Sita slinks away, her beautiful features obscured by this deep yellow rage she seems to have been born with, and which her first five years, living in G.o.d-only-knows what kind of neighbourhoods, did nothing to temper. Sivakami hasn't tried to fathom it. Sita is here now and a good upbringing takes a small creature with all its quirks and kinks and trains it to behave like any worthy person, fulfilling duty and accepting fate.

From what she could hear, Sita was frustrated because she wanted Visalam to play a game, which Visalam cannot because she is menstruating, isolated in the back room. For the first time: Visalam came of age yesterday. Sivakami thought it a shame the child's mother-in-law lived too far away to come for the celebration but then it might have been better that she didn't see her son's wife giggling throughout the most solemn parts of the ceremony and guffawing through the gay ones. Visalam finds everything funny. Sivakami tells her to watch that the crows don't s.n.a.t.c.h the little rice flour morsels of vadam vadam as they dry on the roof-hilarious. When, once or twice annually, they choose new clothes, Visalam must invariably be excused, laughing so hard she's useless. School, needless to say, has been a trial, but that's all over now that she is no longer a girl. as they dry on the roof-hilarious. When, once or twice annually, they choose new clothes, Visalam must invariably be excused, laughing so hard she's useless. School, needless to say, has been a trial, but that's all over now that she is no longer a girl.

Anyone around her who is inclined to humour is compelled to laugh with her. Anyone not so inclined feels mocked. By some stroke of G.o.d's grace, however, she married into a relaxed and mirthful family, perhaps the only one Sivakami has ever met which is truly so. While they generally seem capable of the modic.u.m of sobriety Visalam is never able to summon, they are indulgent toward the girl, who is, after all, obedient and respectful.

As Sivakami stands to reach for the sambar podi, podi, she feels a little trickle. She clenches her thighs and hobbles out along the platform behind the house and back in through the door of the back room. There, she sees a bead of red releasing a trail of smaller beads as it rounds her ankle bone and descends her instep to soak into the brick floor. She reaches under the cot for the box of rags and discreetly fixes one round her hips before shouting for Sita, muttering, as she always does, against the inconvenience of it. "Really, it's too silly-a grandmother, widowed for how many years? Sita!" she calls again, and Sita, who had been crouched over a school book in the garden and pretending not to hear, pokes her head around the door. "Go next door and tell Rukmini that I am in the room with Visalam. Go and come, you." she feels a little trickle. She clenches her thighs and hobbles out along the platform behind the house and back in through the door of the back room. There, she sees a bead of red releasing a trail of smaller beads as it rounds her ankle bone and descends her instep to soak into the brick floor. She reaches under the cot for the box of rags and discreetly fixes one round her hips before shouting for Sita, muttering, as she always does, against the inconvenience of it. "Really, it's too silly-a grandmother, widowed for how many years? Sita!" she calls again, and Sita, who had been crouched over a school book in the garden and pretending not to hear, pokes her head around the door. "Go next door and tell Rukmini that I am in the room with Visalam. Go and come, you."

Visalam is wheezing through her knuckles. Sivakami squats in a corner and chuckles a little, too. She normally doesn't look at her granddaughters during the days of their pollution, but must admit it is nice to have this extra time with Visalam, knowing that soon the girl will leave for her marital home.

Menstruation always makes Sivakami feel strange, though she merely trades one kind of untouchability for another. Where she is normally too pure to be touched, not to mention a potent reminder of feminine destructive power, for these three days she is too impure to be touched, and a potent reminder of feminine procreative power.

And now there is a knocking and hallooing at the front door: Laddu's Sanskrit teacher. Sivakami shouts, "Enter, enter!" but cannot make herself heard above Vani's playing. Thankfully, Rukmini arrives at the front door in the same moment.

"Sivakami!" Rukmini shouts from the front. She has, for thirty years now, managed Sivakami's household during menstrual leaves of absence. "Sivakami?"

"I am here," Sivakami replies, closing to a crack the narrow double door leading onto the main hall.

