Little Sins

Ever since the astrologer’s visit, Ajith had sensed that something was going on that no one was telling him about. He would hear his mother and aunts talking animatedly in the kitchen, but whenever he walked in, they would stop. Even his Grandma, who was usually so eager to talk to him, wasn’t saying anything.

It was from Madhavettan that he heard about it. They were playing Snakes-and- Ladders upstairs after lunch and for a change, Ajith was winning. When Madhavettan threw the dice under the bed and pretended he couldn’t find them, Ajith called him a cheat and said he wouldn’t ever play with him again. In the customary wrestling match that followed, Ajith got the worst of it – after all, he was two years younger and a lot smaller than Madhavettan. As he was dusting himself off, Madhavettan called him a sinner.

A sinner. Ajith couldn’t understand what he had done that bad to be called a sinner. But Madhavettan said he was one and that what is more, something was going to be done about it. He kept calling Ajith a sinner until Ajith ran away, to keep Madhavettan from seeing the hot, oh-so-painful tears welling up in his eyes.

So, this was what they were all whispering about. Were they going to make him go away? But would Amma allow that? Ajith couldn’t think of living without Amma. He didn’t really mind up giving up Amminichechi, but not Amma.

That night, he dreamt that he was standing before the door of the house, a bowl in his hand. Amma came out and without even a smile, put a coin into the bowl and went back inside. As the coin rattled in the bottom of the bowl, he jerked awake, sweating. When he saw Amma sleeping next to him, he felt a surge of happiness. Hugging her closer to him, he went back to sleep.

The next day morning, he was sitting on the steps outside the verandah, staring at the orange-and-white flowers falling slowly from the pavizhamalli tree, twisting and turning in the air. Shobhanachechi went by, carrying the bundle of clothes that need to be washed. He got up and followed her.

Poor Shobanachechi. She had been in the house as long as he could remember. Amma had told him that her parents had died when she was very young. Her father had been a caretaker for the family and also his Grandfather’s classmate. Grandpa had taken her in to the household. Grandma had brought her up like her own daughter. She was like a younger aunt to him, but doing the laundry was her duty, however much she grumbled about it.

As Shobhanachechi began rhythmically beating a wet sari against the grey, soap encrusted washing stone, he asked her, his voice breaking as he said it ‘Chechi, what did I do? Why are they sending me away?

She stopped and asked him what he was talking about, her concern evident. He told her everything, the words coming out in a rush.

‘You are not a sinner, monu’, she said, chucking his chin with a soapy hand, making him laugh despite everything’ The astrologer said that there are lot of sins in your past life, they have to be atoned for. There is going to be a ceremony. Someone is going to come and take all those old sins away’.

And she would say nothing further, cautioning him not to tell anyone else that they had talked about it.

He couldn’t figure out what she meant, try as he might. But that was all right. He wasn’t going to be abandoned. But what did it all mean? Someone coming to take his sins away...what was this past life of his? What were all these sins that he had committed?

...’Wake up, Ajith mone!’ Amma was nudging him gently, preventing his efforts to hold on to the blissful darkness in which he was enveloped. He sat up and rubbed his eyes. Amma looked different – he had never seen her dressed up so nicely so early in the morning. She looked very nice. If she would put the kumkum in the middle of her hair like his Naliniammayi did, she would look so beautiful, but she would never do that. This must be a special occasion.

A numbing thought went through his mind. Had Shobabachechi been lying? Was he being sent away after all?

When Amma told him to take a bath, he obeyed without any fuss. After he had dried himself off with the thorthumundu with the red border that he liked and Amminichechi kept stealing from him, he put on the dark green trousers that Amma had laid out for him without any fuss.

There was quite a crowd sitting on the floor of the verandah as Amma led him out of the house. The neighbours were all there. Amminichechi and all his girl cousins were sitting together in the far end, all dressed up in bright pavadas and dhavanis, making a colour spectacle in red, green, yellow, orange, blue and violet.

His grandfather was sitting on an armchair near the edge of the crowd. Ajith quickly ran to his side and sat down on the ground beside him. His grandfather reached out and ruffled his hair. Ajith suddenly felt calm. Nothing would happen to him if his Valiachan was there.

Incense sticks and lamps were lit all around. The scent of burning coconut oil pervaded the air. A fire was burning inside a rectangle of bricks which looked like something Ajith used to build along with Madhavettan in the sandpit behind the kitchen wall. A man wearing only a mundu and a white thread across his shoulder was muttering under his breath and throwing grains of rice and flowers alternately into the fire and at a black idol kept near it. Ajith had never seen this idol before. It didn’t look like the idols he had seen in temples. It didn’t look anything like the pictures of the Gods in the pooja room. This idol had a huge paunch and a wide open mouth. Ajith didn’t like it much at all. He moved closer to Valiachan’s chair.

The man suddenly began chanting in a loud, nasal voice. He threw some tulsi leaves into a large pan filled with oil, making circular motions with his hands. Ajith started and moved back in fright as the man suddenly threw a handful of white ash at him. “Bring the child here’!’ he shouted.

Before Ajith could get up and run, hands were pushing him forward. The man seized him roughly by the back of his head, ignoring his weak cries of protest and made him look down into the pan. The pungent smell of mustard oil assailed Ajith’s nostrils. He continued to hold Ajith down, chanting all the while.

Tears began to blur Ajith’s vision. All he could see was his frightened face reflected in the oil beneath him.

Then he saw another face looking into the pan. One look was all he got before it disappeared. Someone grabbed the pan and took it away. Ajith could see a pair of feet moving away from him, deep, ugly cracks in the heels. The man kept Ajith’s head down for a few minutes more and then released him.

As his sorrow burst out, Amma came forward to console him. But he wasn’t crying, not a tear. Holding her hand, without a word, he went back into the house.

Later, as she fed him little morsels of idli dipped in ghee and sugar, he asked her what the whole thing was about. She told him that the pooja was a success, that a man had volunteered for the job, that when he looked into the pan where Ajith’s face was reflected, all Ajith’s sins had been transferred to him.

Ajith listened to what she was telling him. He didn’t say anything.

Later, he sat alone in his hideout on the top of the guava tree, hiding from Madhavettan’s efforts to make him come and play. He didn’t want to talk to anybody, not just then.

So his sins had been taken from him. They were all now with someone else.

Who was he? Why did he do it? What sort of man would do such a thing? What forces compelled him to do it?

What would happen to that man? Would he suffer? Would Ajith’s sins be too much for him?

It was then that Ajith felt that he had really sinned, that he was a sinner after all.

Glossary:

Ettan : Elder Brother

Chechi : Elder Sister

Ammayi : Aunt

Thorthumundu : Rough Towel

Mundu : White apparel wrapped around the waist like a sarong