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Gossip takes its course. Soon, they receive an invitation, almost identical to the one Sivakami’s father sent Hanumarathnam a lifetime ago. Originality is praised in very few areas of life. In the matter of a wedding, it is nearly unthinkable.
Vairum attends the appointment with Sivakami’s eldest and youngest brothers. At the girl-seeing, Vani’s family plays her to advantage. She is exceptionally beautiful and Vairum is even more captivated. Vani smiles at him-without shyness or apparent distaste at his progressive bleaching-and seals the pact.
And look at this coincidence: when Vairum enters Vani’s house for the girl-seeing ceremony, he is greeted by the two young barristers he met on the train to Thiruchi when first he left home for college. They are Vani’s own uncles! It must be fate’s working, all jollily agree.
The girl’s parents are plainly thrilled. Sivakami’s brothers enjoy the food Vani serves and the song she plays. They give broad hints that everything is satisfactory, but they really don’t much care. Returning to Cholapatti, they put on concerned and condescending airs as they advise Sivakami to go ahead. She perceives that they are being cavalier, but this was expected. Vairum floats in, dreamy, blissful. This is more significant. He has been pleased. His sharp edges are momentarily cloaked in cloud, but just as fog vanishes under heat, so any objections from his mother would unsheathe his will.
Eight months later, Vairum and Vani are married.
SO LOOK AT VAIRUM, a college student, married to the girl who will become the woman of his dreams. At first glance, it would seem he is becoming exactly what his mother intended when she tore him from Samanthibakkam and reinstalled him in Cholapatti, sacrificing his happiness on his behalf. If he had known what he would receive in return for his suffering, would he himself have placed his contentment on the altar? None of us will ever know.
He lives in the carapace of a happy young man. He has routines that build on his interests and skills, that give his life the appearance of balance. At college, he works hard and is rewarded with knowledge, honours and respect. He has friends.
One of those boys is distantly related to two wealthy merchant families in Cholapatti and goes there for weekends from time to time, since his own family lives in Thanjavur, a bit far to travel for such a short break. When his friend visits, Vairum is invited to be a fourth for te
Why not with the Brahmins? Sivakami wonders. Is he shu
Distance is begetting distance, in fact-Vairum is tethered to the village, as they all are, by his land and history. The difference is that he is shod for a great step out into the world. The barbs are begi
22. Yellow Money 1920-1921
THANGAM HAS RETURNED HOME heavily pregnant with her third child: It’s a boy, a boy! Sivakami is more assured in this birth than she has been in the last two, and her confidence grows as she hands the baby, red and screaming with good health, to his mother. Surely, thinks Sivakami, surely his chubby hands will wipe away the worry lines that have settled on his mother’s face in the years of her marriage. A boy will be active, mischievous. He will clutch and tear Thangam’s dulling mask of anxiety.
Thangam and the baby emerge for the single day of his naming ceremony and then withdraw once more. Two more weeks pass, but Sivakami ca
The little girls must be relieved to have their mother back, though they might have mixed feelings about the new baby. Saradha, the older one, especially-she had immense difficulty in adjusting to Cholapatti. On arrival, her eyes the size of palm fruits, she had clung to Thangam so vehemently that twice the expectant mother had tripped and fallen, prompting Sivakami to wonder if the child wasn’t jealous and trying to endanger the coming baby. Thangam told her, though, that it was the change of place: they had moved a year earlier, and Saradha had behaved in just the same ma
“Will Saradha be as upset by your return home as she was by her arrival here?” Sivakami asks.
Thangam smiles mildly and shrugs.
Sivakami persists, “When are you going to move house again?”
In eight months.
If Saradha were like her younger sister, Sivakami muses, there would be no need to worry, but the two couldn’t be more different. Where Saradha approaches everything with a seriousness beyond her years or understanding, Visalam seems to see everything as a joke. Every creature, every event makes her laugh, really laugh, good-naturedly; she is not mocking or spiteful, and she is obedient. Sivakami thinks perhaps she should be worried about her unconventional behaviour, but she has so many other more urgent matters to worry about.
Thangam’s health, for example. She looks weak, too weak even, apparently, to have any interest in her newest baby. With the first baby, Saradha, Thangam showed at least some curiosity, at the child’s tiny fingers and toes. Sivakami saw her once tickling the child’s pretty chin, though with an absent air. She didn’t see what she expected, the adoration that Thangam had shown her little brother all those years ago, that which holds most new parents in helpless thrall.
The little boy, since he was first given the breast, seems to have fed through every waking hour and Thangam has barely looked at him. Thangam’s milk flows from her breast, the roses from her cheeks, the gold from… where? Her skin, her hair? How will she have the energy to relocate three children? And the last is a boy-when they next move, he will, at eight months, need constant attention. The girls also need at least minimal supervision. Goli’s salary and status should permit a couple of servants, but Sivakami has deduced that there are none. Does he fire them, do they quit, does he forget to tell them when they move? How will Thangam cope?