"Sivakami, young Kesavan is here to tutor Laddu in Sanskrit."

"Is Laddu there?"

Now Rukmini starts shouting Laddu's name.

Sivakami tries to make a suggestion. "Is... Rukmini Akka! Is Sita ... Rukmini Akka!"

Rukmini stops.

Sivakami asks, "Is Sita there? Ask her to find Laddu."

"No," replies the other woman. "Sita stayed at my house to eat biscuits and play with the dog."

"Oh. Young Kesavan, I'm very sorry." Sivakami speaks through the crack between the doors. "Only the third session and Laddu is absent again. I'm so sorry. Rukmini, ask Sita to go find her brother. Or find Muchami and ask Muchami to find Laddu."

"Yes, um, I reminded him," the young man answers as Rukmini bustles away importantly, "right after his Sanskrit cla.s.s in school."

This does nothing to relieve Sivakami's embarra.s.sment.

"I'd like"-he moves nearer the door and clears his throat-"to, um ... there are other boys in the cla.s.s who could use the extra help. I will tell you in confidence, however"-he coughs but sounds as if he's gaining surety-"that their parents cannot afford a tutor. Or they cannot see the necessity of Sanskrit. Though it is a necessity, as I have told you-the right colleges look very positively on those students who are familiar with the cla.s.sical language. Perhaps, if you would agree, I can suggest that those boys attend, here with Laddu, to help lend more of an ... atmosphere. They are boys Laddu likes. He would make sure to come home if they were coming also. He wouldn't miss it."

Laddu has been falling dreadfully behind in his studies, lacking apt.i.tude, conscience and enthusiasm. Sivakami wonders, when she looks at him, whether she is seeing what Goli was like as a young chap. Pressure to play host might be just the thing.

"Certainly, Kesavan. You invite the boys. That's good." Sivakami feels slightly vertiginous and lifts her sari pallu pallu off her back to her shoulders so that the cool wall is against her skin. "Is Rukmini there? Rukmini!" off her back to her shoulders so that the cool wall is against her skin. "Is Rukmini there? Rukmini!"

Rukmini has just returned.

"Rukmini, give young Kesavan a cup of milk."

Kesavan makes clucking noises in protest, but Sivakami speaks over him. "Find some murrukku and laddu as well."

"If you have Laddu, I'll teach the cla.s.s!" Kesavan lamely attempts to make light of the situation. Rukmini laughs a little and Visalam as if she will never stop, but Sivakami is glad no one can see her face and lies flat on the cool floor, willing the season of cramps to pa.s.s.

Rukmini takes the vegetables that Sivakami has already sliced back to her own kitchen, where she and her mother-in-law integrate them into their sambar. Sita, Laddu, Vani and Vairum eat there that evening, as do Muchami and Mari the next day. Rukmini brings food for Visalam, and leaves the monkeys' offering in the customary spot in the forest beyond the courtyard. Rukmini and Murthy even scold Laddu on Sivakami's behalf, though Sivakami scolds him, too.

The next day, Vani gets her period: Sivakami had been expecting this. They have been roughly synchronized for years. The mood in the room shifts, though, with Vani's entrance: five years, and she and Vairum have yet to produce an heir. Vairum's evident and mounting emotion at this lack gives Sivakami one more reason to feel ashamed whenever she has her period. But of course it isn't her menstruation that renders Vairum unable to meet anyone's eye during his wife's isolation, it is Vani's. Vairum becomes visibly depressed each month, skipping meals, becoming curt with the rest of the family.

A week later, Saradha arrives in preparation for the delivery of her first child. A woman normally goes to her mother's house, to be looked after in the comfort of the home she has known, but Thangam is setting up house in yet another part of the presidency and is in no position to pamper Saradha as she deserves. In any case, Sivakami has come to be called Amma, "mother," by the children, who refer to their mother as Akka, "big sister." Sivakami is not sure when this started or whether she should do something about it, but it does reflect the children's reality at least in part. So Saradha comes to her amma's, at seven months, for her bangle ceremony, and now, to deliver.

