It was a cold winter day when seventeen-year-old Anjalai stood outside the village chief’s office. She had heard the village women gossip about him. When she suggested that they go to the chief and do a sit in till he closed the kallu shop, they had laughed and called her a silly girl.
She was determined to get the shop closed. It was destroying too many families. Her husband too spent all his earnings at the kallu shop, leaving them starving, prompting her neighbor to suggest she travel to the nearby town and become a lowly maid who washed vessels for the rich. The suggestion she become a maid irritated her but she held her tongue. She was a Poosari – the priest clan of the villagers. Her parents had taught her the rituals for the pooja. Her mother had been a high priestess, revered by all in her father’s village.
Now she felt alone.
She raised her baby daughter higher on her hips and held her tight.
Anjalai had tried to reason with Banu, the kallu shop owner, a short, fat woman with big, black eyes. Banu had laughed loudly at her request. Anjalai was not against drinking. She, too, drank the fresh palm wine, but what this woman was doing was unacceptable. She was fermenting and selling it. Men from the surrounding villages made a beeline for the kallu shop.
She was sure the village chief would agree to her request. After all, crime had begun to increase in the village. Men had taken to regularly beating their women or getting beaten up because in their drunken state they would walk into other houses by mistake. Some were even murdered.
Anjalai reasoned it would look good for the village chief if he reduced the crimes and stopped the police from visiting the village. The presence of the police made him look bad and diminished his power over the villagers.
She looked around. There was no one on the dusty streets or in the empty field which she had just crossed. She raised her baby higher on her hips. It was now or never. She had nothing to lose.
The village chief sat in his office, a small thatched room with a table and a single chair in the middle – the chair he sat on. The villagers would have to stand in front of him or sit on the floor in front of him. There were no windows, just the door, but the roof had a large glass opening to let the light in. His house was larger and adjacent to this shack that he called his office. He wore a white dhoti, no shirt, and a white towel neatly folded over his left shoulder. He had little hair on his head but he carefully slicked it across with coconut oil and a wooden comb in an attempt to cover his baldness. He was extremely proud of his long bushy black moustache, which he twisted at both ends to make it look longer.
It was getting cold. He pulled at the white towel across his bare torso but it was not enough. He lit a beedi, and as he began smoking, he closed his eyes. The office was empty. His right hand rubbed his navel to warm up his body as he breathed out the smoke. It was a boring day. He sighed in disappointment.
The sound of anklets!
He opened his eyes and looked up.
It was one of the village girls. She was young. Her two braids were entwined and tied high on her head, like that of the priestess clan. Tall, slim, dressed in a green cotton saree, she was carrying a baby on her left hip. She wore no jewels but for her huge gold earrings and silver anklets. Then he noticed the green tattoo on her left arm and her thaali. He remembered he had blessed this girl and her husband Vembu at their wedding. He wondered what she wanted.
“Aiya, I am Anjalai,” she said looking down at him.
“Vembu’s wife, right?” He motioned with his hands for her to be seated. He liked the way she said Aiya or master. It pleased him that it came out like a soft purr from her young lips. She looked around for a stool, and when she couldn’t find one, she sat down on the earth at a hand’s distance in front of him. He was amused.
“Aiya, please close the kallu shop.”
“Hmm… Why should I do that?” He noticed she had large fish-like eyes when she looked up at him, and they flashed in anger.
“You know why. The government has banned selling kallu. Also, the women of the village are suffering a lot ever since the opening. Men are coming home drunk and beating up the women in the family. Police are coming into our village…”
Fascinated, he watched her talk. She had gleaming white teeth and her pink tongue swished around it, touching and feeling. Her breasts pressed against her green cotton saree as she sat up straight, eager to make her plea heard. He looked at the outline of big breasts, the nipples pressed hard against her saree. He liked them older with wider hips, but he was aroused and looked away to catch his breath.
“My sister died last month because some drunkard…”
“I heard it was because she was having an affair with your husband,” he smirked, dropped his spent beedi on to the earth and rubbed it out with his chappal. Then he looked down at her face. She had stopped speaking. Her full, large rose lips froze in shock at the insult.
