As the waves are drawn to the shore, we fisherfolk are drawn to lament. It brings little solace. Yet, we cast our sorrows, like fishing nets, out into the sea hoping to catch some sympathy. But the gently reprimanding and shushing waves returns our woes to us; it laps around our feet, trickles between our toes, and feigning an obedient dog, licks our salt cracked mud caked feet.
The sea has neither sympathy nor compassion for us, whose deeds are as dark as our skin. She favours those whose hair is the colour of the sun and eyes the colour of the clear sky. She favours their ships; why else would she bring them here. Has she not shown us where her heart lies by guiding them to our rich land, our faithful women, and the kind rain? I curse you, traitorous sea.
The time for lamenting is over. Tonight is for revenge, for quenching my bloodlust. Six months of carefully nurtured savagery will be unleashed. There is nothing left to do. I searched for the truth but it is not our privilege. It is a laughable quest; I deserve a flogging for even desiring that indulgence. Our lives, with all its aches and yearnings are at the mercy of only two gods — the sun and the sea. It is our lot to be scarred, scratched, and scorched. Truth is a luxury we don’t know to enjoy.
Tonight is also the night I will die, one way or another. In the hands of the white man or by my own. But first I will avenge my Paru; I will stain White Town with a white man’s blood.
Six months ago, word reached us that a newly arrived French soldier needed someone for cleaning and other household work. Before I returned from the sea, before the nets had even dried, Paru spoke to our Elder. Her black words travelled up the black hierarchy and then crossed into White Town.
Of course, we needed the money; who among us doesn’t? But we would have managed as fisherfolk always do. But Parvati, my Paru, wanted better things for us. I forbade her. I threatened her, begged her, but she was determined. After a day of raging and drinking and throwing our meagre household around, I lay on the floor begging for deathly sleep.
Paru sat next to me; I turned away from her. She stroked my hair. And teased me as she often did. Why fisherman… you are so attached to me? Or is it just my fish gravy? I desperately wanted to clasp her hands in mine, but my anger and pride wouldn’t let me. She mopped my forehead with the corner of her red saree. Even after all these years you desire me so much? Don’t be so angry with me fisherman, it is only for a few months. Don’t worry. They don’t trust us enough to keep a maid for more than a few months. They keep changing. Say something, fisherman.
Her words were soothing my anger and I hated that. I wanted to remain angry. But I could find only sadness and despair for what the morning would bring. Tears choking, I lashed out… Go waste away… rot in the white man’s hell… I won’t even burn your body when they cast it out on the sands. I would never speak to her again, or hear her singing folk songs, or have her fingers smelling of fish snake through my salty hair. Those foul words would be her last and lasting memory of me.
The following morning, I left for the sea without speaking to her or even glancing at her direction. She would walk into White Town a few hours later and never return. Slow days and long nights passed. I couldn’t understand what sort of work required Paru to stay in White Town for months. When I asked the Elder he shook his head, perhaps a little too easily. I cannot ask… they will cut my tongue and feed it to the crabs. But don’t worry. they never keep any worker too long in the house.
Weeks passed. I caught wisps of rumours and gossip which scattered just before I arrived. Vile tongues spouted malice and lies. Some said: her master, the French soldier has a twisted eye for her; seized by jealousy the soldier’s wife has tied her to a coconut tree in the garden and left her to die before her husband’s eyes; and the worst of all: she has fallen in love with the soldier. Months passed and Paru didn’t return. Gentle petitions from our Elders went unanswered. Persistent questioning was punished. After two hundred days, I gave Paru a soul saving funeral. A cow had given birth to a still born calf. We named it Parvati; I said my prayers and lit the pyre.
And my last words to her: go, waste away… rot in the white man’s hell… I won’t even burn your body when they cast it out on the sands. What foolishness to expect the sea to wash away my troubles!
Grief has had its hours and loneliness, its watch. Now, revenge beckons. For over a month I have been slipping in and out of White Town. From shadows or the tops of coconut trees I watched them and their homes with thieving eyes. Back in Black Town I stitched the fragments of information. And finally, I have a name and a house. Bathan, Bathon, Bayrun… it sounds like that. And it must be this house — a house with a distinctive feature. If Paru had stayed here or was held captive it could not have been inside the Frenchman’s home. There must have been a separate place set away from the house. Like this shed wedged between the wall and the clump of bushes.