The day arrives, and Sivakami sends Muchami to fetch the old women who deliver babies, but, when they arrive, she and Sivakami stop short at Saradha's look of panic. "No, Amma!" she says, gripping Sivakami's arm, which shocks Sivakami as much as anything. Even as a small child, Saradha never violated her grandmother's madi.

"What is it, kannama?"

"You have to deliver my baby, Amma. You have kai raasi. raasi. Just like you delivered me and my brothers and sisters. You have to do it, Amma. Please, Amma!" Just like you delivered me and my brothers and sisters. You have to do it, Amma. Please, Amma!"

Kai raasi: lucky hands. Sivakami feels like Saradha has tied them. She is scared of her own inexperience, but superst.i.tion scares her more: after Thangam had her first, Sivakami would not turn the job over to anyone else, and now it appears she may have to do the same for her granddaughter. Now that Saradha has said the words, kai raasi, kai raasi, it would be bad luck to say no. it would be bad luck to say no.

The old women hang back-they will not put themselves forward now even though they all feel they have kai raasi. Sivakami has only delivered seven babies, while they have delivered hundreds, but it's true that Thangam's babies all lived-thrived, in fact, despite their sickly mother and the uncertainty and strangeness of their vagrant early lives. Sivakami must once more perform her magic.

Any magician will tell you, though, that magic is nine-tenths labour and one-tenth luck. After nine hours of labour, Sivakami is praying for an hour of luck. She instructs Visalam to dribble some boiled rice water between Saradha's dry lips. Saradha has permitted the old women to sop the sweat from her thick eyebrows, but only Sivakami is allowed to ma.s.sage the spasming abdomen with sesame oil. Saradha's forearms, as she bears down, squatting, are locked in Sivakami's, and she will be persuaded to release them only because Sivakami needs her hands to catch the baby, whose head has finally, fuzzily, shown. The lucky hour has arrived.

A girl! She's small but screams at a pitch that would be admirable in a child twice her size. Saradha, relieved, whispers, "Kai raasi, Amma. You should never deviate from tradition. You have always birthed the babies in this house."

All the old women say as much and more to their families when escorted home that night. "Will she do the same for her son and daughter-in-law, do you think?" they whisper. "When?"

Sivakami is thinking the same thing. Vani has begun to do a daily puja for a dark-barked tree a furlong northwest of the house, on one of whose branches she has tied a pink ribbon, circling the tree nine times each morning. She has poured milk down every snake hole in the vicinity-Muchami would inform her whenever he spied one and she would journey out with one of Thangam's children carrying the milk jug. (Presumably, if the snake didn't drown in her generosity, it would be so grateful as to wish a child on her.) She has pledged a pair of little golden feet for the altar of the Krishna temple-Krishna is often worshipped in the form of a baby, chubby, sunny, mischievous-on condition of her pregnancy and safe delivery of a child.

Vairum never demonstrates blame toward his wife. Does he blame himself? He is a math genius and this is the simplest of equations: one plus one equals three.

And, daily, he is taunted by the evidence of his sister and brother-in-law's proficiency in this regard. His actions, in the main, have been gracious toward his nieces and nephew. He is not by any means affectionate with them, but it is clear he will do whatever he can to ensure their current and future material well-being. For instance, tutoring Laddu. He says he is doing this for Thangam: he said he would never take from her but only give, and if he doesn't offer this instruction, this boy will forever be a burden on his mother, causing Vairum indirectly to rob her. Having said that, the instruction does little to lessen this probability. Laddu attends his uncle's tutorials out of fear, opening his school books and staring at them in bewilderment as Vairum prods and ridicules him for an hour and a half.

Laddu's att.i.tude toward his thrice-weekly Sanskrit tutorials is different. The first day his school chums attend, he does too, clearly intending that the time be spent in ribbing and chortling. This turns out to be more difficult than it is in school, where they have the cover of serious students, and because Laddu's companions refuse to misbehave in the home of the most respected widow on their street.

