Bride in the Hills by Kuvempu, Translated by Vanamala Viswanatha, Penguin Random House India, Pp. 816, Rs 799
Nights are an ineluctable torment for old age. With theapproach of the eternal sleep of death, life becomesnightmarish, unbearably tiresome. The disquiet that comeswith the knowledge of the inevitable immersion into death’soblivion leads to a vague anguish of the soul, an essentiallyformless despair, that morphs into a thousand worldlymaladies, vitiating sleep. Even more infernal are the nightsfor an old man who, shunning the world of God, dharma, artor culture, is absorbed entirely in material enhancement ofwealth; who, by eschewing the sprightly adventures of aspirited atheism, subsides into the slow death from apathy,opting instead for the infi nitely more lifeless tradition oftheism. Moreover, if the wife’s company is absent as she isdead, then, surely it will ensue that an idle mind is a devil’sworkshop. To escape from that devil’s workshop, SubbannaHeggade used to rise much before daybreak.
As was his wont, Subbanna Heggade wakes up early thatmorning as well and emerges from his cavernous room tothe veranda. It has poured last evening; the dawn breeze is anextroverted old man, silence can be devilish. The sound ofpounding chasing away the demon, Heggade is relieved,reassured, at peace.
Waking up to the world
In that silent, old house devoid of other sounds, the voice ofthe pestle is sovereign. Soon, the grate of hooves and horns,snorts and sneezes issues forth from the pens in front andfrom the sheds behind. The babblers on the tree or on thefence begin their love talk with whistles and counter-whistles. Immediately, from the coral tree bereft of leavesbut brimming with fl owers, a drongo accompanies with itselaborate melody, embellishing each note.
But Subbanna Heggade is oblivious of the birds’ whistle andthe drongo’s song. He stops pounding. Eyes squinting, hepeers at the veranda. The dark interiors of the house presenthim the inviting silhouette of the pens embossed on fi eldsstill shrouded in dark.
The sounds wafting from pens speak to him employing aphonetic system of secret symbols he has mastered withlong years of practice. He can decipher and sense every oneof those notes — be it the grunts of huge boars or home-grown female swine or piglets, the sneezes of sheep or goat,the crowing of the red-beaked roosters or the white cockerelthat Thimmappa won in a cockfi ght. His repertoire ofsensibilities for those tones has been honed to suchrefi nement that he grows ecstatic relishing the cadences ofthose sounds like a great poet enjoying the soundscape ofhis superb epic metre.
The dark slowly makes way for day light. Masticating onareca nut and betel leaf, throaty notes announcing hisauthority as master, Heggade heaves up from his plank. That master-of-the-house echo resembling a cough serves as analarm for the Old House.
Then, the lazy sounds of those sleeping in the tile-roof andthatch-roof houses wake up to their daily chores. Themongrels sleeping cosily in ash heaps beside the broth-stoveoutside are also woken up rudely. Huvi of the Halepaikacommunity starts work in the cowshed hefting a wooden tubto feed the cows. She snaps at the dogs, ‘ Hachaa . . . thesedogs . . . are they alive or dead?’ Poor fellow, one of thosepooches was yet to yawn, stretch its limbs and come out ofhis stupor. A sudden whack on his back lands from thewooden tub! Though startled, he neither barks nor whines,not even to register the pain. He has yet to wake up to theworld.
It is daybreak. Wrapping his dark, short frame up to theknees with a black blanket and covering himself securely,Subbanna Heggade comes down to the front yard. As hefeels the cold air hitting the front of his bare bald head,freshly shaven into a horseshoe just the previous day, hegoes back into the house and comes out with an ancient,fl abby cap covering his pate. Crossing the yard gingerlyusing the stones laid out to avoid stepping on the slush, heapproaches the shelters.
Perhaps the animals inside the pens really love this animaloutside!
The luminous dawn
As if at a signal, through every tiny window and gap, thechicks jump up and down, setting off a ruckus. Overjoyed atthe prospect of freedom, the sheep stampede towards thedoor, jostling against each other. All the swine, sows andpiggies scamper restlessly, grunting. Subbanna Heggadewatches his mute family indulgently for a while, trying tomake up his mind which of the pens he should visit fi rst. Oneof the sows has just farrowed down. Considering its well-being the most important, he starts moving towards thepigsty.
The moment he steps off the stones laid out to avoid slush,the muck mixed with the shit of chicken, sheep and pigssquirts through the gaps between his toes. Unmindful, hegoes to the door of the pigsty. In fact, he savours the odour,familiar from daily acquaintance, that makes for harmony inhis heart like the arrival of a dear friend. Going round thepigsty, Heggade peers through the holes. Not like spectatorswho watch groups of animals in the zoo, but like a parishpriest who looks after the spiritual welfare of every sheep inhis ‘human fl ock’. Like a doctor who keeps an eye on everyone of his patients. He pays close attention to the gashunder the earlobe of one of the pigs, the crack in the paws ofanother and the sores in the mouth of a third. As if he wasrehearsing, he mutters to himself the instructions for thefarmhands, though no one is around him. sprawling paddy fields devoid of green, nestling in the valley amid thehilly region.
Seeking the warmth of the baby sun, Subbanna Heggaderemoves the black blanket he has wrapped round his agedbody and places it on the pigsty. The moment the tender sunkisses his wrinkled, dark-brown body, the pleasing memoryof the hundred carnal pleasures of the past, buried deepdown his subconscious mind fl oats to the surface in the lakeof his consciousness. He doesn’t know why, but his bodyfeels comforted, his mind contented. The dark despaircaused in his heart by his son Thimmappa is dispelled by theluminous dawn of his daughter Manjamma’s arrival. Nowthat the fi rst light of dawn has turned golden, he feelsinvigorated.
A citizen of the universe
…Subbanna Heggade, caressed by the tender sun in rain-soaked Malnad, experiences such a sense of elation. Howmany times in the past hasn’t he enjoyed the beauty ofsunrise in different places, different times, different forms,different circumstances, on different shores, differentmountain peaks or different jungles enveloped by creepers!Today’s sunrise is just a key to the treasure house of thoseaccumulated samskaras. What if it is an old, dilapidatedhouse? What if it is near a pigsty? What if he is an unlettered,uncultured Vokkaliga farmer? What if he is a ripe old man?Subbanna Heggade too is very much a citizen of theuniverse.
The sun on Heggade’s back feels like honey on the tongue.He rubs his back cosily, almost caressing himself, heaving along sigh. The world, free of sorrow, turns happy. A feeling ofuniversal harmony fi lls his heart. He has a sudden surge ofaffection for everything — the pigs, chicken, sheep, trees,forest, sky, the fl ock of wild singing birds and the entireneighbourhood. In the structure of Heggade’s lifespan, hislife at this moment becomes the golden fl ag pole on thecupola of the temple playing with heaven.
He moves swiftly and opens the door of the chicken pen.Cocks, hens, chicks, cockerels, roosters of all shades andhues of red, white, black and brown, all spotted andspeckled, all clucking and crowing
cheeon . . . peeon, kokkok… kokko
rush out.
All the fowls scurry out all at once,each elbowing out the other. The foul breeze generated bytheir feathers feels only natural to Heggade. Scuddingthrough swiftly, a few chicks scratch the surface of theslush; others peck at the garbage heap; yet others bolttowards the manure pit. Watching it all from the appreciativeeyes of the master, Heggade thinks, an indulgent smile onhis face, look at their alacrity . . . all just to scatter manure!
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