The house is dark. Inside, just the soldier and his wife whose hair shines in the sun like threads of gold. Unusually there are two guards. One at the gate and the other outside the shed. I hear a dog bark and realise that is another unexpected complication.
The guard at the gate gasps in horror when he sees my white eyes appear out of the darkness, right under his nose. He gasps just once more as my knife races across his throat. The dog is the first to react. A black beast with rasping breath, it comes bounding out of the darkness. Inside the house lamps flicker as wicks catch the flame. The bloodlust has been awakened in me. My right arm explodes with pain I have never felt before. I am brought to my knees. I hear a crack from somewhere in my body. A deathly rattling and growling, the dog is ripping my arm in a frenzy. I plunge my knife into the beast, once, twice, thrice and again, and again, until I feel the sharp jab of a gun on the back of my head. The second guard says something in his language. In reply I thrust my knife into his foot. He howls in pain and drops the gun. I break his head with it.
Perhaps others will come having heard the commotion. I make my way towards the house. In the distance, to my right, I see the dim outline of the shed. There’s a light inside. Perhaps Paru is still alive, perhaps it is another fisherman’s wife. But first, Bathon or whoever he is.
I find them half dressed, cowering in fear behind a large wooden shelf. Paru… Parvati I say. The name doesn’t seem familiar. I take my time. I repeat the name, make the gesture of a woman. My wife I say, and make the motions of garlanding. They weep in fear and soil themselves. I hear some noise outside; a cautious approach. I return my attention to the Frenchman. A strange calmness overcomes me. Then, I begin. I am severed from my body as it satisfies an unholy bloodthirstiness. From the door a man watches the brutal savagery. A white man, one of them. I go towards him with no haste. He tries to backout equally slowly but finds himself pinned against the door that has swung shut.
He is frantic and desperate. He starts to gesture wildly and babble in his tongue. I wait for him to stop, and only then notice his clothes. They are filthy and reek so badly it offends even my fisherman nose. Another prisoner of the Frenchman, stashed away in the shed. The white man’s greatest enemy is another white man. He will be useful as a hostage in case I am stopped before I get out of White Town
Once we cross into Black Town my hostage relaxes. He knows a few Tamil words and he cycles through them, investing great urgency to each word with gestures. But I’m elsewhere. I am still mutilating the body of the French soldier who took my Paru away. I’m tasting his blood on my lips. The inevitability of my act hasn’t come home yet. I drag my hostage with me as I walk around aimlessly. At the entrance to the street of weavers I come upon a group of people before I realise it. Black Town folks smoking a beedi, cursing the heat. I hope my prisoner doesn’t do or say anything that will get me in trouble. A black man walking around with a white prisoner in Black Town.
I feel a weight fall on my shoulders. My hostage has thrown some pieces of cloth around himself to hide his convict clothes. He must have whisked them from a clothesline. He is smart, my enemy’s enemy, and therefore my unwitting friend. He must be thanking his god who hangs from sticks for this unexpected escape. He covers his head and face with a black cloth and staggers. I understand his plan.
Pretending to be drunks, we cross clusters of fishermen, weavers, and dyers. And with every crossing my sense of victory rises. I’ve avenged Paru and also liberated another innocent from the clutches of the French. When I die tonight, Paru will welcome me in heaven and this white man will spend the rest of his days grateful to me, and to this bountiful land that birthed such courageous souls. He will return and speak of the valour and passion of us fisherfolk. When I die tonight…
We are at the beach and three more men approach us. They start speaking and I realise they are white men. My hostage replies and suddenly one of them charges at me and knocks me down. I clear the sand off my face and see his ivory white eyes and the two pitch black eyes of his gun barely two inches from my face.
I must be dead because I can hear and understand their words so clearly now. The same words that never made sense to me earlier. ‘Rob, is that you?’ one of them asks.
‘Yes, yes, it’s me… Rob… Robert Clive. They held me at Bertrand’s place for the night. Off to Pondicherry at dawn.’
‘Just in time, eh? Are you all right, where did you pick up this blackie… did he hurt you?’
‘I’m all right. But he’s a savage. Kill the bastard, he would’ve killed me for sure.’
My hostage walks away with the group towards the sea where a boat awaits. He reaches inside his shirt and pulls out a piece of cloth — I can tell it is red even in this coal darkness. It’s a piece of Paru’s saree. He wraps it over his head and walks away… or perhaps it is Paru coming to welcome me.
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