Short Story: Kalyani

Kalyani stared hard at the envelope she was clutching in her hands. Her legs were going to give up soon, she knew. She was running as fast as she could. The postmaster’s house seemed light years away, though she had been running only for the past five minutes. Her mother, Bhairavi, had instructed her to get the contents of the letter read. The Postmaster had come by when her mother was bathing at the ghat. Kalyani had gleefully received the letter, forgetting to get it read. Bhairavi, on her return, had slapped Kalyani on her back chiding her for this miss. So, it was more like a penance for her slip. Kalyan, her brother older by a few years, had watched all this silently, munching on his akki roti, a glee pasted on his cherubic face.   

Little Kalyani, all of seven, ran like the wind. After covering a few hundred metres she realized the futility of her exercise. The lure of the jaggery-dipped sweetmeat had pushed her into agreeing for this errand. If only she could turn back the clock, she thought ruefully.

Now, now, she chided herself. A few more kilometres more and she would reach the thatched roof building with the red bricks. Kalyani had never ventured into the main village by herself. She had always visited the village either with her mother or brother.

That fatty Kalyan, she thought, with fury. Couldn’t he have volunteered to go? Her little feet were aching now. Her heart beat like the drum they played during the festival for the Goddess with thousand arms. Kalyan must be filling his tummy with the jaggery-coated sweetmeat, she was sure. Mentally kicking herself for the stupidity, Kalyani ran faster.

Finally, when Kalyani reached the Postmaster’s house, she collapsed on the steps. She was exhausted. She was thirsty. On top of her physical exertion, the Gods seemed to be playing with her. The door was padlocked indicating that the Postmaster had stepped out for his rounds. She decided to wait for a few minutes before making the twenty minute trip back home.    

How long have you been walking, asked a booming voice, making Kalyani jump out of her skin. She turned to face a brown-skinned man wearing a red coat staring down at her. She stared at his coat. In this region, nobody wore a coat. Moreover, nobody wore a red coat. She stared at him defiantly and remained mum. Her mother had taught her not to talk to strangers. This one was surely a stranger.

He repeated his question after lowering his tall and well-built frame down on the Postmaster’s house steps. Kalyani turned to look at the man’s face. She bent her head and stared at the envelope in her hand.

The Postmaster won’t return for the next half an hour, he went out just now, the man informed without waiting for Kalyani’s response. A startled Kalyani stared at the man’s face, thoughts churning in her young brain.

Half an hour! That gundu Kalyan will eat her share. She could not wait that long, she had to do something!

Do you know to read, she asked. This was the first time she had spoken to a stranger. And, if he was at the Postmaster’s house, he must be from the village. Maybe he was the new husband of Gauri Akka, her portly neighbour. Gauri had re-married and had shared delicious sweets with Bhairavi. Kalyani had not seen her husband but since the man looked new in the village, she assumed he must be the groom.         

I can, what do you want me to read? The man asked, looking pointedly at the letter in her hand. Before Kalyani could make up her mind whether she could trust the contents of the letter from her father to a stranger, the man took the envelope and opened it. He then slid the letter out with his slim fingers. It was a white sheet of paper with a few dried rose petals folded neatly inside. The man carefully dropped the petals into the envelope and handed it back to Kalyani.

He then started reading the letter aloud without waiting for Kalyani’s approval. She did feel offended, but the urgent nature of the situation demanded that she take on a broader view and allow the man to take liberties. And if he was actually Gauri Akka’s new husband, he was family and mother had said one could trust family members. Her mind put to rest; Kalyani slid closer to the man and peered at the letter.

Kalyani rewarded him with a dimpled smile. He was family, she was safe. Maybe he would drop her back home.

The letter was from her father, Arun Kumar who worked in Madurai at a printing press and visited regularly. Arun knew that Bhairavi would get his letter read by the Postmaster or the school teacher. Kalyan was yet to master the Alphabet to read his letters.

The man read out Arun’s letter slowly to an attentive Kalyani. The letter was addressed to Bhairavi. At one point where Arun enquired about her health and asked if she had any pain after the surgery, the man stopped and asked Kalyani if she knew anything about it. Kalyani shook her head. She had never seen her mother cry. So she didn’t have any pain. For Kalyani, crying was directly proportional to being in pain. If you were in more pain, you had to cry loudly. Kalyani knew pain. No, her mother did not have any pain.

The man continued reading. Kalyani asked the man if Arun had mentioned anything about his arrival to which the man replied in the negative. Folding the letter neatly, he handed it back to Kalyani, who immediately double folded it and stuffed it into the folds of her pavadai.