Laddu does not appear for the next session and Sivakami sends Muchami out to track him down. He finds the boy lying within a rough circle of smooth, large stones, the remains of a Jain monastery abandoned eight hundred years earlier but still outlined in stone dots and dashes like a telegraph from history. For generations, this has been one of those places where boys go to smoke and brag, boys with and boys without promising futures. Muchami knows the place well; he was never interested in smoking or bragging, but he was interested in boys and so was a regular.

"What is this?" Muchami begins haranguing Laddu from five yards away, and the boy jumps up guiltily. "How is it possible that there are four boys learning Sanskrit in your uncle's house and you are not one of them? Are those boys smarter than you, that they can find your house and you got lost in the forest? Maybe we should send you to school with a string tied around your waist and pull you home like a flapping fish when cla.s.ses are over, shouldn't we? Can't you feel how your grandmother is suffering? She has brought all the knowledge of the village into your home and your portion is going to waste. She would give you everything, but she cannot afford to waste, not food, not clothes, not knowledge. It will rot there and smell bad and be thrown to the dogs in the street who will eat it and be fat and then maybe get sick, too! See how you are hurting your grandmother and all the creatures of the world by not following your dharma? Move! Back to the house! Look smart!"

Laddu doesn't look smart at all but does move fast. The tutorial has already begun, young Kesavan reciting noun inflections in a mesmerizing singsong, and his glazed-looking students singing each phrase back at him, "Ramaha Ramow Ramaaha, Ramam Ramow Ramaaha ..." Laddu starts singing along while still in the courtyard and bursts over the threshold, expecting to garner a laugh on his entrance. No one even looks at him, and he creeps to a place on the floor, farthest from the tutor.

So now there are four boys learning Sanskrit. Or ... ?

Sivakami, peeping in to check on the group's progress, notices Muchami, sitting in one of the doorways to the garden, agape at the proceedings. No sounds issue from him, but his lips are moving and he is hanging on each syllable as though it contains the mysteries of birth, death and cinema. Seeing him sit so wholly absorbed in the vicarious act of learning, Sivakami recalls one of her earliest impressions of him, that he aspires to be something more than most of his cla.s.s. She recalls her own hope that she might a.s.sist him in realizing this aspiration. She already has-he is, at forty-two, among the most highly respected members of his caste. But here is a skill none of them has, something even she does not possess and never will, because she hasn't time nor would she consider it decorous. But now that Vairum has taken over much of the management of the property, and Sita has entered school, Muchami has more free time, and why shouldn't he consider some self-improvement?

The next day, Sivakami tells him to make a new slate and purchase some more chalk.

"Ayoh," he sighs. "Has Laddu lost or broken yet another slate? Honestly, I..."

"No, Muchami, it's for you," Sivakami says proudly, glancing at Mari, who is washing the vessels following the mid-morning meal, squatting in the courtyard and scrubbing the pots with soap-nut powder and a puff of coconut coir, splashing them with water from the well.

"What will I do with it?" he asks, understandably confused. Mari, having overheard Sivakami conferring with young Kesavan, starts to grin.

"As long as you are chasing Laddu and making him attend the Sanskrit tutorial, you may as well attend it yourself," Sivakami replies with mock gruffness. "I'm adding it to your responsibilities."

Muchami feels his mouth shape into a silent "o," much in the way he has tried, silently, to mouth the syllables of Sanskrit. He feels dismayed, as can happen when we receive something for which we did not dare hope. He is not a person who has spent time in self-definition. He is too busy, his personality too strong. It would have been a waste of his time. Now, though he would never describe it thus, his self-image is undergoing a jolt.

He is a member of what was once a warrior caste. His ancestors may have defended kings in a time before memory, which in their community is limited to a lifetime. Now their lot is with agriculture and service. They are a proud caste and, when serving, they serve fiercely. There are members of the generation after Muchami's who attend school-those young relatives of his who were Vairum's schoolyard defenders, for instance. One or two of his own generation may have done so, never for more than a few years. He didn't attend. It didn't matter.

