110 Roots

The phone rang around 10.00 pm. Mother answered.

It was a man on the other end “Hello, is this Tharayil House?”

Mother “Yes, who is it?”

He answered “Govindan, this is about the land. I heard that you were looking for me,

I can come tomorrow “

Mother was waiting for this call.

She had enquired to few people about him and they assured her that he was the man for the job.

She answered with a smile “Adhe Govindan, I was waiting to hear from you, please come tomorrow "

Govindan came the next day. He stood outside the main door, the corner of his white mundu held in his right hand. He had a pointed face, hair longer than what most people of his age sported and a slight frown that slashed between his eyebrows.

Her mother greeted him and explained “Last year we had cut rubber trees. Now we wish to grow plantain and tapioca. Maybe even Ginger and turmeric. The land has to be levelled.”

He nodded “I will start the work soon. Can I have a bottle of water? “

Her aunt filled a bottle of water and handed it to him.

He walked towards his machine parked outside on the land. It was a digger or more precisely a tractor like unit fitted with a shovel on the front and a rear backhoe. It resembled an elephant trunk except it had forks at the end of the trunk. The elephant trunk like backhoe was permanently attached and the machine has a seat that could swivel to the rear to face the hoe controls.

Last year around this time, it was a different scene. After 20 years of maintaining the rubber plantation on an acre of the land, the sisters decided not to continue with the rubber. Relatives advised them that it was the right time to cut the trees. The word used was slaughter. The trees were old, and the yield wasn't too good in the last couple of years. Reluctantly they agreed for slaughter and decided to use the land to replant other crops. They invited quotes for the wood and soon enough one buyer offered them a decent price for the 110 trees. Rubber wood was used for making furniture and as timber. The men came in two trucks armed with saws and thick coiled ropes. She remembered them. They were different from the man who came today. They wore coloured lungies folded to their thighs and shirts sleeves rolled back to expose brown strong veined forearms. White handkerchief tied around foreheads stopped the sweat from flowing down their face. They were rough, spoke loudly and when they looked at you it made you want to move away from their gaze.

Months of heavy rain had created a slush all around and the trucks got stuck in the newly constructed road. The road was intended for a few pairs of human feet, soft goat’s paws and maybe an auto or a car, not huge trucks. It took them a full day to cut the trees and load them onto the trucks. Her aunt refused to take a last look at the trees, lying lifeless stacked one over the other, stripped of all their foliage. As the sun set, the men finally drove off leaving in their trail XXX rum bottles and mutilated stumps. 110 roots remained hidden beneath the earth.

Her thoughts were interrupted by the rumbling of the machine as it dug into the earth. Govindan sat inside in the reversible seat with levers on both sides to manoeuvre the trunk. He directed it into the earth to uproot the remnants of the slaughtered trees. The machine heaved as it pulled the huge roots out. The earth resisted the assault unwilling to give up on the roots. It was a one-sided battle as the roots were pulled out by the huge broad metal pincers of the forked trunk. He reversed the vehicle to use the huge shovel to gather the roots in and hurl them mercilessly on the side of the road. Tirelessly he and his machine worked, taking short breaks for lunch and tea. By evening the headlights were out as the sun was setting, but he was like a man on a mission, waging a war with the earth. A lone man, face passive, swivelling in his seat changing levers, digging, scooping, hurling, flattening. The earth brown from outside now had thrown up from its insides deep blood red mud. The trunk directed by him searched for more roots that remained deep inside the earth nursing a painful memory of last year’s carnage.

She watched from the window as she saw her mother standing on the land taking in the new contours. More work remained; the entire land had to be dug. More roots were hidden. Some roots were so deeply entrenched and digging them out was tough. They had to wrenched out. It was dark, and he stopped the work. She saw him get out of his battle tank and walk towards the house. Handing the empty bottle to her he said “I will come tomorrow “.

He came early the next day. Today the work was faster, the major roots were dug. They lay stripped and exposed with their gnarled branches stiff and reaching out to the sky. Soft weeds had entwined between the branches. She took some water for him. He thanked her with a faint smile, a smile which just reached short of reaching his eyes.

He continued his work, hurling the stones to the side and thumping the earth to level it. As the final root gave away, the machine heaved one last time and the forked trunk stopped a. He directed it gently to rest by the side. The whole land looked different now. Couple of tall Anjili trees which grew close to the boundaries looked down at the earth as though wondering at its newness. The red earth had changed to a reddish muddy rivulet curling and spiraling into the next. The sun set, making way for a scarlet moon. Within seconds amber hues swept the sky and a bat swooped to the nearby Jackfruit tree. The machine rested, Govindan switched on the lights so she could walk back to her house and he followed.

