to see me in this state.

Those social animals hunting for prey embraced me and, dragging me into their cage, extracted stories from me and howled out loud. I was shattered. Tears welled up in my eyes. But I would not cry in the pres­ence of these animals, would not look them in the face. This world is evil. I must create a world for myself: no one else will have a place in my world.

I took my bed to the small lumber room. I shut the door. I kept one window closed, one open.

My island had come into being.

The house was an old limestone building. The walls were broad. You could climb up and sit on the windowsill. Beyond the fence, boys like me were play­ing kiddi.

Should I join them? They would laugh at me: therefore I shouldn’t go. I won’t. Why should I look at them?

Look instead at the sky overhead. It was blue and beautiful. Cottony clouds drifted across the sky, at times assuming familiar shapes.

Were they playing marbles now? Or could they have gone to the teacher’s house to throw stones up into the mango tree?

Why should I think about these things? How beautiful the clouds are. Where are they drifting so fast?

Now, they would be smashing open the raw man­goes on stones and strewing salt on the pieces.

Why do I feel like crying?

Though tears veil my eyes, I grip the bars of the window and look up at the sky. I like the sky; I like its blueness very much. I look at it appreciatively. After school, I look at the sky from my island. I don’t go out anywhere, nor do I meet anyone. I don’t need to, as I have my own island.

The teacher at school had taught us: “Man is a social animal. These social animals live together in groups. These animals need one another. They fight among themselves occasionally, but they have to adjust and accommodate one another… that is the law of nature.”

I didn’t entirely understand. Why did these social animals refuse to associate with me? Did they think they had no need for me?

When I was on my island, I used to think about this. Did my teacher really believe that one could live only by joining these social animals?

Whatever, let my wounds heal. I shall try once again. Till then, this island is my refuge. How much freedom I have here! Those who wound me with their words and their laughter are not admitted here.

Have I nothing for myself?

How vast the sky! Its blueness and the white clouds that crawl under it — how beautiful!

Even in my wildest dreams, I had never thought I’d be deported, crossing several seas. A new place. New people. A new society. New animals.

Here, I could try to live with other people. Perhaps I might succeed. How nice that would be! Then I wouldn’t have to create an island for myself; I wouldn’t have to gaze at the sky in solitude. I became absorbed in remaking myself. It was no easy task to fight with myself. Wounds don’t heel quickly. To con­ceal them, I began to wear a smile.

A new beginning.

I ran into him by accident, and he recited the poems that ran through his mind. I took a liking not only to him, but also to his poetry. We became quite close; this was an unexpected surprise. My longing for company, my wounds and his decency made it possi­ble.

We joined forces. Through our writing, we creat­ed the world and the people we liked. Only people we liked could enter this world.

We asked ourselves whether our world was sus­tainable, whether it would come out all right. Finally, we resolved that we, at least, would live in this world, our creation.

I was overjoyed. I did not need an island for myself any more. Out there, there are men whom I could join. They, too, would let me join them.

Though my wounds did not heal, they were for­gotten.

We dreamt and wrote as one.

Later, he found a partner. My world expanded. Another dimension of support. I became a child again. What bliss!

A child was born to them. Now, there was a third dimension.

I love children very much. I love living in their world.

I hoisted the child onto my back and became an elephant. To make the child laugh, I became a mon­key. I bore its blows and let it wet me. But I forgot it all when it came running and got on my back. What a sweet, delightful world! How many wonders were strewn around! I don’t know the name for the rela­tionship between me and these people. It was some­thing nameless.

But are all things permanent? One day he wrote a new verse titled: We are going to another world.’

I was shocked. I asked: “What about the world we had created for ourselves?”

He said, “The world we are living in now is real. The world we are going to is also real. Understand the truth and learn to live with reality.”

I couldn’t understand. I couldn’t comprehend the definitions of worlds each person had. But I under­stood this much: they were going to send me back once again to my island. I couldn’t bear the thought. I pleaded with him. I knew no one but them, I said.

He replied: “Whose fault is that? The world is vast.”

Do these people know about my island, its soli­tude and loneliness, its harsh rigours? I had fought so hard, against such odds, to escape from my island! Now, they are going to send me back there. Why does everyone ignore my feelings? Is it because they are beyond language? Can’t they even hear what I say? ‘We’ll see you again,” they said and left. Even the child, who was everything to me, was gone. The only things left were the elephant and the monkey.

I tried to understand them. They had the right to decide how they would live. They had the right to keep their child.

After they had flown up into the sky, I disinte­grated. I returned to my island in this fragmented state. Four walls surround my island. A settee, a cas­sette player, an almirah full of books and a window are now my only belongings.

Ameer’s imagination soared from the cassette player. I stared blankly through the only window. The sky which I had known for so long, but which I had­n’t gazed at for some time now. It was the same sky, the same shade of blue.

I sobbed aloud, continuously. Why did this hap­pen to me? Why did I have to be the only one marooned on an island? Life is long. I must prepare myself once again. I must again define my relation­ship with my kin.

Outside, above, the same blue sky.

On whose back will the child climb now? Won’t it look lot me? I wept and wept. Why should I keep on thinking about that? Look above. What a vast expanse of sky! The beauty of the clouds drifting through it!

