மௌன கீதம்

Translated from the original Tamil short story mauṉa kītam (மௌன கீதம்) from the 1976 collection of short stories titled kōṭukaḷum kōlaṅkalum (கோடுகளும் கோலங்களும்) by Kuppilan Ai. Shanmugan. The original collection is available at noolaham.org. If you have any questions, please contact ez.iniyavan@gmail.com.

The ceiling fans are spinning fast. Their shadows from the yellow light of the electric bulbs move like dark monsters. In that hauntingly beautiful setting, I stare past the closed glass window, transcending the chatter of my office friends, losing myself in the feeling that a nameless emotion was rising up from the depths of my heart as a bewitchingly charming silent ballad.

Beyond the snaking road, one can see the uneven silhouette of tiled roofs. The tower of the Pillaiyār temple and the cross on St. Mary’s church stand in attention next to each other in the northeast corner as if they were delivering a philosophical sermon. Further away, those three flags on the harbor flagpole flutter in the wind. The green leaves on the lone coconut tree towering above the tiled roofs sway in the wind. The flag poles on the ships in the harbor peek above the tiled rooftops.

The silent ballad titillates my heart. Like when one hears the rare sound of the violin in musical concerts that melts the heart, like all the musical energy entwined together into a lament, like a pure innocent damsel whimpering in a soft voice…

I keep looking outside.

A bevy of clouds envelop the earth into semi darkness. A light drizzle persists. At a distance, a movie theater’s name glitters in its red light. A middle-aged woman in a red sari, drawn up to cover her head, hurries along the road that curves out of sight.

I close my eyes to look within. My heart yearns for something. As if I am weary of this mundane existence, as if I am overcome with an urge to renounce this worldly life, as if I am being told to accept it with a smile if I suddenly encountered death… as if green, red, blue, and yellow hues swirl into one,… as if there is some connection between the silent ballad and the swirling hues, as if the silent ballad turns into a yellow hue… aiyō! I open my eyes.

The world lies sprawled beyond the window with its exquisite beauty. A drizzle is falling on the world half-immersed in darkness. The world outside resembles the description of the setting in the biography of the scientist Louis Pasteur, when he first left in a coach to study at a college. He held fast to his ideals and left, even as nature wept. He became a scientist. But I …?

Am I weeping with nature?

Do suffering souls weep? Then, is the world immersed in suffering? Am I suffering? If so, is suffering charming? Is it bewitching? Will it lead to an indescribable yearning? Finally, finally … will it lead to peace and joy? If nature weeps, will the world thrive afterwards?

Suddenly there is lightning; The world shines brilliantly and then darkens; Darkness; light; suffering — bliss; storm — calm; green — red — blue — yellow; One is not without the other. Does one depend on the other?

I weep; I laugh; I suffer; I rejoice.

Life! Darkness; light; suffering; joy.

The bell from St. Mary’s church rings, ripping open the silence of silences. The sound pervades everywhere, buzzing. Buzzing, buzzing, buzzing… as if the sound sweetens my ears.

I hear the silent ballad blending with a wondrous melody. My eyes moisten. Just like the sadness resulting from the seaside ballads rendered by Kōvalaṉ and Kaṇṇaki in the Tamil epic cilappatikāram, for me… for me …

I closed my eyes again.

With a showy gait, swinging her arms that say, ‘I am fearless, no matter what happens,’ she arrives and smiles. Once upon a time, she entered my life’s journey and took a permanent place in it. There is surely some connection between her, the yellow hue, and the silent ballad.

It was a day just like this …

On a quiet, beautiful, drizzly day overcast with heart-wrenching clouds, I took refuge from the drizzle under the roofed porch in front of the Theatre of the Arts at the university and waited for my bus. She, too, was waiting. She stood like a statue, her golden yellow skin shimmering, wearing a yellow sari. Her yellow form shines like a flame in my eyes. She stood murmuring a sad song, like a creeper leaning against its support.

Seconds dissolve. Minutes dissolve. Hours are born. Eyes meet.

The bus arrives; we both board the bus. She climbs on board after me.

I bought tickets for both of us. She smiled and softly said “thank you.” I responded, “You are welcome.”

That was the first encounter.

Her form was engraved in my mind. She smiles in my mind’s eye like a glittering yellow flame. The melody of that soft, sad, movie song as a silent ballad…

How many bewitching experiences in life!

Then…

Then what?

She and I became a couple. We blended into each other — and became one.

I trawl the bottom of my heart numbed by the sadness from the silent ballad.

We lived in our oneness. A magical life without sorrows or suffering — a life which made it impossible to imagine a greater paradise.

