The Mournful Storyteller: An excerpt from ‘Itha Innu Muthal, Itha Innale Vare’
-Translated by Ministhy S
Those who tell stories, and those who write them, are the ones cursed by life. It was Ramaniyamma who planted the root of that great truth in my mind. The ghostly spectre- part of Lord Shiva’s entourage- called Pushpadantan, doomed to be born as a human because he dared to narrate stories; ‘Vetalam’ aka Betaal, who hung upside down to watch stories unfolding, and Dostoevsky, who hurled his own life into the burning wild fire of experiences for discovering the great secret of being a human being: all of them came into my life lessons later. Much before that, Ramaniyamma had taught me that singular gibbous truth and reduced herself into the silence of memory.
She makes her appearance in my recollections as a plaintive cry. From her little hovel- constructed from mud and earth, with floors plastered with cow dung-Ramaniyamma’s primitive wails would intrude into my sleep. It was not exactly a mourning, rather a humungous humming, burning with sighs. I was a small child then. The cats which slept with their heads resting against the courtyard ridge would not heed my presence. I was familiar with the long hoots of Narayanettan as he ploughed the fields with the bullocks.
The folk songs which reverberated while the rice saplings were planted, used to silence the prevailing cries around.
When darkness descended, and silence spread its net wide, Ramaniyamma would start weeping desperately. The dreadful insects of fear would start crawling on my body then. I would suffocate, unable to choke out a cry.
As I started walking, and speaking words, Ramaniyamma’s crying abated, but did not end. The intensity of her melancholy increased during the rainy season. The monsoons are the season of depression in villages. As the Kannachi river and the farms became inundated with water, the landslide and water burst of memories overwhelmed the houses too. In my mind I can see the wavering image of Ramaniyamma: seated near the hurricane lamp, staring at the rain, her legs stretched, chin cupped by her hand. Unable to endure the inauspicious past, she would rage, ‘ Aww…damned rain of death, why doesn’t it stop?’
In my first memory, Ramaniyamma was around sixty-five, dressed in a lungi and blouse. A smattering of hair on her upper lip, curly, iron-grey hair, round face, and red paan stained lips gave her the sheen of beauty. Neither the flow of time, disaster or extreme drudgery could exhaust her.
I came to know the answer to her wild cries much later. After boozing herself with local arrack at Umbichiyetty’s house, when she returned, Ramaniyamma rolled around in agony talking about Radha’s- her only daughter’s, untimely demise. She had died within a month of her marriage. The husband’s household insisted that it was a suicide. There was also talk of murder. Those were old times, and lots of money exchanged hands…the investigation ended prematurely. The daughter’s death became an unending flood for the mother. She started wailing on top of her voice during those days, trying to control the earthquake within her mind.
She raced towards death many a time. Ramaniyamma attired herself in black. She wandered about in pitch darkness. She promised many offerings to the deities. But nothing filled up the emptiness inside her, even after decades. Like an over clouded sky, the woman held onto the blackness of utter despair.
Ramaniyamma was my grandmother’s sister. Their house was next to ours. When I say ‘their’, I mean Umbichi the black cow and Ramaniyamma. She would speak to the animal very loudly. Passersby would stop awhile, wondering whether the woman was addressing them. When she bathed the cow, plucked pests from its skin, gave it water, while she milked the creature, tied it up in the shed and fed it with fresh grass, Ramaniyamma would chatter at the top of her voice. Umbichi would sharpen her ears, lower her eyes and listen intently.
Umbichi was the clock controlling Ramaniyamma’s days. The animal which shook its horns at everybody else and was bold to a fault, became meek and submissive before Ramaniyamma’s affection. Even before light ensconced our village, Ramaniyamma would have tied her freshly bathed cow in either the harvested field, on the hillside, or in Sukumaran sir’s coconut planation.
Before feeding Umbichi the cow, Ramaniyamma would pay a visit to the local woman who sold arrack. After filling her tummy with a glass or two of arrack, she would return to feed grass to her cow. Then, she would visit our house and stay till sleep arrived.
My grandmother- whom I called Valiyamma- and Ramaniyamma, would enter into a secret discourse. Escaping my mother’s sharp eyes, Valiyamma would slip away to Ramaniyamma’s home. In a bottle of Ayurvedic medicine, Ramaniyamma would have smuggled some arrack for her older sister. My mother would see red if she caught them. That is why my blind grandmother would pretend to fetch wood for the cooking and stumble her way to her younger sister’s place. There, on the ridge of the earthen cooking stones, the ‘ayurvedic’ remedy would be hidden.
When Ramaniyamma went home at night, my older brother would accompany her. He was her lone companion after she lost her daughter. I too wished heartily that I could go with them. There were two main reasons for that: Ramaniyamma’s curries and her stories!
Ramaniyamma was a gifted cook…her dishes were delicious to a fault. She could cook up a feast with very few items. Even now I can recollect the ‘Chammanthi’ she made with the last bits of coconut- which stubbornly stuck to the shell. She made the yummy ‘Enaru’ curry: complete with sardine heads, white rice and turmeric…if I recollect that my stomach flares with greed! You can ‘float a ship in my mouth’, to use the local saying. I can remember it like yesterday’s rain.
The good fortune extended further…Ramaniyamma would tell stories. Stories which were never heard before, never read before even in an Amar Chitra Katha. This illiterate woman had a stock of such stories with her. She would tell these tales with the ease of singing a song. The good fortunes which graced my brother made me pensive.
And sometimes, the nights filled with stories, came searching for me too. When our father was admitted in Kanjagadu hospital for his frequent illness, my brother would stay the nights with him. I would be Ramaniyamma’s companion during such occasions. Shining the ‘Eveready’ battery torch, she would show the way. When she finished her dinner, and returned after smoking a bidi, I would be lying down on the handwoven mattress. I would snuggle close to the wall, next to the windows.
‘Have you slept, da?’
Ramaniyamma would call me in her mournful voice.
‘No’
I would raise my head.
‘Please tell me a story…can’t seem to sleep.’
I would crunch my nails against the palm frond mattress.
‘Which story? Have told them all.’
A silence would descend on Ramaniyamma.
‘Anything will do…cannot sleep.’
Spitting her paan juice into a coconut shell, the woman would again become silent. I knew...she was digging up a story from her great treasure trove.
Ramaniyamma would clear her throat harshly and start…I would turn towards her and listen with alacrity. The cockroaches would stop protesting. Fireflies would flit around the room like the characters of the stories. Bats would swoop inside the room through the window and then go searching for some unknown fruits. Umbichi the cow, would stop chewing the cud, stop her constantly flailing tail and lay down quietly. The cries of the night emerging from the farms would cease. The breeze would drop in to listen to the tales…. “Once upon a time, an old man and woman- Thondan and Thondi- felt hungry during the rains….”
About the Author
P.V. Shaji Kumar is a renowned and widely acclaimed Malayalam writer, winner of the Kendra Sahitya Akademi Yuva Puraskar, with many story collections, a series of memoirs, screenplays, and the bestselling novel Maranavamsham to his credit.
About the Translator
Ministhy S is an IAS officer working in UP Cadre. She translates between Malayalam, Hindi and English. She won the 2026 V. Abdullah translation award for ‘The Second Book of Prophets’ written by Benyamin and shared the 2026 Wise Owl Literary fiction runner up award for ‘Do Not Ask the River Her Name’ with Sheela Tomy. Her translations have featured in major literary award longlists and shortlists including JCB award 2021 and Book Brahma award 2026.
Comments