He has altered as a result of his life in Sivakami's household, from the time he subtly adopted Hanumarathnam's Brahminical gait and manner. He has been further changed by his marriage to a woman who succeeds in observing Brahmin custom and prejudice more rigorously than most Brahmins-elevated, in Muchami and Mari's opinion; estranged, in that of their families.

And now he is to sit with the children of the scholarly caste and repeat with them the sacred phrases of the ancient language, the language of the distinguished, the learned. Was it even permissible?

"Young Kesavan thought it a terrific idea," Sivakami rea.s.sures him.

Is Muchami trembling?

Kesavan would think it a terrific idea: he is a progressive and positively delights in the idea of teaching Sanskrit to a servant in a Brahmin household. What hasn't occurred to him, or to Sivakami, is that were Muchami to learn to read and write Tamil, he would be well qualified for some other job. He would have choice and mobility. Sanskrit, on the other hand, qualifies him for nothing.

Filled with a cautious, unfamiliar joy, Muchami finds a sc.r.a.p of board, paints it black, leans it on the back of his hut, checks to make sure it's drying smooth and gives it another coat the next day.

"Cha, chha, ja, jha, gna."

"Cha, cha, cha, cha, gna."

Laddu and his buddies suppress giggles as Kesavan turns to the garden door to address his newest student.

"Muchami. Try again. Cha, chha, ja, jha, gna."

"Cha, cha, cha..."

"No, Muchami, listen. Chha." Chha." Kesavan's voice betrays impatience. His other students are not nearly so interested, but they can, at least, p.r.o.nounce the syllables of this language they are purporting to learn. Kesavan's voice betrays impatience. His other students are not nearly so interested, but they can, at least, p.r.o.nounce the syllables of this language they are purporting to learn.

Muchami's brow is knit. "Cha," he chokes out hesitantly.

"Oh, never mind."

They move on to the next group of phonemes.

Muchami leaves his first cla.s.s as dejected as he has ever been. He can hear that these syllables are distinct. But how to make them? He has no idea. How could it be as hard as this if children are doing it every day? Muchami speaks a different Tamil from the Brahmins'-one without Sanskrit inflections and terms. His tongue has not been accustomed to forming these sounds, which the sn.i.g.g.e.ring boys have been instructed to use from birth, for words as common as "cooked rice" and "banana," items for which he has either another word entirely or another p.r.o.nunciation.

His inability puzzles him-he is, as he well knows, among the most perceptive men in the village, no caste barred. He is a magnet for information and he knows how to use it. These sounds, though, and the words formed from them, they seem to have no place to roost in his head. They fly at him like frantic pigeons. They make him panic. He tries to retain them but feels them flutter off.

Each of those first few days, Sivakami eagerly inquires what it's like, to take a cla.s.s. She expects his usual entertaining accounts, full of mimicry and insight. But all he says is, "It's good! Good! The teacher is very good, smart boy. Could I have more sambar?"

How to say he has never learned a thing in a cla.s.sroom and can't figure out how to do so?

Mari does not ask him questions about his lessons. She flashes through her daily ch.o.r.es with defensive pride, and when Gayatri jokes that now it is not only Mari who is more Brahmin than the Brahmins, but her husband as well, Mari's pride shrills fiercer still, daring anyone to prevent this.

As THE FIFTH YEAR OF VANI'S RESIDENCE in their home drizzles to a close, Sivakami feels pressure to perform some greater supplication on her son's behalf than the pujas she has done daily for the Ramar. She resolves on commissioning a dramatization of the Ramayana, the story of Rama's life and deeds. Vairum finds out for her which troupe in the region has the best reputation for flair and piety and writes a letter of request on her behalf. The troupe writes back; the dates and price are confirmed; she places their response at the feet of the four stone figures who govern her home and begs them again, be pleased with her and this re-enactment of their trials and victories. Send me a a grandchild, one who will belong to this house grandchild, one who will belong to this house and and to you. The house drums around her with the noises of all those grandchildren who don't belong, welcome as they are. to you. The house drums around her with the noises of all those grandchildren who don't belong, welcome as they are.