Mountain slopes draped in greenery, mountain streams gently rippling through, twisting and turning, trees bedecked with a riot of flowers, earth covered with lush meadows. The multi-storey library that stands as the repository of knowledge. Lecture halls. She and I were inseparable everywhere, inseparable, inseparable, …

I daresay, “Life is when a man and a woman blend into one. Renouncing life is a lie. Literature that nudges one to hate life are lies. The argument that ‘Life is an illusion’ is a lie. Life is the truth. Truth is life. It is paradise. Just like the contrasts in hues, yellow–red–blue-green, life is a blend of happiness-suffering–sorrow-joy.”

They were great experiences..

For a man and a woman to join, one need not look for compatibility in tribes, castes, beauty, or horoscopes; one only needs love. Love is tribe, love is beauty, love is compatibility.

I loved her. She loved me. We joined together; we became tight. I am not handsome. She is a beauty. She said I was handsome in her eyes; That there was none more handsome. I laughed. I understood what love is.

I keep my eyes closed. That silent ballad is somehow affecting me.

One day … …

She and I had a tiff.

I was in the library, reading a book by the English poet Keats. She came to beseech and beg. I did not budge. She sat next to me and mumbled, like all the musical energies joined in a soft, sad song…

I forget myself and try to embrace her. She laughs, her voice tinkles like a brass bell.

As far as I am concerned, she is a musical genius, a lover of the arts. Countless are the wonderful scenes of nature that she pointed out to me, describing their beauty. The mountain peaks north of the road, covered in mist, the mountain streams that shimmer like marble in the soft light of the morning sun, dew drops that glitter on the tips of blades of grass, leafless flower trees brimming with flowers, birds that fly in pairs in the dark silent sky…

We watched these scenes together, in our solitude. We forgot ourselves, engrossed in those scenes; we found joy in looking for our own meaning in them.

She would say, “You are an artist.” My friends would say, “Instead of using your creative talent to describe the suffering and life struggles in our society, you lose yourself in describing unimportant topics like nature, love, and individual human emotions.”

She would praise that my stories and poems were exquisite. I would report my friends’ criticisms. She would point to the birds flying overhead, and ask, “Do they not have life struggles? Hunger? How do they joyfully sing their birdsongs, and rejoice in nature?” She would say that life struggles persist as long as life persists. “It is only through the fine arts that we can forget ourselves and feel true joy,” she would declare.

I would nod in agreement. In complete agreement. When it came to life, art, and literature, we were of the same mind. Perhaps it was because of this that we could lose ourselves into completely becoming one. For a man and a woman to become one, love alone is not enough. Their minds need to be aligned, too. True life is the joining of two minds, blending emotions, and, hence blending souls.

I thought deeply about human feelings, the social contexts, and their effects, and wrote a poem. In that poem, titled ‘Life’s breath,’ I ended with the assertion, “Life is a collection of dreams.”

She saw that poem. Her eyes shone in bliss. “Life is a mass of dreams,” she said in Tamil first, and then translated the sentence into English, jumping with joy. She went overboard praising me.

“I did not write this poem by myself alone; you too became one with me and we wrote it together; this poem is nothing but my experience in blending with you.”

She blushed and smiled.

For some reason, I remembered our first meeting, with the melody of the sad ballad and the yellow hue.

I remain with my eyes closed. I can hear the whirring of the ceiling fans.

From the perspective of the corporeal eyes of this world, we did part ways. The world was immersed in semi-darkness then. It was drizzling. She was wearing a yellow sari, and mumbled that sad song. The train arrived, belching out thick black smoke. I was the one who bid her farewell. She did not cry, nor did I. There was no reason for us to cry. Why should we cry? We do not suffer. Even if we did, is there some law that says we must cry?

I did indeed cry once. She did, too. After our first encounter in the bus, when she and I met at the park — when I understood her and she understood me — when she and I became one — we did cry then. For some reason, we felt the urge to cry. We cried until that urge was quenched.

Everyone says that we have broken up. But I do not believe that. We did not break up. No one can break us up. We are eternal lovers. She is within me and I would be within her; I would certainly be.

When we realized that we could not be together in this mundane earthly life — when we realized that we could not overcome the societal barriers, we did not launch a revolution against society. We are not revolutionaries. We are artists…

She then said, “We will live together forever. Only you will live in my heart forever; society is not capable of taking revenge on us. My soul will always seek yours. Society can do what it wants with my body. As long as I am alive, in some corner of this world, I will live as a faithful wife to you in my mind.”

My understanding of her was complete. Tears ran down my cheeks.

In the overt external life, she is wife to someone else. But in truth, she will remain my wife forever.

I will remain her husband; the half-darkness that shrouds this world, the drizzle, the yellow hue, the silent ballad…

“Thambi, have you fallen asleep?” A voice calls out.

I open my eyes. The clock is at half past four.

I stare through the window.

It is drizzling. The world lies sprawled. The silent ballad plays in my heart. Green, red, blue, yellow …

1969