With whom will they drink porridge in the world they have gone to? Whose wounds will they try to heal?

I wept and wept. I fell on my settee and drenched it with my tears.

I found a new way of banishing my loneliness. Work, work, work.

When you carry tin sheets and iron beams for more than ten hours every day, how can other bur­dens come to mind? I made work my addiction. The work site was a different world. There were more objects and commodities than people. There was no room for conflict. My burdens were light.

The hours of solitude shrank; when I worked, there was victory of a certain kind.

Besides, there is always my island.

I must be careful now. Whenever I have to leave my island and go outside, I must be cautious. I must not allow anyone to enter into a relationship with me, only to sever it when they think it expedient. I must­n’t join up with anyone. There are plenty of people waiting to deceive me. They will say that they have taken me into their world, and then they will send me back to my island once again at the earliest opportu­nity. As far as they are concerned, it’s reality. For me, it’s like dying over and over again.

Whenever I go out I wear my smile; that’s my only armour.

She told me that she had taken a liking for me. This was the first time someone had told me this. I was taken aback, upset. They’re going for my weak spots. But I was experienced now Thinking of my old wounds and my island, I was on my guard this time. How could I bear to be torn apart, again and again?

She wanted a sign. I must drag my feet. I have to give the devil his due: the world outside had made me sharp in certain matters. I decided to be dilatory.

Then she told me that she had taken a liking to him too. However cautious I had been, I couldn’t help feeling anxious. I bore up; after all, this was nothing new to me.

She said she was unable to make up her mind — she felt confused. She had a problem of choice, and I escaped unscathed this time. No one can send me back to my island, for the simple reason that I am still living there.

After some time, she came to see me with her partner. “How long do you intend to be alone like this?” she asked.

I did not reply; there was no point in a reply which no one would understand. I came to my island, gazed at the sky through the window and cried my fill. I would never set eyes on her again.

And then we were in touch again, quite by accident, despite my caution. I have said before that this is my weakness. Man is a social animal, our teacher had taught us.

I do not know what to term our relationship, but I became so attached to them. I now discovered the reason for my weakness: my mind yearned for what I had been deprived of as a child. If I found it any­where, my caution dissolved.

Again, I forgot my island. That window, the blue sky, the clouds — I had no need for them now. With people around me, I was overjoyed.

A child was born in their house too. My world expanded some more. After a long time I was again an elephant, a monkey. Bliss once more.

When someone asked me whether I didn’t feel the need for kith and kin of my own, I felt like laugh­ing. “Fools, am I living on an island, surrounded by four walls? Look closely. I am surrounded by people who are my support, children who know me well.”

Such is the link between happiness and me, that it happened again.

“You’re no problem for us. But your comings and goings are watched by eyes in the street. They may make up all kinds of stories… Therefore…” When he said this, I felt shattered once again.

Again, a relationship was severed. Again, a rejec­tion. Preparations had begun to send me back to my island. I was unable to say anything: the words died within me before I could even utter them. With great difficulty, I put on my smile: that was the only ban­dage I had to bind my wounds.

Where had the eyes and mouths of the street been all these days? I wanted to ask them what these eyes and mouths had done to them, but I couldn’t.

They are a family. They have the right to decide for themselves how they should live.

They explained some more: the reality was that on this street, they had to talk with those mouths and look at those eyes.

I felt utterly defenceless in the face of this reality, which was new to me. The people who had sur­rounded me disappeared. The lisping child was so far, far away, too far for me to hear.

I was sent back once again to my island.

This is my island, surrounded by four walls. A settee, an almirah for books, a cassette player and a window. I stood beside the window and stared out bleakly. The same blue sky, partly obscured by clouds.

I tried to suppress my sorrow but it would not be contained. Though tears wet my cheeks, they felt hot. This is my island. I can weep copiously here. I can even cry out loud. No false sympathy or pity can touch me here.

They said I was one of theirs.

Forget, forget.

Look at the blue sky. How beautiful it is! They had said nothing would stand between them and me.

Forget it, please. Words are not neces­sarily alive. Memories can only tear me to shreds. There won’t be any other outcome. It’s best to forget everything. Isn’t that the reality? I don’t know why, but suddenly I wanted to look at my photo album. I got it out.

All those who had sent me back to my island, all those who had explained reality to me, they were all there. My children were also in the album; they stepped out of it and played with me. They caught hold of my hair and pulled it. They climbed on my shoulders. They stretched out their hands, inviting me to pick them up. They searched for me.

My mind feels heavy. Tears still stream from my eyes. It has been proved over and over to me that this island is the only refuge for me. Why, then, do I cry?

I must once again reorganise myself. I must once again wear my smile. In future, I must be very wary and not let my guard down. I must not get close to anyone.

However…

I know my weakness. If I now get what­ever I had longed for as a child, I’d be bowled over. My resolve, my caution, all my defences would vanish into thin air.

What shall I do?

Till I meet another reality, this island will be my own. I shut the album, went back to the window and looked out.

There’s a vast distance between the sky and me. It has no relationship with me what­soever. Perhaps that is why I am able to appreciate the beauty of the sky and contin­ue to gaze at it…

Till the tears begin to flow.

– PARTHIPAN
1998

(Translated from the Tamil story “Theevu Manithan” by A.J. Canagaratana)