Now, two days before Sivakami's dedicated Ramayana dramatization is to commence, Muchami brings unwelcome intelligence: another Ramayana will be performed in the village at the same time as hers, a different version.

Sivakami straightens from bending over a vat of oil, where eight vadais bounce and bubble. "Another Ramayana?" she repeats after him. "There are two Ramayanas: one written by Valmiki and one by Kamban, one Sanskrit and one Tamil, but they are one and the same. There is no... what did you call this?"

"It's called the Self-Respect Movement, Amma. They call this the 'Self-Respect Ramayana,'" Muchami reiterates shamefacedly. "I have heard it's a version where Ravana is, well... ahem, the hero."

Sivakami grimly squats and plunges the tongs amid the vadais to make them flip. Visalam squats beside her, patting vadai dough into sticky dumplings on a round, oil-blackened board, pressing her lips together and looking down, to keep herself from laughing.

"Will people go to see this, this... spectacle?" Sivakami demands. She lifts the crisped vadais from the vat and drops them into a vessel of yogourt, using her sari to wipe sweat from her upper lip and the corners of her eyes. Visalam slides a half-dozen more raw vadais into the pan, where they sink, begin to emit streams of bubbles and rise. Visalam starts to giggle, and when Sivakami asks, "What?" points to the pan.

"Please, Sivakamikka," Gayatri says from the main hall, blowing on her coffee. "Don't be discouraged."

"Who is discouraged by these dirty, low types? Will Rama and Sita pay attention to these Brahmin-haters?" She stops herself from saying aloud the rest of her thoughts. Would my husband have gone to the "other" Ramayana? He used to go with them, the ones who said there is no caste. Would my husband have gone to the "other" Ramayana? He used to go with them, the ones who said there is no caste. Did they say Did they say "Long "Long live live Ravana"? What appeal Ravana"? What appeal is there in is there in a topsy-turvy a topsy-turvy world? world?

"I'm sure I don't know, Amma," Muchami solemnly replies, and Sivakami realizes she may have spoken her last question aloud, though sometimes, with Muchami, it doesn't seem she has to.

Visalam has patted out two more batches of vadais.

"Go," Sivakami tells her. "The kitchen is too hot."

The girl springs out to the courtyard and douses herself with well water, guffawing with delight.

The performance troupe Sivakami invited is setting up a stage in a mango grove about two hundred paces east along the cart track that leads from the southern exit of the Brahmin quarter. A number of children lucky or devious enough to have escaped work or school are goggling at the performers, who, even without makeup or costume, display a high theatricality of bearing. Several tease the children and make them shriek with gorgeous terror.

A mile directly east of Sivakami's back door, beyond the ca.n.a.l and the tracks, another stage and canopy are being erected, by performers physically indistinguishable from the first group in any significant way, though Sivakami's supporters will claim they are crude in looks and comportment. Even if they hadn't been so congenitally, the supporters splutter, they would have become so as a result of their crude tampering. How dare they touch the untouchable, alter the unalterable ? The Ramayana is a foundation stone, a touchstone, a hero stone inscribed with the glorious events of some bygone day so they may never be erased nor forgotten, nor changed.

It's probably coincidence that the interloping troupe has come to play in the same week as Sivakami's scheduled performance, but both sides claim it's deliberate. The performers Sivakami hired are silent in the face of all political questions, while the other troupe and its citified supporters proclaim their mandate loud and proud: "While Rama is seen by the ignorant Brahmin-followers to be a valiant hero, we will show him to be a cowardly schemer!

"While the ignorant Brahmins and the uneducated ma.s.ses they have duped see Ravana as a licentious demon, we will show him to be an honourable man, taking no more-and no less-revenge than he must to vouchsafe his reputation!