She stood up to leave, wondering if she should ask the man if he would drop her home. It was tiring to even think of walking all the way back home.  

Will you drop me home, she blurted, waiting for a refusal. The man smiled and held out his hand. Kalyani hesitantly placed her small hand in his, which he held firmly but not tightly. Kalyani immediately felt safe. He was no stranger.

Kalyani and the man made an odd pair, walking hand in hand through the partly deserted yet inhabited streets of the small village.

It was yet another typical village where everyone knew everyone. Kalyani walked without complaining of leg pain till they were intercepted by the grocer, Murugan, who wanted to know where Kalyani was headed to with a stranger.  

Kalyani immediately jumped to answer the question, which was directed at the man. Kalyani failed to notice, mainly due to her age that the man looked distinctively uncomfortable when stopped by Murugan, who was in a hurry.

They walked on. After a few steps, Kalyani enquired about the mode of transport, which she was sure the man possessed. He smiled gently and told her that they had to walk to a friend’s shop from where they would pick up the man’s cycle and then they could be on their way home.

The village had a typical layout. It had a chowk with vendors of all sorts selling their wares, a makeshift hospital, a police station, a post office, and a small school. The houses were scattered around the chowk in a radius of 50-100 metres. It was set like concentric circles, owing to which it was called Uranda Puram.   

Kalyani’s house was located away from the main village, where people from her community lived in forced seclusion, and followed their inherent rules and rituals. Kalyani was yet to understand these social divisions and largely remained immune to these sentiments.

The man pedalled hard, unlike Arun, Kalyani’s father, who would pedal slowly and always ensured Kalyani wasn’t feeling scared. The man was also sweating now, which Arun never did. Kalyani had a thing for bad odours, she suffocated on bad odours. Bhairavi called her a princess because of this.

Kalyani gripped the sides of the wildly swaying cycle with both hands and closed her eyes tightly. She was very scared she would fall and break her teeth. Bhairavi had told her that if she lost her teeth no man would marry her. Kalyani didn’t want to lose her teeth. Another worry now niggled at Kalyani. She had begun to forget the contents of the letter. She would ask the man once they reached home, she decided.

It was already dusk and the wind was carrying slight traces of moisture indicating a shower in the night. Kalyani smelled the wind the way her brother had taught her to but could go no further because he hadn’t told her what she could gather from the smell. The list of questions she had for different people kept growing in her head. She held onto the bar with all her life. The cycle was going on a dusty road and she was feeling very scared. Kalyani slightly opened her eyes and was taken aback to find herself on a deserted dark road. There was no light anywhere. All she could smell was the sweat from the man pedalling hard with his hands around her gripping the cycle handle. His rough arms were beginning to brush against her sides and the wind was making her pavadai fly in all directions.

Kalyani wondered if this was a shortcut and demanded to know. The man remained silent and answered with a curt, we will reach soon.

Then suddenly, the man stopped. There was nothing in sight, only the light from the cycle throwing a dim halo on the dark road. Kalyani slipped down apprehensively looking up at the man. Had the tyre burst? What happened and why had they not reached home yet.

Come on, we have reached our destination the man said and roughly pulled her hand. A loud scream left her parched throat, surprising Kalyani. She struggled against the strong grip but to no avail. The man held on and dragged her towards what seemed like a shack. Kalyani had never come to this place. She had no idea where she was. Weird thoughts clouded her mind.

Her doll was lying near the cot, outside, in the verandah. If she was not rescued on time, she might get drenched.  

Her mother would be worrying about her.

Kalyan would have gobbled up all the sweets.

They reached the shack and the man opened the lock on the door with a key tied to a rope around his waist and pulled Kalyani inside. She struggled against his tight hold and tried to bite him like how Bhairavi had taught her.

The man took no notice of her struggle and continued to pull her. Inside, it was well lit and Kalyani noticed that there was a cot, a small chair, a stove, and a pot for water. There was another door at the far corner, which also had a padlock. The man pulled Kalyani towards the second door and opened it with a similarly placed key.

Kalyani was now petrified and had no energy left to even shout. Her throat was dry and her tears were refusing to fall from her already puffy eyes. She had started crying aloud somewhere outside and had not stopped yet. The man seemed to know exactly what he was doing and calmly continued with his activities ignoring her pleas.     

Kalyani realized a bit late that this man was indeed a stranger and was certainly not Gauri Akka’s new husband. She wanted to go home and cling to her mother’s bosom.

Never talk to a stranger, her mother had said.

