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Translated from the original Tamil short story tiṭṭu (தீட்டு) from the 1992 collection of short stories titled makkattuc cālvai (மக்கத்துச் சால்வை) by S.L.M. Hanifa. The original collection is available at noolaham.org. Co-translators: eḻuttukkiṉiyavaṉ and Fasmila Raviraj.

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The boy was sweating from head to toe. His mother dabbed the sweat away and helped him sit up. Every joint in his withered body protruded like skin-covered knots of rope. He was a living skeleton, barely succeeding in trying to keep his life force within. He was thoroughly emaciated, looking like a piece of firewood wrapped up in cloth. A whimper emerging from within the depths of his throat signaled that he was still alive.

It didn’t start just today or yesterday! He has been suffering for two full months. He carried the burden of a heavy amulet hung like a mortar around his shriveled neck, and a talisman wrapped around his arm like a pestle.

Khhrrk… Ughhk… Hmmm.”

Each retching cough doubled his chest over, then let it sag back into place.

The brief relief he felt after ejecting thick phlegm from the depths of his chest was merely a harbinger of the next wave of torturous suffering, only moments away.

Poṉṉammāḷ eased her son away from her chest and propped him up against the wall, tucking pillows behind his back and head. She shook the mat vigorously and draped it over the bed again. Camphor pots and bunches of neem leaves stood guard around the bed. A piece of white cloth hung from the rafter right across from the bed, holding a coin meant as an offering to Kantaṉ, the deity at the Katirkāmam temple.

A choice rooster and a white hen were foraging for food by the front door. They looked hale and hearty. Earlier, they had been twirled around the boy’s head to signify their status as votive offerings. Poṉṉammāḷ covered her son with a blanket. Noticing the teardrops forming at the corners of her son’s eyes, she asked, “What is it, dear?” — a mother’s anguish bubbling forth.

“It feels like a thorn is being scraped inside my chest, ammā!” The boy was exhausted after forcing out those words with herculean effort. He moaned and turned over on the bed. His suffering made Poṉṉammāḷ’s stomach writhe like a worm dropped into fire.

That day, as usual, Krishṇaṉ went to school. On the way back, he was caught in a summer downpour.

“My whole body aches, ammā!” he dropped on to the reed mat, complaining. The next morning, he woke up sneezing. Thereafter, they mentioned all sorts of names for his illness: flu, catarrh, cough. Even though the names of illnesses changed, his recovery remained stubbornly absent. Three full months wasted away, just like his body.

Poṉṉammāḷ tried all the folk remedies she could think of, without success. Eventually she took him around to Vāḻaichēṉai hospital. The doctor who had supposedly learnt absolutely everything there was to learn about western medicine examined him carefully, and made some chicken scratches on a white sheet of paper. Orderly Muttaiā made a concoction by mixing many different colors in water and stirring it vigorously.

After the course of eight servings came to an end, Poṉṉammāḷ fully intended to go back to see the same doctor. But next-door neighbor Vaḷḷiakkā’s unsolicited advice held her back like a thorny fence.

“Hey! He is not going to get better if you keep feeding him colored water from those quacks at the hospital. The poor child is probably terrified. Get our shaman Kāḷiappu to consult the spirits and tie a magic string on the boy’s arm and he will be fine in no time, girl!”

Valliakkai could speak with flair.

Poṉṉammāḷ took Valliakkai’s counsel to heart: she consulted the spirits, tied a magic string around his wrist, and made vows, promising chickens to God Almighty. But the promised recovery never materialized.

Kāḷiappar was no ordinary shaman. He promised results within seven days and performed elaborate rituals. But his seven days stretched into another seven, only for nearly three months to pass while the spell remained unbroken, and the boy still didn’t improve.

He visited every evening, bossing Poṉṉammāḷ around, “Hey! Poṉṉammā, bring some water in a copper pitcher, lady!” as he sat down by Krisnan’s head. Without a word, Poṉṉammā would obediently fetch the water and a bunch of neem leaves.

Kāḷiappar would pierce the nutcracker into the water, making waves in the process.

