Short fiction: A ‘fallen’ woman and her dead baby get a seven-gun salute at their funerals

On a dark and stormy night, yes indeed, on a dark and stormy night, a man with a secret disappeared from his house in Tanjore, in the early part of the twentieth century. He left behind the feudal mansion where he grew up and where he had brought his beautiful dark-skinned bride, where his baby girl was born and his parents passed, and his brother committed suicide. This is the story of Ramaswamy, my grandfather’s Svengali, protector, advisor and general factotum.

At that time, Malabar was in the thick of a rebellion by the Moplahs. One night, a patrol led by my grandfather was passing a small bridge. His keen ears picked up muffled voices coming from below. The bridge was immediately surrounded by his men and Fang was sent in to flush out the fugitives. Terrified by the ferocious dog, out emerged a woman and her small daughter, followed by a short, dark man. The woman was Muslim, and her baby must have been about a year old. Grandfather took the mother and child under protective custody. The man stood glaring at his captors who’d had the impunity to flush him out from his refuge.

“Can’t we shoot him, at least?” pleaded a havildar named Pillai, who thought it was pointless fighting rebels if you could not shoot them.

“My men want to kill you. Tell me where your hideout is and I’ll see you get a fair trial,” Grandfather told the man.

The stranger laughed. “My hideout was this bridge under which I was sleeping rather comfortably until you set the dog on me,” he replied in Tamil.

“A Moplah speaking Tamil? Maybe he is a rebel disguised as a Tamil. Can I shoot him now?” the havildar begged Grandfather.

Grandfather shut him up with a stern look and called for Thiruvelu, a Tamil from Palani who had enlisted to escape his sharp-tongued mother. After a series of rapid questions and answers, it was established that their captive was Ramaswamy from Tanjore, who had left home for private reasons. That’s all he had to say. Grandfather felt a sudden liking for this dark, short man who wasn’t afraid of men with guns who were only too happy to shoot him.

In the MSP camp, Ramaswamy settled into a routine, rising at dawn, doing laundry and cleaning the mess hall. On the first day itself, Fang, who didn’t take to strangers, jumped on Ramaswamy, wagging his tail furiously and barking and licking his face.

One day, Grandfather ordered Ramaswamy to clean his tent. When he returned from patrol, the place was as spotless as Savitri’s character. You could have cut a rebel’s throat with the creases in Grandfather’s uniform and combed your hair in the reflection from his polished boots. Thus, Ramaswamy became his Man Friday, to the envy of his regular batman.

One sunny day, the batman approached Grandfather and cleared his throat rather loudly. “What do we do with the woman and her daughter?” he asked.

Grandfather had completely forgotten about them. “Did you interrogate her?”

“She gave me the name of the landlord for whom her husband was working. He was killed in a shooting and she had to flee. Her story checks out.”

“Let her go then.”

The batman cleared his throat again. “What?” Grandfather asked impatiently.

“She is with child. She wasn’t when she came here. Havildar Pillai has seen Ramaswamy go in and out of her cell. He is willing to say that in court.”

My grandfather knew the havildar hated his valet. Ramaswamy was questioned, but he said nothing. That night, neither Fang nor my grandfather slept well. In the morning, an idea dawned on him like a Vishu cracker going off. He sent Havildar Pillai on patrol, all the way to Nilambur, which was about a hundred kilometres away. Then he took Fang into the barracks Pillai shared with his comrades. The dog sniffed around and shot out of the barracks, straight to the cell where the woman and her child had been confined. Pillai was court-martialled and cashiered.

Grandfather mounted a search for Ramaswamy, but he couldn’t be found. Fang spent most of the day in a corner of the tent, gazing out mournfully, waiting for his friend to return. And return he did, weary and footsore. He revived only after Fang ran in circles around him, barking and wagging his tail, in between pausing to place both paws on his shoulders to lick him all over.

“Where were you?” Grandfather asked.

Ramaswamy looked at his commander. Grandfather had never seen such sorrow and guilt ravage a man’s face.

“I couldn’t save her, sir.” He started sobbing, as if all the guilt in the world was on him.

The story came out in bits and parts. The woman was being raped regularly by the havildar and his cronies. She tried to fight them off many times, but there were too many of them. After she was thrown out of the camp, she and her daughter had nowhere to go. Ramaswamy had a little money he had put away from his allowance. When her belly got too swollen, he took her to a hospital. Its Hindu doctor wouldn’t attend to a Muslim; such was the hatred the local population had for the Moplahs. So Ramaswamy found a deserted house where the child could be delivered. The baby happened to be upside down in the womb. By the time he was able to pull it out, it was dead. So was the woman. Just another ordinary tale of grief and callousness: an injustice was done, a woman died, the world went on in endless ellipses as the gods had decided aeons ago.

“Don’t feel bad, Ramaswamy, you’re not a doctor. You couldn’t have saved her.”

Ramaswamy looked Grandfather squarely in the face. It was an expression that combined irony and sadness.

“I couldn’t,” he whispered.

“And her daughter?”

“I found an orphanage willing to take her. Kind people. But I need a favour.”

“Anything.”

“I found a cart to take the mother and baby to the Muslim cemetery. I told the mullaka the whole story. He refused to bury them. He said fallen women can’t be buried on holy ground.”

Grimly, Grandfather called for his jeep and a lorry full of soldiers. He drove, with Ramaswamy in the front seat, to the cemetery. The mother and the dead baby were given a seven-gun salute send-off. The mullah lurked behind, scowling.

“Isn’t a seven-gun salute reserved for soldiers who die in battle?” Ramaswamy asked Grandfather on the way back.

“She was one, wasn’t she?”

Excerpted with permission from ‘The Mystery of Loss’ in The Little Book of Goodbyes, Ravi Shankar Etteth, Westland.