Kalyani looked around the room. The man had left after tying her hands and mouth with cloth. He was still around. Kalyani could hear him.

After what seemed like eternity, he returned to the room, closed the door, and undressed. She watched horror-struck as he stepped closer and made Kalyani smell a handkerchief.

She blacked out.

Bhairavi was going mad with worry. Her little girl had not returned. It was almost three hours since she had gone to the Postmaster’s house, just outside the village.

Kalyan had been dispatched to the Postmaster’s house to look for his sister. He had returned and reported that the Postmaster had not seen Kalyani. He had met the school teacher though who had informed Kalyan about the gang who kidnapped little girls and sold them. Kalyan had rushed home to inform his mother about a possible kidnapping. Though he was unsure why anyone would kidnap his irritating little sister.

Bhairavi rushed to her neighbour Gauri’s house to make a telephone call to Arun at the press. He was on a night shift most days and would be available. She recounted with horror and rising fury at her stupidity for sending the little girl on an errand. Arun calmly listened to her and offered several suggestions. Maybe she would have stopped somewhere and gone off to sleep. She might have stopped at some friend’s place, did you search in her friends’ place. Yes, replied Bhairavi, her worry mounting with each passing second. She knew in her heart that her child was in immense danger and was calling out to her. She had to look for her. She made her husband promise that he would catch the early morning bus and come to the village, which he did. He was also worried, far removed from the situation that he was. Where could she have gone, he wondered. Theirs was a small settlement and everyone would know by now that Kalyani was missing. He disconnected the call after promising his wife to come as soon as possible and went to inform his superior about the emergency and that he would have to rush home. After taking two days off, he set off for the bus stand to catch a late night bus to his village.

 The burly policeman twirled his thick black moustache and glared at the man and his wife sitting on their haunches in front of him. They had been going on and on about how someone had kidnapped their daughter and how they wanted him to help them. The policeman had been informed by his deputy that there certainly were several reports of kidnappings of young girls in and around the area. His peer from another town had faxed him the picture of a possible suspect. The red coat stood out like a sore thumb. What choice, the policeman thought. One could easily pinpoint the man, but the face was not clear. He seemed like a priest.

The District Magistrate stared at the handwritten letter on his table. The handwriting was more than a scribble and was in Tamil. He was having difficulties reading the script though he was from this region. After giving a cursory glance because he knew the contents of the letter, he glared at the three men squatting in front of him. The burly policeman standing erect in front of him made him imagine a stiff mannequin in front of a lingerie shop.

One of the three men, as if on cue, started speaking and explained how they had been looking for his daughter and how they wanted him, the DM, to give orders to the DSP to arrest a possible suspect. The problem here was that the arrest could spark a caste issue as the suspect was from a higher caste.

The DM stared at the man, clad in a white-with-brown-splotches dhoti and a cheap polyster shirt. Why could the plaice not handle this? Now, on top of his existing troubles, he had to deal with a serial kidnapper. He had got himself transferred to this place to live a peaceful life with his new bride.  

His mind was elsewhere, but he had to focus on the kidnapping. Of late, there had been a spurt in kidnappings and murders. There were some rumours about some tantric baba who carried out devil worship on full moon nights. The villagers believed that several children had been kidnapped to be sacrificed to appease the goddess. There was no proof of any such incidents and the police had not found any clues either.

The DM signed the orders asking the DSP to take necessary precaution and immediately lost interest in the missing girl and surmised that she must have ran away from home, like how the kids in these areas were prone to.  

He had little or no interest in delving too deep into these regional issues. He was a devout Christian and wanted to do his job and go back to his new bride, Jessica. He was so obsessed with the woman that all he did the whole day was to fantasize about her and then rush home as soon as the clock struck five. It was already half past four and his mind was on an overdrive thinking about the positions he would try today with Jessica. He could feel an erection at the mere thought of his wife’s nubile body in his arms.

When they did not get an appropriate response from the DM, the three villagers looked at the policeman still holding his erect position. He gently cleared his throat to get the attention of the DM.

Shaken out of his reverie, the DM completed signing the order and gave the paper to the policeman who saluted smartly before herding the dhoti-clad group out of the room. They had a long way to go. The arrest could happen only tomorrow now.

Bhairavi was still sitting at the door when she saw Arun walking in, his head hung low, his shoulders slouched. It was more than 12 hours since Kalyani was missing and no one knew anything about her. Except the grocer who had seen her with a stranger, no one had seen the girl in the village. Bhairavi’s tears had dried up. She had cried till she could cry no more. Even Kalyan was getting worried now. Whatever said and done, his sister was an irritatingly adorable thing and he was attached to her.  