She offered to make him some ginger tea. He sat on the old wooden chair and wiped his face with the corner of his dhoti now muddied with earth. Her mother and aunt stood close by relieved that the work was over in two days. The levelling work was less traumatic for her aunt than the slaughter done last year. As she handed him the tea, her mother went into her room to take the money.

She asked him "Do you live nearby?"

I live across the canal, after the temple “He volunteered further “With my father. My wife and son Gautam lives in Calicut. Gautam is my second son.“

Her mother came out with the money and asked him “What does he do, Gautam?”

His voice took on a resigned tone “He is doing a Physiotherapy course. I don’t really approve of it” The way he said didn’t sound too harsh, so she didn’t counter with an argument about the scope of being a physiotherapist. He mentioned “My wife is a teacher in Calicut. “

She asked him “What about your elder son? Where is he?”

He looked at her and replied in a low voice “My first born, Gowri Shankar., an intelligent child. liked to read books and listened to the radio. He had an interest in computers too.

Yes, he was a bright child.”

She smiled and nodded. His voice took a different modulation and he whispered “Gowri Shankar committed suicide, he was just 14 years old “.

They were shocked. Mother first to recover asked him “Why did the boy ......? She left her sentence incomplete, not wanting to say the dreaded word again.

He looked at the three of them in turns searching for a pair of eyes which felt his pain. He wanted to speak, and she wanted to listen. Their eyes met, and he continued. “My son was a different boy unlike other children. Growing up, Gowri Shankar was always asking questions. Questions which children of his age would never ask. As a 5-year-old, he watched our dead neighbor being carried by four men on a plank for his final journey to the cremation ground.”

My son asked me “Father why is he tied to the plank?”

I had answered him “Or else son, the body will fall off,”

The young boy was troubled the whole evening, refused to eat food too.

Govindan let out a deep sigh. He was closing in on his son’s final days. As he dug deep into his mind, he wrenched out the most painful memory. The day he received that dreaded call from his wife. Those days he was working in Dubai as a crane driver. That one telephone call informing him between wailing sobs that his first born hung himself, ended everything for him.

He returned home to his grieving family to complete his son’s last rites, a wretched ritual for any father. Late into the night the next day, his wife told him the reason why Gowri ended his life.

A mile away from their house a group of Sadhus had set up an ashram. There was also a small temple attached to the ashram. Gowri Shankar and his brother had visited the ashram couple of times with friends. The evening bhajans and the spiritual atmosphere at the ashram attracted Gowri.

He started visiting often and sometimes would return late in the evening. His mother was very unhappy about her son’s growing spiritual interest. She failed to see his curiosity, understand his idealism and come to terms with his intensity. A strict school teacher, she dealt with her sons as she dealt with her students, strict and unforgiving to their mistakes and intolerant of their different viewpoints. She wanted none of this in her son. She considered spiritual pursuits by her young son a waste of time.

There was a heated argument one afternoon and Gowri shut himself in his room. His wife had to attend a school committee meeting and she left home with her younger son. They returned late that evening. Gowri’s room was open and his mother saw his body hanging from the ceiling fan. He was dead.

Govindan looked agitated. Tears trickled down his face. There was no stopping the grieving man, he was digging the roots out. Roots dead but alive enough to hurt, to choke and numb. She saw in his eye pain, the same pain she had seen when he was at the levers hurling mud with his machine.

He said “If only she had called him allowed his son to speak to him. Gowri would have listened to me”.

In the days and months that followed he found it difficult to reconcile with his wife over their son’s death and she took the decision to take a transfer to Calicut. She left with their younger son Gautam. Govindan did not return to the Gulf and moved in with his aged father.

He looked at them and said” That’s my story, my life story. All I have is my work and memories of my son.“

He bent his head and ran his long fingers over his face and head smoothing his hair back.

Her aunt reminded him that it was getting late. Her mother handed him the money which he folded into his shirt pocket without counting. He looked at her once more and she looked back directly into his eyes. She sensed a relief in him. He walked into the dark switching his mobile on, the torch showing him his path through the land he had just dug. He had done his part removed all the roots. He said he will come back to take the machine the next morning as he had more work in the nearby land.

Next morning, she walked on the new earth fresh and inviting with no remnants of the past that once reigned over it. She saw his machine behind the huge mango tree. As she walked towards the machine, she saw the name Gowri Shankar painted in sweeping strokes of thick black metal paint on the trunk. His son, with him always.