2/21/2018 (1) Madness, C.

Ayyappan's story ( published in Little magazine)

Madness, C. Ayyappan's story ( published in Little magazine)

October 27, 2010 at 7:24pm

Madness

C. Ayyappan

Two or three days ago, you--my childhood friend, neighbour and a member of the Panchayat--you came to the quarters where I live.
You may not have forgotten what happened here at the time. Still I’m talking about it once more. It’s only when at least two persons take a
look at an incident, either with their eyes or through their glasses, that even a tiny bit of its meaning will become clear. So it’s essential that
you lend your ear to my words.
On that morning you, along with a group of people, turned up here and knocked at my door. I opened the door. You and your henchmen
began to speak, like a dam bursting. I was a bit amazed. When the amazement subsided, I could make out two things from what you said.
One: my sister’s madness has aggravated. Two: I should co-operate with you in admitting her to a mental hospital nearby.
I still remember what I said in reply: Your pretensions about how you know more about my sister’s illness than I do--let it stay, keep it
with yourself. It’s not she, it’s you--who have gone about organizing yourselves and collecting money on her behalf and are here with a car
and concern and all that--it’s you who are mad. . . .
Then you pointed your finger at my sister seated in the car parked alongside the road, screaming and tearing at the chains that bound
her. And I said: I don’t see anything. Though at the time I turned a bit pale at your question, filled with surprise and pain, I somehow got
away, shutting the door on your face quite dramatically.
It’s this incident that upturned all your impressions about me, isn’t it? You may feel that what I did was nothing but barbaric. You may also
complain that I forgot myself when I got hold of a rather decent job and a good-looking, salaried woman for a wife. For the time being, I
don’t want to answer these charges. Let me talk about that incident.
To be truthful, I myself didn’t quite understand what I had done at that time. But when I grasped it fully, I felt proud of myself. I had acted
very intelligently. I congratulated myself.
It may be difficult for you to make sense of what I’m saying. So let me talk about it again. This monologue is aimed at convincing you
and discovering the mind’s direction.
Has any one of you considered what could have happened to me if I had done what you, my dear friend, and my neighbours had
suggested?
Suppose I’d come to the mental hospital along with you. It’s not very far from the quarters where I live. So it’s likely that the residents
here would come to know of it. Even if no one else comes to know about it, that writer who lifts sentences and passages from award-
winning literary works would definitely smell it out. And then all the residents in these quarters would know. Krishnan Master’s sister is
mad!
So far, you may think there’s not much harm here. But you should know that the next step leads to disaster. Many of the residents here
would come to the hospital. At least some of them may not fail to notice the difference between me and my kin. Leave out the mad sister.
The problem is those who stay with her to take care of her. Their clothes and mine would be subjected to a comparative study. And then
the residents here would utter unawares: Though Krishnan has somehow turned out to be a well-placed teacher, his relatives belong to a
lowly, depressed caste!
I don’t have to tell you it’s a great shame, do I? But I’m prepared to suffer even that. It’s then that the fiery eyes of another problem
confront me.
Anyone would say that when my sister is ill and is admitted to a hospital so close by, it is imperative that my wife visit her. And I don’t
disagree. But my wife happens to be a woman who hates her husband’s relatives. Her attitude, though quite disturbing, is in fact natural
and honest. There is not much impropriety in a woman--fair-skinned and good-looking so she’d never be taken for an inferior caste--
treating with disdain the descendants of those who, with the corners of their mouth torn, used to eat dead cows, is there?
Even this being so, it may be possible to somehow quieten her down and take her to the hospital. If I manage to turn a deaf ear for
some time to her words of abuse at my folks’ lack of culture, she may tire a bit. Then I can perhaps tackle and tame her.
But now I get trapped in a prison with no exit. It’s my only daughter who opens the door to it. Her behaviour is quite extraordinary. It can
be said that in the way she looks and the way she doesn’t see, she is a smaller edition of her mother. Do you know the insult and the pain
that my own mother suffered when she came to visit her here? You don’t, do you? I’ll tell you.
It happened a few years ago. We must have been living here for seven or eight years by then. It was with a packet of pappadavada she
had bought from our Manager’s shop that my mother turned up here with great eagerness to have a look at her son’s daughter. My
daughter was six years old at the time. In spite of my mother repeatedly calling her and my getting angry with her, she refused to meet her
grandmother. She stepped out, slammed the door shut and ran away to her friend’s house nearby.
She returned only after she knew that my mother had left. I didn’t say anything. She was a mere child, wasn’t she? And I also felt part of
the blame lay with my mother. It may not be much of a problem that my daughter was meeting my mother for the first time. But my mother
could have worn slightly cleaner clothes, couldn’t she? Besides, her skin was not that fair. And my daughter was not accustomed to dark
skin. Most of her friends had the figure and complexion of those angels on earth displayed in front of the huge textile shops in the city.
You may feel it’s because of my incompetence that such problems turn into major crises. But, in fact, the problem of incompetence
doesn’t even arise here.
My wife and my daughter are not so evil-mannered. They detest my folks in all sincerity. As for my wife, she can approve of my people
only in principle. As for my daughter, she doesn’t have even her mother’s principle. Having grown up untroubled as the daughter of more

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2/21/2018 (1) Madness, C. Ayyappan's story ( published in Little magazine)

or less moneyed government officials, my wife had only a minimal knowledge and understanding of the world.
A bit more complex is my daughter’s case. She was born, and has been growing up, in these upper middle-class quarters. The only
people she has seen with dark skin and dirty clothes are the beggars and the Tamilian wage-labourers. Unfortunately, my folks happen to
have the same skin tone.
Even if my wife and daughter do not accompany me, why can’t I go visit my sister who is ill? This is a relevant question. But, here, I
want to raise the counter-question why my helplessness doesn’t touch your stony hearts.
If I take my sister to the hospital and stay back there to take care of her, you can be sure of a big domestic squabble. My wife and
daughter don’t look pretty when they’re angry. And it’s no use if I think I can somehow put up with them. How do I get away from my
acquaintances who peer at me through their glasses of ridicule and contempt? The people around here coming to know about me as the
brother of a mad sister who has been hospitalized through public donations would do me a lot of damage. Even as it is, my humble self
goes about limping and crouching under the weight of a sense of inferiority and frustration. And this on top of it all---No, there’s nothing
wrong in what I did. Now, there’s one more question which I want to raise myself.
Whatever the circumstances, isn’t it the responsibility of a brother to visit his sister at the hospital at least once?
I don’t hesitate to agree that it is useful for their near and dear ones to visit the patients at the hospital. I too have learned that the wick-
lamps of human love and culture shine bright on such occasions.
But, for the time being, I don’t mean to do it. Don’t think that it’s because I’m a cruel and wicked person. It’s no use my visiting my mad
sister. She won’t be able to recognize me, will she? So my visit means nothing to her. I felt that it was not a mark of intelligence to do
something totally useless. You seem unwilling to grant me that level of intelligence even now. Or, when I looked at my sister seated in the
car and screaming, and said, ‘I don’t see anything,’ my childhood friend would not have asked me, in a voice filled with surprise and pain,
this question:
“Krishnankutty, you too are mad?”
Now you would’ve realized there’s nothing wrong with me, wouldn’t you?

* * *

(Translated from Malayalam by V. C. Harris)

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