Did the police arrest the man in the red coat, asked Bhairavi through another spate of fresh tears? Shaking his head, Arun replied in the negative. They can do it only tomorrow.

Bhairavi did not understand these rules these officers had. They could not do this, they could not do that. But, someone could just pluck a little girl from the streets and nobody could do anything. Why didn’t the thugs follow any rules? Maybe they should have a rule that they could not kidnap little girls. Arun looked up sharply at his wife. He decided that she had lost her mind due to the loss and was blabbering.

The man in the red coat was now an enigma and anyone who might have any idea, however vague it might be, was being celebrated. As is the custom during such incidents, people and their creativities were unleashed in full force. Many stories surfaced. In almost all stories, the man in the red coat was the villain and Murugan the grocer, a hero, owing to the 1-minute conversation he had had with the duo.

In one version, Murugan claimed that he had tried to pull Kalyani to safety and the man in the red coat had given him a black eye and ran off with the screaming Kalyani. Some versions had the tantric as the man wearing the red coat and carrying a drugged Kalyani on his shoulder.

Bhairavi had heard almost all the versions carefully to ensure she had not missed any information about her missing child.

 She had made at least hundred trips till now to the Postmaster’s house to ensure Kalyani was not playing a game with her, teasing her. Only when the Postmaster yelled at her saying he was an adult and would not encourage such an act did Bhairavi believe that her child had indeed been snatched by someone.

Three days later, almost everyone in the village had done their bit to search for the missing girl.

In many houses in the main village and the outer settlement, there was a picture of a missing child adorned with flowers, and these mothers could relate to the sorrow Bhairavi was going through. Even the priest’s wife had enquired if Kalyani had been found. Bhairavi could not believe her eyes when the stately woman called for her from the other side of the road while Bhairavi was returning from her hundredth trip to the Postmaster’s house.

Arun had called up his boss and got his leave extended till his daughter was found. The boss explained that Arun could of course take leave and could also draw some amount from his pension to help him tide over this difficult phase. The boss also reached out to his well-heeled friends in the ministry to find out if any known offender had been spotted in these areas. None, they confirmed. The needle of suspicion now pointed only at the village tantric who had been hauled up to the local police station at least four times to be questioned. Only he seemed to have a direct motive as the full moon day was fast approaching. There was another thread connecting the tantric to the kidnapping. The local village tailor had confirmed to anybody who cared to listen, that the tantric had ordered for and received a well-stitched coat. A red coat.

That was enough for indicting the tantric. Though Murugan the grocer was adamant that he had not seen the tantric with Kalyani on the day she went missing. Another important point most people missed was the height of the suspect. The man in the red coat was a tall and well-built man, as described by the eager Murugan.

He had helped paint a picture of the man to the glee of the fawning policemen. They huddled around the grocer while he helped the police artist paint a picture, which looked like a cross between Vijaykanth and Sarath Kumar, both actors in the Tamil film industry.   

The tantric was short and this point was conveniently ignored by the police and everybody else. Though the police ransacked his small hut, they did not find even a red thread, leave alone a red coat. Frustrated, the policemen had picked up the bumbling tantric and booked him, aiming to see some kind of closure and not because they had found the real culprit.

Five days later, early in the morning, the priest’s wife gave a shrill cry, waking the sleepy village and the neighbours from their deep slumbers. Kalyani’s mutilated but alive form was lying on her doorstep. When she stepped out to put the traditional kolam, the traditional drawing with rice, she tripped on the form and shrieked.

 Initially, she had presumed it to be a dead body and had almost rushed inside to pour another bucket of water over her head, but decided to investigate. When she turned the body, she gave out the cry that rattled the heart beats of many a woman in the neighbourhood. In no time, Arun and Bhairavi were summoned who identified that indeed the mutilated form was their child Kalyani?

The priest had then grumbled a bit about his doorstep being made impure and that he would have to do penance but shut his mouth when he saw the DM’s car pull up. Such was the publicity of the case that the DM had been pulled out from his warm bed, hurried through the dawn hours and into the narrow roads to the priest’s doorstep. No one had bothered to cover the little girl’s nude form. She didn’t have even a stitch of cloth on her. The priest’s wife, as if on automaton, quickly grabbed a saree and wrapped the girl and made her sit up. The girl was unconscious and had deep gashes running all over her face. Bhairavi had collapsed seeing her precious child in such a ghastly form. The priest’s wife stepped out and engulfed the toilet cleaner’s wife in recognition of the sorrow the latter was feeling. A collective gasp from the crowd made them spring apart and the priest’s wife stepped aside leaving Bhairavi to mourn the fate her child had been meted out.