“No, Aiya,” she protested. Her baby began to cry. Both looked down at the baby. She began to massage the baby’s stomach. She had no sharp nails, he noticed, probably cut off with the knife to keep her from hurting the baby. Her toes were clean too. He approved of this. He found too many village women had dirty nails.
“Probably some insect bite…” he said.
She promptly bent her head over the baby and searched for insect bite marks. Her saree loosened around the left shoulder, leaving a small gap over her chest. It was enough for him to get a good look at the mounds of breasts and the top of her large nipples.
“No insect bite Aiya…”
When Anjalai bent over to adjust the baby’s position on her lap, he noticed her back. Her upper back was bare except for the thin scrap of green saree. Her brown skin was clear, smooth and gleaming in the sunlight. Her well-oiled black hair was braided neatly behind her head. Her bare sides were smooth from her hips to her upper arm and her left breast was partially exposed. Vembu was a fool to leave this beautiful girl for the older woman. Maybe she was not good at pleasing Vembu but he knew he could teach her a thing or two. She had a good body. Yes, he would be her teacher. A teacher was an honorable profession and he nodded, pleased at the thought.
He noticed the girl’s saree ride up her leg. It went up and down when she rocked the baby on her lap, and as she did so, he could see the smooth creamy lower thigh of her right leg, the velvety brown calves. He wondered about the color of the rest of her body. As she continued to rock her baby on her lap, she seemed unaware of how she was affecting him. His body stirred in him, tensing in all the right places like it used to when he was young. He moved his thighs together to control himself. His boring day was not so boring anymore. In fact, it could be very interesting if he played his cards right.
Swiftly, he looked outside. No one was coming towards the office from across the fields. The men were probably at the kallu shop and women never came out much anyway at this time of day. He got up from his chair, quickly crossed the room and bolted the door. Anjalai, who had been concentrating on calming her baby looked up when she heard the sound of the bolt. She got up swiftly, placed her baby on the table and turned to face the small man. She drew herself to her full height. She was a head taller than him. She planted her feet apart, crossed her hands across her breasts, and looked down at the fat little man.
“Spend the night, and I will teach you how to get your husband back. Spend the week, and I will close the kallu shop.” He knew he was begging but it didn’t matter if he could have her. Anjalai’s eyelids flew up in surprise. Her eyes twinkled in amusement. She had heard the village women gossip, but it never included him begging. She tossed her head back and laughed loudly at his small, chubby, miserable face.
His eyes flared in anger. He had tried to reason with her, and she was laughing at him. How dare she? He lunged towards the table, swept the little baby off it, and moved back, blocking the door.
She stopped laughing.
Holding the baby out of her grasp, he said, “If you want to see your child alive, do as I say. If you don’t, I will smash it against the wall. I am not joking. Don’t you dare move.”
Anjalai froze in fear. Then she shook fear from her head. She had to get her baby from the dirty man and safely get out.
Her baby began to cry.
“I will do as you say but my baby is hungry. Let me feed her first before you…,” she stammered holding her trembling hands out for her baby, watching him closely.
His eyes lit up in victory as he realized his gamble had paid off. It will be an interesting evening, after all. The child was wailing. As he handed the baby into her outstretched hands, he ran his right palm over her bare side and felt the sensuous curve of her left breast. She felt soft, warm, almost silky. He was delighted that these young mothers would do anything for their children. This time, it will be this arrogant girl. He will teach her how to please men.
Anjalai took the baby to her right breast under the saree and the child became quiet. She stood still instead of sitting down.
Feeling generous now, he said, “Sit down. You will be more comfortable.”
She shook her head and held his eyes defiantly. His eyes flared again in anger. She was not obeying him like he expected her to. He thought it was good he was blocking the way to the door.
She watched him as her baby suckled her right breast under her saree.