"While the ignorant and the duped exhort their young virgins to uphold Sita as the model of virtuous womanhood, taking no initiative, living by the word of her husband, as instructed in that vile manual, The Laws According to Manu, Manu, this drama will expose her as the wanton and l.u.s.ty strumpet she really was!" this drama will expose her as the wanton and l.u.s.ty strumpet she really was!"

The most skilled of the criers explain and extemporize; the least skilled recite, halting but loud, from block-printed, hand-sewn booklets. They thrust their manifesto into the hands of numberless unlettered villagers, cajoling, mocking, seducing them into attending. They roam and comb every caste neighbourhood, except the Brahmins', where they dump piles of the pamphlets at each exit.

In the hands of any other caste member, the pamphlets look like invitations. Littering the Brahmin quarter, they look like warnings. The wind blows them through the street, plastering them against the red and white stripes of the verandas. Some blow up beyond the reach of indignant reactionaries gathering them to thrust in their fires; some blow into eavestroughs and the little s.p.a.ce between roof and walls. Perhaps they will be forgotten there for seasons on end and then discovered by an inquisitive grandchild in a time when all such conflicts are obsolete.

"Come one, come all!" the pamphleteer politicos scream.

Understand how the stinking Aryans flooded our Tamil country from the north with their weapons and and their myths their myths of of our our inferiority. inferiority. Come Come and and we will we will reveal reveal what the Brahmins what the Brahmins really mean when really mean when they say they say "all "all the monkeys of the southern country welcomed the monkeys of the southern country welcomed Rama and pledged Rama and pledged their services to their services to him. " What do you think, him. " What do you think, n.o.ble n.o.ble citizens? citizens? These These Brahmins see us real Tamilians as monkeys! And devils! Who is this Rama who is so celebrated for overcoming the rightful ruler to the "monkey" throne by devious means and waging war on the "devils "? Ravana might have been a king from any of our luminous dynasties: any regal Pallava, valiant Pandyan, n.o.ble Chola, or high born Chera, who once ruled and battled and upheld our Tamil pride. Are we so stupid that we will continue to accept these distortions? Brahmins see us real Tamilians as monkeys! And devils! Who is this Rama who is so celebrated for overcoming the rightful ruler to the "monkey" throne by devious means and waging war on the "devils "? Ravana might have been a king from any of our luminous dynasties: any regal Pallava, valiant Pandyan, n.o.ble Chola, or high born Chera, who once ruled and battled and upheld our Tamil pride. Are we so stupid that we will continue to accept these distortions?

"Invaders out! Down with Brahmin raj! The day of the elite has ended! They don't respect us-we have Self-Respect! Long live the real Tamil people!"

Tonight, the seven-night-long performances commence. Which will draw the larger crowd?

Vairum overhears men taking bets at the Kulithalai Club, when he goes to play tennis. Manifold factors weight the odds. As with bhajans bhajans or big temple events, only a small proportion of audience members attend Ramayana recitals or dramatizations out of religious devotion. Most come for entertainment, but devotion and diversion usually need not be separated. Tonight, the townsfolk face a strange choice: should they or should they not go to the new Ramayana, which, as a novelty, is a much surer source of entertainment than the smooth and well-worn pa.s.sages and postures of the cla.s.sical presentation? Will it be blasphemous? Worse, disrespectful? or big temple events, only a small proportion of audience members attend Ramayana recitals or dramatizations out of religious devotion. Most come for entertainment, but devotion and diversion usually need not be separated. Tonight, the townsfolk face a strange choice: should they or should they not go to the new Ramayana, which, as a novelty, is a much surer source of entertainment than the smooth and well-worn pa.s.sages and postures of the cla.s.sical presentation? Will it be blasphemous? Worse, disrespectful?

And there are other concerns: Will there be violence? Riots? What does this performance signify?

The members of Minister's political salon have, as always, an irreconcilable variety of opinions on the matter.

"It's an insult and an affront," foams Dr. Kittu Iyer, "and quite wholly unnecessary and-"