Such was the intensity of the situation and such was the grief that each man and each woman gathered at that spot wanted to hold the child and rock her to assure her that they were there for her.

On the DM’s arrival, Kalyani was taken to the village clinic.

The DM followed the group to the clinic in his government-sanctioned car in a slow march. The villagers gathered around the clinic and allowed Arun and his wife to enter the clinic with the newly appointed head doctor, a handsome delhi-boy with a freshly minted medicine degree hanging in his small cabin. He smiled warmly at the group and ordered his nurse to prepare the child for examination. When Arun stepped forward to accompany him, the doctor instead motioned for Bhairavi to come forward, which she did.

Kalyani was unconscious and still covered in the saree shared by the priest’s wife. Bhairavi had accepted a cotton dress given by one of the village women and dressed her daughter up. She folded the saree carefully.

The doctor nodded each time he made an observation and spoke in hushed tones to the nurse who made a note in her notepad. After their examination, the doctor asked Bhairavi to step aside and updated her of the gravity of the situation. Bhairavi knew in her heart that her child had suffered much but collapsed once she heard of the brutality meted out to the little girl by the man in the red coat.

Kalyani needed immediate surgery to ensure her complete and normal recovery, the doctor urged. At this point, the DM stepped in and urged the doctor to do whatever was possible to help the child. The administration will bear the cost, he announced, albeit a bit grandly. The head doctor nodded and asked Arun to fill up a form and submit it with his assistant. The younger doctor, he was told, could be found in a cabin next to the pantry. Arun found the other man easily and handed over the form to begin the process of Kalyani’s surgery. When Arun was stepping out of the younger doctor’s cabin, he stopped and stared at something hanging on the door, a red coat similar to the description going around.

He turned to look at the doctor and feeling his glance on him the doctor looked up and asked if he could help him with something else. Could he please stand up, Arun enquired, politely. The doctor stood up, making Arun skip a beat.

The crowd stayed put. None of them had eaten or had a sip for more than fourteen hours now. They stood there, braving the wind and the hailstorm, staring defiantly at the policemen who had been brought in to control the situation.

Arun, Bhairavi, the priest, his wife, Murugan the grocer, and the Postmaster stood in the front. The other villagers stood behind them in a semi circle, totally blocking the clinic. When night fell, they were still there. Kalyani was long dead, her cold body lying inside the clinic on a stretcher. The DM tried very hard to pacify the angry mob, but to no avail. They were baying for the young doctor’s blood. The policemen were brought in then, to control the violent mob. Not that the villagers had done any damage. They were standing there, holding hands, in a tight circle, not allowing anyone from the clinic to leave or enter. There were no in-patients in the clinic and the doctors worked till 5 pm. It was more than fifteen hours and no one had been allowed to leave. The food and water in the clinic had long since dried up. The white sheet covering the cold body of little Kalyani made the resolve of the villagers like steel. They will get her culprit to book.

The policemen had refused to book the young doctor as Kalyani’s culprit because of circumstantial evidence. Just because he possessed a red coat didn’t make him a killer, the policeman said. What he didn’t mention is that the doctor’s daddy was a rich man and had just promised a seat for the policeman’s son in his medical college.

In response, the villagers did what they felt was right, they gheraoed the young doctor before stripping him naked.

The media appeared on day twenty and the villagers and Kalyani’s fate became a national news item. Kalyani’s face was splashed on every newspaper along with the young doctor’s tight bum in full display. The villagers stood around defiantly.  

The villagers did not move even an inch. They had not eaten for days now. Some of them were lying on the ground, unable to handle the hunger. Media was having a field day, baying for the police department’s blood.

On day twenty one, the DM after feeling intense heat from the ministry, which reacted due to the upcoming by elections, ordered an enquiry into the death and suspended the doctor.

On day twenty five, the crowd swelled. Other villagers joined the protest. Now, they wanted better safety programs for their kids. How could a doctor walk scot free, after indulging in such a heinous crime?

On day thirty, the administration buckled smelling huge political ramifications and ordered the police to arrest the doctor under a non-bailable section.     

Life limped back to normalcy. Grocer Murugan lived long enough to recount the horror story of Kalyani and the man in the red coat.

Arun and Bhairavi returned home with Kalyan to an empty house.

Arun shifted his family to the city.

The clinic reopened and female doctors were appointed.