He looked at her face and noticed her standing still, looking at him with no expression – neither crying nor smiling – just the way he liked it. She was young and he knew she would enjoy the lessons he would teach her. He yearned to feel her bare skin, but it would have to wait. He didn’t want her dropping the baby or it wailing again. He wanted to take her inside his house through the back door of the shack after she had fed the baby. She could place the baby in the cradle inside his house and while it slept, the fun would start. Excited by the thought, he grinned. Maybe she would be a willing student if he showed her how to derive pleasure from her body. Who knew, she might decide to stay the entire week? He began to walk towards her. He wished to caress her. Just once. Maybe her bare right shoulder, which was glowing in the sunlight as she held her baby tight.
When he was close enough, Anjalai kicked. She kicked him right between his thighs with all the force she could muster. He fell against the wall and moaned in pain. Her anklet was bloody. It had found its target. She hugged her daughter against her chest and kept kicking, stopping only when she saw him close his beady eyes, a little blood trickling down between his thighs. She knew he was not dead but she was sure he would never be able to hurt any woman again.
Hugging her crying baby firmly against her chest, she quickly unbolted the door with her left hand and walked out, her face inscrutable. The roads were deserted. Once she got to her isolated home at the end of the village, she placed her daughter in the yellow saree cradle inside the palm thatched hut. She removed her favorite saree and let it drop by the wooden stove in the kitchen. She picked up the palm fiber near the stove, dipped it in the ash, and went to the well at the back of her house. She scrubbed herself clean with a ferocity that surprised her. After washing herself five times, she dried herself with the rag and put on a light rose saree. In the kitchen, she pushed her green saree under the wooden stove, put a vessel of rice on the stove, added water to the vessel, and kindled the fire with a piece of palm bark. Then she sat back and watched her favorite saree burn in the roaring fire.
She walked out of her hut and sat against the old banyan tree. Finally, the tears began to flow down her face, silently. Her ten goats gathered around her as if they sensed her pain and wanted to comfort her.
She thought about her predicament. The village chief would now never close the kallu shop. She wiped the tears from her face. She was a Poosari – the priestess clan that served the Gods and Goddesses in village temples. She was a priestess, trained in performing the temple rituals for the Goddess. Being a priestess brought in little income nowadays as people preferred the new priest clan which had taken over the major temples, and the men did the rituals in a strange language. The villagers had deserted the village gods for the temples in the nearby town, unless there was a drought.
Anjalai was aware that her husband had shacked up with the owner of the kallu shop. He got free drinks and sex from an experienced, voluptuous woman. He had stopped coming home altogether. Vembu was a dashing man when she married him and the terror of the village. A month after their marriage, his parents died. Villagers gossiped that it was because he was a bandit. He turned into a goatherd, and they became poor. The villagers also blamed Anjalai for bringing bad luck to the family. After all, her in-laws died a month after their wedding. But nobody blamed the kallu shop owner who had made the hooch that day. Anjalai sold all the jewelry she had to keep them going; all except her ear studs, thaali and anklets. Then she became pregnant, and Vembu abandoned her. If he had been around, she would have never gone to the office and the village chief would not have tried anything with her. She shook her head. Her baby was a blessing. Self-pity would weaken her resolve.
She knew the women of the village pitied her but she was too proud to accept left overs. She had hoped that if the kallu shop was closed, her husband would at least return home. Now she knew it would never be closed after what she had done to the village chief. She knew he could never talk about what she had done either. It would make him the village laughing stock. He would see her as the enemy now, but she was not afraid.
She had two mouths to feed, her baby and herself. She had to work even if she had trained to be a priestess. Her father had raised her and taught her all he knew, including self-defense. She wished he had not committed suicide after her sister’s death. She shook her head again. It was no use thinking about the past. She thought hard.
There were two choices – she could brew kallu as she had several palm trees in her house and destroy families like the kallu shop owner, or she could clean vessels in the town nearby for a salary. Anjalai undid her two braids entwined fashionably and shook her smooth, free hair out. She rolled her hair and tied it into a tight bun behind her head. She was going to be a maid, cleaning vessels. She would clean them so well that they would shine like silver. She loved her daughter and didn’t want her to go hungry anymore. Vembu could have the kallu and the kallu shop owner and die for she all she cared. She would move to the nearby town with her daughter. Town life could be an adventure.
She had made up her mind.
She got up and went to her baby.
Photo by Lucas Santos on Unsplash