Ōm Saravaṇa Shaṇmuka, vanquisher of enemies,
Come near, Murukā! Fiery Murukā! Burn, burn—shatter, shatter!
Drive out all the evil spirits and demons cast upon him—
Expel them, crush them, send them fleeing!
Leave him—be gone, never return!

A grace of his mantra chanting is that each time he recites a mantra and blows into the air, the wind he creates, mingled with betel leaf juice and fine droplets of spit, settles on the water in the copper pitcher like a gentle drizzle.

Once he finished chanting, he will dip the bunch of neem leaves in water and smack the boy with it. Krishṇaṉ, whose body had become so frail that even a fly landing on him felt like being pierced with a sharp lancet. Kāḷiappar’s beating will set off a bout of coughing. When the boy spits out phlegm, no one noticed the streaks of blood in them.

As the magical treatment proceeded on a daily basis, one day, Krishṇaṉ’s homeroom teacher dropped in for a visit. He saw what was happening.

“Ammā! You shouldn’t continue to subject Krishṇaṉ to this treatment. Take him to the general hospital. They will take x-rays and will give him the treatment he needs. Take him there, please,” he pleaded.

But the pulverizing fear of the devil karaiyākkaṉ that had already taken root in Poṉṉammāḷ’s mind chased away the teacher’s sensible advice.

Unusually, Krishṇaṉ ate a mouthful of rice that day. A hint of his old customary smile also appeared on his face. Poṉṉammāḷ’s face blossomed into joy. Although she had begun to doubt Kāḷiappar’s promises, she secretly reassured herself, “The purge today will fix everything.”

Over at the tamarind tree by the water, dawn had already begun to break. Poṉṉammāḷ busied herself gathering all the stuff she needed for the forthcoming purge.

She spread out the white reed mat and began placing all the appurtenances she had gathered with Valliakkai’s help: plantains, betel leaves and arecanuts, pumpkin, karaiyākkaṉ flowers…

Surveying the preparations, she couldn’t help but feel a tinge of optimism.

‘My child will be fine within four days and go back to school,’ she thought, and the reassurance calmed her heart as her worries began to retreat.

“Poṉṉammā, the ten o’clock whistle from the farm already went off. Finish all the preparations. I will go fetch Kāḷiappar and his girl,” Valliakkā called out.

Even as she hurried, Kāḷiappar’s booming voice crossed the threshold.

“Is everything ready Poṉṉammā? Get the boy and get going.”

Kāḷiappar had “consumed” a little more than his usual dose. That gave him the courage that he could take on the devil, karaiyākkaṉ. As he barked orders, everyone got busy.

The giant banyan tree stood majestically. A medley rang out from its branches: the “kyukiik” of bats and the “mrr hmph” of crow pheasants.

The ribbits of rainy-season frogs blended into this chorus, adding a faint undertone of menace to the scene.

Kāḷiappar focused on his task. He picked up the tray of camphor from among the neatly arranged paraphernalia. His hands instinctively moved in a practiced circular motion around Krishṇaṉ’s head, as his lips began to string together the familiar utterances of the mantras. As his voice grew louder, his body and tone started to tremble. Perhaps the substance he “consumed” earlier helped him in his fervor.

Everyone was mesmerized by the magic of his performance and the rhythm of his chants. The focus drifted away from Krishṇaṉ the patient; Kāḷiappar had become the center of attention.

Suddenly, Krishṇaṉ launched into a bout of uncontrollable coughs. Panicking, Poṉṉammāḷ scooped him up towards her chest.

Blood clots spurted from his mouth. The horror lit a fire in the mother’s guts.

Krishṇaṉ’s suffering only invigorated Kāḷiappar. He brought the chanting to a crescendo.

Krishṇaṉ’s eyes, drained from all the coughing, rested on his mother’s face and continued to stare blankly at her.

Poṉṉammāḷ let out a piercing wail like someone who had just lost all the wealth of their life.

“Aiyō! Someone impure has come here. That is what made karaiyākkaṉ’s angry glance to take my son away!!

Valliakkā joined the chorus.

– 1968 –